Looking for feedback towards a game in an early state
SamSlayde:
Hello everyone,
I'm just looking for some feedback on a little RPG I put together over the weekend. It's called the Less-Dice system, and the rules as of right now are here: http://www.mediafire.com/?76l66hcxyftivmr
I guess a little background is in order. I've never played or owned any diceless RPGs, or resource management RPGs, though I know they exist. I built this system as a response to wanting something that didn't use dice or randomizers to determine success or failure, but still used them to represent certain grey factors, with a range of results.
Take a look and tell me what you think, I've had some new ideas since putting this PDF together, but it has the heart of the idea down.
I'm mostly looking for feedback towards things that you think are missing that would be encountered in a single game session.
It's a work in progress so I'll try to keep this updated as I work on it.
Thanks!
SamSlayde:
Notes, read these after reading the PDF:
There are no rules for healing damage. But outside of magic, healing will take place over longer than a single session.
I'm considering an automatic perception rating, something like Mind + Manoeuvre. If someone doesn't like their score they can purchase a skill to replace it, or maybe improve it.
I'd also like to bring in a little more dice, I was thinking about making skill points worth a d4, but that makes them a lot more valuable. Changing a Burned action point to be worth a d6 is a less drastic change.
Callan S.:
Hi Sam,
I suppose what I'll say will sound a complete non sequitur, but a bit of a repeating design pattern in RPG's is that the combat rules/main rules listed in the text are in no way connected to the outcome of the game? For example, say your off to save the princess - you have a fight with some goblins and yeah, the rules really nail down all sorts of moves and who takes damage and who hits who. But really for intricately resolving the goblin fight, the ruleset has done nothing towards resolving the princess saving at all? In fact (and this is the important thing), if we considere the princess saving as the important thing, then the rules have absolutely nothing to do with what's important in the session. Have you noticed this in other RPGs? And what do you think?
SamSlayde:
You're right, that is a bit of a non sequitur.
However, you're not wrong, but I think my response to this is the same as to the question "is game design going in X or Y direction?", and that is: game design is going in all directions at once. For everyone going in one direction, someone is going completely the opposite direction.
In many games, mine included, the focus is more on using the mechanics to answer a specific question at hand, not bring the story any closer to it's conclusion in anyway, other than to determine a direction. These games want a more free flow to how they are structured, having mechanics the specifically drive the characters towards the goal of Saving the Princess, are of no use if the players decide that's not what they want to do that session after all, or grab a thread headed in another direction.
In others the opposite is true, many new indie games I've read specifically try to drive the story along with mechanics. In Fiasco a subtle little mechanic that I didn't find specifically mentioned in the book is that due to the finite number of dice, there is a finite number of scenes with which you have to tell the complete story. Stuff needs to happen in each scene, every one of them needs to count, because when they're gone, they're gone. Those are some of the only mechanics in the game and I think they do a good job of ensuring that when used they bring the story closer to it's conclusion.
Callan S.:
Quote
These games want a more free flow to how they are structured, having mechanics the specifically drive the characters towards the goal of Saving the Princess, are of no use if the players decide that's not what they want to do that session after all, or grab a thread headed in another direction.
Well, what some games have is a fill in the blank mechanic. Like a made up example of possible mechanics: say the players shoot off in a direction of fighting pirates, then say the rules are to write that down on a card, then some mechanics deal with the progress toward that goal. Could even have multiple cards, if they keep switching. I think the game 'capes' works like that quite a bit.
Just something to consider - to me, I find that as a player I'm dealing with mechanics which are pretty much busy work and have nothing to do with the big important thing and what happens in regard to it. Basically a set of combat mechanics makes me feel either stifled or I feel the big important thing really doesn't matter since I can't do a thing about it (heh, bit of a real life parralel there...)
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