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An Idea with some merit.
I recently ran across a proto-concept for a one-off RPG that I believe has some potential. Perhaps you could help me develop it a bit?
The concept is thus: Start off the game: Thirty students and one teacher. The setting is a boarding school.
At a specific time (roll a d12 for hour and 3d20 for minute, then flip a coin heads is PM tails is AM) all light produced by the school's lights and the sun itself goes dark. Flashlights, candles, and other things still produce light.
Several students fall asleep immediately (d6), but not the teacher or the players. These students do not wake up.
The main mechanics of the game are then revealed. Every ten minutes of game time, the students lose 1% of 'Wakefulness' They start at a randomly determined amount from 90 to 100. The Teacher, run by the game master, does not lose Wakefulness in this manner. The other students, who have randomly generated Wakefulness (Percentile) do. The Teacher is the DM's PC, and due to his or her adult discipline or some other reason, does not lose Wakefulness unless frightened or under some sort of effect. The Teacher has a flashlight, keys to certain areas, is physically stronger than the players, and somewhat smarter. Not to mention they know the school's layout a good deal better than the players.
THe loss of the Teacher should be a severe and frightening thing, like the loss of the only adult in a crisis situation to a bunch of children SHOULD be.
Every hour, every player rolls a percentile die. If they roll over thier Wakefulness, they fall asleep immediately.
The goal of the game is to find the reason behind the Darkness and the slumber, and to restore things to normal... Before the entire class falls asleep. Players who fall asleep can switch to one of the Students.
Certain effects drain Wakefulness faster. Being Afraid doubles the drain of Wakefulness, but during the effect's run, you cannot sleep, unless you hit 0. Caffeine and tea can restore some wakefulness, and being in a highly buzzed state can restore it over time and prevent sleep further.
Ideas? Interest? Hatred? This isn't really done yet.
The concept is thus: Start off the game: Thirty students and one teacher. The setting is a boarding school.
At a specific time (roll a d12 for hour and 3d20 for minute, then flip a coin heads is PM tails is AM) all light produced by the school's lights and the sun itself goes dark. Flashlights, candles, and other things still produce light.
Several students fall asleep immediately (d6), but not the teacher or the players. These students do not wake up.
The main mechanics of the game are then revealed. Every ten minutes of game time, the students lose 1% of 'Wakefulness' They start at a randomly determined amount from 90 to 100. The Teacher, run by the game master, does not lose Wakefulness in this manner. The other students, who have randomly generated Wakefulness (Percentile) do. The Teacher is the DM's PC, and due to his or her adult discipline or some other reason, does not lose Wakefulness unless frightened or under some sort of effect. The Teacher has a flashlight, keys to certain areas, is physically stronger than the players, and somewhat smarter. Not to mention they know the school's layout a good deal better than the players.
THe loss of the Teacher should be a severe and frightening thing, like the loss of the only adult in a crisis situation to a bunch of children SHOULD be.
Every hour, every player rolls a percentile die. If they roll over thier Wakefulness, they fall asleep immediately.
The goal of the game is to find the reason behind the Darkness and the slumber, and to restore things to normal... Before the entire class falls asleep. Players who fall asleep can switch to one of the Students.
Certain effects drain Wakefulness faster. Being Afraid doubles the drain of Wakefulness, but during the effect's run, you cannot sleep, unless you hit 0. Caffeine and tea can restore some wakefulness, and being in a highly buzzed state can restore it over time and prevent sleep further.
Ideas? Interest? Hatred? This isn't really done yet.
Comments
Character gen should be simple: Roll your wakefullnes, roll your stats (1d6 each) and then play.
There are five stats, represented as the student's grades:
English (Like diplomacy. How good is your vocabulary, your ability to understand books, your memory and comprehension?)
Math (Simple intellect. How good are you with spatial relationships and numbers?)
Science (Complicated intellect. Specific knowledges like formulae for chemicals, and the like.)
Art (How imaginative are you? How well do you understand your environment and how good are you at spotting things people miss?)
PE (How strong are you? How fast can you run? How sturdy are you?)
The roll on the d6 determines your grades. 1 is an F, which represents a -2 on related rolls, while a 6 is an A, which represents a +2 on all related rolls. Success is based on a d6: 4 or higher is a success, 3 or lower, a failure. If you really wanted to, you could even use an old-fashioned high school grade sheet as a character sheet.
However, rely on these as little as possible. Try to maintain a roleplaying over rolling standpoint, and have as many objectives be completed as possible (Find out how the other classes are doing, find more flashlights, get coffee, etc) without rolling.
Maintain the atmosphere at all costs! without it, the game is going to quickly lose appeal.
http://www.evilhat.com/home/dryh/
Also, how did you come up with your numbers and dice rolls and whatnot? Looks to me like you just made everything random and pulled numbers out of your behind. If you can't give a really damn good reason for every rule in the game, it's just arbitrary BS. If you can't tell me a mathematical reason for each number in the game, then that's also just arbitrary BS.
Think about how you want the players to behave. Then create rules that will elicit that behavior.
There seems to be quite lots of rolling the die without anything fun or interesting tied to it. You fall for the trap of most traditional rpgs, first you give out lots of die-stuff and die-rules and then say that they should be used as little as possible and atmosphere (or story, or setting, or drama) is more important than rules. If rules aren't important just do it with some die assisted freeform.
Edit: Also if all that you wrote is "the concept", it's named wrongly. Concept is "In school everything goes dark and people start falling asleep, some of the students and teachers try to find out what's happening". What you posted is a skeleton of a rules system and much more than just a concept.
The Teacher should either Know What's Going On, or be the goal of the game somehow. Do not have an NPC overshadow the PC's. Ever.
FATE system could handle all of this without all these gross dice pools.
The teacher is a shared limited resource. You get X "Teacher Points" and any player may ask The Teacher for help on a task. Once you exhaust the Teacher Points, the Teacher is gone.
Or the teacher is comprised of a collection of unique resources.
The teacher can be the most capable character, but that power needs to either 1) be in the hands of the players or 2) be the antagonist or endgame in some capacity.
EDIT: Other possibilities:
-Each player represents a particular "group:" The Jocks, The Nerds, The Kids, The Cheerleaders, The Marching Band, The Teachers, and so forth. Each "group" has several unique properties; some groups can be more powerful but have more limited "numbers." Every time you exhaust your Wakefulness (or fill up a Fatigue meter or something like that), you lose one of your "number" and a new one takes their place.
-Each player is an individual, and you focus the game a lot more
In any event, you need a way to ensure that every player gets a unique input into the game. "30 students and a teacher" is too bland.
This sounds very much like a "play it once" sort of idea, so I think you should give it a bit of punch.
Set a timer every 15 minutes. When the timer alerts, no matter what's happening right now, Shit Goes Down. Maybe you have a meter, and you advance it one step every 15 minutes. When it gets to the end, game over. Every step, something bad happens that changes the situation. Things get worse as time goes on.
The Wakefulness idea is really good. I like a value that counts down, rather than a meter that fills up; it emphasizes the "resource depletion" nature of the game.
Otherwise, the setting seems great!