[Great Minds] First draft

[catty_big]

Ok, we’re off the ground with this one. I had an idea for a system a few days ago and wrote it up last night. Resolution is mostly through player voting based on the roleplaying. My original concept was for the characters to have a bunch of skills, which they would roll against at various points, but I now think that would be rather clunky, and would be likely to impede the flow of what is essentially a knockabout ‘nutty professor’ type game. Anyway, let me know what y’all think…




Feel free to comment either here on in .

[Anastylos]

It reminds me of Forsooth! http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/forsooth

I think the setting is a bit ... strange and not suported by the rules, you could play anything with your rules. I don't like the dice-stuff. It makes winning the game to random. The idea is not bad, but I think Forsooth did it better (sorry).
Maybe you should reward the players for putting themselfes in an akward situation (forgetting the eggs) by giving them a dice. And sstanding out would cost them a dice but if the want they can roll a dice, the higher the result the better the outcome and they do not lose it, but can not use it in this scene anymore.
For winning only the number of dices are counted.

It's just my opinion. If you like your game the way it is, don't change it.

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[Onix]

Random is a good design strategy for allowing a wide number of players to be effective. For example in board games, a five year old is just as likely to beat me at candyland as I am to beat them. It allows a unskilled player to be effective against a skilled game player (skilled at other games since there is no skill in candyland).

Games where there is no randomness are notorious for having very narrow skill bands where the game becomes unenjoyable unless the players are well matched. Otherwise one player just mops the floor with the other. Examples, Chess, Go, Stratigo

RPGs are usually a little different since they're not usually confrontational with the other players and the GM if there is one can pull whatever they want out of a hat.

I find my day to day life is anything but random as far as my efforts are concerned. The challenges I face seem random I'll give you that, but my response to them is far less so. I know when I'm in over my head. I know when I'm on solid ground. Yes, there's some chance in my efforts. I'll say to my co-workers "I give this a 30% chance of working". But that's when we're really reaching past what we know. Otherwise in most of my work, I'd better be able to handle or I shouldn't be doing it.

If I go up against my co-workers in different skills, I can predict what will happen. For example I get more done in a day than most, but I'm unskilled in some tasks that my co-workers can handle. I could try handling the work that they know, but It's safer that I let them handle it.

Okay, all that to say, I don't really feel life is random. I prefer some randomness to cover grey areas but prefer a degree of predictability.

[catty_big]

@anastylos Hope my reply didn't come across as dismissive. I welcome all opinions, and I'm grateful to you for taking the time to look at the draft and comment on it .

@Onix I hear what you're saying, but two things: first, I think there's a difference between 'unrandomness' and routine, your description of your working life coming under the latter. Let's say you always check your e-mails from 8-9 and 4-5, and you always go to the Post Office at 5.30 to drop off any parcels. That's your routine. If, say, literally every day you did all of those tasks, with no disruption or interruption, that would be unrandomness. Suppose however that, in roleplaying terms, you have a high stat in taking stuff to the Post Office, but fumble the roll. The GM might narrate that you remembered all the stuff you had to take, and you got there on time etc., but when you got there you found that the postal workers were on strike and the Post Office was closed. Let's further imagine that you had a parcel that you absolutely had to send that day, so were prepared to pay whatever it took to make sure it got in the post. In that case you would still have your routine, but you would also have randomness.

The question then becomes, does the game replicate the degree and likelihood of unexpected events buggering up your best-laid plans (in which case no problem) or does it add such a large dollop of randomness that learning the system becomes pointless? In Great Minds, by the final scene the players will have dice pools ranging from about 5-9 d6s plus one or two d4s, which means that when those dice are rolled the chances of an upset are more or less proportional to the number of dice rolled. Forget the d4s for a moment, and suppose everyone has only d6s at this point. Say Player A has 6d6s, Player B 8d6s and Player C 9d6s. The chance of getting 5s and 6s from all three pools is 33.33%, so the number of dice does matter, and the likelihood of upsets fairly minimal. Btw, this is why I usually prefer numbers of success to roll under/roll over.

So the element of randomness in Great Minds lies chiefly in the adding of the d4s, but I like this because it makes the GM's decision potentially quixotic, although, as I said upthread, I do realise this type of thing doesn't go down well with some folks, but I guess those folks probably won't play the game anyway (which would a pity IMO as I think they would nevertheless enjoy it ).

[Onix]

Understood, and that's totally up to you, I think I'd find the end game a bit frustrating though.

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[Onix]

I'd make the player's choices at least as important as the dice. It might not work with the existing set up, but maybe the players get to roll once for every time they use their "mind's" specialty. For example, Tesla using AC motors to make a vacuum cleaner and clean up after a table gets knocked over (and maybe he caused the accident by tripping Edison). And then getting rid of the hostess's pesky squirrel problem by setting up Tesla coils by the bird feeder and only grounding the pole that the feeder hangs on. I get to roll twice.

Now, I know there's an element of this built in already by you doing well in previous scenes but the division between the action and the probability is conceptually far enough away that it's difficult to correlate.

Something that would anchor the actions in the end scene with the success of your end roll.

[catty_big]

Thanks Onix, that's given me a lot of food for thought. As I said earlier, the sytem is not fixed, so some or all of your ideas might well make the final cut .

[catty_big]

Example scene:

Tesla and Fermi are in the grocery store. Fermi is engaging the hapless store clerk in a conversation about trans-uranic elements, when Tesla, who’s been examining some dodgy wiring at the back of the shop, comes over, sees Fermi talking and gesticulating and says flatly, So, did you get the eggs? Fermi rounds on him: Eggs? Eggs? What is it with you and eggs? You’re obsessed with eggs. He looks over at the GM, and asks if the shop has eggs. The GM replies Yes, there are several boxes on the counter behind you, at which Fermi whirls round, grabs the boxes, opens them, and starts randomly throwing eggs at Tesla, who after a few seconds pushes Fermi back against some shelving, which collapses onto the floor with Fermi joining it soon after. Tesla starts vainly trying to rub the egg mess from his suit and cursing Fermi, saying Damn you Enrico, I just bought this suit last week, and now you’ve ruined it.

At which point Marie Curie enters, looks at Tesla wiping his suit, and says to him I know what you need for that. Tesla looks at her, sighs heavily, holds up his hands and says No, don’t tell me… and they both say at once, Radium!