What sets role playing game rule books apart from regular volumes is their art, colorful pieces that aid in revealing the vibrant world that awaits the player. Essentially, pictures and graphical aids are integral to the modern tabletop/Forum RPG experience. To that end I have a couple of mechanics suggestions for Grimwind and anyone else interested in creating their own game. These suggestions are aimed towards improving Rule Breaker, but most of them can also apply to Vampire Hunt or whatever idea you might have.
1) An aesthetically pleasing standardized character sheet document, preferably as a DOC or PDF. I think this has been mentioned before, but it's worth bringing up again because it is quite important. When I entered the second Rule Breaker game I was completely lost as to where to start on creating my character. If you have a blank template document, it's much easier to see the guidelines, what the essential values are and what you need to have. In fact, why not have a tutorial page on the wiki that helps the player step by step through the creation process, going from the easiest choices to the most difficult. Yes, I understand there was a character data table in the forum account profile, but it was only accessible if you have an account on these boards, that is not conducive towards attracting new members. It could also look better, but that's completely optional.
2) Relating the in game units to their real life equivalent. How large is a single space on the game grid, what are the stages of elevation, and how long is each turn. As an example, the Pathfinder RPG denotes a space to be a 5 foot square and each game round is roughly 6 seconds long. This numerical conversion helps players gauge the scope of the game mechanics, and also aids the GM in deciding what is and is not possible within a certain space and time.
3) Detailed descriptions of any possible specific applications of each and every game skill. This is probably the most time consuming and tedious work, but it must be done if you want players to know how to utilize their character's skills to the fullest extent. Saying that a rank of 2 for Thaumaturgy is "Shirou Level" is very vague and requires the player to have read or watched Fate/Stay Night to understand what that means. Dungeons and Dragons doesn't require you to read Lord of the Rings to understand their references, it's just recommended, so cut down on vague references, at least in the rules.
As an example, I'll make a power scaling for the Stealth skill. On the wiki, all it says for examples are that
Graphical Aids: The existing pictures are nice, but Grimwind needs to have a map demonstrating Servant Covering range and how it works.
Abilities: In the numerical adjustments you can have both increased area or target number. This is a bit redundant. Why not denote different types of abilities, where one type hits an area of terrain, or some must have target units designated. It's confusing and not clearly defined how a spell with area 10 but only target 1 would work if it hit an area with multiple targets, so just separate them into different categories.
I have a lot of other suggestions and objections but this is it for now.
1) An aesthetically pleasing standardized character sheet document, preferably as a DOC or PDF. I think this has been mentioned before, but it's worth bringing up again because it is quite important. When I entered the second Rule Breaker game I was completely lost as to where to start on creating my character. If you have a blank template document, it's much easier to see the guidelines, what the essential values are and what you need to have. In fact, why not have a tutorial page on the wiki that helps the player step by step through the creation process, going from the easiest choices to the most difficult. Yes, I understand there was a character data table in the forum account profile, but it was only accessible if you have an account on these boards, that is not conducive towards attracting new members. It could also look better, but that's completely optional.
2) Relating the in game units to their real life equivalent. How large is a single space on the game grid, what are the stages of elevation, and how long is each turn. As an example, the Pathfinder RPG denotes a space to be a 5 foot square and each game round is roughly 6 seconds long. This numerical conversion helps players gauge the scope of the game mechanics, and also aids the GM in deciding what is and is not possible within a certain space and time.
3) Detailed descriptions of any possible specific applications of each and every game skill. This is probably the most time consuming and tedious work, but it must be done if you want players to know how to utilize their character's skills to the fullest extent. Saying that a rank of 2 for Thaumaturgy is "Shirou Level" is very vague and requires the player to have read or watched Fate/Stay Night to understand what that means. Dungeons and Dragons doesn't require you to read Lord of the Rings to understand their references, it's just recommended, so cut down on vague references, at least in the rules.
As an example, I'll make a power scaling for the Stealth skill. On the wiki, all it says for examples are that
Wow. Isn't that descriptive. Some guy from the VN has skills that are out of your reach. This 'example' is completely pointless. Here's what I would do:Grimwind wrote:Servant Assassins Stealth skills are on a whole different level.
- 1 - You have a rudimentary understanding of how to remain unnoticed. You can slip past people or creatures who are unaware or engaged in another activity.
- 3 - You can evade the attention of the average person.
- 5 - You have enough tricks and knowledge to escape detection by a trained security guard.
- 7 - You can fool a search animal's sense of smell and make steps lighter than a pin dropping.
- 9 - You can hide in plain sight, evading the grasp of nearly any sentry, be it biological, mechanical, or magical in nature.
Graphical Aids: The existing pictures are nice, but Grimwind needs to have a map demonstrating Servant Covering range and how it works.
Abilities: In the numerical adjustments you can have both increased area or target number. This is a bit redundant. Why not denote different types of abilities, where one type hits an area of terrain, or some must have target units designated. It's confusing and not clearly defined how a spell with area 10 but only target 1 would work if it hit an area with multiple targets, so just separate them into different categories.
I have a lot of other suggestions and objections but this is it for now.