General Information
Axioms Of Dominion has evolved slightly since my initial concepts in 2011 to add more character based elements but not a huge amount. One of the more recent changes is based on my experience playing crpgs and reading a lot of litrpgs around 2019-2020 and modified by my old obsession with MMOs in the mid 2000s.
The default play mode of the game is a pregenerated world with a very long history, some thousands of years, so roughly a minimum of 40000+ game turns since turns are currently 10 day “weeks” of which a “year” contains 40. You will pick a character from the existing world with some fancy sorting behind the scenes based on your interests, and play them until death. You can then swap to a descendant, or in some cases non-family “protege”. The game will come with 4 pregenerated worlds with 1000, 2000, 4000, and 8000 years of history. I might end up doing 16, using 4 different map sizes for people with less beefy computers, or extra beefy ones.
Players can also play the randomized turn based strategy start where they start on “day zero” like in Master of Magic or Age of Wonders. In this start players will have the option to create a custom “deity” character and be the founder of a race/civilization. Well, they’ll have to start small shattered world style and build up their power the traditional way so maybe they won’t end up leading a superpower every time.
More importantly for this post players can also play an “adventure” start. Specifically a portal fantasy start with no connections to the world, which usually combines with a game that has some history vs a fresh game. Secondly they can play a reincartion and/or body swapping start. These are all technically portal fantasy starts but the specific circumstances differ. Younger players who didn’t grow up with old western fantasy but were more exposed to global contemporary fantasy might consider these to be “isekai” starts.
Depending on game settings players will be able to provide themselves with more or fewer bonus capabilities compared to the person they body swap to or the body they reincarnate in. A fresh portal fantasy start will allow custom character creation, again with options based on difficulty settings.
Additionally in this post I will discuss small scale “adventurer” combat. Compared to larger scale strategy type military/army combat.
Portal Fantasy
So the basic unique game mode is portal fantasy. You start in the same spot as a normal long history start but you get a brand new character with custom capabilities like RPG character creation and no connections to the existing world. I expect to add some extra options to the first potential expansion that vary this up. So currently you aren’t summoned by gods or kings or w/e, it is an “accident”. People will typically be unaware of portal magic and won’t know you are some weird outsider.
Having custom character creation doesn’t really make sense in the default game mode since you can’t generate logical connections to other characters and stuff. As a kid I always wanted to get sent off to a magical world, where of course like all protagonists I’m a powerful hero with unique magic. Sadly that has not happened. This is a good way to explain the situation given the detail of the social situation. Some characters and groups will be aware that this can happen, and possibly in the first expansion I will enable NPC portal fantasy options.
I actually cut planes and multiple worlds and other stuff from the game back in 2015 and put them in the “stuff for the sequel if the first game can sell a couple thousand copies and pay my bills” pile. So this is as close as it will get until then.
You’ll typically be playing as an adventurer type with this start although you can transition into a noble or a magic school leader or w/e if you accumulate the proper resources and connections.
You’ll be able to pick, with point buy, various magical aspects and abilities as well as choose your normal character attributes and such. I’m looking into a prophecy system for the first expansion. This will build on the existing “divination magic” and “intrigue” systems as part of my strategy of having a flexible base mechanics foundation that allows adding flavorful and fun stuff without writing everything from scratch for each feature.
Reincarnating/Body Swapping
This start is similar to the portal start but with major differences. Whether you are a fresh child or a teenage who was soul swapped after an accident or w/e you will have expectations placed on your for behavior, personality, loyalties, and interests based on the family line or the specific character you “swap” to. With this setting you can choose whether characters know about this stuff or whether they’ll think of demon possession or something if you act too weird.
Characters have varying levels of knowledge about each other such that if you act “out of character” they’ll be very suspicious. Some magically powerful characters or those who are aware of different portal fantasy scenarios might even be able to see the “real you” in some sense.
I believe the planned character system is flexible enough to handle many of the tropes of these kinds of stories in fantasy literature.
Typically you will be given some ability to modify your character adding new skills and attributes and knowledge based on the settings and game tpye you select. So a reincarnator would get the base capabilities you’d expect of the child they were born into plus a boost, probably chosen by the player through point buy.
The first expansion will probably contain additional mechanics like repeatedly reincarnating across geography and history and having NPC reincarnators/body hoppers who fight each other over time. I am basing this off the Valdemar book series from the 90s as well as some older western fantasy. This was a large dozen book spanning plot arc from the Black Gryphon to Storm Warning.
Adventurer Magical Combat Outline
TAP, Talents/Aspects/Paths
Over the 20 years or so that I’ve played RPG games I’ve always disliked various things. I don’t like the DnD/PF tabletop influence because tabletop is limited in ways pc games aren’t and it makes little sense to use these old and hacked together systems when we can just generate new and better systems. Especially because crpgs don’t have a game master which is what allows them to do certain things and work around their limitations. Of course Axioms being a world simulation Map&Menu game allows some things that a standard crpg doesn’t but you can’t compete with a, hopefully very talented, human game master smoothing things out in real time.
Specifically I dislike the tabletop “class systems”. And while skill systems offer some advantages they also have demerits of their own. For that reason I am modifying a character/magic system I fiddled with over the years that, for me personally, improves on both class and skill systems. A TAP system. Job systems have some but not all the advantages of a TAP system. I did enjoy final fantasy tactics and similar game systems. Also really enjoyed the mastery system some arpgs including Grim Dawn and Guild Wars 1 have.
A TAP, Talent/Aspect/Path, system uses smaller building blocks that can add up to traditional classes if you want or go new places if you don’t. Rogues in many table top games are comprised of “Social”, “Stealth”, “Stabby”, “Skillmonkey”, and “Shady” components. Of course DnD had multiclassing and prestige classes and Pathfinder had “archetypes” and “backgrounds” and many of these were sold, for lots of extra cash, in graphically fancy “splatbooks”, basically DLC for tabletop games. But these are hacks/kludges and not very flexible. Game masters often solve this with “homebrew” content which obviously isn’t as easy in a pc game. Computer game mods are much more work than fiddling a character sheet.
Adventuring, Dungeon Delving, Mercing, Dueling
Adventure scale combat usually involves, as discussed in the previous post, roughly 4-16 people on each side fighting a battle of resource management, attrition, action and reaction. Axioms does have counterspells or “interactive magic” but it also has buffs and debuffs and damage and heals and control and control clearing. My ideal is a fight that lasts 10 rounds minimum and 25 on average and 40-80 at the high range. For pure adventurers there isn’t a ton to do each turn as their would be for landed nobles or hybrid characters. And you don’t fight that many fights per turn. So I’d like to dodge the more common 2-5 round fights you get in many standard RPGs.
I’m going to detail a fight, based on a fight I put together for a potential LitRPG unrelated to Axioms but which used a similar system of magical TAPs. This fight, like the others in the story, wasn’t planned but was a guess about the power of the protagonists and what they could handle with a little danger potential. There will be some differences from the final system for Axioms due to the non-rpg elements but it will be broadly descriptive.
For this purposes of this example I took out the 24 stats from the LitRPG since they are not the same as in Axioms and very complicated.
Wolves Fight
Common Magical Core Aspect(Both Characters)
Manasophy
|Mana Boost|Permanent|Passive|+50 mana|
|Mana Efficiency|Permanent|Passive|-5% mana cost|
|Mana Strike(Staff)|+20 magic dmg|Boost|+1s strike time|10 mana|
|Mana Bolt|25 magic dmg|Single Target|Range 20m|Cast 1s|40 mana|
Miasmist
Stats
Health 50
Mana 150(+50)+5/s
Miasma
|Acid Splash|20 damage|+5 DoT/5s|+1mark|AOE 8m|Range 20m|Cast 2s|40 mana|
|Infect|+2 DoT/10s|+1mark|+1dmg/mark|3 Targets|Range 20m|Cast 2s|25 mana|
|Fester|+4 DoT/10s|+1mark|+1dmg/mark|2 Targets|Range 20m|Cast 2s|25 mana|Mark+|
|Envenom|+5 DoT/10s| +3dmg/mark|1 Target|Range 20m|Cast 2s|25 mana|
Tenebramancy
|Nightchill|1 DoT/10s|+1mark|+1dmg/mark|1 Target|Range 20m|Cast 1s|25 mana|
|Gloom|1 DoT/10s|+1mark|+1s distract|1 Target|Range 20m|Cast 1s|25 mana|
|Obscurity|Concealment 5s|Self|Range 20m|Cast 2s|40 mana|
|DuskShroud|AOE 80m|Self-Channel|Cast 4s|40 mana|+10mana/s|
Chronomancer
Stats
Health 50
Mana 150(+50)+5/s
Chronomancy
|Time Stop|Stasis 2s|1 Target|Range 20m|Cast 1s|40 mana|
|Stagnation|Slow 4s|1 Target|Range 20m|Cast 2s|40 mana|
|Quicken|Haste 3s|Self|Cast 1s|40 mana|
|Accelerate|Haste 3s|1 Target|Range 20m|Cast 2s|40 mana|
Lutomancy
|Slime Pool|2x move cost|AOE 20ft|Range 20m|Cast 2s|40 mana|
|Grime Ball|20 dmg|+1 mark|1 Target|Range 20m|Cast 2s|40 mana|
|Mana Leech|40 mana dmg|1 Target|Range 20m|Cast 2s|20 mana|
|Filth Spray|1s distract|+1mark|1 Target|Range 20m|Cast 1s|20 mana|
Wolf Stats
Pack Wolf Lvl 1 * 3
HP 80
Mana 25
Movespeed 20m/s
|Claw Slash|25 damage|2s|
|Chomp And Shake|40 damage|2s|25 mana|
Battle Log
Preparation Phase
For the example I’ll follow a policy I used in the LitRPG where the party engage monsters from 40m. In this case that means the adventurers will go first, wolves move, adventurers go, wolves move, adventurers go, wolves attack, adventurers go, wolves finish their attack.
The Chronomancer casts Quicken on himself to gain Haste. The buff will be active next action. The Miasmist begins to cast Acid Splash on the point she believes the Wolves will arrive at next turn.
Chronomancer: -36 mana
Miasmist: -36 mana
The wolves approach to 20m.
The Miasmist finishes Acid Splash dealing 20 damage to each Wolf and adding a 5 dmg/s DoT for 5 seconds.
The Chronomancer casts Accelerate on the Miasmist.
Chronomancer: -36 mana
The wolves arrive at 0m.
The Chronomancer casts Stagnation in 1s thanks to Haste. 1 tick of Haste remains. The middle Wolf will now take 4s to attack.
The Miasmist casts Infect in 1 second thanks to Haste adding a 2 dmg/s DoT and a second Mark to all 3 wolves.
The Wolves take 5 damage for a total of 25 from the first Acid Splash tick.
The Wolves begin to attack, with their Chomp And Shake which will finish after their next turn for 2 and 3 more turns for one.
The Miasmist casts Fester on the 2 fast attacking Wolves adding 4 DoT damage per tick leaving her with 1 second of Haste left.
The Chronomancer has 1 last tick of Haste and casts Stagnation on a second Wolf. This will delay the Chomp And Shake 1 tick.
All the Wolves take 7 damage for a total of 32.
One Wolf attacks the Chronomancer for 40 of their 50 health.
The Chronomancer has cast 4 36 mana spells, a total of 144 out of 150 mana and regenerated 15 mana to be at 21. He casts Filth Spray for +1s Distract on the Wolf with 2 seconds remaining on Chomp And Shake putting it to 3 seconds. This costs 20-5%=19 mana. The other Wolf has 1 second to go but is only in position to attack the Miasmist who won’t die.
The Miasmist has cast 36+24+24 mana worth of spells, leaving her at 150-84=66 mana. She cast a 36 mana Acid Splash on her last second of Haste.
Acid Splish deals 20 damage + 7 to all wolves from DoTs + 4 to the 2 Wolves who haven’t finish their attack, since Fester only hits 2 targets, for 31+32 and for 31+27 to the finished Wolf. The Wolves have 17, 17, and 21 health.
One Wolf finishes attacking the Miasmist. Both will die if they get hit even by the mana-less Claw Slash. One Wolf starts a 2s Claw Slash and one is back to 2s on their Chomp And Shake.
The Chronomancer regens 5 mana to 7 but can’t cast any spells. The Chronomancer attacks the Wolf that just finished Claw Slash and hasn’t started a new attack. His base damage will kill it before it can finish another attack.
The Miasmist needs to kill the Wold that just started Claw Slash as it will finish on the next action. It will take 11 from DoTs which means 6 more damage is lethal but her Haste wore off. She realizes her only option is to cast Gloom, which applies a weak DoT and a Mark but more importantly a 1s Distract.
The Wolves take 21-11-7=14, 17-11=6, and 17-11=6 damage. One Wolf will finish Chomp And Shake next turn, it has 14 health. One Wolf starts Claw Slash and will finish next turn. The Wold that was got hit by Gloom now has 1 more tick to finish Claw Slash.
The Chronomancer hits 12 mana, useless, but finished the basic staff attack and hits the 14 HP Wolf. The Miasmist can’t do much but cast Gloom. However the Wolf now at 4 takes 7 and dies and the 2 Wolves at 6 also die due to Acid Splash, Infect, and/or Fester.
This was actually a short round because it only had 2 players and 3 enemies at a low level. Battles will quickly extend to 10-40 ticks as you hit a full party.
Note that this isn’t a precise simulation of the adventure combat in Axioms since I elided the LitRPG’s weird stat system and ignored items and the stats in Axioms. Characters in Axioms will also have more complexity in their “resource” system beyond just mana.
I will edit this to add a more detailed battle if people are interested. This post won’t go to emails because it is a bit in the weeds.