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[The Ensorceler]

Civilization ended twenty years ago, when Death and the Kishin fought. We don't know what happened, we don't know who won, and we don't know if the world will ever get any better. If it is, though, that's up to us. Weapons, you're Class A; magic users, Class B; anybody else, Class C. Dismissed.
-introductory speech to the New Reformed Following of Death

This is my first game, so formatting could probably be better, but...

Spoiler: The Setting (click to show/hide)

The events of Soul Eater played out twenty years ago, with the ending changed rather a bit. None of the survivors know quite what the specifics were, but the main events were devastating enough to know it was bad. The first warning was when people started going crazy, and the sky turned red, but that didn't last. That would have been too easy. Roughly twelve hours later, every piece of electronic technology on the planet was destroyed in a rolling wave of destruction, and, for those previously fortunate enough to have a soul strong enough to manifest abilities, magic, turning into weapons, things like that, it was worse. Every power they had turned against them before the sparks from the exploding tech had died out. Weapons manifested inside people, tearing them apart, magic users mostly exploded with a thematic mushroom cloud, and the few who had an active Soul Resonance going managed to take out a good sized chunk of the landscape when they went.
It isn't nearly so bad now, of course, but the magnetic field responsible for most of the bad stuff stuck around, made powers more difficult. Still ruins any tech outside of a Faraday cage, and it scattered the poles all over the place, but all in all, things are pretty good.

Spoiler: The Rules (click to show/hide)

2d6:

*----- [2!!] Critical Disaster -400%
**---- [3!] Disaster -200%
***--- [4] Perfect Failure -100%
****-- [5] Great Failure -50%
*****- [6] Failure 0%
****** [7] Partial Success 50%
*****- [8] Success 100%
****-- [9] Great Success 150%
***--- [10] Perfect Success 200%
**---- [11!] Overshoot 400%
*----- [12!!] Critical Overshoot 800%

Stats:
   Each point in a stat provides a (+1/+1) to success up to [7], and (+.5/+1) over [7].
   Resilience: Resistance to physical harm and blocking (+5 health)
   Lethality: Inflicting physical harm and aiming (+1 damage)
   Agility: Avoiding things and hiding
   Speed: Reaching things and noticing things
   Power: How much soul energy can be stored (+5 max soul)
   Recovery: How fast soul energy is replaced (+2 soul regen)

In addition, there are two mutable stats: health and soul.

Health: Physical wellbeing, general ability to not die. Injuries will be superficial as long as health remains, but when depleted, chunky salsa comes into play.
   Base health is 10, each point in Resilience increases it by 5.
Soul: The energy to use abilities outside the realm of human capability. If soul is fully depleted, mental chunky salsa takes over, and bad things can happen.
   Base soul is 5, each point in Power increases it by 5.
   Soul regen is 3, each point in Recovery increases it by 2.


Interference:
   Interference is the result of the magnetic storm engulfing the planet. It makes all techniques more difficult based on its strength, which varies based on distance from a Pole.
   The two poles of old Earth are gone, replaced by numerous lesser poles, where the Interference is weaker. Most current cities lie on a pole, both because of the relative ease of creating working tech, and because all compasses in the area will point back to it.

Techniques:
   Capped at a (+2/+4) bonus to success/effectiveness.
   Each character has three basic techniques, and roughly, three tech trees, although without true boundaries between them.
   Almost anything can be considered a technique, but the three basic techniques should lead to new applications, and be relatively simple.
   A new technique in acquired on either a critical failure or a critical success.
   Weapons generally start with a Partial Transformation technique, usable in general action, and providing passive bonuses to stats.
   Starting techniques have a (+2/+0) success bonus.

Abilities:
   Capped at a (+4/NA) bonus to success, no cap to effect.
   Each character has three abilities, allowing additional actions or benefits without the variety of techniques.
   Characters can only have three abilities at a time, and cannot easily replace them. As a general rule, losing and replacing an ability is extremely traumatic.
   Anything eligible to become a basic technique is also eligible to become an ability, but the character will be unable to progress by developing new techniques based directly on the ability.
   Abilities have a (+1/+1) bonus to success/effectiveness from the start of the game. Replaced abilities do not benefit from this.

Tandem Techniques:
   In the event that two players are able to effectively resonate with eachother, they will gain an additional tech tree and basic technique, shared between them. This is not limited to weapon/miester pairings, although that pairing has additional benefits.


Turn Structure: Each turn, players can post an action, possibly including sub-actions. One roll is made for the action and all its sub-actions together; this roll is eligible to grant experience if it fails. Any other rolls made during the turn are saves, and cannot grant experience.

Spoiler: Character Sheet (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Name: (Hopefully self explanatory)

Quirk: (Some physical trait, usually influenced by abilities, which will always appear in some form on the character. If said character turns into a squid for some reason, it would still be present. More importantly, it appears on your soul. Also a color, for thematic reasons, soul, and text color.)

Stats: (12 points to distribute freely)
   Resilience:
   Lethality:
   Agility:
   Speed:
   Power:
   Recovery:

Personality/Backstory: (Doesn't need to be extensive, however much helps convey the character)


Abilities: (Core traits of the character, if you want to be able to do something really unique, it goes here. Abilities are strong, but do not become more versatile as techniques do.)
   A1:
   A2:
   A3:

Techniques: (Things the character has learned to do, one way or another. All future techniques will be based on these. Probably include at least one offensive technique.)
   T1:
   T2:
   T3:


Spoiler: Examples of some things, possibly collected into a character at some point in the future. (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Ability: Feeding Frenzy (NA/+1)
The user restores some Soul (1d3+1) by feeding rats upon any reasonably large quantity of organic material. No cost, no roll.

Technique: Stampede of Tiny Feet (+2/+0)
Hundreds of rats are summoned from the user's shadow, charging forwards and able to climb most anything. Targets caught by the assault are stunned (-1 to success on next action), and take damage from bites and scratches (2d2 damage). Cost: 3 Soul.

Item: Rapier
   Damage: 1d3
   Block: 1d6

Item: Battleaxe
   Damage: 1d7
   Block: 1d4

Quirk: Fishhook Birthmark
   Appears as a rough J shape around the left eye, one end on the low center forehead, the other between the left eye and nose, with a barb pointing towards the eye, extending into the lower eyelid. It is bright red, as if it were a cut about to bleed.

Any feedback or questions would be welcome.

[The Ensorceler]

Reserved.

[The Ensorceler]

Reserved.

[kilakan]

I really don't know a lick of anything about soul eater other than that it's a rather gritty anime... how much of an issue would that cause if I wanted to play?

[Harry Baldman]

Spoiler: Character Sheet (click to show/hide)

Name: Jesus H. Death

Stats:
   Resilience: 3
   Lethality: 4
   Agility: 3
   Speed: 0
   Power: 1
   Recovery: 1

Personality/Backstory: Jesus Herman Death, proud graduate of Death City Community College (an institution named after his esteemed ancestor and infamous oil magnate Julius Petrochemical Death) with a degree in advanced carpentry, is currently a middle-aged man with long hair, a prodigious beard, a great deal of leather and spikes on his body, and also a very large pistol seemingly mutilated out of a perfectly good anti-materiel rifle. He hasn't decided what to call it yet, but assumes it'll come to him eventually. He's been practicing a lot, having dreamed quite a bit of becoming a Death Weapon Meister since young adulthood after carpentry proved a less than exciting career path and the idea of being called a Death Weapon Meister (whatever that was) endlessly fascinated him. But then the world just up and ended, and all he had to do by himself was shoot people. Now that he's gotten real good at that, maybe there's a chance he'll get to fulfill his childhood ambition yet! Honestly, merely shooting people was starting to get a bit boring.

Abilities:
   A1: Mystic Eyes of Furnitureception! - Jesus H. Death is well-versed in carpentry, and no object of wood can withstand the full force of his mystical expertise once he's set his sights on its destruction (he can also assemble a chair out of its component parts by shooting them, but that's less important).
   A2: Heart of Darkness! - Jesus H. Death has seen some shit. Shit that neither Jesus nor Death alone could claim to have entirely seen. You need to up your game to shake his sanity, thank you very much.
   A3: Are You Impressed Yet? - Jesus H. Death does not need to see his enemy to know that it needs to be shot, and more importantly how best to bullet-ruin its day. His style is sufficiently impetuous for concerns of poor visibility to be irrelevant.

Techniques:
   T1: Through The Gate And Back Again! - gun-fu ain't the only thing Jesus H. Death has been practicing. Through intense meditation and consumption of shot brains he has gained the ability to relax and bend in ways no man before him has! Technically he's clinically dead while he does it, so thorough is this technique, but it is worth it, for its potential in averting harm of all kinds is superb!
   T2: Mit Dem Kurzen Gewehr! - why turn an anti-materiel rifle into a pistol, you ask? You need but consult the techniques of the ancients! With a smaller size of the modern sword that is the noble rifle the thrust is increased, the penetration is maximized! Think not on its length, think of the results, and a new understanding of murder at a distance shall dawn upon you!
   T3: Death Comes For You! - the one-liner is a grand tool in the service of any meister of guns. It distracts one, it attracts one, it lets another shoot one full of holes! It's also bound to elicit some applause and appreciative nods if it works! Jesus H. Death can't vouch for that last one, having not been in the company of other people for twenty years or so, but he believes the concept is sound.

Warning: sheet is informed by minute amounts of Soul Eater TV Tropes page perusal.

[The Ensorceler]

@ kilakan: Not much, sort of. Some people can turn into weapons (which can be more or less anything that could concievably be used to hurt someone else), magic tends to have one theme per caster, and the big one, soul... stuff. Souls exist as a glowy blob, with a unique quirk for interesting people. Killing someone intentionally releases their soul, which can be eaten to acquire power, but at the cost of being corrupted. Weapons are unique in that they can eat corrupted souls, and thereby gain power without the corruption issues. Souls can also interact with anything with a frequency, like a musical instrument or voice, an oscillating magnetic field, or another soul. They can also have specific powers like healing, antimagic, an elemental affinity, or whatever.
But just about any idea for a character can be fluffed into this universe without too many changes, so the above things aren't really necessary, except as inspiration.

@Harry Baldman: Pretty good, definitely crazy enough to fit in, but I seem to have forgotten some things in the charsheet. I guess throw hard mechanics into all the abilities and techniques, and tell me if the pistol is single shot, or if it has a clip.

I'll add a few examples of abilities and techniques to the OP.

[Harry Baldman]

I was thinking you could stat the abs and techs since that'd be a way to guarantee your approval of them. I'm not really sure what the power level here is supposed to be. As an intellectual exercise, I imagine the Mystic Eyes make Jesus much better at destroying objects of wood, Heart of Darkness helps on sanity/willpower rolls, Are You Impressed Yet negates visibility penalties,  TTGBA is a powerful, possibly risky active dodge, MTDM results in massive armor penetration, DCFY lowers an enemy's defenses and maybe buffs allies/debuffs enemies on an immediately resultant kill.

And the pistol, now that I check, ought to be single-shot just like the Steyr HS .50 I based it on.

[Yoink]

Spoiler: Character Sheet (click to show/hide)

Name: Shel Grupan

Stats: (12 points to distribute freely)
   Resilience: 2
   Lethality: 3
   Agility: 5
   Speed: 2
   Power: 0
   Recovery: 0

Personality/Backstory: Cowardly, lecherous greed-driven layabout-turned-adventurer. Left home after a payment dispute with a shipmaster (Shel had 'helped' unload a ship at the docks of his home city, done very little actual work, and the shipmaster refused to pay him) led to him forming the short-lived Dockhand's Union, which in turn led to him being charged with various crimes ranging from disturbing the peace to treason to inciting political instability.
Stowed away on the next ship leaving for foreign waters, intending to offer his services as a freelance executioner. He cut down a tree once, how different could it be?


Abilities:
   A1: Lying
   A2: Snaffling unattended drinks at bars and/or taverns
   A3: Blending into crowds

Techniques:
   T1: Fleeing
   T2: Persuasion
   T3: Knife fighting

I'm not sure how good this sheet is. Please let me know if I've done anything wrong, it's rather warm here and my brain's overheating a bit.

[The Ensorceler]

Power level is pretty low to start with, and your gun is in all likelihood the strongest weapon anyone will have access to for some time. The reason I don't want to do the abilities and techniques is because they aren't supposed to be balanced. This system is pretty self evidently broken, and to keep character deaths down, the characters have to be broken too. Then I can nerf the abilities/techniques, and people come into their full gamebreaking power later.

@Harry: I think I have to reject A1, unless separated into two abilities/techniques, because staring wood to death and reassembling it into furniture are very different. A2 and A3 are fine. T1 is probably better replaced with a more basic technique that would lead to TtGaBA, possibly with more explanation just why Jesus eats brains. T2 probably would be better off replaced with a straight attack technique that grants armor penetration, instead of the weird limbo between activated and passive its in now. T3 I'd reject outright because it doesn't lead to different techniques; it would be a very nice ability for that very reason, though.

@Yoink: Abilities are the very strongest things you can do, and techniques should be something you could yell the name of while doing, or for stealth, at least think the name loudly. Mostly, those should just be more specific effects, but the lameness of abilities won't get you rejected, just killed pretty quickly.

Also, all starting techniques have a (+2/+0) success bonus, and abilities have (+1/+1) success/effectiveness. These people have some experience, after all.

[Spiderking50]

Making a character asap

[Harry Baldman]

@Harry: I think I have to reject A1, unless separated into two abilities/techniques, because staring wood to death and reassembling it into furniture are very different. A2 and A3 are fine. T1 is probably better replaced with a more basic technique that would lead to TtGaBA, possibly with more explanation just why Jesus eats brains. T2 probably would be better off replaced with a straight attack technique that grants armor penetration, instead of the weird limbo between activated and passive its in now. T3 I'd reject outright because it doesn't lead to different techniques; it would be a very nice ability for that very reason, though.

I imagine assembling furniture with gunshots part of the ability is sort of a party trick application. It just means that he's as good at assembling furniture with a gun as a regular person would be with their hands. I don't imagine this will be relevant to anything, so I don't see why it poses a problem. And the idea behind the ability itself if the name wasn't enough of a clue is that he can destroy objects of wood through knowledge of their weak points, vastly minimizing the effort required to do so.

The not-quite-playing-dead technique I suppose you could start off as a method of increasing damage resistance to whatever level seems appropriate, negating HP damage. I suppose I put it a bit incorrectly when I said it was a dodge - instead it just allows him to survive blasts, long falls, probably other forms of damage, increasing survivability at the the expense of actually being able to do much. As for why one would eat brains, that would be telling. I'm sure you can come up with a good reason on your own.

Mit Dem Kurzen Gewehr!, meanwhile, is an actual attack technique. A .50 caliber rifle reduced to a pistol would not usually produce very good results, one would think. But when Jesus H. Death gets into the proper stance, adopts the correct pistol hold and maybe, just maybe manages to put in something a little extra maybe he himself isn't aware of, the pistol actually outperforms the rifle in armor penetration. Perhaps it even ignores armor altogether, or potentially could with practice, who knows?

And how is it that the most versatile, branching technique available - using the power of speech to supplement firearm-based assault and murder - doesn't lend itself to expansion? Why, there's room for puns, insults, various kinds of buffs based on methods of execution, supplementation of verbal gymnastics with combat acrobatics for maximum effect, that kind of thing! It's guns plus style: the tech tree!

[The Ensorceler]

Okay. That all works, then. I'd say the gun would be d8 damage, 20' range without technique boosts. If you could slap stats onto the abilities and techniques, you'd be pretty much done.

[Sl4cker]

Spoiler: 2edgy4me (click to show/hide)

Name: D. Leichen

Quirk: D. Leichen has a scar just above his heart in the shape of 3 circles inside a bigger, hollow circle. Dark red speech.

Stats:
   Resilience: 2
   Lethality: 4
   Agility: 3
   Speed: 2
   Power: 1
   Recovery: 0

Personality/Backstory: David was, once, a young boy growing up to be a productive member of society, with a loving and healthy family, a private education, and an utter fascination with his role model, to the point of collecting all associated merchandise.

If you couldn’t guess, his role model was Death, the god of death.

But, of course, then the sky turned red and then his mother and father (Who were a pair of Meister and Weapon respectively) exploded into gore and then he had to hide in the closet when his uncle came with a kitchen knife and then afterwards he realized that Death, the god of death, has disappeared. This has led him to become crazy and delusional, thinking he’s actually the third son of death himself, becoming a mass murderer and killing his first man by the age of 8. Now he’s 26, incredibly dramatically gothic, and armed with a hatchet, a new name, and the ability to be really stealthy, even though he’s also rather sizable.

Abilities:
   A1: Bloodcurdle – Say what you will about how much Leichen is an emo loser, his appearance is still utterly terrifying. Combined with the fact he usually jumps out at you from the shadows with a rusty hatchet in hand, more than a few people have wet themselves before dying to him. (+1/+1) to intimidation and surprising people.
   A2: Creeping Lichen – You wouldn’t know it from looking at him, but although he is rather big, Leichen is incredibly stealthy. One time he split a guy in half and he didn’t notice until he was already dead. All right, that might have been an exaggeration, but still. (+1/+1) to sneaking around.
   A3: On The Edge – D. Leichen is insane. D. Leichen thinks he is the third son of Death. D. Leichen says his purpose in life is to kill as many people as he possibly can. D. Leichen would have no qualms about brutally murdering an innocent man and then burning the corpse to get rid of evidence. (+1/+1) to resisting insanity and the urge to not kill people.
   
Techniques:
   T1: Shaded Perception – Leichen has figured out how to ‘hide’ from the perception of regular people. He’s not actually doing anything to become invisible, per say, just that people tend to ignore him even more than usual in the right light. In this case, the right light is ‘hardly any’. (+2/+0)
   T2: Hiding Smash – So called because this technique is usually done from, well, hiding, Leichen charges at the victim, swinging his hatchet wildly, and all the while screaming very loudly. Simple, yet effective. (+2/+0)
   T3: Sucker Punch – Exactly how it sounds like; whenever for some reason his trusty rusty hatchet becomes temporarily ineffective at the murdering, Leichen uses his large fists to pummel anyone that has had the misfortune of meeting him. Sometimes he can channel his intense murderous desire into his fist to increase this attack’s power. (+2/+0)

I probably got something wrong.

[Harry Baldman]

Before I stat myself out fully, what the heck is that success/effectiveness talk? I don't think you've explained yet how those differ.

[The Ensorceler]

@Sl4cker: It works pretty well as a character, so I just need stats on the abilities and techniques. The quirk should be physical, though.

@Harry Baldman: It means that for a (+x/+y) bonus applied to an attack, you get a +x applied to the roll to hit at all ([4] becomes [4+x], and the damage is increased by +y. +y can apply to pretty much any number in the ability or technique, but it can't be changed around after the fact. I don't think you had a quirk, either.