Is this meant to be generic Hood or the Abomination?

Neil

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

...?

... is my pet name for the BBC series, which has its moments but has become a bit of a caricature of itself!

Anyway, your text

ATTRIBUTES
- its very dependent on the GM providing the players with the correct tests in their first session to get the character that they want. A poorly constructed initial scenario could provide players with characters that they don't really want.

DRIVES
- Some of the drives (Justice, Richard, People) seem to be very easy to accomplish by simply 'doing Robin Hood' whereas others (Forest, Ancient Ways and Love) seem to require more of a constant departure from the norm in order to provide the character with the opportunities they need to advance. 21 different Mystical Spirits needed rather than 21 nasty guards vanquished - whats more likely to happen naturally in the game?

- Drive for the People seems to have a lot of 'double bubble' possibilities alongside a number of other Drives like 'Justice' and 'Charity'. This is mostly due to the clause of 'furthering the peasants needs'. So if you stop the peasant from being attacked by the Sherrifs Guard you satisfy Justice and People?

TALENTS
- Nearly all of these have an easily recognisable mechanical application except 'Say Mass' and 'Play Cards' - what do they do that cannot be simply narrated?

WEAPONS and EQUIPMENT
- How do you get better stuff?

CONFLICTS
- I've tried a mechanic with hidden dice which are revealed and it can be awfully clumsy at the table. How about having the aggressor place their dice second?

- As the characters get more accomplished, especially with anything like decent equipment, they move towards the mathematically sweet spot of six dice, which should result in one result of 6. A result of 6 cannot lose, it can only stalemate. As the characters and their opposition become more accomplished, the likelihood of all their rolls being stalemates increases dramatically. Is that intentional?

- Personally I find stalemates horrendously depowering during a game. I'd have some sort of tie-break.

FINDING

- OK, so the Sherrifs men find them ... so what? If the outlaws succeed do they not have any opposition? If they do have opposition, why have the roll?

FOOD

- What happens if they don't eat?

Neil

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

That's the new BBC series, not 'Robin of Sherwood' right?

I've not had chance to check the rules yet, I'll try and get around to it and post some comments in the next few days. Starting a new job though, so it might take a while.

Ash

So, Neil, I obviously need to make some bits clearer.

There isn't a scenario, as such. The GM tailors the adventure (or whatever we call it) to the players' Drives and, to a lesser extent, Talents. The GM's job is to set up situations, for the outlaws to react to, that spark their Drives.

So, if you've got the Drive For Ancient Ways then, yes, you're going to get Ancient Spirit after Ancient Spirit, together with shitloads of mystical woodland altars and mysterious runes coming out of your arse.

As for the double bubble thing: yes, it's deliberate that certain acts trip more than one drive. That's so that the GM can provide events (like peasants being beaten by guards) that trip lots of people's Drives.

To be clear, the players should never get too high in their attributes (I may tone down the advancement) and should never get more than average equipment. Good and excellent weapons are reserved for the Sheriff's men: OK, sure, you can nick a sword off a guard, but you can't care for it, so it'll become average quickly.

The Sheriff's men have better shit than you. That's why you don't engage them in combat directly: you shoot from a distance and build traps. Engage them head-on, and they'll knock your piece of shit sword into two with their state-of-the-art big sword.

I think you're right about stalemates. How about: when there's a tie, you throw away those two dice and replace it with another from your pool? That's an interesting mechanism. I like that.

Six dice isn't particularly a mathematically sweet spot. It's only a few more percent likely to roll a single six than five dice.

When you get caught by the Sheriff's men, they fight you! When you starve, your attributes reduce. I'll put that in.

All right, so that's lots more I need to explain. Any other feedback?

Graham

OK and now for the more positive feedback

I like the simplicity of the character generation through play system and I think it could model the stories nicely.

I like the flagged play preferences of Drives and the way that forms the game. Different combinations are going to bring about some very different play experiences.

I especially like the system of opposed pairs for various actions. There's something in there that I find exceptionally appealing.

The 'trickledown tie break' works well. I like that too.

Generally, I like it.

Neil

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

GENERATION

I like the concept for building your character during play, which fits (sort of) with things I have been thinking of in terms of character generation for kids games, by not requiring you to front load as much.

However you don't seem to have any method of that for talents, you just say "during the first game, choose three talents". I think it would work better with a specific method for that, for example announce a talent in a conflict before dice are rolled and assigned, with a maximum of one talent selected for each conflict entered.

CONFLICTS

Lots of questions about these, enough to deserve a list! :) I get the basic principles (I think), of the opposed dice, but lots of fiddly details don't make sense to me.

• When do we roll? Rolling isn't mentioned. Is it before we assign dice? If so is the rolling in secret?
• When we assign dice do we just assign 1 to each action (i.e. the best) and discard the rest? If we assign more than one, what does that do?
• Do you have to act at all? If multiple people are attacking me and I want to not get hurt do I have to put a dice in attack or do, or can I put them all in Defend?
• What happens if multiple people Attack me? Does my one dice in defend protect me from all of them? Do I just need to have a result that beats them all?
• If multiple people are acting against you do you react to each one of them? Do you have to use dice from the same pool to do so?
• If I only have 1 dice can I only react or only act? Is one or the other mandatory?
• Why do we all agree on the relevant stats, since we are all doing different things?

Overall the character generation seems very simple but the conflict mechanics don't. At the very least they need more clarification on all the edge cases.

HUNGER

I'm all for realism, but this level of detail just seems out of place in these otherwise short and elegant rules. If you have this level of detail about hunting and gathering then I'd want to see the same level about sharpening my sword, catching evil spirits, impersonating people, escaping from jails, running and hiding from horses and so forth.

Of course if you are going to expand the rules with most such detailed clarifications then that's all good.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

I'm obviously explaining this badly.

When do we roll? Rolling isn't mentioned.

Yes it is. Where it says "roll"*. Yes, you roll, then assign dice.

Yes, one die to each action only.

No, you don't have to act, you can just react.

If multiple people are acting against you in the same way (like, Attacking so you need to Defend), you just defend with one die.

You agree on the stat for the thing you're doing, which might be different from someone else's stat.

Not sure what happens if you've only got one die. Good point.

Thanks, David. I need to rewrite those rules, clearly.

Graham

* This is Said With Love.

Jeff Tidball on chargen-in-play might be worth reading.

My only comment thus far is that it needs more stuff about robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. Individual drives are fine, but having some common task to draw the group together would be nice.

D'oh! *roll* ... I swear that wasn't there before :)

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/