April Game Design Contest: One-Page RPGs help the environment!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > April Game Design Contest: One-Page RPGs help the environment!

AaronMFK: Jul 21, 2013

It's my first time making anything like this, but here goes.

Here's Combat Poets.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2014 15:47

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 04:33

AaronMFK: Jul 21, 2013

ProfessorProf posted:

Every Limerick I can find has 8-9 syllables for the A lines and 5-6 syllables for the B lines, not 10/6.

Love the concept and art usage, I'd have to play it to know if the game mechanics work. Haiku rules might make eliminating a player close to impossible.

Thanks for giving it a look! I wrote my reasoning for each point below, and I tried to keep them from sounding argumentative, so I hope they don't come off that way.

Limericks are really varied, but I wanted more structure (or rather Our Entrail'd Lord DEMANDED structure). I also wanted to get it closer to the 100 starting HPMP, so I erred on the side of more syllables.

Elimination could definitely be hard, which is why I included the "Monarch may forbid certain formats." Should I bold/italicize that part? I also envisioned someone trying to write a haiku on week 4, but then the Monarch only gives, like, two minutes, the person screws up, and the week's winner deals 20 damage.

I haven't had time to play it out, though, so if you find the haiku being exploited too much, maybe it could be limited to one use per game? Any suggestions welcome.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2014 16:30

AaronMFK: Jul 21, 2013

LordVonEarlDuke posted:

It's a modification of a very barebones system I ran a oneshot with once. Mostly diceless. I wrote it after a summer helping my mom teach Bosnian refugees English. They had some really rough stories.
It's called "You are young children in a heartless place" and it is about as happy as it sounds.

here it is!
here is a screen friendly version!

If you can only enter 1 thing I def enter Hell Vice instead, but I thought why not put this here. It's bare and unfinished, but I don't really have the stomach to fill in more.

This one gets my vote.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2014 17:17

AaronMFK: Jul 21, 2013

Evil Mastermind posted:

COMBAT POETS
Another game that I think would work really well as a PbP game, Combat Poets is about killing each other with words. It's a very simple premise, and I like how the whole thing is based around writing poems to make yourself sound less bad than everyone else. But what's really neat is how you can use specific types of poem structures for special effects. Iambic Pentameter lets you heal, Limericks do a ton of damage, and Haikus let you turtle up when you're on your last legs. The only downside I see to the system is that there's no reason to not use one of those forms because any other form of poetry doesn't give you anything extra.

Thanks for the comments! I definitely envisioned the three listed forms as the bread and butter of most games, but other kinds of poems could still be chosen as the winner by the referee; it's sort of this game's version of the rule of cool, where you could do something unexpected. "This is so crazy, it HAS to work."

Looking forward to seeing the winner announced, and I'm really impressed with the work people have put into this.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 23:09

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > April Game Design Contest: One-Page RPGs help the environment!