New RPG idea Frozen Dawn RPG

[Alokov]

Wow thanks. If necessary I will do that. I think I made it a biit unclear before. They don't explicitly hate Indy games. They just don't know they exist. The only thing I'm worried about is that it might be too overwhelming for them at first (It wasn't for me but . . .) However, as someone told me. I think that if it's presented as "a game I wrote" not "a new game" they'll be more likely to like it. At worst, I'll get more credit than I'm due cause they won't realize how similar a lot of my mechanics are to mechanics from other games. If, however, it doesn't work out. I have a lot of people I can play with over Skype who would be into this. At least I have a ready-made playtester in my uncle. He is notorious for screwing with the DM's plans (not in a bad way, just unintentionally) which is great cause that's what playtesters are supposed to do. Anyway, better get to condensing this to a page or so in Word so I can print it and bring it to the session. Oh, and one final tweak, after this I'm forcibly keeping my hands off so I don't go into OCD mode, as I have been known to do, and keep tweaking things incessantly. When the DM tries to force a character to take a fear point, the character gets 1 flip, with no mods. Eventually theey're gonna fail, but there's always a 50-50 chance.

[Alokov]

Not exactly sure where to post this, so if I put it in the wrong place, please forgive me and direct me to the right forum. Thanks.

I haven't playtested this game with my regular group yet, but, if anyone is interested, I would like to run a playtest over Skype, as well as in-person test with my regular group. Two reasons for this: 1. I know a lot of people who run/play in many games over Skype (this includes me) and would like to make sure that the game is tested adequately for on-line play as well as for in-person play. 2: I would like to get a "second opinion" as it were, and, since I don't know any gamers in my area besides my current group, the only recourse I can think of is Skype, or a similar service. I know this is a bit of a blind call, and I apologize if I'm out of line, but I don't know anywhere else to post it, here or on another site.

[Alokov]

they also have short attention span issues but it should work fine.

[Alokov]

I realized I haven't set a firm tech level (for the Scourge or the other groups.) I'm thinking roughly Wild West era, with the Scourge being the technological equivalent of the natives. Of course, you're allowed to tune it for your specific campaign.

[Alokov]

Even though I've decided on the Wild West thing, I don't really like it. If anyone has any other ideas, please let me know.

[Alokov]

Allright. My first playtesting session went swimmingly, butI need to fine-tune the health system. I need a definite number at which you pass out and/or die. I was gonna go with -10 but that proved far too low. And zero seems far too high (at least for first level characters)  For those of you who don't remember, my wound system works like this. You take -1 to all skills per success in an opponent's dice pool. The problem is that I can't figure out how low you should be allowed to go beforeyou pass out/die. This is particularly hard because it has to work for all possible characters. If I set it as "if you get reduced to 0 in all skills" then people who diversify and have low ranks in many skills (which is plausible, and even likely, in the rest of the system) they will be taken down far too easily. Yet if I set it too low "-10 in all skills" for example, then 1: even mooks like generic bandits will take an obscenely long time to kill and 2: Those who invest heavily in particular skills can easily become over-powered and will certainly have a big advantage.

Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks.

[Alokov]

Oh, by the way, since US coins have a slight bias (and just for ease of use) we used dice instead of coins during the playtest (with even numbers representing success and odd numbers representing failure). Is this too close to the Ubiquity System? If so, we can just use coins.

[Alokov]

I've solved my health problem. If you get to -3 in all relevant skills (so all combat skills if you're in combat, or, all skills if you survive the last round of combat).

[cocohow]

I agree with you view
um, perhaps Knowledge in this aspect I know too poor.

[Alokov]

I agree with you view
um, perhaps Knowledge in this aspect I know too poor.

Sorry. What did you mean?

[Alokov]

I agree with you view
um, perhaps Knowledge in this aspect I know too poor.

Sorry. What did you mean?

[Callan S.]

That'd be a spam post.

It's good to hear you got a playtest off...I'll ask a perhaps vague question: When you played it, was there a sense of - I dunno, question of where character loyalties lie (in regards to the main factions, or even PC personal beliefs). Was there a sense of that in the background of all the dice rolling and stuff, or was it at the forefront of play?

[lumpley]

Please don't respond to spam posts. Just hit the "report to moderator" button and Ron or I will come take care of it.

Thanks!

-Vincent

[Alokov]

That'd be a spam post.

It's good to hear you got a playtest off...I'll ask a perhaps vague question: When you played it, was there a sense of - I dunno, question of where character loyalties lie (in regards to the main factions, or even PC personal beliefs). Was there a sense of that in the background of all the dice rolling and stuff, or was it at the forefront of play?

Actually, it pretty much devolved into Butch and Sundance in the Ice Age (the PCs decided to go on a bank-robbing spree). All the mechanics worked just as I expected, they really latched on to the Church of Humanity faction and the beleif duel we played out worked briliantly. The only problem was that, whereas I was expecting "serious with a dash of silly" it became "silly with a dash of serous." Then again, I was playing completely off the cuff, since I didn't have characters ahead of time. I have another playtest on Saturday, during which we will be introducing a new character (who will be a psion, so I can test out that system.) And I will have more planned. They're gonna get captured by the Scourge and, of course, interrogated, so I hope that will bring about some more introspection. Even if I do introduce a Rorschach-worshiper (yes, I know that will probably drag it back to the gutter, but I can't help it.)

[Callan S.]

Well, from other actual play accounts, groups are often silly at first - people say their character does something, like it's a joke. But really they are testing the waters to see if they will be ridiculed...you watch and you see 'hahaha, my character does this' transform over time into 'No, my character really believes in doing this!!'. It's just a trust building process and it's good to see it's in motion!

Speaking of, how are your rewards handed out? For example, in a recent game I GM'ed I started handing out XP pretty much on any expression of character. It's hard to remember examples now, but even stuff like "Nah, I'm not doing that!" and petty bickering got XP, because basically that was their characters. Petty is character just as much as Elizibethian angst. I also gave all players the same XP, even though it was one player saying something like this - this made the in character stuff a team effort, rather than one guy getting lots of XP for being in character and a quiet guy gets none. I think it encouraged more petty squabbling and rash decisions on the players/PC's part...which was a good result. Just something to think about.

On the 'they WILL be captured', some groups have a tacit, even unspoken understanding that sometimes the GM will force (almost railroad) play to a particular spot, but it's in the interest of setting up a dramatic conflict that would otherwise not happen without some heavy handedness. Some other people don't, and just see it as railroading and that nothing they do matters cause the GM is just gunna force them, so they give up and, whilst not leaving the table, essentially stop playing.

For that reason you might want to make that former understanding a bit more explicit, to ensure it's actually there.