Hello all,

I've done my fair share of lurking here, but this is my first post.

I have recently completed my rpg ENOCH and am ready to share it with the world. It can be downloaded for free at
www.enochrpg.com/wiki

(It's an 11mb pdf right now, so bare with the minute or two it takes to download. It will be reduced in size soon).

I felt that it would be appropriate to share the game with The Forge because it was a zero-budget indy project done with love for the hobby at large. I would love any comments, questions, or criticisms on the games system, setting, prose, or illustration. Thanks!

Here is a promotional blurb:

-

Bloodied ziggurats. Immortal beasts. AI gods. Sleeping colossi.
Gene cults. Plague bogs. Jungle demons. Fledgling societies
cling to life in a time of chaos. Salvation is buried in Hell's
corridors, and the barons of Heaven watch the world's woe with
silent indifference. Welcome to Enoch.

A thousand years have passed since the fall of man. In that time,
nature has flourished to prehistoric levels. Rising oceans and
creeping jungle have buried a long dead civilization. However,
not all that was buried is dead. The underworld bustles with
electric life, thrall to a pantheon of machine gods. Demons, the
ancient slaves of man, toil leagues underground. Driven mad by
failing power and frayed circuit, they claw their way to the
surface, to the peril of their old masters.

Above ground, fear and oppression shackle man. Millennia of
progress have been washed away. Living hopeless lives with
one-dimensional needs, the masses cling to authority and
religion. Most would happily, even greedily serve as enforcers
of a brutal regime or as acolytes of a twisted cult. It is better to
obey than be cast out from society, prone to the horrors that
stalk the wilderness.

Enoch is the story of man starting over in a world that has not
forgotten his sins. Who will be the heroes of this Second
Genesis, and who will vanish from history into shrieking
oblivion?

Enoch is a complete role-playing game featuring
unique game mechanics, a robust setting, and dozens of illustrations
by the author. Players will explore a mythical twist on the
post-apocalyptic genre, where Mad Max meets William Blake.

Hi Chad, and welcome to the Forge!

It sounds neat. My interest is rarely picked by such promotional blurb, but this has a nice sound to it.

However, is there any particular sort of feedback you need?

(BTW, page 2 and index are unreadable to me on my machine due to the background, and on the character sheet, the game's title covers stuff. Dunno if it's just a problem of my viewer, or something is actually wrong with the document.)

Filip, thank you for the welcome and the heads up on technical issues (though .pdf has been fine on many machines, it is still a work in progress, requiring a bit of work).

To answer your question, I am not looking for any specific feedback, but will graciously accept any and would be happy to discuss it right here at The Forge. My intent at this point is simply to share the game with fellow gamers. Thanks for the look!

Chad,

Generally, it's difficult to discuss things here in First Thoughts without having a more narrow topic or more specific questions. Also, the thread will soon drown in the sea of other games' threads, especially without any discussion, so it's not the best place for sharing. But then, Forge is a community focused on development rather than promotion.

Your game seems to be developed enough to be (at least somewhat) playable, so I'd rather suggest posting an AP report in Actual Play or Playtesting.

Or, if you need outside playtesters you could head to Connections and start a recruitment thread. Chances of getting an outside playtest that way are not great, but you can just as well try it out.

Or, if your game is already after some substantial period of playtesting and you feel there's not much to change at this point, you could try posting about it on Story Games or rpg.net, as these places are probably better for generating interest. It might be easier to share your work with fellow gamers that way. (On the other hand, it's an open sea, so one needs to navigate carefully there.)

Welcome!

A great way to spur some conversation and questioning would be to describe a play session, maybe highlighting things that went right and (especially) things that didn't go the way you wanted them to.  If there are specific things you want to address about your design, you'll get a much better response if you just lay them out as direct questions. 

Thanks for the tips, guys, and I will explore those other avenues for promotions sake. But while I'm right here, I might as well talk shop a bit.

Enoch uses what I call the Sphere System. Spheres are basically stats and skills wrapped into one. The idea is that any action a character might take (that's worth rolling for) can be represented by combining any two Spheres. The Spheres are:

Combat
Medicine
Cunning
Technology
Presence
Conviction
Lore
Survival

Each Sphere is ranked 1 thru 10, so you combine two Spheres and roll a D20 equal to or less than the sum of those two Spheres to succeed.

Some examples of skill checks:

Melee Attack: Combat + Survival
Resist Torture: Conviction + Survival
Seduction: Presence + Cunning
Shooting a firearm: Combat + Technology
Recognizing a critter: Survival + Lore
Tracking a critter: Survival + Cunning
Treating a stab wound: Medicine + Combat

The Spheres were chosen in response to a question: in any society (in this case, a post apocalyptic one) what types of people are there? Soldiers, Healers, Politicians, Criminals, Scientists, Teachers, Wisemen... you can pretty much see how these categories translated into Spheres.

(For reference, the sphere system is discussed starting on page 34 of the .pdf)

My question is: are these 8 traits enough? If my intention is to create a traditional role-playing game (Stats, Skills, GMs, EXP, etc) is the audience for that type of game going to be content with these 8 traits? Or might they need more knobs to turn? Additionally, does a limited scale of improvement, for a limited number of traits, force campaigns to be short? These spheres are the backbone of the system. While they play-tested great (admittedly, only 2 sessions), I'd like to hear if they seem fundamentally broken in any way.

Are you defining specific combinations, or is that up to the participant?  For example, I could make a good case for treating a stab wound with Medicine + Lore. 

Similarly, what does technology have to do with shooting a firearm?  You can teach a caveman to point and pull the trigger.  Cleaning and maintaining, not so much, but the actual shooting bit seems like it would involve another sphere - conviction seems like a good one ot me, because it's serious business.  But cunning or survival might work ... you see what I mean? 

My suggestion would be to strongly differentiate the spheres and then let participants decide which to implement, and how.

It seems like you might run into trouble with two 1-10 scores that are combined, in that you'll have the potential for characters at either extreme (constant failure/constant success) in certain combinations.  That's something to consider.

Jason, thanks for the reply.

To answer your first question, combinations are entirely up the GM. To address your issue with technology (which I think is legitimate): While Enoch is at its core a science-fiction setting, game events take place 1000 years after man was nearly eradicated. That is, after man crawled back out of the cave he hid in during that time. In Enoch, technology has a certain stigma about it. It's almost magical, and to the simple, scared people of Enoch, those who delve into technology are akin to demon worshipers. Of course, this notion is justified to them (if you happen to read the sections on Sorcery, Drones, or Demons, you'll understand).

In terms of a system that more closely represents reality, I agree with you 100% on your assertion. However, it was my intent to place that special emphasis on technology.

OK, making a considered choice that supports the setting (guns and technology) is great.

How come the GM gets to decide what spheres are appropriate?

Heh, well, there are a couple reasons for that, though none are glamorous.

First and foremost,  this is a new system with very little play-testing under its belt (so far). I am counting on GM fiat to smooth out any jarring rules or discrepancies.

Secondly, with the intent on keeping the game as small as possible, I thought it would be best if I did not specify the possible combos (except for a few, to ensure that each sphere gets the spotlight, and the reader is grounded in how they work). I am hoping that in explaining the idea of spheres, GMs would be able to intuit what spheres to use in what scenarios.

Lastly, while players should be part of the decision process, I am weary of letting them make the final call. An enterprising player could make the case that nearly every roll he ever makes is somehow linked to his high rated sphere. Again, I am counting on the GM in this situation.

ChadDubya wrote:
An enterprising player could make the case that nearly every roll he ever makes is somehow linked to his high rated sphere.

Oh, by the way, two points:

1.  "Mad Max meets William Blake" is the best tag-line ever.  Let that be the beacon to which you constantly aspire!
2.  If my comments stray into unhelpful territory, please let me know.  I've got my own biases and opinions which may not be relevant to what you are after.

I agree with you about active, engaged play. Also that if it fell apart under pressure, its the rules, not the player. Enoch does put a lot of responsibility on the GM to make sure things run smoothly. I guess I consider Enoch to be a "traditional" rpg in terms of its GM/PC relations.

I'm not really worried about stunting a player's engagement. I like to think of the current GM/PC dynamic in Enoch as having "Checks and Balances." While the GM is the final arbiter of what may and may not happen, PCs are able to automatically succeed at physical feats by burning Physical fatigue, and retry any failed roll by burning Mental fatigue.

Were I to edit or add to the core rules, I see one easy fix: specify in the rules what combinations are used for what tasks. I could add one page after the index listing a 100 or so suggested combos. It might also give the GM & PCs a reference point when deciding on combinations. Do you think such a page would be helpful? Or might it grate on GM's who have different notions of what the Spheres should do?

I don't think such a list is necessary.  I'd include relevant combinations in examples of play, maybe some unusual ones to illustrate the potential diversity of interpretation, and let it go at that. 

Hiya Chad.

At first glance, Enoch looks nice.  Very straight forward.  Plenty of classic RPG structure and assumption.

The one thing that I'm not seeing, and I wish the text had right there for me to find, is a short paragraph telling me why I want to play it.  I mean, in a nutshell, what's awesome about Enoch?  Like, in D&D (any iteration) I get to kill monsters and take their stuff.  Or, in Call of Cthulhu, I get to discover evil cults moments before either being eaten by a god or turning gibbering insane.

What do I get to do in Enoch?

Eric, thanks for taking a look!

I had hoped that my introduction on pg 4 would suffice, but looking at it, I may have not been as straight forward as I could have been. So for your benefit, here goes:

In Enoch, you get to kill monsters (Ancients, Drones, Sentinels, Chimeras, Swan) and take their stuff, discover evil cults (Halcyon Society, The Locust, Omicron, the Cult of Cassandra) moments before either being eaten by a god (Rintrah or one of his twisted shards) or turning gibbering insane (or turned into a mindless pawn of an AI god), all over the buried or drowned streets of America a millennium after The Fall of Man.

If there is one thing I really think is compelling about the Enoch setting, is that there is a machine Hell living underground, the leftovers of the old world. Not only that, but in Hell thrives Demons (AI). Sorcerers (hackers) use sorcery (gestural interface) to bind and crush demons. Inversely, Demons can implant slave nodes in minds of the primitive rabble who walk into their domain, creating Drones. Drones can be freaks ala Frankenstien, or immaculate prophets of a machine god who lure more primitive rabble into "the presence of God."

I admit I'm not breaking the mold, here. :) Just providing new scenery and stories to your classic RPG romps.

Chad wrote: Just providing new scenery and stories to your classic RPG romps.

Good question(s).

Before I had developed Enoch or the Sphere system, I had decided that I wanted to create a complete game, system & setting. The system & setting were co-developed at the same time... in fact, much of the setting was derived from questions raised during the system making process. An example: my buddy and I sat down and thought of different uses for every possible Sphere combination... occasionally, we hit speed bumps. One was Technology + Presence. In what situation would such a combination be useful?

I mean, you can't talk to machines, right? (insert light-bulb)

That's when we decided that Sig (an ancient gestural interface) would be used to command demons (computers). This gestural interface demanded that a user would be tech savvy (Technology), but also have the control and poise (Presence) to correctly gesture command lines in the demons' contractual, IF->THEN language. Suddenly, the hacker resembled a mystic, or even a Sorcerer.

So to directly answer your first question, I feel that Enoch's system and setting are inseparable. Had I simply written a setting for an existing system, I don't think that setting would resemble this one. To that end, I am very happy with Enoch's setting.

Chad,

I've given your game a closer look. I think you have a lot of cool stuff in terms of setting and atmosphere in there, but the system itself looks rather uninspired to me (however, I don't dig "traditional" games at all, so you can just as well take what I write with a grain of salt).

As for your question about the audience, it all depends. The thing is there is no such thing as an audience for "traditional" games really, as there is actually a lot of diversity among these, and different people dig different things even among "traditional" gamers. So, I can safely take "traditional" on your side as a mental shortcut, meaning "working the way I'm used to", I think. However, it's impossible to create a game that would appeal to everyone. I suppose it would be better to settle on some more specific target audience and write the game with its needs in mind, or simply write the game for yourself and hope people with similar needs find it eventually.

You mention unique game mechanics in your promotional blurb - be careful with it. Once you move into "an open sea", such claims will draw people's attention, and if the game doesn't live up to the author's promises, it will be brutally torn apart by an angry mob. Personally, I don't find the system itself unique in any way (but generally, "traditional" is kind of like an opposite of "unique").

Also, you refer to the mechanics in your setting chapter numerous times, before introducing the mechanics themselves - such forward referencing is rarely a good idea.

Anyway, it's your game, and it's your choice what to do with it, but I can only second the suggestion about using another game's system for the setting. Your feeling of inseparability of system and setting is, I think, rooted in the "traditional" mentality, as you seem to look for system that strengthens various aspects of the setting by providing a mechanical representation for them (e.g. the Sig example). However, most of such things you could just as well treat as color and use a system that would support the underlying themes of the setting better, without going into detailed representation of anything in terms of character's effectiveness.

For example, although I wouldn't play the game as it is, I could use the setting with Dogs in the Vineyard system. The rebellion theme is pretty strong. Instead of thinking up their rebels' breaking points, players would play them out as initiatory conflicts - this would give them much more impact. Then, instead of Dogs coming into a sin-infested town and passing their judgment, I'd have rebels encountering a community that faces some issues and deciding how things could be changed and whether the change is worth it. DitV uses freeform traits system that can be adapted to any setting without doing any real convertion work, so I could have everything featured by Enoch's system without writing a single new rule.

Now, I like the setting. There's a lot of awesome things in there, although I personally prefer more concise settings (I've shown the blurb to a friend, and he was like "Cool, I could run a game right away using the blurb only.")

However, I feel kind of a disconnect between the picture painted by the blurb and the picture painted by the book itself. When I read the blurb, I see a world of distant future, completely reshaped and not resembling the world of today in any way - more like a biblical postapocalyptic fantasy set in the future than a typical postapocalyptic setting. When I read the book I see a postapocalyptic America (why is it always America that falls and rises again, geez...) and names that bring Greyhawk to my mind.

My suggestion is, drop the references to America, and make it a truly new world with no connection to any nation or geographical region of the past. Like, a young continent shaped from the ruins of what once was by the wars and still largely unexplored.

As for the names, I think Republic of Lewis, Kingdom of McChord, Aircrash Mountain, The Scablands and the like don't fit the biblical theme at all - and frankly, they sound cheesy to me. I'd suggest dropping such bland names and making them all feel more biblical (names in the lines of Kingdom of Zohar and the like).

I think it would strengthen and improve the overall atmosphere of the setting.

Really cool game you have there, Chad!

Filip wrote:
As for the names, I think Republic of Lewis, Kingdom of McChord, Aircrash Mountain, The Scablands and the like don't fit the biblical theme at all - and frankly, they sound cheesy to me. I'd suggest dropping such bland names and making them all feel more biblical (names in the lines of Kingdom of Zohar and the like).

I think it would strengthen and improve the overall atmosphere of the setting.

Filip,

Thanks for your lengthy and thoughtful evaluation of Enoch. I wouldn't argue with your take on "traditional" systems. The Sphere system has numbers and knobs typical to many systems. The Sphere system's implementation of those has been refreshing to some, and (clearly) milquetoast to others. Additionally, I agree with some of your concerns about the setting. Much of the setting's quirks were intentional. In naming factions and locales, I was always concerned with names sounding too flowery, pretentious, and like a White Wolf rip-off. In naming, I went for simple words for simple people (the denizens of Enoch, not my readers! :) ). Anyways, I am pleased that you found a kernel of goodness here and there, and will consider your criticisms for my next project. Thanks much!

Mike,

In fact, I have read the book of Enoch, and my game's setting is very loosely based on events in that apocrypha. Thanks for taking a look, and thanks for the compliments. (FYI, nearly every single word in the Old Testament has been claimed by White Wolf. I was concerned that if I piled on the OT material too thick, I may have run into a copyright issue :) ).

Chad,

Awesome answers.  I am convinced that Enoch could not be played properly with another system.

Have you had a chance to play it much?  I'm curious about how your play experience has been with it so far.

Eric,

Admittedly, there hasn't been a lot of play-testing. At least not in any campaign sense. Me, two buddies, and my 14 year old nephew gave it a few spins with good results (ended up patching a few clunky mechanics, etc.) A few observations about the Sphere system in action:

-Physical and Mental fatigue are used to activate powers and combat maneuvers. But they had a secondary function... more so than HP or supplies, fatigue paced the adventure. Shortly after scenes of wanton action or violence, the PCs had low fatigue levels. They made it a point to do the necessary things to regain fatigue (find shelter, rest, meditate). The ebb and flow of frantic action and restorative calm seemed really organic, and conducive to story telling. Admittedly, this effect was accidental.

-Deathblow is the crux of combat. It happened a lot in every encounter. Still, every time someone activated it, we all held our breath. Deathblow does double damage, but leaves you defenseless (meaning that if your deathblow didn't just kill your target, he was gonna' deathblow you right back, now that your defense is down). Every combat was a nail-biter, and rarely lasted longer than 3 turns. Combat was really deadly, but not necessarily lethal. Most combatants fell unconscious before their HP hit 0, meaning that they were incapacitated/KO'd at the end of combat, instead of dead. And really, unconscious foes presented some interesting moral situations. Do I finish the job? Do I tie him up and leave him to the wolves? Do I give him mercy? Those decisions really brought out how the moral actions of PCs might resonate... and how treatment of enemies may create rifts in the PC party. Again, another accidental design feature. :)

I have not had the chance to run an Enoch campaign yet. While the basic mechanics have been rigorously tested, I have not seen high end Talents, EXP, Vows, or Ordeals in action. I game with a few people who are interested in trying Enoch out. I hope to run the game for several sessions to get a feel for those unexplored concepts. I also hope to get feedback from others who may have tried playing the game.

Chad,

Do you think you remember enough about the sessions you have played to write up a little bit about it in the Playtesting forum?  If you do, an interesting writeup about the things that went right and wrong during the playtests might just get some more good attention for your design.

I like the idea that characters are more likely to fall unconsious than die.  As nothing more than a personal preference, I really dislike it when the only way to win or loose a combat is with someone's death.  Because eventually that means that the PCs are gonna fall, and there's rarely any way to ensure the PCs' deaths are properly meaningful.

But capture, now that's awesome.