New ideas about FATUM

[Jarx]

I think I've iritated many with my constant yapping about my "cool" game...
So this will be my final topic. If nobody posts, I declarate it dead.

Wanting my game to be setting free (or free to use what setting fits the GM) I took some inspiration from one giant indie-rpg and one kickass PS2 game(Sony own by the way). The rpg would'nt be so hard to guess, it's Sorcerer, and the kickass game, GOD OF WAR!

The basic idea is as follows, characters are followers of secret orders under ruling of forgotten/hidden(or known depending on setting) gods/higher power. The orders follows one god and fights the others in struggle of world domination.

The inspiration taken from GOD OF WAR is that instead of the old magic system I've been talking about, you get gifts of the god you follow that allows you to do some massive magic

Since the gifts differs between the orders, much of how you like to play your rpgs (or mmos) has a great effect of which you choose. The celtic inspired magic mentioned in "The magics of doom"topic is still there but much more sorcerer together with the corruption.

So my question is: Is this a good idea or is it to much of a rip-off? If it is, how might i change that?

Jim

[Spooky Fanboy]

I'd be curious as to how Sorcerer fits into this. I wouldn't mind a little more detail.

[Filip Luszczyk]

Jim,

I wasn't tracking your previous threads, so I don't know neither the specifics of your game nor the reason you might think people were irritated by it.

However, I suggest that you don't worry about this "ripping-off" issue, especially if it's mainly in the concept area. Writing games is always "stealing" to some extent - basically, you creatively recombine building blocks that were previously created by others, selecting those you need and looking for interesting ways to stitch them together and give them a new shape. Only rarely you add something truly original from yourself - it's simply, so many different things were already done in the hobby that it's extremely hard to be a pioneer all the time.

Also, steal from one source, and they will call you a thief - but steal from many, and they will call you a genius

Basically, is it about writing an original game, or a fun and playable one?

There is no such thing as a good or bad idea - it's all about good tools for the right job. So first, ask yourself what's the job, and then ask yourself if these are the right tools to do it. If the tools are right, use them. If they are not, simply look for some better tools.

[Jarx]

Sorcerer inspired me in its fastplaying system and that the concept could fit into almost every setting. Plus on the magic side in Fatum, there's not only the GOW-like gifts, there is also the gods servants you can get depending on your rank, so if you are a Fighter-right hand man, you get a powerfull melee spirit that helps you. But seeing that using both gifts and spirits lowers your lifeforce, which is also you health meter, and at the same time tests your corruption, in the end you might lose all you will force against your god in order to get more power, you follow him blindly because you want more and later on die cause you don't know the risk with using that force.

So I pretty much have the humanity-part of Sorcerer and sorta the demon part.

Did that help explaining why I have sorcerer as a part of it?

Also, thanks for posting, i was worried it was dead long ago, thank you!

Jim.

[Adam Dray]

So tell us a little about your game's rules.

[Jarx]

OK, though I have already explained the basic for the rules, I might as well take them up again.

You see, there are 5 basic "skills" (have no other word for it) that is used whenever the time is needed.

These skills are:

Physique your strength, tolerance and so on.

Agility Your speed, movability and likewise.

Instinct the sixth sense, let's you predict if someone is attacking from behind or if somethings wrong.

Discipline your mental strength
and fianly:
Perception your sight hearing and the rest of the 5 senses.

These have a value between 1-6, If you're doing something challenging, like lifting a heavy rock, you might wanna roll your physique, so if you have 4 in physique you have 4 d6 to roll with, the difficulty can be between 3-36.

Then we have the Charachter-skills, these give bonus to your Basic skills. ChS can be like RAW POWER +6 Physique:strength.

If none of the basic skills fit in to the challenge, you allways have wisdom, which is basicly 2d6 unless you have a ChS that says otherwise. To give bonus to that, you have knowledge like Navigation +6, so every time you need to use navigation of some sorts, you get a plus6 to the roll.

That is the basics of the rules, does that explain it well or is there some questions?

[Adam Dray]

Sorry, if you posted your rules summary in a different thread, I didn't see it, and you didn't link it.

Yeah, your rules make sense. I have a lot of questions, though.

So basically it's Nd6 + bonus vs. a target number, where N is the score in the relevant skill (or default 2) and the bonus is a small integer score for various knowledges and stuff. As a point of clarification, most games call those knowledges and stuff "skills" and call the base things like Physique and Discipline "attributes" or "abilities" and sometimes "traits." You might change that so as not to confuse the masses. I'm gonna do so because I can't tell what you're calling things like Navigation. So I'll call Physique an attribute, Navigation a skill, and Raw Power a trait -- for lack of better terms.

So your traits like Raw Power are related to various attributes like Physique? And you wrote "RAW POWER +6 Physique:strength" and I don't know how "strength" fits into all that. Can you show me a sample character fleshed out?

There's a lot of procedure missing here, and maybe it's in your head, but it's not clear to me. Say you and I are playing your game. I already have a character (but maybe there's an important character generation step I'm missing, so tell me if there is). What happens first in the game? Then what?

Then I assume we get to the point where we roll dice. How do we know it's time to roll dice? Who decides that? There's also, I presume, a lot of talking in character, talking out of character about the character, and description of what happens. When does all that occur in relation to dice rolling? The answer may seem VERY straightforward to you but understand that there are a lot of different ways that games have answered that question.

[Jarx]

the physique:stregth means that every time you use strength you roll physique but get a bonus on every "trait" that handles strength, otherwise you get too much bonus on everything that phsique handles as it is also the charachters ability to take a hit and his dexterity.
Does this explain it?

On the second question, can you describe it better? i don't really understand it.

Dice roling occurs when it's not sure wether the carachter sucess in what he's doing or when it's important to know if suceeds or not. Theres not more to tell, it's pretty much up to the group and GM.

[Adam Dray]

On the second question, can you describe it better? i don't really understand it.

Which question was that? By my counting, it's "Can you show me a sample character fleshed out?" and that's pretty self-explanatory.

Do you mean, "What happens first in the game? Then what?"?

By that, I mean that you've presented a resolution system and not a complete game. I get the feeling there's a lot more in your head and I wanna know what it is. For example, your game has characters but you haven't mentioned how people make them. Some RPGs give the players/GM procedures by which to create a situation for the characters to help the players get on the same page about what everyone should be doing. Even D&D has some default assumptions about situation: "The characters go off in search of monsters to kill and treasure to loot, and invariably wind up at the dungeon/castle/haunted temple/dark forest where they battle increasingly dangerous foes, kill them, and take their stuff." What's your game's situation and how do the players put their characters into it?

You mentioned Sorcerer. Some of the coolest parts of Sorcerer are the situation-creating bits like bangs and kickers. Kickers get the players (and their characters) out the door and bangs focus the players on the cool parts of the story. I'm not saying you have to emulate Sorcerer to have a cool game but I wanted to give an example of some situation-creating mechanics.

Let me dissect your resolution stuff:

"Dice roling occurs when it's not sure wether the carachter sucess in what he's doing ..." What if Jon is sure and Jamie isn't? Does it matter if one of them is the GM? 

"...or when it's important to know if suceeds or not." If it's not important to know if you succeed, why bother rolling?

"Theres not more to tell, it's pretty much up to the group and GM." Should I assume that you're following a traditional "GM has lots and lots of authority to decide things" model? You do mention the group, so how do the GM and the group (the other players) share this authority?

Help me through the procedure. Let's say I'm playing a hulking barbarian type with all kinds of HUGE muscle-related stats. How might he look in terms of stats? Okay, now we're playing the game. Let's say somehow that there's a thunderstorm and an enormous tree has fallen on a friend and I want my barbarian dude to save him. I say, "I want to lift the enormous tree off him with one hand and pull him out with the other." Now what happens? Do I just roll dice? Does the GM have to say it's okay for me to roll dice? Who decides which dice I roll (who has final say)? Is it just one roll? Let's say I succeed. Who describes what happens? The GM? Me? Another player? A combination of us? Does any other player have any authority to say, "No, it happens like this," or "It doesn't happen that way!" Is it possible that a bad dice result will invalidate the stuff I said I intended to do? Like, "Not only do you not lift up the tree, you don't even get there! You trip and fall!" If I fail, are there any limitations on me trying over and over again till I succeed? Is success and failure a binary switch with two results, or does someone interpret the dice to say I succeeded by a little or a lot?

There's a lot of questions there, but I think it explains better what I meant by my resolution questions.

[Jarx]

Can we stop talking about the rules, they're working and fits the matter, that's whats matters.
What I really wanted to talk about was more or less the idea, not the rules.

So, if think I've reached a stop in the writing and need some help with that. I need to write about how it is to be in a secret order that follows a mighty god no-one else has heard about, how it is to live a life in secret, and risk your life for that supreme being. And i also need some ideas for orders and how they work, what kind of class-system they have and so on.

If any one has ideas of how that may be like, post me please.

Jim

[Adam Dray]

Sorry, man. Your original post didn't make your goals clear. I'll let better idea-people jump on this then. Good luck!