Fantasy - Tales of Adventure (Working Title)

[Tuesday's Eyebrow]

Tales of Adventure

Inspired by various game franchises, such as Final Fantasy,


Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest and King’s Quest



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While it is also somewhat inspired by games like The Witcher, Diablo and Dark Souls, those games are thematically a little dark for my goals. Of course, if the general consensus of the players is otherwise, I will, of course, let in some gothic, horror, surreal, nihilist and/or generally darker themes.

Preface

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My goal with this is to set up a world within which I can run RPs with similar and consistent elements, including mechanics, characters, locations, enemies, etc. While it is not my goal to make this at all serious, I’m also not against the idea, assuming all parties involved are okay with it. I just want to make sure this is also open to more casual players who, say, don’t want to worry about dice rolls and failure chances, and instead just want to get to the story and/or action.


If you want to play, the first choice you’ll have to make is whether or not you want the GM (99% of the time, that will be ME) to be part of your story, or just the GM.


The second choice is whether or not to play 1x1 or with a party. This choice is completely up to you, but I would recommend playing with a party, simply because, in my experience, those stories are much richer and more involving, simply due to the other people involved.


Thirdly is whether you want to have a linear or open story. Linear stories take longer to write, but also rely on the players less than open stories. Bear in mind that all of them will feature linear and open elements, so choosing one doesn’t mean you won’t get some of the other.


Last, but certainly not least, is character development. I’m pretty sure most people are familiar with creating characters in one way or another, just try to make someone you’d have fun being relative to the previous choices, and I’ll help you fill in and fix anythings that doesn’t fit from there. If you wanna go ham on classic RPG tropes and character sheets, go ahead, but don’t let that scare you if all you have is a personality, face, and/or archetype in mind.


Beyond that, your involvement in the development of your story, prior to starting, is completely up to you.

Always remember: “Not all is known”

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This can mean various things depending on the situation, but it generally means, the rules are not set in stone, there is always something new that can happen or be stumbled upon, and your knowledge does not mean contradicting knowledge isn’t also true, even to a lesser or greater extent. As a general rule of thumb, assume that there’s more to be uncovered than what already has been. This helps to maintain a sense of mystery and discovery, and helps to maintain an open and friendly atmosphere for players.

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Job/Class

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Core Functions

• Damage Dealer (DPS)
  
• Damage Taker (Tank)
  
• Support
  Healer/Cleric
  
• Buffer/Debuffer
  
• Crowd/AoE
  
• Far Ranged
  

[*]Special

• Chance (terrible base damage, massive criticals) (Gambler)
  
• Exponential Growth (Starts much weaker, stays weak, ends much stronger) (Onion Knight)
  
• Minion (Summoner, Lich, Puppetmaster)
  
• Copycat (Steals other's abilities) (Mime, Blue Mage)
  
• Unique Function (Steal, Shout, Etc.)
  

For every function you choose, your effectiveness in that function is lowered by roughly 1/the amount of functions. Which means, half effectiveness for two, third effectiveness for three and so on. I recommend no more than three. Also note that you can only have one special function unless otherwise stated.


Example Classes

• Paladin - DPS/Tank, Healer, Buffer
  
• Knight - DPS/Tank, Exponential Growth
  
• Barbarian - DPS/Tank, Crowd
  
• Monk - DPS, Trance
  
• Thief - DPS, Steal
  
• Assassin - DPS, Hide
  
• Ranger - Ranged, Tracking
  
• Spellblade - DPS/Tank, Crowd, Buffer
  
• Wizard - Ranged, Crowd
  
• Cleric - Healer, Buffer
  
• Bard - Buffer, Crowd (Uses an instrument)
  
• Warden - Tank, Healer, Buffer (Uses a shield and bells)
  
• Summoner - Healer, Buffer Minion
  
• Gambler - Chance, Crowd (Uses cards, dice or other game pieces)
  
• Mime - Copycat, Crowd
  
• Blue-Mage - Copycat, Exponential Growth
  
• Gunner - Ranged, Exponential growth (Steampunk, for the win!)
  

Mechanics


Artifacts


A collective name given to various unique items that will show up in more than one game. My excuse for this is that Artifacts are watched over by some sort of higher power that directs them to the hands of those that need them for the most worthy reasons, even causing them to be in more than one place at once through weird wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey powers.


Artifacts can often be temporarily combined in some sort of way to make a collective artifact that is more powerful than the sum of its parts. Think “Gem of Strength + Glove of Haste + Ring of Intelligence + Metal = Gauntlet of Attributes” or something like that. Some collective artifacts require collective artifacts themselves, which means the amount of items used to make a single artifact can compound very quickly.


For this reason, there needs to be a large amount of individual artifacts, so, not all artifacts can be listed. I also won’t list collective artifacts here, as that’s something only the gods know and must be discovered through play. That being said, here are the artifacts that are widely accepted to exist.

• Magic Rings
  Generic buffing rings
  
• Rings of Binding
  Twin Sous Rings - Pairs of rings that allow two people to communicate telepathically under certain unique conditions often met in married couples who truly love each-other. As such, they are often used as wedding and/or engagement rings.
  
• Magic Cuffs - Large rings used by law enforcement that magically fit and connect themselves to the wrists of (hopefully) criminals. Naturally, these require a special permit to be used legally.
  
• Fingerkeys - Rings that act like keys for a certain type of magical lock. These locks can only be opened if the person trying to open it is wearing the ring used to make the lock.
  
• Inhibitor - A large ring that sized itself to the neck and causes full bodily paralysis, but allows the wearer to eat, sleep, look around, etc. It should be noted that due to the full body paralysis, early versions of these rings also caused wearers to lose control of their bowel movements, causing constipation and/or uncontrollable defecation. Naturally, these require a special permit to be used legally.
  

[*]Rings of Power

• Seerstone - Allows one to see and speak to the dead. If used without moderation, it can cause despair and madness. Those seen through the use of this stone are not ghosts, they are, in fact, the souls of those who have passed on to the afterlife and have been watching their loved ones and praying for their success.
  

More later.

 

[Grey]

I will be watching, in case I can offer useful advice.

 

[Tuesday's Eyebrow]

Added Job/Class section for character creation purposes.

 

[Grey]

Consider the cultural implications of some of your classes.


They suggest things about your setting that maybe you want, maybe you don't. Indeed, using such generic classes in tandem with more unusual examples already says something.


Although given the source material I assume this is an intentional case of gameplay/narrative segregation.

 

[Tuesday's Eyebrow]

Consider the cultural implications of some of your classes.
They suggest things about your setting that maybe you want, maybe you don't. Indeed, using such generic classes in tandem with more unusual examples already says something.


Although given the source material I assume this is an intentional case of gameplay/narrative segregation.

Would you care to elaborate? I would love to hear more about what you're thinking. It often helps me find inspiration and make better decisions.

 

[Tuesday's Eyebrow]

added Mechanics -> Artifacts and listed a few examples which I will later expand upon

 

[Grey]

If you're using Steampunk correctly[/URL] that culture may be stricken with civil unrest.


Also, Gunner conceivably beats every other class.


Do you have any conflict resolution mechanics?


Are you writing a spell list for everyone?


I'm assuming this is going to be heavy on the gameplay/story segregation - much like the main games you've cited as inspiration. Why is Cait Sith a thing? Just don't think about it and enjoy the game!


Ironically, the games you named as too dark have better internal consistency.


I hope you have a sleek system worked out - combat will need to be really fun.

 

[Tuesday's Eyebrow]

Well, with a name like "tales of adventure" there's going to be allot of conflict, but yes. The binary "black and white" conflict is a human construct, and therefore is prevalent in everything human. Unfortunately, you'll find that only the humans employ this ideology and that the Gods can be both BENevolent and MALevolent. Paladins are not quite empowered by the gods, but they are influenced by their creeds. They are mostly just a mix between a Cleric and a Knight. Speaking of the Cleric, Healing is considered Green magic, rather than White. There are no White and Black magics. I haven't decided on all the gods yet, so I can't really speak on them more, other than the fact that there are seven, six of which are assigned a color and empower a certain type of magic. The seventh is something totally different.


Anywho, there are also various cultures. The central culture resembles Feudal Europe. There is a nomadic, tribal culture that resembles the northern barbarians of the real world. The monks are a subculture of middle-far eastern influence (Think Tibet and Nepal region) that belong to a broader eastern culture (Including influences from India, China, etc.) The central culture also employs the usage of Rangers as a mix of FBI, Hunstman, Hired Bow, Bodyguard, etc. (think "Rangers Apprentice" and Strider/Aragorn from Lord of The Rings) Spellblades are not quite adept enough to be wizards or knights, so they employ a mix of martial and magical techniques. They are considered somewhat second class warriors, but are uncommon and diverse enough that they have been somewhat glamourized within the general populace, which is starting to cause low class citizens to try to follow in their footsteps, which isn't helping their image. Wizards should probably be renamed Warlocks or something like that without the negative conotatiom. They are basically Final Fantasy's black mages, but are in this case considered Red Mages, as red magic is destructive through its association with fire. Wardens are pure supportive. They can't deal any damage in any way, but they can easily protect a squishy assassin or mage from a few enemies at once. They're not as powerful as Clerics, though, so they can only really heal effectively over time. Summoners are going to have to be worked on, Gamblers, Mimes and Blue-Mages are all just examples of specialty classes. And Gunners are super rare, and without someone to attract enemies, they will quickly die to a group. Which means that a Warden and Gunner could make a pretty good team, just like a Cleric and a Knight/Paladin. The guns that currently exist aren't as cool as you're probably thinking, they're barely better than flintlock, only just employing rifling. They don't even have real hammers. In fact, they're true power comes in their ability to quickly deliver magical payloads that have been pre-applied, as the rituals to create those effects take allot of time to perform. For that reason, Gunners are basically an in game pay-to-win class. They have to be extremely wealthy to afford all of those enchanted projectiles. Gunners also synergize well with wizards who can perform low quality enchantments very quickly on un-enchanted projectiles for higher rates of fire that deal less damage.


TLR: many of your observations are correct, just not that the world is black and white. The Gods are colorful, and the binary system of morality and ideology is a human construct.