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[Sean Mirrsen]

There are now all kinds of games in the subforum, from coin-tossing fragfests to full-fledged RPG's with hidden stats. I sometimes have a lot of time on my hands, and I like to think. This time I chose to think of a new forum game.

So, Rogue to dodge.

It consists of several things.

First is a roguelike. A lone adventurer has to beat 25 levels of danger, a shiny artifact guarded by a bad boss at the end, and a long way back up to wealth and glory. It has a list of adventurers who died in previous attempts.

Second is an RTD. It is played by characters posessing an array of improbable skills and is governed by a six-sided die.

Third is Death and Glory. It is actually played by one man, who takes suggestions from a crowd of forumgoers and drives a random hapless soul from inception to imminent destruction.

Now mix them together. You get a game played by a series of lone adventurers with arrays of improbable skills chosen by forumgoers, who delve deep into a dungeon of an undetermined amount of levels filled with danger and randomness to obtain an artifact guarded by a bad boss and return... or settle down with a hot vampiress and live happily ever after. A list of all previous attempts will be recorded and used throughout the next attempts to spice up the play.

Basically, this takes RTD to an illogical extreme.

Only one player at a time will play this. To offset, each turn will be played until his/her/its character leaves the level he/she/it is on.

The player chooses a background for his character, and spends, say, 10 points on various skills and equipment. The GM gets to determine whether the equipment fits.
1 point equals a +1 to any skill or ability you can think of, or 1 piece of equipment or bundle of ammo. No skill bonus may exceed the current character level.

Then the said player gives the GM a basic direction to guiding his character through the current level, ranging from "go kill stuff" to "If (see_goblin==true) then runaway();if (health<40 && HasPotion==true) then select case HasPotionAmount{..."

The game is played by the GM himself, with a D6 and without fixing rolls, preferably by using a real die and the "storytell as you roll" method pioneered by me in my RTD. The D6 follows classic RTD rules of epic fails/overshots.

If the character survives through the level, the player "levels up", or down, depending on which level you count, and gets one or two points to spend on new bonuses. No additional training is received during the level. Then the player gives the GM any other advice he wants and the game continues. Up until the death or any other demise of the character.

If the character dies or otherwise leaves the game, a record is made into the Hall of Death, and the information can subsequently be used by the GM in any form to augment the experience of the other characters.

The levels are random every time.


This is not the game yet, I don't think I can run two at once since I can barely run one now. This thread is for any additional ideas you can throw at this one, and other comments you want to post except "I want to play" or "I'll join".

[webadict]

The only problem is that a player could get a huge bonus to some stats and say become invincible.

Like, +3 to regeneration or +4 to healing or +5 to blocking

There should be a lower limit than the player's level.

[Sean Mirrsen]

You forget that in RTD, high rolls are as dangerous as low ones. A +5 on regeneration would mean that you would constantly grow obscene amounts of random stuff. Sure, you'd hardly die of wounds, but you'd just eventually suffocate in your own flesh.

There are alternatives, like adding "wraparound" or furthening the scale to "crippling success" or "masterful failure" for off-the-scale rolls.

[webadict]

This just furthers the unlikelihood that an adventurer would make it to he end instead of any real help. That means a +2 to anything would mean no failure, but a 1/2 chance to succeed in a way that harms the adventurer, which, although hilarious, is very impractical, as opposed to a +1 which does this 1/3 of the time and fails 1/6 of the time.

The real problem is the 1/2 a chance to do nothing helpful for the adventurer as opposed to say NPCs, which don't suffer nearly as much from these rolls. Or at least the high ones, anyway. They suffer for low ones. I've always shunned the overshot as being annoyingly useless, instead having them be helpful.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Furthering the unlikelyhood of the player succeeding is exactly the point. You don't want too big of a bonus to everything - instead you want subtle bonuses that help you in specific situations. "+3 to strength while swallowed" is very welcome, for example.

[webadict]

I see... Hmm. Maybe. But then how specific do the skills have to be? Couldn't they be something very vague, such as +2 to all 1 rolls?

[Sean Mirrsen]

You can mostly have any skill you want, probably except altering luck or querying rolls. As in, no "+1 to all 1 rolls", as that is effectively cheating the dice. I guess I'll have to impose some limits, like enforcing specific bonuses, but there's also the fact that at most you get 25 extra points per game, with a total of 35 points if you decide to start naked. And you don't just need bonuses, you need skills, and those have to be gained before you get bonuses to them.

[Kashyyk]

sounds interesting, I'll join!

I have a question though. How do the forum members affect how the adventurer goes through the dungeon?

[Sean Mirrsen]

I haven't thought of that yet, actually. They won't affect the actual playthrough, only the player can get some sort of comment in for each level. They might throw suggestions in, probably on the structure of the next level, selected from a list a-la D&G.

[Boksi]

I'll join, definitely.

[Vlynndar]

This actually reminds me a little of left 4 dead.

The character is the group of survivors, the GM is the AI director. If you stretch it, this might mean that the forum-goers are the special infected.

(For those who don't know: L4D is a zombie survival horror FPS game. 4 People are survivors and try to reach safehouses at the other end of the city. Zombies try to stop them. The zombies are huge mobs, placed in the way by the artificially intelligent director. He builds up tension by making it seem safe, then suddenly "boom". Or he might give you ammo and health when you need it.
In addition to the regular zombies, there are several kinds of player-controlled special zombies. One can pounce from far away, one has a lassoo as a tongue, one is explosive and one is like the Hulk, but angry and strong.

(And they aren't zombies, but infected by rabies, in case anyone would want to point that out to me.))

[Sean Mirrsen]

...one is like the Hulk, but angry and strong.

O_O
It can only make less sense if you say "like Hulk, but angry, strong, and green."

[Kashyyk]

i've played L4D. If you want to see a quick vid, click here.

[Vlynndar]

...one is like the Hulk, but angry and strong.

O_O
It can only make less sense if you say "like Hulk, but angry, strong, and green."

Well...

(Seriously, picture the Hulk, but much angrier and stronger. He throws cars at you and smahes through walls. Then he throws the rubble.)

[Pandarsenic]

This idea is amazing. I desire to be a part of it.