Legends of Cphera
Overview
Legends of Cphera is a table-top role-playing game that has been in development for over a year and a half by two people. It has been a collaborative process from day one, with both of us sharing creative vision, and has run through several large revisions to arrive at its current state.
The game's base mechanics are designed for a hardcore table-top audience and are fully playable. We are in the process of creating more advancement content and fleshing out the new fantasy world we have created for the game.
The full documentation wiki for the game can be found here.
-
A Unique World
A core goal of Legends of Cphera from the beginning was for the game to not feel like all the fantasy role-playing games that came before it. To that end, we have endeavored to create a world that feels different from standard Tolkien-inspired fantasy, both through the game's mechanics and its setting.
Gameplay
A great deal of research has gone into making the game's mechanics feel correct and grounded. Different kinds of armors react to weapons in different ways, and weapons each have unique characteristics. For example, scale mail is better at dealing with maces and clubs than full plate, and using a spear will actually grant you a higher defense than just a sword.
The progression system is divided up into three discrete sections: Novice, Established, and Legendary. A Novice soldier is about as capable as any real human with a sword, while a Legendary warrior stands as a living Gilgamesh, and is just as rare. Long-term play will follow characters from their humble beginnings and chart their journeys into Cphera's halls of mythology.
Setting
In Cphera, there are no elves or dwarves, only humans. The terrifying creatures that live in the forest are not aberrations of nature; they are part of nature, and the forest is their home. Humanity lives in pockets carved out of the wilderness where ancient magic dwells.
Great care has been taken to ensure that civilizations within the world of Cphera are unique and flavorful. Different magical affinities, cultures, and technology levels can be found throughout the world.
-
Role Playing Freedom
The development of Legends of Cphera has been designed to capitalize on the genre's inherent strengths and is focused entirely around player freedom and agency. The world of a table-top game is created by the imaginations of the Game Master and his players, and because of that, the players can do anything.
Freeform Advancement
One of Cphera's defining characteristics is that there are no character classes. A character can develop in any, or multiple, directions. Unlike the rigidly defined progression paths found in Dungeons & Dragons, Legends of Cphera is more similar to Fable or The Elder Scrolls series.
We try to make every new ability and mechanic available to characters obviously useful, fun, and powerful. Character progression focusses onfreedom of choice, and we want to cripple our players with choices. The progression system is based on upgrade points, and each player is free to spend those points towards any arrangement of combat ability, feats, skills, and magic, ensuring that each character is entirely unique.
-
Freedom in Combat
One of the aspects of Dungeons & Dragons that we sought to rectify in Cphera is the rigidness of the combat model. We tried to reconnect combat to the nuance of actual swordplay.
Action Points
All actions characters make in combat cost Action Points. The maximum amount of Action Points a character can spend in a round is determined by three of the character's Ability Scores; however, it is not a hard limit. If the player chooses, he or she can accept certain penalties to his actions in exchange for spending more action points than normal.
This means players can choose to overextend themselves, becoming fatigued or overbalanced. Additionally, actions that occur during another character's turn, such as Attacks of Opportunity, also cost Action Points. Through this system, characters can rush at opponents in a rapid assault, or hang back and wait for their opponent to make a mistake, just like in a real fight.
Click Here for more information about Action Points.
Combat Ability
The Combat Ability statistic represents a character's general skill in combat. It is a pool of points that can be dynamically broken up into four different aspects of combat: Attack, Defense, Speed, and Countering. The breakdown of a character's Combat Ability can change every round, allowing characters to quickly switch up tactics and adapt to the situation in front of them.
Attack and Defense provide bonuses to landing and dodging attacks, respectively. Combat Speed provides free Action Points that can be spent on combative actions such as attacks, grabs, or casting spells. The Counter Bonus provides a way for a combatant to take advantage of an opponent's poor attack and render that opponent momentarily defenseless.
Click Here for more information about Combat Ability.
-
Freedom in Magic
Magic in Legends of Cphera works much like a skill check in other systems. When players want to cast a spell, they describe what effect they want the spell to have to the Game Master and he uses at set of guidelines to determine what the players will have to roll in order to cast that spell. This system allows for ultimate freedom in spell casting and is only possible in a table-top setting.
Magic is broken up into 20 different disciplines that characters gain points in just as they do with skills. Mages are limited in the disciplines' use only by their creativity, not by a dense tome of pre-made spells.
Click Here for more information about Magic.