Gideon Game for your perusal (and Hello)

[monsterboy]

Hi, all. Been lurking here for awhile, learning the glossary, and I've decided to jump right in.

I've been thinking about this for a few days, and now have a skeleton system. I thought I'd ask for input before I take it much further (measure twice, hack once). I won't waste space here with it, so here's the link for such as may want to look:

http://mysite.verizon.net/erin.miner/Gideonv0_1.pdf

My biggest concern is with Traits. The system is intended to give characters depth by making it less advantageous to have, say "Riding 3" than, for example, a Concept of "Rodeo Rider", and Traits of "Good with Animals" and "Family Raised Horses". Now I'm worried that this will encourage bogging characters down in dozens of pseudo-skills. I doubt the idea is all that novel; anyone here have experience with the ramifications of such a system?

I also wonder about the Attributes, though; is there anything important they don't cover? I'm worried that 1-5 doesn't leave enought room to individualize (purely subjective concern, I know); any idea on the ramifications of allowing them to go to 6, but making 6 an automatic failure (so any attribute over 5 counts only to offset penalties)?

Of course, any other thoughts and observations are welcome.

[neko ewen]

The overall concept is neat; it sounds much less "kitchen sink" than DeadLands. You might want to check out Dogs In The Vineyard if you haven't already. No idea when DeadLands Reloaded is supposed to be coming out.

When you set up an RPG with attributes, picking the right ones is a challenge; you need to hit all the right things that are important for every character, and you need to separate the ones that need to be distinct (one of my main gripes with BESM is its single Body attribute for all things physical). To me the set of four attributes you're using covers nicely everything you'd want for a Western game with some supernatural stuff thrown in; the question I'd ask is whether the combinations you've made are what you want. You couldn't, for example, have a character with high spiritual capacity and low endurance because they both fall under Heart. Do you think that's good or bad?

Experience with Fudge (where skills and attributes are rated on a non-stacking 7-level scale) has taught me that "graininess" isn't necessarily a bad thing. IMO it's more important for the differences between trait levels to feel like they actually matter in the game. If I'm understanding this right, the attribute level determines what you have to roll under on a six-sided die (sort of like Wushu), which means the difference between (for example) 3 and 4 is going to be felt pretty strongly.

Lack of character individuality in terms of stats can be a problem; when I did my first playtest of Mascot-tan (which is comedy-based) it turned out that all three players had made characters with Smarts at 1 (on a scale of 1-4). This didn't create a problem with the flow of the game (they had very distinct personalities and abilities), but the PCs were all too stupid to figure stuff out. On the other hand I don't think a more granular system would really help much; if two players want to make genius scientist characters and one buys an Intelligence of 17 and the other 18, their characters are still going to be very similar.

As for the thing with Traits, I'm not 100% sure where you're placing the balance of things yet, but for the systems I've dealt with they've tended to (a) have characters made up purely of open-ended traits (Risus, Wushu), (b) Have a very specific window for a limited number of open-ended traits, or (c) Put some kind of open-ended descriptors/aspects/specialties on pre-defined traits (like in some of the older White Wolf games). (a) works great for the right kind of game, (b) I haven't tried yet (I need to finish writing the game I'm working on that uses it), and (c) tended to be much too easy to ignore/forget about.

Hope that helps. ^_^

[TonyLB]

Hi monsterboy!  Welcome to the Forge.  Do you have a real name?

The traits and attributes look solid for some purposes.  Whether they're right for your purposes we can't know until we know what those purposes are. 

What do you want to help players to do (as a group and with each other) that they don't normally do on their own anyway?  Yes, whatever it is it will be done in the context of telling the western story, but I'm more interested in things like "compete for best narration" or "cooperate to use all of their character abilities together in new ways." 

Does that distinction make sense through examples?  I feel like I'm explaining it poorly.

[Bryan Hansel]

I'm worried that 1-5 doesn't leave enought room to individualize (purely subjective concern, I know); any idea on the ramifications of allowing them to go to 6, but making 6 an automatic failure (so any attribute over 5 counts only to offset penalties)?

I have no problem with 1-5.  Each step adds just under 17% to the chance to succeed.  With 5 giving the players about a 84% chance to succeed and a 1 giving the players a 17% chance.  It's a good spread. With 6 an automatic failure, it means that there is always a 17% chance of failure.  If penalties are going to be a big part of your game, it would be nice from a players viewpoint to be able to offset them with higher skills.

[monsterboy]

Hi monsterboy!  Welcome to the Forge.  Do you have a real name?

No, I wait to be christened by the indie RPG masses. What do your people call the little mouse on the face of your moon? :D

Actually, I thought I'd put "Sean Miner" in the profile someplace, now I see there is no such place (unless that's what "Personal Text" is for?).

What do you want to help players to do (as a group and with each other) that they don't normally do on their own anyway?  Yes, whatever it is it will be done in the context of telling the western story, but I'm more interested in things like "compete for best narration" or "cooperate to use all of their character abilities together in new ways." 

I wasn't thinking of those things explicity, but wow, they're good things to think of, thanks!

I suppose I wanted it all. For group-narration, I was thinking of having a "talking stick" type thing, where one person is the GM of the moment, and the other players could vote at any time to change GMs (presumably after someone voices an inspiration to do so). I think my goal with the Traits was partly to make character background more meaningful to the present-day characters (it seems that characters often too easily leave most of their pasts behind, enforcing the idea that they just popped into existence the day they players created them)

I don't want to get too much into metarules, but maybe there could be some sort of "Plot Point" type currency to spend on this (hmm, continuing thinking... if the other players decide after each game which GM gets a plot point, it would result in the "best" -- in the sense of most popular -- GM having the most opportunity to "cut in"... hmm).

Maybe I'm too enlightenment-era-optimistic in my thinking, but I was hoping this would tend to naturally result in people working together and finding new ways to use their abilities together. My thinking is, as other people start using the "tricks" of each GM in the group, the GM --now a player -- would demonstrate in play how *he* thought the situation should have been handled, and everybody learns. Or maybe I'm thinking too long-term (or weird) for the average game.

You might want to check out Dogs In The Vineyard if you haven't already. No idea when DeadLands Reloaded is supposed to be coming out.

I haven't read the DitV itself, but it was very much an inspiration in some ways, system-wise. Being a PLG (poverty-line gamer), I've had to glean what I could from reviews and Actual Play posts. :) I'm avoiding Deadlands on purpose, because it's the main Western game out there and I don't want to be unduly influenced by it.

If I'm understanding this right, the attribute level determines what you have to roll under on a six-sided die (sort of like Wushu), which means the difference between (for example) 3 and 4 is going to be felt pretty strongly.

You are right, and I'll need to clean up the text a little to make it more clear (my wife wasn't sure, reading it). Btw, there was a typo: I was making the average Attribute 3, not 2; I want people to be able to suck at something without being utterly crap.

I'm going for the fully open-ended Trait model, but with a numer of basic Traits spelled out for examples/inspiration, to set the tone of the game, for GM convenience (and some level of standardization) in terms of NPC and critter creation, and for some specifically more rulesy bits (mainly the supernatural stuff).

Thanks for your thoughts; they've already provided grist for working on v 0.2! :)

[Bryan Hansel]

I wasn't thinking of those things explicity, but wow, they're good things to think of, thanks!

Have you seen the Power 19 design tool?  Here are the links.  It might help you focus your thoughts about your game before you move to version .2.

http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/2006/01/what-are-power-19-pt-1.html

http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/2006/01/what-are-power-19-pt-2.html