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Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

JMBosch posted:

I'm no layout expert, or even particularly good in that area, but if you're just wanting opinions:

I like the compact, page 5 version. I personally appreciate one-page references wherever they're possible without being too dense, and that page seems to be right in that zone. If you had any more information trying to be conveyed there, I would probably break it up more like the two tables on pages 8 and 9. I think the two-page spread works well in Fiasco because the design is so clean and sparse. There are no colors, no table borders. Just white with some lines of text. The background colors and table borders in your two-page spread on pages 6 and 7, in contrast, seem to emphasize how much empty space there is on each page, and I kind of get the feeling of "Why is this spread out so much? It's a waste of space." Fiasco is also a smaller book than yours, so the white space in those spreads isn't as big and feels more like a reprieve from that denser text and art of the rules page rather than a space where stuff could go but is instead empty.

I know even less about fonts, so I'll just say that a tad more whimsical font for headers might fit the theme as long as readability doesn't suffer. But I can't really give any recommendations.

I think all the colors are good, except that the BG colors for the title of each table are maybe just a tad too dark for having black text in front of them. Maybe consider bumping them up a bit lighter and, if necessary, similarly bumping up the other table BG colors a bit lighter to match, if they are then too close.

Hope that helps.

Side note: Has your book already been through copyediting? I've noticed a few issues on page 2. They're mostly minor, but there are a couple of missing words as well. I'm a freelance editor if you want another set of eyes. You can check my website in my profile and PM or email me if you're interested.

Thanks for the feedback! I've talked it over with some other folks on Discord and I think I'm going to go with the 2-column tables for the book, but then separately lay out printable condensed playsets using the smaller tables. It's a bit more work, but it's sort of the best-of-both-worlds.


And no, I haven't done final copyediting yet - I was still messing with the text up until a few days ago. I think I've already got someone for that, but if that doesn't work out I'll get in touch with you. Thanks for the offer!

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JMBosch
May 28, 2006

You're dead.
That's your greatest weapon.
Just released my first OSR adventure!



Roseate Growth is a mildly anti-capitalist adventure that sees the PCs try to track down what happened to some striking miners, leading them to a gruesome sight on the doorstep of a small, mysterious monastery harboring a piece of a forgotten god. Here's the official pitch:

quote:

A labor dispute at a valuable mine reveals the horrors that preceded it. The fossils of a little-understood ancient plant, glowing the color of a dragon's fruit, are crushed to a fine powder and diluted into a rare, luxurious, and intoxicating spice with unknown consequences. A monastery of a small but influential religious order harbors a dark secret. A hapless group of adventurers will face the potentially far-reaching implications of these intersecting arcs and decide what will remain hidden and the shape of the conflict to come.

ROSEATE GROWTH is a fantasy roleplaying adventure for three-to-five lower-level players, written in a system-neutral style. It should last roughly two or three sessions with some ripple effects that could be tied into your broader campaign or ignored. It was made (very belatedly!) as part of Yochai Gal and Chris Mennell's Dyson Logos Jam.

It's 35 pages with a map frankenstein'd together from three Dyson Logos maps, and I tried to make it a bit different by codifying adventure outcomes/repercussions that can impact the larger game world if you wish. If that interests you, check it out here: https://atypicalfaux.itch.io/roseate-growth-an-osr-adventure

JMBosch fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Dec 17, 2021

Everything Counts
Oct 10, 2012

Don't "shhh!" me, you rich bastard!
I make content for DriveThruRPG's community content program for Unknown Armies, owned by Atlas Games. Am I allowed to promote here? I know that's kind of a grey area between 'indie dev' and 'corporate product.'

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Go ahead, just no spamming. But feel free to make a post, and to respond to anyone who asks questions about it!

Everything Counts
Oct 10, 2012

Don't "shhh!" me, you rich bastard!
Well in that case...

I just published a supplement for UA3 called Three Miles of Bad Road. It's Unknown Armies magicks related to roads and travel. I even got some help polishing it up from some goons. New schools, archetypes, and identities, plus a smattering of rituals, artifacts, GMCs, and other stuff for any road-based campaign.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Since this thread says 'shameless self-promotion is good' I figured I should post here as well as the writing workshop thread:

I now have something published on itch! It's a little game for playing Dark Souls the only way I have, by reading item descriptions and listening to NPC dialogue compilations.

It's called Exiles.

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.
Hey everyone, as I try to wrap up Ariadne and Bob and turn my full attention to the other projects I've got in the pipeline, I am getting into the final layout, playing around with using free art.

I need opinions on a couple of options for the textboxes for the layout:

Layout Test

I need to know a) which of the first two spreads is better?
and b) are they better than the basic no-background layout I currently have?

UnCO3
Feb 11, 2010

Ye gods!

College Slice
I think between the first two maybe the first is better, since it groups together info that's connected together. As for whether it's better than no art, that probably comes down more to your taste.

One small thing I'm guessing is gonna be fixed anyway: the tiny margin on the left of the left column in the first spread makes it look crowded. Another thing: the gap between the "Fantasy Babble"/"Power Sources" headings and the text above is kinda narrow and makes it a little harder to distinguish the headings as separate from that text (made worse by "Babble" having a capital and 3 ascenders). The basic layout has better spacing there but you could also maybe pull the tables and headings down slightly towards the example box instead.

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

UnCO3 posted:

I think between the first two maybe the first is better, since it groups together info that's connected together. As for whether it's better than no art, that probably comes down more to your taste.

One small thing I'm guessing is gonna be fixed anyway: the tiny margin on the left of the left column in the first spread makes it look crowded. Another thing: the gap between the "Fantasy Babble"/"Power Sources" headings and the text above is kinda narrow and makes it a little harder to distinguish the headings as separate from that text (made worse by "Babble" having a capital and 3 ascenders). The basic layout has better spacing there but you could also maybe pull the tables and headings down slightly towards the example box instead.

Yeah, that was just me playing around with different ideas. I bet the columns are different widths and it's not symmetrical because I was just eyeballing it. I'm going to redo all the widths properly on master pages in a new file once I have the design and colors worked out. So the margins will all be worked out then.

The gaps between the headings and text will take some manual fixing because each playset has a different fancy heading font in all kinds of sizes that I'll need to standardize.

Thanks for the feedback!

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."

Jimbozig posted:

Hey everyone, as I try to wrap up Ariadne and Bob and turn my full attention to the other projects I've got in the pipeline, I am getting into the final layout, playing around with using free art.

I need opinions on a couple of options for the textboxes for the layout:

Layout Test

I need to know a) which of the first two spreads is better?
and b) are they better than the basic no-background layout I currently have?

The background without the picture is better, because it's a complex picture that draws the attention, except that you can't actually see it. It doesn't really add anything to your layout, so the plain one is the superior option.

I would also look into finding a different heading font; the extremely fancy one you're using is a bad match for Minion as your body text (and in my opinion is generally unattractive).

Other advice: be more consistent about the amount of margin and padding you give to your text boxes and the secondary paragraphs of bulleted lists. Also, don't indent the first paragraph of a text box because doing so will cause you to go to a bad place when you die.

Consider making the "fantasy babble" and "power source helper table" boxes the same size and stretching the "example" text box to go underneath both of them, for a pleasing symmetry.

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.
Thanks for the tips!

The overall idea with the background images is to have a splash page with the image and just a title so you see the full thing, then it sits in the background for the rest of the section (1 to 3 more spreads). Which means I narrowed the area where text could go to make a bit more of it visible (not much point even having a bg image if it's only visible in the gutter for the printed version). More of it might be visible on other spreads as well---that spread is pretty full.

I'm looking at other sources for the art, but because my remaining budget is essentially $0, it's tough to find images of sufficient quality to be a full spread that are landscape orientation and match up with the various genres I have playsets for. (Time Loop in particular is giving me a hard time.)

Melusine
Sep 5, 2013

Hey everyone, I have a bit of a broad question, if anyone would be able to help me: What are the current average rates people charge when writing for role-playing games?

I suspect the answers are a bit all over the place, and too low in general, but if anyone had any first-hand experience, links, or anecdotal evidence about what indie projects or companies like Evil Hat tend to pay their writers I'd love to hear them.

To be transparent, I'm coming at this from the perspective of a writer myself. I'm trying to get a sense for what is considered 'reasonable' when I'm asked what my rate is, and what to evaluate as a good deal when pitched by someone else (in relation to industry 'standards', for what that's worth in a disparate field like tabletop rpgs).

JMBosch
May 28, 2006

You're dead.
That's your greatest weapon.

Melusine posted:

Hey everyone, I have a bit of a broad question, if anyone would be able to help me: What are the current average rates people charge when writing for role-playing games?

I suspect the answers are a bit all over the place, and too low in general, but if anyone had any first-hand experience, links, or anecdotal evidence about what indie projects or companies like Evil Hat tend to pay their writers I'd love to hear them.

To be transparent, I'm coming at this from the perspective of a writer myself. I'm trying to get a sense for what is considered 'reasonable' when I'm asked what my rate is, and what to evaluate as a good deal when pitched by someone else (in relation to industry 'standards', for what that's worth in a disparate field like tabletop rpgs).
I'm a freelance TTRPG editor, and from the writers I've talked to, there's a very strong push to institute a $0.10/word minimum in the industry, and a surprising number of indie/small publishers are open to that. But, having watched three separate efforts to build a TTRPG freelancers union collapse, I know there are lots of hobbyist writers absolutely willing to undercut that, even if it means people trying to make a living with this work lose out on jobs due to it. (Careful with Onyx Path, for example. In addition to paying as low as $0.03–$0.05/word, they foster a culture where writers are really against collective bargaining, and anyone criticizing their rates will get mobbed and have long Twitter threads written about them by those same underpaid writers about how saying they should pay more is actually, if you really think about it, trying to take work away from marginalized writers, etc.)

A not insignificant number of indie publishers will abide by the $0.10/word minimum, but certainly not all, and some will occasionally pay better. But most of the big publishers will ignore you for asking even for that low of a rate, though a few are occasionally better. (I've heard Modiphius paying anywhere from $0.03 to $0.13 a word.) Smaller publishers definitely tend to pay better on average.

If you're an established writer of some other kind, trying to break into TTRPG writing, I'd go hard for $0.10/word to start. If you don't really have much/any writing experience or struggle to get any work after several months of trying, maybe consider $0.06-$0.09/word just to get your foot in the door, then leverage what you get to work on to bump up to $0.10/word as soon as you can. I wouldn't support any nonsense paying you $0.05/word or less.

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

Sandy Pug Games pays at least 12.5/word and usually shoots for 15, along with most of the folks I interact with on twitter. I'm aware that plenty of folks are happy to undercut that but as much as possible we're pushing for that 15c to be the new standard these days. Most indies I interact with shoot for a 10-15c rate where possible, and a lot of folks are more open to profit sharing and skill sharing arrangements to supplement that these days. Last week one of the Big Dramas on TTRPG Twitter was over a 1c/word rate that made everyone very upset and a lot of folks were posting their rates, probably worth checking out the QRTs and replies for some publishers and creatives thoughts on it if you can track it down/if someone else in thread has a link?

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


Are there still a bunch of Pathfinder TPPs producing shovelware for less than 1c/word? That was always the premier "love of the game self-sabotage" to me.

JMBosch
May 28, 2006

You're dead.
That's your greatest weapon.
Glad to see the pressure is shifting toward $0.15/word, despite all the naysayers who screamed endlessly that freelancers trying to unify around even $0.10/word would somehow be the death knell of the industry.

Magnusth
Sep 25, 2014

Hello, Creature! Do You Despise Goat Hating Fascists? So Do We! Join Us at Paradise Lost!


I paid my writers .20 for Red Rook Revolt

JMBosch
May 28, 2006

You're dead.
That's your greatest weapon.
In the spirit of the thread title, I'll mention that I'm testing the waters with my first RPG playtest rules!



VERSE is an adventuring and exploration game where players are bizarre characters from across the multiverse that get merged together into peculiar combinations. They form a motley crew that levels up by blending the identities of new creatures from differing realities into theirs, gaining new classes instead of new levels. I used games like Cairn, Knave, and Trophy as the starting point for crafting the rules systems.

It's a first shot, so it's definitely rough in places. But I’m always open to feedback if you take a look.

potatocubed
Jul 26, 2012

*rathian noises*
I have looked!

I love the concept, first of all. I think 'gain new classes instead of levels' is a great twist.

That said, I struggle to read the rules. There doesn't seem to be any order to where different bits are located, and there's so little whitespace my eyes just slide off the text, which combine to make reading it really hard work.

If I was going to re-lay it I'd allow myself two double-sided sheets, one for 'slow rules' like exploration and character gen, and one for 'fast rules' like combat, with the idea that you only ever need to be focusing on one of them at a time.

JMBosch
May 28, 2006

You're dead.
That's your greatest weapon.
Solid feedback, thanks!

The rules are split up into the Player Sheet and GM Sheet, so theoretically each side only needs to look at one reference sheet each to run the game (besides NPCs, spell/loot tables, etc.). But trying to lay out the sheets was a bit of a nightmare, as you can probably tell from how dense they are, and the final arrangement mostly fell down to where stuff could fit. So I can definitely understand them being confusing to learn the game from.

Like the Tomb of the Serpent Kings adaptation, it was also a bit of an experiment as to how complex I could make the system without needing to add more pages. When I lay it out in more of a zine format for readability/teaching, I'll see if I can retool the reference sheets too. It will also help that I'll then be able to move the full explanation of procedures to the booklet, letting me cut down the word count on the reference sheets so they can just be, ya know, references.

JMBosch
May 28, 2006

You're dead.
That's your greatest weapon.

potatocubed posted:

I have looked!
...
That said, I struggle to read the rules.
Just updated the playtest docs for VERSE to include an actual rules booklet now. It's still bland to look at and missing some referee guidance, but it should be far, far more clear and comprehensive in teaching you the basics of the game, play procedures, etc.! This also comes with an update that adds over 30 new traits and powers for the 10 sample classes and a new character sheet.

So if the concept interested you but the dense reference sheets hurt your eyes, you'd be rewarded by taking another look and downloading the new files.

Elendil004
Mar 22, 2003

The prognosis
is not good.


I've had a very hard time standardizing rates for mapping. Because it might be a simple map that takes me a few hours, or it might be a two page spread of Mosul circa 2016 that I have to dig map data out of UN reports on the wayback machine for. So if anyone has advice on that route, let me know. I guess it should be closer to 'art' rates but who knows.

homullus
Mar 27, 2009

Elendil004 posted:

I've had a very hard time standardizing rates for mapping. Because it might be a simple map that takes me a few hours, or it might be a two page spread of Mosul circa 2016 that I have to dig map data out of UN reports on the wayback machine for. So if anyone has advice on that route, let me know. I guess it should be closer to 'art' rates but who knows.

Hours spent is a good starting point. Some people won't get it no matter how much you explain it; some people might decide to reduce their costs by finding certain map data for you. A lot of art is priced at the intersection of Hourly Rate Street and Regulating Demand Via Price Avenue.

Elendil004
Mar 22, 2003

The prognosis
is not good.


homullus posted:

Hours spent is a good starting point. Some people won't get it no matter how much you explain it; some people might decide to reduce their costs by finding certain map data for you. A lot of art is priced at the intersection of Hourly Rate Street and Regulating Demand Via Price Avenue.

That can be tough to tell too but that's not a bad idea. Sometimes I think I should charge for excess revisions but usually it results in a better map so.

Elendil004
Mar 22, 2003

The prognosis
is not good.


Actually since shameless self promotion is part of the thread, here's the centerpiece 2-page spread of Mosul. The gutter works pretty well in print, not perfect though.


Here's a map of intelligence agencies and groups the players can take advantage of. It was...interesting, trying to come up with an accurate Kurdistan.


The astute among you might notice that I shifted Jerusalem slightly west because on another map it needed room to breathe. Surely not a contentious decision.

War and Pieces
Apr 24, 2022

DID NOT VOTE FOR FETTERMAN
Do you have stats for PissPig?

JMBosch
May 28, 2006

You're dead.
That's your greatest weapon.
Performing thread necromancy to post my new one-page game about antifa undead: Skeleton Justice Warriors



It's a hack of Lasers & Feelings. My one regret is being too restrained in channeling da share z0ne.

JMBosch
May 28, 2006

You're dead.
That's your greatest weapon.
I will singlehandedly keep this thread alive if I have to!




I'll be doing my first RPG crowdfunding campaign through February to fund a print run of The Stone-Flesh Gift, a new living ship module for the sci-fi horror RPG Mothership. The campaign is part of both Zine Month 2024 and Crowdfundr's Tabletop Nonstop spotlight.

The players will wade through the innards of a living, alien ship called the Gift as they work to avoid its dangers, discover its secrets, and plug their brains directly into its organs to feel their thoughts. You can subscribe now (at the top of the page) to be notified when it goes live!

A silhouette blocks the starlight, darker than the space it drifts through. You would never have noticed it without a local density scan. When dappled in light from the closest sun, the remnants of indiscernible petroglyphs can be seen carved across its hull, hewn from a single black stone harder than steel. The ship has no comms, no transponder, just a pulsating thump reverberating within a membrane that runs through the stone like a vein of ore. A pinkish docking umbilical gently dances as it’s pulled behind the vessel, stretching toward anything that approaches, looking to touch, to connect.

The book is already done, save for a few tweaks to make after reviewing the printed proof copies, so the turnaround time to get your copy in your hands should be really quick!

The book contains:
  • 25 organs, most of them with unique thoughts and feelings
  • 12 creatures, hazards, and NPCs
  • 10 diseases and a system to spread them
  • 23 items and materials, along with recipes for most of them
  • a d100 "I Search the Body..." table
  • a custom ship manifest for the Gift
  • rules for running and repairing the ship's life support, flight controls, FTL capabilities, and digestion
Campaign details:
  • Campaign Pitch: https://crowdfundr.com/stonefleshgift?ref=cr_2DA8O0
  • Funding from February 1st to the 29th.
  • 5.5" x 8.5" softcover book, staple-bound
  • 40-page, full-color interior
  • $12 + shipping for the physical book reward, with a digital PDF included
  • $6 for the digital PDF reward only
  • Every reward tier also gets a new one-shot pamphlet: So You've Been Chump-Dumped
I'm also running two giveaways for extra proof copies. Details on how to enter can be found here: https://twitter.com/JayEmBosch/status/1741540430569693566

JMBosch
May 28, 2006

You're dead.
That's your greatest weapon.
Seeing as it's officially Zine Month, The Stone-Flesh Gift's crowdfunding campaign is now live: https://crowdfundr.com/stonefleshgift?ref=cr_2D6T5a

Frozen Peach
Aug 25, 2004

garbage man from a garbage can
I've been working on several designs since Heckin Hounds is finally available for sale, the furthest along of which is "Oops, All Bangers!"

It's a mixtape making game where you request songs from your friends to help fill your mixtape. Think apples to apples with a gamey card drafting twist. It's playtesting really really well, and I'm nailing down the rules and balancing the final scoring mechanisms.





https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZYK3zJTQGeFTKyMUP09XNWXMNCOosSHNZ30vhXjAx44/edit#heading=h.pz8v3b624gs3

Inkspot
Dec 3, 2013

I believe I have
an appointment.
Mr. Goongala?
Absolute newbie question, but where should I go to program a dice roller (5d6 v 5d6 out of pools of 10-20d6, counting 5s and 6s and removing 1s from either pool, until either pool reaches 5 or below) to playtest the base mechanics of a game? I'm pretty solid on that base rolling system, and have caveats for characters beyond the base, but rolling both sides 1000 times and documenting the results seems like the kind of thing AI was designed to do.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

I do online dice rolling using orokos.com but I don't know if you can do specifically your setup. It's pretty flexible, but the main feature is that dice rolls are logged and you don't need the logging I assume.

If you knew python it'd be a fairly easy thing to write.
You could do it in excel or google sheets, if you're willing to learn how to use cell functions to get the filtered results you want

but leaving that aside, what is that rather complicated dice mechanic supposed to actually accomplish? It seems likely to me at first glance that there's a simpler way to get the same probability curve.
Roll 10 to 20 d6,
then remove all the 1s
then each player takes turns counting fives and sixes (why did you remove the ones?) until... yeah I've lost what you're trying to say to do here

if you elaborate a bit I could probably set it up in a google sheet for you to look at

e. here's Orokos' dice roller help which is a popup so I can't link to it, the syntax is pretty straightforward and it has a lot of options:

quote:

Dice Roller
Format
XdY to roll X dice of Y sides. Prefix N# to roll the dice N separate times.

Operators allowed are +, -, *, and / which follow order of operations. Division rounds down. Use parentheses if needed. Full format is any number of terms combined with the operators, where term is a literal number or a roll. N can be a term itself.

Combinatorics are possible as well. N-choose-K results can be of the form NcK, the value will be the number of combinations to choose K items from a set of N items, and return a random one of these sets in the details. (i.e. 4c2 might result in 6 [4c2=1,3]) Permutations are possible in the form NpK. These terms are useful for generating sequences.

Options
Append the following modifiers as desired, if using multiple then they must be added in the order below. Some combinations may be invalid.

rZ - reroll die if result is Z or lower (Brutal property in D&D, etc.)
roZ - reroll die only once if result is Z or lower
mZ - count result as Z if roll is lower than Z
eZ or oZ - extra / open roll when the die is Z or higher, extra grants one bonus roll only
kZ or lZ - keep the highest / lowest Z rolls, drop others
tZ - target number Z, count rolls that meet or exceed Z as successes (if Z > Y, implicit oY)
hZ - hits Z, count rolls that meet or exceed Z as successes, max roll grants bonus roll (implicit oY) (WoD)
xZ - hits Z, count rolls that meet or exceed Z as successes, max roll grants bonus success (Exalted)
uZ - under Z, count rolls that are equal to or under Z as successes
! - when at the end of any roll, turns on verbose mode (shows all dice rerolled and modified)
Other Dice
Special system dice are available as XdY, where Y is one of:

F - Fudge (-1, 0, +1)
C - Cthulhutech (d10: scoring for highest multiple or straight)
H - Hero System damage (d6: Stun is sum of dice and Body is X modified -1 or +1 for each 1 or 6 rolled)
Edge of the Empire - XeY, where Y is the first letter of the die type: Ability, Boost, Challenge, Difficulty, Force, Proficiency, or Setback.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3e - XwY, where Y is the color of the die: Characteristic (Blue), Expertise (Yellow), Challenge (Purple), Reckless (Red), Conservative (Green), Fortune (White), or Misfortune (blacK).

Other symbol dice are available as XxY, where Y is one of:

K - King of Tokyo die (d6: 1, 2, 3, Heart, Energy, Attack)
M - Mage Knight mana die (d6: Black, White, Red, Green, Blue, Gold)
R - Fate of the Norns runes (draw from 24 runes)
Double Cross dice are available as XxxY to roll X dice (d10s) with a crit threshold of Y. Takes the highest single result, unless one or more dice are Y or higher. The result is increased by 10 and the dice Y or higher are rerolled and the process repeated.

Examples
D&D: 2#1d20+6 close blast 3 vs Reflex; (1d6+4)/2 damage, 2d20k1+8 Oath of Enmity attack
SR3: 5d6t8 Electronics 5 vs TN 8, 4d6o6k1 Stealth 4 open roll
WoD: 7d10o9h7 Seven dice, hits on 7+, roll again on 9+
Fudge: 4dF fudge dice! (-4 to +4)
Cthulhutech: 3dC+7 Marksmanship
Hero System: 8.5dH damage roll with a half-die!
Edge of the Empire: 2eA+1eP+3eD 2 Ability 1 Proficiency 3 Difficulty dice
WFRP 3e: 2wB+1wY+1wP+1wK 2 Characteristic 1 Expertise 1 Challenge 1 Misfortune dice
Double Cross: 6xx8 Pool of 6 dice, critical 8+

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Feb 8, 2024

DalaranJ
Apr 15, 2008

Yosuke will now die for you.

Inkspot posted:

Absolute newbie question, but where should I go to program a dice roller (5d6 v 5d6 out of pools of 10-20d6, counting 5s and 6s and removing 1s from either pool, until either pool reaches 5 or below) to playtest the base mechanics of a game? I'm pretty solid on that base rolling system, and have caveats for characters beyond the base, but rolling both sides 1000 times and documenting the results seems like the kind of thing AI was designed to do.

Anydice will show you a probability distribution. I think there’s a way to get it to produce ‘Monte Carlo’ results but I’ve never done it, you’d have to look at the documentation

Inkspot
Dec 3, 2013

I believe I have
an appointment.
Mr. Goongala?
Unfortunately, I don't know Python, but that was the first thing that popped up when I searched for modifying dice rolls. As I'm not a programmer, I came here.

---

Each player (of 2) chooses a character.

Each player rolls 5d6 v 5d6. Any modularity beyond that (which is where choosing specific characters comes in) is gravy.

Each character starts with 10-20d6 (depending on desired length of game), rolling 5d6 at a time (with some characters rolling 4d6 or 6d6), until either player gets down to a pool of 5d6 or fewer.

There is a Withdraw/Posture aspect that I want to include but I'm focusing on baby steps at the moment.

Each 1 (or 2 depending on the character) subtracts a die from the players' initial pool of 10-20.

Each 5 or 6 a player rolls that can't be matched with a 5 or 6 rolled by an opponent, is assigned as a mark against their opponent.

---

Each character has a slightly different set of rules. One hits on a 4-5-6, or takes damage from 6's only, or is able to turn 3-4's into rerolls. Things that could theoretically be tested by playtesting, but potentially accomplished faster by "playtesting" via AI.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

OK so I'm just gonna clarify slightly more, and then see what I can put together because doing this is more interesting than working lol

Each player A and B has a starting number of dice. Let's call this DA and DB. It doesn't actually matter that it's dice, it's just a counter.
Each "round" both players will roll Xd6. Player A rolls XAd6 and Player B rolls XBd6. We need these values before we run the program.
Each resulting die that is value Y or lower, reduces D by 1. Y is usually 1 or 2. Players can have different Y values from each other, so we also store this as YA and YB before we run the program.
Each resulting die that is Z or higher is accumulated (that is, added to) by a variable, RA for player A and RB for player B. Z is usually 5 or 6, and can be different values for each player, so we store this as ZA and ZB and set those values before we run the program.
Subtract RA from RB. If the result is nonzero: if the result is a negative number, subtract the absolute value of the result from DB, if the result is a positive number, subtract the value from DA. If the result is zero, do nothing.
Now check both player's D values. If either or both of D is less than or equal to 5, the match is over.
If it is not, begin a new round. (At the beginning of each round, reset RA and RB to zero.)

Starting values of DA, DB, XA, XB, YA, YB, ZA, ZB can all be changed independently as starting conditions.

The above is like 90% of the way to a python script, or a script in any other scripting language you care to get. You need to add a randomizer function, store values and return them, display those values, etc. and then build an output that stores results, and then let it run for a few tens of thousands of iterations which will probably take a modern computer like... five seconds, and then dump the results into some charting software.

I am not totally sure I can do this in excel but I may take a stab at it.

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Feb 8, 2024

Frozen Peach
Aug 25, 2004

garbage man from a garbage can
Any Dice is pretty good for doing probability estimations.

https://anydice.com/

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

ok I used an AI to get started and then modified the code to fix all the bugs and misunderstandings. I don't actually know python, but I've edited enough of other people's random code to figure it out.

This works. I don't know how to get the output into a file, but it works to get the result of individual matches.
code:
# Online Python - IDE, Editor, Compiler, Interpreter
import random

def play_game(DA, DB, XA, XB, YA, YB, ZA, ZB):
    RA = 0
    RB = 0

    
    while DA > 5 and DB > 5:
        # Reset accumulated values at the start of each round
        RA = 0
        RB = 0
        
        # Player A rolls XA dice
        rolls_A = [random.randint(1, 6) for _ in range(XA)]
        print("Player A rolls:", rolls_A)
        
        # Player B rolls XB dice
        rolls_B = [random.randint(1, 6) for _ in range(XB)]
        print("Player B rolls:", rolls_B)
        
        # Process rolls
        for roll in rolls_A:
            if roll <= YA:
                DA -= 1
            elif roll >= ZA:
                RA += 1
        
        for roll in rolls_B:
            if roll <= YB:
                DB -= 1
            elif roll >= ZB:
                RB += 1
        
        # Subtract RA from RB
        diff = RA - RB
        if diff < 0:
            DB -= abs(diff)
        elif diff > 0:
            DA -= diff
        
        print("Current status: Player A D={}, Player B D={}".format(DA, DB))
    
    if DA <= 5:
        print("Player B wins!")
    elif DB <= 5:
        print("Player A wins!")

# starting conditions
DA = 20
DB = 20
XA = 5
XB = 5
YA = 2
YB = 2
ZA = 5
ZB = 5

play_game(DA, DB, XA, XB, YA, YB, ZA, ZB)
Paste that into https://www.online-python.com/ and click run to see the results, and change the values under #starting conditions to alter dice values to see how that affects the results.

Here's an example output with the above values:
code:
Player A rolls: [3, 2, 1, 3, 4]
Player B rolls: [1, 3, 6, 1, 2]
Current status: Player A D=18, Player B D=16
Player A rolls: [2, 5, 2, 2, 4]
Player B rolls: [6, 3, 5, 1, 5]
Current status: Player A D=15, Player B D=13
Player A rolls: [1, 5, 6, 1, 6]
Player B rolls: [1, 1, 2, 6, 6]
Current status: Player A D=12, Player B D=10
Player A rolls: [2, 2, 5, 1, 6]
Player B rolls: [4, 2, 4, 4, 1]
Current status: Player A D=7, Player B D=8
Player A rolls: [2, 6, 3, 5, 4]
Player B rolls: [4, 2, 5, 6, 4]
Current status: Player A D=6, Player B D=7
Player A rolls: [5, 5, 6, 5, 4]
Player B rolls: [3, 4, 6, 1, 3]
Current status: Player A D=3, Player B D=6
Player B wins!
this is of course a coinflip, when player A and B have the same starting values and dice values. There's no need to monte carlo it. If you want to see what the results of individual roll-off rounds are, add a print line. If you want to see how tweaking individual values changes the result, that'd be where doing the simulations can get you a curve.

My intuition is that you can get very similar curves with much less complexity but the complexity gives you many different places to tweak numbers and that's where I guess the "game" lies.

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Feb 8, 2024

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

OK so it occurs to me that I can just wrap the middle part of the script in another While statement, with another variable of "matches" - tell it to run a thousand times, output only the match results (which numbers do you care about? Just win/loss, or by how much, or how many rounds it took to get to a result, etc?) and then print that out at the end. Dump those numbers into a spreadsheet to get a chart if you want a chart.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Yup ok. Change the value of M to decide how many matches to run. I commented out the verbose messages but you can remove the # to keep them. You need to edit the value of DA and DB in two places now, both at the bottom and on lines 10/11, because I don't know how to write python lol.

code:
# Online Python - IDE, Editor, Compiler, Interpreter
import random

def play_game(DA, DB, XA, XB, YA, YB, ZA, ZB, M):
    RA = 0
    RB = 0
    
    while M > 0:
        M -= 1
        DA = 20
        DB = 20
        while DA > 5 and DB > 5:
            # Reset accumulated values at the start of each round
            RA = 0
            RB = 0
            
            # Player A rolls XA dice
            rolls_A = [random.randint(1, 6) for _ in range(XA)]
            # print("Player A rolls:", rolls_A)
            
            # Player B rolls XB dice
            rolls_B = [random.randint(1, 6) for _ in range(XB)]
            # print("Player B rolls:", rolls_B)
            
            # Process rolls
            for roll in rolls_A:
                if roll <= YA:
                    DA -= 1
                elif roll >= ZA:
                    RA += 1
            
            for roll in rolls_B:
                if roll <= YB:
                    DB -= 1
                elif roll >= ZB:
                    RB += 1
            
            # Subtract RA from RB
            diff = RA - RB
            if diff < 0:
                DB -= abs(diff)
            elif diff > 0:
                DA -= diff
            
            # print("Current status: Player A D={}, Player B D={}".format(DA, DB))
        
        # print("Current status: Player A D={}, Player B D={}".format(DA, DB))
        if DA <= 5:
            print("Player B wins!")
        elif DB <= 5:
            print("Player A wins!")

# starting conditions

DA = 20
DB = 20
XA = 5
XB = 5
YA = 2
YB = 2
ZA = 5
ZB = 5
M = 3

play_game(DA, DB, XA, XB, YA, YB, ZA, ZB, M)
Now you can just run at many iterations at a time as you want. If you want a counter that accumulates wins, that's probably really easy to add, and you can remove the "player A wins" message and just give an end result of # of wins for each player or w/e. Python at this level is pretty easy to understand.

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Inkspot
Dec 3, 2013

I believe I have
an appointment.
Mr. Goongala?
Ha ha! That is way more effort than I expected anyone to go to and I appreciate the crap out it! Might as well give you more information...

It's a monster wrestling game I'm tentatively calling Wrestlevania.

Each player starts with 20 dice. They roll 5d6 at each other simultaneously. 1s are removed, reducing each players' pools. 5s and 6s count as hits, but only if they are unmatched by the other player. So if Player A starts with 20 and rolls 1-1-3-5-6 and Player B rolls 2-3-4-4-6, Player A is down to 18 dice and Player B is still at 20 but takes one hit. That part is fairly simple. Just rolling dice at each other is way more fun that it probably should be. Then it gets a bit more complicated.

Different monsters have different abilities. Frankenstein('s Monster) rolls 6d6 and deals damage on 4-5-6 but only takes damage on 6s. He's a big dude and can take more damage but he burns through his stamina quicker. El Chupacabros roll 4d6, dealing damage on 5-6, but taking damage on 4-5-6. Smaller dudes, and there's two of them, so they can theoretically last longer even if it's easier to hit one of them. Lots of similar mechanics for different monsters. Invisible Man's harder to dodge, The Mummy curses you to reroll, Jekyll/Hyde are reversed so they lose 6s and hit with 1s, etc, etc.

I haven't completely figured out the final round yet. Once one or both players take a certain number of hits (Probably 5-7) or get down to or below a certain number of dice (Probably 5). This might involve a whole separate phase of its own, or just be a complete free-for-all where everyone rolls the die they have left once one or both of the qualifications are met. Still not sure.

This is my first time even attempting something like this and I think it's going well but it was suggested I plug numbers into a roller and get results for a ton of games faster than I can sit and roll them myself. And that's before I start adding weirdo monster rules and the ability to catch your breath and remove hits while your opponent plays to the crowd and earns rerolls. It's technically PVP but you're still trying to put on a good show.

The whole thing is only supposed to take 10-15 minutes to play best of three (unless you really get into narrating werewolves leaping from the turnbuckles) and I'm hoping to fit all the components including rulebook and a minicomic inside a VHS clamshell to help sell the vintage feel. Maybe it even doubles as the ring you roll in. Trying not to let the superfluous aesthetic ideas interfere with the development of the game itself.

Inkspot fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Feb 9, 2024

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