Union-TOS: Check This Out, Please

[Cryostorm]

Uh, Hi!
 My name is Cameron Harsh, and I just found this site two nights ago. I was impressed and thankful to find it. You see since last night when I dug into the threads, I tried to think of a way to introduce my self, tonight I thought it best to first present who I am and what I'm working on, and hope this goes over well.
Ok, about a year and a half ago, I was with my creative other half, my brother Matt. (Think of it in the Wachowski Brothers sense) Anyway about making a Matrix RPG, you know something to have fun with, being fed up with the curent systems out there (namely D20 and the White Wolf Storyteller system) we decided to make our own. And so in about 3 months we whipped a system that had Hong Kong, and the Matrix feel. (I.E. Bending the rules of the Matrix, Downloading Info into your brain, and the like.) Mind you the system was far from perfect but it was sufficent from our percpective. (And it was alot of work, alot more than we thought it would be or I lead on in this story.) We called i the RPE system. (Role Playing Experince) So being proud of our system, we approched our usual Comic\Game store to host a demo. It was great and we had a wonderful feed back to the point the store asked us to play it there bi-weekly. As we play tested it the system grew and was documented. Thats when delusions of grandure set in and dream of being give the lisence by impressing the WB exuctives. When reality set in we stopped gaming at the store for awhile to think up a way to de-Matrix what was other wise a great game. So the summer came and the project sat and then in October we came back to it at changed in to an Anime-ish/Sci-fi/Mecha game called Union:Tides of Steel. (The tides of steel describe large scale meacha robot combat.) The game takes place after a war has completely destroyed human life. The war isn't fought with the nuclear weapons of today but small tactical coffin sized nukes, and most promently the wars is waged with half human/ half animal gene wrriors and Mechs. After the war a "space ark" arives in orbit containing the last members of an alien race, much like our own that wiped out their planet and most of their population in a war similar to thee one we just finished. The Union is the peaceful coexistance of the two races. (Kinda like a U.N.)  So like 30 some years pass and we make great stides in science and technology with our new freinds. You see they filled in the holes of our science, becuse theirs is based on eatherical (Magic, Spirtual, Ki) energys. So using these energy to build a "soul" and our hardtech Mech designs they create A.I. constructs. And in true Sci-Fi fashion they turn on us. A "Machine War" is fought the Union vs. the Smart Mechs. We push them past the astreriod belt, where thay take over the factory and mines on Jupiter's moons, and lay low. Thats where the game starts, you can play as a Human, an Ul'kleran (the aliens), or a decendent of the gene soilders of the last great human war. The idea is the game has a tention created by the fact the Machine could start atacking back at any time, and while we wait they get stronger. At least thats the plan. See we have been working on writing ever since, and while our charcter rules are pretty in place (from the Matrix play-test) we need to polish rules about creating mechs, which are a centerpeice of the game. I hope by posting and talking here I can finalize ideas, get help, maybe some writings and Art, and most importantly advice. What I hope to give back is postive feed back to my repiles and other peoples posts and to give as much advice and help I can give from my personal experinces. I hope this give you an idea of what I hope to accomplish, and I wish could reply so I can answer any questions and find out how to become more involved.

P.s. Sorry I didn't think it would be so long, Thanks for reading.

[quozl]

Your setting sounds pretty neat.  Personally, I would start the game in the midst of the Machine War as that seems like the most exiciting part.

[Mike Holmes]

Hi Cameron,

OK, we now know who you are, and what your game is like to an extent. Do you want to discuss your game at all? That is the function of the forum after all.

I will make a few comments (like it or not; I'm that way).  ;-)

First, the phrase,

being fed up with the curent systems out there (namely D20 and the White Wolf Storyteller system) we decided to make our own.

is quite scary. I'm sure you're aware that there are other systems out there.  Are you aware of just how many there are? If we're looking at published RPGs, we're talking hundreds of games. If we're talking about free games as well, the numbers go into the thousands.

And what's interesting is that the vast majority of them, even the free ones, have improvements on d20 and Storyteller. Those two systems have their strenghts mostly in volume of material, production values (art), and large followings. But other systems that exist have their own strengthsas well.

The point? Well, until a designer is familiar with a lot of these other games they tend to create games that fix problems that have already been fixed a lot.

This may seem really insulting, but I have to refer you to this essay here.

Now, perhaps the impression that I'm getting from you isn't accurate. Maybe you have played a lot of other games or had experience with them and just didn't mention it. If so, then the essay may not be pertinent to you, and I apollogize for bringing it up. But read it just in case. You might want to peruse the other articles as well.

Also, be aware that there are probably five other games in development just on this site alone that have the Matrix as either a primary or secondary source of inspiration. So it's a common idea. Do a search here if you haven't already to get an idea of just how many different ways one can approach a game which emulates a genre like the Matrix.

This all said, I'd like to see what you've got. Any chance you can post a link? I'd like to think that we can help designers improve their products. Who knows, with enough work on it, maybe you can approach WB again. It's not out of the realm of possibility.

OTOH, the alternate setting sounds fine. Have you read GURPS Reign of Steel, by any chance?

Mike

[ethan_greer]

Hi, Cameron, and welcome to the Forge!

Your setting sounds like fun.  I can see a number of different possiblities for individual play groups to focus on - intrigue, balls-to-the-wall mecha stuff, smuggling, genetic research, politics.  Doesn't sound like you need much help there.

So, what's your system like?  Give us some nuts and bolts for us to poke at!

[Cryostorm]

I really thank you guys for the response, I plan on adressing your questions soon. First off some time over the weekend, I'll whip up a small site at some free server (We will make a "good" site, but not till I have the time to set it up so we can uses it when we release) so I can post some excerpts from our growing core rule documents, and some more indepeath story info, from there, I plan to post to other thread and become more involved. I'll post a link here when I'm done with the site, untill then keep posting any questions here, and be ready to grill the parts of the game as they are released. (The reason for the excerpting is so we can fix problems at a reasonable pace, but trust me they will be self-contained bite-sized articles, so no one gets lost)

Thanks Again

[Harsh Attack]

Quentin Harsh here, I swear the bite-sized mechanics are comming.  My brother Cam just doesn't always move at the same pace as the rest of the world.

Anywho, he told me to join up on this site so I did.  Ummm, I don't have much else to say on that.

QUOZL:
Setting the main game in the machine war would be the most "Exciting" period of time for the world, but not the most open ended.  In the aftermath you can still play a soldier fighting the machine.  The FSF(frontline security force) still carries on combat out at the periphery(between the asteroid belt and jupiter).  But during the war, a soldier would be all that would be worth playing.  In the aftermath, theirs a heavy level of politics going on within the Earth's territory.  Space pirates, police officers, reporters, detectives, government agents, bank agents(it's actually really cool), scientists, weapons manufacturers, industrial spies, all these have their place in the world by the time of our setting.  During the war all human and sprite kind were united in their efforts to destroy the machine, it's a very four-color setting.  Not that you can't play during the war, using the same rules you can easily make that your setting.

Mike:

Yeah, I've played the "alternative" games out there. GURPS, Rifts, Shadowrun, Codex, and others.  And I've had minimal experience in the more underground games, but I am well aware of their existence.  Cam's in the same boat.  But we're not using those systems because really we want to make our own.  We figure the best system for a setting is one invented for the setting.  That way all the rules tailor themselves to the story.

Everyone:

Ok, here's some stuff for all of you to poke around at(the system stuff will be posted on the freeserver, but I gotta give y'all something right?)

In UNION, our character class system is defined by the following:

RACE
FIELD
ALLIANCE

The races include Human, Ul'Kleran(sprites) are the aliens, and Anthros are the decendents of the gene soldiers.

The fields are devided by skillsets that are common amongst the different  careers in exsistence.  The basic fields are:

BLUE COLLAR

OUTLAW

MILITANT

WHITE COLLAR

TECHNOLOGY

PUBLIC

MEDICAL

There are lots of occupations under all these fields which further to narrow down each skillset for your character.

And finally alliance.  These are listed in the book, but most won't make sense in this bite-sized piece.  but some examples:

Frontline Security Force(The military)
Union Financial Control(the bank of the UNION... I swear this is actually cool)
a weapons maker or other corporation
Local police units
A space piracy syndicate
Other cool places to make your living...

Ok, that's all for now if you have any questions that won't take forever to answer, I'll be sure to promptly respond.

[clehrich]

Hi guys.  Without yet having seen the nuts and bolts, I can't comment too extensively.  Just a few points along the way, though.  And before I get going, I want to say that I want to be tough on you, to push you to create a great game; my criticisms should not be taken as, er, Harsh.

1. Why the character class system?  The races (see below) I understand, because they're obviously going to have some fundamental mechanical divergences, but what do you gain from class / profession?  How much crossover is possible, if any?  If I can learn skills by implanting them in my brain, why does it matter what profession I am?

2. As a personal preference, I hope you'll consider using the word "species" in place of "race."  There have been lots of threads about this, and certainly "race" is quite standard in RPG terminology, but to me it's quite annoying because (1) these aren't races, technically, and (2) it means that the universe is founded on the notion that racial differentiation has major mechanical effects, which is just about everywhere else called "racism."

3. I know email is generally very informal, and I don't want to make a lot of assumptions based upon it.  However, I hope you will be extremely careful about "minor" matters like spelling and grammar in the game you put out.  I can't stand reading a product I've spent money on and feeling like I want to have a red pen in hand.

Good luck.  I look forward to reading the nuts 'n' bolts soon.

[Mike Holmes]

Hey Harsh,

Wasn't at all saying that you should even consider using another system. I agree with you that creating a system to fit the setting is probably the best way to go. All I'm saying is that from the sound of it, you were basing your design off of a very limited set of assumptions (D&D + WW). If you're comfortable with your breadth of game knowledge, then great.

Just be aware that there are many here (I amongst them) who reject a lot of traditional design notions as being automatically the right way to design game. As such they will get questioned when you present them (for example, Chris' questions above about the use of Race and Class). This doesn't mean that they're bad ideas, just that we may have alternatives.

Mike

[ethan_greer]

Looks like what you have laid out is more like a collection of skill packages designed to speed up char-gen, rather than a vanilla class-based system.  So, the question is, are there methods of making the skill packages customizable (i.e. an accountant who knows how to play the banjo and practices karate)?  Is that concept feasible in your setting, or are societal roles rigidly enforced?

[Harsh Attack]

Yes ethan, speeding up char-gen, very good deduction.

Yeah, so the reason for the "class" system is to speed up char-gen.  But it's really informal.  There's alot of room for customization.  The "accountant who knows martial arts" is a distinct possibility.  We just don't believe you should be able to make an "accountant who doesn't know accounting".  That doesn't make sense at all.

We'd love an incredibly open ended game with a system that's really non-constraining and awesome for hardXcore gamers to let their imaginations fly.  BUT where would that leave newbies?  It's really hard for someone who has never role-played to get into purist roleplaying.  I personally like games that where there are as few dice throws as possible.  Sometimes I like god-games with no dice at all.  And other times my friends and I will go as far as to play a "communist" game where we don't have a GM, and we just make an amalgam of our own collective imaginations.  That's awesome for people who know how.  But most of us(if not all) did not start out there.  So this game is meant to be a little more inviting to the newbies and the twinks out there, while still maintaining the ability for the hardcore kids to seriously roleplay.

Back to skillsets.  There'll be alot of free points for you to allocate to your character's skills and attributes so you can customize him.  But your profession will give you an inate skillset which goes to making able to fill that profession.  It will also determine your monitary income.  This limits your twinky players who want the doctor's salary but wouldn't care to have medical knowledge, a high academics ratings, some necessary empathy(which would mean their characters can't be killing machines) and other things that go with being in a position where you help people for a career.

Alot of our rules go into channeling our newer players into what we consider the right direction.  Forcing a person to take up their points with skills that will be completely unnecessary in the campeign but which would have to be for their character to be who they are is just one of those steps.

Cam is still working on the freeserver site by the way.

k cya,

[clehrich]

Guys,

While I'm sympathetic to your concerns about newcomers to the RPG hobby, there seems to be good evidence that a relatively freeform game does not turn off such players; on the contrary, it seems a generally positive thing.  They are perhaps most likely to be turned off by a long, detailed, numerical, and constraining rules system.

I'd advise you to design a system that works for the game you want, not to skew or bend it to fit what you imagine X or Y players will or will not like.  The best thing you could do, sales-wise, would be to design a fun game that fits together coherently.

[ethan_greer]

I'm with Clehrich on this one.  That said, I personally don't have any issues with the design goals you seem to have laid out for your game and char-gen in particular.

[Mike Holmes]

Quentin,

What Chris and Ethan are refering to is what's called Points of Contact. These are the procedural things that one has to go through to determine how events in-game are determined.

Freeform Tabletop (actually most often done online) has as few POC as possible. Usually they are relegated to social conventions that state that people should respect each other's narrations, etc. Think of this as a zero POC rating. This sort of system neither helps nor hinders the player in getting to the point where they feel comfortable with producing events. And, actually, as Chris and Ethan point out, most new players can jump right in at this level with no problems.

Other Tabletop RPGs then start to add things that either help or hinder the ability of players to be able to "get" how to create action in the game. Some of these things are included specifically to make play easier. These add to a game's basic "learnability". Some things are added to create detail or add interesting play but are obstacles in terms of understanding what to do in the game. These reduce a game's basic "learnability" (though they may make it more enjoyable when it has been learned). Sometimes we refer to such rules as Arcana.

The point is that, for people who've never played RPGs, Arcana are big obstacles. Thus adding these extra POC is not neccesarily going to make for a game that is easy for newcomers to assimilate.

So the question is, which sort are your rules? Considered in their contexts, does each rule make it easier to get what to do, or do they make it harder? Looking at your chargen, I'd guess that it's probably a wash. While it seems to be designed to make creating a character simpler, it doesn't seem (from what we've seen so far) to have any elements that inform the player what's supposed to happen in the game. Sure, they can make any character they want, but, as you point out, that doesn't particularly give them any idea of where to go with it. As opposed to, say, D&D which informs the player via classes that, in no uncertain terms they should be making a character who is lethal to monsters.

So, I agree with your assessment Quentin, that open-ended chargen is less informative than other versions. OTOH, it's not something that actively detracts from learnability, either. If you want to have a highly accessible game, however, I'd suggest finding other ways to inform players of the direction that they should take. I'd say that your setting actually sounds like it does a good job. It sounds very "grabby" in that I think people looking at it will be able to say, "Ooh, I can play a killer robot!" and that sort of thing. Which gives them an idea right off of what to do.

Ayhow, the question of how accessible to make a game is one of choice. I personally prefer games with more Arcana, for example (I don't mind at all figuring out what to do with a game). But I can understand wanting to make it accessible as well.

For an example of an extremely accessible game, see Clinton's Paladin. First the premise is probably the most grabby you can get (good vs. evil). The game rules instantly tell you exaclty what all the action is going to be about, and propel the character into play. Basically, no arcana (might be some with narration, can't remember); the detail rules only serve to direct action instead.

D&D abd WW are interesting in that half of the rules help accessibility and half hurt it. So it ends up so-so accessible with the biggest problem being just reading through or teaching everything you need to play. Which is somewhat limiting itself. More elegant rules (those that do more with less) are ususally the solution there.

Hope that clarifies.

Mike

[Valamir]

We'd love an incredibly open ended game with a system that's really non-constraining and awesome for hardXcore gamers to let their imaginations fly.  BUT where would that leave newbies?  It's really hard for someone who has never role-played to get into purist roleplaying.  I personally like games that where there are as few dice throws as possible.  Sometimes I like god-games with no dice at all.  And other times my friends and I will go as far as to play a "communist" game where we don't have a GM, and we just make an amalgam of our own collective imaginations.  That's awesome for people who know how.  But most of us(if not all) did not start out there.  So this game is meant to be a little more inviting to the newbies and the twinks out there, while still maintaining the ability for the hardcore kids to seriously roleplay.

Actually, I'd say most definitely the OPPOSITE is true.  Newbies are FAR FAR more likely to pick up the more free form and rules light games.  You (and I and most of us here as well) got our start on the crunchy stuff, but that behavior is very much a learned one.  Its been the "norm" for so long that most existing gamers are used to playing with all the crunch and so taking the crunch away seems "new", and "different", and "dangerous" while the crunch seems "familiar" and therefor "safe".  We then project this onto new players with the HIGHLY INCORRECT assumption that we should stick to what is (to us) "familiar" and "safe" in order to help the new people along.

Newsflash.  What's "familiar" and "safe" to us...is usually "scary", "cumbersome", and "intimidating" to newbies.  The rules are our security blanket (and there's nothing wrong with that)...but if you really have a goal to truly make the game accessable to new players (and by this I mean new players to the hobby not just gamers new to your game), make it as streamlined and INTUITIVE (i.e. minimize exceptions and special cases) as possible.  
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[Harsh Attack]

Wow, this forum kicks ass.

I mean it, Cam and I have been searching for people to bounce ideas off of and get meaningful feedback ever since we started customizing other peoples games which later turned into making our own games.  But despite that we've been left very much to our own dialogue.  This place was an awesome find.