Lately I've been introducing my girlfriend to RPGs (Shadowrun and, in a lesser degree, Traveller). She's an excellent storyteller, very open-minded and very imaginative, and would probably make a great roleplayer. The thing is that she likes to focus on a story and not the rules, and has a phobia of complex formulae (being force to go through two ultra-difficult differential and integral calculus courses as part of her BSc degree in zoology is probably responsible for that). She has no problem with grasping simple rules, but I don't think they'll ever be the focus of her play. She's a naturally talented roleplayer, but she's anything but a wargamer/gearhead.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because the whole proccess of introducing my girlfriend to RPGing has made me think about the underlying design philosophy of my house-rules. Another contributing factor to this was my bad experience with the 3rd edition of Shadowrun, with combat being too cumbersome and too page-flipping for a flowing game (now mostly solved by the 4th edition).
A good RPG rule-system has two major parts - an underlying inrastructure and an interface.
The infrastructure is the major part of the system, the "ground rules" that help the Referee/GM (or experienced players) describe things and construct situations. This is where the gearheading fun (for those, like me, who likes it) goes - it is mostly "invisible" in play but a good design helps the referee describe the world/system/ship/vehicle/robot in detail during gameplay, especially if the referee is experienced and could quickly use a data-string (UWP, USP, URP and so on) as a very compact "cheat sheet". For example, the players might ask "would our ATV be able to cross the rickety bridge without collapsing it?"; the referee could use the ATV's Striker/MT/T20 design's weight as a basis for "winging it" about this situation. A UWP, for another example, could provide the referee with several cues that will help him describe a world to the players.
By interface I mean the rules that the players interact with in the regular course of play. This includes combat, starship operation and task resolution; chargen is somewhewre between infrastructure cand interface, as it is done once per PC and should be fairly detailed, varied and interesting (and, in Traveller, is a very vfun game-of-chance by itself). The interface should be a tool of storytelling, not the other way around. On one hand, it should provide results that are as close to reality as the ease of play allows, but, on the other hand, should worky smoothly, be easy to use and not take too much time in "bare" die-rolling. UGM fits here very well - the entire system fits in one A4 page, is very easy to learn and to use, takes one 2D6 roll per task, and lists each task in a few words.
Combat is a usual time-trap and in some RPG systems is more of a time-consuming chore than an acienting piece of action. My feeling is that a good "rule of a thumb" for combat should be no more than 3 die rolls per attack - 2 being the optimal comprimise and 1, if possible with enough realism/variety is the best. Also, page-flipping during combat is a big "no-no" as it destroys the thrilling action and consumes time. A good combat system is one that is conducted using three A4 pages during combat itself - the combat system summery, the PC's character sheet, and the Referee's NPC/animal group sheet. Sure, tables and lists (of weapons, armor, skills, attribute effects etc) would be consulted at chargen or when purchasing, but not during combat.
Using vectors during starship combat is good in two cases: either when the players and referee are comfortable with them (usually from being engineers or having another math/physics related proifession) or when a computer program is used to do the "dirty work". Otherwise, realism would have to be partially sacrificed and a range-band system be used.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because the whole proccess of introducing my girlfriend to RPGing has made me think about the underlying design philosophy of my house-rules. Another contributing factor to this was my bad experience with the 3rd edition of Shadowrun, with combat being too cumbersome and too page-flipping for a flowing game (now mostly solved by the 4th edition).
A good RPG rule-system has two major parts - an underlying inrastructure and an interface.
The infrastructure is the major part of the system, the "ground rules" that help the Referee/GM (or experienced players) describe things and construct situations. This is where the gearheading fun (for those, like me, who likes it) goes - it is mostly "invisible" in play but a good design helps the referee describe the world/system/ship/vehicle/robot in detail during gameplay, especially if the referee is experienced and could quickly use a data-string (UWP, USP, URP and so on) as a very compact "cheat sheet". For example, the players might ask "would our ATV be able to cross the rickety bridge without collapsing it?"; the referee could use the ATV's Striker/MT/T20 design's weight as a basis for "winging it" about this situation. A UWP, for another example, could provide the referee with several cues that will help him describe a world to the players.
By interface I mean the rules that the players interact with in the regular course of play. This includes combat, starship operation and task resolution; chargen is somewhewre between infrastructure cand interface, as it is done once per PC and should be fairly detailed, varied and interesting (and, in Traveller, is a very vfun game-of-chance by itself). The interface should be a tool of storytelling, not the other way around. On one hand, it should provide results that are as close to reality as the ease of play allows, but, on the other hand, should worky smoothly, be easy to use and not take too much time in "bare" die-rolling. UGM fits here very well - the entire system fits in one A4 page, is very easy to learn and to use, takes one 2D6 roll per task, and lists each task in a few words.
Combat is a usual time-trap and in some RPG systems is more of a time-consuming chore than an acienting piece of action. My feeling is that a good "rule of a thumb" for combat should be no more than 3 die rolls per attack - 2 being the optimal comprimise and 1, if possible with enough realism/variety is the best. Also, page-flipping during combat is a big "no-no" as it destroys the thrilling action and consumes time. A good combat system is one that is conducted using three A4 pages during combat itself - the combat system summery, the PC's character sheet, and the Referee's NPC/animal group sheet. Sure, tables and lists (of weapons, armor, skills, attribute effects etc) would be consulted at chargen or when purchasing, but not during combat.
Using vectors during starship combat is good in two cases: either when the players and referee are comfortable with them (usually from being engineers or having another math/physics related proifession) or when a computer program is used to do the "dirty work". Otherwise, realism would have to be partially sacrificed and a range-band system be used.
