SPECIAL Morrowind

Yes, believe it or not, the mechanics being used are from http://pnp.fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page, modified extensively.

My goal with this project is to create an easy-to-use and enjoyable experience that anybody can make additions to.

Current Progress:

• Races:
  
• ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉ 100%
  
• Traits:
  
• ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉ 100%
  
• Skills:
  
• ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉ 100%
  
• Magic System:
  
• ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉ 100%
  
• Weapons:
  
• ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉ 100%
  
• Armor:
  
• ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉ 100%
  
• Beastiary:
  
• ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉ 80%
  
• Lore:
  
• ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉ 0%

Nice.
Good to see others are tinkering with the same as me:)

My Elder Scrolls BRPyfied has approximately the same progress.
Magic is a [censored], though. And getting the settings details and peculiarities right is highly headache inducing.

Please keep up the work, and let me pick your brain :goodjob:

:huh: Uhhh... certainly.

It won't hurt a bit :poke:

But why Morrowind, and not TES in general? If I played a tabletop RPG set in Tamriel, I'd like it to have support for the whole area, not just one province. Plus, shouldn't this go in Morrowind General, then?

1. It's the region with the most definition and attention to detail IMO.
2. I'm starting out small. I don't want to be overambitious.
3. I thought Morrowind General was only for topics concerning the game itself, not spinoffs in other media?

Tamriel is huge. Morrowind is easily the most well-known(and I haven't played Daggerfall, but I'm guessing also the most developed) region of the world. It's a nice place to start.
And the land of Morrowind is a pretty awesome setting.

For those not familiar with BRP, it's a simple, modular d100-system. Details can be found here: http://catalog.chaosium.com/index.php?cPath=37.

The hard rules; races, skillsets, materials and bestiary is more or less ok.
What remains is magic, alchemy, enchantments and the fluff around it. I have made(ok, lifted from Stormbringer) rules for summoning daedra, and binding them into items. With this, conjuring will be a risky business, but with great rewards. At the small price of your soul and mental stability.
"Normal" magic are ruleswise ok, but i still haven't gotten my head around how magic works. Is spellcasting only juggling daedric energies? If so, how about divine, aedric magic? How does necromancy work - does it deal with a third magical realm, the Spiritplane? Is spellcasting a corrupting influence? Input?

And of course; detailing the setting. If I could get bitten by a radioactive author, and develop superpowered writing-ability, I might just be able to cobble together a readable document. But as of now, it is a mess of tangled half-ideas.

This is why I want to pick brains.

I believe that Magicka comes from the plane of Aethrius (sp?) and that the day-sky is a reflection of it (the night-sky is a reflection of Oblivion), and there is some connection between the ayleid magicka wells and the sky. Daggerfall also has a system where magicka use could be restricted to daylight or darkness only.

Well, weapons and races are now done. Next comes armor, and the inevitable looming terror that is the magic system.

For the core magic system I took the magic-schools of Oblivion(to keep it simple), and assigned spells to each. During chargen, players who'll opt to play a mage, have to choose what kind of mage; wizard, nightblade, sorcerer etc. Each magic-profession has one primary sphere, and one or two secondary.
The Nightblade, for instance, get Illusion as primary and either Alteration or Mysticism as secondary. They'll be able to pick up any spell from any school, but won't be as proficient with them as with their "professional" spells.
Each spell is treated as a separate skill, and developed as such.
Some spells, such as conjurating daedra, are rituals. They require time, preparation and a huge amount of power(in game terms; magic points) Summoning an average daedroth will require at least 25 magic points. Average magical characters will have 15-20. This is where preparation(and soulgems) comes in. There is alot more to conjurations, but to keep it short...
Necromancy works much in the same way, only summoning spirits instead of daedra.

As I've said earlier, the mechanics are alredy nailed. The lore however...
How does the OP handle the lore and fluff around magic?

This is interesting!

Armor's done. Now comes the difficult part: creating magic for a sci-fi based system.

Oh wow, this sounds neato. I once made up D&D 3.5 versions of the Tamrielic races (including the extinct ones, Tsaesci and a Fallout-style Ghoul- complete with rules for radiation ... although I never ended up doing anything with it, it was just for fun), so welcome to the club.

I can't wait to see this finished.

Can't be too hard, can it?

Here's the formula for how many magicka points one gets: 15 + (INT * 3). For example, if your intelligence was 5, it would be 15 + 15, and therefore, MP = 30.
Upon leveling up, 3 + (IN / 2), rounded down, would be how much more magicka you gain. If your intelligence was 5, you would get 5 extra magicka points.

Having said that, here are some preliminary sketches for spell effects:

-Burden: Increases Weight of victim.
*5 Pounds = 1 Magicka Point
*2 Rounds = 1 Magicka Point
*Ranged: +5
*Example: Spell of Burden, 50 Pounds, for 5 Rounds, = 18 Magicka Points

-Feather: Decreases weight of victim
*5 Pounds = 1 Magicka Point
*2 Rounds = 1 Magicka Point
*Ranged: +5
*Example: Spell of Feather, 50 Pounds, for 5 Rounds, = 18 Magicka Points

Would you guys say I'm on the right track with this approach to spellmaking?

Link, please. And, if possible, rules on how to convert the rules for 2e. I could use those...

Seems mathematically sound. But pretty expensive.
Are you creating each spell or are you planning on a "build as you go"approach?

Build-as-you-go. I'll be defining the effects only, and leaving the actual spells to the GMs and players.

I'd been thinking about the same idea. Cool. I look forward to this if it works.

If you're having trouble with writing, maybe you should try to recruit some of those folks at the Lore Forum to help you.

When I ran a TES style campaign I just used the basic d20 system. I really don't see why all this work is needed when there are loads of fantasy tabletops out there already which are adapted much more easily. a barely modified homebrew D&D campaign could fit the bill just fine.

When I started out, I didn't think D&D was very well suited to the Tamriel setting (namely the conflicting magic systems). Plus, SPECIAL is a lot easier to work with than d20.

To be perfectly honest(and one really should be), I'm no fan of either d20 od SPECIAL. That's why I use BRP :thumbsup:
But I want to bring the lore of the Elder Scrolls into the game and the mechanics right.

Cool, other people are also trying to convert TES to tabletop. Although to be honest, I don't really think SPECIAL makes such a great basis for a TES tabletop game.

My aproach is different, I'm actually adapting Morrowind's game mechanics to tabletop play. A lot of things can't be directly translated but many can and others only need a little modification. It will be interesting to compare our different versions.

As for magic, I don' think that the night sky is a reflection of Oblivion. The way I understand it the sky has holes and the starts and Sun are light/magic from shining through those holes.

..err. What's this then? Anyone know anything about this?
http://tesroleplaying.pbwiki.com/