From: morrow@thorogood.rutgers.edu (John Morrow)
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
Subject: Re: Net.rpg - General comments
Date: 11 Nov 92 00:13:48 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

[Reformatted liberally and a lot of stuff is trimmed to get to the point]

(Spike) writes:
>1) If you're going to do it, do it right. 

John's Comments:  Anyone can write a role-playing game but it takes
                  effort and talent to write a good one.

>2) Before you consider saying "the game should have this stat, and
>     these skills," you might think about what those things mean. 

In addition, once you start saying "the game should have this stat,
and these skills" you should really look to see if all the members of
your lists work together and represent similar concepts.  Anyone can
make a list of stats...

>4) I like d6's. They make it easier to trick non-gamers into playing with
>     you ("C'mon, Bob, we're just going to play a little Monopoly, heh heh
>     . . . :-)
>     Seriously, six-siders are more common than any other type of die, period.
>     Think about it.

Yes, but I have had gamer friends argue that six-siders remind them
TOO MUCH of Monopoly -- not that I have a problem with them...

>5) A lot of issues seem to be cropping up. "Do we do combat fast&loose or 
>     realistic and wargame-ish?" "Do we do a wound system or a hit point 
>     system?" Most of these seem to boil down to "playability vs. realism."
>     My current feeling is that a truly powerful game system would give
>     each GM the tools to run the game the way *they* wish.

In my opinion, "scaled" systems are not workable beyond a small
close-knit group of gamers.  Why?  Because no rule is neutral in its
game effects.  If you include stamina rules, it hurts weak characters
who could otherwise fight all day but helps strong characters have an
advantage.  There are a lot of examples of this.  If a players
character dies because the GM refuses to use OR insists on using
"Special Rule X" for whatever reason, an argument is going to result.
You can't hide all these rules from players.  They are going to know
that "if you don't use the bleeding rules on page 35, my character
will live" or "if you do use the clotting rules on page 26, my
character will live", even IF the GM never used those rules before or
always has.  You can TRY to balance off by saying "you must use benefit
rule X with hinderance rule Y" but I don't think that is feasable.
Ideally this would not be a problem but most groups are far from ideal.
I personally feel that you should pick a style of play and make the 
rules fit it.

>6) What do you plan to do with this monster when you're done? If you have
>     multiple methods of handling combat, wounds, etc. you might think about
>     saving rules chunks as "modules," allowing players to create their *own*
>     systems from your components.

Why write rules if you are going to ask the players to design rules?  Also,
see the comments about "scaled" systems above.  The same goes for modules
UNLESS you have "Combat Module A" and "Combat Module B", both of which
are different and incompatable which you MUST choose up front.

>7) Go with one mechanic. This will affect the learning curve *dramatically*; 
>     Aftermath was a swell game, but it took a real die-hard to learn all the 
>     different mechanics for things. This is harder than it sounds; you must 
>     make it flexible enough to handle realistic rules, but general enough 
>     that the GM who likes to wing things can easily use the dice to gauge the
>     result of an action.

This can be good or bad.  If you go with ONE darn good mechanic to pull this
off well.  If you don't, you will wind up cramming a lot of unrelated stuff
into a mechanic that can't handle it yeilding awful results that no one is 
happy with.

Note, I am not offering solutions.  If I had them, I would be rich... :-)

John Morrow
morrow@remus.rutgers.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.design