New system to present - best way?

[indigo]

Hey, all:

This is my first post here, I just want to say that I'm planning on posting the core rules to a system I'm working on. It's not so much an RPG as it is a series of fantasy-themed board games with some RPG trappings. I'm designing it as a sort-of RPG-Lite, to get people gaming faster. There is no GM, so the games could even be played solo for convenience.

Anyway, it's looking to be a fairly long piece of text (8 pages so far, and I'm only about 2 sections complete). I've been posting the rules on my own forum in sections, should I just provide links to those threads here and let people go read them, or should I repost the rules here, all in one thread? I could also provide links to a word doc, or pdfs for each section if that's what you all would prefer.

I'm really hoping to hone these rules and make the first module available by christmas as a downloadable pdf and a self-published package (probably envelope) game.

Thanks!

[Andrew Martin]

Welcome to the Forge, Indy.

I've been posting the rules on my own forum in sections, should I just provide links to those threads here and let people go read them, or should I repost the rules here, all in one thread? I could also provide links to a word doc, or pdfs for each section if that's what you all would prefer.

A link to the PDFs would probably be the easiest for most people. Alternatively, a link to the plain text is also good. Not everyone has access to MS Word or a converter for documents in that format.

Is the RPG designed to be like your web comic?

[Shreyas Sampat]

Hello, indigo, and welcome to the Forge!

I will assume that you intend further discussion of your game to continue in this thread.

The best way to get helpful critiques on a game mechanic is to present it in the context of the entire game, and then ask specific questions of more or less this form: "I am trying to accomplish X with this mechanic, but I am having Y and Z issues with it; how can I resolve these issues?" I hope you will find that asking for focused discussion of this kind will have very good results.

Just tossing a game at the forum, regardless of the format or how you make it accessible, rarely produces helpful discussion, because basically what that is saying is, "Here is my game; discuss it."

[indigo]

Thanks for the welcome, guys!

To answer questions:

Andrew- the RPG is not designed with my webcomic in mind, though I hope that I can use the Rules as a basis for a series of adventures based on my comic, if that makes sense. The RPG (titled Labyrinth, by the way) is designed as its own world, or worldS, as the case may be, but I want the rules to be flexible enough to allow for just about any sort of game to be built on top of them.

For example, the first module I have planned is titled 'The Hive of Havenwood', and has characters travelling through the woods and a couple of underground passages, collecting keys and fighting monsters, until they reach the beehive castle where they must defeat the Bossy Bee to recover the daughter of an NPC. Each module would have a short comic story introducing the scenario, and then go right into all of the stuff that makes this module unique (new creatures, unique items that need to be used, that sort of thing), as well as laying out all the battle scenarios.

Another module I have in mind has the characters wandering through a maze collecting pieces of a Tangram which must be used to construct the randomly-drawn key to reach the end of the adventure.

Any module can be played individually, or as part of a larger game (the #0 module is still in planning, but basically it's a monstrously huge maze with 'doors' to the different modules, which would need to be completed before moving on, hence the name of the system, Labyrinth).

Shreyas-
I guess what I was hoping to find here would be people who would be able to help me FIND problems with my proposed mechanic. To be honest, I haven't played many RPG's, certainly not anytime recently. What I remember about them was that they were overly complicated and fairly slow-moving. My goal is to blend the best aspects from traditional RPGs (such as modular adventures), videogame RPGs, Card-based games, and miniatures gaming and blend them all into something that's easy to learn and can be started quickly with little or no advance preparation.

I do hope to have more specific questions as I begin playtesting the mechanics, but I was hoping to give others the opportunity to play around with it as well and point out any weaknesses they spot.

I'll try putting together a pdf of the rules so far and post it over the weekend.

[indigo]

Quick note to say that I've posted a pdf with the first three sections written out fully, and the rest of the rules in outline form at the end:

http://www.abalonepress.com/games/labyrinth/plain_rules_v01.pdf

For anyone who's interested!