The Forge Archives

Hey
I'm currently working on a prison based RPG, and would like some help with it. Its gonna be a brutal and realistic system, and I am likely to use a competetive system similar to Runes or Paranoias.

I already have the basic outline done, and am working on rules for reputation, networks of allies and enemies and gangs.

For more information, check out the forums at rpg.net (Open Forum: OZ:the RPG, The Art Of Game Design: Hard Time (Prison RPG)

Any help possible would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance! :)

I spent some time on a game that was basically a prison rpg cast against a fantasy background.  A mix of Oz and the Dungeon Keeper computer game, so to speak.  Nasty, but tongue-in-cheek.

My big idea with that game was to convert the card game Spades over to a resolution mechanic.  Spades is a favorite of hard timers, or so I'm told.

That's not much help, I know.  Why don't you cut and paste the salient points of your background and mechanics into this thread so we can get a feel for where your at?

Take care,
Scott

OK, heres some basic notes on the system

Theres 4 stats : Toughness (Strength), Smarts (Intelligence), Confidence (Charisma) and Quicks (Dexterity)

They are rated from +4 to -4

+4: Amazing (7pt)
+3: Brilliant (6pt)
+2: Very Good (5pt)
+2: Good (4pt)
0: Average (3pt)
-1: Poor (2pt)
-2: Very Poor (1pt)
-3: Terrible (0pt)
-4: Abysmal (+1 pt)

An average starting character has 14 starting attribute points.

Skills are going to be rated the same, from Amazing to Abysmal.

Tasks can be completed by rolling 1d10, adding the appropiate attribute, adding the appropiate skill, and trying to score over a target number.

Combat works as so:
1) Combatants roll 1d10, highest number decides to declare his action first or last
2) All combatants declare their Combat Action (Jab, Swing, Kick, Headbutt, Body Slam, etc)
3) Simultaneously roll 1d10, add Quicks, add Fight skill, take away the difficulty of the Combat action
4) Higher final number wins

Heres damage:

Everyone has 4 health levels; Bruised (1-15 damage), Hurt (16-30 damage), Battered (31-45 damage), Dying (46+ damage)

1) Winning combatant rolls 1d10, adds his toughness and the attack damage
2) The loser rolls 1d10 and adds toughness
3) The difference between them is how many damage points the loser has taken

Thats the basic character creation, task resolution and combat. What do ya'll think?

I have to be honest, the idea of playing a prison RPG kinda yucks me out.

I toured a max in FLorida as part of a psych class.  Not fun at all.  I think I'd rather be dead than end up in a max.  

But...

If you're going to do it, do some research on prison slang and lingo and base your game machanic terms on that.  

look at these:

http://www.jimgoad.com/prison_slang.htm

http://members.tripod.com/afscmelocal3963/f_y_i_.htm

http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/penpal_glossary.html

http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/links.htm

Another adventure for Simulationist man!

Quote from: ReverendCuster187
Theres 4 stats : Toughness (Strength), Smarts (Intelligence), Confidence (Charisma) and Quicks (Dexterity)

Heh, I like confidence, very appropriate, and I'd think very important. If anything I'd have more stats that were interpersonal.

Quote
They are rated from +4 to -4

+4: Amazing (7pt)
+3: Brilliant (6pt)
+2: Very Good (5pt)
+2: Good (4pt)
0: Average (3pt)
-1: Poor (2pt)
-2: Very Poor (1pt)
-3: Terrible (0pt)
-4: Abysmal (+1 pt)

An average starting character has 14 starting attribute points.

Simplification - Make Abysmal cost zero, and on up to eight for Amazing. Give a few more points to build the character. Then, make the bonus for each roll equal to what you spent on the stat. Then increase all target numbers by four. This means there will be no subtraction, only addition when finding totals, and you never have to worry about negative results being rolled.

Quote
Combat works as so:
1) Combatants roll 1d10, highest number decides to declare his action first or last
2) All combatants declare their Combat Action (Jab, Swing, Kick, Headbutt, Body Slam, etc)
3) Simultaneously roll 1d10, add Quicks, add Fight skill, take away the difficulty of the Combat action
4) Higher final number wins

Confusing. Roll for initiative, decide when to go, then all roll Simultaneously? Which is it? I'm hoping that what you're advocating is characters rolling off against each other each round (that's a kick I'm on lately).

I'm assuming that some combat actions are more difficult but potentially do more damage? How about making them simply player defined. For each plus or minus to hit you get the opposite bonus on your damage roll. Just an idea. Keeps things easy and you don't ever have to refer to anything.

Quote
Heres damage:

Everyone has 4 health levels; Bruised (1-15 damage), Hurt (16-30 damage), Battered (31-45 damage), Dying (46+ damage)

1) Winning combatant rolls 1d10, adds his toughness and the attack damage
2) The loser rolls 1d10 and adds toughness
3) The difference between them is how many damage points the loser has taken

The damage done in this system will be mostly dependent on the bonus for the attack, weapon, etc. So, unless a punch has a +15 damage, you're unlikely to get from Healthy to bruised in one punch ever. If it's +8 it'll probaby take two. And a shiv would need a +45 to have a reasonable chace to get a character to dying in one stab. Seeing as that happens in prison stuff all the time, I'd think that's something you'd want to be possible.

The problem is that this makes the roll almost insignificant. I'd lower the damage levels to 5 per instead of fifteen, or even lower. You said this was a "brutal and realistic" system. I'd go with that.

Along the same vein, what you have here indicated that the game is about combat. While fights do occur in prisons, what seems to be more important than fighting is the "will to fight". Why do the fights occur? You mention all the alliances and such. That sounds more interesting. What would fit the genre better, IMHO, would be specialized rules for creating alliances as a way of staying alive. Often it's not your ability to fight that keeps you alive, but having friends.

Just how I see it.
Mike

I dont know. In most of the fights I've seen, isnt going to severely hurt somone. And with a simple jab you COULD do 15 damage - if you had a tough +4 and you rolled a 10 on the dice :)

The problem with really low damage levels is that, if everyone only had 5 health points each, you could feasibly kill a man with two or three blows, which is VERY brutal - but not realistic.

I'm going to define the levels very carefully, so that by the time you've taken more than bruised damage, you'll probably be on the floor or KO'd. And once your on the floor, within a few rounds it is possible to get kicked to death.

As for the confusing combat, heres how it works : Initiative is only used to determine who chooses their combat action first. The simultaneous roll is a contest to see who's blow hits. Is this clearer?

Weapons are being worked on next, but will do an awful lot of damage. A gun is very likely to kill you with one hit, especially if its a head or body shot.

Another aspect to consider: Hospitilisation. Most prison fights will not last long, and will end with one or more participants in hospital. It will be possible to die of your wounds in hospital, even after they've been inflicted. Critical hits are an idea as well.

Hi there,

I have a question. What's the game about?

I get the setting (prison), I get the style (gritty/harsh), I get the system (as described), etc. What I'm not seeing is the payoff in terms of experience and enjoyment. It breaks down, to me, into a couple of possibilities. Which, to you, is the priority? And if I'm missing the point, please explain it to me.

1) A form of competition or survivalism in which a player, via the character, prevails or fails to do so. This is more-or-less what I thought I perceived in the initial post, that the system was to be "competitive." Am I right in thinking that the point of play is, the GM proposes and mediates threats, and the players' task or experience is to survive those threats?

2) The raw experience or sensation of being in prison. This is more-or-less consistent with the "realism" aspect of the rules. I'm not sure I see any compelling reason to want to play, in the sense that I do not want to be in prison, or to pretend to be, or to run a character who is, if that sensation is the first priority of play.

3) An opportunity to create "little dramas" in the harsh environment, much as one sees with war stories. The overall situation is horrific and dangerous, but the personal connections or triumphs illustrate various things about humans that we like to see dramatized. (This would be the Shawshank kind of context for play.) I don't see any evidence of this design goal in the material presented so far.

So in sum, I see some indication that #1 is a goal, and perhaps #2, but not #3. Help me out - am I missing the point?

Best,
Ron

I was getting confused by all this talk of combat and damage. How often does this come into a daily prison routine? Now bullying and intimidation I bet is a daily aspect of life. You need 'conflict resolution', not combat resolution.

Talk of personal dramas gets me interested. I don't want to play a murderer whose got to survive 23 years of brutalization with the goalbeing trying to get parole in 15. I want to play an undercover cop who specializes in going 'inside' to work on a case; or a guy wrongly accused of murder who knows the real murder is in the same prison (but who, and where). That kind of thing. You need a reason to get up in the morning other than to slop out ...

Quote from: Mithras
I was getting confused by all this talk of combat and damage. How often does this come into a daily prison routine? Now bullying and intimidation I bet is a daily aspect of life. You need 'conflict resolution', not combat resolution.

Amen to that.

I sent RevCuster a PM about this already but I might as well say it again -- read lots of Vachss. All of his books deal with people who have served time...and many of them have whole scenes/chapters/stories set in prison.

As it stands, you can only do so much in prison. You gotta get the characters out. A stronger idea is to write a game about cons (ala Cross' band of mercs and Burke's family from Vachss' stories and misc. hoodlums, gangsters and con men from the likes of Frank Miller, Quentin Tarantino, Elmore Leonard and Guy Ritchie.

Now that would be cool.

Quote from: ReverendCuster187
I dont know. In most of the fights I've seen, isnt going to severely hurt somone. And with a simple jab you COULD do 15 damage - if you had a tough +4 and you rolled a 10 on the dice :)

Only if the person taking the blow has a Poor tougness and rolls a one. Unlikely (1% just for the dice alone).

Quote
The problem with really low damage levels is that, if everyone only had 5 health points each, you could feasibly kill a man with two or three blows, which is VERY brutal - but not realistic.

Well, that's because you're using an additive system for tracking damage. Which is not realistic in the least. Stab me in the arm forty times and I still won't die from it. I might die from the blood loss later, but not in the context of the fight. Damage in the short run should be considered for it's impact on actions. Damage in the long run should be considerer for how difficult it is for the doctor to prevent you from dying. So, a single punch can mess you up considerably short term. But it won't even require the doctor most likely.

I like systems that look at the worst wound sustained, and add for blood loss and other vital wounds to deternmine survivability. There are a lot of ways to achieve this.

Quote
I'm going to define the levels very carefully, so that by the time you've taken more than bruised damage, you'll probably be on the floor or KO'd. And once your on the floor, within a few rounds it is possible to get kicked to death.

That's more like it. One blow maybe takes you out. Then a number of other blows to the vital areas cause death.

Quote
As for the confusing combat, heres how it works : Initiative is only used to determine who chooses their combat action first. The simultaneous roll is a contest to see who's blow hits. Is this clearer?

Yes, I like it.

Quote
Weapons are being worked on next, but will do an awful lot of damage. A gun is very likely to kill you with one hit, especially if its a head or body shot.

That's not particularly realistic. Only something like ten percent of gun-shot wounds are fatal, and even head and body shots only increase this marginally. Typically a shot to the intestines will take a couple of days (of excriciating pain) to kill you. Survival in this case assumes that the character makes it to the infirmary at all as you mention below. Survival has more to do in most cases with proximity to medical care and the time taken to reach it. "Instant Death" is more or less a myth, and even relatively quick deaths are very rare.

The FBI has wonderful files on this stuff, if you're interested. Somebody has links on their site, but I can't remember who.

Quote
Another aspect to consider: Hospitilisation. Most prison fights will not last long, and will end with one or more participants in hospital. It will be possible to die of your wounds in hospital, even after they've been inflicted. Critical hits are an idea as well.

Do you have "response time" rules for the guards? Probably very important. Could be very complicated too, and include stuff about the fight participants. If you aren't liked, the guards might not intervene as quickly as they otherwise might, etc.

BTW, if your system can avoid crit hits, so much the better. They are often a fudge unrelated to the rest of the system to introduce the potential for sudden death after the fact. Both unnecessary and detrimental.

Mike

You need more apropriate attributes.

Being in prison and surviving with your ::ahem:: assets intact involves not so much the ability to pound someone's head into the floor, but in the ability to show no weakness.

Jam a thousand hard guys into a building meant to house four hundred.  Give them shitty food, shitty company, and nothing to do but pump iron and brutalize each other.


Surviving in this environment is utterly dependent on not just being hard, but apearing hard.  You have to be able to size up other men, read their strength and weakness, read how far they can be pushed before the hate they feel overcomes the fear you inspire.  A brutal, dangerous, game of bluff and call.  Poker, where the raise is a shank in the ribs on night.  

So, what is importiant?  You have to be physicaly adept; not necesarily stronger than the next guy, just faster, harder, better at exerting force.  You have to have balls.  Big brass balls.  You have to have a solid rep.  If you're the guy who had Mad Cat Kenny gutted like a fish when he spilled your coke, you might get some more respect.  And to get away with all the minor fellonies that make prison live slightly less horrific- drug smuggling, bootleg smokes, favors from the guards, notes passed to the outside, you need Moxie.

Meat
Balls
Rep
Moxie

Honestly, I don't think I would ever buy or play any prison game of any kind; it's a topic that is just too distasteful for me.

Nonetheless, in the hopes of humanizing it a bit, or at least introducing the struggle to retain humanity in a brutalized environment, I might recommend a book I read recently, called We're All Doing Time, by Bo Lozoff.  It's non-fiction, intended (partly) to be read by people in prison, and consists of advice on, of all things, yoga and so forth.  Most compelling is the latter half, all letters back and forth from prisoners to the author.  It provides a staggering portrait of the prisoner mindset and the possibility of opening that out into what I can only call a more human view.  Although it is of course somewhat religious in content, the tone is beyond down-to-earth (you cannot sell philosophy to cons in the usual ways, because they are utterly inured to bullshit in all its forms, being so surrounded by it as they are).  Anyway, quite possibly obtainable at your local library, do check it out.

--TQuid

QuoteStab me in the arm forty times and I still won't die from it

Have you seen the Australian movie 'Chopper'? The above quote reminded of me of the prison scenes in that movie. Comedic, but still worth a look for source material...

OK, thanks for the response so far.

Confidence is now Balls. Respect is going to be split into a couple of categorys, for the different 'types' of respect in the pen.

I'm trying to take into consideration how to make the combat as realistic as possible. Its going to have a hit location system, so like you said, 40 stab wounds to the arm wont kill you immediately. The point of the wound levels is to have an abstract idea of how hurt you are.

The reason guns are going to be deadly isnt really to do with realism as such - its to make players want to prevent there use. As the guards are going to be the only people with (easy) access to guns, fighting them can easily end in death. The guards need a lot of advantages.

Character is going to be given a lot of emphasis. In reply to Ron Edwards post, the game is about #1 & #3 : survival and character. 1 is the goal, 3 is the reason to want to play. See?

Hey there,

I'd call you Jesse but would rather not unless it's your real name ...

Anyway, if your goals are #1 and #3, then I think I have to tell you that you need to strip out your game design and start over, in my view. Every design consideration you've mentioned, particularly those regarding combat and injury, are aimed like a torpedo at goal #2.

Now, don't take me at my word. I have a lot of highfalutin' theory as the basis of my claim, but that ain't worth much without going into that theory, blah blah (I have a big essay in the Articles section if you're interested in that, "GNS and related matters"). I also have a lot of experience, but you probably do too, and neither of us has access to one another's experience. So I'm suggesting something else.

Check out some game designs that aim specifically at #3. Free ones include The Pool and The Framework, both very radical (although the latter might be a great add-on to a more traditional system, for your purpose). The websites for these games are accessible through the Forge Library. See what you think of applying either of those systems to your setting and theme and "feel," and compare it to a system more like the one you've presented. Which approach, in play, with real live players, do you think will yield what you're after more consistently?

Also, consider whether player-solves-GM-challenge is really the best context for generate-dramatic-story. I suggest that it doesn't, and that rewards for players that arise specifically from dramatic/story input are a much better context for getting a lot of that kind of input.

Best,
Ron

P.S. Oh yeah, when Fang gets Scattershot into a user-friendly form, check it out too. I think it's got some very good potential for what you're after.