System V

DEVELOPMENT TOPSHEET-EYES IN THE DARK

System V is a radical departure from my System-4.  Many players have really enjoyed System-4 for its generality, but working full time I do not have time to spend the hours making characters and updating experience as I'm sure you've all noticed!  The fact is, I came to realize after years of playtesting that the system I was using in my head to GM was far simpler and more straigthforward than the system I had on paper, and I said to myself "You're needlessly complicating things." Also, various comments over the years from astute and adult gamers who couldn't fully comprehend it told me I needed to simplify, so V is precisely that.  V is built on all the rigorous mathematics of 4 but simple, smooth and easy to play and GM.  It's an adult RPG system, adult in the sense of how much time adults have to game.

System V is far from finished, but I've put together a minimal subset to be able to test it out on I2D.  It's premature, but I just can't cope with -4 anymore.

Basic Rules

System-V is based basically on a system of dice.  I like dice, so although I cculd have gone diceless, I kept them in.  In V, each attribute or skill is based on a rating of 1D to 5D.   The dice V uses roll from 0-10, so if you have any old d20s, these will do nicely.  Mark one 10 as 0, the other as 10 and you're all set.

Dice rolls are a simple addition.  If you want to jump a fence, you make a roll for Agility.  The GM says your rating is 2D, so you roll two dice and add them up.  Basic challenges, difficulties and so on are based on the following tables.
RATING Roll
1D 0-10
2D 0-20
3D 0-30
4D 0-40
5D 0-50
Difficulty Task
0 routine
5 tricky
10 difficult
15 very hard
20+ impossible
Margin Success
0 barely
5 partial
10 adequate
15 complete
20 impressive
25+ phenomenal

Designing a Character

Characters in V amount to words, not numbers.  Take your character-concept or what you have played so far and put your old 4 sheet aside.  I'm gonna get irate if I see [4] terms spewed back at me, though not as irate as if I saw White Wolf terms.  Print out the following sheet, and print on it your char-description.

The way to do it is to split it up.  There are no right or wrong keywords to put on the sheet, though specific game terms from 4 are frowned upon.  Just keywords as long as we know what they mean will do.  Here are a couple of ways to organize your thoughts:

Examples: Next, organize the keywords into categories.  Talents, Powers, Other Stuff, and Depth. I'm available to advise on how to qualify your character.. If you don't have a solid conception, I might.

Numbers

Alas, V has numbers!  But not cp costs or skill levels.  At the bottom of your sheet you will see four boxes, Player Rating, Concept Burn Max, Concept and Concept Max.  Everybody starts with Concept 500 and concept Max 500.  The exposition box leave blank, that fills in during play,  To know these numbers each player has to be rated according to the following table:
 
Rating Player-Type Concept
Burn Max
Our Players
1D Novice, GM' Girlfriend "Can I play?" 25 Mikal,Toho
2D Average gamer 20 Skan, Janlop, Apollo
3D experienced gamer 15 Eg, Selene, Mordiken, Selenin, Janlop, Alex, Rak
4D game designer, familiar with V 10
5D pain in the ass powergamer, rules lawyer 5

You're better off being at a lower rating, cause you get to burn more concept.  These are my guesses.  Some of them may move around during play or as you progress.

I2D Changes

While I'm at it, I want to reorganize our monster-mythos.  But I'll publish this page right away so you can get cracking, and finish up this section later.