From: naam@cecer.army.mil (Ramez Naam)
Subject: Re: net.rpg: response.FAQ
Organization: US Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Labs
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 19:24:34 GMT

My comments on the FAQ and the way things are going:


A. Magic

I think, as I stated earlier, that there are many 
many ways in which people view Extra-Normal Abilities
(henceforth to be referred to as ENAs.)  Let's not
get stuck on the name here:  whether you call it Magic
or Psionics or Wizardry or Superpowers, it's the ability
to do something in a manner not normally seen in humans.

To maximize net.rpg's appeal, multiple ENA systems must
be presented.  These must vary (or be configurable) along
at least two lines:

1.) How technical the system is.  
Many people in this discussion seem to prefer a very
mystical, vague approach to ENAs.  This is, IMHO, a lot of
fun to role-play in a fantasy campaign, but effectively 
limits the game to very low-magic settings.  On the other
hand, a very technical, detailed ENA system, while not adding
to the role-playing in its own right, meshes well with a 
science fiction campaign where ENAs have been studied carefully
by scientists, and can interact with technology.   I am of
the firm opinion that both must be included in the game.
My "psionic" system is the pinacle of the first type, and my
"magic" system goes about as far the other  way as is possible.

2.) How natural ENAs are.
A world in which anyone (or just a very large number of people)
can develop ENAs is fundamentally different from one in which
very few people develop any sort of ENA at all.  This doesn't
necessarily merit a seperate system, though.  One easy way to
handle this is to assign a 1-time very large point cost to any
character who wishes to have an ENA, and only make it possible
to buy up this potential in the initial character creation stage.
The more specific the ability, the lower the cost would be, and
the greater the inborn power or portential, the higher the cost
would be.



B.  Mechanics

I've found that there are very few things indeed which cannot
be dealt with by a simple (d20 roll + skill) mechanic.  Simply
total the roll and the skill, and compare to the difficulty, which
is a number the GM sets based on how hard the attempted action is
to accomplish.  Opposed rolls are made by both characters making
skill rolls and comparing directly, with no intermediate 
difficulty.  This allows us to use the same basic mechanic both
inside and outside of combat.  Combat is taken care of, in the
most general sense, by comparing an attack roll to a defense roll.
It is important to me that we keep the combat rolls as symmetric
as possible, so that it's possible to play the game without any
dice without changing the balance of abilities.



C.  Complexity

I'm not too worried about complexity at the character generation
stage.  This is something that can be mostly offset by having
a very clear, step-by-step tutorial on making characters,
with lots of examples.  Also, as people have pointed out, many
gamers have access to a computer, and it would be trivial to write
a program that handled character generation, allowing the player
to play with stats and skills, and automatically calculating 
point costs and secondary numbers for him.  (As a matter of
fact, I already use such a program for my own system.)



D.   Point Based vs. Random Gen

No argument.  Both have to be available, and both must be 
configurable.   The Random Generation system has to have
a term which determines how much deviation from the norm
the GM wants, and the Point Based system has to have variable
cost multipliers for a few key things (ENAs, Stats, Ads/Disads).
Consider, for example, a Superhero world:  In general, it would
seem, Stats are easier to buy in such a campaign than they are
in the typical fantassy or modern-day campaign.  Still, all of
these can be taken care of by a few key multipliers.


--
Ramez Naam
naam@terra.cecer.army.mil
Newsgroups: rec.games.design