Informal Brainstorming thread

Thanks! Maybe this will work.

I've had this idea for a sort of MtG heartbreaker card game for a while. Basically, I stopped liking how WotC keeps handling things, so I wanted to make my own card game that didn't have the kind of bullshit I don't like.

The summary is that there are four colors, each of them care about a different Game Zone and Card Type. Note, I'm using MtG terminology and it is subject to change.

>Black cares about Creatures and your Hand
>Red cares about Sorceries and the Stack
>White cares about Artifacts and the Library
>Blue cares about Enchantment and the Graveyard

Now, allied colors (next to each other on my revised color wheel) can have limited mechanics from each other, and actively hate whatever their enemy color likes.

Now, I basically wrote up all this, and general guidelines as to how I want things to go before I asked myself: is this even a good idea? Am I doomed to failure before I even get started? Am I going to get 3/4ths the way through before I realize this is terrible and scrap it?

It's hard to know if it can work without putting together enough to try it out.

I found this thread about maybe why Richard Garfield chose 5 colors: reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/4uj6ij/why_5_colours_for_magic_the_gathering/

I've taken to using small memo pads for my day to day errands. I was doodling the other day and drew a terrain map on the pad, 10 squares by 10 squares. I like the idea of making a game similar to the Lone Wolf books, but featuring a terrain map like this, and using the coordinates as the page numbers.

Now I need a cause for why the player is going around the map. The ideas I gave up on:

* courier carrying a package across the map from one city to another- why draw a map if he wouldn't enter most squares?

* bounty hunter tracking down an escaped prisoner before he gets to the far edge of the map- same problem

* a grizzly bear who tries to get as much food out of the area as possible before winter, without getting killed- the terrain features of visibility and movement hindrances don't matter as much to a grizzly traveling alone

* a survivor lost in an uninhabited wilderness trying to survive- same problem

* a patrol pacifying all threats in every square- tedium

I have a thing for these little terrain maps. Can anyone think of a way to make the whole map relevant to the player?

What about changing the bounty hunter idea to more of a hide-and-seek? Maybe in the style of that old game Hunt The Wumpus.

I'm not sure of the balance issues of having only one color dealing directly with artifacts. It might make it so that you can't use artifacts unless you're using white, or that the opponent's use of white will preclude your use of artifacts.

Yeah, I think i might just have to grow some cards together after writing deckbuilding rules.

I cut out green (the color that cares about lands) because I've cut out lands. What I want is that you can take a card from your hand, put it face down on the Battlefield and use it as a resource. I'm still trying to figure out if colors really MEAN anything, and if so, how does the resource interact with them.

I'll give that thread a read and see what I can come up with.

All the colors care about lands, just in different ways. They all care about artifacts, too. A designer once explained it by saying that it was a cost matter and some colors are just better at some things than others. When an effect would cost too much to be useful, they left the cost comparable but added drawbacks to it, for example, the Nature's Claim card.

It's not that only one color interacts with artifacts, it's more that White likes them more than the other colors. For example, a card that searches your library for an artifact and puts it into play is a White card. Another example is a White creature that gets bigger the more artifacts you control.

Every color gets all card types, but the color that cares about them gets more efficient in interacting with them. On the flip side, Black (because it's the enemy of White) gets efficient artifact destruction because it actively hates what White loves. And by extension, Red and Blue both get artifact "destruction", but in a more limited capacity because they're allied with Black.

The map reminded me of Sid Meier's Civilization. Maybe you could make a game about a colony developing the land and handling crises?

A thread like this used to get swamped for days on end. Now? Not even 20 responses.

And people think Veeky Forums is somehow 'better'.

On the other side, I imagine Black would have lots of cheap creatures, creatures that spawn creature tokens, and creatures that can be sacrificed to bring about bigger creatures. They'd probably have the most creature effects cards, yeah? You don't just have a cheap creature, you have a cheap creature with an effect, and that makes up for their shortcomings in other card types.
At least, that's what I'm thinking. A Black-aligned creature could have more utility than a White-aligned creature of the same cost.

my post picture scared away all the geniuses.

There's been an influx of people on Veeky Forums who declare any and all homebrew to be shit.

Alright, I posted in /awg/, but I might keep some life in this thread/get some more ideas.

I'm writing a generic small-unit skirmish game, currently focussed on Renaissance or lower tech, using an I go-you go system with one action per unit per turn.

I want to give army and squad leaders generic orders of which they and their squad will be trained in max. 2, and I need ideas.

Current ones include better shooting, break rerolls, and out-of sequence moves.

A lot of homebrews are kluges, not really a finished product. I wanted an informal thread where everyone felt free and didn't act like the second coming of the Gary.

Maybe being able to get into a favorable formation fast, as part of the cost of their turn action.

Yep, got one for formation changing and maintenance.

I've got: shooting, advancing, reforming, rallying, and skirmish-fleeing. Other suggestions have been improved bracing for impact and improved charge damage

How about training them in ambush tactics.

I'm making a fantasy setting purely for tabletop and designed to be fun to play and explore moreso than being realistic, grounded or original. I have 10 races, pls tell me why they're shit:

8ft dark-skinned spartans who build big mesopotamian cities and conquer shit
Indian-looking broad manlets with 4 arms and an eye for politics and trade
Short albino dudes who live in caves and crawl on walls like spiders
Skinny and tall 4-armed super old dudes with ayylmao heads and magic powers, all the women are dead and nobody remembers why
7-foot celtic herdsmen who live in the mountains and have horns and wool
Greek-looking hunter-gatherer nomads with bird wings
Literally rohan except they have whiskers and animal fur instead of (facial) hair and ride cooler stuff
Gnomes that live in trees and have chameleon skin
Eel-men who live in rivers, swamps and caves and have tons of variation giving them neat shit
Tall skinny hobbit gypsies with sideburns and reputations as pickpockets and conmen

>Gnomes that live in trees and have chameleon skin
I especially like this one.

Training in entrenchment, the ability to create and use obstacles as cover.

They're supposed to be sorta like old norse trolls who hide away in forests and avoid people and frolick with animals.

Strikes me as weird that the closest thing we get in most fantasy is elves.

I might be able to make the ambush one work for super cover bonus or something, but ideally it needs to be something that can give effective results within one minute or less (technically ten seconds). Those could work for army or unit special rules though.

Those are actually pretty good, seem quite original. Would I be allowed to rip off one or two?
Questions: what sort of era setting? It feels pretty iron/dark ages at a glance.
What on earth is a tall hobbit?

Man rip whatever you want, ideas are free.

Setting's kind of a pulp of classical, dark age, high medieval and early renaissance from culture to culture, most societies are motte and baileys and mead halls, but the dudes based on italy have city-states with councils and professional armies.

Tall hobbits are what happens when you take a hobbit's skin and put an elf skeleton inside it.

You gain novelty, but you lose the players' familiarity with the old races. I think it would work for a highly tactical game like some plays of Pathfinder, but it might become confusing in a game based on narrative where players have to keep many description details straight.

I tried to keep them fairly grounded for that very reason, it's why there's no star wars aliens with heads like bull anuses. Also there's only really 3-4 races who actually build cities as opposed to living in holes and turning up in street gangs.

I reckon it shouldn't be too overwhelming after a few sessions to get to know the world.

I feel kinda dumb because I can't think up some kind of scenario to start a campaign with. Are there any good resources out there that you'd recommend?

What's the campaign's premise?

The players have been press-ganged into service on a pirate ship. So I want to set up something based on, well, piracy, but I'm drawing blanks.

What characteristics do they carry over from being hobbits then?

I'm using the Writers Block Lists to come up with scenario hooks. archive.rpgclassics.com/fanfics/fics/archoneblock.shtml

Could skip right ahead, one player with a letter of marque in his palm standing on the bow of the ship watching land grow larger.

Or you could do the classic where everyone is in jail, a preened nobleman with an armed escort walks along the cells, picking out the PCs who are branded and sent with the king's blessing and a goal to plunder enemies of the crown.

Maybe try it FATE style, where you work every PC's backstory into a common goal, where one dread pirate stole the girl, has the artifact, killed the mentor and pillaged the hometown and the players are in the same smithy as the cannons ring out.

Big feet, curly hair ranging from ginger to black, waistcoats, pipeweed, quiet and sharing a similar aesthetic to the hobbit-holes in their caravans and houseboats.

Instead of middle-class middle england in oxfordshire, they're more shifty-eyed cockneys from hackney with a hearty serving of irish gypsy.

I'll take a look at that. Thanks.

Any of those could work... Thank you, user.

Pecking order- the lower crew members immediately begin jockeying for position over the shanghaied players, culminating in a confrontation when the officers are absent.

Gophers- On ship there are dangerous jobs that no one wants to do, like a party going inland to find fresh water to resupply the ship. Our heroes get this plum assignment on a very small jungle island, accompanied by some toughs, where they find a spring guarded by a fearsome enemy.

Cards- After looting a small merchant cargo, the pirates begin gambling over shares of the loot, and "invite" the party to play.

bump for good thread

What about a gauntlet-running situation? The reverse of the bounty hunter one, you're behind enemy lines and trying to get to the far side of the map.

I am currently working on my own card game that is a fusion of the final fantasy tactics series and maigc the gathering.

The game is played with 1 deck that all players share. The deck is composed of all creatures, and players may play them facedown as a land. To move a creature during your mainphase you may pay 1 mana to move a creature you control a number of spaces equal to its Movement stat.

All units have attack (power), defense (toughness), range, mobility, and mana cost.

In terms of unique creature properties there are symbols to show different qualities, like a skull for death touch, a wave for ability to move over water spaces, a sword with crescent for cleaving attacks,etc.

Currently i have 108 units ready to go, and an 8 page draft version of the rule book.

Pic related, they are some of the cards.

This is pretty polished. I'd be interested in troubleshooting the rules, unless you're self-conscious about it.

I have not fully written the rules, still need to make the combat section (its currently in a version only i understand, and anyone who looks at it wont be able to follow, but here is what i have currently, and again this is still a WIP, these are just the slightly more polished sections of the rules.

Imagine dump otw.

continued 2/5

Also fuck time limit on posts.

3/5

4/5

5/5

I am still working on combat section, and the rest of my stuff is a about 12ish pages of Unit Cards.

Also all the art is stolen, since i cant draw for shit, so i choose generic archetypal art as future concept art to hire an artist to work off of.

I also cant write, so il eventually need to hire a editor/publisher/ and probably something else.

Also there are 2 more pages of all the unique ability icons, but i don't want to upload those since i am not committed to any of them, and currently have 18 of them and will be cutting some.

"For 2 to 4 players", that's interesting. Have you ever played the CCG Vampire: The Eternal Struggle? It had a dynamic like that.

This grid is 9 squares by 10.

Using full sized cards, it would fit on a standard card table just fine, but it would be hard to go much larger.

Seems pretty well thought out, thank you for sharing it!

The idea of only one of each class existing is interesting - if a player makes a Rogue, then he is The Rogue and rest of the thieves in the world would be just commoners without special abilities beyond general disregard for law. It would fit a mythical setting where the PCs are cultural heroes and such very well!

The 2-4 is because the game will be played on a 4 sided board, so i figured i could make it more than 2 player game. I capped it at 4 because having the board be fair to all players would become difficult.

It will be a 12x12 board, making it a clean 3.5 feet width and height. (Although i suspect with the space imbetween tiles it will probably become 3.6ft on each side, but eh, you cant have everything be perfect)
Pic is a crappy placeholder, it will eventually have grassland/plains/nature on the standard white spaces, wall art of on the gray spaces, and ocean/fish/water on the blue spaces.

Players summon units onto the green spaces. Units may attack the green spaces to damage that player's health.If you have a unit that is alive with the defender ability then your health may not be attacked in this way.

The blue spaces may only be moved on by units with the Aquatic (or aerial) ability, and aquatic units will gain some type of bonus while on a water spaces. Im not sure to give them bonus attack, defense, or mobility, or something miscellaneous.

The gray spaces may only be moved on by units with Aerial.