[Live by the Sword] A first draft...

[nsruf]

Time for me to stop lurking and ask for opinions and advice on the RPG that so desperately wants me to design it right now;)

The game is called 'Live by the Sword' and is supposed to be about Sword and Sorcery as found in the tales of Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, or Karl E. Wagner to name some examples. So not a revolutionary concept in itself, but here is what I want to do with it:

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The PCs are heroes or villains in a human-centric fantasy world. Might makes right, and the PCs thrive and survive by their wits and skills. There is no absolute good, but there is absolute evil in the form of demons and the corrupt sorcerers who summon them. The most decent people are those who put their personal values (honor, justice, friendship) before considerations of wealth and power, but even the great heroes may have questionable morals.

The players set goals for their PCs and narrate how their characters go about achieving them, until somebody (player or GM) calls for conflict resolution. Conflicts are decided by voting among the players, where the weight of each vote is determined by a talent check for the PCs. Pursuing your goal is encouraged by the rules as the only way to recover vigor (= PC fitness and competence) and gain glory (= points for PC improvement).

The GM is responsible for pacing the game, keeping an eye on continuity, and moderating conflicts. He does not prepare an 'adventure' in advance, but lets the players run things as much as possible.

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As far as I can tell, the primary influence on my design is InSpectres:

1. The goal mechanic: the actions of the PCs contribute progress points towards a goal. Once enough progress has been made, the goal can be resolved. The rules encourage the pursuit of goals as it is the only way to replenish your resources.

2. Reliance on player narration: InSpectres showed me that it can be great fun (and less work for the GM) to let the players run things. In fact, it has been the only game recently that lead to enjoyable play (for me) because of the rules and not despite of them.

Other things I believe are central but don't show up in InSpectres:

3. The PCs don't have to cooperate. There are explicit PvP mechanics both at the level of conflicts and of goals. The PCs should be able to form groups with conflicting interests and compete for earlier completion of goals.

4. It uses fortune-at-the-end resolution to decide between two possible outcomes of a conflict. I choose this for simplicity, and because I know some players are uncomfortable with having to come up with something extra cool on the spot. LbtS can be played like a traditional RPG, where you state what your PC does before checking for success.

5. PCs can change their abilities. While they may become better, they can also get worse if they fail too often, and they may even change at any time to fit their player's current vision. This is supposed to be more of a way to reflect the growth of fictional heroes than a power-up.

You can download a first draft of Live by the Sword (95 KB pdf) here. The introduction and GM advice chapter are missing, but the rules core is in place. So far, the game has not been playtested.

For those who have taken the time to read it (thank you!), I have a few questions:

1. Are the rules as written easy to understand, or do I need to clarify things?

2. Do you see any major blunders or incoherence?

3. Does it look like I met my design goals?

4. Am I reinventing the wheel, i.e. do you know a game that already does what I am trying to do?

Of course, any other comments on the game are also appreciated.

[nsruf]

No responses... Is this too much information? Too little? Is the link not working? Are fantasy RPGs not cool anymore and no one told me?

If .pdf is inconvenient, I can post excerpts of the rules in this thread, no problem.

[LordSmerf]

Hey Niko,

Have you seen Ron Edwards' take on the subject in his Sorcerer supplement Sorcerer and Sword?  That springs to mind as a good place to start for mining some ideas on how to do things.

Some questions, note that these are based entirely on your post as I haven't read your actual PDF yet:

1.  Why do character skill checks control the weight of the players' votes?
2.  How do you plan on balancing encouraging PvP activity in character with providing so much control (in the form of the vote) to the players out of character?

I think part of the reason you haven't gotten many responses is that you haven't asked a really specific question like "How do I solve this problem?" or "How do I foster this player behavior?".  Instead it sounds more like you're asking for a review of your game.  That's not bad in and of itself, but it provides far less direction to the discussion.

Thomas

[nsruf]

Have you seen Ron Edwards' take on the subject in his Sorcerer supplement Sorcerer and Sword?  That springs to mind as a good place to start for mining some ideas on how to do things.

I haven't seen Sorcerer and Sword, but I own Sorcerer. From my (very limited) playing experience, I got the impression that Sorcerer requires quite a lot of preparation on the part of the GM. And that is not the kind of game I want to run right now. First, because I am lazy (or more precisely sick of putting a lot more time into the game than the players, and often having so little of prep actually pay off). Second, I think that if the players are aware that the GM has no idea where things "should be going", it is easier for them to be creative.

Some questions, note that these are based entirely on your post as I haven't read your actual PDF yet:

1.  Why do character skill checks control the weight of the players' votes?

Short answer: Because by choosing your PC's talents, you make a statement about which aspects of the story matter most to you. So you get a greater impact on such decisions, even if your PC is not in the scene.

Long answer: I need to explain conflict resolution better for that:

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1. A conflict starts when the GM or a player challenges the narration of another player. The challenged player is called the 'acting player'. His character is actually in the scene and the talent check represents real actions taken.

2. The GM rephrases the acting player's intention to avoid any misunderstandings and decides which talent is needed to accomplish it. He also decides whether the conflict is relevant to the acting player's goal or not.

3. One other player has the chance to become the opponent (the GM chooses one if several are interested). If no one wants to oppose the acting player, the GM is the opponent by default.

4. The opponent declares what will happen in case the acting player loses the conflict. If the opponent is another player, he has to tell what his PC does and is assigned a talent by the GM. So his PC is also in the scene, and the skill check represents his actions. If the GM is the opponent, he just decides on the consequences of failure.

5. The other players can declare support for the acting player or stay out. If the opponent is another player, they can also support him. However, their PCs do not have to be involved in the scene, and no narration is required.

6. The conflict is resolved by rolling the dice. A player who supports either the acting player or the opponent has to roll vs. the same talent as the player he wants to help.

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So why step 5 in this sequence? I want a binary outcome for reasons of simplicity. So once the acting player's intention and the consequences of failure set by the opponent are clear, there is no point of adding anything else to the scene. On the other hand, I want players to be able to support each other. Thus the voting system. Using the talents of the (potentially absent) PCs as a basis for voting seemed a natural extension.

2.  How do you plan on balancing encouraging PvP activity in character with providing so much control (in the form of the vote) to the players out of character?

Participating in a conflict - even "just" voting - can cost you vigor, which is a measure of your PC's effectiveness, and thus your ability to affect future conflicts. Thus, voting should be limited to the situations the players really care about.

Also, as you can see from the above description, only the players whose PCs are actually in the scene have a say on the potential outcomes. The others can only affect the likelihood of each event. So the IC/OOC problem is (hopefully) less pronounced.

I think part of the reason you haven't gotten many responses is that you haven't asked a really specific question like "How do I solve this problem?" or "How do I foster this player behavior?".  Instead it sounds more like you're asking for a review of your game.  That's not bad in and of itself, but it provides far less direction to the discussion.

I was afraid it was something like that. I suppose I should just get a playtest together and then ask for more specific comments based on the problems we encounter. However, your questions were exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for, i.e. criticism and feedback on my assumptions. So thank you for getting things started.