ReLOE

In strange eons, even the dead may die again.

Game Intent: LoE provides a rich and developed (if occasionally cheesy and cliche) background universe, particularly with regards to crossovers between magic and technology. The style of the game was always more heroic than realistic, opening up many options for adventure. The intent of ReLoE (after some early confusion) is to make use of that universe as a backdrop for a developing all-Lords RPG system that will hopefully in future be applicable to a wide variety of games.

The ruleset is intended to have three levels. At the first it will be a heroic character-level RPG, in the style of D&D, but with heavy influences from other games such as Exalted and WoD. Unlike D&D, the system will not have a single minded focus on combat (and fantasy combat at that), but will also seek to integrate non-combat gameplay into its rules. The second level will be larger scale tactical warfare, where vehicles and small unit combat will play a greater role. This level will use detailed stats for various war machines, and will be able to be played out on the scale of small battles. The third level will be a strategic wargame, where military conflict will be greatly simplified, and nations can be controlled through relatively quick game turns.

The idea is to create a ruleset that can scale up and down these three levels, allowing multiple forms of gameplay, from a national level wargame, where characters are played occasionally to add some flavour, to a character level part based RPG, where strategic nation turns are taken occasionally to determine the larger events affecting the world around the characters.

Work on the ruleset continues with a select group of testers, and will be expanded again over time.

Useful things go here. They make us go.

Nations

PCs

Thetis Append (West)
Kozun (West)
Therson (West)
Belmar (West)
The Order of Nasht (West)
Fourth Paradise (West)

Tyran Invicta (East)
Mai's Counterattack (East)
Vale of Hespirii (East)
Mith Nara (East)

[1]

NPCs

Rubicon Rma
Gael Cygni
Schliraum Sternreich
The Celestine Existence
Reading
Liolanthe
NPC Characters

Rules

Ground Combat
Ship Combat
Air Combat

Principles

Principles and Interests
Frankish Principles and Interests (Early Draft/Sample)
Tyrasan Principles and Interests
Lost Ground Principles and Interests

WorldBuilding

Jane's Weapons of the Galaxy

Icons

Everyone who doesn't want to use the default icons needs three unique icons; one each for Army, Navy and Agent/Individual. They should be relatively small (ideally 50 pixel diameter) and preferably circular.

Character Rules

You may not activate more than three heroes a turn, though you may activate less (or even none) if you so choose. All heroes need an epithet; the Queen Luceedi, the Elder Wyrm Rhodos, Tenno Showa.

Three levels of hero combat:

Social: Conflict over some third party

Mental: Conflict between two heroes with no intent to physically harm

Physical: Brawl!

Characters

All characters must start as one of five basic class templates, giving them the Cardinal trait and one additional derived trait. Once they level up however, characters are not otherwise restricted in what traits they may choose.

Characters start with 5 stat points and one trait point at level 1. No Stat may start at more than 3, and no trait of more than tier 1 may be chosen.

All characters can choose any trait, based on their pre-requisites.

Characters gain one stat point and an increasing number of trait points per level. When levelling one already purchased trait may be exchanged for trait points.

Stats

This is your dice pool. Any stat can be rolled in most situations, so long as an appropriate story is told.

• Combat: All form of personal combat from fists to lightning bolts to battlemechs.
• Conviction: Zeal and drive; sheer force of personality.
• Mental: Cleverness and intellectually rigorous plans and strategems.
• Mysticism: Understanding the mysteries of the universe, a spiritual connection to the whole.
• Social: Your appearance and charisma stat.

Classes/Traits

Each class has a cardinal trait, which must be taken to unlock all further traits of that class.

Officer

Officers are a state's military commanders.

Their cardinal trait is Leadership, which allows Officer traits to be applied to military units.

• Land Command - Adds +1 dice to ground combat command rolls per level.

• Armour Ace - Allows the use of armoured vehicle type strategems.
• Artillerist - Allows the use of artillery type strategems.

• Advanced Artillerist - Allows the use of more exotic artillery strategems.

• Infantry Tactician - Allows the use of infantry type strategems.

• Naval Command - Adds +1 dice to naval combat command rolls per level.

• Base Striker - Allows strategems related to destroying objectives without getting necessarily caught up in gun battles. Good for carriers and special attack equipped ships.
• Line of Battler - Allows strategems related to slamming one fleet into the other fleet and winding up on top.
• Interdiction - Allows strategems related to fast ships.
• U-Boat Ace -

• Air Command - Adds +1 dice to air combat command rolls per level.

• Bomber Commander -
• Fighter Ace -
• Strike Ace -

Official

Officials are the statesmen and merchants of a nation.

Their cardinal trait is Politics which allows a character to apply Official traits to other nations/groups.

• Diplomat -
• Merchant -
• Academic -
• Revolutionary -

• Surrounded By People - Combat rolls against the character cause collateral damage.

Savant

Savants are the mages and engineers of a nation who perform tasks such as research and reverse-engineering, along with repairing ancient relics.

The cardinal Savant trait is Etherics which allows Power Points to be applied to military units.

• Magic -
• Technology -
• Technomagic -
• Old Empire: X (Paradisium, Exalter, Freeman, Atlantean) -
• God Tech -

Agent

Agents are the assorted less-than-public characters of a nation.

The Agent cardinal trait is Covert Ops which allows the character to move and act secretly.

• Assassin - Character can kill other characters with sufficient success margin.

• Terminator - While assassinations tend to get more difficult on repeat attempts, the Terminator gets a bonus for it so long as they continue to doggedly pursue their target no matter where they choose to flee.

• Saboteur - Character can damage, destroy or delay military units.

• Gundamjack - You can steal units instead of destroying them.

• Spy - Character can observe secret information or NPC intentions and dispositions.

• Deceiver - You can present false information to ordinary spies in the area.

Adventurer

Adventurers are "miscellaneous" characters of who do interesting things a bit further afield than usual. Unlike the other classes, their actions are not directly tied to an aspect of the state they ostensibly serve. The cardinal trait for Adventurers is Heroics.

• Champion - Makes a character even fightier than their Combat stat suggests and allows them to gain rewards by fighting a lot.

• Pilot - Scales character up into a military unit such as a mobile suit.

• Explorer - The Indiana Jones archetype. Allows the character to gain rewards from travel and exploration.
• Rogue - The Jack Sparrow/Han Solo archetype. Allows the character to gain rewards from interacting with other characters as they adventure. While this interaction is not entirely zero-sum, it's unlikely that any given artifact mecha could be shared.

Misc

• Emir's Ear - Can call upon local authorities or powers in support.
• Humanoid Typhoon - Deals collateral damage whenever the character rolls Combat.
• Last Laugh - When targeted by an assassination attempt (successful or not), gain successes for your current cause equal to the threshold of success of the attempt.

Tags

These are character aspects with no mechanical effect; they are instead intended to provide character hooks both for yourself and other players to use. It's encouraged to reference tags during the course of a story and if at least one tag is called during the course of a story - of any character present, yours or someone else's - the author will get one additional character point at the conclusion of the story. It is recommended that characters have 3-4 tags each.

Ascend