Greetings to the Forge. I have been referred here for guidance on my Twilight system. Hopefully I'll be able to offer something in return.

Before I start, I'd like to point out that Twilight is technically playable and finished. However, not having much experience in game creation (this is the end of a seven-year period of development, and in no way resembles the starting product) I'd like the input of others before pursuing any other plans (whether just posting the entire text for free, putting together a PDF or even print - I'm surviving as a freelance artist today, but anything I can sell would be good).

You can find the demo version (64 pages) here. It doesn't include magic or racial ability rules right now; I'll probably bring up the subjects here in a while. For now, I'll summarise the mechanic and philosophy here.

Character Creation

Start with Stats. You have three (originally Physical, Mental and Spiritual - changed to Body, Mind and Spirit when I realised that BMS was a less offensive abbreviation). Each stat has a minimum of 1; starting characters normally have 6 points total, but this can really be any number. *** Not purposefully based on TriStat, I hasten to add (didn't know about it til a couple of months ago).

Continue with Attributes. Each stat has three (Body: Strength, Agility, Appearance; Mind: Dedication, Intellect, Presence; Spirit: Power, Channeling, Fate), each rated with a fraction between 1/5 and 5/5 (Spirit attributes can be 0). You have 20/5 to spend on these. This doesn't change - it's always 20/5. The value of an attribute is equal to the stat times the fraction (rounded down, to a minimum of 1, or 0 for spirit attributes), and is what attribute normally means.

Finish with skills. You always have twice as many skill points as stat points. (This ratio might be altered for variant games.) So normally 12 skill points for starting characters.

In Twilight, skills are fairly broad areas like Blade Weapons Group, Stealth, Fire Magic, or Acrobatics. Each has components (in the case of Stealth, things like Silence, Hiding and Infiltration (ie. legerdemain)). You can gain 3 ranks in an individual component instead of spending a point on the skill itself. (This is called a Component Skill.)
You cannot put more points into a skill than the value of the corresponding attribute (for Stealth, agility; for Fire Magic, Power, etc.). You cannot benefit from a component skill larger than twice the attribute. However, component and 'parent' skills stack.

This creates a basic character. Equipment then adds bonuses to skills.

Actions

When you want to do something, add up your skill ranks and attribute ranks (thus someone without skill will still have a minimum of 1), and roll that many six-sided dice. (This number is easily written down on a character sheet.)

The tactics come in when you apply time management. You have 5 Time Increments (i) available to you at all times; that is, you can be doing 5i worth of things at any one time. An action takes however many increments you spent on it to 'tick' over before it happens. When it happens, you roll the dice, and every die that comes up equal to or lower than the number of increments you spent is a success.

If half or more of your dice are successes, roll the whole lot again, only the target number is one lower (to a minimum of 1), and keep adding up any successes you roll. *** I know this is a little slow, but in my experience the tactical emphasis of the game is frighteningly deep and slow anyway. I did a test fight and in the first 1i alone I saw 3 attacks and a total of 7 moves stacked up in response to one punch - and there were only two fighters. Plus it's open-ended, which I really wanted.

Other Initial Notes

There are two basic defensive maneuvers available that reduce attacks on a point-for-point basis: parry and dodge. You can do both at once. Thus, a smaller (1-3i) attack is often better because it leaves you the option to defend yourself with a good chance of avoiding all damage. On the other hand, a 5i attack leaves you no defenses whatsoever beyond passive armour, but will do massive damage if your opponent doesn't kill you while you're doing it.

Damage is done in the following way. All attacks do non-lethal damage equal to the successes scored after defenses (normally multiplied by a weapon - 2 for a dagger, 6 for a longsword). When you've taken NLD equal to your Body stat, you suffer a -1 penalty to your target numbers on the dice. Some attacks also do lethal damage, which is exactly the same only damage has to meet 10 times your Body stat. These penalties stack. Once you're suffering from 5 penalties, you're unconscious. Once you've got 5 lethal penalties, you're dead.

You can recover non-lethal damage equal to your Dedication plus Heal (Aid component) skill in 1i. NLD is just an inconvenience in that regard. I call this 'regen'.


That's the gist of Twilight's basic system. What I'm looking for are general pointers:

- I've had comments about the dice pool system, particularly its exploding nature. Is it downright poor (ie. slow and easy to screw up), or is there a quick fix? (I've considered simply rolling one extra die against the new target number: if it's a success, double successes, drop the TN another slot, and roll again.)

- Is the time management system that's the core of Twilight easily comprehensible? It's purposefully simplified from Twilight's ancestor, Nocturne, which used a percentile scale (thus a scientific calculator); does it offer the same versatility and tactics that I imagine?

- Does the damage system make sense? It's supposed to be 'cinematic', in that Bruce Willis can get shot and go down yet be up again in moments with no penalty but an artfully bloodstained singlet. One possible option is giving a choice between lethal and nonlethal damage, so someone could either do permanent damage, or damage that impairs their opponent immediately and effectively, but not both. Would that be better?

- General points about the system I may have overlooked. Don't hesitate to tear it to pieces, please. I know I can't please everyone, but I want Twilight to be as good as possible.

Thanks in advance.

s/LaSH,

Welcome to the Forge!

I'll ask the most commonly asked first questions: What do you envision actually playing the game to be like? What kind of setting(s) and situation(s) is the system designed for (e.g. High Fantasy, Sci-Fi, etc.)?

If you haven't already, you should read system does matter, and perhaps fantasy heartbreakers and more fantasy heartbreakers. These are articles on RPG design written by Ron Edwards - and worth a look for anyone attempting RPG design.

My only comment up front is that the Time Increment mechanic and the Exploding Dice - which increase the search and handling time and the tactical complexity of the game - seem to be at odds a little with the wound system and your stated desire to provide a "cinematic" game experience. If you're going for a fast action paced, over the top, cinematic style - you might want to consider figuring out ways to lower the search and handling time.

Perhaps you could say that every die that exactly equal the TN (as set by the time increments, right?) gets to be re-rolled and compared to the TN -1. Even this may not lower the search and handling time enough.

You might want to do a search on PACE here at the forge to see a completely different approach (Karma based rather than Fortune based) to fact action. You might also want to check out the dice pool systems for Sorcerer (from Adept Press) and/or Donjon (Anvilwerks).

Unless you're married to the feel of the current resolution mechanic because it supports a particular asthetic feel - I'd consider dropping it in favor of a simpler dice pool mechanic.

Finally, you might want to check out the Riddle of Steel, for a really fast playing but tactically sophisticated combat resolution.

Cheers,

Jason

EDITED: to add that all of the above references are not intended to scare you off, or to say that your system doesn't matter or that it's "been done before". It just to say that a lot of discussion here at the Forge revolves around the concepts in the articles, and the games I mentioned might give you some different ideas about the dice mechanics. The system looks like you've put a good deal of work into it so far - and looks fairly interesting. Keep us posted.

Thanks, and don't worry, I'm not scared. I'd be quite happy for people to tear it to shreds.

Time increments are really the most important thing in the system, to me. They allow the player tactical choices beyond simply "Attack" (and place great emphasis on defence). I'm aware they add complexity to the system, and I assume that players will not play Twilight if they're seeking blindingly fast combat.

The actual results of the combat, I've found, do a good job of behaving like action movies (as opposed to 'cinematic' gaming), in that important people very rarely get hit at all. If they're going at each other with swords (and are roughly equal), they'll clash, parry, dodge, and unless one of them gets really unlucky, never suffer a wound. It's cinematic in that sense, not particularly fast and furious.

I like to think I've removed a fair chunk of handling time by having no tables beyond 'this is what a skill does' (except for that one towards the back that requires a die throw for psychologically unstable characters, and I'm seriously considering revamping that whole section) and clearly inferrable results just from rolling the dice. You won't experience exploding dice too often, either, because 2i is (to my mind) the most tactically sensible allocation and that's only going to explode once every 3 rolls, on average. (I think. I can't be bothered doing the stats work right now.)

The idea of re-rolling dice that equal the TN does theoretically allow for very high results, but brings the practical ceiling way down (a 5i action would likely only get 1/6th rerolls, as opposed to almost always getting a reroll of all the dice with the 'standard' explosion). And I don't really like the limits that puts on a 5i action. I've considered moving record-keeping of how many successes you've rolled 'into the dice' like I did with time management, to reduce search time, but I can't see any realistic way of doing it... yet. (Previously, you did something like rolling against a standard TN and multiplying successes by the number of increments you were using - I abandoned this because who really knows what 17 times 4 is? It's quicker to count dice. That's what I mean by 'into the dice'.)

Oh, and I find it interesting that the mechanic I use is technically fortune, but statistically veers closer to karma, especially at high levels. Has anyone else commented on this tendency?

I appreciate your input. Now I gotta go watch cartoons (it's hard being a freelance artist, I tells ya). Back later.

Greetings,

Welcome to the Forge s/LaSH.

Here's my raw, at a glance, first impressions:

For starters let me just say my eyes glazed over around where you started to talk about "fifths" . . . mainly because you hit us with the "conceptualize" a character then started to use standard sounding examples, as if they are supposed to give us a reference frame, when you have established there is no reference frame.

The entire point of a "concept" system (I've always felt) is the player's are burdened with using their imagination to create a character archetype from scratch. I hate that about "now come up with a conception" CharGen systems. My pet peeve, not your fault.

However, based upon what I have read so far, I think you may want to consider editing what you have. Lighten the load. And be sure when you say things like:

"Once you’ve put all these pieces together, you’ve got a beginning character! Go to it!"

That we actually can, at a glance, without freaking out or having to take our shoes off to do fractions and higher math. ;)

Also try to edit out things like "Unlike other systems", unless you are actually comparing mechanics. The section I just block copied that from really didn't need that preamble and, since it was there, it gave me pause to sit back and wonder why it was there.

>expletive deleted<

Are all those groups really necessary??

Wow, the skill write ups... looks like a lot of detail in there. Taken at a glance. . . Puzzling . . . Wild Living . . . And some that seem rather unique, too. :)

I want to know more about magic. The Magic Skill provides some detail, ok actually there's quite a lot in there and I didn't really read every word, but at a glance it looks like this is going to be one massive all-encompassing system?

>expletive deleted<

More about the groups. Golly gee whiz!

Ugh, the text is too cramped to even try to read the rest from here on out this late/early in the evening! (Apologies, just looks massively ugly on this end.)

Summary: 9 Attributes depending from the trinary of Body, Mind, Spirit and grouped accordingly. Not bad. Yet, at a glance, I have no clue what the core resolution mechanic is. Doing a boolean search for "core" gets me a bunch of stuff about time keeping, or something, called an "increment". Ok, but why? Up front I want to know how to do stuff, what is required to resolve actions. . . ? Well, sure, I guess it's important to know how actions break down incrementally and all that but how does a character attempt the actions in the first place?!?

My "At a Glance" Score (on a scale of 1-4): 1.7

And that mostly because of formatting. Editing, using a larger font size, these things would help. Not necessary, mind you, but couldn't hurt. As would breaking the text up into something more manageable in a HTML format. Though, for the size of the MSS, I'd say forget that hassle and just PDF it, if you want/are able.

If not: Do a Google search for "Open Office" or PDF995 for two good freebie type PDF proggies. (Open Office will be a 60 MB DL, BTW.) Also, it's all mechanics, which makes for dry reading. But that also means presentation is everything.

B+ for effort!




Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

Thanks, Kester. I'll go through and address concerns from my perspective.

The idea of giving examples under 'concept' was to get away from the idea of archetypes. The idea that archetypes are still possible is implicit, but perhaps I should put in a section dealing with them just in case - put it in front with completed stats and stuff, then explain what it all means and explain how you can do something completely different. Would that make it seem more 'comfortable' and give parameters necessary to gain one's bearings?

"Unlike other systems"... you're right, that's arrogance on my part. It's mostly aimed at d20, of course. I've never played much of any system other than D&D, so the ancestors of Twilight were aimed at 'correcting' the system on a fundamental level. I still think it has something to offer.

The weapon groups... they're an older part of the system, actually, left over from when the system used a calculator. (Roll d100. Add 50. That's the percentage of the predetermined effectiveness you score. Horrible, no?) I've been considering trimming them down to something more sensible like "Blunt, Slashing, Stabbing, Agile, Finesse", and relegating the rest of the distinction to component skills, but from what I've read historical weapon-users did specialise in one very narrow group and wouldn't be too effective outside it. Actually, I can't quite tie weapon groups into the item creation guidelines I drew up - it's a minor nitpick, but one I should look over in future.

The skills... they're all there for a reason - completedness. Perhaps I should include a section talking about which parts aren't necessary for certain styles of game; I just wanted to be complete, cover all the bases. You're not going to need any Wild Living faculty whatsoever in a hack'n'slash game, which I can see some people enjoying under Twilight. Some of the more unique ones buried in poorly-formatted text include the ability to do mental damage, which is basically ridiculing or taunting or overawing your opponent, and (I imagine) could be very useful at times.

The magic system is one thing I'm very proud of. Yes, it's supposed to be universal. Yes, I've run combats using Thor and Superman from the comics in older versions of the rules (that calculator again). And yes, I've updated it since the (locally) infamous Lycanthropy Incident. (Long story short: Duration is best as a unified mechanic not specific to transformations.) Right now, I'm not going to put it online, but I will once I feel the core system is acceptable.

Incidentally, I was reading an Ars Magica FAQ and saw reference to a ritual designed to lift a mountain. The FAQ writer concluded that the level of the ritual could be anywhere from 40 to 200 or more. I thought 'Twilight could do that and I'd know exactly how', did some calculations involving the Air (Kinesis) component, and came out with a specific answer that wouldn't mean anything here (let's just say it's well outside the bounds of starting, intermediate or advanced characters). This could either be seen as Twilight magic beating the 'king' of magic systems, or a crazily inflexible system with no room for dramatic license. It depends on taste.

The text is pretty bad, isn't it? First, I wrote it up in Word. Then I decided I wanted Twilight out there, rather than spend long, long hours converting a DOC into raw text and then formatting it all into html again, so I just saved the DOC as html. The html sucks (I know, I built my webcomic site from just above the automated services on up), but it's 500kb of crappy Microsoft html and that's just not changable.

So I'll look at recompiling the whole thing into PDFs with PDF995, and many thanks for the reference. I should have warned prospective viewers about the horrible layout in the link - I did that elsewhere but forgot here. My bad.

Finally, the way actions and time management hook together. It's simple (if you've worked on the topic for years as I): Declare actions by devoting a certain number of increments to them. When time comes around, roll the dice, and count 1 success for every die that rolls less than or equal to the number of increments you devoted to that action. What kind of action can you commit to? Who knows? All you really need to know is how many dice it's worth. That's why the rest of the skills are there, to give some idea of how many dice you should roll for a given circumstance.

OK, it's a little more complex than that, but that's the gist of it. You could just skip out time management altogether, and set the target number to 3 or some such, but that removes the whole point of the game system.

The rest of the core mechanic should reside in Chapter 1. I should write an 'example of play' section and put it at the end of that chapter, right? That could help with the trickier bits.


I'll work on making Twilight friendlier to the eyes in coming days. Maybe I'll even throw in some illustrations - for free, of course. (Can you believe people actually pay me for art these days?) There are some ideas I just have to get down on paper, like the four-armed chelonian or the Chi Kid. And those are just player characters...

Oh, and if anyone else feels like posting responses, if you echo the sentiments of other responses please write it down - I'd like to know if there's a consensus on any little part of the system. More voices will cause me to think harder and (hopefully) Twilight to get better.

s/LaSH wrote:
"Unlike other systems"... you're right, that's arrogance on my part. It's mostly aimed at d20, of course. I've never played much of any system other than D&D, so the ancestors of Twilight were aimed at 'correcting' the system on a fundamental level. I still think it has something to offer.

OK, I'm going to give this game what I refer to as a technical analysis. That means I'll be very in depth, and very critical. Don't take the tone as dismissive, it's not meant to be. I'll mostly be focusing on what's wrong with the game, but that doesn' mean there aren't good parts. Just that the things I don't mention don't need fixing.

Style
Your introduction is mostly advertising. Are you aware of just how many games advertise "system allows you to make anyone or anything you can imagine, right off the bat"? That's akin to saying, "Look, I've made a new plane for 2004, and unlike earlier planes with propellers, this one has jet engines?" While this might, theoretically, in some perfect world, attract some disaffected D&D player, for the most part it comes off as advertising something that's far from unique. I mean, everyone on this forum has played games other than D&D, and I'll doubt that few have not played one that allows you to "create anything". They at least are all aware of several games that have this feature.

My point is, the same as that made above. Comparison, especially to D&D (the whole part about having a conversion section that copmprises one third of the text is really telling here), but any comparison is not a good idea. Even a statment like:

Obviously, you roll dice to determine your success at an action

you can’t do an auto action whenever you feel like it

If, while out adventuring, you discover that you don’t have something that would come in really handy, it’s normally permissible to ditch some cash-to-hand and find that you bought it anyway. Depending on whom you’re playing with, you can extend or limit this rule; some groups might want to purchase everything beforehand, and disallow further purchases as unrealistic, while others might allow a character to find a dagger hidden under the mattress in a dungeon cell after being stripped of all their equipment! However, in the standard interpretation, you can’t buy weapons, armour or special tools; you can, however, buy things like rope, torches or bandages. And you had to have the money available to you the last time you were in a shop.

s/LaSH,

For what it's worth, Mr. Holmes is probably the Forgeite who most influenced my game design ideas. I came here with a mostly complete (I thought) Storyteller Heartbreaker with lots of issues similar to your own.

Mr. Holmes did a detailed technical analysis of my game as well - which when I thought back and considered it allowed me to free my mind from all of the assumptions/personal preferences and "doing Storyteller right" attitudes I'd buried into my game. "There is no spoon".

I strongly second Mike's contention that you need to first and foremost step back and thing about the point of the game - the overall premise of the game.

Heck, you can take a look at Mr. Holmes' own game Synthesis, for examples of how to state a clear premise of play up front and to avoid comparing your game to others either explicitly or implicitly.

I also wanted to jump in and agree with Mike about the rules seeming to enforce a lot more caution than feels "Cinematic" with the high wiff factor. In terms of the pacing mechanic, that game PACE I mentioned has it built right into the primary mechanic of the game. The Riddle of Steel, and Ars Magica (2nd Ed) also have such mechanics built into the combat system - although it's a lot more spelled out in the latter.

You might also want to get a copy of Daniel Pond's Wusu at his website. Or heck, even some of his free rpgs. Anyway, he takes a different approach to the whole Cinematic action thing in Wusu that maybe warrants a look.

Throwing all these sources at you can seem counter-intuitive at first. But trust me, the more games you read and play, the more you'll begin to think in different ways about your own game.

Finally, since Mr. Holmes is too modest, I'd suggest that you look at Mike's Standard Rant #1: Designers! Know your hobby!.

I really do think you may have something worthwhile in your time increments mechanic - but you may have to revise nearly everything else around this concept.

Cheers,



Jason

deadpanbob wrote: "There is no spoon".

I strongly second Mike's contention that you need to first and foremost step back and thing about the point of the game - the overall premise of the game.

Heck, you can take a look at Mr. Holmes' own game Synthesis, for examples of how to state a clear premise of play up front and to avoid comparing your game to others either explicitly or implicitly.

In terms of the pacing mechanic, that game PACE I mentioned has it built right into the primary mechanic of the game. The Riddle of Steel, and Ars Magica (2nd Ed) also have such mechanics built into the combat system - although it's a lot more spelled out in the latter.

Finally, since Mr. Holmes is too modest, I'd suggest that you look at Mike's Standard Rant #1: Designers! Know your hobby!.

Mike Holmes wrote:
That's the first time anyone's claimed that! Modest? Shirley, you jest!

Anyhow, I was just waiting for him to say something that really indicated that he hadn't looked at many sources. For all I know, he's really well read, but still want's to tackle the D20 Giant.

dpb, you beat me to the Shirley line, dammit ;)

deadpanbob wrote: Bear in mind that some of the critques that are being offered are from people who haven't sat with you and played this game. I know it can be very frustrating when you have a very clear and coherent idea about how the game works - and it works clearly and coherently when you are playing/running the game. But sometimes it can be tough to get that message across, and like Mike says, that's what editing is for.

deadpanbob wrote:

You seem to have a pretty strong vision of the game, but I wouldn't mind reading it in your own words. So, what's the point of playing the game, or what are the players going to be doing when playing your game?

You mention Hack&Slash as one possible alternative, and you've come right out and said this is game started at least in response to perceived weaknesses in D&D - so is this game designed to largely be a Fantasy game? If so, why should/would anyone play Twilight instead of say, the Riddle of Steel? Put another way, who is your target audience/what style or type of players do you want your game to appeal to?

Again, these questions are not designed in any way to denegrate your system or the effort you've put into it. Nor are they designed to get you to abandon your system in favor of one already created. It just helps, in my experience, to know the answers to these quesitons in order to really focus your design efforts.

When I first came here to the Forge - my game was little more than a Storyteller Heartbreaker (i.e. WW Storyteller system 'done right'). A couple of people here at the Forge were nice enough to point this out to me - and helped me to find a focus for my game. Now, that focus has evolved since then - but it has remained, well, focused.

This is going to be a huge post. Apologies in advance.

Mike Holmes wrote:

Style
Your introduction is mostly advertising. Are you aware of just how many games advertise "system allows you to make anyone or anything you can imagine, right off the bat"? That's akin to saying, "Look, I've made a new plane for 2004, and unlike earlier planes with propellers, this one has jet engines?" While this might, theoretically, in some perfect world, attract some disaffected D&D player, for the most part it comes off as advertising something that's far from unique. I mean, everyone on this forum has played games other than D&D, and I'll doubt that few have not played one that allows you to "create anything". They at least are all aware of several games that have this feature.

My point is, the same as that made above. Comparison, especially to D&D (the whole part about having a conversion section that copmprises one third of the text is really telling here), but any comparison is not a good idea. Even a statment like:

Obviously, you roll dice to determine your success at an action

- says that you're comparing to certain games. Tell us the system's strong points in unexcited terms, and the reader can determine where to go from there. Tell us what your system does, and ignore what other systems do. If you compare, or reference other games that makes your game feel all the more derivative.

You're weapon charts are off with the font I'm using. You might want to consider cells instead of what I'm guessing is tabbing. I like HTML, but why don't you link up the chapter headers to make navigation easier?

Lastly, you mention that there's nobody with a special title of TM or anything, but is there a GM? You say that there are players, characters, and the group, but no mention of a GM. Is that an ommision? Or is this a "GMless" game? If the latter, you have not indicated how many, many things are handled.

Mechanics
I agree with the above statments about your declarations and the resolution. For example, do I declare all of my actions at the beginning of a "round"? I assume that there are something like "rounds" but the text does not say. Given the design of some games, some players might determine from this that in any resolution you have yor five increments, and then it's over. A winner or loser is determined, and there are no further "rounds". Is this your intent? This needs to be clarified. Do you declare all five increments right at the beginning, or as you go along and finish up?

What happens on "ties" where we both are supposed to go? That is, if both you and I declare a 1 increment action (use an abbreviation like, INC, BTW, the small "i" get's lost in the text), who resolves first? Or is it simultaneous. There's a comment about it being LIFO, but that doesn't help. Does that mean that it depends on the order that the action was declared? That if I declare last, I get to resolve first? Can't be it, or everyone will try to outwait everyone else, and nothing wil ever happen. What's it supposed to mean?

Totally indecipherable.

The rules to calculate Steady Action time increments is not only complex, but is fraught with breakpoints. People will take weapons that have draw times, for example that round in their favor (that is, without fractions). This seems to very artificially limit tactically sound weapon choice based on a rounding problem.

In general, you mention above that the system is supposed to be "cinematic" in terms of how it encourages players not to get hit at all (and presumable making wounds "realistically" harmful). I'd agree that in movies and even in real life, that the way one wins in combat is mostly not to get seriously injured. This makes sense. But, OTOH, what you're promoting here is what we call the "whiff factor". That is, you get a lot of "you miss, I miss, you miss, I miss" in play. This is not only boring, but makes the character's look like dorks. While it's cool to exchange blows for a bit, in a movie there will be an increasing tension that leads up to the final blow that ends it. This system doesn't have that at all. It's just boredom, boredom, boredom, oh, look, by random chance someone came out on top. How anti-climactic.

In other systems like yours, the usual method is to have some sort of a pacing mechanic that allows for the battle to swing back and forth, say, positionally. Something to keep the tension rising, and something to assure that at some point somebody will get the advantage and win. This keeps combat interesting, and relatively short. Nothing worse than that combat that goes on and on with nothing happening, til nobody cares anymore, and they just want it to end. I'd think about fixing this.

Also, I assume that what you add is your "Practical Attribute" to the rolls. This is unclear in the Core rules section. In fact, given that Practical Attributes seem to usually be fractional, I'm not sure how many dice to roll, as I'm not sure how to round them.

Chargen
Once again, the "archtypes" you suggest pegs you as trying to improve on some certain game (hmm, wonder what that could be).

Wouldn't it be easier to just assign 20 points to the stats, and then calculate Practical Attribute = ATT * STAT / 5 ? I personally think that'd be much less confusing.

Anyhow, from the statment here about how outside fo the section the term Attribute means Practical Attribute, we finally see how it's supposed to work. Let's see, I'll have at most four in my best Stat. So if I stack up some Attribute with five fifths, that will give me a practical attribute of Four. Given that you round down, this means that you're left with all sorts of breakpoints. That is, given a player's selection, he'll be taking his abilities in such a way as to constantly be trying to make them count to the next level of practical attribute.

(snip)

Actually, maybe it would happen in the game that you'd gain five or ten in a stat. I can't find any rules for stats increasing. There's a chapter on "Training" but it's not about development, but how to use the combat system. So I can't really say. Still, it sounds unlikely. Going with the extreme option gets you a total of 17 PA.

Let's look at the mixed option (1/2/3). I have a Stat of three, I'll take a one fifth (1PA, because it's the minimum), four Fifths (2PA), or a five fifths (3PA). The two and three are useless to take in the short run again. I think we'll not see them. The two attributes will be set at either five fiths or again it doesn't matter much. Basically, you get the same maxing effects as the lopsided option, but without the last point to support it. Going with the maxed out option here get's you only 14 PA.

Seems a slamdunk for he extreme character. Even the text suggests maxing out some important attributes.

To make things worse, the skill section says that you can only use as many levels of skills into a resolution as you have levels of attributes. Thus attributes have a doubling effect in their capacity. So I have even more incentive to stack. If I take the 1/1/4 character, I have the ability to generate dice pools of 8 dice in two different attributes. If I take the 1/2/3 character, I can have two attributes that can generate six die pools. And if I go with the 2/2/2 character I'll have two attributes that will have 4 dice pools (and the rest will be 2 dice). Note none of this calculates in component skills, but these just stack on top of these numbers, AFAICT.

Is there really an option here?

What sort of skill can you have that only works on yourself? Is this only for magic?

This paragraph is highly problematic:

If, while out adventuring, you discover that you don’t have something that would come in really handy, it’s normally permissible to ditch some cash-to-hand and find that you bought it anyway. Depending on whom you’re playing with, you can extend or limit this rule; some groups might want to purchase everything beforehand, and disallow further purchases as unrealistic, while others might allow a character to find a dagger hidden under the mattress in a dungeon cell after being stripped of all their equipment! However, in the standard interpretation, you can’t buy weapons, armour or special tools; you can, however, buy things like rope, torches or bandages. And you had to have the money available to you the last time you were in a shop.

You need to indicate that this needs to be established prior to play.

Later you indicate that a player may own things like a car, and that this doesn't come out of his starting equipment. But under equipment, buying animals costs money. So, I won't even go into the whole question of the pet dog, but I assume that this means that you have to buy a horse if you're a knight? But you don't have to buy a car if you're a private detective? The equipment lists and this rule seem wildly interperable, and subject to abuse. Your idea about belongings like a house not being translatable to game power are interesting. I'm just not sure why you draw the line at houses and cars....

Skills
Too much to go into in detail here. I like the idea of your "friendship" skill. I find the Aversion enfocement of it to be a bit much, though. Friends don't ever fight? Or if they do they do it badly? Hell, I'd give bonuses for friends to do bad things to friends, personally.

Race Focus: Undead? An ability to become better able to deal with a race? Oh, wait, I see, it's a bonus to kill them. I have a strong personal distaste for this rule. If I wasn't absolutely sure at this point that the game was all about killing things, I am now.

The Penalty Skill rule should be in chargen. That said, this is highly abusable.

I do like that you're clear in that skills can be used to substitute for player ability in areas like social ability and problem solving. But it's the clarity I like, not the specific choice. You should be aware that a lot of people think that rules like this detract from RPGs because they interfere with the player's need to role-play first person such situations. I think it's a valid choice, but not one that's very popular.

Combat
You need a good character sheet for recording damage given the injury rules.

People who are unconscious are ugly? That is, they have a penalty to their appearance rating that makes them unable to succeed at an appearance roll? Hmm.

Your Mental and Spiritual Damages are quirky, but probably work. I kinda like the idea, but some of the execution is really ideosyncratic.

If I'm uphill from an opponent, and I take 5 INC to hit, thus making the TN 6, do I automatically get success on all dice? I didn't note any other bonuses, but I don't suppose that they're precluded. So this is an issue.

It took me reading the Weapon skill rules to find out how to actually do damage. I sorta like that conceptually, but with a section on damage, etc, it seems very confusing.

I have some general ideas about how the whole combat system seems to work, but since I don't understand the order of declaration and resolutions, etc, I can't really validly comment.

I can say that "weapons are heavy" is neither true in real life, or in movies.

Summary
I started out thinking that this wasn't a Hearbreaker. Now I have to agree with the others that you need to refer to those essays.

You have some really interesting ideas, but they're getting bogged down in some really odd assumptions. With work you might have something here. But you really ought to consider the goals of the project before trying to make and fixes.

Mike

I shall make PDFs soon and turn 'twilight.html' into a navigation hub between individual chapters. That should make things easier to read.

The 'group' refers to the decision-making arbitrator, whether an individual or group; by using 'group' I'm trying to take emphasis off one person who dictates all terms of the game world and put a little more onus for thought about the rules and situations of the setting on the players as well. I've got that noted down for revision.

You always have 5INC available to you. This neither increases nor decreases. When you commit to actions, some of these INC are tied up, and when the actions finish they're released.

Actions take INC to perform. It doesn't matter how many, so long as you don't have actions taking up more than 5INC at once. When you declare an action, simply remember when you declared it and how long it was.

An action 'happens' a number of increments into the future equal to the INC spent on them. When this happens, roll the dice and calculate your results. (The die mechanic is explained later.)

You can 'respond' to any action taken by spending available INC at that time. A response always happens before the action it is responding to.

Initiative (sorely lacking from the current version): At the start of a period of time where increments are important, like combat, the character with the highest Agility may choose to pass or act.

If they pass, the next most agile character may choose similarly, until if all but one characters have passed that character must commit to some action. At all times, the character with the highest Agility gets first choice as to whether to respond or pass (even to a pass). Most often, the fastest such character will actually end up going last so they can respond to any situation that arises, but this will not always be the case.

{Snip example}
There. Is that any clearer? Would it help if I made diagrams (in some shape or form)? The use of a whiteboard at the gaming table might become important...

This somewhat assumes that adventurers don't wander dangerous situations with weapons unsheathed. It will come up from time to time, but hopefully not all that often.

That said, I see where you're coming from. I'd like to think that weapon weight, lethality and special abilities are all more important than how quickly you can draw your sword; however, in some cases it may become important. The granularity of the system becomes important, especially at low levels.

I thought about this. Does the mental damage ability provided by Command (Influence) resolve some of this disability?

I like to think they're obvious archetypes. There are probably finer, more specialised archetypes, however, ones that ignite the imagination like Bladedancer, Lumbering Hulk What Has An Axe, or Archer just under the 'fighter' heading, and Twilight can easily mix and match so you get other archetypes like Shadow Thief (who isn't a pure mage, but uses magic abilities to walk through walls and avoid guards). I'm making a note to provide fully detailed archetypes in the front of that section now. This should also address the later concern that 'suggested equipment' reinforces certain boring archetypes.

Wouldn't it be easier to just assign 20 points to the stats, and then calculate Practical Attribute = ATT * STAT / 5 ? I personally think that'd be much less confusing.

It does have the problem that you don't always get a neat N/5 fraction all the time. However... see my next comment.

A very valid point. There is actually a small section entitled Experience at the end of chargen that describes how to advance characters. However... the weakness of beginning characters is fairly evident.

One possible fix involves greatly advancing the starting character. What say a beginning character's stats are defined with 30 points, in 5-point increments? So the minimum you can have in a stat is 5, then 10, etc. This means that you can quickly figure attribute values and they're guaranteed not to have wasted points. Is this worthwhile as a starting default?

If you took Heal (Self-only), however, you'd still be capable of using healing on people (it can be used untrained), you'd only get the skill bonus if you were using it on yourself.

It's something I should put more detail into, yes. And I should definitely emphasise the fact that if only one person in the group owns any house at all that's probably unbalanced. Yes, you should buy a horse if you're a knight. No, you probably shouldn't if your group is all knights or a band of adventurers who happen to get from town to dungeon by means of horse. Yes, it's wildly interprable. I should offer a few 'economic archetypes' to demonstrate.

That's not entirely true. To be perfectly honest, it's fairly closely based on the D&D3e ranger ability, but there are a lot more skills that just killing things in Twilight. It will make you better at killing things, but at the same time it will make you better at learning what makes them tick (Command), what they find attractive (Distract), what they're better at sensing (Stealth)... you don't have to use it in combat at all. "It's all right, people, I know guardian carnophages. I'll just throw a rock into the bushes and sneak past while they're distracted; their sense of sight is attrocious." I will, however, make a note to change Race Focus to Creature Knowledge and include rules on determining characteristics of members of that group from the skill.

Noted. Note to self: Add that big note explaining how skills are optional within a group and things either unneccessary or out-of-mode (like roleplaying) can be done away with. Mostly, they're just there for the people who don't really role-play too well and need a little nudge.

Yeah, weapons are actually as light as they can be. However, there is a handling difference between even a light rapier and a kitchen knife - a battleaxe is going to have a marked difference to both. They won't break your arms, but weapons will slow you down ever so slightly during combat. The 'weapon weight penalty' is my answer to claymores versus dirks - a claymore will cut you in half, but a dirk will hit you first.

Hopefully I've also given some little insight into the design processes and goals I had for Twilight. Also I hope I didn't give anyone brain siezures having to read all this text. It's taken me a couple of hours to go through and accurately respond to just this one post. A very useful couple of hours I hasten to add, although I gotta go sleep now... more later.

Well, I meant to post a resonse earlier but had a horrible Net crash that ate my response. (That was after I managed to connect at all. Not the best day.)

Anyway. I'll try to cover some issues here. Let's see, first is probably my familiarity with the diverse literature of role-playing.

Well, obviously I've played D&D. Mostly 3e, but before that Basic and a little 2e, so I can see the important changes between editions. I've owned Middle-Earth Roleplaying for years and years (although I've never really been able to play it, and I dislike the profusion of tables and have often wondered about the imbalance of the weapons, it did give me the idea for the open-ended rolling that eventually became exploding dice pools). I've taken part in a little Blue Planet at a con, which was interesting (I can't remember the mechanics very well).

I've done a lot of browsing around recently, too. I'll almost always download demo rules and the like when I see an RPG online, and although I'm a little behind in terms of actually reading them I am picking up some trends I find rather interesting... Things I've read and really remember include Ars Magica, Deadlands, Synthesis (just now), Vampire (quickstart rules, got them with a magazine years back, introduced me to the concept of dice pools), and Wushu (one of the free lite versions - I do like it very much even in the lite form, however). I've got a lot more to get through too.

Overall, I'd rate my pedigree in RPG lit as 'low-medium'.


As for the 'focus' of Twilight:

Twilight is really about tactics. It's more complicated than 'My stat is higher so I'll win'. Coming up with plans and being able to react properly is key to surviving in combat. I'll say it right now, the system was originally designed to do combat and do it well. However, the key mechanics behind it (skills and time management) are exactly the same ones used for everything else. In my short time here I've already realised that the mechanic could do a lot more.

I've read Standard Rant 3. It makes a good point. Twilight has a huge family of weapon skills and combat-related abilities. It's got a lot of physical abilities not directly related to combat, but related to physical actions often seen in adventure-type stories. Even the magic system largely assumes combat use, as the default duration is 'instant' and spells are cast at the same speed with which one swings a sword.

However, it doesn't have to be all about combat. I'm already considering creating new skills to draw attention away from combat, and for some time have been considering stripping the weapon skills down to a handful of basics (it would make more sense; I just have to figure out the specifics).

My big, important question: Is it 'too much' to include roles for, say, corporate intrigue in the same release as the combat system?

I was already considering beginning work on a follow-up release to Twilight with a very concrete setting - my 51st-century SciFi universe. Things like player resources in the fields of social liberty, available budget, and corporate intrigue would be the focus of the release. The trouble is, part of the theme of the setting is endless brutal war and I didn't want that tone to permeate Twilight's original ruleset. (And if I did gloss over the brutal war and set all the examples and flavour text in ivory towers, that would make the setting much more satirical than it's supposed to be.)

But the more I think about it, the more it seems to be a poor idea to release non-combat stuff after the core release. It's just poorly compatible. Therefore, I should really go away and write these things I refer to as 'have' rules before declaring the current 'do' rules finished, as I'm sure fresh 'do' rules will come up during the process. The second release would then include truly peripheral things, like vehicle rules, as well as a whole scat-load of setting detail (probably most of the book).

Of course, I won't actually go away and do that, I'll just write a big response to Mike's most recent post because I can think of so many statement-specific responses I want to bounce that it wouldn't fit in this post very well. And after that I'll probably spend time doing art (it is my day job, although current pay ain't too grand).

I'll round this post out by saying: Twilight currently does one thing well: combat. (And possibly magic, but that's not on the agenda yet.) It doesn't have mechanics that support personality development like Synthesis, or character goals like Riddle Of Steel. I can, however fix that. The tools are already in place with things like Allegiance and Friendship skills. More 'motivational' bonuses can only be a good thing for character-building, right?

Mike Holmes wrote: Truthfully, I like to read online, so I like HTML over PDF usually. But anything to make navigation easier. How about both?

The 'group' refers to the decision-making arbitrator, whether an individual or group; by using 'group' I'm trying to take emphasis off one person who dictates all terms of the game world and put a little more onus for thought about the rules and situations of the setting on the players as well. I've got that noted down for revision.

Uh, I'm probably just daft, but that seemed very general, still. Yes or no, is there a single player with powers like a GM? Or is it optional?

I'd really suggest some sort of recordkeeping, and protocol to keep this all (time management) straight. "Just remember" isn't gong to work for a GM with more than one NPC going.

OK, one thing you ought to do is to have separate terms for time and actions. Something like Effort, and Increments. The first being the amount of INC being put into an action, and the second being the when. So you'd say something like, "If a player puts three Effort into an action then it will occur three Increments later." That's just clearer.

Initiative (sorely lacking from the current version): At the start of a period of time where increments are important, like combat, the character with the highest Agility may choose to pass or act.

And in each INC where a player can declare actions, right?

When doing a rule like this, it's so rare for the player with Initiatve to not go last, that it's worth making that the default so that you can skip asking. Make the rule "Highest goes last unless he interrupts to say that he want's to declare first."

But what about ties? Roll off each INC there's two tieing participants. Do you want to put in a tiebreaking stat, first? Or maybe roll once for the whole combat? Lot's of options, but you have to select one.

BTW, this seems to make a high agility crucial. Perhaps more important than anything else.

{Snip example}
There. Is that any clearer? Would it help if I made diagrams (in some shape or form)? The use of a whiteboard at the gaming table might become important...

Clearer? Yes, much. Clear? Well. From throwing a little math at this, I see problems. First, some asumptions. It seems to me that damage is multiplied by weapon mod and then divided by armor? Do I have that right? What this means is that, breakpoints aside, two successed scored at once do the same as two one-success attacks (I make all this distiction because in a subtractive armor situation, this isn't true). Can I make as many attacks as I want to make simultaneously? If so, then the best option is to make five INC 1 attacks every INC. You get the same damage as doing one Five INC attack, but you get to do it every single INC.

Another reason that you want to declare your attack last is that then it occurs first if it occurs in the same INC. That is, if I declare a INC 1 attack, and then you declare an INC 1 attack, in INC 1, you'll get to go first given the LIFO rule. What I envision is that the GM should have a page numbered for INC, and list declared actions. It'd look like this:

INC 1
Set Attacks 1
Isis Dodges 1

INC 2


INC 3
Isis Attacks 3


Etc.

So, each INC should go like this.
1. Determine Initiative (assuming that this has to be done per round; might be something you can do once per combat).
2. In order from lowest to highest each player declares actions. Player may commit as many uncommitted INC as he has remaining.
2.a. After each player declares an action, each player may declare a reaction, starting with the lowest player and going up in Initiative order.
3. Record each action on the chart with INC 1 actions being recorded for the current INC, and those with higher amounts for the appropriate later INC.
4. Resolve those actions for the INC starting with the last listed for the INC, and then moving up the list. Defenses must indicate what attack they are affecting, and mark the results next to that attack.
4.a. After resolving an action, the INC committed to the action return to uncommitted.
5. When all actions are resolved, the INC is over and the next begins with 1 above.

That's probably not perfect, but it gives you an idea of how you have to organize the rules.

This somewhat assumes that adventurers don't wander dangerous situations with weapons unsheathed. It will come up from time to time, but hopefully not all that often.

If that's true, then why include the rule at all? :-)

That said, I see where you're coming from. I'd like to think that weapon weight, lethality and special abilities are all more important than how quickly you can draw your sword; however, in some cases it may become important. The granularity of the system becomes important, especially at low levels.

Those other things will be optimized first, yes. So this will end up being one of those tiebreaker stats. The point is that there ought to be a way to not have any breakpoint at all. One simple way is to make readying the same for all weapons. As you say, it's not all that important. For a really cinematic game assume everyone can quickdraw so fast that they might as well just have their weapons out all the time (IOW, no draw time).

Not a huge detail.

I like to think they're obvious archetypes. There are probably finer, more specialised archetypes, however, ones that ignite the imagination like Bladedancer, Lumbering Hulk What Has An Axe, or Archer just under the 'fighter' heading, and Twilight can easily mix and match so you get other archetypes like Shadow Thief (who isn't a pure mage, but uses magic abilities to walk through walls and avoid guards). I'm making a note to provide fully detailed archetypes in the front of that section now. This should also address the later concern that 'suggested equipment' reinforces certain boring archetypes.

You miss the point made more eloquently by others before me. How does a player even know that a fighter is a viable choice for a game? I mean, if I'm making the setting be one that's about dealing with entrepeneurs in the world of venture capital, how do the players know what to take then?

Even amongst action heroes, your archetypes are stilted. I mean, you've got your martial artist guy, your black ops type, the tough cop, etc. Even amongs sci-fi there's types you don't support at all. What about the expert pilot? And what about the Spunky Kid for all these? How do I build him? I mean for a game that's supposed to be generic, you seem to cater only to one thing.

A very valid point. There is actually a small section entitled Experience at the end of chargen that describes how to advance characters. However... the weakness of beginning characters is fairly evident.

One possible fix involves greatly advancing the starting character. What say a beginning character's stats are defined with 30 points, in 5-point increments? So the minimum you can have in a stat is 5, then 10, etc. This means that you can quickly figure attribute values and they're guaranteed not to have wasted points. Is this worthwhile as a starting default?

Well, what's your tolerance for dice? I like em, so I'd go for it.

BTW, it's hard to tell from what you have that this makes for weak characters. I mean there's nothing to compare to. I assume that you'll be put up against characters that are of similar capabilities.

That's not quite right. Basically, we around here tend to think that the idea of character "advancement" in terms of power is not a great idea. For too many reasons to go into here. Suffice it to say that most of us would agree that one ought to start out characters as powerful as they need to be to be fun to play. That often means starting them off as heroes. Or at least competent.

That said, since you have nothing to compare to, whatever level you set for starting characters is whatever level of compentence you call it. Is 30 fifths compenent? Cool.

If you took Heal (Self-only), however, you'd still be capable of using healing on people (it can be used untrained), you'd only get the skill bonus if you were using it on yourself.

Um, OK, but whatthehell does that represent? How can a person learn to heal themselves better than they can heal another? How can I know how to bandage myself, and not how to bandage other people? What skill can one learn that one can do to oneself, and to others that one can learn at different rates? Seems like an unneccessary complication.

It's something I should put more detail into, yes. And I should definitely emphasise the fact that if only one person in the group owns any house at all that's probably unbalanced. Yes, you should buy a horse if you're a knight. No, you probably shouldn't if your group is all knights or a band of adventurers who happen to get from town to dungeon by means of horse. Yes, it's wildly interprable. I should offer a few 'economic archetypes' to demonstrate.

"Wildly Interperable" doesn't cover it. I have no idea from that last paragraph where you're going.

Have you considered making wealth a skill that you roll against? Or just not handling it at all? That is, allowing players to buy whatever seems reasonable and leaving it at that? There are lots of ways to skin this cat.

That's not entirely true. To be perfectly honest, it's fairly closely based on the D&D3e ranger ability, but there are a lot more skills that just killing things in Twilight. It will make you better at killing things, but at the same time it will make you better at learning what makes them tick (Command), what they find attractive (Distract), what they're better at sensing (Stealth)... you don't have to use it in combat at all. "It's all right, people, I know guardian carnophages. I'll just throw a rock into the bushes and sneak past while they're distracted; their sense of sight is attrocious." I will, however, make a note to change Race Focus to Creature Knowledge and include rules on determining characteristics of members of that group from the skill.

Then you'd better include in the list those races that aren't just the "monster" races. In fact, why have a separate list at all? Just say that any race that the player knows about can be taken.

Yeah, weapons are actually as light as they can be. However, there is a handling difference between even a light rapier and a kitchen knife - a battleaxe is going to have a marked difference to both. They won't break your arms, but weapons will slow you down ever so slightly during combat. The 'weapon weight penalty' is my answer to claymores versus dirks - a claymore will cut you in half, but a dirk will hit you first.

Um, nope. This is an artifact of RPG thinking. There is no "balance" between well desinged large and small weapons. The larger is simply superior. That is, there's an optimum size for a weapon, and it's about sword sized. Daggers are just inferior swords that people carry because it's often not polite to carry a people killing weapon like a sword (often not allowed at all).