Power 19 for my "EPIC" role-playing game

[Greg G.]

1. What is your game about?
   Working on defining it

2. What do the characters do?
   Combating "evil", travel the world discovering new lands, etc.

3. What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?
   Working on defining it

4. How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
   Not really sure, but I have inklings on having a zodiac of some kind play a big part in the world.

5. How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?
   Character, or persona, creation starts with simple die rolls to determine persona's eight characteristics. Then, the persona's race and profession are chosen. These form the basis of what a persona is. Finally, the player chooses some skills and abilities based on the persona's profession.

6. What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?
   I'm building the game to have a simple rules set so as to have the game master focus more on the role-play aspect of the game. The dolling of rewards and punishment will fall on the game master based on the responses and feedback gained from player actions.

7. How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?
   See 6.

8. How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?
   A game master, called simply a referee, holds responsibilities in terms of narration; the referee provides the the basis of a story for the players, the players drive the story and give it it's flavor and action.

9. What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)
   Game allows character customization in new way, uses only 6-sided dice so as to be accessible to a wide variety of audiences ("crack open your Yatzee box and get rollin'!"), the rules are simple and adaptable.

10. What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?
   Like most other games, roll dice (in this case, 2 six-sided) and add modifiers, comparing the total to a target number. Greater than or equal to succeeds.

11. How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?
   A simple resolution system allows less focus on resolving tasks and more focus on other aspects of the game, such as persona development, role-playing, and story involvement.

12. Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?
   Yes. Characters gain experience points which are used to either a) increase your character's level in a profession, unlocking new capabilities in that profession; or b) spend experience points to learn and gain new abilities, powers, spells, skills, etc.

13. How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
   Character advancement allows customization in letting the player decide what they want their character to gain and/or become.

14. What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?
   The development of a persona, character interaction,

15. What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?
   The creation, development, and interaction of personas.

16. Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?
   The whole thing. So many cool concepts are there: of the eight characteristics of a persona, there is not one tied to a charismatic ability (the theory being that it is useless; anything can be overcome with role-play, and the charismatic capabilities of the persona should be set forth by the player and not a numerical score), and the whole idea of persona advancement (once I get it down) in the way of spending experience to either become better at your profession or learn something new is unique (at least I haven't seen it before).

17. Where does your game take the players that other games can't, don't, or won't?
   No other game (as far as I know) allows this kind of persona development.

18. What are your publishing goals for your game?
   Not really looking at publishing, but if it takes off, I might.

19. Who is your target audience?
   Anyone looking for a fun, easy game that has a lot of depth and allows a unique way of character development.


This is just the start of it all, but I have some novel ideas behind it.

[Eero Tuovinen]

I'm posting mainly because silence isn't constructive. I'm not seeing the appeal in your game, so if you want feedback from that angle, let us know.

14. What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?
   The development of a persona, character interaction,

15. What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?
   The creation, development, and interaction of personas.

16. Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?
   The whole thing. So many cool concepts are there: of the eight characteristics of a persona, there is not one tied to a charismatic ability (the theory being that it is useless; anything can be overcome with role-play, and the charismatic capabilities of the persona should be set forth by the player and not a numerical score), and the whole idea of persona advancement (once I get it down) in the way of spending experience to either become better at your profession or learn something new is unique (at least I haven't seen it before).

17. Where does your game take the players that other games can't, don't, or won't?
   No other game (as far as I know) allows this kind of persona development.

These caught my attention. How does your game support creation, development and interaction of player character personas if all your rules concerning social interaction reduce to "just roleplay it"? Or did I understand you wrong in this regard? Also, isn't it rather true that all roleplaying games (and many other games, too) allow freeform persona development? And that the great majority of traditional roleplaying game design offers persona development centered around the concepts of ability, skill, character class and character race? So how come you're seeing this as a central and innovative part of your design?

[whoknowswhynot]

4. How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
   Not really sure, but I have inklings on having a zodiac of some kind play a big part in the world.

You seem more interested in the character's personalities instead of numbers, so have you considered a diceless or partially diceless system?  It might work perfect with the idea of yours for a zodiac.

Actions could be resolved by comparing character's signs with the actual day or something...you probably have thought of that...just got off of work!  Cool Idea though!

[justin1083]

I also don't see the appeal here.  The game sounds somewhat generic.  Especially for #17...you say you don't know any others games that "do this," but I'm not really sure what "this" is, because many games allow relatively freeform character creation and development.

You said you're interested in having a Zodiac play a large role; maybe you could make persona creation/traits revolve around that Zodiac?

[JoyWriter]

So at the moment you have a resolution system for physical actions, along with an advancement system for that. What is the difference between persona development and adding numbers to stats? I also wonder why you call your GM a referee when at the moment he does much more than refereeing. Do you intend to reduce his role in future? I notice that you have designed a system apparently to get out of the players way, a way perhaps of getting over the fact that they are sitting round a table, while letting them do everything else. Also you say that the GM sets the basis for the story but the players drive it, what's the difference there?


Here's my perspective: Focus on what your game does rather than what it doesn't do. People can ignore any rule they want, so having less isn't a reason to use your system by itself. I notice you have 8 physical stats, do they relate to the physically expressed personalities of the characters? I suspect that the game was not quite ready for the power 19, as ideally in that everything echoes down from the first three questions. Defining the thematic heart of your idea is a really good way to work out what things you want to do, but I suspect you, like me, are still feeling about to find out what it is you really like about the actions the players do.
Does the cosmic side of things interest you? If so is there a way you can make normal events have cosmic significance or be affected by these big things? I'm thinking about a ritualistic feng-shui (not the game) attitude to character action, for example turning normal actions into their zodiac significance. So you might use cancer to do one thing and Pisces another. That's probably more explicit than you wanted, but I suggest you look at Runequest and the significance of runes in its background world, glorantha.
What's your attitude to epic-ness, is it another word for awesomeness on the part of the PCs, or does it relate to things like the illead and loss and hope and all those big themes? Or is it about big stakes and big falls, with thousands of heroes crushed at the edge of greatness? If so I'd watch out for people getting too attached to their characters. There's a lot to explore here, so much possibility!

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya Greg!

Welcome to the Forge!  We look forward to helping you with your game.  I read your Power 19 and before you really start tackling questions about resolution and rewards, you really ought to deal with this one first:

1. What is your game about?
   Working on defining it

So, ignoring all the preasures and expectations others might have for you, what do you personally find most fun about playing RPGs?  I mean, very personally.  And I'm talking about your play, not hanging out with friends, not talking about how cool the fight scenes were.  I mean, when you are playing, what part of play do you on get the most enjoyment out of on a personal level?  Before we do anything else, let's just start with that

Peace,

-Troy

[Greg G.]

So, ignoring all the preasures and expectations others might have for you, what do you personally find most fun about playing RPGs?  I mean, very personally.  And I'm talking about your play, not hanging out with friends, not talking about how cool the fight scenes were.  I mean, when you are playing, what part of play do you on get the most enjoyment out of on a personal level?

Of all the things I personally enjoy about playing RPGs, I enjoy:
1. The development of the character, both statistically and personally (more so than statistically).
2. Story immersion and immersion into the game world.
3. The thrill of combat (and being able to use maneuvers, combat tactics, and the like). Rarely will you ever find me sitting in a chair during a fight; I'm usually standing up, surveying the battlegrounds, pacing and thinking of a good tactics to use, etc.

I have a very active mind, and I enjoy anything that allows me to use it to its full extent (or nearly).

[Troy_Costisick]

Of all the things I personally enjoy about playing RPGs, I enjoy:
1. The development of the character, both statistically and personally.
2. Story immersion and immersion into the game world.
3. The thrill of combat.

Awesome!  So how does your game support any one or more of these things during play?

Peace,

-Troy