/gdg/ - Game Design General

>Did you build a project to support a setting, or did you create a setting (or lack thereof) to support the project?
Quite interesting question.

I'm trying to make a spiritual successor of D&D 4e, and got many headaches on how to deal with classes vs powers vs sources vs roles. Either I kept most of it intact or it became souless archetypes as Strike! did.

Then I thought on the setting and how to make it different from the everyday kitchen-sink fantasy.

That helped a lot and now I have classes that suit the setting and have soul and meaning instead of Martial Striker, Divine Leader.

>Did you build a project to support a setting, or did you create a setting (or lack thereof) to support the project?
The latter, I usually try to make my stuff as minimal fluff as possible. You know, to let people RP as little or as much as they want. Also lets people spin it however they want it.

I really like the sound of this. If I were to engineer such a thing, I'd probably end up minimizing it into a "choose an archetype, then a source a power".
That is, what we consider classes would just be labels on a much looser system.

I've been considering core resolution mechanics for a while, and one idea I've struck on is (Skill)d10b2+(Skill-2+Attribute), meaning you roll a number of dice equal to your skill rank and keep the best two, then modify the results with your key attribute and skill rank minus 2. Most people would have 3 in intuitive skills. The problem is that flat modifiers really make or break a 2d10 range, and it sort of dies at low skill levels: 1d10-1 is basically pointless (which I guess makes sense to represent someone who doesn't know how to do a complex task at all), and 3d10b2+1 is much better than 2d10b2, winning about 75% of the time.

The reason why I wanted to use Xd10b2 is because I was planning on having the 'leftover' dice usable as fuel for mechanics like disarming in combat or additional effects for social actions, and that a player could choose whether to take the better total on their roll or generate additional horizontal effects. The reason why I added Skill-2 to the modifier is because just using the attribute really colors the rolls in favor of maximum-stat madness. Not neccesarrily a bad idea if the range of reasonable modifiers changed from -1 to +3, but things like a +5 would break the range in half and be more suitable for things like very powerful enemies.

For example, 3d10b2+3 beats 7d10b2-1 a little less than half the time, which might not be a problem if the old master happens to have some extra tricks to turn the tide.

I'm making a game about playing the secret rulers of the world, trapped in an endless game of secret agents and espionage. It's mostly played with "zoomed out" actions, where you send out an agent and roll to see if they did their job correctly. Is there any interest for this kind of game? What kind of stuff would you want to see or expect to see from a game like this?

That all sounds super interesting on a mathematic, probability level, but it sounds impractical at the table. Is there any way to achieve the same result with less math for your players?

My main idea is basically this:
>Fighter has a Sword skill of 5 and a +3 to Strength
>He wants to cut that motherfucking skelly in half because fuck skeletons
>2, 9, 10, 4, 7
>He takes 9+7+3 for a 19 on the roll, then burns the 10 he has to make an additional attack with -2 dice on the new roll because he has some feature that allows him to do this
>2, 7, 6 gives him a 7+6+3 for 16, and the 2 is useless to him
>So the result is one sword attack of 19 and another of 16, which obliterates two skeletons.
I basically have a nerdboner for number crunching, so anything that makes it faster or easier to explain helps.

When you explain it like that it seems pretty straightforward! Don't you think the game might get bogged down by people taking multiple rolls each action though?

You can easily apply -1 per d10 by having 0 die face count as actual 0 instead of 10. Like 1d10-1 it has the same 0...9 range and involves less calculations and memorizing formulas.

It makes the mechanic... palatable.

>When you explain it like that it seems pretty straightforward! Don't you think the game might get bogged down by people taking multiple rolls each action though?
Hm, maybe re-applying the first result (w/ or w/o penalty) to the second attack because it could be considered part of the same swing? I'll make sure if I write features that I minimize additional rolls if possible.
>You can easily apply -1 per d10 by having 0 die face count as actual 0 instead of 10. Like 1d10-1 it has the same 0...9 range and involves less calculations and memorizing formulas.
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense, actually. Didn't think of that. Appreciate it. Runs on 0-18... could use GURPS modifiers as a baseline and then flavor to taste.
>It makes the mechanic... palatable.
You're right, of course. As it is, it's sort of obnoxious. Ironically, I hate reading crunch but love writing it. Gonna take this back to the drawing board and make it not suck as hard.

I'm trying to make a dungeon-crawl centric system with a focus on simplicity. I tried looking around at older games, but found nothing satisfactory, so I decided to do it myself.
That said, I've never made a game before, and who'd have thunk it. Its fucking hard. So anyway, I need some critique on my basic combat rules.
Combat is based around a pool of points that each player rolls for, either at the character creation, or at the start of the encounter. Haven't really decided. This pool is used to do any action and actions are divided up into "major actions" and "minor actions". A minor action uses a single point from the pool and comprises stuff like moving, equipping/using an item (depending on the item) and speaking (to the enemy). A major action uses all the remaining points and the amount of remaining points may boost the result of the action depending on the type of action and character. For example. A fighter with 4 points moves twice and hits an enemy. The hit uses his last 2 points to boost damage.

My goal with this is to encourages tactical play and make the players think about what they want to do further than just "I move and attack". I'm not sure if this would actually work, but I find no major flaw with it from just thinking about it.

No, that's something you'll find governs D&D4e, for example. It's definitely functional, especially in the context of tactics.

AP is another common [numerated] way to help balance out either smaller but more plentiful actions versus larger but more singular actions.

Don't be too hard on yourself, Roll and Keep is an established mechanic and your approach is less convoluted imho than Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, for example. A lot can be gained by properly throught-through game text that introduces these rules. Ideally with a few illustrated examples.

It's functionally equivalent to systems with Action Point economy, except that your Action Points can be used to special effect. Note: the more Action Points a character has, the slower their turn.

>the more Action Points a character has, the slower their turn.
Yeah I know. I was thinking of capping it at a relatively low number to keep it from being a total wank. Maybe 6 max or something, I dunno. Depends on how characters are gonna work.

I know its pretty much a mod on any old action point system, but I feel like the opportunity to use them for a bonus is somewhat interesting, no?
I should probably make sure that there is enough to do in a turn to incentivize not just maximising bonuses every turn. Thats encounter planning though.

I'm personally affiliating with this idea on a maximum of 6, since the number has solid divisibility:
1⨯6 | 2⨯3 | 3⨯2 | 6⨯1

The challenge comes down to individual worth of Major, Minor, and Move--and how much time each should occupy (should Moving be more expensive than Minor, or less?).

>should Moving be more expensive than Minor, or less?
That's the trouble. I want moving to be a non-issue, but still important for positioning and such. My thought was that it would cost a minor action to move a single square on the map, however, that would limit it greatly.
This aspect could be based on character stats. So they always have 6 points to use, but how much value those points hold is determined by stats. Dex could influence how many tiles you could move on a single point for example.
Thanks for the good ideas btw. I'm really getting a better idea of how things could work now that i'm talking about them with someone.

I would personally keep "AP = 6" as a constant--since time is this indifferent to the characters (usually). This is assuming improvements to skills, attacks, and speed will suffice for differentiation. It will make balancing far easier. I had considered a "smarter people learn more shit" subsystem on my own once, and it would have made the game intolerably unbalanced.

Considering a few permutations, I think I like the idea of a "1, 2, 3" // minor, move, major array.
This is a one-of-everything allocation, which strikes me as "nice". You buff, you move, you strike. (Certainly more enthralling than a 1, 2, 4 progression where you'd really just move then attack.) It creates a myriad of options (which could be good or bad):
6 minor
3 minor, 1 major
2 moves, 2 minor
2 major
and so on.

Regardless, keep it up. I miss parts of D&D4e so I would enjoy what you cook up.

>Did you build a project to support a setting, or did you create a setting (or lack thereof) to support the project?
I exclusively write historical games so the setting always comes first and informs how the system should be written.

I always do a lot of research on a conflict, ideally looking for first-hand accounts. Then I come up with the elements I want to have on the tabletop - the important things that make the conflict unique. Then I go about trying to represent these elements (and the units and tactics involved) in the most simple way possible.

Finding the balance of simplicity and historical accuracy is one of my goals when writing a game system. Sometimes it's not easy and things get slightly more complex than I would like, but hopefully the added complexity will really add to the flavor of a given period (like orders and messengers in a WW1 system, or radar and sonar in a modern air combat system)

Well, here's one opinion: I like seeing "zoomed out" but only every so often, otherwise there's too much boardgame and not enough RPG.

Thanks for the comment. What would a game that mostly takes place zoomed out need to do to keep your interest? What parts of zoomed out play appeal the least to you?

For reference, if you've played Blades in the Dark, the game plays out similarly to their Downtime phase.

What are must have features for maximum dosh ?

I have way too many potential games to go for... I just hope I'll get Misfortune done before 2018. I want to work on something else for a while, but I need to finish that first.

>Thread Topic
Usually former, sometimes latter. I have a tendency of coming up with setting ideas first and game ideas second, but sometimes I do get a game mechanic and start thinking about an optimal setting for it.

Misfortune is specifically made to support any setting. It just doesn't support all playing styles. That's the thing. You can play a gritty medieval low-fantasy game, and it would work perfectly, it just doesn't have the parts people expect from such a game, ie. the crunch.

check this out. it uses the gumshoe system to play games like scandal or game of thrones or dune. all political maneuvering.

I'm working on a DBZ style game with no dice rolling and simple rules. Every character has attack and defense, each point of attack over enemy defense is 1 damage. Character with higher speed goes first, you can spend a turn to 'charge' up and go Super Saiyan to improve your power level for a short time,etc.

I'm thinking about resource management as an important mechanic for a game like this. Do you think it makes sense to drain 1 point of Attack to perform a special attack move, drain 1 point if speed to dodge an attack with power equal to less, etc? I'm using sources like DBZ or One Piece for this, so I'm not sure if there's a precident for it, or if I should work in a generic stamina resource or stat?

Use ki. Ki is everything. Attack, defense, moves and HP.

Ki is drained by damage and is spent by special moves. It is a gamble game.

Will you spend 10 ki to go faster? Lose a move action to increase ki by 50?

Make energy attacks work on this too. How much ki you want to spend on a Kamehameha? If Goku is holding down Raditz, you can spend all your energy on a final attack even if you faint after.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to make it so you are required to use qi for every special move, maybe really high powered dudes can fire out magic/energy blasts as standard attacks. I didn't mention it but part of this game features people being able to basically use anything they want as weapons, as long as they train enough. Fireballs, chains, swords, guns, fists, energy blasts, etc.

But yeah that's a good answer. I'll have to work out how ki works in the game in terms of economy. You think it's fair to make it so not doing anything for a turn let's you restore ki? I would like characters to get slogged down eventually as they fight, not being able to fight forever is important.

Not every special move. Every thing. A character is defeated by having its ki down to zero. But he must spend ki to make stronger attacks. So, how much you want to spend now to avoid losing more later.

But yeah, you can use anything, but I would prefer leaving that as fluff. Usually doesn't matter if it is a sword, a baton or a punch. But make a sharp ki infusion so you can cut a tail with a sword, or a palm, or a destructo disk.

I guess that sort of how it works in the shows. Seems to somewhat erase the need for stats if ki is so vitally important, but I suppose they could ask as discounts or limiters for how much ki you can actually spend on each move.

Yeah, use training and skills to modify how they deal with ki. Maybe a kamehameha deal extra damage, but a destructo disk is slashing, some other is harder to avoid.
This makes easier to balance and to add new moves.

>You think it's fair to make it so not doing anything for a turn lets you restore ki?

Yes, of course. Charging up was a big part of the shows and derivative games after all. You may want to have a separate damage tracker that reduces maximum ki as it fills up so a character that manages to not get hit for a few turns can't heal to perfect health from near death. You may want to have SSJ style powerups require a certain ki level to enter and maintain since in the shows there's a power up sequence beforehand and characters sometimes get knocked out of SSJ if they're hit hard enough. Along the same lines you might want to give characters a resting ki level well below their max ki that they'll start most battles at some fights don't usually start with transformations until late in the series when power levels got crazy.

Don't forget how Frieza's men, including Radtiz/Nappa/Vegeta were amazed how Goku could reduce his base ki level to hide his full power.

Sure, hiding your power level should absolutely be a thing, both for stealth and for getting an advantage over enemies that think you're weaker than you actually are. I think the Z fighters had some sort of masking ability rather than actually reducing their ki below their resting state - seems to be tied to the ability to sense power levels, though that might just be a prerequisite rather than a coupled ability.

Hey thanks, that was a great read.

>almost ready to playtest your game
>that one mechanic you just can't get right that's holding up your whole production
What's her name, /gdg/? Right now I'm struggling with metacurrency.

The entire fucking magic system.

A really damn tough question.
Armed beats unarmed, and longer weapons beat shorter weapons. Smaller weapons are easier to move around in tight spaces and in tight formations.

I'd never give them a defense bonus, you try parrying a sword with a dagger. An accuracy bonus might be okay.
I personally go with weapon weight (not length or size).
So daggers and swords are light, falchions (yeah I know they're not that heavy IRL) and axes are medium and hammers/maces are heavy; weight affects damage and maximum initiative/speed (heavier gear limits speed).
If I'd put length in there, I'd have something Mordheim-y where the longer and lighter weapons get their attacks first and then the heavier and shorter ones.

I'm being a huge indecisive fag about what dice I want to use and it's holding up all derivative stats and damage values. I've gone from d20 to 3d6 to 3d10 to 3d4 to 2d10 to 2d12 to mixed dice and back again. Only thing I'm absolutely certain of is that d100 is too granular.

>The entire fucking magic system.
That's a tough one. Do you want a more limited but consistent list style or freeform framework?

>I'm being a huge indecisive fag about what dice I want to use
If you want my superficial advice since I don't know more about your system: go with d6. Other dice are far more obscure and people are less likely to have them lying around. Furthermore in most cases you really don't need more than six possibilities - you will struggle to make 20 possible results interesting and have maybe six good ones in there (the rest will just seem obligatory).

I'm trying to make a skyrim ripoff where if you say Fire Burn Area you cast a fireball that leaves a burn DoT on anyone inside the area.
Charge Stun means you charge at an enemy and if you hit, he's stunned (you charge even if you've already "spent" movement this round). Blink Stun means you teleport to target and Stun. Blink Blink Fire Slash is blink to target, slash with weapon + fire damage, blink back to original location.

Like Fus Ro Dah that means Force Unrelenting something whatever.

Anyone can use and "cast" spells/powers, and they're all mechanically identical, regardless of if you're a warrior that thinks of the words, rogue that throws down gang-signs (signlanguage) to cast, wizard with funky chicken dance or cleric with prayer.

Yeah d6 was my first go-to after I dropped d20 for that very reason, but then I thought about the gallon bag of d10s I have from playing Exalted and down the rabbit hole I went. Six is a good number for most of the random effect abilities I have planned, but it's too low to use a single die for some calculations and the degenerating explosive dice mechanic one class has really favors mixed dice. I should probably just gather up all my notes and try to figure out what range of values do I absolutely need and go from there.

I wouldn't know, but I imagine setting your constraints first (what exactly is possible) will help you achieve a satisfying framework. The individual words aren't as important.

I'm doing something a little similar in my game and each word of your phrase has a certain point cost, and you simply pay the sum from your magic resource when you cast it. The player and GM discuss the exact effect beforehand. I've found that just assuming the group trusts each other and wants to have a good time has freed up my designs from obsessively imagining every possible way one asshole could ruin it. If that's the case then the group has a problem, not the game.

>class mechanics before core mechanics
Cart before the horse, my friend.

>group trusts each other and wants to have a good time has freed up my designs
Bingo, most people are inherently okay

A fair point, though it's also fair to add that I did attempt to nail down the core first and only moved on because I got stuck and hoped the answer would become clear in retrospect. A poor gamble, but that's the story of my life.

No shame in that, man. Sometimes I just step away from design for a couple months to see what sticks. Some of my most productive time is after I've taken a long break to enjoy movies, games or books and have a fresh pool of inspiration.

One huge advantage of just being a hobbyist designer is that you have no deadline. The only thing you stand to violate is your own personal pride in what you create.

3d* would be nice, if only for the start of a normalized distribution

I keep thinking about how I'm going to format/style the cards for my inventory system but simultaneously feel uncertain about the abilities/stunts I've chosen....

I need some help making up a theme for my magic system. It is based around buffing and debuffing, so i can't really go with the classic elemental mage.
Anyone got some suggestions for a theme?

Harmony and Chaos?

Ohhh, that would need to be the Twists, kind of. They do work, but I just think the prices for them are right. I want to keep the totals low, so the numbers don't bloat, but it just doesn't feel right that you can have 5 bouts of shit luck and gain superpowers.

Well, I guess it kind of gives those things weight. Having a small granularity in the experience gain makes each point feel meaningful.

Buffing and debuffing what? Is this a standard fantasy game or something else?

buffing friendlies, debuffing enemies. It is mostly standard fantasy with some modern influences. The mages are essentially non-combatants and serve mostly as support for fighters and such.

I've done this with my support caster magic system.

One method is to use a simple difficulty or mana cost as number of bonus, if you keep things even. So 1 mana point grants a +1 to a roll, or another dice to roll if a dice pool system.

In terms of difficulty of things like curses, another method is to tie it into the level or HD of the monster that can cast the curse. So if a gorgon is level 6, you need to be level 6 to cast this curse with 6 mana points, etc.

I know this was vague and shitty but your question was also pretty vague and shitty too.

I tend to find answers when I'm not really looking for them, in a way that I'm usually trying to solve something in my system... then a previous challenge becomes clear.

Anyone that understands anydice able to help me calculate the odds for rolling doubles or trebles on 3 dice?

Roughly put, you can work it out from anydice.com/program/9eb

The only thing is that you need to multiply the 2 and 3 results by six.

Thus:
Chance for doubles = 41.64%
Chance for triples = 2.76%

I'm building the outline of a cyberpunk system, is there any game in particular that handles a good set of ranged combat rules? I need some reference.

Warhammer 40K RPGs, even thought they have fantasy firearms. Advantage: being percentile-based makes for easy conversion to whatever dice mechanic you have.
For the same reason: Delta Green and it has mordern weapons.
And then, finally, GURPS. Probably don't need to explain why.

Honorable mention go to Phoenix Command (the most complete firearms system), Shadowrun and Twilight 2000 2E. But they're probably too complicated to learn solely for this purpose.

I'm not sure how to succinctly describe it without laying out the whole system. You know LotW style advantage/disadvantages where circumstances give you +5/-5 depending on if you choose to go along with them or not? My system makes heavy use of a similar concept called "narratives" which more or less do the same thing, but are more a part of the character than just circumstances.

The problem I'm facing is how to prevent/discourage players from cultivating more narratives than would actually be fun to track, and how to bottleneck their use/stacking to prevent them from turning the game into a 3.pf style million-bonus-fest. For example, just building a relationship narrative with every character you meet then when you get into a fight saying "if I die here I will never see them again" and activating all of them. On the surface, this is working as intended, but practically speaking it encourages some bad practices and ends up screwing with scaling.

I could throttle their use by having every "type" of narrative, with some kind of [tag] system, have very specific parameters for their use, and say that you cannot stack bonus' from multiple the same [tag] regardless of source. But now I am become 3.pf, and that's a lot of rules to track regardless. Some level of this is regardless necessary (it would be dumb for every single type of narrative to be activatable when your life is on the line to the same effect as a narrative directly related to the fight, like a desire for revenge against the opponent or something)

So right now I'm toying with a meta-resource cost to activate them somehow.

Have additional narratives reduce the bonus?

Main narrative would be +5, but the second is +3, then +2, then +1, and maybe another +1 for 5 stories in Fibonacci.

Reducing is a fine idea, but I don't think it would work due to the range of the dice system (2d10 at base, you can roll more with expertise but you still only keep 2). I was planning on narratives contributing +1 as base because every bonus counts for a lot. Reducing would require the first bonus to be +3 at least, which right off the bat is too high for a dependably accessible bonus.

Hm, I guess I'll actually throw my concerns about the core dice system down to, it's a small thing but bothering.

Basically I'm having trouble deciding between 2d10 or 3d10 as the base roll. It needs to be d10s because matching dice are important for other parts of the system and d10 have the best math and feel for matching. In both cases, the dice would be added together then added with any other modifiers for the result. If the character has expertise in that action, they may roll 1 extra or as many as 5 extra dice, but they still only keep the highest 2 (if base is 2d10) or 3 (if base is 3d10)

Comparison looks like this

2d10
>Smaller number of dice means less math
>Averages out to 11, matching or beating 10 about 66% of the time which makes 10 a nice and intuitive "base difficulty"
>Similar range to d20, the system most players are most familiar with

3d10
>B e l l - c u r v e
>Larger range and bell distribution means +1s put less strain on the system.
>More math
>More dice
>Averages 16.5, beats 15 about 66% of the time so that would need to be the "base difficulty", but 15 feels relatively awkward to 10.
>Huge range (3-30) can make modifiers seem irrelevant (though bell shaped distribution mostly negates this)
>Have to make additional rules for triple matches, have to adjust double matches to account for them being much more common.

I ended up finding the formula to determine it online:
>((N*N*N)-(N*(N-1)*(N-2))/(N*N*N)
When you've been out of school for about a decade, you tend to forget how those things work. Thank you, though.

Now I need to determine, since I'm using it as a crit system, how severe the crit should be. I'm using D12 instead of D6, so the math brings it down to 24%~, add in its a success pool and I want to only include successful rolls in the crit, and that cuts it down further. I think if its a range of 10-15% chance, I can make the crit effect something noticeable. I was thinking an extra success to the pool would work.

If there's any interest of exactness, the doubles out of 3d12 is a 11 over 48 probability.

Unfortunately, if you went for triples out of 4d12, it would divide the previous proportion by 9 and you'd be down to ~0.0255 chance to crit, which a bit too low.

I'm looking at doubles and trebles on 3+ dice (considering exploding dice, depending on the system). I'm mostly concerned about special effects that go off on a crit; i.e. setting someone on fire or knocking someone down. If I go exploding, I should leave crits just to the special effects, an extra success on exploding dice seems excessive.

Ewww, d10

But the bell curve option seems rather nice

How do you deal with complexity in creating a board game?

(Also is talking about board games acceptable?)

I basically want to make Darkest Dungeon as a board game, where the bigger focus is on building up your hamlet and the quests are more like Eldritch Horror encounters. Between all the various characters and encounters and where everyone is, that's a lot of stuff to keep track of.

>Similar range to d20, the system most players are most familiar with
Strictly commercially speaking, this is the most relevant argument. But then again, Numenera proves that less relevant than one might think.

You seem to prefer 3d10, user. So do it.

>Ewww, d10
What did he mean by this?

Traveller - mongoose edition (1.e)

d10s are not platonic solids. Simple as that, really. They're also a sore thumb due to being THE decimal dice, and many a mathfag dislikes base-10.

That's my take.

You dont think the additional math and dice requirements are valid concerns? D10s arent like d6s where everyone can buy a case of 12, most people probably have 2 (for d100 rolls)

But yeah the curves are pretty attractive, may make the switch.

Storyteller dice sets exist my dude, 50d10 for like $15 at the most.

Gotta chime on in on this one. D10 sets are super common. YOu can get a set of 10 at any game store or online. Thanks to white wolf and storyteller system.

That said. Adding up 3 dice is a not unreasonable amount even D10s.

Thank goodness there's something somewhere using goddamn D12s

I have fallen in love with them.

Hi all,
I am designing a card game; what is a good program to proxy up some cards. Some text, maybe a picture.

I believe there is nanDECK but I'm prone to using vector-graphics software to make templates for things.

>d10s are not platonic solids
Why is this relevant though? Does the standard d10 cause any statistical irregularities of note?

>many a mathfag dislikes base-10.
Not that I am aware of? Statistics and probability theory are mainly base-10. You express probabilities in numbers between 0 and 1.

t. former math student

>(Also is talking about board games acceptable?)
Yes. I fear your questions need to be more specific, newfriend.

Platonic solids are the only "perfect" dice in the sense. d10s have imperfect symmetries and thus are not nearly as fair as platonic solid dice.

youtube.com/watch?v=G7zT9MljJ3Y

Base-10's problem is that if you used dozenal fractions instead of decimal fractions, it would be much more efficient. Much less of this 0.333... or 0.1677... business going on in general.

Well, the d10 in this video is fair according to Professor Diaconis. But even if it wasn't... has anyone ever recorded a significant statistical anomality regarding d10 (versus solid platonics by the same dicemaker)?

All of this sounds like a bad meme, tbqh famalam.

>Much less of this 0.333... or 0.1677... business going on in general.
You generally don't have any of that in d10(or especially d100)-based gameplay?

>Yes. I fear your questions need to be more specific, newfriend.
I can't get more specific because my game is so complex that I can't physically think of how to keep track of everything.

Which keeps me from actually working on it. At this point I worry it'll be impossible to do as a board game. I might just need to learn Gamemaker or something.

So I was working on my system which was a dumb concept off of a idea I had called Elitism/Rationality with the former making you more likely to crit fail/succeed with the other removing the ability to crit fail in your pool but also crit succeed.
I kinda want to use a dice pool system with d6's but it might be too convoluted?

Then, you may need to abstract the game a little further to reduce the complexity.
It could have a more singular goal, a type of tower defense deal. Maybe the game alternates between "build up" and "defense" rounds, for example.

Throw everything away.
I bought XCOM boardgame and even with the app the rules and phases are so much and so boring I couldn't finish the tutorial 3 times. One with my wife, one with my brother and one alone.

Didn't felt like XCOM, but as Bookeeping: the Game. The minis are great and I'll recast for myself

I could write about how I would do a Darkest Dungeon game, but on phone. I'll write when I get home.

Hmmmmm
I'm trying to understand what's meant by "elitism" in this context, and how it contrasts rationality, on a vocabulary/concept level.
Are these character traits that influence the rolls or are these just your labels?

What kinds of weapons are great at controlling your opponent in melee?

I'm seeing images of staff-fighting (hooked heads on polearms in particular) that can keep an opponent at range or "grabbed" while additionally thinking of grapples performed with hand weapons.
Any permutations and examples would be appreciated.

In the case of hooked polearms like the bills you're describing they're really just an axe on a stick that you can pull people off horses with if you don't kill them with the chop. For weapons designed with control in mind look into things like hookswords which are used to catch either the opponent's weapon or limb and pull them in for a thrust with a paired blade. Kusarigama accomplish a similar technique with their weighted chain - entangle the enemy weapon or strike them in the head with the weight then close in for a sickle strike. There's also the option of weighted nets, but frankly those are only good as part of arena sideshows since they're so unwieldy and you only really get one good shot to entangle your opponent.

That got me thinking about how the beard in any axe has an excellent "crowbar" utility against shields and such.
You can't go through them so your options are to disarm it, using a solid piece of leverage.
Thanks for the weapon insight.

Look for Sasumata and Sodegarami, user.

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I'm making a game about espionage, and I'm trying to figure out a way to tie in a hidden information mechanic with their advancement and abilities. What are your thoughts?

What do you do with your game when you aren't sure what to do with it next? I have just a big pile of rules that I don't even know will work, and I won't have the chance to playtest it for refinement for a while.