By request (from a PM):

Maybe this belongs in theory--I don't know--someone can move it if it does.

Okay: so, I have this big project that's a point-based universal RPG. As such, I (and the team) try to quantify things in terms of points. Things like "Can breathe under water" and "kill-with-a-glance." Stuff like that.

Now, everyone knows that point-costs are sort of a best-effort type of thing: very, very often the ability to kill or immobilize an enemy by looking at them is worth more than the ability to breathe under water ... but that one time? Or if you're playing Water World? Or whatever: clearly the value of something in a game is situationally related.

I think most people agree on that.

So we'll go one level down:

In trying to figure out how to create things in the game (powers, characters, skills, combat maneuvers, etc.) we need to have some idea of how those things act/interact with everything else. Not just other 'Game Elements' (like how your Strength score interacts with your hand-to-hand damage) but also things in the imaginary space of the game (how does your computer skill interact with the concept of Windows in a modern day game? Solaris? A fictitious far-future operating system?).

I mean, in most cases this is pretty straight forward--right? (make a roll to find vulnerabilities or maybe to patch them).

So we'll go one level deeper:

The conclusion that we've come to is that you can look at just about everything you'd consider a game-element (something you'd pay points for) and most things you'd *do* in the game (i.e. actions you'd declare) and it all fits into some kind of ... taxonomy. Like there's some big piece of paper with at least most things you'd find or do in an RPG written down ... under headings.

So maybe there's a heading called Move and under it you'd see things like: Combat Movement (with a bunch of stuff under that) and Leave Scene (maybe) and maybe Travel. Under Combat Movement there might be stuff like Ground Movement (Walk, crawl, run) and maybe special headings for Flight, Vehicular Positioning, Tactical Maneuver for advantage, and stuff like Teleport. Probably a lot of other stuff.

If you accept that it's even possible to capture a lot of the traditional roleplaying space in this way
If you can imagine this piece of paper (big) and map your last game to it, and you can see how a lot of the action that took place (maybe a whole lot? could you get all of it?) would be reflected in those categories--then you could envision a set of 'things' that are fundamental elements of traditional roleplaying.

In computerese we could call these things the foundation-class-library. If you had a full set of this stuff--the whole sheet of paper filled out--then you could take any traditional rpg and apply that structure to it (how is a player declaring movement in D&D different from movement in Champions? And Dogs in the Vinyard?).

I think this would tell you things--maybe even interesting things.

So there's been some work on it 'round these parts.

I'm posting this because I got a PM about it and the person was interested and thought it would make a good public discussion.

What's to discuss? How about this: what are the 'top level' categories?

Is there something like this:
Character, Combat, Imaginary Thing, Imaginary Event? Or would you break it down further at the top level? Would you take out Combat and leave that under Event? Does this even make sense (yes, I know that Imaginary Event needs a lot more explanation before you could even answer that meaningfully--I'm presently thinking this is already long and maybe not all that interesting).

-Marco

And as is often the case in thse kinds of foundation class libraries, some of the implementation details are left up to the specific implementation.

So, movement in D&D might be different from movement in DitV, but it's still movement.  How movement is defined can be pushed down to a lower implementation element where it's specific costs and effects can be determined.

Is that possible, Marco?

Quote from: James J SkachAnd as is often the case in thse kinds of foundation class libraries, some of the implementation details are left up to the specific implementation.

So, movement in D&D might be different from movement in DitV, but it's still movement.  How movement is defined can be pushed down to a lower implementation element where it's specific costs and effects can be determined.

Is that possible, Marco?

Oh yeah, absolutely. Saying "I flank him" has no specific meaning in DitV. Saying "I flank him" in D&D has no meaning unless you move the miniature (assuming you're playing with a map).

The game is the implementation of these concepts (it's legitimate to say "I flank him" in both games--but the actual outcome is very different).

-Marco

D&D started started out as miniature wargame. The first essential element that set it apart from chainmail was its open end nature. A second essential element is continuity. The third essential element is it focuses on the personal level i.e. the character is king.

Beyond that just about any game can be the basis for a role-playing game. Whether it will be a fun role-playing game is another question. During the early days several wargames came out that had strong backgrounds, Star Fleet Battles, Swords and Sorcery, Freedom in the Gaxaly etc. I knew of several homebrews that took these and tried to make a rpg campaign out of them.

I almost want to say that the definition of a traditional RPG is one in which certain connections to concrete miniature and/or hex-and-counter wargaming is preserved at some level. Not willing to follow up on that at this point though.

Marco, I think your schema is a good one, but I think at best you're going to get relative taxa of foundational categories. For example, you could argue that social interaction and physical combat fall uniquely under a single 'kind' of interaction in Dying Earth, but under different kinds in AD&D1, and that both are specimens of yet a broader kind in The Pool.

I absolutely think the kind of schema you're looking for is possible and illuminating to do for any game, but whether there are any interesting patterns covering traditionality in games is likely something we'll need to look at 50 or 100 well-done examples to ascertain.

Hey, Marco. . . fuck you! I just dropped a lot of money on JAGS Revised, so you'd better not be yanking that rug out from under me before I get a chance to test drive (fly?) it

On a more serious note, you're obviously looking at something for generic RPGs and I'm going to recommend the HERO approach as opposed to the GURPS and/or d20 approach. That is, rather than drive yourselves batshit crazy trying to provide situation specific rules for everything (which, despite claims, isn't a realistic goal), I think that you should stick with providing broad rules that can model many different things.

As I see it, this is currently JAGS largest weakness -- out of the box it only does rather mundane things, with no rules for constructing your own powers or abilities (which, incidentally, makes the cover more than a bit misleading). It is entirely dependent on pre-constructed lists of powers (e.g., spells) or subject specific, non-core, expansions (e.g., mutations in Have Not) in order to do things that most multi-genre systems can do out of the box.

That's a big hurdle, IMHO.

Here's a list had floating around; this is -- needless to say -- very unfinished... so it's got all kinds of stuff at different levels of abstraction, etc.

It's more of a brain dump than a real taxonomy... But it might be interesting.

The idea was to try to come up with some base elements for a really universal model. Btw: most of this comes from looking at a few games I like (D&D, GURPS, mainly) and looking at the stuff they have rules for and trying to abstract one level.

Top-Level Objects and Relationships
1) Things

• Actors (basically characters or things that behave like characters)
• Objects (things that don't act -- or behave like characters in any way)

2) Environment

• Time (combat rounds, sequencing)
• Effects of the environment (darkness, storms, heat/cold, etc.) on perception, objects, behavior (e.g. movement over terrain)
• Effects of things like fire, explosions, etc.
• Gravity (falling -- both long falls and the effect of falling down or being knocked down in combat)

3) Key Interactions

• Interaction with objects including falling, hitting, ramming, shooting etc.)
• Movement rules (falling, running, jumping, flying, swimming)
• Social interaction

Actor Attributes (physical)
Here's a list of things that might be useful to describe a character

• Mass including density and composition, including what he's made of, armored skin, etc.
• Size / height
• Shape
• How much he can carry
• What he needs to live (substance, amount, what happens without it)
• How he perceives the world (including senses, field of vision, etc.)
• How he responds to trauma / damage
• Reaction speed -- how fast he reacts to things (related to movement)
• Balance and orientation – how he gets up, falls down, etc.
• Ability to move including speed, method, etc.
• What substances are toxic to him and how he responds to poisons, drugs, etc.
• Ability to manipulate things (fine motor manipulators)
• Ability to grab / hold things
• Ability to inflict damage including fists, teeth, natural weapons, etc.

Mental Attributes would include

• Communicate (language, literacy, ability to speak)
• Learn, know, memorize (ability to pick up or have skills, ability to remember things)
• Emotions (effects of fear, courage, temptation, etc.)
• Beliefs (including delusion, loyalty, morality, etc.)
• Mental reactions to stress, trauma, etc. (e.g. SAN or Fright Checks, intimidation, etc.)

Actor (character) Capabilities
These would be feats, skills, advantages, etc. Actually, I think any specific advantage (say, eidetic memory or double-jointed) would be expressed in terms of how it affects the actor's capabilities. Stats would, also: strength makes you harder to hurt (in Champions), do more damage, etc. -- a whole laundry list of capability modifiers.

I also listed "modifiers" which were things I felt made a capability more or less useful -- for example, "Knowing something" is generally useful... but the modifier "academic" represents knowledge that's probably less useful most of the time (at least in an RPG).


Knowledge / Education


• Know something
• Learn something / find something / remember something (research, streetwise, etc.)
• Know someone
• Analyze / assess / figure out understand something (intelligence, science / forensics)

Negative Modifiers for Knowledge / Education Capabilities

• Academic, scientific, literary, historical, antique
• Highly specialized
• Esoteric
• Trivial, low culture

Positive Modifiers for Knowledge Capabilities

• Illegal / Underground

Will / Spirit


• Resist manipulation
• Overcome adversity (willpower)

Physical / Combat


• Hit something
• Hurt something (damage / disable)
• o   Penetrate armor
• o   Restrain / limit someone (disarm, etc.)
• Defend against being hit
• Defend against being hurt
• Take damage
• React fast
• Tactical maneuver (running, acrobatics)

Social


• Manipulate someone (appearance, diplomacy, lie)
• o   Intimidate
• o   Impress (etiquette)
• o   Attract / Seduce
• o   Convince / persuade (salesmanship)
• o   Ingratiate
• Understand someone (psychology)
• Communicate with someone (languages)
• Fool someone (slight-of-hand)
• Fame / High-class / Infamous (Reputation)

Professional


• Make money (professional skill)
• Make something valuable
• Heal someone

Other


• Find something / Sense something (physical)
• Hide something
• Movement (climbing, scuba diving, drive, etc.)
• Overcome hazard (fire-fighter, break fall, etc.)
• Gain access (high social class, lock-pick)
• Carry

Quote from: jdrakehHey, Marco. . . fuck you! I just dropped a lot of money on JAGS Revised, so you'd better not be yanking that rug out from under me before I get a chance to test drive (fly?) it

On a more serious note, you're obviously looking at something for generic RPGs and I'm going to recommend the HERO approach as opposed to the GURPS and/or d20 approach. That is, rather than drive yourselves batshit crazy trying to provide situation specific rules for everything (which, despite claims, isn't a realistic goal), I think that you should stick with providing broad rules that can model many different things.

As I see it, this is currently JAGS largest weakness -- out of the box it only does rather mundane things, with no rules for constructing your own powers or abilities (which, incidentally, makes the cover more than a bit misleading). It is entirely dependent on pre-constructed lists of powers (e.g., spells) or subject specific, non-core, expansions (e.g., mutations in Have Not) in order to do things that most multi-genre systems can do out of the box.

That's a big hurdle, IMHO.

The JAGS Foundation Classes would be the building blocks that were used to make all those mutations, etc. In other words: those would be the broad rules you're talking about.

We can have a conversation about whether power-construction rules are a bonus or not (how do you create 'stretching' from "basic pieces?" How about "Phase through wall" without having a phase-power?). But, regardless: the basic building blocks is what you're asking for.

As for -E, that's a hell of a list. I'll look at it when I get the time.

-Marco

-E.

Nice. Fucking. List.

I hope to be able to comment on it later, but I need to digest it more.  But I thought it needed a nice slap on the back for the effort, regardless....

Quote from: Marcohow do you create 'stretching' from "basic pieces?" How about "Phase through wall" without having a phase-power?

I really hope those weren't serious questions, as JAGS sourcebooks present a number of powers and classes. The question you should be asking is "How did we create this spell/power/mutation when designing JAGS supplement X?" -- because whatever steps you to took to create those things are the real JAGS building blocks.

Quote from: jdrakehI really hope those weren't serious questions, as JAGS sourcebooks present a number of powers and classes. The question you should be asking is "How did we create this spell/power/mutation when designing JAGS supplement X?" -- because whatever steps you to took to create those things are the real JAGS building blocks.

I think you're missing my point here: we created those powers by looking at fiction and saying "we want these abilities."

But we defined them in game terms using (our nascent) JCF methodology.

Phase: Primary is MOVEMENT (we see it as primarily a form of movement).
Secondary: DEFENSE (you could say it "inherits" from defense)
Value: High (Movement), Medium-high (DEFENSE)
Strangeness: Very high

This description is in scratch notes (interestingly, Stretching looks similar but has GRAPPLE-OFFENSE as the primary and DEFENSE and MOVEMENT as secondary elements).

Those all UPPERCASE words are the JCF elements. If we had a full working list and costs then you could take that list and create ... let me think ...

Blink Teleport
Primary is Defense (Value: High, teleport-dodge out of the way of attacks)
Secondary is MOVEMENT (teleport. Value: Medium--you don't go far)
Secondary is ATTACK (blink to strike from behind/Above) Value: Medium
Strangeness: Very High (teleporting around the battlefield is weird)

In theory, this exercise would give you the cost for each "level" of Blink Teleport (where 'level' is defined as some kind of substantial modifier to a defense roll).

-Marco

Quote from: CalithenaI almost want to say that the definition of a traditional RPG is one in which certain connections to concrete miniature and/or hex-and-counter wargaming is preserved at some level. Not willing to follow up on that at this point though.

I'd disagree. En Garde! is undeniably old school and has no support for miniatures. Traveller's combat system used an abstracted range mechanic which allowed you to ignore miniatures entirely. Tunnels and Trolls' melee system was sufficiently abstract that miniatures weren't necessary either. You could use minis with them, but you can say the same of pretty much any RPG out there.

Quote from: WarthurI'd disagree. En Garde! is undeniably old school and has no support for miniatures. Traveller's combat system used an abstracted range mechanic which allowed you to ignore miniatures entirely. Tunnels and Trolls' melee system was sufficiently abstract that miniatures weren't necessary either. You could use minis with them, but you can say the same of pretty much any RPG out there.

I'm not -entirely- sure that Calithena meant "use of miniatures" so much as "a playstyle derived from the miniatures-based wargame", but I'll leave that up to...uh....them....to define more clearly.

Perhaps we'll learn more about it later.

Quote from: MarcoBut we defined them in game terms using (our nascent) JCF methodology.

I may be off-base here, but I think the difference is that games like Hero give you (to some degree) the foundation classes while games like GURPS give you the derrived classes.

Since, in any give character, you're only going to (likely) use the derrived classes I don't think that's a horrible problem. In fact, there are probably some advantages: derrived powers can elegantly incorporate and enforce common fictional elements (I'm thinking of magic systems -- Even with modifiers for incantations and material components Fantasy Hero's magic system never felt like magic to me. GURPS's magic system did).

So long as you have a GURPS-like approach, where you've provided sufficient derrived classes to cover the supported genres, it's probably less important to fully document and support the foundation classes.

The exception might be super hero games, where there's a real advantage to being able to do whatever crazy thing you want.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.I may be off-base here, but I think the difference is that games like Hero give you (to some degree) the foundation classes while games like GURPS give you the derrived classes.

Since, in any give character, you're only going to (likely) use the derrived classes I don't think that's a horrible problem. In fact, there are probably some advantages: derrived powers can elegantly incorporate and enforce common fictional elements (I'm thinking of magic systems -- Even with modifiers for incantations and material components Fantasy Hero's magic system never felt like magic to me. GURPS's magic system did).

So long as you have a GURPS-like approach, where you've provided sufficient derrived classes to cover the supported genres, it's probably less important to fully document and support the foundation classes.

The exception might be super hero games, where there's a real advantage to being able to do whatever crazy thing you want.

Cheers,
-E.

OK, I'll come out and admit I'm the one who asked Marco to take a question I had in PM to a public thread.

I don't know about Marco's perspective, but this kind of misses the point.  The point is not to think about derived classes, but to really see if a set of foundation classes can be built from which thousands of derived classes can be built very easily.  And to even be able to look at different implementations of the same derived class and see how subtle changes alter the look and feel of a game.

Now Marco might tell you I'm fucking crazy. But his approach for JAGS (which I'm now going to take a closer look at) seemed a perfect base for starting this kind of effort.

This happens in industry all the time.  Foundation classes are established and people riff off those to differentiate their products/services. So I just thought - Hey an RPG Consortium Working Group built here at the RPGSite.  Working Theory, not Abstract Theory!

But that's just me...