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Opinions on this system idea?

deuxhero

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Jul 30, 2007
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I thought of a rough outline for the mechanics of a cRPG.


Every character has 4 stats. Strength, Speed, Smarts and Savvy. Strength determines HP, physical might, resistance ect. Speed determines action points, and agility. Smarts covers "hard" science while savvy covers "art" ("skill requiring subjective judgment"), including the "art" of persuasion and magic in most cases (Approaching a field of magic as a "science" may be possible at a penalty with a special quality, see down). Stats modify skill checks . This solves the "dump stats" charisma is for non-charisma characters while insuring every stats remains useful for most characters (dumb axeman may not have a use for smarts, but everyone likes action points, not dieing, and using some magic (in this setting everyone has some form of magic, regardless of being a specialist or not).

Additionally characters have special qualities. A special quality is like Daggerfall's special advantages and special disadvantages as well as special abilities of a character (similar to perks in special and feats in d20)

Finally everyone has skills. Exactly as they sound like. Things like "shooting" or "chemistry" (which covers explosives). Schools of magic also fall under skills, with higher points allowing for removing restrictions (like no components needed), more effective or less costly spells.


The system is weighted universal (stats, skills and special qualities share a pool) point buy. Improving a high stats/skill or starting a new skill costs more. Points are earned via quest completion while some in game events give you "free" points to spend on a single or small selection of items. "Bad' special qualities can also give you more points.
 

Goliath

Arcane
Zionist Agent
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Jul 18, 2004
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17,830
deuxhero said:
I thought of a rough outline for the mechanics of a cRPG.


Every character has 4 stats. Strength, Speed, Smarts and Savvy. Strength determines HP, physical might, resistance ect. Speed determines action points, and agility. Smarts covers "hard" science while savvy covers "art" ("skill requiring subjective judgment"), including the "art" of persuasion and magic in most cases (Approaching a field of magic as a "science" may be possible at a penalty with a special quality, see down). Stats modify skill checks . This solves the "dump stats" charisma is for non-charisma characters while insuring every stats remains useful for most characters (dumb axeman may not have a use for smarts, but everyone likes action points, not dieing, and using some magic (in this setting everyone has some form of magic, regardless of being a specialist or not).

Additionally characters have special qualities. A special quality is like Daggerfall's special advantages and special disadvantages as well as special abilities of a character (similar to perks in special and feats in d20)

Finally everyone has skills. Exactly as they sound like. Things like "shooting" or "chemistry" (which covers explosives). Schools of magic also fall under skills, with higher points allowing for removing restrictions (like no components needed), more effective or less costly spells.


The system is weighted universal (stats, skills and special qualities share a pool) point buy. Improving a high stats/skill or starting a new skill costs more. Points are earned via quest completion while some in game events give you "free" points to spend on a single or small selection of items. "Bad' special qualities can also give you more points.

I like it. It strongly reminds me of GURPS, though. Be glad that game mechanics aren't subject to copyright ;)
 

Shemar

Educated
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Oct 16, 2010
Messages
260
It does sound a lot like GURPS. Everything seems workable at first glance. Of course the devil is in the details.
 

Lord Rocket

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Feb 6, 2008
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Hey guys I also have an idea. In my game there are stats and skills and you roll dice (or maybe a die) to determine the outcome of your actions.
 

MicoSelva

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deuxhero said:
Every character has 4 stats. Strength, Speed, Smarts and Savvy.
Inventing wacky names for stats does not make a system (also, Anachronox did it first). This is really not as innovative as You might think.
 

Aikanaro

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 3, 2004
Messages
142
It's fine, but there's nothing there to distinguish it from any other traditional system. I certainly wouldn't use it in a PnP game because it does nothing to support interesting play - but for a bog-standard cRPG ... I guess it's fine. Unexciting, but fine.
 

hanssolo

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Apr 28, 2010
Messages
863
if you're writing a cRPG there is no reason not to go batshit crazy with number of stats/skills and general complexity of the system. player ain't ever gonna have to roll shit.
 

denizsi

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True but historically speaking, immense complexity beyond immediate perception of player has most often proven annoying in the past, not to mention stuff that ends up broken without even the developer noticing it. Few games have managed to handle so many layers of abstraction hidden from the player and still pull it so well to make the player never feel frustrated and lost. So, I'm a strong believer in the PnP-centric camp; when it's deeper and more meaningful than your average killing-things-RPG but at the simple enough for a PnP session, that's the perfect recipe.

So I'd say that going batshit crazy with mechanics is only good for the role DM would handle in a PnP session: things that are in the background and stay that way until directly utilized by the player.
 

Mastermind

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denizsi said:
True but historically speaking, immense complexity beyond immediate perception of player has most often proven annoying in the past, not to mention stuff that ends up broken without even the developer noticing it.
Few games have managed to handle so many layers of abstraction hidden from the player and still pull it so well to make the player never feel frustrated and lost.

Do you work for Bioware?
 

Mastermind

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Lord Rocket said:
Hey guys I also have an idea. In my game there are stats and skills and you roll dice (or maybe a die) to determine the outcome of your actions.
 

Flatlander

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Aug 11, 2009
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Mastermind said:
denizsi said:
True but historically speaking, immense complexity beyond immediate perception of player has most often proven annoying in the past, not to mention stuff that ends up broken without even the developer noticing it.
Few games have managed to handle so many layers of abstraction hidden from the player and still pull it so well to make the player never feel frustrated and lost.

Do you work for Bioware?
Ooh, how edgy of you.

Complexity for complexitys sake doesn't necessarily make good game. It has nothing to do the 'we don't know how to make it so we just streamline it' mentality.
 

Mastermind

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Flatlander said:
Complexity for complexitys sake doesn't necessarily make
good game.

No, but everything else being equal, complex is better than simple. Having as many options as possible is the very soul of an RPG.
 

Shemar

Educated
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Oct 16, 2010
Messages
260
Mastermind said:
No, but everything else being equal, complex is better than simple. Having as many options as possible is the very soul of an RPG.

Everything else being equal simple is far better than complex. There is a limit to what there is a point to include in an RPG and what there is not. I would much rather have a small amount of classes that cover the possible styles of play than a billion classes just because WotC wants to sell more source books. There is no point in having 100 spells when 90% of the players will pick the specific 10 of them and ignore the rest anyway. There is no point in having a full range of 'fire' spells that are the exact same as the 'cold' spells and the 'lighting' spells. More options for the sake of more options without adding different ways to play the game are pointless.
 
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All things equal, simple is better than complex only because "complex" is a common term (and an unnecessarily vague one) used to convey a personal dislike for how a system is to use. Remember, we need to focus on how simple/complex a system is to use, not what happens behind the scenes, as a good designer is able to control the way the underlying complexity affects the playing experience through the interface. It is simply bad design to ask more from the player than is convenient or necessary to perform the task they are trying to perform.

If the designer is good, there should be only a loose correlation between how much a system involves, and how much the player's input involves. A good designer should always be trying to increase the complexity of the underlying system (a collective term referring to mechanical detail, depth, breadth and so on. Feel free to challenge my definition if you want.) relative to their own resources, goals (cop out mostly) and capabilities, while always trying to decrease the complexity of the system in terms of how the player uses it.

We aren't dealing with board games any more. There is absolutely no good reason for a game's calculations to be limited to the capabilities of an above average person in a 1-3 minute time span. Limiting it to that would be no different to a person playing a tactical party-based RPG with full individual control of characters in real time. The human mind simply can't handle that much at once. On the other hand, a computer can very easily. The designer is there to balance these two things so that the strengths of the computer can be taken advantage of to provide optimum interactivity to the player, whilst maintaining optimum efficiency of player input.

I would call it a neurosis or fetish even, when players demand to know all of the underlying details of the system, or expect to have control or transparency in every variable or calculation. This is a remnant of board games, and while there is nothing inherently bad about presenting it all to players to analyse and understand, you will find that by doing so you are actually limiting the potential of a game to be deep because you are dismissing things on the basis that if it is too much for you personally to keep track of, it is therefore "too complex". No, your obsession for transparency is too complex. Let go.



It is also worthwhile to note that most game designers are not very good at this and outright fail, both hardcore and mainstream. The hardcore approach is typically to increase game complexity without paying due attention to player interface (making the games typically more "complex" to use than they need to be), while the mainstream approach is typically to simplify player interface by REMOVING mechanics and variables (making the games shallower than they should be), the mainstream approach is very dangerous to game design itself, and therefore much worse, obviously.

Part of the reason for the existence of the Codex right there.
 

Shemar

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Messages
260
Excommunicator said:
All things equal, simple is better than complex only because "complex" is a common term (and an unnecessarily vague one) used to convey a personal dislike for how a system is to use. Remember, we need to focus on how simple/complex a system is to use, not what happens behind the scenes, as a good designer is able to control the way the underlying complexity affects the playing experience through the interface. It is simply bad design to ask more from the player than is convenient or necessary to perform the task they are trying to perform.

If the designer is good, there should be only a loose correlation between how much a system involves, and how much the player's input involves. A good designer should always be trying to increase the complexity of the underlying system (a collective term referring to mechanical detail, depth, breadth and so on. Feel free to challenge my definition if you want.) relative to their own resources, goals (cop out mostly) and capabilities, while always trying to decrease the complexity of the system in terms of how the player uses it.

I agree with the above.

We aren't dealing with board games any more. There is absolutely no good reason for a game's calculations to be limited to the capabilities of an above average person in a 1-3 minute time span. Limiting it to that would be no different to a person playing a tactical party-based RPG with full individual control of characters in real time. The human mind simply can't handle that much at once. On the other hand, a computer can very easily. The designer is there to balance these two things so that the strengths of the computer can be taken advantage of to provide optimum interactivity to the player, whilst maintaining optimum efficiency of player input.

I would call it a neurosis or fetish even, when players demand to know all of the underlying details of the system, or expect to have control or transparency in every variable or calculation. This is a remnant of board games, and while there is nothing inherently bad about presenting it all to players to analyse and understand, you will find that by doing so you are actually limiting the potential of a game to be deep because you are dismissing things on the basis that if it is too much for you personally to keep track of, it is therefore "too complex". No, your obsession for transparency is too complex. Let go.]

I partially disagree with that. The overall premise is sound but I do want to be able to see how each variable affects the calculation if I choose to. The system should make enough sense that the average player should not have to, but there should still be the means (detailed documentation, combat logs) for the player that does want to delve into the complexity for whatever reason (mine is to be able to see what works and what doesn't either in general or in a particularly tough fight) to be able to do so.
 
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I understand your point, Shemar but I would not go so far as to agree with the idea of being able to see how every variable affects every calculation. Especially not for every RPG/TBS/RTS

The most important conditions to having that should be the type of game and the designer's principles for the game. Turn Based RPGs and Strategy games I think are the perfect context for showing the player all the formulas and variables due mainly to the approach of giving the player indeterminate amounts of thinking time before they react, but I would not expect universal transparency. I personally think that certain games/styles/settings even in turn-based will benefit much more from vague/grey/concealed variables and formulas, and it will be that concealment that will contribute to not only the mood and style of playing but also the types of tactics/strategies that are applicable.

Real time RPG/Strategy games, on the other hand IMO are far greater beneficiaries of vague information, as this is where the focus should be on intuition, instinct, approximation and understanding through experience.

Not all information as I said, but that balance must be understood through what the game is trying to achieve.
 

Shemar

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Again, I will partly agree. My post was made thinking entirely about turn based (or fully pausable real time) RPGs. It also does apply to turn based war games and tactical games. In real time ('real' real time where you actually rarely pause if at all) games have by necessity much simpler (per your definition towards the player side of things) combat systems and the need for transparency in the minutiae of the combat system is not necessary.

I personally think that certain games/styles/settings even in turn-based will benefit much more from vague/grey/concealed variables and formulas, and it will be that concealment that will contribute to not only the mood and style of playing but also the types of tactics/strategies that are applicable.
This is the part where I disagree. It is a matter of personal taste. I do not feel there are any circumstances under which, given my personal tastes in combat systems, any vagueness or concealment in any game will enhance my play experience. My preference is that I should always have the option for full transparency at least as far as my own character's/party's stats and combat performance go.
 

PandaBreeder

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Jul 16, 2010
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This is the part where I disagree. It is a matter of personal taste. I do not feel there are any circumstances under which, given my personal tastes in combat systems, any vagueness or concealment in any game will enhance my play experience. My preference is that I should always have the option for full transparency at least as far as my own character's/party's stats and combat performance go.

Horror games can benefit from obscuring the difficulty of a roll. There was this one P&P RPG in which you never knew the difficulty of a roll, and you could spend points that represented how much effort you put into a determined action that took time to replenish.


All things equal, simple is better than complex only because "complex" is a common term (and an unnecessarily vague one) used to convey a personal dislike for how a system is to use. Remember, we need to focus on how simple/complex a system is to use, not what happens behind the scenes, as a good designer is able to control the way the underlying complexity affects the playing experience through the interface. It is simply bad design to ask more from the player than is convenient or necessary to perform the task they are trying to perform.

But imagine if your game has a point buy system. In that case, splitting intelligence into ten different sub-stats would make the game much more complicated without being rewarding to the player. Besides, simplifying stats can be good for game balance in some, admittedly very specific, cases. Having both strength and endurance in a realistic Post-apocalyptic game would make them useless because someone with a high strength still wouldn't be able to carry ten suits of armor, nor could some with maxed endurance be able to survive a shotgun blast to the face, combining them might make a single useful attribute instead of two worthless ones.
 

Shemar

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PandaBreeder said:
Horror games can benefit from obscuring the difficulty of a roll. There was this one P&P RPG in which you never knew the difficulty of a roll, and you could spend points that represented how much effort you put into a determined action that took time to replenish.
Two things. One, the difficulty of a roll is not part of my own character's stats so it is ok to be obscured. For example I want to be able to tell how much my attack bonus is and how it was calculated, and also how well I rolled. But I do not need to know how high I have to roll in order to hit. Second, these do not have to be up front. I would be happy with a combat log text file that can be accessed either via a console command or even only out of game.
 
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PandaBreeder said:
But imagine if your game has a point buy system. In that case, splitting intelligence into ten different sub-stats would make the game much more complicated without being rewarding to the player.

First, what is to suggest that it would not be more rewarding? Splitting the intelligence attributes should only be done if the designer can ensure that such a separation is more rewarding. Otherwise, it is a superficial addition to make the game look more detailed than it is.

Also use your imagination to consider ways of presenting this information so that it would not be overwhelming. Staggering information delivery, limiting the number of sub-intelligences that can be raised per character/class, and linking their improvement/purpose to other less ambiguous information/activities are all ways to help reduce information overload to the player.

Besides, simplifying stats can be good for game balance in some, admittedly very specific, cases. Having both strength and endurance in a realistic Post-apocalyptic game would make them useless because someone with a high strength still wouldn't be able to carry ten suits of armor, nor could some with maxed endurance be able to survive a shotgun blast to the face, combining them might make a single useful attribute instead of two worthless ones.

What is to suggest that the attributes are going to be guaranteed useless in such a setting? I think you are thinking too much in terms of things that you have seen done already. You assume strength as carrying capacity, and endurance as hit points, which is a serious mistake in working on a new design. Really, these are only generic words and the terms can have almost any meaning or purpose attached to them if you put the right analysis into it.

Just off the top of my head, in a post-apoc setting, I would think strength is very appropriate as a way to manipulate heavy things including weaponry and salvaged junk in ruined locales, while endurance would be more a matter of biology and physiology in a setting with scarce resources, long distances to travel and many unseen threats. Like I said, you can define them how you want.
 

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