/gdg/ - Game Design General

>It's interesting, but at the same time it sounds crunchier than a bowl of the Captain's finest in milk.
If having to look up a table when you attack is crunchy, I guess. It's not like there is much math involved.
Just match the numbers.
It's pretty quick IMO. Roll attack and damage, DM looks at the monsters stat block, compares the numbers, tells you if you wounded the creature or not.
Less bookkeeping too. In D&D its Roll attack add modifiers, roll damage add modifiers, check if you hit it's AC, subtract damage from monster HP, repeat dozens of times an encounter.
And that's not getting into stuff players like to do until it's beaten out of them like called shots.

I haven't playtested this at all, just an idea I came up with and decided to post to see feedback.

Good day designers. I hope you are having a nice weekend. If any of you have the time to look at something for me, please do. I'd like to know how shit these base classes are shaping up to be.

>Examine
Yeah, I can see that. It's more tied to the combat which is has enemies with a combination of "Situations" that have various effects. "Overrun the Camp" is one of those situations. I need to fix that.

>Draw Attention
Yeah, I may need to take that idea back to the drawing board. The goal with Draw Attention is to focus scarier situations to the stronger party members, who can take the blow more reliably.

>Patch
Yeah, my problem is I have so many people wanting to play "Medics" without a proper way to apply it in combat. Any suggestion on how to make a decent "Quick-Fix" action without going to overboard.

>Second Wind
Layman is primarily keeping yourself grounded and your head clear. I was debating on just making it a 4e-ism and just giving a set number of Second Winds. As said above, in-combat healing is pretty lacking unfortunately.

Thank you

I'm not really trying to shift towards realism. Just trying to make combat quick, exciting, and to a certain extent lethal.

It's designed for more sword and sorcery than superheroic D&D.
Inspired from Korgoth of Barbaria (youtube.com/watch?v=ep65rr-9qjQ). Wanted to emulate something like the bar fight. D&D doesn't really fit that atmosphere.

bump

Do you know of any card or miniature game that uses cards drawn from a deck to create a grid, such as image attached?

This will not make it quicker, it will slow it down. A single bar fight would take multiple gaming sessions. It's also odd that where you strike the person is selected randomly from a table of body parts, usually people decide what to aim at, and randomly selecting what you strike is very D&D indeed.

>Any suggestion on how to make a decent "Quick-Fix" action
without magic I'd stimulate adrenaline, using the rules for the Command action. You'd need a second method for when such a shout cannot be used, something physical, the equivalent of a slap across the face.

This is so much like how classes are laid out in existing games that I am wondering why you are designing something new.

Do you have examples of what you mean?

It looks like 2e right down to the experience level table, with some name changes and a single kind of damage die. Nothing wrong with that, I'm just wondering why you don't just play 2e rules for this setting.

> examples
not-fighter and not-ranger, not-bard and not-thief, not-sorceror and not-necropsyonic, not-special-mythoi-priest and not-cleric.

>It's also odd that where you strike the person is selected randomly from a table of body parts, usually people decide what to aim at, and randomly selecting what you strike is very D&D indeed.
I've only played 5e but that's not the case at all.
In 5e you make a generic attack that does generic damage. It does nothing to influence the targets fightning capabilities except effects that are purposefully made scarce through limited ability uses or hit penalties.
Any "random" hitting from bodyparts in 5e outside of called shots/abilities is purely narrative.
>This will not make it quicker, it will slow it down.
Can you explain why you think this? Remember my system doesn't have HP to keep track of or whittle down.
Referring to a hit table that the DM can already have printed out/written down/on screen or maybe even automated is ~impossible~ before the game even begins to be slower than
>roll+mod,
>check if you hit AC,
>damage+mod,
>quickly math out how much HP is remaining,
>repeat for every player and creature several times a combat.
My system is much simpler
>Roll to hit + damage
>Did you make it past the defense threshold?
>If so, does this cripple the enemy or outright kill them?
>If yes, congrats! No bookkeeping. Enemy is taken out of the fight.
At worst it would take roughly the same amount of time, with combat being over with quicker overall due to no HP bookkeeping.

I think you might be misinterpreting. Hit location and the Attack roll is the same thing. It's not roll to attack, roll to see hit location which admittedly would slow gameplay down.

>>randomly selecting what you strike is very D&D indeed.
It made me think of the old rules for grenade-like missiles, the BECMI rules for boxing/wrestling, and the famous strumpet table.

>roll 3d6 on a table with hit locations
Kind of like a THAC0 table? They got rid of those because it was a pain to look up, they preferred a single number. This would be one table per body-type, increasing lookup time by an order of magnitude?

>cripple the enemy... Enemy is taken out of the fight
If ailments are that debilitating then they don't need to be kept track of except for post-combat medical purposes, so that would indeed be faster. But if for example you took a bludgeoning hit to your left shoulder and the arm went dead, you could continue to fight, you just wouldn't be able to use your left arm for a shield or other things. That would be more realistic, but it would have to be kept track of for the rest of the fight. That is what I meant by realism and delay.

>They got rid of those because it was a pain to look up, they preferred a single number.
Well good think this is the era of technology and internet, so it's not flipping through a book so much as ctrl+f a PDF and/or printing out a sheet with the relevant tables posted on.
It's about as difficult as looking up a spell effect. Something that doesn't take time at all as long as you know you were going to use that piece of information before hand.

>This would be one table per body-type, increasing lookup time by an order of magnitude?
If you know the players are going to be fighting something, why would you need to waste game time looking it up instead of having the information ready already? Isn't pre-game prep the GMs job?
>That would be more realistic, but it would have to be kept track of for the rest of the fight.
"Can't use left arm" is not something hard to keep track of, it's a binary. I'm not expecting individual body part HP values or something.

>They got rid of those because it was a pain to look up, they preferred a single number.
More like because THAC0 was unintuitive. All the complaints about THAC0 I've heard on Veeky Forums was about how unintuitive it was, I haven't heard any complaints about having to look up THAC0 tables on here before. Maybe that is what they meant but never said it explicitly.

What would you faggots like to see in a generic RPG system? What niche would you like to see fulfilled?

The 'Zombies!' Franchise used it as a core mechanic. You shuffle the 'city' cards, then each player draws one and places it so that it attaches to another, eventually revealing a city. There are about 15 expansions for that game, but just get the core if you want to see it in action.

>tfw you have to Old Yeller a system

Okay, you've talked the talk - and several of us find the idea overly-complicated - now it's time to walk the walk, and prove us wrong. /gdg/ comes back every Saturday, put your idea together in a playtestable PDF and post it, and I guarantee that I'll playtest it. I like the idea, I just can't see how it'll be practical.

It's all valuable experience, even if it is painful.

Looking at 2e for the first time, I don't follow your train of thought. There may be concepts that the two games share, but any fantasy game that deals with classes is going to probably deal with these lifestyles and careers. The thing about D&D is those classes seem flavorless. A priest in my game could do the same things a thief or ranger does in D&D, and still be gaining flavorful priest abilities.

I have been waiting for this thread since the last one archived on February 22nd. I desperately want to keep these threads alive and useful. And it's always these prima donnas who ask for criticism, and then go to pieces when they are not received as the second coming of Christ. I've got this one guy posting a pic with a filename telling me to fuck off for trying to help after he -asked- for help. Then there is this guy who wants to make Drunkens and Arm-Draggins the Blind Man's Bluff Adventure, and he won't even let us talk about the characteristics of the game. No, it has to be accepted fully-formed as it came from the mind of his royal highness, nothing but pure adulation will be accepted. Then why did you ask us if we were averse to it? I want to talk about rules as if they can be changed, not as if I'm in someone's sick ERP and I have to fellate his 16 year old ego until he gets up the courage to talk to a girl. Let him embarrass himself next time, I no longer care. That's a man-hour on my own game that I lost there, just trying to help someone else check his game from another perspective. Let someone else do the babysitting, I'm done. And I don't need a homosexual graphic to make my point.

Some people just can't take critique, but as one of the people who has used /gdg/ to get constructive feedback and make changes in the past, I don't want to see people giving up on the thread. Don't lose heart.

Well, its more like a roll back at this point. I just found the numbers too wide in the old system.

I'm trying to think of how to save the old one, but the alternatives I'm not happy with.

The system I killed was a dice pool roll off system where successes could count as double, and power and armor increased those chances. The core pool system works, but I'm not sure how to include the effects of power and armor, since those stats influencing on doubling was throwing off the math.

what is Veeky Forums's opinion of flipping cards end over end for movement in a TCG/ wargame hybrid

There's a lot of egotistical crybabies out there, and some just end up finding their way into /gdg/. It happens.

But remember, when you're helping out one person by having a nice discussion with them about their system or even your own system, you're helping at least one more person who is just lurking in the thread.

I can only speak for myself when I say this. I'm not the best at sitting down and sifting through someone's system and giving critique, but I have gained a lot of knowledge and polished concepts in my own system just by reading these threads and following discussions about game mechanics.

And that's just me. There could be a dozen more lurkers just like me learning from the discussions that you and other critics engage in with fellow designers. But at the very least, you're helping two people with every discussion you have, and I like to think of that as a net gain.

I hope to do more in the future to contribute to /gdg/, but I have a hard time critiquing things I'm not particularly comfortable doing myself, unless it is something fairly obvious. In the mean time, though, I'm learning and improving alongside the designers that you and others engage with, and someday I'll end up with enough confidence to be able to join in and keep the discussion flowing.

The thing about hobbies of creation is that the results of discussion, debate, and critic aren't always immediately apparent. In the end, someone might tell you you're right or wrong, but there's always someone else who is watching and taking it all in, whether or not they agree. This goes for more traditional art, it goes for tuning cars, it goes for rocketry and robotics.

Don't push yourself to continue engaging with people who aren't receptive. Do it if you feel like it, but don't do it out of a faint sense of obligation. And if there's no one receptive posting, post your own work and try to get something going there.

I hope venting a bit helps.

Kudos, man.
t. lurker

Like, spinning them 180 degrees, or actually flipping them so that the reverse side is now face-up?

Spinning them 180 degrees is pretty common, you see it used in card games like Epic and such. Flipping them is much less common, probably because you can't have hidden information when both sides are printed on - that being said, it's kind of an unexplored area. The only example of flipping I can think of is in recent X-wing releases, where Upgrade cards are flipped to show their status.

I think, in pursuing this, there are two important questions to ask: is it necessary, and is there an easier way of doing it?

I've edited a metric fuckton thanks to /gdg/ I usually just try and clear misconceptions.

I think the problem will be, and is always , people like there stuff. People have a bad tendency to say "Correct my thing!" then retaliate with "NOOOOOOO" because that's human nature. I could do a shitty Philosophy 101 paper on this, but I don't want to.

/gdg/ is composed of a handful of dedicated individuals who do there best to help (I try, but I'm not exactly great at this). Don't leave, help, you're not helping anyone by leaving, just making this place more shit.

I can't force you to stay (hell you may have already left), but I can try to convince you not to.
>Fuck off for helping filename
If that was me i'm sorry, I just posted a picture from my character art folder.

I've been working on a generic RPG system, I aimed for "Able to run anything my friends want me to/I want to"

I've seen that making the system wide enough to fulfill what you want to versus narrow enough that you don't effectively have a full system change each campaign.

A nice solid combat system would be nice to see, not as floaty as mine

I see where you're going, and I like it.
Thanks!

>pokemon game that isn't super crunch heavy
Check put Pokerole if that is what you are looking for, the other couple of systems out there are a crunchfest

It can be frustrating, but it's not something to get upset about. There's 2 types of designers in these threads. Those who are brewing for themselves/their group and those who dream of printing a book some day. The design philosophies for both are going to differ quite a bit, since those focusing on their own group of friends aren't going to think about what other people want...generally. They want what works for them, or what they think would be fun, or would help them run better. This info isn't always apparent when someone asks for help, so it can seem stubborn of them to not move away from what they want in the game.

Personally I have to try and think about the influences for the game, how to mechanize the cool bits, making sure that works for tabletop, balancing fun and sim, incorporating concepts that are familiar to TTRPGers, and on and on. I want it to fit my mental image of what can be done. But I also want it to intrigue a wider audience. I don't have a huge breadth of RPG experience under my belt (playing or even running) so I really rely on what other say.

Can I take a look?

Not the most delicate version, it's just my basic edition I use as a rule reference for my friends.

Also, BUMP FOR THE BUMP GODS

Hello /gdg/. I have what I think is a really good idea for an objective in a co-op board game I am working on, but I have no idea how to execute it. Unfortunately, in order to seek assistance, I need to explain basically all of the basics of the game. So, here we go.

The game is a giant Arkham Horror style co-op board game, where the players are "Lotus Eaters" traveling through a jungle called Dakrash (or Dakrashi Jungle) trying to "pass through" the nine gates of enlightenment, which amounts to completing 9 different tasks on the board. There is an overarching time constraint of 24 rounds, where at the end, reality shatters and the players lose the game.

There are 6 regions on the board, and scattered throughout them are 50 "points of interest." There are 9 points of interest in each of 5 of the regions, and 5 points of interest in one of the regions. The points of interest are further broken down by type (this is design phase only, these types will be partially occult to the players): Political, Economic, Mystic, and Wilds. The objectives (9 gates) will be roughly based on these categories.

So one of the Political ones (think social, or puzzle solving in this case) would be to solve the riddle of Dakrash. Basically, at the beginning of the game, players would randomly draw from a small deck (only 6 cards) and place it face down at a POI called the "Flower Temple," and then 3 each of 6 different color tokens would be scattered onto other POIs around the board. The face down card represents the answer to the riddle, and the tokens are possible answers. The objective would be for the players to figure out the correct answer (by traveling around and talking to people at POIs), then each player would collect the colored-token that represents the correct answer, and bring them as a group to the Flower Temple, where they would reveal if they got the answer right (by flipping over the card).

(Out of characters, cont...)

The possible answers would be mixtures of the 4 traditional elements of nature. So the answer could be... Dust, Glass, Clay, Smoke, Storm, or Steam.

The question is - how do I connect the process of finding clues, but also randomizing it each game, without it being cheesy? Like, I don't really want to have a number on the card back of the riddle solution, because then someone who plays it frequently enough will just know which one it is. But, without a connector like that, I'm not really sure how to occlude the answer, but still deliver relevant clues at Political POIs.

Any ideas will certainly help - even just typing it out got my head organized.

I think I just crafted a possible solution in my head.

The solution deck is actually more cards - some multiple of 6, with copies of the 6 possible solutions, and numbered backs.

The clues would actually be a chart, and the cards drawn at the POIs would actually just reference the chart. So the players draws a POI card, it says something like "Read #2 on the clue chart" - then they go to the chart and match 2 on the Y-axis, with the card back on the X-axis and read their actual clue.

Too complicated?

Not sure exactly what you mean.

What's a good way to balance "Magical" and "Non-Magical" classes that isn't just making non-magical classes magic under a different name?

frathwiki.com/Dr._Zahir's_Ethnographical_Questionnaire

Has anybody used this thing before?

I kinda wanna try it, but I don't know if it would be worth it to use this format of questions.

I have, it takes a while to do, but it's worth it if you really want to get detailed on a culture.

Making a game that is sort of like Viking Age Jojo. Once a mortal, an interaction with the supernatural world has bound the spirit long-deceased ancestor to your soul.

I figure they would be partly like stands (seen apart from your character) and like Celebrimbor in Shadow of Mordor (which for all its flaws, I thought the idea of being one with a ghost was a really cool concept).

What are some cool things for Viking stands to do? I already plan to do dual duels where you and your opponent duke it out while your stands duke it out.

Sweet. Thanks user.

There are a few ways.

You can make the casting time on spells fairly long, forcing the magic-user to be more tactical and discriminate with their spells.

You can make spells difficult to cast successfully at all, forcing the magic-user to use weaker spells more creatively because going ham with fireballs could end explosively.

Your turn/order of initiative system can play heavily into balance. My system uses combat phases, so that missiles and melee are resolved before magic spells. This system also is a "one action per turn" sort of deal, so you won't be running thirty feet and throwing a fireball in the same turn (though melee characters can run a short distance and attack).

The stands could possess weapons or armor to give bonuses. They could also possess your character to give extra skills. Say you weren't good at archery, but your stand used to be a badass longbowman. Your stand would possess your body for better marksmanship. Kind of like SOM when you switch between Celebrimbor and the character whose name I forgot.

Look up Psykers in Dark Heresy (1.0). They had powerful magic, but there was a steep downside when it was used. If your Psyker actually had to cast a spell, then you were either about to die, or incredibly desperate. I like this method - anyone who tried to play a Psykers like a DnD wizard was a liability to the group, and as likely to be killed by their own magic, or a concerned party member, as an enemy.

Alternatively, if you use a point allocation style thing, you could underpower magic. While the Fighter is getting level after level in useful skills, the Wizard has to sink a point into Arcana, which does nothing but unlock Pyromancy, which he has to spend another point in. Once Arcana and Pyromancy are unlocked, then, at the next level, you might finally get your first fire spell, but it won't be much better than an arrow. You could incentivise this progress with tiny cantrip utility spells, like being able to conjure a tiny flame with Pyromancy. It keeps the fighter ahead of the curve, but gives a dedicated wizard more utility.

Bump this shizz up

Bump.

Hello.

Alright, it's dead. See you all next Saturday.

No, don't die, I want some feedback.

I'm building a tank combat game designed from the ground up to facilitate building your own custom tanks, so keep that in mind.

Pic related is the resolution of damage from one tank against another tank. What do you think? My principle for this game is to get as much done with as few rolls as possible and do most of the effects of various things through modifying other values. I have to do it this way because if I want to have a list of a thousand things you can put in and on your tank and make them all matter then it needs to be very flexible.

So, with that in mind, what do you think?

Excerpt:
>End result:
>>Stowed ammunition catastrophically damaged
>>Crew comfort equipment catastrophically damaged
>>Autoloader catastrophically damaged
>>Main gun catastrophically damaged
>>Turret hydraulics catastrophically damaged
>>Gunner has bad damage to his torso, and bad damage to his left arm. He is bleeding to >>death.
>>Commander has bad damage to his torso, a superficial head wound, and a bad wound >>his right leg, and is concussed.
>>Tank B’s turret is on fire. Gunner and commander are both in the turret part.

>"8% crew comfort" should read 43-50% crew comfort.