Newbie here with 2 new RPGs for review

[Palaskar]

Hi, my name is Michael Mendoza a.k.a. "Palaskar", and I've finally gotten up the nerve to post after lurking for a few months. I finally feel that my indie RPG, Signature 3.0, is ready for feedback and critique.

Signature started in October 2001 as my attempt to produce the "Ultimate RPG" (hey, who hasn't?) and went through, lessee, 2+7+8...17 permutations before inspiration struck me. I was reading a response by Ron Edwards on The Forge, where he was going on about rewarding play you want to see...and it struck me, "Why are we being so indirect about rewarding behavior? Why are we bothering to 'model' this and 'model' that, when all we want is such-and-such behavior?" A couple days later, and a lot of scribbling in a notebook, and I had the essence of Signature version 3.0 down.

So, I was hoping that people could take a look at Signature and tell me what to do with it. I know it's still a bit poorly organized, and that there are no examples, but hey, that's what feedback is there to fix.

My other RPG, "Light and Dark," is also up (except for the magic rules), but I posted that as more of a lark than a serious game.  I'd still be quite happy if you checked it out and told me what you thought, though.

You can find Signature by going to by webpage and following the links (check my .sig) or by using the following link: http://meant2be.150m.com/44/signature/signature3_0.html

If there are any typos in this post, forgive me, but the input on this post is kind of laggy and strange.

[Sidhain]

I'm taking a look.

Let ya know what I think if I can wrap my head around it. :)

[Mike Holmes]

Have you seen Synthesis? There are some distinct similarities in portions of our systems.

http://www.swcp.com/~tquid/synthesis.html

Mike

[Palaskar]

Yes, I've seen Synthesis. After reading it I got the whole 'Unlimited number of Traits' idea from it. I even have a version of Signature which adapts some of Synthesis' mechanics wholesale.

Personally, I think Synthesis is brilliant. It really blew my mind the first time I read it.  The whole single Conflict mechanic thing, as well as the use of the Self stat, really struck me as innovative.

Thanks in advance for taking a look, Sidhain. I'm in the middle of revising the system yet again to allow for unlimited granularity and detail, so let me know if you want to see my notes in-progress.

Basically, I just rescaled the Skill and Scale numbers to be base-10 (skills 0-9, Scale 0.001 to 10,000) with unlimited granularity -- so you could have skill 4.125 if you wanted. This is taken from RATIO.

The unlimited detail thing is handled by having an unlimited amount of Traits, but paying for them each time they are used with Reward points. Advantages and disadvantages as well as power modifier things like say, Armor Piercing, are handled by taking an Advantage modifier of 1 to 3 Reward points at the cost of 1 to 3 Penalty points. I think. It's still hard wrapping my mind around it. Basically, to get an Advantage you pay a price; to take a Disadvantage, you get a bonus. Its the whole 'Reward/Penalty points' thing that I have trouble sorting out -- do I pay Reward points, or assign Penalty points?

I also want to thank the two of you for taking the time to reply to the post of an absolute newbie to this forum. It's people like you that keep me hopeful that I will finally finish this rpg!

Thanks.

Pal