Don't laugh - this is my life...  !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UktD-U-GEM

Well, not really.  But damnit, its funny!

-Mark

For those of you who are contemplating new combat systems, consider
this:

http://www.tmous.com/media/MOUS_kung-fu.html

:)

- Mark

Re: Light weight vs. Complex RPG Systems
         Posted by: "JAPartridge" japartridge@...
         Wed Jun 28, 2006 6:31 pm (PST)

     > Perhaps I will. To be honest, the Forge is like a sandwich that is
so big
     > that it's hard to know how to approach it.

Before heading to the Forge to chip away at the dense mine of knowledge
there,
you might want to read this introductory essay by Allen Varney of The
Escapist:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/36/17


-Tim



--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.8/380 - Release Date: 6/30/06

Thanks for the article tip.  It was so good I added as a link on the
LRPGSW group too.  :)

- Mark


--- In rpg-create@yahoogroups.com, Tim Jensen <tjensen@...> wrote:
>
>         Re: Light weight vs. Complex RPG Systems
>         Posted by: "JAPartridge" japartridge@...
>         Wed Jun 28, 2006 6:31 pm (PST)
>
>     > Perhaps I will. To be honest, the Forge is like a sandwich
that is
> so big
>     > that it's hard to know how to approach it.
>
> Before heading to the Forge to chip away at the dense mine of
knowledge
> there,
> you might want to read this introductory essay by Allen Varney of
The
> Escapist:
> http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/36/17
>
>
> -Tim
>
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.8/380 - Release Date:
6/30/06
>

Please use #2 pencils only

--
Nathan E. Banks <Paganini>
ICQ 34492883
PGP Fingerprint: D448 5FA6 3AEE 4F74 510B C3DF 3DBE 2ED6 E8A2 0148
--
"Paganini avoids mediocrity in everything."
                 - Nicolo Paganini


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I am tweaking my character description system...again, trying to find a
middle path between a fast light flexible system with robust character
detail, and I think I need a reality check.

I would like everyone to think back to their favorite and/or most memorable
game characters and tell me how the game system you played them in supported
or failed to support those aspects of the character you particularly
enjoyed.  I'm not looking for characters with fun personalities or
interesting backgrounds--except in so far as the system supported such
detail by giving them a direct mechanical impact on game play.  (In other
words, I'm not looking for great RP stories, I'm just looking to see if my
system can make and support the type of characters others have enjoyed.)  If
you had a particular character concept (appropriate to the setting) that a
particular game was exceptionally bad at supporting, I'd be interested in
that as well--especially if you have a suggestion of how the system could
have been modified to support that concept.

Many thanks for your help.

~Talus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On 7/9/06, Nathan E. Banks <nebanks@...> wrote:
>
> Please use #2 pencils only
>
> --
> Nathan E. Banks <Paganini>
> ICQ 34492883
> PGP Fingerprint: D448 5FA6 3AEE 4F74 510B C3DF 3DBE 2ED6 E8A2 0148
> --
> "Paganini avoids mediocrity in everything."
>                 - Nicolo Paganini

What is there a test?  I didn't study for a test!

~Talus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

vbwyrde wrote:
> Hi all,
>   I'm working on a lightweight version of my more extensive system.  It
> uses only the basic elements of the larger system and reduces all
> numbers and dice down to the smallest units compatible with a balanced
> game.  The objective is to create a rpg system that the GM and Players
> can easily keep in their heads.   The upside is that there are very few
> rules.  The downside, for some GMs and Players, may be: there are very
> few rules.   One of the things I noticed lately is that there's a lot
> of GMs and Players who LIKE the highly complex rules of the AD&D
> systems.  It becomes something like sports stats in terms of thinking
> about what does what and so on.  The problem I have always had with

That is not necessarily why people prefer fudge-light systems.

> that line of development is that it is very difficult to mathematically
> balance complex rules, and I find it tends to slow the game down as
> people calculate all their stuff.

Only in a system designed by a retard do you have to do any significant
calculation during the session. Pre-calculation, doing almost all the
work during character creation, has been around since at least the mid
1980s.

>   The question is: what do you prefer, a lightweight easy to run system
> that lends itself toward story, or a cool and complex system that lends
> itself toward gaming?

I prefer the kind of system which sets me free to concentrate on that
which exists (the campaign world and the characters who live in it),
instead of having to worry about what mood the GM is in and what he
would prefer my character to do and not to do, and me generally spending
a lot of time and energy trying to appease and play him.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

Rev. Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
> From: vbwyrde
>>The question is: what do you prefer, a lightweight easy to run system
>>that lends itself toward story, or a cool and complex system that lends
>>itself toward gaming?
>
> What you have just done is functionally asked the question: "Which is better,
chocolate or vanilla ice cream?"
[...]

Um, no, what he is actually asking us to chose between is whether we
want to pay attention to the campaign world and the characters who live
in it, or whether we prefer to focus on the GM and attempt to play him
(and "read" him).

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

Rev. Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
> From: Torben AEgidius Mogensen
>>I wouldn't want to do WW2 with a lightweight
>>system, nor would I want to do Toon with a chrunchy one.
>
> Ahhh, here's where Torben and I differ.
>
> I can completely see doing WWII with a lightweight
  > system, /depending on what the game was about/. If
  > its about the different guns, and storming German
  > beachheads, and gaining tactical opportunities through
  > well, tactics and superior firepower, then sure,
  > crunch away. That's probably important to play...or
  > maybe not: chess, poker and a variety of other games
  > are quite engaging tactically/strategically without
  > having a lot of crunch.

Crunch does not mean combat rules. Crunch means character creation
*choices* (or character advancement *choices*, or character equipment
*choices*) which lead to abilities that work primarily according to
*rules*, as opposed to GM discretion.

You, and many others, are distracted by the fact that in most RPG
systems in existence, the majority of crunch just happens to be
combat-relevant. (The reason for this is inertia both among system
designers and among system consumers.)


--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

Shane wrote:
> I like a system that does not get in the way of the story or the role
> playing.

I prefer to play within a context that lets me concentrate on my
character and the world he lives in, instead of having to worry about
what mood the metagame entity behind the GM's screen is in.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

Ah, the Holy War has re-ignited, lovely. :)

*Sindyr gets out the marshmallows for toasting*

-Sindyr

> -----Original Message-----
> From: rpg-create@yahoogroups.com [mailto:rpg-create@yahoogroups.com] On
> Behalf Of Peter Knutsen (list)
> Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 7:37 AM
> To: rpg-create@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [rpg-create] Light weight vs. Complex RPG Systems
>
> Rev. Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
> > From: vbwyrde
> >>The question is: what do you prefer, a lightweight easy to run system
> >>that lends itself toward story, or a cool and complex system that lends
> >>itself toward gaming?
> >
> > What you have just done is functionally asked the question: "Which is
> better, chocolate or vanilla ice cream?"
> [...]
>
> Um, no, what he is actually asking us to chose between is whether we
> want to pay attention to the campaign world and the characters who live
> in it, or whether we prefer to focus on the GM and attempt to play him
> (and "read" him).
>
> --
> Peter Knutsen
> sagatafl.org
>
>
>
> RPG-Create on the web: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/rpg-create/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

vbwyrde wrote:
> Well that's a good point too, but I tend to think that there may be a
> prevailing feeling about it, and I'm trying to get a bead on whether
> or not there might be popularity for a lightweight system.  The
[...]

A RPG rules system is first and foremost an *engine*, and an engine, by
definition, performs *work*.

Therefore, you must ask yourself what work it is that your system
perform, and whether that work is worth performing, and it is also your
duty to wonder whether there is some work which your system does not
perform that it ought to.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

Rev. Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
[...]
> "Rules-light" versus "rules-heavy" is a red-herring of classification and
design (as is any conflation of either with story-based or game-based play).
Just design the system to do what it should do and don't worry about "having
enough crunch" or "not having enough".

As I have said many times before, all roleplaying takes place under the
*exact* same amount of rules. The only difference is whether the rules
are written down or not.

Having rules written down, of course, offers numerous advantages. First
of all, players can then read them *prior* to deciding whether to
participate in the campaign at all. Secondly, if the rules are written
down then it is much easier to adopt an evaluative stance towards them,
contepmplate them and ultimately suggest improvements.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

Luc Hernandez wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: vbwyrde
> To: rpg-create@yahoogroups.com
> | The question is: what do you prefer, a lightweight easy to run system
> | that lends itself toward story, or a cool and complex system that lends
> | itself toward gaming?
>
> As a gamist myself, I take this opportunity to warn would-be designers against
> extreme simplification. First of all, story-driven games don't really need
> rules. The rules (in traditional games at least) influence much more the
> "game" part than the "role-playing" part. It seems only natural, then, to try
> and appeal to the gamist sensibility when designing rules.
>
> In the past I have been attracted as a designer to "elegant" systems. But I
> found I did not enjoy my own games as much as some commercial games. I
> discovered that a system must have many possibilities to offer strategic
> options for "gamist" gamers, in the creation process and in the gameplay
> itself.

What about those of us who are not gamists, but still detest fudge-heavy
systems?

> That means your game must have "crunch" (in D&D jargon, rules and options) to

"Crunch" is not rules and options. See my post to "Ravenscrye Grey
Daegmorgan" for an explanation of what the term actually means.

> appeal to the gamist crowd. Very simple rules, however elegant, will prove
> very frustrating after a while because all strategic options will have been
> explored.
[...]

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

JAPartridge wrote:
> I am tweaking my character description system...again, trying to find a
> middle path between a fast light flexible system with robust character
> detail, and I think I need a reality check.
>
> I would like everyone to think back to their favorite and/or most memorable
> game characters and tell me how the game system you played them in supported
> or failed to support those aspects of the character you particularly
> enjoyed.  I'm not looking for characters with fun personalities or
> interesting backgrounds--except in so far as the system supported such
> detail by giving them a direct mechanical impact on game play.  (In other
> words, I'm not looking for great RP stories, I'm just looking to see if my
> system can make and support the type of characters others have enjoyed.)  If
> you had a particular character concept (appropriate to the setting) that a
> particular game was exceptionally bad at supporting, I'd be interested in
> that as well--especially if you have a suggestion of how the system could
> have been modified to support that concept.
>
> Many thanks for your help.

This is mostly a copy-paste from a posting I made to an internal Pyramid
discussion group, almost 2 years ago. The subject was "Fun characters
you never got to play".

<quote>
The first GURPS character I ever made was a Blind genius, with IQ 15,
Eidetic Memory I, and some talent for Music and Languages, and a lot of
reaction roll-affecting Advantages (I recall him as getting a total of
+8 to reaction rolls, including Voice and the bonus for being Blind, but
I also recall him as being built on 100 CPs (165 or 170 CPs total, as he
had a 15 CP SoD in addition to Bind, and possibly 5 Quirks), and those
two don't seem to both be able to be true). I only made him to try out
the system (in late 1997 or early 1998, based on a legal Win32 help file
created by Chris Young), but I had in mind that he might be involved in
a First Encounter type scenario with some space aliens, where his traits
would come in handy.

He has since been moved to a near-future setting I might use for fiction
writing some day, where I'm exploring his childhood (as a side plot) as
a musical prodigy first and foremost and a generic high-intelligence
"genius" child secondarily (originally he might have been in his 40's).
He also got converted to FFRE (of course - it's the language I "think"
all my characters in, now, because it's so extrmely flexible and it
takes realistic synergies into account) and his Eidetic Memory got toned
down to what amounts to an Extremely Good Memory advantage. He also got
a sort of "3D Spatial Sense" advantage, along the way, making him
eventually (although not as 6 or 8 or 9-year old) the world's best Human
chess player


The next GURPS character I made was just a generic mystery dude, with
all sorts of weird advantages like Danger Sense, Empathy, a lot of
others of a similar vein, and generically high attributes (HT, DX and IQ
in the 12-13 range, ST might have been only 11). I thought of him as an
amnesiac with lots of strange (but not strictly supernatural) abilities,
whom the GM could provide a backstory for eventually, through the
character's discovery. He was a bit dull, conceptually, although he
might have been a lot of fun to play with the right GM.


Some months later, when I had bought Basic 3Er, CI, CII and GURPS Space,
I got the opportunity to play in a IRC-based cyberpunk campaign. I got
200 CPs, and made a somewhat contra-optimized security
specialist/hacker. He had IQ 13 and Eidetic Memory I, and half a point
in lots of science skills (he was interested in science, and had a whole
whooping Ally Group of 75 CP scientists, mainly intended to be useful
for their science skills (and having IQs higher than my character)
although he did spend some spare time teaching them Karate). He had a
quite high Karate and Guns skills, and almost certainly Tactics and
Leadership and some (not much, IIRC) Stealth. Otherwise pretty generic,
although IIRC he had some hacking/cybespace skills too. When you
consider the point budget he was not optimized at all (Eidetic Memory on
such a character was a huge mistake), but I thought he would be very fun
to play.

Unfortunately, I had quit from my high school education and had to
attend a folk high school until I could enroll at another high school
next autumn, and it turned out that we were not allowed to use any chat
systems on the folk high school, so I had to bow out of the campaign
after one session.


Almost a year later, I got the opportunity to play in a tabletop GURPS
campaign. It was historical, Denmark in 1340 AD, but the GM wrote to me
that another player had been allowed to play a mage. This player had
requested some sort of magic, so the GM had invented a magical stone
somewhere in Denmark that "radiated magic" (it probably caused the
surrounding area - some square kilometers, or possibly a lot of square
kilometers - to become a normal mana or high mana zone, in contrast to
the surrounding lands).

So I got the idea for playing a character who was 1/4 Faerie and 3/4
Human but thought he was 1/2 1/2 (because his mother had been Very
Beautiful). I got the GM's permission, and wrote up "racial" packages
for full Faeries, half Faeries, quarter-Faeries and even 1/8 Faeries. I
think I did a fairly good job with the 1/4 Faerie "racial" package I was
to use for my character, giving a +1 bonus to DX and IQ, but also
building in some rather fluffy advantages (Language Talent and Musical
Talent, and a sort of Longevity) and also some potentially very
troublesome disads, including one that made nearby horses and dogs (two
*very* common animal types) go crazy with fear. IMO a very balanced
"racial" package, with some goodies and some true nastiness.

The character was a rogue, Literate and able to speak lots of languages,
and with a lot of thief/spy skills. He was 40 years old but looked like
he was 25 or so. Not too fit, and with limited combat skills (10's and a
few 12's).

Unfortunately, the GM had planned the whole first session around a
single PC, who would be the nucleus around which the PC party formed.
But that player failed to show up, so the GM cancelled the session, and
we sat around talking for a while, then he cancelled the entire campaign
(that proved to me, beyond doubt, the intrinsic and universal wrongness
of confusing RPGs with "stories").

He didn't know the GURPS rules very well, and seemed somewhat
disinterested in them (since then, I've grown to be *extremely* wary of
that kind of GM), and it's possible that I wouldn't have had a lot of
fun in that campaign, after all, but I liked the character concept a
lot, and the GM's general setup, historical fantasy, combined with my
interest in the Quest FRP freeware system, got me more and more hooked
on creating and GMing a historical fantasy setting. So I later created
Ärth, and the quarter-Faerie became an NPC. First statted up in Quest
FRP (where he was supremely unimpressive, as that system simply can't
deal with extraordinary characters - it doesn't even try) and then later
converted to FFRE where he's even more fun that he would have been in GURPS.


Some time later, probably a year or so, a guy from rec.games.frp.gurps,
named Kitarak (he later began posting under a different handle, or
possibly his true name, but I've forgotten what it was; earlier he used
to post lots of interesting campagin premises, merely as idea seeds. I
particularly liked the one featuring inheritable advantages and with a
psionic king, although it was not that setting he'd use for his
campaign), proposed an IRC-based campaign. I emailed him and got some
basic information about the setting. He also told me that I and the
other player(s) had no point budget, but could just create the kind of
character we wanted. He's approve (or disapprove) the final characters.

I made a *seriously* unoptimized detective/spy. IQ 13 and DX 12.
Overweight and Unfit. HT and ST were, at best, average. He had lots and
lots of points in thief/spy skills, and something like four Contacts. I
argued a bit with Kitarak whether my character could have half a point
in a few combat skills (IIRC Staff and Brawling) or if he should make do
with defaults. I felt that defaults were a bit too low, and that half a
point would give him a skill of around 10, which I found suitable for
his combat skills. I can't recall who won, but it was not particularly
bothersome.

He was very much a "non-growth" character. He was as good as I wanted
him to be, and as good as he wanted to be, and as good as he needed to
be. Most skills were "maxed", meaning that it would cost 2 CPs per level
to raise them (this was 3E, and had a lot more mental than physical skills).

I pointed out to the GM that if the character got involved in lots of
physical activity, I'd buy off Overweight or Unfit or both, but he said
that it was unlikely. I didn't care whether they got bought off
eventually or not, but was simply interested in the realism side of
things. Alas, for some reason the campaign never took off. Maybe Kitarak
changed school or something?


More recently, I started in a D&D 3.0 PBeM, where we got 80 abilty score
points to distribute (not buy, distribute). I may have warned the GM
about that being a less wise decision, but if I did he did not listen. I
made a Rogue/Illusionist character using the "apprentice" rules from the
DMG3 (starting with effectively half a level in each) with INT 18, WIS
18, CHA 16 or 18, DEX 16 or 18, CON 8 and STR 6. I had massive problems
with selecting Feats for the character, and I also asked the GM to swap
out some of the psycical Rogue abilities. IIRC I swapped out Evasion,
Uncany Dodge and Sneak Attack for the Bardic Knowledge ability. That
wasn't a fair trade at all, but those physical traits didn't suit the
character at all and Bardic Knowledge did. Possibly the GM allowed me to
pick one or two extra abilities, but I don't recall that I were able to
come up with some that I myself thought sounded suitable enough to even
propose.

That is a general problem with D&D3, that the rules talk too much about
combat and too little about other things. Had it been D&D 3.5 I'd have
much more fun, probably have made him a Bard and I'd have found the
Skill Focus Feat a lot more attractive.

Another problem with D&D was that I wanted the character to be skinny
and physically vulnerable, yet not particularly prone to diseases (CON 8
expressed, pretty well, how I wanted him to be slightly vulnerable to
diseases). There was a severe lack of a Size attribute that reduced your
hit points, or some sort of "Fragile" disdvantage that affects only
combat but does not leave your character vulnerable to poisons and diseases.

Worse, much worse, was the lack of a distinction between Agility and
Dexterity. It really was a very non-physical character, and I'd have
preferred him to hav Dexterity 18 and Agility 10, instad of DEX 16.

I played one session, then lost interest for a variety of reasons,
including bad roleplaying from another player, and general annoyance
with the system's inability to deal with a perfectly reasonable
character concept.



The trend, thoughout all this and true in *all* five cases, is that each
and every one of these characters would have worked better, in one way
or another, if created in FFRE. The blind genius is, now, an FFRE
character, and much happier. The 1/4 Faerie is too, and works better.
The cyberpunk character would have worked better generally in FFRE,
although he had no particularly big problems as a GURPS character (in
FFRE he'd probably have had some Contacts, instead of a 30 CP Ally Group
of scientists, but it can be argued that I could have done the same in
GURPS - and he would not have had Eidetic Memory 1, but instead one or
less costly but also less powerful mnemonic-enhancing advantages).

The unlimited point budget detective was flawed only, I think, in that
his GURPS point cost was so high (300 CPs, or possibly a bit more!),
failing to reflect his overall prowess (he could only kick as much butt,
figuratively speaking, as an optimized 125 CP detective, I'd estimate).
In FFRE he'd be creatable on much fewer points, thus there'd be much
less of a disconnect between his actual "general prowess" and his
(Goodie Point) value (because the system is designed to allow
skill-heavy characters to be able to compete with attribute-heavy ones).
I'd also have been able to describe his Contacts better, but that was
not a major problem with the GURPS writeup.

The D&D3 character had problems of scrawniness and the Agility/Dexterity
distinction, which can not be expressed within the severely limited
vocabulary of the D&D system, and with the system's general lack of
rules support for prowess at non-combat activities. It was really
difficult to pick Feats for this guy.
</quote>

To summarize, my main frustration is that other people's RPG systems
suffer from a severe poverty of axes of differentiation, rendering me
unable to express my charater's capabilitistic individuality. Also, in
GURPS (the primary point-based system), character point costs often fail
massively to correlate with usefulness, because of the flawed notion of
*how* innate talent (attributes) interact with learning (points invested
in skills) to generate prowess (skill value).

One thing that has not bothered me, in any of these systems, is the
granularity of the attribute scales. I am asking for more axes of
differentiation, rather than for finer degrees of difference on the
already existing axes.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

For the sake of simplicity, the AM RPG decrees that all player
characters must have 3 psychological Flaws and 1 physical Weaknesses,
with the following exceptions:

1. The player may select the Near-Perfect subtype for his character.
Such player characters have only 1 Flaw and no Weakness.

2. If the player does not select the Special/Near-Perfect subtype, he
may instead chose to give his character one Major Flaw and 1 normal
Flaw, instead of 3 normal Flaws. Such a character still has 1 Weakness.

3. If the player does not utilize option #1 or #2 then he may pay either
8 points to have a character with only 2 normal Flaws (and 1 Weakness),
or he may pay 20 points to have a character with no Weakness (and 3
normal Flaws).

Obviously, I want one Weakness to be aproximately 2.5 times as
bothersome as one Flaw, and I want a Major Flaw to be approximately
twice as bothersome as a normal Flaw.

Given the rigidity of the system, and the need for speedy character
creation, I'd very much like to have a ready-made list of around 40
Flaws (maybe 32 normal and 8 major ones), all which defined effects (so
that there is limited GM "discretion"), and another list of around 25
Weaknesses.

Furthermore, there is a rule that says that only one of a character's
Flaws can be a Phobia. In general, I think phobias in RPGs are a bit
cheesy, but I'm willing to tolerate one per character. As a consequence
of this, I expect 95% of player characters to have one Phobia, since
this is an easy and relatively painless way to fill up one of the
mandatory Flaw Slots. It follows from this that it'd be very, very
useful to also have a list of pre-approved Phobias that players can
select from.


Due to the simplicity of the system, all Flaws must be of comparable
magnitude (ideally all within 25% of frustration factor of each other),
in terms of likelihood of triggering multiplied by severity of effect,
all the Weaknesses must likewise be of comparable magnitude, and all the
Phobias on the seperate phobia list must be balanced against each other.

I can include, in the system, some Weaknesses (or even Flaws) which are
more severe than the others. These will be marked as such, and be
indicated as "for NPCs" only (since, for instance, I might want to have
an NPC who was Blind or Deaf or Confined to a Wheelchair, in spite of
the fact that such a character would be unplayable as a PC).

Also, some Flaws can be indicated to "always count as Major Flaws".
Other Flaws can be presented in a normal and a Major version so that the
player can chose. I don't like Phobias as Major Flaws (that's too much
cheese!), so I'd like to be able to label very problematic Phobias as
"do not take"s.



So far, I've got this list of Flaws:

Alcoholism
Braggart
Curiosity, Deep
Curiosity, Shallow
Easily Intimidated
Insults Opposite Sex (M)
Insults [Race]
Insults [Religion]
Insults Religious (M)
Lecherous
Needs to prove his Worth
Overconfident
Phobia
Romantically Naïve
Show-Off
Trademark
Trickster
Unreasonably Sceptical (N)

Alcoholism is the only addiction that I think will work in the system as
a Flaw, because temptations to indulge in other drugs are (predicted to
be) too rare, and/or other drugs are too crippling (a heroin addict is
unplayable, for instance).

Insults Opposite Sex is automatically a Major Flaw, because it's
triggered so often.

Insults Religious, in the sense that it is directed against people of
all religions, is likewise automatically a Major Flaw.

Lecherous can be seen as a "cheap" Flaw to take, because the rules
already state that *all* non-child player characters (and most NPCs) are
semi-Lecherous. Hence you get to fill one of your Flaw slots merely by
upgrading a minor Flaw that you already have, to normal Flaw status.

Unreasonably Sceptical is only a valid Flaw in a campaign which features
something supernatural. (The GM *is* to tell the players in advance.)

That's a list of 18 Flaws (most of them with short explanatory notes - I
have given only the most necessary descriptions above), but I'd like to
have twice as many, or even more.

I have no list of legal Phobias at this time. Suggestions are welcome.

(As for common Flaws, besides the cheesy phobias, I expect Deep
Curiosity and Overconfident to be quite common among PCs, but I'm okay
with that. Deep Curiosity in particular is highly conductive to action,
adventure and excitement.)



As for Weaknesses, I have this list:

Abysmal Fortitude
Abysmal Perception
Abysmal Reflexes (W)
Abysmal Will
Abysmal Wits (W)
Albinism
Blind (W)
Cannot Run/Jog
Colour Blind
Deaf (W)
Hemophilia (W)
Impaired Jumping
Lack of Depth Perception
Lame
Lung Disorder
No Sense of Taste/Smell
Reduced Strength

The ones labeled with (W) are too severe for it to be wise for players
to take them. Therefore they should not really be counted towards my
goal of having 25 approved Weaknesses in order to facilitate rapid
character creation.

Abysmal Fortitude/Perception/Reflexes/Will/Wits refers to the "saving
throw" system (saving throws stand in for attributes in the Action Movie
RPG), and hence should only be counted as a single Weakness, rather than
as 5 seperate ones.

Hence I have only 10 proper Weaknesses, so far. Far fewer than I need.


Suggestions and thoughts are very welcome.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

From: JAPartridge
   On 6/28/06, Rev. Raven Daegmorgan <sleipnir@...> wrote:
   > That is, "I'm doing it anyways" and "It isn't worth it", speak volumes
   > when the chips are on the table: "Do I kill my lord, forsaking my pledge to
   > be loyal, and take my love's hand in marriage? Is she worth the price? Is
   > that what I really want? Especially after she has already declared she loves
   > him instead? Do I kill them both for betraying me and plunge the land into
   > chaos and war through the death of the only man holding three warring clans
   > together?"
   >
   > Throw sorcery in there: "I summon a parasite demon into my lord's body and
   > raise him from the dead. I will restore my honor for my hideous act of
   > betrayal" or "I summon an object demon, a sword of such power it will let me
   > reunite the broken clans. I will become Shogun," and mix well with all the
   > human conflicts and desires of the sorcerer, the demons, and those both
   > friends and enemies to the sorcerer, and things get really interesting.

   I can see how thematic tension can be represented in the form of a
   diminishing resource. Are there other approaches? I like the questions you
   bring up on the second and third paragraphs, but I'm not sure how you
   accomplish those mechanically.
<-----

Regarding Humanity, it is an interesting mechanic. It isn't just a diminishing
resource, it doesn't just go down. It can go up. In fact, it has a 50% chance of
moving any time it is tested in whichever direction the action taken that caused
the roll is oriented. So, do something opposed to Humanity, 50% chance of losing
a point. Do you risk it? Do something that celebrates Humanity, 50% chance of
gaining a point. Can you maintain your Humanity? Especially with demons and
sorcery driving it lower? Especially given that a higher Humanity gives you
better control over your demons and resistance to sorcery?

Now, I'm not certain what you mean by "how you accomplish those mechanically"?
The mechanics reinforce the choices and decisions, they don't produce them. That
is, you can't roll dice and say, "Oh, now I will betray my lord." The point is
the definition of the attribute and what you choose in play, tied to the
mechanical stuff of that attribute.

So, let's take the first example: "Do I forsake my pledge to my lord?" If
Humanity has been defined as loyalty, then betraying that pledge is a Humanity
roll.

That's a big dramatic statement right there, "I'm willing to risk my humanity --
and as a player, risk my character's protagonism -- by choosing to do this." And
it's not just a statement, it's mechanically dramatic as well, the choice is
reflected in character effectiveness and resources. This means such a choice is
not just dramatic color.

For comparison, a similar thing might be said to happen in D&D when you choose
to go into battle, "Ok, killing these critters is worth the risk they represent
to my HPs -- the risk to my character's effectiveness and continued protagonism
-- so I attack them."

Obviously, there are huge differences, since battles in D&D are not generally
choices you make, and the way D&D is often played blunts the whole choice of
fighting ("I'd better fudge such-and-such or they'll die", fights are usually
meaningless scuffles with mooks, HPs are not a resource outside of combat,
there's no implicit indication that you're fighting to reach some goal and dying
at this juncture would be worth it/not worth it/have lasting consequences,
etc.). Plus, not fighting means you sacrifice effectiveness by failing to gain
XPs, etc. But I hope it serves to at least vaguely illustrate what I mean.

Now, if Humanity has also been defined as love or romance (Humanity is not
limited to being just one thing, and is often more dynamic in play when it has
two or three possibly conflicting definitions), then putting one's love ahead of
one's loyalty is a big statement. What happens? You not only risk your humanity,
but you might increase it at the same time. You're saying "loyalty is less
important than love", and then finding out where that choice puts you.

So that's that.

You also ask about other approaches, and there are also a number of other
mechanics.

Dogs in the Vineyard uses a poker-style Raise-and-See system to build tension.
You roll a pool of dice, and then raise two or more at a time; if you run out of
dice, you can escalate (which increases the danger to your character) . This
forces you to make meaningful decisions about what is important to the
character, what goal is worth the risk, the raises, and the consequences
involved? Is it important, or can you give up (Fold)? Is it important enough to
put your life on the line to win the conflict?

The Mountain Witch has another mechanic called Trust. The game is built around
it. Everyone gives and uses points of Trust in the game, even though any of the
other players might betray you at any time for their own reasons. If you've
given them lots of Trust, they can use it against you...or they can use it to
help you. Who do you trust and why? Can you afford to trust them? Why or why
not?

There is also My Life with Master, which I have not myself played, but know
second-hand it has an entirely different set of mechanics that involve love,
self-loathing, and slavery and freedom.

There are others as well, but those are some good general ideas.

----->
   > This is an example of how these mechanics help to drive and focus the story.
   > And you will note they don't constrain the story, they don't restrict it,
   > they don't channel it towards any particular outcome or result, they don't
   > demand any particular choices or require forced role-playing on the part of
   > the player (there is no "I have 1 Humanity, so now I have to act like a
   > crazy man or more evil choices!").

   You mentioned humanity in your first example above in what seems an example
   of a good story telling mechanic. And here it seems to be a bad one. What
   is the consequence of running out of humanity? How would that be used in
   either a good or bad approach?
<-----

Eh? Sorry? I'm thinking maybe you're misreading me?

Clarification: it doesn't -- DOES NOT -- require you to act a certain way. Does
NOT require you to say, "I have 1 Humanity, therefore I am crazy, homicidal,
evil, or etc." or act any specific way just because some score is at particular
number as compared to another number.

That is, if you have a horrible temper, and beat women when you are angry, a
Humanity of 1 does not mean you are any more likely to do so than another
character. The player still chooses whether or not the character does so.
Whether they are Humanity 5 or Humanity 1. You can be a shining paragon of
goodness at Humanity 1, and a complete psychopath at Humanity 5 because the
score is /not a measure of behavior or personality/.

Humanity is instead a measure of the protagonist's life-line -- either
literally, or often more figuratively -- how long do they remain a character? If
you drive your character's Humanity below 0, they are no longer a player
character, because there's no story left with them; they are considered to have
made their statement in the choice: "This particular thing was so important to
me, I was willing to sacrifice everything that made me human to do it. Even my
long term goals were not as important as making this choice."

So, the question is not "Do I HAVE to do it this time?" -- as it would be with,
say, Vampire's Humanity mechanic, where a lower score indicates you are more
feral and beastial -- it is "Do I DO it this time?" You decide what your
character does, how he behaves, not a number on a sheet. You decide what sort of
thematic statement to make, and how much it is worth.

<-----
   I probably should have said that I am not _naturally_ an immersive player
   and so I probably find meta-gamist considerations more distracting than some
   might.
<-----

Ahh, I see. That makes sense.

----->
   That's unfortunate. I've always felt that the single distinguishing
   characteristics of RPGs is that you are playing a role. When you step out
   of your character's mindset, you stop roleplaying and thus are, by
   definition, no longer playing an RPG. Obviously one can take this too
   far--just by having a character sheet forces some degree of metagaming. And
   I've played some systemless games that I felt no longer qualified as "games"
   in any meaningful sense.
<-----

Eh. I see this as the difference between play styles.

Immersion, or "playing a role" is not the end-all, be-all of "role"-playing.
That would be like arguing Method acting is the only REAL school of acting, and
if you aren't doing that, you aren't really acting. Which would be silly.

TonyLB, of "Capes" fame, has some very good arguments about "role-playing" and
being "in-character": in short, you can "play a role" without being "in the
character" or "thinking solely as the character". Are you making decisions for
the character? Are you deciding what the character does? Are you talking for
him? Yes? Then you are playing a role.

No, you aren't Acting all the time, you're right...but we aren't playing
"Immersive Acting Games." And I do agree, eventually you do get to a point where
you're playing Monopoly instead -- or you've removed so much /game/ from the
equasion that you aren't playing an RPG any longer and should join an Improv
Acting troupe -- but there's a good deal of give on either side of the defintion
to more than adequately cover a wide variety of interpretations of "role
playing", a wide variety of styles and play techniques, from hardcore Immersive
techniques to more Pawn-stance oriented metagaming.

Otherwise we're staring at the slippery-slope of One True Wayism. "What?! No hit
points? It's not an RPG! No GM?! Not an RPG! No metaplot?! Not an RPG!!" etc.
etc. etc.

----->
   I think if I were to play under a talented an experienced GM I might learn
   to handle some of these techniques, and I'd certainly like to try sometime,
   but I imagine I would probably find any game that forced me out of my "role"
   for significant portions of play distracting.
<-----

Possible. Or it might just be that you aren't used to thinking about playing an
RPG in that way. I doubt you would have the same difficulty in playing a wargame
(or not! I could be wrong), and thus the only thing really tripping you up is a
concept of /how/ things should work in play or /how/ play should feel. I suspect
if you went into it expecting a different sort of game, it would not be a
hurdle.

ie: When you go into play saying, "This is an RPG." Your brain automatically
fills in the details, "Ah, yes, so this will happen, and this will happen, and I
should be doing this and this." But of course, none of those
subconscious/experential expectations may be true. Same thing with a boardgame,
you have different expectations of what the play experience should be like.

One of my friends reviews video games as one of his jobs, and he has noted how
the best reviewers are those who can put aside those expectations of play and
review a game on its own merits, instead of "Oh, it has a storyline and you have
to read stuff, that's stupid. Where's the Halo-like button-mashing action?!" The
good reviewer instead notes where the game stands up or falls down on its own
merits, as an entity unto itself, rather than on the expected or desired merits
of the reviewer.

----->
   Perhaps I will. To be honest, the Forge is like a sandwich that is so big
   that it's hard to know how to approach it. :)
<-----

I've been there since before it opened its doors, and yet I know exactly how you
feel.

The best way to get involved is to just jump in and start asking questions,
making Actual Play posts, and realizing that it will take time to figure
everything out, and that that's ok.

----->
   I wouldn't say all games produce stories. Nor would I say that a game has
   to be specially designed to produce a story in order for a true story to
   occur. Just that It has been my (albeit limited in this sphere) experience
   that the best stories have tended to occur by accident. (And a lot of _bad_
   stories and games have resulted from so-called story telling games)
<-----

All games produce stories depending on one's definition of the concept,
otherwise, they don't. ;D And that said, I don't know what a "true story" is.
However, you're right, they don't HAVE to be specially designed to do it,
sometimes they happen by accident...but this is the important bit, designing
them to do so leads to more regular and successful chances of it happening. And
good or bad is relative -- and also meaningless, if it produces a story, good or
bad, then it has served its purpose. I think it also depends on what
"story-telling" games we're referring to, since many of them are NOT designed to
create thematic, drama-driven stories, they just say they are.

----->
   Thanks for your time and thoughtful replies. Just trying to articulate my
   thoughts has been something of a learning experience for me already. :)
<-----

Cool. Glad to help!

- Rev. Ravenscrye Grey Daegmorgan


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

From: Peter Knutsen (list)
>Um, no, what he is actually asking us to chose between is whether we
>want to pay attention to the campaign world and the characters who live
>in it, or whether we prefer to focus on the GM and attempt to play him
>(and "read" him).

Peter,

The sad part of this is that, philosophically, I completely agree with you
regarding goals of play, Peter. Playing to "read" the GM, being forced to "read"
the GM just to play is wrong and bad. Focus on the character is good. Combat
rules for the sake of combat rules is a mindless design meme carried over from
generation to generation.

But unfortunately, your rabid One True Wayism is ridiculously tiresome and
blind. You're like a Christian arguing that peace and brotherly love are noble
goals that we must implement as a race, but that ONLY Christianity is capable of
making it happen.

"Lightweight" systems have nothing to do, as systems, with focusing on the GM
and attempting to successfully "read" him. There are plenty of "heavy" systems
where the players must do exactly that. You are confusing mechanics with style,
form with method.

>You, and many others, are distracted by the fact that in most RPG
>systems in existence, the majority of crunch just happens to be
>combat-relevant. (The reason for this is inertia both among system
>designers and among system consumers.)

I am well aware of the design intertia of combat systems, and I am not
distracted by it like some unlearned newbie designer whose never seen anything
other than D&D and Vampire.

The answer is that, as usual, Peter, you have no clue what I'm talking about
because you are more invested in showing the world how it is wrong and how it
all falls short of the glorious perfection of your understanding and methods of
play and design than you are in understanding what another person has written.
In using my post as a springboard to preach, you failed to understand this
presentation was a particular example involving ONE WAY in which a WWII game
might be designed, with a particular focus, using a trope we are all familiar
with in order to make the point.

- Raven


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

From: Peter Knutsen (list)
>Um, no, what he is actually asking us to chose between is whether we
>want to pay attention to the campaign world and the characters who live
>in it, or whether we prefer to focus on the GM and attempt to play him
>(and "read" him).

Peter,

The sad part of this is that, philosophically, I completely agree with you
regarding goals of play, Peter. Playing to "read" the GM, being forced to "read"
the GM just to play is wrong and bad. Focus on the character is good. Combat
rules for the sake of combat rules is a mindless design meme carried over from
generation to generation.

But unfortunately, your rabid One True Wayism is ridiculously tiresome and
blind. You're like a Christian arguing that peace and brotherly love are noble
goals that we must implement as a race, but that ONLY Christianity is capable of
making it happen.

"Lightweight" systems have nothing to do, as systems, with focusing on the GM
and attempting to successfully "read" him. There are plenty of "heavy" systems
where the players must do exactly that. You are confusing mechanics with style,
form with method.

>You, and many others, are distracted by the fact that in most RPG
>systems in existence, the majority of crunch just happens to be
>combat-relevant. (The reason for this is inertia both among system
>designers and among system consumers.)

I am well aware of the design intertia of combat systems, and I am not
distracted by it like some unlearned newbie designer whose never seen anything
other than D&D and Vampire.

The answer is that, as usual, Peter, you have no clue what I'm talking about
because you are more invested in showing the world how it is wrong and how it
all falls short of the glorious perfection of your understanding and methods of
play and design than you are in understanding what another person has written.
In using my post as a springboard to preach, you failed to understand this
presentation was a particular example involving ONE WAY in which a WWII game
might be designed, with a particular focus, using a trope we are all familiar
with in order to make the point.

- Raven


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The idea of player knowledge and gamemaster knowledge is a red-herring. One
of the big mistakes of modern gaming is the reliance on "figure out the
clues" and "survive the deadly peril" as the /sole/ forms of engagement with
the medium.

Though it has been discussed in much greater depth elsewhere, and this is
directed on a slightly different tangent, it is applicable so I will quote
Vincent Baker from here --
http://www.septemberquestion.org/lumpley/hardcore.html --

-------------------------------------------

"A Small Thing About Suspense"

I have no criticism cred to back this up. Just amatuer observations. So kick
my butt if you gotta.

Suspense doesn't come from uncertain outcomes.

I have no doubt, not one shread of measly doubt, that Babe the pig is going
to wow the sheepdog trial audience. Neither do you. But we're on the edge of
our seats! What's up with that?

Suspense comes from putting off the inevitable.

What's up with that is, we know that Babe is going to win, but we don't know
what it will cost.

Everybody with me still? If you're not, give it a try: watch a movie. Notice
how the movie builds suspense: by putting complications between the
protagonist and what we all know is coming. The protagonist has to buy
victory, it's as straightforward as that. That's why the payoff at the end
of the suspense is satisfying, after all, too: we're like ah, finally.

What about RPGs?

Yes, it can be suspenseful to not know whether your character will succeed
or fail. I'm not going to dispute that. But what I absolutely do dispute is
that that's the only or best way to get suspense in your gaming. In fact,
and check this out, when GMs fudge die rolls in order to preserve or create
suspense, it shows that suspense and uncertain outcomes are, in those
circumstances, incompatible.

So here's a better way to get suspense in gaming: put off the inevitable.
Acknowledge up front that the PCs are going to win, and never sweat it. Then
use the dice to escalate, escalate, escalate. We all know the PCs are going
to win. What will it cost them?

-----

"A Small Thing About Character Death plus a mini-manifesto"

Along the precise same lines:

When a character dies in a novel or a movie, it's a) to establish what's at
stake, b) to escalate the conflict, or c) to make a final statement. Or
perhaps some combination. It's never by accident or for no good reason,
unlike in real life.

I've been thinking about examples. Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars? This, his
death says, is worth fighting for. Boromir in the Fellowship of the Ring?
The right death redeems betrayal. Brad and wha'sname at the beginning of
Pulp Fiction? The cop in Reservoir Dogs? All those random people in Total
Recall? Tara in Buffy? To escalate conflict, plain and easy. Leon and Gary
Oldman's character in the Professional? Final statementville, but Matilda's
family? Escalation plus some stakes.

So that seems pretty solid to me.

Before I go on (I'm sure you've already figured out what I'm going to say
anyway) but before I go on, my mini-manifesto.

First: if what you get out of roleplaying is a) the accomplishment you get
from rising to the challenge, not letting yourself or your friends down,
learning the rules and just frickin' owning them, or else b) the
satisfaction of peer-appreciated wish-fulfillment, you're off the hook. None
of what I say applies to you, you're happy. If, on the other hand, what you
want out of roleplaying is suspense, resolution, story, theme, character,
meaning - listen up.

Second: conventional RPGs can't give it to you. I'm sorry.

So, third: that stuff you want? You get that by approaching roleplaying as
though it were a form of fiction, a form of literature. All that stuff is
well known to fiction writers and they can tell us how to do it. Roleplaying
isn't like writing, just like singing pub songs in a pub isn't like
composing songs, so the skills themselves are different. But the same
structure underlies both. You can't ignore the structure and still get
consistenly good results.

So that's my mini-manifesto and here's character death in RPGs:

PCs, like protagonists in fiction, don't get to die to show what's at stake
or to escalate conflict. They only get to die to make final statements.

Character death can never be a possible outcome moment-to-moment. Having
your character's survival be uncertain doesn't contribute to suspense, as
above, just like we don't actually ever believe that Bruce Willis' character
in Die Hard will die. Instead, character death should fit into what it will
cost. This thing, is it worth dying for? Obi-wan Kenobi and Leon say yes.

Here's a piece of text from Dogs in the Vineyard: Also, occasionally, your
character will get killed. The conflict resolution rules will keep it from
being pointless or arbitrary: it'll happen only when you've chosen to stake
your character's life on something. Staking your character's life means
risking it, is all.

In fiction, You never die for something you haven't staked your life on.

-------------------------------------------

Again, keeping secrets from the players in order to make sure they don't
spoil the the game is like a fiction writer trying to keep his readers from
reading the end of the book before they're supposed to, and putting
elaborate, nonsensical safeguards in place to do so.

Let 'em read the end of  the book if they want to, they're obviously not in
it for the mystery. Figure out what they do want.

- Rev. Raven Daegmorgan

On 7/11/06, Peter Knutsen (list) <list@...> wrote:
>
> As for Weaknesses, I have this list:
>
> Blind (W)
> Colour Blind


The ones labeled with (W) are too severe for it to be wise for players
> to take them. Therefore they should not really be counted towards my
> goal of having 25 approved Weaknesses in order to facilitate rapid
> character creation.
>
> Hence I have only 10 proper Weaknesses, so far. Far fewer than I need.
>
> Suggestions and thoughts are very welcome.
>
> --
> Peter Knutsen
> sagatafl.org


Consider adding night blindness.  I know someone like this who has to carry
a flashlight with him everywhere he goes in case he ends up outside late.

On the phobia side, how about a technophobe or someone who is just
incompetent with technological devices and unwilling to learn.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On 7/11/06, Peter Knutsen (list) <list@...> wrote:
>
> JAPartridge wrote:
> > I am tweaking my character description system...again, trying to find a
> > middle path between a fast light flexible system with robust character
> > detail, and I think I need a reality check.
>
> To summarize, my main frustration is that other people's RPG systems
> suffer from a severe poverty of axes of differentiation, rendering me
> unable to express my charater's capabilitistic individuality. Also, in
> GURPS (the primary point-based system), character point costs often fail
> massively to correlate with usefulness, because of the flawed notion of
> *how* innate talent (attributes) interact with learning (points invested
> in skills) to generate prowess (skill value).
>
> One thing that has not bothered me, in any of these systems, is the
> granularity of the attribute scales. I am asking for more axes of
> differentiation, rather than for finer degrees of difference on the
> already existing axes.
>
> --
> Peter Knutsen
> sagatafl.org


Thanks for your reply.  I keep meaning to have a look at FFRE--in particular
to get a feel for the number and type of axes of differentiation it uses,
but somehow I just keep getting distracted.

I thought your last point was particularly interesting.  What would be the
minimum range of numbers you would accept to express the values of normal
human attributes?  Would you accept the same range for skills?  Or would you
prefer more or less?  Is skill advancement a particular concern for you, or
do you prefer to build characters at the peak of their abilities and just
leave them that way?

~Talus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I tend to agree with the points you've made here, Raven.  The
question of whether one has to "guess" what mood the GM is in has
more to do with the style of Gamesmastering than with the rules.  No
matter how detailed the rules may be, if the GM is so inclined then
the rules, no matter how detailed, are not sufficient defense against
GM manipulation.  My thinking is Players need to understand that GMs
come in a variety of flavors and 'Megalomaniac' is one of them.  I
tend to avoid those GMs.  Anyway, my original question was more about
Gamesmaster preferences for simple vs complex rules systems for
RPGs.  People will interpret things through their own filters to make
the points they want to make.  Not a problem.  And not a bad point
either.  Some Gamesmasters are really kinda awful.  Alas, but that's
just reality there.  Still, though, the question of complex vs simple
rules system is a valid one, and I think people here have given a
great deal of thoughtful responses.  My thanks.

- Mark

--- In rpg-create@yahoogroups.com, "Rev. Raven Daegmorgan"
<sleipnir@...> wrote:
>
> From: Peter Knutsen (list)
> >Um, no, what he is actually asking us to chose between is whether
we
> >want to pay attention to the campaign world and the characters who
live
> >in it, or whether we prefer to focus on the GM and attempt to play
him
> >(and "read" him).
>
> Peter,
>
> The sad part of this is that, philosophically, I completely agree
with you regarding goals of play, Peter. Playing to "read" the GM,
being forced to "read" the GM just to play is wrong and bad. Focus on
the character is good. Combat rules for the sake of combat rules is a
mindless design meme carried over from generation to generation.
>
> But unfortunately, your rabid One True Wayism is ridiculously
tiresome and blind. You're like a Christian arguing that peace and
brotherly love are noble goals that we must implement as a race, but
that ONLY Christianity is capable of making it happen.
>
> "Lightweight" systems have nothing to do, as systems, with focusing
on the GM and attempting to successfully "read" him. There are plenty
of "heavy" systems where the players must do exactly that. You are
confusing mechanics with style, form with method.
>
> >You, and many others, are distracted by the fact that in most RPG
> >systems in existence, the majority of crunch just happens to be
> >combat-relevant. (The reason for this is inertia both among system
> >designers and among system consumers.)
>
> I am well aware of the design intertia of combat systems, and I am
not distracted by it like some unlearned newbie designer whose never
seen anything other than D&D and Vampire.
>
> The answer is that, as usual, Peter, you have no clue what I'm
talking about because you are more invested in showing the world how
it is wrong and how it all falls short of the glorious perfection of
your understanding and methods of play and design than you are in
understanding what another person has written. In using my post as a
springboard to preach, you failed to understand this presentation was
a particular example involving ONE WAY in which a WWII game might be
designed, with a particular focus, using a trope we are all familiar
with in order to make the point.
>
> - Raven
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

JAPartridge wrote:
> On 7/11/06, Peter Knutsen (list) <list@...> wrote:
>>JAPartridge wrote:
>>
>>>I am tweaking my character description system...again, trying to find a
>>>middle path between a fast light flexible system with robust character
>>>detail, and I think I need a reality check.
>>
>>To summarize, my main frustration is that other people's RPG systems
>>suffer from a severe poverty of axes of differentiation, rendering me
>>unable to express my charater's capabilitistic individuality. Also, in
>>GURPS (the primary point-based system), character point costs often fail
>>massively to correlate with usefulness, because of the flawed notion of
>>*how* innate talent (attributes) interact with learning (points invested
>>in skills) to generate prowess (skill value).
>>
>>One thing that has not bothered me, in any of these systems, is the
>>granularity of the attribute scales. I am asking for more axes of
>>differentiation, rather than for finer degrees of difference on the
>>already existing axes.
>
> Thanks for your reply.  I keep meaning to have a look at FFRE--in particular

Note that the text was written almost two years ago, a few months before
I revealed the system's new name: Sagatafl. Some of the documents have
not been updated yet, with the new name, including this one which is
what you should check out if you want to get a feel for the system:

< http://www.sagatafl.org/pdf/FFRE_Basics_v010.pdf >
(36 pages, covering character creation, the roll mechanic and time
scale, combat rules, spellcasting rules and character advancement)

Some things have changed in the two years since that document was
written and published, but the basics are all the same.

> to get a feel for the number and type of axes of differentiation it uses,
> but somehow I just keep getting distracted.
>
> I thought your last point was particularly interesting.  What would be the
> minimum range of numbers you would accept to express the values of normal
> human attributes?  Would you accept the same range for skills?  Or would you

Storyteller uses a 1-5 scale with 2 being the Human average. I
imagine I could live with that *if* 5 gave sufficient benefits, so that
for instance Agility 5 resultet in a character that *felt* like Jackie
Chan, and Intelligence 5 resulted in a character that *felt* like
Leonardo da Vinci.

But I really think it is a bit too tight. FUDGE uses a 1-7 scale, with 4
being the human average. I'd accept that, except for the fact that there
are no synergies for high attributes[1] - this fails to make Superb (7)
Charisma feel right. Also, the demographics are all wrong, in that
Steffan O'Sullivan claims that a Superb value in any attribute places
you in the 98% percentile. There's nothing "superb" about being in the
measly 98% percentile.

I'm also unhappy with FUDGE placing the Human average in the middle of
the scale. I prefer scales which are "roomer" at the top than the
bottom, reflecting my interest in characters who are highly capable.

In Sagatafl, the highest possible attribute for a Human, 8, makes you
one in 3.5 million. That *is* superb, exceptional, demographically
rare, and justifies the huge benefits that it gives you.

The Sagtafl attribute scale goes from 1 to 8 with 3 being average, but
Humans can have values lower than 1 (representing various handicaps or
injuries), and magic (or futuristic technology) can raise attributes to
above 8. Likewise, non-Humans can have values above 8.

when it comes to skills, I prefer the scale to be open-ended. Having a
maximum skill value with a "you can't go higher than this" label strikes
me as a mistake, a failure to cope with human variety and human
potential. The Sagatafl skill scale is open-ended, with zero
representing no skill (you can still try, but you get to roll one die vs
a Roll Difficulty that is higher than normal - usually 2 higher, but it
depends on how easy the skill is to use untrained).

Here are some Sagatafl skill level definitions:

2 Apprentice
4 Journeyman
6 Master
8 Famous Master
10 Grand Master

2 Basic high school degree (e.g. Literature or History)
3 Adv. High School Degree (e.g. AP biology)
4 College Minor
5 Bacelor's Degree (College Major)
6 Master's Degree
7 PhD
8 Minimum for (Associate) Professor
10 Typical Nobel Prize Winner

A skill level of 5 in an advanced combat skill, such as Karate
(representing any sophisticated hard unarmed fighting technique) or Judo
(representing any sophisticated soft unarmed fighting technique), along
with a skill level of 3 in the associated Style Skill (which gives one
"upgrade point" per skill level, used to purchase things like extra
damage or a bonus to intiative, or the ability to attack two foes in the
same combat Round), is sufficient for black belt 1st dan status. A 10th
dan fighter should probably have a skill level of 11 or 12 in Karate or
Judo, plus a skill level of 8 or 9 in the Style skill.

A skill level of 8, in any moderately difficult skill, or a skill level
of 7 in any two related moderately difficult skills, represents the
achievement (or performance) of "kung fu".


I think the very most skilled characters, in any setting, will cluster
at around 11-12. Of my own NPCs, the blind composer is at this level for
Musical Composition, although his skills at playing instruments are a
bit lower. I've also got an expert at illusion magic (in the Ärth
historical fantasy setting) which has 10s in all of the regular
Sense-specific Illusion Art skills, and 7s or 8s in the exotic ones such
as Pheromones (both Mammalian and insectoid) and Infrared.

In order to get there, you'll need a lot of Goodie Points (character
creation currency), as well as high values in the relevant attributes
(and sub-attributes). The composer is there, with Intelligence 7 (out of
8) and the highest possible "raise" to the Musical Intelligence
sub-attribute of +5 (giving a value of 12). He also, like Mozart (and
unlike most other great composers) has an inborn Talent with all musical
skills.

The illusionist is not quite there, but makes up for it with the Skill
Obsession Advantage which has the effect of making it less expensive to
raise a skill above your so-called "Plateau Value", a number derived
from the relevant attributes. Basically, mastery of Illusion Magic, both
the spellcasting process itself and the auxillary Illusion Art skills,
matters so much to this character that he can to some extent compensate
for the fact that he merely has Intelligence 6 (one-in-a-thousand,
roughly), Perception 7 and Will 6.

Likewise, I have some swordsmen who combine un-maxed attributes with a
Skill Obsession. Two of the three best swordsmen on Ireland are
homosexual and lovers, which creates a pressing need for martial
superiority, even in the relatively tolerant pagan Celtic society. This
lets them, to some extent, excel slightly beyond their genetic
potential. A third character, a Dane, is very fond of the study of magic
which is considered unmanly in his culture, so he too feels a very
strong need to achieve mastery of sword usage. Combined with high (but
not maxed) Dexterity and Agility, he succeeds.


[1] Then again, I've done away with attribute->skill synergies in the
Action Movie RPG, but that is a deliberate design decision, in order to
simplify the rules. It is not because I suffer from the delusion that
the absence of attribute->skill synergy is realistic.

> prefer more or less?  Is skill advancement a particular concern for you, or
> do you prefer to build characters at the peak of their abilities and just
> leave them that way?

I do care about skill advancement, in the sense that I want attributes
to affect it, in order to give each character a difference "skill
acquirement landscape" where different skills are easy or hard for
different characters to acquire.

But I think that skill purchase during character creation needs to work
according to the same principles as skill advancement after game start,
and my preference is really for very high-powered gaming. Not in the
sense of striving to acquire more power, to advance one's character's
skills further, but instead in the sense of *starting* the campaign with
characters who are already very, very competent, and then the campaign
being about the characters excercising their power, to exert their will
on the surrounding world, rather than about aquiring more power.

Succinctly, Sagatafl (and to a lesser extent the Action Movie RPG) can
be said to be about being, whereas most other systems are about becoming.

However I tend to compromise a bit, so that characters do advance
during the campaign. It's just that the higher your skill is (in
Sagatafl, anyway), the more skill points it requires to advance it
further, to the point where a sufficiently high skill won't advance at
all, even if used heavily, over the course of a normal length campaign.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

"Peter Knutsen (list)" <list@...> wrote:
>
> Rev. Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
> [...]
> > "Rules-light" versus "rules-heavy" is a red-herring of
classification and design (as is any conflation of either with
story-based or game-based play). Just design the system to do what it
should do and don't worry about "having enough crunch" or "not having
enough".
>
> As I have said many times before, all roleplaying takes place under the
> *exact* same amount of rules. The only difference is whether the rules
> are written down or not.

Repeating something doesn't make it true, though, and this simply
isn't true.  Four factors having major influence over how many rules
an RPG has/needs are scope, options, level, and integration.

Scope is how much the game attempts to encompass.  The more the game
tries to do, the more rules it's generally going to need.  For
example, a game that only tries to cover medieval and ancient weapons
has no need for rules about automatic fire weapons.  A game that
doesn't have magic doesn't need a system of rules to cover what magic
can do.

Options are built-in ways to "tweak" the rules.  Every option results
in more rules.  For example, GURPS by default attempts to be a fairly
realistic system -- but it has options for more "cinematic" play.
Those options result in more rules (and, indeed, in unwritten
meta-rules, of the form "if you've chosen to use Option X, then...").
  Another example would be games that have more than one magic system
-- if you've chosen to use, say, Demonic Magic, then there's one set
of rules to follow.  If, however, you've chosen Elemental Magic,
there's another.  Tacking on such options can vastly expand the body
of rules.

Level is the "view level" the rules attempt to support.  A combat
system which attempts to handle things at a low level -- say,
blow-by-blow -- generally needs more rules than one which treats
things at a higher level.  As an extreme example, the Story Engine
system resolves contests at a scene-by-scene level of detail, so an
entire combat can be resolved with one opposed die roll.

Lastly, Integration refers to the extent to which rules are integrated
into a core system.  To give an example of anti-integration, AD&D1 had
numerous different systems for doing things -- thief skills had their
own system, ranger skills another, armed and unarmed combat used
radically different systems, psionic combat had its own system, and so
forth.  Using variations on a single core mechanic to do all of these
things would have vastly simplified the system, and reduced the number
of rules.

Of course, these aren't the only factors in determining how many rules
an RPG needs, but they are major ones.

> Having rules written down, of course, offers numerous advantages. First
> of all, players can then read them *prior* to deciding whether to
> participate in the campaign at all. Secondly, if the rules are written
> down then it is much easier to adopt an evaluative stance towards them,
> contepmplate them and ultimately suggest improvements.

Yes, and these are good things.  But because of the factors related
above, different games don't necessarily need the same number of rules
to cover what their designers intend.

There have been, and are, systems which attempt to achieve "rules
light" by leaving many things up to the players to determine for
themselves -- thereby becoming "fudge heavy".  However, following the
guiding principle of "System Does Matter", the majority of "rules
light" games coming out of the Forge achieve that "lightness" by
having a tightly focused Scope and a low number of Options (in keeping
with the tight focus).  Many of them also use "high level view" mechanics.

By doing so, Forge-style games manage to have a small volume of rules
while still leaving very little in the way of mechanics up to "GM fiat".

To use an analogy (I know, rarely a good idea in Internet discussion,
but still...), games are like computer programs.  A program which
tries to be a combination word processor / page layout / spreadsheet /
database is going to need a lot more code to function than one which
just tries to be a text editor.  Games like GURPS are like integrated
office suites -- they're massive because they try to cover everything.
Forge philosophy, however, is more like Unix philosophy about programs
-- a program should do just one thing, and do it well.  When you want
to do something different, use another program -- or game.

--Travis Casey

"Peter Knutsen (list)" <list@...> wrote:
> vbwyrde wrote:

> > Well that's a good point too, but I tend to think that there may be a
> > prevailing feeling about it, and I'm trying to get a bead on whether
> > or not there might be popularity for a lightweight system.  The
> [...]
>
> A RPG rules system is first and foremost an *engine*, and an engine, by
> definition, performs *work*.

Of course, if we carry on with the physical definitions that you're
using, "work" is the movement of a mass across a distance... and so
all RPGs are failures, since none of them cause anything to move.

Or we could go in a different direction, and say that "work" is things
that aren't fun, and therefore, no RPG should be fun.

Isn't this fun?  Well, no... it's useless.

A paper RPG is only metaphorically an engine; trying to bring in
literal definitions is counterproductive, and can only result in argument.

--Travis Casey

JAPartridge wrote:
> Consider adding night blindness.  I know someone like this who has to carry
> a flashlight with him everywhere he goes in case he ends up outside late.

That's a good idea. Thanks. Now I only need 14 more Weaknesses, that are
of comparable bothersomeness-maginitude to the existing ones.

> On the phobia side, how about a technophobe or someone who is just
> incompetent with technological devices and unwilling to learn.

I've already got Primitive Background, as a character creation choice,
which gives hefty penalties to skills to use modern equipment, but
bonuses to certain other rolls (wilderness skills).

But I don't see why technophobia shouldn't be a valid entry. It strikes
me as being within the range of bothersomeness magnitude that I am after.

Now I just need 29 more phobias, of comparable bothersomeness.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

> Repeating something doesn't make it true, though, and this simply isn't
true.

I hate to agree with Daegmorgan, but I basically do. In part, anyway. To my
mind, GM fiat isn't a function of the rules set - heavy or light - but
rather the paradigm of play. The GM has the power to decide things by fiat
not because the rules grant it to him, but because the players do. And so,
to my mind, both rules light and rules heavy games have an equal amount of
GM fiat, which is to say, really, as much as the players will allow without
leaving the table for a new game.

Seanchai

I think there may be a slight flaw to the concept that GM Fiat is
necessarily bad.  Some of the best RPGs I've every played happenned
to have been heavy on the GM Fiat side, but the story was so fun no
one cared.  The GM adjudicated events and since he did so in a way
that seemed to us to make logical sense for the most part, we enjoyed
it and went along with it.  In those cases, the rules did not cover
some sort of wierd contingency that a Player wanted to try, and so GM
Fiat worked for us.  He said, "Yes, you can." or "No, you can't",
gave a brief explaination of why, and we moved on.  But where he
excelled in Fiatary (no that's not a word, but I'll use it anyway)
was in the story aspect of the game.  In that sense GM Fiat is simply
a must.  So to condemn GM Fiat may be a little to broad.  I think
what is really being objected to is not the Practice of GM Fiat, but
the practice of UNFAIR or LOUSY GM Fiat.  In which case, of course, I
think everyone would agree with the objection.

And I continue to agree with the arguments supporting the notion that
GM Fiat has little to do with whether the rules are light or heavy.
It is, rather, a style of Gamesmastering that is not effected much by
which type of game you play.  The GM will Fiatatize the game
regardless, and to greater and lesser degree depending on how the
Players respond, and how much he or she feels it is required to make
the game work.

If there were no GM Fiat, and only rules, and everything was known
then, 1. the game would take much too long to set up, 2. it would
probably be somewhat stale compared to a spontaneous (Fiated) and
improvisational game.

But, I repeat, I agree that misuse of GM Fiat is bad.  And that
misuse is something that the players would have to decide on a case
by case basis for themselves.

- Mark
--- In rpg-create@yahoogroups.com, "John Grose" <Seanchai0@...> wrote:
>
> > Repeating something doesn't make it true, though, and this simply
isn't
> true.
>
> I hate to agree with Daegmorgan, but I basically do. In part,
anyway. To my
> mind, GM fiat isn't a function of the rules set - heavy or light -
but
> rather the paradigm of play. The GM has the power to decide things
by fiat
> not because the rules grant it to him, but because the players do.
And so,
> to my mind, both rules light and rules heavy games have an equal
amount of
> GM fiat, which is to say, really, as much as the players will allow
without
> leaving the table for a new game.
>
> Seanchai
>