What current mechanical conundrums are you having with the game? What SHOULD these mechanics be doing?
A thread dedicated to discussion and feedback of games and homebrews made by Veeky Forums regarding anything from minor elements to entire systems, as well as inviting people to playtest your games online. While the thread's main focus is mechanics, you're always welcome to share tidbits about your setting.
Try to keep discussion as civilized as possible, avoid non-constructive criticism, and try not to drop your entire PDF unless you're asking for specifics, it's near completion or you're asked to.
I started designing my game with almost Gurp-esque complexity. And then I reread it all when done and scrapped it. Each time I redo it, it's simpler and simpler, less and less numbers and rolls. Right now I have a modified ladder version with only d10, and I'm satisfied.
The only problem with a d10 ladder and simplified skill/asset use, is the combat. I fear that removing numbers and complexity of action will remove crunch and hence fun for some of my players.
What would be a good way of doing combat that is more complex than straight-up ladder and less complex than traditional ''all kinds of numbers and dice'' like DND and such ?
Thanks.
Joseph Bailey
Bump to keep the thread alive til I get home from work.
Evan Sullivan
I'm not familiar with the term ladder. Is that like a system with varying thresholds for success?
Benjamin Bailey
This isn't directly related to making your own system, but more to homebrewing in general:
I find that "inspiration" in my 5e game is a useless mechanic. First of all, people only have it when you award it, which means rarely for me as a GM, because I just fucking forget.
On the other hand, "Fate Points" in my Only War game are an excellent mechanic. Partly because you can heal with them, and heals are pretty rare in Only War, but also because they automatically restore every session.
Does anyone have an equivalent mechanic they utilize, that I could maybe supplant inspiration with, in my D&D ?
Cameron Gomez
I'm getting pretty close to finalizing the rules for a full conversion of FFG's Edge of the Empire (et al.) for an Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra setting.
Would any of you be interested in play-testing this?
I chose the FFG narrative dice system because although combat is certainly going to be a heavy feature, part of the appeal of the Avatar universe is the sense of adventure and the ad hoc situations that arose throughout the series. The Avatar world is ripe for exploration and I believe the Force power mechanic lends itself very well to how bending might work mechanically.
I realize the narrative dice system for Star Wars isn't as geared toward combat as it could be, but I've introduced some additional elements (like stance variations, and counter maneuvers) that I think will really help combat feel as fast-paced and fluid as it does in the show.
Jaxon Hall
Sounds like fun
what form would the playtesting take?
Alexander Robinson
>"I find that if I don't follow the rules of the game then they're pointless" Quality post m8
Christopher Gomez
I'm not really sure because I only have time to GM a game IRL among friends, but if I could get someone with interest, I'd be more than happy to share a copy of the core rulebook PDF.
At this point in time the only thing keeping me from publishing the rulebook is the fact that I have all of the base content, but no late-game content (like better vehicles, high-tier bending techniques), and I don't have a readily-playable adventure for other GMs to test run.
Ryder Clark
Someone talk me out of using excel character sheets
Cameron Roberts
Fair enough, I should be more focused on actually giving it, but even so it is literally a "gain advantage on 1 roll / session" and you can have 1 at a time, which creates a false sense of value - you just have the one, and you never know when you'll get another. Of course, none of that matters, since you are just a sad and decrepit baiter, but still.
Jayden Thomas
If you posted the rulebook to this or a future /gdg/ I imagine people would be happy to review your mechanics
Hudson Brown
All right! The game is pretty much to the point where I think I could really use some feedback.
I haven't really had a chance to balance *anything* so I imagine there are a lot of features, classes, and mechanics that are overpowered or underpowered that I haven't even considered.
This link will allow anyone to add comments, so you don't necessarily have to provide your feedback here.
This is my first time really trying to homebrew/convert a ruleset, so uh...go easy on me please haha
Blake Morris
The major changes are outlined in the introduction, anything not specifically mentioned there is either copypasta from the source material *or* wasn't changed enough to warrant a mention.
By far the biggest changes are the Counter/Stance mechanics to combat as well as the entirety of Chapter VIII: Bending.
Jace Edwards
Size is the thing I can't seem to get hammered out. I want to model size from Tarantula to Brachiosaurus. Slight breaks/differences in mechanics when scaling up or down beyond PC humanoid scale are permissible but some cohesion should be maintained.
Resilience against attacks should be proportional with size, but amount of [Wounds] is static per [Body Section]. This is to reduce and streamline book keeping in a game that is already going to be more heavy, keep clear transparent status feedback, ensure the mathematical cleanness of other mechanics that build on it and to maintain a aesthetic red line of number ratios that will keep the rules together as a whole. Thus I'm not willing to change static [Wounds]. Damage reduction as a negative to [Wounds] taken I want to reserve for actual armor.
A sub optimal solution I can think of would be to use more and smaller [Body Sections] on bigger creatures. Negatives of that are: >single anatomical parts would become multiple sections fast >resilience not actually rises when the attacker can attack specific sections reliably (you only need to take out vital body sections to kill, not all of them) >section labeling swells larger >more tracking of damage dealt Positive: >Reducing works when scaling down from PC scale.
Other suboptimal Solution is to give big creatures immunity to the smallest category of [Wounds] ([minor Wounds]). Negative: >Has no granularity to it. >Ogres, big cattle or mounts would gain too much. >Unfair advantage if given to big PC species. Positive: >Works for big creatures about Elephant size.
Pic shows how I get at most 5 different sizes out of layering damage steps in relation to size. Mayor becomes medium damage when attacking a step bigger foes etc.
Another Issue related to size is Blood as a magic resource. Big kills should be a big resource boon at least quantity wise. Big PCs shouldn't have more magic resources by default because they already have more weight to throw around.
Justin James
Refresh a few points of Inspiration on a per-session basis just like fate points? Might raise the overall power of the party a little but makes it a mechanic that actually comes into play.
Zachary Myers
ladder=dice pool?
Liam Davis
This, in my game I'm doing something like this, sometimes I will remember awarding my players their "fate points", but on the next session they will get their per-session points plus anything that went unrewarded last session
Jeremiah Bennett
Don't use Excel character sheets.
Jack Jackson
Just here to say that is the best Ainsley shop ever. Bravo.
Justin Mitchell
I meant ladder as in the Fate system, or the free game The Ladder. I guess I am not good with remembering name because it seems in RPG design that it is called a "step" system.
Xavier Collins
I was adding some movement rules to my game the other day and the rules for 3D movement turned out incredibly simple.
This could either be a blessing or a sign of something seriously wrong, given that I thought of them and typed them out in the span of 30 seconds.
>Movement > The play area is typically a board with a hexagonal grid. Due to this game's scale and high mobility combat each space on this grid represents a fair sized area, multiple characters can easily fit into a single space.
>During a character's turn they can move a number of spaces equal to their Speed stat for free, this area is known as their Movement Range. They can move even further by spending one Stamina for each additional space travelled. A flying character can increase or decrease their altitude by one instead of moving a space. Each point of difference between character altitudes is considered a space when determining range and AoE.
Everything I have listed under the movement heading. It's short, it's simple and I can't shake the feeling that I may have missed something obvious and important.
Thoughts?
Jeremiah Fisher
How do you keep track of altitudes for all players and npcs? I might recommend a d20 or a stack of coins
David Martin
Hadn't really thought of that.
I was already planning on using coins as tokens for tracking Stamina. A different coin could be used for altitude easily enough. Or even the same coin, given that it'd be under the character token and not in someone's stamina pool.
Gabriel Fisher
So I'm trying to work on a system that let's small units of models support each other in a wargame. I'm trying to hit the right spot to keep from going over board.
The base idea is that both models roll a pool of D12, scoring a success on X+, 'X' depending on relevant stats, and exploding on a '12'. The defense roll gets a number of auto-successes depending on the Armor of the model. If the attack gets more successes than the defense, damage is done. The idea for average numbers would be 7+ for a success, with attacks getting 3 dice to the pool, and defense getting 2 dice and 1 Armor. The team up idea is that other models in the unit can give up their own attack, in order to give a +1 die to the attack pool.
I have a few ideas on how to keep team up from going over-board. One is to drop the average numbers a bit, another is to limit the bonus for teaming up, and the last is limit how damage is done to one point if the attack is successful. I'm leaning towards the limiting of damage, it would push the teaming up to really be used only when its needed, i.e. a weaker unit going up against a heavily armored unit or large creature. The only thing that would be hard to balance is the right amount of durability and defense to make it so team up isn't the default.
Any other ideas on how I should implement things to prevent it from just turning into a game of dice pool inflation?
Luke Jones
Is there a torrent for Dungeon Painter? I can't seem to find one.
