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 »

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 »

3. December 2009 by admin.

Progress has slowed a bit. Both the Creatures and the Equipment chapters are coming along nicely, and now it is a matter of getting the material written in a meaningful form. The big problem, as things stand, is Relations.

A Relation is someone that a character has some kind of connection with, for better or worse: A contact, an old friend, a boss, an enemy, an annoyance, basically any kind of other character that is somehow connected. Incorporating Relations into a character means creating social circumstances, someone who thecharacter has a history with. The idea being that they can help or harass the character in many myriad ways.

During playtests, a fairly clear message was given about the rules surrounding Relations: Bland and unclear. The system used built on that presented briefly in the old TAYDS, which was basically to turn a Relation into another form of Ability, with a Difficulty based on what a friend was called in to do (or, as a Disability, what the character him/herself could be called upon to do, or might experience an enemy doing to him or her). This is clearly not enough, and other venues are now being examined. But the concept is proving hard to emulate without going into a lot of needless detail, or ending up with something highly unbalanced (mighty friends doing everything for almost no point cost to the character).

To make matters worse, the Relations rules (which also include group relations, like having rank or reputation) play a role in the creature chapter, too, in that a variant of them was planned to be used for animal companions. So right now, there is a hole in the rules that needs to be plugged. Hopes are that it will, soon, and that Third Draft will not be delayed notably by it. But failing that, Relations may be put on the backburner until Fourth Draft, even if that was meant to be for structural work only… Time will tell…

Posted in Pets, Relations, TAYDS, Fourth Draft, Third Draft, Reputations, Disabilities, Playtests | No Comments »

24. November 2009 by admin.

Had some interesting feedback today. It seems there are some matters in GEARS that need attention. Most pressing is a problem surrounding the Automatic Growth rule; it simply causes low-power characters to grow too fast, because low Abilities grow much, much faster than high-level ones. It’s a math thing, in that the reduced range of rolls makes it far more likely to get even the exact success needed to grow without significant investment in the appropriate Learning Ability (for those who have not read the rule, this is probably complete gibberish). Anyway, it looks like ‘low-level’ Abilities will not mean as numerically low as intended, and the Difficulty guides will need some reshuffling. Hopefully that’s all, because I have come to like the rule in its few weeks of testing.

As for the whole “guides for creating things” ordeal, some progress has been made. The structure for creating Special Powers (creating effects like magic, superpowers, or anything else that is a bit beyond normal Abilities) is progressing, and the general structure for creating gadgets and larger machines (including vehicles) is looking good. The one flaw at the moment is that especially the Powers system is just not rigid enough; it relies a lot on subjective interpretation of a superpower or the like, and is prone to heavy manipulation by devious players. There are no really devious players in the playtest pool, which might be a bad thing now…

Anyway, Third Draft is growing nicely. It’s about 50% added material, and that is written in very short form, meaning more defined rules will be needed. There are Boosters, Disabilities, and a lot of other things in the works. Also, the Talent Abilities list has been set up, all that is needed is the writing of each Talent Ability. This is a big step ahead, since it means the Talents have now been picked.Soon, the rules written can refer directly to the, and oh how many of them need that!

I will stop it here. I have noted, while transfering entries from the old blog, that I write far too long blog entries. I need focus, and I need restraint (Restraint being one of the new Talents, btw!). Otherwise, I babble. I do it for love of the game, and the work, though. So… I’ll just be quiet now.

See ya!

Posted in Boosters, Disabilities, Third Draft, Superpowers, Old blog, Machines, Magic, Playtests | 1 Comment »