Calling All Game Masters
Virtually Real is not just for the games that I like to run, but for it's for the games that you run too! Let's make this work for everyone!
Download For Free
Yes, download the Virtually Real playtest edition for free from the button on this page and send your feedback. You'll be able to start a thread from this page (Give me a break, I'm just one guy), but until then, just email me directly! This system needs to work for everyone. That isn't a promise to change things the way you want, and if your reasoning is to make it work like your favorite system, you likely won't get your wish! If you can site an effect from a medical journal, then please give links and let's figure out things out because the system is very much about simulating real world things in the simplest way possible. Let the ideas flow!
Goal
Remember though! You have to tell me how this enhances the experience. Is this just more to upkeep? Rule systems that have very little to offer beyond "immersion" should require no record keeping of any kind by player or GM. The example here is using quality of care modifiers for the condition of a wound for the period before the roll, unsanitary conditions, lack of proper treatment, unchanged dressings, etc.
You can easily remove the penalties, just forget about them, and the result is no penalties to the healing saves, faster healing, way less likely to have conditions get worse, etc. The mechanic is all immersion as it doesn't really make the game more fun other than immersion! And taking it out doesn't have a negative impact on the game, it actually becomes a more heroic game which is what people are looking for when they don't want to conditions like that.
That isn't a bad thing. Immersion means the character is thinking about things that the character would normally think about. It's okay to give a sense that wounds should be kept clean and that rolling around in raw sewage is bad for open wounds. But, its not any fun to die of infection! You certainly don't want complicated record keeping on a wound. You focus on what you want to achieve, and design the mechanic according to that goal. So, remember what goals you want to achieve and ask if the added complexity balances out the benefits of the goal. Ideally, this needs to be all positives, like minimal to no upkeep (like saving a die).
In this example, there isn't any upkeep since the GM just has to make a mental note before the roll.
The system is designed to adapt to the way the table plays, as much detail as you want!
Convert Your Campaign
The book has the rules for this, if you need help, let me know and let's get the information into the book! Let's figure out what you need to make this system work for your world. What does it not capture? What essence do we need to represent? So, if you are willing to run it and give it a shot, I'll help you make it work and we'll get the advice into the core book so the next guy can take advantage.
Conversion Tools
Keep coming back to the website. As the system finishes, I'm going to have character generators, magic item generators, race generators, world building tools with interactive maps. Every creature will tell about itself from its own voice and its own viewpoint. It's habits, desires, and views. By opening the tools and filling out the forms, the website will generate a creature and calculate all the skill offsets and DLs for you. It also registers it with the system so you can then assign that creature an occupation (which can be a simple thing like "natural predator"). You can add your world as a part of one of our shared worlds, or you email me about starting a new world so you can outline your world with our online tools. The tools will allow you to export all this to VTTs, and allow us to build even higher level tools, like realistic weather systems, or simultaneous play where we allow the effects of different adventuring groups to influence other people's campaigns.
Use the tools! Join the community! Or use the tools anyway and run your own stuff at your own table and your own world. It's however you want to do it, but by sharing your creativity with our community, you gain help with the tedious stuff and automation, plus you'll be building a better database of tools and ideas for other people to use and inspire there own creations. It's an open-source world, open-source genres, open-source settings and supplements.
Run The Game!
Just like it says. Run it. Come back here. Give your feedback. If you have homebrew rules, share them. Once the website opens up, this will begin the tree of discussions for the forums of this system. And everyone will be able to give feedback. I just have to add in accounts and stuff to the website.
Let's open this up to more minds than just my own! This needs to be the best.
