Preparing to revise.

[Levi Kornelsen]

I'll be looking into Great Ork Gods and Elfs, then, over the weekend.

That said, I read your game the first time I saw it in your sig at rpg.net, and it made me smile, but I didn't know exactly what I'd do with it, you know what I mean?

Yes.  Yes, I do.  This game has been chasing me around for a while - it started off as a completely lame joke.  Then I started to have some inkling that this might well become a great joke, and a pretty good game, too - the question was, and remains, how to make in fun and funny in actual play.  Adding one or more trust / Talk stats, with description-based mechanics, might very well make this possible, if I can do it right.

Nonsensical...a good random encounter table might help with that. Like the one that has bacon, eggs, and toast attack you in one of the old Judges Guild products, maybe.

I'm a touch confused...  The game actually has random encounters now, based by adventure.  The last version (possibly the one you read) didn't, though.

[TonyLB]

So, if a group went and fought monsters, and kicked butt, and never betrayed each other, never taunted each other, never did flat-out stupid things, would you think they'd missed the intended goal of your system?

How about if they betray each other, taun each other, do flat-out stupid things but never go and fight monsters, or kick butt?  Like, they never even make it out the door of the tavern where a hooded stranger gave them their assignment?  Have they missed it then?

I hope that didn't sound badgering.  I genuinely can't tell, looking at what you've written so far, whether those two elements have to exist in synergy, or whether one is essential, and the other is optional (but useful) support for the first.

[Levi Kornelsen]

My hope would be to most completely support a playstyle where the heroes do make it out of the tavern, do fight monsters, and also work together, argue, bicker, and occasionally steal from each other, betray each other, and so on, with all those elements operating in a sort-of-synergy.

But anywhere in that spectrum could theoretically be possible, depending on how the rules come out - it would just be 'not at the center of the fun'.

At least, that's what I'm thinking.

And no, I don't feel badgered at all; I'm mostly figuring this idea out as we go along though, so I won't be shocked if I haven't been entirely clear.

[J Tolson]

I know you said that you wanted to move away from the 8-Bit Theatre (I found your thread over there, a shame it didn't catch on as they would be a valuable resource for ideas), but I would recommend still looking there for how to create discord between characters. If handled delicately, this could be represented in a conflicting interest model.

Every character has the primary interest of surviving and (presumably) obtaining gold. You could then add a secondary interest that directly contradicts the first. Perhaps the thief in the group has the nasty habit of stealing other people's gold (yet not benefiting from it himself). To get away with this he must always out-talk his friends (preferably in-game). Or the Fighter might have the habit of buying the shiniest swords, as opposed to the most effective ones, using not only his own money but everyone else's as well. Perhaps the White Mage must refuse payment for his/her attempts to save the world, thus reducing the reward from Questy McGuy. But these are, as you well know, ripped from 8-Bit Theatre itself.

However, by making such making such dysfunctional behavior part of the rules (i.e., the rules requires Thief to steal from his friends and Fighter to waste money) you may be able to con players into working around such limitations through RP itself, which seems to be your goal. Or it might just annoy everyone.

Regardless, I look forward to your next version of this game with great interest.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  I have a thought:
  Include a "Luck" stat. That is consistant with 8-bit and could be used to solve the luck issues in the mechanics as well as encourage interactions.
  The way it could work is you could set a luck threshhold for each Job (e.g., 11 for the Black Belt or 17 for the Thief) at the begining of the session, the player rolls their Run, Think and Special die and add them up, subtract that number from their Luck Threshhold and that's how much Luck they get this session.
  Characters can use Luck after they win a fight to get gear from the monster. Characters can trade or give luck points to other players. But only one character can get an item after the fight is over, so characters can also bid against each other. The winner of the bid will get a single item valued in Gil equal to ten the amount of luck spent x their level x the monster level. And then include lower cost items like tents, potions and ether so it's worth something even if you get a small amount og Gil.
  Just an idea. I think this can be used to encourage cooperation with trading and gifting and encourage competition if there is competition already.

[Malckuss]

I agree with dindenver about luck. As for expanding the game, I might suggest setting a flat rate of points for abilities as you did hit points, as well as perhaps the damage they can do to monsters( maybe getting bigger/more dice?). In short, I would take what fine work you did and just expand it so players have more options the farther into the game they get. Simple is good, and I like simple, but you can still have more and still keep is sweetly simple. I also would personally like to see some of the other FF classes show up, like the Dark Knight, Paladin, Ninja, ect. Lol. Actually, you might go ahead and take that whole prestige class idea, and at level 10 ( cause you could easily double this aspect and still be flexible) perhaps they go on an uberquest and "power up" becoming Lv 0 Knights, Wizards, ect. Just a thought.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  If you want something that encourages roleplay (in the form of giving the players something to talk about), try this:
Backgrounds
You could include 3 simple background systems that are what makes these CRPG characters unique:
Destinies
  Destiny is a far away event that WILL happen to your character. Have the table include good destinies and dark destinies
Example - Black Mage
Roll - Destiny
1 - Become Dark ArchMage, leader and teacher of all Black Mages
2 - Marry a White Mage
3 - Own a castle in a swamp
4 - Thrown into a volcano (Dark)
5 - Devoured by a dark creature you summoned (Dark)
6 - Incinerated by backfire from your own spell (Dark)

Twists
  Every destiny will have a twist that pushes it in the other direction.
Example - Black Mage Twists (Use for Dark Destinies)
Roll - Twist
1 - Natually trusted
2 - Will live to be at least 79
3 - Mother is a White Mage
4 - Natural born leader
5 - Mentor and teacher is alive and still likes you
6 - Member of a secret society of Mages (all kinds)

Example - Black Mage Dark Twists (Use for Good Destinies)
Roll - Dark Twist
1 - Bitter Rival
2 - Disowned by your father
3 - Betrayed by your best friend
4 - Mistrusted by all townspeople
5 - Horribly disfigured
6 - Has a crippling illness

Quirks
  Quirks are little thing that add flavor to your character
Roll - Quirk
1 - Hits on all women (or men, but not both), regardless of age, looks or marital sttus
2 - Says "..." alot (switch this out if you use ... as a game mechanic
3 - Shouts everything they say
4 - Can't use curse words
5 - Starts drooling if it has been more than 5 minutes since the last fight
6 - Gets a migraine if they hear a word that is more than two syllables

Example - Bob the Black Mage
Bob makes his character and decides he want to be a Black Mage, he rolls for Destiny and gets a 4. Bob discovers he has the Dark Destiny of some day being thrown into a volcano (ouch!). He then rolls for a Twist and rolls a 5. His Mentor and Teacher is still alive! Great, he can always count on his buddy and more experienced Black Mage to get his fat out of the fire, well, until that whole Volcano business... Finally, he rolls a 2 for Quirk and discovers he says "..." slot. So Bob has an easily confused, but likeable character who will someday be thrown into a volcano, nice...

  Of course you can make your own and might want to encourage players to make their own. Anyways, this starts to make the characters have flavor text like in all the manuals to these games and gives them something to talk about with each other and NPCs.

[Levi Kornelsen]

Okay, I've been thinking over this quite a bit, trying to figure things out for where I want to go, and I think I have pinned down just what I want to add:

1) A mechanical system vaguely like the trust and luck mechanics already brought up, which encourages competition and bickering within the character group.

2) A 'color' or 'origin' mechanism - a single descriptor added to a character, chosen by the player, that encapsulates their backstory in a way that brings flavor to the game.  I think I have such a list already, and I'll put it up here once I've cleaned it up a bit.

3) A reason for in-character discussions between characters, specifically set up as individual exchanges of character diaogue, or as seperate scenes. 

Now, it would be nice to tie those all together, but I don't think it's required.

[Saxon Douglass]

Hi Levi!

Ok first thing first - I found a typo :P Unde Black Magic on the Special Skills page it says "hut" instead of "but". Just thought i'd that (sorry if it was already pointed out, I didn't read the whole thread).

I'm not familiar with 8-Bit Theater so my opinion comes from a purely "game" perspective. First thing is that I think you shouldn't buy levels or skills - you should have seperate experience points. I'm assuming that it is some in-joke though, and if that is the case then ignore this. It just seems weird "buying" levels to me, especially since I've played quite abit of the FF series.

I think including trust, luck and a descriptor mechanic would really help this game foster the style of play it is based on. You need to create discontent without making the players attack each other in real life. I like the idea of "quirks" mentioned also - giving each proffesion such foibles would help drive party conflict. Having 6 per job seems good (where you'd roll to get one in the start).

Allowing multiclassing would be good also. If you were to make this change it'd need to have each job have a seperate section and table ala D&D. Having 5 levels in the base jobs and then 5 levels in specialist jobs sounds good (I'd make it like FFV, I really liked the system in that). That would be a major change though and I don't know if you even like the idea of multiclassing. But having ninja, samurai, beast tamer classes... it'd be really cool.

[Levi Kornelsen]

I'm not familiar with 8-Bit Theater so my opinion comes from a purely "game" perspective. First thing is that I think you shouldn't buy levels or skills - you should have seperate experience points. I'm assuming that it is some in-joke though, and if that is the case then ignore this. It just seems weird "buying" levels to me, especially since I've played quite abit of the FF series.

It was originally intended to mimic "buying Xp" in old D&D, as well as "buying spells" in FF1.  But it seems to work, thus far - I'm hesitant to change it at the moment, but I can see why it would feel 'off'.

I think including trust, luck and a descriptor mechanic would really help this game foster the style of play it is based on. You need to create discontent without making the players attack each other in real life. I like the idea of "quirks" mentioned also - giving each proffesion such foibles would help drive party conflict. Having 6 per job seems good (where you'd roll to get one in the start).

Hm.  I won't be putting randomness into 'character creation' - in fact, I'll likely be reducing the total amount of random numbers in the game in the next draft.  But otherwise, yes, that's the stuff I'm fiddling with.

Allowing multiclassing would be good also. If you were to make this change it'd need to have each job have a seperate section and table ala D&D. Having 5 levels in the base jobs and then 5 levels in specialist jobs sounds good (I'd make it like FFV, I really liked the system in that). That would be a major change though and I don't know if you even like the idea of multiclassing. But having ninja, samurai, beast tamer classes... it'd be really cool.

It would, indeed, be cool, and I'll likely do it in time.  However, I think I'll leave that for a later draft - there's already enough potential change here that I don't want to push any further in this particular revision.