Criterion City Pt. 3: Finally a First

I finished My first draft of Criterion City. I would love to here your thoughts on it. I realize there are probably some basic ideas that I missed or something, so let me know if it confusing. also if you want to playtest it I would love to hear how it went. I have only run a few games so far...seems to work.


CriterionCityV001

Criterion City Pt. 2: Think of a wonderful thought

So the core mechanic is thus: Only roll dice when the challenge is a contest between two beings. there are no static numbers. You roll two six-sided dice in a standard action, then you add your power(if it is relevant), a memory(if it is relevant and only one memory per roll), and any external dice(places have descriptors that add dice, as do weapons, clothing, and other unique things). Add all those together and compare it to the roll of your opponent. high roll wins.

Conflict is parsed out in three rounds, win two out of three and you win the conflict. The winner gets to place a descriptor on the opponent's character. This can be avoided through escalation. If you lose you can choose to escalate and start another three round conflict, however the loser of this conflict steps down one of their dice and the winner gets to place a descriptor on the loser. You can try once more should you lose this conflict. when you escalate for the third time the result is the end of your character. that character cannot be played again should you lose.

so that is the core mechanic(for now).

I will start tomorrow on statting up some NPCs and some of the locations in Criterion City as well as example descriptors and the like, maybe even character creation.

New TLS Episode

We had new episode! Carol and I discuss the games we are designing.
check it out!

War In The Heavens pt. 19: Further Mechanical Musings

Alright, new post, lets do this! I have been tinkering with the system a bit tuning it to better represent what I am looking for. I have changed the attributes to a bit more abstract. Also I have worked out half of a system for implementing die rolls that I think is really on the mark. However, I still need to work a bit more on it before it is run ready.

Firstly the attributes. I have focused the attributes more on motivating force rather than task orientation. In this I have changed them. Now they are, Love(obsession), Pride(hubris), Anger(wrath), and Duty(blind faith/slavery). I have what they are, and I have possible downsides/weaknesses for each(or maybe just cool names). My issue comes to this, how do I ensure that people will use the attributes other than their strongest one. In other words, how do I ensure that there is a mechanical reason to pursue actions outside of your strength?

I have a few answers to that percolating in the old noggin. My first thought was to allocate certain actions, or maneuvers, to each motivation. This was a little too focused for what I had in mind. Then I thought of the actions/maneuvers having differing difficulties depending on what motivated you that scene. Then I thought of limiting your motivations. Each scene you could only use a motivation that you had not used before that session. But that leads to all kinds of weirdness. Not necessarily bad weirdness, but I am not sure if that is what I am looking for.

Then I started reading through Apocalypse World. And the idea of only gaining XP through the use of attributes that are picked by other players. I like that, and I am considering using a rule like that for my game. You only gain XP(or its equivalent) when you use your weakness, or you strength. This puts an interesting emphasis on those two attributes. Not sure if I like it, but we will have to try that out in play.

The other big issue I am running into is this idea I had. Basically I started out with the idea that lying was easier than telling the truth, in the short term. Specifically in regards to convincing people to do what you want. However the downside to lying is bigger than the truth. So far so good. I can model that fairly simply. The issue arrived when I started breaking it down a little further. You can tell the truth or lie subtly or do it vulgarly. But therein lies the problem. How does that dichotomy change things. Is a subtle lie easier? Is a subtle truth harder? What about vulgarity? How does that shake things up?

I haven't come up with any conclusions on this problem. I am going back and forth in my mind about it, as I think this will effect the whole of game play when it is complete. Also I need to work on some kind of advancement mechanic, and right now there is not enough for that to exist. Maybe I won't have one.

War In The Heavens pt. 15: He can fight! He can fly! And he can CROW!!!

Oh, the cleverness of me. How clever I am! Well, OK maybe not so much, but I did finally get my game to alpha testability(mostly). I have finished my rules, for now. Obviously I will change them as I test the game out, obviously. Obviously, I will do that. But my game can now be played(waits for the applause to die down), thank you. I still have a lot to do on the setting. And of course there are going to be specialty rules and such. So it will still be a while before I publish this bad boy.

Here is a brief overview of how the game works. There have been a lot of changes. There are six stats, which I only have the working names for. These stats are: Strength, quickness, intelligence/education, perception/cunning, cleverness/wittiness, and charm/sweetness/sincerity. As you can see the names need...to not suck.

For any task you will have a number of six sided dice equal to your ranking in a stat, plus any aspects you tag(each will add one die). You can only add one aspect per scope. A scope is what an aspect is attached to. If you have an three aspects on your character, you can only use one per turn as you are the scope for those aspects. If your gun has an aspect, then the gun is a scope. If your ship has one, then the ship is the scope for that aspect. You get the idea(I hope). I really like this part from Diaspora, and so I am using it in my game. When you roll the dice you are looking for any dice that come up five or higher. This is called a success(barring a more creative term). Some tasks will require more than one success, but lets not fret about that just yet.

When you get your stats, you choose which will be your peak stat(this will start at four), and which is your weak stat(this will start at zero). The rest of your stats are at two. There are going to be stress tracks based on the stats...but that’s still a little hazy right now. Maybe I should average them out? I don't know.

You start out with four aspects. But they are not as free form as other FATE games aspects(not that that's a bad thing, just I think this might work better for my game). You will choose a Vision, a Commandment, a Crusade, and a Failing. I may add others as I go along, but this will get us going for now.

Now there is a new twist on Invoking that I am kind of excited about(though again, it may not work). When you invoke an Aspect to gain extra dice, you get a potential complication. What this means is that when you roll the dice if you roll a one then you get a complication. If you succeed the roll despite the one, then there is a minor complication. If you fail the roll and there is a one, then there is a major complication. I think this is a really neat idea, though I think I may have to nail down precisely what constitutes minor and major in my game.

Finally, as this is a game about faith and war. I thought it would be neat to have a mechanic that might help represent that. Right now I am calling it Tragedy(but really it is more like loss of faith), but that's kind of stupid so I have to get a better grasp of what it is all about. It is kind of like Sanity in Call of Cthulu, and a bit like dark side points from any of the Star Wars RPGs. When your Tragedy(gah, I hate that name) track fills up you are removed from play. Either through madness, despair, or death in some manner suitably tragic.

It works like this, in the game there are two ways of receiving Fate points. One is the standard compelling an Aspect, that FATE players know and love. The other is by gaining Tragedy. When you choose to gain a point of tragedy, you get a number of Fate points equal to your total tragedy(counting the point you just gained) that must be spent this session(preferably this scene). I like this mechanic because the game then emphasizes the sacrifice made in the name of what's right. While, at the same time, shows the numbness and loss of faith that the universe could allow someone to be pushed so far.

I don't know why, but as I was designing the game, my mind kept coming back to the opera part of Space opera, and so I want it to kind of be a tragedy. Also it sort of fits the grand/epic adventure feel of the game as well. Also as I designed this I discovered more and more how much I was influenced by FATE. Seriously, this game is basically just a bit of a re-skin on FATE. A little different, but mostly the same. Sigh, oh well, work with what I got. Maybe something awesome will happen!

War In The Heavens pt. 13: Killing cows

Today I will kill the sacred cow. I have tried to make it work and still cannot, so I am removing the precision rule from my game. I will have a far easier time accomplishing my goals if I do so. I am also removing the Roll/Keep idea. While I like the mechanic it adds a level of complexity that I am unsure I need, or indeed want.

Let me break down the reasons leading to this decision. When I started I had three things I was very much in love with, Roll/Keep with the precision mod, aspects, and a simple die pyramid type thing. I realized fairly quickly that I could make two of those work together but not all three. I could use Roll/Keep and aspects, or I could use aspects and the stat pyramid. If I tried all three I got a mess. How would you get a pool high enough to have more than three or four dice, then which would you keep? How do you figure that number. Also how would you have enough dice rolled that you would stand a chance of getting within three of the target number on either side? As you can see it was a mess.

I am still in love with my precision mechanic, and I will revisit it later. Maybe I will find a way of making it work, but for now I am leaving it by the way side.

On a setting note, I have decided that weapons technology has advanced faster than defensive technology. I think that this will aid me in adding more sword play to ship fights. On the ground or in space powerful weapons can be fired with impunity. However, on a boarding action any stray shot can penetrate the hull. This will lead(in my mind at least) to the use of melee weapons when trying to take a ship. I also could add some societal reasons for this, in that the peasants are not trusted with heavy weapons, as a way for those in power to remain in power. This is a major tactical shift, and so I will have to think on this more of course. This is just what I am think about at the moment.

War In The Heavens pt. 11: Stupidity and Writing

I have been working on the setting pieces for this game for close to a week now. I have to say, not loving it. I sit down to write; I know what I want to write. When I get the moment of truth, when fingers hit the keyboard, I can't figure how to present it. I can write stories, I know this, as Ihave in the past. I can work out histories and background. Yet I have no idea on how to present the information that is interesting.

Here is an example of what I have been working on, take verbatim from my notes:

• There is a god king. Beneath him are his scions. He maintains his immortality by transferring his consciousness to a new body. Each of the Scion legacies, is descended from a child of one of his bodies. They have been bred for centuries for specific purposes. Below the scions are the Monitors. They are the group of men and women dedicated to rooting out and solving problems. There are also Heralds, who serve as both missionaries and special forces.

See! It doesn't even really make sense outside of my head. I know I want one of the cultures to be ruled by an immortal god king, and his semi divine progeny. This allows for a an interesting pseudo-feudal government. But as you can see the presentation is severely lacking.

The other issue come down to the language of myth. I want there to be this sort of Ur-myth of Earth. Mankind left Earth so long ago that they no longer remember anything about it, it has been a legend for thousands of years. I was going to do a bit of fiction about it, of someone telling the myth of earth as he learned it. It didn't turn out quite-well, here see for yourself:

• My grandfather told me the story, when it was my time to learn. He told me the story of Earth. How we came from there, and to there we will return. One day, we will return. Earth was the land of the gods, immortal capricious and cruel. Some of the gods looked around at their people and said, “ This is not right. It is wrong that our people suffer from the whims of the other gods!” Gathering up the faithful, they tested them. Those that passed the test were taken. They flew through the sky in a chariot made from fire. But the gods of Earth were angry at the betrayal...

I sort of stopped there, with good reason I think. The reason being, its shit. I did not think that it would be the writing aspect of this game that would give me the biggest trouble. Yet here I am, lost. Trying desperately to steer this hulk away from that damnable iceberg that is writers block(lack of talent? Inherent stupidity?).

I would appreciate any thoughts. I will continue to work on what I can, and try and push through. Sometimes I wish I were like the writers you see in the movies. Were they can just lock themselves away and write nonstop. Not thinking about eating or sleeping, the writing just sort of takes over and they merely channel the creativity. In my experience that has never happened. It is real work to be creative, you gotta go down a great many blind alleys before you can find a workable path.

The War In The Heavens pt. 10: unstable mechanics charge way too much

Yesterday's post illustrated a few things to me about my game that I had not considered. I realized that the mechanical pieces of my game do not fit well together. I have three parts to the mechanics so far. I really like each of them, but as it stands they are not a unified whole. I know that I promised a bit of setting fiction here today, but I think that this is a more important item on the old to do list.

So first lets take a look at the three mechanical pieces that I have at the moment:

• Aspects: I have a very specialized form of aspect in my game. The aspects allow for a re-roll, or add a die to an existing roll. Also they can be invoked for effect, compelled, and used in maneuvers like an aspect in any Fate game. I really like Fate, and so it is no surprise that I am utilizing a lot of what I have learned from that system in my own. Currently Player Characters will have four aspects:

  • Vision: Vision will be the characters view of himself. I see this as kind of a high concept. Basically who and what is your character? The tricky part will be making this useable in play, but I think that with a few examples and the proper advice section this should be easy enough.

  • Commandment: This is a little more nebulous. So I think I will be making a concrete set of commandments for the players to choose from depending on the culture they come from. This will be kind of like the Magic keywords in HeroQuest. Where you pick a god, belief structure, or magical philosophy and you can pick a set of keywords from that section that define your character. I think something like that will work here. Though I think the players should have a say in how it is presented as an aspect. This need some work, but is small potatoes as far as my mechanical issues go.

  • Crusade: Your crusade is your current goal. I see this a bit like a Belief in Burning Wheel. This will be the thing that drive's your character for the foreseeable future. Basically this may change from session to session, or story to story. This will need to be worked out as a group as the Crusade will be the same for everyone in the group. Now the phrasing and emphasis will change from player to player. And if I use a patron system(like in Traveler) then perhaps the patron(i.e. The GM) will have a say in it as well. This is the Aspect that may change the most in play testing, as I am unsure how well it will work.

  • Failing: I am not sure I like the term Failing for this. I have thought about using Vice or Fault, but they don't really capture what I am looking for either. This is going to be an aspect that will be primarily used for compels. It will work a lot like Trouble in Dresden Files. This is what complicates your life.

• Roll/Keep: I have this idea for precision in this. Basically you set the target number and roll a number of dice. You add up only a certain number of the rolled dice. The closer to the target number the better. There will be a three point area around the target number. For example if the target number was twelve, the the success margin would be between nine and fifteen. I really like how this sounds. However, I have not play tested this idea, and I am completely unsure how it affects probability. I have so many variables with the other parts of the system that I am unsure how to calculate how hard it will be to hit the mark every time. I love the concept, but am unsure it will work. Also there is the thought that if the number of dice you are allowed to keep is too high, or the amount of dice you roll is too close to the amount you keep, then there could be problems with hitting low numbers. In fact low numbers seem to be the issue here. I do not yet have a fix.

• Attributes: I want there to be a set of attributes, between five and seven. I want there to be a primary attribute and there to be a weak attribute. The weak attribute will have no inherent pool. The primary will have a higher than normal pool. The remaining will all be at a standard pool. This leads to a problem. How to do the Roll/Keep with this system? I see a few ways around the problem. The one I am leaning toward is similar to aspects, only there will be no fate involved, but that changes the part about aspects. Basically my idea is to have a bunch of key ideas about your occupation, beliefs, and culture, as well as having equipment. Each of those gives you one die to a roll, but they can stack with others. This would allow for you to pull in a great deal of concepts into a roll, theoretically making them more meaningful. The idea sort of comes from the Smallville RPG, kind of. Again though I am unsure how this will feel when the dice fall. Another issue is that I do not have any names for the attributes, as I am unsure what I want them to model.

So those are my issues with the mechanics as I have presented them. I have a few ideas for some fixes, as you can see, but overall I am a bit stymied. I guess I will have to play around some more with them to get something I feel works. The big question is will it be fun? And to that I do not know yet. I have a system that is coming together slowly, and a setting I think is interesting. But that's all me, we'll see when I start testing this.

War In The Heavens pt. 9: showing off how little I know

I was going to work on some in setting fiction for this post. I was going to write the creation myth for one of the empires(well a version of the creation myth). Turns out, its crap. I will keep working on the fluff but that leaves me with nothing for today, OK yesterday. So I thought I would put a post together that had all the major plot and mechanics decisions I had made to date. I am doing this not to pad out the blog(as you have probably realized by now I only add stuff when I have something to add), but to clarify what I have in fact decided to do. Rereading through the posts I realize I was sometimes a little vague on what my actual choices were. So here gos:

• Space Travel: In the distant past man traveled to many different stars the slow route. They traveled in cryogenic ships(and a few generation ships). They sent massive terraforming engines ahead of them with the purpose of making sure there were habitable planets for humans to colonize. The colonized these worlds, and over thousands of years, forgot almost everything about where they came from. Then one of them discovered The Gate. A giant alien artifact that, when activated, allowed faster than light travel to another gate. There was a whole network of Gates linking up dozens(maybe hundreds) of systems. Travel through the gates had a strange psychological effect on anyone awake at the time. They would start to go insane. Each trip was worse. The effect could be softened with mind altering drugs, but not stopped completely. People in cryo-sleep were unaffected by the Gate. It became standard practice for All but the pilot of the ship to enter cryo-sleep for the duration of the trip. Pilots are drugged out madmen.

• Communication: There is no faster than light direct communication. All important information must be delivered by courier ship.

• Character roles: Characters will be deeply involved in the wars, both hot and cold, of the various interstellar powers. There will probably be no more than three major powers(governments that cover more than one system). The major factional lines will be ideological and religious. There will also be several lesser powers(governments that control a system, but are not part of a larger state). Players will be playing Diplomats, spies, missionaries, and/or special forces of one of the major powers. There job will vary depending on where they are assigned. If they are involved in a lesser power then they will seek advantage for their cause, through clandestine action and diplomacy. Should they be on a contested planet they will be the vanguard. Leading the way, getting behind the lines. They will be the field leaders. That is what I have so far.

• Basic mechanic: currently, there will be six major stats(I have not named them yet). All but two will be ranked at two. One will be higher, three or four. One will be lower, one or zero. These will be modified by aspects. There are three special aspects, Vision, Commandment, and Crusade. There may be other aspects. I am also thinking about adding feats/specialties/stunts, though I have not yet. Aspects, when used, will either add three to the roll, allow a reroll, or add a die to the roll. For an action you will roll a number of six sided dice equal to your rank in the relevant stat. This can be modified by aspects. I think I may not have a large enough pool of dice yet to do what I would like. As my eventual goal is to roll a certain number of dice, but only count a smaller number of those rolled dice. There will be a target number. The closer you are to the target number the better the result. If you go ver by three or under by three you do not succeed. Right now the dice mechanic is the least set in stone, as I am still working on it. It currently is a mess.

• Magic: there will be some form of magic(the force, psychic powers, whatever) in my game. I know that there will be prophesy in my setting, as I have decided that a prophesy is what has caused this constant warfare. Basically there is a prophesy along the lines of, “whoever finds the Earth will forever rule man's destiny.” crap like that. I think it will be unique to a small independent system. They barter the gifts they have to the various major powers in order to keep their system safe.

And I think that is what I have, as far as concrete decision making. It is kind of sad, when I look at it now. I have put so much thought into it and yet it covers barely half a page. That just means that I have to get back to work on it. Nose to the grindstone and all that. I will continue to work on a piece of flavor fiction for you all so you can get a feel for the setting. Here's hoping its not crap!

War In The Heavens pt. 7: a mechanic on mechanics

Moving away from the deeply philosophical issues of the moment, I am going to delve back into the mechanics of the game. As I posted earlier I am definitely going to use a dice pool, and I am going to add all the dice together rather than count successes. I am leaning toward the Roll/Keep style counting, but for now we will just have to see how things go.

One thing I loved about John Wick's Houses of the Blooded was the way you made your character. The stats were so very generic, and yet you ended up with a character that felt completely distinct. I wish to emulate that to some extent. Specifically the strength and the weakness. Perhaps I will even do something along the lines of a house/class/job specialty, but I am getting ahead of myself here. The point is that I want a very simple list of skills that can be modified by external and internal events/actions.

This takes me back to when we were still doing regular episodes of the podcast. Carol had this idea that we, as a cast should build a game. She would come up with the fluff, and I would work out the crunch. It was going to be a steampunk game. The ideas fell apart(but some of them became the seed for Carol's and my story), mostly due to design goal difference, but that is neither here nor there. What is important was I was working on a system for that game that I think will work well for what I see here.

The basic idea is that you have these basic traits(I'll work out a better name later) and then situational modifiers(very similar to aspects, close enough that I am thinking of scrapping my original ideas for those and just using aspects). In that game you had a base of two in everything, and each situational modifier added two to the roll. It was fairly simple, and I think that I can make this better.

Each character will have a list of basic traits. It won't be very many, maybe six(I am kinda feelin' the six right now, but that may change). The majority will be at two dice, one will be a strength so that will be at three dice(maybe four). One of the traits will be a weakness, which will be a zero. This means that you will have to employ aspects to even attempt a roll for a trait that is your weakness. I know it sounds like I am harping on the weakness a great deal, but there is a reason for that. Weaknesses are awesome! I am not saying that playing the weakest character is awesome, but having a major weakness is. Yiou have this gaping flaw in your character, if you can really focus on it it will drive the story for a long while. Whereas your strengths actually get rid of story. Weaknesses create conflict, strengths end conflict, see what I mean? Plus they allow for a wonderful kind of spotlight moment, you get to be incompetent. Whether played for laughs, tension, or tragedy that is good gaming right there.

Now aspects will change slightly, and I have two ideas for how this will go down. I have not yet decided which I will use. The first idea I had was to allow the aspect to add or subtract two(or three, or five, dependent on the dice I use) from the final skill roll. This works well for my idea of precision, which I mentioned in part five of this series. The other idea I had was that using an aspect will give you a bonus die for the roll. Which will work much better with the weakness concept I am currently so enamored of. I could split the difference and say both work, but it is dependent on when you choose to employ the aspect. Employ it before the roll and you get a die, after the roll get the plus or minus number to the total. I am leaning in that direction but that makes aspects incredibly potent, so I have to test it out a bit first I guess.

Using aspects like this in my game allows for them to take the place of SPACE MAGIC as its own skill set. Now what it does is just give a descriptor of how you are doing something. I am not certain if this will work well. I may have to implement something like a specialty system and all that, but I would like to test this idea out first, and I am still a long way off from there system-wise. I mean I don't even know how combat in space s going to work, and that was one of my core conceits. Well, best hop to then, what what!

So now I am back to ubiquitous, “What the hell is my game about?” I cannot move forward until I have sorted this out. If this is a fantastic hopeful sword and planet style adventure, that will alter the mechanics and the language of the mechanics. Just as if it is cowboy space noir, or Camelot in space. So I really need to sit down next time a really nail down what my game is about and who the players will be playing. From there I can begin naming the traits I have mentioned as well as focusing my mechanics to emulate what I want. We have reached the first really difficult hurdle in game design(or writing at all for that matter), cutting away the parts that no longer fit.

War In The Heavens pt. 5: Dice...Oh Yeah!!

Anyone who has listened to The Laughing Stick podcast even a little is probably aware of my love for mechanics. I love rules systems and mucking about with them. So when I sat down to work on the mechanics of this game, I kind of had information overload. I mean, which dice mechanic will I aim for? How will it interact with the fluff?

Starting out I made an arbitrary decision to use dice pools. I did this because I like dice pools. I like dice pools a lot. I am aware that other dice systems work just as well, so my decision was purely about my tastes. Because of this I will not go into too much depth as to why I chose to use a dice pool. I will say this though, I don't like a dice pool greater than ten. So I think that will be my limiting factor. Ten dice is about as many as you can hold in one hand, so that will be my limit.

When using dice pools there are several different methods for calculating success. There is the simple method of rolling the dice and adding the numbers together. There is setting a target number on the die and any die that comes up that number or higher(or lower, I guess) counts as a success(World of Darkness), or a hit(Shadowrun 4^th). Then there is the slightly different roll a certain amount, but only count a smaller number(Legend of the Five Rings). Also there was the system used in Brave New World, where you roll a number of dice, but only one of them is used(the highest die). There may be other dice pool mechanics that I have forgotten here, and I may look into other specifics as I go along, but for now this will work.

So the first break down I had was whether to use successes/hits or target number/add up. When I first came to this I had thought to use the successes model, as I am most familiar with it in play. But as I thought about it, I realized I might be able to do more with adding the dice together. Specifically when I was looking through Legend of the Five Rings, I kind of fell in love with the Roll/Keep system they use there.

I have played in many Roll/Keep systems in the past(LotFR,7^th Sea...a lot of 7^th Sea). One thing that I loved was the choices involved in a simple roll of the dice. Before you roll you can decide to raise the difficulty in order to do a greater effect. Then when you roll you can only keep and count a certain number of the dice so you have to decide which of those you will keep. And this is where my problem came in. as there was no downside, or alternate effect, for going over the target number there was no reason to choose anything but the highest numbers shown.

This is fine enough I guess, but I always felt it was a lost opportunity for interesting choices. So I started toying with the idea of precision, the idea that going over the target number could be just as bad as going under it. Meaning that the idea would be to get as close as you could to the target number.

Now, this will add a bit more complexity to the rules. I am still working on the idea, so I can't guarantee that I will be going with this idea. Though it is intriguing and I feel like it is where I want to go. One idea I had was to have a range of success on either side of the target number(either three or five at this juncture), but I am unsure as to how that will play out. As I am only about three or four mechanics posts away from alpha testing, here's hoping I can test it and give you all a report as to how that idea works.

On a side note I have been watching a lot of the cartoon Sym-Bionic Titan(great show, go watch it...now). I have decided that there will be mecha in my game. I loves me some giant robot! Oh yeah!