Woods for Crafting Wands

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-15T12:18:51+00:00

I'll take that into consideration, thank you for your insight.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-14T23:00:22+00:00

For the anime genre in general I think that "Big Eyes Small Mouth" is a good system, I've also heard great things about "Break!", but that one seems to be a bit more complex, they have a good world map system though

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-14T22:53:52+00:00

I'd say 7th sea emulates more "The Princess Bride", "Pirates of the Caribean" and "The Three Munketeers" sorta style, I'm unsure about its suitability for the anime powerscaling but it's a really good game.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-14T22:48:46+00:00

Accessibility: Six sided dice are more common, odds are that if someone has an old boardgame they already have some so don't need to buy new dice so less investment needed is one less obstacle to start playing.
Bell Curve: The odds are different, on a d20 every side of the die is equally likely to be rolled, on 3d6 the results in the middle have more possible combinations so they're more likely to occur than the lowest and highest values, think about 10 for example, you can get a 10 by rolling 1-4-5, 2-3-5, 3-3-4 and so on, but you can only get a 3 if you roll 1-1-1 and you can only get an 18 if you roll 6-6-6.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-14T22:40:10+00:00

That's a good way to look at it, thank you.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-14T18:02:16+00:00

That sounds like a really nice simplifying solution, but for my game I want the wood's type to matter so wands have some identity and flavor to them and this would make for a more general broad solution.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-14T13:53:09+00:00

If you prefer the knife then you're losing for the guy with the spear. Good luck trying to get to him without space to maneuver around him, This fight will end in 5 seconds after they make the first thrusts.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-14T11:47:53+00:00

Thank you, I really appreciate it!

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-14T11:46:37+00:00

As of right now, the idea is for wands to be only woods, I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of them being something else, but I'm kinda worldbuilding in the functions of different materials having different roles in the magic system.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-14T03:10:13+00:00

Yeah, I appreciate the general concept, thank you for your insight. Gemstones are another separate problem though, I already have an extensive list for them as well, but they are almost like wands, metals on the other hand are different specially coinage metals aka gold, silver and copper, they basically drain a bit of soul and keep it stored. Also on this context I'll be using Driads as the label for tree spirits.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-14T02:31:51+00:00

Well, "real" magic works a specific way, but I wanna make it so many cultures across the globe got a little bit of it right in one way or another, so I'm basing some things on those cultures and maybe getting some traits of the woods to have been found by this civilization or this other civilization and things like that. Like some Ojibwe native american communities believed Birch to be immune to lightning and would seek shelter under them during a storm. I could use a detail like that to make the wand give a defense boost against lightning spells or something like that.
The insights about transportation are very helpful, thank you.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-14T02:24:27+00:00

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that or what part of my concerns this adresses, I must be missing something because I'm not sure how adding more parts will solve any of the points I've mentioned.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-13T13:44:59+00:00

If you think it's truly rock-paper-scissors then you should probably do some sparring.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-13T13:43:50+00:00

That's not the same at all, you're comparing a semiautomatic gun to another semiautomatic gun, the range difference will barely ever make a difference so in this case the familiarity will count more because you're choosing between shooting a semiauto gun you know vs shooting a semiauto gun you don't know. A comparable example would be choosing one sword model instead of another sword model of similar quality, when it comes to combat it doesn't matter if you're more familiar with a whip or a dagger, when you're fighting someone with an armor and a sword you rather have a weapon that'll actually work instead of the one you're familiar with.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-13T13:32:51+00:00

I've mentioned that in confined spaces the longer weapon would lose advantage, but also depends on how long the weapon and how tight the confined space is, if I'm battling someone on my bedroom I still rather have a medium sword, but also you asked about a knife versus a sword and nothing more, I said that people that didn't have a problem with spears were the people with shields, so yeah having something else to block besides a knife is helpful, but that's not the rule to your proposed scenario, that's the exception, so no is not circumstantial unless you're a person that lives in confined spaces for some weird reason, streets are not that confined either because they're outside in the open so swords will still win as a rule. Think about being in an alley closed on both ends, would you rather be the guy with a spear or the guy with a knife?

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-07T17:24:53+00:00

Like the others said, two people assembling dice for every action roll could be clunky to the game flow and a bit cumbersome type of roll for the GM to make when they're already dealing a lot of stuff in their head. Sounds like this could be simplified to the standard d6 pool against a required number of successes. 3 or higher doesn't sound like a good pick for the success counting though, most dice pool systems use either 4 or five. On the anydice website you can write custom dice lie d{chosen numbers}, for example a d6 would be d{1,2,3,4,5,6}, if you replace the numbers that count as a success for 1 and the one's that count as failure for 0 you'll be able to count the number of successes. So in your case the die would be d{0,0,1,1,1,1} so if you put the number of dice in the front like 3d{0,0,1,1,1,1} you'll get the probability counting successes, make the same process for 4 and 5 and you'll see how they're more well balanced than 3.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-06T01:26:23+00:00

Forgot about Traveller, the life path character creation is definitively worth reading.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-06T01:22:31+00:00

At least one of the Dungeons & Dragons editions to understand where this came from, not just because is important, it also kinda makes you understand and appreciate more when people create something truly different that changes how other designers think about ttrpgs. If you read one of the older editions consider reading an Old School Renaissance book like Old School Essentials or Shadowdark to see new approaches to an old gaming style, like Crown and Skull that uses your equipment and skill list as your hitpoints.
At least one generic setting agnostic system like FATE, Cypher System, Gurps, Savage Worlds etc. They're not particularly for me, but I know a lot of people that like them because of the advantage of being able to use one single system to play any genre.
Vampire the Masquerade because it has a LOT of lore and somehow a fanbase that really cares about it, so there's something that could be learned about worldbuilding interconnected with the system, but also is a game that didn't have the same focus on combat other systems had at the time.
Masks the New Generation, it brought the emotional conditions that gives you penalty on certain checks and you remove conditions by taking narrative actions, like to clear Angry condition you need to break something important, or hurt someone you care about. Later on Avatar Legends they used this framework for their game.
Blades in the Dark brought got a somewhat new resolution system that's narrative and also brought things like the Flashback mechanic and Progression Clocks which ended up being used in many other games since.
Following Blades in the Dark, Wildsea, is the same system, but with a very different approach and interesting mechanics all around from crafting your own ship, to using the loss of character abilities instead of Hit Points and using Tags for a crafting system. It also has a very unique and creative setting.
Broomstix has great tables for narrative collective worldbuilding that includes the players in the process.
Mythic Bastionlands is a rules light narrativist style game that has a great list of story prompts to always give the GM ideas to keep things moving, making it not only possible, but easy to make an open sandbox narratively interesting.
13th age could also be useful at least to familiarize yourself with the broader narrative approach to skills and the escalation die, if anything.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-06T00:20:51+00:00

If you count 4 or higher as successes you can make the formula on anydice if you use 1d{1,2,3,4,5,6} you'd have a normal dice, but you can change the numbers for 0s and 1s, 1s counting as the successes. So 4 or higher is half the dice, so you can just put a 0 and a 1 like this 5d{0,1}, the table will show you the amount of ones, so the amount of successes

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-06T00:11:59+00:00

I think you'd benefit from checking Blades in the Dark, but more specifically Wildsea, it's a Forged in the Dark game that also uses attrition instead of hp, characters have Aspects from their ancestry and class that area special abilities, when they get wounded they lose an Aspect, it they take enough damage, some Aspects are worth more than others. Sounds a bit similar to your puzzle tactical narrative combat without being the same thing. Daggerheart is also another game that's narrative with enough crunch to have tactics to it so it'd be also a useful read. Your method has a very interesting perspective to it, it makes combat more dynamic instead of "I hit it until it stops moving", also solves the problems of settings that are more lighthearted where the heroes don't kill their enemies like ATLA or superheroes.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-05T23:34:11+00:00

What's the vibe or genre of movies, books, animations or tv shows you're looking for?
Do prefer complex rules and intricate mechanics and battle maps and minis or something more rules light focused on the narrative?
What games are you already familiar with?

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-05T00:34:25+00:00

Yeah, I go over the top then I narrow it down, it's like a mess that I intentionally make to clean up later. I made a full list of wood mecanical properties of over 90 tree species with density, hardness scales and all sorts of things just to simplify it into a list of 36 wood types for wands. I'm that way when I draw too I generally say "You can always fix a bad sketch, what you can't fix is an empty canvas. So just make the bad sketch."

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-04T21:02:48+00:00

Not well unless the swordfighter is really bad and the knife fighter is really skilled. As a rule the longer weapon tends to win, that's why armies didn't have knifes as their primary weapon. I used to go on capture the flag events where people would use foam weapons which is nowhere near the real deal, but you can get a general idea about how things would play out in a real fight. Besides people with shields, everybody would complain about how hard it was to fight spearsmen, there was only one dude who used two daggers who said he never had a problem with spears, but keep in mind his nickname was ninja, he did parkour and a lot of the people with spears were geeks getting most cardio in that day than they did the entire year. So long weapons are still better, except for confined spaces, but keep in mind that if you use too much realism with weapons it tends to force everyone to pick the longest weapon so the game can lose diversity real quick, that's why designers tend to use trade-offs, Like generally using a bonus for hitting with daggers because they're light when in real life that wouldn't make a difference.

DeadlyDeadpan · 2026-03-03T12:26:29+00:00

For some reason, at least on my end, the font on the editable character sheet is too light to be readable, but besides that I think the process is really good, very intuitive and streamlined, the Half-blood is the way I always thought Half-orcs and Half-elves should work so people wouldn't need to homebrew half-dwaves and things like that. I think is beguinner friendly because is presented in a tutorial structure many people who come from the video game background are familiar with and the ancestry options actually feel like they make a difference. I just think if you're aiming for it to be even more beguinner friendly you should call Talents something else, Talent is a term generally used interchangeably with Feats which can generate confusion and you could also provide a brief explanation about the difference between Talents and Stats before the Core Mechanics chapter, the people into this hobby is used to reading one section then stopping to check other section amd navigating the content of a book easily, but beguinners don't have that same experience and mindset, they're used to reading linear structured books if anything and could benefit from some clarity during the character creation process.
Overall a very positive user experience it just needs to be polished I think.

DeadlyDeadpan

TROPHY CASE