Rambling about a SAME-ish system

[Mistborn]

So I've had some unorganized scribblings of a game using the SAME system Frank proposed on my computer for over 2 years now so I figured I may as well run them by TGD.

The setting is inspired more by the anime take on the old western rpg tropes blended with elements from 16th-17th century. The setting is several planets connected by magic portals. Humanity spread across these worlds during the generic fantasy advanced lost civilization era before the portals closed when said civilization was lost. On one world about a century ago a continent spanning empire found out how to reopen the portals and swept into these new world to conquer. Though initially successful in conquest empire would go on to tear itself apart in a sequence of civil wars that led to a total collapse of the institutions of governance, sort of like if Rome fell after it colonized the Americas.

-This might just be me but Moxy and Elan always sounded kind of derpy and interchangeable, so stats are Strength. Agility, Insight, and Willpower.

-damage types are striking, penetrating, crushing, and fire which are always resisted by Strength alongside light, mind, cold, and electricity which are resisted with willpower.

-guns and ray attacks break the mold a bit. These are aimed with Agility but are evaded with Insight. Characters in stories get shot at a lot with guns or lazers that should be impossible to dodge tend not to get hit when those weapons are in the hands of mooks. In a more realistic action movie setting charters don't get shot because they dive for cover. In other stories however people run into a group of dudes with muskets and kill them with their sword, how the hell does that work? Well here the explanation is through intuition, figuring out when the lines of fire are moment to moment and electing to be elsewhere.

[DrPraetor]

So swords don't do void damage? That's a shame.

For what it's worth, I think curved RNGs are better than flat RNGs for almost all purposes; also D6s are the most common type of dice. So consider using 3D6 instead of a D20 for generic resolution of tasks.

[Grek]

"Let's do SAME, except let's get rid of all of the balance rules that make it even remotely innovative."

You can just say you want to make a D20 RPG with 4 base attributes. We would have understood, Mistborn.

[Mistborn]

"Let's do SAME, except let's get rid of all of the balance rules that make it even remotely innovative."

You can just say you want to make a D20 RPG with 4 base attributes. We would have understood, Mistborn.

I don't suppose you could expand on this?

I don't think having more standard damage types or an attack rolling to hit against the other hit/dodge stat, inherently violates the spirit of SAME. I thought the thing that was verboten was an attack that cut out both dodge stats or both soak stats, like for instance one that rolls to hit with Strength.

[Grek]

An attack that uses Agility + Strength to make and Insight + Willpower to resist is indeed less of a problem than an attack that is made using Strength + Strength and resisted by Strength + Strength. But it's still a problem, in that you're making Agility + Strength more commonly an offensive tool and Insight + Willpower more commonly a defensive tool, thus shifting physical characters toward rocket launcher tag and mental characters toward padded sumo in proportion to the degree that characters in your setting end up using guns. Also: It means that your gun shoots bigger bullets if you can bench more weight and that stubborn people can take being shot more times.

(I am assuming that you're not using Agility + Willpower vs Insight + Strength here. That makes the problem more difficult to describe succinctly, but is just as bad - your rocket launcher tag attributes are just Agility + Willpower now and your padded sumo are Insight and Strength. It's more realistic, but still bad.)

Finally, it is very important that you have an odd number of resistances. Dividing them up into mental/physical is probably fine, as long as there's an odd number in each category.

[Mistborn]

An attack that uses Agility + Strength to make and Insight + Willpower to resist is indeed less of a problem than an attack that is made using Strength + Strength and resisted by Strength + Strength. But it's still a problem, in that you're making Agility + Strength more commonly an offensive tool and Insight + Willpower more commonly a defensive tool, thus shifting physical characters toward rocket launcher tag and mental characters toward padded sumo in proportion to the degree that characters in your setting end up using guns. Also: It means that your gun shoots bigger bullets if you can bench more weight and that stubborn people can take being shot more times.

(I am assuming that you're not using Agility + Willpower vs Insight + Strength here. That makes the problem more difficult to describe succinctly, but is just as bad - your rocket launcher tag attributes are just Agility + Willpower now and your padded sumo are Insight and Strength. It's more realistic, but still bad.)

Finally, it is very important that you have an odd number of resistances. Dividing them up into mental/physical is probably fine, as long as there's an odd number in each category.

Adding another type of magic damage is definitely possible those are pretty arbitrary. If both physical and magical have an odd number of types killing crushing damage is possible.

To clarify Guns do penetrating damage and thus are soaked with Strength. So from the perspective of the classic offensive characters getting shot at is worse than attacks from within your specially but better than attacks from the other specialty. The most common guns are muzzle-loaders that don't scale and thus are more commonly found in the hands of mooks. Having a Windbüchse is low-level PC option in much the same way being a novice mage is with higher-level PCs likely having the option of either putting points into Str and carting around increasingly absurd steampunk monstrosities or becoming some kind of bullet mage whose guns scale off willpower.

Edit: to be a little less rambly the fact that Guns have an inherent advantage mechanically is a something I'd intend to take into account when writing things.

[Grek]

...if you do that, it just makes Insight better than Agility straight up, because Insight resists Magic and some kinds of Physical, while Agility just does non-gun Physical.

[Mistborn]

...if you do that, it just makes Insight better than Agility straight up, because Insight resists Magic and some kinds of Physical, while Agility just does non-gun Physical.

Doesn't that depend on what proportion of gun, non-gun, and magical attack that PCs are expected to face?

[Orion]

Indeed, in most settings I can think of, PCs are expected to fight more NPCs with weapons than NPCs with magic, and more monsters with physical attacks than monsters with energy attacks. It's quite likely to be good for balance to have some kind of weapon that attacks magic defense, whether you skin it as a fire wand, a laser gun, or a gun.

It's been a long time since i looked at SAME. If the problem is that you're not supposed to be able to use physical stats to attack magic defenses, then maybe the best answer is to make gun attacks Insight vs. Insight instead of Agility vs. Agility.

@Mistborn

I think "moxie" and "elan" were chosen to be deliberately kind of dumb. The idea was to (a) make an acronym, (b) make the point that from a balance perspective these are arbitrary colors, and (c) make it clear that this was a toy system with placeholder names, not an actual game.

[OgreBattle]

How long or abstract is a combat round in this game you're thinking of?

The more abstract it is the broader SAME stats can get and then somebody can be smarted to death because a cunnin' plan dropped a flower pot on them before their gun was drawn.

[Mistborn]

How long or abstract is a combat round in this game you're thinking of?

I was thinking around 10 seconds for a combat round and not very abstract at all. That way if reloading a musket takes a full round musketeers can get off a vaguely historically accurate 3 shots per minute.

Indeed, in most settings I can think of, PCs are expected to fight more NPCs with weapons than NPCs with magic, and more monsters with physical attacks than monsters with energy attacks. It's quite likely to be good for balance to have some kind of weapon that attacks magic defense, whether you skin it as a fire wand, a laser gun, or a gun.

It's been a long time since i looked at SAME. If the problem is that you're not supposed to be able to use physical stats to attack magic defenses, then maybe the best answer is to make gun attacks Insight vs. Insight instead of Agility vs. Agility.

It's totally possible to go "he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father" and make guns an insight attack as well as being dodged with insight. Also iirc frank specifically endorsed a "knife to the soul" attack that was Agi vs Agi to hit but used Elan for Damage/Soak.

[OgreBattle]

The thing with SAME is to have a mathematically diverse system, then apply flavor in a fitting way only after the system was deemed not to have glaring unwanted imbalance right?

[Mistborn]

The thing with SAME is to have a mathematically diverse system, then apply flavor in a fitting way only after the system was deemed not to have glaring unwanted imbalance right?

I'm not so sure on the mathematically diverse front. In core SAME there are only 3 types of characters. Blue characters with points into S + A, Red characters with points in M + E and Purple characters who spread their points evenly. Thus a Red characters attacks have super advantage against Blue characters and vise versa. Purple characters on the other hand have a lesser advantage when attacking Blue and Red characters and both Blue and Red character have lesser advantage.

[Grek]

There's actually seven archetypes:

Berserker: S/A. Master of physical combat, but easily defeated by magic. Offense-focused.

Wizard: M/E. Master of magical offense, specialized in afflictions. Squishy, though.

Fighter: S/M. Strong resistances and strong attacks, but can't dodge and is easily evaded. Defense-focused.

Ranger: A/E. Evasion-focused character with accurate, low-damage attacks. Also defense-focused.

Cleric: S/E. Unavoidable curses and strong (but inaccurate) physical attacks. A switch hitter.

Assassin: A/M. Evasive with accurate physical attacks and high power afflictions as a finisher. Another switch hitter.

Hero: Equal points in everything. Jack of all trades, master of none. Best against mixed enemy groups.

[Mistborn]

That seems like a lot of splinting hairs, except for Wizard and Berzeker all the classes you've mentioned are essentially purple. Like the difference between +2/+0 offensive advantage and +1/+1 offensive advantage does not seem that meaningful.

[OgreBattle]

Anyone rune a SAME game on here play by post before?

Would be neat

[Mask_De_H]

That seems like a lot of splinting hairs, except for Wizard and Berzeker all the classes you've mentioned are essentially purple. Like the difference between +2/+0 offensive advantage and +1/+1 offensive advantage does not seem that meaningful.

It is when SAME is tuned to the point being 4 up on someone is pushing the RNG when combined with bonus values from gear.

@Orion, the issue, IIRC was being able to sub in good stats for defenses, but it's okay to have a physical attack that hits an opponent's MDEF (Kick in the Nads) or a mental attack that hits an opponent's DEF (Mindblade). Having your MDEF be equal to DEF was the no go (Mind Fortress).

[Mistborn]

The current stuff I have written up cuts down on heavily on getting bonus form gear. One of that ways I had intended to introduce a bit more mathmatical diversity is through giving each class "trait" from the following list.

Precision - +1 to hit roll
Toughness - +1 to soak rolls
Evasion - +1 to the DC to hit you
Impact - +1 to damage

Each of these is roughly worth one point in a base stat but unlike a point in a base stat it pushes characters towards a defensive/offensive focus.