I have written an RPG system (no setting) called LowDie and have released it as a Rich Text File (RTF) under the Open Game Licence (OGL).

As I am not in this for profit I have released it without much playtesting, hoping to gain feedback from anyone who picked it up and ran a game with it.

To date I have received a small amount of feedback, some complimentary (it has been likened to Unisystem), some critical (it offers little new, it is human-centric).

I would however like more feedback, hence this post. Ideally I would like some more experienced playtesters to try it out and provide some feedback if that is possible.

The RTF file is available from my website or from RPGHoard here.

I appreciate any help you can provide.

Cheers!

Hi.

It looks OK, much like the James Bond 007 RPG from Victory Games.

When I see "GP", I keep thinking "Gold Piece" from AD&D. Perhaps it would be simpler to use "points" instead of "Generation Points"?

Your game system rewards players who read the rules carefully and min-max their characters to gain higher effectiveness by choosing disadvantages that are horrendously to the entire party or only come into play infrequently. Is this intentional?

Why should I use this system over, say, Fudge?

For example, with Fudge, I can have Wealth as a descriptor and roll that for tasks involving the use of wealth, so negating the need for accounting for money in Low Die. You could do the same in Low Die, and it would be an improvement, I feel.

Also with Fudge, I and my players can assume that most attributes default to Fair (average) and most skills default to Terrible, if not otherwise specified, so negating the need to buy up attributes from zero to get to average with Low Die. IIRC, JB007 had attributes defaulting to average, and the players could sell them down if they wished. Could you do the same?

Andrew Martin wrote: It looks OK, much like the James Bond 007 RPG from Victory Games.

Andrew Martin wrote: When I see "GP", I keep thinking "Gold Piece" from AD&D. Perhaps it would be simpler to use "points" instead of "Generation Points"?

Andrew Martin wrote: Your game system rewards players who read the rules carefully and min-max their characters to gain higher effectiveness by choosing disadvantages that are horrendously to the entire party or only come into play infrequently. Is this intentional?

Andrew Martin wrote: Why should I use this system over, say, Fudge?

Andrew Martin wrote: For example, with Fudge, I can have Wealth as a descriptor and roll that for tasks involving the use of wealth, so negating the need for accounting for money in Low Die. You could do the same in Low Die, and it would be an improvement, I feel.

Andrew Martin wrote: Also with Fudge, I and my players can assume that most attributes default to Fair (average) and most skills default to Terrible, if not otherwise specified, so negating the need to buy up attributes from zero to get to average with Low Die. IIRC, JB007 had attributes defaulting to average, and the players could sell them down if they wished. Could you do the same?

One thing I noticed right off: since many ten-sided dice are numbered 0-9, you should make clearer in the Core Mechanic section that zeros should be read as 10 or dice numbered 1-10 should be used.

I have to say that the LowDie mechanism itself is clever. It's a nice way to get a well-behaved random distribution that's center-weighted and centered (that is, where 0 is the most likely result and where +n and -n results are equally likely for any n) using dice that are numbered in the normal way (as opposed to, say, Fudge dice).

Note that you could get exactly the same distribution of results in a variety of other ways:
- subtract the die rolls, always subtracting in the same way e.g. the red die from the black die
- add the two die rolls and subtract 11 (for dice numbered 1-10) or 9 (for dice numbered 0-9)
- add the two die rolls and also add 11 (or 9) to the DN
- the player rolls one die to add to his total and the GM rolls another die to add to the DN.

The LowDie mechanism doesn't involve as much addition or subtraction. It does require remembering which die is which in order to read the result as positive or negative (as does the first alternative listed). Which way is best is going to be a matter of personal preference, but overall LowDie might be the fastest and it’s a variation I haven’t seen before. Another benefit of the LowDie mechanism is that one could easily change the variance or "degree of randomness" either for a specific test or gamewide by using smaller (or larger) dice. (The first and fourth alternatives listed could also do that smoothly, while for the second or third you’d also have to change the constant, which would be awkward and error-prone.) This would give you intermediate options between rolling the d10 LowDie, and going completely diceless.

It's admirable that most of the write-up is oriented toward providing information to help the GM evaluate challenges (deriving the DNs and applying the effects of different levels of success and failure). There are some improvements that could be made in that area, though, by focusing on play situations rather than (as you've done in a few cases) statistical facts and figures. For instance, a table of how much weight characters of different strength ratings can lift isn't really very useful in play, since there's usually more uncertainty in how much the item in question "should" weigh rather than how much weight the character can handle. What's the chance this hero can lift this I-beam? With only the Muscle table to work with, I can't tell unless I happen to know how many pounds an I-beam weighs.

This is not a suggestion that you add a big table of how much everything in the world weighs, though. Instead, you should take into account that you already have a mechanism to decide whether or not the character succeeds in the face of uncertainty about the exact details of the task: the core die roll mechanism. (You might think the randomness of the die roll represents the variation in the character's performance, but given the spread of results, which even in the -5/+5 center range alone adds as much variation as the skill level, it makes as much or more sense to think of the die roll as representing factors in the task itself that are outside the acting character's control and unknown in advance. Such as whether the target of an attack will effectively dodge, or exactly how much that I-beam actually weighs.) So instead, provide a table of example objects likely to be lifted in play, and the respective DNs for a Muscle test. Skip the kilograms altogether.

In general, I suggest that everywhere you have a special rule or a special table for buying or using an ability, "special" meaning something other than one of your standard DN, Results, or Modifiers tables, strongly consider rendering it into your standard form. Andrew Martin's suggestion about handling wealth and purchasing is another example of exactly the same principle. Yet another example is Contacts: the key issue in resolution isn't who the contact is, but how likely the contact is to come through with a given favor when the character needs it. A character having a Contacts rating that works like a skill, with example DNs for different magnitudes of favor, would work just as well or better than the present catalog of contacts and costs, which doesn't appear to help the players to resolve attempts to actually use the contacts. (The player can still write down who the contacts are and so forth, for use in narration.)

Finally, some Indie Game Design forum boilerplate: you'll get more useful feedback here (or anywhere, but especially here) if you can specify what your areas of concern are. Is there some aspect of the game you're looking to improve or change in a particular way? Some potential problem (presentation, mechanical soundness, originality, support of certain play styles, or whatever) that you wish to investigate?

- Walt

Walt Freitag wrote: One thing I noticed right off: since many ten-sided dice are numbered 0-9, you should make clearer in the Core Mechanic section that zeros should be read as 10 or dice numbered 1-10 should be used.

Walt Freitag wrote: Note that you could get exactly the same distribution of results in a variety of other ways:
- subtract the die rolls, always subtracting in the same way e.g. the red die from the black die

Walt Freitag wrote: - the player rolls one die to add to his total and the GM rolls another die to add to the DN.

Walt Freitag wrote: - The LowDie mechanism doesn't involve as much addition or subtraction.

Walt Freitag wrote: It does require remembering which die is which in order to read the result as positive or negative

Walt Freitag wrote: LowDie might be the fastest and it’s a variation I haven’t seen before.

Walt Freitag wrote: This would give you intermediate options between rolling the d10 LowDie, and going completely diceless.

Walt Freitag wrote: It's admirable that most of the write-up is oriented toward providing information to help the GM evaluate challenges (deriving the DNs and applying the effects of different levels of success and failure).

Walt Freitag wrote: provide a table of example objects likely to be lifted in play, and the respective DNs for a Muscle test. Skip the kilograms altogether.

Walt Freitag wrote: In general, I suggest that everywhere you have a special rule or a special table for buying or using an ability, "special" meaning something other than one of your standard DN, Results, or Modifiers tables, strongly consider rendering it into your standard form.

Walt Freitag wrote: if you can specify what your areas of concern are. Is there some aspect of the game you're looking to improve or change in a particular way? Some potential problem (presentation, mechanical soundness, originality, support of certain play styles, or whatever) that you wish to investigate?

Aspects for Testing
There are a number of different aspects of the LowDie System that I would like feedback on, and these include:

Clarity - Are the rules easy to understand? Did you interpret a rule differently than someone else? How well are the rules formatted? Is the structure of the document any good? How easy is it to teach others how to play?

Balance - Do you feel the character generation and development process results in balanced characters? Are Attributes too cheap compared to Skills? What Traits do you feel are too powerful or too expensive? Are there any loopholes in the rules that can allow characters to be too powerful?

Completeness - Do you feel the rules lack detail in a certain area? Do you feel one area has been completely overlooked? Do you feel there is too much detail?

Styles of Play - Do you feel the system allows for the different styles of play - Gritty, Dramatic and Cinematic - as it pupports to do? Do you feel it favours one style over another? Are there some other rules that you feel could better allow the styles of play to be captured?

Adaptability - Do you feel that you could use the LowDie System to run a game of your favourite roleplaying genre, be it cyberpunk, espionage, sci-fi, horror or fantasy? What about if there was specific support for these settings? Which genres would you like to see supported?

Any other comments or criticisms that don't fall into the above categories are of course welcomed as well. And don't just comment on what doesn't work, let the me know what you did like and what worked smoothly! :)

I hope you appreciated some kind of rushed feedback (about 15 minutes of reading the core part of the rules, and then glancing over the rest), as I'm super busy at work.

I was surprised to not find GURPS on your influences page (this of course, isn't a fault of yours), but I think it's the most obvious comparison: both your game and GURPS aspire to be generic any-setting games in which the creative agenda leans strongly towards Simulation of System (okay, I can leap, but exactly how far can I leap? 31 feet!), and while the resolution mechanics are different (but both pretty 'simple' at their core), the level of detail and complexity (high) is about the same.

So, the question is, why play LowDie as opposed to GURPS? The battle is going uphill on one major issue: when the creative agenda of both games is associated (in my mind) strongly with Simulation of System, that GURPS has a huge, enormous library of supplements to give you the rules you need to play just about any setting imaginable is a big headstart.


One of the most carped about system weaknesses in GURPS: albino syndrome, where players end up a pile of disadvantages/weaknesses to max points, is still here. Players are rewarded, very strongly, for taking as many weaknesses as they can, and they are also rewarded for making those weaknesses have absolutely no impact on the story: score the points for the alcoholism weakness, and then try and make sure the GM doesn't screw you on it.


I think that helping to define what separates it from other games of its ilk might lead to some good design choices. Right now, the pitch is: "great new die mechanic, which is simple", but you're going up plenty of other games (fuzion, GURPS, etc) where the core die mechanic is simple as well. Fate Points aren't really that interesting either (the bump a roll or small coincidence thing is very common now, and I think originates with Fudge).

Anyway, best of luck!

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: I hope you appreciated some kind of rushed feedback (about 15 minutes of reading the core part of the rules, and then glancing over the rest), as I'm super busy at work.

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: I was surprised to not find GURPS on your influences page (this of course, isn't a fault of yours), but I think it's the most obvious comparison:

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: Simulation of System (okay, I can leap, but exactly how far can I leap? 31 feet!)

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: the level of detail and complexity (high) is about the same.

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: So, the question is, why play LowDie as opposed to GURPS? The battle is going uphill on one major issue: when the creative agenda of both games is associated (in my mind) strongly with Simulation of System, that GURPS has a huge, enormous library of supplements to give you the rules you need to play just about any setting imaginable is a big headstart.

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: Fate Points aren't really that interesting either (the bump a roll or small coincidence thing is very common now, and I think originates with Fudge).

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: Anyway, best of luck!

Heh. I think it just goes to showhow similar most high-detail generic systems look in the end. GURPS was there first, as far as I can tell, but it's not like that matters.

As it turns out, James Bond 007 is old! (1983), which is surprising, but there you go. Serves me right for being a toddler when it was released.

The creative agenda stuff can be found in the articles section: GNS And Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory and Simulationism: The Right To Dream might be especially relevant.

Good luck with hitting your goal! If I had to recommend ideas where you might gain more differentiation, without sacrificing the feel, I'd consider reworking disadvantages (disadvantages that pay when activated, maybe paying in fate points; disadvantages that are based on being worked into stories), and maybe thinking about using orthodox scene framing: who says it's the GM who always gets to decide what the next scene is?

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: Heh. I think it just goes to showhow similar most high-detail generic systems look in the end. GURPS was there first, as far as I can tell, but it's not like that matters.

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: As it turns out, James Bond 007 is old! (1983), which is surprising, but there you go. Serves me right for being a toddler when it was released.

Yeah, I like Spycraft's background system a lot too.

I think if you expand the idea of weaknesses to also include plot points (much like Spycraft's backgrounds) work, and then have them be the core generator of fate points, you've got something where people will want to take backgrounds (even if they're doing nothing but min/maxing), and then will want to see those backgrounds show up in play.

You can either take Spycraft's approach, where it's kind of agnostic to how troublesome the debt is, or you can come up with an approach where certain types of backgrounds (weaknesses) give certain types of penalties, which makes them less expensive.

Or, another approach is that you buy backgrounds at a certain power level, and then the payoff for these backgrounds is based on whether it hurts or helps you: when you're really hindered by a background, that's when it pays off the most.

The problem to watch for is that the currencies might be too equivalent: a weakness means taking a -2 penalty on one roll gives you a fate point of +2 bonus later. Spycraft dodges this by making it all into XP, but this is in essence, a cop-out: hitting your backgrounds, or let's rephrase this, making the story hit the plot points which the players find interesting should be something which ideally, drives a large part of the game.

Grant wrote: I plan on doing a LowDie Light version, cutting out all the specific DN and Results tables and just emphasising using the general tables to act as a guide for the GM. I will also use the shorthand attributes and cut the Skill list in half by doubling up (for example Fire Arms will combine Side Arms and Long Arms, and Control Animal will combine Ride and Animal Handling).

Walt Freitag wrote: Hmm. No reason not to, I suppose, but I would think the whole point of a system like this is the tools it gives you to reach resolution on PC actions when resistance and uncertainty exist. I understand streamlining rules and why it's often desirable, but I don't see it in this case. It's like taking a bunch of 20-amp shop tools (lathes, bandsaws, drill presses) and making them half as big. They still won't be portable, or quiet-running, or easier to learn or use, but they will be less capable of the heaviest-duty jobs.

Walt Freitag wrote: Consider that you could, for instance, reduce your game to the core die mechanism and character attributes, name-your-own skill and trait selection, and instruction to the GM to do all resolution by judging the difficulty of each action attempted, assigning the appropriate TN, and applying any relevant character skills and other modifiers. I'm not saying you should do that, I'm saying that if you did it would be completely playable. That you've seen fit to provide more specifics than that suggests that there's some quality of play you want those rules to provide.

Walt Freitag wrote: Your book isn't the first to sweep that whole aspect of play under the "Have the GM do it" rug. It's a rather time-honored tradition. But what's the point? How many GMs out there can craft an adventure from nothing, but need a text to tell them what happens if a character makes a successful seduction roll?

Walt Freitag wrote: You might get more testers and more meaningful results if you were to provide the outlines of a "sample adventure" designed to exhibit and exercise the key features of the system.

DM

I haven't read through all of your document yet but I had one question. How come you don't have it available as a PDF? You can get free programs with PDF capablity, such as open office. It's pretty common to put out your stuff in a PDF.

best

Rob Muadib

RobMuadib wrote: I haven't read through all of your document yet but I had one question. How come you don't have it available as a PDF? You can get free programs with PDF capablity, such as open office. It's pretty common to put out your stuff in a PDF.