Spirit Origin RPG

I'm planning to wait to release the game until after I've got things to release it with, that being an adventure or two and crucially - A Novel in the setting.

also solved a bunch of problems I thought unsolvable. again, fresh eyes do so much for you

Took a long hiatus and returned about a month ago and dear lord has it opened my eyes. system was a bit overwritten. funny how time can reveal so much. best thing is it wasn't even hard to refine and get what i actually wanted out of it. simpler, leaner, gives the experience i want as a player

And I believe they are all flexible and structural enough to not feel restricting or like the system is telling you how to tell your story. The example above with "Who are you?" and how it is a flexible guideline rather than a hard rule is how I hope all of these systems come across.

And that leads to the other major advantage of including these three mechanics - it should take a lot of the burden off GMs to whip every aspect of the world and how to organize it from scratch and make it easy to track and follow how their players are pulling on the strings of story

This should make players feel like their choices about who they roleplay matter and affect the world in a way that is represented mechanically, which should make it feel more rooted in the story they're telling and can feel more intentional rather than hoping their GM is good enough to keep track

I will talk about the Faction Pyramid later, but I've adapted the Conspyramid to be a comprehensive way to build a faction and to handle court politics. The Faction Pyramid, the Pursuit mechanic I talked about last time, and the Reputation scale are all weaved into the characters players can create

There are mechanics in the game that will allow certain types of characters to treat with factions like they're in better standing or increase more quickly. There is also a system inspired by Nights Black Agents' Conspyramid where certain secrets and access is locked off behind a certain reputation

These give a guide to GMs when they're considering how a faction improving or worsening their opinion of the characters should react. Maybe "Who are you?" means they have never met them, but also it might mean a group who improved their standing being given a clean slate, or worsened being dissed.

-5 Actively Hunted
-4 On sight & dislike associates
-3 Enemy of the family
-2 Do not hire
-1 Not good at what you do/doesn't follow through
0 "Who are you?"
1 Job Option
2 Does jobs for us
3 Friend of the family
4 Initiate
5 Member
6 Inner Circle
7 Right Hand Man

I created quite a long time ago a scale for faction reputation when I was GMing for my friends and it has survived unchanged into Spirit Origin. It slides from a -5 to a 7 where each step on the scale represents your standing with the faction. #gamedesign #ttrpg

The rulebook will have tables and things to help GMs craft their factions (topic for another day) and how to use pursuit and fit it into any scenario.

That's all the time I have!

In fact the best and most memorable Pursuits will be when it shows up at the least convenient times. Imagine being in the middle of scaling a volcano to fight a dragon and here are a city's thieves guild! Maybe they're hoping to pick the loot off your bodies, maybe they're trying to get to you first

up in that session at some point. It could get stuck in as one of the timers, they might be waiting at the entrance to a dungeon, anything. It's a good way to not let the players go around murderhoboing. Anger people and they will seek revenge, and that revenge doesn't come on your schedule!

These pursuers could be bounty hunters or faction thugs, that sort of thing. Your Pursuit is measured in Percentage. The more you anger someone with the power to come after you, the higher your Pursuit Percentage. At the start of a session the GM rolls a d100 and if it's below the %, that will show

Just have a few minutes on my lunch today so I'll talk about Pursuit. Pursuit is a mechanic where the players or a single player upsets another person or faction to the point that faction would send someone after them. #ttrpg #gamedesign

yeah love archetypes as how they multiclass too. I'm adapting that idea for Spirit Origins, it's so clean

it really does feel like you can create any character you want on PF2e

So those are the two dual wielding styles. There are feats to boost the effectiveness and options for both of them, but there they are in their basic forms. Not the crazy extra attacks of old dnd and pathfinder but I think just as interesting and useful.

The second type of dual wielding is sword and dagger style. Sword and dagger style gives the maneuver Shield Hook, where the attacker can use a dagger to remove the shield bonus of a foe with a boost, and your next attack has a wider crit range by 1. You can use a whip rather than a dagger too

That's called the Dual Dance style. Very similar to Power Attack in pathfinder or dnd 3.5 but with some risk reward because boosts and setbacks are dice rolls. There are more feats in dual dance to improve on this, an additional step down of the setback, raise one like a shield as an action etc.

Both types require feats to access. So the first type of dual wielding is using two identical weapons and you can choose to either trade an additional damage dice for the same size dice setback stepped down once, or that same size dice as a boost to attack in exchange for damage setback

Dual wielding was a tough one to figure with the three action system but what I ended up with was two separate ideas. I was agonizing about it and my partner (never played a ttrpg) said "well when zuko does it they act as a single blade" so that's where I started. #ttrpg #gamedesign

unique mechanic that puts the game in two worlds, the material world and the spirit world. Think avatar the last airbender or the dark world in zelda link to the past. It needs a bit more time to cook (why ive been on hiatus actually) so up next I'll talk a bit about dual wielding

And that's all. Again, an excellent add on tradition that has cool utility and flavor. Oracle could be great added on to any class.

Since I've already talked about Spirit magic I won't do a whole thread on it, but I will say it is still developing somewhat. I want to cap off my game with a

In the vein of conversing telepathically, oracle will allow you to understand and speak languages. Finally, my favorite use, identifying an objects use, then at Tier 2 seeing its last owner, T3 see a significant moment in the object's history, then see a more from its history. a cool flavorful spell

The combat oriented things are foresight where you get slight bonuses on reflex saves and at higher tiers a dodge bonus on AC. Also at higher tiers this acts as battle meditation, giving reflex saves and ac bonuses that you can maintain with concentration. True sight to see through visibility issues

After a small hiatus I'm back, today I'll be talking about the Oracle tradition. Oracle allows you to read thoughts, suggest things to weak minds, send messages and eventually converse telepathically, scry objects beasts and men, and more combat oriented things #ttrpg #gamedesign

Two more traditions after this. Oracle and Alchemy. Oracle might be my favorite. Like Transmutation it's great for tacking onto other builds, but more on that tomorrow!

Then there's the spellcrafteyest part where you're crafting the illusions themselves. size, different senses and the benefits of such. This part might rely on the players' imaginations more than my own suggestions more than most other parts of the game, but I give a good framework