Ok folks. Here’s a topic I like.
Are there basic tenets of item crafting that you follow? What are your favorite rulesets for it? Are there any games you never let people craft items?
I’ve never found a crafting system that works well, but I’ve found in games with enough downtime to do crafting erring on the side of too long was better than the other way.
I’ll post again when I find my Kingmaker game’s crafting rules, bc I felt like it worked pretty well for my group.
I play Ars Magica - that game has very clear and complex rules on how to craft items, and we use them extensively. We’ve had floating belts, potions that let you forget the last 13 years, lots of demon-destroying staves and a stone that would create a stone bridge.
The rules let us determine how long it takes to create such items. But the game is actually skewed towards mages and the play rhythm is determined by increments of magical study.
In other games, I remember Dresden Files RPG, where we had some items created. I usually err on the side favoring the players, because I actually like them to create stuff.
Which ed. of Ars do you play?
We’re playing 4th Edition. We were already playing when the 5th came out, and the switch seemed overly complicated.
Ok, found our crafting rules we used for Kingmaker. It outlines by estimates of the complexity of the thing you’re creating and a scaleable DC and timeline based on raw cost.
I don’t remember where the source of this was as this was just stored in a living document but I heavily modified it and it felt pretty good, and worked well in practice with our sorcerer who made good use of these rules. Was definitely not game breaking, it felt like!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vDQgzXJx8QnuqWseIkM8pPipxrT_tniY1RvNzRXpzLs
Ars Magica is about the only game I ever enjoyed seeing it in. The Witcher did stuff a lot like the video game and it doesn’t seem like it would work.
At least in AM, you’re making awesome magical stuff.
@Crom - Just FYI, the link asks me to request access. You need to change the options in the share menu to: anyone can view.
I find most crafting systems are too fiddly and complex for the games I run. The most complex system I used was for Witcher elixir making in Savage Worlds years ago.
Nowadays, I just turn crafting into a pbta style “move” where the player tells what they want to achieve, I tell them what it will “cost” (there is usually a list for the GM to choose from stuff like time, money, specific item, sacrifice, quest, etc. depending on the setting). We might roll some dice. Then we just keep track of time, money etc. in the narrative.
Oops! Thanks for the heads up, I added the link sharing on it.
Yeah, I was gonna say: the Savvyhead workshop move (or more broadly, its structure) is my favorite implementation of “crafting,” mostly because it scales perfectly to the sensibilities of the GM/players and the world they’re building.
Really, you can use it as a framework for almost anything. See:
And:
In Stonetop, I use it for both any sort of long-term plan, but also use it for setting up expeditions. Works great.
I just got to reading the posts you attached here. Thank you for sharing them!
The whole world is a Savvyhead’s workspace basically summed up my whole approach to fantasy/adventure rpg – something I was struggling to put into understandable words for some time now. The main premise is worth the admission alone, but the side musings are where it really hit me. I feel like my brain has unlocked something I was fiddling with for some time now – a similar feeling to the one I got when I finally got PbtA.
I think I found a crucial player agenda for my game - think inside the game.
In Fourth World, my drift of Dungeon World to the setting of Earthdawn, people can get corrupted by alien evil. When they do, they first thing to go is their ability to be creative. So, the culture of the world has evolved such that creating art is the main way you demonstrate to others that you haven’t been corrupted. Everyone who can make art does regularly.
This leads to a lot of crafting. This is handled mechanically by the addition of a single “Create Art” move, which serves its function fine, though could maybe be better.
I’ve also been hacking Anima Prime to run the setting of Exalted for years. Since you can craft some cool stuff in Exalted, with some killer ingredients, I tried to get a crafting system going in that rule set.
The main thing I’m aiming for is a system where a) no one character can be good at everything and b) each type of crafting requires the output of other types of crafting to work. The idea being that characters can’t just craft in a bottle, and that the needs of crafting will create goals that the players will have to pursue, driving play. When characters are deep in the shit solely so that one of them can get the magic pixie dust they need to finish their artificial man, the system works as intended.
Shadowrun had incredible system that I think can count as crafting. It was more modding mostly (especially with vehicles), but you could do wonderful things with it. Of course it was very trad and very very extensive, but it gave a lot of space to tinker and play.