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[Draignean]

((Huh, I've never seen that half/whole action thing before. There should really be like an rtd basics faq or something.))

...If nobody's going to do it (after all the talk before), then I will. And we all know how bad my english and formatting is. >_> And if I will do it, then expect delays ~2 weeks from now at best.

And we all know how bad I am with schedules barring me giving an explanation of how my RL is because that's the primary hindrance to all the schedules.

I will help with this endeavor. Granted, it would have to be a very generalized FAQ, as no two GMs do it the same way. Hell, the same GM rarely does it the same way between two games.

NINJA: What Harry said. I think it would be worth making, but there is an incredible amount of variance.

However, I mainly posted here to say that I read an "eh" grade research paper (well-written, way too Pollyanna) and got an idea for an interesting RTD.

In the same vein as SC Roll To Alter Someone's Life, the players don't actually influence the world directly, rather they influence NPCs and get scored for whether the influence was positive or negative. (One side generally plays positive, one side plays negative)

The change is that there are multiple NPCs, and the players do have character sheets, after a fashion. Each character plays a sort of spirit, a muse. They have attribute scores based on the following...

Knowledge: Curiosity, Judgement, Perspective
Courage: Bravery, Persistence, Integrity
Humanity: Kindness, Love, Altruism
Justice: Citizenship, Fairness, Leadership
Temperance: Self-regulation, Prudence, Humility
Transcendence: Hope, Forgiveness, Humor

These scores determine what moods/feelings/actions a spirit can impart, and how strong they are. Importantly, they can also be negative. This is essential, because spirits are given NO POINTS at start, and have to swap points back and forth to get positive/negative values. (Max/Min of 3/-3) Negative scores do not necessarily invoke penalties, in fact (this is essential for the 'bad' players) they can actually be used as bonuses. When using an attribute inversely, like attempting to make a character wet their pants in terror (Cowardice) bonuses and penalties become flipped.

Example: A spirit has a Knowledge of 3 and a Humanity of -2. Their actions involving increasing knowledge, gaining new perspective, etc, gain +3. However, if they wanted to make a character forget everything right before an exam, they'd take a -3 check. However, if they wanted them to ruin another student's test scores out of spite (Opposite in the humanity category), they'd get a +2.

Each domain can only be used three times in one game. The game ends and the points are tallied when each spirit runs out of aspects to use. So each round will last for no more, and no less than, 20 turns. (Introduction, 18 turns of play, Conclusion)

[Tarran]

((Huh, I've never seen that half/whole action thing before. There should really be like an rtd basics faq or something.))

...If nobody's going to do it (after all the talk before), then I will. And we all know how bad my english and formatting is. >_> And if I will do it, then expect delays ~2 weeks from now at best.

And we all know how bad I am with schedules barring me giving an explanation of how my RL is because that's the primary hindrance to all the schedules.

Well, some time ago I posted a summary for RTDs in a response to you, which some people apparently thought summed it up right. You could use that as part of it or something.

[Digital Hellhound]

Yeah, that summary was pretty much perfect. Maybe add a short answer. A short answer of 'there is no short answer'.

[Joben]

((Huh, I've never seen that half/whole action thing before. There should really be like an rtd basics faq or something.))

...If nobody's going to do it (after all the talk before), then I will. And we all know how bad my english and formatting is. >_> And if I will do it, then expect delays ~2 weeks from now at best.

And we all know how bad I am with schedules barring me giving an explanation of how my RL is because that's the primary hindrance to all the schedules.

I will help with this endeavor. Granted, it would have to be a very generalized FAQ, as no two GMs do it the same way. Hell, the same GM rarely does it the same way between two games.

There is a lot of specific variance, but there are definitely repeated tropes that we can talk about. Both as a player's guide type thing and for designers who want a list of what's state of the art.

I think for a lot of elements of RTD game design there are 2-3 classes of mechanic that are used in a majority of games. If that's the case it's definitely a small enough field to write a useful guide about.

I would like to contribute to this project or at least aid in the discussion.

[SeriousConcentrate]

Sounds pretty cool, Draignean.

[Tarran]

I think for a lot of elements of RTD game design there are 2-3 classes of mechanic that are used in a majority of games. If that's the case it's definitely a small enough field to write a useful guide about.

If you think there are only a few classes, would you care to list them?

[Joben]

I think for a lot of elements of RTD game design there are 2-3 classes of mechanic that are used in a majority of games. If that's the case it's definitely a small enough field to write a useful guide about.

If you think there are only a few classes, would you care to list them?

A few classes for each mechanic, not for complete games btw.

For example I'd say there are basically 3 common archetypes for having character stats affect rolls:

No Stats - Everyone is the same.
Straight Bonus/Penalty - "+1 To Rolls with Firearms" "-1 to rolls involving strength" etc.
Point Based - "For every X points in skill receive Y bonus (or increased chance of bonus)"

I haven't read all the RTD though, there may be other systems that have shown up repeatedly.

[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

I've been making a massive RTD for a while now, and after making the words for the magic system, I've gone to making a system for making a company, and I want to see if you think this sounds cool to you, keep in mind, you don't have to do this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So you want a company

Companies are tough to start off with, but easy to continue if they get off the ground.

First up, actuall production, in this stage, figure out what people want, and try and make it for them

Second up, workers, you can use anyone for this, and yes that means zombies, but while they don't cost anything to hire or keep, they work slower and need good conditions to work even at that speed but, you an have lots of them, or normal people or even aliens, remember, in the sci fi, send out a add on the info waves for a creature and you might just get one like that! Normal people are fine, they require upkeep, but work fast and efficiently, they aren't slaves (unless you make them) so they can rebel and go on strike if working conditions are unhelpful.

Once you get those down, there is a whole tree to go for when promoting people and it gets a touch more complex.

Keeping a pile of unruly workers happy is hard work, so why not get others working for you!

It's simple, but the tree is not, so it gets a touch confusing at times but just say what you want to upgrade them to and you'll be golden! Keep in mind, each promotion costs 1 more gold/10000 credits than the before one, the first promotion is 1 gold or 10000 creds, obiously, upkeep also doubles from the previous job but that's how it rolls, Amirite?

Anyway, here's how it goes:
                         Guard:   


Normal worker: proffesional job holder:


                         Main manager:

This is the first group, the guard is the first of the protection group, proffesional job holder is second group worker, and main manager is first of, well, managing.

No, zombies cannot be upgraded, not through money anyway, only through more magic or reanimateing a dead person who already has the job in question.
The manager is interesting, as he also can do certain things, the first part of manager can only take care of small problems, while the other groups put here:
                                Promotional manager
Main manager: ----> employment manager
                                  Economics manager ----> advertising manager
               
The employment and economics can only be made more efficient, but you can then upgrade the promotional manager in these:

Prom manager -----> efficiency manager
                                  Sorting manager
                                  Happiness manager

Speaking of, the main manager can also be promoted to be head of a specific type of class, no being head of other managers however, people like the guards and any groups after that or the workers.

The proffesional worker may not be able to be upgraded, he or she does have the ability to be upgraded to any job depending on the level he or she is on.
Then the guards, they stay guards but can be trained into diffrent weapons, mostly ranged and melee, they only give a 1+ in keeping down riots and stopping thieves either way.

Now, the amount you want made per day will mostly be filled, but if the thing in question is complex, then people are going to get unhappy quickly, and sometimes they won't be able to keep up.

Anything you want to make and sell can be made as long as either you have figured out how to make it and design it or you've seen it already sold, the chance on them being bought also depends on how expensive you are making it, for a example, if you had 10 people all making swords and put them on at least 0.5 a day, they are happy, but before you sell them, you have to figure out the market price, in this case, 50 silvers, or 5000 coppers, now, if you sold them for anything more than that, a -1 penalty would accour, this penalty will roll for your charisma OR if you have an economics manager, who is much more specialised in this, it will roll for him, it must be at least 4 for nearly all of your things to be sold, 5 for everything to be sold and six means you won't have enough for it, anything lower than four and the sales will go down on the same basis.

But lets say if you sold the swords for 6000, one thousand more, and you get a -2, the basis this is on is that a -1 occurs every 0.1 times the market value, this malus is decreased depending on the quality above the competitors stuff, advertising (once again, this uses your role or the advert managers.) will also help with this, every 10000 coins (creds or copper) gives you a 1+ on sales, only if you get a 4,5 or 6 however, you waste money if its any lower however.

It also depends on what level the competitors are on, you may have a perfectly designed version of a bathtub, but another slightly good one has self heating and a waterproof computer installed on it! So trying to prevent change will only leave you in the dust, grandpa!

[Tsuchigumo550]

I really want to build a game based on putting mythologies through the Large Hadron Collider rather than particles, and having an over-arching plot similar to Homestuck, but with more focus on the "I'm your enemy, and I don't play by the same rules as you do."

Spoiler: Absolutely massive potential plot spoiler (click to show/hide)

At the beginning, the players are given a quest to get strong, as strong as possible, then infiltrate the enemy primary base and slay their leader.

This quest is misleading in that it's impossible. The "base" is actually a glitch that came about when the Big Bad got a little cocky and learned to access the "source code console", spawning in something that should not exist. Data entry #000000000000. It's unknown if this is an item, creature, or some other directory using the 12-character encoding, but it's a very, very bad thing. It's a slow, creeping glitch that's destroying the entire game universe. It's gaining size and power, and the more it does so, the more things start to... break. The first sign is a "memory leak" issue that's vaugely hinted at after something that shouldn't have happened happened, the players realize what's going on as more and more things break and embark to "reset" the universe. To do so, they've got to hypercompress the entire universe, and basically "reinstall" it.

This is when the true horrors start appearing. If someone's unlucky enough to get a Lovecraftian half to their world, imagine elder gods to the elder gods. These things are bad news to everyone. The glitch is already a cancer eating away at the world, however, nothing's actually been tripped until the players intervene. Suddenly, the misguided antibodies begin to kill anything not cancerous, and these antibodies are strong enough to destroy errant GODS. Hypercompression becomes the only solution- shutting off enough of the game so that the reset can apply while the unbroken assets travel to the clean copy- because any other option leaves the antibodies alive.

Once the clean copy gets going, you've also restored the game to a version where the Big Bad has his tools at the ready- an older version where his hacking skills can flourish. You've then got to deal with an enemy that once again dosen't play by your rules, although by this point you've also gained limited god power.

If nothing else, I'd like to run a game of eight where every player is in a different world, converging on a single boss.

[SeriousConcentrate]

I'd play it. ^^^

[SomeStupidGuy]

As would I.
Sounds neat. Possibly even neato.

[Fniff]

That sounds interesting.

I was thinking of an RTD idea I had. Basically, mission by mission thing. Idea is: it's the future. You are an Asset Recovery Team, freelancers sent in by corporations and governments to find out what happened to spaceships that have gone off the grid. Players can choose to be either Security (Has a plasma rifle and a stunstick), Engineer (Has a toolbox and a plasma cutter), or Medical (Has medicine and a syringe gun). They are sent onto spaceships with three main objectives each mission: "Recover survivors", "Recover important items", and "Find out what happened". On the ship, they have to deal with xenos, cultists, pirates, genestealers, and all the unpleasant things that either ended the ship or were attracted to it after the ship got destroyed. After the mission, they can spend points (which are earned by completing the objectives) on items to help them on their mission.

Good idea? Anyone have any suggestions to make it better?

[Persus13]

Sounds a little like Einsteinian Roulette, but I'd be fine with playing it.

[BFEL]

Dystopiamon: Pokémon taken through the most cynical filter possible, basically an RTD where the World Government schools children in "monster taming' so  that they can become better soldiers when they grow up. And the "mons" aren't the cutesy kind in those types of games, they kill people, eat them and possibly rape the corpse.

Sadly I think piecewise is the only person who could theoretically run this horror show.

[Tsuchigumo550]

I think if someone did a "Nuzlocke" styled Pokemon RtD (fights can and will cause fatal injury, personally, I think taking enough damage to faint should cause a roll-to-live to happen, but if a Caterpie takes a Fire Blast, it's guaranteed dead.)