These are two projects I've been working on for some time.  One is a setting and the other is the game system.  I've been trying to move development along, but it's a bit hard to do so without some kind of feedback to give you direction and motivation.

I've come to discover that getting people to read your homebrew setting and system (especially when they are in alpha and beta stages) is much the same as getting people to read the unabridged multi-book collection of your angst ridden teenage years poetry.  There are a few brave one who do, but, while greatly appreciated, are few and far between.

So... here it is: http://www.bestwithstuff.com/index.php/rpg-projects

The focus of development is currently on functional potholes to fix.  Background and story fodder will come later, but I want to address anything that are expressed show stoppers.

The system reference document is a decent beta, but the setting material is very alpha.  Fair warning.  Anyone who trudges through this mess, I'll return the favor and take a honest look at anything you want another pair of eyes to look at.  Only fair.

Hey, I've just looked at the system at this stage - that being the sort of thing that interests me - so some thoughts, which you can feel free to use or ignore as you see fit, of course. (I should warn you now that I'm an overly nitpicky jerk, so take all of this with a grain of salt).
 
The overall system looks solid and workable. It looks like you've put a lot of thought into the theory behind how everything fits together.
Its quite structured, but perhaps impractically so in places. Things to watch, in my opinion:
 
*occasionally too much detail where its not necessary e.g. "Free periods" - I would have thought it went without saying that characters don't always need to track things in combat time.
 
*unusually formal terminology for things when plain-English might do ("agent" rather than "creature", or defined terms for things that probably don't require defining ("threats").
 
* perhaps unnecessary symmetry. The [2x5] attribute system is something that's interesting theoretically and might work but I think there's a risk with that many scores, that you are including attributes that are overlapping or unnecessary, or which which end up having only a limited number of skills or functions making them unbalanced against other attributes in your set.
Of existing systems that worked similarly to this, for example, DC Heroes has a 3x3 pattern [Physical/Mental/Spiritual X Acting/Effect/Resisting] and ended up with 4 different mental attributes that were rarely if ever used for their defined purpose [WILL, MIND, SPIRIT, AURA], and very peculiar ways of running a Perception check (noticing things uses INT/WILL). Storyteller maybe managed it OK.
 
How many stats you have is personal preference really, but with 10 attributes it may be easier for players to raise one quite high without major tradeoffs. I couldn't see how you were planning to generate attribute scores, but you can correct for this by sort of segmenting up purchase points somehow so players can't dump some stats too much (again Storyteller had its 7/5/3 point split across categories, so players didn't have complete free rein with point allocation.).
(Somewhere I have a '10x10 array system that works for this sort of thing if you're interested, that I'm likely never to use...)
 
I'll do the rest of it sort of by section, though I'm jumping around a bit.
 
Core Mechanic
The core mechanic looks OK, though the 'Dice and Rolling' paragraph confused me in weird ways. I was searching for how to do raw attribute checks early on, before finding it sort of hidden under the '1x10 sided' line under Dice and Rolling (next to the damage rolls that were really multiple dice). The layout makes sense from a design perspective ('i.e. these mechanics are similar, so they go here') but not from the point of view of a player/end user trying to find out how to do things maybe? Or I may just be having a bad day.
I did like the way the margin of success system was set up, aesthetically (negative margin balanced against positive margin with same sort of description) though I don't know if thats something you'll find a practical use for.
 
Skills
The root + branch system is quite interesting (I can think of only a couple of systems that do anything vaguely like it, GURPS and LegendQuest, neither so logically)...and it would seem to give the option of creating either characters who are generalists or those who are specialists.
If I understand this correctly, the main incentive in raising the 'branch' skills is that these will have a lower rating and so cost less to raise - but do they also have more limited applications than the root skill?
Wondering how many tiers are likely to appear, and whether it'll result in lots of skills.
 
Combat
The damage system strikes me as possibly a little overcomplex with the flat vs. ratio setup, though I can see why you did it. (possibly it would look less complex if less terms were defined...)
Letting characters go to [-normal Health] might be too much.
 
If you're using Action Points, I'd recommend you take a look at Marco Chacon's JAGS System (http://www.jagsrpg.org/) since it has a very interesting system for handling interrupt actions that you might find worth borrowing.
 
Progression/Skill Purchases
If I understood correctly, a single "skill point purchase" (pg 10) gives multiple skill points based on stats (pg 6)? (If I hadn't seen that I might have assumed it meant cost was for a single skill point, though given session awards that would be very small). Also not sure what are the 'two circled attributes of the root skill' (again pg 6).
 
 
Hope some of this is useful. Thanks for posting, it was an interesting read.
BSJ.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;474444Hey, I've just looked at the system at this stage - that being the sort of thing that interests me - so some thoughts, which you can feel free to use or ignore as you see fit, of course. (I should warn you now that I'm an overly nitpicky jerk, so take all of this with a grain of salt).

Nitpicky jerk is good, I need someone to dig up the hard to find stuff.
 

Quoteoccasionally too much detail where its not necessary e.g. "Free periods" - I would have thought it went without saying that characters don't always need to track things in combat time.

I've been working to scale down the verbage in areas, I'm trying to be careful to not trim so much as to remove my intent... a hard balance to achieve.  But, I'll look into see what I can kick out in that section.
 

Quoteunusually formal terminology for things when plain-English might do ("agent" rather than "creature", or defined terms for things that probably don't require defining ("threats").

I've noticed I like defining terms or trying to find that exact fit, but that usually leads to trouble.  This is where an easily accessible thesaurus will bite you in the ass.  I got on some strange kick to be "inventive" with the terminology...  Still winding all that back to something sensible.
 

QuoteHow many stats you have is personal preference really, but with 10 attributes it may be easier for players to raise one quite high without major tradeoffs. I couldn't see how you were planning to generate attribute scores, but you can correct for this by sort of segmenting up purchase points somehow so players can't dump some stats too much (again Storyteller had its 7/5/3 point split across categories, so players didn't have complete free rein with point allocation.).
(Somewhere I have a '10x10 array system that works for this sort of thing if you're interested, that I'm likely never to use...)

I made sure the ten attributes are used roughly equally between each other.  I actually created a tally sheet to record each attribute's use in the system overall.  I tried to eliminate or fix any "super" or "dead" attributes.  Now, the attributes typically don't change in a game.  You decide the scores at character creation and they stick there, and you only have 55 points to distribute between all of them.  This way high stats need sacrifice.
 

QuoteCore Mechanic
The core mechanic looks OK, though the 'Dice and Rolling' paragraph confused me in weird ways. I was searching for how to do raw attribute checks early on, before finding it sort of hidden under the '1x10 sided' line under Dice and Rolling (next to the damage rolls that were really multiple dice). The layout makes sense from a design perspective ('i.e. these mechanics are similar, so they go here') but not from the point of view of a player/end user trying to find out how to do things maybe? Or I may just be having a bad day.
I did like the way the margin of success system was set up, aesthetically (negative margin balanced against positive margin with same sort of description) though I don't know if thats something you'll find a practical use for.

I've been thinking of just make a section regarding dice and rolling that has everything in there in an accessible way.  That way I'll just reference that section through the rest of the document.

Degree of success I've found useful in play-testing.  "Critical hits" are associated with high degrees of success.  I use it as a tool to determine whether or not someone was a sheer professional, just barely made it, or made it look like an amateur night at the karaoke bar.  It also has given players a clue as to have to feel about their efforts and role play them appropriately.  Nothing a like a few genuinely surprised looks on faces when a great effort gets halted regardless.

QuoteSkills
The root + branch system is quite interesting (I can think of only a couple of systems that do anything vaguely like it, GURPS and LegendQuest, neither so logically)...and it would seem to give the option of creating either characters who are generalists or those who are specialists.
If I understand this correctly, the main incentive in raising the 'branch' skills is that these will have a lower rating and so cost less to raise - but do they also have more limited applications than the root skill?
Wondering how many tiers are likely to appear, and whether it'll result in lots of skills.

The farther the branch skill is from the root the less applications it'll have.  Much like on a tree, each branching typically is narrower than where it branched from.  This may result in a lot of skills, but depends on the setting.  I may need to put suggestion on how many tiers you can go, but with proper pacing the branching usually dead-ends at about the fourth branch:

Ranged ->  Firearms -> Rifles -> Bolt-Action -> Specific Model -> X?

There's usually not much practical refinement after the fourth branching form my tests.  I may put in some rules to set that as an official limit, and hopefully that'll indirectly encourage a proper distribution.  Don't know...

QuoteCombat
The damage system strikes me as possibly a little overcomplex with the flat vs. ratio setup, though I can see why you did it. (possibly it would look less complex if less terms were defined...)
Letting characters go to [-normal Health] might be too much.

I've been fighting with the damage system for some time.  It's gone one route, returned, tried a different route, returned again, etc...  I've found something I'm happy with.  I'll work on the wording and see if I can come up with something a bit nicer.

I wondered if I should do negative health, but it seems to work.  At negative health, you really aren't contributing much.  The most you are doing is finding a nice, quiet place to curl up and whine in agony.  That is assuming you haven't passed out for any number of reasons.  The negative range was actually a simple way to keep track of that.  In a much old incarnation there used to be Critical and Mortal ranges in the regular health points.  That got a little tedious and annoying.  I also wanted to avoid the sudden death associated with just dropping to 0.  The negative range gives other players a fair chance to pull comrades out of the line of fire, stabilize them, and get them function again.  But, it doesn't abstract it so much that they can somehow survive the impossible.  A direct 80mm rank round will annihilate most characters in sheer damage alone.
 

QuoteIf you're using Action Points, I'd recommend you take a look at Marco Chacon's JAGS System (http://www.jagsrpg.org/) since it has a very interesting system for handling interrupt actions that you might find worth borrowing.

I've heard of it, never got around to look at it.  Better check it out.

QuoteProgression/Skill Purchases
If I understood correctly, a single "skill point purchase" (pg 10) gives multiple skill points based on stats (pg 6)? (If I hadn't seen that I might have assumed it meant cost was for a single skill point, though given session awards that would be very small). Also not sure what are the 'two circled attributes of the root skill' (again pg 6).

On the character sheet, there are three attributes that contribute the base rank of a root skill.  You total all of them to get that number, but circle two of them to receive double the amount from those attributes in figuring out that figure.  Another bit of wording that needs to be worked on.
 

QuoteHope some of this is useful. Thanks for posting, it was an interesting read.
BSJ.

Appreciate you taking time to read it.  And your feedback was very useful.  It confirmed a few things I suspected, but didn't have an exact clue about.

Quote from: BubbaBrown;474504I've noticed I like defining terms or trying to find that exact fit, but that usually leads to trouble. This is where an easily accessible thesaurus will bite you in the ass. I got on some strange kick to be "inventive" with the terminology... Still winding all that back to something sensible.
 
I made sure the ten attributes are used roughly equally between each other. I actually created a tally sheet to record each attribute's use in the system overall. I tried to eliminate or fix any "super" or "dead" attributes. Now, the attributes typically don't change in a game. You decide the scores at character creation and they stick there, and you only have 55 points to distribute between all of them. This way high stats need sacrifice.

Over-defining terms is an occupational hazard for game designers, really...
Tally sheet balancing is good.
 

QuoteI've been thinking of just make a section regarding dice and rolling that has everything in there in an accessible way. That way I'll just reference that section through the rest of the document.
 

QuoteDegree of success I've found useful in play-testing. "Critical hits" are associated with high degrees of success. I use it as a tool to determine whether or not someone was a sheer professional, just barely made it, or made it look like an amateur night at the karaoke bar. It also has given players a clue as to have to feel about their efforts and role play them appropriately. Nothing a like a few genuinely surprised looks on faces when a great effort gets halted regardless.

Cool...also, always good that you're doing some playtesting!
Minor qu. actually - since the [d10/0+bonuses-difficulty] is a linear distribution, I wonder if you're finding the descriptions vary too much from occasions when characters use their skills...professional one time, amateur another?...I do like how the base system lets you use the same descriptions for both d10 rolls and d100 rolls, though.
 

QuoteThe farther the branch skill is from the root the less applications it'll have. Much like on a tree, each branching typically is narrower than where it branched from. This may result in a lot of skills, but depends on the setting. I may need to put suggestion on how many tiers you can go, but with proper pacing the branching usually dead-ends at about the fourth branch:
 
Ranged -> Firearms -> Rifles -> Bolt-Action -> Specific Model -> X?
 
There's usually not much practical refinement after the fourth branching form my tests. I may put in some rules to set that as an official limit, and hopefully that'll indirectly encourage a proper distribution. Don't know...

X = a particular rifle you're really attached to?
But yeah that sounds reasonable. So people don't try to get chains of 11 skills at +9 for ultra-cheapness...
From a point balance perspective, if your branch skill is useful 1/2 as often it probably makes sense to boost the higher-level skill to +20 (cost 2), then move to the next branch. The x4,x8 and x16 costs look pretty prohibitive to buy...
 

QuoteI've been fighting with the damage system for some time. It's gone one route, returned, tried a different route, returned again, etc... I've found something I'm happy with. I'll work on the wording and see if I can come up with something a bit nicer.
 
I wondered if I should do negative health, but it seems to work. At negative health, you really aren't contributing much. The most you are doing is finding a nice, quiet place to curl up and whine in agony. That is assuming you haven't passed out for any number of reasons. The negative range was actually a simple way to keep track of that. In a much old incarnation there used to be Critical and Mortal ranges in the regular health points. That got a little tedious and annoying. I also wanted to avoid the sudden death associated with just dropping to 0. The negative range gives other players a fair chance to pull comrades out of the line of fire, stabilize them, and get them function again. But, it doesn't abstract it so much that they can somehow survive the impossible. A direct 80mm rank round will annihilate most characters in sheer damage alone.

Aha... OK, makes sense. When I wrote that I thought -HP was too much, I'd assumed that at 0 a character just fell over. If you have a system where a character might be able to keep moving on 0 health, then having it go to -HP seems quite reasonable to me since the 0 would represents someone being just seriously injured, rather than almost dead.
 

QuoteAppreciate you taking time to read it. And your feedback was very useful. It confirmed a few things I suspected, but didn't have an exact clue about.

NP - glad to be of service!

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;474622Cool...also, always good that you're doing some playtesting!
Minor qu. actually - since the [d10/0+bonuses-difficulty] is a linear distribution, I wonder if you're finding the descriptions vary too much from occasions when characters use their skills...professional one time, amateur another?...I do like how the base system lets you use the same descriptions for both d10 rolls and d100 rolls, though.

The roll result is considered the quality of the effort put forth.  It can vary even for a professional, but, if you have a high skill rank, you'll put forth greater efforts more often than not.  Also, if you aren't that skilled your maximum is limited and the failures happen more often.
 

QuoteX = a particular rifle you're really attached to?
But yeah that sounds reasonable. So people don't try to get chains of 11 skills at +9 for ultra-cheapness...
From a point balance perspective, if your branch skill is useful 1/2 as often it probably makes sense to boost the higher-level skill to +20 (cost 2), then move to the next branch. The x4,x8 and x16 costs look pretty prohibitive to buy...

It's prohibitive on purpose.  I wanted there to be a sharp cut off point to emphasize the use of the tree system.  If it's too cheap, then the system will be ignored and balance gets thrown to the wind.  Anyway, it takes a lot more work to become an awesome generalist in comparison to an awesome specialist.