Homemade tabletop fantasy RPG looking for feedback

[olshanski]

I've been writing a game, and I was hoping for some feedback.

The game is traditional generic fantasy. I don't have any fluff written, no specific world.

My goal was to make something simple enough for my kids to play, but with a decent amount of strategy to satisfy my 30-40 year old friends. I wanted to focus more on what the characters do, and not on killing stuff and collecting loot. I love using prepublished adventures, but they often take too much time, especially as the combats went from 15 minutes (AD&D) to 2 hours (3.0+)

Roleplaying, at least in terms of diplomacy/bluffing/deceit is 100% adjucated by DM Fiat. I have no social attribute like Charisma, and no social skills whatsoever. The game expects players to do the talking for their characters.

I don't know that I need feedback on anything in particular, the game seems to be working OK. I've playtested it with N4-Treasure Hunt, and with a portion of the Warhammer aventure "Thousand Thrones". I am about to playtest it with Red Hand of Doom.

If anyone wants to take the time to look at it and get back to me, I'd apprecite it. Also, my apology if this belonged in another forum (like Industry), but I hardly feel like part of the industry.

The PDF is here:
http://www.grippingtales.com/images/dichotomy.pdf

 

[Andreagoma]

Link is incorrect, the right one is http://www.grippingtales.com/images/dichotomy.pdf
Downloading it now, looking forward to read it-

 

[Rhun]

At first glance, it looks pretty simple while still getting the job done. I'll have to read it more thoroughly when I get the chance.

 

[olshanski]

Thanks for notifying me about the bad link. I often get my slash confused with backslash

 

[OnlineDM]

At a glance, it seems reasonable. I don't see anything that grabs me and makes me say, "Wow - I've got to play THIS game instead of D&D!" or anything like that, but I don't see anything obviously wrong with it.

I think it would help if you would write up some actual play experiences. I assume you've played this game with your friends; what's it been like? Share some cool stories, and people might be more interested in trying it out.

 

[olshanski]

At a glance, it seems reasonable. I don't see anything that grabs me and makes me say, "Wow - I've got to play THIS game instead of D&D!" or anything like that, but I don't see anything obviously wrong with it.

I think it would help if you would write up some actual play experiences. I assume you've played this game with your friends; what's it been like? Share some cool stories, and people might be more interested in trying it out.

How would it help? I am not trying to be obtuse.
I don't think any actual-play will help people understand the rules, it may be possible. There is a fairly detailed blow-by-blow combat over 2 pages that shows how to use the rules.

If an actual play would encourage people to substitute this for their own game... I don't think I'm ready to go there yet. There is no bestiary, and supplemental rules still needed for things like underwater combat, flying monsters, and mounted combat.

In actuality, I've played 2 published adventures. They were the usual comedy of errors, bravado, and BS that most game sessions are about. The game played like D&D, with less focus on combat than 4E, and less focus on skills than 3E.
The games progressed much faster than my usual 3.x and 4E D&D sessions. They were more satisfying from a character perspective. However, the rules for the playtest were roll-under, and I had two rolls being rolled together, and two of my players had a huge problem conflating the 2x1d10 dice rolls with a d% roll. I updated the game to roll-over and made the rolling more explicitly 2x1d10 instead of 2d10.
The real meat of the game came from the published adventures, not from the ruleset. The rules were incidental to the fun.... but that's how I think rules should work.

I've never been a fan of reading "actual play", and I've never written an "actual play", so I clearly don't understand the draw.

 

[OnlineDM]

Sorry, it was just a suggestion. I was looking for something that would make me say, "Oh, I get it - wow, that's really cool in action!" I didn't mean that it had to be a literal transcript of each action that every player at the table took. Maybe a description of some play sessions wouldn't achieve that goal after all.

I'm just suggesting that potential new players to the system might be easier to recruit if you provided something that made this system seem like a ton of fun, an improvement over other systems. I didn't get that from reading the rules, but I might have been missing something.

I wholeheartedly applaud you for putting this together - way to go! I thought you wanted some feedback, but maybe you were just looking to make this system available to the world rather than getting suggestions on how to get people to try it out. I'm sorry if I misread what you were looking for.

 

[olshanski]

No need to apologise at all. Thank you for the kind words.

I wasn't requesting feedback on getting people to play the game, though that would be nice.

I was requesting feedback on the actual text. I was wondering if anyone noticed anything screwy with the rules or any glaring omissions (such as lack of mounted combat, flying, underwater, bestiary, etcetera). For all I know, I may have forgotten to complete a paragraph somewhere, or I might be referring to attributes that no longer exist after a big update... stuff like that. I included the section on elves and dwarves at the request of my playtesters.... things like that.

I believe that at some point, after I've finished a sample adventure and bestiary, I will take your advice and post some actual play descriptions and try to "sell" the game to players. By "sell" I mean get them to play it, since it is always going to be a free PDF.

 

[Wik]

I notice quickly (without reading too much into the game) that martial/spiritual might be a problem - you'll tend to have PCs that either put all their points in one basket, or it could lead to a bunch of PCs that are basically fighter/mages. I think you need to have some crossover explained in that section - wizards who rely on magic might still want to put points into martial, so they can shoot their spells, and warriors might want some points in spiritual, not so they can cast spells, but so that they can pass fear checks or resist spells or something.

Otherwise, you're going to have a game where someone says "I wanna be a fighter, 10 in martial" and it's a non-choice.

I haven't read the game yet, but that section stands out. I'd put some clarifications in there.

 

[olshanski]

I notice quickly (without reading too much into the game) that martial/spiritual might be a problem - you'll tend to have PCs that either put all their points in one basket, or it could lead to a bunch of PCs that are basically fighter/mages. I think you need to have some crossover explained in that section - wizards who rely on magic might still want to put points into martial, so they can shoot their spells, and warriors might want some points in spiritual, not so they can cast spells, but so that they can pass fear checks or resist spells or something.

Otherwise, you're going to have a game where someone says "I wanna be a fighter, 10 in martial" and it's a non-choice.

I haven't read the game yet, but that section stands out. I'd put some clarifications in there.

You are correct, a character will either be heavily martial, or heavily spiritual, or heavily in-between.

Yes, warriors can go 10/1 in martial, that is fine. What that means is that they will be very successful any time they attack or defend against physical attacks. They will also fail every time they have to defend against a magical attack. Your attack statistic is the same as your defense statistic... so the more of a "fighter" you are, the more vulnerable you are to magic. That's a reasonable trade off, and something people should be able to do. The game is called "Dichotomy" for precisely that reason.

Are you thinking that I need to warn people of the drawbacks of going all-in in one attribute? I am hoping that there are as many drawbacks as benefits, and that whatever point people pick on the spectrum is equally viable character build... at least that's my goal. In my playtesting I've only seen people take 3/8 or 4/7 or 5/6.... but my sample of 7 players (21 dichotomies) is too small to draw any conclusions at this point.

Oh, and wizards don't need martial to shoot spells. They need Spiritual to have spells, then Power (to use them up-close), or Finesse (to shoot them from a distance). Or a mix of Power/Finesse to have flexibility. Same with Martial. A high Power/Martial is a front-line-tank. A high Finesse/Martial is an expert marksman.