Idea for an MMO-esque forum game, brainstorming welcome

[Nitewatchman]

I'd like to see an MMO with Shadow Run-ish rules. You build a character and after that, advancement isn't that important. You can basically step onto the playing field with a brand new character and whoop ass.

[Arkbrik]

@*CRAZYHORSE*

Something like that, yes. I was thinking of dividing the world map into regions, so if Tzan's orders are 'drive from the Grassy Plains, through the Murky Forest, to the Green Hills' and your character is in the Murky Forest, then you can give an order to 'attack Tzan when he drives through the Murky Forest'. I guess PMing orders would be okay if you're doing something secret, like if Tzan hasn't posted his orders yet you might want to 'attack anyone who enters the Murky Forest'.

@Rody

Setting is still undecided, suggestions are welcome. The reason I'm going for medieval is that it makes crafting easier (mine some iron ore, smelt it into an iron bar, forge a sword) than in some high tech sci fi world.

@Olothontor

Since there won't be a lot of NPCs the story will mostly be formed by the players. There should be plenty of room for improvisation; skills, items, magic spells etc. can be made up on the spot.

It's hard to make a game that suits everyone's playstyle, of course. This game will rely on players making their own goals (take over the world, get rich, become a hero) since the only goal given by the game will be to find food every day or you'll slowly starve to death.

@Nitewatchman

I'm thinking a skill-based system where you can start with either a few really good skills or plenty of average ones. If you want to, you can be the best at what you do right from the beginning. But you should still be able to advance your not-so-great skills.

[benkim123]

-Any role should be available to a player when they join the game, anything from a lowly civilian to an adventurer to a ruler of a nation.

Nice idea but the game would need more balance, there should be some limits. What if everyone decides to be a king, or a bandit?

[ForlornCreature]

Or a guy who has a nuke that blows up the entire universe?

[benkim123]

Or a guy who has a nuke that blows up the entire universe?

It has to be a magic nuke, because come on, be reasonable, the game takes place in a medieval world.

[ForlornCreature]

I call dibs on being Jesus.

[Olothontor]

I call dibs on being Jesus.

This is exactly what I was talking about before...

Don't get me wrong, it's a good idea, Arky, but people are more likely to be unreasonable than they are otherwise. It would fall apart within DAYS of starting up. The only reason all of the other MMOs survive is because they have really strict rules; there are plenty of things you CAN'T do to other players. For your own gameplay experience, you can do tons of things, usually, provided that you're not a dick in the way that you go about them.

[Arkbrik]

If everyone decides to be a king they have no one to rule over, and if everyone decides to be a bandit they have no one to steal from. Anyone can claim a piece of wilderness as their own empire, but it isn't worth much if you can't convince people to live there. It should either regulate itself or crash and burn.

If you want to have a magic nuke then you have to research how to get one, and the GM will make it require rare and/or extremely expensive materials.

If you want to be Jesus, then go ahead and put some skill points into Divine Power: Turn Water Into Wine. The next step is making the other players worship you...

Becoming king/destroyer/god of the world is more of a goal than a starting position. But, you can start working towards that goal from day one.

The worst thing that can happen is, as stated above, that the game crashes and burns. That is a result in itself, showing why people on the internet can't have nice things.

[ForlornCreature]

Well, be 'being jesus' I meant being like that guy who thought he was jesus that we saw at the hollywood strip last year.

I'll preech religious crap and make a cult of people as a joke.

Also, there needs to be some sort of clear level system, or perhaps people just say they wanna do stuff and the GM either says yes or no depending on their stats and the credibility of their demand

[Ross_Varn]

I want to say one thing, Arkbrik-

You have my sword.

Everything in my power to create interesting game systems is yours to command. Just ask me what you want help with.

Perhaps the setting could be Minecraft, if you're going for a bit of a medieval theme? We would have an interesting setting to say the least, with more than enough variety to play in, and it fits with the world only being inhabited by the players.

As Oloth keeps saying, the essential thing here is to have a dedicated player base, one that wants to play the game and not screw it up. I suppose it would be whoever wants to play instead of a limited number of players.

Essentially, what you're describing in the OP is a tabletop RPG. Although... if you're interested, there is a textbased MMO I play online that kinda fits the ticket for individual impact. I'll PM you.

Now. Us being Brikwarriors and all, we're fascinated with combat. Our little empires will end up at war at some point in time. Keep in mind that players want to be the hero, and you may want to have something to reflect that.

Will combat be completely resolved due to the GM? Will player characters have 'stats' that give them advantages? Perhaps there could be a reputation bar that gives them leeway when it comes to building towns and stuff.

I realize that is a lot of questions, but I'd like to know what I'm getting into since I'd like to help you with this. Cheers!

*puts gamemaking cap on*

[Arkbrik]

Thanks Ross!

I know next to nothing about the Minecraft setting, but I guess it doesn't really matter if you call a monster creeper, orc, grue or whatever. Having the wilderness full of monsters will encourage the players to group together in towns rather than going solo all the time.

Anyway, help with developing the game system is more than welcome. I guess it's easiest if I just post everything that I've came up with so far. Everything is subject to change in case of better ideas popping up. Brace for wall of half-finished rules...

Characters

A new player character starts with 10 HP, and the player can choose any skills for the character that aren't too generic (Warrior is too broad, Swordsman is fine). The player can assign 10 skill points to the character's skills. Each skill can have a maximum of 4 points. The skill points can also be spent to increase the character's HP.

Skill checks

Skill checks are made by the GM using the Roll to Dodge rules. The skill value is added to the roll, which can go up to 10, with increasingly epic successes. Every skill has its own result table, made by the GM when needed, and then preserved to be used again when necessary.

The world

The world is divide into a large number of smaller regions. Every region has a number of attributes that are kept secret from the players (unless they figure them out with an appropriate skill). Each attribute is randomly assigned at the start of the game.

-Savagery (probability of being attacked while in the region) 1d10+5
-Animals (availability of hunting game) 1d100
-Trees 1d100 (used for building/crafting)
-Soil nutrition (used for farming) 1d100+50
-Gold ore 1d100-90 (melt into gold bars, then mint gold coins)
-Iron ore 1d100-70 (melt into iron bars, then forge stuff)
-Flux stone (combined with iron to make steel) 1d100-70
-Stone 1d100+100 (used for building/crafting)
-Monster lairs 1d3 (decides how many active monsters there can be in a region)

Savagery, animals, trees and soil nutrition increase by 1 on any day that they are not reduced by something else, unless they have already been reduced to zero.

Actions

Each character gets up to three actions every day. A player can post new actions for their character as soon as the GM has posted the results of the previous actions. The GM will ideally post results once per day. At this time, region attribute increases and other world stuff is handled.

Any character that takes action must eat a food ration the same day or lose 2 HP. This happens automatically as long as the character has food rations in their inventory. If the character has lost any HP, they will regain 1 HP from eating a food ration.

The following things consume one of your actions:

-Moving to an adjacent region
-Felling trees
-Mining
-Farming
-Hunting
-Crafting something
-Building a house, or adding rooms to an existing house
-Going into a monster lair

The following things are free:

-Buying stuff
-Selling stuff
-Declaring oneself the ruler of a region
-Placing and receiving bounties on people/monsters
-Setting, paying and collecting taxes, wages, and other types of payment

Houses

Houses can be built with wooden logs. Each room in a house takes 3 logs or 3 stones to build. A room can be made useful by adding furniture (the necessary components for the furniture are shown in parentheses).

Bedroom: Bed (1 log)
Throne room: Throne (1 log)
Shop: Desk (1 log)
Mill: Millstone (1 stone)
Bakery: Oven (1 stone)
Smelter: Furnace (1 stone)
Forge: Furnace (1 stone)
Coal furnace: Furnace (1 stone)

If you end your turn in a region with a bedroom that you own or have paid for, you will regain 1 HP from sleeping.

Empires

You can declare yourself the ruler of a region if you own a throne room in it, and the region does not already have a ruler. It might be wise to win the support of the inhabitants first to avoid instant civil war.

Once you are the ruler of a region, you can set taxes in it. The tax can be any percentile that can be divided by 5 - 5%, 10%, 15% and so on. Anyone in your region that earns money must pay this share of the money to you. But they can specify that they refuse to pay the tax, in which case you better be able to back up your rulership.

If you want an empire spanning multiple regions, each extra region must have a vassal as its local ruler. You can decide whether your vassals get to set their own taxes, how much of the taxes they must pay to you, and so on.

Monsters

Anyone who ends their turn in a region with a savagery value higher than 0 risks being attacked by a monster. The value is tested by the GM with 1d100, if the roll is equal to or lower than the value a monster will attack. The roll is increased by 5 for every character beyond the first in a region. If there are any empty monster lairs in the regions then a new monster will appear, otherwise a monster from one of the lairs will attack. If the monster survives the fight, it will return to its lair/claim an empty lair.

Whenever a monster is killed, the region's savagery will decrease by 10.

(There should be different types of monsters: some that try to kill you, some that steal your stuff, some that eat your food, and so on.)

Magic

Each magic spell is its own skill, and consists of a verb and a noun. These can be chosen freely by the player, and decide the effect of the spell, though the GM might specify it further. Casting a spell requires a number of ingredients, chosen by the GM (Destroy World would be a very expensive spell).

You can cast three spells per day without paying any actions, and any spell you cast after that will cost one action.

[Ross_Varn]

So those would be the mechanics? Sounds to be a bit baseline to me. I suppose it would depend on the GM's ability to make it interesting.

[mgb519]

DF much?
I'll help too, because I'm good at this sort of thing.

[Arkbrik]

@Ross_Varn

Well, this is the foundation. Since you can choose any skill you want for your character there should be plenty of things developing as the game goes on. I think it will depend on the players to make things interesting as much as the GM.

@mgb519

Thanks! It looks like DF because, well, DF is aiming to become this sort of game. But I won't drive myself insane by including tons of different ores, stones, trees, etc...

[Ham701]

I want to be the Lion King.