[RPG Nation] New rule set being designed, would love feeback

[kaevad]

Hi all,

I'm so glad i have found this site!, its just what I have been looking for!

I'm the owner of a new traditional pencil and paper Role Playing Games Company called RPG Nation (www.rpgnation.co.uk) Also known as Kaevad Games (www.kaevad.net)

We'll thats the plan anyway, I'm trying to fit it all in around family and the day job.

Anyway, It's my aim to create one of the most versatile RPG systems to date (we all claim that i bet).

Basically, The ruleset I am designing known as (KRS) once finished, should be able to be used in any game setting and size you can think of!

I'm still in the very early stages of development and am looking for alpha/beta testers to try out our system mechanics and discover bugs and provide feeback / suggestions.

Its my intention to award our beta testers with promtional material and copies of the products i release (based on thier contributions)

Currently I have just released version 0.31 of my combat system, which simply tests a very very basic fight between two people using various means of combat (action points and movement are yet to be implemented), but can still be used for standard rpging

My rule system is based on a unique 3d10 system (KRS), with the based on a 1 always fails, and a 10 succeeds. We have, what we hope is an original system that should be both fun and easy to play.

I was wondering if you would like to check us out and get involved in the testing. 

My website is www.rpgnation.co.uk, which will explain so of the basics of the game, to save me from writing pages upon pages here (at the moment)

If you would like to provide any feedback on our combat example, the that would be really appreciated. I've created a working example as a randomly generated M$Excel file http://www.rpgnation.co.uk/Files/KRSCombatestv031.xls  so you can see how the mechanics work, and will be transfered for pencil & paper later.

I suppose i'm asking if you could look at the website as well.

thank you for your time.

any questions and comments?

[Mike Sugarbaker]

Hello, and welcome to the Forge.

Can you say a bit more about your goals for this design? You want to be versatile, yeah, okay; there are as many ways to be versatile as there are systems that try to do it. What are the particular opinions about play that your system brings to bear?

(Also, uhmm... you might wanna have a look at a couple of the articles in the Articles section linked above... notably The Nuked Apple Cart and Fantasy Heartbreakers.)

[Adam Dray]

Hey there!

It looks like you're pretty far along. Have you playtested yet? If so, you ought to post your results in the Playtesting forum. If not, there's a Connections forum to wrangle up playtesters. This forum is used for discussion of specific game design ideas for games that are in the early stages of development. See the posts "stickied" at the top of the forum for more information.

What do you want your game to do that all the other generic systems don't do? I get the impression that this is a commercial venture for you, even if you're not quitting your day job right now. That makes me ask different questions than I'd ask of someone doing it just for fun. Essentially, if you're selling this thing, then your competition is the hundreds of free games already out there, plus well established generic games like GURPS, JAGS, and even Rifts and D20 System / OGL. How do you improve on those games? Or, more to the point, why would I spend $20-50 on your game instead of GURPS (or one of those free games)?

You say it's your "aim to create one of the most versatile RPG systems to date." That's a clear goal. Can you tell us where you think GURPS and other games like The Pool fall down in terms of versatility?

[kaevad]

Thanks for the reply,

Sorry I should have said a little more earlier, but didn't want to fill the post with too much information to make it too long to read.

The goal for my design is that once the core rule set has been designed it can be used in any game setting set in any era of the players choosing. exactly the same game mechanics would work no matter what the player is doing. I think the easiest way of explaining this would be to think about the modding a computer game where you change the graphic files. The program is still the same but it looks different as all you have done is modified the look of it. In My case the look represents a different story in a different place at a different time.

However there will be some differences in the game play for each setting. Where as the core elements are the same there will be some extras.

In me design I'm basing it on a points system, where players spend their experience points on raising their attributes and learning new skills. The core rules covers numerous skills which could be used in any game setting, but each game setting has some skills which are specific for that game only. 

Why am I making this sound important?

My big goal is to create a multiverse rpg system, where you can transfer your character from one game setting to another, and all of your attributes and stats would be the same as they were in the previous setting. However you would have to reallocate points you have already spent on the setting specific skills.

I'm basing this kind of on the infinite monkey theory, where (if you don't already know) you have an infinite amount of monkeys and an infinite amount of time, each one has a typewriter, and the monkeys are all hitting keys at random, at some point some where, one of the monkeys is going to have randomly typed the entire works of Shakespeare.

I guess what I'm saying is that nothing is impossible, just improbable, and that in the infinite parallel universes there will be a character almost the same as the one being played.

There is an additional element I'm trying to bring in, Its basically the character's destiny, what kind of a life they could expect to live, characters with low destiny may tend to die quicker than those with greater destiny. The in game mechanics could be associated with a luck type skill (which I think are under used, or not noticeable in other RPGS). In combat destiny would could be likened to a cat's 9 lives, where against all odds a character survives a particular incident, or makes a dice roll go in their favour.  Destiny would represent whether the character was meant to survive the fight or not. Every time a character would use their destiny in this way it would be permanantly reduced by 1 point, unless they characters spends more experience points on reclaiming their destiny

I hope the above makes sense

That's my main goal for my design, hopefully it will work.

Thanks for pointing the two articles out for me, I read both of them and found them rather interesting. I am aware of some of the pitfalls and am under no illusions that I could be the next Dungeons & Dragons (although it would be nice). I've been trying to design a good rpg off an on for the last 20 odd years, and its only no that I've really been able to do anything about it.

End products are at the moment going to be self published, through companies who will make the books for you / self the pdfs for you and they take the production price, and anything I put on top is profit (although its not really about the money)

The site I'm currently looking at to do my books is www.lulu.com I don't know if you've seen it before, but it does look quite promising.

With regards to pricing, as and when it comes to it, i'm planning on it being very reasonable, e.g the main core ruleset would be sold for $9.99 and the game settings even less. this would cover my web costs and maybe give a bit extra to develope the games further.

I havent played a pencil & paper rpg since i was 15 or so, but have played numerous computer ones. so its going to be hard work for me, but well worth it in the end

Thanks for your time

David

[Adam Dray]

Cool, man. So it's more a labor of love than a money-making venture. You're doing print on demand through Lulu and not getting a second mortgage: good.

It's pretty hard to sell generic games, I think. Especially with the competition out there. There are a couple games in your space (multiverse of possibility, generic games) that are (or were) published and on bookstore shelves. Palladium's Rifts and West End Games' TORG, for example. There's an indie game called Multiverser that does that, too. Become intimately familiar with these games because they are your competition. People will compare your game to theirs and you need to be ready to show why your game provides a different (and better) experience.

If you have specific questions about small parts of the game, ask. I'll be glad to chime in on very specific things.

[7VII7]

One thing I suggest is making it easy for the players to add monsters / skills / settings by themself, one problem with generic rpgs that I've found is that if you want to play outside modern day give or take a couple years you either have to be a genius or hope that the setting you want gets published. In fact if I were you I'd put an entire section (or more) on do-it-yourself, that's just my opinion though.

[kaevad]

thats what i was thinking of doing, all i would have to do would be provide a template kit, and it could more or less turn into a design your own rpg using the rule set i designed.

thanks for the feedback