CrossRoads Free Tryout Rules

[Jake Richmond]

Hi. I'm Jake Richmond, the Art Director from Arcadiam Games. We've got a Free Tryout Kit available at our website (crossroads-rpg.com) in the Resources section. It's a set of quick start rules to give players a feel of what the games all about. If you've got some time you might check it out and tell us what you think? We've also got a new free adventure in the Suppliments section. Cool? Thanks.


-Jake Richmond
jakerichmond@crossroads-rpg.com

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Jake,

Good morning! We appreciate the spam.

If you'd like to tell us about your game and solicit actual thoughts on your design, please do so. That would be welcomed and I'm sure you'd get good feedback. If you just want to sell us your game, put a link in your signature and post about something else interesting. An Actual Play post about, well, actual play of the game would be great.

Also, your website is badly broken in my browser - to the point where I can't even see your game. Fix that, put a link to it in your signature, and then come back and actually participate here instead of using us as a marketing tool. You will get such good feedback that you will be shocked and need some time alone.

[contracycle]

The site worked for me.

Some of this is good - I like the skill system.  But I very much dislike then switching over to a d20 system for melee combat, and worse, a percentage system for ranged combat.  Is there a specific intent to this change of methods?

[Travis Brown]

Hey there, I'm the chief game deisgned for CROE, firstly let me say this.... WOH WOH WOH somone woke up on the wrong side of the coffin this afternoon didn't he? Our intention of putting the trial version of the game in a "soliciation" posting is specifically to get people to try it out for free and see what they think about it, to get some dialog started about the system, If they wanna buy the full system all the better but if we were spamming you we'd simply put "come to our website and buy our game" which is not what we're saying at all.

Secondly if your web browser isn't working it must not support frames and must be one of those widely used but poorly supported alternative browsers for people who have some political objection with using internet explorer or netscape like 90% of america. I will be reserching compatibility with other browsers in the near future but until then we'll have to settle for those who use the status quo.

Now to get to the nitty gritty. The primary reason we went with a D20 based combat system is simply becasuse we couldn't figure out a good way to use D6's to determine failures. In our system a roll of 1 on a D20 is always a failure in combat weather you are attacking or defending. We wanted to make a clear seperation between the D6 system as used for skills and "feats" and the D20 combat based system supplemented with bonuses from weapon proficincies.

As far as percentiles for ranged combat, the only reason percentile is used is to determine aim, the D20 is still used to determine the overall strike roll which is used to defend against. The percentile is merely an indicator of the skill and chance you have to fire the arrow at a given spot. Glad you like the skill system though, and I hope this generally addresses the concerns about the switching between Dice type from skills to melee to ranged combat. If not please elaborate on what your dislikes about these elements are.

[Jake Richmond]

Contracycle: Thanks for checking out the site. As far as the D20 for melee, I'm not the games designer (Trav is) but with the way our combat works, with all the back and fourth,I think you need the wider range of possibilities that the D20 provides. We could have gone for a D6 based combat using similar rules, but we just liked the way the D20 worked. It feels right. For me anyway. The percentile die for aim? We wanted ranged combat to be more static, a roll against a target number (modified by the targets speed, if any) vs Melees more interactive opposed roles. Does it work? Well, it works for me, but I think I can understand your dislike of switching dice. We basically have four different systems, Skills, Combat, Ranged and Magic. Everything works a bit differently from everything else. We wanted to get it across that waving around a sword is a different thing and requires a different approach then casting a spell or giving a speech or shooting an arrow. I hope that answers your question.

Clinton R. Nixon : Let me apologize if I've overstepped some forum rules here. Wasnt my intention at all. As you can surely tell I'm pretty new here. I just started posting here after Origins, after having the site recomended to me by Mike Holmes and several of the other guys I met there. I've only made a few posts so far but I think of myself as an active contributor. I posted a link to our tryout rules in the hopes of getting some feed back from the more experienced people here at the Forge (and the feedback recieved so far has been very valuable. Thanks everyone!). It certainly wasnt my intention to "SPAM" the forum. If thats how it came off, if I've violated some posting rule, then I really do apologize.

As far as browser problems go, our site seems to work well with Internet Explorer and Netscape. What browser are you using? Let us know and we'll see what we can do. Thanks for checking out the site anyway. If you like that spam I can happily send you more!

-Jake

[Trevis Martin]

Hi Jake,

I'm looking over the quick rules, but I have an aside on the site design.  It's not working properly in Safari 2.0,  though it works okay in Firefox (which is basically still the Gecko engine, same as netscape.)  In Safari I can't click through to a site.  (Both of these are on Macintosh.)

Second, frames are a bit outdated when it comes to web design.  I would seriously consider investigating becoming compliant with the W3C's standards for XHTML 1.0 and CSS.  You can do the same things with CSS that you can do with frames.  It will make you a lot more compatible with compliant browsers (most of them other than IE).  IE is a big villian here, it has proprietary functions and is not completely W3C compliant.

Third, the text on your site, combined with the backdrop is very hard on the eyes.  I appreciate the feel of the dungeon stone texture but you should seriously consider putting solid or, at most, gradiant filled boxes behind your text areas and let the stone be only the very back part of the background.  Readability is a big issue.

Last, would you or Trav mind giving us your pitch for your game?  I mean can you tell me what makes it special in 30 seconds or less?

thanks,

Trevis

[contracycle]

You first port of call is Mike's Standard Rant #3: Combat systems
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=2024.0

I too would liek to hear your "pitch"; what is cool about this game, what can you do with it that you couldn't before, etc.

I did not get much sense of this from reading the sample itself.

[Travis Brown]

Ok firstly thanks for the tips on the site design, I'm charge on that area so I'll have a look into it as well. I;m going to need to read up a bit on XHTML because I'm a bit rusty and only have a vague understanding on it. But I agree if for no other reason that the search engine spiders sometimes have trouble with framed pages. As far as browsers go it seems that more people in the RPG world prefer to use browsers other than IE, which is surprising to me to say the least. Indy RPG's are apparently indy on everything else :)

The backdrop I have worried about for some time, and will be fiddling with it a bit as I revise the programing for the site.

Combat system.... That's an interesting point that Mike raises, but I certainly feel that his example over simplifies the issue here. For one thing, the artistic styling and know how of photography in his example has nothing to do with the ability to hit your target at a distance by chucking the camera at them. I do firmly agree with his concept that by putting a system in a game for a particular aspect (in this case combat) tends to put an emphasis on it over other elements. The key reason we have "systems" set up for things such as skills, combat, and magic in particular, is these are the three key mechanics for performing actions in the game that exceed character role playing and storyline development. The core of our RPG book really has these three mechanics, lists of stuff, a small adventure, and a handful of storyline material. The website is going to be the resource to get free material which expands the storytelling RPG aspect and supplemental material will expand the lists of stuff and add to the mechanics overall. For us the combat system in itself is necessary because our system is predominantly opposed roll based, so "Rolling a 15 to hit the tree with your camera"  just won't suffice if the tree is that person you lobbed it at instead, because if he sees it coming, he gets a chance to dodge it. It is much harder to hit a person who doesn't want to be hit, than it is to hit a tree.

Our system is very customizable which I'm sure Mike H would be appalled about since in his words at origins "Doesn't want to have to fix a system" but in essence all RPG players are secretly game designers deep down and will always pick apart a system they know and love in order to make it suit their own needs, and that's a major draw of our system. It is very easy to modify so that the combat system can be boiled down to basics. The roll of 15 to hit a person with your camera could be the only roll needed if you compare the speed of the attacker and the speed of the target, and use it as the deciding factor, just as an example.

So the pitch overall.... taking the actual convention floor sales schpeel to get people to the table out of it, I guess it comes down to this: We feel our character generation system and leveling system is very streamlined yet versatile. You can create 312 generic characters before spending points to buy more skills and attributes which make you unique. Additional optional random roll charts help give some extra flavor to round out the character. It is a point based system rather than level up based, so you are not stuck on a track for a particular profession. All 20 trades are broken up into 4 categories: combat, arcana, finesse, and eloquence. There are skills for all, skills designed for one of these four groups which all can get, but cost more for those who are not categorized as one of these trade types, and skills which are for specific trades only. Combat and in fact most skill rolls, and spell effects are often contested with some kind of resistance, or defense roll. Combat is carried out in a method which allows people to interact with the scene around them and take part based on initiative and overall observation. Experience in all areas has a built in curve, so the more powerful you become the more difficult it is to become even more powerful. Magic, skills, weapon proficiencies, attributes all cap off, or cost more as they enhance.

A particular aspect of this game in general is the fact that it is open ended. The system is there to create interesting character, but it is not the system's job to tell you what your job is. It is up to the Gm to determine with the player what the motivation is and what their goal is. The system is merely the mechanics, and the true spirit of the story will unfold primarily on the website which will feature vast amounts of story material, campaign and adventure ideas and addon material. The core book itself comes with the full color map of Rivium, the world in which our adventures take place. I say our adventures, because you do not have to stick with the world we give you. All supported material will set their stories in areas of this map, but they are in no way required in order to step up a game and story of your own.

I know that allot of people have come to depend on massive systems which try and hit upon every possible contingency and frankly I don;t want to read a 600 page book to play Hero quest i want to read a 200-300 page book and refer to a few charts once in while and get down to what really matters, telling a story and playing the part of a character. I don't a book to tell me the specific motivations of my character that's what my GM and my imagination are for.

The key selling point overall I think though is the modular nature of the system and the story. The core rule book is set in the "age of magic" as we will later deem it in story material, and it starts somewhere in the middle of this ten thousand year era. There will be story material and setting information and timeliness which concern the past and present of this era so that people can play the story or set their games in these times, they can also follow "recent events" as the story unfolds and plays out to the end of the cycle, or they can simply use our map and come up with whatever they feel like. The resources given in the book provide a nice starting ground and a wide range of material as far as equipment, magic, creatures, races, trades, etc, but the supplemental products, free updates, and what not will also expand those resources.

[Travis Brown]

On other thing about web browser compatibility.... I have now tried IE, Netscape, Avant browser, Opera, Fire fox and all of these but Opera seem to work fine. Only problem with Opera (besides they charge you to use it) is the java script I have which routes searches of my sub pages back to the main gateway page seems to interfere, probably some sort of call problem with the pages and their cookie placements. I can't use Safari as it's for Mac so I have no idea about compatibility.... so What browser do you use Clinton?

[Jake Richmond]

Here's the pitch I was giving at Origins:

The CrossRoads of Eternity is a new RPG set in the exciting fantasy world of Rivium. Explore Rivium as one 13 exciting races, including Nosferatu and Minotaur. Customize your character not just at creation, but throu their entire life cycle with our experienced based power up system that allows you to constantly learn new skills, spells, special abilities and even Trades! Build your own skills and spells for even more diversity! Our dynamic combat system puts you in the thick of the battle and uses opposed rolls and the threat of death and lasting damage to make each fight come alive! Our Core Rule Book contains everything you need to play including  a  starter adventure and a huge selection of monsters and creatures for4 one affordable price!

Keep in mind that A) I had flyers I was handing out, and B) I was usually saying this tpo people who were doing their best to walk by the booth without making eye contact.

I could go on to tell you how the game grew from our frustration with several other games, how we could never quite find the game we wanted. I could go on about the great fun I've had both running and playing in these games. I could tell you about all the crazy characters and cool ideas that have come from our playtesters in the last year. But what it comes down to for me is that I really have fun playing the game, and I think, even though its not a game for everyone (its really not) there are people that will enjoy it if given the chance.

Thats about it.

-Jake