New System?

[felixedwards]

When are the said items of interest happening

Nick

[Trez]

James R has written a first draft of the rules which James S and myself are going through at the moment. We're hoing to have the first August game as the first playtest of the rules, and probably will do the same for the second game in August too.

[Trez]

We're polishing off the rules for the new game "Twilight" but just wanted to do a very quick straw poll on something, namely "How rules-heavy should the game be?"

We currently have a game thats around about the same level of rules complexity as Vampire, but there are ways to make it less rules heavy and simpler to get to grips with

However in doing so we're taking out a good chunk of the character development. If you've only got 3 levels of a skill, or people can only do singles or doubles then the rules are more straightforward, but it takes out some of the "differentiation" between characters.

We know that rules-lite works for things like Brighton Below and Dark Times, simply because theres much less focus on the character development but for regular fortnightly games which is more important.

Which elements do people feel are the most important for this sort of game. Is the ability to have a greater scope for character development more important than a simplified rules system?

[steve1]

i'd say character development is best accomplished through plot and roleplaying, however, saying that, character colour and diversity is also important, especially at the beginning. Its a difficult one. Is it possible for there to be many differences between the races and to keep the rules light? on the whole, i'd say the rules for vamp as they stand aren't too heavy, however the darktimes stylie with light rules is also cool. sorry, not being much help here.
My vote is light rules, diversity initially achieved through different racial skills benefits (you don't need loads, just a few for colour) but mainly diversity achieved through plot, both personal and main, and then character dev achieved through plot, again personal or main. Could skills be learned, taught, picked up through the natural evolution of the campaign, ie. taught to you by other players, npc's etc?
steve

[felixedwards]

I like the idea of having 3 skill levels basic, intermediate and advanced.

I think that the system should be able to do more damage than double in the system to a max of 5 (easy number to remember) To make the damage more varied add things like a knockdown or stun to stop the dmg calls getting too fast and too hard to remember.

I think that to keep up diffences between races you could be give each race totally different skills and special dmg calls like knockback for 2 or 3 races and stun for another 2 or 3 races. With mental powers there is a much wider scope for them. I think that having a balence between light and heavy rules would be a good idea so each race could have one special power that is heavyish and the rest could be light. I think that the vamp rules were heavy in places but on the whole the vamp rules were not that heavy. You could have a some races that are rules heavy and others that are light. The powers should add flavour to the role playing and not take dominance over the role play aspect. Intermediate / moderate rules would be good.

I really like the idea of having character development is more important than a simplified rules system. I would be nice to have easy to understand rules and lots of them. Rather than a few rules being difficult to understand them.

Keep the rules as complex as vamp but make them easy to understand.

NIck

[james]

Just a note, certainly in my mind, the current draft is less heavy than vampire (the rule book being half the size at the moment).

Simon and JS know my feelings so this is mostly for everyone elses benefit. Obviously the main differences between characters should be observed through role play but my own feeling is that you can't have the rules too simple and still have adequate differences between the races/characters. For example if you only have 3 levels of phys/strength then you may decide only one race, like werewolves, can get the top level...but then how do you have an alpha dog, the werewolf is tougher than his companions?

Nick - think we're aiming to avoid having too many calls in the system so not keen on having other damage calls like knockdown, stun etc. Trouble with them is, as can be seen in recent vampire fights, that they can be hard to hear properly in the middle of combat, and it relies on people knowing the effects of them which in turn creates more rules.

[diesel]

With calls like are fun, I feel knockback is pointless, quite simplisticly in real lifer if you get hit by a punch or whatever you're going to go backwards/same direction as the blow you just took, but I notice in a lot of larp people don't, they take a punch, a shot or whatever like they're superman and can stop a speeding train. Just a point of criticism that I would like to be used positively in the new rules.

Alexandra

P.S I'm more in favour of as rule light as possible, trying to remember what 'such and such' does is a little spoiling to the fun but I appreciate the diversity of the situation, but diplomatically I shall say no doubt that I'll enjoy the new game whatever the decision.

[Trez]

Another quiz query then
We're also considering not telling you (the players) what powers are available. It would be the equivalent of telling you what the first two powers in a Discipline are and as you buy them then we let you know whats available at higher levels.

Its a little more complicated than that, but we think it adds a nice edge to character development in that you can't just look through the entire list and see which ones you fancy and go for them.
The character development is a little more "natural" in that you'll develop in the areas that you're actually using and developing. Also means that theres a bit more secrecy about what powers are available and who gets them.

[steve1]

def like that idea, adds more spice when you have no idea what the others guy can dom makes things a lot more edgy.
steve

[zalantos]

i like this idear. it meens that the powers are find out in play whitch sounds cool. also it meens that the refs dont have to sort out the highest levels of the skills and powers right now.

[felixedwards]

It also has the advantage that they can control who has the high level powers and limit them as not to destroy the balence of the game.