Alright then, second attempt, this one a little more detailed..... hopefully!


SO, my questions are;
*If playing this system, how do you think you would find the rules outlined below? Would they be acceptable, enjoyable, or plain naff?
*Do you think the organisation is useful, both for locating and for play using the defaulting rules outlined below?
I*s there anything specific that you consider incorrect, wrong or that is likely to have a negative affect on play?
*Have you seen similar, did it work, or can you give me details regarding it?
*Any pointers you would care to make?

OK, I have a System ,(INI), that is very broard and has a large amount of scope. It is intended to permit players to enjoy a varity of gaming styles. The method of organising the skills and how they work is meant to loosely resemble our reality, yet is more considerate towrds gameplay, application of skills and chances of successfully attempting tasks. The groupings are flexible, permit crossovers and repeatitions of skills in different groups. The groups aren't meant to be Classed or stereotypical in the Class/Kit sense, yet are meant to follow logical and obvious routes as to what goes where.

MY personal preference is detailed, yet not complex. Below is an example of how skills work;


Skill Mechanics.
All Skills are related to a Character Statistic/Attribute, (which is listed next to the skill!). Together, these form the base Score/Chancess for success, (Stat + SKill). Every LEvel of Skill is equal to +10%, thus having a Stat of 20 and a Skill of 4 would equal a base score of 60% ,(ST 20% + SK 40% = BBS 60%), which is then modified by difficulty, (Diff), which ranges from Diff 0, (Easy at +15%), through to 10, (nigh impossible at -70%). When you apply the Diff to the ST + SK, then you have the bsaic formula for figuring the Target Number, (TN), to successfully attempt the task at hand. You merely roll a D100, any result of equal or lwer value than the TN is a success.

Example: 1. (Mechanics)

ST 20, Sk 3, Diff 5 =
ST 20% + SK 30% + Diff -30% = TN 20%, (1 to 20 is a success!).


Layout.
Skills are formed into loose groups, called Title Groups. These are simply a way or gathering together a large number os detailed skills so that locating them should be somewhat easier for Players. These groups are then divided and sub-divded several tiomes, each group getting more detailed and specific. See the example below to see what I mean;

EXAMPLE: 2a. (General Layout)

TITLE GROUP
*...Main Group
**......Sub-Group (Associated Skills)
***.........Individual/Specific Skill (Related Skills)


EXAMPLE: 2b. (Layout)

Weapon Skills
*...Swords
**......Large Swords
***.........Flamberge
***.........Claymore
***.........Two-Hander
**......Medium Swords
***.........Long Sword
***.........Cutlass
***.........Sabre


Basic/Advanced/Optional use of Skills.
Depending on Player Preference, Either the Sub-group OR the Individual SKills can be used as the main way of generating a Base Chance of Success. This means that if Players want to play Basic Rules, or to save time, then they simply learn the Sub-Groups, so they could learn Large Swords, Sport Car, Riding Land based Animals, etc. If on the other hand they want to play with more detail, then they can learn the Individual SKills instead, (those that appear within a Sub-group!).
The simple reason for this is that different people want different things. Further, depending on how people play, it permits different emphasis to be applied to the game. Combat based games may have high detail, )individual skills) for Combat, yet have low detail, )sub-groups_ for non-combat skills.
Addiotionally, it is possible to go even further, and advance into tailored or specific skills, such as not just having the Individual skill of Gem Cutting, but you could specialise in Diamond Cutting, thuis you could get Gems, yet would be better with diamons etc.

Defaulting.
There is an optional rule called defaulting. This means that if a Character is attempting a Task they lack the skill for, then they still have a chance at success. There are several different methods of defaultiong.
Stat Default: - This means that the Character relies on the related Stat for their base chance of succes, without any skill Modify. SO for weapon usage, they would use only their Attack Rating Stat, for picking a lock, they would use their Co-ordination Stat, or for using a Psionic power, they would use their Focus Stat. Any such attempt at defaulting to stat also incurs a Unskilled Penalty, lowering the chances of success and reflecting the affects of lacking any skill whatso ever!
Related Default: -This means that the Character lacks the relevant skill, yet has one in the same Sub-group, which they can default too. So, though skilled in the long sword, the only weapon to hand is a sabre, so they may attempt to attack with the sabre, yet using their long sword skill, at a slightly lower level as a penalty for the lack of specific skkil in that weapon.
Associated Default: - This means that the Character is attempting a Task they lack the relevant skill for, yet they have a skill in a sub-group under the same main group, foe example, they may attempt using a Short Sword whilst having skill in a Log Sword, (two seperate Sub-Gropups under the same main group!). THus results inthem using the stated skill whilst using a different weapon, and receiving a moderate penalty for doing so!
Obviously, considering the Hi/Lo detail for skills, certain forms of defaulting may not be available!



There, that make more sense?
Is that better?

To repeat the questions......
SO, my questions are;
*If playing this system, how do you think you would find the rules outlined below? Would they be acceptable, enjoyable, or plain naff?
*Do you think the organisation is useful, both for locating and for play using the defaulting rules outlined below?
I*s there anything specific that you consider incorrect, wrong or that is likely to have a negative affect on play?
*Have you seen similar, did it work, or can you give me details regarding it?
*Any pointers you would care to make?

Autocrat wrote: To repeat the questions......
SO, my questions are;
*If playing this system, how do you think you would find the rules outlined below? Would they be acceptable, enjoyable, or plain naff?
*Do you think the organisation is useful, both for locating and for play using the defaulting rules outlined below?
I*s there anything specific that you consider incorrect, wrong or that is likely to have a negative affect on play?
*Have you seen similar, did it work, or can you give me details regarding it?
*Any pointers you would care to make?

Can you provide a more rigorous definition of a title group?

If each Individual Skill appears under only one category (that is, the skill groups branch, they aren't alternative paths to the same destinations), then it would be helpful to know exactly what a skill group means, so I know exactly where in my skill list to look.

I dislike the skill systems of this general type that I've tried, because sooner or later (usually sooner) I'm going to run into situations where the system says one thing and common sense says another. Then I either go with common sense or I don't -- and in either case, what good is the system doing me?

Suppose a character has a "drag racing" skill, and another has the "highway patrolman" skill at the same level. Neither character has the "NASCAR racing" skill. Both attempt to drive in a NASCAR race. Who should have a better chance of performing well (not winning, of course, which should be practically impossible for either one, but let's say successfully impersonating a real low-ranking NASCAR driver)? Chances are, your default system will give the better odds to the drag racer, because it appears when you're working out the skill tree that drag racing is more closely related to NASCAR racing than being a highway patrolman is. (And for many situations, that's true. The drag racer would probably have a pretty good idea of how to assemble a good pit crew and negotiate with sponsors to finance a race entry, while the highway patrolman would have no clue.) But in this case that's wrong. The highway patrolman probably has a better grasp of the basic driving skills used in a NASCAR race (negotiating curves, controlling slides, defensive maneuvering, etc.) than the drag racer does.

The lesson here is that the applicability of a "related skill" to a challenge depends a whole lot on the exact nature of the task. To give a real-life example, I know some programming languages and don't know others. (This would presumably be title group: cybernetics, Main Group: programming; Sub-group: the type of programming [system, database, applications, etc.]; Individual: the programming language -- or the last two could be reversed in the hierarchy.) If you give me a task of reading source code in a language I don't know, to figure out what the code does and how to alter it, I will be nearly as good at it as someone who does have experience in that language, because most languages have fundamental similarities. If you give me the task of writing a program in a language I don't know, from scratch, with no manual, I will suck at it compared with the person with experience in that language, because all languages have fiddly little details that have to be done right to get a program to work. In the first task, the fiddly little details don't happen to matter much; in the second, the fundamental similarities don't happen to matter much.

Note that this is not simply a case of one task being more inherently difficult than the other. Either task could be of any inherent difficulty. It's that one task is more dependent on more specialized ability than the other. So one task is relatively more difficult for me, compared with someone with a more specific expertise, than the other one is.

So why is this a problem? Do these sorts of differences in skill cross-applicability for different tasks really cause problems in play? Well, in my experience, usually not. What usually happens is that the GM takes into account any difference between the applicability of the related skill based on common sense, and the applicability of the related skill as suggested by the system, by adjusting the difficulty rating. "You're a champion drag racer, but this NASCAR race is on a track with lots of challenging curves, so the difficulty is 5 for you." Or: "You've never raced professionally before, but your experience with high-speed chases on Mulholland Drive makes this crowded curvy track seem just like Beggar's Canyon back home, so to speak, so the difficulty is only 3 for you."

But if I'm going to make those judgment calls as a GM, what's the benefit of having all the detailed skill ratings in the first place? Let the highway patrolman, the drag racer, and the NASCAR driver all have some level in "vehicle," and I can make the same kind of adjustments to difficulty on the fly to take each character's actual background and skill specialization profile, and the nature of the task, into account. It comes out the same (and, to use some newly coined terminology, involves the same amount of "back sourcing").

The other frequent problem with skill hierarchy systems is that players who create characters with a group of skills that happen to match the way the hierarchy has chosen to group skills get a big effectiveness advantage over characters with an equally conceptually unified group of skills that happen to fall into many different categories. Usually such systems give a purchasing discount to multiple skills in the same branch of the tree (by discounting skills related to skills already purchased, or by permitting a whole group of related skills to be purchased at a higher price but a better deal overall). Or they allow free use of skills related to skills already purchased at a slightly reduced effectiveness level, as your default mechanism does. So one player has a character concept "guy who shoots guns a lot," while another has "detective." The gun nut buys a lot of "shoot little guns" skill and thereby also gets a lot of "shoot bigger guns" skill for free (using default) or at a reduced price (using discount purchasing for "related" skills). The detective also buys "shoot little guns" and therefore in theory he could also shoot bigger guns pretty well (or acquire the shoot bigger guns skill very cheaply), but he doesn't want to. He wants to do other detective stuff like "find info from the records at City Hall" or "identify fiber traces." Too bad for him, those skills are in entirely separate categories. He has to pay full price for them (or equivalently, he gets no default opportunity between one and another). So the every-size-gun guy will advance much faster than the detective, whose plausible skill set happens to be more widely dispersed in the taxonomy.

This all happens because the system designer has decided that "different size guns" is a more important commonality between skills than "different things a detective can do." It's not. It's. Just. Not.

Now, I'm not saying your system has these problems. I don't know enough details about it to tell. But these are the reasons I haven't found rigid skill taxonomies to be useful in systems I've tried that had them.

- Walt

O.K., here are some of my thoughts/responses.

Stat+Skill: is there a particular reason why you are doing it this way, or is it merely that's how these things are done? Note that I'm not against this approach--Multiverser uses it. The problem is that particularly if you've got a very large skill base, it leads to system quirks in which it is best to buy your skills at low levels and kick your attributes up to high levels. (Multiverser overcomes this by putting certain aspects of skill use, such as speed of use, in the skill ratings only, so a level 2 skill/level 1 attribute will be faster than a level 1 skill/level 2 attribute, even though chance of success will be the same). In general, you should have a reason for this as a design decision, because it's easy to break and popular enough that most players know how to break it.

20%: I trust that example is not expected to be typical. That's a high whiff factor. I think any game in which a rank amateur of ordinary ability has much less than a 50% chance of success at typical game tasks has got a problem. Check how hard you're making it, because it is possible to create a design situation in which the characters succeed so rarely they can't progress.

Subgroup versus Skill: is this something that has to be agreed by the group, or is it possible for different players in the same game to play together effectively if they're using different granularity here?

Let me point to Multiverser's narrowing of scope rules. Similar to yours, there is a general, a sub-group, and a specific level. With swords, it would be Swords-->Katanas-->My Katana (with non-weapon skills it is looser, such as Motor Vehicles-->Race Cars-->Dragsters). A skill at the lowest levels is always in the general group; it moves to the subgroup when it reaches "professional" level and to the specific level when it reaches "expert" level. Thus the granularity is consistent for all players, without conflict--someone not terribly interested in being great with swords can just be "sword" skilled, while someone for whom this is an important part of play can develop high levels of skill in specific weapons.

(Forgive me for constantly pointing to Multiverser. I addressed a lot of the questions you seem to be asking when I worked on that, so I'm very familiar with the answers we gave to them.)

I hope this is helpful.

--M. J. Young

If you can get your hands on a copy of 1st ed Paranoia with its skill trees, you might find some kindred spirits in its designers. OTOH, you might want to check out the designer comments from 2nd ed to see why they revised that system.

Autocrat wrote: *If playing this system, how do you think you would find the rules outlined below? Would they be acceptable, enjoyable, or plain naff?
*Do you think the organisation is useful, both for locating and for play using the defaulting rules outlined below?
I*s there anything specific that you consider incorrect, wrong or that is likely to have a negative affect on play?
*Have you seen similar, did it work, or can you give me details regarding it?
*Any pointers you would care to make?

Thank you....a much more pleasurable set of responses...lovely!

now then, in order......

... montag ...

"... I found long skill lists have a negative effect on my play since too much time is spent finding the relevant skill for a particular situation. ..."

Yep, I can see that is a potential problem. The only solutions I can think of are 1) create the groupings to follow obvious logic ,(yeah, right! LOL), or 2) provide the DM's book with an alphabetical listing of skills, accompanied by the related stats!

"... GURPS, Rolemaster, Multiverser, OSIRIS (German), possibly JAGS ..."

Well, I liked Gurps ( + Murps), looked at OSIRIS, and JAGS was OK, yet my bugbear with them was they tended to be complicated on the workings out, with odd little equations, compounded and extrapolated modifiers etc. Prefer simple A + B +C = D, easier and quicker. Yet Gurps, as well as Shadowrun, Fallout and AD&D are the main influencers for me, (both good and bad!).


... Shreyas Sampat ...

TITLE GROUP.
Merely the label used for a generalisation of the Main/Sub/Ind Skills contained. Examples are COMBAT, VEHICLE, SURVIVAL and SOCIAL as Title Groups.

MAIN GROUP.
This is a collection of Sub-Groups and the Individual Skills contained in each Sub-Group. Some Examples include Swords, Aero-vehicles, Basic Survival and Public Communication.
Main Groups tend to have several Sub-groups that are related to each other, thus under Swords, you would have Large, Small, Fencing etc. These are termed as associated.

SUB-GROUPS.
These are the more defined groupings of individual skills. Sub-groups are collectiones of related Individual skills, some examples would be Small Swords, Cars, Subsistence and Public Speaking.

INDIVIDUAL.
These are the detailed and distinct Skills, contained within a Sub-GRoup. Some examples would be Short Sword, Saloon Car, Hunting and Oratory.
Individual SKills within a Sub-Group are termed as related, and are considered to be closely interlinked, requiring similar application of motion and thought.


... Walt Freitag ...

OK, brilliant explanaitions. Yet I wouldn't have the groupings as you suggested. To me, any form of vehivcle use like that would appear in the same skill Sub-Group, so both Highway man and Drag Man would get the same modifier for Defaulting skills. Further, the Difficulty would probably vary, depedning on the experience of each and the DM's decisions. If defaulting, then a base Modifier is used for Difficulty, otherwise you'd have to list umpteen different difficulties for different terrains bsaed upon different skills.
So, the check would be bsaed upon the Skill, the base Stat, then the Driving difficulty of the vehicle they use, (optional), and the difficulty of the race/track. The person with NASCAR would get Difficulty AAA becuase thats the difficulty set for the race/track. Highway Man and Drag MAn both get the same difficulty, yet suffer a negative modifier due to their defaulting... so even if all had Level 5 in their respective skills, the NASCAR Man is more likely to succeed due to having less negatives against him!
Make sense?

The programming one I liked too.... it highlights a major problem with most RPG's, no matter the skill system... It shows that no matter the balance of detail to generalisation, theres always a slip up compared to reality, and the only way to have it exactly is to have so much detail you'd use a tree just for the skill section of the rule book!
So instead, you generate mechanics that cover it, right? Or leave it for adjudication of the DM, Right?
So, why not have a Modifier based on reference/Knowledge material to hand, as well as the appropriate skill. That way, if you have source code, you can default to your skill, and suffer a default modifier thats negative, gain a slight positive modifier for the refrence/knowledge of the code, and have a moderated success chance, or you could attempt to do it without reference,m and have a greatly reduced chance due to attempting to default and having a high difficulty!
Make sense?
Or you can let the DM decide.

As for the problems with skill groups etc....not to sure that I agree. I can understand people assuming that the rules favour certain actions, yet when you default, its at a reduced affectiveness. Further, the different types of defaulting result in more negative modifiers, (Related =-2, Associated= -3, Stat = -4 or whatever!).
Also, those that wish for certain skills should have them. If defaulting is used, the more skills you have in different sub-groups and main groups, the bigger selection of skills you can default to. It's those that specialise and spend CP's purchasing lots of different Little Gun skills that should suffer, right? Well, not exactly, becuase if they defalut to a different little gun skill, then they still have a fair degree of chance with it, as they are likely to know it, or have such high skill that the defalut modifier will leave them with a good chance of success anyway due to how skilled they are!
Have considered enforced purchasing, having to buy into different groups etc., yet this means requisites, which are unfair and result in skill specialisations, as you would loose a lot of Points just to get the odd skill here and there, where as you can save them if you only choose skills from those groups you've already bought into!
Further more, you assume that the skills lean towards weapons. The reason for this post is to ask and recieve feed back on the types of skills and groupings of them that people feel games should have yet often lack!


... M. J. Young ...


STAT + SKILL.
The reason is simple, it covers both sides of Nature vs. Nurture, it reflects what I feel is corect about natural talent and training, and it's simply calculated.
As for breaking it...difficult to predict. Yet to help prevent it, skills range in cost between 2 and 12 CP's, (depending on the skill and its uses, the time period, commanility etc.), plus the skill cost increase with each level. The Stats cost a set amount, (currently 10), so at least to begin with, the skills are cheaper and will have more immediate affect.
Further, increasing a skill grants a +10% Modifier per level, where as increasing a stat only grants a +1 Modifier...so which would you go for?
(the math is simple, skills are more affective, show greater improvement more rapidly and get you where you want fast...stats take time, improve a lot of things by only a little, and take far to many Points to change enough to warrant it to often).
Thegame should permit Characters to improve Stats, yet only by a little, (unless its a super game, in which things might be different!).

20%.
Well, the thing is, you don't roll unless necessary. Having no skill, (0), means you have to try and see, or you just can't. having a little skill (1-3), means you can do the basics without worry, yet difficult things you may have to roll for. Any higher than 3 means you are going above standard skill levels, reaching into mastery etc., so normal and slightly difficult tasks are needed for rolling, yet very difficulkt etc. can still be rolled.
It's basically using common sense...having the DRIVE CAR skill and rolling every time you start the ignition is stupid. Only roll if they have to avoid an accident, or race, or do something flash or diffiuclt.
Make sense?

Individual vs. Sub-group.
Not sure on this one. I know that every one using the same is fine.
I know that it's possible to "bulk purchase" a sub-group.
In theory, we have it so you can use both at the same time, yet having tested it properly yet!

As for the example you provided, am I right in saying that you are general to begin with, yet get more detailes/specialised as you increase in level?
If so, what happens if you want to have several skills branch of together, so you are skill with several weapons simlar to Katana's? Or if you want to stay generalised, yet keep improving?


... John Kim ...

It really depends on how definitive you are, and how you categorise the skills. By having the TITLE GROUPS fairly well defined, it makes life easier. You shouldn't find Combat skills in SOcial groups etc.
What you should and will find is individual skills appearing in several Main and Sub-groups, as this is natural... for example, intimidation might appear in several groups, such as interrogation, private interaction and public interaction, as it is likely to be used in various social occassions and environments.
As for shadowrun, I liked it alot, yet found the rules to be convulted and difficult at best, as there was little in the way of explanation or example. once you figured it out, it was really quite simple, yet covered with a lot of unnecessary text! LOL

Forced tiering is a slight problem, as we tend to categorise and detail things differently. The trick is figuring base common factors and working from their. The real problem is that things fit better into four and five levels than in three's, yet that was just far to much and to many levels for people to grasp easily enough!

As for broad and general, thats why I have it that you can use the Sub-groups instead. I know that somepeople prefer the more general approach, and so have provided it, with a fairly simple addition for those that want ore detail.
Does that saound


ok, as some people seem to think you should only do one or the other?


well, thak you all again!
still, if there are any suggestions or alternatives, plese suggest them. I am rethinking the system over, and am willing to make changes, yet i must state that I do like what i have, and have found it to work! (as yet, I don't seem to have had the majority of the problems people have suggested, guess I'm just lucky in the way I grouped things!)
Yet if someone can make a case for something different, then i am willing to listen.

John Kim wrote: I agree with other commenters that the three-level tree tends to result in counter-intuitive relation of skills. I dealt with this in CORPS, which has similar trees of primary, secondary, and tertiary skills. One problem I find is that when you create a real set of categories, there is usually a lot of cross-fertilization which should appear (i.e. a narrow skill which is influenced by more than one broad category). In other words, real skill diagrams are more like webs than neat hierarchies, in my opinion. Two levels is OK, in my experience, but three starts to show holes. Of course, Shadowrun explicitly has a web approach, but that gets complicated very fast.

CORPS has the added problem of forced detailing. Because of how the point system worjs (cost = square of skill), it is helpful to advance on all three levels for even moderate skills. This means that character sheets turned into quite a mess.

Also, I would be wary of aesthetic demands vs functional demands. For example, a lot of modern games insist that, say, languages have the same ratings and mechanics as combat skills. Now, aesthetics can be important, but I think it is good to question this. IMO, having a separate case for languages can be simpler and more intuitive than trying to explain how to use the same mechanics for both languages and combat skills. The point for your game: trying to get all conceivable types of human knowledge and activities to fit into a consistent three-tiered hierarchy can lead to some mental acrobatics to make everything fit. Be sure that this really fits with how you want your system to work.

In practice, the more system-defined skills you have, the more work it is to write them and the harder they are to learn. If the skill isn't actually any more detailed or described than just a name, then in practice there is very little difference from freeform skills like Over the Edge, Unknown Armies, etc.

In short, I'd recommend broader categories and two levels instead of three. However, I have my own biases on that. It's the logic of trade-offs that I explain which is important. If you think the trade-off is worth it, then obviously you should go with what you're most comfortable with.

Autocrat wrote: TITLE GROUP.
Merely the label used for a generalisation of the Main/Sub/Ind Skills contained. Examples are COMBAT, VEHICLE, SURVIVAL and SOCIAL as Title Groups.

you wrote: You shouldn't find Combat skills in SOcial groups etc.

You wrote: As for the example you provided, am I right in saying that you are general to begin with, yet get more detailes/specialised as you increase in level?
If so, what happens if you want to have several skills branch of together, so you are skill with several weapons simlar to Katana's? Or if you want to stay generalised, yet keep improving?

Now you see, this is the point when I get really confused, and admittedly, highly annoyed.

You see, from day one, the primary thought of the design was to permit flexibility. we decided that the main areas to be flexible and permit differences were
1) SKills (general and detailed)
2) Amount of Stat Detail for Equipment (basic and advanced)
3) Stats (Basic and Detailed)
4) Resolution Method. (D100, Multiple Die, Diceless etc.)

So thats what we did.
There are two main reasons for this.
1) We wanted these things.
2) We kept hearing others say how they wanted these things.

Yet, now that I have rumaged, pushed, tweaked, rewrote and juggled things, (actually I'm exaggerating, it was actually quite simple ! LOL), all I get is 2 types of response.... 1 group say its too detailed, and to specific and too much work, the other group says not enough, why have basic etc.

So the only answer I can conclude is that every one is different, they prefer their own works and don't like seeing others do something different.

To the point, I've even had people slam me, then they have posted an almost identicall approach!

So, is this the normal occurence of such things?




... Cruciel ...

Now you see, what you suggested I have seen a lot, take Shadowrun for example, or Alternacy, or a host of others. Yet I've noticed that they tend to either be really general and broad, with little actually stating what covers what, and relying on the players to decide, or they are open ended, and leave it to the players to decide what does what and how.
This is fine for people that have played and are used to RPG's , for newbies or those that prefer hard rules, it's of little use from my experience.

Also, you mentioned having languages as handled differently, yet all I hear is people moaning about extra mechanics, so many different ways of doing things, yet people keep generating different methods of handling similar stuff.
If you handle the other skills as 2 tier, why not languages? If you give me some examples of how you use languages, it shouldn't be hard to figure a simp[le 2 tier approach!


... M. J. Young ...


Ah, now you've hit on a difficult point....all skills can be used for different purposes than originally intended...particularly for violence. Yet the example you gave of intimidation and samuria is not a combat skill, it is before combat occurs, and it relates to two people interacting, so definitely social....see?

Yet the point you made still stands. The real problem is figuring what goes with what, and how.
So you relate by implementation. If it is specifically or initially tened towards a thing, that is the group it belongs in, thus vehicle combat comes under vehicles. Weapons under weapons, fighting styles etc. under combat, social skills under social etc.

Whether using a single, double, triple tier system or not, it still works the same, right?

Animals is a pain, yet I think they are currently organised the same as vehicles, by terrain type..... I klnow I have an old list by species type, (mammal-feline, mammal-canine etc.), somewhere on a CD though!



So, by going from what I put at the start of this post, I feel I'm rapidly comming to the point where I'm just going to say stuff it, as I can't seem to put things across in the right manner to evoke the responses I am after with out bending over backwards all of the time, I just get to much #### thrown at me first to warrant it.

So, thank you for the posts that were helpful and pointed out problems... I really do appreciate it when there are pleasent people out there!

Autocrat wrote:
So, by going from what I put at the start of this post, I feel I'm rapidly comming to the point where I'm just going to say stuff it, as I can't seem to put things across in the right manner to evoke the responses I am after with out bending over backwards all of the time, I just get to much #### thrown at me first to warrant it.

SO, my questions are;
*If playing this system, how do you think you would find the rules outlined below? Would they be acceptable, enjoyable, or plain naff?
*Do you think the organisation is useful, both for locating and for play using the defaulting rules outlined below?
I*s there anything specific that you consider incorrect, wrong or that is likely to have a negative affect on play?
*Have you seen similar, did it work, or can you give me details regarding it?
*Any pointers you would care to make?

Eero Tuovinen wrote: Almost all people in Forge have been hooked with highly specific, economic design philosophy. What you're doing is just not fashionable here, just check out what gets written about and what doesn't. After a certain point, if you prefer your own design, you should just go with it. These people have pointed out what they think could be improved, but you cannot make them love your game.

M. J. Young wrote:

Eero Tuovinen wrote: Almost all people in Forge have been hooked with highly specific, economic design philosophy. What you're doing is just not fashionable here, just check out what gets written about and what doesn't. After a certain point, if you prefer your own design, you should just go with it. These people have pointed out what they think could be improved, but you cannot make them love your game.

Euro, I think this does a bit of a disservice to The Forge.

So I don't think we're opposed to complexity per se, but to complexity that does not serve a functional purpose in achieving clearly defined game design objectives.

Autocrat (I'm sorry, I may have missed it, but do you mind if I use your real name?),

I have a slightly different bit of advice from Euro, who has said that if you don't like the kind of feedback you get at the Forge, you might want to try someplace else to see if you get the kind of feedback you're looking for.

I think you should do the opposite. I think you should engage with the feedback here. Here's why: it's useful because it is not what you're looking for. It is stuff you wouldn't have heard if you just got what you were looking for.
Now I haven't been part of this thread yet. I've been just an observer, so I'm not emotionally committed to any particular choices you make in your design. I was only prompted to join because you expressed the sense that you were being attacked. But before Euro's fairly blunt comments about his (and remember that it's just one person's) sense of the quality of the game, well, nothing was said in this thread that I could see as any kind of attack. Certainly, there were a lot of critical comments. But isn't that why you asked for feedback?

Look at it this way--these people have written some very long and very thought out responses to your query for feedback. I've seen games get very little in the way of response, so you should be thankful for the sheer amount of interest people are showing and the work they are putting in to reply to you. But they are not here to tell you what you want to hear. It isn't fair to ask for critique and then become annoyed by critique, honestly. It also isn't fair to ask everyone to give you the same advice. Of course different people will have different insights. That's why you ask more than one person.

If you already have the answers, then don't ask the questions. You will never be happy with the responses you get. You must be ready to really, seriously, and honestly engage with the feedback. It is not personal. It is not feedback about you. It is feedback about the game. Now I can't tell whether you are honestly engaging with the feedback or whether you are instinctively defending your game against it. You seem to be doing the latter, not to be stepping back from the product and distancing yourself from it. But it is absolutely necessary to step back and distance yourself from the game if you want to produce the best product. Maybe you are already doing this, which is good--maybe you have a defense for each piece of feedback because after careful consideration you really have found better answers. It is possible. I can't read your mind. But you should not need a defense against anything--this feedback is not a set of attacks. If you're defending yourself and your game against the comments you receive, you probably aren't genuinely engaging with the comments in a useful way.

Rich

Rich, that was a great post.

Autocrat, what I'm seeing here is a conflict between a system that demands extreme rigor, with its tiered skills and so forth, coupled with a very non-rigorous approach to design. This shows up in your skill tiers, particularly: a Title Group can be, by your set of examples, a set of situations in which the skills are relevant (Combat), a set of tools that the skills can be used on (Vehicle), a goal that the skills can accomplish (Survival), and the first case again (Social).

So how does anyone decide, with all these overlapping categories (I suppose that there's also a "Not Combat" group, a "Weapons" group, a "Killing" group, a "Chases" group, an "Escape" group, a "Travelling" group, a "Wilderness" group, a "Swiss Army Knife" group, and so on) where any skill belongs? It isn't good enough to define a group as "the group that contains its members," which is what you did in your earlier post; that means exactly nothing. Even the two-tiered Exalted system is so conceptually loose that it's rearranged with every new splat. The rigid taxonomy of skill divisions that you're aiming at can't be accomplished unless the players understand the taxonomy clearly. I feel like I have to point out that a system is a technical document at one level or another; it has to be approached technically, or the system is in your head and what's on the paper is something that might resemble the system, but isn't communicable to other people and so it doesn't constitute an actual game.

I may be tied to System Does Matter too hard, but I cannot understand how a designer of system that intends to be so deeply parametric (You hypothesize two randomizers and a non-randomized system! You suggest that the lower skill tiers can be simply discarded!) can expect to predict how the different combinations of parameters will interact in play, and if the designer can't make that prediction, then there isn't really any design going on.

I hope this doesn't discourage you from designing your game. I am only trying to say that, from your statements, it seems like there is a great deal of system in your head that you aren't communicating to us, and if you aren't going to communicate your system to a community of designers who are only trying to be helpful, then I how are you going to communicate it to a world of lazy gamers who don't care one way or another whether they play your game or All Flesh Must Be Eaten?

I must apologize, Eero, for misspelling your name. I know I've caught myself doing it before. My inadequate defense is that it is (to me, at least) a unique name, and thus my eye tends to see it as a slightly more familiar word.

Regarding Multiverser, last I looked you could acquire it (and all the Multiverser books) through Amazon's various European stores. If you follow the link in my sig (to books), then from that page to the individual pages for each book, there are direct links to online sellers, including Amazon UK, France, and Germany. I don't know if there's a supplier more convenient for you, but at least you don't have to order it from across the pond.

If you have trouble getting it, let me know, and I'll see what I can do to fix it.

--M. J. Young

M. J. Young wrote:
I must apologize, Eero, for misspelling your name. I know I've caught myself doing it before. My inadequate defense is that it is (to me, at least) a unique name, and thus my eye tends to see it as a slightly more familiar word.

Regarding Multiverser, last I looked you could acquire it (and all the Multiverser books) through Amazon's various European stores. If you follow the link in my sig (to books), then from that page to the individual pages for each book, there are direct links to online sellers, including Amazon UK, France, and Germany. I don't know if there's a supplier more convenient for you, but at least you don't have to order it from across the pond.

Autocrat wrote: Now you see, what you suggested I have seen a lot, take Shadowrun for example, or Alternacy, or a host of others. Yet I've noticed that they tend to either be really general and broad, with little actually stating what covers what, and relying on the players to decide, or they are open ended, and leave it to the players to decide what does what and how.
This is fine for people that have played and are used to RPG's , for newbies or those that prefer hard rules, it's of little use from my experience.

Also, you mentioned having languages as handled differently, yet all I hear is people moaning about extra mechanics, so many different ways of doing things, yet people keep generating different methods of handling similar stuff.
If you handle the other skills as 2 tier, why not languages? If you give me some examples of how you use languages, it shouldn't be hard to figure a simp[le 2 tier approach!