Background:
The player plays a particular class of immortals know as a RealmReaper. Currently, these classes are Guardian, Mage, Assassin and Forgiver. RealmReapers live in a plane of existence known as the Realm Void which exists in the voided spaces between time and existence. They have the ability to enter any plane of existence at will to ‘reap’ the benefits of past adventures, quests and ‘whatever the author chooses’ to deliver.
Game Design Concept
RealmReapers RPG is a game where players participate in a ‘Choose Your Own adventure’ style of gameplay while seated at table. Each player (RealmReaper) works cooperatively to beat the adventure/quest by participating in a ‘Game Book’ adventure, making choices and partaking in combat which is decided by a strategic play of Ability Cards and Dice Rolls. Players level up gaining more AP and continue into other realms taking with them items they retrieved from other adventures.
Game Essentials
RealmReaper Ability Class Deck: Each player chooses the class of RealmReaper and rolls up a light character sheet of information. Dice rolls are for establishing 4 stats; Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, and Wisdom. Each of these stats have a particular importance to the class of RealmReaper the player chooses. Each class also has 10 ability cards that they can use during any combat encounter. Each ability card comes with an Action Point (AP) cost and each class has an expenditure cap of AP they can use per battle.
Some examples of these abilities:
Guardian
Second Wind (AP Cost 1) – Attack twice during the same turn. Player can choose which position in the combat order they wish to take their second attack.
Eye Gouge (AP Cost 1) – On a successful attack, the enemy cannot attack the next round.
Grapple (AP Cost 1) – A Successful attack allows the Guardian to hold an enemy. Each round the Guardian can elect to keep the hold, but the enemy can make a determination roll to successfully struggle free. All other players get a +5 on their attack roll while the enemy is being held.
Assassin
Create Opening (AP Cost 1) – An attack that on a successful attack, the next player to attack the enemy on that round gets a +5 to attack.
Make it Bleed (AP Cost 2) – On a successful attack, the Assassin does initial damage, then 1d4+dex bonus to the enemy for the remainder of combat.
Stamina Boost (AP Cost 2) – Take 3 abilities from the discard pile and place them on the bottom of your abilities deck.
Maneuver (AP Cost 1) – At the start of the round, the Assassin can play this ability to place his token anywhere in the battle sequence.
Tokens: Tokens represent the combat layout. Each Round of combat begins with an initiative stage which determines an order of attack. The tokens are lined up by initiative and players/enemies are only allowed to attack token adjacent to their own token. The token line does wrap, so the last token can attack the first. Some RealmReaper abilities allow for modifications to the line as in the Assassin’s Maneuver ability above.
Dice: Dice are used to determine things like Roll initial abilities, Combat Order, Attack, and Damage.
Adventure: One player reads the adventure to the other players and they make decisions when they come to them. Think of the digital ‘Game Books’ that are currently available for purchase especially for mobile.
How are these adventures made?
Several 1 to 2 hour adventures are currently being developed and/or tuned. These are currently being used during playtesting. These adventures are developed using the RealmReapers development tool. This is a full featured application that will allow anyone to create an adventure from a short ‘dungeon crawl’ adventure, up to an epic campaign adventure. This development application just doesn’t allow you to simply give the player choices which takes them from Scene A to Scene B, but built around the internal use of variables and decision tracking to allow the developer to create even the greatest of complicated traps and/or puzzles.
How are these adventures going to be made available?
A site is currently in development to allow users to visit, log into an account, and play adventures straight from any device, be it mobile or desktop.
How many adventures are there?
Currently there are 3 working adventures, but the current plan is to eventually allow anyone to download the development tool and create their own adventures and distribute via our Reaper Portal. Possibilities could be endless.
How long does it take to make an adventure?
Using the tool, you can easily create a good running dungeon crawl in one day that would give the players 1-2 hours of gameplay. Complexity of the choices, the amount of choices, and the length of the adventure, all determines how long it will take. But, that’s the cool thing about it. If you want to download a 1 hour crawl by your favorite RealmReaper author to play a quick solo game, you should (or we hope) you would be able to.
So is adventure content going to be only community driven?
No, but we do hope that several known/unknown talented writers come forward and like our concept enough to contribute. We think it would be a great way for writers to get known for their imagination and creativity.
All this is a general overview and much more actually goes into combat, but if interested in more information I will certainly provide it.
Well there you have it.. Thoughts? Too ambitious?
This is a general draft of what we would ‘like’ to do, but I am curious on your thoughts. Right now, the development tool is pretty much done, adventures are being made and play testing in going on. The distribution and community driven aspects are still in 'deep' thought.
Thanks,
Kevin
Well, I guess that isn't a good sign if you didn't make it past the first 3 paragraphs lol. Most of my answer is detailed further down the original post, but in short, yes to play with friends, but also to definitely make it available to others.