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I feel I should provide more details about Eden Earth before answering any more questions. If you just want answers, skip down.

The basis of the setting is our planet, Earth, set 200 years in the future, and with a couple twists. Technology is obviously going to be far different, and the shape of nations, economies, politics, and many other things will have changed by that point. I started this thread to flesh out such details. In addition to the effects of 200 years, the Earth is also affected by the Concept Overlay in this game. Explaining the Concept Overlay will be complicated and difficult, but here's a brief, oversimplified explanation of how it works.

When people believe things in Eden Earth, the belief affects the Overlay. The Overlay is a plane of existence that exists in tandem with Eden Earth and is constantly affecting it. Say that one person believes that Bloody Mary really does exist. This leads to Bloody Mary forming in the Overlay. She can't take a physical form in our world because only one person believes in her, she doesn't have enough power to manifest a body. The more people believe in her, however, the more she can start affecting Eden Earth. Depending on how many people believe in her, she may be able to manifest for a few minutes every month, an hour every night, or not at all. Bloody Mary must always behave in the same way that people believe she behaves, she's a construct made out of their beliefs. She couldn't, for instance, possess someone, because that's not part of her legend. She couldn't make walls weep blood either, or force someone to summon her. She could only manifest when someone calls to her in the legendary method, or appear in a reflection out of the corner of someone's eye. But take a more powerful concept like a god, say Thor, and things get more complicated. The concept of Thor is that of an impossibly strong, tall, well-built, handsome, brave man who wields Mjolnir. He can crush mountains. Thor can only behave in a way that works with his legend. Therefore, if Thor wants to manifest as a material being, he'll need a tremendous amount of believers, because manifesting a body that can crush mountains requires tremendous amounts of power. Thor may be able to respond to prayers and talk to his worshipers, but without sufficient power from belief, he can't make an appearance at the next body building competition. Ironically, because Thor is supposed to be so powerful, he can hardly ever appear in person and really kick ass. Kerjillions of concepts exist in the Overlay, but very few of them could affect our reality until nineteen years ago, when vitae exploded across the Earth.

Over the years, the belief in mainstream religions has waned on Eden Earth. The main reason for this is competition: Monolithic organizations like the WBF, the megacorporation Luxim, and even Japan have all become possessive over what their members think about. Belief in the supernatural and irrational has been found to cause only inefficiency and weakness. Supranational groups and first world nations possess the resources to restructure their members' beliefs, and a number of them have taken advantage of this. Besides big brother watching, people have stopped believing because of the spread of basic education. Many religions can offer a strong moral foundation and reassurance to anyone who's willing to read the relevant holy book and really search for meaning, but how many people will actually do that? How many people will look at "Turn the other cheek" and "An eye for an eye" and reconcile them? How many will understand that any given scripture provides guidelines, not absolutes? Those who understand basic logic, but don't take the time to understand a religion's core, will reject the seeming conflict of absolutes and reject the religion. And even those who understand what a religion is really about will probably reject it, seeing as evidence has never been found for the existence of any god or soul.

The previous paragraph was written so I could explain how vitae came to exist. Gods do exist in the Concept Overlay, or at least they did. However, once a god is believed into existence, certain demands are placed on him/her. Gods are expected to BE GODS, they're supposed to perform ten miracles before breakfast for their followers. This means using up a lot of power, a lot of energy, a lot of the belief that sustains a concept. When a concept doesn't have enough belief left to sustain itself, it dies. As belief is power in the Overlay, the concept is made up of power, even at the time of its death. It used to be that when a concept died in the overlay, the power and substance of the concept just faded away into nothingness. Now, however, people believe that mass and energy MUST be conserved. That belief applies to the Overlay. The substance of the dead concept can't just vanish, it transforms into vitae, raw life energy that concepts can feed on and use. When God, Allah, Yahweh, Brahman, and the World Soul (Buddhist) all ran out of steam at the same time, the result was spectacular. So much vitae was dumped in the Overlay that it flowed into Eden Earth, into special locations of worship. Vitae is an energy form that humans can use, it's not just a conceptual energy, but its effects are hard to explain.

QuoteWhat is the basis of this game?

The basis of this game will be how larger-than-life PCs interact with this world.

QuoteWhat do players do?

They'll have access to high tech, vitae, and bizarre locales. Since the PCs can grow to be quite powerful, it's entirely up to them what they want to do. They can start a cult, found a nation, hostiley take over a megacorporation, hunt for super advanced weapons in the ruins of blasted Russia, become a band of crack mercenaries, or just have silly fun. There is no set course. Characters can advance in ways that depend on their focus, a fighter might develop incredible levels of proficiency with certain tactics and weapons, or he might decide to beef up on his techie knowledge and custom make his own power armor and cybernetics. Vitae manipulators will have the option to mutate their bodies, grow servant organisms, directly affect others by healing cuts or causing tumors to grow explosively fast, and tap into the subconscious of everyone around.

QuoteWhy is it interesting and compelling?

I intend to make the game interesting and compelling by providing a living, breathing background for the world, full of culture and personality. Also, the rampant mutation, common use of high technology, and intrusion of the Concept Overlay will be interesting, I should think.

QuoteIf it's a game of political intrigue and backstabbing, then the setting needs a lot of interesting and competing organizations, and guidelines on how to create your own. If it's about smuggling contraband and pulling off heists, then the setting needs an entirely different focus.

This is not a one horse show. The game will not be about just one thing. I do indeed intend to provide guidelines for creating your own political organization, but that's just one line in the list of things I'll need to do.

Quoteit seems hostile or annoyed.

It is annoyed because you seem to think that a given game must focus on one thing. D&D may only have been about exploring, killing, and looting in first edition, but I once spent four 7 hour game sessions trying to start a temp agency for homeless people. It worked, too. I've never played Shadowrun, nor have I read too heavily of it, so I can't speak to that. Exalted is, out of the examples you've listed, the most inapplicable. If you're a solar, lunar, abyssal, or infernal, you're hunted and hated, but the dynamic of each game changes because of the exalt type. Each type of exalt will have different motivations and different ways of achieving them. The solars have no backup, but are obscenely powerful and have excellently adaptable powers. abyssals and infernals are likewise powerful, but abyssals can only turn their hand to destruction and fear their dark lords, while infernals charms have odd, thematic mechanics and the infernals themselves have access to bizarre resources and a healthy respect in hell. Lunars have less powerful charms, but are more powerful otherwise, are better at recon and can't lead as well, and have the silver pact/elder mechanic going. Then, the Sidereals aren't hunted, but unlike every other exalt type, they're caught up in espionage, stealth, and red tape by default. They also have somewhat crappier general charms, but their kung fu is truly mighty. The dragonblooded don't ever have to sneak around, there are craptons of them, they aren't hunted, and they're weak. The alchemicals are completely different. People love them, they're utilitarian in their powers, and they turn into freaking collosi and cities. Everything changes when you play a different exalt type. Finally, there's just the fact that you can do ANYTHING YOU WANT in Exalted, ANYTHING. Want to punch your opponent so hard he flies 20 yards? There's a charm for that. Want to play bureaucratic sabotage games? There's a charm for that. Want your own sidekick? Charm. Want to MOVE A FREAKING CITY BY HOOKING IT UP TO YOUR BELT? CHARM. Vampire? Meh. I dislike that game, but it's easy to play a game of that without political machinations. Players would just, you know, be vampires, not romanticized twatmonkeys ala Ann Rice or Stephenie Meyer. Use their immortality to study the sciences, maybe form a mercenary group that leaves no survivors, and drink blood. Maybe philosophize about whether taking the risk of living at the possible expense of losing control just once is really okay. As long as it doesn't get twilighty. Sorcerer-never heard of it up till now.

QuoteSo, yes, I assume there's a core "point" to play, because all RPGs have them. Except completely generic rule-sets like GURPS or JAGS

I disagree, and the previous paragraph states why. Exalted is the best example of that. You can do anything in that game, especially if you play during the High First Age.

QuoteBut I don't know that you're looking for design advice so much as feedback on the setting(?), so probably not a discussion for this thread.

The point was to flesh out Eden Earth, but here you go.

Strength: 6                    Full EM Spectrum Perception
Speed: 8                       Armored Hide 15 (Scales)
Coordination: 9              Tail (Balance)
Endurance: 4                 Predator Pounce
Wit: 5
Appeal: 7
Perception: 10
Willpower: 6

An attribute rated at 5 is average and an attribute rated at 10 is incredible. The perception trait allows him to see the EM spectrum. The scales add 15 hit points to the character's total. The tail gives him a +3 bonus to all rolls relating to balance. Predator Pounce gives the character a +3 to all attacks preceded by a jump action. How would you change this?

Quotehow much you support it and detail it in the rules equates to how much use it sees in play. Numerous games that say "this isn't about combat, you can do other stuff" yet devote 1/3rd of the rules to combat find that the game in play tends to focus on and around combat.)

I'm going to support as much as is sanely possible. Look at Exalted. It has rules for social combat occurring in person or over paper, physical combat in melee or ranged, mass physical combat, mass social combat, bureaucratic combat, and even nation combat.

Will talk about the Concept Overlay and Icons more. Am tired. Work sucks.

Let's see:

1. For wrapping up chapter, Vincent's guidelines are really good. Read them, in the rules! Following them often means ending a chapter much earlier than you would normally think. That's a good thing!

2. If you take exhaustion or injury in the last scene, it still matters, because whenever your character appears in the story again, you'll be stuck with those lower dice unless you choose to "reassign dice" instead of taking a new Particular Strength. And even if you're not on the Owe List, your character could always recur just by someone seeing the oracle results and thinking, "Hey, that sounds like character X, doesn't it?"

3. A good rule to make exhaustion and/or injury more interesting is to allow the winner to narrate the form it takes. Ok, you're injured or exhausted. How does it happen? What does it look like? Much more interesting, now: if you don't want to take that, you've got to negotiate.

I hope that helps!

Hey there.

My suggestion is that you get rid of your 11 categories.  Since you are proposing using the average of 3 attributes to make 4 other attributes -- why not just have a 4 Attribute system?

Like you said, BODY would be rolled for anything involving might, agility, and heartiness -- but that does not mean those subcategories need their own number.

Use MIND for anything involving memory, knowledge, reason.

I would suggest putting the senses and things like Perception and Awareness under Instinct - since it has that feel to it for me.

So INSTINCTS becomes the stat you use to roll for anything involving Perception, Awareness, Reactions and any sort of Sixth Sense or Spiritual Awareness.

TRADE seems like a nice unique stat which could be used for Buying, Selling, Haggling, finding Goods, Investing, and Commerce.  You seem to have Crafting and the creation of goods put in there - which seems like a different sort of skill -- but maybe TRADE is the stat for whatever working career or means of income your characters have -- be they a trapper, fletcher, smith, performer or what not.  That is an interesting thing to have as a general skill.  The ability to earn and handle money.

You could have a few more from your list of 11, but depending on the focus of your game, those 4 might be enough.

And what mechanics you should use to determine success with these 4 Attributes -- I am not sure.  I would need to re-read your post to see if I understood it, but a simpler system might be good.

Do you hope to have a magic or miracle system?  Those could be based off MIND or INSTINCTS or be their own Attribute that people buy if they wish to have access to mystic powers.

Good luck with your game!

Phil

--

www.philipstephen.com
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Quote from: jburneko on May 24, 2010, 09:59:03 PM
2) I have played games where the Dogs managed to contain the problem to a single family.  There were still DEEP problems within that family but it wasn't hurting anyone else but themselves.  The Dogs then tipped their hat to the Steward and said, "Your problem now, Good Day Sir." and moved on.

Dude! These are Dogs munchkins! Power gamers! Rules lawyers!

More seriously, most people I've played with would never do that, unless they're the type to read the book cover to cover and point to p. xx to support what they're trying to do in play.

Because, if you're doing your job right, those people in the town are crying, begging the Dogs to just help them, just, "Please, oh please, save us, help us, defend me from that guy, he's going to take advantage of me... I'm starving... help, he's going to kill my daughter, I just know it!" Escalate, escalate; the Dogs shouldn't be able to just walk away without it being a major statement about the kind of people they are. Someone in the Town is disadvantaged from what's going on, and the Dogs are their only hope to set things right--and if they won't, they'll have to grab a gun and set things right themselves, because the Dogs left them no other choice!

So, if they pull that on you, why don't you go straight to "what would happen if the Dogs didn't come?" The Dogs turn and walk away... there's a gunshot and a scream; someone's blood is pooling on the dusty ground.

Quote from: Ron Edwards on May 25, 2010, 06:12:56 PM
I agree that you apparently put a lot of pressure onto yourself, and with a game like S/Lay w/Me, you don't need to do that - each person is free to please himself or herself, with equal responsibility to respect what's been established already in play.

Ron,

This is good, not only because I'm realizing S/lay supports the kind of free-from-pressure play that I want, but also because, (I hope), playing S/lay can help me internalize the lesson (that I already know intellectually) that I don't need to put pressure on myself, which in the longer run will change my negative behaviors (those ones that I said made the game less fun for me). For me, the gold in this is that I hope to learn to play this way even when facilitating/GMing games like Burning Wheel or Sorcerer--that our collective enjoyment as a group is our collective responsibility.

Quote from: Ron Edwards on May 25, 2010, 06:12:56 PM1. "The tower is his" - the issue is how this information is genuinely established. When Brendan stated that his character entered the scene from the tower, did he also say, exactly, that the tower belonged to the character? Or did you let the unexpected entry point rattle you and jump to that conclusion yourself?

He didn't say that the tower belonged to his character--it was that I was rattled and jumped to the worst conclusion: "Wait, does that work, rules-wise? Will it work in the fiction?" Rather than pausing, thinking, and seeing that it did work, in all ways.

Quote from: Ron Edwards on May 25, 2010, 06:12:56 PMIt's also worth considering, instead of the "I" player being allied with the rulebook against the "you" player, that both players are looking at the same book with equal status toward it and between them. What I'm trying to say is that you have plenty of room to give initial, briefly-stated information a lot more context.

Meaning, when one person says something that unseats the other for a moment like the tower thing, the other has authority to stop and say, "what did you intend with that statement?", or just flesh that out themselves on their Go?

Quote from: Ron Edwards on May 25, 2010, 06:12:56 PMI also think that you may be hamstringing yourself by saying "based on the fiction," (I hope I'm not getting too abstract too quickly here) in the sense of trying to play forward toward some story effect. If you instead rely heavily on the fiction as established so far, working to enrich its input, like the beaded leather string, then you'll find that the descriptors mesh very well with it and story effects emerge without forcing them.

I think what you're saying here is a fleshing out of this:

Quote from: Ron Edwards on May 25, 2010, 06:12:56 PMit's counter-productive to self-dictate your immediate choices in order to impose them.

Right? I had to read that sentence about ten times but I think I get it now.

So instead of drilling an unchangeable concept into stone, you just do your prep, as the book says. Then you dive into the fiction fully, pay attention to it, and see how it see how the Monster/Lover you made will flow from the fiction, without it being this, obviously:

Quote from: Ron Edwards on May 25, 2010, 06:12:56 PMThe thing to avoid for sure, though, is to switch up the listed concepts about either the Monster or Lover later in play, which has a scattering effect on the story.

Thanks Ron! It's probably pretty apparent by now that this is both helpful & interesting to me.

-Hans

Hi,

Do you have it in mind that campaigns (or one shots, for that matter) with this game culminate in some big issue being resolved? Like the big bad is defeated? Or global warming is averted? Or some big thing that is delt with?

Do you want to have stats that deal directly with whether that big thing happens, or do you want to work indirectly, where the GM basically decides if a skill roll in some way effects whether global warming is averted (or whatever)?

I proposed the "hacking government lasers" example as an extreme case, but I think it illustrates a general problem. Under this system, future conflicts are harder if the early ones are easier. In practice, this means that you are penalized for coming up with creative ways to make things easier, and rewarded for doing things in an unnecessarily difficult way. I don't think you can get around that without altering it so much that it's a different system.

Here's where I see the complexity.

You've got 11 characteristics. What do these actually do?

You've got 4 groups...strangely the "Knowledge" characteristic fits into two groups, but no other characteristic does this. Does this mean that you think knowledge is twice as important as the other characteristics? Because that's the implication.

What do the groups do?

Furthermore, the system moves from a wider range (11 characteristics) to a smaller range (4 groups)...then you move back out to a larger range for the skills (undefined number of skills).

Another aspect of complexity is the disconnect between the characteristics and what is actually rolled.

Why would you have attributes on a scale from 3-16, if your skill rolls use percentile dice?

If you have an action that doesn't fit well into the existing skill set, what do you do?
Do you default back to a "characeristic" roll? (This doesn't mesh well with the existing systems you've roughly outlined)
Do you just make something up on the fly? (This is never a good option when designing a game)

Another niggling thing...

Quotecharacterics btw range from 3-16 (2d8+1) (can get higher with magical items)
Average joe being 7-8

although i find the average score is 10-11 (when rolled)
but we are dealing with heroes here so no big deal there

Roll 2d8+1 gives a result from 3-17 not 3-16...
...and if everyone is adding the +1, why bother with it? Is it just to get a bunch of numbers that look like D&D numbers?

You seem to have some good ideas here, but they need to be integrated with one another to form a coherent rules-set. I'm not even going to bother with where you see your game going from a perspective of "creative agenda" or "the Big Model". Those are questions that can be answered as you refine the systems into something workable.

Sorry, it's just a pet hate of mine to see a game that looks like a cobbled together bunch of random components...(eg. Rifts, AD&D 2nd Ed, a lot of fantasy heartbreakers). I don't like having to learn three different sub-games in order to start my roleplaying, and I especially hate explaining multiple sub-games to a group of new players when I'm GMing, it might make sense to the original designer, but it often confuses people out in the real world ("What die do I use?",  "Am I rolling high or low on this one?").

Also consider carefully how the skill system replicates the combat system. Do they work in the same way? Is one a subset of the other?

Now for a couple of positive ideas...

I like the idea of multiplying the attribute by the skill level to get a percentile figure. I toyed with using it in a game a few years ago, I had trouble making it work exactly the way I needed for that game, but it's been sitting in my back-catalogue as a potential tool to use in a future project.

I'd consider the notion that all skills work off a percentile roll, and all skills start at level 1. This way any time you want to roll something you multiply the category by the skill level (and even beginners get their raw "category" score for the roll). Actually having some ability in the skill pushes it up to level 2, 3, 4, etc.

Average hero...10 in a category x no skill (+1 base value for a total of 1) = 10% chance of doing something. This might be a bit low for typical "heroes" in stories.
Good hero...14 in a category x 4 skill (+1 base value for a total of 5) = 70% chance of doing something.
Awesome hero...16 in a category x 7 skill (+1 base value for a total of = 128% chance of doing something.

There's clearly a need for die roll modifiers when a system like this is being used.

Here's a couple of ideas:

• Perhaps early in the mission, when the danger is low, give everyone +10% to their chances. Once the setting has been established and the intrigue begins, the bonus 10% is removed. At the end when the stakes are high, give everyone a -10% to their chances.
• Set challenge difficulties that allow character to progress through their stories or even earn XP. Easy tasks = +10%, Moderate tasks = No modifier (but you either take a step toward completion, or gain an XP), Complex tasks = -10% (gain a step toward completion AND an XP), Hard tasks = -20% (gain a step toward completion and 2 XP).
• Perhaps characters only gain XP when there is a real chance of failure. The character gains a number of advance points equal to the difference between the percentage chance of failure...eg. 70% chance of success, gain 30 advance points for succeeding; 20% chance of success, gain 80 advance points for succeeding. At the end of the game, convert the advance points into XP using some simple formula (eg. divide by 20). Using a system like this, players will choose to take extra risks, or accept penalties to their actions, just to have a better chance of gaining advance points.
• Have a system for adding "stunts" to your actions. Every stunt reduces the chance of success by 10%, but if you succeed, you get a special bonus on your action...maybe it happens faster, maybe it's more spectacular, maybe it deals more damage.

These are just a few of the ideas I was considering when I looked at this type of system.

Feel free to use them or discard them as you wish.

V

I like the "Say yes or roll the dice" motto, but I am not using it for the game I'm in the process of designing (Free Your Mind, the RPG of Psychedelic Conspiracy) because I want a bit more GM-control; instead, I'm using something more like this:

If it's minor, just say yes.
If it's not-so-minor, look at the appropriate character stat, if there is one, and judge on that basis -- Flow for the sort of assertions that go "There's an X there, and I grab it", because a high flow means someone's well in tune with the Universe. Coherence for "I ask a person to go along with X" because high-Coherence people are the sorts owho can sweep others along in their wake. Karma as a modifier for either of those.
If it's really big, or there's a clear opposition involved, or the player *insists*, even if their Flow/Coherence/Karma says no -- then go for the dice.

As to the problem of "I make up a ludicrous challenge to burn off GM tokens so that later challenges are easier" -- that is, I think, a self-correcting problem, with a GM and players who are aware of it.

First, IIRC, the original proposal mentioned that a failed result would involve consequences -- and if those consequences are dire enough, well, people will stop trying to pull that same stunt. One obvious "consequence" would be a restoral of a certain number of tokens, so that the effort, if failed, would not have anything like the intended "clear the GM's ability to challenge us in one fell swoop" effect.

Secondly, and this sis omething I bring in again in the WiP -- the players can often be the best restraint upon another player's behavior. Appealing to them about the rationality of an action is likely to bring about a better result (at a guess) then simply declaring it "out" -- because the other players also have a stake in getting to do stuff.

Now, this obviously will not work with players whose whole stake is "winning", because they won't care which of them does -- but I don't think the design mechanism you're putting in place is really all that appropriate for a strongly Gamist group; it seems too much designed to reduce GM-impact, rather than making them a real and proper opponent.



As always, my $0.02 is worth what you paid for it.

I had a lot of fun in this game! I don't want to repeat myself too much, but I posted some details of things I remembered (and things I didn't grasp at the time) over at Hans's S-G version of this thread.