Hi folks. I've been a lurker here off and on over the years, but have grown more interested recently and have finally decided to post an idea for feedback.

Anyway, I was thinking about ways to create an adaptable core mechanic that appears fairly standard, but that allows for much more simulationist and narrative style gaming.

I started with the standard Stat + Skill type mechanism that is fairly universal to the mainstream of rpgs (I do like the way in which this basic premise allows me to define my character in a way that you can usually look at a character sheet no matter what the system is and get a rough idea as to what the type of character is).

Then I had the thought "a skill basically represents time/focus on a particular set of activities." It seemed to me that seen in this light a "skill" could provide a lot more than simply a range of task-based resolution percentages. Rather than making the "skill" determine how successful a character was at performing an action it could also be used to show their contacts and status built up with people who share the same focus or training, and even a certain level of fate or luck within the chosen sphere. So I stopped calling them "skills" and started calling them "backgrounds."

I began to think of all the ways in which a background might be used within a game and then grouped everything togetehr and came up with 4 basic uses for a background:

Knowledge: backgrounds represent training, study and common understandings within their given area, as such a character can make tests with a background to recall an important fact of information, or draw conclusions by connecting different facts they may know.

Action: The background can also be used to perform a number of different actions, depending upon what the background entails. A science background might allow someone to perform an experiment to assist an investigation, a martial arts background might allow someone to make an unarmed attack.

Gather Info: A background also represents a character’s contacts and access to information within a given area of influence, and so rolls can be made to investigate related topics. This could cover both hitting the streets and pressing contacts for info, and also research in libraries or online, depending upon the background used.

Acquisition: Backgrounds are also used to determine what goods the character is able to acquire (through legitimate means or otherwise).

Dramatic edit: a background can also be used to make a dramatic edit, within the parameters of the background. For example, if you have a Street background you could have some hoodlums turn up and bother those people who were chasing you, or the Science backgound might allow you to say that the laser trap is slightly off line and will cut your bonds before cutting you into two, etc.

Anyway, I think I've covered every type of use in those four broad categories, but feel free to suggest some others.

The idea is that this type of stat could be implemented in a variety of ways to suit different settings, the person designing the game would set the list of backgrounds determining much of the balance of purpose and focus of character abilities available, and hence allowing the core mechanic to be tweaked to fit the mood of whatever game you are wanting to create.

anyway, thats what I've got so far. Any thoughts?

Ben

Greetings, Ben!

My thoughts are that I personally like this kind of model.  Of course, every decision made within design is a matter of deciding what is important to your game.  Some players like the contrast of Stat vs. Skill vs. Backgrounds viewed as Nature vs. Nurture vs. Resources.  To me, this is like splitting hairs.  I prefer systems like the one you've thought up there that blur the line between these Sources, but some people might not.

I see what you're saying as the extreme of an "Effect-based" philosophy of character generation.  Some systems that claim to be "Effect-based" still spend a lot of time hashing over sources, like whether a player has natural intelligence or whether it's learned.  There are other systems still, like Call of Cthulhu, where the distinction between Stats and Skills exists, but you can't pin down either Stats or Skills as being a specific source.  I think these systems hold onto the Stat vs. Skill model just because it's successful in and familiar to the mainstream (which I honestly can't argue with).

As far as assessing whether the five Backgrounds you've chosen cover everything, we really have to dig down into what you expect characters to be doing that will require a check (whether a roll or bid or whatever).

The reason I want you to assess this is that I don't want to suggest anything that's inappropriate to your idea of what game this structure should be used for.  For instance, I could bring up my inability to see where something like Perception/Alertness falls in your structure.  But some people (in some games) don't like checking for things like that, for the simple fact that if players aren't perceptive/alert, a lot of important information and awesome color can fall through the cracks.  So what types of Situations do the PCs in your game get into?  Or more to the point, on what levels within these Situations might a PC be tested - where success and failure (or however you define the potential results of your checks) are important?

-JT

Firstly - oops. I said four uses when I meant 5 :(

Secondly, I think from your response I think I need to clarify: I wasn't suggesting that players would have an individual score for each of those five areas, but that they would have a number of backgrounds each of which could achieve each of the five effects at whatever score they had available in each background.

Let me try to illustrate with a fairly meat-and-potatoes fantasy archetype: a "barbarian". Such a character might have the following backgrounds: Wilderness 3, Pit Fighting 3, and Swordmanship 5. He could make a gather info test with his swordsmanship background to find out about a notable sword, weaponsmith or fellow swordsman, he could make a knowledge test with his Wilderness background to identify a flora or fauna of the, or a pitfighting action to awe an opponent with a series of flashy, distracting blows. Each test could also use a stat component if desirable, switching the stat used depending upon the test being made, thus allowing a lot of different acivities and effects to be represented by the combination of backgrounds and stats.

Finally, I think you've hit on one I missed. I think backgrounds need a Notice feature, allowing the character to notice things out of the ordinary based on their background - the swordsmanship background might be used to spot a flaw in an opponent's fighting stance, wilderness to spot someone waiting in amush in the woods ahead, etc.

Hopefully what I've got here is something that is at least a halfway house between the mainstream and the "effect-based" philosophy, if not a little closer to efect-based which at first appears to be more mainstream - that way I might be able to hook a few of the ingnorant masses into a less "standard" gaming experience... :)

Cheerio,

Ben

malladin_ben wrote:
Let me try to illustrate with a fairly meat-and-potatoes fantasy archetype: a "barbarian". Such a character might have the following backgrounds: Wilderness 3, Pit Fighting 3, and Swordmanship 5. He could make a gather info test with his swordsmanship background to find out about a notable sword, weaponsmith or fellow swordsman

I have a similar system.  Characters have a basic stat + skill like system, except that the "skill" part is called an Profession, and can be used with any stat to do anything that is linked to the profession.  For instance take profession Blacksmith:

Manipulation + Blacksmith = Trading
Strength + Blacksmith = crafting
Intelligence + Blacksmith  = Designing

Basically, the player will ask if they can use "X" profession to do "Y" action.  GM says yes or no and tells them which stat to use.  The difficulty is made up on the spot depending on the relevance of the profession to the job at hand.

Ray

Hi Ben,

Feng Shui has a similar system for their skills, but only three uses.  The main thing I'd focus on is the "dramatic edit."  That's a huge shift from almost every mainstream RPG.  It basically shifts some or a lot of GM power to the players.  Were I to try to run something using a system like this I'd want to see lots of examples of how you do it, what it can't do and what (if anything) should limit it.

-Robert

Hello again, Ben.

Now that I reread your first post, it seems that it was my misinterpretation, sorry.  In any case, I still think it's a cool idea.  If I understand you correctly, you're thinking this:

The purpose in setting each of these uses apart is to create a cohesive resolution system.  I.E., making rules where similar uses of different skills work the same in game mechanics.

So (if I were to go with your fantasy idea) say I just take "Thief."  The same skill that I pick locks and pockets with would also represent things like how many contacts who are thieves that I could talk to for information, as well as how much I know about law as it relates to theives.  Furthermore my picking pockets ability works in game mechanics just like the ability a bureaucrat has to acquire a building permit, and my knowledge of the underground works just like a magician's knowledge of the arcane.

I could totally see that.

With aloha,
-JT

I think some of what your proposing was the original intent behind White Wolf's any Attribute with any Ability thing. Like how you could roll Martial Arts + Perception to guess someones fighting style. I really like the idea of more holistic abilities. As an aside, I think I've been doing what your talking about for years now, I just never stated it. Like, if a player put a lot into firearms, we'd just assume that he was armed, that he could recognize guns and know where to by them. I think every game could benefit from formalizing this sort of thing. I don't know how helpful this all was, but in short, great insight, I  think you should definitely go with it.

I'll echo the Feng Shui mention, above. (It's one of my all-time favorite systems, too). The one "area" that you're missing that Feng Shui taps into is "Contacts." You can narrate a contact in that skill area, such as a martial arts teacher, equipment supplier, other notable champions, etc. all under the "Martial Arts" skill. This I guess is similar to your Dramatic Edit, and could move your idea into more of a storytelling game, too. (or at least, into more of shared-GM type of game, as was mentioned)

danielsan wrote:
I'll echo the Feng Shui mention, above. (It's one of my all-time favorite systems, too). The one "area" that you're missing that Feng Shui taps into is "Contacts." You can narrate a contact in that skill area, such as a martial arts teacher, equipment supplier, other notable champions, etc. all under the "Martial Arts" skill. This I guess is similar to your Dramatic Edit, and could move your idea into more of a storytelling game, too. (or at least, into more of shared-GM type of game, as was mentioned)

Hi-

Like Ray, I use a Profession system for my game Ten-Cent Heroes; the professions offer a static bonus to any related task. This is a very catch-all type system; I don't have a profession list, the players just write down what their player's job is and move on. I allow multiple professions for more worldly characters, and allow specific skills (which aren't so flexible) for further bonuses at specific activities. Again, I don't have a skill list, the player just picks one facet of their profession and calls it a skill.

My inspiration (in part) was Risus; it had a neat system where you pick cliches to represent your character's background, assign a pool of dice to each cliche, and then roll the appropriate pool whenever you were performing an action related to it. Having grown up playing Champions, where there is a skill for everything, and you can't do anything without the skill, this was a refreshing change.

The biggest benefits I have found so far to this type of skill system is: a) it doesn't seem to bog down character creation (at least, in TCH) and b) it generates a very honest and competent representation of a skill set for the character (as opposed to having decide every single skill that a character of given trade would have).

The only pitfall I could see here are players trying to stretch their backgrounds to cover inappropriate tasks. This isn't too big a deal in TCH since its a very fast and loose game. I've been playtesting for a few years, and it hasn't been that big of an issue. In TCH, professions are pretty broad, so players really have to stretch to get out of their trade. If your background system is more structured, then you may want to consider this potential problem.

Like what you've got so far; keep it up,

Ken