Let's build an RPG together.

TMMDR (too much math, didn't read :p)

That's a similar result in rolling 2d4

Well, the more dice you'll add (the more resources your character will use), the more chance to roll at least a double (the more chance you'll leave traces of yourself). ;)

If you stick with the two dice and doubles you're looking at a 1 in 4 chance in failure on a wimpy die and a 1 in 12 on a strong die. If you also apply the magnitude of failure as in the lower the double, the greater the failure, then I feel like your chances of epically messing up begin to shrink. This also has the benefit of saying that if your guy rolls d4s, his failures will most likely be greater than those of a guy rolling d12s for the same skill check.

isn't that more like the hunter games by white wolf? that's mostly supernatural stuff

but an RPG that focuses on an invasion of the body snatcher type stuff.. like the government really is infiltrated by reptilian overlords... or the invasion has just started... that could be interesting.

how about to focus more on the system first? do we want action, fast paced, and over the top? or do we want gritty, realistic, and tactical?

OH, OH!!! the aliens are hiding because they use psychic shielding of some type, and for reason, the players are immune to this!

Well, more chances to mess up, but the overall mess up will be less than say for a double 12...

I don't think I can contribute much to the game mechanics but would love to be involved in plot. I was thinking about the motivation for keeping this war secret. In many examples of this kind of plot it comes down to one of the following:

An elite want to retain power
Fear that society cannot handle the truth
Fear that by revealing the truth the enemy will inevitably win
The secret needs to be kept until X time, when the plans will be fulfilled
Fear that if they knew, they would turn on us
A "Prime Directive" kind of situation



How about a time-travel based game? The players belong to a group from the future in whose interest it is to keep the timeline pure. They come back to neutralise forces which seek to make small changes which would let that group have more power in their future. Neither side want to reveal themself because that would be a huge and unpredictable shift in the timeline, which would be disastrous for both groups. The game would have its own timeline, from the point-of-view of the players who would travel together, but they could be jumping around in history, even revisiting the same settings multiple times.

Could get complicated, but could also be interesting.

Any thoughts?

I was going the other way. But that works too.

We still haven,t decide if they're aliens, demons, or something else entirely... Personally, I'd vote for extraplanar beings form another dimension (the edge of reality). We could say that H.P. Lovecraft tried to warn humanity a while back, but failed. And while he was right, he may not have necessarily gotten the details right... So Cthulhu, may not be what we think of Cthulhu... :P

Do you think there's a way to stat the evil secret invasion force and the characters and then leave it up to a GM to determine where the forces come from and leave it up to players to come up with why their characters can see those forces?

Probably, but do you think people would buy it then? I think people need some kind of hook. They need to know "this is a game about X". I'm sure some people would love an open game where they have almost total control, but I'd imagine (could be wrong here) you're going to get more people playing if you have a defined genre/setting.

I would play that. Also you could play around with unreliable info from the future via 12 monkeys. Tons of opportunities for mysteries.

Leaving things too vague means we're just basically making a generic/universal system. We'll have to create equipment and make rules for a bunch of different eventualities then which might increase our workload. I think Keleth is right in that when you're making your first game, you need to focus it on a particular genre/niche to make it more focused and simple...

Secret Invasion.
Where do they come from? Why are they here. Play this game. Learn the Truth.

Okay I give. Personally, I like demons or aliens. But am totally open to whatever the group likes.

Learn Define the truth!
:-)

a friend of mine did made a time travel game a bit like that in GURPS. however, we were not limited to the past, but also alternate universes. for example, our base was on an alternate Earth were life never developed, and one of our agents (another player) was a dark elf...

As for my "edge of reality" idea, did H.P. Lovecraft ever abused any drugs? I don't know much of his life, but my idea was that some rare people capable of seeing the creatures for what they really are, and another small group of people have the potential to do so, but only when under the influence of drugs. However, they'd perceive distorted visions of what those creatures really are, partly because their gift is not quite developed, and partly because of the drug trip... :P

Ability to see others, that's a stat. Othervision.?

Interesting. Could you model that somehow? Finding the balance between getting the most information and being able to interpret it.