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The Critical Failures PBP System Brainstorm
Edcrab
Registered User
Registered User
Some of you might be familiar with the Exigency campaign. That’s the culmination of a few playtests seeking to eventually produce something well-suited to- well, made for- play-by-posts. The mechanics used (I don't really have a name for the system) need a review. They need documented, they need standardised, and ideally they need to be more adaptable to other settings.
So, come one, come all, let’s figure out how this works like the good old days. And I know there were brainstorms prior to mine, I just can't find them. This space reserved for when people inevitably link me up. EDIT: hah, found some!
On Play by post games and the preparation thereof
A thread about GM'ing Play by Post Games
What it currently is
Proposed ideas
Bring back other dice!
Self explanatory- it seems slightly odd to dismiss anything other than d20s when rolls are made entirely through online, automated mediums such as Invisible Castle and its fellows.
For example, it’d add greater variety to damage rolls, both dealing and suffering it. If an ability or accident can reduce a target’s Health or Willpower by 1d4 points, then it instantly adds greater potential depth than a flat value of 1 or 2.
Assuming competency?
Currently the system assumes competency on the part of the player characters- they can attempt first aid, bomb disposal, fencing, sniping, juggling, anything without actively having prior training/experience in the form of a speciality.
I’m not sure if I’m entirely at home with that, or if future players will like it. I’m tempted to take a leaf out of D&D’s book and just give in and implement trained and untrained skills. E.g., Medic, Tech, Marksmanship- trained, Melee, Evasion, Sense- untrained… or whatever turns out to work and make some sense. If you use an trained skill without investing in it, you’re not entitled to use your +Attribute bonus, you’d simply roll the d20 and take the result: and trained skills would cost an extra point to purchase in character creation. It would still be possible to make an omnicompetent utility character by pumping up your Intelligence (and Focus) and purchasing a swathe of trained abilities, but it’d cost you.
And, again, maybe this is something else that could be used optionally. If your campaign involves the divine or the supernatural or the generally superpowered, maybe assuming competency is right up your alley.
Wider changes
The most obvious include reducing or increasing the number of attributes, or shaking up specialities so that they don’t exist at all or so that characters have nothing but specialities with no basic attributes- it all depends on what works and feels best.
But if every character was only ten or so numbers, with no aspects or encounter powers or similar, that’d probably be too simplified. They’d have a lot less character, for a start.
More complex potential changes include the addition of damage points, stamina, will (psi points/morale) etc. These did exist in the system’s earliest iterations but were quickly dumped for simplicity’s sake- but maybe in some respects it’d be welcome to have depleting stats other than primary attributes to play around with for damage and special abilities. I’m really not sure.
What I’m asking
What do people want from a system made with PBPs in mind?
What have you seen elsewhere that worked, and how could those mechanics/approaches be applied here?
Have you got your own system that [strike]I can rip to pieces and steal[/strike] we can discuss, as a whole and in its individual pieces?
A typical brainstorm. Hell, I'd want to hear from everyone, even if its just a suggestion for a name better than "CF PBP system"
So, come one, come all, let’s figure out how this works like the good old days. And I know there were brainstorms prior to mine, I just can't find them. This space reserved for when people inevitably link me up. EDIT: hah, found some!
On Play by post games and the preparation thereof
A thread about GM'ing Play by Post Games
What it currently is
Spoiler:
Proposed ideas
Bring back other dice!
Self explanatory- it seems slightly odd to dismiss anything other than d20s when rolls are made entirely through online, automated mediums such as Invisible Castle and its fellows.
For example, it’d add greater variety to damage rolls, both dealing and suffering it. If an ability or accident can reduce a target’s Health or Willpower by 1d4 points, then it instantly adds greater potential depth than a flat value of 1 or 2.
Assuming competency?
Currently the system assumes competency on the part of the player characters- they can attempt first aid, bomb disposal, fencing, sniping, juggling, anything without actively having prior training/experience in the form of a speciality.
I’m not sure if I’m entirely at home with that, or if future players will like it. I’m tempted to take a leaf out of D&D’s book and just give in and implement trained and untrained skills. E.g., Medic, Tech, Marksmanship- trained, Melee, Evasion, Sense- untrained… or whatever turns out to work and make some sense. If you use an trained skill without investing in it, you’re not entitled to use your +Attribute bonus, you’d simply roll the d20 and take the result: and trained skills would cost an extra point to purchase in character creation. It would still be possible to make an omnicompetent utility character by pumping up your Intelligence (and Focus) and purchasing a swathe of trained abilities, but it’d cost you.
And, again, maybe this is something else that could be used optionally. If your campaign involves the divine or the supernatural or the generally superpowered, maybe assuming competency is right up your alley.
Wider changes
The most obvious include reducing or increasing the number of attributes, or shaking up specialities so that they don’t exist at all or so that characters have nothing but specialities with no basic attributes- it all depends on what works and feels best.
But if every character was only ten or so numbers, with no aspects or encounter powers or similar, that’d probably be too simplified. They’d have a lot less character, for a start.
More complex potential changes include the addition of damage points, stamina, will (psi points/morale) etc. These did exist in the system’s earliest iterations but were quickly dumped for simplicity’s sake- but maybe in some respects it’d be welcome to have depleting stats other than primary attributes to play around with for damage and special abilities. I’m really not sure.
What I’m asking
What do people want from a system made with PBPs in mind?
What have you seen elsewhere that worked, and how could those mechanics/approaches be applied here?
Have you got your own system that [strike]I can rip to pieces and steal[/strike] we can discuss, as a whole and in its individual pieces?
A typical brainstorm. Hell, I'd want to hear from everyone, even if its just a suggestion for a name better than "CF PBP system"
Edcrab on
Posts
Instead, I'm going to talk about something from Wushu that is almost critical for a PbP(in my opinion)
The Law of Narrative Truth: Feel free to describe your actions and the results of your actions, and regardless of your die roll, they HAPPEN. The roll of your die is only there to determine how close you get to finishing the conflict. The victor in the conflict can describe their victory in whatever terms they desire, and that's how it occurs.
Also, since in PbPs combat tends to move incredibly slowly, it's best to junk any combat system you have and go for straight opposed rolls like you would use in any other form of conflict (sneak vs awareness becomes your attack vs their defense, the guy who rolls the highest/gets the most points wins.)
I like to call this the Law of Opposed Rolls: All conflicts or confrontations are determined by opposed rolls of the appropriate skills. Circumstantial penalties or bonuses may be added to one or the other side, but after all modifiers, the one with the higher roll/most points wins.
If you combine these, the Law of Narrative Truth and the Law of Opposed Rolls, you have a system that can let you get through a conflict in a day or a week, instead of a month or two, regardless of your system.
And frankly, if I'm playing a PbP that I am not just casually dabbling in, I want to see that. Otherwise I know it will take forever for anything to happen, and it will probably stall out as soon as blades/guns are drawn.
(Although it makes me think that if anyone wanted to the whole thing could be easily retuned to use D6s, or any other dice. Instead of having attributes averaging at 4 for D20 rolls, 1 is the human average with D6s, and speciality bonuses would be a lot rarer and mean a lot more, etc.)
And part of the "Assuming competency" issue is that higher-level characters- or at least those with big numbers in the character sheet- tend to play the games in terms of determining the degree of their successes, rather than whether or not they actually succeed.
Likewise, challenges and opponents could be tweaked to do the same for a party of any experience level. Which is definitely a good thing in terms of combat, although maybe not when it comes to utility skills. Hrrm...
As far as uber-competent players, it's not hard to invoke a degree of success chart at all to let them flex their egos.
Honestly, that's all I would ask from a base homebrew pbp system. Any sort of powers/abilities can be shoehorned in quite easily(especially if you use the aspect style stats from Wushu and other ultralights)
I'm not sure what to say about dice rolls for damage. It seems that that would be loading more on your end as GM. I know I'd prefer fixed values for simplicity's sake, but if you're willing to do the extra rolls yourself, I'm not going to argue.
...that sounded bad. But in a lot of campaigns it's possible to map out damage tables etc. all behind the scenes so it never reallyy clogs anything up, let alone the smoothness of the input the players are responsible for.
One thing I do want to figure out (in general, rather than exclusively for Exigency) is what to do about the attributes. Part of me wants to scrap them in favour of a couple of dozen specialities, because I can never figure out good ways of deciding what determines what.
If you wanted to combine that with the specialties in Exigency, you could allow each character to further specialize their talents as they progress, giving them bonuses in specific areas of each aspect.
For damage, I actually just had a thought. In the opposed roll to achieve victory in combat, why not just have the remainder on the victor's side be applied to damage, and the total HP of the opposing character is equal to the defensive stat that they're applying.
You could also easily apply that to social conflict, and various other instant checks(stealth and the like) would just be the standard opposed checks.
For minions and mooks and other disposable fodder, they don't even roll to determine, they just have a flat value, so that in most cases one successful attack instantly kills them. "Boss" characters and significant fights could last for far longer, if so desired, but Thug #84 can be dealt with with a single roll.
So say we clash in melee- my 14 vs your 17. We had both rolled for HP (which would be the relevant stat in physical conflict) and I'd got 21, which becomes 16. Granted if I critically failed and you got a critical hit, in many cases the conflict might still be resolved in two or three rolls, but the potential for prolonged, tactical combat is still there (especially if you use encounter powers or whatever we'd call them to even the playing field).
But yes, that's pretty much how it would work. Various powers could affect the environment, offer bonuses to damage aside from your to-hit roll(so even if you got a bare hit, your weapon would still give you damage, great for Big Weapons) and change skills that you're rolling with/against. (Mind powers operate in combat but your opponent has to use Willpower instead of HP to defend!)
Quoth, LaOs, tasty, Grid, and 42% of the entire internet can breathe a deep sigh of relief.
...ahem. It could work excellently via scrapping the existing attributes and specialties and just having all the usual end results as alterable values. I.e., HP, THAC0, armour class equivalents, they're not something your attributes make, you literally determine them directly...
Obviously those are just samples, and someone could go beyond just having 4 primary skills to have sub-skills in. Although that HP value is pretty high for a dice + bonus, but you get what I mean.
The balance would lie in that grit would only recharge at certain intervals (rounds, scenes, w/e), so if you blow all your grit on one epic action, you leave your character open to retaliation, as you will not be able to raise your defenses against a superior attacker.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
I'm thinking a single opposed roll per round of combat, or if you're fighting mooks, a single roll against a target difficulty.
Hmm. Maybe thats what Stamina and Willpower could assist with. You expend one to boost physical feats, and the other to boost mental feats (albeit not mental feats dependant on intelligence).
See, this is the problem I always have. I'm never quite sure whether we want to add content and depth, or remove it for simplicity. A bit of both would be favourite, paradoxical as it sounds...
Yeah, that is the direction I was trying to go. Bids would either be done in secret so as to prevent "Price is Right" asshattery, or defense would have the advantage (to make characters more survivable), i.e. attacker bids first, then defender can counter-bid to negate or lessen the attack. Either one works, the first being grittier and the second more heroic.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
It allows the PC to make their narrative because they immediately know the result of the thing that they did, and can address failure or success without having to wait for the GM to oppose the roll before moving on to the next person's turn.
In my past PBPs (less so in Exigency, not sure why) I tended to do all possible rolls up front to give the effect of a pre-created statsheet while retaining the random element. I.e., you need to dodge this value, fail that you need to resist this value, fail that you need to take a save vs. death, etc., rather than having to have a PC-GM-PC-GM post chain with individual rolls or checks.
Plus, I guess it adds to the suspense if you know your spot check needs to be successful to avoid a DC40 toxic trap
Yeah, I think both Arcanis and myself do that in our Star Wars games.
For things like spotting and finding stealth, I don't necessarily let the PC's know what the DC is. I will occasionally handle that in the OOC thread.
As far as things like defenses go, I consider it fair play. After all, I know what all their strengths and weaknesses are in the metagame, and I let them know the same for their opponents for the most part.
And fortunately I tend to have players who are very good about mainting the character vs. player knowledge thing. This is especially important in settings like Star Wars where all the information is out ther in a convenient wiki.
"And the Giant Armoured Bonsai Chaos Lobster flings itself through the nearest wall!!"
"...again?"
so at the expense of the players feeling worried or nervous, I just opt for the speed that total transparency ensures so the narrative can move along at a brisk (for pbp) pace. I try to make up for the lack of meta-level drama with drama seeded in the narrative... to my success or failure, which is still up in the air
Mostly though it's just a case of minimizing the pitfalls and emphasizing the strengths of the medium. pointing to my highly enjoyable Exalted game, the only reason it's come this far is the group's chemistry and my decision to drop a clunky rules-set for a system that is entirely devoted to drama and narrative.
Player of Li Mei Feng, Monkey Princess, The Dresden Files Low Profile
GM of Monsterhearts: Blackwood
does it yell "OH YEAH!" ?
sorry... scarred forever by commercials from the 80's.
but wow
the image of a giant yet immaculately groomed tree with claws and antennae... in armor
wow
Which, for the record, is "Wushu", the system that Rainfall talked about the merits of in PbP games.
I'm still drawn to rules-free RP (aka collab story) threads and projects, the only reason people really use rulesets is for some consistency, and to stop people playing by means of constantly making "I beat this guy and do this" statements, but with a good group that's never an issue in the first place.
Long, strangely awesome story.
It's funny... but in a way RPG systems seem to be trying to tackle the fundamental problem of playing cowboys and indians as a kid (or soldiers, or whatever).
"I got you!"
"Nuh uh!"
"Yes huh!"
"Did so!"
"DID NOT!"
"MOM! JIMMY'S CHEATING AGAIN!"
edit: I just realized that in a way this could mean that people who are jerkoffs about exploiting RPG rules are basically being bratty five year olds underneath all their maths and shit.
The best thing, the absolute best thing, about using homebrew RPG systems as well as settings is countering shit like that
It's just as petty and rules-lawyering (well... High Court judging more like) but I do not care.
"Alright, since in my previous level I invested in utility skills- and maxed four of them- I want to take a point in Agility."
"No."
"What the hell do you mean 'no'?"
"You have sat in the party's ship for three weeks, scrying the enemy fort and sending the group updates. You haven't done anything remotely physical."
"Doesn't say I have to invoke something relevant in the rules, it's just a character point, and I want to put it in Agility."
"I just amended the rules to be more realistic. Also, anyone who sits down in one place too long loses Agility due to major leg cramps. You never specified that you got up during the time."
EDIT: Also I think the whole cowboys and indians conflict-resolution thing is why I wanted Nerf guns so badly as a kid.
because that's what you are
a big jerkface
Player of Li Mei Feng, Monkey Princess, The Dresden Files Low Profile
GM of Monsterhearts: Blackwood
I want this to go somewhere dammit.
Surely we do enough PbP stuff that we can like... Voltron and make something more awesome.
Voltron is now a verb. I have declared it.
And furthermore, I don't want to do any of the work.
Not it.
okay maybe a little work... but i promise it will be of low quality
For an example of what I'm talking about:
Spear God Li's sheet shows the difference between what's involved in Wushu and Exalted, as it has both versions of his character there. I much prefer the Wushu one... I can get basically all the character flavor and basic abilities with a smaller set of attributes that expresses them. Exalted is needlessly complicated, covering every damn thing possible. Wushu lists the things that he's good or weak at, and assumes he's kind of a regular dude in other aspects.
Viridian Phoenix is a much different character than Li... and although some of her traits are similar, she has her own way of doing things and has the attributes that clearly differentiate them.
I like Exigency. I really, really like it. You've done a good thing, and it shows in the pace of your game and the enthusiasm of your players. Me, I'm very simple-minded when it comes to this sort of thing, and I'd like a system that I can understand with a very short reading. As much as I like things about Pony's "EPIC System", I find it a bit too complicated... in fact, I may actually not understand it at all... which makes me hesitant to ever use it. Exigency I can almost understand with a five-minute reading.
Warhammer RPG, IMO, passes the test. I can look at it and get it right away. The system itself is brutal as hell though.
Less dice equals less maths and less metagame "average damage" and "percentage of success" bullshittery that clogs up the discussion of other systems. I like to avoid this sort of thing when possible and just play the dang game. I sort of like a set amount of damage that you take when you fail, or a certain consequence for success/failure.
I was playing the original Prince of Persia today... you fuck up a jump, you fall, spikes come out of the ground and kill you. Clear cut and dry consequences for failure or success, and I like that kind of design, even if I want to throw the controller sometimes. I'd flip it around and give the players have the choice (or perhaps give them an incentive) to be incompetent in certain things. The aforementioned Spear God Li and Viridian Phoenix have problems with thinking hard and telling the truth, respectively.
It's just that the way I see it, for simplicity's sake, you either have incompetent boobs who happen to be really good at a few things, MacGuyvers who are even more awesome at a few things, or dudes who are competent at most things, real good at a few, and also have weaknesses.
The third makes me think "hero". Superman has Kryptonite and is kind of a dick, Batman has emotional problems and a mean streak, Peter Parker is a dorky teenager with girl problems, Aquaman is a closet case and nobody likes him, etc.
I am admittedly and unabashedly strawmanning. I gots weaknesses too.
I like specialties with no basic attributes. Specialties give you a good indication of what your doods are capable of in a "basic attribute" sort of way.
Specific Aspects / Encounter Powers... I still don't totally understand how to incorporate into a simple system. Like, why there need to be real specific ones I mean. Maybe that "extra effort" stuff can be less specialized and more fluid? It still doesn't take away how the character is made unique in a metagame sense via their specialties or whatever you wanna call them. I want to make a list of demands, tear them up and throw them in a chimney. Then a woman appears at my door with the perfect system. From there on, it isn't PG-13.
But since that's not going to happen, I want simplicity, faster pacing, and fun. Wushu good. Exigency good.
DnD-ish things... can be done but are awkward to pull off. Exalted/Storyteller kinda horrible. Both takes more work. And work is less fun than... well, fun. That's why fun is named for itself. No. I am lazy and just use other people's systems.
GFY
Specialities only. No base attributes because the lack of derivatives renders them meaningless anyway. They needn't even be numbered, might literally be skill phrases like "Good with a stick" or "Capable gardener".
I'd retain dice rolls because. Well. I'd prefer some mechanical basis to cater for parties that are less reasonable... That and there's no point trying to make a system if it comes down to freeplay RP with every character having a paragraph of text dictating their potential.
The reason I stick so doggedly to aspects/encounter powers is because, exactly as you say, I like anything that makes a character more unique. But likewise, yeah, I've been trying to come up with A/EPs that are less specialised. That is, types that work with any attribute/situation (or speciality in this case)- akin to Luck or Fate or action points, in some ways.
And as Rainfull brought up I'd like to see per-encounter rolling for attack and HP, or psi and willpower, or whichever two are relevant to the scenario. Adds to the potential A/EPs: say, someone rolls 2D20 and takes the highest value in A but does the same and takes the lowest in B.
I really like the way you invoked the basic heroic archetypes- specialists, omnicompetents and Achilles-esque badasses with one truly crippling weakness to balance out their expertise. Ideally any additions beyond specialities should address that, so people can feel free to be glass cannons or speedsters et al.
Oh, and STFU is a definite contender. Maybe claim that it's short for System That's Free and Universal
P.S. I want my money back that wasn't low quality at all
Essentially, you roll up the relevant defensive and offensive values for the encounter. In some, if not all, these will be the same thing- social and diplomatic challenges come to mind.
Example: in melee, the PCs would roll for the relevant combat speciality, and make a check in whatever physical defensive stat you have. If they failed at combat, the difference will be taken out of the defensive stat.
Boss types might have rolls, but I picture grunts and minions etc. having flat values- probably decent combat stats, terrible HP, so a loss results in their KO/death. Ultimately this gives the illusion of infinite specialities- they’re freeform and career based in appearance, but in essence they’re all just different names for Melee Combat, Ranged Combat, Talking without Pissing People Off, etc. Swordfighter 4 wouldn’t really have any difference to Martial Artist 4.
Although I do foresee people being incapacitated (or at least losing) a lot, if they roll badly that is. In Exigency a loss cleaved a point off the relevant attribute- usually Health or Willpower. Not sure what the actual consequences of failure should be here.
Here, the player is privy to the NPC’s stats, so knows exactly how successful or unsuccessful their attack has been (of course this assumes the player doesn’t mind doing a little mathematical work themselves).
In this case the NPC has no special attacks, behaviours, or abilities- generic fodder. But the GM still has to do their follow-up.
In more significant fights, retreating would probably demand opposing speed checks or similar, but here they’d just slow things down. Ditto the act of brutalising a target that’s not fighting back– we’re assuming competency, Sampleman is a legendary fist fighter and gourmet chef, why bother checking?
Also you say such kind things about my projects. Thanks. You make me as giddy as a schoolboy on laughing gas.
For example: Weapon Skill. Your Weapon skill value is expressed as a two digit number. Say it's 70. That's damn good... that means 70% of the time, you're good enough to hit a dude. You roll a d100 (actually 2d10 with one die representing the first digit) and if you roll your weapon skill or under, you hit. I like that because it focuses on your character's merits, not how hard it is to hit the other guy.
However, like I said... this was meant to be a part of a very gritty setting. But I like some of the design philosophy.
Example:
WFRPG OOC
WFRPG IC
and for a specific post that shows how ugly things can get in a combat situation, here's where my character, Otto (a seasoned pit fighter), got shot twice in the chest and nearly died in the first round of combat.
I think the key thing for a PbP system is one-roll resolution. Any defensive abilities/skills should be strictly passive to avoid the roll/counter roll wait. Beyond that, does it really matter?
I agree!
I sort of like what Ed did there with having attack and damage be all a part of the same roll.
Finding the right dice mechanic for that could be a trick.
As in:
is your score in an attribute the modifier you add to a dice roll that resolves an action?
is your score in an attribute the number of dice you roll to resolve an action?
that sorta thing.
Flat success values (not necessarily percentages) also appeal in one sense: coupled with making hostile NPCs that can dodge/parry/deflect attacks rarities rather than the norm, in most cases they’d let the party breeze through combat in a manner entirely reliant on their own stats… and luck.
What I foresee is some sort of initiative/reaction check (not a roll) to establish who responds first when combat begins, and then everyone rolls for their required pools.
It occurs to me that combat could be flat values, while HP/WP and “finesse†(or whatever you’d call it- focus, grit, edge, etc.) would be rolled for to establish points pools. HP is depleted if you lose the combat, while finesse (…or whatever) is used to boost rolls, remake rolls, convert finesse into HP, use special aspects/powers… non-standard stuff, basically.
For example, an aspect that lets you expend finesse to increase your reactions would be very useful for gunslingers or swordfighters who want to get in the first shot, and instantly gives them something that makes them different to everyone else with 70 in a weapon skill, but doesn’t require yet another dice roll to clog things up.
I’m thinking physical defence, mental defence, and focus are the only three “core†stats you’ll see cropping up if, say, you used the system in the Exigency setting. That is, ultimately rolling for HP or rolling for your evasive abilities are the exact same thing, as they both involve producing a pool that’s used to avoid or absorb physical damage. Everything else is potentially unique to the character.
In Exigency attack and damage were combined for melee, but seperate for ranged weaponry- you'd roll for attack, but damage was determined by the weapon. Worked fairly well, and stopped techno-centric characters from dominating.
...and I have no idea how attributes would be handled. Hrrrm. Flat values to beat, bonuses, dice... TOO MUCH THINKING NECESSARY
I'd also recommend using degrees of success, either counted by beating the threshold or by rolling multiple successes.
In other words, we should use FATAL-style (three dice summed vs variable TN), WoD/SR-style (multiple dice vs static TN, count successes), or Silhouette-style rolling (multiple dice keep highest vs variable TN). Of the three, the first is the easiest to generate online.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
So to make sure I follow you...
You're suggesting that the mechanic would be 3dX + modifiers (from attributes or other sources)?
Yeah, pretty much. Something like, 3dX + (stats/skills, beneficial mods) vs Base TN + (stats/skills, hindering mods). Or you could simplify it by making the TN based on the general difficulty of the task, like Star Trek, where an Average test might be TN 11 on 3d6. This would be much more subjective, but in a PbP game I don't see much problem with that.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Well, at least for me. Because of my statistics classes from when I was in college, I suppose. Basically you can figure out with a minimal amount of maths (heck, an excel spreadsheet will do it) how often a roll of 3dX will exceed a certain number... and have percentages in mind for routine, challenging, difficult, heroic, epic or whatever.
The number of the die and what your modifier is determines how much of an impact your skill has in determining success. That's a design question, I suppose.
The main advantage with a bell curve is exactly that it brings consistency to play, as opposed to the 8 STR wizard making his BBLG after the 18/00 fighter fails.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23