Review: Cloudship Atlantis

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January 24, 2012
by george in

cloudshipAfter a long lapse, game reviews are back. Huzzah!

Back in December I managed to find a copy of 2000 AD’s Leviathan graphic novel, which I’ve been looking for for quite some time. It’s the short tale of a gigantic 1930s cruise liner, big as a small city, which vanished on its first voyage and has been trapped in infernal seas for more than 10 years. During this time the society that has evolved on the marooned ship divides its passenger-citizens into first class-holders, second class-holders and those unlucky enough to live in the hold of the ship (huge spoiler: there is also the arch demon and its servants living in the bowels of the ship’s huge engines). This particular social structure reminded me of a free game I read a couple of years ago.

Cloudship Atlantis by Rob Lang

Synopsis: Find fame and fortune in the skies of steampunk Victoriana. Climb the social ladder while masquerading your humble origins. And fight off the Sky Pirates hell-bent on raiding your home.

Cloudship Atlantis is a free 24-hour RPG. For those unfamiliar with that particular genre, it includes a wide variety of games that were written from scratch in 24 hours or under. Due to the time limitation, most of them tend to use simple mechanics and have a tight focus on a few themes. This is of course NOT a bad thing.

The 24-hour RPG in question focuses on Victorian Steampunk. It is entirely set on… wait for it… a cloudship called Atlantis! More than a simple ship, Atlantis is a whole city floating over the wastes of Terra Firma, a barren planet that serves little purpose apart from supplying Atlantis with a steady supply of coal for its engines. As a replica of Victorian society, Atlantis has a very rigid social order. People living in the lower half of the ship are called Humbles, and are the ones making sure Atlantis stays afloat. Meanwhile, the upper class, called the Gentry, live in the luxurious upper part of the ship.

The central idea behind Atlantis is that you were once a Humble but through luck/fraud/impersonation you managed to find your way into the world of the Gentry, where you must blend in to escape detection. The game contains an introductory adventure that takes the players through that first step and a campaign can then evolve around their efforts to adjust to the much different world above the bow and flourish. The world inhabited by the Gentry is one of intrigue, backstabbing and treachery, full of comforts but probably more dangerous and unforgiving than what the player characters are accustomed to. Sky Pirates, the game’s external threat, can also make an appearance now and then for an instant action fix, but truthfully even without them there will be enough challenges to keep the players occupied even.

Creating an Atlantean character is a simple enough task. Every player gets some points to distribute among 3 attributes (Alacrity, Cognition and Fortitude), then chooses a trade (his job when he used to be a Humble) and assigns a set of values on that trade’s skills. Every character also gets a Humblism, a sort of Tell (as in poker) that points to his true origins could put him apart from the rest of the Gentry. For example, a character may have a strong accent that is hard to conceal, or a chronic cough from mining coal all of his life.

Cloudship Atlantis uses a simple and time-honoured roll-over resolution mechanic: dice + attribute + skill must be equal or over the task’s target number. The d20s used by the game are part of an interesting mechanic. All of the dice are placed in a pool that is shared between the players. When someone wants to perform an action and his attribute + skill are not high enough to beat the target number on their own, he may take one or more dice from the shared pool. Used dice are of course gone forever, but new dice may be added by the Gamemaster as a reward for role-playing, coming up with a good idea, achieving a difficult task or simply making the game more entertaining for everybody. The limited number of dice in the shared pool means that the players will have to work together to figure out which courses of action are worth their dice. It also means that in some cases, players may choose to let an action fail to preserve dice for more important things – a change of pace from the usual success-in-every-menial-task mentality found in many games.

Combat rules take approximately half a page. This is usually an indication that a game does not revolve around a lot of heavy physical action. The simple rules presented here should be enough for the rare occasions when the players will have to resort to violence.

Physically (well, digitally really), Cloudship Atlantis is a 19-page book with a clear 2-column format and attractive clockworks borders. There is some art as well as maps of Atlantis, all done by the writer, who is either multi-talented, a show-off or possibly both. The choice of fonts, the typesetting, the whole presentation screams old-fashioned, which helps evoke that Victorian feeling the game is going for.

Conclusion: A light, well-designed, free (as in beer) game. Becomes more impressive if you consider it was written in a single day. Charming and adorable.

A quick update

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January 6, 2012
by george in

I realise that it’s been about 4 months since my last post due to some pressing real-life matters (nothing exciting sadly, just plenty more of the old stuff), so I just want to give you a quick update on the status of The Frontier.

I have finished about 70% of the game and progress nowadays is faster since I have ironed out most of the main system’s quirks. Some of the things I talked about in previous posts got implemented, others didn’t. I’ve noticed that in every game I have designed I will always have at least a few things that look like a good idea at the time, but turn out to be less than brilliant after some thought.

Character creation is halfway through, with the Soldier and Shadow classes having complete skill lists from level 1 to level 50. The Expert and Psion remain to be completed.

The combat system is almost finished, with a few details left to be polished or clarified.

I am still working hard on the gear section. I already have a list of basic equipment templates ready and an upgrade system. Finishing these off should not take much time.

I have not started working on the game’s adversaries yet, which will be the next big challenge. I have a few solid ideas about what I want to do with them, but haven’t put anything on paper so far.

I also plan to start writing reviews of indy games again, with the first one appearing in the next few days.

Time flies

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September 15, 2011
by george in

Another month, another The Frontier post… One day I swear I’m going to actually finish this game!

One of the biggest time drains in combat-heavy games with lots of different skills and powers is not choosing which of them to use but keeping track of their duration. When you have an energy shield up giving you damage resistance for 5 rounds, drink a potion of +4 strength lasting 7 rounds and then get hit and stunned for 3 rounds, time management soon becomes a chore. And it’s twice worse, if not more, for the poor Gamemaster who has to handle all those NPCs!

Enter the Control Roll. At the beginning of each phase of combat, the Gamemaster makes a random roll and the result is used to determine which powers and effects are sustained and which elapse. For example, a psionic power could have Upkeep 75, meaning that it will main active until the control roll comes up 76 or higher (maybe until the next phase, maybe for many phases after). Or, a stunning effect may have Persistence 65; you will generally remain stunned until the control roll scores over 65 (don’t worry, I will include some alternative way to get rid of negative effects for the impatient or unlucky types).

Although fairly random, this method has three advantages. First, it is faster than keeping track of fixed durations for lots of things and fits well with the fluid, abstract nature of combat in The Frontier (not to mention that it adds even more uncertainty to combat). Second, it is a game mechanic that can be tied to some skills or abilities manipulating or taking advantage of it, thus inserting an additional tactical layer to combat. Third, the control roll can perhaps be used to decide more things, like when enemy reinforcements arrive or if a trap is sprang.

Moving on to other sections of combat, I have decided to ditch the tiered approach to damage, going instead for a simpler additive system. The way I thought this is that you simply take the 10s die of your attack roll and add your weapon’s damage to find out how much pain you’ve inflicted on your hapless target. So, a roll of 67 when attacking with a +8 damage weapon will dish out 14 points of damage. Powerful weapons may multiply your attack result so that it still remains relevant even when you’re high enough level to have a +30 or +40 weapon.

I have finally settled down to using a zone-based combat system, like the one prresented in Diaspora, Starblazer Adventures and any of the other Fate-based games. Zones will probably be more loosely handled than in those games, however.

Character building

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August 22, 2011
by george in

I haven’t blogged a lot of recently due to some RL obligations and lack of things to write down. However, I have been busy with The Frontier and managed to come up with a sketch of what character creation and development will look like. The aim is to get players to create characters in under 10 minutes, even if they are not familiar with the game and to follow up with an equally fast level up process.

Creating a character will be a simple step process:

  • Select a class and specialties: Once picked, a class remains unchanged – there is no multiclassing. Customisation is possible by picking specialties, which determine the skills you have access to and give some benefits. Right now there are four classes (Soldier, Engineer, Scout and Psion), one for each trait.
  • Determine traits: Spend 240 points on the four traits (Muscles, Brains, Moves and Guts). Minimum score 10, maximum score 90 for each trait. 50 is the average score.
  • Pick skills: Select a number of skills depending on your Brains score. Your specialties determine which skills you can pick from.
  • Finishing touches: Write down starting equipment (determined by class so you don’t have to look through long equipment lists), health, defence etc.

Done!

Leveling up is also easy and fast. You get a new skill and one trait point at each new level. Your class will give you a minor benefit every 5 levels. You hit a milestone every 10 levels, at which point your specialties are upgraded, giving you new skills to pick from, and you get to add a new specialty to your character.

That’s what I have so far. Over the next weeks I’m hoping to lay some foundations for the heart of the game – the combat system – and perhaps do some thinking on a simple setting.

I shoot him in the face for 1000 damage

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August 3, 2011
by george in

Oh, and he is also stunned for 1 round.

I have been spending most of my free time working on The Frontier, barring last weekend which I devoted on adapting x6 and Multi10 to use the open game license (you should take a look at the new versions if you haven’t already done so; x6 is much easier to read now owing to some layout tweaks) and visiting the Chiltern Hills (an extraordinary place by the way). The things I dealt with mostly were health, damage and the staging of battles.

As far as health and damage are concerned, I decided to go with a system of health levels which will make the application of damage quick and straightforward without the need to keep track of hit points on a little piece of paper. Players will probably get 1 health level per 10 points in their Guts attribute (representing their will to live and staying power) and each level will be able to absorb an amount of damage equal to their Muscles attribute (representing physical resilience) from each attack before it is marked off. For example, if you have Muscles 65 and you get shot for 150 damage, you will lose 2 health levels. Lose all of them and you are out of action, probably grievously injured or incapacitated, but your teammates may still be able to save you if they prevail over the opposition.

Armour gives automatic damage resistance against each incoming attack, but also has a number of integrity levels. These can be spent should you wish so to temporarily improve the protection offered at the expense of damage to the armour that has to be repaired later on. If all levels are lost, the armour is only good for the scrapyard. Energy shields offer similar protection: they have a limited number of power levels that will grant a DR boost as you see fit. Whereas shields don’t offer the continuous DR provided by armour, used shield levels slowly regenerate if you don’t take any damage.

Guns and other weapons do damage and may have other effects like stunning the target, setting him on fire, corroding armour, bypassing shields, dissolving bones etc. All these effects are arranged on a small table with tiers according to the score of the attack roll. A simple effect table might look like this:
0 damage 50
20 damage 100
40 damage 150
60 damage 200
80 damage 250
So by just looking at the number scored on your dice you can figure out exactly how much damage you’ve dissed out. There are of course provisions for criticals, double crticicals, triple criticals and uber-fanta-mega criticals.

The combat staging system is still being… erm, staged? While still at a very early stage of development, it will probably look like the abstract "zones" system used by old school hack, starblazer adventures and similar games. So instead of using a battlemap, you will have linked areas described by a relative size and whatever qualities make them different.

What is certain is that the game will support large numbers of enemies. The more numerous enemies, the cannon fodder if you like, will be organised in "gangs" acting like a single character to keep dice rolls by the GM at a minimum. As these gangs suffer damage their members are killed and they get weaker and weaker. Gangs will not only be useful as a direct threat to the players, but may also use other tricks like supporting or protecting the bosses of a battle.

Stay tuned for more news from The Frontier in the near future.

Grand Opening

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August 1, 2011
by george in ,

Rejoice!

I’ve decided to open x6 and Multi10 using the open game license. The versions available in the relevant download pages now include the license and the entire games are considered open content, which means that you can rip them off and use them in your games without having to risk a visit from my army of friendly vampiric shapechanging lawyers.

A basket of ideas

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July 20, 2011
by george in

Between work and some precious R&R time, I have managed to come up with some ideas for my developing game. They are still at a very nascent stage and a bit disjointed; one moment I will be thinking about character creation and the next about combat staging.

First of all, I finally found a proper name for my game: The Frontier (or maybe just Frontier?). I have not sat down to really think about the details of the setting, but I know that I want something that combines sci-fi and spaghetti westerns. Perhaps a rich but inhospitable planet at the edge of known space full of dangerous wild life, hopeful pioneers, hardy prospectors and ruthless bandits.

Like I mentioned in my previous  post, I have decided on a small number of attributes for characters and skills that you can select to get bonuses or special abilities. One thing that is almost certain is that the character system will be using classes. At first I thought of allowing characters to multiclass but then decided against it in order to keep things simple and preserve the basic idea of classes as strongly defined archetypes found in video games. This may actually increase cooperation between players, as a strong team will have to have a diverse selection of skills and abilities. Character customisation will still be available. Instead of having a rigid set of class benefits, each class will give access to different sets of skills, so that no two characters need be the same even if they share the same class. In the end, pulling this through will depend on whether I can design skill sets that are balanced and offer enough variety.

Apart from character management, which is very important in almost any kind of game I can think of, I’ve done some thinking on more specific parts of the game. One of the first issues that cropped up when I started thinking about how to do large battles that don’t take hours to resolve, was how to deal with the minutiae that often slow down the flow of the game. Since we don’t have the convenient calculating power of a microprocessor for a tabletop game, things like keeping track of ammo or hit points can be a serious speed drain and excitement killer for a game with lots of exchanges per turn of combat. The only answer I’ve come up with so far is to make things more abstract.

For example, as far as ammo is concerned, I got rid of considerations like how many bullets of this kind you are carrying, or what is the exact size of that gun’s magazine or how many ammo you have left after autofire. I think I will even get rid of reloading as an action. If the combat is dealt with in loose terms, characters can be assumed to just reload when they have to. Everyone will be carrying a few points worth of ammo in an "ammo pool" and every time they score inside a particular range on their attack roll (depending on how ammo-hungry their weapon is) they will lose one point of ammo.

I have been thinking of doing something similar with inventory control and this is an idea that cake straight from how video games deal with inventory. Instead of keeping track of everything a character carries, their weight and issues of encumbrance, I will probably give each character a number of inventory slots according to their strength and just let them carry one important item per slot (obviously some very large items may take up additional slots but you get the idea).

Dealing and taking damage is something that I have been thinking about a lot. I have a very rough damage system in my head that is still weak in specifics. The main problem that I face is that I want damage to have a numerical representation so that you can score double and triple criticals for huge amounts of pain and get excited about the high rolls, but in the same time I don’t want players to have to lose time processing 134 points of damage and subtracting from their 367 hit points. To solve this, I will probably try to keep the damage figures limited to nice, round figures, and use some sort of health levels which the player can use to offset the damage he suffers (like, you may choose to lose a health level in order to soak up 50 points of damage). This could be combined with protective measures like armour or force shields, giving players the ability to choose how to deal with the damage they suffer (do I use my armour levels? health levels? shield levels?) and injecting some strategy in this otherwise bland part of the game.

Quick percentiles

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July 15, 2011
by george in

After some thought I decided to go with a percentile system for Project Mayhem. I believe a one-roll system will be faster and easier to implement when there is a lot of action going on. Plus, I’ve never ever designed a percentile system of my own and I’d like to try something new.

So far, what I have is a very basic system where you have to roll under a target number (usually equal to one of your attributes plus any modifers) on a d100. I’ve made the 00 result equal to 0, which gives an automatic success, while 99 is always an automatic failure. Now I know that in most percentile systems 00 is 100 and usually fails, but I like the idea of getting a special result when you roll double 0s or double 99s – it feels more consistent. To eliminate the 1-point advantage it would give to players, I made successful rolls count only if you roll under the target number; equal or over fails.

I want to build the system with speed as the main priority: it must be able to do things fast and preferrably with one roll only in most cases. To reduce complexity I’ve settled down on a number of very basic attributes for each character: Muscles (for strength and endurance), Brains, Moves (for dexterity and speed, as in “he’s got some wicked moves”) and Guts (for courage and willpower). I’ve been toying with the idea of adding a fifth attribute for charisma and personal interaction (maybe “Looks”?) but I’m still not sure if it’s a good idea. After all this is going to be a combat-heavy game and I want all basic attributes to be useful and not serve as a typical dump stat for players. I may skip a charisma attribute altogether and just add some skills for all the talking and bartering.

Speaking of skills, they probably won’t be rated like attributes. You will either have them or not. Each will give a bonus for certain rolls or perhaps a special benefit. I am thinking of organising them into skill trees, which will be useful if I decide to add character classes and levels to the game. This is a video game tribute after all and most ofnthem make use of class/level-based character progress.

While thinking the basics of the percentile system I had some difficulty with the issue of opposed rolls. Most d100 games will either use a chart for opposed rolls or require some sort of addition/subtraction (roll and add your attribute or figure out how much you’ve rolled under your attribute). Both solutions were unsatisfactory for me becausr they take up some time and like I said I want the system to be super fast (or at least able tonspend more time for other stuff like calculating double and triple criticals). So I came up with the idea of letting the highest roll win, but if you roll under your attribute you add 100 to the result. The highrst your attribute is, the bigger the chance you’ll manage to get the +100 bonus. I’ve checked the probabilities and they are very similar to more classic opposed roll mechanics.

That’s all I have for now, but I hope I’ll be able to share more very soon.

Project statement

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July 11, 2011
by george in

I dont really want to sound wise by stating the obvious, but it really helps if you come up with some basic goals for a new game before you start developing it. Nothing really fancy or complicated, because you’re bound to change some or maybe several things in the design stage anyway. Just what you want the game to do in general terms and maybe some pitfalls you should to avoid.

So, for the game I’m working on my project statement would be something like “emulate the senseless violence on a massive scale found in a modern FPS video game”. Straight away I can figure out some of the goals my game will have to achieve.

If I want to do big battles with tens of enemies, I have to come up with a simple and quick system that allows a steady flow of play without burdening the game with a lot of unnecessary rolls and calculations. Each character should have a small number of traits controlling his actions to keep things manageable. Combat will probably have to be abstract instead of using a battlemap and miniatures as even the most dedicated and hardcore GM will flinch at the idea of having to move a few dozens of miniatures each turn. But, I will still need to fit big guns and ridiculous amounts of damage and make them somehow work with the abstract terms of the battlefield. I will also have to figure out how to handle things like ammunition and carrying stuff without having to keep track of exact numbers.

All I have to do now is work towards those goals!

Review: Warrior, Rogue and Mage

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July 11, 2011
by george in

Warrior, Rogue and Mage by Stargazer Games

Concept: A traditional fantasy game based on an innovative rules-light classless system.

Presentation: 41 pages in single column format using beautiful borders, fonts and cleverly used art. The production values are extremely high for a free product and most certainly better than many other paid products I’ve seen.

Setting: WR&M can be used as a system to play most kinds of traditional fantasy games involving, erm, warriors, rogues and mages. The designer created the game to be used with a fantasy world called Vaneria in mind, which gets a couple of pages worth of coverage in the book. Vaneria is fairly standard as fantasy settings go, with the action centred around a former grand empire shattered by a terrible civil war. Since the whole world is described in very loose terms in just two pages nobody should expect the next Greyhawk killer, but since WR&M works very well as a generic fantasy system the lack of a detailed setting is no crime at all.

System: WR&M is based on a very simple but nevertheless ingenious idea. Instead of having classes, as is traditional in many fantasy roleplaying games, each character has 3 attributes which control every action in the game and are based on the three main archetypes of the fantasy genre: the Warrior, the Rogue and the Mage. Putting points in the Warrior attribute makes you stronger, more resilient and better with swords and maces, while investing in the Rogue attribute increases your agility, stealth and proficiency with dagger, bows and other such weapons. If you want to go with a “pen is mightier than the sword” approach, you should put your faith in the mage attribute, which increases your knowledge as well as the ability to use magic.

Action resolution is extremely quick and simple: roll a d6 and add the controlling attribute to the result, trying to beat a target number set by the GM. WR&M uses “exploding” dice, so if you’re lucky enough to roll a 6 you can add another die to your score. Having a skill that is relevant to the attempted task will also grant you a +2 bonus. When the things get tough, players can use Fate points to get bonuses to their roll or to avoid an ugly and premature end.

Character creation: Characters in WR&M are based on the three attributes giving the game its name. By distributing different amounts of points in each attribute, players can come up with vastly different characters without being burdened with lengthy class mechanics, special abilities or combinations that make little sense. Splitting your points between Warrior and Rogue would create something very similar to a ranger for example, while Rogue and Mage would be great attributes for an efficient arcane assassin.

Characters are rounded up by getting some skills and talents. Unlike attributes, skills are not numerically rated and will just provide a +2 bonus to a roll if they’re relevant to the action attempted. This is a good design decision, since rated skills would tend to distract from the core attributes which make the game special. Talents are just special abilities that may customise your character a little bit more.

A small problem I had while reading the rules was deftly dealt with just a few pages later on. WR&M is a game where magic is quite common, since anyone with even one point in the Mage attribute would know how to cast simple spells. For those who like their fantasy settings low-magic, there is an optional variant called Warrior, Rogue and Scholar, with the Scholar attribute covering things like knowledge, intelligence and perception. Spellcasting is possible only by taking an extra talent, which I think is a very elegant solution.

Gameplay: WR&M is a rules-light fantasy game, and as such it would be better suited for quick games or for those gamers who believe that complex rules obstruct their style and imagination. Apart from being used as a newcomers’ introduction to fantasy roleplaying games by virtue of its simple rules, it could also conceivably being used to run a long-term campaign if the GM is prepared to do some work. There is only so much stuff you can fit in 41 pages and although the game designer has put in rules for different races and several monsters to keep the players occupied, at some point a GM will have to make up some things of his own or wing it.

Combat is based on the same quick rules and is as simple as the rest of the game; in fact, the entire combat section takes up just one page of the book. Of course, there are people who prefer some more detail, more crunch if you’d like, in their combat, and for those I’m told that there is a sourcebook with expanded combat rules, although I have not yet checked that out.

Conclusion: A well-made fantasy game based on a simple but original (and superbly executed) idea. Well-suited both for newcomers as well as fantasy veterans who want to try something simpler.

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