Alchemy: Creating a System Part 1
Huge Quote Block© incoming:
what RPGs out there have strong, detailed, functional rules sets for “Alchemy” or at least the creation of Potions? And by this I mean, not just “The GM decides what components you need as a means of sending you out into the wild in search of them so you can blunder into a lot of random encounters”. I’m talking about rules that will give a list of herbs and other alchemical materials, what effects they provide, and how a PC put them all together in order to create something useful.
My gut feeling is that this is actually pretty rare – it’s something that’d require a lot of bean-counting and grocery-listing – what one of my players contemptuously referred to as “playing doll house” – and unless you have a wizard-heavy party, it would be a colossal bore for all the other players as the wizard’s player keeps insisting that the party search for herbs everywhere, and spends a lot of game time brewing up stuff that doesn’t even work half the time.
But on the other hand, something like this might be kind of cool. Rare plant and animal parts, as well as rare materials such as metals, gems, and other minerals, can add another layer of plot-hooks and treasure rewards on top of the usual gold & silver. Also, even if your party lacks a mage who has a knowledge of alchemy, perhaps you’ve got a rogue who finds various mild poisons or other concoctions handy, or there could be an NPC alchemist who occasionally hires the party in order to help him acquire some rare materials for his works.
Anyhow, I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts as to systems that have good solid rule sets for using Herbalism, Potion Brewing, Alchemy, or other similar rules, and if you’ve encountered these and used them in gameplay, how it worked out. – Badelaire at Tankards & Broadswords
And later, szilard commented:
I’m a big fan of the Alchemy system in Oblivion, but largely because of the ability of the computer to keep track of everything. In a tabletop game, that same system would be incredibly cumbersome.
So in this series I’m going to show you how I created a workable, easy to use Alchemy system for D6 Fantasy. I’m sure anyone could use this same process to do it for any game out there. It’s a little extra work but not as much bookkeeping as you might think given the right tools.
This does of course assume you have players who are interested in this sort of thing. When I mentioned I was developing this for my game, mine went “COOL!” and immediately wanted some details. If your players are uninterested, nothing you come up with is going to be any good.
Exalted has a very good alchemy section within it’s thaumaturgy rules of Oadenol’s Codex. It’s a nice balance between structured crunch requiring lists of components, and freeform, “gm says what you need” kinda rules. I know many overlook “mortal magics” in exalted as useless, but in 2e the thaumaturgy rules are logical and freeform enough that they can often do simple effects that are quite useful when you might not have a charm or power that does the same thing.
I have never had a chance to flip through an Exalted book but a quick google search turned up these:
http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/wiki.pl?Alchemicals
http://lore5.patternspider.net/article/show/19
I’m sure there are more.
Okay… those links won’t lead you to what you’re looking for. Alchemicals are a slight perversion of the original setting that involves a steampunk-esque other planet of invaders of robot beings invading the canon universe. It’s cool and all but has nothing to do with actual alchemy. And the elemental alchemy is a homebrew thing that seems a bit too high concept to really work. At first glance it looks like a D&D’er is trying to apply D&D homebrew principles to exalted which doesn’t really work. I’ll try to explain why as best as I can. Exalted has modular fundamentals, which means that the setting and system is built to work on a guiding set of fundamentals that can be altered to create specific effects without writing out huge rule sets for them.
I’ll try to clarify a bit more.
Alchemy works because there are fundamental truths to the universe that can be exploited through proper knowledge. Some of those fundamental truths include the roles of gods and spirits in everything, as well as elementals. These gods and spirits have powers that are detailed in the game, as well as heirarchies and social structures that they abide by. Now, knowledge of all this isn’t pivotal, but understanding can make your life as a GM easier. Since gods have roles in the proper functions of the universe, and there are rules in place to make gods to fill specific roles as needed as well as elementals, all you have to do is create a few of them, and use the logic behind them to build a few custom alchemy procedures. All can be done without writing up huge new rulesets because the system accomodates that sorta stuff.
I’ll give you a quick rundown on what Exalted is about so you can decide whether or not it would be worth your time to look at it.
Exalted is high fantasy that isn’t tolkeen based. Things like elves, dwarves, dragons, and orc’s don’t exist in the same forms that they do in most fantasy settings. They exist, but in vastly different contexts. What exalted most closely resembles would be a hybrid of all the final fantasy games, hong kong wire-fu, and greek epics. Player characters are vastly more powerful than standard humans and this is obvious, this means that they do epic kingdom shattering things rather than crawl through tunnels in the dirt. They can hobnob with gods, and make sweeping epic changes to the world setting, however there are other kinds of beings just as powerful who have allready set up the status quo as they like, and don’t take kindly to you messing with it.
Power use in exalted is not subtle, you can unleash all sorts of world shattering goodness, but doing so turns you into a burning torch of epic dragon-ball Z like proportions, which will generally call more attention to you than you want. Coupled with the fact that most people have been taught that the player characters are probably demons and should freak out when they see one, means that going all out and dropping subtlety isn’t a good idea in some cases.
The main book details the most powerful (potentially) characters and what their place is in the setting. It has some basic rules for alchemy, which you’ll find rediculously small. The meat and potatoes of the alchemy rules are in a supplement called Oadenol’s Codex, which is definitely well worth it if you’re into the game, it also includes rules of how to create magic items, magic buildings, wards, summoning rituals and that sorta stuff.
Sounds like alchemy in Exalted is based on the principles of alchemy from Victorian England, to some extent.
As for the game itself, I’m going to see if I can find a preview version of it somewhere. It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing I’d enjoy running but I have a friend who might love it. I might buy the Codex just to steal the magic rules, though!
You might be right. Alchemy in exalted isn’t so much as an esoteric magic but a science drawn from the principles of the universe. (Which aren’t the same as earth’s. For example, in exalted the world is flat, the sun is a god who travles across the sky, flying too high angers him and he literally will strike you down, gunpowder doesn’t exist, instead a substance called firedust manifests in areas close to the elemental pole of fire, that can burn in a way that will project a short flamethrower burst from a weapon, but isn’t particularly effective at propelling a projectile.) It’s like chemistry and physics. It doesn’t require the user to have any magical potential or the like to use it.
And that’s what I tried to do here, as well. Herbcraft, cooking – those skills would matter; but not the ability to cast or use magic.
thanks for that