VI·VIII·X KUP RPG

Welcome to the last deep dive I planned (actually there are some other topics to cover... let's see if this is really the last one...). This is dedicated to the State of Mind. This is a feature that traditional RPGs have not taken in consideration. I have always played with FRPG (with one exception: a campaign of RIFT) but I've been told about the concept of sanity in Call of Cthulhu. This might be considered as an equivalent concept translated to traditional FRPGs. Before any further description, some thoughts that led me to add SoM in my game: Characters are never subject to a peculiar moment, with their fixed stats they are always "steady" and seems they have never met moments down (or up!)... or better, while a good role-player can act in order to show this through his character's behavior, there is no rule which includes it. Whenever there is an interaction with other characters, it is clear that the gap in the previous point is showing a hole in the overall ...

New post on the core rules "deep dive": this time I will focus on the progression of the characters. In order to make it compatible with traditional RPGs, this is in other words the game mechanics about the experience.  As a foreword, I have to admit that I have never been satisfied of the various solutions that were proposed in the several editions of the first and most famous RPG. The XP system had always some drawback or gaps. Nothing extremely important but any of them led me to do some amendments with a homebrew system which was basically closer to the approach of the tournament adventures than the one in the rulebook. Now, given the fact that even with my homebrew solution I was not fully satisfied, I came to the conclusion that there was something to change at a deeper level... and at the same time I felt very important to keep and stress out the improvement of a character in case he uses in the correct way his skills. This brought me to build a 2-way progression syste...

Yesterday I found in the mailbox the first items ever printed for the VI·VIII·X game! They are the PC Notebook and the GM notebook. In a previous post I wrote about them: they are conceived instead of the flying sheets of paper that usually both players and master have around the table. These are namely notebook where everyone playing at VI·VIII·X KUP RPG has and where it is supposedly room for any note. Here we go... front and back of the booklets: First and last page of the PC Notebook: ...and first and last page of the GM Notebook: As I have already written the artworks on the cover are based on a teal color range just to point out that these are the "Playtest edition"... if hopefully I will ever be able to publish a final version of the game, I will use the original colors of these wonderful pieces of art! I am really satisfied with the outcome (I only need to fix the page count, but this is a detail!). 

Fourth post with an insight on the VI·VIII·X core rules: this time I will focus on the background. Let me have a foreword before.  I am not sure if my experience in traditional RPGs is a common case or not but I always found myself (as well as any other player in the party I had) to build up a character from the stats. This means that I never though beforehand to who was the character; first it used to come how this was and afterwards I started building his history. This is regardless of the GM: that way was accepted by almost all the GMs I met in my life. The odd part of this thought is that the background used to be created according to the needs... I mean: if my character's parents were not an useful detail in the campaign (doesn't matter the reason), then my character had a huge "?" on this piece of info... I could have been the son of either the ruler of that land or of a slave and this was not necessary and known. Then, when I ran into a situation where I needed...

Let's go through this peculiar aspect of the VI·VIII·X core rules. Time is a very "traditional" concept, it is turn-based, so any RPGer will find himself comfortable with it. What it is not "traditional" is that any effect occurring in a turn will take place at the end it only. Conventionally, every action/event/situation which provokes an effect has to be considered simultaneosly at the end of the turn. This seems odd but given the fact that the sequence and other game mechanics are developed in a certain way, this is the most rationale solution. Realistically this could also have an explanation: if a PC suffers a mortal hit in a turn, is it really possible that in the last seconds of his life (i.e. the time till the end of the turn) is not able to try a last blow or action? This question may raise some concerns or, even worse, a lot of criticms... therefore I will simply state that, even if this is not the best solution, I adopted for several reasons, some of ...