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[PTTG??]

Here's the concept;

Using a Wiki of some sort, write a very basic and easily expandable Tangible RPG. Every house rule can be documented, written in, and potentially made into a permanent change.

I would expect that with an active community behind it, there would very quickly grow to be a huge variety of rules and techniques in the game, making it suitable for any theme one would want.

This would have a number of advantages over your traditional hardbacked RPG rulebook:

- Free (as in beer): Everyone can access a copy of the rulebook easily and quickly, anywhere.
- Free (as in speech): Economic restrictions do not prevent optional rules from exploring controversy. You want to have rules for drug use? Go right ahead. Want to have a component in your evil PC's spells be sacrifical children? You got it.
- Crowdsourcing: Instead of having a dozen writers and three artists, this ruleset would have, potentially, millions (OK, maybe several dozen, but that's still an improvement).
- Technology: Cross-referencing takes a huge amount of time in most systems; each attribute most likely effects a dozen abilities, each ability effects a slew of skills, and each skill has a point cost defined here and taken out of point pools listed there and relative to attributes back here. Hyperlinks, infinite page length, and the ability to make in-page refrences all make reading the source much easier.
- Utilities: Since we're already on the internet, we can add utilities like die rollers, character builders, and other doodads available and "live" easily.
- Communication: Since we're already on the web, not only do we get the Talk pages for each article, but we can set up all kinds of live communication too, making a tighter-knit community.
- Secrets: Conceivably, the long-standing question of how to make adventures where the DM knows everything and the players are kept in the dark can finally be answered, possibly with log-in only pages or some other system. It probably wouldn't be perfect, but better than a big "PLAYERS: LOLDON'T READ THIS." on DM-only pages.

So, the big question is the system. It is obvious that eventually the system will grow more and more complex. I would think that the simplest possible system that still allows for easy, plug-in growth would be ideal. I'd say break everything down to individual "features" that could be considered similar to DF's tags or tokens. Every character statistic would be, fundamentally, some kind of feature or annother. They would have various different classes; for instance, Talents for special abilites, Attributes for the classical Str, Con, Int sort of thing, with numbered levels.

This would allow a custom rule to add completely new anythings seamlessly. A custom setting may use the default basics, plus a Psi attribute, a Telekinetics skill, and a Psi null talent.

Frankly, I'm not sure how to handle skill rolls, but I would of course lean towards any system that can be made universal. Ideally, it would also be something that could be mechanized, so that a computer game could conceivably be made or something as simple as a DMing program.

I am not, however, a great DM or player. My experience on the subject comes down to a few games of Vampire: the Gathering (or whatever they call it). So while I am looking forward to building the wiki and networks, I need people who are willing to help design and playtest a huge and constantly growing RPG system.

Does anyone think that this idea has potential, or am I asking for a certain masonic publishing guild to come down on me like a ton of rectangular building units?

[Armok]

I think it's a good idea and I fully applaud this initiative.

[Aqizzar]

Does anyone think that this idea has potential, or am I asking for a certain masonic publishing guild to come down on me like a ton of rectangular building units?

Ironically enough, Pyramid might actually have something to say about this.  That is, Steve Jackson Games.  If I understand the idea, you're basically talking about a TTRPG ruleset, that's hosted online in wiki-esque format, with die-rolling programs and game-boards and stuff built in, which people can add pages to and so forth.

Essentially every element of that already exists, usually no more than a few clicks away from each other.  The problem is, most people don't know the first thing about designing a game to be any fun.  4chan's /traditional games/ crowd does exactly what you're talking about all the time; making up rulesets, hosting them on a wiki or editable site, and playing them with all-online tools.  Most of them suck, and the ones that don't never go anywhere because they have no way of generating name recognition beyond their little community.

Speaking more broadly, it amazes me just how little economics has to do with table-top publishing.  Just look at the stacks of gigantic, full-color rulebooks published for Dark Heresy and Vampire.  SJGame's GURPS does all three of your first points already - you can download a basic ruleset for free that does everything the published version does; includes rules for drug addiction, venereal disease, human sacrifice, and free license to invent as many other rules as you want; and once you understand the basic theory of the rules you can easily invent all the new rules and character options and stuff you want.  The problem is, again, it usually doesn't turn out very well.

I love your enthusiasm, and there's nothing wrong with anything you're talking about, it's just all been done before if not in one encapsulated utility, and comes back to the overall problem that most people who play TTRPGs have no ability to write one worth playing.

[Blacken]

Generalized game systems all suffer from the same generalized flaw: they're too general. GURPS was an excellent attempt, but the end result tends to suck as an actual game. You see it in non-tabletop contexts too (SPECIAL--invented for Fallout after they couldn't get a GURPS license--and Arcanum/Lionheart). Generalized systems can be made to work in somewhat kludgy, narrow contexts by talented designers (time to plug my friends over at Evil Hat, who are among the best I've ever seen), but most people who want a Game Of My Own are not competent game designers. Clusterfuck ahoy.

As Aqizzar noted, basic rulesets already exist for established, relatively bulletproofed systems if you insist on going down that road.

[PTTG??]

Ok.

So, how can quality be assured?

One system may be to have each rule have a simple voting system, or a vetting system before changes are made. I think that such problems can be mitigated.

More challenging is building a strong user base, as has been pointed out.

[MrWiggles]

Essentially all table top RP are open source. They're all bound to rule zero. The ignore all the rules and do whatever you want rule. But enough smartassness.

I'm an amateur game designer, who sorta needs money to get to be a published amateur game designer.  Its what I've done for fun for years and still do.

There no real way to make a game fun. Fun is to subjective for table top RPs.

I would concentrate on making a game system functional and a coherent universe. The universe will get players interested in playing the game but the rules will decide if they'll continue to play it.

I would stay away from generic game rules. They suffer from bard-atis. Sure, you are a jack of all trades, but you're jack at all of them.

There are a few examples that does so well. We have Fuzion and GURPS. GURPS is damn crunchy (lots of numbers, and rolling and math) but is the most versatile where as Fuzion has limits on its genre simulation but being less crunchy. Most of them are crappy though.

Universe Wise:

Do whatever really. Try to make it stick to as few genres and as few settings as possible. The less you have to simulate with your mechanics the lighter they can be and thusly improve the speed of the game.


Mechanic wise:

The mechanics serve to illustrate and simulate the environment you want your game to take place in. Its whats going to separate a dyrad and a troll or a fighter from a thief. It is also going to set the tone of the universe as well. I feel the order doesn't matter if you design a universe or mechanics first. However you should have a cursory understanding of the game you want to make before you get into mechanics of it.


Dice (or a random neutral arbiter)

Why use dice at all? Well dice are consider damn fun by most table top gamers. Dice also add tension to the game. Dice can also provide the best moments of a game. They can make the characters feel they really earned their victories or anguish as they scorn the user. Dice can also allow you to see you're character getting better then simply thinking he getting better.

You're gonna need to know basic statistics in order to know what dice you're going to use. An exercise that helped me understand it was knowing the difference between 1d12, 2d6, and 3d4.

If you're going to be using online tools, I suggest sticking with polyhedral dice. It'll give you a good frame work to design your game with.

Knowing when to use what dice combination will help differentiate actions and give a unique feel & weight for the actions taking place in the game. If you feel the setting needs large numbers to give a sense of power then you'll need more dice, if you want have a tactile sense of character improvement then you'll need to give'em more dice as time goes on ect...

Then we move on to roll over and roll under systems.  A roll over system is where you have to get higher then a target number and a roll under system  They provide a different feel for the system as a whole. I'm not personally a fan of roll under systems.  The roll under system gives a finite difficulty scale and character power. A roll over system has an infinite difficulty and character scale.

Math:

Almost all TTRPG have math in them, except for the hippie free form crap. >.> Now not all math is equal. The less time the players and GM alike have to bust our scrap paper to figure out the math the better.

This means for mental math of the game you should try to stay away from subtraction, fractions and long division. Addition is the easiest form of mental math. Multiplication can be done if its kept to positive numbers and small numbers.

---
All I can think of right now.

[Blacken]

So, how can quality be assured?

By controlling the product end-to-end and ensuring somebody sane has the final say.

So, not open source at all. There are social and technical reasons why open source works on software. Those don't exist in highly subjective systems.

One system may be to have each rule have a simple voting system, or a vetting system before changes are made. I think that such problems can be mitigated.

I think you're woefully naive. Open source means "can be forked," and since the barriers to entry are so low for such a thing compared to software, you will see eight bajillion people go off to make Game Of My Own garbage and dilute any real coherence or direction such a project desperately needs.

More challenging is building a strong user base, as has been pointed out.

...who won't stay if it's a fragmentary clusterfuck. Fixing that is far, far more important than the particulars of any given system; you have to have a stable social framework if you want significant project progress.