1st playtest of a Cyberpunk game

I'm currently working on a solo cyberpunk game, its currently in very early days... only one type of mission available and as yet unwritten look up tables and loot tables etc. So here's how the little story went...

***

The mission was a hit on a convoy. A rich lawyer had purchased a one of kind A.I. and was transporting it, my team's job was to hit that convoy, locate the A.I. and steal it for the customer.

The team was three unnamed characters (names is a table yet to be written), Engineer, Heavy, and NetLogger. They rolled up on the convoy seeking the vehicle carrying the A.I.

The first vehicle they encountered was a likely looking transporter, but it turned out to be a dummy. My NetLogger however managed to sneak into the driver's phone and grab some intel' that would make identifying the correct vehicle easier.

Next vehicle approached was a van full of gun men, some smooth nudging and ramming pushed the van out of the convoy to fall way back and beyond concern. My team now knew that any similar vehicles could be ignored.

Next vehicle turned out to be a cop in an unmarked vehicle, obviously the lawyer running the show had some contacts down town! the cops started shooting and my team returned fire, and simultaneously hacked his cop car computer. The intel, gained help eliminate other vehicles in the convoy. The cop caught some bullets and fell out of the convoy.

The team rolled up on the next most likely vehicle... but a chromed up raging cyborg punched through the roof of the vehicle and started blasting away. The team returned fire, but in a very short time Engineer was dead, Heavy seriously injured and the cyborg almost untouched. NetLogger made the call, and the team bailed on the mission, sadly unsuccessful, they lost "Notoriety". 

***

The game mechanic worked well, and I proved the mission is doable, rolling one pip higher on the dice for the vehicle check would have had my team hitting the truck with the A.I. and only dumb luck made them hit the car carrying the cyborg.

Now I need to put some more thought into the "tween-mission" rules. The team need to recruit a new team member, and I need to weigh up the factors that will figure into that. With damaged notoriety definitely playing a hand.

Life Paths for Solo play

I've come to the conclusion that RPG system that embrace a life-path mechanism for building characters are ideal for solo RPG players. The systems that do this build up a neat story around the character before the actual play even starts.

In Mekton (giant fighty robots) the life path generates not only a family for you, but breaks down the relation ships with your relatives and co workers. Do you have sibling rivalry? Hope so, because that will make for a very infesting character play. These relatives can come into your story at any point for twists and rescues.

In Vaesen, your character has to have been through a terrible mythic trauma. You can make one up yourself, or pick from a list. You also get motivations for your character's involvement in seeking the beasties. This is so much better than going in with a bland character, you are given a drive and reason to push the story forward, 

Even Classic Traveller had a sort of life-path system, you would follow the character through their employment and you would have to invent any details around that framework. BUT as the versions have iterated up to Mongoose's, they've enhanced the life path by adding events into the term system. So you start with a character's employment history, but also some life charging events that you can bring into the actual play.

With this addition of character history you are better equipped to make an interesting and rich story, you start armed with threads to pull on. 

Of course classic D&D and OSR games don't incorporate more than class and stats which is a very poor form of life path. I actually think that's fine for playing with others and the story emerges much easier between the player's characters, which is something that is just not there for solo play.

If someone is looking to make a small RPG product, can I request that you pump out a life path system for all the classic OSR races and classes? Please. Pretty please. 

Well, shit.

I've just picked up another little title from Michael Brown (compatible with CE, DC, and Trav'), simply called Hygiene, and as the title suggests it presents a few rules for centred around the title. I've so often watched films and even when reading book, and remembered the words "even the queen poops", and wondered how it applies to heroes on screen that are in action for 24 hours.

The rules he presents will need some careful application to your game session. The idea being that "personal grooming and visiting a fresher" is required in order to prevent your character entering the throne room smelling like a beavers bottom. 

A possible problem with applying these rules is players getting annoyed with having to actually say that their character is doing something so mundane as freshening up. I've come across this sort of thing  in D&D games where players want me as the referee to assume Dwarves are checking for slopes all the time, and elves are always looking for secret doors. Yet, as I've said to these players, if you can't be bothered to mention it, I can't either, and your character definitely wont.

It doesn't take much to apply these rules quickly and easily. Not visiting a fresher only matters...when it matters. Who cares about freshening up when nipping to the corner shop, but who cares when meeting the King? Huge difference. So if players talk about polishing their armour before meeting the King but DONT mention that visit to the most important room, that's when you can bring the rules into action.

Delving with NoteQuest

Today I had my second dungeon delve using the NoteQuest solo RPG system. The game is self contained so this is not an add on for any other system. At 24 pages its relatively short and a very quick read, and my game only went about fifteen minutes, although I can see how the game could go considerably longer.

Character creation is a matter of rolling on two (sometimes three) tables. My "little" fella for this delve turned out to be a Dwarf Locksmith armed only with a dagger and carrying 10 torches. Torches I should add, are the time limit on your adventure, if you're still underground when your last torch goes out, your character dies in the darkness. So... don't stay down too long. Various activities you undertake in the dungeon will consume torches, such as picking locks and searching for secret doors.

The game follows a strict loop with limited options at each stage and tables provide the results of your activities.

With your character rolled up, you roll to see what type of dungeon you'll face. There are 6 general categories of dungeon, and each has it own set of tables, for rooms, monsters, loot, etc.

You'll burn your first torch opening the door to the dungeon, then you start using the provided tables to build the dungeon as you explore. You'll need paper and pencil to draw out the dungeon and keep track of where your character is..

You'll roll up and move from room to room, checking each room for monsters, and its content. Some monsters and rooms will have loot for you to acquire. There are stairs in the dungeon leading down, and when you get to the third level you'll find the dungeon boss.

My descent was into a relatively small dungeon, I found the stairs down very quickly and had nowhere else to go. I defeated an Orc looted the body and found treasure in the room besides. The boss enemy was a dragon, and I simply ran away as the DPS of the beasty would have killed little Dwarfy long before he could defeat such a beast.

The game has out-of-dungeon actions you can do too, and my character paid to heal up, and sold off what loot he could, this enabled him to replenish his torches. On his next delve he'll be much more prepared with a magic spear, and healing spell that he'd looted on the first trip down. The character survived so he can go onto another dungeon or even back to that first one, and chance his luck.

In summary, this is neat little journaling game that lets you go-a-delving and have a little adventure. The length of game will vary based on what you roll on the dice so be prepared to stash your notes and map ready to return another day.

RPG Page Layout

I'm an avid reader of RPGs. I don't just play them, I read rules and scenarios for fun. Therefore as a consumer I've got a lot of experience. I've come to a few conclusions about the digital layout and presentation of RPG books that I want to share in the hope that the thousands of professional RPG authors might catch a glimpse.

Alternative/Optional Rules: I've seen this "sin" in a number of rules sets. The principal is especially common in OSR games that like to offer Ascending and Descending Armour class options. I recently read WhiteBox which is a prime example of doing this. They offer two AC stats every time for the two alternatives. Yet even worse, is that in the "attack" section of the rules they offer two different ways of calculating if you've hit your target.

No. Just no!

This is a bad practice in a technical sense, Instead of providing clarity the rules-book is offering a set of alternatives, a mental fog if you will. And it not just on the initial reading, its also every time you need to look up something, you will have to wade through the confusion time after time.

Much better to separate your alternate rules and mechanisms, either stick them in a side bar, or better yet, add a footnote referring the reader the appendices.

Columns: When it comes to laying out rules books, there's always the question of columns. Should I use two column layout, or three? People with a lot of rules such as the Rules Cyclopedia, just default to three columns so they can cram the rules in.

Sadly, most people are asking the wrong question. Its not what looks best, its not how to cram text onto a page. The real question is: How will this book be used?

So, who is reading the book, and how are they reading the book? 

PDFs are read predominantly read on phones, sure at the game table you might have a laptop, but the majority of reading is on the humble phone. Multi column layout sucks on a phone, keeping the reader pinching and scrolling on every single page. So if you're creating PDFs for the love of all that's good in the world, keep it in a singular column.

White Box , Silver Arrow

I recently picked up White Box and was sitting in bed reading the booklet last night when I got to the equipment list and was brought up short by the classic "Silver Arrow".

It's listed as Weight 1, cost 5gp. That's fine, but when compared to standard arrows which are 20 for weight 1, costing 5gp.

How the heck does a single arrow with a silver head cost 50 silver pieces? How on earth does it encumber the same as 20 normal arrows. I'm assuming that a normal arrow has an iron head on it.

I put on my "rationalizing head". 

I would expect a standard silver arrow head to maybe be the equivalent of 2-3 standard coins, so there must be much more to this silver arrow than just a silver head. It cant be that the entire arrow is made of silver, that would meet the strange weight statistic but there's no way that would fly from a bow, far too heavy.

So here's what I suggest. The head of the arrow is silver, but also, silver is inset in a thin line along the shaft of the arrow too. This should prevent the monster grabbing the shaft and pulling it out, as the silvered shaft would make that too painful. So now we have a delicate jewellery-level inlaid silver shaft and a silver arrow head. 

Whereas a standard arrow can take a lot of bouncing around in a quiver, this arrow needs protection from the buffeting of adventuring. Therefore the cost of the silver arrow covers the cost of the effort put into its production, as well as a special lined and padded leather holster to keep it safe.