/gdg/ - Game Design General

>>53676345
>>What's the best way of handling turn order that you've come across?
I really like Shadowrun's approach. You get one random number based on dice, and one flat number based on stats. Everyone goes in order and once that stops, a new turn order begins with initiative -10, so anyone with more than 10 initiative acts again. of course the whole "decreasing the number every round" thing can be simplified by counting extra turns (A15, B6, C3, A5)

Only issue with that is that it separates COMBAT and NON-COMBAT characters very harshly

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Let's start off with complete insanity. I'm going to be refluffing Don't Rest Your Head as a comfy Animal Crossing homebrew. Instead of collecting madness and going insane while fighting nightmares, it'll be collecting grumpiness and going home while helping your friendly neighbors.

Prepare to be COMFY

>>53676894
That's something I did not expect when I suggested that you read Don't Rest Your Head.

I don't think anyone would've expect that. I'm still kind of dumbfounded, but I guess it works. I'm interested in hearing how it works / worked out.

>>53676345
What are everyone's thoughts for tracking fatigue for players, but not for mooks/baddies?

I'm trying to cut down on the material components required to run NPCs, and since my game is card based, I was considering just giving mooks 13-27card decks.

>>53677462
As long as it doesn't give enemies a direct advantage over players, Enemy mechanics should be made separately and simpler than their Player equivalent. Each player is in control of one single character, while enemies and NPCs depend on one person (the GM) to keep track of everything. Do your game, your GMs and yourself a favor and simplify mook rules to your heart's content.

>>53677462
Sorry, I should have clarified: after using a card, it's discarded until you rest. Therefore a players discard pile is a physical representation of the fatigue they've accumulated.

>>53677522
Is it expected for a single mook to survive through an entire deck?

How many cards do you need to use before you defeat one mook?

>>53677565
A mook on average will only last 1-2 attacks, with a card being used for each attack.

At higher levels a single card could be spent to take out multiple mooks with a single action.

I'm considering breaking NPCs into three tiers: single court, single color, and full deck.

A mook would be single court, a "champ" or "Lt" would be a single color, and a full deck would only be used for key NPCs.

>>53677662
In that case, tracking fatigue for them is pretty much meaningless. Go ahead.

>>53677498
>>53677739
Thank you for your input.

Hey guys I'm making a game for my fifth graders (I work at a school) I'm not using a system just basic knowledge of rpgs and games in general.

So far if made some races some classes and they enjoyed that just basic fantasy. Elves, dwarfs, gnomes, humans etc. I also let them if it's creative make their own.

With classes they are also basic warrior, knight, archer, mage etc.

Each class has its own stats and each race has its own traits.

The stats work:
Str - is damage and health
End - is defense and health
Dex - is ranged dmg and movement
Agi - is movement and dodge
Int - is spell damage

It's what I got so far we ran a couple quick quests that worked okay and helped me tune the game a bit more but any advice is welcome. I know I could steal from like dnd but meh.

>>53676345
>What's the best way of handling turn order that you've come across?
There's nothing wrong with Dnd-style initiative and rounds, but there are also some decent alternatives.

Tick-based initiative works just like a clock. Ticks are divisions of time and there are no real rounds. All actions take an amount of ticks, quick actions taking few ticks and hefty actions taking many. Actions happen simultaneously and resolve on their tick count, so you can think of it like casting times from any MMO.

Phase based initiative resolves the same kind of actions all at once. You could have a movement phase followed by an attack phase, or you might divide phases by attack range which can represent range and reach. Using phased initiative is useful when you want to accent a certain aspect of taking actions, like the range example.

There's also a certain speed based initiative where the slowest characters declare their actions first and the fastest declare last. However, actions are resolved fastest to slowest to represent the fast characters' ability to react.

>>53676345
I like this OP.

>What's the best way of handling turn order that you've come across?
Let's break down the question a bit. You can be asking a couple different things here...
- What is the IDEAL way to handle it?
- What is the MOST PRAGMATIC way to handle it?

In my opinion the "ideal" turn order system is to have the GM decide who goes next every time, based on his understanding of the situation and characters involved. But that's not very pragmatic because dumb people exist and they'll ruin this.

The most "pragmatic" system is one that even total dummies can understand and that nobody can argue about. Therefore the best way to handle turn order is to make it very static, predictable, and almost arbitrary like just having a list of who goes next.

>>53677522
You should clarify a lot of things before asking meaningless questions without context

>>53679722
I feel like phases are the best idea but take the most work to design. And what if the phases don't have labels, but just 3 phases per round or something, and there are ways to "cheat" and have your character do an action in a different phase than normal? For example, withholding a bow shot until the next phase, or rushing recklessly during an earlier phase than normal?

I'm trying to make a rule set for a game where every player basically has two characters in combat. I've been writing the rules using changing die type resolution, specifically a similar system to the one that regular Cortex uses. I want power levels to go above what that system was made for though and planned to use dice added together past d12. I know this will have some issues with consistency with higher difficulty roles. I think I have some solutions to that but I'm curious if anyone familiar with systems that use dice as stats thinks what I'm doing won't work well.

So I'm working on a game with a few friends with a focus on tactical combat taking inspiration from the best existing RPGs of that kind, but we're establishing a mechanical framework ahead of time, our expectations and goals for the roughly right places the numbers should be in. I figure it might be worth sharing it here and getting peoples thoughts on it.

We're aiming for fights to last 3-5 rounds, with a PC group generally outputting 20-33% of a standard monster groups HP per round, averaging at 25%

We're still pondering exactly how to divvy up damage amongst PC's. One role is focused from damage while three are not, so we're looking at an ideal 4 person group. We're currently mulling between 40/20/20/20 and 33/22/22/22. Damaged focused PCs doing 40% of the groups damage, twice as much as anyone else makes them more distinct without taking away very much from others, but also makes the damage gap so big that not having one, or having multiple in larger groups, might warp the combat dynamic. Them doing 33% of the damage, only 1.5 times the base, makes the disparity less of an issue but might also harm their identity and how much fun it is to play them, since you're not doing that much more than others, and they're also bringing along utility of one kind or another.

The other side of the coin is monster damage. We want things to be threatening without being overwhelming. We're pondering a monster group doing 100% of a standard PC's HP per round (with defensively oriented PCs having 50% more), but that gets problematic when scaling for larger and more difficult encounters, or single boss monsters, with a very high chance of eliminating a PC every round. But reducing it just makes monsters non-threatening and makes ordinary fights pointlessly easy and not cost very many resources.

We want to figure out these ideals and assumptions before we really go deep on the design, so we know we're designing towards a model that can provide a good balance of fun and challenge

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>>53677219
Well, I did it.

Enjoy some comfy roleplaying. It needs some editing and revision, but I wanted to get the general rules (plagiarized from the book and various 1d4chan homebrews).

But... there it is.

>>53679657
What do you use as resolution mechanic?

>>53680726
I should sleep, but Can't Rest My Head when I see something like this.

>>53680726
Allright, I gotta admit, that's pretty cute.

I never thought you could convert such a dark and brooding system into something like this... Don't Rest Your Head is supposed to be bizarre, but I gotta admit that it has nothing on this.

>>53680803
>>53680861
If you have any suggestions or edits (I already saw a few, I blitzed this for a variety of reasons) let me know.

I'm thinking of expanding this with some fluff and sample Befuddlements and a write up on designing a town and home.

I'm trying to come up with a fairly easy armor-health-wounds system. Currently running it where you cross-reference armor vs. weapon damage and roll 2d6. Based on a chart (inb4 reeeee) you have to roll a 2+ to a 6+. If one die rolls above, the character is wounded, if two dice roll above, the character is incapacitated (and probably dead). A wounded character who becomes wounded again is incapacitated (and probably going to die).

My question is: how do you make characters more survivable in this system without turning up the hit point bloat?

1. Soak rolls. Maybe something like Savage Worlds.

2. Increasing armor/toughness to reduce likelihood of being wounded.

3. Increased likelihood of surviving being incapped.

I want combat to be dangerous and deadly throughout the characters' lifespans without being a total shitfest of "you got hit, now dead" and "enemies ping with wimpy attacks back and forth for an hour."

>>53680980
I will see that tomorrow, now I have to sleep. Hopefully the thread is still alive when I return.

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I think this might work. Kind of a middle ground between DnD 5e's advantage/disadvantage and what that one anon showed last thread.

This probably isn't what you guys usually do, but ineed help finding some old homebrews
One was a system for bioshock, the other was for the world ends with you
Any help would be appreciated

>>53680726
>>53680861
I made a DRYH hack a few years ago for IRC roleplaying with friendly magical ponies, an actually upbeat and happy one opposed to the existential horror-themed one on 1d4chan. It was pretty comfy. I like your Animal Crossing game, I would run it for kids for sure.

>>53680982
http://anydice.com/program/bef4
Your odds seem to be the following:
>2+ is soaked 3%, wounds 28%, and incapacitates 69% of the time.
>3+ is soaked 11%, wounds 44.5%, and incapacitates 44.5% of the time.
>4+ is soaked 25%, wounds 50%, and incapacitates 25% of the time.
>5+ is soaked 44.5%, wounds 44.5%, and incapacitates 11% of the time.
>6+ is soaked 69%, wounds 28%, and incapacitates 3% of the time.

With this system even the toughest character who takes a hit has a 28% chance of losing one of their two 'hit points', and a 3% chance of instant K.O.. That is not necessarily bad, but since you want advice mine would be threefold.

1) Roll 3 dice instead of two. 0 Successes is a total miss, 1 Success glances and reduces future armour value that battle, 2 Successes wounds the target (action penalties?) in addition to reduced armour value, and 3 Successes incapacitates them. Your odds are here: http://anydice.com/program/56d2

2) Give durable PCs the ability to ignore X penalties in armour value; they're combat veterans who won't let a few glancing hits rattle them that easy. Give super duper durable PCs the ability to possibly negate a wound or incapacitate roll once per battle, they've got grit or determination that lets them fight through wounds that would fell lesser men.

3) Consider changing the dice from d6s to something larger so that armour penalties and bonuses aren't as swingy. That'll make everyone on both sides a little more durable by making attrition take longer, and it'll also prevent PCs from investing too heavily in armour and feeling unstoppable.

>>53681425
Nevermind, found them in the archives
A lot easier to find than i expected

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an RPG based around the idea that all of the player characters are robots

>>53676345
>What's the best way of handling turn order that you've come across?
Whole-party turns are the fastest. That doesn't mean it's always the best choice; sometimes it's worth giving up some speed to model some other thing, especially if you're going for a gritty/tacticool feel.

I'm currently using whole-party turns with one exception - if someone from the party with initiative attacks you, you can immediately attack back and skip your next turn. This encourages the vague notion of positioning (you get an earlier move if you attack someone who's logically next to you because they just attacked you) and softens the swinginess of whole-party turns (which is particularly strong in my system because every round is more dangerous than the last).

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>>53680573
First, kudos for designing your system this way around (turns, average damage, etc).

You should consider monster roles in relation to the PC roles. Are they the same? Is it okay if a monster role is missing?

4E has a damage-focused role and the optimal party is known to be mostly those because focus-firing monsters takes them out of the fight, and that's more impactful than anything anyone else can do. You should consider what other roles do that's so important that it's better than permanently reducing threat.

>Monster damage
Take a look at the first page of the Monsters chapter of Rogues To Riches. It defines monsters in terms of two stats, A (turns to kill average PC) and D (turns to get killed by average PC), assumes that monsters spread their damage around but players focus-fire the monsters, and then does the math to make that total up to a close battle.

>>53683573

I'll have a look at the book, it sounds useful. Thanks!

By those stats, assuming an equal number of monsters to PC's, they would take 4 turns to kill the average PC but only 1 turn to be killed by them. It's a useful way of thinking about it.

And it might be necessary to start thinking about roles etc at this point, you're right. We've been trying to work from the simplest possible form of something on upwards, so establishing a very basic combat dynamic based around pure HP and damage, wanting to at least have a vague foundation there before we start applying other roles and effects on top of it.

You are right though, how much impact the defence/support/utility of the other roles have will directly affect how much more damage the damage focused PCs can be allowed to have.

My gut says the 33/22/22/22 model probably works better, but I still worry that it might make damage dealing a useful and necessary role, but not a very interesting or enjoyable one to actually play, if the actual damage output difference between you and others isn't that significant. It might not be as bad as that in practice though, we'll have to see.

>>53680416
>You should clarify a lot of things before asking meaningless questions without context
Thanks for being snobby and providing nothing worthwhile.

In my system, you roll for initiative, & then every action as a value, every weapon has a "Heft" value, which is how much time it takes to draw & how much Initiative it costs to attack with it. This allows characters with daggers to so flurries & those with heavier weapons getc fewer attacks but will usually deal a lot more damage

>>53683976
I come to these threads literally to help people like you but when you don't give any useful starting information and ask questions that can't be properly answered it's gay. So it's not being snobby as much as it's trying to help clueless people

>>53680802
Sadly I've been having them roll 1d6 and 3or less is a fail and 4 or more is a succes. They seem to not be minding it and I just kinda come up with fun things to have happen on the fly.

In there first time playing we arrived at a town and they all went to the inn and as they were there I had goblins attack the village and kidnap the mayor, so they quickly defeated all the goblins then I had then chase after, I told them 1 person needs to roll to see if you catch up to the goblins on the road or if you fail they make it back to their hideout and will be harder to fight, they caught them on the road, it was a good fight.

On index cards they created their character sheets and use the back for inventory, and we made equipment cards and I had them draw what they look like. Things like bronze armor or bronze swords. Then I had them make draw their characters small enough so when I cut it out it would stand up and fit in the square.

I feel like I want to improve the combat and also make more options but I have to say I'm really enjoying this and thnx for the question makes the brain work and think. Props to you solid anon

>>53685204
That was me and true I am quite clueless and left out a lot of information but I have just begun so I will have better questions I'm sure or I'll crash and burn either way time to kill some skeletons!

>>53680416
The phases would need to mean something, otherwise there's no point differentiating the phases at all.

>>53680573
It sounds like a lot of your questions are about numbers. Frankly, numbers are some of the easiest things to balance and should probably be done last because they're that easy. You don't need to marry yourself to to many specifics early on because they'll hamper further design decisions. Not only that, but the best way to balance numbers is through playtesting which, in addition to being done towards the end of the design process (specifically for numbers), is something you can do yourself to figure out where the numbers should be.

However, if you balance around certain numbers and then add or remove mechanics after that testing your results won't be accurate anymore. You'd have to do a lot of unnecessary testing that could be avoided by more efficient design methodology.

>>53686144
The phases would be different from each other but not explicitly labeled. If there's four phases then loading your bow with am arrow might be one phase, steadying your aim another (optional), and releasing a third. You can start this process in the first or second phase, but those phases don't have to be labeled and 100% restrictive.

>>53686493
That's just tick initiative with 4 ticks.
Phases would need to resolve completely during that phase.

>>53686544
Oh, I thought ticks were just a continuous progression. Alright, my semantics were wrong then.

>>53686604
Whether they're continuous or roll over is irrelevant. Tick initiative deals with relatively minute details and inherently allows for simultaneous actions. Phases instead are divided by types of actions that are self contained and allow for mechanics that relate to the phase. Weapon range, for example, can be a factor in who acts first: ranged attacks might resolve actions before melee attacks to represent distance.

Each system might be didn't in implementation, but the gist is the same. Ticks have a "casting time" whether it's for spells, weapons, movement, etc. Phases resolve all of one type of action at once.

>>53687221
I understand what you're saying, but at the same time nothing you're saying is necessarily true if you just design it differently. It's all flexible, so there's still merit in brainstorming it, regardless of the terminology you end up going with

>>53685204
Guy got two answers before you decided to be a fag. So yeah, you were just being snobby.

>>53686377

This isn't balancing, exactly, and more creating an idealised set of values which will create, roughly, the experience we're working towards.

This isn't meant to constrain us or bind us, but to provide a framework we know makes sense to design around. Adapting and tweaking it over time will likely happen, but having a sold structure in place first gives us something to build on and a frame of reference to gauge things against.

>>53689671
All you need for a framework is "dps deals more damage than non dps". Your questions revolve around "should dps deal 40% or 33% damage a round?" which is purely about numbers. So you decide 33% is best, but then you have a mechanic that allows you to block damage, and then you want an archetype that boosts damage, and then you create a spell that weakens an enemy's armor and all of a sudden you aren't dealing 33% damage anymore.

Generally, you'll want to determine What can be done, then How it's done with numbers coming in last. Both the latest things and the most specific things you add are the easiest things to change. They're built upon all the mechanics and framework you created earlier, so any design revisions will have to pull away everything that relies on the mechanic you're revising. When you're making a framework, that's at the very beginning of the design process so you'd want to start with the most generic items first. If you start with numbers, you might decide that 40/20 is the better dps split, or even a 20/15 split which disrupts your previously stated numbers. Staying general allows the most flexibility when you're making an outline. Numbers are specific and don't provide flexibility of they're your starting point.

>>53690035

I feel like you're missing the point, still. We're not dealing with numbers, but proportions. Proportional relationships are implicitly flexible, and give us a good way of assessing and analysing mechanics before we've nailed down the exact numbers, because we know the general values we're aiming for in proportion to whatever else we've established.

>>53690435
And I'm saying there's no difference. I even provided an example where a simple change in your proportions affects everything you've posted in the thread. You're spending too much time on things that don't matter yet at this point in the process. If all you're going to do is wonder whether a character should deal 6 damage or 5 damage to an enemy with 15 health then don't waste time creating a framework and get some mechanics to work with first.

>>53676345
That question reminds me of an idea I need vetted. I've been working on my home brew and I think I've got a good initiative system here.

Combat is broken into 5 phases in which only certain actions can be performed.
>Ability Phase
>Characters use this phase to activate movement abilities and begin casting powerful spells. Turn Order here is lowest Instinct to highest.
So whoever has the highest Instinct gets to choose their ability/spell in response everyone else. The lowest Instinct character is stuck making a choice blind.
>Movement Phase
> Characters take turns moving in the battle space. Turn Order in this phase goes from fastest to slowest to fastest. The second movement opportunity (the slowest to fastest part) is called the Follow Up, which grants characters the opportunity to spend any movement they didn't earlier.
The fastest character gets to go first and last, allowing them to both influence and react to the movement of others.
>Ability Phase 2
>Characters that chose to pass in the first ability phase can make choices here, again this is highest to lowest. This phase is mostly used for tactics (situational buffs) or weaker spells.
I'm considering getting rid of one of the ability phases, but I'm not sure which one. If I drop the first then there'll be no opportunity to use movement based powers, but if I drop the second then martial characters will have to declare their tactics before moving.
>Action Phase
>This is when attacks are made and spells are cast. Turn Order is determined by weapon reach, with longer weapons striking first. Ranged weapons use Range as Reach for this purpose, but adjacent melee attacker's can make attacks of opportunity.
Spears will be useful for their first strike potential. I'll need to find a way to balance them against shorter weapons.
>Effect Phase
>Characters don't act here. This is when fire burns, poison damages and other environment effects take their toll.

>>53691646
The main idea here is to keep everyone engaged in the game. There's no waiting for your turn, everyone is acting in rapid succession.

The GM will have to list Instinct, Speed and Reach. But since there's no rolling for initiative these values won't change often.

>>53690716
>>53690035
>>53686377
I've used the approach they're using before, both on RPGs and non-RPGs, and it works very well, particularly for content-heavy games.

It makes it more likely for you to end up with a game that plays the way you thought it will, and drastically reduces how many rounds of playtesting you need.

>>53691646
Shit, Ability Phase 2 is lowest to highest. I mis-typed.

>>53691646
Have you tried running a few combats with this system? I'll be the first to admit that games don't always play as they read, but this sounds like a nightmare to keep track of.

>Ok, so now I'll move again...
>Wait, did I spend all my movement at the beginning? Or do I have 2 squares of movement left?
>Ok, I'll cast this spell in Ability Phase 2
>You can't! Remember, you did something in Ability phase 1 a few minutes ago!
>Hey, you can't go first in this phase! You only go first in ability phases, no action phases!

Keeping players involved is good, quick decision making is good, but keep tracking in mind too.

>>53692034
A trial combat has been held with my roommates, and there was a bit of that.

Which is why I'm thinking of ditching one of the ability phases, or allowing characters to act in both.

The movement phase issue is more of a slapped on fix. I can't let the slowest character move last, or the faster ones might never end the phase next to them (rather counter intuitive, the followup was invented during the trial game).

I suppose one solution could be to make the movement phase just go slowest to fastest, or maybe movement points are restored during the followup.

>>53692150
I don't know if it fits in your framework, but you could add a resource mechanic to assist in tracking:

Give each player an ability, movement, and action token. When they act, they turn over the appropriate token to the GM.

For the movement section, why not just flip the movement order from slowest to fastest? It even uses your justifications for the Ability phase
>So whoever has the highest Instinct gets to choose their ability/spell in response everyone else. The lowest Instinct character is stuck making a choice blind.

>>53692253
Not that anon, but slowest to fastest movement can have some issues of its own.

Imagine two characters an equal distance from a door. One is fast, the other slow, but both can reach the door on their turn.

The slower one will beat the faster one there, as he gets to move first.

>>53692150
Having the followup restore movement could be a viable solution, but I think movement speed would need to be low for all characters, given that they would each move twice in the phase.

I dunno, might need testing.

>>53691646
Given that powerful spells are cast in the first phase, can I correctly assume the caster can't move in the second phase?

>>53696195
Correct.

If they want to move they're gonna have to use a weaker version of the spell in Ability Phase 2 (AP2).

>>53692253
I've considered having a resource system, but some of my fellow players are really bad at keeping track of stuff. The tokens seem simple enough though, less of a resource and more of a tracking method. If I keep the system the way it is I'll keep the token idea in mind.

Is it a bad idea to have custom abilities as one of the primary means of character progression in a low(er) fantasy RPG?

Say they get a certain number of points to build an ability for their character to use, defining aspects of the ability such as the number of targets, range, damage, whether it inflicts a status effect, and so on. Leveling up/training gives them a few points to allocate to these characteristics, or they can use them to build another ability to use.

Would players have a natural tendency toward being one-trick-ponies, or would they try to diversify while having one or two abilities a bit above the rest? Does their tendency toward either direction depend primarily on how the combats end up developing, or will that be a negligible factor in whether they go for one super-ability or a full skill set?

How does health and damage work in your game? This is a topic I continually revisit in my designs. I've gone through three or four mechanics now. None really satisfy me.

>>53699587
I think I've seen systems that do this before, but I've drank a little so it's cloudy. Was it Mutants & Masterminds? Wild Talents? Can't quite remember.

>>53701525
M&M has a system for custom powers.

I'm my experience players tend to have a few minor powers to make their lives easier and one "Fuck You" power they've pumped to the max.

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>>53701525
I've come to like "Take damage, roll against damage to not keel" kinds of deals. Keeps damage always risky.

>pic related
So, there are three aspects here, Strain, Despair and Fatal injury.

You get Strain when you get damaged in any way.

You get Despair when you push rolls to succeed (Think it as Fate that doesn't have a limit).

You get Fatal Injury when these two overlap. So if you had, say, 7 Strain and 4 Despair, you would have 1 Fatal Injury. That's on a 10-step tracker though.

>how it works
Rolling under Strain or Despair causes you to Fall, meaning you are removed from the fight in some way. Rolling under Fatal Injury (basically rolling under all 3) means that you take a fatal wound and the character will be shelved unless you're given some proper help soon. I say shelved, because dying is only one way out. The character might betray the group, run away like a coward never to be seen again, get a mental trauma hard enough to be unable to go on and so forth.

My older game has an ascending dice type of a deal, and it had buffer health, where you need to take certain amount of damage before you can be given wounds or status effects like disarms or such.

>>53699587
The natural tendency in point buy is to put the majority of your points into one good trick. That also tends to be the mechanical optimum, so anyone who tried something else will be weaker. Especially if they invested in non-combat abilities, which can make the game "take turns being able to contribute" at best.

Something that would be interesting to experiment with is making the rules give everyone something like 200 points to spend on one power and 100 points each to spend on two more powers. That gets everyone to the fun part of point buy (optimizing a cool power) without having to deal with shaving points off of unrelated skills and making uncomfortable apples to oranges comparisons.

>Does their tendency toward either direction depend primarily on how the combats end up developing?
It's a little easier to keep track of one big thing. Point buy is inherently a bit complicated, so people will naturally simplify. And it's usually easier to put a lot of oomph behind a versatile tool and let raw power make up for it not being a perfect fit.

But the biggest thing is that, no matter the system, you're generally only using one ability at a time (in each action), so every point that's not in your biggest ability is wasted for that moment.

>>53701525
> How does health and damage work in your game?
My HP represents temporary physical damage. You take the entire brunt of the blow on your shield arm and now your hand is numb. Your helmet protected you, but you have a minor concussion. The lion scratched your arm badly and it's not serious but the pain slows your reflexes. When you take enough of that (go negative), you start failing to defend yourself and take the kinds of wounds that need actual healing.

It's a really evocative way of describing things, but I'm really just using it for the same old meatpoints system. Knowing now how well this way of fluffing damage worked out, I'd like to explore a system designed around this idea of damage some time.

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How's this as a tentative for attack rolls?

>Character has an Accuracy of Stat+Skill+Mods
>Weapons have a Damage modifier
>Character rolls 2d12+Accuracy
>Result is compared to target's Armor or Evasion (whichever is highest)
>If the attack hits, add the Damage modifier to the total roll
>The effect of the attack is defined by how far above the final damage roll is from armor

i.e.
>Character rolls 11 (Die) + 5 (Accuracy) for a total of 16 against the target's 13 Armor
>His sword's damage (3) is added to the roll (19)
>Overflow is a total of 6, which causes 2 light wounds to the target

it should be simple enough but i'm pretty sure i'm missing something very important here and that it's actually shit so far

>>53701525
For the moment, I have 8 hit locations (head, 2 arms, 2 legs, 3 torso) each with their own hp total. HP for each hit location equals your Defense stat (1-20) which also governs what armor you can wear. Armor acts as physical damage reduction. There's also a Magic Defense stat that reduces magical damage. For the moment, I have the maximum damage you can output per round at 10d6 or equivalent, regardless whether its physical or magical.

You can "break" hit locations by reducing their hp to 0. Broken locations are considered incapacitated and unusable. A broken leg might reduce movement speed, a broken arm can't wield a weapon, etc. Death occurs when 3 of the 8 hit locations are reduced to 0. I also have rules planned for severing/impaling locations, but those are currently undecided.

Overall it looks good from a math standpoint. Balance between martials and spellcasters was a supreme concern, so I decided that mathematical balance was the direction I should go. I still have to deal with the non-math abilities that each can do in addition to solidifying armor, but I'll be able to mimic the numbers and actions once I get each missing portion completed. My system is designed to concretely place the boundaries of minimum and maximum capability and then let the player run free within those bounds. In a way, it could be described as a sandbox system. Freedom to create anything within the boundaries and tools the system provides. sandbox system would be good for my elevator pitch

>>53704456
Nah, alone its perfectly good. One roll, accuracy and damage self-contained. Works the same for hp or wounds.

But, you don't need a new term "Overflow" when 'Difference" already exists.

>>53704756
THANK YOU, I knew there was a word I was missing in my vocabulary here and it definitely wasn't overflow

>>53703170
>>53701525
Thanks, guys. That gives me some things to think about and work around.

Let's say that I have a lot of things in my system that look like this:
"Deal 3d6 damage, then, if the target has less than 4d6 HP, it is turned to stone."

How can I phrase this in such a way that the thing that there was 4d6 of in this example uses a keyword? So I can then go on to say "Increase all the THIS_THING from your attacks by 1d6," or "You resist 5 HP worth of THIS_THING."

>>53706273
Threshold, perhaps?

"Deal 3d6 damage, then the target is turned to stone if it fails a Threshold check."
and
"Add 1d6 to any Threshold check your attacks trigger"
"Lower the result of Threshold checks you make by 5"

I'm not 100% satisfied, but it's an idea.

So I've been re-visiting a dice pool mechanic I was tinkering with before.

The current take I'm working on is when a model attacks, you roll a number of D8/10/12 (haven't figured that out yet, just that I want some more granularity than D6) equal to the weapon's power, and the target rolls a number equal to its armor. Each scores a success on a roll equal to their respective attack/defense skill. If the attack rolls more successes than the defense, the target takes a point of damage.

When a unit activates, the models can do a combine attack. One model makes the attack, and you add one die for each other model that gives up their attack to contribute. The other models have to be in range to add their attacks. The idea is multiple models ganging up to harm a high-armored target, or one with high defense scores. The limit to one damage is to prevent dumping all your attacks into one action.

The numbers I'm looking at are about 2 base for power and armor on the basic mook-level model.

One thing I'm wondering though, is to add exploding dice to the mix. It would give a little bit of swing to add those rare heroic moments, where a model that couldn't succeed does. The other concern I have is that without it, you'd run into situations where some models may be next to useless due to the math. Like a unit being reduced to 1 model having to fight something armor 3+.

I'm not 100% on the math yet, though.

HALP

I don't know how to apply this to anydice.com so I don't know the statistics of this.

Roll is d% (2d10). Usually the player decides which die is the tens and which are the singles.
But When in advantage the roll comes first and the highest is the tens.

Example (because English is not my native language):
Red and yellow die.
Normal roll: player chooses red dice as the tens. So if he rolls 7 on red and 3 on yellow the roll is 73.
If he had advantage, it would be 73. If disadvantage, it would be 37.

The idea is simple, but I don't know how to calculate how meaningful this is.

>>53706334
It's better than "phantom damage" which is the way I've tried phrasing it in the past.

>>53708500
output ([highest 1 of 2d10] - 1) * 10 + ([lowest 1 of 2d10] - 1)
output ([highest 1 of 2d10] - 1) + ([lowest 1 of 2d10] - 1) * 10

>>53703129
I'm rather excited for this mechanic--makes me think of burning Stress for bonuses in Fate (which I may or may not employ, depending).

The diagram you use makes sense, though I wonder if the two could be represented as two vertically stacked axes, so that the half-moon is oriented 90 degrees forward.

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>>53703129
>>53712521

Just a little sketch of what I meant
Maybe it sucks but maybe this orientation shows the "movement" of left to right more easily

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hmmmm

>>53716562
Feeling uneasy seeing Vigor 3 times but I guess that's your "not die" stat; I get anxious when one stat does too much

>>53717434
It's affecting me as well. One of the things I want to do with stats is to have as few as possible and allow them to be flexible, but even then, looking at one stat doing too much kinda throws that away.

>>53714234
I originally had them kind of like that way (didn't have the diagonal lines that make it clearer), but that does look pretty nifty. It implies motion pretty well.

I might implement that, thanks. There are actually other benefits to the vertical stacking I just kind of didn't realize, such as erasing them. With the current system, each part needs to be erased separately, but with vertical stacks, you can just run the eraser through it.

>>53714234
Listen to this dude, it's way better the way he drew it.

>>53718160
Working on a beta, but I gotta sleep.

Are there any games that handle size differences in an intuitive way? I might want to use it for things like not-poise, grapple mechanics and accuracy and other stuff that aren't really reflected by other stats, but I also don't want to make everything go to shit.

>>53719242
Size is an attribute in some games, or so I recall--it's more robust than "strength" which measures muscle-to-mass ratio (often creating narrative weirdness when strength is high and constitution is low).
From here, it's sensible to calculate HP (meatpoints, in this case) and can be used to modify miniature size or even determine raw strength.

>>53719242
Advantage if you're bigger than your opponent, disadvantage if they're bigger than you.

>>53719419
>>53719425
those are some of the goals i have, last build i had a size secondary attribute that worked like "size gives you vigor (resilience + strength), vigor doesn't give you size" and the difference between attacker and target sizes would be added to accuracy (effectively giving you -1s if you were bigger than your target), but that REALLY bogged the combat down

i wanna know if there are any more streamlined alternatives for size itself, not for its uses

>>53676345
I am conveniently running into an opportunity to test out my modern Kick-ass, Watchmen RPG system so that I might actually finish it.

>>53709899
>>53708500
I thought that result looked suspicious so I learned some more about anydice's (weirdass) semantics and found a better answer:

X: 1d10 - 1
Y: 1d10 - 1
function: advant A:n to B:n {
result: [highest of A and B] * 10 + [lowest of A and B]
}
function: disadvant A:n to B:n {
result: [highest of A and B] + [lowest of A and B] * 10
}
output [advant X to Y]
output [disadvant X to Y]

--or--

On a normal d100, each roll is 1% likely. On this advantage roll, the multiples of 11 are 1% likely, the numbers with lower 1s digits than those are 2% likely, and the numbers with higher 1s digits are 0% likely.

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How would you feel about:

>Starting Careers that give the players a "starter pack" of items to choose from and general stat/skill bonuses given for free to reflect the character's past experience, but leaving the players to go free besides these starting bonuses - someone with a Soldier career may end up being a knight or a ranger in character creation, but grow to be a spellblade through narrative and leveling
>Level-based progression in which the players gain experience to reach a new level and once they level up they use that same experience to buy points in stats, skills, specializations, purchase abilities, spells, traits, having the advantages of free point-buy with the measurability of level-based systems
>Abilities, Spells and other things asking for a minimum rank in a stat or skill rather than a level

not entirely sure about the starting careers and open level progression because i'm not sure how i really want to handle progression, but it's something i could work wit

>>53722511
I'd try to match it with the rest of your game.

My game has a strong dichotomy between things you can't control and things you can, so a Starting Career path would work best for me.
However, if your game's theme and/or mechanics lend themselves to strict adherence to certain paths (like in a class-based system with no multiclassing, or in a sports theme where players have their specific roles), then it might be better to have a mechanics that mirrors what you already have.

Quick question about attacks that I want y'all's gut feelings on.

Assume you can get 5 attacks a turn. The first attack always does stated weapon damage.
There are also special attacks like Trip, Sunder, or Disarm.

Should additional attacks after the first deal weapon damage like before or should they deal something smaller like +1d6 for each additional attack.
Should special attacks deal full damage, partial damage, or no damage in addition to the special effect?

As a player what would you want to play with
As a DM/Designer what would you want to deal with?

I know there's no context, but I'm just looking for what y'all's feeling about em are

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>>53714234
In on itself, this design is better, I am not disputing that.

But when you put it into the sheet, or at least when I try to, fitting things becomes pretty hard. It just looks a little off all in all, where as while the old version was harder to get ahold of... I must admit that it was prettier in pure aesthetic sense.

>>53724956
There was nothing wrong with the first one.

>>53704456
Looks 70s as shit desu

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>>53683361

>>53725180
Well, yeah. I'll probably stick to it anyway. Better not try to fix what ain't broken lest you might break it.

>>53725227
Why even ask for advice then. You've already been told it's not intuitive, so although it's not "broken" is not good either.

Your new design adds extra shit, that's why it's not an improvement. Look at it as if you're a stranger to the rules, you'll understand

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>>53726139
This didn't begin with me asking for advice. In >>53703129, I explained how my own health system worked because an anon asked "How does health and damage work in your game?". I wasn't planning on changing it in the first place.

Also, pic related is the one I'm currently going with, I just decided to make it much more streamlined, because numbering the halves makes it much more manageable. It leaves a little bit of empty space on the character sheet, but it seems pretty manageable, honestly.

Also half of the reason was that I had accidentally saved over the original, but it wasn't that good anyway, and it was pretty easy to redo.

>>53721604
Thank you.

>>53722511
One of my many homebrews work like this. Each class have a "starter perk" exclusively when choosing the class at first level. Allied with unrestricted multiclass, this makes a Warrior 1 / Wizard 1 different than a Wizard 1 / Warrior 1.

Each class works like a skill tree that improve options instead of growing big numbers

>>53726416
Honestly I prefer the vertical semi-circles. It gives the image of clasping when they meet

>>53726961
At this point, I'm not even sure what to do anymore. I'll probably do several different versions and just think about it later.

How do you guys feel about Luck as a stat or resource?

>>53728710
I think it's fun, as long as it is balanced. Characters based on dastardly luck can be some of the most entertaining / infuriating characters that I've come by.

>>53728710
I had, a long, long time ago, desperately wanted a luck stat in the game.

I felt like there were situations where no skill or preparation could protect you--your demise was pure dice.

However, luck stat would be really fun if you need something to help randomly generate tiers of treasure in a chest, or items in a container you're looting. I'd probably do this through a combined party luck to avoid that goofy situation where you sent one character to open every box.

If I post a pdf of my game's SRD here, what will happen?

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>>53731130
lmao stolen

real talk, you might think your game is the new hot shit but it's not - you lose nothing by posting here because you won't get anywhere with it outside of /tg/, and even if you did, people borrow from and butcher systems all the time because it's a part of the hobby

post it.

>>53731175
Sw33t. Time to get muh shit stoled. BRB bb

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have at it
RIP

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Hey, everyone! I had brought you a couple of game rulebooks to glance through. I'd be thankful for some useful critique and feedback.

The Ruin: Cossacks, Steel and Magic:
A turnd-base mellee strategy set in the world of XVII century Eastern Europe. Mystery and epic battles are included.

File: TPC-com.pdf (580KB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

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Combats of Two Planet Chronicles:
A simple game of space ship combat, made in the world of TPC, a satiric hard-sci-fi world, balancing between a dystopia and dreams of the brave shiny future, decorated with both optimism and scepticism about new technologies.

File: Rulebook (eng).pdf (4MB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

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Caldaern:
A tabletop/forum strategy game set in the foreign world of Caldaern, a weird war-torn technofantasy world, where nothing is what it looks like, the standard tropes are deeply reconsidered andwhere kinda-WW1 tanks fight against giant pissed off geese with magic lasers!

>>53726416
This one I like. Its simple and reads very clearly. Even without the full context of the rules, I still know exactly how the bar works.

>>53734100
Well, then it seems like it worked. I tried to streamline it and remove clutter while trying to use each element to explain something.

Good, good.

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>>53676345

Any advice for a total beginner who wants to write his own game ? I want to keep the system as simple as possible in a universe that would be Far-West Tolkien.

>>53734898
First step: Read games

Second step: Evaluate what you want from the game. For your game, things like playing cards and poker chips might fit the game's theme

Third step: Try to find games that have elements that sound fitting

Fourth step: Start butchering the games, and if a shower thought gives you an idea good enough to work with, throw it here and we will cannibalize it and tell you if it tastes weird

Fifth step: Never, ever use a d20. SIKE! It's actually to never stop thinking about how you want your game to operate. Never butcher anything because it's cool. Butcher it because it makes your game better

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>>53734898
Read a variety of systems. Some people try to design games having only seen D&D. Even more try to design games having only seen rules-heavy combat-focused not-actually-D&D-but-I-mean-basically-yeah games.

And try to nail down what you're trying to accomplish as concretely as you can. "As simple as possible" is actually a great start, but the way to do that is to make a Lasers & Feelings hack named Guns & Horses. I assume that's not actually what you want, but what's wrong with it? Try to come up with concrete things you want that can't be done that way.

>>53735053

I thought about cards too, but I don't really know how to use them. Plus I feel that i would end up with a system more complicated that I would like to.

>>53735053
>>53735113
>read a variety of systems

Already done that, I've done nothing but read systems for the past six months.

So far I've done :

-World of Darkness (old one)
-Gurps lite
-Savage Worlds
-Fate
-In Nomine Satanis Magna Veritas 5th edition
-Microlite
-Star Wars Edge of the Empire
-Dogs in the Vineyard

Surely some other ones but I lost the names

>>53735148
Read about games that use cards, and try to see if there are any that pique your interest.

Seriously, there are so many games out there, finding a system that has cards while being relatively simple is really not that hard.

One of the simplest ways to do this is to make the game into a perpetual game of poker, for example. Everyone knows how to play poker, and if they don't, it's really simple.

Say, there's a maximum hand size of 7, and every time you use a "combination", say, a three-of-kind, you only draw two cards. So using bigger combinations makes for better successes, but makes you weaker until you gather more cards.

Then make most of the things in the game work as as compared hands, meaning you need to beat the other side's hand to win. Then you can have things "Fate (or whatever)" points you can use to make a lucky draw if you're at disadvantage.

That's a five minute idea cobbled up. Making up proto ideas like this is pretty simple once you get the hang of it.

>>53735198
Allright, then you can advance to point 2. You can use this thread as a helper for that. Wait, let me scavenge that old post of mine for another person where I had a pretty good set of questions to answer...

>Do you want the game to have skills?
>Do you want the game to have rolls vs static numbers, contested rolls or both?
>Do you want to have modifiers, or should bonuses to rolls be handled in some other way?
>Do you want fast resolution or slow resolution?
>Do you want high granularity or low granularity (ie. bigger/more dice or smaller/less dice)?
>How much can the player affect their roll?
>How much can the player affect the final result of a roll?

Answer these here and everyone will have a better image of what you're looking for. Just think of "dice" and "roll" just as "the resolution".

>>53735398

>Do you want the game to have skills?
yes

>Do you want the game to have rolls vs static numbers, contested rolls or both?
both

>Do you want to have modifiers, or should bonuses to rolls be handled in some other way?
I don't know yet but I think bonus will be handled in other ways

>Do you want fast resolution or slow resolution?
both

>Do you want high granularity or low granularity (ie. bigger/more dice or smaller/less dice)?
Less than 5 dices

>How much can the player affect their roll?
They could reroll it or just some dies provided they have the right bonuses

>How much can the player affect the final result of a roll?
Not too much but they can try in case of great danger

>>53735504
All right.

Which games of the ones you have read attune best to the ideals of the game you're thinking about?

Which of the games have you actually played?

Which games have singular mechanics that feel like a good match for these?

How do you want to express the difference between fast and slow resolution? Say, because in the west, there's two kinds of people, the quick and the dead. How do the risks and rewards of the two differ?

I said to the other anon that the resolution system is the last piece in the puzzle of a game's design. You need to design the game to accommodate it, and you must design the resolution system to accommodate to the game. So having an idea for how it work is good, but designing it till finishing is not.

It might sound pseudo-smart, but the fact of the matter is that if you come up with a resolution system first, the other parts of the game will inevitably be forced and shoehorned to the vision of the resolution system, that might make them convoluted and difficult.

See, when you start crunching the numbers, you should use the numbers in the game. I have learned that using "floating" numbers (numbers without any context, just there for the calculation) is not usually a good way to go. You should be able to write the bulk of your game's rules without using a single "floating" number.

A good example of this is "Your long jump is [2 + agility score] feet". To me, that seems like bad design, because the game doesn't accommodate all the numbers already in the game, instead relying on that 2, a floating number, to bring stability to the numbers. You're not gonna remember that on the fly.

When a game has a lot of floating numbers, it's usually a telltale sign of overly complex design, where floating numbers are used as a substitute for actual design work, instead just getting the number value to be "close enough" to what you would expect an average range for said roll to be.

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>>53736008

>Which games of the ones you have read attune best to the ideals of the game you're thinking about?

In Nomine Satanis - Magna Veritas - Lost Generation but onbody here knows it because it's not in English

>Which of the games have you actually played?

All of them at least once, I even DMed some

>How do you want to express the difference between fast and slow resolution? Say, because in the west, there's two kinds of people, the quick and the dead. How do the risks and rewards of the two differ?

It's not entirely focused on the wild west actually, it's more like a general metaphor for the history of the USAs. The first campaign I planned for this gmae is actually inspired by Gangs of New-York

>>53731362
No guarantee I'll read all 30 pages. I like your intro except for this:

>or, if system mastery is reached, with none of those elements at all
What does "system mastery" actually mean to someone who would need to read an intro? I would replace this with something along the lines of "Beginning players require XYZ; advanced players may forego these components with time."

I would also rename your "Defined Design Goals" section to something more straightforward, if not rework it into prose. Either way, bold the list items (though not their explanations) to make it easier to read.

That's a very cool core mechanic, but you need some kind of visual diagram illustrating exactly what you mean. I would include page numbers for the resources you can spend to boost your checks. I could not understand what you meant in the epic checks paragraph.

>All characters, whether controlled by a player or the DM, bear these similar attributes in
common
I would seriously reexamine this because that huge list of things is going to hamper DM improv.

You didn't list how many Dreams/Values and Flaws/Fears a character should have. Ardor is a scene-based resource, but you didn't explain what exactly constitutes a scene; similarly for Vigor in Hubris/Cowardice.

I would reorganize level and OC, making level into "Sub-Order" or something - a gradient of power within a single OC. So OC = 3 and SO = 5, means a being a halfway between OC 3 and OC 4. In other words, OC 3.5. Thus, characters climb up the foodchain within their OC.

Skills looks a little over-complex so not gonna lie, I skipped it. I've really taken a liking to games that narrow down their skill list into broad families that the character is simply generally proficient in, instead of giving lengthy lists of specific skills.

I would include non-natural language equations demonstrating how to calculate the various combat stats.

cont.

>>53736008
So, in short, don't think about the numbers of the game before you figure out how you want the game to play.

How would a regular roll be structured? Against a target number?

How is the target number defined? From the skills themselves, or defined by GM?

One thing you can do as a mental exercise is to plan the character sheet. Will there be more than one page? What are the most important parts of the sheet.

>>53736315
What is it about INS-MV-LG that fits the game? We don't need to be able to read the game to understand the underlying mechanics and how they connect, most of the time. There are hundreds of rules and systems memorized in the collective conscious of this thread, so someone will be able to catch the drift.

What is important though about writing is to just do it. Really, that's what's left if you know what you're looking for. Butcher mechanics, build the parts on some document where you check up all the mechanics that
1) The players must know
2) The GM must know

Your first draft will probably be a little underwhelming, an ugly duckling. But as all ugly ducklings, it has the capability to grow into a beautiful swan, if you just keep at it and raise it with care.

>>53736446

>What is it about INS-MV-LG that fits the game?

It's simple fast and fun, even more so than some systems like Savage Worlds.

In this game you are demons or angels battling each other in a secret war among humans. So for all resolutions the game uses what they call a D666. All attributes are ranked from 1 to 5 and you try to roll 3D6 under your attribute. The number of dies under or equal to your attribute is you number of success (up to 3), 111 is critical sucess and 666 is critical failure.

I'd like to have a system like this but the D666 is linked to the biblical background of the game so I don't know what to do.

>>53736375
The soliloquy mechanic really needs its own section - maybe even refocus the game more around it and less around combat stats/math. You said this was a story game but having a math-based, action economy combat minigame is reaching into heartbreaker territory. Is that really what your game is about?

Your terminology of memory and inventory isn't really clear. Your wealth status is held in your inventory? Just make it a free-floating stat. I like the idea of the inventory being reserved for important items and the inventory check being based on your free space, but the wording could be simpler.

With regards to Mysticism, again, is your game ABOUT a very complex, fiddly magic system or is it about the tales told using magic? Is it about telling a story in which magic is involved, or is it about six pages of rules on how to use magic? There is no right or wrong answer here, but your design seems pretty conflicted. That being said, I do like the idea of statuses associated with mystic order.

I've already covered my thoughts on combat, so that takes us to the end. My advice: think hard about the balance you want to strike between narrativist and gamist ideas; right now you hew strongly toward gamist design but purport to be a narrativist game. Is this the direction you want? Always remember you don't HAVE to have complex rules for magic or combat - this game would probably be better served by cutting down to 10 pages of more freeform, consistent mechanics.

>>53676345

What's the easiest dice mechanic to design a game around ?

-D20 ?
-D100 ?
-Dicepools ?

>>53736512
Oh, that's a neat little system. The system is really simple, it's a basically a success-based roll-under system.

Now for an example on this.

Dice poker. You have 5 dice that you roll every time. And the hand the dice gives is the amount of successes you have.

So:
0) High die
1) Pair
2) Two pairs
3) Three-of-a-kind
4) Straight / Full house / Four-of-a-kind
5) Five-of-a-kind

Pretty straightforward, and pretty easy to remember, honestly. The only one that doesn't have a concrete thing to remember it from is the Straight.

So, with this framework, how would you start making the skills work?

Even with this framework of a resolution system, how the attributes and skills are handled makes all the difference.

You can, for example:
1) Make a system where the attributes and skills determine how many successes you need.

2) Make a system where the attributes and skills define how many dice you can reroll and how many times

3) Make a system where the attributes and skills give modifiers to the final number.

As you can see, the game's inner workings change very broadly, even though the method stays the same.

So think about it, dwell on how you want to express the attributes and skills, health and turn order. Then you can determine how to make a game.

And remember, it's important to just have at it and try to do it. The first drafts won't be that good, they might even have fatal flaws that are not functional, but that's how we all started. My first game was almost functional until I dropped it. It had a serious problem with damage scaling and handling the various modifiers that change the playing field during combat. They could've been fixed, but I came up with another game, and the vicious cycle started.

Now, two years later, I'm finally getting to maybe publishing my game this summer.

>>53736928
Flat roll + mods is very simple, the only gotcha is that you need to be careful about situations where the mods total up to more than the dice.

Boring dice pools (X dice, count successes) are pretty robust too. They don't completely fall over if someone gets too many dice in a pool. They do have a "you must be this tall to ride" problem if someone with 4 dice wants to try something that needs 5 successes.

The other thing to note about dice pools is that basically every mechanic people use to spice them up (failures, varying success thresholds) ends up doing something really dumb and counterintuitive to the probability curve

>>53736940

The Problem with a poker system is that it would make cahnce matter maybe a bit too much

Need a little input from you guys, just kind of general opinions about Movement in Combat.

I've been working on my system for a few months now, and started play testing it with about three different groups. One of the things I was testing was two different forms of movement systems.

Tactical: Basic grid based moment, with a combat system based around the squares aspect ( Attacks that can knock back, defenses based on how far you moved, etc etc)

Narrative: Involves chopping up whatever the current combat scene is into different zones ( The tavern floor is zone 1, the kitchen is 2, behind the bar is zone 3, and upstairs is zone 4). With everyone able to move roughly one zone over a turn, with very speedy characters able to move multiple zones. Combat is built around this, with most things being " Hits target in same zone" or " Can fire up to x zones away".

I got positive reviews on both systems, but no clear winner. People enjoyed the extra complexity of the grid placed movement and strategies, but they also enjoyed the ease of use and extra narrative freedom of zone moment.

Anyone have any preference for this sort of thing? I have to increase my sample size.

I'm kicking around some ideas for a tabletop WWII wargame design, but want to kick the I-GO-YOU-GO turn system to the curb. The scope of the game would be with several to a dozen platoon-sized units (i.e. several tanks, half a dozen to a dozen infantry stands, etc. per platoon), and likely supporting 6mm to 15mm in model scale, and slightly more complex than something like Flames of War, but definitely not ASL complexity.

Any particular examples of good non-IGYG design that you guys know of, and why you'd recommend that particular approach?

>>53738567
One of the best quasi-IGOUGO for mass I've seen was GW's LotR game. It was IGOUGO in a sense, but ever phase, you completed everyone's turn. So movement, one side moved then the other before moving to the next phase, shooting, one side shot and then the other, etc.

I had played with an idea for large scale combat where any commanders had a command stat. At the start of the turn, you'd roll a die for each point the had and choose one of the dice. You'd then go in order from highest to lowest to complete the commander and a select number of units activations.

For example, I was use D12's, you had a rank 3 commander and a rank 1, while your opponent had two rank 2's. If you rolled a 6, 4, and a 1 on the rank 3, you could choose any of those as your initiative order, while if the rank 1 rolled a 5, he had to choose that one. You'd then go from 12 down to 0, with 0 being any units that did not activate with a commander, and at each step, players would alternate choose a commander and choose units to activate with him, complete their activation, and either pass it back if there was any other on that step, or move to the next step.

The idea was to give better commanders a better control of when they wanted to activate. The old game Confrontation had a similar system with random activation through drawing the units card and banking some for later, and the new Runewars uses the step system, but with fixed numbers on the unit's order dial.

>>53738090
It would mostly depend on the theme of the game you want. You could also consider naming zones as Adjacent, Nearby, Earshot, and things like that which makes the Narrative slightly more tactical.

>>53738567
You could do a very small tick initiative for each unit that's denoted by a d6 or another common die. Each unit queues up actions and denotes what tick they happen on with the die, so a unit might want to move twice and then shoot which will take 3 ticks to complete (or they'll just take a single action that requires 3 ticks to complete, it design dependent). Then you just have a universal ticker that shows what tick the game is currently on. All units that show a 2 resolve their actions, then all units that show a 3, then 4 etc. and you can just keep track of actions like a smaller clock.

There's a lot more usable initiative systems for use in RPGs because there's generally one individual keeping track of a single initiative, but wargames create logistical problems because you've got one person needing to keep track of multiple units. The best options I've seen in my very small amount of wargame reading are either IGOUGO with Teams, IGOUGO with units, or tick initiative. I suppose phases would also work just like the IGOUGO options.

>>53738872
>>53739393
Thanks for the feedback. Phased IGOUGO was one fallback I'd considered, as was doing individual unit activations with high initiative acting first. Though doesn't hurt to ask, in case there's a few options I'd not heard of.

One other idea I was considering was to not resolve unit losses until the end of a turn, so that who went first wouldn't matter anymore. Combat would - in theory - feel like it's being resolved simultaneously.
To add another layer to that, certain events - or certain units - could have losses resolved before the end of the turn. Things like surprise attacks, for example, or losses incurred during movement such as from a minefield.
That, plus a Phased IGOUGO seemed to kind of work in my head. Everyone moves, then everyone shoots and/or assaults, then finally losses are taken off the board and we start another turn.

>>53739595
This Is Not A Test, while a skirmish game, does use a similar idea, where you declare your attacks during your activation, but all ranged attacks are resolved at the end of the turn simultaneously.

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>>53676345

How do you calculate the difficulty table in a game ? I found this table for your average D20 D&D.

But for my system you roll 3D10 (and take either worst, neutral or best result depending on your attribute)+skill how would I calculate the difficulty table in this case ?

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How would one structure battle of the bands?

Pool all PC's In the bands rolls for the song? Pool all there stat bonuses into one roll?

Roll once for a song? Once for each verse and chorus? What kind f bonuses should I give for writing songs in advanced?

>>53740561
that honestly sounds like a horrible idea for a tabletop, anon

it could work as a videogame, but not everything translates to tabletop well - i'd suggest dropping the entire concept right now before you end up losing your time and/or ending with disappointing results and realizations

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>tfw your artstyle isn't serious, dynamic nor stylish enough to illustrate your game the way you want or imagine it

nyergh

>>53740561
I'd consider how it's supposed to tie into a session first. Like are we going to spend the session escalating our hipster band drama and use the actual battle of the bands as the catharsis that holds this thing together? Or is this just a game about band battles that live in a vacuum?

That first thing sounds so much better.

Band battles in media tend to be structured as crisis and solution. Like the other band's guitarist shreds out an incredibly technical solo and now your guitarist is on the spot. Which you could resolve with a skill check or something. But tying back into the hipster band drama catharsis, I think your guitarist has to shoot a meaningful look to the girlfriend who has been fighting with him about how much time he spends practicing, then do the requisite guitar solo. But you can only use that particular bit of drama once this battle, because now they've implicitly made up (for a week at least). And if he never burned that drama at the band battle he might've gotten dumped.

And I think that's pretty cool for an RPG. You're solving your problems with your other problems.

>>53740805
(Assuming that's your art.)

I think you're underestimating yourself on stylishness at least. Try using hatch shading (with a marker) to make things look serious. (Yes it's cheesy. Think of the character as taking themself seriously even if you think they're being melodramatic.)

Dynamicism is hard. You actually have to do the damn action line thing, and that doesn't make any sense until it clicks.Or I guess you could trace poses off HEMA and Judo fights.

>>53740805
is this some kind of reddit tier fishing for compliments shit?

>>53740521
>How do you calculate the difficulty table in a game ? I found this table for your average D20 D&D.
Well, it's pretty simple averages. Do you understand averages? If you do, then just directly correlate the odds of getting a certain number with the DC category.

GURPS has a better system for explaining difficulties because their entire system revolves around modifying the difficulty of things by a shitload of different factors, but it bogs the game down.

>>53738090
>Anyone have any preference for this sort of thing? I have to increase my sample size.
I LOVE grid based combat -- in tactical video games. Tabletop? No thanks. Grids suggest a high level of simulation, but they can't afford to be deep and complex enough to do that simulation justice. Better to keep things "narrative" I'd say. You can create as much nuance as you want, and the GM can use common sense in every scenario.

Worry about writing good guidelines for narrative situations so that GM's know how to handle circumstances, but don't hard-code "rules" into it too much. As long as players know there is a solid logic to the design, they'll trust the narrative system too.

>>53736512
>the D666 is linked to the biblical background of the game so I don't know what to do.
Are you saying that the Biblical origin of 666 as the number of the name of an end-times figure is actually affecting your design? What's the issue? Sounds like you have a GURPS style system, although getting triple 1's or 6's is extreeeeemely rare

>>53741366
>is this some kind of reddit tier fishing for compliments shit?
it's more of an "I wish I was mike mignola" post and a bump at the same time, no compliment is gonna change the fact that even though i can illustrate my game i can't bring to images the things i imagine for it with my current level of art

>>53736584
Epic of Dreams here.

Wow, thank you so much for your replies! I really appreciate it, and your input will help me make this thing stronger!

I definitely will be putting illustrations in concerning most things, especially the CRM.

My logistics are bad and I know it, and I will have to hire an editor who is really savvy.

You are absolutely correct about the free form stuff. The way I've resolved it thus far is that the grittier rules are only applied when needed rather than held to as the primary authority in the game, but I absolutely agree with your statements. The game can function with just the CRM and mutual understanding of the characters in the scene at hand. To the end of streamlining and more free form play, I would say that the reason the magic system is as complex as it is is because it is partially contingent on the design space of both combat and Warrior characters. And I'm not wholly opposed to fiddling with combat or streamlining it further; how would you resolve combat?

I'm also not opposed to altering my design goals. I'm pretty happy with where it is now, even though I know that this is definitely not the final iteration of the game, and that I will have to really work on my presentation for the final product.

Again, thank you so much for your attention and insights. They are heard and welcomed.

>>53737815
Well, it was an example.

The idea is, if a game has a system you like, don't hesitate cannibalizing it if you think you can make it fit your game.

Start planning the character sheet. The necessary parts to your game will come to you.

>>53740805
In that case, develop it. Jump out of your comfort zone and try something different. Just because you are comfortable making mellow blues doesn't mean you can't make snazzin' jazz.

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Allright, almost done with my game. It was a big overhaul, but I gotta retry running a bigger conflict with it before I can put the final nails in it's coffin, called art and layout.

Any kind soul interested in walking through it?

>>53741501
>how would you resolve combat?
Take a queue from Apocalypse World and a lot of newer indie games: don't have "combat" rules.

Consider that in D&D, its descendants and many other games, there is an entire chapter of the game specifically about combat rules. This says that not only is combat a focus of the game overall (because the authors clearly focused so much attention on it specifically), but that it is a whole new minigame unto itself. The entire structure of the game shifts from one of relatively freeform narrative with skill and other checks, to a rigid turn-based, grid-based, action economy math problem. This is because D&D sets out to model a specific kind of dungeon-delving in which the expectation is that the players will spend most of their time slaughtering monsters for loot.

Contrast this with games descended from Apocalypse World (and many others): there is not a chapter about combat, because the rest of the rules imply that fuctionality as within the same framework as the rest of the game. In Apocalypse World, you never stop the core gameplay flow, the conversation, to determine abstractions like turn order, grid positioning, etc. Players say what their character does, roll the dice at the GM's discretion and then the GM narrates how it turned out for them. Even in combat. There is no such thing as action economy because an action economy is anathema to a conversation, which is what Apocalypse World tries to help facilitate; while combat often happens in the post-apocalypse setting, the conversation is actually about the characters surviving and retaining their humanity in a selfish, brutal world.

So I ask you: why do you have combat and magic chapters? Is your game really, truly ABOUT these things? If not, why is more than half the game devoted to them?

>>53740805
Definitely one of the things that gets me discouraged when I think of how I'm going to make a PDF cover.

I'd love to have that style for little characters explaining rules through blurbs, though.

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>>53742157
i guess that's true, i've been stagnating in the art department for long enough

>>53745567
it kinda works for little example illustrations and that kinda stuff, but it's not really useful for illustrating anything else
if i want to illustrate a gun-and-sword soldier battling a snapping dragon or a dude in a hoverbike with a spell in hand i'm shit out of luck

>>53745912
Kind of reminds me of Kill Six Billion Demons. I think it has potential, you just need to practice - even if you don't end up getting to the point you are comfortable illustrating the book yourself, even a basic drawing can be a huge help to a commissioned artist.

>>53676345
I'm making a tabletop RPG based mostly on little scenarios (between 1 ans 3 hours), in order to, one day, sell it, and I'm asking myself some questions:
Since basically all of the game revolve around them, how many scenarios minimum are needed in the basic book?
If there's creature in the universe (blobs, gingerbread men, shit like that), but the game is about human, are optional rules for playing a creature needed?

>>53747116
You can get away with fewer fully fleshed out and scripted scenarios, and the goal would seem to be releasing tons of cheap collections of little adventures, so it's all about how much you out into them.

Monster rules can be an expansion for maximum hand wringing.

>>53747188
Scenarios are basically a building to explore, not a lot more, so they are two or three pages long.

I guess you're right for the monster rules as an expansion. The book is short enough to make the expansion a great deal without a lot of work.

>>53746979
even though i started working on this and got the races down before i knew about K6BD, once I got hooked in it it has become one of my main inspirations for the setting, at least in the aesthetics department - tonkari and blue demons are pretty similar in certain aspects, so it's nice to see something already done working just fine with the kind of design i wanted

I want to design a short campaign for my 5e group around a new setting. We've been playing our DM's (first) homebrew for a few months, and while it's all right, the pacing has been incredibly slow, leading us to the same areas frequently with not much change. Also, the roleplay is stuck in "new player" mode, where people act pretty one-dimensionally and don't think beyond "what happens if I do THIS?"

That being said, I'm not experienced at this either. I've written some theoretical settings where I've crafted new cultures, which I really enjoy. I want to do a 1 or 2 session campaign that's dynamic and encourages interesting interactions in 5e, and hopefully, I'll have a better idea of what I want to do for a full campaign. Does anyone have good examples of something like this (in any system)?

>>53745912
Actually, I could see use for illustrations like that in my games.

Especially if the trend in my games continue, them becoming more streamlined and lighthearted.

What kind of game are you making? I think that's a more important question, seeing what kind of thread we're in.

>>53750810
Not even 12 hours since I practically finished revamping Misfortune, and already I'm on a new roll. Not unexpected, just so predictable that it kind of annoys me.

So, the idea is that I would make a game that has no rulebook, but instead an "Unrulebook". The idea is that the rules are mostly just made up and made to be broken.

The game master would essentially be "The Judge" who punishes the players for misbehaving (i.e. breaking the rules of the game) while explaining what is going on. The tone would obviously be cheesy and light.

I already have ideas, derived from my older games, but how does this sound like, especially as a oneshot game?

>>53751161
Damn, now I'm having the vision of the rulebook being written "twice", where the new rules (telling you can break the rules) are written over unimportant parts of the original rules.

It might be pretty hard to pull off, but damn would it be pretty cool if I managed to.

>>53747819
I've been wanting to write one of these myself, but I haven't ever started. What I realized is that you want to design encounters that teach mechanics to the players. Identify something you want players to do and create a whole scenario where players can practice and perform a mechanic or roleplaying skill.

>>53750810
heroic, nobledark sci-fantasy
i'm not taking it too seriously, because a certain level of goofiness is expected out of all games, but i'm trying to make it somewhat unforgiving and not-so-quite-but-kinda gritty in certain aspects, so I want the imagery to capture that kind of feel

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hahaha what

>>53756419
Just regular degrees of success? Just written kind of awkwardly.

>>53758270
Not all that awkward. It's perfect for a d20 where your result falls somewhere within the ranges. Modifiers affect the result which is how you'd get the 20+ and 10- options. Pretty simple.

>>53759028
I suppose another way to go about it would be to have a mod of positive 0-10 only. Roll 1d10, but determine whether the d10 roll is positive or negative based on circumstances (like an advantage/disadvantage mechanic) which would be pretty nifty actually.

>>53759057
So, you would always roll 2 dice, the success die and the modifier die? That's kind of like a simplified version of FFG Star Wars, except you can't have failures with advantages and so forth.

>>53759089
I was thinking more along the lines of two mods. One modifier for 0-10 like you might see from skills or something and then another modifier for determining whether the d10 roll is positive or negative.

So, perhaps, you roll an attack and your skill modifiers add up to 6. If you have advantage on the attack, you can get a result of 7 to 16. If you have disadvantage on the attack, you'd instead have a range of 5 to -4. That would be a weird mechanic, but it would also be really interesting.

>>53759028
>>53758270
Its not based on the dice range but in the difference between the final roll and the difficulty, so failing with 1-4 points of difference is a hit, but not a clean hit
That said, im kinda checking my ground here to see the options I have, im not really comfortable with this table, specially since its only a backwards engineered extension of the relative lethality table i posted before with the negative values added
I think i might just stick to having only the positive success degree to simplify things, or keep only the -0 negative difference tier
I'm still deciding on some shit so ill see how it goes

>>53756419
>-0 and +0
WUT

>>53760271
Less than 5 difference below or above difficulty, respectively
Its worded like shit though so dont worry about it
They're tiers to surpass, not results
0 difference is 0+

>>53756419
This needs inequality signs

>something doesn't work
>change it
>it affects something else
>change that other thing around so it works
>it affects something else
>change that other thing around so it works
>repeat a few times
>go back to the first one
>realize the elements i initially changed didn't work because of the things around it and that now i need its original state
>reverting it to its original state means nothing else works as i changed it

god damn it

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>>53676345
This is for a damage roll mechanic. An action players can take is to instead make two attacks at half damage, a sort of flurry attack. The standard damage die is 1d8, so is half of 1d8 performed twice mathematically better than a normal 1d8 or should I rework the mechanic?

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So, the pdf is basically the XCOM game translated to tabletop (seriously in pre-alpha stage). The original idea was to create a generic system that could be used for XCOM, Starcraft and any "humans versus aliens" tactical system.

But I'm just thinking of scrapping the generic bullshit and make it "XCOM: The Adapted Rules for tabletop RPG".
But I'm thinking its a waste of time.

Kinda of lost on what to do, not so much about the rules themselves. Should I try to keep the generic aspect, go XCOM or scrap all and take another route?

>>53745089
It burns so goooooood!!!

If I were to defend the fact that I have combat and magic chapters, it would be for the reason that my game is about modeling epic poetry in the same way in which DnD is about modeling dungeon crawling. If that wasn't well-communicated in the design goals of the book, then I'm still to blame.

I'd love to learn more about games which resolve combat like this. I'm just doing my best lol. I want the system to have just enough crunch to give the players' decisions weight- be that tactical, character designs, what have you. I've also designed it such that the combat and to an extent the magic system teach the gamist-centric Player how to engage in roleplay and have fun with it, by making their character perform better and more survivable through tough situations.

Epic literature is filled with combat and mystic events and elements, and drama.

If the only way to make this game age well is by burning these two subsystems, what do I replace them with? Can you point me towards more games that resolve these things in similar ways you're describing?

Perhaps some of my designer assumptions are wholly informed by DnD. Is that universally a bad thing when designing a dramatic game?

Thanks for your time and attention, as always.

>>53765751
There is supposedly a light at the end of that tunnel, some say. Don't give up. If your table is having fun playing your game then you're still winning.

>>53768352
I've heard it said that making an RPG generic is a waste of time, because then it will be less what you want to play and will never be exactly what someone is looking for. That said, making it so you can file the serial numbers off to play whatever is nice too.

>>53771307
Making a generic game is fine, as long as you make it stand in an unique place that has it's own kind of niche. Making an universal game, on the other hand, is a real waste of time.

It can be best explained with the meme game of its kind, GURPS. Yes, while many people like GURPS exactly for that reason, it has actually gotten to the point that GURPS actually has its own niche, that being mechanically complicated simulationist play, probably scifi. People who hail it as universal don't want to admit that it's actually just a niche game and not really all that universal in actual play. People use the rulesets that work for it, that only being a part of the whole catalogue.

>>53767778
Rolling 2d8/2 is going to have a steep bell curve towards the middle. That does not mean it's better, it's just less swingy. Dividing the rolls is still an extra second on the game clock, if that makes any difference.

http://anydice.com/program/2e01

>>53771307
A good generic system needs to become specific when you actually use it. GURPS does it using a billion splatbooks. There are probably other ways.

>>53772208
GURPS is universal to setting, but not genre. Like you said, it's mechanically detailed and simulationist. You could run gritty superheroes or gritty fantasy or gritty sci fi in it pretty reasonably. Silver age comics though? You can make it work but the rules aren't going to naturally take you there.

Risus and Fate are also setting-agnostic but genre-specific. And those are quite successful. There might be room for more in that category.

>>53768352
Say I have a party of space marines and a swarm of giant alien locusts. The marines are holed up behind two lines of sandbags overlooking a chokepoint, giving them good cover and a criss-crossing line of fire that should be a deathtrap for the locust swarm. But there are a few old air ducts that a locust could squeeze through and get behind the marines.

I've never seen a tactically crunchy system that covers this situation. The intersection of cover-based shooting and melee combat, specifically, is under-developed. Adding stealth in makes it even more of a mess.

And that's a really standard situation in sci fi. I think there's a niche that's under-served here.

>>53768352
Oh, another good way to do a generic system is to write a specific setting that generates the full set of situations you want to cover, but which is composed with enough cliches and expies that it's really easy to trim down into a specific other situation.

For example, the Federation was disbanded eight years ago. and all the member species' governments have reverted to paranoia and isolationism. Life is hard in the independent border worlds, where aid dried up and competing claims mean any planet can be invaded. The party is a rag tag crew of outlaws trying to get by on smuggling. The example party is an unlicensed Jedi (or maybe an unlicensed Terminator), one of the missing Locust Queens, a Grey, and their (human) captain.

Then if you don't want to play Firefly But With Aliens you drop all the race options except human, play a three-way war against the Greys and the Locusts, and call it Starcraft.

Bamp

>>53772795
Yeah, genre-specific generic games like RISUS and Fate work because they have their own niche. That's kind of the reason I believe in Misfortune somewhat; it serves a genre very well documented in RPG:s, but rarely implemented: slapstick comedy.

We all like the off moment when your friend rolls a fumble and totally fucks a situation over. But the comedy aspect is almost always reliant on the stand-up skills of the GM, so I made the player collaborate. To make failing fun.