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From: steve@siemens.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: Forming our own gaming system?
Message-ID: <26000002@siemens.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Apr-85 11:44:00 EST
Article-I.D.: siemens.26000002
Posted: Mon Apr  1 11:44:00 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Apr-85 05:56:52 EST
References: <1179@reed.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:reed:-117900:siemens:26000002:000:4815
Nf-From: siemens!steve    Apr  1 11:44:00 1985


A system designed by netland is bound to be schizoid.  I suggest
instead that interested people simply post their own systems (or
the interesting parts of their systems), and perhaps people may
wish to discuss methods of designing frp's (how to maintain
"realism" and playability, etc.).  Rather than a single schizophrenic
Nets & Nymphs (TM) with lots of arguments about whose magic system
is better, we can build up a large body of frp game material that
individuals may tap.

One thing I have found in my years of designing my own systems is that
it really works a lot better if you start by explicitly writing down
how you want your system to work.  For example, for my own combat system,
the first thing I realized was that I wanted an integrated combat/movement/
fatigue system, not just combat by itself.  I came up with the following
approximate set of goals, more or less in order of importance, and then built
a system to satisfy them.  (I never really play tested it, but I know it is
much better than previous systems I designed.)

1. Combat should (seem to) be faster to play than D&D.  (D&D (or AD&D) can
   be pretty fast for people who know the tables and don't use too many
   weapon modifiers and critical hit tables and things, but for new people
   it's usually a lot of going from table to chart to table.)

2. It should do a better job of dealing with time, encumbrance, and
   movement.  The turns are too coarse a time division and the segment
   business is not a very good patch.  It is ridiculous to have (almost)
   all creatures move one of only three speeds (3", 6", or 9").

3. It should allow for some weapons being intrinsically faster than others
   as well as some causing more damage than others.

4. It should allow for people to increase their proficiency in a weapon
   by reasonably small increments, and to have proficiency built in from
   the start.

5. I am not particularly interested in critical hits, so hit location is
   not of interest.

Once I set out my goals explicitly, I was able to come up with something
fairly good.  In order to obviate the need for dozens of tables, I finally
came out with a character melee sheet which is produced by computer that
contains all the rows and columns of tables a character will need, organized
for very easy and fast access.  The system is designed so that the things of
a character that are likely to change over the course of the adventure are
not going to require making a new character melee sheet.  The one aspect
of the system that I am happiest with is time.  I divide time up into segments
that are on the order of one second long, and each thing a person wants to
do take some number of segments.  If a person wants to fight for a "round",
he fights for so many segments until he gets a chance to roll to hit.  If
a player wants to move from here to there, he finds the distance and his
speed and figures how many segments.  Each player has a piece of graph paper
and marks off segments as time goes by.  The referee always has to find
out who completes his current action next, everyone marks off time up
to that point, then that action is done.

As I mentioned above, this hasn't really been playtested, but it appears from
preliminary testing that it will be no slower than d&d but will be much more
"realistic".  I hope you were able to get something out of my description;
someday I will try to post a fairly complete description of my systems, but
I have recently changed my philosophy from "nothing but papers, pencils,
and dice needed to play" to "papers, pencils, dice, and Macintosh needed
to play", which means some redesign to take the Mac into account.

By the way, I have a really neat magic system, but it has one flaw that
the obvious solutions won't really fix:  a magic user can go off and spend
some huge amount of time making an arbitrary number of potions or enchanted
swords or whatever and then carry huge amounts of magic with him.  Any
suggestions on "realistic" reasons why magic users cannot do this, that don't
restrict the ability to make a few potions or swords or whatever?

The first time a couple players tried my system out they rolled up new
characters, both became magic users, and spent a year making "runes of
illusion".  (Illusion is a first level spell, and they both specialized in
rune writing, which means that was the only way they could do  magic.)
They then set off with backpacks full of runes that they could use at a
moment's notice, effectively having hundreds of illusion spells available.
It was funny, but a disaster as well.  They were supposed to be able to
make some small number of runes, not hundreds; but they were also not supposed
to hang around town so long before they left.

Enough rambling for now,
Steve Clark		{princeton | astrovax}!siemens!steve