The Miscreant Engine

[F. Scott Banks]

First off shoka, welcome to the forge.

It's good to see a little more "where can I pitch in?".  Not to say that there haven't been offers (don't want to alienate the few people willing to put their backs into this thing) but most responses have bordered on "wait and see" and the occasional "it'll never happen".  So anyone interested enough in this project to ask is definately welcome.

I've mentioned before that, as long as it's just me doing the work, I'll do what can be done when it can be done.  Most of the work thus far has been refining the RPG.  A lot of the standard mechanics of RPG's have had to be tossed aside to further many of my original design theories.  Defining objects they way I do, for example, demands a completely different type of crafting.  On paper, this is shaping up to be a very different RPG.  In play though, it usually works the way I want it to.

Something that makes me a little uncomfortable is the lack of a definitive stance from the GNS perspective.  As far as the computer GM is concerned, it's a simulation where accuracy reigns supreme.  For the players, however, it can be approached from any perspective, simulation, game, or narrative.  A gamer could view it as an ongoing game where the goal is to create a prosperous family name, or to create increasingly powerful characters.  A simulationist could probably lose themselves in the crafting, politics, religion, warfare, or economics.  A narrativist gets to write their own legacy through their bloodline.  

Perhaps it comes from never having read the GNS articles before I started designing this, but one of my goals in making this was to prove that certain "types" of gamers could play together if the game was designed well enough.  I told people who would whine about "powergaming" that any game that rewards combat and power was going to have players who played that way.  In fact, those players were "roleplaying" since those are the "roles" that the game encourages be played.  This is a common complaint in MMORPG's and I said it was the game's fault, not the players.  Someone suggested I prove my point and here we are.  Besides, my old gaming group wanted me to come up with a way we could play together regardless of distance.  Seemed like a way to kill two birds with one stone.

However, when applied to a MMORPG, I could use the strengths of the medium instead of beating my head against it's weaknesses.  With a computer handling the rolls, there was no reason I couldn't make any game I wanted that played any way I wanted it to.  Designing it has been rough considering I have to not only make a MMORPG program that works in a way that no other one does, but I also have to make a RPG that would be a blasphemy to any purist.

So yeah, it's safe to say that we've got a lot on our hands.

If there are enough interested parties, we can design the game right here.  This is a massive project and I have no problem sharing the effort or credit.  Since it seems, from the above post and several PMs, that there are those interested in creating this.  I'll make this thread a development thread and any work done on ADA and Miscreant will be posted right here.  Originally, I just started this thread for a little advice and some guidance but since there have been so many people willing to help, I'll go ahead and "open source" it right here.

So throw your ideas out there.  I'll be cramming everything I have on ADA into several threads.

[shoka]

First off shoka, welcome to the forge.

Thanks. :)

Someone suggested I prove my point and here we are.  Besides, my old gaming group wanted me to come up with a way we could play together regardless of distance.  Seemed like a way to kill two birds with one stone.

Quite amusing actually, but my primary motivation was to create software that would bring _my_ old gaming group back together, and secondarily to see whether I would be capable to pull this one off..

If there are enough interested parties, we can design the game right here.  This is a massive project and I have no problem sharing the effort or credit.  Since it seems, from the above post and several PMs, that there are those interested in creating this.  I'll make this thread a development thread and any work done on ADA and Miscreant will be posted right here.  Originally, I just started this thread for a little advice and some guidance but since there have been so many people willing to help, I'll go ahead and "open source" it right here.

So throw your ideas out there.

Sounds good - I've been working with a couple of friends on this, and we've produced quite a lot of brainstorming logs and preliminary drafts. I could browse through and summarize them here, though it will take a bit of time as I also have to translate everything from finnish..

I'll be cramming everything I have on ADA into several threads.

Ok, I suppose we can get quite far here and, if/when it gets too obscure as the thread count increases, we can move to a separate forum (if that is possible here, otherwise I'll clone one of our developer boards for this project).

Hmm, it's exactly 5AM local time now, maybe some browsing through old design records would be in place.. x)

[F. Scott Banks]

Arrighty then.

I think that the core component of any RPG is story.  If at any time, the players look up and wonder "why am I doing this?", then someone needs to take a long, hard look at the story.  Story provides motivation, it puts the meat on the table.  There are probably those who do, but I don't know many people who jump into a game eager to see how the dice work.

Actually, I know one.  But he's a playtester and I consider that to be a desirable trait in that case.

So you want to create a world that drips with story.  Five minutes in, you want your players to go off script and start adding to the story you've begun.  You watch Star Wars or you read Lord of the Rings and you see people eager to be "just like this or that character".  This is a key component of Role-Playing that takes it's roots from storytelling.  This is where I base my assertion that story is key.  Maybe it's because they're the only ones with the skill to do it, but I've noticed a lot of game designers put absolutely no thought into the "story" of their RPG's or MMORPG's.  They make a great game engine, say "Just add elves" and decalre it a masterpiece.

From a design perspective, I've noticed story makes creating the game a lot easier.  When you're looking for "cool stuff" to put into a game, the story will usually provide lots of fodder.  The hit game Knights of the Old Republic took a single theme from the Star Wars movies and turned it into a vibrant game.  The theme was:

There used to be more Jedi.

And they made an entire game from that.  They added to it, and expanded on it, but the game is pretty much built on that one premise.  Someone said, "Wouldn't it be cool to have been a Jedi back when the order was strong?" and everything just falls together from there.

So, for a few posts, I'll be talking story.  Focusing less on die rolls and conversion formulas and more on the thing that will hopefully make this game interesting enough to play.  To get everything started, I'll summarize the game's "theme".  This way, the story will make more sense.

Advent of the Dying Age is based on a series of novels I'm writing called Heralds of the Dying Age.  The books are something of a coming-of-age for the genre as a whole.  Throughout the series, we see a stereotypical type of "perfect" fantasy world (all crystal castles and enchanted forests) slowly corrupt into a darker, more mature fantasy world.  If I were a psychologist, I'd compare the story to myself.  I started writing about purple dragons and faries when I was very little because it's the only thing a six year-old can write without an adult telling them they got it wrong.  As I got older, that "fairy tale" fantasy lost some of it's gloss as I lost my own bright-eyed innocnece and my stories became a lot darker.  

If you're wondering what the "theme" is, then that's it.  I'd say dark fantasy, but I should define my interpretation of "dark fantasy".  It's unsettlingly realistic at times, but it's not thick with muted colors and despair.  I've noticed that a lot of dark fantasy has this "goth" feel to it.  Mine isn't like that, I just add reality to my fantasy until I get the right level of disturbing.  

I'll put fairies in my stories.  I'll give them their own culture, their own language, their own religion and their own caleandar.  And then I'll have another race use them as lightbulbs.

Yeah, this ain't Narnia baby.

[shoka]

They make a great game engine, say "Just add elves" and decalre it a masterpiece.

I think I do have bit of that flaw too - tendency to think that everything will be fine when the engine works. But we *do* need an excellent story or we'll be playing this with each other. I've been translating old notes for couple of nights and managed to write a draft (readers should keep in mind that those truly are reuslts from brainstorming and I haven't even thought about how possible they are to implement.)

<edit>
And I DO like that theme. :)
</edit>

*All* comments on it are appreciated. :)

[F. Scott Banks]

Well, I suppose it's a good time to go ahead and suggest that we all team up and make this thing together.  You've got a lot of good programming ideas in your rant there.  All we need now is someone who can make sprites sing and dance and we're good.

Until then, toss out your ideas.  If you throw out something implausible, believe me, you'll find out very quickly.

[Palaskar]

WyldKarde wrote:

Yeah, this ain't Narnia baby.

I would like to protest the conception of Narnia as a '"fairy tale." Actually, when we started to discuss it in my Philosophy of Religion class, I found out that Narnia is really a veiled (and at times, thinly veiled) metaphorical, or "wonder story" about Christianity.

Take the death and rebirth of Aslan in the first book. Aslan wins not because he's the "good guy," but because good is intrinsically superior to evil, a basic Christian tenet.

This is a subtle but important point. To put it another way, might does not make right (as in many Superman stories), but right makes might.

This moves on to my second point -- disturbing does not necessarily equal realistic. Disturbing equals disturbing. Growing up, you naturally grew out of your "innocent" stage, and moved on to something more cynical. What I would like to remind you is that your "cynical" stage will probably end too,  and you'll move on to something else, which will feel more "realistic" to you. And so on, and so on.

For example, IMHO, we start "innocent" as kids, get "cynical" as teens, get "practical" as young adults (concentrating on work, romance and family), have a "mid-life crisis" as middle-aged people (wondering if we could have lived life differently), and finally "accept" things as seniors (passing on the torch to younger generations, and having no regrets.)

For example, my best friend used to say, "No worries." However, "no worries," doesn't come from innocence -- it comes from wisdom, the wisdom of faith, the faith that things really do turn out for the best in the end.

This brings me to my third and final point: hope. Hope is, IMHO, the hallmark of a fully developed Dark Fantasy world. A great example is the  "Andromeda" TV seies episode, "The Dissonant Interval." Basically speaking, everyone dies (ok, everyone but the lead character.) But, the good guys win in the end. Hope is wisdom. Hope is faith.

And without hope, any setting will ultimately be rejected. Look at Kult for an example.

[F. Scott Banks]

Ohhh...I love talking story.

Yeah, Narnia isn't really a fairy tale.  Actually, the only innocent and doe-eyed fairy tales are the ones disney puts out.  Fairy Tales...if you're talking the Brothers Grimm, are anything but innocent.  Aschenputel, the original version of Cinderella, is downright horrifying.  If you want dark fantasy...fairy tales are actually where you should be looking.

I also know about Narnia's parallels between christianity.  Wrote a paper on it too.  Also, Narnia could be a pretty dark place at times.  The death of Aslan on the stone table is a reinactment of the crucifixion that would fall under your "thinly veiled" category.  

Then again, the bible is pretty dark at times too so it's not surprising that a book based on it's teachings has some genuinely disturbing moments.

I probably should note that I'm not shooting for "disturbing for the sake of being disturbing".  I do at times in other projects.  For example, Outatowners is an RPG filled with stupid, wailing horrors that exist for no reason than to make your skin crawl.  The very purpose of many of them is to force the reader to ask themselves "What merciful god would allow this to exist?"  The shreiking malformed ghosts of aborted fetuses...now that's disturbing.

Faries being used as lightbulbs...that's realistic.  It might be seen as disturbing to some people.  It might be funny to others.  I perhaps could have said "gritty" fantasy (though I like that term about as much as I do X-treme) but dark seems to fit in my experience.  For example, the casual fantasy racism seen in the classic Elves vs. Dwarves conflict goes somewhere that few people are comfortable seeing it go.  Having a dwarven youth lynched by an elven mob for his relationship with an elf girl hits notes at the low end of the fret for a lot of people.  Me included.

I think that particular scene better portrays my version of "dark" fantasy and setting a "disturbing" tone.  Again, there are those for whom the above scene might not be disturbing (and I weep for them), but it's there because it's something that could happen and in my story, it does.  I consider my story disturbing and dark because much like the Chronicles of Narnia, I draw paralells (often thinly veiled) between my own work and something else.

Well...since I consider storytelling to be an important part of game design I'll keep going.  Besides, the story in question is the one having a game made out of it so I suppose it's fair game.

As for that "something worth fighting for", it's different for different characters.  Playing as an orc, freed from human and elven enslavement, you might want to erode human society so that it finally acknowledges your race as equal.  Playing as a human, you're not eager to share your society with a race that eats their dead, and occasionally their young.

Not everyone's "bright and shining horizon" is bright and shining.  

Now, I'n not writing this to say "That way is wrong, whis way is better!"  I'm writing the novels to reflect something I hadn't seen in fantasy that I wanted to see.  Nothing wrong with "Fairy Tales", but I want my heroes to bleed (moreso than my villians usually).  The same way that when I write vampire stories, there's precious little sonnet writing and visits to the opera.  There's also very little romance in their embrace.

My vampires are messy eaters.

But, my love of conflict (to the point where good doesn't so much triumph over evil as it survives it) hasn't made me forget one of the key points of storytelling.  Each of my stories has hope as the driving force.  Writing horror (elves are where I fell in love, but ghosts are where I earned my chops), you learn how to dangle hope in front of the reader like a carrot.  Otherwise, they close the book (or in this case, get up from the table) and say "Oh well, they're fucked.  What's for dinner?"

I will admit to abusing my readers (but when it's horror, that's what you sign on for) with hope.  In horror, you light a candle in the middle of a dark room and as soon as your character gets to it, bumping into things and scraping their shins along the way, you blow it out.  In fantasy, you reveal that the light was actually coming from a knothole in a door that leads to freedom.

But that's just me defining my writing style.  I'm not saying that everyone should do it my way, just making clear how I do it.

[F. Scott Banks]

I should probably note that when we're talking story, were' talking about the book, not actual gameplay.  As far as the game is concerned, this is all game lore.  Things that happened, not things that happen.  The book sets a tone, not a precedent.  The game is not about dwarf-lynching, but it is set against a backdrop where that has happened.

The game focuses mainly on building the type of gameworld you'd like to see.  Maybe you want orcs in the swamp and elves in the trees and dwarves in the mountains where history tells you they all belong.

Maybe the orcs, elves, and dwarves have other ideas.

[Palaskar]

Ah, we seem to have a little disagreement of terms here. By "fairy tale" I mean the modern version, which is essentially a morality play.

As for "realistic" you seem to mean not "disturbing," but "comprehensive." Fairies aren't used as lightbulbs and dwarves don't get lynched because it's disturbing, but because, in real life, people do get used/lynched/etc.

(BTW, my setting, "The Fifth Hour" also has ghosts of aborted fetuses, called "Cherubim." Go figure.)

As for "something worth fighting for," I never thought of it that way....veeery interesting. A pluralistic take on hope is something I never considered, and something I should think about in my own setting.

As for your metaphor of fantasy as light from a door...never thought of it that way either. Do you mean it in a metaphysical way (literally, enlightenment,) a plot way (what I would call "hope,") some combination of both, or something else entirely?

[F. Scott Banks]

Ahhh...semantics.  

I'm not sure about comparing the fairy tale to the morality play, though I see the comparison.  Again my own approach to "morality play" might be skewed by my knowledge of theatre history.  As for my use of the word "Fairy Tale"...I guess my interpretation might be entirely personal.  I'm talking about tinkerbell, my little pony, and the version of the three little pigs where the big bad wolf doesn't get sealed in a brass kettle and rolled down a hill into a blazing fire where he's roasted alive and the surviving pig eats him.

Yeah...I can see why Disney edited that part out.

With regards to hope.  Yes, I definately consider that to be an important part of storytelling.  I don't know where the essence of stroytelling fits in the GNS model (narration I guess), but I consider it to be a vital part of the games I make so my take is slanted heavily towards storytelling.

I imagine it's different if you roleplay to "win" (gamist), or to feel the thrill of accurate military strategy (simulationist), but I play to tell a story.  If the setting isn't interesting, then why should I care about my character?  If I can't relate to what's going on in the gameplay, how am I going to get into the game?  As writers, we have to ask ourselves this question.  Your story should be powerful and difficult to put down.  If it's easy to put down, it'll be hard to pick up again.

The way I do that is hope.  You can use other emotions, and I have.  But hope has teeth.  If someone is sad and you don't allow them to resolve that sadness, they remain sad.  The same goes for hatred, hunger, fear and most of the other emotions.  With hope, it explodes into other emotions if not resolved.  

The way Ravien spoke about players defending their young is the best example.  If you attack my character, then I'll fight back.  If you attack my child, I'll hunt you to the ends of the earth and end you.  Other players might cry foul at having their children murdered, hindering their future character development.  I would latch on to something like that.  Now I have a reason to play...I'm going to pay you back for what you did.

Gameplay mimics the story...take away hope, and you have a snarling, rabid entity on your hands.  This is where my philosophy overrides my creation because that is good storytelling in my eyes.  I want to know how this ends.  At that point, I have little to no interest in mechanics, die rolls, winning or losing...gameplay becomes story and I'm hungry for how this is going to resolve.  

From the perspective of the game I'm designing, it might be somewhat outside the box.  Players play for the entertainment of others as well as their own.  Players are a small part of a larger drama.  If there are people who log in just to find out what other players have been up to, then I'll consider the game a success.  That is because my type of roleplaying is narrativist...story above all.  

This might not be the technical definition of narrativist, but from what I can tell, the definition of these terms seems to be under constant debate.  So, I just take from these theories what is most usefull to me and what speaks to my design goals.  For me, narrativist roleplaying is more "telling a story" than playing a game.  Simulationist is more "getting it right" than playing a game.  Gamist is more "quiet introspection" than playing a game.

Just kidding...it should be obvious how I view gamism.

I just wanted to make the parallels between how I write and how I design so that it didn't seem as if my views on storytelling were off-topic with regards to game design.  My writing style is very much a part of my design style and so I put it out for anylysis right alongside my dice system and character development.

I suppose my use of realism in this case is more "comprehension".  I explore all possible resolutions in storytelling.  The "darkness" comes in how this reflects on the audience I suppose.  When elves go from wise, peacefull, and disneyesque to become vicious eco-terrorists (causing earthquakes and tornadoes to destroy their enemies), then I want the readers to feel slightly uncomfortable.  I want the reader to go..."I agree with the descisions with this character made...but I don't like the consequences."

I hate to go back to horror, but that's something I learned writing about spooks.  When you watch the sorrorrity girl hide under her bed instead of getting the hell out of the house, you laugh when the axe murderer stabs her through the mattress.

"Stupid bitch...that's what she gets!"

But when that same character heads for the front door, makes a beeline to her car, heads for the nearest freeway, and then gets stabbed through the back of her car seat by the murderer hiding in the back seat, your reaction is different.  

"Hey...that's what I would have done."

It's an animal instinct and you have to hide it from the audience (although not very hard), but they will relate to what you give them.  Actually, although I use hope, I silently know I don't have to.  The audience will relate to the killer if they can't relate to the victim.  I humanize my main characters with hope because in a RPG, players should relate to their characters more than other peoples.

Don't beleive me...watch a buddy play a video game you're bad at.  As they go beyond what you're capable of doing, you'll find yourself starting to root for the bad guy.  Most people don't notice it, because as the other person starts to struggle, eventually failing, the spectators attitude will shift again, sympathizing with the familiar sight of watching that health bar whittle down to nothing.

Yeah...I guess my use of hope is just how I hook my audience...get them caring.  But there are lots of ways to get them involved.  Outatowners...a different game...hooks them in a different way.  It appeals to that part of you that slows down to watch a car accident.  

You don't do it to make sure that everyone's okay.  Go ahead and tell yourself that...I'm not judging.  You know what you want to see and it's not little suzy happy and smiling in mommy's arms.  You're looking for bright yellow sheets spread over ruined human remains.  You're looking for a weeping relative on a cell phone with the next of kin.  You're looking for paramedics moving without purpose because nothing can be done.

And when you drive away, you'll smile because it's not you.

But...that's my horror mindset.  I dig for the worst in human nature and I don't have to dig deep or long before I find it.  When I'm writing fantasy...despite my dark and brooding nature, I'm trying to rekindle that childhood hope that even though there's a monster in the closet, saying the lord's prayer will defeat it.

As far as my light metaphor...I never really thought of it like that before.  My mind simplifies complex ideas for me.  When I think hope...I automatically think "light in the darkness".  It's actually so cliche' that it's greeting card fodder.  I just personalized it.  My fantasy "light through the door" scenario reflects my hope and my horror "snuffed candle" scenario reflects my fear.  It's a fun emotion because hope and fear are the same thing.

Hope carries with it the fear that what you want might not happen.

Fear carries with it the hope that what you think will happen...won't.

[Palaskar]

WyldKarde wrote:

The way I do that is hope. You can use other emotions, and I have. But hope has teeth. If someone is sad and you don't allow them to resolve that sadness, they remain sad. The same goes for hatred, hunger, fear and most of the other emotions. With hope, it explodes into other emotions if not resolved.

The way Ravien spoke about players defending their young is the best example. If you attack my character, then I'll fight back. If you attack my child, I'll hunt you to the ends of the earth and end you. Other players might cry foul at having their children murdered, hindering their future character development. I would latch on to something like that. Now I have a reason to play...I'm going to pay you back for what you did.

Gameplay mimics the story...take away hope, and you have a snarling, rabid entity on your hands. This is where my philosophy overrides my creation because that is good storytelling in my eyes. I want to know how this ends. At that point, I have little to no interest in mechanics, die rolls, winning or losing...gameplay becomes story and I'm hungry for how this is going to resolve....I humanize my main characters with hope because in a RPG, players should relate to their characters more than other peoples....

Hope carries with it the fear that what you want might not happen.

Fear carries with it the hope that what you think will happen...won't.

Facinating. I think you may have done something I never thought another amateur writer could do again -- teach me another important thing about writing. Let me chew on this for a bit. If it's really as big a breakthrough for me as I think it is, I'll send you Palaskar's "Damn Good Writer Award."

Personally, it's not my experience that taking away hope creates hatred. For me, taking away hope creates despair. I can see, though, how it might be different for other people.

That is because my type of roleplaying is narrativist...story above all.

I have to say that narrativist design is key for making an RPG tied in with one or more books. I'm currently going through my own setting and giving it more story "hooks," instead of it being pure Sim.

Don't beleive me...watch a buddy play a video game you're bad at. As they go beyond what you're capable of doing, you'll find yourself starting to root for the bad guy. Most people don't notice it, because as the other person starts to struggle, eventually failing, the spectators attitude will shift again, sympathizing with the familiar sight of watching that health bar whittle down to nothing.

Actually, no. Frex, I suck at Street Fighter and other fighting games. But I've -never- rooted for the bad guy. I always take the place of the player, trying to figure out better strategies and whatnot.

It appeals to that part of you that slows down to watch a car accident....And when you drive away, you'll smile because it's not you.

Um, no. Actually, what hooks -me- to a car accident (not horror, exactly -- I prefer violence to true horror) is the sheer, terrible beauty of it. I think that anyone who trains extensively in the martial arts will experience this sooner or later. The moves of Tai Chi look beautiful, but they're also deadly. It's spirituality and violence combined.

[F. Scott Banks]

Hmmmm...we can discuss writing all day long.  I love it.  I suppose I'd have to...as much time I spend picking away at my stories.  I'm not sure about the overriding theme of your RPG (I might have more writing philosophies to apply to RPG design I don't know about) but there's plenty of ways to approach it.  

I use hope as a "hook" because it's the classical one.  My story is different enough without having players relating to something like the sexual urges of nosferatu (Sanguine Embrace...coming to the forge soon) or the adrenaline cocktail of being a hired thug working behind the scenes for a multinational corporation (D.I.R.Ty work...soon as I finish Outatowners).  Writing the Heralds books, my thought was simple...

If I'm going to make a book this long that's worth reading, I've gotta take a huge bite out of my subject matter.  Classic Good v. Evil scenario should work.  Hope for a better tomorrow is pretty much par for the course when you decide to take that route.  I'm only innovative where I have to be...everywhere else, I'll happily steal.

As far as hope indicing hatred...it certainly can.  I remember my theatre professor telling me that the poem "A Dream Deferred" by Langston Huges was actually a warning to america about the impending violence of the Civil Rights era.  Impressive considering it was written around 1920.  The entire poem was the embodiment of what happens when you rob a person of hope.  Hope turning violent isn't really an innovative approach for the modern african-american writer...our literature is peppered with this sentiment, as is our history.

As far as getting my hooks in and pulling up the worst in people, I usually just dig until I hit something.  The use of death and destruction as a beautiful thing is something Sangine Embrace utilizes.  In fact, it goes a wobbly step beyond decency to make it erotic (the story anyway...I can't roleplay eroticism...or at least, don't know how).

But yeah, we can talk writing all day long.  I love storytelling.  With reards to the game, I'm fleshing out my cultures.  Those interested in the food element will be happy to know that food takes a place in culture.  There are certain "ethnic" foods that different cultures eat.  The "ethnic" food is something that serves as a template for all of a culture's cooking.  It's pretty much just for roleplay though, not actual gameplay.  Where one culture makes mixed salads, another will make stew.  A race might give a personal tough to a foreign dish, taking the ingredients of the stew and putting them in the salad or vice versa.

I'mma start tossin out the game rules here.  Just the "player" part at first.  But if you want to know how to mathematically balance the game "stacks" against player societies and how to level the terrain as it produces balanced enemy tables...keep your eyes on this site.

The narrativist is gonna get all Sim on you.

West Siiiiiiiide!!!

[Palaskar]

Oh, the overriding theme of my RPG? Right now, I figure it's "What's the right thing to do? And how far will you go to do it?" Hence, all the philosphical differences and conflicts. I figure I can dip into history and pull out all the historical religious (and maybe ethnic -- think Bosnia, Nazi Germany, etc.) conflicts...sweet.

As for Langston Hughes? Love him. I can't believe I forgot that poem.

And ethnic foods? Well, believe it or not, I've gone to something like 23 different ethnic restaurants in New York City. And I swear, it seemed like every one had a stew dish somewhere on the menu.

Ok, start tossing those Sim rules out. I hope I can help.

[F. Scott Banks]

My sim is shaky so I'll be tightening it up before I send it out.  Also, It reads like design plans in some places, and like novel excerpts in others.  What do you think I should lay before the court?

I'm torn between simple rules so that complex on-screen actions (battles and marketplaces...all that math in such a small area) can run smoothly.  The graphics have been reduced to 2d sprites (not that bad really...check out Ragnarock) and I'm trying to go cheap so that it runs well and runs...well...cheap.

Not...literally cheap.  I'll pay for art (cuz beleive me, I can't draw...even my games of hangman look like tic-tac-toe) because I know I'm working in a visual medium.  Skimpin' on the visuals is tantamount to making any of the other MMORPG mistakes I've condemned.  I guess I'll go with my usual payment method (fishin' for spriters) of a nice chunk of change followed up with a percentage of profit should the thing actually make money.  I's the perfect mix of get 'em on board and putting their backs into it.  

WyldKarde's Frosted Payments!

"The up-front fee appeals to the professional in me..."

"While the lure of "magical money from the future" appeals to the artist in me."

Oh yeah...kenjib was right.  Too much platform behind this thing to give it away free.  Small sacrifice really.  If it makes enough to sustain itself...I can give it away free to the handfull of people I was shooting for anyway.  The low production costs would still make it one of the cheapest games out there.  My first business model shows me giving away subcriptions for around the cost of a single piece of software.  I.E. for the price of the actual everquest program (just the game, not the subcription) a player could have a year's worth of access.

But...enough business model.  I'm still learning self-publishing through my first game so I'm hardly the one to espouse profit margins.  I like my games small and intimate actually...so this is a change of pace for me.  

This...I guess this one fits under "D&D killer"...you know the huge fantasy setting that's going to redefine the industry.  We all have one at the back of our minds and I guess this one's mine.  My motive was just to make a game that ran the way I wanted though...not trying to topple wizard and make Salvatore my dark apprentice of the Sith.

Although that's so cool I might just...

Nah. I think I've got enough on my plate already.

Anyway...I think for mechanics...I should start with Character Creation and Development.  All roads lead to Character.  I'll be tossing that one down next.

*sigh*...I see more back-to-back posts coming

lol...I might publish my own articles on design one day..."All Roads Lead to Character" & "Making your Players Care"

And my breakthrough essay:

Flogging the Bishop,
Armageddon Gospel and its use of Religion in a darkly erotic Bondage RPG setting.

[F. Scott Banks]

Ahh this is where the rubber meets the road.

Ironically the "food and nutrition" debate is probably where I best defined how I use Simulationism.  I will go to huge efforts to make a game feature as compehensive as possible, then toss a blanket over it, making it an unseen aspect of the finished product.

Unofrtunately, this won't work for a large part of the game.  The fact is...there is a thing as too much realism.  Even simulationists know that rolling things like windage, weapon malfunctions, and fog on your rifle lens can subtract from a game's enjoyability.  

It's a delicate balance that I'm having all manner of trouble in making.  I'm working on a combat system that plays on multiple levels (stance, skill, weapon, environment, previous experience...etc.) but at the same time, I want a skill selection system that's simple on the surface.  I was thinking of a skill tree that causes additional modifiers to other skills.  Things like this...

Dual Wield:  The ability to use two weapons simultaneously.

Forward Stance:  A body position that causes the combatant to face his opponent evenly, favoring neither right or left sides.

Dual Wield + Forward Stance = Twin Vipers:  Twin Vipers is a dual-handed attack that allows a fighter to use both weapons at a bonus (instead of the split bonus usually attributed to two-handed fighting).  When performing Twin Viper, a single roll is made for "to hit" and "damage" then divided by two.

So, I'm trying to cause the skills to flow logically from each other, with certain skills attainable only through combinations of others and perhaps some skills cancelling out others.  Basiacally, each skill does only one thing, but when combined with other skills, it adds modifers and sometimes, completely new abilities.

Let me explain how character development occurs to show how I'm hoping this won't be a method that allows for uber-characters.

Player stats are essentially broken down into two categories, physical and mental.

Strength - Physical Strength
Dexterity - Physical Speed
Constitution - Physical Endurance
Beauty - Physical Charm

Wisdom - Mental Strength
Perception - Mental Speed
Willpower - Mental Endurance
Charisma - Mental Charm

Starting stats are 10 in all attributes, maxing out at 20.  During character selection, certain "background" traits will adjust them up and down.  Characters who are descended from other characters will have many of their background traits chosen for them (through how their parents were played and how their "childhood" worked out).  Selectable background traits don't get good until you get some phenominally good (or bad) characters to have kids.

The 20 point system pretty much exists "within races".  This means that a 10 is average and a 20 is the best you can hope to achieve for your species.  However, each point has a different value for each race.  10 points of constitution for a human equals 100 HP while 10 points of constitution for an orc could equal 140 HP.

This turns a pen-and-paper game into an accounting exerscise, but I can get away with it on a computer.  Those conversion tables that would make a GM weep are simple for a computer.  They also allow me to make "deep" (system imbedded) mechanics while keeping the "surface" (user-end) system identical.  Everyone has strength points from 1 to 20, but not everyone's points have the same values.  

Makes it hard to min-max.  I don't mind optimizing your character, but I hate getting my math hacked.

Besides, the stats being specifically race-relevant means that all stats are important, not just the one's relating to HP and clobberin' power.  You have to be smart to learn the good skills so if you wanna be a badass warrior, you're gonna want to crack a book along with some skulls.  Magical spells take a physical toll on you, so you're going to want to be tough if you want to manifest your will over all creation.

Stats however, are just a resource pool.  It's skill that determines your character's true prowess.  I said this before, but as we've broken the century mark it probably can't hurt to say it again.  If you're really strong but have no skill with a sword, you're just a strong guy who can't use a sword.  You can be a weaker player with years of study in swordsmanship and carve up characters with much larger muscles.  

Fattening your stats won't help you in this game unless you've got the skills to back it up.  Kind of like how thousand dollar golf clubs won't make any difference in your game if you've never played before.  It's when you're good enough to know a high-quality club when you see one that there's any point in using them.  In the same way, skilled characters will want to beef up the proper stats once their skills have hit a plateau.

So this is the character system I'm building off of.  I'm hammering out skills to allow players to further define their characters.  Basically, the only things hard-wired into the mechanics are the racial stat charts.  Skills are completely player-defined.

So anyway, that's the first part of the game.  The core I suppose since all players will be trying to personalize their characters.  Mebbe you're teaching them to play an instrument, build a castle wall, or swing a heavy piece of metal.

Anyhoo, this is howya do it with ADA.