|
From a DM side (mostly 13th Age and not 4e so only two NADs) having a monster attack a certain defense greatly changes how I play it since I try and have them go after weak defenses.
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2014 19:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 04:56 |
|
|
So, in the 4E retrocloning contest that happened a few months ago, I posted a rule I was working on that would help reduce the number of dice rolls to only those that mattered. The game it's going to fit in will probably look nothing like 4E, but I could still use it as a point of reference so I don't have to explain any more rules. Basically, in D&D (all versions), you use dice rolls for any actions that involve risk. Considering that the characters are by default heroes that do heroic poo poo, this means that there will be an awful lot of die rolls involved during any combat scenario. Here is an example from 4E: A Fighter charges an enemy caster, passing near two of his minions. This will cause each minion to roll an attack roll, for some measly amount of damage. The risk has been taken and resolved, and now the Fighter is free to take his attack roll. In the ruleset I propose, passing through opponent space would generate an amount of Risk, with no rolls involved. Narratively, it seems that the results of taking that particular risk was that he managed to pass though the minions unscathed, but mechanically, the risk is still on the character, as points. The DM on his turn can use any Risk on that character to power up his attacks against him. This way, taking risky actions does not move the "lose counter" (hit points), but increases the chances of it happening later. My hope is that by using Risk (and some kind of equivalent rule for monster control that won't involve OAs from players), I can distill a combat round down to one (significant) dice roll for each player plus the DM.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2014 18:27
|
|
|
I’ve been rolling around a dice mechanic for an RPG with a heavy tactical skirmish component and I wanted to get some feedback. This system uses pseudo-unique dice. Each die type is a d6 with the same color dot on 3 sides. Right now I’m using 3 colors: Green dice that represent positive influences, yellow dice that represent difficulty, and red dice that represent danger and risk. This should look familiar to anyone who has looked at the 3rd edition of the Warhammer fantasy RPG or the new Star Wars RPG. Each face up green die represents 1 degree of success, each face up yellow die negates 1 degree of success, and each face up red die indicates a context dependent GM (or maybe player) decided bad thing. This process is actually pretty quick using the custom dice. A couple of examples: -Picking a lock might translate into rolling 4 green dice for the character’s lock picking skill and a yellow die for the difficulty of the lock. If the character wanted to pick the lock in a hurry they could take on another yellow die. If they are working while being shot at they might take on a red die or two to see if they get hit. -A character delivering a baby might roll 5 green dice based on their medical knowledge and the quality of the hospital facilities, but roll 3 red dice because of dangerous complications. They might also have the ability to trade degrees of success to negate face up red dice, creating a situation where the character must decide between botching the delivery and saving the mother’s life. I like the easy mental math. Each green positive die adds a 50% chance of getting a success, and each yellow difficulty die effectively negates one green die. More importantly, I like that these three building blocks can be used to model a lot of different situations, have a fair number of dice tricks applied to them, and also let you just chuck modifiers into the pool without having to do any mental math. You can also throw on a fair number of little dice tricks as well. Maybe a berserker character could add extra green success dice at the cost of taking on extra red risk dice. Characters could spend a resource to reroll facedown green success dice and/or face up yellow difficulty dice. One thing I dislike about this system is that it isn’t swingy enough for combat. I’m also not wild that it needs special dice. Right now I’m considering welding this dice pool system on to a big swingy d20: in combat situations add in a d20 to see if the action works or not. Then look at the dice pool to see how well the action worked. Most likely there will be a card ala WHFRPG 3rd or even a *world playbook that will provide guidance in terms of what green and red outcomes mean. I’d also like to hear if anyone has any ideas on how to translate the special dice into something more readily available.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2014 03:03
|
|
|
wallawallawingwang posted:I’d also like to hear if anyone has any ideas on how to translate the special dice into something more readily available. If I'm reading this right, all your dice have two outcomes - Dot or No Dot. If 3 sides are Dot and three sides are Not, your odds are 50/50. Coins also have two outcomes spread 50/50, and they're pretty easily available in lots of different varieties. Or use poker chips that have a "face" on one side - if you have any around, you probably have them in a few colors. I've been messing with coins a lot lately because I don't have access to anything else. I've been in Jordan for a few months and a few of my friends here wanted to play a game about being desert nomads (Bedouins, basically). We don't have any dice so I made one that uses handfuls of coins. It probably helps that Jordanian coins are awesome looking, ubiquitous here, and visually distinct from each other.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 16:16
|
|
|
Sixto Lezcano posted:If I'm reading this right, all your dice have two outcomes - Dot or No Dot. If 3 sides are Dot and three sides are Not, your odds are 50/50.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 18:01
|
|
|
Thanks for the replies. With coins my two concerns are: Can you "roll" them easily or do half of them roll away each time? The other concern is assigning types to them. There isn't anything that says dimes are about success, or difficulty, or danger. Whereas the color red does usually indicate danger, green go, and yellow caution. The odds are simple enough though that lots of stuff can be used as a stand in. Coins with bits of paint or colored stickers, or using different die sizes to represent different die types, could all work. I'm stuck between going with doodads that are easily accessible vs doodads that are easy to use in play. Really though, that's a pretty academic concern. If this little project got to the point where other people were even thinking about playing it, I'd ecstatic. I'll need to playtest a little bit to see how difficult it is to sort and compare numeric dice.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2014 00:41
|
|
|
wallawallawingwang posted:Thanks for the replies. Use weird foreign money with septagonal coins  . Septagons don't roll very easily.Also, speaking to my group's experience, whenever a game said "Use dice of colors A, B and C" we just looked around for three colors of dice and went for it. Red Blue Green? How about Beige Dark Blue and Swirly Kinda Orange Or Something? But yeah, having something that immediately connects prop appearance to meaning is really helpful and cuts down on "seek time".
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2014 06:31
|
|
|
Put the coins in a plastic cup and shake it with your hand covering the opening, then turn it upside down on a table, no need to roll them.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2014 11:51
|
|
|
In chat, someone requested a game based on Desborough's argument with a twitter bot. This is what I came up with. I'm calling it Turing Test. You have two sets of cards: Human and Bot. The human cards have certain statements or questions, ranging from "How are you doing?" to "I'm going to my grandmother's funeral." Bot cards are responses. Different responses can match with different human cards. Some are very generic, and can match with a lot of human cards ("That's nice," or "I'm fine.") Some are more specific ("I enjoy skiing," or "I laughed at the ending.") Matching bot cards to human cards lowers suspicion. Playing non-matching cards raises suspicion. Generic responses have a small effect on suspicion, while specific responses have a large effect. When suspicion reaches zero, the bot wins. When suspicion reaches, say, ten, the human twigs, and the bot loses. Three methods of play. Single Player. Seven human cards are drawn from the deck, and you look at them. Then you shuffle them, and lay five down in random order. Next, you draw seven bot cards. You pick five, and lay them out in the order you want. The human cards are laid out in order, and the two sets are compared, first card to first card, second to second, and so forth. Multiplayer. Same as single player, but you have several bot players. Players are eliminated when they reach max suspicion. First to zero or last bot standing wins. Head-to-head. One player is bot, the other is human. The human player draws seven cards as well. He shows them to the bot player, then shuffles them, picks out the one he wants, and lays them face-down. His goal is to trip the bot up, while the bot wants to guess what the human is going to play. Thoughts? It'd need a lot of playtesting, and I think there are some definite places to work on balance (how many matches each response has, suspicion for each, number of cards the bot and human draw before re-selecting), but I think it could be fun.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 08:31
|
|
|
Personally, it feels like it should include some element of guessing on the player's part as well (especially since "does this match" can occasionally be subjective). Maybe something like the player playing a "human" card puts their card down and then the other player verbally states a response and their opponent must guess whether this response comes from a card in their hand or if it's something made up by the other player.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 08:39
|
|
|
Ah, forgot to mention. The human cards would be numbered, and the bot cards would list the numbers they correspond to. A more subjective system would be fun too, but I think it would lead to too many arguments over whether or not a human would really say something like that. Initially, I had in mind a more Uno-inspired mechanic, where rather than a specific statement/response, it would have "elements" which the bot cards would have to try and match. Since that turned it into Uno with a twist, I went with something a little different. I kind of like your idea of a guessing mechanic, though. Wouldn't work in the single-player or multi-bot scenarios, but it could be worked into the head-to-head.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 09:19
|
|
|
Okay, let's see. I've been working on my kind of sorta 4e heartbreaker, and my group is finally in my city so we can play it out as soon as I have it ready. The base idea is the following: Simple resolution system, tactical gameplay with 4e-style powers, class-based, no levels, advancement by stat and power improvement. Enemies don't roll, players roll their attacks and their defenses. Enemies have different "difficulty levels", which represent how successful certain actions will be against them. So something full of eyes everywhere may be particularly resilient to powers that rely on speed or deception, while an armored golem may be particularly vulnerable. When a player rolls, he rolls and adds any modifiers (represented by negative or positive 1d4s. Some powers may allow for rerolls or extra 1d6.) If the result is equal or above the difficulty level, he succeeds. Couple questions I'd like your insight on: - Dice resolution. The d20 proved to be awfully swingy. 3d20 take middle proved weird, and people don't like watching the highest roll that just eluded them in my experience. I want a curve bell, that's for sure. I've decided on two possible ideas. (I originally intended to use 2d12, just so I could play around with different sizes of dice for modifiers, but scratched that when I realized a d4 would do) a) 2d6. Powers give either positive or negative modifiers, represented by a d4. The players are meant to hit 60% of the time, and to be hit only 40% of the time. They are big drat heroes who defy the odds and emerge victorious. b) "D15". Shamefully stealing from Malifaux, I'd be using a communal deck + a "cheat" hand for each player. Instead of rolling, you pick a card. If you don't like it, you can cheat and replace it with a card from your hand. I have no idea how to test the possibilities of this in anydice, considering the players have all 15 values (plus a guaranteed "you pass" card) to use during a session. An alternative I thought was that the player would have a smaller hand, and could replace cards from his hand with the ones he rolled normally, but he would have to put the replaced card in his hand. So you could drop a really good card but get a shittier one in return, or you could purposefully diminish the success (or even fail) a test to get a good card that could be useful later on. Dunno, just an idea. - Progression, Classes and "Feats" Since my group is spread along three different cities (not even inside the same province), we meet and play in bursts during the holidays, till the end of January. Hence, progression in the traditional sense is kind of useless to us - we don't have enough time to get to the cool toys or truly develop characters. Also, my groups are BIG. 8-9 people big. So instead, I've decided to use pre-built classes that have an assortment of powers. So you pick the Scout and you get a bundle of powers. You pick a Fighter and get certain powers. But you could also pick a Knight or a Soldier, and they'd have a different bent, while still being fighty characters. (Races are just a small bundle of powers you can use as well) Since there are no levels per se, leveling is replaced with "pseudo-feats" which allow you to improve your powers and stats. Off the top of my head, one of these upgrades would make Cleave hit more than one nearby enemy. Powers aren't linked to ability scores, you just roll the standard amount of dice. To keep numbers going out of control, there's a cap to how high stats (combat-only attributes) can go. Talents are passive powers. They mostly represent niche protection - the Scout and the Ranger can get the same talent that allows them to get extra dice whenever they track stuff, but the Ranger is the only one of the two that gets a bonus when dual fighting, while the Scout gets a bonus for moving and shooting, etc. A sense of progression can also be achieved with non-math-fix magical items that do cool stuff. Skills are completely freeform - you get background points, distribute them as you wish (a-la 13th Age). I was thinking of using attribute scores for skills, getting one attribute point whenever you get a stat point. So you'd have Brawn, Skill, Mind, Spirit, Social. You'd explain which part of that aspect is used by a character, but I don't know. The more I think about ability scores, the harder it is for me to decide on silly poo poo like "should I include Intellect" or "I have four different Physical attributes, but can't think of more than two social ones", etc. I've found attributes are useful to my players as a way to "anchor down" the idea/characteristics of their characters, so I'm torn on this. Alright, that's most of it. Mostly looking on opinions regarding the resolution mechanic and how solid this is as an idea. (At times, I think I'd be better off making a Mordheim-like wargame  )
Azran fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Dec 21, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2014 06:29
|
|
|
Thread necromancy up in here. Completely devoid of context, I wanted to see what people thought of this class write-up from the latest beta of the game I'm working on:
Skill Expertise: Brute Force When you make a FORT (Athletics) or FORT (Influence) check, you have advantage on the Class Die roll. Class Skills: FORT, plus two of the following: AGIL WIS Influence Rage [Concentration] When you enter a rage, you gain all of the following effects: Attack: You can choose to enter a rage after making an attack roll. Until the rage ends, you have advantage on all attack rolls. Defense: You can choose to enter a rage before making a defense roll. Until the rage ends, you have disadvantage on d20s when you make defense rolls. Skill: While raging, you can only use skills with which you have Skill Expertise. Special: While raging, you can treat a roll of 1 as maximum value on the die for certain rolls. This includes rolls for attack, damage, and skills, but not for defense. Cleave Damage: When you successfully attack an enemy with a melee attack, roll your Class Die and deal the result as damage to one other enemy Engaged with you. If you are raging, deal this damage to all enemies Engaged with you. Special: At the end of any turn in which you Dropped an enemy, you can make a free melee attack or FORT check against any enemy on the field. Combat Superiority Damage: You have advantage on the damage rolls of your melee attacks. Special: You can make a Trade-off using your Class Die, before you make an attack; the penalty is to the attack roll, and the bonus is to the damage roll. If you are not raging, and you dislike the result when you roll this Trade-off, you can take a different Action instead of attacking.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 23:54
|
|
|
The special for Cleave seems funny, unless you're restricted to enemies that you're Engaged with? Otherwise, if "the field" is just the combat map, can you attack someone you normally couldn't even get to, like someone behind a wall? Or is there a common sense restriction/clause? e: Is "Survival" a skill? Should be a class skill option. Or are there professions/backgrounds that cover it? e2: Why do class dies vary in size? What's an example of a class that would roll a smaller die, what would it be for? zachol fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Feb 11, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2015 01:44
|
|
|
It's pretty much "theatre of the mind" so if it's in the combat encounter, you can hit it. Although there is a Hidden condition in the game which is "can't be attacked" so I guess I could put in a clause that you can't attack Hidden targets, just in case. (Specific usually beating general, and all that.) E: Basically specific skills fall under an "Basic Ability" (aka Ability Score) and a Skillset. "Survival" in this case is WIS or Knowledge. Classes each use their own die for everything; basically I'm an in-the-box thinker, so limiting it this way helps me figure out ways to make stuff work. It's for simplicity, in the sense of "everything your class does uses dX and d20, in some combination" Basically, smaller dice tend to get used in higher amounts. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Feb 11, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2015 01:49
|
|
|
Maybe phrase it as "...you can Engage and attack the target," and then have specific restrictions on Engagement apply? Seems like they'd want to be Engaged anyway. e: Ah! Okay, neat.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2015 01:53
|
|
|
Making a melee attack always gets you engaged, though you can also move to engage if you aren't already. Here's the beta 2.1 doc, if you're interested.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2015 01:56
|
|
|
Neat! Just on a quick read, I like it. Why not have hp just be the max result if you can reroll it or not at the start of each day? Seems like everyone would just choose to reroll until they got the max and then would freeze it at that. The class die thing is cool and I get what you're going for.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2015 02:07
|
|
|
Yeah, that's one of those things I'm slowly coming around on. At one point, it was like "you MUST reroll, AND use the new result every day" so it would fluctuate, so that got pointed at and then I revised it. Working that way, it would simulate having a lovely rest and not recovering fully; this way, it's more like "levelling up" in a sense (since there aren't levels). I probably would have to run a full adventuring day or more to get a sense of how it works in play. I had a playtest going but it hit some mechanical snags, and the attempt to get it rebooted after patches has stalled (just need more players).
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2015 02:13
|
|
|
The idea I had was that you can either reroll or you can take the previous day's result minus 1. So if you get a good roll, you can milk it for a couple days, but not forever. I'd add an amount as well, like +2 straight, just because having ranges of even 3-6 or 3-14 are much nicer than a floor of 1 for hp.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2015 02:26
|
|
|
What I'm leaning towards for changes to rolling HP is either:
Keeping in mind that rolling HP is already "roll twice, keep the highest; max value if tied" (so it's impossible to get 1 HP) the first option would result in a d4 always returning a 3 or 4. So I'm kinda leaning more towards the latter; generally I don't like adding rerolls to the game, but once per adventuring day shouldn't be too much trouble. I'm trying to avoid any numerical modifiers and just use dice for everything, because I like making things difficult on myself  edit: Actually reading all that poo poo, "max your class die" would be a lot simpler and wouldn't change much. more edit: And that helps with the problem I was having with one of the Paladin abilities, so I have now editted it in. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Feb 11, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2015 02:34
|
|
|
So I have a project I've long been toying around with but never got around to actually working on.. aside from some notes and half-formed ideas. I've had some encouragement lately, though, and wanted to know what you guys thought. The basic gist of it is that I want to create a simple, straightforwardshomebrew RPG system, flexible enough that it can support multiple genres and settings with some tweaking, while being simple enough to teach to new players - I have a group of friends I play games with, some are old hands at tabletop RPGs, some are more of warhammer players, some entirely new to RPGs. I'd like something that's easy to pick up, but you can actually sink your teeth into it and get inventive once you know what you're doing. I'm actually basing mine off the dynamic D6 system used in the old FFg RPG, Fireborn - I quite liked the core mechanics, though the rest of the game ended up kind of bloated. Ah, the 90s. Anyhow. The basic resolution mechanic is simple. Characters have four primary stats, rated from 0 to 10 (most characters will have a stat spread of something like 2, 2, 3, 4, likely - point-buy). Each stat has a dice pool associated with it that has one d6 per each level of stat in it. You figure out which stat is the most applicable to your situation, grab the dice in that pool, roll them. Any dice that comes up a 4+ is a hit. Basic tests usually need one hit to succeed, (a treshold of one) but more advanced and difficult rolls might need two or more. When two characters make an opposed test, they both figure out the appropriate stat to use, roll their dice, and the one with the most hits wins. When two or more characters assist one another, they both roll and add up their total hits. Lastly, for things that take a while to complete, there are extended tests. The character makes his or her test and tallies up the number of hits they got. An extended test has a certain number of hits they need to reach in order to complete the test; if the target number wasn't reached this turn, the character can just roll again next turn to get more hits. Multiple characters cooperating simply add all their hits together until they reach the target number. Particularily difficult extended tests might have a higher treshold, meaning rolls with too few hits simply won't count against the total. (The last type of a test isn't generally used in narrative play - if a task just takes a while to complete, there's no point in just rolling for a couple of minutes until the dice gods are satisfied - but might come up in, say, a combat situation where one character is working to coax an abandoned tank into life while their squadmates are under fire). Alternatively, two characters might be competing to climb a cliff, and the one who builds up enough total hits first wins. The four primary stats are: Physical Action (PA): A measure of physical strength, coordination and agility. Throwing a punch, climbing a wall, breaking down a door, balancing a tightrope, jumping a chasm. Physical Reaction: A combination of sheer physical toughness, reflexes and reaction speed. Dodging an attack, rolling with the punch, being plain tough enough to just shake off a hit, jumping out of the way when a trap goes off. Mental Action: Intellect, persuasion, logic, learning. Also includes stuff that takes fine manipulation but is still more mental than physical, like aiming ranged weapons. Shooting a gun, picking locks, bribing guards. Academic learning. Mental Reaction: Willpower, perception, common sense. Figuring out that the person you're talking to is trying to mislead or distract you, spotting somebody sneaking up on you, toughin' it out despite your arm hurting like a motherfucker. Stats are rated from 0 to 10, but most in practice characters are going to have their stats in the 1 to 5 range. In human norms, 0 is crippled, 1 is poor, 2 is average, 3 is good, 4 is superior, and 5 is excellent - the peak of human capacity. A stat of 6 or more is superhuman, typically reserved for powerful enemies or particularly advanced characters. Superhuman stats function otherwise like normal stats, except that you only roll 5 dice - and add the rest as automatic successes. A mutant bear with a PA 7 rolls 5 dice and gets 2 automatic hits on its PA rolls, for example. This both makes very high stats particularly reliable and desirable and makes sure the dice pools you roll don't get ridonkolously huge. (What do you do if one of your stats is 0? You don't natively get to roll any dice when using that stat. You can still move dice to that stat with your skills in a stance change (more on those in just a tic). For the purposes of secondary stats, treat a primary stat of 0 as 1.) Besides your primary stats, you have secondary stats based on your primary stats. Physical Action determines your action count, how many actions you get on your turn in a tactical scene. Physical Reaction determines your reaction count how many reactions you get to use when it's not your turn in a tactical scene. Physical Action and Physical Reaction together determine how many bonus skill points you get for your physical skills. (More on those later!) Mental Action and Mental Reaction together determine how many bonus skills points you get for your mental skills. (Ditto!) Physical Reaction and Mental Reaction interact to determine your health pool, how much punishment you can take before you're incapacitated or killed. Physical action and Mental Action together determine your initiative dice, which determine the turn order in a tactical scene (and can be used to see who acts first, in a narrative scene). Last, your two highest stats determine how many fate points you get. Fate points are a limited resource you can use to reroll certain dice, ignore the effects of damage and activate certain talents (more on those later!). Whenever you make a test, you may use fate points to reroll your dice (one fate point, one reroll). A single die may be rerolled multiple times (again, one fate point, one reroll). Also, an injured character may, whenever they make a roll, use a fate point to ignore the penalty from one injury die (or multiple fate points to ignore multiple injury dice, one fate point per die ignored - more on injuries later) Fate points refresh between sessions, and you can use your aspect to regain them as well. Fluffily speaking, they can represent luck or narrative causality (you're the hero, of course you're badass), divine favor, mana, how many nuclear power cells your giant loving robot has left in it - whatever works for your setting, genre and flavor. Besides your stats, you also have a background and an aspect (yes, I cribbed it off FATE, I quite liked the idea). Your background is a choice that represents your character's past experiences, training and profession. Mechanically speaking, each background gives you a handful of pre-trained skills appropriate to said background, along with a couple of options for extra skills and talents. This is a combination of flavor and a 'starter package' for useful skills and talents. Available backgrounds should be appropriate to the theme and genre of the setting/campaign in question (a modern-day play might have a Law Enforcement background, while a fantasy heartbreaker style setting might have City Guard as a rough equivalent) Your aspect, meanwhile, is a more freeform thing that represents your character's particular strengths or special abilities. You pick one and write it down - it needs to be evocative. 'Strong' isn't good'. 'Very strong' is hardly better, 'Strongest Man Alive' and 'Bull In A China Shop' or 'Strongest Soldier on the Seven Seas' work well. Once per session, when you'd be making a test, you can instead trigger your aspect. If the aspect is relevant to the situation, you get a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Make the roll for the test as normal - despite the results of the roll, you automatically succeed and regain a previously spent fate point per each success on your roll. The GM, of course, has the final veto right on broken/imbalanced aspects and whether or not it's actually possible for you to theoretically succeed (The strongest man in the world pushing over a goddamned brick wall to smash a monster is okay, the same person ripping a tree out of the ground and using it as a baseball bat probably isn't - unless you're playing a superhero game..) Next, your character has skills. Skills are divided among physical skills (athletics, endurance, melee combat, acrobatics, etc) and mental skills (research, ranged combat, stealth, etc). The skill being physical or mental essentially just tells you which stats you'll be wanting to roll on it, and tells you what kind of bonus skill points (remember those) you can use to purchase them in character creation. Skills are rated from 0 (untrained) to 5 (world-renowned expert). Basically, when you make a test, you can choose to use one of your skills appropriate to the task to make a stance change. This means you take a number of dice up to your skill rank from your other stat pools and add them to the dice pool you're rolling, then make your roll. A stance change can be made either as you declare you're rolling or in response to another character's action, as long as you're aware of said action (A drunkard throws a punch at you, you can stance change dice into your physical reaction to duck/block; an assassin throws a dart at you from the shadows, you're unaware of the attack and can't stance change). A stance change lasts until either the beginning of your next turn or until you choose to do a new stance change. Player characters can do up to two stance changes per round in tactical scenes; most non-player characters can do one stance change per turn; some rare and extremely powerful creatures can do three stance changes per turn. Basically this means that if an enemy stance changes to go on all offensive, they can't stance change back into defensive if attacked in the same round; while player characters can, but can't keep on switching between modes all the time. If a character does a second stance change in his or her turn, their stance and dice pools effectively reset to their default ratings before the second stance change takes effect. That is, you can't do one 2-point stance change to channel 2 dice into your Physical Action, followed by a second 2-point stance change to get a total 4 bonus dice - the second stance change overwrites the first. When your turn begins, your stance automatically resets back into the 'neutral' (all pools equal to primary stat) for 'free'. Stance changes only affect the size of the associated dice pools; they do not make you recalculate your secondary stats every time you do a stance change. Your health pool, initiative dice, skill ranks, fate points and action/reaction counts remain unchanged, the only difference is how many dice you have in your pools. A stance change can only use one skill at a given time. The dice can come from any one or any combination of dice pools, but only go into one pool of your choice - you can't do a 4-point stance change to put 2 points into Physical Action and 2 into Physical reaction, for example. This system essentially means that I don't need to figure out conditional penalties for stuff like 'berserk attack' and the like - the modifiers/penalties are baked into the system as-is, with players actively moving dice from their defensive pools into offensive and vice versa according to the situation. A particularly skilled character has the option on focusing on whatever they're doing, at the cost of taking resources from their other pools; meanwhile, they also have the option of playing it safe and relying on natural capacity (basic pools). There won't be too many different skills in the game; we don't need separate 'Hide' and 'Move Silently' when one 'Stealth' skill will do. There will, however, be a couple of different 'skill groups' like Knowledge (Academics) and so on. Last, talents. Talents are like feats, except that there are no 'feat trees'. A character can pick any talent at any time, there are no prerequisites. Most talents, however, are associated with a certain basic stat and scale off it. For example: Aggressive (PA): When you do a melee attack, if you use a fate point to reroll a die, you may instead reroll a number of dice up to your Physical Action stat. A character may get a bonus talent from their background, along with a smallish number of talents they get to choose from freely. There won't, again, be too many talents to choose from; I'm thinking maybe five or six for each primary stat. In addition, I might add a 'path' system where you basically choose a concept for your character - sort of like a setting-specific pseudo-class like 'soldier' or 'magician' or 'swashbuckler'. This path would basically come with a built-in talent/special power, along with a handful of path-specific special talents you can pick out of in addition to your basic talents. That's pretty much the character anatomy right there, discounting how health, injuries, weapons and combat works. How crazy of a heartbreaker system does this sound like?
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 14:52
|
|
|
I wouldn't say it sounds crazy, just daunting and bloated.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 18:03
|
|
|
It seems a ton like Shadowrun 3 and 4. Which is not the worst of all things, I definitely have a partially finished post-apoc system sitting around somewhere that used a lot of those systems. I ended up putting that one down though because it's complicated enough that my friends quickly lost interest.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2015 04:08
|
|
|
I have been meaning to try my hand at game design for a while and finally got an idea and some time to just bash something out. I set myself the goal of creating a super quick Role Playing system which used the same rules to abstract just about everything from a sword fight to an argument if needs be. The result is Big drat Heroes. It's still light on a few details and I haven't actually road tested it yet, but it looks all right for something I conceived and wrote in a weekend (especially for a first go), but criticism constructive or otherwise is always welcome, so if anyone can spare a few minutes to read 7 pages and leave some feedback I'd be most grateful! 
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2015 00:55
|
|
|
Going off and playing a bunch of games, especially Microscope, has gotten the mental gears turning again around Some Heartbreaker. I like this idea of having a mechanical abstraction of history - the Exploration skill and associated feats could be reworked to manipulate such artifacts (which could also hopefully be tied into a DW Front mechanic). I also like the idea of starting an exploration scene with a question to be answered, giving it specific purpose. I'm starting to think that the next iteration will make each scene type (Movement, Exploration, Combat, Creative, Social) or perhaps iconic scene (e.g. "the trial" or "forensic investigation") more of its own well-defined mini-game with scene-specific mechanics, so that the GM can pick a scene template and run it, rather than be game-designer-on-the-fly.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2015 17:40
|
|
|
Morham posted:I have been meaning to try my hand at game design for a while and finally got an idea and some time to just bash something out. I set myself the goal of creating a super quick Role Playing system which used the same rules to abstract just about everything from a sword fight to an argument if needs be. The result is Big drat Heroes. I actually like this system a lot. I'm a little unsure on how you determine who can do what, though. How are a wizard's powers defined vs a thief or warrior's? The numbers that are there are good, and I like the tone its presented in - very action movie.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2015 22:16
|
|
|
Paolomania posted:Going off and playing a bunch of games, especially Microscope, has gotten the mental gears turning again around Some Heartbreaker. I like this idea of having a mechanical abstraction of history - the Exploration skill and associated feats could be reworked to manipulate such artifacts (which could also hopefully be tied into a DW Front mechanic). I also like the idea of starting an exploration scene with a question to be answered, giving it specific purpose. I'm starting to think that the next iteration will make each scene type (Movement, Exploration, Combat, Creative, Social) or perhaps iconic scene (e.g. "the trial" or "forensic investigation") more of its own well-defined mini-game with scene-specific mechanics, so that the GM can pick a scene template and run it, rather than be game-designer-on-the-fly. I've been thinking about this kind of thing a lot lately. I am getting bored of single system resolution, so a bunch of well done mini-games tied together by scene type or something really appeals to me. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2015 22:22
|
|
|
ScaryJen posted:I actually like this system a lot. I'm a little unsure on how you determine who can do what, though. How are a wizard's powers defined vs a thief or warrior's? The numbers that are there are good, and I like the tone its presented in - very action movie. Glad you like what you read so far, my initial response is that who you play defines who can do what, I guess its sort of pick an archetype and work from there. I plan on writing up a ton of example specials and items/equipment as well as some unique powers to help define characters (I need to flesh out character gen a bit), I'll repost it when that's done and I have tested it in action! I wanted to avoid defining specifically how magic functioned because it could ultimately function via intellect, ego (charisma) or even the physical stats. The same for combat, if you wanted to play the guy with a wit so sharp he could put down a dragon then so be it be an ego fighter. The system currently relies on people being imaginative and creative and the GM making snappy thematic thematic/situational decisions. Morham fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Feb 21, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2015 23:48
|
|
|
Morham posted:Glad you like what you read so far, my initial response is that who you play defines who can do what, I guess its sort of pick an archetype and work from there. I plan on writing up a ton of example specials and items/equipment as well as some unique powers to help define characters (I need to flesh out character gen a bit), I'll repost it when that's done and I have tested it in action! I'm looking forward to it! What if you had something along the lines of Archetype/Classes having a few specialties to pick from, which increase as you level? Like Sword vs Tank fighter, Fire vs Skeleton wizard, etc? (Not to throw you off, that's just what seems natural to me). I'm working on an archetype-based system myself, and every time I think it's ready, I find some big hole in it I need to write more stuff for. So, I hear you.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2015 23:57
|
|
|
I usually find combat kinda boring, which got me thinking: has there ever been a system that reduces combat to the level of simple resource management, and lets the rest of the game focus on the social/exploration aspects? I'm thinking along the lines of "fighting these orcs will cost you X hit points/stamina/life/whatever, which can be mitigated to a degree based on your murderhobo level and how many non-recoverable Daily/Adventure resources like spells, potions or super moves you're willing to expend. Or, you can try to find some other way to deal with them that involves your character's skills and roleplaying." I'm imagining something simple like an encounter having a damage-to-party rating based on type and number of opponents, the party (if they choose to fight) subtracting an amount based on level+combat ability+specials, and the end result being divided between everyone as damage. In short, "this combat takes one minute to resolve and you move on, or you can try to think up fun alternatives."
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2015 00:35
|
|
|
ScaryJen posted:I'm looking forward to it! What if you had something along the lines of Archetype/Classes having a few specialties to pick from, which increase as you level? Like Sword vs Tank fighter, Fire vs Skeleton wizard, etc? (Not to throw you off, that's just what seems natural to me). I don't think I want to quite take it to the point of levels and increasing power, the point is you are Big drat Heroes taking on Big drat Adventures. This isn't your first trip to the rodeo. I think I need to go more into defining your character, and unique powers or bonuses will go somewhat towards that so for example: code:
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2015 01:47
|
|
|
I like that. As long as there's actually some defined stuff to choose from as a starting point. Maybe just start with a handful (vs a giant list) and go from there.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2015 02:50
|
|
|
The idea was always to give a starting point from which players and GM's can derive their own specials. So yeah a small list for the main archetypes, a handful of magic items and plenty of m-m-m-monsters.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2015 09:36
|
|
|
Okay, so my minimalist D&D heartbreaker is finally started taking a direction of its own. My original plan for the system was to have the six classic stats, rated as dice (all the way down from 1d4 up to 1d12), but at some point I realized that having to work with the stats constrained some of my ideas. Also, my game suffered from traditional D&D's "You rolled low and thus nothing of value happened this turn" syndrome, so I went looking for another way to do things. So, recently there was some talk in the D&D Next thread about not rolling to attack but simply going straight to the damage roll. So, basically, any time you attack in combat, you deal at least some damage. I find this approach satisfactory, because the level of abstraction in D&D is already so high that abstracting it down to a single die roll doesn't feel all that bad. What I decided to do is tie class damage to a die type. Wizards are d4, Rogues are d6, Clerics are d8, and Fighters are d10. The Rogue obviously has a sneak attack die, basically an extra d6 they can apply to their attacks any time they take their opponent by surprise or they can catch an enemy engaged with one of their allies. However, at this point I started extrapolating things to out-of-combat activities. Basically, the Fighter's class die is the d10, meaning that they roll 1d10 for everything. Of all the classes, they have the most sheer practical know-how, which translates to them having the most raw numerical power in all things combat and out of combat. However, the Rogue's sneak attack die was turned into a Sneaky Business die: the Rogue gets to roll an extra d6 to any roll, provided it's something sneaky (like a sneak attack, moving silently, hiding in shadows, you know, the entire old-school Thief skill list). At this point I'm basically just throwing poo poo at the wall and seeing what sticks. I don't even know how weapons and armor work yet (or if I even want detailed rules for them in the game), but I've already been able to figure out some applications of the class-die system into the game. Wizards: okay, so they get the numerically weakest die in the game, the d4. However, they have their spells to fall back on. The Wizard has an Arcane Pool, consisting of a number of d4s. To cast a spell they know, they grab a bunch of dice from their Arcane Pool, which are used to determine the power of the spell. For an example, your basic Magic Missile spell only costs one d4 to cast and deals that much damage to a single opponent. A Sleep spell costs two dice, putting to sleep 2d4 hit dice worth of monsters. Furthermore, the Wizard can overcharge any of their spells, adding extra d4s from their Arcane Pool into the spell. Adding an extra d4 to a Magic Missile means that you're throwing two missiles, which can target different opponents, while adding an extra die to the Sleep spell makes it affect 3d4 hit dice worth of monsters (subject to change: I might just go for putting to sleep the rolled number of hit points worth of creatures). Clerics: similar to the Wizard's Arcane Pool, the Cleric has a Divine Pool, in their case consisting mostly of d8s. However, so as to not step on the Wizard's toes with throwing extra dice for extra damage and so on, the Cleric's spells and Divine Pool are mostly used to grant advantage dice. For an example, the Cleric casts a Lance of Faith, costing one die from the Divine Pool, dealing damage to the enemy as normal (so, a d8), but the next ally attacking the target gets to roll an extra d8 for their attack and pick the highest of the two dice rolled. (Obvious Exception: If the ally in question is a Rogue whose managed to catch their enemy unawares, they'd roll 2d6 and a d8, using the two highest dice as their result.) Other stuff the Cleric can use their Divine Pool for includes standard stuff like turning undead, casting healing spells (which use d8s, just like in classic D&D), and so on, but the exact details still need to be filled out. Besides crunching the numbers and trying to find the right balance, here's my problem: while the Rogue and the Fighter have the biggest numbers to throw around, they don't have any resource management of their own at the moment. I'd sort of like to give them something of their own to do with a limited resource, but I just can't quite figure out what I want it to be. I could see giving the Fighter a pool of d10s they could use to simply boost their damage (for pulling those daily-level attacks that really hurt) or adding some neat effects to their attacks (like, add a d10 to an attack to push an enemy that many squares or something), but the raw utility of a Fighter's d10 pool should still be somehow balanced against the proposed abilities of Wizards and Clerics. Similarly, the Rogue has, at the moment, an always-on +1d6 to all sneaky rolls, so I can't really see what kind of a limited resource I could give them beyond that. Just giving them an extra pool of d6s to add to sneaky business rolls feels a bit too samey. Feedback is very much welcome, but what I'm mostly looking for is ideas for what I could potentially do with the Fighter and Rogue by way of giving them a pool of limited resources like I've given the Wizard and Cleric.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2015 22:04
|
|
|
I guess my first question would be: Why do you want a resource tracking mini-game in the first place? Followed by: Why do you want 4 resource tracking mini-games that all work slightly differently? D&D often tries to be all things for all people, and has a lot of weird baggage as a result. What kind of D&D are you looking to make? Is the emphasis on dungeon crawls? If so, are these dungeon crawls as tests of resource management and savvy play? Are these dungeons crawls ways of structuring cool fights? Are you not interested in dungeons at all, and just want cool fantasy action as a general thing? The answers to these should give you some direction. In the various editions of D&D, spell slots and other limited use powers had lots of different jobs, often at once. Sometimes they acted mostly as pacing mechanisms, sometimes they mostly acted as an inter-party balance mechanism. A lot of times they tired to do both things badly. Based on what you've written it seems like you are mostly concerned with everybody having something to do that fits into their niche. Honestly, 4e's AED powers and roles probably did that the best, so maybe look that way for ideas. If you are looking at this mostly from a resource management perspective, start thinking what kinds of situations should drain what kind of resource.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2015 23:45
|
|
|
Ratpick posted:Feedback is very much welcome, but what I'm mostly looking for is ideas for what I could potentially do with the Fighter and Rogue by way of giving them a pool of limited resources like I've given the Wizard and Cleric. Well, from what you've got so far, I'd say figure out:
Like, you might be onto something by, say, having spellcasters dice refresh daily/on extended rest, and having martials refresh per encounter/short rest. Or something like that?
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2015 02:05
|
|
|
I'm scribbling down some ideas about a military RPG about leading an Early Renaissance mercenary company, for profit and adventure. Along with some slight anachronisms for gameplay's sake, I'll probably inject the thing with a dash of fantasy (The Folklore Is Real, stuff like that). Now, I can't resist having the possibility for an affluent company to enlist an Arcana Officer - not as much a fireball slinger as a guy who'll stay up all night to make rain fall to gently caress up enemy matchlocks. In keeping with vaguely Thirty Years War themes, I've got this fluff idea of magic use actively pillaging the countryside - sucking the life out of soil, making the cattle fall to illness and scary things to appear in the dark forest. While the magic system is, as of yet, not developed at all, aside from defining general feels, I think I could use a little loose brainstorming on how to reflect this poo poo mechanically. The thing is, narratively speaking, all the negative consequences (locals being pissed off, wondering how to feed the soldiers now, etc.) are really rather delayed in time, and while mages biting more than they can chew would work well with the themes at hand, it'd probably be prudent to have some sort of brakes right there, right now, Bob stop casting it's time to go to sleep. An obvious fallback plan is to have the magic suck strength from the caster himself just as it does from the land around him. Which is a decent solution, and murderhobo instincts-proof, at that. Still, it's a bit of a cop-out and I wonder if I could stick closer to the core idea of sucking out the environment. Perhaps some sort of flavorful spin on a mana/charges system?
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2015 05:47
|
|
|
You could divide the game into formal phases like I believe One Ring and Mouse Guard do. You could have a "campaign structure" of marching, preparing for battle, fighting, and finally regrouping, and only allow some limited number of actions to be performed per phase.
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2015 09:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 04:56 |
|
|
Go dark sun and suck it out of the soldiers too? There's the on going crushing of company morale and fighting effectiveness, and if there's wounded in the camp then you'll have to split your forces when the wizard casts or do it in camp and open yourself to "Stop casting, you're killing him!"
Splicer fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Mar 5, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2015 10:37
|
|