Category Archives: Game Design

Designing Out Loud – Void Jumping

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

This post is running a little behind as I’ve been swamped with end of semester projects. One down, two to go.  Next week’s post might get impacted as well.

My last two articles (one, two), part of the November RPG blog carnival, talked about the unexpected in Void Jump travel. In this article I want to discuss some more details about Void travel in my game and the mechanics that will be used.  Or at least what I am considering for a first pass.

Some Constraints

Gravity Wells

In my universe, Void travel cannot start or stop anywhere.  If you are too close to a large mass, the gravitational field of that object prevents void jumping.  This was somewhat inspired by Larry Niven’s hyperspace.  I liked the idea of having to worry about the large masses that you are traveling by.  Unlike Niven’s hyperspace, getting too close doesn’t cause anything bad to happen, it just bounces you back into real space or prevents you from initiating a Void jump at all. Of course if the object is close, directly ahead, and you’re moving fast, things could get scary.

This has a couple of implications for FTL travel.  First, you have to get away from everything.  I have an exact forumulation for it but for a solar sized star, you need to get about 4 AU away from the star before you can jump.  Starting at a planet about 1 AU away, it takes abut 84 hours of acceleration at 1g to get out that far.  This means that at a minimum, if everything is aligned properly and everything works, a single insterstellar jump will take about seven days (assuming a 24 hour day).

Next, it means you only have to be accurate in your direction vector enough to hit that sphere around your target star where Void travel doesn’t work.  As long as you’re lined up well enough, you’ll drop out of the Void when you hit that gravity well.  This places an upper limit on how accurate you need to be.  Now, the question is, can you get out of the Void on your own or do you have to hit one of these gravity wells to come out of the Void?  I’m leaning toward the following combination.  You can get out on your own, but it’s much harder than being pulled out naturally by hitting a gravity well.  In this scenario, you want to try to hit the target gravity well when you can.

This also means that locations close to the mass source (star or large planet) are “shielded” by the “no jump zone”.  Any arriving ship or fleet has to arrive outside that zone so there will be advanced warning before they get to their destination (at least if anyone is looking).

Everything is Moving

Another constraint is that nothing is ever in the same place twice.  Planets orbit their stars which are orbiting the galactic center and moving relative to each other.  This means that no two jumps are ever exactly the same.  A jump from one planet to another, repeated just a few weeks later, means that both the start point and the destination as moved.  It won’t be by much, but if you remember from my last article, even a little bit of error can result in a huge wrong location.

So every jump needs its direction vector recalculated before you can start.  The good news is that this actually isn’t a very hard calculation.  Or rather it is a hard calculation but a good computer can do it relatively quickly.  There is a lot of data that goes into it but for game purposes, I’ve decided that the calculation can be done in under an hour.  All you need is your start time, your start location, and a good astronomical database that has the information about your departure and destination system.  However …

Getting Lined Up is Hard

Figuring out where you need to go is easy,  determining if you are actually going there is another story.  The problem is the same as the one above, everything is moving.  There is not really an absolute reference frame.  The problem is that you don’t just need to know your position relative to the star your leaving but relative to all the stars in the sector.  And it’s not really the position that matters but rather your velocity vector.  How are you moving relative to all of these objects? And how do you determine this direction down to arcsecond (or sub arcsecond) accuracy?

This can be overcome by the fact that you are moving quite a bit to get out of the gravity well.  As you move along your path, nearby stars will appear to move relative to more distant ones.  This is called parallax.  By measuring how much each of the stars move, and which direction they move, you can determine your vector in space relative to your departure and destination star.

There are some things to remember when trying to measure parallax.  First, you have to move quite a ways to measure any shift at all in stars; they are really far away.  Second, when you first start out, you’re not moving very fast so you don’t move very much between measurements.  This means that the more accurate of a measurement you need, the longer it is going to take as you need to have larger and larger baselines to measure small parallax angles.  You get these longer baselines by waiting longer and by accelerating so you’re moving faster and covering these distances faster.

What is the Jump Process?

Given all of this, what does a typical Void jump look like in game.

First, the astrogator computes the jump vector.  For this he needs to know the time of departure.  Plus or minus a few hours doesn’t make much difference.  This takes about an hour of time on the ship’s computer or could be requested from a central astrogation computer on the system’s data network if it exists.

Next the ship points in the general direction of the target system and begins accelerating.  Images are taken of the stars being measured for parallax.  As the ship continues to accelerate and covers more distance, new pictures are taken and the parallax measurements are made.  From this the course can be adjusted to make it more accurate.  This is repeated until the course is accurate enough.

Once the ship is lined up and the minimum jump distance is reached, the ship can engage whatever technology enables the jump and shifts to the Void, makes the trip, and emerges in the destination system.

At this point more standard navigation techniques can be used to decelerate and travel to the destination system.

How to Trigger a Jump

You may have noticed that I kind of glossed over actually making the jump.  That is going to depend on the setting.  Star Frontiers does it by hitting 1% the speed of light (of course that begs the question, 1% of c relative to what?).

For my world/game, the ability to enter the Void is controlled by a “Jump Field Generator”.  When you want to enter the Void, you turn this device on and it envelops the ship in a field that allows the ship to shift into the Void and make the jump.  Turning it off takes you out of the Void.

How Long Does it Take?

This really depends on the setting.  How fast can the ships accelerate?  What is the minimum jump distance? How long does it take to line up the ship?

If you want to use this idea, you’ll have to answer that for your own setting.  I’ll give you my answers.

How fast can ships accelerate?

For my setting, there is no artificial gravity.  Thus to get simulated gravity on a ship it has to accelerate.  But you also can’t accelerate too quickly or everyone gets squished.  By default, ships tend to travel by accelerating and decelerating at one standard gravity which in my setting is defined as 10 m/s/s for simplicity.  This means that accelerations are relatively low and it takes time to get from place to place.

What is the minimum jump distance?

For my setting, I’ve decided that the local gravitational acceleration (from everything smaller than the galaxy itself) has to be less than some specific value which I don’t remember off the top of my head as I’m writing this.  For a star like the sun, this distance works out to something like 4.05 AU.  At one standard gravity of acceleration, it takes about 84 hours to go from a planet at 1 AU out to the jump distance.  This sets a minimum time for a jump.

How long does it take to line up the ship?

I’ve thought a bit about this but I’m going to invoke a bit of handwavium here toward the end for the fine details.  There are several factors that go into it.

The first question is how accurate of a parallax angle can you measure. Modern systems dedicated to this can measure parallaxes of 10 micro arcseconds with lots of data on a 2 AU baseline (diameter of the Earth’s orbit) over five years.  So it is reasonable that the ships should be able to achieve 10 mili-arcsecond accuracy (1000x worse) on the same baseline. After all, they should have at least equivalent sized telescopes and detectors.  They just lack the time frame.  So we should be able to measure o.o1 arcsecond parallaxes on a 2AU baseline or 0.1 arcsec parallaxes on a 0.2AU baseline.

The next question is how big of a target are we trying to hit.  Assuming you have to hit the “no jump zone” around a solar sized star, that target is a direct function of the distance.  For a star 5 light years away, that 4 AU radius target corresponds to a direction accuracy of 2.6 arc seconds.  So if we can measure 0.1 arcseconds in 0.2 AU of travel, let’s assume that we should be able to get our course vector accurate to 2.6 arcseconds in about 0.4 AU (0.2 AU to get the first vector, adjust, and 0.2 AU to verify).

So how long does it take to travel 0.4 AU assuming 1g acceleration and starting at rest? 30.43 hours

Now a 10 ly jump requires an accuracy of 1.3 arcseconds.  The question is, how long should this take to dial in the desired accuracy?  I’m fond of inverse square laws so I’d say that double the accuracy requires 4 times the distance.  That means you have to travel 1.6 AU to get enough measurements and course corrections to achieve the desired accuracy.  Traveling 1.6 AU from rest requires about 60 hours.

Here’s where I will apply the handwavium quite liberally.  I could easily pick some numbers and justify the accuracy needed to achieve a jump and compute the travel time exactly needed to achieve that accuracy for a given distance.  And I could even provide the forumulas.  But it would be kind of messy.  However, I want something quick and simple.  I could present the data in a table to look up.  And I might do that as a later optional rule for those that want more realistic values.

But what I really want is something quick and simple that is easy to remember. And I want a 10 light year jump to take longer to line up than it takes to get out to the minimum jump distance.  I also want it to become unpractical to make really, really long jumps.  So let’s set the time required to line up the ship to the distance to be traveled, in light years squared in hours or 10 hours whichever is longer.  Or for those that like formulas:

Time = (d in ly)^2 hours

So a jump of one to three light years would take 10 hours to line up.  A five light year jump would take 25 hours, and a 10 light year jump would take 100 hours.

Putting it all together

That was a very long winded explanation for what in the end is actually a simple result.

If you want to make a Void Jump for distance of 9 light years or less, it takes 80 hours (notice I rounded it down to 80 hours from the 84 I was quoting above) to get out to the minimum jump distance at which point you are lined up and can make the jump.

If your want to make a Void Jump for a distance of greater than 9 light years, it takes the number of light years squared in hours to get the ship lined up accurately enough.  At which point you can safely make the jump.

Variations

Obviously that “simple” solution is based on starting at rest at a planet 1AU from the star and needing to get out to 4 AU before you can jump.  There are lots of variations on this scenario that you can imagine that will vary the time.  Possibilities include:

  • You’re starting further out in the system, maybe already beyond the minimum jump distance.
  • Instead of heading straight outward from the star, your destination is actually on the opposite side of the star and so instead of having to travel 3 AU to get to the minimum jump distance you have to travel up to 5 AU (if starting at 1 AU) or maybe even 8 AU if you’re on the other edge and have to go all the way across
  • A combination of both of the above.  You’re outside the gravity well but the jump vector crosses it so you have to move to get a different line to your destination
  • You get attacked or encounter something and have to maneuver while getting lined up.  Now you’re all messed up and you have to start over.
  • What if you accelerate at a higher (or lower) rate?
  • What if you don’t spend enough time lining up?

Are there any other variations that come to mind?  Are there any concepts that I should have explained better?  Is there something I overlooked?  Let me know in the comments below?

Designing Out Loud – Ability Scores – part 4

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

In part 3 of this series I worked through selecting a unified set of ability scores that I felt could be used in both of my visions for the skill system of my game.  What I forgot to think about, until the very end of that essay, was the scale and range of the ability scores.  That’s today’s topic.

In the first part of this series (Designing Out Loud – Ability Scores – part 1) I briefly discussed the different ranges that the ability scores could take.  In part 2, before I worked out a unified set of ability scores, I discussed my thoughts and ideas on the values of the ability scores in the two different systems I was contemplating.  After part 3, I need to revisit this and see if I can come up with a unified solution.

Ability Scores Are Tied To The Mechanics

and especially to the skill system.  I’ve talked about this in the previous parts so I’m not going to rehash it in any great detail but just give a quick overview.

In what I’m now thinking of as my “basic” game, the ability scores are much more intimately tied to the skills than in the “advanced” game.  And since the skill list is going to be smaller and more general, there will be many more checks against the ability scores in that system.  As such, and since in both cases, I’m looking at a d100 percentile based system, it makes sense for the ability scores to be on a 1-100 scale directly.  Ability scores in a smaller (say 2-20) range would need to be multiplied by some factor in order to be on the necessary scale.

The other system, however, doesn’t have the tight coupling of ability scores to skills and the ability scores only affect the skills as small modifiers.  Thus in this case, we would prefer ability scores that are relatively small so that we can give +/- 1 skill modifiers based on the value of the ability scores above or below a certain threshold.  Ability scores in the 1-100 range would require division by something (probably 5) to give the desired skill modifiers.

Is The Math Really That Bad?

The real question is how cumbersome is doing that bit of math?  Personally, I don’t think twice about basic multiplication or division, but then again, I’m a Ph.D. astronomer who’s worked as a software developer for over a decade – math just comes naturally to me.

Let’s look at the four scenarios and see when we’d be doing the math.  From here on out we’ll call the Star Frontiers style skills XP Skills, and the RuneQuest style skills, NoXP Skills.  The ability scores on the 1-100 scale will be called d100 ability scores and the smaller range ones will be called 2d10 ability scores (even though I don’t know the exact range I’ll be using, if at all).

Case 1 – XP Skills, d100 Ability Scores

This is the “native” case for this system.  The skills are based on 1/2 the ability scores which run in the same percentile range as we want for the skills.  The only math involved here is the division by 2 and then addition of 10 times the skill level and other positive or negative modifiers when a skill is used.  But those modifiers will exist regardless so they really don’t count. And when you make ability score checks, which are more important in this system, you just roll d100 against your ability score.  So this option has effectively no math happening based on the coupling of the ability scores to the skills.

Plus with the ability scores on the larger scale, you can have finer variations between characters.  Is that really necessary or even noticeable? Probably not, but it is there.

Case 2 – XP Skills, 2d10 Ability Scores

In this case, the ability scores are not on the same scale as the skill rolls (Of course we could change the skill resolution mechanic off of a d100 system but that’s not really what is wanted).  So whenever you use a skill you’d have to be multiplying the relevant ability score by some factor (probably 2 or 3) to get it on the right scale.  Is that harder than diving by 2?  Probably not.  But it’s probably not any easier either.

Plus when making ability score checks, you’d either have to not use d100 (not desired) or multiply the ability score by some factor (in this case probably 4 or 5) to get it into the d100 scale.  This would have to be done more often since these ability checks are more common with this skill system.

So this one is slight more math intensive during play as you have a few more multiplications going on.

Case 3 – NoXP Skills, 2d10 Ability Scores

This is the “native” case for this skill system.  The ability scores don’t figure directly into the skills but only with modifiers based on the skill category and ability score’s value above or below a certain threshold.  In this case the modifiers are simple +/- 1 for each point the ability score is above or below the threshold.  However, those modifiers are static and so can be computed once when the character is generated and only have to ever be recomputed if an ability score changes.

This still has the problem that ability score checks have to be multiplied by a factor to make a d100 check against them.  But cases for this are much rarer in this system since many of the situations where these would be used are often covered by skills.

Case 4 – NoXP Skills, d100 Ability Scores

In this case, you don’t want the skill modifiers to be a simple +/-1 for points of ability scores above or below threshold as you would get some really large modifiers.  You have to make it +/-1 skill point modifier for every N ability score points (where N is probably 5).  This seems like a lot of work but remember, this only has to be done once at character creation and at the odd times a character increases one of his ability scores (how often that happens is debatable but in my experience not very common with this skill system).  Plus it’s easy to provide a quick look-up table to give the appropriate modifier based on the ability score so the math is reduced to simple addition and subtraction.

And in this system, the rare ability score checks can be made directly against the scores themselves with not multiplication needed.

Modifiers

One thing I didn’t mention above is modifiers on ability score checks.  In the the 2d10 ability score systems, difficulty modifiers can be applied simply by changing the score multiplier.  So an easy check might be rolling d100 against the ability score x5 or x6 while a more difficult check could be x3 or x4 and a really hard check could be x2 or even x1.  In the d100 ability score system, the difficulty modifiers will typically be subtracted from the ability score, i.e -0 to -10 for relatively easy checks, up to -50 to -60 for really tough ones.  So the math exists regardless, it just varies in flavor.

Balancing the Scales

In the above analysis, I’ve been blithely throwing around multiplying or dividing by 5 to convert between the 2d10 and d100 ability scores but is that really the right value?  Based on the maximum value it is, but what about based on the real ranges?

In the 2d10 system, your maximum value is 20 and it is possible for you to have a character starting out at that value.  In the d100 system, however, you can’t start at the maximum ability score of 100.  In fact, the best you can do is 75.  Of course the flip side is true as well.  The 2d10 system lets you have ability scores as low as 2 but the d100 system only lets you start as low as 30.

Converting the 2d10 system to d100 by multiplying by 5 means that on the 1-100 scale you can have ability scores in the range of 10-100 while the native d100 ability score range from 30-75.  Going the other way means that the native 2d10 ability scores range from 2-20 but the converted d100 scores only range from 6-15.  Both are basically centered on an average of 11 (in the 2d10 system) but the d100 ability scores come from a much narrower distribution.  You don’t have large heroic outliers in the d100 system.

And using different multipliers don’t really help unless you start introducing more complicated formulas.  Division by 4 instead of five takes the d100 ability scores down into the range of 8-19, now centered on 13.5 and skewed high.  One solution is to allow a larger range in the d100 ability scores either via the ability score creation table or simply going crazy with the dice and rolling the full 10d10 to generate your ability score.  That latter option would actually give you the same converted 2-20 range and basically the same distribution but that’s a lot of dice to roll (80d10 total), even if you do it only once at character creation.

So which is worse, having a wider range of ability scores that could potentially give you >90% success chances at things (that require an ability score check) even as a starting character, or having a narrower ability score range that provides less benefit to your skills and increased failure probabilities?

Reaching a Decision

So there are really two things to decide.  First, what’s the scale of the ability scores, 2d10 or d100, and second do we allow the full range or a limited sub-range for starting characters?

After working through the above discussion and the previous three blog posts, I think that I’m going to move forward developing a d100 ability score system with the narrower range that I laid out back in part 2.  It’s the “native” ability score system for the “basic” game skill system and I think that it really doesn’t have many negatives if applied to the other skill system.  The main downside is the more complicated calculations that are needed to determine the skill category modifiers in that system but that can really be overcome with a small table of values.

The smaller ability score range simply means smaller skill modifiers in the NoXP skill system.  However, these are small to begin with and this means you’d only be getting +0 to +7 bonus instead of +5 to +15 typically so you’re really only out about 5-8 percentage points on your skills.  It’s a noticeable but fairly small difference that I’m completely comfortable with.

So that’s where I’ll start.  We’ve finally reached the end of this set of posts and we’ll have to see how it goes.

As always, feel free to leave comments, suggestions, or questions below.

Designing Out Loud – Ability Scores – part 3

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

I thought I was done with this set of ruminations with part 2 but after finishing that post I had a thought:  Would it be possible to combine the two different set of ability scores into something that I like that could work with both skill systems?

Why?  Well my reasoning was this.  I know in the end I want both games.  And I’d like them to be somewhat compatible with each other.  Thus if a character was created in one system it could be ported over to the other.  And that would be easier if the ability scores were the same.  Much like going from Basic D&D to Advanced D&D.  The ability scores were the same and the basic ideas were the same, just some of the details were different. (I don’t know if you could actually port characters between the systems but the foundations were the same.)  The Star Frontiers style version could be my “basic” game and the RuneQuest style could be the “advanced” form.

So let’s see what we can do:

Similarities

This is the easy part.  Many of the ability scores are the same between the two sets, although they might have different names.

  • Strength – This is exactly the same in both sets
  • Constitution and Stamina – These are essentially the same characteristic with different names.  The names have slightly different connotations but mechanically they function the same in both systems as a basis for hit points, resistance to disease and poison, etc.
  • Dexterity – Again basically the same characteristic, although in the one system there is a separate score for gross motor skills and dexterity only applies to fine motor skills.
  • Appearance and Charisma – While charisma is slightly broader than appearance in its application, these two are essentially the same.
  • Intelligence – This is the same in both sets
  • Wisdom – This one exists in both sets but with slightly different application.  In the Star Frontiers style set, it rolls up both the Wisdom and Willpower characteristics of the RuneQuest set.  And it’s one that I added to the RuneQuest set over the RuneQuest model.

Differences

This is where the work is.  These characteristics don’t exist in one or the other set and I’ve got to figure out if they are needed or can be adjusted.

  • Stature – This one is from the RuneQuest set (called Size in RuneQuest) and describes the physical size of the character.  In that game system it has an impact on melee combat as the bigger you are the longer your reach and the earlier you hit in combat.  Plus it is averaged with your Constitution to determine your hit points.  It also has a negative impact on agility and stealth skills as the bigger you are the harder those skills become.  The only other place I remember it being used is as a limit on certain spells, i.e. larger Size required more magic to affect.
  • Willpower – This one is also from RuneQuest where it is just called Power.  In my Star Frontiers set it is subsumed into the Wisdom characteristic.  It forms the basis for magic/psi powers and has influences on a variety of skill categories (communication, magic, perception, and stealth), both positive and negative.
  • Quickness – This comes from the Star Frontiers set (called Reaction Speed in Star Frontiers) and is a measure of gross motor skills and how fast the character responds to sudden changes.  It’s fairly heavily used in that system for ability checks.  In RuneQuest it is basically combined into the Dexterity ability score or covered by skills
  • Leadership – Another ability score from the Star Frontiers set that has no analog at all in the RuneQuest system as everything that this ability score covers is handled by skills in that system.

Is Reconciliation Possible?

One of the great things about thinking out loud and writing things out to explain to others is that it really helps to clarify your thinking and organize your thoughts and ideas in ways that you would never do if you were just bouncing them around in your head.  After writing up the above comparisons of the similarities and differences, I believe the answer is yes.  It would be possible to come up with a single set of ability scores that could be used for both systems.  The question is how many do we end up with.  Let’s dive in and find out.

The Easy Ones

Two of the ability scores, Strength and Intelligence, don’t need any work as they are the same in both systems.

There are two more that are essentially the same but with different names.  First there is Constitution and Stamina.  I think I’d use Stamina as it has a slightly broader definition to me.  The second is Appearance and Charisma.  Again I think Charisma would be the better choice for its broader meaning.  I think these choices are better as they allow the ability score to have it’s full meaning in the Star Frontiers style game and then in the RuneQuest style system, where some of the impact of these ability scores are taken over by skills, they simply have a reduced meaning.  Going the other way is a little harder in my opinion.

That’s four down, moving on.

Dexterity and Quickness

So in once of the sets, this is all lumped under Dexterity while in the other set, they are split out.  Taking a quick survey of other games on my shelf behind me shows about an even split of the two methods.  Some do and some don’t split them apart.  Although the second ability score is usually called agility, which I like and will probably adopt if I use both.

So convention isn’t going to help here.  I like the idea of splitting them into separate ability scores as they really are different things.  I personally have fairly good dexterity but I’m not very agile.  And I see their benefit is the Star Frontiers styled skill system.  In the RuneQuest style skills, most of the actions that would be covered by an ability score check are handled by skills, the main purpose of this ability score would be to affect the skill modifiers in that system.  Which is okay.

I think in this case, I want them separate and so would keep both of them, calling them Dexterity and Agility.

Stature

Other than adding flavor to the system, I don’t know that his one really has any impact in the Star Frontiers style skill system game.  Unless I model the combat mechanic of the game after the RuneQuest style mechanic, something I’m very inclined to do.  Otherwise, it would only affect things like the size of armor you needed and whether or not you’d fit in that escape pod or other such things.

The reverse question is could you live without it in the RuneQuest style skill system?  It’s only a negative skill modifier unless you’re really small so for most characters, removing it would improve their skills, a positive from the player’s perspective.  The implications on spell casting could be ignored or based on a rolled height/weight that is not an ability score.  And the melee modifier isn’t really needed either, it just adds a bit more differentiation in the combat system.

Mostly I see this one, while highly realistic, being more for adding flavor to the system than fundamental to it’s operation.  I can’t see any of the Star Frontiers style skills being based on this ability score.  For now I think we leave it out.  I can always add it back in later if I change my mind.

Leadership

This one I think is unique, at least in my experience, to Star Frontiers.  In RuneQuest, the events covered by this characteristic are handled by various skills.  The only other system I know of that had something similar were the chutzpah and moxie scores in Paranoia.  Although Powers & Perils had Eloquence which was used in combination with other ability scores to compute probabilities for things a Leadership ability score would be used for.

While it’s definitely possible for someone to be very charismatic but completely incapable as a leader, or vice versa, I think this one could be dropped and the areas covered by this ability score lumped in under the Charisma score.  We’ll leave this one off as well.

Willpower and Wisdom

This one is probably the hardest for me to come to a decision on.  Willpower is derived from RuneQuest’s  Power ability score and Wisdom is derived from Star Frontiers Intuition ability score.  Neither one has an analog in the other system although I added Wisdom to my RuneQuest style set and included the nature of Willpower into Wisdom in the Star Frontiers style set.  So I’ve obviously considered them both as a combined ability score and as unique entities.

The real question is which do I prefer and how would they apply in game.  As a general rule I like more detail over less and think that they should be separate for maximum realism.  I can definitely think of people/characters where one would be high and the other low as well as ones where they run together.  Having them separate provides more potential variations.  But how do they apply in-game.

The first to consider is Willpower in the Star Frontiers style skill system.  If separate from Wisdom, it would form the basis for any psi power I included, just like it would in the RuneQuest style system.  Also, since I’ve decided to drop Leadership, some of the checks that might normally fall to that ability score would probably fall to this one instead.  At least anything related to the force of character instead of their charm and likability (which would go to Charisma).  It would also possibly be the go to ability score for things like morale.  So this has a valid use in the Star Frontiers style skill system.

The second is Wisdom in the RuneQuest style system.  I added this one originally simply because I liked having it distinct from Willpower and felt it should be in there, not because I had a strongly perceived need for it.  Although once added, I had it sprinkled throughout the skill system being a positive modifier to a greater or lesser degree for Communication, Knowledge, Perception, and Stealth related skills.  I think it also would be good to have as an ability check as a defense against skills like Bargain, Charm, Fast Talk and the like when someone is trying to pull one over on a character (whether they be a PC or NPC).  However, you could also consider using countering skill rolls and have the Wisdom ability score only play a part via its skill modifier.  So I guess I see it as useful, although to a smaller extent in this system.

Since both characteristics have a use in the system they weren’t originally designed for, I think they are both worth keeping.

Conclusions

If you’ve been keeping track, of the ten original unique ability scores, eight made the cut and were deemed useful in both systems and the other two were maybes whose utility could be subsumed into one of the original eight and so were dropped with the caveat that we might call them back up later on.  This gives us as our final ability score list:

  • Strength – Raw physical power
  • Stamina – Vigor and vitality – will be used for hit points as well as endurance and resistance to disease and poisons
  • Dexterity – Fine motor skills and hand-to-eye coordination
  • Agility – Gross motor skills and ability to react to sudden changes and events
  • Intelligence – Brain power, ability to reason and to learn
  • Wisdom – Intuition, street smarts, and perceptiveness of surroundings
  • Charisma – Appearance and personality/likability
  • Willpower – Force of character and presence.  Will also be the basis for psionic power if included.

It wasn’t intentional but a happy coincidence of this is that there are four physical characteristics and four mental characteristics, giving us a nice even balance.  Plus the two extras are one of each so if they get added back in it will still be balanced.

I’m quite happy with the way this turned out and so I think I’ll use this list going forward.  It’s almost identical to the original Star Frontiers style set but with Quickness renamed agility and Willpower substituted for Leadership and a few of the definitions shifted around.

But Wait, There’s More!

And it looks like there is going to be a part 4 to this series.  As I was writing this I realized that one other thing had to be determined and that is the range for the ability scores, do we go something in the 2-20, 3-30, or 1-100 range?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?  However, this article is long enough already so we’ll save that discussion for part 4.  Stay tuned.

Designing Out Loud – Ability Scores – part 2

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

In my last article, I mused a bit about the different ability score options and thoughts that have been floating around in my head.  In part two I’m going to discuss my ideas for the two different sets of ability scores and talk a bit about each one.  Maybe by the end of this I’ll have come to a decision.

What Have I Done?

So I have done a little bit of design on characteristics based on both of the two different skill systems that I’m considering.  These were done at completely separate times with out comparing one to the other.  Here’s what I have so far and my thoughts on them.

BRP/RuneQuest Style

The ability scores from RuneQuest 3rd edition

I jotted down the notes for this one at my twins’ Boy Scout summer camp this year.  I was up for a couple of days teaching the Astronomy merit badge and was working on gaming stuff during the day while they were off doing activities.

For this system I settled on eight ability scores, one more than RuneQuest uses:

  • Strength – physical power
  • Constitution – health and vigor
  • Stature – physical size (equivalent to RuneQuest’s Size ability score)
  • Dexterity – fine and gross motor skill
  • Appearance – physical attractiveness
  • Intelligence – brain power
  • Willpower – strength and force of character (equivalent to RuneQuest Power)
  • Wisdom – intuition, street smarts, awareness of surroundings (this is the extra ability score)

My original thoughts were to base these on 3d10 for the ability scores with 16-17 as median and a range from 3-30.  And then use scores above and below 15 to modify skills.  Why?  At some level it was completely arbitrary but based on a few considerations:

  • I’m considering basing the system completely off d10s like Star Frontiers.  So it had to be a multiple of d10′s
  • To couple with the skill system, the ability scores need to be relatively low so that there isn’t a lot of math involved in computing the skill modifiers.  i.e. I wanted simple +/- 1 instead of something like +/- 1 for every 5 points.
  • 3d10 gives a slightly more bell curvy shape than 2d10 which is just a pyramid.  So 3d10 will cluster toward the middle values of 16-17 more than 2d10 will cluster toward 11.
  • 2d10 gives a 2-20 range similar to RuneQuest’s 3-18 range and I wanted to be a little different.  This one is a pretty lame reason.

The more I’ve thought about this, I think that despite 2d10 be less bell curvy, a range up to 20 is really the way to go as it makes other mechanics that use the ability scores directly a little better (i.e. ability score x5 gives you something on the d100 scale).  Although an alternate, if I don’t want to limit to d10s, is to use 3d8 and get ranges from 3-24 and then ability scores x4 puts you on a percentile scale.  Something to consider.

Star Frontiers Style

Ability Scores from Star Frontiers

The notes for this one are contained in a preliminary player’s book I started working up just a month or so before I started this series of blog posts.  In this case I basically used the exact same scores but I renamed a couple of them and I also decoupled their creation so that instead of being generated in pairs, they are each rolled individually.  The ability scores I ended up with are:

  • Strength – raw physical power
  • Stamina – endurance and constitution – this is the basis for the characters hit points
  • Dexterity – fine motor skills (shooting, manipulating objects, etc)
  • Quickness – gross motor skills (responding to sudden events i.e. while driving/flying, dodging blows, etc.)
  • Intelligence – brain power and ability to learn
  • Wisdom – awareness of surroundings, insight into interactions, etc.  It would also form the basis for power in psi abilities if I include them. (This is Star Frontiers Intuition ability score renamed.)
  • Charisma – appearance and likableness. (Star Frontiers’ Personality characteristic renamed.)
  • Leadership – bravado, moxie, chutzpah, and command presence all rolled into one.  This is how well you inspire others to do your will and follow your instructions.

Like in Star Frontiers you would generate the value for these ability scores by rolling d100 and consulting a table to determine the exact starting value.  Since a d100 gives an equal chance of any score, and we want things grouped a little more toward the median, just making the roll the score doesn’t work.  Instead, I generated a probability curve using the awesome Any Dice website that allows you to generate distributions for any combination of dice and modifiers.

I based the distribution off of 10d10-5 (so that the average was 50 and we got a nice bell curve).  I then looked at the probability ranges and generated a table that gives realistic probabilities of generating the range of ability scores I was interested in (namely 30 to 75).  I actually had to stretch out the tails just a little to make the table simpler but the distribution is close.  Here is what it looks like:

Die Roll1-56-1011-2021-4041-6061-8081-9091-9596-99100
Ability Score30354045505560657075

Of course with the resultant values being in 5 point increments, one might ask why I don’t just divide by 5 and go back to a 20 point scale since they are mathematically equivalent?  And who knows, I might.  But with the ability scores on the same range as a d100 it makes ability checks simpler:  just roll against the ability score and you’re done, no math.

Do we have a decision yet?

Not quite.  I’m still exploring ideas.  But I think I’m starting to lean more in one direction than the other.  And the more I look at it, the more I’m convinced that the choice for ability scores is very much coupled with the skill and experience system.  These form the core mechanics of the game and have to be developed in tandem.

As time goes on, I’m starting to feel more like I want to try my hand at the simpler Star Frontiers style skill system and therefore related ability scores.  Maybe that’s just because I’m lazy.  I know that system will be simpler, both to create from a game design stand point as well as simpler for character creation.  Or maybe it’s because I want something compatible with all the Star Frontiers stuff I’ve done over the past 30 years.

On the other hand, I love the crunch of RuneQuest’s skill system and the infinite variations its vocations can give to characters. But I’m a astronomer and computer programmer by training and experience.  I like numbers and math is a no-brainer for me so I don’t see the extra complexity as a negative.

So in the end I’ll probably create both systems.  The real question is which one first?

Thoughts, comments, or suggestions?  Leave a note in the comment section below.

Designing Out Loud – Ability Scores – part 1

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

As I’ve been thinking about this, I wonder if character ability scores are something that should come early in the design process or something that should come later.  I also realized that this is one of those topics that are at least loosely coupled with the choice of skill system, which I discussed in my previous post.

Musings

At some level the choice of ability scores is closely tied to the mechanics of the game system.  One set of mechanics would lean toward one set of ability scores while a different mechanic may lean toward a different set.  And that is both in their mix and their value range.

For example, a system like RuneQuest or Basic Role-Playing (BRP) has mostly physical characteristics (strength, appearance, constitution, etc) and most of what I call the “touchy-feely” bits are handled by skills.  Star Frontiers on the other hand has ability scores like Personality, Leadership, and Intuition as those types of actions are not really covered by skills but rather you use raw ability scores to determine your success.  Thus to some level the ability scores you need are determined by the game mechanics.

Likewise the range of ability scores is influenced by the mechanics as well.  In RuneQuest ability scores are based on 3d6 and lie in the 3-21 range typically.  Plus there are skill category modifiers which are based on your ability scores that can increase or decrease your skills depending on whether the relevant ability score is higher or lower than 10.  While you could do something similar with ability scores that range up to 100, you’d have to impose additional math on your players to keep the modifiers reasonable (effectively giving bonuses for every 5 points above/below 50 instead of simple +/- 1).  Similarly, since Star Frontiers is a percentile based system and uses the ability scores for success checks or as basis for skills, you want the ability scores to potentially range up to 100.  You could do this do this with ability scores in the range of 3-21 but you’d have to multiply by 5 (or roll a d20 instead of d100).

That also brings up the discussion of whether you need the full 1 to 100 range or if 1 to 20 is good enough.  Does the extra gradation on the d100 really mean much? Or is rolling a d20 good enough?  I think in the end, you have to pick something that works best with the rest of your mechanics.

Which brings us back to the original question: Ability scores or mechanics first?  As I’ve been writing this I think that I’ve come to the conclusion, unsurprisingly, that its a little of both and possibly cyclic.  I think you have to start with your skill/experience system.  Once you have that you can chose the ability scores that best compliment that system, but not necessarily their scale.  Then you go off and build the rest of the system and come back an look at your ability scores to determine the scale, range, and distribution that makes the most sense with the other mechanics you’ve written.  Of course you’ll probably make an assumption about the scale as you start but you may find that you are having to make lots of exceptions or are adding in extra steps in the mechanics to accommodate that initial assumption.  That’s a pretty good sign you got it wrong and will guide your choice of the correct values.

Coupled Ability Scores

On a completely orthogonal axis, there is the issue of coupled skills.  In Star Frontiers, skills came in pairs, i.e. Strength and Stamina, Intuition and Logic.  When creating your character, you roll once to determine the value of both ability scores in the pair.  You could shift up to ten points from one to the other but they were tied together to the same baseline.  As I’ve thought about it over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t really like this.  There is no reason you couldn’t have a really strong character (high strength) that was sickly or easily hurt (low Stamina which is your character’s hit points).  Or one that is really smart (high Logic) but clueless about the world around him (low Intuition).  I don’t think that the maximum 20 point difference does enough justice.  So if I go that route with the skill system, I won’t be coupling the skills together, you’ll roll separately for each of them.

Coming Next Time

I had originally planned on a longer article but I’m also trying to post at least once a week and the last bit isn’t ready.  As I was writing up the descriptions, I realized there was some more analysis I wanted to include and that simply isn’t going to happen in time for this post.  So next time I’ll talk about what I’ve done in both of the two ability score systems so far.

Designing Out Loud – Choosing a Skill System

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

I mentioned in my introduction article that I had the idea for two games bouncing around in my head.  In truth they are mostly the same.  Almost all the mechanics would be the same in both systems with one or two possible exceptions.  The main difference is the choice of a skill and experience system.  (The other is probably combat).  I’m torn between two different models that I love.  Both have pros and cons.  In this entry I’ll be exploring those two systems.

This is an important choice as it can have repercussions throughout the game.  At the very least in the way other mechanics are described and in some possible cases the very way they work.  It has fundamental impact on character generation and how characters advance and improve.  If this aspect of the game was modular, I’d write up one as the basic system and have the other as an optional system.  I still might do that but I don’t think it will be possible.  It definitely isn’t possible to switch between the two.  Once you’ve started down one path it’s not really possible to switch to the other without completely revamping the character.

The one thing that is the same about the two systems is that they are both percentile based.  You have a change to succeed with each skill and you roll a d100 to see if you make it.  Beyond that, however, they are quite different.  So let’s dive in and start exploring.

Skills and Experience Points

This first system is inspired by the skill system in Star Frontiers.  In this system each character has a primary skill area (PSA).  Skills that fall in this area cost less, and therefore advance faster, while skills outside this area cost more and it much harder for a character to become proficient in them.  Each beginning level character starts with two skills, one from their PSA and one from any skill area (a second from their PSA or one from any other skill area).

The skills themselves are quite broad: Computers, Medical, Demolitions, etc. and each skill has a number of sub-skills: Operate Computers, Repair Robots, Diagnose Disease, Set Charges, etc.  This sub-skills will either have a based percentage chance or the base percentage will be based off the character’s ability scores.  Skills can be increased up to some maximum level (6 in Star Frontiers) and each level give you a 10% bonus to accomplish the skill.

A variation on this is to eliminate the sub-skills and just give a base percentage based on the character’s ability scores with the bonus for the skill level.  And the ability score used could depend on the task.  i.e. diagnosing a disease may depend on you intelligence while performing minor surgery may depend on your dexterity but both would use the medical skill.

Skill improvement comes by expending experience points (XP) gained through play.  With each level costing more than the one before (i.e. 4 for level 1, 8 more for level 2, 12 more for level 3, etc).  Players will typically earn 3-9 XP per session of play so early levels can be gained fairly quickly but the higher levels will take some time to acquire.

Pros

One of the biggest advantages of this system is that it is fast, both for character generation and during play.  On the character generation side, you can roll up a in just a few minutes.  In Star Frontiers, character generation takes exactly 5 die rolls, 4 for character abilities and on for starting money.  Other than that you choose a race and gender, pick your PSA and a pair of skills, and buy a bit of equipment with your meager starting fund and you’re off on adventure.  While I think my system will have a little more to it than that, the same principle applies.  You can pick your skills quite easily and be on your way.

During play it’s also quick to use the skill system.  Select the sub-skill you want to apply, find the base chance and add 10% per skill level, and add (or subtract) any modifiers given by the GM.  Then roll to see if you succeeded.

Cons

The existence of the sub-skill might also be considered by some to be a con as you have to remember what the sub-skills are and their base percentage chances.  The use of ability scores as the base chance and elimination of the sub-skills removes that issue but adds in the need for the player or GM to make a call on what ability score applies in a given situation.

Another less desirable aspect of this system is lack of differentiation.  One aspect of this is differentiation between different characters.  The skills are very broad.  Any character that has a computer skill can do all the same things that any other character with that skill can do.  The other aspect is lack of differentiation within the skill itself.  Is repairing a computer really the same skill as programming one or simply being able to operate one?  There is a bit of blandness in this skill system that just lumps it all together.

A third con, at least in some extent as I see it, is that there is no coupling between the experience gained and the skills that are improved.  Your character may spend an adventure hacking the computer systems of the rival gang and stealing all their secrets and then spend the experience gained from that session on his laser gun skill.  There is nothing to tie the XP to the skills used.  Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and it works fine.  Plus if the GM wants they can place limits on what the characters can an can’t spend XP on but the system really allows it to go anywhere.  It’s a little unrealistic, you typically only get better at things you put effort into or use a lot and I like to see realism reflected in the game mechanics when I can.  So while I wrote the most words on this negative aspect, it may be the least important one.

Skills, Vocations, and Check Boxes

The second option I’m considering  is based on the skills in the Basic Role-playing System or, as I was introduced to it, in RuneQuest.  In this system you have lots of little skills: dodge, fast talk, charm, drive: ground, drive: air, first aid, repair computers, program robot, etc.  Each skill has a base chance that everyone has (maybe dependent on race) and then increases based on the character’s background and experience.  There are also modifiers based on your character’s ability scores that can increase or decrease your skills in broad categories (agility, communication, knowledge, etc.).

This system doesn’t have the concept of experience points or levels baked into it.  Rather each skill is just a percentage chance of success and when you successfully use a skill in a “critical” or meaningful way where failure has consequences, for most skills you get a “check”.  Then at some suitable down time during the adventure, you have a chance to increase your checked skills at which point all “checks” are removed and you can accumulate more.

Like in the other system, earning the higher skill percentages is harder than the lower ones.  In this case, to improve your skill you have to fail a skill roll, which, as you get better, is harder and harder to do.  This system also doesn’t have the concept of a PSA where skills in that area advance faster, every skill uses the same mechanics for improvement.

Additionally, this system carries with it the idea of prior vocations, what your character did in the years before they became adventurers.  Each year of vocation provides skill points (or possibly a skill list and number of points to use) to build up your character’s starting experience.  Thus if you were a machinist, you’d get one set of skills.  If you were a doctor, you’d get different ones.

Pros

No experience points!  This is a personal bias of mine but I really like the idea of no experience points.  I’ve never liked having to give them out or receive them based on some arbitrary judgment of the GM.  This is also a place where the realism can shine through a bit in that you can only improve the skills you use.  If you never once pulled your blaster during an adventure, there is no reason your character should get better at it just from surviving.  The system still allows you to increase unused skills via research or training but experience from adventuring only accrues in the skills you use.

Another area where this system shines is in character customization.  You want to be good hacking computers but not know a thing about building them?  No problem.  You want your doctor to specialize in disease and poisons but not really know about surgery?  Can do.  The more detailed skill lists allow you to customize the details of your character so that even if you are technician with a medical skill, the details will be different from someone else that chose the same idea instead of being generically the same.

This system also plays fast.  Your chance to succeed with any skill is just a percentage written on your character sheet.  Pick a skill to apply roll d100 and see if you succeeded.

Cons

This system would suffer from slower character generation.   With the larger list of skills, more thought would have to go into how to allocate your skill points when making a character.  Plus the vocations that define your background take some thought to pick, especially if there end up being a lot of them.  You’re not going to whip one of these characters out in 10 minutes.

Some would consider the large skill list a con as well.  It definitely means a large portion of the character sheet will be devoted to the skill list so that they are all represented.  Having to decide which of the skills apply to any given situation (or possibly more than one) can sometimes be a hassle or at least an irritation compared to just have a “computer” skill that covers anything related to computers.

Another con for this one is that it is a lot more work for me to set up.  Of course I like world building so it’s not like it will be drudgery but there will be a lot more effort expended.  Once done, it’s fairly easy to use, however, so that effort for the most part isn’t passed on to the players.

Last Thoughts

There really isn’t much more to say.  I like both systems.  One is definitely simpler and more abstract than the other but both are appealing in their own way.  The final decision will come later but feel free to chime in with questions, comments, or suggestions.

Designing Out Loud – Introduction

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

As if I don’t have enough on my plate right now (new job, back in grad school, running two fan magazines and several websites), I think it’s time I sat down and fleshed out my own RPG game system.  Heaven knows we don’t need yet another system out there but I’ve always wanted to try to build one and I’ve got these ideas bursting out of my head.  In fact, I’ve got ideas for two different systems.

So I’m starting up this new thread on the the blog entitled “Designing Out Loud”.  In the posts in this thread I’ll be discussing topics and details of the various aspects of the gaming system as I work through them.  Sometimes I’ll just be posting notes and ideas, literally talking out loud to organize my thoughts.  Other times I’ll be posting polished mechanics.  I don’t know exactly how this will go but I look forward to seeing your comments.

So what kind of game?  It’s going to be a science fiction game since that’s where my passion lies.  Now I love Star Frontiers.  I’ve played it since I was a kid.  I run two fan magazines for the game, the Frontier Explorer and the Star Frontiersman.  But I’ll be the first to admit that some of the rules are a bit wonky.  In fact some make my physics, math, and astronomy brain practically explode with their incomprehensibleness.  As time has gone on, I’ve realized more and more that it’s not the game mechanics that I love but the setting and feel of the game.  I like the way it plays but the details can get under my skin.

On the other hand, I think that mechanics-wise, the all time favorite system that I’ve played or read (and I’ll admit I’m not as well read or played as most) was a game based on RuneQuest 3rd Edition that I played in the late 80s to early 90s when I was in high school and college.  This was a fantasy game.  The mechanics were basically RuneQuest but with an additional magic system and a greatly expanded skill list (250+ skills instead of the standard 40 or so). I’m sure that a large part of the reason I loved this game so much was our GM.  I mean you can be doing too bad when your GM has an Origins Best Role-playing Supplement of the Year award.  The world was very richly developed and by the time we were playing he had been running games in this setting for over 20 years (it might have been over 30, to this day I still don’t know his exact age, I just know when he started playing. Yes, I know that late 80′s minus 20+ years puts you in the 60′s. He started role playing with his friends in high school before D&D was even invented using a 3 page rule set that he developed.  And you might recognize the names of his friends that he introduced to this type of gaming if I mentioned them.)  He still runs this game every Saturday at his home.  I loved the detail, realism, and crunch of that game.

So I’m torn between writing a game that is simple and fast to play like Star Frontiers, and one that has more detail and crunch like RuneQuest.  In the end, I’ll probably find myself somewhere in the middle but for now, I’m going to lean more toward the lighter, simpler system.  I can always add the crunch later.  So come along as I work on this system and let’s see what we can turn up.

Comments

neoproxy – November 15, 2014 at 8:28 pm

Nice, I think at some point a lot of gamers come to this point. I’ve had several ideas and tried testing some them out with varying success. I look forward to see what you have.