A thread dedicated to discussion and feedback of games and homebrews made by /tg/ regarding anything from minor elements to entire systems, as well as inviting people to playtest your games online. While the thread's main focus is mechanics, you're always welcome to share tidbits about your setting.
Try to keep discussion as civilized as possible, avoid non-constructive criticism, and try not to drop your entire PDF unless you're asking for specifics, it's near completion or you're asked to.
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How do you feel about non-standard names for common mechanics? Pretentious, nice to have, mandatory? Does it make a difference if the mechanic is being used in a surprising way?
For an example of that last question, I'm working on something that's mechanically feats, but each feat contains both mechanical bonuses and plot hooks. I'm leaning towards calling them Steps and feat chains Paths, because of the weirdness.
(But I'm more interested in starting a discussion than actually talking about my system.)
What do you think about this?
>>45953137
>>45955681
RPGs are a mix of improv theater and boardgames. Usually with the theater being a frame tale so you can play some boardgames. There's tons of material to plunder among modern boardgames. And by all means, pick silly, tactile games. I recommend Catacombs (again), String Railway, Dixit (or Mysterium), and Bunny Bunny Moose Moose as wild enough starting points. Also Bandu and Tok Tok Woodman are Jengi-likes.
And I'll raise you one - improv theater where you have to react to your actions succeeding or failing at the roll of a dice is one thing. But there are a lot of improv comedy games out there. Can any be twisted into an RPG?
>>45955681
neat
What are some good ways to encourage players to build big, fat decks in deck-building games? I'd like to avoid thin decks because the game is supposed to last around 30 "turns" and the progression scheme demands players to get a new card each "turn". Making players want to avoid buying new cards when buying new cards is supposed to be their reward is problematic. I need players to always want more cards.
One idea I had is that when your deck runs out you spend a turn "reloading" i.e. skip a turn but that sounds unfun in practice.
>>45959194
Make mill op
How well do you maintain a disciplined approach in game design, /gdg/?
What design principals to you employ in your designs, and how you adhere to them?
>>45959194
>>45959896
This, make remaining # of cards in deck an important resource.
How's the Bioshock game going?
>>45960338
Consistency is a big thing for me. Its a pain trying to remember every rule, so following patterns, such always rolling high is good, or specific wording, is a must for me.
>>45955610
I think they get pretentious when they're presenting the pretence of being different to the obvious term. If your feat-alternative is genuinely different to DnD feats, then go for it (and since not all RPGs use feats, you might have to anyway, legally speaking). If your system for quantifying how good a character is at things outside of combat is called "enumerated competences" and not "skill points" then you're just being a wanker.
Steps and Paths sound pretty straightforward, which is another good point for them. Not going for the oWoD thesaurus words, eh? Much better for a term that isn't being used in game.
>>45963161
Didn't some game use Aedile for the GM? (And not a game about life as a Roman gladiator or something where it'd be appropriate) When I start picking alternate words, I worry I'll come across that pretentious.
>>45964939
>some game
FATAL, in fact. And given the meaning as a term for a master of ceremonies, draw your own conclusion as to why they didn't just use the term GM.
Picking unusual words grabs the reader's attention. As long as the thing you're highlighting isn't "look how many words I know" you're probably OK.
>>45965677
That was FATAL? Haha, somehow I'd remembered the term being in something merely bad.
>>45955610
One thing I think you should always do is call the GM the GM. Anything else will just be ignored and called the GM.
>>45966013
Well, I think it depends.
In OD&D the GM is called the referee.
In WoD the GM is called the story teller.
In these cases the names accurately communicate the GM's role and the game's priorities.
Now, for my game (needlessly different though it may be in sections) I would just call the GM a GM (and I do) because it just doesn't serve any purpose to call the GM something different.
But in some games, it does make sense to call the GM something different.
>>45965977
Only thing I heard about it is that it has rules for rolling for the size of your anus circumference. I think that says it all.
Hey all, I'm making a homebrew system in which there are 5 skills which can branch into different specializations.
>HUNTING
>GATHERING
>TAMING
>CRAFTING
>SHAMANISM
Its a stone age game, so what sort of abilities would be interesting for each skill and what are some specializations that might branch from them?
>>45966013
I actually think the GM is the most fun place to rename something. I have no problem with Storyteller. And I was using Guide for a while, which I'm still quite fond of, but the name got stolen for a character archetype so I'm back to GM.
If there's something really in-genre like Stage Manager or Announcer (or, ironically enough, Aedile) then I think that's pretty cool.
>>45969281
>>45967175
pretentiousness
If your GM needs a fancy title to make himself feel superior, well, more power to you i guess.
just means yer GM is a bit of a head-up-ass egotripper, but hey: if he's runnin' yer game, i guess you gotta call him by the name he prefers.
My players call me 'fucking asshole', but i admit i deserve it, i don't give them an easy time.
This overdone need for fancy weird words is a definite failing of the industry, in my opinion - i presume it stems from ego as well as legal considerations?
>>45969530
I think you're perhaps reading too much into this.
Similar to how fantasy games use "races" when the thing they're describing are more accurately species, the terms we use are an extra tool to fit into the game's genre.
>>45969797
>>45969530
While I'll grant you the term "story teller" used in White Wolf games comes with an air of high-falootin' superiority (and I will say that every WW ST I've ever met has been a pretentious twat), using the term 'referee' in OD&D does encourage a very different mindset.
'Dungeon Master' implies a more adversarial and... executive role. Referee implies a more impartial, hands off role; it's the opposite of pretentious.
>>45970160
'referee' i can get behind
'game master' is standard; but, i see now that you point it out that 'master' could be misconstrued and ego-inflating. fair point.
'dungeon master' always struck me as benign (thanx to 80's d&d cartoon methinks); but i s'pose it carries some certain connotations of adversary-ness. fair point.
But other than that: pretention!
(rulesmaster might work; but there's that 'master' term again....)
I'm looking at doing a heavily modified pathfinder, one of the modifications being Epic6.
I'm trying to make some interesting classes that play better with epic 6, this is what I have right now.
I've made some changes with the hope of making combat more dynamic, this includes changing the attack roll to 2d10 to create a curve of results, and replacing the static 10 AC that everyone gets with a roll of 3d6 to be made as an opposed roll. Has anyone done something like this or have some advice on making combat less static?
>>45959194
Remove any trimming down cards whatsoever.
Have more 'draw X cards', though you'd need something that adds variety to it.
Discarding to play cards is also an option, that way with a fat deck you'd have less cards that you need to play and can just throw them away.
Other card powers would also need to be modified to still "work" even with a fat deck.
>>45954792
Is it possible to make a game system both "gritty" and "heroic"?
I'm thinking the "average person" has 5 hp, modified by Con/End/Str/whatever, so between 4 and 8 hp. If you were doing GURPS-tier grittyness the characters would also have this much. I have guns dealing d8 or d10 damage, swords dealing d6 to d8 damage, so this means most people die in 1 to 2 hits.
In a "heroic" game characters start with 10 + Con hp, so between 9 and 13 hp. NPCs still have the same base of 5, so characters are tougher.
The only thing I'm stuck on is how they gain HP in a realistic setting, and how to cap it off. I want it to be so that character's can't have too much HP, but just buying HP one point at a time feels too weird; I want them to have to buy it in increments, like with D&D hit dice. But balancing it would be weird, because more hp might be too powerful compared to other options.
What do you think? I'm looking for a damage system that minimizes bookkeeping. With this I can usually track damage with a d6 since most NPCs and mooks will have around 5 hp, and a lot of times they will go down in one shot.
I'm considering adapting the Savage Worlds damage system instead, since that is minimum bookkeeping at it's finest, but a system like that is hard to balance without using exploding dice.
What do you think? It's meant for a multi-genre system.
Looking at the Publisher Guide (HUGE thanks to whoever contributed that and the formatting guide), how do you deal with orphan/widow lines, where individual lines are left at the top and bottom of the page? I'd rather not burden my book with non-essentials, or remove essentials, but is it okay if I increase line spacing somewhere or would that be too obvious?
I'm currently working on an unholy blend of wargame and rpg in the manner of something like mordheim at a regimental scale, with fairly considerable customization of regiments as they become more veteran.
A concern is that due to the wide variation two units that look nearly identical on the table top might have, a player may not be able to judge the effectivness of a block of men merely by looking at them without indepth knowledge of his opponents army, however considering it's intenede to be a campaign this would be mitigated by having fought your opponents units since they were fresh, so you've likely gotten used to the peculiarities of the Sea Drakes and the Scarn's Pikes and the Hounds of Ice even though they're all just slightly differently equipped blocks of mercenary infantry, since you've been scrapping with them since they were just generic mercenaries. Does that sound like it could become a serious issue?
>>45975110
Ask yourself what hitpoints represent in your game. Are they meat points? Are they an aggregation of luck meat and skill? Ask yourself how many hits on average a player character of a certain the ought to take and how much randomness you can afford. Balance around the answers to these questions.
I'm trying to come up with a good c9nflict resilution mechanic with a good average weight.
I'm leaning towards shadowrun style hits and misses, but I'm thinking of D12's or D8's, for using the mid numbers as mild success and mild failure.
What are other good dice resolutions that have good average and predictable rates of success?
>>45963161
>enumerated competences
This sounds too fun to pass up though.
>>45975110
> Is it possible to make a game system both "gritty" and "heroic"?
> (HP musings)
Low HP makes games lethal and tense, but it's not quite the same thing as gritty.
Gritty feelings are more achievable with debilitating damage. Standard HP systems are designed to avoid that sort of thing.
Gritty + ignoring your wounds to knock someone out is pulpy, which is kind of like heroic. I'd use aspects and have one of the effects of invoking an aspect be ignoring your wound modifiers.
Heroic in the sense of Conan or something is probably more about Cleave, damage reduction, and shitty opponents.
> I'm looking for a damage system that minimizes bookkeeping.
Also the least amount of tracking is 1hp. That's why wargames do it that way.
It's not damage, but if you're worried about book keeping, the first thing I'd do is drop D&D-style ability scores, and instead skip straight to the scores that do stuff. e.g.: Instead of dex adding to lockpicking, just have a slightly higher lockpicking score.
>>45975289
Professional grade layout tools have ways to adjust individual line spacing to fiddle with widows and orphans.
If you're willing to learn something difficult and grognardy, Latex is better at avoiding widows and orphans than most professional designers. (You actually usually have to lower its standards a bit.)
>>45976734
Pick out the percentages you want first, and figure out if you want anything special like diminishing returns for bonuses, or great successes to be unlikely (or more likely). Then pick dice that give you that.
If you only want percentages, a single d6 is probably fine. Or a larger dice if you care about finer than 16% increments.
If you want a bell curve, 3d6 has a lot of nice properties. The average is 10.5 (round enough to understand), and it uses few enough dice that casuals still will have them in their homes.
>>45959194
Just had another idea: how about making the treasure-equivalent give extra gold for every 10 cards in the deck+discard?
I have an idea about gaining levels towards certain skills in my homebrew based on raped KatharSys with 8D pools. I want to know what do you think about it.
Every time you use certain attribute/skill combination (attribute plus skill equals number of dices to roll), you have chance to gain one progress bar in skill (otherwise, you will need to buy progress with XPs), if you roll more than half dices as critical success (for 8D it is 8), you get one progress bar free.
This is powerful with low skills, as there is good chance to roll two eights with three dices, what is logical, as it is easier to learn basics of something faster... As the skill will develop, the dice amount will raise, and will be harder and harder to gain this free progress.
What do you think?
>>45969530
>fucking asshole
I can see a game written in the right tone, where the "GM" has a strictly limited set of actions and their goal is to destroy the players, benefiting from the term Fucking Asshole for the guy. Like if the Cards Against Humanity guys decided to make an RPG.
There's supposed to be a mind reading ability in my setting, where you can attempt to read the thoughts of NPCs to glean information out of them. My current system is pretty barebones, with basically rolling, adding a modifier, reducing my a hidden resistance the NCP has, and the final number corresponds to a table that goes from very vague "they seem untrustworthy" to "they plan on stabbing you while you sleep". Is there a better way to do this?
>>45969244
Hunting should probably split into trapping, large game hunting, small game hunting. Trapping with snares and rockfalls, large game with spears and woomeras, small game with slings (cause slings are great).
>>45981787
I'd advise making that sort of ability very rigidly defined. GMs who want to run an intrigue campaign (like one where a guy wants to stab up the party while they sleep) aren't going to be able to if there's a chance that the dice say the PCs learn this in advance.
More importantly though, the dice might say the PCs don't learn this, so the GM can't rely on the PCs having access to that information. Getting information to the PCs, proper in-character knowledge, is something very important.
I'd reduce the impact of dice rolls on the information received. I'd also set things up so that the ability gets a specific piece of information that the players can specify. Like maybe they get a certain number of yes/no questions. They can tell if the noble is interested in buying the artifact, and that he's willing to meet the PCs price, and that he wants it for selfish reasons (not unusual for a rich noble), but unless they actually ask "Is the noble secretly a vampire and planning on using the bloodstone in the artifact we're selling to awaken his ancient vampire master?" they won't ruin their GM's cunning plan steal ideas from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.
I was considering calling the GM the Witness to emphasize how objective they have to be to run my game, which is looking to straddle the razors edge of almost being high lethality, skipping mid lethality, and swinging all the way to low lethality. Originally, though, I was going to call them MCs, which makes me think it may have been from an urge to plug gimmick in random places, so I'm not really sure anymore.
My biggest worry with terminology right now is easily that Everything is Capitalized as a result of capitalizing mechanical terms, having them all heavily interplay with each other, and trying to be concise. I /could/ break it up with odds and ends by making it more conversational, but a 12 page document can become 20 pages quickly that way.
Started writing a small wargame based around Populous The Beginning. Moved house recently and lost the motivation to do anything with it but think im ready to dive back in.
The attached PDF is really just an evolving ideas document at the moment but let me know if you feel im onto something.
>>45981691
Could also be a storytelling game where the fucking asshole is supposed to:
- Make sure the characters' victories are hollow, not worth it, or only serve to make things worse.
- Only allow good things happen if it gives the characters more to lose.
- Prevent characters from succeeding if they can't manage one of the above.
Guess I will link this here too.
>>45985256
How do you get into the funding and manufacturing side of making a war game or TTRPG?
>>45981787
Excerpt from Rogues to Riches:
>Bardic Knowledge: Any metagame knowledge relating to plot cliches or patterns the Guide typically uses is now in-character knowledge, and the layman accepts this as "bardic knowledge" instead of thinking you're insane. It doesn't work on metagame knowledge about mechanics.
Likely not be appropriate to your game, but maybe you'll get some inspiration from it.
>>45985586
Well, you're not doing it in the 80s-90s, so you have access to consumer 3D printing. That and a print shop should get you a display copy.
From there you can show it off on Kickstarter or just try and present the idea to a publishing company, similar to how books get printed.
If you get it Kickstarted, you can take it and the money to a publisher and get your KS run made, and that might be enough to get the publisher to pick you up.
>>45985586
Funding would probably be from investors, side businesses, or your own pocket.
Manufacturing would probably be about contacting a party that handles this stuff. I know Stonemeier Games has a manufacturer in China they're employing to handle Scythe's production.
So yeah, lots of hidden leg work behind the scenes.
>>45970160
Storyteller was chosen to reduce the egorrip aspect of d&d and it's clones, actually..
Remember that WW got started in the very early 90's and the DM mindset after, what, almost two decades? WAS very adversarial.
We have a very different mindset and education these days about the social dynamics involved, the social contract between players, etc. Plus it's not limited to your chums are school or neighborhood LGS. More stores are around catering to TTRPGS these dats, and the Internet had been smashing the exclusivity of locale face to face rpgs (though it has its own can if worms with people devaluing groups and being flakey as hell.....)
>>45985729
>>45985700
So basically find nerds with money, get used to eating Ramen, and avoid bank loans if possible.
>>45985840
Never spend your own money, unless you like being poor.
Have a decent business model. You're essentially starting your own company and developing a product in one, which is kinda dumb to do as one person or even as anything short of a large collection of people doing specific tasks.
>>45985925
I don't know shit about business, I just wanted to produce rules and miniatures I'd like to see out there.
>>45960656
Anyone who doesn't appreciate a minimalist design has never had to juggle a metric fuck ton of rules for shit that adds very little value to the game.
-------------------
I'm working on a quick and dirty combat system for a skirmish game that I've had kicking around in my head.
The basic dynamic is meant to be risk versus reward.
The theme of the game is that the players are wearing E.V.A hardsuits in space. Fighting takes place mostly in and around stations, ships and asteroids.
Weapons ( in general) have a higher chance of hitting at close range, and melee attacks are auto-hits but you open yourself up to a counter attack. There isn't really a maximum range but hit chances go to shit past a certain point.
For heath you have armour points that you lose as you take hits, but once these points go below 10 you start making "death saves" on a d10. If you roll above your remaining armour points you die.
I'm wondering if I should use a dynamic changing death save or just have a static unchanging one that's tied to each type of suit?
I think the former ramps up tension as well as puts a definite end to incredible lucky streaks, but unchanging stats are easier for my brain to handle. Plus I can adjust by adding enemies that insta-kill people who are on death saves.
>>45986023
If you don't want to run a business, you'd be safer producing the rules and miniature schematics for 3D printing on a website somewhere. Atleast you wouldn't have the risk of suddenly going bankrupt or something.
>>45986127
I was hoping to build up material through commissions, get a prototype up, etc. Then yeah probably that or find someone with better sense to manage that end of it.
Maybe I should just make a skirmish game/RPG and hash out minis later...
>>45986379
Make the minis as 3D models, import into Tabletop Simulator. Try to make a game people actually enjoy playing. Then use that fanbase as the base for a kickstarter for physical copies.
Use the money to contract with an injection molding shop that knows how to do these things. Pandagm does good work - there could be better ones out there, do your research.
When making your initial models, make sure they'll be injection moldable. 3D printers can do things that injection molders can't, but they cost wildly more and are only really useful for prototyping. For injection molding, there should be some angle where you could sandwich your model between two forms and pull them off in a straight line. It's also best if any thin pointy bits are along the seam between the forms.
One way around the limits of an injection molder is a sprue. The sprue still has to obey the limits, but then you make your players put together bits in a way that would no longer be moldable. But it makes your game less accessible.
I'm trying to develop a health and damage system without HP and would like some comments about it. I will use it for a more modern game, but that's it.
Because examples are easier than long talks. Here is one:
Alice and Bob are fighting against each over because.
Alice manages to hit him. Now Alice rolls to find out, how good the hit was.
She rolls 2D6 and tries to get the highest possible value ( 2-3 < 4-5 < 6-8 < 9-10 < 11-12) and gets a 6.
Given her specific weapon, this means that Bob gets 4 Bloodloss, 3 Pain and +1 additional Pain until the end of his next turn.
Pain is going to be a simple negative modifiers on Bobs tests. Luckily, Bob can try to shrug it off, but he only manages to ignore the temporary Pain.
After each Long Interval, Bob will have to do a Health check. Each failed test produces more Bloodloss. Once his Bloodloss track reaches a point, the check will be necessary at the beginning of each turn. If his Bloodloss track is full, he dies.
Hearing something alarming, Alice leaves.
Bob manages to land in front of a street doctor. The street doctor succeeds in his Medicine test. Bobs wound is closed. It won't produces any more Bloodloss. Since his last open wound is closed, he won't get anymore Bloodloss.
Any comments ?
>>45971792
Nechronica calls the game master the Necromancer, which is also a term for the BBEG(s). This is because the Necromancer has created the dolls to provide amusement in the blasted ruin of future earth.
>>45965677
>draw your own conclusion as to why they didn't just use the term GM.
They used that because they wanted historical (also mythical scientifical) accuracy* on their rpg, they also selected the book font garamond based on the fact garamond was a important thing.
*if they actually did it right is another story
they also wanted that every player had the same chance (the reason of unrealistic stuff like random adult haircut), and that the game has 'hard fun' (imagine what some say about df to see what hard fun was suposed to be). This contradict with the first 3 ideas, because life is not hard on some aspects and randomization is unrealistic on some aspects like random religion and random haircut for adults
>>45988546
they also got statistics wrong
imagine you select your own country of birth at random
you have an extreme chance of being a chinese.
Now imagine you then select your religion at random, you have a high chance of being catholic.
You will problably end being a catholic chinese man, a thing that is hard to exist, but that happens since the second table doenst take into account the first one
>>45988589
You inspired me to come up with a new mechanic.
Roll 1d6, 1d8, and 1d10 together. Result A is the d6 plus the d8. Result B is the d8 plus the d10.
If anyone ever wanted a way to make correlated dice rolls, now you have your system.
(If you're in the business of selling dice, make them all d6s and instead have white dice, green dice, and white and green checkered dice.)
>>45987843
You can just straight up die because a part of you is no longer functional. Probably because it has holes in it or is crushed or contorted or molten. If you truly want to do something realistic you need to account for attacks which just instantly kill the victim because human bodies are machines and machines can break.
>>45989068
Addendum: in case you are not on a misguided quest for realism, why use such complicated mechanics instead of something simpler which gives the game the desired feeling? XCOM uses hit points but still feels gritty because the numbers are tuned so that getting shot is a big deal.
