A Wilder World
Oct. 4th, 2010 05:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinFor a while now I've been kicking around ideas for a roleplaying game system that takes some of what I like about 4E and runs with it, but abandons some of its key elements to make for a game that's more readily playable without a map and minis, that's more conducive to characters who break with their interpretations of iconic fantasy archetypes, and that embodies a more raucous and rowdier sort of fantasy world, more Lieber than Tolkien and more Raimi than Jackson.
It's been a fairly idle diversion, the sort of thing I'd think about in the bathtub or in the car when I didn't have my phone or laptop handy for writing, because I hadn't quite refined exactly what I was going for, but a few things clicked into place these past few weeks, during the times when I was out back with the dogs, or the parts of walking them where I was able to let them run around on their leashes in the park without worrying about them winding up in the river or the road... times when I was physically occupied but mentally more or less free.
And so a year's worth of ideas have really started to gel. I did a bunch of brainstorming in Google Documents, which I was eager to test-drive but didn't want to trust with anything I wouldn't mind losing, and now I think I have something viable.
The name of the game is A Wilder World, or AWW. (Awwwwwwwww....) Some very rough, very early versions of the ideas that are going into it appeared on my old gaming-focused blog. I'll be posting about it here as I refine the ideas in my head. This post is going to list some of the goals that I had, and future posts will address how I plan to achieve them.
Some general goals:
Character Creation: Characters who are both archetypal and unique. I want to combine the best elements of class-based systems with free-form ones, making the sort of characters you can get doing Hybrid/Multiclass mash-ups in D&D 4E into the norm around which the game balance revolves.
Game Balance: Easy Mode, not God Mode. I want characters who feel and act larger-than-life, but who experience setbacks, reversals of fortune, and even defeats. Players should be challenged by the adventure as a whole, even while specific obstacles and battles within it allow them to showcase their strengths.
Combat: I want the sort of tactical depth 4E offers, but with a system better disposed towards abstract/mapless encounters and quicker-and-dirtier play.
Non-Combat Scenes: Simple and clear mechanics that allow every party member to contribute and circumventing obstacles to be a group endeavor, without resorting to the "roll at what you're good at until we get the right combination of successes" effect you see in 4E skill challenges.
Money and Equipment: My goal here fits into the "larger than life characters who experience reversals of fortune." Treasure is not something that characters accumulate and hoard, but something that passes through their hands, having definite game effects while it lasts but eventually running out. A player who wants to have permanent magical gear as part of their character schtick develops that using the same resources/slots as anyone else developing new abilities as they level up.
The overall feel I'm going for is high adventure, something less concerned with realism (or even in some cases plausibility) than with excitement and narrative momentum. If the ideas continue to come together, I could be looking to playtest some combat encounters or a very short adventure using pregen characters very soon. I've already done some "thought experiment" playtests. I have an idea for a business model using Lulu.com that could turn this into a nice side line for me if there's interest. I'll outline that in future posts, too.
It's been a fairly idle diversion, the sort of thing I'd think about in the bathtub or in the car when I didn't have my phone or laptop handy for writing, because I hadn't quite refined exactly what I was going for, but a few things clicked into place these past few weeks, during the times when I was out back with the dogs, or the parts of walking them where I was able to let them run around on their leashes in the park without worrying about them winding up in the river or the road... times when I was physically occupied but mentally more or less free.
And so a year's worth of ideas have really started to gel. I did a bunch of brainstorming in Google Documents, which I was eager to test-drive but didn't want to trust with anything I wouldn't mind losing, and now I think I have something viable.
The name of the game is A Wilder World, or AWW. (Awwwwwwwww....) Some very rough, very early versions of the ideas that are going into it appeared on my old gaming-focused blog. I'll be posting about it here as I refine the ideas in my head. This post is going to list some of the goals that I had, and future posts will address how I plan to achieve them.
Some general goals:
Character Creation: Characters who are both archetypal and unique. I want to combine the best elements of class-based systems with free-form ones, making the sort of characters you can get doing Hybrid/Multiclass mash-ups in D&D 4E into the norm around which the game balance revolves.
Game Balance: Easy Mode, not God Mode. I want characters who feel and act larger-than-life, but who experience setbacks, reversals of fortune, and even defeats. Players should be challenged by the adventure as a whole, even while specific obstacles and battles within it allow them to showcase their strengths.
Combat: I want the sort of tactical depth 4E offers, but with a system better disposed towards abstract/mapless encounters and quicker-and-dirtier play.
Non-Combat Scenes: Simple and clear mechanics that allow every party member to contribute and circumventing obstacles to be a group endeavor, without resorting to the "roll at what you're good at until we get the right combination of successes" effect you see in 4E skill challenges.
Money and Equipment: My goal here fits into the "larger than life characters who experience reversals of fortune." Treasure is not something that characters accumulate and hoard, but something that passes through their hands, having definite game effects while it lasts but eventually running out. A player who wants to have permanent magical gear as part of their character schtick develops that using the same resources/slots as anyone else developing new abilities as they level up.
The overall feel I'm going for is high adventure, something less concerned with realism (or even in some cases plausibility) than with excitement and narrative momentum. If the ideas continue to come together, I could be looking to playtest some combat encounters or a very short adventure using pregen characters very soon. I've already done some "thought experiment" playtests. I have an idea for a business model using Lulu.com that could turn this into a nice side line for me if there's interest. I'll outline that in future posts, too.
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no subject
on 2010-10-04 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-10-04 11:50 pm (UTC)This is the problem with giving nutshell descriptions of things... you end up with descriptions that any number of things could satisfy.
no subject
on 2010-10-05 12:12 am (UTC)I had one player create a skill that (at level 5) would let them move 10 feet between each swing of their weapon and could swing a number of times equal to half their remaining healing surge (it used a healing surge). They also could not hit the same opponent more then once.
The concept fit their character style (fast nimble fighter) well, but I just made it so they had a 50% chance to trip between each move plus 10% for each after the 2nd swing. As they leveled I reduced the base trip chance by 2% to keep it useful to them.
no subject
on 2010-10-05 12:50 am (UTC)I much prefer 4E's version of "working sporadically", where you get the neat thing you can do but only once a fight or only once a day, instead of the neat thing you can do that you have to roll to see if it works or blows up in your face. In practice the "once per" system works out the same as giving the ability a sufficiently high failure rate in terms of how often the character gets to be awesome, but without the frustration of constantly trying to do something awesome and failing. You get the fast, nimble fighter who consistently manages to move a little and attack a couple of opponents and every once in a while can run across the battlefield striking opponents along the way instead of the fast, nimble fighter who keeps trying to do so.