Aethera and the kill power 19

[Simon C]

Ron,

Fair points.  I guess what I'm trying to get across is that the adivce you're likely to get in this forum is going to drive you towards a certain direction (that is, mechanics that achieve a unified goal). That's not emblematic of "Forge Games" (which you rightly point out, is not an identifiable set), I think that's present in all succesfully published games since the mid eighties.  If your goal is different to that, I think you're going to get more frustration than help here.

I guess what I'm saying is that there's only some kinds of design that can benefit from the help of others.  When you've got a highly personalised, idiosyncratic goal, it makes it very hard for people to help you.  That's not a judgement of those games.  Probably most really successful art started as something idiosyncratic and highly personal.

I agree that it's a laudable goal to help any designer, without regard for fashion or cliquishness.  I think you're right that we can help these designers, but I think there's going to be a lot of frustration and difficulty associated with that.

Possibly I should speak for myself more?

Librabys,

"Kitchen-sink" means something like "everything but the kitchen sink", in the case of games, that means lots of different elements thrown together, creating jarring juxtapositions and sometimes a gonzo, "over the top" atmosphere.  "Rifts" is an iconic example of that kind of game (and it's also very popular).  I think some games are "kitchen sink" in terms of rules too, in terms of having "a rule for everything".  This often ends up in pages and pages of extra tables, supplements, exceptions to rules, and subsystems.  "Rifts" falls into this category also.

In my experience, the first kind of kitchen sink - setting, can be very enjoyable, but the second kind, with rules, almost never is. 

I think there's been a recent thread on cards vs. dice.  There are reasons to use either, but thinking of cards as "13 sided dice" is, I think, ignoring their potential.  First, be aware that each draw from a deck of cards changes the odds of what the next card will be, unless you reshuffle after every card, or have an infinitely large deck.  This can work to your favour, since it evens out luck over time, or it can work against you, for the same reason.  Second, cards contain more information than dice.  They have suit as well as number.  You might want to use that to your advantage. 

[Librabys]

Ok so i would say it is kitchn-sink for the setting probably but it have its own feeling too.
The rules are now very singuliar, with classic elements but they are solid i think and it does not look like a patchwork. (the setting is a patchwork only for recycling elements that i love, but it have a unique flavor and is open ended too...)


About the cards, I did say I love it in part because you cannot have more that 4 times the same card in a round, but at this time I was thinking about an each round shuffle, but after i posted i thought It would be nice if each player had his own deck and use it totally so he meet every card...

and later i thought(because i have mental, physic,and social stats, and in each sphere it have a fire stat, an earth stat, an air stat and a water stat, making 12 stats in all) each heart card by exemple would give a bonus IF use for doing a Water task ( intuition, perception or agility) and each spade,  IF used for an Air task ( precision, intel, speach) etc

Extensively, court cart could give a bonus on a physic task for the Jack, Social for Queen and Mental for King by exemple.

And joker is a critical success for the color one and a fumble for the grey one maybe.... 
Or i let it for kings and Aces and i take the color joker as a value 14 for init (better than king) and a value of 2 for task and the inverse for the grey joker lol

It have a lot to play with, and even more with tarot decks, but I dont want it too heavy and i like the idea of a commun, affordable and easy to find deck of playing cards

[Librabys]

So after few IN VITRO tests with cards I think D10s was more appropriate... ill see with my group...

I will open a tread about playtesting sessions of my game, but it still have a lot of things that are undefined and need further firt thoughts

for design issues, and the way they could fit in the feeling of the game,

I think I should begin by saying that 10 years ago, this game was merly an Oriental D&Dlike with a D100 system.
It was inspired by Manga, martial arts and stuff, but also by fantasy movies like 'A Chinese ghost story'
As I grew in age I made a Map and realized it had plenty of place in this world for more exotism than the original Sino-nihon.
So I came up with a coutry like Vedic India, another like ancient egypt and babylonia, another like the 1001 nights, another medival/goth, all this mixed up with racial cultures and more local tribes.
I also decided this world is the last refuge of dragons and legendary heroes and that it is the world in which our etheric plane is physicaly manifested. So I called it Aethera.
As related with earth, In this high fantasy setting you CAN go on earth, or in any other world, but the proposal included in the game is a cyberpunk trip in Tokyo 2300 or so. (This choice come from the fact I had the impression a multi-setting adventure RPG would be more compelling with rules for technology)
The Setting is also rich in sect and organizations that plot against or with each other, of jalous gods that strive to get more worship and sacrifices and of space-time spiritual conspiracies.
But it is not intended to be a chrono trigger simulator. It is its own world with POSSIBILITY of foreing travel

Now that you know better the crazy setting, there are my desing goals:

-A nice martial art system, with a true tactical feeling, a combat resolution that flow, and more actions by round for speedy characters. the combat are dangerous and fast. A big wound can be fatal If you are not rescued.

-A 'realistic' magic system, divided into summoning, arcanum, and mystic, with an explanation of the sources of power, and a more mysterious feeling than : ''i cast a fireball for a cost of 8 mana'' including rules for mental health, control(or not) over summuned spirits, ritual magic, accumulation of charges, etc.

-An hommage to hack and slash: door/monster/chest CAN be fun if your dungeon is dark and moldy, if the door is closed by a riddle by a mad arch-lich, if the monster is in fact a crazy man having a weird speach and ending up to be a possessed guy and the monster is a deamonlord, and finally in the chest (locked by a puzzle) it have... a map for a treasure that is in fact in the basement of the inn the characters come from, 2 weeks of walk back.
I love dongeons, i want to give them another chance

a social mechanic with attractiveness, intensity, enpathy and speach as separated attributes

a mental mechanic with perception, smartness, wisdom and will, in which you can cast spells, create potions or invent machines... (with corresaponding skills)

an organic, and free character creation, that allow the player to do exactly the kind of hero he was thinking about, and a advancement system that follows it.

a Final Fantasy feeling (from 1 to 6). not because you can deliver 9999 hitpoints blows, but because you team up, you become stronger, do some little caves, discover a plot, discover more plots, dicover the link between them and slowly being implied in a giant conspiracy and having your part to play in the destiny of the worlds (this is the epic part)

a call of Cthulhu feeling. The Old Ones are real, and the Necronomicon too. When you open gates or summon you could attract a powerful alien deamon in your reality. Deal with it. Now how mental health help an Epic setting?
It is a Dark Epic setting, try to remember how Frodo lose his nerves and hopes when he got possessed by the ring and got mad at his best friend (befor the spiders i think). No need to say an epic character is usualy more solid than the average investigator, and that you can call upon some shoggoths as the black mage you are, and be fine with it for a while, but seeing directly Cthulhu could have a different issue...

the mad, vampirized, werewolfied, possessed, alienized, or re-wired character is still playable, with new race bonus and malus.


I think it is ok for now, and I think It is more about what kind of game experience I Intend to simulate.

Now a simple question: Does it interesting or promising for you?
Would you be interested in further readings?
Would you playtest it?
Would you play it even if it is not THAT MUCH inovative
boiling down to the same question:
With what you know about this game now, do you think it Have a future in gamers life?

(notice i dont wanna know if i can get rich, i wanna know if people would play

[Ben Lehman]

Hi, Lib.

You're actually playtesting this right now? Could I bug you to post a summary of playtest (the basics of what happened in the game's fiction, and also what the players did) in the Playtesting forum? That's probably a more appropriate place than First Thoughts.

[Librabys]

Well I was thinking the same and as it was the 3rd game tonight, it is a good time to begin!
At this point i guess you are totally right
I shall do this post as soon i get a little more time, either in few hours or tomorow;)