DM Discussion

[Kerr]

CASPIE is designed to be as universal, so you can use if for a lot of different settings and genres.

My recommendation if you want something simpler than CASPIE and don't mind going class based is the system I used for Silicon & Sorcery which is based on White Wolf's Storyteller system. Use it and have singular and multiclasses. Multiclasses get less dice in their dice pool. It's super easy to use, I talked about it before so I'll just copy paste.

My advice? If you are going for class based you could use the system I used in Silicon & Sorcery which is based on Storyteller from White Wolf (they make World of Darkness.) Have the classes be like Assault/Sniper/Heavy/Medic/Physic and players can take up to 3 classes in a combo, use the same dice pools I used for class mixtures. So you could be a Sniper and a Physic or a Heavy and Medic or just be a pure Assault. Gives players more variety but there are pros and cons to multi-classing. The system is very simple to learn and use. I explain it there in that post so I go into too much detail. But 8 or over is always a success, then modifiers (so lose a die because it's foggy, lose a die because you're not aiming for center mass, gain a die because you're carrying a S.C.O.P.E) just add or remove dice, they don't change that magic number for success. 10s are critical hits. So the more dice in your pool the more likely you are to get an 8 or if you're lucky, a 10.

If you want to add leveling as a thing, you could have that level be gain an extra die to your dice pool. Although you'd probably need to adjust how many dice you start with.

[The SheoDovah]

I was planning on a 4 class system for my first few RPs until I feel comfortable using CASPIE. Warrior,Rogue and Mage along with Hybrid would be the classes for a TES RP. I would fear that if i did a caspie system, I would mess up with a dice and wouldn't feel that I couldn't do it justice. E.g. 8 Endurance would be strong but the dice roll that adds it doesn't allow a minor injury. If that makes sense.

[VirtualWeasel]

(Not a current DM but having DM'd ten thousand times in the past I figured I'd give my opinion here)

I used to be really big into complex mechanics, especially on the DM side, when it came to skill calculation and character development. Nowadays, I prefer RPs to actually have no skill system at all—no numbers (a la CASPIE) or perks (a la any of my past roleplays), just simple "character is proficient at X, Y, & Z." Skill systems have always seemed to be a form of sabotage in any RP I've DM'd, putting a heavier burden on the DM and detaching players from the story and world. I think there's a reason why roleplays like TA have survived so long—on one hand, because of the extremely open and continuous story, and on the other hand, because the mechanics are low maintenance. Back in the beginning days of the RP subforum, roleplays had little (if any) skill or mechanic system, and they were some of the best RPs I've ever read or played in, simply because they were all about the story, not about how buffed one's character is.

Of course there are a lot of contributing factors to a good RP, but I personally believe that simpler mechanics is one of the biggest factors.

[Kerr]

There's a lot of things I like and don't like in RPG system design, I'm kind of a nerd for it actually. So for example, I don't like class based systems, I think they're worse than classless for a variety of reasons. I also like point buy over dice rolling for attributes, randomisation in character creation should be optional. People have different tolerances for complexity and I made it so I can't look at it objectively, but I try to make CASPIE simple enough to understand while still having some mechanical depth and being classless. That doesn't mean I don't screw up sometimes, CASPIE isn't great and different people are naturally going to have different tastes. For example a big problem I have with CASPIE from a mechanical standpoint is how much it combines physical and mental attributes. So intelligence is always going to be useful for your character, because you know same mind and everything, but if your character gets spell to shapeshift into a minotaur, all of a sudden putting all those points into Strength isn't worth it. And that doesn't begin to mention attributes which are a combination of mental and physical which is half them.

I do everything behind the scenes so things are easier for my players. I also don't roll religiously, for a lot of things, like if it's a relatively trivial task related to the skill, I'll just gave a player an automatic pass for having said skill. I do have pretty lethal combat in my RPGs. I prefer having every combat be dangerous and every foe important as opposed waves of trivial mooks but that's just personal preference, it really depends on what you're going for. I try not to be unreasonable with it. For example, I had a player first knocked out by a serial killer and didn't kill them and then shot in the head and once again because I'm the GM, had it not kill them and only knock them out. She ended up dying anyway but only because she later didn't take off her leg restraints while trying to escape and surrendered. Because ultimately I didn't want to kill players for no reason or relatively little reason. Although I don't think a lot of players realize, you're actually less likely to hit the head than the torso. Because I have player specify they're trying to hit the head from 200 meters away all the time.

I think there's a value in having a certain element mechanical randomness, so it can take you and players by surprise. "Holy crap, I never thought I'd make that shot!" Also PvP would be all but impossible without it, you'd end with with accusations of favoritism and it's next to impossible for a GM to actually be impartial, nor would you even want to be. Having that plausible deniability for your actions as a GM is valuable. I didn't kill you, the dice killed you. I didn't save you from certain doom, good luck saved you. Players can't tell if it was dice doing that stuff or you as a GM because it can be either of them, sometimes it is either.

Now this is something that would never work for a video game RPG, but for me as a GM, always think of your rules as guidelines than actual hard rules. Don't be afraid to bend them or outright ignore them depending in circumstance. Half of being a good GM is making the players think you know what you're doing. The other half is taking their ideas and using them instead because it's better than whatever crap you thought up. "This NPC has a brother he's looking for? It would be pretty cool for his player and the game if that brother was at this settlement they're going to."

Ultimately the mechanics are far from the be all and end all, have them be relatively simple and easy for players to understand and use while also allowing for a lot of openness and variety in how people make characters, I want my players to be able to make all sorts of wacky combinations, both individually and as a party. And there is no one size fits all system, what mechanics you should have depends on what you're going for. Mechanics alone aren't going to determine if you have fun or not and nobody likes getting bogged down in complex systems. Character creation in some games is a damn nightmare. Although how much fun you have doesn't in and of itself judge the value of a mechanic. You could have a lot of fun playing D&D with your friends but that doesn't mean THAC0 and rolling for attributes is a good mechanical design. Likewise you could hate playing Vampire but that doesn't mean World of Darkness sucks.

Well that was long, told you I was a nerd for RPG system design.

[The SheoDovah]

Thanks for the answers guys! :)It's helped me a lot and I think, for my first proper RP(let's face it, Gladiator was too ambitious and poorly planned. Madgod's Realm could have been the new TA but well, it was literally me throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck.). I will not use a class system and instead, use a skill system that is a bit similiar to TA2's.


Would traits be worth doing for a first time DM? (Again, my other two RPs were not really planned and i'm refusing to say the one i'm semi-working on is the third attempt thus refering to it as the first one). Or would it be best to go with a very simple system that is decided by the elders of the dice?

E.g. Ye'r a mage - You showed magical ability at a young age and elected to refine it. You have a ton of magicka and are an apprentice in 3 schools of magic. You're a Journeyman in one and an expert in another. You don't believe in using mudane methods such as swords and are pathetic in melee combat. You can't really take much but who needs fancy armour when you can melt the faces of your foes? -1 to melee combat dice rolls. +1 for apprentice skills. +2 for Journeyman. +3 for Expert.

An Altmeri version would be altered due to my interperation of the Altmers being 100% magical. Would the example i used be a bit overpowered if there were two dices? I would look for an online two dice resource. Feel traits would make it more interesting and varied. Also partially because I want to be a bit silly whilst giving bonuses and negatives.

[MARS]

This is about the time when the insecurities kick in. I feel like I've rushed my OP out too fast and could have included more, but I specifically wanted to avoid clutter by making most of the exposition take place inside the RP. Is there still room for improvement?

[Velvet LeChance]

I thought your OP was great. I also think for mystery OPs it's better to leave the starting details scant and have the players discover the world themselves - especially when the place we're exploring should bear no relevance on our character's biographies, motivations, etc.

[MARS]

Well that puts me at ease.

[Kerr]

So I'm looking for some advice on that Sci-Fi RPG I'm making. First off I have a working title for it "Greybox" which is the name of the implants people have which backs up their consciousness. I don't get any alliteration but naming it after the most important piece of technology in the setting seems fitting.

My problem is basically the exact opposite of what worried MARS, I'm scared that instead of not giving enough information, I'm going to overburden players with too much information and present an OP that reads like an encyclopedia of setting details which turns people off at the sheer bulk. But also that I'm adding in a bunch of unnecessary setting detail which just complicates things. At the moment it's looking to be an even longer version of what I did for Silicon & Sorcery where I just throw a bunch of that stuff at you. Which I'm sure is partly just me being self conscious, if it's an original setting that's not set on modern earth and that player's aren't just being introduced to for the first time when play starts, it's hard to just hand wave that stuff. At the same time though, I do want the OP to exist as a reference. Players aren't expected to memorize it, you can skim it and because of how it's divided, they can very easily check back when a certain thing becomes relevant. Like maybe you don't need to know how Islam has adapted to the 22nd Century but it is a major world religion, it might come up eventually and it's an interesting thing to know. Which I like to think is useful. And I like having worlds which are really broad and have a tonne in it that's not directly relevant to what's currently going on, cause that's how the real world works.

But for an example of going overboard and maybe putting too much in, I had an alien outpost on Eris made up of a species who are very reclusive and don't want transhumans (the grouping term for humans and AI) coming near them without express permission. But the existence of an alien species is such a huge thing, what they look like, how they act, what everyone thinks of them. And they were going to be such a minor factor of the story I'm going for anyway (because they live on literally the outskirts of the solar system and keep to themselves) that I just don't feel the increased complexity of adding them is worth it. But aliens still exist in the galaxy, they're probably just not going to be that direct of a presence.

Which leads me onto a big thing I'm conflicted over right now, namely alien artifacts, specifically transportation portals. My idea at the moment is during "The Collapse" (when AI became super-intelligent and Earth fell) the AI in question found and activated an alien artifact on Mars which they used to leave the solar system and travel to an extrasolar world. These days it's under heavy guard by the Martian government who are studying it and the world on the other side of the portal, but there are rumors going around about it and lots of people don't think it's the only portal of its kind in our solar system, the other ones are just a better held secret. But am I making a mistake by having straight up conformation that aliens exist (or at least, have existed) in what's otherwise human focused Sci-Fi? Is it the sort of thing I should keep entirely ambiguous? It's not like there aren't still plenty of mysteries surrounding the device and who made it.
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Also I still have basically all the story and character stuff to plan out. I'm not too worried about that at the moment though, I have an idea of what the main plot will be and some key characters. But I need concrete setting details before I can make that stuff, also what players I have are going to shape things quite a bit.

[Hissien]

I would, in that situation, only put what information the players would expect to be able to know themselves without extensive background. Put in links for more information if a character decides they want to be scholarly then they will have to do that kind of research for themselves. Maybe tell them about those artefacts and their use at the time as it can be intimidating to a new player to approach such a large op.

[Velvet LeChance]

Players aren't expected to memorize it, you can skim it and because of how it's divided, they can very easily check back when a certain thing becomes relevant. Like maybe you don't need to know how Islam has adapted to the 22nd Century but it is a major world religion, it might come up eventually and it's an interesting thing to know.

I quite enjoyed the encyclopediacal nature of the S&S OP because I basically did what was suggested above: skimmed it, learned the directly relevant stuff, and then used it as a sort of reference for stuff my character should know but I don't.

The rule of thumb I use anyways is three fold (examples from SfU):

1. Is it plausible that the average character be aware of this: Like the extreme particulars of the Brazilian financial crisis of 2030s
2. Would it plausibly influence the average character. I threw in a brief reference the ravages of climate change being ignored in the Global South for example because I figured those sort of global injustices would matter for any politically-inclined character.
3. Does it affect the plot in any way at all ever: Like the Brenholmen incident from the middle 2030s won't ever be references, I can promise you that.

If your character is a central banker or something then they are probably aware of the extreme particulars of the Brazilian financial crisis (even if you don't want to be), and in that case, I'll pass on the information on. If your character was also involved in something which suggests that would have been implicated them in the Brenholmen incident then I will also pass that along.

With specific regards to alien artefacts, I wouldn't include it in the OP if it isn't common knowledge and the speculations about other portals existing aren't typical either. If someone writes a character whose a xenoarcheologist or a xenoanthropologist or something then they might possess that specific knowledge then I'd leave off; otherwise let the characters discover this for themselves.

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tl;dr: What Hissien said.

[Kerr]

Thanks guys. I'm still on the fence about aliens but I'm happier with how I'll structure the OP.

I quite enjoyed the encyclopediacal nature of the S&S OP because I basically did what was suggested above: skimmed it, learned the directly relevant stuff, and then used it as a sort of reference for stuff my character should know but I don't.

Well I'm glad you liked it, because I think I am going just have a big encyclopedic OP which I divided into sections like S&S. I think it worked well there and it just seems like the best way to do it. Yes, it means I'm front loading a lot but it's better than leaving out really important information. Or burying important information within the RP itself which people can easily forget and takes more effort to refer back to. I think the benefits of having that kind of source makes up for the drawback of it being somewhat daunting. And when it's an original setting that's not set on modern earth, you're just going to have a lot of setting information. Still, I want to keep it relatively brisk. I don't need to devout a tonne of text to how like Titan military works or some other pretty small piece of information.

I'll just make note in the paragraph at the top of the post that says how to treat the OP, you don't need to read and memorize all this now, you can skim it and treat it as a reference for the world in general.

[BetaB17]

If I could give my 2 cents, aside from agreeing with Velv & Hiss about the OP >_> I'm sort of partial to the name Greybox <_<

The other bit, where I'm perfectly fine with hints or artifacts of an alien race being present, I mean, that's sort of a given trope within scifi now >_> and all the more to ya if it takes a bit of a backstage to this more 'human' story. But.. And I gotta be honest and give some criticism, but why a portal on Mars? I mean, I would recon colonization of Mars is already under way or already happened.. So having an alien artifact of that magnitude on a populated planet, that frankly isn't all too hard to get to or have any hope to hide(much to the Government's dismay)

Personally? Venus sounds like a better option. I mean, even with advances in technology, reaching the surface would be an endeavor, and it would certainly explain why it would of taken humanity longer to discover it(and certainly easier than say if it was on the outer rims of our solar system) But I mean, I have no clue where the story is going or significant events, so maybe it being on Mars makes alot more sense