Game design general /gdg/

Start from the American Revolution.

Why? That had lots of stand-up conventional (for the day) battles.

If anything, look into campaigns in the tropical far east. Vietnam, Korea, etc. Maybe also union battles in South America, since those were little wars unto themselves, except it was Coca-Cola vs The People of Venezuela instead of actual state militaries having stand-up gun battles and assassinating eachother's generals and shit.

What's the gist of your game so far? I'm interested because while I was on vacation recently, I thought of making a 3-player game about trying to win a war somewhere while competing with eachother for funding. The players are the Army, Navy and Air Force, fighting an autonomous enemy (kinda like that superhero card game I always forget the name of). It'd be good to shit around together about warfare stuff to bounce some ideas back n' forth.

I like the tag system idea, but yeah, its clunky for larger battles.

I find exploding anything on larger than a D6 is more of a bonus than the expected, so most difficulties and odds should be tight to begin with.

The other part of it is that when it comes to damage and combat, there is modifiers. I was thinking that the Power of the weapon multiples the successes for damage. The system as it is now is when making an attack, each player rolls a number of dice for their respective stats, gain successes on offensive and defensive stats, and the defensive roll successes cancel successes from the offensive roll.

For example:
>Model makes an attack, his stats say he gets 3D12 for the pool, and hits on a 6+
>For simplicity sake, let's say the defensive model has the same; 3D12 that succeed on a 6+
>You cancel out successes on the attacking model's side for every one of the defending side
>After you cancel them out, you take any remaining successes and multiple by the weapons power: POW 1 means 1:1 successes, POW 2 means 1:2, POW 3 means 1:3, etc
>After you determine the final amount of successes after multiplying, you compare to the Resilience of the defending model, for every full amount, you do one wound
I was planning the average Resilience to be 1 or 2, and the average small arms Power to be 1.

Choose your class, it will give you some expertise fields and some gear.
At the end of every adventure, you recover all used or lost items and can choose a new one without class restriction.
You also get a traveling bag: at anytime you can roll to search for common objects on it (like matches, pen and paper or some money). Any other gear you'll have to find it elsewhere.

Samurai: (using polearms and swords; enduring for a noble cause, motivating others, gaining people's trust when being sincere). You get a katana (close, can deflect projectiles) and...
...a spear (reach, can be thrown)
...a wakizashi (hand, easier to conceal)
...a heavy armor (+2AP)

Ninja: (acting stealthy, impossible acrobacies and climbing, deception, reflexes) You get assorted kunais and shurikens (short range) and...
...a replacement wooden log (+1AP, you become automatically hidden nearby after use)
...a grappling hook (reach, useful to climb and entangle)
...a handful of smoke bombs.

Hunter: (outdoors knowledge and survival tricks, reading tracks and situations, aiming projectiles, finding a weak spot)
You get a longbow (long range) and...
...a necklace that lets you assume an animal shape
...an old scar (you're always prepared when fighting whatever did this to you, your call)
...the diaries of your father. They have information about pretty much anything.

Cleric: (Healing others, charming others, magical lore, talking with spirits, searching for an appropiate potion in your bag).
You get a fancy walking cane (reach, makes you look wise) and...
...a deck of tarot cards (ask questions about anything)
...a spell to summon a spirit or a relic (your call, it's impredictability is proportional to its power)
...a mystical ward (put a small protective enchantment on an area, person or place)

Monk: (brawling when unarmored, enduring harm, feats of willpower, speaking wise proverbs)
Due to the hobo lifestyle, you have no gear, but you get techniques instead. You start with danger sense (you're prepared for surprise attacks and ambushes) and...
...the afterimage technique (make shadow copies of yourself to confuse an opponent)
...a rock-breaking strike (destroy anything, takes 2AP to negate)
...concentrate to summon a flaming ki aura (+1AP, awesome transformation)

Tinker: (fixing, tweaking and building artifacts, finding clues, scientific lore, searching your bag for a small tool or gadget)
You get a a mysterious device (state what it does at anytime, it might not be as reliable as you think)
… a small ice gun (short range, can hit enemies and freeze water surfaces)
… a helmet with fancy googles (+1AP, state at anytime how they improve normal vision)
… a pair of walkie talkies, can be tweaked to catch foreign frequencies.

too rigid, what are these numbers, what is any of this, why should I care

You can attempt something risky if you can claim some dice. You get:
+1d6 if it's something that anyone could do
+1d6 if it falls under your class expertise
+1d6 if you have advantage or take time to prepare.
-1d6 if you're hindered in any way

Highest result decides the outcome:
1,2 or 3 is a failure (in combat, the opponent hits you, or gets into fighting range and attacks you).
4 is a success, but there is a complication, limitation or cost.
5 and 6 are a plain success (you hit the opponent, you parry the opponent's attack or do whatever you set to do). For each success after the first, you get an advantage or deal an extra blow to the opponent.

There are five weapon ranges: Long range>Short range>reach>close>hand.
Normally the attacker with the most range gets to attack first, before the opponent gets into fighting range. Reverse this rule when in narrow corridors or similars, where small weapons are much handier. When using weapons of the same tier, attacks are simultaneous.

If you're hit, you can roll to stand your ground. On a failure, you're out of action somehow. You can burn 1AP (armor point) to turn a failed endurance roll into a success. Hitting an NPC takes 1AP directly from them; if they haven't any, they're defeated (let the fiction and, ultimately, the GM decide if they're dead, fainted or just vanquished!)

I'm seriously not even shitposting on you right now, literally what is any of this and why should I care? You need to work on easing potential players into your game. Start with a summary of your rules and intended kind of play, then get into the tl;dr autism lists. I seriously do not care about katanas or that they can deflect projectiles before I even know what generates these projectiles or if they're worth deflecting or if there's even a lot of combat (and of what sort) to be had in the first place

I'm actually thinking that the Hunter's transformation necklace is a little impersonal. I'm thinking on making it an ability/flaw; like pic related "you transform into an animal/cute girl whenever you're in contact with cold water. It takes hot water to revert you to normal shape". Maybe change the terms to make it original instead as ripping off ranma

>too rigid
The idea for this game is to present pre-made archetypes. Not all games have to be like ANIMA with a million choices to customize your
mary sue. This is mean to emulate a band of thieves trying to steal the Daimyo's supper baked potatos.

>what are those numbers
Armor Points. Explained in next posts

>why should I care
You don't have to care if you don't want, but If you didn't care, why did you post anyways? ;)

>You don't have to care if you don't want, but If you didn't care, why did you post anyways? ;)

I'm seriously not even shitposting on you right now, literally what is any of this and why should I care?

You need to work on easing potential players into your game. Start with a summary of your rules and intended kind of play, then get into the tl;dr autism lists.

I seriously do not care about katanas or that they can deflect projectiles before I even know what generates these projectiles or if they're worth deflecting or if there's even a lot of combat (and of what sort) to be had in the first place.

Any prospective player is going to look at that and have his eyes glaze over. You need to make your shit way more presentable and organized.

You gave no intro, and no context to your posts. Its posted as if we're supposed know a lot of background knowledge that doesn't exist.

There isn't even a question.

Shut the fuck up. Where is your game?

OK man, just let me finish my brick!

This game is inspired by an episode of Dr.Slump (the #52 concretely) in which arale, akane and the others make a thieves gang. The idea is to make a light-hearted game In which a gang of troublemakers get some missions concerning the wellbeing of a village.

Concretely I'm already making three tables for generating plots; and I could really get some help with that:

"You're a team gathered by the circumstances to solve an upcoming town crisis. The village of Uminomichi is counting on you!
1 – The school road is damaged, someone must escort the bus to clean any obstacles. Rumors speak about giant boar monster.
2 – Alleged day vampires attacks are scaring people into living in the night and locking their homes at daylight. Candlemakers guild multiplies benefits.
3 –
4-
5-
6."

"You'll have to watch out for" (also random encounter table)
1-a pack of direwolves (+1AP each)
2-a rival gang of bandits are threatening the village
3-an old resentful hag that can play a song that makes people sleep. Someone in town has grieved her and wants to frame him/her into a robbery,
4- A hurricane is gonna struck the area; run for cover
5-
6-

"In the end, the twist is..."
1 - A legendary ninja is behind all the plot
2 -
3
4
5
6

tl;dr what is even your question

Does any of you know about a good game with procedural mission generation table that i could use for inspiration? I have a very clear tone in my mind for what I want, but I'm not sure of the way to present it.

I'd appreciate some feedback on the system, but mainly I want help with the mission generator. I need some inspiration; If somebody catches the "tone" maybe s/he can give me some ideas or remit me to anything I can rip off.

Well, you could start with filling your own tables, and by posing your questions in a reasonable manner without 3 limit-hitting posts of nonsense before it.

There's lots of story generators out there you could steal lines from. You could also watch some early Naruto for basic ninjas-doing-ninja-things plots. But of course, we can't really suggest much because it's not clear what these plots are intended for or how they interact with the rest of the rules.

People were hating on the thought, but is using a d30 single dice back bone for game that bad?

I've noticed a couple of styles of games, the rpg imagination games, and the dicey system type games. My goal is to reduce the need to interrupt gameplay but still maintaining the flexibility for complexity using tables.

Thoughts?

let's flip the question: Why would a d30 be better?

It's bad because who the fuck has d30s lying around?

Unless you're also selling/providing the physical pieces for your game, try to keep it to things people will have on hand. If you're just using it for tables, why not use the sum of more commonly available dice, or a 2d/3d table? (i.e. instead of refer to position d30, refer to position [d8,d8] on table number d4.)

Sentinels of the multiverse? I just looked it up.

The gist is a traditional BBEG conquering the world scenario, except the BBEG starts with humble beginnings. Like a hidden underground base and a handful of lackeys. As the player you have to use dirty tactics to take over the kingdom or whatever. I thought if there was guerrilla warfare would be an easy parallel to what i wanted.

I imagined this as a board game but i plan to make it a digital single-player game eventually, so I could do stuff like having big enemy units and stealthy player units hidden in the same region.

But SotM looks neat. One of the problems I was having was deciding how the enemy would behave. I've seen "AI decks" in other games before but I haven't considered it. Maybe it would be easier to design as a card game.

Well, it can be any sort of game, but with the "AI" being handled by randomly drawn cards that refer to eachother or what-have-you. But it could just as easily be something like a flowchart with coin flips at branches, or a series of weighted dice rolls referring to a table.

Stealth is hard to do on a tabletop, though, since there's necessarily visible pieces for the "stealthed" units.

I'm not disagreeing and appreciate your feed back.

I do like the idea of flat odds across 30 choices, but you do have a point where an electronically distributed game needs to take advantage of what players should have on hand.

You may want to advice players to keep a smartphone on hand with Random.org open, then. With some (re?)tooling, you could make it a focus of the game to use digital dice (or maybe even some of the other random.org widgets, whether remade by you or available on their site or whatever) since it's not unreasonable to assume that between a whole RPG group, at least one of them has a tablet they can connect to the internet somehow.

Wondering if anyone knows a good system for simulating mass combat in an RPG I can rip off. Preferably one that allows for more complexity than this stack has x attributes, this one has y attributes now we mash the two together, but also isn't a full blown wargame.

I'm looking to make a system where the PCs in combat are just another guy and the battle raging around them isn't directly in their hands(though as leaders the decisions they take should still have weight). That way PCs can get involved in the scrum but behind the scenes the GM can resolve the battle through this system and use it to direct the role playing experience.

Suppose difficulty is measured on a scale of 1 to 6, 1 being a 100% chance of success and 6 being a 0% chance of success.

What would you consider acceptable chances of success for the remaining four difficulties? What should a 2 or 5 look like?

Why not just use D10/D100 systems?

>just finished working on a game project
>there is no way to get it produced or even looked at by a game company

guess i'll start on another project...

I want to use d6 exclusively as that is the most common die. You roll a number of d6 and keep the highest; if it exceeds the target number, you pass the check. Therefore, difficulty must be measured on a scale of 1 to 6 (or perhaps 0 to 7).

The problem is that 3d6, which was my initial idea, has a 70% chance of producing a result of at least 5, thus making most checks trivially easy.

Why not brush it up and release a preview version as a print-and-play?

...

once you let the cat out of the bag there isn't really anyway to protect it, which means there is little incentive for a company to pay for the rights.

There's plenty, you're just not trying. If another kind user would be willing to provide links, there's some "lower quality" game companies that'll print out what you made. Basically just need to pitch it and have prototypes. The same deal with bigger companies, could even throw something at the monopoly guy if you really try instead of whine on here.

Mail it to yourself. Official, government date on it will prove without a doubt you have the original copy on it.

that would copyright the specifics of the game but do nothing to prevent a company from taking the core mechanics and making a knock-0ff. in order to prevent somebody stealing you concept you need to patent the core mechanics which requires you to hire a patent attorney.

that is a great way to copyright something specific like a novel though.

i would love a list of smaller game companies. i've already sent a prototype to the bigger ones and pitches to all of the others i could find.

I just threw out an idea. Maybe just run a patent for it then. Not gonna dig my brain for formalities and lingo for you, as you're the one producing the game.

I'll stop being a dick and try to find a couple links. Something makes me feel like it'd be dope seeing a Veeky Forums board game pop up. Has that happened before? Have we actually gotten something published?

I'll give you two things right now.
amherstlodge.com/games/reference/gameinvented.htm this website seems to go through the ins and outs of creation, publishing, blah blah blah, of specifically board games.

After that, I know it's shitty and obvious, but you could always go Kickstarter. Get that Kickstarter cash, get those Kickstarter taxes, and either bank roll with fake announcements or you now have the funding to get your shit published.

yeah kickstarter is the last thing i wanna do but it does seem to work

Kickstarter would be if you want to be able to broaden the game. Don't know what you have already but it's a good way to get funds not only to publish the game but maybe add miniatures, expansions, and so on.

So, I see a couple things for Atlas Games and Stonemaier. As they actually have a page for submitting.
Here's another helpful website. jamesmathe.com/courting-a-game-publisher-dos-and-donts/

thanks a lot man. there are some companies listed here that i don't know about.

I demand a handful of domino coupons as payment.

gimme yer name/initials and i'll put em in the special thanks and send you a free game + my first born child

FYI you can't patent game mechanics.

You can patent the setting, you can patent the name of the game engine, you can patent the way you exactly describe the mechanics and the name of the mechanic itself (ala wizards patenting "tapping" cards) but there is literally 0 you can do to patent a mechanic in spirit. Don't sweat it.

Would re rolling for initiative after every round break the flow of the game? Or would the feeling of going last then first be a good enough feeling to a player that they would look forward to it?

If people are rolling initiative, attack, and damage all in the same hand, then combat will probably flow pretty well.

If they have to first roll initiative, have it recorded, then organize into order, roll attack, see if it hits, see if it beats AC, then roll damage, and then apply modifiers, all while fitting in situational changes where applicable, then combat might be sluggish.

It's a slight mix, initiative then everything else in one action. The thought is that I want to give them a moment to think about what they should do on their turn (They have 4 skills that they can use) Thanks for the response.

Which is actually weird, because somehow my systems usually fall flat when there are more than 2 people in combat. I just somehow always double down on dueling.

I'd like to make separate rules for dueling (Akin to L5R's Iaijutsu), but then I would probably have more care for that than regular combat, making the system itself lopsided. Argh, this is somewhere about third or fourth time I've later noticed how my systems break down in non-1v1 combat.

I don't even know where my subconscious focus on dueling comes from. *shrugs*

Actually, here is my new sheet...

I was wondering whether I should get rid of the whole backstory / background / occupation system (My workaround for skills), simply because it just adds arbitrary +3s to the system and just makes it harder.

I ain't gonna implement skills, either, so I'm thinking going the super-simple way, called multiple attribute-style.

By that I mean you just choose (Or the GM decides) two attributes you use for the roll. To make it more fair against 2d12 roll under, I could make it a main stat x 2 + support stat x 1.

Meaning if you, for example, roll STRENGTH + TOUGHNESS with respective stats as 5 and 7, you roll against 5+5+7 = 17. If there are additional modifiers add / subtract those.

And yes, I know that my sheet is rather messy as of now.

I want to publish something like a gamebook or adventure path, but I sort of have pre-generated characters in mind.
Is that a thing people usually like in gamebooks, or should I just write a shitty video game?

thats called a novel

I had hoped it wouldn't come to that, but I suppose you're right.

I'm working on a Megaman X homebrew, but all I have is a vague idea of the direction I want character creation to go. If anyone wants me to post that, I will.

I'm looking through the resource links in OP, but mainly what I need help with is an efficient, possibly quick way to crunch numbers from dice, because I'm terrible at math.

Things like: how many successes (results that are 7+) will I get on average from a dice pool of 7d10.

How much damage do you get on average in 5th edition D&D from having your crit range increased to 19.

Not looking for answers to those specific questions, but a nudge in the right direction for how to find those answers on my own, whether you're suggesting math formulae, or a website where I can just punch that shit in, etc.

I forgot the particulars of combinatorics a while back, but I can try to find you your successes answer.

Post it. I'm interested in reading what you have

Following up to :
I don't remember the particulars, but I'm enough of a programmer to give you an easily copyable Java program that basically brute forces it for you so you don't have to actually learn combinatorics and I don't have to remember it.
If another programmer can tell I messed up somewhere here, feel free to tell me- I've been a bit off of my game today.
Copy the following into tutorialspoint.com/compile_java_online.php, replacing the given text:

public class HelloWorld{
public static void main(String[] args){
int eqorhigh = 7;//Greater than or higher than 7
int temp = 0;//initialized here, used later
int tot = 0;//Used to count up all successes
for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++){//number of trials to get stats on our side
for (int j = 0; j=eqorhigh){
tot++;
}
}
}
double fin = ((double)tot)/10000;
System.out.println(tot);//Print total successes
System.out.println(fin);//Print average successes per roll
}
}

The answer is ~2.8, by my reckoning, which makes sense, given that it's about a 40% chance for a success on any given roll and 40% of 7 is 2.8.
That's a much more intuitive answer, and it works for most but it may get clumsy when you use odd numbers or really big ones, so you might as well switch one number and run it again to compare pool size and TNs.

Thank you! Much appreciated. I can also learn to mess around with it for whatever other numbers I need to crunch.
Alright. I'll also take whatever feedback is offered, or suggestions on places to derive inspiration from.

Character Creation (Reploid Creation) is meant to seem more like you're building a computer or an Armored Core than a character.

Starting out would be Base Frame choice. Right now there's Light, Medium, and Heavy. Frame choice comes with stat requirements, stat upper limits, and also help determine what upgrades and modifications you qualify for. Also determines base speed. Vague example: Heavy frames require a certain amount of Structural Integrity, start with lower speed, and allows you to carry around huge weapons.

Next is Hardware. Hardware covers physical stats, integrated equipment (Busters if you choose to have one), and upgrades. Physical stats are tentative, but will be something like Precision(Close), Precision(Far), Structural Integrity, and Agility.

Software includes mental/social stats and skills. Right now, there are only WoD placeholser stats. During Reploid Creation, Hardware draws from a different pool of points than Software. The reason for this is because in a game like Megaman, players should not have to choose between effectiveness in combat and what they can do outside of combat.

Finally, there are Upgrades. These help round out or specialize a reploids's physical capabilities. There are upgrades for Head, Torso, Arms, and Legs. Head upgrades tend to grant abilities related to scanning, analyzing, and scouting/mapping. Torso upgrades offer both offensive and defensive capabilities, like shoulder mounted cannons, or thermal resistant armor coating. Arm upgrades are almost always offensive in nature. Better busters, weapon arm replacements, and more niche things like collapsible rocket arms to punch people from forever away. For Leg upgrades, there are options for mobility and defense/stability.

You're welcome. Like I said, I'm off my game- J should be the number of dice per pool.
I'm gonna pack it in. Your concept sounds nice, though.

>but I sort of have pre-generated characters
Don't books filled with pre-generated characters sell reasonably well?
Like those pathfinder books filled with NPCs you can use

Anydice.com is literally linked in the OP.

>how many successes (results that are 7+) will I get on average from a dice pool of 7d10.
anydice.com/program/198f

>How much damage do you get on average in 5th edition D&D from having your crit range increased to 19.
anydice.com/program/8cb5
This one might be a little harder to follow, it has one function which determines whether or not an attack hits or crits (0 miss, 1 hit, 2 crit) and then a damage function which calls it. I'm sure you can work it out.

If it's a tabletop, make a tabletop simulator or print and play version.

If it's an RPG release a pdf version here and on RPG drive thru.

Make sure you have a twitter or website for the game.

Shill like a motherfucker

Float the idea of physical versions to your audience. Start a kickstarter to fund your first print run. If it's still selling well approach larger corp chains like Forbidden planet or travelling man and work out a deal to sell copies to them for high street sales.

>Shill like a motherfucker

Different user but that's the hard part.

>Make weapon and armour system I'm really happy with
>Can make very detailed weapons and then reduce them to simple palm sized cards for play or as a footnote on your sheet
>Combat system breaks down in non-duel situations
McFucking Kill Me Fampai

simple solution: all group combats are simply a series of duels, setting follows movie rules where every mook politely waits their turn to have their ass handed to them by a hero

I was considering that but I was always considering of just going the Hotline Miami route and just making it a slaughterfest till they hit their rivals who are dueling characters.

My only issue is if a lazy DM decides "I only need one OP character to make a good rival" instead of focusing on the rivals being an opposing party which at that point kinda kills it dead because either that character will faceroll the players or get facerolled in turn.

I'm kinda half tempted at this point to completely just rip it apart and scavenge what I can and do over. A high success rate roll under d100 game seemed like a good idea at the start but I'm kinda scared of roll bloat or players ganging up on characters and using their abilities to gangbang the fuck out of them. But I suppose that kinda works?

I could even make my own roller app....

awww shit..

Still working on Dragon Forest!

I'm taking a new approach to 4E D&D's roles.

Each class has two of five possible 'positions' available to it (Defense, Support, Control, Physical Strike, and Magic Strike.)
Each character has 1~3 character classes, so your character will have 2~5 positions available to them.
Everybody chooses their position from among those available to them during the setup phase of combat, and may change their position as a minor action.
If there are only two PC's conscious or present, then they can each select up to two positions from among those available to them and fill those positions simultaneously.
If a PC ever ends up solo, they can select all positions available to them at once!

Each position grants use of a special ability appropriate to its role.
Physical Strike and Magic Strike both let you make two basic attacks as part of the same action.
Defense lets you impose a -2 penalty and make a free attack against enemies that attack non-defense position allies.
Support lets you heal a single target as a minor action twice (limit twice per encounter).
Control gives enemies in your aura a penalty to defenses and saves.

if every roll has the same amount of dice and the same dificullty, of course they are all going to have the same degree of dificulty, which by the standards you provided are quite easy...d6 vs difficulty is only relevant when you work with dice pools and number of sucesses (you need 4 successes in 6d6)

As you said, your character sheet is a bit messy, but I like its concept.

About keeping only attributes-only rolls, I'm against it as a design choice for TTRPGs, since it decreases the number of mechanically different characters.

Ops, you can also do sum of d6 against difficulty (3d6 being the best in terms of low number and a good probability curve)

Find the reason why it breaks in such situations and develop an alternative solution...
my problem was action/reaction order, so I decided to a speed pool that decreases with actions taken, whereas the player with the most speed have to act first and a player is only allowed a reaction if either: he is the target of said action, or if his speed score is above active player after-action score

bump