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>Thread Topic: What are the benefits of static difficulty in RPGs (such as having a set number to surpass, or having the difficulty be the player's own skill), as opposed to scaling them with different challenges?
Matthew Allen
I find that set numbers allow for a consistent bounded accuracy which the players feel they can overcome. Contrast this with the roll over a certain number that changes every level and you can see where players may feel that their actual stats don't matter since the challenge rises with their experience. In the latter system, if it is not done correctly then the whole thing can be boiled down to just the roll on the die rather than the player's stats.
Adrian Ramirez
> In the latter system, if it is not done correctly then the whole thing can be boiled down to just the roll on the die rather than the player's stats.
eliminating RNG may sound good, but RNG is what makes games interesting and powergaming less viable/necessary.
Take XCOM- it might be "bullshit" that you missed the up-close shot, but you have to adapt and plan for the worst, which makes it far more insteresting than a JRPG where all you do is min-max.
Cooper Walker
I never thought of it that way, but I guess that makes sense.
But then, how do you convey a sense of progression and growth in a game that stays within confined limits from the get go? How do you represent bigger threats and more difficult challenges?
What about things that have a direct input from the target itself, such as making an attack against someone?
Wyatt Scott
>. Contrast this with the roll over a certain number that changes every level and you can see where players may feel that their actual stats don't matter since the challenge rises with their experience.
That depends on the system, if the system is better at directly translating your skill to what you roll. (I've got 49 in demolitions, I roll d100 under 49 to do X action.) Then it's easy to quantify how their stats improve things.
Isaac Clark
Two sources of trouble:
1.) There is the idea that "a challenge" can apparently only manifest as numerical change. The players cannot become better at playing; only the characters can improve. As an example, I'd like to think a system could exist where the enemies become more numerically powerful while the players' characters only gain (situationally speaking) hard-to-use abilities that can turn the battle around.
2.) A GM believes it is their job to challenge the players. Of it is; the issue is that there's no sense of scale unless you can have one of those, "I remember when these guys sucked to fight" moments as captured by MMORPGs. That does, however, necessitate adding more diverse levels and enemies to the list of foes that show up to a fight.
Bentley Bennett
What do you think of d100 systems?
The biggest complaint I've heard against them is that the granularity of such a system is almost never utilized. Modifiers almost always come in 5s or 10s so you may just as well have used a d20 system. On the other hand I've heard that if a system does actually take advantage of the granularity that it can become tedious adding all these numbers together each time you roll.
I'm not sure where I sit on the issue right now. I know my group well enough to know that adding up numbers on the fly wouldn't be an issue, but I see how it could become tedious for many groups.
Thoughts on d100 systems?
Isaiah Morris
Harpoon uses D100, although you're right in that they do generally break it down to 5% increments (although there are a few cases of 1% probabilities) This helps in that the only things you ever need to add are whole numbers like 10% or 20%. you have a 75% probability to detect a target on sonar, but you reduce 15% because the target has anechoic tiles or somesuch.
d100 is also useful in other systems especially when 5% is too high of a percentage. For example, you have to roll every time you cast a spell because there is a chance of things going wrong. Rolling a D20 and having the thing go wrong on a 1 would be far too high of a chance for a a party with heavy, crucial magic users. Something like needing a 1 on a D100 would be much better for something that is more of a "fluff" effect and only has a negative effect on the actual gameplay.
Brayden Perez
I personally like at least one layer of obfuscation in front of the percentage of success. The scientific connotations of d% make results feel more certain.
Thomas Cooper
I kind of like the straightforwardness of it desu. I can outright say that I have an X% chance of success without having to do the math in my head.
John Hughes
So are the majority of people here homebrewers or full on game designers? If you mostly homebrew what system do you use and why?
Parker Russell
I almost entirely design my own systems. Sometimes I will hack a system for a different setting, usually WoD, but that's mostly because my players love WoD.
Elijah Bennett
I don't really understand the OP question, that feels like something for the GM to decide, with guidance on how to determine a target difficulty in the book. Someone care to explain it a little better? As a question regarding the system I'm working on, for guns, how should I differentiate rates of fire? There should be trade-offs between firing semi-auto and full auto, beyond just how much ammo you use. Right now slower rates of fire are more accurate, but full auto allows for more damage. However, full auto just does so much damage you'd be an idiot not to spray down every enemy. What do?
Connor Hill
>What are the benefits of static difficulty in RPGs (such as having a set number to surpass, or having the difficulty be the player's own skill), as opposed to scaling them with different challenges? Not sure what this actually means.
Is this a RPG design issue or a D&D-specific issue? Which RPG scales difficulty of tasks depending on how good the PCs have become?
>What do you think of d100 systems? I love' em.
>The biggest complaint I've heard against them is that the granularity of such a system is almost never utilized. My game utilizes it. You will be able to get a glimpse in early 2018.
>On the other hand I've heard that if a system does actually take advantage of the granularity that it can become tedious adding all these numbers together each time you roll. There are smarter ways to leverage it.
I will publish QUickstart rules soonly, which pave the way for a Kickstarter campaign. I am dead serious about this. This isn't a fucking game.
Carter Watson
Not OP, but I'll try to explain.
1.Static difficulty: ex. PCs need to get d10 < skill at task to succeed. Problem: needs mechanism to consistently succeed at easy everyday tasks and modifiers would make the system not static.
2. Scaling difficulty. When PCs gain levels/abilities enemies tend to get tougher; making it all feel like a zero sum game.
Kevin Green
Since my game is intended to introduce challenge-driven game design, I feel I should bite my tongue just a little while longer.
I will say this though: it's a clear simulationist versus gamist split. Know what kind of RPG you want to design and your preference should be clear.
Nathan Campbell
The way my game is meant to work, "enemies", by which I mean"NPCs which will attempt to defeat you in combat encounters", are omnipresent. Players are partisans in occupied territory, so everything from soldiers to police officers can be viewed as "enemies". Leveling up simply makes taking on lesser enemies easier and allows you take on harder foes more easily. Dunno where that all falls
Ryder Thompson
>>What are the benefits of static difficulty in RPGs (such as having a set number to surpass, or having the difficulty be the player's own skill), as opposed to scaling them with different challenges? >Not sure what this actually means.
Static difficulty is, for example "roll 3d6, roll above 9 to succeed" and it doesn't change, ever
Jose Bailey
Are they subject to circumstantial modifiers?
Gabriel James
I've done both so far
The original full-on game design project would have been a travesty to play. I used some solid math but there was too much of it to be playable.
Christian Sanders
So, I posted and last thread, and while I'd still appreciate feedback or questions, I'd like to get some opinions on a much more core mechanic for the game, the activation mechanic, as well as what I'm trying to do overall. I should have a basic ruleset fairly soon if any user is interested, but that's contingent on me figuring out how to handle attacking.
>prior situation Fleets are comprised of squadrons, each of which are comprised of one or more ships of the same or varying types. Ships have come command value, and the command value of a squadron is the sum of the command values of the ships comprising it. When a turn begins, the first player to go (decided however), actives one group of any size. The next player must activate at least one group, again of any size. However, if their total command value activated is less than what the previous player activated, they may activate one more group of any size. If their total command value activated is still less, they may repeat this. The next player does the same. This continues until all groups are activated.
The idea is obviously alternate activation to prevent the problems with entire fleets going before the other, but also allowing for big opening activates. The caveat, however, is that this potentially allows the opponent to follow up with an even bigger activation in a form of "escalation", with both players at any time being able to reduce or reset how much the next player can activate simply by activating a single or few small groups, if they have them. This form of escalation is also necessary, because if it was just "each player alternates activating one group at a time", players with few large groups would be able to activate most or all of their fleet faster than players with many small groups.
Thoughts?
(cont for overall game concept)
Anthony Campbell
I'm attempting to design a complete ruleset for an equally combat and objective focused space fleet wargame, in the same vein as Battlefleet Gothic. The size of the game will be likewise similar, with player's fleets being comprised of at least a dozen, if not more, of small ships and the like, a half dozen to a dozen medium sized ships, a few larger ships, and maybe one or two very large ships. Objectives would range anywhere from planetary invasion/occupation/defense, location control, VIP destruction/defense (destroying flagships and the like), as well as straight combat. The overall focus would remain on ship combat, but other scoring methods would significantly contribute to determining the actual victor of the game. Enough that completely crushing the opponent in combat would almost certainly net you a win, unless they somehow did excellent on a near total majority of all other objectives. Optimally, I'm trying to write the rules such that a full game would take no more than 2 hours on the high end with moderate experience.
Does anyone here have any experience with actually writing these kinds of rules, or at least playing this kind of wargame?
Cooper Fisher
What are some ways to make different races FEEL different, without giving them a direct advantage or disadvantage over the others at certain tasks or aspects?
Luke Jenkins
I'm primarily a game designer / publisher, but I do homebrew when I run games. I don't often run games written by other people, but the one campaign I did was Traveller. The homebrewing wasn't very heavy, just providing minor things like systems for getting intoxicated and handling booze, and some minor races and creatures. And of course the entire storyline but I'm not sure if that counts as homebrewing.
Blake Bailey
You need an advantage of forming large groups. Right now the only advantage is that you can guarantee an activation in one group at the cost of flexibility and giving a player that split them into smaller groups an advantage.
Not to say it has to be an advantage in this single instance, you could easily put it somewhere else in the game, like allowing more advance tactics or cammanding abilities for bigger groups. I.e. you could say that a larger group can play an action that requires a high command value, like emergency maneuvers that allow tighter than normal turning, that a smaller grouping can't pull off due to lack of communication with the fleet; say a single ship is 1 command, but the move needs 3, so to use it, you'd have to group up with 2 other ship. It gives you an advantage that balances out the inflexibility of having to activate those three ships together everytime and giving your opponent an extra 3 command worth to activate.
Just something to think about. I actually had a similar thing to work out in my own project.
Connor Jenkins
A good point, definitely, but I'm personally not entirely sure if I want special orders and the like to be a thing in the game. When I started out, I kind of wanted it to feel "chess-like" in a way; in specific, every ship has a specific function or unique niche, everything follows the same rules, the rules don't change, and the state of the field develops more gradually over time, as if there really was huge distance involved between these ships. While I do agree there's need for ships to be able to turn more or go faster, preferably that can just be something they do without special circumstances. My opinions on this will likely change as I get into the nitty gritty of the rules, but I want to minimize tables and exceptions. I want everything to fit as neatly into an unambiguous set of core mechanics as possible, with unique differences and exceptions being for specific ships.
As for benefits to larger groups, I feel like there's one big one. Regardless of how the opponent activates, you will be able to consistently activate big, self-contained chunks of your fleet, those groups which likely support themselves. Sure, they're more flexible and can more easily respond to what you do, but they can't stop you from activating your cruiser line all at once by only activating a single squadron of corvettes or whatever.
However, some kind of coordination bonus or what have you to increase the overall power of large groups could be a possibility.
At the same time, though, there's always the fall back of fleet construction and the like. Big ships would necessarily cost more command to use than small ships, and restrictions such as "ships of X size must be taken with at least Y escort ships or at least Z ships of equal size" would make larger groups necessary for anyone using more than a swarm of escorts and light cruisers, and so on.
Carson Jackson
d100 is shit. The scatter on a success/failure is far too high. When we did Rogue Trader or CoC, our rolls were all over the place, and as a result so were out successes/failures.
