Project[World Crash]

[Trollkin]

My idea for this game was what if people got trapped in an online video game, simple concept. I'm currently using the name for the game World Crash till I can come up with something will better. I'm currently at the stage where I sat down wrote a sample version of the system, and character creation. I'm trying to see what people think of the concept, and of the system I've devised.

I've included a link to my example version of the rules, and world background: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B-0dMXFzdgiDMjMzYTliZGQtMDZlNC00YjQ2LWJiYmMtOTNjNjRhNThjMzc0&hl=en&authkey=CPqu7ZoF

[Baxil]

Hi there,

I had a read through.  Interesting system.  I'm intrigued by some of the concepts - for instance, the fact that combat initiative is determined in Speed order, except for the person who first declares their attack.  I'm curious how that will work out in actual play, and whether it would create a big incentive for trigger-happy players.

I can clearly see the influences of both AD&D and Shadowrun in your character generation, but in general it's building from parts of both that I like.   

There's not much detail on the setting yet, but what's there looks like a good starting point.  One question: What will be the goals of characters in your system?  Is this a game about characters trying to find their way out of The World?  Is it a game about characters who have accepted that they're stuck and are trying to become major players in The World?  Is it a game about characters who have forgotten that they're from a world outside?  Your rules seem largely focused on combat, which might or might not serve you well if the game is about breaking free of virtual reality.  (A Shadowrun-style VR, where obstacles have physical representations as entities out to kill/stop you, shows promise here.)

And now for the major issue:

I urge you to create some characters and play through a sample combat.  You'll quickly find that your dice system needs rebalancing.

You're starting off with a Shadowrun or WOD-style dice pool where players roll a lot and accumulate successes toward a threshold.  The way you have it set up, the system is going to be awfully "whiffy" (generating a lot of character failure) - because it doesn't seem to be balanced for the fact that only a fraction of your rolled dice are going to count as successes.  You're only succeeding on a 5 or a 6 on each die - that means that about 1/3 of your dice should be successes on each roll.

Let's say that you're attacking someone with a claymore (2T8).  Let's say that your Dexterity is way above average, 6, but in order to do that you've had to accept being level 2 as a tradeoff.  So the maximum skill points you can have in your 2-Handed Sword skill is 8 (4*level).  This means that you're rolling 8T6 + 2T8 = 10 dice, out of which you can get at most 14 successes.  Not bad, right?

Except that 2/3 of those dice are going to miss.  An average roll of those 10 dice will result in 3 successes.  A single, average, opponent in light cloth armor (adds 4 defense to their Reflex value; let's call that 3) is an impenetrable wall.  You'll get 7 successes on your 10 dice only 2% of the time.

Here's a starting character that is almost invulnerable: A=Maintenance; B=Level 5; C=Twin Blade; D=Stat Points.  Attributes: Speed 10, others 1.  Stats: Reflex=10, others=whatever (actually, here's another problem: builds which put high priority on Stat Points and low priority on Type can't spend all their points, since Character Stats can't exceed your Player Stat).  I'll buy light cloth armor.  Twin Blade gives a +1 Reflex bonus, so ultimately my Defense is 15.  Rolling 15T15 is a questionable proposition for most characters - much less the heaping gobs of dice you'll need to roll 15 successes with any frequency!  (45 (!!), for those keeping track.)  About the only thing that can hit me is a Long Arm using Long Strike to halve my defense -- but they get a limited number of uses of that power, then they're back to whiffing again, and my 5th-level character has the HP to soak it.

Skills are even more of a heartbreaker.  First of all, because skills are (Skill Points) T (Stat), the most successes that a 100% munchkined character can get on a skill roll is 10.  (There's no way to raise a Player Stat past 10 - that's the maximum if you pick Maintenance and dump all your freebies into a single stat.  And Player Stats limit Character Stats.)  The average T-value of a skill is going to be closer to 4.  Do you see the problem here?  Your "Easy" skill checks have a threshold of 6.  Unless I'm misreading the rules, it is impossible for any starting character to make a "Hard" check.

And keep in mind that spells are skills, too.  Let's say that I want to play a character who can use Fire Blast.  There is really only a single character build that has a chance of it.  I have to pick A=Wave Master (for spellcasting); B=Level 5 (to give me a maximum 20 points in Spellcraft); C=Hacker (and dump every single attribute point into Spirit, for a T-value of 9); D=Stat Points (to max out Intelligence so I can gain more bonus skills based on level); E=Skill Points (spend these plus the level points on Spellcraft); F=money (whatever).  Now, my totally optimized character is rolling 20T9 to cast the spell.  I will be successful 19% of the time.

(Also, hacking is a complete game-breaker, but I won't get into that, because the balance issues make it useless for the abusive stuff.)

Some of this might be fixed with your advancement system - maybe starting characters aren't supposed to be able to use Fire Blast, and the things that are out of reach get developed with time?  But I'm kind of nervous at the prospect of playing the 12th-level fighter, who has sufficiently developed to deal with my minmaxed cloth wall, and rolling a pool of 48 dice every time I want to whack someone.  I think you'll be better served with rolling fewer - more effective - d6s.

Anyway, the system has potential.  The idea of using attributes as limiting factors is a refreshing one compared to its system inspirations, and it seems to offer a good range of character options.  But it would seriously benefit from some number crunching.

[Trollkin]

Hi there Baxil,
First thanks for the read through, and second I can't believe that someone what to the trouble of doing all that math.

My idea for having the person who declares their attack first attack before others in combat is that I was try stick with the video game feel, that does encourage players to attack first, but we'll see if that sticks around too long after my first game time.

What I'm thinking for player goals is that they'll be groups either trying to fight their way back out, finding the cause of the crash, and those who find themselves enjoying living inside the World, and fight their way to a position of power within the game.

The version of the game I've posted is what I like to refer to as a "Rough" where before I invest too much time into a game system to see if it will float, or sink. For the most part the numbers I've included are just numbers I came up with on the fly to try to get a feeling for the system.

I think manly I'm going to have to increase successes to 4, 5, and 6 to deal with the "whiffy" problem, and to allow me to keep the dice being rolled to a minim.

To fix the very apparent game breakingness of the Hacking rules I was thinking of adding backlash rules like when a character fails a spell role in Warhammer.

Thanks Bexil your input will be incredible useful in making this a runnable system.

[Baxil]

Eh, I've got a degree in mathematics, it's almost a reflex. 

But seriously - I need to take a step back and say, the rules hang together conceptually very well.  The fact that I was able to get in there and tinker with it and munchkin with it is actually a great comment on system cohesiveness.  If you were asking whether it's ready for you to sit down, make some characters, and see how play feels ... then yes, in my opinion, it is!

Also: You might get something out of the Fantasy Heartbreakers article, if you haven't already read it.  As I noted, there's a lot of D&D and Shadowrun influence here (the skill lists, especially, are straight out of 3e).  I bet you could really surprise yourself by going through all those parts of the system, and asking, "does this D&D-like/Shadowrun-like element actually help me create the game I want to play?"  For instance, hide your PHB for a bit and brainstorm "a list of skills that would be useful if I were stuck inside a computer game."  How much does that list look like the one in your game?

You've got a great hook in the "players stuck in a virtual world" thing - and I'm seeing promise in such things as the Player Attributes and a few skills such as Hacking - but right now the document at the link feels like it's softpedaling your premise.  When I create a character, what I end up with is a very generic-fantasy character with generic-fantasy capabilities, and then a few bits from the "real player" stuck on top.  There's room to be a lot more daring here.  Just as an example off of the top of my head - use this as a starting point for further brainstorming - what about giving each character a few free skill points in something that the real-life World Crash player knows how to do?  You already have a game whose premise blurs the player/character line!

I'm looking forward to seeing where you go with your design.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

What I'm thinking for player goals is that they'll be groups either trying to fight their way back out, finding the cause of the crash, and those who find themselves enjoying living inside the World, and fight their way to a position of power within the game.

I read your game.  I love the idea.  Your first two paragraphs sold me on the concept, but like Baxil, I was left wondering what the point of play was.  I noticed you answered that here, so I have a bit of feedback concerning this.  IMHO, the "those who find themselves enjoying living inside the World, and fight their way to a position of power" is the least intersting option.  Making your game about that would render it not materially different from any other fantasy RPG out there.  I definately think that fighitng their way out of the The World is a much cooler idea for the game, or fighting to keep people from getting out would work to.

Or, let me suggest this.  You should present several unavoidable options that force the players to take a side.  For instace, there could be four main factions in the world like these:

Faction 1:  This group is looking for any way to escape and return to their bodies.
Faction 2:  This group has given up hope on escape and is looking for any way to crash the system and kill everyone just to end the pain.
Faction 3:  This group is afraid any monkeying around with the mainframe could indeed cause a system crash and is therefore oposing Factions 1 and 2.
Faction 4:  This group is searching for a way to make a little pocket inside the World for themselves where they can be left alone and in peace away from the waring factions.

How does that sound?

Peace,

-Troy

[Trollkin]

I have to first say that I'm really enjoying the great freed back for a game idea that I was afraid wouldn't float.


Baxil thanks for the link, and the little run down on rethinking what I have to make it fit better into the setting I've chosen. Also close the simple skills were manly out of Blue Rose, but close enough. ;3

I had to laugh when I read "each character a few free skill points in something that the real-life World", because I had written a little thing just like it when I was building the system, but I left it out of the current version to save time, so that I could start getting peoples freed back sooner.
Another rule that I'm tinkering with to make the game more focused around people trapped in a game world trying to survive is a sort of frame work for players to fill in their person's background that would include things like where they were born, etc. When a players character dies, and they lose essence the GM takes away a piece of their background, essentially removing memories from the players "real life", I was, also either by itself or with the frame work idea, doing some kind of insanity point system, or something similar.

Troy I'm with you I think trying to fight your way out is always the funniest the whole great adventure idea in my option never gets odd.

I think your idea of differing factions in great, and pretty close to what I was intending to base most of the background material when I finally get around to including it in the game.

Thank you both for your feedback, and wonderful input.

-Troll

[Trollkin]

Its finely here, and done, not... I wish.
But I am done V0.06 will mostly lots of changes between this version, and my first.

Its taken me a lot longer then I wanted to but, that's life for ya.

I can't wait to hear what you all think.

Thanks

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B-0dMXFzdgiDOWM1NjU0ZjItYWY3NS00MzlhLTg3N2MtODc3YjIwZjVkY2Fj&hl=en_US&authkey=CPvttY4J 

[Bossy]

Hi, I read it through (though I didn't read carefully combat and spell/weapon lists). I like very much the premise, it's Tron in the 21st century. I agree with some Baxil's remarks:

1) It is indeed very important you think about and write about players/characters motivations otherwise it could just become just another dungeon crawler. I have nothing against it but I feel it would be a shame to waste such a good idea. Troy_Costisick has made some good suggestions to start with. I may add that since player are trapped in a very immersive world, you could add unconscious motivations. For example a character may wish to pull out of the Crash, but in fact he is in denial and actually, unconsciously do not wanna (because his life IRW is miserable and depressing).

2) About the maths. I always do them when I devise a system. It is hard and boring but it will save you a lot of playtesting time. If you have some basic high school probability/programming skills, you can do this with some help from wikipedia. If do not feel like it, ask someone for help.

3) You will have to explain what a character can or cannot do. I thought about something, you take it if you like it. What if spells and magic were effects a character can pull off by hacking the environment source code? That would open for an original dicision of school of magics: self alteration, object alteration, area scrutiny, main loop hacking (time shifting), I/O hacking (right through the essence), etc.

[Trollkin]

First thanks for taking the time to read it.

Second could you clarify about what you mean by "  you think about and write about players/characters motivations ", did you mean I should write some paragraphs that go in depth with what a characters motivations is, or did you mean I should add some form of mechanic to do this?


If you did mean mechanic solution to this problem an idea I had is to have players pick archetypes  of a type that would determine whether they wanted to return to the real world, or not, or maybe they have forgotten that they are a player at all, etc.

An example of this would like what you said lets call it the Victim archetype, and they would not want to return to the real world due to some form of abuse, or other thing.

I'm thinking maybe of treating these like a second class that is just for the players side of things like skill points for the basic, and advanced skills, etc. A problem I'm having is I don't know if I want to level this player class with the avatar class, or if I could have it gain exp by itself, that could be gained through role playing the archetype, or could be given to them by the GM for actions that are done that the reasons why the action was done was it matched the archetype the player had. Also as this archetypes level the player could cross over into different player classes, giving players the option between leveling their avatars class, or their players class.

I don't know if I'll use this, but would be nice to hear some peoples thoughts on it.


Again could you clarify what you meant by "You will have to explain what a character can or cannot do."? Also thanks for the idea I might use it for a later level player classes, don't know, but it sounds fun.

[Bossy]

First thanks for taking the time to read it.

Second could you clarify about what you mean by "  you think about and write about players/characters motivations ", did you mean I should write some paragraphs that go in depth with what a characters motivations is, or did you mean I should add some form of mechanic to do this?

I think you pretty well caught the meaning of this, just put it on paper. I was not thinking in terms of mechanics but in terms of chargen. A GM will have to assert some premises ("the Prize is getting out", "there's no way to get out"). A good way to approach characters motivations is to answer these questions and decide which answers depend on the PC and which are shared for all characters.
[list="1"]

• is a character aware he is a player avatar?
• is the character in denial of his virtuality?
• does he forget about it? if so permanently or temporarily?
• what remains of the player identity/personality?
• does the character share memories with the player?
• is there a tension between the character and the player? does one wants to get rid of the other?
• does the character want to leave the game and return to real world? why?
• does the character want to stay in the game? why?

Again could you clarify what you meant by "You will have to explain what a character can or cannot do."? Also thanks for the idea I might use it for a later level player classes, don't know, but it sounds fun.

In which occasions a GM will require a Hack roll? In which situations a PC may seek to overcome an obstacle with the Hacking skill? I'm looking for concrete answers in order to get a grip of how much of a hacker you envision a hacker.

Additionally, may I suggest some terminology changes in character types?

• Hacker -> Script kiddie
• Master hacher -> Hacker
• Maintenance -> Administrator, or Admin