.....
....
...
..
.
Humanoids, and assorted non-humanoid forum members!
Abandoned Arts, here, with a crazy idea. Before I get into the details, though, two things:
1.) THIS IS NOT A GAME OF PATHFINDER. This is something else ENTIRELY.
2.) This is a game that EVERYONE can play. (Sort of.) There is NO LIMIT to how many players can participate in this game. If you just found this thread, and the game is already well underway - just read on, and jump in! EVERYONE CAN PLAY THIS GAME, and it's NEVER too late to join.
Okay. Sorry about that. I've tried this once before, and those two points were notoriously unclear. For those reasons and others, interest eventually fizzled out. This time around, I've been more clear about (and had more time to develop) a ruleset. Fingers crossed.
This thread will serve as an introduction-and-interest-check in a completely new kind of Play-by-Post game designed from the ground up specifically for play-by-post gameplay. For now, we'll call it - uh - AdventureCrawl! That's a working title, actually. Neither that name or any of the mechanics or ideas that you're about to read have been copyrighted at this time, so everything is subject to change (and I'm hesitant to post full rules test, and so forth).
Eventually, the-product-currently-known-as-AdventureCrawl will see the light of day as a published PDF product (under a different name). The mechanics are VERY much in development at this time, especially specific class and race mechanics. The core mechanics are fairly solid, however - solid enough that I feel up to showing them off to the Paizo community, here, while I bullsh-er... improvise many of the class and race mechanics (and other details) as we go. This'll give me a chance to do some playtesting, some showing off, and some interest-checking... all while entertaining the forums with a game that EVERYONE can play together.
So.
HERE'S HOW IT WILL WORK:
Like I said, this is a game that EVERYONE can play. The entire forums can all play it together. How? By drawing "PC" actions from a pool of player submissions. I, your "GM," will choose from among any number of player-submitted actions, choices, and decisions, then communicate the results of those actions to you, the players. As actions are resolved, you the players, will discuss and submit the choice of a NEW set of actions in response to the results of your previous actions. Get it?
Basically, the community of players will collectively discuss and submit ideas for what actions the PCs should take. I, the GM, will select those actions that seem to be the most popular and/or interesting.
That way, no single PC will be controlled by any single player. Instead, EVERY PC is controlled by EVERY player, collectively. This has two primary advantages:
1.) A new player can join in at ANY time, by simply communicating his or her thoughts on what action(s) the PCs should take next.
2.) The game will NEVER die just because one player dropped out, or got bored.
SO! What do we think, forums? Shall we play a game?
If there's interest, I'll post some basic rules, and some basic info about character creation and game flow, so we can get started (a full write-up of the rules will have to wait until the-product-currently-known-as-AdventureCrawl sees publication).
Bumping this for the morning bunch.
Color me curious.
I'm not sure the investment of partially controlling the shared PC is enough return for me Daron. As you know, I participated in your previous brainstorming for this, and I have directed a few people to the first PbP installment. I'm really just interested in looking at the rules and classes -the ruleset if you will.
Post the rules so I know what the parameters are/what I can propose the PC to do, and perhaps even have a PC of my own, and I would be much more interested.
Count me in!
@ EldonG, Orthos, Tin Foil Yamakah, & Ruick: Read on.
@ Oceanshieldwolf: To be fair, you'd have partial control over every PC. That's basically the same thing! : P
But seriously, players interested in a more "dedicated" role could GM their own games, once the ruleset is made freely-available. Of course, once the product is live, I expect many players will run "traditional" games where each player DOES control one PC.
That's just not what this "beta" is about. HOWEVER, I think that the player pool for this beta will likely be small enough that every individual player voice will carry substantial weight. Plus, talking tactics and weighing options with fellow players is its own kind of fun.
Read on for a little insight as to the ruleset, though.
Some rules-info, for interested parties.
Right now, races and classes comprise some of the most undeveloped rules-territory, existing mainly as a series of notes and mechanical ideas. For the purposes of this early-beta playtest, I'll be "fleshing out" the races and classes that comprise our PCs as we go, in accordance with the notes that I've taken during development. For that reason, the races and classes available for the playtest will be drawn from a list of those options with the most extensive notes, to-date, on my end.
the most beta-ready Classes include:
the Archer
the Assassin
the Berserker
the Druid
the Gunslinger
the Paladin
the Phantasmist
the Priest
the Rogue
the Sorcerer
the Warrior
the Witchdoctor
the most beta-ready Races include:
the Human
the Avian
the Earth Gnome
the Ghoul
the Goblin
the Grippit
the High Elf
the Hill Dwarf
the Hobbit
the Lizardfolk
the Ork
the Sahuagin
Because the-game-currently-known-as-AdventureCrawl will be a free-forever game, "expansions" including TONS of additional races classes could eventually be made available for a few bucks. To that end, I do have less-extensive notes on races and classes of all different types, so the above list is not necessarily comprehensive, even for the purposes of this beta.
In AdventureCrawl, Action Points (AP) make the world go round. Every action costs some number of AP, even moving. Because AdventureCrawl is designed from the ground-up to be played in play-by-post, the game uses a system of "abstract movement;" there are no tricky grid-based maps to slow down or complicate the play-by-post gameplay format. PCs will typically possess enough AP to perform more than one action per turn, meaning that "crowdsourced" player imput can amount to more than just "attack this" or "move there." Even if the GM doesn't take one of your AP-spending suggestions, another might be heard during the same round.
The core mechanic in AdventureCrawl (which uses only d6s), is the "check." A check might be an attack roll or a skill use, and basically amounts to rolling a handful of dice. A familiar enough mechanic, but handled in an innovative way. A check has a Hit Value (the number on the die that constitutes a hit). After the dice are rolled, the hits are both counted AND totaled.
For example, a roll of 6 dice with a Hit Value of 3 turns up a 4, 3, 5, 2, 2, and 6. Because the Hit Value is 3, the dice showing 4, 3, 5, and 6 are "hits." The TOTAL of those number is 18 (4 + 3 + 5 + 6). AdventureQuest often references both the hit count AND the hit total when determining the outcome of a check. When making an attack check, for example, the hit total indicates whether the attack misses or hits (and what KIND of a hit it is), and the hit count indicates how much damage the attack deals. Thus, a single roll functions as both an "attack roll" and a "damage roll."
While we wait for interest to grow (no sense starting the Gameplay Thread with only a tiny handful of players), I'll take any general questions you folks might have. I may not be able to go into tremendous detail (for copyright-related reasons, and because the whole project is still in early beta), but questions of "how-to" should be answerable, and the flow of gameplay will become apparent as we get started.
Let's keep the thread alive long enough to garner enough interest to play. Once we get going, the flow of gameplay should become apparent relatively quickly.
@ lucky7: A phantasmist is five parts illusionist, and two parts necromancer. The phantasmist conjures echoes of creatures and places long dead and ruined. Like quasi-real memories given ghostly shape, these "phantasms" can move about the field of play as directed by the phantasmist, and may serve as catalysts or focal points for his or her spells and skills.
@ Tin Foil Yamakah: Every race is indeed viable for every class, and "MILK ALL THE REPLAY VALUE!" is one of my most central design goals. Highly variable character configurations help make that happen.
It seems like we've got some momentum building up. Before tomorrow night, I'll get some basics nailed down in here and open up the gameplay thread. It's going to be important to keep THIS thread bumped, though, so that players looking to join a Play-by-Post game have chances to see it while the game is still going on.
In the meantime, keep firing away with your questions. Also, by all means... continue to bandy about class/race combos and so forth. : )
Grippit Gunslinger, please!
@ Misroi: ...that's actually really cool.
@ Zopzi: Nice visuals. Grippit being the "froggy-guy" race, inspired as much by EverQuest's froglok's as anything else (boggards, grippli, etc.)
@ lucky: There's no "registration" process, per se. Normally, the GM would let you know if you've "made the cut" by PM or in the recruitment thread itself. In our case, though, EVERYONE is welcome to play. Once the gameplay thread starts up, just hop in.
Like I said before, I'll probably try and start the gameplay thread sometime before tomorrow night, if interest holds up.
If you know anyone who might enjoy play-by-post games (or rogulikes, or dungeon-crawling!), direct them this way. This project will live or die on forum participation.
In the interim, keep the questions coming!
Some more rules-data.
So, one of the key conceits of AdventureCrawl is the idea that the players will control and command an entire guild full of adventurers of every stripe. "Permadeath" is a harsh reality in the world of AdventureCrawl, and the game is designed to be more than a little challenging.
The players will take on the role of guildmasters of sorts, recruiting and dispatching adventurers. Taking several cues from the "roguelike" genre, AdventureCrawl is somewhat unforgiving; adventurers will die from time to time, more likely than not... and in AdventureCrawl, dead is dead.
Maintaining and dispatching a stable of adventurers is your guild's primary business. You'll sign contracts to complete quests for various parties, and draft chartered adventuring companies from your roster of heroes (and anti-heroes).
Adventurers will spend the gold they find "in the field" on training, building up new skills and abilities at your guildhall between missions. It pays to keep a full roster, as injured adventurers may need time to recover between assignments. Your guild profits from completed assignments as well, collecting prestige, resources, and client fees for fulfilled questing contracts. While guild advancement mechanics are still in super-early beta, expect the guild to be able to incorporate new structures, features, and facilities as it accrues more resources.
Like I said, this is a game that EVERYONE can play. The entire forums can all play it together. How? By drawing "PC" actions from a pool of player submissions. I, your "GM," will choose from among any number of player-submitted actions, choices, and decisions, then communicate the results of those actions to you, the players. As actions are resolved, you the players, will discuss and submit the choice of a NEW set of actions in response to the results of your previous actions. Get it?
Basically, the community of players will collectively discuss and submit ideas for what actions the PCs should take. I, the GM, will select those actions that seem to be the most popular and/or interesting.
That way, no single PC will be controlled by any single player. Instead, EVERY PC is controlled by EVERY player, collectively.
This really sounds to me like a multiplayer, multi-character version of one of those text games, a la Zork and Hitchhiker's Guide, or more interactive, forum-focused versions of the webcomics Homestuck or Problem Sleuth (which in turn also take heavy inspiration from those old text adventure games).
Which is not necessarily a bad thing, mind.
@ Orthos: AdventureCrawl takes more inspiration from games like X-Com: Enemy Unknown, the upcoming Darkest Dungeon, Rogue, and the Final Fantasy: Tactics series (without the grid... although I suppose Final Fantasy: Tactics without the grid isn't really Final Fantasy: Tactics, at all).
Truth be told, though, I really can't talk about the game's "inspirations" without mentioning the interactive webcomic GenCrawl, by Domochevsky (and it's sister webcomic, GenCrawl Gaiden, by same). Not on account of the mechanics so much as the forum-centric, "Let's Play" gameplay, and the heavy roguelike influences.
I am, in fact, in communication with the author of the series, and I hope to sucker and/or conscript the gentleman into doing some artwork for the (eventual) PDF products.
The-game-currently-known-as-AdventureCrawl was always intended to be a dedicated play-by-post game, but my interest in GenCrawl is most definitely what inspired the idea of a forum-wide, "player pool" game mode. Of course, the-game-currently-known-as-AdventureCrawl can just as easily be played with a small group, each player controlling one or more PCs. For that matter, AdventureCrawl could be played on your tabletop - it's just designed for the play-by-post gamer first.
Update: I'll send everyone a PM when the Gameplay Thread is live (hopefully today/tonight-ish), but in the meantime, let's keep this thread ALIVE so that our player pool can grow. It'd be good to know that there's interest in this project, anyhow (and knowledge of such could help me to justify spending more of my Abandoned Arts time on this project, as opposed to others).
Food for thought:
What'll we call our guild? Let's start a vote.
: P
|
Update: I'll send everyone a PM when the Gameplay Thread is live (hopefully today/tonight-ish), but in the meantime, let's keep this thread ALIVE so that our player pool can grow. It'd be good to know that there's interest in this project, anyhow (and knowledge of such could help me to justify spending more of my Abandoned Arts time on this project, as opposed to others).
Food for thought:
What'll we call our guild? Let's start a vote.
: P
Crawler's Guild Local #9...
The discussion threads and gameplay threads are live! I'll send out PMs sometime tomorrow. Let's get started!
(Just a reminder: given the special nature of this game, we should keep this thread bumped so that our player pool can grow. I'll try to do so at least once per day. Any given game of AdventureCrawl - at least one hosted in this particular format - will ALWAYS be "in recruitment," so hopefully I'm not breaking any rules in doing so!
Enjoy, folks.
Had some reports of trouble with the gameplay thread link.
If the above link doesn't work, this one should: clicky
Bumping for the morning crowd. Come on in, folks.
Yep; casuals are most definitely welcome.
I am here to be helpful, just as soon as someone adds me to the player list.
Hop straight into the gameplay thread (after reading as much of the rules as you care to). You'll appear on the player list as soon as you post.
Ahem. I'm interested in a frontline fighter...
- Female{married, 2 years}, High-Elf - Paladin of ISHTAR
{Goddess of Love and War}
- Bronze Plate Mail, Large Shield, Longsword, Elven Longbow, Longspear, Elven Long Knife, Bonded War Griffin "Agamemnon" w/Exotic Military Aerial Saddle & 'Partial' Leather Scale Barding
- 'Husband' - Male, Human - Warrior {Wyvern-Rider} of Clan MacDonald
- Black Dragon Scale Armor, Claymore, Elven Longbow {made by Golfinwe}, Warhammer, Bonded Wyvern "Darkus" w/Exotic Aerial Saddle
Post your suggestion in the Gameplay Thread, HolyValkyrie.
GENERAL BUMP:
AdventureCrawl is still in PERMANENT RECRUITMENT mode. Hop into the Gameplay Thread and join right in. Everyone is welcome.
Don't know why I've been having trouble with Gameplay Thread Links.
I think I corrected a typo in the thread name at some point, and it broke some of the links.
This is your daily reminder that AdventureCrawl is ALWAYS recruiting. Come on in, folks - the Gameplay Thread is open to everyone.
Recruitment is still (and always) open. There's no application process, just hop right into the Gameplay Thread if you'd like to play.