Reference How To Create A Force Power Point System

Ok so I'm interested in finally becoming a GM, however I don't want godmodding, but I want a simple point system to allow players to use certain force powers every post. I was thinking every post a player would have a given number of points to spend and use...say 10 force points. Different force powers will cost a different amount of points. So a force jump would be relatively cheap. Maybe 2 or 3 points. Whereas Force Levitation would cost 6 or 7 points depending on the object being levitated...so it could cost more. I don't want it to be too complex, but I want it to have a Dungeons and Dragons feel to it and possibly members can save their points over time to use for really powerful Force Abilities/Attacks. I'll craft the story in such a way to make it so that it'll be hard to just save up points without using them. So I'll put players in a position to force them to have to use a Force Jump to access a certain area and progress the story.

Does anyone have an idea on how to build a good point system? I was even thinking about applying this system to different RPGs like a Marvel RPG for instance. So instead of Force Powers, it would be superhero powers.

 

I think if you were to go with such a thing, you'd firstly need somewhere where the points are kept track of and a reference for the people playing on what would be worth how many points, and also, the points system might be differentiated for each character, for example, if someone were roleplaying as Galen Marek, it would cost less for them to use force lightning and off running powers than it would for them to force choke, whereas Darth Vader, while he definitely knows how to force choke without any possible strain on himself, probably has little to no knowledge on how to use force lightning.

Just my two cents.

 

Good point. However I don't want to permit established characters in this story. It takes place during The Old Republic era when there were many Jedi and Sith. I'm going to have a list of force powers that will be available for use. However I guess I should work in damage too if we're making it realistic or that may be taking too much into the complex territory since if I have damage then I'll also need to have HP. It could be interesting in that I could make this a turn-based RPG where enemies attack and do damage and the players attack and do damage. There are plenty of force powers to play around with though. I would just have to assign a point value to each one and determine how much health I want people to start out with. The way I'm planning on setting it up is having a team of force users who are all working together. So ideally everyone will be dealing with the same problem but possibly going about solving it differently. So everyone would start out with the same amount of health to make it easier for me the GM and more fair. UNLESS of course I allow Jedi Masters...

 

Yes, it makes sense not to use canon or pre-established characters, but I'm just saying that depending on the training of the character, they would specialize in different areas of the force, and maybe this could be used through a sort of "class" like thing, where each "class" is a different method of training that the character's went through, and each character can only have one. Each "class" would naturally be affected differently by the use of each attack.

 

Hello!

Compared to classical RPing this will slow down games considerable. Nothing can be done about, but to make this less of a problem and to avoid scaring players away ... keep it extremely simple. Otherwise an action-scene might simply take too long.

I understand that right? Every action will be automatically a success? How do you handle rivaling force powers? Otherwise I see you seem to have a pretty solid idea of what you wanna do.

 

Yeah, it's a necro-post, but maybe this will serve as a teaching tool.

Point systems in this format of playing (the forums) would be difficult to enforce. You'd have to keep modifying the splash page of the thread (which requires admin privileges or getting one to do it for you) to update the list of points/expense/powers because there is no way you'd get them all in one go. Furthermore, this would then devolve into players asking you more and more what each action does to consume a point because they will want to know how to calculate the costs on their own, and feel that they have the ability to do so, rather than rely upon your whim (or memory, which to them, will essentially be the same). This will continue to expand your list, until it is massive and unwieldy.

However, some simple ideas to keep things rolling: Players recover hit points at the rate of one per post, so if they take say, 5 points of damage on their post, then after five other people post, she will have gained back her hit points. Not perfect, but it's workable.

You could do several other things, too. Like give players a pool of points to build their characters with and spend on acquiring Force powers (or other cool abilities in the case of non-Force users), and then hand out one xp a night, or one xp every twenty posts, or whatever. Then, require they spend their XP in-game (or their build points during character creation) on acquiring Force powers (this represents the difficulty of learning new Force techniques/powers). The XP would be used to purchase the Force power, the Force points would be used to activate them. Then, you may want to consider ranking the Force powers after getting all of them together in one place, with more exotic/powerful Force powers costing more to acquire, but not more to activate (unless there is a very good reason to do so--i.e., the player is standing in the stomach of a sarlacc while trying to activate Force Lightning, for instance, might require an extra point to be spent). I'd build a chart showing which Force Powers are basic, intermediate, advanced, and master-level, and if you break them up into four categories like that, you can make it simple and say basic cost one point, intermediate cost two, etc. Makes it very easy for you, and easy for the players to pick up and understand right away. Players would recover their Force Power point pool by rest or meditation. Each hour in game spent in meditation recovers one Force point. Every two hours of bed rest recover one point.

Something very simple and straight-forward like this, described in excruciating detail in your first post, may be workable, and easy enough to implement without becoming a pain in the backside over time.