What do you think of this setting?

Please tell me if you've seen this done before or executed better. As a note the system Im using is a fast and dirty single d6 v.s. d6 system with many bloody criticals, much skill use (because you cant fight all the time if its this dangerous) and a fantasy setting.

Before I start I dont know how fond you guys are of seeing yet another "really long setting post" so trust me, I'll try to keep it short and not too overly detailed.

Basically all I need to know is does this stuff sound exiting or shall I put off making a setting untill I have a better premise in mind? Just want to clear this up before I start... the reason Ive gotten far designing my game without a setting is that it focusses more on a mood than an idea, characters can be blissfully ingnorant of the mythology that forms their world but continue to live out their violent, hopeless lives. Ok... here we go:


Gods : We start out with a grand city where all the eternals live in peace and harmony, creating grand works of art, beautiful creatures and so on. A la Paradise Lost, a faction forms trying to take control and they are cast out after an incredibly long (I mean they are inmortal) and nasty war. They end up in a nasty sub region filled with ignorant and alien creatures that they beat into submission using them to try to forge another "beautiful heavenly realm" (ending up with a hellish baroque citadel). This "hell" is a prison, but occationaly a lowly demonic emisary is sent out to the world to perform acts of comerce, diplomacy and of course wreak a little havoc. A dozen or so good and evil gods exist in eighter region, giving the players something to worship. I dont believe I will ever flesh out one of these regions though, cuz I hate games that give the devil stats. The less is known, the better... exept for some myths about petty rivalries and godly execess.

Necromancy: A human city learned a wonderous art allowing the preservation and reanimation of corpses, creating a new type of funeral rite. Basically the soul goes on to its final resting place, while the body remains as a delicatly preserved and beautifully garbed servant of the city, avoiding grief by being disguised in a porcelain mask. They did come into war against other civilizations that envied their incredible wealth (In a society where the main work force had no needs, even the poor where rich) forcing them to mass produce disgusting zombies as protection and also to find new, deadlier uses for the reanimation magic. In the end they won, but not before transforming their once magestic palace into a dark, evil place. Mad with power they began shipping out hundreds of undead soldiers in the bellies of reanimated whales to smite their enemies... before long the secrets of necromancy had become as wide spread as the destruction it brought with it. This war continues today.

Origin of the species: The earths population was destroyed and recreated on several an occation (like in meso american mythology), but of course there where survivers every time. Although Humans (the most recent creation) populate most of the world, a host of goblinoid, elven, antropomorphic and simply bizzare creatures exist from past "worlds", most of them much tougher than humans (having survived several cataclysims, developed technology for a longer period and had more time to evolve) yet for every 1 potent creature out there, a 1000 humans exist to crush it, so humans ultimatly rule. As for the necesary "twist" a great deal of elves have joined cities and try extremely hard to be human, wearing their clothes, eating their food and speaking their language. The rest of the elves of course hate this. Races like trolls and ogres (toned down yet still potent versions of what we are used to) can be played, with your main problem being that social advancement is an uphill battle.

World civilizations: Im thinking of maybe dividing the world into about 10 or so different styles of civilization, each with a few countries and so on but its unlikely I'll bother mapping the whole mess, just set guidelines for adventures in different parts of this world. Any way's the most advanced of civilizations has embraced elves, dwarves and such creatures using their innate knowlege to create a complex pre industrial world complete with gun powdered muskets, primitive asembly lines and such. Its cross to bear are massive revolts and rebelions, high crime rates and much rogue use of technology. Other society ideas include a much more philosofical one that know's every thing about humanity (exelent philosofers, doctors and all that), a heavily magic oriented one, our good necromantic friends I mentioned earlier, warlike humanoid nations of Orcs and such, underground cities and all that. I dont want to make it too D&D'ish so most large cities will continue to be cruel, simple and ignorant places that mimic real world human societies without too much "b.s." fantasy paraphanalia like "the city is policed by golems" or "this city is protected by a mystic barrier". Instead I just want cities filled with over worked people, poorly designed waste management, tons of only slightly organized crime and many neighborhoods full of repressed and abused inmigrants ("another kid is gone... it must of been those damn Trolls! We shouldent have let them set up camp outside the docks!").

The overal importance of a character: When you start, you are usually a nobody. If your story teller follows the guidelines on how to reward a player, it will take you a while to become some one with wealth and power. In the meantime you might occationaly find yourself cleaning stables to afford a night at the inn or drafting yourself into the army just so you can see a piece of bread every day. Your character cannot have a title such as Knight, Assassin, Necromancer, Samurai or whatever until quite a few skills are learned, social requirements are met and so on. Of course munchkinism will probably still happen at some point, so if in your game players can kill kings and battle gods, in this game its likely that they will at least become potent enought to take over cities and defeat major npc's.

Suggestions?

Hi, welcome to the Forge!

If you're going for gritty, grim, realistic fantasy cities, you might want to check out HarnWorld.

For further ideas to develop your Necromancy concept, you might want to check out Fire Sea by Margaret Weis (sp?) and Tracy Hickman.

I'm trying to distill down the interesting parts to single statments.

1. There are gods both above and below that are worshipped, but don't interact all that much directly with the exception of the occasional demon.
2. Necromancy City threatens world.
3. Monsters and other creatures exist from several dark ages past.
4. Varying regoins with differing but grimly realistic civilizations have technology ranging from primitive to early gunpowder.
5. Play occurs in the setting starting from the bottom levels of society working up.

See Glorantha, Harn, Talislanta, Tekumel, Jorune, Earthdawn, Mythus, about a zillion settings for RPG available online for free (stuff like http://www.fargoth.com/ ), MERP, Forgotten Realms, Children of the Sun, Arrowflight... I'm not going to finish this list, you should get the point.

I'm failing to see what you are proposing as remotely new. Sure, there were two interesting ideas (porcelain masked zombies, and zombie whale transports) that are probably original although even they are based on obvious memes. I myself was involved in a project where we had a city who's people had their spirits trapped in beautiful fired clay bodies when they died.

The whale thing is pretty cool....

I especially like how you see the need for a "twist" for elves. Having a "twist" for elves is about as original as an Italian grandmother having oregano or something as a "secret" spice for her spaghetti sauce. Lesse, in Glorantha, the twist is that elves are plants. In Earthdawn there are blood elves who have thorns that peirce their skin to out them in a constant state of pain. In Children of the Sun, the elves are the bad guys from days long past. In Arrowflight elves mated with demons to create humans (or something like that), In Talislanta one of their advertising points is: "No Elves!" Bog standard to have Elves and a "twist".


Thing is, that originality in setting isn't really all that important. I think you could definitely make what you have original enough that it might be a setting worth playing in possibly. The question is how do the setting and mechanics interelate? Is there a synergy there that's worth investigating and playing? In fact, setting is not neccessary at all if your game is crreated correctly.

Otherwise, I wouldn't count on anything you have so far to be able to attract players all by itself. It isn't substantively different than literally hundreds of such settings available published or for free. Can we see what you have for system? That might help enable us to give you direction better.

You may also want to look at the Fantasy Hearbreakers essay (I hate assigning it, but it might be a helpful read).

Mike

Edit: I ran a spell check, it was pretty pathetic.

Thanks! Frankly I was expecting to see a few "been there, done that" replies but the setting (for the time being) is mostly cosmetic revolving around a universal (somewhat) system I’m doing. Its too bad Im not familiar with most of the games you guy's mention... I basically havent purchased a single gaming supplement in over 10 years... right now especially because I just moved to Boston from Mexico, so I dont have a gaming group. Im designing this system more as a hobby than as something to play with people...

About the system people have the usual physical & mental stats, with a value assigned of course. It’s an outdated way of doing things, but at the same time it paints an image very efficiently. Players have assigned stats depending on their race, which can be modified with a few "attributes" (you buy "muscular", your character is now a muscular human... etc). Of course nothing is random, although I might eventually create some random generation rules because people seem to dig that stuff, especially for npc's. Stat numbers are low, but with enough variation to see a difference from character to character. I’m not fond of percentile or die pool systems, percentile being a drag and die pools are too silly (Ok, we played a race and he got two successes while I got one... he ran twice as fast as I did!).

Skills operate on 3 levels... the "you dont have it so don’t bother putting it on your character sheet" level, the "Ok, you can fish just as well as any other fisher man" level and the "your a good bit above your peers" level. Its common not to know stuff, but your story teller might let you do it without the knowledge just by making it a lot harder... it just beats writing "poor" next to a dozen skills. If you know enough on it, you just write down that you have the skill. To be gifted at something, you usually require either a specific attribute when creating your character or buy a very special modifier from your race/profession. Skills rarely require rolls, but those that do simply use the "roll under x stat" system. Not that many social skills exist, since it’s not worth fleshing out unless some one could profit from their use.

Professions: They consist in a single pre requisite skill and then a whole bunch of possible skills. Example: Soldier... pre requisite is tactics training, which basically allows you to fight better alongside others, using a few simple fighting styles. Other included skills are weapon proficiencies; special combat maneuvers, communicating from a distance (horns, bugles, smoke, mirror codes), first aid and stuff like that. You buy whatever you want as you go along. Any way's nothing prevents you from taking a specific path... just like you could be an Occultist with 4 occultism related skills you could also have the first prerequisite skill in 5 classes (in other worlds you know the basics on hunting, fighting, street smarts and all that). All in all character classes are something you build using abilities that are grouped in professions... like an Amazon would have barbarian and hunter skills or whatever. Monster hunter could have soldier and occultist skills... etc. This also eliminates "classes"... I hate the idea of "baby" paladins and "beginner" samurais... you earn the title and skills as you go along.

Levels: Ok.. There’s really no levels... just learning points. Depending on your race and the amount of skills you have, that's the amount of XP you need for a learning point (usually a number like 8 or 10). Then you simply use the point to learn a new skill... simple. Some skills enhance a stat so there are no rules on "spending xp to improve stats". You get experience from fights (usually 1 point, not the best way to gain xp), from getting your ass kicked (great way to learn), from trying stuff for the first time or at a new level of complexity (don’t expect to gain experience from doing the same things a lot on purpose) and mostly from acting out your flaws and stuff like that. You also gain xp by modifying the world (with ACE points, but more on that latter).

Combat is the sweet part... its resolved by rolling a d6 v.s. another d6 and adding certain bonuses. By looking at the result (without using any tables) you know how much damage was done (difference + str. + weapon), if it was critical (a diff. of 3 or more) and any other stuff you might be interested in. If you use the "critical locations" plugging (no reason not to use it, its fast), it takes another roll (unless you got a diff. of 4 or more, then you just pick). Using the plugging makes the game less about "consuming your enemies hp's" and more about "inflicting a single crippling or fatal wound" such as a strong hit to the neck would mean decapitation... etc. As for equipment any one can wear or wield any thing, but every time it adds up over your strength rating, you get some kind of a penalty (first time around it just makes some skills harder, but for instance 3 times your strength in armor and weaponry makes you a sitting duck).

The quick, deadly and balanced (not too huge a difference between two characters) combat makes other way's of resolving your problems seem much more attractive. Still some "kill em all" players will exist.. I just don’t know how long they will last without a merciful storyteller.

Player/storyteller interaction: There's no rolling behind screens unless that specific storyteller wants to do so for some reason. Mostly players know how difficult or easy challenges are... it’s just their characters that don’t. Since this game is terrible at rewarding players (very little experience and cash come’s your way) you can either role play or complain about how powerful your character would be if this where another game. ACE (alter characters environment) points exist as a crutch to help players learn to interact with the storyteller. In their most basic form they can allow players to alter the description of something that's happening (I put my hand in front of my neck... so instead of the arrow killing me it just... AUCCHH!) But its main use is for characters to generate situations, npc's and objects. Examples are spending ace points to "remember I have an army buddy that might let us sleep in his stable" or "I was disarmed, until I saw that sword over the fireplace". On the other hands the limits of how much this stuff can benefit you are capped pretty low.

Bout elves, your totally right. Only problem is that Im going for an element of familiarity, so I need to include them. I just hate the whole "elves represent all that is white, pure, civilized and natural" so I want to do 'em more warts and all. Afraid of humans and trying hard to be like them, at the expense of their far superior culture.

All in all its designed to be easy to learn, require as little "lets check the book" possible and give fast, realistic results.

www.geocities.com/lugaru
You can check it out, its intended to be free, fast and fun... I constantly had additions to my playing groups so I needed to make a system that ran fast enough for newbies but wasn’t too crappy for experienced players.

Digesting.

In the meanwhile, look up Ygg in the search engine, as well as "Standard Fantasy".

Dice pools silly, eh? OK.

Mike

'Bout die pools: I dont mind dice with a grade curve... I just cant stand the average "successes" method... example:

Tom and Rob run a race... they both get 2 successes. Its yet another tie. But if you do it like this

Tom: 8 7 4
Matt: 7 7 3

Again Tom and Matt had two successes, but Tom still wins by a few milliseconds. Also Im not fond of having too many dice rolling at once... I mean some game's Ive read about require up to 10 d10's. The only time Ive really messed with die pools was a game where you tried to roll low ammounts adding several dice... with 4 dice for beggininers, 3 for intermediate characters and 2 for masters.

By the way a search on Ygg didint pop up any thing exept for this post, a search on "standard fantasy" popped up over 100 hits... so I guess you meant there's a ton of them. No matter...

By the way a search on Ygg didint pop up any thing exept for this post

Yggdrasil hangover... duuudee...

Ok, I read quite a few of the posts and yes, it seems to be coming along quite nicely. I went ahead and posted on the "Bob made a goblin" thread.

Still, what Im going for is rather different... let me play out a few sample combats just to give you an idea.

First the way I do stats... stat's range from 1 (mice and such) to 10 (huge monsters)... any thing over that would be uncivilized. Any way's the way your stat's work is that they have dual numbers such as

1-2= 0 bonus
3-4= 1 bonus
5-6= 2 bonus
7-8= 3 bonus

The reason? Your stat is used more for skill rolls (cuz there is no opponant) but on challanged rolls (me v.s. you) we use the bonus. Also stat numbers help dictate stuff like hp's, mana, how much you can carry and other crap.

To not go too deep into stats and all that let's say matt and jack have a 2 bonus on every stat... let's give each a sword and here we go!

(These are real rolls)
1)Matt rolls 1, Jack rolls 6... we can safely assume Jack jumped out of the way with grace and style.
2)Jack rolls 5, Matt rolls 3... a hit but not critical (It needs to be a diff of 3 or more). The damage equals 8 (2 diff + 2 str bonus + 4 from the sword). Matt had 18 hp but now its 10... yeah, a sword hurts even when its a graze.
3)Matt rolls 6, Jack rolls 6... its a graze! Graze's are divided by 4 (and usualy ignored if the dude wears armor). Damage= 0 diff + 2 str + 4 from the sword / 4... 1 damage. A small cut.
4) Man... Jack is angry! He rolled a 6 and Matt rolled a 2... that means its a diff. of 4 (not only critical, but he can choose what sort!). Damage is 4 diff + 2 str + 4 from teh sword... 10 damage!. Here's the deal on criticals:

First you decide if the critical did less than 1/4 of your oponents hp... if so then ignore it. If it did 1/4 (5 in Matt's case) or more then its a nasty critical... the kind that cripples your arm for a few turns, temporarily blinds your eye or causes you to bleed for a while. If 1/2 damage was done (10) then its a really nasty critical... the kind that chops off an arm, impales your heart or in Matt's case... CUTS OFF YOUR HEAD. The end.

Jack get's 1 xp from the battle... 10 more and he'll be able to learn a new skill. There's at least 50 skills so far in the game without even promoting yourself into the advanced skills yet... so he'll be entertained for a while slashing briggands.

How things work: ok... if Jack wouldent of been able to pick the spot, he would of rolled 2d6 and that would of picked the type of critical damage. Crittical effects are different for piercing, bashing & slashing. Fiery criticals ignite you and so on...

This is all you need to know about combat...
-armor subtracts damage. Weapons increase it and change the type. -Strenght dictates how much armor and weaponry you can use.
-Skills (weapon skills) add one to your roll... a huge advantage (its like an extra 2 skill levels).
-Special combat maneuvers cost a point of mana (spells cost more but I like to think warriors get exhausted too) and allow you to make more attacks, do more damage or have a better roll. Some add effects like choking, tripping and disarming to name a few.

Easy to learn or what?

Lugaru, this is going to come off as very harsh. I'm not trying to be insulting, but I feel that it needs to be done like this for impact.

Lugaru wrote: Ok, I read quite a few of the posts and yes, it seems to be coming along quite nicely. I went ahead and posted on the "Bob made a goblin" thread.

First the way I do stats... stat's range from 1 (mice and such) to 10 (huge monsters)... any thing over that would be uncivilized. Any way's the way your stat's work is that they have dual numbers such as

1-2= 0 bonus
3-4= 1 bonus
5-6= 2 bonus
7-8= 3 bonus

The reason? Your stat is used more for skill rolls (cuz there is no opponant) but on challanged rolls (me v.s. you) we use the bonus. Also stat numbers help dictate stuff like hp's, mana, how much you can carry and other crap.

(These are real rolls)
1)Matt rolls 1, Jack rolls 6... we can safely assume Jack jumped out of the way with grace and style.

...snipped example and combat explanation...

Jack get's 1 xp from the battle... 10 more and he'll be able to learn a new skill. There's at least 50 skills so far in the game without even promoting yourself into the advanced skills yet... so he'll be entertained for a while slashing briggands.

How things work: ok... if Jack wouldent of been able to pick the spot, he would of rolled 2d6 and that would of picked the type of critical damage. Crittical effects are different for piercing, bashing & slashing. Fiery criticals ignite you and so on...

This is all you need to know about combat...
-armor subtracts damage. Weapons increase it and change the type. -Strenght dictates how much armor and weaponry you can use.
-Skills (weapon skills) add one to your roll... a huge advantage (its like an extra 2 skill levels).

-Special combat maneuvers cost a point of mana (spells cost more but I like to think warriors get exhausted too) and allow you to make more attacks, do more damage or have a better roll. Some add effects like choking, tripping and disarming to name a few.

Easy to learn or what?

Yikes! That hurts. A wise man once said "everyone should write a heartbreaker."

Paul

Paul Czege wrote: Yikes! That hurts. A wise man once said "everyone should write a heartbreaker."

Edit: I just meant to add... Im here to have my ideas critized, not to have them thrown into a larger group that we all have read articles on how to shoot down... I could of gone to any forum for that.

What killed Ygg?

Any ways I had read about the whole "fantasy heartbreaker" thing on another occation, but irony is Im really not basing my material on any of those games. I played D&D for the lat time maybe.. uhm... at least 10 year's ago. Quicky background: I was making die based games... an aunt recognized that as D&D so she got me a copy... that was ok but eventually the system got on my nerves and I started doing systems without buying any supplements ever again. This is my most current...

Still the one thing that get's me is the lack of though put into modern gaming... quick example: Roll a d6... if you get a 4 or more you pick what happens. Ok... why not throw a coin? Arent all characters the same, but with a different name? Is there any posibility for advancement? And ideas like this have equally been done to death by indie gamers... its like saying D&D is embarrasing hair metal while story teller games are the "nu metal". The only differences is what decade we are in and whats currently a fad, according to the articles Ive read I mean. As far as execution goes over simplification is not automatically superior.

Another thing... for instance I've never played rune quest so I know nothing about its random hit loccations but does Rune Quest suck so bad that if something of mine coincided with it, it would taint my game? I dont know what GURP's skill lists are like, but are you embarrased to have used them? All in all I cant compare my system with theirs... but I do know it's been optimized for the type of play it generates, and no time is lost on eighter of these accounts.

And I mean making a new story teller type of game is easy... let me invent one right now....

You have 1-5 points per ability that you create and write down. Any thing you want. Abilities are eighter phisical, combat, social or resource oriented. We use a deck of playing cards for this game... to accomplish something you pull as many cards as your stat dictates, the more hearts (for social skills), diamonds (for resource checks), clubs (for phisical tests) or spades (for ass kicking) you get, the more controll you have over the outcome. I want to get a hotel room? I pull a diamond or use one from my hand. I want to shoot a guy? Awesome, I pulled two spades and a club, the two spades should allow me to incapacitate him.

Now so it's not a fantasy heartbreaker I could put it in the setting of Amores Perros, Mexico city crime and dog fighting. Its original... just not what Im going for.

Just maybe I want to play in a fantasy setting. It allows you to do lots of things. Secondly I might want a system with some meat on the bones... if not I would be playing one of those games that people designed in 15 minutes, like what I just mentioned above.

Lastly, about experience... what do you suggest? The whole "using a skill raises it" system tends to be easily abused. Giving out "levels" as you see fit is the same thing, only rounded out. Non advancement beats the purpose... you catch my drift.

I hope to keep hearing critizism (the title mentiones this word, as an invitation to slap my ideas around as much as you want) in hopes that new ideas come up.

Edit: I just meant to add... Im here to have my ideas critized, not to have them thrown into a larger group that you've read plenty on how to critize.

Lugaru wrote:
I hope to keep hearing critizism (the title mentiones this word, as an invitation to slap my ideas around as much as you want) in hopes that new ideas come up.

Ygg isn't dead, it's just pining for the fjords. Or actually all my stuff is still on another computer - a computer I haven't had access to for about well, since I stopped writing here about Ygg pretty much. In the mean time I picked up another project (web game), and I originally planned to complete that before I picked up Ygg again.

However I'm kinda stuck with that, and I started reading on the forge again anyway. So... I'm back :) I still don't have my notes though so I'm kinda winging it.

Oh, and what Mike is saying is basically (tell me if I'm wrong Mike):

You don't have anything different enough to be new, and if it's old there is no reason why people wouldn't stick with one of the big popular titles even if your game would happen to have a few advantages compared to AD&D. If you want to make something that matters you have to take things to a new level.

As for me:

I want to do that but the short story is that I'm making slow progress and that has been pretty frustrating with people trying to help me making sense out of my idea. (I still insist I'm working with the same inspiration as when I arrived!)

I guess you can look at all my articles and see how much work it is to really try to take standard fantasy to a new level. All that discussion and still not finished...

It's a difficult genre to do something new in. Know what you're doing, that's all. Do you have the endurance to polish the coal until it becomes gold?

Christoffer (Plae Fire) has it right. And Mark has nailed the direction in which the next set of questions must go.

What are your goals for this game? What's tha audience? Why are you here looking for criticism? What needs fixing?

See, your game is perfect as it is. With your D&D clone with early 80's skill system tacked on will work great with the setting that you describe. I can't see anything that needs fixing.

As for the storytelling/rules issue, you missed my point entirely. I'm not saying that the silly little system I made is any better than yours. I could have as easily proposed a system where I roll 1d6, and the PC is successful on a 4-6. My point is exactly the point you made.

As far as execution goes over simplification is not automatically superior.

Pale fire: Im glad that your still working on it... there is never a good reason to abandon a hobby. I mean its fun, and if challanges arise (like trying to be original) well all the more reason to work on it.

Here's my point really. Im not a car buff... I really cant tell a bettle appart from a buwik (or whoever it's spelled) so my philosophy would basically be "Why do these idiots need to design new cars every year? Wherent they good enough in the 50's?"

I think there's a lott of people who would slap me if I said this.

Same with RPG's... lots of people prefer a "minimalistic" aproach to gaming... but personally I think there is still a LOTT left to be done for the gamist, wargaming and simulation style genres. My mission is to make gaming in that style much less time consuming without losing the "math can be fun" element. Hopefully I can come up with something new (I've already had a few people ask permition to use my ACE, War and combat mechanics). Secondly I have the nasty embarrasement of getting posts on my website (ok... a couple) asking me when the game will be done... like you Pale fire I've moved from computer to computer quite a bit (Moved from Mexico to West Virginia, and from WV to Boston) so setbacks abound.

Mark: As for what troubles me in my game... I think currently my main concern is magic. My gut instinct make's me want to make magic like lego's... you put togeter a bunch of factors (distances, effects and all that), add the cost and execute the spell. The problem is that this is time consuming and in some gaming setions it turned players away from using heavily magic oriented characters... at most sometimes they would have a muscle heavy guy who would always use the same 2 spells.

My current aproach to it is making mechanics as to what a spell is made out of, and then allowing players to build their own spells if they want. If they dont want, they just use the spell list. Still, spell lists tend to conjure up nasty after tastes of other fantasy game's when I mention it on a thread. On the other hand learning more type's of spells (elemental, necromancy, illusion, etc) allow's give's you more building blocks to make more complex spells... so hopefully that might make up for it. Kinda like "every one will do the same stuff with A and with B... but different people will do different things when mixing A and B".

I dont know... Ive never been too great at magic mechanics. Secondly Im still wondering what to do about Xp... I mean the D&D system simply wont do... my "purchase learning points with xp you get every time you do something difficult (win an even fight, solve a tough riddle, stay in character despite the odds)" will probably make advancement eighter too hard or too easy. Also its hard to tell when challanges become a rutine... I mean with combat its kinda clear (if your wounded, it wasent too easy) but with lock picking and problem solving things are less clear. Are there any just REALLY GOOD Xp systems out there? I dont want to play without experience, since again Im going for a sense of familiarity with faster mechanics.

Ok, Lu, I'd really love to be able to help you. But no one here is going to be able to if you keep intentionally missing the point. You seem to have an image in your head that goes like this "The Forge is all about minimalist bleeding edge game designs, we don't like old school designs, you think there is potential in old school designs but we keep telling you it needs to be new to be good".

Put that out of your head immediately or you will get no benefit from this web site. It is simply not true. The Forge doesn't give a rat's ass about new being better than old, about minimal being better than complex. [caveat: there are a couple folk here who would say that, but they haven't posted to this thread and there are equally folks here who'd say the opposite]

That dichotomy is simply NOT what Mike is talking about. In fact, Mike LOVES crunchy wargame systems. For you to be thinking otherwise demonstrates you are completely missing the point.

I will attempt to use your current post to illuminate the issue.

Lugaru wrote:
Here's my point really. Im not a car buff... I really cant tell a bettle appart from a buwik (or whoever it's spelled) so my philosophy would basically be "Why do these idiots need to design new cars every year? Wherent they good enough in the 50's?"

I think there's a lott of people who would slap me if I said this.

Same with RPG's... lots of people prefer a "minimalistic" aproach to gaming... but personally I think there is still a LOTT left to be done for the gamist, wargaming and simulation style genres. My mission is to make gaming in that style much less time consuming without losing the "math can be fun" element. Hopefully I can come up with something new

My current aproach to it is making mechanics as to what a spell is made out of, and then allowing players to build their own spells if they want. If they dont want, they just use the spell list. Still, spell lists tend to conjure up nasty after tastes of other fantasy game's when I mention it on a thread. On the other hand learning more type's of spells (elemental, necromancy, illusion, etc) allow's give's you more building blocks to make more complex spells... so hopefully that might make up for it. Kinda like "every one will do the same stuff with A and with B... but different people will do different things when mixing A and B".

I dont know... Ive never been too great at magic mechanics.

Secondly Im still wondering what to do about Xp... I mean the D&D system simply wont do... my "purchase learning points with xp you get every time you do something difficult (win an even fight, solve a tough riddle, stay in character despite the odds)" will probably make advancement eighter too hard or too easy. Also its hard to tell when challanges become a rutine... I mean with combat its kinda clear (if your wounded, it wasent too easy) but with lock picking and problem solving things are less clear. Are there any just REALLY GOOD Xp systems out there? I dont want to play without experience, since again Im going for a sense of familiarity with faster mechanics.

First... weird thing... somehow my post got posted after Holme's so I missed his advice. Let me see if I can organize my thougths for a second... what I meant in the first place is "does this setting sound Ok". I got a "nothing new, but as good or bad as any thing esle in the genre... keep the whales". Ok..

Second.. play more games. Mmm... Im not really going to invest into gaming though (like I said, Im groupless and looking at some pretty long work hours starting really soon). As far as free stuff goes, Im all up for sugestions! I mean yeah, the whole spectrum of my experience is: D&D... my first crappy home modified version of D&D, a few more of my own games (all generes and diff. styles), some VTM (never got too into it... the people I played it with played totally fight oriented, which the rules arent too great for).

Old car/new car: You know what I mean... Im trying to do something cool here but its still going to have 4 wheels, a motor and doors. Im just glad we got past the "why the heck do I need a new car" and got to the point where I can talk about what's under the hood.

About my game... let me put the whole "fighting back" thing aside...

Im not satisfied with:
-Xp system
-Magic system
-My total inability to create fantasy names (hehe, dont worry about that line though).

'Bout the system... Im keeping it. It seems simple but any roll offers up to 7 diff results (all sorts of missing, graze and 5 degrees of hit, each increasing the damage and in some cases causing critical effects). Basically I guess I followed the natural impulse of eliminating rolls to check the damage... rolls to see if its a flesh wound or if it affects the oponent in a more substancial way... but without eliminating the data. I figured good hit = good damage = nasty side effect. Numbers should be good inspiration for description I believe, but descriving each action is as always up to the player. I cant garantee that some guy in Washington or Hong Kong will play it the way it was invisioned. About crit loccations, I think its a necesary evil. In many games (all styles) you see people get hit by 20 arrows before falling or get slashed with a sword without wearing armor and practically ignore it. I know its the "heroic flavor" but with what Im going for danger should be real for every one. Even the most "I hate to aknowlege my wounds" person would understand have to take into consideration his situation when he hears "you cant feel your arm" or "it went through your chest... every time you try to move the pain pins you back down".

What are your goals for this game?
Fast & easy way to play a fantasy game. Ive read reviews and previews of many games but most seemed too over encumbered, or too light weight. I also want to get some contributions to the website (as in ideas & such posted by any one who enjoys playing it). I mean if I enjoy making the game, odds are some people will enjoy playing it. Also Ive read tons of "I just payed $40 for this book and its unplayable". This is not the only free option on the net, but its not the worse one eighter.

What's tha audience?
Pretty much any one who like's what they see on their first visit. Good combat for the youngsters and good narrative freedom for the hard core "lets create a story" type players. Also I mean to make it a "the players say whats going on, the story teller counters with descriptions and challanges". I nearly died when my g.f. said that she played a D&D game where the GM said every thing and the players just rolled. I cant picture this in my head...

Why are you here looking for criticism?
Because frankly I havent played with a group for a long time & I dont know really that much about what else is out there. If something looks workable, I wouldent mind some experienced players saying it. If something is downright stupid, all the more reason to find out. No point repeating the flaws that Im looking to correct. Also if I can somehow avoid trolling, posting should be a good creative outlet. On rpg.net Ive gotten some great ideas by looking for answers for other peoples problems and well the forge is supposed to be the same + some extra class.

What needs fixing?
According to me, nothing. But the first person who plays will probably pick something up, and so on. Still I think I'll do this in a different way... Instead of the 'HERES MY WORLD, LOOK AT IT" approach, I think it would be more polite if I just go back to the drawing board and post over what come's up during design. I still am looking for a good XP system or advancement system though... any thing that dosent work by "raising stat's by using them". Well, off to do the dishes (5xp each).

Lugaru wrote: Im not satisfied with:
-Xp system
-Magic system
-My total inability to create fantasy names (hehe, dont worry about that line though).

Thank you... about the Xp... I'll try to hammer something out. Its likely that just as a player can use an ACE point to generate a friend or ally... he should be able to use it to generate a teacher or learning situation. A cool backwards way to use it would be "spend story altering points to say why you have the skill... from now on you have it, for better or for worse". It might not even be a bad idea to allow characters to do this in key moments... if their exuce is decent.

About the magic, that is exactly what I did... let me do a quicky on it:

* d6 damage (pretty random spells) cost 1 mana
* +3 costs 1 mana (at least you know what you get)
* Fire: +1 damage to the spell and a critical ignites your oponent (super nasty critical desintegrates... consider it gone)
* Ice: +1 damage and a critical numbs the limb for quite some time (super nasty critical brittles it... consider it gone)
The list goes on for stuff like electricity, 25 feet range, 50 foot range, area attacks, animation spells, reanimation spells, darkness, illusions, conjurations and all those standard things we expect.

Typical spell example:

Spark: it creates an electrified arc between the caster and an oponent who is up to 3 spaces (15 feet) away. A simple to hit roll is required, and if accomplished this spell will do 1 d6 +4 damage. Since it is electrical, it will stun oponents (making them lose one action) on a critical hit and also it ignores metallic armors. The cost is 4 mana.

Basic spells can only cost a total of 4 mana or less. Advanced spells cost one less mana, up to a total of 7. Master spells cost 2 less mana, up to a total of 10. Legendary spells play by their own rules.

So in other words basic spells are cheap, but inefficient. Advanced spells (the meat and potatoes of the game) cost a tiny bit less, but developing and learning time's are increased. And casting a spell you havent studied up about is neighter time nor mana efficient. In theory a spell consists of several pages worth of examples, concepts, equations and advice... so if you "just improvise the spell" you'll end up getting a lott less than you would if you knew every thing about how to use it.

That's all Im saying for now... I just watched Taboo (some gay samurai Drama, without that much Drama or Samurai action... some nicely shot sceens though) and Im all spent. Subtitles can really drain you sometimes.

Lugaru,

Have you considered offering your setting as a D20 or OGL offering? You are obviously passionate about the low handling time of your core mechanics. But there is a pretty large group of players out there who have mastered the D20 system to such an extent that they could play it as fast as your system. Then again, you seem more excited about your mechanics than your setting. Am I reading you wrong?

Its a sad thing to admit but your totally right. My hobby is the system... same reason I like doing computer rpg's and stuff like that. The setting is improvised really... half an hour worth of thought at most.

Secondly... I really dont know what the d20 system does in comparison to the advanced (2nd) system. Ive flipped through some stuff and read a few articles but its like they keep the core rules pretty hush hush. Still by what I have read it seems to have the same inherent problems as its predecesor. I could try doing d20 house rules, but Im really not passionate or knowlegeble about the product, so that would be pointless. Also it would probably be less work.. and Im in it for the trouble more than for the gory. I probably have at least 12 unpublished games that I simply designed, played for a few months with friends and then lost the notebook. Now Im just trying to be more disciplined, posting my work instead of trashing it, so that it serves others as a source of ideas or as a cheap game to play.

The inestimable Mr. John Kim has a list of free RPGs.

http://www.darkshire.org/~jhkim/rpg/freerpgs/

Note particularly the section generously labeled "Traditional" and just how many entries there are. Then ignore those entries, and look at the other categories.

Mike

Lugaru wrote: Its a sad thing to admit but your totally right. My hobby is the system... same reason I like doing computer rpg's and stuff like that. The setting is improvised really... half an hour worth of thought at most. .

Edit: Man, I wish 2 ideas where a setting... Im really undiciplined when it come's to writting in english so I might put my setting off a bit. Hopefully things will come while I work more on the system. Still thanks, thats really nice of you to say. Another thanks for the link.

About d20... I'll look into it. I mean I love systems... and why not do both? If people want to play their characters in my world, my characters in their world or whatever, the more options I give them the better. Already I have a simple "die pool" idea... remember how stat's have a number like 5 being a 2 bonus? 2 dice. 3 succeses (every 6 counting as 2 of 'em) would be a critical and 4 would allow you to choose, just like in the normal version. A weapon skill would add 1 to your bonus, so in a die pool it would add 1 to your dice. Of course I'll do that when Im done with my current system... or if I get bored and need to work on something else.

About standard fantasy... Im out to build a system more than any thing. What does this system do?

Tagna rushes after the orc with her broadsword... depending on how she hits it perhaps she will incapacitate it or even kill it.

Yukio faces her would be Yakuza assassin. She quickly pull's her gun and starts shooting... if she hits her oponent in the right spot there's no chance of retaliation, but to simply wound or graze her oponent will probably mean her own death.

Same deadly system can do both. Ive tried. Now if Tagna finds a Flintlock pistol or if Yukio purchases a preasure forged katana, the system wont crash. And unlike many game's the difference between the fantasy and modern versions of the weapons will be evident. If Gorg roll's to break his chains and Samuel rolls to hack into a medical research data base... the same dice will be used, only diferently. If Stewart drinks scotch and Vlad drinks blood, they should be able to sit and enjoy an evening without the players runing out to purchase the necesary material to support this. I saw there wherent that many horror game's on the list for instance... well in my system an angry guy with a sharpened pencil could potentially kill you just as dead as a shotgun would. Its not as likely (would probably take a few tries) but that dosent mean you shouldent be scared of leaving your pencil near the psycho your interogating. With fear of death and injury well supported, other fobias would simply be a matter of setting.

Hopefully the system will provide for most of my "gritty" game needs. Perhaps a small alteration will enable "heroic" gaming as well... because the more modern you get, realistically enough, the deadlier things become. I dont know how fun a world where "any old chap with a marchine gun" can kill you if he gets the drop on you. Maybe sooner or latter some one else will try my system once its done. In the meantime I rather not think too much about finding my audience... its not about them YET.

Lugaru wrote: And I mean making a new story teller type of game is easy... let me invent one right now....

You have 1-5 points per ability that you create and write down. Any thing you want. Abilities are eighter phisical, combat, social or resource oriented. We use a deck of playing cards for this game... to accomplish something you pull as many cards as your stat dictates, the more hearts (for social skills), diamonds (for resource checks), clubs (for phisical tests) or spades (for ass kicking) you get, the more controll you have over the outcome. I want to get a hotel room? I pull a diamond or use one from my hand. I want to shoot a guy? Awesome, I pulled two spades and a club, the two spades should allow me to incapacitate him.