/gdg/ Game Design General

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Only if you program your RPG to roll dice.

RNG is basically rolling dice anyway. Just instead of the flick of your wrist, the computer uses system time as the initial seed value.

If you tie it to dice or card mechanics, sure

Playing devil's advocate: assume I'm emotionally dead to all things, and I'm curious as to whether my play-testers are telling the truth or just being polite.

Like the forgotten realms games?

I will I promise.

Post it here and if Veeky Forums likes it, it's fun.

Ask for constructive feedback and "bug reports" -- edge cases that have come up, situations that came up but had no or conflicting rules to govern them, etc.

Notepad++
I wish it had a linux version

LibreOffice

It's a more stable version of OpenOffice, which is a freeware word editor comparable to Microsoft Word. It's a little quirky, but you can do a lot with it. It lets you export PDFs and open/save just about any format of word document.

Try Atom. It's got everything that made Sublime Text great and more, while also not begging you to pay.

That looks great. Can't believe I got all these responses, especially since I got tricked by a fake new thread link on Veeky Forums. Thanks dudes.

Got a question: Starcraft* as a tabletop skirmish game yes/no?

*It's the closest analogy I know of

You got any specific details other than just Starcraft?

Doesn't use asymmetry, but look at Nexus Ops for ideas. Closest to a RTS on the tabletop I've ever seen.

Pick an area to build a base, make defensive units to secure construction units, increase base operations, defend against and eventually try to take over local threats located elsewhere around a map.

This idea started when I saw my DM get bogged down with combat minion-mancer here and I wanted to make something that can deal with a large amount of units in as simple a way possible, or because there simply aren't enough skirmish games that cater to my desires.

Got it I'll look into that

Its a board game, but I can still take ideas to translate over into an RPG or wargame.

When you play or test your game and you consistently think "Yes, I had fun".

Even if you aren't the creator, you will always have an opinion and bias.

You can have fun and also run into a lot of problems. Asking if they had fun is only one question worth of information, while "what went wrong" and "what could be better" could cover a lot more design relevant info.

So I have an idea set for resolution, now looking at damage. The idea I have is each hit a model takes is multiplied by a power stat, and then the total number is compared to the resilience of the model. Each full set of hits tgat match the resilience does a "wound". All models take 5 wounds, with a stacking debuff.

So, most weapons would be '1' standard for the power, while more powerful weapons like missile launchers would be 2 or 3. Basic troops would have resilience 1, armored troops would be 2, vehicles and such would be 3 or 4. Keep it simple for most models, but still have room for big things.

If you score 3 hits with 1 power against a 1 resilience target, does the target get 3 wounds? am I understanding that right? That seems to make sense, especially if you expect models to be taking multiple hits per round. It would allow an unarmored soldier to take damage from a rocket launcher without dying ( like by being hit by just the edge of the blast radius, but its much more likely that either the damage misses entirely or the model dies.

So I have some business rules I've been working on.
Any feedback or thoughts on them? I'm wanting to make business ownership a bit more dynamic and have some gameplay elements to it.
Access modifier represents the general amount of an industry in an area. I use it to determine pricing is why I wanted it to do double duty for business rules.

Yeah. Resolution keeps hits on the low side, its a dice pool system where attacker rolls hits and defender rolls to negate hits.

I posted it in the other thread, its a D12-based system with exploding D12s. The attacker rolls a number of dice equal to the Strikes of its weapon, scoring hits if it rolls its Attack, defender rolls a number equal to its Armor (need a better name for that stat), scoring a success on its Defense.

There are rules for explosive attacks, but those are more like grenade or mortar attacks, where the idea is lobbing into an area and catching them in the blast.

So with my system, I've got a bit of combat mechanics down, but I don't have a lot for non-combat mechanics like Skill Checks. I want to try and keep mechanics as similar to each other as possible. For example, My magic is: MP = effects * metamagic. Weapons are built by handle + weapon head(s). For Skills, I'm not exactly sure what I want to do. I want to have some Aspect + Modifying Aspect, I just don't know how to reconcile a single system for opening locks, diplomacy, and climbing rope. Most any assumed skill list will have a lot of differences.

Here's an O.R.E. conversion of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, if anyone wants to take a look, use it, etc.

How do you guys get yourselves motivated for a full rewrite?

I just do it, preferably in pieces so that I don't get burnt out. Sooner or later, it's done, and usually in doing it things get refined even more than previously imagined.

It pays to keep the end goal in mind, too.

Do you just use it for writing essentially plaintext?

Look into Typora and Markdown. Lets you get some structure and formatting in your document and exports to PDF for easy uploading here.

Editor: typora.io
Syntax intro: daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
Files are plaintext so you can easily do other stuff with them. If you want to format using InDesign you can do markdown to ICML conversion using Pandoc, as well.

If you're writing code as well, Sublime Text or Atom are obviously tools for that, but writing words I prefer something a bit less visually bare personally (and seeing just the text rather than the syntax, even with Markdown, is much better).

I'm going to read through this today. Super psyched.

Can someone with more experience writing AnyDice functions help me figure out how to write a function to calculate the success probability for a system I'm working on?

It's a WoD/CofD-like dice-pool/success counting system, but instead of adding two values and rolling that many dice, your "stat" value determines your dicepool of d10s, and your "skill" value determines what number you have to roll under or equal to on the d10 to qualify as a success (with "0" on a d10 being 0, not 10, and always counting as a success even if you're untrained).

I need to know the probability of getting different numbers of successes using this system. Can anyone help me out?

No. Videogame design does not pair well with tabletop game design unless you are making a virtual tabletop game like a wargame or card game.

>ADDITIONS TO THE ORE SYSTEM

>The O.R.E. system usually works by having the Width of a roll determine how much damage is dealt, with the Height of the roll determining the Speed and the location hit.

In most ORE products, Speed is actually determined by Width, not Height. That's definitely the case with REIGN. Nemesis, as an older version of the ORE, may work differently though. I can't say as I've never read it.

>Waste die
Can you elaborate on how Waste Die are used to determine Hit Location? Is it the highest die that determines location, or the number of Waste Die in total?

>Bleeding
First off, I'm glad that you included this stuff and explicitly announced it as optional. It's always a good touch for a designer to realize that adding gritty mechanics doesn't always make things better, and that the GM is best equipped to know whether rules like that are suited to his game.

That said, I think you need to take another pass at this explanation because it's really not clear. Maybe give a detailed example of the rule in play as is usually done in REIGN?

>Radiation
Treating Radiation as a poison is absolutely the right way to go I think. I haven't started working on radiation rules for my space-ORE game yet, but they'd probably be similar to what you've figured. I like the idea of Accumulating Potency. How about rules for especially deadly radiation that starts off at a higher tier of Potency? That seems possible but not explicitly stated in the rules.

Just as an aside, I think you need to come up with a better way of expressing the target of an attack or whatever than just "the being". It's kind of awkward to read.

>Psi Fields
Woah, is the Stat decay from failing your Mind + Equilibrium check meant to be permanent? Because that's an extremely hazardous thing you've got there. Maybe moreso than you expect, really.

>FACTIONS

These are straight from the game, correct? Not too many notes here. I like what you've done: each faction seems distinct, especially the trinity of Duty/Freedom/Ecology. I like the addition of Clear Sky as both an element of added mystery and a case example of what could happen to the player characters if their plans to sideways.

(in case it's not evident I've never played Stalker before, so all this is new to me).

>LOCATIONS
Again, assuming this stuff is pulled from the game. It all looks good: you've got just enough detail to provide hooks for exploration without bogging down the GM with unnecessary details, and allowing him to chart his own topography of the area.

The Red Forest, Limansk and Priyapat in particular caught my eye, if only for the mentions of the Brain Scorcher, which is just great. You did a good job supplementing the PDA entries with more details to entice (and frighten) players.

>ANOMALIES
Okay here's what I've been waiting for.

First off, I like how you added the Difficulty values for each Anomalies. ORE games are frequently guilty of throwing around Difficulty without actually specifying what the numbers are, but you take a lot of the guesswork out of it. I appreciate that.

So I'm guessing that Anomalies have dice pools that you roll to calculate their damage? You should probably specify that.

I feel like your damage maaaay be a bit overtuned, given that most events cause at least Width in SK, which is the highest tier of damage in ORE. Your Difficulties too may be a little undertuned: a Difficulty of 2 is practically no Difficulty at all. Most systems in ORE don't really recognize Difficulty below 3, frankly. Moreover, you should probably provide some guidelines for how and where Anomolies should appear in a game-- are they everywhere, or so infrequent that a Stalker could easily let his guard down and get splattered by a Springboard?

>ARTIFACTS
I noticed that a lot of your artifacts have similar purposes, i.e. dealing with Radiation. I understand the reason for this (this is Chernobyl afterall) but the result is that a lot of them seem kind of redundant. For instance, the Fireball is just a better version of the Droplet, and both are common so why have them have the same effects?

A lot of these also reference restoring Health, which isn't really a concept in ORE. Is it removing Shock or Killing damage? What's the mechanism being referenced here?

For the Meat Chunk, what if you have no ARM? What's the cost of having that if you're just running around in a wifebeater and khakis?

As a suggestion, maybe you want to sort artifacts by Rarity first, then by alphabet. That way a GM can more easily which Artifact he may want to give out as a quest reward.

>MUTANTS

>Psuedodogs
Could you describe what these horrible things look like a little better? Because "mix of human, bear and dog DNA" is provactive but I can't conceive of what it actually looks like, except that I never want to see one.

>Boars
I feel like a creature with that much mass should have some ARM to go with it, perhaps instead of a few hit boxes. 15 boxes is kind of ridiculous.

>Snork
Again, I think you could benefit from adding a little more physical description to some of these things. Are they just zombies? What do they actually look like?

>Bloodsuckers
Why do they have so much Health? 8 Wound boxes in their heads is kind of crazy.

>Controllers
Controllers are ridiculously powerful. Being able to erect an Intensity 7 Psi Field with the current rules is exceptionally strong. You may want to compensate by reducing their Health a bit (that's a trope in video games anyway, that almight puppetmasters are infact physicall frail).

>Zombies
Why do their default attacks deal Shock and Killing? Are they inherently stronger than normal humans?

>Psuedogiant
These guys should definitely trade some hit boxes for ARM. That's even in their PDA description.

>WEAPONS
Based your damage scales here, are you expecting characters to be well armored at all times? Because everything dealing Width in SK by default is going to mow down characters real fast, especially when they don't have anywhere near the health of most enemies. If I had a suggestion it would be to make your default, lowest-end pistol deal Width in Killing as a baseline, and restructure your damage scale from there.

>FINAL THOUGHTS
>My favorite thing about S.T.A.L.K.O.R.E.
I actually really like what you've compiling concerning the setting. I also like your rules for Radiation and Mutants, though I think there's some find tuning that needs to be done concerning damage output and Difficulty.

>My least favorite thing about S.T.A.L.K.O.R.E.
What I said above about damage output. If every weapon deals Width in Shock and Killing as a baseline, then there's not much of a point of having different damage types. It also means that every weapon deals at least twice its width in total damage, which is pretty severe. Try reworking weapon damage around a base of Width in Killing and see where that goes. You may find it gives you a little more wiggle room to make weapons more distinct.

>would I play S.T.A.L.K.O.R.E.
Yes I'd say that I would. I gotta commend you for what you're doing and I think you're putting together a real nice product here. Keep up the good work.

bump

would anybody happen to have this book in pdf?

amazon.com/How-Draw-Fantasy-Art-Maps/dp/1440340242/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464712143&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+draw+fantasy+art+%26+RPG+maps

Sorry, I'm just real shitty at torrenting

How do you as a designer, GM and player feel about bookkeeping related to finite resources such as Mana or Ammo?

It sucks and should be minimized or avoided, UNLESS your game is actually ABOUT that. A game about survival and scarcity will generally benefit from that sort of thing because it adds to the atmosphere and the experience.

There's nothing wrong with tracking resource amounts, but only if the units you're using are relatively small and easily monitored.

>How do you as a designer, GM and player feel about bookkeeping

If it's absolutely necessary to do that one thing that makes your game awesome I can deal with it. If the came becomes bogged down by shuffling numbers and paper it's a terrible, terrible thing to inflict on everybody involved.

You can alleviate that to some degree if you got good gaming materials, like using a deck of cards to keep track of stuff or sheets on which you can just check or uncheck stuff. For example if you have to keep track of bullets (for a revolver, not a minigun...) just use tokens instead of writing stuff down.

In general you want to keep bookkeeping to a minimun and as non-specific as possible.
What I mean by non-specific is make it something you can remember from the top of your head. Never more than one or two values to keep track of and as small as possible.

You can remember the numbers 3 and 4. You won't be able to remember 46.7 and 52.

Unless of course, book keeping is your game. Then I agree with

Thanks for the readthrough! Looking at what you mentioned...yeah, it could use more tweaking.

>Width in SK is the highest tier of damage
I thought that was just the standard?

>I thought that was just the standard?

Not exactly. There are three main tiers of damage:

>Width in Shock
This is used chiefly for hand-to-hand combat and improvised weapons like baseball bats
>Width in Killing
This is the tier for most edged melee weapons
>Width in Shock and Killing
This is the tier for most firearms

Then of course there's the intermediary damage amounts like Width in Shock +1 Killing, Width +1, etc... which fill in the gaps.

The thing is, REIGN, Nemesis, Wild Talents and other stuff like that are designed for settings where firearms are NOT the primary way of resolving combat. It's kind of expected that combat may escalate to that point as a campaign goes on, OR it's expected that you want firefights to be extremely deadly and for there to be a pretty high body count.

For S.T.A.L.K.E.R., it seems like the expectation is that most combat will be done with firearms. That means, using standard ORE Rules, that it will be on a Shock and Killing scale, which means extreme lethality. If that's your goal then fine, but be aware of the consequences.

You could consider something like this as a baseline:

Hand-to-hand, improvised weapons: Shock
Small arms: Killing
Rifles and assault weaponry: Shock and Killing

A high quality pistol could still do Width+2 in Killing, for instance, which would be an instant kill with a headshot. But Width+2 in killing as a body shot wouldn't wipe someone out as easily as Width+2 in Shock and Killing would (that's potentially 8 points of damage in a single hit form just a basic Width-2 hit, when most people only have 10 wound boxes in their torsos).

Ahh, I see. We seem to be a bit on opposite sides, as I've never actually played an O.R.E. game, but I've played the hell out of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. For everything O.R.E. I've just been going off of the rulebooks I've found.

Just about everything in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games are meant to be incredibly lethal, which may work for a video game, but should admittedly be toned down a bit for tabletop, given that players would be more invested in their characters.

Do you have a suggestion for anomaly damages? In-game, they're a mix between a slap on the wrist and instant death for not being attentive enough. They force stalkers to slow down and pay attention, while the clever ones can use anomalies to their benefit.

No worries, I'm just pleased you saw ORE as a good way to put your idea into motion. What made you choose it anyway?

>Do you have a suggestion for anomaly damages?
First, I'd suggest sorting them into three categories:

>Slap on the Wrist = Shock Damage
These are relatively common Anomalies that aren't directly lethal but still hurt a lot

>Severe damage = Killing
Stuff like the Burner or Boiler, for instance.

>Instantly lethal = Shock and Killing
Stuff that literally kills you in one shot isn't very fun in a tabletop game, so I'd advise to avoid that, as in tabletop you can't just respawn your character at the last save point. Instead, anything that should be able to kill you right out should work on an SK tier.

Now to add some more teeth to these, I'd also advise that allow really nasty Anomalies to use all of Sets for their effects. A player won't be too afraid of a severely damaging anomaly if they only take 3-4 Killing to one location, but if they take that damage two or three times because the Anomaly rolled 3 sets, then they'll be regretting their decision.

For some effects, especially the Gravitational ones, should also ignore Armor. Having ARM3 won't save you from being crushed by a localized singularity.

Also, I'd suggest grouping Anomalies by their damage output, probably as Minor (Shock), Significant (Killing) and Major (Shock and Killing), again to help GMs identify what kind of hazards they need.

Many thanks! It's good to actually have a sense of scale for things.

>What made you choose it anyway?
I collect a lot of PnP systems, but O.R.E stood out as simple, elegant, and brutal.

Hey guys, there was once a blog or webpage with guidance on how to create a homebrew RPG.

The thing is, the dude that made it used his own game as an example, which was about genetically engineered soldiers fighting monsters and such. The thing is, it involved CHOOSING to fail rolls in order to build a dice pool with you could then use for other stuff.

So, for example, I would miss my rocket launcher shot at the monster so I could use that extra die to deal extra damage next round and so on.

The thing is, the blog had an interesting idea on how to create factions and all, similar to worldbuilding.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

I use tokens for each load of ammo. If you can bluff the GM into thinking you've still got ammo loaded, you do. Did I fire six shots... or only five?
Small scale stuff like that is alright. A good guideline is think about the amount of coins you've got just laying around, and if you could play a group of four people with just that junk for tokens you're probably okay.

Then again I have a five inch deep tophat half full of coins, so fuck me, right?

I don't, but that does sound like an interesting mechanic to have. It offers a good way for players to gain control the story. Its like a smaller version of fate points the player can directly control.

I could easily see it used for mages that cast through HP sacrifice. Power up spells until you nova.

Round 2, with fixes based on what was noted above.

I'll check this out tomorrow, if I have time.

It is a really cool idea actually, I'd like to see more of it

docdroid.net/kHgwIZv/rotdp.pdf.html

Reskin/Homebrew of Lamentations of the Flame Princess (with bits from S&W and Mutant Future) that I'm working on, set for a post-apocalyptic game. I'm looking for advice, feedback, any input on if numbers are shitty, etc.

>Should I keep the initiative modifiers for firearms to help make sure they're not overpowered?
>are my prices ok?
>is the bartering system simple enough?
>should I keep the ammo system basic, as I've done?

thefreerpgblog.com/2011/12/how-to-write-free-rpg-chapter-1.html?m=1

Found this ages ago, your post made me remember it existed. Good read.

every time I see that fucking wrench I can't help but see a basketball in it rather than a d20

my madness has finally forced my hand

So I have an RPG I've been working on for the past 2 years on and off now, and I've been thinking of uploading a version of it.

It's gone through quite a few changes, and it's been developed entirely from the ground up. I've borrowed some elements from D&D, some elements from oWoD, and some elements from Riddle of Steel (unknowingly), but I didn't really "Frankenstein" it together, as it revolves around a cohesive setting I've gradually been creating.

I've put together a limited bestiary, all the basic weapons and armors are finished, and most of the items, and it uses a spell system which is based more around a penalty/reward system than an actual "casting" system.

It's not named yet, but to give you an idea of how fleshed out it is, every single file in the folder is a notepad file and the whole thing is about 1.5 mb's.

Okay, good to hear that

bump

I still feel like there should be an easier way to make Bleeding work. Rounding down half your damage into bleeding Steps isn't particularly easy or intuitive.

I like the additions you made to the instructions for Anomalies; even a Minor Anomaly can be dangerous if it's been given enough time to Mature into a full on Threat 10.

bump

Thanks man, that was exactly it!

>I like the additions you made to the instructions for Anomalies; even a Minor Anomaly can be dangerous if it's been given enough time to Mature into a full on Threat 10.

Thanks! When rearranging them, it was a bit surprising to see just how few types of anomalies there really are. What did you think of the create-your-own-anomaly chart?

That would be fantastic, and a good way to shake up the game for people who are already familiar with STALKER.

It would be a lot of work, but look at the rules for rolling random magical effects in REIGN. It would actually work better for Anomalies, because they can kind of be even more chaotic than magic in that setting.

You know, I completely skipped over those rules. I'll definitely take a look at them. Thanks again!

The random generation rules for stuff in REIGN can take a little while to grasp the creation end of (they're super easy to use, harder to actually put together on your own). Let me know if I can help.

why are you using this system?

Why?

Reminder that setting is important to the overall game experience.

Most basic level, video games can use complex systems, while tabletop drives to simplify as much as possible. What's also interesting is generally, video games are also much more limited in what can be done, compared to tabletop.

Its not a big thing, but since these threads focus heavily on the mechanical side of things, they are incompatible. If you want to talk about setting and story structure, the worldbuilding threads would be more useful.

That's something that can be discussed, mechanics may not be compatible, but how they interact and convey feeling is similar.

True, but what's the point you're trying to make? An overall game experience is the combination of many factors, where one great element can compensate for deficiencies in another.

>Have an idea for a gamebook/campaign/setting
>Every step of the way, second-guess myself
>Haven't got more than ~1500 words down
How have you guys dealt with this?

youtube.com/watch?v=KxGRhd_iWuE

>Y-You too.
Thanks, though. New enough that I've never seen that.

Silliness aside, it's true. You'll second guess yourself, and you might lose "motivation", but in the end you have to ask yourself "Do I really want to do this?"

If the answer is yes, then do it, even if it's just a small note on a single page. Do it. Don't feel motivated? Then be disciplined instead and do it. Second-guessing yourself? Fine, and keep some of those things in mind for later revisions, but don't let it stop you from doing at least one thing every day.

And before you know it you have something tangible, a piece of work that you can be proud of, if just for the fact that you DID it.

Trying pushing it out. You can always second guess later, but you need something to second guess, so try and get it out.

And even if you feel like you shouldn't have to ask yourself that, does the idea recur? I had ideas for my first game in my head for well over two years before I started actually writing it. My first draft happened in a little under six hours total. Now I'm trying to make it readable so my group of less-quick people can handle it, which is ~*FUN*~ in the dwarf fortress sense. They've actually played it but the rules just don't quite stick yet, and I'm sure it's a phrasing error since I never have to explain anything more than once during a session.

Getting outside opinions and input helps.

If your problem is second guessing yourself then you clearly need someone a pair of less biased eyes to look at it. Sometimes that can help point you in the right direction.

bump

Some days ago I wrote, of all things, a Fluffy Pony Rpg. You may say it's càncer, but it is legitimately an RPG. It is made to be playable and fun, if a bit (well, a lot) silly.

You can find it here:

mediafire.com/download/uqtf0gsu6hg68nu/FPR_TSS.pdf

Tell me what do you guys think about it.

anydice.com/program/880c

Try changing the number of dice (number before first "d") and the target number (5 in the examples).

another bump

Guys which rpg got the best presentation. I want to steal layout design.