Not sure where to go from here

[Nuthael]

Hi. I'm new here, and honestly really new to designing rpgs. My friend and I have been working on this idea for years now, and its shown up a few times here. But lately I decided it was my baby and I was going to remake it from scratch. The game itself aside, I have a general setting, character creation, skills and skill tests, including combat basically worked out, i just keep seeing it as a collection of ideas and not a whole, and really im just looking for advice on how to make it all stick together. If you want me to ill post up a summary of it all. Really im just plain lost... help me...

[Vulpinoid]

You'll get this response from a lot of people around here...but it basically boils down to a few simple questions.

What do you want your game to do?

What you you want the players to get out of the game? What do you want the characters to feel within the game?

Do you want the characters to drive the action (exploring their world from within)? Do you want the players to drive the action (through co-cooperatively telling a story or competitively trying to complete an agenda)?

These questions can be expanded out with a Power 19 to really get your thoughts firing...

Once you've got these concepts figured out, start thinking to yourself abut how each of the games elements directly links to the game's core values.

How does the setting reinforce these notions? How does the character creation system? How do skills and tests reinforce the concepts? etc. The Power 19 actually covers most of these.

There are certainly other ways to do it, but I've found this one helpful.

Anyway...Welcome to the Forge.

V

[natfrobinson]

From what I've seen done, Nuthael, now is the time to playtest the game. And why don't you share some of it up here? You probably need constructive criticism more than ever.

[Callan S.]

What was the original mystery you were trying to get at in writing the game, assuming you'd say you were trying to get at one?

[Nuthael]

Ok, I've given it some thought, and this is what I've come up with:

The Gentleman's Game is a role play about mercenaries in a political war. It is set on an island surrounded on all sides by a mystical fog which stops all meckanics from functioning, which essentially isolates the inhabitants from the entire outside world. Since the island is so small, they are beginning to run out of space. It began as sporadic disputes between neighbours about boundary lines, who eventually sent their servants to the border to wage war over small plots of land. This was years ago, and by now the island is ruled over by 6 different men, each one differing in political and life views, and unwilling to settle for ownership of one sixth of the land. The battles are less open now and tend more towards assassination and sabotage, but they are still there. Thats where the player comes in. You play as the son of a rich family, sent to school with a lump sum of cash and expected to earn it back by being a famous soldier. In game characters are hired by various political parties or families to undertake acts of a questionable nature. Generally the hirer doesnt care how these are done, as long as you maintain honour and not mention who it was that hired you.

In game this is all reflected by, first of all, having you start character creation with a blank character sheet and a bunch of money to spend. You do this by buying classes and tutorship and gaining skills, attributes, and status. As you can buy anything from anyone, there are no penalties for crossing to other classes for skills. In this way I have been able to make each class specific and specialised. For example, Engineers have ONLY skills which aid in the creation of meckanics, and Rogues have ONLY skills that help them lie, cheat and steal.

Eventually, characters will gain enough money or use their fame (represented in-game as Renown) to gain more skills and upgrade old ones, which leads us to the eventual realisation that this entire charade of courage subterfuge and politics is really nothing more than the players trying to get as rich and powerful as possible. This is further represented in game through Status, which i mentioned in passing earlier. Status consists of three statistics, which are bought in a similar way to skills. They are: Profession (Helps you get money), Bureaucrat (Raises you higher in the official government), and Underground (Lets you get information from the underbelly of the city).

So essentially, each game session is a new job (or a job could last multible sessions) and the eventual objective is to become the rulers of the 'world' and begin your own wars or try to obtain peace.

What do you think?

[Abkajud]

I'm intrigued by the character sheet starting out blank - been considering using something like that myself. It could make character creation a more direct part of play, instead of something you do in "pre-play"; from the perspective of a Simulationist agenda, anything at all to do with the Dream of the game is still part of play for the players - the way that player advancement is tallied, post-session, how characters are created, etc.
From a storytelling perspective, a blank character sheet is like having to establish through play what the character is about: you see an episode of Buffy and you don't necessarily know what Willow is capable of, but once she starts casting spells and being perky-yet-twee, now you know what she's on about, and can make assumptions.

This sort of thing might not work so well in games designed for "niche" characters, as people might feel like they've been picked last in softball if they don't get to jump in early enough and choose the role they wanted, but so long as that's not how things are divided (i.e. it's really important to have a Thief, a Healer, etc.), then you shouldn't have any boundaries to doing that. Well, actually one boundary comes to mind - this would also need to be a super low-prep game as far as the GM is concerned, but I can see each "move" the players make providing fodder in this regard. A game where there's a certain, general "kind" of character to be expected, such as Greek heroes, 20th century American police officers, American Revolutionary-era soldiers, whatever, would make life a little easier, too.

God, can you imagine playing something like Rifts in this way?

Anyway, to get back to your idea, Nuthael, how far do you plan on going with that blank character sheet idea? It sounds awesome!

[Vulpinoid]

God, can you imagine playing something like Rifts in this way?

Yes.

If every player starts game one with a blank sheet and the first thing they write on the sheet is a race.

The second thing the player would write on the sheet (when the character is introduced) during the first couple of scenes, would be the general description "Man of Arms", "Scholar and Adventurer", "Practitioner of Magic", 'Psionic"...or something more specific if they've got chemical tubes running across their skin, metal nodules sticking out of their head, or some other defining feature that distinctly shows a specific Occupational Character Class.

As characters really start revealing the truth about themselves, additional skills can be defined into the sheet. Combat styles can be unveiled (and these in turn reflect something about the characters past), then you can even get into stuff that RIFTS really doesn't do well like political allegiances, merits, flaws, personal quirks, etc.

I actually think rewriting a game like RIFTS from the ground up using this kind of concept would result in a superior game.

I certainly wouldn't use the psudeo-AD&D palladium system for this conversion, I completely rip out the insides and build a new engine while keeping the interesting setting.

I like the idea of building up the character in this manner, spend money for social status, spend money for skills, spend money for genetic/racial heritage. Perhaps have a series of pre-requisites to allow characters to specialise in specific fields once the character has shown a general aptitude for a field (or has the right social connection to allow them into a specific field).

Just some ideas...

V

[Nuthael]

yeah im trying to work out a way to let people specialise, so far all i have is that the higher levels of skills increse in cost exponentially, so you really have to either specialise or play for a really long time to become adept at something.

And Abkajud, the character sheet consists of name, status and attributes. The rest is empty for the use of skills, inventory and any descriptive stuff the player wants to write. I'm looking at also having the appearance of the character play an important part in the gameplay, because it is a highly political game, and if you look like a certain kind of person, other people who look like that are going to be more willing to listen to you.

Now, another thing i would like critiqued is the skill test / combat resolution system im thinking of. Its pretty simple, roll a number of d10s equal to attribute + skill. 8, 9, 10 is a success, 1, 2, 3 is a failure. minus the failures from the successes, and if the left over successes equals some GM declared number, you succeed. combat is a little different. similar roll, except its your Might + Finesse minus their Finesse + Dodge and roll. 8, 9, 10, they lose one health, 1, 2, 3, you lose one health. but before every strike you roll Intimidation, and if you roll more successes than their Courage they run. I was then going to implement an equipment modifier system that can allow for some dice to succeed on lower numbers, or fail on higher ones, or modifiers that simply add certain dice to the pool.

[Vulpinoid]

Its pretty simple, roll a number of d10s equal to attribute + skill. 8, 9, 10 is a success, 1, 2, 3 is a failure. minus the failures from the successes, and if the left over successes equals some GM declared number, you succeed.

Gut reaction...

NO!!!

I'll explain my reasons why...

The system used in the old World of Darkness (White Wolf) had a similar system of dice pool, those dice that meet a certain threshold were considered successes, while those dice that rolled a 1were considered botches that cancelled out a success. At difficulty 10, a given die had a 10% chance of succeeding and a 10% chance of botching. Having more dice didn't make you better at something with a high difficulty, it just meant more dice to roll and a better chance that highs would cancel out lows and leave you with nothing. No matter how many dice you had, the same chance of success or failure resulted when faced with a difficulty 10 task.

You've basically just specified the same thing, but you've given each die a 30% chance of success and a 30% chance of failure (with failures cancelling out successes and thus leaving you with a better chance of getting nothing as your dice pool increases in size).

If I remember correctly, the new World of Darkness eliminates this by defaulting everything to a difficulty of 8 (8, 9 or 10 count as successes), but more difficult tasks require more successes to be achieved before they can be considered successful.

You could still have the one's cancelling out successes, but don't have an equal chance of cancellation as you have a chance of success. here's just no point to character improvement in such a set up.

Just my 2 cents...

V

[Vulpinoid]

here's just no point to character improvement in such a set up.

That should read...

There's just no point to character improvement in such a set up.

[Nuthael]

Ok...

Well ive been looking at something else as well, just wasnt sure just how viable it was. I was going to have the 4 - 7 range as a kinda failure shield in that while failures reduce successes, mid-range scores reduce failures.

The other way I was looking at things before I had this whole idea was a dice pool of the attribute, and rolling successes above the difference between the attribute and the skill.

Which of these would be more appropriate to implement do you think?

btw, thanks for being brutal, i needed it. too much positive reinforcement lately

[Vulpinoid]

This last die mechanism is a bit more interesting...You should check out the die mechanism that Seth is using for his Gears and Cogs. It has a similar kind of cancellation factor for different die results.

The fundamental difference is that you're using d10s, and he uses d6s. You seem to be suggesting that mid rank dice cancel out low ranked dice, and remaining low ranked dice cancel out high ranked dice. He suggests that low ranked dice cancel mid ranked dice, and the remaining mid ranked dice cancel the high ranked dice. Semantically very similar systems.

I think I see where you're heading with the second mechanism described, there's something about it that strikes me as wrong, but I can't pick it just yet. I'll run a couple of simulations and get back to you shortly.

Again, just ideas...

V

[Nuthael]

ok, well ive playerd around with it a bit, and this is what I came up with; Player rolls a dice pool equal to his attribute, GM declares a difficulty for the action, player needs successes equal to or more than the difference between the difficulty and his skill, to a minimum of 1. (Which means you always have to roll, and if you end up with no successes you dont complete the action). 8, 9, 10 are successes, 1, 2 are failures, and everything else for every two mid range dice, remove one failure. so you have a 30% chance of a success, 20% of failure, and 25% of ignoring a failure.

[Nuthael]

[Luke]

Stop with the talk about dice mechanics, Baby Jesus weeps for your game.

You've got to decide what your game is about and design real mechanics (not dice rolls) that reinforce that.

Political war, what does that mean?
Mercenaries, you can be hired. Which means that money and loyalty have to be significant parts of the game. They have to mean something.

There's just no way your character is a blank slate. The setting you've developed is too insular -- pardon the pun.

The island is ruled by six factions, there's no neutral territory. That means everyone is a party to one faction or another. Shouldn't your faction have some effect on your character creation? On his loyalties? On his enemies?

Why are battles less open now? Why is there no full scale war? This is part of the culture. Make it good. "Just because" is a crap reason. First thing I would do in your setting is quietly raise an army and wipe out all the other idiots who don't have armies. Crown me Pasha, thank you. This goes doubly because you then say that employers don't care about the method of accomplishment for the missions. This seems implausible if there really is a culture of subtlety, fame and status. I suspect how you do things is probably more important than the result.

Shouldn't your family and it's loyalties have some effect on your character? Shouldn't your father and mother have some effect on your character? Uncles? Aunts? Brothers? Sisters?

You go to school. How about your instructors? Classmates? Rivals?

Why classes? How do classes jibe with a blank slate? How do character classes simulate receiving instruction from your family, school and employers?

Don't use D&D (or Palladium) as your model. Design your own game. Make rules that are important for your game, that make sense in your setting. YOU have a clean slate on which to design, there's no need to constrain yourself with ill-fitting mechanics.

-L