[Lore: Uprising] - looking for an opinion system concepts

[LoreTG]

Hello all,
   The purpose of this post/thread is to attempt to get a general opinion of our upcoming release, Lore: Uprising. This in itself becomes quite a challenge due to the limitations my own company has placed on letting others see the inner workings of our system. This is due mainly to the fact of an episode where an individual attempted to take the system for their own, and thus has created a very tight lipped approach with release information. So please bare with the vagueness or inability to answer certain specific questions. With that said ? let me continue.
   Lore: Uprising is approximately a decade old now and has gone a constant evolutionary process as we have playtested and further defined our vision. The original premise for the game was simple: What if a Tolkienish style world persisted and reached into the space age. A setting where many of the typical fantasy trappings such as elves, dragons, magic, ect existed, but along side with starships and a huge space opera setting.
   To keep this from being to generic, we ?evolved? many of the races so that we could drift away from the norms, but no so far as to alienate your typical fantasy gamer. A good example of this is the halfing. Commonly, halflings are the thieves of the group. They are also often portrayed as more innocent and cutesy than the other races. To spin this general image more to our style we ran with the thief concept. Our halflings now run a huge galaxy spanning crime syndicate which deals in nearly every aspect of criminal activities. We also threw away many of the ?standard? special abilities that the average gamer would associate with this race. For example, our halfings start the game with ?Halfling Hiding? which allows them to literally blend into the surroundings and remain almost invisible if they abstain from movement. As the character progresses, so will this ability ? to the point where the eventually will be able to be hide while during extended movements.
   All the races (all 11 of them) share this basic concept where they start with an ability that suits the image we have for them, and then as they advance the ability evolves into bigger and better things. Also, based on player preference, these abilities will become customizable so that player can eventually cause the ability to reflect their own style of play.
   We also broke the system down to using only one dice type, a d20. This serves a twofold purpose. One, it keeps the mechanics simpler and avoids the ?I am looking for a d4!? dilemma that can slow down game play. Secondly, we want to make the game more accessible to the non-gamer who may be put off by all those funny looking dice.
   Another concept which we are hoping to be a bonus point for our game is our setting. Many games have allowed crossover style gaming in their worlds, such as The World of Darkness ? a game where multiple games all end up in the same base universe. We went with a similar concept, but all of our products exist in the same timeline. Therefore, when our second game is released (Lore: Origins), it will serve as a prequel to the Lore: Uprising product. We have a total of four games planned for this time line, three of which our currently featured on our website and a fifth one that is considered a maybe at this point. We also intend to offer free web based source material covering how to mix these timelines into one big time travel style adventure.
   This concept also gives another opportunity which I am very excited about. This would be cross game source books, or source books that can serve two or more of the Lore series of games. A good example would be a monster manual that worked for both Lore: Uprising and for Lore: Origins.
   The big thing we have pushed on though is the following concept: The rules are designed to accentuate the setting. Therefore we spent literally years developing and tailoring a very deep and what we consider to be breathtaking setting. The rules were then designed to work around the setting that way the setting would in no way be limited by the core mechanics not allowing certain things. We are taking special pain to ensure that if something is presented in the background of the game, then it is possible mechanically to achieve the same result.
   I know a lot of the above is presented in a vague way, and for that I apologize. I do think however it gives a good image of what we are going for in the game. I hope to get some feedback on the general concepts of the game and what you all think. As of now, playtester opinion has been high ? and that in itself is encouraging. The concept of the Lore series has been my dream for as long as I have been gaming, and we are now (finally) entering the final phases of production. Please let me know what you all think of this. :)

Troye

[LoreTG]

Wow - I jsut noticed all the randomly placed "?" in the post....guess that is what I get for doing a copy paste out of word...lol

[Andrew Morris]

Troye-

Heya. My question to you is, just who is "we?" Are you an individual working with a friend on this game, or is this game a company product?

Other than that, the information is, as you mention, very vague. The setting seems fine, but there's nothing in it to grab me personally. But that's probably because I'm neither a fan of Tolkien or futuristic games, so take that with a grain of salt.

We also broke the system down to using only one dice type, a d20. This serves a twofold purpose. One, it keeps the mechanics simpler and avoids the ?I am looking for a d4!? dilemma that can slow down game play. Secondly, we want to make the game more accessible to the non-gamer who may be put off by all those funny looking dice.

I don't know that using just d20s accomplishes the second part. No matter what non-standard die you use, people are still going to have to go to a game store (whether a brick-and-mortar place or an internet store) and buy it.

[LoreTG]

Heya. My question to you is, just who is "we?" Are you an individual working with a friend on this game, or is this game a company product?

"We" is Lore: Gaming, aka the company my partner/friend and I do business under. It is a company in that sense, but an Indie start up company. We, obviously, are just starting out.
 And valid point on the non-standard die usage. I do hope it to be a bit more friendly than having to buy a whole slew of dice, but it is still a non six sided dice. Unfortunately, the system mechanics just did not lend themselves well to a standard d6.

[Andrew Martin]

I hope to get some feedback on the general concepts of the game...

Hi!
I had a look at the only example of play I could find on your site here: http://www.loregaming.com/storyplay.htm

Bill: As I enter the museum, I casually glance around, specifically looking for cameras and other security devices. What do I see? I am also transmitting this to my teammates through my built in camera

LoreMaster: Make a Perception roll.

Here Bill rolls a D20 against his Perception attribute (currently ranked 12). He rolls a 9 on the D20
 
Bill: I rolled a total of 21.

LoreMaster: You notice that there are 4 cameras, one in each corner. Also, in the far corners, hanging over the visitor information center, are two heavy autocannons, each pointing towards the door, but able to cover the entrance to the first gallery. You also notice two recessed alcoves, one on each side, and each one with a security guard in a very sharp suit/uniform look, and each guard is obviously watching those coming and going. You do detect a bulge under each jacket, looks like handguns or machine pistols, you're not sure which.
...

I noticed that Bill added the 9 on the D20 to his character's Perception of 12 to get a total of 21. Yet the text seems to imply that Bill should have rolled under his character's perception? Is this merely a wording mistake?

Also did Bill's character succeed or fail? What would happen in the case of failure (or success if the above example was a failure)?

I noticed in the example:

Shelly: I'm going through the motions of gathering every piece of tourist literature they have, figuring out which focus spell to use to affect all the employees. [Turning towards Tim] I really think we should have tried something more subtle.

Tim: [Turning towards Shelly] Sorry, you were outvoted. [Turning back to the LM] I lean towards the guard and ask, "Excuse me sir, can you tell me when the next tour group is meeting?" As soon as he starts to reply I'm going to grab him by the throat and break his neck.

Why does Tim tell Shelly that she's outvoted? Is player and LoreMaster voting a feature of the Lore system?

LoreMaster: The guard starts to reply, pointing towards the visitor's center. You reach out to grab him by the neck. Even though he's tense, he really doesn't think you'll do this. You take him by surprise. Make your attack roll - no Initiative needed.

Why does the LoreMaster ignore a part of the Lore system and declare: "no Initiative needed"?

We also broke the system down to using only one dice type, a d20. This serves a twofold purpose. One, it keeps the mechanics simpler and avoids the "I am looking for a d4!?" dilemma that can slow down game play. Secondly, we want to make the game more accessible to the non-gamer who may be put off by all those funny looking dice.

I've found that D20 dice are usually only available from RPG game stores, while I've often found six sided dice in well known and accessible board games like Monopoly, available from many toy stores, department stores and even supermarkets. If I used Fuzion or GURPS as a game system, which allow me to use 3D6, then this seems to be better than Lore, which requires a special D20?

From the example of game play, the Lore system seems very much like FASA's Shadowrun, Fuzion, GURPS or R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk; it seems I and others could achieve the same result using one of these systems, rather than using the Lore System. What makes the Lore system superior to these systems? What makes Lore special?

[LoreTG]

Valid points on the example of play - this is merely a case of an outdated example. The system has evolved and grown much since this was written, and an obvious overight has occured on our part with failure to update this. Oops..grr.

The Perception is merely a wording mistake. It is roll d20+attribute, so therefore it adds up. This is an oversight from the original version of the game which required you to roll under your attribute, but that was found to be too limiting. The example was just never properly adjusted. The character succeeded in this instance, once again this is victim of poor wording on our part. Failure would have simply been the character not noticing all the details they did notice. THis again is a poor example, and will be remedied - thank you for catching that.

There is not voting in the game. This was simply an attempt by the author of this (my partner) to capture a group dynamic, and in now way represents a system mechanic. Once again, this is a poor wording issue that will be corrected.

The No Inititiave in the example was placed as filler text as we did not have the "surprise" rules written yet, and unfortunately was never caught. Technically the guard would have had a chance to realize what was happening and initiative may or may not have been required based on whether the guard was surprised.

We have been working so hard on the rules that we have not properly updated nor proofread our site. I deeply thank you for noticing these oversights, as these give a strong misrepresentation of our game. These issues will be fixed ASAP, and the example will probably pulled down as soon as our webmaster gets to it and will be replaced upon correction of these errors.

Once again, valid point on the dice, though the usage of one dice is faster and less math intensive than rolling 3 dice. This comes down to a matter of preference and opinion though. I have personally, as a gamer and from a design view point, prefered games that do not make you roll gobs of dice. My second point on my logic in only using a d20 was a flawed statement, and I see that. Sorry about that.

Despite the impression that the flawed (yes I admit...its messed up...lol) example of play gives, the game is considerably different than the other products. The system is designed to be a quick, easy to use system that provideds a lot of detail without complication. Our testers have consistantly commented that our character creation system is one of the best they have seen as it allows a quick non complicated process that generates a detailed background oriented character and can be completed rather quickly. Character progression is also a big difference. The evolving racial ability concept is a first, as least as far as I know. Instead of getting the normalone shot thermal vision or other common abilities that stay relativley stagnant, you gain abilities that actually grow and evolve along with your character.

The biggest difference, the stand out option in my opinion, is the setting for the game. Granted, the description I gave was fairly vague, but the setting is anything but that. We have a fully fleshed out living breathing universe for which the game takes place.

I could, as could any system designer, spend pages upon pages tooting on why my system is so special. OF course, as I readily admit, I am of a biased opinion...lol. Unfortunately, as stated earlier, due to the policy the myself and my partner have agreed on, we can not go deep into system mechanics at this point - which hampers are ability to make our case about the game.
I greatly appreciate your comments on the Example of Play. It is a truly flawed example, and this will be remedied. Thank you.

[MarktheAnimator]

Hello,
Have you ever seen the Mars Combat System by FASA?  Its out of print but it was great for sci fi games.  Just thought you may want to go dig it up and check it out.

I use just percentile dice and six sided dice in my game.  
However, now I'm thinking of going back... Lots of people get into dice and enjoy collecting the different sets.  
While I'm not changing my system, I'm trying to figure out a way to incorporate the other kinds of dice in the future...


A sci-fi game?  Then you definitely need to have the possibility of character death while they make a character, just like Traveller. ;)

I hope you have gone into realistic star maps.  I've only seen a few of them in sci-fi games.  If your game is set on another world, then I suppose it doesn't matter.

One thing more.
I think you should include a very good section on how to be a great GM.  
How to write adventures, and run them.
Story ideas, etc.

Anyway, I'll check the game out in more detail when I get a chance.

[LoreTG]

Have you ever seen the Mars Combat System by FASA? Its out of print but it was great for sci fi games. Just thought you may want to go dig it up and check it out.

 Honestly Never heard of it...might have to try to find that one...

I hope you have gone into realistic star maps. I've only seen a few of them in sci-fi games. If your game is set on another world, then I suppose it doesn't matter.

We have a relatively detailed starmap done of the known galaxy that was beautifully done by one our testers. It is still vague enough to allow for LM (or GM, or DM, ect..ect..ect) expansion, put paints a good view of the universe and all the different empires and territories. We may be making it public and available through our web soon. That is still a decision up in the air.

I think you should include a very good section on how to be a great GM.
How to write adventures, and run them.
Story ideas, etc.

I totally agree! Many games fail to do this properly, and for a neophite GM it is a very daunting task. We plan on having a good "how to" section that covers not only Lore specific stuff, but general GMing stuff. We also are going to have a section on adventure writing/running and a good list of starter ideas to get the brain working. We are also going to have full support of what we call the Adventure Seed Of The Day on our website that will be composed of reader submitted adventure concepts so all can share thier creative juices.

[Andrew Morris]

Once again, valid point on the dice, though the usage of one dice is faster and less math intensive than rolling 3 dice.

One thing to consider, though, is the different statistical distribution between multiple dice and a sigle die roll. Personally, I like multiple dice, since it gives a bell curve distribution, rather than completely flat distribution.

[MarktheAnimator]

I once thought about the bell curve thing with dice, and I concluded that every time I made a character (and many other people did this too), if I didn't like the character, I'd toss it and make another.

This kind of killed the bell curve.

So I kept my flat, percentage dice.


Hey, those are great ideas about putting "Adventure Seed of the Day" onto your website!  Mind if I do something like it too? :)

Incidentally, I'm working on storytelling stuff too right now.  If you want to exchange ideas, let me know.

Here is a great website for starmaps in case you're interested:

http://www.anzwers.org/free/universe/12lys.html

Of course if you're not using earth, it wouldn't apply. :)

[LoreTG]

Andrew Morris wrote

One thing to consider, though, is the different statistical distribution between multiple dice and a sigle die roll. Personally, I like multiple dice, since it gives a bell curve distribution, rather than completely flat distribution

Yes the bell curve has its advantages, and this was a very crefully made decision. Personal preference aside, I went with the method that best suited the system core mechanics. We are currently running three separate playtest groups, and I may have one of try a d6 style method just to see what impact it has on the system. If it ends up being a negligable impact it may be considered for implementation. Thanks for the comment! :)

MarktheAnimator wrote

Hey, those are great ideas about putting "Adventure Seed of the Day" onto your website! Mind if I do something like it too? :)  

Sure - its your website. Use a different terminolgy and no one will know it was not your idea...lol

MarktheAnimator wrote

Incidentally, I'm working on storytelling stuff too right now. If you want to exchange ideas, let me know.

You have my yahoo ID I believe, I would love to swap ideas. Two heads are always better than one. :)
[/b]

[LoreTG]

Just to let fill you all in on a few things being done based on the feedback recieved here so far:

The EXAMPLE OF PLAY will soon be removed from the website for the time being. It was more intended to show what roleplaying was than to serve as an example of system mechanics, but what we used are (at that time) very rough drafts as the rule base for the script. It will most likely be either redone generically or will be held off and show specific mechanics.

A Lore: Uprising preview is being written right now for placement upon the website. This will go into many aspects of the game, including system, character races and generation, advancement, ect ect ect. I will also be including a section containing what I believe to be what makes the game special over other games out there. This preview will also cover some of the basic mechanics of the system, though not a lot of detail will be presented. Looking through the Lore website I realized how vague an impression was being given for the game, and this is not acceptable.

I will probably post a the preview here before it hits the site to get feedback from people before I unleash it onto the website. I would rather get criticism/comments from my peers (aka fellow Indie RPG Designers) rather than a random person logging onto the Lore sight.

Once again, thank you all for you wonderful comments and for catching the flawed EXAMPLE OF PLAY. I welcome any further comments, and am listening attentivily. Completion of this game has been my dream for years, and I want it to be the best it can be. When the preview is done, hopefully within the next few days, I will start a new thread for it specifically.

[btrc]

I'm going to comment strictly from a theoretical standpoint. Unless you and your friend are god's gift to gaming, then your system will need outside playtesting, so people are going to have to see it before it is released. If it has -already- been playtested and is "done", then a) why can't -we- see it, and b) what is the point of commenting on it, since any substantive changes you make would have to be tested, which also means letting other people see it.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say any system that uses "d20+something" as a resolution mechanic can be "stolen" from any number of places, so the readers of this forum who are into "system-stealing" (which is hopefully none of them) can get such a system elsewhere. The original background material is more important. That, and to some extent the rule mechanics are protected by copyright, and can be registered for a trivial fee. So let the cat out of the bag already...;)

You're asking the opinions of people who care enough about design that they have a forum just for game theories, but you won't tell us enough to actually help you...;(

Greg Porter
BTRC

[LoreTG]

I'm going to comment strictly from a theoretical standpoint. Unless you and your friend are god's gift to gaming, then your system will need outside playtesting, so people are going to have to see it before it is released. If it has -already- been playtested and is "done", then a) why can't -we- see it, and b) what is the point of commenting on it, since any substantive changes you make would have to be tested, which also means letting other people see it.

I totally agree with you and see your point. The system is undergoing playtest, but this is not done yet and as a lot of the system is still under development. I jumped the gun a bit when I initiated this thread, and my approach was flawed. I am new to the the concept of a whole bunch of talented designers working together. Like I stated in the first post, an attempt was made to steal our game and that made us a bit paranoid.

I am currently working hard on getting the system prepared for intensive testing from the outside. I totally plan on using the resources here to do this, and will be making the system drafts available to those who desire to test the system. It will be some time before this occurs, although we are striving to get this done ASAP.

I appreciate all of the suggestions made based on what little I provied you with, and all have been helpful. As soon as the system drafts are ready for outside testing I will place a new thread here letting all of you know.

[Sydney Freedberg]

The original premise for the game was simple: What if a Tolkienish style world persisted and reached into the space age. A setting where many of the typical fantasy trappings such as elves, dragons, magic, ect existed, but along side with starships and a huge space opera setting.

Obvious question: How is this different from, say, Dragonstar (which I've not played but have heard good things about)? If someone wants to play "D&D in space," why would they use your game rather than a game which really is "D&D in space"?