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Game Design Notes

Page history last edited by 1nfinite zer0 10 years, 5 months ago

totally rebuilding the system for more fate-influenced ideas.

like this idea of spiritual attributes bringing role-playing into combat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riddle_of_Steel

kinda like aspects. could be used to reference the demon stuff. a heroic trait and a weakness.

 

 


 

Game Design Notes

 

Community gain:

when any group f individuals rally together for a purpose, they get an automatic 'tax' or energy accumulated from their copperation. in the form of towns, this energy can be used to run the town. in the form of small bands, it can be used for luck points or other energy amounts.

 

Investment of attention leads to increased rewards:

most tasks should have the option of being automated (or simplified) so that the player can choose a general reaction and not have to worry too much in order to get a satisfactory response. if they spend more time and attention (manual dexterity, skill points, mini game, etc) then the outcome of the result will be higher.

(for some tasks the performace on a minigame/test could be bumped up to a minimal threshold, above the automated version, but not too much gain for absentee effort)

 

and example of this could be with combat.

In physical combat, choosing which moves you want to declare can give better results than an automated choice of: attack, defend, cover, hold, etc.

 


 

 

Mission Statement and Strategy

What is the purpose for this game? To create a commmunity in the world that can use simulation to refelct their real lives. to teach them what can be seen as wonderful (all) and to encourage love and cooperation. What is the purpose of the story? To explore my reasons for wanting to love everything, a motiviation story of sorts, allegorical, and letting the characters (and through them the readers) experience what can be the best reality for them. It is all here, waiting for them.

 

The main goal of the system is to be fun. Fun in a computer setting allows for some fairly complex calculations, but the principles should be simple.


 

Rule System considerations

Priorities lie in gameplay.

 

Game mechanics should be simple and fun. Consider silhouette.

 

Consider the threefold model of RPGs:

 

-Narrative: cater to the development of story

 

-Gamist: allow for interesting action and adventure

 

-Simulationist: have flexible rules to cover conceivable situations, allow GM intervention for areas where the constraints of a computer program cannot work. Free servers could be a haven for the ridiculous, where players can indulge in the over-powered

 

With events, scripting and story creation by GMs, should help to aid the story progress. Including nonlethal challenges (simulated DM matches) and random fields/dungeons for meaningless action and leveling up to cater to the gamist.

 

Adventures could have a scaling factor to expand the breadth of levels that would work, numbers of monsters or strengths can be scaled to combined group level, trap damage, spell effect, etc.

 

My job is to create and inspire. Think for the idealistic system and work with those who are capable of making it happen. Concessions will need to be made in order to improve gameplay or coding, work with it, but keep ideals in mind.

 

It would be nice to allow the characters to select some background history, and attach these to pre-existing NPCs in their home server. To flesh out the world a bit and provide attachment. Since the Shashnimyn have large familial units and are grouped by age classes, many individuals can have the same NPCs for the same things. Also, they are long-lived, so you can offset them by time.

 

Point-based character creation for semi-fixed and fixed attributes.(Physical)and then have equipment and some other things that can be made up in gameplay easily as randomly determined. I really like having dice pools and being able to manage amounts of expenditures to vary one’s abilities dependent on the direness of the situation.

 

Having expendable pools to increase dice I like. Also, the idea of modification of the target number is something that I think is more realistic. The change of the TN simulates a character trying harder, or slacking off, when the full amount of skill is not needed. If all skill use costs points (that recharge or are earned easily. Fatigue?) then the characters have greater incentive to manage themselves. I describe this also in the green notebook. A ramped cost so that it is harder to buy out further and further from the starting TN?

 

I like the principle of balance and self-management/control as a main theme in the rules design. The rules should reflect values and somehow be setup to be both fun, efficient and cater to a playing style that teaches good life living. (how? Dunno, but maybe if kept in mind).

 

I like bell curve distributions more than even spread between 1-20 (for example), I think it’s more realistic. Made by multiple dice.

 

Having a Tarot like system might be cool as well. Based upon your sign and some other roaming variables (one-three, to keep it fairly simple) you can receive cards, omens, signs, whatever (depending on the player types. Mages are more likely to see atronomical signs and readings, diviners and hand game players (dice, cards and board games) use cards or dice readings, body-based characters using energy cycles, naturalists seeing omens in nature. Those are just colour, each of them would have similar effects to each other if appearing from different sources. The effects of these could be a temporary increase or decrease in an attribute, skill class or vulnerability/immunity. If the number of variables were few, many characters would experience this effect at the same time; hopefully leading to an increased ‘sharedness’ of experience. Of course there would be a large possibility of nothing happening, I dunno almost half to 2/3 of the moon cycle nothing happens?

 

Are the character creation rules going to apply to all species? I think so, Shashnimyn would start with a base set of points and have default characteristics. Although there is no need to get as nit picky as gurps or tmnt was in some respects. An extra set of limbs will have an effect, but the amount of animalness to your claws doesn’t matter, only what they’re good for: ie, skills, restrictions and bonuses.

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Designing Dungeons

 

ecosystem, trophic levels, big monsters need little monsters to eat. design as complement.

 

 


 

business plan

Consider publishing the ruleset and a brief pamphlet for the RPG, if necessary to bundle with a small program or web resource for mechanics. The ultimate design is intended for web-based RPGing, but if it’s useable in a hybrid pnp form, why not.

 

Upon reading a nice article on independent RPG publishing linked to from the Forge, at the moment the best steps appear to be:

  • A. write the RPG,
  • B. publish samples and the Shashnimyn encyclopedia on the web,
  • C. put the major themes and sections into pdf pamphlets available for order,
  • D. password protect the core rules, mechanics and related programs for access to members only. Also, password the ability to DL pdfs of any section (pricing could be an initial buy-in of $15-20 and then a cheaper monthly fee that can be stopped and started.) Paper publishing is not really my goal at this point.

 

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