Rpg Words Of Wisdom
Machiavelli
Join Date: 2003-07-27 Member: 18468Members
Join Date: 2003-07-27 Member: 18468Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Things to make your next RPG successful</div> When I first saw this new forum I had some interest. I had been a part of some DoD rpgs in the old days and with the atmosphere of Natural Selection I thought that an rpg for NS would be even more interesting. While I am no D&D vet, I just wanted to pass on some experience points (ok bad joke) I have gained.
<i>Avoid complex rules or numbers</i>. On a disorganized forum you will never have the time or ability to enforce any such system of game play. <i>Instead the RPG should form more of a narrative, like the Six Days in Sanjii</i>. Each person takes on a character and posts an emotional account of their experience. As the thread goes on people build off one another and the ending can often surprise everyone.
With a system like this there is no need for stats, race, ideology or dice rolls. People can pop in, read, start a new character, die, start a new character, as often as they want. If they game is made more accessible than more people will become a part of it.
An important part of any RPG is that people try to keep the the atmosphere of reality as much as possible. With historical based games, like DoD, this was easy, however with a science fiction game like NS it is much more difficult to say what is real and what is not. In general people should stick within the set of the game, but not imply that that is all there is. What I mean by this is that people should not go off creating new kinds of aliens, or guns, but they should not identify all big powerful aliens as oni and all wall climbers as skulks. It if very important that people try to avoid playing the RPG as though it was the game itself. In the "real" world there is no score bord, there could be more than 3 hives, there is no teamchat or mute key.
I hope that I have been clear enough so that may of you are able to understand what I mean. Now, it is important that there are some rules for this style, so here they are.
<b>-Be emotional</b>. No one wants to read "I climbed up the ladder. I saw an alien. I fired at it." Something along the lines of "I tensely pulled myself up the ladder, my gun holstered across my back. I was afraid, we were close to major infestation, but I heard my trainer's voice in my mind "you must move without fear, kill or be killed! They will show no mercy!" etc etc, you get the idea.
<b>-You only care about living</b>. In the "real" world death is permanent. It is not some black space that you sit in for 5 seconds while your screen fades in and you respawn back at base. If you die, you die. As such you will most likely care only about saving your own hide. Things that people normally care about in game like kill count, score, finishing an ip are secondary to saving your own life.
<b>-Be open ended and imply as much as you can</b>. Since other people will be building off of what you say happened it is important to give them a little bit of choice in the matter. The RPG is a sort of shared story, its yours for a bit, than someone Else's. If you want people to join, let them have a say in what happens.
<b>-Killing and death</b>. In general you can say you killed as many NPC (non player characters) as you want, but don't be absured. Playing an RPG where everyone is superman gets old fast. Try to use death and murder as little as possible, just like in a good war novel. Look at All Quite on the Western Front for example, very little of it is about battle itself. As for killing player characters, it should be left up to them. For example you can say you fired at the skulk who is being played by bob, but it is bob who decides (in his post) if he dies or not.
<b>-You can always start again</b>. People shouldn't fear letting their character die. It is very easy to start a new one. Just start posting again from a different point of view. This is also helpful for people to join the RPG after it has started.
<b>-The end.</b> Due to the need for everyone to be opened ended about their stories, the end will more likely be marked by the loss of interest in the thread (or the locking of it). As such don't expect to get to find out which team "wins". If ending the RPG is allowed by anyone, than people will be likely to end an interesting one just so they can make all the fuss about how glorious this day has been for the humans/aliens.
<i>Avoid complex rules or numbers</i>. On a disorganized forum you will never have the time or ability to enforce any such system of game play. <i>Instead the RPG should form more of a narrative, like the Six Days in Sanjii</i>. Each person takes on a character and posts an emotional account of their experience. As the thread goes on people build off one another and the ending can often surprise everyone.
With a system like this there is no need for stats, race, ideology or dice rolls. People can pop in, read, start a new character, die, start a new character, as often as they want. If they game is made more accessible than more people will become a part of it.
An important part of any RPG is that people try to keep the the atmosphere of reality as much as possible. With historical based games, like DoD, this was easy, however with a science fiction game like NS it is much more difficult to say what is real and what is not. In general people should stick within the set of the game, but not imply that that is all there is. What I mean by this is that people should not go off creating new kinds of aliens, or guns, but they should not identify all big powerful aliens as oni and all wall climbers as skulks. It if very important that people try to avoid playing the RPG as though it was the game itself. In the "real" world there is no score bord, there could be more than 3 hives, there is no teamchat or mute key.
I hope that I have been clear enough so that may of you are able to understand what I mean. Now, it is important that there are some rules for this style, so here they are.
<b>-Be emotional</b>. No one wants to read "I climbed up the ladder. I saw an alien. I fired at it." Something along the lines of "I tensely pulled myself up the ladder, my gun holstered across my back. I was afraid, we were close to major infestation, but I heard my trainer's voice in my mind "you must move without fear, kill or be killed! They will show no mercy!" etc etc, you get the idea.
<b>-You only care about living</b>. In the "real" world death is permanent. It is not some black space that you sit in for 5 seconds while your screen fades in and you respawn back at base. If you die, you die. As such you will most likely care only about saving your own hide. Things that people normally care about in game like kill count, score, finishing an ip are secondary to saving your own life.
<b>-Be open ended and imply as much as you can</b>. Since other people will be building off of what you say happened it is important to give them a little bit of choice in the matter. The RPG is a sort of shared story, its yours for a bit, than someone Else's. If you want people to join, let them have a say in what happens.
<b>-Killing and death</b>. In general you can say you killed as many NPC (non player characters) as you want, but don't be absured. Playing an RPG where everyone is superman gets old fast. Try to use death and murder as little as possible, just like in a good war novel. Look at All Quite on the Western Front for example, very little of it is about battle itself. As for killing player characters, it should be left up to them. For example you can say you fired at the skulk who is being played by bob, but it is bob who decides (in his post) if he dies or not.
<b>-You can always start again</b>. People shouldn't fear letting their character die. It is very easy to start a new one. Just start posting again from a different point of view. This is also helpful for people to join the RPG after it has started.
<b>-The end.</b> Due to the need for everyone to be opened ended about their stories, the end will more likely be marked by the loss of interest in the thread (or the locking of it). As such don't expect to get to find out which team "wins". If ending the RPG is allowed by anyone, than people will be likely to end an interesting one just so they can make all the fuss about how glorious this day has been for the humans/aliens.
Comments
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><i>Avoid complex rules or numbers</i>. On a disorganized forum you will never have the time or ability to enforce any such system of game play.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Giving out all the numbers to the players won't work, because it will be confusing. I don't think a lot of people on these boards could be convinced to read through the D&D open game content. But that doesn't prevent the ones running the games from having a set of rules they use to determine outcome of events.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><i>Instead the RPG should form more of a narrative, like the Six Days in Sanjii</i>. Each person takes on a character and posts an emotional account of their experience. As the thread goes on people build off one another and the ending can often surprise everyone.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
While I agree that ruleless RPGs can be nice, it is my experience that many of them trail into stagnation because they lack a drive to push the story forward. At the very least, I like the RPGs I take part in to have some sort of game-master, a person who's responsible for keeping the story moving forward.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->With a system like this there is no need for stats, race, ideology or dice rolls.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No need for stats in ruleless games, agree with you there. But the race of a character is kind of important. Even without a game system, and elf is still an elf, and a dwarf is still a dwarf. Same thing with ideology, a character without an ideology will be a pretty hollow character (alignment is another thing, I agree alignments are only good for philosophical debates on the WotC boards, but there's a difference between the two).
Dice rolls are probably possible to avoid. But from my experience as a GM on these boards, I would recommend you keep some element of randomness in the game if you want combat to occur. Without combat, you can do without dice. But keep the GM in the game, because else you'll end up with a neverending talking scene (or, it will end when the players stop reading the board).
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->People can pop in, read, start a new character, die, start a new character, as often as they want. If they game is made more accessible than more people will become a part of it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The game also has to have something to offer.
Plus, more people as part of a game isn't neccesarily a good thing. Too many players make the game boring for everyone.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->An important part of any RPG is that people try to keep the the atmosphere of reality as much as possible. With historical based games, like DoD, this was easy, however with a science fiction game like NS it is much more difficult to say what is real and what is not. In general people should stick within the set of the game, but not imply that that is all there is.What I mean by this is that people should not go off creating new kinds of aliens, or guns, but they should not identify all big powerful aliens as oni and all wall climbers as skulks. It if very important that people try to avoid playing the RPG as though it was the game itself. In the "real" world there is no score bord, there could be more than 3 hives, there is no teamchat or mute key.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That depends heavily on the interpretation of the game. The aliens have been attacking humans for a decade, and there hasn't been observed a case of more than three hives so far. I'd say it was safe to assume that characters fighting as frontiersmen would believe this was not the case, given that they'd most likely have read the frontiersmanual over and over.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><b>-Be emotional</b>. No one wants to read "I climbed up the ladder. I saw an alien. I fired at it." Something along the lines of "I tensely pulled myself up the ladder, my gun holstered across my back. I was afraid, we were close to major infestation, but I heard my trainer's voice in my mind "you must move without fear, kill or be killed! They will show no mercy!" etc etc, you get the idea.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Disagreed. When I run games, I want characters expressed through what can be observed. Else I believe it will end in a duel of who can pull out the longest and most pointless (I am afraid, I attack) posts. In my experience, while such mind-posts are fine from time to time, having too many of them is even worse than having none. And believe me, with proper roleplaying it's quite possible to play interesting characters without having to serve their ideologies, pasts and thoughts on a silver plate to the other players in the posts.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <b>-You only care about living</b>. In the "real" world death is permanent. It is not some black space that you sit in for 5 seconds while your screen fades in and you respawn back at base. If you die, you die. As such you will most likely care only about saving your own hide. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
True for most characters. But there is exceptions. Humans are a group species. From time to time, one of them will instinctually sacrifice himself for the group. One only needs to see a few action movies to see this, you'll see heroes all over them <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
And yes, some characters go for kill-counts too. Several characters in movies and books have had the habit of cutting marks in their rifles for each downed enemy. Not to mention, finishing that IP might be the best way to save your own hide.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><b>-The end.</b> Due to the need for everyone to be opened ended about their stories, the end will more likely be marked by the loss of interest in the thread (or the locking of it). <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Here, a good Game Master should be able to help that, because he'll be able to decide when it's time to end the mission. Games without GMs tend to spiral downward untill they die though, meaning that the games always die unfinished.
*Shudders*
I hate those dice. Your set is cursed I swear I've never seen so many bad rolls in my life!
Maybe because the good rolls don't hurt <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> Who tries to chew through electrical wires anyway? <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Your set is cursed I swear I've never seen so many bad rolls in my life!<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, in that case, you haven't seen my dice when they go wrong. Tell me, how can you roll 16 dice, needing just ONE single 6, and get nothing over 4?
Or, when rolling 3 dice for D&D stats, how does a total of 3 sound to you?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->its a reserch randomizer! its has to be balanced. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Uhm, the point of a randomizer is that it's completely random.
thats what i ment. random. balances out in the long run.
Statistically, yes. But theoretically, they can stay uneven.
That's a very important property of dice, since they are perfect as an excuse for failure ("Dammit, my dice are cursed").
yes, up to the infinity minus oneth roll, they can stay uneven. and thats not even "i get good rolls when it doesnt matter, and bad rolls at critical times." of course, like the fan incedent, it tends to be a really bad hurting if you roll that critical falure.
Um... I thought you were supposed to roll 4 dice, and discard the lowest roll...
Although that is pretty bad, I hope you were allowed to re-roll. And, if you weren't, what stat did you put it to?
You are. But this DM decided we were using another character creation method. 3 dice, roll stats in sequence (strength first, charisma last, no rearranging).
The rest of the stats were kind of crappy too (constitution 6), except for the 18 I rolled for charisma. I was told that I could re-roll (-4 modifier total), but really, those stats were just perfect for that weakling sorcerer type, so I chose not to.
You're nothing but lazier versions of us wizards.
You may be able to talk convincingly and get your way with your fancy Charisma scores, but we've got 18's where it counts, Intelligence!
You're nothing but lazier versions of us wizards.
You may be able to talk convincingly and get your way with your fancy Charisma scores, but we've got 18's where it counts, Intelligence! <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Heh, let me see what your pocket magic can pull off. How about a fireball(bam), and another(bam), and another(bam), and another(bam), and another(bam), and ... oh wait, that's right, you're empty <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
inteligance needs to be where it counts: thieves. traps are quite possibly the best thing ever.
OR
Have magic in your veins, obeying your every whim and throwing fireballs around like its Armageddon?
I know which one I prefere.
By the way, computers are still not scientifically random (though they're so close you won't feel the difference)