Quote from: Elliot Wilen;370024Excellent, thanks. I was really hoping for a specific genre outline but even so I didn't expect the level of detail you've given.

OK, this continued percolating in my head a bit after I made that post last night, so let's continue this a little bit.

I've chosen horror as my genre. Classic Universal-type "monster movie" horror (Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolfman, etc.) has already been strip-mined for D&D by Dave Arneson so there's not a lot of ground there. Cosmic Lovecraftian horror is obviously ground well-covered by Call of Cthulhu (to the extent it makes for a playable game). Slasher-type horror wouldn't make for a good rpg because it isn't suitable to campaign play and because the heroes are pretty much entirely reactive (both of which could be addressed, I suppose, in a game where the players are the slashers rather than the victims, but there's no way in hell I'm writing such a game, or endorsing one by anyone else). That helps me decide that my game is going to be focused on PCs not as victims (or as the monsters) but as monster-hunters, Van Helsing types. So we're really talking about an action game in horror drag -- the intent isn't really going to be to try to scare the players or make them feel the same kind of existential dread that characters in horror stories feel, but rather to let them have fun trying to save humanity from the monsters -- primarily vampires and zombies, but because I want the game to be broad rather than narrow in scope, we'll throw in other types of monsters too. Basically, any horror movie or story in which the first half is devoted to "normal" people experiencing something horrific and then, about halfway through, a group of professional/expert monster-hunters show up to ostensibly deal with the problem, the PCs are going to be those guys -- Van Helsing, Dr. Loomis, the paranormal researchers in Poltergeist, Corey Feldman in The Lost Boys, the military types who show up in most zombie movies, and so on. In the actual stories these guys usually fail due to their overconfidence and it's left to the normal non-expert hero to finally defeat (or escape from) the monster, and, well, that will probably happen a lot in this game too because these guys are going to be outmatched pretty much all the time, but it's not going to be a built-in story element the way it is in those movies because 1) we're designing a game, not telling a story, and 2) even to the extent we are telling a story, these guys are the protagonists of it, not a supporting foil.

I've already got a lot of source material mentioned or alluded to above. Another thing that stands out in my mind because it actually has a monster-hunter protagonist is the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton, at least the first few volumes before it became all about kinky sex and how awesome Mary Sue is. Ghostbusters too, except not played intentionally for laughs -- if the Harold Ramis character were the protagonist and taken seriously. If I were actually writing this game rather than just musing about how I'd go about writing it I'd do a lot more research and draw on a lot more sources -- I've never seen, for instance, the Kolchak: The Night Stalker tv series from the 70s which seems like a fairly likely source. I also haven't seen a lot of recent horror movies -- I haven't seen Zombieland, for instance, but from the ads the Woody Harrelson character looks like fodder for this game. The whole Twilight thing is also too big to ignore, but it would be an ironic reversed influence as I'm sure my target audience which much more like to take a shotgun to those emo vampires than be them.

As character types we have pretty much the monster expert and the monster killer (sure in the source material the same person is usually both, but this is intended as a multiplayer game so it seems more sensible to make these roles separate). The latter is easy to model -- all you need is a combat system -- the former is trickier, because how much do you want to build into the rules and how much do you want to leave up to the player. If I were actually designing this game I'd give this a lot more thought and probably try out a few different solutions to see what works best, but for now I'm just thinking of a "knowledge" stat that needs to be rolled against to use certain devices or perform certain rituals and that also can be rolled against to pick up extra hints/clues and advantages.

So I'm picturing characters having 4 stats -- toughness, agility, willpower, and knowledge. The first 2 are straightforward combat-oriented abilities, the 3rd what be what you'd roll against to keep your cool after witnessing something really horrific and to resist being mentally dominated by a vampire (and thus useful to both killers and experts). The 4th I already described above. I'm thinking each of these would range from 1 to 100 and starting characters would roll say 3d6+10 to get their scores. From there you'd pick an occupation/vocation/background, which would give some stat adjustments, perhaps some sort of social standing or resources rating (i.e. the difference between a respected scholar or clergyman, a celebrity monster-hunter, and a homeless vagabond), and some other special skills or abilities (which would probably be of a binary yes/no nature -- so the character either can or can't pilot a helicopter, read hieroglyphics, perform trauma surgery, etc. -- where a roll is required to use a skill it would be a roll against one of the stats (so for a character with the trauma surgery skill to perform a really tricky operation would be a d% roll against knowledge modified by agility (or maybe the other way around)). Each character would also get (probably by rolling on a big table) 1 special knack -- something outside of the stats and occupations that personalizes the character and gives him a unique quality -- maybe a special contact or item, an extra ability, some sort of situational stat-bonus, or just some other bit of minor color.

For combat, each character would have a Combat Rating (derived from some formula or table involving the T, A, and W stats, plus modifiers from occupation and knacks) subdivided into unarmed melee, armed melee, and ranged with the ability to specialize in one area at the expense of the others. You'd probably roll d% for success, with critical and both chances. Damage would probably be a table to determine if the character is unaffected, lightly wounded (possibly stunned), seriously wounded, unconscious, or dead -- with Toughness and the weapon being used providing modifiers. The weapon lists would be really extensive -- including stuff like baseball bats, wooden stakes, swords and daggers, super-soakers loaded with holy water, and lots and lots of guns differentiated not just by caliber but by make -- accuracy, speed, reliability. Since I suspect this game would appeal strongly to gun-fetishists, I'd want to feed that fetish (which would require lots of research, since I know very close to nothing about guns IRL).  

There would be an improvement/advancement system to allow characters to improve their stats, pick up new skills, etc. but it wouldn't be a big focus -- most characters wouldn't be expected to survive all that long, and even those who do wouldn't likely change significantly -- you'd be able to tell a verteran monster-hunter because he's probably got 2 or 3 extra skills and a couple stats 10 or so points higher, but it's more like the difference between a 4th and 6th level D&D character, not 1st and 10th.

There would be detailed monsters stats -- various types of vampires, various types of zombies, werewolves, ghosts and spirits, and various other things -- mogwai, C.H.U.D.s, space aliens, that tadpole monster from he Host, and so on. Generally these monsters will way-overmatch any normal person (including expert-type PCs) by being too tough, too fast, too numerous, or all of the above. So the players will generally need to rely on smart tactics and trickery (and heavy firepower) to have a chance against them. There will be special devices (technological or magical, probably both) that are needed to beat some of them.

Obviously, this wouldn't be a game about angst or theatrics or introspection about the nature of evil and how much of your soul you're willing to sacrifice to save humanity, and whatnot (though some of that stuff would seep in around the edges from the source material). Really it would just be a game about a team of professionals whose job it is to KICK MONSTER ASS.