Welcome back to the Crossblog! The official game development blog for the tabletop role playing game, Crossroads: The Yzyrra Chronicles. This blog post will be in the spirit of the last post where I am just going over changes and advancements happening with the game.
ALL ABOUT COMPRESSION
First off, I have completed the adjustment of text so that it now falls in line with the concept of a cap of Lv. 20. That meant pulling out certain elements of character creation that grew to Lv. 50, and some elements were outright cut because of their bogging down the math for rolls. They were elements that simply bloated the formulae for strains. This also involved adjusting prerequisites for each of the 81 abilities in the game, but it also meant that I had to re-read everything to make sure that I noted down any abilities that grew bonuses to a cap of Lv. 50. Some had tweaked wordings, while some abilities were just outright replaced with something that I felt was more utilitarian or just plain cooler. This will be discussed again later in this post.
This also included making sure that prerequisites were accurate, as once in a blue moon "Past Darrick" may have played a prank on "Present Darrick" by swapping an ability in that was a bit more interesting than the predecessor and not correcting that in the prerequisites.
THE SHAPE OF MAGIC
For the longest time I had this vision for how I wanted magic to work. Given how this game focuses heavily on elemental themes, I envisioned casters being something akin to squishy versions of Benders from Avatar: The Last Airbender. They were able to call upon the elements and based on how they spent their affinity ranks in the nine elements, that impacted the options available to them. This devotion of affinity ranks to their respective elements is literally where the path name, Devoteé is derived from. they could somewhat go hyper focused like Megumin from the anime Konosuba. They could also go the other route and be hyper-adaptive while not specializing in any element and have every elemental combination available to them.
Part of trying to bring this into a reality was accepting that magic sort of worked under its own rules. This is the case but the mechanic is still very similar to the physical combat mechanic. I always wanted this system where the caster could cast a spell and put what other games call "meta-magic feats" onto it on the fly. The cost for doing this was a buildup of stress or Heat. The caster could increase the size of the dice rolled, or increase the area covered, or turn off an immunity to a certain damage type. This was before the development of the spell tiers.
Once the Spell Tiers because a thing it sort of went out the window. I decided on magic coming in 4 Tiers, ranging from 0 to 3. The Tier determined how many elements were involved, and how much Heat was built with each casting. This meant that Tier Zero spells could be cast all day without worry of stressing themselves out. To facilitate this, I decided that Tier Zero spells were considered "spirit damage" making them effective against incorporeal entities. However I reasoned that the Tier Zero spells should have several methods of delivery. The Touch required you to get into melee range with your target. The Pulse was your standard line of sight ranged attack. The Wave was a straight line area of effect. The Sphere was a single square that radiated its effect into adjacent squares and could be moved around. These methods of delivery gave me a nice framework to build upon.
Tier One spells were elemental variants of the Tier Zeros and allowed the caster to start leveraging their affinities to their elements. This would result in things like Fire Waves, Darkness Spheres, and Water Pulses.
Tier Two is where the advanced stuff started to kick in. Now the caster is working with two elements, it becomes more stressful, but the involved elements started interacting. Fire & Earth combined to make Magma, Water & Wind created Ice, Wind & Time created Haste. All the while these combined elemental effects are being channeled through the methods of delivery stated in Tier Zero.
Tier Three is the most taxing tier of spells and provoked the biggest buildup of Heat in the caster. However the caster is gaining the benefit of all of their affinities while casting these spells. Tier Three is the point where the caster talks to the GM about the effect that they would like to create with their spell, and the GM would tell the caster which elements to include. The example I used in the Core Text for the manuscript is:
After I had finally figured out what Tier Three spells looked like and how they would function, I came to the conclusion that what I had already just in spell tiers, I didn't really need the Dynamic Casting System as it would pertain to adding "meta-magic" type effects onto them. The Tiers was already Dynamic Enough as it is. It was the Minimum Heat topic over again, in that it was a reasonable idea but it presented a redundancy that I needed to cut out for the sake of getting at the core of casting in Crossroads.
OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE COOL
As I mentioned earlier, as I was making the pass through editing prerequisites, I realized some abilities needed to just be replaced. Some examples that may not necessarily make sense JUST YET as I haven't gotten into the Path breakdowns yet, but you can hopefully see the intent.
ART EVOLUTION
I recently bought an iPad after holding out for so long but I really wanted a platform that allowed me to do digital artwork while I was out and about. So I picked up Procreate and as my first attempt at doing art on an iPad, I worked on an inking and coloring of Scout, the Dracconé Assassin from my playtest group. I just figured that I would share it with those of you who are checking on Crossroads. Because I can't upload to this post, I will just share the video through my Drive. Enjoy!
A SHARP TURN TO THE RIGHT
I was talking things over with my mentor Jacob Wood from Accessible Games and he has been an invaluable asset to me. I have decided that after this post I will be migrating everything here to over to The New Crossblog, over at http://crosspathrpg.wordpress.com. I hope to see everyone over there!
If you have made it this far, I hope that something has piqued your interest and you are wanting to learn more about Crossroads: The Yzyrra Chronicles. If that is the case, PLEASE come along with me and make sure to Comment, Subscribe, & Share. I will be taking the next week or so to learn some of the ins and outs of WordPress as I settle in on a design layout over there. I already have an introductory post up over there, so feel free to check it out as well!
Until the next post, Good fortunes be with you!
This is Darrick, signing off!
ALL ABOUT COMPRESSION
First off, I have completed the adjustment of text so that it now falls in line with the concept of a cap of Lv. 20. That meant pulling out certain elements of character creation that grew to Lv. 50, and some elements were outright cut because of their bogging down the math for rolls. They were elements that simply bloated the formulae for strains. This also involved adjusting prerequisites for each of the 81 abilities in the game, but it also meant that I had to re-read everything to make sure that I noted down any abilities that grew bonuses to a cap of Lv. 50. Some had tweaked wordings, while some abilities were just outright replaced with something that I felt was more utilitarian or just plain cooler. This will be discussed again later in this post.
This also included making sure that prerequisites were accurate, as once in a blue moon "Past Darrick" may have played a prank on "Present Darrick" by swapping an ability in that was a bit more interesting than the predecessor and not correcting that in the prerequisites.
THE SHAPE OF MAGIC
For the longest time I had this vision for how I wanted magic to work. Given how this game focuses heavily on elemental themes, I envisioned casters being something akin to squishy versions of Benders from Avatar: The Last Airbender. They were able to call upon the elements and based on how they spent their affinity ranks in the nine elements, that impacted the options available to them. This devotion of affinity ranks to their respective elements is literally where the path name, Devoteé is derived from. they could somewhat go hyper focused like Megumin from the anime Konosuba. They could also go the other route and be hyper-adaptive while not specializing in any element and have every elemental combination available to them.
Part of trying to bring this into a reality was accepting that magic sort of worked under its own rules. This is the case but the mechanic is still very similar to the physical combat mechanic. I always wanted this system where the caster could cast a spell and put what other games call "meta-magic feats" onto it on the fly. The cost for doing this was a buildup of stress or Heat. The caster could increase the size of the dice rolled, or increase the area covered, or turn off an immunity to a certain damage type. This was before the development of the spell tiers.
Once the Spell Tiers because a thing it sort of went out the window. I decided on magic coming in 4 Tiers, ranging from 0 to 3. The Tier determined how many elements were involved, and how much Heat was built with each casting. This meant that Tier Zero spells could be cast all day without worry of stressing themselves out. To facilitate this, I decided that Tier Zero spells were considered "spirit damage" making them effective against incorporeal entities. However I reasoned that the Tier Zero spells should have several methods of delivery. The Touch required you to get into melee range with your target. The Pulse was your standard line of sight ranged attack. The Wave was a straight line area of effect. The Sphere was a single square that radiated its effect into adjacent squares and could be moved around. These methods of delivery gave me a nice framework to build upon.
Tier One spells were elemental variants of the Tier Zeros and allowed the caster to start leveraging their affinities to their elements. This would result in things like Fire Waves, Darkness Spheres, and Water Pulses.
Tier Two is where the advanced stuff started to kick in. Now the caster is working with two elements, it becomes more stressful, but the involved elements started interacting. Fire & Earth combined to make Magma, Water & Wind created Ice, Wind & Time created Haste. All the while these combined elemental effects are being channeled through the methods of delivery stated in Tier Zero.
Tier Three is the most taxing tier of spells and provoked the biggest buildup of Heat in the caster. However the caster is gaining the benefit of all of their affinities while casting these spells. Tier Three is the point where the caster talks to the GM about the effect that they would like to create with their spell, and the GM would tell the caster which elements to include. The example I used in the Core Text for the manuscript is:
Ex.: Cara, who is playing Cordelia, finds her opportunity in combat to make a real impact. Cara asks the GM if she can cast a spell that can potentially do fire damage and possibly impose a Hindered type of effect. They decide Fire, Earth, and Water would be needed for this effect.
Cordelia casts a Tier Three Magma Wave (Fire (2) & Earth (4)) imbued with Water (6). The Magma Wave rips up out of the ground and water is thrown in at the last second to cool the ground just enough to create a difficult terrain for anyone afflicted that doesn’t evade the spell.
After taking the 3 Heat buildup, Cordelia casts the spell with an accuracy and damage bonus of (2+4+6=) +12. A strain of Cordelia’s Focus Bonus (3) + double her Water affinity (6) means a target needs to get a strain of (3+(2x6)=) 15 in order to avoid the Hindered status effect of the spell.
For the target(s) in this area of effect, they must attempt to evade and resist the spell using their Water affinity, because that is Cordelia’s strongest affinity used in the spell. If hit by the spell, the target must make a separate Natural Evasion Bonus (NEB) strain +Water affinity to beat Cordelia’s strain of 15. If they fail to beat a 15, they are afflicted with the Hindered status effect.
After I had finally figured out what Tier Three spells looked like and how they would function, I came to the conclusion that what I had already just in spell tiers, I didn't really need the Dynamic Casting System as it would pertain to adding "meta-magic" type effects onto them. The Tiers was already Dynamic Enough as it is. It was the Minimum Heat topic over again, in that it was a reasonable idea but it presented a redundancy that I needed to cut out for the sake of getting at the core of casting in Crossroads.
OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE COOL
As I mentioned earlier, as I was making the pass through editing prerequisites, I realized some abilities needed to just be replaced. Some examples that may not necessarily make sense JUST YET as I haven't gotten into the Path breakdowns yet, but you can hopefully see the intent.
- DESTROYER (Shell-Buster): Instead of being a passive ability that granted a flat percentage of bonus damage to critical hits, it now allows rerolls on critical hit damage dice that come up 1 through 3.
- FIGHTER (Bravado => Sublimation Strike): Instead of having the ability to brag about one's triumphs in combat to regain Tactic Points, Fighters now get an ability that allows them to make a strain to focus their accumulated Heat (stress) into their weapon, allowing their next attack to transfer their Heat onto the struck target.
- PRIEST (Blessing of Fortune => Blessing of Vigor): Instead of casting a buff on an ally that imposes crit reversals (bad crits become awesome and awesome enemy crits become failures), Priests now get a buff that they can concentrate on to let an ally regain HP for every target that they hit.
ART EVOLUTION
I recently bought an iPad after holding out for so long but I really wanted a platform that allowed me to do digital artwork while I was out and about. So I picked up Procreate and as my first attempt at doing art on an iPad, I worked on an inking and coloring of Scout, the Dracconé Assassin from my playtest group. I just figured that I would share it with those of you who are checking on Crossroads. Because I can't upload to this post, I will just share the video through my Drive. Enjoy!
A SHARP TURN TO THE RIGHT
I was talking things over with my mentor Jacob Wood from Accessible Games and he has been an invaluable asset to me. I have decided that after this post I will be migrating everything here to over to The New Crossblog, over at http://crosspathrpg.wordpress.com. I hope to see everyone over there!
If you have made it this far, I hope that something has piqued your interest and you are wanting to learn more about Crossroads: The Yzyrra Chronicles. If that is the case, PLEASE come along with me and make sure to Comment, Subscribe, & Share. I will be taking the next week or so to learn some of the ins and outs of WordPress as I settle in on a design layout over there. I already have an introductory post up over there, so feel free to check it out as well!
Until the next post, Good fortunes be with you!
This is Darrick, signing off!
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