So I was working on the Kalarsys book...

[Lurid Sorcerer]

Guys. I think I had a minor revelation.

I think we've been defining Kalarsys the wrong way. I don't think it's a role-playing game. Now, before you start questioning/screaming/stabbing, listen to this:

Kalarsys is a basic set of rules for role-play. we already know this, right? But that doesn't make it a game on its own. It needs more than that. Kalarsys itself only defines what information about each character (at a minimum) needs to be known and how this information is used for characters to interact with each other and their environment.

To make a complete game more things are required. First of all, a game needs a setting, rules to define how things in this setting work and how they interact with characters. Of course there's lots of things involved with just the setting. But also we'll need more in-depth rules for combat and such. Those creating Kalarsys games must decide what further information is needed for their game and rules for how this information will be used.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that Kalarsys is just the internal set of rules for the game. The games that use Kalarsys inside can be drastically different. An analogy that should help clarify what I mean is the Unreal 3 Engine. Of course, Unreal Tournament 3 uses it. But so does Gears of War. Those games are pretty different, but similar. However, a few other noteworthy games that use it are The Last Remnant, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars. Internally, they use the same game engine. It defines the physics, the methods for drawing graphics, the way environments are built and so on, but the way each of these games use the engine is completely different.

The SPECIAL system from the Fallout series comes to mind as well. Much like Kalarsys, it defines the information that must be known about characters (Strength, Perception, Endurance, etc) and how this information is used for interactions. This same system could be used in a table-top RPG game, though the exact way these attributes work is not obvious to the player because it is hidden behind post-apocalyptic landscapes and gore. As players, we only see the result, not the calculations.

I can imagine people with D&D 4th edition players using their miniatures and maps for their Kalarsys games. They decide the placement of the characters is important, as is the direction they are facing. This information is kept track of and rules for using the information are developed. I can also imagine other gamers deciding such things aren't as important and not bothering to set up their figurines for every encounter. Instead, the decide to keep track of the phases of the moon to determine how events play out during their games.

I think you guys are starting to see what I mean. Kalarsys itself is not a game. By plugging in the pieces that are missing and adding any other pieces you like, a game is created. We've done this already with our expansions, such as Eidolons and Nightlings. Even without them, though, we invented Spyre and used that as a setting.

So here's a few reasons why I think all of this is important:
-We need to play more
-We need to work on Kalarsys and our expansions
-We need to play more
-We need to play more
-I was thinking of making a rudimentary game using a chess board and using that in the book as the game-play example
-The book will need to be re-written in some sections to accommodate this change in paradigm
-GODDAMN IT LET'S PLAY ALREADY!!!
-I want to know how you guys feel about this evaluation of Kalarsys
-We need to play more

Okay. Sorry to make you guys read all of that. I hope I didn't scare all of you away. I really need to know what you guys think.

[Child of Flame]

I think you bring up good points about Kalarsys. As it stands right now, it is an accurate description of what Kalarsys is. However, that is why we are supposedly working on the book and making the expansions, so that Kalarsys is not as easily applied to other games and can stand alone as its own game.

So yes, more playing must be done. That's easier said than done when we all are scattered throughout the state (and the country). And that's basically what we have to do to find out how we can make the game better. From there, we'll know what's wrong through play testing what we have in the book already and make it better. Because it's hard to get everyone together, I propose that we all just test the game with whomever is close to us. For instance, Lurid and myself can run a small session amongst ourselves, and perhaps drag my brother into it. This has worked before to test out the gun/bow systems, so just a two player game isn't as crazy as one may think.

Those are my ideas.

[Torke]

well my roomate is a d&d addict but he doesnt like playing by the rules.. i think i can convert him to kalarsys hopefully we will find a couple other guys in our programing class that would like to play. my roomate (pete) talked about adding alcohol into the equation so we will see how that turns out xD

[Zain Winters]

yeah thats a good point, and unfortunatly me and torke are limited to online sessions which of course i am always 100000% up to and ready for as long as its at a decent hour which is rare for us but it almost needs to be started before 5-6pm, im off tues-fri-and saturday so there is no reason for me not to be able to play with you guys blah blah blah etc etc you get my point

[Lurid Sorcerer]

CoF: Is there really anything wrong with it being a game system the way it is now? Maybe that would be the better question. We know what it is, but should we change that? Personally, I have no problem with what Kalarsys is. If we want to make a stand-alone game all we really need to do is make our own expansions (which is what we've been doing). And Kalarsys was initially built from playtesting between two people. I guess we know it's possible, but we become so busy with other stuff that we forget that we can play, and even when we do have the time we don't think of it.

Torke: You better sign those mother-fuckers up on the message board!! The perspective of players outside of our usual group is one of the biggest things Kalarsys needs right now. It'll help me write the book more clearly and give us an idea of what people like and dislike as well as allow us to see things in ways we haven't.

Zain: This Saturday we'll be playing a game with DC_Desperado et al. and he's got something big and amazing he wants to show me. Evidently it's a change to the entire way we've been building races and such, so I'm pretty excited about that. It'll be a way for us to have more diversity in our parties (not racial, of course, because there are no black people in Kalarsys*). I'm not 100% sure of how it'll work, but he's been working hard on it and we're both excited to see it in action.

If you skipped over what I wrote to Zain, you should probably read it because there's something important in there.

*Not that I have a problem with racial diversity, but I think we can all admit that this is probably true.

[DC_Desperado]

Lurid: You and i both know that if someone made a non-caucasian (sp?) player and acted out a steriotype to the extreme... we'd prolly get so annoyed that that character wouldn't be around much longer.... Also as you were saying about combat. Scott and I have been doing alot of work with Equipment as well as with Races and Character classes.

Example: Short Sword ( Acc+ 0 Dmg+1)
Rapier ( Acc+ 0 Dmg+0) "Fate roll to see if attck bypasses armour"

Regular Short Sword are a basic weapon but do not go without merit. Its a balanced weapon perfect for beginner players. Were as the Rapier is known for its quick, agile, and percise attack. Not better weapon for finding the small openings in armour. It obtains no stat bonus but gives you the chance to leave armour useless. Not a beginners weapon to say the least.

Another example would be.

Example: Long Swords ( Acc-1 Dmg+2)
Falchion ( Acc-2 Dmg+3) Weighted Blade

A Long sword like the short sword is the balanced blade of its type. Good for both Beginners and experienced players. Having Scott do some research he found that a Falchion's blade was much heavier than that of a regular long sword. more dameging the blow... but harder to wield.

I hope you see were im going with this. I hope this gives our players that much more to think about when creating a character and even more to plan out when taking combat actions. Much like Lurid I too am super excited to unveil this project and actually be able to test it out and see were the bugs are and get them removed.

Torke: I'm glad you found some possible Kalarsys players... we've been hoping to expand kalarsys and get more feed back from a larger demographic. So this may lead to more eye opening input.

CoF: I even told Lurid I owe you an apology. I put up such a defence on the weapon/ armour durabillity but when Scott and I started on the equipment part of the project it became blaitanly(sp?) obvious that durabillity is important and what would be the point in getting money in the game if you didn't have to pay for anything.

Unfortunatley at the moment I do not have my laptop with me so I cannot continue typing of race and class descriptions, weapon calculations, and the history of the world the game takes place in.... and maybe if I get the time... i might be able to make a make-shift world map....

Anywho... I hope this little taste of whats to come wets your appetite because when it arrives it'll take no prisoners.... Oh Yeah!!!

[Perilaxis]

A whole new approach to Kalarsys as a whole, hmmm? Well if God is watching we may as well be interesting or so the saying goes. Still this sounds similar to the reimagining of the reimaining of the reboot (and we all know how that turned out) and simply because of the good stuff we already have that seems dangerous. I want to be clear I am not against another revamp or modification to what we have but if we do it we need to do it right. Part one to that is get together as often as possible to PLAY and test even if we don't do actual sessions and just test the individual systems one by one to get them right. Part two is to not simply scrap everything we already have. We got a few things right this time around and frankly drawing from what we have, expanding on it, is (I think) key to creating something golden. I also think we should look to the past, Demons and the original set of rules from shortly thereafter may not have been long lasting but that was where we came from and getting back to our roots not matter how far we've come can't be harmful to our efforts. As much as I may not like the idea of corrupting the systems with munchkin blood, the outsiders (at least a record of what they have done) should also be brought in and considered (if for no other reason than so we know what NOT to do). Those of us in and aroud home on the weekends now have a couple places available to us to have these sessions, we can get together on a more consistent basis and we should use that ability to our advantage.

[Lurid Sorcerer]

DC_D: I'm pretty sure I agreed with everything you said.

Perilaxis: What I am suggesting in this thread is not really a complete revolution in the way Kalarsys would be played. I think it's more along the lines of a correction in the way we've been thinking about the core rulebook. Or maybe it's just a full realization of what we already knew: Kalarsys is not a game, it's something a game can be built from.

Yes, let's bring in the stuff the "Outsiders" have done an analyze it. But when we're asking the question, "What's wrong with this?" let's not get our answers mixed up with those of, "What is different from how we like to play." I know I've been saying that the picture you painted of invulnerable characters and impossible-to-lose battle sounds like something that I would have no fun with. But that's a matter of preference. We'll really need to focus on things that prevent the Tale Spinner from telling the story the way he/she wants. There's a certain level of control the Tale Spinner needs to have over the play sessions, and if the players find ways around that control and ruin the story-telling experience for the Tale Spinner, then we have a problem.

Of course, each Tale Spinner will have their own level of control that they want. There will be those that just let their players do anything and there will be those that hold tight control over the events in the game. Of course, there will be those at many points in between. Without enough control, the players won't feel like they accomplished anything, and with too much they'll feel like their characters are just along for the ride. Communication between Tale Spinners and players is needed to determine what level of Tale Spinner control creates the most fun for everybody, but we need to make sure that this level can be maintained. Players should not be able to break it and take over the story if the Tale Spinner doesn't want them to.

In short, we're not throwing out anything. We're just re-writing the book to reflect the what we already know about the game (or lack thereof?). I hope most of that was relevant to what you brought up.

[DrukenHammer]

Hey! Wait one motherfuckin' second!

Wasn't the whole point of Kalarsys to make a cheap-ass system to enjoy playing old-school table-top RPGs? Cheap-ass in the sense that everyone has 7,000 plain old six-sided dice inside a ton of board games that haven't been played in years. (That and you get whole things of them for two bucks, rather than spending $8-$10 on a D&D styled set.)

Kalarsys was also to have simple rules and be able to be played with a few sheets of paper for characters and notes. What Kalarsys is, in it's most basic sense, is a developing d6 system.

The comparison to the game engine is spot on, but I think our easiest comparisons are in the RPG world itself. Look at how many different games that White Wolf has been able to publish using their d10 system. You have the same d20 system for third edition D&D as you do for the d20 Star Wars RPG.

What you guys have done though is still great, with classes and trying to develop the game world a bit. But I think what you, Lurid, are getting at is attempting to differentiate the Kalarsys world that you guys have developed and the system itself.

I know I've harped via telephone at Lurid about trying to find that balance between a decent story "body" and a clean running "game engine". The whole game "car" wouldn't been enjoyable in a car that rode like shit, but it wouldn't move it all with out an engine!

Unless you threw it in neutral and got out and pushed. Of course, it would only be a matter of time before everyone got tired and stopped pushing, or the car started barreling uncontrollably downhill.

In conclusion... Metaphors are the bees' knees!

Fuckers.

EDIT: And Torke, the idea isn't to "convert", but as an experienced roleplayer... (I have no idea if he's any good. There's a difference between plays a lot and being remotely decent.) ...he can give us feedback on what's going on. If you tell him about trying to develop a game for broke-ass bitches like us (...and him, I presume!) I'm sure he'd give it a shot. If not, oh well! What's one evening of his life? And even if didn't enjoy it... ask him why? What can we fix? Was it story or did the game feel choppy and didn't make a lick of sense.

Getting fresh eyes for something that Lurid undertook five or six years ago cannot be a bad thing in the slightest. It doesn't matter if it's a positive or negative response.

EDIT: EDIT: And Peril? Everyone? Why the fuck are they still "outsiders"? Get their asses on here as of yesterday!!!!

[Lurid Sorcerer]

Druken: Yep, I agree with all of that. I don't think he meant "convert" in its literal sense as much as just "introduce." Maybe he was using the word "convert" as a humorous suggestion that we will assimilate him with Kalarsys and he won't want to play anything else afterwards?

The statement about the "Outsiders" requires some clarification. The "Outsiders" are just a couple of kids that started playing but aren't part of our typical Kalarsys group. They're already members on the board, though they don't post for some reason. Evidently they visit quite often, though.

Okay, not sure if there's anything else that needs to be addressed. I'm going to print out a copy of the rulebook as-is, partially to bring a hard copy it to our game tonight, partially because I can't write on an HTML document with a red pen, and partially because I just want to.

[edit]
Right, I forgot to mention that I did update the Kalarsys book on both website mirrors (cogia and exofire). If you go to the Documents page, the Kalarsys 0.7.0 book has had a few updates and changes to it. These changes are what I was talking about when naming this thread.

The changes I made were in Character Creation: Items and Equipment, and Leveling Up: Increasing Stats. If you guys want to look them over and let me know how you like it, that would be great.
[/edit]

[DC_Desperado]

I don't see the harm in making Kalarsys a "Game" thats been our intention the whole time. But you have many good points. you cant get anywhere without a working engine, and trying to get somewhere with something that doesn't work is more tiring and stressful then it needs to be.

I guess what we need to do can be placed into two very broad catagories of "Game" and "Engine".

"Game" would include things like World/ Race/ Religon histories. Pretty much anything that is used to paint a picture of what the kalarsys world "is".

"Engine" would include thing like dice systems/ Rules/ calculations. this would have all the things that make the kalarsys world function as a whole.

Problem being, you cant have one without the other. Sure you can do basice number crunches and just collect system data. However without things like character/ enviroment design and how different characters react to given settings; the data collected is only half true. thus the dilema continues...

... to me it looks like we got one big problem... we cant test systems for a world that doesn't exsist... yet we can't make a world without systems to govern it... at least this is how i see it.

Im not saying that what we have now, both the K-core book and my "after chronicles", ( which i need to post up on the boards as soon as i figure it out) are nothing. Druken is completely right when he said that what we have now is still great, because it is. hands down Kalarsys is something great. We just need to put forth the effort to make it even better!

Whos with me!!!!

[Lurid Sorcerer]

This is true, but I think it would be easier to allow players to create their own games if the game and engine are separate. Not separate in the sense that they're two different books that you have to buy/download, but perhaps separate in that the first half of the book explains the "game engine", and the second half explains the "game". The way Kalarsys: The After Chronicles is set up now will work great as long as the core book and game book are written in such a way that they can be linked together like that. That shouldn't pose any real problems.

And I'm not sure that you should wait any longer on posting that stuff up here. I mean, most of us have it already anyway. Which leads me to another thing I wanted to ask: yes, what we have is still great, but how much of that do we have to toss out if we want to use The After Chronicles? It really changes almost everything we've done, and while I can admit that changes needed to be done, things like the Eidolons and Nightlings books are going to be completely replaced. I don't think I have any problems with that, I just want to know if that's your intent and if everyone else is okay with that.

[Child of Flame]

I don't know if the Eidolon and the Nightling books need to be replaced so much as they need to just be worked on. Or rather, The After Chronicles could be worked into what we already have to save a hell of a lot of work.

Ah, for instance, we could save the Eidolon book and the race itself, but that definitely doesn't make the Eidolon class useless. Just give the class another name and BAM you have something good.

That, of course, doesn't have to happen. I just wanted to illustrate the point that the older books need not be thrown out just yet.

[Lurid Sorcerer]

Yeah, they don't need to be thrown out yet, but I guess what I want to do is ask if that's what we want to do eventually.

[DC_Desperado]

The old Eidolon books are just as valid as ever...if not more... the Eidolons that i have in the after chronicles are just a brief out line of the ones we've been using forever. i know i need to go more in depth the explainations of the character classes... things like how a traditional class would operate. and the enviroment were one would normally be found.

this is why the old books are just as relevent.... in quite sure that when everything is typed up to its fullest potential, the old eidolon and nightlings books would have been modified and absorbed into the after chronicles which i have no problem being in the tale end of the core rule book. that way none of that data that has years of history would have gone to waste... infact.. using the templets that are in the after chronicles... anyone can make a race/class and submit it to me via/ PM or email... and i'd be happy to look it over fix some problems and if it fits in the world, in the book it goes.