Dark Lines Game

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Hi There

I'm new to this forum (as you can see by my post count).

I would like to talk about a recent game of mine I have designed and I am currently play testing with the group I am in.

It's call Dark Lines and it's all about vampires. The ideas is that vampires are a secret race that have been in existance just as long as humans. There are however many other secret races that are fighting a secret war with each other for domination of the world.

The games system is based on rolling percentile dice and adding the result to a score the player has. This is then compared with a target number the GM decides and then you can work out wether people have passed a test or not.

There are however two very interesting sides to the system which I would like your thoughts on. The attribute system is based on 3 attributes - body, mind and spirit and everything is determined from these attributes. Body for physical stuff, mind for any mental tasks and spirit for anything to do with the dark powers of vampires.

The second interesting thing is that the game system is designed to be balanced. This means that for evey advantage a player gets there is a disadvantage. examples of this are when using cover to fire from. The percentage of cover you use to protect yourself is also the percentage you add to your shooting roll to reflect obstacles blocking your view.

Another example is when players pick their powers when making the character. A player may pick as many powers as they want... there is NO limit to how powerful they can be, it's just for every power they gain they also HAVE to choose a flaw. Now all of these powers include things like flight, change into bat ect ect and the flaws equally include die in sunlight, must drink blood ect ect.

I have also included a Unique entry for players to discuss with their GM's any special flaws or powers they want that are not in the game.

So far playtesting has shown some initial higher than expected skill rolls that have required me to tweak the target numbers so they are higher and I have also noticed  that it is very easy for characters to increase their skills higher, but much higher to gain new skills and indeed increase them.

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[Clinton R. Nixon]

Zoom,

I like the idea that in your system, each situational advantage you have gives you a situational penalty as well. Symmetry in the mathematical part of a system is always compelling to me.

I didn't see a question in your post. Were you just looking for commentary? If so, it seems like you like the game as it is, and there's not a lot of commentary to make. I'll help out by asking a few questions:

* What do you want out of this game in terms of game play? What should a typical session of play look like? What about an entire "run" of play?

* Is the game giving you those things now? If not, where are the problems occurring?

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I'm sorry for not putting a question... I as just after peoples comments on what they thought about the game.

My major issue with the games I have played in the past is that some game systems can be very complicated and very restrictive on the actual role playing. I've been play RPG's for the last 15 years and I have always enjoyed a good Role playing session as opposed to a game where you hack and slash and try to outbattle your friends.

I have even GM'd and PC'd sessions before where all there has been throughout the 3 hour session is pure dialogue (skills like subterfuge and observation for detecting lies). Very enjoyable.

So I designed this game to literally run itself so everybody could concentrate on how their vampire character develops into the storyline. The game is definately giving me the freedom to run these Role Playing sessions.

It has also been entertaining to see one of the players in the game who gave his character as much power, and so possibly the strongest individual in the game when compared to the rest of the characters, fall flat on his face as he has had to devise cunning plan after cunning plan to overcome the many flaws that came with the powers.

Thanks for your comments.

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[Filip Luszczyk]

This is probably the least important thnig in your design, but I'm curious why did you decide on using a percentile dice? I'm asking because judging from what you write 1d20 or 1d10 plus score vs. target number would most likely maintain the probabilities but simplify the math. Unless you actually need exactly this level of granurality, or want a percentile die for aesthetic reasons or something - and this is what I'm interested in.

[zoom]

There are a number of reasons why I decided to use a percentile system.

First of all the group I play with are very use to using percentile systems in the past so it would be a easy transition for them to move from one system to this one.

Secondly the way the skills system and it's advancement works in the game is based on the players marking how many times in a gaming session they try to use that skill.

At the end of the session they then use those marks to put their skills up. Now given that sometimes a useful skill such as un-armed combat could get used more than 10 times in a session that will be a considerable amount of marks available to put that skill up.

You can now see how having a percentile system slows down the advancment of players.

hope I've explained this clearly enough.

[TonyLB]

It has also been entertaining to see one of the players in the game who gave his character as much power, and so possibly the strongest individual in the game when compared to the rest of the characters, fall flat on his face as he has had to devise cunning plan after cunning plan to overcome the many flaws that came with the powers.

So, entertain us!  Tell us those stories.  Details, man, details!

In particular, I'm interested in how the other players responded to the difficulties of the player with the powered-up character.

[contracycle]

I have a question about how you would purposefully upset the balance.  Is it possible to set up a situation in your favour?

It would be frustrating if the balance prevented you from planning an ambush or the like, I think.  That would feel as if everything has been left to chance.

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It has also been entertaining to see one of the players in the game who gave his character as much power, and so possibly the strongest individual in the game when compared to the rest of the characters, fall flat on his face as he has had to devise cunning plan after cunning plan to overcome the many flaws that came with the powers.

So, entertain us!  Tell us those stories.  Details, man, details!

In particular, I'm interested in how the other players responded to the difficulties of the player with the powered-up character.

An example of this is that the player chose to have upto 6 different powers, most commonly associated with vampires. Things like turn into bat, turn into mist ect ect, but to offset the powers he had to chose also 6 flaws, which included things like Stake through the heart, sunlight, ect ect.

One of the Flaws he took was "May not cross Running Water" which is a Flaw assoicated with the Vampires in the Hammer Horror films. It then suddenly dawned on me that as he had chosen this flaw he did not realise fully that I would be setting the game in the middle of Manchester in the UK.

A thriving city with indeed a thriving sewer system to go with it :-). So when his character stepped out into the brisk cold night to stalk down some enemies I made it quite clear to him that he was unable to move for than 3-4 feet in any direction for some reason. It took him 5 mins before he looked at his character sheet and figured it out. He then had to spend money on a car and driver to chauffer him round the city :-)

The rest of the players are ok with this as they see it as just part of the fun, but they do need to take into account his falws and Powers in future planning.

[zoom]

I have a question about how you would purposefully upset the balance.  Is it possible to set up a situation in your favour?

It would be frustrating if the balance prevented you from planning an ambush or the like, I think.  That would feel as if everything has been left to chance.

I'm sorry contracycle, I don't fully understand the question. The game is designed to ensure that no matter what a player wants to do with his character he is unable to make it more powerful without creating more ways for it to be defeated.

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[TonyLB]

A thriving city with indeed a thriving sewer system to go with it :-). So when his character stepped out into the brisk cold night to stalk down some enemies I made it quite clear to him that he was unable to move for than 3-4 feet in any direction for some reason. It took him 5 mins before he looked at his character sheet and figured it out. He then had to spend money on a car and driver to chauffer him round the city :-)

So ... he'd deliberately signed on for that when he chose the flaw?  He just forgot?

Or are you saying that he thought that he was getting a dramatic sort of flaw where he'd chase a hero along a plaza and hit a vaulted gothic bridge and be unable to chase any further, reducing him to yelling "Another night, fool!" but instead he got told that his vampire is a hopeless twitching wreck because underground water hems him in like a constant labyrinth of invisible fences?

Because, honestly, if he deliberately signed on for it, that's cool.  But if you ambushed him with this ... I call foul.  That's no way to treat your friends.  If your design encourages that then I think you need to seriously reconsider.

[zoom]

A thriving city with indeed a thriving sewer system to go with it :-). So when his character stepped out into the brisk cold night to stalk down some enemies I made it quite clear to him that he was unable to move for than 3-4 feet in any direction for some reason. It took him 5 mins before he looked at his character sheet and figured it out. He then had to spend money on a car and driver to chauffer him round the city :-)

So ... he'd deliberately signed on for that when he chose the flaw?  He just forgot?

Or are you saying that he thought that he was getting a dramatic sort of flaw where he'd chase a hero along a plaza and hit a vaulted gothic bridge and be unable to chase any further, reducing him to yelling "Another night, fool!" but instead he got told that his vampire is a hopeless twitching wreck because underground water hems him in like a constant labyrinth of invisible fences?

Because, honestly, if he deliberately signed on for it, that's cool.  But if you ambushed him with this ... I call foul.  That's no way to treat your friends.  If your design encourages that then I think you need to seriously reconsider.

He quite clearly knew that I was setting the game in manchester and he still chose the flaw. I warned all the members of the group to choose carefully and they all accepted that part of the game was to learn about your weaknesses and how you are to overcome them. :-)

For example, one of the flaws is sunlight.... but I don't make them go out in the daylight.... it's all about thinking how your going to play the game. I'm sick of games that give the players too much of an advantage when it comes to picking powers ect, atleast with this game you are free to be as tough and strong and powerful as you like but at the same time it limits you.

I even very clearly told him what the power means. You cannot at any moment cross running water. I was even leanient about it afterwards and allowed him to cross anything smaller that a major torrent, such as a sewer main pipeline.

I don't ambush any of my players.... my job is simply to tell them what happens as a result of their actions.

My Game design doesn't suggest anything. Everybody on this board knows that none of the games we make are the LAW when it comes to the gaming session. You use the rules in a game system to play the sort of game you want to play. A game never suggests you play in a certain way, you play how you want to and use the rules to facilitate the game play.

You could just as easily use my gaming system to play a bunch of deranged funny fun loving vampires with far too many powers and flaws and see who gets killed first...lol

Hope this explains my point correctly :-)... and thanks for the comments

oh and incdientally, were still m8's .... I was his best man ...lol :-)

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[TonyLB]

I even very clearly told him what the power means. You cannot at any moment cross running water.

Did you say to him "This includes underwater sources, like all of the sewers?"  Or did you leave that to be realized/discovered in play?

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I honestly didn't think about it till he said he was walking out into the streets.... so no I didn't.

[TonyLB]

Well, I worry that your system is not acting as an aid to communication.  Defining these disadvantages (it seems) is not helping people to settle the question of "How much disadvantage should I take to how much advantage?"  All it's doing is passing the buck on that decision to how the GM chooses to interpret the disadvantage, vs. how the player thought it would be interpreted.

Honestly, I'd recommend a quick look at Nobilis's Restriction system, because I think it's an awesome way to get at what this kind of thing is usually meant to be doing:  A restriction gives zero points until it is brought up in play.  When it is actually brought up in play, it gives the player a token.  That token can be used later to make their funky powers important and relevant.

So it's a little bit of a backwards way of doing things:  You would expect the player to say "Oh, shit!  I'd love to pursue this guy, but there's an underground water main here, and it's enough running water to stop me in my tracks."  Or, if he wants to stick more with the Hammer Horror feel, he could narrate that the guy he's chasing gets away across a foot-bridge.  Whatever.  The point is, he's motivated to find these "liabilities" because they give him points that he'll want later.

Then, contrariwise, when he spends those points the GM doesn't have to be judging "Hey, would the ability to climb walls like a lizard actually give him an advantage at this time?"  He's spending a point.  He tells you why it gives him an advantage.  And you know he's earned that advantage, because he payed for it earlier, doing whatever he did to get the token.

Do you see how tying the actual moments of play ("Running water stops me this particular time") to a currency makes it easy to agree on the appropriate value, whereas tying the hypothetical patterns ("Running water will stop me some undefined amount of the time, which the GM and I haven't really agreed upon, but we sort of hope that it'll work out") to a currency just leaves people ready to bitch and moan about the price and value having been misrepresented?

[zoom]

I don't think the system is to blame for the player having this dis-advantage, but I do however take on board your advice about communication of dis-advantages.

I had to be careful when I was selecteing the flaws as whilst they were traditional flaws accepted as being the downfall of many a vampire, I also had to try and make them as broad covering as possible. This is to reflect the freedom or lack of it in this case in the game.

Perhaps I could rate the flaws and us them as a points system for flaws and powers.. what do you think??

That way if a character buys the flaw cannot cross running water for 10 points as aopposed to the flaw must hide from crosses for 2 points the character will have a better idea of the importance of the flaw.