Exilian

Game Design and Project Resources: The Workshops Quarter => Tabletop Design - The Senet House => Norbayne => Topic started by: Phoenixguard09 on December 07, 2016, 06:30:19 AM

Title: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on December 07, 2016, 06:30:19 AM
Hey guys,

Reading through the Norbayne stuff here on Exilian, it occurred to me how little there really is.

I am going to, hopefully, give some updates on how the project is looking here in this thread.

OVERALL RULESET:
- I am meeting with Duke Dev right now to discuss the finalised beta ruleset. We've seen some pretty big changes since the very beginning of the Three Coins playtesting. An extensive changelog will be available shortly.

ARTWORK:
We've hit a snag here. Mainly because we've not got a dedicated illustrator. We've got some which Lady Darkmoon has been kind enough to do, and I have tried to do some work of my own, but I'm just not very good.

PLAYTESTING:
We are currently over 20 sessions into the Three Coins campaign, along with 3 sessions of Whispers and a good few solo games too. The playtesting has gone very well, and detailed narrative reports are available predominantly on Giant in the Playground, but will also be available in their entirety right here on Exilian when I get around to it.

WORLDBUILDING:
The world of Norbaybe is very much fleshed out. The cultures of the world are distinct and unique, with several contributors helping with this. Special note should be given to Duke Dev for his help with the Invarrian and Bruin cultures, Ladyhawk for her help with the Danann and Dunscarth cultures and Lady Darkmoon for her work on the Leathe.

I will add some links and other bits and pieces to this post/thread soon. I just wanted to get some things down now.

Cheers, 
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Clockwork on December 07, 2016, 12:36:25 PM
Hell yeeh!
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on December 07, 2016, 01:17:48 PM
We are hoping to have the ruleset complete by February next year.

Once complete we will launch the Kickstarter and will hopefully be able to get books printed. By that stage the 3 Coins group should have finished and we will be printing the collected stories, along with commentary and artwork and using them as incentives.

In addition to all this, I and probably Ladyhawk will be heading to the UK, where we will, all things going to plan, host a stall and probably run a game at ExiliCon. I've already started writing the session plan for it.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Jubal on December 09, 2016, 11:59:16 PM
Excitement! :) If I can be of help on eg KS planning, let me know, I've looked at a lot of them and I've got lots of contacts who've done successful ones who might be useful brains to pick.

I hope we can do a con this year, but it's a bit hard to tell at the moment. This year's was a bit flat and I'm worried that we'd struggle to get the stallholders back again - and then there's this big open question of "where am I even going to be" - it's looking increasingly likely that a PhD might take me abroad if I can get funding for it...
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on December 10, 2016, 12:45:58 AM
I would definitely appreciate the help and advice regarding Kickstarte mate, thank you.

As for ExiliCon, we'll just have to wait and see. But hopefully we can make it happen. ;)
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Clockwork on December 10, 2016, 12:56:57 AM
Don't think I need to say it but just in case, anything you want: give me a shout.




NPC names, fictitious metals, socio-economical climates that aren't overplayed, critical eye at whatever you think isn't good or is too good to be true.


*All advice to be taken with the understanding that I know next to nothing but I seem to have a knack for random armadillo.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on December 10, 2016, 01:38:32 AM
Haha cheers mate.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on December 10, 2016, 08:45:53 AM
Currently we are pretty happy with the broad strokes of the system. The way skill checks are resolved, combat, magic, all of that is at a point that we are happy with. The specifics of certain spells, items and abilities is what we need to get right now, along with ensuring we have a wide variety of each.

As I said in the first post, an extensive changelog and overview of the system should be coming soon.

In other news, we're doing Session 6.2 tomorrow, and I haven't even finished 5.4... I am also working until midnight tonight, so I am resigned to the fact that we are not getting either 5.4 or 6.1 up before we play. :P
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on January 13, 2017, 01:49:02 AM
So far things are progressing, but sadly a little behind schedule. I've been a fair bit busier than I thought I would.

OVERALL SYSTEM:
- The last month or so has seen a few changes here, the most important being two new classes, the first time we've had additions to the class list since 2012.

- We have considered cutting away some of the races too, joining the Dwergar and Geardarr, and perhaps the Selkye, Roanfaille and Midlanders. There has also been talk of cutting the Danann as a playable race, but I'm not a fan of this. My personal thinking though is that the races will remain as they are, but work will need to be done on the 'sub-races' such as the Woodsmen, Hillmenn and Enclave Feartarbh. The 'sub-races' are essentially the characters' cultural background.

- Magic. I've put together a proposal for the group. At the moment, Soulfire for Arcane casters is two things. Firstly, it provides significant limitations at lower levels, and secondly, while it ceases to be much of a limitation at higher levels, it does require a lot of annoying book-keeping.

Playing as a Mage, Ladyhawk has expressed her disappointment that sometimes she is forced by the game to  not use a magical action. Additionally to this, she has destroyed at least two character sheets with erasing trying to keep track of her Soulfire.

To combat this, my proposal is to cut down both the amount of Soulfire the caster has, and to markedly reduce the required Soulfire to cast spells. It hasn't been tested yet, but I do intend to quite rigorously.

- Still need to really nail down the effects of weapons and other pieces of equipment. For that matter, the encumbrance system needs to be nailed down too.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on January 16, 2017, 09:49:29 AM
After an awful lot of thought, the Geardarr have been dropped as a full playable race, and are now a sub-type of the Dwergar. As both races shared the same stat-line, there was not much point in splitting the two into full races.

This does leave us with a slot open for a race, which is currently looking like being something to populate some islands.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Clockwork on January 16, 2017, 11:04:36 AM
:O


Humanoids only?


Clay Golems created before the Bovus Empire fell, shunned by the victors they fled to a distant part of Norbayne. After all this time finally they are ready to re-enter the mainland.


Creepy painted faces to try and assimilate better
By simply creating more of themselves they have an odd way of looking at population control. There are always the same amount of golems on x piece of land they own.
Kind of fragile in the sense that they don't heal but can repair lost limbs with materials
Can't do magic
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Jubal on January 16, 2017, 11:24:38 AM
I am in favour of Golems :)
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on January 16, 2017, 11:37:33 AM
We do have golems of a sort, but for now at least, they're aren't playable. Maybe in the future though.

At the moment, we are looking at some kind of faun analogue with a very interesting culture, if it goes ahead.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Clockwork on January 16, 2017, 01:09:50 PM
Goat headed santa worshippers? Nice.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Pentagathus on January 16, 2017, 01:36:40 PM
Did you mean Satan there clock?
Goats are cool though. Goatman vs cowman would be super cool cool.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: comrade_general on January 16, 2017, 01:54:56 PM
Satan = santa. Same letters, same guy.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on January 16, 2017, 02:38:11 PM
Pretty sure I saw an episode of House where Hugh Laurie said much the same thing. :P

The Jeleni will be the Island Peoples, hailing from the island chain the people of Norbayne call the Westrand, part of the archipelago where the Great Maw campaign takes place. They are great travellers and have spread quite a way from their ancestral homelands, with communities to be found along the west coasts of Norbayne and Sothbayne, though not Unterguardt as it is too cold for their liking. There may even be some in Lemaria.

In appearance they are slightly built, covered in thin, bristly fur, ranging between about 5' and 5'8" in height. They have small bony horns, a far cry from the massive crowns the Feartarbh bear. Their faces are not exactly goat-like but not human either. Going to need portrait illustrations for each race I think.

Their hearing is exceptional, but their other senses are only average. They are very fast, and quite agile, even acrobatic in combat. They are however, not particularly strong.

Dev and I had a very long chat today, trying to come up with something. We tossed a few ideas around, including bringing back the race which eventually became the Leathe.

The 'Jackals' were an idea regarding a smaller race of anthropomorphic canines, the goblin to the Invarrian's orc if you will. Second-class thralls of the Invarrians.

We looked at a winged race, but turned that down due to the six-limbed vertebrate thing. On the other hand, the Mountain Clans of the Leathe picked up something quite interesting. Mountain Leathe are now not so much possums as they are sugar-gliders...

We also considered a relative of the Bruin, basically polar bear-men. Gameplay wise though they would probably be a bit too similar to the Northmenn or the Feartarbh.

We also considered making both the Wrothdar and the Toraa playable races, but turned both down, for separate reasons.

In the end we went with the Jeleni, in part because I really like satyrs and always wanted a satyr analogue, and partly because it was the best we could come up with, especially considering the part of the world we wanted to try and fill.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Pentagathus on January 16, 2017, 06:24:09 PM
I saw a video of a cow (or it might have been a bull, can't remember) charging at a goat, they clashed heads and the goat dropped the bovine. Will these goat people be this badass?
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Clockwork on January 16, 2017, 08:57:29 PM
That was it exactly :P

Is this the sort of thing you're imagining?
(https://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/thumb/2/27/Orlan.jpg/300px-Orlan.jpg?version=f73771db74304c7c7da0271860391e69)
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on January 16, 2017, 11:10:33 PM
They will be quite badass yes. ;)

Pretty close Clockwork, but perhaps finer features.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I am quite liking the shape of the face on this carving. The Jeleni do have some deer-like qualities as well.

Hope that picture works. It was hard to try to do on my phone.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on February 07, 2017, 04:05:34 PM
Hey there,

A lot of progress has been made over the last few weeks. We've seen no small amount of work go into the background of the setting, with plenty more on the way too.

In addition to this, changes to the class system have been considered quite heavily.

For quite some time we had 14 classes, with a 'hidden' Swordmage class which I had worked on for a bit and then dropped as a concept. Sins found that work and really put a lot of time into it, building it up to the unique class we have now, which has seen a couple of name changes, but is currently found under the label Binder.

This continued for a while, but eventually the odd number of classes got on my nerves enough that I added the Alchemist, which currently has an interesting and unique play-style too, pushing us up to 16 classes.

I then put together a collection of specialisations, instigated by the multiple archetypes covered by the Warrior's Major Talent list, which allowed a player to pick one thing a class was good at and ramp up its efficiency in that area, in the process reducing that character's effectiveness in all others.

Unfortunately, Sins has found himself distressed by the 16 classes, much as I was with 15, as he likes things to be divisible by 5. Some conversation was had, in which the base class list has pillaged a few of the specialisations which may have enough material to warrant a full class, leaving us with 20/21 full classes, which I am not entirely happy with at the moment.

My concern is mainly that of those 4/5 only 1 or 2 (the Berserker and maybe the Enchanter) have enough material to warrant a full class.

I've also looked into dropping the number of classes to 10, reducing 6 of our current classes to specialisations themselves, but ideally I don't want to do that. I think at the moment I am leaning towards the 16 we have currently being the classes available in the base game, or perhaps even just the original 14, with the Alchemist, Swordmage/Binder/Warden, perhaps Berserker and whatever else can be thought up added in an expansion or something.

I am, ultimately, not sure. :P
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Jubal on February 07, 2017, 10:26:43 PM
Hm. I can't comment sensibly as I don't know how many other bits to character creation there are. I'd generally suggest decrease your complexity rather than increase as a rule of thumb, especially for core rules; you can always add other stuff in at some future point.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on February 08, 2017, 12:12:04 AM
With character creation, you essentially pick a race, pick a class, roll your stats, apply your class-based modifiers and spend your initial Advance Pts on stats, talents and skills. Sort out your spells if you're a caster and your starting equipment and then you're done.

So character creation at the moment is pretty simple, by the standards of many games anyway. You choose from 12 races, apply a sub-race if applicable, and choose from, at the moment 16 classes, which I don't think is too intimidating. I am concerned however that 20 classes could be.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on February 08, 2017, 12:15:43 AM
I agree with decreasing complexity rather than increasing. It is always a good rule to follow in this regard.

The question though, is 16 classes too many? Or is it too few? At the moment I think I am leaning towards it being too many...
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Jubal on February 08, 2017, 12:19:01 AM
I'd say 16 is about right, but if you're going to go in a direction, go downwards - 20 I think is too many.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on February 08, 2017, 01:13:57 AM
I agree. 20 is too many, for the base game at least.
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on April 11, 2017, 04:47:39 PM
As it is now April, obviously things have fallen behind a bit with regards to progress on the Norbayne project. :P

Nevertheless, Dev, Ladyhawk and I have been able to implement a few changes over the last few months, a couple of which we are quite excited about.

CHANGES:
- Classes: We're going with a base of 12 classes for the initial release, with further classes and the specialisations to be added with further releases.

- Casting: Soulfire is now a precious resource, used to fuel your powerful spells. Anything requiring only a single d10 to cast no longer uses Soulfire, but every d10 beyond the first drains a point. It was tested extensively, with spell casting values and costs rebalanced. Ladyhawk was hesitant about the change at first, but both she and Dev found the changes easy to understand immediately, and the result of their confrontation in the Arena Test Combat was in my opinion, directly due to Ladyhawk's superior management of her caster's abilities and resources.

- Spells: We've seen a heap of new spells implemented, with some Talents as well. Not quite at a full list yet, but we are getting there. This is the bit we need. Once we have a satisfactory number of spells/talents/abilities/maneuvers/etcetera, we can work on release.

THREE COINS
- We have had an approximately two month hiatus, in which I have achieved practically nothing with regards to writing up the immense backlog of sessions I have on my hard drive. I believe a full 2 sessions of 3 Coins, along with probably 4 sessions of Great Maw and at least 1 Whispers game still need to be finished. We intend to play again on the weekend after Easter, so I should start to churn out some material soon. Unfortunately, Ladyhawk's faithful computer has finally given up the ghost and I was therefore unable to do any writing over there in the last month or so.

PLANS:
- We really are close to release. We've had some small pieces of art done, not much, but something. We've also got some plans in place regarding promotional material and pledge incentives which is nice.

Honestly, it just needs to be compiled, with completed Spell Spheres and Talent lists and we are good to go.

Cheers,
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on November 28, 2019, 07:51:09 AM
It is amazing looking at this now and seeing just how much has happened in the last two and a half years. Now, with a vastly different occupation, I've had to drastically push back our planned release date.

On the other hand, we've probably never been so close to release, as evidenced by the sheer amount of content available on the Character Creation thread right here on Exilian, which has almost everything you need to create a basic character to play a game.

We've also, thanks to LaPD, got our very own fantastic Instagram page, replete with photographs and artwork. Please head over there, follow the page, check it all out.
https://www.instagram.com/the_norbayne_campaign/

Finally, after seven long years, Three Coins is finally finished. I'm trying to get that last write-up done and posted, but I still have about an hour of recording to go, which means I'll need to work on it for about twelve months yet. :P

With Three Coins finished, we've moved on to our newest game, Seven Stones and a Pale Shadow, which uses the newest iteration of the ruleset. We've played a few warm-up prologue sessions so far, but the first real session happens in exactly two days time. I'm quite excited. Eight players, and probably the most ambitious collection of characters yet.

Anyway, that's it for now. Keep your eyes peeled for updates and feel free to head on over to the Character Creation thread to try your hand at making a character.

Cheers,
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Jubal on November 28, 2019, 01:57:26 PM
Nice work! Good to hear about progress, and much empathy with having to push back release dates - honestly I just almost never set release dates for anything any more...!
Title: Re: How Norbayne Currently Stands
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on November 29, 2019, 03:29:14 AM
As a rule, I don't either. I've never been too good at actually finishing projects, so deadlines just tend to lead to disappointment.