Reviews of Frontier requested

[Sylus Thane]

Ok, as I am getting closer to my publishing deadline of September I am facing a few problems.

1. Should my base rule book include all of the rules or should I leave specific rules to come out with their particluar settings?

2. How many settings do people believe would be a good number to release with the main book?

3. Although still rough and minus artwork could people go over the rulebook to see if they spot any glaring holes?

4. Any other suggestions are more than helpful.

And 5. Please post what sparked your interest and what did not.

All Frontier information currently available at http://jasonpalenske.4t.com/photo.html

Thanks ahead of time,
Sylus

[Spooky Fanboy]

First big one: change that damn font in the Character Generation section! I couldn't get past the first three pages without my eyes going buggy. Fonts need to be legible, not cool.

[Sylus Thane]

Sorry about that one. That is not the original Font I used and is somethe byproduct default font when I converted the file to PDF. As much as I try i have not been able to fix it. Trust me, I don't think it's a cool font at all, it's just the product of my losing battle with pdfedit995.

Sylus

PS. If you perhaps have any suggestions for fixing it I would appreciate it.

[Emmett]

The font does make it very hard to read. Can you embed fonts with your PDF tool? That might fix the problem, but I think it may be a problem with the origenal text.

Is there a file with the story attached, call me a mopis, but it looked like there were four different RPGs on the page dispite the identical graphics for all.

[Sylus Thane]

From what I can determine it actually has something to do with my PDF tool in that it does not have the font in which I used in Word. Instead of defaulting to your standard times new roman it defaulted to that strange one. I'm still having trouble getting that one fixed.

As far as your other questions. Sorry about my buttons, they all came out the same due to my lack of web expertise and trouble uploading seperate pictures. They are in fact seperate files but are as labeled in that one is CharGen and Rules, where as the others are setting information. I had to seperate them out otherwise my porr free account deemed them too large to allow to upload.

I'll continue to work on getting the font fixed as well.

Thanks,
Sylus

[Sylus Thane]

Just thought I would let everyone know I got my font problems fixed and everything should now easily download, just click on the buttons. http://jasonpalenske.4t.com/photo.html Also in order to get things to upload I had to decrease the font size but it is still legible if a bit condensed in size.

Thanks ahead of time,
Sylus

[Mike Holmes]

Jason,

Looking at your rules for resolution, I noted the initiative/time system, and thought I'd address that. You have a classic phasing model, not too different from the one in Hero system, but closer to the one in Aftermath! in some ways.

One of the only really big problems with the Hero System is this. Basically in that game a "average person" has the ability to go 2 times in X timeframe. And the fastest human can go 4 times in the same timeframe. In your game, the fastest human can go 5 or 6 times as often as the person who's average.

That's really, really fast.

It's interesting to note that in Hero System when people wanted to buy multiple simultaneous attacks they were told in 4th ed that one way was to buy more speed, usable only to make those attacks. Now, this works, but it points out the problem. Basically the number of times you can act is a multiplier of your effectiveness. For twenty points in Hero System, you basically double the value of your character in terms of time effectiveness.

That's neither balanced nor realistic. If I'm a min-maxer, that's the first things I'm going to buy up (and if we're using random allocation, the lucky player with the speedy chararacter is going to overshadow all the other characters). What's more potent, do twice as much damage (which I don't even think that the sytem will do going from 5 to 10 strength), or attack 5 times as often?

In real life, people have fractional advantages. That is, they tend to look a lot more like your characters that are in the middle. One guy'll go one sixth faster than another. This is enough to be decisive all else being equal. So, why have the really unrealistic and unbalancing rules in there.

All you have to do is to just add, say, ten to each level of speed in terms of how many phases it takes to attack. So the slowest character takes 19, and the fastest takes 10. Almost twice as fast. And the fastest guy is still 1.5 times as fast as the average guy.

If you really want the low end of the scale to be "crippled" slow, then I'd suggest you go with something like:
Spd
1---20
2---15
3---12
4---10
5---9
6---8
7---7
8---6
9---5
10---4

This follows a balance with the natural progression of how other stats effecivenesses increase, balancing the stat out. And it happens to be more believable, IMO.

Of course this would all entail fixing all the related parts.

Mike

[Sylus Thane]

Thanks for the reply Mike, i'll try to adrees your questions point by point.

Looking at your rules for resolution, I noted the initiative/time system, and thought I'd address that. You have a classic phasing model, not too different from the one in Hero system, but closer to the one in Aftermath! in some ways.

I've actually never played nor seen either of these games so I am unable to compare things with them.

One of the only really big problems with the Hero System is this. Basically in that game a "average person" has the ability to go 2 times in X timeframe. And the fastest human can go 4 times in the same timeframe. In your game, the fastest human can go 5 or 6 times as often as the person who's average.

That's really, really fast.

Yes, it is really fast but a 10 is also at the extreme high end. Part of the why it is set that way to give a more cinematic feel for heroes. But, also if you look at real life situations it is not that far off from reality. I based a lot of it from studying various forms of martial art forms as well as talking with former military and law enforcement people to try and get a feel for how real combat flows. I will follow with an example after I address your other points.

It's interesting to note that in Hero System when people wanted to buy multiple simultaneous attacks they were told in 4th ed that one way was to buy more speed, usable only to make those attacks. Now, this works, but it points out the problem. Basically the number of times you can act is a multiplier of your effectiveness. For twenty points in Hero System, you basically double the value of your character in terms of time effectiveness.

That's neither balanced nor realistic. If I'm a min-maxer, that's the first things I'm going to buy up (and if we're using random allocation, the lucky player with the speedy chararacter is going to overshadow all the other characters). What's more potent, do twice as much damage (which I don't even think that the sytem will do going from 5 to 10 strength), or attack 5 times as often?

In real life, people have fractional advantages. That is, they tend to look a lot more like your characters that are in the middle. One guy'll go one sixth faster than another. This is enough to be decisive all else being equal. So, why have the really unrealistic and unbalancing rules in there.

If you look at the scale I use you notice that there is not a dramatic increase in speed from a 5-6, but if you are comparing say a 9 from a 3, then yes you should notice something dramatic. Also as a point, your speed or amount of actions has no effect on your effectiveness other than slightly more chances. I have known plenty of people who are stupid fast but couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Their aim was just horrible. Then others that are slowly but when they take aim at you your in trouble. Also why part of the scale is done with lower numbers is to help speed up play of combat. You can think of each phase as roughly half a second, although to define it exactly becomes silly and intense simulation subject to severe scrutiny. I personally feel it happens alittle faster. I have considered putting in some form of fatigue rule that shows people slow down, but I am not sure how to implement it easily.

I will use an SCA experience as a real life example.
I was once fighting my knight Sir Ternon, both of us armed only with a single sword. ternon is considerably older than I am and has slowed down in age but he is still faster than the average bear. Myself being younger, am just that much faster. You could roughly equate it to him having a speed of 7 with me being at a 9. Now i may be able to constantly drill him with attacks but as his skill is superior to mine in the beginning they rarely got through. But when his turn came round I was usually in trouble. As the years went on my skills increased whereas my speed has yet to truly diminish putting me at more of anvantage to him in that I have become more effective through and more dangerous in that i still move as fast.

I'm sure if you take a moment and play around with the mechanic you will see that although speed is there it is minor in comparison to skill in effectiveness. Also you can see that eventually in some cases things even out then become more dramatic again as they should be. My suggestion would be do one combat of a speed demon with little skill versus a slower opponent with high skill and then compare it to say a combat verus equals. You should find that it allows combat to play out rather quickly and fairly realistic as it also allows for freak shit happens things to pop up now and again based on the rolls. Please also note that firearms skills base off of aware whereas hand to hand skills base off of dex. No combat skills base off of speed.

I hope this clarifies alittle what I am aiming for and please keep the questions coming.

Jason

[Mike Holmes]

I understand your motiveations, and the methods you're using to achieve them. As I've said, they've been used over and over again in other games. In the Rolemaster Companions, for example, I believe that there are no less than three similar or more complex systems proposed for how to handle time in combat. This has been done to death elsewhere, and there are certain observations that come out of the use of these systems. And what I'm telling you is that what you have is problematic.

It's my opinion that you're misinterpereting your own real world research. Actually I agree that in practice one tends to get in a lot of shots between the shots of another. I'm glad to hear that you're in nigh superhuman shape and really quick (9 Spd), but are you really sure that it was your superior speed that allowed you to make more attacks? To put it better, couldn't your old, "slow" opponent have thrown a bunch of haphazard and quick attacks in the same time if he'd really wanted to? I mean, everyone can just swing like mad if they want, and make all sorts of attacks in no time. It just tends to be tiring and futile.

What causes series of blows from one opponent in hand to hand combat is keeping the initiative. Unlike presented in most games initiative is not going first, it's having a certain momentum that keeps the player on top of the action, attacking, and the opponent defending. Thus you tend to see, attack, combo-attack, attack from one participant, and then the other participant manages to turn the tide, and gets some attacks back.

Are you sure your "slow" opponent wasn't just more careful? I'm not saying that speed has no effect at all. I'm just saying that it isn't the sort of effect that makes anyone that much faster than an opponent that they actually are multiples of times faster. They're merely better at keeping the initiative due to their speed.

Getting away from real life, and looking at cinematic action, this is heightened, not reduced. In MA films especially you see this in action. One guy has the upper hand, and is attacking, attacking, attacking, then the other guy slips in a counter and its his turn to attack back.

Now, yes, this is against the named oppoents. If you want to have combat be so cinematic that you have the Martial Artists with the ability to take out hordes of mooks by being that much faster, you can do this with a speed rul like you have. The problem is that it's just so damn effective. And that, if one wants to keep up with the named characters that have the high speeds you need one too.

See what this creates is several gross levels of competence based on the one stat. And when that happens, players basically have the option to be "normal", and a mook in terms of combat ability, or they can be of heroic calibre.

My suggestion would be do one combat of a speed demon with little skill versus a slower opponent with high skill and then compare it to say a combat verus equals.

I already know how this will turn out. Sure skill is important; did anyone say otherwise? But is there some trade-off to balance speed vs. skill? All this means is that the really good character is the one with both his spd and weapon stat high. Making strength even less important relatively. Yes, that would be good to have too. In fact the best warrior will have all high stats.

The question is which is more important. Your weapon stat going from 5 to 10 gives you 25% better chance to hit. Your speed going from 5 to 10 gives you 5 times as many attacks. Let's assume a that both are actually unskilled, as this is where the largest benefit comes from the stat. Your chances go from 30% to 55%, not quite doubled. So, you'll hit almost twice as often. But with the other guy getting 5 attacks, he'll still be hitting you better than 2.5 times as often. Add equal skill to both sides, and this ratio becomes even worse. On top of all this, the faster guy gets to hit first and will more likely land a blow before the other guy even gets to attack. Which means that the slower guy has to deal with any penalties from wounding at that point, meaning that he's going to lose even more certainly.

That's just out of whack balance-wise. I'm telling you, I've seen it in a lot of games, and it's always the same. Anyone who's played the game more than once is going to see this in play, and flock to speed. Basically any hero who wants to survive through combat regularly will need to have a high speed. And note how it becomes more potent as you go up. That is, going from 3 to 2 gives you 1.5 times as many attacks per unit time, but going from 2 to 1 gives you 2 times that many. Basically each point is worth more and more. Not only is there not a diminishing return here (the expected natural result of stacking), there's an increasing return meaning that you are incentivized not only to go high, but to go highest. Point for point no position on the chart makes as much sense as a 10 spd.

Have you played TROS? In that game you get what I think are more realistic effects of Speed, and still get the cinematic back and forth series of blows. It's both more realistic, and cinematic, IMO, than phased combat. And if you want simple, it can be pared down to a very straightforward method.

I'm not suggesting that you use that combat system, but that you take a look at how it accomplishes the same goals that your system has, but in a more balanced, realistic, and cinematic (SAs) way.

Mike

[Sylus Thane]

Mike,
While I'm working on my reply in ragards to combat, I think we may be talking sideways at each other because of my poorly worded description, is there anything else you would like to comment on? I am also interested in comments on the setting info etc.

Jason

[Kester Pelagius]

Greetings,

Sorry about that one. That is not the original Font I used and is somethe byproduct default font when I converted the file to PDF. As much as I try i have not been able to fix it. Trust me, I don't think it's a cool font at all, it's just the product of my losing battle with pdfedit995.

Sylus

PS. If you perhaps have any suggestions for fixing it I would appreciate it.

Not having seen the PDF (wont DL) I can't comment on looks, but as to suggestions...

First, the obvious.  Go into printer settings and play with those.  You can set PDF995 to either use internal fonts, try to convert fonts to the default set, or use existing fonts; if memory serves.

Failing that this is the general rule for unusual fonts and PDF995 that I've discovered...  If you want to use them use them sparringly.  Why? Because the software doesn't seem to always want to use them, as they are, but their are work arounds.

For instance did you know if you literally convert every blank space to that of a different font type (I suggest Helvetica) your fonts will come out looking better?

What I mean by that:  For every {word} {space} {word} you will need to highlight the {space} and convert it to a font that WILL translate well, such as Helvetica.  This will keep wordsfromscrunchingup.

Too much work?

Download OppenOffice.Org.

The downside: No bookmarks.  You may have to convert to a file type it can read, which means you will also have to re-import every image you have used.  If you haven't used any, no problem.

If you have any specific questions PM me.   I'll help if I can.


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

[Sylus Thane]

Thanks Kester,
I'll definitely play around some more, especially after your suggestions. Can I ask what problems you had getting it to download so that I can try and get it fixed?

Sylus

[Mike Holmes]

I never got back to this, sorry.

In terms of the Exodus setting, what you have is very stock. Nothing bad about it, it just doesn't jump out at you.

One trap you have fallen into, however (or that it appears that you are about to fall into), is the idea of listing equipment. Given the bewildering variety of equipment available today, tomorrow's equipment will be even more numerous in type and functionality. You can't hope to give players anything like a complete list. Don't even start down that road. Because what happens is that players make the assumption that the list is all that exists.

A better idea is to give a very few examples of advanced equipment. To give the idea of how our technology has advanced, so as to give the players an idea of what's available. Then let them buy whatever they can imagine, within reason.

Instead of having a listing for pants, let them purchase pants that they describe. Each player can then have different pants. In general, allow players to take a modern template of some piece of equipment and "NASAize" it. That is, make it Faster, Better, Cheaper ( to steal Kirt's idea). So, maybe they get three of these sorts of advances to define an article of clothing.

So a player defining his advanced pants could say that they're Better, having oh, say, resizable cargo pockets, Better, as in extremely tough compared to todays materials, and cheaper. Use costs from today, and convert them to Galactic Credits or whatever (leave it one to one for ease). Cheaper means that they cost half of what pants today cost. Thus, pants that are simply Cheaper, Cheaper, Cheaper, would have any design available today, but cost one eighth of today's price.

See what I'm saying? "Better's" can incorporate any new technology that you indicate is available. Hence, you note holography, so perhaps people wear holographic pants when in hot environments. Whatever. The point is that this will indicate to the players that the universe is diverse, not simply limited to the descriptions in the book.

Mike

[Sylus Thane]

In terms of the Exodus setting, what you have is very stock. Nothing bad about it, it just doesn't jump out at you.

Mike do you have any suggestions as to what might make it jump out at people? I admit I am struggling with this setting to give it some more oomph.

One trap you have fallen into, however (or that it appears that you are about to fall into), is the idea of listing equipment. Given the bewildering variety of equipment available today, tomorrow's equipment will be even more numerous in type and functionality. You can't hope to give players anything like a complete list. Don't even start down that road. Because what happens is that players make the assumption that the list is all that exists.

I see what you mean, I should have a blurb that the list doesn't comprise everything available but gives them something to work from. Part of why i put it in is that I have found that a lot of the new gamers I have played with like having something almost catalogish to work from or older gamers whos imaginations are fried and just want something to look through and say I want that and that. In the terms of sci-fi settings I can see how it can help establish how far the tech has evolved and give a person a feel for it. I understand what you mean by Faster, Better, Cheaper though.

Jason

[Zala]

Ok..I am Rush and am trying to Help Sylus get this thing moving to at minimum, a PDF release.  So there is a new yahoo group out there that is has been created as a central point for this development. I personaly am concentrating on the SCI FI setting of Exodus.  All are encourage to join up and take part in the discussions. If you feel as though you could make meaningful contribution in the form of setting material, ship design, detailing of planets etc..please come on over and submit.  We have some interesting downloads with much more to come. We are especially looking for artists who are looking for a medium anxious to showcase their stuff.

The address is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Lost_Horizon_Games/