A Role Playing Games Blog
Gears
Gears: Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
13March 4, 2010
While developing Gears I have encountered many situations where I was not sure if the direction I am taking with the game is the right direction. While working on the combat section of the Gears rules I have the problem that the basic mechanic, which I love, is getting in the way all the time. I sometimes wished I had chosen a different base mechanic. There a moments, where I believe changing the system to something like “3d6 roll higher” or even a dice pool system, would make the game much better.
While this change would force me to come up with new solutions to problems I’ve already solved, it would make combat and perhaps even my planned powers system much, much easier to design. There are quite a few things that currently just don’t work as I hoped. The problem is that I have already put quite some work and effort into the current version and changing something basic like the dice mechanic will probably force me to start from scratch. On the other hand struggling with something I am not entirely happy with seems like a waste of time.
What would you do? Would you try to keep with the current mechanics, no matter what? Or would you change the game’s basics in order to give it a fresh start? I have to admit I am pretty much torn at the moment. One thing is sure, I want to finish that project and release a product that not only I am happy with but which will be picked up and played by at least a few other gamers.
Gears: Skills
1February 22, 2010
This time I want to talk about skills in Gears. In my last post about Gears I explained how the core mechanic works. Usually you roll 3d6 (add some modifiers) and compare the result to your Mastery Level. The Mastery Level is the sum of a primary trait value and a skill rank.
So, what are skill ranks? In Gears skills are ranked using the following ladder: untrained, novice, journeyman and master. Each rank has a corresponding modifier. Untrained gives a –2 modifier, novice grants a +0, journeyman is +2 and master adds +4 to the Mastery Level.
Let’s look at an example: The Security skill is listed as an Agility skill, so you have to add the skill rank to the Agility value. If your character’s Agility is 14 and you are a journeyman in Security, the resulting Mastery Level is 16. In order do succeed at a routine Security task, you have to roll 3d6 and the result must be equal or under 16. Sounds easy enough.
But there might be complications that make that roll harder. If the character tries to perform that action in near total darkness, the roll get’s modified by +6. Or if the GM decides that the lock you try to pick is of above average quality, he may make the check a Challenging one, which adds +2 to the roll.
The important part to remember is that the Mastery Level is always set, all circumstantial modifiers are added to the die roll!
There are two kinds of skill in Gears: basic skills and advanced skills. Every character starts with all basic skills on Untrained, which means he at least has a chance to succeed in a task covered by that skill. That’s not the case with advanced skills. You have to buy the skill in order to use it. Examples of basic skills are: all of the weapon skills so far, riding, security, sleight of hand, etc. Typical advanced skills are Science, Medicine, Profession and Sorcery. Aside from the fact that you need to have Novice level in an advanced skill in order to use it, they are not that much different from basic skills. In an earlier version of Gears raising advanced skills was more expensive than raising basic skills, but I changed that in order to encourage players to pick advanced skills, too.
The last thing I want to write about today are skill groups. Skills like languages, science and profession are not one but many skills. When you pick one of those skills you have to decide which language, science or profession the character is proficient in. The core rules include a couple of examples, but basically GMs and players are free to come up with new languages, fields of scientific study and profession as they see fit. You can take all skill groups several times, as long as you pick new specializations every time.
As always I am looking forward to your thoughts and comments. Do you like how skills work in Gears or would you make some changes? And I want to thank Joshua Macy for helping me refine the core mechanic to its current form. It’s much better now, than it was before!
Gears: the core mechanic
13February 17, 2010
I promised you more posts about my upcoming Gears roleplaying game system and this time I want to share some thoughts on the core mechanic.
When I started the project I was still unsure what dice I wanted to use. I am usually a fan of percentile dice, because they are so easy. You usually roll two ten-sided dice that generate a number between 01 and 100. You then compare this to your chance of success. That’s pretty easy to explain, even to people who never played any game before.
But since I didn’t need that level of granularity (especially with the skills system I had in mind), I decided to use six-sided dice. One d6 would have been a possibility, but in the end I decided to go with 3d6. When using 3d6 you usually get a lot of average results and only a few very low or very high ones. This doesn’t work as well in games that aim for a heroic or cinematic style like D&D, but it fits perfectly the more “down to earth” approach in games like GURPS or what I planned for Gears.
Ok, let’s have a look at the relevant section in the Gears rulebook:
Dice Basics
Gears uses regular six-sided dice. Usually you have to roll several dice, sum up the results and add a modifier. As a shorthand we usually use something like that: 3d6+2. This means, you have to roll three dice, sum up the result and add 2.Basic Task Resolution
The basic task resolution method is to roll 3d6 and compare it to a given difficulty level. Is the result equal or lower than the difficulty level, the task succeeds. If the circumstances make the task at hand easier or harder, the GM may modify the difficulty level. Usually the difficulty level consists of a skill rank, the value of the relevant Primary Trait and a modifier.
That’s it. All skill and trait test work that way. If you just check against a trait (like Strength) you don’t add a skill rank to the difficulty level. The only rolls that are not made using this mechanic are damage rolls.
Gears / AARG
11February 10, 2010
I got a message via the contact form on the blog’s About page from someone who has been working on the AARG system for the better part of the last two years.
He read the post about Gears yesterday and got a bit concerned since he thought that it sounds an awful lot like his AARG system. He even gave me a link to the current AARG rules, so I could have a look.
Alas said person forgot to include his name or email address in his message to me, so I have to use this blog post to quell his fears.
Gears is in no way related to AARG. Of course there are a few similarities, but you’ll find similarities between a lot of RPGs on the market. Both system have been developed independently.
If the person working on AARG is reading this, could he please contact me again and provide me with an email address, so that I can contact him directly? Thanks!
Stargazer’s World presents Gears
12February 9, 2010
One of the things I always wanted to accomplish was to write a complete roleplaying game system, a set of rules of my own design.
Over the last years I repeatedly made attempts at creating my own game. Creating Thrilling Noir Stories was just one step on the road that finally lead to Gears. Gears is my attempt at creating a rules-light game. The game is currently work in progress and not fully playable, but the basic rules are done and I already shared an early draft versions with some people on the #rpmn IRC channel. They seem to like the game so far, so I believe the time is right to talk about Gears in the open.
What is Gears?
Gears is a generic roleplaying game that should work with almost every genre. The core rules fit on a couple of pages and there will be optional and genre-specific rules that allow GMs to tweak the system to fit their campaign. I also plan to include a couple of sample settings with the final release.
By the way, did I mention that Gears will be free? As with Thrilling Noir Stories I am not out to make a buck, but I want to share my love for roleplaying with others. Gears will be released under a Creative Commons license that allows everyone to share and adapt the game as long as the use is non-commercial.
What Gears is not
Gears is not the “one game to rule them all”, the greatest thing since sliced bread nor revolutionary in any way. I merely tried to combine aspect from games I love to create something new. That said, I hope that Gears might become a viable alternative to other rules-light games out there. I am just not crazy enough to believe that my rules are the pinnacle of game design. 
Some of Gears’ features
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Basic task resolution method: 3d6 roll under vs. difficulty level
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No classes and levels
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Point-buy character creation with optional job & background packages
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Simple combat rules
- Skills are ranked in four levels: untrained, novice, journeyman, master
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Talent system that allows characters to acquire special abilities that give bonuses in certain circumstances or allow to bend the rules in favor of the player
An Open Design Approach
This post is the first of many to come in which I will give you some details on what I am working on right now. This not only allows my readers to follow Gears’ development but also influence it. Any advice and constructive criticism is highly appreciated.
What are the next steps?
The basic rules are done, combat and healing rules are written and I finished the section on character creation last night. To be fully playable, Gears needs statistics for some weapons and armor, a skill list and at least a couple of sample Talents.
After that I want to work on an effect-based powers system that can easily be used for Magic, Psi, Mad Science gadgets and even Superpowers. Along the way I probably should add some rules for vehicles and vehicle combat before finally starting to flesh out the genre-specific rules.
As soon as I have a playable version, I will make it available here on my blog. If you want to get a sneak peek at the existing rules, feel free to join us in the #rpmn IRC channel. If I am around I can provide you with the latest version of Gears.
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