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People have recommended MSE to me before, saying it's "easier" than Nandeck, but I don't think that it's even close to true. MSE has its own bizarre markup language with three different interdependent files and really poo poo documentation (like the main tutorial people recommend is in garbled English, and factually incorrect in a number of areas). Nandeck is pretty familiar to anyone who's ever written a web language (it's really like fancier HTML) and works off of Excel spreadsheets. It also has a great manual that's packaged with the .zip file, and that manual has a simple tutorial that will get you 90% of the way there to making your own set of simple cards.
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Dec 24, 2015 21:09
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We played some misc party game and I realized something. The arbitrary "lose a turn/go back X spaces" spots on a track have a function. Not a GAME related one really, a player related one. Their function is to allow players to go (for example) "ahhh, we would have won if we hadn't hit those go back spaces! Rematch!" and chalk up a loss to not REALLY losing 
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Jan 1, 2016 10:03
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Mister Sinewave posted:We played some misc party game and I realized something. The arbitrary "lose a turn/go back X spaces" spots on a track have a function.
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Jan 1, 2016 13:59
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Conversely, the ur-examples of GOOD deterministic games are Chess and Go. Neither exactly lacks in replayability, nor would either be improved by rolling dice to see if the mechanics work.
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Jan 1, 2016 14:40
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If you have no randomness you can think an arbitrary number of moves into the future and go through a billion specific scenarios. The possibility to do that then makes it a necessity do so and a core part of winning the game. It's gonna make each turn take forever and, honestly, I'm not very good at that sort of thinking and don't particularly enjoy it. (these two are probably related both ways) I like there to be a slight veil of fuzziness, so that thinking will have to happen on a somewhat more abstract level and plans have to stay flexible because you can't rely on everything working out like you'd expect. Although not a boardgame, and excellent example of what I mean is Frozen Synapse because it allows you to play both ways. There's no randomness in combat resolution but there is an optional fog of war that provides equivalent fuzziness. If you turn it off there's no fuzziness whatsoever, everything can be counted on, and you'll go through all the possible moves the enemy might do and try to end up with a superior set of moves. You'll spend a lot of time doing this. Very chess-like. With the fog of war on, you can no longer rely on exact knowledge of enemy units and it's less chess and more infantry combat tactics: Covering various possible approaches, entering buildings from unexpected angles, etc. I don't know how well I'm getting across what I'm trying to say but the fuzziness of the fog of war makes the game play entirely differently despite all other mechanics being the same. I don't think it's necessarily a replay value issue. Look at chess. I don't enjoy chess, but it clearly has tons of replay value and depth despite being a simple game with no random element.
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Jan 1, 2016 14:48
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Elukka posted:I don't enjoy chess, but it clearly has tons of replay value and depth despite being a simple game with no random element. Which would be kind of like discovering that there was a best possible build-order in every situation in, say, 7 Wonders. It'd turn the game into Competitive Flowcharting. Edit Petition to coin 'competitive flowcharting' as an insulting term for overly dry, deterministic games.
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Jan 1, 2016 16:11
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Unless things have changed drastically in the past ~10 years, it is untrue that computers can determine the best move in any situation (ie chess has been solved). They can look forward a hella lot but chess still cannot be 100% brute forced; there are still decisions to be made (and which must be made well) in order to win at a high level.
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Jan 1, 2016 18:46
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Poison Mushroom posted:That's the point of randomness in general, isn't it? I guess you're right but since I'm in an arguing mood this morning  I'm going to point out there is no real randomness inherent to squares that say "go back to the square you came from" (nor the double point squares for that matter) so their function isn't really to introduce randomness. But I agree with you in principle
The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jan 1, 2016 |
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Jan 1, 2016 18:51
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Mister Sinewave posted:Unless things have changed drastically in the past ~10 years, it is untrue that computers can determine the best move in any situation (ie chess has been solved). They can look forward a hella lot but chess still cannot be 100% brute forced; there are still decisions to be made (and which must be made well) in order to win at a high level. My understanding of it is that Chess hasn't been strictly "solved" but it's now impossible for a top computer to lose to a regular human being. So we don't know whether the computers are doing the mathematically best moves they could be doing, but they can "100% brute force" enough to beat humans.
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Jan 1, 2016 19:24
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Poison Mushroom posted:Unfortunately, high level play has been examined so thoroughly that powerful computers are able to find the mathematically 'best' move in each situation, and humans have been trying to get there for years. I'm pretty sure you're way too late on that, people have been saying that about Power Grid for years.
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Jan 1, 2016 19:26
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Then a petition to make the term more widespread, instead! Problem solved 
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Jan 1, 2016 19:34
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hito posted:My understanding of it is that Chess hasn't been strictly "solved" but it's now impossible for a top computer to lose to a regular human being. So we don't know whether the computers are doing the mathematically best moves they could be doing, but they can "100% brute force" enough to beat humans.
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Jan 1, 2016 23:36
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quote:So we don't know whether the computers are doing the mathematically best moves they could be doing, but they can "100% brute force" enough to beat humans. Computers don't "brute force" chess; they consider a lot of positions, sure, but they're still limited in how many they consider - so they're considering them based on a variety of algorithms and heuristics (just as humans do). This is not a "brute force" approach. And while they're beating humans in general, they're not doing anything like perfect play; they are still losing sometimes to humans, and certainly to other computers. Judged against the size of the problem space, we're still at essentially zero in terms of progress towards perfect play. quote:Which would be kind of like discovering that there was a best possible build-order in every situation in, say, 7 Wonders. It'd turn the game into Competitive Flowcharting. 7 Wonders has simultaneous action selection, meaning that there is no simple perfect strategy (as there would be in Chess) any more than there's a simple perfect strategy for Rock Paper Scissors. The closest you could get would be a very complicated (because of hidden information) equilibrium. quote:I don't think it's necessarily a replay value issue. Look at chess. I don't enjoy chess, but it clearly has tons of replay value and depth despite being a simple game with no random element. Richard Garfield talks about this a lot; games need unpredictability. In Chess there's unpredictability due to mental limits; and thus while it has no overt randomness it still effectively has luck.
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Jan 2, 2016 00:24
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Behemoth Stuff posted:A BUNCH OF STUFF I haven't had a chance to try out the newest update but Hammer Bro's experiences match up pretty well to the last time my group had a chance to try it out. Sword and Shield feels the best, Lance and G.Shield feels like you have to jump through a lot of hoops, and Spear and Standard is just weird. Sword and Shield is simultaneously the most interactive weapon while being the most powerful, just look at something like playing Double Slash while discarding Jumping Strike and Shield Bash. You're using your entire hand (playing cards is fun) to play a 2 Delay 7 Damage attack. Oh wait I forgot how Sharpening Stone works now, so you could get that up to 1 Delay for 9 Damage. The L&GS changes seem like they'll make the weapon even MORE feast or famine. You'll be able to spike really high up on damage in an ideal situation with something like Concentrated Assault into Charging Thrust+Feint making it easy to soak hits for a 3 Delay 8 Damage attack, which is way worse then S&S's best case scenario and won't work with Sharpening Stone. Also: how often do you actually have a single set of attacks Ready long enough for you to block multiple attacks? Bow Gun is a really cool design that borrows from S&S in that it is very interactive and lets you put your items to work. It's sort of complex though, and if you aren't careful/didn't get the gimmick I could see a new player getting stuck recycling Shrapnel Blast over and over. Maybe it's time to make the weapons into oversized cards to give you a little more room for mechanics? Right now it looks like the best way to play Spear is to just get Oppressive Banner on your weapon and leave it there. I'm also not really sure how you are supposed to trigger it multiple times? Is it supposed to be something like "Have Oppressive on Weapon, gain Power Counter on Readied attack. Ready Flashy Banner, gain 2 Power Counters on Flashy Banner"? I really think the best thing you could do for Spear and Standard would be to really make the game about showing off while you beat up a giant monster. Then redo the Standard cards to be all about stealing Reward Cards from the other Hunters, maybe something like you plant a standard in a board area and get to steal a Reward Card from anyone who scores one there? You could also deal more damage while standing in a space with your standard, then have standards be removed when an attack hits the zone they're in. That would make Spear and Standard into the grandstanding weapon class that forces the other Hunters into less then optimal areas in order to not share the glory. Basically it seems like the most satisfying weapons are very clearly defined; S&S is all about dumping your hand on the Behemoth for huge turns, Bowgun is about managing your cards Power Counters to deal the most DPS. Then L&GS is about getting hit while you have a Block card in your hand, and Spear and Standard is about using your Banners for really minor effects that don't actually help you win the game. Those two are always going to be less interesting then Bowgun and S&S's resource management.
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Jan 2, 2016 02:43
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I was playing around with a few ideas that might be used to improve aspects of Betrayal that I dislike and came up with this major system overhaul: Throw the dice in the trash. Each character is instead made up of a deck of 15 cards. Those cards are Blue (sanity), Green (speed), Yellow (knowledge) and Red (might). Characters always have a hand of 5 cards. Checks are now made by playing books of cards, specified on the event / omen / item. If you're trapped in rubble, then you may play a book of 3 red cards, or a book of 2 red cards and any 2 other card, as an example. However, playing to meet checks removes these cards from your hand, and limits what else you are able to do on a turn. You have a base movement of 3 spaces, and you may reveal your hand and get +1 for each green card shown there. Items and powers now enter your deck as cards instead. So if you draw a hand with a revolver, then you can use whatever its power is. Combat is done with static checks on the monster's end. Players face off with whatever the type of combat is (mental uses blue and yellow; physical uses green and red). The player able to play a higher number of cards is the winner, ties go to defenders. Damage is done by first making a survival check of some book of cards. If you make the check you must then trash a card (depending on the damage it might be random, a red or green for physical, a blue or yellow for mental, or a specific color). The haunt counter is now a prebuilt probability deck with 4 different layers. In the first, 10% of the cards are haunt cards, in the second it's 20%, in the third it's 30% and in the 4th it's 40%. Each omen makes the player turn over three cards from the prebuilt haunt deck, and if 2/3rds of those cards are haunt cards then the haunt starts. In general, improving your character is about adding cards to your deck instead of adding more dice to your roll.
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Jan 4, 2016 20:53
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Misandu posted:Behemoth Thanks as always for the feedback! You’re definitely right - I need to focus Lance and Greatshield and Standard and Spear down to be based around more solid gameplay themes. Lance blocks, but what does it do with blocking? Right now, nothing - I’m only just realizing that Lance doesn’t really have any active gameplay to it, since blocking is just passive. Standard is similar - its gameplay is just loading up cards to use repeatedly, but it doesn’t do much with those cards. I feel like Standard is a bit better than Lance, but they still both need looking at. My plans for the future: rework Lance, my current idea is for it to be more based around readying cards on other turns. This would give it a bit more interesting gameplay with trying to figure out the order you want to ready cards, and would give the opportunities for a neat steady buildup of readied cards for a big attack. Standard I’m not entirely sure what I want to do with yet, I’d like to explore the design space of playing cards from your hand without readying them, so I might play with that a bit, but I dunno. I’m also planning on reworking how items work, since I think they’re kind of a big problem area right now. Items were intended to be more situational tools rather than the primary focus, and while they function as that they wind up just bogging down the player’s hand saving them until they’re needed - so a 6 card hand is actually more like a 2-4 card hand. I think I’ll remove items from being actual cards in the deck, and instead have them laid out and always available to a player. When used, their effect would take place immediately without spending delay, then the player flips them upside down. At certain places along the timer track the player may refresh one/two/all of their flipped item cards. I’d then maybe increase the size of each weapon deck to be about 12~15 total cards on its own, probably putting in duplicates of each card (instead of having 6 unique cards as it is now) e: I also want to play around with making the timer track more interactive and have more of an impact on gameplay. My knee-jerk idea is to have spaces that if your marker lands on them specifically, you can ready additional cards, draw cards, gain power counters, etc. I’ll try to make it more in-depth than that, but that’s the general idea. Thinking more on it as I write this, maybe I could have individual attack cards that directly alter the specific types of spaces on the timer track - place tokens on the timer track that have different effects when passed, etc. I'd be a bit hesitant to bog down the game with tokens, but maybe there's some cool stuff along that train of thought. CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Jan 4, 2016 |
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Jan 4, 2016 21:45
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CodfishCartographer posted:Brainstorm I think the only problem that Items have is that S&S is the best at USING them but also the best at discarding cards to cycle through it's deck. Right now there's very little reason to keep cards in your hand if you're in a safe spot, so there's not really any downside to S&S's weapon ability. I actually think that S&S might work better if it's ability was just "Whenever you Ready an attack you may also play an Item" and maybe the attacks could gain benefits from the type of item that you Ready with them. Right now S&S's play style seems more like a Dual Sword play style, constantly sacrificing defense (cards in hand) for quick hits. For Lance what if it's ability was just "Whenever you use a card to Block, you may immediately Ready it without paying it's Delay cost"? You would have to redo some of it's power curve, but I think that would feel a lot more satisfying then just getting a minor passive boost. It would also really capture the Guard Lance play style of counter attacks, and certain cards could even be stronger when played this way. If you want to bring Greatsword back, what if it's mechanic was to discard cards to build charge? Say you set it's Delays down to 2-3 per card, but instead of the normal turn flow you can Charge your attack by discarding. This would have you advance by the card's Delay value but let you add more Power to your attack then playing it would have. Lots of ways you could do this, the Readied card could have Charge Values, discarded cards could have an effect you gain when you discard them, or some combination of the two. I think this should stop you from drawing new cards, so that when you stop to Charge a GS attack you're committing to using only what you have when you start it. As I'm typing this I realized that I'm envisioning your hand as being a combo health/stamina bar. Standard is tricky because it needs to be selfish. The game is competitive so it can't just be straight buffs, it has to be the character benefiting the most from them. Maybe something like "When a Readied attack deals damage to the Behemoth, place a Banner from your hand in your Location. You gain that Banner's effect while in that Location, and other players may pay you 1 Reward card to gain it for that turn." That's a little wordy/complex so you could just make it "Whenever you Ready an Attack, place a Banner from your hand on Spear and Standard. You always gain the effect of Banners on Spear and Standard, other Hunters may pay you 1 Reward Card to gain the effect until the end of their turn." Bowgun I haven't messed around with at all. I think it might be cool to make all of it's Attacks into Items to really drive home the flavor of the weapon, but I ended up coming up with a slightly different version. I still think that removing cards from the game is going to end up being an issue for new players, so here's what I would see it like: pre:Bowgun - Weapon On your turn before Activating Attacks, you may remove an Ammo Counter from an Ammunition card. Power Shot Item / Ammunition 3 When you remove an Ammo Counter from Power Shot, put 1 Power Token on a Readied Attack. Breaker Shot Item / Ammunition 1 When you remove an Ammo Counter from Breaker Shot, Break a Behemoth part. Para Shot Item / Ammunition 2 When you remove an Ammo Counter from Para Shot, score the top Behemoth Card. Rapid Fire Power 1 / Delay 1 Ready another Attack. Over Load Power 1 / Delay 3 Before activating Over Load, you may remove an Ammo Counter from an Ammunition Item. Reload Power - / Delay 2 Discard up to two Ammuntion Cards from play. You may then play an Ammunition Card from your hand. That's a really cool idea about different spaces having different effects, maybe group them into regions to make the effects a little easier to trigger? Something like: pre:|>>>|>>>| O O If you end up doing Items differently could I suggest having the players draft them against each other? That could help you set up an antagonistic relationship between the players right from the beginning of the game. It also helps smooth out any balance issues that items might end up having.
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Jan 6, 2016 20:42
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Misandu posted:I think the only problem that Items have is that S&S is the best at USING them but also the best at discarding cards to cycle through it's deck. Right now there's very little reason to keep cards in your hand if you're in a safe spot, so there's not really any downside to S&S's weapon ability. I actually think that S&S might work better if it's ability was just "Whenever you Ready an attack you may also play an Item" and maybe the attacks could gain benefits from the type of item that you Ready with them. Right now S&S's play style seems more like a Dual Sword play style, constantly sacrificing defense (cards in hand) for quick hits. Do you think that SnS’s weapon ability would be better if the player couldn’t draw up to 6 every turn? I actually have been considering retheming Sword and Shield to be Dual Swords because of the gameplay style. I think maybe I will, and then just make a separate SnS that’s more focused around item usage. Misandu posted:For Lance what if it's ability was just "Whenever you use a card to Block, you may immediately Ready it without paying it's Delay cost”? This is actually, almost word-for-word, what I have planned for Lance. Other cards in the kit are being reworked to be more based around being able to do things on the Behemoth turn - readying a specific card at the end of the Behemoth turn, moving when the Behemoth attack is revealed, etc. Hopefully it’ll work out well!Misandu posted:If you want to bring Greatsword back, what if it's mechanic was to discard cards to build charge? Say you set it's Delays down to 2-3 per card, but instead of the normal turn flow you can Charge your attack by discarding. This would have you advance by the card's Delay value but let you add more Power to your attack then playing it would have. Lots of ways you could do this, the Readied card could have Charge Values, discarded cards could have an effect you gain when you discard them, or some combination of the two. I think this should stop you from drawing new cards, so that when you stop to Charge a GS attack you're committing to using only what you have when you start it. Interesting idea! I’ll definitely fiddle around with that and try some stuff out, definitely some potential there and I really like the idea. Misandu posted:As I'm typing this I realized that I'm envisioning your hand as being a combo health/stamina bar. Good, because that’s exactly how I intended it to feel! Thinking about it, I might try to design more with that as the focus. Misandu posted:Standard is tricky because it needs to be selfish. The game is competitive so it can't just be straight buffs, it has to be the character benefiting the most from them. Maybe something like "When a Readied attack deals damage to the Behemoth, place a Banner from your hand in your Location. You gain that Banner's effect while in that Location, and other players may pay you 1 Reward card to gain it for that turn." That's a little wordy/complex so you could just make it "Whenever you Ready an Attack, place a Banner from your hand on Spear and Standard. You always gain the effect of Banners on Spear and Standard, other Hunters may pay you 1 Reward Card to gain the effect until the end of their turn.” Honestly, Standard is intended to be a self-buffing thing and not really for buffing anyone else. The intention for the newest iteration of it is for the player to choose what buff they want most at the moment, then swap it out for other buffs if needed. I was actually thinking of re-theming it to maybe be Long Sword or some kind of Gauntlet / Martial Arts weapon, based around taking individual stances - to make it more thematically appropriate. I also like your suggestion below about chunking the Timer Track into “regions”, and a part of me wants to rework Banners to be more about messing with those regions of the Timer Track to mess with other players / the Behemoth. Random initial ideas: “Any other hunter that lands in this region of the timer track must pay you 1 Reward Card if able” “Any other hunter that lands in this region must discard 3 cards form their hand, if able.” “If another hunter lands in this region, you may ready a card from your hand without paying its delay cost” This isn’t really thematic with placing down Banners, so I’d probably need to retheme it, but it might work! Misandu posted:Bowgun I haven't messed around with at all. I think it might be cool to make all of it's Attacks into Items to really drive home the flavor of the weapon, but I ended up coming up with a slightly different version. I still think that removing cards from the game is going to end up being an issue for new players, so here's what I would see it like: Hmm, I like the idea about using ammo counters! I went with removal from game to try and simulate the squishiness of gun users, and to make the big damage more risky. The power counters were used to encourage players to not just use one over and over, as it would get weaker and weaker - the intention was to coerce the player into using many different shot types to keep them all out longer. Thinking about it, you suggestion of ammo counters will probably do the job well enough. Misandu posted:That's a really cool idea about different spaces having different effects, maybe group them into regions to make the effects a little easier to trigger? Something like: As I said earlier, I really like this idea! Some feedback I got from public playtests was to have some kind of “encounter” deck that triggers at certain places on the Timer Track, to add variance to the game - and while I wasn’t crazy about the suggestion at the time, I’m considering it moreso now. Maybe each region could have a card slot, with a random card placed onto it that could determine what is effecting that region. But just like how I’m hesitant to bog the game down with more tokens, I’m also hesitant to do the same with adding in more cards. Misandu posted:If you end up doing Items differently could I suggest having the players draft them against each other? That could help you set up an antagonistic relationship between the players right from the beginning of the game. It also helps smooth out any balance issues that items might end up having. I LOVE drafts in games, but I’m a little weary on adding one to this. I’d be worried it would be pretty different from all the rest of the gameplay and may not fit in well with the rest of the gameplay. I do like that it could set up antagonism between players, and would provide more opportunities for players to aim for specific playstyles, so I’ll probably give it a shot. What do you think of the overall idea for setting up cards separately from the attack card deck? I do agree with what you said earlier about how items right now are mostly best used by S&S, but that means either I make it so that ALL weapons have some means of interacting with items, or I separate items from weapons more except for specific cases.
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Jan 6, 2016 23:16
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sector_corrector posted:I was playing around with a few ideas that might be used to improve aspects of Betrayal that I dislike and came up with this major system overhaul:
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Jan 7, 2016 01:18
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Poison Mushroom posted:I feel like you really might be trying to polish poo poo. But there's still not much else that plays like BatHotH, so you don't really have any other options unless you wanna design a new game. I actually really enjoy what he pitched. Obviously it needs some fine-tuning and such, and wouldn't fix all the game's problems, but at least it would remove some of the shittiness.
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Jan 7, 2016 01:33
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Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm all about any change to Bat Hoth that starts with "throw away the dice".
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Jan 7, 2016 03:15
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sector_corrector posted:Betrayal Fixes I missed this the first time around but this all seems really interesting, reminds me of the parts I like about Battlestar Galactica and Dungeon Petz. I think the worst part of this rule framework would be tying it to Betrayal when it could very easily support it's own game. CodfishCartographer posted:Do you think that SnS’s weapon ability would be better if the player couldn’t draw up to 6 every turn? CodfishCartographer posted:This is actually, almost word-for-word, what I have planned for Lance. CodfishCartographer posted:Honestly, Standard is intended to be a self-buffing thing and not really for buffing anyone else. The intention for the newest iteration of it is for the player to choose what buff they want most at the moment, then swap it out for other buffs if needed. I was actually thinking of re-theming it to maybe be Long Sword or some kind of Gauntlet / Martial Arts weapon, based around taking individual stances - to make it more thematically appropriate. CodfishCartographer posted:Hmm, I like the idea about using ammo counters! I went with removal from game to try and simulate the squishiness of gun users, and to make the big damage more risky. The power counters were used to encourage players to not just use one over and over, as it would get weaker and weaker - the intention was to coerce the player into using many different shot types to keep them all out longer. Thinking about it, you suggestion of ammo counters will probably do the job well enough. CodfishCartographer posted:As I said earlier, I really like this idea! Some feedback I got from public playtests was to have some kind of “encounter” deck that triggers at certain places on the Timer Track, to add variance to the game - and while I wasn’t crazy about the suggestion at the time, I’m considering it moreso now. Maybe each region could have a card slot, with a random card placed onto it that could determine what is effecting that region. But just like how I’m hesitant to bog the game down with more tokens, I’m also hesitant to do the same with adding in more cards. CodfishCartographer posted:I LOVE drafts in games, but I’m a little weary on adding one to this. I’d be worried it would be pretty different from all the rest of the gameplay and may not fit in well with the rest of the gameplay. I do like that it could set up antagonism between players, and would provide more opportunities for players to aim for specific playstyles, so I’ll probably give it a shot. What do you think of the overall idea for setting up cards separately from the attack card deck? I do agree with what you said earlier about how items right now are mostly best used by S&S, but that means either I make it so that ALL weapons have some means of interacting with items, or I separate items from weapons more except for specific cases. One, it lets you try out different ways of playing the game, so it will extend the replay-ability of the game for you. Two, it will help you balance items during play testing. Do Potions and Well Done Steaks always get picked last? It's likely they are just not helpful. Three, it's a source of antagonism that is probably far enough removed from the regular game play. If you feel you could have done more damage had you picked better items, it's easier to view that as an error on your part even though another player really caused it by drafting all the copies of it. Finally, it helps invoke that feeling from Monster Hunter of getting all your equipment ready before the fight. You could even add Food Buffs to the game by making them draftable bonuses, and they could help make damage feel more meaningful by being discarded the first time you sacrifice a reward card. I have a couple of thoughts about card draw but they're all pretty rough, so like I said earlier I'm going to let them roll around in my head for awhile and see if I can smooth off any of the edges.
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Jan 7, 2016 18:32
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I have a number of games I've handmade a first draft of, but very little ability to get them played. I haven't converted them to a print and play format yet, largely because I don't have a lot of experience doing that and I generally want my first playable copy to just be made. I'd love to talk about some of them here but I don't really know how to approach that. I mean, hell, these games don't even have names. There's two that have the bulk of my attention right now and a third I haven't quite gotten around to building yet. The first is a short traitor game where the choice to turn traitor is made by the player, rather than just being told you are one. It's got a Red November-esque feel, and is the only one that's been played. The second is a three-player co-op giant monster killer that I've worried about bringing up here because I don't want to take away any of Behemoth's spotlight. Mine hasn't been played yet, but is fundamentally different in basically every way except subject matter, haha. The third is an asymmetrical strategy game based on the video game Earth Defense Force. I haven't built it yet, mostly because I was busy building the second game the last few weeks. I don't really know where to go from here, though.
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Jan 7, 2016 19:17
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Casnorf posted:I have a number of games I've handmade a first draft of, but very little ability to get them played. I haven't converted them to a print and play format yet, largely because I don't have a lot of experience doing that and I generally want my first playable copy to just be made. I'd love to talk about some of them here but I don't really know how to approach that. I mean, hell, these games don't even have names. Pick one, write up the rules and get some friends over to break it. If you can't get people over to break it, post the rules here and we'll try to break it. How's the traitor one work? What happens if everyone chooses to be the traitor?
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Jan 7, 2016 19:21
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Casnorf posted:I have a number of games I've handmade a first draft of, but very little ability to get them played. I haven't converted them to a print and play format yet, largely because I don't have a lot of experience doing that and I generally want my first playable copy to just be made. I'd love to talk about some of them here but I don't really know how to approach that. I mean, hell, these games don't even have names. Please don’t let Behemoth discourage you form posting! I’d love to see your take on it, especially if it’s fundamentally different! I’d also be interested in hearing more about the traitor game, I’ve always thought something where the players could choose when / if to go traitor would be super interesting and cool, if done right. Could make for a SHITLOAD of paranoia.
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Jan 7, 2016 19:27
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I'm not remotely as familiar with Behemoth as the rest of you, so I'm probably coming up with something that's been done already, or is completely non-viable, but what if a banner has a base effect that's a buff to some subset of players (like, the next person's action, or everyone, or people who have been injured or whatnot), and they build up some kind of resource--let's say Heroism--that way. Then put an alternate use on all of their abilities that they can spend Heroism for--so instead of that banner giving a minor bonus to everyone else, you get a vastly magnified version of that bonus, or instead of a normal spear thrust you burn Heroism to stab the Behemoth right in the eye for enhanced damage that delays the Behemoth.
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Jan 7, 2016 19:53
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The Lord of Hats posted:I'm not remotely as familiar with Behemoth as the rest of you, so I'm probably coming up with something that's been done already, or is completely non-viable, but what if a banner has a base effect that's a buff to some subset of players (like, the next person's action, or everyone, or people who have been injured or whatnot), and they build up some kind of resource--let's say Heroism--that way. Then put an alternate use on all of their abilities that they can spend Heroism for--so instead of that banner giving a minor bonus to everyone else, you get a vastly magnified version of that bonus, or instead of a normal spear thrust you burn Heroism to stab the Behemoth right in the eye for enhanced damage that delays the Behemoth. Hey, all feedback is appreciated! I actually really like this idea, it could definitely work well. I hadn’t considered using dedicated Heroism Counters or anything before, it could definitely open up some fun design space to mess around with.
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Jan 7, 2016 20:14
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The Supreme Court posted:How's the traitor one work? What happens if everyone chooses to be the traitor? This one is on its fourth or fifth handwritten revision, and has been received fairly positively so far. It's short and quick and I should really write the rules more coherently from the stack of note cards it's currently on.
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Jan 7, 2016 20:25
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Casnorf posted:The premise is that the players are a quickly assembled independent salvage team that's trying to snake some choice wreck after a space battle. Other, more powerful factions also know about the wreck, and have sent in their own ships, but you got there first. The wreck is not in great shape, though, and is basically falling apart around you while you try to stem the tide just long enough to lurch your way to a free station to register your claim for a full co-op victory . Any one of you might be working for someone else, though, and if the situation is right can reveal your true colors and sabotage the ship so the enemy can possibly catch the wreck for a traitor victory. Multiple factions are incoming, so only the last player to turn can claim victory. Of course, if someone is currently trying for a solo victory and the other three players manage to reach the free station first, that's a solo loss and a rest of team win. I thought this sounded really similar to a game that'd previously been posted about and that I'd critiqued, so I went to find the idea and it turns out that original poster was you all along! I absolutely love the sound of this game, especially emergent traitor mechanics, and I've recently joined a playtesting group; do you have any PNP ideas or fancy putting the rules online? I'd love to try it out.
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Jan 7, 2016 22:30
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The Supreme Court posted:I thought this sounded really similar to a game that'd previously been posted about and that I'd critiqued, so I went to find the idea and it turns out that original poster was you all along!
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Jan 8, 2016 05:04
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If you've got something you're working on don't be afraid to post about it here! Just remember the more concrete information you post the easier it is to give feedback, once we can see the bones of what you're trying to do it's a lot easier to give suggestions in line with them. Don't worry about a project being similar to one we're discussing either, there's plenty of room for variations on the same themes. I've got my own rough draft of "Monster Hunter inspired 4 player game" that looks way different from Behemoth, for example.
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Jan 8, 2016 17:12
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So I decided to try something completely different than my usual fair and pounded out a quick little dice game. Its heavily inspired by Darkest Dungeon / FFT-type games. In it you play as a party of intrepid adventurers facing off against another team of adventurers for ultimate treasure! I'm not much of a dice game person, so I'm a little worried I may have stumbled somewhere in my design... At the start of each round you roll 6 dice, then assign them to your characters to automate actions. Right now each character has a 3 dice action, 2 dice action, and a one die action which require different specific sequences of dice depending on the character. (So the demonologist has a three dice action that requires three 6's, but the priest wants a 1, a 2, and a 3 for their three dice action.) There is also a secondary resource that can be spent on re-rolls or character buffs. Any unspent dice generate extra of this resource on the next round. I'm a little worried that the inherent randomness of dice will make for a lot inactivity on players turns as they try to re-roll into the numbers they need and then fail too, leading to them not taking any actions which just seems like it would be quite dull. Is there any obvious way to circumvent that other than the re-roll mechanic I already mentioned?
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Jan 9, 2016 23:31
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Modifiers instead of or in addition to rerolls? Wider ranges for available actions? Actually if you want to make sure players always have something to do, you need to have an action available for every combination of results. That way the value calculation is "can I do what I intend?" rather than "can I do anything at all?"
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Jan 9, 2016 23:43
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quote:Actually if you want to make sure players always have something to do, you need to have an action available for every combination of results. That way the value calculation is "can I do what I intend?" rather than "can I do anything at all?" If you have some generic actions available for "pair" and "run of 3", you'd be very unlikely to completely whiff.
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Jan 10, 2016 01:25
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I'm now thinking I should probably add at least one more action option to each character and/or more dice tricks. Though I'm not sure how I want to do that. I'll puzzle over it and see if anything comes too me. Thanks!
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Jan 10, 2016 03:06
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jmzero posted:If you have some generic actions available for "pair" and "run of 3", you'd be very unlikely to completely whiff. Casnorf posted:Modifiers instead of or in addition to rerolls? Wider ranges for available actions?
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Jan 10, 2016 21:04
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Misandu posted:This could be interesting too, but might really slow down play if you have a lot of units that modify dice. Alternatively "Buff/Leader" type units could take in one type/roll of dice and turn them into another as an action maybe?
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Jan 10, 2016 22:36
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sector_corrector posted:BETRAYAL REVAMP IDEAS So I haven't played Betrayal in a long time but the card idea for this is just sitting in the back of my head. What if cards were like the Skill Cards from Battlestar Galactica where they had different values on them, and occasionally could be used as part of your turn for some effect. Each character's starting deck could be unique to them, and then the decks for gaining additional stats would be shared between all the players. A character's starting deck is full of cards that represent who they are and are all really mundane effects that are typically worth 1 point towards any checks. The shared decks are full of creepy/other worldly cards that are more often worth 2 or even 3 points, possibly with some down sides. The idea being that while you explore the haunted house the events in it change you in unnatural ways. I think the best part of this would be that players would be encouraged to lose their less powerful starter cards when taking damage, showing that they're being changed by their experiences. I love to give examples so let's do a random teenager. pre:Norville "Shaggy" Roberts Sanity 3, Knowledge 3, Might 4, Speed 5 Zoinks! - Green 1 / Natural (3x Copies) You may discard a card to ignore a drawn Omen/Event and move 1 space. You must move into an unexplored space with this move. I'm Starving! - Red 1 / Natural (2x Copies) Gain double the effects of any Food Item/Event. It's Medicinal - Blue 1 / Natural (1x Copies) Discard this card to ignore a source of Sanity damage. Stoner Logic - Yellow 1 / Natural 1x Copies) Take one Knowledge damage to pass any Knowledge check. Speed - Green 1 / Natural (2x Copies) Strength - Red 1 / Natural (2x Copies) Sanity - Blue 1 / Natural (2x Copies) Knowledge - Yellow 1 /Natural (2x Copies) pre:Demonic Strength - Red 2 / Unnatural Eldritch Lore - Yellow 1 / Unnatural You may take 1 Sanity damage and discard a Natural card to increase Eldritch Lore's Power by 2.
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Jan 12, 2016 19:11
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Misandu posted:So I haven't played Betrayal in a long time but the card idea for this is just sitting in the back of my head. What if cards were like the Skill Cards from Battlestar Galactica where they had different values on them, and occasionally could be used as part of your turn for some effect. Each character's starting deck could be unique to them, and then the decks for gaining additional stats would be shared between all the players. A character's starting deck is full of cards that represent who they are and are all really mundane effects that are typically worth 1 point towards any checks. The shared decks are full of creepy/other worldly cards that are more often worth 2 or even 3 points, possibly with some down sides. The idea being that while you explore the haunted house the events in it change you in unnatural ways. I think the best part of this would be that players would be encouraged to lose their less powerful starter cards when taking damage, showing that they're being changed by their experiences. Huh, that's is a lot better than my idea of books. It gets the same effect, but is probably easier to balance, and a lot simpler to immediately understand.
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Jan 12, 2016 20:52
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First off, I'm really digging this rework of Betrayal. I keep getting deja vu from it though, because just a while ago I had started brainstorming my own take on Betrayal and had settled on a card based system, though my idea was hewing a little closer to Mage Knight's implementation. So I'm really intrigued by Misandu's take. As mine kinda fell apart after I came up with how I wanted to handle the haunt: each player starts with a Curse, which determines what they would become upon becoming the haunt, and an Unlucky Number, which is a secret number. Every triggered Omen would have a number corresponding to it, and, if it was your Unlucky Number, you would become the Haunt. (In my brainstorming it was possible to have multiple haunts active at the same time. Every player would know every players haunt's abilities, but not if they had triggered their haunt.) Unfortunately I lost inspiration as I tried to settle on how exactly I wanted the players decks to work / designing the game events and set it aside to think on later. So it's really cool to see a similar idea has gained traction here. As for the dice game, I'm a little intrigued by the opposition to a re-roll mechanic in favor of a nudge mechanic. On the one hand, I completely understand wanting more control in a game, and it would also help solve my perceived problem of a lack of control. On the other hand, I feel that a re-roll mechanic is more 'exciting'. I'm thinking I may let players choose between the two, but I think I need to provide a little extra context to justify my impulse here. So, rehashing a little here, but players have 6 dice to assign to 3 different characters. These characters also provide a resource called "Focus" to their controller at the start of each turn. An average team will have about six focus on the first turn, with some extra on subsequent turns from dice that were left unspent on the previous turn (as unused dice turn into focus for the next turn.) By default you can spend one Focus to re-roll a die. You can do this as much as you have focus. Additionally characters have the ability to spend Focus for minor effects based on their class (such as a self-heal, getting an extra die, or setting a die to any side of the players choosing) without having to use their action for the round. I'm thinking of letting players trade their ability to get re-rolls for the ability to instead nudge a die +/- 1 at the cost of 2 focus, as I think nudging is strictly better than re-rolling so balance wise I need to make it a little less desirable. But again, this is all tummy feels at this point as I have yet to actually prototype the game.
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Jan 13, 2016 04:32
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