Discuss

>Do you prefer comprehensive gear lists, or do-it-yourself guidelines

>What mechanic from another system do you wish you came up with yourself?

>When do you work on your game?

>>46923448
Bumping

>What mechanic from another system do you wish you came up with yourself?
When I read through the new Unknown Armies gammas from the kickstarter, I was floored by how simple and smart the Identities system was. It compresses the whole idea of do it yourself skills into something that takes two seconds to figure out but helps you explore your character better and is both open ended yet just restrictive enough.

F'ing Stolze.

>>46923448
>Do you prefer comprehensive gear lists, or do-it-yourself guidelines

That depends. As a designer, I like do it yourself guidelines. In my head canon, it allows players to create whatever they want, and thus put control back in their hand. Also it's less work in the creation process, even if it does have to be tested more rigorously. Like that game where Mortal Kombat decided to let players create their own fatalities.

But as a player, I can't be assed, and apparently neither can anyone else, considering the "Kreate a Fatality" was widely panned as lazy, uninspired, and completely out of sync with the rest of the game. When I need gear, I just want to look something up, pay the price and be done with it. If I need something slightly different, me and the DM can hash it out.

Moral of the story: Don't try to push design work off on the players. It just makes people confused and indifferent.

>>46924128
Do you think there's a middle ground where freeform design and pre-written item lists converge that works for most games?

There are games that do player-made content really well. I'm thinking of Wild Talents, and frankly most superhero games, which in particular has a very robust superpower creation system.

>>46924527
>Middle ground
Oh absolutely. But it's a matter of asking yourself "Is this easier for the player if I do it? Or more fun if they do it?" Like, making your own sundae as opposed to making your own ice cream.

For example, I wanted to make a build your own armor system since I had this chart of armor pieces. It worked pretty well, but created a logistical nightmare for the player. That's not fun, but it sure was easy for me.

The magic system is a build-your-own spell kind of thing. It was a little more work in the balance, but ultimately it's fun for the player. It also lets them theme their characters a bit better, which is aces in my opinion. What's good for the player is good for the designer in the long run.

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Realized that I forgot to put my handle on stuff

I've put together the first draft of the brief Armor, Weapon and Shields section for my ORE space adventure supplement. My goal here is to lay the groundwork for how a GM might tweak the rules one way or another based on the kind of setting he's building, as well as well to put together a reasonably composed list of possible armor and weapons that one might be interested in.

So there's been renewed interest in my "Necromunda with big robots" game idea. I'll have to work out a functional version and post it.

>>46923448
>Do you prefer comprehensive gear lists, or do-it-yourself guidelines
I prefer middle-ground. Have a strong core list of gear, but let there be some customization. I'm big on modifier and enchanting systems.

>What mechanic from another system do you wish you came up with yourself?
There's definitely been a few that I'm thinking of adopting, like the system Wrath of Kings does, where you pool hits to inflict wounds (i.e. when a model is hit, compare the number of hits to an armor stat, for each full amount of hits that equals the armor, you lose a hit point).

>When do you work on your game?
Annoyingly, most of my big ideas come right as I'm going to sleep, at that point when you are trying to turn your brain off, so it starts to wander.

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I've been toying with a project off and on for awhile now and I'd like to get some advice. Keep in mind this is still really early in the design project.

I'm currently working on the magic system, the magic-user classes and what spells they can and cannot use. I like to keep the fluff and crunch closely linked. In this case, humans aren't naturally supposed to be able to use magic and in addition to making some sort of deal with a magical entity to gain spellcasting abilities, have to choose a focus or affinity. They gain insight into one aspect of magic to the exclusion of all other aspects. It would be like going to college to study cellular biology, but afterwards being physically unable to learn robotics or astrophysics. Or like being a master with a sword but never learning to use a spear, and having taken a binding oath never to try. Also you think spears are dumb.

I'm looking for help designing the classes based on these restrictions. Fighters and the like will have a similar system, but for now I'm working on muh mages.

Specifically, I need help with the types of action magic can have, and the types of targets.
Also, names for spellcaster types would be helpful.

Will probably be using a d100 system.
Also, when I get to working on the spell list I'm going to try and make it much, much larger than, say, D&D, as I want to include a large number of utility spells. I understand the reason why, but I've always been disappointed that most RPGs focus on combat spells to the near exclusion of more civilian pursuits.
I also like the idea of players figuring out combat uses for spells not specifically designed for that.

Please excuse the mess. As I said earlier, I'm still in the early stages of design.

>>46923448

>Do you prefer comprehensive gear lists, or do-it-yourself guidelines
Comprehensive, largely because I enjoy coming up with lists like that.

>What mechanic from another system do you wish you came up with yourself?
The magic from Ars Magica. It's almost exactly what I want to use and more clearly defined than I could have come up with on my own. It's just great. I'm >>46929537 btw.
I'm mostly talking about how it defines what a spell does, rather than the actual in-game casting mechanics.

>When do you work on your game?
I shift between writing and designing, but try to set aside at least an hour a day for one or the other. Classes and work get in the way.

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>>46923448

>Do you prefer comprehensive gear lists, or do-it-yourself guidelines
My fantasy RPG is built around DIY structures for things like magic spells, weapons, possibly even map building. I like the idea of being able to really create what you want, or at least a close equivalent. So, if Gygax wanted to make his Glaive-Glaive-Fauchard-Spontoon-Halberd-Bec-de-Ranseur-Glaive, He would know what that would do, and how much it costs.
>What mechanic from another system do you wish you came up with yourself?
Doesn't matter. I intend to choose the best mechanics for my RPG, regardless of if they already exist or if I have to create it.
>When do you work on your game?
Right now? Never. When might I otherwise work on it? Whenever I have inspiration

>>46929537
A perhaps easier way to categorize your mages would be to have Domain mages stay the same. Type mages' definition would also stay the same, and specialist mages would have both an action /and/ target restriction. Double the restriction for double the bonus.

With those definitions, Elementalist would move up into Type, and Red/Green could be domains. Also, there's room for a blue mage (who might be able to cast any spell, as long as they "steal" the spell from someone in the vicinity. Colors would be domains, and stay very generalized. Going further with that, Mages could both have a Domain and a Type. For an extreme example, You could be a Red Specialist who Controls Fire. Therefore, you wield a Torch which both acts as a club and is your fire source (because you cannot both create and control fire as a specialist). Another example might be a White Necromancer who might be proficient as a priest of the dead/gravekeeper.

I think something like the above provides for a lot of variety, especially when you start mixing some of the seemingly weirder options together.

>>46924527

>>46929620 here. I posted before reading. On the subject of middle ground, I believe its absolutely necessary to have some level of both. I may want to have DIY aspects in most of my game, but I think you almost require some good, hearty examples to give the rest of your options context. Like when I get around to finalizing my rules, I'll have the rules to create your own weapons, but have a list of how some of the most common weapons used would be made. If a sword is made by abc, and a mace is made by xyz, then I'll be able to more easily figure out what I have when I combine abz or xbz together. It also keeps people from getting frustrated when all they want is a simple shortsword, but they have to go through a Subway style line to get it. You get a base first and then modify it, either lightly or heavily.

For magic its a bit more difficult, but I reconcile that by lowering the minimum required steps to create a spell. A Fireball is simply Fire+Projectile at its core. If you want something more complicated like a twinned-enlarged-delayed blast Fireball, you can make that too, but you know ahead of time it'll take more effort to make. I'll also encourage players to create a few baseline spells before hand so it doesn't bog down the game (or restrict them to a spell book they completely build each morning, which could serve a similar purpose).

I want to give players a lot of options and depth in playing, but I also can't bog down the game with all those choices. So, offering streamlined options makes tons of sense.

>>46929891
That actually sounds pretty damn good. It streamlines it and makes it easier to understand, but still allows considerable room to play around and customize.

I love the specialist idea in particular.

Many thanks for the help and quick reply.

-----
Funny you should mention blue mages, because I will be including something along those lines.
Classes in my setting are a human and demi-human only sort of deal. This is because humans are not native to the world; they arrived via deus ex machina portal when their own was destroyed. Their breed of magic, and the abilities their non-mage classes use, are foreign to the world and are thus unique to mankind.

Native species like elves, orcs, and dorfs, all operate under a different system. Instead of choosing a class, their race alone determines what they can and can't do. They come with a large list of racial abilities they can tap into using a mana system, which operates sort of like weaker Fate Points from Dark Heresy. They do have magic users, but it's different than the magic humans use. Think innate ability rather than a learned skill.
It's probably going to be a bitch balancing all this, but I like the idea enough to at least give it a shot.
Also, I find it a nice call back to early D&D.

Anyway, blue mages were humanity's attempt to harness native magical abilities. It worked, but when the blue mages realized how powerful they could get by stealing native magics the majority went a bit evil. They're actually going to be one of my go to baddy groups as the native races all hate their guts (the feeling is mutual), and they tend to be neutral at best to other humans, who they consider lesser beings.
Oh, and blue magic is a hereditary ability; all other human magic is learned.

Vancian magic works really well for tabletop games since it's relatively easy to balance and keep track of. But what are some good substitutestuff, other systems that work well for pen and paper games?
I like Vancian magic as much as the next guy, but it's nice to mix things up now and then.

>>46930331
I like the fluff. If blue mages are almost going to be their own race (and by all accounts it sounds like naturally(?) magic humans are not quite so human anymore) then it make sense that they'd be removed from the rest of the races in a... social aspect. I'm getting an Altmer vibe from the blue mages. Lots of hubris and outright disdain to go along with their magical prowess.

Sounds like you've got some stuff to work with.

Does the guy making Dragon Forest ever post here? I saw a thread about it earlier today and thought it looked really cool.

>>46932306
Yeah, pretty regularly.

>>46931492
Thanks. I'm usually either lurking or posting in the worldbuilding threads. I got a bit frustrated trying to adapt existing systems to fit my fluff and decided to try tailoring a system to my needs. No idea if it'll work or not, but it's been fun figuring this stuff out.

I'm glad /tg/ has threads like these and the worldbuilding ones.

>>46931406
Well it depends on how high magic you want to go, and what sort of magic you want to represent. You need to think what aesthetic you want for your games magic

Keep in mind the world doesn't need yet another half baked generic fantasy rpg so you better have a specific setting with a specific focus in mind.

Should it be unlimited but dangerous?

Esoteric and subtle?

Think of rules to reflect your goal.

Not sure if this is acceptable for /gdg/ but I'm seeking some help for a D20 based system I am designing.

HP and damage are both scaled down considerably from most D20 games and I am looking to make weapons different from one another.

Things like Axes doing extra damage on a critical and swords having 2 smaller dice. But I am at a loss for how to represent Spears. Does anyone here have any ideas ?

>>46933224
Other than the obvious reach advantage, you could go with a momentum thing. Represent the thrust as you move in to hit.

>>46933224
To represent their additional reach you can give them a defensive bonus

>>46933549
>>46933613
I'm having reach as a seperate property you can trade some damage for rather than a weapon type of its own more pr less.

>>46933549
I am also not sure what you mean in game terms by "momentum". How are you envisioning that mechanically?

I really want to have a combat system with less RNG, that actually has a way of performing realistic melee combat.
Have any systems for htis been made before?

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Redid the mech/Frame creation method to be more point-buy and less math-y. As before, it's intended for GMs to make their own stuff for games, as I hate systems that leave out the processes used to expand what content they have.

As always, could use people to check it out and give comments and suggestions.

>>46933722
Like charging and such.

>>46933976
So they get a bonus on charges? Eh, I'm not too keen on adding conditional stuff like that. Thanks for the suggestion though.

>>46933224
Spears?

Maybe something like the ability to parry at a distance, an initiative bonus if the enemy is far enough away, or even bonuses to attacks of opportunity?

Honestly, I'd suggest watching a lot of good kung fu movies involving staff and spear weapons. See the kind of shit you can do with one. I feel like crunch should stem from fluff.

Or you could go the Final Fantasy route and have spear users jump dozens feet into the air and impale their enemies from the sky a turn or two later.

You know, be realistic.

>>46933798
riddle of steel is as realistic as it gets but still has considerably rng

>>46934044
+ AC could work, though I might be worried about 1-H spears plus a shield in that case.

Also, the jumping thing is more something I'd put in a class than an inherent property of a weapon. I'm mostly just looking for something small so that two otherwise identical characters will feel slightly different.

>>46934112
Well, the thing with spears is that they're great for untrained peasants. Simple point and shove interface.
But someone with a lot of skill can make them almost magical.

I'd say have it be a weapon that does not penalize the user for not having a spear-related feat. It also might be interesting to give groups of people using the weapon some sort of bonus. Maybe each person after the first trying to hit the same enemy gets an increasingly helpful to-hit-bonus?

Users who actually do have spear-related feats would get the + AC bonus or whatever else you go with.

Oh, and if an untrained person uses it they should get a massive penalty if an enemy successful parries an attack. You get the jump on your enemy, but if you miss or they knock it out of the way and get close you're pretty much fucked. Which is why the spear is traditionally used by a group.

>>46932306
>>46932346

Hello!

Today I added rules for 'Homes' (stronghold building/domain management) in the Survival chapter. Heroes can stake out a space and designate it as their home. Whenever heroes lose doom points in or near their home, they gain that many Security points to spend on expansions, constructions, and amenities. Heroes can build gardens, fortifications, workshops, shrines, and more. You can even recruit a friendly goblin called a domovoi to live with you and do housework! There are also rules for haunted houses and vermin infestations.
I am adding these rules because I don't want my game to be 'grimdark' all the time. I want to offset the bleak brutality of the world with some comfy parts.

I've been posting a little bit on the Giant in the Playground forums and getting some feedback there. Some have commented that a few of the classes may be a bit schizophrenic or have overpowered combos.

Pankrators are getting a rebalanced so that it is a little more difficult to knock targets prone, and they lose their Theme Song skill and Delayed Damage Pool stuff, but they are also getting more skills that pertain to single-target lockdown.

Angels only count songs they've spent during the same scene for Deus Vult! and cap their bonus at their level, but now they also get to add that bonus to attack rolls.

Automaton winds expire at the end of the scene, but the Spring Loaded skill gains an additional attack.

Oracles need a massive overhaul. They are thematic and flavorful already, but they need to be more mechanically focused.

>>46934044
Moribito has great examples of spears

>>46934263
My bad on not explaining this earlier but I'm trying to keep the system relatively simple. So Feats are out.

I really don't want spears to be an "every one has proficiency" thing since
1. That means even wizards can throw a D12 in someone's face.
2. It means there's no reason for fighters to ever use one.

>>46934304
>added rules for Homes
Muh dick

This game perfectly combines comfy and grimdark

>>46933798
Somebody in another thread was talking about using RPS concepts in a realistic sim fight. That's a possibility.

>>46923448
>Do you prefer comprehensive gear lists, or do-it-yourself guidelines
A mix of both. I made a crafting system in my own game, but also have some unique weapons and armor in mind.

>What mechanic from another system do you wish you came up with yourself?
I guess I kinda wish I came up with Exalted's stunt dice. I like that idea a lot.

>When do you work on your game?
On and off weekends for now. I'm coming close to having something that's playable.

>>46936180
>>46934304

I added two new classes just now!

>Veteran
A bit schizophrenic right now (will tighten them up after playtesting). Like D&D rogues, Veterans have a sneak attack skill allowing them to deal extra damage to disadvantaged enemies. Unlike D&D rogues, Veterans also have a number of skills that buff and heal their flanking buddies every time they make an advantaged attack! Veterans also get an Ancient Grudge skill that gives them always-on advantage against enemies of a specific type they select during preplay.

>Jack
As in 'Jack Frost' or 'Jack-O-Lantern'. Jacks have the ability to make enemies vulnerable to one of three damage types (cold, fire, or lightning) plus spells that deal damage of that type.

>>46923361
New links:
http://www.gatekeepergaming.com/article-6-how-to-get-minis-made/
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/838422/mass-production-custom-made-miniatures
https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/

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Hey guys, the other day I had a cool idea for a simple and flexible magic system. I'm pretty tempted to write is as a savage bolt-on or homebrew replacement for their powers section.... Or just write it as it's own thing and let people do what they want with it.

Question is, before I go and put pen to paper, are there any other nifty magic systems out there for me to study a bit?
I've already played with the TORG and Ars magic systems which are obviously the heavy end of the scale with stuff like SW being lighter.
Any tips?

>>46941708
I would advice you to take a look at GURPS Thaumathology, as the entire book is dedicated to diffrent magic systems and tweaking them.

>>46942422
Thanks anon! Got them in a folder on my pc but never read them. Will check it out now.

Any advice on how to make SWAT game? If anyone played the PC games. CQC with a lot of covers, tactics and uncertainty.

Can someone please advise a GOOD written system to draw inspiration from?

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>tfw I spent all day at work thinking up a neat setting with an interesting game mechanic
>tfw I start writing it down when I get home and I realize it's basically a Dark Souls clone with an Adventure Time-y vibe

Why live

>>46946622
That sounds awesome though.

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Sorry for the 8 page PDF. But this is my latest playtested packet. I'm going for a heavy push-your-luck game with a focus on cinematic action (and some tactical stuff). The game should feel like gambing with fate. It's currently very mechanically focused and I haven't done the worldbuilding/abilities, but it's smooth and playable.

I would love any feedback! As a show of good faith I promise to review every PDF posted in this thread when I get back (About to go do work. Will be out in 5 hrs or so)

>>46948061
I don't normally tripcode, but I need to prove I'll keep my word somehow.

>>46947325
I'm super in love with it too, I'm just afraid of being called a hack and or faggot. Which I guess is a silly thing to be afraid of in roleplaying games. Here's the pitch:

The game takes place in a dangerous world left behind by the Humen. It is populated by a myriad of creatures created by the Humen, both friendly and dark, powered by a mysterious energy called Heart. Day to day living depletes heart very slowly, almost negligible in amount. However, adventuring hardly qualifies as day to day for most! Heart is also used to power many of the special abilities that folks use, and is often used as a sort of currency. The closest thing to dying in this game is running out of Heart, at which point you go to sleep. You can be easily revived by a friend finding more Heart to give you (however if you get lost and run out of Heart, you're in for a long nap!). More Heart is found in various artefacts and trinkets, and within most creatures (though taking someone else's Heart is widely frowned upon!). Heart also slowly appears when friends spend enough time with eachother (generally too long for it to be worth losing adventuring time though).

At character creation, players buy abilities, stats, and other goodies from a starting pool of Heart. There are no "classes," but the major (and most expensive!) abilities would be a close comparison: it is rare for a character to have more than two, and one is the most common.

You and your friends play as one of the three most common friendly (though not always!) creatures: skeletons, autos, and goblins.

The feel is meant to be dark fantasy with a cartoonish vibe.

>>46948456
Dude. Don't be afraid. Your idea rocks and I would play the shit out of it.

As someone who is working on publishing a board game, and making a tabletop RPG for fun, here's my advice to you. One of the most important skills of a designer is learning how to listen to criticism. You could make the holy grail and people will give you shit anyways. Don't take it personally. Just realize that they have a reason for what they are saying, and get as much info as possible. Don't have an ego and take advice that needs to be taken, but know that there is a lot of criticism that should be ignored.

Bumpity bump.

>>46948456
>The feel is meant to be dark fantasy with a cartoonish vibe

Sold. I love. Make it. Make it or I'll call you mean names over the internet.

>>46933838

I meant to comment on this today, but got caught up with something else.

For some reason, I feel like your first version was a little more intuitive. This one is more consistent, with the use of Modifiers, but those numbers don't mean anything in the game world outside of acting as useful mathematical tools. One nice thing about ORE is that that it's delightedly free, in large part, of things like Ability Score Modifiers which serve to basically fix broken math.

Also where you write here:
>Speed = desired rating * Engine modifier
It makes it seem like your Speed itself is equal to that, not its cost.

I feel like it's not coming together as nicely I'd like, mainly because it isn't written in natural language, which is something that more ORE guidelines use.

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>>46929537
Bit more from me.

I'm starting to doubt whether or not the Ars Magica ripoff stuff is going to work. I still like the morality/action/target split, but using it makes some of the more common types of magic hard to define. Like summoning. When a creature is summoned, the summoner is assumed to have control over it. So, a Summoner Mage would be using the Control action/operation/whatever. But that wouldn't account for how the creature was summoned in the first place. Would that be a Change operation, or would you count the portal or what have you as the main action? Would it then be a Create Portal spell? But was is being created? Portals don't really fit into any of the Forms (though I could always expand the list).

Just using a more usual school based set of magics -- Conjuration, Alteration/Transmutation, Enchantment, etc -- would be much simpler. Should I stick to my guns and risk a confusing mess, or go with the tried and true method? I'm worried going with the standard option would lead to certain schools being almost entirely devoted to one of the domains. A restoration school wouldn't work at all for a black mage, for example.
In either case, I'd keep the Domain idea and have an "other" category for mages w/ otherwise undefinable focuses (red mages using quick-to-cast magics, for example, wouldn't really fit with any other category).

Also, if I do keep the current system, I'd go with the suggestion from >>46929891
in regards to Specialist Mages. Domain/Operation/Form mages would all have pre-defined names and rules. Specialists, who chose an Operation and a Form and stick to them alone, would have a table of some sort to help players make such a character. They would not necessarily have pre-chosen names apart from a few examples.

Thoughts?

Coming up with a homebrew system for a friend's RPG he's coming up with. Details not terribly important aside from it's modern day with squad level tactics (with the players forming the squad).

As far as dice mechanics go, I was looking to go with something simplistic with 40k and White Wolf Themes. Simplified here for discussion:

Attacks largely classified into Melee and Ranged.

Dice pools for attacks generated from stats:

>Gain 1d6 for Melee per Strength

>Gain 1d6 for Ranged per Perception.

Skills are generally used for attacks and can modify these pools.

>Hard Strike- Melee. This Attack gains +1D (plus one d6)
>Expose-Ranged. This Attack gains +1 To Hit if you are Flanking.

Baseline difficulty for Attacking is 5+. Any die that rolls 5 or higher scores a Hit.

>5d6 Melee attack rolls: 3,4,5,5,5. Score: 3 Hits

Armor counters attacks. Armor has an Armor Points which is treated as an overshield or Temporary hit points. It shows how much damage it can soak before it is rendered useless. Negate shows the roll needed to negate 1 HIt.

>Suit Mk. I Armor: 8 Negate: 5+/Ranged 4+

Shows that this Armor can negate up to 5 Hits before being rendered useless. It will negate Hits on a 5+, or a 4+ if they are ranged.

>5d6 Melee attack rolls: 3,4,5,5,5. Score: 3 Hits
>Armor roll: 2,3,5. Negate: 1 Hit.
>Result: Defender's Armor Points at 7/8. Defender takes 2 Damage.

Crits bypass armor entirely, they cannot be negated.

Does this seem simple enough or convoluted for a party?

>>46954700
Sounds alright to me, though if I were playing it I'd need a chart handy just in case.
I remember the d6 Star Wars game having a fairly solid set of rules. Might help to check that out.

>>46955048
The old old Star Wars or the newer ones by FFG?

I read a little bit about the FFG version, though it seemed like it played more into symbols than raw pip values, not that there's anything wrong with that.

I have a write up in progress as it also goes into Cover and Flanking mechanics (think of X-Com Light, I suppose)

Cover generally offers a straight penalty to To Hit for the attacker, a -1 for Light and -2 for Heavy. Either basically makes umodified attacks only hit on Crits (5+ to 6+/7+).

I also need to keep a tally of To Hit bonuses and penalties overall; if To Hit is too easy to come by then I either need to get rid of some of them, make it harder to obtain, or switch to d10's to allow a further "range".

Flanking right now depends on Facing and FoV, more or less similar to Battletech; encounters take place on Hexes to allow an easier time of determining facing and a unit's FoV is determined by drawing a straight line from it's facing and adding in a 1 hex adjacent line on either side of it to make a cone, as it were.

An attack counts as "Flanking" if it is made while outside a unit's FoV and confers a +1 To Hit. In addition, any other friendly units that are also in Flanking position confer a +1D to the Attack.

This means that while YOU may not be Flanking a target yourself, you would get a bonus if an ally is.

Thats probably the most wonky or complicated part of it overall.

>>46955446
>The old old Star Wars or the newer ones by FFG?
Old. I didn't know FFG had a d6 SW game.

>>46954078
>A restoration school wouldn't work at all for a black mage, for example.
Not with that attitude

Some schools might just need a minor renaming. What's important with your idea is that you have defined differences with how the magic interacts.

For example, in my homebrew I have two main divisions when it comes to the magical effects itself. What magic affects, and How magic affects it. You're pretty close to that here. Your Form is the what, and Operation is the how. once those are solid (like they seem close to being), its really just coming up with synonyms for those concepts. Determine what is absolutely necessary for magic to do, then give it a name. If summoning is just that vital, then it needs a representation. If it isn't, then it can either be dropped or fit into an interpretation of one of the existing categories. You could get away with Using Ars Magicka naems. You could also get away with using the DnD schools. Or, you might need to create your own naming conventions to encompass and define the possibilities and differences between your magics.

As far as Mage names go: Is it necessary to make defined names for them? It could easily be handled by the players themselves.

>>46955876
>Is it necessary to make defined names for them?
Now that you mention it, no.

That's actually just about what I needed to hear to keep going. Thank you for the advice and pep talk.

>>46954078
I suppose. I don't really get the Domains and how they interact with other things on the list. What's the difference between a White mage with Fire and a Black mage with Fire? Or is only the Black mage allowed to have it?

I suppose the easiest way to go about it is your meme "Mages of the Black school tend to focus on the destructive capabilties of magic, bringing all force to bear to see how far they can go"

"White mages tend to focus on the protective side of magic, seeing it as an shield rather than a sword. Where a Black Mage might conjure a fireball, a White Mage would form a fire shield to punish any would-be attackers."

"Grey/Blue/Red/Teal/Shit-Brown Mages are detached from either; they focus more on the hermetic study of magic in and of itself. They study it for knowledge and knowledge alone with no goal of bringing a power to bear. They will test limits with one particular spell then go further by trying to create a new effect or spell based upon their knowledge of it. A Grey mage might dabble with a fireball and a fire shield, and study fire control further to find that he can simply being to super-heat metal objects such as swords and armor rather than direct flames themselves, for instance."

>>46956102
> I don't really get the Domains and how they interact with other things on the list.
In many ways, they don't. It's a different category for a different type of mage; a fire elemantalist wouldn't give a damn if a spell were tagged white or black.

In terms of fluff, there are no dedicated clerics or god-related magics. The Domain category is largely there to allow for religion-based spellcasting, or things of that nature. A cleric would be something along the lines of a White Mage who learned magic from a benevolent deity's teachings. (not that all white mages HAVE to be clerics)

In crunch terms, the driving principle is that Domain mages (who operate like you say, focusing either on destructive or constructive magics) have a very wide skill set, with access to a large number of spells, but are weaker at casting them than a more specialized mage.
In other words, a fireball spell cast by a black mage would be weaker than one caste by a fire mage, and weaker still than one cast by a mage who specializes in Creation and Fire. I haven't decided how much of a difference there would be, but for sake of argument lets say a Fire Mage's fireball would be 50% stronger than a Black Mage's, and a Creation/Fire Mage Specialist would cast one 100% stronger.
But a black mage would also be able to cast a summon zombie spell, or use lightning, or poison an enemy. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a Creation/Fire Mage wouldn't even be able to use a spell that puts out a fire. He could only make it, but he'd be really, really good at doing so.

The more specialized mages will also probably be able to cast more frequently. Kind of like a warlock in 3.5 D&D.

It's all a matter of restriction. The more restricted or limited a mage's range of spells is, the stronger those spells are.
Domain Mage: strength 1
Operation/Action/Whatever Mage: strength 1.25
Form/Target Mage: strength 1.5
Specialist Mage: strength 2

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>>46953857
Yeah, it's kind of hard to break away from O.R.E's point-buy system, but I really, really like the gradual method. Just have to make everything fit, really.

Mk. III up for anyone willing to take a crack at making a mech.

>>46923448
>Do you prefer comprehensive gear lists, or do-it-yourself guidelines

I prefer more effort to be made on the GM/DM side of things. Maybe a small list of known weapons for stat lines, but I really like to keep freedom in my systems.

World of Darkness is one of my favorite weapon listing, including the Armory book on creating prototype weapons.

>What mechanic from another system do you wish you came up with yourself?

Malifaux's use of playing cards instead of dice. Not my favorite game, but it is pretty cool to system.

>When do you work on your game?

Typically in the summer time; It's the slowest time of year for game studios. I'll work on the game for a few hundred hours over a 2-3 month period, write a bunch of notes, then pick it back up the next year.

(Currently on year 5 of a miniature strategy game, and 3 of my RP system using tarot cards using this method)

>>46944818
Bump some more.

>>46957978
The gradual build idea is actually great. Don't break away from it, just expand on it. Like I said it really gives the feeling of building your mech from the ground up.

Incidentally, since you know about ORE, can you give >>46925131 this a read and let me know your thoughts? I don't get a lot of feedback in general in this thread because few people know much about it.

New to tgs, but after playing pandemic and super dungeon explore, I found that co-op games can be generally played by one person.

What would a game that requires two or more people to be played cooperatively be like?

Why isn't d20 roll under stat done anywhere?
That way attributes could be kept like in other d20 games, but every point put into attributes has an impact.
Is it for some reason I'm not seeing not usable?

>>46962667
Cultural momentum. The d20 is so closely associated with "d20+Modifier, roll over" that doing anything else feels wrong to a lot of people.

>>46955628
FFG's SW isn't d6, it's custom dice and is based around a narrative Advantage/Disadvantage system that actually works really well if your players are into it. Check out the Campaign podcast for an ideal representation of how the system works (though I think it's been about 3 episodes since they did any actual rolling, since right now it's all character stuff happening right now)

>>46962076
A cooperative game that CANNOT be played with one person seems like a logistic impossibility. Even a game like Space Alert, which has a time limit on each round and throws a ton of stuff at you at all times, can still be played with one person.

The only reason why more than one person would be a NECESSITY in a tabletop game is if the two players had to hold certain information secret to themselves, which kind of goes against the whole "cooperative" aspect of the game.

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Still work on Necromancer every now and then, really have to get back into it.
Some bits and bobs from the current draft

>>46962076
I want to say something like Between Two Cities, where you cooperatively build a city together with another player, but that also has a little bit of competitiveness.

1-vs-all games are technically cooperative games, but in a 2-player game the other player isn't actually helping you.

Games like Mysterium might be a good example I think, where one player supports the other player to victory. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is another good example, and that one also has one traitor player in addition to the clue giver.

>>46962057
>Incidentally, since you know about ORE, can you give >>46925131 this a read and let me know your thoughts?

It looks great. Good layout, informative, and gives all the information needed for that section. Took a look at it before, actually, and it reminded me to add armor weight to my own lists.

>just expand on it
Any suggestions for that? About the only thing I can think of is defining new equipment.

>>46964716
>Any suggestions for that? About the only thing I can think of is defining new equipment.

My suggestion for the Gradual Build is to include the raw calculation along with your descriptive paragraph. I actually really like the raw calculation for its transparency, but the description helps the GM see why he's doing what he's doing.

>>46964761
That makes sense, and would bring things more in line with other O.R.E. modules.

Are you going to upload your work when you have it done and polished? Can't get enough of sci-fi settings, and anything O.R.E. is welcome.

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>>46964892
Of course. I've been assembling it piece-meal, as I finish one element and work on another. It's pretty much a mess right now, but after a year stuff is finally coming together and approaching a playable form.

Here's one largely finalized draft of the playable alien creation rules.

>>46965767
That's pretty neat. Can't wait to get a hold of the final version!

>>46965835
Here's the basic outline and the rough progress that I've gone through:

>Introduction....0%

CRUNCH
>Basic Character Generation.....80%
>Xenotypes..............................90%
>Factions/Companies................0%
>New Skill Rules......................30%
>Esoteric Disciplines.................0%
>Combat Updates......................0%
>Equipment..............................90%
>Martial Paths..........................90%
>Spacecraft Generation.............70%
>Space Adventuring..................15%
>Space Combat........................10%
>Marvels (Reworked Magic).......40%
>One Roll Xenotypes.................50%
>One Roll Creatures..................80%
>One Roll Planets......................90%
>One Roll Spacecraft..................0%

FLUFF
>Backstory.................................80%
>Factions...................................10%
>The Galaxy................................0%
>Faction Technology....................0%

Plus more stuff I'm sure I haven't thought of yet. The final product, I think, should be less than 100 pages.

>>46965980
Looks like a lot of work. Good luck and godspeed, anon!

>>46966278
Yeah, but it became a lot more managable when I realized that it would better served as sort of an expansion to REIGN than a stand-alone product. It saved a lot of time, especially in the combat and skills section, so I only have to explain what's changed from vanilla-REIGN.

>>46925131
I love the types of shields. it's clean and encompassing.
>>46929537
So each action contains a domain, an action and a target? Are bonuses for each domain/action/target tracked seperately or are they just toggles (Known/unknown)?

Other than that, I do really like the system. More subtypes would help. So far as defining things better: Part of the charm of ars-magica is the broadness of the scope. You might want to define "spells" that are set in stone and safe, and then use this for wild casting or something which has more risk?

>>46933838
I like it, but the language does need cleaning up. I'm not fond of putting multiplication into the costs. You might just want to say x points per level or something.

>>46954700
Does the armour thing mean that you will have to repurchase armour multiple times in game, or does armour refresh every now and then?

Do you ever take inspiration from video games?
>>>/vg/140390665

>>46967797
Occassionally. I've taken some inspiration from Bloodborne to be honest, purely for how dynamic combat can be. I also look at VGs form the perspective of "how could someone take what I'm doing to play Mass Effect or some other sci-fi game?"

>>46967586
>So each action contains a domain, an action and a target?
The idea was for the action/target thing to define what a spell does, and use that to define its morality (leading to domain). But after putting a little more effort into defining things and trying to write up some sample spell lists, it just isn't practical for my needs. To have the specialist mage stuff, I'd need to write up dozens of spells for every conceivable combination of action and target. When it comes down to it, there are only so many Create + Plant spells you can come up with. Same goes for Destroy + Water, and many others.
I'm almost certainly going to drop the current categories and just use the tried and true Schools, albeit with a few tweaks. What are currently called specialist mages will have to be revamped into more distinct classes.

And I'm not confident I could pull of a spell designing system for the game and keep it even remotely balanced.

I'll have to rip off Ars Magica another day.

>>46967797
All of my projects have taken inspiration from vidya.

One is an Ace Combat homebrew, so that's obvious.

My fantasy RPG took from lots of sources. Guild Wars gave me my hit locations/rates, Chrono Trigger gave me stats, Monster Hunter+4e gave me my wounds/HP system, and other games like Zelda, Pokemon, and other things I can't think of right now have given me inspiration and desire to create mechanics and/or modules to experience those worlds.

Mechanics are mechanics whether they're in vidya or table top. All it takes is a little translation.

>>46968336
The idea of ars magica was that you didn't need to write spells. It was pretty freeform and had sample effects. You could make up magic on the fly.

My suggestion was going with a mage-like rotes+freeform system. Defined spells are easier to cast, but you can go freeform at a greater risk.

>>46967586
Not that anon, but it's basically whatever you have control over. Every new way to define your Mage means you have greater control over less options.

>>46968464
That might work, actually. I'll have to play with it. I really love the idea of using the system, I'm just not sure how to pull it off.

>>46968336
I think you can make it work. Allow the player and GM to interact in regards to spell balance. It creates a somewhat unique interaction that's lost with some other systems.

Remember, a large reason 3.5 is imbalanced is because people make houserules with the intention to make things smoother, but have the additional effect of changing perceived imbalance gaps. Not that the imbalance isn't there, just that power levels differ between people.

>>46968336
>>46968534
>>46968468
It might work if the Specialist mages have a single action/operation and more than one form, as long as the forms are related somehow. They may be similar, like a human/plant/animal (ie, life) or fire/water/air/earth (elemental) focus. Or they could even be opposites, like human/dead body or fire/water.
It also might help to disallow ones that don't make sense. For example, how would Create + Dead Body even work?

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I posted this in the last thread just to get some ideas on it, but I've been wondering since then if I should add to it.
It's a pretty freeform game, and it's supposed to be quick and easy, which I think is it's main quality. But I'm worried that if I don't include some kind of health system, my players will never be worried about getting killed, since there's no mechanic to handle it.
Thoughts?

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At the moment I'm designing a war game that plays on a hexgrid with different kinds of units and terrain using dice to do stuff.

There will be:
Different kinds of infantry
Vehicles like armored transport, anti infantry, anti aircraft, MBTs, artillery
All kinds of aircraft

Terrain will consist of:
Plains
Woodlands
Highlands
Water
All with different pros and cons for different units.

Each players starts out with an HQ, a Master Gunship, and 4 dice. A players loses when his HQ or Gunship is destroyed. Units have different stats like HP, movement, armor, attacks, range, other abilities.

A Master Gunship has movement 2 and gets an additional movement for each dice you put on it, up to a maximum of 4 total movement per turn. Heavy and slow so not too much movement possible. Put a dice value of 5+ (you can use several dice to reach a value) on it and it can repair 1 HP. Higher values for more powerful abilities and attacks. Some will have a restriction regarding the number of dice you can use for it. Like a powerful multi-hex targeting missile attack will be 14+ but maybe allows no more than 3 dice to contribute to it.
For each unit except for infantry you gain another die. You can use dice to build factories for vehicles or hangars and airfield for aircraft. When using a die like that it gets removed for a number of turns. Fewer turns if you contribute more dice. But using too many might leave you weak on the battlefield.
There will be several stronghold hexes on the map and you gain 1 die for each you control.
Jets must always be moved a minimum number of hexes because they can't hover like helicoters. Plus they have a certain turn radius so you can't go back and forth with them like Pacman. Aircraft will also feature fuel which you have to consider when moving around with them, especially with jets.
You can use your dice to research new tech like lasers, railguns, orbital weapons, etc.

Do you guys have any ideas or suggestions? Would love to hear your thoughts.

>>46968823
What scale are you planning on using? Sounds like this would work well at the scale of Epic: Armageddon. Have you thought at all about maybe using telescopic stands for the flying units? I can't recall seeing a game really take the 3d part of aerial warfare into account, save for a WWII fighter game I saw played at a convention once.
I feel like having the gunship's destruction end in victory for the opponent will lead to a lot of AA spam.

You certainly have me intrigued.

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>>46967797
I've tried to adapt Monster Hunter to tabletop, with some less-than-salutary results. That may change, of course, but it's an interesting problem to tackle, as most character improvement comes from gear instead of leveling up.

Version 5 up, with minor changes and hopefully fixed language to make things flow a bit better.

>>46948061
I like the resolution system, though the lack of context on boons and banes makes it a little hard to fully judge.

>>46968970
>Have you thought at all about maybe using telescopic stands for the flying units?
I think that would be too much for me. I already have trouble figuring out all sorts of factors and variables. Flying units are just considered in the air, no matter if helicopter or high altitude bomber. It may not be realistic but the complexity level would just kill me.

>I feel like having the gunship's destruction end in victory for the opponent will lead to a lot of AA spam.
The MG is mobile which the HQ is not and it has powerful attacks and units transport capabilities. Of couse enemy AA will be dangerous, but air units are more expensive than ground units and there will be some neat AA ground units.
And players can also erect turrets to help keep certain enemy troops at bay.

There will be a lot of tactics involved. For example one infantry type is camouflaged when in woodland terrain. So while the other player may see the unit on the board, his units can't attack them unless they are on a hex directly next to them. Or he could also do an infrared sweep in that area to reveal them for a turn, but that'll cost dice and dice are your bread and butter.
You can also use a laser or napalm or flamethrowers to burn down a forest hex. At the start of the next turn the player rolls for each hex adjacent to the burning one to check if the fire spreads in the woodlands.

Or diver infantry is considered camo'd in water and can also move normally and even shoot from there, which other infantry can't.

All sorts of different stuff I'm still thinking about and I have no idea what's good and what's not.

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>>46969320
Here's a dummy map I made in paint. Red and blue are the players start positions and where their HQs are.
White is plains, green is woodlands, brown is highlands/mountains, and light blue is water.

>>46969386
Oh and purple hexes are strongholds which give you a die each if you control it.

>>46968735
Character creation doesn't seem to specify how many talents or item slots the players get. After a second reading, I'm guessing its one of each?

>>46969442
It's three each. It's a little hard to see, but it's at the end of the first paragraph.

>>46969580
although I may bring it down to two.

I want to make a 2d game where do I get started

>>46969669
Try Unity 2d. It's the only approved 2d engine.

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>>46969669
>>>/vg/140390665
Pretty helpful bunch actually it is massively shitposted but be the change you want to see, lots of good information and a supportive community

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>>46969740

>>46967797
You shouldn't, generally the mechanics don't work cross-platform.

>>46968729
Something worth leveraging is the open interpretation certain powers have. That's what Ars Magicka makes use of. But again, you don't have to restrict yourself to what Ars Magicka offers. If you need to, feel free to tweak the actions to what you need them to be. You might even want to use the DnD schools as your action equivalent. It all depends.

For example, Create+Dead Body could be used in medical formats by creating or recreating lost or damaged body parts. Or, you could just use it to create mystery meat. Creating a dead body doesn't mean it has to be decrepit and withered (unless of course, you say it does, in which case you can use it to poison the water hole). Lifeless is a synonym for dead, but you can put life into something lifeless, so there's those options (That idea also creates an interesting relationship between "normal healing" spells, and "necromantic healing" spells. If someone loses a limb, you might need both types of healing to replace it. Its a possibility of interpretation).

Or, maybe the Ars Magicka verbs don't work, and so your verbs become the DnD schools. Then you have to reconcile what happens when you combine Enchanting and Dead Body. Do you enchant dead bodies with other things, enchant other things with dead bodies, both, or neither? Again, it all depends on how willing you (or the player+GM are) to interpret things. The possibilities are all there, waiting to be used (or, waiting for someone to say no).. Part of the benefit to specializing is that you'll need to be more creative, and that required creativity is both good for the player irl and the game.

>>46969939
This is unfortunately true. A big part of video games is that you have a computer to take on a lot of the back-end stuff that would be too tedious for a player. Especially in computer RPGs and the like. Fallout is a fun PC game, but it's practically unplayable as-is on tabletop because of the extra calculations it does for stuff compared to basic GURPS (which is already unwieldy at times)

>>46969055
This might make for a hefty re-write, but no one says you have to include a leveling system. You could more closely mimic Monster Hunter by only having gear improve your character, and having hunt progress be tracked by successful hunts/Guild missions.

>>46969994
I can't remember which but I played a PnP RPG with a threat mechanic ripped straight from a CRPG, the required bookkeeping was disgusting, the DM had to track and adjust two different threat stats on literally everything every turn.

>>46969939
>>46969994
You can't copy and paste the mechanics usually, but that doesn't mean you can't translate them.

And again, some things cannot be translated, but there are also many things that can.

>>46970040
That's what I was going for, but was stymied by the "Well, how powerful can weapons get?" question. At that point, all I had for reference was the toolkit and older O.R.E. versions.

Now, taking a look at Wild Talents Essential and seeing weapons with W+7 frees things up a bit in that department.

I'm trying to decide on a method for character generation between tarot, astrology, casting runes, and I Ching, what would you guys recommend?

>>46968735
You might need to add something about being killed. I'm not sure what kind of tone you're going for with player life (like, if they should expect to die frequently and re-roll frequently, or if they should not expect to die often at all, etc), but you should make something that reflects that tone. For instance, if you don't want characters to die, then their deaths could take resources from all the players as a group. Or, if you don't care about frequent deaths, then maybe they can't participate until the next quantum leap where their character is "quantumly" replaced.

>>46970135
You're gonna have to elaborate just a smidgen more on how you think each style is going to work.

>>46968735
I thought it seemed pretty neat so I played it with my group last night. We rarely do narrative games and a nice change of pace was needed, this turned out surprisingly fun.

Chargen felt like it needed some direction and also the rules could have been streamlined. So I thought of a few starting scenarios about what the characters are (multiverse-pirates, refugees, scientists, etc). This helped lay a foundation to the story and give some reason for us to jump around worlds. I also bulleted the rules for faster reading.

After making characters (we were weird dragon-people escaping the Eldrazi(?), I looked like Rango), we jumped to our first universe - Pokemon. The group scared Bugcatcher Timmy off by swearing and being dragons - then pretended to be pokemon. They started battling the elite 4, beat Slowbro and Cloyster from the ice lady before the universe exploded. Then we were in a realm of pure peace, inhabited by treants. We fucked shit up and got attacked by treants - then had to sacrifice an item to not die. I sacrificed a bow I was making. The next world was a fire-tunnel dimension that had some flame-spirit dude in it. He gave us a shield and a lesbian AI. I wanted to sell it. The last world was the Matrix and was pretty fucking cool.

Yeah we had fun. Drunkly high fun. Best part was that a normie non-tabletop player showed up and joined in, ran a sick realm too. 10/10 would play again.

>>46962667
Infinity does this, uses a price is right style roll. Get your target number or lower, but higher than your opponent in opposed rolls. If you roll the target number, you crit.

>tfw you just want to mash a bunch of mechanics from other systems together
>tfw you start coming up with your own ideas and want to branch out
>tfw scared your work will never be able to withstand comparisons to its inspirations
If I have player-defined traits similar to FATE aspects or Risus, where the player just says what their character is good at instead of choosing from predefined lists of options like in D&D, is it unoriginal?

>>46970619
It's unoriginal as in, it has been done before. But so has pretty much everything. Depending on what and how you put things together, the final result might look like something new.

>>46970619
Perhaps. But then again, most everything is unoriginal nowadays. People just take what they like and tweak it til they like it more. So don't worry too much about being compared to other systems. Just make something you like and share it if people seem interested.

>>46970671
>>46970695
Thanks lads. I've been at it for a few months now and I've made some decent progress, but I worry that there will be too much dissonance between mechanics I make and mechanics more directly inspired by other systems.

>>46969257
Thanks! I do need to include some examples there. It's basically success with cost.

>>46970729
I've been held back a lot by thinking "But what if this won't work as it should". Dwelling on it usually doesn't get you anywhere, it's better to think that you can fix it later and just power through with what you got. You won't know for sure how your mechanics work until you put them all together and try them out.

>>46970122
I'd be careful with that. Wild Talents is meant to be played on a fairly insane range of powers, from street level vigilantism to ridiculously godlike levels. A weapon having W+7 in damage is meant to exist in a universe where a character can have the equivalent of AR10 at all times.

So, I'm trying to come up with a dice mechanic for the system I want to piece together. I want to try out dice pools, and I was thinking I would rig it up so that the character's skill (acrobatics, stealth) is the Target Number to score a success, and they roll a number of dice equal to their attribute (Strength, Dexterity).

I was wondering if there are any existing systems like that out there, and I assume there are. I was hoping to take a look at them, see how they handle things, and maybe rip some of their numbers and balancing out to use for my system.

As it stands, I'm kind of lost on where to go from the concept stage, as far as balancing TNs and attribute dice.

>>46972048
In that system, lower ranked Skills would be better than higher ranked ones, yes?

A lot of systems try to avoid doing that because it creates a certain amount of dissonance in the system when one set of numbers improves as it gets bigger, while the other set improves as it gets smaller.

>>46970729
>a few months
Wew lad. I bashed out my homebrew in a week and moved to playtesting.

Theorycrafting is only useful up to a point and that point is way closer than you think.

I started toying with some ideas for a board game that I want to make for Tabletop Simulator. Maybe upload it to the Steam Workshop when I'm done.

>a game that borrows heavily from Wiz-War
>players are combatants in a maze-like dungeon arena
>The game board is made up of 5x5 square tiles, which are randomized. So every map layout is different.
>Different tiles have different traps and paths to take. And players also place treasure on the map in tiles that aren't their starting tile.

>Items, spells, and monsters are represented by cards.
>Players start off with one item card, but are able to acquire more by recovering treasure or slaying other players.
>combat is similar to D&D, in which you roll a d20, trying to hit your target, then roll a separate die for damage. Both accuracy and damage are determined by your weapon or spell, and armor gives you a dodge bonus, as well as damage reduction.

Anyone have an ideas as to how I can implement what I have so far? Any suggestions or criticisms?

>>46972136
>>46972048

Sorry, forgot to mention that. You attempt to roll UNDER the Target Number to score a success. So, higher skill is better.

Probably shouldn't have left out that tidbit.

>>46972629
Oh! That makes sense.

I've had the same idea as that before, and I think it's got potential. It's got the advantage of internal resolution (you always know off the bat if you succeed or not) and I'm not aware of another system that uses it, so that's cool.

One thing that would be tricky is balancing the math, i.e. determining at whether you get more bang out of increasing your dice pool size or increasing your target number.

>>46972745
>One thing that would be tricky is balancing the math, i.e. determining at whether you get more bang out of increasing your dice pool size or increasing your target number.

Yeah, that's the snag I've been running into. Maybe I'm just bad at AnyDice, but it looks like it's not hugely in favor of one or the other.

Ideally, the advantage to picking up another attribute die would be higher success rate over a broader category of things, while upgrading a skill would only make you better at that one thing. Assuming the math works out in favor of this mechanic, I'm going to make attributes a bit more difficult to increase than skills and/or have the players acquire the bonus differently from skills.

>>46973005
Just re-running the numbers quickly, and I realized something that should have been obvious. While the odds of at least one success increase at a not too disparate rate (slightly in favor of increasing skill), the odds of multiple successes are hugely better when you add more dice (duh!). So, attribute dice would be significantly better to get (only very slightly worse than upgrading a skill as far as 1 success, significantly better for multiple successes). I'll definitely have to balance accordingly.

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oh hi /gdg/, are there any systems that kind of require a CAS (computer algebra system) at hand but that's still tabletop? I don't tabletop much sadly, but I wonder if you know of anything like that, or have any thoughts.

I'm thinking things like ODEs governing whether poison hits, shit like that. It would primarily be a game for students of math/physics/whatever else, kind of like a more fun way of studying that random problems from the books.

Thoughts on that or know of anything existing?

>>46972048
Burning wheel does something like that, and a lot of Target number dice pool systems like the Storyteller system are comparable.
I also do that exact thing and the distribution of probability will fall along a similar pattern of dice sizes as the table indicates (such that, given unequal skills and attributes, the statistically beneficial thing to do is increase the lower one)
>>46964549

>>46974903
I should mention the three figures in each cell on that graph are
average amount of successes
chanced of at least 1 success
Standard Deviation

the selection of dice size (d12 for me) is mostly for controlling the SD (so there is some chance but skilled agents aren't staring down hugely variable chances) as well as dictating what constitutes the output of an 'averagely skilled person' in game representation, so on a scale of 10 I've pegged average skill and ability at 4, so an average sword swinger, urn craftsman, tracker etc would succeed on a basic task about 80% of the time, and sometimes will produce a better than bare minimum result

>>46974587
CAS I'm not sure, but there was some heady equations in GURPS vehicles

>>46975008
Ok cool I'll look into it. I've heard of GURPS before. Don't know why but the bug suddenly hit me and I'm like, really into the math side of game systems out of nowhere haha. Like I said I don't even do tabletop so I don't know where it came from. Anyhow thanks!

Anyone got a good generic, keyword-worthy term for physical damage-over-time effects of all stripes (eg. burning, laceration, poison, acid, etc.)?

>>46975655
Continuous

>>46975719
I like it, thanks!

>>46975655
Attrition?
Affliction?

Been tinkering with a setting as of late that's focused entirely on concepts of light and color, with the majority of things in the game having double meanings and whatnot.

I'm trying to think of a name to differentiate the world's "magic" from the world's "faith" stats.

For the Faith, I chose to go with Resonance, because of the concept of Light Resonance as well as the idea of a faithful individual being closer to a divine being of the world slowly being pulled to think and do as the divine being would have. For example, a specific deity of generosity would grant small rewards to his followers as they themselves showed kind acts of generosity, to which the faithful would resonate this feeling and develop a compulsion to reward others for their own generous acts, leading to cities of this faith being known for passing on knick-knacks and freebies to exhausted travelers.

The Magic is the one I'm having tons of trouble with. The "Mana" of the world is known as "Light", so Refraction was an idea, but I'm not quite sure what sounds the best here.

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Hashed out a bit of detail for my leveling/career system. I'm leaning heavily toward using a percentile system and plan on using a non-leveled system if I do.
Just as I try to make the fluff and crunch of my magic and class system mirror each other, I'd like to do the same with the leveling.

Instead of gaining a set number of abilities and skills each time a character levels, they will instead purchase their abilities using experience points. This will partially mitigate the loss of having 1-9 levels of spells and such. There will be a degree of inequality of power for spells in each Tier, some weaker than others, but the more useful/powerful ones will cost more points.

I need advice on how to handle progress through the tiers. Currently I have two options.
1) Total EXP earned is used to progress through the Tiers. Tier II, for example, might require 10,000 exp, and any character who's earned that much is automatically an Apprentice (Tier II).

2) Only EXP spent counts towards Tier progression. This would prevent players from saving EXP to use at higher Tier. This has two versions:
2a) All EXP spent counts towards Tier Progression.
2b) Only EXP spent on the current most advanced Tier counts towards progression.

I quite like the 2b option, to be honest. I feel it reasonably represents the process of learning. An Apprentice would have to spend time learning Apprentice Tier skills and such to gain the insight needed to understand the concepts of the Journeyman Tier skills. Simply spending all of one's time learning new Novice skills may give the character more options, but the lack of challenge means they aren't really learning anything.
The two main effects I foresee are as follows:
1) forcing players to spend EXP prevents them from "saving up," meaning their character has to actively "learn" or use their "experience" to progress.

1/2

>>46976394
2) Needing to spend EXP in the most advance Tier to "level" would mean players have to plan ahead. Backtracking to learn new basic skills slows their progress.

One big, fluffy rule I'd like to impose would be for characters to need some sort of guild recognition to actually progress into the next Tier. Without guild approval, no one will willingly sell them higher Tier gear/scrolls/abilities, even if the EXP they've earned/spent would technically make them have that Tier.
This would force characters to occasionally return to their trainer/guild/master. If I go with this option, returning and passing some sort of test would be rewarded with new gear and such to make doing so worth the effort.
Obviously, if a character who is officially a Novice has the EXP to be an Apprentice but hasn't made it back home, they could still learn an Apprentice level ability if they find a scroll or what have you. But they would not be allowed to purchase that scroll legitimately.

On a related not, many spells and abilities (not just for mages), will have have more advanced forms in each Tier. There would be a Novice Fireball, an Apprentice Fireball, and so on. I'd give characters a discount to purchasing more advanced versions of existing abilities/skills, representing their having some understanding of the principles already.

Is this too harsh or convoluted? Should I go with a simpler system?
Part of the reason I'd do this would be to make the actual progress into a higher Tier be a real milestone for the character. More so even than just leveling up.

2/2

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>>46974587
bump for excessively realistic made-up stuff

>>46975911
Throwing out some ideas:
>Reflection
>Shine
>Gleam
>Shimmer
>Luster
>Ray
>Beam
>Luminance

>>46975911
Brilliance
Brightness
Gleam and Luster, as >>46978788 said

>>46976394
Here's another angle to look at option 2a: you have an Apprentice who has learned so much and mastered most if not all of the basic Novice skills, such that he gets enough knowledge, experience, and familiarity to do the same stuff at the Journeyman tier, despite not knowing any or much Apprentice skills.

If you go with "all exp contributes to progress", I'd recommend a sort of skill tree where you could only progress on it if you have sufficient exp in the tier before it, which would let players specialize in a few skills. This isn't necessary for 2b however, as the player would be drawn to learn skills on the newest tier as soon as possible. 2b is also less bothersome since you wouldn't need the skill tree at all.

As for the advancement requirement, I like it, especially since the mechanic itself is also strengthened by the fluff. Depending on the adventure returning home to advance tiers could be bothersome, but as you say it could make for quite the event, maybe setup a plot hook or something.

>>46978788
>>46980607
Worked with it a lot, I think I'm going to choose between Luster and Brilliance, thanks. Two awesome ideas I hadn't thought of before.

>>46980761
Not having to deal with a skill tree sounds good. I'm glad someone else likes the advancement idea. Something about the guild recognition bit really appeals to me. It might be fun to have Expert and Master characters have the option to take a Novice or Apprentice NPC as a minion/henchman.
>Depending on the adventure returning home to advance tiers could be bothersome
Indeed it could. But I, or the DM, could mitigate that somewhat by having chapter houses for each guild. Maybe players don't necessarily have to return to their home guild; they just need to find the nearest branch of their guild and test there.

>>46981516
>they just need to find the nearest branch of their guild and test there.
Though convenient, it does kind of make the advancing thing feel a bit cheap. How about only letting players advance at their home guild or the main HQ? This would mitigate a little bit of the tedious journey home, and traveling to the main HQ city would still be an exciting prospect. Maybe even let the HQs hold a weekly 'day to advance tiers' thing, make an event out of it. The HQs would also be in different cities because balance of power and what not. Guild branches could instead be used to get temporary licenses - which would only be usable in the city that gave it or nearby ones - either after some form of test or verification by a Master/Expert.

>>46981698
>Guild branches could instead be used to get temporary licenses
Oooo, I love it. And you're right; the purpose of having them get approval/test to advance was to make doing so an important, milestone event for the character. Making it that much easier would indeed cheapen it.
Another benefit of having it be at the HQ and something on public record would an increase to how renowned the character would be. Sure, no one would pay too much attention to an Apprentice or Journeyman, but actually being acknowledged as a master would be a big deal (there can't be too many of them running around, after all).
It'll be fun designing the traditions and privileges of each guild.

So a question for anyone whose ever played or wanted to play a space travel adventure:

>Do you think it's better for space travel to be granular, or abstract?

In other words, do you think that interstellar travel should be measured as "LY/period of time" or a more generalized "It takes X number of days to travel between planets/stars/across the galaxy?"

I'm planning to mechanize both options, I just want to know what the general thoughts were on the subject.

>>46982687
Seems to me like people would end up converting the general amount of time option into days of you do choose that version.

>>46983321
That's kind of what I was thinking would be the case.

bump, because I'm working on something and may be able to post it soon.

Kind of stuck deciding between which method of vehicle creation to use.

One is point-buy and simple, matches the overall way the original game system does things, and gives players and GMs plenty of points to play around with, but eliminates any other form of variance.

The other method involves a lot more math, but has greater variance between differing "types" of vehicles.

>>46980607
>Brilliance
Forgot about that one. That's a good one.

Just wanted to give you guys a status update on [Dragon Forest]. One of my friends is a (semi) professional editor. He is helping me to comb through my rules looking for typos.
I'm going to do a complete rewrite after my first playtest.
I have two players interested in a roll20 playtest. I don't have a set time or date for it yet, but I'm working on it. I plan to make a transcript of the playtest session and I plan to use that to write up examples for my game's rules.

>>46982687
I think it's best for space travel to be granular in the parts you want to emphasize, and abstract in the parts you want to lightly touch on.

>>46987120
I'd say keep it consistent. If one method matches the overall way the game system does things, then go with that.

>>46987120
First one. Consistency and simplicity are better.

Ive been working on a homebrew tabletop game for almost a year now. This is my first one. I want to see what you guys think. Essentially, the player (you) is tasked with putting together a group of characters from Earth to fight an evil deity. The twist is these characters are from all realities of Earth. Characters from fact, fiction, past, present, future, imaginary. Your party leader could be a battle-axe wielding Minotaur and, in support, a human doctor piloting a giant mech suit, a swarm of nanobots, and a T-Rex. There are currently 100 characters with dozens of moves for each class and sub-type that can be learned or taught and various weapons and unqiue abilities that will help them in their battle and create a unique line-up in every playthrough.
There are 10 classes:
Human- Self -expanatory
Fantasy- Thats your orcs, elves, ogres, etc.
Mythos- Minotaurs, Hydras, Fire/Ice Giants, Scarabs, etc.
Horror- Zombies, Mummies, Werewolves, etc
Paradox- Time displaced beings like T-Rexes, Egyptian Pharoahs, Space Commandos, etc.
Wildlife- violent plants such as giant sentiant vines and fly traps but also fauna such as bears and wolves and such
Robot- Killer robots from the future. Giant mech suits, cyborgs, nanotbots, etc.
Insect- Giant waps, scorpions, centipedes, etc.
Indigenous- tribal characters form around the realm in which these Earth creatures are displaced
Cryptid- Sasquatches, death worms, Yeti, etc.
There are 8 sub-type classes that the 10 main classes can have which allow for more moves that can be learned:
Armsmaster (swords and bows),Gunner (modern/futuristic firearms), Supernatural (spells, the paranormal), Armor (shields and future tech), Diplomat (helps in converting unaligned characters), Healer (self explanatory), Monster (big bad moves for big bad characters), and Beast (the more common, less intense little brother to the Monster sub-type)

>>46989614
There is an in-game store, Bosses, and plots that assign Bosses (there are 20 bosses that are indigenous to the realm that must be defeated). Plots also assign quests which are passively active throughout each plot. These vary from fetch quests, escort quests, assassination quests, and timed quests (need to be accomplished in a set amount of turns). All of these, as well as battling allow for XP to be gained, which allows for more moves to be learned and weapons ot be used. In game moves are made on a map whereas the battle system does not rely on the map, more so d10 rolls. There are 4 stats HP, Attack, Defense, and Damage. The d10 roll is added to the characters Attack stat. If the sum is equal to or greater than the opposing defense stat, then Damage is dealt (which may be reduced by resistance or increased by a weakness). Its essentially combining Heroclix with the Pokemon TCG.
This originally started as a homebrew Pokemon tabletop game for me and my friends but I decided to step away into a more expansive area. Being able to translate the XP system, Level system, and Battle system (including weaknesses and resistances) from that game to this helped greatly. Essentially, Im just changing the skin and adding weapons onto the move system (weapons are largely untested at the moment). The game utilizes a map that will be attached to the downloadable file but must be printed out, It uses a map similar to Heroclix but the ones attached wont be aestheticaly pleasing (read: just colored squares) but it will be rearrangeable allowing for a unique experience every play. I want to keep a certain level of simplicity for my normie friends to get in on.

>>46989614
>>46989633
its not as advanced or in-depth as most tabletops and homebrews Ive found online but I like the fact that mine is fairly simple yet allows a heavily expansive universe. I want to see what you more experienced users think of the idea

Hello,

I have been on my own system for a while now, and I was wondering what would be a good amount of pages for an almost complete playbook rough draft for players?

At the moment, I am currently at fifty- something pages, including character creation rules [5 pages], action and combat rules [4 pages], setting information (currently info on one of five continents & 4 religions) [18 pages], equipment [8 pages], and character perks [17 pages].

So far most of it is single columned and I have a lot of white space, so I can condense it greatly after editing, but I was wondering how much of a book should be dedicated to rules and how much to setting?

In addition, does anyone have any templates or resources on formatting for a playbook?

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>>46988453
>>46988498
The two methods. Everything else was either redundant or not quite right.

If anyone wants to try them out and post results, it would be appreciated.

>>46989949
There should be links in the OP that covers formatting. As for length, it comes down to how much is necessary. Most things can stand some chop, but that doesn't mean long is bad, so long as the length is essential. I'd say if its in a place where you think players can use it, then get feedback from them about the length.

If you're not terribly uncomfortable with programming, LaTeX is a language which "compiles" to a very nice looking document. It's very much standard in academic publishing, probably book publishing as well.

The language itself is one of those HTML types, where it basically reads like English. However, it can be extremely nit-picky and a ltitle counter-intuitive to beginners. But if you are looking to do some nice typesetting, you won't do wrong by learning the basics of LaTeX (you might even get lucky and just find a perfect template for your needs, and boom you're all set.)

Case example, you can mark words for the index, and when you compile the document, the index is auto-generated, stuff like that. It can handle a lot of the fiddly things (spacing, numbering, styles for section/chapter/headers/...)

http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1319/showcase-of-beautiful-typography-done-in-tex-friends This is probably over-the-top for most cases here, but still pretty cool imo.

So thinking this is how I might use dice in my system:

>3d6
>5 is a success, 6 is two successes
>2, 3, 4 are failures, 1 is two failures
>dubs is a success (except 11)
>trips is a great success (except 111)
>under advantageous circumstances, even a 4 is a success
>under disadvantageous circumstances, only a 6 is a success
>get more successes than failures to win
>you can "wager" skill dice; if you have the appropriate skill, you can add as many d6 as you want (up to the maximum of your rank in that skill), but they only replenish after a rest and can fail
>using your turn to assist someone gives them 1d6

How can I jigger anydice to model these rules?

What is your all-time favourite resolution mechanic? Even if it only works in a certain niche.

>>46991920
d20+mod over TN.
I know it's trendy to hate on the top, but it really just is a solid mechanic. 5% are great intervals, try to beat a number, takes inherent skill into account, etc.

However, some honorable mentions include Dice pool+opposing dice pool+1, resolve for middle. Example: Player A has pool of 5, Player B had pool of 3. Roll 9 dice total, remove 5 lowest and 3 highest. If remaining die is 4-6 Player A wins, if 1-3 Player B wins. I can't tell you the specific statistics, but I remember seeing them as amazing for certain things.

Time Wizards also worth mentioning.

>>46991920
Bidding tokens. It both gives the players a chance to resist railroading with pure system terms, and lets the GM do the same by blowing all his plot points at once to force some lynchpin event. But then whoever blew their respective load has to give up some control of the story after forcing their wants in one encounter. It's all very fair in terms of letting everyone have control over the story, but also forcing some people out of the spotlight once in a while.

>>46923448
>Do you prefer comprehensive gear lists, or do-it-yourself guidelines

I like gear lists but that's personal. I know people like to make their come up with stuff.
>What mechanic from another system do you wish you came up with yourself?

Random roll tables.

>When do you work on your game?

I try to put in an hour every day. On test days I give that a break.

>>46991920
I really like Malifaux's card system.

Thinking up a dice system for my game. Stats from 1-12 (4 being "average"), with a d12 as the die. Thoughts?

Do you ever employ data mining when editing your game? Thinks like word counter or text analyzer I mean, to pick out your most commonly used words and phrases.

>>46948061

I just wanted to say, good work so far. :)

>>46997923
I do it when I need to change text and phrasing in mass in the text.

>>46997812
I guess it'll be up to how they work together?

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The core rules for Fallout: Wastelands are more or less complete. Now we're on to playtesting and adjusting rules based on how the playtest scenarios go. The game actually moves along pretty quickly, which was our main concern, although it helps that I'm running the game and was the main mechanics worker, so I've got most of the rules and calculation formulae just straight up memorized.

Right now the main tasks at hand are filling out the Bestiary, completing the Overseer's Guide (unique weapons and items mostly), and *eventually* adding vehicle combat rules.

>Do you prefer comprehensive gear lists, or do-it-yourself guidelines?

It's a mix. As a player I prefer knowing what I can and cannot have, but having the ability to modify pre existing gear. As a GM its just easier to have a list of things the players can choose from rather than make new items whole cloth.

>What mechanic from another system do you wish you came up with yourself?

Degrees of Success/Failure. I think it came from Warhammer, but I'm not entirely sure. I was trying to figure out how to make it possible for players/NPCs to contest Skills, such as Athletics Tests to see who can run faster without just having the victor be the guy that runs faster (it didn't seem fair that was, as someone with a minimal skill value in Athletics could just get lucky and roll lower than the guy with a 90% Athletics skill). Basically every 10% below your skill value you roll, you achiever a Degree of Success, and every 10% over is a Degree of Failure. It also makes skill checks more interesting as they become more than a binary pass/fail.

>When do you work on your game?
Now it's just when I feel like it since the main rules are complete. Before it would be during our D&D games since everyone else takes fuck-all time to make their moves and I'd have mine planned out in advance. DM didn't seem to mind.

>>46997812
Wouldn't it make more sense for 5-6 being average? Unless your going for Exalted tier gimmicks.

>>47000422
I guess it would depend on the scale it is going to cover. Maybe its going to cover kaiju-sized monsters.

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I was thinking of designing a small homebrew system & setting, but want some second opinions on the concept (or if this game already exists and I just didn't know about it):

The game centers around a group of youngsters selected to learn magic in an arcane academy setting. The players goal is basically just to learn magic and survive all the dangerous experiments and treacherous wizard politics leading to graduation.

The reason I want to design a system around the setting is to obscure information from the players as the GM. I want them to create regular human characters whose attributes will be mostly set in stone while character progression will be done through learning magic, both the thematics and the actual gameplay mechanics. The core concept is that they shouldn't be able to optimize their characters around what magic they plan to use, but rather tailor the magic they learn to match the character's capabilities as the initial character creation will determine their aptitude for different types of magic. Obviously this means I have to be careful to avoid dump-stats as I don't want anyone to be inept at magic as much as just better at some things than others.

Would you play it?
Is it a stupid idea?
Does anything like this already exist?

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I'm having trouble naming the stats in my game.

There's one stat for combat, called Violence.
There's one stat for skill tests, called Skill.
There's one stat for social solutions, called ???

Persuasion? Negotiation? Intrigue? Charm? I've been thinking about this for weeks and can't think of a suitable word for it!

Non-violence doesn't exactly roll off the tongue and pacifism had too many ideological implications for the character.

>>47009546
Well, Charisma is the classic go-to option for a reason. Suicidal Grace, maybe?

>>47009645
SOCIAL Grace. Fucking auto autocorrect.

>>47008979
You could have stats like:
Intelligence
Memory
Intuition (for Force-like "feelings" magic)
Charisma/Spiritual Affinity (for dealing with magical spirits and creatures)
Dexterity/Hand Precision (for HP-style wand movements or other somatic spell components)

And you could have a whole bit about bloodlines and genealogy. Having blood relayed to certain great mages of the past could be a prerequisite for certain magics or magic items.

It could be a fun type of game if done right.

Is there any rundown on Hard;Suit Guy and its mechanics?

>>46965767
What are the skills or attributes that players have to pilot mechs in your system?

Are there any resources on the probability and value curves of different die/die rules? What about cards in a deck? Most of what I find focus on gambling, but I was looking for more generic tips and tricks for designing this kind of thing.

Alright, I'm going to embark on something treacherous. I'm going to homebrew a cyberpunk system.

Without having played other cyberpunk systems.

Purpose is to make a fast and flexible system that I can drag my friends in with such that they aren't terrified of reading a 100 page rule book.

I'm thinking the core mechanic will be d20+dx, make simple tiers of skill
>Unskilled = d0
>Apprentice = d4
>Adept = d6
>Journeyman = d8
>Expert = d10
>Master = d12
>Savant = d20

Does that sound too complex?

>>47011830
Anyone alive in here?

>>47011830
That spread actually sounds pretty legit. Of course I assume a number of other multipliers here and there, but the question lies with how varied these skills will be. I'm sure hacking will be one of them, but how well would it work if we had a person who was a marksman savant but only an apprentice-level fighter with small arms?

>>47013993
Well, I'm thinking a few things about that. First, Savant is not attainable by PCs except by plot macguffin. Mega-corp drones? Better believe they can roll those out if you spook 'em.

Second, there would be a few broad classes such as Firearms, Athletics, and Insight. Getting any specific skill high enough bumps up every other skill in that class. So if you're an expert sniper, you're automatically say, and adept at pistols, shotguns, and rifles.

Third, I don't think I'm going to have hacking be so much a thing as it is in other systems. I'm going to run with the idea that either you preprogrammed it and it worked on the first try, or it caught you and you're immediately fucked. Hacking would be more of an expenditure of resources, connections, thieving, and most importantly, down time. Hacking a drone during a fight means tagging their comm antenna with your signal and or your own drone, you're not sitting there mentally typing commands as it shoots at you.

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Hello, all!

I'm trying to write a sample adventure for my game [Dragon Forest].
It's a starting adventure four four level 1 characters.
It begins with each hero walking down one of the four roads that all converge on a small town at the intersection.
The survivors (human NPC's that follow the heroes) are fleeing apocalyptic events from all four cardinal directions. This is what brings them together at the center at all.
The cataclysms are the work of four demon-gods.
Though this is a 1st level adventure, the events are a microcosm of the eternal war between cosmic forces of chaos and law.

It's heavily influenced by Warhammer fantasy but with a more Buddhist perspective on things.
The four demon gods are each based on the four extremes:

>Chalpas
Hedonism; does not perceive that all events have cause and effect.
>Gyangphenpas
Atheism; does not perceive past or future lives, toils for wealth and power in this lifetime alone
>Murthugpas
Nihilism; perceives that everything is arisen through chance along, and that all things dissipate into the void. Death is the ultimate cessation, and there is no continuity between lives.
>Mutegpas
Eternalism; holds the view of an eternal and unchanging soul.

I'm also drawing a bit of inspiration from Berserk cosmology for this, with a little bit of Silent Hill.

I'm still early in the process of writing this, but I thought I'd bounce ideas off of you guys to get my creative humours flowing, if that's alright with you all.

Thank you kindly.

>>47011830
What cyberpunk novels and other media are you looking to for inspiration?

The apprentice/adept/journeyman division seems to draw from medieval guilds. Does that sound appropriate for a cyberpunk themed game?
A lot of cyberpunk media deals with cybernetic augmentation and memory uploading in order to gain skills and abilities instantly without going through the decades of training that a baseline human being would require.

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Just finished poring over the Google Sheet with all of the projects' details. There are some fascinating concepts in there — wish there were more, especially less RPG-like board/card games.

Have there ever been any projects that /gdg/ worked on collectively?

I know it could be tough to coordinate and sustain, but the result, if not just the process itself, could be extremely memorable and insightful. Pooling various thread-goers' skills to create a unified game would be a wonderful experience. Thoughts?

>>47016301
Not /gdg/ specifically, but /tg/ has some projects that they've worked together on in the past. Not sure what happened to any of them.

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How would you handle a game about a VR MMO?

After spitballing with someone and getting feedback, I've decided to go ahead with one of my game ideas. It's essentially inspired by .Hack//, but really only in a conceptual sense, since I barely remember the original show or games.

The fluff is that the player characters are people playing in an MMO VR RPG (along with other VR systems) who've been given a powerful hacking tool by an emergent AI to help fight the corruption of another emergent AI that can cause comas or even death in people who die in the game.

The mechanics (and "gimmick") of the game are inspired roughly by Eclipse Phase's Ego and Morph. You're playing the User, who in turn has the ability to play different Avatars. Instead of the usual traits, you'd have two separate trait categories, one for the User (how well you interact with the system, coordination, social skills, intelligence and problem solving) and one for the Avatars (Magic, strength, how well you can use your special attacks). Now, it's not entirely the same as Eclipse Phase, but that is where the core inspiration for that comes from. AdEva does something similar, and essentially you're piloting a digital avatar within the gamespace.
Of the two people I've talked to about the gimmick, reaction has been mixed. The first person thought it was an interesting idea and wants to play it. The second person thinks "not even SAO was that dumb" and that how the Avatar interacts with the game should have no bearing on what the player's skill is.

I'm pretty set on sticking with the idea that you're piloting a digital robot, and that things like the player's coordination is important, but I still want to know what other people think. Do you like the idea of a game that's about playing a game?

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>>47018008
Other parts of the Gimmick are that there are User traits like your Account Level (which measures how many Avatars you can have) and basic MMO aspects like friends lists and PMs and minimaps, which would be available to all Avatars even though they take the place of what would normally be "Spells" in more traditional games. There's even the design space for things like Lag as a status effect or Good Hardware and Poor Hardware as bonuses or hindrances that a character could have.

I'm thinking about having User experience and Avatar Experience be separate things, although that might be a bit too simulationist. But the gist of it is that I really want to create a strong gamefeel that makes it seem like you're playing a character who's playing a character.

I'd love other people's input on the idea, and to know what traits they think would be most relevant to such a game.

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>>47008979
Can I get some more feedback on this?

>>47018008
The question is how you want to balance the VR and IRL segments of the game. AdEva made all the mech parts brutal boss fights while the non-mech parts were either dealing with the aftermath or preparing for the next one, but they were the actual body of the game while the mech parts were the highights.

Basically what I'm asking is how much time the players will spend in VR & IRL what kind of problems do they need the skills to deal with in either and what kind of consequences does one have on the other?

I recently had an idea about a targeting/damage system based around d6's, perhaps for vehicles? I'm not really sure what to do with it, it just popped into my head one day.

Every target has a number of damage points, kind of like hit locations, between 1 and 6. Each of these points has a different number from 1-6, with no repeating. The number of damage points depends on the size of the target.

So a target with only 2 damage points could have 2, 6, or 1, 4, or 3, 5, and so on. As long as they’re a number between 1 and 6.

A target with 6 damage points must have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, in that order.

Each individual damage point has a number of boxes, depending on how well-defended that point is.

When an attacker wishes to attack the target, they must roll a dice pool, made up of d6s, d8s, or d10s, based on how accurate their attacking methods are.

For every number rolled that corresponds to a damage point on the target, that damage point has one of its corresponding boxes marked.

Once all the boxes on a single damage point are marked, or at least one box for every damage point on the target are marked, the target is disabled.

How unbalanced is this, and how can it be made to be more balanced?

>>47018156
There won't really be real life segments. On the off chance that there are any, people's real life traits will be a basic "Avatar" that doesn't have any of the special stats. But since the Users are likely to be in different parts of the world (and because it's neater if I don't flesh out what the world outside the VR is like) that isn't a priority. The User traits are more akin to the pilot, with the Avatar being the car. Your User stats are mostly for interacting with things that aren't the game world, like other Users. It also represents how well you can solve puzzles and notice shit, since those are the kind of stats that a game that takes place in the imagination needs to mechanically represent.

Or, put another way:
User stats are used to talk to other users, solve problems, use the game, and generally any sort of "Mental" tasks. Also probably dealing with psychological feedback from corrupted enemies.
Avatar stats are running, jumping, hitting things, taking hits, lifting, throwing, swimming, magical ability, poison resistance, etcetera.

>>47011055
Not mechs specifically, but any kind of vehicular combat, which would include mechs, is covered by five skills:

>Pilot
This skill is used for controlling the craft's flight path, making evasive maneuvers and navigating through space in general

>Defense
This Skill is about operating weapons and shields effectively

>Engineering
This covers repairs, maintenance and manipulating systems output, like rerouting power from one system to another

>Operation
Operation is a catch-all skill that lets you do anything related to crewmanship, including using Systems covered by Pilot, Defense and Engineering. The catch is that while those skills go to 5, Operation only goes to 3.

>Expert
The opposite of Operation. Each Expert skill you have applies to one system and one system alone. However, it's cheaper to buy ranks in an Expert skill than any other Flight Skill, and you can get up to 6 Ranks instead of 5.

>>47018378
>Your User stats are mostly for interacting with things that aren't the game world, like other Users.
There's no real need to differentiate them then. You can just use a pool of abilities like this:
>Health: self-explanatory
>Mana: self-explanatory
>Power: basically strength, melee dmg etc.
>Agility: movement & reflexes
>Focus: accuracy, weapon skill
>Magic: spell power
>Special: special move power
>Intelligence: problem solving and analysis ability
>Knowledge: knowledge of game mechanics, including items and drop lists
>Perception: noticing stuff in general, inspection and search checks
>Social: you probably don't want to over complicate this part

Bassically all except the last 4 are avatar stats, but you can just lump them together since you'll never use them outside the game there's no need to separate them mechanically. You might also want to add something like a sanity/immersion mechanic that makes people better at the game, but potentially lose themselves in a virtual world unable to differentiate it from reality.

>>47018772
The idea is that certain User traits are useful for actually playing the game. Coordination helps you with physical tasks. Cognition helps you with certain mental tasks.
Since you're physically--well, virtually--doing things, your basic competency still goes a long way, even if the game makes it so that you can jump several yards and do cool shit.

Think of it this way:
If the User is good at micromanaging, they'll still be good at micromanaging even on a twitch gameplay class.
If the User is good at twitch gameplay, they'll still be good at twitch gameplay even on a micromanagement class.

Also, I'll probably have the basic Skills be based on the User, with Avatars giving stat bonuses as if they were Equipment, but that's actually more to keep from having stupidly complicated gameplay where there are five character sheets.

>>47018008
It feels as if you can't really decide whether to go full "net world" only (ala .hack, which cares nothing about the players themselves, just their characters), or simulate playing an mmorpg in a tabletop rpg. Since you're set on "piloting digital robots", you absolutely must differentiate User stats and Avatar stats, not just by assigning arbitrary values but how they are implemented mechanically. That way players could feel the difference between their User and Avatar in a tactile manner. The One Roll Engine might be good for this, since it's not just a roll under/over system. Look into it (there are a few systems that use it posted earlier in the thread) and see if you can play around with it.

The other part is absolutely include offline sections. It doesn't have to be "walk around in meat space, have an offline meet" situations, just having private messages, emails, strategy forums, wiki browsing, etc. is quite sufficient. Treat it as a rest period in between online adventures where they can strategize and gather info, before the players meet up again online. Without them, there isn't really much of a reason to have the premise of "playing a character in a game" when you can't feel connected to the User in any manner.

>>47015165
Broad mix
>GitS
>Akira
>Total Recall
>Neuromancer
>Count Zero
>BLAME!
And my own stuff as well as stuff I'm probably forgetting

As for the naming scheme, if you have an alternative, fire it at me. Else, I think I'll keep a medieval scheme for a lot of stuff. Name drones after mythological monsters, name hacking programs after types of swords, etc.

>>47019236
An additional thing I just thought of, give the User one or two "Behavior" traits. As is there's no real reason to roleplay, giving the User a motivation or particular mannerism could help with this aspect of the game. Maybe let players change them depending on events.

>>47008979
I don't see anything about obscuring information in your post, which is odd.

I recommend having stats that relate to the schools of magic in your setting, and throw out any regular stat based systems you may be familiar with. That way you can focus exclusively on getting better with magic and ignore any resource related stuff. Starting stats should be regularized(?), by which I mean if you use numbers for the stats, have everyone start at all 5s, then let players modify that so that they can use the type of magic they may prefer.

Give players a sort of "curriculum" book too, so that they can expect what kind of magic they can learn and prepare accordingly. It's important for the players to be able to plan ahead something like this, since they'd be comitting themselves when learning new magics, and not knowing what's ahead can be annoying. Plus it's thematically fitting that a school would show you their curriculum when students enroll too.

>>47019236
The thing about .Hack// is that the characters only ever have one Avatar. They never switch characters, and there's no actual indication that any of them even HAVE second characters. No one logs into their mule, or talks about their main. That's what I intend to be one of the main gimmicks of the game. There IS a difference between User and Avatar, it's just that I don't intend for there to be all these meatspace interactions (if I do plan them out, they'll be later, when the core system is more handled). I'm also probably going to use a d% system, since it's relatively easy to grok, easy to determine success chance, and allows for gradiation that feels at home in an MMO experience.

Although there will likely be encouragement for downtime stuff, just not handled in the same scene by scene fashion as the in-game segments. I mean, your User is basically the character themselves. The Avatar is just a suit. While a more literal RP-within-RP aspect is there, when doing the core CONSPIRACY stuff on behalf of the good rampant AI, you'd act less like you're on a PVP server.

>>47019389
Why do you feel there's no reason to roleplay?

>>47019496
Theres no reason for a player can't have multiple Users. And since you don't need to reveal anything about the User, who's to say a particularly smart player can't play 2 Avatars but hide the fact that they share the same User?

Regardless, without offline experiences, it just wouldn't feel like you're playing an mmorpg ttrpg at all, just a regular rpg. If you're going ahead with your initial decision however, then thats also fine.

As for the roleplaying thing, again it's about separating the User, the Avatar and the player. Sure you could let the player act as they want, but then you'd just have the Avatar and the player. By forcing the player to roleplay the way the User would act, you can make the player feel like the User is a different person altogether, which is what ttrpgs are supposed to do.

>>47019663
>Theres no reason for a player can't have multiple Users. And since you don't need to reveal anything about the User, who's to say a particularly smart player can't play 2 Avatars but hide the fact that they share the same User?
I... don't really see a problem with either of these, to be honest. In fact, I'm going to make sure to highlight that as a possibility. It might even be counterintuitive to solving the CONSPIRACY, but a character could have two accounts (though in world that would probably be against the ruurs).

The player chooses how the User acts the same way they'd choose how any other character they play acts. I probably should have gone to sleep two hours ago, but I'm not really grasping what the problem is. That doesn't really seem to be a system concern so much as a narrative one (and I'll have to remember to add a faction/ideology of being Always IC).

>>47017110
>/tg/ has some projects that they've worked together on in the past.
I would think the opposite. That's good to know! Thank you.

If anyone is interested in conceptualizing and working on a tabletop game design at the individual or /gdg/ level, feel free to reply. I'll be lurking around anyway. Figured I'd throw this out there to see what's up.

I'm considering (heavily) adapting 3.5e D&D into a Dark Souls-inspired RPG, mechanically speaking. Other than Song of Swords, can anyone point me to other games or projects that have attempted to get a feel for very detailed combat? Thank you.

I'm using 3.5 because I know a lot of 3.5 grognards who might appreciate this project, and because I *only* want the mechanical inspiration from Souls. The setting would be something else entirely.

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I'm working on a goblin-centric system/setting/campaign and I'd like to run some basics by the thread to see what you think. I'm probably going with a d6 system.

Characters will have 3 Qualities: Warrior, Boss, and Magic.
All abilities, skills, powers, and "stats" will be categorized into one of those three... categories.
During character creation, players will have to prioritize their Qualities into Primary, Secondary, and Other One.
Each time a character levels they will receive a certain number of perk points (or something along those lines). They can use these perk points to buy any ability, skill, power, etc. they will be restricted only by level and prerequisites (taking a Level 2 Fireball would require already having Fireball 1, for example).
Each ability/etc will have 3 costs. The cheapest cost is what the character will pay if that skill is part of their Primary Quality, the middle cost is for their Secondary, and the most expensive should be pretty obvious at this point.

Here's a brief description of each Quality:
Warrior
>Anything physical: Weapon use, stamina, strength, health, the ability to smell or see better, and others. So, mostly fighty-stuff and physical "stats"
Boss
>Charisma and command. Goblins can take minions, and the more Boss traits/skills/etc they take, the more minions they can have and the better they can control them. Also includes bartering and other NPC interaction skills.
Magic
>Due to golbin understanding of "magic," this includes ALL intelligence based skills, from magic to literacy to navigation. Item creation, smithing and enchanting included, would also belong here. Also: fireballs. Goblins like fireballs.

I brought this up in a thread (worldbuilding, maybe) several years ago but had to stop working on it due to life. Now that I've some free time again I'd like to continue working on it.

Feel free to tell me what you think.

Pic unrelated.

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Anyone know where I can get decent-quality printable images of a top-down angle of spaceships?

Like how starsector does it - that angle.

Other angles may work too. Just looking for some printable, flat ships to play around with for this one idea I've had.

>>47019748
Look at it this way, sometimes when you're playing a character in a video game, you tend to make the character act a particular way, nevermind whether or not you'd actually make that decision in real life. This is also true of the User, maybe a player wants to have a User that plays an Avatar that acts differently online from the User. As is, an Avatar is just an extension of the User, the difference between the two is superficial. Behavior traits flesh out the User, and supplements interaction between Avatars. Maybe the player wants the Avatar to act a certain way, but the User's Behavior doesn't allow it.

To reiterate, at the moment, the User and player are the same individual, and the Avatar is an extension of that individual into the MMORPG. The problem with this however is that it just makes the User/Avatar thing somewhat redundant. Say the User has skills called Reflexes, Memory, and Deduction. There is absolutely no reason to not play a regular TTRPG that has those skills on a character, instead of bothering with one that arbitrarily separates a single character into two entities with different skill sets. Behavior can help flesh out the User entity, making them a character and not just "the player's stats".

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Hi fellas

I want to make a card game based off the Russian revolution.

I'm sure this had been done before, and if anyone's got links I could look at, would greatly appreciate it.

Anyway, I'm aiming for period 1900-1930, so they'll be a Tsar (Nick II), chaos (PG and Civil War), then a second autocrat (lenin/Stalin). The idea I had for this is that every game, one player (of say, 4 or 5) is the "Tsar". They start the game with a large amount of "Resource" cards (essentially land/mana cards), while the rest of the players are revolutionary groups, and all start with much less resource cards. In the course of the game, the Tsar player will loose his resource cards, enter a period of competition with the other players, before a new Tsar emerging by the end of the game.

The main mechanic is who is holding government, as in, who had the most resource cards. Only when you are the player with the most resource cards can you play "Tsar cards", which are high cost powerful cards, which essentially make the Tsar player very OP, but importantly, unable to steal resources. Meanwhile the revolutionary groups can play "Revolutionary Cards", the requirement of which is NOT being the player with the most resources, or even the least resources. This allows the underlings to make use of their limited resources, and the ability steal them away from the Tsar, or even the strong revolutionary groups. Thirdly, if two players have the most resource cards, then they can play even rarer "Civil War" cards, which basically supercharge their already existing cards. And among these 3 types of Tsar, Revolutionary and Civil War cards are normal cards, which can we played by anyone, and are kind of the bread and butter cards.

I'm not really bursting with ideas other than this at the moment, other than resource cards having types, like "food" and "industry".

If you bothered to read all this, thanks. If anyone knows a game already like this or wants to pick holes in my idea, please let me know!

>>47020100
>mechanical inspiration from Souls
>3.5 as a base
I don't understand. Dark Souls is actually pretty simple - there are only a few specific actions you can take in a round, and not a lot of bookkeeping to be had. Most of the stats in the video game could (and should) be safely removed or consolidated in a tabletop game.

In fact, the combat really that "detailed" without getting into things that would just bog down a tabletop game. Once engaged you are either attacking, blocking, rolling/backstepping/running (maneuvering?) or casting a spell (and spellcasting uses FP now, so no Vancian casting). There are a few special attacks but those are tied to your weapon, not feats like 3.5. There are effectively no classes and nothing comparable to 3.5 class features.

There are also no social stats because there is not much roleplay. 99% of the game is about exploring a dungeon and fighting the enemies within to reach and fight a boss. You don't have the option to talk it out, haggle or really meaningfully interact with anyone in any way. You don't make use of skills like knowledge checks, survivalism, etc. You just fight.

So I'm not seeing how Dark Souls and 3.5 are at all compatible.

>>47019389
>I don't see anything about obscuring information in your post, which is odd.
What I meant is that the players would generate characters as regular people with no mention of magic so they'd be using conventional stats without knowing how they translate into magical aptitude, but at the same time all stats would somehow tie into the magic system.

So in short I want them to design people, rather than mages then see what kind of mages those people become.

A curriculum was definitely something I was planning since I wanted them all to have a basic idea of magic in general before moving on to specialize in advanced classes. Because neither the players nor the characters know anything about magic, the first part of the game would be determining what kind of magic they like and what kind they have aptitude for.

>>47020551
Consider technological cards that can help someone amass resources more rapidly at the cost of resources, and means of sabotaging resource cards for the sake of just lowering their count.

Is there a way to make AnyDice remove the highest or lowest die from a roll? For example, if you were trying to model 5E's advantage/disadvantage mechanic you would output 2d6, right? But how do you tell it to take away the highest/lowest?

>>47020768
Should be fine if you're only playing with your gaming group, but hiding the "everyone's a wizard!" thing is a lot tougher on a commercial work.

Maybe instead of typical stats, use a some sort of personality or behavior system? Then those personalities and behaviors would influence magical aptitude, eg. blunt and aggressive personalities prepare direct spells, liars are better tuned to illusions, etc. You could even use an online personality test or something to help with character creation.

>>47020100
Dark Souls doesn't work as a Tabletop. Every mechanic revolves around repetition and pattern recognition in a way that is impossible to do in a tabletop. At best it will be a game set in the Dark Souls world.

>>47020389
While carrots to encourage roleplaying are good, it seems like you play with some weird people who wouldn't do well with RP within RP.

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Sorry for nosing around, I'm a bit lost. Is this a thread with tips on how to design a board game? Or should I rather try in the (duh) board/card game general?

I'm particulary interested in learning the meta terms and basics behind a game when disecting it like I see many people here in /tg/ do. Is there any helpful book/video/pdf about it?

Thanks for the help, have some Paladin.

>>47023210
Admittedly I have never played any TTRPGs at all, and perhaps better roleplayers won't even need said Behavior guidelines. In this case however, it's more of a matter of connecting the mechanics and the fluff and make them relevant/interesting, since you could dump the whole 'meat space reflexes and cognitive ability affect response time and puzzle solving' aspect and just go "alright guys, we're all characters in an MMORPG!" with all the usual stats instead.

>>47023319
While RPGs are the most common type of game you'll see people working on in here, board games and card games are welcome as well.

That said, I'm not very well versed in board/card game design, so I don't really know where to point you.

>>47023319
I've often heard that, for starters, find a board game you like and change 1-3 rules. That will give you an idea of how important even small rules are to board games.

Obviously don't try to pass off the changes to the game as some new game though.

>>47023164
The upcoming board game represents the repetition pretty nicely.

>>47020551
This sounds really fucking cool anon, please do it.

>>47023505
Honestly, it's more likely that people will not play the Avatar more than they'll not play the User, since the Avatar is just different skins. I don't expect people to roleplay that they're a future kid roleplaying an elf, since the main goal of the game will mean it's good to ignore that kind of thing. If you're playing WoW to secretly take down some big CONSPIRACY about an evil rampant AI that kills people, you won't pretend you're a Night Elf while playing.

>>47024543
How does it handle it? I remember hearing someone's ideas for a Dark Souls game and then realizing that dying and starting over and going back through the same dungeon with the same enemies is really boring in a pen and paper. DaS is a reflex based game. D&D is not.

Generally, what is more potent in a 3d6 dice pool system (like Mouse Guard): adding 1d6 to the dice pool or adding +1 to a dice?

>>47027294
You shouldn't really need to ask this question Anon. 1d6.

>>47027294
"What's more potent, adding one through six randomly with an average of three or adding one?"

>>47027294
In the worst case scenario for the additional d6, you're going to get an effect on par with
the +1.

>Wound Deck
>When someone rolls a natural 20, a crit is scored
>In addition to damage, the target must draw from the Wound Deck
>At DM's discretion they may draw a different one if it doesn't make sense
(for example, a concussion from electric shock)
>Wounds can only be discarded during extended medical care

Wound cards would give effects such as
>Blind! You are Unskilled in all firearm skills and Perception is reduced by 2
>Crippled Main/Off Arm! Drop any weapon you were holding in it, you can't use it for anything

What do you think?

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>>47027528
>>47027576
>>47027671
Obviously 1d6 is better if you're simply adding the results, but each die is its own chance of success or failure and you need more successes than failures to succeed.

Suppose the "difficulty level" is 4. 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the die are thus failures. 5 and 6 are successes. If you roll 3d6, you have a 25% chance of having more 5s and 6s than 1s, 2s, 3s or 4s.

In this situation, suppose you roll 3, 4 and 6. You have two failures and one success, therefore failing the roll. However, you have two options to improve your chances:

>roll an additional 1d6 with your pool
>add +1 to a single die, possibly making it a success

If you choose the first option and your extra die rolls a 6, you now have equal numbers of successes and failures.

If you choose the second option and add your +1 to the 4, it becomes a successful 5; you now have more successes than failures.

Adding the 1d6 is essentially free and will happen frequently, while the +1 you can add to the die is coming from your very limited HP. For the sake of example, I kept the values at 1d6 and +1 but they could increase through character advancement.

What I'm ultimately trying to figure out is if the sources of these modifiers should be swapped. Should adding 1d6 should be the more valuable, risky option of wagering your HP and adding +1 to a die be safer and more common?

Does this make more sense? Some other factors I haven't settled on include:

>should a tie be a success or a failure?
>should failures on extra die be ignored?
>should you recover your +1 if the attempt is successful?
>once you reach +2 or +3, should you be able to split this bonus across dice?

>>47027719
bump

If I have a rules medium setting agnostic system that can be explained in just a couple dozen pages (with table of contents, copious examples and walkthroughs, key terms for every chapter, and an index), which of the following is more palatable:

>publish just the rules in one book and a setting sourcebook in another
>publish the two together in a single book

For reference this will be a 6x9 "handbook" of sorts in either case.

>>47030964
That's a way way way complicated question.

I can't decide what's worse for marketing, a setting agnostic system that doesn't have a included default setting or one that's so woefully underdeveloped you can accidentally miss it in the PHB, both have historically done really badly.

>>47031107
If I went with two, they would be bundled together as a matter of course. I just think it would be more convenient for people who like to homebrew their setting (like me) to not have to lug mine around.

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Does this illustration read well and make sense, /gdg/?

>>47032530
For the most part, yes. Although it does make me question whether or not the demon has cover+line of sight versus the other guy aiming from cover.

>>47032575
(I should really label each of these guys with letters or numbers so we can be clear which guy we are talking about.)
Are you talking about the guy in the left corner? I should make it clear that the demon is backed up against a wall there...

>>47032530
Only suggestions I'd give is arrows showing the direction you're drawing LoS from, i.e. little arrow mid-line to show its coming from the guys to the demon; and not necessary but would still be a good addition is a line from the guy that has no LoS to the demon that stops halfway through the wall. It'd just give a little more emphasis on why he has no LoS. Otherwise, its good.

>>47032628
Does the demon have line of sight and cover versus the archer (right corner)?

We just released our latest episode where we interview Tuomas Pirinen and Andy Chambers. http://podcast.darker-days.org/e/darker-days-radio-episode-71

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>>47032575
>>47032628
>>47032669

Is this version a bit clearer?

(Also, I forgot to add my name before!)

>>47034249
First one was far more clear IMO, my only question was if the demon was treated as in cover in relation to his line of sight on the archer, or whether or not the demon has line of sight on the archer?

>>47034298

The demon would have line of sight on the archer.

May I ask why the first one is more clear?

>>47034524
Not that anon, but I think the first one was more clear for a few reasons. Having the actual characters on the board is one. It also looked like a more familiar isometric perspective. And this may be cleared up in the relevant text, but the guy on the right in the second illustration has a curved line of sight line, which isn't intuitive - I realized after looking at the monster circle that really you're matching the corners and sides of the grid squares, when in both illustrations I thought it was based on the circular bases. I do like the larger text of the second illustration, though.

>>47034732
Thanks!

By the rules, you are supposed to start your line of sight from any corner of your space and draw a line to any part of the target's space. Wasn't reflected that way in the first image.

The little characters on the board seem popular. Okay, those guys will make it to the final version of the illustration. Just gotta draw the assets.

>>46967586
Long wait. Sorry, it's a modern/tacticool themed thing. So Armor would be replenished during a Re-arm phase (kind of like taking Rests in D&D) and some classes have Skills that can repair armor to give back some points, like nano-tech.

The writer wants the Armor to be outright gone if it hits zero, which I understand, but in the long scope of "I have plans to have the party run into 3 to 4 Encounters in this scene with no Re-arm" it kind of makes it hard to keep the party from getting ass-raped with no protection after a few fire fights.

Hey I'm bump

Okay, so I've been using 5E D&D style advantage in my game so far, but I'd really like to remove it and find some alternative in order to better differentiate myself.

I just came up with this idea last night, and I wanted to roll it off of you guys.

Each character has a Fortune and a Misfortune score.
In [Dragon Forest] (my game), Fortune is equal to [20 - (Doom/3)] while Misfortune is equal to [1 + (Doom/3)].

When a roll is 'Favored', you score a critical hit on a natural roll equal to your Fortune or greater (normally, you score a critical hit only on a natural roll of 20.)
When a roll is 'Disfavored', you score a critical fumble on a natural roll equal to your Misfortune or lower (normally, you score a critical fumble on a natural roll of 1.)

It is possible to be both Favored and Disfavored at the same time.

Rather than dampen the swinginess of the d20 die by turning it into a half-assed dice pool as Advantage does, the Favor mechanic instead embraces the swinginess.

What do you think, /gdg/?