Basic rules for my game Frontier, lemme know what you think.

[Sylus Thane]

Okay since I have hit my slump and wondering what to do next I figured I'd just post the basics of the rules for my game to see what people think.

Character creation:
You have ten stats.
Intelligence
Awareness
Willpower
Mechanical aptitude
Compassion
Body
Endurance
Dexterity
Speed
Atttraction

Stats have a scale of 1-10. To get Stat points you can either be given a set amount of points by the gm or roll 9d10 and then distribute points as you see fit.

For skill points you take the average of INT+AWARE x 10.
For body points you take the average of BODY+END x 10.

Skills have a scale of 1-8.

Task resolution is simple.
You take your STAT+Skill and roll under the total on a d20. You would subtract any difficulty modifiers from your total before rolling.

STAT checks are made made by rolling under your STAT on a d12. Except in the case of compassion where you want to roll higher for it not to effect you.

Characters get a certain amount of actions based on their SPD, so that after initiative they know how often they act. It ranges from once every 5 phases to once every phase.

Initiative: Players roll a d10 minus their AWARENESS bonus. They then act starting on that phase and just count phases for when they act, the character sheet has a portion where they can mark it down and initiative isn't rolled again until either a new combat starts or their is a sufficient break in the action to warrant rerolling initiative.

Damage can be done in two ways.

1. Your task roll acts as just a hit or miss and then rolling damage determines how solid of a hit it was.

2. Extra damage is gained for every point you beat your task number by plus a base weapon damage.

Weapons and armor are both rated in d10's. And then is the optional rule of rolls of 10 stack for damage and armor.

Since the whole thing is skill based you can pretty much play any game you want. I didn't add in rules for magic and super powers and such since they are still in the works and caused my slump but these are the basics of how the system works. I'll try and post more on the optional settings I'd be including as I have time.

Lemme know what you think.

Sylus

[ethan_greer]

Okay, here's some questions:

Why are the stats and skills rated on differing scales?  Not that it's bad, just doesn't seem necessary.  What was your reasoning?

Can you explain a little more how weapons and armor work?

As far as my evaluation goes, this reminds me of a system I wrote called Bucket.  Very much so, in fact.  It's a workable system, runs pretty smoothly, if a bit bland.  Basically with this type of system it will be the setting and not the rules that will make the game interesting.  As long as you're aware of that and it fits your intentions for the game, I don't see a problem.

[Sylus Thane]

Actually Silkworm your right on the money when it makes setting more important than system. I wanted to use it so that people could get more into ROLE- playing instead of Roll -playing.

Stats and Skills are on different sclaes so that when you make your task roll their will always be a chance to miss no matter how good you are. I forgot to add in that a roll of 1 is a critical success and and a roll of 20 is a critical failure, 19's being simple failure. This way evn if you are godlike in stat and skill you still have a slim chance of missing or screwing up, just ;like in real life.

As for armor and weapons. Both are rated in d10, when you roll damage your apponent also rolls armor if your damage is less than their armor roll no damage gets through. if your damage is greater than the armor roll then the excess damage is applied to the armor and the wearer, this decreses the armors value as values of ten are accumulated losing 1d10 for every ten points of damage taken. this help get around the silliness of D&D's armor never gets screwed even if the guy is dead his armor is still in one piece. I've fought S.C.A. combat to long to ignore this fact in my game.

Hope this clarifies alittle, I can send you what  I have written up if you'd like.

Sylus

[Mike Holmes]

Actually Silkworm your right on the money when it makes setting more important than system. I wanted to use it so that people could get more into ROLE- playing instead of Roll -playing.

This is a non-sequiteur. Prioritized Setting does not lead to less Gamism (what's usually meant by the whole Roll/Role cliche) necessarily. Or make players investigate their characters any more closely. What Silkworm was saying was (I think) that if system does not support play a lot, then the setting will have to step in. That is, if you want to look closely at the characters, then you'll have to find and exploit some element of your setting to do it, because your system won't provide that for you.

A game like Dust Devils, with a lot of system does nothing but promote ROLE-Playing, despite being all system, and just a generic setting.

Stats and Skills are on different sclaes so that when you make your task roll their will always be a chance to miss no matter how good you are. I forgot to add in that a roll of 1 is a critical success and and a roll of 20 is a critical failure, 19's being simple failure. This way evn if you are godlike in stat and skill you still have a slim chance of missing or screwing up, just ;like in real life.

Simple amd effective, but clunky. If you have negative modifiers, why not just allow a character to have higher stats and skill levels, and say that they automatically succeed, if their total with difficulty is above twenty? You already seem to allow players to automatically fail if their scores are low enough. Also, what about the case where skill+stat-penalty lowers the total to 1? If the player wolls a one, is that a success? A critical success?

For a game that deals with these exact issues reasonably well, see Hero Wars.

Also, while we're at it, what's your range of stats and skills. Max level is "Godlike"? So what portion of the range are humans? Giants for "Body"? Cheetahs for "Speed"? And why do we have Mechanical Aptitude, and not Verbal Ability?

this help get around the silliness of D&D's armor never gets screwed even if the guy is dead his armor is still in one piece. I've fought S.C.A. combat to long to ignore this fact in my game.

D&D's aromr does get damaged. Says so in the rules. There are just no specific mechanics to handle it. What you're saying is that you want all details of this sort handled by mechanics? Do you have the GURPS rule for picks getting stuck? Or, rather, when does something that can happen in-game become absolutely nevessary to describe with mechanics? For the game you want to play. Making specific rules like this is a long and slippery slope. Especially for a system that's supposed to be about ROLE-Playing and not Roll-Playing.   ;-)

Mike

[Sylus Thane]

This is a non-sequiteur. Prioritized Setting does not lead to less Gamism (what's usually meant by the whole Roll/Role cliche) necessarily. Or make players investigate their characters any more closely. What Silkworm was saying was (I think) that if system does not support play a lot, then the setting will have to step in. That is, if you want to look closely at the characters, then you'll have to find and exploit some element of your setting to do it, because your system won't provide that for you.

A game like Dust Devils, with a lot of system does nothing but promote ROLE-Playing, despite being all system, and just a generic setting.

Not being well versed in the GNS at all I'm not sure how to reply to this one. The goal was to make a game where the rules were simple and covered the bases as well as possible that way you could devote your time to setting instead of system. I guess this what I meant by Role vs Roll.

Simple amd effective, but clunky. If you have negative modifiers, why not just allow a character to have higher stats and skill levels, and say that they automatically succeed, if their total with difficulty is above twenty? You already seem to allow players to automatically fail if their scores are low enough. Also, what about the case where skill+stat-penalty lowers the total to 1? If the player wolls a one, is that a success? A critical success?

What makes this clunky in your opinion? I didn't let stats and skills go higher because if your dealing with things where you would automatically succeed why should you have to bother rolling anyway? Plus if your modifiers are so extreme that you have to roll a 1 to exceed it is probably going to be a common sense thing of whether you try against the odd or not. But if you wish to try against the odds to that extreme then yes by all means try and if you roll that 1, then yes it would be a critical success, considering the odds it most likely should be.

Also, while we're at it, what's your range of stats and skills. Max level is "Godlike"? So what portion of the range are humans? Giants for "Body"? Cheetahs for "Speed"? And why do we have Mechanical Aptitude, and not Verbal Ability?

I used the term godlike just as a word, it doesn't really apply to the scales. As for descriptive words to rate the scale it would probly best relate to Fudges as a 1 being poor and a 10 or 8(in the case of skills) being legendary. Plus for the STAT of body it would be relative to species as well as attraction, if dealing with a game that is nothing but humans everything is equal across the board.
The really I put in mechanical aptitude was to have a stat that related to a persons ability to create things.

D&D's aromr does get damaged. Says so in the rules. There are just no specific mechanics to handle it. What you're saying is that you want all details of this sort handled by mechanics? Do you have the GURPS rule for picks getting stuck? Or, rather, when does something that can happen in-game become absolutely nevessary to describe with mechanics? For the game you want to play. Making specific rules like this is a long and slippery slope. Especially for a system that's supposed to be about ROLE-Playing and not Roll-Playing. ;-)

Well I guess I never ran across the rules for armor in d and d, guess the guys I played with never felt it was all that important.;)
As far as having it covered in a mechanic it is simply a way to rate your after its been damaged to get a feel for how long it may last as well as a sescriptive for armor being scavenged or found that is in less that perfect shape. This way players have a relatively easy way to keep track of how their armor is faring.

Sylus

[ethan_greer]

What Silkworm was saying was (I think) that if system does not support play a lot, then the setting will have to step in. That is, if you want to look closely at the characters, then you'll have to find and exploit some element of your setting to do it, because your system won't provide that for you.

More or less correct, Mike.  I tend to favor in-depth setting as a support mechanism for good role-playing, with a system that is pretty much confined to task resolution concerns.  It looks like that's what Sylus is going for.

And while we're in the mode of interpreting one another... :)

Simple and effective, but clunky.

Not sure about his word choice, but I think what Mike was trying to point out is the fact that systems like this can become less effective at very high or very low levels of skill, working best when the character abilities range somewhere closer to the middle of the scale.  Such systems may be run well, but not by me.  Basically the GM needs to know how to tailor modifiers to the situation based on the desired % chance of success or failure for the task at hand.  This is something I'm not very good at.  As a result, I abandoned Bucket (my own Frontiers-like system) and went for something I can more easily run.

Bottom line is, I think you've got the makings of a good house system, which will be easy to teach new players and easy for you to run.  What are your goals for the system?  Do you want others to use it, or is Frontiers primarily a personal endeavor?  My assessment is, you're not very likely to win strangers over to using your system - it's very "vanilla" with not a lot of innovation.  (And please understand that's not a bad thing!)  As a tool for running your own games, I think you have the makings of a basic, solid, and satisfying rule set that will serve you well - and that's what game design is all about, IMO.

Good luck!

[Sylus Thane]

Well I would like to publish some day. There are still some rules in the works that would cover things like the supernatural and super powers, as well as magic for fantasy, those may be the innovative rules.

The main thing with Frontier is that it is designed to be versatile, but mainly to specific enough to get you going yet still slightly vague for easy player innovation. This will also be readily apparent in the settings that would be available with it too. They will be made to be specific enough for a gm get a good start but still be open enough to tailor it to their own needs and desires.

I guess my main desire is for playability without sacrificing anything. If a new player can pick up the game and go with it with very few or no questions at all then I view it as a success. If a seasoned gm can look at it and say hey these rules are a little too vague vague for me but they have the suggestions already for making them more detailed, or their to detailed I like them vaguer which is easy enough to do with hadly any work, then I consider it a success. If anyone to were look at the settings and say great these are detailed enough for a good start but aren't so strict that I can't add in my own things without screwing up some big metaplot, then I consider it a success as well.

Sylus

[Mike Holmes]

Not being well versed in the GNS at all I'm not sure how to reply to this one. The goal was to make a game where the rules were simple and covered the bases as well as possible that way you could devote your time to setting instead of system. I guess this what I meant by Role vs Roll.

Don't worry about the GNS. What I'm saying is that there's no proof that a simple system makes players pay any more attention to setting, characters, anything. It's a question of what the rules focus on that determeines what they will cause players to focus on, if anything.

If you mean that less details about things that are unrelated to the things you want to explore means less distraction, then I'm right there with you. But as it stands, your system will have players looking at thier skills and attributes, and thinking about how they can use them. Is that the focus you want?

What makes this clunky in your opinion? I didn't let stats and skills go higher because if your dealing with things where you would automatically succeed why should you have to bother rolling anyway?

You wouldn't. You'd just say the character succeeds. But in the case that there was a penalty, then that would bering it back into the realm of the uncertain, and then you'd roll. So there is a reason to have a system that covers a wider range than what you've acounted for. And from what you way above, you seem to feel as well that a character could have a igher stat.

Given what you have so far, I assume that there will never be any bonuses to rolls (else you could get an automatic success, and then restricting the scale is pointless). Which means that a roll with no penalty is the easiest task available. Right?

Lesse. 9d10 averages 49.5 points. Just under five points per stat. If I put an 8 in a stat making me well better than average for a starting adventurer, and have a related skill maxed out at 8, that gives me a sixteen total. Which means that the easiest task available to the system gives a person with an above average stat and maximum skill, a 20% chance of failure (not to mention a 5% chance of Critical failure). That may be what you want, but it seems clunky to me.

Plus if your modifiers are so extreme that you have to roll a 1 to exceed it is probably going to be a common sense thing of whether you try against the odd or not. But if you wish to try against the odds to that extreme then yes by all means try and if you roll that 1, then yes it would be a critical success, considering the odds it most likely should be.

Odd logic. If something is harder, and less likely for me to acomplish, the more likley it is that a success will be a fantastic success. Sorry, that just seems counterintuitive.

Lot's of games have used alomost exactly the same mechanics, and they mostly have come up with simple, fun, and effective solutions to this clunkiness that I percieve.

I used the term godlike just as a word, it doesn't really apply to the scales. As for descriptive words to rate the scale it would probly best relate to Fudges as a 1 being poor and a 10 or 8(in the case of skills) being legendary. Plus for the STAT of body it would be relative to species as well as attraction, if dealing with a game that is nothing but humans everything is equal across the board.

So an average titan, and an average gnome both have a BODY of 5? Does BODY mean something  like attractiveness? As in the phrase"Hot Body"? Or does it refer to strength, size, physique, etc? Most games with a BODY stat have it mean the latter. Further, your game is about all sorts of different spiecies, not just humans, right?

The really I put in mechanical aptitude was to have a stat that related to a persons ability to create things.

Is that particularly important in the Frontiers milieu? If so, cool. I was just unaware.

Well I guess I never ran across the rules for armor in d and d, guess the guys I played with never felt it was all that important.;)

That's actually typical. Given that D&D is a game about playing with the system, it's not at all odd that people would forget about the armor stuff without mechanics behind it. Mechanics reinforce.

As far as having it covered in a mechanic it is simply a way to rate your after its been damaged to get a feel for how long it may last as well as a sescriptive for armor being scavenged or found that is in less that perfect shape. This way players have a relatively easy way to keep track of how their armor is faring.

So the game is quite a lot about coming up with salvaged parts of armor, and keeping your armor intact? Besides damage, this is the only thing in the system that's dealt with in any specificity. Playing such rules, players will therefore focus on finding good armor, and repairing it when damaged, etc. Is this an intentional feature of the system?

Lest you think me facetious, the game Afermath! had a complex system that related to armor and its condition. As such I found players giving long consideration t the armor they had during chargen, and spending a lot of in-game attention on trying to find and fix armor. Players do what a game gives them to do.

Mike

[Sylus Thane]

Don't worry about the GNS. What I'm saying is that there's no proof that a simple system makes players pay any more attention to setting, characters, anything. It's a question of what the rules focus on that determeines what they will cause players to focus on, if anything.

Actually I looked at it that if the rules were simple and easy to remember then the players are able to focus more on the setting and what was going on than spending time looking up rules or debating their meaning.

But as it stands, your system will have players looking at thier skills and attributes, and thinking about how they can use them.

Actually I don't see a problem with a person referring to their characters skills and how they should be used, especially if the player in question may not be as familiar with the skill as the character would. I mean really, how many of us out there are actually as good at the skills our characters tend to have? I may personally be able to hold my own against most characters in a swordfight but I would definitly be outclassed when it came to computers. And so far in the playtesting I have found most people tend not to look at the stats so much unless they are new at it and need to remind themselves of what the character needs to know.

And from what you way above, you seem to feel as well that a character could have a igher stat.

Actually I'm quite comfortable where they are.

Given what you have so far, I assume that there will never be any bonuses to rolls (else you could get an automatic success, and then restricting the scale is pointless). Which means that a roll with no penalty is the easiest task available. Right?

Right.

Lesse. 9d10 averages 49.5 points. Just under five points per stat. If I put an 8 in a stat making me well better than average for a starting adventurer, and have a related skill maxed out at 8, that gives me a sixteen total. Which means that the easiest task available to the system gives a person with an above average stat and maximum skill, a 20% chance of failure (not to mention a 5% chance of Critical failure). That may be what you want, but it seems clunky to me.

Still not sure what you mean by clunky. Although I do see one thing I forgot to put in character creation, when rolling your d10's for STAT points you reroll 1's and 2's once, characters are generally meant to be above average and this helps your chances to reflect this.

Odd logic. If something is harder, and less likely for me to acomplish, the more likley it is that a success will be a fantastic success. Sorry, that just seems counterintuitive.

Actually it's not if you think about it. If the odss are so overwhelmingly against you and you still manage to beat them then you did something equally if not more amazing than the odds stacked against you.

So an average titan, and an average gnome both have a BODY of 5? Does BODY mean something like attractiveness? As in the phrase"Hot Body"? Or does it refer to strength, size, physique, etc? Most games with a BODY stat have it mean the latter. Further, your game is about all sorts of different spiecies, not just humans, right?

Sorry, yes BODY has to do with strength and is relative to to the species aas a gnome with a body of 5 isnt exactly going to be as strong as a titan with a body of 5. And yes Frontier does have all sorts of species but it is totally based on the setting and players preference whether they are used or not.

Is that particularly important in the Frontiers milieu? If so, cool. I was just unaware.

It isn't more important than anything else but is definitly there so that bases are covered. It helps for those times when characters want to try and figure out how things work or trying to build things, especially maguiver style.

So the game is quite a lot about coming up with salvaged parts of armor, and keeping your armor intact? Besides damage, this is the only thing in the system that's dealt with in any specificity. Playing such rules, players will therefore focus on finding good armor, and repairing it when damaged, etc. Is this an intentional feature of the system?

Lest you think me facetious, the game Afermath! had a complex system that related to armor and its condition. As such I found players giving long consideration t the armor they had during chargen, and spending a lot of in-game attention on trying to find and fix armor. Players do what a game gives them to do.

I wouldn't say the game is a lot about these things but the rules do cover it. It is mainly there to help remind people that things don't last forever when not taken care of, especially when they tend to take considerable punishment.

No I don't think your facetious, I'm definitly enjoying the input, and sorry no i've never played Aftermath.

Sylus

[Andrew Martin]

Since the whole thing is skill based you can pretty much play any game you want. I didn't add in rules for magic and super powers and such since they are still in the works and caused my slump but these are the basics of how the system works. I'll try and post more on the optional settings I'd be including as I have time.

I'm a player. Why would I use this system over, say, D&D D20, Fuzion, or Fudge? D20 is more popular and has a lot of adventures for it. Fuzion has magic, superpowers, psionics and cybernetics. Fudge lets me roleplay. :)

What does Frontier do that these common, readily available systems don't all ready do?

[Sylus Thane]

I'm a player. Why would I use this system over, say, D&D D20, Fuzion, or Fudge? D20 is more popular and has a lot of adventures for it. Fuzion has magic, superpowers, psionics and cybernetics. Fudge lets me roleplay. :)

What does Frontier do that these common, readily available systems don't all ready do?

Why would you play one of the ones you listed over Frontier? Sure D&D is more popular right now, but they also have the whole big Hasbro monster money machine behind them. You say D&D and d20 has a lot of adventures for it, so will Frontier, along with full settings that you can expand on easily without screwing up some metaplot that are normally tied to settings. You say Fuzion has magic, superpowers, psionics, and cybernetics, so will Frontier. You say Fudge lets you roleplay, so will Frontier.

Do you ask things like this of the three games you mentioned?

Why ask them of me?

You want to know what Frontier will have, and I say it will have anything and everything. You want to know what Frontier will be able to do, and I'll say anythings and everything.

I think the question most people are really asking in forums like this when they say "Why should I play your game over the already established ones?" is "Will your game be affordable?"

Personally I think when a person asks why should I play your game over an already established game it doesn't really help an Indie designer at all. What are they supposed to say? "Hey play my game because I think it's way cooler than all the others because I designed it.". Or should I say "I don't really care whether you play my game or not, just give it a shot, you may like it". There's no answer to that question at all that's really fair to the answerer or fair of the questioner to ask, unless it's of someone else who has gotten the game. then they can give them an answer that is fair based on their opinions because they have given it a chance.

I'm not trying to be a dick, but just give it a chance. You had to give the other ones one before you started playing them and I doubt that you asked the same question of them before you played their games.

Sylus

[Andrew Martin]

Do you ask things like this of the three games you mentioned?

Why ask them of me?

I asked questions like these of D&D D20, Fuzion, Fudge, and ICE Rolemaster. When these systems didn't support the style of play that I wanted, I created systems that did support the style of play that I want.

For example, with my Ratio system (Why play with my Ratio system?), Ratio allows PCs to have infinite levels of skills and attributes with infinite precision, yet only need to roll a single D10 for about 90% of the time. Ratio has exactly the right colour for a modern or SF game and makes sense for roleplaying a sentient machine, which exactly knows it's own abilities, or a PC which know it's own skill or attribute values. Why can't I use game X to do this? No other game has this (otherwise I wouldn't have bothered).

Another example for my S system (why play with my S system?), S allows players to have a interesting, fast (very important!), cinematic and realistic combat and skirmish and wargame system, allowing combat with fantasy/medieval weapons through to modern guns and information age settings. It generates results which are very much like a movie, which is great for action-movie like settings (my preferred style of game). Why can't I use game Y to do this? No other game has this.

Yet another example: why play with my Accord system? Accord allows characters, settings, tools and vehicles to be described in plain english, like an author would describe them in a book or novel or historical text. Accord will provide tools to interpret these descriptions on the fly by GM and players, and deliberately has a multi-truth world view incorporated into it, so that description can be interpreted in many ways, with no absolute or one truth scale. Why can't I use game Z to do this? No other game has this, to my knowledge.

I've asked similar questions about my other games systems, but it's getting off topic, I think.

So why should I as a player use Frontier? Why is it better than, say, Fuzion? Because if it isn't better in at least one aspect, we could equally as well just use Fuzion instead, with no difference. This would then save you a lot of time and effort.

[szilard]

Stats and Skills are on different sclaes so that when you make your task roll their will always be a chance to miss no matter how good you are. I forgot to add in that a roll of 1 is a critical success and and a roll of 20 is a critical failure, 19's being simple failure. This way evn if you are godlike in stat and skill you still have a slim chance of missing or screwing up, just ;like in real life.

Well... actually, under this system if you are godlike in stat and skill you happen to have a 10% chance of missing or screwing up... which is more than slim.

~szilard

[Gwen]

I think that people want to know why they would play this game over any other is because they have to learn a whole new system when they already have several memorized, am I right?

Besides, when you have a bookshelf (or stack, heehee) of roleplaying games, you arrange them by system.  I have my GURPS books together, my D20 books together and my WW books together.  There's 3 systems with the ability to adapt to any new world.

What happens now is there is this NEW game, which involves a new system and new books... when this new game (which I'm sure is really neat) could just as easily be converted to GURPS; a game system I already know by heart.

This is *I* ask "why play this game instead od D20."  If I am going to start collecting this game and use this setting and system, I have to be presented with a reason why I should be inclined to do so.

Unfortunately, (and I'm not trying to be mean, this is just IMHO) "just give it a try" isn't sufficient.  I'm a poor gamer (as I'm sure most of us are) and when we go to the bookstore with 30 bucks, why would I pass over a book for the system I already like to "try something new?"

[Jeremy Cole]

What is the hook?  What gets someone interested in playing your game?

Everyday you'll hear a half dozen new songs on the radio, and most you won't notice.  If a song doesn't get you listening in the first thirty seconds, its lost you.

RPGs have this same concern, tenfold.  I'm not going to read a game because the cover says 'give it a go', I'll have to read five RPGs everyday until I die.  There has to be a reason for me to notice yours.  If you say, 'because my system can do anything', every free RPG out there says this, and this won't interest many impartial people.

The hook doesn't have to be in the mechanics, and historically it hasn't been, but somewhere in your design has to be that killer baseline that makes people pay attention.  Perhaps if you fleshed out the setting a little, we could see why setting is such a dominant part of your design.

Jeremy