Base roll mechanics (Gears and Cogs: GaC)

[Seth M. Drebitko]

Hello all,

  Currently I am trying to cobble together Gears and Cogs a generic universal system for use with my works, as well as some friends and I am finding myself snagged on a thematic issue. The concept that I want to be present all through the system is that every component of game and story right down to actions represents a core idea (Gear) supported by Cogs representing facts and actions that connect and bind everything together. 
  The game will use pools of d10, skills and attributes will effect these pools, though I am not sure if I want them to only effect pool size. At the moment I know that I want one or multiple dice in the pool to represent the “gear (or action)” while the remainder would be used as “cogs” to support the actual gear dice. Any opinions, ideas, or even examples as to a method of rolling where certain d10 can be singled out from a pool with others supporting it would be great.

Regards, Seth

[chronoplasm]

Maybe the gears and the cogs could be represented with different colored dice?
Like, use blue dice for the cogs and orange dice for the gears or something like that.

[Ron Edwards]

I suggest size, as in physical size, not number of sides.

The gear would be the big one and the cogs would be the little ones.

I kind of like the idea of rolling them and looking at them with that notion in mind.

Best, Ron

[Seth M. Drebitko]

  Excellent ideas I particularly like the big and small dice size concept, though my problem is with the actual mechanical interaction. The problem I am having is with how these dice will effect one another. As an example, it would be beneficial for some one to have a small gear with many cogs, as this implies the gear moves faster.
  At first I was thinking that the characters attributes, could represent the gears, with the skills representing the cogs. I am thinking of having “Gear” dice represent the character passing the action with the skills, representing the characters effectiveness at the action. At this point in time I am thinking possibly having gears be a special form of dice, that can be obtained through spending a character resource to represent that they are exerting extra influence over a situation.
  Basically at this point I am trying to get opinions and ideas as to how these two types of dice might interact with one another. Sorry for having been a bit to brief.
Regards, Seth 

[Precious Villain]

I recommend that you limit the dice pooll size.  Dice pool systems are slow and tend not to scale well.

Also think about "shifting gears."  Like with a ten speed.  Think about a system with three ten sided dice.  One part of the roll represents speed and the other skill.  So, you could use two dice for speed but not do as well or you could slow down and be really effective . . . .

[chronoplasm]

Well, lets look at the characteristics of a gear (according to wikipedia):
1) Transmits rotational force.
2) Can mesh with any device that has compatible 'teeth'.
3) Gears of different sizes combine to produce 'mechanical advantage'. That is, mechanical speed of the second gear is different from that of the first.

Gear types:
Spur Gears (most simplistic type of gear. These only work together if fitted to parallel axles.)
Internal Gear (has teeth inside of a cylinder or cone. Does not cause direction reversal.)
Helical Gears (the teeth are set at an angle. These engage more gradually than regular gears so they run more smoothly and quietly. They also offer the possibility of non-parallel shafts. Because of small area of contact however, they can ony be used with light loads.)
Bevel Gears (these gears are conically shaped. They have the same advantages relative to their straight cousins as helical gears do to spur gears.)

Thats just to name a few!
Hopefully this gives you a few ideas.

[Will]

Upon reading this I get an image in my head of several large dice rolled as gears and many small dice rolled as cogs, and the players trying to build some sort of path (spacial or numerical) from their gear to other gears to get things done. It's not a clear but here's a vague example forming as I type

You roll your big gear and the situation/opponent rolls theirs and maybe some complications. You roll cogs and begin playing them out in a series trying to manipulate the situation die to your ends. You may have to mesh with complications to turn them to your advantage, eliminate them, or maybe gain more cogs you can use.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Seth, I think there's not much need to have the interactions be absolutely mapped to the nuts and bolts of actual gears and cogs. If the cogs are numerically supportive of or enhancing the basic outcome determined by the gear, if there's more cogs than gears, and if there's some kind of interesting mechanism for getting more of each over time if such a process is part of your vision for the game), then I think you're in good shape.

Best, Ron

[Seth M. Drebitko]

  I have been thinking a little more about my direction and while in the beginning I wanted to have some interesting unique system akin to DitV but I realize that’s really not what does it for me. I love writing setting material and character templates and such. While the system will still all be based around the concept of gears and cogs it will not reflect all through out. The basics of how things would work would be as follows:

Attributes:

  These will represent the gears of character action being things that all characters will to some capacity have. You will create 4 values from your attribute as follows:
1.   Ordinary is equal simply to the rank itself
2.   Good is equal to half of the value of ordinary
3.   Amazing is equal to half the value of good

Skills:
 
  Skills will act as the cogs that aid in meshing the characters raw capabilities with there acquired talent.

Templates/ Experience:

  Characters will gain levels which can be applied towards one level classes that provide a series of supporting skill and power options. At each level they will also gain a series of points to be spent on the skills, attribute increases, and “kewl powerz”.

Resolution:

1.   Role 3 dice + skill level.
2.   Pick the three smallest die (unless an ability specifies an additional kept die)
3.   Add or subtract any modifiers  to the total of the roll
4.   Compare it to your success levels to determine if you have failed or succeeded.
a.   To determine level of victory simply find out which range the die roll falls into, for example: A total roll of 5 with a good score of 7 and an amazing score of 3 means that you would have a good result.

  The dice rolled would represent cogs making up the gear (result) aiming for smaller amounts for best results. I would at this point like some opinions on this concept, as well as any ideas to push it a little further while I think on it.

Regards, Seth

[Seth M. Drebitko]

  Ok so a couple more kinks in the process that I could use some help with. One of the key things with the Gears and Cogs (GaC) system is that I want it to run stream lined and highly simple. My goal is to create as mechanically efficient of a system as I can. Some of my ideas I want to implement are as follows:

1.Roll verse target number
  a. By using this for everything it will reduce the amount of calculating and comparing between two sets of dice rolls.
2.Initiative
  a. Action ticks and a battle wheel similar to scion, and Broken Swords & Battered Shields will keep things moving fluidly.
3.Single roll resolution
  a. Each character will have three attributes body, mind, and soul, and sub attributes. When the character rolls attack they will roll under subtract their sub attribute from their roll to get under the attribute. When the character goes to damage an opponent they will use their strength sub attribute to modify the same dice roll.

  These three things all resolve around combat mostly as it tends to be one of the most time consuming aspects of play. The goal will be to create a system in which the mechanics of the game become 1/3rd or less of the game experience while steal having their present felt and enjoyed. I would love some opinions on reducing play time, as well as areas your group finds troublesome.

  Another less important thing that I would love if people could do as I gather up the average size of their group, number of hours played on  average and average amount of time spent on combat, and pm them to me. I will be using this data to keep track of the amount of time things will take to make sure the game is designed to be quick for the average gaming group.

Thanks in advance for any help, I will be plugging away at design issues at post up any relevant progress!

Sincerely, Seth

[SpoDaddy]

I was lurking in this thread a few times and an idea popped into my head (I'm constantly bouncing game mechanics ideas around in my head) so I figured I'd share it before I went to sleep and forgot about it.  What if the "gear" is a D20 and the "cogs" are skill dice that add up to 20?  For example, your Agility is measured in some way by D20(s) and all of your Agility skills add up to 20 (D8 Stealth, D12 Shooting)?  It's a very rough idea but I thought it might be an interesting take on the whole "cogs and gears" theme you're going for.  Maybe it's possible to boost skills past 20 but that puts strain on the "Gear" and hurts your attribute checks?  For example, maybe you boosted your Stealth to D10 (for a total of 22) and that means your Agility attribute tests are made at a -2 (due to an unbalanced training regimen).  Feel free to use this or disregard it as sleep-deprived mumblings.