Traveling System (explained)

As mentioned before the journey is an important part of any quest, and situations encountered on the way to the quest goal can make or break the outcome of the quest.  So I began to flesh out a system to help "Gamify" this, that would be usable in nearly any type of campaign style game.

I figured the maps could default into Hexes that are 10 miles across, or for longer journeys use a 30 mile across hex.  With the guideline below using this 10 mile hex as the default, but it could be scaled using simple math to other models.  Also the basic game movement for the system here is from my HitDice game, but for sake of helping D&D or Pathfinder players (Speed 4 = 6 Move in 4E = 30 feet movement in Pathfinder).  Additionally HitDice use a system of exploding d6s that result in "Hits", the basic check mechanic below would have to be re-worked to allow a functional d20 based system (I'll tackle this in a later article).

Here Goes...

Travel is broken in March Turns which are 4 hours each, thus there are six March Turns each day.  Of these six since rest in the wilderness isn't all that restful, two of these are normally required as "rest" to meet the needs of the adventurers.  Then one is spend on "Guard Duty" while other companions try to get their rest.  This leaves three March Turns for actually travel.

When traveling don't think of this as a leisurely walk through a state park, so your not really moving at the 3 miles per hour pace here.  Adventurer's are wearing heavy armor, with all their food and equipment.  Research I've seen on the Roman soldiers point to travel speeds of 10 miles per day not being unusual, but they could do about 20 miles in forced marches, and rates of 20 miles per day on horseback was a good day as well.

My travel rates take into account that the roads are seldom straight, thus even a 10 mile hex on the map may require 20 miles of walking to cut across it due to obstacles or having to avoid creatures, and such.  So if the speeds seem a little "slow" for your liking feel free to adjust them.  The rationale that I use that grant "road" travel such a substantial bonus has to due with these reasons as well...Roads typically meander less than wilderness travel and you don't require as much rest when your not constantly tripping or having to free gear that is snagged in thorny brush.

Plus Adventurers can always "Push on", they are hardy folk and can cut back on the sleep for days at a time, or skip camping at all and travel all night if they really need to cover a lot of ground (rules defining game effects for not resting or traveling for days straight will come later).  So, that said the chart below assumes 10 miles are typical coverage for a Movement rate 4 adventurer...roughly 1 mile per hour assuming a 10 min rest every hour.  At these rates you can also see why hunting or gathering doesn't really "slow" that party down any further.

For detailed traveling each March Turn can be played out, but for most RPGers this might be "too detailed", it does add a lot of play time to the journey, but if the journey is measured in weeks, then it does probably make a lot of sense combining the three traveling March Turns into one roll for the day, and applying a x3 modifier.  This still makes the time for the journey significant, but other activities still get time during the session as well.

For GMs, if the journey is going to take over two weeks, they should prep at least one or two side trek adventures for every week of travel, in addition to the "random" encounters/events.  This just gives the heroes more opportunities to role play, even if the encounter is abandon ruin or dried overgrown well...something to let them get some exploration on other skill use.  These can also provide hunting and gathering opportunities, or chance to find hidden items or clues to creatures in the area.

The detailed rules (one cycle per March Turn) is as follows: both the Leader and Guide make their "Travel" roll and the higher of the two results is used, using the slowest party members movement.  Additionally, for each dice that explodes they are granted a "Favor", which can be used for "special" bonuses, one of which is a +1 bonus to the parties movement rate.

Typically I will track the party's location on a GM only map, but than use a set of Travel Tiles, which represent zoomed version of the party's current tile.  The Travel Tiles are essentially terrain tiles that are hex shaped and four hexs across.  Each of these sub-hexes require the amount of progress mentioned below to move into one of the adjacent hexes on the other side, each representing 2.5 miles of progress.

Using "Travel Tiles" the party can essentially get idea of what terrain is on the current tile, and what the terrain is on all adjacent tiles.  Sometimes you may allow them to see two or even three tiles ahead, if they are on an especially good vantage point or, if the other terrain is mountains that are visible for great distances.  Then as the party leaves their current tile and crosses into the next you can keep re-centering the tile they are on, and placing the new terrain up ahead, to allow them to adjust their path.

The speed of the slowest member marks the parties progress, which is adjusted by the amount of the Travel Check, increased by one for each "Hit" succeeded by, or reduced by two each "Hit" that it failed by, based on the Difficulty of the Terrain, below.

Terrain	Progress	Diff.
Road/River (Downstream)	2	*
Plains	3	2
Hills/Forest/River (Upstream)	4	3
Dense Forest/Jungle	4	4
Swamp/Mountains	5	4

River travel assumes they are riding in water craft, the actual craft will determine the base speed, and possibly grant bonuses or penalties to the travel rolls.  Progress can not typically "no negative", but I do allow negative progress to be made when traveling on Rivers up stream, if the result ends that way.  I feel that this is a measurement of "going the wrong way", or a minor repair that had to be made.  The GM can assign special consequences for other terrain rolls that result in what would have otherwise been negative progress, like possibly moving them to a tile in another direction (or even backwards).

For typical road or downstream river travel the Guide role is not required as the road/river acts as the guide and assumes that a Successful guide roll has been made, thus this allows a rate of travel higher than walking across plains.  The Leader is rolls a Travel check, and any results above a GM assigned number (likely 0, 1 or 2) further increases the progress, this roll also allows a chance of "favors" to be accumulated.

Traveling on a trail, assumes a "0" Difficulty, but these meander more than roads so they require 3 progress to follow.  Additionally, if a hex has a stream crossing it could add 1 or 2 progress to cross, and crossing a river may add from 1 to 5 progress to the hex, or even have it's own difficulty and progress challenge to successfully cross.

Example: A party with the slowest member movement rate of a 4 is traveling through a Dense Forest, they only roll 2 "Hits" for their Check, so they are 1 short of success, but they do get one "Favor".  So their progress is 4 (base speed) +1 (when favor is applied) = 5, but the failure by 1 reduces this by 2, for a final progress of 3.  Which is not enough progress to move to the hex of the Travel Tile, but they place three progress tokens to note they are nearly off of it.  If the GM is using "Fast Travel" rules, which means 1 roll per day rather than 1 per March Turn, then days travel would be their result of 3 x 3 or 9 progress, which would allow them to move 2 hexes (4 per hex) with 1 progress token on the 3rd hex on the Travel Tile.

Example #2: The party above gets out of the Forest and enters in the Plains, they roll a 5 "Hit" Check with 2 "Favors".  Plains have a Diff rating of 2, so the result of a 5 gives the +3 to their speed, and if the "Favors" are used as well they gain an additional +2, but assuming they use the "Favors" on other travel rolls in this example.  This means they travel at 4 (base speed) +3 (the 5-2=3) for 7 progress, which at 3 progress per Travel Tile hex, gives them 2 hexes of movement and 1 progress on the last.  In "Fast Travel" this would yield 7x3 or 21 progress or 7 Travel Tile hexes (which at 4 hexes per tile is 1.75 Travel Tiles or about 17.5 miles for the day).

The deck of Travel Tiles, that I use includes 10 Tiles for each of the main terrain types (plains, forest, forested hills, dark forest, hills, mountains, swamp, jungle, barren, desert, ocean and deep ocean), but maybe when I post these or allow them to be purchased I'll assume that GM's could get by with half that number.  For trails and streams I use wood sticks of brown and blue (like those in Catan), and for roads and rivers I use double sticks.  Then I use blue wooden disks for ponds or lakes, and various wooden cubes for other landmarks, such as farms or villages.  My supplies allows me to typically keep the current tile and all surrounding tiles, as well as an addition ring around the next Tile in the desired direction, this makes up the 10 tiles of each type, in the cases where all these are the same.

However, I can see dropping off the three "backward" tiles for the current position, so even if every tile was the same, it seems like 7 of each type would be sufficient, and maybe reducing it to one type of ocean, and removing barren (desert would suffice for barren) and forested hills (somewhat redundant)...which would result in half the number of cards (from 10x12 to 7x9).

Other playing aides are Role Cards, that players use as reference and to mark what role they are currently in, then I have a few different event decks that are used to draw from when certain Journey rolls are failed.  These could just as easily be done as tables that are rolled against to see what the consequence of the failure is.

Typically I design for smaller "dungeons" or "quest locations", and create a number of "landmarks" or curious events that occur along the way.  Then a typical session is spent roughly 1/3 travel, 1/3 role-playing, and 1/3 exploration of destination...The actual time is 30% Intro/RP (investigate/prep)/Journey, then 60% destination exploration/encounters...with 10% journey home/conclusion.

This design stresses the importance of the Journey to the campaign, and allow for more character development with being forced into battle after battle for excitement.  More time is spent doing day to day things, rather than some systems that use Hook/Intro/Encounter/Encounter/Boss/Reward session design...There is no time left for role-playing, unless the player does it in combat.

Modular RPG

Through my 30+ years of gaming I definitely see from the mistakes of the other gaming companies (TSR and Wizards of the Coast), and I can see these and other what things really works well.  Then expanding on the different ideas that I've learned from the multiple game types within the single HitDice game system, here is what I'm thinking about when it comes to the campaign style RPG.

The game needs to maintain the modular feel, somewhat the way that the old GURPs system was developed, but more so in terms of rules, and not so much in terms of genre (but it seems they would be just as plug-able).

In 2nd edition AD&D I liked the "Complete" series of books, but at the same time I didn't like the cost, as the collector in me had to have them all.  I largely skipped 3.5 and PathFinder  from the stand point of having to own everything, and the in 4E I was back at it, and pretty much have every book, even though I have many problems with the game system...Which is sort of why this blog started with me having to "fix" all the issues I had with 4E missing many of the RP elements of an RPG.

Anyway, back to what to keep and what to throw away...The "Red Box" set was great, it gave you Fighter, Magic-User, Thief, Cleric and even gave you Elf, Dwarf and Halfling as classes, but it only gave you 1st to 3rd level.  On top of this is gave you and adventure and monster stats for only the most basic and common creatures that one could expect to encounter from 1st to 3rd level.

I do like this idea, and I'm thinking that the above, combined with the "Iron Heroes" style of "The One Ring" has even a better idea.  This way it leads to sort of the ultimate in simplicity and streamlining of play.  By removing the Arcane, Primal, and Divine archetypes from the game, players still get to choose from Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, Archer, Rogue, Thief, Assassin, Martial-Artist and Knight type characters, again leaving out the advanced abilities of these archetypes to keep the rules lean.

Items can still possess magical properties, and so can creatures, but GM's can opt not use these and simply play an "Iron Heroes" campaign, or if GM's want to allow the Arcane archetypes, that supplement can be used to add spells, wands and potions to the game to give the Wizards, Summoners, Alchemists, Warlocks and Sorcerers choices within a campaign...Then Divine, Psionic and Primal would have additional supplements that would fully wrapper the rules that encompass these types of archetypes.

The game system is not one that is "Level" based, it's a skill based mechanic, such that the levels found in D&D and Pathfinder don't exist, however the game-play style is what you would find in these systems from about 4th level to probably what a 10th or 12th level character would be in Pathfinder (those more familiar with 4E leveling it would go from about a 6th level character to probably 18th or so).

So with that leveling scheme in mind the "Basic" books in a supplement would essentially start a hero about 4th level and allow them to progress until what they might look like around 8th (or just about paragon in 4E language).  Then the advanced supplements would allow the heroes to achieve what one could do in the next level range.  To me there would be little advantage in explaining beyond that, as so few players even get to that range.

Thus characters are "Heroes" right from the start, they can hold their own in most situations so long as the battle is 1:1 or something that is seems a "Hero" should be able to deal with, such as a ruffian in a tavern, or goblin ambush.  That said, there is no such thing as an "easy" battle.  In HitDice, with the exploding dice mechanic, any attack roll can seriously mess up a hero's day, but same can hold true of the hero's attacks.  Combat is almost like double the damage with half the hit points compared to other D&D like games, but armor essentially adds temporary health to a hero.  So, battles typically have fewer combatants than other RPGs and they typically end faster, and the surprise is often a major factor in the out come.

On top of this, with the game being a "Skill-based" game there is no traditional "Class", so your defined by your skills, and each hero would begin progression in 3 to 4 Pathways, so even with the basic "Iron Heroes" lists, there would probably be 15 different Pathways of which you would start with 3 or 4 of, and the degree to which you master these essentially determines your Archetype, as does your Attributes.  So even if you were playing what might be a Fighter, you'd really be a Sword master, Armor Proficient, Tactician with arena experience.

Additionally there would be a campaign supplement that would aid in giving depth to a character, this would essentially a campaign world guide for the player which would grant them the choice a species, a background, and a career, all of which would broad the choices for the players of how to develop their hero, as well as to make them more unique.

Something that I see as a must for the initial box-set is a set or character templates with essentially all decisions made to create many classic hero archetypes, such that people can literally "just pick and play", much like pre-gens at a con.  Advanced players can use a point-buy system to alter these or start from scratch, but these and the next few choices in each Pathway for hero advancement would all that the basic game would require.  These become essentially the "classes" even though this is a class-less game.

I've discovered that so many people don't want to create a character when trying out a new game system, they really just want someone to make the choices for them and give them a recognizable archetype to play, and then they can determine very quickly if its something that they are interested in continuing.

Also for GM's...Who remembers the Monstrous Compendium?  Another awesome idea, that was so poor executed it failed in my option...What they did was to publish monster on 3-ring binder paper, so that you'd only need to bring the required monster to the play session.  What they did however was to publish different creatures on the front and the back of the pages, such that you'd end  up with scenarios that were impossible to alphabetize after a while (they published many differ monster sets) so you'd end us with many pages that had a "Ca..." creature on one side and a ""De..." on the other, then you'd get a "Da..." and "Ea...", or a "Bo..." and "Do...".

Great idea!  The implementation just sucked...So, I'd publish monsters on a two sided card, say 5x7, image and main stat block on front, details and ecology on the back.  Some creatures like "Lycanthrope" or "Dragons" may require separate cards for more background or miscellaneous information, but these will be organized too as "stand-alone" cards, such that alphabetizing will remain intact.  Additionally, the creatures would be organized in such a way that you'd get common creatures in various packs, and then themed creature packs such as "Swamp and Jungle", "Caves and Dungeons", "Dragons" and "Undead and Spirits"...so that the first monster book you get isn't half filled with Demons and Devils, especially princes and lords that really no one actually battles and never really needs a stat-blocks on.

With all these "supplements" one might complain about having to carry so many different booklets around to track all your hero's abilities, but I think I'd alleviate this with "Power Cards".  I know that many gamers complained about 4E's use of cards, and that it was a detraction from play...but I think that power cards would be the perfect reference material for players.  I admit I'm more of a card junkie though, and understand that making these a "requirement" of play may be going too far, but I think to allow players a reference deck is better than carrying multiple source books around, and trying to remember what ability is in which book.  So I think each supplement would either come with or allow the purchase of a separate reference deck.

With the cost of even low volume cards less then $0.25 per card, $10 might include all the cards in a given supplement, but with print on demand or self print PDFs, players can print their own cards and crop them in a card sleeve at pennies per sheet of nine cards.

Not to blast Wizards of the Coast again, but I could never understand how the company that pretty much re-invented artistic gaming cards create such shitty cards for 4E.  In my option, if they would have done up the power cards with special symbols and cool layout they would have sold like wild fire.

I too like the idea of "Item Cards" where all the card really has is an image on it, and the description or powers of say a magical effect would be on a separate card.  This would again allow mixing pictures with various magical effects, and not allow players to instantly recognize a previously found magic item from the image they had come across in another campaign.  These I definitely see an optional, but I can't help but want to try them in a campaign...

So in summary I'd like to hear the thought from any readers about the ideas that I'm pitching here...which are essentially a narrow scoped initial box set that gives you everything you need to start an Iron Heroes type campaign with minimal reading, and then small inexpensive supplements for players, and the GM would have monster packs or adventure kits that would come with new monster cards, and come with or allow special adventure kit cards for items discovered in the module.

The box-set will cover basic game play, core mechanics and basic GM information, but it is the adventure that will append the core rules with what ever they need to enhance game play.  These will be separate from the adventure and describe the rules in a stand alone manner, possibly with alternate optional rules.

One system to rule them all

Re-Branding "Open Gateways" as "The Hit-Dice Gaming System"...As not longer is this project specific to an RPG, is more of a Pen and Paper gaming system that you can "plug" nearly any type of game into.  What I did was to start with the RPG version that I've been working on for a while now...Then I started simplifying it.  It began while I was putting the Quick-Start Rules together for the Alpha testers, while at the time the RPG campaigns I'd been in fell-apart/wrapped up, so I was playing a number of systems at Cons and the weekly RPG time slots were becoming filled with cards games and board games.

It was about this time that I began appreciating some of the simple systems that I was playing at the time, Doom and Descent had a nice RPG feel, but were lacking in some areas, as well as having some issues with game balance.  I began ratcheting the "Open Gateways" RPG back to better serve the game style as well as time and commitment level of the "Overlord" style games, this was fairly straight forward...taking an RPG to an Overlord style.

While this conversion was occurring, I was playing a lot of full co-op games...specifically D&D Drizz't, Zombiecide, Arkham Horror, FlashPoint and Pandemic...These games seem to have a nice time-bounded nature to them and especially Drizz't and Zombiecide also had campaign style play that could be done as well (or at least seemed like it could be added fairly simply), additionally they did not seem to suffer with the lack of having a player control the monsters/zombies.  So I took the rules one step further, and added some random elements for level design.

With this complete, I thought any Co-op game could be turned into a PvP game with just making a "group goal" an individual goal, and the first player to reach it wins, but rather than solely playing against the games random elements, I thought a PvP style game would play better with a way to "Screw your neighbor" mechanic...so one was developed.

At this point I realized what I had was a "Engine" for lack of a better word, that provided mechanics that could be shared between just about every style of game I could thing of.  So I began putting some time into polishing the design for a co-op style game that I could play with my family, which included kids (ages 7 to 18).

Co-op games work great as teaching style games, since the party has a shared goal, and the advanced players can guide the newer players in forming a better strategy for their turn that better serves the group's goal.  I've found that some kids like to be on the same side as other players for the "shared victory" condition, that way its okay to lose, so long as everyone else has the same result.

The Overlord variant of Co-op play, is a step toward mastering the mechanics of a game, that pits a group of players not only against the random elements of the game, but allows the player that is acting as the overlord to insert their own strategy into the game.  The Co-op players are no longer to predict exactly how the opponents will move and act, since their is a human intelligence controlling them

More competitive gamer's I've found enjoy the PvP style games, as they get to further their understanding of the rules, by not only mastering the game mechanics, but having to compete against against other players improves everyone's abilities.

I know that many players enjoy the challenge associated with figuring out a whole new rule system, and often have seen certain players seem to thrive on the fact that they can adapt to new rules faster that others, so they like to change things up, playing a different game each week, and trying to improve on strategies of the past weeks.

So, to aid in improving and simplifying in my HitDice game mechanic, I've created two games of different genres to help prove the simplest versions of the HitDice mechanic.  This games are "Zombie Town", which is a map building post-apoc survival game where the Survivors draw a random objective (each objective is nearly a whole new game type) and work toward completing it before the activity level on the streets makes game play impossible to survive any longer.

The other game is similar dungeon exploration game where there exist a number of different "mission-types" and the Hero's explore the dungeon in either Co-op, PvP or first Hero to complete the goal style of play.  During which the hero's can explore the dungeon, enter rooms, fight monster gather treasure, even buying better items or crafting enhancements can be done.  This might feel like a mash-up of Super Dungeon Explores, Dungeon, and Lords of Waterdeep.

Both of these games have the terrain cards and rules complete, but I'm still working on the other miscellaneous cards in the decks.

The whole idea behind HitDice, is "One Mechanic" that works for everything from simple card/board game to fully functioning Pen & Paper campaign style RPG and everything in-between.  These first two games are just as much to introduce my players to the mechanic as it is to flesh-out the basic creatures and final stats of the creatures.  The creatures in Dungeon Tiles are the same stat-blocks that are going to be in the full blown RPG, with the only different being the relevant information about the creatures.

With the "one mechanic" everything will be sort of "plug-able" into any other game, as with Zombie Town and Dungeon Tiles, the game play is very similar in how one explores, open doors, and attacks an enemy.  With the difference being the types of foes in the game and the items that are found.  With Zombie Town focusing more on what a typical zombie survival game cares about, and Dungeon Tiles definitely has the feel of a "mini-RPG", complete with a supplement that turns it into an Overlord style game.

Beta Kick-off this week

Busy week cranking on the Quick-Start and Character Templates for the pre-gens to give the first and second batch of play-testers something to pick from.  The groups will have 4 to 6 players and I'll have 8 pre-gen heroes to choose from.  I'll be asking them feed on why the picked who they did, and what the heroes that didn't get selected are missing.

The area that I believe I'm lacking in from the alpha is the "Recovery-Model", so I'm sure the beta groups will have some feed back on this after the first few sessions.  The games will all be recorded as well, probably not publicly available, as one group is co-workers and the other is my first D&D group from High School (and before)...I got the old crew back together for this epic occasion.

Another major even this week, is I'm feeling really positive about the art work for the first time is a long time.  After about a month of pinging people on Deviant and getting no response, to may as well have been no response, to the I'll sign my name for $50, if you actually want a drawing well that starts at $100.

So, I posted an ad on CraigsList, and the response has been incredible.  I have a lot of good input from guys that knew they were out of my range, but at least a 1/3 were not only great artists, but within the range I was looking for.  The art definitely won't be cheap, but I had no thoughts that it was going to be.

I'm not sure I'll even need any of the artists that I'll see at GenCon.  Though it never hurts to have the discussions, it's been educational thus far.

"Final" Attributes

The image is the Attribute Wheel, every attribute has a unique first character and color associated to it, these are used through the source material as a key to help people associate back to the base attribute.  An attribute also has a very strong tie to a classical character archetype.  

Starting at the top of the wheel the below table lists the 10 Attributes, with their abbreviation, name, color, and archetype:
F, Faith, White, Cleric
I, Intellect, Cyan, Psionicist
A, Awareness, Blue, Wizard
R, Reflex, Purple, Assassin
D, Dexterity, Black, Thief
C, Coordination, Brown, Ranger
M, Might, Red, Fighter
E, Endurance, Yellow, Barbarian
L, Leadership, Dark Green, Knight
S, Self, Light Green, Monk


I kicked around a lot of different versions of this, not only in number, but also messing with the number of them...From 5 (L, F, A, D, M) to 6 which mapped more to those of D&D, to only having 3.  However the more I messed around 10 seemed to be the correct number.


Nearly all common rolls in the game are based off of two of these attributes combined together Accuracy = Dexterity + Reflex, Melee = Coordination + Might, Dodge = Reflex + Coordination, etc.  Plus, combining each attribute with the next two on the wheel provide 20 combinations that form the basis of nearly every on the basic record-sheet.

I also created three pools.  These are character stats that fluctuate during play, the pools are named Body, Luck and Energy.  All the pools are based on three different attributes.  Body is based on E+L+S, Luck is based on  R+D+C, and Energy is based on F+I+A.  I say based, since it is the three attributes added together times a multiplier, which is set at creation time.  Multipliers range from 1 to 5, but most often 2 or 3.


Body combined with other things, such as armor or other equipment determine your characters Health, as they take damage this pool decreases, and when it reaches zero, they are dying.  Luck is a mechanism in game terms that give the player a chance to "spend" points from this pool to alter bad rolls or aid in critical tasks.  Energy is just that, how much internal stamina, mana or chi that a character has.  Energy is spent to do exceptional tasks from performing an extra attack, to casting a spell or to activate a rune or reagent.  Game effects can also reduce any of the pools, commonly a trap may reduce Health, but a failed mission may come with a drain on Luck or Energy to simulate "feel low".  Additionally, there may be effects or attacks that reduce the maximum value of these, such attack from a Spectre reduces the Maximum value of a character Body pool, signifying the permanent loss in health.  A curse or other game affect could reduce the other pools in a similar fashion.  Superior effects such as the mentioned can be removed, but require significant time, a quest, or rare/costly rituals to be performed.

back at it

Another delay, but much progress has been made in the two months of "down time".  I've nearly completed a Quick-Start reference.  I got the idea as I was prepping for all the systems that I 'm going to be trying out at GenCon, so gathering up all the Quick-Start guides for these and reading through them to get a handle on what it is that I've signed up for.

At the same time the D&D Next playtest came out, and they did the same thing (I have another post started on my experiences with D&D Next that I'm working on finishing).  So, during this I thought...that's all I really need now, and started weeding back all the extraneous rules...of which there are a lot of...wow, eye opening.

In doing this I'm essentially creating the basic game, then using a "side-bar" system for optional rules that can be adopted by individual groups.  Similar to how 2nd edition AD&D did things.  Additionally with many people focusing on the hype around D&D Next I can't seem to keep myself out of some of those discussions.

I have another post on the Archetypes that I'm locking into for the Quick-Start.  "Wait, What! Archetypes, I thought the initial design was complete freedom when creating your Hero!"  Yes, that is true and it'll still exist but I've decided some people really do NEED minimal choices.  This came out in the play tests a number of times, when I attempted to walk players through creating their ideal Hero, most suffered Analysis-Paralysis with the number of choices, the interdependence of skills and attributes, all had them frozen.

I admit that when I show up to try something for the first time, I don't want to spend a lot of time going through character creation, afraid that if I pick the wrong thing I'll have nerfed my character. So, just going with the "Show up and Play" mentality, I figured some Templated builds would be good, not only for new player, but these could be used by GM's for ready-made NPC's and advanced players could start with one and modify it, rather than creating completely from scratch.

So my archetypes, which I call templates will include the staple ones (Thief, Fighter, Knight, Cleric, Wizard) that all depend on one of the five main attributes, but five additional ones that are in-between (Assassin, Ranger, Barbarian, Monk, Psion) each of which depend on one of the five sub-attributes.  With these examples, I attempt to layout the "logic" behind the design.

Combat

Every role-playing system requires a mechanism for dealing with conflict resolution by force.  Fantasy realms are filled with creatures that believe might makes right and these are often encountered by the Heroes on their journey.  Parleying only goes so far with these brutal creatures such as Goblin, Orks, Ogres and Trolls...when they are encountered the situation is going to be physical and fast.

The combat system that I've decided to implement in Open Gateways is not unlike many others, it comes down to figuring out things such as surprise and initiative order to give some semblance of order to the chaos that is found in melee combat.  The battles are dealt with by using what I call "Realistic Tactical" rules.  This system outlines basic rules in somewhat of a wire-framework, and then lets most things simply be resolved by common sense applied the given fantasy scenario.

The major difference from this and most other mainstream systems is that a round of combat is handled in a multi-pass method in order of initiative.  The first pass, acting in order players and the GM declares what the Hero or opponents are attempting to do.  When stating the actions players should focus on what they can do "immediately" before any opponent reaches them, and whether they are going to be taking their movement in the first or second phase. After the Declarative Phase the Action Phase occurs, where movement is done and actions are resolved by rolling the dice.

The Action Phase is really a three phase approach.  First based on declared actions immediate actions are resolved, these are often ranged attacks that don't require movement and when the weapons were ready or other actions that can be done right-away without moving.  After these immediate actions are resolved, then initial movement is done, this allows gaps to be closed movement occurs roughly simultaneously, so GM may have to rule as to where combatant actually meet, during the initial movement.  Next those that moved get to resolve their actions, such as melee attacks or ranged attacks from their new location.  Finally those that performed immediate actions may end with movement that they declared.

This typically encourages more role playing and less meta gaming, as based on the description of what the player or GM said the creature was going to do, when it comes time to actually doing things might not go exactly as planned, and as mentioned above, realism is meant to be the guide when it comes time to doing.

In extremely tactical systems such as 4E, players would do things such a moving away from an opponent just so they meet the minimum charge distance for their standard action, this type of thing is not meant to occur in OG.  If I say my hero is charging the Ork, and the GM says the Ork is charging my Hero...then we are charging each-other, and we'll meet in the middle.

With this open declarative method, often targets may be killed or things may not go as planned.  This creates another dimension to the chaos of battle where you have to act without knowing how things will ultimately be resolved..."Do I swing at the same guy as my teammate, hoping to take them out, or do I hope they drop them and I risk spreading the damage out, but deal with two attacks on me next round?"

I feel this narrative, multi-phased combat style will keep players more engaged, as rather than getting a turn every 15 or more minutes, they will typically have a minute or two narrative, then it will jump around depending on who's acting during which phase, so even though the round may take overall the same amount of time to resolve, each person will "be-up" multiple times during the round.

On top of this, rather than battles taking more than 5 rounds to get to "clean-up" mode, a battle should be normally be resolved in 3 or less rounds, or after this point it should become clear which side in winning...There will be occasions where this may not be the case, such as intentionally delaying the entry of some of the combatants from the battle.