Sandalwood RPG

Introduction

This is the first part of a series of posts on Sandalwood, a "far-future Sword & Sorcery d100 roleplaying game" I am writing and publishing. When the core system is finished and collated, I will publish under a Creative Commons licence, these blog posts are Copyright Bilharzia 2023.

Most existing d100 rpgs fall into two camps. Either they provide a lot of interesting detail and choices but are too complex and convoluted, or the system is streamlined for fast play but lacks interesting mechanics beyond the principle of d100 skills resolution.

Sandalwood is an attempt to radically simplify a d100 skills-based RPG while still presenting engaging game mechanics for a GM and players.

When I started this I had some ideas for the game and some design objectives.

1. Fast and clear character creation guided by meaningful descriptive choices.
After making a few character choices, a Sandalwood player decides where to put 6 points into specialisms.

2. Simple mathematics.
Calculations, when the game is in play, use simple addition and subtraction. Specialisms, modifiers and difficulties use multiples of 10 to increase or decrease an adjusted skill during a game.

3. Three core skills - Physicality, Personality and Knowledge.
These core skills may be augmented by Specialisms. This design gives characters a clear focus, reduces skill clutter, provides a way of grouping skills, and makes it easy to improvise skill checks when necessary.

4. Innate traits based on character statistics give PCs extra definition and give statistics more of an ongoing role in the life of a PC outside of derived attributes.

5. Creatures and NPCs are ready-to-run with no preparation time. Sandalwood comes with typical creatures ready to be used as they are detailed in the creature entry. Creatures have pre-programmed tactics which can be determined randomly or chosen by the GM during a dramatic encounter.

6. Gambits are used in many sub-systems to add dynamism and depth to skill interactions without too much rules overhead. Combat, crafting, and social encounters all use gambits in similar ways.

7. Combat minimises null-results, with combat clashes producing a result of some kind as often as possible. Combat is influenced as much by comic book and pulp stories as it is by realistic combat.

8. Magic is straightforward for players to understand and use, but powerful and sometimes unpredictable. Instead of using a pool of diminishing magic points, the Stress attribute increases as magical abilities are used. When casting higher intensity, more powerful magic, Stress increases faster.

Statistics & Core Skills

Sandalwood uses an array of six statistics with a range of 3-18 for humans:

Strength (Str)
Constitution (Con)
Dexterity (Dex)
Intelligence (Int)
Power (Pow)
Charisma (Cha).

These statistics provide the values for the Core Skills which encompass any action a character may take, and include all abilities a character may have. Specialisms improve the relevant core skill.

The Core Mechanic

Sandalwood characters and creatures use the three core skills of Physicality, Personality and Knowledge. Each core skill is derived from adding three statistic scores. Specialisms and other modifiers are added to derive an adjusted skill. This adjusted skill is rolled against on a d100.

Core Skill + Specialism +/- Modifier +/- Difficulty = Adjusted Skill

To succeed in a skill test, roll under the adjusted skill.

Specialisms, Modifiers and Difficulties are all counted in tens, so to work out the adjusted skill, the player or GM is counting in multiples of 10 up or down from the core skill.

Example: Darius (Str 15 Con 15 Dex 15) has a Physicality of 45% and has Brawn 2 as a specialism. When attempting a Brawn check his adjusted skill is 65% assuming no modifiers or additional difficulty.

Each point in the Brawn specialism provides +10%, totalling +20% for Darius.

The Core Skills

Physicality (Str + Con + Dex) %

This is the base skill for all physical abilities. Any action drawing from strength, dexterity or constitution uses this skill. Very important for martial characters.

Personality (Cha + Cha + Pow) %

This skill is used for social interactions between people, and sometimes in magical interactions and tests. The primary skill for social characters, leader-types and some magicians.

Knowledge (Int + Pow) %

The domain of scholars and magicians, although any character benefits from Knowledge specialisms. Using Knowledge is inherently more demanding and has more reliance on learned specialisms, hence only two statistics are used for the Core Skill.

Sandalwood - RPG Part 1 - Core Skills
https://d100-workshop.blogspot.com/2023/07/sandalwood-this-is-first-part-of-series.html

Sandalwood RPG - Part 2 - Statistic Arrays
https://d100-workshop.blogspot.com/2023/07/statistic-arrays.html

Sandalwood RPG - Part 3 - Derived Statistics
https://d100-workshop.blogspot.com/2023/07/sandalwood-rpg-part-3.html

Sandalwood RPG - Part 4 - Specialisms
https://d100-workshop.blogspot.com/2023/07/sandalwood-rpg-part-4-specialisms.html

Sandalwood RPG - Part 5 - Combat Interlude
https://d100-workshop.blogspot.com/2023/07/sandalwood-rpg-part-5-combat-interlude.html