Nomic RPG
I’ve been talking with my friends about making a RPG website and hosting a Transformers RPG. This brings up what type of gaming system we should use: D20, GURPS, JAGS, etc.
Now, the problem for me is that there isn’t really a lot of Transformers source material that I see kicking around, and a lot of the pre-existing systems are somewhat complicated, and I don’t like spending a lot of time on mechanics. It would also be nice if the system could easily be used on a simple website, where people post actions and discuss.
Then it hit me. Nomic! Nomic is a game of self-amendment and rule changes that serves as an analog to a real legal system. If we have a system of self-amendment to the game rules, in the game itself, it can evolve based on the skills of the players as they play. There are a couple variants that I like, Minic and Pure Nomic are a good start, as is this Nomic RPG ruleset. I also like the feature of Nomopoly where the “Administrator” has veto power over anything that is paradoxical, hard to implement or unfair.
A lot of the ruleset can be implicit in the RPG, because I’m assuming a somewhat cooperative audience. Modifying the RPG rule set to use D20 dice, I come up with something like this as the initial rule set:
- To make a proposal to change the ruleset, shout “Proposal!” and state your proposal.
- Unless otherwise stated, a proposal adds a new rule to the end of the rule set.
- Each player has one vote on any given proposal, which may be AYE, NAY or ABSTAIN. Robert’s rules of order style voice votes will be used unless a contention occurs.
- Proposals that have a unanimity of AYE votes at any time become part of this rule set.
- Players may change their votes at any time before a proposal is passed or failed.
- Each player’s character has six attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.
- Each time a character does a task that may succeed or fail, they must roll a D20 and add modifiers for the ability used. If the character beats a value determined by the game master, they succeed.
There are probably some big problems with this rule set, but they should be shaken out after some peer review and a few rounds of voting.