July Contest: 4th Of The Edition

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > July Contest: 4th Of The Edition

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Hashtag Yoloswag posted:

i will be the next pathfinder

This.

*Posts Dungeon World*

Serious Edit:

P.d0t posted:

PROSPECTIVE GAME DESIGNERS

I made, like, a very 4e-derivative game a while back so I likely can't submit it to the contest.

BUT if there is anyone out there [like me] feeling like they don't have a whole new game in them, let me know. I'd be willing to collaborate and/or just bounce ideas back and forth, and maybe together we could make a complete, New Thing.

Link to Old Thing.
Link to about Old Thing.

I am down, hit me up via PM or something, I'm definitely in kind of a setting/fluff mode lately, and not doing mechanics from scratch is appealing. :v:

Error 404 fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Jul 5, 2014

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 00:27

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 07:57

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Rexides posted:

I plan to have a mechanic called "lockdown", where during his turn the fighter lays down tokens in the area around him (not necessarily adjacent) that cause damage to monsters if they are ignored. It might not have the "feel" of delivering a solid attack with a d20, but it should get the job done.

Steal a piece of Dungeon World, have them straight up 'deal damage' from these tokens.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 20:31

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Gau posted:

I always thought it would be much simpler to have a "lockdown" mechanic just say that the target can't move away. So a weaponmaster could base an archer and the archer could still shoot someone else, but couldn't escape to safety without shifting.

The problem there is it just makes the fight last longer, extra or special damage ennds it sooner.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 00:00

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Asymmetrikon posted:

Gonna obviate all this by just making an aggro system

Can the Tank hold all of it? :buddy:

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 03:48

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

But for real though High Score = Aggro, Tank gets a bonus, is loving brilliant.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 00:43

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Mystic Mongol posted:

But that changes from tracking one HP total for a monster to tracking one, plus one more for every member of the party.

Are you sure this is an improvement over marking?

Unless I'm reading it wrong, it's more like one more thing to keep track of (which isn't good, I grant you) but that this is more like Marking but for everyone

Round 1
Tank auto aggros because no one's attacked yet and they have bonus.
Round 2 Ranger or Wizard roll really hot for damage, so now everyone's focused on them unless the tank can 'hold' the aggro with their bonus.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 02:46

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Misandu posted:

I think you misunderstood a bit! You only ever track one extra thing which is the current High Score. Write that down, when someone breaks it you change it to the new High Score and they get all the aggro. The idea is supposed to be that when a group of enemies see the Fighter roll up and just CRUNCH their buddy's arm, they think oh poo poo we gotta take that guy out FAST. Then later when the Wizard drops a ton of napalm all over the battlefield they reassess.

It's also worth noting that I'm rebuilding the game around this concept for my entry. Currently setting a new High Score gives you the Spotlight, meaning all attention is on you. Enemies might also have a Spotlight, but I haven't decided yet. Characters who are not currently in the Spotlight are considered in the Cast.

Fighters are all about grabbing the spotlight and holding onto it tightly. They have a variety of active mitigation that they use to survive under the focus of the enemy forces, can build their High Score up with consecutive attacks, and receive massive bonuses to damage while in the Cast. You can try to ignore the Fighter, but you'll pay for it.

Wizards crave the spotlight, but don't have the tools to survive in it. Their powers are all based around getting everyone's attention while in the Cast, then dealing huge amounts of damage while they're (hopefully briefly) in the Spotlight.

Rogues live in the shadows of the fight, doing their best to stay out of the Spotlight as long as possible. The longer Rogues remain in the Cast the more damage they do, so Rogues need to be careful not to draw too much attention too quickly in a battle. When a Rogue finally does get the Spotlight, the resources that allowed them to deal extra damage can be used to avoid attacks and lessen incoming damage allowing them to serve as a sort of 'off-tank.'

Bards are something of the Directors of the battle, they serve as the party leader and help manipulate who is getting attention when. Bards rarely enter the Spotlight themselves, but when they do they command your attention.

Ok, so I did understand what you meant, I was just poo poo at explaining it back again adequately.
I will reiterate, this is awesome and loving inspired.

Though you may wish to broaden your categories to the roles (Striker, Defender, Controller, etc) rather than specific classes, but it's no big deal.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 17:25

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

lord_daeloth posted:

I'm probably going to just ignore ammo for the time being. I was thinking about having a system where if you attacked multiple times in a turn for any reason you'd have to spend time reloading, but we'll just have to see. I really like your clip idea walla, very elegant.

I think you might want to look at something like you have to spend a certain amount of time to reload, but you never have to really keep track of 'ammo' in the form of "I have X bullets on me."

Doing a Ranged Basic Attack with a gun will never trigger a reload, but it doesn't do anything impressive either. So make reload a specific action attached to gun attacks and powers like when double attacks, or fire full auto, or guns akimbo or whatever.

So a very slow reloading weapon like a sniper rifle would be Reload: Standard meaning you have to spend a standard action to reload (you still have a move and minor where necessary though, not to be too dickish)

and you can have different Reload Speeds for different weapon classes, etc.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2014 02:05

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Add a summoner type. For necromancers with zombies, master of elementals and golems, etc.

And maybe generalize a bit more. Your pyro is an elemental blaster: choose a keyword at character creation (Fire, shock, thunder, frost, etc.) So then you divide the class and powerlist by what they do.

Blaster- choose a keyword
Controller -manifestation (storm, illusion, etc), elemental (keyword)

And so on.

Error 404 fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Jul 12, 2014

# ¿ Jul 12, 2014 17:12

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

P.d0t posted:

Teaser:
Be very afraid.

Hey yo P.d0t I'm really happy for you and I'mma let you finish but-

Click this fools!

So yeah, Comments, critiques, hatemail, and :psyduck:

all welcome. Anything specifically about the MATHS should be directed at P, and please yell at me for the terrible prose...I mean seriously, it's awful. :v:

Error 404 fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Jul 17, 2014

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 10:09

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Slowly but surely we are coming along.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2014 04:27

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Speleothing posted:

Though I'm a little surprised by going to deer instead of sheep or goats.

WELP.

That will probably change, I guess I was raised on Venison more than Mutton, which is apparently not a common thing! and I've never even had goat (except goat cheese).

# ¿ Jul 18, 2014 15:17

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

For better or worse, we're pretty much done and just making final passes for small details and polish.

I'll get a new link to our entry put up in the next few days: v:

# ¿ Jul 26, 2014 20:02

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

oh yeah!

# ¿ Jul 28, 2014 17:16

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BOYS AND GIRLS, (MAN)CHILDREN OF ALL AGES :siren:

I am happy to present to you the culmination of a month of effort between P.d0t and myself. It's weird, it's violent, and I think it's pretty damned playable. So, without further adieu...

SteakPunk: The enemy of my enemy is not food

CLICK THE MEAT AND WIN A PRIZE!

Error 404 fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Jul 31, 2014

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 12:47

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neonchameleon posted:

Could you reformat the Steakpunk character sheet please? That solid black wall's very hard on my eyes - and it takes special measures to write on a black background, meaning that I think you literally can't fill in the character sheet with a pen (you can't put in the highest, middle, and lowest attributes and there are underscores that I think are meant to be where you write them in).

Sure.

Edit: ok, got that redone. I hope it's a bit easier on the eyes now.

Error 404 fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Jul 31, 2014

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 13:11

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

P.d0t posted:

I take absolutely no credit for anything interesting that's going on in SteakPunk
But I'm still about these

"And they say Error's ego grew three sizes that day."

# ¿ Aug 1, 2014 01:30

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Also, P.d0t shouldn't sell themselves short, if you go back and look at the original system docs for the mechanics, this thing is 1,000,000,000% a team effort, this wasn't just "slap a setting on it and call it good" by any stretch.

Also, even though I basically ripped off all the *World style moves with only the barest of efforts to try and hide it, they work pretty drat well as a Frankenstein monster-ish bolted on wholesale replacement abomination of D&D's skill system.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2014 01:43

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Oh man, just got the chance to really sit and read through the other entries. I figured I should post some general impressions and critiques. I really liked all the entries.

Erebus
I really like how the new rules mesh with the 4E rules. You can easily slot some or all of this into a standard 4E game (Shotgun Barbarian, Assault guy with sword and shield, Hybrid Wizard) and I like the idea of pushing cover mechanics via lower defenses a lot.

I can definitely see room for more development though, like expanding on cover. Is it like X-COM where you have half cover, and full cover? Is cover completely indestructible or can someone hammer through it to eventually kill you? if it is destructible what kind of HP or defenses are required there?

And a suggestion: As-is you've got each player playing one of these soldiers, but I could easily see this being expanded to where each player has control of a "squad" just like X-COM, where the GM is the aliens and you could have each player running a 3-4 man squad moving through the area. Perhaps a simple alternate ruleset is worth looking into?

I can't wait to try this thing.

SPACEDEATH
I love the concept, but I think the execution might need some more work. like, I understand composer=HP, but I gues I have trouble understanding the way it's supposed to look in practice. So if I lose all CP, I can only do Move and Minor actions? There are still a lot of powers that use Move and Minor, and most of the ones I've seen heal your CP, and so it kinda makes that a not-really-status effect (Move ends).

Everything looks really interesting, but it also needs more work. I hope you continue working on it because I definitely want to see what it looks like.

Land of the Manitou
Right off, I get the feeling that this would be better suited as a video game. I don't mean this in a bad way at all, even your sprites and artwork evoke that kind of old-style strategy rpg feel.

I liked the fully linked Table of Contents.

As I go through I keep getting the feeling I don't know what exactly is going on, there's a lot of stats and mechanics and GM tips that I don't understand (probably because I haven't reached the section that explains them.) But even aside from this, I don't really know much about the setting except for the half page intro text at the very top.

I know that Manitou are nature spirits, and that players play as Manitou helping armies mankind wage war. (Against who?)
My critique here is more than likely just a matter of personal taste and preference, but I don't feel like I've got a good grasp of what this setting is about. When combined with the fact that the first quarter of the document so far has been pretty dense mechanics-wise and I'm just now getting to what being a Manitou actually is and how you play one, I'm kinda left feeling a bit lost as a reader.

Looking at Unit creation though, things have gotten a bit more straight forward. The different unit types and then classes of unit. This section is laid out in a very logical and easy to understand fashion. The combat rules section is likewise well laid out and I'm now 'getting' how armies work, but I'm seeing that a lot of the mechanics that were introduced at the beginning are being repeated here, and in more detail.

Summary: I feel like this will definitely be a cool game should you decide to keep going with it.

If I may make some suggestions, perhaps you might want to move your Totem rules to the end of the playing a Manitou section and the army building section with the DM advice after the actual rules for choosing units/classes.

I would focus on one primary way this game is played and stick to it in the main rules writeup, and then explain things like campaign scale, and Tactical vs Strategic play in their own sections or sidebars with the new or changed rules that apply in those instances.

4th Trifold
This is exactly what it says it is.

This is an excellent take on simplifying 4Es rule set, If I were going to introduce someone to 4E today this is how I would do it. You've cleaned up and streamlined everything to an astonishing degree.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2014 21:48

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

P.d0t posted:

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 01:05

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Thank you so much for playing Steakpunk!

# ¿ Aug 31, 2014 06:23

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 07:57

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Also, aside from mechanics stuff, I'd love if anyone could post more specifically about the text or organization issues with Steakpunk.
I would also appreciate any suggestions or comments for improving. I literally have never done any kind of formatting or layout beyond school papers, so any help, well...helps!

# ¿ Sep 1, 2014 18:52

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