I so much need help here :P

[Shiruba]

Hello there guys! My name is Shiruba, and this is my first post!

in over 10 years of rpg, is the first time that i gathered courage to talk with the so famed expert forum people.

like som many other people, i have decided to design a new system, no, i am not hoping to make that awesome system that will change the way people live! :)

reading other posts, i noticed instead of having lots of tech stuff said, you ask people "what do you want?", "how do you imagine your players playing this game?"

well, i will get into that, i only wanted to ask for one thing,
be nice to me! =p i am a non-experient game designer, non math-expert and heck, i dont even write english properly sometimes :P

here in brazil its virtually impossible to find GURPS players, or Game designers, the most complicated thing people can play here, its AD&D =p

well, to the system

the system idea its kinda old already, i have got some friends that are on a gurps campaign for about 6 years, this campaing was supposed to be anime, but gurps kinda worked very well on some aspects, and has terrible flaws on others.

my goals with this project, its to design a system that:

* can have flexible number of atributes (default to 12)

* simulates a good anime battle, not that overpowered beam show, but
battles in more fight-oriented genres, like yu yu hakusho, maybe noir, maybe any other anime besides dragon-ball

* tracks character's mental, social and espiritual status besides the phisical one (example: losing social traits can make you isolated from human contact, maybe depression or something else... losing mental points stress yourself to the point of madness, losing espiritual points, makes you lose the "fighting spirit", "ki", "mana" or whatever power you believe)

i dont someone to skecth everything for me, i am just hoping that, after some posts we can all happily finish this thread :)

i would like to receive email, pm or msn messages of everyone interested in designing rpgs or interested in helping, or maybe interested in the same system idea.

well, lets jump to the good part, the first question :)


I want characters to distribute points when creating characters freely, like, having a 7 in all atributes then distributing some points, to make players really really regret losing their character, i added many atributes and many levels to gain, i wanted something "longer" than gurps's range
instead of 3-18, i wanted the players to attain 15 in some atributes after some weeks playing, attain 18 in some atributes after some months, and with proper time and anime-ish explanations (cybernetics, intense training, etc) reach 20,30 or maybe 50 !

whats the problem, i wanted to use only 6 sided dice, how can I make a system that support so many atribute levels and still work fine, without using the rule of x?

if this question is answered, whats the most common solution to the famous "nature X nurture" question?


thanks for the attention, sorry for any evil mispelling or something! :P

Shiruba

[Shreyas Sampat]

Without comparing your game to any other games, can you tell us what makes it awesome?

[Shiruba]

it will be awesome because it will number more aspects of the character than most classic rpgs do, instead of listing only strenght, vitality and such, there will be atributes that will descript many more faces that the character has, until now, i have really decided to use the following

body group
------
strenght
Ability
Agility
Vitality

mind group
-----
intelligence
reasoning
perception
control

social group
-----
charisma
expression
empaty
social status

Spirit group
-----
Anima
will
faith
essence

i have used common atributes names but with other meanings

the body groups is the classic thing, the difference lies in ability meaning "coordenation and technique" and agility meaning "overall body speed, fluidity of movement"

mind group has intelligence, meaning how much the character knows, how much life experience has and such, reasoning means "speed of thinking, reflexes and such"

social group has just one atribute we know, charisma, meaning "raw power to influence others",expression is like "knowledge of how to handle  a conversation", empaty means "feeling the other's feelings, rapport" and social status "pre-made image of the character on its natural society"

spirit group is my favorite, it was the one i took more time do think about, because in anime, there are so many different concepts... people draw power from gods, demons, oneself, love, hate, items, spells, ancient cosmic energies, ice cream...
so if i made everyone use "mana" a martial artist would feel out, the same with "ki", "power", "energy" , "psi" and such

so I choose "anima", because it can mean "power that makes a living being live!", "force of self-existence", so anima is the spark of vitality, for the ones who believes in it it could be called "soul" or "inner energy" or "biological organization" or whatever! =p

will its the old good "determination", faith its the "skill of channeling your anima in a way you know", so we can say that clerics, priests, healers in medieval games could have their anima = "godly empowerment" and their faith in "prayer", so the priest channel its power by a prayer from a god, in a martial arts game, anima can mean "demon world" and faith can be "fighting style" so a demon-like character who doesnt understand/accept the idea of a prayer or godly power, has another way of channeling power, he draws infernal power by its fighting style! :P

and essence, meaning "spiritual knowledge, spiritual harmony"
its hard to explain, but in anime its pretty clear....

if you loose vitality your body dies, if you loose control, your mind dies, if you loose status, your social interations will die, if you loose anime, your body will work well, as your mind, and people will still act normally with you... but there is something wrong with your spirit... maybe unlucky things can start to happen, or a misterious illness... the character doenst feel like living, he starts to ignore his own existence... blah blah blah :P


thats it, i think this is the first part of my system that will be awesome....
the second part, its about the skills, i wanted to get rid of some interpretation other games do, like i have X score, if i roll over i got a success, if i roll under, i failed... well, to me things arent so.... simple.
so i wanted to make a skill system with two scores... one for theory "knowing what to do" and for practice "knowing how to do".

ex: having high theory makes you know more about stuff, you know more types of weapons, you know more types of healing plants, you know about every type of painting.... having high practice make you know how to fight well, how to prepare a healing potion, how to paint a good picture... the average result of the character its how much of a success he got...

ex: a engineer looks at a sci-fi mega robot engine

he rolls mech. engineering

he passes on theory, not on practice

"hmmm, its a XLMRR2 Engine, i dont have a clue how to work on this, but be careful, it works using dangerous elements...."

he passes on practice, not on theory

"hmm, it seems to be a XMM-Engine series, there it is! the main support trigger, i will just take that out and the engine will open"

he passes on practice and on theory

"oh my! a XLMRR2 engine! thats very expensive, hey, i think taking the main support trigger will open this thing up, but i am afraid of the dangerous elements inside, let me take proper tools...."

he does not passes in any test

"What is this strange-looking metal barrel here? and why it glows green?"


thats it, however, nothing is certain, that are just hopes that i have for my poor system :P

thanks

shiruba

[Sean]

You wrote:

"simulates a good anime battle, not that overpowered beam show, but
battles in more fight-oriented genres, like yu yu hakusho, maybe noir, maybe any other anime besides dragon-ball"

I wonder...are you really interested in simulating this, or are you interested in making a game that will be challenging to play and win for the player that uses some of the color and imagery found in anime? Either answer is OK, but some of your design decisions may change depending on which.

Also, I don't see how having 16 attributes is particularly appropriate for the anime genre, and the ones you have don't seem picked either for it or for the sake of interesting game play. Rather, you seem to just be making a long list because you can and because you think people will care about their character more if they have more numbers.

[Shiruba]

are you really interested in simulating this, or are you interested in making a game that will be challenging to play and win for the player that uses some of the color and imagery found in anime? Either answer is OK, but some of your design decisions may change depending on which.

I dont like some of the "color and imagery" in some animes, when i say anime, i dont mean the silly ones, with cat ears, giant monsters and stuff, there are good animes out there, like Jin-roh or even Evangelion, who take a serious approach to many aspects of combat and many more aspects of the human mind, if a player decides to take a emotional action, or the GM figures the results or a proper Anima check can be made. it depends.

I don't see how having 16 attributes is particularly appropriate for the anime genre, and the ones you have don't seem picked either for it or for the sake of interesting game play. Rather, you seem to just be making a long list because you can and because you think people will care about their character more if they have more numbers.

why having lots of atributes isnt appropriate for anime? anime i just a more iamginative and cinematic way of telling a history, with a very oriental focus on symbolism, those things no one never pays attention, everyone knows all the super-dupper-power moves' names, the name of the ancient race of hyper-badasses and stuff, no one never pays attention to when a character is deep inside his inner mind, thats why we have lots of attributes here, and i dont plan to make a system where the player will go "hey, if i die i can make another one", if i had just one atribute, all points would be spent there, my rpg system enfathizes great decision, you can level your character's strenght for sure... but how about his poor espirtuality? and i -as a GM- dont let players upgrade attributes that arent used, so player will have to engage in social questions and spiritual question to make their character more then numbers. and hey, like you said, i picked the attributes because i can, i think interesting game play is more a job for the game master then the system itself, the many different GM can play many different quests or even, the same adventure by another viewpoint.

we can play a Evangelion game taking focus on big mecha fights, using all our reflexes and strenght and agility, our we can focus on the asuka's struggle to understand herself... or hibiki's (vandread) doubts about his honor and value.

well thats it

Shiruba
"awaiting for answers"

[daMoose_Neo]

Numbers != Better Play

"Anime" is akin to saying "like Hollywood". Is this Three Stooges? Abbot & Costello? Arnold? Phillip K. Dick knock-offs? What is it you want MOST to represent? Looks like, from your posts, the combat of the serious shows- your high action/high drama shows. Focus on those.
Off the cuff can par down the kinds of things your looking at with like a Mind/Body/Spirit tripod of stats.
Something eating at the heart of the character? Ding the Spirit attribute -1 and make a roll. Trying to brainstorm a brilliant manuver? Chuck the die for the Mind. Want an HP system? Dervive a value from your existing stats- say Body (physical) + Spirit (their will to survive above and beyond mortal constraints). Magic points? Mind (Knowledge) + Spirit (faith).

Concur on the attributes, ifn'n you can't tell ^_^ Unless you have a distinct reason for them, its not a good idea to slap down values "because, what if..."
Anime is a very swift, very brilliant medium of story telling. The adventures are always over the top and exaggerated, no matter what genre you're looking at, and very explosive- literally or emotionally. You'll want a system that supports that- swift, explosive, and brilliantly colored with whatever tones your pet genre has.
If it takes 16 values to do, then I suppose it takes 16 values to do. But if you can do it in three? ^_^ (btw, I hope I didn't tread on the Tri-stat system up there...may have...)

[Jasper]

Hi there,

...no one never pays attention to when a character is deep inside his inner mind, thats why we have lots of attributes here...

But how will having lots of attributes accomplish the stated goal? In other words, specifically how are the attributes used?  If they're just there as additional stats to test...does that really get "inside the head" of the character? And will they really function in different ways? For instance, what's the functional difference between "intelligence" and "reasoning"?

(Not rhetorical questions here. Maybe you have a good answer, and we'll be shown that you do need these attributes -- or maybe you'll decide you don't.)

[Shiruba]

Numbers != Better Play

surely, but that doesnt means Numbers = worst play, it all depends!

What is it you want MOST to represent? Looks like, from your posts, the combat of the serious shows- your high action/high drama shows. Focus on those

hmm... yes, its what i was talkin about in the previous post =p

Off the cuff can par down the kinds of things your looking at with like a Mind/Body/Spirit tripod of stats.
Something eating at the heart of the character? Ding the Spirit attribute -1 and make a roll. Trying to brainstorm a brilliant manuver? Chuck the die for the Mind. Want an HP system? Dervive a value from your existing stats- say Body (physical) + Spirit (their will to survive above and beyond mortal constraints). Magic points? Mind (Knowledge) + Spirit (faith).

surely sure! the groups are just for organization, to avoid confusion, i totally agree with your logic flow. those atributtes were made like that to make other gms capable of expanding their gameplay by adding custom rules, like magic points, for instance.

Concur on the attributes, ifn'n you can't tell ^_^ Unless you have a distinct reason for them, its not a good idea to slap down values "because, what if..."

it seems everyone thinks I am slapping values, that not my objective.
i love house rules, and i love customization, my campaign, the one that made me design my own system, was starting to overflow gurps's rule core, sooner or later, the new weapons, rules, character classes, hi tech equips, spells and new stuff, were starting to sound like the same thing.

gurps is amazing for being generic, but take a core rule out, and you kill the whole system, if you take some tables out, the entire combat sequence must be rewritten, i dont have time and money to write gurps stuff, so i thikn thats easir to make a simples system , and mod it perfectly to make sure nothing its goin to be unbalanced.

If it takes 16 values to do, then I suppose it takes 16 values to do. But if you can do it in three?

it seems people still dont get it, the sole purpose to having more atributes its better description, just that, let says my character is an normal average human, i have four atributes, gurps for example, strenght, dexterity, intelligence and health

ok, i want my character to be very aware of its surroundings, but by instint, not by being smart... ooh ooh perception rolls are against intelligence! the only way i have to make this possible is buying proper advantages. i want my character to be empatic, cool i get this empaty advantage.. thats great, then i met another character who is empatic too, but hey, i want my character to be more empatic than his!!! there goes! oh oh! i want my character to be slow-moving but and expert in machinery... Dexterity controls both, there is no way i can have big dexterity and low dexterity at the same time.

i know everything in gurps can be adapted using advantages and skills, but thats just add stuff to the sheet and doesnt add stuff to the character at all, it always seems your character is hijacked to look like he was what you wanted him to be, i am pretty sure i could do an anime system with 3 atributes, or 2 or 1000 its really the same thing.

i want players to have a complete numeric control over the four main aspects of the character, body, mind, spirit and social.

just that.

But how will having lots of attributes accomplish the stated goal? In other words, specifically how are the attributes used? If they're just there as additional stats to test...does that really get "inside the head" of the character? And will they really function in different ways? For instance, what's the functional difference between "intelligence" and "reasoning"?

thats a good damn question. i think that having or not the atributes isnt decisive for accomplishing this goal, but i really think it helps, in my first draft, the entire mind group was "anima" and the entire social group was "charisma" i really added the other atributes becuase i didnt liked the feeling for having 4 atributes related to body,but just one related to soul or social... in the long run, body will always be the most important, i dont want to have the stats just for check, i didnt designed anything besides the atributes until now, but i want to make each attribute very important to some game aspect... like all interations between players have social involved, and the results of the conversation can lower the status attribute.. what that means? ex: you asked for help, but didnt handles the situation well, now you are feeling a bit down because you didnt handle the task. its better to have this explanation than using gurps's random  reaction table that says "the npc didnt liked you, i dont know why,but he wants to kill you now, even being a merchant"

about the part with reasoning, i hate systems where you upgrade your intelligence and you get wonderfull performances in everything, many good rpgs, between the classic, the new and the homebrew have rules like this

you are a fighter, you cant use magic, damage by strenght
you are a mage, you can use magic, damage by mind

then you put points on strenght, you get a better damage, cool!
you put points on intelligence when you are a mage, and you get a better damage with spells, your perception gets better, your skills work more, your magic resistance is better..etc etc etc

its almost impossible to you to have any interest on leveling stranght, in special when there are spells who can cause damage and lift things, that apparently is all that strenght is for.

its easy to explain like this, an intelligent character is that scholar type of guy, the wizard, mage, whatever

a character will lots of reasonin would be that thief stereotype, who is creative, and have quick solutions for problems...

we can imagine, that given a hard problem that requires intelligence: memorizing all runes in one room, casting a 3 day long spell, talking in some gibberish ancient language is a task for intelligence

and when indiana jones was about to get the graal, his reasoning said "OMFG, i have to duck" and he ducked. avoiding losing his head =p

lets make a table here =p

good int, bad rea
you know much, but you are easy distracted
you need to concetrate on everything you do
with time you can do anything.

bad int, good rea
you arent a genius, but you have a clever mind
able to improvise, devise and take decision very quickly
good reflex, even if you dont know how to
work with computer programming

that is for now, i think :)

Shiruba

[Jasper]

I don't want to get totally wrapped up in the attributes question, since there are some larger issues, but I'll say one more thing.

You've basically argued that you want to have more attributes in order to have finer descriptions and more differentiation between characters. But there's no logical stopping place when pursuing that logic.  What if I want to have a character who has good twitch-muscle strength but low endurance-muscle strength?  Shouldn't you split strength?  Or maybe a character who's really good at spatial reasoning but poor with mathematics.  Surely you have to take that into account, right?   My point is that you can go down to infinite levels of detail, and there will always be more hairs to split.  For each split you make, you should ask "is this distinction important for what my game is about?"  In other words, what level of detail is "good enough"?


Now, in your initial post you stated two goals (besides having ~12 attributes): to simulate a good anime battles "like yu yu hackaho," and to track a character's social and spiritual status.  So those things should always be your focus. Returning to attributes for a second, we could ask, "is it necessary to measure every character's 'vitality' in order to achieve yu yu hackaho-like battles?"  I don't know anime so I can't answer that question -- but it seems like the answer may be "no."


In general, it seems like you're trying to re-make GURPS--and to be blunt, porting over a lot of the baggage from GURPS, without really questioning it.  Have you read Mike's "Standard Rants"?  I'd suggest checking out some other games, especially some dealing more specifically with what you're doing.  You're not building a generic game, like GURPS, but an anime fighting game, right? So take inspiration from other anime / fighting games.  That's not my area of expertise, but I'm sure someone around here can make some suggestions.

[Shiruba]

yes, you could design a system with 1000000000 atributtes, i dont think there are a "right" number of attributes, vampire has 9, gurps has 4 and d&d has 6, and they are wonderfull games.

so, i want to make a system with 12, or maybe 16 attributes, so why getting on such discussion? i think its necessary for the games i will roll, if i didnt found it necessary, i would take em out, dont you agree?

if i discover tomorrow or, after an hour, that they are futile, em i will take them off, but for now, i want all the 16 attributes.

so to answer you:

what level of detail is "good enough"?

one you find confortable to use.

is it necessary to measure every character's 'vitality' in order to achieve yu yu hackaho-like battles?" I don't know anime so I can't answer that question -- but it seems like the answer may be "no."

so, follow this steps, watch the anime, then anser yourself the question.

if you want me to give you a hint, yu yu hakusho is a martial arts anime,
do you think i dont need to have an vitality attribute to use for determining hp of the characters?

In general, it seems like you're trying to re-make GURPS--and to be blunt, porting over a lot of the baggage from GURPS, without really questioning it. Have you read Mike's "Standard Rants"? I'd suggest checking out some other games, especially some dealing more specifically with what you're doing. You're not building a generic game, like GURPS, but an anime fighting game, right? So take inspiration from other anime / fighting games. That's not my area of expertise, but I'm sure someone around here can make some suggestions

i have just selected the attributes, and you say i am remaking gurps?
you must be psychic


hey, people of the forum, can someone please, pretty please
read my thread and help me, instead of shooting me with a machinegun because i am wanting to make a new system?


thanks

Shiruba

[LordSmerf]

Shiruba,

No one is attacking you.  In fact, every question asked has been asked with an eye toward making your game better.  Examples:

what level of detail is "good enough"?

one you find confortable to use.

You've dodged an important question.  The question here is not "what level of detail is 'good enough'", the question is "how do you know it's good enough."  The emphasis is on you here.  How do you as the designer know it's good enough?  The answer is because it does something you want.

Don't just pick 12 because you want 12, pick 12 because any fewer makes the game worse (and have reasons why the game would be worse), and any more would do the same (again, you need reasons).

Have you read Mike's Standard Rants?  If not, then I definitely suggest you take a look, they're excellent resources for game design.

No one is trying to say "don't make this new game."  We're saying "make this new game the best it can be."  To do that, you need to know what you want it to do specifically and trim away anything that doesn't further that.

I'm going to take your stated goals and look at them one-by-one.

* can have flexible number of atributes (default to 12)

First question: why?  Having a flexible number of attributes is really a way to accomplish a goal, not a goal in and of itself.  What is it that you get from 12 attributes that you don't get from 4?  If your answer is "more detail" then there's a follow up question.  Why do you need more detail?  You may have a great reason, I'd love to hear it.  Does it have anything to do with meeting your next two goals?

* simulates a good anime battle, not that overpowered beam show, but battles in more fight-oriented genres, like yu yu hakusho, maybe noir, maybe any other anime besides dragon-ball

Okay, here's a solid goal.  Let's break it down a bit: what makes "good anime battle"?  Noir and Yu Yu Hakasho are radically different in the way they are presented.  Noir is all about guns, knives, and highly trained assassins, it's very cool.  Yu Yu Hakasho is all about demon hunting and "spiritual energy"-style attacks, it's also pretty dang cool.  What similarities do you see between the two?  What is it specifically that you are trying to get your game to produce that you define as "good anime battle".  Again, you probably have a great answer for this question, we'll need to know what it is before we can make any suggestions.

* tracks character's mental, social and espiritual status besides the phisical one (example: losing social traits can make you isolated from human contact, maybe depression or something else... losing mental points stress yourself to the point of madness, losing espiritual points, makes you lose the "fighting spirit", "ki", "mana" or whatever power you believe)

Cool!  Why are we tracking these?  Is this part of what makes "good anime battles"?  Is this cool for some other, unrelated reason?  Both?

A number of people have expressed interest in helping you design your game, but if they're going to help they need to understand what it is you want...  No one's attacking you, but sometimes the help can be harsh.  If you make a crappy game, we'll tell you, and then we'll work with you to make it better.  If you make a great game and we don't like part of it, we'll tell you, and then work to make it better.  You're free to ignore our opinions, it's your game after all, but if you don't want our opinions, then don't ask for them.

Thomas

[daMoose_Neo]

i love house rules, and i love customization

Just a side note - Gathering this, loving moding and house rules, I'd personally build a system that is extremely bare then and write more details on how to effectively mod it out, a kind of scripting language found on a lot of MMORPGs.
If you expect a GM to mod your system out, too many values will swamp him or her as you were swamped with GURPS. Give them a rock solid base and clear and concise rules to expand, however, and they can take it as far as they want.

We're not trying to shoot you down at all, its just that in reading your ideas you have a lot of energy and enthusiasm without sharing with us why these things are important to you. If we understand, we'll see why you need 12-16 definitions for a character.
And this part is important- if I, as a player, skim the character sheets and see 12/16 values for my character, I'd be a bit wary of the title. If you can, summararily, show me why they are important and make me feel the way you feel about the neccessity, you could pull off 20 values (Lord knows Rolemaster is chuck full of values).
Instead of looking at us as we're ogres assailing your baby, consider us as players: sell us on your system and why your way is best.
- Why that many attributes? Why those in particular and not these others?
- What is a really cool moment all/several of these come into play with each other? Make us *feel* the excitement as several carefully balanced values score a mega victory as we conquer our inner demons just in time to defeat the enemy fleet.
- Two last bits of advice: Echoing everyone else, Mike is da man. He's been around the block and know what goes into a good game, heed his wisdom, as such. And two, get used to thinking your game is the best damn game out there and be prepared to tell everyone why with lots of energy and enthusiasm. Because if your game isn't, why should we, as players, believe it is?

[Shiruba]

yes! someone listened to my prayers! :P

well, after a good reading of all the standart issues i mus admit that i really have to tweak the system, since i dont have anything designed yet, i dont feel like losing work or time =p

so lets get a good grasping of the attributes, since the must be the building blocks of my system:

lets start by setting new goals!
and i will try to justify why i think its so important!

* Fast and Simple gameplay, realistic as "realistic" animes are.

Why: While there are lots of slowpaced animes out there, i want to focus in the action, the story, i want good rules, GURPS has served me wonderfull well, things started to get bad when people started to get calculators to see how much they could run, jump and stuff.

* Generic. fantasy, sci-fi,horror,mecha,daily life, magical girl, demon hunting, anything should be playable, like the wonderful RPG "Thrash" and "Big Eyes, Small Mouth"

Why: if i make it generic now, i wont be designing a new system after my campaing ends =p

* tracks characters's mental, social and spiritual conditions, adverting players when they character can snap out of reality, be depressed, or just feeling no will to talk to no one else.

Why: To help players and GMs remember there is more than number in the game, surely this could be done without any mechanics, as part of roleplay, but most players will not RP their character mad or depressed without a good numeric reason :)

* Stunt-like combat rules: not that thing, my turn, your turn, my turn, your turn.... but players will be rolling initiatives one against the other, in a fast and furious combat, sometimes even getting to attack twice in a roll, or maybe even more, stunty defensive manouvers and lots of martial-arts to characters who -really have the skills-

why: because its how anime battles are! Duel of titans! =p

* Alternative skill system: each skill the character have must be balanced between Theory or practice, quality or quantity. to avoid the "i have cooking in 15, so i know every food of the world"

why: i dont know, i just dont feel its right to have a "arts" skill, and the character who haves it its the new davinci, but i dont feel like listing ANY aspect of arts.. i also dislike tables, so i want the player to choose the correct skill name for his character and then, adjust it.


now let me introduce you to my imaginary model of a game session.

lets define a few characterts, and i will do a brief commented version of the ending of the second year of my six year campaing if it was being played with the new system. (yeah, each year is a volume, better than Animator I, II, II,III....)

everything inside brackets its RPG comments =p
---------
characters:

Hajime Tsukiwami: Bomb-lover Cold-hearted anti-hero looking trying to
make the world a better place by destroying the mega corporation "Armstek"

Keishi Uematsu: Lonely Swordman, his wife died in the 3rd world war, which was heavily worked by Armstek, has multiple elemental powers

Litus Aramis: American Bounty Hunter, infected by a misterious virus who gave him the power to mutate into a very powerful creature, but with a disgusting powers and looks.

"Toshio" : Japanese Misterious Young Psi Soldier From Armstek who got Rogue and threatens to destroy world.

Armstek: Big Powerful Rich Mega Corporation, develops war technologies for its own use, used Toshio to explore a misterious Gargantuan Machine called "God's Machine", when its discovered that there is a chance the machine was really built by a omnipotent entity, Armstek tries to dispose Toshio, causing him to go mad and try to use the machine to return all to nothing.

Final Scene : God's Machine inner citadel (year 2020)

Hajime: Toshio Stop!

Toshio turns to Hajime to reveal his glaring white eyes and aura of darkness [toshio has an awesomely high Spirit Atributte, that together with his own evilness, manages to create this effect, the same should be true to players who get high levels of spirit attribute, later]

Toshio: Fool, you cant stop me, I already did it, the Black Dragon "Shin" is born, and its Death energy will destroy one dimension after another, causing our entire plan to implode!

Toshio: And None of you can stop me!
[Toshio rolls intimidation skill, trying to demoralize the characters socially, trying to make them lose confidence in each other]

Hajime gets upset [failed againt intimidation, losts confidence in himself, EX: lost points in charisma].

Keishi: So be it, after you, we will kill the dragon, then[critical success against intimidation, toshio loses confidence]

Toshio: Where do you think you are? Here it is the god's Crystal City! ruling over this place i have the complete control of everything!

Litus: I cant stand to hear you voice, come 'ere baby, you have got to dance with me , now! [starts a fight]

Toshio and Litus start fighting, Toshio's awesome speed causes him to appear his is phasing everytime [everytime he gets a sucefull dogde rool, of course], Litus ends only slashin the air with his claymore.

[Toshio has high speed, but not too high reflexes, so even managing to dodge easy litus's attacks, litus attacks more often]

Hajime sets explosives over the place [Hajime knows very much about setting bombs and defusing em, but he doesnt know how to build one, so he is always depending of black market and stuff]

Keishi Concetrates a bit, and launches a sword-shaped light beam! [rolled a success against "shinrei" skill, a custom magic thing rule]

The attack hits toshio's back, he is thrown about 5 meters away.
toshio gets up, but its stunned... [actually, he does have enough speed to fall over, and get up and attack in the same turn]

Keishi runs to the main computer, jumps over it, thrusting the sword thru the machine. [no roll required until now] , then he sends a wave of eletricity thru his sword, damaging the machine [but not destroying it, of course, he spent some ki points and rolled against shinrei]

Toshio turns his back to litus, looking keishi!

Toshio: NOOO!

Litus gets a perfect stabing at toshio's back. [he got a critical! OMFG!]

Toshio's freezes for a sec, bleeding a dark blood...his pupils turns and he starts to laugh histerically [he is so evil]

Toshio: you freed me, now I am going to be one with the Dragon, and will surely rule after all....

Hajime slaps a C4 on Toshio's forehead.[no roll needed, toshio is 99% dead]


the groups flee while Hajime starts the detonation sequency, a figure in white appears to them.

Avatar: You dont have much time, please defeat the dragon.
[Avatar is very angel-like, and ambigous, The GM rolls a charisma roll, to see how character reacts, the Avatar got a very good roll]

[Gm asks a empaty roll, Hajime and keishi passed, litus dont ; players dont know exactly why the roll is being made]

GM: Litus, he dont appears too friendly too you, keishi and Hajime, he seems lovely peaceful and true.

Hajime: Who are you?

Litus: And what do you want? [Charisma roll! litus wants to know if Avatar is spaeking the truth, Litus fails, getting more confused about avatar's intentions. if things continue like that, litus will really start to dislike him]


Avatar: I am the Avatar, I am the God's machine's Vera forma, known to humanity as faith [GM calls anima roll! it seems to much explanations about the universe are a good explanation to a chance of heart in characters... everyone failed, just Keishi got it]

Keishi: How is Minako doing? [tears start to overflow, keishi is starting to see avatar as the bridge connecting himself and his wife, minako]

Avatar: she is well, and she is always cheering for you,she wants to give you something. [Gm notices the player is getting touchy and fragile, so he decides to exploit this =p]

A spectral Minako appears, and kisses keishi.

Ghost Minako: please, Keishi, carry on your wish of being happy, dont be sad for me, i am living here in the citadel, and soon i will return to the planet, to see you, i dont know how will I reencarnate, but i will be watching you

then minako disappears.

[Gm refills keishi's willpower and spiritual power ]

avatar: i will take you to the hand of god itself, please save the universe,i can use my last energy to hand you three desires, three miracles.

[players discuss and decide to not spend miracles with nonsense]

Hajime: keep it, we will tell you when we are needing a miracle.

players are taken to the top of god's machine.. in the outside!!!!
the god's machine is a gargatuan cybernetic hand, its do big that players can see the entire universe from there.

[everything from here....]
Avatar: the god's machine doenst have a fixed dimension, it exists everywhere, everytime and in every size, It controls the movement of atoms, the flow of blood, the changes in season and cosmic phenomenom.

Hajime: so give us the first miracle, renew our minds and bodies so that we can endure this fight.

Avatar: it is done.

A majestic dragon appears, players fight it, but he seems invencible, nothing causes real damage to him. in the combat, keishi and hajime dies, litus screams.

Litus: avatar! give my friends back!!!

Avatar: it is done.

the battle continues, when the group is about to perish, the group retreats a bit, and starts discussing how to kill the damn dragon.


Keishi's still sentimental takes the lead and says hopeless.

Keishi: not if we had the entire planet's people with us we could defeat the dragon....

Litus blinks.

Litus: Avatar! bring here every single person from the planet earth!

Avatar: it is done.

[...until here is all about charisma battles, players trying to lift the morale of allies, in some cases, players will try to lower enemy morale while lifting allies's morale]

people starts to appear everywhere, from every country, city, place, the planet Earth appears bigger in front of the god's machine, as people starts to wonder and panic about whats happening, litus shouts.

Litus: english speakers! listen! now its earth's finest hour, the world as we know it is about to end, please help us, you dont need to do anything else than lower your head and pray, pray to any god, of any religion, we dont care, but pray!

Hajime and keishi dont get it, but start spreading the news in japanese, spanish and other languages.

The dragon appears over the people and the heroes.

Keishi: i understand now, minako, you were right!

Hajime: ?

Litus runs between the people, lifting his sword and striking deeply into the dragon's chest. a scar appears. [this was not an sword skill roll, but an spirit skill roll, the attack meant nothing, the important part its the spiritual charge of the attack, litus passed, and the GM hinted that spirit is the solution to winning]

Hajime: how come? [didnt got what the GM and litus were talking about]

Avatar: the god's machine is powered by the human soul and mind. by letting this people pray in a sacred place, my energy is increasing in a faster rate. the energy field of the machine is diturbing the dragon's essence. [its all about spirit!]

Hajime: is that right?!

Keishi and hajime starts to fight the dragon, however, even receiving damage, the dragon manages to critically wound them.

Hajime: all is lost.

Keishi, no look.

the great Hand shape of the god's machine starts to close, like a real hand grasping something. as the fist closes, the nails start to pierce the dragon, holding him in place. [the GM starts tracking the spirit attribute of the players, he decides that if that number goes over X something can really destroy the dragon]

Hajime: is that the power of faith?

Hajime stands up, and takes the "big one", the most expensive grenade he bought "to use in a special situation" , he aims a bit, and throws it.

the explosion cracks open the dragon's hide. [it did a goddamn damage]

as keishi starts to prepare a final attack, the hand opens and let the wounded dragon fall into the other planes... [keishi thinks about attacking or doing another thing]

the three heroes reunites, and starts praying, Buddist meditation and catolic prayers... a huge white beam of light, as a water stream departs from a big eye drawn on the center of the hand, the beam dances in the space and lands on the dragon, desintegrating it. [thats it, GM gave a bonus to spirit energy, it got over X, dragon will get a finishing blow]

the people starts to disappear, the heros starts seen themselves younger, in at a beach...

litus: what the hell?

Avatar's voice echoes: Thank you, you did your part, i will do mine, i gave you the power of rejuvenation, and erased from the people's minds everything that happened in the machine. take the 20 years i gave you to enjoy life and prepare youselves, because Armstek still retains to power to repeat history.

Keishi stares the beach... and seeing minako's face on the blue sky, he understands that she has returned to the planet, and that somewhere she is safe.


End of Volume 2.


sorry for the long post, and sorry for the "storytelling" stuff, i know this isnt the proper place to post it, but i think i could tell what its the feeling that i want in my system, thanks :)

[DevP]

* Fast and Simple gameplay, realistic as "realistic" animes are.
* Stunt-like combat rules: not that thing, my turn, your turn, my turn, your turn.... but players will be rolling initiatives one against the other, in a fast and furious combat, sometimes even getting to attack twice in a roll, or maybe even more, stunty defensive manouvers and lots of martial-arts to characters who -really have the skills[/quote[
Firstly, about stunts: make sure you've seen Wushu. It's prob. not what you want, but it's an inspiring way to look at stunts.

Also: how comfortable are you with the GM semi-arbitrarily assigning difficulty/effect? (So you don't have to look up tables for how fast you run / how far you're knocked back.) How comfortable are you with GM-guided intuitive resolution ("going with the flow" improvisationally) rather than rolling initiative / etc. as per normal games? This might save some time. Although, you also seem to want the structure of rounds, since you talk about having multiple attacks / round. Is that detail you need?

* Generic. fantasy, sci-fi,horror,mecha,daily life, magical girl, demon hunting, anything should be playable, like the wonderful RPG "Thrash" and "Big Eyes, Small Mouth"

So, this is mostly doable - we're talking about humans. However, power level is a problem. How do you handle it when one of the characters gains power that the rest don't have? (I'm not a fan of Akira, but I'll use the example - can you play thorugh that story, where one of your friends finds himself touched with Insane Amounts of Power?) You just need a way that players what's the power scale and expected outcome from use of powers. (Magical girl will probably not have Strength being used to punch through walls - although that dependson the magical girl in question!) It might be as simple as "discuss with players and agree upon what the scale means, before playing", but that's a big step. Certainly, a big difference that GURPS, where the stats seem to have a clear physical grounding (STR 4 = you can lift X kilos, etc.)

* tracks characters's mental, social and spiritual conditions, adverting players when they character can snap out of reality, be depressed, or just feeling no will to talk to no one else.

Cool! And I saw in your example you have lots of conflicts through non-traditional attributes (not just Dex and Strength, but also Charisma and Sprit), and that's a lot of fun. Do you imagine these to be defined by attributes? Perhaps you tag certain coditions to certain levels in an attribute (i.e. Health < 2 = Ill or comatose, Sprit < 3 = depressed, etc.). Similar to the power level above, you have to decide why these levels are where they are, and why they won't be significantly different kinds of people. Example: it makes no sense for my ice-hearted killer to get depressed unless things get extremely bad. Does he just have a high number in the relevant stat, or his is scale different (e.g. depression = Spirit < 1).

[toshio has an awesomely high Spirit Atributte, that together with his own evilness, manages to create this effect, the same should be true to players who get high levels of spirit attribute, later]

So, this seems to be similar as above - your level of an attribute gives you a status. These seem like they'll have to be invidually decided per genre type, which is okay. In this kind of story high Spirit means dramatic lighting. ;-)

[starts a fight]

This was an interesting line from your transcript. There's already a lot of conflicted dice rolling going on, and then Litus "starts a fight", and I'm like "wha???". Of course, it's that Litus initiates a physical attack, but it's certainly not "starting a fight", because the fight has already been clearly going on, and might have been simply a duel of Charisma if Litus had not kicked things up a notch. If you have all these stats, then give them all a chance to shine in the spotlight of a conflict. Once you and Big Bad are in conflict, it shouldn't matter if you're using Strength or Spirit or Empathy to crush him, if it's appropriate. Lot of potential fun if this is done right.

In some cases of your example, the GM seems to decide that a villain is susceptible to only certain kinds of attribute damage (i.e. "Spirit attacks are the key). Is this simply some end-game flourishes, or should the GM liberally use this option, so that the gameplay is also about puzzling which kind of attribute is the most advantageous to "attack".

[Toshio has high speed, but not too high reflexes, so even managing to dodge easy litus's attacks, litus attacks more often]
...
The attack hits toshio's back, he is thrown about 5 meters away.
toshio gets up, but its stunned... [actually, he does have enough speed to fall over, and get up and attack in the same turn]

I'm sure it's true that Litus could attack more often, but do you want that to be mechanical? That's a question, and be warned: whenever higher stats enable higher rate of attack, the game is almost always unbalanced in favor of that stat, which is to say that whomever has the highest "reflexes" stats dominates. (Also, it's not fun to wait through a round of combat after doing your 1 action when your teammate has 9 more attacks thsi round!)

Consider if Litus couldn't simply use Reflexes as an attribute with which to attack Toshio, and using the multiple attacks as color. "Litus quickly bounces back to his feet, and lets loose a flurry of slashes that are too fast for Toshio to easily block."

The second excerpt above: again, do you really want to break down the falling over / getting up / attacking into such discrete bits? I've found this to often inhibit truly stuntlike actions, because there's the need to maximize your efficiency. Example: You want to just let loose with an awesome attack, but you only have enough actions left to move in and attack, but not enough to also move back to a safe spot afterwards. The rules here are inhibiting me from doing a flashy maneuver, and moreover it's just not *cool* for me to scurry in, hit, and scurry back like a bad Final Fantasy knockoff! Is it worth it?

[Gm refills keishi's willpower and spiritual power ]

Did you imagine this as a sort of end-game flourish - i.e. GM fiat saying that they are restored - or do you see this kind of thing as a mechanic?

[...until here is all about charisma battles, players trying to lift the morale of allies, in some cases, players will try to lower enemy morale while lifting allies's morale]

Cool, but this also touches on the issues of (a) GM rulings on which attribute fits, and (b) power scale.

Consider the questions above, and if you're very much wed to having these attributes & skills, think of what kind of scale you'd like, and what die mechanism you'd like to use. These are mainly aesthetic judgements, since there isn't MUCH difference on those details. This is, of course, continuing with a whole lot of assumptions, but we can just go forward with that and see what comes of it.

[Shiruba]

how comfortable are you with the GM semi-arbitrarily assigning difficulty/effect? (So you don't have to look up tables for how fast you run / how far you're knocked back.) How comfortable are you with GM-guided intuitive resolution ("going with the flow" improvisationally) rather than rolling initiative / etc. as per normal games? This might save some time. Although, you also seem to want the structure of rounds, since you talk about having multiple attacks / round. Is that detail you need?

I was thinkin of using pretty simple math in those stuff, like, i still not decided if i am going to use opposed rolls, unopposed rolls or both...., but for knockbacks, speed and stuff, i think basic math will do, like if the average attribute is 10, i could say that jump is DEX/10, that will give a one meter jump each 10 levesl, or something along these lines, i dont have anything against table if they are easy to memo and easy to write down from memory, so if difficulty could be:

5-easy
10-normal
etc......

you understand? i dont have anything againt math, if its simple to be made on the run :) gurps's math to determine full speed and jumping are really a pain. i dont mind GM improvising anything, from initiatives to whatever... but i would like to have rules to backup GMs that dont like to interfere with a delicate situation, that can kill or not the character (like me), i have some nice ideas about the round structure, instead of using the idea of my round, your round, the turn is global, let me illustrate that with a little story :)


-----------------

two guys that dont like each other are fight, one of them is Silva, the merciless latino gunfighter, the other is pimple, the bavarian barbarian!

Silva has a dex attribute so good that he have 3 action points.
Pimple is a bastard, he just have 1 action point
an action point is how much things you can do in one round, each round is about 6 seconds.

!!!!Fight!!!!


INITIATIVE ROLL!
Silva wins initiative!

Silva's turn---------------------\

Silva readies the gun (1 ap)
Silva aims (1 ap)
Silva Shoots (1 ap)

Pimple dodges (1 ap)

end of Silva's turn-------------/

Pimple's turn---------------------\

Pimple punches! (1 ap)

Shiruba dodges (1 ap)

end of Pimple's turn-------------/


INITIATIVE ROLL!
Silva wins initiative! [again!]

Silva's turn---------------------\

Silva aims (1 ap)
Silva Shoots (1 ap)

Pimple tries to dodge, but its shot! (1 ap)


end of Silva's turn-------------/

Pimple's turn---------------------\

Pimple punches! (1 ap)

Shiruba dodges (1 ap)

end of Pimple's turn-------------/

INITIATIVE ROLL!

PIMPLE WINS!

Pimple's turn---------------------\

Pimple punches! (1 ap)

Shiruba dodges (1 ap)

end of Pimple's turn-------------/

Silva's turn---------------------\

Silva aims (1 ap)
Silva Shoots (1 ap)

Pimple tries to dodge, but its shot! (1 ap)


end of Silva's turn-------------/

-------------------and that goes

the idea is to have constant initiative checks to see who is starting the attacks, and have characters with very high levels of agility to get extra attacks, but, i will make some rules that will give bonus/penalties to initiative, to give a character the chance of hitting someone faster! things that are impossible in gurps... a character when reaches 13 dodge starts to ger very very boring!

power level is a problem. How do you handle it when one of the characters gains power that the rest don't have?

well, i dont know about another GMs, but giving power to one player, it should be a plot event, if it is, it should be taken care as an exception.

Cool! And I saw in your example you have lots of conflicts through non-traditional attributes (not just Dex and Strength, but also Charisma and Sprit), and that's a lot of fun. Do you imagine these to be defined by attributes? Perhaps you tag certain coditions to certain levels in an attribute (i.e. Health < 2 = Ill or comatose, Sprit < 3 = depressed, etc.). Similar to the power level above, you have to decide why these levels are where they are, and why they won't be significantly different kinds of people. Example: it makes no sense for my ice-hearted killer to get depressed unless things get extremely bad. Does he just have a high number in the relevant stat, or his is scale different (e.g. depression = Spirit < 1).

surely ^^ my first draft included 16 attributes ^^ and yes, i tottaly agree with you ^^ if you take a look at my other posts, you will see my attribute list, however, i am trying to analize if I really need that much. if i can cut 4 out, its a good start.

and about the [start a fight]
well, just a way of signing "here litus started to think with his fists"
=p but surely, this game is about combat.... emotional combat, social combat, mental combat and sure, physical combat :)


cheers!

Shiruba