The Broken Realms - Necromancy, Steampunk, and Psychotic Gods
Rubbermancer:
WHEW! Been busting my posterior on this one for a while now, and I think I've finally come as far as I can without outside feedback. My first obvious question is, is it comprehensible? Especially the rules pdf. Do you get it? I've been immersed in these documents for so long now that I've lost all sense of first-time reader's perspective utterly and completely.
Secondly, of course, criticism on any of my mechanics is more than welcome. Although I've played quite a few tabletops, and homebrewed board games with rpg elements before (a chess spin-off being one of them), this is my first tabletop rpg design project. Personally, I think the system works. My friends and I have playtested earlier versions of the game with moderate success, both on the dining room table with area maps, and over chat, but as I said, I'm lacking fresh perspective at this point.
http://rubbermancer.wordpress.com/the-broken-realms/
I realize that, for a humble beta, it's a monolithic work of Brobdingnagian proportions, so anybody that actually makes the time and effort to dive into this is my freakin' hero. Much love,
-Joe
Mike Sugarbaker:
Your core rules doc is actually pretty easy to read. Best of all, your core mechanic is right in the front!
...which is a good thing, because if I were considering this game, I'd want to know up front that basically any control that anyone tries to assert on ongoing events via the rules is going to be meaningless. Difficulty is always a roll of a d20? Really?
I mean, if you're going for a really madcap feel where effectiveness is basically always a fantasy except when it's not, then that works fine. But your setting material doesn't suggest that.
Callan S.:
Hi Joe,
It seems like players affect ongoing events indirectly, via someone attempting something, requiring a roll, failing and then other players can bid on failure narration. This is essentially the point where players speak into the fiction/story, with a strong directive that it's a failure were adding (which generally tend to expand a story (barring absolute death) - success often contracts a story, towards an ending).
Also, although the example situation certain explains process, the scope of narration seems stiffled? A broken bow string? Only on a natural twenty fate roll can we actually have a real twist occuring? To me, it seems like bidding will naturally gravitate to mostly only happen on natural 20 fate rolls. Is this what your shooting for? Because it'll be about 20 rolls before that happens and if there's, say, five minutes between each roll then it'll be about an hour and a half between each bidding session. So those mechanics wont get deployed all that much? The rules on weak rolls being narrated by the GM will further aggrivate this situation. If you know that because that's what your shooting for, okay, just thought I'd note it in case.
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This secretive bidding system serves to a) prevent metagaming in the
form of “oh, he’s bidding, I should bid too”, and b) add a layer of
suspense to the gaming experience.
I think you may have a hang up on 'metagaming' - does this really matter? Or will it really make it more dramatic? Sometimes no one bids - okay, we just move on?
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If at least 2, and more than 50%, of the player’s results are 4s, the
Attempt Quality is “exceptional”. The player with Narrative Focus is
then free to describe an Indirect Success, in such cases.
I'm not sure what this means? If he suceeds he gets to narrate?
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(as if I could stop you from stripping them down anyway if you wanted to
Just a side note, but this is a bit of a gamer myth. If they want to play your game, then they cannot just strip out stuff. Unless you've caved in and say they are still playing your game even if they strip out 90%+ of your material. The myth comes from a wide range of RPG's, starting with D&D, that just don't have a complete, start to end, procedure.
Rubbermancer:
Thanks for the replies, guys. All valid concerns, and I can tell by the fact that you're raising them that my writing has failed to emphasize the important, balancing aspects of the system.
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the scope of narration seems stiffled? A broken bow string? Only on a natural twenty fate roll can we actually have a real twist occuring? To me, it seems like bidding will naturally gravitate to mostly only happen on natural 20 fate rolls. Is this what your shooting for? Because it'll be about 20 rolls before that happens and if there's, say, five minutes between each roll then it'll be about an hour and a half between each bidding session. So those mechanics wont get deployed all that much? The rules on weak rolls being narrated by the GM will further aggrivate this situation. If you know that because that's what your shooting for, okay, just thought I'd note it in case.
I should make it clearer right from the get-go that Narrative Focus is generally held by one of the players for an extended period, and that they can Narrate many things, not just failures. Failures are an opportunity for Narrative Focus to change hands, that it doesn't rest with the GM as often as it rests with any one player, and that different character types (Heretic/Realist/Zealot) will have more varied options for assuming Narrative Focus; hence, when it is natural for a certain "style" of character to have Narrative Focus, he has that opportunity. It ought to change hands more often than you'd think.
Quote
If at least 2, and more than 50%, of the player’s results are 4s, the
Attempt Quality is “exceptional”. The player with Narrative Focus is
then free to describe an Indirect Success, in such cases.
I'm not sure what this means? If he suceeds he gets to narrate?
Yeah, that is rather unclear. The original idea was that, whether the player's attempt succeeded or not, the current narrator could introduce positive secondary consequences of the action (ie: falling on your ass, you land on a pressure plate that opens a door). I'm considering changing this, in light of Mike's issue with the (currently extremely variable) difficulty mechanic, to say that Exceptional Attempt Quality overrides the Die of Fate, in that the attempt succeeds, but Fate still throws a curveball, and therefore still provides an opportunity for Token-bidding. And yeah Mike, thank you! I'd definitely like a player's Attempt Quality to count for more, in terms of actual success. I'll have to fiddle with that. The Die of Fate was never meant to be a straight-up difficulty die.
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(as if I could stop you from stripping them down anyway if you wanted to)
Just a side note, but this is a bit of a gamer myth. If they want to play your game, then they cannot just strip out stuff. Unless you've caved in and say they are still playing your game even if they strip out 90%+ of your material. The myth comes from a wide range of RPG's, starting with D&D, that just don't have a complete, start to end, procedure.
Good point, it's probably a weak way to start a writeup. Thanks for that!
Quote
This secretive bidding system serves to a) prevent metagaming in the
form of “oh, he’s bidding, I should bid too”, and b) add a layer of
suspense to the gaming experience.
I think you may have a hang up on 'metagaming' - does this really matter? Or will it really make it more dramatic? Sometimes no one bids - okay, we just move on?
In the case of nobody bidding, the current Narrator would describe the failure, (or the GM, if it's the Narrator that has failed). I do hope it will make it more dramatic, yes, but it could prove to just be clunky. I don't know yet! And yeah, I'm all hung up on metagaming, hehe. The rules might harp a bit, in that respect. Another thing to work on.
Thanks very much for the great feedback, guys! It's given me a lot of things to consider, and I hope you, and others, have more issues to bring to the table. (I know they're there! :P )
Thriff:
Hey Rubbs,
Sorry for late reply. Even though I wasn't given a deadline (... well, not that I know of...) I still would've liked to have responded sooner!
On that note, this post is less of a response than it is a prompting question. You mentioned (in ASH V1.00 thread) that you consider our systems to be either identical or inverted. Could you elaborate on that?
I believe this exercise in contrasting will encourage both general (design choices) and specific (system mechanics) discussions that will help refine Broken Realms (use this as a working title?)
This contrast with ASH is for illustrative purposes, I want to focus this discussion on refining Broken Realms "BR" (your thread).
Big Picture: I like many of the mechanics in BR but am confused by some others. Very few things I take issue with. I'll post more details ASAP.
T
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