Reference The Game Designer's Group

Just sent PMs to the GMs of both games you suggested, and am waiting for a reply. I am ready to take on some more RPGs, and thank all of you for helping me find my way out of this rut of endless rejection. I hope that once I build up wonderful RPGing, I can create a great RPG everyone will enjoy.

 

Also, Dragon Age: Rise of the Wardens is just starting up. PM Radiance I'm pretty sure there is still room.

 

They make a Dragon Age RPG based on the Dragon Age RPG and you don't even bother to use it for your Dragon Age RPG?

 

Someday, LW, someday... *Sigh*

 

I think we got a game index somewhere with all open games (in theory) Otherwise I think most games are looking for players right now. Otherwise no prob you posted my advice Hero. It is actually what I think. Play. Meet people. Then GM.

Worked fine for me

 

Guys, this is starting to get a little tangential to the GDG's purpose. It's cool if you want to follow up an OP with a "hey we've started, come have a look" note, but how about we take recruiting spiels and discussions of ongoing games elsewhere...?

Again this is tangential to the GDG's purpose, but: there is an index, though like all things it's only as useful as you guys make it. If GMs don't tell us about their games and players don't look at it, there's nothing Imp or I can do about it. So ... use plz?

 

I'm not sure who is next on the queue but I'd like my name tacked onto the list. I have a game still in the works, but figure this is the place to get the feedback I need/want.

 

You're up then, make it snappy.

 

Cadwallon - The Jewel of Lanever

It was an age where time did not exist...the age of the gods. The gods traveled the Creation unrivaled. Their empires knew no limit and extended over entire worlds born from the magic energies of the Creation. Discord came and the gods waged war among themselves for supremacy. The crumbling of the dying worlds almost lead to the collapse of Creation and the death of everything. But the Creation fought back. The gods were brutally thrown off their thrones and sent into exile beyond the borders of the elemental worlds, the Realms. Time appeared, imposing its curse to the vain immortals: if they dared to reappear, they would suffer the punishment and be forever forgotten. Thus, the age of gods ended.

However, one does not get rid of these terrible forces so easily. After a thousand years in exile, the gods continue to wage war through their champions -Incarnates- and their most faithful allies. The balance is once again under threat. The curse of time is fading. Darkness seizes the heart of the brave and the gods are preparing their armies to reclaim this world. The Rag'narok is upon us.

The ultimate age has come.


Cadwallon. The name itself embodies the majesty of the free city state. Outside there is only a world throw off-balance by the Rag'narok, slowly slipping towards total war. A shelter to some, a prosperous haven for others, the Jewel of Lanever draws the envy of every nation as the war refugees coming add to its ever increasing population and workforce. Yet Cadwallon, while being a beacon of hope, is also a snare. For life in the city of thieves is first and formost a never ending to earn and secure one's position. Cadwallon, the two-faced city. Most of its denizens know only the hideous features of the lower city. The choice between hard labor or extreme poverty, a life devoted to the guilds service or the unpredictability of day to day struggle. Its other face is the upper city. A walled city within a city, its great towers reaching for the sky, its gigantic crossbeams shadowing the streets below. Being the heart of the city, it drains all the riches without any consideration for its underprivileged counterpart.

"Hope is a delusion, freedom a fantasy. The town where you were born shall be the town where you will die. We have decided to reject that fatalism. We have chosen prosperity and freedom. We are the free leaguers." -Vladar the Arrogant


Welcome to Cadwallon! An epic tale of the formation and growth of a war-band, known as a free league. I will guide you through your journey, but the adventures fate is for you to decide.

---

I have the rules, CS, and brief explanation of races planned for the second post along with a bit more history. It's my first game and it is still a work in progress. Tell me what you think! :D

-Meca

 

Let's talk about the good. Firstly, parts of the setting sound good. Not many people try and set an entire campaign within a closed(ish) location like a single city, and fewer still try and envision a political system for that city which at least allows the reader to suspend disbelief. Cadwallon hits some good notes for me and some clear adventuring hooks - the separation of sections of the city into a "lower" and "upper" part, and at least a memorable image or two for each section of the city: the lower city strikes me as basically a rat's den, and a nice thumbnail sketch is give, while you picked a memorable image for the upper city of "crossbeams shadowing the streets".

Secondly, you astutely don't allow people to take the option of "I iz nobleman wiv lots of cash" -- I can only really discern three professions available from the fluff text: thief, guildsman, or warrior. Good choice, because a life with comfort and ease is not an interesting adventuring life.

Now let's talk about the rest.

First, I get a certain lack of focus to exactly where you're planning to run this game. On one hand, you say Cadwallon's pretty much a fortress in the overall darkness of life outside the free city, and that lots of war refugees come here. Then you provide a quote from Vladar the Arrogant about the formation of a free league and that free leaguers apparently won't live where they die. That suggests going outside Cadwallon for a substantial portion of the adventure. So is it going to be a city-based adventure, with all the myriad opportunities and adventure hooks a city contains for a small adventuring party, or is Cadwallon just going to be the base of operations, or what? Me, I say leave it all (or an overwhelming majority of the time) in the city. Have some courage. And go find a book called Cityscape which, whilst set in the Dungeons and Dragons world, is an excellent resource for fluff and mechanics on how a medieval city works. If you are planning to host the entire adventure inside one massive city, then I strongly suggest you get it worked out with some detail - not down to every inn, but definitely know how the city's divided up, how law and order is kept, who rules the city and how, the major cities and major institutions. This is all eseential because you need suspension of disbelief and an interesting setting to make a city-based adventure work. That requires a lot of "behind the curtain" detail.

Second, if you're thinking you'll get a group of 100-200 characters or something like that to form what would in medieval times be the size of a true posse comitatus or war-band, forget it. This board doesn't run that busy at the best of times. If it's a true mercenary band or posse comitatus you've got in mind, then I presume it's going to be setting up the characters as the commanders or whatever of such a band. It's not clear to me exactly whether you're going for grand army scale or small-party adventuring here, and I think you need to think carefully and carefully define that. Me, I'd tend to run a small adventuring party. More interesting; more opportunity for people to have spotlight moments.

Third: more interesting mythology, please. The Creation is powerful enough to lock up gods, but can't keep their servants from roaming around the world making nuisances of themselves? Heck, it's powerful enough to lock up the gods but only for one thousand years (a mere eyeblink in the eternity of time?) Did the Creation make the gods? If so, why didn't he make 'em, y'know, perfect? Not saying any of these elements is bad (god knows even Tolkien abused half othese tropes in his time, so you're in good company) but you need some solid reasons for why the world is what it is. Also, plesse, for the love of Peewee Herman, don't turn your adventuring party into the children of the gods or Incarnates. People already slip so much godlike behaviour under freeform that they're acting like gods anyway, but you don't need to infect your story with that as well. Also:

 

Thanks for the response Saint!

This seems to be my problem, most of the detail is behind the curtain. I have the city broken down into different fiefdoms, framework for the system of laws, and the Duke and how he runs the city. I have alot more, but I'm trying to figure out how to make a manageable, easy read for my OP.

The plan was for a small party, I'm probably putting a cap of 10 players on the game to facilitate that. The "war-bands" in this game are a descendant of the dogs of war, the original free league I have for the story and I planned on keeping it small.

I imagined the games focus leaning towards the free league (the players) developing and taking on missions within the city mainly, but wanted to give some lore about the world its set in for the story to make sense. This is another case of "I have more, but didn't want to scare away readers with a wall of text."


Your reply showed me alot, mainly I need to be a bit clearer to my audience. You don't want to give away the whole story, but if everything is left ambiguous people won't want to join in the first place. I'm still working at it, this is my first game so I just need to find the balance where it all fits together. I'll check out the resource you gave me for developing a city based setting as well. Thanks!

Anymore comments are encouraged and greatly appreciated!

 

So, just a short notice . . .

If you create a game here, where many games are around, you usually need to accomplish two points with your Opening Post (OP, as we usually call it).

1. Make a good game. Or one you and players enjoy, to be more precise.

2. Make a game that attracts players in the first place.

I am not too worried about part one, as I see a lot of good stuff here and I am sure that will pay of in the game, once it gets of the ground. But attracting players - especially if you are not well established in existing player networks - can be tricky. So as a first time GM you need to make some extra effort for this. It is totally not impossible. JediHighlander (now Republic Anvil) did it with Asylum lately. There was a game called The New Sith War a few month ago which recruited tons of players with a total stranger GM and so did the last Kotor III attempt on the board. But it´s just a little harder than doing your fifth game, when people know they like your style of storytelling etc.

So to keep this in mind when you work on that OP (which got potential, no doubt) might be a good idea.

To the details of the game, I´ll say a few things tomorrow. To early here, right now

 

Then you, sir, have done better than about 90% of authors when commencing their first RPG. And for that I salute you. See? Oh, wait, you can't see it from where you are. Never mind then.

Seriously, you are entirely right in (a) not overwhelming potential players with instant detail; and (b) agonising over the length of the OP. It's not easy, I totally agree. But the reason I got interested in this was because -- in all honesty -- there was something about your proposed post which indicated you'd actually put some solid thought into it. That excites me. I was only cautioning you to work it all out behind the scenes if my first impression was entirely wrong, which it clearly wasn't.

Good, then. Maybe a slight change in the name of the party from "war-band" might be justified, simply because the impression I get from such a name is a large-ish group of warriors actually capable of maneuvering as a unit in a full-scale war. Hence the 100-200 characters remark. Small adventuring parties are more interesting, anyway.

Well, then, here's my comment: these thoughts fill me with joy, because it sounds like you're not flying by the seat of your pants and you've got a plan in place. One query about "development", "missions", and the resource I prposed: I'm biased, but have you considered actually running this game according to an actual RPG system like Dungeons and Dragons, if only in the background? Homebrewed settings are a dimze-a-dozen in the D&D world and nobody really minds that they're playing in a homebrewed setting rather than Eberron or the Forgotten Realms. I only want to hoist the flag of a system mostly because it takes a hell of a lot out of thework in balancing encounters to your adventurers and working out when they should receive upgrades to their abilities. More to the point, it's an actual system, which can be kind of hard to create from wholecloth.

But keep up the good work!

 

Well, why should it be D6D then? I suggest having a look at other, easier to handle systems than the epic quest ot bring D&D to the boards. Which Saintheart is actually suceeding at. but which is extremely complicated.


WHERE IS ACTUALLY THAT PROMISED THREAD OF RP SYSTEMS AND THEIR USE FOR Post-by-Post RPs?

Otherwise I think you should probably have a prose intro. Something which sets the feeling. have some of your free leaguers fight against somethng. Present uswith the idea of a small warband. Of treamwork, of character classes . . . it can be much more effective than long complicated posts about your ideas and it gives away less.

 

WOT'S ALL THIS THEN?! First I've heard of it - but that'd be a sweet thread.

One possible system that comes to mind is True 20 - same idea as DnD, but only using one die, and generally without a class system to bog you down. Players could just pick from the list of abilities and then the GM builds their characters according to their preferences and the point cap...

Okay, so that's still a bit involved. There's always L5R and other d10 systems, I guess.

 

I originally had the idea of using some form of a d6 system, but I may just forgo the dice and try something else. I want it as simple as possible so its easy to manage and easy to approach, but not boring for people more familiar with this type of game. I am also working on a simple xp system, here is what I have so far:

Since the game is going to be mission based (don't worry it still has a story) I planned on granting xp for missions, successful kills, feats of strength and the like.

Each player will have 30xp to assign at character creation. They will also be able to choose from a list of abilities(still in the works) and select 2 as starting abilities. Xp can be used to learn new abilities, enhance existing abilities if able, increase stats, learn new spells etc. I will also give each hero a value(placeholder for now). A players value will be based upon spent xp. I'm still working on the numbers to make it balance out but so far it seems to be going well. I have it worked out that 5xp=1 value. Value will be used to determine access to certain abilities/spell/gear etc. A ranking system if you will. Missions will also have a cap on how many players can take it by having a set value, for instance, if a mission had a value of 150 and a player whose value is 62, only 88 remain free for other players to join. I hope this will keep the game from going stagnant allowing for multiple missions to active at once, plus it gives the players interaction with one another in several different settings allow for players to need each others skills.

If I stick to just a d6 system I think it can work. I want to try a system out where 6's may be rolled again allowing for "impossible" feats to be accomplished or difficult spells to be cast by lower ranking magic user. Also 1's will be automatic failures, to account for that 0.01% that the mercenary veteran your fighting might just lose his footing and slip. There will also be abilities that allow 5's and 6's to be rolled again, and some that make 1's stand as a 1 and not a failure.

Again, this is my first time at this but so far I feel good about what I have and the feedback I have received so far has been a great help. Heck if Saint gave me a pat on the back I must be doing some of it right huh?

Thank you all for your input so far. I might end up trying to recruit a Co-GM to help with missions and whatnot, plus since I'm the newbie a little help might be just what I need.

 

I would like to be next in the Queue.

Also, Mecatolrex, you game does sound intriguing. I don't really have anything to add that others haven't already said. I do recommend joining a game and playing a bit before running your own. Not saying you shouldn't go ahead and start one, far from it... I did it. But because I did it, I can tell you that my game has been influenced from my exposure to other games and that if I had played first I would have done some things different. So take your time on your game, crunch the numbers, set the story, get a good grip on it, and while your doing that cruise the RPF and get some exposure to the feel of games already in progress.

Well there are my two small copper currency disks worth of free advice... (if you understood any of that, then I have failed somehow )

-Anvil-

 

The stage is yours Anvil.

Thank you all for the feedback, I'm still writing the story but don't have much more to go before I'm happy with it ( I say that now... ). And I am already taking your advice Anvil, I'm in a few games at the moment and wanted to play first while my game was under development so I could a) Get to know my community b) Get a bit more familiar with RPing myself so I have a better viewpoint on RPing as both player and GM c) Pretendy fun time games are awesome!

Once I have a more polished version of the game finished I'll drop in here again and get a final grooming from the GDG. You all have been a HUGE help and for that you have my thanks. I'm hoping to launch my game around late jan/early feb.

 

The Matrix ? To free a mind.

?I am glad you decided to accept the position.? Dagur said as he escorted the young man to the dock. ?I know your a little young but don't let that hold you back. We were all rookies once.? the young man followed Dagur into the dock. The gigantic domed enclave that serviced the last of humanity's hoverships. The young man looked in amazement as the bustle of the Dock roared around him.

?I understand that you have some operation training already?? The young man snapped his attention back to the Ship's Operator. ?Yessir!? the hurried words emerged as one.

?Good that will help you and put you ahead of most rookies.?

They came upon a particular ship. It was resting in its moorings being refitted and refueled. A engineer was replacing one of the hoverpads, while others worked quickly to patch battle damage. An APU (Armored Personnel Unit) was standing by as the carcass of a Sentinel was removed from the ship's hull.

They approached the Ship, and Dagur smiled as they did. ?She is the fastest ship in the fleet.? He eyed the young man. ?Of course you knew that. She was the one that freed you, right?? Dagur knew he was right. It had been just before he had taken over as the Ship's Operator.

?Yes sir. The Captain was the one that rescued me.? Indeed ever since then he had wanted to serve on this ship. He had to wait for seven years, the minimum age to join a crew was eighteen, but it was worth it.

Dagur led him up the gangplank to the ship. At the hatch, as if waiting for them, which indeed he was, the Captain grinned as he returned their salute.

?Dagur I see you have collected our last crewmen.?

?Indeed Sir.?

The Captain turns to regard the young man.

?Welcome aboard the Nebuchaunezzer, Morpheus.?

---

Welcome to: The Matrix ? To free a mind.

Premise:
This is an AU Matrix game starting approximately 20 years before the first movie. I am looking for four to six Players to crew the Nebuchaunezzer. The story of the game will follow the early years of the Nebuchaunezzer as it carries out its duties as a Ship of Zion, and how its crew handle a critical situation that will arise during the course of those duties.
The main objectives of any Ship of Zion is;
The defense of Zion.
The Search for potential Redpills (Redpills is a reference to people who are capable of being freed from the Matrix).
The Sabotaging of the Matrix in effort to destabilize the Machines control of enslaved humanity.


Combat:
Combat will be handled in an augmented Kill Quota system. A player will have a Kill Quota that states how many NNPCs (Nameless Non-Player Characters) enemies that player can kill or take out in a post. For Named NPCs a post by post battle will commence. The Kill Quota will be based on a player's Operation Training (training downloaded into the character's brain)

Bending:
Because Player Characters are freed from the Matrix they can bend its laws after a fashion. When Bending the Matrix, a character can perform spectacular feats (jumping incredible distances, slowing time, increasing strength, ect...) for a post, the number of feats per-post is based on the character's Endurance Score. The character must endure a Cool Down period before Bending again. The Cool Down is 11 in-game minutes minus the character's Willpower Score.

Willpower and Endurance:
These scores are on a scale of 1-10 and are inversely proportional to each other. Example: Willpower = 4 then Endurance = 6.

Operation Training:
This is the Training one receives by direct download in to the brain. Unlike Neo, normal freed people can't download too much too quickly. Everyone will start with basic operation training (Basic Firearms, Basic hand to hand combat, Basic computer operation) You can choose one additional Training at Character creation and then more as you progress though the game.
(There is a list of training programs to choose from that have values associated with them to determine the character's Kill Quota, I just haven't finished it completely)

Character Sheet:

Real Name:
Birth Name:
Age:
Gender:
Appeara

 

So, let´s do it the old fashioned way. The good, the bad, the ugly.

The Good:

A lot, actually. Matrix is a franchise that killed itself rather effective with two Sequels, one must say. The first movie is, depsite that the most powerful and attractive vision of the last ten years (yeah, it came to my mind when I had to compare a movie to Avatar and I think it wins even there) and is a perfect RP seeting.
Bold but brilliant move to go the Prequel lane. Dadaaam. We´re rid of the Sequel´s. In large parts. And the overpowered Neo. And stay behind with young Morpheus and Co.

The Intro is sweet, introduces some of your ideas. The upload thing is good. I like that "Level-Up" idea with downloads of knowledge. Makes sense and serves the purpose of limiting player power, too.

It has a good length. Because a lot of things need no introduction. I assume each and every board member knows the Matrix. And what an Agent is. So, no need to explain it to us. A few things are missing, but here we can continue with the bad . . .


The Bad:

Character Creation is a little vague, I think. "The Crew" seems to be a precise description, but actually it is not. Is the Captain available? The Operator (the guys who never enters the Matrix?) or Morpheus himself? Are all characters "Level 1" when you begin?

Second thing is the AU part. Are you planning to rewrite Matrix? If so, I think all is fine. If you plan on staying within´the continuity, I don´t see why calling a AU. Actually a true Prequel has it´s own attraction, as the original 128 ABY proofed.

The Ugly:

Well, it´s a draft. Insert pcitures and probably even some cool soundtrack and it will be perfect, optical.

 

Ok Fins you asked for it!

I have addressed your Bad by expanding the character creation and in doing so I think I have created a monster (so much for minimum text). And I have posted Positions on the ship. Morpheus is indeed available to play. Everyone will start at level 1.

As for the AU part. Yes I plan to hold the spirit of the Matrix in my game, but I am not restricting the outcome to ending with the opening of the Movies. That may happen or Morpheus might die or humanity might be wiped out before Neo is even old enough to see an R rated movie.

As for your Ugly Here is my rewrite of the game for further criticism.

---

The Matrix ? To Free a Mind.

Deep with in the earth, near the core, lies Zion, The last human city. It is here that the last of humanity gather to fight the Machines. It is here that newly freed minds come to live. It is here that a young man hurries down a walkway towards a waiting Ship's Operator.

[image=http://colline.dk/image387.jpg]

?I am glad you decided to accept the position.? Dagur said as he escorted the young man to the dock. ?I know your a little young but don't let that hold you back. We were all rookies once.? the young man followed Dagur into the dock.

[image=http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/4492/dockf.jpg]

The gigantic domed enclave that serviced the last of humanity's hoverships. The young man looked in amazement as the bustle of the Dock roared around him.
?I understand that you have some operation training already?? The young man snapped his attention back to the Ship's Operator. ?Yessir!? the hurried words emerged as one.
?Good that will help you and put you ahead of most rookies.?

[image=http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/4086/neba.jpg]


They came upon a particular ship. It was resting in its moorings being refitted and refueled. A engineer was replacing one of the hoverpads, while others worked quickly to patch battle damage. An APU (Armored Personnel Unit) was standing by as the carcass of a Sentinel was removed from the ship's hull.
They approached the Ship, and Dagur smiled as they did. ?She's the best ship in the fleet.? He eyed the young man. ?Of course you knew that. She was the one that freed you, right?? Dagur knew he was right. It had been just before he had taken over as the Ship's Operator.
?Yes sir. The Captain was the one that rescued me.? Indeed ever since then he had wanted to serve on this ship. He had to wait for seven years, the minimum age to join a crew was eighteen, but it was worth it.
Dagur led him up the gangplank to the ship. At the hatch, as if waiting for them, which indeed he was, the Captain grinned as he returned their salute.
?Dagur I see you have collected our last crewmen.?
?Indeed Sir.?
The Captain turns to regard the young man.
?Welcome aboard the Nebuchaunezzer, Morpheus.?

[hr]

Welcome to: The Matrix ? To free a mind.

Premise:
This is an AU Matrix game starting approximately 20 years before the first movie. I am looking for six to eight Players to crew the Nebuchaunezzer. The story of the game will follow the early years of the Nebuchaunezzer as it carries out its duties as a Ship of Zion, and how its crew handle a critical situation that will arise during the course of those duties. Players are not restricted to the Nebuchaunezzer's crew but must be associated with the ship.
The main objectives of any Ship of Zion is;
The defense of Zion.
The Search for potential Redpills (Redpills is a reference to people who have been freed from the Matrix).
The Sabotaging of the Matrix in effort to destabilize the Machines control of enslaved humanity.

[hr]

A Note to Potential Players:
This game is not just for Redpills, and will not be entirely played in The Matrix. Freeborn Children of Zion are just as much a part of the resistance as any Redpill is. Not everyone needs to be a crewmen of the Nebuchaunezzer, but everyone needs to be associated with the ship.
As such the positions on the Nebuchaunezzer are:
[b]Captain:[/b] Taken
[b]First Mate:[/b] Available (restricted to an experience player, almost Co-GM

 

Right, my turn in the barrel.

Some random thoughts I had on your RPG, Anvil ...

- First: finally! Someone is putting some real thought into a Matrix RPG! Hasn't happened around here for ages and ages. I also claim a little self-interest here: if someone else does a good Matrix RPG it'll relieve me from the responsibility of reviving my old one, and therefore will give greyjedi125 somewhere to play Good choice of franchise, in other words: Matrix strikes me as one of the best franchises you can pick, since pretty much everyone's seen it, the setting encourages run-of-the-mill players being able to do something extraordinary, and it's got the right dose of counterculture to make it attractive for potential players out here.

- Monster first post: easiest way to cure that is to move the "Classes" and "Flash Skills" sections into a second post, immediately following the first. Think of your first post as the cover page, and the second one as the "table of contents", if you will. There's no rule against double-posting out here, especially in these circumstances. Personally I don't regard this as a post so big that it's impossible to absorb, but if you're looking to attract casual readers, break it into two posts instead. You might also consider this: if you have a long intro pair of posts, you won't have a massive player list, but those people who do read through it will be the sort of folks you're looking for: committed players who actually are capable of reading more than one paragraph in a session and who will take the time to put together an actual player sheet.

- Con #1: spelling and grammar errors. Just a couple here and there: "your" in place of "you're" in one spot; some capitalisation of "The" when there isn't a period preceding it; also, a lack of capitalisation at the start of some sentences. Particularly glaring is using the word "role" in place of "roll." Roll refers to rolling a dice. Role refers to a function, or character, that you fulfil - Role Playing Game, yes? There's also some sentence fragments which don't make sense in context, particularly below the images. Lastly, when you're addressing a plural subjects, the correct word is "are", not "is". For example, "The nominees for best actor are:", not "The nominees for best actor is:". These considerations sound nitpicky, but I hold to the point of view that, in general, grammar and spelling errors detract from the experience of reading a text-based RPG. They make a GM look unprofessional and honestly, a little juvenile, as if the GM is not devoted to high standards. And remember that the first post of an RPG is meant to leave a favourable first impression on those reading it -- experienced players, rightly or wrongly, judge the GM and the game by the content of his opening post. As I (admittedly, repeatedly) put it: if you don't put together a polished first post, why should your potential players assume that the rest of the game will be any different? Solution's easy, though - have someone proofread it, or print it off and read it on paper. That's because you're accustomed to reading good grammar in books and on paper, and your mind will orient to picking up more of these errors.

Potential Con #2 - the D6 system. Particularly when it comes to combat, unless you're operating from an actual game system that's been designed and balanced by people who do that sort of thing for a living, attempts at running things mathematically don't work terribly well, or even become meaningless. That's simply because balancing the challenge of an opponent against the abilities of a player isn't as easy as it sounds: it's basically creating an entire mathematical system from wholecloth without a massive team of people experienced at doing it and without a massive band of people playtesting it, which is how most of the balance errors get ironed out. If you are running it off an actual game system, that's cool; just thought I'd mention it.

Potential Con #3 - Morpheus. I wouldn't ma

 

Just as a short reply. The d6 system is not exactly new. Or untested. Or unknown. You ever heard of an institution called Expanded Universe? Belongs ot a franchise called Star Wars, I believe and actually was born from an RPG based on that idea by a firm called West End Games. WEG as we lovers of ancient times call it. Very early 90s. It was based on D6 and therefore provide the two points a Matrix games needs, I think. Simple rules (I am advocating d6 as the perfect solution for online gaming on other boards all the time) and the ability to break them. d6 invented the "special dices" for the force-use, but using it for the Matrix will possibly work. The difficulties from the WEG system should work perfectly fine. I would suggest you also cover the so called "force points" and invent "matrix points" for the cinematic effect. Otherwise I agree d6 is a perfect choice.

For some ideas and examples how the system worked on the boards I gladly point out my own affair with it, the now doomed Vulture´s Talon in our sister-forum.

From that experience I want to point out the great weakness of the idea of basing it on a system. Many players do not join games like this, because dices alienate them. Something to consider.

I totally agree with the idea of a second post. I have already voiced my agreement with the franchise. The classes and all that has been well developed. Bravo!

On the question of Morpheus as a player or not, I have to meditate a bit. I actually think the danger of creating the "Morpheus-chronicles" is there but might be relative. Good RPing should get around it, anyway. Your own Asylum has not turned into the Dark Forces: Jedi Knight IV people feared for either, have they? Nor has ABYverse turned into the Kol Skylwalker Chronicles. Especially if Morphy is low level he could be pushed into an interesting supporting cast to heroes who fought and died long before Neo´s time.
Then again, why risk it? As I said, I wanna think about Saints critic here. Need to make my mind up there.

 

I'm well aware of the WEG system, Fins, mostly because I ran it as a tabletop GM for about three straight years back in the early nineties when I was still at university. Ran the "Black Ice" adventure and had a number of the sourcebooks - the Rebel Alliance one, the Imperial sourcebook, the Tramp Freighters sourcebook (awesome one, that), the Game Master's sourcebook, the first edition core rulebook, and the second edition core rulebook. I still have a good 30 d6s sitting in my collection specifically from those sessions. I agree with you; WEG rocked/rocks And I still houserule Force Points in my current D&D adventure to some extent. So if this is basically lifting the D6 rules and adapting them to the Matrix (and I don't remember them; I don't have the sourcebooks any more, more's the pity ) well and good. I only stress "have an actual system in place" because you and I have both seen some absolutely appalling homebrewed attempts at creating mathematical systems and 'power levels' from scratch, none of which have really survived or prospered. That's my only point.

 

Oh it wasn´t meant to come of as accusing/aggressive as it reads now. I blame the German language of being too absolute when translated. Yes, indeed the homebrew powersystems tend to be a problems more than a solution. I totally agree on that one. Therefore I think staying close to the d6 System is an advantage. It especially provides what needed.

And yeah, Tramp Freighter was awesome. This Outer Rim guides was a close second. Loved that one, too. Anyway, I think we can make the d6 system work, I am more ocncerned if people will accept it. But that might be no problem at all. My experiences have been in only a single forum.

Concerning Morpheus, I really think it is more a question of taste. I would love to hear other people´s ideas.

Now I head over to the systems-thread. Wasabout time someone did it