New BRP game

[AikiGhost]

Originally Posted by sladethesniper

This is neither a labor of love, nor a job. It is a hobby and I like to make stuff for other people to, hopefully, enjoy. Plus, I just really like game stats...

That's all well and good as long as you don't mind losing money on this project.

[lawrence.whitaker]

Hmmm - I think you have a contradiction here...

There has been every effort made to remove any trace of artificiality that is commonly present in RPGs.

If an elf knows magic, why would he waste time learning about technology or spiritualism? They wouldn't.

On the one hand you say that you've made every effort to get rid of artificiality, then you say, emphatically, that because you know magic, you won't be interested in technology or spiritualism. Why not? Aren't minds curious? In the real world, people have very diverse interests. You simply don't get such mutual exclusivity. However, you do in roleplaying games, where there's a desire to achieve a certain game balance, and that's the very sort of artificiality you say you've completely removed.

Your elf might very well believe that magic is superior to tech or spirtualism (though how magic and spirtuality are so mutually exclusive, I fail to see), but every discipline offers a different way of doing something that might offer an advantage over another. Why would I drive a car if I can fly? Because flying costs magical energy, I'm presuming, and I might want to conserve that for something else, yet I still want to get downtown. I might also want to transport a passenger or a load. That might be tough if I fly, so a car (or a cart, or a subway, or a plane) might be much more expedient.

You cannot, in all honesty, say that all these things co-exist, and that you've removed artificiality, and then go on to say. 'But elves never drive cars or use guns because they have magic. So there.' If you really have removed artificiality, then you'll get tons of diversity.

I'm not trying to pick holes are dismiss your ideas - or to be deliberately provocative, either, but I think Vhraeden may be in danger of some contradictions that you then have to spend a heck of a lot of time explaining away (which is essentially what you're doing in the bits you've quoted from the book). If you genuinely have removed artificiality, and created a setting that provides a great base for cultural conflict (whilst promoting how the worldviews differ) then you shouldn't need to spend time in justification and explanation. It'll be inherent in the themes, the setting and the system.

[sladethesniper]

To be fair, it is was bit misleading of me to say "all traces of artificiality are removed"...while it is an option for an elf to be a very powerful spellcaster and fly around in a helicopter and have machineguns with magic bullets and a few bound demons...it quickly pushes the game into munchkin level.

In the first playtest I had a magic using elf cyborg dual weilding a 30mm revolver and a magic staff, a troll hit man that used a demon bound club and a mute revenant that led a small group of undead. While those characters were good, as a GM, in the interest of game balance and tone, I instituted the increased skill cost per differing culture skill mechanic to still allow those characters, but at the cost of becoming powerful but very limited.

While it is quite fair to say that it is entirely possible for a modern western female to become a Shi'ite cleric...it would be highly improbable. The same for in 1850, an Aborigine to travel the United States and becoming a cavalry commander. Perhaps a Russian steppe farmer in 1950 becoming an astronaught or an illiterate African death squad commander becoming a French astronaught or a Chinese submarine commander...or a Thuggee becoming a Cajun clan patriarch...

Culture, nationality, race and developmental level all play a role in what is possible for your character (or you, for that matter). It is possible for all of those things to occur, but it will be exceptionally difficult and extremely unlikely.

As far as money goes, I already have a good job.



-STS

[Trifletraxor]

Originally Posted by Wolverine

I don't want to sound negative...

Lots of complaining about getting a new setting for BRP

Originally Posted by sladethesniper

I am a far more improvisational writer, but I make very detailed settings. Of late, writing adventures is becoming easier, but I think that NPCs, plot hooks and detailed information are going to be what I put in the regional books.

Sounds like a good receipt for a regional book. NPC gangs and encounter tables does a lot in fleshing out a region.

I would like for it to be published by a game company in hard copy, and have sent a few emails and am in the "waiting for a yes or no" stage. It is in final editing and playtesting stage.

Good luck with it! Please keep us posted on how the playtesting go!

SGL.

[sladethesniper]

Just because I have nothing better to do, and am very much in a good mood, I thought I might post a bit of the third playtest up here.

Character creation was slow, but that is normal for my group regardless of system, though I know now that I have to have a list of all spells by category for players to see instead of the massive combined list that I currently have.

Characters are all Sheng'po, which are basically non-magical kitsune/fox people. Setting is Vhraeden, the nation of Southern Kalemia...which is feudal and the religion is heavily animist. The background is that the area has been recently infested with demonic spirits and they are causing much havoc in the area. The prefect lord is an older warrior and has three sons. The eldest is on a quest and hasn't been heard from in 14 months, the middle son was exiled 15 years ago and the youngest son has led the prefect's army to aid the Emperor in a war against a rebellious portion of the Empire.

The characters are a feudal warrior that was sent by the Imperial Government to protect the aging lord since his prefect is on the border of two other nations; a priestess that was in love with the middle son and when he was exiled, she joined the priesthood; an undercover spy from a rival clan masquerading as a servant and the second son (as an NPC) in disguise.

The player characters met at court and soon retired for the evening. As soon as everyone was getting ready for sleep the assassin struck. They made it into the castle and out without anyone detecting them and successfully poisoned the lord. They do determine that something is wrong when the lord has a spastic coughing fit. They rush in and determine that he was poisoned, and are able to stop it, but the Lord will still die if the antidote isn't found.

The PC's have to wander out into a blizzard and retrieve some magical components to save the poisoned lord's life. Off they go.

They wander for a day since none of them took Navigation and they left at night, in a blizzard

They had an encounter with a spider demon that pretty much kicked their ass until the priestess killed it with her staff and the spy and warrior were pretty worthless. The NPC then makes himself known and offers to "watch the horse" since they couldn't take the horse up the mountain with them. The NPC then puts a spell of protection upon the horse and off they go up the mountain.

They climb all day and then make camp. The warrior falls asleep on guard (typical soldier ) and they get attacked by a large demonic ogre. They kill it rather quickly (in about half the time as the giant spider demon, which is odd since the ogre had about 6 times the hit points), but they rolled well and the priestess used a lot of her spiritualist summoning abilities to gain a few allies in the combat so that helped a lot.

They defeat the ogre and get some magical loot, since everyone likes loot

Off they proceeded and fall down a mountain, well slid...for a long time, but took no damage (think a steep ski slope) and they had to start climbing again. On a ledge, they stopped for the night and discover a cave entrance and of course, go inside. The priestess and NPC make camp there, but the warrior and spy go "investigating" and awaken an ancient spirit of a disgraced warrior that had become an avatar of Nyarlathotep (a big fan of Call of Cthulhu...sue me)...

They decide not to make a bargain with it, but do manage (through the use of bluff and a roll of 01% on Honor, although the warrior almost blew it by hiding behind the priestess ) to win the respect of the being...so instead of fighting them, it lets them pass unmolested to the area where the herbs they seek are located (in a caldera at the top of the mountain, where a 4 square mile "tropical paradise" is located due to geothermal activity).

They go there and are attacked by feathered dinosaurs, and instead of defeating them, manage to scare them off by setting a few trees on fire. My NPC gets mauled badly and the priestess is able to save him, but uses all her Magic Points to do so...which means I need to figure out a way of magic being less "wonky"...having a healing power with 20% isn't all that useful apparently

So instead of fighting the Ogre Demon Lord...I had him be asleep. At that point instead of the SPY sneaking over and getting the herbs un-noticed, the priestess has to go instead. They get the herbs, teleport back (one of the magic items given to them as loot from the Ogre, a mirror of teleportation...) and save the lord.

Things I learned from this adventure...magic as a skill is nice to balace player abilities (fighters, mages, psions, clerics, technological types), but the fact that a character can spend Magic Points and then fail the roll really seems to piss players off...need to fix that.

As for character creation, I need to make the list of skills and spells and powers broken down by type and alphabetized...a huge list of alphabetical spells not divided by power slows down character creation to a freaking CRAWL...

Well, that's a quick rundown of this playtest.

Fire at will...

-STS

[Trifletraxor]

Sounds like you had a blast!

For magic do you use the sorcery mechanic (or is it magic now?) where you start at a low % and then slowly get more experienced with each single spell? What about using the old POW x5 (or INT x5 if it's more intellectual formula type of spell). I like some sort of rolling in conjunction with magic, though the old sorcery way is usually a bit too difficult.

SGL.

[sladethesniper]

Originally Posted by Trifletraxor

Sounds like you had a blast!

For magic do you use the sorcery mechanic (or is it magic now?) where you start at a low % and then slowly get more experienced with each single spell? What about using the old POW x5 (or INT x5 if it's more intellectual formula type of spell). I like some sort of rolling in conjunction with magic, though the old sorcery way is usually a bit too difficult.

SGL.

The spells were starting between 5% and 40%...and they are supposed to increase in % with each scenario that they are used successfully...but it was really hard to get any of them to succeed

-STS

[Mugen]

Originally Posted by sladethesniper

The spells were starting between 5% and 40%...and they are supposed to increase in % with each scenario that they are used successfully...but it was really hard to get any of them to succeed

-STS

You could use a smaller number of skills instead of 1 skill for each spell.

For instance, you could have the following list of skills (to be modified according to your game world):

*Dark magic
*Elemental magic
*Life magic
*Mental magic
*Spirit magic

*Enchanting

Once you've learnt an spell of a specific type, you will roll under the corresponding magic skill to cast it.

[sladethesniper]

That was my goal actually, to have a type of magic and use that as a skill...but the powergamers I had test it (to try and break it) certainly loved that idea. They simply bought every type of magic...I had guys that couldn't swim, but they sure could cast Elemental,Abyssal and Spirit magic, had Psionic powers...the whole bit.

I modified the rules and tried again, and they still managed to abuse the rules.

Finally, I went with what I have now, and the players have come back with an interesting comment...they are saying now that the character concept is the most important part of character creation...

If you have a concept, then making the character is actually fairly easy, but starting from scratch...not so much...

So, my tasks are to make some rules revisions (nothing major, but it is the third iteration of playtesting) and really try and find some way to press home the importance of Character Concept....since without it, players sort of flail around and pick a random selection of skills and powers which makes them very...non-viable (as far as concepts goes) as well as non-successful in play (by spreading their skills across huge streches and ending up with 5%-40%).

Oh, well that is the status report of my games so far. I've got another adventure set up for this weekend, so I'll post more then.

Does anyone have any idea for how to make players "get it" when it comes to character concept. It is vitally important in my game and I'm not doing a good enough job of writing "hey, this is really important"...I know that a lot of games say that concept is the most important part of character creation, but I am at a loss as to how to say "no, really...you have to have a concept first."

I am really trying very hard to stay away from "classes" and "professions" (since each culture will have very different skills as they pertain to each profession and need to work on keeping the page count down).

-STS

[soltakss]

Originally Posted by sladethesniper

I modified the rules and tried again, and they still managed to abuse the rules.

If you have rules then they are open to abuse and powergamers will abuse them.

I count myself as one of the rules abusers when it suits me.

If you approach any game rules-first then there will be abuse.

If you approach the game from the character background first, as you have done, then the rules aren't as important and won't be abused as much.

But a bad rule will always be abused.