Game Idea in the works: can a man get some feedback!?

[Greg G.]

A friend of mine and I had an Idea for a tabletop RPG of our own. We came up with some pretty novel ideas (I should say "I did" as I have really been the one doing all the work), but haven't gotten really any farther than that. I've been trying to look online for some ideas that might spark the creative part of me to get some more done, but I haven't found it until now (this site, thank God). I'm hoping I'll be able to get some pretty good idea off of this site and it's users. Anyway, here's a quick lowdown of what it is.

The game is a skill-based game we call BASE 10. Really, we want it to be a game system. The system for creating a character (called a persona) is point based, using what we call Ability Points (AP). We have five statistics for the persona: Strength (STR, covers raw physical strength), Agility (AGL, various forms of physical and mental), Vitality (VIT, overall health), Mentality (MEN, all kinds of mental knowledge and reasoning), and Personality (PER, charisma and tact). Each starts at 10, and it costs 5 AP to raise a stat by 1. You can lower a stat below 10, and for each point you reduce, you gain 5 AP (so far this should seem familiar to some of you). This stat cost of +/-5 only happens during persona creation. Anytime afterwards, you have to spend 40 AP to add +1 to a stat.

The two main combat statistics, melee accuracy and ranged accuracy (MAC and RAC as I call them), come from Strength and Agility. MAC is equal to STR + (1/2 AGL) and RAC is AGL + (1/2 STR). The reasoning behind that is you have to have some degree of coordination to swing a sword or fist and hit something, and you have to have some strength to operate some kind of ranged weapon, be it bow, sling, crossbow, or gun.

Skills come in four difficulty categories, each with its own point cost: Easy (3 AP per +1), Average (7 AP per +1), Challenging (10 AP per +1), and Heroic (20 AP per +1). The number of "+1"s you buy are becomes your Skill Level (so if you spend 30 AP on a challenging skill, you Skill Level with that skill is 3). Weapons proficiencies are considered individual skills. Armor usage is considered a skill also, but you only have to buy it once; you don't get any benefits to getting it more than that. If you are not proficient in a suit of worn armor, all physical skills (including combat skills) take a penalty. Skill Ratings (the number you roll against) are equal to the relevant stat plus the Skill Level. Skill Ratings can't go above 99% When rolling against a skill (called Testing), you have to roll below your Skill Rating to pass the Skill Test. Rolling your Skill Rating exact acts as a critical success. If you don't have Skill Ranks in a skill, you can still use it, as they default to something else (though some skills you can't use unless you have levels in it).

When dealing with weapons and Tests, your Weapon Skill is equal to your Skill Level in that weapon plus the relevant Accuracy for that weapon (if it's a melee weapon MAC, RAC for ranged weapons). You trigger a Gambit when you Test roll = you Weapon Skill; if this happens, retest. If you pass the Gambit Test, you scored a perfect blow against the target, and the damage dealt is doubled before applying any reductions (from, say, armor). If you Gambit Test roll comes up another Gambit (Roll = Weapon Skill), roll another Gambit, with each Gambit success increasing the damage by another multiplier.

{The Following Is A Recently Devised Mechanic}
Weapons do a set number of points of damage, though it does have a variable. When attacking an opponent, you Test against your Weapon Skill. If you pass, he can defend by Blocking with a shield (a skill), bracing for the impact (increasing you damage soaking capabilities from armor, etc. by 1.5 [not sure of this rule]), parrying ("attacking" the opponent's attack), or evading. The damage variable is the degree of failure of the opponent's evasion attempt: the ones digit of whatever your opponent rolled rolled for his evasion (so if he rolls a 45 and fails, he gets dealt 5 points of damage in addition to whatever the weapon deals). Failure of any other defensive maneuver is as though you didn't try to defend yourself. Also, a persona has a set amount of hit points (Health as I want to call it), but I haven't devised a method for that yet.

Well, that was a quick and dirty mouthful, but that's all I got. This thing is in the extremely rough stages (I don't have a list of skills yet), but I've tested everything that I have (except for the last paragraph) quite a bit both physically and theoretically, so I have a good feeling they'll work. Even though my friend and I conceived the idea for the game, as I said earlier, I've been the one doing the work. Trying to get feedback from my friend is like talking to a wall, and no one else I know is willing to help me out. So, please, give me a word about it. Criticism of any kind is well appreciated.

- The Black Dog

[Simon C]

Hi! Welcome to the Forge!

What you're desctibing sounds like a pretty solid basis for a game, in that I can't see anything obviously mechanically flawed about it.  It's hard for me to give you much advice about where to go from here, though, because I don't know what your goal is with this game.  What other games have you enjoyed playing? Your rules show some influence from d20, are there some issues you have with d20 that you're trying to fix? Is there a specific setting you want to play with this game, or do you want a "generic" rules set? What are the really fun parts of roleplaying games for you?  Does your game make those kinds of thing happen more often?

Probably the best advice I can give you, without knowing what kind of play experience you're after, is to read as many games as possible.  You'll find there are a number of free games online that do things in very different ways from games like d20 or GURPS, and some of these might give you ideas for your own design that you haven't considered.  For the kind of fantasy game you're after, you might look at Clinton R. Nixon's "Donjon" or "The Shadow of Yesterday" for some interesting ideas.  They may not be to your taste though.  A free game that I'm kind of excited by at the moment is "Dungeon Squad", an ultra-simple dungeon fighting game that has some neat mechanics.  A quick google should find you those games, although I've had some trouble tracking down the free online versions of TSoY and Donjon.  Of course, there are also many more traditional games on the internet that might give you some inspiration, but I'm less familiar with those. 

[dindenver]

Hi!
  I have to agree with Simon. With one addition, don't just read them, play them. It's hard to get a sense for what a rules set does to your game play, if you haven't experienced it. For instance, most people can see the difference between say ditv and tsoy. But once you have played them both, you can see how the game play it produces is totally different.
  As to your  basic mechanics, they seem alright. A few of my personal design philosophies tell me what I would do different, and I'll share them with you:
1) d% - I love d% games. Some of the early games that really opened my eyes to other kinds of game play were d%. But, you have to realize that there are some advantages and disadvantages to this tool. On the plus side, the numbers are all intuitive and just KNOW what the stats mean. For instance, if I say your RAC+Skill with a Knife is 80%, you know you are gonna be pretty good. Also, d% adds that kind of chaos that so closely simulates real life. Every time you attempt a task, there are essentially 100 different things that can happen... But there are a couple of down sides, first everything you attempt is totally random. The outcome has no connection to the player's or the character's effort. Where as using multiple dice reduces the randomness a lot. Secondly, You don't actually get 100 points to work with, common perception is that anything below 50-60 is BAD (failing grade in school, no). Also, game balance becomes harder. Say you give players enough AP to get a 50 in every stat, then they are really going to suck at one thing in order to be good at another. So much so that they probably won't even attempt it. If you give them enough points to have, say 60, on each stat then it becomes too easy to max out one stat and still be decent at the others. See what I mean? These all can be overcome, but you just have to take a step back and try and figure out what sort of game play it will create.
2) Generic - I know you want to make a "system" and that's cool. But you game will be served a lot better by picking a genre or setting and optimizing that game for that setting. Even games that we think of as generic systems started out this way. Then they were sort of reverse engineered into "systems"
3) Stat spread. I see 3 physical stats, one mental and one social. This will have an effect on the game play. Generally, people will see this spread and think, FIGHT! You are going to get lots of barbarians and assassins. It also means that  if the points are sufficient to make a decent fighty character, then it becomes trivial to come up with enough points to make a super smart or super charming character. In other words, to be good at fighting I need to pump up 3 stats. To be really smart I have to pump up one stat. Now it may be that this is your design goal, you want smart chars to be easy to build and you want really good fighters to be hard to make. But, if that is not your goal, then you need to re-evaluate your design.
4) Skill creep - This happens to a lot of systems. What I mean by skill creep is that the skills are so tightly defined that you are constantly having to make more skills to allow for new character types. The affect this has on play is that the points you are given to buy skills never goes up, but the number of skills does. And that means as new skills come out, the characters become less and less competent. So, you may want to re-think the each weapon is its own skill rule. Also, its kind of lame to think I could have a 99 skill+MAC in Mace and a 50 MAC+Skill in Hammer (when, in reality the movements of each weapon have to be pretty darn similar. I mean they are each a stick with a weight on the end, no?).
  Anyways, sorry about the long post. I know I sounded a little negative, but you have a solid foundation. Just take a little time to figure out what you want from the game and make some adjustments and you should be ready to playtest!

[Japo]

I for one am all in favour of the idea behind your system. I'm also designing a system (univeral one) right now.

Armor usage is considered a skill also, but you only have to buy it once; you don't get any benefits to getting it more than that.

Unlike many systems, but it makes a lot of sense to me, really. But here's an additional thought, in case you like it: buying once lets you use light armour without penalty, but you still have penalty for heavier armour (less than without 0 buys though). You decide the number of possible buys from the level of detal you want: one as you first thought, two (light/heavy), three (light/heavy/ironclad); more than three categories would seem too much for me.

Also something that makes sense to me is limiting the possible buys depending on STR. It doesn't make sense that a weakling can buy three picks in armour usage and cancel any penalty. And you're one step away of the encumbrance issue, will you consider weight besides the armour's?

Etcetera, anything from here will creep complexity. I'm thinking of Rolemaster where armour usage were normal skills but each kind of armour had a maximum penalty (when the skill isn't developed) and a minimal one (you can't develop the skill past it).

Anyway I think one of your starting objectives was simplicity, so don't lose that focus. (I know this post could tend to make you do just that when you didn't on your own, sorry.)

[Callan S.]

Hi Black Dog,

Can we call you by your real name? In terms of the game, is there a big question its trying to ask? For example the big question in the matrix movie might have been described as 'What is freedom?'

If there is no big question, is the priority to just get into that roleplay, then once that's done start working on some fun stuff to do while roleplaying?

[Greg G.]

Hey again. I've been wanting to respond to your feedback, but haven't had the time until now. I do want to thank you guys so much for posting responses to my entry.

Simon C. - Both you and Callan mention that the game needs a goal, or to answer a big question. I've though of this, sometimes a bit too much in my opinion. When we came up with the idea of the game (we thought it wouldn't go beyond being just an idea), we envisioned a system in which one could do anything, and the system would support it. Now, I know lots of other games try to claim this (and some do succeed), and I know it's sometimes a far cry to try doing that, but we envisioned it to really do that: if you wanted to play a game of football within the game you're playing, you could do it; if your character was to enter a Halo tournament, the system would allow you to "play" Halo in the game you're playing in. Also, the game can be played without dice for groups who dislike rolling the bones (or are more into role-play rather than roll-play).
As for what games I enjoy playing, I call myself a gamer (a much overused term): show me a game and I'll try it. I know there are many more games out there than this, but currently I'm immersing myself (playing, or trying to/learning) in D&D (all versions: 1st AD&D, 2nd AD&D, 3.0/3.5, I even managed to find a pdf of the original game), d20 Modern, Shadowrun, GURPS, various White Wolf games, Palladium (both the Fantasy RPG and Rifts), and a Final Fantasy pen-and-paper RPG I found.

dindenver - You post didn't sound negative at all (two negatives make a positive, after all). But on the topic of balance, I tried to build the points needed to allow skills to increase to do so at a much faster rate than the stats. Looking at the costs to upgrade skills vs. stats should make it clear that, even though the stats play an important part in your skill ratings, it's more beneficial in the long run to increase your skill over your stats.
On the topic of the stat spread, I opted to have Agility represent physical agility (jumping, tumbling, etc.) as well as mental agility (reaction time, having a quick wit, etc.), so Agility is both a physical stat and a mental stat.
On Skills, I'm still working on how I want them to play out. I want a diverse list, yes, but I don't want thousands upon thousands of skills to choose from. I do want skills to be "specialized" as well, but I want the specializations to be within the realm of reason and of the player's choice. I want it to be as close to as it is in the real world. For example, they have a computer science course at the college I'm attending (a course which I am currently enrolled), which is divided into two degree plans at this point in time: the "default" degree (the one I'm in) titled "Client/Server", and the game design degree. The game design, however, can be further divided into two more specialized degrees, one in game programming and one in game graphics and simulations. So, the persona could learn the skill "Computer Science: Client/Server" or "Computer Science: Game Design", and if they chose Game Design, they could choose (if they wish) "Game Design: Programming" or "Game Design: Graphics and Simulation" to further flesh out their persona and what they can do. All in all, I want the skills to be as specialized or as broad as the person running the game wants or as the players want.

Japo - Thanks for being in favor of the whole idea. I'll be happy to check out your system as well. An no need for an apology. I actually was aiming for simplicity, but no two groups have the same definition of "simple." I'm aiming to make the game simple enough so that you can make it more complex if you want to. Most of the rules I've come up with are based on reality and common sense.
On the armor, I did have the idea of that, if you buy a light armor skill, you still have penalties to wearing heavy armor as you're not used to the weight. Another idea I had was that you have to have certain Strength and Vitality scores to wear certain kinds of armor without penalties: you'd get penalties if your Strength is too low (you can't deal with the armor's weight bearing on you), and you'd also get penalties for having a Vitality too low (have you ever tried to run a mile in chain mail? You get tired extremely quick if you can't handle carrying a heavy load for a long time).

Callan S. - If you want my real name, it's Greg. But as I mentioned in Simon's section, I guess the big question would be "Can there be a game system that will let you do whatever you want and have it actually work?" I'm big into role-playing (I was in theatre in high school, though I draw the line at cosplay, except when heading to a Renaissance Fair [at the last one I went to, I wanted to go as a time-traveling bard with a Les Paul guitar as his instrument of choice, but I couldn't get the costume done in time and it rained while we were out there]), so I want to make this game generic in the sense that both types of gamers, dice-rollers and thespians, can pick it up and play. The dice-rollers are satisfied by the fact that the game can be tweaked enough to fit their playing style (hack or not) and that they get to roll as many dice as they want, and the thespians are satisfied by how in-depth the personas can be crafted.

What is with me and writing big posts? Anyway, I thank all of you who wrote about it and those who even bothered to read it. This game was originally intended to be played by just my friends and I, but I have dreams of publishing it. If it does become good enough to be published, I'm going to include in the credits a list of names of all who contributed to the creation of it, by real name or screen name (I'd do this because 1: I wouldn't want anyone coming after me saying "I'm suing you because I deserve credit for my contribution to it!" and 2: that's just how I am as a person). If you help out in it, no matter how much or how little you did, you deserve your name in it. Thanks people. I look forward to more of your input.

- The Black Dog

P.S.: I'm an extremely creative guy. This isn't the first crazy idea that I've had of something cool to do and maybe print. I had a really cool idea for a trading card game, and another RPG that is a combination of a skill-based game and a class-based game, but those'll come at a later date (or upon someone inquiring, which ever happens first).

[Japo]

Japo - Thanks for being in favor of the whole idea. I'll be happy to check out your system as well. An no need for an apology.

(Damn no edit button, tons of typos in my previous post.) When my system is ready I'll be sure to showcase it here at the Forge, and of course I'll greatly appreciate any feedback. Anyway, talking about not hijacking a thread that's about you not me... I'd gladly hear your other ideas, although it's true that this one seems to fall more squarely into my preferences. But of course I'm open to everything like everybody here at the Forge.