Wood Witch

[Samu-kun]

I heartily approve of more cute witch pictures. The D20 system is good and all, but bishoujo games will always be about cute girls! >:3

Actually, how about we go one step further and have four different character classes with their own sprite sets? :3 You could have an sorcerer who gets bonuses to magic, an enchantress who gets bonuses to charisma, an alchemist who gets bonuses to potion brewing, and a sentinel who gets bonuses to searching and gathering. :3 And imagine how cute all of them would look in gothy loli outfits. >^_^<

[monele]

perhaps you should compress some of the very similar skills into more fundamental ones, just so that the newbie user (who isn't used to rolling up D&D v3 characters) isn't too confused. Like, Persuade, Bluff and Intimidate could all be rolled up into "Persuade," "Divine" and "Empathy" could probably go together

While I'm concerned it might be too much for newbies, I'd really like to allow varied builds. I'm trying hard to make alchemy not required at all. Same thing with magic, and probably same thing with social tasks. Because it's more interesting to have a well defined character rather than a jack of all trades who can't do much in each trade and because it adds some replay value. I also don't want to unbalance one domain by having it require a single skill where others will require three.

I've written a bunch of details on each skill yesterday and I managed to make Persuade, Bluff and Intimidate work differently. Persuade is the easy, no-risk way, but is pretty weak. It's "ppleeeaaaaaseeee *big smile*". It works only with people who already like you or if you're naturally charming (cute or sexy). Bluff is all about lying and maintaining lies. It's not harder to pull off but messing up does have negative consequences (people lose trust with each failed lie) and it's tiring because you have to remember what you lied about and how. This should be represented through some Fatigue penalties. The more you lie, the harder it should be. On the other hand, it would be more powerful. Finally, Intimidate is also about lying, but making people scared of you. Works on supersticious people or weak minded ones by emphasizing rumors and such. Maybe you can't turn them into toads, but if they think you can, they won't mind giving you something for free and they probably won't bother you. It's more risky on the short term because messing up means people see through your faking and you totally lose their respect/fear. Also, pushing it *too* far could mean torches and pitchforks.

It's the same thing for the three magic domains. It's no fun if *all* magic-inclined witches end up being the same. Here, you can have oracles, enchantress, healers (a mix between alchemy and magic) and summoners. Or you can mix them up, ending up as a pure sorceress. Or maybe you're full alchemist but with a bit of talent for divining the weather which helps with tending to your garden.

I have also made some thinking about the differences between alchemy and magic. Magic being very versatile since you can usually make up for everything you lack through magic. If you look at D&D especially, a magic user can turns into a full blown fighter with the right spells. Or they can turn into full rogues. So, then, why bother with alchemy (except for flavor)? So I'm trying to have magic be versatile but somewhat limited.

and it seemed a bit silly to me that I could find clover but then fail my gather check (since gathering clover involves plucking the darn thing out of the ground)

Agreed. The demo uses the first arbitrary values I came up with. A friend gave me more realistic values such as clover being easy to find and VERY easy to gather. Right now, all ingredients have equal Search and Gather Difficulty Ratings, but it will change. Some will be very easy to find but very hard to gather, others will be the other way around, with all the nuances in-between.

I hope you realize that those prospects sound totally awesome, right?

Yeah. I just lack time, money and personnel (and an actual Wood Witch game to begin with ;p)

I was thinking of an actual pen & paper RPG. It doesn't look like it'd be that difficult to convert your underlying system over to actual dice

There should be no need for conversion, actually, since it already works for dice ô_o. Search roll = d20 + Search skill + Plants skill + Spirits bonus.
Go over the plant Difficulty Rating (search/gather) and you know if you found/gathered it. There. You can start playing on your own . The only annoying thing I see for tabletop is that Fatigue has to be constantly updated. This would probably need to be simplified.

the concept is open-ended enough to allow a -- GM to create small, isolated adventures as well as near-epic story arcs.

Garden Master, yup! . Actually, if everything goes fine, I'd like this to be the next step. I'd love to make little quests for witches. You'd create your witch (or reuse an existing one) and play them through small adventures where their various talents can be of use. I'd like to even include this in Wood Witch proper, but I have the feeling there's way too much work already with the simulation aspect for this ^^;...

Something would have to be done about the lack of other characters, though...

Assuming these adventures make the witch travel a bit, it might not be a problem. And even just going to the nearby village could be an adventure if you do it the RPG way instead of the Sim way.

Are you playing as the witch girl or is this more of a raising sim?

You play as the witch. I thought it was a nice change from Magical Boutique ^^;. Feels more personal. AND I don't need to come up with a backstory for the character >3>

You could possibly make it so that you can choose from a few witch archetypes, based on the attributes.

Actually, how about we go one step further and have four different character classes with their own sprite sets?

About classes/archetypes, it's something I wanted to stay away from. I mean, not imposing it on the player. It's sad if you want to make a witch who's good with both alchemy and magic but can't, simply because the game says you can only be either alchemist OR magic-user. Thus, the player decides what witch he is through his stats. If there's a strange combination I haven't thought about, great! Nothing's locked and you can still do it.

Now when it comes to visual appearance, I agree that it would be nice to have a choice of portraits/looks. And yes, there could be a base of archetypal portraits. And you could still pick the Alchemist witch portrait but be a Summoner instead. Heck, if you like the portrait, I shouldn't prevent you from using it as you please, right? I'm even thinking of pushing it and allow people to put their own image file into the game so they can use Touhou characters if they want (just an example).
BUT, keep in mind that CGs will be harder to make or might even not be possible if you can put your own portraits in. I'm still very hesitant about that part.
I'll repeat that I'm not too keen on doing the art myself this time... and I'll say that I already had someone volunteer for potraits and CGs, but I'd feel bad asking them to do CGs x 4. Or it might mean there are only 3 or 4 CGs in the whole game.
A possible trick would be to have silhouetted witches on the CGs... but I *think* players wouldn't appreciate this, eh? ^^;... Of course you want to see your little witch on the screen...

If someone has a good idea about this, I'm interested, really :/. But keep in mind this is an amateur project and there can't be tons of CGs AND tons of customization.

here's my take on what the smart/studious witch might look like.

Cute . There *has* to be a witch with glasses somewhere, so yeah, this kind of look is a given ^^. When it comes to clothes, it will probably be more medieval/fantasy-ish though (yours strikes me as 1800-ish but it could actually work).

Samu-kun : on classes again, I'd actually go with talents for this. There could be a "Sentinel" talent which gives you the bonuses you speak of. The good thing is that it doesn't lock you into a particular archetype (both a huntress and an alchemist could use that kind of bonus).

[Dusty]

Oh, hm. I rolled really high on my Search and Gather checks after I decided to powergame the demo (ha, why bother, though, to powergame a demo? )

Maybe if the player rolls really well on the Search/Gather checks, they should get more of the ingredient? Like if the "Grape" ingredient had DC 20 and I rolled 40s on both my checks, I should get 2 grapes instead of 1 grape because my witch is awesome at collecting grapes.

Unless it would be unbalancing, of course.

[Jake]

The only annoying thing I see for tabletop is that Fatigue has to be constantly updated. This would probably need to be simplified.

(As it goes, while I'm normally against too much recordkeeping or the need for various chits and tokens, this seems like a really obvious case for chits. Although it would probably be best handled the other way around, to make it easier to think about; the player starts with X 'energy' tokens, and can spend them to do things. When they rest, they get Y tokens back. )

Now when it comes to visual appearance, I agree that it would be nice to have a choice of portraits/looks.
...
I'll repeat that I'm not too keen on doing the art myself this time... and I'll say that I already had someone volunteer for potraits and CGs, but I'd feel bad asking them to do CGs x 4. Or it might mean there are only 3 or 4 CGs in the whole game.
...
If someone has a good idea about this, I'm interested, really :/. But keep in mind this is an amateur project and there can't be tons of CGs AND tons of customization.

I'd be tempted to try something like DaFool did with Triona; draw each CG containing a single posed body, then draw - say - three costumes, three sets of hair, three sets of accessories and three hats that match that pose. It's not even the same amount of drawing work as three CGs, since you're re-using the pose and background, but you get hundreds of combinations of clothing, hair and various numbers of accessories and hats - even more if you let the player customise the colours as well, which can all be done 'live' in-engine. And it gives that nice recognisable personal touch that shows the player it's them in the CG rather than just some random witch some guy drew.

There *has* to be a witch with glasses somewhere, so yeah, this kind of look is a given ^^.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised you're not saying all the witches have glasses.

[monele]

(ha, why bother, though, to powergame a demo? )

For testing purpose? To see how easy it would be to gather some ingredients after gaining some levels? I don't think it's silly ^^

Maybe if the player rolls really well on the Search/Gather checks, they should get more of the ingredient?

Two things are planned for this. First, there will be Critical successes/failures on natural 1s and 20s. Might be renamed to "Great success!" and "Big failure!" in-game, but whatever . Successes will either double the amount you get, if it makes sense, or shave off the Fatigue cost. Failures will often result in no gain (just like when you make a regular failure) but also cost extra time/fatigue.

But criticals are just luck based and only there to put some more random variation. Then, you'll have Talents. I think I mentioned an alchemy talent such as "Great Brewer" which will indeed double the amount of potions you get from a single set of ingredients. "Great Gatherer" would do the same when collecting ingredients. You can expect similar things for crafting, hunting, fishing, cooking, gardening, etc... If doubling the amount doesn't make sense, these Talents might halve the ingredient requirements, or halve the cost of Fatigue, or just give bonuses to rolls (but that last one is already done through the skill value itself, so it's less interesting).
The idea is that someone who gets all the Talents for her domain will really have a big advantage compared to those who only spend skill points in it.

Thinking about it, it would also be neat to have Talents impacting things in general, such as "Enduring" which would boost your Max Fatigue by 10. Something interesting for any trade.

the player starts with X 'energy' tokens, and can spend them to do things. When they rest, they get Y tokens back.

It *does* look much easier that way! Funny how the mind works . Mmm... I'm not totally keen on having negative energy levels but... would people prefer having "Energy" instead of "Fatigue" then? With a full pool going down with each task until there's nothing left...
(note : currently, you can go over your max fatigue, up to double max fatigue, but it makes you more and more vulnerable to sicknesses)

I'd be tempted to try something like DaFool did with Triona; draw each CG containing a single posed body, then draw - say - three costumes, three sets of hair, three sets of accessories and three hats that match that pose.

Well, if we're talking about 4 or 5 CGs, I guess it's not so horrible. I did imagine Wood Witch having CG "vignettes" so far, though. Smaller pictures, less detailed, but maybe more numerous, allowing quite a few random events to be illustrated. But hey, we'll see, as I'm not even to the point where I can think of what can happen *out* of the regular game pace ^^;

Frankly, I'm a little surprised you're not saying all the witches have glasses.

C'mon, I'm not *that* obsessed . MagBou didn't have any glasses, right? UP had... some... and... you don't know about the other projects, so nya! P

In my dreams, I imagine "Wood Witch : Witches Around the World", where you can play as an asian Shugenja, a voodoo priestess, a shamanette and... err... other types from other regions I don't know (what do they have in Russia and South America?). But that'd be better for an actual tabletop RPG I think

[Jake]

Mmm... I'm not totally keen on having negative energy levels but... would people prefer having "Energy" instead of "Fatigue" then? With a full pool going down with each task until there's nothing left...
(note : currently, you can go over your max fatigue, up to double max fatigue, but it makes you more and more vulnerable to sicknesses)

Well, if you prefer to work with a positive scale rather than a negative one (energy versus fatigue) then you could always just start out with twice as much energy and impose penalties when the player's current energy drops below half their starting total?

C'mon, I'm not *that* obsessed . MagBou didn't have any glasses, right?

I don't remember, I was too busy imagining Framboise in a maid's uniform. :3

In my dreams, I imagine "Wood Witch : Witches Around the World"

World Wide Witch?

(Isn't Russia where the Baba Yaga legend comes from? I got the impression Eastern Europe had a similar kind of witch to Western Europe for the most part. Don't know about South America at all, though... I'd have guessed that the indiginous culture - the Inca, Muisca and so on - had probably been more or less flattened by the Spanish and Portuguese during the colonisation; I seem to recall that European diseases wiped out large numbers of natives and 'blasphemous' cultural artifacts frequently destroyed, at least...)

[sciencewarrior]

I toyed with it last night, and I like the way it is headed. I found the skill list a bit overwhelming, though. My suggestion is adding subheaders so it's clear what is a brain skill, what is a spirit skill, and so on.

Since this is a fairly complex sim, a nice-to-have would be an online help system, but simply fleshing out the README (maybe even dropping some hints and tips?) works too.

[Vatina]

I don't remember, I was too busy imagining Framboise in a maid's uniform. :3

I was supposed to be working on my own game, the artbook and my commissions.... but reading through this thread and then stumbling across this sentence, made me doodle this:



Framboise as a Maid-Witch! (whatever that is....)
If it even looks like her any more xD

Considering how much I suck at drawing with the tablet, this went pretty well. Maybe I should finish it some day....

[monele]

Well, if you prefer to work with a positive scale rather than a negative one (energy versus fatigue) then you could always just start out with twice as much energy and impose penalties when the player's current energy drops below half their starting total?

Mmm... sounds confusing again ^^;

I don't remember, I was too busy imagining Framboise in a maid's uniform. :3

I should start selling Framboise Artbook: Uniform Edition >.>...

World Wide Witch?

Only a broom ride away

Incas could work. And in North America, I was forgetting the natives. I don't know if they were considered shamans or sorcerers, but there is definitely something to do with totems and all. In all honesty, I'm not making up anything here as all of these have already been treated in the Lil' Witches tabletop rpg (which is a big inspiration for Wood Witch).

I found the skill list a bit overwhelming, though. My suggestion is adding subheaders so it's clear what is a brain skill, what is a spirit skill, and so on.

I'm thinking a click on the name would give a popup description. Same for skills. I know it's not obvious and that's what I gave explanations in the post too

Since this is a fairly complex sim, a nice-to-have would be an online help system, but simply fleshing out the README (maybe even dropping some hints and tips?) works too.

We'll see when it's done. Descriptions for attributes, skills, spells, potions, etc... are clearly mandatory. There might be some Encyclopedia entry in the main menu for the basic rules, too. But I'm starting to think a dedicated website/wiki would work wonder for those who are eager for technical details.
A few hint popups here and there is not excluded. For example, the first time you get sick, it'd be nice to know how to get cured.

I was supposed to be working on my own game, the artbook and my commissions.... but reading through this thread and then stumbling across this sentence, made me doodle this:

Inspiartional! Our first gathering witch, yey .
(maybe serving with a broom is risky XD... though you could quickly clean up the mess

[Ren]

Ah, you beat me to it!
Anyway, it's really cute Vatina :3

[musical74]

Wow Vatina...that's really great...now I'll imagine Fram as a maid/witch! <and thoroughly envious that you can doodle something like that!>

[Mihel]

Here's an idea: why don't you have a positive Energy meter that counts down for every action you do. But you can't have negative Energy, because any physicist playing the game would explode at that, and we don't wanna say "Here's your Energy... but you can only spend half!"

So why don't you flip the meter over to Fatigue once Energy hits 0? Then the Fatigue starts adding up and that's clearly bad. So it would go:

26 Energy *gathers clover*
25 Energy *gathers berries*
...... (much clover later) ......
2 Energy *cooks dinner*
1 Energy *brews potion*
0 Fatigue *creates scroll*
1 Fatigue *wanders around*
2 Fatigue
etc. etc.

[Vatina]

Thank you Only better if it helps out in some way, hehe.