Hi, Im doing an RPG system that is fairly stable at the moment, and I
wouldnt mind some feedback on it. If someone out there is interested
in this kind of thing, send me an email, and Ill send it so you can
have a look at it. Feel free to be as ciritical as possible.

It uses the Window basic mechanic, but apart from that its not too
similar. Its designed to cater for a fantasy bronze-age world that Im
developing. Its more complex and munchkin-like than the window. I
think theres a little munchkin in us all, regardless of the high-brow
values the window basic rules like to take ;)

One thing though, I have vague ideas about publishing this one day, so
I dont want the doco distributed or in any other way ripped off, I
hope thats understandable,

Steve

Hi Steve,

If you really want feedback, then I suggest posting about your experiences in playing the game in Actual Play. That will not only yield useful discussions, but it will also direct people's attention toward wanting to check out your game and to understand what sort of play you're aiming for.

Best,
Ron

Hey Ron,

play-testing has been limited to around 20 hours so far, so there isnt too much to go on, and Im reluctant to put too many details about the system in the public domain.  yes, I know, what are the chances of this getting published?  miniscule, but still, I think theres enough unique details about the system to want to keep it that way for now.

However, generic critical comments so far have been 'too deadly': as in characters get crunched too quickly in combat.  Personally, Im not sure that I mind that perception.  And anyway, it could be that the players are still learning the system - if combat is deadly, its best not to just wade in, in a carefree manner, expecting the opposition to crumble harmlessly.  the system provides ways and means to shift combat in the PCs gavour, if the players are careful enough to exploit them (as they should be if combat is very risky)

Also, if combat is deadly, it makes it more dramatic, and players learn to treat combat as perhaps not the always best way to resolve a situation.

Stefoid, I'm not familiar with The Window...
and aside from that yuo haven't told us much.

Is there another thread that I should be refering to for info about your system, or will you be posting more here?

And.... if you're worried about us stealing your ideas, how can you come to us for reflection on those ideas?
I don't know if I, personally, can give you critical feedback of a system you won't post about.

Stefold, welcome to the Forge!

I'd like to know more about your system, but I can't tell you anything if you don't say what you're talking about.

You may want to check in in Publishing, though, if you're afraid your ideas will wander off without you. There's a lot of thought on the subject, and some of it might be very encouraging to you. For instance, Clinton R. Nixon, author and publisher of The Shadow of Yesterday and other cool stuff puts his work out under the Creative Commons license, so you can read every word for free before you buy. He's sold a lot of games that way.

If you choose not to do that, or at least give us some concrete play and mechanics, I don't think we can help you, man. We borrow from and credit each other constantly and it makes the games better, so if that's not what you want, you might just want to listen, or talk with us about other projects.

Hi guys, I guess i didnt make myself very clear -- if you are at all interested in having a read and providing feedback, just drop me an email and Ill post you the document.  Im just not ready to have it online available to millions just yet, thats all.

Where will we be replying to you then?

And, Stefoid: if you look around, you'll find that many of the games being discussed here will be marketted.

Stefold (What's your real name?), a lot of the games being discussed here are marketed. You can download the text for my upcoming game, Shock: Social Science Fiction from my sig. It's more useful for me to have friendly eyes on it (along with some other eyes) than to hold it secret.

But there's another issue here: this is a community. Part of our social contract is that we help each other. Shock: and Under the Bed are already credited in another game (Bliss Stage) as an influence, and both of my games credit many, many others.

If you're not comfortable with that yet, that's cool: stick around, listen, ask questions. I'm confident that you'll see that the benefits outweigh the risks by a long shot and we'll be trading assistance as soon as you meet the folks.

ok,ok.  you can get the doco here:  http://www.geocities.com/stevenmathers/RULES.zip

and while you ar there, if you like boardgames, you can check out a boardgame Im publishing at http://www.geocities.com/stevenmathers

Steve, I've read some of your game, and I'm struck some questions: what is your intent with this system? What kind of story do you want to be able to tell? Or if you don't want to use it to tell stories, what is its purpose?

My first queston is how do you roll a D30, unless  it's a new dice type I don't know about. Is it 5d6or such, or 3 D20 averaged and divided ed by 2?

Tim, they exist. I've got one, for some reason.

I want to hear where he wants to focus this game before we continue the discussion, though.

(Oops, I never posted these questions.)

OK, I've pretty much read your system. It's about 1/3 combat rules, 1/3 Magic specializations, which implies that it's a game about combat and magic uses therin.

What's interesting to me here is actually your personality mechanics and the way character power is determined by a reduction of randomness. I think those are both pretty neat.

Joshua wrote:
Steve, I've read some of your game, and I'm struck some questions: what is your intent with this system? What kind of story do you want to be able to tell? Or if you don't want to use it to tell stories, what is its purpose?

timopod wrote:
My first queston is how do you roll a D30, unless  it's a new dice type I don't know about. Is it 5d6or such, or 3 D20 averaged and divided ed by 2?

Joshua wrote:
(Oops, I never posted these questions.)

OK, I've pretty much read your system. It's about 1/3 combat rules, 1/3 Magic specializations, which implies that it's a game about combat and magic uses therin.

What's interesting to me here is actually your personality mechanics and the way character power is determined by a reduction of randomness. I think those are both pretty neat.

stefoid wrote:

Joshua wrote:
Steve, I've read some of your game, and I'm struck some questions: what is your intent with this system? What kind of story do you want to be able to tell? Or if you don't want to use it to tell stories, what is its purpose?

Well, like most of us, this is my 437th rpg system that Ive designed (but not yet thrown away this one).  Its a rough draft of the system I want to use for a gritty fantasy bronze-age setting that im sloooowly putting together.  No player races except humans, although there are 'monsters'  and 'demons'

Hi!
  If players don't have a d30 (they've been around for years, I think I bought my first one in 88 or 89 and they weren;t even new then), I think a d6 and a d10 would be better used to simulate. On the d6: 1-2 add nothing to d10, 3-4, add 10, 5-6 add 20.

Joshua wrote:

stefoid wrote:

Joshua wrote:
Steve, I've read some of your game, and I'm struck some questions: what is your intent with this system? What kind of story do you want to be able to tell? Or if you don't want to use it to tell stories, what is its purpose?

Well, like most of us, this is my 437th rpg system that Ive designed (but not yet thrown away this one).  Its a rough draft of the system I want to use for a gritty fantasy bronze-age setting that im sloooowly putting together.  No player races except humans, although there are 'monsters'  and 'demons'

Well, but that doesn't really answer my questions, but I think I was asking unclearly.

When using this system, are you trying to tell stories? Provide tactical thrill? recreate Greek myths? Devise a system that's fun to use to optimize a guy for combat and magic?

What are the characters going to do?

What are the players going to do?

I'm asking specific questions and I need specific answers to help. "Anything" is not an answer I can use to help you or give constructive criticism.

saidi saw some d30 on a web page, over sized d20's. Anyway, as for your setting, bronze age covers a rather larger span of time, maybe you could tell us what cultural/historical setting you had in mind? You siad there were only humans as playing characters, so I guess it's a historical setting?

As for the system. It looks fine, but for my taste it's a bit rule heavy. You don't want the rules getting in way of playing do you? Maybe windows is rules heavy, I didn't take make a complete study of  it, but I can say from looking over you .doc file, that things are pretty much tied down and set in stone as far as the rules and how it applies to your character. I don't know if this fits with fantasy setting. I've only played ad&d (that's right, first edition) as far as fantasy goes and the D.M wasn't rule heavy, so we had more fun then we did rules layering. Have you consider cutting some stuff out and leaving it opened ended to work out during play?
I dunno, maybe you like a bit more rules then I do, it's all personal taste.

One thing I will say is that having a single dice as your stat or skill is not a good thing as I see it. A random number between Y and Z is not a very reassuring system. I prefer the idea of having a base value to start with. That way you know your at least that good. Just a thought.

timopod wrote:
saidi saw some d30 on a web page, over sized d20's. Anyway, as for your setting, bronze age covers a rather larger span of time, maybe you could tell us what cultural/historical setting you had in mind? You siad there were only humans as playing characters, so I guess it's a historical setting?

As for the system. It looks fine, but for my taste it's a bit rule heavy. You don't want the rules getting in way of playing do you? Maybe windows is rules heavy, I didn't take make a complete study of  it, but I can say from looking over you .doc file, that things are pretty much tied down and set in stone as far as the rules and how it applies to your character. I don't know if this fits with fantasy setting. I've only played ad&d (that's right, first edition) as far as fantasy goes and the D.M wasn't rule heavy, so we had more fun then we did rules layering. Have you consider cutting some stuff out and leaving it opened ended to work out during play?
I dunno, maybe you like a bit more rules then I do, it's all personal taste.

One thing I will say is that having a single dice as your stat or skill is not a good thing as I see it. A random number between Y and Z is not a very reassuring system. I prefer the idea of having a base value to start with. That way you know your at least that good. Just a thought.

What I mean by a descriptive approach to combat is that is the system is designed to encourage the players to approach combat more as a series of manouevres - make it more colourful and vivd.  i.e.  instead of 'I hit the bad dude', its more 'I lunge quickly at the bad dude before he has a chance to react, in the hope of catching him off guard'.  Technically you dont need to formalize this.  Plenty of games encourage players to use a descriptive apporach to combat, and in theory thats great, but in practice it can fall down - either from the players end or the GMs end. 

stefoid wrote:
What I mean by a descriptive approach to combat is that is the system is designed to encourage the players to approach combat more as a series of manouevres - make it more colourful and vivd. i.e. instead of 'I hit the bad dude', its more 'I lunge quickly at the bad dude before he has a chance to react, in the hope of catching him off guard'. Technically you dont need to formalize this. Plenty of games encourage players to use a descriptive apporach to combat, and in theory thats great, but in practice it can fall down - either from the players end or the GMs end.

I dispair at the use of the terms "rules heavy" and "rules light" here. They're wildly imprecise terms that mean different things to different people, and the things they mean are of such dubious value.

Steve, you haven't answered my questions. What do the players do in this game? What do the characters do?

You say that the game is to be used to tell stories, but the rules are about combat, magic, and personality. As it stands, the only stories you can tell using this system are about personalities and the combat they engage in. There's nothing here about the Bronze Age, there's nothing here about telling stories.

wrote: No left-field takes on the RP experience or niche markets.

wrote:
Powerful magic in this setting is a lot less prevelant than perhaps the system implies.  sorcery is almost entirely in the hands of NPCs and is very rare and secretive.

wrote: normal characters use prayer and charms, although common magic use is prevelent in a few peripheral shamanic cultures.  powerful divine magic is in the hands of preists, although there would have to be a good reason for a PC to be a preist.

wrote: political intrigue in an urban setting perhaps...

what are the characters and players going to do?  again, no specialist agendas here.

joepub wrote:

What I mean by a descriptive approach to combat is that is the system is designed to encourage the players to approach combat more as a series of manouevres - make it more colourful and vivd.  i.e.  instead of 'I hit the bad dude', its more 'I lunge quickly at the bad dude before he has a chance to react, in the hope of catching him off guard'.  Technically you dont need to formalize this.  Plenty of games encourage players to use a descriptive apporach to combat, and in theory thats great, but in practice it can fall down - either from the players end or the GMs end. 

I love where you are intending to go with this... but I'm a little unsure about your direction.

I feel like - and this is just myself personally.... Heavy rules detract from roleplaying in combat. Even though they are forced to make more detailed explanations...

I've seen many players play like this: "I hit with Option A, using Manoeuver A, then set up Counter C, and spend X points on Preparation B".... when its rules heavy.

Andrew wrote:

stefoid wrote:
What I mean by a descriptive approach to combat is that is the system is designed to encourage the players to approach combat more as a series of manouevres - make it more colourful and vivd. i.e. instead of 'I hit the bad dude', its more 'I lunge quickly at the bad dude before he has a chance to react, in the hope of catching him off guard'. Technically you dont need to formalize this. Plenty of games encourage players to use a descriptive apporach to combat, and in theory thats great, but in practice it can fall down - either from the players end or the GMs end.

Steve, have you checked out Ron Edward's Sorcerer? Instead of adding in a bunch of rules for combat, you get bonuses for being creative, and penalties for being boring. Do you think something along those lines would accomplish your goal of making combat more colorful?

Joshua wrote:
I dispair at the use of the terms "rules heavy" and "rules light" here. They're wildly imprecise terms that mean different things to different people, and the things they mean are of such dubious value.

Steve, you haven't answered my questions. What do the players do in this game? What do the characters do?

You say that the game is to be used to tell stories, but the rules are about combat, magic, and personality. As it stands, the only stories you can tell using this system are about personalities and the combat they engage in. There's nothing here about the Bronze Age, there's nothing here about telling stories.

wrote: No left-field takes on the RP experience or niche markets.

What does this mean?

wrote:
Powerful magic in this setting is a lot less prevelant than perhaps the system implies.  sorcery is almost entirely in the hands of NPCs and is very rare and secretive.

Why is this? Is it because it's too powerful for the players to use, or because it's not where you want the action to take place? It sounds like it's your deus ex machina. Is that what you want?

wrote: normal characters use prayer and charms, although common magic use is prevelent in a few peripheral shamanic cultures.  powerful divine magic is in the hands of preists, although there would have to be a good reason for a PC to be a preist.

Why is this?

wrote: political intrigue in an urban setting perhaps...

I don't see any facility in this game for political intrigue. Is that what you really want?

what are the characters and players going to do?  again, no specialist agendas here.

I think you have a specialist agenda: warriors and magicians. You want the game to be about those things. Focus on that, and you'll figure out what your game is about. Because it's about something. You can't make it about nothing; trying to do so will just make it be about something badly.

I'm most interested in the personality mechanics, myself. I'd base the whole game on those.

Andrew's advice about Sorcerer is right on. The Shadow of Yesterday has a lot of neat character stuff in addition to great combat stuff, as does Burning Wheel.

What those games all share is a diamond-sharp focus on aspects of story, and it makes them excellent games. They all have mechanics based on the players, not just the characters, that allow and demand player participation in the story, which yields a tremendous wealth of fiction.

I'm not addressing your setting material because I don't see anything in the game about it. I'm chewing on a game that takes place in the Mediterranean in the era you discuss, myself, so I'm interested, but there's a big disconnect between the setting and the mechanics so far. What interests you about the Bronze Age? I suspect there's thematic material there that you will want to integrate. I also suspect, though less strongly, that the thematic material that interests you in your setting is what you really want your game to be about. Is it the struggle between duty and honor that Homer shows us in Paris? or the struggle to build a powerful family into a clan like Abraham? Choose something like this and focus on it, and you'll be able to make a powerful game.

Hi!
  Regarding divine magic, if you want to keep it and nerf it, you might consider having a requirement of so many faithful people being present for the more powerful prayers to work. Just a thought.
  As to niche vs. generic. I know what you are saying, but maybe you need to open your ears and hear what we are saying. Making your game "about" something will not force you into a niche. Every game that people want to play is about something. You could say D&D is not a iniche game, but it is about gaining power. You could say GURPS (which has generic right in the title) is not a niche game, but it is about realism. Think about it and you will see that you want to guide your players and GM towards having the "perfect" session with your rules. That doesn't mean that detailed combat rules are bad or that being rules heavy is bad. But it does mean you want to think about what the rules say about your game and what the rules are forcing the players and GM to do in order to enjoy your game. If the answers are acceptable to you, then your on the right track!
  I think this genre has a lot of peotential, stick to it man!

joepub wrote:
Stefoid, I'm not familiar with The Window...

The GM can manufacture any scenario that makes sense within this world, and thats why I called it a generic game in that sense.  A writer might call it a 'miliue' game.  Politcal intrigue with civilized characters?  no problem.  Pirates on the high seas?  Merchants forging a trading link with the mountain tribes?  Barbarian characters raiding settled lands?  thats all OK too.  The setting will hopefully contain many hooks that GMs can base stuff on.

so in other words, there is no requirement of the rules to support a particular theme.  With the emphasis on setting, the rules must merely support the various activities which could go on within that setting.

Joe, that's an interesting way of thinking about it.

Steve, if you want this to be a Gamist design, you might want to think about some things very seriously:

• The GM can not have the responsibility of both providing the challenge and adjudicating results. That's a conflict of interest and an endemic problem in older RPG designs.
• The GM must have resources to spend, probability to weigh, and stuff like that. It should be as explicitly cheating to throw in extra monsters (or take them out) as it is to have a referee grant points to a team in soccer.
• Every choice you give the players must be meaningful. In Gamist terms, that means that they have to be able to trade their resources (or weigh risks, or however you want to do it) in direct proportion to their gain.

Even though it's focused on Narrativist play, Dogs in the Vineyard's "Town Creation" system is something you might want to look at. It's used to generate a Situation in which the players can do their stuff and it works beautifully. If you don't use that system, not only are you breaking the rules, but the game you play really sucks.

Your goal for a Gamist design must be the generation of satisfying challenges for the players (never mind the characters for now). Those challenges will have to be understandable by the players and no dice can be fudged. If you're hosing your players, the rules are broken, and if they're hosing you, the rules are broken.

Now, I haven't played The Window, so I don't know how it works for this, but I don't see rules for the Storyteller anywhere in the rules; everything's up to their judgement, which causes the conflict of interest I mentioned above.

GIven your stated Gamist design goal, I'd like to see you dive into the Gamist aspects of this wholeheartedly. Make it so the challenges are real, objective challenges for the players. Make the setting demand that the characters the players are playing meet those challenges so that it all matches, it all makes sense. Give players hero cults like Achilles had so their society demands that they go out and do heroic things, challenging monsters and demons.

dindenver wrote:
Hi!
  Regarding divine magic, if you want to keep it and nerf it, you might consider having a requirement of so many faithful people being present for the more powerful prayers to work. Just a thought.
  As to niche vs. generic. I know what you are saying, but maybe you need to open your ears and hear what we are saying. Making your game "about" something will not force you into a niche. Every game that people want to play is about something. You could say D&D is not a iniche game, but it is about gaining power. You could say GURPS (which has generic right in the title) is not a niche game, but it is about realism. Think about it and you will see that you want to guide your players and GM towards having the "perfect" session with your rules. That doesn't mean that detailed combat rules are bad or that being rules heavy is bad. But it does mean you want to think about what the rules say about your game and what the rules are forcing the players and GM to do in order to enjoy your game. If the answers are acceptable to you, then your on the right track!
  I think this genre has a lot of peotential, stick to it man!

joepub wrote:

The GM can manufacture any scenario that makes sense within this world, and thats why I called it a generic game in that sense.  A writer might call it a 'miliue' game.  Politcal intrigue with civilized characters?  no problem.  Pirates on the high seas?   Merchants forging a trading link with the mountain tribes?  Barbarian characters raiding settled lands?  thats all OK too.  The setting will hopefully contain many hooks that GMs can base stuff on.

so in other words, there is no requirement of the rules to support a particular theme.  With the emphasis on setting, the rules must merely support the various activities which could go on within that setting.

Notice Dindenver's reply to this, Stefoid.
A cool combat system isn't enough to make me buy a game.
There needs to be the "This is what my game is about, and this is why you'd want to play it".

I've got a different way of thinking about it - a little hypothetical situation:
Imagine you've finished this game, and you are turning it into a PDF/book/whatever.
Now you are adding artwork to the book, adding flavour text, providing some useful examples.

What does the artwork depict? What kind of protagonist is the flavour text referring to?
What are people doing in these "ideal" examples?

Hi!
  If you are thinking of re-doing your magic system, bear in mind that in the Bronze age, there was no distinction beween arcane and divine magic. If you could perform a supernatural feat, you did magic. It didn't matter if the source of the power was a god, a ghost, a devil or some other kooky notion.
  I read this in a book that was devoted to researching this very topic (Magic in the middle ages, Kieckhhefer). Basically, the advent of the Christian church brought about a change to make that distinction. And in fact, he found evidence of talismans and other artifacts that had inscriptions from multiple religions and runes. He had found a metal amulet that had a supplication to Isis, The hebrew god, Jesus and a bunch of "magic words" on it.
  So, since your emphasis is "Bronge age", you might want to consider using a single mechanic and just have the player declare the source of their power. Just an idea.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521785766/qid=1138760139/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-2385904-1060127?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Joshua wrote:
Joe, that's an interesting way of thinking about it.

Steve, if you want this to be a Gamist design, you might want to think about some things very seriously:

• The GM can not have the responsibility of both providing the challenge and adjudicating results. That's a conflict of interest and an endemic problem in older RPG designs.

• The GM must have resources to spend, probability to weigh, and stuff like that. It should be as explicitly cheating to throw in extra monsters (or take them out) as it is to have a referee grant points to a team in soccer.
• Every choice you give the players must be meaningful. In Gamist terms, that means that they have to be able to trade their resources (or weigh risks, or however you want to do it) in direct proportion to their gain.

Even though it's focused on Narrativist play, Dogs in the Vineyard's "Town Creation" system is something you might want to look at. It's used to generate a Situation in which the players can do their stuff and it works beautifully. If you don't use that system, not only are you breaking the rules, but the game you play really sucks.

Your goal for a Gamist design must be the generation of satisfying challenges for the players (never mind the characters for now). Those challenges will have to be understandable by the players and no dice can be fudged. If you're hosing your players, the rules are broken, and if they're hosing you, the rules are broken.

Now, I haven't played The Window, so I don't know how it works for this, but I don't see rules for the Storyteller anywhere in the rules; everything's up to their judgement, which causes the conflict of interest I mentioned above.

GIven your stated Gamist design goal, I'd like to see you dive into the Gamist aspects of this wholeheartedly. Make it so the challenges are real, objective challenges for the players. Make the setting demand that the characters the players are playing meet those challenges so that it all matches, it all makes sense. Give players hero cults like Achilles had so their society demands that they go out and do heroic things, challenging monsters and demons.

dindenver wrote:
Hi!
  If you are thinking of re-doing your magic system, bear in mind that in the Bronze age, there was no distinction beween arcane and divine magic. If you could perform a supernatural feat, you did magic. It didn't matter if the source of the power was a god, a ghost, a devil or some other kooky notion.
  I read this in a book that was devoted to researching this very topic (Magic in the middle ages, Kieckhhefer). Basically, the advent of the Christian church brought about a change to make that distinction. And in fact, he found evidence of talismans and other artifacts that had inscriptions from multiple religions and runes. He had found a metal amulet that had a supplication to Isis, The hebrew god, Jesus and a bunch of "magic words" on it.
  So, since your emphasis is "Bronge age", you might want to consider using a single mechanic and just have the player declare the source of their power. Just an idea.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521785766/qid=1138760139/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-2385904-1060127?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Hi!
  Hold on

Im not trying to push a personal philosophy of roleplaying on anyone.

dindenver wrote:
Hi!
  Hold on

Im not trying to push a personal philosophy of roleplaying on anyone.

  There is no dogma on the Forge. No one here is telling you you need to make a game like Capes or whatever. BUT, we are pointing out some of the pitfalls of creating the type of game you propose.
  For instance, if the GM is opposed to the players and also sets the challenge for the players, how do resolve this so that the GM is free to play hard (or encouraged not to). And how do you set it up so a newbie GM has a chance at setting up the right encounter? In D&D, they use CR, what will, your system use? For instance, you have already mentioned play styles you would like to discourage (railroading) in the GM. So, that would be a great discussion. Can you make rules that prevent GM railroading? If so, how?
  Maybe setting the challenge is easy for you, after alll you wrote the game, but what about novice GMs? If your setting is that cool, you can bet that players who haven't played the Window or maybe have never played an RPG outside of WoW might play it, how can we guide them to setting the challenge of a scene correctly? Do they need to take into acount lvls? Magic ability? Armor? Religious ability? Sneaky skills? Diplomacy skills? Money? Social Status? Does every encounter NEED to be solved in more than one way? Does the GM need to anticipate all those solutions and have stats ready, just in case?
  You are absolutely right. You do not need to make a game where the GM is constrained into playing a certain creative Agenda, or in a certain way, or in a certain style or in a certain realm of the genre, but they should be able to put together an encounter quickly and easily and both the players and GM should be satisfied with the results when it's over.
  Please be assured, no one here is going to try and change your game from a combat and magic system into a dramatic teaparty. But they might be able to think of something you haven't  Or they might think of something you have and it is either not communicated well in the rules or is totally covered. but it doesn't hurt to ask, does it?
  Anyways, it seems like you have a good foundation  for a system, keep up the good work man.

If the main attraction of your game is the world, and not any particular facet of the system, why are you writing a system?  Why not just make a setting book?

hmmm, I dont see how the issues you have listed above are specific to 'the kind of game that I propose'. Pretty much generic issues with the RPGs I would have thought.   And as such, would be better served by newbies simply getting more experience and/or reading tutorials on 'how to be a good GM'?

a little hypothetical situation:
Imagine you've finished this game, and you are turning it into a PDF/book/whatever.
Now you are adding artwork to the book, adding flavour text, providing some useful examples.

What does the artwork depict? What kind of protagonist is the flavour text referring to?
What are people doing in these "ideal" examples?

stefoid wrote:
hmmm, I dont see how the issues you have listed above are specific to 'the kind of game that I propose'. Pretty much generic issues with the RPGs I would have thought.  And as such, would be better served by newbies simply getting more experience and/or reading tutorials on 'how to be a good GM'?

How would you implement a mechanic that forces the GM to be 'fair'?  Thats what you are suggesting?  Got any examples?

Grover wrote:
If the main attraction of your game is the world, and not any particular facet of the system, why are you writing a system?  Why not just make a setting book?

Selene wrote:

stefoid wrote:
hmmm, I dont see how the issues you have listed above are specific to 'the kind of game that I propose'. Pretty much generic issues with the RPGs I would have thought.   And as such, would be better served by newbies simply getting more experience and/or reading tutorials on 'how to be a good GM'?

How would you implement a mechanic that forces the GM to be 'fair'?  Thats what you are suggesting?  Got any examples?

Rune RPG is a very good example of this. Players take turns GMing and craft scenarios based on a set of rules. Difficult enemies and traps cost encounter points; easy enemies and treasure give back encounter points. So in order to have a really nasty dungeon, you'll need to stock it full of treasure. (You start with 0 encounter points, so you need to make things balance.)
Additionally, GMs have a combat flowchart that determines enemy actions in combat, with the idea that you can't unfairly pick on a single player's character.

The last few pages of the Rune Preview contain a checklist for scenario design, including point costs/bonuses for each feature. You can also look at the Combat Flowchart.

The reason a GM might want a nasty dungeon is because it gives the GM more chances to earn Victory Points. Non-GM Players earn VP by killing stuff, gaining treasure, and so on. The VP can be spent on special powers for the player-characters. (Rune is designed for rotating GMs, so everybody has a PC.)

joepub wrote:

hmmm, I dont see how the issues you have listed above are specific to 'the kind of game that I propose'. Pretty much generic issues with the RPGs I would have thought.   And as such, would be better served by newbies simply getting more experience and/or reading tutorials on 'how to be a good GM'?

True, that every RPG faces this problem.

However, "the kind of game that you propose" faces a higher degree of these problems, or at least a more volatile degree of them.

By "the kind of game" I think he was referring to a combat-oriented game with a stated Gamist focus. (Note of course that no game is ever solely one of the three creative agendas... It just seems you are putting the focus/weight on that one.)

Anyways, Stefoid. I issued you a little scenario, and I didn't catch an answer.

a little hypothetical situation:
Imagine you've finished this game, and you are turning it into a PDF/book/whatever.
Now you are adding artwork to the book, adding flavour text, providing some useful examples.

What does the artwork depict? What kind of protagonist is the flavour text referring to?
What are people doing in these "ideal" examples?

What are the cool things about your world which will capture the players imagination?  (This is not a facetious question.  I could take a stab at answering it based on what you've already posted, but I think it would be better for us to work from your list.)
Steve 

stefoid wrote:

Joshua wrote: • The GM can not have the responsibility of both providing the challenge and adjudicating results. That's a conflict of interest and an endemic problem in older RPG designs.

Most traditional games, like mine, do not leave much interpretation of results in the GMs hands (at least for combat rules).  Can you give me an example of what youre talking about?

• The GM must have resources to spend, probability to weigh, and stuff like that. It should be as explicitly cheating to throw in extra monsters (or take them out) as it is to have a referee grant points to a team in soccer.
• Every choice you give the players must be meaningful. In Gamist terms, that means that they have to be able to trade their resources (or weigh risks, or however you want to do it) in direct proportion to their gain.

Joshua wrote:
Even though it's focused on Narrativist play, Dogs in the Vineyard's "Town Creation" system is something you might want to look at. It's used to generate a Situation in which the players can do their stuff and it works beautifully. If you don't use that system, not only are you breaking the rules, but the game you play really sucks.

Your goal for a Gamist design must be the generation of satisfying challenges for the players (never mind the characters for now). Those challenges will have to be understandable by the players and no dice can be fudged. If you're hosing your players, the rules are broken, and if they're hosing you, the rules are broken.

Now, I haven't played The Window, so I don't know how it works for this, but I don't see rules for the Storyteller anywhere in the rules; everything's up to their judgement, which causes the conflict of interest I mentioned above.

GIven your stated Gamist design goal, I'd like to see you dive into the Gamist aspects of this wholeheartedly. Make it so the challenges are real, objective challenges for the players. Make the setting demand that the characters the players are playing meet those challenges so that it all matches, it all makes sense. Give players hero cults like Achilles had so their society demands that they go out and do heroic things, challenging monsters and demons.

yeah, I not really aiming this game at people who have never gamed before.  Im not trying to push a personal philosophy of roleplaying on anyone.

So there is no guidlines for the GM, other than the best way to use the rules to arbitrate certain situations.  How and when to apply penalties and bonuses.  How to resolve different types of cooperative taks etc...

I definately understand the classification scheme you guys are using, and I think its fine as far as it goes.  What I dont particularly agree with is the need to specialize 100% in one direction or another.  

I think its possible that you guys are maybe trying to cram everything into the one GNS box.  It is one valid model that could be a helpful way to look at things, but there are other models available.  Personally, I dont think it makes sense for me to classify this game as 75% narrative 25% gamist, which is how I would need to classify it using only that model.

Im probably thinking more in terms of the spectrum of how much interpretive power is placed in the hands of the GM.  On one hand you have diceless gaming where the GM holds full interpretive power.  You dont need many mechanics to facilitate that -- merely a set of GM guidelines or whatever.  At the other end of the scale you have a system that tries to have a rule for everything so that the GM merely presents the situation and 'runs' the NPCs while the players use the game mechanics and dice to resolve it their own actions.  Neither model is right or wrong - they just ways of looking at the same thing.

So.  I lean away from the GM having too much interpretive power, for several reasons.  Mostly for the same reason that I like to believe we humans all have free will and not everything is pre-ordained.  I tend to dislike the feeling of helplessness that you can get in the hands of a GM who tries to force the players down a certain narrative path.  What, it doesnt really matter what we the players do, the GM is going to resolve this situation in a way that fits the story regardless?  well why have us players here at all then - just go and write a book!

Having said that, the challenege is to provide a mechanic to resolve situations that is fun for the players to use, rather than an a burden.  With the combat rules for example, the basic rules are quite simple.  During a round of comabt the iwnner and loser of the round is resolved with a single dice roll each.  The loser resists damage caused by the winner with an armour resistance roll (if any) and a body resistance roll.  some penalties for injuries, multiple opponents and carrying equipment may be applied.  relatively simple.  The added complexity kicks in with the 'moves' which allow the players to bend and break the basic rules in almost any way.  Although there is theoretically an infinite number of different moves and associated rules (because the players are encouraged to make up their own to meet their characters style), the complexity is manageble because each player is responsible for thier own moves only.  Each character can play by their own rules, without having to know more than a handful of general rules.  So thats a kind of design philosophy I suppose.  Keep the rules that apply to everyone as simple as possible, while allowing the rules that apply to individuals to be complex.

Grover wrote:
What are the cool things about your world which will capture the players imagination?  (This is not a facetious question.  I could take a stab at answering it based on what you've already posted, but I think it would be better for us to work from your list.)
Steve 

Joshua wrote:

stefoid wrote:

Joshua wrote: • The GM can not have the responsibility of both providing the challenge and adjudicating results. That's a conflict of interest and an endemic problem in older RPG designs.

Most traditional games, like mine, do not leave much interpretation of results in the GMs hands (at least for combat rules).  Can you give me an example of what youre talking about?

Well, OK. Let's take D&D, which I've played enough over the years to have a good idea where the action is and how it works.

I'm the player. You're the GM.

I've got hit points. Let's say I've got 10. These are my primary resource. I have resources used to protect these, like armor and healing spells.
I've got weapons, offensive spells, and other stuff. Let's say I've got a sword.

Let's say I have to face a herd of Restnoms. They've each got 1 HP and a pointy stick. I wade in and kill lots of them, but they start wearing me down. Let's say you make some lucky rolls and I make some crap ones, and we discover that I'm going to die at the hands of a bunch of crappy little critters instead of getting to the Big Bad Guy. So you fudge a roll so that I survive, or you say, "The remaining Retsnoms run away!"

You've just removed my challenge, but if you hadn't, something totally unfun would have happened. That's not your fault as GM. That's the fault of the rules.

So now I'm forced to acknowledge that any challenge I confront, I succeed or fail at your whim. All of a sudden, those combat rules evaporate as a waste of time: just tell me if I won or not. Or you know what, better yet, let's play something else.

I see what you mean.  But again I see it as a universal problem.  its almost a philosophy of RP gaming although it can be addressed with rules, yes.  But generally, either you come from the camp of:  I have to rescue these idiots otherwise characters will die and the story will stop dead in its tracks, OR the camp of:  they got themselves into this situation through being overconfident and dismissive of their enemies and obstinately refused to get while the going was good, now they learn.  hopefully with their next character, they will treat challeneges with a little more intelligence and savoir faire rather than wading in blindly.  and everyone will have more fun as a result...

Ill add that a common tool to use in situations like this is the 'luck roll' or 'hero point' or whatever you want to call it which is the PCs get out of jail free card that they have and posiblly the BBGATEOTL has, but the Retsnoms obviously wont have.  Its a resource that a lot of games give to the PCs to allow them to dig themsellves out of a hole that they created either through their own dubious actions, and/or as a defence against particularly unlucky dice rolls. 

• The GM must have resources to spend, probability to weigh, and stuff like that. It should be as explicitly cheating to throw in extra monsters (or take them out) as it is to have a referee grant points to a team in soccer.
• Every choice you give the players must be meaningful. In Gamist terms, that means that they have to be able to trade their resources (or weigh risks, or however you want to do it) in direct proportion to their gain.

This is basic GMing skill isnt it?  A good GM challenges the players just enough so that they can use their resources and ingenuity to overcome.  To use the langauge of the forge, why would a narative driven GM present a player with meaningless challenges, or swamp the players with challeneges they have no hope of overcoming?

Narrativism requires a strict adherence to rules so the players can confront theme. It's not up to the GM alone (assuming a game has one) to decide anything to do with the meat of play: that's the purview of each of the players (which includes the GM).

But you're not talking about Narrativism-focused design. You're talking about Gamism-focused design. Let's deal with one thing at a time. Fortunately, the analogy is pretty easy: what thematic challenge is to Narrativist play, tactical and strategic challenge are to Gamist play.

You're using a system that (according to the rules I've read, both of yours and those of The Window) runs in mostly Narrativist territory with acknowledgment of the challenges (unconfronted in 1997) of providing thematic power to the players without GM fiat. That's no longer the case.

Joshua wrote:
Even though it's focused on Narrativist play, Dogs in the Vineyard's "Town Creation" system is something you might want to look at. It's used to generate a Situation in which the players can do their stuff and it works beautifully. If you don't use that system, not only are you breaking the rules, but the game you play really sucks.

Your goal for a Gamist design must be the generation of satisfying challenges for the players (never mind the characters for now). Those challenges will have to be understandable by the players and no dice can be fudged. If you're hosing your players, the rules are broken, and if they're hosing you, the rules are broken.

Now, I haven't played The Window, so I don't know how it works for this, but I don't see rules for the Storyteller anywhere in the rules; everything's up to their judgement, which causes the conflict of interest I mentioned above.

GIven your stated Gamist design goal, I'd like to see you dive into the Gamist aspects of this wholeheartedly. Make it so the challenges are real, objective challenges for the players. Make the setting demand that the characters the players are playing meet those challenges so that it all matches, it all makes sense. Give players hero cults like Achilles had so their society demands that they go out and do heroic things, challenging monsters and demons.

yeah, I not really aiming this game at people who have never gamed before.  Im not trying to push a personal philosophy of roleplaying on anyone.

I'm not talking about "personal philosophy of roleplaying" anywhere here. If you answer the questions I asked, you'll find that they're about design specification, not personal philosophy.

So there is no guidlines for the GM, other than the best way to use the rules to arbitrate certain situations.  How and when to apply penalties and bonuses.  How to resolve different types of cooperative taks etc...

I'm not talking about guidelines. I'm talking about rules. What does the GM do? In my experience, GMs:

• Provide opposition
• Arbitrate the outcome of that opposition
• Stay a step ahead of the players
• Apply a bunch of techniques to making this more fun, usually by taking input from the players and surreptitiously inserting the ideas.

I definately understand the classification scheme you guys are using, and I think its fine as far as it goes.  What I dont particularly agree with is the need to specialize 100% in one direction or another.  

I think its possible that you guys are maybe trying to cram everything into the one GNS box.  It is one valid model that could be a helpful way to look at things, but there are other models available.  Personally, I dont think it makes sense for me to classify this game as 75% narrative 25% gamist, which is how I would need to classify it using only that model.

I think you're under some misapprehension about the nature of GNS. You can read the seminal articles on the terms in the Articles section at the top of the screen. They'll say what I want to say more eloquently.

Im probably thinking more in terms of the spectrum of how much interpretive power is placed in the hands of the GM.  On one hand you have diceless gaming where the GM holds full interpretive power.  You dont need many mechanics to facilitate that -- merely a set of GM guidelines or whatever.  At the other end of the scale you have a system that tries to have a rule for everything so that the GM merely presents the situation and 'runs' the NPCs while the players use the game mechanics and dice to resolve it their own actions.  Neither model is right or wrong - they just ways of looking at the same thing.

There are other, better options. The GM can be bound by rules that make the game interesting for everyone, for instance.

So.  I lean away from the GM having too much interpretive power, for several reasons.  Mostly for the same reason that I like to believe we humans all have free will and not everything is pre-ordained.  I tend to dislike the feeling of helplessness that you can get in the hands of a GM who tries to force the players down a certain narrative path.  What, it doesnt really matter what we the players do, the GM is going to resolve this situation in a way that fits the story regardless?  well why have us players here at all then - just go and write a book!

Having said that, the challenege is to provide a mechanic to resolve situations that is fun for the players to use, rather than an a burden.  With the combat rules for example, the basic rules are quite simple.  During a round of comabt the iwnner and loser of the round is resolved with a single dice roll each.  The loser resists damage caused by the winner with an armour resistance roll (if any) and a body resistance roll.  some penalties for injuries, multiple opponents and carrying equipment may be applied.  relatively simple.  The added complexity kicks in with the 'moves' which allow the players to bend and break the basic rules in almost any way.  Although there is theoretically an infinite number of different moves and associated rules (because the players are encouraged to make up their own to meet their characters style), the complexity is manageble because each player is responsible for thier own moves only.  Each character can play by their own rules, without having to know more than a handful of general rules.  So thats a kind of design philosophy I suppose.  Keep the rules that apply to everyone as simple as possible, while allowing the rules that apply to individuals to be complex.

Interesting. You may want to look at Universalis for that kind of player-generated rulesmithing.

Here's the thing I see, Steve:

You want your game to be 75% Narrativist design and 25% Gamist. The problem is that they detract from each other: you wind up with the 75% losing 25% and the 25% losing 75%, so you wind up with 62.5% of a game.

Here's an example: you want the combat to be the "Gamist" part, right (it doesn't work like this, but I'll try to meet you halfway for now)? So, when I'm playing in the "Narrativist" part of the game, I can't confront theme by going into combat. That is, I can't say, "This is worth fighting and dying for" in any meaningful way; all of my resources mean something new as soon as combat starts, and rather than playing my character's demise in a way that allows me to say something about his death (or triumph), I'm just playing to win. If I'm not playing to win, I'm irritating everyone else at the table by wasting time in combat; if I try to do something to confront theme in combat, it will probably cost me resources to do it. And, of course, if I lose my character, I've lost my ability to address theme later on.

this is my notes for a playtest scenario I ran called 'sheepherders', based on a minor barbarian culture.  Perhaps it will help with the colour of the world.

Summary:
--------------
Basically this is a mystery scenario.  Another clan is hammering this clan, and being unduly vicious about it.  Usually raids will entail absconding with a horse or two, with a minimum of fuss, and hopefully nobody injured or even dead, but recently this other tribe has been raiding the players tribe particularly hard, and not particularly caring about any collateral damage they do.

One of the players is the chief’s son, he should get a few extra creation points.  All of the other players play the sons of other influential clan members or just generic clan members.  One of the other players is the son of another influential clan elder.

The scenario is based around the fact that one of the players fathers is making a political play to discredit the current chief, and thus replace him, himself.  He has made a deal with a member of the other tribe, such that he tells them where guards are likely to be posted, where the best horses are etc…  he keeps leaking information to the enemy such that their raids tend to succeed while our counter raids tend to fail.

His intent is that the current chief will be replaced with himself, and then the raids will end (presumably).  Whether or not this pans out, is up to the players.

Scene 1: 
There has been a council called. It involves about 20 of the most influential males in the village.  The reason (obviously) is that the other clan has been making an unusual number of raids on us over the last months, having made 3 raids, and generally being successful, absconding with 10 horses so far from two  successful raids.  The only reason the 3rd raid wasn’t successful is because Chief Durnal discovered them  lurking around his horses while he was taking a slash, and managed to drive them off, although he was badly wounded.  If it wasn’t for the fact that the commotion raised others, he may have even been slain – who knows?  As it was, the clan shaman was found dead, apparently murdered by throat slitting by the raiders – a calamity!  The raids have been occurring on almost a weekly basis, and the last raid occurred about 5 days ago.

Before the meeting, he takes his son aside and asks him to help him out during the meeting, since he will probably one day replace him as chief, and given his current wounds and the current situation, now would be a good time to start asserting himself in public.

People are pretty upset at the meeting, with a few of the VIPs and others complaining about their stolen livestock and wanting to know whats going to be done about it.  The Chief tells everyone that he is putting his son in charge of the situation for the duration of his incapacitation.

During this scene, Taja asks why a young one is being put in charge instead of one of the VIPs, and gets a lot of ra-ra support.  The chief starts to defend his decision and one of the other VIPs asks for the youngun to speak for himself, since he has pretentions of leadership.

What happens next is up to the players to a certain extent.  Will they wait for another raid, will they take the fight to the others?  Regardless of what they decide, Taja will sabotage their attempt.  If they get the shaman to investigate it, it will take the shaman about 30 hours to prepare for the ritual.  During this time, another raid will occur, and the shaman will be killed (stabbed in the back)

If they conduct a raid themselves, it will be as if an ambush was waiting for them, with the party being attacked in numbers.  Others will be Injured.

If they decide to wait and ambush the other clan when they make their next raid, that plan will backfire.  A commotion will be made near the sheep pen drawing defenders to that area (I suppose it depends on how well the defenders organize) and more horses will be taken.

How will the players decide whats going on?  A wise woman might be able to help, suggesting after contacting the spirits that there is a traitor in their midst.

Alternatively, they could spot the clues from asking the right questions.  For instance, although taja has many horses, none of his have been raided.

Also, tajas increasing outspokenness at whatever councils are called, should bring some suspicion on him.

Two types of  NPC:  VIP NPCs who have

D10 riding and fighting skills.  And others who have D12 riding and fighting skills.

Taja has D8 oratory and persuasion skills.
Details of the clan
---------------------
The clan  consists of about 20 wagons, each the possessions of one extended family, so going on about an average of 8 people (from kids to grandparents) per wagon, that’s about 150 people in the clan.

The clans major hero descendant is Nhaskur of Khlelig and his brothers.  Nahskur was a particularly heroic guy who became chief and saved the clan from raiding nomads.  His brothers were particularly good as well, and supported him well.

It was he who brought the clan here after defeating the nomads, because he realized that although he had won a battle, they could not defeat the nomads indefinitely, so they moved from their previous lands to their current location.

The following is the list of the most influential people in the clan.  There are other various members who are less wealthy or respected, and thus although they have some influence aren’t worthy to mention here.

Chief:  Durnal, of Durnal      (one player will play his son)
Shaman: Gritter, of  Kaylid

VIP:  Taja of Roosto             
VIP:  Batae of Kolin
VIP:  Jamu of  Khlelig 
VIP:  Kafko of Jan
VIP:  Serv  of Serv

Wise woman:  Trish of Holly
Wise woman:  Batae of Soo

One player will play son of the Chief.  Other players will play sons of other VIPs in the clan, thus they represent some of the more wealthy families in the clan and are guaranteed to have a horse and some half decent equipment available to them
 
Meanwhile…politics.

A shaman must be picked.  It is unusual for a clan to have two shamans, and generally the existing shaman will have one or more apprentices, he will choose a successor, and the other apprentice will leave, generally to look for a job as a shaman somewhere else. 

Taja has the problem that the spirits will know of his betrayal and murder of the previous shaman.  The elder, less talented apprentice can be won over with political support, so he promotes him as shaman.

The various elders take their sons aside and say”

Durnal:  Son, I believe that the clan will not prosper under the leadership of Taja – for it is Taja who is pulling the strings of his sons who are now our joint leaders.  I distrust him and his sons… his only interest is in the promotion of his own family.

I suspect treachery is involved with the murder of the shaman, but I can prove nothing.  Without a shaman, such things cannot be known to us.  I want you to make sure nothing untoward happens to either of the apprentices.  One day they will be powerful enough to find out the truth of this matter.  It seems that Matius thinks the same as I do.  I think you can trust him to help you in this matter, although he is something of a hothead.  Keep him out of trouble also.

Hazacoin:  Listen to me son.  It is not good that our clan is without a shaman.  It makes us seem weak to our enemies.  Usually it is the existing shaman who will appoint his successor, but unfortunately we will have to choose him ourselves.  I have talked to both boys, and it seems to me that the eldest lad should be chosen.  The younger is too immature… if a situation arose where we had to depend on him, I have grave doubts about his ability to function under pressure.

However, we cannot be seen to be picking favorites, even if it is for the good of the clan.  Both  boys relatives will certainly complain if their one is not chosen, and we cant afford any more dissension in the ranks.  Therefore a publicly fair selection must be made – a test of skills if you like.  I am confident that the elder boy will prove his worth.  For the good of the clan, we must do everything in our power to ensure that the right boy succeeds… or the wrong boy fails. 

If at some point, a situation arises where we must depend on one of the boys for shamanic duties, ensure that the right boy is given the opportunity to impress.  Although to be fair, if it is very dangerous, perhaps the younger boy might appreciate the opportunity to prove that he can perform under great pressure.  Im sure you will make the right decisions when the time comes.

Lastly, listen to your brother in matters of war.  Defer to his public judgements, for his reputation as a leader rests on his warrior credentials, and without that reputation, your combined position will suffer.  Im sure you are aware that not every clansmen has a high regard for your martial abilities.  It will take time to convince them otherwise, so in the meantime  Martoc can help us in that area.

Martoc:  Martoc!  You were supposed to be here half an hour ago…  never mind (sigh).  Listen to me boy.  You must be seen to be taking an active role in the leadership of the clan.  Your brother is very smart, but not everybody respects him.  We need to show that the sons of Taja can deal with problems in war as well as times of peace – and you are our warrior.  You will be the one to lead our raiding parties and defend the clan against attack.  You will choose the warriors and direct their actions in battle, with the help of your brother of course.

It is important that you decide wisely the tasks assigned to each warrior, for our position as clan leaders is not yet firm.  It would be a pity if the sons of some of our supporters were killed in botched raids, leaving only the sons of those who selfishly seek to gain leadership of the clan for their own families.  Im sure you will make the right decisions when the time comes – but do not talk to your brother about this.  He has enough to worry about as it is.

Frango:  Sit down my son.  I want to talk to you about the future of the clan.  I do not like Taja and his useless sons.  One always laying about, as useless as tits on a ram… and the other without even a proper moustache.  It’s a disgrace. Yet we must bow to collective wisdom of the elders for now.  Taja himself is the worst.  A snake in the grass if ever Ive seen one – and at my age Ive seen a few.

What this clan needs is solid, steady leadership.  Durnal was a fair chief if you ask me, but this trouble with those vermin across the hills has brought him undone – its always a mistake trying to sweet talk strangers inmy opinion.  And his son!  A few sheep short of a full flock if you get my meaning.  Anyway, it is entirely possible that Taja’s sons will also stuff up, and if they do, the elders may look for a leader from outside those families – a solid leader that just gets the jobs done.

If this occurs, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be considered.  I know you are up to it son, but you just have to show the others that you are worthy too.  I would never ask you to endanger the clan by sabotaging the current leadership -- that’s something that a Taja might do – however, if there is an opportunity to show them up and prove yourself a better choice, then by all means take it. 

Now go and catch me a rabbit, boy, Im getting hungry.

stefoid wrote:

Here's an example: you want the combat to be the "Gamist" part, right (it doesn't work like this, but I'll try to meet you halfway for now)? So, when I'm playing in the "Narrativist" part of the game, I can't confront theme by going into combat. That is, I can't say, "This is worth fighting and dying for" in any meaningful way; all of my resources mean something new as soon as combat starts, and rather than playing my character's demise in a way that allows me to say something about his death (or triumph), I'm just playing to win. If I'm not playing to win, I'm irritating everyone else at the table by wasting time in combat; if I try to do something to confront theme in combat, it will probably cost me resources to do it. And, of course, if I lose my character, I've lost my ability to address theme later on.

So can you give a more detailed example of what youre talking about here?  I dont really get what you mean in terms of

I can't say, "This is worth fighting and dying for" in any meaningful way;

stefoid wrote: So can you give a more detailed example of what youre talking about here?  I dont really get what you mean in terms of

I can't say, "This is worth fighting and dying for" in any meaningful way;

Joshua wrote:

stefoid wrote: So can you give a more detailed example of what youre talking about here?  I dont really get what you mean in terms of

I can't say, "This is worth fighting and dying for" in any meaningful way;

Ah, thanks for clarifying your question.

So, let's say I'm a hero with a cult. My patron god is Ubuk, who's supports rulers who gain power by fighting. I'm using my character to talk about the two often opposing,aspects of being a king: the desire for power and the responsibility toward one's people. Ubuk gives me power. My people are my responsibility (and being remembered by them is the prime value to a hero).

So let's say I'm fighting with some Myrmidons of Ponto, a rival hero. They're gonna come into my city, steal my sheep, kill my men, and rape my women. Also, Ubuk supports my fighting behavior. So far, there's no choice to be made. We're cool with whatever system works well enough to have fighting that can be played out in an exciting manner. All I'm risking is wounds or whatever.

But what I want is rules that support this kind of choice: if I take the fight to Ponto's city, my city will die at the hands of Ponto's dudes, but I will have gained a new city, and Ubuk will support me because I've taken power by force, making me a more powerful hero and more feared king. On the other hand, If I stay and defend, my people will survive and remember me for a thousand years, but Ubuk will abandon me or even curse me and my decline will begin.

Note that neither of those choices have to do with my combat resources in the rules you've described. Either way, I'm fighting  a fight I can win, but winning or losing the fight has no bearing on the thematic content of my struggle. In fact, if I'm a real hero, dying should be one of the tools I use as a player to make stuff happen in the world.

The main thing The Window has going for it is its Narrativist bud, but you want a fighting simulation to graft onto that. Those are simply contradictory design specs; you'll wind up with a sterile hybrid of agenda support.

I recommend that you look closely at The Shadow of Yesterday, a game with some really excellent Narrativist tools and a really fun conflict system. Dogs in the Vineyard will give you good guidance on GM responsibilities, and Prime Time Adventures will give you a good look at how focused a rule set can be and still encourage coherent, story-building behavior.

stefoid wrote: great story, but specifically how does a gamist flavour of combat rules prevent your character from making his crucial decision? 

so you see my graft as a fighting simulation?  that interesting because I was aiming at a cinematic fighting system.  you think there is too much detail?

Joshua wrote:

stefoid wrote: great story, but specifically how does a gamist flavour of combat rules prevent your character from making his crucial decision? 

If I lose, I don't get to make that decision. My people are overrun and I lose all my power. If I win, we haven't done anything to decide if I save my people and earn their legend of me, or if I gain power at their expense. It's either been a waste of time to my interests in the character (if I have a Narrativist agenda) or a rare bit of challenging fun in a sea of time wasting character crap (if I have a Gamist agenda).

so you see my graft as a fighting simulation?  that interesting because I was aiming at a cinematic fighting system.  you think there is too much detail?

A cinematic fighting system, in my opinion, has to take into account the motivations of the protagonists. Perhaps the primary factor has to be the motivation of the protagonists. It's not a matter of detail — detail's really important — it's a matter of the detail having meaning. Since I have sincere doubts that you're looking for a system that denies meaning in favor of player challenges, I suggest that you're creating a 100% Narrativist system.

In my opinion, The Window leaves too much on the shoulders of the GM to effectively support Narrativist or Gamist play. I think you've got two separate games here: one is your Narrativist, theme-addressing game, perhaps using a system derived from The Window. The other system is your Gamist, character building, fight-having game, probably using a different system. I think you'll find that, once you distill your interests into their separate humours, the game design will click into place much more readily.

GNS is linked to the rewards a player gets from an activity. In a Gamist system, you're rewarded in both in-game rewards for player success and having beaten the system or another player. In a Narrativist system, you get rewards (in the form of both satisfaction and mechanics) for addressing theme passionately.

Devise the cycles of reward first with those things in mind, and you'll discover the way your system should work. If I were writing this system, I'd think very carefully what resources I'd want to reflect the Protagonists and what would be abstract, player resources. That way, your character can die for a purpose and the player doesn't lose resources.

stefoid wrote: So you dont think that tapping Favour in order to positively influence a test is enough in this regard?

In my opinion, The Window leaves too much on the shoulders of the GM to effectively support Narrativist or Gamist play. I think you've got two separate games here: one is your Narrativist, theme-addressing game, perhaps using a system derived from The Window. The other system is your Gamist, character building, fight-having game, probably using a different system. I think you'll find that, once you distill your interests into their separate humours, the game design will click into place much more readily.

GNS is linked to the rewards a player gets from an activity. In a Gamist system, you're rewarded in both in-game rewards for player success and having beaten the system or another player. In a Narrativist system, you get rewards (in the form of both satisfaction and mechanics) for addressing theme passionately.

i understand what you are saying, but i dont see that they are neccessarilly mutually exclusive.  why not have rules to support both? 

Devise the cycles of reward first with those things in mind, and you'll discover the way your system should work. If I were writing this system, I'd think very carefully what resources I'd want to reflect the Protagonists and what would be abstract, player resources. That way, your character can die for a purpose and the player doesn't lose resources.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

I think that, if you want Favor to matter, it should a) be deeply connected to player input through non-character means and/or b) the primary statistic used.

I need to know the focus of the game to help you figure that out. But a mere modifier doesn't focus the game sharply enough to give thematic control.

Because then you'll be writing two games. I cannot have thematic control over a character while simultaneously requiring their well-being in order to continue playing. I think that writing both games would be an excellent exercise and that you should do it. Making the games simultaneously playable would be excellent but a significant challenge, probably confrontable by having different players playing by different rules. I understand Burning Wheel does this well between Gamist and Narrativist agenda support. You might want to check it out
Well, the stuff you have written down on your character sheet are really the resources that you, the player, have at your disposal, right? The fact that those resources are named after fictional stuff doesn't change the fact that they're your resources as a player. You use those resources to effect the story. In a lot of older games, those resources are closely tied to the character. So when your character died, you lost all your resources. That's potentially (though not necessarily) cool from a Gamist design perspective, because you're risking your current resources in order to get more, and that's a potentially fun game. (There are Gamist designs in which this would be inappropriate, too.) From a Narrativist perspective, though, there's no reason your tools have to be strictly tied to your character's well-being. Sometimes you want your character to suffer in order to address theme. Sometimes you want the dude's strength to be that he's a wounded soldier who's lost everything. You want those to be your resources, or you want the resources to be totally abstract; like only having Favour..

stefoid wrote:

I think that, if you want Favor to matter, it should a) be deeply connected to player input through non-character means and/or b) the primary statistic used.

I need to know the focus of the game to help you figure that out. But a mere modifier doesn't focus the game sharply enough to give thematic control.

Favour is quite important, in fact it may be the most important stat a character can have.    This is a bronze age world where the gods, spirits and demons are demonstrably real, so courting the favour of the gods and such concepts as being blessed or accursed are of prime importance to the characters.  It is luck, favour and 'a certain derring-do'  all rolled into one.  Ultimately, however, the players can choose how heavilly they rely on it when they create a character.  They can have a super-favoured character, an average-fated character, or even create character who is turned away from that side of life, and relies onstead on his own skills and 'makes his own luck'.

I think youre right in that I need to go over every part of the game where favour impacts the rules and ensure its consistant in its use and effects. 

ah, ok, I get it now.  player resources and character resources.  I think I can almost speak your langauge.  Im not interested in creating a game where the player resources are seperate from the character resources.

I dont agree that the only objective for players playing this game will be to 'get more resources' although thats one possible fun aspect - powering up your character.   Obviously the aim of any particular game depends on the scenario the GM presents - for me that usually involves resolving situations that are important to the characters. 

And I think thats where the richness of the cultural setting comes in.  What do characters from this/that  culture think about the world, what do they believe is right and wrong, etc..

If the game and/or the GM doesnt provide details of what is important to the characters, then its quite hard for the players to have an interest in anything other than 'powering up'.

My point is that, since it's used for your "signature moves" and other dramatic stuff, why do you care about Body, Coord, Speed, and everything else? They don't matter. Only Favour matters; it's where the features of the character come through.

I think youre right in that I need to go over every part of the game where favour impacts the rules and ensure its consistant in its use and effects. 

You need to figure out what you need to eliminate. "If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter."

ah, ok, I get it now.  player resources and character resources.  I think I can almost speak your langauge.  Im not interested in creating a game where the player resources are seperate from the character resources.

That's not actually what I meant. All resources are player resources. Some of them can be named for fictional stuff having to do with the character, if you want, but it's all the same if you call it Body or Humperdihoo.

I dont agree that the only objective for players playing this game will be to 'get more resources' although thats one possible fun aspect - powering up your character.  Obviously the aim of any particular game depends on the scenario the GM presents - for me that usually involves resolving situations that are important to the characters. 

So what are the rewards? And how does the GM avoid the conflict of interests I talked about before?

And I think thats where the richness of the cultural setting comes in.  What do characters from this/that  culture think about the world, what do they believe is right and wrong, etc..

That's much, much less interesting than what the players think and believe.

If the game and/or the GM doesnt provide details of what is important to the characters, then its quite hard for the players to have an interest in anything other than 'powering up'.

Explain how these other rewards work. While you're at it, answer the other 18 questions. You'll find them very useful and they'll help me help you.

stefoid wrote: this is my notes for a playtest scenario I ran called 'sheepherders', based on a minor barbarian culture.  Perhaps it will help with the colour of the world.

I dont think I have enough actual play to present an accurate picture.  (3 month old baby doesnt help)

Id like to thank evryone who participated in this discussion.  I have a lot of things to think about.  found it more helpful than perhaps it appears.

Cool. We're here if you need us.

Post your Power 19 answers when you've got time and we'll help you refine more.

argh, Im STILL posting to this thread? 

For those that did read the rules, and made suggestions, Ive taken it on baord and come up with some example modifications for your consideration:

Simplified combat rules:

what I has is some relatively simple basic combat rules and an array of possibly complex signature moves that players have to buy in order to use. 

The aim is to make the basic comabt rules much simpler by pushing any complexity out of the general rules and into the signature moves.  that is manouevering, knockdowns, called shots etc... these are all now signature moves.

so the ONLY combat rules are now:  roll the contest for this round, looser resists an INJURY or HURT with armour and body.  apply penalties for any extentuating circumstances: existing injuries, multiple oppoennts, being knocked over...

BUT...  let any character use any signature move they want during combat, but unless they bought it (i.e. unless its part of that characters cool fighting style that they have practiced) then they take -2L penalty to their favour role that tests if the sigmove comes off.

so I know what youre thinking, its a step in the right direction, but why not do away with having to buy sigmoves alltogether?  I mean, now any player can invent a signature move on the spot and apply it, so thats virtually what Ive done, however they get a -2L penalty to attempt apply it against a target number of 6.  Why is that?  they get punished for trying soemthing cool? 

well,  they are Signature moves.  they are supposed to represent a characters unique flighting stye.  Like Achilles in Troy with his leaping-stab-em-in-the-neck move.  way cool.  but not if everyone else in the movie did it too.  So yeah, maybe a soldier standing around saw that move and thinks wow, Id like to try that, but it aint his move, he hasnt done it before so its not goingto work as well.  If he runs off and poractices it a bunch, then it becomes part of hs style...

And why have a favour role to employ them, anyway?  well, sigmoves are basically combat magic.  like magic breaks the rules of conventional physics or whatever, sigmoves break the conventiaonal comabt rules.  You dont have PCs that can cast an unlimited number of spells all the time.  there has to be some limiter on breaking the rules so that breaking the rules doesnt become ho-hum and common place.  Otherwise there is nothing dramatic about employing the sigmove or magic spell or whatever.  Its not dramatic if dave's warrior character trots out the same old show every single round of every single comabt he gets into.  If he waits and saves his juice for the critical moment and then employs his groovy move, then its special.  Achilles didnt go around neck-stabbin every cruddy opponent he met - he did it twice in the movie: the first against the big guy at the end of level 1, and then later in the movie agaisnt hector (where it didnt come off)  Both times it was dramatic, but both wouldnt have been dramatic at all if it was the 45th time during the movie that achilles neck-stabbed someone.

next post:  simplifying weapons, armour and encumbrance.