The Gaming Den

We're only asking what the chance of a hit is because you asked us to.

Seriously. The way I remember it was something like this:

TGD: "What chance should people have of dying per encounter?"
E: "Depends on how often their defenses work"
TGD: "Well, then what's the chance of their defenses working?"
E: "Depends on how often they get hit."
TGD: "How often is that?"
E: "Waah! You're not helping! Go away!"

If you want to develop a game, you have to make some decisions, and answer some of these questions with answers that aren't "it depends."

The problem is, I don't know the answers, and one of the reasons for asking for help/suggestions is to help work them out - if armor (and thus soak) means that the average attack is pretty minor, people hitting a lot is a lot better than if you need to avoid being hit to begin with - and I'm not sure which is a better thing to work from.

You're not offering help figuring that out, you're just pestering and prodding for me to come up with an answer when the whole point of asking for your help is that I'm looking for one myself.

Elennsar wrote:You're not offering help figuring that out, you're just pestering and prodding for me to come up with an answer when the whole point of asking for your help is that I'm looking for one myself.

Still failing? Yep. You will fail to write this RPG, and you will fail because you have no idea where you're going.

You need to decide what the end result should be so you can design a mechanic that will eventuate in the end result. And if you don't know whether to design a system to hit or a system to dodge, then design them both and playtest each one to decide which one you'd rather have.

Get a goal and stop polluting the forums with aimless drivel. Go somewhere, damn it.

Elennsar wrote:The problem is, I don't know the answers, and one of the reasons for asking for help/suggestions is to help work them out - if armor (and thus soak) means that the average attack is pretty minor, people hitting a lot is a lot better than if you need to avoid being hit to begin with - and I'm not sure which is a better thing to work from.

You're not offering help figuring that out, you're just pestering and prodding for me to come up with an answer when the whole point of asking for your help is that I'm looking for one myself.

you can't be helped if you don't have a goal for us to help you towards, it's not just that WE can't help you, it's that the word 'help' has no meaning in this context.
no one is akingt you to have all the answers, but if you don't even have one, then there is literally nothing we can do except wait for you to answer one.

Oh yes, because it is "aimless drivel" to wonder which one would be better and want help with that.

Because of course one should know exactly down to the fourth decimal place where one wants to end up, so all one needs is to have mechanics that generate that precise result. Nevermind trying to make decisions on what the ultimate goal is - can't have any discussion on that, oh no. No, one must know what exactly the destination looks like.

I have two words for the followers of that design philosophy:

Fuck you.


I have a goal, what I don't have is the ability to pretend there's a difference between "26%" as an answer to a question and "X" when one has no idea whether or not 26% either as an imput or a result is a good thing or not.

If you want to help make this, then help make this.

If you don't want to help make something, then ignore it and focus on what you do want to do something productive with.

you can't be helped if you don't have a goal for us to help you towards, it's not just that WE can't help you, it's that the word 'help' has no meaning in this context.
no one is akingt you to have all the answers, but if you don't even have one, then there is literally nothing we can do except wait for you to answer one.

I do have a goal. The fact that this goal is not "X% of PCs survive all 40 battles." does not mean that it is not a goal.

If you want to assist, then ASSIST. If you want to ask questions I don't know the answer to because I'm in the process -of- designing this and not half way done, then keep up the pestering.

This would be helpful:

"If you have soak allow you to take a lot of hits, then (people who have weak attacks and don't hit a lot) aren't really threatening. That probably means that the rank and file guys aren't meaningful even if you ignore them. Is that okay?"

This is not: "What percentage of the time is "most of the time"?"

I've seen a lot more of the latter, and that is exactly the kind of pestering that is somewhat less helpful than just ignoring the thread entirely.

If you don't like how people do things around here just fucking go somewhere that does. You can't just walk in here and expect everyone do things the way you want you pompous clump of clap infested dick cheese.

Now now ckafrica,

There's a difference between not knowing what you want in any way shape or form, and then saying that you want something that conforms to a supposedly specific criteria and a case of disease infected body fluids.

The bodily fluids have no choice in their creation, while having contradictory statements requires a decision to do so.

I can expect that if people want to help that they actually offer actual help or don't bother, however.

Kind of inappropriate to ask "How much use are spells in combat?" before figuring out if there is magic in the setting to begin with - same with figuring out how likely exactly people are to soak before deciding how important its supposed to be.

Elennsar wrote:Oh yes, because it is "aimless drivel" to wonder which one would be better and want help with that.

It's aimless in that you have no goal, and it's drivel in that it conveys no intelligible ideas. You seriously don't know what you want, and so you're getting nothing in response but people saying things you don't want them to be saying. We can't say what you want us to, because you're not telling us what we should be saying.

Elennsar wrote:Because of course one should know exactly down to the fourth decimal place where one wants to end up, so all one needs is to have mechanics that generate that precise result.

Don't even pull the decimal place BS with me because I'm into math about as much as I'm into rolling in glass shards.

Your desire - as far as I can see it - is to create an Arthur-like game where you can't play the main characters of the story (Arthur, Merlin, etc), you play someone who fights, and you can die a lot. Without dying a lot.

But that's not a goal. It's just a thematic idea. You need to make more concrete goals to work towards (or else you can't accomplish them). Things like: Will I use dice? How many people should be playing this at once? How detailed do I want the combat system? Do I want magic?

Elennsar wrote:No, one must know what exactly the destination looks like.

Yes. You need to know what the destination looks like - you need to know where you're going. How you get there is a varied and many-optioned path, but you need to know where you are going.

For example:

I want to roleplay a world that's similar to earth but with magic in it.
I want to be able to do cinematic fighting and cool moves.
I want to have lots of social interaction and intrigue.
I want to be able to play any type of creature I want to.
I want to arbitrate with a method other than using dice.
I want to have no more than 10 stats.
I want a classless system.

Please note: Not a single one of those items begins with "I don't want." There's a good reason for that. When you say, "I want to go to Thailand," then you have a goal, and you can get there. If you say, "I don't want to go to Thailand," you still have the rest of the world as your potential destination and you haven't figured out much of anything.

Once you have a list that looks like that you can start exploring the avenues that will lead you to each of those goals. You can ask questions about the various ways to accomplish each one of those things, and people will chime in.

If you don't know whether or not you want magic, then start a thread about what adding magic to your world entails. What are the pros and cons? What kinds of things are you going to have to take into account in a world with magic? In a world without magic? Then, decide.

Once you decide whether or not you want magic, then you can start working on how magic is going to be run. What are the various ways magic can be implemented? Spell slots? At-will talents? Mana points? Fatigue?

Once you have a system selected, you can decide its details.

Etc, etc, etc.

Elennsar wrote:If you want to help make this, then help make this.

I can't help you because you won't let me. You are providing nothing but knee-jerk responses to the same advice I've been handing out for a very long time. Other people are saying the same things I have. All we've gotten is the same childish, thoughtless response.

If you want to succeed, then stop flailing like Magikarp and evolve into Gyarados. State your goal - preferably in a single, concise sentence that you can use as a focus for your hyperbeam.

Elennsar wrote:I do have a goal.

What is it?

It's aimless in that you have no goal, and it's drivel in that it conveys no intelligible ideas. You seriously don't know what you want, and so you're getting nothing in response but people saying things you don't want them to be saying. We can't say what you want us to, because you're not telling us what we should be saying.

I do know what I want. What I don't know is what exactly it looks like
as a game.

Yes. You need to know what the destination looks like - you need to know where you're going. How you get there is a varied and many-optioned path, but you need to know where you are going.

Which is the case. What I don't have involves answers to the following: How many combat actions do we get per round? How long is a round in game time?" "How much many attacks does it take to drop someone?"

There's a big difference between knowing that I want death to be a very real possibility and knowing whether or not I want people to die in five hits or eight.

I can't help you because you won't let me. You are providing nothing but knee-jerk responses to the same advice I've been handing out for a very long time. Other people are saying the same things I have. All we've gotten is the same childish, thoughtless response.

No, all you've done is demonstrate absolutely zero effort at actually helping answer any of the questions and absolute total focus on asking questions that if I knew the answers to I wouldn't be looking for help answering.

If you want to succeed, then stop flailing like Magikarp and evolve into Gyarados. State your goal - preferably in a single, concise sentence that you can use as a focus for your hyperbeam.

If you want to help, then stop being an insulting, mocking, useless, pestering jerk and start actually trying to assist. Start actually making suggestions instead of insisting on "how many hits should it take? How many?"

What is it?

A game inspired by the historical Arthur and Alfred the Great (and the situation they faced with "barbarian" invaders) with gritty heroism along with tragedy and disappointment before (if they do win, that is) the heroes win.

This ought to be clear already. Or if not clear, it ought to at least be visible.

Of course, that would require looking at what I've said without seeing how to mock it for not being good enough.

Knowing whether or not you want to go somewhere with mountains -is- useful. Knowing that you don't want to go to a place that starts with T probably isn't, but that's not the kind of "not interested" I've expressed.

Elennsar wrote:A game inspired by the historical Arthur and Alfred the Great (and the situation they faced with "barbarian" invaders) with gritty heroism along with tragedy and disappointment before (if they do win, that is) the heroes win.

I already said this vague of an idea was a theme, not a goal, but I'll run with this...

Now you must choose:

Magic?
Mass combat?
Individual combat?
Swords?
Sticks?
Levels?
Classes?
Races?
Castles?
Historical accuracy?
Long combats?
Short combats?
Quick travel (ie: teleport, gate)?
Slow travel?
Non-combat challenges?
Monsters?
Mythology (artifacts, faeries, avalon, etc)?
Ships?

Can you describe in a single sentence what your definition of "gritty heroism" is?

Elennsar wrote:Of course, that would require looking at what I've said without seeing how to mock it for not being good enough.

I haven't mocked anything you've created because that would imply you've created something. I have mocked you for not creating anything. If you actually stick with answering my questions, though, that might actually change.

I already said this vague of an idea was a theme, not a goal, but I'll run with this...

Because your definition of "goal" is basically "know exactly what you want things to look like"

Its not good to enough to know you want to go to the tropics. No, you have to state if you want to go to Hawaii (the island, not islands, because "the islands" is still not specific enough).

Bullshit concept that.

I haven't mocked anything you've created because that would imply you've created something. I have mocked you for not creating anything. If you actually stick with answering my questions, though, that might actually change.

I have created something. And if you actually want to help, then help. If you want to add your name to the list of pests, then keep asking questions without doing anything whatsoever to read what I've said already or assist.

Here, I'll show you what my 'goal' was for my work:

"I want to play D&D and have many options early; but simpler, short lists of things. My campaign should have lots of cute races and monsters and people that change into other creatures without losing the character they are and wizards that turn into mice instead of bleeding to death when defeated."

Okay, that got my simplified skills and simplified races... But it didn't solve much on the setting department, and while so far, I know I want the same access to spells, I want the lists slightly shorter. It's still lots of work.

I ended up with other goals, like instead of character having their entire schtick at level 1, having it at level 5. But having at least their core power at level 1... And developing classes which either get ability lists or similar so that the layer can choose which ability is important for them to get at level 1.

I've had to fight with lethality, and want against people using the auto-fail 1. And while Frank wanrs me, I'm stuck with d20 as it's between what my major audience prefers (AD&D core) and what others we play with are comfortable with.

You, on the other hand, want combat that's 'gritty' and 'harsh' and 'has a possibility of dying' but the possibility 'must be real' and not bested by actual stats. That has some conflicting senses, hence everyone being a bit confused...

You seem to want combat like Go; where you really do have a chance of losing a piece at any time. Where skill of the player is rewarded by lowering (but not eliminating) the chance of failure. Where the setting is difficult to alter and it takes a long time (and many minions dying) to change it.

That's a goal. Make one, it's not so hard. But beware that if you say 'actual chance of dying' people on this board know actual math and will seriously challenge you on your assumptions. If you handwave something, you have to accept they will want to know why and when you intend to return to it. But you can say, 'Well, I want it to be a chance, but let's move on to another subject until I have a hold on how do suggest a way to do it.'

-Crissa

"Actual" chance of dying just isn't specific enough. 0.01% is an actual chance of dying, and so is 50%. Those would produce very different games. And you can't just use common sense, because different people have different ideas about what the chance should be.

Its not good to enough to know you want to go to the tropics. No, you have to state if you want to go to Hawaii (the island, not islands, because "the islands" is still not specific enough).

Yes, actually, you do have to decide which island you're going to before you can figure out how to get there. If step one is "I want to go to the tropics", then step two is "Pick which tropics", not "Book a flight".

I mean, if you're designing a car, you decide whether it's a sports car, economy car, or pickup truck first. You don't say "let's build the engine and wheels first and see where that goes."

Ice9 wrote:0.01% is an actual chance of dying, and so is 50%.

According to Elennsar, anything less than 5% isn't an actual chance of dying.

I dunno, Ice9, that's how they designed the first production cars...

-Crissa

You, on the other hand, want combat that's 'gritty' and 'harsh' and 'has a possibility of dying' but the possibility 'must be real' and not bested by actual stats. That has some conflicting senses, hence everyone being a bit confused...

You seem to want combat like Go; where you really do have a chance of losing a piece at any time. Where skill of the player is rewarded by lowering (but not eliminating) the chance of failure.

What I want is that you cannot simply make it so that someone is incapable of hurting you by character stats - you can't raise your defense so high you can't be hit whether or not you you actually deal with the damn mook - you have to deal with him to deal with him. Simply trusting that AC 27 (and no auto-hit on a d20) means that even if a +4 to hit guy flanks you with a buddy, he can't hit is bad.

He ought to be able to generate an attack that could threaten you - you ought to be able to make it so that when you actually face him, he isn't - killing him first, for instance.

Being able to rely on the fact that if you run into a mook he can't hit you, can't hurt you and can't kill you ever is bad. Being able to make it so that this particular minion and his pals are screwed is good, provided that it isn't infailible. (Arturius is not made for minion hunting - Seven Samurai odds are something you should not expect much better than Seven Samurai like results from, if you win.)

Not going to comment on the difficulty of changing things, because that's tied to amount PCs can do, not the rolls they make (or don't).

That's a goal. Make one, it's not so hard.

I have a goal. The mechanics, whatever they are, are a means to play and towards reaching that thematic goal - if you have a 50% chance of winning or losing at some point, "You lose." by Best Judgment doesn't work very well - rolling 10 or less does.

Having a mechanical goal is not necessarily the same damn thing as having a goal you want to achieve to begin with.

Yes, actually, you do have to decide which island you're going to before you can figure out how to get there. If step one is "I want to go to the tropics", then step two is "Pick which tropics", not "Book a flight".

And it is perfectly legitimate to narrow it to the tropics and see what other factors are worth weighing - for instance, the disease riddled areas are probably out, for instance. And so on.

And if I knew all the answers to those things, I wouldn't ask for help with where to go.[/i]

It's the freaking tropics, it's all pretty much disease-riddled.

Also, you used numbers. Don't do that. That's just going to get you more arguments.

Okay, so your design goal is 'Player choice in the minigames should provide their success or failure to best a challenge, not just level or stats.'

That's a single sentence that sums up your ''always have risk but actions you take in the game can prevent it'. So yes, every piece on the board can be taken, but you choose whether to put it at risk or not, right?

-Crissa

It's the freaking tropics, it's all pretty much disease-riddled.

"In most of these countries, malaria risk is limited to certain areas."

That's a single sentence that sums up your ''always have risk but actions you take in the game can prevent it'. So yes, every piece on the board can be taken, but you choose whether to put it at risk or not, right?

Not quite. Your opponent's choices are going to play a role, too...and I'd say "...as much as..."

A skilled diplomat who insults someone is going to be in just as bad a pickle as me insulting someone, maybe worse - having +30 to Diplomacy means you should know better, not that you can't put your foot in your mouth.

Maybe you should complete a game design flowsheet and establish a vision of the future, rather than discuss releative risks of malaria.

One is going to do much more for your game than the other.

Some thoughts:

Lets say we want a system where if you come across a random enemy and you decide to go straight up to it and you take it in turns to hit each other over and over then you have a 50% chance to win. But depending on tactics (yours and the enemies) you can have a 99% chance to win or down to 1%. These tactics are obvious and are given various RNG boosts and suggestions to make them easier to use. So using a tactic might make you 65-75% likely to win but if it is a good tactic against what they are doing then it is almost certain to work, for example shooting at spear troops waiting for a cavalry charge.

We also want to make it a reasonable idea to face them head to head in the open rather than waiting until they are asleep like Lu Bu. This means that the probabilities of winning must be higher than 50% if you play heroically. This isn't to say that your best chance of winning is to play heroically.

Since it seems more heroic to be the underdog, the PCs will generally be outnumbered.

The different tactics must be relatively equal or everyone will use the better ones and avoid the weaker ones. This can lead to rock/paper/scissors where it seems almost random, characters end up good at only one so everyone is a glass cannon and that being outnumbered is lethal. There should also be various geographical and time based factors preventing tactics to force characters into interesting ways to deal with problems.

One way to do this would be to use a bell curve system and to not use many character stats. The character progression would be mostly gaining new tactics. This also has the benefits of making characters fast to generate mechanically, since you could have toughness being poor, average or good.

Another way would be to give the PCs immunities to some tactics. This would mean that they find it easier to use others, don't have to defend as much and... and stuff.

Examples of tactics could include kiting ( a poor tactic in the game with some easy to use vulnerabilities ), surrounding and poking with sticks (very good if you outnumber them but weak to a couple of hero troops), phalanxes (good at defence but very slow) and so on.

Other ways to change the probabilities of winning are hitting troops from behind (requiring facing), hitting one type of troop with another (this could lead to wargame type system rather than RPG), terrain and weather (requiring a whole lot more work) and morale (this requires a whole lot more to track).

---

How is this as some goals for a system. Reasonable? Unwanted?

This has taken 15 minutes to type up off the top of my head, including another couple of paragraphs that didn't fit. And something like this would be really useful, even if it is picked over and found to be rubbish. However you haven't done much of this sort of thing and have instead given vague suggestions.

Now I have been trying to help, and have given various suggestions and tried to use constructive criticism so don't complain that I haven't been trying to help. But what this is trying to show you is that your suggestions so far haven't been that useful and have been too vague. Hell, you've said about various stuff but I don't even know if you want it in the game and if so how implemented.

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Elennsar wrote: Its not good to enough to know you want to go to the tropics. No, you have to state if you want to go to Hawaii (the island, not islands, because "the islands" is still not specific enough).

Depends at stage your at. If your deciding where to go on holiday then the first step could be that you want to go to the tropics. Your next step is whether you want to go to the rainforest, the coast, tropical cities or what. The third step could be which country it is, which is when you decide to go to Hawaii. Then it is where in Hawaii, the fifth step is from when to when and how your getting there and the rest is what your going to do and where your staying.

What people are saying is that they want to know that you want to go the tropics when you say that you want to go to Hawaii. Firstly to make sure that you actually want to go to the tropics. Secondly whether or not the tropics is a good place to go. Thirdly to possibly suggest another possibility that meets what your theme should be that you haven't considered. And so on.

A theme might be to go to the tropics.

A goal might be that you want to go to the tropical rainforest.

A test mechanic might be that you want to go to Borneo.

After testing the mechanic you may find it unsuitable- you may find out that Borneo is a bad place at the moment since the rainforests are off-limits to tourists because of the orangutan mating season, so you try the Amazon.

The Amazon works so you find out the flights, times and what your going to do.

So when people ask you for goals they're asking you for manageable targets you want to achieve to make the theme work.

So when you say:

Elennsar wrote: A game inspired by the historical Arthur and Alfred the Great (and the situation they faced with "barbarian" invaders) with gritty heroism along with tragedy and disappointment before (if they do win, that is) the heroes win.

this is a theme because it is not a target, you cannot test to see if you have achieved it, and it is still very vague. Things like gritty heroism mean different things to different people so it can't be objectively measured.

You could make it into a series of goals such as

The PCs play on the side of defenders against a group of saxon-like invaders.

The PCs being a group of highly valued leaders similar to the knights of the round table.

Every combat has a 25-50% chance of death with poor tactics for the situation.

ummmm.... err.... can't really come up with other goals from that quote.

Now I'm not saying these goals are good, bad, not measurable, too specific or what, but they are better than what you stated.

This has taken 15 minutes to type up off the top of my head, including another couple of paragraphs that didn't fit. And something like this would be really useful, even if it is picked over and found to be rubbish. However you haven't done much of this sort of thing and have instead given vague suggestions.

Yes, it would be really useful if you want to help to comment on those sorts of things and what you think they'd add/subtract.

I haven't done much of that sort of thing because I do not want to pull numbers out of my ass solely for the purpose of crunching numbers, which is the only purpose that they would have until it is decided whether or not it is a good thing for PCs to regard arrow fire as not so big a deal, for instance. There's no point figuring out that if X is true that you take 15% damage from arrows until you know if you -want- that, which is the stage I'm on at the moment (using this hypothetically).

What people are saying is that they want to know that you want to go the tropics when you say that you want to go to Hawaii. Firstly to make sure that you actually want to go to the tropics. Secondly whether or not the tropics is a good place to go. Thirdly to possibly suggest another possibility that meets what your theme should be that you haven't considered. And so on.

Firstly: If I didn't I wouldn't say so. Secondly, asking a bunch of questions doesn't answer that. Thirdly - if anyone has done this, I'd like to know.

this is a theme because it is not a target, you cannot test to see if you have achieved it, and it is still very vague. Things like gritty heroism mean different things to different people so it can't be objectively measured.

OH NO!!!!!!!!!!! VAGUE! We must have specifics! We must know that the PCs have a 26% chance of surviving charging spearmen! Otherwise we can't do ANYTHING!

Bullshit. We can and should decide whether or not PCs should look at spearmen as a threat, a nussiance, somewhere in between, or depending before coming up with the number of dead from a charge by PCs on horseback against spearmen.

And I see people wanting the percentage before that decision.

Now I'm not saying these goals are good, bad, not measurable, too specific or what, but they are better than what you stated.

Not really, no.

I can either give you a general and relatively brief idea overview of what I'd like to accomplish, or I can point out that a detailed answer would have huge gaps until things are decided (which is part of what I want help working on). Your choice.

If any of your above post's comments are serious suggestions, I'd consider it a great favor to repost them in the Arturius thread to go over there.

Bullshit. Complete, absolute, total fucking bullshit. You are talking completely out of your arse here. You're talking shit. Explain yourself.

Elennsar wrote: I haven't done much of that sort of thing because I do not want to pull numbers out of my ass solely for the purpose of crunching numbers, which is the only purpose that they would have until it is decided whether or not it is a good thing for PCs to regard arrow fire as not so big a deal, for instance.

Numbers you say? Numbers? I read five numbers in all of that: 50, 99, 1, 60 and 75.

What the hell kind of specific numbers is working out that you want to be able to have archery, and that it should be affected by range, height and the weather. And working out several other tactics- not how they work mechanically but what they are.

And stating how large the character stats are compared to the RNG is a relative, general thing but really fucking important for how important individual characters can be.

Hell, even making a list of
- weather
- geography
- morale
- ...
and all the other factors that should have an effect on the rules is important, if just to be able to cross some off.

But you seem to equate this to

Elennsar wrote: ... if X is true that you take 15% damage from arrows...

or

We must know that the PCs have a 26% chance of surviving charging spearmen!

I am not saying that swords should always be TN 14 on 3d6 and that if you have the feat "My cock is a sword and I will impale you!" then the TN is reduced by 3.

I am saying that you should have maybe small and large swords and so not have 6 very slightly different swords.

I can see why you are asking for positives and negatives of suggestions, but for fuck's sake, make some suggestions yourself and comment on them yourself. As soon as you start doing so everyone else will join in or disagree.

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... objectively measured.

OH NO!!!!!!!!!!! VAGUE! We must have specifics! We must know that the PCs have a 26% chance of surviving charging spearmen! Otherwise we can't do ANYTHING!

Bullshit. We can and should decide whether or not PCs should look at spearmen as a threat, a nussiance, somewhere in between, or depending before coming up with the number of dead from a charge by PCs on horseback against spearmen.

And I see people wanting the percentage before that decision.

That is not what I mean by objectively measured. The types of measurements I'm thinking of is that prepared spearmen have a mechanical advantage over cavalry. As in that the probability is that spearmen will win.

You could also phrase this as spearmen do twice as much damage to cavalry as cavalry to spearmen on average. Or that spearmen will kill twice as many cavalry on average.

In fact they don't even need to be that specific. All the statements need to be is statements that can be decided to be true or false on average. If all the statements are true then you have fulfilled the specification.

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How about this: say yes or no to these three statements and say why or why not. These are the kind of things that I think you want.

Against a standard enemy with neither person using any tactics and no other modifiers you should have a 50% chance to win.

You cannot have Saxons on your side and you cannot fight against Romans.

Using arrows or other ranged weapons should be a lot less effective than using melee.

(e.g. one hit of melee should be worth about 3-4 arrow hits)

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If I wanted to make a system by group discussion then I'd do it something like this:
- come up with a brief description of the system or setting
- create a list of themes that I want to include or encourage. Such as "Magic users and magical monsters", "Heroism and straight up combat", "Almost all melee combat", "Industrial age technology", "Jungian archetypes" and "Large guilds". Then I'd ask people to comment on these, work out which don't fit with the rest and work out which are the most important, possibly adding a couple.
- Then I'd work out 5-10 goals that fit each theme. So for example with "Heroism and straight up combat" you could have 'Various people including the PCs are "heroes" and as such are special', "Straight up combat is more effective or of equal effectiveness than ambushes", "There is an honour system that rewards heroic behaviour" and so on. It doesn't matter if some are stupid or don't quite fit as long as you have them. These will be commented on, reworded and so on as long as they fit the themes.
- The simplest mechanics that fit the goals will be picked. This is probably the hardest part and may mean that some goals need to be changed or dropped.
- The actual mechanics are created. At each stage the goals are tested to make sure that they are still met- if not some messing about is required.

This may not work and probably has huge gaping flaws, but it is a methodology which is more than what you have at the moment.

Of these, you have done the first which includes some of the second, but you have skipped parts and have already decided on some of the mechanics. This is bad because you don't know if the mechanics fit the themes and goals or not.

First, thank you for moving your previous comments related to Arturius's design to the thread.

Second, my responses to the things that seem most important:

I can see why you are asking for positives and negatives of suggestions, but for fuck's sake, make some suggestions yourself and comment on them yourself. As soon as you start doing so everyone else will join in or disagree.

There are some things I'm confident in (for instance, arrows vs. the armored is an extremely bad idea), there are some things I'm not sure about (whether or not fighting at sea should be important) that I don't really have any thoughts on - I'm not sure if its a good thing or bad thing.

How about this: say yes or no to these three statements and say why or why not. These are the kind of things that I think you want.

1) No - standard enemies are not your equals.

2) Probably correct, but hard to judge given that this has moved away from 5th century Britain. So what presence of Romans even matters is becoming dubious, though the "no barbarians" is there, yes.

3) Yes - but I am not sure on the damage (mail vs. swords has to be worked out - if no standard attacks are really effective, arrows might be useless vs. armored targets - or at least the armored parts, not merely inefficient).

- The simplest mechanics that fit the goals will be picked. This is probably the hardest part and may mean that some goals need to be changed or dropped.

Simplicity is grossly overrated. Sure, you may mean to emphasis "the simplest that fit the goals" - but I'd like to underline that strongly. Having really simple mechanics that work fine 95% of the time but do not do justice to something important is a sign the mechanics are missing something, not the goal/theme/whatever they don't work for.

Of these, you have done the first which includes some of the second, but you have skipped parts and have already decided on some of the mechanics. This is bad because you don't know if the mechanics fit the themes and goals or not.

If they don't, say so. If they do, great.

Also, I disagree with the "conjure up as much as you can." concept. Part of why I am looking for assistance is in deciding- these things - I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on the kingdom being an island or a pennisula.

Thus I would rather discuss it with those who are also interested and weigh it rather than present "geographic location: Island, sort of like Britain but not." when I don't really think that there's anything about doing it that way that merits presenting it like that. Its neither good or bad, its just an option.

You know, I started looking up what exactly gritty heroism is and I found that for "gritty heroism" the Gaming Den is second on the list with an Arturius thread. However I couldn't find a definition of it.

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Elennsar wrote: Also, I disagree with the "conjure up as much as you can." concept. Part of why I am looking for assistance is in deciding- these things - I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on the kingdom being an island or a pennisula.

Thus I would rather discuss it with those who are also interested and weigh it rather than present "geographic location: Island, sort of like Britain but not." when I don't really think that there's anything about doing it that way that merits presenting it like that. Its neither good or bad, its just an option.

You're really not doing a very good job at it then.

What you seem to be doing is:
"Help me work out how to do this general problem."

What you should be doing is this:
"What is your opinion on
- X
- Y
- Z
?
"

So, instead of saying:

I'm not sure about whether or not the area is an island or peninsula

, you could be saying:

What sort of region should the area be:
Tropical, Equatorial, Arctic or what? My opinion is equatorial to keep it similar to normal Arthurian myths.
Should it be mostly plains, woods or hills? I have no ideas, please help here.
Should the area be in the middle of the mainland, on the coast, on a peninsula or on an island. I think it should be on a peninsula so as to have poor ships but coastal invaders on several sides.
How much wildlife should there be? Since the focus is mostly on human interactions I don't think there should be any important wildlife.

or you could put it like:

What are your opinions on these statements:
- The area should be equatorial.
- The area should be mostly plains or fields with some woodland.
- The area should be a peninsula off a large continent.
- There should be little to no wildlife.

Obviously the first is slightly more useful for some people, but even just having the second can lead to discussion. The problem at the moment is that we only have a small idea which concepts need finalising, which have been finalised already and the various options currently available.