Hi!

My name is Apemantus, and I'm new to the Forge, but I've been playing RPG's (mainly D&D) for a while now. I'm in the process of designing my own game for the first time, and I wanted to see what other some other game players might think of the material. For a tentative name, call my game "Realm."

I'll give you a glimpse of what I'm making with my RPG. I want to hieghten the experience of roleplaying, and one mechanic which I've come up with is to hide the statistics from the players.

I feel that when someone sees thier character's abilities summarized in a list of numbers, that necessarily hieghtens the distance a player feels between himself and the character: the character has become nakedly a third person avatar, and in any die roll the probabilities of success can be known.  We already know what he can and cannot do; it remains simply to decide what direction to send him. 

However, this is very much unlike real life. The dice rolls of life are hidden from us, and this imposes a fantastic uncertainty upon us, about our potentials and what will become of us. When a character is rolled, the player immediately knows: alright, this one would make a good "___", and proceeds to roleplay that. But much of the excitement of life comes from self-discovery, and I believe that role-playing would be all the better if the characters themselves had a bit of mystery about them, like we do to ourselves. So character abilities in my system are rolled by the DM (well, actually there are multiple DM's in a sense, I'll get to that), and the players never know: they must get a feel of thier characters' abilities by playing.

Some effects of this. It eliminates the familiar situation plaguing any roleplaying system which rolls stats: that situation where someone rolls a character that is 'not ideal' in some way. Thus the wonder that the player felt for the character he planned on playing is already lost, before the game even begins. This is because the player discovers his character's limitations before the game even begins, and thus makes the character incredibly shallow. By the time a player discovers what his character can anad cannot do under the system I've designed, that character will have had a long life and many stories to tell. Thus an uninteresting character will be hard to find, because we're never quite sure what the character is capable of. Combat becomes more suspenseful, of course, when you're not sure what you've got.

Another fantastic effect of the concept which I will now call the Hidden Dice feature, is the solution to another age old role playing problem, this one very, very general: the detail and excitement which can be afforded by complex rule sets vs. the difficulty of learning a complex system.  Right now, a complex system is renowned for being a bad one: it scares new users away, and someone who's never roleplayed before probably is intimidated. With Hidden Dice, beginners need not learn ANY rules. None. They simply role play, as they should. The players simply role play.

So, you've probably been wondering who the heck keeps track of all the stats, and whether piling everything upon the DM would kill this idea. Yes, making one person keep track of all of the statistics would be a serious flaw, and especially making the one who is telling the story do so. So I need to introduce a new kind of player. Add to the list of the DM the Protag and the Antag (Sorry if these words seem silly but I need a name for them). The Protag is the one who roleplays friendly NPC's and keeps charge of thier stats, and the Antag is the one who roleplays Enemy NPC's and keeps track of thier stats. The DM keeps track of the statistics he wishes to, delegating authority with NPC's to the Protag and the Antag. The DM, Protag, and Antag are a storytelling team, and the DM is the leader (all right, I'm going to have to start giving the 'DM' a different name, since perhaps it's no longer the exactly the same concept--the Realm Master, ok?). The Protag and Antag act in coordination which the RM's concept of the world although they are also roleplaying characters and should roleplay them autonomously most of the time, with general direction from the RM. As a side note, the RM roleplays as yet neutral characters.

This accomplishes a few things. It gives the faces of the enemy and that of the friends different faces. I believe this has a psychological effect. A player can look at the RM and think, 'I'm not sure whether he's trying to kill us or not, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't want us to die, that'd ruin the game.' But if a person is only roleplaying the enemy, then a player thinks instead 'This guy really does want us dead.' And since the Antag is sincerely roleplaying the enemy, such a player would be right.

There are other things in this system I think are original. For example, the combat mechanics I've thought up for this system I think will make for exciting action sequences, and I'm developing a magic system, but I'll save these until we've had a chance to talk about the first idea.

So let's discuss. Perhaps this system could be finished sooner if I had a chance to share the ideas with other gamers. From what I've read of the Forge (over the last few days, as I'm new), I'll bet I get some good commentary.

Hi there, and welcome to the Forge

(Is Apemantus your real name? We tend to do first names around here. E.g. I'm in fact named Jasper.)

Let me first try to summarize the main goals you've set forth here, and see if I've got them straight.

- Players don't know the full capabilities / nature of their characters; they have to explore them through play
- Players are completely insulated from the rules by the intervening GMs; they're supposed to role-play without reference to formal rules
- Two GMs have different roles, one friendly one hostile; they control different types of NPC accordingly.

These are all interesting goals, and I think you can definitely get some mileage out of them.

However, you say that you've mostly played D&D, and it kind of shows. In other words, from what you've said, Realm has been built in direct response to D&D, in an effort to address some of its shortcoming. Nothing wrong with that per se. But at at the same time, Realm has inheritted quite a lot from D&D, perhaps unwittingly, including a lot of assumptions about how RPGs work...assumptions which we're all rather fond of questioning around here (not to make it sound exclusionary -- you're a contributor to the Forge too now). In the interests of helping you with the game, people may ask you to reconsider some of those assumptions...and ask you to do some reading too, I'm afraid.

So, I'll first refer you to http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=5564.0 (the other "rants" in the series are worth reading as well).

But more specifically, I see some big assumptions built into Realm. The first that lept out at me is stats. You say upfront that you want to hide stats from players (for various reasons). But if stats are bad, why have them at all? If you don't want players to deal with them, why make GMs deal with them either? There are other options than "stats." Along with that is a reaction against apologists for rule-light games. You explained why you think Realm can get away with having a lot more rules (by hiding them from the Players) but you didn't exactly say why you want a lot of rules in the first place. And this really gets to the meat of the issue: rules shouldn't exist for no reason, but always to accomplish something very spcific that you need for your game. To help you with this thing, we need to know what Realm is really about. There are two questions we're fond of asking to get at that:

1. What do the characters do? Describe what happens "in game."
2. What do the players do? This is diffferent from #1. Players talk and think about the game, they move around resources, they make decisions. Imagine an actual session of Realm, and what players (including GMs) are doing and saying when the game is at its absolute best. What about play should have the players really excited? Describe that.

This is a lot to have thrown at you, but think about it, and ask more questions if you need to, and we'll do out best to help.

(Oh, one more smaller question that may help us out: what's your "publishing goal" for Realm? Up on a website for free? Pdf download? Print run? These options can be discussed more in depth in the Publishing forum, but it's nice to know where you want to go with it.)

Thanks Jasper! I'm impressed by the insight.

Yeah, and if people go by thier real names around here, I will too.

I'll get to your immediate questions. First, you're right in your appraisal of the game, when you summarized the main goals. These were the goals I intended.

About stats...I want to include them to make combat detailed and unexpectable. For example, instead of having turns in the usual sense, there's a mechanic where each action has a temporal length associated with it, and there are turns, but they do not rotate around the table necessarily. This I think creates the possibility of a true counterattack. Also I think it would reward creativity in regards to tactics, that is, the player is rewarded for making smart decisions, as the simple 'hit him with my weapon' is not always the best move to make.  Whereas (and you guessed it, this is a response to D&D) in D&D combat usually ends up being a loop of 'you try to hit me, and then i'll try to hit you, until someone dies,' with few variations of this theme.

I want to see players tripping, pushing, disarming, getting disabled, doing all sorts of things that always happen in real combat but were never tactically smart in D&D. I want weapons to have thier own advantages and disadvantages, and I want different attacks to have advantages and disadvantages, too. The bottom line is that the right choice should never be clear unless someone has really strategized.

So, I think that in order to make combat varied (by rewarding players who make varying rather than static moves in a dynamic combat environment rather than making the same move over and over), I think I need a more complex system to decide combat.

Plus, I think it fits with the concept of Hidden Dice. I want the players, when it's thier turn, to have to act immediately, to be under pressure. I want them to act creatively and intuitively, without regards to the probabilities involved. And in order to do so, they must be free from the knowledge of what the probabilities are.

So here's a picture of a scene of roleplaying, in combat because I think it will be similar to other rpg's in non-combat scenes.  I want the players, like I said to be in suspense, not just about who's going to live and die, but who's going next, what's thier foe's going to do next, etc. I want them to use words and not numbers to describe things.

And in non-combat situations I hope perhaps one thing will be different, as a result of Hidden Dice: the players will not only be exploring the world but also thier characters and thier capabilities.

One thing I also ought to mention. You may be wondering what the character improvement mechanic is, since that I'll bet is an important part of a game's design. I plan to make it fairly subjective, with the RM and his team giving improvement to skills when the character performs substantial use of that skill or finds a teacher. 

Oh, and another feature, which the hidden rules and dice makes possible. I thought a good reward to a player who roleplays well would be knowledge of a single small rule of the game. It gives him insight, and so would be  an attractive reward.

Well, I hope this fills out some of the fuzzy areas.

Thanks again for your advice. I'll get right to reading the link and then respond to that later.

Oh yeah, and about publishing, first and foremost I want to get it written and played by me and my friends. Well, of course it would be awesome to have it actually printed and published; is that likely or not? I'd like to try to get it published for real but if it isn't bought then I would probably post it on a web site.

Right now your link isn't working. It may have something to do with me being in Russia....I'll just try it again soon.

Henry, welcome to the Forge!

First some game references.  I highly recommend Luke Crane's <a href="http://www.burningwheel.org/">Burning Wheel for an excellent example of suspense in combat.  It's probably the best example I've seen.

One thing I'm curious about: If players have no idea how effective they might be, then doesn't that make it easy to upset their expectations?  "I sweep his legs out from under him, that's a creative and powerful maneuver!"  GM rolls some dice, "Oh, did I mention that you're not really a very good fighter?  You fail."  "But if I had known I wasn't a good fighter I would have done something else!"

See the problem?  If the player has no idea how effective his character is at accomplishing things, how does he know whether to attempt them?  That is, if he doesn't know his chances of success how does he decide whether the rewards are worth the risks?  Now, it's possible and valid that that's not even a consideration in your game, but then the question arises: what meaningful choices do the players make?

Thomas

Henry,

Sorry abou the link, I don't know what happened there. Try this: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=5564.0. You should also look at the articles section of The Forge, particularly Ron Edwards' Fantasy Heartbreaker articles. (And do check out Burning Wheel too.) They may change things a lot for you.

I think that in order to make combat varied...I need a more complex system to decide combat.

LordSmerf wrote:

If the player has no idea how effective his character is at accomplishing things, how does he know whether to attempt them?  That is, if he doesn't know his chances of success how does he decide whether the rewards are worth the risks?  Now, it's possible and valid that that's not even a consideration in your game, but then the question arises: what meaningful choices do the players make?

Thomas

Henry wrote:

Plus, I think it fits with the concept of Hidden Dice. I want the players, when it's thier turn, to have to act immediately, to be under pressure. I want them to act creatively and intuitively, without regards to the probabilities involved. And in order to do so, they must be free from the knowledge of what the probabilities are.

Henry wrote:
I want them to act creatively and intuitively, without regards to the probabilities involved. And in order to do so, they must be free from the knowledge of what the probabilities are.

Thanks for the reading list...I definitely need to check out what's out there before I attempt to improve on it.
I'll answer some questions.

LordSmerf wrote:

One thing I'm curious about: If players have no idea how effective they might be, then doesn't that make it easy to upset their expectations?  "I sweep his legs out from under him, that's a creative and powerful maneuver!"  GM rolls some dice, "Oh, did I mention that you're not really a very good fighter?  You fail."  "But if I had known I wasn't a good fighter I would have done something else!"

See the problem?  If the player has no idea how effective his character is at accomplishing things, how does he know whether to attempt them?  That is, if he doesn't know his chances of success how does he decide whether the rewards are worth the risks?  Now, it's possible and valid that that's not even a consideration in your game, but then the question arises: what meaningful choices do the players make?

knicknevin wrote:

would it make more sense if the game was set up as the journey of discovery for these characters? If players start with a blank sheet and don't know the rules, then their characters must be very young and inexperienced;

OK, this may be pretty much a stream of conciousness, I'm just going to hit out the ideas as they come to me...

An Assumption: Players need to see their character's stats in order to know what they can do... your game is questioning this assumption, so the crux is, what do players need to know in order to play? And also, what would they have to know, e.g. what would it be unreasonable to hide from them?

Well, everybody, with few exceptions, knows their own past, so the players would have to know the past of their characters, which must therefore include some experience: at the very least, the player's need a character sheet that says something like 'I think I'm pretty smart' or 'I've learned how to fish', etc. So the question is then, how are characters measured by the GM and how does the GM communicate that data to the players? Does the GM tell the players what they are thinking? For example if the player says 'I'm going to climb that tree', does the GM say 'You are confident you can do that', 'It looks a bit tricky', 'Its taller than any tree you've climbed before', 'You've never climbed a tree before in your life', etc. It seems to me that the GM controls an awful lot about the PCs: its more like a game of discovering the character the GM has created for you, though I admit I might have misunderstood the way in which you intend characters to be created.

I think what we really need is a concrete example of a) what stats a character has and b) how those stats are communicated by the GM to the players, not to mention some more about your character creation process. I think i see what you're aiming for, which is that the players find out about & assess what they can do in a manner similar to real life, i.e. they remember how well they did the last time they tried something like this... I think very few of us go around with a little sheet of paper that says things like 'Post on Forums +5', we just use our experience and knowledge of language, typing skills, etc. The thing is, the type of RPG you're suggesting allows for things that mot of us have no real life comparison for, such as fighing monsters and casting spells, not to mention that it is one level removed from actual experience and involves no type of memory other than verbal: their are no other sensory components involved.

Yeah, definitely need to see some concree examples please: its getting pretty hard to assess & comment based on just the concept.

I like the concept of players not knowing their stats and I’ve even run a few games with this concept. Typically this was a game like Mage: The Ascension where character creation and dice rolls were fairly fast. One thing though and I didn’t see this in your main post, so forgive me if I missed it, is the value of the characters background story. What has the character done to get to this point? This gives the player that base line of this is who I am and what I think I can do.

It looks like the game you are working on focuses on younger characters and having them mature over the course of game play. So when creating the player’s character would it then be associated with here is where you were born, and the player and GM work to craft a background story that the GM can then use to pull relevant character data from, or possibly having the GM ask, growing up how did you handle this situation? Each answer helping to shape the character.

Also, character advancement, normally players can look at what their strong points are and decide I want to get even better or here are my weak points I better bring those up. With the gift of not knowing the numbers advancement becomes more about what the character has done and what they are doing to improve themselves. Possibly a combination of tracking use of skills and conversations on what the character does during down time.

By setting good expectations I think the players and GM can really focus more on the story and not mechanics of the game. I really like this concept as a core game feature and wish you luck.

Henry wrote:
About stats...I want to include them to make combat detailed and unexpectable. For example, instead of having turns in the usual sense, there's a mechanic where each action has a temporal length associated with it, and there are turns, but they do not rotate around the table necessarily.

I want to see players tripping, pushing, disarming, getting disabled, doing all sorts of things that always happen in real combat but were never tactically smart in D&D.

So, I think that in order to make combat varied (by rewarding players who make varying rather than static moves in a dynamic combat environment rather than making the same move over and over), I think I need a more complex system to decide combat.

Plus, I think it fits with the concept of Hidden Dice. I want the players, when it's thier turn, to have to act immediately, to be under pressure. I want them to act creatively and intuitively, without regards to the probabilities involved. And in order to do so, they must be free from the knowledge of what the probabilities are.

One thing I also ought to mention. You may be wondering what the character improvement mechanic is, since that I'll bet is an important part of a game's design.

Oh, and another feature, which the hidden rules and dice makes possible. I thought a good reward to a player who roleplays well would be knowledge of a single small rule of the game. It gives him insight, and so would be  an attractive reward.

Henry wrote:
Another fantastic effect of the concept which I will now call the Hidden Dice feature, is the solution to another age old role playing problem, this one very, very general: the detail and excitement which can be afforded by complex rule sets vs. the difficulty of learning a complex system.  Right now, a complex system is renowned for being a bad one: it scares new users away, and someone who's never roleplayed before probably is intimidated. With Hidden Dice, beginners need not learn ANY rules. None. They simply role play, as they should. The players simply role play.

Hey guys,

This is Henry's thread, but I would propose that we not bombard him with any more specific questions until he gets a chance to digest some of the classic articles/posts and think about the "standard greeting" questions.

Jasper wrote:
Hey guys,

This is Henry's thread, but I would propose that we not bombard him with any more specific questions until he gets a chance to digest some of the classic articles/posts and think about the "standard greeting" questions.

Henry wrote: Well do YOU need to know your own 'stats' in order to act in real life?

Maybe there is a balance between the two perspectives. If the game begins with player and GM building the character’s background story then the GM might be able to say, You’re Strong and tough, but not so quick, yeah, you did get into a lot of fights in the schoolyard, some you won, but not many, you preferred to say in and study, learning all your school had to offer on subjects X, Y and Z. Now the player knows, he’s not a wimp but he is more studied than an outdoors type. I’ve used the tactic of no character sheets to build a beginning for games, it’s a good way to set the mood and tone, but can become overwhelming as a GM quickly.

It’s a trick that can be done in any system, but simpler works better since it’s less work behind the scenes, at least from my experience. My personal opinion on the subject is it’s a good way to start things but once play begins in full better to hand back the character sheets. However, I’ve noticed Henry mentioned adding in two new support roles for handling the number crunching, which sounds like a really good idea for achieving the goal of blind gaming. I would recommend a “Styles of Play” section, detailing the Hidden Character Sheet Method as well as Tradition lay out and maybe a mixed middle. Thank you for reading though this post. 

Henry wrote:
And the combat system needs to be complex, even out of the sight of the PC's, because I do NOT want decisions to be arbitrary--Arbitrary decisions are always the most mundane, of course.

Henry wrote:

My argument is that not having direct access to probabilities will introduce a new kind of drama in character actions, and that uncertainty in general makes things more prone to cause fantasy in the mind, to make play more profound and exciting.

Hm, this may be a bit general and rambling but I hope it helps nevertheless...

First I can suggest some more good reads:
Universalis for a game that creates an incredible amount of uncertainty with simple rules and without any dice or GMs at all.
Dogs in the Vineyard for a combat mechanic that creates highly exciting and thrilling combat (or rather "conflicts") with a minimum amount of rules.

I'm not saying you should do what those games did but these games have changed the way I think about RPGs and they might just tear down some assumptions for you.

Let me just inject some statements. I don't claim that these are absolute thruths, though they are insights that have helped me greatly. For you they are mainly meant to provoke some thoughts:
1) Complex rules are not better rules. Games can be tactical, exciting and interesting with simple rules, too.
2) Complex rules are not bad just because they are complex. They are especially neat if mastering the rules is one of the challenges in the game ("Who can use the rules to their advantage the best?")
3) You don't need to be totally immersed to create a good story (or a game that focuses on story)
4) You can trust your players. With the "right" distribution of "power", arbitrary choices can lead to very, very fun play (see Universalis, for example).

Maybe you should familiarize yourself with what we call "naratavist" games around here. I'm not sure that's the style of play that you want but you sound a bit like it. Two I've already mentioned (Dogs and Universalis). Burning Wheel falls into that category as well, as far as I know and I believe The Riddle of Steel could be interesting for you as well, though I can't say for sure since haven't played or read it.

Again, I'm not suggesting you should do anything any particular way, I'm just trying to show some options and "free your mind" so to speak. It did wonders for me when I came here.

Best wishes,
Sven

Y'know, it's one of those things that just pops into your head after you've already said your piece, but thinking on it while walking the dog, I've now revised my opinion and think that maybe your two goals are compatible, with one proviso: the GM and the players collaborate in creating the tactical rules.

What if, instead of working out all the rules you want beforehand, you just create the very, very basics, the sort of things you learn in childhood, e.g. punching, kicking, using a stick & throwing a rock; then, players can have hidden stats, but still have an approximate idea about what they can & can't do. When anything not covered by these simple rules is attempted for the first time, e.g. trying to disarm an opponent, grapple them, aim for a weak spot, etc then the players and the GM enter into a dialogue about what the player expects the result would be and how the GM thinks that fits in with what has already been written. The player's success or failure at the task could even form part of the rule, e.g. "Well, you failed at that, so it must be very hard" or "That was very successful, so that type of attack does extra damage". Once the rule is agreed, it gets written into the rules that this grou are using; another group could have different rules variats. In this way, players can have very little knowledge about combat, reflecting the uncertainty of their characters (or is that vice versa?) and knowledge becomes a reward for creativity & experience.
Also, this would level the playing field; if the player's don't know the combat rules but the GM does, how can he give the players a fair challenge? Won't all the NPCs appear to be more capable than the PCs in combat, if the GM is using the full scope of the combat system? If he tries to play more balanced NPCs, he has to more or less feign ignorance of the combat system: tricky at best.
Anyway, sorry for posting twice before you've had a chance to reply, but I just felt that this was more of a constructive post than my previous one and I hope it helps. :-)