Development Diary

Hello, ye curious player. What you are reading now is WiWi's staff Development Diary. Essentially, this is a place where we will post information about upcoming developments and changes being considered for the game. This could mean anything from system and rules changes to alteration and new additions to the lore that we haven't yet decided on. For obvious reasons, plots and other secret stuff won't be discussed here.

The idea here is transparency, so that players aren't surprised by big changes, and have a chance to give us input on them. For feedback, we will open a thread on the Discussion board in game for each Development Diary entry.


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Entry 9: Combat System

Posted: September 14, 2014 • Updated: November 13, 2014

While the FS3 system has combat code built in, it was not designed with magic in mind. As such, we are unable to use it in most instances. We're looking to create a new combat system that we can use here, keeping the following tenets in mind:

  • Keep it simple: Combat systems have a way of getting really convoluted. Including magic is going to be tricky enough. The mechanics should be streamlined and easy to understand, and combat should run smoothly without the need for eleventy-thousand rolls every turn.
  • Don't make the system fit magic, make magic fit the system: Magic is the big rule-breaker, anyhow. The spells weren't written with this new system in mind. If the spells need to be adjusted to fit the new rules, so be it. But trying to write a system that will perfectly fit the spells as written will likely be impossible.
  • Combat, not duelling: This is a system to handle all kinds of combat, not simply magical duels. Revised duelling rules will come after the basic combat mechanics are figured out. We want duelling to be a refined form of combat. We do not want combat to be an expanded form of duelling. So there is nothing sacrosanct about any previous duelling rules.

Update 1 (November 13, 2014): Our intent is for this to eventually encompass mass combat as well, to help in running things like dogfights for our RAF characters. This would be a variation on the Quidditch Table rules (or rather, a return to that table's roots, as it is based on the Mass Battle Table from Legend of the Five Rings). In fact, we are strongly considering whether a more universal Conflict Table could be created that would apply to all forms of combat and similar conflicts.

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Entry 8: Wandlore (COMPLETE)

Posted: November 9, 2013 • Completed: February 4, 2015

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Entry 7: Potion List

Posted: September 12, 2013

Much like our list of Spells, we are also in the process of creating a comprehensive list of official Potions. Stay tuned for more details.

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Entry 6: Project: Celtic Knot (COMPLETE)

Posted: September 7, 2013 • Completed: November 24, 2013

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Entry 5: Arithmancy (COMPLETE)

Posted: September 4, 2013 • Completed: September 12, 2013

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Entry 4: Bestiary

Posted: September 1, 2013

It has occurred to me that it would be helpful to have a working bestiary of various statistics for animals, magical Beasts, and other Beings that characters might encounter. This is primarily intended as a tool to facilitate player-run plots, but should also be helpful in any scene involving one of these creatures. — SeanCee

The Plan

So far, I'm thinking that I'll represent creatures in a stat block, with a simplified set of statistics. This will include some creature types that are available for play, such as house-elves and vampires. But these simplified stats would be for generic NPCs only, and would not represent how a PC's stats would look.

Attributes

Creatures will have the same four Attributes as a PC: Body, Mind, Presence, Reaction

Skills

Creature skill lists will be condensed, and look something like this:

  • Awareness
  • Fighting
  • Magic: Used for magical abilities (e.g. the Dementor's Kiss, house-elf levitation, etc.).
  • Marksmanship
  • Stealth

Special Abilities

Most creatures will have some sort of Special Abilities. Sometimes these are perfectly mundane, such as flight, claws, an armoured hide, etc. Sometimes they will be magical in nature, such as a natural Apparition ability, or the power to breathe fire. There may be some standardized abilities, but others will be unique to certain creatures.

Keywords

Like spells, many creatures will have Keywords attached to them, such as Dark, Beast, Untameable, etc. These keywords will help to identify how other abilities and effects interact with the creature. For example, a spell that only affects Dark creatures will only work if the creature actually has the Dark keyword.

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Entry 3: Quidditch Table

Posted: March 8, 2013 • Updated: November 13, 2014

Our poor red-headed stepchild: the Quidditch rules. We had one system that was sort of functional, but ridiculously time-consuming. It was developed literally overnight to fill a demand. But it ended up costing us more time just to run it and patch it up when it wasn't working, than it would to actually create a new one. So that one hit the scrap heap, and we started from scratch.

The new system is intended to handle Quidditch games in much broader strokes. Rather than trying to run them round-to-round, action-by-action (which takes forever no matter what system you're using), we are looking toward a more abstract way of running a match. Our primary inspiration for this is the Mass Battle Table used in the Legend of the Five Rings, 4th Edition tabletop role-playing game.

Essentially, each round will cover a large chunk of time (probably about half an hour), during which each player decides how aggressively they're playing, then makes a roll on the Quidditch Table to see what results from it. Those that play more aggressively stand a better chance of getting hurt, but also improves odds of scoring or otherwise helping the team. It also improves the chances of getting a "Star Moment," in which the game zooms in to focus on that player (and possibly one or two others) for a round to give them an opportunity to shine as an individual.

While the spell list has taken precedence, once that is finished, it shouldn't take much longer to get the Quidditch Table operational.

Update 1 (August 30, 2013): Progress! Boo has a first draft of the Quidditch Table put together, and we're presently fine-tuning it.

Update 2 (August 30, 2013): Our first playtest of the new Quidditch rules was a big success! Please take a look at +bbread 7/4 and give us feedback. We'd like to have these rules refined and ready to go well before the Hogwarts Quidditch season starts.

Update 3 (November 13, 2014): The Quidditch Table has been a resounding success. We intend to get it coded up to work even faster and more smoothly. But bear in mind that code needs might require some tweaks to the system, so for now this entry remains open and "in development".

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Entry 2: Spell List (COMPLETE)

Posted: March 8, 2013 • Completed: September 12, 2013

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Entry 1: Skill Revision (COMPLETE)

Posted: February 15, 2013 • Completed: April 10, 2013

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