Don't you fucking die on me edition.
Previous thread: >>47606277
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Reposting this for feedback.
And also throwing out a discussion question to get things going: How much uncertainty do you, or from your players, feels too little or too much. Classic uncertainty elements are things like not knowing what monsters are in the next room, not knowing about traps unless you make a search check, things like that. But are there times when you feel there should be more or times when even that seems too unfair in rulesets?
Personally, I like a higher than normal level of uncertainty. One of my favorite things in games like WHFB was not revealing certain equipment choices, it made for some decision making. Do you charge the unit of Night Goblins and risk the chance they had fanatics? Two units have set-ups that make best use of a certain magic item, but which one has it? Which unit has an assassin in it? Things like that. Not things that horrible skew the game, like hiding weapon loadouts and such, but little bits that add some excitement.
Is there any real reason to use anything besides 3d6, d20, d100 or dice pools with d6,d10?
>>47617724
I've seen a few elegant games that used 2d6 and a couple very minimalist ones that I liked that used 1d6, but not really. Any dice that aren't d6, d10, or d20 really don't have a reason to exist as anything but a curiosity.
>>47617724
I've been using D12's, since they give you a bit more room than a D6.
>>47617724
i'm personally fond of 2d8 because the range is a perfect 15 and i like the way d8s look, but i've yet to use it for anything
>>47617817
My system uses pools of Xd12... I sometimes stay up late at night wondering if no one but me will ever be able to play it due to almost no one owning more than 1d12.
I selected it so that i could have double digit numbers be successes (10,11,12) for a 25% success rate per die, with each successful die giving a rediculously intuitive number of bonus die (10=0, 11=1, 12=2). Simple and elegant, I think. But its a d12...
>>47622896
That sounds really good, Anon.
Does anybody have good advice on dealing with different sizes in characters and NPCs? Beyond inflating stats that is.
>>47622896
Can you go in to more detail with this?
I have some rules for handling children and pregnancy in my game. What do you think of them?
>>47628585
I think I'd find a new DM the second you brought that fetish shit to the table
>>47628619
What's fetishy about it?
>>47628585
Some of the numbers seem kind of arbitrary. Also, the setting would probably influence the numbers here. I am not a woman, but wouldn't most women in anything resembling a society understand the nature of periods and how to avoid pregnancy? Again, actual societal implications depend on the setting, and the rules reflect a setting not known to me.
Then theres a lot of other things that reflect a lot of possible events, so theres a lot of bulk - but to understand that bulk I think I'd need to know more about the rest of your game, and where this fits in your game.
You haven't really asked an easy question here.
>>47628585
As a GM and a Player I would just ignore the entirety of this section to suit my story needs. And frankly I don't think many would do otherwise. It is mainly superfluous to the game and the fact that it is included nonetheless could indeed make people think you have a fetish.
>>47629503
The setting is a broadly renaissance era tech level with low magic. The "avoiding pregnancy" is assuming that pull-out, rhythm and herbs are being used. I could always add a rule for menstruation but I feel that asking a player to track their characters menstruation would be kinda awkward. I've been trying to keep the child and pregnancy rules on one page as well.
The rules for abortion, difficult pregnancy, etc. are based on the assumption that 8-20 hp is normal for a character and their toughness defense would be around 10-14. I tried to take statistics for modern chances of complications, then trend down a little as well. As well, the childhood survival stuff is based on historical mortality and then made a little less brutal.
The education chances were based on having a child with a tutor be slightly better than a starting character and a child where the player invested more time into education would be a fairly strong starting character.
Overall, the game is geared towards sandbox play with a lot of support for downtime and domain management play. The players have been getting interested in the idea of building political dynasties so I figured some children rules would be a good idea.
>>47629865
Part of the idea with it as well is that a child is a major investment that carries risk and if the kid dies, then having other children is more dangerous since advancing age adds to the risk and makes it harder to become pregnant.
It serves as a time and money sink as well since a pregnant character is in more risk if they adventure, a parent has to choose between parenting and other things with their time, and investments in personal doctors can be a lot of money if a player isn't wealthy at that point.
>>47629865
Theres a problem if pregnancy and child rearing are fine and tracking menstruation isn't. Children, especially small ones are gross, and do gross things. If tracking menstruation is awkward but a character sticking his dick in another character's vagina isn't awkward, I don't know what to say.
Theres kind of a disconnect in the details here - I get that some details are more important than others, and in the end you probably know whats better for your players, but I think role play is better for families than roll play.
>>47630186
To me, with rules like these; if I bring up "You're kids sick." or "Your wife might die giving birth." in a freeform thing, then it's me forcing my agenda onto players. If it's the result of a roll, then both me and the player are surprised and it's more "fair" in a sense to my players.
>>47630233
Why does it have to be a fate roll and not something like "roll knowledge X" or "child is sick, go do something about it." cue find medicine to improve chances.
"perception or knowledge sickness, wisdom health," such to detect sickness in child, move forward from there.
Instead you have a system with a bunch of fate rolls, arbitrary and abstract, disconnected from seemingly everything.
They're like DnD's save or die situations. You failed one roll. Ops you're dead.
>>47630284
The sick part already has a time on it. It encourages players to stick around close enough for messengers and whatnot to reach them. If a player is 6 months away and their kid has an acute illness, the kid might die before they even hear about it.
The illness rules only come into effect if the players are away, if not then it's treated as a normal sickness. In which case they could roll knowledge rolls to find medicine, treat the child themselves, etc.
So here's some rules I have for business management if anyone has feedback on it.
The gist of it is that a business involves competition and making lots of tradeoffs. things like paying employees higher wages makes it harder to be "attacked" but lowers profit margins. Also owning a business allows a player to start making domain rolls and interact with the kingdom building aspects of the game before they have a kingdom.
Access modifier is a number used for different goods and products that represents how much of an industry is in an area. It's used for determining things like pricing and modeling trade. It has a tradeoff benefit in that higher access modifier lowers prices(which means capital and labor is cheaper) but means there's much more intense competition.
The basic system for the rolls being used is that rolls are made with a 2d10, difficulty is a penalty applied to the roll and a 10 always succeeds with degrees of success based on how much below or above 10 it is.
I wrote up the combat rules for my new homebrew system. I'm aiming for some kind of Dragon Ball/Weaboo Fightan Magic/Wuxia kind of system.
My goals in design are:
-Escalating power levels, representing by increasing number of dice
-Ideally the only main stat will be Power Level ( in this case, Energy )
-A somewhat freeform Technique system, enabling special effects beyond normal combat.
-Easy and fast combat, less rules while still having options.
What does /gdg/ think of the combat rules so far?
What sort of abilities/moves/techniques would you give martial characters in a fantasy heartbreaker? Looking for things more interesting than +1 against orcs or +X to hit when you have the highground if you invest in this feat tree.
How do you designers get the balls necessary to publish and post your systems?
Almost as important, how many rules-light skirmish games are there that can be linked to? I want to know if what I'm doing will be understood against the bevy of other systems out there.
>>47634004
Look up Martial Paths in REIGN.
>>47633245
I'm confused about this step:
The combatant then must reroll all the dice in their Stance Dice Pool. Each die in the Stance Dice Pool represents a Limb corresponding the value rolled on the die.
This looks really random. Why can't you just allocate points as you see fit? What is the idea behind this system?
Also at first glance att to the head looks like a really strong option.
>>47636375
You need to divorce yourself from the system just enough that you can let go of it. Once its published, its out of your hands, so you need to have enough distance to take the criticism that'll be pointed at it, either through actual critic or implied by lack of interest.
>>47625640
>>47627780
Just checked back with this thread sorry, I appreciate the reassurance.
To clarify the first post, bonus die do mean additional d12s to the total pool, and these bonus dice can generate bonus dice too. This is about the explodiest base mechanic i've seen, but its sold itself to me in play-testing. There is always a lot of anticipation and hype even when, often especially when, rolling a small number of die (I've seen 11 successes from 3 dice while playing, to strike the final boss too). It generally creates a feeling of always having a chance, and when someone Gets more bonus dice than they had original dice through a couple 12s and the explosions start to avalanche its always a lot of fun around the table.
While skills do not contribute to your dice pool, they offer a different advantage through the expertise mechanic. The average stat value is about 3, though getting 5 is pretty easy with basic optimization during the point-buy character creation. Expertise likewise ranges from 0-5, with 3 being professional level. When you roll your Xd12, prior to re-rolling bonus dice, you may count all results equal to or less than your expertise (relevant skill level) as being a success (so a 1,2,3,10,11,12 count as successes if your expertise is 3), but if you choose to take the expertise successes you cannot roll the bonus dice from 11 or 12.
Having a wider range for success on each die decreases your chance of failure dramatically, but because you can't use bonus dice if you take those successes, your range for total successes doesn't actually change. Professionals reliably succeed, talented novices will just hope for occasional huge successes. But "professional" characters get tempted when 3 dice show 3,11,12. They can either take 3 successes, or take 3 rerolls and go big at the risk of only keeping 2 successes.
I'll keep going tomorrow if anyone's interested.
>>47639313
So its a trade off of reliability for spiking potential?
>>47636615
Now that you mention it, it doesn't seem totally necessary. It's mostly there to stop people from keeping high Stance and being untouchable. If I ever get around to playtesting it I'll see what happens when it's removed.
I wanted to combat to follow logically and having your head hit be something you really want to avoid. You can always just block an attack towards your head. Not to mention your head also gets Stance dice and you're not as likely to ever use it from there, so it has more defense then an arm or leg.
bump
>>47643661
bumping again
>>47644741
Holy shit that looks beautiful, just imagine what a little sharpening and extra colors would do
>>47616785
What do you think about limiting playable races to certain alignments, or alignment-locked races? I have been playing around with the idea that humans are inherently evil, and that they all range from weakly evil to strongly evil. I want to kill the jack-of-all-trades meme, and have humans be greedy, egotistical and superior campaigners with heavy war culture and technological prowess, and thus not trusted by other races
>>47646594
I'm also thinking of giving combat bonuses against targets of opposite alignment, like bonus damage the further away in alignment your target is
>>47646594
Ah and your "evil score" is really just the sum of the number of evil-like traits you have
Any ideas how to handle death so that it's not too punishing or game-ending, but also not trivial to deal with either? I'm running a game where combat in general is prevalent and volatile, and I want players to be taking risks, but I'm afraid that if I make death a slap on the wrist then it's gonna be stupid
I'm doing a science fantasy setting.
So far, here's what I have in case the party wipes
>they get captured by the enemy and must break out of wherever they get taken to
problem is that it only really works once before becoming repetitive, also incredibly hard to explain in some situations. also sometimes they might fall off a cliff and gravity does not take prisoners
>they meet "god" and god sends them back to earth to the day before their death, but crosses off one of their 3 "lives" so they can't die more than 3 times during the entire campaign
feels kind of video gamey and could cause the players to think "whatever i can die here, i got 1 more life." probably some other problems as well
>they get recloned in their base of operations without any of their stuff
in addition to death being a bit too trivial, this would also spawn a lot of pointless busy work after every single party wipe
ideas?
>>47646594
This is quite a fedora-tier thingie. So, reeeeeeeeeeeeee
>>47646882
Why? People will always play lolrandum, murderhobos and the like no matter the system, does giving evil and good actual presence in the game make this any worse? Most systems have a joke of an alignment system, poorly understood by both creators and players
>>47646874
Just use mind-upload digitization etc. You can store yourself in a database, and when you die you pay experience, the process is not perfect, and gold, the process is expensive
>>47647103
Yeah that's the one I've been thinking the most about (see: they get recloned part in my post) but I just don't want them to be chasing after their weapons and gear for a full session
>>47641466
When you make the choice yes. Having expertise only helps you though, as if your expertise is 0 you simply always pick the explosion rather than sometimes having the option of a safe bet. Someone with high expertise will likely take the safe bet more often though, as they have a higher chance of getting multiple expertise successes.
Anyone want to guess how my health system works?
Pic related is the health barWiP.
Answer:Called the Triquetra of Vigor, this triquetra represents the overall condition of the character. Even though the three "bars" work separately, they affect each other.
The arrows represent which stat the damage debuffs, meaning Toughness debuffs Resolve, Resolve debuffs Will, and Will debuffs Toughness.
The middle parts of each stat are used actually as a stat block, meaning you just write your stat total into it. The white dots that follow the arrows are the health bars themselves. They each represent the stat that they're lining, naturally, and follow the arrow that shows which stat they damage.
Getting damage over your threshold your stat (10 - stat tens-digit) means you have to roll against your health + stat, meaning if you have 44 resolve, and you take your 5th point of resolve damage, you roll against 50+44 = 94.´
If you manage to survive to negative damage, and then do a successful threshold check (above), you get one point of damage to the debuffed stat and you are raised back to your 3 health.
If you ever fail the threshold check, you're out. Outmaneuvered and helpless in a conversation, bleeding and dying in battlefield, or a nervous wreck unable to think straight. You also get temporary -10 / -20 to the stat that failed you.
>>47648654
Excuse me, some corrections:
When your health hits 0 or less (your damage bar is full or on minus) you get a permanent minus to your stat, regardless of whether you keep engaging or not (Dismemberment, traumas etc). These can be fixed (Therapy, magic healing, cybernetics), but they are serious if they're ever inflicted, and fixing them isn't easy.
Does anyone have any good systems for automatic fire?
>>47648654
Do you have a friend who is slow and did you run this with him?
>>47652017
I am usually quite bad at explaining things, but the jist of it is to follow the arrow when you take damage.
I tried to create some kind of dynamic system between different damage types, so that "combat" (I call it conflict in my game, because it works like RISUS combat; it can be nigh anything) can have multiple levels. Such as taunting enemies mid-battle to cause social damage. Or emotionally manipulating your adversaries in social conflict situations for mental damage.
But no, I don't have particularly slow friends, or at least ones who would be interested in hearing about systems. I did explain it to a fellow GM, who got it instantly, but he has been a GM regularly for a long time, so it can just be that he understands mechanics overall pretty well.
I did an overhaul of my rules for church leadership. Any feedback on it? I'm trying to keep bookeeping to a minimum while opening up more domain level things(having churches as agents and domain values, it lets them interface with my domain management system), encouraging exploration with the artifact rules, and making a bit of gameplay out of competition between churches.
Are there any RPGs that use procedural generation, along with a DM?
I'm thinking along the lines of Pathfinder adventure card game, but with scenario still written out by the GM as the cards used or something.
I know its a stupid idea, but I'm curious.
Came across a bag of 50 dice and am trying to design a customizable game around them now. I know there are battle dice games, but they use cards and mats and stuff. Want two players to each have only a bag of dice, and be able to battle, like having a deck of Magic cards or something.
>>47648654
Why not just a triangle?
Why threshold checks? Why not just have one type of damage "bleed over" to the next stat, at a severe multiplier penalty?
>>47648654 Here.
Rate my sheet?
I realized the triquetra itself looks like a OAO smiley with those circles around it, but whatever.
About six-ten hours of photoshop, I am unsure how long I took with that triquetra itself.
>>47652453
Well it is pretty hard, for me at least, to give any feedback with no context. Can you tell us more about your system. At first glance you really need a simpler way of explaining it. What is the difference between Resolve and Will? How do you dmg them?
>>47654645
Ah, umm. Threshold checks are there because I feel like going to zero in health doesn't really represent the human resilience and fragility. A fragile person can be knocked down at relative ease, but a real hardass can take you on well after they should realistically be dead. This has happened, so I wanted to simulate it. With a character of like, what, 95 toughness (95 is max), you are literally a walking tank that cannot be stopped.
And no triangle because I will probably make multiple versions of this sheet, it is for a general system, after all. Some will have triangles, a post-apoc one will have biohazard-symbol for example... It's just aesthetics, man.
>>47654742
Resolve, Will and Toughness are the three primary "health" stats, as seen in my sheet >>47654701, where they are in the center. They all function the same mechanically, but the effects are different.
Will is mental toughness, Toughness is physical toughness, and Resolve is Social toughness (stubbornness, insistence of the sort). When you are damaged (You are burned, either literally or by words, for example), the opponent has to first succeed in their task, and then succeed in overcoming your resistances (any of the three attributes). If they succeed against resistance (they roll higher than your resistance) they succeed and give you 1 point of damage. If they crit either roll, it's 2 damage.
Now. When any of your health total drops enough that current health x 10 + the resistance stat is less than 100, you roll to "threshold" whether you drop out of the conflict. This is either being absolutely silenced in a conversation, getting knocked out in a fight, you're out. This roll is made every time you take damage and the total is under the threshold.
If you persist and go into 0 or negative damage, you roll threshold as per usual, but whether or not you succeed, you get a lasting scar from it. This is something like trauma, dismemberment etc.
Cont.
>>47654952
There are three resistance / health stats because they influence each other. This is to create more interesting scenarios, but it's also realistic. If you've been taking a beating, talking back to the one who beat you is harder. If someone has totally shut you down, you get stressed out, et cetera.
I'm trying to create scenarios where the players realize this and use it to their advantage to do something else than, you know, bash them in the head, for example. Maybe you taunt the opponent, kicking them while they're down, trying to break them and make them flee, rather than outright killing them. I try to create more opportunities for roleplaying with it.
>>47654952
>you are literally a walking tank that cannot be stopped.
Let me rephrase that. Putting you down is a massive feat, not impossible. It requires forces way stronger than you.
Similarly, someone with super-high resolve can not be pressured into saying something, maybe tortured, but not in many other ways.
>>47654952
I think Composure is much better name for Social toughness esp since Will and Resolve sound similar. It sounds interesting and I think there is good chance that it will perform as intended. That said I think you should work on making the rules more streamlined. I mean if this is just for personal use and your group likes it cool but I think a lot of people get headache from reading
>current health x 10 + the resistance stat is less than 100, you roll to "threshold" whether you drop out of the conflict.
>>47654952
>>47655023
>>47655114
I feel like there is a lot of context I'm missing here. Perhaps make a pdf or something first?
your triquetra is a neat idea, but seems one level of complexity too deep imo.
>>47655282
Well, true. Composure was originally it's name, but Resolve allowed me to get the abbreviation of "Wicked Star" from all the stats. Maybe that's just childish though ;D. It's more of the fact that I'm really bad at explaining things. Even that line makes sense in context, and if I explain it better (Such as: your health stat works as free health, and after that has been used, you will start rolling whether you drop out, with the rolls becoming harder every time you take damage.)
>>47655304
I can't drop the pdf now, I'm going to sleep. Of course, in my head it makes sense, but to others it may seem confusing, because it breaks normal /tg/ rules.
The thing is though, this is the game, this health system is the only noteworthy game system that may be of any difficulty to grasp. All the others are basically just roll under your stat + bonuses, nothing fancier than that. No special skills (unless setting has those, of course) or anything.
>>47617203
is this document supposed to be read my humans?
>>47655531
Where could it be improved?
>>47655590
Dunno man if you are into that Rolemaster lvl of complexity it looks fine. I can help more if you ask concrete questions.
>>47655590
OK so if this is liek page 6 of 8 or a part of another larger game that is clearly defined(pathfinder/dnd) then disregard this, otherwise
* The first thing I want to see is the name of the game, then OBJECT OF THE GAME, then # of player, then playtime, then the "In hellsgate, demon bros abound!" kind of italics text that is glanced over
* Once you establish "The object of the game is to kill the king" or what have you, give the reader a 1-2 paragraph summation of how players achieve this goal. "You kill the king by being the first to enter his throne room with a knife". "Knives are acquired at the armory", "Players use bribes to get access to the throneroom."
* Explain setup in detail, step by step, starting with action verbs "Draw 7", "Pick a character"
* Establish gameplay flow by specify rounds and turns and battles and encounters, who goes first and how turns if they exist
* Make sure to establish jargon ASAP so that you don't have to explain it 10 times. For instance, in my cold war game, "justifying" means activating a diplomat on a country to explain interventions, this action happens thorough the rules, and many actions require it, so killing early made my rules cleaner
Ditch the underlining. Only hyperlinks get underlining.
t. needed to vent my game design frust
>>47655874
Oh yeah, some context would be useful.
This is part of a larger system, which I'm in the middle of doing a re-write of. What this bit is, I'm trying a system where instead of having to fully explain each action resolution every time, I'd use the format explained in the PDF. The idea is that I'd place that near the beginning, and that way when I get to something like attack resolution, I can cut out the paragraph of text to explain how the test is rolled and resolved. I'd instead say that you take a test using the following, and then what the effects of the test is.
There's still a lot more to the game, this is just part of it to see if the initial set-up is clear enough for players before going full hog into the re-write.
>>47656141
well then i hope you find what i wrote helpful towrads ur rewrite.
is there a reason to not just use gurps for everything?
>>47657073
maybe
>>47628585
Pretty obviously written by a man.
0/10 would ignore
>>47657073
It's a headache to run
It's a headach to teach
The disadvantage system creates backwards player incentives
It handles universality in about the most archaic and obtuse ways possible
There are styles of play it was just flat out not designed for and making it work for them is invariably more work than just finding a genre themed game that already does
bump
>>47617724
Well, I could conceive some reasons but the main reason would probably be, let's be honest, to be different.
>>47628619
>DM
jesus, leave that d&d mindset behind
>>47617724
If you can conceive a system that can benefit from it, you can use fookin anything. Of course, those are tried and true, but one of my crazier systems for example uses d60, to measure seconds. To make it a perfect set of d60, d24, d7, d30 and d12, I still need the d7. As you might have guessed, the game runs entirely with time-basis, and it creates interesting design decisions I gotta take. Doesn't matter if it's good, designing games with different rulesets and dice systems is good practice, if nothing else.
Guys I have a slightly horrible,really horrible, idea for my kind of D&D clone. I want to draft my rulebook on the PC, plan the layout, and then hand write the entire rulebook penciling/penning the art myself and then scanning it for print/pdf so the entire book looks like its a guys hand written journal in the world.
Like scale of 1-10 how retarded is this? I can write pretty clearly/consistently.
>>47661304
only if your writing looks like this
>>47661326
I cant even read that. It looks more like this, I'd take a picture but my only camera is my shitty phone.
>>47661389
create a font from your writing, and use it. writing by hand will take years.
>>47661408
I think I'll do a single chapter or something and see how long it takes and then go from there. I'll post the results when they are done. I want to make, literally a fucking work of art, thats a book, I kind of have a hard on for just looking at books and being like "Mhhhmmm thats a fine book" I also want to get into handmade book binding.
>>47661451
Might be cool for like, a special edition or something.
But if you want people to play your game, use an easily readable computer font. Handwriting looks pretty but it's shit for quick referencing, and will cause eyestrain faster.
>>47655304
Here's a very much WiP of the system, the health rules are on page... 4.
>>47662204
My game also has a relatively weird inventory system, where you first separate your misc. items and your "tools", which can be anything from a lockpick set to a battleaxe.
Inventory works with two parameters, space and size. Size means how much you can carry without problems, space means how much you can carry spatially (i.e how much space and pockets you have).
Each item has weight, either regular (takes one space and one size), cumbersome (takes one space and size, adds automatic burden) and weightless (takes one space, but not size). Weightless items start to weigh if carried in bulk.
This system is created so people can't actually carry too much on their person, such as carrying six different weapons on them at all times, while also carrying a shield and donning full plate. And also they have a full item list worth of stuff, without even having anything to carry them in.
Burden just means that if they go over the size limit (they cannot go over the space limit) or have too many tools, they get burdened, and each point of burden excess (over their strength / 10) is -10 to their agility.
I actually just changed inventory size to weight, because fuck that it's confusing to size AND space. They're still so in the pdf, but imagine every time it says inventory size it means weight.
>>47659922
Homeomorphically Irreducible Trees of degrees 5. Basically the "Good Will Hunting" problem but lesser.
bump
What are your thoughts on diceless resolution mechanics? I've been trying to think of a resource based system but haven't decided on anything concrete yet.
For example, instead of:
>I want to do some ridiculous shit
>ok, roll
>I got a 20
>ok, you did some ridiculous shit
it would be:
>I want to do some ridiculous shit
>ok, that would require you to use 5 stamina. Since you only have 4, you'll suffer some big drawback to pay for the 5th point. Since you won't have any stamina left, you'll be shit at everything for a short amount of time. Better hope it's worth it.
>hmm, maybe I'll make sure I'm in a better position first
Adding a simple dice roll may or may not be worthwhile to add drama.
Just a thought, but what if difficulty were static and the effects of your roll were dependent on the difficulty?
That probably doesn't make much sense, but consider the normal scenario:
>Player wants to do something.
>DM assigns DC (or TN or Obstacle or whatever).
>Player rolls, success/failure determined by mechanics, including critical success/critical failure.
What if instead, the results of the roll were determined by the difficulty? To present a concrete example:
Easy tasks are those in which success is guaranteed. There are three potential results from easy tasks:
>Yes, and something that makes it better.
>Yes, you get what you want.
>Yes, but not quite exactly what you wanted.
Average tasks are those which require some effort. There are three potential results for medium tasks:
>Yes, you get what you want.
>Yes, but not quite exactly what you wanted.
>No, you don't get what you want.
Hard tasks are those which success comes at a cost. There are three potential results for hard tasks:
>Yes, you get what you want.
>No, you don't get what you want.
>No, and something goes awry.
In short, difficulty tiers determine potential roll outcomes.
>Easy: critical success, regular success, partial success.
>Medium: regular success, partial success, failure.
>Hard: partial success, failure, critical failure.
I've been working on a system that uses a card game resolution system (by card game, I mean poker), and I am somewhat wondering if it's worthwhile to continue or if there are already a few excellent systems that use such resolution systems.
So based on some feedback in this thread, I decided to re-write some of my rules.
What do you folks think of it?
>>47670956
What use is there, other than being different?
Do different hands have different outcomes? How does changing hands affect the game? Are there special hands, such as Dead Man's Hand?
... If the game is Wild West, I don't care about these pointers, I want in.
>>47671208
Use of cards can make very different experience than dice rolls if done right. I'd say Malifaux does it right. Not only are the odds different due to using a limited pool of results, but you can also use a hand of cards to change results, adding more strategy to resolution.
>>47671208
>>47671482
Whoops forgot to namefag.
Malifaux seems to use 1-card system mainly, but this poker-hand system seems very different, even though on the surface they seem similar.
I am unsure whether having too much strategy in your rolls is actually good, because that enforces people to metagame HARD. Of course, I'm no stranger to metagame, but that sounds like a system where "best resolutions" are possible, meaning it becomes a game of execution rather than creativity. Of course, creativity emerges from execution, but too much emphasis on "controlling" the character as a puppetmaster can be detrimental to roleplaying, where you're supposed to BE the character.
I do want to hear more about the poker hand system though, it seems a perfect fit for a wild west game, and sounds like something I would like to play or GM... Maybe all those flying banditos in those drawthreads get to see their light of day...
Card game resolution anon here.
So to answer the queries... Firstly, yes, intention was for the base 'setting' to be for old west/weird west style games.
Secondly, as for the mechanics themselves, I don't have a fully fleshed out document yet unfortunately so can't share that. But to give a general idea of the basics:
-Character creation handled through a hand of 7 cards that establish 4 stats, character past/profession, general/primary motivation, and their weapon.
-Simple skill checks handled by blackjack like game, with some 'target' modifiers depending on relevant stat.
-Different styles of poker for duels or for regular 'mass' combat.
-Special poker hands included.
-Poker chip / betting mechanic to push risk vs reward.
- Separate rules for horse races/chases.
I will leave it there, since that's just some high level overview, but yeah.
So I just realized, I'm making GURPS.
But not exactly GURPS. What I'm doing, once I fully realized it, is I'm making a generic system with lots of different modules that will allow me to play tabletop games based on whatever vidya I want. That was the design goal I set out with, but it hasn't really hit me until now that I'm making a generic system that is supposed to be able to have rules for a bunch of different ideas and concepts. From Pokemon and Monster Hunter, to Megaman Battle Network.and Legend of Zelda, I'm going to be making small modules for each mechanic the respective games need, and then package them into self-sufficient modules per game. For example, Pokemon won't need my hit location and limb severing rules, but Monster Hunter will. Zelda will need lots of items suited for solving puzzles, while MMBN will need tons of similar abilities to create combos and more. And none of that takes into account what the proprietary setting of the system will need. In some aspects I definitely might've bitten off more than I can chew, and some ideas might need to be dropped (I've already targeted some games as needing their own systems to properly emulate), but there's a lot more to keep me going.
Wondering if anyone else had a similar realization of just exactly what they were doing, or when they discovered how deep the rabbit hole was going to be.
>>47674024
For me, what I set out to do was "make a lighter, more easily understood point buy system than GURPS".
What I ended up realizing at some point, though, was that I eventually ended up aping the approach of BRP and PbtA games and such. Essentially, I was making a very simple, easily expandable skeleton of a point buy system and then making expansions that specifically handled genres like fantasy or post apocalypse or cyberpunk and so on.
Can someone help with Anydice? I want to compare Nd10 dice pools where 8,9,10 is success. So lets say I want to pit 4d10 vs 5,6,7,8,9d10 pools. How to make it all compute together in one calc?
>>47674886
(4/X)*50% is the chance to tie or beat Xd10 roll?
>>47674024
The problem with most universal systems is that they're TOO universal, to the point where they themselves aren't very interesting. GURPS, for instance, basically sets out to create the barest skeleton of a mechanic that can be imported into any setting or concept.
What you seem to be doing is a bit more focused than that, in the sense that your trying to make a universal video game roleplaying system. The question you need to ask yourself is, what makes your system ideal for video game roleplaying as opposed to any other kind?
>>47673781
Holy hell, that sounds mighty interesting. I especially like the blackjack resolution mechanic. It seems to pit a lot of stress on the player, depending how it works.
Want to go in-depth with character creation? It might be a little unbalanced unless there is a change mechanic, unless you want 3d6 in order kind of grit to it.
>>47676187
I tried to make my universal system into something that encourages multi-dimensional characters (such as my combat being so open-ended and inter-connected that most people are rightfully confused when they hear about it first). What I'm actually trying to do with it, though, is a system that can effortlessly run basically anything, and hopefully even do it so that there is as little confusion about the systems themselves (most of them are pretty simple) and once mastered, you don't even need a Gurps supplement to make it work.
And oh yeah. I try to concentrate on making social and mental combat just as interesting as physical, by making them basically the same thing. Both mechanically very similar, but also interconnected. Physical combat can turn into social quite fast, and social can turn to mental, and mental to physical.
Though to this day, I have not really found ways to implement mental battles into my game. Not one of my settings have "classic" magic, so it can't be that. Mass-scale battles and entire tactical campaigns? If nothing else, that definitely is a mental battle.
>>47677384
>>47676187
I'm just a third party, I'm not >>47674024.
>>47677384
Can you elaborate on how Social and Mental Combat are the same as Physical combat?
>>47678244
Sure. The way you do "attacks" in all combat types is the same. You roll against your opponent's defensive stat (Which can basically be anything applicable, like, someone can defend against a social attack with a Knowledge, or Cunning. The only difference is that physical combatants can use a separate defence stat)
If the attacker's stat is higher than defender's, they get a bonus on their roll by the difference (So if the attacker has 45 on offense and the defender has 39 on defense, the roll is 45+(45-39) = 51. They have to roll UNDER that to make the successful attack.
Then, they roll damage, which is simply rolling OVER the opponent's health stat (Toughness, Composure or Will). Meaning if the opponent's health stat is 45, you have to roll over 45. The opponent takes one damage (out of ten health).
Rolling >95 on damage is two damage, 000 is three.
The thing is that causing damage to another becomes harder when their stats go up, but there is a way to circumvent it. All the health bars are connected with the stats, but not with their own. Meaning attacking another health bar actually makes that stat lower, along with other stats of the type (Physical, Mental, Social).
Meaning, if you want to win a fight against someone without killing them, you beat the shit out of them (Toughness damage) and then intimidate them (Composure damage).
Does this make any nick of sense? I am especially bad at explaining things. But the jist is that damage to a certain health stat lowers stats of another type, meaning that combining multiple kinds of attacks (For example, physical and social) is more efficient.
Write down d[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,] for your dice, where 1 is a success. That should get you pretty well.
>>47678557
Okay, so if an attacker's Stat is Higher than the Defender's Stat, then the number they have to roll is their Stat + the Difference between their Stat and the target Stat?
That's not a very intuitive system, and will slow down just about any combat situation I believe, because you'll have to be doing constant calculations as to what target score you're aiming at.
Plus, this system flip-flops back and forth between rolling Over (if the Defender's stat is higher) and rollung Under (if the Attacker's stat is higher), which will further confuse new players.
>
Then, they roll damage, which is simply rolling OVER the opponent's health stat (Toughness, Composure or Will). Meaning if the opponent's health stat is 45, you have to roll over 45. The opponent takes one damage (out of ten health).
So if your attack succeeds but your damage roll doesn't beat their health, then you've accomplished nothing, yes? That's going to lead to player frustration and further drawing out combat.
>>47679396
You misunderstood the hitting part, but whatever, I could make it more intuitive anyway. Such as giving +10 to the roll if the attack is higher and -10 if the defense is higher, with maybe some climbing if the defense is over 20 higher, it's -20 or so. The roll was always rolling under when hitting, I just failed at explaining myself properly.
I should probably make the damage default to 1 on a hit, with the possibility to do 2-3 damage with successful roll. Makes it quite a bit faster that way.
>>47678822
Meant for >>47674886
bump
I recently got inspired to write up a PBtA buddy cop system. My big "hook" for the rules is that you can take a point of corruption and turn any failure into a success by being crooked. Alternatively if you fail at a task and accept it you get a point of honor. Ultimately at the end of the game your character's fate is decided by how much honor/corruption it has.
Does this sound like a fun mechanic?
>>47674024
I'd be interested to see it, I'd like to run a Monster Hunter game one day. All my players including myself are fans of the series.
>>47676187
See, I never really wanted to make a generic system. I was certain I would be making a rule system that I personally liked that would go with a setting I would also be creating. I'd hear about people wanting to play different game things, and I'd see brews for Pokemon of Zelda, and I wanted to do them too. Eventually mechanics started mixing and I settled on just making one base system, and then having rules for each specific vidya as needed. Its not so much I want to compete with what GURPS is doing, just that I'm likely going to be creating lots and lots of small, interchangeable rules that people can use as needed. Maybe its something more like DnD 2e where there were a bunch of rules, but you weren't expected to use most of them.
>>47683125
I really want to get something more done with it, but currently its stuck on a harddrive where I can't physically get to it. Hopefully I can get to it soon, because I think I've done the most with Monster Hunter as far as specific rules go.
What i've got, more or less is:
4 stats: STR for brawling weapons, DEX for ranged and precise weapons, SPIRIT for magic and WISDOM for wisdom things. (For those unfamiliar with Pbta system: They all range from 0 to 3, you roll 2d6+mod. On a 10+ you hit and roll damage, on a 7-9 you hit but you're also hit or suffer a drawback)
Damage is 1d6-2 unarmed, 1d6 for small and improvised weapons, +1 with fine weapons, +2 with heavy/slow/two handed weapons.
What i'm trying to implement are some combat specialization choices. You can pick one of those at the start (among some other spells, hp boosts and others):
-Deadeye: When you take time to aim, add your Wis score to the damage roll
-Limit break: When attacking, On a 10+, you can expose yourself to a drawback to add your Spirit score to your damage.
-Berserk: You can attempt to get into a battle trance. Roll +spirit. On a hit, you get +1d6hp and armor equal to your STR. You risk acting crazy during this trance.
Martial artist: When you fight unarmed, if you roll damage equal or lower to your wisdom, you can choose to roll again and take the second roll.
The thing is to make the "+2 to melee damage" more interesting than in the original, giving the players a sense of identity with their weapon choice (Lately i've been thinking that the weapon of a character is 50% of the character's identity
>>47677211
Depends on how in depth you'd like me to go. The basics are the 7 factors mentioned in the prior post. Player is dealt 7 cards. Can draw replacements for any number of those 7 once. Then assign the 7 cards to the 4 suit stats, past/profession, motivation, and signature weapon. Each suit represents a different aspect (hearts - social, diamond - wits / mental, spade - pure physicality, clubs - luck speed etc). Each rates typically from 1-3, with average folks only having a 1 usually. Low cards (2-5) is 1, high card for 2, face card for 3. Ace or joker for a 4. There's a fair bit more to it, but don't want to bog the thread down, and figured it needed a bump.
bump
How much of a problem would it be to ask a game master to keep track of how many rounds have gone by? Have an idea that works well with timed events, sorta.
>>47617817
>a couple very minimalist ones that I liked that used 1d6,
Have you read/played Strike? It uses just 1d6 and you read the results differently based on if you're rolling something trained or untrained, or if you're in combat. It also uses advantage and disadvantage for some things (roll 2d6, take higher/lower respectively).
>>47686699
It shouldn't be an issue. Apparently it's part of one of the game mechanics in 13th age as well, to provide combat bonuses as things go longer.
>>47686721
Well I was thinking things like triggered events on round 13. Seems like a hassle to keep track of.
Hmm... maybe have events last a few rounds, then start another countdown at the next phase. Bit tough to make this more intuitive than feeling programmed.
>>47686417
>Two levers
>Roll a four
>Roll a five
>>47687030
Wait I got it, divide things into phases, and count down each phase using a single die.
I'll master this one player mode yet.
>>47685356
This is game design general, you can't bog it down with relevant talk, can you?
But all right, that seems like a fairly balanced system, though I find it might make characters really top-heavy, having next to none 1s in their stats. That's because if they have a low card, they can just have a free redraw, with a lower chance to get a low.
That's how stats work, do the other 3(?) work with similar mechanic, with a bigger number being "better", though I don't see how a motivation can be better than another.
This system is meant for speedy character creation, no? But is such almost pure randomness desirable? Are there rules for drawing 5, where you just draw the stats and weapon? Because I see randomly generating your past occupation and motive to be, while probably truer to the genre (you can't have extreme outlier characters when these are in place), a little undesirable to anyone who wants to make their own characters.
A friend and I(friend might be in the thread too) are working on a generic western mecha game
The game is a dice pool system. Your target number is defined by your pilot stat, while your mech's
stat is how many dice you roll, so mech quality and pilot quality are both important. Number of successes is how well you do.
Mech Stats
>Gearing - The core of every mech is its power plant. From the roaring diesel engines of primitive mechs to more traditionally-futuristic fusion reactors and power cells, a wide variety of power plants are available. Power output is governed under the Gearing attribute, which determines a mech’s top speed and melee capability.
>Armor - Armor measures the structural strength of a mech, including both its armor plating and its frame. Ultra-light mechs may have only a thin steel plate- or even no armor at all- while heavy mechs field dozens of tons of specially-crafted armor or even energy fields. Armor governs damage resistance, hazardous conditions, and other cases where the mech’s frame- or occupant- is taking damage.
>Maneuvering - Agility is key on the battlefield. The greatest advantage a mech carries over conventional vehicles, naturally, is its Maneuvering attribute. Maneuvering governs acceleration, movement over difficult terrain, and most other tests of piloting skill.
>Electronics - Sensors, electronic countermeasures, and miscellaneous devices are all based on the Electronics attribute.
>Stability - The most difficult part of building a mech is keeping it standing on two (or four) legs. Mechs use everything from basic gyroscopes to advanced neural interfaces to solve that problem. The Stability this provides helps with aiming weaponry and withstanding its recoil, among other uses.
cont
>>47687408
There are rules for drawing five, as the profession and motivation are more 'fluff' than mechanics, and are mostly just random tables for the card draw portion.
As for being top heavy, that balances out the wound system, which can temporarily / permanently reduce a stat depending on circumstances. There are also +1 bonuses for the suits coming from the signature weapon, and from the profession. So at best, you could have a character with a 5 in a stat, which would make them famous/infamous for something related to that suit. A silver tongued gunslinger who can intimidate with just a look, a saloon gal who is far too quick on the draw for her own good, a strong man who let's his guns do the talking as much as his fists, etc. Aka, exceptional folks that legends may be born from. But that's a 1 in 13 chance of getting an ace, then min maxing on the relevant profession and weapon.
It will definitely need play testing. Goes without saying. :)
>>47687463
Pilot Stats
Prowess: Prowess is your pilot’s training and natural talent with melee weapons; this can manifest in many different ways depending on your mech’s control systems, from actual martial arts training to weeks of practice with the peculiarities of your mech.
Vigilance: Vigilance measure’s a pilot’s training with their mech’s defensive systems, from armor to energy shields, from turning the mech so its thickest, highest-angled armor faces the enemy or using active defense systems such as antimissile lasers.
Dexterity: Dexterity is a pilot’s ability to carefully maneuver their mech, avoiding uncertain footing and falls, as well as other delicate maneuvers such as flight.
Technology: Technology is a pilot’s skill at using the fancy electronics, sensors, and other such equipment mounted on a mech, and is used for everything from interpreting sensor data to electronic warfare.
Accuracy: Accuracy is how well a pilot can place ranged weapons’ shots, accounting for the myriad factors that can affect a shot’s trajectory. Accuracy is also used for some weapon maintenance, such as clearing jams.
These stats can be mixed and matched depending on the roll; ranged attacks are Stability/Accuracy, but countermissile attacks are Electronics/Vigilance, etc
Opinions?
>>47688695
Seems nice and sleek, smells a little like a really simple "one-sheet RPG", and that's really neat. It seems a really simple system to grasp, and one I'd like to play / GM at some point, to be honest.
Unlike my system, that's really concise and to-the-point.
Hmm... Now that I thought about it, I should make some super-sleek system myself, trying to reduce everything to the bare minimum of where I can go... Maybe I could base it on tarot... Not trying to copy you, I already bought two tarot decks way back in hopes of doing a successful tarot system. Tried to base it on Persona back then, but now I could go for something less constructed.
>>47689062
I was aiming for a fair bit more than a mere one sheet, but yes, definitely more on the light / simple side, with a fair bit of depth, and choices.
Oddly enough I was originally considering working on a tarot based system. Ended up scaling it back to the normal set of playing cards and changing a few things, since it was going to be a mix of dice and tarot. Which is cool enough, however introducing more esoteric requirements to play a game sometimes means it might not be played.
My biggest concern with a tarot based system is that to do it properly, it has to be about interpreting the cards. Which is fine generally, but also begs the question of if players ever interpret them, or if it's purely the gm.
Still, it's an interesting potential resolution tool. Fairly easy to pull together for character generation. I believe malifaux even did something like that.
Good morning, fags. I've been working on a system for some time now, and I'm just about ready to call it ready for consumers (my group, lel). I wanted to get your thoughts on it, and also some help with the last part of the skill system.
The system is derived from a reportedly GURPS-like d100 variant (roll under), which I've taken apart a few times to suit my needs. Skill rolls govern pretty much every action you take, aside from pure ability checks. It's intended for a high-ish fantasy setting, but retooling it for other things shouldn't be platinum hard.
Basics:
>3d6, 7 abilities: Strength (strong and fast things), Dexterity (agile things), Physique (endurance and tanky things), Intelligence (smart things), Willpower (focus and magic things), Charisma (social things), Perception (perceptive and precision things)
>Your gender and race modifies your base height and weight values, which translate into a Size value; Size affects carry weight, hit points, damage modifier and certain skills
>Incurring Hit point damage in one body part exceeding your Health Pool/2 results in Trauma; if this is from a single instance (attack), it's a crit
>Incurring Fatigue exceeding your Endurance Pool/2 in one turn results in Exhaustion, as does accruing a Fatigue total exceeding your Endurance Pool
>Skills are keyed off one or (usually) two abilities, divided in Natural and Trained, and further divided into skill groups such as Social or Combat Mastery
None of this should feel foreign to decently well-traveled roleplayers, so I'll just skip to the part I need some help with. First is Applied Skills: specialized fields of skills you already have, such as Weapon Mastery (Greataxe) from Weaponry (Heavy+Two-Handed). The idea is that, in a situation where both skills apply (such as fighting with said greataxe), you'd simply add your Applied value on top of your base skill value. This is useful due to the difficulty in achieving extremely high values in any given skill. Sound good?
>>47689497
Secondly, I need a clearer outlook on my character progression system. My base idea is that all progression is training; rather than using abstract experience points, you gain experience in a given skill by actually using it (in the field or a training room). Progress is made by gaining stuff (loot and influence) and learning stuff (skills and feats). Feats are mostly _customizing_ your skill use; shifting ability dependencies, mastering a specific and oft-repeated maneuver or aspect of a craft that is more narrow than an Applied skill (such as a Blacksmith feat for forging swords, or even a specific kind of sword).
My question is, should I even bother with trying to make a proper "feat list" for this, or should I try to make a standard system for "feat creation" so to speak?
The basic idea is that feat training is keyed off the skill you're using for it, but has all progress go to the feat rather than the skill value. Together with Applied skills, this makes a triangle of progression: learning the basics takes little effort, but as your skill values increase increasing them further becomes more of a hurdle, at which point you're better off investing in a relevant Feat or Applied Skill for further specialization. Does this sound stupidly boring or does it have fun potential?
Advice much appreciated.
>>47689632
Considering how open-ended feats sound in your system, I would definitely create a basic system for feat creation, which allows the player and GM to work together to create feats that they want to customize their character as they see fit.
>>47689813
Yeah, as I wrote this up I realized this would probably be the only feasible way to go about it, especially considering the sheer plethora of skills that would need to be covered by basic feats otherwise (and the fact that I am but one man and not a cadre of wizards).
Any idea of how to go about it? I'm working up the basic progression table now, and the idea is that _most_ feat costs stay static (and are thus economical to learn when base skill costs have increased) but some are not (and thus more economical to learn early on). I'm set on separating learning costs between natural and trained skills, but I'm also wondering if I shouldn't also separate costs between skill groups. This would also allow for a system like "racial skill modifiers", where certain races get decreased learning costs for certain skill groups they might be associated with.
>>47689881
I'm tired and should probably go to bed and am not even sure if what I'm about to say makes sense, but fuck it.
The problem with separate costs for skill groups in the way you described is that it discourages certain characters from playing certain ways and kinda shoehorns them into specific roles. I like every option to be (basically) equally viable
However, I'm picking up (and maybe I'm wrong, full of shit, and/or a gigantic faggot), that you're okay with races or sexes preferring certain methods of conflict resolution (for lack of a better word) over another in this system, at least.
An idea I had for this is every Skill Group Feat has a certain cost depending on how good it is (almost like tiers, in that +1 costs 3 points, +2 costs 5 points, etc, or whatever) and then race/sex modifies the cost either positively or negatively. For example: Orc Men are super good at combat, so they get a -2 to the cost of all Skill Group: Combat feats.
Does that make sense?
>>47690113
Well, it's more about certain things in life being WAY harder to learn than others, and thus requiring more training to get into. For example, Movement group skills are generally quite cheap because swimming, climbing, running and other similar actions governed by that group's skills come naturally to all creatures just by virtue of living; whereas Social skills are arguably more a product of us being intelligent, social creatures, and thus require more than just the basic reptile brain effort to learn. Similarly, Combat Offense skills take a fair bit more trying to learn than just running very fast, because they are by nature more complex. So yeah, people are "shoehorned" in the way that they're expected to learn certain basic things because they're cheap, and to specialize in a few of the more expensive skills rather than all of them. Sure, the "realism" this produces might seem boring to some, but I like it.
From there on, you're on point. The only difference between sexes (so far, at least) is a difference in Size, which affects certain things mainly pertaining to physical activity to differing extent. But you could certainly find a race of creatures created for combat, or another that is well suited for magic, and so on. The Orcs in your example would not be divided by gender (size mods do that) but as a racial modifier they'd get, say, -2 to Combat Offense skill costs. Of course, because dodging is for weaklings and Orcs go with brute force rather than skill, they only get -1 to Combat Defense skill costs and nothing at all for Combat Mastery.
Feat costs key off this as well. Essentially, you're filling an XP bar every time you want to level up your skill value, learn a feat, and so on; skill value costs scale, whereas most feat costs don't.
>>47690113
The Feat cost tiering is something I considered as well. Basically, my system will probably be keyed off of "what are you trying to do with this feat" (say, switch Intimidate from Cha/Int to Cha/Str) and have a standard cost for that operation (switch secondary ability for skill). This is then modified by the skill group cost, which gives us a final score.
Let's try this out. To keep up with the previous example: our Orc wants to learn a Maneuver feat that lets him ignore the penalty for targeting his enemy's shield. Let's call this feat Shattershield 1. Because this is a Maneuver feat, it has a base cost of 30 (which, say, is the same amount needed to improve a skill from 29 to 30). Because it is a tier 1 feat, the cost isn't modified - but if he was learning Shattershield 2, to give him a bonus on this maneuver, the base cost would be multiplied by 2 because it's a tier 2 feat. Now this maneuver is keyed off the Combat Offense skill group, which has a base cost of 4x base. However, because he's an Orc, this is modified by -2 due to his racial modifiers. With a formula of Base*tier*(skillgroupmod-racemod), the final cost is 30*1*(4-2), giving us a cost of 60 to learn this feat. If our Orc has a skill value of 30 this would be just about equivalent to him raising his skill value twice. Whether or not the feat is "worth it", and when, is thus dependent on how big the penalty it's negating is. If it's a 5% penalty, then you're probably better off just straight up increasing your base skill value until doing so is pretty expensive compared to learning the feat. If the penalty is 15% however, you'd probably consider taking the feat pretty early if the maneuver is something you plan on, or find yourself, using often.
Here is my wargame. I'd love suggestions
SPECIAL ATTACK! THREAD RESURRECTION BEAM!remember to bump responsibly, kids
>>47689497
>>47689632
Applied Skills: So you add a bonus twice? Interesting but it will immediately catch the attention of powergamers. I prefer specializations myself: the higher the special bonus a player wants, the more narrow the field it applies to.
Training: how simulationist is your game?
Feats: why not zoi... err... both? Feat creation for standard ways to do it and a feat list for some cool feats that fall outside of the framework of the frame creation system?
Overall system: well, could be fun but don't overestimate the fun value of it for overall gamepay. I would rather worry about balance not getting in the way as PCs progress. That's where most games fall apart, leading to caster's editions, etc.
>>47666515
What you're describing is called an action point system, where turns are broken into one large or a few smaller actions, each action possessing its own cost of points.
Your concept of "Success at a Cost" also makes it smell like Fate as well, with its own Fate Point system (for narrative purposes instead of distinctly combat).
So, I'd say it could work. If a character reaches a negative point pool, that means the character earns some kind of penalty that undoes itself in time.
>>47654275
Still looking
>>47692389
My project has a part that could be playable by yourself if you wanted. Set course and simple AI rules. Not sure if that is what you meant though.
>>47692389
Have you looked at beyond the wall and it's supplement further afield? Not sure if they're what you're looking for, but it's intended to be a low prep fantasy system, where a fair bit is randomly generated or set during character creation by players and gm, and gm still has wiggle room to tie various elements together.
>>47692389
randomly generated towns via dice rolls. have a look
http://www.lastgaspgrimoire.com/in-corpathium/
>>47674886
>>Here, have some help
http://pastebin.com/jGx6u1ct
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>>47616785
I was talking to my friends about the old TMNT RPG from the 80's, and they demanded that I run it, and now a few sessions in I'm deciding to overhaul the entire Palladium system to make it less shit. There are a few things I like about the system, like the way it sort of has vitality & wound points for dramatic action scenes. But a lot of it is just horseshit. I'm attaching the new character sheet and player reference sheet I've made. The main differences are that you actually get to make choices when you level up, you can pretty much make up your own skills (easy skills are hobbies that are likely to hardly ever come up, moderate skills are useful but still usable untrained, and hard skills are those that require training before you can attempt them at all) and every attribute has exactly one combat maneuver associated with it.
Right now I'm keeping the system where attacks and combat maneuvers are d20-based and skills are percentile-based, but that's probably the first thing I'm likely to change if I make more changes. Also thinking of getting rid of some of the abilities that look too much like feat taxes and just give them out for free at certain levels. I'm keeping the random species generation table because that's the one part of this game that is worth saving.
>>47695419
Shit, I forgot to include questions.
Is there anything you'd change about the character sheet? Does anyone else have experience making Palladium games not suck? And is there anyone who would want to help me test this monstrosity?
>>47692389
You mean randomly generated scenarios? That's a pretty old-school idea (think 80s/90s) and it has never caught on because it leads to having to shoe-horn elements that don't quite fit together.
But from the top of my head I can't think of games that have more than rudimentary support. You'd probably have more luck leafing through old fanzones.
>>47695533
>>47695533
Is that really worth the effort? And by that I don't mean that TMNT sucks, I love the setting. The question is if it's not wiser to simply embrace the zany nature of it all and roll with it?
I have quite a bit of experience with Palladium, did a rewrite of Rifts rules. The question is what you really think needs to be changed. Giving more options when leveling up is easy and painless. Tinkering with the insides of the combat system is a lot of work if it is to run "realistically"/"cinematically".
>>47695982
It is good to figure out exactly what my goals are, and I guess my main one is to make it more playable, with less need to look shit up. My second is to include things that my players have specifically asked for - like the option of actually learning new skills. One wanted to teach another to beatbox.
>>47692099
Well, not exactly. The Applied Skill is a skill unto itself, which functions as a bonus to the base skill in situations where they both are equally applicable (that is, where your broad field and specialized field coincide). There are also times when you'll need to exclusively use the Applied skill for something.
As for powergaming: not really. To begin with, most applied skills are (currently) in the Combat Mastery or Craftsmanship groups, both of which are Trained. This means that learning costs will be higher by default.
Crafting stuff is both of a pure "combination" style work, where you can have Blacksmith+Armorer, with Armorer being an applied skill on top of Blacksmith, and "assembly" style, where you'll need several different fields working together; say if you wanted to make an armor type with a variety of materials because you were short on some, you'd use Blacksmith, Scrimshaw and Leatherworking to make the parts, and Armorer (with bonuses derived from your values or your success) to assembly them into a finished product.
And besides, Applied skill investment acting as a power boost is the intended mechanism of the game. Eventually, your base skills will approach a ceiling where raising their base values further is too hard or just not worth the effort. At that point you either start investing into feats, an available Applied Skill, or you start learning something else. Of course, that's not always an option; there's not Applied Skills for everything, and feats can only get you so far if you need to cover a broad field. Sometimes, and for some skills, you need to simply toughen up and bite the bullet if you want to improve. Magic is such a case, with the magic skillgroup being trained and expensive; becoming a skilled mage takes heavy investment, and will result in your other talents being less developed.
TLDR, Applied Skills _are_ specialization.
>>47692099
The game is fairly simulationist, I reckon.
Your idea of doubles (nice ones, btw) for feats is something I've considered, but it feels like that would leave me as a designer in a huge trap: either I work the system until it can cover those edge cases anyway and the special feats just become fluff, or I have to make a bunch of special feats for every single skill which leads us back to the main problem of too much work. Also considered should be balance issues between standard and special feats. It's a cool thought but not without downsides.
>>47696079
The first thing that inspired me to start changing shit was the abominable layout of the original TMNT character sheet. Palladium has a lot of different maneuvers, for lack of a better word (strike, parry, dodge, entangle, pull/roll with punches, etc.) with bonuses that increase with level at essentially unpredictable rates. There was no place for these anywhere, even though they were the heart of the combat system. Also, the differences between "scholarly" and "secondary" skills were not only fairly arbitrary but could change based on your background. Each skill started at a different rate, increased with level at a different rate, and may or may not receive bonuses from attributes. Also, some skills increased your other stats, again in ways that were not always easy to predict, and some of these could be taken multiple times while others could not. It resulted in looking shit up again and again for minimal benefit.
>>47690875
Bump while I read it.
>>47690875
So going over the core rules, haven't made it to glaring balance issues in the army stats yet, it looks solid, so my suggestions are for clarity and ease of reading.
For initiative, is it you combine the roll or choose the highest rolled? That needs a line to clarify.
The bold on the stats, while it looks good, is hard to read. I'd suggest just writing the stat name out and then putting the abbreviation after it, before describing the stat, so its easier to read.
For resolving the combat phase, I'd still keep an order for units to resolve in, just to keep things simple, and have the note that says all attacks are resolved at once. It just makes things easier to keep organized without changing the intent.
Orthogonal, don't use this. The average person will not know what it means. I didn't, had to look it up. I'd just use 'non-diagonal adjacent'.
I may have missed it, but I didn't see how range is measured (can you count diagonal spaces or not, etc.)
Those are the big ones that jumped out at me. On my phone, so I may have missed more.
So, I'm trying to come up with a way to translate Pokemon stats into something more palatable for table top. I can easily divide the base stats by 5 or 20 as needed, but I'm having trouble reconciling that with the levels. Normally they range from 1-100, so it would make sense to drop them by 5 for a more natural range of 1-20. I'm just trying to think of a good way to show leveling progress with much more manageable numbers. Otherwise, with any reductions, people would be having to do math with numbers in the 600-700s.
As far as attacks go, that's been a bit easier. Attacks have a base power, which I'm placing to the closest dX after dividing by 10. For example, a base 60 attack would be a d6, while a Base 150 attack (one of the higher numbers you might encounter) would be a d12+3.
I'm looking for a way to get stats to fit in well with those attack numbers, so that the math makes some sense. I've thought about having people track their stat increases in decimals so they don't lose that overflow (i.e., Increase by 1.4 or 2.1 every level, but only count whole numbers as stats), but I'm not sure if that's going the be the best solution. It might have to be, otherwise I lose a lot of granularity.
>>47701497
Honestly, I'd throw out the video game stats entirely and make things work more the way they do in the anime. Type advantages and level differences don't really mean as much, if they mean anything at all, and there's never a level difference so dramatic that one Pokemon completely outclasses another. You can grind that same Pikachu for 20 years straight and still have difficulty against other trainers.
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>>47693347
tnx a lot
>>47628585
From a game design perspective: is this in a modern or pre-modern setting? Also, what is gained from playing around with diferent shapes of dice instead of (IMO) simpler percentages.
From a common sense perspective: is all of this really needed?
>>47670408
That's what dungeon world and the rest of the pbta games say they do
Well.
I wrote a silly little game. Still, it's meant to be played.
It's based on the fluffy pony stories and illustrations. Smarties, biggest poopies, the whole run.
You can expect lots and lots of deaths and amputations, and that's why the characters are so easy to create.
Just to be clear, english is not my first language, and I know next to nothing about MLP:FIM ponies,
Thoughts about it?
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>>47709815
Is there more to this?
>>47710148
I don't quite remember where I got it from. :/
>>47710171
Found it I think.
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/41906563/
>>47710216
that's a really cool concept
bump
>>47714566
bumpalogon
WiP of my quickie system, just draw 3. I'm sorry for all similarities, cowboy anon.
It's a one sheeter with diverse combat for all 3 stats and rules to lose combat without falling unconscious. It also has a wicked simple premise for the game itself: Just Draw 3.
Creating a character? Draw 3.
Doing some menial task? Draw 3.
Fisticuffs with someone? Draw 3.
Social argument with someone? Draw 3.
If you're wondering the weird stat system (You want to have your stats as low as possible), it's in place to balance all possible hands you can get, so a hand of 2 3 5 isn't strictly worse than 5 J(11) K(13).
Drawing lower in character creation gives more adversity for skill mastery, but then you lack either resources or luck, both of which can be surprisingly important. An extremely low hand though would probably be beastly, like some 100-year old hermit with nothing but his clothes and bad luck, but the most skilled person in universe.
>>47718047
I suppose I am the aforementioned cowboy anon. :-)
Anyways, I gave it a quick look. It didn't seem that similar to what I was working on, so kudos there. Seemed fairly straight forward. My biggest concern is jokers being an automatic failure.
I feel like since there are only 2 out of 54 cards, they should either do something unique, or success of some sort. You could in turn make aces automatic failure conditional on other factors, since they can be 1 or 14 as stated in your rules. Perhaps a single one is a failure, but two or more get converted to a 2 or 3 or whatever counts as a success?
Just some thoughts after the brief glance.
Working on a rules-heavy system. Should I use a dice pool system (nD6>3) or some sort of dice? (I was thinking d10+n)
This is a question more for video game design, so not really sure it fits, but here goes.
What are people's opinions on an instant win-lose battle system? Such a system would add up the health, willpower, and anything else that contributes to attacking for one person, and then compare it to a similar number for the other person. It may or may not include "rolls" for that taste of randomness, and consequences for if one loses or wins.
It's for a text adventure Battle Royale-style text game, where I'm trying to avoid the standard combat systems while still keeping the risks and rewards for them.
>>47718513
Depends on how you want the rolls to curve.
Damn you, Gorkamorka and Frostgrave, luring me into warband campaign games.
Playing around with the idea of random objectives in a wargame. The idea is to fit the idea of exploration, when a game is played, you place X number of markers. When a model moves within 3-5" of the marker, you draw a card from a deck of random objectives, and replace the marker with them. It would be things like finding an ancient archive and a model needs to feed action points into it, as they try to decode and download the info; finding a stash of tech and treasure, so replace the marker with a scattering of markers that models need to collect; spawn a monster or monsters that attack the players; etc.
>>47718513
If you want a swingy game, d10+n would work and be quite intuitive. You can add two dice if you want things to tend towards the middle result while still keeping most of the intuitiveness.
Dice pools have a bit of an overhead since you're comparing each die to a number and then counting up how many exceeded your target number, but the probability curve gets more and more reliable as you add more dice, so you may like that.
>>47718513
Personally, I tend to associate "rules-heavy" with "rolling thousands upon thousands of dice", so I'd vote dicepool. But at the same time, I think D10+x sounds cooler.
>>47719348
>>47720098
nd6>3 is more difficult to process and sways heavily in favour of the guy with the highest number
d10+n, while only somewhat swingy, i'm not sure how it would work at higher levels. Would that +-5 matter at all?
I! HAVE! RETURNED!
Thoughts on current rules?
>>47721962
Background for the wargame these rules are for, since it's been a while.
It's an alternate history that split from ours at the point where the Roman Empire started to decline. A number of scholars notice the decline, and foresee the collapse of the Empire within a few centuries. They decide to carry all the technologies and sophistication that they can to cultures that the Empire will never be able to reach, and do their best to civilize them. Most fail, but a few manage to succeed, primarily in Scandinavia, the Mongolian Steppe, and Japan. While the Empire continues to decline, these three countries rise, and continue to discover and invent. By the time that central and western Europeans discover ancient Arabian translations of even older Roman and Greek texts, each of the three heirs to the empire has turned to a different branch of technology.
The Scandinavians have discovered and become proficient in the Tesla-style use of electricity and lightning, inspired by legends of Thor.
The Mongols have turned to using steam to power great machines, taking entire cities and mounting them on giant tracks, after their last domesticated horses died off from disease.
Finally, the Japanese have turned to diesel power, using their technology to enhance the abilities of humanity, in the form of giant, diesel powered suits that act as an extension of the wearer, in their belief that a single skilled warrior should be a match for an entire army of the unskilled.
>>47722069
Part 2
Each of these factions have stories of ancient Rome, twisted until it seemed that it was a literal heaven on Earth, and its ruins filled with gold and ancient, wondrous technology. Over time, each of the three factions decides to move in on the fabled city. The Japanese move in first, destroying many European kingdoms on the way, including the fledgling kingdom of Prussia in the Alps which had discovered a massive deposit of hydrogen under their kingdom a century ago, and found out about its lighter-than-air properties in the last few decades. This lead to the development of airships, which warned the kingdom of the encroaching threat when the Japanese approached. This lead to the leadership and most of the military abandoning the country and leaving by airship when it became apparent that the enemy was unstoppable. The remnants of the country became pirates and raiders, using their airships to remain out of range of counter attacks. Tales have it that the base of the “Prussian Remnants” is somewhere in the Pyrenees, and only reachable by airship.
The Mongols were the second to move on Rome, moving their cities as close as possible to Rome, destroying everything in the way. This stopped when they encountered the Alps, which they could not risk taking their cities into, preventing them from reaching their goal.
Meanwhile, the Scandinavians where alerted to the existence of the Mongols, and their progress towards Rome by the massive destruction on the borders of their territory. They quickly concluded that the Mongols were headed for Rome, and decided to move on it themselves. The Japanese became aware of the intrusion on their claim, and launched offensives against both intruders. This is approximately were the story would be in the game.
>>47722080
Also, factional gameplay styles:
Scandinavians: Medium speed, strength and toughness, good at ranged and melee.
Mongols: Fast, ranged, have a few units that can deal damage in melee, but their entire army tanks like a sheet of paper, use large numbers.
Japanese: Moderately fast, quite tanky, terrifying in melee, hit like a train, but little ranged, and have only 1/5 of the units an average army would.
Prussian Remnants: Average strength and toughness, mix of ranged and melee, are slow on foot, but can use airships for rapid transport and bombing, get additional points for dragging salvage off battle.
>>47718363
Having the jokers as automatic failures does give the game some sort of dread while being played, making every time you burn a luck also a little dangerous.
Hmm... I just did some calculations and came to conclusion that 4/18 draws being automatic successes is pretty bad, with 2/18 automatic failures, with very rare negations of each other... Maybe I should force more skill points on the poor players so there is an actual chance to fail. Because even if the stat is at rank TEN, which is absolutely one of the lowest ranks, success is guaranteed (if there are no modifiers putting it higher, for instance). Or wait, did I remember my system wrong. Ah yes, I think the system was that the LOWEST CARD in the bunch was supposed to be higher than the difficulty! Me dumbdumb.
I also realized a weird dichotomy, that character's with low stats (meaning their stat numbers are higher) actually have more defence, because the difficulty to hit with an attack comes from their stat. That's kind of dumb. Time to change that.
Now I just realized that I have some weird hard-on for subtractive systems, but that's just me I guess. Huh, I just realized that burning luck is PRECISELY about getting doubles. this is because in the "fixed" system, the lowest card doesn't change. But hmm... Burning luck might be too risky to be useful, unless the luck cards are optional, save the jokers.
