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What games have a mechanic similar to 13th Age's escalation die?
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Mar 6, 2015 06:19
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Plague of Hats posted:What games have a mechanic similar to 13th Age's escalation die? Feng Shui drat well should've and would've benefited immensely from it but didn't.
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Mar 6, 2015 06:24
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ProfessorCirno posted:FWIW the whole "everyone saves up gold and then just dumps it on the level one character" is something that happened kinda often in Gygax's games. like, literally? did they just unceremoniously dump it on them once or twice or were there entire plotlines centered around giving each party member THEIR CHANCE to swim through a scrooge mcduckian pile of gold doubloons or w/e were there rules for dumping piles of olde tymey wizard money on ppl in 3.5 bc that's at least enough to make me vaguely kind of a tiny bit interested in pathfinder
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Mar 6, 2015 06:53
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Ningyou posted:like, literally? Straight from Mike Mornard aka Old Geezer, a guy whose (constant) claim to internet elfgame fame is "I used to game with Gary Gygax back when he had this hip new thing called Dungeons & Dragons" this was a thing people literally did. Oh, a new hire? Welcome to the party! Here, hold this sack full of 3,000 gold pieces for a minute. Oh, that ding sound? That's just you leveling up, gratz.
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Mar 6, 2015 06:58
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Plague of Hats posted:What games have a mechanic similar to 13th Age's escalation die? Every game you want to have it.  As Night10194 says, I'd probably throw it into Feng Shui, I once proposed to my old Dark Heresy group to include it in our campaign, really anything vaguely like D&D is something you could put it into.
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Mar 6, 2015 07:03
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Ningyou posted:did they just unceremoniously dump it on them once or twice or were there entire plotlines centered around giving each party member THEIR CHANCE to swim through a scrooge mcduckian pile of gold doubloons or w/e In old versions of D&D the experience progression was that gaining a level usually required you to double your experience, so if a new player started you could choose between bringing them up to your level or gaining a single level yourself. (Except different classes have different experience requirements and the curve changes completely after a certain point when you stop gaining normal benefits from leveling. It's complicated.) But now I'm imagining winning a battle and pouring a cooler full of gold dust on the new guy like Gatorade on a coach.
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Mar 6, 2015 07:18
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Plague of Hats posted:What games have a mechanic similar to 13th Age's escalation die? 13th Age is the only game with it, really, which is a serious shame. 13th Age is pretty new, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if other people start using the concept in their games. I know it's something I've been thinking about putting in if I ever design a combat-heavy game that isn't *World based. And like Galaga above me said, you could fairly easily port it over.
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Mar 6, 2015 07:19
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Now that I think of it, every single game I was ever in that went for "replacement PCs start at level 1" never got to a point that it mattered. Through some combination of GMs giving no fucks about the rules that could get you killed, PCs being too survivable by the time a meaningful level difference would result, rare careful action from the players, or the even rarer "dude quit because he doesn't want to restart at level 1." People kept trying it, but it seems like the natural state even discounting players quitting over it was just total avoidance even from those who seemed excited by the idea. And I haven't even seen somebody go for that poo poo in maybe over a decade.gnome7 posted:13th Age is the only game with it, really, which is a serious shame. 13th Age is pretty new, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if other people start using the concept in their games. I know it's something I've been thinking about putting in if I ever design a combat-heavy game that isn't *World based. Well yeah, but I ask because I'm curious to see new twists on it. See others' mistakes and innovations, y'know.
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Mar 6, 2015 07:30
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Plague of Hats posted:Now that I think of it, every single game I was ever in that went for "replacement PCs start at level 1" never got to a point that it mattered. Through some combination of GMs giving no fucks about the rules that could get you killed, PCs being too survivable by the time a meaningful level difference would result, rare careful action from the players, or the even rarer "dude quit because he doesn't want to restart at level 1." People kept trying it, but it seems like the natural state even discounting players quitting over it was just total avoidance even from those who seemed excited by the idea. And I haven't even seen somebody go for that poo poo in maybe over a decade. Any time we've played a game like this in my groups, if someone dies they come back in at the same level as everyone else because gently caress that.
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Mar 6, 2015 07:33
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I've used the Escalation Die in B/X retroclone There's Always a Chance, where it's actually recommended as a variant rule. It works well enough. However, if you're not going to dig in to your game's mechanics and introduce something that lets players interact with the various faces of the die, as 13th Age does, all it's really doing is reducing miss chance over time, and that's a general enough problem that can be approached several ways: an attack that misses within 3-4 of the required roll still does partial damage an attack that misses still does partial damage, period you could even combine it with Kevin Crawford's Fray Die mechanic: every turn, you can deal damage to an enemy equal to the face of the Escalation Die
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Mar 6, 2015 07:49
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Adding an escalation die to Feng Shui seems like it would be weird to track. Characters can be on very different "rounds" from each other, and advancing it per sequence seems to slow. I guess you could have characters track it individually.
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Mar 6, 2015 07:55
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Loki_XLII posted:Adding an escalation die to Feng Shui seems like it would be weird to track. Characters can be on very different "rounds" from each other, and advancing it per sequence seems to slow. I guess you could have characters track it individually. Not if you used sequences for the escalation. It would make it kind of slow to advance, though, so if you see people not hitting enough as a problem, it'd be a slow solution. But you'd definitely want it to be consistent for all the players (Either end of sequence, after X actions, after Y player actions, etc) and decide ahead of time if bosses/uber-bosses can use it. If we added this to the Feng Shui game I'm currently playing in, all but the boss battles would end with an escalation of an average of 1, 2 at the highest. Then again, if it came down to it, the GM wouldn't be as friendly with giving us back fortune dice for doing things like fun descriptions, etc if there was another way to boost the dice in a way that didn't cost fortune. Then again, I think we have some ideal sources of damage between a PI with Bag Full of Guns, a Killer with Carnival of Carnage and a Magic Cop (so 8 fortune) with the police shotgun. So, a big ability to clear mooks along with some eventual big damage for featured foes makes combats not take too long.
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Mar 6, 2015 08:20
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gradenko_2000 posted:I've used the Escalation Die in B/X retroclone There's Always a Chance, where it's actually recommended as a variant rule. It works well enough. That sounds like it could get really lethal for PC's if the rules worked both ways - especially if you are fighting swarm enemies like kobolds or something. I'm up for any idea that would help mitigate the wasted turn swinginess of early level D&D combat and even something like "1 damage even on a miss" is better than nothing, but PC health is a much more critical resource than enemy health and a PC doing 1 damage to a single enemy on a missed turn isn't as bad as a whole group of goblins each dealing 1 to different players if they also missed on the round.
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Mar 6, 2015 14:07
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Bob Quixote posted:That sounds like it could get really lethal for PC's if the rules worked both ways - especially if you are fighting swarm enemies like kobolds or something. It doesn't apply both ways. The original implementation in 13th Age only gives the players the +attack. Some monsters do have abilities that key off the face of the escalation die, but that's more on the scale of anticipatory timing: "he's going to blow on 5!" "melee get out because it cleaves every odd face!" and so on. Porting it over would demand that you only let it apply to the players, for the reasons you already pointed out.
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Mar 6, 2015 14:15
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Also some creatures like dragons and high-level demons/devils get to use the escalation die as well. I like to let the big bads of individual arcs/adventures use it too, just to up their threat level without having to necessarily increase their damage. I've also done things like run battles where crits increase the escalation die, or where PCs have done things (usually involving explosives) that up it as well, to represent the situation getting more intense or dangerous. Really I love the escalation die, and I use it in any D&D-type game that I can. When I first read about 13th Age I immediately stole the mechanic for my 4E game, and we noticed the effect pretty quickly as it did lead to sped-up combats.
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Mar 6, 2015 14:20
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gradenko_2000 posted:It doesn't apply both ways. The original implementation in 13th Age only gives the players the +attack. Some monsters do have abilities that key off the face of the escalation die, but that's more on the scale of anticipatory timing: "he's going to blow on 5!" "melee get out because it cleaves every odd face!" and so on. Ah alright - that makes sense. I haven't ever read 13th Age directly, the only place I've seen the Escalation Die mechanic explained was in There's Always a Chance where the text seemed to imply that the bonus applied to both PC & monster attacks. Or possibly I actually misread it there as well?
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Mar 6, 2015 14:27
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Bob Quixote posted:Ah alright - that makes sense. I haven't ever read 13th Age directly, the only place I've seen the Escalation Die mechanic explained was in There's Always a Chance where the text seemed to imply that the bonus applied to both PC & monster attacks. Or possibly I actually misread it there as well? Huh, I just double-checked TAAC and: quote:In the first round of combat, participants make their attack rolls as normal. In the second, however, all to-hit rolls (for both sides) get a +1 bonus as the heat of battle intensifies. In the third they get +2, and so on, all the way up to +6. (A six-sided die can be used by the DM to show this escalation...) So you weren't wrong, it did apply to both players and monsters, although I never closely read that part and just did it for the players when I was running it.
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Mar 6, 2015 14:32
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I mean, it does speed up the battle I'm sure. Problem is you never know, did they balance the rest of the game for that increased lethality, or did they just also misunderstand the original implementation in 13th Age? 
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Mar 6, 2015 14:37
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Nah, I just chucked that version of the escalation die into TAAC as an option because I really loving hate "I roll to hit!"/"Miss."/"I roll to hit!"/"Miss," which feels like about 80% of rolls at low level. (I hadn't read 13th Age at the time, just nicked the idea.) Anything that speeds up combat... Speaking of which, the game I'm (intermittently) working on at the moment has a guaranteed hit melee option called Blitz Attack, where you don't roll to see if you hit (you just do), but to see if your target hits you back in the process. I'm currently undecided whether the enemy will make a straightforward to-hit roll against the player's AC or if they have to make a DEX save or similar to dodge. The idea is to encourage the martial classes to tank, knowing that their better HP and armour than the other classes will probably let them survive it.
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Mar 6, 2015 14:51
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The other great thing I will always use in a D&Dalike is damage on a miss. In 13th Age I add the escalation die to miss damage as well, just to speed things along. When miss damage kills an enemy, my players like to describe them getting themselves killed in some silly accident or weird happenstance. For us that usually involves stumbling off the side of an airship, falling into sinkholes, or getting struck by meteors. It's awesome and hilarious despite the fact that it doesn't happen often.
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Mar 6, 2015 15:19
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Payndz posted:Speaking of which, the game I'm (intermittently) working on at the moment has a guaranteed hit melee option called Blitz Attack, where you don't roll to see if you hit (you just do), but to see if your target hits you back in the process. I'm currently undecided whether the enemy will make a straightforward to-hit roll against the player's AC or if they have to make a DEX save or similar to dodge. The idea is to encourage the martial classes to tank, knowing that their better HP and armour than the other classes will probably let them survive it.
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Mar 6, 2015 17:03
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Payndz posted:
this is a pretty cool concept! at the risk of becoming a gimmick poster in this thread, it reminds me of Apocalypse world's Seize by Force; you know both you and the other person are going to get hurt. If you roll well you can decide that you don't get hurt that bad, or that they get really hosed up (among other options). If you roll really well, you can do both!
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Mar 6, 2015 17:14
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Sent Dungeon World to my friends asking what they think and they got really excited. It is precisely what we are looking for, and matches our current style of play. Thanks thread! 
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Mar 6, 2015 18:49
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Awesome. Make sure to read Scrape and Evil Master'sminds Dungeon World guide.
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Mar 6, 2015 18:53
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Plague of Hats posted:What games have a mechanic similar to 13th Age's escalation die? Any game you want, it's one of the easiest mechanics I've see in basically anything ever to port out into your system of choice, as long as it uses some form of die roll, ideally a relatively large one, for resolution of things.
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Mar 6, 2015 19:05
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Famethrowa posted:Sent Dungeon World to my friends asking what they think and they got really excited. It is precisely what we are looking for, and matches our current style of play. Thanks thread! 
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Mar 6, 2015 19:20
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Famethrowa posted:Sent Dungeon World to my friends asking what they think and they got really excited. It is precisely what we are looking for, and matches our current style of play. Thanks thread! awwwww yeaaaaah
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Mar 6, 2015 19:26
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Captain Foo posted:awwwww yeaaaaah Infinite emptyquote
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Mar 6, 2015 21:53
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I know the honeymoon is sort of over re: goonpinions of Dungeon World, but I would argue there's no better gateway to the magical land of "RPGs that are not Dungeons and Dragons". Have fun, Famethrowa! Post a trip report.
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Mar 6, 2015 23:17
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Captain Walker posted:I know the honeymoon is sort of over re: goonpinions of Dungeon World, but I would argue there's no better gateway to the magical land of "RPGs that are not Dungeons and Dragons". Have fun, Famethrowa! Post a trip report. Yeah I agree with this
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Mar 6, 2015 23:32
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Captain Walker posted:I know the honeymoon is sort of over re: goonpinions of Dungeon World, but I would argue there's no better gateway to the magical land of "RPGs that are not Dungeons and Dragons". Have fun, Famethrowa! Post a trip report. I'm not blind to its faults. But I feel like there's a couple different discussions going on wrt any particular game. Discussion 1: is this game fun and playable enough to be worth my/your time? Discussion 2: let's take apart and examine this thing and talk about design. So, for me I will never not suggest DW or p. much any pbta game in discussion 1. In discussion 2, there's all the talk about how DW isn't that great of an implementation of AW's design, it carries over a lot of unnecessary D&D baggage, the core classes are either boring or too one note, etc. E: and my ultimate point is that sometimes there's a crossover or confusion about which discussion is happening at a given time Error 404 fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Mar 6, 2015 |
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Mar 6, 2015 23:35
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Captain Walker posted:I know the honeymoon is sort of over re: goonpinions of Dungeon World, but I would argue there's no better gateway to the magical land of "RPGs that are not Dungeons and Dragons". Have fun, Famethrowa! Post a trip report. Will do. I'm kind of in awe because it does everything that I enjoyed in playing 3.5--the launching of a barbarian though the air to tackle a thunderbird, the spontaneous collapse of an entire dungeon thanks to a flesh golem-- and makes it so these awesome moments don't rely on a random dice roll and slow flipping through a rule book. And prep won't take all week 
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Mar 6, 2015 23:38
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I know that rules heavy rpgs are not this board's forte but I had a question. Has there been any sort of d&dtools or srd type system devised for non-d20 rules systems. Something provides linked cross-references and nicely organized indexes of all options? I know it's a long shot but hey it'd be nice to be able to use modern technology to build a 4th edition, L5R, or GURPS character instead of flipping through books. I could have sworn WotC promised a 4th ed character generator but can't actually find any such program.
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Mar 6, 2015 23:44
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For 4e specifically, http://dnd.wizards.com/digital_tools is the legal one. The OG offline one is floating around the internet but it's  for the most part
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Mar 6, 2015 23:46
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Well I just found the time cube of RPGs.... EDIT: Or I've somehow managed to find myself into the plotline of a rather bizarre game of Mage. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 00:05
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Captain Walker posted:I know the honeymoon is sort of over re: goonpinions of Dungeon World, but I would argue there's no better gateway to the magical land of "RPGs that are not Dungeons and Dragons". Have fun, Famethrowa! Post a trip report. It's still a very good PbtA game. A lot of the criticism comes from people not liking the fiction it's about (oldschool D&D dungeon-crawling) rather than with its quality as a game, I feel.
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Mar 7, 2015 00:14
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Thanks for introducing me to Rythlondar, Jigokuman (and seconding the recommendation, ProfessorCirno). This is pretty entertaining stuff. It really also helps explain almost entirely the encounter design as seen in the earliest CRPGs.Kai Tave posted:Straight from Mike Mornard aka Old Geezer, a guy whose (constant) claim to internet elfgame fame is "I used to game with Gary Gygax back when he had this hip new thing called Dungeons & Dragons" this was a thing people literally did. Oh, a new hire? Welcome to the party! Here, hold this sack full of 3,000 gold pieces for a minute. Oh, that ding sound? That's just you leveling up, gratz. Actually reading what he did I kind of think he has squandered an opportunity (assuming he is still alive) to write an actual big hunk of text about all three and combine it with reminiscing about The Old Days. But I suppose his credentials do not necessitate any degree of writing talent.
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Mar 7, 2015 00:16
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Lemon Curdistan posted:It's still a very good PbtA game. A lot of the criticism comes from people not liking the fiction it's about (oldschool D&D dungeon-crawling) rather than with its quality as a game, I feel. It's not ideal if you're not specifically looking to do a game about D&D-style dungeon-crawling, but until Gnome makes me a playtester or releases Fellowship I'm gonna say it's the best thing going in fantasy adventure gaming.
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Mar 7, 2015 00:17
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Quarex posted:Thanks for introducing me to Rythlondar, Jigokuman (and seconding the recommendation, ProfessorCirno). This is pretty entertaining stuff. It really also helps explain almost entirely the encounter design as seen in the earliest CRPGs. Oh, he's still alive and still, to the best of my knowledge, acting like a cranky old man pastiche on RPGnet. And you're in luck because I believe he did Kickstart a book though I don't know if it's out yet and can't speak to its quality if so.
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Mar 7, 2015 00:34
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Evil Sagan posted:It's not ideal if you're not specifically looking to do a game about D&D-style dungeon-crawling, but until Gnome makes me a playtester or releases Fellowship I'm gonna say it's the best thing going in fantasy adventure gaming. Here's hoping Fellowship replaces it for the best, because that'd be just fantastic. I should have a playtest out in the next week or two. I was going to have it out this week but I got a new apartment and moving is time consuming. The current plan is to get a playtest out there, fill out the book with anything it is currently lacking, and then run a kickstarter for it to cover the art costs I've put into it, with more money beyond the goal going into getting more art and making the book the best it can be. I'll be honest, the kickstarter will be as much for the publicity as anything else.
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Mar 7, 2015 01:03
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