First Stab at some rules

Ok, so a core system trial.

The game rules work around Levels and d10s. There are potentially as many levels as are needed, the starting point is 0, and they plus or minus from that point.

0 is what the normal level for human to human interaction rests at. To start with I’ll run through the rules based on two forces that interact at that level.

When a character tries to achieve something out of the ordinary their player makes a roll of a d10. They want the result to be as high as possible. They can roll an extra 1d10 per Trait that can apply to the situation they face (characters will have a range of Traits, covering natural strengths to learnt skills), with the highest result taken.

This rolled will be compared to either another roll made or a set number. If the character ‘s result is higher than that number then they score a SUCCESS. If not they get a PARTIAL FAILURE.

If any of the dice rolled comes up as a 10, then that dice can be rolled again, but at ONE LEVEL higher. If any come up as a 1, then the highest result rolled from amongst all the d10s rolled is removed for each 1 rolled. If that means there are no dice left then the player must roll again, but at ONE LEVEL lower. So if a player only rolls 1d10, and it comes up as 1, they must rol again at one level lower. If they rolled 3d10, and got a 1,  3 and 5, the 5 is taken away, leaving the highest result as a 3.

The special rules for 1s and 10s don not count on any re-rolls.

If a character is one level higher than whatever they are facing, unless they roll all 1s, they will automatically get a SUCCESS. If the roll they make is higher than needed (as before) they gain a SUPERIOR SUCCESS.

If a character is two levels higher, then unless they roll all 1s they automatically get a SUPERIOR SUCCESS. If the roll is higher than needed, then they obtain a CRITICAL SUCCESS.

If the character is one level lower than whatever they are facing, then if the roll is higher than needed they get a PARTIAL FAILURE, otherwise they gain a FAILURE.

If the character is two levels lower then if they make the roll, they get a FAILURE, otherwise it’s a CRITICAL FAILURE.

These result types will dictate what happens to the character. If you get all silly about it and make the player roll for his character to tie his won laces, the number needed would be 5 for a normal pair of trainers.

SUCCESS: those laces are tied.
SUPERIOR SUCCESS: laces are tied in a really cool old school fashion, giving mumours of approval from passing hipsters.
CRITICAL SUCCESS: woah. The laces are just about the sweetest things every seen, and will score you a front page splash on Vogue.
PARTIAL FAILURE: well, they are tied. kinda. Going to come loose when you start running mind.
FAILURE: damn, the complexities of lace tying are totally lost on you. Slips ons will have to do.
CRITICAL FAILURE: nice dude, you have managed to tie your own fingers together, no laces in the shoes, and now you can’t untie yourself from your embarrassing situation.

Oh, that number needed is probably a Difficulty number. And I have not worked out Traits and Levels yet, but I reckon it will be probably something like certain Traits let you make the roll at a higher Level, though if that’s the case they probably don’t give you an extra d10 to roll.

Emotional Baggage

So do players want their emotions controlled or not? Funnily enough, players seem to be quite happy for their actions to be constrained by theirs characters strength, speed, skill and so on, but not by any concerns such as morality,alignment and emotions. But giving characters those dimensions make them more of a real person to play…

I guess a lot of players just want to let loose, and pretend they are the star fighter or tech monkey, and not have their actions constrained by what another personae (i.e. their character) is constrained by.

How do I write this side of the game then ? Perhaps the player controls more than one character. By releasing the game from ‘this is you but in a sci fi game’ I can add character traits that are as relevant to the game as the aforementioned strength, speed, etc.

Some players like to play someone completely different though….hmm…….

 

Maybe the solution is to have no constraints, but benefits if the player falls deeply into the characters traits and flaws. So by giving into the characters anger, when it hinders their progress, but provides memorable STORY, allows them to affect the game on a STORY basis. Not just throwing them a few xp, but making the rules work that by choosing character traits, and playing them, affects the emotional/soap opera element of the game, and the reward of doing this is allowing the player to influence the plot and character interactions themselves.

I like this idea. It does mean that the game needs to runs as a physical simulation but also very story based, with both the GM and players having input on how that story develops.

 

 

 

 

 

How Rules Heavy?

Ok, so next decision is going to be how the rules will look. I want both crunchy combat sci-fi style rules, but also emotional characterisation, to give characters some depth. Talking of characters, I think they should be split into Lead, Supporting and Background. individuals move into and out of these depending on how the game is running, and each one gives different complexity of the rules and depth of character. So player characters will be Lead Characters, they may be passing through a shopping mall, full of Background Characters. They may run into one of their contacts, a Supporitng Character.

I want this to work so the GM needs only barebones info for Background characters, and not too many rules to remember, but  if they change into Supporting or Lead, the rules should let the GM scale up that character, changing Quirks into Beliefs or something.

 

 

Science Fiction Role-Playing Game creation

Born of saturday morning boredom, decided to start a blog creating a science fiction role-playing game. Just some gaming noddling (well, guitarists can do it….).

The aims of the game design is to make something that has a pretty simple core, but can be expanded, and is scalable so the rules will work on a personal basis as well as screaming ship to ship shenanigans.

The background is hazy at the moment but the general feel is a dark and evil threat, lots of exploration, some core worlds, no intelligent aliens except possibly the dark threat. The level of technology needs to be constrained for some reason… system wide financial collapse should do it. One of the problems with sci-fi is tech potentially can expand so fast it becomes unreal. Thinking a tech level for most of the inhabitants, but also an ‘elite’ tech level, withheld from most people, that does some truely amazing stuff.

In fact, thats probably going to be the plan. 95% of the populations tech levels are kept deliberately at a static level.  This level will be a cyberpunk style level, so more advanced than now, but not massively. The other 5% gets access to Ultratech, which is the really cutting edge mad stuff. Maybe the reason is that to power Ultratech something really rare must be used, and the elite have sequestered that resource for themselves. Maybe it’s something to do with the fear of the black hole generator collaspe one hundred years ago… will work on the background later, but it gives an idea of how to write the rules around it.