Last week, I finally finished and published a D&D 4E adventure, The Goblins of Summerkeep, to DriveThruRPG.com.

It took a while.  There are all sorts of little finishing steps, such as checking for errors, verifying that the generated PDF looks good, uploading to DriveThruRPG, etc.

I’m also working to make it available in multiple formats, and that’s a classic time suck. DriveThruRPG provides a print-on-demand service, but that requires its own PDFs. SmashWords will publish my adventure to the Kindle, Nook, and iPad, but it requires a specially-formatted MS Word file.

None of this is hard; it just consumes time.

It’s also the first of several adventures designed as an interlocking storyline.  Each adventure can be played separately, or strung together into a central story for a Heroic Tier campaign.  Lots of other stories can branch off of these adventures, as well.  So I’ve got plenty more work ahead of me.

It’s exhausting and exhilarating. I’m moving forward.

In the previous posts in this series, I laid some groundwork for adapting D&D 4E to a mecha universe, establishing some basic stats and skills.

Let’s create some sample mecha units, using the stats we’ve defined so far.

The Stats We Need

If you recall, each mecha has the following stats:

• Manufacturer, which corresponds to race
• Class
• Size
• Speed
• Initiative
• AC
• Fortitude
• Reflex
• Strength
• Constitution
• Dexterity
• HP
• Repairs

All of the above scores will be based off the manufacturer and class, so let’s start there.

Manufacturing a Giant Robot

The manufacturer corresponds to a PC’s race in standard D&D.  So let’s open up our D&D 4E Player’s Handbook and look at the stats for character races.

• Average Height and Weight — Manufacturers don’t standardize on a particular height and weight for their merchandise.  This will depend more on the mecha’s class, so we’ll move this there.
• Ability Scores — +2 to two scores. Mecha have half as many ability scores as a D&D PC, so let’s provide +2 to one score.
• Size — This will be determined by class.
• Speed — Also determined by class (Boeing doesn’t restrict itself to only fast aircraft).
• Vision — Again,class-specific.  Less important on mecha, as we can assume all mecha have advanced infrared and other systems to see in the dark. So, let’s drop this unless there’s a specific need within the universe.
• Languages — Not applicable to a mecha universe, unless you want some kind of translator unit.
• Skill Bonuses — This we can keep, as long as we focus on physical skills. Makes sense for a particular manufacturer to generally provide the same benefits to all products (“Apple’s products always have excellent UI; Sony’s products are always rugged.”)
• Special Abilities — We can keep this, but to make sense within the world, it needs to feel like a feature that a particular company always puts into its products, like a specific backdoor or consistent password scheme.

Class

• Average Height and Weight — Moved from manufacturer. Pure fluff at this point.  I don’t want to get into weight restrictions a la Battletech just yet.
• Size — Moved from manufacturer.
• Speed — Moved from manufacturer.
• Role — Just like in D&D.
• Power Source — Not useful in most mecha universes.  There are definitely universes within which this would make sense, especially fantasy ones where different mecha are powered by different magic.  But we can typically ignore this.
• Key Abilities — Just like in D&D.
• Armor Proficiencies — We’ll keep this, as we can have a variety of different types of protection: physical,energy-based, and flak-based.
• Weapon Proficiencies — Ditto. We can even use essentially the same weapon classes as D&D.
• Bonus to Defense — Keep.
• Hit Points at 1st Level — Keep.
• Hit Points per Level Gained — Keep.
• Healing Surges Per Day — Yes, renamed to Repair Operations
• Trained Skills — This doesn’t make sense for a mecha — how would a new type of mecha make you better at history?
• Build Options — Keep.
• Class Features — Keep.

Sample Manufacturer

Seinar Systems

Initially a maker of luxury space craft, including pleasure yachts and high-end shuttles, Seinar has branched out into military manufacturing while retaining its trademark elegance and speed.

Ability Modifier: +2 to Dexterity

Skill Bonuses: +2 to Acrobatics, +2 to Athletics

Dexterous Movement: Manufacturer At-Will Power: Minor Action: Shift up to 2 squares.

Sample Class

Freedom-Class Mecha

• Size Medium
• Speed 7
• Role Striker
• Key Abilities Dexterity, Strength
• Armor ProficienciesEnergy-based
• Weapon Proficiencies Simple melee, military melee
• Bonus to Defense: +2 Reflex
• Hit Points at First Level 13 + Dexterity modifier
• Hit Points Per Level Gained 5
• Repair Operations Per Day 9 + Dexterity modifier
• Build Options None yet
• Class Features
  • Sure Strike: Class At-Will Power: Standard Action
    Attack: Dexterity +2 vs. AC
    Target: One mecha
    Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
  • Jarring Strike: Class At-Will Power: Standard Action
    Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
    Target: One mecha
    Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage, and target is stunned (save ends).
  • Anti-Ship Prejudice: Class At-Will Power: Standard Action
    Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
    Target: Capital ship
    Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.

There we go. We now have a sample race and class for mecha. In the next post, we’ll talk about PCs.

This month\’s RPG Blog Carnival over at Mad Brew Labs is on Growing the Hobby. I quote:

While I don\’t think the hobby is disappearing, by any means, I don\’t see it expanding by leaps & bounds either. I\’d personally like to see it grow, and I would like to hear what the RPG Blogosphere has to say.

\”Blogosphere.\” :shudder: I so hate that word. Ah well;  not their fault.

Can It Grow?

Not to be negative, but I honestly suspect that there\’s little room for growth in the RPG industry. And that\’s okay.

I originally wrote half a dozen long paragraphs describing each demographic\’s limited potential for RPG sales, then remembered that demographics are a terrible way of measuring anything these days.

So let\’s put it this way: What itch does an RPG scratch?

Players get the ability to live the life of a more interesting person, in a way that is deeply interactive and long-form.  GMs are able to create worlds and tell complex stories.

Quick, walk into a sports bar, and find me somebody who wants to put a lot of thought into crafting a long-form story.  Find me somebody who wants to give up one night a week to sit around with a bunch of friends and actively use their imagination.

Most folks just don\’t value that. Sure, they\’ll watch a fantasy movie — because they\’re watching it.

This is not a dig against \”mundanes.\” Most people just don\’t value the same things that geeks value.

How To Grow It?

I can think of a couple of things.

One: The vast majority of RPGs focus on geek settings. I challenge you to find an RPG setting or product that doesn\’t assume at least a fantastic or science fiction element.

(I always found it telling that the example shows in Primetime Adventures, which is about creating dramatic TV episodes, skews strongly towards SF/F shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)

What if there was an RPG where you play a basketball star?  Or a private investigator?  Or a nurse in an ER?

Two: The systems have to be simpler and require fewer materials. There are only so many people in the world willing to go out and buy special dice for a game. (And since when was that considered an acceptable additional cost of playing a game? Board games don\’t assume this; they come with the dice, board, etc.)

Three: The games have to provide a stronger initial punch. Most folks don\’t want a multi-year commitment out of their game; they want Scattergories. Character creation (for most) is work with no obvious, direct reward.

Imagine an RPG that comes with two dozen vibrant, pre-generated characters and a dozen well-crafted, quick adventures. Want to play an adventure in an hour or two?  Grab a character and go.

I\’m sure there are others. How would you grow the hobby beyond the folks who already play it?

This is part 4 in a series of posts about an RPG system that uses D&D 4E mechanics for a giant robot system.

D&D 4E simplified the skill list dramatically. Let’s look at each one, and figure out which ones can be transferred to a giant robot combat universe directly, which will need to be tweaked, which must be dropped, and what we must add.

• Acrobatics – OK
• Arcana – Not a fit. Mecha characters rarely tap into mystical energies, but they do often tap into computer systems.  So let’s replace this with Hacking.
• Athletics – OK
• Bluff – OK
• Diplomacy – OK
• Dungeoneering – Nope. Let’s replace this with something like Cosmonautics — knowledge of technology and engineering used in outer space.
• Endurance – OK
• Heal – OK
• History – Keep it, though it’s likely less useful.
• Insight – OK
• Intimidate – OK
• Nature – Keep it, but expand it to include knowledge of space habitats and such.
• Perception – OK
• Religion – Nope (remember, it’s SF, so we’re all rationalists in the future). But if Religion tracks a character’s knowledge of religion, how about a skill that tracks knowledge of mecha systems? Let’s say Nerdiness, in honor of that blonde military otaku in Full Metal Panic!
• Stealth – OK
• Streetwise – OK
• Thievery – OK

I’d also add Martial Arts to this list — the ability to defend oneself in unarmed combat.

In terms of feats, it’d be a waste of time and space to list every single feat that won’t apply to a mecha universe. But let’s identify a few feats that’d be particularly useful:

• Massive Machinery Operation — The ability to pilot and operate spaceships, doomsday weapons, etc.
• Mecha Intuition — You can learn to pilot an unfamiliar mecha with surprising speed (halve the negative penalties on attack rolls when piloting an unfamiliar mecha).

In the first post in this series, I laid out some basic ideas for a role-playing system for playing in giant robot universes, using a straight port of the D&D 4E system. In the second post, I defined basic stats and attributes for PCs and their mecha.

Today, I’m going to lay out the stats needed for a mecha, and the stats needed for a PC:

Mecha Character Sheet

• Name
• Manufacturer — Corresponds to race
• Class
• Size
• Speed
• Initiative
• Defenses
  • AC
  • Fortitude
  • Reflex
• Ability Scores
  • Strength
  • Constitution
  • Dexterity
• HP
• Sparking
• Repair Value
• Repair Operations Per Day
• Weapons
• At-Will Powers

While we’re at it, let’s define a PC sheet:

Player Character Sheet

• Name
• Level
• Military Organization
• Class
• XP
• Speed
• Initiative
• Defenses
  • AC
  • Fortitude
  • Reflex
  • Will
• Ability Scores
  • Strength
  • Constitution
  • Dexterity
  • Intelligence
  • Wisdom
  • Charisma
• Passive Insight
• Passive Perception
• HP
• Bloodied
• Surge Value
• Surges Per Day
• Action Points
• Weapons
• Skills
• Feats
• Encounter Powers
• Daily Powers
• Utility Powers

In my previous post on this topic, I suggested a few basic rules for a giant robot RPG system using the basic D&D 4E rules.

Let’s review the rules so far:

Mecha operate on a scale 10x that of the human scale. So, mecha weapons do 10x the damage of a human weapon, mecha are about 10x bigger than humans, etc.

Mecha combat occurs on its own grid, which does not represent individual human units.  Similarly, human-scaled combat does not show mecha units.

Pilot characters have all six stats, while mecha have only Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity.  Any mecha attacks targeting those three stats are assumed to be targeting the mecha’s stats, rather than the pilot’s.  All other attacks target the pilot’s stats.

Mecha have Reflex and Fortitude defenses, but no Will defense.

Mecha have at-will powers.  PCs have encounter and daily powers.

I’ve received some feedback suggesting that I keep full stats for both mecha and pilots.  It’s an interesting idea, allowing for attacks that target a mecha and different ones that target the pilot inside. However, if I do that, then the DM and players will have a much larger workload.  Each attack must specify whether it’s targeting a mecha’s defense or a PC’s defense, and DMs and players will have to keep track of all those stats.  I may go in that direction, but I’m going to hash out some examples before I decide.

Now, let’s talk races and classes.

Racial Profiling

D&D is built on the premise that the world contains many intelligent races. In contrast, most mecha anime series have at most one non-human race: Macross/Robotech has Zentraedi, Gundam Seed has Coordinators, and U.C. Gundam has Newtypes (if you want to push the concept of Newtypes that far),.

I can see two obvious solutions to this:

1. Live with it. Any given mecha universe may only include one or two races.
2. Replace race with military organization. You choose the military organization that trained you, and this affects your stats in the same way that race does in D&D.

I like the latter, so we’ll go with that except in universes that legitimately include several playable races/species.  So:

PC race is replaced with “military organization,” which reflects the military group that primarily trained the PC.

Class can remain unchanged.  Obviously, there will be different classes, but the mechanics will work the same.

What Species is a Giant Robot?

A mecha’s race must be represented by its manufacturer.  Different companies manufacture mecha to different specs.  Makes sense.

Class corresponds to the mecha’s intended role in combat.  Just like other military machinery fill certain roles (fighter vs. bomber), mecha have roles as well.  The term “class” makes sense for mecha, so we’ll keep that.

Mecha race is replaced with “manufacturer.” Class remains unchanged.

Okay, so race/class now falls out as follows:

• PC Military Organization
• PC Class
• Mecha Manufacturer
• Mecha Class

(I will note there that I dislike the term “class” in general. It’s vague, making it unhelpful; it might as well be called “category” or “set.” Terms should add flavor to the world. I’d be tempted to replace PC class with “specialty” and Mecha class with “role,” but that would confuse all those D&D players out there.  And since this is meant to be a D&D 4E conversion, I’ll stick with “class.”)

Can a Giant Robot be Bloodied?

Le’ts fix a few naming issues while we’re at it.

Giant robots don’t get bloodied, and you don’t heal a 20-ton war machine. So:

The term “bloodied” is replaced with “sparking,” and the term “healing surge” is replaced with “repair operation.”  Mechanically, they work the same.

Confusion

This is getting complicated. Character creation in D&D 4E consumes enough time as it is. Now we have to generate a mecha, too?

Well, let’s make it easy.  The system description document will include a bunch of pre-generated mecha. Players can generate mecha from scratch if they want to, but beginners will be encouraged to just pick a pre-generated mecha.

So that’s more of a design goal: Develop a bunch of mecha for players to pilot.  In the next post in this series, we’ll create a basic blank sheet of stats and fields for mecha, as well as one for PCs.

Last weekend, Saalon and I discussed a straight conversion of D&D 4th Edition for a universe of anime-style “real robot” giant robot combat. So, more like the serious war stories of Gundam than the goofy fistfights of Gigantor.

Scales of War

The first problem is one of scale. Giant robots operate weapons that can pulverize many individual soldiers in one hit. So, let’s identify a rule:

Mecha operate on a scale 10x that of the human scale. So, mecha weapons do 10x the damage of a human weapon, mecha are about 10x bigger than humans, etc.

As a result, mecha combat cannot properly include individual human units, and mecha units are simply too large to represent accurately in human combat. Humans can be grouped into units large enough to represent at mecha scale, and mecha units may be representable as abstract forces, but for now:

Mecha combat occurs on its own grid, which does not represent individual human units.  Similarly, human-scaled combat does not show mecha units.

Okay, so you have pilots inside mecha.  Here comes our next big problem: the player controls both a pilot character and a mecha.  Do both get stats?  Do both get powers?  How does one influence the other?  Does a character’s Constitution really have any affect on piloting the mecha?  Even more, do we want to simulate reality that closely?  Should a mecha have a Will score?

First, let’s think about the six basic stats.  The three body-related stats — Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity — all make sense for a mecha.  The three mental stats — Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma — don’t.   So:

Pilot characters have all six stats, while mecha have only Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity.  Any mecha attacks targeting those three stats are assumed to be targeting the mecha’s stats, rather than the pilot’s.  All other attacks target the pilot’s stats.

For defenses, we’ll take a similar tack:

Mecha have Reflex and Fortitude defenses, but no Will defense.

Powers

How about powers?  Well, let’s think about them for a second.

At will power are everyday attacks and maneuvers.  They do a little more damage or otherwise provide a minor advantage over a straight gun shot or beam sword swing.

Encounter and daily powers are special moves, only used when the situation is dire.  Examples in anime include a Seed Break in Gundam Seed and Berserker Mode in Neon Genesis Evangelion.  Those are represented as special abilities that come from within the pilot.

So, here’s something different:

Mecha have at-will powers.  PCs have encounter and daily powers.

This actually works nicely with the standard level progression in 4E.  Mecha provide an array of first-level at-will powers; the basic stuff that this mecha is good at.  As your PC progresses, he or she picks up new maneuvers (encounters and dailies) that he or she can do regardless of the mecha piloted.

At some point, I’d like to add certain mecha encounter and daily powers that are only available to players at levels 10 or 20.  But for now, we’ll keep it simple.  Mecha only provide basic at-will powers.

More later as I think through this.

Role-players tend to find their “favorite system” and stick with it. While they’re moreopen-minded about other systems than, say, programmers are about languages, they often avoid new systems in favor of the familiar.

So, here are 5 role-playingsystems that are worth checking out:

Fudge

Technically, Fudge is a toolkit for making a system. The basics are brilliantly simple:

Every character’s attributes, skills, abilities, etc.–whatever you want to call them–are represented on a simple linear scale, from Terrible through Average to Superb. Each step on this scale has a number (-4 to +4) and a term (Poor, Fair, Good, etc.).

To swing on a rope over a burning building to safety, you choose your character’s most relevant attribute–in this case, Acrobatics or Athletics or Dexterity or whatever–and you roll Fudge Dice. These are four dice, painted with sides containing +1, -1, and 0. Let’s say I rolled +1, -1, +1, 0. That’s a total of +1. Take the results and add them to the attribute’s value, and that tells you how well (or poorly) you succeeded at the action. That’s it.

So, if I’m Good (+2) at Acrobatics, and I roll my Fudge Dice and get +1, I was Great (+3) at swinging over the burning building.

FATE

FATE takes Fudge and adds a literary hero vibe. Characters are created by dividing the character’s past into several major eras (childhood, young adulthood, the War Years, etc.), and for each era, defines one major Aspect that defined the character during that period (working as a bounty hunter, association with the Black Hand, learning to hack, studying at the Temple of Pages) and the skills learned during that period.

Characters also have Fate Points, which they can use to change fate. This ties in beautifully with Aspects–the GM can bid to use one of your character’s Aspects to get the group in trouble (for example, your Expert Gambler aspect tempts you to wager everything on a game of cards). You can spend a Fate Point to resist this twist of fate, or allow it to happen and receive an extra Fate Point. Fate Points can also be redeemed to essentially guarantee success on dice rolls.

This explicitly encourages flawed characters. The more flaws you have, the more Fate Points you build up, which allows you to succeed wildly when it counts.

Houses of the Blooded

An indie game of political intrigue. In a sense, this is more of a setting than a system. You play one of the Blooded, a race of magically and genetically modified humans who now rule humanity (some benevolently, others less so) in a pre-historical feudal age.

Its creator, John Wick, describes Houses of the Blooded as a reaction to D&D. Well, I’ll just quote him:

Almost everything that’s true about D&D is untrue in this game. In D&D, the most common kind of character is a wandering nomad who lives outside the law, an adventurer roaming the countryside, killing monsters, gaining treasure and weapons so he can kill bigger monsters….

In Houses, you play a noble. A character with a past. A character with a family, with vassals, responsibilities and duties. The Law is an ever-present factor in your life….”Treasure” really has no value for you and problems such as “wandering monsters” are problems for someone of lesser status to handle….And rather than living in a bubble immune to the effects of political scheming, your character lives in a world that looks like a bastard child of Tanith Lee and Niccolo Machiavelli.

But this is not a game of drawn-out conversations. Your character actively pursues goals. But those goals are far more complex than clearing bugbears from a town.

Dread

I’ve run this game several times, and it’s always been a blast. I think I’ve blogged about it before, but I’m going to blog about it again. It’s that effective.

It’s a game of one shots and high body counts. Only one character survives the session (sometimes not even one).

Character creation involves answering a series of invasive questions, such as, “Why do you keep carrying that thing in your pocket?” and “Why does your father hate you?” Each questionnaire is specific to that player.

The mechanic is a Jenga® tower. Really. Every time a character attempts some difficult action, the player must make a pull from the Jenga tower, according to standard Jenga rules. A very difficult action requires two pulls.

If a player knocks over the tower, that player’s character dies. If a player intentionally knocks over the tower, that player’s character succeeds at whatever he or she is trying to do…then dies.

When the tower’s rebuilt, the GM makes three pulls for each dead character.

Here’s the genius: it takes an hour or two before the first death. But the next death comes more quickly. So the longer you survive, the greater the danger.

It’s an impressively tense game, ideal for survival horror.

Primetime Adventures

This is a simulation of a TV show, particularly a drama. If you want to play Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, The O.C., or E.R., this is the system.

It centers on the idea of drama. Each player is a character in the drama (except for one player, the Producer), and the drama is divided up into episodes and scenes. The system determines which characters have most “face time” during each scene, and the players collaboratively decide what happens during that scene. Compared to a traditional RPG, there’s far less random chance and far more discussion about what would be the most interesting plot twists.

As a result, Primetime Adventures doesn’t play like a traditional RPG. You’re building a series of TV episodes, really. It’s more abstract than a D&D game; you don’t hear the screams of combat or feel the hilt of your sword; you think about drama and suspense.

If nothing else, it broadens your mind.

Hope this helps! Do you have any favorite systems you’d recommend? Let me know in the comments!

About a year and a half ago, I published two role-playing PDFs, an adventure (War in the Deep) and a sandbox setting (The City of Talon). I’ve posted my earnings-to-date one year ago and six months ago. Here’s what I’ve earned since then:

Sales For The Past Six Months (December 2009-May 2010)

Product	Number of Sales	Gross	Net
War in the Deep	2	$10.00	$6.50
The City of Talon	2	$10.00	$6.50
TOTAL	4	$20.00	$13.00

Sales For The Past Year (May 2009-May 2010)

Product	Number of Sales	Gross	Net
War in the Deep	7	$35.00	$22.75
The City of Talon	7	$35.00	$22.75
TOTAL	14	$70	$45.50

I won’t bother charting the month-to-month sales, as they’ve obviously tailed off even more dramatically than six months ago.

Web Traffic

Total hits for War in the Deep on DriveThruRPG: 8,549

Unique pageviews for War in the Deep on the Musaeum in past six months: 6

Total hits for The City of Talon on DriveThruRPG: 5,389

Unique pageviews for The City of Talon on the Musaeum in past six months: 34

Source	Pageviews
bluedwarf.co.uk	18
Direct	10
ENWorld.org	9
roleplayingtips.com	2
Yahoo	2
Bing	1
TOTAL	34

The keywords used to find Talon: “rpg medieval city maps” (2) and “talon city fantasy” (1)

bluedwarf.co.uk appears to be a text adventure inspired by Red Dwarf. No idea how that links back to Talon; maybe somebody linked to it on their forum?

Advertising

None.

Marketing

I described each project here on my blog in a couple of different blog posts. I’m a member of the RPG Bloggers Network, so those posts showed up there.

Analysis

RPG adventures and settings see big initial sales, then rapidly dwindling sales over time.

Plans

I still want to publish more supplements.  I’ve been horrifically slow at publishing them, though.  I now have another setting and another adventure each at the 80% mark.

So. Need to finish those and get them published.  I’ve added them both to my list of active projects. But a plan without a date is just a dream, so:

• By June 5 — Finish drafts of The Goblins of Winterkeep and The Pyrrean Depths and send out for review.
• By end of June — Receive feedback on Winterkeep and Depths, and start first draft of second adventure.
• By end of July — Incorporate feedback on Winterkeep and Depths, finish polishing them, and publish them.  Finish second draft of second adventure and send out for review.
• By end of August — Receive feedback on second adventure, and start first draft of third adventure.

And so on.  With this schedule, I should be able to publish three supplements a year.

I’ve become interested recently in the topic of role-playing social interactions. In a tabletop RPG, characters often have to talk with enemies as well as short-term antagonists — the arms dealer who’s willing to cut them a deal, the mayor from whom they need permission for an investigation, a boy who doesn’t want to talk.

A good example has just come up in my Star Wars Google Wave game; while investigating the disappearance of several Adascorp freighters–in which the Hutts looked to be involved–the players accepted a job delivering a strange package to someone named Klek. They found the bar where Klek lived, were sent into a back room, and were greeted by Klek the Hutt.

How do players deal with that sort of situation? Wouldn’t it be cool if a role-playing system provided specific mechanics to help the players wrap their brains around the challenge, in the same way that they provide mechanics for physical combat and uses of skills?

Note:  Yes, this could be treated like a skill challenge in D&D 4E, but skill challenges have simple binary outcomes. You succeed or you fail. Social interaction is never that simple.

In pursuit of this, I bought a copy of Blue Rose, “the role-playing game of romantic fantasy,” which focuses more on court intrigue than combat. Great! Then I discovered it uses a minor variation on the True20 system. I love True20, but I’m looking for something more tailored than that.

So I spent some time last week hashing out some variables for a social-oriented system. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Character Attributes

Each player-character has six characteristics:

• Honor
• Beauty
• Psychic/Magical Ability
• Charisma
• Craftiness
• Physical Endurance

To determine your character’s stats in these, roll a d100 (or a percentile die and a d10) for each of the above attributes. If all six rolls total 500 or more, re-roll. A low score indicates a low ability; a high score indicates a high ability.

Note: I’d like to add charts for each of these characteristics, indicating the overall distribution of these numbers across the population. Someone in the lowest 5% of psychic ability, for example, is anti-psychic; no psychic abilities can be used within 10 meters of the individual. Someone in the highest 93% are particularly gifted.

In addition, each character rolls a d100 for each of three types of resources:

• Knowledge
• Money
• Influence

That influence score can then be divided amongst the various organizations over which the character has influence, depending on the setting.  For example, in a Medieval European setting where one plays a noble, one may have influence over one’s serfs, the clergy, and the crown.

Each character also has at least one character goal.  These are all in-world accomplishments of any scope; rescue the princess, become a knight, make a million credits, or atone for my past sins.

Moreover, each character maps his or her relationships with the other notable characters and groups in the game, on a scale of -4 (worst enemy) to +4 (best friends/intimate lovers), and an emotional bank from 0 to 5, indicating how much energy they’re willing to devote to social interactions. I’m not sure whether the emotional bank should be one overall score, or individualized to specific people and groups.

Playing a Social Conflict

When a social conflict begins, each side in the conflict determines their conflict goals, such as “Increase the Queen’s relationship with me to +1” or “Find out what Don Ferrigno knows about the death of Jericho Fats.”

Character goals are kept hidden (unless they’re generally known), but may be revealed during the conflict.

There are no die rolls during a social conflict.  Each character asks for help, offers information or resources, etc., which may or may not be accepted by the other characters.

Doing a small favor for someone may increase that character’s emotional bank by 1; a big favor by 3.  Once the emotional bank hits 5, the relationship score increases by one rank and the emotional bank resets to 1.  If the emotional bank drops below 0, the relationship score decreases by one rank.

As characters interact with the world, their resources change. Their characteristics can also be affected, of course.

Were I to include a combat mechanic, I’d use something like Fudge: each weapon provides a small bonus (+1 to +3), as does significant armor.  Roll Fudge dice (which provide -4 to +4), add the result to any weapon bonuses, and compare to the opponent’s armor value. If you meet or beat the armor rating, you hit. There are enough damage systems in the world that I leave that to the reader’s imagination.

What do you think?