The Design-an-RPG thread

[Sturgeon]

I wasn't thinking it would be coded. I am talking an old-school campaign with a human GM.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

*puts on his robe and wizard hat*

[LostCosmonaut]

I have no experience in such matters, but I'd be game.

[Donward]

Time to wake up Pliny Bushbreaker, my wicked little halfling ranger assassin. I'm sure he's off somewhere wicked with his mate Piddle.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Time to wake up Pliny Bushbreaker, my wicked little halfling ranger assassin. I'm sure he's off somewhere wicked with his mate Piddle.

 

My longest played character was Smedley Butler the Paladin 

[Sturgeon]

Also, I was kidding about DnD. DnD sucks.

We'd use a different system.

[xthetenth]

I'm in. I'm doubly in if I don't have to GM. I've probably played in about a tenth as many sessions as I've run.

[Donward]

*runs away cackling*

 

[xthetenth]

DnD is actually a blight. It's got all the ungainliness of a simulationist system with none of the actual simulation depth.

[Toxn]

This is all sounding excellent!

[Sturgeon]

I need more experience as a GM, so I'm happy to do that.

I'm going to be running another game concurrently, so we'll see how that goes.

[Toxn]

I'm busy working on a write-up for a test system, and will post it if/when.

 

In other news, we're still waiting for a final submission for the position of overlord. Note that if no candidates step forward I may have to resort to a duumvirate. Because that always works as a way of governing something.

[xthetenth]

Incidentally I do have a test system, there is some pretty fundamental stuff that doesn't necessarily have a right direction to go that I've been idling on but I could get something together pretty quick if needed. It just wouldn't have minor things like progression or a deep skill/talent setup for a while.

[Toxn]

Okay, here is what I have so far.

 

Some preliminary thoughts:

1. It's hella hard to keep a system simple.
2. Damage models are really hard to make simple and realistic.
3. I very quickly ended up putting more time into the information for GM's section than anything else. Might have to be a separate post.
4. I really have a thing for card-based systems.

General mechanics

• Attributes: short description attached to characters/items/objects. Applied as stated, with room for negotiation but without mechanical execution. May be agreed to have mechanical effects (eg: skills)

• No hitpoints: characters are taken out of the fight by injury, with death being resolved after the fight unless something spectacular occurs.

• No skill trees: skills are increased by adding/removing/modifying attributes on a character.

• Card-based items: items are represented by cards, with standard forms being used for some items (weapons, armour etc.). The cards contain a set of relevant item variables: name, type of item, range (if applicable), armour value/coverage (if applicable), special rules and an attribute description. Items can have more than one attribute.

• GM-driven play: the GM is responsible for rolls, with players giving actions/directions. Further, the GM is allowed to alter rules (with notice) to any extent he wants.

 

General Combat mechanics

• 1 action per turn: move or attack or cast or perform misc. action.

• Combined roll (3xD6): hit roll, placement roll, damage roll. Floating dice can be used to simplify skill/counter rolls. It is advisable to have some way of easily separating dice or sorting them to allow for smooth play.

• 1 counter roll: opponent gets to choose 1 dice before roll to reroll if the score is unfavourable. This represents generic blocking/dodging/luck.

• Skills can be represented to changing the score on a dice, changing the score-to-exceed for a roll or forcing a reroll.

 

Range and movement

• Weapons and spells (if any) can have effects at range. Range is represented by four states: melee (<10m), short range (10 – 50m), medium range (50 – 100m) and long range (>100m).

• Hitting involves exceeding a score, the score being dependent on the situation. GMs are allowed to tinker with to-exceed scores as the situation dictates, but must give contextual clues to players (example: "it's a rainy night and the target is moving, so it will be extremely difficult to hit" = a standard to-hit roll now has a +2 modifier to the to-exceed score.)

• Hitting at range against an opponent is difficult, so the base to-exceed score for actions at range increases: melee = 2, short range = 3, medium range = 4 and long range = 5. Hitting a stationary or large object is easier, of course.

• Base movement per turn is jogging speed (roughly 2m/s), so closing from range can take some time. Turns are represent roughly 10 seconds of time (although this varies for story and mechanical reasons), so a character can move 10-20m per turn.

• Weapons are used in order or range, with weapons in range getting priority. This means that at short range, the short ranged weapon will go first, followed by the long ranged weapon and medium ranged weapon.

• Weapons can exceed their stated range by one increment (you threw your sword), but suffer a reroll penalty to hit along with whatever the GM feels is situationally appropriate (sword now unavailable for rest of scene).

 

Placement and damage

• After a successful hit roll, the placement of the shot will be determined by the placement roll.
• Placement is as follows:
  • ​1: legs
  • 2: lower torso
  • 3: upper torso
  • 4: arms
  • 5: head
  • 6: player chooses
• ​The effect of successful hit placement determines the effect of damage, which is contextual and based on the area hit, the effect of armour and the type of weapon used (a significant wound to the legs, for instance, would result in the character not being able to move or only being able to crawl. A slashing weapon hitting the same point might even remove the leg entirely).
• Damage is determined by the damage roll, with the effects being as follows:
  • ​1: no damage.
  • 2-5: a wound is inflicted. 
  • 6: a severe wound is inflicted.
• Characters are taken out of the fight based on wounds. A normal person, upon receiving a severe wound, generally becomes unable to continue with anything beyond finding cover or retreating. A particularly hardy or strong-willed person, on the other hand, might get multiple injuries and still carry on fighting. The number of wounds a character can withstand is determined by their attributes.
• Severe wounds are such that a character will be instantly out of the fight or severely impaired, with correspondingly more difficult healing and recovery.

 

Narrative, scene, resolution and healing

• Events in a game can happen in one of two ways: narrative (where things are broadly resolved by the GM and players discussing things) and scene (a specific event, where mechanics are in play). GMs can include rolls as needed to represent difficulty, but are advised to only use these where an unexpected, mechanistic resolution to an issue is needed.
• Players may, during narrative or a scene, argue an attribute. Arguing an attribute involves making a case to the GM that the description of the attribute held by a player (in the form of a character attribute or item attribute) will allow the character to perform a certain action. This might involve ignoring or instantly passing a roll ('light touch' being used to bypass a roll to successfully pickpocket another character), or it might involve a constant effect ('veteran' adding another wound to a character). The GM has final authority on the outcome of the argument, but is advised to be reasonable and refrain from simply imposing his/her own interpretation.
• After a scene, it is often the case that one or more characters are out of the fight due to wounds. For the player characters, there must now be a period of healing to restore wounds. Here a skill roll, with a to-exceed score based on the number of wounds received (severe wounds count as two) can be taken every few days, with a roll of 1 adding a wound. Six wounds would thus result in the character dying at the end of the scene. Attributes would, as with all actions, be taken into account where healing is concerned.
• However, the GM does have some leeway to fudge things if needs be. If the game is expected to be realistic and/or difficult, then a more realistic approach to injuries can be taken. If a game is expected to be easier or more fantastic, then injuries resulting in death can be treated as more rare events.

 

Armour, penetration and weapon types

• Armour allows characters to negate the effects of a successful attack beyond the counter-roll, and is item-based.
• Armour items have a coverage statistic (with the numbers corresponding to the parts of the body covered), as well as an attribute description describing the level of protection conferred.
• Penetration is generally dependent on the type of weapon being used, with slashing weapons generally having low penetration. Again, context is important when determining penetration of armour. A discussion of weapon types, armour and damage in the real world is included in the Appendices.

[xthetenth]

Very different from what I'm playing with but it looks interesting. Have you done the math to see how swingy that might be? If the damage resolution rules are harsh, it might go towards the old school territory of character death being a normal part of the game. Flexibility in that regard is probably a very good thing to have because that's a huge influence on the feel of a game and a very personal taste thing.

 

It looks like you're doing similar to me and getting the base mechanic down and then bolting magic on, is that right?

 

I want to get a chance to playtest mine, but the hp pool equivalent is best handled with a table and I haven't gotten around to making those yet. Just as well, will keep it clear to discuss your system a bit.

[Sturgeon]

 

Okay, here is what I have so far.

 

Some preliminary thoughts:

1. It's hella hard to keep a system simple.
2. Damage models are really hard to make simple and realistic.
3. I very quickly ended up putting more time into the information for GM's section than anything else. Might have to be a separate post.
4. I really have a thing for card-based systems.

 

Good start. I'm gonna make a lot of effort to give my feedback on this. I think it would be really cool to have an SH-designed game.

 

 

General mechanics

• Attributes: short description attached to characters/items/objects. Applied as stated, with room for negotiation but without mechanical execution. May be agreed to have mechanical effects (eg: skills)

• No hitpoints: characters are taken out of the fight by injury, with death being resolved after the fight unless something spectacular occurs.

• No skill trees: skills are increased by adding/removing/modifying attributes on a character.

• Card-based items: items are represented by cards, with standard forms being used for some items (weapons, armour etc.). The cards contain a set of relevant item variables: name, type of item, range (if applicable), armour value/coverage (if applicable), special rules and an attribute description. Items can have more than one attribute.

• GM-driven play: the GM is responsible for rolls, with players giving actions/directions. Further, the GM is allowed to alter rules (with notice) to any extent he wants.

 

I believe pretty strongly in merits and skills as being narrative items rather than mechanical items. Rolls should just be generated at the GM's discretion; if there are any "stats" at all, they are just for the GM's crib sheet.

One thing that immediately jumps out at me is that the GM is overworked in a system that is heavily narrative-based. The less mechanical work that's delegated to the players, the more work there is for the GM. I've seen GM's get burnt out running D&D games, so we should be thinking about accommodating workload-reducing features. Way I figure it, reducing workload can be accomplished in 3 ways: 1. Having multiple GMs with their own hierarchy. Biggest downside to this is that you have a hard enough time rounding up just one GM, rounding up two or three sounds difficult. 2. Workload-reducing tools, such as Roll20.net. 3. Relying less on mechanics.

Yeah, I don't see any reason to use hit points. There isn't anything preventing a sharp GM from saying "you've been shot in the arm, I rolled to determine the bullet's effect, it yawed early and fragmented, breaking your arm, you have X amount of time before you pass out from shock", etc. 

I think skill trees should be a GM crib sheet. In real-life, skills are inter-dependent on one another, and so a tree can help the GM determine how hard or easy it is for a character to learn a skill. The two things that must be avoided, however, are "backwards" skill learning (e.g., I leveled up and got 5 points and used them to learn how to shoot a rifle - skills should be practiced before they are mastered, but it should be kept in mind that this also increases GM workload) and character designing (I'm taking the feat "ham radio operator" because it's a prerequisite for "intelligence operative" - the extent to which this actually happens in real life - e.g., going to law school - is very limited). 

Cards have a lot of upsides. They also yet again increase GM workload.

I think we're learning that the ideal RPG is one run by an omnipotent, omniscient GM.

 

 

General Combat mechanics

• 1 action per turn: move or attack or cast or perform misc. action.

• Combined roll (3xD6): hit roll, placement roll, damage roll. Floating dice can be used to simplify skill/counter rolls. It is advisable to have some way of easily separating dice or sorting them to allow for smooth play.

• 1 counter roll: opponent gets to choose 1 dice before roll to reroll if the score is unfavourable. This represents generic blocking/dodging/luck.

• Skills can be represented to changing the score on a dice, changing the score-to-exceed for a roll or forcing a reroll.

 

Relevant: Lindybeige rails on about D&D's initiative system.

 

 

What does a "turn" mean?

Really, I see no reason to use anything but D10s.

 

It should be obvious by now but I rather liked White Wolf's (New) World of Darkness system. In it, you roll dice to attain a given number of successes. A success is always rolling above a certain value (7/10? IIRC). Tasks may take a certain number of successes to achieve (macguyvering a flamethrower out of spare parts may take six successes; someone very good at macguyvering things may find they are able to roll more dice per instance than someone who isn't, but at the end of the day it's still possible for a skilled attempter to take the same or more time to complete a task than a lucky novice.). I really like this task system, as it helps break the game out of the framework of "turns". If a roll represents 2 hours of work, and you need three rolls to complete the task, then it took you six hours.

 

 

Range and movement

• Weapons and spells (if any) can have effects at range. Range is represented by four states: melee (<10m), short range (10 – 50m), medium range (50 – 100m) and long range (>100m).

• Hitting involves exceeding a score, the score being dependent on the situation. GMs are allowed to tinker with to-exceed scores as the situation dictates, but must give contextual clues to players (example: "it's a rainy night and the target is moving, so it will be extremely difficult to hit" = a standard to-hit roll now has a +2 modifier to the to-exceed score.)

• Hitting at range against an opponent is difficult, so the base to-exceed score for actions at range increases: melee = 2, short range = 3, medium range = 4 and long range = 5. Hitting a stationary or large object is easier, of course.

• Base movement per turn is jogging speed (roughly 2m/s), so closing from range can take some time. Turns are represent roughly 10 seconds of time (although this varies for story and mechanical reasons), so a character can move 10-20m per turn.

• Weapons are used in order or range, with weapons in range getting priority. This means that at short range, the short ranged weapon will go first, followed by the long ranged weapon and medium ranged weapon.

• Weapons can exceed their stated range by one increment (you threw your sword), but suffer a reroll penalty to hit along with whatever the GM feels is situationally appropriate (sword now unavailable for rest of scene).

 

First two sound like NWoD.

I don't think there should be turns. Read Erfworld to know why I don't think there should be turns.

The whole "range" classification will become hilarious when applied to firearms.

 

 

 

 

Placement and damage

• After a successful hit roll, the placement of the shot will be determined by the placement roll.
• Placement is as follows:
  • ​1: legs
  • 2: lower torso
  • 3: upper torso
  • 4: arms
  • 5: head
  • 6: player chooses
• ​The effect of successful hit placement determines the effect of damage, which is contextual and based on the area hit, the effect of armour and the type of weapon used (a significant wound to the legs, for instance, would result in the character not being able to move or only being able to crawl. A slashing weapon hitting the same point might even remove the leg entirely).
• Damage is determined by the damage roll, with the effects being as follows:
  • ​1: no damage.
  • 2-5: a wound is inflicted. 
  • 6: a severe wound is inflicted.
• Characters are taken out of the fight based on wounds. A normal person, upon receiving a severe wound, generally becomes unable to continue with anything beyond finding cover or retreating. A particularly hardy or strong-willed person, on the other hand, might get multiple injuries and still carry on fighting. The number of wounds a character can withstand is determined by their attributes.
• Severe wounds are such that a character will be instantly out of the fight or severely impaired, with correspondingly more difficult healing and recovery.

 

 

The basic concept is sound, I think, but it sort of assumes that a character is a series of square blocks always facing the opponent, with an equal chance to hit each part of the body. I think it would be worth investigating a more realistic system than that, but the workload level of what you have is good.

I may take some time to investigate what can be done for melee and marksman combat systems to improve their fidelity.

 

 

Narrative, scene, resolution and healing

• Events in a game can happen in one of two ways: narrative (where things are broadly resolved by the GM and players discussing things) and scene (a specific event, where mechanics are in play). GMs can include rolls as needed to represent difficulty, but are advised to only use these where an unexpected, mechanistic resolution to an issue is needed.
• Players may, during narrative or a scene, argue an attribute. Arguing an attribute involves making a case to the GM that the description of the attribute held by a player (in the form of a character attribute or item attribute) will allow the character to perform a certain action. This might involve ignoring or instantly passing a roll ('light touch' being used to bypass a roll to successfully pickpocket another character), or it might involve a constant effect ('veteran' adding another wound to a character). The GM has final authority on the outcome of the argument, but is advised to be reasonable and refrain from simply imposing his/her own interpretation.
• After a scene, it is often the case that one or more characters are out of the fight due to wounds. For the player characters, there must now be a period of healing to restore wounds. Here a skill roll, with a to-exceed score based on the number of wounds received (severe wounds count as two) can be taken every few days, with a roll of 1 adding a wound. Six wounds would thus result in the character dying at the end of the scene. Attributes would, as with all actions, be taken into account where healing is concerned.
• However, the GM does have some leeway to fudge things if needs be. If the game is expected to be realistic and/or difficult, then a more realistic approach to injuries can be taken. If a game is expected to be easier or more fantastic, then injuries resulting in death can be treated as more rare events.

 

Sounds like a good start.

 

 

 

Armour, penetration and weapon types

• Armour allows characters to negate the effects of a successful attack beyond the counter-roll, and is item-based.
• Armour items have a coverage statistic (with the numbers corresponding to the parts of the body covered), as well as an attribute description describing the level of protection conferred.
• Penetration is generally dependent on the type of weapon being used, with slashing weapons generally having low penetration. Again, context is important when determining penetration of armour. A discussion of weapon types, armour and damage in the real world is included in the Appendices.

 

Sounds like there's enough room there to with which to work.

[Sturgeon]

Very different from what I'm playing with but it looks interesting. Have you done the math to see how swingy that might be? If the damage resolution rules are harsh, it might go towards the old school territory of character death being a normal part of the game. Flexibility in that regard is probably a very good thing to have because that's a huge influence on the feel of a game and a very personal taste thing.

 

It looks like you're doing similar to me and getting the base mechanic down and then bolting magic on, is that right?

 

I want to get a chance to playtest mine, but the hp pool equivalent is best handled with a table and I haven't gotten around to making those yet. Just as well, will keep it clear to discuss your system a bit.

 

If I'm running a campaign, player death is always a normal part of the game.

[LostCosmonaut]

I don't see a problem with character death being a common thing, so long as their isn't shitloads of time investment involved with creating a character. I would be pretty displeased if I had to spend 3 hours creating a character only to have it routinely get scragged after fifteen minutes.

[Toxn]

People must feel free to rewrite/edit things as they see fit.

 

My feeling is that iteration will be our friend here, so don't be shy about taking things apart and pushing out new versions.

 

Just be sure to make your edits stand out in some fashion (a new colour for reworked text?) so we can see the problem areas.

 

 

Good start. I'm gonna make a lot of effort to give my feedback on this. I think it would be really cool to have an SH-designed game.

 

 

 

I believe pretty strongly in merits and skills as being narrative items rather than mechanical items. Rolls should just be generated at the GM's discretion; if there are any "stats" at all, they are just for the GM's crib sheet.

I'm right with you on this, hence the focus on attribute descriptions/arguing. 

One thing that immediately jumps out at me is that the GM is overworked in a system that is heavily narrative-based. The less mechanical work that's delegated to the players, the more work there is for the GM. I've seen GM's get burnt out running D&D games, so we should be thinking about accommodating workload-reducing features. Way I figure it, reducing workload can be accomplished in 3 ways: 1. Having multiple GMs with their own hierarchy. Biggest downside to this is that you have a hard enough time rounding up just one GM, rounding up two or three sounds difficult. 2. Workload-reducing tools, such as Roll20.net. 3. Relying less on mechanics.

Workload for the GM is something I've considered mechanically, but not in terms of the overall game. This is an area where your input is invaluable, because I simply don't have enough time to playtest things thoroughly and lack the experience to intuit where issues would arise.

Yeah, I don't see any reason to use hit points. There isn't anything preventing a sharp GM from saying "you've been shot in the arm, I rolled to determine the bullet's effect, it yawed early and fragmented, breaking your arm, you have X amount of time before you pass out from shock", etc. 

I agree. Unfortunately, embodying lack of hitpoints mechanically is a bit tricky (the current approach is just the latest in a series of more-or-less terrible attempts), and as you say; the load on the GM goes up as you make things more opaque.

I think skill trees should be a GM crib sheet. In real-life, skills are inter-dependent on one another, and so a tree can help the GM determine how hard or easy it is for a character to learn a skill. The two things that must be avoided, however, are "backwards" skill learning (e.g., I leveled up and got 5 points and used them to learn how to shoot a rifle - skills should be practiced before they are mastered, but it should be kept in mind that this also increases GM workload) and character designing (I'm taking the feat "ham radio operator" because it's a prerequisite for "intelligence operative" - the extent to which this actually happens in real life - e.g., going to law school - is very limited). 

I agree.

Cards have a lot of upsides. They also yet again increase GM workload.

What does help is to get the players to submit cards, as well as keeping things from earlier games which worked well. The idea is that each GM will end up with a pool of cards which can be used to expand/define the game in a way that everyone likes.

I think we're learning that the ideal RPG is one run by an omnipotent, omniscient GM.

Pretty much.

 

 

Relevant: Lindybeige rails on about D&D's initiative system.

 

 

What does a "turn" mean?

Really, I see no reason to use anything but D10s.

I actually like 3D6, because I work with normal distributions so much. That said, the resulting bucket of dice gets very old very fast.

Feel free to substitute D10s for D6s as needed.

 

It should be obvious by now but I rather liked White Wolf's (New) World of Darkness system. In it, you roll dice to attain a given number of successes. A success is always rolling above a certain value (7/10? IIRC). Tasks may take a certain number of successes to achieve (macguyvering a flamethrower out of spare parts may take six successes; someone very good at macguyvering things may find they are able to roll more dice per instance than someone who isn't, but at the end of the day it's still possible for a skilled attempter to take the same or more time to complete a task than a lucky novice.). I really like this task system, as it helps break the game out of the framework of "turns". If a roll represents 2 hours of work, and you need three rolls to complete the task, then it took you six hours.

I sort of came up with this one organically, but am glad to see that it exists out in the real world.

Turns are convenient for really chunky tactical play, but pretty useless otherwise. Hence the narrative/scene disconnect.

 

 

First two sound like NWoD.

I don't think there should be turns. Read Erfworld to know why I don't think there should be turns.

See above. Turns are limited, except where you want to drill down to specific situations. Hell, even then simultaneous turns are better.

The whole "range" classification will become hilarious when applied to firearms.

I know, but am limiting things to black powder so it's not too much of an issue. 

In any case, this system also turns to shit if you start including things like cars.

 

 

The basic concept is sound, I think, but it sort of assumes that a character is a series of square blocks always facing the opponent, with an equal chance to hit each part of the body. I think it would be worth investigating a more realistic system than that, but the workload level of what you have is good.

I had a really nice area-based approach, but simplified for D6. D10 or D20 could do this better.

I may take some time to investigate what can be done for melee and marksman combat systems to improve their fidelity.

Melee, fisticuffs and grappling are the bane of many a system. I've come to realise that it's a combination of lack of common understanding of the mechanics of melee fighting, as well as the inherent complexity of move/countermove that goes on.

 

Sounds like a good start.

 

 

Sounds like there's enough room there to with which to work.

 

[Toxn]

Very different from what I'm playing with but it looks interesting. Have you done the math to see how swingy that might be? If the damage resolution rules are harsh, it might go towards the old school territory of character death being a normal part of the game. Flexibility in that regard is probably a very good thing to have because that's a huge influence on the feel of a game and a very personal taste thing.

 

It looks like you're doing similar to me and getting the base mechanic down and then bolting magic on, is that right?

 

I want to get a chance to playtest mine, but the hp pool equivalent is best handled with a table and I haven't gotten around to making those yet. Just as well, will keep it clear to discuss your system a bit.

Cool, show us whenever you want

 

I feel that we can afford not to be too precious about our ideas here, so a bunch of approaches would be great for comparison.

[Toxn]

If I'm running a campaign, player death is always a normal part of the game.

I'm down with backup characters and lots of death

[Donward]

Time to start filling out my red shirt biographies.

[xthetenth]

Lamentably I'm about to go drive for an hour and a half each way to return some library books, when I get back I'll discuss what I've been messing with (it uses more abstraction and game resource stuff, because I tend to go towards game mechanics designed to promote realistic outcomes than straight simulationist stuff)

 

I believe pretty strongly in merits and skills as being narrative items rather than mechanical items. Rolls should just be generated at the GM's discretion; if there are any "stats" at all, they are just for the GM's crib sheet.

One thing that immediately jumps out at me is that the GM is overworked in a system that is heavily narrative-based. The less mechanical work that's delegated to the players, the more work there is for the GM. I've seen GM's get burnt out running D&D games, so we should be thinking about accommodating workload-reducing features. Way I figure it, reducing workload can be accomplished in 3 ways: 1. Having multiple GMs with their own hierarchy. Biggest downside to this is that you have a hard enough time rounding up just one GM, rounding up two or three sounds difficult. 2. Workload-reducing tools, such as Roll20.net. 3. Relying less on mechanics.

 

 

My personal feeling differs somewhat regarding merits and skills. Rolls are a means to an end, the end is conflict resolution, and the difficulty level on the roll is fundamentally at the GM's discretion, either at design time or roll time if it didn't get sorted out earlier. However merits and skills do serve a very useful purpose. They are in effect the player's contract with the game world that yes, in fact, their character can do that (and on the converse, their character is not very good at that other thing). Much like rolling mechanics exist to resolve conflicts impersonally and impartially, the mechanical half of the character is an impartial way of granting a character capabilities. If done well, they are a way of putting the narrative qualities of a character into a form that can interact with the mechanical aspect.

 

The trick then is to design the tersest, least constraining rules for doing so, so what the character can do is what it feels like the character should be able to do, and knowing what a character should be able to do. Much like other social contracts, you want to guarantee the essentials and make it work with a minimum of clutter (especially if you're going to be making new characters frequently, you want to be able to sort out the mechanical aspect right quick). This is of course mostly there to deal with the effects of not having an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent GM (of which there are frighteningly few!).

 

Also, as somebody who ran a weekly Rogue Trader campaign on roll20.net for over a year, it's absolutely fantastic, but games with more complex character sheets are still a bear. Multiple GMs is a neat idea, but mostly best for getting around scaling effects, and would be best when the party is split frequently. Lean and fast mechanics where any state changes for a character, PC or NPC (especially NPC because the GM has to track them all) can be tracked with a minimum of muss and fuss even if context is broken routinely are great. Keeping things consistent is very important to keep everything moving quickly without any confusion. The mechanics should be simple and stripped of any non essential complexity because that's complexity and thinking time that could be used for interesting challenges.

 

Cards could be neat because they're a method of tracking state change and everything that's quickly and easily looked up. I've been playing some Myth, which is a light game with very simple core systems where any actions other than moving are card based, but the individual cards can be relatively complex. It works pretty well because you're only presented with a few at a time, and only the ones that are relevant options, so it's quick and easy to pick up what you can do in a turn even if all the cards are new. It'd be a good way to handle something like the 40k grimdark hell wounds chart where you aren't concerned with the body of the iceberg so much as the tip currently lodged in your spleen, and that way you're just presented with the bit you really care about. (A good grisly hit chart is always a hit at parties, and is non-essential complexity that pays back its cost with fun.)

 

 

Relevant: Lindybeige rails on about D&D's initiative system.

 

Structured turns and all that are a weird mechanical thing, but without turns or an initiative setup, things get awfully weird awfully fast, and solutions that aren't rigid or gamey are few and far between. This is a difficult problem that unfortunately isn't helped by putting it on a spreadsheet because there isn't necessarily a right answer.

[xthetenth]

Cool, show us whenever you want

 

I feel that we can afford not to be too precious about our ideas here, so a bunch of approaches would be great for comparison.

 

Hokay, here goes.

 

A system for handling what skills are what and so on isn't there and a stamina economy is more a goal than a thing as of yet, those are known.

 

I'm working with early modern arms and armor because they're kind of a superset of pre-gunpowder weapons and they're cool. Weapons are going to be one or multiple lines of the damage code from the chart down there, with single type weapons getting some kind of bonus. Armor's got a social or financial price tag attached to it. I want rules for fighting from horseback with a momentum to them.

 

I do have some rules for added gear realism (and adding a cost to looted items so a party isn't murder ganking a few dudes in plate from having top end gear)

 

EDIT: Scratch that, tables didn't post nicely at all. Working on a fix.

 

EDIT 2: This should be a viable share link to see them: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=86DFB9E604D699C!30584&authkey=!AKHtNRfC9s0HnJw&ithint=file%2cdocx

[Virdea]

I have been directed to this page because of my own expertise in this area.  My name is Steve Jackson, and I am a game designer.  I have written about twenty different game supplements, and published my own game.  The request placed at my feet was to aid in your endeavor.

 

I am about six months into design concept for a new game called "A Crack in Time."  The game includes sub-titles called "Crack in Time: 1960," "Crack in Time: 1860", and so forth.