Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Flaser on November 09, 2004, 02:54:07 pm
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Freespacer is still in development, and recently I seemed to have once again picked up speed.
For those new or who hadn't got wind of what my project was about: It is a RPG for Freepace, in the classical sense (paper and pencil).
It is version 0.46, and is about 45-50% complete.
I've drawn up the frame of almost the whole core book (I decided to call ver 1.0 that), inserted almost all of the Character creation (except for the explanation of specialized skills), started to work on combat, added general gaming principles, added stuff about Freespace History and Technology (unlike the game, the RPG will be as scientifically accurate as possible, though I will try to come up with some weird inventions that make Freespacey close-range dogfights necessary).
The latest version can be downloaded from here:
Freespacer Download (http://www.geocities.com/flaser_01/freespacer.doc)
I badly need artwork, and would also apreciate editing/blocking help.
I also crave any review, critiques and comments or your own ideas as well.
The last change in the game concepts - which is pretty solid by now - is the ditching of levelling up, or the enforcement of quantic development. Instead skills and perks will have xp cost so you can continously develop your character with even less restrictions.
I may postpone the integration of this concept though until I'm finished with the levelling up version though.
I still need ideas for a damage system without HPs for personal comabt, or even better a character development where HPs are assigned in a realistic manner - so no more taking a burts of SMG fire and flinching as if a mosquito bit you.
To sum up said concept:
Character Creation: SPECIAL primary statistics, no classes, Secondary Stats (battle) derived from Primary - Traits added for further roleplaying possibilities - skills acessable for everyone, buyable by xp, so are Perks parallely. Tertiary Stats for descriptory Character Data.
Combat: turn-based (duh, what did you expect?), with APs assigned for each character, order based on sequence. Suprise round at first, then alternating characters act, characters waiting for their turn can do limited actions (from spare AP) if encountering someone. Actions take preset AP, but for increased/lowered difficulty more/less AP is needed.
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BUMP!
Next version will be avilible by Sunday (GMT+1).
BTW, do any of our artist have an interest in the project?
I very badly need some artwork (hint, hint).
Tommorow I will post some of the problematic sections for discussion.
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BUMPAGE!
Version 0.47 Released.
Url same as in the first post. I will have some time to finally work on the Combat system and put down what I've made so far.
I crave for any response!
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I shall give it a look. :)
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Originally posted by Lightspeed
I shall give it a look. :)
Much apreciated Lighty! :o
....um...
What are you waiting for people?! :devil:
Beside being the god of multi-mapping and texture wrapping, HTL-isation he will also beat you to being the number 1. critique and editor of Freespacer, 1st Freespace RPG ever. :p
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I'l give it a look too, after getting some free time.
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That name sounds an awful lot like Freelancer. Is it a mod of something, or a completely new game?
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It is a classical Role Playing game (pencil, dice, GM and so on) set in the Freespace universe.
I though Freespace PnP (which was the initial name) or Freespace an RPG game were too lame, so I came up with Freespacer, which also happens to mean the vagabond who adventures through known space thanks to the presence of subspace/freespace technology.
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pencil
p-p-p-pencil????????? What is that? ;)
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Very detailed. I'm impressed!
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I'll look through it, Flaser, when I get some free time this week.
I should probably get some more work done on FudgeSpace while I'm at it...
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Version 0.48 up.
Added armor, general statistics.
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Il check it out when i get time, and when its done. I still dont understand fully what it is, but that is just me. Il understand when i download it. Dont mind my small mind :D
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Wow, looks very well thought out! I'm going to check this one out after I get more time off work :)
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*BUMP* :D
So, pencil and paper, right?
Or will you make into a comp game?
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that depresses me, Cobra :p pencils do exist. i saw one in a museum once.
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So is this just a game, or is the FreeSpacer the .doc that comes up?
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Read the doc - it's pretty self explanatory.
(annoying young geezer = ON) Kids these days don't have patience or spirit to dwelve into things...(/annoying young geezer)
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Ya can only do so much a day, man. I finished the Shivan Manifestio, and im d\l' ing some of the FS tools like VP viewer and such. Trying to learn some stuff you dudes already know.
Edit: ...but thank you for re directing me back to the Doc. Il read it sometime.
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and I gotta teach this cat.
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cat?
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"teach this guy." :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by Flaser
I still need ideas for a damage system without HPs for personal comabt, or even better a character development where HPs are assigned in a realistic manner - so no more taking a burts of SMG fire and flinching as if a mosquito bit you.
(dont you hate when you have a good idea Right as you hit 'submit'
I've got a damage system which would let you take that SMG burst, the first shot misses it shatters your armor with the next 2, then the following 3 penatrate, one of them hiting you in the vitles(sp) causing you to go down bleeding.
Well, Have you ever played Warhammer 40K?
it uses a system of one 'to hit' roll, one 'to wound' roll and one saveing throw to determan if a 'wound' is delt
an attack is resolved like this
Roll to hit, under your 'balistic skill' on a D6 is a hit.
Next your foe rolls an armor save, if his roll is less then his armor, the attack is negated from the armor.
Then you roll 'to wound' which must be under 3-(T-S)
that is, Strength (of the weapon) subtracted from Toughness (aka Constatution) subtracted from 3
Now some weapons can penatrate some armors, they have an armor piercing (AP) value of lower then the armor save.
And some weapons can Instantly deal a wound to some creatures, they have a S value of twice or more the T of there target. And some armor offers an 'invincable' save, which allows a save against Any weapon, regardless of it's AP.
It's a Realy good system for an RPG much more realistic then the 'Hit Points' of D&D and it's clones. (which are supposto be luck, devine favor, dodgeing skill, and damage takeing ability rolled into one)
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:bump:
Sorry, but I woudl like to see if there's progress
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To somehow work in dogfights use the same reason SW dogfights happen at close range(using SoD).
ECM, massive ammounts of ECM negate anything beyond basic radar capability at long range.
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Dogfights happen because subspace drives are in existance - anyone attempting to engage from long-range gives the other the excuse to either jump out or jump onto him.
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Ya can only do so much a day, man. I finished the Shivan Manifestio, and im d\l' ing some of the FS tools like VP viewer and such. Trying to learn some stuff you dudes already know.
Edit: ...but thank you for re directing me back to the Doc. Il read it sometime.
ephili, dont even bother trying to fool around with the vp's, your just gunna screw everything up :p
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I think I've spent a lot of time with useless GURPish/D20-cloning self immolating wandering in the past. I've tried to find the holy grail of character driven roleplaying by fusing systems, that were too generic or tailored toward (or to be more precize, commmonly interpreted in a manner) a gameplay that favored avatar or audience driven roleplaying.
So far also paid little heed to the New School games - a mistake I now thoroughly regret, as the realisation could have hit me a lot earlier if I hadn't been so orthodox in persistance to convetions.
Character driven roleplaying - a seemingly non-sense term I conjured on a spur - is a strange balance of narrative and avatar/audience driven playstyle that's ideal for prolonged campaign games that can continually reinvent themselves and find catharsis in the exploration of conflicting ideals and personalities.
At the core of my concept is the duality quantifiable and non-quantifiable or qualitative atributes. The main invention of Freespacer will be the emphasis on the later and interplay that result from NOT amandoning the quantative atributes altoghether.
The later are very potent abilities or skills, assured to resolve a very specific challenge or problem in a very specific manner.
However since they are so focused, they are very easy to deliberatly derail; and can end up utterly useless in a wide range of situations.
It's not a matter of quantity or potence in this sense, but context and application.
By focusing on the background and in effect the context of the characters abilities, the players can estabilish intermediate styles and in the long run, goals for their characters to effectivly employ their abilities.
Players focusing on their statistics will be invariably outmanuevered by either the GM or other PCs who dwelled into the heart of their characters and gained control of the situation by matching it with an attitude that empowered their character.
Therefore while there is a myriad of skills, subskills, specializations; altough they do provide effective means of immediate destructions and problem solving in the long run players will spend most of their time nursing the qualitative pecularities of their character.
This dynamism also solves the inheret problem of advancement. A character focusing on convetional skills can advance with experience without the rigid conventions of classes - conventions that ensured an even potence among the party with more or less success in Old School avatar driven systems -, but by singularly doing so will prevent growth of the heart of the character, playbalance will persist even in the face of serious powergaming.
On the other hand this lack of restriction can also solve the other problem, the overbearing influence of narrative players in common in Auther driven system.
In Freespacer I will also try to explore a GM attitude called bass playing - setting the tempo, tone and context of the story, without actually leading the characters by their nose with or without the knowing consent. To be truthful the whole concept for character driven roleplaying has arisen in my mind as a response to this attitude.
However when looks at it, with the exception of Narrative Old School games that consciously tell the players and the GM how to play the game (an attitude that carried over to New School games that brake the convetional duality of GM and player), convetional quantitive games never explained in detail the mechanics of how an GM is actually expected to lead the GM. How much is intervention is beneficial, when do players upsurp the control of story - when are they justified to do so? -, how can you properly sketch a story or campaign, how does one damage control when things go arwy.
Only a handfull of games ever tried to 'train' their GMs in advance, and the most popular and well known titles are not among them.
Beyond setting the dynamics for the character driven playing and writting a compelling background that fleshes out the concept I will also dwelve into game mechanics and do my best to give GMs a plyable onlook to their role that should do them good in their sessions.
I will be doing all of this with shameless plagarisation and piracy of all the good ideas circling around, be them the GNS theory or articles put for on Places to Go People to Be.
What I will claim NOT to be is, be the holy prophet of the REAL deal, or the only original source of wisdom.
I will give credit, where credit is due; and try to find a median of ropleplaying that seems to have elduded us - as a design goal on and itself, or a well estabilished attitude - in these recent years when roleplaying has become increasingly divded over issues of narrative or avavatar play.
PS.: [DW]-Hunter I hereby nominate you for the title of oblivious-thread-necromancer.
You managed to revive a thread without any whatsoever added value and completly miss the point of it while doing so.
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dude, look whos talking, i posted that a month ago
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*bump bump bump*
hmm, a pnp game....
well, before i get myself pulled into the .doc you put up, im going to mention my idea for damage
ok, a to hit roll of a die, if its over a number it hits and every number after the base number it adds on that number of die to the pool. after you roll your to-hit die, you then roll another set of die, which corresponds to weapon power + to-hit, and the number it lands on means it hits or misses, either have a 50% chance and have all even numbers = a hit or all odd numbers = a hit.
so lets say you roll a to-hit die which equals 4 when you need 3, and your weapon gives you 4 die, so you roll 4 die plus the extra from the to-hit roll, and 3 of those land on even and 2 land on odd (when you need an even number) and so your weapon hits 3 times, taking away so many hp per hit.... and then maybe even add in a critical hit number....hmm...
yeah, random idea, but it could work...(or im just nuts and completely wrong)
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Having finally read the Dream Pod 9 engine, as well as got ankles deep into Attac Vector: Tactical, I think it would be better to drop the simulation mode from the engine when in fact you're just making a complicated game of chance out of it.
So if I ever actually put the system togehter it will use a die pool like you suggested, but with graceful dispersion.
The nifty thing about this system is the ability to use 'dramatic hooks' that can enforce either a character driven or in other words and eloquent game.
On the very same note, you could easily make the game tougher, so the characters will have to make each and every action count....and solve things in a reasonable manner most of the time.
(Sometimes I wonder, wheter inflitrating a Vasudan base at the height of the 14 year in stolen Horus fighters is a sane thing, but hey! if we wouldn't even dream of it, the zods would definitly dismiss it as battle damage and faulty radios!)
When I get down to the core of it, I think any system could suffice with a little hacking (either D20, DP9 ect. or something more flair).
System wise, the only thing I would like to keep from the simulation approach is "common sense" weighing of chances and/or valnurabilities instead a statistic garmada.
The things that should be kept in mind are two-fold:
It's a game you're writting, so the rules should give some templates of playstyle fitting the setting and the mood. (So gamers don't have to bend backwards to experience 'that' kinda thrill I promised.)
Second: mood and background.
The two go hand in hand. While universal systems seem to offer 'limitless' styles of play, in the end you usually stick with a style you picked up in a system that was stylized from the get go.
So IMHO first and foremost, I should complete the background description, that just oozes style and mood; and thereby create solid base to chisel the mathermatics to.
Foremost I'm aiming for a semi hard sci-fi setting in the pre-contact era, with deadly close combat, and even deadlier space combat.
Contact era is the same, but with racial/moralistic overtones added into the mix, so the tone would slightly shift towards soft sci-fi.
I could go the fantasy/space opera route, however as far as I see it, it's the mentality of the people and the openess of the era that sets adventure in motion, rather than blatant exposition of heroics.
If you want a more epic/spectacular story you can always add dramatic hooks and tone down the reality factor.
In the end, you will still have a sensible world, where questions matter and choices have weight behind them. The reason why so many of the D&D (not all of them, Dark Sun and Planescape are particulary well crafted) and other game worlds fall apart at seems is the lack of a coherent self-consistent world that thrives on its paradoxons instead running away from them.
In other words, the problems, conflicts or plain old oddness flows into the general structure and creates currents that urge the world onwards to solve itself.
PS.: I'm also thinking of implementing a simultanious segment based combat/conflict resolve mode.
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I think you oughta give some credits...
Like 90% of your gameplay is based Fallout.
Skill points
Primary Stats
Traits
Perks
You get the point
Anyway, if someone really wants to makes this into a PC game...
That person shoul look for a fallout tactics or Fallout 2 world editor and see if he/she can create this game for PC.
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I think you oughta give some credits...
Like 90% of your gameplay is based Fallout.
Doesn't it specifically say it's based on the SPECIAL system from Fallout? Or am I misremembering?
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Skill points are everywhere... D20, Fallout, hell, AOE3!
Primary stats.... also everywhere, D20, any game with single character advancement.
Traits... sounds like some feats from D&D, the really seemingly powerful ones... with a downside.
Perks... Feats, AO perks,....
Nah, those are all everywhere... in general. Though he may have drawn inspiration, hell, saying it's all Fallout, with such general concepts isn't really just.
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Un-stickied for now.