*waves* :D

Hello there, first post. This is the Power 19 (thanks troy!) of a game I've been developing (alone at first, then with some friends) for two and a half years now or so (on and off). Problem is, now that I know what a fantasy heartbreaker is, my project looks like a textbook example. That's not going to stop me, since I want to see it finished even if it's only for me and my friends, or for free. But since it isn't finished yet, perhaps there are things that can be done, in order that it's less heartbreaking but still contains the basic premises of the game.

1.) What is your game about?**
Fantasy civilizations in a magical, natural, colorful world. Heartbreaking, right? That’s why I’m posting here.

2.) What do the characters do?**
Further their social or personal goals in the cultural and political framework. They DON’T battle monsters and they DON’T crawl inside dungeons. Up to the point, however, they’ve been reliably invading political targets’ houses and beaten the crap out of them, though. Perhaps we should make the local authorities more bent on law enforcing.

3.) What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?**
The players incarnate a character each, the GM characterizes the environment, develops possible events, and incarnates every other characters. So classical in that way.

4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
There’s emphasis on the variety of cultures, places, governments, and beings. I’ve vetoed monsters, undead beings and gods since the start, and we’ve tried to avoid background elements that are blatantly “hellish” or “heavenly” (with a couple of minor exceptions). There aren’t armies of darkness being amassed around, you won’t find a dragon hoarding treasure or a demon on a quest to corrupt souls. But you might find a real army, commanded by a not-so-nice condecorated guy, and I wouldn’t like to find myself face to face with a squad of army-trained battlemages. The question I try to answer here is “why use monsters when you can use people?”. There’ll be animal templates, but that’s in case you want to have a pet, a beast to ride, or effectively happen to be in the middle of nowhere and happen upon, let’s say, a bear or bear equivalent, or try to burgle into someone else’s house and, omg, they’ve got a guardian dog (or a guardian whatever). Of course there are beasts in the world, but they’re not waiting out there in line to be spanked by the most recently baked group of adventurers. They’re eating, sleeping, hiding and mating. And adventurers are much of an effort for their meat, don’t make for a comfy cushion, can’t prevent them from getting soaked in the rain, nor do they look like a good match (well, most of them shouldn’t XD).


5.) How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?
By using unified mechanics for races and jobs (the two “splats” present), that means that if you want to develop only the race skills, or you want to be “classless” that’s OK and playable.

6.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?
Multiclassing is encouraged, taking chances is encouraged, finding nonstandard solutions is encouraged. If you teleport your foe out of the train, that’s a kill (has happened). We’re toiling hard to find a way to encourage “social” play, which we will probably enforce by setting up some actually useful social skills and social reward system.

7.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?
Multiclassing is encouraged with special combination skills that are accessible after completing each combination of any two given class skillsets. The reward system isn’t fully fleshed yet so I don’t know what else to say.

8.) How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?
The usual gamemaster/player character dichotomy is present, dut description (NOT mechanics!) of magical feats and two critical strikes (Death Blow and Terror Blow) are left up to the player performing them. However we’re *of course* willing to open more space for “player narration” if it can be ruled and is fun.

9.) What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)
Put in place a high-risk: Characters have powerful assets at their command but the damage count is high, and the damage capacity isn’t that high – you want to either avoid combat altogether or hit fast, hard, and first. We try our best to present players with a colorful array of things to toy with, but if you get into trouble you’d better be ready to bet your hide. To boot, “staring death in the eye” nets you experience points, so players should be willing to bet their hides. Up to the point, it has worked.

10.) What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?
Opposed rolls using between 1d6 and 6d6 per roll. Anything you can do is either a skill, a spell or something anybody can do (regular rolls)


11.) How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?
Whatever you’re rolling most usually affects directly the number of dice you’ll be using, BUT what’s compared is the total sum: That way, a character with velocity 3 confronting another one with velocity 2 (velocity is the characteristic used for to-hit rolls) will regularly hand the latter’s his or her arse in a silver plate, but even a velocity 1 character has a fool’s chance to beat a velocity 5 character.


12.) Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?
Character levels are present (Perhaps that’d better be changed) Each level entitles the player to upgrade one of his/her character’s skillsets (buying a new skill or upgrading one he or she already has), some levels entitle them to augment a basic characteristic.

13.) How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
Physical prowess (that is, basic characteristics, that which does not depend on knowledge, even if they’re not strictly “physical”), both initial (at character creation) and maximal is determined by their race: some have more potential for strength and others for subtlety (for example) but all are balanced in terms of points: A carillon is slower and less subtle than a human but is also stronger and more resilient (A carillon is a clockwork android). No restrictions for multiclassing and combination skills allow for more fine-tuning.You want to set your enemies on fire, AND wield a big, sharp object? Well, there’s no one stopping you.


14.) What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?
My foremost priority is that players have fun. I want players to feel excited playing the game, so they follow that excitement into taking risks and (luck mediating!) achieving their goals. In order to accomplish this we’re trying to develop a system complex in elements but simple in mechanics, and a game world that’s varied and colorful but with essentially “easy to spot and differentiate” elements, in which are present a variety of environments.

We’re trying to develop a system that’s not particularly detailed or exhaustive, I don’t care how much your sword weights, or how many meters can you jump. (Well, I might, but that can be settled with a quick thumb rule over characteristics or just some good ol’ “what the GM says is true”) But we’re trying to make it SOLID: that is, if you want to do something there’s a way to do it, and homogenous: in the end, success or failure always hinges on an opposed roll, and it only uses the d6, which is the kind of die everyone is familiar with, well-suited to small numbers, and even more so to the numerical architecture of threes and sixes that’s present all over the game, in crunch and fluff. We’re building it this way since we want players to be able to get to grips easily with the system. When players can handle the system they spend time deciding what to do and acting, instead of not knowing what they can do or asking the GM.

Background-wise, we’re first and foremost trying to build a Fantasy World, with emphasis on variety of peoples and places. Another goal is that humanity itself is a Fantasy Race among others, that it isn’t somehow the “base” race. To this end we’ve split humans into variants which are not those found on earth.

15.) What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?
Magic, Races and Languages. Why? Because that’s the areas the people who do most of the work (me and a friend) are most interested in. Also Food: because when playtesting we always end up talking about what the hell do they eat in the location the game events are taking place.

16.) Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?
Hmmm. I’ve been wanting to put in an item creator class since the start but I never seem to get it right, it’s frustrating. I personally am the magic system nerd of all the involved persons (Magic systems are always a pet piece of ruling of someone, right?), What I *REALLY* like about it is that nearly everything fits into schemes of threes and sixes, and that almost at every level (races, characteristics, jobs, spell sets, elements...) you can find that correspondence.

17.) Where does your game take the players that other games can’t, don’t, or won’t?
I think that other games don’t allow players to cover as many of the possible game options as ours do – you can potentially learn EVERY skill. Perhaps that’ll be changed, but anyway there’ll always be a lot of room for “horizontal” developing (learning more different things, not only improving). Also: furry communist nazi zen buddhists with psi powers from outer space.

18.) What are your publishing goals for your game?
Pfft. What the heck do I know. Of course we’d like it to hit the shelves!! But as long as it isn’t finished, that’s out of the question. I want to make a book. I want to make as good a roleplaying book we’re currently able to, preferrably via funneling as many skillfull and friendly brains as possible, a lot of people seem to pitch in for this project. If when it’s finished, we can find a way to publish it, that’d be awesome. If not, well, we’ll photocopy it or something and spread it around friends and such 

19.) Who is your target audience?
Gamers who like action but who aren’t TOO keen on number-crunching (since there isn’t that much),  who do like fantasy but aren’t DIEHARD FANTASY FOLLOWERS!, since we’re not and as such can’t probably cater to their needs (unless unintentionally). People who are also interested in comics since the illustrations will probably have a lot of that, and people with a certain sensibility since we’re trying to give the background and aesthetics a colorful, exotic, and tale-like quality. If we’re doing it right is something that open playtesting will tell.

So. My questions are:

1: What the HECK do I do with the item creator? I'm aching to make it but really, I DON'T KNOW HOW!
2: What can I do so the game exists, at least, in the brightest side of the heartbreakers spectrum?
3: Any clues in the way of designing religions that look at least half-plausible? I DON'T WANT (case closed) to put "real deities" in my game.
4: Which games are similar, AND GOOD, in order to read them and find some inspiration?
5: Which games are similar, AND SHIT, in order to avoid the same traps? (or at least take bandages with ourselves)
6: Should I try to implement some kind of psychology/personality system? I vetoed alignments or any similar device since the start, is that a good idea?

1. The item creator class is doable, and may end up being better than a warrior if the game is based on political maneuvering more than combat, which it seems to be. (The only example of such a class i can think of is the artificer from D&D 3.5, in the Ebberon campaign guide, being re-released in 4th edition soon, although I'm pretty sure that's not what you're looking for)
2. Well, if the game is what you want and is fun for you and your players, there's bound to be someone else who likes it too! No specific advice though, sorry.
3. Religions are easy. Just find a concept important enough to be worshiped, come up with a name and some interesting habits of the followers and viola! One religion, hold the holy water.
4. Hmm.... Yiu might want to check out Reign. I've never played it, but I hear it has to do with politicking somewhat. Also, there's an old third party d20 book "dynasties and demagogues" by Atlas games that dealt with politics in a fantasy setting (specifically D&D, but it might help out)
5. I'm not an expert in shitty games, but it shouldn't be that hard to find some- look in the dark corner or bargain bin of your local game shop, they'll be there next to all the d20 supplements
6. If you feel that players need guides as to what their characters would do, or are planning on using such info for something like a "political combat system" or something then you might want to consider this, if not I'd probably avoid it, as it'll probably stifle more rolep;laying than it would inspire.

Regarding your third question...
I think the thing to remember though is that people generally try to explain the world around them in terms they can understand so that everything seems relevant to their lives. A tribe of cattle herders would probably believe that the universe was created by a cow god or something.

Thanks for your input! I'm already looking into dynasties and demagogues. I don't really have teh monies now to buy RPG books just to use them as inspiration, so I'll have to... uh... get them somehow else.