On Systems

[Grey]

Other old hands, feel free to chime in here. Anecdotes, holistic approaches, hard numbers, that's all good.


We've got a lot of new members from primarily freeform PbP backgrounds, so this thread has a dual purpose - somewhere to bullshit about old times, design, and things we like in terms of system, and more importantly, somewhere to give the unfamiliar a friendly run down.


I'm going to kick us off with a little history, followed by some design philosophy. Anyone who sees me embellish or misremember, call me out.


You might be wondering why systems and dice, right? You roleplay because it's collaborative storytelling, no? Keeping those skills sharp (presumably between personal works) while producing something awesome with like-minded people. I get that. I especially get that when any exposure to tabletop games has been through D&D, even if only in other media, or the mechanics of RPG videogames (the now-venerable classic Fallout could be run on this site with damned near zero-effort due to a basis in tabletop mechanics).


Roleplaying predates Gary Gygax (may he roll with the greats, if that's your belief-structure), but we don't need to go back that far. Our system originates in war-games. Little toy soldiers on a tabletop, with two players battling as omniscient generals - competitive, tactical, tons of fun if you're into that. An early precursor to Warcraft, if anyone remembers it before it was an MMO.


So, Mr. Gygax hits upon the idea of combining roleplaying and rules to facilitate adventure - for good reason. The uncertainty of the dice added excitement, the structure of the rules provided a skeleton to build on, the division of roles gave everyone time in the spotlight (our brave Fighter is mortally wounded in slaying the dragon with the aid of our noble Elf's arrows that brought it to ground, only to be saved by the compassion of our Cleric).


Early counter-measures against god-modding, aye? Back when your group was you and a few friends, and goddamn you could not afford bad-blood spoiling the game or your friendships.


Of course, everyone, even Gygax, got a bit crazy as campaigns wore on. The rules remained as a jumping-off point, and some people get a kick out of manipulating the system, but you could wind up in a game with laser-breathing T-Rexes and as long as everyone was having fun, that was just fine.


We've come a long way, since then. Where once rules were an assumption, now they're tools.


I come from a writing background. When I want to write fiction, I write fiction, and years of being a loner mean I do not work well with others. Ah, but what you can do with a game is different. You're still telling a story, but it's a whole new quale.


There are a number of things we do with systems, and they're interdependent.


1. They support the setting. According to the setting history, the Exalted Host slew the Primordial creators of the universe and trapped them in their King. The system can, at least, hint to how. Just in case your players have some Gods to slay.


2. They enforce tone. Your game is set in a hellish distant future where there is only war, daemons want to eat your soul, and the God-Emperor's militant church punishes thought-crime with extreme prejudice. A system where you can die, easily, and then it gets worse, reinforces the bleakness and horror of this setting. By contrast, fitting it with a more forgiving system and you've got a recipe for pitch-black comedy.


3. They challenge you. Yes, writing is hard. Yes, you have to make compromises to keep a plot going. Yes, you have to negotiate when you character is hurt or even killed, for the purpose of drama. Yes, you decide if something is overcome, or first failed before trying again.


But then the system says 'you can't do that.' That's not discouragement - that's a challenge. Use the tools you have creatively.


4. They ensure fair conflict. Alright, that's half a lie because party balance is a myth. But they do help give everyone in the group a niche in which to excel, flaws to work around, and when two characters fight? It's one thing to agree on a result - but it's a real thrill if the clash of swords might kill someone and you don't know who. Not for sure. You know what else is fun? One lucky roll in a sparring match and you main or kill an ally. How is your character coping with that one?


5. They take the story to unexpected places. I have a rule - I only make players roll when failure is as interesting as success. But I don't stop them rolling when it seems appropriate, because an unexpected failure presents new directions. As might an unexpected success. In a recent game, one player accidentally broke an NPC's leg while sparring, which lead, directly, to another character suffering a most terrible fate. I hadn't planned for that - deep down, I didn't want it to happen - but it did, and improvising around that is what makes it so different to just writing something.


Now, I'm not here to shit all over freeform - I've done it before, I'm doing some now, and I shan't be surprised to do it again - but they're very different experiences. I'd suggest giving it a go sometime.


If you ever want a run down of the easy places to start, or hell, if you want to dive right in and suspect I have the time to lay out something newbies-only, I'm right here.


Everybody else? Come on, throw in! I almost certainly missed something.

 

[revo]

Thanks for posting. I'd read a newbie guide or be in a newbie RP that has lots of guides and schtuff in it. Just sayin'.

 

[SephirothSage]

Grey. I salute you.


I concur.


Fuckin A.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

I've always adopted a time honored phrase from an old friend: "Roleplaying is one man's war against a group of wandering heroes." But that also falls into pitch-black comedy...for me, anyway.


I think extra emphasis should be given to games where niche is expected of the group (to a point) such as in some games of Exalted, WoD, or even L5R. Niche may not make you the most powerful of your party of five, but it'll give you a ridiculous amount of shine if each person specializes in a few specific areas. Makes for a great newbie introduction method as well.


I too would be open to starting a newbie-friendly game for people wanting to experience dice systems.

 

[hellrazoromega]

Very good stuff, I can actually recall Chainmail, which was a set of miniatures rules of which D&D was an offshoot before it grew into it's own beast. In fact things like AC (Armor Class) came directly from Chainmail. When I began RPing you had D&D, Metamorphosis Alpha, Boot Hill and The Empire of the Petal Throne/ Tékumel (Which btw is probably one of the the most fully developed game worlds to date--even has its own language with its own actual dictionary) and until the explosion of the early 80's that as about it. There were maybe a few exceptions that may have squeaked in around '78 or '79 but were darn near impossible to get your hands on. Us old timers had a whole lexicon back in those days that I don't even know if it still exists. I mean does anyone remember what a Monty Haul game® is? Or who the heck Monty Haul even was?


I think the issue with systems, as opposed to freeform come with the rules lawyers, who make the system more important than the setting. It was not until the Storyteller system and the first version of Vampire: The Masquerade in 1990 that a major game added a rule (The ever famous Golden Rule of the Storyteller system) that officially said that if you or your group does not like a rule change it. Up until that time systems we very rigid a few fringe games like Toon had tested those waters but they were far from the gaming mainstream and for a hobby that is already a niche pastime being outside the mainstream if gaming means things can get pretty far out. It was that change, the emphasis on story that I believe brought so many women into the hobby. While it is purely anecdotal so I hope the ladies here don't pelt be with rotten fruit, in my experience most female gamers (as always there are exceptions) could give a rats tail feathers about system they want a focus on story. That is one reason (there are of course many factors) why I believe that even today there still not a great many women into war games, which still rely on strict rules in the name of fairness and balance. That change to a focus on story grew the hobby and it was fortunate that it happen a few years before the Open Game License for D20 hit in 2000. While a ton of well intentioned hacks got into the act and put out some awful stuff, some of the best RPG companies today came out of the OGL explosion and they went on to mature into games well beyond D20. I offer Green Ronin and Fantasy Flight as prime examples. Systems have changed so much in my years of gaming. Back in the early 80's games tried to have a rule for every eventuality and I own games from that time that have enough charts to choke a horse, heck Space Opera has a damn geometric formula in it to calculate the distance between stars in 3 dimensions, (no lie, I'm looking at it right now) I mean when was the last time you picked up an RPG with formulas in it. I'll have to look but I think Aftermath has some algebra in somewhere. While I love some of those older games and they will always hold a place in my heart, and I still even play some of them, I also love the change to a focus on story that modern games have. While I pretty much agree with all that Grey said about systems, I think the most important concept is that the rules should never override the story if it is going to take things to a place where the GM or the players don't want to go.


Funny story on freeform, back in 1985 a game called Sandman came out. It had a rule set that we were used to and that had driven other games by a little company called Pacesetter. Their other games, Chill, Star Ace and Timemaster were a lot of fun. (see footnote)* Anyway we ending up tossing out everything in the book inducing the rules and began to play free form, though we had no such name for it back then. The concept was that your mind was 'lost' in the multiverse and you were hoping around sort of like some cosmic Quantum Leap or Voyagers! (does anyone even remember these shows?) So at the beginning of each scenario the storyteller (we all took turns) would start with the words, "OK you wake up," we would find ourselves in a totally unknown setting on unfamiliar bodies an the only things we did know was that 1. Some cosmic entity called the Sandman was using us to fix problems in the multiverse and 2. We had a per-arranged set of sounds, markings and gestures so we could identify each other. form there we had to investigate and figure out where we were, why we were there and/or how things were "wrong" and how we could "fix" it. Now when we ended up in a place like Dallas in 1963 figuring out way we were there seemed easy (turns out we had to ensure that Kennedy was assassinated, so our characters were the people on the Grassy Knoll), but when we ended up on an alien world in aline bodies it took some real work to figure out what right an wrong even was!


That was my first experience with free form, such as it was and it was a whole different animal than dice RPing--but as Grey said each has it's own merits and flaws. Any way enough gaming history--this is what you get when you put an historian and an old gamer into the same guy.


*A little gaming trivia aside on Timemaster, in which you were an agent of an organization that went through time fixing errors in the time line (sounds familiar:tongue, was a thematic precursor to a game called Timelords--which made us Whovians back in that day, before Dr. Who was mainstream, snicker (Long live the 4th Doctor). Anyway Timelords was one of the few RPG's where you made yourself as a character, the rationale being what group of people with tons of esoteric knowledge in science, history, culture and what not would cosmic time traveling beings pick to fix time lines? Well, gamers of course.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

I do, in fact, have friends who used to talk about Timelords on occasion. They said it was a...unique experience in playing. They only rolled with it for a few nights for a laugh.

 

[Grey]

HellRazor is correct - the Golden Rule is fuckin' awesome and the rules shouldn't supersede the story or your good time.


I neglected to mention it because I feel the better the design of a game, the less necessary. Also Razor's wealth of experience makes me feel like a caveman with a bicycle.

 

[The Fuzz]

Hmmm. I had a thought about this a little while back. For context: it was in a discussion about the EXP cost for learning languages in a game where the players are the crew of an airship in a fantasy world.

We have rules in an rpg to facilitate coolness and fun in play. Depending on genre, what is cool and fun varies, but the point of it is to facilitate those things. We have RULES for this because we like to play it as a GAME, with other people.


In addition to this, experience is pretty much an abstraction. It doesn't have much to do with what a character actually 'learns'. A genuinely accurate XP system would not allow people to increase traits in play at all, but would instead accrue on, like, a yearly basis, and be spent during extensive downtime.


What are we actually doing when we spend XP? We're unlocking new tools for our characters to use, and potentially new advantages for them in interacting with the environment. XP serves a couple of different functions here. It allows the GM to control the rate at which characters effectively unlock new interaction tools, and also forces a certain degree of parity between characters. Not true game balance, mind, but that's a trap anyway. Heresh is not ever going to win a swordfight with an Infernal warrior....but that Infernal warrior is not ever going to be as inherently good at flying airships or calling down lightning strikes.


What matters is that characters have fun tools for players to use, without getting on each others' tits, stealing moments of cool from each other, or breaking willing suspension of disbelief. Now, in addition to that, there's another function of it...player characters functioning to set the tone of the setting. Our captain is a hulking warrior descended from mixed human and infernal bloodlines. We have walking, talking, adorable rats as part of the crew. Our mechanic has a magitech cyber-arm. Our pilot is a bouncy, hyperactive weather sorcerer. We look at each other and extrapolate setting details from ourselves.


That in mind....while I highlighted that Language as a skill might be somewhat wonky, that doesn't mean that I think languages should be really expensive to learn. In a setting like Darkening Skies, where we're tooling around on an airship between different countries, languages should be a big deal. That doesn't mean that languages should be hard for players to acquire, though. If anything, it means that knowing lots of languages (in this setting even more so than in default Crucible) should be incentivised, because it's cool.





Just a couple of thoughts.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

HellRazor is correct - the Golden Rule is fuckin' awesome and the rules shouldn't supersede the story or your good time.
I neglected to mention it because I feel the better the design of a game, the less necessary. Also Razor's wealth of experience makes me feel like a caveman with a bicycle.

Peddle faster, chimp.

 

[hellrazoromega]

[QUOTE="Cthulhu_Wakes]I do, in fact, have friends who used to talk about Timelords on occasion. They said it was a...unique experience in playing. They only rolled with it for a few nights for a laugh.

[/QUOTE]It was different, I can tell you. I also recall an adventure book for Aftermath, a post-apocalyptic game that was a little unique at the time in that it had no default setting, the GM could make the Apocalypse whatever he chose or use one of the ones in an adventure book. In this book called project Morpheus you again played your self about 10 year in the future, since we were all in high school at the time it was fun to speculate on what skill sets we thought we would have in 10 years (Even more fun looking back now and seeing how close--or far off---we were). Any way you were volunteers in a suspended animation test group for a deep space project and while you were under a global pandemic broke out that caused major death tolls. In the panic a limited nuclear exchange happened in the Northern Hemisphere out of fear and in an attempt to cleanse some regions of the disease. Lucky for us the project was at the University of Sidney. You wake up a few hundred years later into primitive world and have to search this massive underground tech complex which was protected from outside attack by major automated defenses. The defenses were installed in the last days of civilization because the University was also working on a cure for the pandemic and rumors had made it the target of looting raids of panicked people look for said cure. The adventure book is huge and was a fun play.

HellRazor is correct - the Golden Rule is fuckin' awesome and the rules shouldn't supersede the story or your good time.
I neglected to mention it because I feel the better the design of a game, the less necessary. Also Razor's wealth of experience makes me feel like a caveman with a bicycle.

Yeah I agree the Golden Rule was one of the watershed moments of gaming. I have been luck in my time to actually have known ah hung out with some major game developers and through them gotten access to some minor freelance writing gigs, nothing huge but all a lot of fun. I dunno whether to be proud or embarrassed, or maybe both, to say that those relationships have led me to playing an insane amount of games since the late 70's.

 

[Axelgear]

Now, I'm not here to shit all over freeform

I am!


Seriously, though, I have my criticisms for that, but they're not really relevant right now.


I've been helping someone get a grip on GMing lately and some things I'd throw out there are that a good system is one where you have a lot of tools but a great one is where you can make your own, ideally through pure improvisation.


This is a part of why I love the storyteller system; ostensibly and ultimately, it revolves around a very simple dice system with very simple categorization which, Mandelbrot-like, can spring forth into astounding complexity and depth. Yet that simplicity still remains, and so, it is superbly easy to improvise on a whim.


I'm perhaps the worst kind of GM in some ways, in that I improvise everything. Almost nothing is planned ahead. I don't make plans because I like to create worlds as toy boxes for players to play in. It helps to maintain player agency, though, and to ensure that players running off into the night doesn't just leave you sort of wondering what to do.


So, yeah. I recommend that, when choosing a system, you find one that not only can you get comfortable with, but one that you can get comfortable with improvising with. Ideally, you can construct a grand and sprawling enough road-map for any adventure you have in mind that it's unnecessary, but there will always be something you didn't think of and your players are like bloodhounds with noses for missing set-pieces.

 

[solyrflair]

I started playing in the early 80s. Back then you had a few game systems, some of them more rules heavy than others. Basic D&D and AD&D was my groups favorite. This was a relatively rules light system compared to ICE or some others. Most people look at D&D and it is the example of a rules heavy system, but it was much simpler in those days.


The Golden Rule was also part of the D&D system. They specifically said that if you don't like a rule, change it, toss it, or completely rewrite it. The game was designed to be fun. Some systems added a lot more rules, made things much more interesting. But complicated also made it hard to try something outside the box. In first edition AD&D I played a half-dryad Druid by making up the rules we needed, and a halfling ranger long long before the option was available in 3e.


Here is what I say about a good rule system: it gives you enough framework to jump in and play, but also is open enough to go in directions the game designers didn't plan for. A free form game system is sometimes so open that it gets in the way of the new player. It doesn't give enough of a framework to give you ideas, and requires too much conversation early on just to get the idea of what a character wants to play. Even some of the open interactive fiction systems I have played in had to assign magic/skill levels so players would know how they compared to others, just so they could play together.


The problem I have had free form is that some players jump into everything and play as if their character is good at everything they do, which turns out to be everything. For those of us (like me) that enjoy not having perfect characters, this is less of a problem, but I have dealt with some who can't bear to have an under-perfect characters. It gets in their way of being in valves in things. So that is where some of the rule systems work well.


The best one I was ever in had a very simple rule system. It allowed players to try anything, but gave a way for the ST to control some of the action with a dice system. Still, all too often, someone would complain that they didn't know how far their character's abilities could stretch. There is always someone who needs more framework and those who need less.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

I have never minded not being godlike at things, despite some of my friends and former players back home not able to stand the idea (primarily when it came to Exalted, 1st or 2nd). I never minded someone with room to grow. What I usually have problems with is a system which cannot generate a person. In the sense that, say, you're making a 50 year old professor and after chargen is over, they don't seem half as knowledgeable as they should. Had a lot of issues with that in nWoD when it first came out.


Sure, you can give people extra xp, but it shouldn't have to be a thing sometimes.


Brought to you by CW's Weird Tangential Complaint Committee.

 

[solyrflair]

This is a problem with most dice system role plays. They are going to assume you are a beginning character when you first start out. They put limits on just how good you can be. They don't want the experts out there having one really good skill and be incapable of everything else. You might need 8 skill ranks to be best in your field, but character creation limits you to a max 4 ranks.


Our group refers to this as the "hairless ape" or the "brain in a bag" complex. One is the strong fighter, but has no skills outside of smashing things. It is boring when you aren't in combat because you simply can't do anything but fight. The other is the person knowledgeable in a wide range of subjects, but can't survive a paper cut. Useful as long as you aren't doing something physical. We have written rules for our game systems (Pathfinder mostly) to avoid this issue.


I have only found some superhero systems that really let you play a "best in field" character from character creation onwards. Most want a beginning character to specifically not be the best. Sometimes this works for the concept of young starting adventurers out exploring the world for the first time, or for characters to be faced with problems that they need to go find answers to. By having too many experts, you lose the need to interact with the world, because your character already knows what they need to.


As a ST in a situation where someone wants to play the "best in field" I will let them. But I put restrictions of their character in ways. I might tell them that they can be the world expert, but I expect half of their XP to go into that skill until they reach a certain level. Or that when they make level they put continual improvement into their skill each time. An open RP system doesn't have that limitation. But you run into the problem of how good can someone be at how many things before it just gets silly. The Buckaroo Banzai syndrome. He is a brain surgeon, physicist, spy, rock star, ladies love him, and he has a fan club that people can join. Great character for 80s campy films, but not your best starting character.

 

[hellrazoromega]

I started playing in the early 80s. Back then you had a few game systems, some of them more rules heavy than others. Basic D&D and AD&D was my groups favorite. This was a relatively rules light system compared to ICE or some others. Most people look at D&D and it is the example of a rules heavy system, but it was much simpler in those days.
The Golden Rule was also part of the D&D system. They specifically said that if you don't like a rule, change it, toss it, or completely rewrite it. The game was designed to be fun. Some systems added a lot more rules, made things much more interesting. But complicated also made it hard to try something outside the box. In first edition AD&D I played a half-dryad Druid by making up the rules we needed, and a halfling ranger long long before the option was available in 3e.

The big difference back in those days, at least with the groups I played with, was that no one took the Golden Rule to heart in the same way until the Storyteller system. Oh sure we changed rules and dropped rules in D&D all the time and I think everyone had House Rules. For instance we almost never used all the chart that gave you adjustments to hit based on the armor class of the target. But for us at least, the Storyteller system did two things, it really emphasized that Golden Rule and it made story a bit more important by getting rid of all those charts that games, even D&D, had in the 80's, so the GM could spend more time on story. That is not to say there weren't simple games in the 80's, but few were as simple and streamlined as some of today's systems. But like anything else things tend to get more efficient with time (there are exceptions of course) and evolved based on what has gone before. To this day some of my favorite systems, ones that strike a balance between elegance and simplicity, were developed in the 90's.


As I said while I have a soft spot for some of those complicated systems of old and still play some, I agree that systems should always be there to facilitate story--I have however met gamers who think it should be the other way around, as strange as that may seem.

As a ST in a situation where someone wants to play the "best in field" I will let them. But I put restrictions of their character in ways. I might tell them that they can be the world expert, but I expect half of their XP to go into that skill until they reach a certain level. Or that when they make level they put continual improvement into their skill each time. An open RP system doesn't have that limitation. But you run into the problem of how good can someone be at how many things before it just gets silly. The Buckaroo Banzai syndrome. He is a brain surgeon, physicist, spy, rock star, ladies love him, and he has a fan club that people can join. Great character for 80s campy films, but not your best starting character.

But I love Buckaroo Banzai that along with Big Trouble in Little China are just great fun, eye-candy, campy movies. Sadly the long awaited Buckaroo Banzai RPG sadly slipped in to development Limbo.

 

[Axelgear]

In response to the "brain in a bag" issue, I don't honestly consider that an issue, myself, but, then, I don't really know what sort of game you're playing. My answer would be, though, that, if you want a character to be better than what a starting character allows, why not just give your players the XP they need to do so without being complete losses elsewhere? This doesn't sound so much like an issue with players but merely an issue with what the GM is willing to allow. If you want your players to not be fresh-out-the-gate adventurers, simply don't make them that; give them a chance to be something more. Most systems are adaptive.


It's simply that most systems are also built around the journey, not the destination. It's not about being rich as Croesus, it's the deals you make and backs you think could use knife-heavy redecoration that get you those riches. It doesn't have to be, though, and you're more than welcome to boost your starting player's ratings or ask the ST to do the same. If they don't want you starting out a Nobel winner, then that's not really an issue with the game, now, is it?


I'd also throw in the note with nWoD that GMC is your friend; it got rid of that "Starting at 5 is super-expensive" malarky and included other means (area of specialty, professional training, etc. merits) to further boost your character's capability in a specific direction and truly make them a field-leading expert, even for a starting character. If I wanted to make a world-renowned scientist, it's not impossible to start them off with four dots in Intelligence, five in Science, carrying about maxed out professional training and an area of specialty in their field, and still have room in your spending left over to give them a good bundle of skills elsewhere. It limits options beyond that, but, ultimately, a Nobel-winning physicist is only going to have so many Ingres' violins sitting about.


I'm going to put it out there now that almost anything and everything I say lately is probably an advertisement for nWoD and GMC because I absolutely adore the system it runs on. It's practically all I run now, aside from the occasional Eclipse Phase or what have you.

 

[hellrazoromega]

It's simply that most systems are also built around the journey, not the destination. It's not about being rich as Croesus, it's the deals you make and backs you think could use knife-heavy redecoration that get you those riches. It doesn't have to be, though, and you're more than welcome to boost your starting player's ratings or ask the ST to do the same. If they don't want you starting out a Nobel winner, then that's not really an issue with the game, now, is it?

While I agree with the Zen concept in of the journey being important as much as any species I thing the ending/destination is supremely important as far an entrainment is concerned, at least if the way we comport ourselves is any indication. RPG's are unique in that we have all be a part of games and or campaigns that never reached any sort of final conclusion, but perhpas we at least got to the end of a few chapters or stories. But using books an movies as an example when was the last time you our someone you knew was reading a book and said, "I love this book I an going to read all but the last chapter and never pick it up again!", or when have you voluntarily walkout of a film 20 minutes before the end and said," this movie is awesome--I'm done!" Even when fun games we have been in have not reached a conclusion we usually wish they could go on (awful games of course not included). From my own experience I can say for all the fun things we did, such as those deals we made and the actions we took to get to an conclusion I can say that most of those campaigns that I have played all the way through hold a special place in my memories. I mean entire discussion are held on whether or not we liked or hated the ending. I mean look a Mass Effect 3, almost universal acclaim as an awesome journey---a bit more disagreement on whether or not people loved or hated the ending


Again to to say that the journey is not fun and vital for without the journey no one would ever reach any destination, but let's not forget that we also hold a good ending/destination as important.


I think one of the beauties of RPG's is that what works for one group may not work for every group, and that is perfectly OK. So if you and your friends are OK with starting with the equalvilent of '0'-level characters then more power to you, on the other hand if you want to start at Epic levels and give everyone 40 levels to play with then that's great too. So long as the group is having fun there is no wrong way to play. I am reminded of growing up when we would RP my father would ask ,"So who's winning?" because he had no concept of what RPG's were or how they are played and that they are one of the worlds great cooperative exercises. There is not win or lose, nor is there a right or wrong. In fact I think the primary instances of wrong in RPG's is either when someone can't divide fact from fiction and when everyone is not having fun. That is the awesome thing about RPGs, everything each of us has said can be true, the trick is just finding a group of like-minded people that want to do a 40th level Giant Robot, Light Cycle in the Pocket, Atomic Cannon Wielding Epic campaign and if you can do that all I can say is--enjoy!!

 

[Grey]

Bump for newbies

 

[El Phantasmo]

Interesting discussion! I've been trying to iron out a few systems for my own games I'm writing (Soon to put up a critique request thread for feedback on initial concepts if nothing else) and getting the system tone and flex is an art - One I'm not certain I have yet.


For history I started RP'ing back in the early 90's when I started secondary school. A friend's older brother was into MERP and thus we got dragged in. We were soon playing CP2020 and from there a host of different games. Tried the AD&D stuff (Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Spell Jammer, Birthright) but never really gelled with them. The systems just felt "hollow" to me. It's how I describe playing on an Playstation as an Xbox owner. Something just feels ... missing.


I'm a bit fan of the WW/OP systems - be that oWoD, nWoD, Exalted (Hurry up 3rd Ed!), Trinity, Aberrant etc. Also SLA industries, Fading Suns, L5R. Back in the day my goto game was Rolemaster though, or as we rechristened it "Statsmaster" - I had committed to memory every damn table and system - "98 to hit an AC of 20 with a crushing weapon? 32 hits and an E crush crit!" (I don't remember them now, please don't check, that's likely wrong!)


I now like middle of the road systems. The Storyteller stuff is great, as are SLA. Exalted 2.0 and 2.5 was bordering into the heavy end of things where it felt you had to revise and learn before running but still wasn't too much (It was just broken).


Light systems for me, Cypher system I'm looking at you, feel more like they're in the way than they add to the gaming fun and experiences. Everything boils down to a very limited set of numbers against a limited number of stats with limited effects. It's all narrative to the point you may as well completely get rid of the system entirely.


Uber-heavy systems or really "out-there" systems and mechanics are likewise a pain in the rump. They don't feel intuitive and seem more like exercises in stats and number-crunching which is my day job!


I like a good number of stats, a pool of skills and a plethora of ways to achieve things. I really should try FATE or true free-form stuff, but the former is yet another system to learn and the latter, freeform, I dabbled in a long time ago and it always ended in a clusterf*** of epic proportions as someones Mary Sue had to be centre of attention and proceeded to God-mode everything.

 

[TurtleGod]

Other old hands, feel free to chime in here. Anecdotes, holistic approaches, hard numbers, that's all good.
We've got a lot of new members from primarily freeform PbP backgrounds, so this thread has a dual purpose - somewhere to bullshit about old times, design, and things we like in terms of system, and more importantly, somewhere to give the unfamiliar a friendly run down.


I'm going to kick us off with a little history, followed by some design philosophy. Anyone who sees me embellish or misremember, call me out.


You might be wondering why systems and dice, right? You roleplay because it's collaborative storytelling, no? Keeping those skills sharp (presumably between personal works) while producing something awesome with like-minded people. I get that. I especially get that when any exposure to tabletop games has been through D&D, even if only in other media, or the mechanics of RPG videogames (the now-venerable classic Fallout could be run on this site with damned near zero-effort due to a basis in tabletop mechanics).


Roleplaying predates Gary Gygax (may he roll with the greats, if that's your belief-structure), but we don't need to go back that far. Our system originates in war-games. Little toy soldiers on a tabletop, with two players battling as omniscient generals - competitive, tactical, tons of fun if you're into that. An early precursor to Warcraft, if anyone remembers it before it was an MMO.


So, Mr. Gygax hits upon the idea of combining roleplaying and rules to facilitate adventure - for good reason. The uncertainty of the dice added excitement, the structure of the rules provided a skeleton to build on, the division of roles gave everyone time in the spotlight (our brave Fighter is mortally wounded in slaying the dragon with the aid of our noble Elf's arrows that brought it to ground, only to be saved by the compassion of our Cleric).


Early counter-measures against god-modding, aye? Back when your group was you and a few friends, and goddamn you could not afford bad-blood spoiling the game or your friendships.


Of course, everyone, even Gygax, got a bit crazy as campaigns wore on. The rules remained as a jumping-off point, and some people get a kick out of manipulating the system, but you could wind up in a game with laser-breathing T-Rexes and as long as everyone was having fun, that was just fine.


We've come a long way, since then. Where once rules were an assumption, now they're tools.


I come from a writing background. When I want to write fiction, I write fiction, and years of being a loner mean I do not work well with others. Ah, but what you can do with a game is different. You're still telling a story, but it's a whole new quale.


There are a number of things we do with systems, and they're interdependent.


1. They support the setting. According to the setting history, the Exalted Host slew the Primordial creators of the universe and trapped them in their King. The system can, at least, hint to how. Just in case your players have some Gods to slay.


2. They enforce tone. Your game is set in a hellish distant future where there is only war, daemons want to eat your soul, and the God-Emperor's militant church punishes thought-crime with extreme prejudice. A system where you can die, easily, and then it gets worse, reinforces the bleakness and horror of this setting. By contrast, fitting it with a more forgiving system and you've got a recipe for pitch-black comedy.


3. They challenge you. Yes, writing is hard. Yes, you have to make compromises to keep a plot going. Yes, you have to negotiate when you character is hurt or even killed, for the purpose of drama. Yes, you decide if something is overcome, or first failed before trying again.


But then the system says 'you can't do that.' That's not discouragement - that's a challenge. Use the tools you have creatively.


4. They ensure fair conflict. Alright, that's half a lie because party balance is a myth. But they do help give everyone in the group a niche in which to excel, flaws to work around, and when two characters fight? It's one thing to agree on a result - but it's a real thrill if the clash of swords might kill someone and you don't know who. Not for sure. You know what else is fun? One lucky roll in a sparring match and you main or kill an ally. How is your character coping with that one?


5. They take the story to unexpected places. I have a rule - I only make players roll when failure is as interesting as success. But I don't stop them rolling when it seems appropriate, because an unexpected failure presents new directions. As might an unexpected success. In a recent game, one player accidentally broke an NPC's leg while sparring, which lead, directly, to another character suffering a most terrible fate. I hadn't planned for that - deep down, I didn't want it to happen - but it did, and improvising around that is what makes it so different to just writing something.


Now, I'm not here to shit all over freeform - I've done it before, I'm doing some now, and I shan't be surprised to do it again - but they're very different experiences. I'd suggest giving it a go sometime.


If you ever want a run down of the easy places to start, or hell, if you want to dive right in and suspect I have the time to lay out something newbies-only, I'm right here.


Everybody else? Come on, throw in! I almost certainly missed something.

Hmm.... So that's what you meant by system.


Okay, okay, that makes sense.

 

[hellrazoromega]

[QUOTE="El Phantasmo]Interesting discussion! I've been trying to iron out a few systems for my own games I'm writing (Soon to put up a critique request thread for feedback on initial concepts if nothing else) and getting the system tone and flex is an art - One I'm not certain I have yet.
For history I started RP'ing back in the early 90's when I started secondary school. A friend's older brother was into MERP and thus we got dragged in. We were soon playing CP2020 and from there a host of different games. Tried the AD&D stuff (Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Spell Jammer, Birthright) but never really gelled with them. The systems just felt "hollow" to me. It's how I describe playing on an Playstation as an Xbox owner. Something just feels ... missing.


I'm a bit fan of the WW/OP systems - be that oWoD, nWoD, Exalted (Hurry up 3rd Ed!), Trinity, Aberrant etc. Also SLA industries, Fading Suns, L5R. Back in the day my goto game was Rolemaster though, or as we rechristened it "Statsmaster" - I had committed to memory every damn table and system - "98 to hit an AC of 20 with a crushing weapon? 32 hits and an E crush crit!" (I don't remember them now, please don't check, that's likely wrong!)

[/QUOTE]
See I used to feel the same way about PS Vs. Xbox but I pre-ordered both the Xbox One and the PS4 day one with the intent of getting one or the other but when Microsoft pulled all those shenanigans when they announced the ONE I dropped my pre-order of that. I was an Xbox guy from day one (though I did have an original PS) but nothing Microsoft did in backing off the policies that caused so much fervor made me buy that they would not just return to some or all of those policies once they had hit a certain goal in console sales. Total loss of confidence for me and to be honest since I don't game online all that much (except on PC) I have found I personally don't miss Xbox live much, though I am sure the hardcore online gamer would. Frankly, I have yet to regret the decision.


See I love O Wod, Exalted and the Aeon/Trinity line but I just could not get into nWoD that much as I did not like the new versions of Vampire or Werewolf (the latter being may all time fav oWoD game). Though I admit I dod like the new Mage and the new Hunter has some awesome ideas--of course that is just personal preference.


Funny you menetion Rolemaster--we used to call it "ROLLmaster" or "Chartmaster" (though any Phoenix Command game makes Rolemaster look like candyland when it comes to charts).


I still have my original CP "2013" boxed set. I played and ran a ton of CP after it came out--and Fading Suns wow that is one of a handful of Sci-fi systems I really miss.


Yeah D&D is not for everyone I still sometimes get the urge for a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl--Kicking in doors, killing monters with wonton zeal, and taking their lewts.... DM:" The room has 3 baby seals." Player, "Sweet I kill em and take their stuff." Silly , sure. But for me at least, strangely cathartic and relaxing, when taken in small doses. At this stage I could not play a dungeon crawl long term but 2-6 session a year is a nice release for me as I imagine all the things that stress me out as stand-ins for the monsters.