Bare Bones Multiverse campaign

[SpokenSoftly]

I have recently discovered a ruleset termed Bare Bones Multiverse and have been fortunate enough to play a campaign with the creator of the system as the DM. Having wanted to try a game set off of BBM's system since actually getting the rulebook a month and a half ago, I believe now that I have a firm enough grasp of the rules to run a game using it.

If you have access to the rulebook in physical or pdf form, I would love to have you in the game. If you don't, it's available here for $15, which includes a watermarked pdf with the core rules and rules for running nine different genres of game, including example settings for some of them.

The thing about BBM is that anything that fits with the setting can be done, and the player writes the limitations for the character. Because of the way rolling for damage and attacks works, character skill factors more into the attack than the type of attack it is, thereby completely avoiding the "linear warriors, quadratic wizards" problem that most games suffer from. A character with r10 Spec-Ops Training in a superhero setting is exactly as effective at dealing damage as a character with r10 Spacetime Manipulation.  

[Rain Yupa]

Okay, it's a balanced sandbox system... but what's special or unique about it compared to any other? Talk mechanics.  

[SpokenSoftly]

The fact that, aside from basic combat, movement, and character level mechanics, everything is utterly open. "Name it, Game it," is an actual game mechanic, and if you can describe an ability and justify how it fits into the setting then you can put it down on your character sheet. The only limitations are the ones the player places on themselves.  

[The Number Three]

I am watching this for more information.  

[SpokenSoftly]

The Number Three

I am watching this for more information.

I'm going to wait and see if people are interested in using the system itself before going into detail on the planned campaign setting.  

[Rain Yupa]

I'm a literalist and I thrive off of the concrete. I need a bit more about it to me sold on any aspect about it sweatdrop

Example: A contest of stealth vs perception, between PCs vs NPCs, NPCs vs PCs, and PCs vs PCs.

How is that resolved?

Cause it sounds to me like if one person was playing an actual ninja and the other person was playing nearly anything else the ninja will win the stealth battle no matter what 100% of the time without any chance of failure, or any hope for the other character.  

[SpokenSoftly]

It depends entirely on their ranks in relevant skills, and status as a Player Character doesn't affect that in the least. The higher your rank in an Ability the easier it is to succeed at using.

All Abilities that aren't Specialty Abilities (the term I use, can't recall the official one at the moment) are base r4, and getting a Success in an Ability needs to beat a roll of (12-r) for that Ability (so an ability at r1 needs an 11 to succeed, and an ability at r10 needs a 2 to succeed, so success at r10 is guaranteed barring an automatic failure). Multiple successes means better results, so 3 successes in stealth v. 2 successes in perception would let the ninja win. Ties go to the highest Ability, so 2 successes in stealth at r5 versus 2 successes in perception at r6 would get the ninja spotted. If the Ability scores are also tied, it goes to high-die from the original roll. Tied dice goes to the GM (I personally call for an entirely new Ability check on both sides)

The only difference between the above and Specialty Abilities is you can't use those untrained. A Specialty Ability would be something like a superpower, the ability to cast magic, or spec-ops training, something the average guy off the street would have zero chance of doing. These start out at r0. Ability progression is entirely possible past character creation, a system I'll explain in detail below). The exception to the "start at r0" rule is character creation, where all Abilities you put points into start at r4.

Abilities progress with the expenditure of xp, which is granted per gaming session and per combat encounter. You expend one xp to attempt to level up one skill, and the actual attempt is performed by rolling 2d6, with the target to beat being your current score. This is one of the few situations where you don't reroll doubles. Failing at a level-up of a skill still spends the xp point. Abilities are ranked from r1 to r10, with levels beyond that granting a bonus to your roll (so an ability at r10+3 would grant a bonus of +3 to any check, meaning any non-autofail roll would end up being at least 6, for a minimum of 3 successes).

Abilities that are logically linked to a specific action (for example, Stealth and Acrobatics to get past a security system that involves laser tripmines and security cameras) can be rolled sequentially and their successes added together. In the above example, the ninja only getting two successes against a peasant's three successes on Perception could roll Acrobatics to try and get a third or fourth success.

double-ones always fails automatically, double-sixes always succeeds and gets you a 'boxcar' on your character sheet that you can use for a +1 bonus on any roll that isn't snake-eyes. Doubles (except double-ones) also causes a reroll, so if the dice come up double-two you would reroll and add the results together. Sequential doubles means sequential rerolls until doubles fail to come up or you get snake-eyes. Getting snake-eyes on a reroll is still an auto-failure, so rolling boxcars followed by double-fives followed by snake-eyes would still make you fail that check.

There are also things called Conditions, which are negative aspects of a character or seemingly-positive aspects that can negatively impact the story. One of my players in a separate campaign, for example, has Libidinous at r6. He had to roll against that when he saw a fellow character stepping out of the shower to avoid the urge to oggle her. He rolled a 9, which is 1 success, and failed to resist the urge, getting slapped for his efforts.

For example, using all of the above information and actual dice rolls:

Erik the Ninja (Stealth r10, Acrobatics r6, Perception r8 ) is trying to sneak past well-trained security guards (Perception r7) and an average security system (Perception r9, Condition: Nonpredictive Movement r9). Erik first says that he scouts the area from a distance, taking care to keep hidden in any surrounding cover, so he takes a Perception roll to see how well he can see the area in the dark and a Stealth roll to see how well he hides, the latter matching against the Perception rolls of the guards and security system. Erik gets 2 successes on Perception (roll 3,6) and three successes on Stealth (1,5) against the guards' 3 successes (3,3 6,3) and the security system's 1 success (3,1). He gains information on the exterior and the rough pattern of the security system's observation patterns, and manages to stay hidden successfully (the security system didn't beat his successes, and the guards tied with a lower rank in the relevant Ability). After observing he decides to sneak closer, taking care to stay out of the observation cones of the security cameras. The cameras roll against their Condition at r9 and are all rotated away when he passes (Condition activates at roll 5,2), getting no Perception roll at all. The guards get a Perception roll, against which Erik has to match a Stealth check. The guards get snake-eyes, automatically failing as they derp about for a few seconds, and Erik could literally walk up behind them with no attempts at subtlety and go for a kill-strike. He couldn't do something egregiously obvious, like blowing a raspberry in their faces, because the rules specifically state that common-sense applies to such situations.

Erik sneaks in past the guards successfully, given they were guarding an open passage with no doors, and states that he goes after some sort of break room with a patrol schedule. The GM rules that this takes three consecutive Stealth attempts because of the length of the task, and the rolls are as follows:

(2,2 5,4 6s) v. (6,4 2s) and (6,5 3s) Erik wins
( 6,1 3s) v. (2,2 2,4 3s) and (5,3 2s) Erik wins by Ability level
(6,4 5s) v. (1,5 1s) and (5,5 5,1 5s) Erik wins by Ability level

Erik therefore manages to sneak past all the guards and the security system, though he almost gets caught twice (once by the guards, once by a camera with an atypical movement pattern). He reaches the room and (roll on the Cosmic Eye, which is a random result generator) finds the door unlocked and the room unoccupied, a patrol schedule left out on the table. Having thus gained crucial information, he copies it down and sneaks out (5,3 4s, no rolls to oppose thanks to foreknowledge of where the patrols will be and the cameras' movement patterns) to give the information to one of his compatriots who can sneak in and perform the assassination.

Since Erik technically didn't get into combat, he gets 1d6/2 xp (3 on a roll of 6), rounded up, and an extra xp because the GM rules that successfully sneaking in and out of a heavily-monitored base without being detected is worthy of some experience, for a total of 4xp earned from the session. He decides to try and level up his Fighting skill, which isn't a Specialty Skill, so he makes a roll against a target of 4 and succeeds (4,1), leveling his combat up to r5 and putting it down on his character sheet. The rest of the xp go into leveling up that same skill, and his rolls are (6,3 success) (2,1 failure) and (4,3 success), ending up with Fighting r7 now on his sheet.

Make sense?  

[Rain Yupa]

How do you determine the number of successes you get off of a single roll?  

[SpokenSoftly]

By how many times you beat the success number. If you're rolling against an r8 Ability (1 success at 4), then for every time you can divide 4 into the result you get one success. Rolling a 9 in that situation would get you 2 successes. You always round down, so rolling a 15 against r4 would still be one success, but rolling a 16 would be 2.  

[Rain Yupa]

Wait then what's the dice system itself? What do you roll?  

[KytanaTheThief]

Whiteface, you kind of need to simplify your explanation. The stuff is there, it's just hidden in the terms of a system that we're not familiar with.

Rain: Abilities can be ranked 1-10. DC's are 12 minus the rank of the ability. You roll 2d6 for a check.

Example: So, you have an ability with rank 7. A DC for a check with that ability will be 5.

You roll 2d6, getting a 2 and a 4 for a total of 6. You get one success.

Alternately, you roll a 4 and a 6, for a total of 10. 10 is twice the DC, so that's two successes.

So, the better you are in an ability, the more likely you are to get successes, in addition to being able to beat the initial DC.


(Disclaimer: This is what I was able to gather from what was written. Whiteface, please correct me if I'm wrong. Also, this is one of the weirdest systems I've seen, honestly.)  

[SpokenSoftly]

With extremely few exceptions (two I'm aware of, both of them GM-exclusive checks), everything is rolled with 2d6. Kytana, that's pretty much perfect.  

[Rain Yupa]

2d6 is what it sounded like to me to... until...

Quote:

You always round down, so rolling a 15 against r4 would still be one success, but rolling a 16 would be 2.

 

[SpokenSoftly]

Rain Yupa

2d6 is what it sounded like to me to... until...

Quote:

You always round down, so rolling a 15 against r4 would still be one success, but rolling a 16 would be 2.

Doubles (except snake-eyes) are rerolls. I think I said that somewhere in my text wall, and it was demonstrated several times in the example scenario.  

[SpokenSoftly]

I have returned to Gaia after a lengthy absence, gonna bump this up to top to see if there's any interest.