Survival Games

[J.K.Mosher]

So I'm revisiting my attempt at a "Survivial" game.

With the work I did on "the Silent Void" (both versions) I have I think a better mechanic
for doing a more story-driven game system, plus reviewing this thread has jogged some
long buried memories/ideas.

Changes I'm looking at (off the top of my head)
- going to use a variation of my coin flip mechanic
(either increase to one flip of 5 coins, or each player will have a coin to flip.)
- keeping the use of PEP, and MAP as resources pools
- will keep the use of attributes; but at lower point levels
- planning to seperate out "environments" so encounters/adventures will be more
focused and easier to build (ie Tundra, vs Tropical island, vs river jungle, vs sawmpland)
- making the focus on a PbP style of game (reaosn here is . . . it's the only way I can play games up here.)

More changes will possibly be in effect pending how much "editing" I have to do with "the Silent void" once
Onix has finished his review/proof of it . . . and seeing the amount of typos I have in this thread alone
I have a feeling he's going to have a lot of "suggestions" for me

[Rob Lang]

Erm, what's a survival game?

[ignorance hat firmly on]

[Onix]

[J.K.Mosher]

Best example I can think of is the book/movie "Alive"; then of course there are the "Open Water" movies,
and a fair number of stories by Farley Mowat . . . "Never Cry Wolf" & "Walk Well My Brother" both of which have been turned into movies. "Walk Well my brother" was filmed as "the Snow Walker" and is a really good film

But Onix has said it the main arc of the game(s) will be man/woman vs nature/the environment.

[Rob Lang]

I think I gettit! Into the Wild? Would that count?

[Onix]

I think that's JK's life story.

[J.K.Mosher]

Working on my "new-ish" ideas for this project . . .looking for some feed back on this.

Idea: Action/Conflict Resolution

- The GM will determine if the action is
"Easy, Moderate, Difficult, Improbable, or Impossible" to accomplish.
This translates into the number of dice the GM rolls for the target number. "1, 3, 5, 7, or 9"
- playing with either d4's or d6's maybe even using coins . . . not sure yet.

- The player/character will bid time, resources, and then PEP, MAP or SIP. (I'll explain these terms later.)
- The bid of PEP, MAP or SIP turns into the number of dice the player rolls.
- the bid of time is added to the total of the dice rolled (ie if 3 hours is bid, add 3 to the dice total)
- using resources/items/tools gives a flate rate bonus (+1 or +2) to the roll total.

- The GM's roll is then subtracted from the player's roll. This difference gives the "degree of success",
so the closer the player's roll is to the GM's roll the better the success.

I know this is a rough outline . . . just wondering how everyone feels about having the GM roll
random target numbers based on difficulty.

This is stumping me from moving forward with redesigning the game.
Thanks for any input

[Onix]

Well, first off, I really like the time investment idea.

As far as the GM rolling for the difficulty, I run into two problems with that. The Artifact does something similar with contested rolls (PC vs NPC) and has degrees of success. It works fine most of the time but occasionally it can be frustrating (I think we have this fixed in 3rd ed) when the player rolls very well, the player is expecting a victory and then the GM rolls the same or better. So it does help that the GM rolls for the difficulty first if it's revealed to players because the player can gauge the task before going into it. If the difficulty is too high it will likely lead to players giving up on that task even if it is possible (just unlikely) for them to pass. This can be really frustrating at times because they can get a defeatist attitude and not really make much progress.

These issues don't break the system, they can reduce player enjoyment though.

[J.K.Mosher]

Starting to make som progress. . . mostly due to cutting down the scope
of what I was planning. I'm going to focus on an environment I know fairly well,
in addition to pairing down the creation rules, and making everything a little more
applicable to Play-by-Post style.

I'm going to keep the bidding of resources, and the GM roll for difficulty.

Basically I'm taking the premise/design from "the Silent Void" and expanding on it.

If it works, it should be easily "modable" to other environments. Fingers crossed.

[J.K.Mosher]

START Update (for anyone who is interested.)

I am still working on the idea of a survival game. Currently I am trying to get the conflict/action resolution
system down to bedrock so I can work with it as a solid foundation. I am looking at using the mechanic from
my other survival type game "the Silent Void" but as play-testing always shows there are some gaps
I need to address in the original system before branching out.

Current Plans are to refine the mechanic via "the Silent void" until I feel it is solid enough to hold
up to being the foundation for a second game. I am also looking at just finishing the core mechanic
and then branching it out to various environments, like "the Silent void" which is space. Once the core
is done (again pulling it from "the Silent Void") I will endeavor to generate a couple of extra environment focused
games/settings, current idea in my head is one set in the environment I am most familiar with, which
is the Arctic . . . working title "the Barren Cold"

So it is still in the works . . . just a little slower at production then I had originally hoped

END Update.