Can I get a critique of my game?

[Shades of Eternity]

actually yes

http://drevrpg.blogspot.ca/p/dropbox-downloads.html
did this as a temp measure, but still looking for other free aggregates.

 

[Campbell]

The first thing I noticed in the text is you jump right into the setting without saying anything about your game. You have to make me care. Give me an elevator pitch. Tell me what your game is about. What do players do? How is it different? I need to know what I'm getting into here. If you don't no matter how awesome the rest of your game is, I'm not likely to give a damn.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

man

That is been one of the biggest dilemma's.

Namely what to do first: fluff or crunch?

What I can do is insert an elevator speech repurposed from the d20 blog entry and add a text box on the first page of "fluff text" that points to the getting started page.

how does that sound?

 

[Shades of Eternity]

http://drevrpg.blogspot.ca/2015/10/rules-spotlight-mook-model.html

As requested, here is my answer to npcs: The Mook Model.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't quite understand everything that's going on with those templates, or how PCs of a similar level would look, but this model doesn't seem too far off from what Pathfinder does. It looks like your NPCs actually are using PC mechanics, with the simplicity coming from how the abilities are already chosen and how the math is already factored in for the various levels.

I can't complain about that, at all. It's a model that would benefit many other games.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

once of things I noticed is how many options for pcs work better for monster design.

ecl makes way way more sense as cr mods for monsters, for example.

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I'm also of the believe the game designer's job is to do most of the heavy lifting. Hense why I'm posting for feedback to see what needs lifted.

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I also worked under the idea that a cr needs to be king in monster design.

I was sick and tired of seeing monsters within the same type and cr that were obviously of different power levels.

To say nothing of the extremes (I had to make a couple of templates for animals types to make them competitive at the higher cr levels).

My monster building rules are in the book of danger and tried my darndest to follow the gauge I laid down for all critters.

That way if it's wrong, it's at least consistently wrong

 

[Shades of Eternity]

updated player's guide

I put in a page labelled "before we start" that includes the key points that I changed from d20

It also includes links for ease of finding stuff.

If you guys like it, I'll do something similar for all the main books.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

My initial concern, based on the blog entries, had to do with the degree to which NPCs were different from PCs. One of the major flaws with 4E, from the perspective of many critics, was the way that the too-different NPCs contrasted from PC-built rules to create a world where it was hard to understand how anything actually worked.

And of course, those who tend not be on the simulationist side of GNS have exactly the opposite reaction. One of the major flaws with traditional systems is how they attempt to define the same rules for protagonists as for the world characters, thus ending up with a world where nothing actually does work because symmetric rules do not work well for a non-symmetric game (e.g. do your player characters and GM characters die at the same rate? make the same amounts of gold per month? level at the same speed?)

For many people, this is an advantage, not a disadvantage. Most modern games do the same thing. The traditional symmetric rules principle is by no means "normal" and is definitely not a big deal in new systems

 

[The Crimson Binome]

And of course, those who tend not be on the simulationist side of GNS have exactly the opposite reaction. One of the major flaws with traditional systems is how they attempt to define the same rules for protagonists as for the world characters, thus ending up with a world where nothing actually does work because symmetric rules do not work well for a non-symmetric game (e.g. do your player characters and GM characters die at the same rate? make the same amounts of gold per month? level at the same speed?)

Indeed, and any game designer must choose a side in this debate, as part of designing a game. The more you try to appeal to one side, the more you'll turn away the other side.

There are compromises, though. This model of NPC templates for different roles at different levels means that it takes a lot less work to create those NPC characters. My favorite method, used in GURPS and similar games, is to just give the PCs more points for their characters - the PCs are stronger and can easily defeat the NPCs because the PCs actually are stronger/faster/better as a measurable fact within the game world, rather than because PCs and NPCs are inherently different.

For many people, this is an advantage, not a disadvantage. Most modern games do the same thing. The traditional symmetric rules principle is by no means "normal" and is definitely not a big deal in new systems

Traditional is normal, pretty much by definition. It's the baseline. It's the establishment, against which other games can conform or rebel. I could go on at length about how horrible FATE is, but that's really kind of off-topic, since the game currently under discussion is a traditional game rather than anything particularly radical or controversial.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

Me and my good buddy will be on RPGlory's Twitch channel to show our stuff.

http://rpglory.com/

Game Name: The Betrothal of Ruin

Times:

October 25th - 5:30 PST (6:30 MST) - roughly 3:00 - 4:00 hours
Main purpose: to introduce Dark Revelations - The Role Playing Game, to build characters, answer questions and to start said game.

November 1st - 5:30 PST (6:30 MST) - roughly 3:00 - 4:00 hours
Main purpose: to run the adventure and see where it leads.

For those that want people to watch it:

http://Twitch.tv/RPGlory

Enjoy