Help with word-based system?

[permacultureguerilla]

Bear in mind it's hard for me to start a post without "braindumping." Also, I've started a few threads. If the moderators mind, feel free to delete some or I can stave off more until at least some more of them are somewhat resolved. I'll try to spend less time asking and more answering.

I do intend on going through with all the plans in my previous threads. But looking at the progress of this game, I'm making this a priority. And I don't normally change my mind when I feel this way.

I believe I've gotten focus on a game I started maybe 4 years ago and left alone for 3. That's how inspiring the Forge is.

I LOVE the theme of this game, I'm already pushing the story quickly. If I cannot make it a full game immediately, I will still have a "here it is!" kind of post, with just the simple work of advancing the story (yup, a single story, but allows lots of interaction).

My one really painful snag is probably this bizarre mechanic I've chosen. I don't want numbers, only words.

So as an example . . .

Player: "I use Striking Might to attack the Nearby Ghoul" . . .

GM: "Okay. That means you remove Striking Might this round, and the Accuracy vs. Ghoul's Stun means the Ghoul now has Head Blow."

And so on it goes. I'm sure this can work out great, but I need to find a balance. Somewhere in this mechanic, I begin wanting to make this huge dictionary of action definitions, and then I remember that I can keep it pretty simple with just a few real necessary terms. I end up writing only the flavour text (which I like), but then it procrastinates my so important game mechanic.

I'd prefer a mechanic from scratch, but I can try some examples you might know.

Also, I would be happy even just getting a bunch of random words that come to your mind. You could say: "I like 'Might' 'Dodge' 'Grip'" etc etc, and I'll try to focus on the ones I like from there. I have fun changing words given by others into mechanics.

Finally, I'll give you a few details.

1) It's not just combat. It has to do with character's emotions, and subtle movements. It's very important that the game not be based on what you kill and how much you spend. It has to do with honour, with emotion, with trust, etc . . . The rules are still very rigid. But it goes more like this.

Example: There's no such thing as "sort of angry" and "really angry." But it's like "calm" and then "so furious it actually affects the game." this level of rigidity is all I want.

2) On a creative aspect, I'm asking myself what a creature -might- be capable of or how it -might- act. I have a list of all sortsa bizarre monsters. But rather than naming anything, I'm inviting you to vaguely say such as: "these things are like this, those are like that." Not to take your creativity, but just a general "everybody thinks that" nostalgia. And not necessarily based on how they were in a particular game.


Okay so the extremely vital thing here is that word-based mechanic. A bunch of words made, I can shuffle them together. Also, obviously, your opinion as to whether something should be changed is extremely welcome.

Tell me dibs on whatever you would like from me to return you the favour! :)

I will now slap my hand very scoldingly every time the mouse goes to click "new thread" :) :)

[Ben Lehman]

GM: "Okay. That means you remove Striking Might this round, and the Accuracy vs. Ghoul's Stun means the Ghoul now has Head Blow."

BL>  It would be really helpful if you would explain some of the steps that get you from A to Z here.

 Does each word have stats?  How does one obtain Accuracy from the phrase "Striking Might," and where does "Head Blow" enter the picture?

 What you have presently posted gives me no idea of what you are doing in the slightest

yrs--
--Ben (Who, for fair warning, must tell you that he doesn't believe that a strictly word based system can exist.)

[permacultureguerilla]

I'm glad for the warning, Ben. I won't try to convince anyone otherwise. But perhaps I can explain a point. I will try to make an A-Z example . . .

It'll be pseudo-english and pseudo-my undeveloped terms. (All combat this time).

Stixie the Fae has the power to fly, move through crevaces (she's tiny), grow a sudden plant by "charging" a seed and dropping it, moving superfast (Sudden-Motion), and Dazzling a Life-based creature or rendering it Tranquil . . .

Here's what we're dealing with in common terms. The faerie is a bright little cheery thing that has immense power over nature but not a really "threatening" appeal. The Shade, however, is to freak the hell out of you. Back to combat.

Stixie encounters a Shade. The Shade Chills, Blinds, Slashes, and Dark-Smothers. For the time, the Shade only Creeps.

Stixie can easily outrun the Shade's Creeping using Sudden-Motion. But Stixie wants to defeat the Shade. She has a Willow Seed. Her Charge ability is Normal-Speed (like a short conversation).

The Willow has Dark-Ward, and can Ensnare the Shade.

Now. Stixie does not want to be Beside the Shade while Charging, because the Shade's Creeping will catch her while she uses her Charge ability. But when a Seed is charged, it will grow automatically. So Stixie has to time it right.

Stixie is at a Speach-Distance from the Shade. The Shade Creeps toward her, predictably. She Charges the Willow-Seed, emitting a Hue (if something was nearby it would see the Hue in the Distance. Much like seeing a will-o-whisp in a swamp). It's a greenish-naturelike light coming from her with the seed (the game identifies simply that if a creature knows what fae can do, they know that's a fae, judging from light in the distance).

The Charge takes the same time for the Shade to Creep Nearby. Stixie uses Sudden Motion to Drop the Charged Seed Beside, and then Escape to Speach-Distance.

This battle is going to take a while, but the plan is to surround the Shade with Willows until it is Ensnared. And then other little things can be done to it until it's defeated.

------------------
Afterthoughts.


The more aesthetic plan I'm hunting for here is that I want this image of a frightening shadow creeping up on the little bright faerie. But looming trees sprout all around it and their branches begin to surround it. If the shade would catch the fae, it'd be like a black clawlike hand snapping the puff of light from the air, with probably some sort of squeak "eeep!"

The words I use could be translated to something like: "Speed level 2. Strike level 3" But I simply use the other terms because it toys with imagination more.

Here's another thing I'm getting at. I basically do not want characters to fail at what they're known for. The Knight always does the honourable thing, the Ninja always does the quick and painful thing. They're all given particular disadvantages, however. The things they aren't known for.

There is no "she has 3 points, so she's more likely to . . . "  It's more like "she'll automatically succeed doing these things. But she can be rendered useless in all these sorts of ways . . . " Basically, if I can imagine it being done, the rules have to allow it. If I don't think a hoard of little goblin creatures can take down a brutal warrior (even a whole army of them), then there has to be strong borders that say he can, say, throw a barrel over them and make them all flee. (I'm talking the funny labyrinth-kinda goblins).

Umm . . . my apologies if that explaination did absolutely nothing again.

[Tony Irwin]

Stixie can easily outrun the Shade's Creeping using Sudden-Motion. But Stixie wants to defeat the Shade. She has a Willow Seed. Her Charge ability is Normal-Speed (like a short conversation).

The Willow has Dark-Ward, and can Ensnare the Shade.

Now. Stixie does not want to be Beside the Shade while Charging, because the Shade's Creeping will catch her while she uses her Charge ability. But when a Seed is charged, it will grow automatically. So Stixie has to time it right.

What you're talking about here seems like very tactical play to me. Although you're using very evocative and imaginative terms for the moves, they still seem very much like "moves" from a chess game. Although you say "Stixie wants to defeat the Shade", I'm assuming that it's in fact the player that wants to defeat the Shade and is trying to use the system to the best possible advantage.

To try and support this kind of play I think your system will have to be very rigid in terms of ability definitions. I'm wondering if you feel that might be at odds with what you write here:

The more aesthetic plan I'm hunting for here is that I want this image of a frightening shadow creeping up on the little bright faerie. But looming trees sprout all around it and their branches begin to surround it. If the shade would catch the fae, it'd be like a black clawlike hand snapping the puff of light from the air, with probably some sort of squeak "eeep!"

See that's a wonderfully cool scene, but when reading the breakdown of the encounter I can't find any evidence that the system will actively support the player who is trying to create something cool like that. Sooner or later they're going to come up against situations where they have a choice between doing something wonderful and exciting, or making the best tactical choice. If the system punishes them for not putting tactics first then you may find that the GM is the one having to promote the wonderful descriptions while the players are just interested in winning encounters (a common feature of many games I've played in - you can't blame the players for not trying cool things, when doing so means their character might be killed).

I'd encourage you to think carefully about what decisions the players are making while playing your game. Are they thinking "I'll do a flower-burst thunder strike, because its so cool"? Or are they thinking "I'll do a flower-burst thunder strike, because it will nail that guy next round"? I think once you can establish what the real-life human players are doing in this encounter, then it will make it easier to build a system that will help them to do that.

Anyway, your idea looks exciting, I'm looking forward to reading more about it :-)

Tony

[Rob Donoghue]

As described, it actually sounds like a card game to me.  I imagine various named actions having active or passive attributes (Accuracy, Penetration and Speed as active, and Evasion, Toughness and Speed as passive).

I perform a Thunder Fisted Grab - It's got moderate accuracy, Excellent penetration, and low speed.  The guy I'm fighting  Could perform the Thousand Sweeping Steps (Which has a High evasion, but a low toughness and Speed), the Lightning Retreat (which has moderate evasion, high speed and no toughness) or Turtle Seeks its Center (High tough, crap everything else).  If the defender knows the details of my attack, he makes a tactical decision for the strongest defense (Lightning Retreat whips him out of my reach, since it's so much faster), but if he doesn't, he picks something approrpiate, and the outcome depends on the comparison (If he uses Thousand Sweeping Steps, he nimbly dodges the grab, since its evasion defeats the attacks accuracy, but if he uses Turtle Seeks its Center, he gets grabbed because the Grab's penetration defeats the toughness (since it doesn't actually need to Penetrate).

I may be entirely off base, but that sounds like what we're talking about mechanically (albiet with an arbitrarily chosen set of details). As observed, that does seem pretty heavily tactical (in a RPS sort of way) and detail oriented. Dunno if that's the goal or not.

How close am I?

-Rob D.


PS - I'm gonna go to hell for suggesting this, but you might want to glance at Wushu.  The basic mechanic of the system is that when you preform an action, you get a number of dice equal to the number of elements you describe to the action (up to a maximum).  It's not a one size fits all solution, but it sounds a little bit like what you seem to be thinking.

[permacultureguerilla]

Thanks, Tony and Rob.

To address Tony . . .

"Sooner or later they're going to come up against situations where they have a choice between doing something wonderful and exciting, or making the best tactical choice."

Yes. Tactical is my priority. No players get punished for wanting to go directly to the treasure. Somehow it just has to be hard for them not to end up making it interesting. I guess the issue is -weird- strategies. Like planting trees around an enemy instead of bonking him on the head with a wand.

"'I'll do a flower-burst thunder strike, because it will nail that guy next round'"

I just realized, my game is sounding a lot like Pokemon, isn't it? Lol. But I see you've got my point of view. It's all these weird little action phrases, I guess with less cuteness more darkness . . .

Oh yes, and I'd consider it a write-o that I said the faerie wants to attack the shade. No, that was the player not the character. Otherwise it probably would have had another term like: "Fae has Rage toward Shade" blabla.

"Anyway, your idea looks exciting, I'm looking forward to reading more about it "

Thanks, I was interested in your game. Feel free to leave a link here to any discussion you had regarding yours (but well, then I suppose that's too far off the topic though. At least I'll check your signature).



And addressing Rob

"As described, it actually sounds like a card game to me. I imagine various named actions having active or passive attributes"

Actually, I'd forgotten that's really what lead me to this. You see, I would play magic:tg and then ask myself why it's really cards. I mean, you could pick the cards out of a magazine, randomize them, and use them similarly. If you altered the game so you play the deck face-up, really that's a lot like a gamist roleplaying game. Just choosing different cards. I'd say anything extreme gamist is automatically a board / card game. Just using imagination instead.

"I imagine various named actions having active or passive attributes (Accuracy, Penetration and Speed as active, and Evasion, Toughness and Speed as passive)"

I tend to run away from anything seemingly binary, because it feels limiting (even though Gamism is limiting in itself). Are you referring to a particular type of game? I'd like to hear more if you can picture a system behind this. Like the terms "thunder fisted grab" or "lightning retreat." I might just use those if it's open for grabs.

"I may be entirely off base, but that sounds like what we're talking about mechanically."

No, it sounds very right. IMO when a game is completely gamist, you're actually dealing with a universal translation between computer / board / and cards. You might use any combination, but the math is still the same.

The passive vs active concept you mentioned, I haven't looked into. This makes me think of a word tree. Basically there'd be two or three base words. Then each one has a family of five, ten, whatever. Problem is, they start to intermingle so much I have trouble simplifying.

Eg: Evading one opponent could be just the same action as attacking one. Or heck, stumbling out of the way.

"I'm gonna go to hell for suggesting this, but you might want to glance at Wushu."

Well me and Satan are going to forgive you this time, lol, but I can surely check out Wushu. If it's dice, I'm assuming it's not an indie game here. It still sounds getting a bit too numerical for my target, but it could convert me yet.

All good stuff, folks. This forum is too addictive.

[permacultureguerilla]

Oh yes. Also, Tony said . . .

"I think once you can establish what the real-life human players are doing in this encounter, then it will make it easier to build a system that will help them to do that. "

I'm going to be really frank. I'm the worst antisocial guy, and I'm sure it's affecting my understanding of play. It's ironic I become obsessed with one of the only games of sole human interaction, and it's a devious escape from real-life human relations. Unfortunately, I will rely on long-distance play-testers for now.

Quickly Off-topic: When you playtest your own game, are you always the GM? I'm now avoiding the GM scene, perhaps why I'm making such pure strategy.

Back to discussion: I'm focusing on terms for characters and monsters. Somehow I'm hoping that the two will merge together, eventually. I'll try upload the file onto . . .

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/permacultureguerilla

I'm crossing my fingers the link works.

The name is: MYTHERIA.

[Tony Irwin]

"I'm gonna go to hell for suggesting this, but you might want to glance at Wushu."

Well me and Satan are going to forgive you this time, lol, but I can surely check out Wushu. If it's dice, I'm assuming it's not an indie game here. It still sounds getting a bit too numerical for my target, but it could convert me yet.

Wushu link is here, if you search RPG.net and the Forge for the word you'll find lots of discussions on it. I was thinking about how you could have tactical play without getting bogged down in numbers. One way might be to define relationships between the words.

eg. wood trumphs water, water trumphs fire, fire trumphs wood. Pokemon card game uses a complicated version of that, but ties in numbers (and card rarities) to give much more variation.

You could get a tactical element going by having players try to guess, from creature type, an opponents abilities and then choose an appropriate attack.

eg "Hmmm.. GM said the fairy has got glittery wings, it might be vulnerable to a shadow based attack."

That would just be paper/scissors/stone in an rpg. I liked your idea of delayed attacks (like with planting the seed), that adds an extra tactical element, also the use of space/proximity, adds another axis with which to define abilities.

Yes. Tactical is my priority. No players get punished for wanting to go directly to the treasure. Somehow it just has to be hard for them not to end up making it interesting. I guess the issue is -weird- strategies. Like planting trees around an enemy instead of bonking him on the head with a wand.

Definitely examine Donjon and it's forum. In Donjon the players' abilities generate a number of facts that they can use to define things about the situation. The magic system lets the player combine ability words for an effect. Like the fae could have "willow", "exploding", and "glitter", as words and combine them for an attack (player makes the name up on the spot) called "Divine explosion of glittering willow seeds". The idea being that the seeds will explode to cause the opponents damage (opponents roll toughness or something to avoid it), and the glittering effect will blind them (they'd make some kind of a saving throw to avoid it).

The great thing about this is that the emphasis is on the player to come up with imaginative ways to defeat opponents with colorful abilities. All abilities are made by the player at character creation rather than being taken out of a book, so the players have a much bigger investment in seeing cool scenes happen with their character's abilities.

[Tony Irwin]

Oh yes. Also, Tony said . . .

"I think once you can establish what the real-life human players are doing in this encounter, then it will make it easier to build a system that will help them to do that. "

I'm going to be really frank. I'm the worst antisocial guy, and I'm sure it's affecting my understanding of play. It's ironic I become obsessed with one of the only games of sole human interaction, and it's a devious escape from real-life human relations. Unfortunately, I will rely on long-distance play-testers for now.

Quickly Off-topic: When you playtest your own game, are you always the GM? I'm now avoiding the GM scene, perhaps why I'm making such pure strategy.

:-) I've got two games going that I play whenever I get a chance. Neither of them need a gm for play, I love playing Universalis which is gmless, and I think I was sick of games which seemed to have a muddied split between the role of GM and players.

[M. J. Young]

Quickly Off-topic: When you playtest your own game, are you always the GM? I'm now avoiding the GM scene, perhaps why I'm making such pure strategy.

I'm going to assume it is not so off-topic that you don't want a response.

When E. R. Jones first started working with the Multiverser concepts, he ran it for a batch of people, and had one of them run it just for him, so he could be on both sides of the screen. There were no written rules then, just an oral tradition of how the game worked that was being nailed down bit by bit.

He lost track of the guy with whom he was working (military transfers), and then picked me up as collaborator to get it into solid form and onto paper. While we were working on it, we each ran it for each other and for other playtesters. We did not have other referees run it then.

The problem I find with playing in a game you're designing is that you are constantly second-guessing the referee: is he doing this right? Even when we were running each other, we had some of that in play, as we had held long discussions of many areas of play, so it was easy to fall into questioning whether this was being done the way the book said. That was, of course, important, because if we didn't run it the way the book said we had to change the book; but it was also difficult, because it was entirely possible that one of us would run it one way and another would run it differently.

Even now when I play Multiverser, I'm often tempted to correct the referee. (It doesn't help that some of the referees with whom I've played are fast and loose with a lot of the mechanics.) Multiverser is very flexible in many ways, but I'm learning also that it's kind of rigid in some ways as well--one guy keeps trying to replace our 3d10 General Effects Roll with any of several other methods he finds more convenient, none of which provide anywhere near the right probabilities. (I've called him on it more than once.)

It's good if you can get someone to run your game while you play, but you'll find it extremely difficult to be a good player in such a game, particuilarly if your designated referee doesn't have a solid grasp of the system or you're throwing changes at him. Probably what you want to do is watch a game someone else runs; that way you can ask about why the referee is doing things without having to get at things the players don't know (like, why isn't that monster dead? Because he's an illusion that the characters have failed to see through). Although we didn't do it, I'd recommend having people learn and run your game without your presence, so you can get feedback on how difficult it is to learn. You won't know if they're doing it "right", but at least you'll get feedback that doesn't involve your interference in how it was done.

--M. J. Young

[permacultureguerilla]

Thanks, M.J. You read my mind, pretty much. I don't want to pester a playtester, and I also don't want to playtest when I'm probably just going to change the rules as I go. You pretty much covered it, but if I think of anything else, I'll start a new thread on the topic and cross-index them. How the thread meanders doesn't matter to me personally, however.

Anyhow, I've put out more excerpt on my word-based game, feel free to tell me what you think. The file is "Mytheria excerpt 2." You can always comment on my other writing, but it's not at all relevant to this topic.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/permacultureguerilla/files/