[The Business] A Rough Mechanic (long)

[Sledgeman]

This is the first time I've ever posted anything I've actually created, so bear with me.  =-)

Right now, I'm working on designing a game about professional criminals in the Mafia.  I've played this game before in the Storyteller System, but I'm now attempting to create my own mechanic for it.

My ultimate goal is to publish this in .pdf format online, for a modest price.  I'm not planning on making a ton of money, though--I just want to see if I can follow the process through, from start to finish...hopefully sharpening a few edges on the way.

Pasted below are some notes about the mechanic I'm trying to design.  Here are my goals for this mechanic:

1.  The system must be easy to understand (naturally)

2.  Combat must be *deadly*--this game is all about planning your crimes carefully.  If players can easily fight their way out of a run-in with the police, or anyone else, they'll be less likely to invest time into planning.  Therefore, combat should be something that players *fear*.

3.  The system must be original enough not to step on other people's trademarks.

So the question I pose to the Forge's team of experts is:  Is this system meeting those goals thusfar?  The floor is yours.

--------------------
“The Business”  Die Mechanic:

All characters have some core stats.  These stats are a little different, as they are more representative of what a professional criminal would need to be:

Fast: Agility and dexterity

Sharp:  Alertness, wits, perception

Clever:  Intelligence, persuasiveness

Tough:  Endurance, strength

Quiet:  Stealthiness, stealthiness, and stealthiness

Each stat is rated as a die type (d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12).  However, you get two dice for each of your raw stats...so a character sheet would look like this:

Fast:  2d6
Sharp:  2d10 (etc.)


SKILLS

Beyond just the raw, core stats, each character has a number of special skills.  Each skill is linked to one of the five core stats.  For instance, “Firearms” is a “Quick” skill.

Skills add dice to your raw stats.  Each rank you have in a skill adds one die.  For instance:  If your character was skilled in shooting guns, he might have the “Firearms” skill at 2.  If the character had a “2d8” Quick stat, they would get a total of 4d8 when shooting a gun.

ROLLING DICE

Whenever you make a check, you roll against a Difficulty Number (DN).  Here’s the chart:

Easy:  2

Normal:  4

Tricky:  6

Hard:  8

Demanding:  10

Nearly Impossible:  12

Whenever you want to make a check (Say, a “Sharp” check to notice someone spying on you), you would roll your core stat, plus a number of dice equal to the appropriate skill.  No matter how many dice you roll, you keep your two best dice to determine the result.  So, if you rolled 3d8 to shoot somebody, and you got a 7, 6, and a 4, you would keep the 7 and 6 to determine if you pass or fail.

Each die that comes up equal to or greater than the difficulty is a “Hit.”  Only one “Hit” is necessary to pass a trait test.  

Example:  Joe Schmuck is trying to shoot somebody at a normal range.  They have a Quick of 2d8, and a Firearms of 1--for a total of 3d8.  They roll 7, 5, and 3.  They keep the 7 and 5.  The result?  They score two “Hits,” which is enough to hit their target.

BUILDING MOMENTUM

If, on a trait test, both dice “Hit,” you gain a little bit of momentum.  On your next test (no matter what it is), you gain an extra die.  Just like other tests, you only keep your two best dice.  This continues until you no longer hit on both dice, or you roll a 1 on any dice (including the ones you don’t keep).

Example:  Joe got a 7, 5 roll on his last check.  So, he builds a little momentum, and gets to roll 4d8 instead of 3d8.  On his next roll, his two best dice come up 6 and 4...so he builds even more momentum, giving him 5d8!  On the next check however, he rolls 8, 8, 5, 3, 1.  Even though he hit on both of his “Kept” dice, he stops building momentum because he rolled that last 1.

FAILURE AND MISERABLE FAILURE

The number 1, as in most RPGs, is bad.  If one die hits, but the other shows a 1, you fail your check.  If you roll “Snake Eyes,” however (having both of your kept dice showing a 1), something really awful happens.


DEFENSIVE ROLLS

Of course, at some point, someone is going to try and do something to you—and in that case, you’ll want to defend yourself somehow.  Defensive rolls are made a little differently…in this case, you’re trying to “Kill” the opponent’s Hits by rolling better than they did.


After the attacking player has made their roll, you would roll the appropriate stat or skill to defend.  Just like Risk, you would compare your highest die, and your next highest die.  Each one of your dice that comes up better than his dice will take that die out of the equation—it doesn’t even exist.  Finito.  Bye-bye.  As is the case in most RPGs, the defender wins all ties…but remember, if you have to keep a 1, you automatically fail.


Example:  Joe Schmuck takes a shot at Dick Putz, and keeps a roll of 6 and 5.  Dick Putz wants to Dodge out of the way…so he rolls his “Dodge” skill, which is a total of 3d8.  He gets a 7 (which is better than Joe’s 6) and a 4 (which is worse than Joe’s 5).  So, he manages to Kill one of Joe’s Hits, leaving him with one.  Well, at least Joe can’t build any more Momentum…

Example:  Deuce is trying to convince the shop keeper that he should fork over all the money in his register without asking questions.  Deuce gets an “Intimidate” roll of 9 and 8.  The shop keeper resists with by seeing how “Tough” he is (he has no relevant skill that can help him).  He gets a 10 and 1—too bad…even though he would have Killed Deuce’s 9, that 1 he rolled makes him fail outright.  He caves in and forks over the dough.


SOME IDEAS ABOUT COMBAT

All characters will start with five health levels.  When you’re out of health, you’re out of luck.  Thanks for playing.

What makes this especially harsh is that “Lethal” weapons like knives and guns have damage ratings represented by die types—for example, a light pistol deals 1d6 damage.  That means that if you get hit by a slug from a Glock 9mm, there’s a 33% chance you could die on the spot.

Even worse, if the attacking player scores two hits, and the defensive roll doesn’t take anything away, the weapon deals all of its damage.

The lesson?  Playing with guns is dangerous.  You are now officially out of excuses…keep an eye out for good cover, and wear a Kevlar vest, for Pete’s sake.

CHRIS M.-

[LordSmerf]

Are you attatched to 1's being failures?  On this subject i agree with Luke Crane rather strongly: failure is enough of a penalty.  There is, to my mind, no need to make a pratial success a failure, or even occasionally have something go really wrong...

I know that it's still early in development, but your basic die system seems a tad bit complex.  Especially with not context.  What do you expect average values to be for core stats?  How many skills will an average character have, and how high will they be rated?

As to skills...  How general can they be?  Could a character have a Guns skill or would a Pistols or even a Glock18 skill be requried?

How does this system get accross the feeling of organize crime in a new way?  What would make people want to play this system for their Mob games instead of something else?

Thomas

[Sledgeman]

Some good questions there.  I'm a little short on time, so I'll answer as much as I can.

-The average core stat would likely be 2d6 (remember, all core stats have two dice).  Therefore, you'd have a pretty good chance of passing a "Normal" check (difficulty 4).

-My gaming group tends to have a lot of fun with "Critical Failures," and with this particular system, where you only keep your best two dice, you would have to roll pretty horribly to score a critical failure.  While making a partial success a failure would probably be a bad idea, I'm going to stick to my guns about keeping two 1's...for reasons explained in my next bullet...

-This particular mob game (if it comes out right) is designed to be a little bit character-hostile as far as combat is concerned--if you get in a fight, you have a very good chance of getting really messed up.  In addition, there is no magic, and no "Miracle Cure" for a sucking chest wound...in other words, getting hurt is a *really bad thing*.  The central element of this game is going to be planning out your jobs as carefully as possible, to avoid being caught by police, and to avoid unnecessary combat.  This puts the focus on puzzle solving, to an extent--the players are given a task, and they have to figure out how to do it without getting caught, and without getting hurt.  I've never played another mob game, so I couldn't tell you if it's any different from any other mob game...but I would say the unique positioning of this game is that since it is *so easy* for characters to die, the players will be challenged to step up their game to prevent that from happening.

[LordSmerf]

Ok, i think you've got some good answers...

An average of 2d6 sounds fine, do you have any ideas how you will be generating these values for characters yet?  Also, if you know what you're thinking in terms of skills (numbers, values, and how broad they might be) i'd love to hear it.

Hey, if you're fine with crit failures, that's great.  That's a matter of personal preference, and i've had some really great sessions that used them.  On the other hand i've had sessions that i really didn't enjoy due to crit failures...  Also, i should point out that statistically 2d4 has a 1/16 chance of a crit failure, 2d6 has a 1/36 (less than half as likely) 2d8 is 1/64, 2d10 is 1/100, and 2d12 is 1/144.  If that's cool it's not a problem, i just thought i should point it out.

I approve of highly lethal combat, especially for what it seems like your're talking about.  I think that the 5 wound levels works, but it feels a little clunky.  Did you have idea on how you would handle body armor?

You said that you wanted the focus to be on planning crimes and such, were you thinking something similar to the recent remake of the movie The Itallian Job?  I was working on a similar idea and one thing i thought was interesting, if i could have figured out a good way to do it, was the ability to make rolls now to see if you had planned something in advance.  Essentially you are able to go ahead and do the mission, and then when something comes up as an obstacle (they've added laser sensors) you go ahead and roll to see if you had planned for the possibility (though in reality you didn't, did your characters?).

Thomas

[Sledgeman]

In regards to character creation, I was thinking that for core stats, each character would start with a base of 2d4.  They would get 6 "Creation Points" to play with...one Creation Point would jack up a stat by one die type.  So essentially, your average starting character would have 4 stats at 2d6, and one stat at 2d8.  This way, if a player wanted balanced stats, they could still have a particular "Talent" they could use to contribute to the group.

For skills, I haven't worked out a comprehensive creation system yet...all I know is that they would max out at 5 (which would give you seven dice total.  Not too shabby if you're only keeping two).  I'm thinking that there are two ways I could approach this:

-Have a standard number of "Skill Points" to spend, which the players could use to build up their skills in any category

-Or, the players could start with a number of skill points in each category equal to their die type.  For example, if someone had a 2d8 "Fast," they could purchase 8 points worth of "Fast"-linked skills.

Now that I think of it, I'd probably want to cap skills off at 3 during creation, and let them have a maximum of 5 as they advance.

Now, a little more about the context of the game itself.

In regards to planning, planning is really the Crux Of The Biscuit for this game.  In a way, this game is sort of a reaction to a syndrome that I've seen a lot in the last 8 years or so of gaming--where game masters and game systems tend to "Protect" player characters.  In some games I've played, I've intentionally made horrific decisions just to see how far I could push the GM I was playing with...and it turns out, the GMs I've been playing with have a pretty high tolerance for bad decisionmaking...perhaps a bit too high.

This game is structured not only to be more difficult for players, but easier for GMs to run (at least in terms of designing adventures).  How so?

Well, the characters are given a list of contacts.  These contacts each have a few assignments they can give the players.  Usually, there's a cash reward.

These assignments are "Open-Ended," meaning that the GM doesn't write down a specific solution to the particular problem the players are posed with.  For example, in a game I ran with the Storyteller system, the players contacted Joey Coleski, who ran a chop shop downtown.  Joey offered them a large sum of money to steal him a limousine belonging to a Senator who was eating at a restaurant downtown.

So, as the players discussed how they were going to go about getting the limo, I quietly tried to shoot holes in their plan...and they could tell I was doing so.  If they didn't wear gloves, they'd leave fingerprints.  If they didn't take care of the driver, he would squeal...and so on.  The result was about 30-45 minutes of heated discussion, followed by a pretty pulse-pounding operation in which they followed through with their plan, and had to roll with the punches and improvise as those unexpected obstacles I had been digging up in my head the whole time got in their way.

It is this intense challenge that is the focus of this game, and I want to build a mechanic which supports this challenge.  It is very gamist...very competitive...and at the same time, you can build a pretty exciting story along the way.

I should also mention that the way I was running this game, I didn't shield any of my dice.  Since I was being so hard on their characters as it was, I figured that it would make it seem a little more fair if my rolls were out in the open.  They knew that I wasn't artificially pumping up characters just to make them lose...but I also wasn't protecting their characters from their own mistakes.

I hope this little rambling diatribe has helped to clarify what I'm going for.  =-)  

-CHRIS M.

[Sledgeman]

I normally wouldn't double-post, but I just realized I completely forgot to answer two of your questions.  =-)  Mea culpa.

-In terms of how broad skills are, I'm thinking they'll be somewhat general, if only to prevent the skills list from getting too big to handle.  However, a few skills will have to be more specific.  For instance, I'm thinking of having a skill called "Contraband," which is the ability to produce things that are illegal.  This skill would have to have a focus, however, such as "Contraband: Drugs," "Contraband:  Legal Documents," "Contraband:  Weapons," etc.

-I'm also thinking of having two categories of skills...Action Skills, and Reaction Skills.  Action Skills are rolled normally, while Reaction Skills are always rolled against someone else's action roll.  For instance, If someone shoots at you with the Action Skill of Firearms and gets a 7, 6, (scoring two hits on a normal difficulty of 4) you would make your defensive roll with the Reaction Skill of Dodge, trying to take those hits away by rolling a defensive roll as explained originally.  If the Dodge roll was 8, 4, you would squash their 7 with your 8, but your 4 would fail to get rid of their 6--so they still score one hit.

-Armor is a tough call at this point...there are a couple of ways it could be handled.  Armor could reduce the die type for damage (dropping a pistol from a d6 to a d4, for example), or it could take away a certain number of points of damage (say if they rolled a 5, your Kevlar Vest would negate 3 points of that or something).  To be honest, I think I would want to playtest it both ways to see which is more effective.

I will more than likely dissapear for a couple of days...but I'll be back online by Thursday at the latest.  So don't panic if I don't get back to you.  =-)

CHRIS M.-

[LordSmerf]

Ok, just one last question:

Do you see the game having all the planning on the front end?  If obstacles come up do the characters have to improvise with what's at hand?

Or

Do you see planning as being a little more fluid?  For example: the gang busts out of the bank and gets into their getaway car.  They tear around the city for a bit running from the cops when one of the players has an idea.  "What if we had arranged to have a delivery truck pull out right behind us blocking pursuit?"  If you are allowing more fluid (for lack of a batter term) planning then you could allow a roll to see if they had planned that.  Does that make sense?  It may not be the feeling you are going for, i just thought i'd mention it.

Thomas

[MarktheAnimator]

Hello,
Interesting ideas so far....
Why not have skill contest rolls for things like arm wrestling where both contestants roll their dice and whoever rolls more successes wins the contest?  

Also, the more dice you use, the more average the results will be...
If you use a 3d6 system to roll stats, you have a bell curve with most numbers being average.  If you roll percentile dice you will have a flat curve and there will be an equal number of high, low and average rolls....

So using different dice to indicate better stats has a different result than rolling extra dice.

I like your sytem as it is, but I just wanted to give you a few things to think about.

You also might consider making bullet proof vests useless against rifles, since they are mostly for handguns and shrapnel.

I remember playing Crimefighters which was in an early Dragon magazine (it was in the #40's or #50's I think).  
My players loved it.  They wanted me to keep running games, but I couldn't think of any stories to tell... Nowadays, I could do it, but I had to change the way I thought about games.

So perhaps you should include a good sense of how to develop plots and adventures for this genre.  

You might also want to consider how realistic you want to get for the stories.  Do you want it to be like the old time hollywood gangster films, or do you want a more gritty modern feel?

You can make the game lethal without playing with the dice mechanics simply by the way the games are run.  Ruthless people don't usually fight fair fights anyway.  They'll hit you over the head and you may not even wake up.  So you may want to include a stat like "Luck" which could be used by players to survive certain death situations.

Here is a good book for background info:  
"Drug Lord - The Life & Death of a Mexican Kingpin.  A true story" by Terrence E. Poppa.
http://www.druglord.com


Anyway, just a few ideas. :)

[Sledgeman]

Some interesting thoughts, I'll say.  =-)  Let me see if I can answer some questions...which will either clarify my standpoint, or lead me into a deadly Socratic trap.  =-)

Why use a "Keep Two" system?

Inventing a mechanic (especially one that will end up for sale) has been difficult...I'm trying to be as original as possible to avoid stepping on trademarks.  At the same time, it's like trying to re-invent the wheel.  There are so many systems out there, it feels like every *reasonable* way of determining random results based on a combination of character skill and fortune has been put out there.  That being said, as far as I know, there have been no systems where you roll a bunch of dice and only keep two.  I know there's a method of character creation for D&D that is similar, but I have yet to find a game where that is the central mechanic.

Is a "Keep Two" system fair?  I hope so.  Is it going to be fun?  We can speculate all we want, but only the playtesters can decide for sure.  =-)  Is it different?  I'm 95% sure...

What about resisted checks where there is no specific attacker or defender?

Thank you for bringing this up, because this is something that will need to be worked out.  In the armwrestling example you give, the first idea that comes to mind is to have both players make a "Tough" check (adding "Arm Wrestling," if by some fluke someone took that skill).  Then, compare the high die and the low die.  Each one of your dice that comes up better than the opponent's dice is a "Hit," and the first character to score more hits than the opponent in a given round wins the test.

The only problem I see with a system like that is that it could result in a lot of stalemates...which isn't necessarily bad, but isn't necessarily good, either.

What about adventure structure?  What is the "Feel" of the game?  How can GMs come up with adventures?

Excellent question.

As far as "Feel," it's definitely a gritty, modern game.  If the GM and the system are designed to be a little bit harsh towards characters, then naturally the world needs to be a little bit harsh as well.

Adventure structure, at least in the games that I've played with this setting, was the "Beauty Part" for me.  However, that's a thread all on its own...which I am going to post later on tonight.  =-)[/b]

[Garbanzo]

Hey, Chris.

Quick point: you can't trademark game mechanics, so don't worry about it.  As you said, "there are so many systems out there, it feels like every *reasonable* way of determining random results based on a combination of character skill and fortune has been put out there."  So don't sweat it.
Consider: for character generation, lots of games either roll randomly for stats or buy them with points.  Pick skills from a list or make them up, freestyle.  For resolution, you add stat+skill and roll under, or roll over, or roll a whole handfull beating a static or variable value.
 
With a handful of mechanics, you can describe a bazillion games.  And I don't think that's bad - as long as it's not a heartbreaker.  I think the "cool fresh mechanic" thing is a red herring.  The game as a whole needs to be (..er..) cool and fresh, but by distributing the, uh, coolfreshness, you can take the pressure off any given aspect.

-Matt

[Tobias]

I'm getting a strong 'Hitman' vibe from this game. That's a computer game, you might want to check it out.

In the computer game, there are several issues, which you could neatly avoid with a RPG.

1. Artificial rail-roading against 'easy' solutions.

In one of the first missions, you go up a roof and snipe someone dead. In almost all further missions, the environment is set up against this easy method. While it would be boring if all puzzles were solvable by this simple method, try to avoid the 'cannot snipe because it would be too easy' feel. Easiest way, I guess, is to mix lethal and non-lethal methods.

2. Combat's supposedly very deadly, but hey, it's a computer game, there's a save/load button.

In the computer game, you could die easily, but if the puzzle became too complex, you could still just go in guns blazing, with all the advantage of you being the protagonist in a FPS. Making it RPG would probably solve this problem because dead is dead. No load function.

3. The 'power' of scouting. Hitman offered an amount if 'advance' information (maps, reports, tools), etc., but it being a computer game, it had to railroad the player to a certain extent. In addition, some information was just not available, so you'd have to go in half-blind and take your chances on your planning being the right thing. Not too bad in a game where you can load and learn from each death, tricky in a game where dead is dead. So make sure there's enough attention paid in the game to information-getting.

I really like the game, though. If I were you, I'd try to emphasize both an IC 'planning' phase, with it's own feel, and a dramatic, high-pace execution phase, where Mr. Murphy takes everyone for a ride. You could add a third phase of 'downtime', where the characters would have to live meaningful lives as well, if you like.

And a last thing - I hate games with too many different die types - but that's just me.

Good luck - looking forward to more.

[Sledgeman]

A couple of Quick Hits:

Garbanzo:  Thank you for letting me know about that...it takes a little bit of pressure off, to say the least.  I still want to try it out with the system I have in mind, though...I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet.  There is some freak chance that just maybe, the "Keep Two" system might be fun to play. =-)

As far as character creation, I do plan to have a set list of skills, and it will be an objective system where players buy skills for their characters at creation.  I'm planning to work out the precise math a little later, as I want to make sure I have a good skills list, first.

Tobias:  You catch on quickly.  =-)

I'd try to emphasize both an IC 'planning' phase, with it's own feel, and a dramatic, high-pace execution phase, where Mr. Murphy takes everyone for a ride.

That is, inf fact, exactly what I had in mind.  =-)  For more about the setting and adventure design, check out my other thread on this game, http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=124011">Which Is Right Here.

[Sledgeman]

In regards to resisted checks, I finally came up with something that might work...

What if each character rolled their appropriate skill as normal, keeping their two best dice, then added up the result?  It might be a nice, quick way to determine the outcomes of resisted checks without drifting too far away from the established "Keep Two" mechanic...plus, there may be fewer ties and stalemates.

I'm going to use the same mechanic for determining initiative in combat, so I figured it might be appropriate in this situation as well.

[MarktheAnimator]

Whats wrong with a tie?  Ever see someone arm wrestling where neither one is winning?  

I'd suggest that all tie rolls would simply mean that nobody has the advantage and that they have to go another round.

[Sledgeman]

Excellent point...certainly, there's nothing wrong with ties...it's a *lot* of ties that can really bung things up.  If there are 4 or 5 ties in a row every single time there's a resisted check, that can slow things down.

What I was originally thinking for resisted checks was that, on the two kept dice, you would compare the high total and the low total...each die you get that beats your opponent is a Hit, and the most Hits wins the contest.  However, when I was thinking about it, it seemed like that would lead to a lot of situations where tied checks would just go on...and on...and on...with each party getting only one success, or one success and one tie...and so on.  I could be wrong, though--but I'm no math expert, so I'm not really sure.  I actually kind of *hope* I'm wrong, because this system would be a little closer to the established mechanic.