[Myrkwell] Need help with first RPG

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Troy, I want the players to acheive what they and the GM agree they want to acheive ;) I know that's a cop-out answer but it's the truth. Whether it is reclaiming a lost family heirloom, helping a legion of Kobolds overthrow the Dragons or just avoiding paying tax I want the players and GM to agree on an end goal or goals and to then try and acheive them.

-Nah, that's not a cop out.  That's actually a pretty decent answer.  You did a lot better with that question than I did when a similar one was posed to me when I worked on my first design.  Okay, you've got a great idea here, we just need to work on mechanics to support it.

Here you say:

it is assumed you are playing in THIS world but what you try and acheive is up to you. I want the feeling you get when you play Morrowind. You're in this world, and now you just gotta work out what you want to do. Whether you wish to sail the high seas plundering treasure, fight for freedom, become a landed gentry...

-Okay, it looks like you want there to be some heavy setting exploration here.  That's great!  When you get around to making your setting it is very, very, and I mean VERY important that the setting itself force the players (and their characters) to address the system mechanics of your game.  What I mean is, don't just create geography and cultures in your setting.  That's blah.  Make conflict, hardship, and tough choices built right into the NPCs and societies of your setting.  Create problems that the PCs have to solve, and solve in a way that your system becomes useful to them.  One way to do that is through the types of rewards the PCs earn.  I'll explain that further in just a sec.

You wrote:

The sorts of things my OWN group would do in the game though would be quite D&D I'm guessing. I'm trying to have less combat and more RP

-In a RPG if you want a certain kind of behavior out of the players and characters, then you must reward that behavior.  Let's take XP for instance.  In your game, rather than giving XP for killing or for loot hoarding, give XP for exploring, puzzle solving, strategizing, helping the weak, 'role playing', achieving personal goals, and the like.  If you don't reward killing for killing's sake, then combat will naturally de-emphazise itself.  So what kinds of behaviors do you want to encourage in play?

This is very important when you wrote:

The goal(s) are decided by the players in the beginning of a campaign or session and it's the GMs job to facilitate that (although they don't have to make it easy). I want the group to decide what happens overall but to still have someone who has the last word because I know most gorups couldn't cope with "voting" for a character to live or die.

-Okay, now you have to come up with a mechanic for that.  How and when do the players decide what the goal is?  Do they each have an individual goal they want to accomplish?  Do they have a collective goal they want to accomplish?  Or do they have both?

-There's more we can discuss, but those are plenty of questions for now.  I look forward to your answers :)

-Troy

[Saxon Douglass]

So what kinds of behaviors do you want to encourage in play?
Over-coming challenges. One premise of the game I forgot to mention is I want risk = reward. What I mean is that you can only acheive something when there is risk, and more risk is needed for harder things to acheive. To use an example the only way to make someone like you is if there is a chance they'll instead hate you after you try and make them like you. It seems obvious for most RPGs but I want to avoid the risk being unrelated to the reward. Say you have to brew a magic potion to make that person like you I don't want the risk to just be wasting money because that is something unrelated to the end you're trying to acheive. A better risk is them not liking you, being more creative, someone finding out your making potions and then being feared/hated by the whole town. So I want to encourage risk taking, exploration, problem solving, etc. (basically what you said :P )



Okay, now you have to come up with a mechanic for that.  How and when do the players decide what the goal is?  Do they each have an individual goal they want to accomplish?  Do they have a collective goal they want to accomplish?  Or do they have both?
Ok well I was thinking that a player has 3 types of Goal slots: Major, Moderate and Minor. You'd have only 1 Major, and about 2 Moderate, 3 Minor. Your Major goal is decided in the beggining of the game is your overall end goal. It might be finding out who your real parents are, overthrowing the reigning monarch and ruling the kingdom, etc. Once you acheive this Major goal you have effectivley completed your task. You could ofcourse keep playing but you can't replace your Major goal with another one (I'm not sure if that is a good idea though so as with most of my ideas they'll need revision). Moderate goals would be stuff like travelling to a temple far away to pray which you do every year or becoming mayor of a city. The problem is Minor goals would be too small and be weekly/daily things. Maybe having only Major and Minor coals would be better. I'm not sure on the mechanics of how gaining/dropping/failing goals would be but I do have 2 ideas (both pretty simple). The first is that if you have a goal locked in things related to that need to be discussed between you and the GM. The idea is that if your goals MUST always be attainable (atleast your Major goal has to be). This means that if your goal is to save someone the GM can't kill them off - they don't have to make the task easy, but it has to be possible. The other thing is acheiving goals give you XP. Since GMs need to "sign off" on goals it allows players to define goals/quests which will give them in-game rewards (which might be XP, gold, magic, or furthering anohter goal). So a player might have the Major goal of praying at every temple. They could then have a Minor goal being to see each temple, in turn each one furthering the Major goal and also giving some other rewards negotiated by the GM and player when the goal is set. The idea is a goal is a sorta contract where they agree what will happen when it is acheived and then the GM makes acheiving it interesting ;)

Here are some "mission statements" I've come up with based on what I want the game and setting to acheive.

Risk scales with reward, you can't get something for nothing.
Basically as I mentioned above there should be a real risk tied into every challenge, and overcoming that challenge gives you rewards that scale with the chance of failure. At first level defeating a goblin might be a big acheivment but by level 15 or whatever it should give you no reward because there was no risk (well there would be like 1% risk of failing but anything under say 5% is considered no risk).

The GM and player work together on what happens in the world within reason.
This is what the goal system mentioned above seeks to acheive. Ofcourse players shouldn't be able to just say "I want to rule every one, I can't be killed..." etc. but requests within reason should be acted upon. The idea is to foster players coming up with their own goals which the GM then facilitates (the plan is to fill the world with "hooks" for goals though so players who just want to be the hero can do so without messing with the setting too much).

Players need to take sides and there choices have consequences.
Everyone has friends and foes, the characters ar no different. But the distinction od friend or foe is very murky and often people who would be considered "good" fight other "good" people, etc. You might both be trying to quiet a restless spirit for example with both people hlping/hindering each other (they are helping by defeating ghosts say but are hindering by constantly trying to get them to attack you). Ok bad example but I dom't want clear divisions of "good" or "evil", "law" or "chaos" or even "friend" and "foe".


The game should have elements that appeal to all major RP groups.
I want the system to accomodate all the major styles of playing RPGs whether that is hack 'n' slash, character development, exploration, power accumulation, etc. While I won't attempt to entertain all types at once I'll try and include enough for each style of play with the group deciding what they want in it. As an example combat could be handled in different ways based on the group. Those into action or combat would use special rules for combat which would be a little less in-deptch than those of D&D while people who prefer setting exploration, character development, etc. might make it a simple Attack vs. Defence check. I want all major styles of play to be possible with the rules although I recognize that some will be more suited to the system than others.

I want encounters and conflict to be exciting/action-y like combat is in D&D.
This is a common goal i've found - make every encounter exciting. I want running for mayor to be as exciting as ecploring a dungeon. To try and acheive that I think the rules need to be applicable to nealry all conflicts. Stuff like complex checks (where you roll more than one check and that interacts in different ways to simulate multiple-part tasks) helps but isn't quite enough. I havn't got alot of ideas on how to acheive this so i'm hopinh someone here has a suggestion. Making special rules for them would help but I'd still need some universal tricks for things not covered. Like I might have speical rules for combat, social, sneaky and exploration encounters but when a group trys to invent a new machine I need rules to fall back on that can make any task "Exciting". Having varing degrees of success/failure, multiple checks and a real risk all help but I'm hoping there are more solutions out there.

So that's what i've got for now. I have alot of the setting detailed in my head (OK not alot, I mainly have races/cultures/basic history done) but the game system is more murky. Hopefully i've been clear enough in what I want to acheive. You've been really helpful already but I still need more, sadly. I know what I want to acheive, I just need help acheiving it. OH and does anyone else have the problem where you're working on something and loads of cool ideas for something else come to you and you need to try and block out these other ideas? I've been getting that loads :P

[Arturo G.]

Hi, Saxon!

I think you are getting the way things are done here. Now we are beginning to have a much better idea of what you want to achieve.

You want to relate risk and reward. Well, I think the first idea you need to grab firmly is setting the stakes in conflict resolution and conflict escalation.
You may begin checking the Provisional glossary for Conflict resolution definition. You will be surely interested on reading the small article: "Conflict Resolution vs. Task Resolution" in Theory hardcore from lumpley (a.k.a. Vincent Baker) site.

You say: "Players need to take sides, with consequences". Ok. You will find that conflict resolution may lead to that if properly used. Also check this very nice explanation about What the heck is a Bang!

Games which may teach you a lot about all this stuff are Sorcerer and Dogs in the Vineyard.

About the statement: "The game should have elements that appeal to all major RP groups", I'm afraid this is not a good design objective. It is a common mistake thinking you may please all people with the same cookie if it has many mixed flavors. But you typically obtain a cookie with an awful inconsistent taste which does not please anyone. It has been largely discussed in these forums, and it seems to be empirically impossible. It is surely a burden which may destroy all your efforts. Try to make something which engages you and the people interested on the kind of game you are describing (reward for risk, meaningful conflicts, etc...).

Keep on reading, try new games. All the games suggested in previous threads are really appropriate.
You are going to discover a lot of new fun.

[Saxon Douglass]

I've looked through the stuff - thanks for the links!

I won't be buying any RPGs just to see how they do stuff, I am lamentably a cheapskate. Nevertheless I have picked up the concept of bangs/kickers and love them! The problem is I don't fully understand them :P Could you please give me an example or two of a bang or kicker? Specifically how they are different. From what i've gathered it is something to do with who innitiated the bang but I think it's more than that.

But conflict resolution, setting the stakes, betting resources and bangs all fit perfectley what i'm trying to acheive. I want a system where the player comes up with the general goals and the GM helps make them happen.

I know you can't design an RPG with something in it for everyone but I don't want to make it too narrow either because even the few players I have enjoy wildly different things. I need the game to "accept" many forms of conflict such as physical, social, moral, etc. I'm looking at about 25% combat, 35% social, 35% "other skills"such as magical stuff more mages, crafting/inventing for engineers and stealing for theives (with 5% being General). Ofcourse the amount they feature would be group-dependant but that is about how much page-space I see devoting to each.  So that means there would be less rules for combat than other stuff but still a sizable "battle system". I'm not sure how detailed to be but I'm thinking "less than TROS, more than most freeform RPGs". It should be simple but deep, lethal but "fun" (ie. it's not fun getting killed in one hit by a goblin).

I was thinking about the stakes of social encounters and I think having a sort of social hit points would be in order. The first thing I thought of was a Reputation score since at the time reputation was everything. The problem is that reputation is relative so if you moved to another town they would have no reason to either respect or fear you. Having a Sims-esque system of relationship scores could work also where everone has a value from -100 to +100 showing how much they like/respect someone else. That sclae is too large for a lite tabletop RPG though so if I used it -10 to +10 would probably suffice (and make each individual rank more important). The idea would be the more someone likes you the more receptive they are to things such as lying and sweet-talking. You could also "attack" other people's relationships/repuation or try and bolster your own. I'm not sure if that is a good emulation of social combat but I see it as a possibility.

I like the idea of betting in a situation but I don't want betting to be the only mechanic of resolution. I see three factors in play when resolving conlfict - skill, luck and bet. Your skill is based on how you've designed your character, luck is based on the roll of a die (most likley a d10 since i'm lowering the numbers) and the bet being "Fate Points" which you are given to gain bonuses on checks. Although it isn't a direct betting game, the person you spends less or no FP might still win, it would introduce that feeling of "do I use them now or do I save them for later". I could accentuate bet of luck by making the luck more like Fudge (with a max shift of 3 instead of 10) although I'd like to play test it before changing it.

I have a good idea now what i'd like to acheive and I have some ideas on how to acheive it. I'm still not sure on stuff like character advancement so more examples of this would help. I have a good grasp on conflict resolution and player goals/kickers/bangs now so I feel i'm getting to the time of actually making mechanics (I could be wrong - would you reccomend designing mechanics yet?) Sorry for asking so many questions it's just i've never tried this before and I'd like to make it a success if possible (success as in making it fun for my group, i'm not trying to make it for selling or nothin').

[Arpie]

Aww...don't worry about asking questions. It's not like advice costs anything and I, for one, wouldn't be reading if I wasn't interested.

As for practical advice, if you're going with the betting system, you could simply impose limitations by level. Higher level characters can risk more fate points, for instance. You could tie in fate points with individual stats, too.

I wonder if you could clarify something for me, tho. On fate points, what is the game penalty for losing them? I mean, were you going exactly with the mechanics from the games that inspired you or do you have another way you'd like to go?

If you still intend for your game to be 1800s horror (I like to think you were inspired by Hammer films, were you?) Perhaps you can think of risked fate penalties that reflect the setting to your liking, you know, problems or perils or ways to perish that reflect the kind of atmosphere those films invoke to you? Anyway, I'm sure you've got some ideas in that direction already and I hope this helps spark them (even if it is a little vague.)

[Saxon Douglass]

I could impose limitations by level but that isn't really the goal of FP. The character's skill comes before fate, followed shortly by luck. I'm looking at skill ranging from 0 to say 20 (including other bonuses), -3 to +3 luck variance and -5 to +5 fate variance.

I hadn't thought about a pena;ty beyond not being able to use them later. I thought that the dillema of using them now or saving them was enough but now that you mention it maybe not. Instead of having a "supply" you can use freely maybe you can use it anytime but the more often and more potently you use it the worse the penalty? Like getting a single +1 on a roll might give you a -1 on all rolls for the rest of the session while a +5 could cause major pain and loss. I like the idea of a source of power you can tap into that weakens you everytime (meaning you'll need to take more and more to stay alive, a slippery slope).

I have never heard of a Hammer film, sadly. Could you please describe what makes them so unique? My main insperation was stuff like Hound of the Basquervilles, Notre Damne (no idea how to spell them), Arcanum, Pride & Prejudice, etc. I like both horror and the industrial revolution period and thought they mixed well. With abit of old western and shanghai stuff thrown in it should have some variety (horror is everywhere but the upper-class are 1800s while the outlaws are like the westerns). I'd like to see a clash of cowboys, vampires, gas lighting and samurai I guess :P (Not that direct mix, that'd be way too wacky, but I want to take elements from all of them).

I want the game mechanics to be loose and to the point. I don't need complicated stuff like weapon critical ranges or spell area of effects, the goal is for most things to be more general. So instead of having a magics area labelled in feet or sqaures it'd be either Tiny, Small, Medium, Large or Huge area with a rough idea on the size. That's an example, so I guess a sorta Fudge method to things. I also like the Fudge dice and think I might use them too (an average of 0 with possiblity of -3 to +3 is almost perfect I think). Rules on stuff like taint and sanity would be important along with nobility/reputation and stuff like that.

I was originally thinking fate points would be a sort of pool you could tap into if you had any (just like Arcanum) but making them something you never have for free sounds more interesting. Maybe you could have both - you earn FP sometimes but mostly you go into dept which you have to try and pay-off. Except to pay it off you'll need to use FP so you're just hoping you can get enough FP to overcome the price of getting it. I really like the idea now - thanks for the suggestion!

[Arpie]

If you're talking about the Hound of the Baskervilles movie that starred Peter Cushing and Cristopher Lee, that was a Hammer film (after the UK film company of the same name.)

The Ghoul, Cristopher Lee's version of Dracula, Curse of Frankenstein.
Most of these were Victorian era or Edwardian era (although a few were set in the then-modern 60s.)
They were cheap, but atmospheric and very English (to an USAmerican audience.)

Here's a site on them:

http://www.talkingpix.co.uk/ReviewsHammerFilms.html

It's a term worth knowing, from the motifs you have so far supplied.

As far as additional penalties, I was thinking about something like tying HP into Fate loss or something. In fact, you could maybe do something scary like substituting HP for FATE. That way, you really ARE risking your character's life to do dangerous stuff. Just an idea, really.

[xenopulse]

Saxon,

Welcome to the Forge.  I'm Christian.  Pleased to meet'cha.

I really enjoyed reading this thread, because it's one of those where it is apparent how far you've already come from your beginning statement of "It'll be a variant of D&D" to "I want player-created goals with rewards, a risky betting mechanism, and simple and quick rules that are still exciting."  That's not a D&D variant, that's a whole different ballgame, and good for you!  It seems you've got most of your goals laid out now.  I like the sort of game you're now trying to design, full of challenges with a good amount of authority for all players.

From this point on, every mechanic you design for your game needs to be focused on this point: Does it support my goals?

The best way to do this is to envision how it will play out in an actual session.  By that I don't only mean a narrative of the fiction in the game, but an example of what the players would say, when they call for dice, at what point they get the reward, etc.  Try writing a dialogue between players and GM, and insert placeholders like [bets x points] or [uses combat mechanics] where you don't yet know what exactly you want there.  That always helps me a lot when I try to figure out how exactly I want the game to go.

Now, for a few specific points:

1) You say that you want the reward to be proportionate to the risk.  You also say that you don't want characters to die for no good reason (e.g., be killed by a random goblin).  Think about this: the player states their risk, but the achievement they can get depends on that risk as well.  For example, a rule could be, "You cannot kill a named NPC unless you risk your character's life." So, sure, if you want to kill that goblin, you only risk "becoming unconscious" or maybe "captured."  But if you want to annihilate Dagoth Ur, you need to risk your character's life.  (I love Morrowind, by the way; I'm still playing it.)  Maybe if you just want to banish him until a priest can call him back, you only need to risk being defeated and driven away.  That way, whenever your players risk their characters lives, it's for something they really really want and are willing to die for.  Tie this into general achievements (killing a named NPC requires risk of life; becoming a Lord requires risk of becoming an outcast; using basic healing magic requires risking minor fatigue; etc.) or into specifics tied to levels (killing a creature of any higher level requires risk of life; banishing a creature of 1-5 levels higher requires risk of serious wounds; making a healing potion 2 levels higher requires risk of total exhaustion; etc.).

Now, at the start of any conflict, the players tell you what they are risking and hope to achieve, and then you figure out with a couple of quick rolls whether they get what they want and/or lose what they are risking (personally, I think it would be cool to roll two checks, and the player determines, if only one of them succeeds, whether he wants to avoid the cost or achieve the goal).  You can give them bonuses on the roll depending on how cool you think their ideas on how to go about it are, etc.

2) Goals: I really dig your idea on major and minor goals.  Not sure you want a three-tier system instead of just two, which would be simpler.  I guess that's up to your preferences and playtesting.  But I like the fact that players create them and then work with the GM on how to tie them into the game.  That's much more direct input on what players would like to play than you get in 95% of the games out there.  Someone already mentioned The Shadow of Yesterday; make sure to look at its system of Keys, which are basically goals to be fulfilled in play.

3) Kickers and Bangs.  These are in-game techniques.  Kickers are starting positions that propel a character into action.  Basically, they make sure that the player has something to do from the start, and that it's something they are interested in doing.  Bangs, on the other hand, are presented by the GM to the players during the game.  They can be challenging encounters, or difficult choices, or anything else that really pushes you to play your character out depending on what the style of the game is.  In what people here call "Story Now" play, it's usually a tough choice for the protagonist to make, like a choice between duty and love, or sacrificing a few to save many.  In other games, for example the challenge driven ones about taking risks and stepping up your game that you seem to enjoy (and I do as well), it's a tough challenge that really engages the players.  Basically, it's the high point of your favorite interactive movie :)  One you can't ignore, an event that your character has to react to and that you as a player find great fun to engage.

Your goals are a type of Kicker in that they give you something to play toward right from the start, and that's very cool.  If you have your mechanics of risk and reward in place, whenever you as GM give your players tough choices where they're willing to risk a lot and really get into it, I'd count those as Bangs.

4) Exciting rules for all types of conflicts.  Basically, you can resolve a mayoral election, as you say, the same way you do a fight.  There will be attacks on the other's credibility, damage to their reputation, etc.  There will be risk involved; you might be defamed and lose standing.  If you want to make social conflicts matter, you need to make sure that a character's social standing in the game has an effect on them, just like their health does.  Reputation might be highly important in this setting:

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.

That about sums up my thoughts for now, I hope you find something useful in all that rambling. :)

[Saxon Douglass]

If you're talking about the Hound of the Baskervilles movie that starred Peter Cushing and Cristopher Lee, that was a Hammer film (after the UK film company of the same name.)
I havn't seen that movie, I just know about them & saw a TV series maybe 6 months ago. I'll be renting some Hammer films though because they will hopefully inspire me with the sort of mood and theme I want.

As far as additional penalties, I was thinking about something like tying HP into Fate loss or something. In fact, you could maybe do something scary like substituting HP for FATE. That way, you really ARE risking your character's life to do dangerous stuff. Just an idea, really.
The problem with this is it would make the ability to heal physical wounds very powerful. Having fate as a seperate pool of "hit points" is what I was thinking of with the ability (and often neccesity) of going into debt. As long as you're 0 or above you are OK but when you get below that... you begin to death spiral. You start taking more fate from the pool just to survive and offset the penalties you already have getting further and further down until it kills you. There will be ways to gain luck back though and repay the debt, the most common being completing goals. That's my idea, not sure if that'd work or not but having fate as something you rarley have and only borrow fits the risk vs. rewards idea.

I really enjoyed reading this thread, because it's one of those where it is apparent how far you've already come from your beginning statement of "It'll be a variant of D&D" to "I want player-created goals with rewards, a risky betting mechanism, and simple and quick rules that are still exciting."  That's not a D&D variant, that's a whole different ballgame, and good for you!  It seems you've got most of your goals laid out now.  I like the sort of game you're now trying to design, full of challenges with a good amount of authority for all players.
Looking back it's hard to think how close-minded I was to RPG design. I knew very little outside of D&D and originally just thought "wouldn't D&D be cool set in a world of horror and social/economic upheaval?". When I started to design it I was changing so much it wasn't D&D anymore! So I came the the Forge, not knowing WHAT it was and now I have a good idea of what I want to acheive :)

From this point on, every mechanic you design for your game needs to be focused on this point: Does it support my goals?

The best way to do this is to envision how it will play out in an actual session.  By that I don't only mean a narrative of the fiction in the game, but an example of what the players would say, when they call for dice, at what point they get the reward, etc.  Try writing a dialogue between players and GM, and insert placeholders like [bets x points] or [uses combat mechanics] where you don't yet know what exactly you want there.  That always helps me a lot when I try to figure out how exactly I want the game to go.
I'll try that, thanks for the tip. I see it being "I want to do [something]. If I win [something] happens. If I lose [something] happens.'" Then people agree or change the stakes 'till everyone is happy and then the conflict resolution happens which is between either a) a player, b) the GM or c) the world.

1) You say that you want the reward to be proportionate to the risk.  You also say that you don't want characters to die for no good reason (e.g., be killed by a random goblin).  Think about this: the player states their risk, but the achievement they can get depends on that risk as well.  For example, a rule could be, "You cannot kill a named NPC unless you risk your character's life." So, sure, if you want to kill that goblin, you only risk "becoming unconscious" or maybe "captured."  But if you want to annihilate Dagoth Ur, you need to risk your character's life.  (I love Morrowind, by the way; I'm still playing it.)  Maybe if you just want to banish him until a priest can call him back, you only need to risk being defeated and driven away.  That way, whenever your players risk their characters lives, it's for something they really really want and are willing to die for.  Tie this into general achievements (killing a named NPC requires risk of life; becoming a Lord requires risk of becoming an outcast; using basic healing magic requires risking minor fatigue; etc.) or into specifics tied to levels (killing a creature of any higher level requires risk of life; banishing a creature of 1-5 levels higher requires risk of serious wounds; making a healing potion 2 levels higher requires risk of total exhaustion; etc.).

Now, at the start of any conflict, the players tell you what they are risking and hope to achieve, and then you figure out with a couple of quick rolls whether they get what they want and/or lose what they are risking (personally, I think it would be cool to roll two checks, and the player determines, if only one of them succeeds, whether he wants to avoid the cost or achieve the goal).  You can give them bonuses on the roll depending on how cool you think their ideas on how to go about it are, etc.

That's a really great point and idea Christian! Having some sort of list where you have challenges grouped by risk and reward sounds good. The 5 levels of reward I had already thought about work for this really well. Defeating a weak goblin would just have the risk of being unable to do strenous activity for a few days as an example. I'll tinker with this and see what happens. Thanks.

2) Goals: I really dig your idea on major and minor goals.  Not sure you want a three-tier system instead of just two, which would be simpler.  I guess that's up to your preferences and playtesting.  But I like the fact that players create them and then work with the GM on how to tie them into the game.  That's much more direct input on what players would like to play than you get in 95% of the games out there.  Someone already mentioned The Shadow of Yesterday; make sure to look at its system of Keys, which are basically goals to be fulfilled in play.

Yeah 3 tiers makes the Moderate and Minor categories too similar and would have such minor goals as "eat cereal" :P Having a few (or maybe one, not sure yet) "lifetime" or Major goals would provide the main drive while the Minor goals would be generally be tied to the Major goal(s) or subplots. So you might have the Major goal of finding a cure for your father's illness while the Minor goals would be stuff like talking to some apothecary on the other side of the mountains or confronting a darkness inside of yourself. The idea with goals is they carry a risk and reward and are conflicts which might take several sessions to resolve. I've got the CC version of TSOY and will look over it today :)

3) Kickers and Bangs.  These are in-game techniques.  Kickers are starting positions that propel a character into action.  Basically, they make sure that the player has something to do from the start, and that it's something they are interested in doing.  Bangs, on the other hand, are presented by the GM to the players during the game.  They can be challenging encounters, or difficult choices, or anything else that really pushes you to play your character out depending on what the style of the game is.  In what people here call "Story Now" play, it's usually a tough choice for the protagonist to make, like a choice between duty and love, or sacrificing a few to save many.  In other games, for example the challenge driven ones about taking risks and stepping up your game that you seem to enjoy (and I do as well), it's a tough challenge that really engages the players.  Basically, it's the high point of your favorite interactive movie :)  One you can't ignore, an event that your character has to react to and that you as a player find great fun to engage.

Your goals are a type of Kicker in that they give you something to play toward right from the start, and that's very cool.  If you have your mechanics of risk and reward in place, whenever you as GM give your players tough choices where they're willing to risk a lot and really get into it, I'd count those as Bangs.

Thanks for the definition, they make sense now. Kickers should be covered by goals which are determined ad CharGen but bangs are abit tougher. The bangs in Myrkwell will be "high risk, high reward" situations I guess (although some tough choices thrown in helps diversify too). Stuff like oncovering the secret affair the baron is having with a mafia boss thereofre deposing him and getting a fairer ruler in place. The risk is huge - if he finds out your plan you would die. But if you succeed you would save hundreds of peopls lives. Is that a bang? Involving multiple checks and stuff would help draw the suspense out with each check being narrated as a seperate "scene". So you might need to first find the proof, find someone who'll print it, make the deal worth it for them, remain undercover so they don't go and and kill you.

4) Exciting rules for all types of conflicts.  Basically, you can resolve a mayoral election, as you say, the same way you do a fight.  There will be attacks on the other's credibility, damage to their reputation, etc.  There will be risk involved; you might be defamed and lose standing.  If you want to make social conflicts matter, you need to make sure that a character's social standing in the game has an effect on them, just like their health does.  Reputation might be highly important in this setting:

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.

That about sums up my thoughts for now, I hope you find something useful in all that rambling. :)

Yeah Reputation and Relationships can and will be as important as hit points. If your reputation hits rock bottom you are as good as dead because to gain reputation you need it (Sort of like you need work experience to get hired anywhere :| ). Ofcourse there are people out there with a sullied name, they are the outlaws. They live on the fringes of society, wild-west style, taking prey and attempting to make a meager living. Among them the more Disreputable the better lathough that doesn't mean you won't wake up one day without some parts missing :P

I'm half working on another, alot simpler RPG i'm calling at the moment PnPRPG which stands for Pickup and Play RPG. The system in that is based on Unistat which is on the boards here. If you wish to do something the GM either just says "yes" or to bet. Each player has a pool, standard 20 although you can have more or less, and they bet to do stuff. The GM also bets who has about double the starting pool of the players. Whoever wins the betting narrates what happens, and they exchange bets.eg.  Tom has 20 chips and Bob has 20. Tom bets 7 and wins while Bob stops at 5. Instead of taking those chips back though they SWAP meaning that Tom would pick up five and Bob would pick up seven. This means Tom would have 18 chips to bet with in the future while Bob has 22. That's the basics, mainly taken from Unistat with modifications. The reason I mention it is in that risk = reward with no variance (unless you count Aspects which can give you bonuses for good naration). The risk is how much you bet, the reward is the narration privilage. In that characters skill and luck do not play a role. In Myrkwell though they do, infact skill is more important than bet because you'll only have a small pool of luck in the game (about 5 per player sounds enough). So betting is a smaller part of the game, the way you've built your character for particular challenges is more important overall. That means that making risk scale will be tricky. Despite that I want characters to level up and get better at stuff because myself and my group enjoy levelling up. I want abit of luck to play into it also and i'm thinking 3 Fudge dice would do it (maximum 3 point variance). Enough of my ramblings, I always do this. Anyway i'll be back on later with more ideas and stuff.

[Saxon Douglass]

Here are some ideas which are getting to the actual mechanics of the game. I'll lsit my ideas and why they would work in the game possibly.

First thing I guess is character creation and advancement. I'm not sure if I want levels or just character points, either would work and each has a different feel. This isn't very important though because I don't plan on levelling deciding anything in itself. I do want characters to earn points though which they spend on everything from negotiatons ability to physical health. I'm not sure on costs and scale although 5 per level, if you I have levels that is, sounds about right I think. At character creation you would get 10 to 20, not sure yet (would need playtesting). I'm not sure on the seperation between Attributes (such as Strength) and Skills (such as Pick Lock) - I could get away with no seperation at all. One thing which i'm not sure if it'd work is limiting maximum ranks in a skill by the key ability. This means if you have a Dex of 4 you couldn't raise your Acrobatics skill past 4th rank. I have heard things against this model though so I'm hesitant to try it. Any ideas on a game out there I should look at for a simple, point-based character system? GURPs is way to complicated for what i'm trying to acheive, something like Vampire the Masquerade is more in keeping with what I want (if it is like the PC version that is).

I really want social conflict to be important also. In D&D you have tonnes of rules revolving around combat, in Myrkwell I want alot focusing on social conflict. Things such as contacts (NPCs players create that will help them), reputation (one or more scores showing the general perception of them), relationship maps (a rating how much each person likes each other), rumours and name-muddying (a way of manipulating relationships and reputation) are all things I want rules for. I don't want them completley ruled or anything, but I do want there to be a solid framework for things like this. I'm not sure which elements will work and which won't although I like the relationships and contacts especially. The relationships would be like the Sims in that this score, which can be positive or negative, represents how much the NPC likes you generally which would impact your attempts at manipulating them and other people through them. Contatcs are good because it allows players to create NPCs which then help them and they can then form a bond with. I want to have rules in the game that encourage players to invent stuff. The only example of this i've seen of in D&D is the ability to research new spells and that is presented as an optional rule! I really want players to have more control over the world in this game.

Combat will be important also because those you have been outlawed can be a rather brutal bunch. I want the combat rules to be "lite", deadly and complete. D&D combat is good for a game that is all about that but in a game where combat is maybe 20% of the average session the rules need to be easy to learn, simple to adjudicate and be complete enough that players feel they can do cool stuff. I don't want combat to be only one or two checks, It needs more depth than that I feel. The use of miniatures or maps isn't needed though. I'm thinking the combat should be simplified down to 3 values, Attack, Defence and Health. When someone attacks they roll or bet (Not sure which yet), add Attack and compare to the opponents Defence (which they roll or bet). You subtract defence from attack and if you have a value more than 0 that is how much Health they lose. People would take it in turns to attack people and would just declare who they attack and narrae what happens. The attacker is always the one to narrate what happens although what they state can't be too impacting. So if you do 1 damage you can't say you lopped off there head or something (group would decide if something is appropriate). There might be some special "manouvers" you can do in combat although leaving it up to narration would work most of the time. I don't know how simple I want it to be although the system outlined above is about what i'm looking at if a little too lite.

The stuff like goals has already been explained abit. The idea is for each goal you specify a risk (ie. what you need to do to complete the goal) and a reward (what you get if you succeed). Some other things need to be agreed on also though such as what happens if you fail and what is the price of dropping a goal. I think two types of goals, beyond Major and Minor (with a possible Moderate) is Open or Closed. An open goal is something which is on-going and hasn't get an "end". Such a goal might be help the needy or to steal from the rich. The goal gives a small reward each time the task is acheived and it doesn't go away until the player "buysoff" or drops it. A closed goal on the other hand has a definite end, it might be restoring your family name to what it was before your borther gambled away all the money or winning a prize in a gladiatorial tournament. I'm starting to be not so sure about Major and Minor goals, I'm starting to think the seperation isn't needed. As long there are ghuidelines on what is a suitable reward for a certain amount of risk how BIG the goal is is self evident. And having a lifetime goal forces characters to pursue that one end, maybe just having some goals to begin with is enough. I will have major goals for now but will keep an eye on them in playtesting and if they don't seem very usefull I will remove them.

That's about it for now. I always got to be going somewhere when I write these so I never have time to say everything I want to :| anyway any thoughts on this stuff would be appreciated.

[Arturo G.]

Hi again, Saxon!
I'm also enjoying to see your open-minded approach and your insight to analyze your interests and try to produce something from it.

You got the idea of kickers and bangs. Nice! If you don't care to read really long posts, there is a complete description of the procedure of creating a story framework, discussing how to use a relationship-map, create characters with kickers, produce bangs, etc. in the following threads:
To Tor, Jesse, and Paul
Art-Deco Melodrama
Art-Deco Melodrama, part 2
Art-Deco Melodrama - the Final Chapter

You may also be interested on reading this article from lumpley's site:
Creating Theme

Just a recommendation. Don't be too much worry about character advancement at the beginning. Concentrate in the kind of mechanics you want to support your goals. It will be easier to see how a character may be improved when you know which are the relevant stats and mechanics involved.
This could also help you: Character Improvement, taken for granted?


About the combat system; read this and rethink about what you really want.
Mike's Standard Rant #3: Combat Systems

Cheers,
Arturo

PS: Definitely, read your free copy of "The Shadow of Yesterday".

[Adam Dray]

Here are some ideas to play with.

Risk and Reward

Ignore the levels and stuff for determining risk and reward. Use the dice. Suppose your conflict resolution mechanism uses N d6es for both sides of a conflict. In some conflict, I the player have 4d6 and you the GM have 12d6. That's a lot of risk for me, isn't it? Doesn't matter what level I am or what level my opponent is. So at the end of that encounter, swap dice and roll them again. I the player get to roll 12d6 and the GM rolls 4d6. Compute the difference as the reward.

If the game mechanic says to add up the dice (4d6 --> 1+2+2+5 = 10, 12d6 --> 1+1+1+2+3+3+4+4+5+5+5+6 = 40), then maybe that's 40-10 = 30 reward points (XP, whatever). If it's #successes, use those. Use the same mechanic for reward rolls that you used for the actual conflict resolution so that the probabilities are the same. The dice-swapping, however, ensures that more risk = more reward.

You can combine risk and reward rolls if you're clever. Make a rule that says, each "6" rolled on one of the GM's d6es generates a reward point but they're decremented by each "6" rolled on one of the player's dice. In the above example, the player rolled no 6'es and the GM rolled one 6, so the player would earn 1 reward point from the exchange.

Combat, etc.

Read Mike Holmes' Mike's Standard Rant #3: Combat Systems for some insight on combat systems. Oops, Arturo mentioned that already. Sorry.

You say, "I really want social conflict to be important also." Yes. The best way to do this is to include some kind of system support for social combat AND to de-emphasis physical combat by not dedicating half your rules to it. You'll find that a lot of indie games have a single conflict resolution system with a very small handful of rules for taking it physical. Those few rules typically differentiate conflicts that can end your life vs. other kinds of conflicts. My cyberpunk game Verge doesn't differentiate between a character dying and a character giving up on life and sitting and watching tv all day -- the effect is the same: the player has to make up a new character.

Other things to consider is the effect character death has on the continuity of your game. You say you want combat to be "deadly." Do you mean you want combat to have a high chance of killing a character? Is it left to chance? Why do you want this? To make the game exciting, to scare players away from combat, because you feel it's "realistic," or for some other reason? Excitement comes from tension and escalation, not from the painful conclusion of death. There are some great examples of rules that help create tension through escalation (you must read and play Dogs in the Vineyard -- don't skimp here -- if you read no other game this year, read Dogs). An escalation rule might be something like, "a character cannot die unless he risks his life, and he's encouraged to risk his life because he gets X extra dice when he does so" or "a character doesn't get to use X, Y, and Z in combat unless his life is at stake" (call them Blood Traits!).

Escalation rules can take a simple one-roll resolution system and turn it into a multiple-roll resolution system and give it that illusion of "depth" that you crave. Verge, for example, starts with a pool of dice on each side, then gives the player a chance to tap one of his traits to pull in more dice. Every time he does that, though, he 1) uses up a resource that isn't renewed till game-end at best, and 2) gives the GM a chance to tap one of his character's Weaknesses or Enemies for additional dice against the player. Every new trait is brought in with hopefully-exciting narration. The player can stop any time he likes (after the GM gets his go). Ties are resolved with the equivalent of a coin toss, 50-50. The result is a tense system with a lot of turns of close margins, sometimes ending in a tie-breaker that could go either way. And the player decides what he's willing to "burn" to win. And burning Allies can have permanent consequences.

Player Input

You say: "I want to have rules in the game that encourage players to invent stuff. The only example of this i've seen of in D&D is the ability to research new spells and that is presented as an optional rule! I really want players to have more control over the world in this game."

Lots of indie games do much better at this than D&D. Player input can come in many forms, including sharing GM responsibilities for just about everything during play. But let's focus on the "encourage players to invent stuff" part.

The easiest way to get players to invent stuff is to make it part of character generation and advancement. Dogs in the Vineyard and FATE and lots of other games have "freeform" traits where you write down a phrase and assign it a score. I might write down "I never met a man I couldn't kill 3d6" on my Dogs character sheet. In Verge, I might write "Ally: Handy McMalley, street cyberdoctor" and assign it 4 "boxes." The first trait is pretty specific to the PC but the second kind of trait develops the world. The player doesn't have to ask the GM for the name of a cyberdoc, or even if there is such a thing in the world as a street cyberdoctor at all. Writing it down makes it so.

It gets cooler when you get into stuff that works against the character. Verge has players define their characters Weaknesses and Enemies as freeform traits. "Weakness: addicted to cyberstim" says something about the setting. So does, "Enemy: United AI Alliance." It's fodder for the GM, too. When you write, "Enemy: Robin Ho, CIA Director (5 boxes)" on your Verge PC sheet, you're signaling the GM about the stories you want to tell as well as saying things about the world (there's a CIA, so it's probably the USA, and there's a Director named Robin Ho, and he hates me). When you write "Gear: Akai 3500 Hovercycle" on your sheet and give it 2 boxes, you're saying "there are hovercycles in this setting, and Akai makes one with model number 3500, and I have one!"

If you want to get into more formal systems for sharing setting creation among players, take a look at the RPG Universalis, which is entirely focused on that in a way that will blow your mind.

Goals

I think you're spot on with minor and major goals. Your open goal system -- in which players get a reward every time they make their character accomplish a goal -- is a lot like the Key system in The Shadow of Yesterday. Other people pointed you there; go read it free on the net.

I'd tie your major goals into your other aim of a "party" style game. Have the entire play group come up with one or two major Goals together and make them a party thing, not an individual thing. Advancing the party goal might net personal rewards, but completing the party goal should earn the group some kind of major reward.

Whenever players complete a goal, always have them replace it with a new one!

Have you read John Kirk's RPG Design Patterns (available as a free PDF, linked in that thread)? Seth mentioned it a week or two ago. The book describes useful patterns in game design and it will help you understand the kinds of things you design out of habit (based on limited game exposure, and so on). Every designer needs to read it. It's teh kewl. ;)

Overall, it looks like you're learning really fast. Keep up the great work!

[Arpie]

Only the link in John Kirk's design pattern thread leads to a webpage where the .pdf file you download is blank.

It's probably just for Macs or something.

I hope you're not getting overwhelmed by all this.  Oh, this is a color/flavor question I meant to ask.
With stuff like the Hound of the Baskervilles, were you planning on the central dilemma to be a mystery with more-or-less reasonable solutions (i.e. the Hound is really a decorated mastiff) or somewhat more supernatural (i.e. the Hound is really a decorated VAMPIRE mastiff.)?

[Saxon Douglass]

Just a recommendation. Don't be too much worry about character advancement at the beginning. Concentrate in the kind of mechanics you want to support your goals. It will be easier to see how a character may be improved when you know which are the relevant stats and mechanics involved.

Very true. Reading through that thread It did dawn on me that you don't need levels or skills that advance with XP. But I do want that :) What I was thinking of though is if stuff like contacts and relationships were "bought" like that also. So you'd have some pool of advancement points that go to making you better at doing a task, building a town or gaining a wife/husband. Not sure how you would earn points, maybe performing the action just gives you the reward. So you might have advancement as a reward you can choose in a conflict. So to get better strength you'd need to pick up a 200kg boulder which if you fail will strain your muscles and give a penalty to strength as an example. That would make the system leaner I have to admit... Does the idea sound like it would work? I would need rigid rules for what risk is appropriate to reward but the in-game detail is up to the player.

Ignore the levels and stuff for determining risk and reward. Use the dice. Suppose your conflict resolution mechanism uses N d6es for both sides of a conflict. In some conflict, I the player have 4d6 and you the GM have 12d6. That's a lot of risk for me, isn't it? Doesn't matter what level I am or what level my opponent is. So at the end of that encounter, swap dice and roll them again. I the player get to roll 12d6 and the GM rolls 4d6. Compute the difference as the reward.

I've never understood these die pools alot of RPGs use. Who has 16 d6s lying about?! But the basic idea is good - the greater the difference between their ability and theirs the more the risk. If I used the system I mentioned above it is already integrated because the reward for success IS advancement (whether it is story, abilities or whatever). If I go with a seperate system for improvement though I will probably use this or a variant there of.

You say, "I really want social conflict to be important also." Yes. The best way to do this is to include some kind of system support for social combat AND to de-emphasis physical combat by not dedicating half your rules to it. You'll find that a lot of indie games have a single conflict resolution system with a very small handful of rules for taking it physical. Those few rules typically differentiate conflicts that can end your life vs. other kinds of conflicts. My cyberpunk game Verge doesn't differentiate between a character dying and a character giving up on life and sitting and watching tv all day -- the effect is the same: the player has to make up a new character.

I have read that article and find it very interesting, as I do most Forge works. While I see what you're saying I do still want some rules for combat, even if it is just an extra page of details. While the plan is to have atleast double the focus on social stuff as combat in this game their are outlaws and when fisticuffs happens their needs to be rules for it. Having "social death" is an interesting idea and ties into what was mentioned above - if you make death your risk in a conflict then it could be social and not just physical.


Other things to consider is the effect character death has on the continuity of your game. You say you want combat to be "deadly." Do you mean you want combat to have a high chance of killing a character? Is it left to chance? Why do you want this? To make the game exciting, to scare players away from combat, because you feel it's "realistic," or for some other reason? Excitement comes from tension and escalation, not from the painful conclusion of death. There are some great examples of rules that help create tension through escalation (you must read and play Dogs in the Vineyard -- don't skimp here -- if you read no other game this year, read Dogs). An escalation rule might be something like, "a character cannot die unless he risks his life, and he's encouraged to risk his life because he gets X extra dice when he does so" or "a character doesn't get to use X, Y, and Z in combat unless his life is at stake" (call them Blood Traits!).

I want combat to be deadly because I want to discourage it. In real life the reason I don't attack someone is often just because I'm afraid i'll come off worse in the end (plus all the paperwork :| ) so I want to make other solutions to problems to be more usefull. Being smart and charismatic is the way out of most tight places - not raising arms. Ofcourse rewarding non-violent solutions would also work but I was thinking it would be simple enough to make combat less desirable by devoting few rules to it and making it quite deadly. The only way to win against someone better than you is to put everything on the line or to set things up in your favour (traps as an example). I really like the idea of traits you can bring in which require a certain other risk to be brought in first. I'm starting to really dig the conflict resolution. Whether you roll or bet you have a base pool decided by characters skill in the area. You then can bring certain traits or risks in which will help you or hurt the enemy. Say player A has a base die pool of 1d6 and player B has 3d6 in a conflict. Player A puts his relationship with Player C on the line (say an extra 5d6) and Player B risks his relationship with Player D (3d6 points - they aren't as close friends). This puts them both at 6d6 points. Player A then puts his life on the line (10d6). Player B realizes that Player A is serious and decides to cut their losses so they back out. Player A therefore succedes while Player B loses their friendship. Now that is totally plucked out of the air but is how I see the basic flow of the game going - each person takes turns bringing in more risks or benefits until one decides to cut their losses and back out (losing everything they risked). If Player B had put his life on line plus something else Player A wouldn't have had anything else to put into it meaning he'd lose and be killed (and would also make Player C hate him somehow). How this all happens is then decided by the victor. That's how I see a conflcit playing out.

Escalation rules can take a simple one-roll resolution system and turn it into a multiple-roll resolution system and give it that illusion of "depth" that you crave. Verge, for example, starts with a pool of dice on each side, then gives the player a chance to tap one of his traits to pull in more dice. Every time he does that, though, he 1) uses up a resource that isn't renewed till game-end at best, and 2) gives the GM a chance to tap one of his character's Weaknesses or Enemies for additional dice against the player. Every new trait is brought in with hopefully-exciting narration. The player can stop any time he likes (after the GM gets his go). Ties are resolved with the equivalent of a coin toss, 50-50. The result is a tense system with a lot of turns of close margins, sometimes ending in a tie-breaker that could go either way. And the player decides what he's willing to "burn" to win. And burning Allies can have permanent consequences.
This sounds very similar except in your case they are burnt whether you win or not - in the way I see it you only lose what you put as a risk if you lose. I can see your method being abit better maybe but i'm not sure. Does it seem fair that if you put something on the line and win you keep it? Maybe their could be two types, those that you lose tiehr way and those that you only burn if you lose. The problem is that you can still put in everything every time and if you have more stuff than the other person they lose. Maybe all aspects you can bring in should be "burnt" like they do in your RPG and leave stuff like putting your life on the line as part of the agreed on stakes. That means you can still use your life as a way of winning a conflict but is a garaunteed death and would be the "ultimate sacrifice". Ofcourse you still might not win but it'd be the biggest thing you could pull in (and ofcourse since "Death" doesn't have to be physical it can be used in nearly any situation). The problem then is that it steals so much from your RPG :(  What do you think of risks you only burn if you lose the conflict? It'd be kinda like poker then. You keep putting in money until everyone folds. Except in poker the winner is decided by the cards while how much you put in decides it in Myrkwell. I'll try playtesting it but any prior experience would help. But the idea of aspects you can bring in, some of which depend on others, really works for me. Thanks!

The easiest way to get players to invent stuff is to make it part of character generation and advancement. Dogs in the Vineyard and FATE and lots of other games have "freeform" traits where you write down a phrase and assign it a score. I might write down "I never met a man I couldn't kill 3d6" on my Dogs character sheet. In Verge, I might write "Ally: Handy McMalley, street cyberdoctor" and assign it 4 "boxes." The first trait is pretty specific to the PC but the second kind of trait develops the world. The player doesn't have to ask the GM for the name of a cyberdoc, or even if there is such a thing in the world as a street cyberdoctor at all. Writing it down makes it so.

It gets cooler when you get into stuff that works against the character. Verge has players define their characters Weaknesses and Enemies as freeform traits. "Weakness: addicted to cyberstim" says something about the setting. So does, "Enemy: United AI Alliance." It's fodder for the GM, too. When you write, "Enemy: Robin Ho, CIA Director (5 boxes)" on your Verge PC sheet, you're signaling the GM about the stories you want to tell as well as saying things about the world (there's a CIA, so it's probably the USA, and there's a Director named Robin Ho, and he hates me). When you write "Gear: Akai 3500 Hovercycle" on your sheet and give it 2 boxes, you're saying "there are hovercycles in this setting, and Akai makes one with model number 3500, and I have one!"

That's just the sort of thing I want. NPCs, places, history etc. that the player brings in themselves. I don't want them being able to change the established setting too much though, maybe a rule you can bring new stuff in if the group agrees but you can't modify major stuff about the setting. As an example no amount of advancement points will make the world sci-fi for example. But this ties into the advancmenet points earlier - what you spend them on can be very free-form. I like the idea of buying personality traits, relationships/NPCs, places, history, etc. Ofcourse buying them might not be the best option - making them rewards you can choose could be even better. The only problem then is you get rewards that help you get other rewards which might throw "balance" totally off with one player having way more to bet than another does. Should improvement of character and setting cost "Advancement points" or should it be directley tied to the reward system (I prefer this method since the risk then has to make sense for the reward)?

I think you're spot on with minor and major goals. Your open goal system -- in which players get a reward every time they make their character accomplish a goal -- is a lot like the Key system in The Shadow of Yesterday. Other people pointed you there; go read it free on the net.
I have read that along with everything else (well - the free stuff atleast) people have linked to. Keys are what inspired the idea of open goals, before that I was thinking of closed ones only. Allowing goals with no definite end really makes the system more interesting because you can have vows and codes as goals now. You could also have a goal of BREAKING specific vows or codes. Having mutli-part goals is the next step, i'm starting to make them too complicated in my head so I'm trying to make the mechanics simpler.

I'd tie your major goals into your other aim of a "party" style game. Have the entire play group come up with one or two major Goals together and make them a party thing, not an individual thing. Advancing the party goal might net personal rewards, but completing the party goal should earn the group some kind of major reward.
Brilliant! That is perfect! I really wanted a reason for the party to work together (since I always prefer working with and not against people) and this is it! Having the division be Party or Group goals and Personal goals is very perfect. Having 1-3 group goals along with 3-5 personal goals would be very interesting, especially since personal goals will often help or hinder the gorup ones. Personal goals work with the current system but gorup ones would need expanded rules because they would be bigger and more complex than personal ones. To use The Lord of The Rings as an example the fellowship had a group goal of delivering the ring to mt. mordor while Frodo only cared about avoiding it's dark powers (which would be an open goal and would "payout" every time he successfully resisted). Would open group goals work though? I guess they would although there would never be a real climax with that. Another thing i'll keep an eye on fduring play testing.

Whenever players complete a goal, always have them replace it with a new one!
Agreed, unless they decide a certain goal will be the end of the campaign. Having a major party goal that is decided will signal the end of the campaign works for me and allows the group to decide how long they want the game to run for. But besides the campaign goals all goals should be replaced after they are completed or failed. It would be terrible for a group to end up with no goals :(

Have you read John Kirk's RPG Design Patterns (available as a free PDF, linked in that thread)? Seth mentioned it a week or two ago. The book describes useful patterns in game design and it will help you understand the kinds of things you design out of habit (based on limited game exposure, and so on). Every designer needs to read it. It's teh kewl. ;)
It's too long for one sitting, i've read about 1/2 of it though. I'll keep plugging away though because as you said it is a very interesting read.

If I can get the basics of the conflict resolution and goal system done I will have the absolute basics of the game roughly defined. Then i'll talk more about the setting and some of the other things I would like to be central to the game (such as darkness being an actual - notice I didn't say "evil" because darkness can be used for all ends although it does have a habit of twisting things :P ) But I would like the conflict resolution basics and goals down before I worry about that because I'd find it too hard to think about stuff like that without knowing how things are resolved.

Only the link in John Kirk's design pattern thread leads to a webpage where the .pdf file you download is blank.

It's probably just for Macs or something.

I had no problems with it. It did take a few moments to find it but it worked for me and i'm on XP. Unless I understood you wrong and you were saying it worked for you too :|

I hope you're not getting overwhelmed by all this.

Why would I be? I was when I first got here, sure, but i'm starting to see RPGs in a different lite. I can see that RPGs are alot broader in scope than just D&D and that my game should fully utilize the things out there. Thanks for asking though :)

With stuff like the Hound of the Baskervilles, were you planning on the central dilemma to be a mystery with more-or-less reasonable solutions (i.e. the Hound is really a decorated mastiff) or somewhat more supernatural (i.e. the Hound is really a decorated VAMPIRE mastiff.)?
That is a really good question! Since the setting will have magic I suppose supernatural answers to things are more common although making the solution something that could happen in our world might be an interesting curve ball. I don't want to make the distinction between "supernatural" and "natural" in my world though. To the people of this world it is all natural, as natural as daylight or bad daytime TV. With magic in the world more other-worldy solutions are certainly possible.

When I started this I was planning on having elves, dwarves, etc. in the world. While i'm not sure if i'll keep them anymore (I might just have humans with different geographical "races") the basic culture I had worked out for them will be kept. Do you see dwarves, elves, gnomes, etc. working in the setting? I did mwhen it was a D&D spinoff but now that it is something quite different i'm starting to like humans being the only race of bipedal creatures (although their would be other sentient creatures just not so humanlike). But if I remove dwarves say is having dwarf-like humans any better? The problem I have with dwarves, elves, etc. is they promote racism. Not actual racism, i'm not saying they cause racism out-of-game, it's just they are all so similar within that group. In the real world being Russian or Chinese means quite little, even including physical appearance, but with dwarfs they are all mining, drinking war-mongering klingon types! I could make them less stereotypical but people carry certain perceptions from other games when you use such iconic creatures. In my world for example dwarves were going to be Irish, German, Russian and Japanese while the Elves were going to be French, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish. Think that's odd try my Gnomes - Welsh, Scottish, Dutch and Swiss! While I was trying to make them more broad and interesting starting off with just humans might be better since that feeds into my "shades of grey" I was aiming for even with the D&D adaption.

[Adam Dray]

Reward System

So to get better strength you'd need to pick up a 200kg boulder which if you fail will strain your muscles and give a penalty to strength as an example. That would make the system leaner I have to admit... Does the idea sound like it would work?

The old argument is that you'll end up with players who don't want their characters to do anything "fun" because it's more rewarding to sit at home picking up heavy rocks. There are rules band-aids you can apply to discourage this, but it begs the question: does this system reward the player behavior you want to encourage? 

What do you want the players to do? What tools are you giving them to do it? How do you reward them when they do it?

Also -- and this is probably where I start talking about specific Creative Agenda -- if you want your game to support Narrativist play, this doesn't work well. You're rewarding players for making their characters do things that have no meaning, not for Addressing Premise.

Dice Pools

"I've never understood these die pools alot of RPGs use. Who has 16 d6s lying about?!"

I do! d6es are cheap. And look at Dogs in the Vineyard. Each conflict can bring in 10-15 dice of all shapes and sizes on each side. But it works great.

My conflict-reward dice-swap mechanism works in a d20+modifier system, too. If in the conflict the player rolls d20+5 and his opponent rolls d20+10, that's great risk. In the resulting reward, the player would roll d20+10 and the opponent would roll d20+5.

You can't do the integrated reward system thing easily with a single die though. When more dice = better, you have the option to then say, "and when you roll a 1 (or a 6 or whatever), that triggers the reward rule."

Combat of All Kinds

I think we're on the same page. The thing to be careful of is that, in writing up extra rules for combat, you don't make it the "fun" part of the game. That's another way designers encourage certain kinds of player behavior.

I remember reading about an early computer game design for an educational game. When the student answered enough questions wrong, the computer would blow up the student's on-screen avatar. Unfortunately, the blowing up was very entertaining, and most students intentionally mis-answered to see the pretty explosions. Winning the game was more work with less payoff in terms of 8-color special effects so students didn't work to win. The designer had unwittingly encouraged them to lose.

Similarly, watch the things you do in your design to ensure you're encouraging and discouraging, as appropriate.

Here's a question: If you make non-violent solutions easier and safer in terms of game mechanics, why would players choose to fight at all? The answer in Dogs is fairly simple. In game mechanics: violence is risky but violence gets me more dice. In Addressing Premise: some things are worth fighting for.

"Burning" traits

Different games handle the resource problem in different ways. In Verge, you check off boxes when you use a trait for a reroll (win or lose), but not when you use it for the initial dice pool, and you can buy them back with Boosts as you play on, but some refresh in different ways automatically at the end of a Story. In Dogs, you can use each trait in every conflict exactly one time; that is, you check them off (mentally) but they "refresh" at the end of the conflict, win or lose. In My Life with Master, simple formulae indicate which traits are used for different types of conflicts and traits increase and decrease based on success or failure, and the freeform traits ("More Than Human" and "Less Than Human") subvert the dice altogether!

Collaborative Setting

That's just the sort of thing I want. NPCs, places, history etc. that the player brings in themselves. I don't want them being able to change the established setting too much though, maybe a rule you can bring new stuff in if the group agrees but you can't modify major stuff about the setting.

It's hard to let go. I struggle with it myself. Why do you not want them to change the established setting "too much"? And you mean the players, right? not the GM? Why? I look at my own reasons and cannot use them as justification for limiting players any more than I limit myself as GM.

Group consensus will prevent the worst abuses, like introducing funky sci-fi elements into a fantasy world. But if the players want to do this, why not let them? (Recall that the D&D 1st Ed. DMG had rules for cross-over SF campaigns.)

Should you make it a reward thing? That is, when you do well, you get more power to influence the setting? My answer is: be careful because maybe you want players to have more power to do this than you're giving them. Do not toss setting improvement into the same lot as character improvement and make the players choose one or the other on which to spend their points. They'll ignore one for the other.

You probably do want to limit setting contributions somehow, or else the game might get unfocused. You can give each player a pool of points that refreshes automatically every game session and let them spend them on setting contributions. You should consider rewarding players for making setting elements meaningful through play. That is, introducing a setting element doesn't get you an award but connecting your character to it in a meaningful way does.

Goals

Things get interesting when group goals collide (and conflict) with personal goals. That's big fun there. The trick is to write your rules to allow both group goals and personal goals and ensure that they do not directly conflict but might indirectly conflict.

Why wouldn't open group goals work? For example, a group might have the goal, "Protect the Kingdom of Alfinia." That's pretty open. They can always have additional short-term goals, like "Defeat the Dragon Queen." In either case, the group earns a reward whenever its actions (as a group) advance that goal. Advance, not complete. Completing a goal might gain an additional reward, too, but advancing goals can be rewarded.

How do you define "group" for goals? If 4 out of 5 of the group work advances a goal while the fifth member works against that goal, does the group earn its reward? I'd say yes, if the advancement was successful. Let the group police itself.

You don't need group goals to "climax." It's probably useful for the type of game you want to run, but it's not strictly necessary. Verge supports a group story with personal goals that are all at odds with one another. The personal stories can conclude satisfactorily without the group goal being resolved.


In full disclosure, I am working on a fantasy game, too. I've been sharing lots of my favorite ideas with you, so don't be surprised when they show up in my game too. =)