Modus Vivendi

[Simon C]

Just checked, and my link for the Pool is broken.  Go here: http://www.randomordercreations.com/thepool.rtf

[Adam Dray]

GURPS Lite is available as a free download.

[RabbitHoleGames]

By the way, it may sound like I am getting defensive but I am not. I am indeed taking these constuctive criticisms to heart and learning a bit about more game systems and such to understand what I am attempting a little more.

After looking over the GURPS Lite, thank you Adam Dray for the link, I have a few examples of things that I have or have not shown that are nuances to my game that may or may not add to the experience on an individual level.

Natural "Rolls"- As mentioned on the first page, when your skill/stat combo are better than the target number, you don't actually have to roll the dice. This is usable on any skill including combat skills. Of course you cannot Spectacularly/Critically pass or fail by doing this.

Unlike a true sandbox game, I am actually working on a setting for each game type and am making everything playable in the game. For instance using the Sentience and/or Anthropomorphic advantages, animal only, allow you to play as if it was Narnia or Disney's Robin Hood (Fox version).

I know that a lot of what I am doing will seem familiar to people who play a nice variety of RPGs. I am taking what I like and molding it to something, not trying to completely reinvent the wheel. The Natural/Passive rolls are meant to speed up the gameplay and allow for more description to what you are doing,

I am thinking of adding a creativity bonus so it is not always watered down to "I slash with my sword... roll dice". I liked playing martial arts characters in 3.0/3.5 D&D but after a session or two of trying to describe the awesome (in my mind) way I was attacking, It literally became "I punch" or "I Kick" and the ever popular "Flurry of Blows". With bonuses to creativity and the (at times) lack of dice during combat, players can once again find meaning to their Crane Kicks and Spinning Tarzan Jiujutsu.

I am also putting some creativity house rules that have come across my game tables into the game as actual rules. Why should a player not be rewarded in game for writing the adventure down as a story to share with the group? What about the person who really gets into character creation and has 5 pages of sketches or a 15 page background story for their character? (previously drawn/written versions usable at DM discretion) The people who take the time to get creative (normally with no motivation besides self satisfaction) should be rewarded with bonus points. For one thing this helps the creativity level of the table by giving incentive for the normally hum drum players to do something to catch up to the points that a writer, artist, musician, and so forth will likely rack up due to their drive to add to the experience.

These things could be as simple as making a playlist (with their legally acquired music of course) to play during the game or for character themes and whatnot. One of my favorite campaigns someone made a playlist for the sessions, and every time we kicked down a door to go in and fight the good fight, there was the theme to Cops/Bad Boys. We kicked in doors a lot to earn that spot on the playlist, ah barbarians.

I would even think about putting in a provision for commissioning artwork by players. For every X amount spent on their character, ship, etc they would get X amount of points. With some artists out there this could rack up the points in a couple of illustrations.

Race importance is only really for the fantasy and space games, as most Super genre characters are human with different origins to explain their abilities. But in my fantasy game version there will be some fun additions to some of the races that will make them feel different. Even Humans have something that makes them more than an extra feat at level 1, and 4 extra skillpoints thereafter.

If it wasn't 2:00 AM I could probably go a little more but at this point it has become a ramble. So I will end this post here.

No here.

Ok maybe here.

Good grief I need caffein.

[Simon C]

Lucas, I'm glad that you're not feeling attacked in this thread, but I'm concerned that you're not hearing the critiques either.  I'm not getting what you want out of this thread.  I'm not seeing you answer any of the questions you've been asked by Adam, Bill, and I.  At this stage it's not useful for us to hear more about the mechanics of your game. 

What we need to hear is the experience you want players to have in the game.  We want to know the effect you're trying to create.  There are no objectively "good" rules.  We can only tell you what we think of your rules once we know what they're trying to achieve.  I certainly don't know what that is, and I get the sense that you don't either.

I'm not the boss of this thread, but I'd like to strongly advise you to take a few days, or even a week, to read and digest some of the games you've been linked to, and also to go and read some of the threads in the Actual Play forum.  Posting an Actual Play thread is a great way to learn a lot about your own play preferences, so that's a good option too.  Once you've done that, I really think you'll have a much more productive discussion here.

[Adam Dray]

Hey, Lucas.

The GURPS model is basically a simple core rulebook with expansions for different settings. If there's a setting that interests you, GURPS has probably published a source book for it already. A little fishing on the web will prove that out.

Other game systems have done similar things. For example, Palladium publishes numerous games that all use the same rules. They differ from the GURPS model a bit. Instead of a core book plus setting expansions, each setting book is treated like a new game, with all the rules you need for play. That means repeating a lot of stuff that was in other books, but I don't think the fans cared. If you know how to play one of the Palladium games, you can pick up one of the others pretty quickly.

Of course, D20 System (and OGL) have done the same thing. There are dozens (hundreds?) of new games out there that use the D20 rules licensed from D&D 3rd Edition or D20 Modern, with their own additions and settings.

My main concern is that you're not aware of many of these, so you don't know 1) what has come before (so you are just reinventing the wheel) or 2) who your competition is (since you're trying to make money off this). If you didn't have a commercial interest and were just doing this for fun, I'd be way less pushy about this. Before you go and get a second mortgage or something, please understand the market you're getting into.

[RabbitHoleGames]

I am starting to understand what is meant by these forums. I am going to do as suggested, read a few more rpgs and decide what I want players to experience and not how they get to the experience, over the next week or two. I may post a little in the meantime but not much. So don't think I am hurt and just taking my ball and going home. I really do like the constructive criticism, and appreciate it more now that I am starting to understand it the way it was meant to be understood.

Anyone who would like to contact me through IM and help guide me there can reach me in the following manner.

GoogleIM: LucasPuryear@gmail.com
AIM: DBACKmerc1
YahooIM: TitanLP2001
MSN: DBACKmerc1@aol.com

[Adam Dray]

Taking some time to think things out thoroughly is a time-honored practice here. You have my contact info if you want to chat.