To my chagrin....

[nijineko]

...and despite my preferences for tactical and strategic elements in rp which tend towards a rules heavy environment, I have somehow invented a rules-lite system of role playing.


*A few moments of silence while I overcome my embarrassment, please*


So I thought I would ask here, as quite a few here prefer lightweight systems, what do you want to see (and definitely don't want to see) in a lightweight rule system?

Also, please consider how it might be possible to pull off the feat of applying tactical and strategic elements in four dimensions (and assuming that all participants/characters will be represented with some kind of a 2d framework) to a rules-lite system?

Thank you in advance for your comments.

[big teej]

perhaps it would help if we could see what you already have?

in regards to your question, what I most like to see in a rules light system is hyper-generic abilities, that players are allowed to define until it is specific enough for use.

my go to example is the 'Bolt' power from Savage Worlds.

bolt: deal 1 - 3 d6 damage to target*

the player then decides the specific trappings (appearance and function) of the power. for example

a DnD wizard's Magic Missle
MegaMan's arm cannon
Cyclop's Eyebeam
Goku's Ki Blasts
the "orb" spells from dnd

could all be reflections of this same power.


*grossly oversimplified*

[Magikeeper]

The below is probably more for PbP, which is the only place I have/currently use a rules-light system. I dunno how it would flow at a table.

Contrary to the above, my favorite rules-light PbP has some basic mechanics for starting PCs, character progression, and such but otherwise just defines the "fluff" of abilities, only giving mechanical distinctions for things that can be easily grasped and utilized (Varying strength levels, sure, but slight reductions in reaction speed? Not so much). Basically, the rules carefully defines what your toys are and gives some framework for getting more of them but otherwise leaves the interactions rules-less.

Here, to give an example, an ability one of my PCs in the rules-light game has:
The Golden Palm Fighting Technique - You learn how to channel your lifeforce into your hands when fighting unarmed, altering your aura so that it takes on a visible golden hue around your hands and reacts violently with the lifeforce of others. Blows to other people now are more painful and have a knockback effect.

That's it. What is a knockback effect? Well, sounds like an effect that knocks people back!

Although such a system might sound like it would remove strategic elements, it really doesn't - the difference is that you are relying more on everyone involve having around the same view-ish of how physics work in your world (It doesn't have to be exact, which is good since it won't be). Also, not abstracting your abilities allows you to take advantage of all the little things that would otherwise be lost - like the the PC with the above power hitting a foe in the lower legs to unbalance them.

If I wanted to deal with numerical abstractions defining interactions I would play a more rules-heavy system. Otherwise you wind up in a situation where you can describe your powers however you want but it makes absolutely no difference, which - although good to an extent - can be annoying when it's being applied to everything and you crave mechanical complexity.

If you are giving this system to a bunch of strangers, though, or are dealing with a setting where a lot of common abilities are hard to guestimate the effects of, it might be a good idea to add an optional "We have no idea what should happen here" mechanic. Something to determine in whose favor something falls. But in general, if I am playing rules light, I want 'fluff' to basically double as rules text.

------
Your situation:

> ?4D? Am I correct this is supposed to be dealing with the 3D + Temporal movement? And you want to show this on a 2D game board? Actually let's split this into two parts-

> Being Tactical: Carefully define all the powers involved. Probably be more exact than the example ability I gave, as it's hard to get the gist of 4D movement. The ideal would be a bunch of simple, easy to understand powers that can mix and mingle to be quite complicated in practice (Example: Being able to set explosive pulses that will appear in X minutes, being able to redirect incoming time travelers X feet are both easy to understand abilities. Being able to sense alterations in your destination and slightly alter your course mid-transit are also fairly simple. Do this with, like, a dozen more abilities and you will have a wonderfully strategic mess that can easily incorporate their surroundings and such).

> 2D representation: Okay, this is going to be ugly. Basically, you need to split the board so that each square represents a 4D point. Thus:
O O | O O
O O | O O
-----------
O O | O O
O O | O O

^This could represent 2 states for each of the 4 dimensions. A D&D comparison would be a 10'x10'x10' room where you can either be in "the past" or "the future".

But any exact representation doesn't work well with what I would like to do with freeform, because it basically requires you to abstract motion to numerical values. I'd just keep track of the 4th dimension and make the rest relative because that doesn't come naturally to us and just keep the other three dimensions relative?

Actually, maybe you could just create a way to keep track of where each character is. That is to say, you have your own square and you alter it to note your position.

4 7 2 3
5 6 8 9
Bob Joe

Eh, that'd be annoying in play I think. Maybe -

--------------
--------------|
--------------|
--------------|
--------------

[5|8] [6 | 7]
Bob Joe

There - each player has a spot in the representation where they could use beads or number cards or whatever to note where they are in the 3rd and 4th dimensions while using an easy to understand play area for 2D position. I don't think this would be that bad in practice as the 3D number is mostly just for brief forgetful moments as one can imagine a room full of flying people easily enough.


--

[Philemonite]

When it comes to mechanics I find dice pools to be a simple and effective solution.
When attacking you roll a number of d10 equal to X attribute. 6+ are successes. Your target rolls a number of d10 equal to Y attribute. You compare the number of successes and if it is in your favor the difference is the damage inflicted. If you want an extra option you can add an accuracy/evasion check that works the same way.
Different abilities use different attributes, change the targeted number, add a few extra dice...
It is basically a very simplified version of the system that World Of Darkness games use. You can even use the same attributes and have separate Physical/Mental/Social health (rename it to stress) and you get a system that gives you massive amounts of customization while still being easy to use.

Is that what you were asking for?

[steelsmiter]

I play GURPS and I have found I don't like the arbitrary nature of Troop Strength, but I've done a very simplistic tabletop recently and I did the following there


Unit HP is its population.
This is of course multiplied by either Mass or hit dice as the system would normally resolve HP different from human levels. (for example, multiplied by HP relative to 20 in GURPS which is the default human maximum)
A unit has initiative order equal to its captain's Strategy or Tactics skill.
A unit has an average weapon skill as well. Some individuals may be higher, and some lower.
A unit deals 10% of its population in damage multiplied by the margin of success on its attack roll.
A unit has an "Armor" rating that reduces its opponent's Margin. If the unit is in a defensible position, its "Defense Score" also subtracts margin.


Skill levels and Margins are dictated by whatever dice resolution you use, although it should be noted that margin for this system shouldn't be higher than about 9 or so. You can change it to 5% x Margin for d20 resolution, or 1% x Margin for d%.

It should be taken as a given that melee units can only attack adjacent "Battle Hexes" (call it 100 yard Diameter) and ranged units can attack 1 hex away per 100 yards of range its weapon allows. A unit will take up 1 battle hex per approximately 30,000 (less the number of hexes larger individuals take up. don't ask me how I know this)

Finally, a unit may deal more damage than its strength alone would dictate (such as using firearms). In d20, damage probably won't get much over about 2d6+5 for the common soldier (not even talking about various types of damage) and in GURPS it's about 3d6+2, so it's a safe bet to multiply the damage given on the bullet point above by the unit's increments of 20 maximum (so if a unit deals say... 8d6, that's a maximum of 48 or 20% of its numbers per margin. 24 if you want to nitpick).

[nijineko]

some thoughtful and diverse comments. thank you again.

i will have to spend some time pondering the various suggestions and offerings.




as to what i have so far, i have exactly three rules, which rules even combined are so simple it is actually a diceless system.

the first rule describes how to build a character. the second rule describes how traits work. the third rule describes how to resolve conflicts.

without going into too much detail, characters are comprised of traits, the number of which and value range thereof can be limited in of several different fashions (if desired) to cap the overall power level of the game. traits consist of a value which determines how powerful it is and how many times it can be used in a given encounter. traits may synergize and possibly have limitations. conflict resolution is handled by a primary, secondary, tertiary resolution mechanic, where primary is a noetic challenge between the conflicting players, secondary is trait showdown, and tertiary is a tie-breaker mechanic.

[nijineko]

Regarding the 4d request, yes I was speaking of space-time, but in a slightly more liberal fashion than implied, perhaps. I will need to be able to deal with situations where there will be multiple entities (animate, inanimate, otherwise) interacting from differently phased placements in space-time that are close enough to overlap and at least partly interact.

[nijineko]

Any other thoughts, comments, questions?

[nijineko]

Any other thoughts, comments, questions?

Nothing?

*Crickets chirping*

[Philemonite]

Nothing?

*Crickets chirping*

*Tumbleweed rolling*

[steelsmiter]

without going into too much detail...
Alright, so I see you keep bumping this and not adding anything. I think that in order for us to continue further constructively commenting, we need something to construct our comments off of. That is to say, unless you are writing a book, there is no "too much detail". And even then, some books of game rules are quite good.

[nijineko]

Alright, so I see you keep bumping this and not adding anything. I think that in order for us to continue further constructively commenting, we need something to construct our comments off of. That is to say, unless you are writing a book, there is no "too much detail". And even then, some books of game rules are quite good.

Sooooo, this means that i'm not providing enough detail for questions to be based off of?

kind of ironic, since i'm soliciting questions (and continuing commentary on my request for 4d positional methods and suggestions). ^^

in any case, i will add my response to a question i was asked elsewhere:


the conflict resolution mechanic?

well, it is a tertiary mechanic in order to provide a method of resolving deadlocks and ties to the primary method, noetic combat. i have been recently contemplating making it a quaternary mechanic so as to provide a greater focus on the purposed intent of the game - supporting storytelling.

noetic means "of the mind or intellect", it also has a connotation of exploring the mind or how the mind affects one's surroundings via non-traditional methods, which ties into the alpha version of the proposed campaign world/setting.

in any case, noetic combat is conflict resolution by storytelling. as previously mentioned, characters consist of traits. traits are one-word descriptions of what a character is. the definition of a given trait provides the guidance for how a trait may be used. in a conflict each participant picks a trait they will use to resolve it with. the player then describes the thoughts and intended actions of the character referencing the trait as often as possible without duplication of words or repetitious description. working in one or more references to other traits the character possesses is also acceptable. working in references to other stories (previous events in the game, movies, literature, real life, etc.,) or using said references to obliquely reference the trait is encouraged. each instance of a reference is worth a 'weight'. some references might be well layered, and be worth multiple weights. whomever's story has the most weight, "wins".

the secondary mechanic, trait showdown, only occurs if noetic combat ties or is unresolved. the tertiary tiebreaker only occurs if the previous two fail to resolve.

my hinted at forth mechanic would occur between the noetic combat and trait showdown, and would be a sub-set of noetic combat where the other characters in the game can add noetic weight to the side of their choice to tip the balance... and possibly gain some of the win benefit.


Tesral's concern, the 'best always wins' (assuming a numerical superiority idea) would not happen unless trait showdown occurred, where one chooses at what value the trait will be applied. (though, if you had some that were better at stringing words together than others, that could potentially cause imbalance in the game...)

This idea of referential weight is designed to allow both people who are good at storytelling, and those who are not good at it - but can describe what they want via references to other things they've seen or read, to participate on (hopefully) a more equal footing in cases of conflict resolution.

[steelsmiter]

What I meant was, feel free to go into as much detail as you possibly can, on things you said you weren't going into detail on, but seemed to imply you were including. If I misinterpreted that, you might explain how. Otherwise you're probably going to keep getting posts like #9 and #10.

[nijineko]

What I meant was, feel free to go into as much detail as you possibly can, on things you said you weren't going into detail on, but seemed to imply you were including. If I misinterpreted that, you might explain how. Otherwise you're probably going to keep getting posts like #9 and #10.

so, any thoughts on provided details thus far? or areas you specifically want more details on?

[nijineko]

Nothing? anyone else?

[nijineko]

So, this'll be my last post in this thread - if anyone wants to sign an NDA, we can talk more details. otherwise, i have some alpha testers. Contact me with any more questions or comments.

[Kyome]

i got a zombie game that i was trying and it kind of got bit confusing for my only player.

but i haven't played for a while now, i just put down what i had remembered of the rules.

pretty simple rules but i think I'm missing some other rules, an how the dice system worked.

i have it all written down i just cant seem to find my books that i wrote them in at all must be in the garage of the apartment we have
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?411737-making-a-new-game-with-just-zombies