Here we go again.
My day two goal was to have something that could be playtested, ergo a skeleton of a core mechanic and a basis for characters as soon as possible. I also called my playgroup and we're gonna have a playtest session on 18/01, so I really need to have something going on by then. Details can be filled in by brainstorming and fitting rules on the fly.
TL;DR: Now I have a name, dice mechanics, exploration mechanics, well-thought-out ideas about hunting grounds, and something vague about classes.
- The Name
Now the game has a name. It's Hunter's Cradle, sounds pretty dope.
My current work-in-progress document is here! Please, feel free to add notes if specific sentences are hard to follow, I'm not an English native!
- Core Mechanics
These flew by very well.
The gist of the system is that players roll a number of d6s equal to the sum of their Skill value and Tool value (e.g. five dice if they have a skill at +4 and a Tool at +1) and pick apart the lowest die roll. They succeed if they rolled a number equal to or lesser than X, X being 1 if the action was hasty, 2 if the action was controlled, X being 3 if the action was careful. On a failure, the GM gets to either introduce a complication or let the player succeed but puts a condition on the character.
Exploration is turn-based. Each player accrues 3 action points at the beginning of each round and can do actions when it's their turn; they spend 1 point if it's a hasty action, 2 points if it's controlled and 3 points if it's careful. (Mnemonically, it does help that the number of points you spend equates to the greatest number you need to roll to succeed) Turns go by until the round is over, then the GM may introduce a wandering predator. Rinse and repeat. The exploration actions are Search, Move, Fight, Sway, Pursue a Goal, Help, and Lead Ahead.
Combat is essentially just a Melee/Shoot action check.
- Hunting Grounds
I worked on Hunting Grounds a bit, but I've yet to put down my scrambly notes to actual decent google docs form. As it's possible to read above, I've settled down on some reasonable exploration actions in the context of exploration, and those are actually written down nicely.
About the point crawl, I concluded that hunting grounds must be broken down into sites that are special points of interest scattered around the hunting ground. Into sites, there are trails (such as footprints, scents, leads, dead bodies...) that hunters can find and, through their experience, lead them to the next site. The core dice system is designed to always allow the players to succeed, which means that even if those are gated behind a roll they at worst need to pay a price to get them, which should follow the well-known TTRPG principle of three clue rule. The loop of the exploration would be entering a site, dealing with hazards while searching for trails, then finally interpreting those trails (which can point towards more than one site to allow for the player agency) and going to the next site.
I introduced an option for a "wandering predators roll" at the end of each exploration round, but I've yet to really elaborate. As of now, it's a flat 1/6th each round for a predator to spawn unseen.
- Characters
I worked on characters a bit, but I've even less to show. I settled down on a pre-alpha skill list (Melee, Heal, Intimidate, Spot, Tactics, Craft, Conciliate, Lore, Finesse, Shoot, Prowl, Forage, Listen), I decided that attributes were a non-factor and I decided that classes should have animal names and represent the character's Totem Spirit so that they have a diegetic meaning. Classes should affect the starting skills and provide a handful of class actions?