Hi everyone, my name's Matt, I discovered this site about a day ago and thought it looked interesting, especially considering I like making new content for the RPG sessions I have with friends, rather than using what's in the books. Anyway, I have an idea for a game, it's set in a near future, dystopic cyberpunk setting, not the most original I know, but give me a break, it's my first try. Anyway, the characters would most likely be rebels against the overbearing, totalitarian government, fighting for true freedom and the kind of individuality that the government has tried so hard to suppress. What I want the game to be like is those nonstop action movies we've all seen, what with the massive shootouts and intense martial arts, I figured there could be a game mechanic for slowing time, a la The Matrix. What I really wanted to know is, where do you guys start when you begin making RPGs? It seems a daunting task, all I have is the basic skeleton of character creation, any help would be much appreciated!

Hello Matt, good to have you with us.

I think it would be good to start with the game concept: what is the game about (you did actually mention that already)? What do the players/characters do in the game? What's the cool thing about the game? All these are good questions that I have been asked myself here, I'm sure more experienced game designers have better starting points for you, though.

I do have a couple of questions for you:

Is your game "traditional"? That is, is it one with a GM and players with their defined roles? If it's not "traditional", I could well see this as a game about freedom, inviduality, the struggle to hold onto those things and the price you have to pay for them. One player could play the society, trying to crush rebels and those who do not submit to the system and the other players could be those rebels.

And, uh, that's it, not a "couple of questions" after all.

I suggest you take a look at The Power 19, a good starting point for figuring out just what it is you want your game to do.

http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/2006/01/what-are-power-19-pt-1.html

First of all, thanks for the help guys, it's great to see such an active and helpful community. Power 19 seems like auseful tool, some of the points are things I wouldn't have thought of on my own, thank you for that.

At first I had planned on the game being very traditional, what with one main party traveling through a single continuous adventure and so on, much like D&D. However, I saw your post a few hours ago, Osmo, and started thinking of the game more like a head to head competition, with two parties each plotting and playing against each other. A battlefield will be drawn up with a number of obstacles and features to hinder or assist in combat. I'll probably give each faction a different set of advantages and disadvantages to make sure that play style is different between the two parties. I want roleplay, or at least narration encouraged, and I think I could do that by giving out rewards if a player describes his actions in detail or thinks of a unique way to win a fight.

That's my idea so far, I'm definitely excited about this now though, I'll probably work on it quite a bit tonight, I may post what I have done if I think I have something good. Again, thanks for the help.

I played a modified Shadowrun Head to Head with a similar premise a few years back, so I know the concept is certainly valid.

I'd add more to this post, but everyone else has pretty much said the things that I would have said. I found the Power 19 really useful when I answered it for my own game "Tales".

V

Hi Matt,

You might want to seperate the roleplay part (where everyones kind of talking in game world terms and figuring out/creating the game world) and the actual head to head part into two modes. The creative roleplay mode has to come before the Vs mode, because in the Vs mode this is where it comes down to resolving the situation*. You might want roleplay while they fight it out - sorry, as I understand it (I may be wrong) it simply can't be done. There's no blurring the two. If you like the roleplay part more, I'd recommend figuring out a very short combat system, but with lots of modifiers which are worked out in the creative roleplay part. This could be as simple as the GM listening to all the roleplay of each side going on, and secretly writing down the parts of each sides plan that warrant a bonus. Once they're all done, just roll one side plus all it's bonuses, against the other side with all it's bonuses. If that seems too simple, tell us where you want the complexity to occur - remember, during the creative roleplay part, the whole game world is involved.

* For skeptical forgites, this is the same as using conflict resolution. You don't determine all the modifiers in a conflict resolution, roll the result then...start cooking up more modifiers. It's done, you can't go back. Vs mode is resolution - you can't go back once you head into it.

I probably shouldn't have said roleplaying, that's not really what I meant. I mean, during the combat, instead of a player merely saying, "I attack." they could describe the attack, if it was a good description or a really novel way of attacking, they could be rewarded somehow. I think it might be hard to keep track of two different games going on at the same time., unless the players dictated it more than the GM.

I knew you meant describing an attacks and such when refering to roleplay. And I in no way said two games going on at the same time, that wouldn't get the result I was refering to. First creative roleplay (which includes describing attacks) then Vs mode. And that marks the end of the session (clearly you can have more than one session in a gaming get together, of course).

To use a comparison, creative roleplay mode is like when wargamers cooperate in the placement of scenery on the gaming table. But once the battle begins, it hits Vs mode.

Keep in mind when you said head to head competition, I assume you want there to be a winner in the game. At some point that has to be determined rather than negotiated, even if it's just a flip of a coin. Likewise, you can't go back to negotiaton after that "Oh, lets just ignore that flip of the coin because my character does X..."

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood at first, yeah that makes perfect sense now.