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Do you know the website kickstarter? It's a place where people can pledge money to promising projects.
A few days ago the new roleplaying system: Mystic Empyrean was added to the site, and after reading the information and downloading the free preview game I was really impressed!
Read it for yourselves, if you can find the time.
One of the things I especially like about this system is that you gain powers according to how you behave in terms of roleplay, which is judged by your party members (meaning that the points your character gets are allocated not by you but by another person in your party), which could really grow interesting characters.
One of the things I especially like about this system is that you gain powers according to how you behave in terms of roleplay, which is judged by your party members (meaning that the points your character gets are allocated not by you but by another person in your party), which could really grow interesting characters.
Eh, imho, that sort of thing always sounds cooler than it is. Let's take school. If you don't "roleplay" studying math, then you can't improve it? Seems a bit lame to me. There's lots of training and improvement that you can do that would be very boring to roleplay.
And I can understand why you are sceptical Drachasor, but it is hard to explain, best you read it in the downloadable pdf. Being good at math isn't really something that is tied down to specific game rules, what I was talking about concerns personality traits.
If you wanted to play an Eidolon that is good at math, you could roleplay him calculating odds and propabilities, because I'm very confident that there is a characteristic called "calculating" or something similar. (And even if you don't get points allocated to "calculating" , you can still be good at math I suppose)
And I can understand why you are sceptical Drachasor, but it is hard to explain, best you read it in the downloadable pdf. Being good at math isn't really something that is tied down to specific game rules, what I was talking about concerns personality traits.
If you wanted to play an Eidolon that is good at math, you could roleplay him calculating odds and propabilities, because I'm very confident that there is a characteristic called "calculating" or something similar. (And even if you don't get points allocated to "calculating" , you can still be good at math I suppose)
But again, reading it yourself would be better :P
I'll take a look when I get a chance. I'm just saying that part of it is annoying. Overall the general concept sounds kind of like a specific implementation of Universalis (which is a really fun game, though perhaps not quite an RPG...it's more of a collective storytelling game).
I suppose some might find it annoying, and I'm hoping I'm not one of them :)
I don't know what Universalis is exactely, but Mystic Empyrean is part collective storytelling as well. I guess some people might not like this, because they want to be surprised by the gamemaster all the time, but personally I like having a hand in shaping the world.
Depends how it's done, with the voting. Let's say it's a few simple thingsthey can put points into: Evil, Good, Strength, Mind, Subtlety. Or something to those lines. If someone gets a votes of Strength, they can put points into the weapon skills, running, climbing, whatever, as well as their STR. Subtlety is thief-like things, Mind is any of the more mind-centred stuff (talking to people, being observant, etc.), etc.. Good and Evil depends if a character's moral worth is judged or not.
That's just an example of how you could do it well. I you vote for individual skills/stats, unless it is a system with very few skills/stats, that seems like it could get overwhelming and people just wouldn't vote because of that.
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I suppose some might find it annoying, and I'm hoping I'm not one of them :)
I don't know what Universalis is exactely, but Mystic Empyrean is part collective storytelling as well. I guess some people might not like this, because they want to be surprised by the gamemaster all the time, but personally I like having a hand in shaping the world.
Universalis is pretty cool stuff. More abstract than this system sounds like though technically Universalis could replicate any system, I believe, if you make elaborate rules and everyone agrees to them (that's more trouble than it is worth really).
Basically everyone has coins. You pay a coin to establish any fact. If people disagree and can't talk it out, then there can be bidding on whether a fact is allowed or not. No one has their own character, but you can make one or more characters (existence is a fact, then anything about them is a fact, etc). There's a conflict resolution mechanic, and some other stuff, but that's the gist of it.
Though, with how it works, you could establish a rule "everyone has their own character that can't be controlled by anyone else" and some other stuff like that to make it more like a normal RPG.
No default campaign world, that's all established by facts. If you say "There's a high-tech society of Dwarves" then then that exists. If you say it is a "gothic victorian setting" then that's true.
Universalis can replicate any system? Gosh, didn't expect that with such a name :P
Sounds sort of similar indeed, might need to check it out if only for the comparison. Sounds a bit less interesting than Mystic Empyrean though.
And to give you guys a better idea of how this whole voting system works, I'm posting a small part of the information (really guys, read the pdf) here, namely what the prebuilt characters look like. Among those characters is a stealth guy, he has special powers based upon the following characteristics:
Furtive (Gives invisibility and blending type powers)
Secretive (Personal extradimensional space)
But also:
Pride (become dragonlike)
(and he is also cruel and duplicitous)
So when a player roleplays this stealth character to show his pride in an encounter, his party members might put his points in pride, inproving the powers that come with pride, etc.
And the creator of the system has mentioned that there will be near to a hundred different characteristics to judge a players roleplaying by.
Eh, imho, that sort of thing always sounds cooler than it is. Let's take school. If you don't "roleplay" studying math, then you can't improve it? Seems a bit lame to me. There's lots of training and improvement that you can do that would be very boring to roleplay.
I agree, such systems invariably lead to people padding with terribly boring roleplay in order to justify the direction they want to go. Also, I notice a glaring lack in the system...never does it mention what sort of challenges you face, or anything about how you resolve them.
Sure, world building is fine...GMless is fine, but conflict in some form is pretty much at the heart of RPG systems, and how you resolve it is the core thing that most mechanics spring from. Making it GMless just draws more attention to that.
Now, let me say that I do love hearing about new systems...and kickstarter is a fine tool to make that happen. I just feel quite doubtful about this one with the information given.
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"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimization."
And the creator of the system has mentioned that there will be near to a hundred different characteristics to judge a players roleplaying by.
So... every time someone does something you go down your list of 100 traits and check some boxes that you think fit? Or you're supposed to memorize all the traits and remember when any player expresses any of them? Or just at the end go through this giant list and say yup, sure, nope to each one of them for each player?
That seems like more work that I want in a game. But I'll read the pdf.
Edit: Grr, or I WOULD read the pdf if it would let me download it, but it keeps saying "In order to perform checkout your order subtotal must exceed the minimum defined value". I'm not buying something just to look at a free product!
Edit Edit: Ok, read the pdf - you can get it from DriveThroughRPG, just not IRN. I'll admit, it looks interesting, but I think you'd need a very particular group to play it - everyone has to be super-invested in it and have a diamond-edged sense of justice, or I see it devolving into "do we have any tools to bypass this challenge?" "Yes! We have exactly what we need!" and "Make sure you remember how very Compassionate I was". So personally, I'd very much like to play it but I don't know anyone who'd play it "right". (Which is not to say those people don't exist; I know they do, I'm just not friends with any of them. )
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