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A game where, mechanically speaking, everything remains static would be hard to pull off. RPGs are at their core storytelling games, and Growth and Change are some of the biggest aspects of a good story. If you're taking out mechanical "numbers and swords" growth you'll want to implement some other kind of structured evolution system. That said, it doesn't have to be your characters' physical abilities that change. All changes could be personality based. FATE has aspects, which I'm not going to fully explain here but one thing they can describe are a character's personality. "Idealistic Newcomer" can be changed to "Jaded Veteran" by events (at your decision). Reign has Passions, things your character really cares about that you get bonuses to rolls relating to, which you can change as they are completed/satisfied/overcome. They're like Aspects but they're free to activate as it's assumed you're going to try to use them as much as possible. I'm not even going to get into 3:16. Compared to the intricacies of combat systems however, character personality simulation and advancement is a fairly untapped field. You could build a robust "inner character growth" system of some manner as a Thing. Or the characters can stay the same but the "party" advances. Reign's Company system is a crunchy example of a non-character-based growth mechanic (Go here and select "Companies" from the dropdown menu to see what one looks like) Mechanically it's basically an NPC character who's stats go up and down based on your players' actions (or they can just spend XP). So you could WFRP3 has something kind of similar with the Party Sheets, which you can attach talents to and trade out for better ones with more talent slots and better bonusses. Then there's the world-shaping approach, mechanically representing the party's effect on the world as a whole. FATE's aspects can be attached to cities or countries, like adding a rousing speech adding "Civil Uprising" to the evil kingdom, or "Patriotism!" to the good one. In Reign you can stat up cities and countries as NPC companies, with a hunt for mithril boosting your village's defences or economy(or granting you access to better equipment), or a surgical strike reducing an enemy kingdom's. The (free) Grab Bag supplement on this page even has rules for company vs giant monster combat. Finally there's the much maligned "christmas tree" approach, where your character remains the same but his equipment and sundries change. This doesn't just have to be equipment though. 4E has Boons (introduced around the time of Dark Sun), basically favors people (monsters, gods) owe you, memberships in societies etc. A lot of games (WFRP3, FATE, GURPS, UA) have wound/madness type things, negative longterm effects that can be removed by further adventuring (or spending XPs). Or you can go the equipment route, but make it more interesting see the mithril example above). You may have noticed that a lot of these are just mechanical representations of things that are already in most games, but tend to be just handwaved by the GM or dealt with narratively. Basically, people like Stuff. Especially in a Crunchy game, Getting Stuff is good. If you're taking away one of the Crunchy Game Genre's biggest Stuff Getters (mechanical power growth) you're probably* going to need to introduce or buff up another Stuff Getter. *or maybe not! I am not the god of game knowing.
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Sep 6, 2012 14:58
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Splicer posted:A game where, mechanically speaking, everything remains static would be hard to pull off. RPGs are at their core storytelling games, and Growth and Change are some of the biggest aspects of a good story. If you're taking out mechanical "numbers and swords" growth you'll want to implement some other kind of structured evolution system. That said, it doesn't have to be your characters' physical abilities that change. I guess I hadn't realized that Getting Stuff was such a big deal, I'd just been wondering how many games worked on the principle of Not Getting Stuff or if many had been able to pull such a thing off successfully. I suppose there aren't many, and from the sound of it for good reason. I'd been thinking that in this sort of game the main drives of the characters would have to be more focused on accomplishing things within the narrative rather than in the metagame sense of getting more power/abilities but I hadn't done much consideration on how to get that idea across. I haven't really played games where a characters personality was codified mechanically (though the Pendragon system of Virtues and Vices did seem very interesting when I read about it). The closest thing that the game currently has to any sort of plot control mechanic is generic Luck points which you can use to change random roll results or the change a plot point within the story when they are spent. I like the idea of players giving their characters an Ambition of some sort that they are trying to fulfill and let them try and attain it within the game, like 'Gain Immortality' or 'Overthrow the King' but I don't have any strong desire to find a way to tie in some sort of mechanic for it. Maybe some sort of bonus when making a roll toward achieving that goal? What would one do about really generic goals like 'Kill Dudes' or 'Get Money' (aside from simply not allow them)?
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Sep 6, 2012 16:44
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Bob Quixote posted:I guess I hadn't realized that Getting Stuff was such a big deal, I'd just been wondering how many games worked on the principle of Not Getting Stuff or if many had been able to pull such a thing off successfully. I suppose there aren't many, and from the sound of it for good reason. Progression and Continuity (Getting Stuff and Using It) can be entirely narrative based, like the guy you saved last session helping you out today, or the wizard you met a few sessions ago calling you up to help him with a problem, or the city you saved from zombies becoming a sprawling utopic metropolis. Or it can be your character overcoming his fear of spiders, or developing a fear of spiders, or discovering he's from the dimension of spiders, or all three (not necessarily in that order). This kind of thing happens in most games anyway, it's kind of the point. By removing the default "You are buffer than before" progression you're right in that you do greatly increase the focus on the narrative sides of things, but that's a double-edged sword. Without the safety net of "Swords and XPs for all!" you have to make very sure that the narrative rewards are extremely compelling, either by being an amazing GM... or making the narrative rewards more mechanical. Bob Quixote posted:I'd been thinking that in this sort of game the main drives of the characters would have to be more focused on accomplishing things within the narrative rather than in the metagame sense of getting more power/abilities but I hadn't done much consideration on how to get that idea across Splicer fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Sep 6, 2012 |
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Sep 6, 2012 17:25
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Bob Quixote posted:I can see what you are saying, but I'm not sure how I'd be able to apply it to this particular situation exactly. The game is intended to work like a semi-traditional dungeon-hack type game with crunchy combat and special powers/abilities that are mainly focused on manipulating situations within the story rather than manipulating the narrative itself (if I'm getting myself across alright). Neither system depends on narrative focus or untactical mechanics. I'll restate them without examples: Sideways advancement: there are N balanced moves, you only have O at one time but can switch them out. Resourceful advancement: you get resources which are used to do things. Reign companies are a great idea too. Give the campaign world a character sheet, make the players advance that.
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Sep 6, 2012 20:00
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Resource advancement sounds like one of the traditional dungeon-crawl mechanics (get money/power/fame) and seems like it would be the best fit for this sort of situation out of the options. I like the idea of the PC's having a significant effect on the world around them and wanted to move this game away from the murder-hobo format that a lot of the gaming groups I've been in have seemed to use as the standard/go-to format. The idea of the characters having ties to a particular area might be the best place to start with in terms of thinking of ways to do this narrative advancement. I'm not sure how exactly one would make a character sheet for a town or country, but having them gain wealth/land/titles/responsibilities seems like a pretty good start for helping connect their advancing the story with an in-game mechanic.
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Sep 7, 2012 00:38
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Imagine if a town (or a kingdom or whatever) was a character. What would distinguish it from another town? What could it interact with? What actions could it take? What would it need and want? What could it gain or lose? These are what would go on the character sheet, always keeping in mind that the point is to make interesting situations for the non-town characters to deal with. Again, the (i think) freely available reign company rules are a very good example. Doc Hawkins fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Sep 7, 2012 |
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Sep 7, 2012 01:53
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There's a link to the ORE character generator in my previous post, you can see what a company looks like (though some of it won't make sense out of context).Bob Quixote posted:Resource advancement sounds like one of the traditional dungeon-crawl mechanics (get money/power/fame) and seems like it would be the best fit for this sort of situation out of the options.
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Sep 7, 2012 02:55
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^^^^^ co-signed Of late, Rob Donoghue (Spirit of the Century, Dresden Files) has been posting some nice stuff on his game blog about the design space of "skills". quote:This is a rant. I'm circling an idea, and if you read this, you get to watch. That's just the start.
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Sep 7, 2012 03:06
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Splicer posted:Don't take my above list as exhaustive! It's a number of examples, not the definitive list of acceptable RPG advancement options or something. It's there to show you that there already exist a wide variety of ways you can keep the individual characters at a static level of competence while still having their actions result in tangible, system-supported changes to the gamestate. The last thing I want to do is to stifle your creativity by making you think you have to choose an option from the above. I'm not taking it as an exhaustive list, just trying to get across the idea that while lots of the suggestions seem interesting they are moving very far outside of my own particular area of game knowledge. I'm working on this particular game with the idea of using it as a simple pick up and play game and by introducing concepts that I myself am completely unfamiliar with it might make things more confusing for the friends who are interested in getting into gaming in the first place. The concept of Resource Advancement is one that is easy to grasp for anyone of any gaming experience level and simple to track on a mechanical and narrative level. One of the reasons I was intrigued by the idea of removing mechanical change would be the decrease in book-keeping and decreasing the need to pause the game every few minutes to look up some rule or another that tends to plague the group I play with since most of the players enjoy playing the games but don't take the time to memorize the usually long and tedious rule sets of the games we've played. Sorry if I've outed myself as some sort of tabletop Phillistine, I guess I just tend to enjoy having my roleplay a little more free-form. Doc Hawkins posted:Of late, Rob Donoghue (Spirit of the Century, Dresden Files) has been posting some nice stuff on his game blog about the design space of "skills". I had been thinking of Skills in terms of providing particular abilities/specialties to the characters who have them. If you take Medicine then you can patch up wounded characters, if you take Alchemy you can mix up potions and tonics & if you take Survival you can track things in the woods and find food and water in even the harshest environments. If you don't have the skills then the character can't attempt it. I wanted Skills to represent the result of dedicated work and training, and not be for simple things that could be attempted by beginners with a reasonable hope of success. I'm not a dumb guy but if you asked me to mix up an acidic solution to polish metal or to shoe a horse I wouldn't have any clue where to begin, and I thought that the idea of expertise would be a good place to start when designing a simple skill system for the game.
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Sep 7, 2012 03:35
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I had an experiment with my players in a D&D 4th Edition campaign along these lines. At one point in the adventure, they were tasked with finding the location of a long-lost artifact located in a tomb. Thing is, the only information they had was the name of the tomb, and that's only because a character remembered it from a prophetic dream that they had. Nevertheless, I challenged them to use their skills in order to find the necessary clues to figure out where the tomb was and what they needed in order to enter said tomb. I decided to take a note from what some people were saying about the GUMSHOE system - it's not about making a binary pass/fail roll in order to see if you find the clue in the scene, it's about having the skills to find it. If you use the skill on the scene, you find the clue associated with it, etc. D&D actually works fairly well with this for the most part - unless success or failure would have drastic effects (such as negotiating with a lord in a more active sense, or breaking & entering), it would only make sense that players are basically going to 'take 20'. If they're going to roll until they succeed, it makes zero sense to even force a roll in the first place. Except instead of being able to do this with off-skills, I limited characters to using this ability with only skills they were trained in. The end result was a much faster, cleaner session overall that my players responded positively to.
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Sep 17, 2012 20:38
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Is anyone paying attention to what Gabe of penny-arcade fame is doing?. I've definitly admired what he posts about his 4th ed game, with the mirrors and lasers, falling battles, and 3d planetoid maps that orbit. The system he describes does seem fun, but I am a deck building game junkie. He seems to have some really neat ideas, I like where he is going with criticals and poisons.
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Sep 17, 2012 22:51
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Ulta posted:Is anyone paying attention to what Gabe of penny-arcade fame is doing?. I've definitly admired what he posts about his 4th ed game, with the mirrors and lasers, falling battles, and 3d planetoid maps that orbit. The system he describes does seem fun, but I am a deck building game junkie. He seems to have some really neat ideas, I like where he is going with criticals and poisons. There was some pretty positive discussion in, of all places, grognards.txt. I think it sounds really cool; the thing that excited me the most was in that first post, where he talked about wound cards that clogged up your deck and how fighters could use those to trigger more powerful attacks. I can take or leave the expanded Lookouts setting but I'm looking forward to see what he comes up with.
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Sep 17, 2012 23:04
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Bob Quixote posted:I had been thinking of Skills in terms of providing particular abilities/specialties to the characters who have them. It definitely is, because many games use it. Solar System. The Mountain Witch. Every FATE variant. The first step to writing a book is to read as many as you can. The first step to writing a game...
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Sep 18, 2012 02:06
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Doc Hawkins posted:It definitely is, because many games use it. Solar System. The Mountain Witch. Every FATE variant. I suppose my ignorance is showing, but I haven't had a lot of exposure to games outside the ones played with my small circle of friends, who are more of the boardgame crowd in general. It's a bit tricky if you don't want to steal anything and you don't have much in the way of a well stocked FLGS. Lots of the freeware games I've found online are retroclones of one sort or another, but I'm sure there are plenty out there that aren't. I started thinking on skills in this fashion after I read up on RISUS and thought that its ideas were interesting, but a bit too broad for my taste and wanted to incorporate the same sort of idea in a more wargamey/traditional rpg set up. I liked the idea of characters who had taken the Woodsman skill and the Thievery skill to both have solid justifications for being able to skulk about and have awareness of their surroundings but to also give each skill its own mechanically unique advantage which the others lack.
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Sep 18, 2012 02:26
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Bob Quixote posted:I suppose my ignorance is showing, but I haven't had a lot of exposure to games outside the ones played with my small circle of friends, who are more of the boardgame crowd in general. It's a bit tricky if you don't want to steal anything and you don't have much in the way of a well stocked FLGS. Free non-traditional games, you say? A Thousand Monkeys, A Thousand Typewriters John Kim's Free RPG List Nine years of entries to the Free category of the Indie RPG awards free, small, experimental offerings from Bully Pulpit Games (ie, Jason "Fiasco" Morningstar) (also don't miss out on the free edition of Drowning and Falling, if you play nothing else on this entire list of lists) That seems like a good start.
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Sep 18, 2012 04:03
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Doc Hawkins posted:Free non-traditional games, you say? Thanks, I'll give them a read.
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Sep 18, 2012 13:57
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Bob Quixote posted:I had been thinking of Skills in terms of providing particular abilities/specialties to the characters who have them. But follow this to its consequent. No matter how your system works, these bonuses that differentiate characters are what characters will use to define their role relative to the rest of the group. For any skill challenge you put in front of the group, they will just have whoever is the specialist in that thing make the attempt. In this way, the game is essentially is highlighting specific characters when different challenges come in front of the party. (and for any all-in challenge, only a cruel GM would design it such that only the specialist isn't automatically hosed). Even more than balance issues, the greatest sin of the 3.X D20 games was wiping out this specialization. I don't care if wizards exploded combat situations in one round so long as other classes had some type of encounter in which to shine. But no, casters eventually own just about any situation and for everything else rogues clean up the sloppy seconds with a vast trove of skill points. In the classless D20/DW mashup that I'm tinkering with right now, I've boiled the skill system down to five skills (that also replace classes, essentially working as class-levels): Combat Skill, Exploration Skill, Movement Skill, Social Skill and Creative Skill. This lets the members of your player A-Team pick "I am the specialist at this type of encounter" in a very straight-forward way. Want to be the one that beats dudes up? Combat Skill. Want to be the one that can find clues and investigate? Exploration Skill. Want to be the one that can sneak around, scale the wall and stick his butt in the air while evading entrapment laser tripwires? Movement Skill. Want to be the one that bluffs past the guards or persuades the boss? Social Skill. Want to be the one that tinkers with poo poo and improvises cabbage cannons? Creative Skill. Anyways, my point is that you should think not about how your skill system gives an individual character utility, but how it defines them relative to the group. Consider your 'Alchemy' suggestion: in most cases, mixing potions is a pretty passive, undramatic thing to do. If implemented in a versimilitudinous way, your Alchemist will basically become the party potion-grinder, specializing in keeping them well stocked and performing most of this skill usage between the scenes that are actually interesting. If on the other hand, you design your 'Alchemy' to be just another style of spell casting - well, then why are you structuring it as a Skill instead of the way you do your Powers?
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Sep 18, 2012 17:01
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Paolomania posted:But follow this to its consequent. No matter how your system works, these bonuses that differentiate characters are what characters will use to define their role relative to the rest of the group. For any skill challenge you put in front of the group, they will just have whoever is the specialist in that thing make the attempt. In this way, the game is essentially is highlighting specific characters when different challenges come in front of the party. (and for any all-in challenge, only a cruel GM would design it such that only the specialist isn't automatically hosed). I was really thinking of skills being a little looser than that. Each skill provides a unique mechanical ability that only players with that skill can use (various weapon based abilities included since you can use one of your skill slots to specialize in a particular weapon), but they can also be used in a more general way. The example I gave above was that of the Thief skill and the Woodsman skill. In scenes where stealth and such are required each player could easily make the case that their training lets them move silently well, far more so than a player with the Alchemy or Charisma skill. There is overlap between certain skill sets that allows multiple characters with different skill selections to work together on certain actions, but stand apart on others. Skills are tied more into a sense of all around training than a single focused thing: a character with Alchemy skill and one with the Woodsman skill could both make an INT check to recognize a rare flower needed to make a potion and an Alchemist or a Doctor can both recognize poisons or medicines by taste or scent.
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Sep 18, 2012 18:04
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Paolomania posted:In the classless D20/DW mashup that I'm tinkering with right now, I've boiled the skill system down to five skills (that also replace classes, essentially working as class-levels): Combat Skill, Exploration Skill, Movement Skill, Social Skill and Creative Skill. This lets the members of your player A-Team pick "I am the specialist at this type of encounter" in a very straight-forward way. Want to be the one that beats dudes up? Combat Skill. Want to be the one that can find clues and investigate? Exploration Skill. Want to be the one that can sneak around, scale the wall and stick his butt in the air while evading entrapment laser tripwires? Movement Skill. Want to be the one that bluffs past the guards or persuades the boss? Social Skill. Want to be the one that tinkers with poo poo and improvises cabbage cannons? Creative Skill. You know, I haven't seen your notes, so maybe I would be pleasantly surprised, but this sounds awful. Anything with a skeleton built up around WotC's d20 rules is going to need to be completely redone to the point of being unrecognizable to make this system work. If you are so concerned with class parity, why are you allowing players to potentially dominate one aspect of play, especially since, without strict GM railroading, you can't know how muh of any of those 5 skills will be useful. If the Combat Skill 4 guy decides to punch all the NPCs then the Combat Skill 1 guy is hosed all session. And how is "Creative Skill" not going to overshadow everyone else? If I can make a cabbage based cannon, then I'm probably more useful in a fight than the archer. Without being extremely codified (and limited!) it's just another 3.X spell caster.
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Sep 18, 2012 21:27
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Paolomania posted:Combat Skill, Exploration Skill, Movement Skill, Social Skill and Creative Skill.
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Sep 19, 2012 15:06
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Paolomania posted:In the classless D20/DW mashup that I'm tinkering with right now, I've boiled the skill system down to five skills (that also replace classes, essentially working as class-levels): Combat Skill, Exploration Skill, Movement Skill, Social Skill and Creative Skill. This lets the members of your player A-Team pick "I am the specialist at this type of encounter" in a very straight-forward way. Want to be the one that beats dudes up? Combat Skill. Want to be the one that can find clues and investigate? Exploration Skill. Want to be the one that can sneak around, scale the wall and stick his butt in the air while evading entrapment laser tripwires? Movement Skill. Want to be the one that bluffs past the guards or persuades the boss? Social Skill. Want to be the one that tinkers with poo poo and improvises cabbage cannons? Creative Skill. This seems kinda boring. At that point, why even have skills? Why not just have players describe who and what their characters are, and have their utility in situations flow from there. Let's say I'm playing a straightforward steppe nomad with a great interest in other locales and cultures but little experience. She's good at direct negotiation and arguments, good at bartering, but really bad with complex politics and city stuff. Should she have "social skill"? If yes, then by those rules she's good at something I don't really want her to be good at. It's a more interesting story for me to have her be good at single small arguments but still confused and stymied by the larger political machinations. Also, the larger point is that she's monstrously strong as well. She gets things done, overall, as long as it's something that she can get a hold of (literally or metaphorically). I don't want her to shine in combat situations, I want her to shine in situations involving direct, simple conflict. Maybe I'd have a different character, someone who's actually from the city. She's sneaky, she's good at politics, she's good at slipping a dagger in between your ribs. She's good at all the same sorts of things the nomad is in terms of "Combat," "Social," etc, but she goes about it in a different way. The nomad would win in a straight brawl, but the sneak would try to make sure the fight wouldn't happen in the first place. Like, I don't want to think "ah, time for combat, let's have the combat guy step up" or "now it's time for talking, social guy's job." I want to think "this seems clear-cut and direct, have the direct guy deal with it" or "this requires some subtlety, have the sneak deal with it." Or, maybe I do have a character who's "deal" is that they're good at every aspect of social/talking, from intimidation to negotiation. But, that's not a matter of degree, it's a matter of breadth. Talky guy isn't better at intimidation than the nomad, they have the same modifier at it, but he can also do politics. But, I don't think the answer is "divide up skills into specialties." It makes more sense to just have a clear expression of your character, where they're from and what they're good at, and be honest about whether some task is really the sort of thing they could do. On the other hand, maybe this is just a peculiarity of how I think of my characters. I tend to assume that they're going to be mostly out of their element, and that their normal set of skills will be somewhat inappropriate to the situation. Like, with that nomad, the point is that she'd probably be in some politics-heavy campaign, floundering around mostly, with the focus more on the mild humor of that and on exploring how she deals with and grows in the strange situation. But, maybe at some point an assassin shows up, or one of the nobles gets a little too cocky and aggressive, and suddenly it comes to the fore that oh hey there are some things that barbarians from the northern steppes are really good at, namely killing dudes that are stupid enough to point a sword at her. But that's, like, a scene that comes up once or twice. It doesn't deserve the majority of the game's mechanical attention. If anything, the mechanics around it should be more about the player triggering it in a metagame sense, by using something that lets them force a scene that's suited to their character, where actually "winning" that scene is already assured. Or maybe I'm weird. "This means that my character is good at a wider variety of things than I want her to be good at" is actually a legitimate and serious complaint, in my mind, and for others probably not? It's just that "combat" seems to be both too broad and too narrow, where you're good at all sorts of combat and yet that's the only thing you do. e: Oh gosh that's a lot of words. I'm not trying to be really critical, I don't have a complete handle on these ideas myself. zachol fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 15:53
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Of course my formulation would be awful for a game that is mostly combat encounters. I'm not trying to make the most combat-balanced system, or the most versimilitudinous system, or the most narrative-supporting system. The rough idea is a rules-light D20 that is simple (and rebalanced) that my D20-loving friends will find familiar but with a sneaky touch of *World concepts. Of course it will inherit D20's problems such as a tendency for the party to defer to the specialist when a single skill check is called for (the answer is to use *World style GMing to make more interesting encounters that are not so straightforward and have overlapping events that give each character a chance to shine). If we for example map into 3.75's skill list (although the mapping doesn't quite apply as the check interpretations are more DW-ish and improvisational): Combat Skill: Everything to do with fighting. Essentially BAB, but also injury-related skills like Heal and maybe Intimidate (social utility). Exploration Skill: For figuring everything out. Summarizes things like Appraise, Knowledge, Perception (combat utility vs stealth), and Survival. Movement Skill: For all acts of awesome mobility. Summarizes things like Acrobatics (combat utility), Climb, Escape Artist (combat utility), Fly, Ride, Stealth (combat utility), and Swim. Social Skill: Everything to do with talking and relating to other character. Summarizes things like Bluff, Diplomacy (exploration utility - i.e. gather information), Handle Animal, Perform, and Sense Motive. Creative Skill: The 'MacGuyver' skill. Summarizes things like Craft, Disable Device (exploration utility), Disguise (social utility), Profession and Use Magic Device. I'd love the make a game that basically has a balance of these five types of challenges, either encounter-by-encounter or single encounters that have a mix of challenges. In addition to these skills there is also a "Power" skill that is essentially a caster-level, with the Power system designed to enhance existing skills and provide flexible utility without outshining the base skills. Power usage would always be either weaker than usage of the related skill, or come at some cost such as non-lethal damage to the caster. Edit: Also of note: characters will be getting enough skill points per level to fully specialize in two skills, so for any group of 3 or more characters, there will likely be overlapping specialists. Paolomania fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 16:42
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If it's encounter by encounter then you just end up with a series of "Social Guy does nothing for 30 minutes" "Combat guy does nothing for 30 minutes" "Exploration guy does nothing for 30 minutes". You're not playing a game as a group, you're justa bunch of people playing seperate games who happen to be at the same table.
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Sep 19, 2012 19:53
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Splicer posted:If it's encounter by encounter then you just end up with a series of "Social Guy does nothing for 30 minutes" "Combat guy does nothing for 30 minutes" "Exploration guy does nothing for 30 minutes". You're not playing a game as a group, you're justa bunch of people playing seperate games who happen to be at the same table. Did you not read the sentence "(the answer is to use *World style GMing to make more interesting encounters that are not so straightforward and have overlapping events that give each character a chance to shine)"?
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Sep 19, 2012 20:43
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Paolomania posted:Did you not read the sentence "(the answer is to use *World style GMing to make more interesting encounters that are not so straightforward and have overlapping events that give each character a chance to shine)"?
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Sep 19, 2012 21:28
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Splicer posted:That doesn't really mesh with your proposed skill system though. My post didn't really propose a full system - it just described five skills without details or context. There is no reason that 5 numbers called 'skills' can't be used instead of 6 numbers called 'abilities' for the basis of a DungeonWorld-style fantasy game. What is your objection exactly? Do you object to games that use numerical bonuses to differentiate characters? Do you object to calling numerical bonuses 'skills'? Do you object to the rolling of 20-sided dice? From your earlier post it looks like you favor FATE-style games. That is great - I like those games too, but that is not what I'm going for here.
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Sep 19, 2012 21:45
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Splicer posted:If it's encounter by encounter then you just end up with a series of "Social Guy does nothing for 30 minutes" "Combat guy does nothing for 30 minutes" "Exploration guy does nothing for 30 minutes". You're not playing a game as a group, you're justa bunch of people playing seperate games who happen to be at the same table. Oh I don't know, I think if one is willing to play things a little looser and more free form you could easily accommodate a group of characters who all have a wide range of specializations without forcing players to sit through dead turns. Plus I'm not sure that there's anything wrong with some characters just being better than others when it comes to certain specific tasks necessary for the groups success, just as long as those tasks don't comprise the bulk of the game. Playing a sword swinging brute in a game of courtly intrigue or an asthmatic bookworm in a dungeoncrawl could be pretty boring if you aren't in it for the comedy, but having only one character who could pick a lock or set a broken leg could give each player a feeling that they are contributing when their time to shine comes up. EDIT If this leads to situations where one of the characters is dead/incapacitated and their particular specialty is needed that could be good too since it would highlight the whole teamwork=survival thing that adventuring parties are supposed to be built on (provided the players were also given an out to survive as well). Bob Quixote fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 03:58
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How about this for the basis of a skill system? For a basis of comparison, the game has 3 classes, which are pretty much the same as D&D power sources (ie, martial, divine, arcane). You have a primary and might have a secondary "power source" with which you define your "class" (ie, martial/divine might be "paladin", but could equally be "war shaman"). Skills are just game effects that you can do. How you do them is based on something you choose for yourself based on your power sources. That is, you pick a game effect to be good at, and then decide how you do it. Examples: A wizard guy who takes Survival, uses magic to track game and identify berries, light fires, bind debris into shelters, etc. A paladin prays so he doesn't need to eat and doesn't feel the cold. A warrior who takes Open Doors knows how to quietly jimmy them open. A wizard speaks Words Of Opening. A thief uses his lockpicks and acid vials. A shaman talks to the Wood Spirits who twist the door's planks and pop it open. A warrior takes Climb and hauls himself up walls with main strength, pitons, and hammers. A rogue leaps from ledge to ledge. A wizard turns his hands into spiderhands. The cleric rides up on a divine cloud. The martial artist guy simply focuses his will and runs right up the wall.
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Sep 20, 2012 07:21
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/\This is kind of how my will-never-get-finished fantasy heartbreaker thing is going/\Bob Quixote posted:but having only one character who could pick a lock or set a broken leg could give each player a feeling that they are contributing when their time to shine comes up. It's not that a game can't work without each character having something to do in most situations, it just makes it considerably easier to run. If you know everyone has at least one thing they can do in the most common game situations then it makes it much easier to create these encounters, as otherwise you have to find a way to enable Puncher McPunch to meaningfully contribute to the Duchess's Tea Party, and Chatty McLoudmouth has something to do when fighting against evil fungi. That said, I just reread Paolomania's second post and it appears I did, indeed, somehow manage to miss a chunk of it, specifically how under each skill he tried to include at least one thing that's useful outside that skill's obvious area of expertise. Which is the basic thing I was worried about, so, uh, nevermind I suppose. Paolomania posted:Do you object to games that use numerical bonuses to differentiate characters? Do you object to calling numerical bonuses 'skills'? Do you object to the rolling of 20-sided dice? If I'm reading your other post correctly this time though the skills being described are more general than that, so "Combat" doesn't mean "Combat Encounters", it means "Stuff related to Fightin'", allowing a high Combat character to use her Combat score during a Social Encounter to yell at people/comment on the obvious military influences amongst the local architecture* (while still being a bit out of luck at the Duchess's luncheon, but that kind of fish-out-of-water situation is fine on occasion). Similarly "Social" doesn't mean "Social Encounters", it means "Stuff related to Talkin'", allowing someone with a high Social skill to spend Combat encounters distracting the opponents with witty banter or deceptive body language** (while still being a bit out of luck when fighting a bunch of deaf oozes, but again, see above). *Or just punch someone if she wants **Or try to talk them out of it, if they have ears. Splicer fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 14:04
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Splicer posted:/\This is kind of how my will-never-get-finished fantasy heartbreaker thing is going/\ It's how mine's going too. Mine will also likely never get finished, although I now have the basics all down in writing. Skills were the last thing I needed to work out how to do, and I worked out that I should do them like that last week and then stalled again. I don't have a list of them, but I know how they'll work now. I should post a rundown of the system and see if anyone thinks it's cool. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 14:49
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AlphaDog posted:It's how mine's going too. Mine will also likely never get finished, although I now have the basics all down in writing. Skills were the last thing I needed to work out how to do, and I worked out that I should do them like that last week and then stalled again. I don't have a list of them, but I know how they'll work now. You should, its what the thread is for after all and its good to get critiques/input. This threads helped me out with a few issues I'd been having with my own game and I'm feeling a bit more confident now in how to proceed with what I've got down.
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Sep 20, 2012 15:20
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I'm trying to do the opposite of the sacred barbeque, I'm trying to grab as many things from as many editions of D&D as possible and make them work, dammit. Stats AND skills AND classes AND levels, baby! I'm stuck on a bit of the skill system though, I know what I'm going to be doing on he basic level but having some trouble with the specifics. Thing I Wanted to Keep: Untrained skills having the 3.x/4E thing of (stat-10)/2. Issue 1): The Cleric/Religion Problem. Issue 2): Low incentive to use appropriate skills with low bonuses. Solution 1): Trained skills have a set value that increases over time. So a level 5 guy with Int 12 and Religion trained has the same bonus as a level 5 guy with Int 20 and Religion trained. New Problem 3): Training something you already have a high stat in gives less of a return than training something you have a low stat in. Solution 2 + 3): Training a skill nets you "Skill Points"  You can spend these when making untrained checks to boost the results (and with trained ones to lesser effect maybe). This means that training an already high skill doesn't feel like a waste, and encourages you to use untrained skills when appropriate since you can boost them with skill points if you roll low.My problem is, I'm not sure how Skill Points should boost your rolls. Rerolls? +2 per point spent? What's a balanced X and Y for "Always +1 to this skill" vs "Do X to any skill once every Y"? Bookkeeping is also a bit of a worry, per-session refresh would seem to be an answer but a lot of people here seem not to like per-session mechanics. e: Basic rolling mechanic is 2d20 system, if one roll succeeds it's a success, both rolls are a superior success. 4E-style power system. e2: I've put more thought than I've written about into what could be the actual bonuses that SP give, but I have problems with each of them and I'd like to get some unbiased ideas. Also feel free to rip it apart completely, I'm more than due some payback by this stage. Splicer fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 16:08
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OK, I'll give this a shot. It's a brief overview, and typing it is making me get my thoughts out in a way that's readable by other people. There is a Basic System for Resolving Stuff. It always involves rolling 2d6. Snakeeyes always fails/misses. Boxcars always succeeds, but might not succeed very well. In combat, you will add your Bonus to the 2d6 and subtract the enemy's Defense, then consult the game's only table. Result: <2: Miss. 3 to 6: Apply attack's damage or effect. 7 to 11: Apply attack's damage and effect. >12: Apply attack's damage and effect. Add a die to The Ring (explained in a sec). Dice show up odd doubles: -2 damage. Dice show up even doubles: +2 damage. Snakeeyes: You miss. Boxcars: You hit even if your result is <2. Do half damage or the minimum possible effect. You have At-Will attacks which do static things, and Special Moves which utilise The Ring. Skills will work in a similar way with the table result being a degree of success thing. Opposed skill checks will be your 2d6 + your skill - opponent's skill. The Ring: At the start of the combat, place a 6 sided die in the ring. Each round where you take an action, add another 6 sided die to the ring. Making a Special Move burns these dice. Each special move has a minimum number of dice you must burn. Each burned dice either rolls for extra damage or applies an effect depending on what Special Move you're using (depending on effect, you may need to roll to see how effective the, um, effect is). You can't burn more dice than you have. You don't have to burn all your dice. When combat is over, remove all remaining dice. Special Moves: These are built by the player from a list of effects like Push, Pull, Stun, Heal, Buff, Debuff, etc. You get a new one every level, subject to some restrictions. Characters: There are 10 character levels in the game, you get tougher at each one, but there are no increasing numbers except for Luck (hit points). YOu mostly get more Stuff To Do. Characters have a Primary and Secondary Thing that they can do, which kind of form your "class". The Things are Might, Cunning, Arcane, and Leadership, corresponding roughly to the D&D archetypes of fighter, thief, wizard, and cleric/warlord. You always have two of those things, with all your starter At-Wills and at least half of your later at-wills and Special Moves coming from your Primary Thing. The idea here is that your primary/secondary thing can encompass any fantasy archetype, without having a big list of archetypes. I;m calling it a skin for now but I need a better word. So Might/Leadership might be skinned as a Paladin, but so could Leadership/Might depending on what you actually want to do with your Paladin. So could Might/Arcane if you;d rather be a smiting paladin than a healing paladin. Like I said before on this page, your skin will determine how you perform your skills. Special Moves can be pretty much anything. You make them up yourself and name them. They are broadly categorised into stuff like Move Friend, Move Foe, Grant Defense, etc. Some things aren't doable by some classes. There are no ability scores. Weapons and armour and stuff: Weapons are divided into Hand, Large, and Ranged types. They do damage based on their type and whatever power you're using. Armour is divided into Light, Medium, Heavy, and Shield. It has Defense and Soak, defense making you harder to hit and soak absorbing damage. Light armour gives you a move bonus. Heavy gives you a move penalty. The actual description is left to the player. Like I give a gently caress if it's Plate Mail or Dragonforged Black Iron Warplate or Really Heavy Bear Hides. Hit points and dying You don't have Hit Points. You have a resource that's currently called Luck. Every successful attack against you that does Damage removes your Luck. When you are Out Of Luck, the next blow puts you Down and you get a Wound. You can take your character level +1 in Wounds before you are Dead. Wounds might give you a penalty at times. I might add a second table to the game for this. There is no way to heal a Wound in combat, and there's no point since being Down lasts until the end of the fight. Various Special Moves might restore Luck. Bad Guys Categorised along the lines of 4e monsters, or else built as characters. If they're built like monsters, they have a basic attack and some Special Moves based on their type. They get a Ring like the characters, but it's shared amongst groups of similar baddies. They don't take Wounds. When their Luck Runs Out, they get killed. Maybe BBEGuys that are supposed to last will take Wounds instead. Edit: gently caress, that took forever to decipher from my notes. I really need to organise the hell out of those. I;m going to bed. Further edit: I currently have my right ring and pinky finger taped together because the ring finger is broken. I keep hitting ; instead of '. Sorry. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 16:08
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The Ring sounds like a really neat mechanic, but you could probably use it outside of combat too. Whenever a player takes an action that requires a die roll, they add 1 die to The Ring. This could open up non-combat Special Moves that require burning dice. All in all the system sounds pretty neat. Definitely a solid base to work off of.
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Sep 20, 2012 22:05
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gnome7 posted:The Ring sounds like a really neat mechanic, but you could probably use it outside of combat too. Whenever a player takes an action that requires a die roll, they add 1 die to The Ring. This could open up non-combat Special Moves that require burning dice. Thanks. To use the ring out of combat, I think I need some sort of "scene" mechanic so I can say "at the end of the scene, remove dice from the ring". I'm just not sure how to do that well. Potentially just use "scene" for combat too and have skills burn dice in and out of combat. It gets tricky at that point if I want to keep it simple.
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Sep 21, 2012 02:46
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For Maze Men v2, I was thinking that I'd slim it down to four stats, the generic names of which would be Power, Mileage, Wit, and Finesse. You'd get a +2, two +1s and a -1 to assign to whichever stats you liked and could use any stat to attack. To make the stats double as a skill system, you'd give each one a more specific description like a 13A background. So a Mercenary with Power as their +2 might call it Mighty Thews or Heavy Axe while a Magician might go with Master Pyromancer or possibly MuscleWizard. If you took Finesse at -1 you might call it Clumsy Oaf or Drunken Boor. The new resolution mechanic will be 2d10+stat. 2d6 was the obvious choice because of all the * World excitement lately, but I wanted more numbers so I'd have room to break into four categories instead of three: Miss, Hit, Solid Hit, Critical Hit. H/SH/CH would be subbing in for At-Will/Encounter/Daily, with a higher roll determining how many effects/how much damage you can pile onto your next maneuver (though you'll still accomplish something on a miss). Missing also builds Charge, which you can spend post-roll to improve your result. I'm going back and forth on how Charge is spent, either it costs 1 to go from Miss to Hit, 2 to go from Hit to Solid Hit, and 3 to go from Solid Hit to Crit, or it costs 1 to improve 1 step, 2 to improve 2 steps, and 3 to improve 3 steps. Rolling your -1 stat grants Charge no matter what the outcome to introduce a bit of a FATE-style aspect compelling. I figure enemies will have tags which impact how the respond to being attacked with a certain stat, though I don't want to have to add/subtract to the initial 2d10+stat. I figure they'd be things like "Heavy: ignore forced movement from Power", "Tricky: Half-damage from Finesse", or "Dull: takes +5 damage when attacked with Wit".
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Sep 21, 2012 05:24
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zachol posted:This seems kinda boring. At that point, why even have skills? I really have to hand it to a lot of people on these forums (especially Doc Hawkins): they really got me to think about game design in a much more meaningful way that "It is this way because... it is!" You've all encouraged me to think about "Why is x system this way, and what impact does it have on the overall game design?" I took this quote from zachol in particular, because I remember what happened when I first started asking myself that question - which was shortly after I asked myself "why have ability scores?". My mind, for lack of a better term, was blown. My players also encouraged me to think about these things more critically. One in particular that affected me the most was "I don't like rolling dice all of the time - it slows down the game dramatically. I would like it better if we rolled when it was really important." So the next session, I reworked the skills in 4e D&D to reflect what I wrote in the previous post. A session went from 3+ hours to about 2, and they enjoyed the relative freedom that they had. But what I think the most important thing I did though, was to never tell them "no". If they had a skill, I let them use it and conjured up a way that it had some sort of effect on the task at hand.
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Sep 21, 2012 19:36
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At some level, the rules are doing their job when they make things happen that no one at the table would want to have happen. In the absence of rules, what anyone wants and no one objects to, happens. Therefore, when rules intrude only to say "you may do the thing that someone wants and no one objects to," they are useless and can be deleted, and if they intrude only to cause situations which the players do not enjoy struggling with, they are bad and can also be deleted. The best rules tell you to do things that you wouldn't do otherwise, but that you enjoy doing.
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Sep 22, 2012 02:24
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Hey TG; I'm fumbling around with the formatting for an RPG PDF, and I'm not sure where the setting information belongs. I'm used to most fluff being located as the last partition of a book... but I think most of the books I can think of that were presented in that way were using established settings, where the author could assume some familiarity on behalf of the reader. This setting is original material, and I just don't know if the reader will be confused or not if the setting fluff is set at the back instead of put right up front. I know a lot of people seem to be put off, though, if the introductory chapter(s) put a whole bunch of exposition between the reader and character generation. Do you mind this personally? Are there good examples of core books that put the fluff first, then the rules?
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Sep 22, 2012 04:40
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 13:47 |
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The Ender posted:Hey TG; I'm fumbling around with the formatting for an RPG PDF, and I'm not sure where the setting information belongs. What about a short story at the start of the book (or a series of vignettes), then rules, then fluff? So you get flavor first, but not too much of it. Then you get the rules, which I imagine include character generation which probably includes or references fluff. Then the detailed fluff. If you put references to fluff throughout the rules, with pointers to the page where that thing is described in full, that could work well too. I liked the way Apocalypse/Dungeon World did it, with each character page including a short "You are... You do... Your friends..." paragraph in front of the rules.
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Sep 22, 2012 05:40
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