Jan
17
Based on comments from my group and other who I broached the question to, I’ve added a ‘semi-random’ skill up mechanic to LCA!.
The idea is to cater to the folks who enjoy a little bit of randomness in their character’s path choices as well as the ones who have a definite, “This is what I want, don’t screw with me.” path for their character.
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Raising Skills -
Jan
17
Using a Change Log
About version .7 or so of LCA! with the bulk of the rough mechanics was done I started a change log document. The changes were getting small enough that it was feasible to note them and as I was starting to forget that I’d changed things due to information glut it became informational to do so.
Over time I found it useful in many ways to occasionally go back and review how I’d changed mechanics or what updates I’d made.
I thought it might be interesting for someone who’s trying to design a game for the first time to see how a system might morph and warp over time when viewed through a change log history. If you start at the bottom and work your way up you can get some idea of how basic mechanics continued to evolve and change over time.
Note these are raw and uncut and definitely un-moderated. A single simple line might have been the work of several days like “Worked on zombie script.” and a paragraph of changes that took only 10 minutes.
Jan
16
Don’t Rest Your Head
Session 1 report – Part 2
You can find the first part of this session report here – http://www.keyourcars.com/?p=8083
Players: +Laura Dollins +Scott Stone +David Warren
Persons of Interest: +Temple Smith +L. Scott Rubin
Just to sum up, this was our first gaming session using DRYH. None of us have used such a light system before or one where the players control the narrative to such a degree so it does take some getting used to. It’s very much like everyone’s the GM.
Jan
16
Random skillups
Curious if anyone has an opinion on the pros/cons of a random skill up system.
Most systems I’m familiar with, skill gains are done either automatically as you level up or you get character points when you level that you can then spend to level up your skills as you see fit.
There are a number of systems though that this is random. When you level up or even at the end of every session, you make a roll versus your current skill, sometimes only for skills you actually used during the session. If you either roll under or over (depending on the way the system mechanics work) then you go up in skill.
I’m not necessarily a proponent of randomization in character power this way, it makes life harder for me as a GM to create encounters of the power level that I’m trying to achieve.
Jan
15
Session Report
Don’t Rest Your Head
I ran my first for real session of DRYH or Dont’ Rest Your Head last night. It’s a strong narrative, light mechanics system set in a dark surreal land of horror and scary things that really do live under the bed, things that are all pointy bits and razor edges.
In attendance were +Laura Dollins (my lovely wife), +Scott Stone and +David Warren friends who I’ve shared gaming tables with for 20+ years. Two other players +Temple Smith and +L. Scott Rubin were unable to make it but hopefully next time.
Laura and Scott had already created their characters and we were able to go through Dave’s pretty quickly. The mechanics are easily explained and eventually learned. I’ve read a lot of game systems and the dice mechanic is unique in my experience.
Laura turns out to be a young woman named Sophia, a serious social misfit and introvert who’s secret hatred of people turns out to fuel her Madness Talent although it got little use last night. Her hatred of others is contagious and she can make them so hate themselves that they… well let’s just say you wouldn’t want to get on the bad side of this woman.
Jan
13
My first player submission from +Scott Stone for my DRYH campaign tomorrow. My response to the player -
Oh but the future loooooves Jimmy. It’s been waiting in the shadows and alleys, biding its time, sharpening its claws for 37 long years, sharpening them to razor edges and needle points, just for this moment….
From the Player -
My Name Is:
Jimmy Keller
Jan
13
Don’t Rest Your Head
I’m going to be running my first DRYH (by +Fred Hicks ) session tomorrow, my first ‘for realz’ group session rather than playtesting that is. If you’re not familiar with the system, I highly recommend taking a look to see if it fits your gaming needs.
Barring technical difficulties it should go up as a podcast as well eventually. Assuming I don’t screw it up completely.
I have the following list of major movers and shakers in my take on the setting which includes some of the RAW nightmares because they fit for me – (many of the originals are just too punny for me as written and didn’t fit the flavor I’m going to be shooting for. 
)
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Jan
12
Con games can be both tough and easy. How’s that for a little wish and wash?
Let me expand a bit. They’re tough for a couple of bigger reasons -
They’re also easy for a couple of reasons -
Jan
11
Sigh, nothing is more painfully annoying than making a drastic change to a mechanic as far spreading as damage health healing and having to go back and edit the changes everywhere it’s mentioned, every example, every sample character etc.
But as a result I as I was scrolling along I did some clean up in the Skills section, the end result is more for utter newbs to RPG mechanics but hopefully it would explain it in such a way my mother would understand. Eventually anyway. Maybe. Okay my kids would be able to figure it out.
Formatting lost in the translation to G+. It’s easier to read in the original.
Some clarification – a 0 attribute means you’re just average. A 0 skill means you’ve had minimal training just enough to negate the untrained penalty. Rewrites are my version of fate/hero/bennies/luck/drama points. It’s a movie theme, what can I say. I use Rewrites for fate chips, Take 5 for a short rest, Stressed Out for running out of health and similar type things.
Jan
08
Charisma as a stat…. Do we really need it?
Climbing in the WABAC machine with Mister Peabody and Sherman and checking things out, charisma has been a mostly ignored stat from day one and yet always there. Its kind of like laws for lawmakers. It gets lip service but never really used.
Sure back in the day if you weren’t a shining example of beauty and poise and presence you couldn’t be a paladin. (17 Charisma requirement when 18 was the highest you could have for those who don’t have a WABAC machine.)
It was used in following game systems, primarily due to inertia really I think. ‘DND has it and players need a number to dictate how good looking they are don’t they?’
And yes I do I know, charisma isn’t just about looks but that’s how every player I’ve ever met treated it, not how much presence or leadership or whatever they had. It was always, woohoo a 17 charisma, I look maaaahvolus. And the inverse a 5 charisma, damn I’m Ernest Borgnine (who is a wonderfully charismatic individual)
Jan
07
The active defense – To continue my previous post, I think it was my previous post, I’m going to stream of thought, putting things into letters helps solidify them for me.
Trivia note: LCA! has a strong tactical leaning. I’m trying to find a happy (for me) middle ground somewhere between Savage Worlds and DnD 4e. Savage worlds was too tactical light for my preferences and 4E combats took away too much game time to resolve even with the changes I made to them.
So in LCA! the amount of damage from any given attack that character can ignore is a secondary characteristic. It’s calculated based on other characteristics in a add and then divide and then add a base kind of system. Fairly straightfoward and used a lot.
Well perhaps not the way I’m computing it but one of my concerns is power gaming. Power gamers have screwed my experience as a GM and as a player too often and I’m getting my revenge by making it hard to power game in LCA! either on purpose or accident. Anyway it’s a combination of both the physical and mental abilities of the character. You can be physically tough as rock but if you don’t have the mental toughness to back it up, you’ll give up long before you reach your limits. And you can be tough as nails mentlaly but if you don’t have the physical toughness to back it up, you’re still at a disadvantage over someone who has both.
Jan
06
The active defense versus the passive defense. A recent look at the 6d6 core system has me thinking about the differences between active defense and passive defenses in RPG mechanics.
The passive defense is the most common in my experience. The attacker (or whatever) typically rolls dice or otherwise generates a random result. This is compared to a fixed number to beat (or equal/beat).
Note for some systems beating a number means rolling lower, not higher. This is common in percentile based systems.
The end result is that the defender or obstacle has no immediacy in their defense typically. It’s all determined in general or at least the majority of it is prior to the combat. For instance in a d20 game a character’s AC might be an 18 to use an arbitrary number. They might get temporary bonuses or additions to that number shifting it up or down but the 18 is fairly static.
Jan
04
This is a personal playtest using the 6d6 Core System using the One Shot adventure Outbreak! by 6d6rpg.com.
The 6d6 core rules are available for free from the publisher’s wiki pages and a pdf and hard copy are available for purchase along with other rulesets that expand the basic core system and other adventures.
Disclaimer: I do have a reviewer’s access to the system but for this playtest I am only using the publicly available materials that you can obtain freely yourself. I have no personal or fiscal relationship with the publisher/developer.
Brief System Synopsis -
Jan
02
Just wanted to point that including sequences of ‘actual play’ (and note the s on the word sequence) goes a long way toward making your system understandable.
Your potential audience hasn’t spent the last year working on your system and know it like the back of their hands. What’s blatantly obvious to you is rife with potential for mistakes at the basic level for the new initiate into your system. And while there’s no 100% right way to use any system, there are some wrong ways to use it if they break the basic mechanics because the’re done wrong.
A few pages devoted to he said, she said dialogue complete with the narrative and the mechanics for each participant in the scene, in my opinion, are highly desirable for several reasons (with a con or two) -
1) It very quickly outlines the general order of play and basic mechanics to get the new participants off the ground and running.
Dec
29
[Warning, I'm rambling as I tend to do. If I come off as an asshat, that's not my intention. ]
With player engagement a big part of why I wrote (am writing) LCA! my own RPG system I find myself listening to podcasts by other groups and literally shaking my head going no, you’re doing it ‘wrong’, you’ve already lost them at this point.
I think it’s easier to hear player disengagement as a third party than the GM sitting at the table can even though they’re there and have so many other cues to go on.
Primarily because the GM has sooo much on their plate. Trying to keep their planned story straight, trying to juggle the numbers and plans and tactics of the endless lists of bad guys, weaving plot lines together, all the while trying to keep the players entertained. If you’ve never sat in the GM’s chair then take some time out to be nice to one. If you have GM’d then you know what I’m talking about and should already be doing it to someone who’s willing to GM for you and put up with your crap as you surf the web looking at football scores while they’re trying to run an adventure or playing doodle jump on your phone.
Anyway, I’m currently listening to a podcast by a group at a con and I keep waiting for the GM to grab these people by the throat and send them on a wild roller coaster of emotional highs and lows given the subject matter and it keeps just kind of fizzling.
Dec
28
6d6 core system by http://6d6rpg.com
Disclaimer – This first glance is based on the open source core ruleset as presented on the wiki by the developer/publisher located here http://6d6rpg.com/wiki/doku.php?id=open:mechanics:core:start
As a result I won’t/can’t make any comments as to the layout, index, ToC, graphics etc of the system given my source.
I have no personal or financial affiliation with the developer or publisher.
Dec
28
I’ve been going through the 6d6 core system available from the wiki for said system. I actually cut and pasted the wiki pages into a google document as I have difficulty absorbing information when it’s separated into small bits and pieces like that.
LInk below to the wiki -
I’ll post a more detailed reaction, after I get it written up but in short it’s primarily favorable. My biggest nit picks so far are the lack of a weighting/cost to add keywords to powers, my gut reaction is increase the cost by 50% to a cards cost for each keyword added that impacts flow spending as a rough rule of thumb after a cursory read through.
And that the ranges on the weapons given the granularity of the system are on the low side But then along with the multitude of interests I have one of them is a long time associated with firearms so saying that a pistol has a range increment of 2 and rifle of 4 is a bit low for my personal tastes in mechanics. It makes it practically impossible to hit anything at range and personally I can hit a 2×2 target about 9 times out of 10 with iron sights at 100 yards. Much less 50′.
Dec
27
The 'tension' factor of the various re-roll mechanics out there has been something that I've been considering off and on ever since reading an article by someone, the details of which escape me.
To sum it up, if a player has the ability to re-roll then any given roll loses it's immediacy/tension/pucker factor, whatever you want to call it. If they have a pile of bennies, fate points, hero chips, plot points etc ready and waiting to turn any given miss into a hit then it takes something away from those "I've REALLY gotta hit nail this roll this time or [insert something bad happens]" situations.
In LCA! I was (and maybe still am) going to allow the Rewrite mechanic to allow the heroes a re-roll of a missed skill check among other things.
But as of now I've changed it so that our heroes must decide before they roll to spend the Rewrite and by doing so, they get a +5 on their roll. For the math curious, the system I'm using, two rolls equals an average dice result of 5 higher than a single dice roll. They can stack the Rewrites up if they have them, so they could spend additional Rewrites to keep piling on the +5's for that single dice roll.
Dec
19
The Red Queen Mechanic -
In the upcoming zompoc play test I’m going to be running it’s possible that some of the heroes may be immune to the Z virus. I’m going with ‘rage’ zombies, at least at first…
Anyway, I’m going to pull out 8 misc cards and then add the two red queens to the mix. (assuming a hero group of 4). Then shuffle well and each player will draw a card without looking at it.
Their card will go by their initiative tracker face down. The first time they take Trauma damage I’ll look at the card, secretly of course. If that player pulled a red queen then they’re immune to the disease and won’t turn. If they don’t have a red queen they they’ll turn of course.
Non-heroes, aka Extras, I’ll draw one card from a full deck as they take the damage. If they get a red queen, they’re also immune (1 in 27 chance since I use jokers).
Dec
13
Don’t you hate having ideas about your game mechanics/designs when you dont’ have any easy way to record them? And hours later when you can get to a computer all you can remember is you had this really great idea on how to fix…. something about your design.
Too much aluminum or something because I have these episodes in the car on the way to and from work and it’s only a half hour drive most days and I still manage to forget them by time I get to work/home.
