[Dust in the Air] Fantasy-Steampunk in Developement

[Qi Chin]

Hello there. This is my second time I'm coming to the Forge with a design idea (The first one, for those who remember something really small, was TriPent). I've had time to read up on bits of theory here and there, and to try and polish up my designing a bit. So to go to the game:

I've actually been working on this game for a while, but kept changing lots about it, until I finally decided to make it a Steampunk world. Why? Because I've never made a Steampunk game before, and the genre intrigues me. After reading up on what steampunk really is, I was guided to the game "Arcanum", which I've played for a bit. In it, it has an undertone of magic vs. science in it. To make my game different, I've added another element. But I'll explain that by trying to answer the "Big Three".

- What is Dust in the Air about?
I actually have to takes on an answer.
1.) The oppositions of the three pillars the world is set up on: Technology, Religion, and Magic. Each part is needed for everyday life to go on, but these three aspects keep opposing each other.
2.) In a world with steam technology and magic, it is religion that is the guide to how one is supposed to live, and how one is viewed among others.

Obviously, both answers build on a sort of trinity of the three mentioned aspects, but the two versions have a different focus on each aspect, the first one being all three equal, the second being religion is all-important.
From this split, there are also two answers to what the characters do:
1.) Act either as agents of one of the three aspects (mercenary or idealistic) against the other two, or as agents of balance.
2.) Support their religion, or try to find a balance in a world torn apart by its religions.

As I don't actually have any true mechanics yet, and because the question is quite difficult for someone lacking experience, I can't really answer what the players will do for now.

A bit more about the setting: It'll have fantasy-type races (but no elves, dwarves, and orcs); magic is based on emotions (essentially, magic is the manifestations of powerful emotions as effects that do something in the world), and is hence it's more "explosive" and grander as opposed to finely manipulative.

So much for now. As you can see, I'm just tossing ideas around, but I'm hoping that any questions, proddings, or suggestions will form this into a congruent picture. I've discovered that the best way for me to design is to come up with ideas, put them together, and have people ask questions about different aspects, so that I can create and connect more and more, until I have something that seems complete.

Thanks for your time.

Qi

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hello!

You've got yourself some nice ideas here! I'm usually fond of three-poled interactions and this setting could be a good start for some dramatic stories!

If you don't know what it could or should be like for players (GM included) to play the game, here's what you can do for a start: describe a session you and your friends enjoyed a lot, why that was so and how it inspired you to start development of this game, over in the Actual Play section. It doesn't need to be very long, you can choose just one or two significant scenes of fiction-rules-people interaction, rather than write out the whole game-log.

By describing some real play events, we're more likely to get at the underlying stuff that is so neat to you that you're interested in making a game out of it, opposed to, for example, just talking about the fiction.

Here on the Forge it's always a good thing to have a few Actual Play reports under one's belt, it helps people understand where one is coming from and what your design idea could be pointing towards, so don't hesitate to post in Actual Play (any experience you'd like to discuss is good, even if it's about a failed session).

[Qi Chin]

Well, that's the thing, there are no playing sessions with this game, mostly because it's way to early to call it a game yet. Plus, all my RPG-friends are spread out across the world.

However, to continue with the game, after having looked through John Kirk's RPG Design Pattern (an excellent read, by the way), I've come up with this:
The world is split into the three aspects of technology, magic, and religion, with religion clearly dominating over the other two, as it is religion that guides everyday life and big events. The characters are usually agents of a specific religion, either being mercenary or following their own ideals, and use technology and magic to help them accomplish their goals. I want the focus on the game to be on cinematic actions, as this will give me an opportunity to create a world where there are lots of big things happening, and it's alive and moving, with the characters thrown smack dab into the middle of a writhing mass of clockwork gears of a complex world. I'm envisioning characters clinging to ropes dangling from flying ships hundreds of feet in the air while being chased by air-pirates (a la Balou, the Bear), or fights with clockwork machinery on moving trains, or run-and-hide sequences through the crowded streets of metropoles, with steam-powered cars and people all over the place, and with flint-lock rifles being fired and daggers being thrown, or a good tavern brawl with swashbuckling aspects, as the acrobat swings his way across the room to engage the bad guys in melee as the doctor kneels behind a table with the tinker trying to fix together some gadget to get them out of that situation.

Now, I'm mostly a Narrativist, which means that I prefer game systems with clean, streamlined, intuitive, and simple rules. By that I mean they are easy to learn, don't require constant checking in tables or glossaries, and are quick to use, so that the game is not bogged down with math and complex rules decisions. I'll go step by step.

• As cinematic action will be a central part of the game, I will have action points the players can use.
• There will be three stats, Presence, Essence, and Vigor, as well as 49 skills divided into 7 groups.
• As players create their characters, they will choose one of three basic personalities, Adventurous, Reflective, or Calm, which determines how and when they regenerate Action points.
• They will also choose one of the seven skills groups as a "class". Those skills are then cheaper to increase.

Conflict Resolution

• The following things need to be determined in a conflict: Which skill, which stat, and the difficulty.
• Skill determines how many dice a player gets, stats show the likelihood those dice will show up as successes, and the difficulty is the number of successes needed to accomplish the task.
• The character receives 2 + skill rank in some die (d6, d10, or d12, I still have to decide), and rolls them.
• The rolled dice are compared to the stat. Any value equal to or below the value of the stat count as successes.
• The rolled number of successes is compared to the difficulty, which will then show if and how well or badly an action succeeded or failed.
• Any beneficial circumstances add dice, and any detrimental circumstances remove them.

Now, I really like the idea of having narrative reward, but from what I've read, either players run out of funky descriptions quickly, or they become tired of having to explain stuff in minute detail, or at some points it's simply not worth it. Maybe I'm wrong, but here's my take on things: Characters can spend actions points to increase their odds of success. They can spend an action point before rolling dice, and get bonus dice depending on how well they describe what is happening. The cooler and cinematic the description, the more bonus dice (ranging from 1 to maybe 4).
To regenerate action points, you check which personality type the player has chosen for his character. Adventurous characters have a chance of regaining action points when spending them, reflective characters when increasing their skills, and calm ones while taking a rest and doing non-adventure stuff (which should still be played out).

I'm still checking what kind of a combat system I want, but I'll keep the main mechanic, and maybe add stuff like weapons, armor, cover, and other circumstances as modifiers.

How's that sound? I hope that I now have a clear focus (cinematic action in a strange yet vaguely familiar world), and have started designing the system towards that goal. Any unclear parts, suggestions, or just general questions of interest?

Qi

[Christoph Boeckle]

Without playtesting it's going to be hard to tell anything concrete about the game design. Have you tried finding players via Clinton Nixon's FindPlay? Quite a few visitors of the Forge are signed up there and you might find some gamers near where you live. It seems to be down right now, I've launched a thread on Clinton's forum here to check it out though.

You seem to have a good foundation for writing a playtest document and I encourage you to do so! It's a good exercise at the least.

And don't forget, an Actual Play report about any game you've played before could help to understand your general design goals better!

[Qi Chin]

Thanks for the link, but i don't really know how to get it to work, and I doubt there's a lot of gamers in Taipei.
About the Actual Play thing, I've looked around a bit, but I don't really know how to post in there. Plus, our last gaming sessions were quite a while (7 months plus) back, so I'll have difficulty remembering stuff.

One aspect of what I think I could ask for a bit of help is how beneficial or detrimental fantasy races, or rather the amount of fantasy races, will be to such a game. I do want them, but I don't know whether to add a whole bunch, add a whole bunch and just allow a few as PC-races, or just to add a few.
The reason I want fantasy races is because I want to emphasize the fantasy part of the setting, plus it would create a good contrast. Imagine lion-men in suits or stone-golems guarding banks.

Qi

[Christoph Boeckle]

Yeah, FindPlay is down, we'll have to wait and see what Clinton's plans are for it. And if there are no gamers in Taipei, why not introduce new people to roleplaying?

For Actual Play, you can check out these guidelines. You don't need to be extremely precise on what really happened in the fiction. Check out Jake's Sorcerer report and how it is quite general while still addressing specific points with examples.


Regarding fantasy species, I encourage you to check out Mike Holmes' rant about this specific subject. It's a good read about the subject (but beware: as it's an old thread, you are not allowed to post to it any more. if you want to discuss it, you'd have to open a new thread with a link to it.)

[dindenver]

Hi!
  This seems like a cool concept. Here's some more to feed your concept:
Secret Societies - Freemasons and other secret societies are driven by religion and are a great source of mystery and conflict
Super-science - Super-science it also a great way to spice up your campaign. Brilliant inventors like Charles Babbage, Nikola Tesla and George Stephenson did amazing things in their times. And these are the times that most SteamPunk worlds are loosely based on. Imagine what inventors and inventions that were out there that didn't make the history books and what more could be in your ideal SteamPunk setting?
Mix it up - Imagine a world where powerful forces are cleverly combined. Like a locomotive that is designed by advanced science, with blessed steel plates surrounding magic potions in the boiler? How much wilder would the Industrial Revolution be with the inclusion of these powerful supernatural forces?

  As to your idea to include fantasy races, go for it! ShadowRun proved players will take a shining to it, even if they are cliche. But if you did want to kick it up a notch, I am sure everyone will appreciate it.

  Good luck man, seems like a cool game idea!

[Qi Chin]

Thanks for the link on the fantasy races rant. I'll check through it when I have some time, but already the first two or three posts are something I've been thinking about as well.

Dindenver, thanks for the suggestions! I was actually thinking of keeping magic to a minimum, having technology run the gamut of things. Magic is much more sudden manifestations and effects of powerful emotions, such as blasting someone away in sudden rage and hate, or facing great danger with grim determination, or running faster to save someone you truly love. Other than that, there's not much (actively used) magic.

I've actually had a big idea concerning the system. I've decided to switch the effects of stats and skills. Every player has a certain value in each of the three stats, and those are the number of dice he gets for checks. The skill will then be a number from 1 (untrained) to probably 10 (legendary, for d10's anyway), which show at what rolled numbers a die counts as a success. This makes sense in the way that stats are the base ability (how many dice), but skills determine how well you can use and focus your ability (chance of success).
I've also thought about character advancement, and have decided to only let players increase their skills (either by spending some resource, or learning-by-doing, I still have to see). Whenever they advance their skills far enough, they get an extra point to add to one of their stats. This is an incentive for players to specialize in a few major skills, as costs increase with skill level. This will provide niche protection from characters (warriors stay warriors, rogues stay rogues, doctors say doctors, tinkers stay tinkers etc) in a system with no classes.

Now, I'm not sure what kind of a reward system and skill-increase system to use. I dislike the arbitrary resource of "XP", and this game will not have any levels. Any tips on that?

Qi

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hello there,

You're tackling a fundamental part of an RPG system with the reward system. Remember that reward systems are really a mechanic that give feedback to the player: when they do things in line with the game's goal (ideally in harmony with the group's goal), they get rewards (D&D: killing monster -> XP).

Now, you still haven't told us what it should be like for players to play your game. This means that we don't really know what your game is about. It follows that I haven't got a clue how to counsel you on your reward system.
I don't even know remotely what your favourite play sessions where like, so I don't know what you especially enjoy in RPGs. Even if your last play experience is from 7 months back, you surely remember the crunchy details of at least one scene in terms of mechanics, people and fiction.


Perhaps you can check out Jeff's 20 year long Glorantha campaign, if you'd like an example of AP.

Or you could check out Clinton Nixon's The Shadow of Yesterday which has some nifty mechanics for resolving actions and advancing characters.

[Christoph Boeckle]

Another nice actual play post neatly showing how a game's mechanic can enforce great fiction while supporting the player's goals. See how Jon describes player actions, what their characters where doing and how the mechanics helped them have a good time and focusing on stuff they enjoyed (players are even congratulating one another while their characters are arguing!)

Social Combat is Awesome!

If you can give us a vision along these lines of what player engagement should look like, we can work further. If you can describe us some of your past sessions, we can work on the good things and see how they could fit your design goals.

[Qi Chin]

I've just been playing around with some ideas. I'm having this thought experiment where story and plot are the most important aspects. So players are rewarded for overcoming conflicts and advancing the plot. Adventures would then be clear cut pieces in which the GM can utilize a certain number of plot elements (given by the rules), such as conflicts, helps, bosses, and whatnot. The players are then thrown into the story and must try to figure out how to get from A to B. Now, to avoid railroading, the GM doesn't actually plan out an entire adventure by setting out that this and this plot element has to happen in this order, but rather, he'll have a certain amount of "currency" (according to how strong the party is) with which to buy things off a "plot element shopping list" as he wants.

How's that sound?

Qi

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hi,

It sounds way too abstract for me at the time being. It could be brilliant or it could be crap, it really depends on how you develop it and all the other stuff that forms your system.
It also kind of depends on the "what the players will do" question you where trying to answer in the beginning of the thread.
Is this perhaps a step towards the answer?

On the one hand, there's a GM that prepares the plot just a bit ahead by following a "story-equipment" list and spending currency on it.
On the other hand, players are supposed to figure out how to get from A to B.

How exactly are these things connected?

Is A and B established before the GM starts shopping on the plot element list? If yes, then what is the importance of those plot elements? What if one of those plot elements becomes so important that B really doesn't make any sense any more?

Or, if only A is established and then the GM starts improvising with the various elements, not even he knowing what B is going to look like, the players can hardly be asked to figure out anything, they'd just be following the GM around according to his whimsy.

And what are A and B to begin with? Physical locations, the PCs position on the ideological struggle between technology, religion and magic, something else?


Defining how the fundamental interactions between the different players (including GM) look like in your game is key to help you work, along with the first two questions you already answered, towards a finished and playable game.

[Qi Chin]

Hmm, true, I should have clarified things. And this shows why I need people like you , to show me any parts in my ideas that just don't make sense.
Sorry that I'm coming with a new idea every post, but as I've said somewhere, I have so much new stuff popping up in my imagination that I just can't fit it into the restraints of a game.
After discussing my ideas with my brother, I've decided to make this game accessible for new players and GMs, something that was in danger of not happening.
What I think it is I wanted was something like a Structured Story. Essentially, everything is broken down into pieces. Adventures are single units that don't mix with each other. The party is on a certain adventure, and they follow that plot until it's done (this is contrary to, for example, many CRPGs, where players take on large numbers of quests and finish them off simultaneously). For every adventure, the GM first decides what is to be done (investigate a murder, retrieve some item, kill some guy, your generic stuff). He then receives Plot Points, the more powerful the party, the more, which he can spend on details in the adventure. Things such as enemies, obstacles, helping NPCs, and such, all cost Plot Points.

Now, this crazy idea is just forming in my head. The players each also get a small supply of Plot Points, by far not as many as the GM, but enough to create a small scene. A player can thus "summon" a friendly NPC, or create an emergency exit out of a sticky situation. Now, in order to prevent the game from becoming "let the GM improvise the hell out of everybody", whenever a player spends Plot Points, the GM has to spend the same amount. Essentially, a player forces the GM to spend his Plot Points on a helpful scene or event, which means that the GM hasn't been paying attention to what he's been doing. The more structured and clearer the plot of the GM, the less likely players will ask for an "explanation scene" to tell them what to do now, which means that the GM has more freedom in filling the adventure with details.

I don't know if that sounds any better...

Qi

[Christoph Boeckle]

All right, things are taking shape!

How are Plot Points assigned? Is it a fixed amount per session or adventure, or are there specific things the GM and the players can do to grab more of them?

And why are the players interested in playing the game? Is it in order to discover the story, is the mission objective the "aim of the game" (the achievement being then translated in skill increases and such), something else? The answer could be "both" or "something else", so maybe there's another way to think about it: What part of the game would make the whole experience suck ass if it were abandoned?

For example, I enjoy devising a neat back story for my D&D sessions. But honestly, the players don't expect it to be too detailed and as long as there is enough to allow us to imagine the events, everybody is perfectly happy. This means that I could really minimize my efforts if I were running out of time for one session.
In contrast, if the challenges, the dungeon and the rewards are bland, the players are definitely going to be bored. This part of preparation (and play) is not to be neglected, because that's what it's all about.

For the while being, I'm still not sure if you're going the D&D route I presented with some nice mechanics to share input and guide the GM, or if the story is really the point of the game, whereas the tactical decisions in overcoming the challenges are not really the point (player's would rather play in a "spectacular" way to achieve things, for example).

For the second type, I recommend you download the Pool and play it as soon as possible (somebody mentioned it in the AP post). It is positively mind blowing as far as new ways of thinking roleplaying experiences are concerned. What's neat is that the rules are really easy. The GM must come up with a starting situation, but he doesn't know what's going to happen after that. With his prepared back story and setting, he is there to support the efforts of the players guiding their characters through the situation with major impact on the events (nobody can say before actually playing which NPCs or events are really going to be important).
Here, decisions like the ones from D&D or Vermine (see below) are not really important in general, they do not involve specific mechanics and with a lucky roll, a blizzard is overcome without much discussion, whereas a slap to your character's face could be the start of a whole scene or more.

For another kind of experience, I could point you to Vermine, a French roleplaying game were the GM is the only one to get experience points and needs to spend them to introduce big NPCs, monsters and locations. The GM gets his points after the players evaluated his overall performance in the session.
Regularly, the whole group votes on various possible directions the story could take.
The actual play is quite a lot about survival in hostile post-apocalyptic conditions, with decisions such as who to team up with, where to seek shelter, whether or not the giant bugs should be flamed, etc. The whole system and lots of the texts are geared towards providing a gritty feel. It's quite a lot about "being there".
In contrast to D&D, it's not so much about "winning" than it is about "experiencing" the situations.


See how the approaches can be quite different while still discussing story-input structuring?

The best way to grasp the idea is to play those forgey games a few times. I know I had to, and I was in nearly the same situation as you are (all along with design project, interest in theory, less roleplaying taking place (which I now consider to be due to inadequate games), etc.) and the single most effective "click" occurred after a few sessions of the Pool, and then later on with HeroQuest.


If you can, try to resume the fictional events of one of your sessions in the AP thread and stating how the players influenced any of it: perhaps somebody suggested something that appealed so much to the GM that he immediately took it up, perhaps a critical success or failure triggered a chain of funny events with a major impact on the rest of the adventure, etc.
Up to know, we only got to see snippets, and as such, it is difficult to relate them to the overall story which your mechanics are trying to address.

[Qi Chin]

I'm still having some troubles envisioning how this whole plot point this might work out, or how it even should work out.
Plot points are assigned by how strong the party is. The more powerful the party (ie. a "higher level", if levels existed), the more plot points the GM gets (calculated either by formula or table). To keep things simple, GMs would only get 10 - 20 plot points, so that the numbers can be kept small. Challenges can then only be gauged roughly, but then a lot also depends on how clever the players are in facing them. I think such "graininess" is better than tossing around hundreds of plot points and doing complex math.

I think the few main points of this game should be simplicity, action, story, and not-too-way-out-there (meaning it should stick to what you'd expect from a traditional RPG. Not big issues like character emotions or so, stuff typical of some indie-RPGs).

I'm now trying to balance the last two points. Plot points are definetly not-traditional, so I want to try and integrate them as well as possible into the game, making them just another resource or tool rather than something that will make it a whole different game. If that made any sense. I enjoy playing rather traditional RPGs, but at the same time, I want to try something different, and focus a bit more on creating a story together, so this is really a personal preference that's making things complex.

Qi