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[TheSpaceMan]

As well as a ordinary developer I am a Tabletop RPG freak. I am not much for D20 systems since I want to focus more on character skills rather then kills/round.

I also want to play a Sci-Fi game with my players but not be locked to the usual, Star (gate,wars,trek) universe. On top of it all, I want my players to know of the universe and the creatures that lives there and the diffrent empires that exist amongst the stars.

This is a big task since most players don't want to start a game with a 3 hour and 50 minute monolog and many of them won't read descriptions in the books, just look stats and gears.

So I am considering the possibility to create a Pre Rpg Game where the players build up the universe and shape it as well as the main races and places. Then they will know the universe, the races they create will be the possible races to play the game with and the relations between them will be determined by the events in the game.

There would essentialy just be the actions to create, destory modify and claim. Each player will get points to spend and points carry over between turn.

Create: "Influense of power" "Race", "System", "Advantage"
Destroy (or corrupt): "Race", "System", "Advantage"

A claim would be from a "race" or "influense of power". Where one player could declare a claim by spending points. Depend on what you claim, the cost would differ for the different sides. If no one owns the claimed object the object will be contested as long as another player also spends point on it for a some other race of influense of power. The difference in points spent would determine the size of sides. If a object is contested for 2 turns where one side got the upper hand for both turns. They claim it.

If someone already got the area the contester must have twice the omount of points as the current owner.

That the only thing I figured out so far.

[TheSpaceMan]

So with further consideration I considered spliting a alien races into the following stats

Alien Race data:

Personality: //This is free to set to anything from -5 to 5 on creation.
Loyalty //How quick to follow or ditch family, friends etc.
Honor // How they keep a word. Stand their ground or steal from poor, kill defensless.
Passion // How to let their passion effect their better judgement.
Aggression // How easy they choose aggressive solution/action.
Faith // Belife in something larger then themselves, 0 = not care. -5 fighting the idea. 5 Living to spread the word.
Generosity // How sharing and caring they are or not are or how greedy.

Physical: //Set to anything from -5 to 5 on creation as long as the total is 0.
Intelligence //Brain power for logical problems.
Dexterity // How flexible is the body
Strength // How strong
Perception //How well is the perception of the creature.
Constitution // How well does it handle enviormental effects.
Size // How large is it.

Main Locomotion: //What is the main locomotion of the creature? Walk, swim, crawl, float.
Other Locomotion: //Same as above but now as well developed as the main movement.

Reproduction: //How do they reproduce? Genders, asexually, infection, symbiosis.

Controlled Systems: //What systems are under their controll.

Goverment: //Monarchy, Anarchy, Dictatorship.

Military Strength: // Not sure how thses will be used
Diplomatic Strength:  // but they will probably be used for the same
Trade: // thing but use diffrent names.

History: A log for all events that got to do with this alien race so far.

[Inanimate]

A game where you build the universe to then play another game in? Consider me interested!

I like these ideas, and the idea of 'creating' the histories for races is really amazing, actually. I don't think so many stats are necessary; I've always been a minimalist when it comes to stats and stuff. A lot of that could simply come down to a few basic stats, like "Morality", "Adaptability", and "Similiarity"; so you could have a morally right, adaptable species of gas clouds, or a bunch of humanoids who are aggressive and unable to adapt to anything. Of course I missed some things, but you get the gist.

For all the other ones about description... just make it a description! There could be three stats, "Strength", "Intelligence", "Agility", which are a great summary of most of that, and then you can just have a written description as well.

And finally, you could add a 'society' branch, covering "Control", "Influence", and "Strength"

These are all just examples, of course, but I really think you threw a few too many stats into there; I've always felt that three is a great number.

I really look forward to hearing more about this project, and best of luck! It sounds amazing!

[TheSpaceMan]

Costs and turns:

This will be the thing that will require most testing.

For a startout test, each turn a player will get 10 points.
Each Time segment will last for 10 rounds for 2 players, 5 rounds for 4 players.

Costs In Time 1. From now on called "The Beginning"

The beginning will represent an era with poor, or non existant space travel.

Create civilisation: 10 points
(A Civilisation is built up of one new system and one new race that the player is allowed to shape as he sees fit according to the creation rules for aliens and systems(WIP) )

Modify race: Start cost 10 points
Any player can modify any race, even one they have not created themself this is to create a more vivid, alive universe focus on interesting events rather then ownership.
- Move a point. Move one Personality or physical at no additional cost. Physical rules(Remove one from one stat and increase another) Personality: Increase or decrease one value, one step.
- Increase/Decrease Physical Points. Cost +5 * number of levels you want to change, can be positive or negative. This points do not need to be balanced out.

Create sub-race. Cost 20 points. Use the ordinary race and move 10 points worth of physical and mental stats for free. No new system is created. Can be placed on a unclaimed system if one exist, else it lives in the same system as the original race.
The creator decide if the subrace counts as member of the original race or is counted as a unique new race/splinter race.

Destroy race: Cost 40 points main race, 50 points, all related subraces. 60 points all races and subraces with one exception.
Will symbolise the end and destruction of the selected races.

Create System: 20 points
Will create a empty system for expansion by a race or population of a sub-race. All systems got atleast one "Point of interest", a place that desribes the system or a specific place/places in the system. A point of interest have atleast one important modifier.

[RevalationX]

This sounds like my kind of game and and you can definitely count me as interested, but I'm a little fuzzy on exactly how we're playing, are we making a race or set of races and playing for them against each other or are we making this a joint op with no bias towards a specific race?

[TheSpaceMan]

This sounds like my kind of game and and you can definitely count me as interested, but I'm a little fuzzy on exactly how we're playing, are we making a race or set of races and playing for them against each other or are we making this a joint op with no bias towards a specific race?

The goal of the game is reaching a populated and interesting universe. We can be biased and try to improve races we personaly think are cool. The reason we can modify any race is otherwise everytplayer will just sit around and hype their race into something extremly unplayble unbalanced super creature. The negative things you can afflict to a race is supposed to be described in a way so it makes sense as well. If someone just keeps on increasing the strength and agression of one race, and you think "enough" you just invest points in decreasing the value and blames it on "But then a plague erupted on one of the countless battlefields on the planet, and with out the intelligence to effecivly make a cure, it spread like wildfire and most of the armies where wiped out. Leaving behind the weak, old and unfit" or even worse spend the points on a extinction event. "without a cure they just keept on fighting untill all were dead."

Then that player could add more points rising the stats again if you didn't destroy them, if he wishs and all we got is a historic event to reuse later. He might in turn attack one of your favorit races etc etc.

The main lesson here would be, spread your values over multiple races.

Hell I guess the extinction even could be used with a dice, where one player roles to wards the stat being the weeknes that made the extinction come.


Havn't really had time this past few days to think about this in detail.

[RevalationX]

Alrighty, so basically the rules are don't be a dick and don't pump all your points into one thing, simple enough for me. So any idea on when the first round of this will be starting up by?