Welcome to the Chronicle System Community Development Forum

[Carriker]

Hello and welcome to the inaugural post of the new Chronicle System Community Development Forum.

The goal of this forum is simple: it'll provide a place to focus on some of the Community Development projects for the Chronicle System.

The fanbase of the Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying has demonstrated an avid interest in kicking around the rules system we use to power that game, a system that we're calling the Chronicle System.



The Chronicle System is a series of PDFs that will provide a bevy of options for those using the system. Though the rule-set is for the system that powers the SIFRP, it is setting-agnostic: that is, it is written from the assumption that it will be used in a fantasy setting of some sort, without reference to the setting of George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series.

As part of this initiative, we thought we'd take advantage of the easy dialogue that an online forum like this one provides, and give those who are so inclined the opportunity to take a hand in the creation of Chronicle System materials. Once every few months, I will be posting some materials from an upcoming PDF, to give you the opportunity to weigh in on it: if you like it, if you don't, what you'd change, what you'd add or what you'd get rid of.

There are, of course, a couple of assumptions about this process, and if you participate in this forum at all, you are agreeing to be bound by them.
• You grant permission for your suggestions to be incorporated or not, at the decision of Green Ronin, into the final product, without expectation of any kind of recompensation.
• You will comport yourself professionally and respectfully. People invest a lot of themselves into the things they create, and even if you think they're completely rubbish, it is useless to become insulting about such things. Keep it friendly and polite, please.

In the meantime, if there's something you'd like to see us do a PDF of, some topic you think the rules could be expanded to cover well, please feel free to make a post saying so!

[Pytorb]

Thanks for putting this forum up, a great idea.

As for my wish list:

- A Boat Handling ability (though I know that's unlikely) or another way of dealing with ships at sea and small boats
- Lots of possible ways to expand House creation and mangement
- Trading rules (EDIT: including rules on creating merchant companies based on the House Creation rules)
- Naval combat, both at a character scale and at a warfare level
- An expanded price list
- There's always more room for Qualities and Drawbacks
- Magic rules - though I think we will need a steer from you first as to what kind of level to pitch it at, unless of course there will be a series of magic pdfs, low magic, high magic, wide scope, narrow scope, etc.

Would it be helpful if we started new posts for each possible subject? Also, how long are the pdfs going to be, or will that be very much dependant on the subject beinbg covered?

[coldwind]

This may be somewhat covered by the upcoming Night's Watch book, but explicit rules for designing/running organiations that aren't noble houses - merchant empires, Dothraki hordes, mercenary companies, etc...

I'm looking forward to kicking around the ideas for fantasy races too.

[aprewett]

Magic and Firearms.
So a game could move into more fantasy or more technology.

Allan

[Danestar]

A method to determine the amount of trade/traffic on the roads and sea lanes, whenever I have been running a bandit type campaign it was always a pain to work out a realistic amount of what was going between two points.

[Rabbit]

Armor, and how to work with it.
(The whole "More-armor-makes-you-more-killable" needs to be addressed in a Chronicle-system)

[Ghostwalker]

Wishlist:
- Magic - well, this is the first and obvious one and I think Chronicle could work well with several different magic systems for different playstyles
- Qualities - more generic, expanded for different playstyles as well
- Armor - agreed, I'm also hoping that armor quality rules will be incorporated into GoT edition.

As for the types of games I think this system could easily power (and thus support for such styles, if not licences, would be great IMO ), I'll point in two directions: Howardian Conan and Saga of The Witcher.

It's great that you're doing this GR! Thanks!

[Pirate Spice]

I'm echoing a lot of what's already been said, but here's my wishlist:

- Optional Rules: I'd like to see a lot of "plug-in" rules for modifying the system to suit a group's specific needs. Not unlike the Advanced rules in the SIFRP book.
- Boating and ship rules: I don't think this requires a new Ability. But some rules to demonstrate how existing Abilities apply to manning ships and naval combat would be nice.
- Expanding (and contracting) the House system to create smaller organizations, or even entire nations.
- Crafting rules. I know some people find this tedious, but others truly enjoy it. It might make a good optional ruleset.
- A simpler, standardized economy (and how to convert it to and from SIFRP's odd coinage).
- Magic, hopefully systems that can be adapted for higher or lower magic settings (appropriate to SIFRP, as the magic level literally alters from one era to the next...even from one book to the next!).
- Streamlined character creation (remove oddities like limits on number of Benefits, since one can invest Destiny Points in them immediately after character creation; things like that just create confusion)
- Rules/suggestions for playing non-human characters.
- Status as an Ability was troublesome at best in SIFRP, and doesn't make much sense for a lot of other settings. Perhaps at least optional rules for handling Status differently.
- More Qualities are always welcome, especially Drawbacks.

In my gaming group, we've adapted the system for a game set in Middle-earth. So I'm thrilled about the Chronicle System, and what it can do to help our campaign.

[Rabbit]

A alternate Mass Combat system?
The normal system might be cool enough for small clashes, but my group did a play through a medium sized battle (roughly ten units per side), and it took AGES!
A system to emulate large, maybe a bit more abstracted scaled battles. (Maybe so it can support 10.000 men per side??)

[shadowninja]

I can see this system working in many other settings and I WANT SEE THAT!

Pirate Spice's wishlist is very complete and I have a few ideais:

- Firearms: Is a Marksmanship specialization (can be break down in Pistols, Rifles and others), having damaging based in Agility (like bows and crossbows), but special rules is needed to cover "Autofire" and other guns-only weapon traits.

- Crafts: I like of have a specific benefit, but need a table of crafts and different crafts can be linked other Abilities (main ability), not only Cunning, and can be used with more than one Ability; can buy specialization in Craft (type) limited by the main Ability.

[nakraal]

Don't know why this thread gone dead but I 'll give it my 2 pennies.

Expand House actions.
A portion of the resources in House creation is already meant to be held back as reserve points
(Wealth & Influence) and maybe this can be done with the rest.

There can be established a series of House actions, expanding the initial 4 (Resource management, wage war, begin project & host tourney).

These should be situations that the heroes don't have the time or don't want to personally take care of (thus can't be role played), and just give orders to their servants,inferiors or agents to carry them out.

The actions should have a general objective, a cost (coming in spending reserve resource points) and a difficulty (based on a combination of the objective and the ability of any opposition to stop the action).

An example I had in mind (its roughly done, needs to be worked out) :

Establish Mole

Objective: Your House infiltrates a rival one by bribing or persuading a member of their serfs, household, court or family member to act on their behalf, providing inside info, promoting their interests, spying or even orchestrating assassinations.

Cost

The table shows the Wealth cost depending on the position of the target in the rival House and the nature of the desired assignment.

Conduct type Serf Household Court Family Member
Spy 1 2 4 8
Agent 3 4 6 10
Assassin 5 8 16 32

Success check

The House makes a Status check with a difficulty depending on the relations with target house. The more friendly the relations, the easier the check when establishing spies or agents and the reverse for establishing assassins.

Houses can spend multiple base costs [A] in wealth to get additional dices and [B] in Influence to get additional bonus dices.

Failure means that the cost is not spend but that the action is exposed and relations with the target house deteriorating depending on the social position of the targeted person and the desired conduct type of the action.

[Gallows]

I look forward to those books.

I really like the chronicle system with it's intrigue, combat, warfare and house/organization pillars.

I just hope you do not remove the house system, because it really ties the players together in a beautiful way and adds another layer to the game.

[Carriker]

I look forward to those books.

I really like the chronicle system with it's intrigue, combat, warfare and house/organization pillars.

I just hope you do not remove the house system, because it really ties the players together in a beautiful way and adds another layer to the game.

Thanks. It's taking us a little longer than desired to get this material out, but I think folks will really like what they find. And we have no intentions of taking away any systems. Everything we are doing will be to add to already existing systems, or to add on whole new ones.

[Odinnscout]

Any timeframe on when you think we can expect the first pdf?

[irohma]

Yeah, I hope it's released in 2012. Anyway... not sure if this post is still taken in consideration, but I'll leave my suggestions about possible topics for the Chronicle System (which became my favorite RPG system by far).

- Two-Handed Weapons revised: I really like deadly combats, but it's hard to survive (with only taking an injury) a single strike from a two-handed warrior with Fighting 4+. The only way to create someone who can withstand this is by comboing Acrobatic Defense, Water Dancer stuff and getting a CDef around 20, and comboing is something I prefer to keep away in my games. I figure the biggest problems here are with the "Powerful" quality and the already big initial weapon damage. I don't think it's necessary for a Greastword to deal Athletics + 3 damage AND have Powerful quality. Maybe reducing its base damage, or making Powerful quality give 1 extra damage per each 2B (like the Run bonus) could fix this. Anyway, perhaps the community already came with an even better idea, or perhaps the developers are taking that in mind... but it's worth to point it out.

- Passive tests and Combat Defense: Combat Defense escalates differently from passive results. While this rarely makes a difference when abilities are scored 2~4, it's more of an issue with abilities 5 or higher. Passive results are made with a 4-by-die-ratio, but Combat Defense takes in account only 3 abilities.

What happens that I think could be remade is simple: A character with all abilities at rank 2 will have CDef 6 and a possible passive Will (for example) of 8 (maybe 9 or even 10 if a specialty comes to play). When all abilities are at rank 3, CDef will be at 9 and passive results at 12 (or up to 15 with specialities). And so on.

With abilities like 5 or 6, it's very hard to overcome someone with similar ability when facing his passive result (You have to roll 20 or 24, while your average is 17,5 and 21 and we have a bell curve here). But bypassing its CDef is very easy, especially because you need to increase three different abilities to improve it equally. I think the rules should favor a consistency in what is the chance of winning when progressing abilities on both sides (both attacker and defender), but that doesn't happen.

In my games I ruled CDef to be (Athletics + Agility + Awareness + the lowest of the three again), and IDef to be (Cunning + Status + Awareness + the lowest of the three again). This brings more balance to ability ranks of 4+ (while it becomes harder to hit in combat with abilities of rank 2 or 3), but has worked very well in my games. As a consequence armor became a bit more useful and combats and intrigues started to last a good amount (sometimes it was flashing fast to reach an outcome).

--

Those two suggestions above are clearly minor things, but in my games the house-rules I used were very well received by players and allowed for an easier introduction of my custom-made magic system (exactly where I started to take notice of the passive results being an issue against CDef).

=D Anyway, congratz for the great job. I bought my GoT Edition recently and the book is even prettier and more robust than before \o/ can't wait to see a more generic version with official rules to adapt for my campaign setting!

[Odinnscout]

Carriker do you have any update on when we can expect the first publication? I think I read somewhere you mentioned Jan 2013?