Game Design General

I like the style of the sheet. Looks very clean and you can read it without anything in the middle. Well done!

Grrrr just noticed the spacing problem with the first Weapons ( ) [ ] under Systems. Don't know how that happened...

Recognized that font instantly, we use it at work for every-fucking-thing like some workplaces use Arial or TNR... It looks so much better on headers than it does in a report body.

Bear with me, this isn't a typical game that you see in here, but, seems like the right place to discuss it.

INTRO:

I have been working on this game concept that is based off of a previous random sms app I built. Where you could message a phone number and that would randomly connect you with another user who also messaged the phone number, it was a fun experiment, but kind of trailed off as there is not much to do after you shoot the shit for a bit.

TECH:

The only interface to the game is SMS, you text the game's number and you receive replies from the game. I like this as a kind of cyberpunk-ish interface and the real life feeling of sending messages to others out in the wild. Don't worry though, all the messages go through the game's number so your phone number is never exposed to the other players, and it will follow the standard SMS rules of if you send "STOP" to it you will immediately and forever stop getting messages from the game. I have all the tooling to do the message dispatching so don't worry about the technical side of it.

GAMEPLAY:

You are given a key-code and all other players are given a key-code as well. This is just a random string but key-codes are at the heart of the game. Key-codes have roles or properties associated with them that alter your player. I will go into more detail on that in a minute. The goal of the game is to trade with enough other players and find out enough information that you have the correct sequence of key-codes. You have one try to submit the correct key-codes that you have traded and collected.

You start off with only one key-code slot and one key-code. You are given a list of other players 'callsigns' where you can initiate a trade, report them to the GM, or just send them a private message. You trade to create different combinations. The reason to collect codes is that this is how you will win, but you need to gain a few slots by either 'outing' another player.

I can't even fathom using Agency for body text. My eyes hurt just imagining it.

Fixed that Weapons spacing thing, for my own peace of mind.

I used up all the space, but looking for feedback on concept / gameplay. Or if it doesn't sound interesting. Thanks All!

looks like you had a lot of fun designing it.

Point cost balancing: How the fuck does that work?

How much should I weigh range over damage over speed? I know force multipliers like buffs and debuffs are something that needs playtesting and will vary enormously with crunch, but where do I even start? Copying other TTS systems seems like a bad idea, because I haven't found a one that is transparent about their point cost formulas, and many have outside factors (like sales numbers) guiding point-effectiveness on a unit-to-unit basis.

I'm not asking for someone to make my system, but can anyone point me to writings on theory for this kind of thing?

The idea seems pretty solid, but I think for something like this I would really need to see an actual example of it being played before I could really understand it fully.

How far along into development is it?

Man, I wish I had a system, would make things much easier.

Right now I go with what feels right and then playtest the hell out of it to see if I'm in the right range.

I love the design.

So here's the deal. There isn't a formula. It's all about

A) the feel of your game. Do you want fast paced and lethal? Slow tanky stuff? What do you want your players to do. Make up pretty arbitrary numbers and then go to step b.

B) playtesting. Playtested the shit out of it. It really depends on what the game is and how players like it.

C) always drive towards the scene ending. Bias towards hitting things, bias offense over defense and bias towards players succeeding. We don't want to sit there whiffing and doing nothing...so make the game mechanics encourage a satisfying conclusion.

Experimentally, I've found that a base 60% chance of success is reasonably satisfying. 50% feels bad. 3-6 hits to down someone makes for a satisfying combat. Any longer just drags on.

Check out REIGN, which is the base game I'm hacking to create this Homebrew. The form of the document arises from the needs of the system.

Well, the point is that it is meant to apply to player characters to get a rough "combat value" for them that encounters can be balanced against. (so non-combat-optimized characters don't inflate encounters and become a burden.)

Since it's not being applied to pre-made units, it kind of requires a formula of some kind. NPCs on the other hand can be done up by feel easily enough.

Thanks for the feedback. I have the infrastructure built for assigning call signs (aliases or whatever) and allowing messaging. I am looking for some ideas on what interesting key-code behavior. I think stuff like granting a slot when you are holding a certain key-code or forcing a player to lie. That kind of stuff would be interesting and add a little more interest to the game. I also am considering a group chat, but I don't know if that would be too much over sms, probably.

Just a follow up question, is the game designed to continue if someone just stops playing?

Because it is done over SMS/Group Chat and possibly connects to random people, you would need some sort of way to "move" a player on to another person if they withdrew, right?

Yeah the game continues until there is a winner. I don't really have an idea of time limit or anything that would terminate the game. I guess it is kind of like PBM (play by mail) in that sense, just however long it takes for the game to finish. I would definitely put stuff in place where if a user didn't respond in 48hrs or something, then they would be out, and their codes would possibly have some other way to obtain them.

Okay cool! Well I'll be following your development if you keep posting here. It would be interesting to see the final version in the future.

My (nearly) completed game now, got to add some fluffy stuff and new material as well as added in some new game rules, especially 'Shock'. Quite a fan of how this turned out.

Yea I had a lot of fun deliberately trying to make it as crazy as possible while still useful (to me). Currently I'm thinking to make the final version look like modern-day computer UI was transcribed onto stone tablets if I can pull that off.
Summary coming tonight!

This is some pretty heavy simulation for my tastes, but your graphic design is very nice. There are some more typos in the second PDF than just the one you noticed tho, take another look through.

This sounds super rad and I would definitely be down to play such a game. Check out AGDG on Veeky Forums if you want to talk to some people more on the coding side of things.

There are ways you can just math it out, but either it gets very complex, or your game is very simple and repetitive.
"Drive towards the scene ending" is good advice, but if the best move is always to attack, there's no tactics to be found.
Create ways for players to gain an advantage that they can leverage for the win.
Read Sun Tzu. Seriously. He gets it.

R8 my gnome racials

Squishy-Gnomes can compress themselves to half their size by evacuating the water in their body through one orifice or another, while in this state they can squeeze through openings as small as 10CM. while in this form they take double physical damage.

to regain their original form they must consume or absorb through their skin about 2L of water

while dying a gnome reverts to a geletan blob like state, while in this state they regenerate 1% max HP every 5 minutes until they are at 1HP or above, in addition they take half damage from all sources

a gnome does not lose HP while dying like a normal creature. but they also cannot take actions

I didn't mean that the best move is always to attack. I meant that the average damage potential should be higher than the average defense potential. If there are two equal combatants, it shouldn't grind everything to a halt. There should definitely be tactics, but attacking moves should in general be slightly more effective.

Or rather, moves that push people closer to being out of the scene should be more effective. Wether that is status, damage or whatever.

>This is some pretty heavy simulation for my tastes

How so? My goal is to aim for something a lot less crunchy than, say, Traveler, but still with enough meat to interest you long-term.

My main concern is if the documents are too busy or cramped.

New links:
gatekeepergaming.com/article-6-how-to-get-minis-made/
boardgamegeek.com/thread/838422/mass-production-custom-made-miniatures

This would work better as an app ala Subterfuge, since SMS are old and expensive.

Something is niggling at me about how the game plays, and I have no idea what. I think it's the trade thing, which is kind of straightforward. Or maybe it's the key-codes and slots thing and how exactly you need to determine you have the right key-code? I have no idea.

I will say however, that:
1. You need to present an interesting puzzle to be solved
2. You need a reason for players to withhold information
3. You need a reason for players to expose others

What's the best way to categorize different "sizes" of die? That's just the word I'm using but it seems awkward. I'm talking bout d4 vs d6 and so on.

Not disagreeing, slow battles are the worst.
My comparison is to an RTS; if you're equally matched, you don't throw units into the grinder, you focus on economy until your army outmatches him.
I'll post my ruleset soon maybe it will clarify what I mean.

I just really don't like long or involved rules at all. They take too long. Drawing ten different battle stations for my ship is too long. Sorry mate.

Has there been a homebrew for pic related? If not I've been considering making one with the new D&D system.

Basically it's middle fantasy. Fairly standard stuff except magic comes in two flavors. There's sympathy and naming. Basically anyone can do sympathy to some degree, and it's largely a science that requires some incantations and sygaldry. It's interesting in that the universe rules state that you can only move energy, which is how this magic works to bind two objects together so that whatever you do to one object happens to the other.

Naming is much rarer and is more innate. Typical "knowing the true name of something gives you command of it" stuff.

It's an incredible universe and the groundwork for sympathy magic could create some really really cool situations.

In the book the main character uses sympathy to bind a corpse to a group of bandits and kills them all by mutilating the body, nearly killing himself in the process because he only has his body's heat as an energy source.

Not that I know of

In my setting XP is used for several different things:

>measure of notoriety or social capital
>abstract measure of wealth
>character advancement
>hero points

Players gain XP by roleplaying according to their background and accomplishing certain milestones. What I've been thinking of doing is using taking away XP as a punishment for certain conditions, like failing a willpower save costing you XP but the actual effect being much more mild.

WELL I was just typing up the combat from my notes and wouldn't you know it there's problems.
so here's chara creation and a little around the world.
I need to take a break from staring at this screen, will be back later or tomorrow.

pastebin.com/ejYmeRpx

Following in the footsteps of Fromsoft, Hideo Kojima has licensed YOU to do a Boktai board game.

He won't be satisfied unless the game makes use of actual sunlight conditions in some way.

What do you create?

Sunlight laser traps everywhere.

While the setting itself seems interesting, I'm not sure if D&D would be the right medium for it. That said I don't know enough about RPGs to give a proper suggestion either. Figuring out the limits for sympathy to work in the system you choose is going to be an interesting endeavor atleast.

Probably some sort of magic ink that changes depending on the luminosity value in the area. Or use a real world time thing that affects the game depending on what time you play. Neither uses actual sunlight though.

Everyone doth Praise the Sun! Sun God only God because the Sun God powers divine energies.
Moon powers arcane magic, because they're filthy witches.
I don't know anything about Boktai, but that's what I'm going with.

You're right about D&D not being great for this. My initial ideas revolved around a bonus/malus system to be used. The books explain really well how you can link anything with an effectiveness based on their similarities. For instance, if you take some ash from a roaring fire, you can create a really good link to that fire since it actually came from it, so a bonus.

Conversely, you might have to use multiple links to get the desired effect. In that case you have to separate your mind and individually maintain links between the separate objects. So, a deduction from your overall roll.

The whole thing is you have to believe hard enough that the two are one in the same.

Character creation would benefit from a D&D system, or even something like Shadowrun. The arcanists are only one type of person in this world. You have tons of musicians, thieves, soldiers, priests, a shadowy organization of religious knights cast away from their church, mercenaries, super mercenaries who utilize a martial teaching that favors neither good nor bad but only right.

Frankly, sympathy limits might be my easiest challenge. Maybe this would be better as a Shadowrun D6 system.

Where's the best place to start working on something like this?

After reading an article, I really should've mentioned vampires along with the witches, it was a poor ommision.

Realistically, I'd include UV sensitive pieces That would change color based on their sunlight exposure. Different colors would represent different levels of power. Might consider a dungeoncrawler/roguelike for mechanical inspiration. You'd need to periodically swap out pieces that got too low on charge, which means aiming for certain extraction points. Actually, something like Dark Souls styled action on a board sounds pretty good. Gotta hit those bonfires to swap out a fully charged piece while the recently used pieces start recharging.

That actually sounds like a fun game.

>I just really don't like long or involved rules at all. They take too long. Drawing ten different battle stations for my ship is too long. Sorry mate.

Fair enough! Different strokes and all. Glad you at least appreciate the layout.

Working on adapting a vehicle creation method at the moment and would really like some feedback as to which method "feels" better.

Suggestions would also be handy, as this is very much a WIP.

bump

I've compiled a list of skills for an fantasy RPG I'm working on. These are supposed to cover nearly everything a character might have to do, so that I can work as much of the game as possible into a single skill mechanic. Skills with (...) need to be specified further.

Acrobatics - Arts (...) - Blocking - Brawn - Climbing - Deception - Diplomacy - Disguise - Dodge - Driving - Escapism - Foraging (...) - Grappling - Handle Animal (...) - Healing - Hunting (...) - Intimidate - Language, Spoken - Language, Written - Lore, Culture (...) - Lore, History - Lore, Magic - Lore, Nature - Lore, Nobility - Lore, Occult - Lore, Region (...) - Lore, Religion (...) - Lore, Science (...) - Magic Item Attunement - Mechanisms - Notice - Perform (...) - Poison Use - Profession (...) - Resistance, Mental - Resistance, Physical - Riding (...) - Rope Use - Running - Sailing (...) - Sense Motive - Spellcraft (...) - Stealth - Survival (...) - Swimming - Tracking - Trading - Trickery - Two-Weapon Fighting (...) - Unarmed Attack - Urban - Weapon (...)

I guess it's kind of a bitch to read, but I'd appreciate any input. Are there things that need to be combined, in your opinion? Or even things that need to be more granular?

If this thread survives the Weekend, I'll take a look at this. At a glance, I'm definitely interested in what you've put together though.

Had an idea that is basically War and Rock, Paper, Scissors combined, but with some more strategy.

Basically you would have a hand of cards, each card belongs to one of three suites. Each player plays a card, face down, then both players reveal the cards at the same time. One player wins that round based on their card beating the other (like RPS)

Obviously the cards would need to do things to make the game interesting, maybe even a system where some cards belong to more than just one suit. Or even more that just three suits.

I dunno, I have random ideas and I like to share them. Most of them don't go anywhere and I already have 2 games I am working on. Just thought I would share.

Ive run into a bit of a problem with my damage system.

to be brief, characters have a Physique stat (generally 2-6 and a Vitality secondary-stat (generally between 20-40). When you take damage (generally 1-6) you subtract that much from your vitality, and if the damage is greater than 1+vitality/10 (rnd down) you also take a wound (or two if it doubles that number, or three if triple, etc...) which reduces your physique by one, penalizing all of physique's substats (stuff like vitality, strength, and speed)

This works well for melee combat, as the Vitality score is representative of your ability to avoid critical harm (like hp is often an abstract of) slowly being whittled away by small injuries and bloodloss, increasing the odds of a telling blow as the fight wears on.

where it stops making sense of for ranged combat. You don't shove arrows to the side, or instinctively defend your vitals from bullets. Whether it hits a vital or not is entirely up to luck, or the skill of the marksman.

My best idea is to have a high degree of success (twice as high a roll as needed to hit) count as wounding, but then there is no way to distinguish how many wounds are dealt (if the gun deals 6 damage, pretty average, dealing six wounds because you rolled high would instantly kill basically everyone)

any thoughts? general info on how guns injure people irl would still help, though I've done some reading already.

Foraging and Hunting could easily be combined. The idea is you're getting food out in the wilderness, and foraging and hunting are just two different types of that same idea. Survival would be even more general, with Gathering Food being a thing you could do within the Survival scope.

Animal Handling and Riding could also potentially be combined, as Riding is a subset of the more general Handling of an Animal.

Well, if the dice represent luck, then they don't have to only represent actions taken to affect incoming attacks. With both bows or guns, a lot can happen during flight to affect the trajectory of the projectile. Just because you aim, doesn't necessarily mean the projectile actually lands exactly where you want it to, especially in the stress of combat.

The dice tell you what happened, so if the dice say there wasn't a crit, then the arrow might have gotten close to the heart, but didn't actually hit anything vital. Or, the bullet did enter the body, but the fragmentation missed anything important. If there wasn't that level of randomness present, then you wouldn't actually need to roll dice to represent damage/quality of attack.

Looking forward to getting some feedback. It's surprisingly hard to get people interested, sadly.

Bump

Tell me about it. I've been working on my ORE sci-fi supplement for about a year now, and feedback has been pretty limited due to lack of public familiarity with the system. It's nice to see someone else who knows about it.

I recall from many years ago I had a fantasy map generator which was hex-based and which had an automatic function which allowed you to input how often each type of terrain (mountain, river, desert, etc.) occurred next to each other type and would generate a map from it, and you could then alter it manually as you so wished. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be on my computer anymore. I don't suppose anyone knows the program to which I'm referring?

It was free and it was not in-browser.

[Dragon Forest]

New version!
Change log:
Added cut content back to the introduction chapter. Will move around later.
Added alchemical items including bullets, bombs, poisons, and medicine.
Added rules for magical scrolls
Added more utility skills (20 now!) along with utility spells.
Expanded and rearranged the GM chapter a bit, including expanded monster creation and expanded trap creation.

Seeking playtesters.

There's a reason real-world snipers don't go for headshots: it's hard to hit moving targets. Once the projectile is in motion, you have no control over its course, so if the target moved in the instant before you fired, then you're less likely to hit.

It is possible, in a sense, to dodge a bullet, but it's more than you're dodging the shooter's sights. Thus the idea of running serpentine.

All of this to say, I think you're overthinking it. If you're aware someone's trying to shoot at you, you can make it harder for them to land a square hit. Maybe make it more difficult than blocking a melee attack would be by applying some kind of penalty, but the same system should work for both.

I'll also throw in the classic making-a-good-game-is-more-important-than-realism.

Why are you trying to do that? How do you think it will enhance the gameplay experience to have every single facet of a character's capabilities reduced to a number?

Skill based games are a thing.

And when we talk about things like the NFL Draft (because its coming up), we do this in real life often.

Still, it shouldn't mean they're all on the same level and are all considered to be the same category. Such as, for example, making Lore skills independent from the rest. Because otherwise you wind up with things of wildly disparate usefulness, like how good you are at using magic items vs. how good you are at using rope, all being graded on the same scale. Which is why the 3e skill system, from which this is clearly cribbed, was such a mess.

The main reason the 3.5 skill system was so terrible wasn't because everything was on the same scale, but because the scale was shit.

You had to keep track of skill points independently, there were a shitload of skills (many of which were useless), then you had synergy bonuses to keep track of, cross class skills went up one rank per every two skill points you had, and so on.

As long as that user avoids those downfalls, I think the system will turn out alright.

Never mind; it's Hexographer. I found it.

That's not necessarily a fault of the system rather than the fault of the people using it. Its like blaming a computer program for not working the way you want it to. Computer programs can't be wrong, due to the nature of their code. However, its very often the case that people use the programs in a way they weren't intended to be used, and then complain about it.

Also, you can in fact make a game using those rules where every skill has equal value. Making that true is up to the DM and players, not the mechanics.

>wasn't because everything was on the same scale
That was a very big part of the problem, especially in Pathfinder. UMD was king, Perception was as good as four other skills, the difference between Spellcraft and Knowledge: Arcana was nebulously defined and pretty arbitrary, and Performance wasn't all that useful but was endlessly divided up so that you had to invest as much of your resources into being able to play both trumpets and trombones as you did into being able to use magical devices and ride a horse.

It is a fault of the system if it's needlessly byzantine, top-down, and composed with no conception of what they're trying to accomplish other than copying a mechanic from Diablo for their hastily stapled-together cash grab.

A couple more problems with it:
1) Too few skill points spread out over too many skills.
2) At higher levels, the disparity of skill ranks between one character and another can make it exceedingly difficult for the DM to create balanced challenges.

>want to make setting agnostic system
>really love world building

It hurts to live

Make a setting agnostic system and then make an official setting as a separate book. Sounds like a pretty reasonable compromise to me.

In short, I've been considering making taking the One Role System, and trying to make it setting agnostic. I like its core mechanic for resolving tests, despite the fact that it gives my players aneurisms just trying to think about it. (them being very fond of roll 20 systems).

I am going to start collecting all the rulebooks that use the system (I only have Reign), so that I have more to work with.

Any advice on going about this? I expect this to take a long time (at least a year). I am hoping to end up with something like the Savage Worlds core rulebook, and then MAYBE take it to something that would allow GURPS level of customization.

I know that this is probably an insane undertaking, but you know what they say: SANITY IS FOR THE WEAK!

I've thought a bit more about the gameplay.

I am calling them hashes now (instead of keycode, seems more thematic, and makes more sense in gameplay too). Your goal is to be the first to create a 6-digit hash (this is an arbitrary length but enough to have to do some work to get it). Say there are 12 players that each start out with a 1-digit hash, and 1 slot. After 5 successful trades (again arbitrary) you are granted another slot because you have gained reputation as a hasher.

You get longer hashes by combining them together, e.g. if you have A and B and you combine them you either get BA or AB back as your new single hash. Each combination has a different behavior.

You can either trade a legit hash, or you can trade a spoofed hash. A spoofed hash is a fake hash that isn't actually valid but the person you are trading it to doesn't know it, until they try and combine it. Combining with a spoofed hash will destroy each hash involved.

I need to figure out hash behaviors I think that's where it gets really fun (I am thinking along the lines of cosmic encounter).

mega.nz/#F!QtIG1YBQ!RPRI6TGgL3HYQFtJR_zQ4w!NlA1ATSK

I think you'll find that the mechanic set as presented in the Enchiridion is very close to setting-agnostic. It includes a small subset of Reign's stuff as examples, and that's all. It's hardly a setting-agnostic presentation, though, and it doesn't include any information from Stolze's other games like NEMESIS' firearms and sanity systems.

I'm currently compiling and adapting things for a Battletech-style game in the O.R.E. system, so I know the feeling.

The system itself is fairly easy to adapt to any setting. You really just need to rename things to fit. Things like Madness from Nemesis may have to be tweaked, depending on what you want, but the core rules are pretty solid.

I'm trying to do this because it's to be a skill-based system. These values represent areas of expertise players may want their characters to specialise in, and they all 'plug into' the same task resolution mechanic. This is not entirely uncommon, is it?

It's primarily cribbed from Rolemaster, but I've borrowed terminology from 3.5 as well. I've already trimmed down the 200+ list of skills from Rolemaster because you're right: not everything under the sun needs to be judged on the same level. This list is what I've come up with so far, but I'm certainly still refining it.

I'll agree that being able to control magic items sounds vastly more impressive than knowing how to tie different knots, but either option can be equally useful in the right situation. IMHO, they're both areas of expertise that can't really be combined with anything else if we're trying to maintain about this level of granularity.

They're both useful in certain situations, but one of them is significantly more useful in more situations. Unless the average magic item is appreciably less useful than rope, they're still pretty unbalanced,

I can't agree completely. This is all a bit theoretical unless we compare an exhaustive list of magical items, but I'm thinking of items that perform a magical trick for a single purpose or situation.

Sure, players may get creative, but I consider it important to make sure magic doesn't become the be-all, end-all solution. This includes not simply going "Ya did it!" when a player has a spell or magical item that's tangentially related to the task at hand.

I guess ropes just sound unimpressive and mundane, but I feel like there are situations that require ropes, and situations that require specific magic tricks, and both warrant a skill.

I'm unsure about including Rope Use, by the way. It's just not because I feel it's too specific or useless compared to other skills. I've had some negative player feedback regarding whatever the rope skill was in that particular other game. They felt like tying a decent knot should be an automatic success for anyone who isn't utterly incompetent. I'm inclined to agree, but I feel like it's a slippery slope.

>They felt like tying a decent knot should be an automatic success for anyone who isn't utterly incompetent. I'm inclined to agree, but I feel like it's a slippery slope.
The problem is that merely tying a decent knot doesn't warrant a roll (unless the character is under pressure). As the GM, take a long, hard look at what you're requiring rolls for. The general rule of thumb in most systems is that you should only require a roll if failure would be interesting. Eliminate dumb boring pointless rolls from your game and I guarantee it will go better.

That sounds like a quick way to destroy everyone's hashes. Consider putting limits on creating spoofs, and instead of destroying a has, just degrade it one step backwards

I feel the same way, but this specifically came up when they were tying up a captive. Messing up the knot would mean that the captive could escape at some inopportune moment, which I felt was enough dramatic tension to warrant a roll.

Given the ability to destroy hashes, a single hash and slot per person could make things pretty hard. A recommendation I have would be to have several 1-digit hashes at the start, perhaps a fixed amount of real hashes and a fixed amount of spoofed hashes. That way if a person traded in their fake hash (assuming traded means they lose the hash they gave to get the new hash), a player can deduce their remaining amount of spoofs, and so trade safely with them. And rather than destroying hashes outright, the spoofed hashes should have their own behaviours as well.

Not knowing the behaviours of any of the hashes you have could make things interesting too. Maybe also give the abilities to:
1. Trade in to the bank/GM a hash to reveal the behaviour on the other hashes you have, up to the amount of digits on the traded in hash
2. Trade in a hash for a new equal hash
3. Gain a new hash somehow to fill up empty slots

This could also work pretty well as a board game by the looks of it. Hidden information, deduction, etc.

Bump

I have to agree with . ORE is already largely setting agnostic, to the point where Stolze surgically removed all the fluff when he made the Enchiridion and it still works just fine. There's really very little about the document that says "this is a fantasy game" when you look at it, apart from the existance of Sorcery, which you can very easily just not include in your game.

Could i hear your opinions on the warhammer rpg's reading your conversation has been quite interesting and i was wondering if you had played them

This is actually bringing up another problem. If there are situations where using rope (or whatever other skill) is necessary, then it means every party will need a rope-user. The more skills you include, the greater the chances that no one will have one of the necessary ones.

My advice: tear the whole thing down and start the skill list from scratch based on what your playtesters want to do. Have them play freeform for a few sessions. Keep a secret, concise list of skills, and keep track of how often they use one of the skills listed or if they try often to do a particular thing not on your list. Then make your skill list by combining or dividing those until they have roughly equal use.

So, for example, if you find they're not using Riding and Driving very often, combine them into one skill. If they're using Acrobatics way more than other skills, split it into smaller parts.

This is good feedback, thanks.

I think that maybe just the spoofs would be destroyed when you try to combine hashes and you would just get your legit hash back.

I had kind of considered spoofs as something you could create ad-hoc, as a player. I think the idea of a fixed amount of real hashes could be cool, I have also been considering the reverse, of there being an opportunity to get a 1-length hash from the GM (1 per 24/hrs or something). So that it keeps a lot of hashes circulating. I guess it would take some play-testing to see which one has a better feel.

I also think maybe giving each players a 1-length hash and 2 slots from the start and never allowing more slots, they either have to combine or trade.

A useful link in case you need illustrations: 1 million free, public domain scanned images, maps and photos taken from books prior to 1900.
flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/

Feedback from playtesting is valuable and should be used, I couldn't agree more. But I'm nowhere near that stage yet. There's nothing wrong with gathering input for a decent starting list.

I don't necessarily agree with your following view of in-game problem solving.
>This is actually bringing up another problem. If there are situations where using rope (or whatever other skill) is necessary, then it means every party will need a rope-user. The more skills you include, the greater the chances that no one will have one of the necessary ones.
Using ropes is a -possible- solution to any number of problems. If a situation ever arises where using a rope is the only possible solution, the players have either maneuvered themselves into a extraordinarily shitty position, or the GM is being a railroading cock about which pre-planned solutions to a problem he will allow.

Sure, some actions will be performed more than others. I still need divide them into different skills. Otherwise, I could just use 'Adventuring 'n Stuff' as a single skill and call it a day. My challenge is hitting the sweet spot between too many and too few areas of expertise. Observing which kinds of actions are performed most often doesn't help me determine what a fair, challenging and interesting division into skills would be.

This user is doing the Lord's work.

It's a great resource!
I found a lot of good stuff on there for an Antarctica themed D&D adventure I was working on (I still need to get around to publishing it.)

>mfw dark souls is using the enemy card AI pattern I was designing for my own dungeon crawler
is this real life?

I know this from the OSR threads!
I've been watching it with interest, lemme give it a read and follow up on that.

How do I promote my game online when I hate talking to people online?

I mean, you guys are okay since we are all anonymous here.
But I hate facebook, and I don't use tumblr or twitter. I'm banned from rpg.net, I can't stand therpgsite, and I don't use enworld.
I have to promote my game among online communities to make any kind of earnings off of this thing I'm writing, but I can't promote my game among these communities when my relationship with them is that of mutual contempt.

Maybe I should just avoid the internet altogether and focus on building a physical presence at conventions?
One of my friends even runs a mini-convention in Korea (where I hope to move to very soon for a new job.) I could start there and get one of my Korean buddies to help me translate this thing. Hell, if I'm going to promote my game among any online community I should just promote it over Daum.

What do you think?

Thank you.

It seems that a lot of the issues I've been having will probably be resolved just by picking up WildTalents second edition. It shouldn't take nearly as long.

Also thanks again, this ORE toolkit is basically what I was planning on making.

I've got a game that I think is pretty good. All my players love it, and I want to try to type up the rules to post somewhere, but I have a lot of trouble explaining it clearly and concisely.
The core mechanic is that every 15 minutes of real-time, the role of GM switches to the next person in line, and they have to pick a new setting to drop the characters into. The setting has to be something pre-made, like a TV show or a book, not something they have to make up on the spot.
It's designed to ease players into GMing, and train flexibility and creativity. My first time trying it out, we went from Independence Day to Sesame Street, dropping into the middle of a musical number with a bunch of dead bodies and assault rifles.