Working on an RPG Rules Set

[Cynical Cat]

I don't find any of the rule sets I have at the moment satisfactory for the setting I'm thinking of, so I'm going to try and cook one up. Comments, critiques, and wild adulation are welcome. Its probably technically dark fantasy, closer to the low end than the high. There will be lots of editing and expansion on points

Base Mechanics

So far going with 2d10+ bonus system. This will usually be 2d10+attribute+skill+modifier.

Hail the almighty curve.

Attributes: Baseline human is +0. +1 is good, +3 is awesome +5 is super human

Might
Stamina
Agility
Perception
Intellect
Will
Charisma

Skills: +0 is the baseline for someone with no real training, but modest ability in the field. +1 indicates basic training or education, +2 more extensive training or experience, and +3 indicates a high degree of skill.

Skills
Archery
Athletics
Brawling
Crafts
Dodge
Healing
Intrigue
Leadership
Lore
Melee
Negotiation
Ride
Sleight of Hand
Stealth
Streetwise
Survival
Thrown Weapons

[Cynical Cat]

Traits

These bad boys are special abilities and specializations. Some are negative.

Berserker
Gifted
Huge
Lithe
Noble
Ordained
Scarred
Skill Specialization
Ugly
Wealthy



Equipment and Weapons

Typical pseudo medieval fair with mail armour being the common heavy, expensive armour. Mechanics should also include quality modifiers.

[Cynical Cat]

Combat Placeholder

[Cynical Cat]

Magic Place Holder

Magic breaks down into several different attributes


Furnace: the amount of magical power a being can hold and channel at any one time.

Spellcasting Skill

Magical Knowledge

This breaks down into

your Spellcasting skill determines how well you cast
Furnace determines how much you can cast and how much it'll cost you
Your rating in an art determines the spells you know


The Common Art
aka The Lesser Art or Twilight Art

This is the most widely known and practiced branch of sorcery. Its a fairly broad art with the lower levels mostly focusing on utility and the higher levels being more powerful or complicated applications of the lower levels. It deals mostly with fire starting, light conjuration, the moving of objects, counter magic, and some healing.


The White Hand

Taught and practiced in the Houses of Healing. The art is focused around healing, light, and defensive magic.

The Fires of Urzen

The magic practiced by the Shadossi Warlocks. A destructive, infamous art of shadows and flame.

There are other practices, of which the most widely known is the extinct (I know, no PC will fall for this) and dreaded practice of Blood Alchemy.

[Umbras]

This has my curiosity especially as to how things will turn out.

I notice you have percepton as an attribute instead of a skill, may I ask what the reason for this is. I only know of the WoD system that does this and do you plan on having a skill to work with it, as put up against a person with good stealth or looking for hidden/concealed items it could be quite hard to beat the dc.

[frigidmagi]

Can we make suggestions for talents and what not?

Also why 2d10?

[Cynical Cat]

I notice you have percepton as an attribute instead of a skill, may I ask what the reason for this is. I only know of the WoD system that does this and do you plan on having a skill to work with it, as put up against a person with good stealth or looking for hidden/concealed items it could be quite hard to beat the dc.

Really? Go look at your Dark Heresy character sheet and tell me that again. Or Earthdawn. Or really lots games that aren't D20. It works in social situations, stealth, and shooting things.

frigid:

Comments, critiques, and wild adulation are welcome.

means yes, I want your suggestions.

2d10 because I want a bell curve on die results. I'm not wedded to the mechanic.

[Umbras]

Oops ok had forgotten about Dark Heresy my bad, has been a bit of time since I looked at my character for that game.

I will then suggest that you add scrutiny as a skill.

[Magnus]

Charisma

Intrigue
Leadership
Negotiation

Don't include social stats simply because every other game system includes them. Make a game system that reflects your style.

As a GM, you almost never call for skill checks in social situations, with the occasional exception of gather information and intimidate. But even in these exceptions, the importance of PC stats are outweighed by circumstantial bonuses for physical strength, being a magic-user, roleplaying or favoritism. I notice this because it's one of the things you do as a GM that I dislike.

Why include stats that don't affect game play?

[Umbras]

Charisma

Intrigue
Leadership
Negotiation

As a GM, you almost never call for skill checks in social situations, with the occasional exception of gather information and intimidate. But even in these exceptions, the importance of PC stats are outweighed by circumstantial bonuses for physical strength, being a magic-user, roleplaying or favoritism. I notice this because it's one of the things you do as a GM that I dislike.

Why include stats that don't affect game play?

You also do the same in your campaigns, you never once asked for checks that could have affected social situations and my character has a good diplomacy score. The situation with the blacksmith and especially the Dragon could have gone way better if you had me make those checks.

We do have a tendancy to ignore those skills alot, as we rely on the actual roleplaying to resolve situations but either way it is up to the gm in the end to make the call.

[Cynical Cat]

Why include stats that don't affect game play?

I don't make you roll those stats much in D&D, where the social skills are poorly defined and avoid little details like politics like the plague. Most of you avoid any social interaction that you can't skate by using circumstantial modifiers. In Vampire, for example, I make you roll them all the time. Don't assume I'm making another fucking D&D clone.

[Hotfoot]

These are notes from the Sci-Fi RPG project I still have on hold:

Attributes
Agility
Constitution
Wit
Influence
Perception
Willpower

Traits are bonuses and/or negatives that a player can purchase to give their character extra flavor, and they are always on. Example traits: Poor/Superior Sense, Nimble/Clumsy Fingers, Lucky/Unlucky Pheremones, Clever/Slow, Booksmart/Uneducated, Psionic Resiliance/Vulnerability, Toxin Resiliance/Vulnerability, Strong/Weak, Tough/Frail, Athletic/Out of Shape.

Perks are certain things the characters can do that make them special, but can only be activated if they have points to fuel these talents. Examples include Eidetic Memory, Danger Sense, Lucky

Flaws are bad things that follow a character around, and when they act on them to their detriment, they can gain points to use to activate their perks. Examples include Absent Minded, Unlucky, Flashbacks, Addiction

Perks and flaws are free, but you have to take at least one flaw if you pick up a perk, otherwise you have limited options to use the perk. Traits are bought and sold with either attribute points or skill points, I’ll decide which later.

Skills
Combat Related Skills:

Handguns
Long Guns
Archery
Hand to Hand
Melee
Defense
Combat Sense
Demolitions
Heavy Weapons
Gunnery (Specific)?
Athletics
Piloting (Specific)?
Stealth
Awareness (Tie to Combat Sense?)
Command/Tactics

Social Related Skills:

Deception
Persuasion
Interrogation
Disguise & Grooming

Detective Related Skills:

Investigation
Hacking
Education
Higher Ed (Specific)
Knowledge (Specific)
Tracking
Sleight of Hand
Security

Technical Skills

Mechanics
Electronics
Computers
Other Tech (Specific)
Jury Rig
Craft (Specific)
Forgery ?

Medical Skills

Medicine
Psychiatry
Surgery?
(Higher Ed and Knowledge should cover most other specific areas of knowledge here)

Psychic Related Skills:

Telepathy
Telekinesis
More?

Don't know how much of this is useful, but I figured it couldn't hurt to share notes.

[Magnus]

You also do the same in your campaigns, you never once asked for checks that could have affected social situations and my character has a good diplomacy score. The situation with the blacksmith and especially the Dragon could have gone way better if you had me make those checks.

You've forgotten the diplomacy checks that were made:

The Dragon

Remember when the party supplicated to the Dragon... except Dana? Angered by his lack of deference, the Dragon was about to bite his arm off.

Eradon spoke first and made a reasonable argument for not punishing the witch so quickly and harshly. (Admittedly, the punishment would have been very draconian). If memory serves me, Eradon asked the Dragon to judge the witch, not based on his willingness to brown nose, but rather on his ability to perform and be useful to the Dragon. I called for a Diplomacy check, which Eradon rolled poorly. I remember struggling to adjudicate this result. On the one hand, the Dragon is intelligent and Eradon's argument was compelling. On the otherhand, Eradon's diplomacy result was too low to result in success.

While I considered how to rule on this result, Tithetaker spoke. His argument was less compelling and to the effect, "if you kill the witch, you'll have to kill me too." I asked for a Diplomacy check and you rolled very well.

I adjudicated these results as follows:

Eradon had the most compelling arguments but botched the delivery. Tithetaker's argument was weak, but the delivery was magnificent. The Dragon was impressed by Tithetaker personally and decided that she wanted the Champion in her service; this would require leaving the Champion's friends unmolested for now.

The Dragon then took Tithetaker to speak with him alone, hoping to persuade him to her service. Meanwhile, Julian heckled with jokes about this being a idiot Dragon for being more interested in the Tithetaker, rather than the magister Eradon, who would have been far more inclined to take the Dragon's offer.

When Tithetaker suggested that the Dragon would be just as bad as the Mojh she would replace, she didn't kill him because you had done well on your Diplomacy check.


The Blacksmith,

Diplomacy doesn't work in combat. Tithetaker and Eradon murdered the blacksmith in cold blood because Julian was upset to be charged Arcana Evolved prices for fixing broken magic items (in D&D broken items are irreparable; in Arcana Evolved they can be repaired for half the price of creating them from scratch. After noticing this difference, I had thrown a few broken magic items into the loot.)

[Cynical Cat]

Diplomacy doesn't work in combat. Tithetaker and Eradon murdered the blacksmith in cold blood because Julian was upset to be charged Arcana Evolved prices for fixing broken magic items (in D&D broken items are irreparable; in Arcana Evolved they can be repaired for half the price of creating them from scratch. After noticing this difference, I had thrown a few broken magic items into the loot.)

That's not what happened. We argued price first. You charged a price that was by my calculations, totally ridiculous and way off the appropriate price. When the situation was revisited more than a year later you claim that I was using the wrong formula, which is quite possible. It's also quite possible that you made the math error. The argument was not over Arcana Evolved pricing. The argument was over the perception, which may or may not have been erroneous, that the blacksmith was trying to fleece our characters. It then escalated to murder.

As a crime of passion, it was by definition not a cold blooded murder and it certainly wasn't over game mechanics. It was an in character reaction of an arrogant and bloody handed mage to someone he didn't like in the first place trying to fleece him like a rube from the sticks. The Diplomacy in question happened during the argument before the escalation to violence.

As for flat out ruling on results based on role playing, yes I do that but I also take the character's skills into account. A number of RPGs have mediocre or just plain terrible means of adjudicating skill checks (Dark Heresy's noncombat skill use isn't very good and anything d20 is frequently terrible) so if the character's performance + ability really should succeed (or fail horribly) I'll tend to go that way instead of filtering it through game mechanics. That doesn't mean the skill is irrelevant or isn't checked, it means the effort is resolved without using dice.

[Magnus]

That's not what happened. We argued price first. You charged a price that was by my calculations, totally ridiculous and way off the appropriate price. When the situation was revisited more than a year later you claim that I was using the wrong formula, which is quite possible. It's also quite possible that you made the math error.

The math is straight-forward; 50% of full market value of the magic item.

As a crime of passion, it was by definition not a cold blooded murder and it certainly wasn't over game mechanics.

It was based on your understanding of the game mechanics that you calculated reasonable magic item repair costs, correct?

These calculations led you to conclude that the smith was trying to fleece you. Is that not so?

You decided to kill the smith because you were angry that the smith was trying to fleece you, right?

You killed the smith because of a disagreement over game mechanics, didn't you?

Admit it Cynical Cat, you lose your temper over game mechanics all the time. Chalk it up to bad high school DMing, but don't deny that game mechanics are a hot button for you.

As for flat out ruling on results based on role playing, yes I do that but I also take the character's skills into account.

Problems with this approach:

1. It eliminates the suspense inherent in rolling dice.

2. It trains players to not bother role playing.

This point requires explanation:

Operant conditioning is training behaviour by rewarding it.
Continuous Ratio means rewarding the behaviour every time.
Variable Ratio means rewarding the behaviour randomly, but based on a fixed probability.

Psychological studies of classical conditioning have consistently concluded that operant conditioning is most effective when rewards are given on a variable ratio schedule.

Roleplaying is the desired behaviour; good results are the reward; dice and skill points are the means of establishing a variable ratio reward schedule.

Your method dampens the importance of roleplaying, with low skills diminishing the rewards for good roleplaying, and high skills ameliorating the consequences of bad roleplaying. The more significance you give to skill points, the more roleplaying is discouraged.

[Cynical Cat]

You killed the smith because of a disagreement over game mechanics, didn't you?

Admit it Cynical Cat, you lose your temper over game mechanics all the time. Chalk it up to bad high school DMing, but don't deny that game mechanics are a hot button for you.

Bad mechanics are indeed a hot botton for me, but not what was happening here. I honestly don't remember the math for the incident and I'm certainly not going to deny that mine might have been off. Yours might have been too, but that's not why I killed him. I killed the dude because I didn't like him and I thought he was trying to rip me off. In a discussion about my motivations, it doesn't matter if my math was right. It matters that the number I thought was correct was much lower than what he was charging me and the argument escalated from there.

As for flat out ruling on results based on role playing, yes I do that but I also take the character's skills into account.

Problems with this approach:

1. It eliminates the suspense inherent in rolling dice.

2. It trains players to not bother role playing.

Your method dampens the importance of roleplaying, with low skills diminishing the rewards for good roleplaying, and high skills ameliorating the consequences of bad roleplaying. The more significance you give to skill points, the more roleplaying is discouraged.[/quote]

The dice are the servant of the game, not the master.

And since good roleplaying matters more than the dice in my approach, your conclusion is flawed.

Your approach allows crappy roleplaying and to prevail as long as you have enough skill points and a good dice roll. Considering how little attention you pay to the game world at times, a behavior that has resulted in more than a few in-jokes and at least one catch phrase (for the record it is "how many trolls are there?"), I'm hardly surprised that you'd favor a method that rewards character build min-maxing more that paying attention and correctly evaluating the situation.

[Magnus]

I can't prove that my calculations were correct, but I can prove that your calculations were wrong:

• 1. The smith first offered to repair your items for 1/2 base price.
  2. When this upset you, he offered to buy the broken items for 1/4 of base price.
  3. If your calculations had been correct and mine wrong, you could have taken advantage of my mistake because you had the choice to repair or sell.

The dice are the servant of the game, not the master.

And since good roleplaying matters more than the dice in my approach, your conclusion is flawed.

Hopefully you'll understand my argument better in point form. Here are your choices:

• 1. Random reinforcement = Good roleplaying is irrelevant; rewards are based on dice alone.
  2. Variable ratio reinforcement = Good roleplaying is sometimes rewarded, if dice roll is good.
  3. Partial reinforcement = Good roleplaying is sometimes rewarded, depending on fixed skill points.
  4. Continuous reinforcement = Good roleplaying is always rewarded.

It is a scientific fact that the most effective method of conditioning is variable ratio reinforcement. Look it up.

Dice are a tool of the master. Use them effectively.

Your approach allows crappy roleplaying to prevail as long as you have enough skill points and a good dice roll.

That's not my approach.

Calling for dice rolls after crappy roleplaying would create variable ratio reinforcement for crappy roleplaying. That is the worst possible approach.

My approach is to reward good roleplaying with a chance of reward (a die roll), but crappy roleplaying gets no chance of reward.

For example:

1. No dice roll was awarded when you killed the smith. It was crappy role playing.

2. Remember when Tithetaker insulted the Dragon? The Dragon had offered to make Tithetaker the human leader of a new empire with the Dragon as a figurehead. The Dragon wanted to be free to munch on cows and hoard gold without human retribution or the petty bothers of administering an empire. Cat, you understood this but Tithetaker misunderstood and told the Dragon the she would become what she hated most; just like Mojh imperialists that she wanted to replace. No chance of reward was given.

Remember, variable ratios only work for positive reinforcement (reward conditioning). The reverse is not true. Variable ratio punishment is not more effective than continuous punishment.

My conclusions are as follows:

- When players do good, give them a chance of reward (use dice).
- When players do bad, punish them consistently (no dice).

[Cynical Cat]

I can't prove that my calculations were correct, but I can prove that your calculations were wrong:

• 1. The smith first offered to repair your items for 1/2 base price.
  2. When this upset you, he offered to buy the broken items for 1/4 of base price.
  3. If your calculations had been correct and mine wrong, you could have taken advantage of my mistake because you had the choice to repair or sell.

No, you can't prove mine wrong because I don't even remember them. Are you a telepath? Is your memory infallible? No.

Hopefully you'll understand my argument better in point form. Here are your choices:

• It is a scientific fact that the most effective method of conditioning is variable ratio reinforcement. Look it up.

Did I contest that? No. Pay attention. I contested your particular method of variable reward was desirable because of flawed underlying mechanisms and assumptions.

Dice are a tool of the master. Use them effectively.

I often use them. When as I see fit. That's perfectly consistent with variable reward and

Your approach allows crappy roleplaying to prevail as long as you have enough skill points and a good dice roll.

[/quote]
That's not my approach.

1. No dice roll was awarded when you killed the smith. It was crappy role playing.
[/quote]
It's crappy role playing for a murderous mage to kill a man who thinks is trying to take advantage of him? That's good rp. Perhaps a poor life choice, but good rp.

My conclusions are as follows:

- When players do good, give them a chance of reward (use dice).
- When players do bad, punish them consistently (no dice).[/b]

Which ignores the possibility of being brute force a bad choice by raw skill/power/whatever. Skilled and competent people do get arrogant, sloppy, and heavy handed and end up succeeding right up to the moment they fail. It also assumes a good skill system, which is an erronous assumption with many game systems, especially d20.

[Magnus]

No, you can't prove mine wrong because I don't even remember them.

Being forgetful doesn't protect you from being proven wrong. If you could remember being wrong, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

[Cynical Cat]

No, you can't prove mine wrong because I don't even remember them.

Being forgetful doesn't protect you from being proven wrong. If you could remember being wrong, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

You haven't proven me wrong. You remember one set of numbers, which at the time I thought was wrong. You haven't established that those numbers are

1) the ones that were really said.

2) the ones that were correct.

And as I've said, this is irrelevant to why I killed him. I killed him over my perception that the numbers were wrong at the time, not because I liked or disliked the game mechanics. The argument is over motive, not whether or not I was right. I could have been wrong. I just trust my math over yours.

As for the Dragon, the encounter highlights two problems

1) Problems with the D&D skills system. The diplomacy roll wasn't absolutely terrible, but it was what an average roll for an untrained skill. In other words, fucking useless game mechanically but not absolutely horrible. The actual points I made were good. This is one problem with how d20 does skills (Rapidly escalating target numbers based on the assumption of moderate difficulty for a specialist in the skill[and not on how difficult the task should be in universe] for base results and giving out too few skill points).

2) Your terrible, terrible counter offer. I may be the leading killer of your NPCs, but I had to talk down both Dana and Chris. Here's a dragon with superhuman Intelligence and Wisdom and it totally manages to alienate the people who came to it to strike a deal and it needs to do the leg work for it. It was like all your other NPCs times ten.

[Magnus]

You're the one asking for comments on your RPG Rules set ideas. I suggested you scrap social game mechanics and run things purely off of role playing since that's what you do anyways. I do think a better approach would combine some element of chance and role playing, and I've made the argument based on science.

Don't turn this into a critique of my GMing. Especially don't claim to speak for people who can speak for themselves.

[Cynical Cat]

You're the one asking for comments on your RPG Rules set ideas. I suggested you scrap social game mechanics and run things purely off of role playing since that's what you do anyways.

As I pointed out, that's not what I do. Social stats and skills are taken into account. Situations where its enough (like they're trying to talk an NPC into doing something they're inclined to do anyway and they make a good argument backed by good skills) I won't roll. Other situations I'll push wretched systems in the right direction. The point of the design work is to make the latter unnecesssary.

I do think a better approach would combine some element of chance and role playing, and I've made the argument based on science.

As do I generally, that's why I'm trying to have a skill system that doesn't suck.

[/quote]
Don't turn this into a critique of my GMing. [/quote]

When you're using examples of your GMing to make your points, issues with your GMing style that apply to those incidents are relevant.

Especially don't claim to speak for people who can speak for themselves.

I didn't claim to speak for any of our nonconfrontational fellow players. I merely related what happened, namely that I had to talk down two of them from attacking the dragon immediately. If you GM again, watch their body language.