PDA

View Full Version : My FREE New TRPG Futurequest



8BitNinja
2016-02-09, 05:08 PM
Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,

I want to thank all of you for your support and ideas, I finally completed the draft

You can find it here (http://fogstudios.weebly.com/games.html)

Tell me what you think

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-02-10, 04:07 AM
Wow, that's big.

Congratulations on making it this far, having a game to show.

I like the long lists of classes and monsters (and vehicles, and weapons, and customization options, and special abilities, and...). They can definitely be a good basis for a world, especially when in a future version just a little bit more information about those nine factions makes it in.

What I'm missing, and that's kind of a big one, is the game itself. You've obviously thought it up, no game would have a stat like lung capacity without having mechanics for holding your breath and suffocating. But it's not in this document. Or maybe it is and I couldn't find it, in which case a good table of contents would help (the status effects for instance are wedged between the vehicles and the weapon attachments, not where you would naturally go looking for them, in a 175 page document).

All exceptions and special abilities aside (because those are covered in the descriptions of classes and monsters that have them), how do things like combat work? What else is important in this universe? Traps? Chase scenes? Space travel? How do those work? People need to know that to be able to play the game. Preferably the basic mechanics, everything you'd need as a new player to start playing (not including class descriptions and such of course), would be in a chapter of (with this font size and line distance) about 10 pages, maybe 15, but less is always better. That would make the game massively more accessible.

Accessibility isn't your main concern at this point. This version is for a small group of dedicated play testers, helping people pick up the game quickly is in some ways a concern for later. But it would make giving feedback a lot easier for us in the Playground. It's hard to be excited about even a friggin awesome wall climbing spider tank (or a car the size of a large tank with more hitpoints than an actual large tank, or...) when you don't know what move speed 2 or 15 actions per turn actually means.

So, yeah... My feedback basically boils down to "this is why I can't give feedback".

8BitNinja
2016-02-10, 09:42 AM
Wow, that's big.

Congratulations on making it this far, having a game to show.

I like the long lists of classes and monsters (and vehicles, and weapons, and customization options, and special abilities, and...). They can definitely be a good basis for a world, especially when in a future version just a little bit more information about those nine factions makes it in.

What I'm missing, and that's kind of a big one, is the game itself. You've obviously thought it up, no game would have a stat like lung capacity without having mechanics for holding your breath and suffocating. But it's not in this document. Or maybe it is and I couldn't find it, in which case a good table of contents would help (the status effects for instance are wedged between the vehicles and the weapon attachments, not where you would naturally go looking for them, in a 175 page document).

All exceptions and special abilities aside (because those are covered in the descriptions of classes and monsters that have them), how do things like combat work? What else is important in this universe? Traps? Chase scenes? Space travel? How do those work? People need to know that to be able to play the game. Preferably the basic mechanics, everything you'd need as a new player to start playing (not including class descriptions and such of course), would be in a chapter of (with this font size and line distance) about 10 pages, maybe 15, but less is always better. That would make the game massively more accessible.

Accessibility isn't your main concern at this point. This version is for a small group of dedicated play testers, helping people pick up the game quickly is in some ways a concern for later. But it would make giving feedback a lot easier for us in the Playground. It's hard to be excited about even a friggin awesome wall climbing spider tank (or a car the size of a large tank with more hitpoints than an actual large tank, or...) when you don't know what move speed 2 or 15 actions per turn actually means.

So, yeah... My feedback basically boils down to "this is why I can't give feedback".

The Factions will have to be covered in a separate book, each one has their own backstory, in-depth religion, code, government systems, and nations, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial, involved. Right now, they aren't a big concern, but I will be working on that

I will write on how combat works, I knew I forgot something when writing

Chases will work just like combat, but with space ships, and space travel will work just like moving from one town to another in a game that takes place on one planet

I will make rules for holding breath and lung capacity also, and as always, thank you

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-10, 11:06 AM
Okay, I'm going to be comparing it to my own homebrew sci-fi game Infinity Drive (the core rules are approximately half done, but I need to add in the 'modules' for vehicles, spaceships, psionics, political gameplay, aliens and so on).

Introduction: sounds like my game's basic premise, not much to say.

Character Creation: seems really short. I've got no idea how to generate my stats. Nice wide selection of species, I've personally only covered humans so far, and I'm not a giant fan of classes but your list seems nice, if a little combat focused. Personally I've spent just over a side of A4 talking about how to generate a character's numbers, and have voided classes in favour of skills and traits, but nothing bad.

Race, Class, and Faction Descriptions: okay, not a giant fan of classes and so only gave this all a brief glance. It looks workable.

Stats: here the font begins to hurt my brain, but looking at it, maybe a few too many stats. Are there skills in this? I wouldn't be able to say, but even in the skill-less game I'm designing alongside ID, there's only 7 stats (Might, Grace, Health, Mind, Charm, Presence, Bloodline).

Weapons and Armour: tables are your friend. Literally in this case, you could fit 10 weapons in the space it takes to stat the assault rifle, and have it much easier to look up the stats. I have trouble working out what weapons cost, what bonus armour gives, and so on.

Other Equipment: it is nice to see everything listed in a table. Not 100% certain what everything is meant to do, but I can get the gist of it.

Abilities: feel very video-gamey, and overly specific. In Infinity Drive instead of having to take a climb/rappel ability I can climb up obstacles with an athletics check, getting a tool modifier if I use them, and abseil down with an athletics or acrobatics check. I don't have time to read them all.

Vehicles: I am now completely lost. I have no idea what any of these stats mean. I need a cup of tea.

Status Effects: feel a bit video-gamey, but that's hard to avoid here, and I can work out what everything does.

Attachments: finally some rules that explain themselves! I can understand what everything does. Also something I explicitly left out of the Infinity Drive core rules because I wanted to focus on personal augmentation.

Constructions: again, rules are a bit confusing and feel videogamey. In Infinity Drive Most of these would just be Technician [mechanics] rolls to build or Engineer to design.

[B]Workbenches: again, very video-gamey. Infinity Drive doesn't have crafting rules at the moment, nano-fabrication is common in-setting, but when it does they'll be 'gather required materials and tools, get a day free and roll a Technician check'.

Roll Scores: Confusing rules. Also, oddly placed, I would have put this in much earlier.

Education and Rank: feels video-gamey, once a day limits don't make much sense, oh, and rank isn't explained very well.

Hirelings: simple rules, if worded a bit strangely.

AI: not sure why this is a thing. It feels like the poor man's version of Muses from Eclipse Phase.

Various statblocks: it's statblocks, I've seen them 100 times before, and they aren't presented particularly poorly.

Sleepwalking: weird concept, but interesting, and I'd be interested in more rules.

Unique items: yeah, same thing as the weapons and armour section really.

There, that's what I can really say about each section in turn. Generally, it seems really light on actual rules and heavy on the breaking of them, appears very combat focused, and could do with a big organisational reshuffle and table of contents. Not what I'd like to play, but there's definite promise.

YossarianLives
2016-02-10, 11:51 AM
This is an interesting system- I think it has a lot of potential. But... to be brutally honest, It has some glaring flaws. Do you really need a metabolism stat? It seems to me that vitality and constituiton could become one stat. The whole system far too top-heavy in some areas and is sorely lacking in rules in some areas.

I would recommend getting together a group of playtesters as has been mentioned up thread. Perhaps you could organize it in a play-by-post format on this forum.

8BitNinja
2016-02-10, 01:32 PM
Okay, I'm going to be comparing it to my own homebrew sci-fi game Infinity Drive (the core rules are approximately half done, but I need to add in the 'modules' for vehicles, spaceships, psionics, political gameplay, aliens and so on).

Introduction: sounds like my game's basic premise, not much to say.

Character Creation: seems really short. I've got no idea how to generate my stats. Nice wide selection of species, I've personally only covered humans so far, and I'm not a giant fan of classes but your list seems nice, if a little combat focused. Personally I've spent just over a side of A4 talking about how to generate a character's numbers, and have voided classes in favour of skills and traits, but nothing bad.

Race, Class, and Faction Descriptions: okay, not a giant fan of classes and so only gave this all a brief glance. It looks workable.

Stats: here the font begins to hurt my brain, but looking at it, maybe a few too many stats. Are there skills in this? I wouldn't be able to say, but even in the skill-less game I'm designing alongside ID, there's only 7 stats (Might, Grace, Health, Mind, Charm, Presence, Bloodline).

Weapons and Armour: tables are your friend. Literally in this case, you could fit 10 weapons in the space it takes to stat the assault rifle, and have it much easier to look up the stats. I have trouble working out what weapons cost, what bonus armour gives, and so on.

Other Equipment: it is nice to see everything listed in a table. Not 100% certain what everything is meant to do, but I can get the gist of it.

Abilities: feel very video-gamey, and overly specific. In Infinity Drive instead of having to take a climb/rappel ability I can climb up obstacles with an athletics check, getting a tool modifier if I use them, and abseil down with an athletics or acrobatics check. I don't have time to read them all.

Vehicles: I am now completely lost. I have no idea what any of these stats mean. I need a cup of tea.

Status Effects: feel a bit video-gamey, but that's hard to avoid here, and I can work out what everything does.

Attachments: finally some rules that explain themselves! I can understand what everything does. Also something I explicitly left out of the Infinity Drive core rules because I wanted to focus on personal augmentation.

Constructions: again, rules are a bit confusing and feel videogamey. In Infinity Drive Most of these would just be Technician [mechanics] rolls to build or Engineer to design.

[B]Workbenches: again, very video-gamey. Infinity Drive doesn't have crafting rules at the moment, nano-fabrication is common in-setting, but when it does they'll be 'gather required materials and tools, get a day free and roll a Technician check'.

Roll Scores: Confusing rules. Also, oddly placed, I would have put this in much earlier.

Education and Rank: feels video-gamey, once a day limits don't make much sense, oh, and rank isn't explained very well.

Hirelings: simple rules, if worded a bit strangely.

AI: not sure why this is a thing. It feels like the poor man's version of Muses from Eclipse Phase.

Various statblocks: it's statblocks, I've seen them 100 times before, and they aren't presented particularly poorly.

Sleepwalking: weird concept, but interesting, and I'd be interested in more rules.

Unique items: yeah, same thing as the weapons and armour section really.

There, that's what I can really say about each section in turn. Generally, it seems really light on actual rules and heavy on the breaking of them, appears very combat focused, and could do with a big organisational reshuffle and table of contents. Not what I'd like to play, but there's definite promise.

Thanks for your feedback, I'm working on fixing it right now,

for how much something costs, the base value modifier is applied to the tier weapon price

The AI is not really something that effects mechanics, just something you can ask for lore, think of the skull things in sigil from Forgotten Realms

Thank you for helping, I'll use your feedback

8BitNinja
2016-02-10, 01:33 PM
This is an interesting system- I think it has a lot of potential. But... to be brutally honest, It has some glaring flaws. Do you really need a metabolism stat? It seems to me that vitality and constituiton could become one stat. The whole system far too top-heavy in some areas and is sorely lacking in rules in some areas.

I would recommend getting together a group of playtesters as has been mentioned up thread. Perhaps you could organize it in a play-by-post format on this forum.


Thank you, I have assembled a team of playtesters and we are probably going to play sometime next week

Takewo
2016-02-10, 02:22 PM
It reminds me of games based on Rolemaster. I agree with mostly everything that Anonymouswizard said. It seems a lot of book-keeping and I'm not sure it's completely playable. Are you sure that you need stats like satiety or hydration? At the very least, I would combine them into one.

There are two other things that I find odd. The first one is that females get -2 strength and +2 speed. I'm no expert on physical training and stuff, but, if I recall properly, speed is closely related to leg strength. The other one is the fact that the male/female modifiers are universal for every race. Wouldn't it be more interesting if they changed for every race?

8BitNinja
2016-02-10, 02:39 PM
It reminds me of games based on Rolemaster. I agree with mostly everything that Anonymouswizard said. It seems a lot of book-keeping and I'm not sure it's completely playable. Are you sure that you need stats like satiety or hydration? At the very least, I would combine them into one.

There are two other things that I find odd. The first one is that females get -2 strength and +2 speed. I'm no expert on physical training and stuff, but, if I recall properly, speed is closely related to leg strength. The other one is the fact that the male/female modifiers are universal for every race. Wouldn't it be more interesting if they changed for every race?

Speed and Strength are separate in this game world, and the game is not supposed to be realistic

I'm still working on rules, and I just got a group together to playetest

I just edited it, here (http://fogstudios.weebly.com/) is the slightly new version

Takewo
2016-02-10, 03:42 PM
Speed and Strength are separate in this game world, and the game is not supposed to be realistic

I'm still working on rules, and I just got a group together to playetest

I just edited it, here (http://fogstudios.weebly.com/) is the slightly new version

Even so, you seem to like having loads of options and different sets of stats and skills. I think that providing different male/female modifiers per race would significantly increase your options. It could also be interesting towards developing different cultures and worldviews.

Also, in a game where everybody goes about with ranged weapons (which, looking at the weapon table, is the impression I get), strength is probably comparatively weaker than speed because it doesn't affect damage (I don't really know, though. It'd be cool to see combat rules when you've got them written), while speed increases your manoeuvrability. So I get the impression that females are a significantly better choice than males.

8BitNinja
2016-02-11, 10:13 AM
Even so, you seem to like having loads of options and different sets of stats and skills. I think that providing different male/female modifiers per race would significantly increase your options. It could also be interesting towards developing different cultures and worldviews.

Also, in a game where everybody goes about with ranged weapons (which, looking at the weapon table, is the impression I get), strength is probably comparatively weaker than speed because it doesn't affect damage (I don't really know, though. It'd be cool to see combat rules when you've got them written), while speed increases your manoeuvrability. So I get the impression that females are a significantly better choice than males.

There are melee weapons, and strength also affects carry weight

And you get the weapon's weight bonus to attacking melee, and melee usually does more damage

You also don't need to spend ammo on melee

8BitNinja
2016-02-11, 02:21 PM
Ok, so I edited it again, if you want to see the newer revised version, click on the link

obryn
2016-02-11, 03:23 PM
I agree with the posters above. I don't see any real rules... I can't decipher, from this rather substantial book, how this game is played. I see a lot of lists of things, but I'm left wondering how any of it fits together into a game. I can't find anything about how tasks are resolved, for example, or what an "action" is. This should be front and center so that readers can understand what impact the various character options will have on gameplay.

ImNotTrevor
2016-02-11, 10:16 PM
For the benefit of those reading, maybe you should include a section (or, even better, multiple sections) of the rules in action in a hypothetical game.

For instance, lets suppose I have a homebrew system and I want to explain how a particular skill check works. I could say...

"Lissander wants to pry open the bars of his cell, and so he rolls his Strength. His strength score is 5, so he rolls 5 dice. His dice fall at:
5,5,2,2,5. A great roll.
Each matched pair is counted, with the extra 5 dropped because it has no pair.
This gives us a Spread of 2.
Because the highest rolled pair is a pair of fives, that gives us a Power score of 5.
For this test we are only interested in Power, though, and so he succeeds and pries the bars open."

Yes, that specific rolling system is probably really stupid and I wouldn't use it personally, but it gets explained.

Your system is apparently based on D&D, so I think it assumes its audience has played D&D. Assume they haven't.

8BitNinja
2016-02-12, 12:23 AM
For the benefit of those reading, maybe you should include a section (or, even better, multiple sections) of the rules in action in a hypothetical game.

For instance, lets suppose I have a homebrew system and I want to explain how a particular skill check works. I could say...

"Lissander wants to pry open the bars of his cell, and so he rolls his Strength. His strength score is 5, so he rolls 5 dice. His dice fall at:
5,5,2,2,5. A great roll.
Each matched pair is counted, with the extra 5 dropped because it has no pair.
This gives us a Spread of 2.
Because the highest rolled pair is a pair of fives, that gives us a Power score of 5.
For this test we are only interested in Power, though, and so he succeeds and pries the bars open."

Yes, that specific rolling system is probably really stupid and I wouldn't use it personally, but it gets explained.

Your system is apparently based on D&D, so I think it assumes its audience has played D&D. Assume they haven't.

I'll add that, I'll get that to you when it is done