Well its time for a redo

Playing testing has revealed that we inadvertently mucked up the simplicity of the system. What we came to realize was that we had fallen into a trap of having different rules for different types of skills. Skill for Melee, Missiles and Spells were each getting their own rules set. This was a very sad realization and a violation of the games creed. "Keep it simple."

What is most interesting is that the rules actually worked very well. They were fair, gave good mechanics is play, but it was overly complicated as the rules were significantly different for: Missiles, Melee and Spells. Sadly all this work on Spells and Missiles will be abandoned. The spells points concept is dead. The rate of fire concept for missiles is dead. We are back to basics, and while not as detailed it is much much easier to learn, remember and most importantly PLAY!

So expect in the next few weeks to see a new draft of the Rules released at: D100 Open Melee System

...and Happy New Year!

Spells Spells Spells

Lately there has been some debate about how we are handling spells. The problem seems to be that at low skill level they are not powerful enough to be worth while and spell casters get bored in melee. At high level they still are not powerful enough. So in general magic is viewed as too weak and too slow. A fair observation.

The way to fix it has become a conundrum however. The discussion has been wide. Alternate ways have been discussed some are structured after novels but ultimately all of those have been dismissed as too structured and confining. In d100 we had more less followed the D20 model where a spell's level defined how often per day it could be cast. While this was simple it was not particularly fair to the caster who at skill level 1, would cast that spell 1 time per day.

So what we are play testing now is a way to increase the number of times a spell can be cast. We are testing a points based system. Once again our overriding goal is simplicity. This is not easy to achieve, we are currently going with a sort of scaled points system based on cost of the spell. Total number of points being a function of willpower and intelligence. I'll post more when some testing has occurred.

D20 Christmas Pagent

Ok I just had to share this!

More Pre Requsits

Well after some discussion and poking around we are probably going to drop pre-req's for melee skills.  However the consensus is to leave them for spells.  Speaking spells we need more a lot more.  So far spells have been created as needed in play testing, that is not a practical method for creation.  Over the next few months we expect the spell lists to grow every week.  

We have had some interesting discussions on the basis for spells, nothing has been decided but eventually our "theory" will be set and then spells will be reorganized.  At a minimum the spells will be split into 2 categories.  Spells of the Will (Willpower) and Spells of Intellect (Intelligence).  I'll write more detail on the that later once it has been decided.

To Pre-Requisite or not

In developing the the skills and spells we have adopted a hierarchy approach to the skills, meaning you needed one skill before you gained another.  On the surface this seemed like an easy way to add depth to the characters.

We have found in practice that for spell casters it acts more like a penalty and for melee skills it is near useless.  So I think for melee skills it will go away and for spells it will be simplified or dropped all together.

Play testing continues and new players are showing us many holes in the system.  We have been so focused on the mechanics that we lack the breadth of skills and spells of other systems.  So the evolution continues!

D100 Melee System DRAFT Rules go public

Enough typing on my part! Go read the draft rules for yourself!
The d100 Melee System

The draft rules represent nearly two years of work by the team of players who developed them. Currently the site has a hypertext version of the rules. A PDF version will follow later on.

Examples are a chore

With the pending DRAFT release of the D100 Melee System we need more examples.  They take some time to construct all the images and organize the events into an easy to follow narrative.  I figure we need at least 10 examples involving different skills: melee, missile and magic.  We currently have 1 melee example.  So only 9 to go!

More Melee Skills Please?

As a result of play testing outside the inner circle, I realized that many of their complaints and requests trended the game back towards D20 style melee. While initially each request seemed simplistic and justified. However in total, the significantly complicated the system.

For example D100 Melee System, has no "Charge" or "Bull Rush" defined as either a skill or an option in the Rules for moving in melee. On the surface these were simple enough to add as skills and whala! We had well defined charge and bull rush and procedure to carry them out. However what I realized is that neither was really needed as the D100 System already supported those actions and had no need for a defined "Charge" or "Bull Rush" procedure. A character could charge in melee by moving and then attacking in the following second. In fact the D100 System is superior without the defined procedure because it affords a good deal of risk in making an attack styled after a charge. The initiative and actions of both characters determine the outcome, rather then some simple check.

It was a good lesson to learn, the requests were coming from a D20 mindset where the definition is required, in the D100 mind set, the character need only sequence their actions to achieve the same goal. Furthermore it did result in one additional rule, that allowed the character to combine a move action and a attack/defend action into one action with considerable deductions.

Missiles in Melee

Well that is why we play test the game. Recently we play tested a real campaign but added two new players, both d20 die hards and both skeptical. All in all the game went well, but the two became confused repeatedly in melee. It seems the fluid and flexible nature of D100 Melee system confounded them in certain situations involving: Missiles and changing weapons. They made excellent points. No rules were changed but we have to alter the terminology some with respect to bows. Namely not referring to the bow as having "melee" points. Rather as a "Rate of Fire" in melee. It is unfortunate that this terminology created such a stumbling block because both became fixated on it. Lesson learned and that is why we play test outside the creator circle!

Skills Skills Skills

The foundation of the D100 Melee System is the development of abilities through characters acquiring skills. Rather then a class model with limitations and bonuses by major categories we developed a simple listing of skills.

How Does A Skill Work?
Each skill is based on an attribute: Strength, Will Power, Reflex, Intelligence, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma and Movement. The base chance of success is the attribute value. As levels in a skill increase the chance of success increases too.

Is its complicated?
No. The most complicated it can get is when a skill has a pre-requisite. All that means is that to get one skill, you might have to first have another skill. It gets no more complicated then that.

Kinds of Skills
From the perspective of melee there are essentially 2 kinds of skills: Martial and Magical. There are other skills for abilities not melee related, for example: climbing, swimming, bluffing, professions etc.

Acquiring and Improving Skills
The skills are built up by awarding the characters with "Improvement Points". The points are used to buy more skills. The system includes guidelines for how Game Masters could choose to dole out points, but really it is up to the Game Master to do what works best for the group at play. The guideline is simple with no complicated formulas what so ever.

What about Feats?
D20 style feats, do not exist in the D100 Melee System. All character abilities are skills.

Even Magic (Spells) is a skill?
Yes all character abilities are skills. Magic skills for the fantasy realm have the most pre-requisites of any list so far developed for D100 Melee System. Magic is different from D20 Style magic, this is for many reasons: Playability, Lethality, Sustainability. In D100 a character could invest "Improvement Points" and make a deadly caster, a sustainable caster would require more points and so on. In play testing thus far, we have found most characters who start as pure casters, do not live very long unless the party is large, or they are very smart about melee. A more typical path has been to split the skills between magic and martial until a certain level of melee survivability is achieved.

The question of class

An early question for us was if the system should have character classes or not. I was strongly opposed to having class system but we debated it for quite a long while. Classes do provide certain benefits, that make the rules easier to construct. Our decision was that these benefits to the writer of the rules were not really a benefit to the player in any appreciable way, so we ultimately decided to have no classes in D100 Melee System.

If you do not have a class does this mean all your characters end up being strange hybrid characters with odd mixes of abilities?

The truth is, that it could. In play testing thus far, it has not worked out that way. In fact quite the opposite. For the most part characters start out as generalists that stand a fair chance of surviving melee. However as each character grows (and they grow quickly) they develop specific abilities that they need to achieve their personal and also party goals. Effectively creating reasonably skilled generalist with terrific specialized skills in areas the party believes it needs.

So how does it work without a class to define the character?

It is actually really simple. Instead of classes, class abilities, class feats, class restrictions and class bonuses. You have a long list of skills. All skills are based on an attribute: Strength, Intelligence, Will Power, Reflex, Constitution, Charisma, Dexterity and Movement. The character acquires the skill and gains the ability. The character can continue to invest in the skill and improve the ability if they so choose. No skills are restricted, no ability in one skill prohibits an ability in another skill. The only cheviot is that some skills have pre-requisites. In other words some skills require that you first obtain another skill to get it.

Melee Melee Melee

I have to apologize for taking so long to get back to making a blog entry. So much has happened its hard to no where to begin.

#1 The system has been renamed the The D100 Melee System. This change was made, mainly because we found in play testing that we did not really need rules for role playing. The skill system is so flexible and so easy to follow that we found rules for the actual role playing to be of little value and so they were dropped. Yet another simplification achieved!

#2 Terminology changes, these are too numerous to list, but mainly they involve switching to terms that firstly make sense and secondly are easy to remember. We have been avoiding acronyms completely. There shall be no terms like "THACO" to learn in the D100 Melee System.

#3 Melee has had some HUGE changes. The round has been made a little more complicated, by breaking it into 10 phases. Each phase is 1 second. Each phase is played out for actions. In the beginning this was tried, because in melee, the fight was often over before some characters acted. On the surface it sounds more complicated and as it happens it is a change all of us working on the system resisted making. However once we tried it, we realized we would never go back. It actually made melee much easier to execute and simplifies things for the players greatly. Furthermore it added emphasis to maneuver and position that was not present before.

#4 Spells & Magic in melee have been completely re-worked and fits neatly into melee now. The round/phase system really facilitates the caster. The caster has to play smart and be well positioned and/or protected to be of magical value in melee. However in play testing this has proven to add excellent balance with fewer rules and A LOT OF FUN!

#5 Maneuvering in Melee is now as important as the attack/defend actions themselves. Combats that used to play out in the 4 or 5 rounds, now play out in 1 or 2 rounds. Characters who are outnumbered and not careful can get surrounded. Characters have many options and for changing their position, reducing their risk and maximizing their threat that simple does no exist in D20 or any other RPG today. Players have to consider their characters location and proximity to threats constantly. No more D20 style, stand in the room and knock down all comers. Even the powerful and skilled in this melee system will have trouble when outnumbers by foes of even low threat level. The character has to be aware of where he is all the time in melee. This model allowed for the elimination of many rules relating to melee: charging, back stab, attack of opportunity, surprise, flat footed, spell casting, missiles and many more. They are not needed because the simple maneuvering model when combined with initiative makes them irrelevant. Yet another simplification achieved!

#6 Bruise Damage: We just dropped it. In play testing we kept forgetting to use it and realized it just was not needed except in VERY rare circumstances. Yet another simplification achieved!

#7 Shields, we completely reworked how these work. They are clean, useful, and do not slow down melee as they did before. Yet another simplification achieved!

#8 A new D100 public portal has been set up, but the content is not loaded up. A draft rules set is set for publication there in December 2007.

D100 The Melee Round

Despite a very busy summer, progress continues on D100. Recent play testing reveled some problems, not serious problems, but problems none the less. These issues revolved around movement in melee. The conundrum was how to allow for movement in melee with out have various action types and making it overly complicated. It was a tough nut to crack, keeping it simple and also flexible. We tried several methodologies and ended up with a hybrid of the brighter ideas.

In order to properly explain this I have to give you a bit of background, specifically describing the round. We arbitrarily selected a 10 second round long ago. Later we consider a GURPs style one second round, but found it killed the beauty of the skill level system, so a 10 second round it is. I have not explained skills yet but we already have a well developed melee model based on skill level and number of attacks/defends per round. It is a beautiful system and will be the subject of another entry. The result of the skill system is that a player gets Melee Points. These points translate 1:1 to attack or defense action in the 10 second round. Each action (attack or defend) burns a Melee Point and takes 1 second.

So to solve the conundrum of Moving in Melee, we divided the round in 10 seconds, any seconds remaining after or before actions (Attack/Defend) can be used for movement. This as it turns out solved several other problems with respect to spell casters, charging, withdrawing, free attacks, missiles and many more. Whats best, is its solved with one rule and not one rule for each situation. Very simple, very fluid, easy to remember and it works!

In Conclusion, I need to follow up with a post on Skills and Melee Points. Perhaps tomorrow!

Defining Attributes

Define Attributes for D100

Attributes: Defines the basic physical/mental capabilities of a character.

Background for Attributes

The DnD3.5/D20 Attributes are well done and nicely describe the physical and mental abilities of the character. However I have played many other RPG games and I find that I prefer certain other methodologies. Specifically the 2^nd edition of TSRs Top Secret, named Top Secret S.I. In this system you have a few core attributes and the remaining attributes are calculated from them.

Core Attributes

Strength

Strength determines how much the character can carry, lift and movement. In Melee it may also effect how much damage a blow can do.

Reflex

Reflex determines the character's reaction time to events. In other words how quickly the character responds to events. This attribute will determine how fast the character can move, and aid in Initiative.

Intelligence

Intelligence determines how smart the character is. What is the characters capacity for understanding new things and solving complex problems, not how educated.

Willpower

Willpower determines the character's ability to focus on a task despite fear, pain or other distraction. It is an essential attribute for spell casters.

Constitution

Constitution determines how much abuse your body can endure before you pass out and/or die.

Derived Attributes

Dexterity

Dexterity determines how effectively the character can perform physical actions: climb, fire a missile weapon, dodge a blow etc. Actions or skills that require good reflexes and also intelligence to execute effectively. It is the average of two attributes: Reflex and Intelligence. (Reflex+Intelligence)/2

Charisma

Charisma determines how likable by others your character can be. Do not limit your thinking to just looks, but the total package of looks and personality. This attribute will effect the characters ability to influence people without threat of violence. It is the average of two attributes Intelligence and Willpower. (Intelligence + Willpower)/2

Movement

Movement determines just how fast the character can move in a walk, run or sprint. It is the combination of two attributes Strength and Reflex. (Strength+Reflex)

D20 Ranger Two Weapon fighting

This will be a short post today and not related to D100. In a BB I frequent, there is a greatr discussion by a wanna-be power gamer trying to decide when it is best to use the D20 Ranger & Two Weapon Fighting. The amusing part is that the power gamer comes up with a methodology using statistics and chance to hit, to make some really neat graphs to help make the decision.

D100 Damage and Hit Point Model

D100 Taking Damage

Overview of Damage and Damage Avoidance

A character never gains hit points. A player can improve their ability to survive in two ways: skills and armor. Armor provides a direct reduction in damage. Skills allow the player to avoid a blow all together, or deflect a blow to a non deadly or more heavily armored part of the body. Both skill and armor vastly improve the survivability of the character. As the characters skills improve the reliance on heavy armor decreases.

Damage Reduction from Armor

Each armor type has a fixed damage reduction value. The reduction value is a direct 1:1 deduct in the damage received by the character. For example if an armor has a damage reduction of 4 (DR=4) and the character takes 6 points of damage, that damage is reduced by 4. The character takes 2 points of damage. That is all there is to damage reduction from armor. It gets no more complicated then that!

Simple Damage Avoidance from Skill(s)

In the simplest terms D100 melee is similar to a D20 opposed skill check. If the attacker makes a successful skill check, the defender makes their skill check. If the defender succeeds the attack is blocked, if the defender fails the blow lands and armor’s damage reduction is applied.

Damage and Body Zones

“But what about the 10 zones on the body?” you say. Say no more for here it is explained. Each body part in the 10 zones has the same amount of points for damage, based on the Constitution. However each body part may not be equally protected. For example the character may have a chain hood, breast plate, and hide covering the arms and legs. Each of those armor types has its own damage reduction, and so those body zones have different damage reduction values. On the surface this may sound complicated but in practice with the zone chart (See Below) it is easy to record and track.

Bumping Damage with Skill

Bumping allows the character to move damage from one zone to another zone. So a blow to zone 3 (stomach) could be moved to a non lethal zone or to a better armored zone. Bumping only comes into play if the defender fails to block the blow.

Bumping is a double edged sword, the attacker can bump a successful blow to a less armored and/or more lethal zone. Bumping still favors the defender as the attacker bumps first. The number of bumps is determined by the skill level.

In Conclusion

The combination of damage zones, armor, skill and skill bump combine to improve the survivability of the character through both armor and skill with increasing the amount of damage the player can absorb. This damage model is easy to apply, easy to explain and follows common sense. The damage zone chart facilitates the allocation of damage and damage reduction in an easy to manage visual way.

D100

D100 Hit Points

D100 - Tackling the problem of hit points

D20 Theory and Problem

The hit points in D20 represent many things: constitution, endurance, experience, luck and skill. It is not really that high level character can take more damage then a low level character. It is more accurate to say that the high level character is able to lessen the effect of damage through their skill and experience. D20 models this by increasing the hit points with each class level. The system works but is not perfect. There are two problems I endeavor to solve and best summed up with quotes below.

No Diminished Capacity Until Unconscious

“So I have 50 hit points, and I keep taking damage in melee. But there are no adjustments to my skills until I reach zero, where in I collapse and can’t use any of my skills.”

Tends Break Down Outside Normal Melee

“If I shoot an arrow into my enemies head, he is dead weather he is level 1 or level 10, but in this game my enemy could be buck naked, 10^th level and take shots from my bow all day.”

D100 Solution to Hit Points

Rather then tackle these problems separately we dealt with them simultaneously by borrowing some from the Top Secret S.I. model for damage by zone. A character’s body is divided into 10 zones. Each zone has the same number of points. The number of points per zone is based on the character’s constitution.

D100 Zone Chart

Diminished Capacity Solved

Should a player loose all the points in any of 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and/or 9; that part of the body becomes unusable for an action. Without an arm or hand, a bow can not be plucked. With out a leg, the character can not run or even stand easily. Without a hand or arm the sword can not be wielded etc.

Break Down outside Normal Melee Solved

A character’s capacity for damage per zone never increases, regardless of skill level. A character that has lost all the points in zones 0, 1, 2 and/or 3 is effectively killed. The character’s skills, armor and luck will help the character avoid damage but the amount of damage the body can absorb does not change.

In Conclusion

In future posts I will explain the impacts of skills and armor on damage avoidance. The points per zone concept has gone through many iterations in play testing, some better models became overly cumbersome for players. This concept is a fair balance between playability and realism.

D100

D100 Goals

What are the goals of the D100?

An RPG is first and foremost a game. As a game it should be fun. It is my opinion that a great Role Playing Game (RPG) creates a universe where the imagination can play. The minds of Players and the Game Master should not be over burdened with the intricacies and trivialities of an overly modeled universe of rules. So my primary goal is to get the rules out of the way, and allow the game master to judge the situation at hand and not need to consult a rule. After all games should be fun, let players play and the game master dream!

My theory on a good Role Playing Game

It is my opinion that a Role Playing Game is a model of life. All RPG systems boil down to these major elements: Attributes, Skills (abilities), and Skill checks. These components define most everything or anything that is or happens in the game’s universe. Most everything thing else can be in lists or made up on the fly by the Game Master. To anyone with some experience with an RPG this is obvious but it is important to understand that uninitiated have never seen this before and the introduction can be over whelming.

What do the rules actually do?

The rules are supposed to create a certain amount of predictability in the game. Players and game masters can access, generally by intuition, the relative risk of the situation and decide what to do. You still roll dice the rules simply set down the odds.

The new RPG system has the following goals:

• Be able to create a character and explain the basic mechanics of the game in 15 minutes or less.
• The rules must be simple, straight forward, well organized and with clear examples.
• The character sheet will fit easily on 1 side of a single sheet of paper.
• Melee will be fast and easy to understand.
• Hit Points will better model reality and not increase with experience.
  
• Rules complexity will be optional and not required for game play. This allows those interested in greater depth to have it and the rest to proceed without it. Complexity is not the enemy. In fact it can really enhance the fun so long as all understand them. Required complexity is to be avoided.

In conclusion:

There it is, the guiding principles behind an entire year of labor.

D100

Introducing the D100!

D100 - A New Universal Role Playing Game System

This concept was started in the spring of 2006, by three long time players of RPGs. D100 aspires to be: free, open, simple, quick and fun. It take elements of many other systems and combines them into a single straight forward and consistent system. The systems that inspired D100 are: GURPS, AD&D, D20 and Top Secret SI. Intense play testing has been going on for three months. The basic system will be released to the public in draft form Fall 2007 under the Creative Commons Licence.

More information will be made available here and on the release site www.rolldamage.com as the summer goes on.

D100

Balancing Role Playing in a RPG

Yesterday I played in a campaign and the GM made an interesting comment as things were wrapping up.

"When I first starting playing with you guys, I came to realize that you were old school players... You know the 'clear the dungeon' types."

I think he means our little group prefers melee to actual role playing. I concluded at least for me, that it is correct. I prefer as a player to do a skill check to achieve a goal then to actually act it out, why else have the skill?. Most times: diplomacy, interrogate, intimidate, gather information suffice. I do admit I enjoy in character banter (accents and all), especially when the party is haggling over a fee or getting the details of a mission, but I don't like to do it every time.

So my conundrum is this:
As a player I don't like to role play much.
As a game master I like to role play a lot.

I believe that as a player I really just want melee most of time, yet as a Game Master I want to build a rich tapestry for the players.

More at: Balance Role Play in an RPG

What is to like about RPG’s?

What’s to like about RPG’s?

It occurs to me that all of my entry’s to date have been rather negative. That does not represent how I feel about d20. I like the D20 system! I am merely highlighting the problems I encounter when training new players. So today’s post is different. I am going to highlight the qualities of various systems that I believe work really well.

Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 / D20

The depth of the game is vast and it is hard for me single out a few specific things but none the less I will.

Armor Class 3.5/D20

The implementation of Armor is class is nothing less then excellent, well thought out and easy to calculate.

Opposed Skill Check 3.5/D20

This is a little complicated to understand but it is completely logical once you digest the rules. It can be a bit tricky to calculate on the spot, but it is so completely fair I can not judge it harshly.

Depth of Detail 3.5/D20

3.5/D20 has no shortage of depth of detail. Just looking at the long lists of weapons, armor, equipments, skills, spells and feats can be exhausting, but clearly this depth adds to realness of the game and helps players customize their character to the n^th degree!

Gurps

If you have never heard of it, GURPS is a universal RPG similar to D20, but based on 3d6 instead of a twenty sided die. It pre-dates D20 by at least 15 years and has modules for every environment you can imagine. D20 over took it as the universal RPG system of choice because D&D is the most popular and D20 is a free system that encourages player contribution to the community. I do still play in a Gurps campaign but I am at a best a newbie with regard to the rules.

The Gap in Gurps

Gurps makes heavy use of concept called “the Gap”. Effectively how well or how poorly you make a skill check impacts the result. It took a little getting used to for me, but it is more efficient and takes less time in play. A very cool concept indeed!

Top Secret by TSR

For those who don’t know, Top Secret was an early 80’s D20-ish, James Bond RPG published by TSR. It was not a great game, vague rules and overly complicated hand to hand melee. I played it a few years and then abandoned it.

Fame & Fortune Points in Top Secret

In a world with out “Cure Light Wounds” and weapons like machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. Damage to players was frequently lethal. The game had the concept of “Fame & Fortune” points. These points, of which you had very few, let the player who had just been killed, think of a fluky way to not be dead. There was something like a 10 second rule to avoid long pondering delays. But the rule worked, presuming the player was creative enough to think of something. The GM would sometimes say “No, that’s too absurd, try again.” Still the rule worked mainly because it was so easy to get killed in the game.

Top Secret S.I. by TSR

Top Secret S.I. (Special Investigation) came out in the late 1980’s and was a complete replacement for the original game. All in all it was good game, well balanced rules fast combat and sufficient depth to be a commando, spy, thief, cop or whatever in the modern day. For a more detailed review: RPG Top Secret S.I Review

Damage by Zone in Top Secret S.I.

The makers abandoned the traditional concept of hit points. They replaced it with a zone chart of ten areas covering: Head, Left Chest, Right Chest, Abdomen, Right Arm, Left Arm, Right Hand, Left Hand, Right Leg and Left Leg. Furthermore they had two types of damage: wound or bruise. I won’t go into all the details, but they effectively solved the problem from the original game “being too easy to die”. Body Armor, cover and good common sense would sustain a character a good long time in heavy combat. Furthermore the chart was cool, superimposed over a silhouette of man.

Skills and Classes

There are no classes in this system, but they had a large list of skills. Some skills had pre-requisite skill(s) and each skill had a cost to it. This worked really well with their experience system, as players were rewarded with skill points and could improve their abilities or get new ones. The skills were easy to understand resulting in a nice neat uncomplicated system for skills.

Attributes

TPSI diverged from the D20 model here by doing everything on percentile basis. Sometimes the math would get dodgy it made your attributes very easy to understand. Most people have no problem understanding that 10% chance is not as good as 80% chance. In that sense the system had an intuitive quality that’s hard to beat.

In Conclusion:

That sums it up for me, naturally I could have said more about each system. Those elements I highlighted are IMO the great concepts in those games.

First, Defining the D20 problems

What's not to like about RPGs?

I attempt to articulate what the existing problems are with D20 specifically and RPGs in general. These are based on my experiences trying to teach and recruit new players.

Geek Factor

There is a certain geek factor associated with Role Playing Games that in my experience is untrue and unfair. Not surprising the stereotypes about non-hygienic, socially inept, devil worshiping, poorly dressed boys or scary adult men persists. I won’t pretend to have any plan to deal with that, except to say that I lead by example. Certainly myself and the people I play with exhibit none of those qualities.

Creating a Character

If a new player manages to overcome the geek factor prejudice and decides to make a go of it, without a mentor they are likely doomed to quit. They are forced to wade through an avalanche of rules, terms, lists, tables, charts, choices resulting in a near endless array of decision points whose implications are completely unknown. In my experience the player already has in mind some type of character they want to be. This is character is probably derived from a book, movie or video game.

Hit Points

This may be the number one complaint I endured, and I am not certain why it happens now and did not happen in the 1970’s. Perhaps its video games or CNN or FOX News or I do not know what. But the problem boils down to this quote from an exasperated teenager: “If I shoot an arrow into my enemies head, he is dead weather he is level 1 or level 10, but in this game my enemy could be buck naked, 10^th level and take shots from my bow all day. That’s just stupid.” I am inclined to agree. As a follow up a great d20 hit points debate went on at a forum I visit.

What do I need to hit?

I believe that 3.5/D20 did a great job with armor class. It is a great improvement over before, but the flip side of armor class is “chance to hit” and that is no small feat to calculate for a novice. You have an adjustment for Strength (check a chart), adjustment for opponent size (check a chart), adjustment for weapon proficiency (check a chart), adjustments for related feats (check a chart) and finally adjustments for the quality of the weapon. Did I miss any? Probably I did but the point is, that all those adjustments are neat, perhaps more accurate, but cumbersome to know, find and use. It is not fun if it takes 10 minutes to know you need to beat a 12 to hit.

Hit Points Again

“So I have 50 hit points, and I keep taking damage in melee. But there are no adjustments to my skills until I reach zero, at which point I collapse and can’t use any of my skills.” Where as this is true, I can not say it ever bothered me personally. I think the thinking is the direct impact of video games, and 3d shooters where you ability degrades as you take damage. The comment makes sense to me but in 3.5/D20 it would be very cumbersome to account for.

Too Many Rules poorly described

The 3.5/D20 system has a lot of rules. The rules are written with excessive verbosity, a weird dual gender mode and they are poorly organized. You often need to be in two or three places in the rules to answer a single question. If you play every week that becomes less of a problem, if you are older and play less often it can get frustrating. Thank you for the internet because one resource is invaluable for making quick use of the rules: HyperText d20 SRD I often remind youngsters that the 3.5/D20 rules are a vast improvement in consistency over the AD&D rules of long ago, but a newbie does not care about yesterday!

In Conclusion

I think the problems are specifically targeted to the required interdependency of rules with regards to race, class, level, feat and skills involved with just creating a character. These complexities are revisited at the first melee. I whole hearted agree with the richness the D20 designers provided, but the complexity is a lot to digest for a newbie.

The long road to wanting a new RPG System

Greetings!

I have a good job, a great marriage and awesome kids. I have been playing RPGs (Role Playing Games) since the late 1970's. I really enjoy the escapism aspect of being someone else in some other place on some other world in some other time. In the early days I played nearly all the old TSR games: Dungeons & Dragons, Top Secret, Traveler, Gama World. They were each good games with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Along came Dungeons and Dragons Version 3 which was a completely revised rules set. In short I hated it. It was too different, indeed it was a whole new game. I respected what they tried to do with making the mechanics of the game consistent. However they kept many of the complexities with respect to classes and race restrictions and so in total I did not use the new system. A short time later Dungeons and Dragons Version 3.5 came about as a major revision. It is a vast improvement and I liked it so much that I started to use it.

Around this I first encountered the D20 system. D20 System is effectively the open source equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons. However the creators are brilliant. They built D20 as a universal game system, not specifically tied to the fantasy (Tolkien) genre. D20 has many modules and variants that let you play in the far future, the wild west or as 007 to name a few. The genius of this concept is clear. Learn 1 system, apply it to your favorite genre and game game game!

When I was younger, with no mortgage, no family and few if any real responsibilities; I didn't have much trouble transitioning between different game rules on the fly. I'm much older now, have far less time and my memory is not what it used to be. Switching between game systems is not really and option anymore. I do not want to always play the Tolkien Fantasy of Dungeons and Dragons either, some times I'd rather be James Bond or Han Solo. D20 universal role playing system attracted me instantly.

The D20 glow wore off quickly. At the same time I decided to switch to D20, I was starting to teach my kids and their friends how to play. What I came to understand was that I had a tremendous legacy of knowledge about RPG systems. This knowledge base meant that I already had an understanding of the concepts common to all rules systems. For me it was a matter of applying new mechanics to already well understood concepts. For my kids who had no such knowledge base, it was a struggle. Kids being kids, they questioned everything. Then one day about a year ago I realized that most all their beefs were fair and well reasoned.

I went to my friends and discussed the D20 issues. It was an even split. Half rejected the very thought of new ideas and half became curious as to how the mechanics could be altered. The ideas bubbled around in a various discussions for several weeks and then we started to construct some rules!

What has surprised me most about the journey this far is how very hard it is to create a Role Playing Game. I will post more next weekend!

"It has always been easier to destroy then to create." - Mr. Spock
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