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Hey there,
So how would you go about boiling down ICON to it's simplest form? It is a rather hefty system, a bit laborious with its excessive skill lists, etc...
How could it be boiled down to the essentials to make for a leaner, meaner and faster system?
Thoughts?
In terms of complexity of their mechanical resolutions (I'm looking at you, combat), or just in complexity of character sheets?
I would say both :)Quote:
Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King
I'd start with...
STATS
How many do you want? Keep reactions? Use a solid list of reactions or have players write their own?
SKILLS
How many would you like per character? Would there be common default skills? Would there be a skill list or do players write their own? Do specialties work as normal in the rules, or do they just add a regular bonus like CODA or nWoD?
What would YOU do? That's what I am asking :)
Definitely streamline skills and simplify combat, I'd be looking at all the various Trek RPG's and see what to borrow from any others (CODA, really like Starships simpler like that without the power allocation of FASA & LUG, works fine for a tactical wargame but does tend to slow down RPG) ... comparing FASA, CODA & LUG skills and trying to simplify with more of a base skill for things without specialties. I loved the character gen of FASA and the skill allocation by department path chosen ... just didn't care for the basic system and, again, the starship tactical simulator for RPGing.
HATE the basic roles of CODA char gen and it's pseudo D20 classes, prestige classes and feats ... that's again over-complicating things ... "Oh by the by, you'll need 17 core and sourcebooks to have all 90 classes and 500 feats to chose from" ... no thanks.
Just a couple ideas off the top of the head without really looking deep.
LUG's basic system has some great qualities too, I like that they try to keep all the templates and overlay's balanced with each other within the fleet/civilian context so that char gen doesn't create any super powerful characters over lesser when setting out to create the same sort of character with the same DP.
Shouldn't be too hard to streamline things, if skills all had a base number (Astronomy 2, astrophysics 3) and not a Space Sciences 2 (astrophysics) (3) it would probably require a re-thinking of just how many DP's go into character generation ... something more like FASA I wouldn't mind at all, just in a 1-10 scale versus percentile (can cap skills at 5-6 for beginning characters). Everyone going to the Academy gets x skills and then your branch gives you y and there's your 4 years in and you're a new ensign ... department head, command and such as separate courses later with prerequisites makes sense then.
I once re-did the whole starting skills for starfleet characters like this but it was still for the regular skill system ... kinda like the Way of D'era has it ... seemed okay, had to use 0 (1) idea or it'd be impossible to keep all the overlays the same DP-wise.
I'd probably have a consistent set of attributes, with write-your-own sub-attributes (which it took me this long to remember are 'edges' heh) and skills (a la Unknown Armies or Risus. Advancement would be through gaining levels specialties in particular uses of skills.