Dungeonworld Character Creation Update

When you realise that you've being doing it wrong...

In case you haven't been reading, a quick summary. Dungeonworld, Original, 1994tm, was and is always about player choice. a set of choices for your lifestyle, your background, your career, your path to adventurous glory.

But recently I was reading how GMs and Games designers, typically, put their own psychology, their own views and theories into their games. If a GM has a particular hatred of combat, then they don't include much combat in their games. If a Games designer wants to portray the message to their players that Socialism is bad, then they may make the Orcs socialists.

Well, I may not be trying to say one or the other, oh, while I do have a fear that roleplay games are moving towards a less 'conflict' oriented style of play, as society becomes less accepting of such, and I think its dangerous to stamp out history by making our fantasy RPGs more modern, I hope that I won't be trying to influence players to be more violent in reaction to that.. 

No, instead what I realized is that I give players choice, almost too much choice, because I feel that my own life lacks choice. I'm no unique butterfly, but I do think I'm a dash of an outlier when it comes to life. I prefer not to watch TV, news, sport, facebook, social media and I like control, fine grained, pixel perfect control. So as a player, I want a system that gives me as much control as I can have.

Rolemaster: Critical charts for Broadswords..
Yes, each weapon has its own crit chart!

Yet other people, when presented with that level of control, are overwhelmed. Its too much control! choices? what? more choices? argh!, can't you just, like, give me a list or something? MATH?! Argh.. 

I have equated my full rules system to Rolemaster and GURPS when it comes to character creation.. though I have shaved a few hours off, lol. 

But it hit me recently.. My upbringing was about choice.. I was given a lot of choice, my grandparents encouraged me to try different things and I wasn't expected to 'go get a job' at 17, I was given ample opportunity to make my own choice.

Yet in a medieval environment, we're pretty sure that people would not have much in the way of choice. The rarity of disposable income, university grants, unemployment or student benefits, meant that the bulk of society had to get a job, and that often start at the age of 10-12 with apprenticeships.

Well, I didn't always used to be an Elven Wardancer.. I started out as a shoemaker.. No not that Elf.. Grrr

So, being a medieval fantasy game, it hit me.. just like their characters would have had no choice in their apprenticeships, players should have none either.

Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not taking away players agency or choice, If a player wants to sift through the rules and pick out their first career, their GM has the right to allow them.. I'm just suggesting that they gain the advantage of making it part of their backstory.

Imagine instead of being overwhelmed with lists, choices, bonuses, which one to add first, should I go A or B, which one will lead me to a more effective profession, what will give me more bonuses to my sword skills.. instead, the GM rolls on a chart, based on A) his world, B) what my higher stats would have had my folks deciding on a good career for me and C) what they could afford. This gives me a set of background skills that may or may not have helped in my future adventuring career.. but what it does do, is create some plot, some hooks, some aspect of who I was before I became a great warrior .. 

Its one of the things I loved about Warhammer, but forgot about, the 'building a backstory' from what I got as a starting career. My favourite character started as a physicians apprentice, and while I made some progress, I never ended up completing it, let alone going on to physician, and when I became a mage, I purposely chose not to take spells to do with healing and surgery, because it reminded me of the career I gave up. Now, if I hadn't had a 'rolled' background.. I'd likely have just chosen wizards apprentice from the beginning, and I would missed out on that whole aspect of story & plot.

Also career paths, lead players to try things out that, probably, unless they're deep in LORE, they're not going to even think of.. 

I mean how many of you would have though to play as a mo-hawked suicide axe-wielding Dwarf.. if it weren't for the "Giant Slayer".

Also, it saves a heck of a lot of space in the character creation pages.. which means a decrease in the costs to produce the books..

so WIN WIN!

expect to see the updates to the appropriate google docs over the coming weeks.

to XP or not to XP, are new DMs so Lazy?

A point raised recently suggested that Roleplay games should not have Experience Points, and my response was, If a GM can't be assed to count up what happened that session and award XP, he's Lazy and if Players feel that they need to grind, kill or overly play-act to get levels, then something is wrong with the Game/DM

To XP or Not to XP, are new DMs so Bad/Lazy?

The Argument was, that by awarding XP to players, you create a bunch of problems that breaks the game flow. Some arguments against XP are

• Awarding XP is too much accounting and record keeping.
• XP systems force players to grind, or to 'clear each room' for the XP
• Adventures have to be 'XP balanced' to ensure a good play experience, which ruins the plot
• Organised Play / Society games have to have a fair system, XP breaks this
• It Motivates plays in a bad way, its bad for their psychology

And Some Arguments for Non XP systems are

• The GM can just skip XP requirements to ensure players are matched to each other
• It allows you to choose how to 'level your campaign'
• Players are motivated, not by murder, but by play

Now, Ok, maybe I'm a little OSD&D in my style, but after reading so many articles about how many people are so bad at actually playing and or DMing.. I'm not surprised that people want to trash the XP system.

What is XP?

The reality of Experience Points, is a mathematical representation of the cumulative knowledge and confidence of a player to perform actions to a certain degree of knowledge. a 10th level character is defined by his 10 levels of skills and abilities, based on his experience in using those skills and abilities, but also his confidence in doing so.

So, first up, the Arguments against XP are based on incorrect assumptions of XP in the first place. Awarding XP because the player played well, or from gold gained, or because the GM says its a good idea or is impressed by a cool Simpsons quote, is of course going to put a bad spin on what XP is, so the DM & players are going to be asking themselves.. why am I getting these? and causes motivational issues,

"Quick, Run for your lives, there is a 19th level hero coming, and he only needs 5 more XP!!!"

Against XP

Accounting

Lets Look at the Points above, Firstly, If you can't do the math, don't be a DM. Your players may not like doing numbers, but certainly OSDMs used to be good with math, in their head, why do you think role-master even exists.. because we could think numbers as fast as we spoke. 

Me? I have the players do a "talk around the fire" after every session, they remember all the events that happened in the adventure, I write them up on white board, or a sheet of paper, and jot the XP for each of those things next to it.. they aren't writing down numbers or making calculations, they are remembering what cool stuff they just did, reinforcing in their characters minds, how cool they are, how confident they are in their skills and how they'd feel about doing those things again in the future..

"So guys, we've just cleared the dungeon, we took out that team of skeletons, dowsed the mummy in oil and lit him up, evaded that rock fall trap
- and we didn't all die,
- Haha, yes, that's right, and we got through those zombie snakes and claimed the treasure from the inverted pyramid trap. yeah, I think we did pretty good.. did I miss anything?"

what an EXPERIENCE they just had!

Grinding & Clearing

If your players are OCD like me, they 'need' to clear each room, not for the XP or the Gold, no, for the feeling that its now "rightened". Heck I am used to taking all the bodies outside and burying them, or burning them in pyres, ensuring the dungeon is cleared..

I think this comes down to what kind of play is happening here, are any of your players good? or lawful? why would slaying all the creatures, just because [XP], even come into this? If the Neutral players are saying things like, Hey, I need to get more practice in, and fighting some monsters is gonna make me feel better as a fighter.. sure.. that makes sense, go ahead, but the DM/GMs role is sometimes to remind players how to stick to their players 'character'.

Possibly its about how XP is awarded. If your still awarding XP for kills, gold and GM brown-nosing then of course grinding will result, That's Bad XP, (see below). The Only problem I can see is more about the balance issue, in the next heading.
Me? If players figure out a way to 'bypass' a room, using clever tactics, if they manage to escape across a bridge and cut in in time, leaving 50 Orcs on the other side, if they cast sleep, and lock the door, on 3-4 guards.. they have "defeated" those creatures and get XP accordingly

"remember that time we trapped those 4 Basilisks in the mirrored room? they were trying to find the hidden door with their eyes closed, wow that was awesome, how cool are we that we defeated 4 Basilisks so cleverly" 

Balance Adventures & Balanced Heroes

This has been a hobgoblin for me, almost a bugbear when ever I hear DMs talking about 'scaling an adventure'. I don't for a second think that the real world scales any difficulty for me when I endevour to find my way across a new area of town, or go to a job interview or study for an exam, and I as sure as hell-fire won't do the same for my world, maybe because I have 8 GMs all running their games in a live environment, so 'scaling' would kill off all realism, but that's a whole different kettle of fish.

I get that most games are being run as 'a couple of friends, getting together to play a different kind of board game. Board games are designed to start everyone equally, and give them a fair chance at some competitive environment to see who is better, or have balanced skills to ensure each person gets a fair turn.

But this is roleplay, not supposed to be a board game. If one of your team hasn't yet got the skills to defeat the creature that's coming up, then the team work together to figure out a way to be a team, how to balance their skills to defeat the creature. The Subliminal point of the game is to figure out how to work better in groups, not force the game to do half your job.

Me? One thing I make clear for new players (either to RP or my system) is that group co-operation is tantamount to winning, information is worth as much as a magical weapon, and negative play will result in dead characters. If the group is not ready for Night on Bald Mountain, then maybe they should travel to The Forest of Doom, Or Hire some NPCs to join the party to boost up their total CR.

"Guys, Guys, come look, this old map points out that there are two Tarrasques in the first temple, and an Allips haunting the second, Maybe we need to hire a Cleric for this one?" 

Bad Motivation from Bad XP

This is mostly what the problem really is. If I play a game where my reward system is purely for killing, then the only thing I should be doing is killing. Most board games [descent] require you to kill the creatures so they don't kill you, so you claim the treasure to win the game. So anything other than attacking and killing the creature is going to end badly.

Roleplay should award XP for all varieties of 'defeating' the monster. In the Original D&D, Arneson pointed out that the XP system was supposed to be class dependent. You gained XP for killing monsters if you were a fighter, for a wizard, you needed to cast spells, for a Cleric most likely healing and rebuking. If your DM doesn't award you XP for talking down an Orc, and getting him to go home and see his mother, as a means to get to the next room, then quit that game and go find a GM, better yet a ProGM.

Me? Well my system already includes this style in the rules, You don't get wizard XP if you don't wizard, A Bard pacifist, doesn't get XP for attacking an Orc with a blade, if anything, he'd be so disgusted with the fact, he'd lose confidence in himself as a pacifist and would lose XP. I do award XP for gold gained, because its not so common a metal to be all over the place, and getting it gives players (a false) sense of confidence, Rogues get double XP for gold, because that's what a Rogue is about.

"Yes, Greedo. I was just going to see your boss. Tell Jabba I've got his money."

Against Non XP systems

Matching the Players to the Game

Well, as I read somewhere quoted below, Why bother with levels then? 

I've played games in D&D where we wrote out a new character sheet for each 'level', so that we could play any published adventure with our 'characters' the matched the level of the campaign, we effectively scratched the whole system of XP and levelling, and treated it all like a big TV series, with flash back sequences to 'previous adventures', I've played level less systems, which gave you bonuses to stats instead [WHFRP+house rules] which worked far better in some ways, but made it nigh on impossible for the GM to figure out how to balance his encounters (which lead to the feeling that it didn't matter, knowledge did)

Besides the points made above about group dynamics and working with what you've got, rather than forcing the game to become, just a game, The problem here is that, if you take away the scaling, and match the game to the players, then your creating the most pointless grind machine ever.

If I have 3 heroes at 2nd level, enter a dungeon with 3x 2nd level goblins, then a room with 2x 2nd level skeletons and the next with 6 x 1st level bats.

How is that any different from

I have 3 heroes at 5th level, enter a Tower with 3x 5th level bugbears, then a room with 2x 5th level Wights and the next with 6 x 2nd level Giant Rats.

Or

I have 3 heroes at 20th level, enter a dungeon with 3x 20th level Demons, then a room with 2x 20th level Liches and the next with 6 x 10th level Vampires.

Then its just a numbers game.

We defeat the first quest, and gain a level, then later we defeat the next quest and gain a level, etc etc etc.. have you been playing WOW too much?

How can you possibly balance anything anyway?

    Lets say I have a character in a game, and we've played for 3 campaigns, gained 3 levels, its a no XP system we've defeated just over 100 approx level equivalent monsters in various ways per campaign, but then our GM moved states, so we had to find a new group. but they live further away and only two of our group can come play at the new location.

    So we meet up, introduce ourselves and our characters, and join their existing game, they have 2 level 4 characters and 1 level 2 character (the previous guy died), so now we have 5 players, this new DM thinks that because there are more heroes he can throw more at us, the first campaign has over 300 level equivalent monsters, doubling our effective understanding of our skills and abilities.. and we gain 1 level!? This DM has his own set of 'rules' on how leveling up works.. 

In an XP based game, this wouldn't happen. creatures have set XP, quests have a fairly robust set of rules on how to set XP for various traps, encounters, figuring out stuff, so the 100 creatures + quest resolution = level would balance enough out, that the 300+quest would surely give the group 2-3 levels.

Home brew rules are all well and good, but when you change certain core rules, you break the ability to continue anything with anyone else.. all new groups would need all new heroes, which for many of you, I think is actually happening, and that's sad. [don't you love your heroes anymore?]

What about Player Differences?

Not everyone is equal, 'equalling play' causes as many de-motivators for players as overly punishing players. If I don't need to worry about full participation to get my level up, why should I pull my weight? Maybe I'll just play as the cleric and hang back for the first 10 levels, healing the party between adventures but not actually endangering my life, until I have enough of the cool things to do some real damage?

What about Absent players? If a player is unable to attend a few sessions, because they're lazy or indifferent, they won't worry about attendance, because they'll get a level every X sessions anyway.. maybe just turning up to the Xth session to just level up

What if I decide that, after the death of my character, I should begin again at 1st, and will watch and learn from my peers, under the guidance and tutelage of these great and mighty heroes, I will surely learn faster to be a great hero like them one day.. Under an XP system, Its pretty obvious that I'll catch up 75% of the groups level after 75% of the time, but other than a (probably poorly designed) house rule, how can a 'every 3 sessions gain a level' system even understand that kind of scenario.

Last Few Points

Absent Players and XP

If a Player is not at the table, but the character is, Its fair to say that the character is not feeling 'like himself' or 'he's out of sorts' and as a result, would not be concentrating on whats going on properly, so he's not 'experiencing' events as much as his friends are and would not/should not get full XP. some GMs might harshly give 0%, while others might give half, my research into the human mind suggests that distracted students learn only 20% of their lessons, so in turn, I give only 20% of events experience to characters, whose players are not in attendance.

Roleplay and XP

If a player is demonstrating some kind of 'experience' as a result of their role-playing, i.e. they point out that their character is obeying their thirst, and must drink from the suspicious fountain, because they have no water in their water-skin, might make sense that they would 'experience' what its like to give in to their needs in times of peril. On the other hand, play-acting their characters voice, movements or other things, might help the roleplay experience, the character has no relevant 'experience' happening.. besides the fun of doing so, players should be rewarded out of game by words of encouragement or other meta elements, giving XP in game from out of game events, is akin to Pay To Win style games, The meta event should not change the game.

References:

While searching for other arguments in this topic I found these threads to be (un)helpful.

http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/20007/systems-giving-xp-based-on-roleplay-how-to-avoid-jealousy-party-balance-proble

http://www.geekspeaker.com/?p=537

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?260861-Roleplaying-XP

http://games-blog.pairodicegames.com/gaming-news/stunt-dice-role-playing-xp-rewards-and-how-not-to-be-a-jerk-while-game-mastering

http://geek-related.com/2014/02/02/the-time-for-experience-points-has-come-and-gone/

Pictures from:

http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/59120123.jpg

http://www.everyjoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/xpposter.jpg

https://primitivescrewheads.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/experience-points.jpg

http://gamingtonic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/+rpg_think_of_the_experience_points_teddy_bear40672854.jpg

http://cdn.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/3-2-1-ding-you-survived-another-year-happy-level-up-day-to-reach-next-level-you-will-need-additional-365-experience-points-keep-up-the-good-work-f239e.png

http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/59120123.jpg

The Original Stats: Warrior

For the Longest Time, The DW stats were just the same as Dragon Warrior Stats, with the addition of Ranged Attack...

But we had some problems..

Dragon Warriors Stats are: Attack, defence, Evasion, Stealth, Perception, Magical Attack, Magical Defence.

But how do you compare a Monks attack skill to a knights defence? Monks use Hand fighting.. so.. a knight has a defence modifier? or Monk has attack modifier?

Again I was kitting this wall of 'modifiers' Sure sure, it makes your charactersheet look cleaner to have one stat, then your GM has a table of modifiers to play with.. but either I was too lazy or my players wanted to have more information, we decided that this wasn't good enough..

So we had to have Melee Attack, Melee Defence, Weapon Attack and Weapon Defence.. which was sorta cool..

Then there were some great skills in Warhammer.. Strike Mighty blow, Strike to Stun, Strike to Injure. Some of the other game system had more skills of combat.. always there was a modifier.. -7, -5, -6.. when looking at what they did.. it seemed that they were just the same values, just different to what they actually did.. so why have 3 skills.. 5 skills.. 100 skills.. so we spoke to some Combat Simulations Experts, and for the most part what we got was, a strike, no matter what type.. was a kind of moment when you felt that your opponent had left themselves open, and you took advantage of that to get in a decent blow.. be it harder, faster, or to incapacitate.

So, this Damaging strike.. it was really a kind of regular skill, which in many systems were just Statistics..

Thats really what a Stat is.. its a skill thats used so regularly, by so many classes that you need its value on the front page. So thats where we put it..

Of course, the names needed a change.. Melee, Weapon Skill, Damage Strike, Block, Parry .. but sometimes you just need to get out of the way.. so.. Dodge.

Warrior Stats Down.. what next  Archer..

Health, Bruises, Bleeding and Tracking

Ever forgot to rub out the arrow box when you shoot off arrows? or had arguments with your GM about provisions or potions that you had or had not drunk?

I'm sure its staple roleplay, there are many small aspects of the game that you might forget.. If its in your favour, you turn a blind eye, but against you, well I've seen entire tables rage against the DM about whether a potion was drunk or not..

So Imagine a system, where you tick off XP bonuses for each and every stat.. I tried tick boxes, rising numbered boxes.. mathematical equations, all sorts of things.. the biggest problem was tracking.. and worse still for health..

We had introduced a kind of non-lethal damage, called Body Ready.. not sure where I got the name now.. but you had a set of boxes.. and to nominate if the physical damage you just took was light, you ticked the box.. you could 'take a breather' in combat and get back d4+ con bonus BR.. if you didn't each tick cost you a -1 to all skills & stats (out of breath) and if it was medium, you crossed the tick, you needed a full round of breathing to stop that one.. but was still only a -1  and the final heavy, circle that crossed tick.. this one need a nights rest (or at least an hour per circle)

Health was another matter, When you got cut, you got health damage and bleed damage (per 5 pts of health = 1 bleed), you needed to stauch the wound to stop it.. else you'd lose that much bleed as health per round.

Then we also had a problem, If I smacked you over the head.. how could I knock you out? most systems had a rule about, if you're at 0 HP, you're unconcious... but as often as not, you were also bleeding to death too.. we had to lower death down to -15 to be able to counter that.. but what if you were poisoned, ok so now poisons had to have more damage to match the sword + bleed numbers.. ok so what about if you fall off a cliff? slam into the ground, maybe you break your legs.. do you pass out? walk away?

Health has always had a problem in Roleplay Games, its dumbed down to make it a game.. there we are again, referring to it as a game.. well I'm sorry, but by this stage this was no longer a game, this was a way of representing reality within a game system.. its called gamification..

Yes, some of my players riled against this attitude that I had (I've changed a bit since.. but I used to be very sheldon about it)

I was slowly developing something that was no longer a roleplay game, I was trying to understand how we represent ourselves as a set of statistics... why? because that has to be the basis to things.. a solid foundation, before making things playable.. and I think its become one of the reasons why alot of players actually like my game, because they can see themselves doing things, rather than a list of actions in a choice menu.

But I digress (I'll write more about this later) At this stage of development, we had Health, Body Ready, Knockout and Death.. you could get values of up to 100 Health as a moderate 7th level character.. but to get to 120, took an extraordinary ammount of bonuses, skills and game events.. 20th level characters might get 125... but We forgot healing..

The first iteration of the game, was WHFRP, health was out of 10, starting around 3... Dragon Warriors has something similar.. starting around 8 and sometimes getting to 25.. both systems had a fairly even idea that you'd wait a few days to get back 1 point, then 1 point per day after that.. seemed ok..

.. but after we added in bleeding, we needed to multiple everyones health by 5, (so that 1-3 points of bleeding per round, was less problematic), which meant all weapons x5, ok, so that made healing easier.. you started healing 1 point on day 1, and rose by 1 per day.. by 10 days, if you were still damaged, you healed by 10 that night..

Damage dice for weapons was now broken, poisons and spells broken.. everything was broken from this bleeding rule. So we scrapped it. I had to think of something new, something that worked.. infact the whole Body ready system was flawed, but for the longest time, I had no other solution..

But we did add all the Rolemaster Criticals in.. that made things fun. 

[DWDev]Statistics, Part 1

6 months of roleplay, moving out of home, meeting new friends, getting a job as a telemarketer, and gaming into the wee hours of the night.. seems like such a blur..

I really got down to business in the next 6 months, we had a regular group every Sunday, I was writing up professions.. gawd I can still remember the order: Knights Crusader, Knight, Hunter, Forest Assassin, Thief, Magician, Sorcerer, Priest, Templar, Thaumaturge and Commoner.. (ok, so maybe I missed a few)

To make things simpler, I didn't want to bog myself down with all the Warhammer professions.. It seemed that I re-wrote the character-sheets monthly, and with them some rules, which meant that I managed to have around 20 versions of Knights Crusader, before I gave up and decided to get something done about it..

You see we had the period of time when the players were sick of me adding or tweaking rules.. they just wanted to play.. so I'd stick to a set of rules, but at the same time, would be making the next set for the next campaign.. at the table, I'd often get confused between the two.. Should a Knights crusader actually start with a horse & barding? one player started as a KC and sold off the horse, to buy some nicer magical gear, forgoing the crusade, because that was 'who he was' but in reality, he abused the rules to get a better start..

This is the inherit problem with players, treating the game as a game.. they don't take it seriously. Many RPGs create their rules to balance out this problem, which creates their own problem.

Imagine a world in which the wizards never managed to develop spells above 4th level.. why would a player play as a mage.. maybe it'd be ok for the first few years.. and possibly there would be some way they could use their 5th slot to develop a new spell, or they'd be stuck just casting the 4th as a 5th with a +1.. most would probably multi-class.. I don't remember, would a rolemaster wizard be better off?

Imagine an Island, where the largest creature is a squirrel or flying fox or a shark.. The Druid can transform into any animal he knows.. sharks only ok if he's near the water.. but everything else? becomes useless...

Image roleplaying in 200BC Rome, No Iron, No Steel, No Longbow, No Crossbow, but the Druid can become an Owlbear, Wizards cast Lightning and Fireball, Clerics can bring back the dead.. but the warrior.. reduced to semi-magical versions of short swords of Bronze..

Sure, I'm not being realistic(!) but that's the point, No given class is supposed to be 'equal' to another.. you play it because it suits you, or your temperament, or you'd interested to go outside the box, If we played it like a board game, we'd pick a character and level suited to the adventure and go from there.. sheesh..

So there I was.. stuck in this quagmire of players who wanted to stay stuck.. and I just wanted to make things right, or better.. We broke up the gang.

Now, sure, some of them were roleplaying other games, and some weren't, some had gotten jobs and lives, no-one had Girlfriends so that wasn't it, so I can understand that the frustration of not knowing the rules had gotten too much.. people wanted stability.. and I was a leaky boat of a GM.. 

Characteristics

Having come from a Dragon Warriors Background, I found that Warhammers lack of Value for simple things like Reflexes or Psychic Talent or How good Looking you were, seemed to be Problematic. Game Systems with a base Characteristic such as Strength were the fall back for things like, a character using their strength, with no extra skills to perform a task..

Sure WHFRP has Strength, but how to compare to Reflexes? Dexterity? Charisma? they didn't.. You could multiply it by 10, but we'd already begun to introduce modifiers,

Also, since we had this XP per stat system, you had to divide any strength XP by 10, and lose out on a few points.. it didn't gel, it wasn't clean. something I can't stand is game systems which have too many clauses or cases (When I was teaching English this too became a pet peeve)

So I had to go back and look at these values. What was Strength, easy.. What was Reflexes vs Dexterity.. well most references to Dexterity was Hand Eye co-ordination, while Reflexes was more about speed and dodge.. D&D had both Intelligence AND Wisdom and Charisma was considered how good looking you were, everyone knew in real life that less attractive people are more likely to be nicer.. so it seemed wrong to lump them together. Psychic Talent from Dragon Warriors didn;t seem to appear in many systems, but Gurps had Willpower too, which made sense, and many times I saw rules for courage, but it was not considered something people had, it was a skill (like you had it or not.. more on skills later again...) or it was a check against wisdom and Rank or Level.. it was all very messy.. but the names made sense to us at the time as a basic fall back..

These are things that people have, regardless of race, religion, class, creed, training or development. A child even at the age of 1 has these things.. infact that seemed to be where we were heading.. looking at a basic being from the point of view.. what does a child have that is there from the beginning.. genetically so to speak. So we had our basic stats:

Strength, Courage, Constitution, Reflexes, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Psychic, Willpower, Charisma and Looks.. years later I reverted a 'hit system' of luck, instead, to the final of 12 Characteristics.

By Mid Year of '96 we'd accomplished a new charactersheet, new basic characteristics, but we still had alot of leftover. Weapon skill, Ballistic Skill, Leadership, etc.. plus some of the new elements of Dragon Warriors.. Defence, Magical Attack and Magical Defence, Stealth and Perception..They were all there.. all messily bunched together.

Getting Complex ... adding Warhammer

By About Late '95 I had a system, broken, flawed, but a system none the less..

Because of the many changes, I'm likely to explain bits and pieces and why they worked or failed, but I'd like to think that we pretty much started with a working but flawed system, then broke parts and healed them properly...

The first underlying premise was that level ups had to match. Working from a Warhammer base, I assigned boxes to each of the stat set, for experience. You could not get a stat bonus, unless you had 100 XP in that stat. Fellowship XP happened from roleplaying your character, Toughness XP from resisting and taking damage. This really suited things well, Mages were no longer getting combat bonuses, unless they were IN combat, Warriors did not get Leadership bonuses, unless the group agreed, they had performed well as a leader that session. 

But Warhammer has many small problems of its own. Firstly its built on a battle board game, combat relies on your own Weapon skill, and nothing to do with your opponents. too often we'd have problems where a monster of fairly decent skill was constantly being hit, sure his toughness reduced the damage, but since it was touch poison attacks, only 1 Wound was needed, you couldn't really have a character whose ability to duck and weave, dance around the opponent, worked well.

But things that did work well, was the concept of Attacks, the concept of Real life jobs and skills and training, and your starting equipment. and Magic?, well, I'll come to that later.

We ran around 6 months of this adjusted WHFRP.

Around that time, my Club, Dungeonworld, was coming to an end, I had failed to advertise for more members, I could not handle the numbers I had, and many of them started to grow up, they viewed the club as something relating to their teenage years. Some of them had to be asked to leave for theft, and their friends of course went with them,, it was a sad time.

I gathered the more serious players, and we started roleplaying at my place. Most of us were young adults by then, so it was less of a concern that we were no longer a club, and more of a gaming group. It was around then that I sold the first "edition" of the rules, trademarked my game and decided that this was something I was going to do with my life.. even if I had no idea how.

Simplicity, Complexity and Tracking NPCs

All games have to start somewhere, and I, even as a naive 19yr old knew that I would not be able to begin with nothing.

So, over the next few years, I played (and researched) in this order: Dragon Warriors, Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Rolemaster, Gurps (fantasy), Traveller, Vampire(VtM) and Shadowrun. I then borrowed and read the base rule set for several other games, including some niche games, such as Tank Girl & DragonballZ.

By 19, I was 4 game systems into this list. I came to Warhammer via HeroQuest & AdvHeroQuest, which we a very clever marketing system for Citadel.

So I had these basic ideas: The game system needs to be rules lite in the basic design, so players can quickly make choices. Attack vs Cast spell vs Heal vs Run away, but I roleplay needed more choices too, rather than 'roll charisma'

How many times has it happened: I try to seduce the girl, roll: 20! crit, she succumbs to your charms and you bed her that night.. if only it were that easy, you'd just go into a club, say 1 line to 20-30 girls, eventually you get a crit20 and you 'win' (or in the new systems, take 20) 


The game system needs to have more reality to it. 

Not in the sense of story, play or otherwise, but the underlying maths need to be mathematical, the structure of the rules need to make sense, so that any human being can make choices in the world, which are logical, predictable and would react the same way in real life & game play. This gives players a nice sense of 'grounding' to work from.

Not having that grounding has always caused ire in games, both from my own experience, and told to me at numerous conventions. 

I had a game where I was playing a Vampire, who could speed up to perform multiple actions. I kicked a cup at my enemy, expecting it to fly across the room at heightened speed (or shatter and the peices fly across the room) but as soon as it had left the tip of my foot, it slowed down to normal speed.. the roleplay was broken by the rules (yes I know GMs should, but often side with rule books until they get more experience) an argument ensured, and the entire nights RP was soured by the lack of trust I had with the world.

So I needed a system that would follow the laws of physics from the start, THEN we could bend the rules for magic etc.

Lastly, I wanted my game world to be both dynamic and static. I can not tell you how many times I felt that the GM was pandering the players, to the point of frustration. (I have also fallen into the GMtrap, players conciously or subconciously become stupid if you let them get away with it, it also spoils the game). Usually this was because the GM had picked a campaign that was too high for the players, or too low, and had to scale it. Sure, a well written campaign can be 'scaled' but as often as not, the scaling causes things to be too easy, lulling the players into false securities, or too hard, causing them TPK more often than not (Why do players decide to keep going, when they probably know they're going to die?)

Probably because I was running a club, where each week I might have a whole new set of players, repeatedly starting campaigns, never finishing the storyline. I began to structure the game in sessions: If you got out by the end of the session, you lived for another day. If you failed, rock falls TPK. Players would look at the clock, and begin thinking about how to get out (one exception. If ALL players turned up the next week, we'd do a 'to be continued' ending)
But this created a sequence of events, in which a group of adventurers would come into the first room of a dungeon, clean it out, loot the room, then realise they were too damaged to continue, and go back to town to regroup, resupply and think it over. The following week, a new group, some of the same players, some new, would return to the dungeon, the older players would explain to the new what happened, and what they intended on next. Sometimes new players would provide new skills and find hidden treasures, or work out a puzzle to help the older team get through without harm (yes, sometimes old players would quickly make up a character relevant to the quest,just for that session,  so they COULD figure out the puzzle).

" Sir Baldwin, Hector and the Bard Zafrodi realise that their quest has come to a premature end. The Puzzle on the door is far too archaic to understand, they return to the city of Malthue and seek out a wizard. Hector, having some duties with his lord, agrees to meet them in a weeks time, leaving Baldwin and Zaf to find a suitable candidate. Along comes Hwentil the Shaman & Mystic, who mysteriously knows the Archaic Language of Hui'k Lui'k and together they figure out the door puzzle, and dispatch the undead they lie in wait behind the locking mechanism"

This meant that the world lived on between adventures.. that between the sessions, people were getting on with their medieval lives, and that was when I began to track these NPC lives, their politics and the world at large.