designing a brand new game, any suggestions?

[GoblinGilmartin]

My friends and i are starting a gaming company in the near future, and I figured that, in order for us to be somewhat popular, i should get some suggestions from hard core gamers on what they would like to see in a system.

This would be your chance to provide input
the only thing i know for certain is that we are going to be focusing heavily on use of the d100 and d10. any suggestions on what mechanics of it that you would like to see will be greatly appreciated.


EDIT: Ok, not many people seem interested in a D100 game, but it seems in almost every "suggestion", you people are just telling me you dont like complex emulations of D&D, which is presicely what we are trying to avoid. What we are asking is for you to give suggestions of what you would want in a game like this. What would perfect a d100 system, what would make it unique, fun and balanced? Thats what we wanna know, what you WANT, not what you DONT want.

[Studoku]

I'm going to admit, I've never been a fan of percentile systems. I prefer to have variable difficulties for checks- still possible of course (Dark Heresy does it) but harder to do.

What ideas do you have so far- I'm assuming you've got more planned than "I'm going to write a gaming system".

[GoblinGilmartin]

mostly just the idea for the first game, working title Puzzles & Pagans (yeah, i'm a Beck fan). it focuses more on mystery and riddles than combat, and would have your basic strength, Dex, intelligence, and then mental fortitude, and a couple others that i have most unprofessionally and apologetically fogotten at the moment.
It would be based on pagan and druidic mythology, with gypsies thrown in for flavor. I like to think of the tone as something akin to Call of cthulu, but without the horror and threat of going insane (sacrelige i know), i dont want to say too much more about the setting, but the system is my main concern.

I'm just looking for things that gamers WANT to see in a system, so that we have a jumping off point for when we really get down to business. It isnt as though we dont have an idea of where to go, we just dont want to create an entire system and then have people hate it, and then have to start all over.

and what do you mean variable difficulties?

[Partysan]

Not a fan of d100 either. Of course, at the beginning using percentages sounds cool and extra realistic, but you will soon realize that you pretty much never need a rolling system so exact as to be able to include the difference between 61% and 62%. And if you'd calculate in steps no smaller than 5% you can use a d20. Not to mention the high deviation of a single d100. I prefer bell curves.

To say something more positive: Your idea of a setting is something fresh and not often seen in RPGs.
What you should do next is decide to which type of player you want your game to appeal and construct from that onwards. Game mechanics should be used to achieve goals, so set your goals first and then design mechanics around it.

[Dr.Epic]

The ability to expand and invent your own elements to the game:

One of my favorite things about D&D and similar games is the shear number of secondary books that can help improve your build/game, but it's also how the game lets you homebrew your own ideas to the game to make it more creative and personal to you.

[Stubbazubba]

Here's a couple of similar threads from various places you can look at-

DnD Likes/Dislikes-
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=200234

Some interesting Combat Mechanics (this board can be pretty crude)-
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52376

Discussion of HP mechanics- (same crude board)
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52364

A list of rantings about poor mechanics and better ones-
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?...or-you-in-RPGs

[erikun]

I like a good percentile system, although I like it when the difficulty relates to the actual chances of success. That is, when a "difficulty 80" relates to having an 80% chance of success. Using a d% tends to imply percentages, and when the target numbers are wildly different from the chance of success, I wonder why the d% was used in the first place.

The whole "focus on mystery and riddles than combat" sounds interesting, but only if you have a good system for dealing with these mysteries and riddles. If it is just rolling a d% and add bonuses, but we strongly encourage DMs to come up with riddles and roleplay conversations, then I wouldn't be interested. I mean, I come to a new system to see new (or more efficient) mechanics! I'm not interested in the same exact thing as D&D, but with a differently sized die and to be told to roleplay more.

I'm not to keen on the current title. "Ayes & Ayes" gets a bit old after hearing it several dozen times, and it seems to imply "D&D derivative".

The setting looks like it has a lot of potential. How are you planning on working with the various pagen beliefs and rituals? It sounds like something that would have a lot of different subsystems, and where everything will not always be known - kind of like World of Darkness, actually.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I'm just looking for things that gamers WANT to see in a system, so that we have a jumping off point for when we really get down to business. It isnt as though we dont have an idea of where to go, we just dont want to create an entire system and then have people hate it, and then have to start all over.

You might want to check out a forum devoted to game designers then. There's a lot more to making a game than "giving Players what they want."

The Forge is as good a place to start as any. Good luck

[EccentricCircle]

I'd say that setting should be more important than system, the roleplaying games market is pretty saturated and its a lot easier to come up with a truly original setting than it is a unique and interesting system. If you have a brilliant and revolutionary set of mechanics then thats great, but I wouldn't try to come up with one to be the selling point of the game.

Go for a simple system thats easy to learn and use, and which fits with the themes and tones of your setting and try to use that as your selling point.

A complicated Behemoth like D&D is almost certainly not the way to go for an invesigation/puzzle solving game, as the more rules and mechanics there are the more there is to distract from the roleplaying itself. (which isn't to say that such games can't be played with a complicated system like D&D, I do it all the time and I know a lot of other people who do.) but a lot of D&Ds complexity comes from its focus on tactical combat. a system that doesn't focus on combat can afford to be a lot simpler and more freeform, while of course having detailed rules for whatever you want to be the focus of the game (maybe your magical rituals in this case)

So to get to the point I'd recomend a strong, simple skills system that can be adapted to any situation, then decide what you want to be the focus of the game and make that as detailed as possible to provide the options that the players will want. .

[Tengu_temp]

The ability to expand and invent your own elements to the game:

One of my favorite things about D&D and similar games is the shear number of secondary books that can help improve your build/game, but it's also how the game lets you homebrew your own ideas to the game to make it more creative and personal to you.

This approach works for a big game made by experienced developers. A small indie game should focus on its specific, unique premise, and making sure it handles it in a really good, interesting way. Otherwise nobody will care for it.

[The Big Dice]

The Forge is as good a place to start as any. Good luck

I'd say stay away from the Forge. It will just confuse you and avoid the issue of making a good game in favour of making a game that falls under an arbitrary and contradictory set of conceits.

Instead, play as many different RPG systems as you can for the next year or so. And don't just read them. Use them in play, see what works and what doesn't Take notes on what you like and why you like it. You can't make something new without having a solid grasp of what has come before.

Try different dice conventions. There's no shortage of options out there, from rolling a single dice to exotic and not so exotic dice pooling, yin-yang dice, bell and linear probability curves and many more. There's hundreds of ideas for task resolution, combat, damage, magic, technology and other things to incorporate into an RPG. Sample them.

Then start narrowing your choices down. Are you going for genre emulation or a generic system? How are you going to model things? Are you going to include anything quirky like L5R's Raises and Void Points?

There's a lot of work involved, and the value of research can't be overstated.

[DontEatRawHagis]

I've been trying to make a game for a year or two now with a couple of friends.(Only thing slowing us down production is school and work). Two questions I found myself asking: What system to use? Why is this different than other games out right now?

System:
You will find a multitude of systems to choose from, but will most likely stick with a d20 based one if your targeting the Pen and Paper crowd. Most likely similar to the one made popular by D&D, where you have attack bonuses and defenses yadda yadda yadda.

Equation:
Attack = ATK Bonus + random(d20) + Misc. Modifiers

If (Attack >= Enemy Defense)
{ Enemy is Hit}
Else
{ Enemy is Missed}

I like the way paranoia does it a little bit better, which is that the skill score you have is the DC to succeed, instead of 1 being crit. fail it is crit. success.

Example:
ToHit = 7
attack = random(d20) + Misc Modifiers

If (attack <= ToHit)
{ Enemy is Hit}
Else
{ Enemy is Missed}

Check out how other people do it, this way you might get an idea how to make the system as simple or complex as you want.

Why is this different than other games out right now?
First thing my friends and I said was that we wanted to stay away from High Fantasy. A lot of games already do the setting justice and we would be just another D&D clone, unless we could do something that D&D can't; ever since planar travel though this has become less and less true.

Also we needed the world to be relatable/realistic to people, though not too flushed out. This way we create a good jumping off point for the Gamemaster.

Remember that anyone can use games to play in whatever setting they choose. Such as doing "Lord of the Rings" in D&D or "Underworld" in Vampire The Masquerade.

[erikun]

System:
You will find a multitude of systems to choose from, but will most likely stick with a d20 based one if your targeting the Pen and Paper crowd. Most likely similar to the one made popular by D&D, where you have attack bonuses and defenses yadda yadda yadda.

Personally, I would have little reason to play a system that was d20+bonuses. I mean, I already have D&D and d20 Modern. Why would I buy another system that does the exact same thing?

[Honest Tiefling]

Be aware that pagan and gypsy are not the most politically correct of terms. A lot of people probably don't take offense to either, but a company might not want to risk it.

[Tvtyrant]

Be aware that pagan and gypsy are not the most politically correct of terms. A lot of people probably don't take offense to either, but a company might not want to risk it.

This statement edited for being Unpolitically correct. Move along citizen

[Dark Herald]

You will find a multitude of systems to choose from, but will most likely stick with a d20 based one if your targeting the Pen and Paper crowd. Most likely similar to the one made popular by D&D, where you have attack bonuses and defenses yadda yadda yadda.

This, in my experience, is simply not true. If you want a high variability and large spread in action resolution then a d20 makes (some) sense, but don't pick it because that's what D&D uses. WoD uses a d10 success system, lots of systems use a d6 dice pool, GURPS uses 3d6, and Dark Heresy uses percentiles, all of which are paper and pencil games and arguably more popular that D&D (if not separately then combined).

I personally find the idea of rolling percents to be tedious, especially when the percents could be emulated on smaller dice.

[Anxe]

Well, one of the fun things about the d20 system is when I roll a 1 or a 20. That's not going to happen as often in a d100 system. I can't rejoice as often for 1s and 100s. Perhaps if something special happened whenever I got a multiple of ten? Then I could rejoice on a 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100. I'd like that.

Also, d100 system works best with everything being based off of skills. (At least I imagine it does). A system similar to GURPS or Hackmaster would be preferred. I haven't played these systems, but you should give them a look and then not try to steal from them. GURPS' basic combat system would be nice (You roll to get above the opponent's dodge and then you roll your damage to get above their armor). You can throw in the Hackmaster combat system where when you are hit by an attack you can have the attack destroy part of your armor instead of hurting you.

And your setting idea... Not for me... I don't know anyone who is interested in druidic mythology. What type of pagan mythology you're using would be helpful (Pagan pretty much just means non-Abrahamic to me). And gypsies are also not very interesting to me. I don't think many "hard-core gamers" would be interested in playing in a setting with lots of gypsies. More information on this would be helpful to me deciding if I liked it or not. But from what you've given me... I would not buy this.

[Talakeal]

Mathematically, d20 and d100 systems are pretty much identical. However, rolling a d20 is simpler because you only have to role one die per result and because higher number = better is more intuitive.

Years ago when I started designing my system around d100, but then realized there was just no point, the extra precision you get from +1-4% modifiers almost never matters.

Frankly I don't see the point in trying to be original, every major dice rolling mechanic already has a game. Dice pool d6 = Shadowrun, d10 White Wolf, d100 CoC or Warhammer, d20+modifer D&D, several d6+modifier gurps and every board game known to man, dice type based on attribute Alternity and Several Indy Games I have seen, etc. Hell, you can even find games that you coin flips and trading cards if you look.

My preferance is either d20 + modifier or 2 or 3d6 + modifier, because both are simple and intuitive, with a high roll being better.

[GoblinGilmartin]

I like a good percentile system, although I like it when the difficulty relates to the actual chances of success. That is, when a "difficulty 80" relates to having an 80% chance of success. Using a d% tends to imply percentages, and when the target numbers are wildly different from the chance of success, I wonder why the d% was used in the first place.

The whole "focus on mystery and riddles than combat" sounds interesting, but only if you have a good system for dealing with these mysteries and riddles. If it is just rolling a d% and add bonuses, but we strongly encourage DMs to come up with riddles and roleplay conversations, then I wouldn't be interested. I mean, I come to a new system to see new (or more efficient) mechanics! I'm not interested in the same exact thing as D&D, but with a differently sized die and to be told to roleplay more.

I'm not to keen on the current title. "Ayes & Ayes" gets a bit old after hearing it several dozen times, and it seems to imply "D&D derivative".

The setting looks like it has a lot of potential. How are you planning on working with the various pagen beliefs and rituals? It sounds like something that would have a lot of different subsystems, and where everything will not always be known - kind of like World of Darkness, actually.

I only said that Puzzles and Pagans was a working title, nothing is certain at the moment, and my friends and i are still brainstorming ways to make the system work. Currently, we are just making a game system, such as the D20 system, but works with percentiles. Puzzles and pagans is just a prototype to break out the system. My friend has a plan to make his own game with the system thats more combat oriented with a system that supposedly will somewhat emulate games like fallout 3, we can be very agile with the system, we just need to finish it. Not asking for critique, just wondering what the people would want to see in a game of this calibur.

[erikun]

Well, one of the fun things about the d20 system is when I roll a 1 or a 20. That's not going to happen as often in a d100 system. I can't rejoice as often for 1s and 100s. Perhaps if something special happened whenever I got a multiple of ten? Then I could rejoice on a 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100. I'd like that.

Eclipse Phase uses doubles for their "criticals", with doubles and a successful roll being a critical success and doubles with a failing roll being a critical failure. Thus, if you really know what you are doing, you have a greater chance of doing exceptionally well. If you don't know what you are doing, you have a lot bigger chance of royally messing things up.

What would perfect a d100 system, what would make it unique, fun and balanced? Thats what we wanna know, what you WANT, not what you DONT want.

My friend has a plan to make his own game with the system thats more combat oriented with a system that supposedly will somewhat emulate games like fallout 3, we can be very agile with the system, we just need to finish it. Not asking for critique, just wondering what the people would want to see in a game of this calibur.

Well, the only thing you have mentioned so far is "we are going to be focusing heavily on use of the d100 and d10." This leaves a lot of things open, almost so much that it's hard to recommend any one thing.

I personally like roll-under systems for d100. For example, something with a difficulty 40 would require you to roll 01-40 to succeed. That would be a "40% chance of success", and could be stated as such for simplicity. Bonuses to skills would be added to the chance of success: if you normally have a 40% chance, but get +20% on the skill, then you'd be rolling against 60%.

For such a system, you'd probably want to keep the bonuses rather small. -20% to +20% in most cases, with +50% being "high level". Getting above +50% on skills means that the "plain talk" of the system stops making sense. Sure, you could challange someone with a +120% skill to something with a "normal -35% chance of success", but what does that even mean?

I'm not sure how much that messes with your plans of the system, though.

[GoblinGilmartin]

Be aware that pagan and gypsy are not the most politically correct of terms. A lot of people probably don't take offense to either, but a company might not want to risk it.

political correctness must die, sorry.

edit:
And i dont feel like i'm getting my point across. i want to know if there are any mechanics that you like from other d100 centric systems that we might look into. I'm not actually asking for help designing the system.

I might study up on white wolf and the d10 that they use (at least for the SFRPG)

as for the setting queries, i'm looking into celtic and north european, godess Eostre, solstice-equinox type paganism, and if anything i just posted there bugs anyone, i apologize. and the culture and pagentry of gypsies are really cool.

please, continue to post. I want to say thank you to the people who liked my setting idea. and i want to make it clear that i WILL NOT JUST USE D20 for this.

and the mysteries thing... we think we might include a page on the char sheet that is a place to write down clues and notes and such.

I wish to continue to read more from all of you. Thank you so far for all the feed back (even though it is barely a page right now)

[Jude_H]

That's a really neat premise; it sounds like a lot of fun.

Edit: I get that you're not going for a d20 spinoff, but I'm using d20 for a couple examples because it's a well-known system that makes some good illustrations. I'm also spoilering a couple chunks of this just for organization.

I'm generally more a fan of game engines that use more, smaller dice than those based on uniform distributions, especially with something larger than a d8.

Spoiler

Show

Typically one or more of these problems emerge with that sort of system:

1. The mechanics intrude on the fiction. Bill the Legendary Knot-Master has an increased ability to roll low and trip on a shoe-lace and No-Handed Joe can roll high to make some sort of Gordian tangle.

-or-

2. The numeric influence of characterization and narrative comes in large enough units that the engine dice are needlessly inflated. This can make things needlessly slow. (For a needlessly inflated example, it's much faster to add 2 and 1 in a d10 system than it is to add 217 and 95 in a d1000 system, and odds are the engine isn't nuanced enough for the number generation method to matter.)

-or-

3. The system works by nickle-and-diming meaninglessly small modifiers into larger situation-specific effects. These make paperwork and number-tracking absolutely nightmarish. eg. When I run d20, the game goes a lot like: "I wanna attack. Let's see: My normal bonus for my first attack is +11; I have the higher ground for +1; I cast Magic Weapon last round for another +1; I think I'm still under that Haste effect for another +1; I've been sickened, so that's a -2; I'm going to sidestep into a flanking position for a +2; Joe's Lucky Dice give me another +1; Sarah was singing a few rounds ago - does that still matter? And what am I at again?"

I don't want to take this to Ron Edwards extremes, but it does help to decide which part of the system you want to be interesting and to focus on that.

Spoiler

Show

You don't need to exclude other things, but try to make the part of the game that you want to be fun actually be fun. In d20, the combat system is deep and nuanced. It's a huge and engaging minigame of its own, involving rounds of rolls and responses. It's supposed to be fun and it succeeds. Contrariwise, the rules for negotiations or parlays are brief and flippant, mostly resolved with 2-3 rolls total.

If you're familiar with Spycraft, you can see where the AEG's original system started with the same core as d20, where infiltration, seduction, manhunts and other interesting areas of the genre started out running on the d20 base system. It lacked. The high-tension seduction scene that was supposed to be big and flashy and memorable came down to a single opposed check.

Spycraft 2.0 added nuanced subsystems for those genre staples that had been neglected. The system immediately became much more fitting and interesting for the kinds of stories that it was supposed to model.

One thing I often see is a needlessly complex combat system on a game that's not supposed to model combat. If a game isn't about fighting, that's a waste of time and shifts the emphasis of play. It can be more interesting to focus on the areas that the game is supposed to support. I'm not the biggest fan of Dogs in the Vineyard's base mechanics, but it makes a good illustration of a game where the tension comes from talking, negotiating and building up a conflict, before the bullets start flying. In DitV, the mechanics are more engaging in the discussions than they are in the shootouts, and gameplay adopts those priorities accordingly.

If you're trying to emphasize the horror and mystery elements, it'd be cool if you explicitly laid out specific rules for the things you expect to come up often or be important for your fiction (fleeing, skulking, negotiating, wherever else you want to point this).

Two of the earliest and most interesting questions in designing mystery/riddle games are Who makes the clues/riddles? and Who makes the solutions? I don't want to say that I always prefer those to be shared with the players, but it can be a lot of fun to divide certain aspects of narrative control that normally fall on the GM.

Also, I'm a sucker for metagame mechanics that reflect the in-game fiction. Things like poker hands in westerns. I think working something like tarot cards into the mechanics would be pretty slick if it doesn't get too heavy-handed. I'd be tempted to work them in as a minor but direct plot-mechanic like fate/plot points in Fate or Cortex.

I don't know how you're using the in-game engine, but just to voice one of my personal tastes: it's really cool to have degrees of success/failure instead of treating your dice as a weighted coin toss, especially as the rolled dice get larger. There are a lot of ways to do this: especially high or low rolls could carry benefits into later attempts, could share a bit of narrative control, could be tied into an advancement mechanism (but if the last, advancement's effects should probably be minimized).

Good luck!

[Tyndmyr]

This would be your chance to provide input
the only thing i know for certain is that we are going to be focusing heavily on use of the d100 and d10. any suggestions on what mechanics of it that you would like to see will be greatly appreciated.


EDIT: Ok, not many people seem interested in a D100 game, but it seems in almost every "suggestion", you people are just telling me you dont like complex emulations of D&D, which is presicely what we are trying to avoid. What we are asking is for you to give suggestions of what you would want in a game like this. What would perfect a d100 system, what would make it unique, fun and balanced? Thats what we wanna know, what you WANT, not what you DONT want.

You've given us exactly one feature to comment on. Unfortunately, I am not a fan of D100. The only thing it offers is greater precision. This is usually unnecessary, and results in only more complex arithmetic than would using a smaller number.

Complexity is not a virtue in itself, and should only be embraced if you have reason to do so. Don't start with the assumption of a D100 system. Start with a goal, and choose mechanics to support that goal.

As for the Puzzles and Pagans bit that came latter, Im afraid I'm also not a fan. The word Pagan is extremely broad, and doesn't tell me a great deal. Puzzles? I don't buy RPGs for puzzles. I buy a Soduku book for puzzles. Sure, a good dungeon may contain a puzzle or three, but the idea of roleplaying puzzle solving gypsies, while unique, is not terribly interesting. It doesn't bring to mind lots of ideas of things I can do in that setting. I buy ludicrous amounts of roleplaying stuff, including complete rulesets I've never even played, and I wouldn't crack the cover for any reason but "lets see how bad this is".

I suggest refining what your goals in setting are, and working backwards to gameplay, titles, etc from that. Nothing like a fascinating setting to draw people in.

[GoblinGilmartin]

so, how would a d10 system go over then?

[erikun]

so, how would a d10 system go over then?

For me? About the same as d100, or d20, or anything else. About the only noteworthy thing with d100 is the difficulty = plain-english chance of success. Outside that, the shape of the polyhedron doesn't make much difference.

[Tyndmyr]

so, how would a d10 system go over then?

If it fits, use it.

IMO, though, choosing the resolution mechanism matters more. Is it roll and keep, dice pool, poker hands, roll plus modifier? These things are prescriptive of dice size to some extent...I mean, nobody wants a dice pool of d100s. That's just not going to be reasonable. And roll plus modifier on say, a d6 doesn't give you a lot of range to work with. It determines other things about your game.

My system ended up being a D10 roll and keep, despite initially thinking I was going to use d6s. The d6s didn't fit the desired design goals, so they got dropped. IMO, a lot of work needs to go into the system before you make a hard choice on dice size.

[Oracle_Hunter]

In another thread, Totally Guy posted up the link to this blog post.

I think it might be an enlightening read

[Anxe]

That doubles thing that Erikun mentioned would be something I'd want.

My experience with the d100 system is that you have skills that are between 1 and 100. Lets use Climbing as an example. I have a score of 24 in climbing. If I try to climb an average wall I have to roll a 24 or less. If I try to climb a difficult wall I will get a +10 to my roll. Now I have to roll a 14 or less to climb the wall. Every time I level up I get to roll a d10 for some of my skills and increase them by that roll.

That would be what I'd want from the d100 system. Skills could be pretty much everything. Each magic spell could be a skill. Fighting with swords could be a skill. Dodging swords could be a skill. Building around that would make almost everything in the game the same, so there wouldn't be much for newbies to learn. The advanced stuff could be combining the skills together to do cool stuff or it could be in advantages and disadvantages, kind of like GURPS.

[Elana]

Many many years ago, I had homebrewed a d100 system.

It was the basic roll under skill system, but with a few noticeable differences.

1) It was not unusual for an experienced character to have skills around 400.

The catch being instead of adding difficulties to the roll, the difficulty would divide your skill.

So a hard task might be something like roll below 1/5th of your skill.


And in this case d100 actually makes more sense than a d20 as the lower values would cause more loss of ability due to rounding.

[GoblinGilmartin]

for mine, i had been thinking that stats would be out of 5 stars, dots, points, whatever, and they would modify the d100 rolls as such: 1=+10,2=+20,etc.

and about the necessisty of a d100 system, i can understand how it would get confusing with dice pools, but as for the earlier comment that you would never need rules for the differences between 65%-66%, that isnt the point. You wouldnt need those rules, but it doesnt have to be an issue. I know that too many big numbers gets confusing, trust me, but if you keep the numbers down, than i dont think it would be too much of a problem.