[Design] Work has Begun! (Preview #1)

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)

Attached Files

Awakening - Basic Game Rules Preview.pdf (103.2 KB, 62 views)