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Does this mean your character can't sin?
No. But it does mean that no one's in a position to judge your character's actions but you yourself. Your character might be a remorseless monster or a destroying angel - I the author of the game can't tell the difference, your GM and your fellow players can't tell the difference, only you can.
... Sin, arrogance, hate bloodlust; remorse, guilt, contrition; inspiration, redemption, grace: they're in how you have your character act, not (just or necessarily) in what's on your character's sheet. Those moments, in play, are what matters.
Your character's conscience is in your hands.
QuoteSo here are two points for you:[from Early death in Nar games.]
1. Sometimes it's fun and good for your PC to be a supporting character, not a protagonist. Thus, yes, prey to all the crap that befalls supporting characters, including random death.
2. Sometimes, then, it's also fun and good to not know whether your PC is a supporting character until some moment of truth. In fact further: to not get to choose yourself whether your PC is a protagonist or a supporting character, to let the events of the game's fiction choose. Your PC's random death may well be just such a moment.
There's no reason in the world why any gamer would recognize the truth of these two points out of hand. They're hard won. Having a gamer-like relationship with your PC makes them seem impossible, doesn't it?
QuoteSo you're right: The problem here is not really "cheating" but GMs indulging on their own whims.Just on this, I said nothing along those lines. A GM following their whims is all you ever have - the vaunted 'neutral GM' is a myth. If you want neutral, use a machine, not a human. Only use a human if you enjoy using something/someone that will indulge whims rather than be a machine. That's what I'm saying - if PC's are plotting against each other, it needs to be in regards to points or something that rules can and do deal with, or else if it's something only a GM can judge, then the players themselves have made it about something that will involve a GM indulging his whims.
QuoteHmm... You still can't verify that the GM didn't manipulate anything with this method. If the GM knows when a particular secret roll will be made (which is usually the case), then the outcome could be statically determined without anyone noticing. Not really much better than just the basic method of hiding the rolls without the players being able to check.Have the random dice rolls numbered. The players call out numbers at random. This determines what roll is used (GM can even note next to the number what it was used for in play)
Quote from: fodazd on May 30, 2012, 06:46:19 PMAbout the class system... Since you said you don't have much experience with roleplaying other than D&D and mentioned "flexibility" as one of your goals, let me ask you this question: Have you considered abandoning classes entirely and switching to some other method to define the character abilities, such as pointbuy? I personally don't like class-based systems very much, because I feel like they are a bit unflexible compared to pointbuy.I considered it, but I'm not much a fan of point-buy. Whereas point boy does grant ultimate flexibility, I feel as though it comes at the cost of wholesomeness. My own experience with point buy systems (largely virtual games) always left me feeling like my character lacked any real identity. While it surely was unique in a lot of ways, it largely felt as though it was simply an assortment of random stats and numbers. I do realize that his is a personal bias, but as I said earlier, at the moment I am designing this largely for entertainment, and I would not enjoy designing a point-buy based game. However, this is not the primary reason I stuck to a form of classes.
QuoteAbout your stamina mechanic: Actually, some other big systems had the same idea, particularly GURPS and the dark eye. The main problem here seems to be that it feels like it was artificially glued to an existing combat system and doesn't quite "fit in", resulting in it being ignored most of the time. You might want to think about some ways to avoid that effect.I haven't played either GURPS or Dark Eye, so I will have to look into those. However, I have to disagree regarding it's arbitrary nature in my game. Again, this is due to me not explaining it with greater detail in the introduction, which I should have done. In fact, looking at what I wrote, I realize that I did portray it poorly. The different warrior classes, besides having skills that allow them to "spend" stamina, are also passively affected by it. The Ferocious Warrior's ability to deal damage depends on his stamina, the Finesse Warrior depends on it in order to maintain its attack bonuses, and the Formidable Warrior relies on it to reduce damage. I have not yet settled on how exactly these passive uses of Stamina are going to be implemented, which is probably why I decided to leave it out, but it definitely will not be ignored.
QuoteAbout the dice rolling: There are two factors to consider here, and they are expected value and variance. When you are in a system where you roll against a target number, then a higher expected value is always better, but a higher variance is not always worse. For example, if you succeed at a result of 3 or higher, then your chances of success with 1d10+1 (90%) is better than your chance with 1d12 (83.33%). However, if you succeed at a result of 10 or higher, then your chances of success with 1d10+1 (20%) are worse than your chances of success with 1d12 (25%). If you (as a system designer) want to minimize variance, then you could just abandon die rolls altogether and say "Ok, you succeed automatically on any task with a target number of 6 or lower, and automatically fail on any task with a target number higher than that".Ahh! I completely failed to properly evaluate the variance, and I thank you for pointing out how the odds scale with the difficulty. Personally, I love variance, and I believe most players do--its why so many of us love table top RPGs and board games. With this correction in mind, I feel much more inclined to stick do the described system, but I am still hesitant due to the worry that it will stall the game. Players with less experience in statistics might take too long to figure out exactly what they want to proceed with their role. Describing the scaling of difficulty vs dice in the rules might help circumvent such issues.
QuoteHmm... Not really, honestly. I feel like I have seen enough "D&D done better" systems by now. However, that doesn't mean that I wouldn't be interested if it was really significantly better. Your current version seems a little too early to judge that.Well, your uncertainty is being interpreted optimistically.