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View Full Version : Lets Create an RPG!



Howler Dagger
2011-10-08, 09:19 PM
Ok people, we are going to work together to create an original RPG system designed for use by people on Giantitp

My Goals:

To Create an RPG designed for use in PbP
For it to be easy to learn
For it to appeal to many of the tastes of the playground
to have a civil discusion
To be eventually complete


So lets start talking about the dice:

I think we should use the d12. Why?

77% of all d12 cry in their sleep loud enough to be heard by gamers
81% of gamers that own d12s lose an average of 279 hours of sleep per year due to crying d12s
91% of d12 are kept up so long at night that they will feel grouchy, resulting in poor rolls, and a record amount of ones
87.5% of all statistics made up about d12s are fake.

Though, to be more serious they dont get enough play, and feel like a waste of space in your dice bag.

Zigg
2011-10-09, 03:49 PM
I think the first thing to do is decide the classes. Is suggest:

Melee Classes

Fighter
Paladin
Barbarian
Monk

Magic Classes

Wizard
Cleric
Summoner
Spellsword


Other Classes

Bard
Ranger
Rouge
Ninja

Howler Dagger
2011-10-10, 11:53 AM
I think the first thing to do is decide the classes. Is suggest:

Melee Classes

Fighter
Paladin
Barbarian
Monk

Magic Classes

Wizard
Cleric
Summoner
Spellsword


Other Classes

Bard
Ranger
Rouge
Ninja

does it have to be fantasy and/or calss based? I remmber that when I did vote up an rpg, many people voted against fantasy, and the winner was sci-fi, so please dont assume it will automaticly be fanatasy. I will admit im sick of sci-fi, mainly because of my participation in the rpg creation contest, where the last theme was sci-fi. Though this applies to everything in this thread: dont assume something is absolute if we havent discussed it before.

I have always thought "fighter' was an incredibly uncreative name. When I first started D?&D, I looked at the fighter class, and said "seriously? they couldnt come up with a slightly more creative/descriptive name?" If we do fantasy classes though, I would like a cavalry class, because they were major units in any medieval army.

erikun
2011-10-10, 01:27 PM
If this is a GitP-specific system, would the dice in your bag even matter? People will be using the forum dice roller anyways. Besides, I'd think that determining the type of system (roll-over? roll-under? dice pool?) first would be more important.

The big thing that I think is important in a PbP RPG is keeping the rolls to a minimum, and keeping the information to a maximum. That is, if there is an action presented to a player, they should be able to make one roll and determine how well they did without the GM posting a result. The back-forth between the player and GM work well at the table, but not so much online when they could be seperated by 12 hours.

Just for a quick example:

In D&D, each player goes on their initiative order, waiting for the other players. Each one declares a movement and an action, making rolls as necessary. After they have gone, the next player takes their turn, other players waiting until they have gone. The DM will occasionally pop in to make rolls for the defenders, perhaps for AoOs and such, and players may end up waiting on these results before choosing what to do (who needs healing, for example).


Let us consider our new system, and how this can be improved. First, remove initiative, so that any player can take their action at any time. Second, break it up into GM and Player "turns", so that the GM takes all the actions for monsters at once, and then allows the players to take actions. Another possibility is to make all actions happen at the same time, rather than assume that a turn "flows" or "progresses". Thus, there is no need to heal someone "after they have taken their action", because after they have taken their action would be the next turn.

Another idea is to allow the GM to make all the rolls for the enemies during their turn post - and I do mean all of them. Something like "The orc fires its crossbow at the fighter [r1d12] while the octopus tries to grapple the wizard [r1d12+5]." This way, the players can see right away what the "target" number is and determine if they get hit. Perhaps the fighter ducks behind some cover, giving him the extra defense to avoid the attack, or perhaps they charge ahead anyways, taking the damage while attacking on their own.

Just some initial ideas.


I have always thought "fighter' was an incredibly uncreative name. When I first started D?&D, I looked at the fighter class, and said "seriously? they couldnt come up with a slightly more creative/descriptive name?"
To be fair, the Fighter debuted next to the Thief and Magic-User, so they weren't unusual in being a generic, uncreative name.

Howler Dagger
2011-10-10, 01:49 PM
Let us consider our new system, and how this can be improved. First, remove initiative, so that any player can take their action at any time. Second, break it up into GM and Player "turns", so that the GM takes all the actions for monsters at once, and then allows the players to take actions. Another possibility is to make all actions happen at the same time, rather than assume that a turn "flows" or "progresses". Thus, there is no need to heal someone "after they have taken their action", because after they have taken their action would be the next turn.

Another idea is to allow the GM to make all the rolls for the enemies during their turn post - and I do mean all of them. Something like "The orc fires its crossbow at the fighter [r1d12] while the octopus tries to grapple the wizard [r1d12+5]." This way, the players can see right away what the "target" number is and determine if they get hit. Perhaps the fighter ducks behind some cover, giving him the extra defense to avoid the attack, or perhaps they charge ahead anyways, taking the damage while attacking on their own.

I implement the same sort of thing in my PbP games, so this is probably should be in the game. Also, does anybody have any idea on how to eliminate the need for grids in combat? I feel that they can be a pain to update every turn.

erikun
2011-10-10, 02:01 PM
Also, does anybody have any idea on how to eliminate the need for grids in combat? I feel that they can be a pain to update every turn.
Assume that every character can get to anywhere on the "battlemap" without difficulty? You'll want to create some rules for one character blocking the movement of another to keep them busy, but you'd probably want to do that anyways (compared to D&D). We might want to implement some restriction to make climbing up areas or moving across very difficult terrain, but if a character is not fighting anyone and there aren't any free opponents to bother them, they should have nearly free reign to go wherever they'd like.

Larger-scale tactical battles would still use a combat grid, but at that point you are dealing with small armies and just moving around becomes difficult.

I suppose I could design some weapon range rules for you if you really wanted, but D&D barely makes a distinction between the range of a halbred and a dagger.

Partysan
2011-10-10, 02:25 PM
An rpg for the forumers should probably be somewhat light in play but have a crunchy character creation to appeal to the builders.
Oh and I'm somewhat for avoiding lots of small modifiers. There's little more annoying than to browse through 5 tabs anytime I need to calculate my to-hit.

Zigg
2011-10-10, 03:56 PM
So what would happen to Bard or it's equivalent, if small modifiers are removed? Or would it just be stuff like rough terrain modifiers?