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Xercrus
2013-04-16, 06:56 PM
Hello everyone,
I am new to the forums (stumbled accrossed this community while doing research) and need some help on a project.

I am creating a RPG for a 9th grade Earth Science Class on Astronomy. The RPG is based in a futuristic setting of Earth. (years 2020-2060)
Background information: The world has fallen into a global war over resources. Water and food are both very scarce. Characters will choose a country and spacecraft to begin their adventure. Quests will include space travel to the planets of our solar system, extracting resources from comets and asteroids, as well as defeating enemy astronauts.


I have fairly limited resouces to create this game. My deadline for a basic storyline (including quests), as well as charater sheets, item lists, and a steady gameplay example is May 6th.

Because I am fairly new to making RPGs, I need a few tips. Is there anyone willing to help me out a bit and possibly give me a few ideas for possible storylines?

Thank You,
~Xercrus

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-04-16, 07:24 PM
So...Shadowrun (minus the magic) In Spaaaaaaaaace!!!!?

I'm in. First though, what dice system will you be using? Or is this a completely new system? More simple stuff can be done with D6's, but I always like the D20's complexity.

Second, what countries are there, and how will that effect gameplay mechanics?

Finally, how is the game split up? How much (percentage) of the game is designing the Party's ship? What sort of variety do you want in mission types? Will the players be expected to use surveillance to spy on another mining operation? How often can they be expected to fast talk their way past an encounter, and what are their options if the whole thing devolves into wild gun-play?

Rhynn
2013-04-16, 08:10 PM
So you've got 3 weeks? I presume you're planning something seriously simple, a few dozen pages?

The most important thing in designing a RPG is to know about 100 different systems. If you don't know 100, just knowing as many as you can is okay. How many RPGs are you familiar with? (All d20 OGL games count as D&D 3E, not separate games. And that includes d20 Star Wars and Star Wars SAGA.)

Do you have anything? Core mechanics? What dice are used? How do you resolve conflicts? There are plenty of RPGs that only spend a couple of pages on all of that stuff, so it's perfectly feasible. (Unfortunately, the best examples of very, very rules-light RPGs I know are in Finnish.)

Basic Fantasy is linked in my sig; it's free. The core rules (Parts 2 and 5 of the rules; Part 4 adds less than 10 pages) take up about 20 pages. Read them over a few times, for a good example of a light old-school game.

Also, the RPG FreeMarket may be relevant. Simple, very different from most RPGs (a very different approach might work well for what you're planning).

Grod_The_Giant
2013-04-16, 08:33 PM
Given your deadline and lack of experience, I recommend starting with an established system and modifying that. d6 Space (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=20447&it=1&filters=0_0_0_10020_0&manufacturers_id=468) is free, and is I think a Star Wars game with the setting filed off, and I've heard good things. It should provide a good starting point, if nothing else.

Rhynn
2013-04-16, 08:35 PM
Nothing wrong with D6s - plenty of games are built entirely on them.

For reference, since you say you're new to RPGs, here's a few basic principles to task resolution with dice. Many of these are mutually exclusive options - it's just a showcase of different ways to do things.

Rolling under: you roll dice, trying to get a result less than (or equal to or less than) a target number.
Rolling over: you roll dice, trying to get a result over (or equal to or over) a target number.
Bonuses or penalties: these modify either the target number or the die roll. Only use one or the other; if both target numbers and die rolls are modified, it gets confusing fast.
Trait determines target number: your character's traits (skills, abilities, etc.) determine the target number, above. If this is used, you should be using rolling under - because that means higher target numbers are good, and that's intuitive: the higher your trait/skill numbers, the better.
Trait determines dice rolled: your character's traits determine how many dice are rolled. This should be used with rolling over, again because that means that a higher trait (4D6 rather than 1D6, for instance) is better.
Trait applies bonus/penalty: Target numbers are either set, or determined by the task, and traits like skills are applied as a bonus or penalty to the roll. (Bonus is more intuitive, generally, adding the trait number to the result of the dice.)
Set dice rolled: all tasks (of a type) are performed by rolling a set number of dice. You should try to make this number universal across the game, for the sake of simplicity: no rolling 2D6 for skill tests but 3D6 for attack tests in combat (not that you need to include separate combat rules), and so on.
Task determines target number: the difficulty of the task you're undertaking determines the target number. This can be combined with traits that determine the number of dice rolled, or with or with the following...
Task applies bonus/penalty: the difficulty (or lack of) of a task applies a bonus or penalty to the dice roll.
Set target number: the target number for all tasks is the same. This works best with traits applying bonuses or penalties, or traits determining the number of dice rolled.
Adding up dice: when dice are rolled, the results are added up to determine whether a task succeeded or failed.
Individual dice: when dice are rolled, each die is considered separately. There's several variants, but the general one is that a set number (4+ or 5+ on D6, for instance) is a "success," and the number of dice that come up as successes determines how the task succeeds. Often this is combined with difficulty threshold - more difficult tasks require X number of successes to succeed at.


I've probably left out a few, but that's a bit of an overview...


Grod_The_Giant's suggestion is a good one, too - you are seriously short on time, IMHO.

Xercrus
2013-04-16, 08:39 PM
So...Shadowrun (minus the magic) In Spaaaaaaaaace!!!!?

I'm in. First though, what dice system will you be using? Or is this a completely new system? More simple stuff can be done with D6's, but I always like the D20's complexity.

Second, what countries are there, and how will that effect gameplay mechanics?

Finally, how is the game split up? How much (percentage) of the game is designing the Party's ship? What sort of variety do you want in mission types? Will the players be expected to use surveillance to spy on another mining operation? How often can they be expected to fast talk their way past an encounter, and what are their options if the whole thing devolves into wild gun-play?

Great! Thanks for the help!

Okay so because im new to the world of RPGs, I only have D6's. The RPG unfortunatly will also need the simplicity of D6's due to the short amoun of time i actually have to work on it. (a possible name is Striker Elite... name of a large ship in game.)

The countries are basically race and provide different stats dependin on which you choose. My friend and I are workin on the mechanics and equations for stats tommorow. To keep things fairly simple, The storyline will tell of how three countries prevail during the warfare and have strongholds in space: USA, Russing and England.

Ships will be like items and are rarer depending on higher stats. Each country will also provide beggining players with a basic ship. One of the character stats will determine what items players are able to use without difficulty. Hence, only a small portion on the game will involve actually creating/choosing ships but a larger percent will be the traveling of ships.

mission types I could use some ideas on. Some missions may be as simple as take item A to Location A and bring back Item B. Others may be long and in a players eyes challengingly dreadful.

I love your idea of spying operations it sounds like a great start to possible storyline choices.

players will have some freedom in fighting senarios, like the option to escape or even create self made plans that GMs will have to react to.

All out war all the time needs to be somewhat limited because the game also has to teach about our solar system including planets, Comets, asteroids, and the sun.

gun-play could be prevented by sudden CME (coronal mass ejection) disruptions or rogue objects that suddenly appear. this could limit players.

Hope to hear back from you soon,
~Xercrus

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-04-16, 09:12 PM
The most important thing in designing a RPG is to know about 100 different systems. If you don't know 100, just knowing as many as you can is okay. How many RPGs are you familiar with? (All d20 OGL games count as D&D 3E, not separate games. And that includes d20 Star Wars and Star Wars SAGA.)

That is exceptionally good advice.


Okay so because im new to the world of RPGs, I only have D6's. The RPG unfortunatly will also need the simplicity of D6's due to the short amoun of time i actually have to work on it. (a possible name is Striker Elite... name of a large ship in game.)

Simple enough. I've built a D6 system before, so I can pass on something at least. Do you want to roll over a target number? Count a given number of "Successes"?


The countries are basically race and provide different stats dependin on which you choose. My friend and I are workin on the mechanics and equations for stats tommorow. To keep things fairly simple, The storyline will tell of how three countries prevail during the warfare and have strongholds in space: USA, Russing and England.

England? Really? Okay (should consider China instead, but whatever). If you'd like to add a bit of whimsy (and perhaps avoid a racial issue with assigning stats) you could have Country determine what types of items the players can receive, or what abilities their ship will have.

Ex: The American's have a lot of big, powerful Rocket engines that lack some fine control. The Chinese equivalent is far cheaper, and with better controls, but tends to suffer technical malfunctions and has a slower engine. The Russian ships tend to be both massive, powerful, and put together like a 20 year old lawnmower: Lots of duct tape, band-aids and bubblegum. Or something to that effect.


Ships will be like items and are rarer depending on higher stats. Each country will also provide beggining players with a basic ship. One of the character stats will determine what items players are able to use without difficulty. Hence, only a small portion on the game will involve actually creating/choosing ships but a larger percent will be the traveling of ships.

It seems like Ships themselves are pretty important to any Space RPG. If you have any real-life knowledge of how rockets work, you could have that be an aspect of the game (allow players to purchase parts to improve their ships).


mission types I could use some ideas on. Some missions may be as simple as take item A to Location A and bring back Item B. Others may be long and in a players eyes challengingly dreadful.

I love your idea of spying operations it sounds like a great start to possible storyline choices.

Mission ideas:

Party is hired to tug a Station module from Earth to a Jupiter Helium Mining Platform. On the way, a rival team will attempt to sneak up on the party and hijack the module.
Due to an...incident between the Chinese and Americans, one of the smaller asteroids in the belt has been ripped in two. Normally, that's fine since there's virtually no chance of a collision. But your country had a secret spy station embedded there, and now it's up to you to rescue the personnel while avoiding the attention of the other nations (as the spy station is technically illegal).
A rival company has beaten you out for a government contract to deliver fuel to an observatory on Europa. Sabotage their ships or equipment, and beat them to the pickup point.
Scientists working for your government have determined that a comet that usually passing through the system without incident is now on an intercept trajectory towards Martian City. Redirect or destroy the comet.
A brand new Helium Mining Platform has been damaged on its way to Saturn by the planet's rings. Brave the storms of Saturn to rescue the miners, or effect repairs if at all possible.
A Spy satellite near Venus has been compromised. Head there and retrieve it's information. If it is in danger of falling into enemy hands, destroy it.


All out war all the time needs to be somewhat limited because the game also has to teach about our solar system including planets, Comets, asteroids, and the sun.

Well, it is for school. So I don't expect gun violence. But maybe a little laser-firing between ships would be acceptable? Plus it's easier to just assume it's the middle of a cold war. Actual war is bad for everyone.

Xercrus
2013-04-16, 09:14 PM
Given your deadline and lack of experience, I recommend starting with an established system and modifying that. d6 Space (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=20447&it=1&filters=0_0_0_10020_0&manufacturers_id=468) is free, and is I think a Star Wars game with the setting filed off, and I've heard good things. It should provide a good starting point, if nothing else.


Nothing wrong with D6s - plenty of games are built entirely on them.

For reference, since you say you're new to RPGs, here's a few basic principles to task resolution with dice. Many of these are mutually exclusive options - it's just a showcase of different ways to do things.

Rolling under: you roll dice, trying to get a result less than (or equal to or less than) a target number.
Rolling over: you roll dice, trying to get a result over (or equal to or over) a target number.
Bonuses or penalties: these modify either the target number or the die roll. Only use one or the other; if both target numbers and die rolls are modified, it gets confusing fast.
Trait determines target number: your character's traits (skills, abilities, etc.) determine the target number, above. If this is used, you should be using rolling under - because that means higher target numbers are good, and that's intuitive: the higher your trait/skill numbers, the better.
Trait determines dice rolled: your character's traits determine how many dice are rolled. This should be used with rolling over, again because that means that a higher trait (4D6 rather than 1D6, for instance) is better.
Trait applies bonus/penalty: Target numbers are either set, or determined by the task, and traits like skills are applied as a bonus or penalty to the roll. (Bonus is more intuitive, generally, adding the trait number to the result of the dice.)
Set dice rolled: all tasks (of a type) are performed by rolling a set number of dice. You should try to make this number universal across the game, for the sake of simplicity: no rolling 2D6 for skill tests but 3D6 for attack tests in combat (not that you need to include separate combat rules), and so on.
Task determines target number: the difficulty of the task you're undertaking determines the target number. This can be combined with traits that determine the number of dice rolled, or with or with the following...
Task applies bonus/penalty: the difficulty (or lack of) of a task applies a bonus or penalty to the dice roll.
Set target number: the target number for all tasks is the same. This works best with traits applying bonuses or penalties, or traits determining the number of dice rolled.
Adding up dice: when dice are rolled, the results are added up to determine whether a task succeeded or failed.
Individual dice: when dice are rolled, each die is considered separately. There's several variants, but the general one is that a set number (4+ or 5+ on D6, for instance) is a "success," and the number of dice that come up as successes determines how the task succeeds. Often this is combined with difficulty threshold - more difficult tasks require X number of successes to succeed at.


I've probably left out a few, but that's a bit of an overview...


Grod_The_Giant's suggestion is a good one, too - you are seriously short on time, IMHO.

Thank you both for your support.

I will look into other already established systems to obtain a better understanding of how other RPGs work to learn how to create my own.

I will be sure to keep looking at related topics to greater expand my knowledge of how RPGs work and how they function.

kyoryu
2013-04-17, 01:02 AM
My advice?

Apocalypse World hack :)

Xercrus
2013-04-17, 06:33 AM
My advice?

Apocalypse World hack :)

???? can you explain a bit

kyoryu
2013-04-17, 05:42 PM
Apocalypse World is a pretty streamlined RPG with a basic resolution mechanism that still manages to be pretty rich.

Due to the ease of creating additional character types within the system, it's been very quickly ported to an incredibly wide range of games - BSG, Monsterhearts, Monster of the Week, etc.

It's a great platform to build a game on, as it's robust, interesting, and easy to learn to play.

neonchameleon
2013-04-17, 06:47 PM
Thank you both for your support.

I will look into other already established systems to obtain a better understanding of how other RPGs work to learn how to create my own.

I will be sure to keep looking at related topics to greater expand my knowledge of how RPGs work and how they function.

I'm assuming you know how some version of D&D works. And possibly how the World of Darkness does - not that it's anything to write home about design wise.

Systems you really should know something about and that you can get for free.

GURPS (http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG31-0004). The biggest toolbox game (http://eudaimonaiaclaughter.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/tabletop-roleplaying-traveller-to-a-common-language/) going, GURPS has rules in some supplement or other to simulate just about anything.


Cinematic Unisystem (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/buffy/buffystuff/roleplaygame/). Simple to play, versatile, can cover a lot of things including different power levels of characters (there's only one Slayer (mostly) after all). Mechanics are about as simple as you can get - but there's a surprisingly solid design there.

Spirit of the Century (http://www.faterpg.com/dl/sotc-srd.html). (You can use d6-d6 rather than FUDGE dice). Ignore the damage rules btw - they are horrible and are significantly changed in the much better presented FATE Core (due out Real Soon Now). One of the games for evocative play, challenges, ane encouraging people to play their disadvantages and to accept in character losses. (If you can get FATE Core from someone who kickstarted it, read that instead - it's lighter, cleaner, and faster).

Wushu Open (http://danielbayn.com/wushu/freebies.html). This game does just one thing and does it very well. Encourages highly detailed and cinematic descriptions from even reticent players.

Systems you're going to have to pay for but are well worth getting hold of.

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (http://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Heroic-Roleplay-Basic-Game/dp/1936685167). The design of it is basically a clinic in the good innovations in RPGs in the past ten years.

Apocalypse World (http://apocalypse-world.com/) (or Monsterhearts (http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/monsterhearts/) or Monster of the Week (http://genericgames.co.nz/) if the themes appeal to you more). Very very evocative and with incredibly distinct themes/classes, and easy to run. Also uses 2d6 for task resolution. Well worth a look - and an Apocalypse World hack is probably the simplest thing you could do.

Fiasco (http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/games/fiasco/). I'd try to explain. But honestly, just watch the Tabletop session (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuJizhyf-y4) - and bear in mind that it's a good but not extraordinary session.

And while you're at it, Ron Edwards on Fantasy Heartbreakers (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/9/) (follow-up (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/10/)) is well worth reading - but don't dig into the rest of his writings deeply (seriously, his definition of simulationism is deeply flawed and that has a knock-on to the rest of his theories). For a better blog on game design, poke around Rob Donoghue's blog (http://rdonoghue.blogspot.co.uk/).

Oh, and while I'm at it, if you absolutely must use encumberance steel the Anti-Hammerspace Item Tracker (http://rottenpulp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/matt-rundles-anti-hammerspace-item.html).

Edit: And how did I forget the One Roll Engine (http://rpgsystems.wikidot.com/one-roll-engine)? A range of good games under that core system - I've heard best things about Monsters and Other Childish Things (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=521&products_id=51541&filters=0_0_0_0&manufacturers_id=521&affiliate_id=48458) but don't actually own it myself. It's also not a system I'd recommend for beginners.

Also Savage Worlds - I don't get on well with it but it's light and fast and I'm told the deluxe edition has design notes.