[Orbit system] A rules light RPG, focused for troupe play

[KingstonC]

The Orbit system: A rules lite, exploration focused RPG where everyone can GM.

The orbit system is my first attempt at developing a RPG rule set. It is designed for use in any genre of play. It is designed to give the GM freedom to make up cool stuff for the players to react to, and for the role of the GM to change over the course of play, so many people get to make up cool stuff. My design goals for this system were simplicity, democracy, and cool stuff.
   Simplicity: players describe the game world in words, not statistics. Players spend story points to effect the outcomes of conflicts, then justify story point use by referring to features of the game world. The roles of actor (player) and director (gm) are clear, with each having specific responsibilities to add to the story.
   Democracy: The GM effects conflict outcomes the same way as players do, using story points, justified by referring to features of the game world. As a result, any person can GM without special knowledge of the system. This system is designed from the ground up for troupe (rotating GM) play, with the role of the GM changing every game session, or every scene.
   Cool stuff: Players reward each other for neat descriptions, cool set pieces, and exciting actions by giving each other bonus tokens, which can be turned in for more story points. In this game, players (including the GM) are rewarded for doing things other players like.

In GNS terms, I see this game as facilitating participationalist simulationism, with a focus on exploration of the game world (setting, situation, character, color).  

I have recently finished the second draft of this rule set, published below. Do I meet my design goals?

orbit system

Setup
To play the game you need
   1) one six sided dice for each player
   2) a way to keep track of story points and bonus points, ether a paper log, or tokens.
   3) paper to keep track of established elements in the story.

Every person playing the game is a player. A player who is in charge of making up story elements and creating conflict is the director (GM). A player who controls a character is in the story is an actor.

story points
   Story points are the resource player's use to affect the game. You can spend story points to gain advantage in a conflict. The amount of story points a player begins with depends on the kind of story you would like to tell. Stories about human powered protagonists should start out with 25 story points for actors. Stories about powerful protagonists should start with 40 or more story points for actors. If the role of the director passes scene by scene, all players should add 15 story points on top of that.

Who is the director?
   There are many ways to play Orbit. Depending on how you play, the role of director can pass from person to person.
   
   Scene by Scene
   Each person plays the role of director for one scene, then passes narration power to the next person. In this method, all players start with an equal amount of story points.

   Session by Session
   In this method, the director changes every session. In this method, the director starts with a number of story points equal to all the other players story points combined.

   One Director
   In this method, the same person is the director every session. Like the session by session method, the director starts with a number of story points equal to all other players combined.

Player roles   
   The role of the actor is to explore the environment, and to resolve the conflicts that the director creates. The actor's sphere of influence is his or her character and what they do. An actor can state facts about the outside world, but the director can veto any fact the actor states.
   The role of the director is to create the environment the characters explore and the problems the characters encounter. The director's sphere of influence is everything except for the characters controlled by the actors. A director can state facts about the characters, but the actor controlling that character can veto any fact the director states.

Conflict resolution
Conflicts are resolved by spending story points to represent forces effecting the outcome of the conflict which are then added to the roll of a six sided die. The outcome with the highest total wins the conflict, and their desired outcome occurs. Conflict resolution occurs in various stages.

1)intention: The players agree on what is at stake in the conflict. Then, each player describes what happens to influence the conflict's outcome. Actors describe how their character's abilities, motivations, and actions affect the outcome. The director describes how the environment, situation, or other characters affect the outcome. During this part, players can change their mind about what different characters do. Either side can spend story points describing things outside their sphere of influence, but those descriptions can be rejected by the player inside that sphere of influence.

2)initiation: Each actor spends a number of story points to represent the power of their character's abilities, motivations, and actions to affect the outcome. The more story points spent, the more effective the stated reason is in effecting the conflict. The director does the same, spending story points to represent to power of the environment, situation, or other characters to affect the outcome. No more than five story points can be attributed to any single source (character ability, motivation, environmental feature, etc.). Spent story points are placed in a discard pool.

3) Execution: Each side adds up the story points spent to influence the conflict and adds the result of a six sided die roll for each of the different outcomes of the conflict. The highest roll wins. If the roll is equal, then another round begins. Subtract the highest roll from the lowest. That is the margin of victory. The losing side can continue the conflict by spending a number of story points equal to twice the margin of victory and beginning another round. If they do not, then the conflict is over.

4) Effect: The outcome of the conflict is described by the winner.The greater the margin of victory, the more extreme the success or failure. loser is able to veto outcomes inside their sphere of influence which are not justified by the margin of victory.  

Bonus points
   Each player starts with a number of bonus tokens equal to the number of players at the table. Whenever another player does something you think is creative, interesting, funny, cool, or otherwise deserving of attention, give that person a bonus token. Bonus tokens can be turned in at any time for between two and five story points, taken from discard pool, depending on the number of story points the game begins with. Unlike story points, bonus tokens can be saved from game session to game session.

[TonyLB]

loser is able to veto outcomes inside their sphere of influence which are not justified by the margin of victory.

Can you clarify this point?  How do you know whether or not something is justified by the margin of victory?

[Jasper]

Hi,

I have a couple of questions too.

First, you talk about statements of fact, and how those can be vetoed. What exactly consittutes a "fact"? And when exactly does something enter another player's sphre of influence? What if, as the GM, I say "The ground opens up and you fall into a deep pit." While that's primarily about the environment and what it does, it obviously affects the characters -- can a player veto that?

Regarding conflicts...

What consitutes a conflict? Are they methods for overturning a veto? That seems to be the case, since players can already state things about their charactrs without conflict, right?

1)intention: The players agree on what is at stake in the conflict. Then, each player describes what happens to influence the conflict's outcome. Actors describe how their character's abilities, motivations, and actions affect the outcome.

Do you mean to say that the players describe possible relevant factors, or that they describe exactly what factors they want to apply and how?

It seems like choosing sources will be a big problem as it stands. How specific is a single source? Like, if the PCs are climbing a mountain, what could the GM name a environmental sources opposing them? Would it be "the cold and the snow" or "the ice on the ground, the ice in your clothes, the high altitude, the wind making you cold, the wind making communication troublesome..." ?  If I were you, I'd either have a way for players to challenge these kinds of things, a discrete list to choose from, or instead change the limit on story tokens to a fixed amount, independant from the number of sources named.

I like the ability of the loser to prolong the conflict by spending points, which allows players a nice way to say "this conflict matters to me."

The greater the margin of victory, the more extreme the success or failure. loser is able to veto outcomes inside their sphere of influence which are not justified by the margin of victory.

I'll second Tony's question for specifics. But more generally, it's not really a case of vetoing is it? It's really that the person narrating is supposed to be limited by the margin.


More generally, you've billed this as a generic, participationist game (though I'm not sure I buy that second part). What can players do in this game that's different from a lot of other games? In other words, why should someone care? What's your 'pitch'?

[KingstonC]

Thanks! These are all terrific, well thought out questions. Thank you for reading my game.

I'll try to respond to all of your questions here.

Jasper asked

What can players do in this game that's different from a lot of other games? In other words, why should someone care? What's your 'pitch'?

I think my game brings somthing new to the table in many ways. It's simple to improvise anything in this game, because there are no statistics in the system, just story points. It's designed from the ground up for troupe play, with multiple GMs. It has strong stances (actor stance, director stance) for players and gm, but has rules for leaving those stances. The reward system is based on doing things that other players like, which enourages mutural player apprecation and players trying to impress each other by describing cool things.

Jasper asked

First, you talk about statements of fact, and how those can be vetoed. What exactly consittutes a "fact"? And when exactly does something enter another player's sphre of influence? What if, as the GM, I say "The ground opens up and you fall into a deep pit." While that's primarily about the environment and what it does, it obviously affects the characters -- can a player veto that?

Statements about how fictonal game world is, for example "the barbarian has a rune encrusted magic sword", or "A deep pit opens up under your character" are facts, and can be stated and vetoed. Statements about what happens next, for example- "I kill the goblin with my sword", or "Your charcter falls into the pit" are not facts.
In your example, declaring a pit opens up over your character is a fact. Whether your character falls in, or grabs the side of the pit, or a vine, or magically levitates out of the pit, is a conflict.


jasper again

Do you mean to say that the players describe possible relevant factors, or that they describe exactly what factors they want to apply and how?

Players describe exactly what factors they want to apply and how.

It seems like choosing sources will be a big problem as it stands. How specific is a single source? Like, if the PCs are climbing a mountain, what could the GM name a environmental sources opposing them? Would it be "the cold and the snow" or "the ice on the ground, the ice in your clothes, the high altitude, the wind making you cold, the wind making communication troublesome..." ? If I were you, I'd either have a way for players to challenge these kinds of things, a discrete list to choose from, or instead change the limit on story tokens to a fixed amount, independant from the number of sources named.

You are right. However, notice that 1)Story points are a limited resource and 2) the only way to get more is to do things that other players like. Munchkin-esque behavior like that will drain your story points quickly and see to it that you will not get more.
Still, this does need a change. Instead, I might have no more than five story points from each player (and no more than five story points per player in the scene for the GM) the total would be influenced by both 1) game world justification and 2) player desire to succede at the conflict.
Fixing this is the greatest challenge to the design.

Tony said

Can you clarify this point? How do you know whether or not something is justified by the margin of victory?

In the next draft, I will have a chart, describing what game world facts would have a 1 story point influence, which would have a 3 point influence, or a 5 point influence. I will do the same for margins of victory.
But to answer your question now, a 1-2 point margin would be a marginal victory, one where you succede but at a price, aka a "yes, but".A 3-4 point victory would be a complete victory. A 5 point victory or more would be a total victory, where you succede beyond your hopes, a "yes, and."

Again, thanks for the teriffic questions!
-K

[Jasper]

KingstonC,

Thanks for being so game with our questions.

In your example, declaring a pit opens up over your character is a fact. Whether your character falls in, or grabs the side of the pit, or a vine, or magically levitates out of the pit, is a conflict.

I still think this distinction is a bit mushy, or I'm not getting where you're drawing the line. Is a conflict simply where player and world interact? While a fact addresses one or the other alone? (This is basically how I did it with my game Loqi.)

Munchkin-esque behavior like that will drain your story points quickly and see to it that you will not get more.

I'm not really talking about "munchkin" behavior but some kind of standard or guideline for what level of detail is appropriate. Obviously, my example was extreme in finding lots of details. The 5-point limit per player would certainly mitigate the problem but guidelines are still a good idea.


I look forward to a draft with more details pinned down.

[KingstonC]

Jasper,

Exactly. A conflict is where character and game world meet. A fact effects one or the other alone.

And thanks for the link to Loqi. The two games are very similar in design goals. The biggest difference is that Orbit gives each player a fixed resource that influences conflict outcomes, which is tied to the narrative only by the players own sence of "realism", while Loqi translates game world facts into influence. It really allows me to see where you are comming from.

-K