Game Design General /gdg/

Also: Car Wars, obviously.

exhaustion is not a great mechanic. systems have implemented before but it adds just bookkeeping when players want action. it ends up preventing you from doing cool stuff.

>Today's query: Have you ever tried turning a vidya mechanic to TRPG:s. How successful were you?

Not at all successful, RTS and RPG do not mix.

I am making an RPG where you work as members of a village trying to restore society. Think post-Black Plague except with zombies and other undead. So in addition to the character there is a sheet for the village, it's population, how many trained soldiers you have, what buildings you have, etc.

So you can build a library for +1 morale and also let the Wizard learn 3 spells during a month of downtime instead of two. And a steelguard (fighter class) can spend a month in downtime to train X number of soldiers to make them better against raids.

Issues I am running into:

> making a "merchant" class viable
> figuring out how to make food tracking / drought effects work, I don't want this to be an RTS like it used to be where you had to track input from farms each month, move un-fed people to the "starving" column, etc.. I want to minimize the bookkeeping, besides tracking new buildings and population.
> currently an alchemist can spend 1 month in downtime and roll an Alchemy check and spend the result as his "points" to craft items. How do I reconcile this with an alchemist who just wants to craft one item? Or non-alchemists crafting items, who still have points in Alchemy?

I'll post my PDF in case you need context (which you probably do). Sorry I know that's a faux pas.

Its only a faux pas if you dump a full pdf and just go "Have at it".

Fair enough

Bump from page 10

>mechanic for dubs
I like it. Depressing as fuck.

heh. Thanks.

>it ends up preventing you from doing cool stuff.

That can be said of any rules system that has any negative effect on the PCs.

I mean, I agree with you in this specific context, but "preventing you from doing cool stuff" needs to be further specified with relation to the game's goals before it's used as a criterion.

bump

STAY ALIVE GAME DESIGN GENERAL

DO NOT DIE ON ME

The problems with exhaustion stuff is how hard it is to strike that balance between too punishing and being negligible.

A good merchant should be a good appraiser (and thus, could have really good Perception skills, as they need to be able to identify objects of value), as well as the ability to read people, so maybe that's in the game.

You could also take some inspiration from Bethesda RPGs: traders in a dangerous land always have a retinue of guards around them. You don't have a sort of "minion lord" class, so you could have the merchant hire and maintain a crew of (kinda crap compared to equivalent PCs) NPCs that they order around.

As far as making a food storage mechanic, how would you feel about making it a sort of pass/fail system around a single, heavily abstracted diceroll. Every *INSERT SIGNIFICANT UNIT OF TIME HERE*, you roll a roll at TN 9. Every new food-producing resource grants a constant reduction of 1 to this TN. Significant one-time gains will offer a TN reduction of 1 for this roll alone. Population gives a flat increase to TN based on broad ranges (50-100 person populations give +1 TN, or whatever). If you succeed the roll, you didn't starve, and one of your food resources is consumed. If you fail, you're starving. Or something.

Downloaded all of them, I'll scour them through at some point.

Merchants need contacts. Regular customers are essential.

Still working on Dragon Forest! An idea I had today:

>Horror
If you kill a creature in combat, you gain one point of Horror at the end of combat for every one of your Doom points the GM spent to initiate the combat scene.

>Despair
If one of your allies falls during a combat scene, you gain one point of Despair at the end of the combat scene for every one of your Dooms point the GM spent to initiate the combat scene.

>Shame
If you flee from combat, you gain one point of Shame for every one of your Doom points the GM spent to initiate the combat scene.

>Limits
You take certain penalties when your Horror exceeds your Constitution, your Despair exceeds your Wisdom, and your Shame exceeds your Charisma.
Still trying to suss these out.

>Curses
Each of your curses is keyed to Horror, Despair, or Shame. Whenever the GM spends your Doom points to activate your curses, you gain that may points of whichever type is keyed to that curse.

>Regret
At the end of the game session, the GM spends all of your Horror, Despair, and Shame points, and you gain half that many Doom points.

>Redemptions
Characters have special abilities called Redemptions. These allow you to spend Horror, Despair, and Shame points during rest scenes in order to gain special benefits including hero points.
Still trying to suss these out.

>Rations
You can reduce your Horror, Despair, and Shame scores by consuming rations.

Your thoughts?

Looks a bit like Apocalypse World: I'm still in love with D20 Edition. Referring both to the typesetting aesthetic (are you putting those page numbers in the table of contents in by hand? You poor thing), the modifiers everywhere and the narrative player-agency mechanics in settlement generation but nowhere else.

YES!

I have completed my system. For the first time in ages, I can say that I am ready. It is 19 pages unformatted, with some extras like NPC design on the side. Probably going to need some more vocabulary explanations, but those are fucking minor.

But those are just the generalized rules, now starts the real deal, making the rules for all setting-specific things.

I have talked in detail about my system in previous threads, but I seriously can't believe that it's ready to be tested out.

Speaking of vidya mechanics, anyone know a good way to make a stat progression system (like, skyrim or oblivion) or games that do that already?

As in, instead of buying points ahead you do shit and grow those stats after a while of doing that shit

"Planning ahead" doesn't sit quite well among my group because it often leads to stats that are left forever unused

Call of Cthulhu and Harnmaster do that with skills. It's gud.

I made a system where you used the absolute difference of you roll compared to a TN to determine how much "skill experience" you got. I forget the exact way I phrased it (and all that old stuff is on another hdd), but at its core if you rolled right near the TN, regardless of whether you passed or failed, you would get the most skill xp. If you rolled way off of the TN either because the TN was too high (too challenging) or you beat the TN by too much (too easy), you'd end up getting very little or no skill xp.

I don't know what CoC or Hamm do, but one of these options should be able to work.

Something where every time they use a skill during a session, it is recorded, to their sheet even. And at the end of the session, they level up the skills they have used the most?

Another idea would be a divisible dice pool, where characters have a static amount of dice for each scene (Say, 10) and the skill level is really just the maximum they can use to a singular roll. So if someone has lockpicking at 3, they can use 3 dice on every roll of lockpicking, but they don't have to.
Then, the amount of dice they use to each skill in a session is recorded, and they get exp based on the dice used.

Throwing around random ideas.

Could you post your survival mechanics? I've been struggling to make them compelling and fun, rather than bookkeeping and frustrating for the players.

A start could be rewarding people for eating hot, tasty meals, getting good sleep, staying hydrated, etc. Rather than just having penalties.

Whoops. Without even realizing, my system's many mechanics are amazingly similarly themed as Exalted 3rd:s. Well, taking into account that it has been my main game to GM for a year now must have affected that.

Ironically, my systems are like grotesque reimaginings that start from the same place, but end somewhere else entirely. Weird.

>Two types of damage, other representing disadvantage in fight and other the actual wounds
>Social combat
>Weapon tag system
>Every roll is two stats + modifiers
>You get bonus points in the end of character creation (I'm probably changing it to experience though)
>Ability to 'push' rolls
>Abstracted resource system
>Mental damage
>Stats are basically from 1-5, with the ability to go beyond
>Bonuses from explaining actions thoroughly (Though epicness is not a trait in my system)
>Passive defensive values

But oddly, I feel nothing about it. My system utilises every single part of these systems in the opposite direction than Exalted, which just kind of confuses me. It's like I took the name of a mechanic and just twisted and turned it until it's basically an entirely different thing. They might sound similar, but they just don't match.

Well, all the core rules of my system fit in 15 pages, letter, so they're bound to be different. 15 pages is barely half of Exalted's character creation!

So, uhh. Have you ever noticed strong influences in your games that, in the end, turned out to be entirely different in your game?

>game design general
>nobody designs games

A tabletop RPG framework is not a game.
Please refrain from posting off-topic.

how serious are you about making your game? also why are you making it?

fuck off

Post PDF. I want to see social combat and weapon tags.

Name one interesting, difficult, or novel decision your "game" offers to players that is not duplicated by 95% of TRPG systems

>you can't

Very, very serious. I am making it because I think I have something worthwhile to give to the general gaming public.

It would be stupid to do that here. You will find out about it in publication.

Hahaha oh wow

Let me guess
You've invented the D19 System

you don't have to make something new for it to be good or successful. you are just showing how stupid you are. shitpost somewhere else.

>you don't have to make something new for it to be good or successful.

No.

But you do have to be "designing" something new to be "designing" it. Otherwise you're not "designing" it, you're "copying" it.

You'll note that this is "Game Design General", and not, "Game Plagiarism General"

Actually, continuing on that. I know I ask this in every third fucking thread with a new one, but any opinions about how my sheet WIP looks?

I can explain any individual mechanics in case they are needed.

I put serious hours to my work, from 3-12 hours a day on average. Constantly rethinking, compressing my system to get it in the shape I want... Which I just today did. The core rules are in a very compressed, 10-15 page booklet when it's in the final formatted form. My plan is to publish the game with several settings, the design of which I have already started.

I have two reasons for making my current game: to eventually publish it (I am heir to a publishing house), and more importantly, because I wanted to special-tailor a game to my tastes. A game not too complex, but a game that has tons of depth. And in it's current form, I feel like I have gotten really close, now only lacking playtesting and and some formatting to perfect it.

learn to use dictionary mutant

should itn be int? what is tou and com?

I offer the same problem found in
to you.

As a game consumer, I can tell you that a game is only interesting to me if MOST of the decisions offered to the player are new and challenging.

If your system is distinctly similar to others that already exist, it is merely a vanity piece and likely undeserving of being put to pixel or ink.

I enjoy your baseless mockery. Keep guessing.

Well, to be commercially successful, this is a great boon. At least if that's something in demand. But he's a shitposter anyway.

You don't get to define when something is different enough to substantiate the term invention instead of plagiarism. I get you're bored and want some attention. Here. Now bugger off, troll.

The voice of ONE potential customer has been duly taken note of and been given its proper relevance. Thank you for your feedback, user.

> decisions offered to the player are new and challenging
example pls

Sure, it's pretty messy as of now, but here goes...

Social combat BTW is just another facet of regular combat. It is not specially created to have unique mechanics, like Exalted's. It works on the same mechanics, but as my combat (Or conflict as I call it in the system) it's kind of a weird way to do it.

The Weapon tags are explained in detail though.

Use the table of contents, the conflict rules are their own chapter, and equipment rules are found before them.

It's Intuition, so I wanted to differentiate it from Intelligence. That's why it's Itn. If it was Int many players would assume it's intelligence.

Tou is Toughness, and Com is Composure.

I do not understand your philosophy. That would mean that you cannot play any vidya (Cuz they're all the same game eh?), you cannot play any boardgame twice, you don't benefit anything from that sort of thinking.

What is it that you seek, really? That no one should make games because everything has been done? I can give you examples, but they won't satisfy you, because you are not a person to be satisfied.

In my game, you cannot beat a dragon with a sword, unless you manage to find and hit the squishy parts. Using a weapon suited for hunting a dragon fares you much better.
Beating a plate-armored knight is very difficult unless you outmaneuver and grapple him down. Raising his visor while he's on the ground beneath you works wonders compared to trying to hit through his plate armor.
Most encounters with humans are optimally worked around by beating them and socially maneuvering them away, instead of going through the motions of killing them. Killing people is a hassle.

That's how my game works. The meaningful and novel choices come from the fact that in very few situations, simply causing wounds and trying to kill the enemy is the optimal way to play. There. That's my game.

Whoops, there's some old formatting. My regular damage was called strain before, so don't be confused by that. It's just damage. Also, round actions are reset after everyone agrees to it.

>What is it that you seek, really?

I want these threads to be more interesting than discussions over rehashing dice & combat systems for the billionth time.

And sometimes, they are.

While hardly new, Dread would be an example of a TRPG which offers gameplay radically different from the dogmatic dicefests commonly regurgitated here.

What do you guys use to create your documents? I've been considering learning how to use Latex, do any of you think it's worth learning over LibreOffice?

I've been writing several homebrew systems all with the same base mechanics (all using a dice pool system I designed called PiPs). I however really need to finally decide on which one to move forward with.

Because to a large degree people will base these solely on the name alone I think the best place to start is with names. Which one of these sounds the most interesting?

>Blorg's Ultimate Survival Climax
>The Practitioner's War
>A Guide to Primitives
>Beneath the Wall

I just downloaded Adobe Indesign Illegally,, works like wonders. Using it currently to both align my texts and my sheets.

Of course, when time comes for real business, I will just join Creative Cloud and pretend nothing happened.

>dogmatic dicefests
do you miss forge a lot?

>Beneath the Wall

D&D 5th edition has made a shitton of cash. Do you know what that means? Most people want the same shit.

But I can understand what you mean, in some respects. Even though OSR games, for example, differ somewhat from more modern games (at least in application), RPG:s have been more or less stagnant quite the while.

But gdg has nothing to do with it. There is as much work in mastery as there is in innovation. Though, without wanting to sound like I'm honking my own horn, I am currently designing a game that incorporates fucking around with timelines a'la Zero Escape series, with the main idea to draw a large "time-map" (Meaning a branching history path) to the middle of the table, however possible.

The idea is, that the dice (3d10), give a 1/1000 chance to roll 3 zeroes. The point in the game is that instead of rolling and adding the dice up, you calculate the digital root of the dice. 3 zeroes is the only case of a thousand where the calculation's endpoint is 0. And zero-critical is absolutely something to witness. One single crit might change the entire world upside-down.

But what is the point of a critical success system if the chances to get it are absolutely abysmal?

The secret is that traveling to alternate timelines where you succeeded with the criticals exist.

That's my side-project as of now. I am finishing my "stagnant" game because I feel the inspiration for it. It creates opportunities for GM's to literally ask the players for a difficulty, but the difficulty coming from tactics rather than numbers, as it should in any game worth its salt. It is designed for running games first, because the system is basically subversion of most RPG:s. Almost no systems really work like you'd expect them to, all to simplify the game further, to make it possible for it to have depth while still having a low learning curve.

Agreeing with ,
>Beneath the Wall

Heh. Fair enough. It's meant to marry Epic 6 and old-school-roleplay kind of feels. I want it to be a fairly low-powered game where trading is a viable way for PCs to earn money, things aren't quite so epic, and a village actually matters. Basically the 3.5 campaign I was going to run with Epic 6 and the Arms and Equipment Guide for commodities trading.

And yes I am doing the table of contents numbers by hand because every time I do sections in Open Office it fucks up hard.

These are some good ideas. Dunno about the starvtion check but I might integrate that somehow as a way of handling food.

>Open Office

What does everyone use for typesetting?

LaTeX is so beautiful and does so much for you. I can never go back to a WYSIWYG editor.

user go home, you're drunk.

>D&D 5th edition has made a shitton of cash. Do you know what that means? Most people want the same shit.

A game making money means people bought it, doesn't say anything about what they want or if they liked it. There's correlation, sure, but that's not the same thing.

It's especially important for indie RPGs to do something to stand out from the crowd.

>RPG:s have been more or less stagnant quite the while.
>do you miss forge a lot?
Dunno about that user, but I sure do.

Scribus. It's the freeware version of InDesign.

I don't want radically different. I like RPGs as a hobby. I want significant improvements and I think my game can deliver.

Bump from the dead! I have finalized my sheet. The sheet is quite compact, so I believe I will have to do a more spacey version for those people who have bigger handwriting and such.

Any comments? I think the sheet itself looks pretty good, but some elements might be confusing.

Again, if there are questions (Such as what abbreviations mean) I am open to them.

Why is status effects in a rounded box while everything else is in a square box?

Mainly I did that because I wanted to emphasize the connection to the Wound-circles that are just above it. Though, I made another version where all boxes look similar.

Hmm... I'm wondering if I should try to somehow emphasize the connection between stat upkeep and the experience, because it's an important connection.