Remember to answer more questions than you ask edition, the healthier these threads are the more likely you'll be able to get help and commentary when you want it, and they haven't been looking so good for a while.
Bonus question: >Who has read more than 5 games before starting to make their own DnD clone?
Daniel Evans
Anyone else obsessed with messing around with dice mechanics on anydice to find the perfect curve for your game?
I'm kinda losing my religion right now with mine. Its a dice pool system, counting dice past a target number as successes, and I was pretty happy with where I got it. But after some playtesting I've become unsatisfied with the small range of viable difficulties is allows for and the need to keep pools small for practicality. Furthermore, reading up on systems like ORE and Legends of the Wulin has made me feel like I'm settling for far less than I should for a dice mechanic. Simple pass/fail rolls don't contribute as much to game-play as alternative possibly could.
Does anyone else know any odd dice mechanics to look at for inspiration?
Grayson Cook
Probably to this day I have only read 5 systems through before making my own mishmash of several systems with some unique mechanics.
I have some steep problems, but it's not because of my system. It's because of playtesting. I can't playtest properly because I stress about GMing too much. I can barely GM once a week and even then I'm exhausted.
I even made my own system compatible with my own GMing style to ease the burden of the GM and thus, mine. But then my playtester asked for maps and I'm fucking stuck in a rut. I can't make maps for the life of me.
Instead I'm downloading pro architecture programs to try to create a wireframe of one locale that I want to be perfect... Which isn't even in the setting I'm GMing currently!
Bentley Perez
I started my project without having really grasped that many systems, and while it never was really a dnd clone it certainly suffered from a lot of non-optimal assumptions about the way a game should be built. Over the years I've been working on Mortal Core, however, my understanding of varied systems has increased massively and I constantly find myself reworking the most basic parts of the system. See
Gabriel Thomas
Me. Reading helped realise that I ultimately didn't want a D&D clone, but it also crippled my drive to make the game after seeing so many different ideas.
Jaxon Myers
Legends of the Wulin has a really cool dice mechanic and I want to steal it but I have no fucking clue how to calculate its probabilities, especially with secondary sets for bonus actions and the ability to opt for single-die results if you want to boost your bonus action.
Maybe instead of making a new system I should just take an editing knife to LotW and make a comprehensible PDF version. I've always been better at editing than actually making content.
Gavin Lopez
Odd dice mechanics?
Don't rest your head has a decent one, where there are multiple colors of dice used, and the color that had the highest die (usually a six) dominates that action.
Inspired by that (I'm throwing this from the fly), you could do a 2dX system with a white die and a black die. If both dice go over the DC, you succeed without a sweat. If only black or white is over the DC, something relevant to that die happens, such as mental strain or the like.
But that's just an example.
Liam Peterson
Do you guys design for the fun of designing or do you aim to comerciallize your game? I reluctant to invest myself in designing a game if there is no interest.
Chase Rodriguez
Its mostly a hobby, but one that I look to commercialize. Used to homebrew shit for shits and giggles, but realized I really enjoyed it, so thought "Why not?"
Carson Phillips
I design hoping that someone will play it and be just as stoked about it as I am, if it happened to be cool enough to commercialize then that would be neat. But it isn't really what I'm aiming for.
Carson Moore
I've thought about a lot of interesting systems that would use unique dice or even an abacus, but ultimately I don't want to go with anything that would require players to have special materials on hand just to play the game.
The best unique, odd idea I've had so far involved playing cards (originally tarot cards, but I abandoned that line of thought due to the above reason), but unfortunately playing cards don't really fit the flavor of a space opera game, and further having to shuffle and deal the deck constantly would take forever compared to die rolls.
Lucas Nelson
Space western game, then?
Jordan Cook
Designing games is an addiction to me, but I plan to utilize this addiction by putting it on sale, and using my experience on this game design front to forge a path to a more alive venue - the video game market. Designing games, while somewhat different on the programming platform, is still at the heart of what I plan to do.
Though, given the option, I would probably enjoy designing tabletop games more full-day, but video games are pretty damn neat, too.
All that would require is some way to divide the dice. They can be two different colors, they can be determined by which one is closer to GM, by anything, really. If the rules say "use two different colors of dice", it does not mean that any other way of divvying up the dice are not valid.
But I digress. Another one I just came up could be "aiming" with the 2dX. If you aim high only the higher die is counted, and if you aim low, the lower die is counted. Why would they aim low, then? Rolling 1 could simply be a bad roll, but 6 could do something nasty to your character, like being a self-destructive success. Something nasty enough that aiming high is a serious risk. Rolling boxcars (double 6) could seriously be dangerous to the character, albeit being a crit, and snake eyes (double 1) would be a critical fail.
I'm just throwing ideas around, don't mind me.
Sebastian Rogers
I'm trying to figure out how to change this clusterfuck into something more usable as a board game. The idea is base building, and completing missions to grow your base. I want it to be a cooperative board game, though I may be able to manage it as a single player RPG.
For a while, I'd ditched this whole thing and started with a new theme of running guilds (the fantasy version of a PMC), with more focus on a cooperapetative aspect. Players would work together to keep the game from ending early, but only one of them could win. Ultimately I decided to go full co-op and go back to the original theme, since I really wanted the focus to be on building a base. I may go back and add a competitive mode where each player/team is building their own base, but that's later on the table.
Current ideas are taking inspirations from: -- Dead of Winter -- Eldritch Horror -- Pathfinder Adventure Card Game -- XCOM the board game -- Magic: the Gathering (though maybe less so moving back to the original theme) -- And of course MGS Portable Ops through Phantom Pain.
A lot of people homebrew for their group, and want to release it to the public (for free) so that it gets more use. Other people tend to want to release it to the public for PWYW or a bit of dosh so that they can at least get a bit of spending cash for their hard work.
But frankly you'll never see anyone in these threads get super successful, even if some people do hope to one day do kickstarters.
Nicholas Morris
So I've been thinking about game scenarios. Right now, the system I have is players roll for a main objective they all share, standard wargame set-ups; kill the enemy, capture the flag, king of the hill, etc. And then there's secondary that are for each player, things that award less VPs for completing; nominate a model as a champion that scores points, score points for models that get across the board, etc.
The system I have for the secondaries is you generate a pool and players take turns picking from them. But another one I've thought is players roll for a few of them, 3 or 4, and choose 2 in secret. So your opponent has an idea of what your plan may be, but its still an unknown. Thoughts?
Liam Peterson
The setting, which is actually more important to me than the mechanics due to writing projects I'm working on in parallel, is post-singularity space opera where the descendants of the tiny fraction of humans who turned down apotheosis-through-technological-singularity live in a rather optimistic post-apocalyptic scifi setting in which "human nature" is a force of physics as real as gravity due to the latent, passive presence of the omnipotent ascended humans, generally manifesting as a bending of reality towards storylogic, archetypes, and various empathic conventions. I'm calling it Mortal Core (by the way I'm probably going to be a frequent poster around here, how should I go about adding MC to the project list in the OP?)
I liked playing cards because they could not only give out numerical data for the normal uses (drawing 1-10 + assigned values with extra mechanics like extra draws for face cards would basically be the same as rolling dice for those results) but would also assign a value to HOW the action occurs, colored by suits (because storylogic is effectively manipulable magic in-setting, archetypal descriptors are in-game mechanics, such as good, evil, grit, appeal, reason, or enigma. Suits could show how the fight was progressing aesthetically, so that players could react accordingly for maximum benefit). But ultimately the flavor of playing cards just doesn't mesh well in my opinion, plus the time problem with shuffling and so forth.
Good points. I'll put more thought into how I might intuitively divide dice without muddying up the math too much.
What kind of story does this game tell? Or is it just meant to build a certain type of setting for a story told through a different format?
Charles Taylor
Commercial. Website going up by the end of the year.
Jordan Martinez
>What kind of story does this game tell? Or is it just meant to build a certain type of setting for a story told through a different format? It's going to be a board game about building and maintaining a Metal Gear Solid style mercenary company.
Andrew Kelly
how many people even work full-time in pen & paper? the WOTC guys, surely. also, FFG. who else?
Caleb Reed
I doubt even most WotC or Paizo people are full time. There are likely many who are, but most are probably freelance.
Depending on how you define a game, I've read five systems just counting various editions of D&D. If we count very short indie games, I've read five systems whose wordcount comes in under the 5e core books even if you don't count the Monster Manual.
Getting a standard full-time job pen&paper is extremely unlikely, but getting a decent Patreon going based on pen&paper products might be doable.
Jose Walker
Well, here's the list of games I have *played* or *run*: All editions of D&D (including BECMI and OD&D) Muliple retro-clones (inluding Dark Dungeons, Adventure Conquerer King, and Lamentations of the Flame Princess) Call of Cthulhu GURPS Hollow Earth Expedition Werewolf: the Awakening Vampire: the Masquerade Marvel Heroic Roleplaying The One Ring Warhammer Fantasy 3rd Edition Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Star Wars d20 Iron Kingdoms Legend of the Nine Rings (forgot the edition) Dragon Age Death Watch Dark Heresy Rogue Trader Night's Black Agents Unknown Armies Apocalypse World Dungeon World Dogs in the Vineyard Traveller Shadowrun 4E Eclipse Phase Nova Praxis Diaspora Burning Wheel Mouse Guard Microscope Ghost/Echo Happy Birthday Robot Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: and Other Strangeness
There's probably even a few I've played that I've forgotten.
As for games I've only *read*...
Everyone is John Noumemon Sorcerer 3:16 Lasers & Feelings Savage Worlds The Riddle of Steel Big Eyes Small Mouth Rifts Wild Talents Stormbringer Elric! Rune Quest Don't Rest Your Head Poison'd
I've also read fragmentary translations of: Nechronica Night Wizard One Way Heroics Tokyo Nova Log Horizon Alshard Kancolle rpg Meikyuu Kingdom
My ultimate goal is to play 100 different roleplaying games in my life time. I'm not sure whether editions and retro-clones should count towards that.
Chase Gomez
Didn't get any (You)s last thread so I'll try again. Anybody got ideas to fill in the blanks here? Making a JRPG inspired TTRPG and can't figure out the job combos struck out in pic related.
When I posted the original job roster here a few weeks ago, people didn't like that two jobs always made the same advanced job regardless of which was the major and which was minor. I also wanted Monk to have special jobs and didn't feel it would be right for only one major job to have unique advanced jobs, but now I feel like I'm out of design space for two of the most iconic jobs.
Basically anti-black-magic white-mages modeled on Matthew Hopkins the witchfinder general, except that they literally wield hammers. Maybe they get a 'Turn' (as in Turn Undead) ability.
>Artist White Mage + Red Mage Creates paintings.
>Gambler Black Mage + Red Mage Plays slot machines for random spell effects
>Necromancer Black Mage + White Mage
>Summoner White Mage + Black Mage
>Dragon-Mage Black Mage + Monk Transforms into a dragon
>Psion White Mage + Monk Uses psychic powers
Brody Jones
I made a thing a while back and I don't think I ever put it here. To copy from the 1d4 summary:
Once, a long time ago, Veeky Forums decided to have a gigantic argument about the correct amount of difficulty for an rpg. Many opinions were posted. At the climax of the thread, user suggested that a different user who preferred difficulty below maximum play the following:
>Princess Pillowfighter the RPG. Nobody dies, everybody wins, and you get to eat pudding.
And then a third person thought that was a great idea and made it.
To add to the 1d4 summary: It's a low combat no death rpg. The core conflict resolution mechanic is secretly bidding social capital points or confidence/willpower points, depending on the situation.
Any critique is helpful, even format stuff.
Jose Rogers
Knight vs. Swordmaster Viking vs. Pirate Ninja vs. Blackbelt Ranger vs. Beastmaster
What are the differences between these?
Dominic Barnes
Now, just for fun, I want to imagine how psionic classes would fit into this. (Not a suggestion, just musing.)
>Psion Base class
>Psi-Blade Psion + Warrior Energy Sword
>Nomad Psion + Thief Teleportation
>Egoist Psion + Monk Self-healing, self-buffing
>Medium Psion + White Mage Spiritual visions
>Fire-Starter Psion + Black Mage Pyrokinesis
>Esper Psion + Psion Telepathy
Cooper Gutierrez
These are all very good ideas, thank you!
Knight is a typical, well, knight class. He wears heavy armor, focuses on sword and shield and his abilities revolve around protecting others. Swordmaster is a lightly-armored samurai whose Bushido techniques revolve around counter attacks against opponents. The difference is between intercepting attacks against others vs harsh reprisal of attacks on yourself.
Viking is about wrecking your opponents with no holds barred gambles, while pirate is all about "turn the blade" feats of panache. The difference is between hulk smash and being rewarded for avoiding damage.
Ninja is a stealth class who Ninjutsu techniques befuddle opponents, while Blackbelt is Monk^2, switching between different styles. The difference is between stealth and confrontation.
Ranger is a traditional archer who emphasizes skill with ranged weapons, while Beastmaster is a wilderness survival expert. The difference is between an English longbowman and Grizzly Adams (PBUH).
I should note that each job is just a skill, five passive traits and a single command with five abilities. As characters master different jobs, they can mix and match which traits they use and which secondary command they have equipped.
Parker Green
I forgot to mention, if you've played Bravely Default/Bravely Second, that's kind of my model for class design. Mix and match passive traits as you level up and pick a command set from any job you've unlocked.
I've pared it down because this is going to be a pretty rules medium game (I think I could run a basic one shot with the ~15 pages I have so far if I wrote up some job content). I want to keep it pretty simple but still have room for growth. I think it will be comparable to Dungeon World in complexity.
Also nice dubtrips.
Jordan Brown
These are fun to make. :)
Here's my own interpretation.
Thomas Price
New game designer here. I'm trying to create a system inspired by heists, robberies and capers from the 70s to today. I'm taking inspiration from media like Lupin III, The Italian Job, GTA V, Resevoir Dogs, the Thief games, Casino Royale, Payday: the Heist, the Oceans 11 trilogy, and more. Games can range from one-off stick-ups to elaborate heists, involving weeks of planning and preparation, and involve planting backdoors, disabling security systems, rigging explosives and making off with millions, if not billions, and laughing all the way to the safehouse.
The problem, though, is it feels less like a homebrew and more like a cannibalized GURPS re-hash. I'm only familliar with a few RPing systems, namely Pathfinder, D&D 4th and GURPS. What can I do to make it feel unique? What tips & ideas can you tell me to make this as great as it can be?
Michael Miller
Look into Shadowrun.
Shadowrun is pretty shit, but it's completely built around heists.
Frankly, it's just a dungeon crawl where the players know the traps in advance and the trouble isn't dealing with them as they stumble into them, but planning and preparing for them.
You can also look into the Leverage RPG.
Jackson Johnson
Here's an idea:
In a game where psychic powers matter, there are five disciplines of psionics each corresponding to one of the five suits of a Zener deck (yellow circle, red cross, blue waves, black square, green star).
Characters gain psychic powers through catalyst crystals. A catalyst may be charged as psi-gamma or psi-kappa. It takes four catalyst crystals to 'activate' a level of psychic ability. The type of power gained from this activation is determined by the ratio of psi-gamma to psi-kappa catalysts used.
>Clairsentience 4:0 activation Red Cross
>Telepathy 3:1 activation Blue Waves
>Psychometabolism 2:2 activation Yellow Circle
>Psychoportation 1:3 activation Green Star
>Telekinesis 0:4 activation Black Square
Jackson Scott
You 'aren't doing anything wrong, that's just what happens when you design a system for a genre which does not emphasize system.
Jonathan Peterson
Mechanics wise,
Okay so there should be 3 kinds of enemies for your purpose. Those who are clueless, those who smell something fishy, and those who know what is up.
In a lot of situations clueless enemies don't even get checks to notice things. If every enemy was clueless then the PCs could get away with anything.
Enemies who smell something fishy are trouble. They ask questions, they look around, they get to make search checks for shit. Being suspicious is conditional; a guard who has a run-in with one PC will always be suspicious when they see that PC, but if a different PC is working them over they basically count as clueless. Sometimes suspicious people can be placated and made clueless again. E.x, the guard becomes suspicous when you can't find your fake i.d. (because a real guard accidentally picked it up thinking it was theirs, and your buddy is chasing them down to pick their pocket, but in the meantime you have to stall). While he's in suspicious mode there's a danger that he'll go through your suitcase or ask what's in the car or otherwise foil the whole plan, but once you show him what he wants or otherwise think your way out of the situation he'll probably go back to clueless. If word gets out that someone is trying to rob the place tonight, then everyone they meet is suspicious, towards everyone, all the time. But they won't be the day before or the day after.
People who know whats up are big trouble and are basically a potential TPK. Unless you bribe them, or blackmail them, or they want in on your scam and you need to find a way to get rid of them at the last second, or you manage to act first and convince their boss that they are liars and that they have it out for you, or so on and so forth.
Basically you should track the suspicious-level of all the NPCs, and a lot of the tension and excitement revolves around changes in suspicion level.
Nolan Garcia
Let me re-iterate some problems I've got right now: >balancing the weapons so they all are usable without any being too OP over similar ones >having an interesting way to procure weapons, tools, intel and armor while leaving room to restrict certain things >having a full list of clothing & armor to allow any scenario to be manageable >determining which skills are UP, OP, broken, unusable or perfect >choosing a dice system (i've got 2d10 for general rolls and a d6 for special rolls) >determining variables for certain things (weather, money avail. to steal, security, etc) to facilitate easier GMing >allowing the GM to be a GMPC without affecting the game
Thanks for the help, lads
William Cook
I love the designs for the battlesuits in Battletech; pic related.
I also love Battletech rules, they're so damn good and easy once you get the hang of them. They really emphasize the individuality of each unit, sort of how each unit is like its own character.
So I'm inspired to try to write scifi again, and I want it to mainly focus on power armor. So I decided if I put creative energies into a skirmish game it'll help flesh things out.
I want to make a game system that focuses on:
>Customizing units handled partially like 40k and partially like Battletech, you'd be able to make your own suits from scratch and/or buy upgrades for them.
>dynamic combat Like how battletech does it. multiple weapons, all with strengths and weaknesses/pros and cons shooting at the same time, melee, ect. Probably be akin to RPG combat since we're dealing with small teams of power armored individuals.
any recommendations of games I should check out that are like this?
Anthony Jackson
So in essence it's: Doesn't think that anything is going on Is trying to find out what's going on Knows what's going on
Your worst fear is that success/failure feels binary: Everything is going fine, and then someone fails a check or makes a bad decision, and now that heist is ruined. No fun. What you want is shades of gray, "This is bad news but we can still save the heist", so that things can get tense and complicated. That's where the fun is.
A lot of your game wants to live in the planning phase. Off the cuff, I'd say that if a 4 hour session was 1 heist, I would do 2 hours of planning and setup and then 2 hours for the heist. But expect the unexpected because sometimes your players will argue about a plan for 6 hours (my attitude is that this is a good thing, at least until the point where you see some players getting bored, then you need to hurry the rest of them along towards a decision).
The opposition should have multiple chances to discover the heist during the planning phase. Sometimes none of them will pick up on anything, and the PCs can go into a situation where everyone is clueless. Ideally this doesn't guarantee success, but it's like going into a dungeon with max hitpoints, you have more room to make mistakes or get unlucky.
Sometimes there are people on the inside who know your whole plan, and your only chance of success is some tenuous social engineering scheme to keep them quiet.
Sometimes it's just that one security guard who has seen the whole party, and he's REALLY out to get you because Vinny slept with his sister, but you can use that to your advantage if you're clever.
And of course sometimes you get there and you find your mole tied to a chair with no fingernails and he's like "Sorry I told them everything" and your heist is now an escape. Unless the mole didn't know your real plan and him divulging the plan was part of the plan.
Brandon Hill
Why do you need a table of weapons?
Jordan Murphy
I like variety, you can rob someone much easier if you have a gun pointed at them, law enforcement would be useless, and it wouldn't be fun if there weren't any weapons.
Unless you're talking about why there would be different versions of weapons, in which case: I like variety, some skills revolve around weapon types (revolvers, SMGs, impromptu weapons, etc.), and it's better to still have a choice of weaponry on a limited budget.
Josiah Johnson
I read 3.5 and 4e before trying to make my own LoL clone. After going through a lot of early changes, its become one of my main projects and has zero resemblance to my original inspiration.
Nolan Taylor
I design for the fun and experience, but would easily take the better ideas and commercialize them.
Jeremiah Martin
the first question for any designer is: is this a game on its own or is it merely a campaign setting? if it's the latter, it still can work as indie game if it has custom-tailored mechanics.
>Shadowrun is pretty shit dumb
>but it's completely built around heists. true. so the advice to look into shadowrun is valid. specifically look into adventures cemtered on infiltrating security, op.
Samuel Perez
also note how shadowrun isn't just heists. look into shadowrun and the way the job of infiltration of corporate buildings is framed.
Nathan White
You got 40k and Battletech down. Others I'd suggest are Heavy Gear Blitz, Horizon Wars and Infinity. /awg/ has tons of various rulesets to browse and draw inspiration from, even things that aren't strictly sci-fi could be useful for ideas.
Brody Hughes
It's got unique stats, items and dice systems, so I think it qualifies as a game.
Jaxson Gomez
Yeah, I'm looking at Warmachine now, but I'll check those ones out too. Thanks!
Lincoln Rodriguez
I had an idea that somewhat combines these two aspects.
LotW heavily features the chinese elements. Dice colors could correspond with each of the 5 elements. There could be a community pool of dice which players use to perform actions.
One idea is to have players add dice to the community pool (based on player stats, the form of action they're taking, etc) and then roll the whole pool. The quality of the result is determined by what shows up from each color (success based, element totals, w/e).
The other idea is that players instead take away from the community pool when performing an action. Other things will add to the pool so it isn't a finite resource, but the key will be to balance the resources of the pool to keep group harmony, both in and out of game.
Chase Hughes
that was not my point. the question is: should a prospective gm need learn your ruleset to play it oooooooor would it better work as a campaign setting for GURPS/Savage Worlds/FATE/whatever?
Dominic Murphy
I intend for it to have it's own campaigns, so a GM would need to learn the ruleset. I'm still not completely finished, so I could adapt the stats and items to another game to ease learning it.
Charles Long
I've played in more than 5 systems and it spurred me to ad hoc a system. Right now it's in alpha and that is why I come to you.
Several months ago I was in a thread for another game (can't remember what) and I and some other people started spitballing ideas for a "cutesy anime fantasy RPG" that is classless and uses 5 ability stats and ability "powers" tied to those stats. Thing is I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm basically an Arneson seeking my Gygax (I have a shit ton of ideas but I'm horrible at translating those to rules).
I plan to upload the stuff to Drive-Thru as a "pay as you want" eventually.
Benjamin Richardson
This is a vague idea but it sounds very very cool if it was executed well. One of those cases where you have a good thematic premise expressed in a visual/tactile way.
Justin Baker
I'm working on an inside-out 3e clone, where the rules on the player's side are completely different and a lot simpler, but it lines up numerically such that you can use 3e monsters and adventures without any changes. Has this been done before?
James Morris
It has been done a thousand times.
Logan Taylor
It's been done before but by all means, do so. Every time someone does so they introduce new ideas and new concepts that often inspire others.
Lucas King
Writing down my system nao. Guys, I need a good alternative name for Critical Succcess. Any suggestions?
Noah Adams
How about Extreme Success?
Sorry, busy trying to design my own setting right now and I'm a little out of it at the moment
Isaac Peterson
Failure To Suck
Jacob Garcia
Thematize it. For instance, Shadowrun's critical failure is a Glitch
Jacob Baker
Thank you, but does anyone have links, or names that I could google? All I've seen are alternate player's handbooks, where they have new classes and races but character building and advancement work the same way. My goal is that I'll have a stack of trait cards and you pick 3 of them and you've got a 1st-level character.
Alexander Hall
How do you implement your starting money? Do you leave it to the players to decide, or put it on a dice roll?
Daniel Ward
I don't particularly care for D&D so I can only name MicroliteD20 as the only complete one I know of, but somebody that likes D&D could probably name 20.
depends what role money plays in your game some games just accumulate currency as part of play Others give items an acquisition availability to represent expense and rarity. Representations of wealth would primarily modify that subsystem.
Juan Fisher
I think it'd help a lot if you provided some basic descriptions of what each class is intended to do as a major job and minor job, and some basic information about what the classes you already have do.
Tyler Gutierrez
Hmmm.. Crucial Success?
Critical Failure seems to be easier, I call it Fumble (an industry standard).
Dammit, user, this isn't about your experiences with your ef-girlfriend. :^)
Nathan Nelson
I second . Savage Worlds calls them Raises, Dark Heresy has Righteous Fury, In Nomine has Divine/Infernal intervention (which can be critical successes or failures depending on if you're on the same team), and so on. What's your setting?
Landon Russell
How many are too many types of ammo? I started a thread on /k/ for choosing ammo types and it boiled down to 7 different kinds for around 20 different weapons. Is that too much for a modern setting?
And on the topic of bullets, would it be better to have different bullet types deal damage, instead of relying on the type of gun?
William Cruz
How crunchy is your game, and how much importance do you want to put on ammo scarcity? If it's not terribly important, or if it's a game with a lighter set of mechanics, then there's no real point to that level of detail.
Bentley Turner
Dark Fantasy.
Henry Foster
Fated success?
Damage should be ammo based, yes, but most guns can only fire one kind of ammo so the distinction may be unnecissary unless you plan to specialize ammo with modifiers like armor peircing or hollow point or so on.
Bentley Torres
I was thinking of ammo-based damage because multiple guns can fire the same ammo but have different firing modes or effective ranges, like 9mm SMGs and handguns.
Henry Jackson
Work out a combat system first, ammo last, or you're going to spend a big amount of time just listing types.
Don't procrastinate on base combat mechanics by inventing/listing ammo types and barrel harmonics. If your base's shit, no amount of ammo flavor is gonna save it.
Liam Davis
Triumph, Victory, Masterstroke
Gabriel Adams
Sure thing. First, each character picks a major job. Like in Dungeon World, no two characters can have the same major job and they can never change their major job. They will always have access to their major job's skills and command, but are not forced to use its traits.
Warriors focus on direct martial prowess using the [FORCE] approach and their Warfare command to get up close and personal.
Thieves prefer the [GUILE] approach and using their Thievery command to keep opponents off balance.
Monks use both [FORCE] and [GUILE] with their Martial Arts command to create combos of punches and kicks, weaving in and out of combat to keep their combo counter going.
White Mages use [PASSION] to fuel their White Magic command, casting support spells such as Heal and Cure.
Black Mages use [LOGIC] to cast Black Magic spells, dealing elemental damage.
Red Mages can use [PASSION] and [LOGIC] in tandem to create minor healing and support effects using Red Magic, and can take extra actions by alternating between the two.
When a character masters their major job, they can take a minor job as well, gaining that job's skill and, as they level the job up, access to its traits as well. Minor jobs can be changed at any time.
Upon mastering their minor job, they gain access to that combination's advanced job. Advanced jobs grant another skill, new traits and another set of commands.
Jason Nelson
Did people not read this because it didn't look like a .pdf or because it is pure faggotry? I can deal with the second.
Isaiah King
No one looked at it because no one ever really gives advice or feedback here. (I'm no different)
Easton Scott
Honestly, didn't know it was a PDF. Seen the cover before and just assumed it was a pic. But that's my fault for not reading the filename.
I suck with RPGs, though
Landon Jackson
I'd complain but I didn't help anyone else out either, so. I agreed with several things that were posted and got ready to post a few comments, but someone had already posted them.
Landon Martin
You're making a Final Fantasy TTRPG, then? Literally every job I see on that list is from a FF game except for yokai
Might be neat
Brody Cruz
Yep, tonally it's inspired by the JRPGs I played when I was younger - FFIII and FFVI in particular. I also took elements from Fire Emblem, another series I love. I've also been playing Bravely Second, and that has had a big impact on class design, and I'm reading Ryuutama and other JTRpGs lately.
All those jobs are taken from Final Fantasy, even Yokai. It's a new job that appears in Bravely Second, but I'll be changing up how it in particular works: it's a riff on Summoner from the game's not!Japan, and guess what it summons? The seven deadly sins and vanilla Summoner unlocks Amaterasu.
Cameron Reed
Bravely is its own series
Bentley Walker
Technically yes, but the job is on the Final Fantasy wiki. I don't think it's a stretch to say Bravely is a FF spinoff/spiritual successor.
Gabriel Peterson
Split more hairs, buddy.
Grayson Peterson
Y-you too
Thomas Taylor
What's a better way to set stats for character creation: point-buy or dice systems? Is it better to have scaling linear or logarithmic?
Adrian Martin
Depends on the setting
Sebastian Campbell
I'd clarify that as: Depends on the experience you're trying to evoke with your system.
Austin Harris
What's the main difference? Difficulty?
Hudson Smith
DnD doesn't care whether you choose pointbuy or roll, so they provide both. But, some systems do care, or they might go for a third option. One of my projects has people receive an array of stats depending on their profession. You don't get to choose a different array. However, you do get to add stat points as you level, and your array will increase as you level also. At level 1 two "warriors" will practically be the same stat-wise, but by level 20 they could be extremely different. What style you choose all depends on what your system is designed to express.
The second question is answered similarly. If you want characters to invest in "lines" and get more powerful by mastering those lines, then an exponential growth would fit well. If you want people to pick and choose at their leisure, then perhaps a linear system would be good. It all depends on what you want your system to encourage players to do.
David Flores
I want to make a game about being a Lord, Duke, Count, King, or really any kind of Ruler. It would be focused on spending resources to hopefully gain more, such as wealth, favors, and military strength, while also dealing with court intrigue, plotting, and handling the day to day of ruling. My only problem is that my entire knowledge base for this subject comes from Crusader Kings 2. What books should I read to make a system for it that doesn't suck?
Jayden Nguyen
More or less, D&D's the only one with rolling stats. In ye olden days, a character doesn't last long; so the rolling's expendable. Now, RPGs are more story-based and characters will stick around, meaning badly rolled characters are consistently worse than other characters. If you're going for an OSR feel, keep the rolling. If your system's going to have "permanent" characters, a stat array is a much better and balanced choice (even if it's a bit bland).
My personal shitty hack for a gauntlet megadungeon game is that everyone rolls stats: >Best rolled gains loincloth and rusty dagger >Mediocre rolled gains a weapon choice >Worst rolled gains a weapon and armor choice
Every levelup, every non-max-stat character increases his stat by 1; and max-stat character(s) gains some gold to compensate. Eventually, every character will have max stats if they survive long enough, and if a max-stat guy gains extra gold that can be used to repair/buy/enchant gear.
Nicholas Clark
From a game design standpoint, how would magically powered steampunkesque mechanisms (automatons, airships, etc) effect the rules and economy of a world?
Henry Adams
If magic exists there would be no industrial revolution. Why make an engine for anything when you can magic the same effects; that is unless magic requires an associated magical fuel in which case it'd be the same but with a focus on that fuel over coal.
Whatever powered the machines and how it was acquired would govern the entire economy
Adrian Sullivan
Instead of Dungeon World, have you considered using SRS from FEAR for more of a JRPG feel? Or maybe a fusion of PbtA and SRS?
Camden Bailey
this pdf is a decent start
Ryan Carter
Oh I'm not really "using" PbtA as a basis for the rules, I'm just aiming for about that level of complexity and as an example of games where everyone has a unique class.
I'm definitely interested in JTRPG recommendations though. I'm taking notes on Ryuutama now and I'll put SRS next on the list.
Lucas Scott
First mockuop of the game if anyone wants to add ideas or critique.
