I began work on Ex Deus roughly five months ago, seeking to reconcile GURPS' unprecedented universality and detail with White Wolf's compelling simplicity. No single system I knew of accommodated both all the manners of outlandish or fantastic settings I loved to run (magical wasteland following super-science apocalypse, WWI Lovecraftian horror, nonmagical medieval tragedy...) and the level of setting/campaign complexity I sought (sophisticated social combat, realistic physical combat, reasons to be intelligent other than magic, meaningful crafting systems...). Each sacrificed the other in pursuit of something resembling simplicity or speed, but all fell lacking to my needs. So, I thought I could do better, and five months later, here I am. This post explores Ex Deus in pursuit of criticism, concerns, and curiosities.

Ex Deus is a diceless RPG system intended to fulfill the following virtues:

• Simple
The rules should be easy to pick up, but challenging to master.
• Compelling
The rules should foster intriguing gameplay.
• Intuitive
The rules should make sense.
• Fast
The rules should never slow down gameplay.
• Universal
The rules should bar no setting nor campaign concept.

The name "Ex Deus" comes from a short story I once wrote about a conversation between two gods, where each word of their divine language spawned universes designed to exhibit through their infinite glory and grandeur the intended message.

As for the rules themselves, let's go through the basics.
0. BASIC MECHANICS

• Task Resolution: Attempt - Challenge = Result
Attempt = Attribute + Skill + Misc. (Equipment, Circumstances, Specialties, etc.)
Challenge = Difficulty (sometimes another force's attempt, sometimes an entity's stat)
Result = Degree of success or failure.
• "Diceless"
Using static values instead of dice, Ex Deus eliminates the time-consuming task of rolling dice from the system, but maintains the intrigue of the unknown through the deceptive sophistication of its conflict systems, not unlike Diplomacy, Caylus, or Mancala.
• Notes about Characters
Ex Deus features no notions about classes, levels, or stat-independent experience. Stats (attributes, skills, specialties, traits, etc.) grow as you use them.

1. ATTRIBUTES

• Strength (STR): Increases melee damage, decreases melee and ranged attack speed.
• Endurance (END): Increases health.
Health = (END + 1) * 5
• Alacrity (ALA): Reduces damage taken, increases speed and ranged damage.
• Charisma (CHA): Used in social combat. Aptitude for persuasion.
• Intelligence (INT): Mastery of reason and memory. Applicable everywhere.
By doubling the time it takes to perform an action, you can add "INT + (Relevent Skill)" to its attempt. This can be done up to three times per attempt.
• Wits (WIT): Perception, both sensory and empathic.

2. SKILLS and SPECIALTIES
Ex Deus features 34 skills, chosen because they have all manifested in one form or another across all human history. I would list them and their documentation, but I dare say it's a bit lengthy. I'll raise specifics where necessary, but the gist is that each skill commands a large number of applications. "Melee" is used for melee weaponry, such as when attacking with them (STR + Melee), discussing them (CHA + Melee), or examining them (INT + Melee). "Economics" is used to barter in markets, lead a business, and divine the value of items, but can also be added to social combat attempts where applicable. "Biology" comprises knowledge of the living world and manifests through knowledge of plants, herbs, fauna, beasts, and their anatomy, and thus is used to garner from them alchemical reagents and other substances and materials. Where skills overlap, you add them together, such as a battle of words veiled in polite conversation (CHA + (Social Combat) + Conversation). Having fewer applications, skills grow faster than attributes.
Specialties are more specific fields of knowledge. Sometimes they comprise sub-genres of skills, such as "Unarmed" versus "Melee", while other times they're manifestions of knowledge too specific to be a skill, such as "Cooking". There is no list of specialties: pending GM approval, anything can be a specialty. Having fewer applications, specialties grow faster than skills.

3. TRAITS AND FLAWS
Traits represent miscellaneous bonuses or advantages to your character, whether physical, social, or mental. Traits come in ranks, where more ranks indicates more benefit. Traits are acquired at character genesis, but can thereafter be earned by meeting their experience requisites through in-game play. (For example, earn ambidexterity by using your offhand instead of your mainhand for seven consecutive days, or earn status with merchants by buying, selling, and trading goods.)
Flaws are the opposite of Traits, and also come in ranks and have experience requisites for in-game acquisition. At character creation, characters can choose a designated number of flaws in exchange for more traits. After character creation though, flaws are purely detrimental. Acquiring them has no mechanical benefit. Broken legs, for example, is a flaw.
Like Skills, there is a list of Traits and Flaws, but the list's size has led me to omit it.

4. COMPULSIONS AND WILLPOWER
Compulsions are manifestations of your character's paradigm that demand indulgence. By indulging them, you reinforce your paradigm and earn willpower that you can spend to enforce your priorities over your paradigm or push yourself to new heights. For example, a greedy character would be especially easily persuaded by money. By cheating someone out of their money even if the character doesn't need the money for anything in particular, the character would have indulged their greed compulsion and gained a willpower. Or, if offered a substantial monetary reward to murder his best friend, the character would have to spend a willpower to resist indulging.
Willpower disappears only after use, and thus can be accumulated over time. Used to buff skill attempts, each willpower grants a +2 bonus; attempts can benefit from up to three willpower.
Like Skills, the Compulsion list's length forbids it entry into this post.

That's all for now. I'm calling it quits now because it's pretty late, but I'll post tomorrow in this thread on what remains to discuss of Ex Deus:

• 5. EQUIPMENT
• 6. PHYSICAL COMBAT
• 7. SOCIAL COMBAT
• 8. CRAFTING
• 9. GATHERING
• 10. MODULES

Thanks for reading!

Wow! This system looks awesome. I don't think I want to use it for the game I'm currently developing but if I ever design a game which it would fit with I will certainly consider using it. Of course, bear in mind that I have yet to finish designing my first game.

I might even consider converting another campaign to this system. Which, coming from me, is high praise indeed, since I suck at and, therefore, detest doing anything mechanical in games. (At least when running or designing them).

I hope that this doesn't seem too pompous.

Have you looked at Amber diceless? Some of TonyLB's old posts on his experience with that system may be instructive to you. Essentially, he observed that a lot of "play" took place at the social level as players gamed the GM. Something to consider as you devise procedures for play, which will have to resolve conflicting arguments about the governing attributes in any given instance of play.

Hello,

This isn't a First Thoughts topic. In fact, it's basically an advertisement. Since the Forge is here for promoting independently-published games, that in itself isn't a bad thing - but to post here, you must follow the boundaries of the forum definitions.

Please choose one of the legitimate forums for this thread to be in: Publishing, to discuss how it is or is to be published; Actual Play, to talk about what it's like to play it (probably the best choice for promotion purposes); or conceivably Playtesting if you want to talk about that. You can do this by replying to this thread with a post that illustrates that choice. For instance, for Actual Play, merely describe any example of play, whether at the smallest scale of a single roll, or a catch-all description of a whole series of episodes. Anything you like as long it was really played.

In case you're not familiar with the Forge and its history, I'm the co-founder and am the single content moderator for the general forums. I'd definitely like to see your game showcased here, as with any independent role-playing game.

Everyone else: do not post until this thread gets clarified.

Best, Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: In fact, it's basically an advertisement.

Oh.

Well, that is an example of me making a mistake. You are authorized for a full-throttle First Thoughts conversation after all! Please, full speed ahead, with my apology.

Best, Ron

What about White Wolf's system do you find as having "Compelling simplicity"?

You said, "Ex Deus features no notions about classes, levels, or stat-independent experience."
I just want to be clear I'm reading this sentence right: It does NOT have classes and levels, but it DOES have stat-dependant experience?

Ron Edwards wrote: Please, full speed ahead, with my apology.

Thunder_God wrote: What about White Wolf's system do you find as having "Compelling simplicity"?

It does NOT have classes and levels, but it DOES have stat-dependant experience?

Garb,

Two things: First, what is your game about? What's it's core goal? What's its premise?

Second, how does your diceless social/physical combat system work?

Luke wrote: First, what is your game about? What's it's core goal? What's its premise?

Second, how does your diceless social/physical combat system work?

I will try to read it all later, but a simple mathematical help:

X^2-X is simply: X*(X-1), and might be simpler for many people.

Interesting dynamic on the social combat.

It seems the rock-paper-scissors dynamic of it, without simultaneous declaration (so it's a guessing game) means that people will tend to follow Rhetoric with Empathy, Empathy with Expression and Expression with Rhetoric, in a cyclical pattern, assuming roughly equal stats. I don't see any reason why you'd want to break this pattern at all, and it seems like you'd be at a small disadvantage to start the argument, because you can't double your starting figure.

Also, I'm unclear on how to win?

Garba,

Perhaps I missed something, but I didn't see how combat actions are taken.

Is action selection open? Are stats known to all players? If so, the results of each conflict are predetermined.

If the action selection is private, then there's a slight chance for variation, but you still have the conflicts weighted toward a higher stat.

As for my initial question: Your answers are kind of vague and not insightful. What do you use this game for at home? How does your group play this game? If you haven't played it, then tell me how they play in general.

-L

Retcon:

• Armor = 2 * Speed^2
• Block = 2 + Speed(Speed - 1)
• Harm/4, round down = Tick Pushback
• Charge, Slam, and Bull Rush use 2x STR but deny the character any evasive attributes and block, just like an all-out attack.

Luke wrote: Perhaps I missed something, but I didn't see how combat actions are taken.

What are the players doing here? If it's all out in the open, if all the choices and timing are there, what's preventing you from choosing the optimal strategy each time? There are only a few stats, they'll only remain hidden momentarily.

And you didn't answer my other questions.

-L

I have to agree with Lance, and I thought so before as well, regarding Social Combat.

I am actually not enthralled with the "Back and forth" since, well, there's no randomness in it.

To put it another way, I'm fine with something not being random, but a cyclical action that is not random? I think we call that "Repetitive" or even "Tedious".
Suppose we are either equal in our scores or nearly equal, so that each round of the respondent's ends with "0" or with something low, like "2" to me, so after you reply you only have 6, but I have 2 again, doesn't really matter.
You use Rock, I use Paper, you use Scissors, I use Rock, etc.
Until someone reaches Charisma 0. Where is the interest in that?

Or, suppose I am stronger than you, and each round I manage to return, but get a bigger lead. Like you begin with a 10, I get 12, you then get an 8(to my 2 left over), I get an 11, suppose, now I'm 5 ahead, and so we keep going.
Again, not really interesting.

I think like in physical combat there needs to be some value to what happens in each round, like that physical harm you're left with? So that if I keep the argument going, when I'm behind, I have to pay something for it, or that there'd be a way (perhaps with a price?) to have the discussion end early. But as a player, why do I want to keep the discussion going? If I'm stronger, I just want to win, if I'm weaker, why drag it on till I actually fail to reply? And if we're equal, I'd just like to cut it out.

The one thing I do seem to get is the "RP", whereas we describe what we do for each roll, but if that's not actually RPed in detail, and just described in a telegraph manner, than I, at least, may find it less than interesting.

Hi there, Garbados! First, let me say that your system seems interesting. But it is very hard to provide any kind of real feedback before you answer these questions properly:

Luke wrote:
(...)
As for my initial question: Your answers are kind of vague and not insightful. What do you use this game for at home? How does your group play this game? If you haven't played it, then tell me how they play in general.

-L

Garbados wrote:
(...)

About: playing in a compelling story, whatever that is and wherever it takes place.
Goal: facilitate realistic gameplay through simple, easy to learn rules with hard to master implications.
Premise: you want to play a game. Additionally, you may...

• Be new to roleplaying and want something simple and intuitive.
• Be an experienced roleplayer looking for more gameplay depth / realism.
• Be a GM who prefers campaigns outside the bounds of most systems, either by setting, mood, or theme.

This thread makes me wonder.. what could you do to make a luckless system interesting?

Nobilis manages it, but the sacrifice is that the mechanics of your stats aren't all that important--its not even remotely gamist.

I'd personally be hugely interested in a luckless system that somehow managed to keep the conflicts interesting/engaging, but I'm not at all sure how to do it myself. It seems like it would have to be done through the fluff, since there'd be no excitement as to whether or not you'd win.

There would be excitement through story, which is not the same as fluff.

If you combine blind-planning, as Luke I think mentioned above, and as he'd done in his game, then the combat would be be more "blind", and more exciting.
If, for the Social Combat, where there are no manuevers, you'd add ramifications to every "round", like if someone wins that round, something happens (DitV is a way there), and if you lose, or if you tie, you got to bring something extra (this is what the little I know of TrollBabe <I>sounded</I> like to me), then it'd actually make it more interesting.

You need to make not only the results of the whole thing interesting, IMO, but each "bout" interesting. Games using dice or cards do this by adding randomness, so you are "betting" on each and every roll. But if it is luckless, then you need to do it another way, either by the decision-making (for Combat, if the manuevers are blind), or by the results, in a social context.

But to be honest, for the social context, you'll still need more. It's not random, and unless I keep throwing in traits I don't know your ratings at, it becomes "known". If I know what your three skills are, I can throw in Art, as in the example, and once I know what your Art is, that's not interesting either.
I would make things change a bit when one decides to go another round after tie or being beaten, some way in which things would change. But then, either you make it the same change every time, also removing the interest and making it known, or you add in the randomness you don't want.

Hm. Sorry for the rambling, but the only way I can think of now, is to have it be, the Social Combat at least, "One Round Sudden Death." Either Side A wins, or Side B wins, and if there's a "tie", make it have an interesting effect still. Have there be no repetition, no second chances, and no "meaningless results". If I fail to convince you, it must have an effect, a real one.

My 4 cents.

Hoo! Lots to go over.

Thanks Alex Abate Biral for clarifying Luke's questions. Sorry Luke, that I didn't understand them very well, and thus had difficulty answering. Another friend of mine also clarified them for me, so I'll give it another shot:

1.) "What is Ex Deus about?" Many systems answer this question with "samurai", "zombies", or "medieval fantasy". Ex Deus is about /anything/. I designed it to allow my outlandish campaigns to manifest easily, freely, like rivers from mountain snowpacks. Its realistic bent helps guide these outlandish ideas into more intuitive forms, so that crafted worlds more resemble real ones and thus so players can more easily read into them.

2.) "What is Ex Deus' goal?" To foster compelling storytelling through thought-provoking realism. "Thought-provoking" is the critical thing here: Ex Deus' realism should make real-world knowledge more applicable in the game-world. Wearing a breastplate into a gunbattle makes as much sense in Ex Deus as it does in real life -- that is to say, it doesn't. Bullets will tear through your armor and you will only be hampered by its weight. But history also finds a place with Ex Deus: as of TL4 (medieval), it makes the most sense for heavy infantry to be well-armored and carry heavy weapons to hack through the under-armed foe-fodder and resist the blows of other knights, but as of TL5 (Renaissance) guns deflower this strategy, and even heavy breastplates remain only marginally useful (though slow reload times mean skirmishers still see plenty of use). By TL6 and TL7, soldiers do not wear armor: guns make it pointless. As it is in real life, so it is in Ex Deus. How? Not because the rules forbid non-historical warfare, but because the models make such development make the most sense, just as it did in human history. Maybe if a civilization developed stronger alloys earlier, armor could have kept pace with firearm development, and melee infantry would have seen much more use than they did. I want players to think in terms of reality rather than in game terms, but quantify it in a gamist-friendly manner. I don't want to force players to have a thoroughly-developed story, since a good hack-and-slash every now and then is just dandy, but I want the transparency of the rules to foster story development through the sheer ease of the system's use.

3.) "What is Ex Deus' premise?" I am still really unclear on this question, but in answer to Alex's inquiries pertaining to it, I want the players (GM included) to determine the game's nature. Player cooperation, competition, and other interactions should not be commanded or influenced by the system at all. Ex Deus should be completely neutral on the subject: it will help you tell your story, but never tell you how to tell it. Players who are new to the system will have a natural disadvantage like anyone new to a system, but Ex Deus does its best to shorten and diminish this disadvantage through its realism and simplicity. Once the new player understands how Ex Deus correlates to reality, they should be able to intuit 90% of the rest. Experienced players will be experienced because they understand a bit about how the world works on a larger scale, and where Ex Deus differs from reality for whatever reason. But a new player who understands either games or reality will have a natural edge and overcome the learning curve much faster than someone completely in the dark about both.

And at anyone wondering about social combat or fostering more "blind" play, I've got a couple new models for how both could work more effectively. I'll post them once I have the time, which may or may not be sometime Thursday.

You say Ex Deus is about anything, but every time you go into detail, all you're talking about is combat, tactics, and details of war. You should at least be saying Ex Deus is about anything that has combat in it. But really you're still missing the point of the question. We aren't looking for the answer "it's about any subject matter!" any more than we're looking for "it's about zombies!" Subject matter isn't what your game is about either way.

Whether you intend it to or not, your game will end up taking a position on what violent conflict has to do with story. We want to know what that position is - that will tell us what your game is about. Is it about killing things and taking their stuff? Is it about carefully safeguarding yourself against harm? Is it about the slippery slope into chaos and deterioration (and yes, that can be fun)? If you don't know, it's time to know. Making conscious decisions about this, and everything else, is what makes you a designer.

Garba,

I'm going to say some provocative stuff. Please take it in the helpful spirit it is intended.

1) Your game is not realistic. Based on what you've shown me, it is no more realistic than D&D or GURPS. Realism is a false idol. No roleplaying game is realistic. Yours will not be the first to achieve realism. Your game is a systematization of how you would like to see certain gamplay elements resolved. Your game is a spotlight on what you see as important in a RPG.

2) As a demonstration of the lack of realism in your game, you've devolved a very complex and nuanced cultural development into a series of derivative classifications -- derived from GURPS and Traveller, which are not realistic. To wit, there were plenty of breastplates all the way up through Napoleon's era that could stop a musket ball. They were heavy and expensive, but they did provide protection. But this is a red herring. Rooting your quest for realism in the representation of melee, bloodshed and murder is doomed to fail. One, you're not cutting any new ground. Hundreds, if not thousands, of systems have done the same before you. And furthermore, accurate representation of violence does not realism make.

But you also say you want story development in addition to your realism. Narrative fiction or the structure thereof is not realistic. Life doesn't have rising action, climax and denoument. Those are artificial constructions imposed on events by our story-hungry minds. So which is it? Will your game tell a story or will it let players sit around watch television, play X-box or wait for Costco to open? Perhaps there'll be a diaper changing mechanic for realisms sake?

3) Premise is what I'm driving at. You say you want the GM and players to determine the game's nature? No you don't. You want the game to be a realistic, fact-driven, choice-driven game that drives storytelling. That's your premise. It's untenable, but it's a start. Your game CAN NOT BE NEUTRAL in this. You,as the designer, have an opinion. You are going to design with certain preferences in mind. You cannot incorporate the entire scope of the wide, wide world into your game. You must focus on something. Better to admit it now and make an evocative, interesting game that showcases your viewpoint, than make a bland, boring game that sits meekly in the corner because it's too timid to express an opinion.

-L

Premise is what I'm driving at. You say you want the GM and players to determine the game's nature? No you don't. You want the game to be a realistic, fact-driven, choice-driven game that drives storytelling. That's your premise. It's untenable, but it's a start. Your game CAN NOT BE NEUTRAL in this. You,as the designer, have an opinion. You are going to design with certain preferences in mind. You cannot incorporate the entire scope of the wide, wide world into your game. You must focus on something. Better to admit it now and make an evocative, interesting game that showcases your viewpoint, than make a bland, boring game that sits meekly in the corner because it's too timid to express an opinion.

Wow! Now that's some feedback. I think I understand, but it's all still kind of fuzzy up there. Luke, Lance, Mike: thank you for your no-nonsense advice. These are hard lessons, but you're right, I should learn them early and learn them well. So, let's give this another try:

1.) Ex Deus is about conflict. Again, that sounds bland, but as mentioned, I put a lot of effort into the combat system. Moreover, the skill list is full of things specially bent to have conflict applications. Although players can take Art and just sit around and paint forever, I don't want them to. They could have done that until the game began, but once the campaign starts, their artistic abilities take on a new and necessary nature. Their knowledge of art enhances their investigatory powers -- "That statue, it's [X]. This is a Church of [Y]. I thought they were only myths..." -- and their ability to weave social criticism through unexpected ways -- "This painting here, see how it illustrates the clash of [X] and [Y], oblivious to [Z]. Seems I recall a similar conflict somewhere else..." -- among other abilities... such as producing art for money.

2.) Its goal is complex, involved conflict. Political intrigue, racial tension, theological division; the rise of civilizations, the fall of empires, the birth and chaos of new frontiers; battlefield melee, trench warfare, cloak-and-dagger, games of thrones, all the way down to a dungeoneering hack-and-slash, which although not that sophisticated, is too much a staple of this style of roleplaying to leave out. I want it to be involved through the understanding the players have about the consequences of their choices: it is by their intelligent play that they survive and progress. The dice will never deliver victory. Only they can. Additionally, the foibles of the characters ought enhance involvement: the Compulsion/Willpower mechanic forces players to make value decisions: indulge the character's psyche for more number-buffing willpower, or sacrifice it to fulfill the character's real priorities.

3.) As Luke stated so aptly, Ex Deus' premise is that...

Luke wrote: You want the game to be a realistic, fact-driven, choice-driven game that drives storytelling.

Now we're getting somewhere.

1) Your game is about conflict? My game is about conflict, too. What a coincidence. Well, that's not entirely true. My game is about fighting for what you believe.

REAL conflict is scary, is hard, is emotional. All of those things drive 99% of roleplayers batty. It's too risky and it makes us crazy. Best way to survive a conflict in an RPG? Either avoid it or nuke it from orbit. Conflicts cause you to lose resources -- like hitpoints or even your ability to play the game at all. So how is your game about conflict? Having rules through which characters can fight or argue does not make your game ABOUT conflict. Because the behavior at the table -- the players -- are going to take the path of least resistance. So if conflict is the path of least resistance either it's too easy and there's not enough at risk or everything else in your game is so fucking frustrating that the players are just punching their way through a conflict secrely hoping that their character will die so they'll be done for the night.

2) Those are all great goals, but your game can't do all of them meaningfully. Okay, it can, but then it's GURPS or BRP and if your game is GURPS or BRP, why wouldn't I just play those games?

Consequences. My game is also about the consequences for fighting for what you believe. Another coincidence! My game involves making informed choices, too. Am I shilling for my game? No, I'm telling you that your concept can work with refinement.

2a) you've got to have shape to all of those conflicts. Each one of those things that you listed is a grand set of very different factors. If you want players to make informed, intelligent, insightful choices, you've got to give them a set of interesting options.

2b) Speak to me of this Compulsion mechanic. How does one sacrifice to fulfill "real priorities?"

3) Right, and I'm saying that your premise is weak. Already, in your responses to me in this thread, you're abandoning realism and focusing on choices and consequences. In real life, we don't get to make meaningful choices that have a grand effect. We simply live our lives. Realism is boring. You're obviously looking for more than realism.

Lance gave you the answer to this before you were ready. You're looking for a game with internal consistency and a feedback mechanism to back it up -- there is a right way and a wrong way and when a player does one or the other, the game produces results consistent with the choice.

-Luke

Luke wrote: REAL conflict is scary, is hard, is emotional.

Luke wrote: 2) Those are all great goals, but your game can't do all of them meaningfully. Okay, it can, but then it's GURPS or BRP and if your game is GURPS or BRP, why wouldn't I just play those games?

Luke wrote: 2a) you've got to have shape to all of those conflicts.

Luke wrote: 2b) Speak to me of this Compulsion mechanic. How does one sacrifice to fulfill "real priorities?"

Luke wrote: You're obviously looking for more than realism.

Luke wrote: You're looking for a game with internal consistency and a feedback mechanism to back it up -- there is a right way and a wrong way and when a player does one or the other, the game produces results consistent with the choice.

Lance wrote: Interesting dynamic on the social combat.

Garbados wrote:
Ex Deus is a diceless RPG system intended to fulfill the following virtues:

• Simple
The rules should be easy to pick up, but challenging to master.
• Compelling
The rules should foster intriguing gameplay.
• Intuitive
The rules should make sense.
• Fast
The rules should never slow down gameplay.
• Universal
The rules should bar no setting nor campaign concept.

Garbados wrote:
If you're telling me I'll need to come up with rules for political intrigue, then no, I refuse, because Ex Deus isn't about telling the players how to play.

I did something similar to your compulsions. I'm basically 100% sure I stole it whole-cloth from some other game (it may have been Burning Wheel, come to think...) and rebranded it, but I think it'll do good things for my game.

Characters get traits during character creation. They are colored as good or bad, but the mechanics are identical either way.

If you can call on a trait in a way that makes sense and would be beneficial to the character, you get a small bonus to a roll, or affect the fiction in some beneficial way.

If you can call on a trait in a way that makes sense and would be detrimental to the character, you get a small penalty to a roll, or affect the fiction in some negative way. If you choose to call on a trait in a negative way, you get a small XP reward.

The important thing is that the penalty is player choice. It's not inflicted on him by the GM. The GM can suggest that a given situation would be an appropriate time to use a trait, but he doesn't force it on the player.

Now, I don't necessarily think Luke or anyone are saying you must create a complex political intrigue system. If you strip away the details, politics can bear a striking resemblance to other interesting types of conflicts. The main components of an agenda, and secrets can be broadly applied. So come up with a generic system that works for a few different options, then demonstrate how it can be used to work for political intrigue, or horse racing, or whatever.

But really, if political intrigue is what you want players to do in your game, then make rules for it. Seriously, if that's what the game's supposed to be about, then that's what the players will want when they pick up your game. If they want something else, they're gonna play something else, and that's okay.

Luke wrote:
The compulsions are a good start, btw. But they encourage one note play and are punitive. That's not my favorite method of being compelled.

Garbados wrote:
You're right. In my first post, in Ex Deus' guiding virtues (AKA design priorities), realism was not one of them. "Universal" and "Intuitive" were, though, and I found the best way to achieve both of these was to make a system which worked on models that imitated something like reality. But that realism was only a tool towards intuitive and universal gameplay. Where realism conflicted with them, I threw realism to the wind.

staring at Ex Deus right now, it has everything I need it to have, which is also everything I imagine any other competent GM will require to pick it up, teach it, and run a campaign with it. The rest is campaign suggestions, GMing tips, and rules documentation written for readability (also playtesting).

Man, this thread got harsh. Some of you are asking why I'm posting here at all, and I'm kind of coming to wonder the same thing. I posted here asking for advice, criticism, and for the eyes of the Forge to look the game over for holes. Some of you have given me great advice: "Your social combat system needs work" and "Compulsions aren't that great a way of doing it" specifically. I understand this about/goal/premise business as something like the formation of a mission statement, but other than that it looks like I'm just getting my design priorities curb stomped. I can understand some of the criticism on that, but if my design priorities are really that infeasible, I'm confused on how I've managed to get this far.

I started work on the handbook the other day (also put together a playtesting group, beginning testing Thursday) and realized 1.) Ex Deus is only sort of "about' conflict, in that I put a lot of effort into the conflict systems. 2.) I've hardly discussed one of Ex Deus' most important design features: Modules.

Ex Deus is broken up into a core set of rules, which facilitates most simple medieval campaigns (99% of anything you would ever run in DnD, only without magic). To add functionality, you snap modules to the core. Modules add skills and alter rules to expand the things Ex Deus can do, things like Crafting and Gathering, Tech Levels and Magic, Trait and Flaw systems, etc. When I put together the handbook's table of contents, do you know what the core rules encompassed? This:

0. Introduction
1. Basic Mechanics

• Task Resolution: Attempt (Attribute + Relevant Skill(s)) vs. Challenge
• Where multiple skills are relevant, add them together.

2. Attributes

• Six attributes: Strength, Endurance, Alacrity, Charisma, Intelligence, Wit.

3. Skills

• 11 skills, each with between 2-6 specialties.

4. Character Creation

• Rules for making a character of power appropriate to your standard adventurer.

5. Character Growth

• Attributes, skills, and specialties grow as you use them.

6. Physical Combat

• Tick System details and mechanics.
• List of actions, with details and mechanics.

7. Equipment

• Equipment (Weapons, Armor, Shields, and Items) overview.
• Equipment balance formulas.

8. Social Combat

• Each participant attempts CHA + Persuade + Relevant Skills and Specialties. Persuade specialties interact in a sort of rock-paper-scissors way (except with five specialties, it's more like a star than a triangle), but the best way to buff your argument is to argue points or in ways that make relevant otherwise unrelated skills, such as Melee or Occult.

9. Miscellaneous

• Rules for cover, helping, teaching, using your offhand, and attacks while moving.

All the rest of that "universality" and "realism" crap? You add that through modules. If you don't want to deal with tech levels, you don't have to. Don't want to slow the game down with crafting? Leave out the module. Or maybe you want to foster even more focus on combat: add in the Techniques module and watch your characters go kung fu crazy. Want to run political intrigue? Add World Skills. Fantasy? Add Basic Magic or make your own magic system through the Advanced Magic module. Compulsions is a module, but so is another system called Traits, which -- like the system Lance described -- gives players one bonus if they invoke a trait as beneficial and another if they invoke it as detrimental. Or leave both of them out and just go straight for the tried-and-sort-of-true Advantages (Connections and Abilities modules) and Disadvantages (Flaws module) paradigm. Modules facilitate universality by, as Tyler Tinsley suggested, letting you build your own system. But it's never more functionality than you need. I've done my best to make the modules simple -- most of them change a couple formulas or add a few skills, so the return on investment for added complexity versus added functionality is strong -- but the important part is that the rules are never more complex than the game you want to play, and moreover that the core is absurdly simple.

This about/goal/premise stuff confounds me because I have no idea how Modules fits into that idea. I intend to use Ex Deus to introduce new players to roleplaying using the core rules, and challenge experienced players with more world detail and character possibilities. Is that my goal? I have no idea. But as lacking an about/goal/premise isn't slowing down the game's development, it doesn't bother me.

::chuckles::

The "fuck you, I'm designing this bitch!" attitude is great. Everything here is advice. Take what works for you, scrap what doesn't. The primary thing that we're talking about is trying to get to the root of what you want the game to do, and make the rules about that. If you're not interested in doing something, don't make rules for it. If you want the game to do something, DO make rules for it.

Your modules sound like they're gonna be a crapton of work. A bit less if you're working from a single guiding principle and you're iterating it out into the modules, but a lot of work regardless. You're going to have to test every single module. You're going to have to test different modules together, to see how they interact.

Teaching the players how to pick the modules to get a particular feeling will also be interesting. Obviously they'll figure it out with some experience with the game, but you're gonna have to get them there to begin with.

All in all, I think Simon may be right. You're close to being done with First Thoughts. It may be time for you to move on to Playtesting. You're talking about putting together a group, so it sounds like you're thinking the same thing.

I look forward to seeing your playtesting posts. The fun part is over, now comes the hard work.

Garby,

There's no need to get defensive. Everyone here is trying to help. And a few of us have suggested that you're done with this particular FORUM, not the site. It's time to move on to the Playtesting FORUM on this site:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?board=62.0

-Luke

My sense of the underlying philosophy of the Forge is that it's about producing tight, focused designs where the mechanics are intentionally constructed to serve a particular aesthetic in play: the choices made the players reinforce and invoke the thematic underpinnings of the game, in other words. So, for example, Dogs in the Vineyard frames conflicts in terms of escalation, to reinforce the central idea that the game is about seeing how far you're willing to go to enforce your beliefs on others.

As an aside, I should note that there are those who, in good faith and in bad, reject this philosophy and assert that the rules to role-playing games should be kitchen sink-type affairs from which play groups pull material as needed. Some of these people call their philosophy "incoherentism," which amounts to a puerile flipping of the bird at coherent design (to my mind). But there's something to be said for the idea that no rules set survives contact with play--call it "micro-design," if you like.

In any event, a game that's simply intended to model "the real world" in a neutral way is, to Forge-trained sensibilities, kidding itself. Either the designer really wants the game to be about something and doesn't know what, or the designer is headed for "heartbreaker" country: a few good ideas in an incoherent design, unaware of both the economic realities of game publishing and the accumulation of pragmatic game design knowledge that would let the designer find his or her niche in a tiny but crowded marketplace.

So far, I read the comments you've received as asking you to revisit your assumptions about what you want this RPG to do; more specifically, what you want the rules to enable people playing the game to do. "D&D, but better," is one answer--in fact, it's the answer implied when you describe the heart of the game as:

a core set of rules, which facilitates most simple medieval campaigns (99% of anything you would ever run in DnD, only without magic)

posting to fix Bill's last (wince) link: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/9/

It's an article that I find educational to read periodically, especially so now considering my recent work on Mage Blade, which was in so many ways born of the Fantasy Heartbreaker, and to some, will always be one.

Excellent essay. I laughed, and nodded. Ex Deus isn't supposed to be "DnD, only better" or bear resemblance to it at all, but because of DnD's market dominance, I didn't think it'd be a bad idea to point out that even the absurdly simple but somewhat restrictive core rules could already keep pace with the majority of what DnD does.

As I learn more, I discover that Ex Deus brings almost nothing new to the table, which, I'll be honest, doesn't bother me. There are design patterns which serve what I've wanted to do in roleplaying, like notions of attributes and skills, which I don't see a need to mess with. Ex Deus is, for me, more about synthesizing these design patterns into a single system than breaking the pattern's mold. Maybe my next game I'll shoot for that, but for now my sights are lower: make the game fast, simple, intuitive, and flexible; friendly for new players, and challenging for the more experienced. Many of the examples I've received so far saying, "Well, this other system does that already, so what new stuff do you bring?" included several different systems, each doing one or two things Ex Deus does. That's fine for me. Hell, I'll take it as a compliment, because it means Ex Deus represents all of those mentioned mechanics in one place, with the added potential of modules containing new and provocative material. It may not be revolutionary, but it does work pretty well, and for that I am glad.

Broader than discussions of about/goal/premise, you're right that Ex Deus would benefit from cultivating a focused idea of what kind of play experience it wants to foster or where its target audience lies. Seeing as I can't answer these questions very well at present, maybe I'll be more able after playtesting. But that I'm on the precipice of such action means I'm at the edge of this forum, as Luke pointed out. So, thank you all for your help, even if I didn't seem to receive it as well as it was intended. Your feedback has been invaluable to the development of Ex Deus.

Garbados wrote:
Modules facilitate universality by, as Tyler Tinsley suggested, letting you build your own system. But it's never more functionality than you need. I've done my best to make the modules simple -- most of them change a couple formulas or add a few skills, so the return on investment for added complexity versus added functionality is strong -- but the important part is that the rules are never more complex than the game you want to play, and moreover that the core is absurdly simple.

This about/goal/premise stuff confounds me because I have no idea how Modules fits into that idea. I intend to use Ex Deus to introduce new players to roleplaying using the core rules, and challenge experienced players with more world detail and character possibilities. Is that my goal? I have no idea. But as lacking an about/goal/premise isn't slowing down the game's development, it doesn't bother me.