Hello all,

My name is John Arcadian. I'm one of a group of people who are currently working on an Indie game design called Silvervine Games. We're publishing a d10 system that is currently aimed at a fantasy world and a classless system.  Stumbled across the forum from treasuretables.org and I've been reading and looking at the community for help. Figured I'd finally register and get involved.    To introduce it and show you the place I'm coming from our silvervine system is a d10 attribute + attribute vs difficulty with a REQUIRED number of successes. Any skills you purchase lower the difficulty. It attempts to have a classless kind of creation system by listing skills and focuses at the same cost for every type of character and no benefits or bonuses for being a "knight" or "gunangel" or "mage", etc. 

I guess I wouldn't say that we are really trying to be original or have a breakout game, but to present a style of gaming that exists between the two extremes of fully story driven and fully combat driven.  We're aiming for a more character driven in your options for creating unique characters with enough combat and action based numbers and rules to satiate the power gamers and the butt-kickers in the groups.    The main way we do this is by making our skills very open to interpretation.  Say you have a skill in blacksmithing, it can lower the difficulty of a variety of actions such as: actually forging a sword, appraising a piece of metal work, finding flaws in the hinges of a door, etc.  I don't want to get too wordy here but you can find more about this at http://www.silvervinegames.com. We've got an about silvervine and I"ll be working next week on finally getting our LEVEL 0 guide up.

My question is what do you think of this type of system?    I'm sure it bears similarities to other indie or mainstream systems in some ways, and we're okay with that.  We just don't want to do the same things in the same way as other people have been done.  We want to present a partially carved block for people (players and GM's) to interpret in their own ways.  We're aiming for a rich world, easy rules and open skill interpretation.

The book (core rulebook and guide to the first world of cyrus) currently weighs in at 320 pages, with about 100 being description of the system, and the second 220 being world description, crunchy bits lists spells, etc.  yada yada yada yada.  I'm sure I"ll be peppering with more specific questions later and browsing old posts.  So anyways hi guys. Feedback always welcome.

Arcadian wrote: We're aiming for a more character driven in your options for creating unique characters with enough combat and action based numbers and rules to satiate the power gamers and the butt-kickers in the groups.

How about your "character-at-the-middle" creation system, sometimes known as character advancement?  Can people take their blacksmith and have him evolve into a barbarian warlord if circumstances warrant?  How much influence do the players exercise over how their character changes?

Okay.  Do player choices in game have a direct impact on how they can spend that experience?

Like, in Polaris, your choices determine whether you even get experience checks.  They come with your progression through the hope-to-despair cycle of the game, and so callous disregard for your fellows can push you to experience faster than otherwise.  Basically, the players have a great deal of influence (through their choices) over how and when their characters advances.  In CoC there are (I hear) skill checks which help you to develop in the skills that you're consistently using.  That sort of thing.

Consider a blacksmith who, having been shipwrecked on an island, doesn't build a boat and try to get home, but rather uses his knowledge of metal to make some weapons and take over the local tribes.  If I'm playing that character, making those choices, then I'm obviously slanting my guy toward a certain path of development.  That's one reason I made those choices.  Does my guy have a mechanically superior ability to pursue the whole barbarian warlord thing, compared to a person who goes off and makes his experience by (say) helping the dwarves to re-secure one of their cities that has been overrun by goblins?

Player choice doesn't really say you have to spend the experience in a certain way.  The GM awards experience based off of what they did in the session.  Most of the experience is assigned on the GM's assessment of your playing.  Action (0 to 3 points) is awarded in how you did in action scenes (fighting a monster/enemy, chase scene, etc)  Some things like goal achieved though the GM asks what goal you had achieved and awards experience based on how well you describe it.  If you didn't do action, you wouldn't get action experience, but if you role-played well or used your mediation, blacksmithing skill to effective use in some situation you get experience for that.  This is a list of the experience categories that we've been using in playtests, but it's like everything up to GM choice.    You get experience more on how well you played your character, however you choose that to be.

Action (GM)
Role-playing (GM)
Story Impact (GM)
Character Development (ASK)
Goal Achieved (ASK)
Teamsmanship  (GM)
Good Skill Usage (ASK/GM)
Archai Rules (If ritualized 1EXP per rule followed)
Unique Solution(Optional) (ASK/GM)
Code of Ethics (Optional)(ASK/GM)
Record Keeping (optional) (GM)
Game Contribution (optional)

Arcadian wrote: The GM awards experience based off of what they did in the session.  Most of the experience is assigned on the GM's assessment of your playing.

Hello John, welcome to the Forge,

This quote caught my eye:

I guess I wouldn't say that we are really trying to be original or have a breakout game, but to present a style of gaming that exists between the two extremes of fully story driven and fully combat driven.

It puts the GM in quite an awkward place.  If she gives out less than 3 in a category she's saying "I don't appreciate your roleplaying as much as I might," which is a very disheartening message to someone who thinks they did a really good job.

Heya John,

Welcome to the Forge.  Your system looks workable, though I must say the GM is given a great deal of power when it comes to awarding exp.  Not unusual, but not the only way either.  What I really want to know about your game is the following:

1.  What is your game about?  Not the resolution system or advancement.  But what is the essence of your game?

2.  What do the characters do?  Not advancement, buy skills, or "develop".  What do they do in-game.

3.  What do the players do?  IE, what kinds of behaviors by the players does your game encourage?

If you can answer these, we might be able to evaluate your game as a whole a little bit better :)

Peace,

-Troy

Why do you feel "fully story driven" and "fully combat driven" offer two extreme of gaming styles? And what design features of your game do you feel mean that your game supports this middle style better than other similar games?

Could I ask what roleplaying games you've had experience with?

Thanks tony.  It's kind of hard to drop it all into simple phrasing. 

1.  What is your game about?  Not the resolution system or advancement.  But what is the essence of your game?

2.  What do the characters do?  Not advancement, buy skills, or "develop".  What do they do in-game.

3.  What do the players do?  IE, what kinds of behaviors by the players does your game encourage?

Heya,

We're aiming for a more character driven experience.  Where the characters can choose their ways of developing. If you want to make a dwarven samurai gardener you can. We've had alchemist fighters, dark wizard hunters, airship pirates, elven rangers, ogre philosophers, summoners, nordic fighters.  We're kind of aiming for people getting to make their characters in the ways they want.

gets a job that is what they were raised with or do outside of what history records.  Sure the guy who discovered lost tomes of magic and became a premiere mage is recorded for that, but he discovered them because he was a shepperd looking for a place to get his sheep out of the rain.  The dwarven samurai was  a happy gardener until he got caught up in shakesperean schemes that forced him to accompany rare trees to clave where he was told he was to stay and take care of the trees, so he stayed to become a samurai.  Heis stil a gardener, the mage is still a shepperd.

Well I think what we are trying to do is lay out the rules in such a way that people can get the experience they want out of the game.  If you want to play it as a typical dungeon romp then it can go that way.  If you want to do it as more social interaction and intrigue then the people can build the characters in that way and play that kind of game.  A lot of the user of the system is up to interpretation. The game kind of encourages the players and GM to build their own game out of it.

Hello Arcadian,

I was almost laughing when I read your earlier posts because what you were saying sounded so much like what I was saying when I first brought Mageblade to the Forge. Don't get me wrong; I'm not the wise-old-game-designer seeing the younglings making the same mistakes; I'm just a young, still struggling game designer recognizing the same goals I had when I was a younger game designer.

I'm guessing, from what you've said so far, that the setting has lots of different magical choices, probably a couple different magical systems (or at least variants within the over-arching system) a broad setting with the full spectrum of typical fantasy races and probably one or two of your own creation. I also imagine more pages of rules are devoted to character generation than to task/conflict resolution. If I'm right, then the reason is because that's exactly what I brought to the Forge. And if I'm right, I see the Forge doing one of two things for you; Either it will overwhelm you to the point that you have to honestly sit down and say you don't have an answer to all the questions, and you'll either just keep plugging away at what you've been doing without further Forge input, or you'll quit/shelve the game for a while. Or you'll really think about the questions, and pare down all the excess stuff to get a really focused game, which is what the Forge ideology generally promotes. Both things have sort of happened to me; I shelved my game for over a year before I was finally ready to answer these questions that Troy is putting to you. I'm still answering them, still paring down the excess. I'm a slow worker when it comes to this sort of stuff.

Anyhow, what I really want to say is that you should really listen to Troy's ideas. Not necessarily use them, but think about them, find something you like better, and go with it. The most important decisions you should walk away from this thread with shouldn't have to do with what people think about your ideas, or whether or not people think your ideas will even work. What you need to decide is precisely the answer to Troy's questions:

What is your game about?: If it's about exploration and finding new and cooler things to kill, make sure there's lots to explore and lots to kill. If it's about a character going from zero to hero, make sure there's a system in place that not only allows for that but causes it to happen; If people don't want to play a character who starts out as a farm-boy and go on to topple the empire, then they shouldn't be playing your game. and that's okay. Your game should do what you want it to, and if anyone wants something else, then they should look elsewhere. No game can be all things to all people. Not saying you're trying, but I know I certainly was.

What do the characters do?: Hugely important. Most games don't answer this question explicitly enough, or at all. Often times, they don't want to limit what you can do; they're trying to do what I said above, be all things to all people. Do NOT do this. If your characters are supposed to go adventuring, don't worry about mechanics that allow you to run the myriad details of a medieval town. If the game is about social intrigue in a royal court, don't stress about combat rules of any sort (unless duels are meant to be important) or rules about adverse weather conditions on the trail. As it seems to be a game about characters becoming heroes, heroic path rules might be a good idea, as Troy suggests. Other times, game designers assume that players will know what their characters are supposed to do; It's a roleplaying game! Go kill stuff! Don't do this either. You'll want to spell out what the characters are supposed to do, so they can get down to doing those things and enjoying your game the way it's meant to be played.

What do the players do: Again this is an often overlooked aspect of the rules text. What sort of *player* behavior is appropriate? Do you want the players to think tactically, either for combat or for political maneuvering, etc? Make sure the rules encourage this, then. Make smart and clever decisions and ideas count, and people will be more likely to play smart and clever. Do you want the players to stay IN CHARACTER as much as possible? Reward this, then. Maybe give dice bonuses for particularly cool narrations, the way Sorcerer does, and people will be more creative in their descriptions. Do you want character backgrounds to be important? Then don't expect the GM to just bring stuff up from the characters' backgrounds. A good GM will probably do it anyway, but make it a player responsibility, too, and give either the player, the GM or both the mechanical tools to bring in character background stuff, as well as rewards for doing so.

Also, to comment on something said earlier, about how the GM has a lot of power in doling out XP: It may not ever be a problem if the GM is fair, but sometimes the GM's honest idea of fair differs from the players' idea. I try to be fair, and I frequently look for reasons to give XP, but I've still been accused of being stingy. Explicit reward mechanics are a good thing. Most times, the GM isn't going to resent the book telling him what to reward, how much to reward, and in what fashion; Me, I'm generally very grateful for the guidelines, or even for strict rules.

Finally, another important thing to note: XP isn't necessarily the only form of mechanical reward, nor are in-game items or money. A method of reward I've become fond of is the sort of reward that allows the player to highlight or elaborate on their character; Perhaps new traits, or spotlight time can be a good reward. Some games, new traits are the only form of reward or punishment, and they generally work really well, and the characters are fully realized and have depths and stories to tell by the time you're done. Another form of reward is the ability to change or add to the setting, or even the rules of play... Anyhow, if you can't tell, Reward Mechanics are a big thing for me. Make them good, and the game's half sold.

Anyhow, looking forward to hearing more from you, and hopefully I've not rambled on too bloody much.

thank you for the incredible and very tough questions.  I'd answer them now if I had a minute to spare.  They really do help you look at it from another perspective.  When I can over the weekend I'll try to put in a post with a level 0 guide that explains all the basics, I'll be writing it up with some of the questions I've been asked in mind and trying to answer them there.  I'll try to answer some of the new questions while I"ve got a chance though.  Then I'll get back to the others later

4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

5.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?

6.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?

Thanks wolfen for the depth and insight.  It's a lot to design a game and I'd like to think we're ready for the challenge or at least ready to be batterred down and get right back up like ali.  Reading all the posts helps me to define the concept a little more. 

As of today (maybe not tommorrow) I'd say the SVG system is aiming to be an open adventure game in the setting of choice. It still does focus heavily on action but with a wide variety of character defined options for that action.  While your characters are primarily adventurers and world savers (depending on the adventure) their other skills and previous life can come into play in adequate ways. The game is about the story of your characters and what is built around them. The GM's role in our game should be to set the stage around the characters, create a story with challenges for them to overcome.  The players goal is to bring out their character through their story. 

Do you want the players to stay IN CHARACTER as much as possible?

Your game should do what you want it to, and if anyone wants something else, then they should look elsewhere. No game can be all things to all people.

"I'm a firm beliver in 70% of any game is up to how the GM runs it so we try to give a base for the GM to build off of."

I think that's true if the game design gives the players (including the GM) only 30% of what they need. The theoretically perfect design gives its participants 100% of what they need in terms of social framework, procedure, and system. In such a system, all the participants have to do to have a great game is to play exactly according to the game text. The text can give firm rules, firm procedures, or general guidelines. These are all part of the system.

Certainly, some things can't be helped, like players who don't want to participate or GMs who want to ruin the game for everyone (consciously or not). You can't design for everything. But you can try to make that 70% that you say is "up to how the GM runs it" into a 25% or 10%.

The question for you is, how does your game design guide the GM and players towards the kind of game you want it to be? How do you tighten up the margin for error caused by a bad GM or a GM having an off day?

I think that's true if the game design gives the players (including the GM) only 30% of what they need.

The theoretically perfect design gives its participants 100% of what they need in terms of social framework, procedure, and system.

The question for you is, how does your game design guide the GM and players towards the kind of game you want it to be? How do you tighten up the margin for error caused by a bad GM or a GM having an off day?

Heya,

The setting gives a fairly wide variety of options for the player to choose from.  It is entirely possible in cyrus to play a typical knight, ninja, mage, etc.  The setting does not limit what that particular knight, ninja or mage can actually do.  There are orders of knights that people can join, (whytegaard) but which have many different classes within them.  It isn't uncommon for a knight of whytegaard to be well versed in poetry, guns, herbalism, etc or for the knights to not wear armor (bladesingers) or to wear standard steel armor (palladin masters).  These classes though don't actually effect the way the mechanics give the character bonuses. They are archetypes the character can fit into .

I'll try to give these two at the same time since I think the answer is fairly the same.  We like to encourage roleplaying above action, but leave in the action elements as well.  The system encourages you to bring out your character in your roleplaying and to have background reasons for most of your skills or other focuses (generic term for non skills).  I'm a firm beliver in 70% of any game is up to how the GM runs it so we try to give a base for the GM to build off of. There are rewards (low to high) for roleplaying your character, for engaging in action scenes, for developing your characters skills and keeping to the same path.

I think I'm having trouble making my words match my thoughts.  The concepts of the game have become so ingrained that I just accept them as part of game reality.

I'd really like to know about the mechanisms in place in your game that takes a character from being a humble gardener to an archmage.  What triggers these changes?

-Cool.  You've answered what kinds of behaviors are rewarded.  And I can see where you're going with this.  Not bad.  But I'm still unclear on how the PCs are rewarded. It's my fault for not being more clear.  So let me put it another way.  What kinds of rewards exist in your game?  What do the players and characters get for doing the things you listed above?

Heya,

One as the person they are without any of the adventures skills they have now.  This is shown by their profession basic.  Something non combat, non adventuring regular joe lifestyle job.  Tailor, gardener, farmer, banker, librarian,scholar, etc. 
One as the person that is capable of going on these grand adventures, saving the world and being the historical figure.  This is the result of all of their character creation.  This is the point where the player decides how much he wants these two lives ingrained.

The standard reward system is a set experience awarded at the end of the session.  Characters gain experience by the way they play their character.  This expierence is used directly to purchase new skills, attributes, focuses, hit point bumps, etc.    The experience categories are varied so it's possible to gain experience off of playing different types of characters.  If you are a tactician you might gain experience by achieving a goal.  The GM would the be final arbitrater of how much experience is awarded.  If you play a warrior archetype and your prime character action is fighting then you can get experience for that.  If you play a social character or one good in town situations you could get good ROLEPLAYING EXPERIENCE.

This I don't think is a problem because the GM is the one developing the story and controlling most of the world.

I hope this gives the idea of what we've got in place. It seems to me like a pretty standard video game experience system but instead of just based on killing things it's based across many different types.

SVGAMES EXPERIENCE SYSTEM: CYRUS

Experience and Levelling Up

Once you’ve created your character and have taken them out on the road a bit you’ll find that the skills you started out with are not quite adequate to deal with new threats and challenges.  You’ll also find that you’ve grown and changed as a character and may have picked up new skills. Like the character creation process the leveling up process is based on a point buy system.  You can buy new skills, increase old ones get focuses, but you can also increase your characters attributes, you can raise your hit points or use some experience to ensure basic success on an action once per session. 

At the end of every session you will be awarded with experience points. The experience points you are awarded are based on how you play your character. A character can be played in many ways and you have probably molded the character to fit certain needs.  They may be a fighter and made to do well in battle scenes.  They may be a thief and do well with stealing things by sneaking into buildings.  These would be rewarded with more points in the action category.  You may be very socially oriented and deeply involved within the story that the GM has set up.  If your character has impact on the story working his way through the twists and turns you may receive story impact experience.  If you are working towards certain types of goals and you achieve those goals then you may be rewarded with experience because of that.  If you put your non combat skills to good use, using merchant skills to negotiate with an innkeeper or archival skills to find that one tome of magic with just the right spell in it, etc, then you would be rewarded here.  Of course roleplaying your character and developing them within the game are awarded as well.  The GM may choose to add other categories into this as well to define the flavor of the game they wish to run. 

Experience also levels your character up.  When you gain a certain amount of experience points you raise in level. At this time your character gets a free hit point bump and their manna raises as well if they are ritualized. There will be a place on your character sheet to keep track of how many Experience points you’ve accrued, as well as how many you have left to spend. The amount you’ve gained never lowers but the amount you have left to spend goes by the cost of what you spend it on.  The experience system is kind of like a monetary system for skills. It is gained by the work you put into your character rand then used to build up what your character is capable of doing well. It is very important to keep track of this as the character and as the GM.

Not sure how good this table will come out, but we'll see.

[table][tr][td]Category  [/td] [td]None[/td] [td]Basic[/td] [td]Good[/td] [td]Great[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Action (GM[/td])   [td] 0[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]3[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Role-playing (GM) [/td]  [td] 0[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]3[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Story Impact (GM)[/td]   [td] 0[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]3[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Character Development (ASK)[/td]   [td] 0[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]3[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Goal Achieved (ASK) [/td]    [td] 0[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]3[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Good Skill Usage (ASK/GM[/td])   [td] 0[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]3[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Archai Rules (If ritualized 1EXP per rule followed)[/td] [td]0[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]1[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Unique Solution(Optional) (ASK/GM)[/td] [td] 0[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]3[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Code of Ethics (Optional)(ASK/GM)[/td] [td] 0[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]3[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Record Keeping (optional) (GM) [/td][td]0[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]1[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Game Contribution (optional) (GM) [/td]            [td]0[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]1[/td][/tr][/table]

Extra Things to Buy with Experience

You can spend your Experience on a few other things than just skills. 

Increasing One Attribute Point
75 EXP
You can raise on of your attribute points by one.

Extra HP Bump
15 EXP
Add an extra hit point bump.

Will bump
10 EXP
You can spend 10 Experience points one time per session to guarantee success on one action.  You must have that much Experience at the time of spending.

Reflexes Cap Buyoff
By armor
You can spend experience on your armor as well.  You can pay the Experience listed in the reflexes modifier buyoff column and completely buyoff the reflexes cap.

Awesome.  Does the player create two character sheets duing character generation or just one?  Like does he make a character sheet of what he is at the begining of the campaing and what he wants to be once he achieves his Big Goal?

Let me ask if I understand you correctly.  PCs earn experience points, but there are different kinds of experience points.  Each kind is divided into a different "pool", so for instance you might have a Combat, a Social, a Magic, and a Religious pool of Exp.  The kind of Exp you earn determines where you can spend those points.  Is that correct?  I believe this is what you said earlier, but I just want to double check :)

Heya,

At the end of every session you will be awarded with experience points. The experience points you are awarded are based on how you play your character. A character can be played in many ways and you have probably molded the character to fit certain needs.  They may be a fighter and made to do well in battle scenes.  They may be a thief and do well with stealing things by sneaking into buildings.  These would be rewarded with more points in the action category.  You may be very socially oriented and deeply involved within the story that the GM has set up.  If your character has impact on the story working his way through the twists and turns you may receive story impact experience.  If you are working towards certain types of goals and you achieve those goals then you may be rewarded with experience because of that.  If you put your non combat skills to good use, using merchant skills to negotiate with an innkeeper or archival skills to find that one tome of magic with just the right spell in it, etc, then you would be rewarded here.  Of course roleplaying your character and developing them within the game are awarded as well.  The GM may choose to add other categories into this as well to define the flavor of the game they wish to run. 

Experience also levels your character up.  When you gain a certain amount of experience points you raise in level. At this time your character gets a free hit point bump and their manna raises as well if they are ritualized. There will be a place on your character sheet to keep track of how many Experience points you’ve accrued, as well as how many you have left to spend. The amount you’ve gained never lowers but the amount you have left to spend goes by the cost of what you spend it on.  The experience system is kind of like a monetary system for skills. It is gained by the work you put into your character rand then used to build up what your character is capable of doing well. It is very important to keep track of this as the character and as the GM.

I guess I wouldn't say that we are really trying to be original or have a breakout game, but to present a style of gaming that exists between the two extremes of fully story driven and fully combat driven.  We're aiming for a more character driven in your options for creating unique characters with enough combat and action based numbers and rules to satiate the power gamers and the butt-kickers in the groups.

I bet you have a great recipe.  But there's no way they'll notice your box, regardless of how flashy it is, in an isle with a hundred other boxes more narrowly focused to appeal to their personal tastes.