Genesys RPG

[Vordark]

Hello everyone!

So I'm making the jump from lurking to posting.  Hopefully I don't hit my head on a rock.

I've been working on an RPG for a while now.  Some of the highlights of which are:

1.  It's licensed under a Creative Commons license, and is a "free" system.
2.  It is designed to be modular, with a small core rules set that "plug-ins" can be built against.
3.  It is easy to learn, easy to run and uses familiar concepts and metaphors whenever possible.
4.  The element of randomness is less of a factor in this game than in some others, though it certainly isn't without it.

My fundamental design considerations have been simplicity and consistency, although I do not believe I have sacrificed much in the way of realism.

You can find the system here:  http://www.chaosphere.com/genesys/

Apart from the obvious request for feedback and related input, I do have a some questions with regard to methods of play-testing.  Up to this point, my play-testing strategy has been to get some friends together whenever possible and play the game as you would any typical RPG.

What I'm looking for now are the play-testing strategies of others.  How do you structure your play-test sessions to make sure they are productive?  Do you write up a list of mechanics you are going to test and just run through them with a group of players?  Do you have any specific "attack patterns" you take when going through your rules?  And, perhaps most important, how do you know that you've done enough play-testing?

I'd greatly appreciate any feedback you have on these topics or the system in general!

[MacLeod]

First of all, kudos on having a Cinematic Plug-In ready to go. That's the sort of consideration that draws me into a game pretty quickly.

Second, someone said it somewhere (here, RPGnet? I don't know)... A good way to gauge when your play testing phase is completed is when you realize that you haven't tweaked the game after a session. I'd say make sure this happens more than once though... Furthermore, try to push players to explore all aspects of the game. Especially if you have something different going on in your system, not everyone is curious enough to grab hold of things by themselves.

[Vordark]

First of all, kudos on having a Cinematic Plug-In ready to go. That's the sort of consideration that draws me into a game pretty quickly.

Second, someone said it somewhere (here, RPGnet? I don't know)... A good way to gauge when your play testing phase is completed is when you realize that you haven't tweaked the game after a session. I'd say make sure this happens more than once though... Furthermore, try to push players to explore all aspects of the game. Especially if you have something different going on in your system, not everyone is curious enough to grab hold of things by themselves.

Thanks for the kudos!  I wanted to get a couple of plug-ins to a basic level of completeness before I announced the system so that others can see some of what's possible.  Sounds like this was a good move!

What you suggest for an end point of play-testing is basically what I'm going with presently.  Given my lack of experience with formal testing, it was the only milestone that made sense to me.

[MacLeod]

Indeed.

The only thing that makes a whole lot of sense outside of what I mentioned previously... is seeing whether or not you and the players are having fun. This isn't a very good reference point though unless you know a lot about the players and their styles. If one of them is unhappy, that may have absolutely nothing to do with how you've designed the game and more to do with how he likes to play a game.
I have a stingy group of uninspired hack 'n' slashers... but I intend on at least taking a look at your system later today.

[Luke]

This thread belongs in the Playtesting forums, but moderators fear to tread in First Thoughts. Muahahhahh!

Anyways, playtesting is hard. If you're not weeping after your playtests, you're doing something wrong.

Present the rules to the players before the game.
Play by those rules. Do not change the rules midsession no matter how broken. Do not EVER let a player whine/weasel his way into a rules change during a playtest.
After your session, review your rules. Make changes as you see fit.
Repeat above.
Once you're running a reasonably smooth session, sign up to run games an your local game store/convention. If you can't do that, play with your friends' friends. Run your games with as many different groups as possible.

When playing, watch how the players interact with the rules. Watch their faces. When do they smile? When do they grimace? When are they confused? When do they complain but do it anyway? When do they outright rebel? What do they easily understand? What do they clearly misunderstand?

When they ask questions, make them read you the rule. Make them use the text. Watch and see how long it takes them to find a rule. Listen to them as they read it. Does it make sense to you from another perspective?

And, if the rule doesn't make sense as written, and you have to explain it, listen to yourself as you do. Take note of what it is you have to say in order to get someone to understand. THAT, most likely, should be how the rule is written.

Good luck.
-Luke

[Vordark]

This thread belongs in the Playtesting forums, but moderators fear to tread in First Thoughts. Muahahhahh!

Ah, given what was written in the stickies, this seemed like the place to announce a first draft.

Anyways, playtesting is hard. If you're not weeping after your playtests, you're doing something wrong.

Present the rules to the players before the game.
Play by those rules. Do not change the rules midsession no matter how broken. Do not EVER let a player whine/weasel his way into a rules change during a playtest.
After your session, review your rules. Make changes as you see fit.
Repeat above.
Once you're running a reasonably smooth session, sign up to run games an your local game store/convention. If you can't do that, play with your friends' friends. Run your games with as many different groups as possible.

When playing, watch how the players interact with the rules. Watch their faces. When do they smile? When do they grimace? When are they confused? When do they complain but do it anyway? When do they outright rebel? What do they easily understand? What do they clearly misunderstand?

When they ask questions, make them read you the rule. Make them use the text. Watch and see how long it takes them to find a rule. Listen to them as they read it. Does it make sense to you from another perspective?

And, if the rule doesn't make sense as written, and you have to explain it, listen to yourself as you do. Take note of what it is you have to say in order to get someone to understand. THAT, most likely, should be how the rule is written.

Good luck.
-Luke

This definitely gives me a good list of observation points to start with.  I've already been asking pointed questions when any confusion arises (which thankfully doesn't seem to be that often, so far) but I think I'll take these ideas to mean I should pay more attention to what the players don't say.  The non-verbal ques that something is amiss.

[MacLeod]

Have you considered using Starblazer Adventures' method of dice rolling? It is like a less weird version of SotC and Fudge... Uses two six-sided dice, one is a negative die and the other is the positive die. When you roll, you subtract the negative die from the positive die. Creates outcomes anywhere from -5 to +5. I like it tons better than the normal Fudge method, personally.

[Vordark]

[snip]
Uses two six-sided dice, one is a negative die and the other is the positive die. When you roll, you subtract the negative die from the positive die. Creates outcomes anywhere from -5 to +5. I like it tons better than the normal Fudge method, personally.

Much earlier in the development of the system I used precisely the method of rolling you describe above.  The scales of the system (ranges of attributes, skills, difficulties, etc.) were quite different then.  When I decided to make some changes to some of these mechanics, I felt a range of -3 to +3 was more appropriate.  Also, one of my design goals for the system was to somewhat reduce the level of randomness, in comparison to some other games.  I wanted players and GMs to be confident that they could succeed at tasks with difficulties comparable to their level of skill more often.  And in those situations where success is in doubt, to focus more on tactics and teamwork than hoping for a good roll to bail them out.

The first incarnation of the -3/+3 range was a system that used 3d6 and generated a bonus value from a chart...

Die Roll	Bonus Value
3	-3
4	-3
5	-2
6	-2
7	-1
8	-1
9	0
10	0
11	0
12	+0
13	+1
14	+1
15	+2
16	+2
17	+3
18	+3

This seemed to work out fairly well, assuming the chart was prominently-displayed on the character sheets for easy reference.  However, it quickly became apparent that I had succeeded too well in dropping some of the randomness.  By far, the most common result was 0 (about 48% of all rolls), giving the game a feeling of being almost diceless.

When I went back to the drawing board to figure out a better distribution of results, I discovered that using three Fudge dice (not the usual four found in their system) gave me precisely the range I needed, and nearly the exact distribution I wanted (within one to three percent, for all results).  I wasn't jumping up and down for joy at the prospect of my game requiring special dice, but they proved relatively painless to acquire and can be made easily enough.

At least, that was my reasoning at the time.

Please keep it up with the feedback!

[MacLeod]

You are looking for less randomness, right now you have seven outcomes, yeah? -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 and +3. You could just use a plain ol' six-sided die and have six different outcomes instead. Isn't it nearly 17% across the board for each outcome on a six-sided die? Are the negatives integral to the experience? I think people generally perform addition faster anyways, right?
I apologize, I'm strictly against those Fudge dice... it is hard for me to get past them. O_O I'm not sure how other people react to them but that has always been my stance.

[Vordark]

I apologize, I'm strictly against those Fudge dice... it is hard for me to get past them. O_O I'm not sure how other people react to them but that has always been my stance.

No need to apologize.

Using three Fudge dice give me the numbers I'd like (a range of -3 to +3), with the distributions I'd like (sorry, I don't have my chart handy).  An alternative to using Fudge dice specifically is to roll a standard d6 and just take 1/2 as -1, 3/4 as 0, and 5/6 as +1, but that won't help if you don't like the core idea.

[JoyWriter]

Would I be right in saying that you have passive an active stat pairs for each of physical, mental and social? I ask this because that could be way more obvious in your rules. If so, have you considered having a stat of "cool"? I like it mainly because it covers both composure and appearance. The two stats cool and charisma seem to embody your dichotomy better than charisma and presence. Ask someone what someone with high cool and low charisma looks like, and it's a classic fit for the mysterious stranger, if you ask them low cool high charisma, then it's the local crazy party guy, if you ask for high both, then it's probably Obama or someone!

But I haven't seen how the passive stats are actually used: Is "will" mentioned anywhere? I can't find it in a search.

If not how would they be used? Convincing people could run off the will mechanic, being presence verses will. It could be a continued action against the stat, with you trying to break down their will on the subject, a slow process with a single health-bar per objective. Interestingly in an interrogation context there could be people who keep being replaced, as the person being interrogated also tries to break down the will of their interrogators.

But what about cool? What would be the result of loosing your cool in a social situation? You could have the possibility of showing yourself up by shouting at someone or some other emotional outburst. Now how would that actually be done in the rules? It could lead to social breakdown where you can't do any social actions successfully until you regain cool, unless you take as a penalty making some outburst or inappropriate remark related to the action you are trying to achieve. So trying to ingratiate yourself with someone when on zero cool is pretty impossible, but also intimidating someone would be pretty hard too, you'd pretty much only be able to do less relationship based conversation, which seems appropriate.

[Vordark]

Would I be right in saying that you have passive an active stat pairs for each of physical, mental and social?

This is exactly how the attributes were presented in an earlier draft of the system.  However this explanation/vision became problematic in certain areas and resulted in little inconsistencies popping up.  Ultimately I abandoned this description, but you can see that the attributes and skills still break down according to the "old" scheme.

Unfortunately, this point has been rendered somewhat moot since the majority of feedback that I have received has cast serious doubt on my choice of attributes.  While I think it certainly sounded like a good idea to combine the idea of strength and agility into one attribute that represents how athletic your character is (and a similar conflation of intelligence and perception), it seems like I'm the only one who actually liked this.

And given that the old distribution of attributes followed the even older scheme I mentioned above, it seemed appropriate to revise them.

[Vulpinoid]

...(and a similar conflation of intelligence and perception), it seems like I'm the only one who actually liked this.

The intelligence/perception combination could be defined as "cognition", the ability to perceive fragments and collate them into solutions relevant to the problem at hand...

Just an idea.

V

[JoyWriter]

Well the difficulty with making some of the changes people expect from convention is that you recreate storyteller, with defence/power/finesse in three fields.

This is too much like convergent evolution for white-wolf to object, but I still wonder whether that division should be questioned. What people want from such a system is a way to make their characters different, so two people who focus on physical combat can compare their skills and see that they have not made the same character, at least as far as the numbers go. Now excluding the possibility of relationship stats or made to order traits, which are a huge source of differentiation, you will want to insure that the "obvious" choices are spread around, so you don't just have a million people with dodge and firearms. How could this be done? Well one way to do it is to fold the dodge skill into other skills, like acrobatics (flip out the way), drive ("jink" when in a car), bluff (throw off their aim with faked movements), unarmed combat (for blocking) or even firearms, if you can have a wild west style shootout. In this way people don't have to buy skills that tell you little about their characters background, and so you hopefully maximise characterisation in the skill system.

There's one other thing I would watch out for: I'm not sure of how your numbers work yet, but there is a danger when dealing with balancing health stats and skill stats in the same mechanic; as the numbers don't mean the same things, what happens if someone dump-stats their will in order to increase their mind? What does that actually do to the game? How fast does damage of various kinds recover? If you do go with something like my idea for the other two "health" stats, I would have social be a single value that recovers quickly, mind be a multi-value that recovers at medium speed, and body be your existing triple pool with slow recharge. Why?

Because body damage has serious consequences when it is low, (especially at 0!) so that drama should be underlined by not making recovery easy. But also there is strong synergy between the attack types, so that it is easy when starting with low health to make it lower. Basically I'm using your existing system as the baseline, but with one adjustment; it seems like there could be harder surgeries when the damage total is higher, and larger recovery times.

Mind is different, as the way I defined it, you take damage on different tracks for different things; almost no synergy between different people of different objectives, so one conflict can be separate to another. So it can be easier to take serious amounts of damage and still continue without resting in some way. I'm not really sure what would make a good recovery time, as convincing someone to do something should be a proper combat, with proper effects. I suspect it should be of the same order  for recovery difficulty as body damage.

As for "cool", well that would not feel right as any lasting injury, so it should be possible to recover it just be going off, calming down and sorting your hair out! But like body this should be open to many synergistic attacks, so encouraging people to take a break between social combats in order to recover, so it doesn't turn into a soap opera (or if it does, there is lots of shouting, which seems appropriate!). I also like this because it makes it very possible to loose a social encounter.

Also, on the subject of skill checks, have you considered set-up rolls? For example if the difficulty of surgery is higher than they can reasonably get to (and this applies to many things too) what do you think about adding in a perpetration system so that you can get larger circumstance bonuses from direct specific action than from things falling your way? They could cover anything from specialised equipment to "preparing your story" to blackmail evidence to all sorts of other things. Insuring there is support for such actions in the rules should be pretty helpful, especially if there is a division between what you can get from GM gift and what you have to play out.

[Vordark]

In response to some great feedback I've received, I have put together a new beta version of the system here:

http://www.chaosphere.com/genesys/

Hopefully the feedback will continue coming in and help me make the system even better.

JoyWriter:  Thanks for another post!  I'm going to take some time to absorb it and its relationship to the "new" attribute scheme I'm working with.