Surviving Castle Heterodyne was a game that I ran on the forums from early 2014 through early 2017, before it stopped updating and went on hiatus. The game was a mix of character RP and home-brewed game mechanics, set within the world of the “Girl Genius” comic by Professors Foglio, with coloring by Professor Wright (current colorist for “Goblins”). The GG setting is a steampunk (or gaslamp fantasy, if you prefer) alternate history reality, with all sorts of wild characters and technology.
The basic premise of the game was that the players’ characters were sparks (brilliant, and often mildly to wildly insane science savants within the GG world), who had run afoul of the powers that be for various reasons, and as a result were detained and subjected to an experimental mind wiping procedure (as a plot device to have them start as low level folks capable of great things, if only they could remember!), before being dumped into a base of operations within Castle Heterodyne, the ancestral seat of power of the Heterodyne family. The Castle itself is sentient, to varying degrees, but suffers from a fractured psyche, and is quite homicidal.
The short summary is that anything the character’s wanted to do gained them experience in relevant skills, and as they did more projects and tasks with those skills, they would eventually level up, and be able to roll a larger and larger pool of dice for checks made with that skill. I’ve written up a post of my Dice Skill System, and it had been implemented by at least one other forum game (Synch’s Children of Ash).
While I like the sense of reward and progress that it gave, it eventually ended up being a lot of bookkeeping and rolling needed for each update, all of which I took on myself. I’m looking to capture some of that feel, but in a more manageable way.
5e Version:
To that end, I’m looking to adapt SCH to operate on a core of 5e mechanics, with a modified skill system. Wanting to go with 5e rather than trying to develop a new system, or have to learn another gaming system. I understand 5e well (have been running “The Sundered Way” here since summer 2016), and it allows a lot of flexibility.
Skill System in 5e version:
In 5e, there are typically three rolls that get made with a d20, attacks, saves, and ability checks. The core ability checks I intend to leave as is, but to split off the checks made using tool proficiencies. This is where I think I can carve out a place for the skill system to live in 5e, with a modification to how proficiency is applied. Rather than +2,+3,+4, etc that increases with character level, I’m thinking proficiency bonuses that increase with experience using those tools.
The existing Artisan’s Tools within 5e are:
Alchemist's Supplies
Brewer's Supplies
Calligrapher's Supplies
Carpenter's Tools
Cartographer's Tools
Cobbler's Tools
Cook's Utensils
Glassblower's Tools
Jeweler's Tools
Leatherworker's Tools
Mason's Tools
Painter's Supplies
Potter's Tools
Smith's Tools
Tinker's Tools
Weaver's Tools
Woodcarver's Tools
Some of these may need to be modified or removed, but more certainly will need to be added. I’d like to solicit input from any interested parties about other tools that should be included. So far I’ve thought of:
Electrician’s Tools
Clockmaker’s Tools
Clank Maker’s Tools
Plumber’s Tools
Some tools may warrant being nested within each other, with one being a prerequisite for later tool proficiencies, so that may warrant discussion as well.