I need questions to answer

[CrookedBroomstick]

Hey all,

     I've been working on this game mechanic which I plan to be the foundation for a setting I've also got in the works.  I know how a majority of the mechanic is going to be and going to function.  The major issue is that trying to write it down is a bit hard for me, since I feel like I'm wandering around without a direction.  I've tried to think of a few basic questions and topics to be goal questions to answer and fill out with information, but it's hard to think of the right questions when you already got so much information bouncing around in your head.  I don't have that many people in my area to help out with the development, so my people resources are limited.  So if anyone has any free time and is bored with Solitaire, I invite you to take a look at my site http://www.bestwithstuff.com/  .  You'll see the mechanic in question: D10/0 system.  It isn't filled out and there are sections that still need to be completed.
     What I'm focusing on is trying to get a list of those key questions to serve as a basis for what information I need to write about.  In a way pretend that this mechanic is a rulebook at a store... (go ahead and laugh... I am too...) When you open it up, what sections are you looking for and what information do you want and expect to find?
     There's a forum set up at the site to handle minor things and handle discussion.  I hope to make it the frontline for additions to the wiki that site is based on.

-Thanks

[TonyLB]

Have you checked out Troy's Power 19?  That seems pretty popular as a starting worksheet, and if you answer those questions here then we can all help you a lot more easily.

Oh, and Welcome!  And also, do you have a real name?  I'm Tony.

[CrookedBroomstick]

I'm Bryan.  Power 19 looks like a good list.  I'm trying to focus more what inexperienced and experienced player alike look for first.  Because an experienced player or even GM will have sections they are far more interested in than anything else.  That way I can order and arrange everything so it flows better and is information seems to naturally tie together.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  At this point, there's some questions that easily come to mind:
1) How do you know when you need to roll?
2) What do you roll (And do you add/subtract anything to/from the roll)?
3) How can you tell if you have succeeded?
4) How can you tell how well you have succeeded?
5) Is there any kind of luck that can allow players to succeed when it matters to them?
6) Is there any GM/Secret rolling, how does it work?
  There's probably more, but this is a good jump off point!

[CrookedBroomstick]

dindenver:
I've added information to the World Interaction section of the D10/0 information.  First draft, will have to go over it a few times to fix mistakes and elaborate.
I appreciate the questions, feel free to ask more.

-Bryan

[Rothe]

First let me say a very solid beginning and your character sheet to me is a thing of beauty.  It has a very technical feel, but makes nice use of color.   Your sheet and approach remind me very much of FGU Aftermath game from the eraly 80s, but I can already tell your mechanics are better. :-) 
   As a point of reference, I've been at RPGs since about 1977 and wargames before, and still after, that.  So nothing I say will provide much of a new user perspective.

My initial questions to help focus:
  How do I create a character?
    I'd create a step-by-step outline then write out the rules in that order.  Since you have a nice character sheet, you might orgnaize it by the boxes/places you fill in.

  How do I know what I can do and what's my chance of doing it?
    A discussion of how I determine whether I hit in combat, hear that mutant rat approaching my camp, etc.  You may have this already, but it might need some more layout work.  I just quickly read through it and it didn't pop at me what to use when.  You seem to have two parallel systems, one 1D10 and the other 1D100.  I don't think that is bad at all, just some further explainations about what uses the 1D10 and what uses the 1D100.

  What are these 10 skills everyone has?  Are there skills outside these areas?  What are the advances in these skills and what effect do they have?
  I assume some help combat, others appear to help in survival.  As a player I'm very interested in how I can define my character.  The skills that let me define him do add a flavor, reinforce the setting and IMHO can have a synergisitc effect.  So one area to expand on is to list out all the advanced skills with notes on how they impact the game.  This will help you balance aspects of the game.  For example, you probably don't want 1 stat helping in all skills (at least I think that's how it works) also you may want to have certain skills opposed (e.g., good Social doesn't share any of the same stats as good Ranged).

  What do I get to be?  What do I get to do?
   These are two questions I ask of a game and I think those new to games might ask as well.  It's part of the fun equation.  Can I create a scavenger, a mad max, a mutant?  This harkens back to the question about how do you create a cahracter.   On the what do you get to do question, the tendency is to answer anything, but you often need some rules to support resolution or suspense.  One of the biggest areas in post-apocalytic settings is vehicles.  I'd love to play a game with some fast paced rules that capture a car chase, or even a good horse chase. :)

[CrookedBroomstick]

Rothe:  I'm glad you like the character sheet.  It's been the center point of the system for some time.  I started toying around with that sheet and the system seemed to evolve as I played around and did statistical simulations.  It's gone over 10-15 revisions over the last year and a half.

I'm going to copy and expand upon things in the post in wiki.  But I thought I'd give a little discussion fodder for the forum.

Character Creation:
I put a dinky outline in the lower left hand corner of the first page of the character sheet.  I'm going to revise it and make it a little for accurate, but some of it is true.

Species Selection:  The D10/0 system technically doesn't have species defined.  It's the mechanic behind the scenes.  I'll probably post the rules and math I've been using to balance out the characters in the Shattered Earth setting.  But for the purposes of the post I'll use the species from the Shattered Earth setting.

Human:  Plain old human.  You get a "Starting" Perk, since humans are fairly diverse and usually have one shining skill that differs them from the masses.  (Starting Perks are comparable to 1st level feats in D20, but much more useful:  Akimbo - Dual wielding very similar weapons doesn't throw you off, hence no loss in accuracy,  %*$&in' Intimidating - You just have that "My way or the highway" presence.  If you need to use a little diplomatic "prying" you get a bonus to the act and the after effects.  Also, most people just don't want to bother you.
Math Behind the Scenes:  Species have 5 character points to work with.  Since humans usually don't have any boosts, but are usually unique.  A particular brand of Perk (worth 5 points) would do the trick.


Mutant:  You ain't exactly human.  Get the playing cards (52 hence no jokers) and start drawing 5 cards from the deck (you can pull from place other than the top if you want).
Red Cards = Good things
Hearts = Base Stat Augments
Diamonds = Other Augments

Black Cards = Bad things.
Spades = Base Stat Hinders
Clubs = Other Hinders

Cards can cancel out with this system.
Numbers = 1 Point
Jacks = 2 Points
Queens = 3 Points
Kings = 4 Points
Aces = 5 Points
Cancel out bad points with good points.

With each 5 you draw you must decide if you want to take that hand or discard it for another hand...  No takebacks.  You're a mutation farm, you don't get that much of a choice.  You get a maximum of 5 draws.  You have to take the last one, if you get there.
Math Behind the Scenes:  5 Character points to work with.  I'm bending it a little here, since card draws can be nasty at times.  So 5 draws of 5 cards.  Since mutations are normally random, but I want character customization...  They draw for the effects and the players will fill in the blank for the reason.

Gen-Mods:  You were once human, but decided to tweak your DNA a little.  Viral mods from Pre-Fall days are still floating around and sometimes being made.  You went through the prep process and got some mods done.  You get three Gen-Mod Augments, but tweaking has it's price.  You have a side effect Hinders.  Also, the prep process stagnated your normal progress, so you Base Stats aren't going to improve by themselves any time soon.  But it doesn't mean you can't get a few more mods later down to fix that. 
NOTE:  Viral mods used on Non Gen-Mods are usually devastating and usually either:  A.  Kill you.  B. Have NASTY side-effects.  Rarely, do they work without the prep process being done. (You have to roll buckshot on a d100)
Math Behind the Scenes:  5 Character Points again.  Augments are currently considered to be worth 2 points.  They aren't as awesome as Perks, but still help.  So 3 Augments and a Hinders (-1 Points) = 5 used points.

Gen-Eng:  You were never human.  Good news:  You don't have to feel guilty about the Fall of world.  Bad news:  You still have to deal with what remains of the world.  You kind was originally engineered in a lab.  By now you could be fresh from the tube or womb.  Your choice.  Since you were engineered, you get 5 extra points to spend on your base stats.  Problem is you were also engineered to not look human, so the humans in the Pre-Fall could tell you apart from them.  How you look is up to what you think of your character or the Gen-Eng Traits you pick (Maximum of 3).  But that very least your skin coloring is odd to the extreme of having claws, fangs, and long elf ears.
Math Behind the Scene:  5 CP's...  5 extra base stat points.  Done.

Base Stats:  You start a 5 in each to represent the normal being.  You get 5 points extra to spend by default, since you aren't just the average Joe.  Don't forget your bonus from species.
Shift around points to your preference.  Don't go lower than 1 or higher than 10.  The "human" range is 1 - 10.  (Mutants who get the Ace of Hearts, can go to 11.  It goes to 11.)

Start filling in equations...  They are located throughout the sheet.  The only oddities and changes are Skills and Dodge.
Base values for skills allows you to choose where you get your proficiency for that skill from.
Example:  You can Athletic in many ways...  Are you Agile, Enduring, or Strong?  So you you pick two stats for each skill to gain double from and add them all together.  The max base skill you can have is 50.  The average should be 25 - 30.

The skills on the sheet are 10 skills you can have.  9 are definite.  The Power skill is in the process of being a more encompassing skill.  Treat it as your "special" abilities skill.
Check the wiki for explanation of how skills can be focused and expanded.  Also, I'm going to start writing out definitions soon enough.

Check the wiki, under D10/0 in the World Interaction section for when and what to roll.

Differences between the D10 and D100:
D10 is great for those simple checks that don't need much math or that fine of granularity.  Hence, base stat checks, random factor in combat order, and the basis for the d100 component.
D100 is great for Skills.  Much more detail and fine granularity.  That way you can improve skills in those little amounts to get smaller reward quicker and more consistently.  Also, allows a HUGE range to roll around in for battles of comparing values.

What do I get to be?  What do I get to do?
Whatever you want.
And yes, there will be vehicles.  I've thought about designing a vehicle sheet later down the road.

I'm trying to design combat to be a circle queue and allow players to REACT to what happens to them.  So you don't have the "Wait your turn... Oh, wait your dead..." syndrome going on all the time.  I'm pretty sure most characters would duck down if a gun shot nearly missed them.  This hopefully will make combat more interesting, on the edge, and engaging.

I'll get started on filling the wiki out more and keep those questions coming.

-Bryan

[Mike Holmes]

What do I get to be?  What do I get to do?
Whatever you want.

You've got big trouble.

Until you can narrow down that question above, none of the other questions matter. There are no answers for them. Just vague preferences, and adherence to the tradition of previous designs, which will create a game that nobody but, perhaps, yourself wants to play.

Looks better than Aftermath! Talk about damning with faint praise.

Mike

[CrookedBroomstick]

What do I get to be?
You, a road warrior, a paranormal investigator, a soldier in a foreign land, etc...  It really depends on the setting you decide to play.  But in general you start out as one of the ones that seems to stand out or differentiate themselves from the masses.  It might not be much of a difference at first, but the pure fact you are a player in the game means you are just not another "Bubba" or "Bob" or "Joe" in the world.  As your character develops that will come into their own right and start to become what you want them to be in the settings you have chosen.  The principle point is the ability to craft and mold your character without molding constraints.  You don't have to wait to level to and take a completely different class to get one skill you want. 

What do I get to do?
Whatever the environment the setting portrays allows within the constraints of chance and probability.  You can shoot a gun, hit someone with stick, pick a lock, build a house, or what the setting allows and the general constraints of the world portrayed by the setting deems feasible.
Could a weak mage fist fight a brutish orc?  Unless the orc has a glass jaw, NO.
Could a weak mage fire a blinding spell and a weak force wave to trip that orc over a log and down a rock embankment, then run away before the orc climbs back up?  Very feasibly so.

It's all about how the setting defines the world and your part in it.

[Mike Holmes]

OK, to clarify, it sounds like you're saying that this is a generic system, and not just meant to be for your "Shattered World" setting (BTW, that title's been used more than once before for an RPG). Is that correct?

Other than that would these restatements of design goals make sense?
- Characters do not start out as the player wants the character to become
- But they are still somehow "heroic" or otherwise more potent than normal
- And characters will develop into that thing that the player wants them to be
- the system should mirror genre conventions in terms of producing results that match the genre reliably


These may be wildly off, but, if so, in clarifying them, you'll help us out.

But I'm already planning on asking you why I wouldn't be better off playing the setting using Hero System, since I'm very conversant with it, and I can make it do all of the above. Perhaps if you could speak to this, it would help with defining your design goals.

Mike

[CrookedBroomstick]

Other than that would these restatements of design goals make sense?
- Characters do not start out as the player wants the character to become

I wouldn't exactly say that.  I would say they start out as the vanilla, weaker versions of what they want to ultimately be.  There's enough initial customization of the character to allow the initial foundation to what they want to become.  But, if the story changes or the situation changes, they may deviate from the original goal and start to become something different entirely.

- But they are still somehow "heroic" or otherwise more potent than normal

Yes.  It's a common theme among many systems.  Adventurers in a majority of D&D settings are usually the minority in the general population of the world.  Hence this is what sets the players' characters out from the rest of the common masses.  Heros in super hero systems are different from the rest.  And even a survivor of the apocolypse is something above the ordinary in systems like Deadlands: Hell on Earth.

- And character will develop into that thing that they player wants them to be

Yes. A weak fighter will become a powerful fighter.  A rookie thief moves on and gains the skills to become a master thief.  But since they are not bound completely by the constraints of classes or package skills they can deviant a little to customize their characters without having to completely change over to something else.  This is commonly found in D&D with having more than one class.  My systems has the capability of allowing a character to develop skills where the player wants.  So a fighter can learn a thing of two about open locks and avoiding traps, and a thief can learning a few fight moves when the situation gets a little rough.

-the system should mirror genre conventions in terms of producting results that match the genre reliably

Yes.  What should reasonably and rationally happen, should happen within certain probablility.

I could use another system.  But as with every other system out there, someone sat down and thought...  "There are things I like, don't like, and think are missing."  My take, I like more gradual rewards during play and the freedom of making my character what I want it to be.  I also hate starting out uneven with my party.  Hence in this system, the level is more a means of keeping everyone with pace with each other, so no one is completely left behind.  This is while also allowing exceptional players a means of getting those little rewards and little gratifications without causing a massive imbalance.  This way you are more willing to go the extra mile to do your best, since you'll be immediately rewarded with something little, but useful to you.   Experience points are nice, but they don't make or break your character when you are too far away from a level, but a few skills points give you the ability to affect your character in a quick manner that you can experience quickly after getting those points.  And 2 skill points that gives a 1% boost on a lesser developed skill isn't going to throw off balance just as long as the GM handles it well enough.

-Bryan

[Mike Holmes]

What systems have you played, outside of D&D? I ask because, and I could be mistaken here, you seem to base your ideas of the quality of a system on how it compares to D&D.

Around here, that's akin to saying, "My system improves a lot on the Ford Pinto" to people who are designing Ferrari's.

But as with every other system out there, someone sat down and thought...  "There are things I like, don't like, and think are missing." 

Indeed, this is true. Are you sure nobody ever had the same problems with the system assumptions that you're working from? And didn't fix them pretty much like you intend to?

Oh, not precisely, no. I'm sure your solutions are unique in some ways. But the point is that I don't think that they're so unique that the system is going to do anything to promote your game. Is you goal to have other people play this game? Or is it just for your own consumption? If you want others to play it, it had better be innovative, or people are not going to want to learn the new system in question.

Mike

[joepub]

Mike has hit this on the money.

I just wanted to expand upon the "What do I get to be?" thing.
Although a game like d&d lets you be "lots of things", they all have a unifying theme:
You get to be a wandering "hero" who purges the countryside, collects gold and explores dungeons full of random monsters.

What is your game about?
Anything and everything is not a valid answer.

I could use another system.  But as with every other system out there, someone sat down and thought...  "There are things I like, don't like, and think are missing."  My take, I like more gradual rewards during play and the freedom of making my character what I want it to be.  I also hate starting out uneven with my party.  Hence in this system, the level is more a means of keeping everyone with pace with each other, so no one is completely left behind.  This is while also allowing exceptional players a means of getting those little rewards and little gratifications without causing a massive imbalance.  This way you are more willing to go the extra mile to do your best, since you'll be immediately rewarded with something little, but useful to you.   Experience points are nice, but they don't make or break your character when you are too far away from a level, but a few skills points give you the ability to affect your character in a quick manner that you can experience quickly after getting those points.  And 2 skill points that gives a 1% boost on a lesser developed skill isn't going to throw off balance just as long as the GM handles it well enough.

I am not hooked on a game that offers "d&d like play, but with slow, balanced level gain!"
If I wanted this, I could just modify d20 a little bit.
What does your game offer that is a hook? That draws people?

For my own game, I can say "It's a game about committing crime, and the human condition." People might be interested, they might not.... But the point is I have that premise.

...
I'd also be curious to find out what games you've played.
So far I only see d&d.

[CrookedBroomstick]

I've just been using the d20 system for comparison, since... well everyone has to of heard about at least once or twice.  Systems I've played.

DnD 2, 3, 3.5
Vampire: Masquerade
Exalted
Deadlands: Hell on Earth
Shadowrun

DnD is what I started out on, and while it is fun there were things that just didn't seem to flow correctly.

Vampire I found very cool and fun to play.  The storyteller system is great to avoid a lot of needless cluttering calculations.  You can run checks off your attributes and skills, with a means of moderating the level of difficulty, setting success requirements, and determining the level of success.  There were still classes of sorts, but you were still allowed a great range of freedom in development and what focus you could take.

Exalted is another good system.  Still the classing, but unlike Vampire it is a little more restrictive in how far your character could deviate from the mold, but it matched the ideas of the setting at hand.  The ability to customize and combo your various power abilities is an interesting concept.

Deadlands: Hell on Earth is a trip to say the least.  While you have Archtypes, you could still deviate grossly from those and create your own.  The separation of character and profession I liked.  The "job" or "profession" in Dealands was more of a set of combined individual skills and a favored set of powers.

Shadowrun:  Build point system is a good concept.  But I prefer it to be more an internal behind the scenes concept when balancing out characters.  The problem with Point Build systems is when they are opened up too much, players can hurt themselves accidental.

The point of this system is to introduce a few key concepts into a workable system.:

1. Flexible character development with a balanced initial foundation.
2. Combat that allows flexibility when it comes to way players can choose to do during his or her round.  (Action Points)
3. Combat round flow that is not entirely linear.  (Basically at a start of a round you get action points, and your turn is set aside to use what you want then and change the situation rather than responding to the changing situation.  Later on you have options to interrupt in prevention or response to changes in situations.
4. A skill system that gives foundation to skills based on your stats, where it actually makes a noticeable difference if you have high or low starting amounts in certain stats.
5. Expandable, extensible skill set that still allows failbacks to generic skills, with a weighted advancement to provide benefits to having different strategies.

There are a few others...
But keep in mind this is the generic mechanic for settings, so it's going to open to way it'll allow.

[Mike Holmes]

OK, I wanted to wait to be sure, but I think this merits Mike's Standard Rant #1: Designers Know Your Hobby.

What I'm saying with this here is that part of the reason you don't know what questions need to be answered is that you don't know what state of the art RPG design is like. All of your questions so far have boiled down to something like, "How do I make something like D&D or Shadowrun, but better?" When this isn't going to get you anywhere.

I mean, you should be asking questions like, "Does my game need a combat system or a GM to accomplish what it needs to?" And you weren't aware that there are RPGs sans combat systems and GMs.

Mike