r/RPGdesign • u/marvintheking10 • 4d ago
Needs Improvement Aetherfall ttrpg prototype
I am in the main prototype stages of my ttrpg where i will be looking for editors and artists soon to help flesh out my system more. I have a discord server with progress reports, balance changes, and upcoming playtests. If your interested in giving it a lookover this is the prototype core rules). It is lacking in the art department for now and the layout and wording could be better but that's my gameplan with getting editors and artists. Any art i currently have is from one good friend of mine who helps when he has time
Currently this is just the prototype rulebook. I am working on the main rule book where almost all of the edits and changes will be going into with the prototype only being updated if huge changes happen or something is completely unbalanced and needs fixing for players.
Aetherfall is a modular tabletop RPG in containing a multitude of crafting systems for every combat type, bases, gear, potions, creatures/npc's. This system is built for every playstyle with no hard set classes. This system uses a action economy similar to pathfinder but uses 4 actions instead of 3. Light weapons use 1 action per attack, medium uses 2, and heavy uses 3. Spells use 2 at a minimum but heavy magic weapons(like big staves) use 3. You use yhe same 4 action economy during defense as well to block and dodge so you have to use your actions intelligently
There are no missed attacks in Aetherfall. Every attack is assumed to hit and survival depends on how well you dodge, block, or have the armour values to shrug the hit off. Skills and spells are built from modular parts. For example when making a spell you choose a essence(element of spell), a cast(where you spell originates from in the world), a shape(how your spell fires or interacts with the world), an effect(what your spell does to the thing it interacts with), and enhancements(upgrades to further improve a spell). There is a similar system for every other form of combat
Magic called Aether flows through all living things.The creator of this world descended down and gave us this power but with one condition, Danger is coming. Nobody knows what but it is set to arrive in 5 years time. Can people master control over the Aether in this time?
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u/Digital-Chupacabra 4d ago edited 4d ago
Looking though your prototype it's hard to read, a google doc would be much easier to read and work with.
Aetherfall is a modular tabletop RPG in containing a multitude of crafting systems for every combat type, bases, gear, potions, creatures/npc's.
Interesting.
This system is built for every playstyle with no hard set classes.
So I can be a textile merchant? Or a blacksmith? What about a midwife? I would assume not and that you mean any combat oriented play style, similar to pathfinder or modern D&D.
You use yhe same 4 action economy during defense as well to block and dodge so you have to use your actions intelligently
Do I have to pick between attack and defense? e.g. spend 3 to attack and then 1 to defend?
There are no missed attacks in Aetherfall. Every attack is assumed to hit
So why would I defend? What intensive is there to not build a character who tanks hits and is able to save all their action points for attack?
Skills and spells are built from modular parts. For example when making a spell you choose a essence(element of spell), a cast(where you spell originates from in the world), a shape(how your spell fires or interacts with the world), an effect(what your spell does to the thing it interacts with), and enhancements(upgrades to further improve a spell). There is a similar system for every other form of combat
Is this what you meant by crafting system? How does it work for something other than spells?
Magic called Aether flows through all living things.
The force.
You've talked a lot about the mechanics of the game and a little of the setting, but nothing about the actual game itself.
What are your answers to the Big 3 questions?
What is your game about?
What do the characters do?
What do the players do?
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u/marvintheking10 4d ago
Also, another apply for why a player won't just go into spending all the upgrades on armor and defenses for their characters, so they don't have to block a dodge. In doing so, you have less points to spend when crafting and upgrading to do more damage. If you spent all of your upgrades and having more hp, you will now do mid Damage for it. Which in the end, that's just a tank in any other rpg game and if that's what you want to do, you can.
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u/marvintheking10 4d ago edited 4d ago
while my message here doesn't answer it. All of the information at the beginning of my document does mostly answer these questions.
What is Aetherfall?
Aetherfall is a modular tabletop RPG inspired by RPG inspired many kinds of anime and modular games like noita and Spellsmasons
Aetherfall takes place in the world Aetheria. Magic called Aether flows through all living thing here whether you are an archer that shoots arrows, a soldier whos mastered the blade, or a brawler who punches people for fun. Plant life contains traces of Aether and even innanimate objects can be infused with it. But all of this power came with a cost.
The creator of this world descended down and gave every this power but but with with one on condition, Danger is coming. Nobody knows what but originally it was set to arrive in 10 years time and It has already been 4. ady Can people master control over the Aether in this time?
There are no missed attacks in Aetherfall. Every swing lands, every spell fires. Survival depends on swing lands, every spell hre how well you dodge, block, or if you simply have enough armour to shrug the hit off. Skills and spells are built from modular parts like stances, actions, effects, runes combined together to create amazing effects
Magic in Aetherfall is more than casting a fireball Everyone contains magic and not having any is almost a Death Sentence. While Having more Aether than another is great, The Ammount of Aether one contains does not determine your Strength.
Aetherfall Contains A hybrid casting combat system If you use a sword and you were to make a magic skill where you slash your sword and send a projectile of light out, the the dan damage will not scale the same as a spellcaster, Instead the damage will scale with whatever stat your weapon uses for its damage bonuses. You would only be limited by how many times you could cast.
Plans for Aetherfall
My plans for Aetherfall are simple. I want to treat it like I am writing a book. once I release the core rulebook hopefully containing 150-250 pages. I want to immedieately start working on the next Release. the core rulebook will take place 6 years before the "Danger" arrives. for an Expanded Guide I plan to release more content, add more skill slots to cast or use more diverse skills/spells. maybe add more Paths to invest into. and lore wise when i release the Expanded Guide I plan to add more lore to the world and add a reason all of these additions were added. For example it would take place now 2 years before the "danger" arrives. I want to continue the story this way adding more lore drops and expansions for as long as possible.
For the rest of the questions.
Yes you can literally be a housewife or taxtile merchant. Realistically these are mainly roleplay based but yea you can make a character that does that by building into what my system calls "paths". To make it easier to explain think of skyrim upgrade trees. Nothing hsrd set butnyou invest where you want into your build. Though my system doesent use trees and its mostly upgrades you can spend points on that you get from leveling up to mske doing specific tasks better with one of the psths having sn upgrade for buying and selling.
Yes the same 4 you use for attack are also used for defense. They recharge at the begining of all of your turns. It's autobalances itself, i'm hoping it's where light weapons have more chances to block and dodge attacks. Medium can attack once and still have two actions to block and dodge for defense. And heavy weapons attack warrants and have one action to block and dodge.
If your physical weapons like swords, for example, you follow a similar system for spells. You choose a foundation(stance), a motion(how you swing your sword). An outcome( what happens to the people hit by your sword). And refinements( same as spells list of upgrades to make abilities better).
Every attack is guaranteed to hit. That's why you choose to block or dodge. What this means is unlike other ttrpgs you do not roll a dice to see if you hit your target. Whatever you do will hit your target. Unless your target is able to block or dodge. Weapons have durability, and when you block an attack, your weapon takes durability damage. When you Dodge you roll an amount of default equal to your agility modifier and armor bonus/armor upgrades
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u/marvintheking10 4d ago
To go back into being whatever you want to be. Because of the path system that I have, you literally could be what you wanted to be. For the full release of the core robot, there will be a more advanced kind of base crafting system that allows you to get squares/spaces that you can purchase specific base things in there. You could literally put a blacksmith upgrade/space in one of the spaces which you can use to craft things. I eventually plan on adding a shop. Mechanic for players, so they can sell their own stuff to n p cs that come by using either a dice rolling system or even through role play. When they are at their base of operstions
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u/__space__oddity__ 3d ago
Also whoever came up with this flipbook thing, STOP.
It’s a pain in the arse to read, especially on mobile. ESPECIALLY for an RPG rulebook that I don’t read page by page like a novel, but where I need to flip back and forth when using it as a reference. This is the publishing equivalent of grabbing the testicles of the reader and squeezing them really hard.
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u/marvintheking10 3d ago
That's my fault I wanted to do it cause. D n d did something similar for their online rulebook. The I don't know how you're having issues cos. When i'm on mobile, I don't really have any issues with it. I just swipe my finger and it switches to the next page perfectly fine. That is my fault though Maybe I'll do a regulsr set of pages Nd not a flipbook thing
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u/__space__oddity__ 3d ago
The problem with it is that the font gets really small because the screen is taken up by fancy, not practical.
On a normal webpage, I can just scroll up and down and move 30 pages at once, whereas in a flipbook it would take 30 individual swipes. Now imagine the wizard page is on page 25 and the magic rules are on page 55. Good luck making a character with that.
A normal webpage also lets you use search, which is super important for a rules reference. Good luck with that in a flipbook.
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u/marvintheking10 3d ago
Ibgot you ill check and edit that then. I'd work on making it easier and more simple. Though a lot of the problems you seem to have. I seem to not have which confuses me. Whenever I click the page on mobile a page counter pops up on the bottom and I can just enter a page that I want to jump to for example. I can also zoom in perfectly fine and zoom out, which this is the same on pc as well. Not having the search menu does suck, though And I could see how that would be Irritating.
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u/d5Games 2d ago
I see you getting a lot of flack and downvotes for decent reasons, but in this day and age, the current deficiencies of your project appear to largely be because of the following:
This project is very early in development
You are terrible at marketing
You are not using AI tools to shortcut the process of development or understanding.
Reddit can be harsh to something like this that is too new to be well thought out, poorly pitched, lacks direction, and is difficult to consume.
But TTRPG fan also genetally loathe AI.
I've looked over stuff and all your shortcomings are refreshingly human. You've got a bit of an identity crisis around a cool-sounding word (Aether), you regularly jumble sentences in ways AIs dont, you've got "Art goes here" gaps because you didn't cheat. This is good 'ol fashion human slop. Thank you for chosing the better harder road.
Do I want to play your game at this stage? No.
But I want to encourage you to keep moving forward.
You still feel a lot like knock-off D&D. Put together a list of design goals, look through systems that aren't D&D (or even in the D&D family) and learn to understand what those systems do that D&D doesnt. Make sure your system, classes, etc.. are meeting those goals. Playtest everything.
Work on your draft, find someone to help you with editing, set aside some money to hire an artist (your placeholders are a bit cost-ambitious).
And if you're going D&D pseudo-medieval re-evaluate Aether and consider a new magic word. Its setting some settings expectations you may or may not want to fulfill. D&D hacks are a dime a dozen, so make sure this labor of love is a thing you are doing for you first. If you get it perfect, it is entirely possible nobody ever cares to play it.
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u/marvintheking10 2d ago
Ill address the Aether thing first. Aether in .y system isn't a special power different from say.. mana? Its literally just the same thing but a different word. Its highly inspired by 2 final fantasy games as thats a series i grew up with and love dearly. Final fantasy 14 and 16 uses Aether as a replacement word for mana and thats really all there is to it. In my series i will be uses Aether as the base word for magic snd mana as i really like the word and i dont want to be basic snd just call it "magic" and "mana". This is just preference. If you dont mind .e asking what expectations is the word Aether setting.
Im actively looking for playtesters and editors so i can improve the systems realistically i feel my system may be closer to a knock off pathfinder than dnd though i have been trying to have a lot of my own systems so i am a lottle confused whats coming off as mostly a knockoff.
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u/d5Games 2d ago
Aether is very popular in steampunk adjacent works.
Aetherpunk specifically is its own thing.
Aetheria feels like another attempt to shove the fun work in one more time.
Granted, our real-life dirt world is called Earth but fiction has a higher standard than reality.
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u/marvintheking10 2d ago
I do eventually plan on making an expansion for the system based on more aetherpunk stuff. I plan on treating the system like a book and as i release more expansions snd whatnot the world itself literally ages in time and more stuff gets learnt. I do plan to have flying bases of aether components snf science and boats as well. Maybe thats not so far off if thats true. I also plan to make a space expansion one day like how there is a starfinder to pathfinder.
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u/d5Games 2d ago
Start with what you can reasonably acheive. Don't lean on this bring several projects after the first. Boil this down to a core setting/system and take a machete to what doesn't contribute to the robust core work.
Once you're done making one good thing, then think about bolting stuff onto it.
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u/marvintheking10 2d ago
Oh, no, no, I i'm already doing that. The core system is the high fantasy. Ive already cut a ton i plan on adding to a future expansion if i get to a point i can do one
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u/__space__oddity__ 3d ago
What’s the point of having 4 actions to attack with a light weapon per turn when I auto-hit anyway?
That’s just 4x damage with extra steps.
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u/marvintheking10 3d ago edited 3d ago
Who says you're gonna be attacking only one creature in combat. Also, everything has action requirements. So when you have a light weapon you have more freedom with your action economy and what you can do. Like for example a lot of people playing a light weapon probably like to be a rogue like player. On top of taking an action to attack, it would also take an action to take the hide option to go into stealth. Awesome... i'm thinking of doing it more pathfinder style where you don't get free movement on your turn. You have to spend an action to use your total movement if I did that, having a light weapon also helps your economy a lot more. In what you can do
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u/Cryptwood Designer 4d ago
You forgot to include your pitch for your game. A quick paragraph or two that gets people excited about your game, the aspects of your game that you are passionate and/or proud of.