Crisis Paradigm: Mechanics Idea

[CrisisBrandon]

Hello.  My friends and I have started to form a RPG.  It is pretty involved so I'm breaking this down into different threads.  This will deal with our rough idea on how the actual mechanics would work.

Each player would have 8 attributes; 4 mental and 4 psychical.

Mental: Intelligence, Wits, Perception, Charisma  (all working titles, not final)
Psychical: Dexterity, Strength, Stamina, Appearance (again, just working titles)

Through character creation, (which we haven't worked out just yet), players would have a rating in each one that ranks between 1-3.
1 = below average-almost average
2 = average - fairly decent
3 = very good - superior

Skills would be broken into 2 catagories. Talents and Skills (more working titles).  Talents would indicate a broad subject based on natural ability. (i.e Athletics, Melee Combat, Knowledge) and Skills would fall under each Talent catagory.  (Running, Knife Fighting, Occult Lore).  While a player will most likely have at least a 1 rating in each Talent, it is not uncommon for a player to have 0 in a skill.  It simply indicates that this particular player has had no training/experience with this skill.  

Ok, now to mechanics.  For everything a player attempts to do we have decided that, just as in real life, it involves mental ability, psychical ability, natural talent, and special training (if any).   We have decided that the player will roll a number of d10's equal to the rating he has in the  specified abilities and talents he/she is using to preform this task.

Example:  Policeman Dan is attempting to shoot a fleeing suspect.  He would roll his Perception Rating (2) + Dexterity Rating (1)+ Ranged Weapon Talent (2)+ Pistol/Handgun Skill (2) for a total of seven d10's.  He adds the total and attempts to reach a target number.  In combat our idea is to also have the character being attacked roll. (perhaps fleeing suspect's wits+dex+athletics talent+speed skill etc.) This would be the target number for Dan to hit.  Had Dan been using, say, a knife with which he has had no training, he would have only rolled perhaps Wits+Dexterity+Melee Combat Talent.  This would be because as a police officer he has had training with clubs, riot sticks etc. but no formal experience with a knife.  

Questions:  Is this too random?  Is it too easy for someone to luck out and roll better than someone?  Is this too complicated?  Should we make it so perhaps a player's rating in something is the minimun number he can roll on a dice (if he rolls lower he bumps the number up to his min rating)?

[Kryyst]

I can see large areas of complication with these proposed mechanics.

First the most obvious is the potential of having to add up 7 d10's that's just a huge pain in the ass.  It's slow clunky and can create a large margin for addition errors.  Why not just use a success style comparative system?

[Simon Kamber]

Agree with Kryyst there. Unless you have a very good reason for it, don't include such large amounts of dice counting.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Brandon, welcome to the Forge!

One tricky thing about this place is that people need to offer help to the person, not simply to insert their own preferences into the discussion. Kryyst and xect, it's great that you're posting, but please consider that we need to learn a lot more about this game idea before talking about "failing too often" or "too much trouble to count dice."

Brandon, it's going to be hard to answer any of your questions unless we get a better idea of what you'd like your game to accomplish. If it's just to present attributes, skills, and talents, and just to see whether characters "hit or miss" in a variety of situations ... well, there are already dozens of very good systems available for this purpose.

So maybe the best thing to do is to explain to us what really playing your game ought to be like? If you were the GM (I assume you are using the traditional GM/player split), and if you had four friends over, and they were playing characters ... what would it be like?

How often would the characters face danger?
Given, oh, three hours of play, how many times would a given person roll dice?
What happens to a player if the character is too damaged to continue?
Who says what happens, after a roll is made successfully, or fails?
What do the characters actually do? Why bother playing these characters at all?
Is failing a roll fun, in any way? How?

That sort of thing. All of the answers will play a big role in helping us discuss your possible system.

Best,
Ron

[CrisisBrandon]

first, thanks for the feedback!

The counting of a large number of dice is troubling us too, and I believe we will be changing it to possibly a success type roll.  I am worried that this is potentially too much like White Wolf's system.  However, in our system we would like to allow for player character using powers of various kinds to temporarily up certain abilities to a higher die type.  Say, Super Strong Man uses his power (technique as we call it) to raise his strength from d10s to d12s.  In success type rolling this would give him an advancetage, correct?

Characters would be facing danger from many forms.  The plot revolves around player characters finding themselves with certain abilities.  The story is set around how people in this future Earth use their powers.  There is a large government presense, a resistance movement living in the rural areas, and "liberated" cities caught in the middle.  It is up to the player to decide who they think has the just cause, and where to use their new found anhanced abilities.  There will plenty of chances for them to use them, though.  Will they fight the resistance in dirty guerilla combat using their guns and explosives to over come the resistance's high ratio of people who possess super abilities (and mysterious "alien" weapons)?  Will the players decide the federalized zones are trading safety for freedom therefore warranting justice!  Or will they hail from a liberated city? Places were the feds once were, but were either driven out by constant resistance harassment, or where the feds never bothered protecting.  Witnessing the descruction and poverty the fighting causes.

We want the game to involve rolling dice fairly frequently, but not for every little thing, of course.  I would say in the course of 3 hours, maybe 1-2 fights (not hack n' slash, each fight would be potentially deadly) and maybe 15 rolls of the dice, does that sound about average?  Heh, I have never counted while I have been playing, myself.

We are thinking of using a health system that might be something like players have a number of hit points equal to their stamina plus their size in each part of their body (points on the location die, d10).  chest, neck, and head get bonuses to damage 1 chest, 2 neck, and 3 head (or maybe just 1, 2 and 2, etc.)  The defender's size or stamina would be the target number for the attacker.  We also plan on having an armor system based on reducing damage.   If a player takes more damage than X number in any part of their body they are considered to be bleeding to death/crippled (depending on the damage type).

Is it a good idea to make another thread with an indepth description of the story/setting?

It is typical GM/player split.  GMs will take into consideration when a player is being especially creative or inventive with their characters giving bonus to good play.  Later I will write up a mock RP session and a good introduction to the setting and storyline.  Thanks for the input!  I am really excited to talk to people about this.

[Jason E Leigh]

Brandon:

Welcome to the Forge.

My recommendation would be to leave this as the one initial thread - see where it goes from there.

A couple of things about the Forge - not every idea you post will get a rousing response, and that's not the point.  Quality trumps quantity here most times.  Sometimes folks are mulling over what you've posted.  Sometimes not.  Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.

My advice would be not to get discouraged by the amount of response you may or may not get.

Second, there are tons and tons of excellent resources here all the time.  For a system like yours, it wouldn't hurt to lurk on over to the RPG Theory page and check out this thread on FitM (Fortune In the Middle).

I'd also reccommend that you take a look at the stickied "Structured Game Design" thread at the top of this forum.

Finally, you might want to search on terms like "IIEE", "Fortune", "lumpley principle", "the impossible dream", "Mike's Standard Rants".  There are other terms that will bring up a wealth of cool threads with lots of nuggest in 'em, but that ought to be enough to send your mind reeling.

Now, I know it seems kind of rude for me to reccommend a reading list, but a lot of the ground you're likely to cover with a game like this has been trod hundreds of times before, and there's a lot of good game designin' wisdom stored in some of those earlier threads.  Having said that, these are merely suggestions, not requirements.

Now, I would back up from Ron, and ask "Why would I play this game?"

Frankly, I can find hundreds of d10 pool attibute + skill dice pool games with a similar flavor to your proposal, covering a similar sounding background and setting.  A lot of them I can find as free PDFs on the web.

So, what makes this game so special?  Note, it doesn't have to be the coolest new mechanic, or the most innovative setting, etc.  But, the overall picture of the game - the overall goal - the sum of the parts - has to answer that question: "Why would I play this game?"

It helps if you are passionate about the game - and it seems that you are.  The Forge is (can be, if you take advantage of it) game designers boot camp.  You won't always like what you hear.  If you look hard enough, you'll find that dozens of designers have tried your most innovative kick-ass idea before - and mostly failed.  But, if you have a passion for your game, you can learn a lot here.  There are certainly lots of success stories coming out of the Forge that prove that's true.

One final point - you'll find some cantankerous folks like me in here that will sometimes challenge the very things you hold dear in your design.  You don't have to pay any attention to me - or anyone else on these boards - and you can still be successful.  It's just that it's a lot easier if you at least listen, even if you disagree with everything that's said to you.

So, Brandon, sell me: Why should I play this game?

Cheers.

[CrisisBrandon]

Thanks for the response!  I am here to learn and as such any suggestions, help, and tips I will take to heart.  I understand exactly what you're saying and thanks for the reading list!  I will dive right in.

Why would anyone want to play Crisis Paradigm?

In my mind I would like to boil it all down to one sentence that really hooks people and drives them to read further.  I'm not sure I can do this, however I will explain about what our goals are for this game.

We have come up with a setting that is broken into 3 eras that exist on the same time line.  Each era is linked to the other and the story of the future Earth eventually leads to the stars.  

Era I: circa 2025
The world has changed drastically from now.  The general public knows that terrorists in various forms have been consistantly threatening the American way of life.  Numerous attackers have been made upon many major American cities.  The government passes many bills further limiting the civil rights of it's citizens citing nation security as its reasoning.  The United States of America is a country divided.  Militia groups have began mobilizing and have staged minor attacks against military bases and cities.  Many are suspected to have terrorist backing.  Many people flock to the safety of larger cities following an alert put out by the government that states the risk of terrorist attack on rural food supplies is very very likely.  TV says they are safe in the cities.  

What the general public doesn't know is that on a whole there are no terrorists.  The government has been waging a secret war against a threat they see as more dangerous than any single human.  Strange technology  began to appear around the globe.Artifacts that possess incredible power when placed in the hands of the right person.  Fearing this tech will be taken and used against them by their enemies, the government sets out to obtain them.  Along with this, many people have began to show talents and abilities far greater than anyone ever thought a human was capable of.  Soon a struggle to obtain said technology broke out.  Alliances have been formed, and the war for technology is now.  These so called radical militia groups are actually a fairly organized band of revolutionists looking to stop the government's quest to curve civil liberties, as well as stop them from getting ahold of the precious and mysterious technology.  The 2 extremes begin to clash, and some are caught in the middle.  Furthermore, it seems that the creators of these sought after items are begining to pop up as well...

In this Era player characters will choose from 1 of 3 origins.  Frontier (working title), Liberated Cities, and Federalized Cities.  Under each Origin will be 3 factions (classes).  Each Origin will have its own version of a fighterish faction, technologist faction, and mystic faction.  Also, no matter what origin each player's character has/will noticed himself gaining an almost supernatural ability due to unknown reasons. (based on what faction is chosen).

Era II is still being fleshed out.  Outline: Era II starts after the world is ruined.  There are those living in the wilderness in primitive societies, those living in new formed cities in the safe parts of the world, and those trying to stay alive in between.  Most of the technology so valued in Era I is lost, but perhaps it can be found if someone was to look hard enough.
Era III is still in developement.  It will involve space, (ships, stations, etc.)  

Players and GMs will have the choice of starting in any of the 3 eras, and we may be working on a way to allow travel between the Eras. (Very limited and hard to do, and probably only forward in the timeline.)

As far as mechanics go, we are changing our ideas based on suggestions.  It most likely won't be entirely d10 based.  

It is really hard to come up with original ideas and inventive ways to get people interested in our game.  Hopefully it will appeal to anyone who is intersted in a game that uses the potential future of our world with a twist that changes the entire timeline forever.  People who want to roleplay as a character who has the ability to jump from rooftop to rooftop while defending himself with a sword forged of super strong mystery alloys.  Players who want a character who can shoot beams of energy from their hands, form barriers, filters, or change the chemical makeup of objects.    Super heros who fight for what they see as just, no matter what side they are on.  There is no right or wrong and no good or evil.

Thanks for your helpful tips and suggestions.  I hope this is ok.

[Jason E Leigh]

Brandon:

Hopefully it will appeal to anyone who is intersted in a game that uses the potential future of our world with a twist that changes the entire timeline forever. People who want to roleplay as a character who has the ability to jump from rooftop to rooftop while defending himself with a sword forged of super strong mystery alloys. Players who want a character who can shoot beams of energy from their hands, form barriers, filters, or change the chemical makeup of objects. Super heros who fight for what they see as just, no matter what side they are on. There is no right or wrong and no good or evil.

That's a good encapsulate of the goal.  If you can design a game that captures the essence of this paragraph, you'll have done well.  Bear in mind that this goal, this vision of play, can change over time as you're designing it.  But you shouldn't let such a change 'just happen'.  If you feel this vision slipping as a result of design decisions, than step back and take stock of where you are going.

It's a good start, and you've hooked me enough to keep 'listening'.

One last thing - you can't design a game that appeals to everyone, so don't try.  Design one that you're passionate about, and other will like it.

Cheers.

[CrisisBrandon]

thanks for the feedback.  We are currently using forms of organization found in some of the sticky threads to piece together everything we have so far.  We will discuss and write up more detailed setting outlines.  Thanks for the suggestions thus far, and I hope someone out there will be following our posts as we continue to create.  Any questions and comments would be more than welcome; leave them here or send them to brandon@vagrantsavior.net  Much thanks!

[CrisisKristov]

Hello everybody, I'm Brandon's partner in this project.  Thank you all for all the help you've given us.  We've been thinking about our system and the everyone's advice quite a bit and are trying to correct some of the pitfalls that our previous system had. We came up with an alternate success based system might offset some of the randomness and cumbersome traits of the old system while accentuating some of the abilities the player characters might have.

First of all this system uses the same mental attribute+physical attribute+talent+optional skill set up as described in the first post.  It differs in that a normal person would roll that number of d6s instead of that many d10s and instead of adding up the total the dice show you get a higher degree of success for each 6 you roll. More difficult tasks require you to roll more sixes to succeed.

That is the basic system, things get more interesting because some characters have an ability to raise there attributes(called technique). With this they can either temporarily or permanently roll dice of a higher type when rolling a certain attribute. Only the highest number is a success on a d6 but the 2 highest numbers are a success on a d8 and the top 3 on a d10 and so on.

Do you think this system is an improvement on what we have previously posted? Does it still need alot of work?  We are also making progress with the setting if you guys are interested we can post more about it and more about the origins and how they affect a character as we figure them out.

[Jason E Leigh]

Kristov:

The system you're proposing could work - but it depends on the type of play you want the system to encourage.

Before commenting further, I think you should write a sample of play like that outlined in the Structured Design Thread at the top of this forum.  Divorce it as much as possible from any system references - just take us on an imaginary journey that describes how part of a session of play would go - an ideal session in your minds.

Once we see that, we can give you some more focused advice on whether or not the system you're proposing will encourage that type of play.

Cheers.

[CrisisBrandon]

Greetings all.  We've been working hard on everything.  I've started writing up a sample RP session, but it isn't finished just yet.  I wanted to maybe run a quick idea for rolling mechanics past everybody.  Here goes:

Our current plan is to use a success based system that allows players to not only add to their various pools, but also to move down in die type.  The standard starting die type would be d12 and a success would be 10,11 and 12, the top 3 values.  The top 3 values would always be the target no matter the die type.  (8,9,10 on a d10, 4,5,6 on a d6) Correct me if my math is wrong, but on a d12 you'd have 1/4 chance at success.  As the die type moved down the chance of success would rise.  This would come into play when player characters activated their various "techniques" (super attributes).  An average player would probably have about 6-8 die in their pool (depending on what they are trying to do, and their stats)  Are there systems out there that use this type of rolling style?

[Jason E Leigh]

Brandon:

The Window (which, last I checked, is a free game) and Dogs In The Vineyard come to mind.

Both of them have different takes on the die-step mechanic you're suggesting.  IIRC, The Window is pretty close to what you've proposed, with better skill level equating to smaller dice.

DitV, however, the die-steps are based on 'danger', or maybe more appropriately 'risk' (as in, how much do you want to escalte the risk factor?).

Again, this could work for just about any type of game.  Hard to say with one mechanic in isolation from the rest of the rules and any clear picture of how you all want play to proceed.

I will say that this type of mechanic can have a hard time handling scale.  That is to say, if you wish to have the game effectively handle a wide dispersion of player character power levels, the step-down die has limits.  And the spread of ability between someone with a d4 rating and someone with a d12 rating, while very meaningful, isn't a spread between say Green Arrow and Superman (to use a familiar comics analogy).

One other note, Burning Wheel (among others) handles this sort of thing in a different fashion with 'shade' (IIRC) - which amounts to a progressively easier target number for a single die type.  So, in your example, if you stuck with d10 (chosen randomly, for no good reason, just as an example), you could have starting ratings of 9, where only 9's and 10's couted as success.  Then step down by 1 or 2 for each 'better' rung on the rating scale.

That would give a constant die type, and two measures of effectiveness (one would be more dice, the other lower target number).

Hope this helps.  Keep working on the sample of play, I'd like to read it.

Cheers.