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>>46770366
>So I have an idea for a role playing game based on the idea of cults
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kult_%28role-playing_game%29

>>46770366
Well OP, the first thing you need to do is read the rules to at least 50 unrelated RPG systems. Let us know when you get done with that, and give us the full list.

>>46770366
The only people who write new systems are the ones who don't know what already exists. Games have become a complex subject. You don't reinvent the wheel, you mix dynamics you like and invent mechanics that resolve them fast and seamlessly. Reinventing DnD is the mark of a nub who is wasting everyone's time.

The only reason to start from scratch is extreme minimalism, like in one page games. And those must focus on a specific thing. See Viral's games.

Also
>trip

Naw, kid. Back to lurking.

>>46770458
>trip
>it's actually not a trip
>tells OP to lurk moar

Otherwise, solid advice.

>>46770493
>Can't tell trip from secure trip.
Welcome to 4chan.

>>46770458
Hey. Fuck off you idiot. Who pissed in your froot loops this morning? Give me some real advice or go back in the closet you came out of you insufferable faggot

>>46770558
Yes, you'll fit right in here. Enjoy your autism.

>>46770458
>>46770558
You may dislike that guys opinion, but he's telling the truth. There are countless game out there and chances are you've only played a handful if not just D&D/PF.
If you haven't played that many games then not only will your game be lacking in useful mechanics that many other games use, but you'll probably end up making a game almost entirely identical to an existing one.
Chances are you're also new to TTRPGs in general and your system would be horribly unbalanced and written poorly (leading to many different possible interpretations of the rules).

TL;DR play 20 or so different systems and if you still haven't found something ideal, you can make your own game.

>>46770458

Go fuck yourself. The fact that lots of games exist is no reason to discourage people from designing new ones.

Here's the real, legitimate discouragement-

OP? Tell me why your game needs to exist. Give me a short, simple and condensed design objective which encapsulates why your ideas will create a compelling and unique experience that will give people a reason to play it rather than the multitude of other options.

And that is just the start. From a strong, core idea, you need to do your research and build your mechanics around the theme from the bottom up. Don't pick mechanics arbitrarily or just copy something else. Every element of your design should add to your core concept.

Of course, a huge number of published games fail to do this, but most of them are getting by on star power or momentum from an age where design was much less of an issue.

>>46770558
See, you could have written something like
>But I WANT to focus on one specific thing.
>Which games have rules that deal with the dynamic between different cults and are worth looking at?
Instead you chose to abandon your topic and show us how you probably don't qualify for the age barrier.

>>46770752
>Go fuck yourself.
>You don't learn games and then invent new ones
>You invent games and then learn what has already been invented
Your logic has convinced me. Please share more of your wisdom.

>>46770871

Read my post again, and then stop being an idiot. Doing research and seeing what exists is an important part of design, but if your default state is' Don't bother', it's pointlessly limiting on creativity. The best answer to someone wanting to make a game isn't 'Don't', but to open up the question with 'Why?'. Sure, in a lot of cases it might turn out they lack the vision to create something worthwhile, but without asking you don't know for sure, and you're just shooting things down for the sake of it.

>>46770918
>WAAAAAAH NO BULLY
Oh lawd, you're pathetic.

>>46770918
So you started a post about being more pedagogical with go fuck yourself?

Has your Ritalin run out?

>>46770955

'Go fuck yourself' is a perfectly valid response to people who shut down others ideas without taking the time to see if there's any value to them. Heck. it's a perfectly valid response to almost anything on this site.

>>46770972
Enough projecting. Deal with your dad. We are not him.

>>46770785
Why would I do that if I'm not actually OP and just wanted to demonstrate the difference between a tripfag and a namefag :)

>>46770712
Blah blah shut up and give me some real advice you stipud nigger

>>46771201
Go to >>/b/
Wack your weenie
Never come back

Solid enough for you?

>>46771246
Thanks for the tips now come give papa a kiss

Hey, just so you know. Someone is using the name I used to start this thread. Wow, didn't expect a shitstorm.
>>46770712
>>46770458
>>46770752
>>46770918
Everyone here raises good points. Researching other systems is important, but I don't think any system really fits my idea. I'd like to be proven wrong though. I'd like to make a system where the cult grows in power the more: people they brainwash, kill puppies for Satan, convince people to drink the kool-aid for the aliens, fishpeople they turn people, etc. There would be opposition from a new government task force, tasked with dealing with the rise of these new super-powered groups. I'd like to give the different cultures groups their own tree of powers they can access the more followers they have. So an edge-lord teenage satanic cult may be able to summon an important of he'll, but a huge satanic group could perhaps summon Satan himself to bring about the end of days.

>>46771452
Look at the tension between cults in Degenesis Rebirth and between the secret societies in Paranoia. Definitely learn the Reign company rules, they plug into any crunch. If a PvP closed game is your aim don't miss out on The Mountain Witch. The traitor/calon idea from BSG also looks interesting.

Are you looking to build a generic system from the ground up, or to find the best mechanics for gearing cults against each other?

>>46771452
I'm still down to help you make your system, guy. You want it rules lite or rule heavy, or some medium?

>>46771616
Thanks! I will look at those, I live in the middle of bum fuck nowhere so we don't really have a lot of options at our game store. I'd like something where people either play the cultists or the government. The government getting good military hardware, cultists getting acess to prepping supplies and their magics (or alien tech). People playing government will do more detective work, cultists cause mayham and get more followers in any way they can.

>>46771452
Check out Reign. It's about building kingdoms instead of cults, but it can scale from a small organization where everyone knows each other to something like a modern nation state.

Or at least that's it's stated goal, I admit I've never been able to get my group to try ORE.

There's a small but robust genre of domain building games, which is sort of what you're looking to do.

Nothing against building a new system from scratch if mechanics are your passion, but you should ask yourself whether you really want to build a system, or whether you want to build a *setting*.

>>46771625
Rules lite. I'd like a game that people can fill in the blanks and make their own. But enough rules where there is structure.

Stealin' your idea. Thanks chodesmoker.

>>46771766
Well, what do you feel like the core gameplay should be

>>46770366
Just use Call of Cthulhu.

>>46770366

I made a game called Knights & Knaves. I started with the core resolution mechanic and took it from there. For anyone who wants to know, I made it just because I like the game-design-process. Making it was challenging and fun. The fact that some people might like it and play it was just icing on the cake.

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>>46770366
Nice dub sixes.
Anyway, it's funny that you say this, because I'm also interested in such a system. I've been wanting to run a game based on cults/secret societies for a while now, although more secret society than cult. I've been planning on using the Basic Roleplaying system (same as Call of Cthulhu) with the Enlightened Magic splat and a few additions from the Call of Cthulhu spellbook and the psychic powers in the main system book. Trying to go for a secretive, otherworldly, magickal, political sort of feel in an urban setting.

I think for a cult though, lots of work should be put into the different weird beliefs, customs, and rituals that members practice. Also, a level mechanic for followers would be useful, because of how cults will often have levels of members to whom they give more and more divine secrets. This could also work as a loyalty mechanic, to see which followers will stay and which will go in response to a challenge of faith. If you're just a level one going to drum circle meetings, you might come to your senses after you see a news special (secretly funded by a rival cult) investigating the founder's history with spooky goat sacrifice, but if you've gone pretty deep, it'll take a lot more than some petty lies which were totally made up by the cult across the street to get you out.

>>46771766
Well, reading systems is good, but it's hard to beat tinkering with mechanics, especially if you can find some playtesters.

Presumably you need some way to measure "toughness". Which might be the same or different from the cult's progress towards some final goal (bringing about the end of the world? World domination?)

You need to know how to perform operations on that data--does an FBI raid simply reduce toughness?

Maybe a small cult, while more vulnerable in some ways, could be more resilient because of it's secrecy.

While a global insurgency draws down the might of national militaries and exposes their nefarious plans.

Also--do you see this as a roleplaying game, or a strategy game with some RP fluff?

>>46771452
You are still not safe, bro.

>>46771950
Your welcome I guess?
>>46771992
When you play cultist, the main focus is having fun with the magic or alien tech, while also dealing with pleasing Mr. Jim Jones. If your playing The government, you have a lot of responsible for saving the civilians while maintaining secrecy (Bad press to have another Waco incident).
>>46772153
I love the sound of this. Magic tied to the weird rules of the cult, combined with people's insecurities. I was inspired by Jonestown and the heaven's gate group to make this game after posing the idea "What if they where right". Obviously they are crazy people, but its an interesting idea for a game.

>>46772255
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Guess I cant help that.

>>46770871
Wow you could not be projecting harder

>>46772380
I think another thing of which you should think is the type of people in the cult. Is it a cult for the people, attracting the disenfranchised lower classes (early Christianity), or perhaps a cult for the rich, indulging the bored upper classes' darker desires (society of vampires, upper echelons of Scientology). Maybe it's across all boundaries, like the Ku Klux Klan (which, if you look into it, had some pretty spooky rituals besides just going around killing people) which had at its height members from all over in all sorts of places in society.

Also, what is its sphere of influence? Take, I don't know, a spooky hipster forest worship cult. Is it local, just based in & around Portland, or regional, throughout the Pacific Northwest, or national, or even international, or even interplanetary? This could be part of what an earlier poster was considering with secrecy vs power.

>>46770544
>Can't tell trip from secure trip.
Pretending to be retarded is not a very good argument, anon.

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>>46772704
I'd like for the games to start of local. Maybe 5 people and the leader. Over time, as the players gather more supplies and sheep for the flock, it can grow into something bigger (Perhaps a new world religion). I like the idea of a 70's-esqe hippy cult who like to bomb chemical plants for "Mother Gaia", who later bestows the ability to use nature against "The man". You see, I want each group's ideas and belief to manifest in a way that makes since. Like an deep south christian cult who handles snakes and speak in weird languages about the "Commandments of Rev. Tim", their powers would look pretty miraculous; but in a perverted and corrupt way.

>>46772885
Intredasting. So would players be average cult mooks or leaders? Or would they rise through the ranks as they help Rev. Tim rise to greater and greater heights of power?

>>46772927
Not entirely sure. Is it a good idea to let players be cult leaders, or should that be the DM's job? Or should it be a case by case basis.

>>46772965
>Continued
Also, I think it'd be cool to perhaps have conflict between cults. There are only so many people in the world, and Rev. Tim needs everybody on hand when Super-mega-satan comes to burn our women and rape our churches. So he would stand for an upstart alien cult trying to abduct new followers.

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>>46772965
>>46773023

I suppose it depends on where you start.

I think the GM should play the role of the cult leader, since the GM knows all of the secrets and the leader's secret motivations, but the players play his early, loyal servants. Their actions to increase the cult's influence would gain them more and more favor (but more ire from other members, and even from each other, as they compete for the Reverend's attention - perhaps inner conflicts arise where other members attempt to convince the Reverend that the players are servants of Super-mega-satan because they're getting too much attention?), and as the cult grows from a small town based prayer circle to a national mega-church building, televangelist superpower, the players rise in the ranks to become the highest members of the Reverend's inner circle, and he shows them the Serpent's greatest treasures - perhaps even the Fruit of Knowledge itself!

This, however, would make a lot of sense for a game where you start small, but you might want to play one as members of a bigger cult, in which case rising through the ranks would be a lot harder and take a lot longer. So I guess it all depends on your starting point, but it seems like starting small every time would be the best way to go.

Also, inter-cult conflict is badass. I like the idea of Rev. Tim sending the party out to hide black cottonmouths in the beds of the upstart alien cult's deepwoods compound only to return to find all their cows have been stolen! By natural means or by tractor beams - nobody knows! That's a fascinating concept.

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>>46773205
Your giving me a lot of great ideas! Thanks for letting me bounce ideas off you guys! You have a good point about the leader, though I wouldn't mind having the players perhaps manage a cell of the cult; just so they can have fun managing a compound.

Thought about making a civ/quest chart that would cover some the the general ideas of cults: alien cult, satanic, doomsday cult, etc.
that way I could perhaps test the concept. What do you guys think?

But I still want to make a rule set, even if its a free pdf for my friends and what not.

>>46773380
I've done a lot of thinking about this, haha. I love stuff like this, small-scale organizations of people competing with each other for minor, localized things. Guess that explains my fascination with secret societies, cults, and organized crime. It's fun to bring stuff down to the local level for once instead of the epic journeys of most fiction, because it seems so much more real.

I think that'd be a good idea. You should also look into lots of different cults/spiritualities to get ideas for new things. Maybe you and your players could design the cult you play yourselves.

>>46773539
Got any ideas? Here's what I have:

Satanic (Occult power)
New-age (Pagan and Nature Worship)
Alien cult (Advanced Tech beyond the stars)
Doomsday (Preppers stock piling weapons)
Judeo-Christian (Different flavor of Occult, more fire and brimstone)
Eldritch/Lovecraftian (Elder gods from beyond the stars)
Cult of Personality(Jim Jones, Stalin, and other charismatic people)
Money pyramid schemes(Basically get rich quick schemes gone wrong)

>>46771728
>I'd like something where people play the cultists
Unknown Armies
Kickstarter of 3e ends on the 29th.

>>46772685
Learned a new word, huh?

>>46773205
Start as cultists
Rise in the ranks by recruiting new cultists
Kill leader to become leader
Lead cult to salvation/death

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>>46775541
UA (cultists) vs DG (The Man)

There is a great scenario for modern CoC called A Cold War. It was published in The Unspeakable Oath back in the 90s. Players are members of a cult, and the leader was just murdered.

>>46770366
Suppose that I, in all my infinite wisdom, would want to make a roleplaying game based on owning waifus with various powers, and then interacting with them on a daily basis as their master, training and developing their skills, and ultimately pitting them against each other in a waifu combat arena.

>First, I would need to establish a setting.
Why do we have waifu pets? What kind of society has this as commonplace? Why do we have combat arenas for waifus?

>Secondly, I would have to have some waifu statistics
How do we represent a strong waifu? A beautiful waifu? A smart waifu?

>Next, I would have to have some roleplaying resolution mechanic
What are the benefits of giving your waifu a bath? Ordering her to bed early? Skipping training and watching a movie together?

>Finally a combat resolution mechanic
How does the roleplaying and statistics interact in combat situations? How do we determine who fought best? What skills and traits can exist on the battlefield? How do we balance this?

And then, you have to ask yourself,
how is this any different than playing pokemon, except the pokemon are all little girls dressed in animal costumes?

>>46774473
That looks good to me. I like the idea of a pyramid scheme gone horribly wrong, too. The next thing I suppose would be the powers granted to each type of cult, and also their recruitment methods & the types of people to whom it appeals.

I think there should be different types of recruitment methods, but I don't think they should be necessarily associated with a particular type of cult. That way you can mix & match and come up with different styles for each cult. For example, a cult of personality with mass media recruitment and appeal to age group [youth] could be a cult of rabid fangirls for band members, but an occult... cult with secretive invite-only recruitment and appeal to specific population [academics] could be a clandestine fraternity of professors and students searching for true knowledge at a fancy university.

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Here's some rules I made for when my players started to want to run churches.
I adapted some ideas from acks and we're using an echo resounding for domain management rules, that's what the domain value stuff is about.
Another good system to look at for running organizations is reign.

>>46774473
>Satanic (Occult power)
Meh. I'd avoid symbolism from major religions
>New-age (Pagan and Nature Worship)
This is what a critic might surmise. Call it Gaia?
>Alien cult (Advanced Tech beyond the stars)
Again, look from the inside. Specify what kind of aliens, and why.
>Doomsday (Preppers stock piling weapons)
Is this a cult? I thought it was a popular hobby.
>Judeo-Christian (Different flavor of Occult, more fire and brimstone)
Let's not. To Christians it's offensive (tough luck) and to gamers it's lacking imagination.
>Eldritch/Lovecraftian (Elder gods from beyond the stars)
So aliens?
>Cult of Personality(Jim Jones, Stalin, and other charismatic people)
EVERY cult irl is a personality cult. This is an element, not a discriminating measure.
>Money pyramid schemes(Basically get rich quick schemes gone wrong)
That's pretty UA. Needs more flavor. Neoconspiracy?

How about:
>Sun worship
Giver of life, Eye in the sky, Ra, sustainability, fusion, power
>Death worship
End and renewal, Phoenix, Hitler, Skull & Bones, big pharma, hospice care
>Gold worship
Midas, Scrooge, Donald Drumpf, conflict diamonds, illegal Amazon gold mining
>Violence worship
Genghis Khan, Stalin, PMCs, Guantanamo
>Blood
>Steel
>Time
>Love
>Food
>Knowledge
...

>>46776711
That's boring to me. It should be based on popular sorts of cults, not the divine portfolio section from the phb.

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>>46776352
Good point, examine the 'why' before the 'how'.

>>46776397
That's defiantly a consideration. Small Satanic cults (Not LaVey satanism), might appeal to teens who just want to rebel, but larger ones might draw those who want power.

Judeo-Christian cults might start from weird bible groups who can supposedly read the true meaning to the words between the lines.

New age groups could be recruited via the local environmental meetings at the YMCA, to get people to become eco-warriors.

Dooms day cults run off of fear, the fear that society will collapse, some natural disaster, or even nucular annihilation to get people to give up their possessions to wait out the disaster; and of course, the leader would help lead and repopulate the earth...perhaps after causing the end of days.

Eldritch cults and alien cults are groups who have (or believe to have) been contacted by beings from beyond the stars. Difference being, one offers a chance to travel the galaxy to the promise land, while the other is a slow maddening of the mind for the corrupt machinations of malignant super-beings.

>>46777356
going to have to agree with you, not that >>46776711 is a bad idea for a more generalized version of what I'm thinking.

>>46777356
>what I don't like
>not what I would like
kthnxbai

>>46777793
So just fetish shit then?

>Kaballa
>Numerology
>Gnosticism

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>>46778269
Don't know much about any of those things.

>>46770990
Now who's projecting?

>>46779392
Try Wikipedia?

Also look up Theosophy

If anyone is interested, I've archive this thread:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/46770366/

Bump

>>46771452
So are you looking for a system where players are free to design their own cults, or a system with an established set of cults?

Because being the one to make your own cults sounds like something along the lines of the World of Darkness books. Allowing characters to make their own sounds like Fate/Fudge or HeroQuest.

To be honest, your idea sounds highly system-independent. Or at least, it doesn't really REQUIRE a specific system to work properly. Have you tried just putting your ideas into practice in a standard game? If you can put together a system or mechanics for generating and managing the cult powers, then you could try building a system out of that.

>>46772885
This sounds a whole lot like Hunter. Or, strangely, older D&D and gathering followers.