Hello everyone!

I was directed here to talk about my game, and here I am!

My name is Frank, and I am from the Ottawa, Ontario area! I've been playing games (table-top, strategy, miniature, Live-Action and all things in between) for almost twenty years now, and I have no intention on stopping any time soon.

The Hunt RPG is a new, diceless role-playing game that is now in its final stages of beta testing, and it pits normal humans up against the denizens of the night. Vampires, ghosts, werewolves ... all sorts of things that go bump in the night face off against the resourcefulness of you, the player, and the friends that make up your crew.

I've always found that role-playing a game felt much more satisfying than tossing the dice. Of course there is a time and a place for that – I wouldn't be here if it weren't for some casual casting of the bones – but when two or more players are engaged in a heated discussion, or the players are encountering a particular harrowing situation, nothing ruins the moment than when rolling dice. Sometimes the feeling is lost and can't be picked back up again. That's why I created this game as 'diceless'.

Also as a unique feature of this game is the lack of 'setting'. Although I might notate a few NPC's at the end of the book for easy reference, there is no setting at all. This makes it easier to manipulate to the whims of the Admin (aka the Game Master). If you want a Lovecraftian Steampunk setting? Go for it. Modern-age chivalry campaign? Done. Post-apocalyptic zombie-fest? have at 'er. Hell, even if you wanted to – for one reason or another – create an Ice Age game, there is nothing stopping you except your imagination. And maybe the players. But that's it!

There is a question that often comes to me that I would like to address:

But Frank! How can you possibly resolve anything without dice?!

And I'm glad you asked, anonymous individual. Through game play, the Admin takes a number of factors into mind and asks the players to quickly rhyme off their particular statistics or Ranks in a skill (alternatively, the Admin could just take a copy of their character sheet and compare the numbers in his head) and determines whether the player should succeed or fail. Of course, there are contributing factors to think about, like the description of the intent and the difficulty of the task.

But what about combat? Surely you need randomization in something like this, right?

When designing combat, I had to have something that would add randomness into the equation. The first Alpha Testing had our PC's attack each other, and if someone's attack wasn't nearly as good as the defender's ... well, defence, there was no way in hell that the attacker would ever hit. So I had to add in some features. Fatigue Points were added to simulate how tired one gets during combat, or how much someone could push themselves under stress, and one could spend these FP's for extra things like 'Extra Damage' or 'Extra Defence'. All in all, it comes down to a game of poker, where you lay out a few cards with your intended actions, with those cards adding to the appropriate score. Of course, you could always Bluff, as well.

Although the core game is pretty much done, I'm also working on a follow-up to the main book. Things that I wanted to put into the game, but didn't fit the 'feel' of the core rules (poisons, extended look at fire arms, safe-house creation, etc.). I do have to say, though, that I have a better understanding of some gaming companies and the need for supplements. Ugh ...

Nonetheless, that's my game in a nutshell. (Ever since seeing 'Austin Powers', I could never think of that saying ('in a nutshell') the same again, but I digress.) I just want to thank you for reading this and putting up with my ramblings! I'm very excited about this project and wanted to share it with my fellow gamers!

Thanks again!

Hmm... a generic or universal diceless system?  Color me intrigued!

Even though my may not be including a setting, I think it would be worthwhile to add a section of Admin advice that briefly touches on each of the standard genres to give fledgling Admins a focused starting point to creating a setting with game mechanics.

Also, I would definitely follow your instincts and put rules about poison and the other things you mentioned in the core rules- especially if you're presenting the game as a universal or generic system.  Nothing sucks more than having a 'universal' system that omits fairly standard situations in RPG game play.  Also, spreading breadcrumbs of what should be core rules throughout supplements is flat out lame, and it would piss me off.  Sure, edge-case situation and rules can be expanded or presented in specific genre supplements, but day-to-day core stuff like poisons, falling damage, drowning, and etc. should be covered in the core rules, IMHO.  

Although I didn't cover the poisons in the core rules, I believe I did cover falling and burning damage.  They are covered under a certain damage type called 'prolonged damage'.  Although poisons could be considered 'prolonged damage' in the core book, I'm also going a little more in depth as to what sorts of (common) poisons are out there and their effects.  So perhaps I was a bit misleading when I gave the impression that poisons (and all that they had to offer) was solely represented in a follow-up book.  Also, living with an amateur mycologist doesn't hurt when discussing the difference between beneficial and malicious mushrooms and fungi.

I do see merit in your idea for giving tidbits of information to fledgling Admin's into different types of settings, but ultimately the core rule book was just that: A book that could be used to play a game without anything too fantastic.  I could add a section at the end of it with blurbs on what would be good for my given examples (post-apocalyptic, Steampunk, etc.).  I will certainly give it some thought!

As it stands, I need to include a much-needed (and unfortunately overlooked) example of combat in the combat section of the book.  It is something that all my beta tester Admin's have asked for, and it is something that I'm currently grinding through now.

I will say this: Creating a combat system from nothing sucks.  It's extremely frustrating and I loathe it so very much.  But in a game like this, it is necessary.

Also, I want to include this: Any and all thoughts are welcome, but I don't want people to be upset or feel spurned if their ideas don't make it into the 'final draft'!

Oh, and lastly: Drohem, you are officially coloured plaid.  That's the colour I imagined 'intrigued' would be

Plaid, yeah, I could own it, LOL!
 
OK, glad to hear that you have that type of damaging effects in the core book.  I would argue that a combat example in the core book should be mandatory.  

While there are people who can create settings whole cloth from their imagination, on the other hand, there are people who need a gentle nudge to get their imagination sparked and flowing.  Have you ever picked up the GURPS or HERO core book?  There is a wealth of information, but it can be overwhelming to some people, especially new GMs, to create a setting without any other input.  All I'm saying is that a brief section on the standard genres would go a long way.

Ah, HERO. A game where a degree of astrophysics is a prerequisite.  Beautiful game. Totally in-depth, but completely overwhelming for the new, inexperienced player.  It's nothing short of a door-stop.

Nonetheless, when I designed my game, I had 2 people in mind at all times. My little woman and my good friend (on the website, they are in the Alpha Team section under li'l Deviant and T.C. Lemieux respectively) were integral in the creation of the game for a few reasons:

The Deviant loathes character creation.  She prefers to play the character rather than assign points to a character sheet.  Because of her, I made that step easy and fun.  There are no set 'skills' in The Hunt RPG.  You decide what sort of skills that your character would have.  In one game 'Fire arms' is acceptable. In The Hunt, 'Prone rifle shooting' would work just as well.  It adds to the personality of the character rather than being generic.  And in by doing so, it makes the Admin a part of the character's development so that they have an idea of what the character is like.  It adds - in my opinion - a little more connection to the crew.

T.C.'s problem, and I've told her this and used her as an example, is the over-complication of mathematics (see the HERO system).  So when I was making this game with the Alpha Crew, I would have to ask them to bring it down a notch.  "Remember T.C." I would say, and we would simplify the system into its most base form.  Sure, some rules are really cool to have, but adding situations like dual-wielding table-legs as they are duct-taped to ones arms just doesn't need to be in the books.  Instead, giving something the base statistics is all that is needed, with the rest coming from the mind of the Admin.  I give the outline. It's up to the crew as a whole (including the Admin) to determine the flavour.

And yes, the metal-coffee table legs attached to the forearms was an idea someone had when going up against zombies.  It was kiboshed by the crew, not the Admin.

So making things harder than they needed to be was not something I had the intention of doing.  Each and every rule I made, I had to sit down and look at it from different angles:

• 1) If I was new, does this rule make sense?
• 2) If I was a veteran, can this rule be exploited?
• 3) If I was a twink, how could I break this rule?

Armed with this list, I and the Alpha Team set to work on making the system smooth as a baby's bottom.  Because of my experience with disjointed and contradictory rules, as well as systems that made things harder than they should have been, I tried everything in my power not to be like them.  As enjoyable as they were, 'overwhelming' and 'frustrating' came to mind.

Oh, and something else that I forgot to mention earlier:  The use of 'Epic Points'.

These points are determined not by the Admin, but by the players.  If someone does something so phenomenally fantastic that it creates a moment that is repeated later on, or if someone even suggests that the moment was an 'epic' moment, then the player is rewarded with an 'Epic Point'.  These points can be put towards increasing a statistic or Skill Rank at any time, and can be hoarded to be spent later.  Subsequent uses of Epic Points just might be rewarded with additional Epic Points.  There has to be some sort of prudence, though, and the Admin is more than welcome to halt any over-due silliness that occurs.

In both Alpha and Beta, these points were well received and encouraged people to think out of the box.

Also, I try to make this game as personable as possible.  My big thing is that of 'personal horror'.  The problem I have with 'horror' movies now-a-days is that anyone can be startled by sudden imagery and loud sounds.  "BOO!"  That's all it is. Over-glorified and raking in big bucks, but it's a "BOO" nonetheless.

But 'personal horror', something that you can identify with, something that tugs at your own heartstrings, that's something that can frighten me.  Which is why, I think, I like psychological thrillers more than slash-flicks.

With that said, that's the sort of story that I like to run and write about.  And because of that, I've also gone about into writing a short (reeeeeally short) journal entry for my website.  And, hopefully, something that is somewhat interactive.

Go to my website and click on 'Journal of a Hunter' along the right-hand side to check out the journal entry.

It could have been so much longer, but I wanted to keep it short, with the possibility of 'hooking' people into creating whatever it is that they wanted to create.

You do know their was an (I believe) Australien Mini-RPG, called The Hunt. Where criminals were put into mazes and hunted by professional  (PC) hunters?

Quote from: Silverlion;549271You do know their was an (I believe) Australien Mini-RPG, called The Hunt. Where criminals were put into mazes and hunted by professional  (PC) hunters?

Are you thinking of Hunter Planet by TAGG perhaps?

Seems swiney.

When checking the availability for the name for this game, I didn't pick it lightly, that's for sure.  I spent a few days checking copyrighting sites, googles different versions of 'The Hunt' and its content and made sure that there wasn't another game like this out there.

Even if there was another game called 'The Hunt', it has nothing to do with hunting supernatural creatures, and - to be honest - the full name of my particular game is 'The Hunt Role-Playing Game'.  So I'm set!

Nope, this game wasn't hunter planet, it was just "The Hunt" or something very similar, it had a guy in red armor on the cover and was about as thick as an old school module.


Edit Found it: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23271/the-hunt



Anyway, no worries, I can't wait to see this game, and how it works.

My editor just got back to me with a load of work to do. As much of a word-smith I claim to be, I'm still human and make mistakes!  My chief Beta Admin also contacted me with a few things that the Beta Crew came across for me to think about.

Now I have about three days to change what needs changin', fix what needs fixin' and send what needs sendin' off to the Beta Crew once again for another playtest.  So far, I have to say, my project is going quite nicely.

And two weeks until the grand release!  Stress? STRESS?!
...
I need a drink ...

With 11 days left, it's time to pimp the game once more. A little 'bump' to get the ball rolling.

Very exciting time for me right now. I'm in the process of going through some revisions on the game, some feedback from my editor and the beta testers! Very positive words and I'm very excited that the past several months have culminated to this point. The Hunt RPG is a wonderful piece of work, if I do say so myself, and I'm pumped to get it out to the public!

Quote from: Silverlion;549330Nope, this game wasn't hunter planet, it was just "The Hunt" or something very similar, it had a guy in red armor on the cover and was about as thick as an old school module.


Edit Found it: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23271/the-hunt



Anyway, no worries, I can't wait to see this game, and how it works.

Very interesting.  Yeah, the name thing is no big deal.

An update on The Hunt RPG:

I've hit a bit of an unforeseen snag in my plans.  I'm currently working diligently on this and hope to have something out soon.

I'm quite frustrated that I can't produce something on time as I had promised, as I am concerned about perceptions of the public (if I falter at this, what does it say about my product?), but I hope people are understanding.

Check out this link for the message.

And thanks again for your support thus far.