Gempunks: The World's Greatest Gempunk Fantasy RPG

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Foxwarrior
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Gempunks: The World's Greatest Gempunk Fantasy RPG

Post by Foxwarrior »

So, I know y'all love 3rd edition D&D and all, but this game is better. Some highlights include:

[*]You can have a couple dozen minions without slowing the game to a crawl.
[*]Extremely generous multiclassing, to the point of being point-based.
[*]The option of playing any monster.
[*]An economy that almost guarantees that the mundanes will get magic loot to play with.
[*]A plentiful supply of world-changing spells and items, that aren't the same as the ones you get in D&D, for a new and refreshing opportunity to come up with strange gonzo ideas all over again.
[*]Terrain destruction
[*]Stealth mechanics that differentiate between extremely sneaky flaming clowns and invisible klutzes, and aren't subject to iterative probability.

Since you like criticizing things so much, I thought I'd let you see it first.

www.gempunks.com


And while you're at it, some advice on the monetization would be helpful.
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Post by Avoraciopoctules »

Positive: the nations in the default setting look pretty cool at first glance.

Negative: you keep presenting numbers of kilograms, calories, and meters for us to keep track of. Some go into quintuple digits. For instance, http://www.gempunks.com/game/Seven_league_boots
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Post by Foxwarrior »

B...b...but with any other number of meters, it wouldn't be seven leagues!

Somewhere I explain that you're not supposed to keep track of those numbers that accurately, they're just there in case you need them for something.

I wonder if there's a better solution for that. Probably not, because fantasy engineering (when you feel like playing that sort of game) demands numbers.

Oh well, put a mention of it on the front page.
Last edited by Foxwarrior on Wed Aug 06, 2014 4:38 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Foxwarrior »

Admire this majestic beast.Image

In this game, you can ride it into battle.
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Post by coins »

I don't understand what each value mean in character creation table, can you explain it?
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Post by Foxwarrior »

If you mean the Character Building Limitations table, it says that a Common tier character can have 0 to 5 Common tier class levels, at a cost of 2 points each. An Elite tier character has to have 3 to 5 Common tier class levels, at the same price, and 1 to 5 Elite tier class levels for 5 points each. A Paragon tier character has to have 5 Common tier class levels, 3 to 5 Elite tier class levels (for the same price), and 1 to 5 Paragon tier class levels for 20 points each. Finally, a Legend tier character has to have 5 each of Common and Elite tier class levels, 3 to 5 Paragon tier class levels, and 1 to 5 Legend tier class levels (for 75 points each). The Total Class Levels and Minimum Price for Character of Tier columns are just restating things in an attempt to be helpful.

If you were actually referring to the stat block called "Default Stats", all of those things are links you can click on.
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Post by Avoraciopoctules »

That purple megaprawn does look pretty awesome.
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Post by coins »

What is the use of caustic remark spell? Trolling?
And what does aerobatics distance mean in Souzaque spell description?
I am also not sure about how is Blessing of Consecration supposed to be worked, is it supposed to be used on enemies or the caster himself?
Another question, if I use summon angel, does the subject of the spell fall asleep?
Last edited by coins on Sat Jan 03, 2015 2:51 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Foxwarrior »

Caustic remark is a very nuanced spell really. You can cast it on your own tough or expendable troops as a potential force multiplier, because then they can now use this caustic remark spell on their enemies for a decently damaging Will-based effect. You can cast it directly on your enemies instead to make them start taking damage if you want. So the spell is useful for more than trolling, even though the spell itself is an insult.

Aerobatics distance is a property of fly speeds, that indicates their minimum turning radius and how rapidly they can go into the air. See http://www.gempunks.com/game/Movement#Fly_Speed

You'd probably want to use Blessing of Consecration on an enemy, since you can make personal sacrifices without a separate action any time you need to spend sacrifice energy.

Yes, summon angel makes the subject fall asleep.
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Post by ...You Lost Me »

Here is my initial review. I read the introduction, attack rules, basic actions, character building, fight or flight, and the gems section arms and armor:
  • I don't understand why gems are important. All I seem to understand is that they're magic items that you can put in your body, but having lots makes you squishier... and I had to seek that out, too.
  • I don't know the setting. It seems to have dragons and lasers (and hacking? hacking what?) and psychic powers. But there doesn't seem to be anything more sophisticated than a crossbow. The pictures don't enlighten me very much.
  • A basic character block has too many damn things and I remain unconvinced they are all useful.
  • To follow that up, I've already given up on reading twice, and I haven't gotten to any of the parts you've advertised: playing monsters, having minions (and multiple characters?), stealth mechanics, terrain, economy... if you want to sell that, you need to make it wayyyy more accessible than it currently is. At least put the ToC under "Basic Rules" and put the rules before character creation and the monster section.
  • 10 => 15 and exploding 10's is not good if you plan on making tracking minions easy.
BONUS: I hate the class ability formatting. Use actual bullet points instead of varying shades of grey over black text.

EDIT: After grinding through this, I've found some answers to my queries. Gems are a magic source and you can only cast spells if you have the appropriate Gems (and only if you attune them?). I also found the closest thing this has to "guns". Still don't know what an appropriate challenge is for the PCs.

EDIT2: Is reach useful for anything other than hitting people a little further away? It doesn't seem like there's any sort of benefit to it since there are no attacks of opportunity in this game unless you're using Melee Guard / Ready (but you might as well boost your speed for those instead, it's easier). You could make a 7-point human Apprentice / Acolyte with Big Extra, and two bound castings of bigger Resize Creature (1 redundant) with 8m size, 6m reach. That's like a 3 story house, but it doesn't seem particularly useful...
Last edited by ...You Lost Me on Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:16 am, edited 4 times in total.
DSMatticus wrote:Again, look at this fucking map you moron. Take your finger and trace each country's coast, then trace its claim line. Even you - and I say that as someone who could not think less of your intelligence - should be able to tell that one of these things is not like the other.
Kaelik wrote:I invented saying mean things about Tussock.
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Post by Foxwarrior »

Yeah, hacking snuck into some of the basic rules pages because I made a near-future game using the same basic rules, and didn't keep all the relevant core stuff as separate as would be most ideal when playing the fantasy-only version.

The basic character block has the statistics that are used in the game. About 20 things really isn't that many things.

Playing monsters and having minions might be hard to find if you're looking for a big section that says "you can play monsters and have minions." There's like two sentences devoted to that possibility, because it's really not complicated: you spend your points on characters, and then you have them. There are a lot of other rules though,

When these d10s explode, they are important, especially when minions roll them. I don't understand how 10 => 15 is supposed to cause minion simplicity problems specifically.

I've changed to a bullet point aesthetic, but I'm not sure I agree that it's better.
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Post by ...You Lost Me »

20 things really is that many things for character creation. There is a reason character creation begins with basics and then derives other stats from those basics. The first time I opened the character creation section, I looked at the starting point and just closed it. There is no good reason to have everyone track their sinking distance, jumping distance, and weight. It won't be uncommon for a character to never use attacks/damage over the course of their gameplay lifetime, or never use save DC, or never use stealth. That does not need to be in the main stat block.

And monsters / minions are really complicated. You may not think so because you wrote the rules, but I don't know what classes monsters can take, or what wealth monsters get. It's hard to tell if you buy Extras separately for your minions, or if spells can be shared without shared magic among your minions, or if you pay once for race or once for class, or how to make a regiment from your characters (do I just get up in the morning and decide to become a mob?), or whether any of that is an effective combat choice. This and Ars Magica are literally the only games I've ever looked at where you regularly are expected to play more than one character, which means there are a lot more rules that need explicit discussion. There isn't even a discussion on how to roleplay multiple characters, like should I declare Dwalin's name every time I make him talk?

If d10's explode and 10 =>15 you are encouraging crit fishing. Weak crappy things will not want to form regiments because they are better off relying on the odds to aid them with extra crits than they are all rolling a single d10 or taking a distribution. Crazy crit schemes encourage every minion to do something on its own, which is definitely "slowing the game down to a crawl".

I think the bullet points are 100x better than the shading. I can actually read the powers now.
Last edited by ...You Lost Me on Mon Jan 05, 2015 11:34 pm, edited 4 times in total.
DSMatticus wrote:Again, look at this fucking map you moron. Take your finger and trace each country's coast, then trace its claim line. Even you - and I say that as someone who could not think less of your intelligence - should be able to tell that one of these things is not like the other.
Kaelik wrote:I invented saying mean things about Tussock.
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Post by Foxwarrior »

20 statistics really is very close to the number 3.5e uses. Is the problem really just that I give you the statistics so that you can look at them while deciding how to develop your character? I could move that table down to the bottom, and say "now, take this stat block and add your bonuses from specialties, extras, and classes" if you wanted I guess.

The problem with most of the examples of how monsters and minions are complicated is that the answer is "forget what D&D told you, that rule does not apply."

Crit fishing is easier in a regiment though. If you join a regiment, you get to choose on the spot whether you want to guarantee a certain small number of crits (average distribution), or try to get a lot of crits (quintuple or nothing). If you're not in a regiment, you only get one way to do your crit fishing, which is on average only as good as either of the two ways a regiment team can do it.
Last edited by Foxwarrior on Sun Jan 11, 2015 2:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by ...You Lost Me »

20 stats is what D&D gives you iff you consider all of the ones that aren't emphasized. Your heavy carrying capacity is unimportant, so is your deity and hair color. And during character creation, those are rightly sidelined because the game designers understood their game would only be scaring people away if it threw loads of information at them from the get go. Your game has to do the same.

You do not tell players to just make up their four-man-team's roleplaying, and you don't tell them to just take a guess whether 3 points buys a race for multiple creatures, and you don't tell them to just handwave becoming a regiment whenever they want. You explain that, or you lose your audience.

Regiments are composed of groups of single creatures. I think it's a minimum of 12 points behind everything else because you have to buy race separately (but I'm not sure. That's not explained). So naturally defenses on the regiment are going to be weaker. That means that any area abilities or anyone with multiple attacks is going to wipe them out, so they want to push the odds on crits and possibly get some abnormally large amount of damage off. 10-man regiments don't allow this, and 5-man regiments don't help that much unless the regiment plans on living quite a few rounds (probably not) so the regiment is going to roll every attack individually in the hopes of getting slightly more crits than average, bogging down the game. PC regiments are probably better suited to survival and will take those averages, but the majority of faceless minions you fight are going to be NPCs and you've given them little reason to do the things you think they should do.
DSMatticus wrote:Again, look at this fucking map you moron. Take your finger and trace each country's coast, then trace its claim line. Even you - and I say that as someone who could not think less of your intelligence - should be able to tell that one of these things is not like the other.
Kaelik wrote:I invented saying mean things about Tussock.
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