I don't see how could this work.
Sounds pretty stupid.
>I'm here because you guys are the strongest creative force on the internet
Bullshit.

Show some examples of how could it look like. Currently it looks like "Lol i want a gaem but i don't know what i want, it has to be cool".

There's nothing to be creative about if all you're giving us is SUBVERTING TROPES LMAO

>>13946714

Breaking rules? So kinda like munchkin?

So basically you were here a year ago and failed at doing anything worthwhile, and expect us to have kept up with it, when the only thing ABOUT the game was saying NO FUCK YOU RULES as part of the rules.

Jesus fuck you're pretentious.

Aw snap it's the motherfuckin' Earthflame

My mistake folks, thread in the archive is titled "The Breaking Point".

Anyway... The essence of Break is the Breaks themselves. I'll give it its own simple, flexible system, but that really isn't important right now. The system is generic and boring, and only really there to be broken.

Breaks are points which let your character Break something. Or, rather, break Anything. This is the core of Break.

The rules of the game? Breakable. The laws of physics? Breakable. If it exists, you can Break it, by spending a break.

Yes, this is designed to have things go utterly insane very rapidly. That's pretty much the point.

For games which want things to be less outright ludicrous, you can set limits on how Breaks are spent. In a mecha show styled game, they're your special attacks, fusions and super techniques. In a slower, more thoughtful game you could use them philosophically, breaking concepts and warping reality. Choice is yours.

Although, there are two things which let you control the pace. How fast people gain Breaks, and how fast people hit Breaking Points.

With gaining Breaks, there are a few things to define. How do you get them, how many you get, and how long does it take to get them.

For fast paced game, you could have every Break you spend returning two almost instantly. Or, if you spend multiple, the number of breaks you spent plus one. This will cause things to escalate fast.

To turn that into a more animu styled progression, you could have Breaks reset to one at the beginning of each scene- So, you have to start small and build up.

A slower paced game, however, you could only hand out one per scene, or even one per session, and encourage or reward intelligent, clever usage of Breaks.

This post is getting long, so I'll finish it here and then check if I've missed anything...

You may think that /tg/ has noticeably declined in quality since the last time you brought this up. You are correct, and the posts in this thread will serve as further evidence.

>>13946774

What? Perhaps I mis-said something, but I Had no expectation of /tg/ doing my work for me in my absence. It was meant as more of an apology, but whatever. I'm bad at writing with clarity.

I'm beginning to suspect that Earthflame has a stalker with a rageboner.

>>13946800
We know, things were better in 2007. And 2001. And the 1980s. And the 1890s. It's all been downhill since Eden, really.

>. I'll give it its own simple, flexible system, but that really isn't important right now.
It isn't? I'd say it's pretty darn important. Why don't you whip up this "simple, flexible" system that will be our punching bag so that we can get an idea of what kind of stuff we can break.

Also, daytime /tg/ might be kind of slow with creative responses.

>>13946821
>It's all been downhill since Eden, really.

Actually, yes, if you believe that particular story.

Player: I break the laws of physics and create a black hole by eating a burger lol you all die.

Gm: You can't do that! It's against the rules!

Player: Okay I spend one break point breaking the rules of the game and the secound one making the blackhole!

GM: ..... -throws table-

ITT butthurt newfags who don't know Earthflame is the most awesome person ever. His games are fucking awesome and if you don't know them you're worthless shits.

>>13946848
Show me his games.

>>13946848
Alien was a fucking awesome movie. That does not mean everything that comes out of James Cameron's ass is gold.

>>13946821

The old one is listed in the old thread- http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/10168474/

Honestly not sure what I'd do for a new one. Something to think about, really. Use that one for now I guess, until I make up my mind.

>>13946800
>You are correct, and the posts in this thread will serve as further evidence.
No, responses in this thread are currently about as good as... ever.
>>13946792
Eh, it's very vague, but it's better than nothing.
Basically, the "breaks" are mana points which increase as you use them?

>>13946860
>Show me his games.

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Artifice

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Mosaic

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Pause

Plus, ArtifIce was the basis for Engine Heart, so without EF there's no robuts.

Of course you're just a shit-stirring troll who doesn't care about those links. I'm just posting them for interested parties.

Also I am Earthflame samefagging!

>>13946898

Dude, as much as I like trolling you don't need to get so offended at other people for not liking Earthflames stuff.

I meen EarthFlame doesn't seem offended, in fact he seems to be taking it quite well and for that I commend him. You on the other hand seem quite butthurt for some reason.

>>13946909
I'm offended? News to me!

You asked for links, big boy.

I seem to be getting ahead of myself... So, here I'll slow down and lay it out.

Break is a very conceptual, to the point of pretentious as fuck game. I am fully aware that in its core, unrestricted form, its almost unplayable due to the crazy shit which can happen.

My intention, however, is to create this pure, unrestricted, utterly insane core, and Then, to make more restricted versions of the system which actually work as ordinary games.

I'm coming to /tg/ because, in my experience, is a melting pot of creativity, good ideas and useful input. It also keeps me focused and stops me getting distracted, and the back and forth banter can often poke holes in ideas as well as spurring my own thoughts on.

So, yeah, I forget why I'm posting this, but whatever.

>>13946922
>LOL I TROLL U
Uh-huh. I heard of Artifice, but it sounds like he's got too many cocksuckers to be productive anymore.

>>13946922
That was me.

Certain things must either be unbreakable or require too much power (or whatever) for the PCs to break. Otherwise, there is no challenge, because one of the players could just say "lol i break the plot" and then cheeto dust everywhere.

>>13946922

>Of course you're just a shit-stirring troll who doesn't care about those links. I'm just posting them for interested parties.

So your not mad then?

>I'm offended? News to me!

Can't tell if that's sarcasm or not.

>You asked for links, big boy.

Wasn't me who asked but you do sound mad :3

>>13946923

At least it's not as chaotic as freeform games OP.

And once again I realise I've missed something very important.

Breaking Points.

These are the ultimate sanction. These are what stop any crazed progression of breaking in its tracks.

Depending on the tone of the game, after a certain number of Breaks, you hit a Breaking Point.

At a breaking point... Everything breaks down. Nothing can hold together, and it just might kill you.

In the event of a Breaking Point, you can state One thing as absolute. One thing to remain unbroken, unshattered.

Everything else is fair game. And unless you state "I survive" as the absolute? You can die.

Breaking points are the all or nothing shit gets real moments.

>>13946934
Utterly unrelated to this thread, but that's about the exact opposite of a LOL I TROLL U moment.

Hmm. Maybe you should add is some sort of downsides to breaking Or some element of randomness as to whether the breaking works, and to what extent.

Maybe if you break reality enough... reality breaks you?

>>13946985

Wait wait wait wait...... I think he just made Gurren Laggan Pen and Paper o.o
The breaking point (Spiral Nemesis) of course is what the "Bad Guys" want to stop.

Don't know if I'll ever Gm a game like this but the logic that hit my head just happened.

I don't believe this can work as a game in and off itself EF.

"The rules of the game are breakable."
But how does the character realise that he is constrained by the rules of a game?
To break the rules of the game you must rely on the player's perspective on the game and as such breaking the rules requires metaknowledge.

Actually the whole concept itself is meta - and it's also the level at which the concept might work. As a metagame played above another game.

Consider it.

>>13947022
IIRC the more you break, the faster you rack up breaking points, which is basically "shit gets real/shit hits the fan" moments.

>>13946847
>break game rules
>Breaking point
>You get sucked into the black hole and it burps, then vanishes

In one of the new episodes of Doctor Who there was a class of beings who served as a sort of "immune system" for time. They showed up when a paradox was caused and started sterilizing the area (killing everything). They were basically unstoppable and disappeared when the paradox was resolved, undoing basically everything that happened.

So how 'bout them Unbreakables?

Hehehe. Gurren Lagaan is an inspiration for one of the Break subgames, Break Mecha. It uses the animu fast progression (Start a scene with one Break, gain one more each time you spend one as you build up to bigger and bigger things), and this was a bit of baseline fluff I had for it-

The war has gone on longer than living memory. The oldest people in your community (Those who reach the ripe old age of forty), tell tales of giant machines tramping over the land they were children, and say their fathers said the same.

You're not even on a side anymore. You're just trapped in the middle, hoping on the next supply raid the soldiers leave you enough to survive, and don't kidnap or kill anyone you know.

Or, that was the situation. Until yesterday.

Yesterday, a shell fell a little way from your homes, and opened something strange. A network of old bunkers, with some very old looking war machines, as well as their technical documents and ignition keys.

But, its odd. Most of the machines you see, running or grinding across the torn landscape have six or seven digit numbers, with three digits being the stuff of legends. Old machines are more powerful of course, since so much has been lost in the war...

All the machines here are in the low double Digits.

And they seem to be calling to you...

>>13947052
I break them.

>>13947052
Yeah those guys were proposed in the original thread as well. I think they called them fixers or something back then.
Makes sense if you want to provide players with something resembling an external challenge.

>>13947072
They break you.

>>13946969

Well, define "breaking" the plot. If a PC did say that, then what the hell would the GM say? I don't think that's really something you can "break". You'd have to be much more specific, because just saying stuff like that really means fuck all without some kind of basis.

For instance, summoning cthulhu into a game right into the enemy's base and him killing them all would be breaking the plot, but that's not the same as just saying "lol i break plot". Besides that, the way I see it, "breaks" although seemingly limitless in power, are actually fairly limited in that you need to be incredibly specific to get them to work in YOUR favor, not unlike wishes from a genie.

>>13947081
I break that.

>>13947050

>break game rules
>Breaking point
>You get sucked into the black hole and it burps, then vanishes

..... And you don't think I thought that wouldn't happen?
Herp derp I made a black hole and now I'm not gonna die.
Now if you meen the black hole is only gonna eat me (Like the phyker warp thing from DH) then yes that's one way the GM can fix it and I'll thank you for pointing it out.

Other wise Derp.

>>13947068

I can see this working in anime style games but building an entire game around breaking physics sounds a little hard.

If it was just a mechanic then I'd say go for it but as it stands this seems like too much of a meta thing for me as the guy above said.

>>13947043

Honestly, with Break I'm not really thinking at that level of complexity. The characters may not know they can specifically Break things.

They can just do impossible things. Things they wouldn't otherwise be able to do. They don't need to sit around and think about why. They just can.

If they do sit around and think, then you're probably en route to a slower paced, more philosophical game, which is entirely cool and part of the concept.

>>13947116

In its core form, Break is almost unplayable. Its best suited as a limited addition to another game, or a more restricted form streamlined to work in one particular way.

However, I truly believe it isn't Totally unplayable. And that, if a group and GM could actually pull it off, it could be amazing.

But the Break system is key, and that's why I'm here. To tear it apart, and scrutinise every detail, just like you always do, and then I can put it back together better, understanding it and all.

I'm going to run a playtest later, probably, so we'll see how that goes.

>>13947120
In that case why make any statements about breaking the rules of the game? If the break is an occurrence observable specifically from the characters perspective as such it does not require breaking the rules of the game only the rules of the reality the character is part off.

This two things are not correlated.

>>13947149
Yeah I think this is the thing that rattled me up the most. The ability to actually Rule 0 without being the guy running it.

The only way I can see players doing this is by using a break to break the forth wall dead pool style though I suppose if they did that they'd become just as insane as a downside.

>>13947120
You could have multiple styles of breakers. Those who can "ride the wave" so to speak and create complex and multifaceted breaks that are all related to and branching off from a nexus break. Perhaps these characters could add new conditions as the break occurs, slowly refining the results to get what they want. Breaking through study and wisdom. Your wizards basically.

Then you could have the "wild-breakers" those who don't think, just do. Very powerful but very dangerous. your Simons more or less. You could represent this by giving them more power points but only one initial condition they can specify.

>>13947094
>Now if you meen the black hole is only gonna eat me (Like the phyker warp thing from DH) then yes that's one way the GM can fix it and I'll thank you for pointing it out.
Basically, yes. Get a breaking point, the DM can and probably will shit all over you. Breaking the game rules too much will probably do that.

If you try to be too much of an ass and just try to kill everyone, other people can try to prevent that with THEIR breaks "lol your black hole is small therefore the it's below point of self-evapouration and the black hole breaks down" and if everyone just wants to die and go back to D&D fine, leave the damn game.

If you're trying to point out that you can break the game rules to overcome one specific set of enemies, fine. What about the next ones? They're tougher, and you keep nearing a breaking point if you need to use more breaks...

>>13947149

Well I think that breaks allowing you to do things the game wouldn't normally allow should have to require more "tokens" (or whatever the system is called), and also bring you closer to the "breakpoint". That way, the character wouldn't KNOW they were breaking these "rules", they'd just know that sometimes things require more energy than usual.

An alternative would be the inclusion of an overseeing god who speaks to the PC's themselves. Although how that would work i'm not sure.

>>13947168
I break the breaking point.

>>13947175
There is nothing "a game doesn't allow you to do".
See: rule 0.

>>13947022
In Soviet /tg/, game breaks YOU.

Or you could play Mage: the Ascension and break reality as much as you like, with attendant Paradox costs. Seems like this is where it's heading, unless you want a distinct metagame overlaid on top of another one.

>>13947168
You make it sound like a fate point then..... depending how may uuh break..... bullets??? You have I think the players may treat them as such.

>>13947209
>may
*many
blah hate my spelling.

You could also have a system where you have a pot of tokens, of a preset number. Let's say 25. And you have five players. Every player gets 1 token, so there are fifty in the pot. A player uses a token and gets two back, he chucks the one into the pot, and the DM hands him back two. When you run out of tokens in the pot, point break occurs...

But the DM doesn't tell you how many tokens are in the pot. And it changes between sessions.

>>13947223
>so there are fifty in the pot

I meant 20.

>>13947186
>I break the breaking point

Please see >>13946985

>Depending on the tone of the game, after a certain number of Breaks, you hit a Breaking Point.

>At a breaking point... Everything breaks down. Nothing can hold together, and it just might kill you.

>In the event of a Breaking Point, you can state One thing as absolute. One thing to remain unbroken, unshattered.

>Everything else is fair game. And unless you state "I survive" as the absolute? You can die.

When you're at the breaking point, EVERYTHING starts to break down. Enemies suddenly shoot you through two walls away. The ground underneath you shatters and you fall. Giant whales may spontaneously form to splash around you.

You can't break a breaking point any more than you could break the action of shattering glass. In fact, the last thing you want to happen is more things breaking during a breaking point.

>>13947231
>insert joke about breaking math

>>13947209
>fate points
Its a similar mechanic, but consequences are to be more dramatic if they're abused, and the players are supposed to need them a lot to survive. Each break ramps up difficulty, leading to more breaks needed, leading to more breaking points, which again need breaks to get out of.

Eventually everything breaks down (hopefully at the climactic point of whatever)

>>13947231

So it's like having a D20 with every single side being a 20 exept one...... HELL YEAH I'D TAKE THOSE CHANCES!

Anyway...

I'm thinking of running a playtest.

I have three main things I could do. Either a conceptual playtest, just going crazy with the idea of Breaks and seeing what happens, or the Mecha playtest, since that's the most well thought out limited variant, or an unplanned playtest where I get some folks together in an IRC channel and do whatever.

Any preferences?

>>13947315
I can try it as long as it's not mecha.
Philosophical Break sounds nice~.

>>13947315

I'd prefer mecha myself being a fan of all the old school super robot shows though I wouldn't mind other stuff.

Holy shit, an Earthflame thread.

How's the never finishing the homebrews you start developing going, bro?

>>13947315
I would go with option 2 since it gives you a system to work around. And if you're intending for this to augment existing systems then that's something you're going to need to test anyway.

>>13947428

Par for the course, pretty much. I'm really hoping to get over my fucking issues and get shit done, but we'll see how much success I have. Fingers crossed and all.

>>13947395
I guess I could go with mecha too as long as people don't expect me to get the in jokes and getting most of my cues from Zegapain, RahXephon and Evangelion.

>>13947485
Best of luck, old chap. It's good to see you around again.

>>13947489
I have no idea what the first two things are and I don't watch the last one.... some mech enthusiast I turned out to be huh?
Nah I'm more of a SRW OG person.
Besides if all else fails just pull a kamina.

What server would folks like this on? I'm present on Rizon and Sup/tg/, so whichever is most convenient and all.

>>13947527
I thought everyone knew about RahXephon, Paranoid Shitcurry. I mean, I've only watched one episode and didn't like it, but at least I still know about it.

>>13947540
Rizon please.

>>13947527
If you don't like Evangelion you won't like the other too either anyway. One is reverse-Evangelion, the second is reverse-Matrix.
And yes I do intend to pull a Kamina.
An Ayato Kamina.

>>13947571

Ya Rizon is good.
Also YEAH!!!!! Dude I love you already.
If you like upbeat stuff have a look at Kotetsushin Jeeg.

Well then, lets get things started.

#BreakRPG on Rizon.

lets see what we can do.

>>13947599
I'm sorry but you might have misunderstood.
The main character from RahXephon is called (Ayato) Kamina.

He's a calm person, enjoys paining and does not like fighting. Oh, he is also the chosen pilot of a god masquerading for a machine and eventually remakes the world into a better place.

>>13947653

OOOOH.... I thought you were talking about Gurren Laggans Kamina but this guy seems cool to.

Playtest starting now! I think we're kinda full of people, but feel free to watch. I'll post logs and reports as things happen, if anyone cares.

sage

Oh man, Earthfire. Love your shit.

Update from playtest-

Holy fuck this is insane.

>>13948186
Oh man you duuuuuumb

Part of the playtest group.

Sweet Jesus fuck, I just nuked an orbital gunbattery by directly beam-colliding with one of it's shells.

I wasn't even using a Break.

I spend a break point to break a hymen! YEAH! BREAK-RAPE!

>>13950256
You are the worst kind of person.

Anyway, reports from the playtest-

Massacred mechamooks, shrugged off a giant space laser with a combination of special attacks, breaks, and reverse gravity kick into orbit.

Then, big boss fight, won via a triple break spend combo attack of hitting them with a bit of space debris, swording to death and then a drill finisher, which triggered a Breaking Point.

Break works. Holy fuck. Even I'm kinda surprised at that one. The PC's may be able to give better descriptions than me.

Any experiences?
What system did you use?

One of the playtesters here.

That was nothing short of amazing.

The system was an easy to understand d6 system, with everybody being alloted a general pile of Breaks.

The GM, Earthflame in this case, set the limit to a secret number, gave us a scenario, and from the moment combat happened, it was a blur of action.

PC actions have included, but are not limited to:
1) Beamclashing with orbital space stations.
2) Having Touhou-tier bullet-offs
3) Riding afforementioned beam clash into the space station to cleave it in half
4) Slo-mo last moment dodging
5) Accidentally reality with a drill

And it keeps going. It was like watching/reading an orgy made out of action.

Loved every moment of it, would play again.

>>13950450
We used this system. Anyway, that was f*cking amazing, and I'm not just saying that because I used a sword to turn back an orbital attack, surfed a laserbeam into orbit, jumped off of bullets to attack a spacestation, and surfed the flaming wreckage into the BBEG.

This sounds awesome.

Glad to have you back, EF.

so basically op wants a fluxx rpg. ok... why didn't you just say that to begin with?

Is there a document with the "complete" rules anywhere?

So what mechanic did you use to model breaking point during the playtest? Was there a certain trigger condition, or was it caused by GM fiat?

>>13950834
You just say you Break, the only limit for Breaks is that it leads to a Breaking Point.

I actually think this game worked mostly because none of the people involved were dicks.

This sounds sort of like Pantheon, a GM-less game where the players represent a pantheon of gods who create the universe as they go along, and conflicts are resolved via votes and a variety of limited-use Trump abilities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon_(role-playing_game)

http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2010/12/genre/fantasy/pantheon-the-game-of-gods/

>>13950903
Example breaks for my own character for reference:
1) Break to cause an accidental chain reaction initiated by missing the target of a shot culminating in exploding a weapon storage several miles away and hurling a tank to hit the first enemy to target my character with a weapon.

2) Break to find a usable weapon on the ground ("I have no idea how that got there, some mook must have dropped it") in order to dual wield guns as to engage a giant blue mecha with the number (9) in double danmaku.

>>13950903
The question was, what determine how the breaking point was invoked. It was invoked in the playtest; what triggered that?

>>13951533
Oh, I see.
(Sorry, it's been over 20 hours of being awake for me.)

The Breaking Point was invoked when we exceeded a arbitrary number of Breaks. We however did not know this number beforehand. (Turned out to be 10.)

DUDE! Earthflame lives! And glad to see that the idea works, by the sounds of things!

Eurgh, and now I'm awake at 6AM.

Morning /tg/. Wow, last night actually happened. Strange...

>>13955183
So EF, how about next time you do that shit WHEN I'M AWAKE!?

>>13955476

Heh. I'm restricted by the limits of my own conscious periods, but hey, maybe I'll try. What's your time zone?

Even if this playtest continues, I'm likely to make future threads and playtests to work out the other aspects of Break, slow and medium paced games as well as different Break limitations.

EF i really want to try this out side a computer. Can you put together a small notepad doc with all relevant information to try this without you. I'll gladly give you a detailed report on how it goes.

>>13955183
Yay I'm back so what happened while I was away?

>>13955850

I'll write one! But at the moment its 7AM, I'm exhausted and need to help carry some furniture soon. Drop me an email, I'll send you a notes doc when I've got it all ready, shouldn't take me too long.

>>13955864

http://pastebin.com/nTQAzcDZ Logs, for your pleasure and for all who wish to read the shit we got up to.

Because I'm fucking bored and the delivery people are goddamn late, another bump on the off chance of spurring discussion to help keep me awake.

Any questions about Break /tg/? Good ideas, or whatever. Heck, even good insults would be appreciated.

>>13956482

kill yourself and make it stick this time

>>13956482
Only real question I have is about breaking point - what mechanics have you considered for setting breaking point triggers? I do love the idea of the breaking point, it seems to model the 'all on the line' narrative situation very well.

>>13956537

There's a few options. The one I used in the game yesterday was a total limit, in this case 11. When the total number of breaks spent by all players hit 11, a breaking point was reached.

You can also have a limit per player, or have it be conditional, i.e. set up the narrative so that a certain event is the breaking point.

There are other options, to... Too many breaks spent at once/in a very short space of time, or if two breaks collide, i.e. oppose each other... Its extremely flexible, really, and I keep thinking of more ways to use it. Its a very fun mechanic.

>>13956584
Yeah I like it. It's interesting how close it is to freeform (even with the presence of a resolution system).

>>13956615

Its kind of teetering of the edge of so rules light the system is almost nothing, but it does work, or at least did in the playtest.

Then again, the main mechanic boiled down to. "Roll dice, if you see sixes, cheer!" and I did most of it on the fly.

But, it still had a different dynamic to pure freeform.

Then again... There's no reason you couldn't apply the Breaks themselves to a freeform game. Although, without a system, things could get crazy even faster.

>>13956673
God no. I've seen where that goes. I refuse to play games without a resolution system.

>>13956683

Most freeform games go to shit, but it is possible to have good ones. Rare, I must say, but possible. You just need to have a group completely lacking assholes who'd try and abuse it.

Then again, you could apply the same disclaimer to Break.

But I do agree, systems mostly work better.

I DON'T WANT THIS ON /TG/!

I DON'T WANT THIS ON /TG/!

bump

Hey, Earthflame. Is there a codified document somewhere with the rules you've got made up for this so far? Because holy crap this sounds batshit awesome.

>>13956694
Pic related.

>>13957211
As I said to >>13955918 there isn't a codified doc written up yet, but if you send me an email, I'll send it your way when I do get it written up, although I'll also bring it to /tg/ again for its vitriolic scrutiny.

>>13957218
Done and done.

Does anyone know if this thread will probably still be here in eight hours? I'd love to show it off to a few people who'd like it, but I'm headed to bed (Califag, 2:15am here) and I have no idea how reliable the suptg archive is.

>>13957276
Here y'go bro, save this: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/13946714/

Bumping this for the daytime board.