Let's build an RPG together.

Yeah, that could mean they actually have willing followers. So the Gift isn't a guaranteed way of finding enemies.

oooh.. humans with the Gift working FOR the alien virus... interesting... they see humanity as on the path of self destruction and the aliens are their enlightened saviors? I'm sure the virus would need uninfected humans around for some reason.. easier to do things on their behalf without being detected by the good guys? any alien force is going to need people to teach them about culture and how to operate and infiltrate.

There could also just be cynical, misanthropic people who discovered the invasion and decided to join in, which probably puzzled the virus at first... What sort of species actively and willingly tries to destroy itself?

all the more evidence that humans are fundamentally flawed on some level

"Why are you doing all this? Why are you trying to destroy us?"

"Why? Why not! Look at you! You kill in the name of nonexistent gods, destroy your own planet for greed and refuse to see the warning signs, and when you do try to actually fix injustices, you always to swing the pendulum in the other extreme, oppressing your former oppressors because more hatred and violence is your only solution. So ask us again why we're doing this..."

I like it. the best villain believes that he is acting for the cause of good and righteousness

Indeed.

So, it's been another week or so. Anyone else left interested in this project aside from me flug and darth?

I've been thinking about the whole victory vs. discovery mechanic, how about each successful rolls made is worth 1 victory point. To avoid abuse, the rolls should be made in order to accomplish something important or essential. Each doubles would be worth an amount of discovery points equal to the sum of both dice (or just the value of the double?) and the players need to accumulate a certain number of victory points before they get a certain amount of discovery points.

I want to keep things simple, but right now I feel this is too simple and boring. I also feel this victory mechanic could have the potential to cut game short, having the group win when they're in the middle of a fight or something... Maybe an ability to use some victory points to reduce the number of discovery points could be created.

Wait, what is we made the victory points be a bonus the players could cash in and discovery points a complication the GM could use at an opportune moment or when he feels this would help the story?

It now occurs to me that with the current cost for increasing Aspects, players will put all of their points into increasing their Aspects which are at 0 to 1 in order to benefit from the "multiple Aspects check bonus".

I thought of changing the progression cost on a sliding scale, in where going from 0 to 1 is very important, but increasing from 3 to 4 is not that important. This will encourage players in improving their Aspects which are already above 0 or purchasing new Traits or Advantages instead (though, they will stil try to increase 1 or 2 Aspects to 1 at a time, which is completely acceptable). Of course, another solution would also be to get rid of multiple Aspect checks altogether, but then I'd almost have to introduce skills to the mechanics...

Aspect / Cost
1 / 5
2 / 9
3 / 12
4 / 14

I'm having a hard time following this. how simple do we want to make it?

I want to be as simple as possible, I'm seeing this game as an "entry-level RPG". I know that often I tend to overthink, and as a result, overcomplicate things. I was sort of counting on the community to "anchor" me in order to prevent that. XD

What is it you have problem following exactly?

maybe it's me, but I'm not sure the dice system we're using. how does that work? or do we even want to use dice?

Basically, when performing an action, the players choose which Aspect the action will be performed with, roll 2d6, and if at least one of them rolls equal to or lower than the chosen Aspect's score, the action succeed.

If the players can make the case that more than 1 Aspect could be used for the action, the player rolls under the highest Aspect that applies, with each other Aspect that also applies and which have a score of 1 or more granting a bonus of +1 to the Aspect that is rolled under (up to a total modified score of 5).

If a double is rolled, something bad happens (still working on the exact mechanics).

Players will have Traits (maybe find a better name? Descriptor?) which will allow for the re-roll of 1 of the dice (possibly to turn a failed roll into a success or to get rid of a double).

Players will also have advantages which will allow them to ignore a double per session/encounter and possibly grant some other small bonus.

There might still be room to add a few more things, like disadvantages/flaws perhaps... But as of yet, I'm still pretty much in the conception phase of the game.

I don't know if I can put it simpler than that...

As for not using dice. I'll be honest, I never played diceless games outside of games which used cards instead, so I have no idea how to resolve the randomness of succeeding or failing a check without some dice or cards. So I'll be honest, I have absolutely no frame of reference to built a diceless mechanic from scratch and I'm not sure I can do it under those circumstances. But not requiring dice at all might be even more "newby friendly" as you'd only need our cheap and affordable pdf (:P), as well as some pencils and pieces of paper to play our game. So I'm open to suggestions...

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've been busy with other things. I'm not giving up on this project, but I'll be busy with some other stuff for the next month or so, so I won't be working on this game for a while.

I see this as an opportunity to let others chime in. Maybe give me feedback as to which system you'd prefer using (no offense to Candi, but it seems when I tried to follow his advice to "think outside the box", this is when interest in that project suddenly waned...). So if you'd rather I go back to my first or second idea, don't hesitate to tell me.

Ha ha... you lost me during the early days as there was such a huge flurry of posts moving the project in a certain direction, I fell behind.

I really do like the idea of a community gamesystem. I promise to catch up and start contributing, heh.

I'm thinking about character creation.. will there be like an archetype system where you pick a job and your stats reflect that,. or more like shadowrun where anyone can be anything depending on where they spend their creation points

I was thinking of something more like the second one, allowing players to build their character as they see fit.

OOOOOOoooooooooooooooooo~ What's this?! Time to get READIN'!

It's a bit on the ice right now. I haven't abandoned the project, but I'm sort of busy with other projects at the moment...