Design Help: Negative Space

 Negative Space

I can't emphasize enough how important of a skill this is. When you are developing, the proper skill and utilization of negative space will allow you immense flexibility by taking aspects from one thing and incorporating it into what you're making without it being a complete rip-off.

Here is how I define Negative Space:

"Think in negative space. The warlock's spell slot resource is actually a short-rest spell point system, except the designers decided to "summarize" how many spell points you had at the given level and made them into spell slots that then scaled with the warlock. Imagine if they had spell points equal to their level that restored on a short rest that followed the rules of spell point cost (DMG, 288). While the power curve is wonky, its very close.

Another negative space is the paladin lay on hands. It's actually a per-level ability score modifier healing ability, like the Druid's Balm of the Summer Court is per level healing. The designers decided to instead summarize it as a 5, so the healing felt more impactful when used.

Thinking with negative space is by far the most powerful tool you can use to create new features, but is also the hardest skill to learn. This will help you take the feature of one class and splice it into yours without anyone ever knowing."

I created this concept when I started realizing what I was doing by looking at other people's work and using it for my own. Suddenly I went from struggling to create my own features to creating very original ideas, simply by parsing "negative space" from its design. It took me a few months to really develop this skill, and once I did it has become my strong arm. The level and speed at which you develop your design skills begins to skyrocket. I'm still learning new negative spaces to work with.

Example Designs

Okay, so enough talk, now let's do the walk. How do we create a new feature? Let's say you have a martial class or subclass but you don't want to use Extra Attack, but you have the "budget" for it. What is an extra attack? At 5th level most players will have around a +3 to their modifier for an attack (Spells, weapons, or otherwise). A d8 (die roll average: 4) is the average for martial weapons, and a d6 (die roll average: 3) is the average for simple weapons. Let's say we're making something rogue-ish, like a hunter taking an advantage of a weak point. We'll be safe and use the expected damage of a simple weapon with the expected attack score modifier of +3. I'll use an idea I've already come up with:

Spot Weakness

5th level Hunter feature

Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 2d6 as damage of the same type dealt by the weapon to the target.

(Wording of this feature borrowed by Cleric, War Domain)

 Let's dissect this. "Once on each of your turns" is basically an additional attack because you get this in addition to your normal attack. It also defines on your turn, so this doesn't apply to anything like opportunity attacks (Which it shouldn't, since extra attack doesn't affect those). The next part is an "extra 2d6" damage. The average of a d6 is 3, and the player is expected to have around a +3 at this level. Thus, "2d6" is really the average of a d6 weapon + the expected damage modifier for the attack.

Suddenly we have an entirely new extra attack feature without stepping out of line in terms of expected damage. This can also be used to control player damage for things like multiclassing; it creates a vacuum in the class (vacuum meaning it can't be used elsewhere). By having this vacuum we can safely improve upon it without it affecting too much power for multiclassing. Subclass features or core class features could potentially improve the amount of damage you deal, such as increasing the die size to a d8 or adding more dice. Alternatively the damage type can be changed, potentially allowing a player to take advantage of vulnerability.

Bonus "Proficiency"

Okay. Let's look at another negative space: Proficiency. Let's say the class had a class die that scaled with its levels from a d4 to a d12. If a class did this, look at the proficiency bonus at the same levels it improves in die size. It should match the levels your proficiency bonus improves. This is because proficiency bonus is actually a 1d4-1d12 summarized as its average die size (Rounded down).

Now I'll think of a new example I've never tried using this space:

So let's say we have a feature that grants proficiency in all saves. We could use that feature, but what if we used our class die? "You add your class die to all saves" is pretty exciting (Well to me it is. I love rolling more dice). What if you could, at will, give this dice as a reaction to someone attacking another target within 5 feet, adding it to their AC? Like a parry? That also sounds exciting. You're always reacting to the action each and every turn, giving you even more to do.

Conclusion

The power of Negative Space is extremely powerful. Learning how to use it with spells and spell-like features will allow you to make new classes with new features that seem completely original but in fact uses features from elsewhere.

Things I hate about DnD 5e

 Okay so -

I want to preface this by saying I love DnD 5e in general. My hatred towards some of its aspects doesn't distract from the fun I have at all. With that out of the way I have two things to talk about...

Feats

 The idea of using feats to improve your character sounds great, but then when you make a feat that becomes mandatory it is no longer a "feat" but instead a core feature. An example of this would be War Caster and Great Weapon Master. Both of these offer such a gargantuan boost in power you practically must take them in order to function more effectively (And in GWM's case in order to actually keep up with spellcasters). But there's an even bigger issue I have with it: Feats that offer a tremendous boon while still offering ability score improvements. There is no trade off here. You get a boost to your stat and a full feature, which isn't okay. There are extremely few examples I have less issue with like skill expert. Skill Expert allows the player more flexibility with a skill, which is unrelated to combat (usually).

Spoon Feeding

I really don't like how 5e spoon feeds the player everything they need. There's no planning, you get significantly more than you need and then never capitalizes on it. An example is each class offering 2+ skills, then when you choose a subclass it gives another skill. I would much rather prefer if a subclass required you to have the skill first, and then improve upon the skill in its own way. In real life you don’t work at a wood shop then suddenly you have proficiency with woodworking tools day 1, you need to be able to use it in the first place.

Perhaps 5e’s intention is that gaining proficiency with the skill when you reach the subclass is a sign that your character was training to use it, but I very rarely see anyone talk about enforcing a player to role play learning how to use the skill. Imagine if a cleric was actually studying medicine as a part of being a Life cleric. Wouldn’t that add so much more flavor? I’m not demanding a player to study each and every day, but incorporating it more into role play would make their character feel more “down to earth”, like you could reach out and touch the character.

Anyway. Thanks for coming to one of my shorter blogs!

The Seeker: Eldritch Artifacts

 Magic Items are really cool

I love the idea of a class who interacts with the world primarily through their craft. This post is about the seeker and their Eldritch Artifacts.

The goal of artifacts

Artifacts should offer two things:

1. A unique ability
2. A spell list including one cantrip and a spell of each level from 1st to 5th.

An artifact should offer an ability other artifacts don't. I begun the occultist with three important artifacts: The Black Mirror (Now called Magic Mirror), Claw of Obliteration, and Watcher's Eye. Admittedly, two of the three artifacts are about damage - it's my personal philosophy to offer a damage, support, and utility effect when first creating something akin to this. Let's take a brief look at each item.

Magic Mirror offers a strong utility. It provides information about each creature that fails to save against it per long rest, and it offers divination spells. A utility effect that offers no direct combat or social advantage should be very strong and tempting, so the list of creature properties you can scry is flexible and numerous.

Claw of Obliteration offers "damage". When you hit something unharmed, you do full damage. I place quotes around it because you don't deal more damage than normal, but instead increase the average damage by 50% more. How do I figure 50%? Each die has an average damage count, so let's take a d10, which has an average damage of 5.5. If you're dealing 3d10 damage to someone, that's an average of 16.5 damage. Against a full health target you'll always deal 30 damage, which is essentially a 50% increase in damage. It's not exact, but for the purpose of balance its close enough. The claw offers damage spells, as well as spells that raise the dead, as the claw is themed for undeath.

Lastly is the Watcher's Eye. This is simultaneously utility and damage. You'll always know where the target is, you ignore disadvantage with attack rolls, and ignore cover up to 3/4ths. While, again, this doesn't directly increase damage, it offers utility to increase Dormant Damage. From now on I'll use Dormant Damage when referring to an ability that increases potential damage without increasing minimum or maximum damage. The watcher eye is really powerful - it has a 10 minute duration once per short rest. Spells offered by the eye revolve around sight, such as Darkvision.

How many artifacts?

Here's a great use for negative space: I don't need to put any effort into figuring out how many artifacts you have. I'll have the class start with three, which is three spells, three cantrips, and three artifact skills. That's more than enough to start with. Then I'll increase the amount of artifacts in junction with gaining a new spell level. This solves two things: Players know when they gain a spell level they get a new artifact, and it increases how many cantrips they have available in a natural way. It also spaces out the artifact amount nicely over long periods. While this will result in a massive amount of known spells, the player can't hand pick each spell, and thusly should be fine balance wise. If the player is picking an item just for the spells I think I might be doing something wrong with the artifact skill. I want players to pick artifacts for their flavor and skill first, and spell list second.

Another design philosophy for my artifacts is I'll have any upgrade effect increase when a new spell level is gained. Example: Arcane Ward allows you to turn the requirements of any armor to Intelligence and wear it without proficiency. Because Heavy armor is valuable, it needs to come later, so I'll make the artifact grant heavy armor, but only at 5th level when you get 2nd level spells. The spells it comes with is already valuable enough. I could make it 3rd level, which is when the Artificer can use the same effect on Heavy armor, but I decided to push it to 5th level anyway to make it coincide with future artifacts. Plus, the class is already quite tanky.

Artifact effect or spell list first?

This is a hard question, and I think it can work both ways, but typically I think of a cool effect for an artifact before making the spell list. The item is the core fun of the class, so it should always be fun and useful. If I can't find the right spells I'll either create my own or adjust the flavor to fit the spell list without affecting the ability it has.

Wrap up

I think this should be good to begin with. I think the next post will be about expanding on later features.

Class Creation: The Seeker

 It's been a while, yeah?

Not that I haven't been up to nothing, it's that I've been on a really bad roller coaster for the past few months, and I'm now feeling like I have a foothold. Let's jump right into the discussion.

 Class mechanic idea: Item Creation

I briefly got into magic item creation not too long ago and it implanted a seed into my conscious: A class focusing around its items as a primary means to interact with the world. Sounds cool doesn't it? It feels like artificer, but then again there's something like 4 full spellcasters and they all feel different from one another, so why can't a class with item creation? I actually had this idea scratching at the back of my mind a few years ago when I was making the second version of a Ninja class, but decided against it in favor of what I perceived to be a cooler idea (a multitude of skills to replicate the feel of anime ninja). Then I had the idea of a magic class with no spellcasting. WHAT? That sounded really cool! What would it be like? How would it be balanced? I had to find out by torturing myself by creating a class I had no reference for.

Class Creation: The Occultist

Today I'll be discussing my development behind a full class. Let's start with the first version of the Seeker: The Occultist.

The previous incarnation of the class was called the Occultist. I had the idea of someone who gathered dark knowledge, not necessarily because it was evil, but because common civilization shunned it. This could come in the form of say... a heretic, for believing a truth that went against their initial religion. Another great subclass for this could have been a witch, who are typically ostracized from civilization. This rung with me quite well; it had the rhythm of a final class. Now onto class features.

The next aspect of the old Occultist was Eldritch Artifacts. This was something akin to the warlock receiving a pact boon, but the occultist obtained these items through a way that made sense player-to-player, such as obtaining the item in a dreamscape then finding it in their hand the next day. This is a part that I was less sure about. There's nothing wrong with it in principle but it sounds a bit weak. Having the player come up with the reason can lead to weaker character design. I wanted to do something different: A magic class with no spellcasting. 

Eldritch artifacts held power, which had uses per long/short rest, or long/short rest per individual. An example was a frightening mask that you could use as a reaction to make someone afraid of you until you started your turn, but only when you were attacked. This had no uses per long rest, but instead short rest per individual, but only on a failed save. Why per individual? I made the duration extremely short to make it a very powerful but short-lived defense so that you could affect as many things that attacked you each day. Someone afraid of you can't willingly move closer, and their attack rolls have disadvantage targeting you. Extremely useful! This short-lived fear was basically between cantrip level and 1st level spell, or as I internally call it: a .5th level spell. This made it okay to be essentially at-will. It would be terrible for a longer fight, but it would keep the baddies relatively off you in the initial part of a fight, which was most important. There's a lot of really good reasons to pick up this mask.

How these items were balanced is essentially using my Negative Space technique. (For those of you that are unfamiliar with this, here is a link with the information along other things: Red's Design Philosophies) Basically equate the power to a full spellcaster with a spell of the same level if it had per-rest, and one-quarter level if it was at-will.

The last important aspect to the occultist was Incantations. This is a really fun idea, and fit the class theme, but it felt like a last minute decision hacked into a class that already had a fantastic core mechanic. It probably should have been a subclass feature, and I was going to make it so, but by then my faith in the class was practically gone. I'd like to use incantations again some day.

The last straw was the 3rd level feature. I was trying to come up with something as defining as the Pact Boons. An example was to allow the creation of one additional artifact, but it had to be attuned to, however anyone could attune to it and use its effects. That's an idea I still think is amazing! The problem was that was the only useful 3rd level feature I could think of, so the class died.

tl:dr: The occulist had a great mechanic of magic with no spellcasting in the form of magic items unique to it, however a weak/narrow narrative left me feeling unsatisfied.

Creating the Seeker

And now we get into the meat of the post. It only took me a few days to think about the occulist and what the ultimate goal of the class was. I was going to focus it around the use of magic items, but with a new twist: You don't learn or prepare spells, instead spells are tied to a similarly thematic artifact. Fantastic! This has a new rhythm to it that feels unlike other classes. I tried to fit it within the context of the occultist, and I probably could but I felt a fresh coat of paint is in order to reinvigorate my interest, so I used a website to find similar words to occultists. I came across Witch, and it could have been a really good fit! These items could been witch crafts, which makes total sense! But a new idea for an ultimate class goal came clearly to me: Immortality. This is an extremely common goal for many, and there's a lot of inspiration to draw from.

A new spin on spells

So, instead of learning spells, the spells are offered from the items you create. This suddenly gives those artifacts more weight and personality. It also allows anyone to look at a spell and think of what sort of item it would belong to, making item creation easier. Since the items themselves have uses-per-rest, I think we can get away with the class being a half caster, which fits my philosophy

 

Subclasses

Okay, so the goal is immortality, which means each subclass is the method of which you attain it. Let's think of a few:

• Eternal youth / youth theft
• Transferal of consciousness
• Undeath / lichdom
• Vampirism
• Demonism
• Ascending flesh
• Horcrux
  

We already have more than a handful to work with. Next...

Core Features

 1st Level

We're immortals, so this class will be exceptionally tanky for a spellcaster. I've decided to make the class die a d6. This in combination with your spellcasting and artifacts will open a tremendous amount of power for the core features. So what is a Seeker? They seek immortality, and find magic by creating these artifacts using a material from their own soul called soulstuff. This feels a bit weak to me, but it's well enough that I can work with it.

2nd level

So how does the seeker operate in every day life? Since they have such a focus on items, they should get the Identify spell. But making a core feature a spell isn't enough, it needs more. So when the Seeker casts Identify, they get more information than other spellcasters. Let's say... they can know who last used or attuned to it, where it was created, and perhaps the name of the person. I feel there could be more, but this is a decent start.

The next feature should enhance their survival. Early within their career do they find inspiration for immortality. I really like the feature for the Shadow Sorcerer, where you can potentially avoid death via a save. I'm going to go ahead and directly draw from that, but give it uses per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus. Using Prof bonus is great - it naturally scales with the class in a way that doesn't require a bunch of wording. Having spellcasting modifier uses per long rest would be too many too early, and I don't feel like figuring out uses per-level-scaling. Already the class is very survivable, even without armor.

3rd level

Next are subclasses, which we described above. I really feel like since this class is about items, a horcrux subclass should be the flagship.

6th level

This is where the class's defensive nature truly comes to life. I'll directly pull features from two classes: Zealot barbarian, and pact of the chain warlock. When someone wants to resurrect you, they don't need to consume material components. This is a bit different from the barbarian zealot, which allows the spellcaster to not require material components at all. While fine, I feel this takes away a bit from the narrative of resurrecting someone, so I nerfed it slightly. Next is a pact of the chain invocation: When someone heals you, you receive full healing instead. Now you are truly immortal*!

*Provided you can get healing from a source.

Wrapping up

I think this post has gone on long enough, so I'll leave it here. Next post will focus on Eldritch Artifacts!

Musing: My Dream and Development Skills

 How to Start?

    I'm struggling to think of a satisfying way to begin this post. This will be largely me rambling, but it's also about how I process game and idea development.

    Ever since my introduction to D&D 3.5 I've always  wanted to create my very own game system. I've been big on game development for literally my whole life, but I struggled to really think of a good way to tackle it until recently. Countless times in the past have I started and immediately stopped trying to develop my game creation skills. It wasn't until I discovered homebrewing for D&D 5e that I finally found my method of game development that's still going on about 5-6 years later. And now I want to achieve that goal, to create something people love to play.

What do I want to achieve?

    This is a question I've been slowly answering over the past few months. As a gamer you know what you enjoy, but when placed in the position to create it you have literally no idea where to begin. This has spiraled into the search for what I want from a game and how to achieve it. I've been doing 200 word games to help hash out smaller ideas, rather than aiming to make an actual game. It forces you to think of the raw essence of your goal and distill it into the purest form. It's my philosophy that if you can make a fun game in 200 words or less, then it's better than a large game with no flavor.

    This is going to be a really long journey. It took me 4 years of homebrewing for D&D until I was finally getting a grasp on development, balance, and flavor. Developing my own system is going to take just as long. Probably longer. But honestly that idea doesn't scare me. In fact I'm excited just typing this. Though this excitement wanes and waxes as it pleases. I'm not always 100%, and you won't either!

Learning to Love Challenge, and other skills

    This is what I consider a very important aspect if you want to seriously game develop. Learning to love a challenge will drive you harder than forcing yourself to develop something to meet a quota. It also allows you to gain motivation through more work. Being excited for the unknown is an extremely powerful tool that keeps you interested. Honestly I didn't have this at first - I had literally over 16 years of ideas trapped in my head, which allowed me to create an absolutely inhuman amount of content when I first started development (As stated within my first blog). 

    But once you hit a wall where you need to develop new skills is the right time to learn to love the challenge. Get excited for not knowing how to tackle an idea, because you don't know how awesome the end results will be. That's what truly drives me. Unfortunately not all ideas are winners, and it's best to accept they're okay, or bad, then move onto a new project. The idea is to keep the ball rolling, then tackle a bad idea again later. Be sure you save all your work, you'll need it later down the line, even if it's a really bad idea. It's my personal philosophy that no idea is inherently bad; it's the execution. Take the Diablo franchise as an example. Imagine if all it had was fighting monsters in a new environment every few hours. Not interesting or fun. But when you add skills, random potential, powerful and interesting loot, and a plot line, the idea becomes more grand. By exploring separate ideas, they can become a conglomerate and create a greater whole.

Collateral Inspiration

     Another skill to learn is to work on ideas adjacent to the first one when you're stuck and you will often solve two problems at once. I call this collateral inspiration. This is such a powerful tool and I didn't realize I had it until later. Once I realized its existence, I put it to practical use and suddenly jumped forward in progress. Sometimes you can create exploding collateral inspiration, where solving two problems you were stuck on creates new ideas.

    An example of collateral inspiration is you want to work on an ice themed warrior. You might be stuck with some mechanics or imagery behind it. Then work on something else ice themed, perhaps a monster, or create an ice priest. Another amazing idea is to invent a new character within a world you're familiar with and imagine how they interact with it. Creating a character more often than not creates explosive collateral inspiration.

Make something that excites you

     I can't emphasize this enough. If you aren't excited by what you're looking at then you should work on the idea more. An interesting idea doesn't mean it's fun, either. There's plenty of paved paths that are really fun despite never deviating from the normal, as in they're fun not just because it's interesting, but because it's fun and interesting. This is by far the hardest challenge you'll face. It's one I'm dealing with now. How do you create a meaningful mechanic fun and flavorful without making it too obtuse or have it weighed down by its own idea? The idea of a blood mage is really fun, but the issue is the mechanics are weighing itself down; it's defeating itself before it can even get out of the gate. Many blood mages I see are too complicated for their own good.

Make something for you, not them

    Don't make a game that'll interest hardcore players. Don't make something around a theme just because it sounds interesting. Make it for you, and if you find it fun and exciting, then other people will follow. You can't make something that pleases everyone. You are the first person that you should please. When looking for feedback, ask it only from people you trust and love. People are cruel and uncaring about how or why you arrived at a conclusion; if you start revolving your game around that, you are no longer creating something for yourself, you are making it for them.

    Once you have created something you love, and you have tested this idea to be as balanced as it can be, then you release it into the wild. The wild is full of animals that will rip and shred your material, but it's also full of civilized people. When reading criticism from an animal, treat it like a dog who has torn up its new toy immediately. Disconnect yourself from your work when looking at these comments, or ignore them entirely. Look for people who are interested in aiding you. Look for people who give you a how and why ideas work and don't work. You can usually tell when their words come from a place of love and or respect.

There are innumerous people that disrespect D&D 5e, but there are still thousands of players that love it.

Follow the Fun

    The last musing I'll post. Follow the fun. You find something that isn't a core part of your project, but find it very fun. Incorporate it, or rework your system around the idea and you'll arrive at a better place. There are countless ideas that changed drastically from the original idea because they found a fun idea that worked better than the one they were working on. I've done this several times for my game project despite having a dire attachment to my old ideas that no longer fit the project. You'll hate it at first, then you'll love it later.

Worldbuilding: Astroverse (The Physical Universe)

 Astroverse

     Welcome to my first world building post! I didn't quite consider using my blogs to spout fun ideas for worlds until a friend of mine did so. So strap in! This is a long one.

 
 Admittedly, this is a remake of an older universe that begun with the idea of astrology as its center piece, but then became it's own thing entirely.

 

The Start

 For my first step, I base a world on an interesting idea or theme. In this case, I'm choosing astrology! I love the idea behind it; the stars and planets influencing life on earth, influencing fate itself.

 Next, let's take a look at things I'm going to include or exclude. I'm going to explicitly avoid any gods, demons, and angels this time around. It's tiring hearing the same stories with them involved, even if they don't directly intervene. I will have magic this time, though I'm not sure at what level it is at, but I do know it's tied to the stars.

Planets and Realms 

Tl;dr: Realms exist within a physical location represented as a planet. A realm isn't limited by space like a planet is. Realms have some level of sentience, which creates local laws of physics / magic.

    Rather than a planet just being a physical thing, it'll be a realm in itself, while the realm's physical location is where the planet is located. But in terms of travel, things can get weird, which I'll explain in what a Convergence is. Realms are semi-sentient, like a force with a will, but most (save one) has no explicit personality or goal. Thus, all celestial forces within this universe are entirely neutral; the nature of its people are tied completely to the people itself and nothing else.

    Planets will orbit the Prime realm, which sits at the center of it all. Each plant has a waning and waxing phase where it influences Prime, and much like our real life planet counterparts they have different orbit times and distances. Both the sun (Sol) and moon (Luna) orbit Prime as well.

 

 

The Zodiac, and Oblivion

Tl;dr: Stars create groups called constellations, which make up the schools of magic, which is split evenly into lunar magic and solar branches of magic. Everything outside the sphere of stars is nothingness - no weird creatures, no consuming darkness. Truly nothing.

    Much like planets, stars also have a will, and exert an influence on everything they surround. Unlike our real life counterparts, stars are simply small bodies of light that exist to keep Oblivion at bay.

Stars, the Zodiac

    Stars are scattered throughout the celestial sphere, which marks the end of the solar system.
However those concentrated at the belt horizontal to Prime form the constellations called the Zodiac signs. This is where magic is drawn from, each zodiac representing a school or nature of magic. There are 12 signs, 10 of them are each divided into a court between Sol and Luna, while two of them are transient, belonging to both. The zodiac is tied to the celestial year, and not the year based on your realm (as in, it isn't tied to a month like ours is). There are minor zodiacs that exist just outside of the belt; they hold lesser power and aren't tied to magic.

Oblivion

    Beyond the stars lies oblivion. A place of true nothingness. There is no eldritch force trying to consume the light, there are no dark gods. It is simply a force of nature that lacks material. The celestial sphere "prevents" it from entering the solar system. That is to say it staves off non-existence in a metaphorical manner. Despite its seeming nature, oblivion is also a neutral force.
    Despite its lack of matter, a type of power can be drawn from it, but it is not considered magic. The power drawn from here begets a force of erasure and nullification. Those who have a hatred for magic almost always draw from this force.

Celestial Influence 

Tl;dr: Constellations are called the zodiac, which influences people's behavior and their fate. 

    Ready for your horoscope? The zodiac has a true influence on the lives of people who live within the solar system. Horoscopes fall under Divination magic, by the way. This is a very real thing, but unlike most magic it isn't a science. Being born under a sign gives you a whisper of its magic. That is to say, being born under a sign of Divination magic doesn't mean you'll predict the future, but you'll often find small things edging you towards your goal. An example of this is finding a few extra dollars here and there to buy a new gaming console.

Convergence

Tl;dr: Convergence between realms allows people to simply walk to the other realm. Convergence places can be predicted via math.

    Perhaps one of the most important aspects of this universe is convergence. When this happens, two realms become connected directly via a magical "bridge", so to speak. It isn't total; only a few places will have a direct connection, which changes over time as the planet travels. You may find wild growth suddenly outright replacing that office building that used to sit there. Anything moving into this area immediately transports you onto the planet converging, where you'll find the missing office. Funnily enough, this disconnect doesn't disturb the order of things - internet and electricity still works in the office building stuck on another planet (temporarily), and a tree caught between two worlds still lives normally. Here's what it would look like.

    When you walk onto another plane, you don't collide with whatever is in the center when you leave.

    When magic is low(er), you will only see a ghost of an image from what a convergence would have been. You can still cross, but it's more challenging.

    If you're a really good astrologist, you can predict exactly where these spots will arise (and used to arise) using math. It's an actual science and can save you and your civilization a collective headache.

Realm Influence

 Tl;dr: Realms magically transmute people and things to become more like the realm itself. A realm of fairies influencing the world would cause existing creatures and those who are born during the influence to have those attributes.

    When the Prime is influenced by magic, planets directly interfere with Prime by exerting their will. For example, a planet of faeries would cause more of that type of creature to be born on Prime. Planets will also alter what already exists, so people, plants, and animals may spontaneously gain fairy powers and attributes, for example. During a convergence, such creatures can cross the proverbial road onto the Prime as well. This can cause problems, due to a sudden influx of feral creatures (such as beasts) trying to take over the unfamiliar territory, or cause havoc due to confusion.

Planets

I'm not sure how many planets I'll be including, but let's define just 3 to keep things quick.

Prime

Tl;dr: Prime sits in the center. Zodiac magic and technology works via this realm's sentience. Technology and magic become stronger and weaker with 20-30 thousand year cycles. The cycle doesn't effect creatures created by realm influence or their abilities.

    Despite the celestial name Prime (like Sol, or Luna), the inhabitants all call it something else depending on the culture (which is true for other celestial bodies). Prime is influenced by its neighbors through celestial cycles more than other planets influencing other planets. Magic wanes and waxes over periods of say... 20-30 thousand years, where other realms have magic always on or off. When magic is waning, convergence occurs less often, and not at all during nadir. To keep things familiar, Prime looks and feels much like Earth - the difference comes in when convergence shakes things up.

    The planet has ages, which is divided by waning and waxing magical influence. Each new age builds upon the corpse of the last, which acts as a "fertilizer" for the next, for lack of a better term. There has been more than one modern era, but technology and magic has a strict limit within this universe, preventing one from besting the other. A good example of this is technology becoming inoperable during the apex time of magic, and vice versa. This is the sentience of Prime at work, rather than a mundane or magic universal law.

    The ages do not effect creatures born or influenced by realms. Only magic drawn from the zodiac is effected.

The Wilds

Tl;dr: Wilds are untamed. Because of its sentience, it can't be tamed and will fight back against it. Filled with animals and plants that can grow to epic sizes.

    The closest planet to Prime, the Wilds consists primarily of primeval land. Untamed, untouchable. Here is where nature is strongest; there is always a bigger fish. It's a struggle to survive here, but those that do are exceptionally strong in a physical, mental, or magic manner. The Wilds doesn't consist of just jungle and plant life, there are oceans and deserts much like Earth. The driving difference is you can't claim land, its sentience drives itself to take back any land, sea, or sky that someone is attempting to make a civilized foothold. To live here, you must either be nomadic, or understand how to live with nature by constructing smaller cities of natural material that coexists with the land without taking anything away from it. Fauna and flora can grow to epic and gargantuan portions, such as the Giant's Forest, where trees extend literally into the clouds and its trunk gargantuan.
    The Wilds consist of so much untouched beauty. Its inhabitants are primarily animal in nature - either humanoid or feral beasts. Plant life also takes form as their own type of humanoid and feral beast as well.

Nightmare

 Tl;dr: Nightmare has more sentience than other realms. It sits a little inside Oblivion, which causes its nature. Creatures of nightmare feed on negative emotion, which reduces the amount of it in the realm it influences, but if food is scarce it creates more negative emotion instead. Those born of nightmare are extremely powerful outside of light.

    The last plant we'll touch on. Nightmare sits at the literal edge of Oblivion, existing half in the solar system, half in Oblivion. It has by far the longest celestial year of any planet by a hundred thousand years, and has the weakest influence. The plant itself is challenging to see with a telescope because its surface is so dark.

    Nightmare is strange. Unlike most planets, this one seemingly has a consciousness tied to it that only those influenced by Nightmare can hear and understand. Despite the name, Nightmare has a motherly nature keen on protecting its children. Entities influenced by Nightmare take on the properties of a culture and nature, rather than a set type of creature. By culture I mean it may take on the appearance of a terrible omen of destruction that would bring despair to people who see it. Or it may simply terrify beasts it exists around due to its nature. Those affected by nightmare may be freighting in one place, but not so much in others without cultural context. Those born and influenced of nightmare feed exclusively on negativity, especially terror. This consumption isn't harmful to anyone; its the fear they cause.

    The planet itself is entirely "underground". Despite have a "surface", it's impossible to be on the surface. It's completely alien - anything not aligned with nightmare can't traverse it. Even if they had a guide born from nightmare they would still become lost, and eventually become a part of the planet itself, or simply consumed by the inhabitants. Light is scarce because it's literally consumed by the darkness; a strong and powerful light will do nothing. You need to be gentle with light, as gentle as you can. Dark vision does nothing here, because there is no light, heat, or cold in the first place, which is why most inhabitants have no eyes, or feel their surroundings with extra sensory perception.

    Outside of the nightmare, creatures born and influenced by it are weakened by light, or their power becomes non-functional. Some are even outright killed by sun or moonlight. All creatures of nightmare share a weakness to light, it is impossible for them to divert or prevent this.

Musing: Charisma (And other abilities)

 Man,

 defining ability scores is hard. 

    I want ability scores that can succinctly define an aspect of a character without leaving question to what it can be used for. Let's take D&D and Pathfinder for example using Wisdom. It defines both your ability to determine if someone is leaving out details they're giving... and... also the ability to perceive. What? How does my ability to discern lies also mean I can spot fine details with my eyes? I can see how if you bend it just enough to be something like "your observational power", which I can agree with if that's the case. Wisdom is also used to solve philosophical questions like what love is. But I don't like Wisdom is also used for Nature and Medicine. I get using Wisdom for Medicine is about piecing together things you have observed to create an accurate image of what's going on, but learning medicine is entirely about knowing what a body is made of and how it functions, which is entirely Intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to problem solve practical problems, like math. Imagine if your doctor knew you had internal bleeding (Wisdom), but lacked the knowledge of how to fix it (Intelligence), so they decide that they want to bleed you out so your body doesn't bloat from blood. Yikes. I wonder if using a combination of abilities together would make a more complete image.

    So what about Charisma? Here's an excerpt from my post about Thaumaturgy:

... "This problem is: What type of ability score can represent fate? My first thought was Charisma, but I like neither D&D nor Pathfinder's definition of it (that's a muse for another time). Charisma is defined as both your ability to interact with people but also your force of personality? Someone can be impressionable but be really bad when interacting with people. Think about an online user with a strong presence because they're anonymous, but would be terribly shaken and maybe even incapable of verbalization if forced to personally interact with people."

 

         I don't like how Charisma is presented within the game. But let me quickly touch on something: Ability scores within the game are simplified to keep things short. At least that's what I've noticed from my insight. It would be really crunchy if you had to keep track of 14 ability scores, more than half of which you likely wouldn't use.

     On the topic of Charisma, I'm usually not fond of how it's often used for attacks and spell casting. Why can the Sorcerer and Bard in D&D swoon magic to be cast at their behest? Of course, Charisma in that game also represents will power, so I'll let it slide. But what if Charisma was solely a people skill? This is where things can be fun. Imagine what type of character relies on Charisma for getting an attack in. Suave pirates and deceptive assassins come into mind. They still need precision, but by fooling their opponents they create an opening for themselves. That's really fun and flavorful! But why stop there? Let's look at spell casters!

    What sort of spell caster needs to fool their opponents? The schools of Enchantment and Illusion come to mind. It's not enough that you have the Intelligence to create an illusion with a spell, you need to control it to make it seem convincing. You can make a pot for boiling food but that doesn't mean you know how to cook. Thus, I am in full support for spells requiring different casting abilities, rather than being defined by your "class" (Sorcerer, Wizard, and so forth). What if a spell caster that used spells for plants and animals used Nature for their spell casting? They would naturally be amazing with Nature skill checks too.

 

Before I go, I would like to say one last thing about Charisma. I think Insight should be a Charisma skill, and not wisdom. It's a people skill. Investigation is the best non-person observation. 

 

- Red