Game Design General /gdg/

Here's an interesting question I've tried bringing up before: How do you use cards in your games? Do you use playing cards or those premade random chance decks ever? Do you even make your own decks of cards for your games?

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Posting my work in progress.

A few questions:
1) Does the game's combat math look compatible enough with 4E's math to port monsters over?

2) Does the modification system for weapons and armor seem potentially broken, and are there any modifications you think I should add or remove?

3) Does the doom point mechanic make sense?

>>45289085

Cards are quite useful for initiative (see Savage Worlds.)

I also like using playing cards to build random terrain in games with looser positioning rules. You can just draw cards and set them down in a grid, using the suits and ranks to randomly determine terrain features.

>>45289163
I will absolutely have to keep that in mind for something I'm working on.

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I offer a simple and discreet paper texture I made for backdrops in published PDF files

>Same image and thread topic three times in a row

there's an imgur with different OP images right in the pasta and the thread topic is meant to change from thread to thread, t'ain't a hard concept to grasp

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>>45289319
A very needed thing, and Im gracious that you share this. I still think it's too light, and I might have went overboard in the other direction, pic related.


Rate my magic system.
I want magic to be dangerous, but eruptions should not happen every encounter. The essentia represent "Being careful", but a mage can toss aside safety concerns and use the full power of magic. If always careful eruption should be very rare. Still not sure how the eruptions should play/actually be.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MZbn8RPBAI_y-Cw73RcdjQF2QL0mv0UrwElAkqQVkgU/edit
This is a game with a non-standard philosophy; by restricting actions not sure if card game or board game even to only Win-More and Come-Back. There's no Dr Boom, but rather "If you are losing get a Dr Boom" and "If you have more minions destroy all the enemy minions" to use hearthstone lingo. Very swingy, but that's the point! The link is editable, throw in your ideas, or here.

>>45289590
Remade the OP to look nice, but it never get's posted. Im disappoint.

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>>45290148
Try this: get out a pad of paper and a pencil, and make a flowchart.
(pdf related)
After looking at the flowchart, do you feel that your magic system has too many moving parts?

>>45290148
>Remade the OP to look nice, but it never get's posted. Im disappoint.
My bad. I am sorry. :(

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I made this cyberpunk ultralight today for fun, cause I'd never seen one.

a lot I decided to leave to the GMs discretion/equipment creating, like the recovery of a medkit, or the skill bonus of a deck, or perks of outfitted cyberware.

hacking would just give ICE(s) in the system DC checks.

>Need to unlock that elevator? DC 10.
>Hacking a high security corp system? Those two ICEs are DC 15 and 25.

Better decks you buy would add skill bonuses to your hacking, ex)
>low end: no skill bonus
>mid range: +1 hacking
>high end: +2 hacking

opinions?

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>>45289085
Cards in Trenchbreaker are used to store and conceal information. When the game starts, all your cards are face down, and your opponent has no idea what they represent. The moment a card becomes relevant(say, when an artillery piece first fires) the card is flipped face up so your opponent knows which gun is firing.

>>45290396
Why don't street samurai start with cybernetics?

>>45290406
I think you could use the space on your cards a bit more economically.
If you shrink those stat symbols (gearing, seniority, stability, etc.) and align them all horizontally, you'll have more space for larger artwork, more flavor text, or special abilities.

>>45289130
If someone could try their hand and creating a character for this, and let me know how it feels, I would greatly appreciate it. :)

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>>45290636
Flavor text won't really be a thing, and special abilities will be found on the Pilot cards.

The symbols were actually placed because, since these stats tend to change over the course of the game(Damage reduces armor, etc) you might want to just set dice on top of the card to keep track of your mech's current stats.

>>45290636
i wanted to assign each class a different thing. those classes are more for example than mandatory options.

>>45290719
Makes sense.
You might consider putting the names of each stat under the symbols and numbers instead of over. That way, the dice sitting on the card won't impede readability as much.

>>45290736
Got it.

>>45290911
Hadn't thought of that, not a bad idea.

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>>45290266
I put bookmarks in this edition.

>Moving parts
It doesnt feel like it so far, particularly when I have planned for it to grow more complicated, but the base idea of spreading out the spellcaster stat dependency is key to balance I feel. Compared to a DnD wizard, MAX INT, pick spells done, yeah, I want this instead, even as player.
Essentia is basically mana points and resonance should be equated to a much slower version of HP and specifically for magic, not as another resource. Symbolically/metaphysically "break an arm" to empower your magic.
I rather like the spread of stats, they feel natural by what stats do for non-mages.
The tools in the pdf might be worth applying, but havent tried the flowchart yet.

>OP
It's even from two threads ago, so you are not the first to make this mistake.

>>45290941
Alternatively, you might orient the text vertically to on the left sides of the symbols. It's just something to play around with.

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>fishing for input till I can get back to actually working on this

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>>45290396
made some changes

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>>45291390
Comments added.

>>45291623
No problem.
I hope that anon will be equally nitpicky when perusing my game. ^_^

>>45291599
>>45291662

the biggest reason I separated cyberware from my item examples was cause I wanted to be specific that they cap at +1, unlike items which can vary.

but thanks anon!

>45291662
I don't know why link is crossed out.

>>45291677
A note could still be added in that same section with items that cyberware caps at +1.
That would help to keep things consolidated.
You really want to conserve as much space as you can when putting these one-page things together.

As stated last thread, I'm working on an Armor system to replace DnDs AC only as armor.

Instead now AC is more about defense; parrying and footwork. Armor instead is a dice based on armor size.
>Light Armor d4
>Medium Armor d6
>Heavy Armor d8

The question then becomes; how should AC or Defense be handled and should weapons get a size bump (dagger deals d6 instead of normal d4) to keep from stalling too long?

I ask because I like the idea of rolling for protection, and special fighter moves could grant +1 to armor rolls or could pierce armor.

Amy thoughts?

>>45291790
So this is a system of active defense/opposed rolls?

Is the attacker rolling their 1d20 against your armor die? Please clear this up for us.

>>45289130
Still looking for feedback on this.
Are there any weapon or armor modifications you guys would like to see added?
What do you think of the skills? Do you feel that the classes shown so far have good skill selections?

I'm concerned about physical attack oriented classes with non-physical-attack main abilities like intelligence and charisma. Do you think their attack bonuses will lag behind?

>>45291886

No, it's rolled for damage dice vs the attacker, where as you still need to roll to hit.

Though rolling vs attack rolls is actually pretty interesting.

>>45293124

Remember that subtraction is a slower mental process than addition.

>>45293164

The original idea of the armor die was to make armor stronger. But considering that AC already protects against a lot if attacks, I'd kind of like a way to make armor damage reduction as well.

>>45289130
Your old logo and name ("Fury", I think?) were way cooler honestly.

>>45293475
Cool. It's all pretty tentative so I may go back to that title unless I can come up with something better.

>>45289130
Make sense in a gamist sense? Yeah

Narrativist? Maybe? Let's say sure.

Simulationist was never the intention, so that's plenty

>>45293659
Glad to hear it.

What feelings does the mechanic evoke?
There's a certain flavor I'm shooting for, but I'm wondering if the game conveys that.

>>45289014
The planets in a solar system are actually eggs. They rotate naturally in space, as the sun heats & incubates them. No one knows what put them there, or what's being hatched.

The only ones aware of this, are specific gods, oracles, or crazy people.

But what could the PC's possibly do?

>>45294113
Cosmic Omelette.

>>45289319
Nice. Not the A4 standard but can always be made fit easily.

>>45294883
>ending world hunger
>by eating the worlds core

Planet dies, but eating the celestial being has made everyone effectively immortal. So everyone just floats through space, slowly growing insane as the dust of thier planet litters space.

>>45290148
The text itself seems kind of vague. Maybe separate fluff and mechanics into different paragraphs, fluff first to pull interest then mechanics to explain it?

As for the system itself, only Vulgar magic gains Resonance yes? Wouldn't that mean you could spam normal magic with little consequence? Also, maybe find a more negative word instead of Resonance?

>>45293523
By the way, assuming you're going for the Japanese reading of that character, it's more often read as 'yon' instead of 'shi'. It's not wrong and depending on the tone of your work might even be fitting (shi sounds almost like the word for death, which is why yon is used more often), but it could confuse those who are familiar with the language, though it is minor, and I'm guessing you already knew this anyway.

Is the guy who posted about his Blame/Dark Souls/Custom Robo idea still around? I didn't get a chance to comment about it before the thread got locked and I thought it sounded interesting.

>>45298499
Yep I'm still here. I have some notes on how the system can work but I haven't actually written any rules yet.

>>45298783
Can you repost what you had in the previous thread?

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Spinal Hit Location; Roll 3d6
3~6: Cervical
7~14: Thoracic
15~18: Lumbar

Cervical Organ Systems; Roll 3d6
C1 Cranium
3~4: C1- Superior Cortex
5: C1- Significant Receptor (Cockpit)
6: C1- Superior Amygdala
7: C1- Anterior Cortex
8: C1- Cervical Stem Ingress/Egress
C2 Facia
9: C2- Optical Receptor
10: C2- Septal Barrier Seal
11: C2- Maxillial Barrier Seal
C3 Esophageal Terminus
12: C3- Superior Cervical Actuator Group
13: C3- Primary Fluid Intake Filter Valve
14: C3- Acoustic Resonance Signaling Chamber
C4 Cervical Trunk
15: C4- Inferior Cervical Actuator Group
16: C4- Tracheal Inlet Tap
17~18: C4- Cervical Collar Assembly

Thoracic Organ Systems; Roll 1d6
(1~4: T2; Roll 2d6)
T2 Thoracic Cannon Super-Assembly
T2a Rarebrace Subsystem
2~4: T2- Scapular Assembly
5: T2- Humeral Superstructure
T2b Vambrace Subsystem
6: T2- Ulnal Assembly
7: T2- Radial Superstructure
8: T2- Raptoral Actuators
T2c Gauntlet Subsystem
9: T2- Carpal Assembly
10: T2- Metacarpal Superstructure
11~12: T2- Proximal Actuator Group
(5~6: T1/T3/T4/T5; Roll 3d6)
T1 Raptoral Thorax
3: T1- Clavical Assembly
4: T1- First Thoracic Superstructure
5: T1- Pectoral Actuators
6: T1- Thoracic Regulatory Cortex
>T3 Pulmonary Thorax
7: T3- Second Thoracic Superstructure
8: T3- Superior Respirator
9: T3- Primary Circulator Pump
T4 Vascular Thorax
10: T4- Third Thoracic Superstructure
11: T4- Inferior Respirator
12: T4- Fluid Exchange Filter
13: T4- Secondary Circulator Pump
T5 Metabolic Thorax
14: T5- Fourth Thoracic Superstructure
15: T5- Hydrolitic Separator
16: T5- Axial Diaphragm
17~18: T5- Alimentary Canal*

Lumbar Organ Systems; Roll 2d6
L1 Abdominal Terminus
1~2: L1- Pelvic Superstructure
3~4: L1- Core Lumbar Actuator Group
5: L1- Hip Assembly
L2 Femoral Locomotor
6: L2- Femoral Superstructure
7: L2- Main Lumbar Actuators
8: L2- Patellal Assembly
L3 F-T Locomotor
9: L3- Fibular-Tibial Superstructure
10: L3- Secondary Lumbar Actuators
L4 Tarsal Suspension
11: L4- Ankle Assembly
12: L4- Tarsal Superstructure

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>>45299127
Roll Spinal Hit Location
>GOTO Organ Systems Hit Location
>Lookup Spinal Hit Location Result; Roll xd6
>Apply Damage to Vertebra (i.e. Cx, Tx, or Lx)
>If Vertebra is reduced to [Zero Points] by damage, purge limiter fuse (begin countdown) and ignore the critical effect generated by this damage step
>If Vertebra retains at least [One Point], apply critical effect to organ system
>Check damage against [Statistic 'Y']
>If Damage to the organ is greater than 'Y', organ becomes disabled at the end of the Signifier's/Pilot's next or current turn, whichever applies first
An appropriate limiter fuse may be blown to delay this disability as if it were a critical damage effect.
>If Damage to the organ is equal to or greater than 2*'Y', organ is destroyed and all connected organs immediately (e.g. destruction of radial superstructure or ulnal assembly will disconnect the carpal assembly, metacarpal superstructure, and proximal actuator group; in short, blowing off the hand with the forearm)
Destruction of organs is not considered a critical damage effect and may not be prevented nor delayed by blowing a limiter fuse

>Keratosynthetic Barrier Panels
Any Assembly or Actuator can be protected by specially grown and engineered plates of synthetic keratin, however, their thickness and weight penalizes any action taken with the limb and slows movement. The thicker the keratin grown, the greater the disability from increased weight. Actuator Groups and Superstructures can also be protected, but at a greater cost in mobility due to the complexity of their articulation in the case of Actuator Groups; while their complex attachment carries weight better and protects all organ systems linked through the saem vertebra, thicker keratin growth greatly impedes agility and fine manipulation.

Assembly/Actuator Barrier Panel- local armor; minor dexterity penalty; weight penalty gradient
Superstructure/Actuator Group- vertebra zone armor; weight penalty; detxterity penalty gradient

Is this for tabletop or computer?

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Reposting from the /OSR/ thread.

Replacing to-hit rolls and AC with attack and defense entirely.

>Attack roll- Roll d20 + weapon die. Add bonuses.
>Defense Roll- Static AC + roll armor die

If defense is greater, the attack is blocked or avoided. If the attack is greater, then it deals damage equal to how much more it is then the Defense; or Attack 14 and Defense 12 = target takes 2 damage.

Weapon's can pierce armor; if a weapon rolls maximum damage it is dealt directly to enemy's HP.

This is a potential method to reduce DnD combat rounds to single rolls instead of rolling to hit and then damage.

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>>45299127
>>45299143
And wow, this is going to have to go into an actual document. Regardless, this is the hit locations chart I've been working on, anyone who can analyse numbers like I can work die systems and is willing to suffer some eyebleeds running through that abomination of a critical chart, I'd greatly appreciate any feedback on how the bellcurve is going to fuck with hit placement.

I think I put everything in an ideal location to drop most hits on the arms, thighs, center torso, and center of the head, with a majority of those going to torso/arm shots, but I'm not sure how badly the drop-off is going to make everything else invulnerable or easily nuked- the least I can say is that running probability grids on 3d6 by hand is a chore.

The central idea, if you don't want to read my notes on damage, is to make an Adeptus Evangelion/Pacific Rim knockoff where combat revolves more on causing critical effects to eliminate the monsters than running out a pool of hitpoints. HP still exists in the form of damage to veterbrae knocking out limiter fuses, but that is its own mechanic that a pilot must balance in choosing to allow whole systems to become disabled from the bottom up or entering a death spiral of blown fuses to keep everything running a little bit longer. As far as I understand what I've built, once even the L4 vetebra goes out, it becomes a choice between being hobbled or starting the death spiral, whereas organ systems themselves tend to be inconvenient rather than outright debilitating until multiple of the same kind go.

I'm thinking of kitbashing FFG's Star Wars EoE/AoR diepool upgrade system to give combat some flow and place the mechanical attention of players on the criticals to give everything a blow-by-blow feel- I'll find out if that actually works once stats, skills, and piloting mechanics are hashed out and in playtesting.

That said, the critical chart probably needs dialing back.

>>45299250
Tabletop, I can either learn to put rules into code or I can write them out by hand and play other people's videogames. I'm a lazy bastard.

>>45299290
There HAS to be a system where this how combat works, right? It seems so obvious, and yet every d20 game still defaults to the two-roll system for resolving attacks.

>>45298142
>By the way, assuming you're going for the Japanese reading of that character, it's more often read as 'yon' instead of 'shi'. It's not wrong and depending on the tone of your work might even be fitting (shi sounds almost like the word for death, which is why yon is used more often), but it could confuse those who are familiar with the language, though it is minor, and I'm guessing you already knew this anyway.

That's the idea!
I'm sort of doing my own heartbreaker based on 4E D&D, and as we all know 4E is dead/was cursed from the start. So the 四 is sort of meant to evoke that idea of death and misfortune while referencing the number four.

>>45298852
A cross between Blame!, Dark Souls, and Custom Robo.
Get Augments/Cybernetics for your body parts to improve your capabilities, damage is done to individual body parts as humans are functionally immortal through technology.
An AI overlord whose only job is to make sure humanity doesn't go extinct, it doesn't really care much beyond that. To do that it deploys Guardians ( pretty much Safeguards from Blame! ) which will destroy threats to humanity. A pervasive nanomachine fog handles fabrication and repair ( including human repair ), which is why it's really hard to actually kill anyone.

The old human government( non-existent for gameplay purposes) and AI grants Authority Levels ( pretty much levels in the tabletop sense ) , with higher Authority allowing someone to order the AI to fabricate and assemble more things.
Humans without the necessary Authority but still want to acquire weaponry will attack Guardians to scrap them for weapons and parts to augment themselves with.
Brigands can and will use their Guardian augments to coerce humans less well equipped into using their Authority for the leaders own designs. Namely, enslaving weaker people for their Authority.

Since there is molecular fabrication, the economy operates on Credit instead of currency. Instead of the lazy way people usually do it (called credits but really currency though ), Credits are used to rent equipment. Return the equipment undamaged and the players retain their Credit and may exchange it for different equipment. If the equipment is broken or damage you take a penalty to your Credit. Credit is gained by doing missions or services for various organizations such as bounty hunting, guardian slaying, salvaging, slaving, etc. In game Credit will probably be party instead of individual based.

>>45299127
Probably gonna need a body chart with the locations of everything or written notes on what each part means. This looks slightly tedious, considering you need to roll two-three times for a single hit location, though it looks like this only happens if a stat is reduced to zero? How often do you foresee needing to roll against this chart?

If every single hit location is important and affects the player in some meaningful way though, then this could potentially be very neat. Maybe craft some dummies for testing and pitting in combat in each other to test if everything clicks together.

>>45299895
This sounds pretty awesome. In the previous thread you'd mentioned how the One Roll Engine pretty much lines up exactly with the mechanic you devised, which was the source of some frustration. What system were you thinking of exactly?

>>45299936
I was trying to render it down into a simple 2x2d6 roll, but in writing it all out I got a little carried away and scratched my simulationist itch again, which I've been trying to avoid.

To break it down and avoid the shitty bridge-bunny jargon in the table:

Cervical: brain, eyes, nose (sealed, berserk chance goes up if seal is disabled, olfactory senses become available), jaw (sealed, bite attack becomes available when disabled), pilot chamber and ejection module, neck, voicebox, throat

Thoracic: T2 sections carry the arms, T1, T3, T4, and T5 contain internal organs, heart, lungs, liver, stomach, gut, and work together to power a, let's call it a 'Nullifier' for now, and the interaction between all that needs to be worked out. But Basically, energy is used to process fuel in the gut into usuable energy with is combined with air intake to power actuators/muscles and repair disabled organs- and that's way too complex, I need to think of something else unless I feel hellbent on writing an Evangelion simulator.

>>45300000
For combat at least, what I thought of ( and ORE already did first ) was that you would roll a dice pool with the width being the damage and the height being the hit location.
Hit location is important because the severity of the damage determines if you merely temporarily disable the limb/weapon or destroy it completely. Both of the various tiers of damage have their advantages and disadvantages depending on your goal.

I originally had multiple rolls for attacking, damage, and hit location but I thought it was too cumbersome so I wanted to consolidate it into fewer rolls. Apparently the dev of ORE had the same problem.

>>45289130
So I'm looking at having twelve classes in my game.

You select two classes (one primary and one secondary.)
Each class has a 'main ability'. You get +3 to your primary classes main ability and +2 to your secondary classes main ability, or +4 if they are the same.
Each class also grants a +1 bonus to either physical attack or magical attack.

Your base physical attack is (STR+DEX+WIS)/2.
Your base magic attack is (CON+INT+CHA)/2.

I'm trying to decide what to do with classes where main ability and attack bonus are mismatched; that is, what do I do with physical attack classes with magic attack main abilities? What do I do with magic attack classes with physical attack main abilities?
Any suggestions?

Anyway, here's the classes I'm thinking of:

Physical Attack Classes
>Pankrator (Str)
>Berserker (Con)
>Reaver (Dex)
>Tactician (Int)
>Sentinel (Wis)
>Crusader (Cha)

Magic Attack Classes
>Dragon-Sire (Str)
>Psychopomp (Con)
>Illusionist (Dex)
>Factotum (Int)
>Shaman (Wis)
>Skald (Cha)

If the attack bonuses end up being smaller than they need to be, I may add a third category of classes: Combination.
Physical classes would then get a +2 to physical attack, magic classes would get a +2 to magic attack, and combination classes would get +1 physical attack and +1 magic attack.
Your thoughts?

>>45300082
gah, and Lumbar is the legs

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Hey /gdg/, I came up with a pretty unique method to handle turn order for my game. Take a look anon, I'm pretty sure you'll see something you've never seen before.

And yeah I know the page cuts off but my phone wasn't letting me post the PDF so I took a screenshot and posted that, as it was the fastest solution I could come up with.

>>45299839

I've personally never seen it before Anon, but I thought it would be a good method to make fights a little faster and a little more interesting. Also; the other big reason is because giving fighters +1 to damage per level is much to strong, and +1 to hit is good on its own, but if they are kind of combined in both then yes, I'd say it becomes a good trade off.

>>45300171
Well what I'd say is go with what you're using and make the game as an ORE product. ORE is a pretty obscure system, and it handles exactly what you're going for better than most (I'd say the best, period, but I'm biased).

How does your game track damage? ORE games use hit boxes that you cross out with different levels of damage severity (shock for non-lethal, killing for lethal). Are you using a more traditional HP kind of thing?

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>>45291374
project not dead yet...

>>45300302
I'm leaning towards traditional HP.
Each limb has a HP value. At 0 it's disabled, at negative HP maximum it's completely destroyed, broken, or severed off depending on the method used to deal that final bit of damage.

>>45300377
That's what I figured; a Dark Souls-experience can't really be captured in ORE-as-written because ORE uses wound boxes, and DS's damage math is based on bigger numbers. So already you're setting yourself up with a different kind of system as generic ORE.

Are you sticking with d10s as the dice pool?

>>45299936
On reducing the depth of rolling, I think I have a solution, really it was the original concept of the chart before I started writing it down.

Vertebrae Hit Location; Roll 3d6
3~6: Cervical
>3: C1
>4: C3
>5: C2
>6: C4
7~14: Thoracic
>7: T2c
>8: T2b
>9: T2a
>10: T2a
>11: T1
>12: T3
>13: T4
>14: T5
15~18: Lumbar
>15: L2
>16: L1
>17: L3
>18: L4

With hit location reduced to a single roll, the attacker and defend compare attack/defense skill to determine who is allowed to choose which organ is hit in the target Vertebra and damage effect determination follows as written. The order is slightly out to bring everything into as close to the desired probability bracket as the expanded hit chart.

>>45300423
I'm open to more dice sized, but I am currently basing it on d6 because how common d6 are and my target audience being casuals and casual play.

>>45300570
Just remember!
With d6's, the maximum dice pool you'll be able to build is 6. ORE breaks down past that.
If it were d8's the maximum dice pool would be 8, if it were d10's the maximum dice pool would be 10, and if it were d20's the maximum dice pool would be 20.

>>45300570
>>45300606
Also remember that the size of your dice determines how many hit locations you have.

ORE using d10s has 10 possible height outcomes; in every ORE game I've seen it uses these to weight attacks to certain regions (7-9 is torso, 10 is head for instance, so it's more likely to hit someone in the chest than head). If you are using d6s, the number of hit locations are more limited.

How is your dice pool calculated? Stat + Skill?

>>45300195
What is a psychopomp?

>>45300727
the grim reaper, guide to the underworld/afterlife

>>45300727
It's a more delicate way of saying 'necromancer'.
Necromancy isn't necessarily evil in my game's default setting. Indeed, most necromancers or psychopomps are more concerned with communing with the dead or putting them to rest rather than controlling them. It's just that there's a few bad apples out there that spoil the barrel.

>>45300747
This anon has got it.

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>>45300647
>How is your dice pool calculated? Stat + Skill?
That's another thing I was working on. Before I had the ORE dice pool type resolution, I had something else entirely. File related is what I have so far. But unlike ORE, it requires a separate roll for hit location as the numbers available don't allow for a free random range of 1-6.
Still can't decide whether to just go full ORE or continue to try something differently.

>>45300082
>and that's way too complex
Actually, if there's no other available product that is similar, I'd say go for it, some would probably appreciate the detail and crunch. I thing I would suggest is encouraging the use of different colored dice, that way you could roll everything at once and resolve the result by color. That does mean rolling 14d6 though, which in retrospect is kind of silly.

>>45300486
This is more practical than 14d6, and would help gravitate hits towards particular sections too. Letting players choose which organ to affect is kinda weird actually, since while targeting an area of the body is easy it is much harder to target specific organs without using specific skills. Conversely, it felt off to me that you could 'randomly' hit the legs or the head in the chart in >>45299127, since it gives the impression of the attacker flailing about, which is weird considering the amount of detail put into the chart itself, though I do realize that it's ordered such that you hit body parts more often than the head or the legs. Maybe let players move a section into the 9~12 position, moving other sections up or down to show that they're targeting certain parts?

To keep rolling low, maybe you can go the AGE system method of having 1 die of a different color, and use that to determine which organ is hit instead? That way, you could have a bell curve on the different systems/subsystems/sections, and equal distribution on the specific organs themselves.

As an example, I roll 3d6, getting a 10, which means I hit T2a. Assuming Scapular Assembly is 1~4 and Humeral Superstructure is 5~6, and the colored die is a 4, which means I hit the Scapular Assembly.

>>45301208
Hm, there isn't any section with more than 6 organs in it, so it could work; I just thought it might be neat that a skilled defender could direct hits into less essential organs in a tight moment or an attacker could take advantage of a strong blow and knock out something critical.

I'm not averse to a called-shots rule to shift the probability around or nudge the results or perform special maneuvers like a trip, tackle, or even blocking with an entirely different section, but the randomness of the 'vertical hit' is supposed to take into account the on-stage action. If the attack roll describes the timing and stance of a strike, the spinal hit roll determines where the attacker and defender wind up if the hit connects.

>>45300948
You can still resolve it in a single roll; you just add in the Hit Location die with the rest of your pool, so you're basically rolling, say, 6d6+1d10 or something, with the d10 being in there purely for the purposes of determining hit location; or you can just throw in a separate dice of the same size with a different color. I've heard that one of the other ORE products which I haven't played uses a similar system for figuring out hit location (is it Nemesis?)

>>45301439
>direct hits into less essential organs in a tight moment or an attacker could take advantage of a strong blow and knock out something critical.
Depending on how the attack/defense skill is compared, this is probably still applicable. Something like letting the player forego the colored dice result and choose an organ if it's a high enough difference.

>>45300267
Confusing, if you ask (you didn't) due to all the special terminology, which is probably not required. Just say a round is divided into eight phases, and each combatant gets either two short actions or one long action.

Been working on the mechanics for my most recent version of my system. This is what I have thus far, some things like specific attributes and the like are subject to change.


Attributes
* Weapon Skill
* Will
* Protection
* Agility
* Knowledge
* Perception
* Sincerity
* Presence

Rolls
* Calculate your chance to succeed, called Scope, by adding together your pertinent Attribute and any Modifiers
* Using two 10-sided dice added together, referred to as 2d10, attempt to roll under your Scope. This is called Testing an Attribute.
* In situations where success is black and white, rolling equal to or less than your Scope is a success while rolling greater than your Scope is a failure.
* In situations where the degree of success or failure is more fluid, count every 2 points lower than your scope as an Advantage, and ever 2 points higher as a Disadvantage.
* Sometimes two people are actively opposing each other and are called to roll against one another. This is called a Contest. In these situations, every Disadvantage rolled counts as an Advantage for the opposing Contestant.
* Advantages may be "spent" to perform additional actions, called Effects, but typically can not be held past the end of your turn. Disadvantages may be "spent" by either the GM, your Opponent or yourself depending on the circumstances. When you are called on to spend Disadvantage on yourself, you must spend all of it, however when another player or the GM is called on to spend it on you, they may use as little or as much of it as they like.

1/?

>>45302991
Combat Actions
One Major and One minor action, unlimited Free
Major
* Takedown
(Major) Test (Build-Up - Threshold) to defeat or damage a foe
* Attack
(Major) Test WS+Modifiers to increase foe's Build-Up
(minor) As above, but Build-Up gained is 1/2
* Move
(Major) Move (Agility)ft, foes must contest Agility to attempt a Takedown
(minor) Move (1/2Agility)ft, foes must contest (hard)Agility to attempt a Takedown
* Interact
(Major) Perform a complex task or interaction
(minor) Perform a simple task or interaction
* Draw
(Major) Ready an item from a backpack or container
(minor) Ready an item from a sheath or ready slot
* Defend
(Major) Test (easy)Protection, reduce foes Weapon Skill tests against you by your Advantage (-1 per Test) made against you
(minor) As above, but as a normal Protection Test
* Aim
(Major) Test Perception to make foe gain additional Build-Up from your next ranged Attack or Takedown
(minor) As above, but Build-Up gained is 1/2
* Assist
(Major) One adjacent Ally gains one free advantage on their next Test
(minor) One adjacent Ally gains +1 to their next Test
* Chat
(Free) Speak, or attempt a Presence, Sincerity or Knowledge check
* Recall
(Free) Test Knowledge to learn or remember information, modifiers based on difficulty may apply

Effects
Attack
* Press Advantage - Opponent may not attempt to Attack next turn.
* Throw - Foe must Test Agility or fall prone, additionally they are moved (5xDisadvantage)ft.
* Sunder - Damage opponents weapon or Shield.
* Maximize - Build-Up dealt is treated as the maximum value possible for your weapon.
* (Weapon Effect) - Trigger a special Effect based on your weapon.
* Open-Guard - Foe may not attempt to Defend next turn.

2/3

>>45303033
Defend
* Parry - Opponent may not attempt to Attack next turn.
* Off-Step - Shift as a Free Action
* Fumble - Foe damages themselves
* (Shield/Off-hand Effect) - Trigger a special Effect based on your shield or off-hand weapon
* Pushback - Foe must Test Agility or be moved 5+(5xDisadvantage)ft
*
Universal (Attack or Defend)
* Grapple - Foe must Test Agility to attempt to Move or Shift. Grapple is broken on a success.
* Seize - Foe must Test Agility or Protection or be unable to use one Weapon or Shield. Seize is broken on a success.
* Stand - Stand from prone.
* Disarm - Foe must Test WS or Protection or be drop weapon 5+(5xDisadvantage)ft. User may also take weapon if they have a free hand and Foe has at least 2 Disadvantages.

Difficulty
The rules above cover tasks of average difficulty, when a Test is easier or harder than normal, it will be denoted by either (easy) or (hard) before the attribute to be Tested. An (easy)Test uses twice your attribute, up to 19, while a (hard)Test uses half your attribute, rounded down.

As previously stated, any thoughts or comments would be greatly appreciated.

>>45302991
The main thing that I'm seeing here is that I think the Advantages/Disadvantages system is kind of fiddly. The math is simple enough but there's a lot of it to do with each roll. It feels like you're trying to borrow FFG's system without using custom dice, which is admirable (it's a fun system) but difficult.

Might there be another way of figuring out Advantage/Disadvantage? Like all 1s are Advantages and all 0s are Disadvantages? That way it's theoretically possible to have a success with a Disadvantage or a failure with an Advantage, which is kind of key to FFG's rules. Granted with that rule you could only ever have one Advantage or one Threat, which might not be what you're desiring.

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A few things added...

Added the Crusader class and a few skills.
Fleshed out weapons and armor a bit more.

Anyone want to take a crack at building a character? Please give it a try, and let me know what you think. Thanks. ^^

>>45304592
Sure, gimme some time. Any class you want me to build, or just free reign (within the rules of the system)?

>>45304631
Free reign within the rules. Just make whatever you want.

Let me know if there's anything in particular you need me to add for your character concept to work (within reason ^^ ).

>>45304651
>>45304631
>>45304592
*Errata

You get 100gp at character creation to spend on equipment.

>>45304477
I was actually trying to play on Runequest's system of "doing better with your attack than your foe does with their defense means you can do cool shit".

It does get a little granular, but I enjoy that personally, so there's that. I want to try and avoid having any mechanics that are bad but I can't tell because I'm too close to the product.

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After previous suggestions I've written up a quick introductory mission to get the general flavour of Hard:Suit and to give those that wish to try it with their group something to get going with. Feedback and ideas appreciated as always

I guess this is jumping the gun given that there are still a lot of corrections and editing to be made to the hard:suit rulebook but I wanted to provide something for those that were interested

>>45304592
>>45304750

Alright, I finished finally. I wrote out the character sheet instead of typing it up like a smart person, so lemme scan it in and you can tell me if I fucked up anything.
Or you can just insult my hand writing.

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>>45305889
>>45304592

Pardon the mess, I forgot how bad I was at math.

>>45306083
>>45305889

Awesome!

I already see a few things I need to fix and revise.

So, I have a few questions for you:
1. How long did this take? Do you feel it took an unreasonably long time to build your character?
2. Were there any parts of character creation that felt needlessly difficult, or infuriating?
3. Were there any parts of character creation that you particularly liked?
4. How do you feel about the doom mechanic?
5. Does your character feel powerful?
6. What feeling does the game seem to evoke, based on character creation alone?
7. Are you happy with your character?
8. What options would you like to see added or removed?

>>45306264
1. About an hour.

2. Abilities and ESPECIALLY Combat Abilities. The section needs at least a rewording, maybe a minor reworking. I was getting PTSD-flashbacks to my 3.5 days at one point.

3. The classes. I had an idea going in what I was making, but eventually I just threw it out all such notions and just went with my gut. As such, I didn't really make anything game-breaking, or even probably synergistic, but mixing and matching classes was super fun.

4. I'm honestly not sure I even got my Doom Points right. The idea that they're basically reverse Plot Points from Cortex ("The GM spends yours to fuck you" instead of "you spend them to be better") is super appealing to me, and helped add to what I thought the atmosphere was (more on that later).

5. I usually prefer to make fun characters over good characters. I went with that line of thought while making this guy, and he feels about as powerful as my average character. Which is to say not at all.

6. Darkest Dungeon. I don't really know how to describe it other than grim and "Darkest Dungeon-like".

7. I guess? I'm not really sure how he would play, which is a negative, but I had fun making him for the most part. I'd definitely have to run him through a few sessions first before I could give a proper answer.

8. More classes. The level up mechanic, while I didn't test out, seemed shaky on paper.

>>45306765
Thank you so much!

1. I'll try to cut that time down. I assume a large part of that came from working out abilities?

2. Was it the averaging that gave you problems with combat abilities? Is it that there are too many combat abilities to calculate?

3. Glad to hear it. :)

4. The doom points look correct to me. I'm glad you like them.

5. Cool. :)

6. Never played that, but judging from what I'm looking on Google it looks to be right up my alley.

7. Glad it was fun. :)

8. Oh, I'll definitely work on adding classes. I want to add a thrown weapon class, a gun-based class, and some spellcasters.
What seemed shaky about the level up mechanic?

Also, how did you feel about the weapons, armor, and modifications?

>>45306917
Most of the time was spent searching the PDF. Some quick-links, a table of contents, and repeating a few things in relevant places (like that you add class bonuses after you've calculated Fort/Ref/Will/etc) would do you wonders.
I felt there were too many combat abilities, but I have no idea how you would cut down on them.

Modding was light-weight and fun, although it could have been organized a tad better. Took me a couple glances at the Weapon Type chart on pg. 15 to really understand the information it was presenting, but once I understood it the pieces all made sense.
I'm actually working on a sci-fi weapon "designer" (for lack of a better word) so I'll be borrowing a page from your book for that.

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My current project is a 40k-lite-style tabletop game. Would definitely appreciate some input, if anyone has any to give.

I'm currently canning it into a website (for readability), which is up at www.nullstrike.com

>>45308675
First thought: Nullstrike isn't a good name. Sounds like I'm not striking at all. If it's a war game, I want to be striking.

>>45302567
Thanks, I was asking actually. That's a much simpler way of explaining it, but im keeping the musical notation theme, cause weapons hit times are shown as notes on a sheet, and I think that's cool.

>>45305412
I don't have much to say on it, other than I like it and think it demonstrates the feel of the game/setting well. I also really like the suggestions for the DM as to what is actually going on at the facility, nice touch.

On an unrelated note, how is combat visualized? , for lack of better word. Theater of mind, grid-based combat, or a drawn out map with abstracted ranges?

>>45309646
Oh ok so it is thematic to the entire game then? Somehow I got the impression it was just for a specially drawn up initiative system. You'll want to express the ideas more clearly or simply, as those unfamiliar with musical terminology are likely not to get it on first reading.

>>45308842

Think so? I was playing around with Nova Strike, and a couple other names when I first started writing it.

>>45309866
I'm gonna hesitantly say theater of mind. In the game, range has a description rather than a set length but I am considering an illustrated gridless map of areas with maybe something like counters to shunt around to visualise areas

>>45310212
Nullstrike does sound more cyberpunk than sci-fi warfare.

>>45310658
I would agree with that choice. Keeping combat abstract, quick, and dirty compliments your ruleset best.

>>45311086
quick and dirty is exactly the feel I wanted. A focus moreso on roleplaying and situation based descriptions to fill in the intentional gaps in hard ruling

>>45307156
Thanks!
Feel free to pick whatever you like out of the weapon system. I picked stuff out of other systems pretty liberally.

I'm trying to figure out how to simplify combat abilities...

Well, AC is based on Reflex Defense, which is based on Reflex, which is based on Dexterity and Intelligence.
Maybe HP should simply be equal to Fortitude?

What do you think of the Physical Attack and Magic Attack abilities? You add three ability scores together and divide by two for each of those.

>>45298142
>By the way, assuming you're going for the Japanese reading of that character, it's more often read as 'yon' instead of 'shi'. It's not wrong and depending on the tone of your work might even be fitting (shi sounds almost like the word for death, which is why yon is used more often), but it could confuse those who are familiar with the language, though it is minor, and I'm guessing you already knew this anyway.
This is exactly the problem I just had reading that.

So i have a question that's rather small but fairly important. At what point does something go from being inspired by to being a rip off, or re skinning, of another game?

>>45313452
when you don't acknowledge your blatant inspiration in the rulebook.

>>45313563
Mentioning another rule system in a game you intend to sell for money can lead to legal problems. Ask the Song of Swords guys.

>>45313452

Depends on how blatantly you're stealing the mechanics.

>>45308675
I'm unfamiliar with the actual play of the 40k series, so I'll comment on things that interest me instead.

How long do you think you will see a game go for, including setup and preparation time for placement of units and such? Since you mention 40k-lite I assume you either want it shorter, or have less rules.

The movement rules for vehicles and the various types are pretty neat. It doesn't exactly have the "needs to make a large arch when making a turn" aspect of real world vehicles, but it is a nice compromise.

I think it's kind of weird that units get more damage when there are more units with it when a transport is destroyed. Or am I missing something on how damage works?

You mentioned Assault weapons to have no special abilities, but in the following chart they do? Also, what's the benefit of using an Auto weapon? Since if firing in the same turn as movement gets half range, the implication is that Assault weapons can fire and have full range in the same turn?

The Actions description is a bit vague. Does it mean that units can choose any or all actions as long as they choose one twice? (A unit uses Dig, Fortify, Aim, and Attack in succession) Why is Move and Run an example of an additional action given by an action?

There were several comments against True Line of Sight in the last thread I think. The size category thing might be a suitable adjustment if you feel like replacing it for terrain, especially you have a Size special rule already. Eg: a terrain of category size 2 covers units that are of size 4 and below, but does not provide cover for size 5 and above. If the size is half the unit then it is always Soft Cover, if it is up to the size of the unit it can be Hard Cover, and any higher then it is almost always a Full Cover.

>the Seeker rule ignores ignores evasion any evasion bonuses

That's it for the Core Rules, don't know if I'll go through the specific units since I'm not that familiar with how a game of 40k goes.

File: fury_shi_chargen.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

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Revising character creation a bit.

This document does not include the lists of skills and sundry, but it's an overall idea of how I want to structure things.

Please let me know what you think. :)

>>45315065

I have a few new ideas for classes...

>Lantern-Jack
Lantern-Jacks are damned souls given a new lease on life as jack-o-lantern knights of the Autumn-court faeries.
I'm picturing them as a gish class empowered by spooky ghosts and skeletons.

>Dragoon
Gunslingers empowered by draconic magic. They are able to enchant their guns to shoot steams of dragon-flame.

>Worg
Like Game of Thrones worgs. You get animal companions.

So, I had an idea for an experience system. My game uses 8 attributes that rank from 2-18, my idea is something I'm tentatively calling "experience dice".

The idea is that for completing a challenge or achieving a goal (talk down the bandits, clear the dungeon, befriend the barkeep, put in the show of a lifetime) you are awarded a dice, from d4 to d20. You may spend this dice to attempt to increase an attribute, the goal being to roll equal to or greater than your current score and requiring the dice spent to at least have a possibility of success. So if you have a 6 in Will, you need at least a d6 to attempt it, you can't use a d4, as that would never succeed, but you may use a d8 or higher to improve your chances.

Further, any time you attempt a check but fail, you mark a dot by that attribute, and next time you spend experience the attribute is considered 1 point lower per dot for the purposes of experience dice. So if you hammer away unsuccessfully enough at that 8 in Agility, you may get to the point where you can try d4s to improve.

Additionally, you may spend a week (time frame still up for debate) to combine two dice of equal value into one step higher of dice, so two d4s becomes a d6 and so forth, up to a d20.

What do y'all think?

>>45316010
I was going to call this bad since you "may or may not improve your character" instead of "you will definitely improve them", but the 1 point lower at failure makes it a tad better. Given the choice between spending excessive points to upgrade a character and gambling on getting 6+ with a d20 though, I'd prefer the former, especially when you're not sure how generous the GM will be with awarding experience dice. Maybe if you use multiple dice instead to skew the probability towards higher numbers would make it more desirable.

>>45314426

Setup and placement time is similar to 40k setup time, in that it largely depends on how much dithering/chatting you do while doing it. The actual turns are much faster, in that they last a couple minutes each instead of 30+ minutes each. That makes the game feel a lot like a game of chess with a move/countermove dynamic.

The units being transported take the additional damage, if the unit carrying them are destroyed.

You have the correct understanding of how auto/assault weapons work, but I will clean up the language so that it's more clear.

You're also correct with the unit action selection. I was just trying to save some wording with the move/run references, part of the idea here was to keep the rules as slim as practical.

There's a couple possibilities up in the air for LOS mechanics. Certainly appreciate the suggestions, but I think I'll want to playtest it a couple times before committing to something.

I do already have a size rule that applies to transport capacity, so there certainly is some possibilities for working with that for LOS.

It's not a direction ripoff of 40k - I'm just trying to make it feel familiar to 40k players.

>>45316481
That was my only genuine issue when I was designing it, the idea of how players would react to not actually leveling every time. That's why I wanted to give them a couple options/fallbacks, such as being able to improve their dice or lower the target number.

I might allow players to spend Unity to "tie" two or more dice together as a group. Like 3 players each spend on point to tie 3 d8 together, and then basically everyone counts as having rolled the highest of the three outcomes. I really like it considering it helps reinforce the central idea of teamwork/togetherness and having to work with your friends.

Another idea was that if you fail to invest a die, it isn't removed, but you have to spend some time training before you can try to spend it again, so you can either advance now, during the adventure, or you have to wait until you get back to town and are able to practice on what you learned a bit more.

>>45318985
The not-removed-try-again-later might be the best option, that way it doesn't feel like you've lost the chance for improvement, just failed this attempt. A clear time period would be useful too, something like all failed dice refreshes when you return to camp, the idea being you have some free time to train. This in tandem with 1 point less each failure should make failure less punishing and more interesting, though depending on how often the dice refresh you could do with 1 point less every two failures.

I think I would have it linked to dice size, something like d4=hour, d6=day, d8=2 days, d10=week, d12=2 weeks, d20=month

Something like that.

For gaining Traits I'm thinking they can just roll the dice and gain that many "points" which they then spend in Traits, or that each trait has a value and they have to roll over that.

Anybody here know anything about most common trees in biomes?

I need it for reasons. Design reasons.

>>45315324
I want Latern-jacks in my setting now, but magic doesn't work that way so it would be super out of place.

>>45322505
Glad you like 'em!

Mechanically, I'm thinking maybe Lantern-Jacks can be based around summoning apparitions.
Apparitions are just tiny incorporeal creatures that can't attack, but they can be used as flanking buddies.
The Lantern-Jack would feature physical attacks that gain bonuses depending on how many apparitions are surrounding the target, and magic attacks that cause apparitions to explode.

I'm also going to have Frost-Jacks of the Winter-court faeries, Green-Jacks of the Spring-court faeries, and Iron-Jacks of the Summer-court faeries.

I'm picturing Iron-Jacks as a cross between the folkloric Jack-in-Irons and links related:
https://youtu.be/QoIC6BwiTV0
https://youtu.be/5n3oZyxjDoo
Mechanically I see them as trickster-tanks; heavily armored but highly mobile.

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Here's what I've been working on. This stuff probably only makes sense to anyone who knows about ORE and REIGN specifically, as they are Martial Paths designed for my space adventure game.

I've got four so far:

>Praxic Fencing
Precise, swift swordsmanship inspired by Jeet Kun Do, endorsed by the agents of the Gestalt, the galaxy's most powerful organization.

>Breach Fighting
Hand-to-hand combat optimized for fighting in enclosed spaces, favored by space pirates

>The Invisible Knife
A school of graceful knife combat taught by a culture of aristocrats and assassins

>Meteor Lance
How to do spears better, especially if you have more than two legs.

>>45298142
It's a rough draft, but there's a lot of hidden/unfleshed-out ideas, particularly around the Essentia economy, the formulation of magical abilities and how it ties into the rest of the system.
Still good feedback, thank you.

>>45319575
Let downtime, between adventures, be automatic success. Call of Cthulhu have a 'test' to increase stats as well.

Im toying with the idea myself:
While adventuring Player Characters they accumulate experience points.
To improve they must succeed a special test (how is yet undefined but probably not 4d6).
If they fail they do not lose the XP but just wasted the time and opportunity.
Possible even a try after each encounter.
Intellect could play a small role in this test.
Lower rank should be an easier test, higher rank should be a harder test.
Attributes should be more expensive than approaches.

Failure on approach improvement could be handled as only learning a specialist approach instead, see below.

Protagonism help learning/improving any characteristic that was failed.
Luck help learning/improving any characteristic that luck was applied to.
Expertise help learning/improving any characteristic that was succeeded.
Faith helps learning/improving any characteristic that follows the dogma of the God the character worships.

>>45316010
Seems interesting.
A lot of people have a knee-jerk reaction to random advancement, but I'm not opposed to it.

>>45318985
Yeah, you're going to want options and fallbacks.

Something that adds a modifier or a reroll might be nice. Maybe a relationship mechanic?

>>45325702
Presently I have a Bond mechanic that alters how players interact with each other by allowing them to spend and gain Unity in different ways. I've really been wanting to involve Unity and Binds in advancement in some way, so I think this would be a good idea.

>>45324263
That's an interesting idea, letting a skill or attribute effect gains. Maybe I could give a bonus related to another stat.

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Man, Openoffice is a big pile of steaming dogshit so i've had to switch over to a cracked copy of Microsoft Word.

Posting the re-worked trait list I wrote up today. How much hard ruling do you expect with character traits and what format do you expect?

Is "good at repairing" better than "+1 repair"

>>45326223
It's generally better to be specific, otherwise you'll be leaving it to the whims of the DM.

File: fury_shi_chivalrous.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

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Work in progress.

Would anybody care to give me suggestions for redemptions and dark gifts?
I only have 6/20 dark gifts right now, and 12/20 redemptions.

Guys, what are some essential books or articles regarding designing game balance and the math part of a system?

I'd like some books on actual design theory instead of just vague tips and superficial discussions into "what is a game" and what not.

>>45330459
Here's some good links:

http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/freerpgs/fulllist.html
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=21479
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FXquCh4NZ74xGS_AmWzyItjuvtvDEwIcyqqOy6rvGE0/edit
https://mega.nz/#!xUsyVKJD!xkH3kJT7sT5zX7WGGgDF_7Ds2hw2hHe94jaFU8cHXr0
http://www.gamesprecipice.com/category/dimensions/

I think the key to designing solid game math is to have a solid grasp of mathematics.
Try this:
https://www.khanacademy.org/

>>45330627

Thanks a lot man.

Is there any way to find the 4 Interactive Fantasy issues online?

>>45314426
I've tweaked the language a bit where you've pointed it out as being vague. Thanks for the feedback.

>>45300268
I'm designing a system that works similar to this, if you match the attacker's dodge rating you do the weapon's minimum damage, every point you surpass their dodge rating you do one additional damage up to double the minimum (or triple the minimum with the right weapon mod), the opponent's armor is then subtracted to determine the final result.

I need ideas for a hacking puzzle , it could involve a timer ( hourglass ) , dice and some cards , but I'm a bit dry. I need something to make hacking more than rolling dice for skillchecks.

>>45332525

Jack the hacking mechanics from the Fallout games?

How do you make a co-operative game that can't be played by one person?

>>45332525
Have a timer, and let the hacking puzzle be about discarding cards to get a target hand. Higher skill levels let you have a larger hand, harder difficulties have you trying to get straights or royal flushes

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>>45319780
No. 1: The Larch.

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>>45319780
The Larch

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>>45332525
There's an old board game called Mastermind. I usually just use that.

>>45332800
Look at existing cooperative games for examples.

>Also!

I added classes to the document, and item stuff. Anybody want to try their hand at creating a character?

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>>45333115
Now with a cover illustration so the pdf looks less boring.

>making my own thing
>get busy with higher education at age 25
>just wish i had money so i could work on my own thing
>suicidal now

how do you regain hope and interest in your projects, /tg/?

Working on Rodentia, by myself.

Back in '07 when /tg/ was fresh, it was arguably the best /tg/ project. I was an artist on the project and in the time since then I've learned a thing or two about game design.

For the last three years I've been working on it again, hopefully I can post something soon.

Besides just art, that is.

>>45333797

With meditation.

Honestly, that's what I do. It's hard to work when you have so many worries and concerns and trivial matters bouncing around in your head.
It helps to stop and focus on one's breathing. Recenter oneself. Discard unskillful thoughts.

>>45333797
go for a walk every day, think about random stuff, don't try to solve anything, just walk.

>>45333914
>>45333844
thanks friends

>>45333914
>>45333844

Second these.

When I feel really unproductive and burdened, I now go out and walk around a couple of blocks, smoke a cigarette and just think about anything. Sit down on some bench and just watch people passing by.

When I get home I'm usually feeling much better and lighter.

>Have multiple ideas for different games
>Can't ever finish one
How do I curb my design ADHD?

>>45299290
>>45299839

Palladium fantasy basically does that. Armor just reduces damage iirc.

Also feng shui does something similar. Attack bonus + weapon damage or str (if melee) minus toughness.

Basically 15 total to hit vs 12 defense would be 3 damage added to the value before subtracting for toughness. Kind of writing it out sloppy, sorry.

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Hey /gdg/! I haven't been here since this was /hbg/

I'm making a homebrew system off of a comic I like. The author has partnered up with me in making it, which means I make it and he says yes or no.

I've gotten abit of new art in here and there but have added more mechanics and revised some that have come up through player testing.

Forgive the format, it got messed up converting it from word to google docs to pdf.

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>>45336502

I also made a quick guide for players. I like quick guides.

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>>45336203

In palladium basically you have to roll over the AR to hit and then the armor has a separate hp pool that reduces the damage.

So it goes: Armor negates damage>Armor absorbs damage.

>>45336038

Just pick one and chip away at little by little, I'd say.

>>45336038
Keep a stable of 2-3 projects and always cull ideas you can't feasibly roll into one of them.

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Tried branching off my own thread for my project, but the advice I've been getting in this thread has been a lot more useful. ^_^

How does this sound for conflict resolution?

1) Roll a d20.
2) Check to see if you rolled under your skill + modifiers
3a) If you succeeded, check the ones place of the die. Compare to a 1-10 hit table to see where you hit.
3b) Multiply the ones place of the die by your weapon's damage rating.
4) Calculate damage and hit effects.

Alternatively:

3b) Add your d20 roll to your weapon's damage.

I think the alternate works just as well as long as 10-15-ish damage remains relevant at all levels.

>>45338189
When I play percentile systems like BRP and Unknown Armies I usually make sure to put allocate points so that my most commonly used skills are multiples of 5.

d20 instead of d100 rolls is just fine. You really don't need the extra granularity unless you are doing a hit location system like Warhammer Fantasy or dice flipping like Unknown Armies.

Your resolution sounds fine to me anon.

>>45338189
Calls for large hit point pools, unless you're going for a lethal combat system. If we assume weapon damage ratings from 1 to 5, the multiplication system can deal anything from 1 to 50, and the additive from 2 to 25. If starting hit points are around 50, either one- or two-hit kills are a reality. So you either accept ridiculous amounts of hp because of damage calculation, or find a damage mechanic that lets you run with smaller hp values.

>>45338645
Unless of course armor divides damage. Christ, what a horrifying thought

>>45338686
DtD 40k does it

>>45338686
Actually gives me an idea for a system though. Similar thing, just with smaller values.

System is d6 roll under.
Multiply your die roll by your weapon's rating (1-5) then divide by your target's armor rating (1-5) to determine damage.
You can cut down on the mental math by simply comparing your weapon rating against the target's armor rating on a table to determine your damage multiplier.

>>45338760
I keep meaning to check that one out. I have a pdf of that, but I don't think it's the latest version.

>>45338686
Yeah. Personally I think that divisions should be right out, and I'm not too keen on multipliers either. Then again, even simple armor damage reduction can be problematic if it hasn't been balanced, and in the system under discussion can lead to low-skill characters being unable to do damage.

(If skill is 5 and weapon damage is also 5, maximum successful roll (5) plus weapon damage (5) means max 10 damage, so armor DR of 10 means always zero damage.)

>>45338806
Well, damage penetration being subtracted from damage reduction can help. If everybody has at least penetration one that would be something at least.

>>45338081
This update, by the way, contains some additional skills, tweaked weapon type rules, revamped weapon modifications, ammo rules, example weapons, advancement, and the terrain rules.
Markos was a cool character, but if if somebody else could try their hand at the character creation I would greatly appreciate it.

>>45338219
Thank you for your input.

>>45338645
>>45338806
Well, my game is supposed to be a mecha game where dodging is your primary method of avoiding damage. As it's hard to both shoot and dodge at the same time, you will generally get hit a lot. Damage reduction isn't really a planned thing at the moment.

As for weapon tiering, there are 5 tiers of mechs but only 4 tiers of weapons. Generally, a mech of a particular tier should be able to take each other out in three to five uncontested rounds of direct gunfire. Skills however, are bounded to a maximum of 15 anyway.

Weapons from different tiers are useable at a penalty and mechs of a specific tier can be upgraded one tier higher tier for a cheaper cost than buying a higher tier mech. Tier 5 consists of only Tier 4 upgrades as you can imagine.

But I generally want lower tiers to still be a threat in even medium sized groups to the higher tiers.

Right now, I'm leaning more towards adding your d20 result to your weapon's damage rating if only so that I know 10-15 more damage than the weapon lists is what I can generally expect it to do to most targets. I also get the added benefit of being able to have a larger variety of weapon damage ratings. If I stick with multiplication, my damage ratings are limited to 1-4 and I have weapons doing 3 more damage at best and 60 more damage at worst, which makes lower tiers pretty much unuseable because they get instagibbed.

What do you think? Addition or multiplication?

>>45339579

Addition, unless you really have your shit together.

If you can do multiplication and do it well, then go for it because it's novel. Otherwise, still with something simple.

>>45338189
Sounds a little bit like the conflict resolution in HardSuit.
Both pilot and Hardsuit stats have a maximum of 10

Hardsuit combat
>1) Add your two appropriate stats together e.g Ballistic skill + Sensor for a ranged attack (usually a pilot and a suit stat)
>2) Roll a d20
>3) Check to see if what you've rolled is under the two stats added together
>4) If so, its a success and damage is dealt
>5) If not, the attack misses
>6) Unless the attack was aimed, damage is randomly allocated to a body part on 1-10 table

Outside of a suit and with just a pilot only 1 stat is used and a d10 is used to roll under for checks

>>45339604
>keep it simple
I'm trying. The only thing I can think of to change this further is to make weapons do more damage based on a degree of success system. But I feel like that slows things down too much. Folding everything into one roll has made things so much quicker it's a hassle to add anything that might make resolution take longer.

>>45339613
It does feel a little similar but I think that's cause we're trying to accomplish much of the same things. (Either that or great minds think alike yadda yadda)

Some noticeable (if minor) differences though:
-Pilots aren't the only profession in my game so Pilot skills are their own tree entirely and rarely dip into the characters physical attributes.
-In Hardsuit, it seems pilots and their suits can function without each other, thus splitting the d20 in to a d10, which also has the rather convenient function of bounding stats naturally. That is both simple and elegant, especially when compared to my arbitrarily bounded accuracy of 15 for skills and +4 for any modifiers to said skills.

I'd say Hardsuit is not only more elegant, but more intuitive.

At this point, i just want something playable for me, heh. At least everyone seems to like the damage addition part. I did that to simplify damage resolution and attack rolls into one roll, specifically. You only roll the d20 to hit and hit location and extra damage all come out of it naturally.

What would you guys expect from a strength based spellcasting class with the following base attributes:
Main Ability; Strength
Magic Attack +2
Reflex +1
Will +1

>>45340032
Well thanks for the compliments but it took bloody forever to work it out, a major difference with Hardsuit is that there's no real armour value, only a kind of pseudo-hp value on body parts that when reduced to 0 go into a single crit result with two states, disabled and destroyed.

E.g A mook shooting at your already damaged suits arm with a crappy machinegun is unlikely to do enough damage to ruin the part completely so would most likely disable the part. If he is particularly lucky though he might roll enough damage to enter the 'destroyed' results on the crit table and then it could be a bad day for you"

Your system seems interesting in how it tiers its mechs by quality and equipment since it'd also serve as kind of inherent mech leveling system. Also it opens up interesting ideas with tier based skills like "bonuses to using equipment a tier below"

Personally i'd go with adding for simplicity sake and to reduce on bookkeeping in general

>>45340394
Some kind of badass magic great sword fighter. Look up the magic Greatsword spell from Dark Souls 2 to get an idea.

>>45341954
>>45340394
Sorry, "soul great sword". Also stuff like summoning magical huge flails and magic power fists and stuff like that. Basically a Fist Wizard

>>45340548
Well for my system I couldn't decide whether or not to do a wounds sort of system or hitpoints, so I ended up doing sort of a mix of the two.

Mechs have "wounds" for their head, body, arms and legs in the form of Integrity. When ever they are hit by an attack, they lose Integrity in that area. When Integrity hits 1, the part is disabled and they take a penalty to actions involving that part. When Integrity hits 0, the part is destroyed incurring a more severe penalty.

In addition to the Integrity of individual parts, mechs have an overall Durability. This is what the actual damage is subtracted from. When a mech reaches 0 Durability, they are treated as if they had only 1 Integrity for each body part and take all the penalties of such.

Basically, even if you never hit your opponent in the same spot enough times to disable and potentially kill him, Durability loss will ensure you can eventually get him.

Thus there are two potential win conditions:
1) Destroying the mecha's main body.
2) Reducing Durability to 0 and delivering a coup de grace to a helpless opponent.

Called Shots incur a penalty equal to the highest value to hit a body part on the table. For instance, the ones place of the d20 must be 0 (10) to hit the head. So a called shot to the head would incur a -10 penalty to hit. It sounds harsh, but the +4 modifier limit only applies to positive modifiers not negative, so you can stack the odds (more) in your favor through using sniper rifles and/or sniping specialised mechs or even datalinking. The highest number body goes up to however is 4, so you'd only get a -4 to shooting for the body.

The major difference between tiers so far is a slight Integrity and Durability difference in addition to a slight damage output increase. With a good GM and other players, you might be able to play a Tier 2 straight until the end game and Tier 1s will always be a threat depending on the numbers they come at you with.

>>45313452
>>45313563
this, your inspirations are never other games; movies, songs, books, people, genres, flavors of sherbet, but never other games

>>45332525
dominos played against the DM, in the background, while the game carries on, hacking checks represent scripts going to work, so the player can easily do other things while this goes on

place a system origin point, a system core point (end goal), an anti-hack origin point if applicable, and obstacles appropriate to the challenge presented by the system

the hacker's scripts must reach the end goal before any anti-hacking measures detect and remove their intrusion into the system; every successful script check allows the placement of a domino, the hacker holds a "hand" of drawn dominos equal to the number of scripts they have prepared for the act, some script also allow special actions to be taken to modify the hacker's hand, the playing field, or the progression of anti-hack scripts

>>45341954
>>45342006

Thanks! I decided to call it Soulsword.

Now I just have to do the following classes:
>Alchemist
>Dragoon
>Frost-Jack
>Green-Jack
>Hellion
>Iron-Jack
>Lantern-Jack
>Psychopomp

...and tighten up the rest of the classes.

So all the martials are done, and I just need to work on gishes and casters.

>>45344449
The fact that gishes are core in your system makes me so happy you don't even know

>>45342463
Ah, so a more granular system of damage but with an assured 'damage limit' on mechs. How does the coup de grace action work? Is it a separate unique action or just a normal attack that puts a crippled mech down?

Called shots in Hardsuit e.g 'targeted attacks' just have a -1 to the initial attack accuracy but this can be compounded by stacked negatives such as range or cover. Taking an aim action first would negate some of these penalties and certain skills or bits of equipment would add to the chances of hitting.

Hardsuit has the hard rule of "3 parts disabled" or "pilot reaches 0 wounds" as the two variables that indicate a suit is out of action hence why average medium suit hull points are around 25 per body part and a common light machinegun does 1d10 + 4. I'm trying to keep bookeeping low and combat hard and fast with quite a high lethality in general to encourage an aggressive but thoughtful combat in general too.

>>45344449
Yup. Six physical attacks. Six magic attackers. Six gishes. Two oddballs.

What is /gdg/'s opinion on character backgrounds. At the moment i've re-worked some stuff and reintroduced older pieces such as Pilot Origins.

I'm in the process of writing a small selection of potential origins a pilot might have before joining a mercenary group that offer a few starting skill choices (at the moment 4), some positive traits (2) and some negative traits. (2)

Alternatively i'm having the option to create your own specific origin, working with your GM, pick 4 relevant skills, 2 positive traits and 2 negatives to better reflect your pilots origin. Of course it'd have to be approved and might have a tendancy to skew towards 'builds' but I like the idea of choice

opinions?

>>45345380
Nothing wrong with origins.
Good way to help players flesh out their characters.

>>45345380
I think backgrounds that tie to game mechanics is always a good idea, even better if there are rules for making custom ones.

>>45345406
>>45345501
I'll post an example to peruse

Survivor:
Be it fire, flood, a devastating accident or the harsh realities of war, the pilot has experienced and lived through a particular disaster using their Hardsuit in the process. Survivors are tougher than others, often able to endure situations that might leave others wanting but most are traumatised to some degree by their experiences.
Starting Skills:
Endure or Focus, Knowledge (Navigation) or Knowledge (Traps), Survival, Procure or Scavenge
Starting Benefits:
Grudge (any) or Hardy, Grit
Starting Drawbacks:
Phantom Pain or Flashbacks, Haunted past

yes dark heresy was one of the original base sources for these

>>45346005
Neat! Any chance of a random table for these?

>>45346119
for origins? maybe I think 5 or would be more than sufficient to get both a setting and feel too.

Examples include
>Survivor
>Professional (basically former military elite forces in some regard)
>Reprobate (criminals, hackers, Dirty Dozen types)
>Bio-aug (synthetically modified humans, left overs from a failed military program or those that have chosen do so to themselves)
>Academic (scientists, researchers, those that want to piss about with hardsuit tech and not have Corporations breathing down their necks)
>?????

Any ideas for more?

>>45346548
>Child Soldier
>Knight (neo-feudal warlord, or a Tony Stark wannabe that gets his kicks stomping peasants in six-million dollar suit)
>Alice (as in Alice in Wonderland; a normal person that has found themselves in a weird situation)
>Pinocchio (a self-aware AI)

So what do you all do for level up bonuses? I'd like to offer something more exciting than just stat bonuses or +X to skills. But in making more interesting effects I've found it hard to avoid accidentally limiting the players. For instance if a level up bonus is being able to use improvised weapons, that means that anyone without that bonus cannot use an improvised weapon. This is a less extreme example, but I still don't wsnt peiole feeling like they can't bash someone with a bottle unless they take that bonus.

I guess what I'm looking for is ideas on how to make players better at what they do, without just using +X bonuses or limited the other players.

>>45346548
>>45346671
>Peter Pan (a man-child living out his juvenile power fantasies in a mechanized suit)
>Rip Van Winkle (awoken from cryogenic slumber and press-ganged into service)

>>45346821
>>45346671
>>45346671
>>45346548

>Frankenstein (character is reanimated. More specifically, a human corpse was stripped of its dead cells leaving only connective tissue to serve as a scaffolding for fresh stem-cells and 3-D printed replacement organs. And that is your character.)

>Vampire (see link related)
https://youtu.be/3WdCvGDpM9k

>>45346548

Link related might make for some good inspiration for your Bio-augs.
http://www.rifters.com/echopraxia/recruiter.htm

>>45346548
>Crusader (church militant, religious zealot)

Inspiration:
http://www.rifters.com/echopraxia/enemywithin.htm

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Awww yisss

I'm designing a historical game. Problem is, I keep teetering on the brink of madness trying to sort out what to include and what to leave out. Help?

>>45347807
Take only what you think might be asked by players to help create characters / better understand the world.

Ask yourself "Does including this bit of information make my game more interesting or bloat it needlessly?

>>45347807
I don't know anon. What kind of game (war game, board game, roleplaying game) and what historical period?

>>45338081
Currently working on the Hellion class.
Initially inspired by Tieflings, I imagine them looking like demonic-landsnecht-clowns (I plan on doing illustrations).
Mechanically, I'm thinking spellcasting rogues with a fire theme.

>Hellion
Main Ability: Charisma
Physical Attack +1
Magic Attack +1
Reflex +2

Their starting skill is Sneak Attack.
They have access the spells Flare (burst of fire damage, blinds targets) and Grease (zone of dangerous terrain; inflicts fire vulnerability and knocks creatures prone).

The Hellion will probably have a Fire Resistance skill, and some sort of item skill that gives them a fancy weapon.

I'm wracking my brains trying to come up with two more spells/skills. Maybe something based around maneuverability and something based around stealth?

>>45348107
It's a wargame, should have made that clear. Baically, how far down the simulationist rabbit hole should I got.

>>45348218
Wargame/board game. Age of sail, about fleets.

>>45348218
Maybe something like ash-step: disappear in a puff of ash and teleport to a nearby source of fire

And definitely some kind of smokescreen thing.

>>45348349
Thank you kindly!

I'm also thinking that every class should have eight skills in addition to their starting skills. That way, if you select the same class as primary and secondary you don't get the classes full skill list until level 6.

I feel like it would be cool if there was a spell called Walpurgisnacht. The borrowed German makes it extra weeb!

>>45348297
A collection of good wargame design articles. Especially look at his 'Realism in wargaming' article, its a good quick read about how complexity =! realism. There's also one not on that list but on the same blog under the Game Design tag that talks about what a commander should know, which applies heavily to historical games.

>>45348297
>>45348631
http://deltavector.blogspot.com/2015/12/wargame-design-series-updated-index.html

Blah, forgot link.

>>45348669
>>45348631
Thanks, will check it out.

The main problem is that I'm trying to make this for people who aren't obsessed with this particular era. I want them to get the feel, without being bogged down. But if there's not enough meat, will they get the feel? Back and forth forever.

>>45348631
>There's also one not on that list but on the same blog under the Game Design tag that talks about what a commander should know, which applies heavily to historical games.

Can't find that one.

>>45350665
http://deltavector.blogspot.com/2016/01/game-design-62-what-should-commander.html

>>45350161
Honestly, I've found that those naval/naval-in-space style games, as long as you get the movement feel right and the rules are a step above at least Age of Sigmar, people give it a look.

While not Age of Sail, Battlefleet Gothic and Spartan Games various games might be good places to look, as well as SW Armada for a very simple take on naval games.

Im considering starting up a turn based adventure on the forum here, but i have concerns about the timing of such a thing. How does one handle missing players turns if one is trying to post regularly and how frequent would you say someone should make rounds in real time?

>>45345380
I agree with this guy. >>45345501

That's a nice touch to have. Not just having different backgrounds but the opportunity to create your own is nice as well.

Did anyone try to make or saw somewhere social combat system? Like Duel of Wits in Burning Wheel.

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I'm currently working on a scifi game, about a mass effect tech level. I've been working on the classes and coming up for abilities to give to the combat focused classes isn't very hard. But I'm having a lot more difficulty making the non-combat focused classes better at what they do. I guess my question is, what is it that you would want to be able to do, or what do you feel is iconic for:

>the secret agent

>the party's face

>the greasy mechanic

>the code-slinging hacker

>the drone wrangler

>>45350835
>Spartan Games

ha ha fuck no

pathfinder campaigned based off the manga "grimgar of fantasy and ash" with the party being a group of volunteer soldiers who receive free rooms and food at a local in in turn for slaying the monsters in the wilds outside the city walls. volunteer soldiers are needed to protect the areas closer to the wall because all the standard military is further in the wilds dealing with much larger threats.
its a higher fantasy dark souls almost, with the players having to band together and form parties in order to defeat just 1 or 2 goblins. the issue. most monsters are significantly stronger than the volunteer soldiers, and most of them die. that is why they receive free rooms and food. none of them live long enough to make a dent.

thoughts? i know its pretty generic i guess, so if you have any ideas on how to make it less so i would be more than happy to hear.

Working on the Iron-Jack class for my game.
They are supposed to be highly-mobile and heavily-armored trickster tank gishes.

I was thinking of giving them a skill called "Two Heads are Better than One".
It's a setup action; you roll initiative twice during combat's setup phase. You take two turns per round, one on each initiative count, but you must split your actions between them (for instance, you may take your move action on your first turn and take a your standard and minor actions on the second turn.)

Anybody think that sounds like too much trouble? Too complicated? Not useful enough to be effective?

>>45352142
That sounds... Not good to be honest. It's kind of just letting then delay their turn a bit more freely. The double initiative thing is neat as it gives them a better chance of going earlier tho. Maybe give them some special effects they can pop for free on each turn?

>>45351867
Grimgar doesn't really fit as a game honestly, the setting itself is pretty generic, probably taking a lot from common MMORPG tropes and going for a realistic "monsters are a lot tougher than the players approach". It's main draw is how "human" the protagonists are compared to previous anime similar to it, and trying to purposely simulate that is pretty hard.

I don't know much about Pathfinder, but I imagine a campaign would have tough monsters, making strategy a definite must, and a focus on team building and relationships, such that any character death is an important one, with a session being devoted to honoring their death and resolving any loose ends that character may have had.

>>45352142
If they're both mobile and armored, then their direct attacking capability would probably be rather low. If they're tricksters, maybe give them an ability to roll and pass a test for a chance at activating a random trap in areas they passed through? The trap itself would determine who gets hit and how strong it is.

>>45348349
An ashy smokescreen is a good idea. Teleporting ti fire might be kind of limited though. What about a burst if fire around them and then they teleport away? You could have it either do damage, or blind the enemies.

>>45352142
Gotta agree with the others that the initiative thing doesn't sound great. The idea is to be a mobile armored gish? To me sounds like something low damage, but maybe uses illusions to direct the enemy away from allies and keep its focus. Also lots of status effects. So they don't kill the enemy, but they keep them, but they keep them off balance and misdirected

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Written up some origins - feedback appreciated.

There's still 'Technician' and the specific rules for making up your own origin to include

>>45290719
>>45290719
This card layout is beautiful, Trenchbreaking Man.
I hope I can create something even approximately as elegant as this.

>>45326223
I always thought the project took off after forking into LibreOffice. Very reliable for my uses. Hope you're not using Apache's OO...

>>45358931
nope, using Word now

>>45358026
What are the starting drawbacks for affluents?

I spent some time recently idly thinking about wanting to make a tabletop game, and it assembled into something that I feel compelled to share.

Working title is "Treason!". Aka /pol/ the game.

It's a card game (Not trade card game, one deck for everyone like Munchkin). Each player has a sheet divided in several zone (So far I figure it would be four - Culture, Business, Politics and Force) and a bag of tokens. During the game you place your tokens on your own sheet (Thus creating loyal citizens who promote wholesome values in their area) or opponent's sheet (Thus planting agents to spread degeneracy and subversion). Cards offer you to add more tokens, move them around or use some other abilities, particularly linked to how much you outnumber your opponent. For example, if you have enough culture agents in opponent's sheet, you can play card "degenerate art" that would hurt him.

Each turn you either play a card, or discard and place a token, then draw a card or refuse to draw and place another token.

I'm not expert on tabletop games, but idea just won't leave my head. Does this idea have any potential? What pitfalls are to look out?

>>45359443
Whoops, drawbacks should be "Spoiled or Indulgent, Weak Constitution"

>>45359546
Sounds promising, at least.

Looking for some help with combat techniques.

>Background
REIGN, the source rules for my sci-fi homebrew, allows characters to acquire Martial Techniques, which are special skills that can augment your combat ability. These are arranged into Paths, which are comprised of five Techniques of increasing power and expense to acquire.

>What I'm working on
One of the factions in my setting is called the Carinese Republic; they train their soldiers in form of combat called Holistic Combat Tactics, which is sort of a take on CQC from Metal Gear Solid combined with maximum exploitation of cover in urban battlefields. This training has given them one of the most feared ground forces in the galaxy.

So far I have two of the five techniques worked out:

>Tactical Guard (1 Point)
This skill basically lets you block or grapple people while simultaneously attacking with a firearm, so you can either defend against their attack or grab them to use a human shield.

>Overwatch (2 Points)
This technique is about exploiting cover and moving through crowded battlefields with maximum speed and efficiency. It lets you fire while you're in cover without taking a penalty, and it grants you the equivalent of Armor when you make a Dodge or Athletics roll to move into or out of cover, to simulate evasive action. So imagine making a running slide behind a wall or leaping out form behind a jersey barrier to surprise your enemy.

I still need three more techniques for Points 3-5 but I'm a little stuck. The idea behind HCT is that a good soldier needs to do more than just aim and shoot-- he needs to be aware of his surroundings and know how to move through them, and be prepared to defend against any kind of attack without comprising his own offensive.

Thoughts on how I can capture this kind of notion?

>>45360090
Sounds good!

>>45338081

So I have a few more ideas for this...

>Fated
I'm borrowing some ideas from Log Horizon rpg here.
The player character with the highest Doom score, or all characters tied for highest, has the 'fated' state.
Whenever an enemy attacks a character without the fated state, they take a -2 penalty to the attack roll.
Some skills are only in effect while you are in the fated state.

>Spells
Spells can be used once per scene for free; additional uses of spells cost heroism points.

>Hopes and Dreams
Your followers have their own hopes and dreams that work much like redemptions for you. You gain heroism points when you help your follower's dreams to come true. You gain doom points when you betray your followers.

>Dark Pacts
You may trade your redemptions or sacrifice followers at any time to gain additional dark gifts. Increase your doom pool by two whenever you do so.

>>45359546
>Aka /pol/ the game.
I assume instead of a serious game it will be /pol/ memes all around? Like, as Player A you are able to use Politics to create Civil War in Player B's state, then have the war refugees go to Player C where they will steal their jobs & wimmins and subvert their Culture?

>>45360406
Perhaps a parkour type ability to ignore small difficult terrain? Maybe the ability to make stealth checks in a crowd?

>>45360974
I meant that it's going to be a game about that represent paranoia about cultural Marxism and things like this. As I described, it's a game that would be about planting SJWs on enemy's turn and fending them off your own. I don't intend to use refences to happy merchants or whatever is trending on pol right now, mostly settling for generic descriptions and allusions to past and present controversies and moral panics.

>>45361894
Ok so McCarthyism: the boardgame, then?

Wrote my first (real) piece of background lore of Null Strike, trying to flesh out how things ended up the way that they did a bit.

http://www.nullstrike.com/lore/likeromebeforeit

>>45360597
The "fated" idea is really interesting i like that there is an upside to having something bad

The followers thing is fucking brilliant tho

In the initiative thread earlier I wrote this:
Im throwing around ideas that's a mixture action point and the usual method. A build-your-action with 1 Primary/Lead plus 2 Secondary/Support with the types being Movement, Defense, Attack, Spellcasting, Item-interaction and probably some more. Maybe splitting attacking into Duelling and Killing each with effects and requirements. Considering having some Overview (perception-based action) as well, but Im gonna have to think how it's separate from defense specifically. Trying to break up some assumptions that DnD made; Spinning around, always aware of everything.

Current list
Aim
Duel
Move
Overview
Spellcast
Defend
Interact (social)
Manipulation

Duel; For the most part, attacks against an opponent, he will fight back. This action assumes active participation and counter-attacks, for only deflections, use defend.
Secondary Aim action to primary duel = go for kill?
I like calling it duel over attack, sets the mood and visual impressions better.

There's still a lot of rules to tie into this, but here's the rough idea around the player part of action declaration, their turn structure. I wanted to post it, but I'll have to reply after some sleep.

>>45366707
And interesting idea. I did something similar, but with a single Primary and Secondary, allied Major and Minor actions.

Each action has a Major and a Minor variant, and on certain actions you can do both as the same action to get a boost. Not sure how I want to balance that tho, I'm thinking that a Full action is less than the sum of it's parts for a Major and a Minor, incentivizing players to mix and match more often than hitting the "Full Attack" button.

>>45360406
For the 2 point bonus, I'd count Run sets as +2W when attempting to move into cover (which, according to the Enchiridion, would be a 2xp trait) so you're more likely to make it to cover when it's uncertain.
Then remove 1d of multiple action penalty when attempting to Run to cover for the 3XP bonus, and count Dodge sets as +1W when doing so, so you're super good at running for cover and dodging simultaneously (assuming you're good at both of those things) and can also opt to return fire instead of dodge without compromising effectiveness. Again, according to the Enchiridion, 2xp for +1W and 1xp for one die of multiple-action penalty.

Also, if you haven't looked at other ORE games, I highly recommend doing so. REIGN's mechanics are somewhat particular, and it's nice to get a different take on the same core. Hitting up some of the PDF share troves you should be able to find NEMESIS, Wild Talents, Monsters & Other Childish Things plus an ORE Toolkit PDF I haven't read in depth yet pretty quickly.

>>45368862
Oops, meant "+2d when attempting to move into cover" not +2W. Bonus width is way later.

>>45368862
Appreciate the feedback! It's refreshing, and a little surprising, to get input from people in this thread about ORE stuff.

One thing to remember is that Martial Paths aren't made using the same building blocks as Esoteric Disciplines in the Enchiridion. Stolze outright says that the components of EDs can potentially destroy combat if applied directly to Martial Paths, so I didn't go that route.

Instead what I did was research the existing Paths in REIGN and its supplements, and tried to put together new paths that were in a similar vein. They actually work quite differently from the rules for EDs-- they're a lot less focused on situational bonuses, and play more tricks with dice, such as the School of the Insouciant Monkey's 3 Point technique that inflicts a point of random damage on someone each time you dodge their attacks.

I like the idea of a bonus for returning figure, however. I'll work with that for another Technique level.

>>45369631
I'd actually missed that note when I read the Enchiridion, although that then makes me question why there's no information on martial paths in it. I wouldn't say that things applicable to primarily utility skills would be likely to outright break combat, provided paths are balanced against one another, but I guess it doesn't seem all that wise to create martial techniques the same way. The same guidelines do still seem useful, if not directly applicable, though.

I am trying to design a Riddle of Steel style system that is high in lethality but less crunchy. I also am trying to create a magic system that is incredibly taxing and dangerous to use, (In the setting for the game most magic is basically occultist style rituals and invocations in dark speech) but less dark heresy style "roll on a random table to find out how fucked you are" and more "voices whispering in your head and eventually driving you insane." any thoughts?

>>45360406
I'm not sure Overwatch is a good term for this since it alludes to providing covering fire for allies which this abilty has little to do with.

>>45360406
Agree with >>45373435 about the overwatch name. There's a name for what you're describing, but can't think of it off the top of my head.

>>45374082
Fieldcraft?

>>45367379
Definitely got the framework of major/minor from you. I was unhappy with my action point system, too much minigame each round to spend all 6 points. So the new idea is still 'build-your-action' but in a simpler framework I hope will both simplify and speed up play. The real change-up from the usual turn structure is dumping in the monster turns into the relevant player turn, making interaction a greater priority.
My plan for the actions is to have them be as simple in mechanics but with heavy narrative weight. If you are not having Overview means you are focusing on the immediate opponent. A mage not picking defense while an enemy is within charging distance is gonna have a sword through his face.

I want player description of what they do to 'auto-pick' what actions they use, not have the game become a disjoint set of chess moves to players pick to through their turn as if their where playing board/card game, optimizing their moves to maximize profit. D&Ds Attack, Full Attack and in particular the spells have become too disassociative to me, sometimes it might as well have been animated as pushing a button, watch a number go a little down, next player to pick a button to press.

Still got a lot of work to do on the action, the above post was just a rough outline, will return with results.

>>45362844
Yeah, that's better description. Although I also plan to use some parodic nationalist and stalinist imagery in some actions as well as modern topics such as Wikileaks to affect the game. It's mix-an-match of reactionary nutjobbery: the game.

>>45352142
I think it's a cool ability, mechanic and flavor going well together for it. To keep it you have to consider what other initiative-modifying actions you have having none makes it unique and the complexity of your actions.
If you have standard, move and minor, each with multiple choices for each, it can slow down play too much and it will be disruptive instead.
If you want to increase/focus his mobility, have it only be move action on the first or all of the actions. This limits the amount of choices having to be made, while still keeping the ability.
Another point for the class; to focus on mobility, you have to make it a good choice. It have to be accessible/doable/easier for him than others. Acrobatics, jump, climb, ignoring difficult terrain, bonus against Attacks of opportunity. With another focus on Heavy armor, what need do he have for mobility, just charge?
One idea: He could run around giving out close range buff to his team members or debuffs for enemies.

>>45372345
I really like the RoS style turn structure and is modelling my own on its ideas.
For you magic, consider what influence on the game you want, not just what the player characters. Do the voices compel the players to certain actions, compulsions for players to fight or elements to drive the story in a direction. If the former; look to the usual method of will save, possibly some stress systems, slowly tallying up the mental scars until the mind breaks. Ifthe latter, you could take control from the player (careful about this but doable!), perhaps in a similar way to the classic "werewolf, but dont know"-portrayal. Or mix them.

>>45351717
Think about what makes the archetype, what typical actions and story elements, but also how the world/persons react to them, and then MECHANIZE it. The party face is a Likable => +2 social interactions. He knows who to ask for what => with rigid story, make it a hint from the GM; fluid story: let the player make up his contacts.

>>45374386
>>45374082
Thanks for the suggestion guys, I'll fix that particular point up

>>45372345
The main reason is that the Enchiridion is swept clean of the setting fluff for REIGN, and the Martial Paths are deeply ingrained in that fluff; and since their construction is a lot less rigid than the Esoteric Disciplines it would be difficult to create a Do It Yourself Martial Paths system.

>>45375047
The middle was supposed to be a response to >>45373148

>>45373148
Sounds fun. For the SAN loss, are you wanting it to be a solid mechanic, or more of a roleplaying effect?

>>45374926
Mine came as a mix of the 2-half actions of 40K RPGs and the Major/Movement/Minor from D&D. In the process I kind of stumbled on the idea of combining the two actions thematically to replace things charge attacks and the like.

I did try to "combining monster turns with player turns" thing, but it didn't feel right working with giant beasties or larger groups.

I do like the idea of player description kind of picking their actions for them, though personally I like the tactical overview feeling personally, though I may have something akin to focusing on a specific enemy as kind of a sub/free-action.

>>45373148
I'll tell you what I tell everyone who's looking into madness systems: check out Unknown Armies. It does Sanity better than any system I've ever seen, not just because it has different kinds of sanity (Violence, Self, Isolation, Unnatural and Helplessness) but because it's built around the idea that you can become hardened against psychological trauma, which is both a blessing (you're less likely to freak out when faced with something horrible that you've already seen) and a curse (the more hardened you are, the more disconnected you are from actual humanity).

>>45373148
>voices whispering in your head and eventually driving you insane
Here's a thought, I wonder how many systems encourage GMs secretly divulging information to their players? Like a character goes to a place separate from the others and does something, and instead of saying it outright the GM writes a note and passes it to the player.

If there aren't any, I wonder why. Especially with the increase in popularity of Sanity mechanics, hidden information could open up possibilities for unreliable narrator situations due to their worsening sanity. (A goes to a room and gets a note saying there's an attacker in the room. He screams, and calls B in. Once B is there, he gets a note saying the room is empty. B comments on it, and A gets passed another note saying the attacker disappeared, confusing both the character and the player.)

>>45377030
This kind of stuff is possible in any sort of game, but as far as I know is rarely recommended if only because most developer shy away from telling their GMs how to run their table. But it's definitely a helpful thing to have available, especially for horror games where characters might become suspicious of one another.

>>45376269
The framework arent particularly unique, but we arent trying to reinvent the wheel. Personally Im trying to take the parts I like and mix it in with what I want, hopefully making the end result playable.

>Combining monster turns
When I played Dungeon World, it worked out great, just gotta do it in a way such the action/reaction feels natural, so the story makes sense.
The current idea is that everything that interact, act during the same turn, so when the players want some team work, their will share a turn. Gotta bake into the system at the beginning so it's not a weird patch, but something natural to do.

>player description kind of picking their actions for them
Another neat idea from DW, a method to avoid "I roll to attack", by making the rule:
Fiction trigger moves, not the other way around.
It forces associativity, see http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mechanics-a-brief-primer which is a great goal for a large portion of the game. It however dont mix as well with tactics, but it helps keeping a story consistent.

File: HCT.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>45368862
>>45373435
>>45374082

Alright fellas check out what I've got so far. I've got 4 of the 5 Techniques written out, still working on #5.

>Tactical Guard (1 Point)
Unchanged from previous post. You can block or grapple while firing a gun without penalty

>Strategic Advance (2 Points)
Reworked Overwatch. You gain the equivalent of armor when you move in and out of cover, and can fire while in cover without penalty.

>Fieldwork (3 Points)
Fieldwork is a broader technique from Strategic Advance that also works in concert in it. It gives you the passive equivalent of armor against firearms as long as you aren't being caught flatfooted; this is because it trains you to detect and track enemy fields of fire and to move in a way that makes you difficult to shoot. Its armor stacks with the Armor created by Strategic Advance. It also makes you immune to Suppressing Fire*

>Close Quarters Discipline (4 Points)
You gain a +1 Width bonus to your Firearms attacks when you are within 15 feet of your target, and your Firearms sets will still work even if they get gobbled down to 1x Width, which would normally ruin a set.

Still working on the Fifth Technique. My original idea was called Pivotal Reaction, and it let you change the target of your attack and squish your set during the Resolution phase of combat, to react to new battlefield circumstances. I like the idea but it actually fits better with another Martial Path I'm working on, the Gunslinger's Arts (since those are about speed and quick reflexes over smart combat tactics).

*Suppressing Fire in my brew inflicts a dice penalty equal to its Width against anyone targeted by it for all actions beyond running away or hunkering down behind cover.

>>45377166
I have looked over DW, but never played myself. I may give it a go to see what I can get out of it more than I have.

I find it interesting that we are both approaching a similar mechanic, but from two different directions, hopefully that bodes well for the possibilities of it.

>>45378461
Our design goals are not too dissimilar.

I'm designing a rules light system loosely based on nWoD(without 90% of the verbiage), but with d6's instead of d10's. 5's and 6's are successes, and 6 can be rolled again.
Only 4 attributes.
Compact skills loosely based on D&D5e.
Classes are like vampire clans, called orders.
Each order has a list of skills you begin with 1 dot on it.
Defense and armor reduce dice from attack pool. Each success in the attack roll is 1 point of damage.
Only one type of damage, hit points. Limited HP to keep the game gritty.
Spells based on specific routes and individual discipline techniques.
Anyone ever tried something like this?

Ok

I'm brainstorming the creation and modification of the titular hardsuits.

Everyone starts with a hardsuit
>is the stats for this suit rolled at the start like a character?
>might the player pick a suit from a sort of bank of starting suits geared towards a vague role e.g this one is skewed a little towards close combat, this one towards cyberwarfare etc
Everyone starts with 10 + 1d20 credits to spend on Hardsuit upgrades and equipment
Everyone also starts with 1d10 'scrap' (a kind of pseudo-currency used to upgrade suits)
Players can expend 'scrap' to modify the raw stats of their hardsuit but it costs a bit.
>upgrading a raw base stat like 'Computer' or 'Servo' costs in scrap whatever the initial score x3 was e.g upgrading from 4 to 5 costs 12 scrap, upgrading from 1 to 2 costs 3 scrap etc
Modifying a suit is a bit harder than just slapping new bits of equipment on and having it work. In a bid to maximise profits and cut down on DIY fixes Corps,just like real life, have annoying bullshit like series specific designs e.g ports that only work with specific ports, software incompatibility and tamper proofing to make actual modification hard.
>equipment has a 'installation value' which is the amount of extra bits in scrap it takes to install and function properly.
>players can chose to install parts themselves which is a 'craft' skill roll and potentially fail, (the part is installed but you give your suit a minor negative trait, roll a 1 and you brick the part and lose the scrap)
>you can pay mechanical experts to do it for you at a greater cost of both scrap and credits

Rambly I know but any ideas to kick off on this?

Looking to make a Pen & Paper version of Dominions: Throne of Ascention. I am trying to make it as true to the game as possible. Any advice?

>>45379486
>is the stats for this suit rolled at the start like a character?
There should definitely be rules for rolling Suit stats if your game is going to be high lethality. If rolling characters is fast but rolling Suits takes forever, then you're going to have a bad time. It could actually be fun even to have a really weird, super specialized suit, as long as its relatively balanced against other ones.

I'm sure you posted before but what are the characteristics of a Hardsuit?

>>45379774
SERVO (Ser):
The physical strength a Hardsuit possesses.

SENSORS (Sen):
A Hardsuits means of observing the outside world via lenses, scopes or radar

BULK (Bu)
The weight, carry capacity and general size of a Hardsuit.
The higher the number, the heavier the Hardsuit.

ENGINE (Eng):
The speed, maneuverability and overall agility a Hardsuit can achieve.

COMPUTER (Com):
A Hardsuits hardware, software and logistic interface

HULL:
The amount of damage a Hardsuit can take before destruction HULL = BULK + SERVO + 10

HARDPOINT(Hdp):
The number of usable ports a Hardsuit can mount weaponry off
Hardpoint = BULK + SERVO /2 (rounded up)

(hardpoint is a fixed value that does not change when either SERVO or BULK are increased. Hardpoint only changes when specifically indicated)

>>45379955
What's the number range of the five core stats?

>>45380217
2 minimum since its a roll equal to or under and 1 is a critical success. 10 max stat.

Rolls in a hardsuit (apart from a few social ones) are a combinaton of pilot stats (same range of 2 to 10) and hardsuit stat rolled under 20 with 20 being a critical failure

>>45380328
Can you buy up a suit's Stat all the way to 10 at character creation, or is there a starting cap?

>>45380399
I think a hard limit of 5 max on both pilot and hardsuit stats would be suitable.

>>45380536
Hmm okay well that means that a Stat has a 4 point swing: as low as 2, as high as 5.

Have you also figured out the math for what an "average" stat should be?

>>45378564
I need to get a Dropbox so I can give yours a closer look.

File: Dolmian Suits.jpg (890KB, 1287x1178px) Image search: [Google]

890KB, 1287x1178px

>>45380568
Well therein lies the inherent quandary i'm at. Point buy or stat roll on a 1d5

My initial stat method for hardsuit creation was point buy so

>Hardsuits begin with 12 points to add to suit stats
>There are 5 core hardsuit stats
>Hardsuit stats max out at 10
>No starting Hardsuit stat may have a value of 0.
>No starting stat may be larger than 5 on creation

>Pilots being with ???????? points to add to pilot stats
>There are 7 core pilot stats
>Pilot stats max out at 10
>No starting pilot stat may have a value of 0
>No starting stat may be larger than ????????? on creation (maybe 5 again depending on the maths)

Now tests inside a suit consist of a pilot stat + a hardsuit stat so the problem was that you're gonna be failing a lot of stuff on a d20 for hardsuit tests since you'd need a minimum of 5 in a pilot and suit stat to get the a base 50%

Unless this was boosted by stuff like pilot origins that add to your raw stats, things might be tough to start out.

this might be an inherent problem in using dark heresy as base inspiration but i'm too far gone to switch systems again

>>45381207
Still love the New Florin's design.

>>45381207
You've actually got two inherent problems here

The first is that the math isn't your friend; since you've set the starting caps Suit stats at 5, it means that the best possible result will still only give maybe 50% odds. I think you need to re-examine your starting numbers around that.

Secondly, you've got two separate axes of variables here: pilot and suit. Since you're enforcing rolling for stats both of those variables are extremely random, which means balancing the character creation system is going to be a nigh-monumental task.

I think you need to start from a results-oriented angle and work back. Your game is d20 roll under, which means you have 50% odds with a total score of 10, and 78% odds with a score of 15. Figure out what you want an average rate of success for a competant character to be and use that to determine your starting stats.

But you've still got some serious fundamental mathematical hurdles to overcome. I don't envy you. I'd almost say it would be worth it to abandon Dark Heresy.

>>45380677
Im pretty sure you dont need dropbox to get files from others dropbox, you just click the below link and it should load the file into your browser.
Either way, here's a continually updating pdf, my program, LaTeX, save its work there.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nxf33tt1che0li1/HBv10.pdf?dl=0

>>45375047
Well, the purpose of the Iron-Jack's mobility is to get him where he needs to be on the battle-field in order to attack and lay down zone control. Often times in games you have a problem with 'tank' characters where you need them to be on the front line to do their job, it takes them forever to tromp over there.

The Iron-Jack should be a rapid deployment meat-shield with the ability to debilitate enemies; he takes the center of the battlefield quickly, and then he holds it.

>>45381493
So all together there are 5 hardsuit and 7 pilot stats

Lets assume a hypothetical basic pilot with a suit starts with stats at 4 for everything meaning 40% chance to pass everything both pilot and hardsuit tests. (Which isn't that unreasonable for a starting pilot)

Now some guys might be more skilled in an area so have a 6 in maybe 1 or 2 stats to start with and not so great at another so 3 in some others

>>45383175
>>45381207

What if you use d10 rolls instead of d20 rolls?

Or... and stop me if this sounds gimmicky, use both.

Working on the terrain rules some more. What do you guys think of this so far:

CONSTRUCTING THE BATTLEFIELD

You can draw the battlefield any way you like, but I have some tips to help make it more dynamic.

I. Arena Arrangement
Draw a square between 10 and 20 spaces on each side.
Place at least one entrance and one exit.
Place a 2x2 to 5x5 starting area on one corner for the player characters and a 2x2 to 5x5 objective area on the opposite side.
Place one or two 1x1 to 3x3 alternate starting areas in favorable positions closer to the center of the map or half way between the starting area and the objective area.
Draw a 'gutter' of normal terrain diagonally through the center of the square connecting the two starting areas together. This main gutter should be three to five spaces wide.
Draw two more gutters going around the edge of the square. These side gutters should be one to three spaces wide.
The open areas between gutters are obstacle areas. Make them difficult terrain, dangerous terrain, damaging terrain, shifting terrain, pits, elevated terrain, or any combination of the above. Make them challenging, but not impossible, to move through.
Place a terrain feature in each gutter, such as a door or an incline.

Player characters start in their starting area, unless they roll successful ability checks allowing them to start in the alternate starting areas.
Place one or two powerful monsters in the objective area, then place weaker enemies in the gutters.

>>45383602
I am using both.
Skills just involving the pilot on their own roll under 1d10 and skills involving the pilot in a hardsuit (because its a pilot and a hardsuit stat combined) roll under 1d20

How do I balance the starting gear for new characters?

>>45379486
For some reason, I feel like 9 + 2d10 credits to start is a little more fair those with shitty luck. The minimum is still 11 just like it is with 10 + 1d20.

>>45383175
Okay so then here's what we're looking at:

12 Stats total at the start
Base is 2, high is 6 (swing of 5)
Average stat is 4
That means, if you were using point buy, a character would have 24 points to add to their stats.

The goal then should be to figure out a system where you can randomly distribute those 24 points among the character and suit stats such that all characters have the same stat total, but in random arrays, and such that no character has a stat greater than 6.

Tricky, but perhaps possible.

>>45289085
I use Tarot cards, as per my older system of 2d6 take lower, this time the action resolution works by drawing two cards and taking lower, with extra effects if their values are the same or they are of the same suit.

Yes, I am making a SMT: Persona system, what about it?

>>45385355
Well...

One way to go about it would be through a randomized life-path system similar to Traveller.
You would have tables with life events with each life event giving you an array of stat adjustments between +0 and +2. That can determine pilot stats. It will take some work though.

Another way to go about it, that will work for hardsuit stats at least, is to roll 5d5. For each 1 rolled, at +1 to Servo. For each 2, add +1 to Sensors. For each 3, add +1 to Bulk. For each 4, add +1 to Engine. For each 5, add +1 to Computer.
This mechanic would also work for pilot stats if you could cut the number of pilot stats down to five.

>>45385624
REIGN uses a very similar system to this as well actually.

>>45385523
Care to elaborate more? I'm interesting in this.

>>45385680
I've heard good things about REIGN. Never played though. That one's ORE, right?

>>45385624
Here's a way I can see doing the life-path mechanic.

Each life event adds a +2 to two of your pilot stats, +1 to all the others. There are 21 possible combinations. You could devise some kind of random table and maybe fill out the rest of the table with whatever oddballs you feel are appropriate.
Players roll three times on the life event table, adding the modifiers as appropriate. This will give everybody stats ranging from 3 to 6, with a total of 27 points across all their stats.

So I'm making a Digimon themed game for some friends. (I actually found a PDF file with a mostly complete ruleset so I'm using that and adding some stuff/changing some stuff)


One of the things I'm adding is a pool of items that the players can choose from. The pool is shared, so once an item is chosen, no one else can select that item. These items are mostly for RP purposes, though some have some benefits as well.

These items will also help lead into which crests the players obtain, but are not a definitive "you get this crest because you chose this item".

So far I have

Telescope, which leads into courage
Emergency Supplies, which leads into reliability or sincerity
First Aid Kit, which leads into reliability or love
Wilderness Gear, which leads into ? (maybe reliability or sincerity)
Laptop, which leads into knowledge
Notebook, which leads into possibly either knowledge or sincerity
Heirloom, which can lead into friendship, love, or light (I'm not sure about adding a light crest either, since Kari was kind of special snowflake tier)


Any suggestions?

>>45386557
>telescope
>not goggles

>>45386072
REIGN uses ORE, yeah. It's a wonderful game and is the basis for the homebrew that I'm working on, which is basically a sci-fi supplement for the system.

1d4Chan has a basic write-up on REIGN's random chargen here:
>https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Reign/Random_Characters

It's so much fun that just randomly making characters is a kind of a game in and of itself.

>>45386736
>>45386772

Got it, thanks anons. Which crest should that help lead into? Courage? Hope has like nothing so far...

>>45379486
I haven't looked the discussion on maths, but maybe have different banks of suits available depending on the background? Like someone from here usually has these suits, while these guys usually have these suits. After that they can have small modifications to the suits. Then there's the rogues/mercs which not only have the option of picking a standardized suit, but also a completely customized one (roll the stats), or alternatively, you have a larger capability of modification, be it positive (illegal parts, etc.) or negative (bad maintenance, lack of supplies).

So, in lue of magic items tied to progression in my system (magic items are their own thing), I'm thinking of giving players the choice of carrying Icons, which grant certain circumstantial bonuses are are generally consider more of a superstition than straight up magic. I'm trying to push magic in two directions, Superstitions (occult things, old wives tales, spirits and generally more mystic and ethereal) and Arcana (hard defined spells, workings with mana and proven universal workings).

Icons are items, either holy symbols, totems to spirits, artifacts from far away or ancient places or objects said to contains "soul radiation". They grant bonus to certain actions or effect Experience dice.

There is a widely held belief amongst the Superstitious that the Soul will radiate energy, during times of great personal distress or moments of high emotion. If an item accumulates enough, either through large singular Events or long-term proximity, it is said to hold parts of the person or persons souls, allowing any around it to slip through the divide between the Mundane and the Spiritual more easily, effecting events in unforeseeable ways.

Example Icons would be things like you're great-great grandmother's teapot, your pendant of Shaelogoth, the hilt of your father's war-sword, your late wife's wedding band, a Key-Chime to protect a house from intruders or a crystal from an ancient Alaeish tomb.


Thoughts?

>>45385355
>>45385624
This is been super helpful in clarifying a core problem I was having. Would >>45386072 allieviate these problems nearly entirely?


I'm intrigued by the life path mechanic as it'd also serve as a way of explaining the world to players.

Would there be one life event table or more?

>>45387432
Depends how in-depth you wanted to go. I'm a fan of fluff-heavy worlds, so I would do a table for each chunk of life (childhood, adolescence, adulthood), but that would also make it a lot more complicated.

>>45387432
I'd recommend checking out the beta rules for the Infinity RPG by modiphius. It uses their 2d20 system that's really interesting in itself, but has a really involved life path system. Same with their Mutant Chronicles game on the same system.

Here's a link to their online character builder for Mutant
>http://mc3.modiphiusapps.hostinguk.org/

It also does the thing from >>45385624
Where life events are how you get stats. So if you were in the military you'll get physical stats, but if you were in engineering school you'll get more mental stats

File: MSL_202_L03a_Intro_to_Terrain_Analysis.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

I've decided to use pdf related as inspiration for my game's chapter on terrain building.
What do you think so far?

>OAKOC
Use the OAKOC acronym to stand for key aspects of terrain building: Observation, Avenue of approach, Key and decisive terrain, Obstacles, Cover and concealment.

>Observation
How far out can the characters see? This will be determined by the presence of cover and concealment, and by the player character's own wisdom and skills.
The GM will need to factor in lighting conditions, atmospheric conditions, and all kinds of obstructions that block line of sight.
The GM will need to determine observation for both the player characters and their enemies in order to determine who can and can't see whom.
Spaces on the map that the player characters can't see should be covered up somehow.

>Avenue of Approach
When drawing the battlefield, designate one edge or corner of the map as the approach. This is where the players will place their character tokens during the setup phase.

>Key and Decisive Terrain
Every combat scene should have an objective that the player characters are after. We refer to this objective as the key, although it doesn't need to be a literal key. This should be placed on some edge or corner of the map opposite from player character's approach.


>Obstacles
The intervening space between the avenue and the key should be populated not only by enemies, but also by a variety of terrain features to obstruct the player characters and make the scene more tactically engaging.
Most obstacles will be placed along the map's midpoint, and within the map's “jungles”.

>Cover and Concealment
The presence of obstacles will obstruct line of sight to provide concealment or cover to both player and non-player characters. This feeds back into observation. As characters move along the map and clear obstacles, you will have to reassess cover and concealment and thus reassess observation.

>>45387840
>>45383730
Are these suggestions, or hard rules for battlefield design. If they are hard rules I worry that GM's may feel constricted and limited in the fields they can design, but as a guideline or advice it seems very good. I haven't tried it or anything, but I would give it a go when I have time.

If you include this in your rules, some diagrams may be handy displaying what you mean.

>>45388743
Oh yeah, these are just guidelines. Even if they weren't, GM's would just houserule them anyway. But the idea here is to provide a solid framework to build from, and I'm using actual military training documents as a source of inspiration for that framework. I wonder if I should intersperse Sun-Tzu quotes through the game as flavor text?

Pump

File: class_revise.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

I'm thinking of cutting, consolidating, and reworking the class roster.

What are your impressions of file related?

File: shriek.gif (929KB, 245x170px) Image search: [Google]

929KB, 245x170px

>Can't fit my stuff into a single character sheet
>Not enough stuff to fill a second one

>>45395353
Add space for a portrait and background info. You could also increase the inventory size. I always find that theres never enough room for all the shit I lug around.

>>45386969
Sounds neat, though I'm skeptical as to how often they will come into play.

>>45393687
Alphabetical order looks really weird, like it's jumping around for some reason. Maybe order by role or element to improve it.

I was wondering how many rules are too many rules?
The current system I'm working on, all the rules themselves are pretty simple, a character fits on half a sheet of paper and all that.
The thing is that the system is designed for running a sandbox in. So there's rules for how to make an excel sheet for modeling economics and pricing in a campaign, messenger systems, fighting pits, running a church, mass combat, wilderness travel, dungeoncrawling, crafting, magic research, alchemy, herbalism, domain leadership, causus belli, etc. I'd describe it as being vaguely like OSR d&d except without classes or levels and unified 2d6 rolls. More in that it's muderhobo d&d that turns into capitalism ahoy and then turns into tabletop crusader kings II.

My brother keeps saying "It's a good system but your problem is that you're trying to simulate the world."

>>45395462
In all likelihood? Constantly, they are easy enough for a player to pick at least one up during their journey and I hope to give them enough usefulness that everyone will want one without them being nescessary or too powerful. Just things like "yeah I'll drop some money for that Shrine Maiden Icon, I'm not sure WHAT it does yet, but it's bound to be useful". And they they carry it around and discover that hey, it lets them reroll a D8 Experience die once a day. Or "hey, this silver spoon from my grandmother is a family heirloom, I'd better keep it around" and then they discover it lets you combine a d6 and a d4 Experience Die to get a d8, that's a hell of a deal, better keep that around. Or even things like, this Key Chime makes use less likely to get ambushed while we sleep if I ring it before entering my tent, I'm not sure how much but I'm pretty sure it does.

I'm thinking of having a rule that having too many icons starts to either not do anything, or actively backfire as too much Soul Radiation is floating around your person.

>>45393687
Please group them by Role.
The Role > alphabet when sorting this kind of data.

Your symmetry is very strong save for the controller+defender roles having all 4 of the Fort defenses while the leader+striker group has no Fort saves between them. Not a complaint, more of an observation, and likely your design decision to make narrative sense of the defenses.

If you try to decrease the number of classes, you'd have to decrease the number of attributes or even roles themselves.

>>45395537
Honestly, there's probably some niche that likes that level of detail in the rules, and doubly so if you can summarize each new rule as you encounter them in a sentence or two. Imagine a situation where the PCs decide to do something odd, and the GM looks through the book and says "Sure, there are rules for that. Simply put, its A and B, then C. Got it?"

If you don't want to get rid of all the stuff you already came up with, try writing an easy to learn summary for everything. Also, I'm not sure how the term 'sandbox' can be applied to RPGs, given that almost everything gets houseruled and stuff anyway.

>>45395537
Years ago I jumped ship from the simulationist boat to find myself on the narrativist choo-choo.

What I had been trying to do was create a turbo-equation that could take whatever coefficients were at play and calculate. It's great to have "disoriented" instead of a general "has disadvantage" in your rulebook but there was a point where I decided to let the story take over to provide details instead of a reference page full of the status vocabulary.
I had gone from GURPS to Fate. I still can't believe it happened but I feel like I didn't lose much in the transition.

>>45395743
Sandbox in the sense that the gm creates a setting and then allows the players to roam freely in it. More the gm is "neutral arbiter of what occurs" than storyteller and the "story" is "whatever the players decided to do."
The rules so far seem fairly concerned with things like providing a framework for economics/trade, the flow of information, and focused on promoting and rewarding exploration. The first two are important when the gm is trying to maintain a facade of neutrality and allow emergent story to occur. The players might travel to a city to get a mcguffin not because the gm wants them to travel there but because it's a reasonable place to find it, etc.

I'm thinking in it, the rules aren't focused on things like "how far can a person jump on a roll of 15?" I feel like most gm's can figure out things like that themselves given any basic task resolution system. I'm more concerned with things I don't see covered too often in books.

I think if I can keep the rules simple enough, it'll work out well. Since it's a real broad amount of rules, I absolutely need to keep the amount of concepts a player or gm has to work with as low as possible. My goal with playtesting is that the gm can run the rules and "interpret" player actions through them. So players don't need to know the rules so in-depth. A guideline I'm using in playtesting is "Did the results seem reasonable to the players even if they weren't told the rules?"

So, what is a good "low success %" and a good "High success %" for starting characters in a noble/bright setting?

>>45396642
15%, 45%.