New medieval roleplaying game to hit market and need opinion

[kevin_presley]

RGS is looking for a few good eyes!!!!
  REALISTIC GAME SYSTEMS is looking for anyone and everyone to review some game information at our site. We are about to public within this year, and we are in need of critics to look at our work and kick it, rip it and try to tear it apart. The more the merrier.
  My name is Kevin, and I am one of the creators. I feel like anyone who is dedicated enough to look through sites like this and read these messages have the knowledge that we just cannot find enough of in our area. We would like as many people as possible to go to our website, read through what we have, and send us feed back, good or bad, on what was read.
  Any help would be apreciated, even if you send us a message saying that it is a steaming pile!!!!
Thanks,
kgp
www.bloodandstone.com

[b_bankhead]

Hello guy, we have a thing on this forum called 'Fantasy Heartbreakers'.  The definitive essay on the subject is in the article session.  You really need to read it as your game has all the flashing warning signs of 'Fantasy Heartbreaker' all over it.

(Website Text)

The New, "fast and fair" game play with detailed combat that is sleek. With options such as chop shots, dodges, one-shot kill with missile weapons, plus rules for simultaneous action combat that must be played in order to feel the excitement of the game.

         Spells and magic like no other, with a magic system that allows mages to cast multiple spells within a single turn, wear armor, and use combat weapons that were not allowed before. Reversal spells for wizards that make spell-caster to spell-caster combat even more dangerous than before. This game contains an industry revising spell cast and memory system that has never been used before in gaming.

"never been used before in gaming"...? I sincerely doubt that. Most likely 'I've never heard of it used before in gaming".  I've been reading gamebook cover prose like this since the late 70's, mostly in the bargain bins.

Which is also why  you need to read Mikes Holmes standard rant #1

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=5564

Just out of curiousity , what games do you have personal experience running and playing?

Dude, the world has a million ways to hit an orc over the head already, sure it's POSSIBLE that a 'combat encounter oriented generic fantasy,D&D+my favorite houserules game'  will light up the world of RPGs but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

There are HUNDREDS of free homebuilt rpgs ont he net that do all the stuff you are so proud of already, really, what does yours do that all of these don't do ?  What does your game do that Runequest didnt do back in 1978?  
If you can't answer that question,then that's part of your problem.

[Bankuei]

Hi Kevin,

Welcome to the Forge!  

In order to provide some constructive criticism, folks here will definitely need more info about your game.  Even basic resolution mechanics, reward systems, anything would be of great help.  Otherwise, as was mentioned, there's not a lot to differentiate your game from many, many others we've seen.

You might want to check out The Riddle of Steel, The Burning Wheel, Rolemaster, Runequest as some fantasy games which have solid systems which hit one or more of the elements and features you're claiming.

The only advice I can give at this time is:
-Check out other games, it's necessary
-If you're going to use bog-standard fantasy elements, be sure to do them with style(check out Burning Wheel)
-Finally, pencil artwork looks great when you see it, ok when scanned, and usually pretty bad after printing.  Make sure you get an expert on Photoshop to get the levels right, or you'll lose most of the detail AND the greyshades will fall out.

Chris

[greyorm]

Greetings Kevin,

I have to echo Brian's comments above.

Reading through the material on the site leaves me with the distinct impression that it is D&D, with some very common house rules, and you changed the names of dwarves and elves. But I can't tell anything else about the game system because that system is nowhere to be found on the site. There's just a whole bunch of color in the form of setting text. So, what, exactly, are you looking for a critique on?

Because of the lack of system text, I'm not sure why you think spell points would be an "industry revising" creation, or equipment taking damage through use? (And I'm afriad that wizards wearing armor and using weapons has been allowed before.)

[kevin_presley]

No,
I do not have a "Degree" in RPG design. And I am assuming that the fore fathers of the role playing game in 70"s did not either. The problem with most jaded, synical people in roleplaying is that they assume"It's all been done before". If that is the case, why would hasbro, amoung others, make the industry such a big business affair?
Simple.
NOT EVERYTHING HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE. The be all end of gaming has not appeared on any horizon just yet. Even the god-like mammoth AD&D fell to it's knees and was sold like a used vechicle to the "wizards".
  So, rock back, relax, and take a long look at us, baby.
YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET

[kevin_presley]

Thank you for ALL of your advise already. KEEP IT COMING!!!!

[Bankuei]

Hi Kevin,

You might be surprised, though many of us at the Forge have seen a lot, we're far from jaded into believing that rpgs are anywhere near having done everything.  In fact, if you check out some of the independent game forums here, and some of the games presented, you'll only find confirmation of what you're saying.

With that said, the reason everyone here is encouraging you to check out other games is that while the possible range of game design is still pretty small, it quite probably is a lot bigger than you suspect.

For example, it may expand your horizons to check out some of these games:

-The Pool
-Inspectres
-Universalis
-GURPS
-HeroQuest
-Trollbabe
-The Burning Wheel
-Rune

Chris

[greyorm]

Kevin,

No one here is being cynical or jaded, nor does anyone here believe that everything has been done before (not by a long shot); when you proclaim that your design is "revolutionary" and "industry changing" you better not show us something that RuneQuest did in 1978, or something that I myself created in 1990 to patch up the AD&D rules (and which took precedence from an even earlier set of published rules).

The original designers of D&D did no have degrees in game design, nor were they creating a product in an old market; nor do publishers today have degrees, yet the successful ones research what games have come before, what games have already done and how, and create new designs, not merely "variations of D&D."

I base these comments on reading over the rules I now see posted on your site. If you have a fun game that you and your group like, great! But I'm not seeing anything I would want from your game system that I can't find in a half-dozen other systems -- both published and free -- and that I couldn't find more comprehensively designed in a D20 product (really!).

Sorcerer, Universalis, Theatrix, Amber, Prince Valiant, Everway, Over the Edge, Alyria, My Life With Master, The Questing Beast, Otherkind, Zero, HeroQuest: these are all games that may expand your concept of gaming and game systems (and what has and hasn't been done before), which from what I'm reading on your site seems limited to D&D and its various clones.

If you feel you have something truly unique, please post the rules you would like some feedback on for discussion, and state why you believe it to be unique. Otherwise, I'm seeing nothing yet that doesn't leave me asking, "Why would I play this instead of D20?" and "Why isn't this just published as a modification of the D20 rules?"

What you are doing is called "reinventing the wheel" and I'm sorry, but no one is going to get terribly excited about it, whether that offends you or upsets you or not. Exactly as "inventing" a car today will not earn you any accolades or prestige for invention, even if done in a vaccum bereft of any actual knowledge that cars exist, or of the various advances in design that have occured.

After all, what would you say to a car designer who approached you excited about his new improvements in design, and the said, "I bet you've never seen bucket seats in a car before! Or how about this, I call it an 'air bag' -- it's a safety device!"?

[GregS]

Wow.  Alright, I hate to be rude in any capacity, and the last thing I'd want to be is discouraging, but I have to ask:  how, exactly, do you feel these rules are revolutionary?  Because, honestly, after reading them I didn't see anything that I haven't seen done multiple times before.

That is not to say it sounds like a bad system, though the rules are unquestionably incomplete--but it does seem wholly generic to me.  Armor points with decreasing values, % coverage, hit points, saves...it's all been done before.  And saying things like "[mages] use combat weapons that were not allowed before" tells me that you're really only looking at one, or a small handful of, games for comparrison...and believe me, if you keep hyping it the way you did here, the real critics (reviewers, gamers, etc.) won't be shy about calling you on it when you're wrong.

Honestly, this sounds like an attempt at a "D&D killer", which is fine, but a quick look back over the last 10 years of gaming will tell you how well that as a focus does.  Having a "new type of dwarf" will not define your game, or redefine the gaming market.  That's just the way it is.  And there are the corpses of literally thousands of companies who have tried to do that as proof.

Unless you have something specific, a hook, that really sets it apart that you're positive is totally original (and, hint, posting that here to see if anyone's seen it before would be a good start), you should ease down on pushing the mechanics and focus on creating an attention grabbing, and keeping, world...because if all you have is yet another roleplaying system you should be ready for a seriously unpleasant fight to gain consumer acceptance.

[Kesher]

Howdy, Kevin.

Look, as someone else new to the Forge, I can tell you that you're getting good advice.  Read some games, read some more games, take a break, and then resume reading.  Read everything in the Articles section; you may not agree with all of it, but no one around here would expect you to.  If nothing else, it make yer brain burn a bit.  And, most importantly, it'll make your game better, and that's what you came here for, right?

The posts before this have touched on potential problems with the system, so I won't rehash.

Now, for your site:

First off, I like the art.  It's got some life.  Your artist definitely understands your Setting and (what they call around here) Color.  Also, Chris gave you good advice on reproduction (that sounded wrong...)  Of art...  sigh.  Language...

Which actually brings me to my next point:

I will make full disclosure: I'm an English teacher.  Soooo, I hafta say that the writing needs some help, especially if you want your site to be your interface with potential customers.  On the intro page alone you have at least two sentence fragments (well, one was iffy) and a plethora of small punctuation errors.  I realize this is probably draft material, but you need an editor to go through all of your text before you begin to market anything.  We are a literate society (I like to think), and poor writing only makes you look unprofessional.  

I'd be happy to help you rewrite some stuff, or just copy-edit if don't have anyone to do it for you.  Lemme know.

You obviously have a lot of enthusiasm for this game and its setting; excellent.  It's also excellent that you've got the passion to get it all together with artwork and a website and try to make a go at selling it.  Take to heart the comment posted before: no one's saying your system itself is "bad" or broken; there aren't really enough rules posted to tell.  But it does look, so far, like a serious Fantasy Heartbreaker, and those type of games have a proven financial track record of extinction.

You mentioned Hasbro (and therefore WotC) in your second post.  They, actually, arre probably the one game company in the world with the financial resources to benefit from sticking close to what the "forefathers" of gaming started.

And finally... wouldn't it be cool if you could get a degree in RPG design??  Man, I didn't even think about it, and the Liberal Arts College at the University of MN has make-yer-own-major program, too...

[Kesher]

Okay, so I just caught a typo in my last post...

Well, like I keep telling my students, teachers aren't perfect either (especially when typing at midnight...); they're just paid like they are :)

'Course, I'm not trying to sell my posts...

...Shut up, Kesher.  Go to sleep.  Now.  Go.

[kevin_presley]

To Mr Kesher,

      First off, thank you for taking a few minutes to look at what we are trying to do. I do realize that my english is weak, and my education in the art of word is lacking. Passion I have in mass amounts, education on the other hand is not in such an abundance.
      I did understand that when we posted this site to the net that we would have this reaction. I knew that this was not by any means "finished" material, ready to publish. We, as a group of long time RPG lovers(D&D 70'S, AD&D 1st&2nd, Rifts, etc.etc.) wanted to see how our basic material would "stack up". Some of the harshest critics in world roam the rpg sites(not meant as an insult in the least)and we wanted to know how badly our begining material would be stripped, ripped and torn apart.
      I have had many people(25-40 through about 12 years of gaming) to tell me this and that about what I had written. I felt like a big fish in a little pond. This was my way of finding out what size fish I am in the ocean.
                       I will gladly be proud of my new title;
                        world"s smallest minnow

thank you for everything that you and everyone else has given to us as criticism. I welcome enlightenment on any scale!!
         thanks again,
                kevin

[Valamir]

Hey Kevin,

I'm glad to see you're not discouraged.  It is the mission of the Forge to promote independent RPG publishing, and that includes sometimes splashing some cold water on people's ideas.

I will say, however, that this was some of the coldest water I've seen splashed about in a while.  Generally we try a little harder to add a spoonfull of sugar along with the medicine.

But I'm glad to see you took it in stride.

Some folks above have listed off a variety of games they recommended you check out.  These games in large part aren't going to really have much in common with the game you're trying to make (save Riddle of Steel and Burning Wheel which I think you'll really like) but what they will do is show you some RPG design like you've never seen it before.

There's stuff going on in Inspectres, The Pool, My Life with Master (and dare I humbly include Universalis) that I think will really redefine what you think of as revolutionary.  I say that not to brag, but just as a caution about hyping your game as innovative and revolutionary.  

A game doesn't have to be innovative or revolutionary to be a good game.  But if you're going to sell it as a such you'd better have a pretty good grasp on what really is innovative and revolutionary in the industry today.


I'll close with a final note.  There is a definite demand for Fantasy, faux-medieval RPG gaming.  Its probably the biggest single niche in the hobby.  But the problem is that its a niche that's already sewn up tight by the 800 pound gorilla of d20.  There is NO WAY, you, me, anyone else on this forum is going to topple that gorilla.  They have the an enormous marketing budget and an army of dedicated fans many of whom never even consider playing anything else but.  Any attempt at out D&Ding D&D is guarenteed to be a commercial failure (even if it is a rocking fun game).

So to be a successful indie game publisher, you need to do one of two things.

You need to either avoid the 800 pound gorilla by making RPGs that aren't Fantasy, faux medieval based.  There's plenty of market room for other things.

Or, if you are going to enter the Fantasy, faux medieval niche you need to offer something different.  Offer something that D&D absolutely does not offer.  Offer something that none of the existing D&D fantasy alternatives offers.  If all you're going to offer is an incremental improvement on existing game structures, it isn't likely to fly.  The gaming world is littered with the corpses of games like that (see the Fantasy Heartbreaker articles referred to above).  

This is because incremental improvements are something that every gamer has been making for themselves since the hobby began.  House rules are as much a part of D&D as Hit Points and d20s.  People aren't going to pay money for a new game system which is basically something that they are used to doing themselves.  

This is especially true today.  20 years ago people were more willing to pay money for high quality new system rules, because high quality new systems were hard(er) to come by.  Game lines like Runequest, Rolemaster, Palladium Fantasy, Chivalry and Sorcery, all enjoyed some success and in their own way were all "improvements" on D&D.  But today the internet and innumerable fan websites and discussion forums means you can't simply gussy up your high quality house rules and publish them anymore.  Because even those who would have been interested in adopting someone elses house rules instead of doing their own, can now get all the house rules they want for free nearly instantaneously on-line.

To put a further nail in the coffin, the d20 and OGL licenses means that there is already a large and established market for gussied up house rules...as long as they have the d20 or OGL symbol on the cover.

So if you are going to play in the Fantasy niche...you really do need to offer something unique...and compelling enough to make people sit up and notice.

Its not an impossible task, you're right not to give up.  Burning Wheel did it.  Riddle of Steel did it.  A few others that escape me right now.


My advice for a step 1 for you at this point is to acquire BW and RoS especially and a few of the more radical names on the above list just for the "wow, I've never seen that before" factor and devour them voraciously.  Then you'll be much better armed to put that enthusiasm to work.

[kevin_presley]

In response to Valamir,
   I seem to get deeper and deeper into the void when it comes to the forge. I do understand that our first step into the world with our RPG attempt is a bit watered down, but give us a little time, a little more input, and let's see.
   I am not new to gaming, I am not new to RPG in general. I fully understood in the begining what and who my competition would be when I undertook this task. I may never sell one book. I never even get one printed.
    BUT I WILL NOT EVER GIVE IN TO THE NOTION THAT 3E IS THE END OF FANTASY GAMING, AND THERE WILL BE NO BETTER.
     What slips through the cracks are the little things. for instance, if 3E was such a monster, money maker, yada yada, why did TSR go so bad? Wizards had it, then to hasbro through buyout. Why also the flood in market of d20?. simple. 3E will simply not be in the near future?
     CRAZY YOU SAY? THINK ME MAD????
 Hasbro has bought them, will milk them, and will shuck that game off like a used condom as soon as the market dries up. And ohh yes it will dry. here's why;
     You valamir, have product A. You just bought product A from a business. This product is unique, with thousands and thousands of buyers hanging on just to buy more. Your next move is too, what??
duplicate product A into many more different product As,  until the market is so flooded that there is nothing else to buy?
not any business company I have ever seen(how many new coke products STAY on the market?).
      Your 800 lb gorilla has diabetes and there is just a little insulin left.
 I may have ranted a little, and do apologize, but this is just my take.
     thanks for the input
             kevin"Ice water" presley
             (kinda catchy, thanks)

[James_King]

I would like to say THANK YOU to all who have posted a reply and who those that have read over our post.

Please vist www.bloodandstone.com for updates on our work. We will also make it a habit to vist your site.

Thanks Mr.Nixon & Mr.Edwards for creating the forge so we can all learn for each other.