Seance - A roleplaying game [need reviewers]

[HighCalibreWizard]

I need someone to review my tabletop RPG. It's located on https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/341437/Seance--A-roleplaying-game

It's a self crafted system based around D6. Level of a skill determines number of dice being rolled. Dice are then compared in a 1 to 1 fashion to opposition, and highest dice wins. Skill levels are kept fairly low because of this. Max skill levels of a starting character is 2 for example. There's more to the system of course: modifiers lets you reroll dice. So 2D+1, lets you roll 2 dice, and optionally reroll one of them. I have spent literal hours making sure this system is statistically sound, with the help of my Atari 5k superterminal cpu.

The setting is mainly 19th century US/UK. It is designed to be fairly grounded and "realistic", even though it has a strong occult flair (hence the title of the game). So, even though there are demons and the like, there won't be goblins, trolls and shiny vampire twinks. There's a magic system, but it involves rituals and not slinging fireballs. Overall, the game favors a more narrative approach, instead of focusing too much on rules.

There's also a monster list supplement, with some more usual (like mummies and zombies) and unusual suspects (barghest, wendigos etc). I consider this optional content for those that want shiny vampire twinks, or a more classic horror movie experience.

You would be very pleased to review this. Everyone one else should buy copies for the entire family.

I will hook up all serious reviewers. Thanks for your time.

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

 

[HighCalibreWizard]

preciate the bump.

 

[Hag]

At first glance on the meager 6 pages preview (including 3 barely readable) :
- Your stats choice looks sound (Perception/Constitution/Spirit/Intelligence/Dexterity/Personality/Initiative),
- The system sounds ok. Not sure what the dice compare stuff brings apart from novelty, but I didn't try it,
- Small number stats are a good thing
- The page layout seems neat, if a little bland,
- You could do worse than using Dore's engravings as illustrations.

 

[HighCalibreWizard]

At first glance on the meager 6 pages preview (including 3 barely readable) :
- Your stats choice looks sound (Perception/Constitution/Spirit/Intelligence/Dexterity/Personality/Initiative),
- The system sounds ok. Not sure what the dice compare stuff brings apart from novelty, but I didn't try it,
- Small number stats are a good thing
- The page layout seems neat, if a little bland,
- You could do worse than using Dore's engravings as illustrations.

- The 3 barely viewable is the quick preview courtesy of drivethrurpg. The site is kinda bugged, but I have mostly good experience with the staff.
- Stats choice: It's pretty run off the mill, shame some manage to fail this.
- System: The comparing will scale better in my opinion. It's possible to go "higher dice sum will win", but eventually it will become a problem. A single 1D6 just goes from 1-6, so the scaling is not that great. It is after all possible to roll very low results on 8 six sided dice (low chance, but still), so a single opposing 1D6 has a slim chance of success. There's also the problem with critical hits using 6 sided dice. This is sorta still a problem with my system, and thats why its optional in my rules: basically a winning 6 result is a critical hit. So for 1 to 1 dice comparison thats 16.6% chance of a crit, which is a bit high. Yeah, there's a reason for the D20. I have had a strange fascination of D6 for a long time though.
- Small numbers: I'm mostly worried about too many dice being rolled for end game, thats why I try keeping it low. It will naturally scale however. There's higher level content in the monster supplement, but you will need some dice resources for this.
- Bland: Heh, its a standard border for boxes in indesign. Valid.
- Illustrations: Im a big fag for retro shit. Glad im not the only one. Can recommend checking this site out if you like the style: https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/

Thanks for taking the time checking the game out. You can PM me an email and I'll send you a copy, no string attached.

 

[Hag]

- Stats choice: It's pretty run off the mill, shame some manage to fail this.

Yeah, so many systems separate strength and constitution for example. I like the idea of making initiative into a stat and not dependent from other stuff. Yours may not be the most unique and original but I like it (maybe because it looks like my own system).

- System: The comparing will scale better in my opinion. It's possible to go "higher dice sum will win", but eventually it will become a problem. A single 1D6 just goes from 1-6, so the scaling is not that great. It is after all possible to roll very low results on 8 six sided dice (low chance, but still), so a single opposing 1D6 has a slim chance of success. There's also the problem with critical hits using 6 sided dice. This is sorta still a problem with my system, and thats why its optional in my rules: basically a winning 6 result is a critical hit. So for 1 to 1 dice comparison thats 16.6% chance of a crit, which is a bit high. Yeah, there's a reason for the D20. I have had a strange fascination of D6 for a long time though.

D6 are good. You can find them easily, and I like the idea of being able to throw a RPG on a whim anywhere with only few sheets of paper and D6s. The easier the better.

- Illustrations: Im a big fag for retro shit. Glad im not the only one. Can recommend checking this site out if you like the style: https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/

Thanks for the link, good resource indeed.