NAA D6 Update 1: Version 1.0 may actually be 1.1
Posted: February 9, 2010 Filed under: Homebrew, NAA D6, News, RPG 3 Comments »I’m still planning on releasing NAA D6 in some form this week, but it’s amazing how a deadline can get you to look over things so critically that you greatly affect how the game is. There were a lot of rules in NAA D6 that were shared across its numerous skills. It is a skill-based system, so nearly everything you do is a skill you roll. So with that in mind and the critical examination I was giving the game, I made those shared bits into a universal table of game-things any skill can do. These include giving small buffs, reducing damage taken in combat, and being able to be used more quickly than their base action in the action economy would suggest.
Reducing damage via your knowledge skills might not make the most sense in the world, but I couldn’t really care much.
The other thing is how many random abilities I’ve been writing into the system. Right now, many of the advantages seem to be about creating characters straying from a human norm. A normal human character, if so confined at character generation, probably couldn’t use a lot of advantages. But I feel that the skill system allows for normal characters to not have to touch advantages a lot, and maybe that’s a good thing. Still, trying to support a lot of different character concepts makes you write some pretty humorous bits and abilities into the game. Today was practically spent sitting in front of a desk, thinking about random abilities and traits I’ve seen in games and putting them into the game. “Character that can see in infra-red? Has to go in. Character that can breathe underwater? Doh, that’s something so elementary, has to go in.”
So it looks like you all luck out and get a lot more content than I thought I’d be able to get out, as well as much it actually being far less disastrous than I envisioned the first release to be. Still, there’s some trouble in paradise. Release 1.0 will be pretty bare bones. I’d have liked to include some adventures, statted creatures and things like that, and the game references a Miscellany section that currently does not exist. The GM Tips section will also probably ship in some prototypical form I’m not happy with. But there’s some sacrifices you have to make. Thankfully I’m not a professional releasing a product, just some random nudnick sharing his homebrew, so I can afford to stumble a bit even if I am woefully self-conscious of it.
What kind of things would you eventually like to see?
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Very fun, very fun. Just watch out for unforeseen combos that may arise from all those random abilities and traits. Is there an organization scheme to keep them easy to search out?
Not really. As of right now I’m just plugging them in. They’ll be organized later. Concerns of deadline and all.
As for unforeseen combinations, NAA D6 isn’t 4e. You’ll find out what it’s like when you see, but it isn’t a font of built-in hyper-balance. It’s more GURPS-like. Crazy things cost more chargen points. But as it stands, unlike 4e, NAA D6 isn’t say, horrifyingly afraid of Flight. And it’s not so much that things can be broken, as it is that they can unwanted or outside the theme or scope of the game. It’s more a toolbox, you’re supposed to set down guidelines on what’s cool and what’s not with you, but ultimately the game doesn’t try to restrict things for the sake of balance.
So more along the lines of Mutants and Masterminds?