Hi all.

I could do with some help regarding a game I've been working on, on and off for several years now, but have recently been encouraged to get back into it. Very much an indie game.

Initially, I want to talk die mechanics. The setting etc needs to be discussed too, of course, but I want to get the (at least basic) mechanics in my head first, and the ones I have used for this game in the past cannot be kept, so I'm kind of starting from scratch.

I've been toying around with two systems. One can be found here, and is interesting, but a bit clunky. I've also been considering a second system and am very interested in feedback.

It's kind of similar to a system that Szilard proposed many months back (which I can't find right now), but independantly developed. Below are my notes on the system, I would be very interested in thoughts.

Characters roll 2d6, and check the result on the following table:

2-3 (or just 2) – Catastrophic failure
4-6 (or 3-6) – Failure
7 – Bare minimum success, possibly requires expenditure of fate point or whatever for success
8-10 (or 8-11) – Success
11-12 (or just 12) – Illustrious success

The kicker is in the number of D6’s actually thrown. Characters may have a positive or negative modifier on their roll (both, actually, but they cancel out to a final bonus or penalty). A positive modifier adds to the number of dice rolled, and the two highest are selected. So, in the case of a +3 roll, 5d6 dice are rolled and the best two are added together. A negative modifier also adds to the number of dice, but the lowest two dice are considered, so a -4 modifier means that 6d6 are rolled and the lowest two are tallied. The bonus/penalty is limited to +/- 8 overall (so you’ll never roll more than 10 dice at once).

When a task is attempted, characters have several modifiers:

Attributes. There are some attributes (I don’t know what they are yet). They are rated from -3 to +3, with 0 being the human average. There will probably be variations of Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence etc. Whatever task is being performed will fall under an attribute (always). If it falls equally under two attributes, maybe you get the average of the two or maybe you get the highest, I’m not sure yet.

Skill. I don’t think skills will be declared individually, but rather bought in professions etc. If you can successfully argue that a profession you have listed for your character should be applicable for the current roll, then you get the modifier for that profession added to your roll. Skill modifiers are capped at +3

Task difficulty (when unopposed). This is determined by the GM, with a maximum of 6. A simple, everyday task has a modifier of 0, while the hardest difficulty (you’re picking a lock, at night, with your fingernails, and you’re blindfolded) would have a modifier of -6. In this way, the worlds most skilled and “attributed” person (for a task) has as much chance of succeeding in the worlds hardest variation of that task (6-6=0)as an average, unskilled person has at succeeding at the simplest (0-0=0). The range would be:

0 – Simple, everyday task (maybe consider not requiring a roll at all)
-1 – Very easy task
-2 – Average difficulty
-3 – Tricky
-4 – Difficult
-5 – Hard
-6 – Very hard

Yeah, ok, those descriptions need work. Basically, a totally average person with only minor skill at something has +1, if they’re slightly above average that means +2 overall, so an average difficulty task (-2) takes them right back to 0 (average chance of success). Harder task = harder roll; more skills/adept = easier roll. Both = average again.

Conditional modifiers roll into this as well, and can add or subtract to the total so far. A certain lock may have a difficulty of Tricky to pick (-3) but doing it at night might add another -1 and a lack of lockpicks another -2. On the other hand, a set of excellent lockpicks might instead add +2. Remember, the overall bonus can never exceed +/- 8.

Example:

Garrick is using a theological argument to sway some hungry heretics to his religion before they light the fire under his cauldron. Garrick has a Charisma/personality/whatever attribute of +2. Moreover, he is a highly skilled missionary and knows his theology well, so he gains a +3 skill bonus. The GM decides that convincing the heretics will be Tricky, thus a -3 penalty. In addition, he assigns Garrick an additional -1 because he’s tied up and covered in steak sauce, hardly the image of a dignified and convincing clergyman (and their tummies are growling). Adding these all up, Garrick makes a +1 roll, so he rolls 3d6 and tallies the two highest. His total is a 9, he succeeds, and they stop to listen to what he has to say without cooking him.

Opposed checks.

I’m in two minds about this. As I see it, there are two possibilities.

Possibility One: Make an opposed roll (each). If Paul is attacking Richard with martial arts, he rolls using his dexterity + his martial arts attacking skill (or whatever). Richard also rolls, using HIS dexcterity and his blocking skill (and maybe a bonus because he has steel rods sewn into his sleeves, or whatever). If the attacker fails (6 or less) then the attack fails. If he gets 7 or more, compare what he gets to the defenders total for the “severity” of the success. So if Paul gets a 10 and Richard gets an 8, Paul hits him with 2 levels of success (whatever that means). Perhaps if Richard fails (6 or less) the difference is doubled. A catastrophic failure by Richard might double it again, while an Illustrious success by Paul might also provide a double, etc. You get the idea.

Possibility Two: Only the PC ever rolls. In the example above, if Paul is the PC and Richard an NPC, Paul totals up his total attacking bonus, then subtracts Richard’s total defensive bonus and then makes a single roll. Success means he has hit, failure means he hasn’t (the actual number rolled determines how well he has or hasn't hit). The next round, Richard attacks back. Paul defends, rolling with his defensive bonus as a bonus and Richard’s attacking bonus as a penalty. If the roll is successful, he has blocked or avoided the attack. If it fails, he has been hit. This option cuts down on the number of rolls the GM has to make, so that NPC’s only have to ever roll in the case of unopposed rolls (and there shouldn’t be too many of those while PC’s are around).

I have to think through which option is the best one. Any ideas?

Fate/Karma points: I quite like the idea of using fate points in some manner. Maybe you earn them when fortune doesn’t go your way, and you can spend them to make sure it does. So perhaps a total roll of 7 is only a success if you spend a fate point to “tip the scales in your favor”. If you don’t, the 7 is a failure and you instead GAIN a fate point. Maybe also catastrophic failures and illustrious successes earn/lose you fate points as well. Note sure, it’s just an idea in the back of my head. You could also spend up to a set number of fate points (say 3) to add that bonus to a roll, but you couldn't choose to lose dice to gain fate points (too open to twinking on unimportant rolls) and instead might earn them at GM fiat or whatever.

So, any thoughts? I guess one concern is that the basic mechanic (xd6 take the best or worst 2) might have too much variation in it. At +1, for example, you're 66% likley to get an 8 or above. At only -1, you're therefore 66% likely to get a 6 or below. At +/-2 you're talking something like 80% each way (and then 95% at +/-3). Too skewed? Not too skewed? How could it be fixed perhaps?

Thanks guys, there's a lot of really fantastic folk here at the forge, hopefully some of you can spare a glance or two in my direction :-)

Brian.

First- Overall mechanic.

I like it :) Kinda like Little Fears- but more dillulted, so the characters aren't so ultracompetent.

Second- opposed checks.

I'm inclined towards the one-roll combat; whoever is attacking takes his opponent Dodge bonus (of whatever name) as a penelty. Seems faster and leaner to me.

I'm going to be blunt. Please don't be offended by this. Why not use an existing "generic" system, like WEG's D6 or Masterbook system, or Fudge or Fuzion? At the moment, Fudge would be an exact fit for your Attribute range from -3 to +3. What makes this system more suitable for your setting? Because if you're trying to make a generic system, what you have so far is far less versatile than what Fudge has as standard.

I post this without the intention of offense. However, your mechanic is still in development which makes criticism more applicible to productivity.

Anyway-
I'd half to say that it is probably more complex than it should be. What is this new RPG supposed to be about? That might help us understand your mechanic better.

Right now it is sounding much like the D20 mechanic with a slightly better curve.

I'm not easily offended, don't worry about that. And yes, criticism is good.

Andrew,
I know nothing about fudge, having always avoided generic systems such as that and gurps. Basically, why would I want to use a generic system when I can have the fun of making one up? If it's in any way similar to fudge's mechanics, then it's purely coincidental.

Eric,
I'm not really sure how it's in any way even close to the D20 system. Can you explain that comment? In fact, even the concept of a "D20 curve" is a bit puzzling, since, using a single die, D20 is an entirely linear rolling system and not a curve at all.

Also, can you explain where the system is overly complex? I'm not getting defensive - it's a genuine question. To me (at least) it seems particularly simple - you roll some dice, and either take the two best or the two worst ones. To work out how many to roll, you just add together a few numbers. Yes, it's slightly more complex than rolling one die and adding a number (D20) but compared to something like storyteller, it's far simpler.

In fact, I'm quite amused that from two respective posters I have been told it's too complex and that it's too generic. How can you have that both ways? :-)

The RPG is based on films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Hidden, The Faculty, et al. However, the twist is that the PC's are actually the parasitic invaders rather than the people fighting against them. This leads to (hopefully) plenty of body swapping fun and intrigue, trying to dominate the humans of the world, but also fighting against other parasitic invaders who have been sent by a different "mother/queen bee/whatever" and who want to see you fail just as much as they want themselves to succeed. Does that help :-)

As an aside, doing some more math it turns out that at +/-4 (i.e. 6 dice) the chance of getting an 8 or above on a negative roll is only 2% (and thus only 2% chance to fail on a positive roll), so having a maximum overall bonus or penalty of 8 is a bit pointless, 4 either way seems to be a logical cap.

Keep the comments coming!

Brian.

Okay, it's like D20 with a much better curve.

And D20 has a curve. It's just a linear one.

BTW- I might have missunderstood. I'll go back and re-read it.

Brian Leybourne wrote: Andrew,
I know nothing about fudge, having always avoided generic systems such as that and gurps. Basically, why would I want to use a generic system when I can have the fun of making one up? If it's in any way similar to fudge's mechanics, then it's purely coincidental.

Andrew Martin wrote: So then if you want the fun of making up a system, why not make a system that is ideally suited for your game setting and system? One that exactly promotes your desired style of play? Why bother trying to make a "generic" system? :)

Eric J. wrote: And D20 has a curve. It's just a linear one.

"Linear Curve" is an oxymoron, surely. Every result from "1+X" to "20+X" is equally likely in D20... (X being your bonus). Where's the curve?

OK, I can accept that.

But instead of just saying "generic bad" help me out with some examples of what you're talking about so I can avoid genericity (is that a word? Generiticism? Generatrix? *grin*).

I still kind of like the proposed d6 system, and am keen to discuss that. However, I'm also keen to discuss how one goes about more specific mechanics design. Lets have some examples and proposals...

Brian.

Brian Leybourne wrote: I still kind of like the proposed d6 system, and am keen to discuss that.

Brian Leybourne wrote: No, I don't know every game out there, but even just thinking of the ones I know well (D20, Amber, Storyteller, TROS, Sorcerer, Star Trek, Buffy (hell, it's CALLED Unisystem), Star Wars, etc etc) they all have systems that could be ported out to any other game.

Brian Leybourne wrote: However, I'm also keen to discuss how one goes about more specific mechanics design. Lets have some examples and proposals...

I think I see where Andrew is going. Let's answer a few questions:

Why are you snatching bodies? What do you do once you've got one? Are you trying to subjugate mankind? What elements of the host remain, and what parts of the parasite are superimposed. It may be appropriate, for example, to have all physical traits refer back to the host, but all skills or mental traits back to the parasite. What kinds of conflicts would arise from this mechanical relationship?

Oh, and design your own system, but make sure it caters exactly to your goals.

Jake

Andrew said:

At the moment, your setting is about the PC's being parasitic body snatchers, yet your game system involves adding attribute and skill, which clearly rewards players for having characters with high attributes, as the high attributes can be used with more than one skill. If you're trying to simulate parasitic body snatchers, then it seems fairly obvious to me that simulating the parasite's Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence or even the host's Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence is a pointless exercise. Instead, you might want PC's to have a Influence Host skill, along with a Act Normal skill, and perhaps a Recognise Parasitized Host skill. This would seem to me the important parts of the game, not whether the parasite has Strength, Dexterity or Intelligence.

Why are you snatching bodies? What do you do once you've got one? Are you trying to subjugate mankind? What elements of the host remain, and what parts of the parasite are superimposed. It may be appropriate, for example, to have all physical traits refer back to the host, but all skills or mental traits back to the parasite. What kinds of conflicts would arise from this mechanical relationship?

Brian Leybourne wrote:
But instead of just saying "generic bad" help me out with some examples of what you're talking about so I can avoid genericity (is that a word? Generiticism? Generatrix? *grin*).

Brian - First, don't let anybody tell you that you should use a published game unless your own is way different. People, stop telling each other that.

I like the proposed mechanic. It took me a minute to figure out, but now it's simple and intuitive. It's important to remember that this is just a resolution mechanic, not a system; I presume you'll be adding in bits to make it more game-specific. Not that you have to; I, for one, think this could work fine as-is. It'd just place a lot of burden on players and GM to tell the story, as the system doesn't tell you as much as, say, TRoS. Nothing wrong with that.

As for making it more body-snatcher focused: How about giving each character a pool of, I dunno, Invasion Points, instead of Karma? They're something that can actually exist in the setting; when the aliens make progress in their invasion, they get some Invasion Points (they'd call it energy or will or something) as a reward. These could be spent to improve rolls somehow (think of something clever), or they might be lost if the characters act against the alien cause. If they went negative that way, maybe the negative points could be called Treason Points or the like, and they'd be just as beneficial as the Invasion Points. That way, you'd probably end up with a split group, as players would be encouraged to either follow orders or switch sides to humanity.

Maybe not exactly that, but you get the idea. Even in a sim game, you want something that'll get the players involved and acting in accordance with the premise.

Henry Fitch wrote: I like the proposed mechanic. It took me a minute to figure out, but now it's simple and intuitive. It's important to remember that this is just a resolution mechanic, not a system; I presume you'll be adding in bits to make it more game-specific. Not that you have to; I, for one, think this could work fine as-is. It'd just place a lot of burden on players and GM to tell the story, as the system doesn't tell you as much as, say, TRoS. Nothing wrong with that.

Henry Fitch wrote: As for making it more body-snatcher focused: How about giving each character a pool of, I dunno, Invasion Points, instead of Karma? They're something that can actually exist in the setting; when the aliens make progress in their invasion, they get some Invasion Points (they'd call it energy or will or something) as a reward. These could be spent to improve rolls somehow (think of something clever), or they might be lost if the characters act against the alien cause. If they went negative that way, maybe the negative points could be called Treason Points or the like, and they'd be just as beneficial as the Invasion Points. That way, you'd probably end up with a split group, as players would be encouraged to either follow orders or switch sides to humanity.

I was thinking that Invasion Points represented a concrete form of energy, or some other kind of aid, that gets beamed to the PCs from the
Mothership as a reward for good behavior. Treason points are harder to justify...

Yeah, I was assuming this is a Sim design, but it might work pretty well for Narr too. Wonder what the Premise could be... something about identity, maybe, or the ethics of colonialism :o)

If the focus is going to be on the PCs changing bodies to accomplish their goals, wouldn't you want to put an emphasis on hte host being temporary? Rewriting your physical attributes 1-3+ times a game session seems rediculous if the physical attributes are only there to make the system more generic. I would like the PC to equal the host and the statistics centered on mental skills and the ability to manipulate humans etc. Mabee even to the point where you have to "bond" with your host and that imposes a set of restrictions and bonuses. Greator speed but less control etc.

The premise? Well, I don't really know. I really don't know how interesting you can make an invasion to conqer humans. I mean, they would have to know about the invasion in some form or something wouldn't they? Or else it isn't interesting. Otherwise the only opponents that won't be shining their flashlight and shouting "Whose there?" like in conventional horror movies will be the PCs that take on the humans' side. And then what happens? You have to trust that half of each group will side with the humans every time. Even then, it turns into PVP. This could be really interesting, agree, but only once.

-JMHP

Hey, Brian --

I think your core mechanic is fine, not that I'm a brillant mechanic guy. I like the fact your game idea seems 1) original and 2) easy to comprehend on face value, but am having difficulties on what a game session as a "mind parasite" would look like.

First off, I'm not sure what the dramatic payoff would be. Here's the deal -- in all those movies you mentioned, the tension is because you don't know who the alien is -- the alien is us, it's destroying us from within. I mean Invasion of Body Snatchers was McCarthyism all over. I did see one "mind parasite invader movie" that played kind of like Slackers where we followed the alien while jumping from person to person (I think it was called The Borrower), but I don't remember much focus on who, what or why about the the alien, but just the gory ways it killed people.

I'm not seeing the flipside very well. What kinds of stories am I expect to play out here? What are the details of this alien race? Is it a hive mind? What's its physical make-up? Why's it invading? And what if the invasion fails? What happens if it succeeds? Who are the parasites' enemies?

And this gets into the other problem I've got -- playing aliens on Earth. Players will know Earth inside and out, but will have to discover what their own alien PCs are about as the game progresses. First, will players have to "pretend" they don't know Earth? What's stopping them from heading straight to Washington, infecting the President and the Joint Chiefs, and then using the American military to take over the world? Do you think players can "forget" what Earth is about, and then "pretend" to know their alien culture, while learning it on the fly? Is this just going to be "technological advanced super-beings" kicking ass, or are players really play like "aliens?"

So here are my suggestions about your system: 1) it should tie itself really tightly with the alien culture and 2) it should emulate the level of "Earth-savviness" the aliens are going to have.

Take care,
Steve Dustin

Personally, I was seeing it as a mostly strategic premise: granted the ability to take over the bodies of humans, how do you gain the most earthly power while keeping yourself from being discovered? Lots of politics, research, subterfuge... seems like a source of good stories to me.

For it to be really rewarding, though, there'd have to be some setting element to make the aliens into "good guys." It's a bit hard to empathize with someone who wants to take over your world from your species.

Henry Fitch wrote: Personally, I was seeing it as a mostly strategic premise: granted the ability to take over the bodies of humans, how do you gain the most earthly power while keeping yourself from being discovered? Lots of politics, research, subterfuge... seems like a source of good stories to me..

Henry Fitch wrote: For it to be really rewarding, though, there'd have to be some setting element to make the aliens into "good guys." It's a bit hard to empathize with someone who wants to take over your world from your species.

I like the snatchers idea.

Another reference for rationalisation beyond Vamp might be the Greys in ConX. They have a serious problem its difficult not to sympathise with. They are a very psychic species, but humans produce a kinda psychic "static"; this intereferes with the Greys reproduction. Therefore, they feel that the only prospect for their own survival is the elimination of humans.

I have one quiblle regarding the mechanic. 2d6 + dice is good, the comparison to a fixed table is not. It's not crippling, but the table of result levels is non-intuitive. A flat statement of "better than 7 to succeed" would be smoother, IMO, although not necessarily the same.

It boils down to the same thing really.. more than seven = good, less than seven is bad. Given that there's 5 possible numbers each way, you could even make it like the number of successes present in many games. So a roll of 10 is three higher than seven, or a +3 successes result, while a roll of 4 is a -3 bad result, etc.

Brian,

Before you entirely rethink your concept, I would urge you to think about the multiple ways in which the invasion could be handled. You've emphasized, I think, that there are numerous different teams out there, working for different queens, and they don't particularly get along. So it seems to me that one primary source of tension will be precisely where it lies in Body Snatchers: not knowing whether the guy you're talking to is actually an alien in disguise. The fact that you're one too only makes the consequences of getting found out more severe.

So I think it might make sense to have the PCs, as an elite team, given very concrete goals that are specifically oriented around the presence of other alien parasites. For example, you're sent into a big aerospace company with defense contracts and whatnot, because your guys know that the place is hiding a significant force of infiltrators from the other queen. If you fail, of course, the bad guys have control over building a bunch of nuclear weapons or whatever, but the thing is that if you succeed fully, you will have control likewise. The goal isn't thus to wipe out the bad guys per se, but rather to do so in a way that leaves you in place instead. Your team can then be "swapped out" for a bunch of other aliens on your side who know more about nuclear weapons and engineering, but are less good at the infiltration and so forth.

By this logic, PC teams would tend to be elite strike forces, trying to achieve specific goals on home orders without ever being noticed. So the idea is sort of like Unknown Armies, in the sense that you're having a big secret war but nobody wants to Wake The Tiger.

Incidentally, I think the "elite" part would solve a lot of the problems mentioned before, that the PCs don't know much about humans but the players do. Well, these PCs have been living among us for a while now, and currently hold down various minor "day jobs." Which will have to be dropped when the orders come in, of course, but then they'll just go get new ones (clerk, CPA, janitor --- the guy you never notice).

You might want to have each character have some thing or things which he really likes and something he really hates about humans (as opposed to aliens), and maybe also something he really doesn't get about humans and something that fascinates him. That may be too many, but a few of these would provide opportunities for (1) PC obsessions that are alien-driven, (2) PCs to act in ways that make them "not like other people," in the sense that these confusions or obsessions are likely to get them noticed ("Gee, Clem, that feller sure did talk about that there candy see-lection." "Yup." "Seems lahk a reel weird-o." "Yup." "What say we open up a can of whoop-ass?" "Yup.").

I think the premise is very workable, both for one-shots and for longer campaigns. The problem with the longer things is going to be character development: how do they "power up" when their bodies change and if they buy down their allienness, they get boring?

Other campaign ideas would include:
- Factionalism in the home hive means that you get conflicting orders, and have to decide which to follow. A variant would be that some other queen's agents have hacked in on your Red Phone (tm).
- You're the guys in place at Microsoft (explains a lot, doesn't it? ;>), and you get told that some enemy agents are going to take you out. But how? Who are they?
- You're told to take out an alien cadre at Roswell, but it turns out it's a completely different bunch of aliens --- and they're not concerned about the Tiger problem, so if you get too close, people may notice that you're an alien.
- You're doing whatever job it is, but then these guys pull up in a big black car, wearing black suits and sunglasses....

A quick die mechanic note.

Instead of this being an "attribute+skill" roll, how about making it a "parasite+host" roll?

Stuart

Thoughts on the game setting/concept itself:

Do you see this as a mission-based (Shadowrunesque) game - where the PCs have a specific mission to, say, take over the police station?

If so, what happens when they accomplish said mission? Do they just stay there using those bodies as puppets forever? That seems anticlimatic, so I hope not.

Also, are all the "queens" on the same (vague) team? Do some want to control Earth for different reasons than others? If so, you may be able to provide characters with some sort of at least vaguely heroic motivation (which may not be a priority of yours, but people seem to like it).

Why do the invaders need human bodies, anyway? I mean, sure, it is convenient if you want to use the already-built infrastructure, but it makes the whole invasion thing a pain. One possibility is that the invaders have no bodies of their own and the ones they use for space travel and whatnot are incompatible with the Earth's ecosystem. This means that the invaders really can't do anything physically without a body, which might have some interesting ramifications. Or not. Ymmv.

Stuart

Clehrich and Szilard, those are some very useful and thought-provoking posts, thanks.

What I'm going to do is go away and have a serious rethink about the game concept. I think it should be workable (and everyone on this board has raised great points to help me) but there may need to be a slight refocus from my original concept which, I think various posters have been right, isn't 100% workable in its current form.

But I will be back, soon, and asking for help again :-)

Thanks again all,
Brian.

Clehrich and Szilard, those are some very useful and thought-provoking posts, thanks.

What I'm going to do is go away and have a serious rethink about the game concept. I think it should be workable (and everyone on this board has raised great points to help me) but there may need to be a slight refocus from my original concept which, I think various posters have been right, isn't 100% workable in its current form.

But I will be back, soon, and asking for help again :-)

Thanks again all,
Brian.

Do you see this as a mission-based (Shadowrunesque) game - where the PCs have a specific mission to, say, take over the police station?

If so, what happens when they accomplish said mission? Do they just stay there using those bodies as puppets forever? That seems anticlimatic, so I hope not.