macfluffers
I don't know whether or not I mentioned this on the board, but I play tabletop RPGs. I like all kinds of games: video games, card games, board games, pen and paper RPGs, forum role playing, sports, etc. So it may not surprise you that I've been trying my hand at making games of my own. I'm working on two World of Darkness homebrews, a Burning Wheel homebrew, a forum role playing setting, an RPG-esque board game, and not one but two original tabletop RPGs. Of those two, one has reached a first draft!I present RIDERS, the dieselpunk/skypunk role playing game.Don't be too intimidated by the page count--about half is advice and information on the setting. As for the system, it's a dice pool system, similar to World of Darkness or Burning Wheel. It has only been tested in simulations, but I'm optimistic.I'm also working on expanded rules for animal riding, exploration, and magic. Each would include four new skills (one for each attribute). Also, I'm working on a semi-expansion for automatic weapons and other technological developments. I won't finish them until I believe the core rules are at their final draft, I'm just letting you know what else there is in store.Anywho, I just felt like sharing this in case any of you were into this sort of thing. I'd appreciate any and all feedb
joshyface
'll get to this. Give me a day or two to look into it. I am kinda busy with the holidays and st
macfluffers
f course, take your t
joshyface
-; forty six pages... As far as I can tell, you are very thoro
macfluffers
I don't know about me being thorough, though I have added and modified a lot to the rules after reviewing them multiple times. I actually tried to keep it short (at least the rules; I don't care how long the flavor sections are, since no one's going to be reading those in the middle of a section to resolve a dispute), and if I couldn't do that, I at least tried to make it logical enough so that rules checking wouldn't have to be done to often (hence the cheap diagra
joshyface
s someone who spends an unnatural amount of time with publication (yearbooks and newspapers) design, I would like to say your title font is very nice, but if you want someone to print this out and read it: I would change the body text to serif font. Serif fonts make the letters more distinctive, and easier to read on paper. Whereas, San serif is easier to read on screens. Just say
macfluffers
PS - I forgot to mention this in the OP (I added it now), but there are expansions I'm working on as well. They won't be at first draft until the core rules are at final draft, obviously, but I figured they were worth mentioning. They are: Beast (for animal riding and taming), Pioneering (for the exploration and treasure hunting), Storm (for magic), and Revolution (for better technolo
joshyface
quoteoQUOTE quotecRiders is a tabletop pen and paper role-playing game. You probably already know what that means, but if you don’t, it’s simple: It’s a game where all but one of the players controls their own characters and go on adventures set up by the last player, the game-master (also known as the GM). coloro:#54C571/coloro(Awkward. Try something like this: The game's players each control one character in the adventure, except for the game-master (GM) who sets up the objectively controls the events on the story.colorc/colorc The information important to the game is typically recorded on paper (hence “pen and paper”). coloro: #54C571/coloro(Who records this, just the game master or all the characters? Manuals must be specific.)colorc/colorcThis sort of game has no flashy graphics or sound effects, but it has an advantage over video games: the playerscoloro:#54C571/coloro(This works, but "you, the players," would reconnect your audience. They just had to read an explanation on what a roleplaying game is, and are going to have a long winded speech about dice systems, keeping them engaged is important. If you don't think it will actually do anything, then it still wont hurt to add it.)colorc/colorc have complete control coloro:#54C571/coloroovercolorc/colorc the story. The characters belong to you, and the story is yours to create. The only limit is your imagination. coloro:#54C571/coloro(This works well here, good job.)colorc/colorcTo use this system, you’ll need some dice. Specifically, six-sided dice. Many RPGs use other types, but for the sake of simplicity and convenience, the only dice needed in this system are six-sided ones. Some equations have shortened dice notation, which is easy to read and understand: the number before the d is the number of dice rolled. “1d” means a single die, “2d” means two, etc. coloro:#54C571/coloro(No edits. This paragraph works well; it assumes the do not know anything, but at the same time, does not belittle them.colorc/colorcSometimes, what a dice roll does is determined on being higher or lower than a certain number. If the roll needs to be equal to or greater/lesser than a number, coloro:#54C571/coloro(The underlined sections are two completely different things; you will confuse stupid players if you keep it that way. I understand the next section explain it, but since they are different, you will get people thinking "but what if it needs to be greater than three, what is the notation for that. I IS CONFUSED." I like the rest of this paragraph. Man, you are easy to edit for.)colorc/colorc than the shorthand for that is the number and a plus/minus sign, respectively. For example, if a roll needs to be four or higher, the shorthand is “4+”, and if a roll needs to be two or lower, the shorthand is “2–”. On the other hand, if the “+” or “–“ is before dice notation, that means that you roll more or fewer dice, respectively. For example, if you normally would roll three dice (3d) and you have “+2d”, then you roll five dice. You’ll also need a square grid and markers for player characters and enemies. The direction the characters are facing matters, so be sure to use some sort of marker where it’s easy to see where the character is supposed to be facing (something triangle shaped works well). coloro:#54C571/coloroBecause people are dumb and will skip the introduction, include a materials list, so they are not completely lost.colorc/colorcIf you have that and an imagination, you’re ready to play! coloro:#54C571/coloro(audience engagement, yay.)colorc/colorcQuoteEndQuote
joshyface
QUOTE (macfluffers @ Dec 25 2011, 11:08 PM) quotecI just picked a sans-serif font because I think it looks cleaner. I don't have much attachment to sans-serif, so I wouldn't mind changing it, but is there really a difference? I guess if someone requested it, I could just make a version with a different font.QuoteEndQuoteEEndDouble post.San-serif looks better on screens. So anything on a computer will be better with san serif. But if you want this to be something people play on a tabletop, serif easier on the eyes. The brain does not have to think about the letters as much because they are distinctive. Whereas on a screen, the added light contrast is unappeal
EternalLurker
Linguistic issues:page 4, paragraph 2: "the players have complete control of the story"page 4, paragraph 4: "what a dice roll does is dependent on" or "determined by" (the former is more proper in that context)page 5, paragraph 1: Don't open with "This land" when describing the entire world. "This land" implies there will later be a "that land", which isn't the case. Try something like " is..." End of that paragraph has an extraneous 'for': "but now it is mainly for sport"page 5, paragraph 2: "a wide vastness of sea yet to be explored"; extraneous "called the" there. Second sentence's parenthetical statement should be "(the first "Grand Blue" being the sky)" for clarity's sake.page 5, paragraph 3: "ruins of an ancient civilization lie"page 5, paragraph 9: "Ruled by a constitutional monarchy" or "constitutionally-bound monarch"; the monarch herself isn't "constitutional". Still, the entire adjective is rather redundant with the sentence's ending already discussing the senate; you could remove it entirely.page 6, paragraph 7: "usually the size of a small car"....but it's quite clear from your entry on "horseless carriages" that cars don't exist in this world. If you don't specify that the "small car" refers to a real-world car, which I wouldn't do in the first place because it breaks the immersiveness you've otherwise built well thus far, it's highly confusing to have this idea that cars exist in Aeroterra shortly be contradicted by the replacement of cars with "horseless carriages".page 7, paragraph 2: "with few if any weapons", not "without few"page 7, paragraph 5: "attempts...have begun", not "has"page 7, paragraph 7: "transporting goods" pluralpage 8, paragraph 2: "Its mountains" -- extraneous apostrophe *glare*, and "and its mysteries" is backwardspage 10, paragraph 4: "when the difficulty is surpassed", typopage 10, paragraph 8: "aid its progress" -- extraneous apostrophe #2 *double-glare*page 12, paragraph 11: "is important for intimidation and diplomacy", extraneous "a"page 12, paragraph 13: This entire sentence ("No skill can be higher than its relative attribute") is redundant with the preceding paragraph.That's all I had time to read through tonight; cousins are time-consuming (-.-) But I must say it seems, at first glance, almost impossible to hit anyone good at evasion in this game. Points in Dodge are twice as effective (static value) as points in any sort of offense (rolled value, and thus effectively halved since the target number is 4). For example, it's nigh impossible to hit someone with 3+ Dodge in unarmed combat. The extra -1 to -2 dice that ALL attacks take simply for targeting fliers is salt in the wound. Compare to your stated inspiration of WoD, in which defensive abilities are made into static values by to solve that obvious is
joshyface
should just let EL take care of this; he is probably better than I will ever
EternalLurker
ou're far more detailed than I care/have time to be. Though that's partially cuz I want to leave room for differences in writing st
joshyface
ll my sentence rewrites are to Mac are merely suggestions. The reason I make the other basically rewrite things is because I do not believe they have created a cohesive writing style. Therefore, they need to understand the basics of what sentences work, and which do not. When people are at different levels, they need different types of critic
macfluffers
quoteo(post=9635:date=Dec 26 2011, 12:15 AM:name=EternalLurker)QUOTE (EternalLurker @ Dec 26 2011, 12:15 AM) quotecThat's all I had time to read through tonight; cousins are time-consuming (-.-) But I must say it seems, at first glance, almost impossible to hit anyone good at evasion in this game. Points in Dodge are twice as effective (static value) as points in any sort of offense (rolled value, and thus effectively halved since the target number is 4). For example, it's nigh impossible to hit someone with 3+ Dodge in unarmed combat. The extra -1 to -2 dice that ALL attacks take simply for targeting fliers is salt in the wound. Compare to your stated inspiration of WoD, in which defensive abilities are made into static values by to solve that obvious issue.QuoteEndQuoteEEndNope nope nope. You see, accuracy is the attacker's weapon proficiency + the weapon's precision, both of which go from 1 to 5 (well, a persons proficiency be 0...), and therefore accuracy can be as high as 10. High evasion skills do still make someone hard to touch, but it's not in the realm of myth, it just takes some luck.Yeah, flyers are still hard to hit, but a guy with 3 Firearm prof. and a carbine (precision: 3) would roll four dice trying to hit an enemy flyer's person with a piloting of 3 still has a roughly 30% chance of hitting. I know that doesn't seem like much, but you can attack multiple times a turn, and the chance jumps up to 50% if the target is the vehicle instead of the pilot. Four attacks in a turn isn't unlikely, and in that case, the chance of a single hit against the rider within a turn is 75% (93% against the vehicle).Plus, there are weapons (flamethrowers, Gatling guns, and cannons) that do not involve a skill at all. Flamethrowers have an unholy precision of 8 all on their own, so even unskilled wielders can use them. Gatling guns are not nearly as easy to hit with, but they can be used more times per turn than most weapons, and has the added bonus of never needing reloading (the flamethrower too, for that matter). Cannons...well, they're expected to miss characters and their vehicles for obvious reasons.Also, you can't dodge explosives. To be fair, flyers can't be hit with them anyway, but it's still significant for ground battles. All the dodging instincts in the world do nothing against a grenade.Lastly, with the positioning and flanking rules, you can get dice bonuses to counteract the dice penalties you incur for attacking flyers (up to one extra die for melee users, and potentially buckets for firearm users, if players cooperate). To be fair, if you make a melee attack the way, you incur an even greater penalty...so don't do that.The idea is that people are indeed hard to hit, and that to do so requires good tactics, sometimes on the part of the player, sometimes on the part of the party. I definitely don't want it to be so difficult that it's frustrating (we'll wait until I start playtesting to see if that's the case), but that's why the mechanism for dealing damage is so simple. Gameplay-wise, even if it turns out to be a bad idea, at least it's balanced; there's no reason for PCs to not have good dodge and/or piloting.What you mention originally a big problem though: accuracy was the same in the original model as this one, but the evasion score was two stats added together (dodge+athletics and dodge+piloting). So, an attacker still could roll up to 10 dice with high stats and a sniper rifle...but the defender could have an evasion of 10 as well. That's why I simplified it to just one defensive stat. All these things that make up for the low hit rates couldn't help with the older sys
EternalLurker
QUOTE (macfluffers @ Dec 26 2011, 01:23 AM) quotecYou see, accuracy is the attacker's weapon proficiency + the weapon's precision, both of which go from 1 to 5 (well, a persons proficiency be 0...), and therefore accuracy can be as high as 10. High evasion skills do still make someone hard to touch, but it's not in the realm of myth, it just takes some luck.QuoteEndQuoteEEndI was aware of that, but I hadn't yet checked how high weapon precisions are. They do tend to be high enough that it's reasonable to hit, although I'd still never use anything other than a Blaster Carbine or Sniper Rifle. Nonetheless, my original point stands: unarmed combat is shit-tastically inaccurate because unarmed attacks have no weapon precision boost. I'd make the AP cost for unarmed attacks 8-UP (instead of 6-UP) and increase their accuracy from UP to UP*2; off the top of my head, without double-checking the math on that, it sounds right. Otherwise fisticuffs will just never work against anyone with 3+ Dodge (against 4 Dodge, even someone with MAX UNARMED PROFICIENCY, which is higher than the Dodge score he's attacking, would have to spend 9 AP on attacks to be reasonably sure of a hit). That way you also exaggerate the unarmed incompetence of unskilled fighters a little more, which is far more reasonable; unarmed combat is one of the most significant areas in which differences in skill can be completely overwhelming.I'll check out the rules in more detail tomorrow morning, which'll be my next batch of notable free time D: so I might retract every one of these statements if something down the line unbalances things in the opposite direction. For example, explosives being undodgeable already sounds broken; we'll see when I get to that p
macfluffers
-----Uh oh, it seems I did overlook that. That's an artifact from the old system, where I thought, "Hey, for most cases, it's two stats vs two stats, so clearly unarmed can be one stat vs one stat and it'll be okay!" It seems I had forgotten that bit when revising the evasion stats.The UP*2 for accuracy seems like a good idea, but I'm not so sure about the increase in cost. If one has only a prof. of 3, then with 8-UP, the cost is 5, which is kind of big. It takes less time to swing a greatsword.Should damage be changed for unarmed combat? I just realized it's kind of only okay at 4 or 5 prof. Maybe it should be doubled as well. Perhaps it should ignore armor too? It already has a bonus on critical hits--it is guaranteed to inflict a status condition, I don't think that's enough.-----I feel it's okay for explosives to be undodgeable because:a ) they require an entire skill to use effectively, so any character specializing in explosives will have to take a hit elsewhere,b ) they're heavy, so you can't have too many before you have to lose armor and weapons co carry more,c ) they're gone after a single use, so if you've decided to go with a grenadier character, although explosives can be devastating, I don't think it's wise to arm your character with only two or three attacks for the entire encounter.Of course, playtesting will tell us if I'm right or horribly wrong.Playtesting reveals all sorts of fun and crazy things. In a rough draft (which was very different than this version), one of my friends took up a ramming tactic. It actually almost worked
joshyface
acfluffers, have you made a map of the Aeroterra? I think it would be helpful, so people can visualize the setting better. Also, do you want me to find people to play test this with because it will help balance the g
raf9900
I can't really know, because I don't have the right program right now, but just from the rerviews I can see a lot. I'll try to download the software later.I'm not completely familiar with these genre, but I was wondering if the people here couldn't help playtesting. I would volunteer to do that.Is it possible, or did I just say a stupid thing? I rwally don't k
joshyface
QUOTE quotecThis land coloro:#9ACD32/coloro(bad noun choice, EL explained why.) colorc/colorcis made of tall mesas called mounts that pierce the clouds and treacherous valleys that plunge below. Man has conquered the sky with flying machines; the dragons that once eclipsed the sun with their wings are now an uncommon sight. Conversely, the dark horrors called ?pit beasts? that traverse the valleys have grown rampant and plentiful. Pegasi and griffins are still bred coloro:#9ACD32/coloroPASSIVE, FIX. colorc/colorcas they used to be, but now it is for mainly for sport, not transportation. To the west, there is the ocean, a wide vastness of seacoloro:#9ACD32/coloro(sounds weird, say it outloud. Good words, but they are not cohesive together. Maybe, "a vast sea" would work better, but play around with it.colorc/colorc called thecoloro:#9ACD32/coloro, (Since you give it three more names in the next paragraph, unnecessary and confusing)colorc/colorc yet to be explored. Some call it the Azure Expanse, the Infinite Horizon, or the Second Grand Blue (the ?Grand Blue? is the sky). A few airships have tried finding land past the known continent, but none have found anything before needing to turn back for fuel. To the east, there are the badlands, where the ruins of an ancient civilization liecoloro:#9ACD32/coloroLie because ruins is pluralcolorc/colorc. It is too hot for any water to poolcoloro:#9ACD32/coloro;colorc/colorc there is no oil in the earth, and the ground has been salted and burned many times over. There is nothing here for anyone but the most daring of treasure hunters and archaeologists. To the north, there are the glaciers, where the flag of the Republic of Bella flies high. To the south, there are the desert mounts, where the crest of the royal family of the Kingdom of Aracoloro:#9ACD32/coloroso many prepositions.colorc/colorc decorates buildings. In the past, both of the larger nations were preoccupied with clearing dragons from the sky. Now that the beasts are no longer a threat, their swords have turned on each other. Pirates have come out of the woodwork since the beginning of the war, ready to take advantage of the violence. The unaligned nations who actively resist the military expansionism of the larger empires have formedcoloro:#9ACD32/colorotense consistency.colorc/colorc a confederacy called the Coalition of Free Mounts. The Gatling guns of Bella, the flamethrowers of Ara, the jaws of dragons, the horns of pit beasts, the swords of pirates and confederates, the mysteries of the ocean and the waste?these are what make up this world. Welcome to Aeroterra.QuoteEndQuoteEEndConclusions:It's not bad. I like it more than your in
macfluffers
QUOTE (Josh @ Dec 26 2011, 06:45 PM) quotecMacfluffers, have you made a map of the Aeroterra? I think it would be helpful, so people can visualize the setting better. Also, do you want me to find people to play test this with because it will help balance the game.QuoteEndQuoteEEndI guess I could sketch up something. I never had anything concrete in mind, but s