/gdg/ Game Design General

Issues with wording? As in you understand the idea clearly yourself, but don't know how to clearl communicate it? Or are you having problems hammering the abstract idea into a concrete form?

For me its going back and forth between trying to write a novel and a game system, both for the same setting. Oftentimes I find a new development in one requiring awkward changes to the other, but the real problem is just a lack of ability to build good momentum on either.

Well, for example, how the system works mechanically, if I want to do a +1 to dice rolls for attacks, I'd either have to use one of two ways to list it:
>gains a +1 modifier on the dice rolled for its attack roll
or
>gains -1 AS
So its either wordy, or seems assbackwards because negatives are positives gains for you.

To be honest, neither of those felt clunky to me and both can be seen everywhere in successful, professionally made systems. I think your stressing over nothing, unless the greater context of your system lends the statements a lot more complexity than I'm taking them for.

The wordy one, its mostly trying to write it out. It takes a few tries sometimes to get the writing down, so it slows down working. For the other one, I just worry about player connotation. Minuses are usually negative, so that's how the average player would look at it. The biggest problem with that would be more about prolonged play, trying to fight that association while you play.

I had an idea, Veeky Forums. It's really not much more than just an idea at this point.

You know your usual fantasy tavern/inn?

The clichest of the clichest?

The one your advntureres come into, often with enough wealth and magical/martial powers to level a city?
And that absolutely ADORE brawls and whoring there, like it's nobody's business?

How about seeing that shit from the eyes of who manages the inn? The innkeeper, the bard, the cook, the muscle.

Basically, it should be a comical (but not surreal/lolsorandom) little game about more or less "normal" people that have to steer a ship through people with great powers and a little too much love for ale.

I'm thinking about a PBTA 'cause I know them and actually there are surprisingly few of them that aren't serious business.

Reposting from earlier

Welcome back /gdg/.

Here's my current version of my Ace Combat homebrew:
docs.google.com/document/d/1-x7vMbcJeXps8ZaeTa2ovoXK2yoB7ICqcEmNKP1dlww/edit

So, I technically could make everything roll under which would reduce some math, but that might change gun damage math. Missiles are binary hit or miss depending on Targeting Roll vs Evasion Roll. Guns use the same, but for every 1 you beat the Evasion roll, you deal 10/100 damage. The damage roughly follows the Ace Combat games, where 1-4 missiles or a few bullets will drop a plane.

Future Plans:
- I'm probably going to add in a method to resupply to go along with limited loadouts. You won't carry as many missiles as the games (sometimes 80+), but you also aren't going to carry so few as in real life (maybe 6 total armaments). Something in the 20s sounds about right, and in the event you do need to resupply, you can probably fly out of the combat area (map) and sacrifice maybe a few turns to return fully equipped.
- Money is used for everything. You use it to purchase upgrades, new/replacement planes, and repair costs. I'll need to codify some rules for how all of that will be handled.
- Speaking of Replacement Planes, I'll need to make rules for being shot down too.
- Stat Blocks are always on my mind. I'll need to make some for Planes, Weapons, and Upgrades and price accordingly. Fortunately since I've decided all stats will fall between 1-10, I can easily convert some of the vidya stats over and fine-tune from there.
- Pilot chatter terminology for theming

Any comments welcome. Let me know what you think about the current or future rules, or even what's missing.

I'll keep an eye on it

How is my core mechanic?

>GM sets a target number from 2 to 6 (1 is an automatic success, 7+ is an automatic failure) by subtracting PC stat from enemy/obstacle
>player rolls 2d6
>dice that meet or exceed the TN are keeps, dice below the TN are drops
>choose one die to be success/failure; if it's a keep, the character's intentions are fulfilled, if it's a drop they didn't get what they want (and the GM uses a major GM move)
>the other die is opportunity/consequence; if it's a keep the player uses a free player move, if it's a drop the GM uses a minor GM move
>advantage: use the highest die for both
>disadvantage: use the lowest die for both

Player moves allow the player to change the fiction in some way - remembering their character has an item, getting rid of some disadvantage or adding some advantageous element. Normally there is a cost, but an opportunity allows you to use it freely.

Minor GM moves revolve around small changes to the fiction like dealing damage, making the PC act more slowly, or showing downsides of equipment/skills. Basically the equal and opposite of player moves.

Major GM moves are the GM's big guns, like special enemy or environment effects, splitting the party or creating hard choices.

Is it fine enough?

I've had an idea that's tangentially related. The main question that comes up is "Exactly what happens, and what do the players do about it?"

The idea needs a How to go along with the What in order to make it worth considering.

Sounds like a mechanic for a game that has as many rules as context

What do you mean? I don't understand. Are you saying there's not enough context about the rest of the game in my post or that you don't like the mechanic?

I don't know what it does.

I mean, I know what it does mathematically, but beyond that I have no idea what it means.

Alright, so I have this idea for a game mechanic for combat. Ive been searching for a game that relied on standard playing cards for the combat and such. I havent worked on it in a hot minute because I felt like no one would ever play in my friend group so I temporarily shelved my """""Development""""" of it.

Heres the idea behind it. Everyone has a deck of cards and a max of 3 pieces of "battle equipment" (Think sword, shield, or in the case of the game i want to run, different types of guns as well). Each weapon would be assigned a suit from the deck with one suit left over for incidentals like items or other kind of non weapon skill skills. With this system the players would have a few skills, but the crux of the skill system would lie on the weapons, where each weapon would have a number of skills (I imagined around 5 each) and would level up instead of the player. After the weapons "max out" their level there would be a chance to "respec" the weapon by customizing it with parts from other weapons or special items to make a unique skill and then would start over at level 1 and regain its new skills with a small buff.
Here is where the actual combat comes in. It would either be played with a grid or with warhammer style inches. Im not sure which i like more, so its up in the air.
Now for the actual combat. Each of those skills for the weapons or other equipment would have a requirement to use. So lets say for example a simple rifle would have like 5 skills max, with an automatically unlocked "shoot" action which costs one "point" and a free "reload" action.
Every on their turn plays rummy by themselves. So say I had 4,5,6 spades, I would lay that down and have 3 "points" for whatever weapon was equipped in the spades slot. Once a skill was used, the equal amount of "point cards" would be discarded. A single card could also be played from the hand for whatever its suit weapon was, as to prevent a drought of runs or trips.

Remember, if you aren't playtesting in two months time, your game is effectively dead

Okay, so players play Rummy to charge their equipment.

How does the rest fit in?

What mechanics do you like for determining how a character dies? Do you like rolling fortitude saves? Death saves like in D&D 5e and 4e? Straight negative HP amount like 3.5? Varying negative Hp amounts like GURPS? Something else?

I've been trying.

Well. The feeling I'm thinking of is somewhat low-key. There might be a gelatinous cube down in the sewers under the inn, but it's more about the lovable fools that the PCs are. A less surreal and "theatrical" Konosuba, perhaps, might be a good example.

What actually happens in the game? The idea is that the action is fueled by the fact that this characters have personal plans, but they need to work together pretty much eveytime because the inn is pretty much the only way they have to be relatively safe.

Let's say that the "heroes" they like so much have been heroing too much between a beer and the other and there's a metric shitton of gelatinous cubes in the sewers under the inn. Logic would say that it's best that, say, the muscle and magecook* resolve the problem underground, while the bard talks with the adventurers to get who the fuck caused the problem in the first place.
Problem is, the magecook just LOVES the idea of that fine ingredient that we all know slimes are - alive. Ok, maybe not the whole ten cubic meters of it, but just a pinch might be useful. At the same time, the bard reaaaaalllly likes this cleric chick that is the first suspect...

Something like this, if it makes sense. Quite sleepy right now.

*=don't have any idea if the cook should be "magic". Just came out like this.

No the rummy is how each player uses skills. Equipment is able to be changed before battle, but once in battle think of it almost like building mana in MtG. Its disposable mana to use skills in an encounter.

I guess to keep up the MtG analogy think of each weapon as being a certain kind of land, and the cards would be placed down using the rules of rummy and would be discarded once used instead of tapped. The skills of the weapons would have a "mana" requirement that matched the "color" of the "land," where "mana = point cost" and "land color = card suit." So say you have a run of 3,4,5 spades, it would be like having 3 green mana, and your rifle has a skill that requires three "green mana" or three points in spades.

There was another version in my mind where instead of each player having their own deck, the group would just use one or two decks and get rid of the idea of each suit representing a weapon, but I like my original idea and would like to work around making it work.

There would probably also have to be accuracy checks and things I would like to include like cover mechanics and etc. I dont want to get too specified because Id like to be able to use this system outside of my one setting.

(I have no idea if this was directed at me, but I'll answer anyway)
No one likes character deaths usually, and I guess PvE balance wasnt an issue when I was thinking of this because I kind of planned for the players to be a tad bit op. If it came too it though, I think a saving throw and maybe like a mortal wound system where if a character accrued too many mortal wounds they would be prema dead but with an option to get them removed for a high cost.

Rolling is better in my opinion, because the feeling of rolling dice for whether your character survives feels more "fair". Doesn't matter what you roll, really, as long as you roll.

Current WIP, needs some changes. I think I'm going with the stat modification way of writing like in instead of the roll modding. Just easier to write.

You can help reduce some of the potential dissonance by clever phrasing, so just iterate and it'll be fine.

Hmm, that is true. I think my biggest fear is more of an initial problem, but that can be overcome. It might just be the same kind of problem as roll-under systems, which actual repeated play breaks that.

Early morning bump

Every weekend I add a couple more pages to my game, and I get that much closer to playtesting. I don't know how I'll set up playtests, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Is this wording too confusing? I realize it is a very long sentence.

>XP is awarded by the other players at the table. When one player is talking or rolling dice, the other players are the audience - when they feel the urge to laugh, cry or applaud for the ways in which the player in the spotlight roleplayed their character’s background or motives, they may choose to individually award that player one XP apiece.

Seems pretty straightforward to me, but I need some outside opinions.

I like it. As GM I'd give each player a hard cap on the XP per session they can award. The only problem with this system is that one player can really outshine the others and end up mechanically better than them, so ends up outshining them more etc. and they snowball. Or make it like "You gain 3 XP every session but you can choose to give away one of your XP to another player after (your list of things).

>The only problem with this system is that one player can really outshine the others and end up mechanically better than them, so ends up outshining them more etc. and they snowball
That would definitely be a concern but XP isn't spent for advancement in this game, and is more like social capital. So it can make a few rolls easier, but it won't give more/better opportunities to roleplay (and thus earn more XP).

I can see why that would be confusing, I'm just trying to think of a better term than XP right now.

I dont like leaving a character death to be decided on a roll (or a few ones), in my system death is something that needs a proper setup...mechanically speaking, all players have a reasonably large pool of meta currency (it's a bit too easy to die in combat) not only that, but they can get loans with the GM who can in turn use those debts as he see fit (note that even if the player recover some of his currency he can not settle this debt)...Usually players can spend meta and get loans to escape most situations, but that will only make things even worse down on the road, on the other hand, if the players manage to defuse the situation instead of relying on luck they get to be safe for a while longer...

Just write an upper limit to how much times a player may get or give such rewards.

One of my projects uses a meta currency to create encounters like mentioned, but I haven't really found a death mechanic that I like. Plenty are fine and usable, but nothing that really speaks to me as desirable.

>discordapp.com/channels/147947143741702145/208003649404796929
Link is useless.

Well, that is built for a different kind of purpose. My game, even is you fuck up your rolls, you still have only a small chance to die outright. Instead, my game has a mechanic called heroic sacrifice, where a character in critical condition (has

Don't Discord links expire after a point in time?

You can set a permanent link up.

That's not a permanent link.

I would show you one but I don't want Veeky Forums in my discord.

Oh, okay.

Thoughts on The Quiet Year?

Fuck, finally. I keep looking for this thread.

Anyway, I'm trying to do a vaguely Dark Souls inspired system. Mostly I'm focusing on Stamina. Every action in combat costs a certain amount of AP. Your Stamina restores itself every turn. Currently trying to work out how to handle the basic combat so that it stays pretty managable instead of buckets of rolls (which is a system I dislike).

I'm mostly going off of Dark Heresy, but I don't like the "Roll attack" "Roll Defense" "Roll Damage" sort of thing. I'm wondering if this is a quicker, simpler solution:

>Roll Attack d% + Damage die at the same time
>Subtract Defense trait from d%
>If positive, take [d%]+[Strength]+Damage and subtract armour

Where [brackets] represent the "Bonus", or 10s place of the roll.

So I roll 47 on a d% at target number 64 as well as 5 on a 2d4
Then subtract my opponent's 21 from 47 to get 26.
My Strength is 42. So that's 2 (from 26) +4 (from 42) +5
Then subtract my opponent's 4 armour for a total of 6 damage.

Is that too confusing? Should I just stick with what Dark Heresy already uses?

Still trying to figure out if I want to use non-d10s.

Semi-daily-but-not-really reminder that rolling dice is not gameplay and that whatever trashy re-re-rehash you are supposedly working on, it offers nothing.

What are you even trying to say here?
"Don't homebrew"?

thanks /v/

Anybody got any idea for game mechanics around courts? In the game system I'm writing the players will probably be spending a lot of time in courts, so I'm wanting to make some manner of random table for things that could happen.
I'm struggling to think if it should base it off a skill check or if it should be completely random.
Maybe both? One if you are there for a purpose and one if you're just attending to see what happens?

Which kind of courts, law or royal?

Royal, 17th century style. The game's sci-fi though if it matters much.

I'm thinking about going back to work on my own take on the d20 system. I know that another d20 system is something no one asked for, wants or needs but the core mechanic is tried and true and I figure building something on top a familiar system is good practice for eventually creating my own system entirely.

Anyways, I'm basically Frankensteining together as much as possible from existing OGL games and was wondering if there were any major d20 SRDs I might be missing. So far I know of ones for 3.x, Pathfinder, 5e, d20 Modern and d20Hero (Mutants & Masterminds).

Should I even ask?

It was this >Semi-daily-but-not-really reminder that rolling dice is not gameplay and that whatever trashy re-re-rehash you are supposedly working on, it offers nothing.

>whatever trashy re-re-rehash you are supposedly working on

That's me!

I keep wanting to try BasicD20
easydamus.com/CustomCharacters.html

Card guy back. I kept missing the threads. I've made some changes based on feedback - deleted one of the tabs, replaced the keyword box with a different one, changed the borders from silver to gold, cleaned up the entire design a little bit for clarity. Thoughts?

I don't know how many numbers you'll need on the tab, but if its only a few digits you could move that tab up much higher. However, if you need to fill that entire space with numbers then its probably fine.

Look at the E6 system for d20, you might like it. I've used it for my stalker rpg and the game runs real smooth.

I smooshed Black Crusade into Crytomancer

I like it. It's great for introducing people to RPGs. Very relaxing. Comfy, even.

It's like babby's first structured setting design game.

If you're adults, you can do better just talking to each other.

A permanent discord link:

discord.me/itsjustjerry

I'm not sold on the gold, but that's personal. I find silver is more neutral, other metallics evoke the feeling of rarity levels (bronze, silver, gold borders for common, uncommon, rare).

Also agree with about the upper tab.

Are you absolutely married to the idea of putting the card name below the image and not on the top?

They can, but it's not that - someone just copied a link to the channel, which is not how it works (in fact, you have to explicitly fuck up to manage to copy that link).

discord.gg/2nujvn9 here's a link to that channel which IS permanent, at least until someone deletes it which will probably happen just to fuck with people. Do be warned that this discord is trash, though, due to being a general-purpose Veeky Forums one and thus mostly populated by /pol/-style shitposters.

I believe I said this last time you posted, but you should shrink those margins from the card edge to interior. I ran the numbers last time and at 330dpi - making that image the size of a standard poker card, or a MTG card - you've got 5.6mm of space horizontally from card edge to your border in that image, which is pretty excessive.

You could take that down to like 2.5mm or 3mm without worrying about print misalignment hitting the actual content, freeing up over half a centimeter of space for rules text - if you don't need that space, of course, this is a moot point.

I also agree that the gold borders are pretty gaudy - they really grab the eye which would definitely make reading nearby text more difficult.

I'm either going to do "nothing is instant" or everything is instant(including attacks)" for my mtg clone. Which is it?

I'd go with everything is instant.

If I'm assuming correctly that "nothing is instant" means people can only act on their primary turns then you should definitely go with the latter. The first option limits one's tactical options (and would be pretty frustrating as well); the second option increases them.

The downside though is that it might be a total clusterfuck to play. I was even thinking of having a quality called "speed" for actions where anything of a lower speed can't be used while a higher speed action is on the stack, to maybe make it even more/less of a clusterfuck.

>babby's first

What's the adult version? I want more of these games.

It actually has heavily constrained processes. Try reading games before "criticizing" them, maybe?

You missed the point.

The constraints are training wheels.

Adults can manage without them.

I wouldn't mess with the stack too much. Keep in mind that things like instant and sorcery in MtG just dictates when they can be played. They all interact with the stack the same way.

If anything, a speed system may work in combat if you use it like an incremental version of First Strike.

Bumping.

Anyone know a good resource for detailed, relatively accurate information on real-life human abilities- how much one can lift, how fast one can move, etc. Both human averages and limits.

This is why you RP without books and rules, right?

Oh, wait, no, you don't.

Why do you enjoy being stupid, user?

These threads pop up every saturday, just so you know.

About what said. It seems pretty fun, both as an introductory game and as a game to run on a game night when the GM can't make it / no one has prepared anything.

I think including rules for an "endless" mode that can be played through multiple sessions would be neat, but if that's not part of the design idea, it's not.

All in all, it's a cute little alternative game

>making homebrews based off systems nobody's heard of, let alone read or played

And I wonder why nobody ever talks about them when I post.

>nobody wants to read a pdf you cold calling idiot
Discussion time then.

The thing that excited me most about Cryptomancer was the Strategic-level base building rules. Almost all RPGs just leave that stuff to GM fiat or whatever ad hoc system the GM comes up with.

Crypto has pretty definite rules for it's downward spiral; do missions, get Assets, try to avoid Risk. Risk never goes away, Risk will kill you in the end. And then leaves all the particulars to emerge during play. It's a great abstraction to pace a campaign.

You guys ever do Strategic level rules in your games?

>things seeming out of whack
I should have added to the post (both times) the card is based on a template which includes a bleed/cut area. The reason the tab at the top looks too long, and the margins on all sides too wide, is because about 1/8th of an inch will be cut off every edge at the printers. See attached image: everything between the dotted cyan line and the solid red line is border, everything beyond the red line is cut. So you'll just have to bear with me on the margins - or from now on, I'll trim before posting.

But message received: no gold. I'll put a new one together with silver.

>card name below image
Recommendation? Above?

Ah, good then - 330dpi did seem a bit odd, 300dpi with bleeds makes much more sense. Shows what you can do to yourself with partial knowledge of a topic, I guess.

This seems like way too many steps to accomplish nothing that different

>do missions, get Assets, try to avoid Risk. Risk never goes away, Risk will kill you in the end.
Oh I like this actually. Reminds of that thing in Edge of The Empire. Debt or something? I feel like this would be good in a darker themed caper game or such.

Bump.

>Recommendation? Above?

Yeah, just put it on top.

Is it just me, or are keywords on cards with numbers ugly? Because I was planning on having quite a few but am having second thoughts because of that.

Actually, I should have worded that as "keywords with numbers".

Are you referring to stuff like MtG's 'Annihilate #'?

Meikyu Kingdom seems to fit the bill.

I've formulated a suffering-free variant of the magic system for my magical girl game. Original magic system was mostly a tweaked rip off of Magical Burst (as the entire system fundamentally is) but I added an "alternate" playstyle that I suspect will be popular. However, does anyone see any obvious problems with it? The overall system starts on page 7 but the new substystem starts on page 9.

docs.google.com/document/d/1TmWonJIbPfqCWwOUKN7H2RrjBSkevnyq_eoGiGIWfy8

Also, I'm not sure if there's a better way to refer to it in other text to make it agnostic with regards to which rules are used.

Yes.

I don't think its an issue. As long as the concept is simple enough to work as a keyword I don't see a problem with adding a numerical component to it.

I put a bunch of thought into something I'll never do anything with.

Welcome to /gdg/, you'll fit right in!

Ok, that makes sense.

What's a good name for stats in a game where the player characters are all robots? Right now I call them approaches, because they govern how well the characters are at approaching problems in general ways (brute force, stealth, charm and intellect).

I have run into a bit of a naming issue. My name for the equivalent of instant/sorcery is "spell", which wasn't a problem before, but now I've decided that all actions will be instant speed, which means I need a stack and a term to refer to cards on the stack. I was going to call spells actions, then call cards on the stack spells, but I also have a mechanic that is specific to spells/actions called "spellboost" and "actionboost" doesn't sound right at all.