dLITE: Simple system for narrative (and PbP) games

[MacLeod]

Such an idea is definitely for a particular audience... I like rolling dice, personally. Dice and stats bring out the game aspect of RPGs... and I like feeling as though I am playing a game. Games entertain me. Then again, so does the simple act of controlling the actions of some mighty character doing mighty things...

[Aegir]

This would be a game for a fairly specific niche. For one, its specifically for online games, and most likely best for PbP games, where dice-heavy games tend to make things very slow. Probably the best audience for a game like this is people who enjoy the concept of freeform, but want a bit of rules structure to it.

[JoyWriter]

I'm interested that you put the dice rolls there; 4th ed was designed with one of it's goals as removing the "save or die" from the game, and replacing it with temporary conditions or folding it into the hitpoint system.

Now in case you think that hitpoints are too "gamist", consider this; a danger scale that builds up allows players to play the drama of a conflict appropriately, and pace out important conflicts in a way that suits their character, rather than having a "surprise! He's dead." thing going on. So is there another way to run conflicts? Notice how there is a distinction between the temporary and the hitpoints? Have it so that a character cannot cause a permanent change unless they commit to it, and that could cause them damage. This may be familiar from "bringing down the pain" in "The Shadow of Yesterday" but I'm deriving it from a different source, so it may look different:

People know that hitting another character in the head cannot permanently incapacitate them, or lead to things like capture or loosing something important, unless they commit to the conflict. You can knock someone out and daze them, but if you try to do anything else to them they will be able to come round in order to stop you.

So what is "committing"? Imagine that instead of rolling the damage for each hit of a combat, you just let people keep narrating it, and then tallied them up when you got to some "moment of decision". Now depending on genre that moment will be very different, it could be the moment they punch, it could be when one character tries to get up off the floor after receiving a flurry of punches and flipping kicks, or it could be when one character looks another in the eyes and they wonder if they can do it. It's the moment when the audience holds their breath, and that is when dice kick in.

Now part of my idea is that anyone going into a proper combat should expect that their character could also get hurt, or rather that anyone seeking to change another character should also be willing for their character to change. This is also my solution to the "one skill" problem, as the idea is that skills can shrink in value if you use them and lose "maybe he wasn't such a good fighter after all".

As far as actual resolution goes, you add up your skill and focus, perhaps also adding some other bonus for "unanswered attacks", and roll off against an opponent, who adds whatever they are committing to 10 (actually that changes your probs doesn't it, my attack system could put it back though). This way players can just leave it and hope the attacker/changer will fail, or risk loosing more on a success.

The idea I had for unanswered attacks is when people declare what action they are doing and the defending player cannot think up a response to all of it. That doesn't mean that "more posts = win", as one defence can cover a lot of attacks, but it's for those times that one player uses the fictional constraint better than the others. Generally players will want at least one unanswered attack (at a +5 ish bonus) to pull the odds back to neutral, so they will prepare the ground. If they can get two in, then you probably don't need to roll, it's that likely they will win, but that requires the two kinds of attack to be different, work together, and obviously show an overwhelming advantage.

This idea would require time-limits on duals, so people can't go on too long narrating attacks and feints before coming to a moment of decision. I'm not sure how you would do this yet, but perhaps an epic battle where logic and positioning is used frequently is no bad thing.

Finally, have you considered how many rolls people will do relative to the amount of motes they gain? Because if you roll very little, then a non-mechanical description and a pool of plot points may be the best strategy, especially for players wanting to influence the wider story!

[visioNationstudios]

I believe there may be some confusion in regard to the "only roll if failure results in death or failure of mission".  The concept that would be emphasized to the players/GMs is that it is actually possible to completely roleplay out an entire combat scene.  It's OK to get hit, to miss your shot, and even occasionally to lose the fight.  They should feel free to do those things with the meta-info that the outcome of this combat will not directly result in failing their end goal.

What this is not suggesting is a "boom, slap, you're dead" combat style, where if you fail to "save" (a concept on it own foreign to this system) then it's time to draw up a new character.  Instead, it's based on some free-form concepts that revolve around the (obvious, yet unfortunately necessary to note) notion that "your character is not infallible/invincible/indestructible- so don't roleplay as if they are".  Whether this is dropping your sword in surprise over something that happened in combat and leaving a gaping hole in your own calf (yep, that was me) or scrambling to evade a pursuer and spraining an ankle, there are lots of ways to show that you will not always succeed 100% of the time.

[JoyWriter]

Cool, glad to here it, I can't quite picture how that meshes up with your resolution mechanism though. It seemed to me like you were saying you only roll when really bad stuff can happen, so what of what you mentioned involved rolling?

[visioNationstudios]

That would mostly be subjective, depending on the GM running.  But the encouraged concept would be to understand the difference between a random encounter, barfight, beat up the random street thug for information, etc., and a much more storyline-dependent run-in with the main villain of the particular story arc.  Likewise, out of combat, the line should be drawn so that not every time that a player jumps from point to point (rooftops, rock formations, speeding trains, etc) is a situation where falling would put you in an impossible "bottomless pit of fire-breathing chinchillas" scenario.  Sometimes falling may just mangle a leg, crack some ribs, or bruise an ego.

Perhaps another way to look at it is to ask yourself this question: "Is there any way that I can see me surviving or my main goal achieved if I were to fail here?"  If the answer is no, then I would estimate a good 95% of all gamers would ensure that they did succeed at that particular junction, if given the choice "Pass or Fail" (which is essentially what free-form RP does all along the way).  This takes those scenarios, and those alone, and forces a mechanical solution.