The Arcane Confabulation

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David Johansen

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I mentioned this in the Ultimate Vanity Dream Projects thread but I wanted to discuss it here. It took about a year but the revision is done. It started because I went to write a random spell generator to use as a promotional tool and found some problems. I had intended to design a game with a tight, flexible magic system but it soon became apparent that Shape and Bestow could do just about everything on their own. There were also some things to tweak in character creation and the skill list. I also put back in the original two page hit location table. If I pare it back down to a basic game, the d10 table will make a comeback.

So anyhow, without further ado, http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/TheArcCon.pdf
 
huh, there's always something. Printed it out, rolled up a tenth level elf magician. Found half a dozen errors :grin:

So, the thing is that racial values used to be 5+1d10 or whatever and I made them flat values with this version. The problem is I didn't fix the vocation characteristic levels. I'll have to fix that I guess. Ideally I'll want to make it so you just add the racial and vocational values, but one of them needs a ten built in and the other has to be modifiers, that makes for a fair bit of reworking.

Oh well, if you make a character subtract 5 from all attribute values!
 
Okay, fixed and updated. I still find myself tempted to tinker more with magic.
 
A few things I need to write that have come up: grappling and tackling, unskilled skill use / defaults, description of spell materials.

Grappling and tackling are pretty easy, they're resisted by the target and a grappled foe is restrained and a tackled foe is knocked down. If you want a leverage modifier for grabbing an elbow I'll point you to GURPS Technical Grappling.

At one point, each skill had a -10 to -30 difficulty penalty. In practice this was a pain in the ass and didn't look so good on the character sheet. It also had the undesirable effect of really penalizing magicians. The rule should be that some skills can be attempted with no training, while others take a penalty and others cannot be attempted at all. Any attempt I make to speak Mandarin Chinese will fail.

I actually have a couple pages on magical materials but I need to do some research and haven't at present. It's coming.
 
Unarmed Combat
Melee is normally conducted at swords length to spears length or 6 to 12 feet with fighters stepping in and out as they trade and avoid blows. Unarmed strikes like punches and kicks are generally made at the short range of 3 feet or less. Grappling and tackling require bodily contact, as such the attacker must successfully make a press or charge move to fight in unarmed combat.
Grappling
In order to grapple the attacker must have at least one free hand, tentacle, or bite attack. There is a ten point bonus to the Unarmed skill for each such advantage possessed by the attacker or defender. Grappling is treated as a contest of Unarmed skill with the winner either breaking away or restraining the loser. A restrained combatant cannot move or attack until they can win a contest. Resisting a grapple attack counts as a defence. The damage given for grappling on the weapons table indicates twisted joints and body parts being slammed into the floors and walls.
Tackling
A tackle requires the attacker to come into contact with their target. A contest of strength determines the result with the loser being knocked down. A tackle made at the end of a run action gives a ten point bonus in the contest. A shield gives its user a ten point bonus.
 
One small change, Abilities and Disabilities are now Gifts and Burdens. Partially this is because the word abilities gets a fair bit of general usage and can be confusing but gifts and burdens also sound more melodramatic.
 
So, I've been thinking about a somewhat scaled down release from the ultimate vanity project. A boxed set with three saddle stitched books, Characters and Combat, Magic, and Creatures and Campaigns. The working titles are negotiable. The box would be a plain letter sized mailer with a full color cover sticker in the box. The full contents of the campaigns part isn't really set yet. Possibly a setting. A booklet of maps or even a poster sized map might be possible. There needs to be something to raise it above what anyone can print off on a laser printer after all. While I'd do miniatures I think they'd be optional. Maybe a dozen 28mm modular figures or two dozen one piece figures and a small dragon. Enough to play with but not enough to be ridiculously expensive to ship.

I'm pretty gun shy about kickstarters. It's too easy to promise too much. It's still just a vanity project. But not an ultimate one.
 
At long last an actual playtest! It went well enough though the guy who doesn't like fantasy and never wants to playtest showed up at around 3:00 and dragged things down and off topic a bit. People picked up on character creation very fast which is nice.
 
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