Time to elucidate more upon the actual games Dice Junket is involved in making, of which details have been somewhat slim.
FIF is, at the moment at least, the name of our generic fantasy roleplaying game. The rules were penned by myself and are based in part upon White Wolf's Storyteller system. It operates based purely upon skills in which players have a number of dice. When attempting to complete a task they roll their dice and attempt to get a number of successes (3+ on a d6), success and failure being measured on whther they manage to make this roll.
It's been designed to be at once easy to play and easy to create scenarios for. Monster need very little planning and can be made on the fly along with traps and encounters with NPCs. It's designed to be a 'Beer & Pretzels' style game, one that can be picked up and thrashed by my friends with very little forwar planning.
Dungeon Dive is similar in principal but differs in execution. It's essentially a regression of FIF back to a single dice board game, with characters being simplified even further and put into a hack and slash kind of game, similar in principal to the old Warhammer Quest game. To this end it is my intention to use Pendraken's (http://www.pendraken.co.uk/fantasy.htm) line of fantasy 10mm miniatures and modular dungeon sets to create something a little more 'old school' and less roleplaying based.
More to come on both of these projects at later date.
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Thursday, 10 April 2008
Games or Simulations: A Ramble in G Major
Accepting that I have been making a game system that is essnetially for my friends, a group of novice gamers and CRPGers (a fine demographic from which I myself derived) I quite like the system I've created for them. Having said this my exploits and research around the net have raised one question for me that I feel is of crucial importance:
Is it alright to make a 'game'?
RPGs are not really games in the traditional sense in that typically they don't have a scenario for 'victory', there is success and failure but both are consummations of the game, the logical end points, neither is a victory or defeat in the face of a good scenario. Part of this is that most RPG (Wraith: The Oblivion aside) are geared towards a co-operative style of gameplay rather than competative gameplay like traditional tabletop or board games.
The idea is that a party comes together to complete an objective and that defines victory and all rules around that (Spells, movement, classes) are like Ludo rules, designed to extend the length of gameplay by putting restrictions (Often random, thanks to Uncle Gary) on what an individual can do.
'Rules light' systems such as FUDGE and even RISUS break this mould by allowing characters to be defined only by the limits of the player's imaginations and is often favoured by more 'story' orientated gamers.
So is one form superior?
I've been wrestling with this idea for a while and of course I can;t decide on an answer, if I could I would have already outlined it. Naturally we must consider what our parties want from an adventure and plan accordingly, but when making a system that you intend to push beyond the limits of the group it is important that a system has the flexibility and common sense to survive in the cut-throat world of RPG design.
So how does my beloved FIF stand up? Well FIF's problem, and perhaps it's strength, is that it is consciously a game. When drafting it I considered what my friends wanted; something simple to play, to make scenarios around (Our DM Mark is relatively inexperienced) and above all fun. I never set out to make a simulation the FATAL guys (although I'd rather not know what they were simulating) what I made was a game.
Alright admittedly my game, whilst having concessions to roleplaying, like the persuasion skill, is little more than a dungeon crawler. That's what my friends wanted and by jove I delivered a playable system, DM Mark added some (lots!) classes and all seems to be well for our new campaign, though in the background I intend to develope FIF into a fully fledged system with my own setting and even (le gasp!) a module eventually.
Just, y'know, patience. These things take time and testing and I still want to try OD&D at some point.
Is it alright to make a 'game'?
RPGs are not really games in the traditional sense in that typically they don't have a scenario for 'victory', there is success and failure but both are consummations of the game, the logical end points, neither is a victory or defeat in the face of a good scenario. Part of this is that most RPG (Wraith: The Oblivion aside) are geared towards a co-operative style of gameplay rather than competative gameplay like traditional tabletop or board games.
The idea is that a party comes together to complete an objective and that defines victory and all rules around that (Spells, movement, classes) are like Ludo rules, designed to extend the length of gameplay by putting restrictions (Often random, thanks to Uncle Gary) on what an individual can do.
'Rules light' systems such as FUDGE and even RISUS break this mould by allowing characters to be defined only by the limits of the player's imaginations and is often favoured by more 'story' orientated gamers.
So is one form superior?
I've been wrestling with this idea for a while and of course I can;t decide on an answer, if I could I would have already outlined it. Naturally we must consider what our parties want from an adventure and plan accordingly, but when making a system that you intend to push beyond the limits of the group it is important that a system has the flexibility and common sense to survive in the cut-throat world of RPG design.
So how does my beloved FIF stand up? Well FIF's problem, and perhaps it's strength, is that it is consciously a game. When drafting it I considered what my friends wanted; something simple to play, to make scenarios around (Our DM Mark is relatively inexperienced) and above all fun. I never set out to make a simulation the FATAL guys (although I'd rather not know what they were simulating) what I made was a game.
Alright admittedly my game, whilst having concessions to roleplaying, like the persuasion skill, is little more than a dungeon crawler. That's what my friends wanted and by jove I delivered a playable system, DM Mark added some (lots!) classes and all seems to be well for our new campaign, though in the background I intend to develope FIF into a fully fledged system with my own setting and even (le gasp!) a module eventually.
Just, y'know, patience. These things take time and testing and I still want to try OD&D at some point.
Friday, 28 March 2008
How to Make Friends and Influence Dice Rolls
I was, as I wrote the first draft of my RPG system, at a loss as to whether social skills should be included within the skills list. An omission would be possible though I eventually decided against it, knowing my group prefers to roll dice than spend time being verbose like a college drama class.
That said it can be argued that social skills (diplomacy, streetwise, haggle etc) do detract from the role playing element of an RPG by reducing something that could quite adequately be negotiated between a good player and GM to a random dice roll. Many systems emphasis a compromise, granting bonuses to well spoken players who enjoy getting into character and engaging with wordy banter, and this is entirely adequate for most games.
However when running a ‘role play’ I would be tempted to disregard the dice altogether, look across the table at the player and let them show me what they can do. A good group will often have a designated talker and they will come to the fore, typically I find talkers (bards usually) come to the fore naturally whilst the damage soaking fighters sit back and occasionally chirp in when the subject turns to swords and the like.
A group concerned with role playing will usually have already divided themselves up into the roles they want to serve and have chosen classes or skills appropriately, so this option becomes feasible. However if you do decide to do away with social skills be sure to reimburse the character appropriately, nobody deserves to spend levels on skills that can’t be used.
That said it can be argued that social skills (diplomacy, streetwise, haggle etc) do detract from the role playing element of an RPG by reducing something that could quite adequately be negotiated between a good player and GM to a random dice roll. Many systems emphasis a compromise, granting bonuses to well spoken players who enjoy getting into character and engaging with wordy banter, and this is entirely adequate for most games.
However when running a ‘role play’ I would be tempted to disregard the dice altogether, look across the table at the player and let them show me what they can do. A good group will often have a designated talker and they will come to the fore, typically I find talkers (bards usually) come to the fore naturally whilst the damage soaking fighters sit back and occasionally chirp in when the subject turns to swords and the like.
A group concerned with role playing will usually have already divided themselves up into the roles they want to serve and have chosen classes or skills appropriately, so this option becomes feasible. However if you do decide to do away with social skills be sure to reimburse the character appropriately, nobody deserves to spend levels on skills that can’t be used.
Alignment and Roleplaying
Since the early days of Dungeons & Dragons alignment has been a key factor in the creation of characters, it can define classes, alter people's perceptions and change the way players play the game.
Is this a good thing?
As a mechanic alignment is at once, like many things, a useful tool and a terrible limitation. At a pinch it gives a good indication of those parties opposed to the player characters, a chaotic good character might be opposed by the evil wizard whose plans he meddles with, and the lawful constabulary who cannot abide his methods. As a games master it gives me an instant touchstone where I can set up oppositions and tensions before the character has even really acted. That having been said it also binds the player into acting a certain way, and whilst alignment can be changed it does bear with it some penalties, especially Paladins, for example, who lose all of their class abilities if they stray from their alignment.
Having no alignment system allows characters to act based upon their own intuition, acting in character or simply as they themselves would act. The problem with this is that without any guiding factor it also allows players to act arbitrarily, saving lives at one moment and torturing and killing at another. Whilst this might have a place in some campaigns (with an interesting, well played character) in most it just serves to break the illusion of the game world.
So is there a happy medium?
One option is reward based roleplaying, although this comes with its own caveats. In such a model we reward the players for acting in character, perhaps giving them certain qualities that they can aspire to (I believe many White Wolf games do this) and rewarding them with experience or new skill dice for consistant roleplaying or character progression. The problem with this idea is that it artificially manufactures roleplaying, players start acting in character in a way that is noticable in the hopes of scoring that precious experience that will give them the edge.
In the end alignment and roleplaying is always a contentious issue and it's about knowing what your party want. If they enjoy the smash and grab gameplay of a dungeon crawl then giving them an alignment is not such a sin since they are already treating the game mechanically, playing to win rather than for a narrative. This is entirely fine, but if your party wants some involved roleplaying then let them play their characters as they want and their commitment to the story will make them act accordingly.
Is this a good thing?
As a mechanic alignment is at once, like many things, a useful tool and a terrible limitation. At a pinch it gives a good indication of those parties opposed to the player characters, a chaotic good character might be opposed by the evil wizard whose plans he meddles with, and the lawful constabulary who cannot abide his methods. As a games master it gives me an instant touchstone where I can set up oppositions and tensions before the character has even really acted. That having been said it also binds the player into acting a certain way, and whilst alignment can be changed it does bear with it some penalties, especially Paladins, for example, who lose all of their class abilities if they stray from their alignment.
Having no alignment system allows characters to act based upon their own intuition, acting in character or simply as they themselves would act. The problem with this is that without any guiding factor it also allows players to act arbitrarily, saving lives at one moment and torturing and killing at another. Whilst this might have a place in some campaigns (with an interesting, well played character) in most it just serves to break the illusion of the game world.
So is there a happy medium?
One option is reward based roleplaying, although this comes with its own caveats. In such a model we reward the players for acting in character, perhaps giving them certain qualities that they can aspire to (I believe many White Wolf games do this) and rewarding them with experience or new skill dice for consistant roleplaying or character progression. The problem with this idea is that it artificially manufactures roleplaying, players start acting in character in a way that is noticable in the hopes of scoring that precious experience that will give them the edge.
In the end alignment and roleplaying is always a contentious issue and it's about knowing what your party want. If they enjoy the smash and grab gameplay of a dungeon crawl then giving them an alignment is not such a sin since they are already treating the game mechanically, playing to win rather than for a narrative. This is entirely fine, but if your party wants some involved roleplaying then let them play their characters as they want and their commitment to the story will make them act accordingly.
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Ammunition and Thin Ice
My friends seem to universally hate ammunition, and I find it difficult to disagree with them. Tracking numbers on a sheet, especially with something as oft used as a bow becomes a chore that will frequently get forgotten in the heat of battle or a particularly heated discussion of exactly how much that shot missed that troll by. To this end using a similar dice rolling mechanic used elsewhere in the system (in an effort to unify the process so the only thing my players need to ask is 'how many dice am I rolling?') I have attempted to give an abstract system for tracking ammunition for arrows, charges left in a wand or even days worth of rations left.
The concept is simple, each item such as a quiver of arrows has a number of dice assosciated with it when it is found/created between 1 and 5. At the end of any encounter or roleplaying phase (in the case of rations you would only have to roll after resting and making camp, which would constitute a phase of roleplaying) the owning player must roll the dice assosciated with the object, if there are any failures (1-2 on the d6) then the player must subtract 1 die permanently from the object. If this is the last die then the object has 'run out' of uses or ammunition and is destroyed or otherwise rendered useless.
For Example.
Terence the archer has been busy fighting a Deep Crow with his party, opening fire with his bow to fend of the deep lord of Power Dome A. Once the Deep Crow has been driven back into the dark crevice within the mantle of the world that it calls its home the Games Master decides that the encounter is over. Terence has a quiver with 3D worth of arrows within, so he rolls 3d6 and gets a 5, 1 and a 2. Since the 1 and 2 are failures Terence is forced to amend his character sheet where his 3D arrows lose a dice becoming 2D arrows.
However this is not the only way the system can be used to represent something other than character skills. Consider a river of thin ice that a party must cross thats thickness is defined by a number of dice and its durability by a Hp total. Each turn the ice must roll a test to see if it can endure the weight upon it, with a difficulty equal to the number of people currently crossing, ie a party of 4 crossing means difficulty 4. If it passes the test then it holds but if it fails it takes a point of damage, if it reaches 0 Hp then the ice buckles and anybody left on the ice falls into the water, most likely taking damage from the freezing damage and possibly being inflicted with hypothermia (to be discussed in a later article about status changing effects).
With a little bit of creativity the basic mechanics of the system can be adapted to work in a variety of situations which is pleasing as a single universal mechanic is much more memorable than several necissary to control several niché situations that might only come up once a campaign.
The concept is simple, each item such as a quiver of arrows has a number of dice assosciated with it when it is found/created between 1 and 5. At the end of any encounter or roleplaying phase (in the case of rations you would only have to roll after resting and making camp, which would constitute a phase of roleplaying) the owning player must roll the dice assosciated with the object, if there are any failures (1-2 on the d6) then the player must subtract 1 die permanently from the object. If this is the last die then the object has 'run out' of uses or ammunition and is destroyed or otherwise rendered useless.
For Example.
Terence the archer has been busy fighting a Deep Crow with his party, opening fire with his bow to fend of the deep lord of Power Dome A. Once the Deep Crow has been driven back into the dark crevice within the mantle of the world that it calls its home the Games Master decides that the encounter is over. Terence has a quiver with 3D worth of arrows within, so he rolls 3d6 and gets a 5, 1 and a 2. Since the 1 and 2 are failures Terence is forced to amend his character sheet where his 3D arrows lose a dice becoming 2D arrows.
However this is not the only way the system can be used to represent something other than character skills. Consider a river of thin ice that a party must cross thats thickness is defined by a number of dice and its durability by a Hp total. Each turn the ice must roll a test to see if it can endure the weight upon it, with a difficulty equal to the number of people currently crossing, ie a party of 4 crossing means difficulty 4. If it passes the test then it holds but if it fails it takes a point of damage, if it reaches 0 Hp then the ice buckles and anybody left on the ice falls into the water, most likely taking damage from the freezing damage and possibly being inflicted with hypothermia (to be discussed in a later article about status changing effects).
With a little bit of creativity the basic mechanics of the system can be adapted to work in a variety of situations which is pleasing as a single universal mechanic is much more memorable than several necissary to control several niché situations that might only come up once a campaign.
Monday, 24 March 2008
The System - Point Buy vs. Character Levels
After my previous post I've been playing around with the system of allocating Skill dice to characters. Initially I had favoured the 'Point Buy' system as detailed below, however upon further consideration I've altered this in favour of the more abstract system of 'levels' as favoured by Dungeons & Dragons and the like, allow me to explain why.
The 'Point Buy' system is mechanically more fluid than using levels to simply allocate dice, points can be gained instead of experience and 'spent' for training in skills whenever the character has enough points (and depending upon the preferences of the Games Master; access to the materials and instruction) to advance. This makes more sense realistically than waiting for an arbitrary marker before being able to improve oneself.
On the flip side of the coin levels are useful mechanically for gauging the strength of an opponant and what items are appropriate for characters of a certain level. Furthermore if constructing a class based system it becomes easier to define the roles of characters with classes. Some classes, such as the Paladin for example, traditional possess the abilities of another class but only later in their careers. Under a point buy system it is much more difficult to regulate this without making some abilities prohibitivly expensive, and artificially inflating this price for some characters is almost as much a concession to gameplay over realism as levels themselves.
Levels are by no means a perfect system, their artificial nature offends those players who want a more fluid system in which they can freely gain skills and are not limited by some arbitrary measure. However as my own group consists of people who have grown up on a diet of Dungeons & Dragons and Final Fantasy the level seems like a natural component of any game system.
The 'Point Buy' system is mechanically more fluid than using levels to simply allocate dice, points can be gained instead of experience and 'spent' for training in skills whenever the character has enough points (and depending upon the preferences of the Games Master; access to the materials and instruction) to advance. This makes more sense realistically than waiting for an arbitrary marker before being able to improve oneself.
On the flip side of the coin levels are useful mechanically for gauging the strength of an opponant and what items are appropriate for characters of a certain level. Furthermore if constructing a class based system it becomes easier to define the roles of characters with classes. Some classes, such as the Paladin for example, traditional possess the abilities of another class but only later in their careers. Under a point buy system it is much more difficult to regulate this without making some abilities prohibitivly expensive, and artificially inflating this price for some characters is almost as much a concession to gameplay over realism as levels themselves.
Levels are by no means a perfect system, their artificial nature offends those players who want a more fluid system in which they can freely gain skills and are not limited by some arbitrary measure. However as my own group consists of people who have grown up on a diet of Dungeons & Dragons and Final Fantasy the level seems like a natural component of any game system.
Thursday, 21 February 2008
The System - Basic Principals
I needed a basic mechanic when devising my system, and in deference to my D&D roots I was initially compelled to make this a 'dice + stat > difficulty' system, a method that has worked well for me in the past. It was my initial plan to use four stats to define characters and a series of classes to define them and give them unique suites of skills. This was an entirely acceptable system and I'd done alot of work on it, including an interesting magic mechanic. However it still felt clumsy, the attributes were too broad and the classes largely similar to one another.
In response I cast my net out wide and looked for inspiration, something simple, quick but comprehensive. I was also determined to only use d6 since the more exotic types of dice are at a premium in our group and I didn't want to burden us with the need to buy more. Considering all this I began work on a system using the time honoured method of defining the difficulty of a task by a number of successes gained by rolling a certain amount on a number of dice, in a similar manner to 1st Edition Exhalted.
This in itself is not the most original of systems, but for my purposes it could be easily adapted for our setting, is fairly comprehensive and modified by our relativly inexperienced GM to sort all kinds of situations.
The system (as yet lacking the poncy moniker I usually give my game systems) works as thus; characters are principally composed of a series of skills, lacking any definable attributes such strength, in favour of a focus upon having the necissary training. In terms of assigning 'dice' characters have character points (Cp) which are used to buy dice for skills and also dice for their Hit Points, raising their Hp by an additional d6 at each level.
The basic cost is thus:
Number of Dice / Cp Cost
1 /1
2 /2
3 /4
4 /8
5 /16
etc
Skills will be capped at a maximum of 5 dice to avoid mass rolling, though Hit Points can continue to be raised past this point.
Actions
Actions are a simple test where a difficulty is given (a number 1-5) and the character must roll a number of dice equal to their relevent skill, say a character has Climb 3D then they would roll 3 dice when attempting to climb something. Sometimes this can be an opposed roll (such as a guard searching a room and a character trying to hide from them) in which case both characters would roll their relevent skill dice and the one who scores more successes would be successful.
In combat this system remains the same, with characters needing to score a number of successes equal to the targets Def (which is initially 1 + their armour bonus, to be discussed later). This is not an opposed roll, as might be logical, as this leads to too much dice rolling and would necessitate the presence of an 'Evade' skill which has in the past proven itself to be so powerful as to be necissary in opposed combat rolls.
Factors affecting action rolls and some examples will be included in the next post, but that's all for now.
In response I cast my net out wide and looked for inspiration, something simple, quick but comprehensive. I was also determined to only use d6 since the more exotic types of dice are at a premium in our group and I didn't want to burden us with the need to buy more. Considering all this I began work on a system using the time honoured method of defining the difficulty of a task by a number of successes gained by rolling a certain amount on a number of dice, in a similar manner to 1st Edition Exhalted.
This in itself is not the most original of systems, but for my purposes it could be easily adapted for our setting, is fairly comprehensive and modified by our relativly inexperienced GM to sort all kinds of situations.
The system (as yet lacking the poncy moniker I usually give my game systems) works as thus; characters are principally composed of a series of skills, lacking any definable attributes such strength, in favour of a focus upon having the necissary training. In terms of assigning 'dice' characters have character points (Cp) which are used to buy dice for skills and also dice for their Hit Points, raising their Hp by an additional d6 at each level.
The basic cost is thus:
Number of Dice / Cp Cost
1 /1
2 /2
3 /4
4 /8
5 /16
etc
Skills will be capped at a maximum of 5 dice to avoid mass rolling, though Hit Points can continue to be raised past this point.
Actions
Actions are a simple test where a difficulty is given (a number 1-5) and the character must roll a number of dice equal to their relevent skill, say a character has Climb 3D then they would roll 3 dice when attempting to climb something. Sometimes this can be an opposed roll (such as a guard searching a room and a character trying to hide from them) in which case both characters would roll their relevent skill dice and the one who scores more successes would be successful.
In combat this system remains the same, with characters needing to score a number of successes equal to the targets Def (which is initially 1 + their armour bonus, to be discussed later). This is not an opposed roll, as might be logical, as this leads to too much dice rolling and would necessitate the presence of an 'Evade' skill which has in the past proven itself to be so powerful as to be necissary in opposed combat rolls.
Factors affecting action rolls and some examples will be included in the next post, but that's all for now.
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