17. April 2010 by admin.

The first part of Fourth Draft is still being compiled. But as a little treat, here is the first (very rough) draft of the character sheet! It’s extremely simple. There are two reasons for this: This version is only meant to be functional, not pretty, so dazzling decorations are not yet part of the equation, aaand… it really is a simple sheet! Unlike many other RPGs, GEARS works around a very simple character design concept put forth since First Draft, and a few tweaks made it even simpler. As a result, anything character related (technical stuff, not the fictional background stories some players choose to write! And not really equipment lists either… sorry) can be placed into one streamlined row! The character sheet, really, is nothing but a coloumn of these, every row just the same. And you can do anything with it!

So here it is, the first version of the GEARS character sheet:

Posted in Abilities, First Draft, Background, Disabilities, Character creation, Equipment/Gear | 1 Comment »

14. January 2010 by admin.

Roleplaying characters come in many variations, but one challenge is common throughout any game that does not either A) use solely the real world as the game world or B) provide absolutely everything in the game world premade (in the original book or supplements). That problem is truly weird characters. Alien races, ghosts, demons, magical entities,computer intelligences, etc., are all strange enough to push the boundaries of a rules set.

Things like extra arms, non-physical bodies, transformations, and even stranger ideas should theoretically be possible in any system meant to be truly flexible. But what does such an ‘extreme’ character mean in terms of character creations? GEARS is being tuned up to handle things stranger than just odd people, and questions like this are beginning to crop up. The current method is to use the existing character components creatively, or a few added and fairly streamlined creation rules to simulate the weirdness wanted. The challeng, of course, is that people can imagine some of the strangest things, and catching up to that is hard for anyone trying to design rules.

What I want from GEARS is a toolbox that allows others to put together the basics to allow further expansion. With non-physical characters as an example, the exact nature of being intangible can be defined by someone willing to truly contemplate the topic. From that, a basic use of base components can be put together to recreate what that intangible aspect might mean in rules terms. Others can then take that basic design and create variants and expansions on it to simulate different kinds of intangible, like energy beings, ghosts, astral projections, etc., etc. GEARS provides tools, users (possibly in GEARS supplements!) put them to strange new uses, and from there, well, the sky is the limit.

So for now, the challenge is to make the basics of the game flexible enough, and at the same time plant the seeds of creative use and expansion. Not easy, but the way GEARS is turning out, it is becoming easier and easier to produce the little additions that make streamlined, flexible use possible. And that is a promissing thing!

Posted in Design kits, Fifth Draft, Abilities, Races, Aliens, Character creation, Fourth Draft, Superpowers | 1 Comment »

12. January 2010 by admin.

Roleplaying is about stories. But roleplaying games are also about numbers. GEARS is an odd mix of rules light and rules heavy; there are a lot of things to use, but they all use a very, very small set of actual rules. There is only one real dice mechanism, for example: Roll the number of dice and check how many roll ‘good’. There are only two fundamental things a character needs to have: Abilities and cash. And anything else is built like those, such as Disabilities working just like a standard simple check or Relations being basically just the Abilities to get someone to help you out.

There is one ‘rule’ that is less notable, however, and yet it is pivotal to game balance. Game balance, of course, is the idea that a player (or Narrator!) cannot make something insanely powerful, or end up puny, by simply choosing one Ability or the like over the other. Once the game starts, everything else being equal, you get what you pay for. ‘Minmaxing’, the dreaded ability of math-skilled players to figure out how to make something far more powerful than the allotted CCP should make it, should be non-existant. The rule that much current debate revolves around is the unwritten “1/10″ rule.

Now, the 1/10 rule is in place to make GEARS easy to handle and easy to remember. Throughout GEARS, either something is handled straight forward, with 1 of something meaning 1 of something else (every Ability level is 1 CCP for 1 level, for example), or 1 of something is 1/10 of something. The obvious example is Talents, which provide 1/10 of their level as a bonus to certain other rolls. But Relatios also have a Base built on 1 level equalling 10 CCP put into the Relation, and Income is 1/10 of the point-to-cash rate per CCP. 1/10 is found in several places throughout GEARS. The current debate is, is 1/10 the right number?

The key worry is in Talents (or rather, the way they provide a bonus; in Fourth Draft, this is renamed Benefitting, and Talents are just Abilities that are often used for their Benefit). At 1/10, it takes 11 relevant Abilities to make it worth investing in a Talent solely for its Benefit. True, Talents have other functions, but this is a Big One. So if 1/10 is making Talents look useless, should it be 1/5 instead? That would put them back into the game, making them a serious assett to characters built around certain concepts (”a precise and quick-thinking pilot”, “a natural with animals”, etc.). But the 1/10 rule is a very serious concept in GEARS, even if not explicit (maybe it should be made explicit….), so that would mean changing 1/10 to 1/5 throughout the game, or accepting that numbers will become harder to juggle. The latter is definitely not a wanted option, so the former, making 1/10 into 1/5 in general, looks like the only option left.

What would that mean? Talents will become more powerful, but will they become too powerful? Will they unhinge and unbalance the game? It would take 6 related Abilities to make a Talent worthwhile, and Talents have Specifics, too, so the player might make the Talent more relevant to one or two Abilities or situations than the rest. It seems doable, but it is in the end a choice, which way to balance it (fractions like 1/7 or 1/8, or decimal numbers, will be too great a math presence to be truly wanted).

Relations may work with a Base of 1 per 5 CCP the relation is built on. A Relation relies on Base, Loyalty and Availability, so one level in each still makes it seem worthwhile (1 level of each costs 3 CCP, ‘paying out’ 5 CCP in Relation creation).

Income is a bit less clear. 1/10 of point-to-cash rate means it takes 10 weeks for a character to ‘earn’ the equivalent of 1 CCP of Wealth. With 1/5 as a rule, it will take 5 weeks. Will that make Income outshine the prospects of investing in actual Wealth? For the first adventure a character has, it really doesn’t matter; Income pays out later no matter what. But when the characters have 3 weeks of R&R, the character just gets more than half a CCP’s worth of money dropped on it! Does that make Wealth seem useless in comparison? Or does it perhaps make Income just seem more worthwhile?

These questions are not rethorical. This is a serious matter for GEARS, as it pits the balance of minor versus major effects of multiple rules against each other, and pits all that against the ideal of One Fraction To Rule Them All. And there is no easy answer, so the debacle will continue for some time, before it becomes clear whether Fourth Draft will usea 1/10 rule or a 1/5 rule…

Posted in Human Template, Abilities, Relations, Fourth Draft, Character creation, Disabilities, Wealth | 1 Comment »