I'd love some feedback on Bullpen, a comic-book RPG I've been working on. The premise of the game is a little experimental: Instead of playing a superhero in a comic book world, you're a creator in charge of a character in a team-based superhero comic book. You, the other players, and your Editor (the GM-type) create stories in comic book form (issues, story arcs, etc.). Each player has control over the story through an Appeal score, which represents how much that player's hero is liked by his audience. Play to your fans and your character will get away with more plot inconsistancies than he would otherwise. You can even try publicity stunts, like new costumes, new powers, new supporting cast members, and even a new artist to try and impress your readers. Meanwhile, your hero and his teammates live their lives in the comic-book world, fighting crime and developing their own places in the world.

I was inspired by Elfs to take a look at the separation between characters and players, but I also wanted to see if I could tie in a third party (the series' readers) as an influence on the action in the story. The game features a for-narration resolution system and a system for not only advancing your characters, but developing them as well.

This is still an early draft, but I think it's complete enough to show. I'd love your feedback on this; this is the most experimental concept I've put on paper, and if it works, awesome, but if it doesn't, I'd love to hammer it until it does.

You can get the PDF at http://www.zobiegames.com/bullpen.pdf. If anyone has trouble getting it, let me know and I'll email it or something.

Thanks for your time. I'm interested to see what you guys think.

Shot-from-the-hip comment, about the series reader, make this a part of the mechanics. At least in early editions of Soap, the characters each had a secret. If this secret was ever revealed, then the character can die. The logistics being that the secret is what kept the audience interested in the character. Once the audience lost interest, you're on borrowed time.

"Audience" in this case is a fictitious audience watching the soap opera on television. This is a pure construct as a means to provide logistic for the rule and the rule effects play. You could do something similar with your game. Perhaps some kind of "sales" logistics?

Maybe it's too early in the morning, but I'm not sure I understand. The readers already are a part of the mechanics, in that your Appeal rating represents how much they like you and your character and how lenient they are when you want the plot to lurch conveniently in your favor. When you want to try to increase Appeal, you have to do a Publicity Stunt to try to win the audience's favor and get their attention--the more creative and fitting the stunt, the more likely it is to succeed in getting you more fans. On the topic of fans, your character's Fans add to your chances of successfully using Appeal to alter the plot. So when your character works in a way that appeals to his or her Fans, you'll find it easier to shape the story of the title.

Was the audience's role not clear in the PDF as posted? I'll take another look at SOAP.

Fantastic game, Jay. Captures the essence of comic books very well. I think this and Capes & Cowls are my two favorite super RPGs now. I'll try to post a few first impressions.
- The best thing this game has going for it is the superhero-game/writer-metagame thing. I really like this, it makes it different from all the other supers RPGs I have seen.
- I am not sure that I like the task resolution system. I don't know exactly why, it just seems a bit unwieldy. I don't have any suggestions on how to fix this, other than maybe simplifying it a bit. Doing so would probably not be easy without breaking something else, though.
- Since the players are writing the same comic book title, why shouldn't they be able to affect the other players' heroes with narration? It should be much harder though, maybe voted on.

As a matter of fact, Jay, I am going to borrow some of your ideas and some from C&C and redo the supers RPG I just finished 2 weeks ago to make it better. My hat is off to you, sir.

Jay, i'm glad you finally got a Bullpen PDF up. I've always thought the idea to be incredibly ambitious. I'll read it and get back to you. Also, i'll try to get back over to the Zobiegames forums. I always enjoyed our discussions...

EDIT: I haven't read it yet so i'm not sure how you address it, but Audience is going to be the hardest thing to execute. The ability to lose your appeal, basic concept appeal, and cultural shift will probably be very difficult to model in-game, but they are the most interesting things (for me anyway) about Audience.

Thomas

Jay Turner wrote: Maybe it's too early in the morning, but I'm not sure I understand. The readers already are a part of the mechanics,...

Phillip,

Thanks! I've never had a game of mine called someone's favorite of any kind. Then again, I just started doing this. ;)

The resolution system came from an attempt at working initiative, success, and result into one roll. Originally, you'd roll, then the highest number die would go first and resolve itself based on the number on the die. The problem I found with that was that it meant that whoever went first did best, and that people with lower initiatives would necessarily fail. I didn't like that at all.

I was working on another game idea at the time, one modelling first-person shooters, and in that game I had people roll four dice, keep the results as initiative, and then spend a die when that die's number is called. When it's your turn, you roll the die you're spending, and you resolve the action that way. I liked the reinforcement of having a die for a counter to represent your initiative--in many ways, it works like a multi-turn initiative chart, like you'd see in Everlasting and other games, but you have an organic representation of it there in front of you with a number on it. The idea of using dice not only as resolution mechanics, but also as game pieces, appeals to me.

So in the system as it is, you roll to find out when you get to go (adding any super-speed or fast-reaction powers to your results), then roll each die to figure out if you succeed when that die's number is called. It handles initiative, multiple attacks, full defense (save your rolls and spend them to interrupt actions), etc., while also giving you a concrete way to see when you act next.

Does that explain it any better? Does it change your opinion on the system in any way? If not, that's cool. I'd love to hear what you think could be different.

As for players affecting other players, I think that could be a group contract thing. The thing about narration is that you are free to narrate that you nailed a guy in the face, sending him crashing through the wall, but you're not allowed to narrate how slowly he gets up or what he says or does in response. The narration "rules" suggest that everyone must go along with the scene as narrated by those who went before.

an example:

The heroes need to get up to the roof of the warehouse, in which they suspect the evil Sludgemagnet has set up shop. Unfortunately none of the heroes can fly, or even climb all that well.

Lunk, a super-strong, super-dumb pile of sentient rubble, decides that he needs to toss one of his friends up onto the roof. He decides to grab Firebug (the nearest hero) and toss him up there.

Lunk's and Firebug's players both roll, because Firebug doesn't like the idea of being tossed anywhere--his Fans respect his independence, and it wouldn't do him any good to look like a tool. Lunk's player rolls (8 3), and Firebug's player rolls (5 1)--a pitiful roll, but modified a bit by Firebug's Flicker 2 power. It's still not fast enough, and Lunk wins. His Super-Strength 5 Power is easily enough to get Firebug up onto the roof. Lunk's player gets to narrate the scene.

Good:
"Lunk grabs Firebug before he can react and gives a might heave, sending Firebug flying up onto the roof. Firebug arcs high over the edge of the roof before landing somewhere atop the building."

Bad:
"Firebug struggles and whines as Lunk grabs him and heaves him up onto the roof. When he lands, Firebug stands slowly, grumbles, and then shows Lunk a particular finger as he brushes himself off."

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:

Jay Turner wrote: Maybe it's too early in the morning, but I'm not sure I understand. The readers already are a part of the mechanics,...

My bad, then. It was late when I posted & I didn't take the time to read the PDF. It was a from the hip comment on the comment about addressing the comic readers. I may have been a little confused, so please take it as such.

Upon reflection, you might have an interesting concept game here. It can be a statement about comic books and marketing and such. Things like how two heroes always fight when they first meet or a character that is not very popular may go through radical change to try to boost sales (compare Dr Fate to Fate)

Kind of reminds me of when someone revamped the Hulk several years ago and to cash in he was crossovered all over the place and the writer on the Hulk got peeved and went, fine, I'll make my Hulk grey. Sort of the push/pull of artistic control and the sales-pushing stunt thing.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: Kind of reminds me of when someone revamped the Hulk several years ago and to cash in he was crossovered all over the place and the writer on the Hulk got peeved and went, fine, I'll make my Hulk grey. Sort of the push/pull of artistic control and the sales-pushing stunt thing.

The PDF has been updated with a change to the Publicity Stunt system, as suggested elsewhere.

Anyone have any gut feelings about the system or the overall concept? I'm trying to line up some playtesting, but in the meantime, I'd love feedback on the rules as they stand. I'd really love thoughts on the character/player/audience dynamic, too, if anyone has any opinions.

Thanks!

It seems to be a solid game AFAICT but as a statement about comic books and thus making it unique when compared to other super heroes RPGs I would like to encourage you to take it a couple steps further. Exactly what those steps are will be up to you, but here are some similar off-the-cuff suggestions.

I would dispense the idea of one character, one player. Tunnels & Trolls had the idea of a 'stable" of characters for the player. This seems to fit here, I think. The idea is to try to gain as much appeal from the audience.

You also might want to add stats for the players as bullpen artists as well. This will help with the looser player/character set up. Some comic readers think Byrne walks on water. So does Byrne. Adding this will make it more like a storytelling waqrgame, deploying your characters to the best ends to gain popularity for the player himself.

I think a harder line needs to be drawn between the in-game comic book world and the players as comic book artist. With Weaknesses and Haters, I thought Haters were like J Jonah Jameson for Spidey or everybody for the X-Men.

Following the above ideas I can see players making characters and then using them in games to try to raise their own appeal so they can make more characters and thus gain more appeal. So the player appeal would be a resource that can be spent to make characters or to do stuff with the characters. I also wouldn't limit the players to just heroes. Villians and fifth business players are also good fodder. The guy who created Rick Jones probably gained all kinds of points, as it were. Heroes become villians become heroes and back again all the time.

I also see characters trading hands among the players like card in a game of go fish. a player can buy or rent a character from another player if they think they'll get some appeal out of it. A player can retire a character that has lost too much appeal and it will go into the backlog file and can be pulled out at a later date and revitalized.

All of this may be a direction you don't want for the Bullpen, but it may proove to be an idea.

It's pretty solid, systematically speaking, but I agree that it's got a few more steps to go before really becoming a statement on the comic industry.

Another suggestion may be to incorporate the popularity of a particular artist's style. Perhaps you could supply a couple "schools" of artist like realists, expressionists, juvenile (big boobs, big explosions), and so on. You could give each of the types different packages of traits representing their niche appeal among the audience.

For example, the juvenile artist draws big muscles, big boobs, big explosions and cool robots. The kids love it. However, that appeal rarely lasts much past the age of 15, after which point the core audience becomes pimply-faced, dateless dorks. Mechanically, this could be expressed by chances for extreme failure and extreme success, but nothing in between. This represents the fickle nature of their target audience, kids.

At the other extreme, you could have expressionists like Neil Gaiman (though he doesn't actually draw his comics) and Sam Kieth, both spend more time exploring their characters' personality and relationships than fighting alien invasions. The kids aren't really that into it, but the young adults and older audience really dig that stuff and are a much more stable, reliable.

Some ideas for schools off the top of my head, ignore the goofy names:

Juvenile - Big boobs, musclebound killer characters with cool weapons and dark, mysterious pasts. (Wolverine, Punisher, Lobo, Lady Death, Spawn.)

Realist - Completely photorealistic art style like Alex Ross. (Um... Alex Ross stuff.)

Expressionist - Crazy storylines with troubled characters who go about their lives, however mystical and magical, trying to deal with their personal issues. (The Maxx, most of the Vertigo titles.)

Indie - Completely off-the-wall stories and art that could never make it in mainstream unless deemed "underground," thus making it "cool." Lots of opportunity for moving on up to the land of merchandising for the ambitious indie. (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee!, Lenore, Grrl Scouts, Sam & Max)

There should be a school for the absolutely serious "art" comic like Maus (the story of the artist's grandfather's experiences during the holocaust in which the jews are represented as mice, the nazis as cats).

I don't think that's a direction I would go, Daniel The schools of art seem a little tweeky. I like big boobs, big explosions and cool robots and I am unpimpled and married. Since the game is supposed to focus on super heroes, the indy category seems out of place. As do the others, but indy is like having rules for crime dramas like law & order when making a pro wrestling game.

Personally, I think that the popularity of a particular artist is a better idea that any style school or grouping, but that's just me.

Yeah, you're right. Upon re-evaluation, the "schools" concept makes rather unpleasant generalizations about comic readers and the artists themselves. I apologize if I offended anyone.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. :)

Jack, I think a lot of your concerns are already in the game, but they might not be set out like they should. I'm notoriouosly bad about considering my own knowledge to be part of the book, and so I forget to put in certain things that I know in my head are part of the game.

For other characters, the players always have the right to create new supporting characters and to claim NPCs as supporting characters. All it really takes is an Appeal roll to do that. Players can create extras, heroes from other books who make cameos, sidekicks, and even villains as the game progresses. It's up to the Editor to see that these created NPCs get proper time in the storyline. Still, the players only get direct control over their primary heroes, but through Appeal rolls they can influence the other characters in the world a bit.

So, you think that waitress in the coffee shop would make a cool extra? Roll Appeal; a success means you can write up a little background for her, or possibly even take her under your character's wing and train her over time. Think the team needs some help in the upcoming battle? Fine; try to see if a hero from another book will come in. Roll Appeal; a success lets you create an NPC hero that will work alongside your team for a specified amount of time.

I don't want to deprotagonize the main heroes. Superhero teams have some serious turnover, so if someone wants to make a new primary hero and swap the old one out (or make his current one an extra), that's fine, but something like that will promt the Editor to call for a Publicity Stunt check and could therefore affect your Appeal.

I could probably do with more examples of what you can do with Appeal and Publicity Stunts.

Along those lines, I think that the artist part of the equation can be done with Appeal and Publicity, too. Maybe each team comes up with an art style and an artist's name to draw the series, since a book can only have one penciller, really, at a time. Then, as a Publicity Stunt, someone could call in a guest artist or hire a new one. The idea would be to find an artist whose style works alongside your own character's Fans--Jack Kirby's style wouldn't work for a hero with Fans that like something a little more Frank-Miller.

That opens up the possibility for team-wide stats. I'd have to give it more thought, but maybe giving the series itself an Appeal score could help with some of these things. It'd certainly give a method for doing series-wide Publicity Stunts (like new artists, etc.).

I'm also toying with the idea of giving the Editor the power to drop a player's Appeal score as a penalty for taking advantage of the narrative power they're given. Say a player keeps rolling Appeal and turning the villains into pushovers (well within his right), then the Editor might be justified in threatening a drop in Appeal, since the readers are losing interest in reading a story where the heroes never face a challenge.

For your suggestion about dividing the player/character line more, I think I could do that in layout. I could have a separate chapter for Caliber and one for Appeal, since those are really the representatives of the book/writer dichotomy. I can see where those might be confusing. In Bullpen, J. Jonah Jameson's hatred would most certainly be a Weakness, just as Commissioner Gordon's friendship would be a Power.

I really want the stories in Bullpen to mirror the convoluted, insane, and complex stories in comic book. Players should feel free to swap out their current character, have him return as a villain for an arc, then have him redeemed and take him back over again as a PC--perhaps with an evil clone of himself out there hunting him down for revenge.

I'm starting to warm quite a bit to the idea of giving the series an Appeal rating of its own. What do you guys think?

After reading the original PDF over the weekend, here's what i've got for you:

The Good:
Player voting, when i first talked with you about Bullpen (very briefly) i was trying to figure out how to model Appeal. I went through dozens of really bad dice and modifiers models. You just went and modeled Appeal by seeing how things actually appeal to the audience (in this case the players). The problem is simple, number of players can skew results badly. In a game with two Artists and an Editor then the maximum bonus is +3 on Publicity Stunts, in games with 5 Artists and an Editor you could get a +6. I don't know what the solution might be, but i think it needs some work.

The concept. I've thought this to be pretty good from the get-go. And i think it's shaping up nicely.

The Bad:
The Caliber resolution stuff. It seems kind of generic. It's very simple and effective, but it doesn't seem to capture anything about comic books. That's not something that you nessecarily want, but i think that when you resolution system captures the spirit of the materiel it works out better.

Possible broken appeal booster. You may choose not to raise your Caliber on a rewrite, you get a number of goals equal to you rewritten Caliber, you may raise your Appeal on a rewrite. A Caliber 1 character finds it much easier to accomplish all their goals, raise Appeal, leave Caliber at 1, get 1 new goal and repeat. Perhaps you should keep a track of the total number of rewrites and require a goal for each one?

Traditional RPG. The materiel seems as if it could benefit from a departure from traditional RPGs. One of the reasons comic book plots are so convoluted is that they are so fluid. New heroes pop in and back out, villains show up and return if they are popular. I would think that some sort of system that encourages this freeform stuff while still giving players a sense of personal ownership would be good. I'm trying to figure out just what would be appropriate, i'll let you know if i have a semi-decent suggestion.

The Skinny:
Even though i have more bad than good listed, i think this is an excellent beginning to an excellent concept. I don't know how much of this matches your vision for the game. Perhaps i just want to play something different than you want to make. There's a lot of good that i didn't mention. I've got some ideas kicking around in my head now... If anything fruitful comes of them i'll let you know.

Thomas

Thanks, Thomas! Please do keep me posted if you have any ideas.

On Player Voting: I see what you're saying there. The case can be made that if the players are being honest about their feelings on the Publicity Stunt, then the ones that deserve to pass will, those that don't won't, and those that split the votes are more of a toss up. Maybe I should put more weight with the hero's fans, and perhaps fight it with the series' Appeal rating to represent how overall readers of the comic feel about that hero's Stunt.

I'm very open to suggestion on this. Appeal has been one of the hardest things to nail down; the stuff in the PDF is simply the latest version I've written out.

On the Caliber 1 Appeal Boost: I see what you're saying here, too, but I think there's some inherent balance in remaining Caliber 1. This means you'll never roll more than 1 die when your character does anything, you'll never have more than 3 Power points, etc. Sure, your character is popular enough that you as its creator get to chew the scenery, but hey, you deserved it if you made it through those Publicity Stunts to get the higher Appeal. If you think about comics, you can probably find examples of heroes whose personal abilities aren't so great, but whose appeal to the readers keeps him in the action--I want to say Plastic Man (from JLA)is the prime example. From a non-superhero (but still occasionally a comic) perspective, think of Xander from Buffy. He's no more powerful than the average human with some vampire experience, but he remained more or less unscathed throughout the series (until right at the end). Appeal carried him through, not Caliber.

On Caliber being generic: That might be one of its strengths. From a design standpoint, I wanted to avoid giving each character a Strength/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha breakdown, just because when it comes down to it, decisions in comics aren't made based on a character's detailed stats, but rather on what that character needs to do in the story. Still, Superman will usually beat The Flash, who would typically have little trouble with Steel, who could probably kick the booty of someone like Beast Boy. You don't need to know that Superman has Speed 5 while Flash has Speed 6; you know that Superman will win because he's more powerful overall (not to mention his obvious Appeal margin).

That's sorta what I'm going for: that ability to guage a hero's power level in one look, with a list of his distinguishing powers and strengths underneath.

On "traditional RPGs": I like the idea of each player running a particular character as their PC. There's a sense of ownership on playing a single character that's your character, and I tend to shy away from RPGs that either give a communal pool of characters or ask players to make character trees. As stated earlier in the thread, I'd have no problem allowing players to swap out characters (though I'd ask for an Appeal roll) or creating a small troupe of NPC extras that orbit their character in a story sense. Every hero needs those. As long as it doesn't fire the series directly off into left field, the Editor should allow it. That said, I'd like each player to invest themselves most in one particular character each, and will likely aim any rewrites more specifically in that direction.

Please let me know if anything else pops up. I may try to dilute my concept into something simple and direct and post it in this thread before I begin my next rewrite/organization draft.

I think you misunderstood one of my points. It's not Caliber i have a problem with, it has some advantages. Instead i have a problem with the resolution mechanic. That's what strikes me as generic, it doesn't really carry any flavor with it.

Thomas

LordSmerf wrote: I think you misunderstood one of my points. It's not Caliber i have a problem with, it has some advantages. Instead i have a problem with the resolution mechanic. That's what strikes me as generic, it doesn't really carry any flavor with it.

I don't know if i have a better idea, and if you like it by all means keep it. I would be interested in seeing how it runs with cards... I was thinking about card mechanics the other day in conjunction with Bullpen anyway.

On a different note. I was wondering what you thought of making Appeal point based instead of stat based. You can spend Appeal to change things, you gain appeal through publicity stunts or through making your character play to the audience. This would make appeal sort of a currency, you can only push your readers credulity so far without rewarding them... I don't know, seems interesting to me anyway.

Thomas

Originally, Appeal was both a point-based and a roll-based system, like White Wolf's Willpower stat. You had a rating that you'd roll to do things that tested your audience's reaction, and you also had points you could spend when the audience's reaction didn't matter as much to you--basically, you're saying "Screw the readers" and doing it anyway. You could spend Appeal points to automatically get the successes that you'd be trying for on an Appeal roll. I couldn't reconcile the way they acted together. I wanted a system where rolling Appeal risked losing Appeal, and you regained Appeal by doing cool stuff without spending Appeal to do it. The current system is an attempt to simplify things by making Appeal work more like Caliber.

I have been tossing around an idea to make the whole thing point-based, more of a resource-allocation system than a rolling system. The card-based idea is almost in the middle of the two ideas, because it had rules for you retaining high cards for future actions and setting aside one card to represent your default defense value for the page.

I'll try to find time to clean up the card-based document and post it.

Ideas on Appeal?

Jay,

I haven't had a chance to do a thorough reading of Bullpen yet, but I have given it a quick glance and it looks like an interesting take on the genre. If I have a chance to do a proper reading I will try to give you some more useful feedback. Having said that, I always enjoy seeing different approaches to the superhero genre and I think yours is one that is unquestionably different from any of the others that I have seen.

Phillip,

I think this and Capes & Cowls are my two favorite super RPGs now.

As a matter of fact, Jay, I am going to borrow some of your ideas and some from C&C and redo the supers RPG I just finished 2 weeks ago to make it better.

My suggestion reagarding Appeal, after some thought and a rereading of the Universalis rules is this. Appeal is points based, you may spend a point of Appeal to interrupt a point of narration, to establish a Fact, or to gain control of a conversation. Interruptions take effect after the current Fact (if one is being stated) is finished, if no fact is being established then the interruption is immediate (even in the middle of a sentence, kind of like a narration ending as the action picks up). Facts and Interruptions are not under the Editor's control. Conversation control is however, the Editor may veto a conversation takeover for the purposes of plot continuity/advancement.

In order to gain Appeal: Rework fans so that instead of broad groups (or possibly in conjunction with them) state specific actions that appeal to your audience. Whenever you perform one of these actions (throwing an enemy through a window, striking a dramatic pose and tossing off you trademark line, whatever) you gain a point of Appeal. You could even allow for more Appeal for an action if the audience especially appreciates it (the action is rated at 2 or 3 instead of at 1).

That's pretty rough, but i think a solid system resides there. I don't know if you want to take that direction with the game, but i think that it better models your Appeal level as something that can be spent and regained.

Thomas

Thomas, I'd like Appeal to both be something lost and regained and something checked in certain situations. Here are a couple of different situations using Appeal:

You're fighting Dr. Terror on the roof of his warehouse lab. Dr. Terror was in the middle of his horrendous life experiments when you got there, so there's a raging storm. Dr. Terror's minions have you down and are about to beat on you. Your Caliber checks are down by -5, which gives you a pretty good chance of being put out of the fight this round. You call for an Appeal check--maybe the readers are feeling forgiving this time. You roll Appeal, succeed, and describe lightning streaking through the sky from the storm and hitting Dr. Terror's iron skullcap. The Doctor is stunned, as are his minions, giving you a chance to escape from their grasp. Had you failed the Appeal roll, your dramatic plea for help would have gone unheeded, and you'd have to find a way out of the situation solely using the character's abilities.

You're fighting Dr. Terror in the same situation as above, but in this case, you don't have any Fans that are relevant, and you know Dr. Terror is a well-loved villain in the series. You think, Damn the torpedoes!, and you decide to make the plot choice whether the readers like it or not. You spend a point of Appeal, and Dr. Terror takes one in the head from the raging storm. Now your effective Appeal rating is down by one until you refresh it somehow.

I would say that if you want to roll and pay, make the points the same as the stat. Spending them would be pretty major.

Let me see if i can briefly sketch what i'm thinking in terms of Appeal.

1. At game start establish a target audience for the comic itself. Target audiences should have a few very specific desires. I'm thinking stuff like Maniacal Laughter, Extreme Violence, Rebellion Against Authority, Use of Firearms, etc. Start with just a few Expectations (as i will now call them). Any time a character good, bad, or ugly meets an Expectation they get a point of Appeal.

2. When creating your hero's Fans, again include detailed Expectations. Anyone can meet a Genre Expectation and gain Appeal, your character can also meet a Character Expectation and gain Appeal.

3. If a character wants to violate Expectations (either personal or genre) then it costs Appeal.

4. Allow "weight" for Expectations. Assuming that there is the expectation: Exploading Heads x2, causing a head to expload would net 2 points of Appeal. Violating this Expectation (i'm not sure how to determine whether an action violates or not yet) would lose you 2 points.

5. Consider capping Appeal at the total of all Expectations applicable to a character. (All Genre + All Personal Expectations).

I'm not too sure about my personal feelings on rolling and spending, i'd like to see your reasons ennumerated. If it's just personal preference, that's also great.

If you have any questions or comments about what i've got here please let me know.

Thomas

I think my reasons are in the post above. Spending points represents making decisions without keeping the audience in mind, while rolling Appeal represents taking the audience into account when making those decisions. It models the difference between relying on the readers' constant love of the book and taking risks, and making "artistic license" decisions that the readers might not agree with.

One way I had considered to do things was this: You roll Appeal by default, and if the roll failed, you'd have the option of spending Appeal points and getting your way anyway, at the expense of reader loyalty. You can earn those points back, of course, but you have to work to do it.

I'm trying to model the power readers have over the plot of a comic, but also the creator's ability to disregard those readers and the consequences of doing so. I think rolling represents the chaotic whims of the fans pretty well, while the option to spend points leaves some of the power in the hands of the creators/players.

That makes sense. I'm not sure if i like it or not, but i do understand your position. And of course i'm not sure that i don't like it either...

Thomas

I've posted the old card-based resolution mechanics, as-is, to my website. You can get it here.

I kinda like that mechanic, too. It doesn't cover Appeal at all, but it might make for a more interesting system for solving "everyday" checks.

Take a look, if you will, and let me know what you think? Do you prefer the card system over the dice?

Pretty good. Some suggestions:

- To represent the wildness of comics, use Queens or Jacks instead of Jokers for immediate plot twists (so there will be more of them).
- It is possible to make the suits important, not just the colors, like maybe a bonus or something if the suit relates to an action type (of course, you would need to define four action types or whatever).
- Maybe who goes first should be determined by a card, or by Caliber, or maybe you could make an Appeal to get the drop on the thugs in a desparate situation.
- Come up with a way that the editor can draw and use the same cards for a whole group of 'mooks'; Weaknesses can be assigned to the mooks as a whole if you wish. Marvel SAGA did something like this (a single card for all opposition), you could use the same set of cards, or two sets, one for mooks and one for the main bad guys, or whatever. This makes it easier on the Editor.
- You know, you could really steal a page from TORG and Marvel Saga and make your own custom set of superheroic Drama cards (I forgot what TORG calls them), or you could just write stuff on a standard deck, like specific bonuses to certain actions (immediate in-game Caliber stuff) as well as specific plot twists/Weaknesses/etc. and Appeal-related information. You know, like the SAGA cards- 'The Press Arrives', 'Property Damage', and so forth.
- Of course, if Caliber determines the number of cards you draw for in-game actions, then you can do the exact same thing for Appeal (with a parallel set of rules).

Good suggestions, Phillip. :)

I picked Jokers to represent immediate complications because of the connotation of Jokers. Obviously though, there aren't many of them in the deck. I'll give that some thought. I'd like Kings to continue to represent character changes, though, if I go with the card system.

I don't want the cards themselves to dictate too much of the outcome of things. Sure, they dictate who wins and who loses narration, but I don't want them to have too much power over the actual events in the narration itself. I've never been a big fan of assigning action types to the different suits for that reason, and I don't think I'd want to write specific outcomes on different cards for that same reason.

Your thoughts on representing mooks with a single draw of cards is an interesting one. In this case, the way I see it, it's worthwhile to have each Mook act separately, within reason. I mean, if you have more than say, four mooks operating at once, you might want to Jackie-Chan (that is, let the extras hangout on the sidelines until one is eliminated) the extras. Using a single group of cards confuses things for me when it comes to each Thug making his attack. There are probably situations when that's appropriate, though. I'll give that some thought.

Also, Appeal was going to work in a similar fashion to how Caliber works, just as it is in the latest PDF with the dice system. Any difference to how Appeal works mechanically would be in whether or not the Appeal score is "spendable."

Do you prefer the cards over the dice? Can you see any reason to pick one over the other?

I don't want the cards themselves to dictate too much of the outcome of things. Sure, they dictate who wins and who loses narration, but I don't want them to have too much power over the actual events in the narration itself. I've never been a big fan of assigning action types to the different suits for that reason, and I don't think I'd want to write specific outcomes on different cards for that same reason.

Hey Phillip,

Sorry if I came off wrong; I have considered ideas like those (well, actually, the plot ideas on the cards themselves is new to me), and I've argued against them in my head for a while. I may have misread your suggestions.

In this case, I want the cards to dictate the randomness in conflict resolution, and that's it, besides the random chances of exceptional things happening in the form of Kings and Jokers. I've helped people develop a few card-based systems in the past, and they all went with the "Hearts are for Social, Spades are for Physical" idea. I wanted to be a little more vague.

I'll give some thought to what to do in case of the Editor being left wanting for plot. Maybe a random "Bang" generator or something.

Still, undecided on the cards. Do you see merit in the cards over the dice? If so, what merit? I want to be happier with my resolution mechanic. :)

I would think most people would like the dice better, but it is a matter of taste (I kinda like the cards better). The best way to handle it would probably be to keep it as is, and put the card resolution in an optional rules section. I mean, just looking at the game, the metagame part of Appeal is really what makes the game shine, and it shouldn't be too hard to set up the rules to where you could substitute the conflict resolution while keeping the basics intact (like how Caliber/Powers work, the + to actions from Powers and such).

I suppose what I'm getting at as far as system goes is, does the system take away from the premise of the game? I think I'm starting to like the cards better, too, so maybe I'll streamline that for the next version of the PDF.

The next big place to point attention is still Appeal and the Appeal system. some questions for that:

1) Is it important for a simple system that the Appeal and Caliber systems operate in a similar manner? Does the ease of learning the game suffer if there are two different mechanics for those?

2) Does a point/card hybrid system work for Appeal? Is it too confusing?

3) Would spending Appeal points adequately model the reaction of the readers to a player making big dramatic changes to the book's universe/plot without taking the readers' feelings into account?

4) Would using cards/dice and rolling Appeal adequately model the process of considering the readers' opinions before making a big change to the plot?

5) If going with a point-based system, are Appeal points so valuable that you should only get a few (equal to Appeal rating) or a lot (say, ten Appeal points per Appeal rating point)?

That's what I need to figure out for Appeal. Any suggestions?

Jay Turner wrote: 1) Is it important for a simple system that the Appeal and Caliber systems operate in a similar manner? Does the ease of learning the game suffer if there are two different mechanics for those?

Hrm. Taking that into mind, it could be that the "holding cards" mechanic (you can hold a card you like and keep it available, rather than discarding it with the others at the end of a page, then redraw back up to your total including the card you held) might do for both spending and "rolling." If you hold successful cards, you'll be able to "spend" them for automatic successes, even on Appeal checks.

The question is, how many cards can you hold (currently one at a time) and how long you can hold it (currently to the end of the conflict being resolved). Perhaps making it so you can hold cards up to your total, and hold them until you care to use them (keeping in mind that doing so lowers the number of cards you may draw for a conflict/page) would be a good way to reconcile those system differences.

Which makes it a great argument for keeping and developing the card system.

Thanks, Mike. :)

I like cards. There are some changes i would make, but i'd rather see what you're doing with them first. I would make the following suggestions:

1. Use seperate mechanics (at least for now) for Caliber and Appeal resolution.

2. Allow a player to hold Caliber number of cards. Any time a check is called for you may play any number of cards from you hand and/or the top card of the deck (before you see what it is, which could result in something bad happening if you treat some cards as negative). You can allow the hand to refresh every page or something...

3. Use some sort of point system for Appeal where any change, whether the Fans approve or not costs Appeal, but if the result is something the Fans like then you gain Appeal back. I think this would show the way that a writer can take a gamble, hoping the fans will approve, and fail...

That's what i've got for now. If anything else comes up i'll let you know.

Thomas

Hey Thomas :)

!) Why use separate mechanics, for sure? Thoughts triggered by Mike's post make me think the whole game might work better if I consolidated the mechanics and worked out a way for them both to work together somewhat. I'll try and post what I have in mind soon.

2) I like cards, too. The big problem (not so much a problem, but something I tend to avoid personally) is that card systems can get a little "game-y"; that is, the resolution of the conflict becomes more of a game within a game. While I'd want to take advantage of some of the properties of cards (specifically holding successes for later in the scene), I don't want the focus to be too much on making sure you know the rules of the card game portion of the game. I think I'd like to avoid players having a "hand" of cards when there's nothing going on.

I'm not sure that's what you're saying. In fact, I think we're kinda talking about the same thing here, except your suggestion for drawing the top card. I'll give that some thought.

3) I think the perfect Appeal system would involve some sort of gamble like that. Doing that or not has a huge effect on the value of Appeal points--if Appeal points are too few, it makes them so valuable that players will hesistate to use them, but if they're too numerous, players will take the gamble too often. I liked the idea of giving players the choice. They can roll Appeal, and if they fail, they can choose to either let the failure stand or take the successes anyway at the cost of some Appeal points. In-game, it means that you've taken a survey, you know the audience is against what you're doing, but you do it anyway. Makes sense to me.

That's a bit like gambling, but it puts the choice in the hands of the players, which I like. After all, we're trusting them with the plot, anyway. :)

The reason i would suggest a split mechanic for Caliber and Appeal is this: First, i'm suggesting this as a temporary measure. The reason is that Appeal is such an interesting metagame mechanic that i would suggest that you develop it on its own for a while. Work with it until you know exactly how you want Appeal to function without worrying about it's relation to Caliber. Once you know how to do Appeal you could work Caliber into that. The big draw for me in this game is Appeal so that's what i would focus on.

Anyway, that's where i'm coming from...

Thomas

Okay, that makes sense.

Let's lay out some things that Appeal needs to do.

1) Represent how well received a character is by the audience.

2) Give the player a way to measure #1 and refer to it to decide how much narrative control he has over the story.

3) Give the player a mechanic for ignoring the will of the fans, at the detriment of the character's popularity.

4) Give a mechanic for ruling on publicity stunts and other huge shifts in the status quo of a hero/book/plot.

and perhaps:

5) Act as a method of giving "Hero Points" to players.

If anyone has any to add to this list, I'd be interested to hear them. Personally, I think the first 4 are the most important, and if done well, could eliminate the need for #5.

Any ideas?

Sounds like the basics... I would like to present the following ideas for inclusion somewhere in Appeal:

1. Make an Appeal score equal to the total number of Fans a character has. This means that the more fans you have the more control you have over Narration when you can satisfy those fans (and even when you can't).

2. Anytime you directly oppose a Fan's desire you lose a point with that fan (lowering your overall Appeal). A lowered Appeal means that you are less likely to make an Appeal check for Narration and means that you are more likely to lose more fans if you continue to impose your will on the story.

3. Tie Goals to Fans, anytime you achieve a Goal you gain some number of Fans of a type appropriate to your Goal.

4. Consider defining a set of Fans in the material. Use a pretty narrow definition so that it is clear what type of Fan appreciates what type of action.

Hmm... This seems to be rather Gamistically focused. I still like it, but you may not.

Thomas

I may have missed it, but has there been mention of the effect of the price of a comic book on its appeal? For example, a sudden price jump in the comic could risk losing fans, but the higher budget could also provide more opportunities for 48 page mega-issues, shiny hologram covers, and hiring hot shot artists and writers.

Thomas,

Good suggestions. Let's think about them.

Your #1 would likely make for larger Appeal scores that I'd hoped for. I would like checks to fit in what would be a comfortable hand of cards. I think I also like the idea of Appeal representing a more abstract measure of fans, as well as how well the character is received in general.

For #2, that solution would require a lot more maintenance of the Appeal score than I'd like, I think. It would seem that that sort of mechanic would work just as well by just dropping Appeal itself by a point, rather than dropping a Fan by a point and then dropping Appeal the same amount as a result.

#3. I'm mulling that one over. I think I'd like to separate the in-character Goals from out-of-character stunts for Appeal. not sure why, other than "I think so." Mostly, I think that heroes in comics are supposed to be accomplishing stuff, and that it's the big things, like changing a costume, meeting a new villain, taking in a youthful ward as a major character in the series, etc., that would affect the feelings of the fans. Of course, particularly cool lines/moves/etc. probably would, too.

#4. The more I think about it, the more I seem to be moving away from Fans as a stat altogether. Maybe you can define a group that likes your character in particular, and appealing to that group specifically adds a card to your Appeal hand. Something like that. Fans and Haters are proving to be more trouble than they're worth.

A little Gamistness is fine; in fact, I think it can lengthen the replay value of the system. I don't want to require a whole hell of a lot of maintenance for the stats, though. Gain a point here, lose a point there; but too much time spent adding and dropping points could turn one's attention further to the numbers on the sheet than I'd like.

Thanks for the ideas, though, Thomas. I'd love to hear more. :)

Gobi,

I'm considering putting in an overall Appeal score for the series itself. Things like the publicity stunts you mentioned would have effects on that overall Appeal score, but not so much on the players' individual ones. The state of the overall book score could do things like act as a default Appeal hand to oppose Appeal rolls by the players, grant the Editor extra powers to maintain control of the plot in certain situations, etc. I'll have to think on that.

This will (hopefully) be brief. I can see what you're saying on my earlier points and would like to suggest the following then.

Your Appeal score is the number of cards you can hold in your hand (or perhaps play from your hand?) for Appeal checks. If you are trying to do something your fans will appreciate add 1 to the value. If you are trying to do something in the realm of your haters subtract 1.

I'd like to see a more refined version of your card rules if you have the chance, i feel a little uncomfortable suggesting things when i don't know the resolution system you are considering...

Oh, and i like Gobi's points, there should be some way to tie that in, perhaps in the ways you suggested...

Thomas

Jay,
How's it going with Bullpen? Any updates? I have an idea for a supers game similar to yours. The die mechanic is inspired by BattleBall (of all things!) where you roll high for movement and low for tackling- faster players are worse at tackling and vice-versa.
Heroes have one stat- Power/Karma
You roll high for use of superpowers and abilities, and low for clues, lucky breaks, coincidence, etc. (script immunity). This means higher-die heroes (high Power) will rely more on their abilities (like Superman), whereas the lower-die heroes (high Karma) will rely more on wits (Batman) or lucky breaks (Spiderman).
The Writers and Editor also have one stat- not sure what to call it.
You roll high for major plot changes/the story arcs of the comics themselves, and low for minor plot changes/story arcs involving your character. The Editor will most likely have a larger die type; this reflects the fact that the higher-ups (like the Editor) are more concerned with the direction of the comic book itself, and leave the everyday details up to the Writers. The only time this would come into play is when there is a disagreement between the Editor and the Writers on a scripting issue or change; you would roll low for changes involving your character and high for changes to the title as a whole. If there is disagreement as to what category the change is in, the default is to roll high, or you can have a roll-off to determine what it is, rolling high (since the process of determining whether a change is minor or major is itself major).
Split stats are of course possible, and stats can also have Advantages and Flaws, which let you either raise/lower the die type or roll twice and take the better or worse result for specific instances/abilities. There should also be a currency associated with each which lets you buy re-rolls and die type changes for any circumstance.
Of course, this does not include your Appeal mechanics, and everything is more generalized, but maybe this is a good thing (since I don't want to rip you off TOO much).
Hell, you could even add a meta-meta game, and give the PLAYERS and the GM stats. This would work like the Writer/Editor stat, except it would apply to disagreements in the game itself (who buys the pizza, who gives who a ride, where and when the game is played).
I would like it if you could give me some suggestions on how to factor in Appeal to all this, or even if you think it should be factored in.

Hi Phil,

There haven't been any updates to Bullpen lately; I've taken up the mantle of GM on a D&D game, and that's taken up a lot of my time (the work early in the campaign seems the most demanding). I'm also trying to clear my mind and look at what Bullpen needs, and whether or not the current system meets those needs.

I couldn't figure out if your post was meant as suggestions as to how I could handle Bullpen, or examples of how you plan to handle your own game. If you'd like to discuss your game, feel free to PM me or open a separate thread, and I'll be glad to bat ideas around with you there. :)

I'm not against split attributes (I used them in Better Days) or die types (I might use them for Freefall), but I'm not sure they're appropriate for Bullpen. Also, changing die types on a roll over/under split stat system wouldn't seem to do much other than make the DM more likely to roll over a set number; the roll-under number would actually suffer for it, I would think.

I'm liking the simplicity and tactile experience of using cards. I'm in the process of rethinking Appeal and the way Powers work at the moment.

One question, for anyone who'd like to give an opinion, is this: How important is power balance in a mostly narrative game?

That's a huge Social Contract issue Jay. Look to Riddle of Steels magic system (vs. mundanes) for a good example of unbalanced play. It's explicit that magic users are much more powerful than mundanes are, deal with it. My feeling is that this works well in a narrative or simulative focused game. However, Appeal seems to pull the focus more towards Gamism (but that could just be my inner Gamist talking).

Anyway, i guess i would like to hear what you're considering, but my initial impression is "go for it, balance is not that important."

Thomas

I'm sorry, I didn't intend to hijack your thread.
As far as power balance in a narrative game, have a roll-off or voting session or whatever using the Appeal stat, winner gets his way. Or give the Writers and Editors a metagame stat for voting, as I suggested. You'd only have to do this if there was a disagreement or if someone was not relinquishing narrative power enough.

What I was thinking was to have Powers be simply a Boolean value--You either have a Power and can do certain things, or not. Conflicts would be figured by a Caliber draw, and Appeal would figure in somehow, as well (maybe you add a number of cards up to your Appeal, and if you still lose the draw, you lose Appeal equal to the number of cards you added).

So if you're Superman (Caliber 10), and you use Super Strength, then you automatically beat out anyone who doesn't have Super Strength. If you come up against The Thing (Caliber 7, maybe), you're likely to beat him, but you'll have to draw. If The Flash (Caliber 8, Super Speed) went up against The Hulk (Caliber 8, Super Strength), the narration would decide how it goes, up until the point where the situation is called into question.

The Flash spots The Hulk running at full bore toward him. He uses Super Speed and automatically wins Initiative (since Hulk's speed doesn't even come close), runs over, and attempts to land a hundred hits on The Hulk before the green machine can even react. Hulk's player announces Hulk's Invulnerability power, which makes it so he can't be hurt by anything short of a high-power explosion, but Flash's player notes that he has the Armor-Piercing Fist attack, because he can move his fists as quickly as a tattoo needle. They both check Caliber, and Hulk wins. Flash's attack makes a loud, fleshly rat-a-tat-tat noise in addition to the whip-crack of a sonic boom, but Hulk manages to shrug it off, and now he gets to go. Flash's player announces a Super Speed Dodge, but Hulk's player decides that Hulk's Rage will come into play. They draw again, and Hulk lands a hit, sending Flash flying. Flash lost by 5 points (crappy draw), and so Hulk's player assigns him the "Got Slammed Into A Wall" Setback at -5.

That sounds like a good way to resolve things, except exactly what heroes can and cannot do will be argued over (unless, of course, you assign Powers due to Caliber as usual, except a Power is just a listing on the charsheet).

Breaking the Powers out should be limited by Caliber itself (no power can be more than 1 point above or below Caliber, or something similar). I like the Boolean idea better myself (keeps things simpler). Also keep in mind that heroes exhibit new powers and new applications of existing ones all the time; adding a listing to Power should be linked to Appeal somehow.

Something occurred to me yesterday, as a possible great way to handle Appeal:

The sack-o-stones!

Basically, you have a sack of stones of two different colors. When you do something that would affect your Appeal, you draw from the sack. White stones mean the audience liked it, black stones mean they hated it.

Later, when you want to rely on their kindness, you spend a white stone. The Editor (on behalf of your opponents) may "spend" one of your black stones (or his own white stones) to counteract it. When you spend a stone, it goes back in the sack.

Examples:

Joey is playing as The Gnat. Usually, he's pretty annoying (and belovedly so), but on this occassion he's managed to trap his nemesis, The Swatter. His triumph is something his fans would likely appreciate, so Joey draws his Appeal in stones from the sack. Two white, one black. Overall, a good reaction from the fans.

Later, The Gnat is fighting for his life against The Swatter, who managed to get free. Our hero reaches for a weapon, spending a white stone to have one appear within his reach. Joey describes grabbing a wooden club and attacking The Swatter with it. He wins the attack, giving The Swatter a Setback of "Smacked in the head -2", and spends a card to steady himself. Noting that Joey has a black stone, however, the Editor spends that stone and declares that the club was made of balsa and thus shattered from the blow to The Swatter's head. The Gnat will have to find some other way to press the fight.

Jay,

First time poster, but have been lurking and watching the development of Bullpen with interest. I think you have some interesting and innovative ideas.

Personally, I think that the stone ideas is one of the better options you've put forward so far.

Thanks, Doc. :)

I agree. I got the idea a while back reading Ian Young's game about the Ice Age, the name of which I'm too lame to remember at the moment. Cold Mountain, maybe?

I think I like the idea of Powers being Boolean in nature--either you can do something, or you can't. It'll inspire smart playing, I think, since if someone attacks you with a Power, you'll have to have something to put up against it.

The balance issue is an important one, though. Should there be limits to how many powers a character can have? One per Caliber? What about more powerful Powers (Superstrength vs., say, X-ray vision)? Does that really matter? Should there be a way to impact Appeal stone draws based on the power level of a character?

When it comes down to a conflict, a person with any Power can beat any other person with any other Power, as long as they're of similar Caliber, and as long as their Powers are both directly applicable. That's a balancing factor right there, I suppose.

Jay Turner wrote: What about more powerful Powers (Superstrength vs., say, X-ray vision)? Does that really matter? Should there be a way to impact Appeal stone draws based on the power level of a character?

That's exactly what I'd like to happen. The player uses Appeal stones or whatever to set up a situation in which his power works to his advantage. Say your X-Ray guy above knew that his fans were impressed whenever he managed to outsmart someone or defeat someone more powerful than he. He'd then draw Appeal and possibly have metagame resources to help him out in the future.

I'm liking this, I think.

I like this sack o' stones idea. I just wanted to clarify a few issues:

1. Is there an equal mix of white vs. black stones (starting 50% chance of each?)
2. Is there a shared sack that everyone draws from (if you draw a bunch of white then it lowers my chances?)
3. What kind of resolution mechanic (if any) are you using for Caliber? I think that at this point it would almost be more interesting just to build this game entirely on the Appeal system for resolution.
4. Does the Editor draw Appeal whenever an action occurs that falls within the Serie's appeal?

But i do really like your elegant new Appeal solution.

Thomas

Haven't worked that stuff out yet. I'd like to think that there's a single pool, rather than having to stuff the sack each time with a certain proportion of stones. Maybe the ratio is based on the Appeal of the series itself--if the series is well-liked, then you might be more likely to get a white stone. Maybe you can spend your own whihte stones in order to force the Editor to remove a black stone from the sack--letting your character's popularity drive that of the book.

I also think the sack would be shared. Mostly for ease and quickness, but also to encourage people to spend their stones. After all, getting a white stone lowers your own chances of getting another one, in this situation, so you want to spend it sooner rather than hoarding them for later. It also guarantees an ebb and flow of plot and fan opinion.

Right now, I'm still looking at a card mechanic for Calibur and a Boolean (True/False) mechanic for Powers. The reason I think I want to stick with the cards is that it gives a certain structure (like an itinerary for a meeting) to things for which individual timing and objective resolution is warranted.

The sack might work for everything, actually, but it might remove that bit of gamism and structure that, for some reason, I'm clinging to. I'm not sure if I want players pitting their Appeal stones against each other, which could happen if the sack is the only mechanic.

Then again, giving players the ability to spend each other's black stones might be interesting.

Jay Turner wrote: Then again, giving players the ability to spend each other's black stones might be interesting.

That's pretty much the idea. Sorta like 7th Sea's treatment of Flaws (or whatever they call them in that system). The question is, should other players be allowed to spend a player's black stones.

I'm still not decided on reconciling this mechanic with that of Caliber. I wonder if the game would work just based on the Appeal sack?

My impression is that the game can be played based solely on Appeal. However, if you do so the focus will be pulled away from the Powers. Powers will be unimportant, more like window dressing than like the integral and important facets of a character that they are.

You might consider something simpler than cards for resolution. Something like Caliber + 1dX (i'm thinking a d6), or maybe 1dX with X determined by Caliber. This would make powers important and illustrate that having a higher Caliber directly represents greater ability to change the world.

Thomas

I think I like the card mechanic enough to keep it, with perhaps some tweaks here and there. I think you're right, though, about the effect of losing Caliber altogether. One half of the equation in Bullpen is who your character is, and I definitely don't want that part to seem less important than it is.

When I get a moment I'll put up an example of play the way I imagine the mechanics to work.

@ There is nothing preventing you from using d20, QD, Xc, sack of stones or box of rocks for Bullpen. Those are all mechanics, bullpen is a system. Develop a mechanic that you think works best for your vision of Bullpen. And call it the Bullpen Mechanic or Zd (z for zobie), or what have you. Publish it as a *seperate entity*. Include that entity in Bullpen. Include drivers (read adaptation sections (i'm techie)) for other mechanics. So when John Doe gets Bullpen, he can use Zd, or he can read the bit on Xc and use it. Not only that but he can use Zd for his own games. This is my whole open-source/free ware model for RPG design... applying the hacker rules to gaming.

@ Don't fret over which mechanic or randomizer is best, they all have virtues. Use them all/use none of them. You can discuss appeal in principle and players will get it without assigning numbers.

@ The next step might be a Setting Layer, given just as an example. Bring Firbug to life and set him loose in Jaysburg.

I'm a big believer in marrying a system to a game. I have settings without systems that would be great with a more modular mechanic, but in the case of Bullpen I want a system that is specifically designed to play the way I think Bullpen ought to play.

That said, I like the card mechanic I have, and I'm actually using the dice version in another game, so I see what you're saying.

Jay Turner wrote: I'm a big believer in marrying a system to a game. I have settings without systems that would be great with a more modular mechanic, but in the case of Bullpen I want a system that is specifically designed to play the way I think Bullpen ought to play.

That said, I like the card mechanic I have, and I'm actually using the dice version in another game, so I see what you're saying.

Well, I want to make Bullpen a cohesive and fun game in and of itself, and that's the primary goal. Anything involving the system being useful on its own after that point would be gravy.

Any opinions on the system and how it might tie in with the premise of the game?

@ Howabout some functions that are team specific? So far the emphasis has been on individuals. Many comics are about teams, so perhaps the team as a whole has fans/haters and so on. Essentially a 'meta-character' that represents the whole. Sometimes the Avengers have a bed streak, or they suddenly work together in some amazing way. So the X-men operate on a smaller/weirder scale (caliber) than say the Avengers. The punisher works on a very small scale. Some comic readers are pro X-title, others are more for comics about individuals, or altered human teams. Perhaps include some rules on dealing with team and label competition. Also some intrateam rivalry stuff. Wolvie and Cyclops were often on the verge of killing each other. Lets come up with some ways of expressing that competition. Don't forget feud and grudges (nemeses), like Wolv and Sabertooth. Oh, and cross overs!

@ All of these relationships are critical to the appeal of a character and a team. If only one of the X-men was liked, the X men comic would be cancelled and the one liked character might go solo or join another team.

@ Then there are meta character powers. like the Fast Ball Special, where Colossus throws wolverine. Things that only happen within the team.

I am working on having a book-wide Appeal score, but for team Caliber I think I'll just leave it separate for each character for the time being. I mean, after all, the most important team in the game is the one the players are working on.

Crossovers, rivalries, etc. are all publicity stunts and can be handled as such. That might be something a player can spend Appeal stones on (say, spend five stones and get the publisher's star to appear in the next issue). Those things have been in the game for as long as I've been tossing the idea around, and so things from splash pages to dramatic shading to extreme close-ups will be around in some form. Honestly, I'd been trying to find a way to work them, and the newest Appeal mechanic (the stones) actually makes them more possible.

@ What about having words on the stones? Perhaps they wouldn't be stones any more, but bear with me here. So Xaos of the Y-Guys (my character) is about to apply the "smack down" upon some goon. i reach in the sack and grab a white stone that says "Cool Shading" or "Rightous(sp?) Fury". Or maybe Xaos wanted to change his fan base and drew "Lame Costume".

@ This would work best with playing cards. You have a table that crosses "type of action" with "Card". So for an attack drawing the Ace of Clubs, the Attack modifier is "Pa Pow!". Not only do i get a success, i get to yell "PA POW!!!" when i play it and pose menacingly, the hapless goon's jaw is shattered. If i had drawn the 5 of Hearts it might have been "Whiff!" meaning i punch his shadow's jaw. However, for a publicity stunt, the 5 of Hearts means "+]-[3 B3$+", meaning hackers love it. If each suit governed one aspect and the others were lesser results of that aspect, a card might be great for this, but lousy for that, and ok for the other thing. If the text on the card is not exactly applicable, the player and GM agree to something appropriate. With these Action cards, the players should be encouraged to LARP some of their moves. Fight scenes would be a hoot, everyone posing and making sound effects. The GM might reward this behavior.

@ Here's the kicker: Make the game in PDF format a free download. Design cards with the terms and cool drawing. Copyright the cards and sell them. This is how i plan on releasing my games, pleasing my 90's idealism and 80's greed. Bobbie could use his dad's poker deck and refer to a table, thus being cheap. Steve, who has a job, wants the pretty cards and buys them.

@ Card Trading: perhaps the team plays with one deck between them, and they can donate cards to a common pool or trade them. Xaos is a fighter type so i need club cards, your character is looking to change his image and thus needs hearts... lets make a deal. Perhaps combinations of cards do extra spiffy things. This might create an economy among the players. But something along these lines might facilitate a "team karma pool".

@ The cards might simply augment another mechanic such as dice or stones. So i roll and then up the result by playing one of my cards.

@ Combos: Not just a tasty snack, but a way of taking emphasis off of the value on the card. If i am making a power stunt (Xaos want to zap someone), and i play two Spades, i get a better result, based on the number of cards rather than the value. Or maybe i play one Spade and one Heart, so i zap the goon really well, and please my audience as well.

An interesting idea, but a bit more random than I'd like in this game. I'd like for the players to decide on their stunts and Appeal actions based on what they think would be best for their character.

Jay Turner wrote: An interesting idea, but a bit more random than I'd like in this game. I'd like for the players to decide on their stunts and Appeal actions based on what they think would be best for their character.

Actually, I hope I'm not coming across as ungrateful for your input, guys. I really appreciate the advice and feedback I'm getting for Bullpen. :) I guess what I'm doing is the equivalent of saying, "Okay, shoot every arrow you've got at me, and I'll deflect the ones I don't want to hit me." ;)

I think the idea is at a stage where it really needs to be playtested to go much further, and I don't have playtesters handy these days, so I'm trying to intellectually work out how it'd all work. Not the best way to do stuff, but it's as good as I can get at the moment.

I do want a comic-book feel, but I want it to feel like you're the one making the plot and the characters. I want creative power for their characters' actions to lie completely with the players and the Editor as much as possible.

I think the comic-book feel can come through in the narration (obviously), but also in gameflow and the actual design of the book/PDF. I think it could use something to spice it up a bit when the system comes into play.

@ Philip's interpretation is spot on, i think the of it as flavor text. A suggestion in bright colors and big letters.

@ i think we all understand that not all ideas are going to match your vision for BP. i certainly don't take it personally. If you hear something you like, use it, if not maybe we'll use it in our own projects. i'm thinking of making a comic book battle system based on the cards i mentioned above. It's all good. Your ideas are sparking ideas in others, maybe they will work for you, maybe they will work for someone else. To me that is a win/win scenario.

@ Did you check out Wurthering Heights yet, Jay?