Its hard to get people behind one idea when kicking around ideas. I still say I would like to see someone taking charge because , at the end of the day, someone is going to have to just take the lead and lay down some definite design goals. I am capable of lending my hand towards making a game but I need a direction to go in and sifting through everyone's preferences, while fun, is going to bog things down. I at least need to know what genre we're going for, what kind of playstyle (even if generic) we're going for, how detailed the rules are supposed to be, and important info like that. I feel as if I just toss my ideas into the ring it'll just be geared towards making my own RPG. I at east need to know if its going to be a rules lite game or not so I can know whether or not I'd be helping with more fluff or more mechanics.

Quote from: jibbajibba;566069First stuff is the basics

• Genre
• Game flavour
• Core mechanic - target number, dice pool, roll under, diceless, roll under etc

Genre - I'm happy with future war (maybe the characters are soldiers on a far flung planet left behind when the army got its ass royally kicked, now living off the land as mercs) maybe sci fi with a nod to blade runner. Or maybe something in the other direction - Ancient Roman Empire, some bright spark opens up gates to other dimensions and nasty things crawl through. Ancient Greece, god of war/clash of the titans style jumping and chopping and fighting things bigger than buildings. Anything that gets the most votes, happy with.

Flavour - I'm more a fan of 4 colour than grit/grim/dark.

Core Mechanic - How about rolling for activity points every round? You roll, say, 2D6, then spend them on various actions. The more you pile into an action, the better chance of success, but don't forget to spend on defence, initiative, climbing that wall, outrunning those guards etc. Match each point you spend with a point from any relevant stats, skills or powers then compare to target number or opposed total, exceed to succeed. Easy, fast, no real maths to sort out. That's a top o the head thing.

I agree with some others on here - decide first of all the setting and genre for the game. Get a poll on, or ask opinions. Once that's decided, move onto the next section.

I may be able to be lightly involved here. Agree mcguy that a clear creative director needs to be identified, and I assume the OP will serve that function.

For genre future war is fine with me. But where and when is important and I would also like to have an idea of where the typical adventuring party fits into things. I like some of the ideas so far, the personality chip seems kind of nice.  

Gettng core mechanics is going to be tough because I suspect we have a range of preferences. I would like something very simple and straight forward, nothing fancy. I would go with a simple meet or exceed your skill rating (or possibly a roll under), a die roll plus modifier against a tn or a dice pool (been wanting to do a d4 dice pool for some time now).

Fin terms of rules light, medium and heavy...i think rules medium for character creation itself but rules light for stuff like combat and skill rolls. Just my two cents though.

The character chip could sort of be like a resurrect spell - you lose a certain portion of experience and memory of what happened, then download into a new body. It might not have to be the same kind of body either, just whatever is available. Talking animals, side by side with blue and green skinned alien warriors, battling against intelligent dinosaurs packing rocket launchers and the deadly intelligent alien gelatinous cubes that have come to serve notice on the planet.

Hmmm, lack of food is making my head go funny. best go have my dinner.

I can't help on a future war game as it runs a bit too close to what I'm working on at the moment, but I will say it could be a good idea to come up with a different wear and tear avenue than sanity or depression or what have you, it has been done to death.

Have a seperate mirror AI "ghost" that grows with certain triggers, not neccessarily through constant use, which might vary for each person (geas), and it tries to take control or influence the character at certain key moments as it emerges. An evil twin? Your darkest desires made flesh? Something completely unknown? Can you control it or someone else's? Pysch mysteries can be fun.

This also opens avenues to futurify necromancy, or any spells (technology) that deals with spirits, although technically while inexplicable its not metaphysical.

Maybe it might even be an important part of the game, spirit hackers or something, like Eclipse Phase did transhumanism, exploring the eerie outer fringes of what intelligence is and does.

Just spitballing... as mentioned I can't really contribute anyway, but I'll watch with great interest.

I think I'd prefer a generic system that could be adapted and changed to a number of different genres (including maybe the aforementioned future war, Caribbean pirates and zombies, supers, crimson skies pulp 30s, time travel cop, ancient roman empire with an alien invasion thrown into the mix, mythic greece with shapechanging aliens setting themselves up as titans and gods with 'magic' (technological) weapons and items thrown in, vampire apocalypse horror, attack of the mutant gelly cubes from outer space...)

A basic system could be worked out, agreed upon, then people can pitch in with settings and the best ones get picked to stick in the document?

I would at least like some framework to operate in rather than go full generic. Even if it is just Fantasy, Sci-Fi or Modern.

Quote from: APN;565962Ultra fast character creation

I don't think it has to be ultra fast, but certainly something in line with 1st Edition AD&D.

QuoteProbably stat as bonus

It's a little early for that decision, I think.  We should wait until we figure out what stats we want, and what they are going to do.  I am not averse to something along the lines of Fudge, but if we can get stats to do double duty, that would be better in my mind.  So, as a lookup for bonuses and a target number in their own right.  Depending on whether or not skills are going to be used, of course.

QuoteI don't mind either realistic/gritty or cube o hit points thing, but my own home brew efforts are leaning towards static hit points at 1st level on, and the character just gets better at avoiding blows through skill or luck

I wouldn't mind something like a dual track system.  Defence or Luck or whatever as traditional hit points, then a static-ish pool of 'wound' points.  That way, someone who wants to play gritty can just limit or ignore the Defence points, and someone that wants to play cinematic can boost the Defence points.  It gives more flexibility.

QuoteAny genre, cross genre, anything interesting, different, based off a book or film with serials filed off?

I think we can make a generic set of rules, and have different genres as 'plug-ins'.  I dig GURPS and all, but three ability scores?  Not enough to really define a character.

Quotecards, dice, resource management, coin flipping and count heads or tails, any other mechanics out there?

I think standard dice and target numbers will be fine.  Oddball resolution mechanics will make it seem gimmicky.

QuoteEasy to read and play, even for a novice (so it might need an optional 'this is what roleplaying is' bit, and that could be fun to invite people on the forum to write the clearest, easiest to understand section to put in as a bit of a no-prize competition)

I think we can keep this to a minimum-ish.  Certainly, something about how it words on a table top as opposed to a computer.  But I think most people that would find this are already pretty aware of what role-playing is.

QuoteArt - stick men style as in order of the stick, or best effort elmore/otus knockoff. Anything to spice the pages up from dry dull reading.

There is all kinds of great public domain stuff like Gustav Dore and the like.

QuoteKeep the page count low

I would rather get the rules hammered out and see where we can condense or trim from there than set a page count ahead of time.  That said, I think 128 pages or less would be a good eventual target (rules permitting) and perhaps 32-48 pages for a 'quickstart' or 'basic' set of rules.  Along with Art, this tends to be pretty fluid, and trying to lock in a number now will cause heartache later.

Quotesample adventure or campaign

Separate from the main rules book, but absolutely.

Quote from: jibbajibba;565974Multiple chargen paths - random, lifepath, point buy - that all end up witha similar final outcome

More or less by definition, they aren't going to have similar outcomes.  Lifepath essentially requires a skill system and something like ads/disads.  You can get something like similar results with point buy, but that starts to bog the system down and buying ads/disads starts to bog down character generation.  But I do think we can incorporate all of these in some manner.  Perhaps the random generation in the 'Basic' rules and lifepath and/or point buy in the 'Advanced' rules.  They would have to be compatible sets of rules, so the 'Basic' should probably be a sub-set of the 'Advanced', meaning working on the Advanced first would be a better plan.

QuoteDials for combat and skills - that is to say a simple core that you can dial up the complexity on

I prefer to think of them as 'add-ons' rather than 'dials'.  Dials would indicate a smooth progression, and I don't think that is a good paradigm to shoot for.

QuoteNot a fan of hit points for this genre - but generally don't mind them provided they don't escalate too high

If we go 'generic', hit points can be gritty or cinematic.

QuoteTemplates/archetypes rather than classes

I would prefer templates/archetypes in the background as a GM tool for making new classes.  Classes would be the 'player facing' set of rules.  Fiddling around with templates during character generation can drag things a bit as well.

QuotePrefer toolkits over splat - so 2 dozen 'monsters' and a toolkit for building more rather than 2000 'monsters'

That depends.  Taken to a logical extreme, there would be no monsters, just a blank template to fill in.  I think that, like classes, the template should be in the background to create some monster listings which would be used to present an initial set of opponents, and include guidelines for 're-skinning'.  So, there would be a basic Orc listing, then perhaps the changes for an Orc Archer and an Orc Shaman so GMs can see how and what to change for their needs.  Let's face it, not all GMs have the time to even create 2 dozen of their own monsters.

Quote from: beejazz;566004Anything that isn't high fantasy or near future scifi.

Genres can be modular if the core system is a solid set of rules, which I think we can accomplish.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;566091I may be able to be lightly involved here. Agree mcguy that a clear creative director needs to be identified, and I assume the OP will serve that function.
 
For genre future war is fine with me. But where and when is important and I would also like to have an idea of where the typical adventuring party fits into things. I like some of the ideas so far, the personality chip seems kind of nice.
 
Gettng core mechanics is going to be tough because I suspect we have a range of preferences. I would like something very simple and straight forward, nothing fancy. I would go with a simple meet or exceed your skill rating (or possibly a roll under), a die roll plus modifier against a tn or a dice pool (been wanting to do a d4 dice pool for some time now).
 
Fin terms of rules light, medium and heavy...i think rules medium for character creation itself but rules light for stuff like combat and skill rolls. Just my two cents though.

Sorry been sleeping.
I was hoping for democracy - though it depends how many people end up involved. As a genre Future War seems to be getting some interest - although that puts The Traveller out - but I think perhaps we should list some other options and do a poll? If we have enough people that it starts getting unwieldy we could always have two separate projects e.g. future war/general SF and a fantasy/multigenre game.
I expect core mechanic is going to be a difficult topic, yar
I guess I lean toward [roll dice+bonus] rather than roll-under or dice pool, and normally avoid rolling multiple dice (slows down when you have to roll a lot of 2d6s).

I think putting everything to a vote could yield peculiar results. You could also get the problems of design by committee. I really think this is going to work better if you function as creative director BSJ. Where everyone contributing is sort of your design team but you call the shots (for example you narrowing down the choice to a core mechanic like dice roll plus modifier is great because otherwise we would be debating the relative merits of different approaches forever).

With that said I would like to see a d10 + modifer as the core mechanic if possible.

Leader is necessary, trust me on my word if not by logic.Logic wise, with a leader you get definite project goals, a final arbiter for split or contested decisions, and someone who can reliably keep the project up should individual members fall in and out. I think a genre should be hammered out to see who all wants to definitely jump on board then we get a project lead after that churning out the rest by committee will be much easier.

Edit: I'd go for the dice + bonus roll over mechanic as the core since its the easiest to do numbers for and have people understand. If we're not doing dice pooIs I also suggest doing a d20 since it has a wider range and thus can be fiddled with the easiest without going up to d100s or some such.

Quote from: MGuy;566158Leader is necessary, trust me on my word if not by logic.Logic wise, with a leader you get definite project goals, a final arbiter for split or contested decisions, and someone who can reliably keep the project up should individual members fall in and out. I think a genre should be hammered out to see who all wants to definitely jump on board then we get a project lead after that churning out the rest by committee will be much easier.

Edit: I'd go for the dice + bonus roll over mechanic as the core since its the easiest to do numbers for and have people understand. If we're not doing dice pooIs I also suggest doing a d20 since it has a wider range and thus can be fiddled with the easiest without going up to d100s or some such.

Needless to say I agree on the point about a leader, but I find myself not very enthusiastic for d20. Something smaller gives more weight to skill and talent over random chance. Of course I suppose this will boil down to what we are shooting for. but if we are going to go with a bigger die (whoch does have its wn advantages) I wouod rather it be d100 or something other than d20. If we do go with a d20 I suggest at least doing somethong other than the core d20 system of d20 + bonus (maybe roll over your own skill rating).  

Maybe setting the grittiness factor is a place to start: how lethal and realistic are we shooting for?

OK, I'd said I wasn't taking charge, but if people think its necessary and are happy with me as 'creative director', I can do that. In part I hadn't known how many people would be interested, since we haven't had a group project here before.
I think more debate on core mechanic and setting would be good before we settle definitely on a decision here though, either way.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;566170Needless to say I agree on the point about a leader, but I find myself not very enthusiastic for d20. Something smaller gives more weight to skill and talent over random chance. Of course I suppose this will boil down to what we are shooting for. but if we are going to go with a bigger die (whoch does have its wn advantages) I wouod rather it be d100 or something other than d20. If we do go with a d20 I suggest at least doing somethong other than the core d20 system of d20 + bonus (maybe roll over your own skill rating).  

Maybe setting the grittiness factor is a place to start: how lethal and realistic are we shooting for?

D100 is too wide for my tastes. It can be done and leaves a lot fo room for minor throw away abilities that give youa  minor bonus between them. D20 is a bit harder on the math (5% per point instead of direct 1%) but its still easy to do the math on. D10 (when not a Dice Pool) makes the room for maneuvering a bit too small unless there are no levels and this is a down and dirty game. It does indeed put a lot of weight on what would otherwise be more minor bonuses but that means things have to be a lot tighter because of the smaller range.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;566170Needless to say I agree on the point about a leader, but I find myself not very enthusiastic for d20. Something smaller gives more weight to skill and talent over random chance. Of course I suppose this will boil down to what we are shooting for. but if we are going to go with a bigger die (whoch does have its wn advantages) I wouod rather it be d100 or something other than d20. If we do go with a d20 I suggest at least doing somethong other than the core d20 system of d20 + bonus (maybe roll over your own skill rating).  

Maybe setting the grittiness factor is a place to start: how lethal and realistic are we shooting for?

My 2c is that I do like d10+mods since this works well with say a 1-10 stat range, which is perhaps just wide enough to have the same number work for both ability damage and as a bonus without going via a modifier table (you know, like d20s [stat minus 10, halved = bonus]. Edit: I don't particularly like d100s either.