Roll Some Dice

So I didn't end up submitting this game by the contest's deadline. I just got too preoccupied with FATE stuff right smack-dab in the middle of the contest and didn't get around to it. Frankly, though, whatever. I've made enough progress that I'm going to see it through regardless. It strikes me as a great game for cons. The rules couldn't be much lighter, and the way the mechanics encourage -- nay, require a make-it-up-as-you-go approach seems ideally suited for a con one-shot. Once I'm done with it, I'll either put it on a wiki of some kind or get a rudimentary PDF put together for download.

Hey, January's almost over! It's already the 25th, which means I have but a few days to get this Discovery game together if I want to submit it for that contest. I'm not especially worried about it, because there's so little to the game to begin with, and most of the big pieces are in place. Sure, combat needs some way to track damage, but that's a detail that can surely be worked out in the next few days. Right? (Disregard for the moment the total lack of playtesting. I know I am.) I've spent some time lately re-reading Agon and Beast Hunters , two games which have definitely had an influence on my thinking for this one, particularly with regards to putting the GM on a budget. In Agon , it's Strife; in Beast Hunters , Adversity. Regardless, the idea is the same: Limit the GM's resources, and, in the process, make him a sort of player too, in active opposition of the others. Each of these games goes about this in its own way, and with varying lev...

So far we have two stats: Physical Potential and Mental Potential. The dice mechanic is probably going to be something along the lines of 2dX + Function (+ Specialty) vs. a target number. As arguably uninteresting and commonplace (from QUERP to Doctor Who!) as that mechanic is, it's ideal for two reasons. One, it's simple and accessible, especially if we're talking d6s. The premise doesn't really call for complex dice mechanics; instead, something straightforward just feels right for a game about discovery. Two, it meshes seamlessly and intuitively with the potential pools: Spend n potential on a roll and get a function of + n . It makes a lot more immediate sense than, say, adding dice to a pool or fiddling with a roll-under number. Plus, it works well with some other stuff below. Anyway, for the time being, let's make it 2d6. 4dF would work too, as would d6-d6, but I'd rather stick with all-positive results. Depending on how things shake out, 2d8 or even ...

A friend of mine pointed out this contest running on EN World right now, and I was like, "Look, I have a lot of other game-design-related stuff going on here. If it sparks any interesting ideas in me, I'll think about it." Turns out it did, and now I am. The parameters are really simple and open, which normally wouldn't appeal much to me. There's just a theme -- Discovery -- and a few "sub-themes," plus, of course, a deadline (February 1st). However, as a theme, I really like Discovery, and the brief treatment of it by Wik, the judge/organizer: Discovery. Exploration, the discovery of the unknown, and unraveling mystery. An "Old school" theme of RPGs that sometimes gets overlooked in the modern era of RPGs. Let's bring back that sense of discovery in RPGs! How? Well, that's up to you! The sub-theme that jumped out at me was "Sentient Constructs," which made me think of some alternative uses of "Discovery" bes...