The Undying Lands

[Colin Fredericks]

So I have this game I'm designing....

Scratch that, back up. I have this project I've been working on called Minigame Magazine. The idea is basically to give one short game each issue; something fast enough to pick up, learn, and play in a night but with enough depth to come back to for a campaign. Issues #1-3 were OGL and d20 based, so I didn't have to worry about a system. Issue #4 is a different story.

The setting for Issue #4 is The Undying Lands, a faerie world. The characters are completely ordinary everyday modern people who are somehow transported to this world. If you've read Tad Williams "The War of the Flowers," that was a major inspiration. Other good books for this sort of thing include "Three Hearts and Three Lions" and "Neverwhere." There are a surprising number of actually good "person gets dropped into fantasy world" books; this game depends on the world being a little scarry.

I'm really posting here because of the system. I've come up with one which I foolishly believe is a unique system; I don't think I've seen anything like it before. (Naturally, someone else is posting the same thing right now, and will be done before I finish typing. :) ). I was hoping to bounce this off you guys and gals to get some feedback before I start playtesting.

Here are the basic premises:

[*]Attributes and skills are not rated with a single number. Instead, you have certain digits in each one. Higher digits make you more effective when you roll well, more digits make you more reliable. For instance, someone with a Grace of 1,2,3 can manage not to trip over their feet pretty reliably, but will never be dancing the fandango either. Someone with a Grace of 2,3,4,5,8 can compose themselves pretty well, and occasionally does something pretty impressive, but also occasionally trips over their own feet. The best you can have is all ten digits.
[*]You (almost) always roll 3d10. Don't total the roll. Instead, look for matches between the numbers you rolled and the digits in your skills and attributes. The highest match is the quality of your roll. The number of matches is often important as well. No matches = you lose.
[*]For example: the higher-Grace person above has an Etiquette of 1,2,3,7. She goes dancing at a ball, which is a Grace & Etiquette roll. She rolls 3d10 and gets 3,5,and 9 on the roll. The quality of her roll is 5, and she has three matches. She dances relatively well, and can continue for a reasonable length of time.
[*] Triple rolls (such as 4,4,4) are the equivalent of botches and crits, depending on whether the roll fails or succeeds. If you're not rolling 3 dice, you can't get a triple roll - they only come to unaided people using their true skills and potential.
[*]Some truly exceptional creatures (dragons) will be handled a little differently, rolling 5d12 and having digits on the 1-12 scale. They should terrify the crap out of people.
[*]As for other modifiers: blessings and curses can add or subtract dice, adverse conditions or good tools can modify quality, difficult tasks need a minimum quality, delicate tasks need minimum matches, unfamiliar situations subtract one from all dice rolls, and people working together can "donate" a digit to each other as long as their knowledge doesn't overlap (i.e. it's not the same digit). You can also decide beforehand to swap some matches for quality, basically reaching that extra inch for success.
[*]Higher digits cost more at character creation and more XP later on. Characters start off pretty weak, gain lots of XP in the first few sessions (after all, it's one hell of a learning experience), and then start to plateau.[/list:u]

Any obvious gaping holes? Does it seem to have the right "feel" for the setting? I have a good amount more written up (combat, some fae magic), just let me know if you want to see it.

--Colin Fredericks
http://www.valentgames.com/

[Garbanzo]

Hey, Colin.

If I've got [1,3,5,7,8], it's statistically identical to saying "roll 5 or less on d10", but takes longer as I work through all my numbers.  This doesn't seem like a great idea, to me.  Why not just go with "roll equal or under your skill"?

I get that higher digits cost more xp.  There's now a resource-allocation aspect, as I try to determine what size numbers I can afford.  I don't know if it's enough to redeem the system for me.  I'm a big fan of low search time, low handling time.  


-You re crits are going to be pretty rare.  By my (admittedly shoddy) math, I have a cirt or fumble coming up 1% of the time characters are rolling 3 dice, which seems itself to be a special condition.


That's all I see.

-Matt

[Colin Fredericks]

Hi, Garbanzo. Thanks for the comments.

You're right that triple rolls happen only 1% of the time. (Rolling three dice is basically the standard condition - only powerful blessings or curses can change that). I've been considering changing to a smaller die number to make them a little more common, though it would make the system a little chunkier. d8s make it about a 2% chance, and d6s make it almost 5%.

Having [1,3,5,7,8] on a particular stat does get you a basic success as often as rolling 5 or less on d10, but has a different feel to it in my mind. It lets you have two people who succeed the same amount of the time, but have distinctly different results when they succeed. Someone with [1,2,3] is just as reliable as someone with [5,6,7], but less effective.

I see what you mean about it taking more overhead, though.

--Colin

[frictorious]

My biggest question is how do you determine initial attribute and skill ratings?
The game Godlike uses matches in the same manner you do (height and width of rolls), but it's all dice matches, not match dice to stats on a character sheet.  That system works well, so I think that you're off to a good start.
The abstract way your stats are rated could be kinda confusing to players.  In White Wolf, I know exactly what 4 dots in Intelligence means.  In D&D, I know how strong a character with a STR of 15 is.  Your system, while I can kinda guestimate/interpolate how effective a Grace of 1, 4, 6 is, I'm not really sure.  If you want a system where players aren't so sure of their character's ability, then this works.  Therefore I believe that this doesn't really support gamist play.  But it really depends on your goals.  It seems kinda like a "minute to learn, lifetime to master" sort of thing.
A way to make it less abstract could be to have skill rated in number of digets, and attribute in height/value of digets.  This might be a little less confusing, or mabey not.  Another twist could be to have one aspect (skill, abilitie, other) be number and value of digets, and another aspect be size or number of dice.  
Another question I have is will you use Targer Numbers for "static tests", or all opposed rolls.  It definitely seems to me like all opposed rolls would work best.  Anothe idea is to have the difficulty of an action be the number/size of dice rolled.
I think that your crit/botch rules are fine.
Overall I feel that while the system could be effective, but it feels kinda awkward.  It does seem like it could have alot of time to figure out rolls.  Lots of hunting and matching.  Good luck, and I hope that some of this helps.
-Craig

[Shreyas Sampat]

I think that one way that you can reduce handling time to something manageable without losing your reliability/effectiveness distinction is to set an ability to a continuous range of numbers. This does rule out concepts like the guy with 1, 10, who is either terrible or excellent, but it pays for it in streamlining.

I would reexamine your idea that "special" things get to roll 5d12 and (presumably) have abilities rated on that scale. It seems like having a whole effectively separate system for these infrequently used entities will confuse more than it helps to contrast - apart from forcing the game into a second die type, there is a different granularity and effectiveness range to deal with. My suggestion is that you examine the effects of adding and removing d10s from normal abilities, as that can give you an additional axis of control; you could also have a "bonus" that applies to your final effectiveness value...so a character with (5, 10)+5 actually gets results of 10 and 15, when he succeeds in matching his digits.

[talysman]

If I've got [1,3,5,7,8], it's statistically identical to saying "roll 5 or less on d10", but takes longer as I work through all my numbers.  This doesn't seem like a great idea, to me.  Why not just go with "roll equal or under your skill"?

I don't see that it will take any longer to look for matches than it will to add up dice results. it will certainly take longer than rolling a single die, but this might not be what Colin wants. linear results work differently than multiple rolls.

there's also the possibility of interpretation of rolls. note that my own Court of 9 Chambers works pretty similar on the dice rolling technique: match numbers to get more successes. it's different in that Co9C attaches specific meanings to each number and embeds the dice technique in a much different system than what Colin is proposing.

in Colin's system, it doesn't matter whether the dancer rolls a 2 or a 3, since both numbers match... but consider this: on a roll of 3, 5, 9, the dancer has matched Grace twice and Ettiquette once. this might allow the dice to generate an interpretation for the scene: the dancer displays adequate ettiquette at the ball, but really shines through gracefulness. this is entirely different than rolling 5, 7, 9, which is the same number of matches but with more in Ettiquette: the dancer showed adequate grace, nothing special, but displayed an amazing knowledge of good manners.

that's just a thought. also, I'd agree with Shreyas about ditching the d12s... just give dragons 6 or 6 dice to roll instead of 3 dice, and extra numbers or use the bonus technique he mentions.

[Colin Fredericks]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I really appreciate it.

My tenative "pricing scheme" for attributes and skills is to have them cost half of what the digit is, rounded up. So you could buy a 10, or you could buy 2,3,4 for the same cost.

I think I probably will drop the idea of dragons and such rolling d12's... It was mostly in there to see the players' faces when the GM pulls out a different die type, but you're right, it can probably be taken care of with 5d10 instead of 3 and a +3 bonus to matches and quality. They'll still be routinely doing things that even skilled warriors just can't match. Especially if I actually let them make triple rolls on 5d10.

I'm still debating digits versus plain old number versus requiring continuous strings of digits. That may have to wait for playtesting to see how it comes out and how people deal with the various alternatives.

As things are right now, some rolls have minimum quality (especially those in the magic system), but only those which really have someone opposing you are contested rolls. I think making every roll contested will probably slow things down.

Are you guys interested in seeing any more of the system?

--Colin

[frictorious]

I'd definitely like to see more of your system.  I really like Niel Gaiman's books, and I'd like to see a game inspired by his (and others) stuff done well.
If certain rolls require a certain fixed value/height of the roll/match, then it will be impossible for some characters to do it.  I've always felt that there should at least be a chance for even an unskilled/weak character to succed at least marginally at most tasks.  However, I understand tha not all systems can incorporate these kinds of odds.  And I can definitely see certain things like magic, electronics repair, computer programming and brain surgery only being capable of being performed successfuly by and approbriately skilled person.  Perhaps on a triple roll the unskilled climber could scale the wall, or the inexperienced archer could shoot out the dragons eye.  
Regarding the costs for Attributes and Skills, the strait 1/2 the value rounded up has some problems.  Like 5 costing the same as 6 and attributes costing the same as skills.  Traditionaly, attributes can be applied to many tasks, while skills are more focused.  So attributes are usually more expensive (for advancement and char-gen) than skills.  
If you had attributes cost the same as the digit value/height, and skills cost 1/2 the face value/height I believe that it would be more ballanced.  
Also you could have attributes only be odd numbers, and skills be even numbers.  This would make skills slightly more desireable, because you need that skill to be rated at 10 to truly master something.  It also gets around the 1/2 rounded up math problem.
If you require characters to purchase the values for the digits on their stats in order (1, then 2, then 3, etc.), then you basicly now have a roll under system.  This is fine, but it isn't quite as original.  However, I personlly think that it seems more logical to purchase attributes/skills in order, instead of just having one or two high numbers.  Why would someone succeed only ocasionaly, but when they do they do it really well?  
Having more powerful characters roll more dice with bonuses seems like a good idea.  You can still intimidate your players when that dragon drops a 5 die fire breath on them.
I'm really curious to see how you describe/stat your magical/fairy tail characters.
-Craig

[Colin Fredericks]

A few random points before posting more of the system:

1. I was going to have attributes and skills bought from separate pools. After reading your comment, I may switch to having a single pool of points and setting minimum amounts on each one, with the half-cost skills.

2. Most of the skills in the game are indeed of the variety that requires a lot of training, or are used in highly variable environments (all opposed rolls, like combat or stealth).

Here's some more of the system.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

More basic stuff

Attributes: Command, Creativity, Fitness, Grace, Persistence, Reasoning, Savvy, and Senses.

Skills: these are broken up into three groups, which determine how many points can be put into them at character creation (and give some idea of how useful the skills are in the Undying Lands). I haven't finalized these yet, but it's probably close.
Mundane Skills: Academia, Computers, Firearms, Motor Vehicles, Paperwork, Repair.
Shared Skills: Art, Athletics, Carousing, Crafts, Etiquette, Medicine, Riding, Sailing.
Faerie Skills: Animal Ken, Armed Combat, Bargaining, Fae Lore, Larceny, Ranged Combat, Stealth, Unarmed Combat, Wilderness Survival.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Combat

This is the condensed version; the full text has more examples and is more explicit.

There's the usual roll for initiative, with best roll going first and so on down the line, rerolled every round. Archers always go first in open terrain (due to range) or last in enclosed areas and close quarters (they need time to pull an arrow out, draw, and aim).

Every combatant picks a style to fight in each round: Aggressive, Opportunistic, Defensive, Intimidating, or Flashy. You are required to declare actions that fit with your style; for example, a Defensive warrior cannot launch into a flurry of savage blows without switching to Aggressive. Each style has an attribute that it uses: Fitness, Persistence, Grace, Command, and Creativity (respectively).

Certain of these stances work better against others, and the defender must roll with one of two attributes (based on the attacker's style) when defending. Any combat skill is valid for defense as well as offense.

An attack is not necessarily a strike with a weapon: it could be an attempt to tire out your foes, knock them off-balance, intimidate them, distract them, trip them, bind their weapons, or (as in most games) deal a blow to a vital region to kill them or knock them unconscious. By accumulating matches on combat rolls you push your opponent off-balance in one way or another, hoping to end with them at your mercy.

Everyone describes their character's actions on their turn, such as:

[*]"I rush forward and tower over him, hoping to make him trip backwards."
[*]"I move slowly backwards, hoping to make her overextend her reach."
[*]"I flutter my cape in her face to distract and baffle her."
[*]"I launch a series of fast, powerful blows with my axe, striking for his head."[/list:u]
Actions that would immediately end the fight (such as "I cut his head off") are not allowed.

Attacker rolls attribute & Combat. Defender must get the same or better in both quality and matches. Failure means that the defender loses a digit (of their choice) from either the attribute or their Combat skill. Lost digits come back at the rate of one every two hours, and one immediately at the end of any fight you survive.

Opponents with no digits left in Combat, or no digits left in their current style's attribute, are at your mercy. You can knock them out, deal a mortal wound (they bleed to death in a few minutes), kick sand in their face, take their sword, back away, whatever you want as long as it's relatively quick. Of course, if you knock them out first, you can do whatever you like afterwards.

Miscellany: Most of the modifiers mentioned earlier can apply to combat as well. Triple rolls let you force someone to lose two digits instead of one, or to lose one when you're defending. Yes, it is possible to "attack" someone even if you're a defensive fighter; it means that you've outlasted them and worn them down some, or made them overextend their reach.

[frictorious]

I think that your system looks really good (and original), and now I understand it better.  I especially like the "styles of combat".  
The stats and skills looked fine;  A Creativity stat seems like a neat idea, really fits the setting.  I wonder how it will work in play.  It seems like it will have the same problems as playing a character with a higher intelligence than you.  The old "well I can't come up with a solution, but according to his stats, my character could"
I'd play this game.
-Craig

[Colin Fredericks]

Those of you who were interested in this game might like to know that it's been released on RPGNow. A quick search for "Undying" should turn it up. :) It will also be on DriveThruRPG as soon as they encode it.

--Colin Fredericks
http://www.valentgames.com/