So, the design contest is over. My game has been "finished", and it's getting some looks. I'm pretty happy with how things turned out. I've also been all primed up and ready to write some more stuff.... which is great.

Of course, I've only got two weeks or so to do this, because I start my Paramedic-Level first aid at the end of the month - and once that starts, writing will be on the backburner for a while. Which is too bad.

This contest gave me so much confidence in getting things done. I'm finding myself wanting to write something, and getting it published. Just some small PDF, you know? I wonder how many 4e publishers there are out there - I have an idea, and I'm working on it as we speak... er... type.

In other news, I've decided that I should stick to RPGs. I just lost around 50 bucks on internet poker in the last two hours, and I lost another 25 last night. I was up around 30 bucks before I started this slide, so I'm really only down 45 bucks. But, considering how a bad month for RPG purchases is around 45-50 bucks, that really puts things in perspective.

Also, here's an idea for all you budding designers out there - Unearthed Arcana. For fourth edition. I know people have mentioned something like it, but trust me. If one were to write a good one, it'd sell like hot cakes. Actually, scratch that. I don't even know what "hot cakes" really are, so they can't be selling that well.

It'd sell like a good celebrity sex tape.

throw in some rules that "fix" rituals, healing surges, skills, craft skills, and all those other "faults" that people gripe about. Try to find a system that would house-rule out powers. And just have a field day with all the other minor tweaks. It'd be a great book.

Wik

So, there's only a few days left in the Contest. I'm sure I'm not the only one in a mad panic to get this thing done. The clock is ticking, and I'm hoping I can get a semi-finished product out the door.

I have thirty pages done, and I'm doing about five pages a day right now. Today, I had a few things I had to take care of (the girlfriend needed a favour), but when I got home two hours ago, I leapt to work. Tomorrow will be more more of the same.

Unfortunately, I'm seeing things that will have to be cut. I just don't have time to do them. Some of my psychic powers will be cut. I've already cut out a few skills (social interaction skills are now gone, as is the throwing skill - meaning the game will lack grenades for now). Many of my interesting creatures are now gone - Spirit Bears may not get in, and I won't be able to detail as many types of Nightmare Runner as originally planned. Gear was cut short, combat options are reduced, and a neat idea I had involving character concepts and non-combat skills probably won't make it.

What I'm really noticing now, though, are the details. My damage system doesn't really work as it stands, but I did a last minute fix today that will make it presentable until I can patch it up after the contest is over. A lot this game is really in the idea stage - and I like that. Hopefully players will look at my product and tinker with it, until they arrive at something that fits their own view on how a game should be.

All that negative stuff said, I'm really excited about showing off all my work. Hopefully, I'll have 40 pages by then... and a nice product to show off. Until then, I'll leave you all with this little teaser - a couple of psychic powers available to characters (I currently have about ten... hopefully I'll get the number to about sixteen or seventeen by the end of the contest, but no promises!)

Wik

I love NHL 09. Especially the "Be a Pro" mode, where I control just one player on the ice. I get to improve this character as I wish, and worry about his placement on the team.

And I have to play position! It's nice to actually worry about being in a team, in a game that's all about team play! For example, in 08 (When I controlled the whole team), if I had the puck, I'd always do the same thing - try to set up a one-timer, or push the puck back to the blue line and hope a defenceman got a lucky shot. In Be a Pro, I have to really watch where my teammates are. If someone else has the puck, I slide behind the net to catch any missed shots, or I move near the goalie in the slot to catch a rebound.

I haven't played it on Live!, because I don't have Live (yet), but I think you could make a damned good game based around Be A Pro. Imagine a game where every player on the ice was played by a person. Imagine if the game had two lines only, so that you would spend roughly half the game off the ice, watching your teammates play. I don't know if this sort of game would appeal to everyone, but I know it gives me the shivers just thinking about it.

So, what does this have to do with gaming? Well, not a whole lot, really. Except it has me thinking about character roles in an RPG. In NHL 09, you play a position (Forward, Defence, Goalie...) as well as a role pertinent to that position (so, if I'm a forward, I could be a power forward, a grinder, a playmaker). Each role has different skills, and a different approach to that position - I play a playmaker left winger, meaning my goal is to pass the puck to teammates, and keep the puck in our possession. A guy I work with is a power forward right winger... his goal is to score goals, and to stay close to the net.

The point here is that each position has a use in the game, but also that each position has many different "flavours" of play. Two right-wingers can play the game in entirely different ways, and have entirely different goals.

This really jives well with 4e's "roles" system. Roles in 4e are much like position in NHL 09 - you're a striker (Forward), while I'm a defender (Goalie). Classes are more like the approaches available to different positions - you could be a playmaker foward (a sort of striker with leader-like abilities), while I could be a butterfly-style goalie (a focused defender, like the fighter).

One thing I love about hockey is the role of assists. Basically, in hockey, helping someone get a goal is just as important as getting the goal, in terms of "Player points". If you get three goals, and I get three assists, we both have three points - you're not really considered a better player than me. In fact, even if you don't get any assists at all, you can still be seen as a good player in terms of the +/- ranking (every time your team scores a goal and you're on the ice, you get a +1; every time your team has a goal scored against it and you're on the ice, you get a -1. If you have a high rating, it shows that you're really helping your team get goals, and stopping goals from being scored against you).

I love that the game encourages team play, as opposed to individual glory hogs. The best hockey players are those that work well in a team, as opposed to the big roles in other sports (the Quarterback in Football springs to mind).

But I'm rambling now. I think I have hockey on the brain today.

Wik

So, I just finished the damage section on my RPG Design entry. It's two pages and a bit long, and I think it works pretty well in a small-scale RPG like Awakening. While it may be clunky in writing, I hope to clean that up during edits.

The main intent of damage was to have a system that reflected nicks and scrapes as well as ongoing wounds. Wounds happen, and they can be brutal. But much of the damage PCs suffer is considerably less.

Much like 4e, PCs will fully heal (or, at least, almost fully heal) in between encounters. However, in Awakening, PCs can suffer wounds that can get pretty bad. Furthermore, if a character gets really banged up, healing those wounds is going to get tricky.

Wik

Work on The Awakening hit a lull for a week or so, due to the sheer number of good hockey games on TV. But, now that it's the all-star break (22 goals in a game? Wtf?), I can get back to work.

And you can bet I'm looking forward to it. Because now, I get to work on the nitty-gritty - psychic powers.

The main design theme of this competition was "magic", so it makes sense that the supernatural should be a big theme in my post-apocalyptic RPG... and I'm almost ashamed that it's taken me almost a month to get to it!

I'm not going to go into huge detail on my game... because I'm tired and my hands hurt. Instead, I'll give some insight into the design process of psychic powers in my RPG.

When I designed powers, I followed a few main goals:

1) Powers are not balanced against one another. I love games where you can get either cool powers ("ooo! Drain Life!") or kind of lame powers ("ugh.... Heal Other.") Essentially, this difference in power makes those cool powers all the more interesting.

2) Powers improve as skills. Since The Awakening is based around improving skills one percentage point at a time, powers have to follow the same approach. In the game, there are four psychic skills. As they improve, you unlock new uses for existing powers. Also, if you have multiple powers keyed off the same skill, as you improve that skill, all the keyed powers improve! This encourages players to specialize, leading us to rule #3...

3) PCs can get new powers. If you roll a random crappy power, you're not stuck with it. There is a mechanic in place that makes acquisition of new powers possible, if difficult.

4) Powers are useful inside and outside of combat. If a power is only usable in a fight, it's not in my game. There is no Magic Missile in The Awakening. Likewise, if a power can only be used outside of combat, it is also out - so, no Clairvoyance (at least, not as commonly seen in D&D). A character's power should be something that can be creatively employed to overcome obstacles, whether or not the character is dodging hot lead.

5) Powers should be important, but not all-important. One time, when I was playing Dark Sun, I had a friend make a Half-Giant Gladiator. He built this character around being an uber-melee character, and was looking forward to playing this former slave-turned explorer. Then, he rolled his wild talent.... and got disintegrate.
While this character would draw his blade and fight with the best of them, whenever things got bad, the giant would use Disintegrate to essentially end the encounter. He'd take some damage, and zzzZZZZZAP! The rampaging Mekillot was dead, and the group just earned some nice XP. Essentially, the half-giant had a "get out of jail free" card.
This is something I want to avoid in The Awakening. Powers can be very useful for a a creative player, but they cannot be a gimmick that is resorted to every encounter, ad nauseum.

6) Powers should encourage creative play. This one is simple to write down, but hard to implement at times. How do you make a power that encourages creative play? Basically, every time I get a power idea, I try to think of at least five different uses for that power (knowing that if I can think of five, there are probably fifteen more that I didn't think of). If I can't think of five, then the power is out.

Wik

It seems like whenever I'm working on one project (in this case, my RPG Design entry, "The Awakening"), I get flooded with hundreds of other ideas that I just won't be able to tackle. Today, I got no less than THREE RPG ideas - we're talking system, setting, the whole kit and kaboodle.

One, in fact, came to me on my walk to work. In the fifteen minutes between leaving my apartment and swiping my ID Card through the front door, I had a system that fully supported the setting I had in mind.

Now, I know that were I to actually try to develop this idea, I'd run into snags with the system. But the great thing about these half-formed ideas is that, because we never fully work on them, they always seem as if they're perfect. I'm sure that if I had gone with this idea of the day instead of The Awakening, then I'd be writing right now about this great idea for a post-apocalyptic RPG where the PCs actually "level" during play. Or some such nonsense.

The idea in question? Well, the setting is a cross between The X-Files and the HBO series Rome, with a bit of Call of Cthulu thrown in for good measure. The system? A very rules-light (we're talking Dread, here) engine that befits an investigative RPG. Players would write down their character's defining aspects, and could be as specialized or as broad as they'd like. So, I could write down "Fighting", while you could write down "Fighting in Imperial Legions", while another would write down "Gladiatorial Fighting with the Spatha and a Trident". Whenever a test comes up, you choose the aspect that is closest to the situation at hand, and roll a dice - a d4 if the skill has absolutely no relation, a d6 if they're only barely related (ie, you're drawing straws), a d8 if you have a broad skill that covers it, or your uber-specialized aspect could belong under the same general category, a d10 if you're close, and a d12 if you're spot on. If you beat a 4, you succeed.

That's the basics of the system. Of course, there are other touches, but that's the core mechanic.

Other ideas I had today? A 4e setting in the vein of Dark Sun or Mad Max. A steampunk version of Shadowrun set in the Wild West with some Native American imagery. And a modernish (early 1800s) fantasy setting where the PCs can each shapechange into an animal, and would somehow have to navigate both the human world and the animal one.

In other news, I got absolutely no work done on my actual project today. Instead, I watched South Park on my iPod.

yyyyyyyYYYYup.

Wik

So, I finally got started with my Character Creation chapter.

When I was a kid, me and my equally-dorky friend used to make "our own RPGs", which usually consisted of stealing everything from our game of the moment, throwing away game balance, and adding in our own "art". So, we'd have a game in a fantasy future where characters made "runs" against corporations, using a Priority-based character creation scheme... and we'd give it some lame name, like "Shadow Heroes".

Nowadays, I'm much better at stealing ideas and passing them off as my own. It's what growing up is all about, I guess.

Of course, each time we'd get together and make up a game, we started (and usually finished) with the Character Creation chapter. To put it simply, creating a character is the fun part of any RPG book. It is always the first part of the book I look at, and it tends to be the most re-read part of the game.

If you look at many successful RPGs, you'll see that a huge part of the game is dedicated towards character creation. The Player's Handbook from D&D, for example, is FILLED with creation information - I'd wager about half the book is aimed towards creating a character or character-specific information (in pretty much any edition).

By "Character-Specific Information", I mean neat little things like skills, powers, spells, gear... things that a character can have and use. And if you look at the successful RPGs, many of them dedicate their product lines to expanding upon such Character-specific Information (i.e. "Splatbooks").

People like making characters. And they like options. Odds are, you never even thought about playing a half-blind mexican midget biker with crohn's disease and an aversion to cheese until you found that the "Lactose Intolerant" flaw in the latest splat gave you a +2 bonus to buttkicking, right?

So, now that I'm finally starting on the Creating a Character chapter, I'm trying to preserve that sense of fun, and keeping the options open - while limiting the amount of space dedicated to character-specific information. ALthough, to be honest, probably half my book will be character-specific info.

Character creation has a few major steps. First you come up with a character concept (I always encourage players to think of a concept before creating a character, to move away from the "pick from a shopping list of powers" syndrome). Then, you allocate 60 points among your four attribute (Body, Intelligence, Agility, and Spirit). All attributes begin at zero, and they can't go higher than +30. All attributes should be in multiples of five (for ease of math).

After this, you determine characteristics (derived values based on attributes, much like saves in D&D 3E) - right now, we have Dodge, Parry, Willpower, Health, and Wound Threshold. Each characteristic is based off an average of two attributes - Dodge, for example, is based off the average of your Agility and Intelligence. Characteristics can improve through gameplay, but only rarely.

After this, you determine your psychic power, in the traditional post-apocalyptic method... random rolling on an impartial power. The powers are not balanced against one another, nor should they be. But, unlike traditional post-apoc games, there are no disadvantages... no midget bikers in my game, unfortunately.

Next up, we have skills. You get one Primary (Expert) skill, two major skills, and three minor skills. Your primary skill gets a big (+30) bonus, and once you improve it to a base skill of 30 (you start at a base skill of 10, so after you improve it 20 times) you unlock a special power (other characters only improve their skills at base skill 20 and 40, and so miss the base skill 30 "level up"). The game is geared towards non-combat skills - the expert improvements for combat-based skills are less than the improvements for the more rarely-used skills.

Then you pick your gear, which is a very simple process (I'm aiming towards no more than 3 pages of gear).

Finally, you choose one adrenaline ability (a special ability like a 3E Feat that you can only activate with adrenaline points), and an aspect. Your aspect can grant you bonus on attribute checks (but not skill checks) if it comes up during play. So, a lawyer would get a bonus on any Intelligence check involving knowledge of the legal system, but he wouldn't get a bonus on using the Barter Skill. Also, if you roleplay out your aspect, you can get an adrenaline point out of the deal.

Currently, I'm thinking a character can be created in less than five minutes, which will be good, because the Awakening is gearing up towards being a very lethal RPG.

Wik

So, yeah, I've been playing a lot of 360 over the last year, and I figure I'll give a list of the best releases in the past year, and just WHY they are the coolest games evar. Or something.

First, a disclaimer: I'm an FPS freak, and I hate Real-Time Strategy. I love games like Civilization, though I don't really like those games on consoles (they're rarely very fun). While I usually like RPGs, I've yet to find one on 360 that can really hold my attention. And while Final Fantasy Tactics is probably on my top 3 list of greatest games ever, similar games on 360 -such as Spectral Force 3 - are really not that great.

So, without further ado... the list.

#5: Gears of War 2.

Okay, I'm a little bitter about this one. See, a good friend and I are pretty big fans of the original, and so we had decided that we'd play through the game on co-op once I bought my big screen TV, or I could get down to his place. Open the game together, and experience everything without the other person having any prior experience. You know, spend the whole day geeking out.

Turned out, he decided to just buy the game and play through it. By himself. When I finally got a chance to play it, I was a little upset because of this. But, the game is pretty good - it seems to lack something of the original. I never got to play it online, so I didn't experience any of that catastrophe... the co-op was kind of neat, though.

I still don't own... I've only played it for maybe an hour. But I've seen enough to know that it deserves a spot on this list (at least until I play Dead Space... which I really should pick up... soon).

#4: FarCry 3.

You're a "troubleshooter" sent to kill The Jackal, an arms dealer who is equipping two warlords in an unnamed African Country. The game itself is a sandbox-style FPS, with your character taking on jobs for the two main warlords, the african revolutionary underground, private arms dealers, and shadowy figures who give you assassination targets. Many missions are very open-ended, allowing you to plan your approach. Even the main missions have optional "sidequests" that can change the outcome of the game.

But I can't do the game justice without writing down some of my exploits, and that would take forever. But, I can say that this game allows you to make your own choices... choose your own missions... and plan out your course of attack. You don't have to be stealthy (it can definitely help, though... just today, I was able to sneak up on a guard and pick him off with my knife. And I felt good).

The big problem with the game is that it can be hard to see your enemies if you have a small TV. I had a 21 inch screen, and I simply couldn't play the game. When I bought my 42 inch TV, though, the game suddenly became very playable, and very fun.

I haven't played it online, or even multi-player (in fact, the multiplayer is online only... there's no split screen, which SUCKS), so I have no idea how it runs there. There is a map-maker (like the original FarCry), and it is pretty damn powerful. And you can make some BIG maps (I'd say one square kilometre?)

#3: Left 4 Dead

A first person shooter involving Zombies. And it has all the things you'd expect the game to have - dark rooms lit only by your flashlights, moments of utter quiet before the whole place is flooded with zombies, and moments of stark terror.

The basic premise of the game is that four human survivors are trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. There are several campaigns to choose from, each with a different theme and collection of levels. The game encourages co-operation - if you are tackled by certain types of zombies, you cannot take any action, and have to be rescued by your teammates.

Another plus is you can play as the zombies, and sort of direct the flow of action (The game will do this if you are the survivors, sending a flood of zombies at you if you sit still for too long - sort of like a malicious GM or something). You can even play a campaign on multi-player where all 4 survivors are pitted up against a player controling the zombies (the "special" zombies can be used to really screw up the players).

The game has some awesome details going for it, too. At the end of each level, you hit a safe room. And in each safe room are letters scrawled on the walls, graffitti ranging from "Jim, I waited three days for you, and I have to move on" to "Chicago has been overrun". The survivor characters will cry out in terror when something bad happens to them. And there are zombies called "witches" that will just lie in a slump and weep... unless you annoy them by making too much noise or by flashing a light in their face - then they attack you and scare the living hell out you.

#2: NHL 09.

In case you can't guess from my avatar, I'm a hockey fan. NHL 09 is a good hockey game. But if it were just like NHL 08, it wouldn't be here. However, it has a new feature that lets it earn a spot on my top 5 (and a high spot!)

Simply put: Be a Pro mode. You create your own hockey player, and you start out in the AHL, working your way up through the league until you can make it to the NHL. You are ONLY this player - when you are off the ice, you watch the hockey game. Of course, it's not like real hockey, where a player would be lucky to be on the ice for twenty minutes of a sixty minute game... in this game, you're going to be on the ice for at least half the game, and the time you're off the ice, you can watch how your teammates play and get feedback from your coach. I think there's also an option that lets you make coaching decisions... and if you want, you can always hit a button to go back on the ice (you choose when to play, not an AI coach). However, if you're fatigued, your play performance drops.

While on the ice in Be A Pro mode, an arrow will tell you where you should be on the ice (so you play like an actual pro), and you have to play your position. You're also graded on your performance each game in three categories (Team Play - how often you pass and whatnot; Stats - how many points you're getting; and Positioning - if you're actually where you should be on the ice).

Like every EA NHL game, there is a LOT in this game. I'm only scratching the surface. Trust me, though, it's an addictive game. I can sit down and say "I'll play only for ten minutes", and two hours will pass. That being said, it's also kind of cool because you CAN play this game for fifteen minutes. You can play a whole NHL game, as part of your regular ongoing season, in around twenty minutes. NHL 09 is my go-to game to play when the girlfriend is getting ready to go out. I can play a whole game (and contribute meaningfully to my ongoing 82 game "Campaign") while she's getting dressed, putting on makeup, and whatnot.

#1: Fallout 3.

It's a post-apocalyptic, cinematic, sandbox-style RPG. You can go wherever you want, and stories will happen. The ruins look real, and the environment feels real. Many times, you'll come across a story or an event that is so minor, but makes the game feel so much more cooler because of it.

As an example, I was exploring the wasteland when I found a radio tower. I picked the lock to the fence, and proceeded to turn on the radio tower. I instantly picked up a radio signal, which kept repeating the same message:

"... if you can hear this, I need help. Me and my son are hiding in a drainage tunnel outside of D.C. He is really sick, and in need of medical supplies." (or something like that).

I looked around for this drainage tunnel, following a spiral pattern. And I couldn't find it - the sun was setting, and my vision was not great. I didn't want to be wandering the ruins at night, because bad things can happen, so I hid inside a diner that had been occupied by raiders (until I had killed the raiders earlier) and slept in one of their beds until the sun came up.

In the daylight, I easily spotted the drainage tunnel, and entered it with my shotgun drawn, fully expecting ghouls... or something worse. I made my way down a narrow tunnel, and came to a metal door.

When I opened the door, I found... two skeletons, holding each other, on a bed. Surrounded by canned goods and and empty first aid kit.

No monsters, no "loot", or anything like that. Just a little piece of story... and a strange sense of loss that I had never felt playing a video game.

Seriously, this game is almost pure perfection. My only real complaint is the ending of the game (a real disappointment, but apparently it'll be fixed in a patch), and the fact that the game has a 20 level limit (again, it may be fixed in a patch). Until this patch comes out, I'd recommend that you avoid the perk that gives you extra experience, as well as the perk that gives you a free level. They sound good, but they're really just shortening your playing time.

Wik

So, while I'm here, I figure I should reveal the specifics of my experience system.

Characters in The Awakening grow organically. Skills that they use during play will improve, while skills that they ignore will not.

All skills begin play at a base rating of 20 (this rating ignores a character's training or base attributes, so even if you focus on a skill, your base score will begin play at 20). When they reach a rating of 30 and 50, (and 40, if the character has declared that skill his expert skill), they grant a special ability, similar to a feat in D&D.

For example, and these are just quick notes that could change later, if you can get your Firearms skill up to 30, all firearms you use will deal one more point of damage. If you get it to 40 (possible only if you made firearms your expert skill), you can fire a weapon three times per round, instead of two.

Of course, you use firearms more than you'll use Barter. Because of this, skills that are very commonly used give less of a bonus than rarely-used skills (Barter, for example, gives you some great discounts on gear, and lets you spend an adrenaline point to just happen to have a piece of gear "on hand").

Each psychic power relies on one of four psychic skills. As your psychic skill improves, it unlocks new uses of your psychic power - sort of like different "levels" of a related spell. In D&D, this would be something like starting with Burning Hands, building it up to Flaming Sphere, and then unlocking a Fireball.

Now, how does the actual process of improving a skill work? Basically, whenever you roll a "0" in the ones column of a percentile roll, whether you succeed or fail, you make an immediate "levelling check".

If that result is HIGHER than your base rating in the skill (again, this base rating ignores any bonuses you may have from training or a high attribute; if you allocate points to them in Character Creation, your chances of improving a skill will not be affected), it improves by 1%.

This results in a slow rate of progression, but players will feel a definite sense of reward as their skills improve. Of course, there will be variants (each increase is by 2%, or maybe if you roll a "0" on either the tens or ones column will trigger a possible levelling chance, or maybe something else).

Wik

So, I've hit a snag. I'm still working on my "basic mechanics" section, and I'm trying to write out the rules allowing for characters to take multiple actions. Unfortunately, while I know what I want to do mechanically, I'm having a very hard time writing it down.

A quick primer on the system:

1) Players declare their actions at the start of their turn, and can't deviate (Well, they can, but there are a few drawbacks to doing this).

2) If they take only one action (moving, shooting, or whatever else), they get a +10% bonus on the attempt. (Essentially, "aiming").

3) If they take two actions, neither action has a penalty (so, they could shoot a gun twice). For every additional action, ALL actions suffer a cumulative -10% penalty. So, if a character moves behind cover (1 action), fires his gun twice (2 more actions), and then throws a grenade (1 action), he suffers a -20% on all checks made during that round.

4) If any skill is reduced to a level of 10% or lower (before difficulty modifiers are applied), it automatically fails. If you have no training and no attribute bonuses, your base skill is 20%. Meaning, don't shoot your gun three times a round if you're not trained!

5) If you take an action outside of your turn (perhaps from an adrenaline ability, or maybe if I institute an "out of turn dodge" rule), it counts as an action on your next turn.

6) You cannot perform the same action more than twice in a round. So, you can't fire the same pistol three times in a round (unless you have an ability that allows it). You can take two move actions, but not three (instead of a normal move, you can choose to "run", which gives you a minimum +10 feet bonus, or more if you take two run actions).

So, that's the rules... but I'm havign a helluva time writing them down clearly. It's sort of like writer's block. Which sucks... I want to get past the pure "rules" of the game (Mechanics, Levelling, and Combat) to start writing character options (particularly the skills chapter, and the psychic powers chapter).

Wik

So, I've started work on my entry for The RPG Design Contest! I've got to admit, I'm excited and a little nervous at the same time. There's a lot to get done, and it seems hard to figure out where to start!

I decided to start things off with the basic game rules, because, well, that's probably a pretty good place to start! What's surprised me is how long it takes to write in rules-speak... I have about four pages of game rules (and another 4 pages of point-form notes) in my "official" draft - and it took me a good two hours to type up.

Doing the math in my head (I'm excellent at math, apparently), that means to get 50 pages of work done I'll need to spend a total of 25 hours. And that's not counting play-testing time, rewrites, editing... gah. Luckily, I'm thinking if I spend three hours a week on my game, I should be hunky-dorey.

Of course, I only have a half-hour break at work each day to work on this project... and I only work 4.5 days a week (5 on one week, 4 on the other - I love government work!), meaning I'll have to spend some home time on this. Oh well. I never had much of a life, anyways.

So, here's my first preview of The Awakening (I changed the name, because it seems cooler than "The Dreamers").

A few quick explanations:

1) Difficulty Numbers: I arrived at these numbers by comparing them to 3rd edition D&D, and finding I generally liked how the probability of character actions worked out. A character averages around +10% on an attribute, and if he has even basic training, he'll have a +10% modifier, meaning a base chance of success around 40%. Since I have a few rules that will allow characters to improve their odds of success (Spending adrenaline points, invoking a character's aspect, etc...), that seems like a good place to start.

As a sidenote, I found out after writing these numbers down last week that the DN's are the exact same as those used by Chaosium in their universal game system (a la Call of Cthulu). I'd just like to say that I've never played a Chaosium game, and only skimmed over their rules before. So, it looks like we had the same starting place, and use the same logic to come across our numbers. It's good for me, because it tells me that I'm doing something right if I get the same numbers that a company like Chaosium got.

2) Opposed Tests: They seem weird, what with "use the highest if both succeed, and use the highest if both fail", but it's easy to remember (important in any game, I think) and it works. If PC #1 has a 75% chance of success, and PC #2 has a 25% chance of success, and they both fail, odds are pretty good PC #1 will still be rolling higher than PC #2 (#1 will be rolling at least 76 to fail a skill, while #2 will be failing on anything higher than 26).

3) Degree of Success: Originally, much of my design hinged on a system sort of like that in Savage Worlds (where characters can score "raises" to up their degree of success). But, I've realized that this system doesn't port well to a percentile system, and so I dropped much my degree system. However, degrees do come into play when characters make attack rolls (they indicate extra damage - a character's attack roll and damage roll are the same roll in The Awakening).

4) Automatic Success or Failure: I had a more complex system, and it may come into play, but it was too confusing and fiddly. I figured I should go with a simple system like this; it saves page space and makes the game easier to play.

5) Extended Tests: I borrowed this concept from Shadowrun 4th edition. I need to figure out a table for Extended Tests in play (i.e., the average interval of a test, and the number of points needed for each type of test), but that's something to worry about later. Right now, I think I'm headed in the right direction.

Coming Up...
Next time, I plan on showing off my multi-action system (based off an idea from the old d6 Star Wars RPG), the character Aspect system (I got the idea from Earthdawn, though I don't think anyone else will see that), and the feature of the game I'm most excited about - the in-game improvement system! (Unique to RPGs, to the best of my knowledge... my brother has aptly compared it to the CRPG Oblivion)

Wik

As sort of a related post to my last one, I decided to dig through a couple of my RPGs and figure out the average chance of success in an RPG. I'm trying to figure out how likely a starting PC will succeed on a task of average difficulty. Here's my observations:

1. Dungeons and Dragons: 3rd Edition

The average DC in 3E is 10. An untrained character with no attribute bonuses will have a 50% chance of success. Since, however, 3e assumes PCs are above average, most PCs will have at least a +1 on the d20 roll - a 55% chance of success.

A trained character (one who has taken 4 ranks in a skill) with a +1 attribute modifier will have a 75% chance of success, while a character who has really specialized (a +3 or +4 attribute, a +2 skill bonus, as well as the 4 ranks in the skill) will only fail 5% of the time on an average difficulty task.

2. Dungeons and Dragons: 4th Edition

The average DC for a 1st level character is 15. Your untrained character with no attribute bonuses will have a 25% chance of success. A 1st level character with a +1 attribute will have a 30% chance of success.

If that character gets a skill bonus (+2) from race or a class feature, that chance goes up to 40%. If a character had a +1 attribute bonus and was trained in the skill, the chance of success is 55%, or 65% if he had a +2 bonus from race or a feat.

In any case, it is harder for a 4th Ed. character to get really good at a skill at low levels, and since difficulties scale with your level, these odds never really improve. That being said, 4e is a game that was written with teamwork in mind, so this isn't really a problem - higher difficulty numbers fit the goal of giving everyone a chance to shine.

3. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: 2nd Edition

This one is especially handy because it uses a percentile skill system much like myself. In it, an untrained average human using a skill he is untrained in will have a very low rate of success (an average of 30% in the base attribute, plus the attribue is halved if you are untrained) - 15% on an average difficulty task. However, if he is trained in the skill, his chance of success is... 30%.

A PC has the option of increasing a stat by 5% at creation, upping that success chance to 35%. Needless to say, it is hard to succeed in WFRP - even high-level PCs don't get skill scores all that high (it is possible, for example, to get a skill up to 90-95%, but I imagine it'd take a long time).

This fits in well with the dark nature of the setting - a great example of mechanics reinforcing the nature of the setting.

***

I'd post more, but I dont' want to.

Wik

So, for the last while I've been stressing over where to start with designing an RPG - with the setting, or with the mechanical structure? It turns out, the answer is fairly wishy-washy: both. I'm reminded of all those people who cannot settle on a firm answer, saying "well it depends..." as if it were some sort of religious mantra, and all those times I've wanted to kick them in the junk. And now, I'm saying it.

Wishy-washy. Gah, there's an awful taste in my mouth.

So, you work on both at the same time. You work on the setting for a little bit, and then you establish the basic mechanics, and then you use those basic rules to expand upon your setting, which then informs you where you need to work on your mechanics, and so on and so on, a nerdy sort of positive feedback.

I now have a basic map of the setting figured out - a ruined city haunted by giant worms and ravenous cults; a floating "barge" city that functions as a metropolis for trade; a military state based off a fuelless aircraft carrier; a confused semi-religious state calling itself "Little India"; and a commune of former hippies that has declared psychic powers illegal and prosecutes psychics (the twist? Everyone in the community is a psychic, and just hides it from his neighbours).

Sounds cool, right? Well, that's not what I'm going to talk about here. Instead, I want to talk about Difficulty Numbers. Because, hey, those are fun too.

I've got the basics of my mechanical system figured out - a percentage-based system with a boolean "Success or Failure" mechanic, similar to the systems used in Call of Cthulu as well as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay - both games I'd love to play, but never have. The system is also a cousin to the old thieving skills from D&D and the skill system from RIFTs - both games I've played, and I actually enjoyed the one that didn't, you know, suck.

Essentially - you have a base percentage of success, you modify it for difficulty, and if you roll under it on d100, you succeed.

Here's the problem: what is the success rate for a task of average difficulty? Some games will say that a character should succeed on an average task 75% of the time, while others will say 50%. Since I'm using a system where difficulty numbers are modifiers to a character's base chance of success, should an average difficulty have a modifier of +0%? Or something else?

This ties into another question: where should a character's base skill rating start at? 50%? 60%? Higher? Lower? There's a lot that goes into this, and I could go on for a while. But I do that too much already, so I'll cut to the gist of things.

I decided that a character of average skill should succeed on an average task 50% of the time, provided he does not prepare for the task (he doesn't aim, he doesn't get help from a companion, etc.) It's an arbitrary starting point, but it makes sense in my head to sort of level the "middle of the road" for everything at zero. If anything, it makes the math easier.

Difficulties modify your base chance in 20% increments, though nothing will stop GMs from using the smaller 10% modifiers. An Average difficulty task has no modifier to your attribute, while an easy task gives you a +20% bonus; likewise, a hard task will stick you with a -20% penalty. So, an average character with a bit of training in the skill at hand (base skill 50%) will succeed on an easy task 70% of the time, and a difficult task 30% of the time - seems good to start with.

In fact, I think the game seems hunky-dorey. I wish I could post up my math sheets, but there's a lot of big math errors on it, as well as Help me Satan, my dark lord and master written in goat's blood right near some poorly-conceived bell curves.

Oh, and a Hello Kitty sticker.

Because who doesn't love Hello Kitty?

Wik

A quicker post...

I figured I should probably have an idea of what my final product is going to look like, in terms of composition. So, I wrote up a loose allocation of page space, to give me an idea of the time I should spend on each section. OF course, this is a loose estimation, but it may give you an idea of where I'm going with this:

Core Rules: 4 Pages
Combat & Damage: 4 pages
Levelling/Experience: 1 page
Character Creation: 2 pages
"Feats": 1 page
Adrenaline Powers: 1 page
Skills: 5 pages
Psychic Powers/Rules: 8 pages
Gear: 3 pages
Foes/NPCs: 5 pages
Setting: 5 pages
Adventures: 4 pages
Map: 1 page
Total: 44 pages.

A few explanations. "Feats" are really a catch-all term for character abilities, and are really a way to flesh out your character a bit. Since I plan on using skills as the primary way to define a character, I don't need to spend too much on so-called "feats", but I think they should be there.

"Adrenaline Powers" are a subsystem I've been tinkering with for a few years, and I feel it's time to include them into the game. Essentially, they function much like a combination of action points and encounter powers in 4e D&D - each character can spend action points, but each PC has a different pool of abilities that they can spend action points to activate. They allow the PCs a little bit of wiggle room in a rather violent game.

As you can see, there is a fair amount of space (10%) dedicated to skills. This will be a skill-based system, and I want to include a mechanic that allows PCs to gain abilities as they level their skills. For example, if you get athletics to level X, you increase your speed by 1, that sort of thing. So, there won't be a huge number of skills, but each skill will get a fair treatment. I also plan on including relevant rules within the skills, to save space (so, the rules for repairing stuff are under the repair skill, scavenging rules are covered by the scavenging skill, etc...).

"Adventures" will be a selection of adventure ideas, and a quick discussion of various campaign models. If I have space, I also plan on including a few random tables to get the creative juices flowing.

Setting doesn't get a huge chunk of space, because I feel that, if done right, much of the setting will be reflected elsewhere in the product.

And, finally, I need to include a map - not everyone knows the Pacific Northwest as well as I.

You'll notice I left myself 6 pages of "Wiggle Room", which is just plain good sense. If everything follows according to my plan (ha!), I'll have six pages to add "goodies". More likely, I'll be able to use those six pages to cover some unforeseen expansions of other chapters.

Wik

So, I just realized how long my last post was. Sorry about that; I'll try to keep my thoughts shorter from here on in. Shouldn't be hard.

Preliminary work on the RPG Design Contest continues. Today, I've been thinking about how to approach the actual design of an RPG, and I now realize that I have no idea whether it is better to start with fleshing out the mechanics of a game, and building the setting up from there, or whether it's better to have a fairly well-detailed world and then start putting together mechanics.

It's sort of a "Chicken or Egg?" dilemna, in that you can't really design mechanics if you have little understanding of your setting, and you probably shouldn't design a setting if you don't know the limitations of your mechanical system.

This morning, I had a setting roughly in mind, but I didn't have any of the details fleshed out. But that was still better than the mechanical side of things; there, I only had a few very loose ideas, and no clue which system to follow. But, I didn't want to work on my setting if I didn't know exactly what my system would represent.

So, on that half hour lunchbreak of mine, I grabbed the trusty pen and paper and made up a "Phantom System" that would serve as my rough draft while designing the setting. In other words, this was a system that wouldn't actually WORK in play, but sort of gave me an idea of what my as-yet-unknown system would be capable of covering. My phantom system notes were as follows (I've expanded upon my own scratchings so that they make sense for people who are, well, not me):

1) Dangerous. A gun shot or two will kill a PC or an NPC rather easily. To survive, characters have to use cover, and the rules encourage moving and taking multiple actions per turn. If there's space, there will be a basic system to cover some of the grim and gritty stuff, like gangrene and water poisoning.

2) Resources. The game will have rules that support scrounging and bartering for gear.

3) PCs are special, but not too special. The edge belongs to the player characters, but bad luck can kill a PC very quickly. Luckily, PC Generation is rather quick, with only a few limited random elements.

4) Psychic Rules are similar to skills, which are similar to every other ability of a character. In other words, there is one universal mechanic in the game, and it truly is universal. (not like, say, d20, where hit points follow a different system than skill checks, which are different from moving)

5) The dreamland has a part to play in the game mechanics.

***

So, that's my phantom system. There were a lot of numbers written down, things like "Combat 60%" and "6 second rounds" that don't really mean much now. But you get the gist.

I'm not sure if my method is the best when creating a game, but at least it gives me an idea of what the mechanical side will look like while I start sketching out the setting side.

Wik