Advice Please (editted)

[archangel_2]

Well, I've been working on a set of game mechanics, off and on, for a few years now. I've shown bits and pieces of them to individual people, but never just posted them. I just sent 'em to a Christian Gaming Mailing List I subscribe to, as well as posting them here. I've edited it, as it seemed to be incredibly long, and jumbled together with questions I had for everyone, so I've changed things a bit. I've posted the mechanics to a website (and thus deleted 'em from this post). Please take a look, and especially PLEASE be brutally honest about them - I prefer that to empty praise or useless "that sucked" comments (though I've found this forum to not do such - the reason I'm posting 'em here!) Okay, here goes...

The website where the mechanics can be found is at: http://www.geocities.com/dan_worthington/Professional/mg-mechanics.html

So...What's everyone think? *crosses fingers*

Daniel

[ This Message was edited by: archangel_2 on 2001-12-26 14:31 ]

[Mike Holmes]

On 2001-12-26 03:37, archangel_2 wrote:
These are not attributes saying how good you are at something, but rather it shows how focused your character is on an area in his/her life.

Hmmm, seems to be a semantic argument at best. Mechanically you have them working very similar to stats in other games, and I'm not seeing too much of a difference. Not too important, anyhow.

Beginning characters start with 3 points to place between the three Foci, distributed any way the player wishes to do so.

Which gives you ten starting possibilities. FWIF.

a good idea (though FAR from an "official rule") would be to have, for every two points spent into a positive ability or skill, one point put into a restriction or limitation.

Why not make that official? What's the downside?

All of these skills and abilities need to be explained in the description of the character.

What does that mean? A sentence, or paragraph written on each? Or just a discussion between the GM and player.

Please note that not every skill or ability is useful with each of the three Foci, but it would be a bad idea for a character not to have any skills or abilities to use as a Focus (otherwise, you'll end up focusing on one, and improve it to the detriment of the other two). Then again, if you want to RP Pinhead the Barbarian, maybe you don't care that mental and spiritual are at zero!

That seems confusing, can you clarify? Are you talking about "advancement"?

Anyway, in this section, I wanted to include some very specific traits (which is part of my misgiving with having the rest so loose - if part of it is loose and part of it is detailed, that'd give an uneven feel to it, wouldn't it?) The game is going to be a Christian Science Fiction game, basically, so I wanted to include various Christian elements. I wanted there to be three different sets of traits for Christians:

-Snip-

As you can see, that gets pretty detailed, and that's one of the areas that I DEFINATELY want to keep, but it seems to fly in the face of the loose system for the other traits...

Seems reasonable to me. Just have three setions on the character sheet. Focus, Christian Traits, Skills/Abilities. Pretty close to Pendragon's Virtues system, actually.

RULES RESOLUTION
When you've added up the Focus, Trait, and Gift for a particular situation to be resolved, now is the time to figure out the difficulty rating and number of successes needed.

Target Number is fairly straight forward. Rate how difficult what they are trying from 2 to 10 (1's would be automatic, so if you're rolling, it has to be higher than that!). That's the target number. 4 is average difficulty, with anything above a 6 being extremely difficult to do. You can reduce the difficulty number by 1 for every additional success required, to a maximum of four times, and never lower than a 2. Any roll of 6 allows an extra die to be added to the roll (potentially another success - or more than one, if you keep rolling 6's), and any 1 rolled subtracts one success.

Why sixes?

The number of successes required is a bit more involved to determine.

Hmmm. This means that with a high enough target 7+ you need to have at least as many dice as the required successes to succeed. Lots of potential preordained failure. Is that intentional? Or are targets above six rare?

In any case, your total dice will never be above (4+3+3) ten, If I read correctly. Given ten dice, lowering the target number by one means one more expected success. Which balances. Any fewer dice (the case for almost every roll) means that the character actually has less of a chance to succeed overall if he lowers the target. Why would any player employ this option (unless he was unaware of the odds and simply makng a tactical mistake)?

Optional Factors each add 2 successes to the total, but are not required to succeed. So if your character takes an Optional Factor and meets the base successes required (plus any Required Factors), but not the total difficulty number (that has the Optional Factor's 2 successes added in), then the character succeeds  (barely) at the task, but not with the benefit of the Optional Factor.

Neat idea. But the addition of needed successes mounts quickly against the necessary dice. For three successes (one base and one optional, say) the character will need to generate six dice at target five to have just better than even odds of succeeding.

OTOH, if you use the opposite rule, increasing your target number by one for an increase in dice, you may have something. In general, this lowers the average expected successes, but it increases the range possible. So, if you absolutely must have four required successes, but only have three dice (and don't want to or can't count on sixes caoming up), you can make the target one higher to get the extra die and have a chance.

Here are a few examples:

-Snip-

Your example makes the tasks seem player defined. Is that intentional?

OPPOSED ACTIONS
Opposed actions work exactly like the general rules, except that the difficulty number is determined by your opponent's dice pool (focus + trait + gifts). You then determine Factors normally.

What does that mean? Difficulty number = Target number? Or required successes? Or just the dice pools?

Next you roll the dice. Whoever's total roll is higher is the one who will determine what happened. It's at this point that the "winning" character will determine how many successes he achieved and see what the results were (and to what degree they were). If the winning character's card value was too low to succeed, then it's a negative result. (So it is possible to be the determiner, but not succeed.)

Card value? What's that? This all needs a lot of clarification.

COMBAT
each character has 4 Wound Points (more or less, depending on advantages and disadvantages taken).

-Snip-

when a person has a point of damage taken, it is the same as rolling a 1 - subtract one success per success of damage taken (to a maximum of 4) to all actions he tries to do afterwards. So a character who has taken 2 wounds, will automatically have 2 successes taken away.

What do additional one-point wounds do? No effect? Otherwise, pretty cool. Wounding is very harsh, but that may be what you were going for.

PUSHING YOURSELF
A character may choose, after the cards are drawn, to push himself to the limit. This means the character trades one point of damage to himself, for one success in whatever he is trying to do. A character may do this only to a maximum of 4 points worth of damage (cumulative with any damage taken already by other means). All normal damage penalties apply, no matter the source of the damage.

Hmmm... Cards again... what's that? But assuming you mean afer a roll, I can see it I suppose. Is this point of damage supposed to simulate exhaustion? Can you do it even on something like the aforementioned lockpicking? How fast do you heal these and other wounds?

Well, there are the basic mechanics I've come up with so far. What's everyone think? *crosses fingers*

Well, not too bad. How does this system link into the Sci-Fi aspect?

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

OK, sure, post corrections while I'm writing comments. :wink:

Anyhow, ignore any of the above that does not make sense with the newly posted material. Quite a bit clearer now.

Mike

[archangel_2]

Thanks for the kind input! I've received a few replies on the mailing list I mentioned, and this has generated a number of good ideas and corrections. I haven't posted them yet, as I plan to sort through what you've mentioned and add to these ideas. Then I'll update the website and mention what's changed. But for now, I'll respond to your post (if nothing else to use it as a sounding board for what I'll want to change, as well as to mention a few of the ideas already decided upon...)

"These are not attributes saying how good you are at something, but rather it shows how focused your character is on an area in his/her life."
Hmmm, seems to be a semantic argument at best. Mechanically you have them working very similar to stats in other games, and I'm not seeing too much of a difference. Not too important, anyhow.

To a certain extent, yes, it is a somantics arguement. What I meant was that the core of this system is not how talented you are at something or how much training/work experience you have at something (those these ARE elements, and not to be ignored!), but rather it is what you are spending your life's time focused on. Are you reading books your entire life and not exercising at all? Well, Physical is going to be lower than Mental, because of your focus. On the other hand, start working out and you'll start getting more of a Physical Focus (though perhaps to the detriment of Mental, as you aren't focused on it near as much as you were...) Does that make any more sense?

"Beginning characters start with 3 points to place between the three Foci, distributed any way the player wishes to do so."
Which gives you ten starting possibilities. FWIF.

FWIF? What's that? Oh, and I realized that there wasn't enough focus on the Foci, so I've upped the maximum (total and individual) Foci score to 6 instead of 4, and increased starting Foci total to 4, split any way the player desires...

"a good idea (though FAR from an "official rule") would be to have, for every two points spent into a positive ability or skill, one point put into a restriction or limitation."
Why not make that official? What's the downside?

Well, it just didn't feel right to me. Chalk it up to my current infatuation with "the Window," but I don't like being tied to points or dice rolls for character generation. However, looking it over, I've decided that it is indeed beneficial for my system, so this is what I was thinking:

Each character, at character creation, may choose one trait at professional (2) and two at amateur (1) rank. Each character also has 3 extra points to be spent however the player desires. More good traits may be gained on a one for one basis, by spending a point into a bad trait for every point spent into a good trait. Please note, this is a general guideline, and if a player comes up with a wonderful character that won't work following these guidelines, the GM is the final authority and may throw out any or all of them.

What do you think?

"All of these skills and abilities need to be explained in the description of the character."
What does that mean? A sentence, or paragraph written on each? Or just a discussion between the GM and player.

Just that I wanted the character's description to include what Traits the character has. If the character took "Doctor" as a Trait, the history of the character should reflect this (perhaps with a mention of having graduated Medical School, or just saying he's a doctor). Nothing fancy, just wanted to have the description match the STATs...

Why sixes?

Well, my target audience for this game is two-fold: I want to reach Christian non-gamers, and Gamers (both Christian and nonChristian). My original idea has been to use cards instead of dice (thus, along with my poor editing skills, the card references. *sheepish grin*), but I decided that would be counter-intuitive to gamers and that d6's were easy enough for both groups to know on an intuitive level, as well as to have a plentiful stock on hand to be able to play.

"The number of successes required is a bit more involved to determine."
Hmmm. This means that with a high enough target 7+ you need to have at least as many dice as the required successes to succeed. Lots of potential preordained failure. Is that intentional? Or are targets above six rare?

It was both intentional, and intended to be "rare." Difficulty Numbers of higher than 6 are intended to give a player pause. "Do I REALLY want to try this? This is darn near impossible!" On the other hand, I don't want it to BE impossible...otherwise, why even include it? I want it to give them pause, possibly dissuade, them, but also be possible and possibly necessary (and thus a moment of major tension, and perhaps a time to "Push Yourself"?)

In any case, your total dice will never be above (4+3+3) ten, If I read correctly. Given ten dice, lowering the target number by one means one more expected success. Which balances. Any fewer dice (the case for almost every roll) means that the character actually has less of a chance to succeed overall if he lowers the target. Why would any player employ this option (unless he was unaware of the odds and simply makng a tactical mistake)?

Um, mostly because the game's creator isn't all that tactical, apparently! lol My main reason for including it was for Difficulty Numbers higher than 6, but I hadn't realized it probably wouldn't be much good elsewhere... However, I HAVE decided to have the reverse possible:

The rule of reducing the Difficulty Number by increases Successes Required is reversable. You can reduce the Successes Required by adding one (1) point (per success reduced) from the Dificulty Number. This can be done a maximum of four (4) points worth, and not to exceed a Difficulty Number of 6 (which would be just plain dumb to do anyway, as 7+ is impossible to roll on a d6). This allows someone with a smaller Dice Pool to do things, though it makes it harder to do.

Having not realized the tactical impact of the regular version, however, I'm curious to see how you interpret this one... Too much power? Or something that was lacking and you're glad to see included?

OTOH, if you use the opposite rule, increasing your target number by one for an increase in dice, you may have something. In general, this lowers the average expected successes, but it increases the range possible. So, if you absolutely must have four required successes, but only have three dice (and don't want to or can't count on sixes caoming up), you can make the target one higher to get the extra die and have a chance.

lol Looks like I mentioned the prior too quickly! Just makes me even more curious how you interpret what I'm intending to do... My way basically gives a free success to the player in exchange for making the others harder. Your way only gave them a chance to succeed (another die to roll) in exchange for the same penalty. Is mine too hard? Or did you just not consider it?

Your example makes the tasks seem player defined. Is that intentional?

My intention was to make a LOT of the task player defined, and a lot of the result GM defined, but for both to muddle in each. I'll try to be clearer on that...

What do additional one-point wounds do? No effect? Otherwise, pretty cool. Wounding is very harsh, but that may be what you were going for.

Um, additional one point wounds don't do anything after the fourth. After having four successes removed, I don't think more of a penalty is necessary! lol

I can see it I suppose. Is this point of damage supposed to simulate exhaustion? Can you do it even on something like the aforementioned lockpicking? How fast do you heal these and other wounds?

The idea of pushing yourself and taking damage from it was about exhausting or brainfrying your character. Imagine working for hour upon hour on even something enjoyable. After a while, you start to get overwhelmed and need a break. Now imagine those times when things aren't going well, and you strive and stuggle at what you're doing. And bit by bit you slowly force it to do what you want it to do, though it takes every effort of your will and energy to do it. That's what I'm talking about by "pushing yourself." You can do that with anything, but it always exacts a toll, and you need to relax and vegetate (or whatever) once you've finished.

But that raises another issue: It shouldn't be handled like normal damage in terms of healing it (and I realize that such is something I haven't gone into or thought about yet either!) My thought would be that to heal this damage (from pushing yourself) requires only a moment or two to catch your breath or relax. Not that hard under ideal circumstances, but certainly not something that's possible in the middle of combat or a chase! Basically, let the "cure" reflect what it was they were doing. Writing a research paper could mean even something physical would be "rest" for such exhaustion!

Well, not too bad. How does this system link into the Sci-Fi aspect?

Unfortunately, I'm not quite ready to post the setting info (not that it's a secret, just that I haven't worked on it enough to be comfortable posting it yet). It's based on my ideas generated from James Hargrove's "Shades of Grey" setting. I'd discussed it with him way back when, and he decided that my direction was different enough that he didn't mind my pursuing it. (His permission was very important to me, since I got the core idea from his idea, even if they splintered in the details and execution of the idea.) Anyway, I realize that doesn't say anything, and I'm sorry. I'll work on the setting more and post it when I get the chance...

Anyway, thanks for the insightful comments, the probing questions, and especially for taking the time to reply at all! Greatly appreciated! :smile:

Daniel

[archangel_2]

Well, I went and got carried away. I've updated the game mechanics with all the ideas gleaned from here and the Christian Gamers Guild (plus a few I came up with while just tinkering on the system). It's at the same website as before:

http://www.geocities.com/dan_worthington/Professional/mg-mechanics.html

Take a look and tell me what ya think! Thanks in advance.

Daniel

[Epoch]

I don't know if you've changed the rules with respect to this, but:

If you're still using a die pool of d6's, with 1's cancelling successes, any target number of 6 or higher gets insanely difficult, no matter how high the die pool.  See, it each die is as likely to roll a 1 as a 6, so your average result remains 0 successes (get as many 1's as 6's) no matter what the die pool is.

If you're counting a "more 1's than successes" situation as a botch, a la Storyteller, botches are always as likely as successes at difficulty 6 (at difficulty 7+, botches are always more likely than successes).

I'd ditch the "1's count as negative successes" rule.  It increases the standard deviation too much, and increases handling time.

If you've already done all that, I apologize for being repetetive.

[archangel_2]

Well, I've altered it from what it was... I was pointed to the way Deadlands does such.

Basically, if you roll more ones than successes, you botch. (Everything you wanted to happen pretty well happens in exact reverse, or some such.) However, if you roll equal or less ones than successes, there is no affect.

One other thing to note: the average difficulty is 4, so there is a lot greater chance, with an average activity, to get a success than to get a one. Also, rolling a 6 allows you to roll an additional die to add to the pool. While this gives yet another chance for a one, the chances of getting a success for a standard action are still far greater than the chance of rolling a one. (This will change with harder tasks, but that only makes sense - the harder it is to accomplish, the greater the chance of botching it up...)

I think it works well, but I'm a bit biased... What's everyone else think?

Daniel

[Mike Holmes]

On 2001-12-27 01:21, archangel_2 wrote:
Thanks for the kind input!

No problemo; I get a kick out of messing with systems.

FWIF? What's that?

A typo. :smile: Shoulda been FWIW, or For What its Worth. Which in this case is not much, really, just a detail.

Each character, at character creation, may choose one trait at professional (2) and two at amateur (1) rank. Each character also has 3 extra points to be spent however the player desires. More good traits may be gained on a one for one basis, by spending a point into a bad trait for every point spent into a good trait.

Sounds pretty good. One thing, though. With your new Foci limits, that means that your focus will be more important in general than your skill in determining the outcome on average. Is this your intent?

You might also consider a hard limit of say three or four on negative traits.

Please note, this is a general guideline, and if a player comes up with a wonderful character that won't work following these guidelines, the GM is the final authority and may throw out any or all of them.

All RPGs are general guidlines that GMs will throw out at will. No need to mention it. I think that your system is open enough to get almost any charcter out of it, and does not need a "break the rules if you feel the need to" clause.

...I decided that would be counter-intuitive to gamers and that d6's were easy enough for both groups to know on an intuitive level, as well as to have a plentiful stock on hand to be able to play.

Oh. Somehow I got the idea that the system used D10s. Hmmm....Here's what confused me...

(potentially another success - or more than one, if you keep rolling 6's)

I thought that by "roll another die" you meant another swing against the target number. But I see the phrase "added to the number". So how do you get more than one success if you are adding the dice together and caomparing versus a target number. Perhaps I'm being dense here and an example would help.

My main reason for including it [target reduction/extra required success] was for Difficulty Numbers higher than 6, but I hadn't realized it probably wouldn't be much good elsewhere...

Given that I didn't understand your die explosion method (and still don't) my comments may have been off. But it still might be problematic in all cases.

You can reduce the Successes Required by adding one (1) point (per success reduced) from the Dificulty Number. This can be done a maximum of four (4) points worth, and not to exceed a Difficulty Number of 6 (which would be just plain dumb to do anyway, as 7+ is impossible to roll on a d6). This allows someone with a smaller Dice Pool to do things, though it makes it harder to do.

Nope. If you have less than six dice a player would always add all he could to the difficulty as he is much mor likely to get successes that way than by rolling. If he has exactly six dice it does not matter either way. If he has more than six dice its a bad idea and you'd only do it if the number of required successes was greater than dice (rare). Or perhaps this could be considered the slow and steady rule.

The other problem is that most tasks could be reduced to zero required successes this way. Anything with less than five required successes, in fact, which is most everything.

Your way only gave them a chance to succeed (another die to roll) in exchange for the same penalty. Is mine too hard? Or did you just not consider it?

Mine accomplishes what you set out to do (make tasks that require more successes than the player has dice possible), but does not have the problems.

Um, additional one point wounds don't do anything after the fourth. After having four successes removed, I don't think more of a penalty is necessary! lol

Right, but it's not unrealistic or anything either. And since it takes an extra rule to say the penalty stops at four, it's just an unnecessary layer of complexity. The player has to remember when to stop accounting. Instead just drop the rule. An advantge of this is that you can make healing proportional to the wound penalties acquired.

But that raises another issue: It shouldn't be handled like normal damage in terms of healing it. My thought would be that to heal this damage (from pushing yourself) requires only a moment or two to catch your breath or relax. Not that hard under ideal circumstances, but certainly not something that's possible in the middle of combat or a chase! Basically, let the "cure" reflect what it was they were doing. Writing a research paper could mean even something physical would be "rest" for such exhaustion!

I kinda agree. It makes sense that exhaustion would be recoverable relatively wwuickly. The problem is that by pushing a character can be made to succeed at nearly impossible tasks automatically. And the only thing holding him back is the recovery time. Too easy. But I like the concept in general.

Howsabout instead of automatic successes, you get extra dice? That makes it a gamble. And BTW, these exhaution points should cause penalties, but shouldn't count as part of the four wounds needed to kill. Or perhaps something like one "real" damage per four exhaustion, so players can run themselves into the ground (after pushing a little you'll need to push more just to overcome the pushing penalties). That would simulate long term weariness well, and limit use of pushing. Keep track of the two (wounds and exhaustion) separately for recovery and death purposes.

Might I suggest faithfulness as a bonus to the exhaustion recovery die roll?


I just read the new section on opposed actions, and I still don't get it. What is the target number (for calculating the number of successes)? By Factors, do you mean required and optional successes? The term seems undefined elsewhere.

Fate points seem kinda generic. Might I suggest Faith points instead, or somthing to drive the religious nature of the game. Reward these for adressing moral themes or something. Otherwise they can work the same mechanically and represent the Spirit of the Deity propelling the character on towards victory. Actually. these would make more sense as your "automatic success" mechanic.

"God does not play dice with the universe." - Albert Einstein


Foci advancement: Are we to assume that the numbers on each focus just shift to reflect their use and that the total remains the same? Or do particular ones improve? If the latter you will find folks maxing out quick. If the former, then how does one get a six in a focus if the total can be only four?


That's all I have at the momnent. :wink:

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

On 2001-12-27 14:06, archangel_2 wrote:
Well, I've altered it from what it was... I was pointed to the way Deadlands does such.

Which works fine. Greater number of dice make the task less likely to botch except in cases where the target number is six or more.

Mike

[archangel_2]

With your new Foci limits, that means that your focus will be more important in general than your skill in determining the outcome on average. Is this your intent?

Yup, it was indeed my intention to have Foci play a more important role than the Traits themselves. On the other hand, the higher you go in one Foci means the worse you are in another (anything beyond 2 will result in the loss of something else, after all). So I expect that the average Trait will be a 2, and the average Foci will be a 2. There will be Foci that are higher (even though this would result in another area not doing as well), but there is also the potential for a 3 in Traits as well...

You might also consider a hard limit of say three or four on negative traits.

Whoops! Yup, the upper limit for both good and bad Traits is 3. Hadn't meant to imply there wasn't a limit to bad Traits, too!

All RPGs are general guidlines that GMs will throw out at will. No need to mention it. I think that your system is open enough to get almost any charcter out of it, and does not need a "break the rules if you feel the need to" clause.

lol Well, it was at least needed for the intermediate stage. My initial design was to have a system here akin to the Window, where there are no rules regarding how many points can be spent into what kinds of Traits. I realized this was not an ideal for my system, but still liked the freeform idea, so I added that clause. As you say, though, it really doesn't need it...

"(potentially another success - or more than one, if you keep rolling 6's)"

I thought that by "roll another die" you meant another swing against the target number. But I see the phrase "added to the number". So how do you get more than one success if you are adding the dice together and caomparing versus a target number. Perhaps I'm being dense here and an example would help.

Um, actually I meant exactly that. You don't add the numbers together, you are given another swing against the Difficulty Number. What I meant was that if you roll a 6, you get another die to try to roll against the Difficulty Number. If you roll another 6 with that die, then you both succeed and get ANOTHER die to roll against the Difficulty Number. There are no limits to the number of 6's you are allowed to keep continuing with, if you keep rolling 6's...

The other problem is that most tasks could be reduced to zero required successes this way. Anything with less than five required successes, in fact, which is most everything.

Whoops! Yeah, I'd always intended for there to be a minimum Successes Required of one. No reducing it to zero successes! I'll add that...

Mine accomplishes what you set out to do (make tasks that require more successes than the player has dice possible), but does not have the problems.

The main problem with that, though, is that I'm REALLY trying to keep the number of d6's to be rolled in a single roll to a minimum. My original idea had been for 10 to be the upper maximum, and I've already broken that with increasing the Foci max to 6. Your way would add even more dice to the original roll...

Right, but it's not unrealistic or anything either. And since it takes an extra rule to say the penalty stops at four, it's just an unnecessary layer of complexity. The player has to remember when to stop accounting. Instead just drop the rule. An advantge of this is that you can make healing proportional to the wound penalties acquired.

Yeah, but here's another area I feel a need to keep. There would be accounting either way. My way, you have to remember to stop with 4. Your way, you have to keep adding on more as you get more and more injuries. In my mind, this would cause more and more accounting with each successive wounding. My way, you have to do the accounting till 4, remember to stop at 4, and that's it. Should remain pretty constant from there...

I kinda agree. It makes sense that exhaustion would be recoverable relatively wwuickly. The problem is that by pushing a character can be made to succeed at nearly impossible tasks automatically. And the only thing holding him back is the recovery time. Too easy. But I like the concept in general.

lol Forgive me if I find this humorous, but I'd been hearing the reverse on the mailing list. The idea there was that "who would ever want to push themselves? It's too much of a detriment for too little gain!" It can indeed allow you to do something impossible. Once. Then you have to reap the penalty till you can rest. (This could be easy in some cases, but in others would be an EXTREMELY major penalty...)

Howsabout instead of automatic successes, you get extra dice? That makes it a gamble. And BTW, these exhaution points should cause penalties, but shouldn't count as part of the four wounds needed to kill. Or perhaps something like one "real" damage per four exhaustion, so players can run themselves into the ground (after pushing a little you'll need to push more just to overcome the pushing penalties). That would simulate long term weariness well, and limit use of pushing. Keep track of the two (wounds and exhaustion) separately for recovery and death purposes.

That's more accounting, though, and I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible. It could easily spin too far out of control to become unwieldy and I'm trying to avoid that. I do like the idea of making it more of a gamble, so what I'm going to do is have the player have to choose to push his character BEFORE the dice are rolled. It will give more of a chance to success, but there is still a question mark out there. (And to make sure of it, I'll include a rule that at least one Required Success has to be a die roll one. So you can't reduce the Successes Required to the amount you plan on pushing yourself for, thus automatically succeeding...)

Might I suggest faithfulness as a bonus to the exhaustion recovery die roll?

I can definately see this as playing a part, though there is no roll required to recover. My idea with the Fruits of the Spirit is to have players forced to think about where they could apply. If they can come up with something that sounds plausible, I'd give it to 'em. (The Sniper wants to add Patience to his first attack roll, cause he'll "have to wait for just the right time and not get anxious about taking the shot, and thus shoot too early." Works for me! He get's Patience added to his first attack roll. Of course, since this is a Fruit of the Spirit, and thus a Gift from God, better hope that's something God would approve of - otherwise, there could be consequences!)

I just read the new section on opposed actions, and I still don't get it. What is the target number (for calculating the number of successes)? By Factors, do you mean required and optional successes? The term seems undefined elsewhere.

The Difficulty Number is whatever your opponent is using. The thief trying to hide from the security guard is rolling against the guard's mental focus + observation trait. That number is the Difficulty Number for the thief. The guard is rolling against the thief's physical focus + hide trait. That's his difficulty number.

Yeah, by Factors I'd been referring to the Required and Optional Factors described in the standard rules resolution. Sorry for the confusion... The idea is that multiple things can be happening in the same opposed dice pool roll. For instance, in combat, you'll probably have two opponents using both offense and defense factors. You have two things going on here, as both are trying to hit their opponent, as well as not get hit themselves. You go by what successes have been added to what Factor and compare that with the opponent's successes in his reciprocal Factor. (Offense of A vs. Defense of B, and Defense of A vs. Offense of B).

Fate points seem kinda generic. Might I suggest Faith points instead, or somthing to drive the religious nature of the game. Reward these for adressing moral themes or something. Otherwise they can work the same mechanically and represent the Spirit of the Deity propelling the character on towards victory. Actually. these would make more sense as your "automatic success" mechanic.

Good point. I don't want to use Faith, as there are already three Gifts from God with Faith in them (Faithfulness, Faith, and the Shielf of Faith). However, Fate is not a good idea, either, given the feel of the game. I'll have to think more on exactly what to call it... Thanks.

"God does not play dice with the universe." - Albert Einstein

Good quote! I'll have to use that in the final product...

Foci advancement: Are we to assume that the numbers on each focus just shift to reflect their use and that the total remains the same? Or do particular ones improve? If the latter you will find folks maxing out quick. If the former, then how does one get a six in a focus if the total can be only four?

The Foci total for starting characters is 4. This total can fluctuate between 1 and 6. If you have 6 total, and something improves, then yes, another Foci will have to be reduced. Btw, you won't always have a choice what Foci you use in a game are. There was a Prophet in the Old Testiment who God told to lie on his side for a year. Kinda puts a damper in using the ole physical foci! He would quickly have been reduce to a zero in that Foci. However, once he was up and moving again, he could quickly regain that...

Well, I disagreed with a few of your suggestions, but I hope this won't stop you from giving more! I've been most impressed with what I've seen thus far, and would love to continue this. You've done me an immeasureable service with what you've said, and I do value it. :smile:

Daniel

[archangel_2]

Once again, I've updated the site. It was getting a bit long, though, so I broke it up into several pages, and in doing so, moved where it's located. It can now be found at:

http://www.geocities.com/dan_worthington/Professional/MG/mech.html

Btw, would it be better/easier for everyone if I mentioned in posts like this WHAT I've changed? Or is it better to just direct you to the site? (I can see benefits and problems with doing both, and was wondering which was preferable...)

Daniel

[Laurel]

Posting them here wouldn't hurt.   Here are my thoughts that ~could~ have been covered before by someone else as I skimmed through.  Its less about precision than scope.

1.The Three Foci
Explain why you think characters having a developmental focus is important.  I'd be interested in seeing how you divided traits between mental and spiritual.  How would a trait like "charisma" fit into those three foci?  I can think of lots of people IRL who have a "social" focus (actors, models) and what about artists and writers?  Intellectual?  What if they write for the Man Show?  :smile:

I guess what I'm asking for is something that explains how choosing a foci is relevant to concept, as opposed to point distribution.

2. More detail in "bad traits"- I'd love to see examples, and how they interrelate with Foci and (most especially) who has the power to 'invoke' bad traits- the player or the GM.  I definately like the term "thorn" over "bad trait" in usage.  The imagery that thorns invoke is good.

3. Since this is a Christian-oriented game, I'd be interested in seeing more detail on how morality affects character skill.  I think you've got a good start with the "gifts" and "thorns", but what happens to characters that use their 'gifts' in immoral ways or fall to vice?   Should the GM award thorns to players who misuse their gifts?  

I'll leave it at that for now.  

Laurel
External Developer for Skotos Tech
Creator of Devils Cay



[ This Message was edited by: Laurel on 2001-12-28 17:00 ]

[archangel_2]

1.The Three Foci
Explain why you think characters having a developmental focus is important.

I guess what I'm asking for is something that explains how choosing a foci is relevant to concept, as opposed to point distribution.

The idea behind the Foci is to make players pay attention and realize that there are consequences to the actions of their characters. This should be presented in terms of the game world as well, but I feel that this strikes home a personal impact. "You fought this entire game session? That's cool. Lower Mental and Spiritual and increase Physical Focus." Suddenly, players are seeing the impact of what they've done (or not done). And at the same time, it's not irreversable. Next game session, work more on the mental and spiritual than physical to reverse the affects. Also, not always will they have a choice. The prophet Ezekiel was told by God to lie on his side for a YEAR. Doesn't allow much for focusing on the Physical, does it?

I'd be interested in seeing how you divided traits between mental and spiritual. How would a trait like "charisma" fit into those three foci? I can think of lots of people IRL who have a "social" focus (actors, models) and what about artists and writers? Intellectual? What if they write for the Man Show? :smile:

Good question. My original idea had been to shove "emotional" in with "spiritual," but I can see the error in doing so. My answer now? Well, not to sound like I'm avoiding the question, but it depends. Soldier was possible to affect all three of the Foci, and I feel that Charisma could very well do the same. The idea behind the Foci is all about perspective. My idea would be to have the player decide what each individual situation calls for (with the GM vetoing any obvious falicies).

Then again, perhaps what the intention of the Charisma could be the determining factor? (If the character wishes to entreat a group of men to take up the sword and fight for the defense of a town, it would be Physical, for example.)

All this was to say that I have not given the subject near the amount of thought it deserves, and will certain do so. Any suggestions are graciously accepted. :smile:

2. More detail in "bad traits"- I'd love to see examples, and how they interrelate with Foci and (most especially) who has the power to 'invoke' bad traits- the player or the GM. I definately like the term "thorn" over "bad trait" in usage. The imagery that thorns invoke is good.

That's true, and the Thorns pretty much function the same as bad Traits anyway. Perhaps the answer is to do away with bad Traits and just use Thorns instead.

As for who decides - the player or the GM - I'd say the GM. A player may wish to invoke it, and is free to do so, but the GM IS given the authority to do so.

Below are a few examples. (The number in parenthesis is how much I would think each one should count for...)
Physical - Nearsighted (1-2), Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (1), Bum Knee (2), Paralyzed (2-3), Missing Limb (2), Speech Impediment (1), etc.
Mental - Brain Damage (1-3), Attention Deficit Disorder (1), Dyslexia (1), Inability to Take Tests (1), etc.
Spiritual - Impatience (1-3), Hate/Rage (1-3), Chink in the Armor of God (1-3), etc.

Does that help any?

3. Since this is a Christian-oriented game, I'd be interested in seeing more detail on how morality affects character skill. I think you've got a good start with the "gifts" and "thorns", but what happens to characters that use their 'gifts' in immoral ways or fall to vice? Should the GM award thorns to players who misuse their gifts?

I'd say to be creative (the GM should be, I mean). When Moses misused his Gift (he worked a miracle - bringing water from a rock - he claimed it was his doing and not God's), God's punishment was that he was not to enter the Promised Land. When Peter denied knowing Christ three times in a row, Jesus (after His resurrection) gave him the directive to "feed My sheep" three times. Yet other times, as with Jonah attempting to escape the job God told him to do, he's merely brought back on course and given a second chance.

I'll cover this more when I write the section on Gifts from God. (You didn't think that's all I had to say on the subject, did you? That's just how it applies to the Character!) :smile: Actually, since there's some interest in this, I think I'll attempt to work on that tonight. I'll let'cha know when I've completed it and where it can be found...

Thanks for the thought provoking questions and the wonderful suggestions! I appreciate it greatly.

Daniel

[archangel_2]

Well, it turns out that I didn't have time for the Gifts page I planned on working on. Instead, I streamlined the basic rules portion to make it easier and quicker. (I made the difficulty number static, and changed how Factors and Successes Required work.) I also updated the Character Framework section to reflect Thorns as it's own area in the Framework.

Anyway, the website hasn't changed ( http://www.geocities.com/dan_worthington/Professional/MG/mech.html ), so feel free to go take a look and tell me what you think!

(And sorry about not getting to Gifts from God - I've only got 7 hours till I need to be AT work, and I'd like to get SOME sleep! I'll try to work on it tomorrow evening.) :smile:

Daniel

[archangel_2]

Well, I solved Healing and Fate Points to my satisfaction (aside from a better name for Fate Points). Course, I just finished it, so I haven't given it a chance to settle in my mind yet... And I still need to work on the Character Advancement page and create a Gifts from God page. Once I've finished all that, I'll get to work on the Setting info. Thanks again to everyone who's given such great advice.

Daniel