JAGS is good. JAGS is fun. This won't be JAGS, though that's one of the games that has influenced me.

You don't need to buy anything for this. System is a black box, hidden behind the scenes, ideally invisible.

So how do you even go about making characters?  Or having an idea about how good (or bad) your character is at something?

I love everything about this idea. Also, I love the black box system obfuscation. It helps focus on the role-playing instead of the roll-playing. The sci-fi idea is captivating to me and I'd love to try to get this off the ground.

Character creation is easy:

You tell me about your character. Gimmie a few paragraphs. For the sci-fi game I might have you write it up in the form of a Service Record or internal HR report for the character. In the Fantasy game I'd have you write it up as a bard's tale about the legend of your character.

You're as good at various tasks as the write-up implies.

Simply by virtue of being a functional adult (in a modern game) you'd know how to do stuff like drive a car, balance a checkbook, cook yourself spaghetti, do the laundry. Unless you stated otherwise.

And likewise, unless implied by your education, experiences, or profession, you wouldn't be very good at more specialized tasks like mechanical engineering, fighting, or juggling.

Game Balance: Everyone is more or less equivalent. If someone's description is far more or less capable than the rest of the PCs, then they're overestimating or underestimating themselves to some degree. This is especially important in horror games where uncertainty is such an important factor.
This message was last edited by the user at 14:51, Sun 19 Oct 2014.

Ok, I probably worded my question wrong.

For instance I know I'm an excellent shot.  If I have a moment to sit and aim, I can hit a target with my hunting rifle (an iron sights WWII 6.4 Jap) at 300 meters.  If I have too many distractions or I'm just feeling off or I'm not in a stabilized position; I can't hit it.

Game Mechanic wise, I know if I have target number modifiers for aiming and stabilized position and being relaxed; I will hit the target consistently.  If I lose those positive modifiers, I lose almost any chance of succeeding at my shot.

Science wise I know far more than your average joe, but once you get into the serious details like asking what the spin is on a Strange Quark, I can't answer it.

I know in general what I can and cannot accomplish as a person.  Without knowing the mechanics of the system, I won't know if my scientist can figure out what the readings mean on his particle sensor.

This is the problem I have with not knowing how the system works.  I feel like I'm running blind as a character.

@Tortuga: As to the sf idea, fead Blindsight by Peter Watts if you haven't already.

Also read the Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter Hamilton or watch Event Horizon.

Well, say you define yourself as an excellent shot. You should be able to do what an excellent shot can do. Trouble comes when the GM's estimation of what an excellent shot is capable of differs from your own.

You know, as an excellent shot, that you should be able to hit a specific target at a specific range under specific conditions. You have an estimation of your ability based on past experiences, colored by cognitive bias; you will remember the events that reinforce your bias more often than you remember the events that don't.

In fact, evidence contrary to your beliefs will only reinforce those beliefs; this is the backfire effect.

You as a human being may be a neurological mutant immune to cognitive bias, dunning-kruger, and backfire.

Your character is not. Your character may be wrong about themselves. Your character may be more wrong about themselves than you are about them.

Anyway, you know, as an excellent shot, that you should be able to hit a specific target. However, you don't know if you will hit or not until after you've fired. Your predictive powers are not perfect.

You may, in fact, miss under ideal conditions. Most people chalk that up to bad luck, or one of a thousand different uncontrollable variables. Other people will immediately forget about it to preserve their cognitive bias.

In game mechanics, you missed a roll.

As a player your evaluation will be "could a character of my believed skill level perform this task?" And, like a real person, you will have no firm numbers to back that up. You'll go with your gut. Sometimes you'll be surprised. Sometimes you'll be wrong.

This uncertainty supports the theme of the game. Some people will enjoy that. Others won't.

This game is for the people who can accept that uncertainty.
This message was last edited by the user at 20:31, Sun 19 Oct 2014.

I'd go so far as to say that player knowledge is literally meaningless here. What your character knows will get you feedback as far as their capabilities, and a player who is ignorant of guns or science or whatever will have no disadvantage compared to a player who is a special forces nobel prize winning physicist.

It's the characters' relative training and experience that will determine who knows what.

You misunderstand me.  I know as a person (and most people do) what I usually can and can't do.

I have a general idea what my probabilities are of success.  Not "I have a 75% chance of completing this task", but more like "Much more often than not, I can do this."

I'm not sure what you do, but I'm sure you have a general idea of your chances of success are for a given action.

I don't mind a hidden system, but there should be a general idea of what a particular character can do.

A scientist should know how easy it is to get good readings from a particle sensor.  He's been reading the results of those sensors his entire working career, he knows how to do it.  Knows how easy (or hard) they are to get good reading from.  If a particle sensor is a difficult instrument to work with and has frequent false readings, the character wouldn't be surprised with a skewed result.  Conversely, if it's a standard instrument that almost always works flawlessly and is easy to use, the character would be surprised about a strange reading.

A computer programmer can tell you how hard/easy it is to write a small program and can usually tell you how long it might take.  He might be off a bit (good or bad roll) but it'll usually be close.

For me, I'll tell you four out of five times or so, I'll hit the target.  WHERE I hit the target (which ring) is up for grabs (How good my rolls are).

How you are making this sound is that if I have a mathematician and you plop down a moderately easy question, I couldn't guess as to my chances of solving it.

Even something like a Beyond Easy, Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Difficult, Very Difficult, Impossible rating would be better.  It would give you a clue on your chances.

Yes, characters generally will have feedback based on what they believe to be true about a situation. This feedback will be based entirely on a character's conceptions (and misconceptions) regarding how capable they imagine (or know) themselves to be, rather than based on the player's understanding of the game mechanics.

It may or may not relate to how capable they actually are, owing to differences caused by overconfidence, under-confidence, cognitive bias, and all of the other factors that create an illusion of consistency and control in an inherently uncontrolled universe.

Which is, basically, the basis of existential horror.

Closer to "an easy shot" than "you have a skill of 16 and +2 to the roll so a 90% chance of hitting."

"You're a crack target marksmen and your target is 60 meters away but this is a real firefight so your blood is being flooded with adrenaline and other stress hormones, distorting your vision and making your extremities feel numb, and time keeps doing all of these weird shifts because of the effects of the survival-stress response, and you can't stop thinking about how canned spaghetti really isn't that bad" vs "it's a difficult shot."
This message was last edited by the user at 21:11, Sun 19 Oct 2014.

That I don't have an issue with.  Actually, I approve of it.  To me it looked as if no one would know or even have a clue of how easy or difficult a situation might be.

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As for combat situations, each person handles them differently.  I've seen an untrained computer science major respond excellently in a simulated course and police officers that flub it, even with prior training.

Some people in stressor situations really do fall into a mode where they look at everything as a chance (though not an exact percentile) of success vs failure and can think through to the best solution to the current situation.  Others think about the wonders of canned spaghetti.  While you can get better with the appropriate training, that high functioning OODA loop is just something you can't teach.  Some people have it, some don't.

I will say those that have the right training and have that high-fast ability are an absolute wonder to watch.

I feel it important to state that the impression of the characters given to me during character creation will be a matter of that character's self image, not absolute fact. So someone could very well give me a character description that included a line about being immune to the human physiological survival stress response, but this is only what the character believes to be true, and not absolute fact.

As far as player choice, however, I will say for either game that I'll be taking 3-5, chosen via a combination of writing ability, and what constitutes the most interesting player group. That tends to mean less so "capability" and more along the lines of "interesting flaws that clash with the other players' flaws."

For the Science Fiction game, I'm thinking something more "Star Trek rubber science" and less "Star Wars Space Opera". Possibly harder sci-fi. Details are solidifying.

For the Fantasy variant I'm feeling inspired by Robert Howard, Gene Wolfe, Michael Moorcock. Maybe Dark Fantasy that dips into outright horror beyond the standard fantasy milieu.

I'm all for the Sci-fi game and especially if it's hard sci-fi.  Might I suggest the alcubierre drive if you are going to have FTL.  If it's fantasy forget it.  I don't want to bother.

Of course, it got to be a good mix of players, who cares about capability if the game is going to suck because of the characters.

This message was deleted by a moderator, as it was a bump, at 15:01, Mon 20 Oct 2014.

For the Sci Fi game in particular, the game won't be set too far future; no FTL, spin gravity, players are all different scientific specialists. Physicists, chemists, maybe an engineer, probably a psychologist to study and keep an eye on the rest of them.

You would almost certainly have a flight engineer along with a pilot or two.  Plus, everyone would have some cross training.

The crew will be NPCs. The PCs will be specialists.

Ah, ok.

This sounds fascinating,  the sci-fi or the fantasy version. My hat is in.

It's been weeks, but if I can get 2-3 more statements of interest I'll go ahead.

I would be interested in this. I am partial to both ideas.

Got a preference?

With this many posts in the thread, it should be clear by now whether or not there is sufficient interest in this idea to warrant moving on to create the game.  Please leave all further discussion for the game, created by Tortuga, and linked to in the post immediately following this one.

Thank you.

The year is 2268, and mankind has moved beyond Earth to explore and exploit the solar system.

An anomaly has been discovered in orbit around Titan's largest moon, a region of 'static' space whose behavior defies conventional physics. A space station has been constructed there to study and try to understand this phenomena.

Players in The Anomaly will play the specialists dedicated to studying The Anomaly, as well as the personnel who administer and run the facility.

This is an existential horror campaign, where the terror comes from not so much physical danger as an assault upon the mind and conceptions of what reality is. Ideal players will be willing to roleplay this without too much prompting.

Gameplay will involve action, social interaction, exploration, and science. So much science.

The system is a homebrew and behind the scenes. Attempt things, and the GM determines (somehow) whether or not you're successful, and to what degree

This is a subtle form of terror; everyone recognizes that violence exists. Violence is an attack against your idea of safety. Existential horror attacks your idea of how the world works.

This is the horror of that which should not be, and this game requires players who can understand and roleplay what that trauma can be like, possibly to the point of coming out the other side.

This is the kind of horror where the detective realizes he was the killer all along.
This is the kind of horror where you realize your life is just a television show.
This is the kind of horror where you realize the zombies you've been fighting are just normal kindergarteners.

As a result, uncertainty is integral to the game's mood. You may not be able to trust your memory. You may not be able to trust your senses. You may not be able to trust the other PCs. You may not be able to trust yourself.

This is about misleading and fooling the players almost as much as it is misleading and fooling the characters they play.

As a result, control over the flow of information is vital. The aim is to get the difference between "what the players know" and "what their characters know" as narrow as possible; this is one reason why only the telepath character should see the other players' thoughts. Everyone else should have to guess at what others mean.

link to another game