> ...from Brian Campbell... > My recommendation would be to not try to make it a generic > RPG system. Well, that's easier to say than to do. System development is easier than setting development, and MUCH easier than a tuned system for a setting. Am I lazy? Well, not really, no. Actually, I am rather adept with generic system design--I have been working on one for boffer LARPs for about three years, now. Perhaps that's apples and oranges, because there's not the "glut" of generic LARP systems out there like tabletops. But I haven't seen a lot of tabletop systems for Icehouse pieces, either. So if folks want to play d20 or Hero (GURPS isn't strictly generic OR universal, actually), nothing I design for pyramids will draw them away from that. So anyway, I am sticking with generic for now. Only if I somehow get inspired to make a setting-specific game (maybe by pondering "pyramidness") will I shift it away from the skeleton of conflict resolution with a universal system. Plus, I am letting color inspire and inform my ability choices--as such, I might not be able to have color inform some other element, if I move to a highly setting-specific system; I will have already chosen what seems "appropriate" or "logical" for a given color. (And, as I mentioned in another post, if I say "it's a supers game!" I can automagically make nearly any other genre out of it; Champions proved that.) > For example, in what you have so far, you have a whole variety > of different movement abilities. This is great if you want a > heavily combat-driven miniatures style roleplaying game... Well, yeah, if all you consider is the initial four or five abilities I had time to type into the table, as "seeds" for brainstorming then, yeah, you'd assume (wrongly) that its all about crunchy maneuvering and combat. But suppose I'd already included the 14 to 16 social and mental abilities? You might think (wrongly) that it's all about diplomacy and role playing, with very little crunchiness in combat or chases. I hope to enable a wide variety of conflict types, through the 24 (or 33) total abilities in the color+context gamut. But, sure, as it now stands there are tactically meaningful decisions to make regarding movement (and, eventually, attacking or defending). More to that below.... > but most games that I like to play have combat much more > abstracted, with things like "I circle around and shoot > him with my energy beam" being a simple check of speed and > aim (or even just a check of Warfare), not a detailed > analysis of terrain types and abilities. While I can appreciate your preferences, I am designing for my and my play group's preferences. Perhaps you'd be better off contributing to this narrativist RPG: http://icehousegames.org/wiki/?title=The_Crystal_in_my_Pocket I am, clearly, developing a gamist system; likewise, I am letting the pieces tell me what they should be--I do not feel I am doing the "it's GURPS, but with pyramids" thing Joshua suggested in another post. But you seem to like narrativist (or simulationist, from the In Nomina references) games more than gamist games. But gamist or not, my "RPG" is still a role-playing game. > Maybe something based on pyramids? Or just a combat-heavy > sci-fi game? Simulate something like Jedi light-sabre duels? Maybe you could offer some suggestions as to how to make the game "pyramidy" or otherwise embed it deeply into a setting? Should it be a game about sentient pyramids on Mars, competing and negotiating for world (galactic?) domination? Suppose I say that's what it is... and STILL end up making the same system? Have I stopped being "generic"; or have I shown with my first example, that a generic system can be used for nearly any setting and situation (assuming you are playing characters in situations, not doing a storytelling or mass combat strategy game)? Also, I am not going to reduce the game to something like a street fighter/Jedi duels thing. There's PLENTY of strategic or tactical "single encounter" style games for pyramids. Further, I don't know how sci-fi (or any other genre) necessarily lends itself to using pyramids for stats or resolution or whatever. Unless I basically strap some other game's "mode of play" onto a storyline and call it an RPG. But that would, really, just be a strategy game with some basic means of stringing the encounters together (i.e. talking). Not much in the way of a "role-playing game"; more like the thin storylines that lies behind the "story mode" of a computer fighting game. Regarding use of pyramids in the system, maybe some kind of "pitch pieces and see how they aim" resolution system is more germane to the use of pyramids than my "roll a d4--a pyramidal die, by the way--and add to your pip count for that ability"? I dunno--you got any ideas? Thanks for taking a look, at least. My co-designer and I intend to flesh it out fairly fully, in the next few days/weeks. Perhaps once you see the whole system in place, it will seem more interesting to you as an RPG. But if you simply don't play tactically crunchy RPGs, then I doubt you'll find it to be up your alley. Thanks again; David