As-Yet-Unnamed-Game [Fantasy]

[Valamir]

Greed, I think you and I have some fundamental differences on what does and doesn't "make sense".  Your notion that no world with dieties could possibly "make sense" is pretty much contradicted by the fact that such a world has "made sense" to most of the population of this planet for most of human history (since long before any current religions existed).  You've taken a lot of highly dubious positions in this thread that ultimately are nothing but your personal preferences and therefor do not make any more nor less sense than any one elses preferences except to you.

But this is niether the thread, forum, or site for such discussions, so I'm going to mentally edit out your "makes sense" positions and replace it with "what I want to accomplish for this particular game".  Since its your game and your preferences going into it, we can then at least discuss your desired points which may or may not otherwise "make sense" themselves.



I think you need to start from a socio-economic-political stance with your setting.  Completely ignore for the time being the mechanics of what magic is or what its capable of.  Simply start by postulating a world in which magic is real and real practitioners have real power (on some scale of power).

We have ample examples of this from the real world.  Whether or not magic practitioners in the real world had any real magic matters not.  What matters is that people believed they did and reacted socially accordingly.

Throughout most of human history magic was the provenance of the divine.  Whether animistic spirit worship or an actual pantheon of humanized dieties it was the shamans / priests / god-kings who wielded miraculous powers.


You've indicated you're not really interested in a world with actual dieties.  So your first choice should really be to determine whether magic will have a connection to religion or not in your world.  Simultaneously with this decision you'll have to decide if there even is widely practiced religion in your world or not.  If there is a widely practiced religion and magic users are part of its hierarchy but there aren't real dieties than by answering a simple fundamental question about your world you've opened up a huge range of possibilities.  Systematically going through and speculating about the ripple effect each sequence of decisions will have starting from the simple premise of "magic exists, there are no dieties" will go much farther to making your setting realistic than any amount of worrying about the physics of magic.  In otherwords, an essay about the role of the automobile in shaping American society (and being shaped by it) vs. its role in other societies is far more interesting than an essay on how the internal combustion engine works (at least from the perspective of what makes for interesting roleplaying situations).

For example:  on the basis of the above questions here are 3 starter ideas for a setting.

1)  Society is tightly tied to religion,  even more than influence of the Catholic Church in Europe pre enlightenment.  The reason for the church's influence is that its miracles are real.  There is real power, visible, measurable, recordable, witnessable, and undeniable.  Faith is not necessary when the priest can erase doubt by demonstrating the power of god.  Except that there is no god.  The powers demonstrated by the priests are simple results of applying scientific/magical principles.  They are wizards not agents of the divine.  The entirety of the church's theology is a work of fiction fabricated to protect and justify the magic of the priesthood.  The faithful are dupes.  Their sins are not being watched, their souls are not being measured, there is no after life.  

Additional decisions from here would be to determine how high in the hierarchy you have to go before you're initiated in the truth?  How the church maintains its secret?  How it deals with "heretics" who reveal the fraud to the masses?  Whether the church is a parasite using faith to leech off society, or whether it is a benevolent organization which brought peace and prosperity to a suffering people for the price of believing a simple a lie?  Whether there are multiple false religions which battle each other for dominance?

Under this environment magical "technology" doesn't spread because its all controlled by the church and the church is motivated to dole it out only as needed to maintain their position of supremacy.  The rest of society gets only what the church lets them have.


2) Drawing on a more ancient world background, society is based on slaves.  Nearly all labor is performed by slaves.  Citizens are typically either merchants, administrators, or soldiers.  The primary source of slaves is the conquest of enemies by warrior kings.  Magic is real but the warrior kings seek to control it for their own advantage (think the sorcerous from Scorpion King).  Non affiliated mages are recruited or slain if they are caught.  Kings walk the dangerous line between using powerful mages to gain an advantage over their enemies vs. risking becoming puppets to the sorcerers.  

Magical technology is limited in this case because the kings have "more important" things for the mages to work on, and because the source of a king's power is his base of slave labor.  Labor saving magical technology would upset the need to have a large labor pool which would undermine the king's power.  An interesting place for roleplaying would be the "free society" where players would play mages who run a slaveless society using magical labor struggling to survive against the combined emnity of the kings while also struggling to maintain a balance between the ruling mages so as not to allow one to become a new "sorcerer king".


3) Or how about a society that has all of the mechanical trappings of religion but none of the divine or theological elements.  One where the mechanics of ceremony, attending "mass", offering prayers, making sacrifices, etc actually has a practical and measurable effect.  It drives magic.  But the people are well aware and have been for some time that it is merely the mechanical process that generate the magical power (no more divine than mechanical processes that generate electricity).  Belief in spirits and the supernatural has long been given up as primitive (even though such primitive practices also manages to generate magic).  Those able to tap into the field of magic generated by society can use it to shape society, healing, building, employing magical "devices", ensuring good harvests, and all manner of tasks typically entrusted to a governmental bureaucracy.  The prosperity of the kingdom is directly tied then to not just the ability of these practitioners but also the strength and reliability of the "magic" field generated by the people.  Failing to go to church on Sunday (so to speak) thus has immediate repurcussions on the kingdoms level of magic power.  

Cracks have arisen in the system, however, because as more and more is done by magic (including the maintenance of magic technology such as water systems, and waste incinerators, and cross town teleporters) more and more power is needed.  However, unlike a modern city, city leaders cannot simply build another powerplant to provide the needed energy.  They must instead invent another ritual, another observance, another "religious practice" (like avoiding meat on Fridays).  This new practice than begins to generate more power as people start to comply with it.  

By now, however, the list of required observances is beyond the ability of most to remember and the majority of every individual's time is beginning to be spent on making the effort to participate.  Some individual's time is too important to waste in all day prayer sessions, however, and have been given special exemptions which has given rise to class animosity (where class differences are not so much economic...in a society powered by magic, there is plenty for everyone...but instead based on time dedicated vs time exempted).

Emigration happens as people move from cities where the required observations are onerous to areas where they are less so leaving behind cities which lack the population to maintain their magic powered infrastructure (yes, in much the same way businesses flee high tax cities to lower tax suburbs leaving behind urban wastelands).  



Ok, enough with the examples.  

The point of this exercise is that once you start getting a feel for the social, political, and economic issues (going well beyond the above starters) what magic does and how it does it will more or less fall into place based on its own internal consistancy and logic.  You'll be able to easily figure out the Biq Magic Questions:  Where does the power come from, how is the power manipulated, what effects can be achieved, how long does it take, what is the cost, who can do it, how do they learn, how are they controled, and what impact do they have on society.

[Luke]

Hi Greed,

Having written a fantasy game and wrestled with many of the same concepts that you are now battling with, perhaps I can help. If you are serious about designing a fantasy rpg, I suggest you start from the very basics (as Ralph and Vincent have suggested) and determine what exactly your game is about. What do the players do? How are the players rewarded for getting involved in what the game is about and what the characters are "supposed" to do? Determing magic and melee weapons details are steps way on down the line. Start from the beginning!

I also urge you to read Jared Sorensen's iSystem Manifesto. He's a smart guy, and an amazing game designer.

The greatest thing about game design is that "making sense" in an empirical way doesn't matter. Each game creates its own "sense" -- it's own world, philosophy and feel.

So figure out what you want your game to do, and then start thinking about the role of the players (not the characters) in that scheme.

None of this is easy. It takes introspection and intuition. But if you can make it through this process, you'll likely have a kick ass game.

Good luck!
-Luke

[apparition13]

GreedIsGod wrote:

#1 You can't just have an arbitrary set of 'spells' because that, basically, doesn't make any sense. Okay, if you had deities you could have them (by fiat) handing out edicts, but why in the world would they do that? Not to mention a host of other logical issues with superintelligent, superpowerful immortal transdimensional beings who can't see to conjure up fission power and are obsessed with the actions of little monkeys. So the list-o-spells system clearly isn't going to work as it's neither rational nor internally consistent.
#2 The 'open ended' system has some problems, too. For example it is going to be a fantasy world, so the technology level has to be pretty low. That means that something has to stop people from using magic in common devices, as technology or to develop technology. I can imagine that a lot of transmutation, polymorphing and energy generation capacities would entirely screw up any possibility of low-tech as you've just developed the capacity to build and power electronic machinery, titanium vehicles etc. Also by the notion of supply curve if these things could be done they would be done by more and more people, elevating the general wealth of the population and eliminating the basis of feudalism.
#3 Magic in general. Sort of like above, but take into account the effects of magic. If someone can generate cold (very easy in most magic systems) one can create refrigeration, the source of the largest population boom in the history of mankind. Being able to cool food for storage or transportation means the population is going to explode, leaving very little room for the artisans, tiny hamlets and unoccupied wilderness so popular in fantasy gaming. Also all those people gathered together is going to increase the division of labour and drive up the technology and prosperity of everyone, another issue that will disrupt the fantasy atmosphere. Or how about divining and remote viewing capacities, or teleportation's effect on commerce and politics.
#4 Magic as healing. The ability to heal is extremely complex, as one must rearrange molecular things or accelerate natural processes, provide the energy and materials necessary for such action and so on. That level of manipulation means that the magic should also be able to develop microcircutry, tiny machines, high-quality engineering and also extremely, instantly deadly results. Actually even simpler methods apply, for if you can generate 20 or 30 pounds of force (telekinesis) you should be able to kill a man instantly by crushing his brain - even the biggest, toughest SOB has a mushy brain that is easily destroyed by the force it takes to swing a ballpin hammer. The lethal implications of such capacity are staggering.

I read the above as objections to typical magic tropes in fantasy;

I.)A.)  This means that magic has to be difficult,
   B.)  in limited supply
   C.)  and limited in it's effects
         (it cannot, for example, grant knowledge in and of itself, or else the technology/engineering edge would annihilate the dark ages tech level, because technology can be spread very easily even if magic itself is difficult).
II.)  I mainly want magic to have
    A.)  practical combat and
    B.)  civil value,
III.)  yet without leaving unanswered questions like
    A.)why don't magicians use magic fire to make steam engines, or  
    B.)  transmutation to make chemical substances like gunpowder or napalm,
    C.)  or polymorphing to make complex machine parts for rifles and tanks.

(Outline mine.) and the above as some (but not all) design objectives for the proposed system/setting.

Comments on the above:

#1.  No fixed spell lists.  Look at magic as analogous to computer programming.  In this approach a spell is a debugged and reliable magic program.  Improvisational magic would be dangerous because the bugs haven't been worked out.  I'm with you though, I don't car for spell lists and prefer a more open-ended, flexible methodology.  (As an aside, I've always liked the idea that each D&D spell is a pact with a demon/spirit/entity, which explains why you "forget" spells and why "memorization" takes so long.)

#2.  If magic can be used "in common devices" then it follows that industrialization of magic can, and eventually will, occur.  On the other hand, if magic requires the active concentration of the caster, then magic items in general may be impossible;  they certainly wouldn't be common.  Look at Runequest's spell matrix idea for a way to get around this.

#3. This is basically covered in your #2 point.  Unless you can mechanize magic use you can't develop industry.  For example, if it requires a magician to create cold the only way to make a refrigerator would be to have a magic-user sit in a room making it cold.  Hardly the kind of job someone with the commitment to take up magic in the first place would be likely to desire or put up with.

#4.  Healing is complex... if you assume the magician is doing it at the cellular (or even molecular) level.  If it's just accelerating natural processes then that level of fine manipulation is unnecessary.  Make it a process that takes a couple minutes and it's no longer useful in combat either.  You might be able to wither an arm (or head/heart/liver etc.) on someone who is unresisting, but first you'd have to make them unable to resist.  Additionally, enhancing natural healing doesn't require TK.  If you have concerns about the ease of killing with telekinesis just eliminate telekinesis.  Of course, you could also say that living beings create energy fields that disrupt invasive magic.  The combination of requiring touch (skin to skin contact), time (a couple of minutes) and healing being something the body wants to do anyway would permit it even with a living energy field.

As to the design goals...

I addressed points II and III above.  Requiring active concentration eliminates III but still permits II.  Unfortunately, with regards to I you will  need to answer some "physics of magic" questions, at least for I.B .  I think it might be helpful to work reverse engineer from the effects you want to possible sources, as others have suggested.  On the other hand, if you want to go top down:

1.  Magic is life.  Think of it like "The Force" from Star Wars without the lightside/darkside division.  Manipulating your own field should be relatively easy, that of others should be harder, and affecting non-living objects either very difficult (because they have no field) or easy (because they have no resistance to the universal field).  This would also naturally give rise to magical animals/monsters.  I.A (difficult) could be because magic pulls life out of the magician, leading to fatigue and, if pushed, illness/injury and possibly death.

2.  Magic is energy, like light and gravity, but can be focused/directed/manipulated by consciousness.  This could be mystical in nature, requiring an altered state of consciousness, and perhaps meditation, drugs, ritual etc. to enter the state.  It could be an art form.  It could be a form of engineering, like the programming idea from above, though it could certainly be more open ended.  A magical syntax, if you will.  This last option has the added advantage of retarding technological development because individuals with personality types most likely to be technologically inventive would be diverted by magical engineering.  For I.A in this case the analogy could be sticking your finger in a light socket and controlling the flow through your body.  Don't know if that fits with the mystical idea or not.

3.  Magic is consciousness.  The observer effect to the nth degree.  If you can imagine it, you can make it be.  This would make affecting other observers difficult while affecting non-conscious objects fairly simple.  Could be based on imagination (the more perfect the image the more likely the result), degree of change, plausibility of effect, even sheer willpower (if you want it enough it will happen) or any combination of these.  Sanity busting could be a I.A limit, although a rogue mage whose insane imaginations are made real (like Marauders from Mage) could be an interesting opponent.  

Limits on effects (I.C) would flow from the choice made.  For example, telepathy is a natural with possibility 3, compatible with 1 and less compatible with 2.  

That's just three suggestions, there are plenty of  possibilities I didn't think of.   Hopefully some of what I wrote will be of use.

[GreedIsGod]

IMO the major problem with fantasy worlds that they project a completely false, consumerist economy which is utterly inappropriate to the period, and is derived IMO from an uncritical acceptance of capitalist dogma as universal. It denies class relationships and thus cannot meaningfully represent a feudal society.

Actually it is the absence of a free market that creates class relationships.  The established power of land-owning classes and the tradition of hereditary power to tax and rule create the Feudal system, while Capitalism rapidly destroys them once it is generally encouraged by the majority (England at the time of the Industrial Revolution is a good example.  Marx describes, cogently, the exploitation of the 'working man' without realising that this very system of exploitation is in fact being destroyed by Liberalism which he is opposing).  The problem in feudal societies is that both the upper and under class typically have no concept of economics and therefor fail to grasp the import of capitalism and those that do, IE the traditional aristocrats, have good reason to oppose it.  Then again Liberalism (Classic) is an aristocratic, elitist notion to begin with but that is largely because it was a struggle against Democracy which is letting the majority decide upon things of which the majority are ignorant.  Thus the (late) aristocratic opposition both to traditional Feudal society and Democracy (as it is modernly understood), while traditional noble classes (IE Prussian Junkers) despised Liberals and fought allied with, if not agreed with, the Social Democrats who were less of a threat to their power.

Do you consider magic to be primarily a tool for the PCs to use, a hazard for the PCs to deal with, or a neutral but atmospheric feature of the setting?

It is a tool for PC use.

Also, if I may, what's your real name? Mine's Vincent.

RJ Moore II

I say start working on the story and extrapolate it from there.

Well at present there isn't entirely a story.  It is a (largely) Feudal society and I want the PC adventurers (largely minor nobles, due to facts of historical feudal society) to explore the political, social and cultural world while at the same time encountering fantastic things.  I haven't worked out a world because I want to establish core mechanics of economics, society etc. and then build into the actual societies certain elements and reverse-extrapolate plausible history from that.

Greed, I think you and I have some fundamental differences on what does and doesn't "make sense". Your notion that no world with dieties could possibly "make sense" is pretty much contradicted by the fact that such a world has "made sense" to most of the population of this planet for most of human history (since long before any current religions existed). You've taken a lot of highly dubious positions in this thread that ultimately are nothing but your personal preferences and therefor do not make any more nor less sense than any one elses preferences except to you.

Actually if you take the position of logical empiricism (which I do, for several reasons I consider practically impossible to challenge) then you find that the 'Supernatural' in general can not possibly exist, and to speak of anything under that heading, such as 'God', is to literally fail to know what you are talking about - the word simply means nothing.  People may have different opinions than me, but I don't care.  Opinions mean absolutely nothing - a thing is true, or false, regardless of whether everyone or no one believes it and only arguments and evidence have value - not belief.  Thus I do not consider my opinions at all dubious or personal (as might reasonably argued my preference for H&K over Glock pistols) but simply a natural result of taking critical analysis literally and absolutely over such preferences.  I have discovered that almost everything everyone believes is false, not simply erroneously construed but flatly and positively nonsensical, wrong and counter-evidincial.
Because I insist on doing everything in such a critical manner I feel the need to conduct even my fiction thus, leaving me with no ability (or desire) to fall back upon the Black Box defense of demons, Gods and other fantastic notions.

We have ample examples of this from the real world. Whether or not magic practitioners in the real world had any real magic matters not. What matters is that people believed they did and reacted socially accordingly.

To some extent yes, but there is a notable difference.  Paying for the service of being transported to China via magic and actually having it happen are two different things.  Assuming people believe in divine healing and pay for it will have one set of consequences but when people are factually and reliably healed the import will be far different and magic becomes a real economic commodity (whereas before the promise of magic was the commodity, not the effect itself).  So extrapolating from history may be useful but not representitive of the actual effects of real magic on society.

You've indicated you're not really interested in a world with actual dieties. So your first choice should really be to determine whether magic will have a connection to religion or not in your world. Simultaneously with this decision you'll have to decide if there even is widely practiced religion in your world or not.

There will absolutely be a number of religions of different stripes, regionally based for the most part.  Certain priests will claim their god or totem for the source of their magical power, further enhanced that in Feudal societies the priest class is often the best educated and will be in the greatest position to actually know and practice magic.

The greatest thing about game design is that "making sense" in an empirical way doesn't matter. Each game creates its own "sense" -- it's own world, philosophy and feel.

To some extent perhaps, but the philosophy of this game designer is that if it doesn't make sense it's nonsense.  I don't watch television, popular movies, read novels or the like because they all fail to make sense (about the only logical fantasy book I've ever read are Jack Vance's 'Dying Earth' stories).  So I feel I must 'make sense', and any change I make must be represented logically and consistently and everything in the game must make internal logic and have external reprecussions as part of the Universe.

I think the way I am leaning at the moment on magic is something as follows:
The planet itself has a number of built in features such as weather manipulation, energy generation and so forth that are somewhat skewed and haywire from millenia of disuse and misuse.  Certain physiological factors (genetic engineering, hereditary nanomachine presence) instill some people with the ability to control these stations but the results are quite different than the original intention due to the ignorance of the operator, the incomplete control he has and the decay of the control systems themselves.  This leads to what would have been a power source becoming a 'lightning bolt'.  Certain technological development implications still need to be dealt with but for one the lack of 'magic' items is due to the fact that the planet was established as a secluded Naturalist preserve (perhaps founded by King Nader :P) that went all to Hell because modern (future) man has no idea what to do without his machines.  Now surviving in a future without knowledge of his past (except some distorted facts represented in religious creation myths) the world is bizarre, fantastic and utterly human.

Combat: The Most Important Chapter
I've got a notion for combat that was inspired by flight simulator games.  In one WW2 simulator (and, I'm sure, others) damage to your plane was decided by calculating the projectile's path through your plane and seeing if it hit anything relevant.  If it did then something apropriate happened to your plane, IE it might not turn properly or it might explode.  I was considering how damage to the human being occurs much the same manner and that 'hit points', even when location based, is just an example Grandfather Stupidity which people fail to abandon because they base their designs upon other designs (as opposed to reality or function).  For this reason I've abandoned 'health' and, while the system is no means complete, adopted a sort of 'hit location/penetration/crushing' method that determines what, if anything, happens when you get hit and also allows for realistic consequences like maimed limbs, reduced speed, unconsciousness without death and eventual death through infection and organ failure (rather than the unlikely 'die on the spot' which occurs in most RPGs).  The best yet is that so far as I am conceiving it it only involves 2 or 3 dice rolls and one table consultation (less complex than many current RPG HP-reduction systems) and will simulate violence far better than the magical health bar could.

[lumpley]

Hi RJ, I'm'a follow up with my "what do the characters do" question.

It is a (largely) Feudal society and I want the PC adventurers (largely minor nobles, due to facts of historical feudal society) to explore the political, social and cultural world while at the same time encountering fantastic things.

My first set of questions: "explore" - like explorers, on a voyage of discovery?

It seems to me that to minor nobles, the political, social and cultural world will be pretty much known already. Not much to explore, really - unless you intend them to explore beyond the boundaries of their own society.

I don't get the sense that that's what you intend.

Could you clarify your "explore"?

(If magic is a tool for the PCs, make it a tool for what you intend the PCs to do. If you intend the PCs to explore, make magic a tool for exploration.)

My second set of questions: I do, however, get the sense that you're after a really conventional play dynamic: the GM presents your intensively-detailed game world to the players, who have strict control over their own character's actions and nothing else. True?

If so, do you intend the GM to be the sole rules person, with the players just doing whatever the GM tells them to, ruleswise (as in Multiverser), or do you intend the players to master the rules too?

As designer, do you consider yourself to have any responsibility for making the game in play be not boring?

I also have one more general question: what rpgs have you a) played or b) only read, as influences on this game you're designing?

-Vincent

[Valamir]

Actually if you take the position of logical empiricism (which I do, for several reasons I consider practically impossible to challenge) then you find that the 'Supernatural' in general can not possibly exist, and to speak of anything under that heading, such as 'God', is to literally fail to know what you are talking about - the word simply means nothing. People may have different opinions than me, but I don't care. Opinions mean absolutely nothing - a thing is true, or false, regardless of whether everyone or no one believes it and only arguments and evidence have value - not belief. Thus I do not consider my opinions at all dubious or personal (as might reasonably argued my preference for H&K over Glock pistols) but simply a natural result of taking critical analysis literally and absolutely over such preferences. I have discovered that almost everything everyone believes is false, not simply erroneously construed but flatly and positively nonsensical, wrong and counter-evidincial.
Because I insist on doing everything in such a critical manner I feel the need to conduct even my fiction thus, leaving me with no ability (or desire) to fall back upon the Black Box defense of demons, Gods and other fantastic notions

RJ, this is the kind of ranting manifesto nonsense you really need to leave at the door.  Whether you consider logical empiricism to be practically unchallengable is entirely irrelevant.  I know people who consider the fact that God has a full tangible effect in their daily lives to be equally unchallengable.  You are no more right then they no matter how loudly you proclaim yourself to be.  They have faith in God, you have faith in the a philosophy invented by a handful of men less than 100 years ago.  Either way its faith, and either way its you choosing what you choose to believe in.  Strutting around proclaiming the superiority of your method of thought is about as ridiculous as arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  Simply put, no one is right and no one cares.


If your personal world view is something you want to portray in your role playing game, great.  Talk about the game.  Talk about what play experience you want the players to have playing the game.  Talk about what you want the characters to do.  Talk about what relationship you want there to be between the players and the game master.  Talk about how you envision the process in which information about the Shared Imaginary Space is transmitted and altered among players.  Talk about why you think combat should be the most important chapter of your game (personally I find seperate combat chapters to be largely antiquated and utterly unnecessary in most cases).  Base those things on your notions of logical empiricalism if you want, but leave your soap box at the door.  

This is not a site for personal manifestos.

[gruk]

#1 You can't just have an arbitrary set of 'spells' because that, basically, doesn't make any sense. Okay, if you had deities you could have them (by fiat) handing out edicts, but why in the world would they do that? Not to mention a host of other logical issues with superintelligent, superpowerful immortal transdimensional beings who can't see to conjure up fission power and are obsessed with the actions of little monkeys. So the list-o-spells system clearly isn't going to work as it's neither rational nor internally consistent.

What I'm playing with in the Space Opera (though fairly SF-like) RPG I'm doodling on at the moment is a magic system based, essentially, on energy channeling and energy manipulation (and, for teleportation, on creative technobabble). This had some interesting by-effects. It's much easier heating something up than cooling something down, with the way the system works. The whole magic system is centred around four skills.

* One to latch on to a power source (anything with a fairly high amount of usable energy, in a fantasy world I'm not sure what would be a good thing, in my game I recommend power cells or electrical sockets).
* One to heat things up
* One to impart momentum on things
* One to teleport (teleport self is way easier than anything else)
[/list:u]

I handle the diverging power levels not by limiting the available energy per se, but by regulating how much of the power turns to spill heat in the brain of the magic user. This does impose a rather harsh limit, over-extend your character's capacity and she ends up with a cooked brain.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I'm Ron, the content moderator.

And this is a forum for designing specific role-playing games.

I strongly suggest that Vincent's questions for RJ are the core issue of this thread so far. Everyone's comments can help with the answers - but as Ralph correctly states, this is not the place for illuminating others with one's fascinating personal viewpoints. Other websites exist for that purpose.

So! The thread will now continue on these two points:

1. RJ's answers to Vincent's questions

2. Everyone helping RJ with his stated goals (based on #1)

If you can't get behind these points as the foundation for your participation in this thread, then please post on another thread instead, about something else.

Best,
Ron

[GreedIsGod]

My first set of questions: "explore" - like explorers, on a voyage of discovery?

There is a great deal of wilderness and pocket-cultures generated by desertification and mountanous terrain, so some of that.

It seems to me that to minor nobles, the political, social and cultural world will be pretty much known already. Not much to explore, really - unless you intend them to explore beyond the boundaries of their own society.

In this sense 'explore' is meant as examination and interaction.  Obviously minor nobles will have a reasonable grasp of their cultural heritage, but following the intrigues and specifics of diplomacy, vassalage and war is the idea.

I do, however, get the sense that you're after a really conventional play dynamic: the GM presents your intensively-detailed game world to the players, who have strict control over their own character's actions and nothing else. True?

Yes, although as a GM in general I take feedback for possible development ideas, and try to follow PC goals with potential storylines tailored as such.

If so, do you intend the GM to be the sole rules person, with the players just doing whatever the GM tells them to, ruleswise (as in Multiverser), or do you intend the players to master the rules too?

I would intend the players to grasp the major elements of character action rules (IE whatever attribute system and such) for speed, and the rest would be mostly my (the GM's) province.

As designer, do you consider yourself to have any responsibility for making the game in play be not boring?

I do have an interest in making it interesting because I am going to actually play this if I ever get it finished (or partially finished).

what rpgs have you a) played or b) only read, as influences on this game you're designing?

RPGs that influence this idea would be
Played: Stormbringer!, AD&D1E, GURPS Conan
Read: BRP Call of Cthulhu
Elements which are influential from these are the mood/setting and lethality of Stormbringer (and the related fiction), the feel of Conan but with more of an edge and the intense minutae of AD&D1E.  The CoC influence is in potential mechanics type and a focus on realistic combat - that is, not super-deadly or super-complex, but the sort of arbitrary randomness that is so common to real-world fighting.

[raithe]

Howdy,
Just thought I'd drop in and try to help out. A look at C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy might prove helpful here. The books take an interesting viewpoint on magic from a more scientific stance. They might give you some ideas. I'd paraphrase it for you but I'm a bit pressed for time.

Later,
Crow

[lumpley]

RJ, excellent. Thank you!

You've got two very serious problems to confront as a game designer, before you even get to play dynamics, let alone magic system or fighting rules. I don't see any positive direction for this thread or your game design to go, until you've dealt with these two problems. Thus I'll raise only them, and leave your game design alone until you've addressed them.

---

The more serious problem:

I do have an interest in making it interesting because I am going to actually play this if I ever get it finished (or partially finished). [My emphasis. -VB]

You don't seem the type for false modesty, so I read you to mean that you're not committed to finishing this game. If that's the case, a) you're off-topic for this forum, and b) worse, you're wasting all of our time.

Commit to designing the game or drop it.

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The less serious problem:

RPGs that influence this idea would be
Played: Stormbringer!, AD&D1E, GURPS Conan
Read: BRP Call of Cthulhu

Have you read any games more current than those? Those are worthy ancestors, don't get me wrong, but you're starting half a length behind. This in particular:

The CoC influence is in potential mechanics type and a focus on realistic combat - that is, not super-deadly or super-complex, but the sort of arbitrary randomness that is so common to real-world fighting.

You ougta look around and see just how many clever solutions there are to this. CoC was a starting point for a couple of whole generations of game designers; things have come a long way since then.

---

Like I say, we can talk about how you might make a game that meets your needs next. For now, we need to establish a) that you actually have needs, and b) that some other designer hasn't already met them.

In a more friendly tone: dude, you need the Riddle of Steel. It's like you've got crosshairs on your forehead.

If the Riddle of Steel isn't exactly the game you're after, reading and playing it will put you in a much stronger position to go forward with your own game.

-Vincent
who is not in any way associated with the Riddle of Steel.

[contracycle]

Another good example of hit location/wound path games would be Milleniums End and the Babylon Project by Chameleon Eclectic IIRC.  Milleniums end is the more fully developed version, and the Babylon Project a cut down version.

One of its major innovations is a bullet fall diagram.  A cellophane sheet is placed over a silhouette of a target (and there are some diagrams for animals and different postures) and the actual point of impact of the shot is determined, thus taking into acocunt multiple body areas that the projectile might traverse.

Its a very detailed system, but IMO overly detailed and rather cumbersome.  Nonetheless its a pretty radical departure from ablative hit points.

[GreedIsGod]

You don't seem the type for false modesty, so I read you to mean that you're not committed to finishing this game.

I intend to finish it to the point where 1) it is a complete game or 2) it is a set of game concept content which could be applied to an existing system.  In either case the current topic would still be applicable.

Have you read any games more current than those?

Yes, I am familiar and have experience with several more modern games (basically everthing White Wolf has put out, D20, Tri-Stat, Palladium and some more I can't name off the top of my head).  In specific regards to Stormbringer and CoC I simply find their mechanics to be both simpler and more accurate to combat situations than many of the other games, except perhaps for games like "Living Steel" which are so freakishly complex as to be irrelevant to my present intentions of design.  I would of course do some tweaking to the systems, but all in all a synthesis of some elements of the system I listed with my own additions would be quite functional.  I think the tendency to think 'new' is better is entirely inapplicable in things like ideas because the tendency for degredation and mass appeal are entirely as present as refinement and improvement - my HK USP still uses the linkless Browning action present in the FN Hi Power and I generally feel that more modern systems are often just esoteric ways of rolling dice.

Now here is a magic system that I came up with at work that pleases me more than the one I suggested earlier.  In order to establish it's premise I must give you some concept of the cosmology of it, based on a paper I wrote for no particular reason some three or four years ago.
There are a number of species who are in possession of mental, physical and technilogical powers vastly greater than that held by man.  They vary in individual power but as a whole they have grown so sufficient in and of themselves that their actions are governed by motives rather different from mortals who have to survive.  There is nothing 'supernatural', nor are they all the same race, there are several 'groups' of beings with varying levels of ability.  One of the more common ones is what I tenativey call 'Solars' (and I made this up well before I came into contact with Exalted) who are a single species which has capacities of quantum probability manipulation, limited by the amount of energy they can produce but overall they are fantastically potent, essentially impervious to harm, immortal and locally omnipotent.  The Solars engage in a game whos origin is unknown but is effectively a kind of transgalactic Chess, where they pit members of less evolved species against on another for reasons of entertainment and experiment.  Their exact motives are rather mysterious as their mental capacities and psychological construction must obviously be different from humans, but general observation leads to the conclusion that it is a sort of game or experiment.  The Solars conduct their games choosing sides, or all against all, and agreeing to certain limits on the game (as one has limits on basketball) and agreeing to expel violators.  Interfering with a game is by no means a serious 'crime', as they really stand nothing to lose or gain but a few moments of time in a virtually endless lifespan, but those who are under their auspices are often convinced these Solars are some sort of 'gods' and form various cultic practices around them, especially if they are wont to grant powers and/or communicate with their 'followers'.

The specific example of this world which, probably due to the contrivance of the solars, contains humans and many animals we are familiar with on Earth is has it's set of rules deciding what can and cannot be done by Solars in pursuit of 'winning' the game, exactly how one 'wins' is unclear but it is neccesary (if not sufficient) that one must globally and totally dominate through one's pieces - that is, your 'group' must take over the world or galaxy or something of this nature.

Magic is essentially delianated into 'effects', which are similar to spells except being combineable and applicable in clever ways which take into account their literal forces (something not done in your basic AD&D system).  Effects used to develop technology which is deemed misbalancing or uninteresting by the Solars are negotiated by them as a group as either removed from play or modified somehow as to make them inapplicable.  This has a dual purpose for it explains the lack of fireball-powered steam engine tanks and also allows the GM to modify or remove spells he finds adversly effect gameplay.

'Researching' spells is either the creative combination of existing effects or by 'petitioning' one's patron Solar (or perhaps some other Solar) to generate some effect, and that petition is then negotiated among the Solars and is reckoned to be accepted or denied.

I have the begginings of a story/plot/historical bit with the following:
At some point in time a being similar in power to the Solars decided to interrupt their game.  They were of sufficient initiative to prevent him from ruining it all in one stroke, but he managed to communicate some of his message to certain humans.  One of them was that the other cosmic entities, the Solars, were playing a game with humans and pitting them against one another with deception and artifice but he himself was of another sort, and trying to free them from their meddling.  This was interpreted by the humans as indication that the Solars were 'demons' who use trickery and lies to seduce humans and that the 'Outer God' with whom they had communed was the 'True God', which immediatly set them apart and against from their fellow men's religions.  He also communicated the idea that if they simply refused to cooperate with the Solars' schemes and didn't engage in war the Solar would lose interest and leave them be.  The humans never quite understood the import of this, but some of them insist it is an indication of 'non-resistance to evil', that they should be passive and submissive.  Before he was expelled he was also able to break through the blocks of the Solars and cause quite a ruckus by unleashing his might upon those who attacked and enslaved or otherwise pestered the humans who communed with him.  This gave him a reputation of a great and powerful deity, as he was the only one who didn't obey the 'rules' of the Sin War.  Eventually, though, he was expelled by the Solars but before he was he vowed he'd return in strength some day to abolish the reign of the Solars upon them.  This seems unlikely as Solars number in the trillions, but the result was that humans took this to mean he would in the future return and crush those who opressed them in a moment of glory.
His removal from influence had consequences of it's own.  Humans previously made infinitly mighty by his works were now without power.  Since the other gods were 'devils' they took magic of priests and mages to be evidence of 'demonry', 'witchraft' and the like.  The inability to commune with their 'god' made possible the splitting off into 'sects', each with it's own interpretation of 'prophecy'.  His sayings, corrupted by incomplete interpretation and personal opinions of his humans, were compiled in writing and expanded upon by ambitious clerics.

Presently this gives us a magically powerless but idealogically motivated cult, with no tolerance for outside religion.  Some of it's 'sects' practiced the pacifism they interpreted from the compiled works and had for the most part died out, while on the other hand demagogues have seized the concepts of 'devils' and 'witches' and used this hopeless religion without a God to further their own political and idealogical persuasions.  I intend to make them the focus of some sort of adventure, background and so-forth.

[lumpley]

I intend to finish it to the point where 1) it is a complete game or 2) it is a set of game concept content which could be applied to an existing system. In either case the current topic would still be applicable.

Very good! We can continue.

I have more follow-up questions to "what do the characters do":

In this sense 'explore' is meant as examination and interaction. Obviously minor nobles will have a reasonable grasp of their cultural heritage, but following the intrigues and specifics of diplomacy, vassalage and war is the idea.

Who do you envision inventing the intrigues and the specifics of diplomacy, vassalage and war - you as the designer, the local GM, or the local players?

How do you envision the characters' participation in the intrigues etc. playing out - any which way, consistent with a GM's planned plot, or consistent with a timeline or metaplot that you'll provide?

The verbs you've associated with the PCs are really suck: examine, interact, follow. Do you imagine PCs to have any ambition or active will at all?

I must say: there's no magic system and no fighting system to make "examine, interact, follow" fun.

As designer, do you consider yourself to have any responsibility for making the game in play be not boring?

I do have an interest in making it interesting because I am going to actually play this if I ever get it finished (or partially finished).

No, that's not what I meant. Let's say I buy your game and sit down with some friends. I'm the GM. We find playing your game boring. Is that your fault or our fault?

I'm asking what you think, not what's true - every designer is going to answer differently. Please don't imagine that your answer is self-evident or even right.

Which brings us to ... a delicate matter.

RJ, I want you to take a second and reflect. You came here asking for our help, but you've asked for it in the most insulting ways available. You've demanded my and our critical attention, but dismissed my and our work as "just esoteric ways of rolling dice" and worse. Does that seem, y'know, productive to you? Is it in your interest to keep on that way?

-Vincent

[GreedIsGod]

Who do you envision inventing the intrigues and the specifics of diplomacy, vassalage and war - you as the designer, the local GM, or the local players?

The GM will have a responsibility of sorts to make interesting situations and the intrigues of NPCs, but I would expect players to engage in their own aggrandizements and power building.  I definitly envision the game as having an individualist-egoist outlook and style of play, benefitting the players who act in the interest of maximizing their personal wealth - which is, of course, what most RPG players (or rational human beings) will do in any case.
I should also note that the feudal system I envision active in most countries will be rather different than what you are taught in 3rd grade, IE it will not be the 'late' feudal societies or monarchies but rather independent lords with contracts to one another and peasant farmers who contract their land and work in exchange for protection and arbitration services - with, of course, a particularly well endowed noble Prince who comes from the most elite family and acts as a 'supreme' court.  The 'king' is not hereditary (historically or in most game civs) but is rather chosen from a specific family by the council of lords.  In this sense (gamewise and historically) feudalism is actually an anarchistic non-government which allowed much better capital accumulation than the later monarchistic states, democratic-republican states or the like.  I will reflect this in game with the different levels of monarchistic power.
The PCs will of be relatives of some lord or manor-holder and will have their own motives, which may be merchantry, exploration, settling land, military or perhaps aspiring to incite the tenants to revolt against their lords in order to gain popular support and become a monarch themselves.
As to a metaplot I will perhaps lay out some inter-lord tensions, monarchistic plots and such that will be sort of threads that can be worked upon but I will leave it up to the GM and players exactly how things progress from there.  And, of course, the 'monster' races.  I intend humans to be the only civilized lot with many hunter-gatherer type races, perhaps a few herder-style races which will be able to interact more peacefully with the primarily agricultural humans.

Do you imagine PCs to have any ambition or active will at all?

That is the entire purpose, for them to use the resources at their disposal to maximize themselves and pursue personal goals.

I'm the GM. We find playing your game boring. Is that your fault or our fault?

Well it would depend to some extent.  It could be that I've produced an uninteresting product, or that you've simply gotten something that doesn't suit your interest or some of both.  I primarily intend to make something that fulfills the interest of myself and my primary playing associates.

dismissed my and our work as "just esoteric ways of rolling dice" and worse.

It is my opinion that most RPGs, like most philosophies, are entirely esoteric and may appeal to a limited group who are predisposed to such notions but are in general not relevant or useful.  In regard to personal work I lean toward realistic simplicity, that is to say the greatest degree reflection of circumstances which requires the minimum degree of effort on the part of the players.  Having read probably hundreds of different mechanic systems I would conclude that the vast majority are irrelevant variations of other systems, and often are more complex and less useful than the systems they vary from.