Still unnamed fantasy game

[Stefan / 1of3]

Hi.

I've been working on another game and by now I'm convinced, that this time I will finish it. (I know this must sound outright stupid...)


Well, my idea was to do an "old style" game with "new methods". It is a fantasy game about heroes, that fight villains and try to stop their evil plans. Of course, combat will be the central part of the game. (I basically designed all rules, such that they are linked to combat somehow.)

How I started:
Before I knew about all kinds of play styles and techniques, I already played RPGs but there were some problems. As a player most of the time things were alright but GMing was tough. Basically I (and several of my friends) had the following problems:

- How do I make a good plot?
- How difficult should the game be for the players?
- Really, how am I supposed to run half a dozen NPCs in a combat scene?

So for my game I need guidelines or rules how to do this. All of those questions have been answered by several games, but not all answers are work for my idea, as there are some things I want to keep:


- Many new games use extensive negotiation to determine stakes and the further development of play. This is great fun, but I don't want to use these techniques.

- Games like WuShu or ThePool either do not modell individuell NPCs or they don't modell NPCs at all. But I want to do it, so although there must be rules that describe every individuel NPC (at least in combat scenes). I decided that each character will be represented by a single die in combat. When a character is injured, the die size decreases. An injured d10 becomes d8, an injured d4 is k.o.


How the game works:

The GM has a Threat pool describing a villain and his resources. He can use Threat to create minions, traps, etc. As not all problems are due to villains, I have decided to use a modern way of random encounters.

The PCs only have few values. Those are:
- Combat Styles - 5 skill rated 1 - 3, funky dice tricks that can be used during combat.

- Abilities - traits rated 1 - 2, representing everything else characters can do.

- Relations - relations come with 2 numbers: Affection and Profit.

-- Affection determines how much the hero feels about that person or thing and therefore how much Resolve he can gain, when spending time with them. (Resolve links the hero's emotions to combat.)

-- Profit describes how helpful the relation is. There are two types: Retainers and Contacts.

- Techniques. Techniques are a recent addition. I found out that in a game, where characters are supposed to get stronger there must be some values where you can get stronger. (Basically that's pretty obvious.) The other statistics have not much room to get better, so I made up Techniques, as a kind of buffer. It works similar to Lines of Experience in MURPG. Players can activate Techniques to get a small bonus and when the collect enough, they can raise another trait.


Chacters get better by spending Challenge points. I never liked the XPs, that look like they fall from the sky. Stories about heroes do not work like that. The bride has to go to the old Chinese man on the mountain to learn the heart explosion technique. Challenge allows players to make up the old man. Of course bigger challenges mean bigger reward and Challenge points are kind of rare. But players are allowed to hand over their Challenge to other players. This is like: "That old man lives a long way away from here. You might need some help. I will come with you, if you help me to find the Staff of Ützgrütz afterwards. *hands over Challenge chips*"

So there are Threats, Challenges, Encounters and Relations to make something up from.


Another problem I needed to solve was the various questions like "How helpful is it to climb the fortress walls / backstab the guard / ask my friend for help / cast a prophecy?" I designed a general currency unit called Advantage to handle these problems.


There are three things I have make up before playtesting:

- How much should the GM get for a Threat point? I would like to approach the problem with probability theory, but as I said the rules include many dice tricks (which I like very much), so this approach seems to complicated. I though about simply making a few playtests and look how much threat is required. How do you approach such problems?



- Secondly villains tend to have evil plans. I'm not sure to represent evil plans in the game. I guess a plan is mostly some kind of a time limit. "Destroy the portal before next Monday or the demon will be free!" My thoughts about it are so fuzzy, I cannot even ask specific questions.



- Then I do not know how to handle Encounters. I'd like to use cards (normal Bridge cards), as you can put cards on the table to resemble a way.
The time between possible Encounters should get longer and longer and an encounter should only happen if everyone is interested. The procedure could be something like that:

1) Either a player or the GM hands to other party 3 cards. Then two things can happen:

a) The receiving side chooses two cards and hands them back. The side who started the procedure puts one card on the table and discards the other. This card will be used for the encounter.

b) The other side denies. The initiator puts a card face down on the table and dicards the other ones.

2) If there is an encounter the suit and possibly the picture gives some hints about, what it is about. I die roll should determine if the encounter is generally positive or negative to the characters. This roll is modified by the cards value and the region, where the encounter happens. (Things are more ugly in Moria then in the Shire.)

The suits could be something like "People", "A natural or geographical phenomenon", "Creatures" and something else. I'm not sure about the fourth one, and I have no idea what the pictures could mean and it seems to me that not using them is wasting them.
Furthermore I'd like to have the cards already lying at the table some influence on further encounters but I'm not sure how.

Do you have any ideas?



Are there any similar games I should read or essays about these topics?

[MatrixGamer]

Can you tell me more about what you want out of probablity theory? For that to be used a situation needs to be defined and measured repeatedly. That yeilds a normal curve.

Probablity falls appart in highly fluid situations. For instance - your using cards to determin encounters isn't about probablity as much as it is about choice. (Or am I reading that wrong? The GM has three cards, hands two to the players who hand back the one they want?)

When it comes to deciding how strong a "threat" roll is, the GM needs to have made a decision about their role in the game. Are they the player's opponent? If so then there needs to be clear limits placed on the threat rolls. Otherwise the GM can kill the players at will. If the GM's role is to facilitate player action then they can taylor what "threat" means to the situation. Threats are just the next challenge the players meet which they are expected to overcome.

Games don't have to conform to probablity theory to use dice rolls. Rolls are good game like elements. It's fun to roll a bunch of dice. Also GM's may guess at/make up difficulty levels, which the player must roll over, as the situation suggests. That is essentially what happens in Engle Matrix Games and they are used by the British and Australian armies as a simulation game - even without probablity theory.


As to setting a bad guys evil plan up. What do you think of deciding how many steps/actions need to happen for the plan to go into effect before the game begins. The steps don't have to be defined up front - that can emerge during play. The players need to know how many actions need to happen though right up front, that way they know when to speed up and stop Dr. Evil.

Chris Engle

[Stefan / 1of3]

Can you tell me more about what you want out of probablity theory? For that to be used a situation needs to be defined and measured repeatedly. That yeilds a normal curve.

Basically I wanted to analyse the combat rules to find out how many opponents heroes with traits XY handle can. You are right of course. Although there are not many decisions to be taken in this area, the process is still quite complex.

When it comes to deciding how strong a "threat" roll is, the GM needs to have made a decision about their role in the game. Are they the player's opponent? If so then there needs to be clear limits placed on the threat rolls. Otherwise the GM can kill the players at will.

Definitely. I already settled down a limit. 1 - 4 points depending on where the characters are. What I try to figure out is how many opponents for example the GM should get for one point. This should be dependent on the attacked character(s).

Also GM's may guess at/make up difficulty levels, which the player must roll over, as the situation suggests.

Well, I hate that. Of course this is a standard technique in many RPGs but I don't want to take such arbitrary decisions. That's why I like The Puddle better than The Pool, for example.

As to setting a bad guys evil plan up. What do you think of deciding how many steps/actions need to happen for the plan to go into effect before the game begins. The steps don't have to be defined up front - that can emerge during play. The players need to know how many actions need to happen though right up front, that way they know when to speed up and stop Dr. Evil.

Not bad. I will think about that. It might be necessary to differentiate in different types of steps. There are things that the villains must have and things they must do, for example.

[Stefan / 1of3]

Ohhh, and thanks for the interest.

Is there anything else you want to know?

[monsterboy]

Challenge points sound neat.

- How much should the GM get for a Threat point? I would like to approach the problem with probability theory, but as I said the rules include many dice tricks (which I like very much), so this approach seems to complicated. I though about simply making a few playtests and look how much threat is required. How do you approach such problems?

I'm not sure what you mean; I'm taking it to mean, how much should the villain be able to "buy" for a threat point. To that, I'd need to know something about the system economy; I don't know the value of the goods (villain goodies) *or* the currency (Threat points), so at this point it's entirely open-ended. In some systems (BESM comes to mind), character generation involves point-based resource "purchase"; and a lot of games have advantage costs for stuff like Henchmen; you might want to have a look at those.

- Secondly villains tend to have evil plans. I'm not sure to represent evil plans in the game. I guess a plan is mostly some kind of a time limit. "Destroy the portal before next Monday or the demon will be free!" My thoughts about it are so fuzzy, I cannot even ask specific questions.

You might represent this as increasing Threat throughout the game so longer they take to defeat the plan more of it will be in operation and therefore the harder it will be to defeat.

Furthermore I'd like to have the cards already lying at the table some influence on further encounters but I'm not sure how.

You could let the villain use Threat to "resurrect" discarded cards:

"Fools! You didn't realize that my bodyguard Graznat had a twin brother. Tanzarg, take your revenge!"

"Fools! Why would I raise only one Evil Cyborg Dragon when I could raise... two! ECD II, Attack!"

"Fools! Did you think I would send my Trusted Lieutenant<tm> against you in the volcano without protection from bubbling lava? Smokius, dust yourself off and get them!"

Are there any similar games I should read or essays about these topics?

Well, I've never read Donjon, but it seems to be attempting something like what you describe; taking the old dungeon delve and making it more player-driven.

[Stefan / 1of3]

I'm not sure what you mean; I'm taking it to mean, how much should the villain be able to "buy" for a threat point. To that, I'd need to know something about the system economy; I don't know the value of the goods (villain goodies) *or* the currency (Threat points), so at this point it's entirely open-ended. In some systems (BESM comes to mind), character generation involves point-based resource "purchase"; and a lot of games have advantage costs for stuff like Henchmen; you might want to have a look at those.

BESM is nice, although a little bit unbalanced. ;)

OK. The combat rules:

Every character has an associated type of die:

d4 - child
d6 - citizen
d8 - fighter
d10 - elite soldier
d12 - hero (this would be the PCs for example)

Additionally a hero has a favourite weapon type. This weapon is represented by its own d6, when used. All other non magical equipment is ignored. (Magic items are the only type of magic, that will have special rules. Other magic may be represented with techniques or abilities as the players like. I have not figured out how magic items work, yet.)

When a combat starts the participants can split into smaller groups. For example in a fight with 4 people on both sides may result in a single big fight with 4 vs. 4, four duels or any other combination.

In every group all dice are rolled and added. Groups with at least one hero receive a +5 bonus (more heroes make no difference). Therefore PCs are likely to split up to make full use of their hero state.
The loosers take one damage and one additional damage per 5 points the combat result was lost, which are distributed any way the players controlling the losers like. An injured character's die size is reduced as described above. Damage is usually healed at the end of the combat as it also represents flesh wounds, fatigue and  any bad thing you can think of. Only when a character receives two damage at once, he is wounded and his die is reduced by one level until healed.

When a die comes up "1" this represents a bad situation for the corresponding character (or weapon). He may have stumbled for example. On the next turn the die may not be rolled, although the "1" counts towards the new combat result as well. I introduced this rule to make sure, that characters are not reduced to dice in combat scenes. This way you can get at least some information about, how the individual character is doing.

So far so easy.

- Heroes have Resolve, which they can spend to re-roll their own die, weapon die and hostile mooks (= everything which is not a hero).

- Furthermore heroes have combat styles like Clever, Brutal, Tough or Quick. Each one has a specific effect. Brutal increases the damage dealt, when the combat result is one. Tough is the opposite. Clever allows for various manoeuvres, which is represented by the possibility to turn certain enemy dice to '1'.

- NPCs on the other hand can have monster powers, which allow for similar and additional effects. (I will make those up later.)

You might represent this as increasing Threat throughout the game so longer they take to defeat the plan more of it will be in operation and therefore the harder it will be to defeat.

This is different from what Chris Engle suggested, I think. This sounds more like a gradual increase. Maybe I can do something in between.

You could let the villain use Threat to "resurrect" discarded cards:

I wanted the card thing more for the small things between the evil plots. But often seemingly random occurrences become a part of the grand scheme later. I will keep this in mind.

Well, I've never read Donjon, but it seems to be attempting something like what you describe; taking the old dungeon delve and making it more player-driven.

Donjon is fun. Although the combat rules are quite clunky, I highly recommend it.

[MatrixGamer]

You might represent this as increasing Threat throughout the game so longer they take to defeat the plan more of it will be in operation and therefore the harder it will be to defeat.

This is different from what Chris Engle suggested, I think. This sounds more like a gradual increase. Maybe I can do something in between.

The two could be combined if you think about achieving one of the steps as requiring a certain dice roll. The players may not know it has happened yet but if they see your dice pool increasing (I would make that completely open. You could even lower the pool if they were doing things that hurt the plan - boy would that be a "you're getting hot" cue!) When the players made their move you could openly do a dice rolling pahse to see how far along the evil plan is. They might find Dr. Evil about to push the button or a half built Death Star. The dice pool would allow you to have the bad guy's plan move forward abstractly without having to game it.

I was thinking though of having the bad guy have all the dice they would get in the game up front. They could use those dice to push their plan forward but would likely faulter in the last minute due to player intervention. "I'd have gotten away with it if it weren't for those darned kids!"

I did a variation on this at a convention with an Engle Matrix Game. I was running one area of a wild west terrain board. Players could move in and out of the areas and fight skirmish battles. I only had one player so I switched the game to be about development. It was Arizona so he was the big rancher. I'd give him a task to complete and a set number of matrix arguments to do it in. If he failed, then the job was undone and he had to move on to another task. During the course of the game, he literally build the state. When the Indian player returned he found his home covered with cows and well armed herders. There was even talk of the rail road coming...

Chris Engle

[Stefan / 1of3]

I think, I solved my GM problem.

I talked about it with a friend and read on one of the diaspora blogs, that a character is most powerful for improvisation in RPGs. So why not give the GM a character?

So I canceled Threat points. Instead the GM gains certain attributes and monster powers for his evil organisation he can buy before the game. By now I have the following stats:

- Secrecy
- Fanatism
- Magic
- d6 troops
- d8 troops
- d10 troops

Troops are not bought during the game but - you could say - summoned with a die roll. Finally I added a kind of buffer, a resource that shows how much the bad guys want to hurt the PCs. Everytime the PCs win a conflict the stat rises by one, everytime they loose it decreases, respectively. The stat can become negative. As long as it is positive the GM can spend it to raise his stats for a conflict.

I prefer these rules, because they are less abstract.

Plans will be recorded on a special sheet with three circles on it. On the outmost circle there are 5 possible stations, one the second one there are 3, and in the center there is one required station. Stations will have a threat level associated with them, showing where this part of the plan will take place. (Threat level is higher in the evil fortress than in the good king's palace, but more costly, too.)
Threats can be marked as "contested" representing for example ingredients that heroes and villains can steal again and again.


Sunday is the next playtest.