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19. December 2009 by admin.

With the release (and subsequent adjustments and rerelease) of GEARS Third Draft, I feel I may have left the blog to drift a little. Third Draft took a greater effort than expected, mostly because of the first attempts to do a serious layout (the part that got the most adjustments, actually!).

So with that work pretty much done, there is only one logical thing for me to ramble about today: Fourth Draft!

And there is a schism here, a change of process from the first three drafts to this next one. It is probably not easy to see from the outside, but there is a massive difference between writing rules and writing games! Rules are about making sure as much of the gorund you want is covered as possible, making sure things fit together, make sense, and has a degree of balance (we are still working on the balance thing). Games are about writing something that otherscan easily understand, use and enjoy. That means that Fourth Draft will need better language,better organization, and better layout. Just saying “we need more/better rules” will not cut it!

So the writing procedure has been turned upside down, for one. The first three drafts were written as rules were needed and became possible; first the dice mechanic, then character creation, then all the other things characters might have, and onwards from there. Fourth Draft is about structure. Therefore, the first thing written for it is a complete and detailed layout of all the contents planned for it, set up in a way that seems logical and user friendly. Not surprisingly, the bulk of what is not only in Third Draft, but also what is mentioned but not finished in Third Draft, will all only be part of one section: The Rules

Originally, the core book being written was meant to have three major sections: The Game Engine and The Rules System, hence the name, GEARS: Game Engine And Rules System, and of course the Alice 2.0 setting. As things look now, a more detailed structure will benefit everyone much better, leading to five majorsections:

• The Game, describing how games can be played, how to organize sessions, what the roles and tools are for Narrators, how players tend to think, etc. Half of it is for beginners learning to handle roleplaying games without too many bad experiences, half of it is for skilled Narrators/GMs from other games wanting to get a better game going with less work. The section is about people, real people, playing roleplaying games; how they think, what they want, what they may need, etc.
• The Engine is a toolbox for the Narrator. It describes how to easily produce things from ideas, and how to get ideas when you run out. Methods, tricks and tools are delivered to quickly turn a general idea of a world, an adventure, or anything else pertaining to the game into something tangible and usable. It even goes into how these things can be set up to be shared between Narrators, to the point of how one might professionally publish them. The idea with this section is A) to ease the task of creating breathtaking campaigns, B) to kickstart a creative GEARS community, and C) to actually sow the seeds for writers who will come to write for the game! Most professional writers will already know the information in the section, and much more, but a lot of it will be news to those without publishing credits.
• The Rules, basically what is already in Third Draft, with many of the blank spots filled in. A serious rewrite is going to be done on many parts, for better phrasing.
•  The System, meanwhile is an extension of what is in The Engine and The Rules, providing a lot of different, creative uses of it all to create concepts for the game that have the complexity of ideas from The Engine, but are fully compliant with The Rules, using what already exists to create things like detailed poisons, hacking rules, character ethics/value systems, magic and divinities, and so on. This is both a collection of premade material that goes beyond the basic rules, and examples for how more can easily be made. Focus is on explaining ideas so that creative concepts can be reused and expanded on by others.
• The Settings contains both Alice 2.0 and multiple short world writeups, to get genre games going. Rules are going to be integrated into this, rather than the ruleless description of the Alice 2.0 setting included in Second Draft and Third Draft. The other, non-Alice settings will be picked to demonstrate genre and style creation and modification, giving the new Narrator a wide scope from the start, and an ample toolbox.

I will refrain from going into details about each section’s structure and subsections; that is what writing Fourth Draft is about, after all. But expect to see something much more like an actual game than a carefully crafted set of house rules next time!

Posted in Genre, Fourth Draft, Style, Design kits, Game worlds, Third Draft, Character creation, Alice, Second Draft, Magic, Narrator, Hacking, Conflict | No Comments »

Solutions, solutions, solutions!

25. November 2009 by admin.

The first real round of playtesting has ended. Five different groups, three different countries. My gratitudes to you all, and looking forward to the next round, hopefully soon.

With that one adventure (a CoC/X-files-style monster rump) played by little over twenty fantastic people, under five equally fantastic Narrators (for those new to GEARS, that’s the term for GM or DM or Referee or whathaveyou being used), there is enough feedback to put me to work for the next year or so. Not that I will let it take that long, of course; there are problems needing my immediate attention, and suggestions (a lot!) that need digesting quickly, to include them before the next tests! And since the next tests will be re-blind (in that it will be roughly the same groups (hence re-) but without any influence from me at all (hence blind)), I need to get this stuff down, hard and good!

A lot of the feedback has been on suggested tools for creating content. Many games either provide little but premade content (monsters, especially), while others provide demanding systems for creating even simple content (vehicles and monsters, especially!). GEARS needs to provide a flexible system that is easy to use and can provide any content imaginable. It is a big goal to have, but with a pile of suggested ways to do it that is about knee height, there is not a lack of options

Thought has also been given a lot to the goal of ‘assisted learning’. Not to removing it; the games of today need an easy way in! But a lot of the things that were simplified during Second Draft seem to have been too much so. The rules that were considerd ‘not simple’ are apparently easier to handle than originally thought. So the GEARS Quick line will not be simplified as much as originally intended, but will simply streamline many choices, Specifics will not be included, nor will Automatic Growth, and some of the more advanced options will be toned down or removed, as well. And on the subject, the matter of Automatic Growth and low-life characters still needs attention.

In any case, there are already 6000 added words (circa 8 pages) in the Third Draft rules section. The Alice setting is still unchanged, but what is to be written there is pretty well known, since it has been used before, long before the now finished playtests. Also, Third Draft will be available as both free PDF and low-cost (circa US$6) paperback, probably at around 50 pages.

Things look good. Things look real good.

Posted in Third Draft, Monsters, GEARS Quick, Character creation, Narrator, Second Draft, Alice, Playtests | No Comments »

Looking ahead

23. November 2009 by admin.

Second Draft and the website seem stable, and the first work is already being done on Third Draft. For the moment, the writing part is centered around the Ability List, and the ‘Medical’ category is progressing quite nicely. Talents are still hampered by three different versions of the list existing, with a few variations of even those. There are some aligning choices, but there will have to be a bit more testing to pinpoint the exact list desired for the game. Hopefully, most key Talents will be chosen soon.

The real debate, however, is on two matters that are arguably a bit farther ahead: Non-standard items, and powers. The items refered to are those that are not bought, not even through black markets or special contacts. Experimental gadgets, alien devices, ancient enchantments and the like seem to break the current system, and there are multiple rules versions on the drawing board for them now. The question is acquisition; how does one handle the acquisition of such items during character creation? GEARS is not currently built for, nor fully meant for, a system that uses character points to define items. Systems like GURPS and HERO are famous for their in-depth methods of assigning special abilities (or Abilities; sometimes, they put actual skills and powers into items, in game terms) to gadgets, weapons and the like. Their systems are impressively versatile, but certain concerns have already been aired in Entry 19 (of the old blog) about transfering the same philosophy to GEARS. These items seem caught between character and equipment, and there are early signs that other items may have similar problems: Powerful exosuits (which supply strength, senses and other things thought to be character territory), cybernetics (ditto), enchantments on the body (which can improve anything in the character, theoretically), and so forth. They are all in a strange area between item and character Abilities.

But even more important, they are essential to many genres and styles, and they influence game balance immensely. What worth is a fancy Ability if gadgets outmatch character experience? At some point, items become close to substitutes for actual characters. In worlds that exist on powerful technologies, that makes sense; even today, having a good gun beats years of bodybuilding and martial arts training. But when some such powerful gear is not openly available, character creation becomes the explanation for how a character can have something like it, especially from the start. This gap between the character creation rules and the still forming equipment creation rules needs to be closed before GEARS can be considered fully functional in respect to unique or complex gadgets.

The question about powers is a bit more diffuse. Testing of GEARS with high-power settings has been limited so far, mostly enough to ensure that the dice mechanism scales well (which it fortunately seems to do, in nearly all regards). What is still causing some problems is the definition, in game terms, of highly complex powers and relations between powers. Concepts like physical, mental or other drains with power usage, side-effects, limiting circumstances, etc. are still only roughly defined in (unpublished) GEARS notes. Simple powers can be made, and a surprisingly simple system for constructing them is being drawn up at this very minute, but the highly complex powers of quality comics and well-written high-power fiction are still causing problems with game balance and character point accounting (powers are here assumed to be built into characters during character creation). For example, if a system of magic has powerful spells, the spells can be easily created with the methods being drawn up (in fact, playtesters are creating some rather interesting things on-the-fly). But if using those spells drain a character, is that just a fact in the game world, or is it something to build into the magic system? Or perhaps into each individual spell? The game world will have a lot to do with it, in that some worlds will just accept that spells or the like cause some drain, while others handle each power uniquely. But whatever the in-world circumstances, GEARS needs a system for handling it, one that provides game balance without neglecting the uniqueness of such powers. Ironically, the problem is not that such systems are hard to make; the problem is there are too many already in use! Playtesters have modified the original (now horribly obsolete) concepts heavily, and recombining the results in a way that allows easy power design while maintaining game balance os proving hard. If that game balance is to become game world dependent (i.e. different game worlds provide different game balances, to support genres and styles better), that is merely another mighty hurdle.

Essentially, none of this is anything new in terms of design problems. GEARS is a system, and what has been described are components. Making components work together in a larger system, especially one designed to provide this amount of flexibility, always results in problems connecting Component A to Component B. It is a headache, but it is a good headache, because the problem is too many options, rather than no way forward. It comes down to choice. And with the design philosophy of GEARS, some of that choice will turn into options for campaign versatility, turning the current problem into a future advantage. Right now, it’s simply about getting there from here.

Posted in Wealth, Superpowers, Character creation, Equipment/Gear, Old blog, Second Draft, Magic, Playtests | 1 Comment »

Second Draft!

22. November 2009 by admin.

Caught up with a bad flu that keeps socializing to a minimum, I thought today might be a good day to finally start drawing public attention to the new GEARS website. The main page is looking fairly functional, and several pieces are fitting together nicely. It’s not a full site yet; a lot of information is missing, and some features are still a bit… wonky. But it is working and looking rather good, if I may say so!

Of course, the real reason this looks like the time to open up for the public is that GEARS Second Draft is out! 36 pages long, this draft has most of the fundamental rules included, and it even has the first look at the core/demo setting of the system, Alice 2.0, a twisted version of our own world that revolves heavily around a small girl and the city she built. Not to mention her secret ressurection facilities and the even more secret portals she launches operatives into other worlds with! GEARS Second Draftgives the first collected look under the hood of the system, even though a lot is still missing, like Disabilities, Sample Characters, advanced options, shopping lists and the whole non-rule part of the book for developing and running campaigns.

Also, the term ‘Game Master’ or ‘GM’ has been exchanged with ‘Narrator’. It’s not a new idea, it’s something that has been standard behind the scenes of the system work for years. Game Master, other ‘Masters’, Referee, and the like simply have too much of a “I am in charge, I (can) control everything, and I must control how the game progresses” sound to it. The basic function of Narrator is no different from a GM, but GEARS is meant to restrict the notion of anyone being ‘in charge’ of the game; it’s collaborative storytelling, people! The term ‘Storyteller’ went out for similar reasons, in that the person is not ‘telling a story’, but rather is narrating the world around the characters that are the main characters of a story they help writing. ‘Collaborative’, it’s a big word around here…

That about covers it. The first round of official announcements will be fairly discreet, mainly a matter of forum signatures and posting in appropriate subforums that the site is now running. Anyone wishing to spread the word is welcome to, of course. Making a big deal out of it just seems a bit premature, as a lot of folks would no doubt be disappointed to find the game only in draft stages after any kind of hype. A mor erelaxed approach will (hopefully) attract people who come out of curiousity and possible long+term interest, not people who just want a quick RPG fix. It’s a theory

And now, I will see if I can get some of these many functions of the new site working. Especially getting this blog to show a highlighted or at least very central link back to the main GEARS website… If anyone knows WordPress, I am all ears!

Posted in Narrator, Shopping, Old blog, Alice, Second Draft | 1 Comment »

Calm before the storm…

21. November 2009 by admin.

Things are still slowly falling into place. Five different variants of the core rules remain in playtest, but they are constantly being adjusted in ways that make them more and more similar, so it looks like it won’t be long before the core is fully assembled. The Second Draft looks to be about 40 pages long, including various sections that make up the most important rules. Game philosophy is not included in the draft, and whether this one will have sample characters is not yet sure; the final selection of Talent Abilities is not yet in, and without them, sample characters may become too confusing (because they will change wildly between the second and third draft). Phrasing also needs attentiononce the Second Draft is finished. Currently, the text reads like an academic text trying to speak normal English, i.e. dry and with some odd expressions. It is not really reader friendly yet, nor will it be before Second Draft launches.

Beyond the core that is being carved into Second Draft, there are some interesting things floating about in test. A very advanced expansion on the combat (and by extension, conflict) system is showing good results in playability, even if it is still horribly unbalanced. It allows very unusual choices in combat, from shifting weapons and targets to outwitting opponents by observation or constant feints. It even lends itself to magical and other esoteric combat in a way not originally imagined. Yes, that means magical combat moves! The details are still rough, as magic systems are in mid-test, but there seems to be some power in the system. Adding even more yum is the fact that the advanced weapons and armor rules are turning out rather nicely. They are only barely in early playtest, but the system holds and seems fairly light, despite incredible detail. What kind of detail? Well, let’s just say that if you want cheap armor against sharp blades, metal rivets in leather provide an option. Go for the round ones, though, unless you need very light and cheap armor; the crossed rivets break easy. And remember that jagged-edge swords of the right composition can outmaneuver rivets, as can anything thrusted and pointy. And you do not wantthose jagged blades thrusted into you, either! Full design system for composition armor and custom melee weapons is in the pipeline, too.

And then there is Alice. The center setting is being outlined for a shorter-than-full version, and it is nearly done. The full setting already has a lot of material to it, but the shorter version will be packed with Second Draft, to show off some ideas. Later drafts will have textboxes with addition setting seeds, and ways to connect them to Alice, but that’s a whole different ball game right now.

Things look good. On the more distant horizon, settings are forming, and a core design book for machines(vehicles, heavy tools, doomsday devices, etc.) is on the drawing board. The first pieces of an advanced gun design system are being drawn up. And an old favorite of mine, “Reich X”, is being looked at as a very dark, insane, and possibly silly setting. Also, ideas for merchandise keep popping up, but those are still mostly for fun.

Oh yeah, and Second Draft will have an actual cover illustration. Simple, but a cover illustration nonetheless!

See ya!

Posted in Magic, Vehicles, Guns, Swords, Reich X, Armor, Machines, Alice, Combat, Weapons, Conflict, Sample characters, Second Draft, Playtests | 1 Comment »

Entry 17: Drafts & Lights

4. November 2009 by admin.

.::: Entry 17, 2009/11/4 :::.
The structure of the game core is slowly becoming visible. With the long list of features already described in these last 16 entries,that is a happy thing!Because of realizations, tests and discussions (online especially), I feel a need to move the actual drafting work to the next step. This does not in any way mean that the final game will now unfold; any written work worth reading is rewritten dozens of times before it is tentatively called ‘a finished product’.With certain flaws that have come to light through the writing and testing of the first draft, its continued writing is being stopped. There is no point in creating sample characters, because one of the flaws is in the character creation system. The abilities listed are an incomplete collection, but they will travel easily into the second draft for continuation. This seems like the best way to actually move the writing of the core system forward.

You can find a copy of the first draft, as PDF, in the top bar, or here.

:: Current Game Mechanics ::

The dice pool mechanic has had a great deal of discussion with people both from the gaming and mathematical circles around me. Two results have come from this: My more detailed explanation of why I chose it, and a problem that should now be fixed. The explanation part has apparently not been made clear from the beginning, which is my fault. I chose the dice pool mechanic presented because I want a game that can ’scale’, meaning it doesn’t matter what level a skill is, the level is still important. Many games have a ‘functional range’ for skills and other abilities. If the ability gets greater than that range, any increase will either be virtually useless, or distort the dice mechanic of the game. For example, using three six-sided dice means any ability level above 18 will either be unimportant (if the dice have to be rolled below the ability) or make the dice roll worth much less (if the roll is added to reach a set target). Penalties are all that keep such high skills important. I don’t want that. I want high skill levels to matter as much as low, and the used dice mechanic lets the game perform that way.

The problem fixed was surprisingly physical. The dice mechanic allows endless rise in ability, meaning at some point, the number of dice rolled becomes impractical, because there are simply too many! Apparently, other games have had similar problems, and the solution is inspired by theirs: Since the dice have a 50/50 chance of turning up good or bad, the player is always granted the right to cut away a number of dice before rolling. For each two dice cut, one is an automatic good die (the other theoretically being an automatic bad die). Sacrificing two dice for one automatic good die is called one ’safe’ die. Thus a roll of 47 dice can be reduced to, for example, 20 ’safe’ dice (cutting 40 dice before rolling) and 7 dice rolled normally. Now, players decide how much they want to roll, and the more safe dice, the less the maximum possible roll.

With that in place, the dice mechanic can be slightly edited from the first draft into the second.

The really big problem is in character creation, and to some extent growth. The concept of one CCP put into an Ability giving a Specific in each of that Ability’s categories is highly unbalancing. Not only does it bloat abilities with Specific to the point where the actual Ability becomes a minor component of doing something, it also skews the value of Abilities when one Ability has fewer categories of Specifics than another. While this is a pretty nasty imbalance, the solution seems fairly simple: One CCP equals one raised Specific only, in addition to the Ability itself. The ‘background’ is rejected as a Specific and now simply becomes a feature added (raised by one) any time a CCP is spent. There will be some rulework about hiding your background later, but for now, ‘background’ is simply a separate entity that describes how each CCP of Ability was gained. The same is changed in growth from awarded CCPs.

:: Expanded Core Concerns ::

One of the major realizations that have hit me from the entries here is that giving every feature its own, unique rules would be horrible overkill. Yes, every topic needs full and thorough treatment, but just whipping up a new rule for everything a character might do or have in the game will end up in books the size of certain legendary, back-in-the-day mega-texts, stocked with a million things to remember. And while it might not seem like it at this point in the process, given the amount of features that are being built into the game, playability is a big issue to me. The game has to be easy. Detail must come from options, not complexity.

What I am looking at in parallel with the second draft, in my massive heap of notes and player feedback, is a core structure that will make a clear-cut, understandable and most of all manageable set of core rules guide the extended features of the game. By that I do not in any way mean a copy-paste system, where magic is just gunfighting with different names, which in turn is just the mechanics of haggling given a bunch of weapons stats. No, what I am looking for is a guiding philosophy to the rules themselves, making learning the basics a direct portal to understanding the game in general. I don’t want magic, gunfighting, haggling and other rules to be vaguely disguised copies of each other. But once someone has understood one of those rules, I want the rest to make sense much, much quicker.

The jury is still out on the actual methods of this. Without any truly detailed rules covering the more advanced topics, there is no actual complexity to be avoided yet. I am keeping an eye on it, watching for ways to make rules build upon each other, but for now, I only have the knowledge that streamlining will be needed. The dice pool mechanics used for abilities are already being incorporated into disabilities, and even most abilities themselves function according to understandable lines, all based in the same philosophy. The tested game material is less streamlined, but with more rewriting and more testing, it is getting there.

:: Having It Light ::

In the playability, ease-of-play vein, I have always been a proponent of easy introduction to new games. We might all just as well face it, nobody wants to read a university textbook of rules just to play a game they don’t even know yet. And while this game is not going for the university textbook complexity, having it spelled out in a few pages is a good thing.

Of course, one cannot commonly create a truly deep set of game rules in a few pages. And there is no way the game will compromise its depth and quality to simplify it. Luckily, there is a third way, and that is an introduction-level version of the game. It is already being prepared, and some main features include no Background/Specifics on Abilities, only the simplified Disabilities, and a very simplified conflict system. Transition from ‘game light’ to ‘game original’ is fairly easy, and will be a boost to characters in most, if not all, regards; adding Specifics to the Abilities you already have is only an improvement in what the character can do, after all!

What this is meant for is to get people going on the game, without mashing deep philosophies of detail into their faces. Many games today seem to either call a ‘my way or the highway’ mentality on players, forcing them to accept complex rules as they are and just learn to deal, or deliberately make rules so simple they lack fulfilling detail (in this long-time player’s humble opinion). Having an easy version of the game seems a good middle road, one that a few games have already dared to venture.

Of course, this is not just about having a stripped-down version of the game. The goal is two-fold: Having the stripped-down version available for free for easy access and quick examination, perhaps even for use as-is, and also having actual books that encompass everything needed in one, easy-to-use book. that means a complete game, with the rules, a setting and at least one full adventure. One simple book to get a new group started playing. Short versions may even be available for free (short separate adventures, not unended versions of the longer ones). This is a quick easy and cheap way to get into a new game, and it sets the players up to learn the more complex rules that much easier.

:: Immediate Roadmap ::

Some of all this is far ahead. Some of it is on the horizon. The important thing becomes how to proceed now. The core game is taking place, and tests are giving good results, especially with the changes that will be implemented in the second draft. There are still glaring omissions, but they are known omissions, and the scaffolding is coming into place for them.

This production log will continue to hold personal rants on things intended for the game, from the concrete things already in testing to ideal ones still not quite polished to perfection. But it is my hope that things will begin to focus a little more on practical implementation and second (and later) draft content. Once the core mechanics are in place, the things desired can build upon them, and so forth. This includes both rules, non-rule material (of which there will be plenty!), and the overall identity of the game. It will also soon begin to include more concrete examples of settings, advanced abilities, and what else has been promised.

For now, the second draft is the key, and it will be written ASAP.

Posted in Old blog, Second Draft | 1 Comment »