Long ago on a class M planet a large magicite meteor entered the atmosphere and broke apart, causing numerous devastating impacts over one of the larger continents. Over years as the dust settled, wildlife and plants eventually retook the land lost by the meteor, who’s high concentrations of magic affected the evolution of said plants and animals. The equine races of pegasi, horse, true unicorn and nocturnals all stemmed from a common ancestor of proto horse who migrated to these magical lands. The unicorn race is created as the true unicorn and other equine races begin to mix. Centuries pass and these new races develop higher intelligence and advanced society, and they begin to discover the different schools of magic. Meanwhile, the griffon and zebra during this time existed on different continents and had their share of problems. Griffon lived in high peaks where resources were scarce, where they warred with each other and their dragon neighbors. Zebra lived in hot desolate plains and lived nomadic lifestyles, following the rains and water holes while avoiding predators.

The true unicorn quickly placed themselves into rule over the other races, which they stereo-typically viewed as lesser beings. Unicorn were viewed as sins, but still more tolerated. Horses were used for labor and military, sometimes forced. Pegasi were often used as servants, couriers, aerial military and crafting/production. Nocturnals were not trusted and discriminated against by all equine races, and lived in the shadows in the corners of society. They often stole to survive, or were exotic slaves. True Unicorn ruled efficiently, when the other races didn’t mind being ruled over, and during times of peace researched new spells. The very first schools of magic to be found were fire, ice, force and enchantment. Light and dark was discovered next, and with the study of plants and animals, biomancy was soon to follow. It was around this time that a true unicorn discovered that higher concentrations of magic were coming deep underground, and set about finding their source. Decades passed before the first meteorite containing a large piece of magicite was found and was quickly returned to be extensively studied. They discovered the school of Divination through this artifact, and that it could be used to increase the bearer’s magical power. Thus began a race to discover more magicite stones to study, and secretly, to increase power. Time was discovered through the next stone, but the following stone research into it accidentally opened a tear to another realm, and released all manner of otherworldly beings across the continent. War ensued, with the equines suffering vast losses at first, while unicorn and true unicorn studied this new magic in desperation. Luckily a breakthrough was discovered in that the stones could be used together to defeat the beings, and so they turned the tides of war into their favor, sealed the tears into the void, and hunted down the remaining monsters. Further study into the void was done very carefully and only by approved unicorn. One of these true unicorn took the void stone for himself, used it to steal the stones of time and divination, and disappeared. Search parties sent to find him either never found him, or never returned. The search for other stones similarly turned up empty. The remaining true unicorn fell into disarray, and fractured into different political factions, mistrusting of one another. The rest of the kingdom similarly fell into ruin and warred with themselves, until many decades later, a powerful being of light, exhibiting traits of all the races combined, descended from the sun. This being was quickly named a God, and the unicorn factions united in worship of this being that taught them secrets to magic thought impossible. With the kingdom reunited, and this powerful benevolent being protecting them, the equine races saw thousands of years of peace and prosperity. Then one day, God visited a true unicorn couple who had just given birth, and told them that their daughter would grow up to be His prodigy, for she held a talent unlike any other unicorn. The parents were pleased with God’s blessing, and this filly was named Deanne.

By this time, a single griffon united the tribes under his rule through guile and bloodshed, who then set his sights on the extermination of dragons. The other tribes believed he was insane, but after a costly battle against an adult red dragon in which he drove a spear through its heart, the tribes rallied together and the hunt was on. Meanwhile the zebra had long ago discovered the skill of alchemy, through which they were able to coexist with the land and set about helping it grow. They started settlements and harvested food and plants, while fending off predators with foul potions. It was at this point that the other equine races discovered them, and started to learn their culture and were shocked to discover their magical creations. This did not sit well with the true unicorn, who feared if magic were given to everyone to wield, their position of power would be taken away. Alchemy was quickly banned but practiced in secret, and the rift between unicorn and other the races grew.

Eventually Deanne grew into a highly competent adult, gifted in divination but who also had the ability to see into the past and the possible futures of anything, and anyone. She taught other unicorn her ability, with varying degrees of results. Some were gifted, though not as she was, and others were too easily lost in visions of the past or horrible sights of the future. Still, she wrote many books on fate and to everyone’s surprise, became God’s seer and grand advisor.

Decades passed, the Griffon hunted down the last known dragon and slayed it, zebra became more common in the kingdom, and Pegasi scouts found the Griffon, with tense but peaceful interactions, at first. Emissaries established a foothold in each others’ kingdoms, and a naval route was created to visit the zebra plains. Then, Deanne found God to be acting odd and distant, and so decided to look into God’s future, something she promised God she’d never do. Unlike everyone else, she saw only a single path in God’s future, and it ended very soon. She was broken from her vision by an angry God, who told her to never speak of what she saw, and so she promised him. The fateful day God’s future ended abruptly, God summoned Deanne to his court, alone. He explained that his time had come to leave, he gave her a set of gemstones, one of which was for her, and told her that she needed to find others she could trust to bear the stones. His light then faded to nothing and he was gone.

In the turmoil that followed Deanne assumed rulership, but news that the equine God was dead sparked an equine-griffon war. The griffon viewed the equine as vulnerable and their lands far better than their own. The kingdom was outnumbered and their most valuable tools in war, true unicorn magic, was unwilling to set hoof outside the protection of the castle, so Deanne looked throughout the kingdom to find heroes that could bear the stones. Griffon forces crossed by air and sea and established a war camp on the continent, and began their siege of remote areas and towns, working their way to the capitol. Refugees fled to the capitol. Deanne did her part, playing the odds with tactical decisions, and delayed the griffon advancement as much as she could, but in time she knew they would fall. Not all griffon felt that equines were the enemy, or that the war was justified. Dissension among one prince in particular, who had fallen for a unicorn royal, spearheaded the movement to stop the war. At the request of the royal couple, Biomancy research into making both species compatible to produce offspring commenced in secret. The princess’ banishment from the court for fraternizing with the enemy was stayed only by Deanne, who kept her under guard. Another 2 years in which the kingdom barely stood its ground passed, during which research into resurrection led to the discovery of life stealing biomancy spells. Also, the offspring spell finally saw success and the princess was with child. It would be another 10 months before the princess successfully gave birth to the first Hippogriff. The prince traveled under armed escort and snuck his bondmate and child to see the tribe chiefs. He convinced the chiefs to put an end to the war, using his bond and his hippogriff son as argument that one day a tribe will be led by equine blood.

With peace restored, both sides set about healing and learning each others’ customs. The hippogriff spell was taught freely and hippogriffs became a symbol of cooperation and peace, seen favorably by all races. The life stealing side of Biomancy was banned and all research into resurrection halted. Deanne set about recovering the stones that were lost, and succeeded in all but one. When the last of the war heroes had passed away, she locked the stones away in a magic vault until they were needed again, keeping up her search for the missing stone. With the war over, the true unicorn royals pushed Deanne to relinquish her control of the kingdom back to them, to which she refused. Word spread of their constant request to assume control and the other races of the kingdom, who had fought and died to keep their kingdom, felt the true unicorn who had not participated whatsoever had no right to rule. A potential civil war simmered in the background as the nation rebuilt, and came to surface when a noble cast magic on citizen protesters. Even worse, a tribunal made of true unicorn found the noble not guilty of magical assault. The civil war against the royal family and court began. Deanne was placed under constant guard by the court for “fear of assassination attempts”, while the court assumed control of the kingdom once more and barricaded themselves in the castle. Mixed blood unicorn and true unicorn who sided against the court were distrusted by both sides, often having to prove their allegiance. One such true unicorn was a member of the royal family, Duchess Tenderness, who negotiated for peace and the release of Deanne, without success. Siege after unsuccessful siege began on the castle both to take control and to release the imprisonment of Deanne. Slowly over the next month, anti-magic fields began forming in areas of heavy magical conflict, which gave the rebellious unicorn an idea. Counter magic was soon developed and taught overnight to every unicorn, and during the assault the next day, the true unicorn defending the castle found their spells ineffective, countered and fizzled by unicorn magic. The royal court quickly surrendered, and the first republic was born. The true unicorn that didn’t flee the kingdom were imprisoned in anti-magic cells, and the republic sent its best to track down and retrieve the true unicorn that fled. The Duchess was given a seat on the republic for her efforts. Deanne was released and offered a role as adviser once more, which she accepted gratefully. Luckily, her magical vault containing the stones were undisturbed.

Under the republic, conditions for the average equine improved, equal rights for non-unicorn were chartered and forced drafting was abolished. Trade and relations with zebra and griffon improved. Deanne settled back into advising for the republic, searching for the missing stone and being ever watchful of future dangers. Then one day, she envisioned a nightmarish creature within the city, changing itself somehow to resemble a regular citizen. Unsure if what she saw could be real, she searched further, and found more and more of these creatures. They could speak their languages and act just like them, going about their lives, until they needed to feed. Deanne saw something akin to the dark side of biomancy, the draining of life from innocent citizens. She woke from her dream and alerted the republic, guards swept the city and were able to find several citizens that matched the description Deanne provided of their disguise. They were brought forth to the republic and questioned, but the republic could not find any evidence to what Deanne saw. They were subjected to magical testing and again nothing seemed amiss. Doubt was cast over what Deanne saw in her visions, and the citizens were about to be released, when a frustrated Deanne struck one of the citizens with a minor spell. The republic erupted into protest at her actions and called for her to be detained, but she stood defiantly over the citizen, who’s green blood pooled at her hooves. The other citizens cowered as they too were cut on the leg by guards and also bled green. Deanne was vindicated and interrogations began but proved unfruitful. Deanne then looked into these creatures’ past, and discovered the location of their home, and their Queen. The already war weary republic convened as to how to proceed, and Duchess Tenderness offered a diplomatic first contact mission to speak with the Queen. After much convincing the republic agreed provided an armed escort accompanied her. The Duchess was ambushed and captured, her guard slain, and was later killed during interrogation by the Queen.

The ensuing war against the Hive dragged on for many years, the republic constantly having to deal with assassins and spies in their kingdom. The Hive could replenish their number far faster than the kingdoms could, and so Deanne led a final assault on the Queen’s realm, armed with new bearers of the stones and soldiers of every race. Yet she knew the Queen and her soldiers and drones could not be defeated with their final assault. So, Deanne cast a powerful spell with the assistance of her unicorn bearers to send the entire Hive away, as far as they could, up into the stars. The victorious forces returned home, and a purge of every Hive drone successfully wiped out any possibility of the Hive returning over the next several decades. Deanne however was melancholic at both the genocide they committed, and the loss of the Duchess. Since the final battle with the Hive, she withdrew more and more from her role as advisor, and the republic left her be, grateful of her aid during the war.

Professor Spark, one of the bearers that contributed to the banishment of the Hive during the war, turned his focus to researching his stone. In a short time, he was able to produce invention after invention, founded the school of electromancy, created the basis of modern electronics, and developed the first method of magical extraction of magicite by a command word. His purpose was to make magic available to all races, not just unicorn. News spread of his radical new inventions, many found his works to be dangerous, or an upset to the natural order. Deanne eventually took notice and grew concerned at the direction the Professor was taking and so looked into the future of his inventions. She barely understood her visions of griffon and equines in magical armor wielding magical weapons as they burn through skies not of their world. Shocked, she demanded the Professor stop and explained to him her dangerous visions of the future he was leading them to. The Professor listened and asked if his inventions bettered the lives of all races and if all races seemed to be equals to one another. Deanne reluctantly said it seemed they were. The Professor explained that there will always be those who will weaponize what they can, but they cannot let that stop them from progress. After much more debate and looking into the future, Deanne agreed and Professor Spark continued his work.

The Professor would go on to invent the modern age, though he would not live to see the adoption and refinement of all his work. Deanne however, watched and observed as the world grew into one of science and magic working together. Chemistry was founded on the roots of Alchemy and medicine would work together with Biomancy. Machines powered by Professor Spark’s electromancy magicite created an industrial age. gunpowder and kinetic weapons replaced wands and spells. Over the next thousand years Deanne became a relic of the past, no longer heeded for her advice by the republic, churches to God became a rare sight, and churches to her became rarer still. Her long lived true unicorn friends also finally passed away, removing her final link to the past. And so, Deanne ensured the stones were safe in a magic vault where very, very few knew of their existence anymore, and she quietly disappeared.

Scientists set their sights on colonizing and mining their solar system as overpopulation and scarce resources became life threatening issues. The jump drive system was invented and the search for hospitable planets and the exploration of the galaxy began. Terra-forming became the next big project, and massive ships were built and deployed across a few dozen nearby solar systems that had promising planets, where they would remain for over a century. Colonies quickly grew into cities as the homeworld had little to offer, corporations in mining and manufacturing found limitless resources and endless buyers. Corporations became interplanetary and practically governments in themselves, rivaling the population and worth of countries, even planets. The republic, worried of losing control with the rest of the galaxy, began legislating stricter financial laws and the rights to resources. A tug of war between megacorporations and the republic began, and at first bribery and legal loopholes allowed corporations to maintain the runaway train they had started. Eventually, the republic pushed back with draconian laws in the attempt to curb the growing monopoly, and the megacorporations turned to violence. 7 major companies banded together and purchased an army of mercenaries to overthrow the republic in a brutal and swift coup. It was successful. A mass exodus from the homeworld occured to avoid the slaughter, most of the republic and the government was killed in the attack. Those few who knew of the stones spread them across the galaxy in this exodus, and a number of them were lost once more. The 7 companies founded the Authority, a tribunal of CEOs who became the ruling corporatocracy.

25 years later, most of the colonized galaxy is under the Authority’s rule, a few outer sectors the Authority doesn’t care about are ruled by a new megacorporation called Minetech, who hopes to become the 8th corporation to join the Authority. A few planets remain free of control, only because nothing of value is there. The galaxy now solely runs off credits and greed, and nearly everyone is a slave to debt. All media is controlled and everything is monitored. Those that wish to remain free live on the outskirts of known space, surviving either by hiding on hospitable planets, or preying on others with piracy. Democracy and freedom are a thing of the past, and any rights are given only by the company you work for. Yet, a resistance is building followers, labelled as terrorists, who hope to reinstate the republic or simply to destroy the Authority. Rumors of an alien race living among the populace occur now and again, and are denounced as the ramblings of the insane. Memories of the republic and the old ways are starting to be forgotten, and no one remembers a time when Gods walked among them or of stones of great power.

A large part of the fun for me in RPG systems is building shit, whether it’s crafting items and magic items, building up my character, building a city or nation, doesn’t matter. So building your own ship had to be in this. I know that not everyone feels that way, and there’s certainly going to be shipyards that pump out ship models like cars, so we needed a big list of all sorts of vehicles from ground to air to sea to underwater to space. I also wanted mechs, tanks, subs, everything. So I came up with designing the rules for custom making your ship first, then the prices on them, then created a bunch of standard vehicles using my price scheme, plus a little discount for factory made.

Building a ship boils down to having an engine, a system of propulsion, controls for that propulsion, a seat with which to safely sit to use those controls, and a surface for the seat and controls and for the propulsion to attach to. So, at its most basic, the motorcycle, takes up about a 5×10 foot area of non-enclosed framing, has 1 seat, wheels for propulsion and an engine (most likely a kinetic spellgem in this case).

Engines

Engines are built on a 1 to 3 layer of rings that spin and extract magic from a spellgem core. If memory serves, the first layer is responsible for necessary things like powering the electrical components of the ship, providing power to your system of propulsion, providing power to your atmospheric generators in an enclosed vehicle. The second layer provides power to your gravity generators, weapons and shielding and the like. The third allows for your jump drive and additional non critical systems. Spellgems come in different sizes and types, built around the type of gem they are. Sapphires will increase the durability of shields, while rubies increase plasma and energy weapons, things like that. Swapping out a spellgem in an engine can’t be done on the fly, and requires a mechanic. There’s some degree of customization, and you can start off with a small engine and upgrade it to one powerful enough to get you across the galaxy. For seriously larger vehicles, like a titan ship that are cities in themselves, you’ll require a number of engines.

Propulsion

A vehicle requires at least one propulsion system, but can have more than one that can sometimes be used in tandem. They are: Wheels, Mech Legs (pair), Treads, Propellers, Hoverjets, and Thrusters. Each may only move so many squares of frame, so multiples may need to be bought. Thrusters are like jet engines, but also work in space, and can be used with hoverjets, which negate requiring lift by aerodynamics. Hoverjets alone can only move a vehicle horizontally at a slow speed. Some other popular combinations are Mech Legs with Hoverjets and vehicles that can swap between wheels and treads.

Controls

Controls range from a console to access turrets and cameras on your ship to a steering wheel and console on a car. They allow you to manipulate some aspect of your vehicle, and can be a computer, a holographic touch display or physical controls. When designing your ship, it’s up to you to wire them appropriately and place your controls where you want them. It’s always a good idea to have backups, and have all your controls away from enemies.

Seat

Seats are both griffon and equine friendly, adjustable, and provide increased safety in accidents. Factory vehicles have at minimum a seat for every control and often more for passengers. Seats are highly recommended in case gravity or inertia dampeners fail, and during emergencies.

Framing

Framing comes in two types, enclosed and non-enclosed. This simply means whether the vehicle is airtight and can survive in high pressure environments like underwater, or in zero pressures like space. Parts of a vehicle can have both types, and doors also come in the same type. If a vehicle is entirely open air, like a sailboat, it’s non-enclosed as well. Framing comes in 5 foot squares and provides space for seats, consoles, storage, and the like. Framing is important as it determines the size of your vehicle for propulsion and class.

Extras

Extras like generators, weapons, security systems, and whatever else you’d like to put in your vehicle can make it a tool, a home, a weapon, whatever!

Movement and Facing

Representing movement and facing is important and difficult as it behaves entirely different from a character. The reason for this is that weapons will have areas they can fire at, turning around shouldn’t be able to happen in a snap, it gives the fly/drive skill a purpose when you try to go beyond the limits of the vehicle, and because I want space combat to be Master of Orion 2 so bad. Seriously though, vehicles will have an acceleration, and a top speed, and their current velocity. Acceleration is your maximum variance to your current velocity, up to top speed, every round. Velocity and direction determines where your velocity marker will end up on the map in relation to where you are. You can only move in an arc in the direction where you’re facing, with higher velocity reducing your arc and turn capability. When in space though, your turning isn’t affected by anything. Basically, when you move, a new marker is placed where your vehicle will then be between your last marker and your new marker, in a straight line. If you were previously not moving, your last marker is where you just were. This marker represents where you will end up if you make no changes to your speed and direction. Your movement is then based off of your new marker, in the same direction you’re currently facing, and not originating from your vehicle. This makes it feel like you’re sliding around on ice, and you have to think 1 or 2 turns ahead how you want to move. For low velocities, like everyday driving in a car, you don’t have enough velocity to requiring using the marker method, but for fighter jets and spaceships and high speed car chases, medium to high velocities, you can.

Vehicles and Characters

Having PCs and vehicles on the same map, that aren’t a mech or a tank or other slow moving vehicle, poses a challenge. A vehicle can move ridiculously fast compared to a character, so if lower velocities aren’t used with vehicles in combat, it’s best to use a separate map that represents a far larger space per square than a 5 foot one. In space combat, we’re likely talking kilometers square. It should likely be left up to the gamemaster who you want to handle combat mixed with both vehicles and players.

Since we’re talking a brand new system, a Gamemastery section was definitely needed, but first the player and the gamemaster needed to understand how the universe worked in the first place. I needed rules for suit breaches, ship breaches, exposure to space (escalating rolls vs instant death), extreme temperatures and pressures, dying of exposure to elements, dying from extreme gravity, the list goes on. There also needed to be some constraints. If you are mid jump, travelling through a wormhole through space and time, you cannot reasonably hold a conversation on your comm with someone, even if they’re on another ship doing the same jump at the same time. We also didn’t want situations where people could hop into a ship and jump immediately off of a planet, so jumping inside anything except light gravitational fields will destroy your ship. Escaping a planet’s stratosphere, avoiding black holes and getting a few hundred kilometers from large asteroids is a must. Equally jumping into gravitational fields will kill you. Most ships have inertia dampeners, gravity generators and the like, but they cannot handle it when you decide to go faster than the speed of light instantly while fighting a planet’s gravity. The ship is destroyed by insane amounts of force. Jumping also takes time; Within a solar system it’s a mere few seconds, but heading to the next nearest solar system might take an hour. Travelling from one edge of colonized space to the other in the galaxy could take a few days. Having instantaneous travel between stars seemed like a bad idea for multiple reasons, calling for reinforcements would be far too easy, as would space exploration. If everything was instantaneous, the entire galaxy would have been charted in the first few years of space exploration. Plus, downtime to craft, rest and roleplay helps out the players. Time limits create tension.

Now that we have characters and we know how magic, combat, and how the universe works, we can start coming up with a campaign. The rulebook will have suggestions on designing a campaign, and if your character’s background was generated, then your gamemaster already has material to work with. In a universe run by business instead of government, most campaigns I’d imagine would have a group playing as mercenaries, working as agents for a megacorporation, or starting their own corporation. The gamemaster can come up with entire worlds if they so wish, but after the rulebook I’ll start working on the campaign setting, which will have sectors, solar systems, cultures and everything mapped out for them. I had also tried to think up a way to make a campaign generator, module by module, but something as complex as that might require a lot of work and still only be generic at best. Either way, the one thing that every campaign should probably have, is a communal ship for the players. Something that they can work on upgrading, and act like a mobile home, a base of operations and a warship/transport if they want. Inside there can be several other vehicles for them to use on a planet’s surface, underwater, or whatever! If not, they will most likely need access to one, or be paying for public transport quite a bit. In this way I believe most gamemasters should consider their players having access to a cheap ship at first, just to be able to get around.

Opposed Rolling and Critical Hits

I liked the idea of having a system that included far more opposed rolling to engage the players more at the table. Having to roll against a static number every time felt disconnected and annoying, especially with the way Armor Class worked in 3rd and up. When you can metagame to figure out an enemy’s AC, then figure out what you need to roll and find out that you have maybe a 5-10% chance to hit, you become disheartened, especially when you have no other options than to keep trying that attack. Combat becomes boring and tedious. Opposed rolling means that your enemy might really screw up their dodge, and suddenly your chances are better to hit that round, or you make an amazing roll, but so does the enemy and he just barely dodges or blocks your attack. It’s far more variable and random, like combat should be. With the abolition of AC, and skills using a d10 instead of a d20, how would critical hits be handled? Getting percentages to work would be tricky, but I’ve come up with something like this: If someone flubs a dodge roll with a 1 (10% odds) then it has a chance of being a critical hit, now some people could have put everything into dodge, they should still have a chance of being critically hit, even if their dodge roll exceeds their attacker’s weapon skill check. The attacker then simply needs to roll higher than 5 (50% odds) in order for that attack to be a critical. Half odds of 10% is then the same as if rolling a natural 20, and now I can introduce talents that make it so that you can confirm criticals with rolls lower than 6.

Crafting

Crafting has been usually modified by house rules, or splat books, in 3rd and in Pathfinder so often that I didn’t want to make that same mistake. I still enjoy crafting in any system, whether it’s an online MMO or tabletop. In SFRPG, it boils down to Chemical, Mechanical, Electrical, and Magical. The engineering faculties, plus magic. Chemical you can make potions, poisons, diseases, stims… alcohols. Mechanical you can make traditional and sci-fi weapons and armor, repair suits and ships. Electrical you can build your electronics and your non-magic items and weapons that use modern batteries. Craft magic you can make energy weapons, magic items (artifacts in SFRPG), spellgems and more. Everything has a credit value, crafting allows you to make things at half the cost in materials, and normally you sell at 75% value. It works similar to Pathfinder in that you can set your own difficulty check, which then multiplies by the actual roll you make, to determine how much progress you made towards the item being crafted. If you fail, you can lose progress, if you do exceptionally well on the roll, more progress is made, and if you critically fail, you might destroy the item, lose your materials and have to start from scratch. There is only one denomination of currency in this system and I can promise that it won’t take weeks, months or even years to make something. Repairing items works much in the same way, and in this system, you may require repairing armor between missions every time. The cost of repairing a broken item will be far cheaper than even making it from scratch, say, 10% of the value of the item or less. A broken item is one that’s reached a durability of 0, but is not the same as a destroyed item. A destroyed one is gone completely and cannot be repaired. Destroying items might work in the same way as negative hitpoints, or it may be an outside of combat action type thing, I’ve yet to decide, as I feel that having a rule of reaching negative durability of the item’s total durability means it is destroyed will make some items laughably destructible and others practically indestructible, like weapons compared to a suit.

Crafting won’t be absolutely necessary, there will be kits that make repairing armor accessible, but the more affordable option will be for someone in the party to drop a few skills into a craft. Other crafting not mentioned here might fall into a professional roll, or players may make their own craft topic subject to gamemaster approval. If there’s an obvious craft I’m missing though, I can add it to the skills list.

The organization behind combat is nothing new, with turn order, initiatives and action economy. I didn’t feel like messing with a system that worked, just simplify it. Free actions, readied actions, immediate actions, swift actions, move actions and standard actions remains in StarFire and I don’t see much point in making it more complicated by designing a new system that everyone would need to relearn. What I was more concerned about is having lots of options in combat when it’s your turn, and even have some immediate actions when it’s not your turn. I also wanted to handle things like death and injury differently, and had briefly considered reintroducing a mechanic my brother and I set up for a modern Hong Kong blood opera style game of stamina and wounds. That would have meant having to track shields, armor durability, and two forms of hitpoints. I felt that was making it even more complicated, and most players are familiar with negative hitpoints, so I stuck with that. I recently decided to introduce stances, which would provide small trade-offs between your attack and your cover/concealment bonuses. I wanted to add ranged flanking bonuses, as otherwise flanking would hardly ever show up in combat, but I wanted a simple rule that was easy to remember. There was always confusion as to if flanking was directly behind an enemy or the back 3 squares in relation to your flanking partner. Precision damage needed to be there for the sniper/assassin characters. I came up with spread weaponry like shotguns and needed a mechanic to handle damage distribution between targets at the end of the shotgun’s range, and how it would handle point blank shots (hint: it hurts a lot). I liked the idea that people could provide cover fire with some weapons in an area and their attack would become an AoE, but I didn’t want it to be the same as a spread weapon. I also needed to explain how shields and anti-magic worked in detail, especially since a bullet could be enchanted and pass through an anti-magic field, then hit a shield or armor. Finally, this system was going to abuse the cover and concealment rules, so I needed simple rules for that too.

Action Economy and Turn Order

Under normal circumstanes, every character has a one swift, one move, and one standard action. Standard actions can be downgraded into a move action. More than one swift action can be allowed by your DM/GM as long as only one is used for changing stances per round. Immediate actions might be spell triggers or traps, some talents and spells also allow players to act outside of their turn. Readied actions change your initiative order as normal. Everyone rolls initiative and then go in descending order, unless spells or talents mix that up. Pretty standard stuff. What might become interesting later, is when vehicle and ship combat enter the mix, and there may be simultaneous space combat while there is infantry combat occuring in one or more ships. Turn order then might have everything considered one combat, or once a ship’s turn occurs, the combat inside the ship is then carried out one turn. I can’t see any glaring issues with either method.

Injury and Death

In a system where you can replace limbs with cybernetics, permanent injuries might not be so bad after all! Yet, I’ve made the rules optional, as not every player likes when their character has their limbs blown off. Critical hits, massive damage or being reduced below 0 hitpoints has a chance to result in scarring, or losing eyes or even limbs. Each injury has rules on how it affects movement and what penalties it applies, until the character either gets healed somehow (which I’m debating may not be possible even with magic, depending on how the limb was removed) or is replaced with cybernetics. Death occurs at negative your physical score, but you are only truly dead once you are brain dead, which is 5 minutes after you reach that negative physical score. Though I suppose if you’re obliterated completely, you won’t get those 5 minutes, but a Chronomancer might be able to reverse time and save you. The reason for this is that there is no resurrection/revive spells in this system. There are a number of spells, items and skills to resuscitate someone in those 5 minutes, however.

Stances, Cover & Concealment

Before stances, concealment was based on your standing position behind half walls, corners and the like, in relation to your target(s). Concealment due to smoke was unchanged due to stance, but the other benefits of being in a different stance still apply whether you had a 50% miss chance due to particles in the air. Cover remains the same regardless of stance, just modifying your dodge depending on the moving targets in front of you. Stances include: standing, crouching, prone, leaning and running. Standing is the baseline, you do not get any benefits or detriments, and all concealment is the default. Behind half walls you have 50% concealment, standing behind walls less than a 45 degree angle to your enemy is 100% concealment, 50% concealment when less than a 90 degree angle, and no concealment at 90 degrees or above. If at any time there is a half wall and a corner at the 46-89 degree angle, you’d have 50% of 50% chance to hit, or 25% chance to hit the target, in other words, 75% concealment. When crouching, you move at half speed, make half as much noise (this is why stealth moves at half speed), gain +1 to dodge vs ranged attacks, and 50% concealment from half walls becomes 90% concealment. Prone provides +4 dodge vs ranged attacks, -4 dodge to melee attacks, you can only move 5 feet a round, and 50% concealment from half walls becomes total concealment. Leaning allows you to attack people at 45 degrees and less from a corner, but instead of having total concealment, you have 90% concealment. You can crouch or go prone and lean, but you cannot get better than 90% concealment while not having total concealment. Running allows moving 3 times in straight lines, you gain +4 to dodge ranged attacks, but suffer -6 to all attacks. Changing stances is a swift action, including falling prone, as it takes time to position yourself to shoot properly, falling prone to avoid attacks is more an immediate reactive action as part of an agility save. Always keep in mind that even total concealment doesn’t mean that an attack won’t hit you. It means the attack hit whatever was concealing you, so if that’s drywall and not solid concrete, an attack that would have hit you, has its damage reduced by the hardness of the object it’s going through. Always roll both concealment and a dodge/block roll with each attack, unless there is no way the ranged attack can go through the material.

Flanking and Precision

Flanking occurs when two enemies are more than 90 degrees angle separated in relation to you. The reason for this is your view is considered a 90 degree arc even if you have no facing, and you cannot attempt to dodge an attack that you don’t know is coming when that attack is near instantaneous. Flanking provides a +1 to hit your target, whether it’s ranged or melee. In a lot of shooters, being caught in a cross fire puts you at a severe disadvantage, and I wanted positioning at ranged to be more important as well. Precision based damage, whether by melee or ranged, currently bypasses worn armor. You gain precision damage in melee like sneak attack damage, if the target is unaware of you or they are distracted while they are being flanked. Unaware targets have a massive penalty to dodge. For ranged attacks, you take a full round aimed attack, which only certain weapons can do. If precision ends up being too powerful, I’ve considered making it negate hardness instead, and potentially giving it a damage boost much like sneak attack. In roleplay terms, this would be like taking the time to find where the armor plates don’t quite cover up your suit and stabbing or shooting there, or carefully lining up a shot at someone’s visor, for a headshot. It is a mechanic designed to balance out those who go full armor, making them practically invincible in combat. Vehicles may or may not be immune to precision based damage, I figured there would be other ways to disable a vehicle by specifically targeting critical systems.

Spread, Cover Fire and Ammo

Spread weapons like shotguns and possibly some spells are designed to have higher dice count, at a lower die. When firing, they create an area of effect attack, with line of sight from the gun, spreading out the damage between all targets. They have very small ranges, but grouped up enemies would then share the damage, provided they are hit. I’m still debating whether or not to separate the die rolls between targets, or to roll total damage and then split it, the former is easier to calculate, the later is more evenly spread for damage. Things like objects and walls also take damage. The closer you are to the attack, the greater the spread and the larger number of dice rolls of damage you’re going to take. At point blank, you take all the damage. Therefore, shotguns are great for deployed shields that create an area wall, as all of your damage is going to hit, guaranteed. It’s also great for doing lots of damage to property and walls that have no chance of dodging, as your higher possible damage with shotguns also overcomes more material hardness. Cover fire works differently, it is a full round action cone attack (with penalty to hit) where you are simply firing into the area. Anyone who is in the area or moving into the area during that round, has to roll a dodge, if they fail the dodge then they take the full weapon damage roll. Cover fire can be done with only certain weapons as well. You can also imagine that cover fire would take a lot of ammo, and ammo tracking was never fun in any system, so it’s assumed you stock the ammo necessary for all your missions, except when it is specialized or enchanted ammunition, that is then tracked. It’s simply too tedious otherwise, and I think the benefits of energy weapons bypassing kinetic shields would already get people to get a variety of weapons for their character.

Shields, Barriers and Anti-Magic

Shields (the blocking kind) allow you the use of the block skill at the same time as when you make a dodge roll. You can block melee attacks with a shield, some melee weapons and even some ranged weapons, but you can only block a ranged attack with a shield. Blocking and dodging is an opposed roll to your attacker’s weapon group roll. If your dodge is higher, you dodged the attack completely, if you failed the dodge, but your block is higher than their attack, you blocked it and the damage is then applied to your shield (Until it breaks), if you fail both your dodge and your block, your armor or your hitpoints takes the damage. You can block an aimed attack, there is no weak point on a shield. You cannot block an attack you are unaware of. Kinetic barriers stop kinetic projectiles, they have no hardness but they have durability. If a projectile is enchanted with magic damage of some kind, but the kinetic projectile is stopped, the magic damage activates and also damages the kinetic shield. Most barriers are one directional, high velocity only types, meant to stop bullets and shrapnel, but will not stop a melee attacker or thrown objects, as their velocity is too low. Other higher level barriers stop everything, but also block allies from potentially helping you, and are still one directional, allowing you to shoot or throw objects at enemies. Anti-magic isn’t a bubble but more an invisible area that nullifies magical damage coming in, it does not stop anything kinetic, but also has a durability and will wear down with enough magical damage. Enchanted kinetic projectiles have their magic damage applied to the anti-magic field first, effectively stripping them of the magic damage. Objects that contain magic, like gemstones or weapon enhancements, aren’t disenchanted, but simply do not work. If they’re activated, charges are used up and damage is applied to the anti-magic field depending on the level of spell. A unicorn in an anti-magic field may not be aware of it until they try to cast a spell, a true unicorn is immediately aware of being in an anti-magic field due to their racial ability to always detect magic. It also makes them incredibly uncomfortable.

Square vs Hex Grid Combat

For weeks I’ve been debating whether to use a hex based or square based grid for infantry and vehicle/space combat. A lot of rules are easier for a square based grid, as are drawing interiors. Space ship and vehicle combat, which I want to have facing, I feel is better for hex based grids. Movement and figuring out area of effects is simple on hex and feels wonky on square. Finally there’s the issue that both infantry and vehicles can be in the same combat, since cars, tanks, mechs and other small vehicles would fit on a small scale map. Overworld combat has been traditionally hex based too. So it’s really a toss up, even though I’d really prefer a hex grid for all combat, I know that not everyone will find it easy to make interior maps for that. Any advice, dear reader, would be appreciated.

I’ve liked the concept of magic and technology working together since playing Final Fantasy 6, and it was the perfect setting for space ponies. Before I started the rulebook I looked up tvtropes about the different magic and sci-fi genres, selected the ones that fit best with the setting I had in mind, and thought about what kind of magic system I wanted. Would it be more free form, Soft Magic System, or would it be very specific and Hard. What about the science behind the world? How was FTL and communications achieved between solar systems? All things we had to decide and come up with in the roleplay. I liked the magic system in 13th Age, where most of that game was soft, but especially how you could use rituals to do a lot more than what a normal spell would allow. In a universe where magic came first, before the scientific method, before they started learning about chemistry, physics and biology, it seemed natural that magic would fill in the gaps where science had not yet reached. Things like faster than light travel, isn’t based on some feat or cheat of physics, it’s based on a magical process of teleportation, time travel and matter manipulation. Directing the engine, however, is a complex navigation system built entirely on programming, engineering and electronics. Communication between solar systems is achieved using quantum physics, which is far more efficient than point to point message spells. So, in some areas, science has exceeded magic in efficiency, but in others, magic still accomplishes what science can’t yet. Since we wanted things to be hard science, it only followed that magic have a strict ruleset and an clear explanation as to how it works. Hard Magic.

Magic in StarFire is everywhere and in everything, it’s a natural force that has varying concentrations, and it can be manipulated and shaped. In this way it is a resource that is cultivated and even mined, as some objects like gemstones are perfect for storing magic. In very low concentrations, it is called anti-magic. Anti-magic is like a hole, if anything magical attempts to enter that space, the magic is drawn out to attempt to fill that hole and equalize the magic in that area. Everytime magic is cast in an area, it pulls the magic from it, lessening the concentration. Casting powerful spells in large quantities, like in war times, creates anti magic fields that can take centuries to equalize unless efforts are made to reintroduce magic. Too much concentration of magic can also destabilize an area, causing magic to go wild or be more powerful than intended, explode gemstones, and the like. I’ve had the idea that the different races came about due to a high concentration of magic on the planet, likely by meteorite. The close proximity caused otherwise normal animals to evolve in different ways, the ones most touched by magical fields being unicorn, who could then control it. Then over thousands of years they’ve learned more and more on how to control it, discovering new and often dangerous fields of magic. With this came the schools of magic, which I didn’t want to replicate 2nd/3rd/Pathfinder at all, I wanted something new. We’d already had the concept of mixed heritage unicorns only having access to 2 kinds of magic so as not to make them mary sues in the roleplay. In a lot of ways it felt a little like Magic the Gathering at first, where my character had Fire and Life as her schools. The elemental plane needed to be there, as did life and death, which ended up being the same school, really, like back in the days when necromancy had healing. We kept some schools from earlier editions that needed to be there, like divination. Scrying, looking into the past and future was possible in the roleplay, and had a very neat mechanic behind it, which I’ll go over in a moment. In the end, we ended up with 11 schools, but we may add more in further books if this gets off the ground. These are: Pyromancy, Cryomancy, Akynomancy (void), Kinetomancy (force), Biomancy, Chronomancy, Divination, Photomancy (Light), Skotomancy (Dark), Electromancy and Enchantment. Cantrips is also just a level 1 school all unicorns have, like universal spells.

With each school, I kept within the idea that as a caster of that school, you were either manipulating fire/heat, or you were manipulating time itself, as the basis for spell ideas. Schools that would more evocation had a higher number of damaging spells, but they also had utility, like enduring the cold or being immune to natural fire, as a pyromancer. Schools that were mostly utility, like chronomancy or divination, were geared towards that, but may occasionally have a way to damage an enemy, or place them into danger if the unicorn is crafty. I originally wanted every level to provide 10 unique spells per school, but that ended up being far too many spells to come up with, as I found out quickly. I settled on 5 spells per school, every 2nd level, starting at 1st level. It wasn’t many spells to a regular unicorn anymore, but this change did help scale back how powerful unicorns could be. True unicorn still had 55 spells to learn every 2 levels, but they only automatically learned 8 or so. The hunt for knowledge was then a time and credit cost now too. With the reduction of spells, I had to reduce mana pool, spells learned, and had to come up with new mana costs for spells. At later levels, it should roughly be that you can cast high levels spells once or twice and be out of mana, or you can cast lower level spells pretty much as much as you want in a day. I tried to make low level spells also scale with level up to a point, making them not completely useless later, but not too much as they cost such little mana comparatively later in levels. 55 spells per level, for 8 spell levels is a lot of spells, but as of typing this, I’m done spell levels 1, 3 and 5.

While coming up with ideas for these schools I found myself coming up with ways of using these themes I hadn’t originally thought, Pyromancy wasn’t all attacking spells and destruction, there was protections against cold and ice, but fire walls could also be used to break lines of sight, could melt weapons and gadgets, could enchant items. Cryomancy ended up being very defensive, making walls, but could also be used to make bridges. In a playtest, a player used an ice wall to seal a breach in a ship in space, thus stopping the cabin from depressurizing. Certainly something I would not have come up with. Cryomancy ended up being a mix of defensive, attacking and utility for the creative unicorn. Akynomancy became a lot about anti-magic but also things relating to the void, teleportation and countermagic, which I’ll also go over soon. Kinetomancy was pretty much the force, telekinesis, force barriers against projectiles or solid walls, but it could also replicate combat maneuvers at range, replicate noises, and more. Biomancy, ah biomancy… Obviously the school for healing, but also for one of the worst things, bio-warfare. It ended up being very much the black and white, good and bad school of healing and vampiric/death-dealing, so the ugly side of biomancy in the lore obviously had to be banned, with stories of horrible unicorn using it to commit genocides. Chronomancy was absolutely fun to come up with ideas for, from placing enemies into precarious situations, crowd control, to protection spells and utility spells. If used properly you could even use it as a resurrection, given your timing is right. Divination is like in previous systems in every sense, but the way seeing into the future and the past might work different in this system. Seeing into the past is easier, as you’re looking back at things that have already happened. Seeing into someone’s future means looking into all their possible futures, by probability. Anytime you look into the future long enough you’ll find all sorts of ways your target dies, which can be very disturbing to the caster. An interesting note is that void magic can block looking into someone’s past or future, and prevent real time scrying. Once you scry or look into someone’s past/future, you’re put into a sleep state that the longer you’re in can be harder and harder to get out, and unicorn have fallen into comas trying to relive good past memories, or they’ve forgotten who they are. Photomancy is all about light, illusions and the like, lots of trickery and utility, bit of blinding. Skotomancy has some utility and defense, some crowd control and damaging spells, and very useful for rogue-like unicorn. Electromancy has its share of lightning spells, defenses and utility for making computers do what you want them to without having to access them, useful for hackers. Enchantment is all about making items better, making allies better and placing enchantments on enemies’ minds, like charms, or worse.

As with hitpoints, your mana pool could also go below zero, and is called overcasting. Once you reach 0 mana, or try to cast without enough mana, you have to make concentration checks to pull the spell off, and start getting strain, a system similar to Stars Without Number. The more strain you have, the harder it is to do everything, and if strain reaches your physical score, you fall into a coma for a while until your strain reaches 0, so usually a few days for a unicorn. There are other techniques to remove strain, but the idea is that you can push yourself past your limit sometimes, though if you try your spell may fizzle, and you’re starting to reach your limit in doing so. I knew I wanted strain in the system and this was the first opportunity to really use it, and I wanted a mechanic for unicorn who were out of mana to take a risk in order to get that emergency 1 or 2 spells off.

Countermagic

Countermagic in 3rd edition and Pathfinder, I absolutely hated. It is a neat concept, but in practice it was complicated and difficult to do in my opinion. In StarFire, some school counter each other, like light/dark and fire/ice. Every school can counter itself. Void however, counters every other school as well as itself. Essentially, you can ready an action to counter an opponent unicorn’s spell, you roll opposing arcane skill checks and if you meet or beat the enemy, you nullify the spell and both unicorn expend the mana cost of the enemy’s spell. So if a pyromancer meets a cryomancer, or a photomancer or skotomancer meet, they can counter each other. An akynomancer can also just cancel any school as they are masters of anti-magic, and are greatly feared by other unicorn. If you don’t have the mana to counterspell, you can overcast too.

In conclusion, most of the galaxy is made up of magic rocks powering electronics, and magic is widely available to use even if you’re not a unicorn, but having magical ability means you carry around a weapon, and a useful tool around with you everywhere. Until someone comes along and puts an inhibitor ring on you, or you’re standing in anti-magic fields. Next up, combat!

I knew equipment was going to be a large chapter and part of StarFire RPG, as it is with a lot of other systems. I also knew that the Christmas Tree effect was going to be unavoidable in a sci-fi game, and that I wanted a high degree of customization for both weapons and armor. By comparison, Pathfinder has a good amount of customization for weapons but armor feels somewhat lacking, in this system, your armor has something like 10 times the upgrades possible compared to a weapon. I was always a rogue type in fantasy games and loved exploiting single use items in combat, so gadgets, deployables and more were definitely going to be in this system. But let’s start with armor.

Armor

Armor changed around a few times, I had originally gone with a light/medium/heavy armor list that had different kinds of upgrades possible for them, much like how Pathfinder has it set up. An issue arose at some point with the idea of hot swapping upgrades, or removing upgrades, to tailor your suit for the mission before you. I also decided that the stock suit is basically a stretchy, tough polymer one, kind of like a wet suit, with a helmet attached to provide comms and breathable air and pressure. This became the foundation for all upgrades to be put onto it, and what was provided for free to all characters. Every conceivable thing you could add (armor plating, visors, A.I., scanners, packs, framing for heavier armor, and more) then became an upgrade instead of a separate armor you had to buy. In the end it saves the player credits, saves you from having to have multiple suits (which you could still do), and allowed a lot more upgrades to be swapped between players if they wanted. I imagine that it also gives the player a sense of pride that they customized and built a powerful suit worth tens of thousands of credits by end game. Ideas for scanners, visors, packs, etc came from all sources, and we kept in mind what role that a player might have in a tactical squad that needed to be filled, and what gadgets and upgrades might help them do that. With that complete, we still had to have a few armor sets that weren’t space faring, and we later added the traditional shield (round/tower/gun) to the mix, which then created the block skill, for those that wanted that extra bit of damage mitigation.

Weapons

Weapons were also difficult to narrow down, we had a good base of what the weapon groups were to organize our weapons, but the roleplay had always mentioned that kinetic traditional weapons were just as (if not more) prevalent as energy/magic weapons. In the armor section we also had kinetic barriers (though I notoriously called them shields, despite having the physical blocking shield), as well as anti-magic shields in the form of packs. So, I knew that we’d have a rock/paper/scissors situation, where some weapons could completely bypass certain defenses. This wasn’t necessarily bad, as with armor durability effectively adding to your hitpoints now, we needed a way to circumvent armor, otherwise combat would take forever and everyone would load up on overpowered defenses. Later on, we’ll add talents tied to weapon groups and specific weapons, allowing players to deal more damage, or bypass hardness, etc. Most of the weapons are what you’d see in d20 Modern or other sci-fi systems, and we tried to come up with some new flair for some of them. I also wanted to ensure that melee weapons would be strong, since the game was going to be very ranged heavy, and that would leave melee attacker players at a disadvantage. Adjustments like bladed weapons automatically causing bleed on hit, and energy blades/piston spikes having very high armor penetration, I hope makes them a viable option for both sneaky and “Get closer so I can hit them with my sword” types. Writing the description for each weapon was a lot of fun and has some lore and humor in there, and I also plan on coming up with regional/planet specific weaponry and armor in the campaign setting book that would give small bonus effects in tune with the lore of that planet. The first draft of the weapon tables and their upgrades are done, I feel that there’s a good even spread of each type too, giving every flavor some options.

Upgrades work in interchangeable slots. You have a scope, rail and barrel slot. Pistols have a scope and barrel slot, shotguns have a scope and rail slot and rifles have all 3. Selecting upgrades and their benefits was easy, though we messed around with scopes and barrel extensions a little to match up an in game benefit to what the real world effect was. Some research was required. These were the upgrades that also provided bonus elemental damage, and ammo types would provide flat damage bonuses or provide armor penetration or do nonlethal damage, etc. It was the same as Pathfinder’s magical weapon enhancements. As with everything, I tried to introduce some gadgets that worked by non-magical electronics, and some would use spellgems imbedded into the upgrade to produce magic benefits. That way EMP and Anti-magic fields each had their place in disabling weapons and armor. I also liked the idea that you could take off a barrel extension or a scope, toss it to an ally and they could use it, even mid combat. You cannot transfer weapon enhancements to another weapon in most other systems, and I can hardly remember any instances where people traded items around, it was usually assigned and then forgotten at the time of collection.

Deployables

A topic near and dear to my heart, deployables was fun to write up. This section ranged from traps to cameras to turrets to sensors to emitters to shield generators (Think Halo). These I hope are thought of as team items, and used frequently in tactical combat situations as they are meant for. Each has a description for how they work and setting them up/taking them down, whether they are reusable or what their recharge time is. They also have a durability and hardness like everything else, for destroying them. In the roleplay, turrets, and personal antimagic emitters showed up now and again, foiling our unicorn characters time and time again, and that was something I wanted to ensure made it into the system: A way to counter a powerful unicorn, and magic weapons. By that thought too, we’ve tried to implement a counter to most everything.

Stims and Potions and Poisons, oh my!

Single use items that provide a benefit, stims are non-magical that need to be injected that provide a very temporary, usually powerful benefit, with a side effect. Potions are magical that have a temporary but usually long duration benefit, but typically can only be used once per rest, or become less and less effective with each use. Poisons, like diseases, have an onset effect, target a specific save, and cause stat or hitpoint damage. These sections have a few examples, but there is definitely a lot more that could be added here. Stims have real world chemical descriptions (though I am no chemist) that’s tied to real world medications, potions have some flora/magic descriptions based on more known natural or homeopathic medications. Poisons was based upon actual poisonous plants, and diseases was based on real world equine and avian diseases. Stims was a big element of the roleplay and often show up in sci-fi stuff, but as a hard sci-fi and hard magic system, we obviously needed both kinds. With the addition of poisons, we also added biochemical weapons to the weapons list.

General Equipment

Not a terribly large section as of yet, but still equally important, general equipment had the small bonuses in terms of kits, maps, medic packs, defibrillators, universal communicator programs and other such apps. But, it also had cybernetic limbs and organ replacements and their rules, how blueprints were handled in terms of crafting and more. I’m sure this section will get much larger as beta testing starts and more ideas come in, but I’ve perused other systems’ general items and thought up a few pages worth.

I’ve probably missed a few sections as I don’t have my rulebook in front of me, and there’s many more spaceship and vehicle related equipment that are reserved for the chapter on vehicles, but this gives you a rough idea of the last part of character creation, and we can revisit it in more scope later. Next up, Magic and everything about it.

The decision to create a new sci-fi system was not made lightly. I’ve had years of experience playing in 2nd and 3rd edition of roleplaying games, before my transition to Pathfinder. I was interested in sci-fi systems, but more along tactical tabletop games like Dreampod 9’s Heavy Gear, but lacked any friends who had interest. Once I was caught up in the MLP crowd, Ponyfinder (A set of house rules and races for Pathfinder) became our go to system, until suggestion arose to try out systems like Stars Without Number. By this point, I was at least 6 months into roleplaying my own sci-fi world with my best friend over Discord, and the longer we played, the lore just continued to pile up. This roleplaying session, started entirely on a whim and by accident while playing Starbound, turned into what StarFire RPG is now. Stars Without Number had some great elements, but lacked the nitty gritty rules I’ve grown accustomed to Pathfinder, yet Pathfinder had looming rules and issues I didn’t like or found too complicated. I toyed with the idea that perhaps I should finally just create a system from scratch, as nothing but d20 Modern could come close to what I wanted to do, so I shelved my other ideas for bringing StarFire to life and started building a system from the ground up.

I knew right away I wanted a system that avoided the 6 stat block of Pathfinder, and I always found that Constitution and Strength had little going for it compared to Dexterity, especially in a system where ranged attacks were everything. I wanted to create a 5 stat system that combined both Strength and Constitution, as to me, they felt like they should go hand in hand. The other stats had their place, though some required some minor tweaking in concept, to fit with the world I was building. Physical being the combination of Strength and Constitution was easy, Agility being Dexterity, comprised now of the sole physical stats. The remaining 3 would become Mental (Intelligence and Mind), Spirit (Wisdom and Willpower) and Presence (Charisma and force of character). It was at this point that I considered how saves would be handled in this new system. Traditionally there is 3, logically Physical, Agility and Spirit, but I feared Mental and Presence would be considered dump stats, and I hadn’t yet determined how one would save against spells or traps. After some thought, I determined that the spell’s nature would determine what save was used to protect against it, and that could very well be any of them. Mental would be spells affecting your mind, Spirit would be to resist spells targeting your body or spirit, Presence would be spells attempting to charm or affect your personality. Physical is mostly delegated to unavoidable damaging or instant kill spells, and of course, Agility to dodge ranged spell attacks. I’ve made it a bit more complicated by adding 2 saves, but now Mental and Presence feel less like dump stats. Adding values like increased hit-points below 0 and increased chance to remain conscious to Spirit fleshed out the stat and made it on par with Physical’s hit-points, melee damage and damage reduction. Agility was fine as it is as it controls a lot of skills and ranged attacks. Mental was still predominantly the caster stat, but also increased skills, which later in development, became critical. Finally, Presence had everything to do with interaction between characters, and while it still felt a little weak, it still held an important place and dumping it could make you highly vulnerable to suggestion and spells and more.

Now that the stat block was looking solid, I wanted to tackle classes and skills. I had always felt that having to choose a class felt like you were forced to lock into progression path that wasn’t very customize-able, and often times, characters would level up just long enough to get the ability they wanted, then multiclassed, which had its own slew of rules and problems. I knew I wanted a classless system that offered players the freedom to get what they wanted, as long as their skills and stats allowed for it, not their class. With this, I’d be eliminating things like saving throw progression and base attack bonus from Pathfinder as well, which was used to balance out the classes. In addition, classes also provided proficiency with weapon groups, something I hadn’t considered until I sat down to write it. Ultimately, I decided to use weapon groups as skills, and provide a higher base of skills to every character per level, but not so much that they can rank up every skill, forcing players to choose between upgrading offensive or utility skills. This eliminated the requirements of proficiency feats (or talents in StarFire) and base attack bonus, but saving throws remained static. At this point I had stat bonuses every few levels, so naturally that would increase your saves as well, though not as much they would in Pathfinder. I kept this in mind and planned to have item bonuses, talents bonuses and the fact that I knew I wanted more opposed rolling, to balance out the saving throws. Lots of the skills are the common ones, similar to d20 Modern skills and provide examples of difficulty challenge ratings. Weapon groups were truncated to be general so as not to overload the skills section. They became shotguns, rifles, pistols, light and heavy melee, heavy weapons, demolitions, and arcane magic. We also considered an Armor skill to be used like proficiency, or to reduce penalties for wearing armor, but it felt clunky and often times didn’t make sense, so it was removed. Later, I would add language skills and retool how they worked, by only giving them 3 ranks, instead of complete proficiency like in other systems. In a sci-fi setting, this I felt was mostly flavor, as universal communicators are a thing, but a system for languages is still required. Lastly, I knew I wanted to use opposed rolling far more often to engage my players, so a d20 would make the gap gigantic between rolls. I opted for a d10 for skill checks, which meant that I was not going to copy Pathfinder’s class skill +3 bonus system, which was good, because there were no classes now.

Talents were the same as feats, required a lot of creative thought, and weren’t critical to the design process of the system, so I’ve left it for one of the last things to do as some of them might be based off of equipment, or race.

Races

Now we start heading into the campaign setting and lore a little bit with races. I needed a good number to start but not too many, but also nothing too similar. In StarFire we ended up with Griffons, Hippogriffs, Horses, Pegasi, Unicorn, True Unicorn, Nocturnals and Zebra. Race ideas like Donkeys and more were scrapped as they were too close to Horses, or another race. Balancing them was tricky, and required some redesigning on multiple occasions, but all but one race provides a unique stat block with 2 stats getting bonuses and 1 stat getting a detriment. I also settled on 4 racial only benefits, not necessarily unique (many races have wings for instance), starting languages and wrote up a little lore about them. A quick diagram allowed me to balance out the races so none were too similar, so they filled in a particular niche. This was also the moment when I determined that magic was going to be based on race, since I had eliminated classes, and allowing magic casting from a talent felt too strong. Allowing only 2 races, the unicorn and true unicorn, access to magic meant that I was going to need to make it balanced, especially since magic isn’t the only racial benefit unicorn get. Unicorn are mixed breeds of true unicorn and aren’t anywhere near as weak as True Unicorn, but only have access to so many spells, this was to be essentially the sorcerer or half spell caster. True Unicorn had access and bonuses to everything magic, but are the only race that has a -2 to a stat, physical, making them incredibly weak in combat comparatively. This fit well with the wizard, being a glass canon type. True Unicorns also weren’t made up on the spot while I was writing the races section, and had existed in the roleplay for quite a while. It was also determined early on that Unicorns would be heavily limited in their casting ability, having 2 themes of magic with which they could draw from, these would later become the schools of magic. I’m glad that I was able to fit these two principles in and with tweaking I’m sure they can become balanced.

The racial history behind each of the races drew a little from our own lore, whether by intent or accident. For instance, the vast majority of Griffon and Hippogriff, due to being birds, mated for life. In history, the Griffon was viewed as a noble and faithful partner and used by the church to promote marriage, which we discovered after the fact. They also at one time in history ate equines as food, much like greek lore. Nocturnals are basically half horse, half bats, called Nightmares and are believed to be hellish vampiric creatures. Zebra like in real life are tough and can live in very difficult conditions, and also stick together like the great herds of Africa.

With stats, skills and races in their alpha stage, I started filling out the rest. Hitpoints always irked me in how unbalanced they could be due to bad rolls, with your stats hardly making up for it. I decided you got a base amount of hitpoints, every time, affected by your Physical, sometimes race, and certainly can be affected by talents. I also was toying with the idea that armor is meant as an additional health pool to mitigate damage instead of outright prevent it from affecting your hitpoints, so even if you had very low hitpoints, you could bulk up on armor to compensate, at a cost. I also decided on the magic system using a mana pool and mana cost instead of memorized spells per day, as I found that it didn’t fit well with the setting that Unicorn had to memorize stuff instead of just bend reality to their will. Movement was fairly standard and kept in line with most generations before it. Combat maneuver bonus and defense was also eliminated and became an opposed Combat Maneuver skill roll. All in all, there was fewer variables to track, natural damage reduction was more prevalent, mana had returned, and 2 new saves appeared in the shuffle. Far less calculations were needed to find out what your stats were, which I didn’t like from the CMB/CMD/BAB system.

Character Generator

With races now complete, players could create characters sans talents, spells and armor, and I spent time creating a background generator similar to that of Stars Without Number, but also simpler and a set amount of events. I’d later revisit the background generator once equipment and starting wealth was determined, and add more careers and I’m quite happy to say it’s complete and fun to use. The purpose of it was to give players ideas to place them into the campaign setting, to determine starting wealth if they didn’t wish to take average and also provide them with relationships with non player characters, which could be both good and bad for the player, and certainly a great hook for the dungeon master/game master. The generator has you spend 3 cycles trying to enter or staying in a career, you can switch if you want, and some events boot you out if you fail a roll. You always have the option of being a drifter, which has no requirement and still has some interesting events. Basically, you roll randomly on event tables to determine what happens during your career, as you go you pass or fail checks and get rewards, contacts, allies or enemies. You can get promoted in your career for better chances and higher rewards too. Once your 3 cycles are done, you determine your reason for leaving your career and joining the campaign, by roll or by whatever you decide, then calculate your rewards and add your contacts, allies and enemies to your character sheet. The more interconnected the events become the better and trials have led to some great character concepts already.

Next up, I tackled the monster chapter of equipment, and had a blast writing it, which I’ll go over soon.