Rule systems
Peoples under your rules
What each of your world's peoples brings under a rule system: adjustments at creation, traits, no magic, words for the storyteller. Templates to start from (the SRD's nine races), and transformations in the rules' own terms.
What a people brings
Your world's peoples are your own: Ashling, not “elf”. Under a rule system, each one can bring something the rules count. It isn't d20 code: any system can have peoples, and every part is data you can change.
- Adjustments at creation: Dexterity +2, and +1 to two stats of the player's choice. Added once, when the character is made, never past a stat's highest (Classic d20: 20). Engine
- Traits: abilities of the rules that the people always has. Some change numbers (half damage from fire, trained in Perception, one more hit point a level). Some are used, like a dragonborn's breath, once a rest. The rest are told to the storyteller, who honours them (darkvision, advantage against being charmed). Engine Storyteller
- No magic: a people that can't use magic casts no spell, from a scroll or a wand either, and is never offered one to learn. Their own traits still work. A people whose magic limit is none in Studio › Peoples counts as one, unless you say otherwise. Engine
- Words for the storyteller: a size, a speed, the languages they speak. Storyteller
Templates, and your own
The rules hold templates: peoples to start from, each with its subraces. A people of your world is like one of them (“Ashling: like High Elf”), and anything you set for it replaces the template's part (its own adjustments, its own traits). Or it is entirely its own.
| Where | What you do there |
|---|---|
| Studio › Peoples | Each people has an Under <your system> part: pick the template it is like, see in one line what it brings, and change any part. Draft from their description writes it from what you wrote about them: it is checked against the rules and shown to you first, and only taken when you say. A new trait it needs is added to the rules then. |
| Studio › Rules › Peoples | The templates and their subraces, each in a line; open one to change its adjustments, the choice, its traits, magic and words. Settings say what a people is called (Race, Ancestry, Folk) and which kinds of ability count as magic. It also lists your world's peoples and the template each is like. |
| Hob | "Make the Ashling like wood elves, with fire resistance" writes it. Hob reads the templates with the rules, and adds a trait to the rules before it gives it to a people. |
What a people is under the rules is kept with the people, by system. A world that changes systems keeps each system's part where it was: switch back, and it is there again. Renaming a people keeps it too.
"races": [{ "slug": "ashling", "name": "Ashling", ...,
"rules": { "classic_d20": { "like": "high_elf", "traits": ["darkvision_trait", "keen_senses", "fey_ancestry", "trance", "ashling_ember_skin"] } } }]In play
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Creation | The stats step shows the people: its adjustments beside each stat, the stats to pick for its choice, and its traits. The server checks the choice and adds the adjustments; the character starts with the traits. |
| The sheet | The people's traits sit under its name. A stat says where its number came from (Ashling +2). |
| A character made before | Their people's traits come on the next look at the sheet. The adjustments are offered once, with the stats to pick; nothing is forced. |
| The story | The storyteller is told the people, what it is like under the rules, each of its traits in full, and that a people without magic casts nothing. |
Classic d20's peoples
The SRD 5.1's nine races as templates, in words of our own: Dwarf (Hill Dwarf), Elf (High Elf), Halfling (Lightfoot Halfling), Human, Dragonborn (the ten dragon ancestries, each with its breath and resistance), Gnome (Rock Gnome), Half-Elf, Half-Orc and Tiefling. Grim d100 has four folk to start from. The other systems have none: add your own.
What the engine counts
- Resistances (a dwarf's poison, a tiefling's fire, a dragonborn's ancestry): half damage from blows of that type in a fight.
- Trained skills (Keen Senses, Menacing), Dwarven Toughness's hit point a level.
- The dragonborn's breath: a save against 8 + Constitution + proficiency, 2d6 growing to 5d6, once a rest. The tiefling's Hellish Rebuke and Darkness, once a day from levels 3 and 5.
Transformations under the rules
In a world with a rule system, a transformation is a permanent change in the rules' own terms. The storyteller says what happens in words; code writes it as one change and checks it: Engine
- A stat past its highest
- Strength +2, and its highest is now 22 for them (at most a tenth of the stat's range).
- A new trait
- Half damage from fire, a little added to a value, or an edge on some rolls; a power they use is written like an ability of their own.
- Another people
- One of your world's other peoples, with its traits. Their old adjustments come off, and the new people's are offered on the sheet.
Each people can go through as many as its Transformations in Studio › Peoples allow. The sheet lists each one, and undoing the turn takes it back. See Growing stronger for transformations without a rule system, and Classes for the other package a character takes on.
The pieces
- Template
system.lineages:id,name,description,parent(a subrace),stats,choose(count,amount,from),traits,noMagic,size,speed,languages.- Settings
system.lineageRules:word,subWord,magicKinds(the ability kinds a people without magic is refused; by default spells, cantrips, prayers and rituals).- A people's own
races[].rules[system id]:likeand any of the template's fields, each replacing the template's.- A trait
- An ability of kind Trait, never learned: always on (with modifiers, or told), or used like any ability.