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Leraika posted:I'm fascinated by the enemy AI system in Emberwind, though I don't particularly care for the rest of the system. Can you give a quick expansion on this? I'm a sucker for AI systems in these sorts of games.
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Feb 8, 2021 19:29
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Leraika posted:I'm fascinated by the enemy AI system in Emberwind, though I don't particularly care for the rest of the system.
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Feb 8, 2021 19:40
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I'm fascinated with the rise of "not-people" character sheets in role playing games. I don't know if it's novel, or a cohesive piece of tech, but I'm fascinated with...
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Feb 8, 2021 20:59
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I love lifepath systems, my groups biggest disappointment was traveller, where we loved character development, then completely stalled out on the game. Reign worked well as well. Anything that can prompt ideas and links between characters is great. Helical Nightmares posted:If you wanted to hear an Actual Play of the Great Pendragon Campaign, our very own Grey Hunter has uploaded 83 half an hour videos to youtube here: I shall bury you all in free entertainment. It may be 1/10th the quality of critical roll, but it's 10x the volume. Quantity has a quality of its own!
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Feb 8, 2021 21:16
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Dog Kisser posted:Can you give a quick expansion on this? I'm a sucker for AI systems in these sorts of games. Tibalt posted:That's the enemy actions mapped to a hexgrid idea, right? Sure, I can give a very brief rundown. Basically, enemies have a hex grid of actions, and they roll a dice each turn to determine what path they take navigating through the hexes. Usually (but not always) the center hex will be movement, and then the hexes surrounding it will be each have either a basic attack or a special ability, and so forth and so on. Each monster also has a note in its stat block that determines what its targeting priorities are (usually they'll attack the nearest hero, but not always for example, a beastmaster foe might target whichever character last targeted one of its minions, teleporty guys might target the farthest away foe, and there's a few mobile foes whose targeting is completely random). Here's an example from a really basic monster:  It starts by moving five squares (and its traits indicate that it moves toward and engages the closest hero) and, depending on dice roll, it either uses its basic attack or its special ability (labeled A; some monsters have multiple special abilities).
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Feb 8, 2021 21:20
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hyphz posted:Legacy can work well in co-op games, but in competitive games it can be very easy to break balance. Charterstone just about gets away with it but Risk Legacy can very easily break down quickly, in part because missiles are a terrible design. The bigger problem I've had with legacy games is balancing impact for returning players with engaging someone who just started. A lot of them are either "Well, you played the full game, so you know all of the twists and it's not really going to be fun to replay it with friends who haven't" and "The board is meaningful and cool for folks who made the other games, but no isn't engaging for someone to sub into." Especially since the new gimmick is less different legacy games and more new seasons of the same game. So "Sorry I missed Legacy Pirate Adventure, I'll just play Legacy Ninja Mall when you start that up," is now greeted with "Yeah, we're starting season 3 of Legacy Pizza Assassins. Not too much carries over from Season 2, but the ending cards from 1 are really important to how 3 starts." It could just be "No, each season is fully self contained, and is just different scenarios using the same ruleset. New seasons are how we address hop on points for new players and keeping it fresh for returning" but that's not how my friends who've gotten hooked on legacy games act. In terms of recent RPG tech trends I'm enjoying; I'm a big fan of RPGs that ditch unique subsystems for stuff like combat, magic, or hacking and instead have everything use the same resolution mechanic. I know this isn't new tech per se, and was actually closer to where things started, but it seems like games have only really embraced it again in the past 5 years or so. It's much easier to teach someone a game -and easier to at a glance ensure something is balanced- when everyone is playing by the same rules and has the same tools for interacting with the fiction. Of course I also love minigames, so would probably be terrible at focus grouping a new RPG 
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Feb 8, 2021 21:40
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I like unified mechanics in games, and by God I never want to subject someone to original Cyberpunk's hacking system... but there's something lost by stripping these subsystems back to just "make a check". Sometimes it still works (Eclipse Phase 2e strikes a decent balance with its hacking), but most of the time I feel like it's losing more for the player(s) investing in doing the thing than it's gaining for anyone else who stands to gain from a "simpler" system.
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Feb 8, 2021 21:45
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Coolness Averted posted:In terms of recent RPG tech trends I'm enjoying; I'm a big fan of RPGs that ditch unique subsystems for stuff like combat, magic, or hacking and instead have everything use the same resolution mechanic. I know this isn't new tech per se, and was actually closer to where things started, but it seems like games have only really embraced it again in the past 5 years or so. It's much easier to teach someone a game -and easier to at a glance ensure something is balanced- when everyone is playing by the same rules and has the same tools for interacting with the fiction. God yeah. DitV having combat and conversation functionally work the same was a life changer for me and probably the difference between "RPGs are a thing I did in middle school and think about sometimes" and "RPGs are a part of what I do every week." I also haven't seen much of it but I'd be happy to see more whimsical/silly resolution mechanics. Chaos Confetti is still the funniest MTG card to me (ok that's a lie it's Queue of Beetles), and A Scoundrel In The Deep uses lit loving matches that rules.
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Feb 8, 2021 21:46
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Leraika posted:Sure, I can give a very brief rundown. Basically, enemies have a hex grid of actions, and they roll a dice each turn to determine what path they take navigating through the hexes. Usually (but not always) the center hex will be movement, and then the hexes surrounding it will be each have either a basic attack or a special ability, and so forth and so on. Each monster also has a note in its stat block that determines what its targeting priorities are (usually they'll attack the nearest hero, but not always for example, a beastmaster foe might target whichever character last targeted one of its minions, teleporty guys might target the farthest away foe, and there's a few mobile foes whose targeting is completely random). Why does it do action A on a 1 or a 5, but basic attack on a 2,3,4, or 6? As opposed to doing A on a 1-2 and basic attack on a 3-6? Is there any significance to that arrangement? Is there any significance to the hex positioning?
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Feb 8, 2021 21:50
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Jimbozig posted:Why does it do action A on a 1 or a 5, but basic attack on a 2,3,4, or 6? I'm not the designer, but I imagine they specifically wanted something that felt different than just 'x on 1-2, basic attack on 3-6'. And again, remember that this is the most simple of monsters. Things get more involved as monsters get complex - if you'd like to have a look, there's plenty of examples on Emberwind's web site.
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Feb 8, 2021 21:58
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I don’t want to put words in his mouth but I think his question could be more directly rephrased as, “Do the designers do something with the hexagonal structure that would be distinct from a list, e.g. some abilities change things on the lower left or whatever?”
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Feb 8, 2021 22:12
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Not familiar with the particular example, but the other hex-decision thing I've seen 'moved' through the hexes with Pac-Man style screen wrapping. With the given grid, I think that'd be a chart like (1 or 5: special attack, 2346: basic) initially, but then if you rolled a 1 your chart becomes (12356: Basic, 4: Move) next turn - avoiding adjacency on Special would prevent repeated specials, etc. The example I'd seen used multiple dice to encourage movement towards particular parts of the decision tree, IIRC.
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Feb 8, 2021 22:31
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Using that specific example if it was "special action on a 1-2" then there'd be a chance the monster could do their special action twice in a row since those hexes would be touching, which the designers may not think is appropriate E: yeah as was mentioned above
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Feb 8, 2021 22:55
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Yeah I popped over to the site to look at a few of the entries in the bestiary and it's a little more clear why it matters - a lot of them are not just a one depth wheel but a more complex map that's pretty cool even if I don't entirely get it.
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Feb 8, 2021 23:00
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Countblanc posted:Using that specific example if it was "special action on a 1-2" then there'd be a chance the monster could do their special action twice in a row since those hexes would be touching, which the designers may not think is appropriate Ok, I get it now. I had kind of dismissed that possibility because then the monster rarely ever moves, and I was thinking of this like Gloomhaven or D&D where if the monster doesn't move often it's just going to sit there. Like, in Gloomhaven when we draw a monster card that has no movement it's usually a big reprieve because the monsters will just sit there. But obviously in a system where movement is not so important, (or for a monster with long range who doesn't have to care about movement), this is not a big deal. The other thing I didn't consider is that maybe "basic attack" includes movement. In that case, it's the middle square that is essentially a "dead" square, which makes the most sense. I'll check out the website later. It doesn't seem to work properly on mobile (I tried 3 times to get it to download a monster pdf and it wouldn't) and all the computers are in use by my wife&kids doing real work right now.
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Feb 8, 2021 23:21
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A similar system I've been playing around with is using cards (suits represent basic actions, numbers affect them in different ways) with each boss having a unique deck composition. Takes less space then a big hex chart and adds drama to the action reveal phase. I think using monster AI systems like these would work well with a more adversarial GM role - they get x currency per adventure and can spend it to build enemy compositions or whatever.
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Feb 8, 2021 23:26
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Is there anywhere you can buy the Sentinel Comics RPG PDF yet? It sounds pretty neat but all I saw was the starter kit which presumably doesn't include the character creation rules etc.
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Feb 8, 2021 23:33
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Each turn's roll is a string of actions - so a 1 would be move -> special ability a -> whatever next if there was a third tile in the pattern, to be clear. Sorry I'm explaining this poorly, but I'm trying to do so without actually copying and pasting whole sheets or anything.
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Feb 8, 2021 23:49
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Leraika posted:Each turn's roll is a string of actions - so a 1 would be move -> special ability a -> whatever next if there was a third tile in the pattern, to be clear. Sorry I'm explaining this poorly, but I'm trying to do so without actually copying and pasting whole sheets or anything.
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Feb 8, 2021 23:54
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Nessus posted:So each roll starts from the center and works its way out, eh? And I imagine if the basic attack and special move A are not ranged attacks, then the monster's turn ends there as it moves towards its next target. Yep. A lot of special abilities have some sort of movement baked in, though.
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Feb 9, 2021 00:40
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Leraika posted:Each turn's roll is a string of actions - so a 1 would be move -> special ability a -> whatever next if there was a third tile in the pattern, to be clear. Sorry I'm explaining this poorly, but I'm trying to do so without actually copying and pasting whole sheets or anything. O okay! Sorry. Now that makes total sense and seems like a great mechanic. Thanks!
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Feb 9, 2021 01:06
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Coolness Averted posted:Lost Children Pickup -If a parent is separated from their child and checks here they will always find a changeling resembling the lost youth. If they fail to realize their mistake before the faire ends the child will be spirited away. If you run this be sure to prepare for the extremely likely scenario that a player will bring home a fetch, rescue their child, and then raise the fetch and child as twins. It's what I'd do.
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Feb 9, 2021 01:43
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bbcisdabomb posted:If you run this be sure to prepare for the extremely likely scenario that a player will bring home a fetch, rescue their child, and then raise the fetch and child as twins. It's what I'd do. This was the logic of a fairy lord in one of my games. "Wait, so, I leave a fetch with the parents, kidnap the human child, and then I raise the human child to have a life of adventure and magic which I am informed by MANY sources human children LOVE and then the parents also get a child (the fetch) to love and raise, so it's a victimless crime!" It was a little awkward but now there's two magic people and they get along so it ended well.
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Feb 9, 2021 02:46
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CitizenKeen posted:I'm fascinated with the rise of "not-people" character sheets in role playing games. I don't know if it's novel, or a cohesive piece of tech, but I'm fascinated with... Same, and I think those definitely count. I want to see, or maybe create, the obvious iteration where the group "plays as" the main sheet and the individual characters are less-important cogs in the greater machine that is "the party". I feel like Band of Blades is a step towards that, and that it could work super well for a ship (or spaceship) based game. Nessus posted:So each roll starts from the center and works its way out, eh? And I imagine if the basic attack and special move A are not ranged attacks, then the monster's turn ends there as it moves towards its next target. I had all these same questions that everyone asking about this game, until I went on the website and looked at the monsters and the whole thing is super clear and pretty intuitive when you see the whole sheet, or even just a more complicated monster's hex grid thingy. I guess this is one of those rare cases where the simplest one was a really bad demonstration. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Feb 9, 2021 |
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Feb 9, 2021 03:01
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SkyeAuroline posted:I like unified mechanics in games, and by God I never want to subject someone to original Cyberpunk's hacking system... but there's something lost by stripping these subsystems back to just "make a check". Sometimes it still works (Eclipse Phase 2e strikes a decent balance with its hacking), but most of the time I feel like it's losing more for the player(s) investing in doing the thing than it's gaining for anyone else who stands to gain from a "simpler" system. There's certainly a balancing act. I've had players bounce off games because they didn't feel there was enough mechanical weight based on their choices made at the table and in char gen and advancement. I think my ideal would be something more like Heart's exploration and delve rules. There isn't a unique subsystem or mini game for it, but it's not just a dry single check. For those who haven't played Heart, delves are statted like a big monster with high stress (the game's plot armor/health analogue) with some sample obstacles and relevant ways to overcome them, and in some cases a side objective that can halve the stress you have to inflict on the delve. The only unique rule a delve has vs overcoming a regular antagonist is extra math for aborting the delve.
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Feb 9, 2021 03:43
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Coolness Averted posted:The bigger problem I've had with legacy games is balancing impact for returning players with engaging someone who just started. A lot of them are either "Well, you played the full game, so you know all of the twists and it's not really going to be fun to replay it with friends who haven't" and "The board is meaningful and cool for folks who made the other games, but no isn't engaging for someone to sub into." Especially since the new gimmick is less different legacy games and more new seasons of the same game. So "Sorry I missed Legacy Pirate Adventure, I'll just play Legacy Ninja Mall when you start that up," is now greeted with "Yeah, we're starting season 3 of Legacy Pizza Assassins. Not too much carries over from Season 2, but the ending cards from 1 are really important to how 3 starts." They've got an official TTS mod, if you use that.
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Feb 9, 2021 03:48
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Hmm. My brain is currently mulling over pool-based mechanics and dice to represent various pools of resources that change up and down over time. It's pretty formless right now though other than "a bunch of multicolored dice and they represent stuff". I reckon I'll have to contemplate more on this.
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Feb 9, 2021 05:04
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Is there a good rundown somewhere of what the significance is of roll under vs. roll to target vs. dice pools as mechanical building blocks?
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Feb 9, 2021 05:17
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Is there a good rundown somewhere of what the significance is of roll under vs. roll to target vs. dice pools as mechanical building blocks? Someone else will be along to write in more detail, I'm sure, but quick notes before I go to bed:
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Feb 9, 2021 05:50
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For the last six years, I went from Pbta to FATE to Cortex. I forgot Fantasy d20 games exist. Probably good riddance, but did anyone make any good ones since I forgot about them?
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Feb 9, 2021 06:18
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Is there a good rundown somewhere of what the significance is of roll under vs. roll to target vs. dice pools as mechanical building blocks? Outside of player psychology, which I'm not discounting, roll-under and roll-over are always going to be the same if you do like any math. Because that's just how math works. A flawed example is the switch from 2e to 3e D&D ; they totally borked up the math as is well known but it demonstrated that there's not an intrinsic difference between big numbers and small numbers. (Which, if you think about it, yeah, that's how numbers do.) Target numbers and dicepools should not be mixed at the table because seriously that's too much math for anyone to do on the fly. If you think you can do it, you're wrong and just being an example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Like, this isn't me being lovely but if you think you can do the odds of 6d10 at TN7 vs. 5d10 at TN6 at the speed to make a GM judgement, you're either wrong or some kind of prodigy. I'm a nerd enough that I bring that up with PhD math people and the response is always some variation of, "Whoof! Uh... Let me think." This is one of the reasons why nWoD got a lot better by someone, anyone remembering basic probability. Okay or at least until Mummy came out. (I'm the son of a mathematician so I grew up in a university math department being told to disprove Goldbach's Conjecture to distract me so I wouldn't like stick a fork in the wall socket.)
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Feb 9, 2021 06:26
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:I had all these same questions that everyone asking about this game, until I went on the website and looked at the monsters and the whole thing is super clear and pretty intuitive when you see the whole sheet, or even just a more complicated monster's hex grid thingy. I guess this is one of those rare cases where the simplest one was a really bad demonstration. So it is functionally equivalent to a list that goes like (for example) 1: move, basic, A, B 2: move, A, B, C 3: move, basic, A, basic 4: move, A, basic, B 5: move, A, B, basic 6: move, A, D Which means that I'm still wondering a bit about my original question of "is there a reason why they split up the As onto 1 and 5 instead of having them just be 1-2?". I mean, "it just looks better and it makes no difference either way" might totally be the correct answer. Anyway, the combat system seems a bit "lots o' dice and big numbers" to me, but I love the fact that it's GMless (or GM-optional, I guess). Very cool! I've been tossing around ideas for making a GM AI module for Strike! for a while, but haven't yet hit on the right combination of rules to satisfy me. Between this and Ironsworn and other GMless and solo games coming out, I'm always really interested in seeing the ways they solve the difficult problems inherent in the idea.
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Feb 9, 2021 06:36
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Xiahou Dun posted:Target numbers and dicepools should not be mixed at the table because seriously that's too much math for anyone to do on the fly. If you think you can do it, you're wrong and just being an example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Like, this isn't me being lovely but if you think you can do the odds of 6d10 at TN7 vs. 5d10 at TN6 at the speed to make a GM judgement, you're either wrong or some kind of prodigy. I'm a nerd enough that I bring that up with PhD math people and the response is always some variation of, "Whoof! Uh... Let me think." One of the many things that I hate about Exalted 3e is that while they did institute hard limits on how many dice could be rolled at once, they also instituted a whole ton of charms that had effects like 'any 4s you roll you may reroll immediately' and 'if your opponent rolls a 6 you may spend a mote of essence to remove one of their successes' and other dice tricks, which serve to obscure a continual success creep and also make it nearly impossible to tell which of two charms is more useful. Also, every one of these charms is intensely boring.
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Feb 9, 2021 06:46
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Jimbozig posted:Which means that I'm still wondering a bit about my original question of "is there a reason why they split up the As onto 1 and 5 instead of having them just be 1-2?". I mean, "it just looks better and it makes no difference either way" might totally be the correct answer. For sure. Or maybe it's expandable? One cool use of those hex thingies would be to have a basic monster with 1 ring and then add different second/third rings for different elite versions. And more complicated monsters have abilities that can be reached from different starting points, so it might be intended to separate those. e: I think I'm gonna have to buy and read this game because it's doing something similar-but-not-the-same to something I was trying to do with a triangle of starting "classes" that could grow towards each other or towards the central "hero" class.
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Feb 9, 2021 07:06
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:For sure. They do have "learnable abilities" for "veteran" monsters that kind of expand it and occasionally give the GM a choice in combat, but those don't let you cross from one chain into another, they just give you extra options within a chain.
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Feb 9, 2021 07:44
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Xiahou Dun posted:This is one of the reasons why nWoD got a lot better by someone, anyone remembering basic probability. Okay or at least until Mummy came out nWoD is the reason I've got a bag of 30 d10s somewhere. Just using the basic rules it was like GURPS but trimmed down for utility. I had a great concept for a Supers campaign using it that never quite came to fruition.
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Feb 9, 2021 08:12
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Jimbozig posted:They do have "learnable abilities" for "veteran" monsters that kind of expand it and occasionally give the GM a choice in combat, but those don't let you cross from one chain into another, they just give you extra options within a chain. Not like I have the full rules or anything here, but it looks like the Shadeseer could jump from the 2 chain to the 1 chain by going Basic Attack > Move 3 sq > F > F or from the 3 to the 4 chain by going Basic Attack > move 7 sq > F > G > Basic Attack > Move 5 sq. Unless I missed a bit in the free rules that says a learned ability ends the chain or that you're not allowed to move between chains? And I dunno, maybe the intent is that you can't, but in general I think it would be a pretty cool concept for combo moves if you could add specials that jumped between chains. Also kind of frustrating that they've got hexes right there but are using squares for the map. e: If you can't tell, I'm pretty excited about this system 
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Feb 9, 2021 08:33
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Jimbozig posted:Yeah, I have now gone and looked at some more monsters and the rules for using them, and I understand it, but the explanations given in this thread are not correct. Having the two action A's together would not make them usable back-to-back because the hexes are not traversed like a "hex flower" with multiple rolls and changes of direction. There is no "wrapping around" or anything like that. You just roll once and then proceed along the "action chain" in that direction. The example monster just had a short chain because it only gets to do 2 actions each turn (it will always move then basic attack or it will move then do action A). For monsters with more actions, it looks more like an asterisk. All of this is exactly what I said, though? If I didn't explain it well, that's one thing, but saying I'm wrong is another entirely. I never said anything about wrapping around, I specifically said the monster I used for the sake of example was basic, and I explained the way a given turn for a monster worked more clearly in my next post.
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Feb 9, 2021 11:15
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What game had dueling grids where you could "move" to spaces orthogonal to your current action type? It was different sword-fighting styles or something like. Was it Spellbound Kingdoms? I think "state machines as ability trees" might have juice.
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Feb 9, 2021 14:44
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Leraika posted:All of this is exactly what I said, though? If I didn't explain it well, that's one thing, but saying I'm wrong is another entirely. I never said anything about wrapping around, I specifically said the monster I used for the sake of example was basic, and I explained the way a given turn for a monster worked more clearly in my next post. Sorry, I should have said that SOME of the posts were wrong. Your posts were not wrong, just a little incomplete so some other posters were speculating inaccurately. Elector_Nerdlingen posted:Not like I have the full rules or anything here, but it looks like the Shadeseer could jump from the 2 chain to the 1 chain by going Basic Attack > Move 3 sq > F > F or from the 3 to the 4 chain by going Basic Attack > move 7 sq > F > G > Basic Attack > Move 5 sq. Unless I missed a bit in the free rules that says a learned ability ends the chain or that you're not allowed to move between chains? And I dunno, maybe the intent is that you can't, but in general I think it would be a pretty cool concept for combo moves if you could add specials that jumped between chains. The learned abilities give you more choices for moving along a chain but don't let you jump between chains. So an F might be usable as part of a 1 or a 2, but doesn't let you cross over. You can actually find those rules free, too ("veteran foe rules").
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Feb 9, 2021 14:54
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