In the Core Rules, a list of roleplaying games that influenced the design of LowDie was given. This section of the website elaborates on the type of influence those games had over LowDie.
This out-of-print game was one of the main influences on the creation of the LowDie System. Master Book was an attempt at a universal game system, much like LowDie is, that was expanded upon by World Books, different settings including Indiana Jones, Tank Girl, Species, Necroscope, Tales from the Crypt, Aden and Bloodshadows.
The Master Book System gained a reputation for being overly complex, and to some degree the author agrees with this. However, the system did have some very fine characteristics. Firstly, it used a randomising mechanic that resulted in both positive and negative modifiers, with the most common result being no modifier at all. LowDie was created with this very much in mind, though using a much simpler method than Master Book used. The benefit of this positive and negative randomiser is that it means one character's characteristic score can be used as the difficulty for another's characteristic test - any contested or opposed task can be resolved with only one player having to make a dice roll, not both.
Another desirable mechanic was the KO injury, as well as accumulating Shock and Wounds, there was a chance that a character could be knocked out by suffering a significant amount of damage in one go. This allowed fights to be won without always having to slug it out until one character was dead or beaten to a pulp. LowDie's KO Threshold was inspired by this.
Now long out of print, this was an extremely high quality RPG of the 1980s. As a Bond fan, the author has managed to complete his collection of the James Bond 007 RPG and as such a few mechanics were inspirational.
Several features that were utilised were the idea of the skill test taking into account both the skill and an appropriate attribute, increasing damage imposing greater penalties to actions, and Hero Points providing opportunities for characters to perform outrageous stunts and for players to "buy" opportunities, making sure circumstances conspired in their favour. The latter aspect obviously influenced Fate Points greatly.
However the biggest influence of the James Bond 007 RPG was on the chase system. James Bond's system of using chase manoeuvres and abstract range categories of Close, Medium, Long and Extreme was truly original for its day. Indeed the author had already converted the system for use in the Shadowrun roleplaying game back in the mid-nineties, replacing the bidding of Ease Factor, with the bidding of speeds. James Bond's chase system was probably an inspiration for the designers of the Spycraft D20 roleplaying game also.
The author played Vampire: The Masquerade since 1st Edition through to 2nd Edition, and progressed onto Werewolf: The Apocolypse and Mage: The Ascension (again just 1st and 2nd Editions). These were truly great games and provided many hours of fun.
The Storyteller system's biggest contribution to LowDie was the concept of adding an attribute to an ability or Skill rating for purposes of making a test. Although this had been seen before in the James Bond RPG it differed in that the Storyteller system encouraged different attributes to be used with each ability dependent upon the situation, for example using Perception plus Brawl to identify an opponent's martial arts style, but to use Dexterity plus Brawl to actually fight them.
Shadowrun is one of the author's favourite roleplaying games, so much so that he is an official demonstrator of the game as part of the FanPro COmmando program. Shadowrun's influence was mainly in the idea of an attribute or skill rating being on a scale that they could be used as a Target Number for tests, for example a Negotiation skill test could have a Target Number of the opponent's Willpower. In addition Shadowrun again emphasised the debilitating nature of injuries - as more wounds are inflicted the character finds it harder and harder to take action.
The vehicle combat rules of eariler editions of Shadowrun also influenced the LowDie Chase system, with various manoeuvres, different types of terrain, and safe speeds for those terrains. The Crash Tests also directly influenced the Accident Damage calculation in the LowDie System.
It's scaling of Resources in the character creation system also proved useful in guiding the author's hand when creating the Resources Endowed Strength Trait for the LowDie System. Finally, the LowDie ranged combat system was largely inspired by the Shadowrun system.
Earthdawn's biggest influence was on the way Damage is handled in the LowDie System. Its concept of Wound Thresholds was taken almost wholesale and then expanded upon so that multiple Wounds could be inflicted at once. However, unlike Earthdawn, the injury penalties are based upon the Damage taken, rather than the number of Wounds.
Another out of print game that was inspirational in that it attempted to provide an extensive listing of skills and equipment for a number of genres and settings, from sword and sorcery to space fantasy. Dream Park acted as a check when the author wanted to see whether there were any glaring ommissions in the list of Skills or Traits.
A system released under the Open Gaming Licence that opened the author's eyes to the possibility of releasing his home brew game for public consumption. Although the author has never fully read the Action System, it has been used as a reference and spot check to see what level of detail may be appropriate for descriptions of skills, actions, and equipment.
Originally, the author of the LowDie System had planned to use a damage system that recorded fatigue and bruising damage as slashes '/' against a set of injury boxes, with physical damage from gunshots and blades being marked as crosses 'X'. This was originaly inspired by the Shadowrun tactical board game of DMZ. However, when the author skimmed the Action! System he noted that same concept had been used there, and so decided to do something different for fear of being too similar to Action!. The result is a system that the author is much happier with as it does not make such a definitive distinction between weapons that inflict "stun" damage versus "physical" damage.
Spycraft provided some guidance and inspiration when designing the automatic gunfire rules of LowDie. In addition it provided another chase system that could be compared to what had been created and derived from the James Bond 007 system. Spycraft served mainly as a check to see whether everything in these areas had been included in LowDie.
The free Source Reference Document for D20 Modern acted as another sanity check on the level of detail of skills, and also was used to gain ideas for some modifiers for various tasks.
This was the original RPG based upon the science fiction TV series Babylon 5. While it was not an active influence on the creation of the LowDie System, Grant recently discovered that it uses a dice mechanic almost identical to LowDie, except for the fact that six-sided dice are used rather than ten-sided.