Seon
Not An Evil Liar
Can I be the cat people in your game decamper :3
IOT Developmental Thread
- Thread starter Joecoolyo
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thomas.berubeg
Wandering the World
No sorcerer?
Decamper
..!
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Probably just going to keep it restricted to the basic races. Sorry.
It's easier for me to completely reboot it, but if someone really wants to reference stuff from the past game, I might be able to work out a way to fit this into the same timeline.
Ailedhoo
wonderer
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2012
- Messages
- 7,809
I was looking forward to trying goblin.
O well... I will have to think of something else or go necro again.
Robert Can't
Éponine
Project 19
Development Update 1: Spreadsheets
Development Update 1: Spreadsheets
Some of you may know from chat that one of my aims in creating my next IOT is not only to run a good IOT but also to provide a rule set which could be used by any GM no matter how little experience they have with spreadsheets and programming. I feel Sonereal put it best in the analogy he made to RPGs.
In general when playing an RPG the GM doesn't create all the rules themselves, they will get the rules from a large tome filled with tables and lists that will tell him exactly what happens when a player rolls a 12 to hit against a helpless child. In IOT we seem to have made a tradition of never sharing our equations and algorithms we use for updating, weather that is because of the fear of DoubleA, hiding the fact your rule set is incomplete or that sense of superiority it grants the GM. Thus if you aren't really the kind to go around making up rules you'll likely never find yourself running an IOT (unless you are running EpicIOT). I'm trying to make a rule set that can be applied like a core rulebook is for an RPG.
What will this entail? Well I plan on making 4 parts of this rule set.
Firstly comes The Spreadsheet. With all the formulae and macros set up already this should cut out a lot of the set up time of an IOT where the GM has to build the spreadsheet to get the game done. Clearly marked on the spreadsheet will be the inputs and modifiers as well as those cells that should not be messed with. The spreadsheet should be intuitive enough to use that any GM could do it but with enough mechanical complexity to add depth and choice to a game.
Next the Player's Handbook. This is what would appear in the first posts of most IOTs. Its a guide to allow the player to make informed choices about their orders. It should ideally explain what all the vital statistics of the nation mean without overloading the player with the mechanics of how its all worked out. It should be sufficient for players to craft their orders without confusion.
The GM's Handbook. This is not a guide to how everything works on the spreadsheet but rather more like a user's guide. It doesn't go into the intricacies of how the spreadsheet does what is does but rather tells the GM what it does and most importantly how to run an update using it. It should also include instructions and advice for how to modify various things in the spreadsheet to fit better with alternate settings.
The Technical Manual. The one that explain what every cell and macro is doing in the grand scheme of things. Not the sort of things you need to know to use the spreadsheet but the things you might want to know if you were building your own rule set or wanted to heavily modify this one.
From these elements anyone should be able to run a reasonably complex stat-based IOT where the update (at least the stat part) is very quick and not at all painful. I do foresee that with this there may suddenly come a burst of IOTs by people who just want to give GMing a go and end up not being very good about it however I am confident that doing this will allow new people who previously didn't really have access to the ability to run stats based IOTs to be able to truly shine. There could be some potentially brilliant GMs out there who just haven't tried it because of the fear of the spreadsheet. This is something I think we can end.
But for now I'm going to stop talking in abstract ideas and talk about what it actually shaping up to the the rule set for Project 19.
The Journey Ahead
For a couple of months now I've been playing around with spreadsheets in order to decide on the best rules that can work in a spreadsheet setting. After all of the macros and many #REF errors I think I've finally decided on what the basic mechanics are going to be for the game.
Here I present the basic roadmap that I've been using as a reference while building the spreadsheet. It basically gives the order in which things would be done when I am updating each turn:
Spoiler :
If you are just a player and don't really care about setting up a spreadsheet economy and just want me to talk about the IOT then feel free to ignore all of this and skip to the bit at the end
All the things that are described here are mechanics that I've had in various test versions and have now refined down to the ones I think are the most easy to implement, the most easy to update, and the most interesting for players. So let me now talk a bit about the mechanics:
There is a number that represents money. Your industries make it, you spend it on maintenance, and more is better. The amount invested in an industry is directly proportional to the amount that industry makes and each industry is divided between the private and public sectors.
There are four industries that work within each region. The Primary Sector, the Secondary Sector, the Tertiary Sector and the Quaternary Sector. The ratios between each of these in your nation and globally will be the major factor in defining how profitable they are.
What I mostly want to talk about here is how the private sector works (because that's what NC wanted to know). In previous iterations of the rule set where there were more constraints on the industries the way I determined how the private sector invested its money was through linear programming, unfortunately this didn't really work because I was using discrete variables and so had to move to dynamic programming which is significantly more effort to make work. However removing constrains such as the industry cap allows us to define the spending of the private sector more easily.
There are two main profiles that are considered. These are then combined so that there is a value for each sector, the private sector then invests in the sectors in the ratio of these values. The first profile is the sector investment modifiers which is a GM input (useful if a player is trying to incentivise a particular industry). The second is the profitability profile where values are determined by how much returns you can expect from investment in each sector.
Foreign investment works similarly. Each region has its own value for Local Attractiveness based on crime, taxes and events. This is then combined with the international modifiers such as trade agreements and war to make a combined value. The ratios of these values are the ratios invested in different regions.
Once I put out the spreadsheet (maybe in this next week) you'll be able to play around with these things and get a better handle on how they work. For those who wanted to know I hope this provides some illumination on how I'm implementing the private sector.
A bit about the game itself
The pilot game for this rule set will be using a few modified rules from the base I intend to release. This will be to attune it to the setting and focus of the game. Whereas in the base rule set there is only intended to be a single map there will be 2 maps in the Project 19 game and diplomatic score and influence points will be handled differently to the way I present in the release.
The game will be set in the near future after a collapse event (which will not be revealed until the thread goes live in order to avoid pre-claiming) as is the tradition of numbered IOTs - the only reason we aren't calling this IOTXIX yet is just incase someone else creates XIX before we get around to it. Thorvald's role will be more concerned with the management of player claims, resolving diplomatic conflict, organisation of the United Nations, in character updates on the state of global climate and other international issues, and keeping unruly player in order. Meanwhile I will be more concerned with updating the stats, resolving espionage and military conflict, and creating events for the update.
I'll talk more about our respective roles at some point in the future but in general suffice it to say Thorvald will be moderating your diplomacy and helping to create an immersive world and I will be making sure the trains run on time.
tobiisagoodboy
Prince
Just one question to RC. Will you guys pay attention to the recoursses a region has in real life? Like for example saudis lots of oil, australia anything but oil and Germany nothing but some coal?
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
This sounds surprisingly like what Crezth is trying to compel NES to do. I approve and am thankful.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
I always knew I liked Robert Can't. <3
Are you going to unpurge your rulesets now?
Omega124
Challenging Fate
Sonspiracy for me, please.
A sonspiracy type game is something I might do, along with wolfenstein IOT or anything else I might have proposed
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
Dies the Fire.
Robert Can't
Éponine
Just to ease the minds of some people who levelled some criticism.
I'm not trying to standardise IOTs. I just want to provide GMs who don't have the time/will/experience to create their own stat spreadsheet with a resource that allows them to run games. In effect to broaden the base of potential GMs.
This rule set will not be catch all, yes you can make modifications to it, but it is designed to work in a 19th century onwards setting. I have some ideas about how it can be modified to fit into other periods and I'll put them in the GM's handbook but in general this isn't an attempt to find one cover all rule set. Hopefully this will lead to other people posting their rule sets (a la Sonereal) and thus we can create a list of all rule sets that can be shared with other GMs allowing us to cover a variety of styles of game and setting.
I'm not trying to standardise IOTs. I just want to provide GMs who don't have the time/will/experience to create their own stat spreadsheet with a resource that allows them to run games. In effect to broaden the base of potential GMs.
This rule set will not be catch all, yes you can make modifications to it, but it is designed to work in a 19th century onwards setting. I have some ideas about how it can be modified to fit into other periods and I'll put them in the GM's handbook but in general this isn't an attempt to find one cover all rule set. Hopefully this will lead to other people posting their rule sets (a la Sonereal) and thus we can create a list of all rule sets that can be shared with other GMs allowing us to cover a variety of styles of game and setting.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
Marmot Engine?
