I do hope weโll get to see TR start this decade
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Hopefully, weโll see!
TR2 Rules Draft 1
Stats
When creating a civilization, a player is given 30 points to invest across six stats, of seven stats present within The Twilight Realm. A maximum of 10 points are able to be invested in a single stat in this way, though alternative methods of stat gain (such as racial advantages) can go past this limit
The stats one are able to invest in are Offense, Defense, Awareness, Intelligence, Diplomacy, and Mobility, with the seventh, uninvestible stat being Luck.
Offense indicates your civilizations ability to attack and hunt, how effective at getting prey and waging war they are. When attacking another civilization, hunting an organism, or forcefully keeping population in line, your civilizations offense score is used to boost the roll that determines the outcome of the action.
Defense indicates your civilizations capability to physically defend itself, as well as its resilience to natural phenomena. Whether attacking organisms, an enemy civilization at your doorstep, a plague sweeping through your nation, or a natural disaster, the Defense stat will boost the roll used to counter the opposing forces roll against you and determine the events outcome
Awareness indicates your civilizations ability to discover new organisms or resources, spotting natural disasters or incoming foes, noticing patterns, and ability to avoid surprises. It boosts rolls regarding discovering new things during exploration, reduces the amount of research needed to determine the properties of new organisms, materials, resources, and mystery innovations, spot impending natural disasters, hearing rumors, or locating other civilizations or races. In combat, a sufficient Awareness roll will prevent your opponent from gaining advantage by surprising you / give you advantage for surprising your enemies.
Intelligence indicates your civilizations capacity for research, and is used to figure out the properties and uses of organisms, materials, resources, and mystery innovations, but is mainly used for creating new Innovations. While it will be fully explained in the Innovations section, Innovations are advancements in technology that provide permanent boost to your stats. Intelligence boosts the rolls in regards to the successful invention/progress made towards finishing these innovations.
Diplomacy indicates your civilizations ability to interact with other organisms and civilizations, as well as your own people. This stat helps with boosting your relationships with other civilizations, interaction with the populace of said civilizations, and with the placating and taming of wild or domesticated organisms. This can allow for increased trade, merging of civilizations, or widespread domestication. However, poor Diplomacy rolls can lead to worsening relationships and even war. It also can affect the impact of internal affairs.
Mobility indicates your civilizations ability to explore new areas, deploy troops, use stealth, and escape from disasters and enemies. Mobility rolls determine the number of tiles explored when exploration occurs, the swiftness at which you can reach and attack enemies, the terrain you can go over, or the rate at which your civilization flees if such an event occurs. It can also provide a small protective boost alongside defense for mobile or nomadic groups.
Finally, Luck indicates your civilizations, well, luck. Aside from racial bonuses, the only way luck can change is up to luck. Each round, every civilization will roll for luck, and the resulting roll determines the civilizations luck for the round. Additionally, rolling a natural one on the Luck roll reduces your Luck by one, and a natural twenty increases your Luck by one.
These stats are the best way to influence how your civilization will interact with the world, and are vital for any successful civilization.
Notes on Stats: not sure what the point of luck was in this iteration, as I donโt seem to have written it down. I also donโt like the random increase and decreases. I may just remove the stat, or may rework it
Also, realized I need to determine a mental resilience stat, as well as an intimidation stat. Also just realized I accounted for but didnโt make internal affairs, morale, and civil unrest mechanics
Advantages, Disadvantages, and Descriptions
Advantages and Disadvantages function on the scale of individual races (see Population, population cohesion), granting them special abilities, resistances, or frames of mind that grant varying stat bonuses. A race will have two Advantages, as well as one Disadvantage, and how exactly this affects statistics varies based on the complexity of each.
Advantages will provide some form of bonus to a race. For example, say a race had an Advantage that provides them with thick, defensive scales. They would gain a +5 to Defense, the normal assigned value for an Advantage.
However, if that same race had thick scales, but they only functioned while in the shadows, that race would gain +10 Defense while in the shadows, as a bonus for the restriction.
The same methodology can apply to Disadvantages, but on the inverse, applying penalties to a race. If the above race has poor eyesight, for example, they would have a -5 to Awareness. However, if they had poor sight while in the light, then they would take a -10 to Awareness when in the light.
Bonuses and penalties could also work in different ways as well. An Advantage could be a web ability that lowers opponents Mobility by 5, while a Disadvantage could be a weak mind that increases opposing Diplomacy checks by +5
Advantages and Disadvantages are not the final point in character creation that can cause stat bonuses. How you describe your civilization, the Description, will also provide a total of +3 stats. These are subject to the same scaling as before, but are entirely left up to me, the GM, to decide based on the descriptions the company layer provides.
Straight stat bonuses are not the only possible options, either. You could choose to have Advantages and Disadvantages effect other aspects of this game, such as reducing sustenance requirements, increasing population cohesion, or boosting reproductive speed, among other options.
Notes: Exactly how far should advantages/disadvantages stack? I am tempted to restrict it to one layer of complexity, but want feedback on if others think otherwise
Feel like I need to emphasize more that bonuses donโt have to be to stats alone. Also should mention that if a player doesnโt want to do the nitty gritty of assigning specific values to advantages/disadvantages I will be doing that myself anyway
Just realized I never separated Physical Offense/Prowess from Magical Offense/ability. Not sure I need to, but something to consider, as I had a Mysticism stat n the last iteration of Twilight Realm
The current rules have specifically a 2 advantage 1 disadvantage system, but the original iteration just had a 2:1 ratio system, max 3 advantage. Should I return to that, or enforce either 2-1 or 3-2?
Population Mechanics
Population is a key mechanic of a civilization. With enough population, your growth explodes exponentially, but too little population and your civilization will die out. Population mechanics within this game can generally be divided into population gain and loss, population maturity, environmental suitability, available area, population loss, size, and population cohesion.
Population gain and loss are fairly simple. Dependent on your reproductive rate/population maturity and lifespan, as well as events that happen within your rounds, your population will rise and fall. This is a basic function that tells you how many countable, mature population members you have. This takes into account those who have died, from actions, old age, or illness, as well as those who have reached the mature age at which they can become functioning members of society.
Reproductive rate is the rate at which your population, well, reproduces. This creates new juvenile members of that race, which is listed as a separate statistic within your civilization statistics. Depending on your races rate of population maturity, those juveniles will slowly become adults over the course of the next round, provided they survive that long. This metric will scale with the amount of population you have at maturity.
Population maturity is also simply, just being the amount of time from birth until an individual gains the capability to act in the role of an adult. This basically creates a realistic downtime between maintaining the stability to be able to reproduce and gaining functioning members of society.
Environmental suitability and available area can largely be talked about at the same time. When the area your race lives has poor environmental suitability, a penalty is applied to all your statistics until either you move, you adapt the environment, or you invent things so that the environment is tolerable. This penalty also applies to sustenance gain, morale, and reproductive rate. Additionally, you are more likely to lose population due to the environment due to poor suitability. However, in areas of high suitability, reproductive rate is decreased, morale is increased, and all statistics are increased, as well as there being a lesser chance of losing population to environmental factors. Environmental factors can also be neutral, causing no specific benefit or restriction.
Available area has similar effects, but is different. Available Area limits the amount of population that can live on a given tile without causing penalties. While area is available, reproductive rate, sustenance gathering, and morale are slightly increased. At neutral available area, your civilization is functioning as normal. However, when available area has run out, problems begin to rapidly rack up. Morale and sustenance gain decrease proportionally to the amount an area is overpopulated by, reproductive rate is slowed, and Defense and Mobility (in regards to moving/defending civilians or established communities) decrease sharply for your civilization. Each tile, depending on terrain features, has a maximum amount of available area, which can be increased via innovations (such as houseboats or hobbit holes)
Size is the second to last factor of population. Dependent on your species size, you will gain bonuses or detriments to other categories. The larger you are, the slightly longer your lifespan is, and you gain a slight boost in Defense and Offense, but also the slightly longer your maturation rate is, the slightly lower your reproductive rate, and the more sustenance you need. The smaller you are, the slightly quicker you reproduce, slightly quicker your maturation rate, less sustenance you need, and slightly boosted your Mobility is, but in turn your lifespan is slightly shorter, [NEED 2x DETRIMENTS FOR BEING SHORT] (preferably not statistic penalties)
Population Cohesion is the final part of the population mechanics, and while fairly easy to understand it is critical to every aspect of a civilization. Population cohesion measures the amount of integration in your civilizations, in a way. While it interacts with morale mechanics (need to specify said mechanics and how this interacts), the main point of population cohesion is to get a civilization sheet that is an average of all your citizens. What this means is that population cohesion takes into account how many races your civilization is made up of, what their needs are, etc, and consolidates it.
This is most evident in statistics. Say that your race is 50% Brutes, a race with +50% Offense, and 50% Elves, with +0% Offense. That means, as a whole, your civilization would have +25% to Offense.
Now, with all this talk of population, one might wonder why population is important at all. Obviously, if you run out of population your civilization dies out, but what reason is there to increase population besides as a buffer between yourself and death?
Despite that fairly good reason, there are in fact benefits to increasing your population. One major one, actually, which is votes. Votes are your actions for a round, and each civilization starts with two. However, there are ways to increase your number of votes. While the main method is through Discoveries and Acheivements, another method is through population amounts. Each civilization starts with 100 members, and as that grows, so too does the number of actions you can perform. 1 extra vote at 1000 population. Another at 10,000. Another at 100,000, etc. This encourages your civilizations to maintain steady population growth through actual, tangible benefits, not just fear of the consequences of the alternative.
Notes: Is population maturity a mechanic that makes things more complicated than they need to be? Iโm not sure.
What should the disadvantages of Larger Size vs Smaller Size be? Canโt just be large equal low reproduction rate and maturity rate but high lifespan, not only does that put Large at a disadvantage but things like trees exist.
Maybe a system of choices? Four choices, that is. For example, a race that is a tree. In order to behave like an actual tree, they choose high reproduction and high lifespan. However, that results in them needing high sustenance upkeep and having a high threshold for population maturity.
Problem is that doesnโt always work, and I really need a fourth option that isnโt sustenance. Ways it wouldnโt work, for example, would be a long maturation time short lifespan. Technically it could work, and I could see someone maybe creating an interesting race with it, but largely it doesnโt really work.
For poor environmental suitability, exactly how much more likely should population loss be? Is the decrease in stats already enough to encourage this, or is more needed?
Should having available area provide more serious buffs? Iโm thinking Westward Expansion type stuff but that might fall more under exploration
Size is also another issue. Iโm not entirely sure how to balance it best while also providing the maximum amount of variance. (Note 2: I wrote the size category after I made this note, made an attempt but still not confident, especially because of the lacking disadvantages for being short)
Need to clarify the affects of Population Cobesion on non-statistics, as well as determine if groups can be created for certain tasks with different cohesion than your overall civilization
Finally, Iโm concerned about the vote thresholds. I donโt want to make it extremely difficult to get more, and I feel the current system does that at any point past 10,000 population. Thoughts? Do the intervals need to be shorter, or is it good as-is?
Sustenance
Diplomacy
Territory and Terrain
Exploration
Innovations
Organisms, Materials, and Resources
Discoveries and Acheivements
Edit 1: Stats description is now up. Feedback appreciated!
Edit 2: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Description section now up
Edit 3: Population rules up
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Maybe it could be a boost or reduction to all stats, which is partially determined by a random roll, partially being determined the stat itself in order to temper the randomness?
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Thatโs a possibility. Not sure I love that though.
Though, what do you mean by partially determined on the stat itself?
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Lets say someone has 10 Luck, but then gets a random roll of 1. For this case, let us say it is 2/3rd determined by the luck stat and 1/3 by random roll. Since the Luck stat is so high, the modified ends up being 7 (from 6.66 + 0.33). Since this is above 5, the character gets an increase of all stats by (7 - 5) = 2 for that particular event, as getting a 5 means no increase or decrease in stats. I hope I explained it properly.
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Huh, okay.
Donโt think I like that system, but it is interesting, Iโll give it that. If anything, Iโll likely let Luck be a flat boost to your roll by x amount per round, based on that rounds luck roll
Though you did remind me, I should mention that rolls are on a d20 scale somewhere in the rules
Edit: though I donโt think Iโll make it possible to have more than say, +5 luck boost. May use the DND ability score system specifically for the luck boost scale
Edit 2: Section 2 is now up, feedback appreciated!
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If a player has 0 in a stat does that mean they are incapable of doing what that stat describes/allows/enables?
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No, it means they get no bonus to that roll.
Except for luck, if I use the dnd scale that would be a -5 for the applicable rolls
Hmmmm
It does feel like there should be a negative for going so low though, not sure. I feel like I might have originally built this system for a roll scale of D100? I canโt remember though, that seems awfully large compared to the bonuses given
But atm it is fairly easy to build a race that always gets 20s in one stat, which definitely isnt intended
Though that could cause serious issues for them in all other aspects of the game
Might do a -5 to +5 system? Donโt like that tho
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Wasnโt the + - thing the way stats were handled in โTR1โ?
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Oh gosh, uhhhhhhh
No, it seems like TR ran on a system of a 10 boosting your rolls by 50%, with 10% boosts from advantages
โฆthat seems like a much weirder system than I remember, one sec, let me double check that again
Edit: No, was entirely a percentage system yeah. Actually looks kind of cool, and might help me fix balance issues I was having. This system would put a lot less stress on advantages though, but theyโd still be important
Edit 2: also seems like it could get very complicated very fast
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Will you share the population system next?
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Probably! Might take a bit though, Iโm a bit busier today, and population is a huge mechanic
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Also is TR2 just an internal name to refer to the โrebootโ of TR or will the FG eventually actually be named that?
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Likely the actual name? Or like โTwilight Realm v2โ or something
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So it would be in a separate thread to the OG?
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Completely separate thread, yeah
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Iโll be looking forward to seeing that topic created one day then.
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In the forum game help discord server you wrote that luck was determined by a d20 separate than the voteโs roll, and that it affected the outcome of the vote outside of success or failure.
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It could be twilight changed the way it works since they did say the discord stuff a while ago now
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Oh, forgot about the discord server
That makes sense though, and a combination of that and DND is likely where I got the d20 from vs the d100 Iโll likely use
The more I think about it, the more I like the percentage based system I used before, if needing some modifications, so that is likely what I will use. I do like the idea of a luck mechanic, but I also want to reward exceptionally high rolls
I also need a definitive way to determine DC, as Iโve always sucked at that. Hmmmmm
Anyway, I will be working on uploading the next parts of the rules, but Iโve been really out of it the last couple days. Will edit this message/post a new one when I have updated it
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