[New Game, New Designer] My first steps into the pool

[Eric Provost]

Yay!

Another huge step forward.  Now you know that you don't need to follow the pattern of the games you've seen before and you know what you want out of your game.

Now the fun part;

Making your game do what you want it to do for you.

And now we can really really really help you get from here to there, because we know that you know what your goals really are.

-Eric

[xenopulse]

Mark,

Eric's right about your game and making it do what you would love to play.

Now, there's no need to get too hung up on the GNS thing. You know you want cinematic, dramatic play, with an emphasis on emotional intensity; that's good enough to work with.

Here's what I would suggest as your next step, which has helped me immensely in the past:

Write out a rawking transcript of play using your game as you would like it to be.

And I don't mean writing in-game events or stories. I mean, write out what the players say and do. What the GM says and does. What's the group interaction? How do people bring in their attributes, call on their conflicts, etc.?

Now, if you don't have your system nailed down, you can write placeholders in there, such as [player rolls dice and adds Anger level] or even [quick resolution roll here].

Overall, it would look like the Example of Play in a finished RPG (like the one in DnD). That should give you a good idea on where to take your game next, and where you want it to end up.

Oh, and good luck with the Navy. Hope you like it better than my friend who joined a year ago. (Though he did build a relationship with a nice Icelandic girl in the meantime.)

[Sydney Freedberg]

There are only 3 Base Attributes
Physical
Mental
Emotional
....Emotion plays just an important part as the other two.

Lovely. (Big Eyes, Small Mouth does a similar three-fold division, by the way, but their implementation.. eh). Is this The One True way to depict people in RPGs? Of course not. But the minute you create a mechanic to depict something -- a rule, a stat, a table, whatever -- you are telling your players: "Stop! Look at this! This is important!" What you choose to put that big red sign over in your game is a crucial decision.

Corrolary: If you create an list of 400 skills from "Accounting" to "Zebra Herding" and the typical character has 20 or more on the character sheet, that's confusing -- that's saying "these 20 things all matter! Really!"

Now, each one of these has 4-5 SUB Attributes...Your Emotional Attributes are: Resolve (I can't go on!), Intuition (I have a Bad Feeling about this!), Finesse (Who's scruffy-lookin'?) and Nerve (Hide!)

Neat. But this is also the level where you can start drowning in the details ("these 15 subattributes all matter! really!"). Maybe not everyone has every subattribute? Just choose the few that are important enough to you as a player to make them different from the base attribute (Mental/Physical/Emotional), and then assume everything else is equal to the base.

You may be fancy with a gun, but nobody cares, if you're wetting yourself behind a crate.

Heh. Now I gotta point you to this thread on Fear & Confusion.

I really am a Narativist at heart. I'm constantly Fudging rolls when I'm playing with my friends to keep the game more cinematic (they haven't caught on yet) ...

[shrugs] Hard to say. Is it more like "darn it, we're trying to do cool stuff and the die rolls keep getting in the way, so I'm going to ignore the imagined reality of the rules in favor of the cooler imagined reality in my head?" (That's probably Sim). Or is it more like "darn it, there would've been a really vicious dilemma there between saving the love interest and catching the bad guy, but the stupid die roll closed down one option, so I'm going to ignore it and force the players to make the hard choice?" (That's more Nar). But please, as people have said, don't get too hung up on this. I still don't really understand it.

By the way, I'm going to put this thread in my "favorites" to point people towards as an example of someone picking up on nontraditional RPG design principles really, really, really fast.

And, even though most of the guys I know from my work as a defense reporter are Army -- Go Navy! Take care out there, Mark.

[MarkMeredith]

Or is it more like "darn it, there would've been a really vicious dilemma there between saving the love interest and catching the bad guy, but the stupid die roll closed down one option, so I'm going to ignore it and force the players to make the hard choice?"

Exactly. That's how it usually goes down.

By the way, I'm going to put this thread in my "favorites" to point people towards as an example of someone picking up on nontraditional RPG design principles really, really, really fast.

Thanks!

Okay, so, how does doubt, fear, destiny and despair work mechanically in the game? Should I combine doubt and fear? Do I call those two despair, and just have Despair, Destiny and Hope? Hmm...

[Valamir]

Okay, so, how does doubt, fear, destiny and despair work mechanically in the game? Should I combine doubt and fear? Do I call those two despair, and just have Despair, Destiny and Hope? Hmm...

I'll offer an idea.  It may not be a good idea...it may not work for your game or what you want to accomplish at all.  I offer it only as an example of how you can mechanically think outside the box in order to create a specific type of play experience.

Lets postulate a game about destiny.  Each character has a destiny, the game is about whether they will fulfill it or not.  Destiny and Despair measure the character's progress.  If Destiny accumulates to a specific level, the Destiny is fulfilled.  If Despair accumulates to a specific level, it is not.

Doubt and Fear are your difficulty levels.  Character's have a DESTINY.  Destiny can not be thwarted by mere mundane obstacles.  It doesn't matter how DIFFICULT an obstacle might be to overcome...it WILL be overcome by a person with Destiny...who believes in themself.

Doubt and Fear then are the TRUE obstacles.  They are what prevents your character from believing in themself.  If an obstacle seems too great, the character will doubt their ability to overcome it:

"I'll try..."
"No...try not.  Do or Do Not.  There is no try".

When Luke "trys" to lift the X-wing, he fails his roll vs his Doubt.  Yoda...who has little to no Doubt can thus make the same roll easily.

Fear works similiarly.  If the obstacle is frightening, the character will be too afraid to face it.  Its not Vader's exceptional skill that defeats Luke at Bespin.  Its Luke's fear of Vader...and fear of becoming like Vader.  

When you fail rolls, when you give in to Doubt and Fear you gain Despair.
When you succeed rolls, when you overcome Doubt and Fear you gain Destiny.


That's a pretty complete mechanic.  Alls that's needed is a way to distinguish when to roll vs. Fear and when to roll vs. Doubt and a mechanism for increasing and decreasing those scores over time.

Like I said...might not give the play experience YOU are looking for...but hopefully you can see how you can use mechanics to deliver a desired play experience...once you decide on what that experience is.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Okay, so, how does doubt, fear, destiny and despair work mechanically in the game? Should I combine doubt and fear?

A million ways to do it. (Ralph/Valamir's being a neat example). My personal instant response is that Doubt is not being sure the good is enough, and Fear is thinking the bad is really bad, so they're distinct -- BUT it utterly depends on what you want to accomplish. So there's a limit on how much we can help at this stage. Think about it, toy with alternatives, get back to us.

[TonyLB]

I like Ralph's example.  I think I'd like it more if there were explicitly some reason why overcoming your Doubt and Fear can be bad things.  That way you encuorage people both to give in to their doubt sometimes, and to overcome it at other times.

To use the Empire Strikes Back example:  Luke overcomes his Doubt in himself when he left his training early and faced Vader before Yoda pronounced him a true Jedi.  Was that a success?  Uhhhhhhh.... that's unclear.  Certainly it didn't do a great job at making him either happier or more confident.

[MarkMeredith]

Wow! I'm liking this! So, Doubts and Fears are your only TRUE enemy. Everything else is just the pawns of Doubt and Fear... I like...
I also really like the idea of Doubt being a good thing... Hmmm... Mechanics... I'll have to think about that... Wow, good ideas, guys!

[Valamir]

I like Ralph's example. I think I'd like it more if there were explicitly some reason why overcoming your Doubt and Fear can be bad things.

Sure, that could be done in a variety ways.

Frex:  Take 1 "Bad Stuff Happens" point and reroll a failed roll.  The GM then uses those points to make Bad Stuff Happen to other player characters.  e.g.  During Luke's arguement on Dagobah about leaving he loses to his doubt and fear once vs. Yoda and once vs. Obi Wan's Ghost.  He takes 2 "Bad Stuff" points and finally passes the roll and heads to Bespin.

On Bespin C3PO gets dissassembled and Han gets frozen in Carbonite and hauled off to Jabba...thanks to Luke's "Bad Stuff".

[MarkMeredith]

I like that idea... Hmm... Another example would be Faramir, heading off to retake Osgiliath. It's not a good idea, but it sure is brave. He overcame his doubt, and nearly got killed for it (Twice!). That would be very cool. The rule seems complicated, but simple enough to fit onto only a couple of pages... I like. Later tonight, perhaps I'll post up questions to establish your Base Attributes. It's a clever system that I think will work well. Anything else that might aid in Doubts and Fears? What about dispair?

[Thespian]

Okay, so, how does doubt, fear, destiny and despair work mechanically in the game? Should I combine doubt and fear? Do I call those two despair, and just have Despair, Destiny and Hope? Hmm...

Hi Mark.  I'm a relative new-comer to Forge as well, so take my ideas with a larger grain of salt than the veterens' advice.  I really like the idea of Despair, Destiny, and Hope.

In response to your quote above, let me offer this mechanic to inspire you.  I like the discussion so far with "Fear" and "Doubt" being some sort of numerical values to be rolled against for task or conflict resolution.  Collectively, I'd say their total makes up "Despair."  Despair + Hope = Constant (say 100 for example).  You could break Hope up as well into "Courage" and "Faith," or leave it alone.  

"Destiny," to me, seems best implemented as a list of character goals.  Each one completed could increase Hope (with a corresponding decrease in despair, either via a reduction of Fear or Doubt).  Each goal permanently failed (e.g. Keep Important Guy alive, and he gets killed) would increase one's Despair.


The nifty thing about this is, your task or conflict resolution system could be an attribute or skill check v.s. your Fear or Doubt (which ever is appropriate).  A success, in addition to getting the narrative result you wanted, could also reduce the Despair stat in question (conquering one's fears and doubts) and likewise, a failure would increase them.

Concrete example - Yoda tells Luke to lift the X-Wing.  Luke's player rolls and adds his Force score to try to beat his Doubt (Doubt in his ability to really do it..not  a Fear) and fails.  His Doubt in himself is now increased by one, which indeirectly causes a reduction in total Hope (since Hope plus Despair = constant).

One would need to handle a situation where Despair gets so great that success becomes almost impossible, or Hope so great that success becomes too easy.  On the other hand, that seems a reasonable trend, as long as external events can also dash your hopes and lift your burdens.

Just typing this out, I'm liking this.  It seems quite flexible.  I hope the idea is of some use to you.

Thespian

[MarkMeredith]

I'm really liking that. I like the constant of Doubt + Hope. Maybe once Doubt is at 75% the character Falls, and doesn't go on, giving up. I can also write a bunch of questions (was your character raised believing that the gods were good?) to determine your starting Hope at the beginning of the game. I'm liking this!

[Harlequin]

Just as a caution on the mechanical side, watch out for positive feedback loops.  If failing a roll increases Doubt, and higher Doubt makes it more likely to fail a roll, then ultimately you have a problem in the design.

There are lots of ways to repair a feedback loop.  Break the loop (failing a roll increases Bad Destiny points instead, which don't feed into further failure); insert negative feedback (failing a roll might increase doubt, with a roll that's less likely the higher Doubt goes); provide a countermechanic at right angles (your fellow players have resource X which they can spend in approval of your RP, to decrease your Doubt or increase your odds of success); acknowledge the loop and make it a pressure (going too far into Doubt forces you to change your character's goals completely, at which point it resets.  Can you succeed before giving up?).

I'll echo the positive things people have said about how quickly you're picking up on the core concepts here, though.

There is also a slightly different approach to things like emotions, doubt, and priorities... this is trickier to pull off, but is IMO even stronger if you can do it.  Rather than explicitly recognizing emotional qualities in the mechanics, they can (in a really good design) be made to emerge from the interplay of other mechanics instead.  Emergent phenomena are very powerful.  The best example I can think of offhand is Dogs in the Vineyard (which is well worth owning for anyone interested in the process of design, in how solidly it embodies the principles of theory).  Dogs is all about helping the worthy and killin' the sinners.  But there is no "compassion" value.  Nor is there a "judgmental" trait (though one could introduce it explicitly if desired).  Instead, it's the way players use the mechanics, the way characters opt to respond to pressured situations, that makes compassion and judgment part of the game.  It's like Vincent asked, "So, what behaviours express or create compassion and judgment?" and left those key terms themselves out of the system.  This way every group gets to discover what compassion and judgment (and faith and a host of other things) mean in their terms, to their characters.

In your design, one way to reflect this might be through a gambling mechanic.  Both Doubt and Fear would feature into risky mechanical choices not as traits but as factors in the players' choices.  Say you have a setup where the GM's dice pool (or whatever) is clearly visible up-front; where your own payoff is based on what you're willing to risk.  Failure costs you big money in a currency you value - let's say it's also your advancement currency.  Success pays off only minimally in the same currency... but it's the way you really affect the game world (narrative control would be an example payoff).  Balanced just right, the game could gradually "teach" players that even though the GM's dice look huge, and even though they themselves are struggling with meager abilities, if they're willing to lay it on the line then more often than not it'll actually end up paying off in success.

[Imagine a D&D3E game where you faced frightful foes with a CR about three to five higher than normal, but could "purchase" a certain kind of rerolls for a steep cost in XP.  Those XP would be refunded if you won.  Do or do not, there is no try...]

Anyway.  I'm not telling you, or even advising you, to switch to this method of covering emotions/goals/feelings in a system.  Just describing it as an alternate to what you've covered so far...

- Eric

[MarkMeredith]

I'm kinda stuck on fleshing out the mechanics of it. I really liked Thespian's idea, but I also agree with Harlequin, and don't want to get in a trap. What do I do?

[xenopulse]

Try out one way that appeals to you, and playtest :)