Expansion Planning

OK, 4 weeks is definately too long to have between posts. Not to worry, I have not abandoned this project, and work is progressing on the game. In fact, I tentatively believe the game is now in a Beta testing stage.

I know, I know. The main game rules are not even out yet. Even so, I'm planning the first few expansions, and doing the preliminary layouts for them.

The first expansion deals with various helpful "extras" to make GMing a game easier. This will include NPC Personality, Creature, Planetary, and random discovery genorators. It will also go into detail how to run games where the characters are al crew of a vessel.

More information will be availible regarding the Associations availible in the game (corporate or government groups the players have the choice to join with), as well as adding several new ones in.

Character Creation

I am yet again going over my character creation system and editing it.

recent changes I have made have certain character attributes, which I knew earlier on would be crucial to the game, completely useless.

At the same time, I find myself weighing the advantages and disadvantages of adding in a new stat which will allow characters to re-roll a die roll, or prevent death. Many games have a stat like this - Edge from Shadowrun for instance - and my original game concept had one as well (Luck I called mine). It was removed in early game design tho for various reason.

I am strongly considering adding it back in however as it's original reason for removal was linked to a character attribute which no longer exists.

I welcome feedback from readers as to what people consider is better in a game: a save your ass stat, or no re-rolls.

Combat Scaling

Combat in Dominus Imperium scales from character combat, to squads and/or vehicles, to star ships all using the same combat rules. therefore, if you know you would need to make a roll for something in character combat, you know you will have to make a roll for the same thing, or something similar in space combat.

I have had a lot of trouble getting all the aspects of the scaling combat to work together properly. effects in character based combat did not necessarily make sense in space, and vice versa.

I believe I have found a solution to this, however it involves adding in an extra roll when determining damage. It has also involved adding in a new table for the combat system.

This may end up being changed as it adds a layer of complexity to the combat that I was hoping to avoid. For the most part however, the combat system is easier to grasp than many combat systems I've seen, yet still has enough complexity to keep combat interesting.

Hopefully I can keep it that way.