Hi,

We have been working on an RPG system for 2 years and we are finally getting ready to publish. I wish I had found this site sooner :(

Can I ask if anyone would look over the base rules and let me know your opinions? We have approached the system is a tiered way. There are simple rules that resolve actions via 2 roll types.
The difference is that players can use either the advanced rules or base rules in the same game and it does not affect gameplay. It means we can keep the old AD&D gamers happy and the more narrative players in the same session.

We have a demo scenario (Ghosts of wreckers cove) that outlines the basic rules, so please download a copy and let me have it **Blocks critisism attack, swish!**.
We also have a character generator that gives you an idea of the basic characteristics each race starts with, including their race skills.

http://www.redravenrpg.com/downloads/demoscenario.zip

Please let me know what you think

FruitBatInShades

The ldownloads don't appear to be working

Worked fine for me.

Will look at it in the morning.

Simon

Works here also

Works now.

My apologies guys, I didn't zip the character sheets up in the file. Sorry I've done it now

**scuttles under rock**

I've had a brief glance through the rules, they seem mostly sane, but one thing jumps out at me:

The Rule Of One - Sorry? You're chance to fumble increases with skill - are you sure? In fact with as few as 4 dice, you have an over 50% chance to fumble. I haven't done the numbers but I suspect the fumble effect is more important than the increase in average, and that higher skills are actually, therefore, detrimental.

Er, I read the rules wrong, sorry - ignore my last post.

I've looked at the rules, not the scenario. The scenario seems not to contain the four player characters it promises - this makes it difficult to assess.

Comments:

The dice system has a potential for a significant number of re-rolls, most of which seem to be uneeded given the example difficulty levels (a 10 would succeed without any re-roll). With a skill of 4: 70% of rolls would involve at least one re-roll, with a skill of 3: 50%.

The combat system offers multiple chances to avoid being hit: defending, dodging and shield block - this could lead to long handling times, and hits being rare events. Combined with a damage reduction system (in which it's not clear where the base damage comes from), I suspect this will lead to long, and rather dull fights.

There is no mention of what damage is done to.

The combat rules imply a round system, but there is no description of how this works, or how often 'initiative' is rolled.

There are spells in the rules, but no spell-casting rules.

Overall there seems little in the rules I would find particularly interesting - although without character creation rules, spell-casting rules and a structure to how skills are going to work it's hard to tell. This is not to say they're bad rules - just that they don't seem to have anything about them that really sets them apart from any other rule set.

My biggest worry for the rules is handling time, particularly in combat.

Here is the percentage chance of rolling on or above the amount:-

[code]+-----------------------+------+------+------+------+------+
| Chance of X or higher | 1d10 | 2d10 | 3d10 | 4d10 | 5d10 |
+-----------------------+------+------+------+------+------+
| 1 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| 2 | 90 | 99 | 99.9 | 99.99| 99.99|
| 3 | 80 | 96 | 99.2 | 99.84| 99.96|
| 4 | 70 | 91 | 97.3 | 99.19| 99.75|
| 5 | 60 | 84 | 93.6 | 97.44| 98.97|
| 6 | 50 | 75 | 87.5 | 93.75| 96.87|
| 7 | 40 | 64 | 78.4 | 87.04| 92.22|
| 8 | 30 | 51 | 65.7 | 75.99| 83.19|
| 9 | 20 | 36 | 48.8 | 59.04| 67.23|
| 10 | 10 | 19 | 27.1 | 34.39| 40.95|
|Chance of Fumble | 10 | 1 | 0.1 | 0.01 | 0.001|
+-----------------------+------+------+------+------+------+ [/code]


I didn't do the maths by the way :-) and yes, people do still fumble occaisonaly with 4 dice, seriously unlucky but it's happened twice.

Yeah, your fumble rules are fine - I just read them wrong first time.

Those numbers look right - my % chances for re-rolls above are wrong. Still that's quite a lot of re-rolls with higher skills.

Jack Aidley wrote: The dice system has a potential for a significant number of re-rolls, most of which seem to be uneeded given the example difficulty levels (a 10 would succeed without any re-roll). With a skill of 4: 70% of rolls would involve at least one re-roll, with a skill of 3: 50%.

Jack Aidley wrote: The combat system offers multiple chances to avoid being hit: defending, dodging and shield block - this could lead to long handling times, and hits being rare events. Combined with a damage reduction system (in which it's not clear where the base damage comes from), I suspect this will lead to long, and rather dull fights.

Jack Aidley wrote: There is no mention of what damage is done to.

Jack Aidley wrote: There are spells in the rules, but no spell-casting rules.

I always hated gaming systems that you had to deal with physics in. Why get a calculator out and times the mass of the player, by their strength to see if they jump a gap?

The GM decides what the difficulty is, so a character with a prowess of 8 trying to jump a 3ft gap, wouldn't even be rolled. The same character trying to jump a 10ft gap is a different story.

Player: I want to jump the gap.
GM: It's 10ft you know? (difficulty 15, guestimate)
Player: Ok, I'm gong to take a running jump
GM: Ok (Running -2 from the difficulty) you need to roll 13 on your prowess to suceed.

It allows for quick play and doesn't get bogged down with rules. The same idea is used on all actions, spells, physics, skills. Most of our Test GM's came from AD&D and vampire and all of them didn't like the idea to begin with. After playing for a while they all really like it, it was just a culture shock to start with.

Only skills use multiple d10's. Attribute related rolls are always done with 1d10. This means as a player improves they don't need to roll for simple things anymore. A character with a prowess of 13 would only need to roll for that jump if the gm was mean and wanted a chance of a fumble.

Calculating difficulty ratings.
The first thing that should be considered when setting a basic difficulty rating is the plausibility of the action. Should a character wish to open an unlocked door and walk down a flight of stairs then no difficulty rating is really needed, as the action is both simple and common. However should a character wish to break down the door and then jump down the
stairs then that is a little more difficult.
Here are a few sample actions and their possible difficulty ratings.

Breaking down a door – this action should be rolled against the characters strength attribute, with the difficulty set bearing in mind the strength and structure of the door. A rotten door hanging of its hinges would have a rough difficulty rating of (7) where as a solid oak door
reinforced with iron would have a rough difficulty rating of (18).

Jumping a crevice – this action should be rolled against the characters prowess attribute or an athletics skill, with the difficulty set bearing in mind the size of the gap. A small fissure of no more than a couple of feet wide would have a rough difficulty rating of (10) where as a
fifteen foot gap would have a rough difficulty rating of (20).

Cheating during a game of cards – this action should be rolled against the characters wits attribute. A simple single card swap playing against children would have a rough difficulty rating of (7), whereas the same card swap against a group of veteran gamblers would have a
rough difficulty rating of (15).

Fooling a senile old lady into taking out an overpriced insurance policy – this action should be rolled against the characters charisma attribute. A charismatic character with a large amount of false paperwork may have a rough difficulty rating of (10) where as a man dressed in rags
and stinking of cheap ale could have a difficulty rating of (25).

Noticing a pickpocket in a tavern – this action should be rolled against the characters awareness attribute. Again the difficulty rating should be reflected in the skill of the pickpocket, the amount of patrons within the tavern and the characters current state of inebriation.

Have a think about this one and try and work out a difficulty rating for your self.

FBIS (could we have a name, your screen name is just too much),

Welcome to The Forge.

In order that we be able to help you more, it helps us to get a sense of your experience. I mean, from what you've got above, I can tell that you've played D&D of some sort. What other systems are you familiar with?

Just to try to be open about it, I'm also trying to ascertain if you've got a level of knowledge about games that gives you a sense of what's available out there. Not that it's not impossible that you're not a very widely read and played gamer, but statements like what you have about how your resolution system works makes it sound pretty standard in many ways. This is a standard signal to us that you might not yet have the breadth that, I for one, think is requisite to create a really good game.

What I'm tiptoeing around are thoughts less gently expressed in my thread: Mike's Standard Rant #1: Designers Know Your Hobby!

Do not take offense. Especially if you actually are rather experienced, and I've targeted you accidentally. Even if you aren't that widely experienced there is help that we can give you. But, again, ascertaining your level of knowledge will really help us here to help you.

Mike

You got me mike, I'm not that experienced. Advanced heroquest, Warhammer fantasy, AD&D 2nd, but i didn't write the system, I just donated goodies and developed the website.
The real author (taran) will be along shortly to answer serious questions. It's just after AD&D for 8 years Red Raven is a fantastic break for me.

Mike Holmes wrote: FBIS (could we have a name, your screen name is just too much),

Mike Holmes wrote: but statements like what you have about how your resolution system works makes it sound pretty standard in many ways.

Nice to meet you Lee,

fruitbatinshades wrote: It's just after AD&D for 8 years Red Raven is a fantastic break for me.

The initial idea for the system had to meet these points:-


Be easy to play
Be world independant
Keep player reading to a minimum
Allow GM total control

Easy to play is achieved through only having 1 d type and 2 roll types
World independence is achieved through the way we use skills
Players only need to read the skills, spells, items they want to use
GM is not restricted by physics or complicated decision based rules, all decisions are made using GM intelligence and converting said intelligence into a difficulty rating.


I guess from your posts that you are a realist, this is not a realistic system, although the GM can use any formulas he wants (Hence total control). We also aim to listen to our players and implement what they desire and add supplemental rules they can use if desired, hence the tiered design I spoke about earlier.
What makes it unique is the system is adapatable and is designed to be so no 'It says on page 497 that you can't do that GM' The GM can adapt the system as he/she sees fit. It makes no difference to the players who can choose Basic, advanced or customised rules. The only dependacy is on player honesty, which is an issue in all systems.

Mike Holmes wrote: So, our first question will be what you want your game to promote as far as play? And you can answer that for us as well or better than your compatriot. It's not at all technical. But, basically, what is it that you want to see from play? Who are the characters? What do they do? What would a typical session look like (sans mechanics - just the narrative of it)?

Mike Holmes wrote: If you could help give us the vision of what you're looking for, that would help a lot. The image I'm getting so far is action somewhat like D&D, but enabled by less rules getting in the way of players just making decisions? Can you correct/expand on that?Mike

Hi Lee,

It sounds like Taran's system is oriented toward slimming down the mechanics (so you don't have to throw so much out) and reducing the handling time (just making it easier in general, like the way players can learn pieces of the system, taking on more as they get more familiar with it). And putting decision in the hands of the gm instead of arbitrarily in the game materials prep'd stats. These are fixes aimed, I presume, at making the mechanics stop getting in the way of your having fun. Is that correct? It sounds like RedRaven is successful at doing that. Howver, there are some different ways of looking at mechanics and what they can do that might be of interest to you both.

Go check out The Pool. Not necessarily as advice on the kinds of mechanics you should use, but more just as a model of a different way of looking at mechanics. What would it be like to run your scenario with a system like that? What would be lost, what would be gained?

Yrs,
Emily Care

Greetings and Salutations one and all.....

Right I shall start this post with a few formalities, just to save time later J

Yes my real name is Taran, it is not a nickname.
No I am not of Asian blood or upbringing.
Neither am I of African descent in any way shape or form.

Right sorry if anyone is offended by those comments, but they are the ones I answer on an almost daily basis lol

Right my gaming experience (Deep breath)
I first started RPG gaming in a serious way at the age of 8, and way the youngest member of a local RPG club. I was running games as a GM at said club by the time I was 12 (mature for my age I guess), started college at 16......increased the amount of RPG I was playing and GM-ing to silly proportions (Much to the dismay of a great many would be lady friends..lol) and now coming up to my 27th birthday have no signs of slowing down J

Right the games that I either own of have played (On more than a dozen occasions, as I have omitted any others) are - in no particular order

D+D / AD+D (up to 3rd ed) / Palladium RPG (revised ed) / Vampire the Masquerade (1st 2nd 3rd kindred of the east and Dark ages) / Werewolf the apocalypse (1st 2nd 3rd and wild west) / Mage the ascension (1st 2nd ed) / Changeling the dreaming (1st ed) / Wraith the oblivion (1st 2nd ed) / Merp / Rolemaster / Gurps / Fighting Fantasy (the RPG not the gaming books...although I have a collection of them also) / The lone wolf RPG (again not the game books) / The legend of the five rings / Shadowrun / Cyberpunk / Warhammer fantasy roleplay / S.L.A industries / Pendragon / Tunnels and trolls and quite a few more that remain tucked away on various bookshelves about my home (and I’m sure my wife would rather me thin out lol)

Oh and as well as all that i have a collection of various miniature war gaming rules systems and figures

And to think at one time I had a life that did not revolve around the RPG hahahahahahaha then again maybe not :)

Again apologies if I portray myself as a little arrogant but that’s my relevant gaming history…. I think…yeah that’s more or less it J.

What was I talking about again????? lol

fruitbatinshades wrote: I guess from your posts that you are a realist, this is not a realistic system, although the GM can use any formulas he wants (Hence total control).

We also aim to listen to our players and implement what they desire and add supplemental rules they can use if desired, hence the tiered design I spoke about earlier.
What makes it unique is the system is adapatable and is designed to be so no 'It says on page 497 that you can't do that GM' The GM can adapt the system as he/she sees fit. It makes no difference to the players who can choose Basic, advanced or customised rules. The only dependacy is on player honesty, which is an issue in all systems.

At the risk of following up on my post above, which I made not having seen Taran's first post, welcome Taran.

Didn't seem arrogant at all to me. I asked and you answered. That's not a bad list of games. Seems odd to me, however, as there are very few newer designs in there, and a lot of really old ones (odder because you're not that old). It seems like you stopped playing new stuff with something like L5R?

Anyhow, given your pretty broad background, what is it about your system that you see as superior to, say, Pendragon? Is Pendragon simply too complicated? If so, then check out Emily's post above and the game that it links to. What are your feelings about a game like that?

Once we have an idea of your vision, we can really get down to making more cogent comments about your system.

Mike

Mr Holmes,

I find you posts aggressive and arrogant. This is not constructive critism or helpful advice. This is 'Prove you are worthy' and it is a game I will no longer play.
We are looking for helpful critism not looking for a discorse in how wonderful you and your theories are. If you cannot be constructive in a non-superior fashion then please do not post any more 'advice' for us.

Thankyou

Lee

????
Where did that come from Lee?
I was actually feeling Jealous that Mike was taking so much time to post to your thread.

I asure you, Mike's input is quite valuable. You just need to be patient while he learns more about what you're trying to accomplish with the game.

There's no need to feel offended.

,Matt

fruitbatinshades wrote: We have a demo scenario (Ghosts of wreckers cove) that outlines the basic rules, so please download a copy and let me have it **Blocks critisism attack, swish!**.
We also have a character generator that gives you an idea of the basic characteristics each race starts with, including their race skills.

http://www.redravenrpg.com/downloads/demoscenario.zip

Please let me know what you think

Matt Gwinn wrote: ????
Where did that come from Lee?

What are the basic and what are the advanced rules? I can't critique them if I don't know them. This sounds like an important goal (you emphasize it in your introductory post), but I don't see it in the demo scenario download.

- The magic items at the end have little in-game rules. When the venom blade has a "fast-acting poison," how is that handled in the rules?

From the text, I'm unsure when to apply the rules. In Encounter One, when the characters chat up Reno, do they have to make Charisma checks to learn anything? Can a PC make an Awareness check to realize the high chance of contracting a disease?

- What does the GM do?
- What do the players do?
- What do the characters do?

From your posts, I gather that the GM provides challenges (what kind of challenges? Combat only? Social?), the players make choices with limited knowledge (i.e., they know as much as the characters about the situation) to overcome these challenges. I don't want to make guesses though, so I need to know your answers before really examining the rules.

(Lee e-mailed me a copy of the 'player's basic guide' for RedRavenRPG, these comments refer to that text, which expands upon the rules given in the demo scenario.)

Hi Lee (and Taran),

I've had a read through the rules. As I thought more about it I've begun to quite like the basic resolution mechanic, although I'm still dubious about the re-rolls it requires, and it does have a very strange probability curve (for higher numbers of dice, you get a curve increasing up to 9, then nothing at 10, then a curve increasing from 11 to 19, then nothing at 20, etc...). Which means that a change in target number, or attribute value can have very strange effects on the probability.

The biggest thing that strikes me about the design is that it seems to lack the courage of it's convictions. It has a quite neat, fluid, semi-freeform mechanic for most resolution - and then a hugely crunchy combat system. It has the same 'I hit you' - 'you hit me' freeze-frame combat mechanics of D&D (which I will freely admit an increasing dislike for), but can take up to five(!) rolls to resolve each strike. I worry about the handling time for that (especially with your system which I would expect to have a potentially longer handling time for each roll). I wonder whether you would be better re-thinking your combat system to be more in keeping with the freer feel of the rest of the system.

There's also three distinct combat systems: one for melee combat, one for brawling and one for missile combat. Each has it's own special way of working out damage. Is this really needed? It seems horribly inconsistent to me. At least unify the damage mechanics.

I'm really not clear on why you have three defence skills - there seems to be no difference between them (apart from shield block which is strictly inferior to either dodging or defending), so why have them? Why not just have one defend skill that everyone uses?

It's not clear from the rules, as is, what skills are available - do you make up your own, or is there a list not included in the rules.

I haven't done the numbers, but it looks like the xp required to 'finish' a mage is much, much higher than that required to 'finish' a warrior. My experience with WFRP suggests to me that this is not a good thing.

What is a 'level 1' skill? How does it differ from not having the skill? Both would seem to roll one dice.

What is an 'advanced' skill - it is mentioned in the xp chart to advance skills, but I can't see any description of what it is?

Hope this helps,

Jack.

I must apologise to Mike.

His questions are direct and focussed and I took this to be aggressive. I must admit I am out of my depth here and probably reacted to that rather than to mikes advice.

I don't understand the questions mainly, which makes me what Mike hates (according to his article). We have spent a long time working on RR 4 years from the idea, 2 years trying to write it all down, do the website and manuals etc. Which is why we missed all the newer RPG's.

So once again, my humble apologies to Mike

Lee

Jack Aidley wrote: I've had a read through the rules. As I thought more about it I've begun to quite like the basic resolution mechanic, although I'm still dubious about the re-rolls it requires, and it does have a very strange probability curve (for higher numbers of dice, you get a curve increasing up to 9, then nothing at 10, then a curve increasing from 11 to 19, then nothing at 20, etc...). Which means that a change in target number, or attribute value can have very strange effects on the probability.

Jack Aidley wrote: but can take up to five(!) rolls to resolve each strike.

There's also three distinct combat systems: one for melee combat, one for brawling and one for missile combat. Each has it's own special way of working out damage. Is this really needed? It seems horribly inconsistent to me. At least unify the damage mechanics.

I'm really not clear on why you have three defence skills

It's not clear from the rules, as is, what skills are available - do you make up your own, or is there a list not included in the rules.

I haven't done the numbers, but it looks like the xp required to 'finish' a mage is much, much higher than that required to 'finish' a warrior. My experience with WFRP suggests to me that this is not a good thing.

What is a 'level 1' skill? How does it differ from not having the skill? Both would seem to roll one dice.

What is an 'advanced' skill - it is mentioned in the xp chart to advance skills, but I can't see any description of what it is?

Hi Lee,

Can you illustrate this :)

5? Never had that!

Strangely enough we only had 1 to start with but players started saying things like 'You roll your endurance because you brace yourself right? Well how can I brace myself against an arrow, I don't know it's coming!'

There are different defence skills because of the types of attack. If you are wimpy mage you will probably never of learnt hand-to-hand combat. The mage may be adept at quarter staff fighting but that doesn't mean he can fight off a ninja. His ability to defend is down to his weapon in 'Block Melee', where as his ability to defend hand-to-hand is down to his fists and close fighting experience(Block Brawl).

I've emailed them to you

The first level of a skill means you are learning to do it. If you have no experience of 'Carving', you cannot do it, other than to wittle. So level one is like going to a night class. A more obvious problem skill would be law. If you had never looked at it, you would know nothing about it. At level 1 you are starting to read and begin to understand what 'A clause contract' is, at 2 you would understand the documentation, 3 be able to write one, 4 be able to write a water tight one, 5 be able to write one that gets someone to sell their soul.

Jack Aidley wrote: Iniative (combat sense)
To Hit
Them to defend
To Damage
To reduce Damage

An equally good rational is that tougher people can take more damage

That wasn't what I meant though: why do you have seperate block/dodge/shield skill when they all do the same mechanical thing?

Yeah, I think it's safe for me to speak on Mike's behalf when I say that he was not being hostile towards you or your game. I also think it's safe to say that his comments were intended to do the best thing any comments can hope to achieve: help you focus your own critical analysis so you can figure out what you really want, and the best ways to achieve that. If you do a bit of reading around the forge (especially the articles section) and then go back and review his posts I think you may find them a bit more enlightening and helpful.

And really, how can learning about what you like be bad??? It can only help you make your games even better than they are. You'll probably even be reading and think "hey, you know, that would really be cool...". In fact, I garauntee it.

Also, I second Jack's motion that if your goal is to make "light" rules, then you should keep them "light" through combat as well, which means re-thinking all the crunchy bits that bog it down. Or change your focus to combat, in which case crunchy 'em up!

-Ben

First, if I come off as arrogant, I apollogize. I admit that my approach could be taken that way. As far as agressive...I would like to help you. I have an "agressive" way of getting to the point where we really can help you. At most sites you go to, you'll find that people will tend to make rather random comments about your game and suggestions about what might work. This isn't totally unhelpful, but I think that we've developed here a rather more substantial method of analysis that can provide a lot better feedback than that.

Now, to get to that point, we really need certain information from you. So before you see anything like advice from me, you'll first be seeing this battery of questions. The point being that what you're going through is very similar to what others go through here when first arriving looking for advice. Ask recent arrivals Ravien for instance. And then ask if he thinks that the analysis is helping him to make a better game.

fruitbatinshades wrote: From posts so far, I think we need to do serious work on the introductory scenario, It obviously doesn't portray the system very well **blushes**

I find it hard to answer some of these questions, because as Mike pointed out, I'm not an RPG professional and have not studied all the genres.

We are not trying to create the worlds best system, we are trying to create a simple system that can be adapted to the group/GMs requirements. I've always adapted systems, but they were never designed to changed. RR is.

Can you give me an example answer?

- What does the GM do?

- What do the players do?

- What do the characters do?

My immediate response is 'Solve the situation and roleplay'. I seem to find these sort of questions hard to answer.

Either we all play differently from everyone else, or I'm missing something. Each campaign usually has an mission/point. It's up to the players to retrieve that item, stop that war, kill that baddie etc. Standard RPG fair.

Whilst heading for that particluar mission, things happen! The environment affects what the players end up doing. The skills in the system lead to all sorts of 'Free' situations (i.e. the GM didn't have to write it).

This is basically what RR is about. It about character development alongside your normal 'Save the princess' stuff. Characters are not restricted to a class as such either. A Warrior can cast spells and a mage can kick ass. It all depends on what skills they learn. This means characters are a lot more rounded and players get attached and actually care about them.

The point being that what you're going through is very similar to what others go through here when first arriving looking for advice. Ask recent arrivals Ravien for instance. And then ask if he thinks that the analysis is helping him to make a better game.

And it's not just my advice, thanks Ben. But it's everyone's here. By answering my questions (and those of others), you're empowering potentially thousands of people to help you better. In fact, the people who are likely to respond are probably only about 100 or so, but that's still a huge think tank to be tapping, and the ones who respond include some really great minds. I'm merely the most prolific - there are other's here who likely have much more important things to say about your game than I do.

So this isn't just one wacky poster asking you some wacky questions. This is SOP around here, and you can really benefit if you just play along a little with our unusual program.

That all said, let's turn the tables at this point. Let me ask you - what, if anything, do you see as something in the game that might use some work? Do you see any flaws with it, no matter how small?

BTW, everyone, Lee PMed me (not to mention the apology above -which was unneccessary, but appreciated), and I think it's all cool now. Smooth sailing, I hope.

Mike

Ravien wrote: Yeah, I think it's safe for me to speak on Mike's behalf when I say that he was not being hostile towards you or your game.

Mike Holmes wrote: Let me ask you - what, if anything, do you see as something in the game that might use some work? Do you see any flaws with it, no matter how small?

Let's focus on that term "freeform" a little. It has lots of different meanings. I'm guessing that here you mean that mages can work up all sorts of different spells on the fly, make whatever magical effects that they want to? Interesting.

Would the following be a viable spell (acutally a spell right out of Rolemaster's Spell Law)?

Long Door - target dissapears, and reappears 100 feet away anywhere the caster can see.

Would that be a writeup of a spell that would fly in your game? Get the answer set in your head before proceeding.

If the answer is no, why? What's "missing"?

If the answer is yes, then let's say that I have a mage character, and I say, "I'm casting Long Door on that tower to move it over there." What do you, as GM tell me happens? Does the tower move, or no?

If the answer is yes, then can I make the planet my "target"? Can I use my opponent's head as the "target"? Why, or why not?

If the answer is no, I can't move the tower, then what's that based on? How is that determined? I take it that the GM has final authority - what does the game tell him he has to use as criteria when making this decision? Just his own good judgement?


Don't let these questions make you think that there might be a wrong or right answer. On one end of the spectrum we have magic systems as complex as Chivalry & Sorcery 1st ed, and as simple as what is sometimes termed freeform meaning something other than what you're talking about. Freeform in this instance means that the system that the GM uses is to "just do whatever you think is the right thing to do." Entire games are played this way every day. So, you're game is somewhere in between these two extremes. What I'm trying to do is determine what the system is that you guys are using for determining the outcome of magic. Because, at the moment it would seem to be "freeform" using the definition that I've just enumerated above. Some would instead say that you are using "drama" as your form of resolution here (as opposed to fortune or karma). Meaning that it's just up to some player to make an "appropriate" decision of some sort.


Also, your last comments are interesting. If the set spell system relies on the players trusting the GM, then how can the other system you have be, "unbalancing"? What balance is being thrown out? Is it just that the freeform method gives the mage more abilities, or more powerful ones?

"Balance" is another of those topics that has a lot of meanings. We may have to clarify that, too. What you're talking about sounds like "power balance" meaning that each PC is limited so as to be more or less as powerful as the next. Is that what you're talking about?

Mike

Yeah Mike,

Taran has just sat down and explained to me why it's a bad idea, but I am a programmer and we do the impossible all the time. I'm going to spend some time on it (as a side project) and see if I can make it safe. I like a challenge ***Laughs Madly***

Mike Holmes wrote: "Balance" is another of those topics that has a lot of meanings. We may have to clarify that, too. What you're talking about sounds like "power balance" meaning that each PC is limited so as to be more or less as powerful as the next. Is that what you're talking about?

On the issue of balance: Balance is a very broad concept. Do you want balance of characters' in-game effectiveness? I.e., characters of the same level should have an equal chance to succeed at combat? When you generalize this, with something like, "A 3rd level fighter should be comparable to a 3rd level magic-user," you're making certain assumptions with play. In a game focused on combat, hopefully the magic-user is equally capable in combat, or the fighter will earn limelight. If you focus the game to be 2/3rds combat (where the magic-user is half-as capable as a fighter), and 1/3rd non-combat, you've got some limelight balance. Note that I said "limelight balance." If you earn more experience in combat, then there is a loss of reward balance.

So, when you say that "Teleport, Target, Moon" and "Drain, Spirit" are too powerful, what is your basis of comparison? If a fighter can reasonably kill a goblin with one blow, then how is that less powerful than teleporting the goblin to the moon?

In your example of a supreme warrior and a multi-skilled low-level character, how do these balance out? This can be handled by the GM (one way would be to gauge the PC's effectiveness in different areas and provide a chance for all PC's to test their skills), the actual rules (during play or required GM prep), or even the players (say, using a skill means you can't use it later on so that other PCs get a chance to use it), or some combination of the three (and probably more factors I'm missing).

---

Moving to another topic, your concerns of pleasing other gamers with your game. If you're trying to improve D&D, your game is going to be compared to D&D. Inevitably, it won't do favorably (since D&D is going to "out-D&D" anything, by the nature of it being D&D). Don't please the world of gamers; please yourselves with Red Raven.

An NPC walks up to your beloved 2 year old character and casts Teleport, Moon. How happy would you be :)

We do not want to be associated AD&D in any way, thank you very much! I personally preferred warhammer but they got lost in wargaming and never produced any backup for it. Hence I was left with AD&D at the time, b4 vampire, werewolf etc. Have I given my age away, damn!

I think we are nearer to GURPS in our intentions. People keep wanting us to say we are a Gamist/Narrativist/Simulationist system. I don't think we fit into any one. The idea was to make the mechanics simple enough to allow for all types of play in the same game.

In my current gaming group we've got 2 power gamers (all skills at max, 3rd circle magic etc) who loved AD&D and we've got 3 who loved pendragon, warhammer and white wolf! I constantly think my way out of situations even though I've got weapons skill at max, another player likes casting crush bone on peoples necks and skulls and yet another likes to amble around being all arty.

It works for us. No-one is forced to play any one elses way, the rules are simple enough to allow most types of play together. I think this is why I had such trouble answering Mikes questions. It also leads us to a 'normal' situation in groups of people. Like having to stop (in character) the powergamers running amok when we need peace, telling me shut up when the answer is obvious and i've missed it cos i'm thinking too much, and stopping the arty one being arty when we need to run away.

That is what the system was designed for. That is why it doesn't neatly fit into any category. By removing the hard core rules it allows the players and GM to play to the situation, not the mechanics.

Phew!

**Waiting nervously for Mikes response**

As a response, an NPC comes up to your beloved 2 year old character and kills him with a sword! There are checks & balances in combat, which is somewhat 'freeform', especially if you allow neat player statements like, "I jump up on the crate and leap from above, swinging my axe into the orc's face!"

Maybe we're not sharing the same definition of freeform. I'll have to check out the spell section. Where is it in the main rules?

Like I said, balance is a tricky design goal, and you'll have to analyze how the game is supposed to be run by the GM, how characters are made effective in the rules, and how players interact with the GM and each other.

Zak Arntson wrote: Maybe we're not sharing the same definition of freeform. I'll have to check out the spell section. Where is it in the main rules?

Zak Arntson wrote: Like I said, balance is a tricky design goal, and you'll have to analyze how the game is supposed to be run by the GM, how characters are made effective in the rules, and how players interact with the GM and each other.

If you don't want "powergaming", then don't cater for it. But I'm having trouble determining what you mean by "powergamer". Do you mean "a player who focuses on maximising their effectiveness" or "a player who focuses on maximising their combat effectiveness"? There is a distinct difference. If your game rewards combat, then you will find people who foucs on that area.

How does character advancement work?
How is experience dealt out?
How can it be spent?

The answers to these questions will help me to figure out what your game promotes.

For example, in my game, characters are rewarded for very risky/heroic/benevolent/malevolent/or extraordinary behavior, and they are rewarded with increases to attributes (from which everything derives or depends). So play is focused on these qualitative issues, which are very subjective and adaptable to basically anything cool a character can do. This sort of design encourages player involvement in whichever way they wish to explore (I think anyway).

Another example would be D&D (I know you hate it, most people around here feel the same way, but it's a very useful comparison because everybody knows it). D&D Characters are rewarded for killing things, and they recieve XP which buys levels, and gold, which buys equipment. So play becomes focused on killing things. This sort of design encourages "powergaming".

I hope that helps a bit.

-Ben

Hi, Lee. Welcome to the Forge.

Now before I make any comments here, I want you to know I'm going to ask some hard questions and state some pretty strong opinions of mine. They are, in no way, a personal attack on you, your game, or the validity of your opinions.

Lee wrote: {on freeform magic system}
The free form is too open to abuse till I tame it. It's more of an idea of mine. If I can get it to work well without being too powerful we will include it, but as for now it's not in.

Lee wrote:
A good GM can handle whatever the players throw at him. We can't know how any GM or player plays unless we've personally played with them.

Lee wrote:
If you target a system at one type of GM you have alienated 99% of the rest. Everyone is different.

Lee wrote: The whole idea of the system is too make it open and adaptable for GM's.

Lee wrote: I never used 50% of the rules whilst playing AD&D because they were too much, 3rd is even worse. I always used to 'guesstimate' the relevant actions.

Lee wrote:
It is not a simulistic rule set.

Lee wrote: I guess from your posts that you are a realist, this is not a realistic system, although the GM can use any formulas he wants (Hence total control).

Lee wrote: At the end of each session the GM awards up to 25 points minus bad roleplaying.

Lee wrote:
We are not trying to create the worlds best system, we are trying to create a simple system that can be adapted to the group/GMs requirements.

Lee wrote:
An NPC walks up to your beloved 2 year old character and casts Teleport, Moon. How happy would you be :)

Lee wrote:
We do not want to be associated AD&D in any way, thank you very much!

Lee wrote:
I personally preferred warhammer but they got lost in wargaming and never produced any backup for it.

1. Forget free form magic, it is not part of the system, I will start a seperate thread to dicuss the ideas I have for that.

Also, I used "good GM" in quotes above because it's such a loaded term. Your idea of what a good GM is will almost certainly be different from mine.

If that's an important goal for your game, then I suggest you use one mechanic to resolve all kinds of conflict: physical, social, mental, magical, etc. Give a lot of examples on how to use that mechanic in different situations. That way you help the GM "calibrate" himself according to the system.

you don't try to "fix" the design flaws you see in D&D

If the GM has "total control", why does he even have players?

The old "I can't have fun if bad things happen to my character" myth. I really hate this one

If the GM has "total control", why does he even have players?

Get serious! Thats like saying I have a skateboard, why do I need a car?

Lee,

Lee wrote:
IMHO, a good GM is someone who is constantly challenging the players, giving them interesting things to do and can respond to any situation that occurs in a way that befits the scenario/mission etc. This also includes keeping believability/immersion high.

Lee wrote: So in terms of game mechanics a GM has only got to decide what difficulty rating a particular action is. In the rules, that is done by guesstimation, but may equally be done outside the rules with a pyhsics book and a calculator. The point of the system is to make the way it's calculated irrelevant.

Roy wrote: If that's an important goal for your game, then I suggest you use one mechanic to resolve all kinds of conflict: physical, social, mental, magical, etc. Give a lot of examples on how to use that mechanic in different situations. That way you help the GM "calibrate" himself according to the system.

Lee wrote: Already do!

Roy wrote: you don't try to "fix" the design flaws you see in D&D

Lee wrote: See previous posts

Roy wrote: If the GM has "total control", why does he even have players?

Lee wrote: Get serious! Thats like saying I have a skateboard, why do I need a car?

Lee wrote: ... kills your 2 year old character (unless you have a space suit in your backpack). THATS ACCEPTABLE TO YOU!

From the Demo Scenario PDF:
If you roll all ones you fail to do anything. Depending on the situation something bad might happen to you. If you're trying to throw a rock and roll all ones, you will probably drop it on your head!

I cannot account for a GMs use of control, all GM's are in control of how they play the scenario, respond to players input and resolve situations. A bad GM that is 'In total control' will not have anyone to play with. He will no longer be a GM.

What's the difference between Advanced, Inspired, Complex, and Taxing? What's the difference between Heroic and Legendary?

That's a different mechanic. I'm not saying it shouldn't be in your game, I'm saying it seems to go against one of your stated design goals. It's ok to leave it in, but just make sure it's a conscious decision to do so and it's worth any trade-offs.

You're incorrectly assuming that a moon in a fantasy world has to follow the same physics as Earth's moon. If you look at the same exact situation that I gave you an example of, we were not harmed in any way but we were thrust further into a sticky situation. That made the game more enjoyable for all of us.

fruitbatinshades wrote:

What's the difference between Advanced, Inspired, Complex, and Taxing? What's the difference between Heroic and Legendary?

You tell me! Your the GM! Is jumping a 60ft gap just heroic or diefied? We don't want to create huge lists that say you can do a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z at advanced. Thats not the point of the system and is EXACTLY what we are trying to avoid.

Lee,

Are you getting what you want out of this thread? If not, what specifically can we do to help you?

I get the feeling that you're dismissing our comments without giving them any consideration. If all you want is for someone to say "ooh, that's great", you're barking up the wrong tree.

So you tell us ... what specifically can we do to help you?

Roy

Ooh, boy, this isn't going too well. Folks, give Lee a chance here. His responses aren't really all that odd considering the tenor being thrown at him. Everyone is getting far too emotional about things, IMO.

Lee isn't here to have all of his assumptions tested. I hate when we end up doing this. That's not the point of a thread like this. My questions are meant to honestly get Lee and us to a point where we can intelligently converse with him. But instead I see people sticking his head into the deep end of the pond. Isn't this precisely what we all said we didn't do at The Forge?

Heck, I thought that I was pushing it. Then everyone else comes rolling in...

Lee, to give some perspective, what's going on here is that your responses are, frankly, ones that we've seen a lot in the past, and they all indicate a very standard set of assumptions. And there's nothing wrong with that (he said, trying not to sound like Jerry Sinefeld). The thing is that we do a lot of questioning of assumptions here. So what these guys are doing in their brusque way is trying to get you to where they are in their understanding of things. They really want you to "see the light." So please try to understand that they don't mean any harm. They really believe that by looking at possibly changing some of your assumptions that you might be able to improve your game.

Now, if we can look at it sans all the rancor, I will delve into one sensitive topic as gently as I can in order that you might understand where some of these people are coming from. Many here believe implicitly in the ideas set out in Ron Edwards essay, System Does Matter. It can be found in the articles link at the top if you want to read it. But, in short, what it says is that the system is all about supporting the GM and players in making for good play. Certainly you believe that your system is superior to others, or you'd not be making a game, right? But what it says, further, is that you can't just leave the vision for how to play to the players and GM as you suggest. Because they may not have a compatible vision themselves. This is actually primarily what the system is for.

Now, it's been theorized that systems can be built that have adjustable visions. That is, your idea has been considered here on several occasions. This is where I'm really rather dissapointed with my compatriots - they've jumped to the conclusion that your game is what's refered to as a "Fantasy Heartbreaker" per the essay referenced. While I think that your design may have some of those problems, it seems to me to be potentially innovative in the overlying idea of being adjustable to fit GM styles.

The question becomes whether or not this is actually possible, and whether you've done it. Some of us would be rather overjoyed if you had accomplished this. There are several problems, however, that make it unlikely:

1. You have anecdotal evidence that it works. There are actually several problems with this.
1a. It's just one data point. That makes it far from statistically sound.
1b. It wasn't an independent playtest. When designers test their own games, they tend to get the results they wanted. That is, knowing that you'd have to adjust the game to a particular vision, you were able to do that with aplomb. Did you do other playtests?
1c. The evidence that you provide actually could be interpreted to mean that your group was playing in just one single mode after all (gamism).

2. It seems likely that you haven't actually seen the other modes of play much to be able to ascertain if your game actually does support those modes.

3. From what I've seen of the design, and the comments of others, I can garuntee that there are many sorts of play that the system doesn't cover.

4. Systems that have addressed the issue with what at the moment appears to be more theory and direct assault on it than it would appear you've put into your game, have tried to accomplish this goal and met with - well most people would say failure - but with at the very best small success.

Now, this isn't to say that you've failed in your objective. For example, numbers two and three I think may be largely irrellevant, because I'm guessing that it's not really your intent to support those sorts of play - you might not even recognize them as what you think of as playing a role-playing game.

The problem that does exist here, is what happens if someone used to playing in one of those modes comes to your system and wants to try it out? The worry is that, in saying that your game supports all modes, they may think that it will, play, and be dissapointed. So the question becomes whether or not you care at all about these players.

To be real specific, I'm talking about players who prefer narrativism as their primary mode of play. Which likely comprise the majority of posters here, as it happens. Some of what you're encountering is people here responding to "Our game supports all play," with "well it won't support mine."

And they're right, it won't (if you want a more detailed analysis as to why it will not, let us know). Again, the question is whether or not you care. Narrativism is a small fraction of all play, and you probably could get away with ignoring it and hardly notice. In fact, if you stated that you weren't interested in supporting that mode of play, then those people would immediately get off your back, FWIW.

Now, maybe you guys are geniuses, and have discovered something in the design that we're not seeing. I think we'd have out doubts, but without playing the game ourselves (or, better yet, independent play), we can't say definitely. But there's another thing that you may have accomplished - what you may have is a functional method to support a wide range of a subcategory of play. It's much more likely that what you have is a game that might be able to support a wide variety of play within one of the larger categories.

Again, however, what the problem is that concerns us (or at least me), potentially, in all of this is that what might happen is what's called incoherence. Basically, if the game doesn't tell the players and GM one clear way to play, then different players and the GM may have different views of how to play. Essentially this is your claim, that you have several different types of players all playing under the one umbrella in the test game. The problem is that the theory would say that conflict of these viewpoints is inevitable. And that when these conflicts occur, this is likely to cause friction between players. Which I'm guessing from your comments that you have experienced. That is, Powergamer is a term that, well, non-powergamers assign to a certain set of behaviors that it often found detestable (here we say it's just another valid way to play). So you can see the potential for conflict.

So, just how is it that you see your design being able to overcome these differences? It would seem that the idea is that the GM has so much authority that he can manipulate things so that the players can all play together without problem. Do I have that right, or is there something else to it?

Again, the counterargument that you're likely to see is to ask "what if the GM doesn't know how to do this?" Isn't that a recipe for disaster? That is, what if the GM decides to play so as to cater to only the powergamers? If you were in that game, how would you feel?

The other point that the theory makes is that in providing one clear way to play the game you ensure that everyone is on the same sheet of music. It's actually been noted that the sort of vision really doesn't matter much. Players don't so much as have preferences, as they have learned to avoid certain types of play as distasteful because of bad experiences. Meaninig that as long as the game is well designed, and providing good experiences, that most players will play anything. So, in terms of who will be "turned off" by a design, its our anecdotal experience that far more people are turned off by occurances of incoherent play, than are "turned off" by a vision of play that's not what they might claim to be their preference. Basically, the more you try to make the game "open to interpretation" the less playable it becomes is the notion.

But it's only a theory, and a still debated one, even here. Even if it's true, it doesn't make your goal a bad one, it just makes it difficult to impossible to achieve, meaning that if we're going to help you out with it, it's going to take a lot of effort.

Am I helping you to see what the main issues are, and why all the hullabaloo?

Mike

I'm really not sure if I should post this reply here or in the I.N.I. thread. I think I'm seeing some common patterns. Basically, it seems to me that people are confusing "a system for any game" with "a system for this type of game in any setting". Since I was logged in already I thought it might be useful to point out that there is a difference.

I think Lee, Taran and Autocrat are all well aware of the fact that their games cannot be used for every possible style of game. In fact, Lee has explicitly pointed out that Red Raven is designed to limit powergaming. You can't be all things to all people and still limit powergaming - powergamers are people too. The things you are designing against are as much a part of your game as the things you are designing for. They're just harder to articulate - especially because there are so many of them. This can lead to important design considerations being left out by accident because they were overlooked.

... and I just realized on previewing that I'm trying to say the exact same thing as Mike Holmes. Oh well, the intended advice stands. Look at your design and try to figure out explicitly what it is you want to include and what it is you want to prevent. Then ask yourself - does this design support my goals?

While the game does seem to be generalist or generic in it's intent, I think that it's also intended to be more than that. In the dialog I'm reading, I'm hearing about a couple of things. One is that the game allows different players to use different rules, if I'm not mistaken. Which is interesting, and has nothing to do with being setting independent, but rather "player independent." So I'm thinking that they do have their eye on making it, if not for "everyone," at the very least very broadly accessible in terms of styles.

But, of course, Lee and Taran will be the ones to clear up their intents.

Mike

Mike, your a star. That is a fantastic posts and clears up a lot of the confusion for me and hopefully others. I will respond in detail shortly when I have digested it **BURP**
Different players can use differenr rules, and it doesn't affect the overall play (other than time to roll more dice). Conflict between the players/party is a natural thing to me. Fred wants to go and batter the dark lord, Sally thinks maybe we should investigate a little first. Isn't that what roleplaying is all about? If you only have 1 type of gamer in a group, doesn't it get boring?

In terms of playtesters, we have had 4 groups (2 in uk, 1 in finland and 1 in the U.S). We had more, but most people didn't give us any useful feedback.

To begin I want to clear a few points.


1. We will NOT be including the free-form magic system in the first release, so no point talking about it yet. I will start a seperate thread for that.
2. Forget the scenario, is is badly written and does not do the system justice:( I tried to edit the post and remove the link but I can't.
If you want the manuals PM me and I will send them.

Mike Holmes wrote: Lee isn't here to have all of his assumptions tested. I hate when we end up doing this. That's not the point of a thread like this. My questions are meant to honestly get Lee and us to a point where we can intelligently converse with him. But instead I see people sticking his head into the deep end of the pond. Isn't this precisely what we all said we didn't do at The Forge?

But what it says, further, is that you can't just leave the vision for how to play to the players and GM as you suggest. Because they may not have a compatible vision themselves.

1. You have anecdotal evidence that it works. There are actually several problems with this.
1a. It's just one data point. That makes it far from statistically sound.
1b. It wasn't an independent playtest. When designers test their own games, they tend to get the results they wanted. That is, knowing that you'd have to adjust the game to a particular vision, you were able to do that with aplomb. Did you do other playtests?
1c. The evidence that you provide actually could be interpreted to mean that your group was playing in just one single mode after all (gamism).

2. It seems likely that you haven't actually seen the other modes of play much to be able to ascertain if your game actually does support those modes.

3. From what I've seen of the design, and the comments of others, I can garuntee that there are many sorts of play that the system doesn't cover.

To be real specific, I'm talking about players who prefer narrativism as their primary mode of play. Which likely comprise the majority of posters here, as it happens. Some of what you're encountering is people here responding to "Our game supports all play," with "well it won't support mine."

So, just how is it that you see your design being able to overcome these differences? It would seem that the idea is that the GM has so much authority that he can manipulate things so that the players can all play together without problem. Do I have that right, or is there something else to it?

fruitbatinshades wrote: Mike, your a star. That is a fantastic posts and clears up a lot of the confusion for me and hopefully others. I will respond in detail shortly when I have digested it **BURP**

Conflict between the players/party is a natural thing to me. Fred wants to go and batter the dark lord, Sally thinks maybe we should investigate a little first. Isn't that what roleplaying is all about? If you only have 1 type of gamer in a group, doesn't it get boring?

In terms of playtesters, we have had 4 groups (2 in uk, 1 in finland and 1 in the U.S). We had more, but most people didn't give us any useful feedback.

I wrote a reply to "types of gamers", but since it's more geared towards the question in general (and not just Red Raven), that I posted it in its own thread. Lee, I hope you read it and consider what I presented. If you'd like to pull those ideas back into this discussion, with specific application to Red Raven, bring 'em here!

The link is here: Is one type of gamer boring? (cross-posted with Mike's response in this thread)

In a nutshell, it's "what Mike said" but more focused on the three modes of play, with D&D as a concrete example. My suspicion, to use jargon, is that Red Raven is caught between rewarding simulationism (deciding to act in character) and gamism (overcoming challenges for the sake of the challenge). And with Mike's example, hopefully the inherent problems of supporting both equally are made clear.

Extract from GM manual wrote: The characters knowledge and learning is reflected in experience. The more experience a character gains the more they can improve themselves either through new skills and spells or by just improving the already existing ones. Listed below is a table detailing the different things a player may be awarded experience for at the end of a game.

There is a maximum in game award of 25 points.

[code]Category Award amount
-----------------------------
Automatic 1
Role-playing 0 - 2
Humour 0 - 2
Enjoyment 0 - 1
Danger 0 - 5
Heroism 0 - 2
Learning curve 0 - 3
Right place/time 0 - 1
Concept 0 - 1
Surprise 0 - 2
Dramatics 0 - 2
Success 0 - 3[/code]

There is a maximum in game penalty of 15 points. Just as players are awarded for good role-playing they are penalised for poor role-playing.

[code]In game penalty Award amount
------------------------------------
Bad role-playing 0 - 5
Cheating 0 - 5
Using out of game info 0 - 5[/code]

We also play an optional rule that you may like to include. There are three extra points available for the best player in each session. We have the players write down who they think deserve the bonus XP and why. That player is then awarded the extra XP. This seems to lead to the players being more group oriented whilst playing.
As a general guide, XP of about 16 – 19 is the average award for each session. This means that a character will have to play well for 6-8 sessions to move to the second career etc.

Mike Holmes wrote:
Let's go back to that example that I gave previously of having to leave the daughter to go on an adventure. For one player, he'll protest leaving the daughter. He'll demand that his character would never leave the daughter, because he's so dedicated. The other players - wanting to get on with the adventure presented pressure him IC to come along. Soon this boils over OOC, as the player with the character in question says that he's being expected to play his character in an inconsistent way. And the other players tell him that they're dissapointed because he's not playing along with the game, and disrupting the adventure.

In the example, who is right, in your opinion?

And what were the comments, if I might ask? Similar to what you've said above?

Ian Kemble wrote: Although I wanted to end it last week it became impossible, as the group were interacting so well time just disappeared. I don't know when this will end now. Also, I have to say that I have had a great deal more enthusiasm from my players for this game then I would for a Vampire adventure or something like that. Heck last session they even started taking notes, which hasn't happened since we last played Cthulhu!
Ian.

fruitbatinshades wrote:

Mike Holmes wrote: Lee isn't here to have all of his assumptions tested. I hate when we end up doing this. That's not the point of a thread like this. My questions are meant to honestly get Lee and us to a point where we can intelligently converse with him. But instead I see people sticking his head into the deep end of the pond. Isn't this precisely what we all said we didn't do at The Forge?

**Whimper** I've already admitted I am not as ofait with the different styles as everyone else.

But what it says, further, is that you can't just leave the vision for how to play to the players and GM as you suggest. Because they may not have a compatible vision themselves.

I understand now you've explained it. We will certaining write a lot more explanation of how the GM can use the system (only as examples, though)

1a. 5 groups have tested it, about 40 people.
1b. Only 1 group had the designers in it.

1c. This is question not a rant. My character is engaged and we have things from 2 years ago in game time, still affecting us. Our relationship is complicated due to our social standings and my best friend is treated badly by my lady, because he is lower-caste. Isn't that narrativist?

2. It seems likely that you haven't actually seen the other modes of play much to be able to ascertain if your game actually does support those modes.

For me, this is true!

3. From what I've seen of the design, and the comments of others, I can garuntee that there are many sorts of play that the system doesn't cover.

Agreed, it is a framework (sorry, the programmer in me) that has been designed to be expanded. I'm not saying it, or will ever do, everything. It just is designed to be edited, improved by people then those improvements, supplemental rules etc sent to the users (Hence we sell as subscription, not product)

It must be said I am a programmer. I look at things in that way, maybe the idea of a system that can be edited is a culture shock (or one step too far) for most. If you sit back and think about it, why can't one player be more concerned with how the story is going, while another is already plotting how to trip the GM up and get a 1000g? Hard it may be, but impossible?

Please also remember this is pre-release and we don't want to fit into a particular genre. I know wisdom says that is suicide and maybe it is, but give us some credit for trying.

Completely fair point, but if people could explain to me or give me a transcript of a good narrativist session then I would be able so see if we could ever accomodate it. 'All' was probably a very strong word, little, but strong.

The GM in any game is the interface between the game world and the players. He organises adventures, stories, responds to a players question about the story, environment, context. Thats is what I understand a GM to be. If a GM doesn't want a player to jump a particular gap, or break down a particular door for whatever reason. Doesn't he have the right to do so? Maybe that door leads to certain death, maybe it's important later in the story, maybe he has written or considered that bit yet.

If your GM is only playing for powergamers, you don't want to be playing in that group surely? You would find another GM.

Surely a gaming group should be that, a group. Not 'If you don't play my way I'm going home'. Maybe it's my age, but I like playing with different styles of players, we all play through our characters and it's our characters that argue not us.

Maybe I have too much faith in people. I expect them to be able to work stuff out when it happens. I believe a GM (I haven't GM'ed for 8 years, but I used to, once a week for 9 years WHFRP, AD&D, Lee's system) should be able to handle all this. If an extra 2 mins on a combat round is too much for sally, maybe she should start drinking chamomile tea during play.

Mike Holmes wrote:
You'd only referenced your group, so pardon my assumption. Again, however, what's the feedback been like. This is crucial data. Do you have a forum or something with comments?

Now, what about the system supports this sort of play, in your opinion?

but I sense you mean something more object oriented.

Just to give you an idea, have you ever seen a session that was all just lead up to one character having to make one big decision like whether or not to kill his son who was turning into a source of evil

Now, maybe that's just my biases showing.

Zak Arntson wrote: I wrote a reply to "types of gamers", but since it's more geared towards the question in general (and not just Red Raven), that I posted it in its own thread. Lee, I hope you read it and consider what I presented. If you'd like to pull those ideas back into this discussion, with specific application to Red Raven, bring 'em here!

Lee wrote:
Please ask me a few questions and i'll answer them. Has anyone got a good link for a simple narativist ruleset?

Hi Lee,

See above. It doesn't actively support it, there are no rules for narrativist play, but it doesn't make it hard to do. Having never played a proper Narrativist system I don't know how they work. For us it just means we are not using any dice related rolls at that time. Moral decisions are made by the player/character. Maybe the other system have a way of doing it, but we just see it as roleplay/drama time.

I thought I may try and explain a little more clearly how the system is adaptable, yet easy to learn. I was thinking about this last night. I know before I post that people are going to disagree, but before you go off on one, have a fake play in your head.

The basic system is simple because most of the actual Roleplaying (being in character) is done at a players personal level. We have 3 things that affect what a character can, can't and has to do.

Flaws
These are bad character traits. They are selected when you create your character but are also given by the GM.

1. If you constantly keep behaving in a manner that fits into one of the flaws. The GM can make this a permanent state of affairs by giving you that flaw.
2.When you die in RR, you can be ressurected either medically (in a modern setting) or magically. Each time you are resurected you gain a new flaw. If you were killed by 20ft spider, you will be resurrected with arachnaphobia etc.

Flaws affect gameplay because they are added/subtracted from rolls that they affect. So if an arachnaphobe faces a spider, he will have to subtract the flaws rating from every role he makes in relation to spiders.

Merits
Merits are the opposite. They are considered good character attributes. They are rolled on when actions are related to those flaws. Good hearing is added to rolls, when you are listening at a door. The GM can award merits when you consistantly show behavior fitting them.

Both merits and flaws are opposed as well. A character with Good hearing has to subtract the rating from his roll, when hiding in a church tower as the bell starts to ring. A character with cruelty, will add that to his roll when torturing someone for instance.

Finally, we have skills
Skills are things that a character has actively learnt to do. They have spent time learning and improving their knowledge and ability. There are basic skills such as 'Block Melee' and more esoteric ones such as 'intuition'

**This is where I'm expecting abuse**
Note the reason the system is light is because each skill/merit/flaw comes with it's own mechanics. <SHOCK! HORROR!> This is where the easy to learn and easy to adapt come from.

A player/GM only needs to know the items in play. A meaty warrior that has built his character into the greatest/fastest/most aggressive person on the planet, doesn't care how the moralistic merit works! Why should he bother reading the rules about it?
If a character wants the moralistic merit, then they just have to read that description(and the GM) and learn to play it.

Adaptability
When a character keeps behaving a manner that there is no, skill, merit or flaw for. The the player and GM create it (and hopefully pass it on to the rest of us)

This is where 'Bad Roleplaying' comes from in the XP chart. If a player fails to take into account their merits and flaws in a session, then they lose XP because of that.

I'm hoping that provide some level of justification for our claims now, if not it explains where we are coming from.

This is where 'Bad Roleplaying' comes from in the XP chart. If a player fails to take into account their merits and flaws in a session, then they lose XP because of that.

Valamir wrote: I've found that some of the most compelling moments in roleplaying come when a character violates his established type.

Off the cuff...maybe each time a player voluntarily abides by a Flaw he earns a Point. Maybe the more severe the flaw, or the more detrimental the situation the more Points (say 1-3).

This would accord quite nicely with how such "flaws" are generally in stories and movies. The whole movie will be full of little indicators of the difficulty faced by the blind kid...but in the key scene where the kid must root out the proper bullet and toss it across the street to the hero the blindness is pure color and doesn't hinder him. Unless the player thinks it would be really cool to have him toss the bullet in the wrong direction and make the hero dive for it...

Off the cuff...maybe each time a player voluntarily abides by a Flaw he earns a Point. Maybe the more severe the flaw, or the more detrimental the situation the more Points (say 1-3).

Way too much tracking and maths. Your lists would be hige after a 6 player weekend session

Way too much tracking and maths. Your lists would be huge after a 6 player weekend session. Its a lot more for the players to track too. Although it could have it's merits. Nice idea, just not sure how it would go in play.

Again the whole reason we avoided heavy mechanics is to allow the GM to decide when, and when not too, apply these. If the character in the bell tower is just eating a sandwich 'That must of hurt' from the GM is enough. If he's hiding above a square full of soldiers looking for him, then he will have to resist screaming in pain and alerting those below.

Whoa. Lots to catch up on here.

First, the "role-playing" rewards, as you refered to them, are really enlightening. First, it's interesting that you refer to them as role-playing rewards, when in fact that's one of your subcategories. You're even using that term to mean different things in your own descriptions. You still haven't said what "role-playing" means to you, so I'm going to have to assume that in the list it means something like "First person play of the role of the character in a believable fashion"

I think that the list really gives a very tight definition of what play is all about in your game. Yes, some of them need further definition. For example, "enjoyment." Who's enjoyment is that? The player's, the GM's, everybody's? Based on what? I mean, if the game is good, isn't it enjoyable? It sounds like you're giving points for players giving positive feedback. Which is interesting. Danger - meaning that the player was willing to get his character into danger? Or is this just based on what danger the GM put the characters in for that session? What's the difference between danger and heroism (the latter seems to require the former)? Learning Curve... no idea what that is - the player learning the rules better? The character learning some lesson in game? How does the player persue this one? Right Place/Time? That's the player maneuvering to have his character in the Right Place at the Right Time? How is "right" determined? Does this just mean that the player tries to get his character to the action? Concept... no ideas at all - if it means playing to the character's concept, then isn't that what I'm thinking role-playing is? Success - is this dependent on the outcome of rolls or not? That is, is the success in question relative to player creativity, or is it fully adjusted by luck?

What this is telling me is that if I want to play a coward that I'm not going to get a lot of points from the big danger category, and less from heroism. Reading this, it informs me that I ought to play a heroic character who's likely to swing into danger. That's very cool. This is precisely the sort of limit that we advocate. But realize that it's a limit, that eliminates a ton of character concepts that might be valid in other games. From the list alone, I can tell that this game isn't about playing brooding losers, but about playing action heroes.

More telling, I think, are the penalties. I mean, in separating them out as negatives, you really make them stand out.

First, Cheating. This one is problematic. Cheating is what we'd call a Social Contract level problem. That is, if you have someone in your game who's cheating, then the problem is at a level that's sorta beyond the game to fix. Basically, there's an essential dissagreement amongst the players about what good play is that has to be fixed, and cannot be fixed by penalties. This is sorta hard to explain. Basically, people cheat for two reasons. The first is just to be dishonest in order to gain some percieved advantage. If you have a player like this in your game, then the response to catching him cheating should be to remove him from the game. Basically, everyone is there to have fun, and in voiding the rules that everyone has agreed to play by, he's attacking everyone at the table on a personal level. The game aside, this can ruin friendships, and shouldn't be tolerated at all.

That said, a lot of cheating in RPGs happens for another reason. Namely, the player has a different vision of how the game should play, and is "drifting" (technical term meaning altering the rules) the game to suit his needs. Here's a good example: some players like to have the feeling that their characters can die to add suspense, but others feel that death should only occur at suitably dramatic moments. The latter sort of player might alter the game in order to make it fit his needs. In this case, the player is displaying that he has a different idea of how the game should work - the most direct example of incoherence that you can find. I'd posit that the vast majority of cheating that occurs in RPGs is this happening. The players aren't disregarding the other's playing so much as trying to get the game to be what they need it to be.

Simply put, if your game puts out a focused vision for how to play enjoyably, players can see that, and adhere to it - cheating doesn't occur, because they're getting what they expect from the game. So, do you find that players cheat a lot at your game? If not, then you don't need this rule. If they do, then you've chosen an interesting path to go along. The rule says, essentially, cheat to make the game what you need it to be - just don't get caught.

From a really radical POV, I want to say that's brilliant. But, realistically, I think it's probably quite problematic.

It's very interesting that role-playing (whatever it happens to mean) merits a potential bonus of two points, but a potential penalty of five points. What this is telling me is that you're more concerned with players doing things that are "out of character" in terms of not matching the character concept, than you are with players making a good portrayal. This indicates a percieved problem with players playing away from their character concepts. On a related note, psychology says that positive reinforcement is more effective than negative in most cases. So, why not have Role-Playing offer up to 7 points, instead?

Now, some of these can be contradictory. Is this intentional? For example, let's say that I have a character who is known for being brave. But suddenly the party encounters a huge troll, and the player has the character run away leaving the other characters in a very bad position. Are there circumstances where this character will not be penalized for things like role-playing, and concept? For example, if the player explained that he just thought it would be cool to have the character uncharacteristically freak out in this circumstance, such that he'd have to deal with the shame of what he'd done, would that make it good role-playing? Moreover, would he loose points for danger and heroism? See, this sort of thing seems very dramatic to me, and to some players it's very much good play to do stuff like this. So would it score for dramatics?

What I'm saying is that it seems that a lot of potential actions aren't worth a lot of points. As such, your reward system promotes a very specific set of behaviors. Again, which I think are the behaviors that you want to see, but are very specific, rather than being broad at all.

Most limiting of all however, is your proscription against using OOC knowledge. To some, using OOC knowledge is not only acceptable, but preventing it's use as you're trying to do is considered a really bad design flaw. For my part, I've said that it's a valid choice. But realize that in trying to eliminate this, you eliminate a huge chunk of the playstyles that exist (this has nothing to do with mode, but instead with what we call stance). Including most people's prefered styles at this site. Again, I'll go to the mat for you to say that this is a valid choice - but I will say that you may want to read some of the rebuttals on the idea.

The reason I keep hammering on this point about your game being limited is that I think that you guys understand the power of system in making for good play. I'm just hoping to make you see that you can apply this idea to the whole design, not just to specific parts.

fruitbatinshades wrote: The basic system is simple because most of the actual Roleplaying (being in character) is done at a players personal level. We have 3 things that affect what a character can, can't and has to do.

When you die in RR, you can be ressurected either medically (in a modern setting) or magically. Each time you are resurected you gain a new flaw. If you were killed by 20ft spider, you will be resurrected with arachnaphobia etc.

Both merits and flaws are opposed as well. A character with Good hearing has to subtract the rating from his roll, when hiding in a church tower as the bell starts to ring. A character with cruelty, will add that to his roll when torturing someone for instance.

**This is where I'm expecting abuse**

Note the reason the system is light is because each skill/merit/flaw comes with it's own mechanics. <SHOCK! HORROR!> This is where the easy to learn and easy to adapt come from.

A player/GM only needs to know the items in play. A meaty warrior that has built his character into the greatest/fastest/most aggressive person on the planet, doesn't care how the moralistic merit works! Why should he bother reading the rules about it?
If a character wants the moralistic merit, then they just have to read that description(and the GM) and learn to play it.

This seems to be a contradiction. That is, "light" usually means one simple system to do everything. I mean, have you seen FUDGE

for example? Didn't someone link you to [The Pool, earlier? In games like these all resolution occurs using the same mechanic. Meaning that you only ever have to learn one thing. So, sure you only have to learn the rules that pertain to your character, but if there's a different rule for everything, then that would be what a lot of people would describe as a very rules heavy game.

Which isn't a criticism itself. I'm a big fan of pretty heavy games, myself. The question is whether or not the additional systems add value or not at a rate comensurate with the extra work involved.

See MJ Young's game Multiverser, which may have similarities.

Adaptability
When a character keeps behaving a manner that there is no, skill, merit or flaw for. The the player and GM create it (and hopefully pass it on to the rest of us)

This is where 'Bad Roleplaying' comes from in the XP chart. If a player fails to take into account their merits and flaws in a session, then they lose XP because of that.

Gotcha.

First, a lot of games out there right now have the "adaptability" concept. Again, Hero Quest (you really should take a look at that one), does precisely the same thing that you describe. Story Engine is completly freeform, the players make up all their "skill/ability/flaws/whatever." I have an unpublished system that has categories of abilities, but players make the specifics up (it's called Synthesis).

They are both right. The party needs to find a way to help IC look after his daughter.[/quoe]This doesn't solve the problem. In the example that I gave, the player's decision is that he feels that he wouldn't leave his daughter. You're assuming that he'll just change that assumption for the good of the group as a whole. But, again, you're failing to see how some people think that their right to play their character as they see fit is sacrosanct. In fact, considering that the GM has an adventure written up would be making a decision based on OOC knowledge - shouldn't that get the player a penalty if he changes his mind?


Just a bunch of stuff to chew on right now. FWIW, I'm liking your game the more I see of it.


Oh, Universalis was mentioned above as a game that supports narrativism. This is somewhat debatable. I've used the term "abashed" to refer to Universalis' approach to narrativism (and as one of the designers, I hope that I have some idea of what I'm talking about there). On the other hand, Universalis will challenge your assumptions if that interests you at all.

Zak, I think your analysis is correct, but I think that the game may end up being at least somewhat coherent as a hybrid. See Ron's comments on Sim supporting Gamism and vice versa in the appropriate essays.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: danger and heroism (the latter seems to require the former)?

What this is telling me is that if I want to play a coward that I'm not going to get a lot of points from the big danger category, and less from heroism....(Clipped)

First, Cheating. This one is problematic.

Simply put, if your game puts out a focused vision for how to play enjoyably, players can see that, and adhere to it - cheating doesn't occur, because they're getting what they expect from the game. So, do you find that players cheat a lot at your game?

It's very interesting that role-playing (whatever it happens to mean) merits a potential bonus of two points, but a potential penalty of five points.

Now, some of these can be contradictory. Is this intentional? For example, let's say that I have a character who is known for being brave. But suddenly the party encounters a huge troll, and the player has the character run away leaving the other characters in a very bad position.

Most limiting of all however, is your proscription against using OOC knowledge. To some, using OOC knowledge is not only acceptable, but preventing it's use as you're trying to do is considered a really bad design flaw.

This is usually telling in some way. Basically, it seems that death is considered not an end to the character (barring unusual circumstances like the "total party kill"), but just gives a flaw to the character. Which is a penalty in some ways, but which other players really enjoy. That's pretty cool (there's a bias here against players losing their characters to undramatic deaths).

I like this, but it begs a question: why not just call them Traits or something?

This seems to be a contradiction. That is, "light" usually means one simple system to do everything. In games like these all resolution occurs using the same mechanic.

Bleedin'eck. Fudge is similar to RR isn't it :(

I didn't see a superbig Fudge/RR correlation, but even if there was it's not a bad thing. Seeing your mechanics implemented (properly) elsewhere sort of means it was "playtested" elsewhere for you.

Again it's not something that we want to enforce. It depends on the situation, if your near to an emergency room, it likely you'll be resurrected. In your in our fanatasy world, it takes years off a healer to bring someone back and costs an absolute fortune. A healer can probably only bring about 5 people in his entire life. And you have to get the body before it starts to decompose.

fruitbatinshades wrote: You've raised another good point here. The XP idea needs a lot more work. The idea (unexplained) is that the reward categories relate to the character playing 'In character'. So a cowardly character would be awarded bravery for not screaming when the ghost said boo, whereas the demonologist would only be awarded bravery for fighting 10 ghosts single handed etc.

First, Cheating. This one is problematic.

I call cheating, not applying a modifier when it changes the result of the action. So if Bill needed 15 and rolled 17 but had to take 3 off for a flaw and didn't. That would affect the outcome for his own benefit and is cheating.

Simply put, if your game puts out a focused vision for how to play enjoyably, players can see that, and adhere to it - cheating doesn't occur, because they're getting what they expect from the game. So, do you find that players cheat a lot at your game?

It's very interesting that role-playing (whatever it happens to mean) merits a potential bonus of two points, but a potential penalty of five points.

Again lack of explanation on our behalf. Basically the three penalties cover a lot of the bonuses. It may even be worth taking penalties out, which makes sense.

Now, some of these can be contradictory. Is this intentional? For example, let's say that I have a character who is known for being brave. But suddenly the party encounters a huge troll, and the player has the character run away leaving the other characters in a very bad position.

If he was taking the mick, then he wouldn't be penalised. That would add to the drama of the game and hopefully be amusing.

Most limiting of all however, is your proscription against using OOC knowledge. To some, using OOC knowledge is not only acceptable, but preventing it's use as you're trying to do is considered a really bad design flaw.

That depends on the world setting. If you are trying to 'Act out' a character (my definition of roleplay) and your character is in a fantasy world but knows about the dynamic interrelation between atoms and quarks, then that is bad roleplay. Recently I was solving all the riddles and got penalised because I has a low intelligence. I think it comes down the 'roleplay' definition again.

Again it's not something that we want to enforce. It depends on the situation, if your near to an emergency room, it likely you'll be resurrected. In your in our fanatasy world, it takes years off a healer to bring someone back and costs an absolute fortune. A healer can probably only bring about 5 people in his entire life. And you have to get the body before it starts to decompose.

I like this, but it begs a question: why not just call them Traits or something?

Because when you roll your character you have to have equal merits and flaw points. Otherwise everyone would just pick all the good ones, good hearing, good sight, huge size.

This seems to be a contradiction. That is, "light" usually means one simple system to do everything. In games like these all resolution occurs using the same mechanic.

They all use the same mechanics here as well. only 2 roll types, but the individual items have description that explain how to play them. Isn't that what you've been telling me all along, more description!

Just to note, I can palpably feel (despite him being about 300 miles away from me right now) Ralph wanting to say something that relates to what he's said before on this thread. Basically, narrativism requires that a player address their issues, which means that the game cannot make decisions for them - else the game is doing the addressing. As such, a potentially nifty narrativist moment would be the cowardly character suddenly doing something brave for something he believed in.

Valamir wrote: Maybe each time a player voluntarily abides by a Flaw he earns a Point. Maybe the more severe the flaw, or the more detrimental the situation the more Points (say 1-3).
Then the player can use those points to activate merits. Instead of automatically applying merits, the player has to spend a point. The more points spent, the more of an advantage they get.

Explanation of skill levels wrote:
Here is the revised description for skill levels. This should hopefully calrify what a skill level is:-

1. You are just learning this particular skill. Just think that you are at school learning math. You know how to add up and subtract.
2. You understand the basics and can do simple things. You can now multiply and divide
3. You are now able to use this skill without thinking about it. You now understand algebra and complex formulas.
4. You have now studied well and can use this skill to a professional level. You can be an accountant, statistician, physicist etc.
5. You are a master of this skill. You have now entered the realm of theoretical math. Math without numbers and the like! Scary.

You only ever need 5d10 in RR, but it is still possible to advance skills past 5. When you do so you gain a special ability in the skill. I can’t think of one for math (maybe you truly understand infinity?) but for something like swordmanship, maybe you can call your sword to hand, or you gain a low level spell that is activated whenever you successfully hit.

This is down to you and your GM. Decide where you’d like your character to take this skill, think true martial arts master, and arrange something with the GM.Please bear in mind the world you are playing in. In a sci-fi world, maybe shooting in two directions at once would be an option.

God this was hard, still seems a bit complicated but I think thats down to the explanation. Any advice appreciated.

The rules concerning shields are slightly different to the other skills, because when you attempt to block with a shield, you are assumed to do so. Bare with me, this may seem a complicated explanation.

If the attack is below your ‘Block shield’ roll, you take no damage at all.
If the attack is above your roll, you did not manage to block the attack successfully and the weapon glanced off the shield and hit you.
Shields can only take so much damage before they break. To signify this, if a shield is hit for twice it’s AR it will break.

I think a few examples are in order.

Your ‘Block shield’ skill is at 2 and the shields AR is 5.

You are attacked for 12.
Roll your shield skill as normal (3,7)
Add this result to the skill and add the AR = 7 + 2 + 5 = 14
You successfully block the attack.

You are attacked for 19.
Roll your shield skill as normal (3,7)
Add this result to the skill and add the AR = 7 + 2 + 5 = 14
You didn’t block the attack. The weapon glances off the shield and hits you for the remainder of the attack. 19-14 = 5 damage

You are attacked for 25.
Roll your shield skill as normal (3,7)
Add this result to the skill and add the AR = 7 + 2 + 5 = 14
You didn’t block the attack. The weapon glances off the shield and hits you for the remainder of the attack. 25-14 = 11 damage

The difference between the damage is 11. That means the shield was hit with 11 points of damage. This is more than twice its AR so it breaks.

To clarify: Any damage that isnt taken by the shield is soaked by the player and if the damage is twice the shields AR it breaks

This is a revised description of how to award XP, like the skills, flaws etc. We have moved the possible points and reasons into the World Manuals.

Awarding XP
The characters knowledge and learning is reflected in experience. The more experience a character gains the more they can improve themselves either through new skills and spells or by just improving the already existing ones.

It is up to the GM to award XP based on many things. Depending on your playing style, you may dish them out like a pay packet or you may discuss with the players what they think they deserve and why.
Each character will be awarded points for different things. If you have a policeman he will obvious not be rewarded for shooting an innocent man, but a terrorist would. Bear this in mind when thinking about XP.

To keep the game balanced and allow players to progress at a reasonable speed, we suggest rewarding a maximum of 25xp per session. A general guide for XP is about 13 – 19 for each session. This means that a character will have to play well for 6-8 sessions to move to the second career etc. This not set in stone so reward the players according to their performance.

Below are a few possible decisions you may take into account for assigning XP. You will find this changes from World to world and type of play. If a world is written for a particular style of play it will have a guide as to how to reward players. The Fell World for instance is a traditional hero oriented world, where players are special, so check the World Manuals for a more detailed guide.

Making decisions based on the characters personality and skills, not the players.
In game acting,
When a player makes decisions based on what their character would do in game. For example: Bill plays Ragnoff. Ragnoff is a demonologist but Bill is a vegetarian. Ragnoff would not think twice about eating a live rabbit, so Bill should not make his character think twice either.

Playing the characters traits well
Improvement in playing
Using all the characters traits whilst playing. That means not ignoring flaws or conveniently forgetting your characters moral bias when it suits. If a character needs to kill someone but is a friendly character, he will have trouble doing so. This should be represented in game, not just ‘I’ll kill him so we can move on’

Resolving character weaknesses
If your character is afraid of spiders, but faces one to rescue a friend then he is facing the weaknesses in his character.

Achieving the impossible
Luck, Surprise
If a character achieves the impossible or carries out an astounding feat maybe they should be rewarded?

Heading towards characters’ goals.
Skill
When a character makes progress towards his goals. This may be something simple such as going up a magic circle or a sneak thief ‘acquiring’ that item he has been after for months.

Being resourceful
When a character does something unexpected or does something that is really quite clever. Maybe they used a plant pot to make a water pump!

Playing well with the group
Humour, Enjoyment, Usefulness, Coping well with poor role-playing/cheating
We would all like a game where you can become totally immersed in the game play. Sometimes player disagree about what to do, how to play, how long a player is taking etc. To have a good role-play group you need to find a balance between the players’ styles and desires. When players do so, reward them. Our sessions are usually full of humour because that’s what we enjoy. If you enjoy a lot more serious, somber play then reward the players for that instead.

Thinking of the story, Drama
You can reward a player when they are thinking of the story and their character. If they get really involved and use the characters history and personality whilst playing, that makes for a more enjoyable game and enhances the experience.

Success
Pretty obvious this one, when players have done well in the story, killed the baddy, found the lost child or made that killer decision they’ve been pondering for the last 3 weeks. They should be dually rewarded.

Penalising players?
This one is a judgment call. If you want players to know they’ve done wrong, you can tell them so. ‘You got 21 XP but I’ve taken away 3 points because you failed to think about the moral ramifications of killing the child!’ It’s up to you and down to GM style if you do this, but make sure that the player accepts the reasoning, otherwise they will just get annoyed.

We also play an optional rule that you may like to include. At the end of a session, each player has an XP point to award to whoever they think did best in that game. We have the players write down who they think deserve the bonus XP and why. That player is then awarded the extra XP. This seems to lead to the players being more group oriented whilst playing.

fruitbatinshades wrote:

Valamir wrote: Maybe each time a player voluntarily abides by a Flaw he earns a Point. Maybe the more severe the flaw, or the more detrimental the situation the more Points (say 1-3).
Then the player can use those points to activate merits. Instead of automatically applying merits, the player has to spend a point. The more points spent, the more of an advantage they get.

I like the idea, but that would mean you could only use merits when you use flaws. If your character hasn't been near any spiders in the past month, he would be unable to use any merits. How would you suggest handling that situation, any ideas?

Flaws and Merits
Taran has just reminded me of a subtle point that makes a major difference to this argument.

Flaws and merits are OPTIONAL. In character creation it says:

N.B. You do not have to have any merits or flaws at all if you do not desire any. But the GM may give you some throughout the game if you die or have really good or bad experiences.

Gone a bit quiet round here! You don't actually have lives at the weekend surely? **Tries to leave desk, fails :( **

Is anyone having trouble with the forum or is it just me? It's suddenly stopped remembering me and I have to log in everytime, even though the cookies are there?

1. I don't post on weekends, so that explains my dissapearance.
2. Try clearing your cookies. This is a problem that a lot of people have from time to time.
3. Why doesn't Taran post at all anymore? I was hoping to get more than one viewpoint on these things.

Hmmm. When you say that flaws are optional, you mean as a balance to taking merits. That is, a character has the same number of merits as flaws, right? Such that if I take zero merits I have zero flaws, right? Is that what you mean by optional?

So, basically, to get the bonuses that merits represent, I have to take flaws, and risk the GM penalizing me for playing them in a way that he doesn't like? Put it this way - in your new list, you put in an exception to the flaw penalization rule that says if you face a fear for a good reason that it's not penalized. But this was just one example. If you like, I think we can come up with dozens of ways in which going against type is actually good play. Perhaps your character just decides that today is a good day to Kick his drug habit. Or maybe your untrusting nature would get you a bonus to detect a lie in some case, but you inform the GM that you trust this liar - thus revealing something about the flaw, that it's really about being a bad judge of character.

The point is that you can't codify all the reasons where it might make sense to go against type. In some cases, it's a well thought out player endeavor - in other cases, they just forget. Again, what Ralph says makes sense. If you pay players to watch their own flaws, you end up having them played more often. Basically, in your case, all you have to do is give a reward for playing to flaws in whatever way seems appropriate, instead of penalizing for not playing to them. If the player forgets to play to them, or just decides to ignore it, their "penalty" is missing out on the rewards.

Now, what's the difference between a penalty, and a reward not given? Isn't this just math? Actually there are profound psychological ramifications to just framing it as positive reinforcement. Give players rewards for playing to their flaws, and they'll do it.

Oh, and what I'd suggest, instead of end of session accounting, is giving out these rewards on the spot, as they occur. If you don't, you'll either have to take notes which are faulty, or try to remember everything at the end, which is even more faulty. The most potent rewards you can give are what's refered to as "Random Schedule Positive" rewards. Meaning they are given out only when certain behaviors occur (instead of regularly on a schedule). The player is reinforced right away, and is reminded to carry on the appropriate behavior.

In more number heavy systems, calculating EXP or something takes up too much time in the middle of play. With your method, the GM should just give out 1-3 points whenever a player does something on the list of good things to do. One for something perfunctory (if they have to ask for it, which they should be allowed to do, it's probably worth one), two for something notable, and three for something really remarkable (whole table can't stop laughing).

Try it. You'll find players keeping the list in front of them and sticking to the agenda so tightly that you have to pry them off of the table when the session is finished. As a neat touch, use candies to represent points, and fling them across the table at players who should get them. If they eat them, that's fine, they just don't get to spend them then. They only get to spend the ones that they keep. This makes the reward both tactily pleasing, and pleasing to the sense of taste, in addition to the normal in-game uses.

Mike

I'm taking a slower approach, now, digesting and reading more thoroughly. So, Lee, I'll be slower in responding.

Two questions:
1. Why do you see the need for a shield skill which is handled differently than any other skill?

2. When you're going to reward "thinking of the story", you're going to have to make sure all the participants (GM & players) are in agreement about what the story is. If one player sees one story, PCs collect the four orbs of each element from their guardian elemental spirits, and one player sees a different story, is it worth killing the neutral guardian elemental spirits for their orbs? Well, you have the potential for unhealthy friction between players. How are you going to make sure that players remain happy with play?

--

About the shield skill, you have a pretty neat mechanic that could be applied in general.
- If a skill roll is greater than the opposition, it succeeds.
- If a skill roll is greater than the opposition by twice or more, there is a critical success.
- If the opposition is greater by twice or more, there is a critical failure.

So suddenly, you can provide both a critical success and critical failure for all your skills. For example:

Block Shield
- Critical Success: No extra effect, aside from an impressive block.
- Critical Failure: Defender's shield is broken.

Combat Sense
- Critical Success: An extra action, after everyone else has gone.
- Critical Failure: No extra effect; going last is punishment enough.

Preaching
- Critical Success: You actually any listening unbelievers to your religion.
- Critical Failure: You accidentally highlight a major flaw in your own religion.

Hi All

Sorry Mike (and anyone else who missed me lol), for my continual absence

My lack of online prescence is down to

1) Family comitments (wife and 2 kids)
2) Continual business meetings (of the file your sh*t in triplicate variety)
3) Im crap with computers
4) Im a neer complete technophobe
5) I forgot my password :(
6) Im always in the RedRaven forurms, then a couple of mates forums then several hours have passed and put it off until tomorow.....only tomorrow never comes does it lol

Bloody useless me :p

I shall however endeavor to get into the forge more often as you guys have been a great help to myself and the reast of the Red Raven Team.

Im happy to e-mail chat (i usually get to read my mail daily lol) if im not in the forums for any reason.

Back soon

Hopes lol

Taz

Zak Arntson wrote: I'm taking a slower approach, now, digesting and reading more thoroughly. So, Lee, I'll be slower in responding.

Zak Arntson wrote: 1. Why do you see the need for a shield skill which is handled differently than any other skill?

Zak Arntson wrote: 2. When you're going to reward "thinking of the story", you're going to have to make sure all the participants (GM & players) are in agreement about what the story is. If one player sees one story, PCs collect the four orbs of each element from their guardian elemental spirits, and one player sees a different story, is it worth killing the neutral guardian elemental spirits for their orbs? Well, you have the potential for unhealthy friction between players. How are you going to make sure that players remain happy with play?

Zak Arntson wrote: About the shield skill, you have a pretty neat mechanic that could be applied in general.
- If a skill roll is greater than the opposition, it succeeds.
- If a skill roll is greater than the opposition by twice or more, there is a critical success.
- If the opposition is greater by twice or more, there is a critical failure.

fruitbatinshades wrote: We're back to this again. The only way to make sure everyone is playing off the same sheet is to make everything as tight as possible, which is exactly what we don't want to do. I always end up saying this but, it down to th GM. I'm gonna start another thread to hash this point out.