From: torbenm@diku.dk (Torben AEgidius Mogensen)
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
Subject: Re: Net.rpg - General comments
Date: 11 Nov 92 16:15:11 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

(Spike) writes:

>Regarding the development of net.rpg, here are a few 
>opinions:

>1) If you're going to do it, do it right.

There is no universal Right Way to do such things. Ther are some
obvious wrong ways, but that's not the same.

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

I agree. I've all too often seen people design a rpg by starting with
character creation without considering what they need the stats for.

>3) Keep in mind that if you want to be multigenre, there are some 
>     genres that break the rules.

What is "multi-genre"? Is this the ability to run 2 or 3 common genres
in the system, or does it imply that any conceivable genre can be fit
to the rules? I think the latter is impossible or at the very least
causes an unacceptable amount of "shoehorning" to get a genre to fit
the rules. The first approach is O.K., as it speeds up the learning
curve when changing genres, but one must avoid it being a very small
common core set of rules and huge amount of genre specific rules, as
that would make the point moot.

>4) I like d6's.

I don't think this is an issue. The other dice are easy to obtain
these days, and if you can speed up the mechanics by using different
dice, that is fine. On the other hand, you should not introduce
another type of dice unless there is a good reason to. A good reason
could simply be to avoid having to roll several dice and add the
results or to avoid having to use a die roll to index a table.

>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.

This is good if you can get it. But I have a feeling that if this is
done with the net.rpg, it will end up looking like it is designed by
a comittee (which is is).

>7) Go with one mechanic. This will affect the learning curve
>     *dramatically*;

I rather say, use very few different mechanics. Letting everything be
handled by a single mechanic can lead to strange contortions or
unwanted side effects.

Anyway, I doubt I would play any system designed by a large collection
of people (the aforementioned comittee effect). Some friends and I
once tried to design a rpg, but we never finished due to lack of
agreement over basic mechanical issues. I think the rpg's that
generally play well are mostly designed by one or possibly two
persons. What would you expect from a novel written by 25 people?

	Torben Mogensen (torbenm@diku.dk)

P.S.
I find (moderate) discussion of various aspects of mechanics and style
interesting, but I would prefer each designer to choose what he/she
likes best, rather than all trying to reach an agreement of what is
"best".
Newsgroups: rec.games.design