I've been toying with a conflict engine involving dice pools for a month or two, and just looked back over my notes. I've posted some of the proto-ideas hereabouts before, but I have a more concrete sense of what I'd like the mechanic to do. Here are the bones-

Arenas

Characters are described in terms of how good they are in the setting's most significant arenas of conflict. In the Jane Austen rpg, the only arena that really matters is Sociability. In a classical fantasy game, Magery, Fighting, Thievery, Woodcraft etc.

Characters may have other charactersitics...or their abilities in the Arenas may be derived from attributes or such (but really, why bother).

A character's ability in an arena are broken down into three aspect:

Power- a character's raw natural abilities in an arena
Practice- how honed a character's natural skills are.
Technique- the specific things a character has trained to do.



Power provides a character with his Bones

Practice provides a character's Max for that arena

Technique grants a number of specific special abilities. Each Technique is tied to a Style




Bones- the number of dice a character throws for a Bout in the Arena. I use six siders because I have a big pile of them.

Max- a die cap. any die which shows a value greater then the Max is disguarded.

Style. A Style is an element of color which describes a sub-set of an arena's combat. Styles can be martial arts techniques, weapons, magical disciplines, social style etc.


Conflict


When characters engages in a Bout (a dramatic unit of conflict of no fixed timeframe) in a given Arena, everyone follows these steps:

1 Everyone rolls their Bones
3 Everyone declares their Style and slides one die up for Initiative.
4 In reverse order of highest initiative, everyone pushes out their Action dice. At any time, a character who has not yet pushed an Action, can push a Counter. If this die is greater or equal to an Action, they cancel each other out. If the Counter is less than the Action, it still reduces it by it's value- partial defense instead of no defense.
5 Once everyone has pushed their Actions and Counters, another round of die-pushing begins. A character who runs out of dice is SOL.
6 The results are


Each push of the dice demands description.


Complications

It's never that easy.

Techniques grant a characher all sorts of Tricks to use when pushin dice:

Shatter- divide a single die into two dice with half the rolled value (rounded down).

Lump- add two dice together into a single die of greater value

Round- reduce the value of die to equal Max so it won't be lost.

Raise- boost Max in specific circumstances.

Feint- swap a low value Action for a higher value die after an opoenet has pushed a counter.

Trump- Your style of conflict counters another style very well. Trumped oponents don't benifit from their Techniques when going up againt you.

Block- you have a free Counter against all Actions of a certain style. This begins at 1 and increases by 1 for each time Block is selected.


Each technique is tied to a specific Style.




Example

A setting of warring sorcerers. The magic is powerful enough to level cities, so physical combat is pointles. Only Magical and Social arenas need be messed with.

so...

Magical Arena
Mana- A magician's natural magical ptency
Craft- how much skill a mage has using his magical power
Arcana- what kinds of spells and mystical techniques he knows


A mage's magical arena looks like this:

Mordan Shadowspinner

Mana- 8 (throws 8 dice)
Craft- 4 (has a Max of 4)
Arcana- 3 (knows 3 special techniques)

Techniques
Power of Darkness- (Raise +2 max w/ Shadow magic)
Thousand Shadows- (Shatter w/ shadow magic)
Cloak of Night- (Lump w/ shadow magic)

Mordan has specialized in Shadow Magic. When he cast spells based on darkness or shadow, he can add 2 to his Max, split dice, and add dice together. He is a dangerous oponent. However, if he tangles with Alphonse of the Golden Hair (a mage with heavy specialization in Light magic and a Trump and Block technique for Shadow magic), he might be in for some trouble. Specialize at your own risk.




Conclusion


Will it work? Does it make sense? Are there any huge gaping flaws?

Is the initiative die hidden until all are selected? What number sided dice? What happens if two players are tied for initiative (this will pobably by a common situation)?

6 The results are


Each push of the dice demands description.

Geep!

My fingers must have gone numb.



As for initiative... I don't know. Yes? It is one of those things I was toying with back and forth.

I've been thinking d6... but milage may vary.

And, as for ties... again, not sure. I was thinking they could either resolve simultaneously, have a tiebreak trait of some sort, go even odd, or give them option of pushing another die.

What would you recomend?

Clever. Do you actually envision a "roleplaying" game with this as the mechanic, or more of a series of staged conflict resolutions such as implied by "arenas" and "bouts"?

How do settings get defined? Are they established in advance or created on the fly? Frex, when did it get decided that Alphonses Light magic trump Shadow; before character creation when the setting was defined...or during play to confront Mordon with a tailored opponent?

How do the techniques get chosen? These rules would lend themselves very nicely to a very Gamist confrontational type of game, so perhaps point based purchaseing would be effective.

An idea for another technique "Secret Dice". You can hide (under your hand) the value of the die pushed forward for Init and Attacks (or even seperate them "Secret Init", "Secret Attack".)

Thus "Cloak of Darkness" might better describe a "Secret Init" Technique

How about an assassin with
Critical Strike (Lump)
Backstab (Secret Attack)
Used in combo, somebody's feeling some pain.


Anyway, I'm envisioning a "Hero Quest", or "Dungeon", or "Dune" type game would work well with this.

BTW: please share the rules for effects.

Valamir wrote: Clever. Do you actually envision a "roleplaying" game with this as the mechanic, or more of a series of staged conflict resolutions such as implied by "arenas" and "bouts"?

How do settings get defined? Are they established in advance or created on the fly? Frex, when did it get decided that Alphonses Light magic trump Shadow; before character creation when the setting was defined...or during play to confront Mordon with a tailored opponent?

How do the techniques get chosen? These rules would lend themselves very nicely to a very Gamist confrontational type of game, so perhaps point based purchaseing would be effective.

An idea for another technique "Secret Dice". You can hide (under your hand) the value of the die pushed forward for Init and Attacks (or even seperate them "Secret Init", "Secret Attack".)
(snip)

Anyway, I'm envisioning a "Hero Quest", or "Dungeon", or "Dune" type game would work well with this.

BTW: please share the rules for effects.

Hi there,

I'm a bit strapped for time, so system and design thoughts will have to wait.

But I do want to say that one thing I've been really wanting to see is a Gamist RPG that is not based on the traditional late-70s dungeon-fantasy context.

We have tons of non- or almost-RPGs that do with, including Bedlam and the other games I mention in the Bedlam review. But I'm talking about a plain solid RPG - (1) Gamist to hell and back, (2) not in that dungeon-fantasy context.

I'll be back,
Best,
Ron

Okay, let's talk about the numbers. I'm concerned about the Max mechanism.

A a player's effectiveness in a round appears to depend mainly on the total rolled. That total depends linearly on Bones, but more or less geometrically on Max:

MAX -- AVG. ROLL PER BONE

1 ---- 0.17
2 ---- 0.5
3 ---- 1.0
4 ---- 1.67
5 ---- 2.5
6 ---- 3.5

Starting at 1, an increase of 1 point of Max is comparable to, successively, tripling, doubling, 1.67x, 1.5x, and 1.4x the number of bones. Any player would be a fool not to max their Max, at a one for one cost in Bones, up to the point where they only have two or three bones left. Where most mechanisms like this have diminishing returns to encourage tradeoffs, this system has increasing returns for Max.

I think you had in mind here that going into Action phase with more dice (albeit with lower numbers) could be a useful tactic against fewer dice with higher numbers. But lowering Max to add a Bone actually gives you, after the roll, about the same or fewer dice with lower numbers, unless you have a rather small number of Bones. For example:

3 Bones, 6 Max: 3 usable rolls averaging 3.5
4 Bones, 5 Max: 3.33 usable rolls averaging 3.0
5 Bones, 4 Max: 3.33 usable rolls averaging 2.5
6 Bones, 3 Max: 3 usable rolls averaging 2.0
7 Bones, 2 Max: 2.33 usable rolls averaging 1.5
8 Bones, 1 Max: 1.33 usable rolls averaging 1.0

Consider converting all rolls over the Max to the Max, rather than discarding them entirely. (Minimizing your Max could then be interesting. Being the only one with dice left could be devastating, even though they were all 1s, but you'd have to survive long enough to use them, with only counters of 1 to defend yourself with.)

- Walt

[edited to respace the first table which had run together]

Before the specific comments, let me just say that Walt is now among my personal pantheon of dieties. Brilliant man, brilliant.

wfreitag wrote: Okay, let's talk about the numbers. I'm concerned about the Max mechanism.

A a player's effectiveness in a round appears to depend mainly on the total rolled. That total depends linearly on Bones, but more or less geometrically on Max:

MAX -- AVG. ROLL PER BONE

1 ---- 0.17
2 ---- 0.5
3 ---- 1.0
4 ---- 1.67
5 ---- 2.5
6 ---- 3.5

I think you had in mind here that going into Action phase with more dice (albeit with lower numbers) could be a useful tactic against fewer dice with higher numbers. But lowering Max to add a Bone actually gives you, after the roll, about the same or fewer dice with lower numbers, unless you have a rather small number of Bones. For example:

3 Bones, 6 Max: 3 usable rolls averaging 3.5
4 Bones, 5 Max: 3.33 usable rolls averaging 3.0
5 Bones, 4 Max: 3.33 usable rolls averaging 2.5
6 Bones, 3 Max: 3 usable rolls averaging 2.0
7 Bones, 2 Max: 2.33 usable rolls averaging 1.5
8 Bones, 1 Max: 1.33 usable rolls averaging 1.0

Consider converting all rolls over the Max to the Max, rather than discarding them entirely. (Minimizing your Max could then be interesting. Being the only one with dice left could be devastating, even though they were all 1s, but you'd have to survive long enough to use them, with only counters of 1 to defend yourself with.)

Ron Edwards wrote: Hi there,
But I do want to say that one thing I've been really wanting to see is a Gamist RPG that is not based on the traditional late-70s dungeon-fantasy context.

We have tons of non- or almost-RPGs that do with, including Bedlam and the other games I mention in the Bedlam review. But I'm talking about a plain solid RPG - (1) Gamist to hell and back, (2) not in that dungeon-fantasy context.

OH OH! I just came up with a good mook-rule:


Mobs

Some npc's too pathetic to consider individualy. Mobs are treated as a single character for the purposes of conflicting with.

A Mob has Bones equal to it's number of members, modified as follows:

Power
Pathetic (1 Bone per 5 Members)
Average (1 Bone per Member)
Tough (3 Bones per Member)

Skill
Inferior (Max 2)
Typical (Max 3)
Trained (Max 4)

Most Mobs won't have Techniques, but some may. Points may be subtracted from Bones to add to Technique.


So... in a Kung Fu setting (Chi/Skill/Technique) with a primarily martial theme, two mobs from oposite ends of the scale:

Angry Peasants
(Pathetic/Inferior- 30 members)
Chi 4
Skill 2
Technique (none)


The Demon Three- brother assassins
(Tough/Trained- 3 members)
Chi 7
Skill 4
Technique 2

Unseen Sword (feint w/sword)
Three Brother Strike (lump w/sword)

Yes...this is what I want...
I don't know if I ever showed you my ideas on Battle Fantasy, but its got similar ideas in the total gamist dept. I'm loving this. :)

Chris

Bailywolf wrote: Any suggestions for moderating this? Is it as simple as making Max three times more expensive than Bones?

(much tasty content sniped and digested)

However... that's reckoning without Techniques. Techniques could compensate for this somewhat. For example a Technique that increases the benefit of higher numbers rolled would encourage higher than "optimum" Max, while a Technique that adds value to over-Max die rolls would encourage lower than "optimum" Max. In some cases, once the Technique is taken into account, including the cost of the Technique itself, an optimum might still be there, just shifted. But some Techniques, like one that converted your over-Max die rolls into rolls equal to your Max, might alter the whole curve and restore the independence of Bones and Max. What would be even better would be if a player's choice of Technique affected the benefit yielded by other players' Techniques, so no one player could sit down and optimize without knowing what the other players had.

- Walt

"I see you are useing Bennini's defense against me"
"I thought it fitting given the terrain"
"Then you must expect me to attack with cappa farro"
"I find Tybault cancels out cappa farro"
"Unless your opponent has studied his Agrippa...which I have"

Techniques, counters, anti counter, counter anti counters...

With a little noodling, your system could be made to do this.

Schweet

OK...

Kenway lit a fire under my ass with a great PM...so...

I'm going to riff on setting a bit...

In response to Ron's challange (1- gamest as hell' 2- non-dundeon/fantasy) let me try this...

SteamJam

The Time: a 1965 that never was. The power of steam never faltered- enormous Babbages the size of sky-scrapers and powered by rivers grind away in a belt-driven information revolution. Outogyroes, huge passenger ornothopters, and Power Zeplins all ply the skies. Enormous sleek road-engines cruize the highways. It's an Art Deco paradise...but man has been up to his old tricks. The two world wars were fought- only with enormous Land Fortresses and Mole Machines.

The Place: The Far East. Tokyo- city of the future. Surounded by huge wind-farms driving vast belt-networks...Tokyo is a center of industry in a nation bursting with frenzied invention and expansion. Hong Kong- mysterious, energetic, complex. The British Empire still hold sway here, but more ancient orders than the monarchy of England secretly pull the strings. Martial art schools, tongs, and the colonial government all secretyl serve The Unseen Dragon.

The Conflict: it is a time of strife- War in Vietnam, the growth of communism, threat of destruction from the hundreds of Intracontinental Burrowing Magma Torpedoes (IBMT's) the Soviets and US have aimed at each other. The ancient occult and martial traditions run head on into the frenzied inventions of master mind criminals, the biological horrors created by Deep Magma Energy releases cause by the first BMT tests in the 50's. Tradition vs Revolution with a Jazy soundtrack.

The Characters: Players take on the rolls of exciting, over the top masters of their chosen fields. The world's most unorthodox and brilliant inventors...the world's greatest living martial artists...on of the few remaining masters of the Eldrich Arts... or Agents Exrtaordinaire foiling dasterdly plots every week, falling into bed with beautiful people, surviving certain death, and looking damn cool going it- In like Flint baby.

Characters all have abilities in at least three Arenas (Social, Martial, Practical) and can select an additional one (Magical, Inovative, Political, Investigative, or Espionage) or boost one of the basic three.

The Hook: Everyone works for BOOK. BOOK is an international, multifaceted outfit with jurisdiction globaly to deal with Paranormal, Astrobiological, Psychocultish, or Frakenscience emergency. BOOK has numerous sub-divisions related to specific missions. BLACK BOOK deals with covert operations; BLUE BOOK with Exospatial threats; GREEN BOOK with Aberent Biology; RED BOOK with political crisis; GREY BOOK with mad science... and so on.

So, is your Kung Fu powerful enough to save the world?

The Influences: The Avengers; The Man From UNCLE; The Saint; Steam Detectives; Gate Keepers; The Flint Movies; Castle Falkenstien; BIG O; Cowboy Beebop. Every Kung Fu Actino Theater I ever saw before the age of 12...the ones with bell bottoms and that great "swish swish" sound when they kicked; Captian Scarlet; Thunderbirds... oh, my brains hurt!



Mad! They all said I was mad at university! but my Lightning Cannon will show them who's realy mad! Haaaaaaahahahahahahaha!

Intracontinental Burrowing Magma Torpedoes (IBMT's)

wfreitag wrote:
The end result of this is, Max and Bones are not really independent. For any given number of total points allocated to Max and Bones, and for any given Bones to Max cost ratio, there are one or two "correct" Max levels unless the player is willing to live with a disadvantage.

contracycle wrote:
They don't necessarily have to be causally related, they could arise from setting - based character origins. there is no mechanical need to balance them off against in each other in terms of the way the system resolves.

Perhaps something like:

(snip)

Thus, old wizards tend to be harder than young wizards; but the talented may overcome them, sometimes, and steal their powers. Insert mechanic for raising the Gift by performing some horrid act. Insert cosmological abstract for transfer of powers. Insert commentary on how Experience may be identified through observation.