Game Design Flow Sheet

[Username17]

This is in reference to the perplexing morass that the 40k design thread got to. Here's a step by step of designing a game.

Name the PCs

In D&D the characters are called a "party", which stands for "war party" and it colors the entire system. In Shadowrun it's a "Team", in Vampire it's a "coterie". If you name the PCs a "squad", a "pack", or whatever, it matters.

Step 2: Write up a Six Person Party

Seriously. Using words, not numbers, write up a six person party. Think about what each character contributes to the story, to the action, to completion of mission objectives.

• Does everyone have something to do? If not, start over.

Remember that it is entirely possible that you'll have 6 players or more at the table. If there is a structural impediment to the way you've designed the character "classes" such that you can't fit six players into a whole where each contributes, it's not going to work as an RPG.

Step 3: Write up a Three Person Party

Again, using words not numbers outline a group of potential player characters. Only now you've only got three characters to work with. Think about how the group can respond to challenges and complete mission objectives.

• Is there a talent critical to the group's success that that is missing from the group you've outlined? If so, start over.

Remember that people don't show up sometimes. Also, some games are small. If the game can't survive without a full team, it can't survive.

Step Four: Outline an Adventure

Using words, not numbers or mechanics, outline an adventure. Block it out in terms of time. Figure that you have somewhere between 2 and 6 hours. Any discussions that happen "in character" are resolved slower than real time. Any tactical combat is likewise resolved in much less than real time. Travel is handled almost instantly unless you make players describe in detail that they are "looking for traps/ambushes/their ass with both hands" - in which case it takes practically forever.

• Are there substantial blocks of time that one or more characters have nothing to add to the situation? If so, start over.
  
• If you use major "mini-games" such as puzzle solving or tactical combat, is every character able to contribute significantly to these mini-games? If not, are these mini-games extremely short? If the answer to both questions is no, start over.

If you have a tactical combat mini-game (or the equivalent) that takes up a significant amount of the overall game it will inevitably become the benchmark by which a character's worth is measured. Characters who don't measure up... don't measure up.

Players who don't have anything meaningful or valued for their characters to do will wander off and play computer games.

Step Five: Write out a campaign

It doesn't have to span years of epic tales or any of that crap, but it does need to have a story arc and outline a potential advancement scheme as you envision it.

• Does everyone have a roughly equivalent available advancement scheme? It's OK if noone advances during the campaign or even if negative advancement accumulates as people run out of ammunition and get injured. But if you envision some players going on to become a world dominating sorcerer lord and the other characters becoming better dog trainer - start over.

It's really frustrating when one player is flying around fighting gods and other characters are not. It really isn't better if the game ends up that way than if the players start off with that kind of disparity.

Step Six: Choose a Base System

Based on your previous work, consider what base system would best correspond to what it is that you're doing. There are a lot of game systems that you just plug numbers into (d20, HERO, SAME, BESM, etc. and whatever); there are a number of other systems which work fine for what they do and can be adapted to whatever it is that you want to do (Shadowrun, Feng Shui, WFRP, Paranoia, etc.). Consider the play dynamics and character distinctions that you want and the limitations of the system in question. If you want some characters picking up and throwing cars, d20 doesn't work. If you want all the characters at roughly human strength, HERO doesn't work.

• If you intend the game to have a high and permanent lethality rate? If so, start over if your system takes a long time to generate characters.
  
• Can you figure out how to model all the abilities that characters need to fulfill your concept in your system? If not, start over.

Step Seven: Do the Math

Once you've got this going, you can do the laborious, but not difficult task of actually plugging numbers in to generate the abilities you've concepted.

• Run the numbers. Have the numbers you've generated actually provided you with a reasonable chance of producing the story arcs you're looking for? If not, start over.
  
• Check yourself against the Random Number Generator. If high values that are achievable within the campaign can't lose to the low numbers also available in the campaign, you don't actually have a "game" at that point you just have "I win" - is that OK for the situations it comes up in? If not...

-Username17

[Koumei]

Very helpful. And also precisely why I've officially made the 40K game somebody else's problem to deal with. I want it to be d20, mostly because it's the only base system I actually like, but I don't know how to make it work, within d20 or otherwise.

So someone with more expertise in the field can do that, and I'll just reap the benefits of playing the game. If, you know, I'm still even alive by then.

[Username17]

Heh. Well, here's an example of this in action. Let's start with a game set in the W40k universe: all the characters are members of a cult that prays to a warp entity of some kind and hopes for a better life for themselves and maybe the other inhabitants of the planet. Maybe they are praying to a Hive Tyrant, maybe to a Chaos God, maybe to an Order God like the Great Hydra. They don't know, because knowledge even of what the differences are is an offense in the Imperium that can get your whole planet virus bombed.

So first of all, we start with the group of characters. They are a Cult. Already the name inspires us to what sorts of roles are available to characters and to what sort of position the characters have vis a vis the rest of the world.

Secondly, we write up a six person cult and outline some of what they do:

1. Demagogue This character is someone who can contact the warp entity in his dreams. Or maybe he's just crazy and thinks he can. It's not even important, because he's convincing. He might or might not have the power to hulk out under dire circumstances, but his big powers are that he's incredibly dedicated (resstant or immune to torture and mind control) and he has a lot of social skills.
   
   
2. Mutant This character has some sort of X-man power and deformity. He suffers from the fact that he has to hide his identity and his abilities from anyone in the Ecclesiarchy or he'll get killed. But he's a murder machine in combat and probably pretty sneaky.
   
   
3. Telekinetic Psyker This character has actual warp power. He can fight without a weapon, and he can perform ranged legerdemain.
   
   
4. Mentalist Psyker This character also has warp power. Again, he can fight without a weapon, and he can cloud men's minds.
   
   
5. Noble This character is devotee of the cult who is also part of the planetary government. As such they have had access to "Secret" Imperial Knowledge. So they know jack shit about what's going on anywhere. Also, they can navigate the Imperial Bureaucracy and pull favors. They probably aren't as stealthy as the other characters but they can cast the 20 quid spell "You didn't see me" with their social connections and have valuable knowledge.
   
   
6. Anarchist This character is just hive scum who happens to follow the cult. They are sneaky and good at sabotage. Probably decent with a weapon and knows how to plant a melta bomb.

OK, let's say that we have to:

• Sneak into an Imperial Compound - the Noble might hold the party back with his low Stealth skill, but on the other hand he might be the star as he can be walking around in plain view being a distraction to guards while the rest of the cult does their thing. The rest of the party have moderate to severe stealth. The Psykers especially dominate in this situation, being able to generate distractions or even reset guards to unalert status.
  
  
• Fight off a rival warp beast. The demagogue may have to hulk out as he has no useful skills. But we could also conceptualize him as being able to inspire compatriots at this point to counter fear effects or grant bonuses. The noble is actually also somewhat out of his element, but may have vital knowledge of warp beasts and/or have useful equipment. The mutant and anarchist are both bruisers and the psykers are jugglers so this could go well at least.
  
  
• Find Ancient Relics. The contribution of the Mutant is a little opaque to me at this point, but maybe his mutant powers include some sort of mobility? If so, that would get him through the hive's "dungeon" areas well. The Anarchist can have some Roguish skills and the others contribute very well during the research phase.
  
  
• Navigate Imperial Society. The Demagogue, Noble, and Mentalist have an obvious position. The Anarchist should probably have secondary traits like "observant", the Mutant can use the same disguise skills he uses to hide his identity to assume a different one, and the Telekinetic needs to turn to thievery and distractions - which can actually be invaluable.

Thirdly, we pull every other character out, can they still do anything?

• Party 1 is a Demagogue, a Telkinetic, and a Noble. Actually, this party seems to be able to do everything well except "sneak". But since they are two faces and a distraction machine, they should be able to pull off daylight sneaking pretty reliably.
  
  
• Party 2 is a Mutant, a Mentalist, and an Anarchist. They fall back on Jedi Mind Tricks to get any of their face time accomplished, but they are sneaky as hell. When confronted by a warp beast they actually have no idea what's going on, but since every single character is a combat monster they might just not give a damn.

OK, on to Step Four: We outline a basic four hour adventure.

The characters for whatever reason decide that they have to steal an imperial relic and destroy it. They need to research it. Characters do legwork, some do research, some talk to shady characters, and some just listen at windows and telepathically steal information. Then they sneak into the compound through a combination of wall climbing and brazen lying. Then they have big climactic fight against the imperial dude who actually has the relic. He's a lot tougher than him and they have to run around and use the terrain while plinking him down. Then they destroy the relic, which is actually some sort of warp interdictor which was limiting the cult in some way. Sounds like everyone is onboard at each stage, so moving on...

Step Five, let's consider a campaign arc:

• Characters destroy the warp interdictor.
  
• Characters discover that a hostile warp entity is using the chance to fuck them over and take the planet for its own self. They have to thwart the plans of a rival cult without giving themselves or the other cult away to the authorities.
  
• Too late! The hostile cult manages to pull in a Fleshound or a Bloodthrister or something crazy. They have to track it down by the trail of blood, fight it, and clean up the mess.
  
• The Demagogue goes through his transformation sequence and becomes a second stage Seijan.

Oh wait! The rest of the party are just getting better Mythos Lore and cool Imperial Gadgets and Architech. The Demagogue can't go second stage on us. So scratch that last part unless we want the entire team to be riding around on Lictors or something. So probably scratching it is our best bet.

Step Six: We choose a game system.

Assuming for the moment that we didn't already know in this example that we were going d20, let's consider what we want out of a system:

• This is Cult baby, the characters are supposed to feel kind of out of their element and underpowered all the time. That works great in d20 so long as no character ever gets past 5th level. The fear of death is always there for the PCs, and yet there's an easy mechanic for NPCs to be major boss battles that take a long time to complete.
  
  
• The game system comes pre-packaged with a simple method for making enemies who are hard to kill yet don't do amazing amounts of damage to PCs - just don't scale weapon damage.
  
  
• People know how it works.

OK, so now we start wringing changes and mechanics out of it:

First of all, we are doing this all on extremely budget numbers of levels. That means that PC classes with BAB progressions and shit other than "Good" have to just straight up go away. Characters are never going to see 8th level or even 6th, so the distinctions between a 1/2 and a 3/4 progression might as well not even exist. And they'd really fuck up multiclassing anyway, so we want them out. Frankly, we need to hack out the save progressions too, because again characters are only going to have ~3 class levels to play with and we don't want people to have Fort +6/Will +0 because that's shit. So instead, every class gives +1 to two different saves and +2 to a third.

And we don't like the effects of 1st level bonuses, because they dumb. Instead, we're going to give everyone (and all the civilians in the game) a single starter level of a ple of skills and no real abilities. Then people can layer additional levels on top of that.

Because we have so few levels to throw around, we're going to want to make advancement less precipitous. In this case, we're going to start off by giving characters additional skill points to throw around every session. This would seem to undermine Intelligence, which should therefore be decoupled from skill points entirely and instead used as a raw bonus to technology-related tasks. Considering how open ended that is, I'm sure we can work something out.

But wait! That also means that we have to shred the old multiclassing skill rules. Probably your maximum in any skill is going to be equal to 4 + your level in classes with it as a class skill.

And then we take a step back and run some raw numbers. We're going to be having starting characters who are third level. They have BAB of +2, and in-class skill maximums of 6 ranks. Out of class maxmimums of 4 ranks. They have base Saves of about +4/+2/+2. Then they have 3 hit dice, which puts them about the 10-30 hit point mark.

So we need like 6 first level "professions" and four levels of class features for all the classes we recognize for PCs. And we'll need to mathematically regress the whole thing a couple of times to make sure that it all works.

---

And that's how it's done. At some point in the process you throw down a bunch of overwraught emo flavor text. And you're golden. You have a playable game called Warp Cult.

"The Empire of Man has lain stagnant and dying for generations beyond count. The Emperor is a horrid leech who consumes the souls of the best and the brightest of mankind in order to cling with a tremulous death grip upon a past which was never glorious to begin with. Change cannot come within the rules of the empire, the hide-bound slaves of the Ecclesiarchy send their prayers to their dead god until they cannot hear the supplications of their people.

It is from these ashes that we will forge a new world! We will not accept the testaments of our cruel and worthless overlords. They call us mad, but it is they who sit and read their own words hour after hour by the light of candles. Mankind once made lights that shone as brightly as the sun. Ad with the help of the others, we shall do so again. A new day is dawning in the Empire. A day when we can throw off the tyrany of Man and embrace the changes which even now grow within.

Unleash your potential. Join us![/u]"

-Username17

[Crissa]

Hee, a warp cult could even be made of Space Marines marooned on some rock, or in an Imperial camp, trying to get their brand of pie noticed and not squished.

Of course, none of that would work if one player wants to be an Eldar and another player wants to be a Space Marine...

-Crissa

[Judging__Eagle]

Those are different games, specifically Sons of Khaine and Adeptus Astares.

In SoK, you're all members of a farseer's council, and you go do important stuff with a mix of different types of eldar warriors.

In AA, you're a squad of marines with a mix of gear and types of marines and go around doing marine-type stuff. Like blowing up an Orcish oil-rig to prevent a Waargh! from getting off of the ground or go attack a Snyapse creature that's out in the wastes acting as a homing beacon to a hive-ship in orbit so that your fortress doesn't have to defend a base against wave after wave of alien scum.


Doing stuff like helping cleanse a hive city warren or rebels, criminals or mutants is a job for game of Iquisitorial Stormtrooper or maybe a game of Adeptus Arbites.

[Cielingcat]

You can also be Eldar from the Path of the Seer and play a game of Being a Total Dick, or you can screw all the boring stuff and just play Da Game O' WAAAGH!.

[cthulhu]

I was thinking about a game that could cover

Rogue Traders comprised of tough veteran spacers on the lowest end of power, and an inquistor and his retinue on the upper end of the power scale.

I don;t actually see spacemarines as playable characters for the most, except maybe a deathwatch team.

I can actually see how it would mostly work on the same powerscale... a veteran imperial guardsmen with carapace armour from a catachan deathworld with a melta gun and demolitions satchels is a meaningful threat to space marine or even an assassin (Has a 20% chance of frying an assassin.) so you can avoid people going off each others random number generator, but I'm not entirely sure how to have the 'typical' inquistorial team of like

An inquistor, a member of the Novis Nobilis (the guys who fly things), an assassin, a techpriest, a veteran guardsmen and the 6th man (a psyker to confessor or something) on the same actual team.

[JonSetanta]

So it's a mutant-d20 game?

[Prak]

so what about Unreal( Tournament)? way I figure it, d20 modern+ some future works rather well...

[the_taken]

Many should remember the Evangelion Discussion a while back. So here's what I got so far.

Step 1: Name the PCs
Command Force? Strike Force? Power Force? Meh. Just "Force". The PCs' Force vs. the Mindless Slaughtering Aliens' Forces.

The premise is as dark and sickening as you might expect from a spin-off of Evangelion. The futuristic, space travel capable humans run into a previously unkown alien race. Although the race appears to be sentient and have compatible communication abilities, it is wholly evil and just starts rampaging across the human colonies. They get a huge edge strait off, since they have some sort of bio-mech with an evil force field that melts humans in their ships and slices thru metal with radioactive tentacles of evilness. While incredibly more powerful than the humans, the alien weapons are not invincible, and a daring group capture key tech and develop a human compatible version of the bio-mechs and defences against the evil force fields.
Unfortunately, the bio-mechs require the infusion of a human soul that acts as the bridge between the pilot and psychic powers that move the gigantic cybernetic construct. And it has to be a willing soul, and the pilot must be known to and loved by the sacrificed. Also, the force fields on the more conventional space ships are powered by a group of psychics with cybernetic implants similar to the technology in the mechs.

Step 2: Write up a Six Person Party
Flag Ship Admiral - The character who controls the biggest ship. The ship is very tough, due to it's force fields and constant repair mechanisms. Has limited ability to repair others in combat, mostly mechs. The character mostly contributes to a fight by redirecting the cruisers and giving firing support.
Superiority Pilot - The character with the most balanced combat mech. Diversely powerful with melee and close-range combat. This guy leads assaults, but cannot retaliate to long-range attacks.
Front Cruiser Captain - The character that controls the ship ahead of the fight. Has strong sensors and counter-measures, as well as reliable weapons. Especially useful when an ambush is suspected.
Heavy Guns Pilot - The character with a larger mech loaded with big guns and special weapons. Best at long-range combat, and competent at close-range combat, but tough enough to handle a beating in melee.
Swarm Fighters Director - The character in the small mech that directs the tiny zeppelin sized war machines. Makes great annoyance attacks and has great stealth capabilities. Not a tough mech.
Star Side Repair Unit - The character piloting the mech that has gizmos and gear to repair the others. As tough as the superiority mech but only as effective in close-range and melee fighting as the heavy guns mech is at melee fighting, which is not too impressive.

Step 3: Write up a Three Person Party
Team 1 - The Fleet
Flag Ship Admiral - Tough piece in play. Supports with barrages of lasers and missiles.
Front Cruiser Captain - Sensors detects ambushes and hiding units, and the combined fire power of this one and the Flag Ship deal enough damage to cripple many enemy mechs.
Swarm Fighters Director - Uses guerrilla tactics to soften up enemies. The repair abilities of the flag ship are enough to keep this thing running almost non-stop, but the loss of fighters would hamper it's long term performance. Also, ships have very poor melee abilities, the director and his minions do very well against ships.

Team 2 - Strike Force
Superiority Pilot, Heavy Guns Pilot, Star Side Repair Unit
With two powerful engines of destruction and the band-aid machine, this group won't so much need to detect ambushes as much as they could just try to punch thru it, then patch up after wards. For seek and destroy missions, they can just blow up the whole asteroid field and hope to hit their target. Unless we equip the healing mech with a passable detection method.

Step 4: Outline an Adventure
Their are two areas within human controlled space. The Broadcast Zone, and everywhere else. The BCZ is where the first radio transmissions of Earth have reached so far. If the aliens reach this area, they will pick up the radio waves, trace them back Earth and blow it up. This would be very bad.
The premise of this game session, and a good portion of others, is that a task force of the aliens have come out of hyperspace really close to where the BCZ will expand to. Like, within the month. So the PCs have been ordered to stop guarding the Chicken Farm Planet, and hypaspace over and take out the observer ships, as well as cause as much havoc for the aliens in the area as possible.

There are three observers. One in open space, with the protection of a two cruisers and a compliment of fighters. One orbiting a gas giant, with a trio of enemy mechs. And the third was last detected going into an asteroid field in the fringes of the system, probably to prospect minerals.
The Asteroid Field Observer can be taken out quietly without the other two being made aware, but a large mech the equivalent to the PCs' Superiority mech will be it's protector. It will give the observer a chance to escape and send out a distress signal.
The other two observers grant different challenges. The open space observer is guarded by a larger force, and can harass the PCs by sending out guerrilla fighters if they choose to fight the orbiter first.
While the orbiter can dive into the gas giant and hide with it's close-combat oriented guardians if the PCs choose to attack the open space observer first.

Step 5: Write out a campaign

Session Two: Thew PCs are returning to Chicken Farm Planet just in time to witness a new alien weapon be unleashed. The chickens on the surface mutate into huge monsters and fly out into space.
A flock engages the PCs, a fight roughly equivalent to getting swarmed by several compliments of fighters.
Another flock mutates into titanic sized monstrosities and begin pecking away at the colony on the planet's surface. Rescue humans? Engage enemies? They've split into two groups, so a sound strategy would be useful.
A third flock of mixed sizes joins the weapon testers, who took advantage of the PC's absence from the system, and tries to hypaspace out. Will the PCs give chase? Or just fight off those they can nab before the portal opens?

Session Three: The PCs take the surviving colonists to a military base world for refugee processing (if any were rescued). Then they're given a new weapon to test out in actual combat conditions. A sizable force is on it's way to a nearby system. Seek and Destroy.

Session Four: The PCs are given a choice between attempting to capture an alien observer that's been docked for repairs at an alien supply depot, or convince some passing pirates that the survival of the entire human race is more important than a little space booty.

Session Five: The Pcs Have to hunt down a lost scout ship that reportedly discovered some vital information. Unfortunetly, the nebula they hid in had a small fleet of aliens dive in after them. The scout ship actually stumbled into the alien's BCZ and the info they had could be used to plan assault against the enemy home world. The next few sessions would be planned out according to the success or failure of the PCs in this session.

Step 6: Choose a Base System
This is where I ground to a halt. I don't know of any system I can base my game around.
I know I want ships and mechs to behave differently. I also want them both to be complicated affairs. A mech pilot's PC will have a greater emotional attachment since he has to make up a loved one to sacrifice to the mech, and I want the ship pilots to have an equally large investment. Maybe in the math? Like a large diagram for hit locations and subsytems effects?

I know how big I want the games bonuse's to get. If a d20 is used, the biggest bonus is going to be +6, and only one thing can give you a bonus to something. Probably a leveled up skill. I do want to include a vertical improvement method, after all.

[cthulhu]

What about battletech? I've never played it myself, but it does seem to support that sort of 'big things firing big guns at other big things' in a wargaming esque way.

[Username17]

From the stand point of including the horrible, I suggest toning down the apocalyptic elements of the villains. After all, if they are seriously annihilating the entire population there is little incentive to not sacrifice yourself in order to stop them. All consuming evil makes for simple moral calculus and turns extreme action into a no brainer.

I would suggest going for something more along the lines of a villain group who are making human concentration camps in order to create willing sacrifices to power their technology. They have powerful mind affecting powers as well as just really good psychology. They capture humans, put them in very nice seeming prisons and use the Stockholm Effect to coerce feelings of love out of their victims. Only then do they throw humans to the Moloch Machines. That gives people something to fight against, but also makes the enemy understandable and even in a way sympathetic. Also, you get to have traitor humans. You could even have the governments of Earth be already in cahoots with the enemy, which is good times.

"You oppose us because you are selfish and are not good at risk assessment. We devour pigs, and in order to do so we create worlds for them, we shelter them, we treat their illness. The swine under our sway never reach an acient age, but their lives are much nicer than those of their forest kin. Indeed, the average life expectency for the domesticated animals far exceeds what was possible for the wild boar. Truly, being a staple food of humanity is the best thing that has ever happened to the race of pigs.
You think that in the wild it is you who will be the lucky pig who becomes an ancient boar in the forest, whle the rest of us are slain one by one by wild beasts and the fickle scythe of disease. And so you fight for freedom from the masters - freedom to watch your fellow man scrabble for existence upon barren rock and die in any of a myriad ways while you struggle on to gloat over the fallen. But I know better. I know that no matter how good you think you are the laws of probability are harsh and unfair. Maybe you'd be the ancient boar, maybe I would. But most likely both of us would be amongst the culled; unmourned in the trees. I won't take my chances. The best path, the sure path, is to fight for the world the Masters have given us."

---

Anyway, it sounds like you're pulling towards something along the lines of Battletech or Starfleet Battles. Something where there are hit locations with little boxes, and possibly fuel reserves and such. Physical fisticuffs don't matter at all, and may as well be handled simply like with Feng Shui or something. Don't try to do the Mech Warrior thing where mech combat and man-to-man combat supposedly use the same system.

-Username17

[the_taken]

Maybe. The "Leap into the Action!" preview .pdf is giving me a general feel for the system, but I'm hopping for a system with an OGL. I do like the idea of different HPs for different parts of the machines, but that rule will be applied to the ships, and not the mechs.
The mechs will have a single hit point pool, as well as a force field mechanic and magic points.
If anyone with more than a glancing experience with BattleTech could comment?

edit-> How did I miss Frank's post?

..I actually just slapped a simple premise together to have an excuse for the weird and creepy mech creation to occur. I like your ideas...
But I do want Tyrial style tentacles to matter in melee, as well as hand out titanic knives and swords. And force fields powered by self-loathing and self-deception. And people melting into goo when the big evil demon god mech gets angry.

[the_taken]

Classic BattleTech it is. Start Fleet Battles has a strikingly similar in crunch and set up (2d6 for everything, hit location, check boxes) but the sheer mass of book keeping is little turn off.

Some changes before numbers are considered.
The mechs should be as loved as any other character. After all, an NPC sacrificed his/her self to power it. Also, customization is a very important thing. So, I'll have a base mech chassis for the three big mech archetypes, then one for the gremlin that directs the mini fighters, and those can be customized by the player.
Then there's a number of chassis for the big ships, and the character's that run them have something akin to a character class that meld with the ships to do stuff like maneuvers, com-jams, etc. Or maybe having a ship is a class feature, like HD and spell casting are.

And characters will gain levels. It just won't be as dramatic a power difference as D&D. Just a little more... stuff.

[Captain_Bleach]

Are there substantial blocks of time that one or more characters have nothing to add to the situation? If so, start over.

In many RPG systems, the game system is such that there will be such character concepts; non-primary casters in D&D, combat built characters in White Wolf's Storytelling System, and that RPG (its name escapes me at the moment) that had skills for everything, allowing you to be a combat monster dragon and not know basic math or a scholar that sucks at combat but could do almost everything.
In such cases, one must redesign the game system. And I am too lazy to do such a thing.

[Koumei]

1199940271[/unixtime]]
Any characters in White Wolf's Storytelling System

Fixed.

that RPG (its name escapes me at the moment) that had skills for everything, allowing you to be a combat monster dragon and not know basic math or a scholar that sucks at combat but could do almost everything.
In such cases, one must redesign the game system. And I am too lazy to do such a thing.

Rifts.

[Captain_Bleach]

Thanks, Koumei.

Now, I don't know much about Rifts or its game balance, but that example jumped out at me and possibly caused me to shy away from it.

[Koumei]

It's as balanced as a set of scales. With a duck on one side and a fridge full of gold bacon on the other. The freezer is filled with Neutronium.

The scales are on a pogo-stick, which is itself balanced on a unicycle, on the side of a mountain.

Covered in lubricant.

During an Earthquake.

(Yet I'd still choose it over WoD any day. It actually gets to the point where balance stops mattering, and as long as your characters can deal at least 3d6 MD per attack, and have at least 4-5 attacks per round, and have a renewable source of MDC themselves, along with their own shticks, it's really a matter of "Whatever". It's so easy to feel good about having a huge number that doesn't even matter.)

[cthulhu]

Combat characters and non combat characters can literally be on entirely different toughness and damage scales at the start of the game, and are in fact not playing the same game from day 1.

tis weird.

[the_taken]

1200014196[/unixtime]]It's as balanced as a set of scales. With a duck on one side and a fridge full of gold bacon on the other. The freezer is filled with Neutronium.

The scales are on a pogo-stick, which is itself balanced on a unicycle, on the side of a mountain.

Covered in lubricant.

During an Earthquake.

So since this stuff weighs the same as the Duck, it must float in water.
Logs also float in water.
We burn logs. We also burn witches.

Since Rifts is the same as witches, we should burn it.

[Leress]

1200022893[/unixtime]]

1200014196[/unixtime]]It's as balanced as a set of scales. With a duck on one side and a fridge full of gold bacon on the other. The freezer is filled with Neutronium.

The scales are on a pogo-stick, which is itself balanced on a unicycle, on the side of a mountain.

Covered in lubricant.

During an Earthquake.

So since this stuff weighs the same as the Duck, it must float in water.
Logs also float in water.
We burn logs. We also burn witches.

Since Rifts is the same as witches, we should burn it.

Awesome Monty Python-esque logic.

[OgreBattle]

Thanks, Koumei.

Now, I don't know much about Rifts or its game balance, but that example jumped out at me and possibly caused me to shy away from it.

Here's some player character choices from the RIFTS core book:

-A homeless person
-The world's most powerful suit of power armor with the world's most powerful portable weapon
-A dragon
-An AD&D era Thief

[erik]

I don't know why you resurrected this thread for that, but c'mon if we're gonna do it, do it.

Name the PCs
Mercenary band. You do a job. You get paid. Keep flying.

Step 2: Write up a Six Person Party
1. Horned Dragon Hatchling
- Tough. Able to take a beating and tear shit up. Can fly, shapeshift for a few hours a day, breath MDC fire, fritzy teleport, major psionic powers, and if you ever get a cache of spells to learn you'll be a pimp caster as well. Your weak points are limited skills. You just have to rely on your awesome power set to get anything done.

2. Glitter Boy Pilot
- 10' tall power armor who can reduce the landscape to hair, teeth and dog shit in a jiffy. When out of power armor, you are a mostly useless schmuck below baseline for combat (light MDC armor and MDC pistol and nothing else going for you).

3. Juicer
- Lots of attacks, decent stats. Stealthy mother fucker with a starting 45% prowl in armor (because obviously you take the physical skills that boost it) you only have a 55% chance of fucking up sneaking- That's outstanding! Most everyone else has a base 25% (or worse in armor), those poor assholes. Given a decent weapon can be above baseline in a fight.

4. Rogue Scientist
- Buttloads of skills and you get pimp equipment. You can be a doctor, mechanic, pilot, computer hacker, demolitions expert all at the same damn time. You aren't even incredibly worse in a fight than the Juicer with a modest investment in combat skills since you can start with any energy rifle (particle beam!) and heavy body armor. With a literal reading of allowed equipment (ANY non-military ground vehicle) you can start with a huge fucking non-combat robot, the Behemoth Explorer, a 500 MDC monster that can accommodate 80 passengers. Welcome to your fucking mobile base of operations!

5. Technowizard
- Techie and pilot skills, medium magic and minor psychic. Some okay equipment and weaponry, nothing exciting. About baseline for combat, comes with MDC armor, MDC weapons and a hovercraft. With magic you can even do stealth stuff ignoring the loser's game of "prowl" skill.

6. Vagabond
- You have no reason to be here. You have crap equipment, crap skills and nothing to show for it. You are good for nothing. You cannot even read how bad your class is you illiterate fuck. Thankfully this joke option only takes up 1 page and half of that page is shitty art (incidentally one of K.Simbieda's best pieces) showing the Vagabond laying facedown dead with some rube standing on top of him.

Vagabond fails on the first pass. Replace with... hrmm, we're lacking in psychic characters.

6. Burster
- You can create and manipulate fire. Your damage output is weaker than pistol, but at least you can set shit on fire, but no fire eruptions allowed on living creatures. Because that would be rude. I guess. You're immune to damage from lasers/heat so you can stand there and glitter when people shoot you like a fucking vampire... aw fuck. Okay, Burster fails too. Let's try another psychic character.

6. Dog Pack
- Hrmmm, shit is this another joke option? Nay! You can do things. You can track magic and psionic users. You can track by smell too of course. You are roughly baseline in combat (MDC armor, MDC weapons, decent stat bonuses). You get one psychic power to choose from sensitive list and it is either Telepathy or Astral Projection. You capital-F Fail if you chose a different Sensitive power than one of these two for your one optional power.
If you get to pick from the random charts for dog species and random mutation you can get even nicer things.


Step 3: Write up a Three Person Party

A. "Well rounded"
Dragon
Scientist
Juicer

B. "Stand back and cover your ears"
Glitter Boy
Technowizard
Dog Pack

C. "Skills"
Dog Pack
Technowizard
Scientist

D. "Kill Team"
Dragon
Glitter Boy
Juicer

Step Four: Outline an Adventure

A Job for Bothans
Infiltrate or assault the small Coalition outpost with only 20 personnel mostly grunts, and grab the plans off their local network to the new skull fortress being built that were carelessly left here.

Team A. If you take out the stationed Psi Stalker and his pack of Dog Boys then you have decent odds of sneaking past remaining guards with the Dragon's shapechange and the Scientist for defeating security countermeasures.

Team B. It's either a frontal assault or nothing. Technowizard can do the leet hacking if the Glitterboy can kill everyone. Dog Boy can do scouting with Astral Projection because a ghost body that flies at Mach 1 is pretty hard to have anti-spying countermeasures for or psychic interrogation with Telepathy

Team C. Can't sneak in. Can't fight in. Go home sad.

Team D. Kill everyone, then fail to find the plans because nobody on Team D knows their ass from a hole in the ground other than when it comes to killing and piloting shit.

2 out of 4... oy.

Step Five: Write out a campaign
Taken
Your rag-tag mercenary outfit has been hired to rescue a wealthy man's family (he has a mighty cache of pre-rifts artifacts) that was kidnapped by Splugorth slavers.

• Tracking/fighting raiders.
• Going to Atlantis
• Getting along in Splynn and gathering info
• Rescue the slaves
• Get home
• Get paid

Step Six: Choose a Base System

Rifts, natch.

Step Seven: Do the Math[//b]

Fuck off maaaaath. This is Rifts. Combat rounds take forever. The guy with the giant gun kills everything. Skills are percentile which means you get used to failure.

[Chamomile]

I don't think you can get a freebie on Step 5 even when you're doing a setting that is actually tied directly to an existing system. Who says the RIFTS system is the best system for the RIFTS setting?

[Prak]

I think people around here kind of decided that Mutants and Masterminds, or something like it, was the best system for Rifts...