'New player friendly' R2D

As we were discussing creating an easy to play R2D which would primarily be for new players to join I think it would be a good idea to discuss ideas in this thread and get a plan in action. Feel free to comment on anything and post new ideas etc...

The core features this R2D needs:
- Easy to play and understand - it is for new players
- Any new player should be able to join immediately (soft player limit) - The point of this R2D is to give everyone somewhere to play in case the proper games are full.
- Can be either persistent (keeps going and going) or needs to be in a format that allows it to 'reset' reguarly
- Regular updates - keep those new players with no other active games interested

One suggestion for a resetting format is to have the GM change with each iteration.

Looking at the other ideas in the announcement thread and my own, we all have similar ideas.

I was thinking of basing it off the card game "Munchkin" which is a very simple D+D game but is also quirky ("Boots of running really fast" and "paper mail" (armour out of paper). The premise of Munchkin is that at the start of your turn you 'open the door', if there is a monster there, you fight it. If you win you level up and get treasure. If there is no monster, you take that card and can either fight a monster from your hand or 'search the room' for loot. (2 different cards: Door cards are picked up when 'opening the door' and 'searching the room', treasure cards come when you beat a monster and are better. First player to level 10 wins.

So, the R2D: We have all our players who can maybe pick a race and class (give certain advantages - +1 to ranged weapons etc...) then they appear in the dungeon on their own. At the start of each players turn they 'progress into the dungeon' a dice roll determines if they find a monster and what level it is, or if they find some loot or walk into a curse. If no monster then they may 'search the area' and a roll determines what they get (generally good stuff). The theory being that you walk into the room, you don't get attacked or cursed, so anything left is good stuff. Anything the player picks up openly is visible to players, anything picked up secretly is hidden.

Items: Weapons, armour, shoes, capes, henchmen, birds, dogs etc etc... can be 'attached' to your character to enhance their combat level
Potions, spells and any 'one use only' items can be used once in a combat to give a tempoary bonus
Curses can be walked in to and activated on the player, or picked up and thrown at another player at any time
Then you can have other random 'cards' that have cool effects (switch gear with one player for one turn etc..)

Fighting:
So, you 'progess into the dungeon' and a monster appears, it can have bonuses and maluses. It has a level, you must then combine your character level and all your item bonuses to get equal to that level to win. If you beat it you gain 1 or 2 character levels and 1/2/3 bits of treasure.

It is somewhat complex, but you would pick it up as you go along and the GM can always clarify via PM. The players would be 'seperate' in the dungeon but can affect each other with curses and by playing monster enchancing items during their combat.

If you get into a fight, your turn ends. You then choose which items to use, and other players can choose to use items. At the start of the next roll, the fight is resolved and your turn begins again at 'progress into the dungeon'.

If you lose the fight, you can run away, if you fail, you get the 'bad stuff'

This can either be persistent (anyone who gets too strong will be ganged up on) and players can join and leave whenever they want to no ill effect. Or it can have a level limit and just keeps resetting whenever someone wins.

It sounds like a good way to keep a nice influx of players, keep a fast game in continous circulation, and make an easy game to play and write.

However, it just doesn't feel right to me. Where's the player creativity? What will keep the game fresh?

There are only a few options available to each player: Cursing [EDIT: Not to be mistaken with Cussing ], Fighting, and Looting. The players can't be creative in their actions, and the game will remain the same with the same choices each time.

Every turn will be the same besides random events (of which there are two: monsters, and curses). I just don't see how the game can remain interesting after a single playthrough.

Another idea, based off FoolishBalloon's example: players are people shipwrecked on an unknown landmass of unknown size and full of unknown dangers and other unknown-ness. They explore the island, fighting monsters, gaining experience and equipment, maybe finding or building a base of some sort, etc. This island seems to somehow attract shipwrecks and shipwrecked people, as more people (new players) are often added to the group trapped on the island. Eventually the payers would get off the island, or maybe not, if it's supposed to go on forever. One benefit of a simplified system (with tabletop-RPG-esque actions and fight narration, e.g. "I attack with my sword." "Roll to hit: 18. Success. Damage: 12. Target dies.") is that it could be mostly automated; taking a lot of work off a human GM (though the players shouldn't be told this, as why would they come to a forum just to play what's essentially a rather basic, text-based computer RPG?).

Bigkahuna wrote:Where's the player creativity? ... The players can't be creative in their actions, and the game will remain the same with the same choices each time.

We don't need creativity, we need postcounts.

8680 wrote:players are people shipwrecked on an unknown landmass of unknown size and full of unknown dangers and other unknown-ness. They explore the island, fighting monsters, gaining experience and equipment, maybe finding or building a base of some sort, etc.

Minecraft R2D?

8680 wrote:We don't need creativity, we need postcounts.

To keep this forum alive, yes we need postcounts. But if there's no creativity, there are no players attracted, and there are no postcounts.

A minecraft-style R2D might actually work... if we make it like Terraria. Hear me out here. I'll make a post in the mother-thread (the original Announcement).

That's a good point. I hadn't considered that it would limit the players actions. Thinking about it, there is no realistic way to implement that without essentially changing the game.

Thus, we seek ideas. I like the general idea of a dungeon crawl with more people added in and it is just pretty crazy with farting dragons and people with levitating cloaks that drag them around the air and whatever else we can come up with. You could have a final boss to beat and the dungeon resets (would make more sense rather than having people running around with no aim).

It has to be something the players can join in with no disadvantage and leave whenever they want without ruining the game (i.e. no plot). Remember, its function is so that there is always a game for new players to join, not to be a real deal R2D.

Here's the post.

If you haven't heard of Terraria before, look up some videos on Youtube.

Or instead of having the dungeon reset (which we could still have) we could make players die easily (while remaining within reason, of course). Hopefully they would have their appetite whetted for R2D's, and potentially be inspired to make a new one, join waiting lists, etc.
Since it seems that most new people here don't bother with waiting lists, they just go "Oh, they're all full." and then leave, never to return.

Possibly to help keep the game "fresh", we could have a random GM (who is not currently rolling the actual game) add a random event to the end of the next roll (via PM with the current GM).
Something that would not disrupt the roll, but perhaps add a new obstacle or facet (or even path) to consider. Maybe even a gameplay mechanic that only lasts a few rolls?

bigkahuna wrote:Minecraft R2D?

Never played it, so I wouldn't know.