Reference The Game Designer's Group

Actually, this isn't "untested territory", there's been maybe four or five WWII RPGs. All of them failed. Then again, the NSWRPG forum has a long trail of games that died in their malformed infancy. If you want to surpass that legacy, you're going to need a small group of players that are as crazy as you are. You need to capture their interest and convince them that you have something they want to read about and play. Of course, opinions on how to do that vary, and if we all knew how to do it we'd probably have a lot fewer games in early graves. Really, about the only thing you have any control over is the amount of effort you put into this.

So put on a show. Open with an in-character briefing from the higher-ups for the first mission using some maps of where they're going and what they're doing, or some sort of bulletin or broadcast, maybe start in a prison yard with the command sorting through the list of prisoners and have the players describe their characters in the words of another character and explain what they bring to the table. You don't even necessarily have to have your opening scene be the first one the players are in, you could start with a plane over enemy territory and then flashback or something, really the possibilities are endless. The important part is you want your game to jump out and inspire your readers and potential players. You've got something, but why not make it into something more?

I hope the discussion isn't still active for the game above...

Hey all. This is my very rough rough draft of a project I've had in mind for quite a while. Several concepts have been taken for other stories. Anyway, tell me what ya' think.

The Boundless
"Prepare them for inspection, They are coming soon."
"Th-they are?"
"Yes, now get the subjects ready."
"Y-yes sir."

Suddenly everyone inside the complex started rushing back in forth from place to place. Large doors were held open while five cylindrical tubes were pushed into the room, each one propped up for viewing. Scientists reviewed the statistics of the subjects, checking off various boxes as they looked through the glass. Ten or more operators sat at computers watching the subjects' vitals, maintaining temperatures, oxygen levels, and making sure they got the proper nourishment. Around a hundred people came and went during the next hour, reviewing everything to insure nothing would go wrong when they came. There could be no errors, no flaws, with subject 104 - 109. Every detail had to be perfect or the funders would surely shut the operation down and order the subjects terminated. Those working on the project would have to start from scratch. One hour was left until they would arrive, the tension grew as the clock ticked. Soon everyone was frustrated at every minor detail. Several of them had to leave for the day. For the past half a century they had been creating, disposing of, and recreating hundreds of subjects. The ones inside the tubes now had passed all the tests for over sixteen years. Just as many scientists and staff have come and gone since they started these experiments.

Finally, when they got to the facility, they were very hostile demanding to see the subjects right away, and begin the tests. All of them were silent for the most part. Equations that would take the most intelligent mathematician two weeks, took the subjects less than a minute to dish the answers out- all in their head. The questions became harder, but the subjects continued to answer them without flaw. They uploaded knowledge into the subjects' brains, and quizzed them. The hardest tests man has made were given to these subjects. Each one solved the exams. World History, Science, Algebra, Literature, and various other topics were downloaded into their brains. The quiz began again, and for the next two hours, the subjects were tested. They seemed pleased, and the scientists were relieved. Then one started refusing to answer, the rest followed. The subjects were not answering.

"What is going on!?" One of them said.
A scientist answered shortly after, "I don't know, they are refusing to answer us."
"We see that, fool!"
"Restart their minds."
"The Subjects are not like computers, when there is a problem you can't just shut them down and reboot them."
"WE have the top scientific discoveries in the world, and we have solutions for this problem. Restart them, now!"
"Fine- fine!"

The scientists scrabbled to fix the problem, planning to restart their minds. The subjects cancelled the program trying to reboot them; instead, they download all of the company's records, files, and data.

"What did they just do!?" They all asked, one after another.
"They are rejecting the reboot, and just downloaded our entire mainframe..."
"Disconnect them from the computers immediately!" One of them ordered.

The scientists did just as they said, disconnecting all wires, chords, and cables that let the subjects access the system mainframe.

"If they will not cooperate, then they will be terminated. Have them dead by next week. We will start anew in one month."


Later that day, all of the tubes were put back in the individual rooms that monitored the subjects twenty-four seven. All of the scientists were frustrated tremendously, wondering where they had gone wrong. The truth was, one of the subjects went into the mainframe and listened to the conversation going on outside the tubes. He sent that to the four other subje/>

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Very good. I would sign up in a heartbeat, as I have pull for these kind of games.

EDIT: Again... Guess it wasn't a double post. :\

Thank you very much for your interest.

Okay, I´ll extend discussion time for the game for another week. As many people are busy right now and I know some thoughts circled it.

The topic. I like the idea. People who become Gods. Well, I think we got a pretty successful game with a similiar topic on these boards, but I think it has a very different take on it. So I don´t see a problem. Except it might have effect on player recruiting. Otherwise it is the time of spooky supernatural stories, it looks. Who seem to follow the "horror-wave" we had here.


My take on it. I like the intro scene. It is not very unqiue, I think. We had loads of these "something happens and we the reader can´t quite figure it out" intro-posts, but it works. With these games it seems to be the very best wy to start it. And that´s all that counts. Giving it some spin, twist or turn might be helpful though. Maybe a second of a glimpse from one of the boundless perspectives? Some foreshadowing?

I miss the plot in that post. All in all it is clear what the characters are about. and the game? Storyline? Antagonists? What will I play here? I am intruiged but feel like I would like to see how it goes and join on page 2. Usually we don´t join after the start, so a little more light shed on the plot might be really helpful, here.

That sounds like a tour-de-force of character playing. But it also looks like players have ver little to work with. Very little, actually. Mayn won´t have a problem with that. I surely wouldn´t. But if you have no bio, no social contacts. No reasons or problems. You need to do hell of a job as a GM to keep this interesting. It´s ALL about your plot. And no relief from the player side, when they do their own magic. So, thgat is quite a heavy burden for a game. If it works it will also be a masterpiece, no doubt. But I wanted to point out that this will need a lot of work.

Number 4 (and 1 to some extned) is an issue, because you bring it forth to aggressive. It´s not a good thing to write it like you expect your player to be offended. You ijmply that they cannot deal with something many of us have dealt with again and again. It sounds as if you are trying to get a bunch of anarchist newbie players into line. If oyu wanna attract older ones or simply reasonalbe newbies, I would get this out a little less aggressive.

Number 5 is actually worse. So I shall submit a sheet so you can jud/>

This look really cool, I'd like to join too.

Okay, first off, thank you very much for looking at this. I was starting to think no one was interested.

Anyway, I am sure I can work in a little more of a hook. I was trying to attract just by the sheer curiosity. I was planning for a flashback period in the storyline, when they started seeing things as they have a normal day. I should not give any more words on this, since it will be fun to see how the characters react to these 'ghosts'- oops said too much. I will defiantly add some more to plot. If you think about this, if any of those 5 start doing virtually anything a normal Human couldn't do, they will be attack not just by the main antagonists, but Government, Scientists. To not give off too much detail, I'll refrain from going any further.

I understand what it will take to GM this. I think if this were real, these five subjects would not be loved and honored. Rather, dissected and studied. The group that made them, they want to pretend like none of these experiments never happened. They are not going to let them reveal themselves, yet some of those five might want to be noticed and revered. Others will want to just be normal. I am thinking a lot of conflict between the five will start. I have a large plot sketched down. I would want to know where I came from, where I was born. That would give me a headache. Say I am 16 or 18 and have no memory. After a while, that need to know is going to start tearing at them. Everything else I have planned on top of that.

I can come off a bit aggressive some times, sorry. I just want to see this come to life, and a player ruining it will ruin the game. I will edit that surely.

The five subjects are very smart. They probably know six languages written and spoken, history of every nation, books, and books of endless equation. But! Being in a tube for the past 16-18 years, growing and developing. They will not be able to talk, but could learn that in a day unlike a regular newborn who takes a year or two to be able to read. These five will be able to read the largest encyclopedia in an hour. They could finish a library off in a month. When I said they would be like babies, I did not mean they would not be able to walk, talk, eat, or do anything but poop in diapers. At first, they might not be able to do those things for a day. What I have planned for the beginning, they will learn very quickly. Imagine being in a tube for 18 - 18 years. That tube is an artificial womb, meaning no eating, talking, walking. Nada. Zip, zero. But they are super geniuses, able to learn all those basic things in a day.

Thanks again, you will be sure to see the above in a revised version. The details I have released will be in there. After all, this is a rough draft.

Got a quick question, and not really sure where I should post it....so gonna do it here.

It is concerning the System Lords franchise, not really the game, but rather the concept for how the game is run. Is it something that is still considered "off limits" for GM's to use? I think I remember the last time a System Lords game was made, and then abruptly stopped, it was discussed and decided that others can't use the concept, which personally I find silly, but now I am asking if that is still the case.

Reason I am interested, is because I have been heavily considering becoming active in the RPF again, I miss it. I have a game concept, and was tossing around various ways to go about running the game....and it popped into my head that a System Lords based format would be fun.

So there it is, anyone know the answer?

PS: Hello to anyone who remembers me.

Hey Despised, good to see you back.

I think I remember the last time a System Lords game was made, and then abruptly stopped, it was discussed and decided that others can't use the concept

Not quite. It was decided that the franchise would be left dormant until one of the SL veterans or a capable equivalent wanted to run it, at which point the remaining vets would decide whether or not to allow it or not. We discussed it here.

A very reasonable rule, I think. After all, you wouldn't start your own Podracer spinoff without first getting IH's permission. You wouldn't launch another 007-style game without asking DubyaScott or LightWarden. Same principle applies here.

Now, IH averred that this measure was meant to protect both the SL system and the SL name. If that decision still stands (and you'll need to ask our current Mod team about that) then anyone who wants to run a System Lords game, using name and/or system, will need the remaining SL vets to be in consensus.

The part I find silly is that steps were taken to protect that game (even though I think I actually agreed with it at the time), while others in the past have been cannibalized. Yes it is a fun game franchise, but it wouldn't hardly have been the first one to have it's concept and rules swiped and used in other games. But that I guess is my own issue.

Thanks for the answer WJ, nice to see you are still around.

System Lords. Yeah, still one of these . . . strange chapters of RPF history. Well, I think we can all agree that it was of the more criticized decisions of the later years. Some guys not having the will or energy to do another game told those who wanted to give it a try, they were not good enough. And five weeks later (in cliques discussion), everybody asked where the idea of an oldbie connection came from.
Anyway, these days the franchise is not around anymore. We´ll see, what the future brings.


To Sinre´s game.

The Good: It is finally a game that is tactical and rules based. A lot of those were promised but never came to pass. I hope and assume the board is still hungry for it. The system itself is well known. Dunno if it is well liked. What I miss here is judgement and a little more plot.


The Bad: Well, your obsession for the Legacy-era is well known. But still the same issue as last time. It is not an era well-liked. Players might avoid the game to avoid the problems they have with it. Otherwise I think it is a fine game, with extensive rules. Ah, a drop-out rule would be good!


The Ugly: Probably things will get ugly again. Because in the last tourney they surely did. Tournament rules did not turn out to be thaaaaat good working for players, so I think some different judgement system would be needed to avoid eternal discussions of judgments. Rotating judges. Told Imp it was a solution. Still think it is . . . />

Fins and Despised, out of fairness to Sinre, I've responded to the System Lords debate in the RPG Discussion Thread. That thread could use a little activity anyway.

Thanks Winged. And indeed time was up and pleae everybody return to Sinre´s game. My comment, later.

How gets your game judged, Sinre? That was my first question, when I read that post. How will he judge it?

Just my two player-cants. Not a big Game Designer, but I am used to reading OPs

Don't take this personally, but your power system... isn't very good. At all.

A key problem is that for a mechanical system, 90% of it is still some variation of "pray to the GM for intervention". Half of it revolves around the utterly vestigial lightsaber combat system, which can be summed up as "I dunno". While I could guess that a lightsaber hit removes a HP, there is absolutely no indicator that it is through anything other than GM Fiat. So the mechanical difference between wielding dual lightsabers in the Jar'kai style and a sub sandwich in the delicatessen style is approximately zero: both are equally effective against any opponent! Likewise, armor is equally left to whimsy, along with the twenty powers that do absolutely nothing in the rules.

- Valor: Strength, speed and agility are all boosted. What effect does that have? Dunno.
- Cleansing: Remove vague status effects.
- Blinding: The target is blind. I think that's bad, but it's all up in the air.
- Malacia: Dizziness and nausea to weaken your opponent. What happens when the opponent is weakened? Dunno.
- Alter Environment: Look out guys, spring showers! Ok, technically this power is only half useless RAW.

Neutral

- Battle Precognition: Dodge your opponent's attacks with this power! Or dodge your opponent's without this power.
- Push: Push things! What things? To what effect?
- Pull: Like above, but for exceptionally needy individuals.
- Jump: Jump hella high... somewhere. We don't know where you'll go, but if your opponent can't follow I hope you have more ranged powers than he does.
- Speed: Go fast! What for?
- Cloak: They can't see you, but fortunately for them there's nothing in the rules about the damaging powers that says they have to.
- Wave: Like push, but can be used less. Theoretically goes in all directions, but considering there's no facing that's kind of irrelevant.
- Sight: See things! Change nothing!
- Telekinesis: Move objects in a way that is different from pushing or pulling them. Maybe jiggle them from side to side or something.

- Scream: Twist, shout, and inflict an utterly undefined status condition on your opponent!
- Rage: Gain an undefined bonus followed by an undefined penalty! Or just don't take this power to achieve the same average!
- Plague: This is an actual power, except it wins the game if you can land it while your opponent has no means of countering it, because you can then go fishing for eight rounds.
- Crush: This power is completely useless except when it wins the fight.
- Horror: Opponent is distracted, spends turn trying to look up the rules on what exactly being distracted does.
- Waves of Darkness: A truly sickening display of angst; like all displays it's completely incomprehensible.
- Combustion: If you didn't like the fact that Crush could be useful, here's an ill-defined and potentially useless ability.

Then there's the powers that do things, like Storm and Bolt of Hate (which actually do the exact same thing- take off one HP twice) and weird powers that perhaps do too much (1: Absorb power 2: Recharge Absorb 3: GOTO 1). You don't even answer any basic questions like "how many powers can I use in one turn?" which means if you're a darksider fighting a darksider, simply open all barrels and do 5 HP of damage as soon as you can be assured that they won't block it. If you're a lightsider fighting a lightsider, all of your damage is going to be in the happy vague realm of saber combat, so you might as well flip a coin and call it a day. Because if you spend all your powers, you immediately die, so there's no real point in not picking up Jump or something so you can have four extra charges of nothing to ensure you never bottom out once you've used the abilities you actually need.

Basically, it's a system that brings absolutely nothing to the table that wasn't already there, and causes more problems than it actually solves since it all rests on the GM's decisions and resolves absolutely nothing except which powers trump which how many times.

As is, there's nothing stopping me from suggesting

(P.S.: For the acronymically challenged, RAW stands for Rules As Written. As opposed to RAI, which is Rules As Intended.)

To be fair, I think the system it's based on - the lightsaber tournament powers - is intended as a framework for players to work within, and for the GM/judge(s) to determine winners, rather than an actual rigorous mathematical system. In fact, in the tournament, a character could technically 'die' in a duel and still be judged the winner.

But I do agree that it isn't well-suited to be a HP-based deterministic combat system.


- Pull: Like above, but for exceptionally needy individuals.

... Okay... I admit ... this made me lol.

I heard thgere is a list, so I would like my´name entered.

I´ll add you.

So it is right now:

Sinrebirth - The Sith Crusade (current, running for another four days)
Despised1 - Unnamed Strategy Game (get´s a 14 days run, due to the complicated nature)
TheSithGIrly - Unknown Game

Looks like we´re not running out of games here, do we?

sign me up scotty! Zombies! (so uh uh that's.. five weeks from now? )

The List

Sinrebirth - The Sith Crusade (current, running for another four days)
Despised1 - Unnamed Strategy Game (get´s a 14 days run, due to the complicated nature)
TheSithGIrly - Unknown Game
TheDarkOverlord - Unnamed Zombie RPG


And I think it will be about four. Work on a stellar Opening, I´d say. You can´t argue it was rushed! If you wanna have a first opinion feel free to PM me. I´d give it a look, TDO.