Extra Ideas

Hi, everyone.

Yes, I'm still translating what I think it's interesting about the system. Besides the natural difficulties in dealing with a no-native language, real life has weighted me. But I'll try to explain here in few lines at least the basic mechanics I've thought so far and other ideas that I had, but not yet implemented.

Basic Mechanics

So, basically, every Player Character is mainly composed by five main attributes (some NPCs are excpetions to this rule. Mainly the typical goons and minions, that generally have just one Element, and leave combat after taking the first blow), one for each Taoist Element (Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, and Metal). When testing for an action, you roll a number of d6's equal to the level on the equivalent Element + bonus. This "equivalent Element" depends basically of "how you are trying to do the action", in a Taoist point of view, but also what deals with that kind of action (yes, we have a table for that). So, try to intimidate someone is Fire, but to easy someone's anger is Water.

Now, you compare the number of each d6 and its equivalent Element (again, we have a table for that, but ideally, we would have customized d6's with each Element on the face, plus another symbol for "Harmony". More about Harmony ahead). Each time your chosen Element shows up, you count a Hit, if you got Hits at least equal to the [defined by GM to that action] difficulty, congratulations! Your action was a sucess. Also, each time the Element generated by your chosen Element shows up (Water generates Wood, that generates Fire, that generates Earth, that generates Metal, that generates Water. Seems complicated, but a diagram makes it much more easier), you got an Opportunity. These can still help you, depeding of the situation, but in general, don't help to afford a success. And, if you got a Harmony, you got two Hits. Finally, you can choose at any roll trade two Opportunities for one Hit and vice-and-versa.

Opportunities, as previously said, don't contribute directly for a successful action, but they can, for instance, confer special maneuvers in combat depending of your chosen Fighting Style. Or, for instance, when trying to convince someone of something, they don't buy immediatly your idea, but you planted a seed on the person's mind, that may make easier futures approaches about that subject...

In very general lines, those are the core mechanics. Yes, I'm aware that Wu De exists. I'm still wondering if it's not best to make this a scenario for that system entirely, but some of my ideas don't fit very well in what Wu De's system gives me.

Combat

Even in a modern day scenario relativelly safe, yes, we have space for action. There are bad guys to beat, criminal bosses to fight against, and maybe some supernatural threaths too (no of course we don't. They don't exist. Anymore). But the main point persists. Yes, action and physical combat may arise, and at this point I still have serious doubts about how to implement some of the points.

My takes are to use a system very similar to Lancer: The player characters always act first. But they are followed by an adversary, and then another player character and so on until everyone in the round has acted.

Or, we can take the Exalted Essence idea: Initiative is rolled. Highest result acts first, and then he/she decides who goes next. Maybe it's interesting to have an ally follow you, or maybe would be better to let an enemy act (and probably act in a bad timing). This gives to the last character acting in the round the possibility of having two turns in sequence, being the last of the present round, and choosing himself as the first in the next one.

Or maybe combine both, or maybe follow a more traditional approach (boring D&D initiative).

Yes, characters have "HP". When they get to 0 or lower, the character is definitely out of combat. Dead? Uncouncious? Depends of the intention of who gave the last blow. And here, we have a new mechanic too. Depending of the Tier of your character (from Novice to Master) you can have higher Elements, for instance, but lower Longevity Points. And less Longevity means you can die more easily. Basically, players characters may spend Longevity points to "deny" a death. The shot actually was stopped by a pendant, the enemy decided spare her life, he falls in the river to awaken very beaten hours and miles from there... If your character is a Master, yes, it gives him higher starting Elements' levels, but also makes him have 0 Longevity points. You already (probably) fulfilled your destiny, and death is calling...

Also, the Ying-Yang movement applies mainly in action scenes. Basically, when you use an Element in a special way, your "side" gets extra dice, these are called (so far) Tao Dice. They are a collective resource, meaning any ally of yours can use them. In the end of each combat round, both sides present get one Tao Dice. It means that, potentially, if the combat is taking more time, it's also getting deadlier. To both sides.

About the Scenario

My main idea was to talk about the entire world, and we have that on the Five Nations.pdf already, but I still think that lacks deep. Even ignoring that, the fact is that, in a first moment, my main idea is to use the "new metropolis in the world" as a main scenario. This can even change the name of the RPG completely, from simply Five Harmonies, to A City of Five Harmonies.

But let's talk about the Five Nations first. Yes, we talk about them in the Five Nations.pdf, but I still feel the text lacks deep. I think people can have a general idea of the themes or narratives ideas normally associated to them from this point, but I've got ideas recently that maybe help that better. But they are not yet on official text because of other idea. I wanna insert some texts on the book that look like real texts from residents from the city/world. Newspapers clips, blogs, social media posts, etc. and talk about these themes (like economy, social problems, celebrity news, etc.) from their point of view. And it's kinda hard to do at this point.

One of the themes I want to approach is that Earth Monarchy has invested a lot in "futuristic" agriculture (basically, they are playing Solarpunk), and strangely, they still sell their crops at a price strongly low. The Earth nobles, owners of these rich and productive farms, say that it helps to reach the poor people starving in other nations, and it really helps. The other nations are worried that it's helping so much that this attitude may even hurt their own farmers. It's almost cheaper to import Earth Monarchy's food than to produce your own. Maybe Earth Monarchy is actually just trying to help everyone. Maybe they are playing a long game of replacing the world food offer and in the future control the entire food market. At this point, both are probable results.

"Your Project Seems Artless"

Yes, I know. And it's bugging me a lot. I can not pay for artists work at this point of the project, and I'm considering using AI art for that. But even with that, I didn't get satisfactory results in my AI experiences for this project, but they remain an idea.

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I think that is it for now. I would really appreciate some feedback, ideas, critics, and opinions. But thanks a lot in advance for reading all of this.