Furry RPG thoughts

[indicoyote]

So, back from AC, and thinking a bit about furry wares in general. It's really cool to see how there are now multiple outlets (And I'm sure I'm forgetting some!) for long-form furry fiction; it really seems like this is one place where print-on-demand has actually somewhat fulfilled its promise.

There was also a new RPG, Shard, with ridiculously

Comments

[krinndnz]

One of the things about furries is that they RP all the time, and are actually more comfortable with freeform RP than most other tabletop gamers I'm familiar with.
But Baron, isn't it true that face-to-face social pressure can make furries freeze up from time to time?

That particular bit of silliness aside, Shard and Exalted look like cousin games in a way, and I reaaaalllly want to play both of them. I adore Exalted generally, it's basically the last White Wolf thing that I feel good about.

[indicoyote]

Quite true, Baron, but... A lot of that for me at least had to do with the challenge of coming up with a character (or just story) right out of the blue, from a milieu I don't relate to all that well. ;)

Honestly I'm not actually sure what any sort of LARP-style play would consist of, It's just that I'm always interested in seeing people be 'more furry' in places other than online, so it floated into my head on that sort of notion.

Shard and Exalted struck me as fairly similar too, at least as far as setting-feel. Exalted itself is quite furry, between the Lunars and the beastmen. Exalted was about the only White Wolf thing I was enjoying until the new Changeling game came out; have you seen that?

[paka]

WEG d6. I know I'm an idiot for this system, but I really liked the mechanic of splitting actions and the ultra-simplified damage system (I figure with furry themed RP, combat might be rare, and because furry almost always presumes a sci fi setting combat is going to be fast and deadly). I think that basically makes it a good and generic system, and it's proven to work really quickly in creating a wide variety of races with different tweaks (we know rhino furries are gonna be strong and tough, we know coyote furries are going to be agile and frequently technically apt, and so on).

[indicoyote]

WEG d6 does seem to work quite well from the little bits I've played with it, and it seemed quite nice for a good cinematic feel

[paka]

Something I really liked about 4e is that no race is disadvantaged; just some races have advantages. If you want to play a smart or charming half-orc, you can - you'll just be told that half orcs are usually stronger and tougher. I like that way of approaching things - it doesn't have the feel of limiting anyone's potential.

[indicoyote]

Yeah, that really appealed to me too. :) I really quite like how 4e handles races.

I do think there's an alternate way to handle disadvantages that is actually enjoyable to the players too, though. It sorta ties into disad-as-roleplaying-hook. For instance, flaws in the new WoD are seperate from merits, they're character attributes that may hamper your ability in aparticular session, but if they do, you get an extra experience point for that session. So that encourages you to play out your weak points as well as your strong ones.

Similarly, in Spirit of the Century, Aspects can be positive or negative (Good ones are both) and you get Fate Points (general narrative control points, the sort that might let you reroll, or fuel a special power, or whatever) by having the GM point out an aspect and use it as a complication. For instance: "Okay, you're greedy, so aren't you likely to spend a few extra minutes grabbing for all the gold as the place collapses?"

[aprivatefox]

mufi and I have had some extensive conversations on this, and one of the things that came up is this:

What parts of the system are needed in each context?

A role-playing game system affords a number of things, each of which is differently important depending on what you're going to use the system / character for. I can think of a few key things, but I'm sure I'm missing some.

• Descriptivity is how the system gives you tools for describing your character. In D&D 4, it's very easy to describe your combat prowess in detail (most of your stats and abilities), your morality in vague terms (the alignment system), and your wealth and possessions (the treasure system). On the other hand, the system doesn't provide any mechanism for describing family relationships or societal status - unlike, say, GURPS or White Wolf's Storyteller system, both of which have a mechanism for describing those sorts of things. While this is generally tied in with the game-effects of the things described, it's hard to overstate the importance of simply declaring

[indicoyote]

That's a lot to think about. :) I'll post some initial thoughts here, but you've given me things to think about for quite a while. Thank you!

• Descriptivity: Obviously I'm a big fan of this, considering Furspots and all. But really when it comes to furries (at least, the ones I deal with), descriptivity seems to be something they do fine with already. Actually one of my nebulous design principles is that the 'character sheet' should integrate pretty seamlessly with MUCK descs and such. That's why Spirit of the Century sorta jumped out at me; Since all the character info is basically textual, you could in principle express a SotC character, including all their 'stats' data, in a narrative description.
• Conflict Resolution: Like you said, this is one of the things that freeform RP is notably lacking, and it seems like in most cases, people do okay anyway; taboos against 'powergaming' and all help a lot. This seems like the main thing a generic furry RPG system could add, but I worry a lot about it being unwieldy: "I"m happy to see

[aprivatefox]

A few quick thoughts:

Furries do well with descriptivity already - this is actually a reason to put more, not less. It's something that appeals, which makes it a draw into the system; the ability to taxonomize your character and create something you can compare to other peoples' characters. This is the key behind the "let me tell you about my character" impulse, and also behind the [geek|furry|dragon|foo] codes that static across peoples' email signatures. Embrace it; it's the vehicle for getting people to play with your system

[nettiger]

A thought comes to mind re: narrative drive. There's really three elements that I see needing to be tackled here - Establishment of setting, passing narrative control, and challenge/reward dynamics

[pyat]

I agree. I've met young furries who wanted to play one of my games, but either didn't have the context to understand it, or didn't have friends patient enough to learn the rules.

Though, as aprivatefox notes, there's a fixed gulf between saying "Let's make an easy RPG" and actually making one.

[indicoyote]

That's really interesting to hear, and I was hoping you (and Raff and Bard and whoever else) might be able to give input on that sort of thing, what do you hear from furries, what are they looking for?

Existing furry RPGs do seem very much to be a product of the 90's, so to speak: no classes, some sort of point buy, intricate setting, standard GM/player roles, etc. I like these sorts of things, it's when I started gaming and all, and the continued interest in these things shows there's a market for that. But I'm not sure it's well-suited to the environments where furries spend most of their time. This is not to say I want to turn furry into one big RPG setting, it's just a question of 'if we want to do RP somewhere other than a tabletop, is there a way to help support that?"

And, well, big undertaking or not, it's intersting stuff to think about. ;)

[kjorteo]

Furry GURPS?

...FURPS?

[indicoyote]

GURPS is NOT rules-light. ;)