/gdg/ - Game Design General

trademark registry

Yes yes but I started looking into the laws referring to it and if I understood correctly a company can't "own" a word, but they can a very specific way a word is used. For example, the Tolkien company which holds the trademark for "Ent" can prevent other writers for using said work referring to the same type of creature, but they can't for instance, prevent people from using the word to refer to another type of creature, at least in the US.

yes, of course. trademark are for brand recognition and you may not do anything that diminishes the recognition of someone else's brand. it must be a clearly different product.

you can't copyright public domain (so myths, lore, and folklore) or basic words. As long as you keep your class names to basic professions like "soldier" or "privateer" you're good to go. I honestly can't even think of trademarkable race or class that's not inherently tied to it's IP's lore.

>that's not inherently tied to it's IP's lore
What do you mean?

you can't copyright any single words. that is what trademarks are for. but every essay (or whatever) you write is by default protected by copyright. which means other people can't copy and paste it without permission (nor copy and paste and then make minor, insubstantial changes).

like, using Draenei in your game would violate Warcraft's copyright but if you want to have a race of horned hoofed people in your setting just call them satyrs.

Here's the kicker, would it still be an infringement if you created a race of pink octopus people and named it Draenei?

Would it still be an infringement if you created a race of blue tall muscular hoofed aliens with horns, a tail and called them Xenaghim for example?

I know the way that the word Halfling was created, D&D wanted Hobbits but couldn't use the word for it, same thing with treants.

Now I'm also curious whether or not both treants and halflings are trademarked by D&D producer.

I've been doing a bit of homebrew converting from an anime RPG called Grancrest. Basic idea for the system is the players get a crest that gains levels and powers over the campaign. They are powerful encounter based abilities. I tried to keep it reasonable where maxing HP of creatures would keep it balanced some.

Its not done, this is just a draft, but what do people think of the balance? Is it too powerful so far or somewhat reasonable that good encounter design can handle it? How about even just the idea of the system?

So, since my setting is very much an amplified classical graeco-romanesque world (ala Age of Mythology or Arcane Legions), I'm thinking of having a semi-divine faction of warriors called Astartes. Not Adeptus Astartes, just Astartes after the Phonecian/Carthaginian goddess of the same name.

How do I protect myself from GW Legal?

if Draenei is a trademark then it is.names are generally not protected by copyright. copyright applies to any substantial creative work by default. do you know how many fantasy novels, settings and scenarios are out there? if all of those names were protected, it would be impossible to come up with new names. but registered trademarks are protected. research them.

>Would it still be an infringement if you created a race of blue tall muscular hoofed aliens with horns, a tail and called them Xenaghim for example?
if Xaneghim was a registered trademark, sure. now there is another aspect which I didn't observe above: if your race is named the same as an existing race and has the same features one could argue that copyright does apply because you're copying an existing work of substantial creativity. there's grey areas. best to make them distinct in some form or manner. like you can name your character drizzt (unless he's trademarked which he probably is) but don't make him a darkelf with 2 scimitars.

>Hobbits
a trademark. it's not a copyright issue.

>halflings
certainly free from any IP. feel free to use it.

in summary 2 steps:
1. research that your name does not collide with any registered trademark
2. research if the name exists otherwise in fiction and isn't applied to an entity which is substantially the same as yours. (copyright aspect)

DISCLAIMER: I am no legal expert.

> if your race is named the same as an existing race and has the same features one could argue that copyright does apply because you're copying an existing work of substantial creativity
No no no I'm talking about
>take the appearance of an existing race (draenei in this case)
>change the name
>change culture
Would that somehow still be some sort of infringement on blizzard's property? Is it possible to copyright a general visual concept?

I'm inclined to think not because otherwise one couldn't create parodies using actors with "likeness" to the original actor of a role.

>How do I protect myself from GW Legal?
1. make sure that 40K trademarked only adeptus astartes and not astartes. if they did, you're screwed.
2. give them a distinct identity from any 40K chapter. ensure that anyone recognizes this as your unique invention, a product of your creativity. if you, however, just make them iron snakes chapter in ancient classical era, GW might send you a cease and desist.

obviously there is a grey area. you're relying on a judge to rule that your work is substantially unique, new and different and not derivative. the more that is fresh and new and the less reused, the better for you.

>Is it possible to copyright a general visual concept?
anything that can be considered a substantial creative work is copyright protected by default. there is grey areas. if you enter grey areas, you end up at a judge's mercy. in the case of merely adopting the appearance of a race, you'll likely have no trouble. but if the name of that race also resembles the original one, you're making your case more difficult. don't try to ride on someone else's creation just because you like it and want it in your game. be more creative than that.

parodies fall under fair use and are exempt from the usual IP laws.

I'm just curious how a general visual concept could be trademarked and D&D didn't got into trouble for the visuals of both Halflings and Treants.

trademarks are just brand identifiers. logos are visual concepts that can be trademarked. otherwise visuals cannot be trademarked. if they are a substantial creative work, you can't just copy it nor create any derivative work. be creative and mix things up a little. the more originality, the less anyone has a case against you.

if you're going through the effort of making them 90% different why not make their appearance different too? You don't have to change much to make something visually distinctive, look at Zerg vs. Tyranids

1. Given that Astarte is the Hellenized Astorat/Ishtar, chances are high that the name is "public domain" enough, and th
2. Tenatively they are based off a mix of traits of Astarte and Tanit. Bulkier humanoids in panalopy, their helms akin to stylized lions, etc.

Mind the setting part is early and I kind of like the idea of intentionally provoking a response.

Eh mostly it's just curiosity about how it works in general. You ask me why did every other fantasy work after LoTR copied elves appearance when everything else was different?

I once used a more pejorative "Pack Mule" to describe this archetype, though they were more of a logistics officer.
I'm interested in how you make a class out of this.

In Final Fantasy Legend, that was the job of the human characters.

iirc the mutants had item slots eaten up by spells, and your inventory space was almost nonextant.

I'm planning on a old single player rpg mixing 2d sprites and 3d background with heavy inspiration from Ragnarok. This "class" is actually part of the last one I will implement, which is coincidentally the least common one.

A basic soldier that instead of having several branching advanced classes has one defined path that advances him on the military ranks, with each new rank he earns the ability to directly command more and different soldier archetypes that follow him around, each soldier would be from one of the basic archetypes that I'm using for the other classes, they are obviously much weaker than the classes the player can pick on those archetypes. The benefit is that in the end a player could get up to 8 high rank subordinates.

The controls too would be different too, more similar to controlling Meepo on Dota2 than having a pet that automatically follows a defined behavior such as Ragnarok's Falcon or WoW's warlock summons. This class is supposed to be a challenge mode.

The "quartermaster" is supposed to follow the crafting archetype which constitutes group with several classes that have very limited combat availability but extremely important to get consumable items, unique equipment and so on.

I've been putting together basic mechanics for a generic "core" game, stuff like core dice mechanic, metacurrency, attributes, etc, basic framework stuff. But whenever I try to think of a setting, all I come up with is other media for which I feel there isn't a good tabletop option right now - stuff like Bloodborne, classic JRPGs, Tom Clancy games, even Ghost in the Shell.

Do I need to spend more time soul searching for a setting, a direction I want to take this framework in, or should I just pick one and roll with it? Because right now I am really feeling that GitSxClancy.

if you're happy with your crunch and you've gotten this far designing setting agnostic you'd could always publish as a generic roleplaying system.

I'm not sure. I usually really hate generic systems and I wouldn't say this is even a "system" yet - just a skeleton. I like games that have a strong flavor to them.

But more importantly I don't want to be lost in the endless sea of direct-to-dumpster generic systems, I'd rather deliver a flop that at least targets a specific audience.

My advice is to focus on what you like most about the settings you mentioned, and see how you can best translate that into an RPG experience.

Tom Clancy games, Bloodborne, and GiTS are all very visceral experiences. How would they work on the tabletop?

What software does /gdg use to design character sheets? Excel seems useful for figuring out the structure but I feel like Powerpoint would be more useful for the actual graphic design. I tried googling for programs but everything I found is already tied to a specific system.

Vector-editing software

Pick any: Inkscape, LO Draw, Adobe Illustrator, etc.

You could do it with document-oriented stuff too but character sheets need that "loose" organization of elements.

cool, thanks user

In your experience, what's the best kind of exp and character progression system?

I'm not so interested in capturing the visceral gameplay, but more the themes and aesthetics of those settings.

GitS for example, I like the idea of players being cyborgs on The Man's payroll, kind of post-cyberpunk. And they're put in this state, maybe a bit against their will, and told these things about their nature that they have no real way of verifying and they can either accept what they're told or start asking questions. So the day-to-day life of essentially, a cyborg SWAT team in the near-ish future gives way to a larger question about the human condition. I want to make a game with a setting founded on kind of an ambiguous question like that, something without a straight answer, and groups can just ignore it and still have fun breaching and clearing with deployable drones or wrist rockets or whatever.

Bloodborne is pretty similar, it's an exploration of the limits of the human experience, it's asking whether or not the human mind is a limited quantity. I think in our society, where we're still learning things every year, people have trouble grasping the idea that there may simply be concepts out in the universe too vast for us to fathom and that's really what the Great Ones are. But if you'd like to just hack and slash your way through a scary city, that's still 100% available to you.

Games in which you learn by DOING, such as Dungeon World with its "gain XP by failing" thing. Not saying it's the best example, but it's a good thing to advance as you do stuff, specially if you don't have levels but instead skills.

Forget about EXP. Everyone advances at the same time when they make some significant progress, reach a real milestone.

If you are going to have EXP, make sure that the players can only gain it by doing what you want them to do and they can use it to improve their ability to do those things. So if you want the players to be amoral Conan types, reward them for looting and reward them with tools to improve their status (early D&D). If you want players to be monster slayers, reward them for killing and reward them with tools to improve their killing (modern D&D).

paint.net is good for a free photoshop-type program

To be fair, being public domain hasn't stopped GW before. But after the last few attempts of their's to bully smaller companies crashed and burnt them, they probably learned their lesson.

something discrete like the points to dots system in WoD. IMO the DnD style of tracking several thousand xp feels outdated and is way more bookkeepping than I really care to do. In my 4 years of playing 3.PF I never once tracked xp as a player or DM

Thoroughly disagree, there is no such system that is not either heavily exploitable/immersion-breaking, or effectively GM-fiat advancement.

hey /gdg/, plunking away at the meat and bones of my system I started in the last thread trying to keep skills to a minimum for quick pick up and play. Do you guys mind reviewing?

Parkour – The ability to navigate complex environments. Use parkour to climb steep walls, footstep through debris, or vault over obstacles
Plyometrics – Your skills in applying extreme exertions over a short period of time. Use plyometrics to make huge leaps, lift heavy objects, or absorb large impacts
Breaking and Entering – Skills in circumventing countermeasures meant to prevent trespassing. Use breaking and entering to bypass fences, unlock doors (either by picking the lock or destroying the hinges), and breaking windows safely
Violence – Skills in inflicting damage. Use violence to cause damage to the environment, objects, or entities
Survival – The ability to navigate dangerous environments safely. Use survival to identify dangerous or hidden obstacles and traverse them.
First Aid – Skills in quickly treating minor injuries and wounds. Use first aid stop bleeding, set bones, and close wounds.
Hacking – The ability to avoid or block hazards in the environment from hurting you. Use hacking to protect against caustic chemicals, clear sharps, and secure crumbling walkways
Reconnaissance – Skills in collecting info on the environment. Use reconnaissance to identify hazards, predict blockages, and scout the environment.

I'm mostly concerned that Survial and Hacking share too much overlap. Any thoughts?

I don't like Survival, it does seem like an overlap. Looks like a weird combination of Hacking and Reconnaissance.

Agree with , Hacking and Recon makes Survival seem redundant.

Yeah I've been trying to figure out something mechanically helpful that fits thematically, it's a game about urban exploration with 4 classes that each have affinity to 2 skills.
So Traceur gives bonuses to Parkour and Plyometrics
Vandal with BnE and Violence
Technician with Hacking and Reconnaissance
Then there's Cataphile with survival and First Aid.
Feels like I need a more distinct role for Cataphile since Technician is already the support. Gonna sleep on it but open to suggestions, thanks for taking the time to read my blogposts.

The way I see it, you could have the Technician as the map-based support, and Cataphile would be the unit-based support. You could replace Survival with something else that affects the other units (some sort of buff? something to do with food or supplies?)

Fair enough. How is Aegeos coming along after previous discussion on activation order, rats, and 3d12?

Parkour and Plyometrics sound like they could work in tandem for some fun stuff and skill checks if you take it more in-depth and less pick-up-and-play.
>to navigate this terrain there are 3 methods, each with a different skill check required: (6 Parkour and 5 Plyometrics) or (8 Parkour) or (3 Parkour and 7 Plyometrics)
Player choice on which method they want to use, so that way they can play to their characters strengths "My guy has level 3 Parkour but only level 1 Plyometrics"
>not quite agile enough so they need some muscle
>really finesse the acrobatics
>brute force it with minimum parkour

Hacking seems a bit out of place with the name and exact context of how the ability work. This is supposed to be urban exploration in ruins/abandoned buildings right? How many abandoned buildings would it make sense to have fully functioning wall panels/computers and things to hack into? Maybe something more like Jury-Rigging (though you're already using that name for something else); using debris, things on hand in the immediate area, and stuff in characters pockets not even worth mentioning in their inventory to MacGyver together a solution to divert the caustic chemicals, secure the walkway, etc?
>Succeed skill check for countering a pipe pouring caustic chemicals across the path above them, creating a shower that'd do damage if they went through it
>Your character notices some plastic tarp, rope, and some metal rods nearby, they use them to create an umbrella-like cover that they can use to pass safely through the shower

1/3

Survival seems to overlap with others in terms of skill check potential
>I'm jumping a deadly chasm, that seems like it should be Parkour, but since it's deadly, does that make it a Survival check?
>I'm searching for traps/hidden dangers, is that Reconnaissance or Survival?

The way I see it there's several options for survival:
>Basically as an armor/toughness save ("caustic chemicals were poured on your shoulder, roll a Survival check", "You fell onto broken glass, roll a Survival check")
>Their survival level is an additional bonus when doing a skill check that'd cause damage/death if they fail or is in another way crucial to survival for them or another (Jumping a chasm? Yes. Hopping a fence into the ruins? No. Punching a wild dog attacking you? Yes. Punching open a glass case to loot the contents? No. First-Aid on someone who despooled (Intestines pulled out of their body, see 'Machete' Gut Rip scene & 'Altered' Tug of war scene)? Yes. First-Aid on a steam burn on their arm? No.)
>Making reaction skill checks for traps/accidents (There was a spinning saw blade trap, *roll* but you reacted fast enough to dodge it!, The wall next to you collapsed onto you, *roll* but you managed to curl up in a way to minimize damage!)
>Scavenging for helpful items that might come in handy ("look, I found 40ft of rope in that trash heap!", "I found a first aid kit mixed in with that dudes stash of heroin!")
>In "life-threatening situations" a person can opt to use their Survival skill instead of the regular skill in the check ("I'm a full support character, so my Parkour and Plyometrics are both level 1, but my Survival is level 3, I can't do much if we're out of danger, but when a life is on the line, I can pull through"
>A combination of some of them (a passive bonus to lifethreatening skill-checks, but you can 'activate' it for a better chance to loot environment for survivaly stuff than you'd normally get when searching)

2/3

As for roles, I think it's fine to have multiple support classes in this type of game. Like said, they're each a different type of support.
>Technicians for information/navigation/traversal support (Reconnaissance / Hacking*Jury-Rigging*)
>Cataphiles for immediate danger support (First-Aid/Survival)

Though you may decide to change the name of Cataphiles if they prove to be a more supporty-medic type role.

Also:
>mfw the combat skill is simply labeled Violence

3/3

No where really. Real life has been taking priority.

I did read something thar did bring up a good point of the basic alt activation system. The Dark Age site put up a short fluff news piece to talk about the uses of the new "zombies" for the Cult of Decay, talking about the uses for them. It brings up the tactical use of them as a disposable activation.

Thinking about it, its less the inherent flaw in the system; which is there, no argument about it, but about how its handled. The big difference between to extreme abuse, like Malifaux rats, and something like Cult of Decay zombies is the skew that surrounds it. MR are a semi-regenerating resource with the rat engine system, while CoD zombies aren't. They both play a disposable role; both are there to apply a debuff to help the power pieces, both are used more to tie up and bog down, and both are more useful as bodies to soak damage than to cause them. But the zombies can't be replaced, and the difference in the power pieces they support is less so. Dark Age is usually 500-750 pts. with the cheapest unit being 25 pts. and the most powerful at 200 pts. So you can have similar levels of power pieces and chaff.

It comes down to the control of those resources and the scaling on the power pieces, however. DA has some powerful pieces, but everything is fragile, and there's no way to replenish losses cheaply, as the rats can. Anything that has the ability to create more or have a rebound mechanic to replace itself takes that into account with the power scale. Malifaux doesn't with Hamelin; he's both a power piece and a replenisher, for the same power level as most do one or the other in Malifaux.

I have nothing against trying to balance the inherent flaw in alt activation, but I also think that it can also be addressed in other ways.

Something else I forgot to mention is it also depends on how important activation timing is to the system.

Malifaux is very dependent on it, especially with some list, while DA has some but models can function insularly. In addition, DA can very fluid, so adapting is required. Malifaux has things that need to be set up, like charges and such, while DA doesn't so the set up is flexible and can be reactionary if needed. Which is needed, since things die easily in DA.

So to harken back on this.
>The core mechanic of Knights of The Black Lily is what we call the Bell-Curved D100. Combining the simplicity of the D100 with the gently rolling distribution curve of multi-die mechanics (e.g., 3d6) in one, it is ideal for producing both easily understood success chances and plausible test results.

What do you think of the approach of combining these two things? Compared to the straight d100 it has two advantages:
1. In games like the Deathwatch RPG, you can end up with effective skill scores >100. But when you switch to a bell-curved d100, it peters out as you approach 100% success chance.
2. If you have a master-crafted sword and you're a beginner, getting a small bonues (compare to a +1 bonus when you have to roll against 4 in GURPS) doesn't help you much. Same when you're a master swordfencer: you'll hit anyway. But when you're of middling ability (say an effective skill level of 11 in GURPS) it helps a lot. I really like dynamic.
Plus it retains the simplicity of the d100: you always know how big your success chance are and d100s are easy to handle, even for beginners (once they understand how it works).

Would you prefer 8 skills for symmetry reasons or would 7 work out?

>The way I see it, you could have the Technician as the map-based support, and Cataphile would be the unit-based support
this actually makes a lot sense, thank you for putting words into my head that my brain couldn't figure out
the intent would be for Parkour to be active use for movement while Plyometrics would usually be a passive/response based skill check to avoid damage or issues but I can see where you're coming from, will mull it out
>Hacking seems a bit out of place with the name and exact context of how the ability work.
yeah I know it sounds a bit strange but according to my research on Urbex that's actually what they call for lack of better word "bushwhacking" through urban environments, I'll have to be detailed enough in the fluff to make sure nobody confuses this game and the skill for something applicable to a cyberpunk style affair (unless they want to I suppose)
>mfw the combat skill is simply labeled Violence
that's a little ripoff from Paranoia, I like the elegance of having all damage dealing things filtered under one skill, plus combat is not supposed to be the focus of the game so I don't want to bog the system down with combat oriented mechanics
I would really prefer to hack it with 8 skills for symmetry since the system is designed around using a standard deck of cards to build maps. Each suit corresponds to a different terrain type (Spades to heights/catwalks/roofs, Diamonds to ground level, Hearts to basements/sewers/tunnels, and Clubs to hazardous environments like toxic waste) with each role corresponding to a favored environment (Traceurs to rooftops, Vandals to ground level, Cataphiles to underground, and Technicians to hazardous) so each role would have 2 skills affinitized to it.

thanks for all the input everyone!

It is confusing.

With a 3d6 bell curve, I known the % is skewed to the center. A d100 bell curve is not a d%, which can be confusing.

Having a rating 60 in a bell curve system is better than having 60% chance in a d% system.

But I didn't read the link because I'm on phone, so maybe a better explanation may improve understanding the concept.

So I sat down a couple days ago and did a quick scenario with a friend to test out the flow and handling of my universal game's combat mechanics. Most parts of it went pleasantly smoothly, but there was one hangup.

In my game, you make an attack by drawing a certain number of cards, with every card higher than a ten counting as a success (aces are high). This is compared to a static defense score, and if the number of successes scored in the attack exceeds this defense score, the defender takes Stress (damage) equal to the difference. So if I draw cards and get four successes, and the defender has a defense score of two, then they add two Stress to whichever Stress pool I was targeting.

The number of cards drawn is based on your most applicable Role, which varies from one (fresh out of boot camp) to seven (legendary hero). I gave the throwaway PC a combat-applicable Role rated at seven and a Toughness defense score of two, and the main enemy the same. The issue is that it was an utter whiff-fest; I had to start handing out blanket +3s to both sides in order to even give them a chance of hitting each other.

I wasn't expecting that, but after thinking about it, I think I understand why it happened. For one, needing to draw a certain number of successes scales really harshly the more successes are needed. When I compared anydice stats I was mainly looking at the probabilities for just getting at least one success, not getting at least a certain number, so I severely underestimated how improbable it is to score three or more successes with four cards. For two, greater numbers of cards drawn leads to sharply diminishing returns, as going from one to two cards drawn is a 50% increase but going from six to seven cards drawn is only about a 16% increase.

This leads to a bit of a scaling issue. You would have to practically be a god of combat just to have a greater than 50% chance of hitting a mook.
(1/?)

The basic approach is to map the chances you'd have under a bell-curve GURPS to a percentile-based table (it's not really based on 3d6 or any other system though). Which means, yes, you're going to have a lookup table. Which, in turn, doesn't come up in actual play too often - because in the majority of cases you know right away whether a roll has been a success, critical success or failure at the given difficulty level.

And with each session played this becomes easier as you becomer more familiar with the tables. But, yeah, infrequent table lookups are a price to pay for combining percentile with bell curve. It's easily mitigated by having the table on every character sheet.

>I gave the throwaway PC a combat-applicable Role rated at seven

Meant to write four, whoops.

But I digress. I can see three ways of fixing this:

1. Make attacks an opposed draw rather than a static comparison (I would prefer not to do this as my Stress system already requires making a draw every time a character gains Stress, so adding more drawing seems like it will bog things down.)
2. Increase the success threshold (would throw off other mechanics that are just where I want them)
3. Introduce a "mastery rating" to Roles which lets you flip a certain number of cards drawn to their reflected scalar value (ones become aces, sixes become eights, etc.) This essentially would introduce a distinction between talent and experience (high talent means the potential to score a shit-ton of successes but a poor actual likelihood, high experience means the cards you do draw are far more likely to succeed). This kind of overcomplicates both character gen and attacks, but admittedly adds a neat feature.

Are there other solutions I'm missing here? What does /gdg/ think?

(2/2)

I'm assuming you're using a standard deck of cards, correct?
It's pretty easy to analyze because a standard deck consist of 4 equal sets, so doing the math for one set will yield the same results as across an entire deck. If we use Ace to King, assuming Ace is 1 and Jack, Queen, King correspond to 11, 12, and 13 respectively you have an expected value of 7, so setting your base DC at 10 means a completely neutral draw (IE a character with no bonuses/penalties attacking and identical enemy) will have a less than 50% chance of succeeding.
if we want to be precise assuming DC 10 inclusive (IE attacks succeeds on a tie) you only have a ~30% chance of success with each subsequent draw only slightly increasing your chances. By my quick approximations if you draw 7 cards without replacement your chance of drawing at least 1 card 10 or higher is 230% IE statistically you will have 2.3 successes.
savy?

sorry, missed that you said Aces are high, unfortunately that only raises your success rate when drawing 7 cards to approximately 2.43 successes

Just use the higher cards from 2 sets, doubling the chance. Use 2 to 10 only once.

I think I need a suggestion to replace a physically awkward mechanic.

It's for a card game. The cards have colors, but the color is only applied upon drawing the card (the idea is that each card's color is different in each game session). I tried to look for existing games with similar mechanics but couldn't find anything. I guess the closest would be Small World's Race+Power thing.

The way we're currently doing it is: the cards are sleeved, when drawing a card we also draw a chip from a bag, then we place the chip into the sleeve.

The gameplay does work, but 1) it looks ugly as fuck and 2) taking the chips out once the game is over is somewhat annoying.

Does anyone have any ideas, or has seen a smiliar mechanic in another game?

That seems like a pretty good breakdown, but I'm not quite certain what solution you're advocating.

I'd prefer that the deck not require any special shuffling or setup, since you'd then have to set it aside, mark it somehow so you remember not to use it for other games, shuffle out the extra cards if you DO want to use it for other games...ech. Your proposal makes it an 8/13 probability, which is about a 60% chance? At which point I think I'd rather just switch to d10 pools.

I think I'm probably either going to go the World of Darkness route and have defense scores instead subtract from the attack pool or switch to a completely different kind of pool mechanic.

Why put the chip in the sleeve? Why not over the card? If the card is meant to be held, maybe that little colored cloth clamp some people use for notes? Colored post-it?

I assume it's because the cards might be reshuffled after colors are applied, so user needs something that won't prevent them from being shuffleable or allow the player to know what colors are coming up.

Yeah, the card is being held. I suppose we could take the chip from the sleeve and place it over the card when using it, though. I'll try that and see how it goes. Will try the post-it as well, thanks for the ideas.

if you're working with card drawing as your resolution mechanic just calculate the probabilities for whatever your measuring and assign DCs based on how you want it to flow
for example, if you sticking with your main example of a skill level 1-7 which draws you that many cards and each card above a described DC counts as a success, choose what you want the base success chance to be (DnD for example uses 10 since that gives you a little more than a 50% chance to succeed given a D20's expected value)
if you want to have the base chance to succeed be 50% make successes count on cards 7 or higher, raising or lowering the value will increase or decrease your chances by roughly 8% per card value.

I've been developing a Sci-Fi dogfighting rpg for the past week, and I've stumbled across Warbirds during my research.

It's going for many of the same things (cinematic combat, fast-paced play, etc.), but it looks like the Rapidfire System doesn't seem well-suited for varied character advancement or mechanical depth. Am I way off the mark?

Has anyone here played it before? Other dogfighting rpgs? What are your thoughts?

Theres the WW2 one called The Few.

I'm trying to put together a magic system where the players connect words and have to make strings of words to get the desired effect they want. Possibly also make it so they don't know the meaning of the words from the get-go.

Are there any games with something like this? Would save me some work.

Yes, check out Flexible Magic in GURPS Thaumatology.

Reviews look good, I'll look into it when I'm home from work. Simplifying dogfights without sacrificing depth and avoiding skill-bloat has been a bit of a challenge.

I've played Traveller a lot, it could easily handle dogfighting with spaceships. Even uses vectors if you want to get into that (and you should, because vector based combat is fun af)

>vector based combat
First i heard of this concept. Could you give a short tl;dr what's it about?
(not the guy you're replying to btw, but also interested.)

Thanks senpai, I'll give it a look.

Ars Magica, Magicka, even Eternal Darkness to a lesser extent do this.

I prefer a close-knit group of friends who are open to testing things. They are the ones I'm making the thing for most of the time and they usually prefer to test them before playing them.

>Homebrew
I have this homebrew for 5e, it's for Sorcerers. These are some concerns I have.

I'm feeling like the +1 HP is too much due to the AC being 18 (Breastplate + Shield), but when I tested it without the +1 they felt closer to glass cannons than I think they should. Subclasses like the Bladesinger Wizard have extremely high AC values (23+) but don't get the +1 to HP. There was a Sorcerer UA called the Stone Sorcerer that had +1 to HP, Shields, and 13+CON for AC, so they have had something with some fairly high hp and AC...its just not officially published. I don't want to invalidate Hexblade Warlocks or make something that's stronger than them.

Also, I'm trying to figure out if the Arcane Strike feature should have the "Once per turn" clause, I had it like that for a while, but could not justify why they needed the once per turn clause or what would break if I removed it.

I am the the user you replied to, and I'm also curious about vector based combat.

The goal is to reproduce a 3D fighting environment, while allowing for somewhat realistic movement mechanics (G-LOC'ing due to sheer thrust, conservation of momentum, etc.)

Anything that simplifies or enhances the combat as a whole is much appreciated. I'll go check out Traveller.

Do you mean words in a real language such as english or latin, or make your own language and (optionally) give them the dictionary, but all the definitions are blank and they have to work it out? The latter would be better for balance reasons I think, but it'd take a lot more work. If they could just use real words they could just say 'split the atom' and boom.

A system based on magic language can be broken very easily with only learning a few 'spells' if they learn some good words, watch.

>getting mugged
>wave hand at person
>"bone-shatter"
>mugger is now on the ground unable to move as every bone in his body has shattered

>Trying to intimidate a crime boss
>wave hand at his underling
>"flesh-rend"
>everyone screams as they watch his flesh rip itself from his body

I've read a few books/mangas with this sort of power, you might want to check them out for a combination of inspiration and looking at how to balance it to make sure the players can't break the system right off the bat. I can only think of 2 right now.

The first time I saw a power like that was in the book "The Name of the Wind"; there's names to things (stone, wind, etc) and saying the names gives you power over them. Iirc, the prologue follows a famous and legendary wizard who knew all the names, he's trapped in the top of a tower, so he just walks up to the wall, says the name of stone, and the rocks move to make a door, then he walks out and says the name of the wind as he falls and it lets him fly. In another scene someone is learning magic and tries to make it look like they know the name of the wind by 'connecting' the air in their lungs to the outside air, then breathing out, either trapping himself in a vacuum or exerting so much energy they can't breath, the person with him knows the name of the wind and just tells the wind to go back into his lungs (showing that he can inversely just say "wind, exit that persons lungs and don't go back in." a pretty fuckin strong power)

1/2

The other thing I remember with a power like this: Konjiki no Word Master: Yuusha Yonin ni Makikomareta Unique Cheat

Isekai manga where the main character has the power to 'write' a character(word) with his finger then shoot it at a target, the word then happens/becomes true. That power is limited because it can only be a single word, then it needs to be 'shot' so he needs unobstructed line of sight. Later on he begins to use multiple characters, and his most recent display was fast-travel via teleportation by writing 'shift' + 'move' (which combined becomes 'transfer' at least that's what the translation says he wrote) on himself. No idea how he picked a destination though.

Here's some of his exploits using single characters early on
>very first use, he writes 'split' on a boulder, it splits down the middle
>writes 'origin' on one half of the boulder, they merge back together
>writes 'blaze' and fire engulfs a truck sized patch on the ground, killing a slime
>writes 'needle' on the ground, line of spikes jut up and impale goblins
>writes 'extend' on sword, it becomes 10ft longer mid-swing
>writes 'heat' on enemy metal armor, they get serious burns

A player just needs to learn the words for one 'spell' like those I said earlier and repeat as needed on all your enemies, combat is now broken.

Ran out of room for more than 2 so here's another
>"You die now"
GM says not so vague? Needs a cause?
>"You suffer a heart attack"

Ah! That line reminded me of Death Note, sort of similar power but only for offense towards people. Main character has a book belonging to a god of death, write a persons name in it (while thinking of their face) and they die of a heart attack in 1 minute, during that 1 minute you can specify another method of death/time of death by writing it in.

2/2

Working on my magic system. I'm currently thinking of having a system where you learn can learn particular types of magic (enchanting, pyromancy, necromancy, blood magic, forensic magic, etc.) and improve your ability to cast spells relating to that field of magic from very difficult to moderately competent. I don't plan on giving any particularly strong details to this part as it's not intended to be a major feature of the game, so it's relatively free-form. Now, many free-form magic systems are rife with potential for abuse, so it's likely that this one is too. Unfortunately, though, I'm not sure what could be broken with it.

It's a social game, so it's not like I have to balance too much around combat or anything. On any given attempt, you can succeed, fail, or critically fail. Or possibly critically succeed, I haven't decided. Most tasks, with magic or otherwise, have the same difficulty, but particularly difficult ones can be more difficult.

So, what I'm asking here is, break my system. Or at least come up with situations that might be difficult to deal with.

What do you mean by social? Are you talking about OOC social (just relaxing with my boys) or IC social (political intrigue)?

IC social, political intrigue.

And, I meant to include in the previous post, but mind control magic is probably either nonexistent or extremely rare/difficult/etc., I haven't decided yet.

ITT: A bunch of retards make D&D knockoffs.

What I don't understand is why a lot of the people in these threads fuck so much with the success probability of an action. It seems to me like tabletop games are almost pointless if all that occurs is stat checks and rng with a story plastered on top.

I've never played tabletop, but why don't you guys try to make good games like bloodbowl? Strategy

Could you give us a complete list for the types of magics or just as much as you have?

Also any other limitations.
>Manapool or daily casts
>If daily casts, does each school have shared total allotment, separate allotment based on levels, or separate but allotted (each day?) by player, separate but allotted each day to specific spells
>Somatics, cantrips, materials, rituals, etc
>Are there scrolls or some equivalent consumable that lets people cast magic they otherwise couldn't
>How many types of magic can a singe person 'master' / does learning one interfere with learning another?
>Is it possible to cast spells discreetly or is everyone/some people sensitive to magic and can 'feel' it being cast nearby
>Do they leave 'magic residue' that can be detected (sneaking into diplomats room and casting a spell, when they come back can they cast forensic magic to detect that someone cast a spell in there?)
>Does everyone have a unique magic 'signature' that can be traced? (if yes there can be mage trackers who memorize the 'signature' of their target and can detect if a spell was cast by them or another)

I know this might seem like a lot for something that's not intended to be a major feature of the game, but this information will help people with breaking it, especially since we don't know anything else about your system.

>Could you give us a complete list for the types of magics or just as much as you have?
No concrete list, but pretty much anything reasonable that you can think of. More powerful ones are probably some combination of forbidden, rare or esoteric, or extremely difficult even beyond regular magic. Pyromancy, other elemental magics, illusion?, weather magic, enchantment, alchemy, potionmaking, warding, blood magic, death magic, demonic magic/demon summoning/summoning in general, nature magic, mind magic, etc. For the most part there aren't really limits in what types of magic there are, just how accessible. For example, mind control is realistically impossible to obtain, as probably is time magic. Some magic might also require knowledge of other magic.

>Manapool or daily casts
No limitations on this. The only limits are success/fail. But it's a difficult roll.

>Somatics, cantrips, materials, rituals, etc
There definitely are rituals. They tend to be stronger than other spells. Cantrips, well, if it's something incredibly minor I'd probably just allow it. No material components for most magics, but things like enchantment, alchemy, potion-making, and rituals obviously require some. Haven't decided about somatics or verbals yet.

>scrolls
No scrolls or consumables to cast magic. You can create enchanted items, brew potions, and such though.

>How many types of magic can a singe person 'master' / does learning one interfere with learning another?
As many as you feel like spending the time and effort to, but you'll be pretty weak at each if you try to spread yourself out. You're only limited by time.

>Is it possible to cast spells discreetly or is everyone/some people sensitive to magic and can 'feel' it being cast nearby
You can probably train a magic sense to feel or see magic around. Most people haven't, and if they haven't then they may not be able to feel it.

>Do they leave 'magic residue' that can be detected (sneaking into diplomats room and casting a spell, when they come back can they cast forensic magic to detect that someone cast a spell in there?)
>Does everyone have a unique magic 'signature' that can be traced? (if yes there can be mage trackers who memorize the 'signature' of their target and can detect if a spell was cast by them or another)
Yes, there is a magic residue. Typically you'd be able to tell at the very least what type of magic was used. Possibly the magical signature, but I haven't decided. That might just be more difficult to tell or something like that.

>I know this might seem like a lot for something that's not intended to be a major feature of the game, but this information will help people with breaking it, especially since we don't know anything else about your system.
No, that's the kind of feedback I'm looking for. I have a vague conception of what kind of magic it is but I need to crystallize it a bit.

For what it's worth, magic is intended to be difficult to cast. The main magical mechanic is based around d8s --- You succeed with at least one 8. You critically fail if you have no 8s and you have at least one 1. More difficult magic requires two or even three 8s.

>>Manapool or daily casts
>No limitations on this. The only limits are success/fail. But it's a difficult roll.
So if you fail a spell you can/can't attempt it again in quick succession? (on a tight schedule infiltrating area, fail a spell, can I retry instantly or must I wait a few minutes? If no wait time then as long as the cast time is short (like a cantrip) and there's no materials consumed the person can just spam attempts till they succeed)

I also forgot to ask, how does casting a spell on/in an unwilling human compare to casting a spell on inanimate objects/animals? (Is it possible to cast 'conjure fire' in the middle of a persons lungs? Is it a roll-off, do I try to succeed and if it works they then roll to prevent it, is it like normal but just more difficult?)

I'll give a quick list of magic schools that you've said, those are the types that are on my mind when trying to break it, so if it's not on the list, I didn't account for it. I'll also include a (goes into), (combines with) to show how I'm thinking of hierarchical / magic school tree

>enchanting (can combine with warding)
>elemental (Earth, Wind, Water, Fire) (can improve alchemy by manipulating the materials/elements via magic during alchemical procedures)
>necromancy (goes into death + demonic)
>blood (goes into forensic + necromancy + demonic)
>forensic
>weather (Advanced combination of Wind/Water + Unique stuff)
>alchemy (can combine with potionmaking)
>potionmaking (can combine with alchemy)
>warding (can combine with enchanting
>death
>demonic
>summoning
>nature (goes into summoning (+ demonic? if demons are considered part of nature in your setting))
>mind

It's 1:40am here, so I'll be going to sleep now, just posting before I do, I'll look into this sometime tomorrow.

>So if you fail a spell you can/can't attempt it again in quick succession?
Sure, but you always have the risk of critfailing. The exact effects of that depend on what you're trying to do, but they're generally pretty bad.

>I also forgot to ask, how does casting a spell on/in an unwilling human compare to casting a spell on inanimate objects/animals? (Is it possible to cast 'conjure fire' in the middle of a persons lungs? Is it a roll-off, do I try to succeed and if it works they then roll to prevent it, is it like normal but just more difficult?)
Probably not possible to do that. I'm thinking magic is more personal. So you could create fire in your palm, or pillars of flame around you, or something like that, but not in someone's lung. You can't see their lung, if nothing else. Magic probably also can't necessarily affect only part of something. There is magic that could target people you can't see, but you'd still need a sympathetic connection.

>I'll give a quick list of magic schools that you've said, those are the types that are on my mind when trying to break it, so if it's not on the list, I didn't account for it. I'll also include a (goes into), (combines with) to show how I'm thinking of hierarchical / magic school tree
Alchemy and potions definitely go together. Alchemy might even require potions.

Enchanting and warding I'm not sure how you'd combine them? They seem pretty separate to me. They might require some of the same cognate skills (ability to write using runes, perhaps), though. Summoning would as well.

Not sure there's really a difference between necromancy and death magic.

Blood magic and forensic magic are probably related. Forensic magic may or may not actually even be a type of magic. It could easily just be a descriptor of certain types of magic-users. But there's definitely forensic magic that isn't blood magic --- the aforementioned magic sense, for example.

Nature I was thinking more along the lines of druidic magic and plant/animal control. Not really related to summoning.

I'm not sure how much there is about demonic magic beyond summoning demons. Summoning/evocation might not even be its own thing either. It would probably work better to have summoning demons be gated by rituals, some sort of "planar lore" magic skill, and proficiency with the languages necessary.

Mind magic I'm probably going to separate into a couple different types. At the very least active mind reading vs. passive telepathy/empathy vs. some sort of defensive magic. Once I have better names for them, anyway.

>Vector based movement / combat
Essentially every vessel can build up a momentum using thrust - this is know as a vector: how fast it is moving, and in what direction. When I ran Traveller space combat, each player had a spaceship marker, and the direction of a spaceship was its direction of movement (so the direction of its vector). The speed was kept track of by the player, as a number indicating how many cm the vessel would move directly forward. Each vessel had a thrust drive of a certain power, allowing it to change the vector up to a certain amount. For example, most of the ships had a maneuver drive rated at (3), meaning they could change their vector up to 3cm. Vessels had a 360 degree line of sight (being able to spin on the spot without problem).

So how do vectors work?
In image A we have 2 ships. They are not moving. In B we have the 2 ships, each with a vector. This is how far forward they will move. if they do nothing, they will end up at the end of the arrow, and they will still have the same vector after moving (so they will keep on moving in that direction forever).
In C, both vessels decide they don't want to be exactly where they're going, and use their thrust to modify their vector - the dotted line arrow.
So what is their new vector? D shows this, the combination of their old vector and the change. Simply draw a new line, from the position of the vessel, to the end of the modified course. This is the new vector. E shows this vector, with the old vector and the change in thrust removed.

Now that the ships have their new vector, they will move in that direction, as shown in F. They will keep their new vector until they decide to change it, as shown in G.

In this way a ship can accelerate in one direction, move for a while, and then decelerate and come to a complete stop - this is how real movement works in space - just with gravity thrown in (a force constantly changing your vector...)

Check out Mongoose Traveller 2e

Also I would recommend ditching the 3D - its not really needed in space. While it is technically more realistic, it becomes a total pain to keep track of (and our brains struggle to comprehend fully 3D fighting environments) the players and/or GM are already keeping track of more than enough stuff in a space combat without needing to keep track of a vertical position. All you need to know in space is: how far am I from my target? how fast am I going and in what direction? how fast is my target going and in what direction? That's pretty much it. You never need to know how far "up" or "down" your target is from you, as there are no such directions in space. The vertical aspect of space combat is best left abstracted - players can easily make sense of a 2D playing surface, and its easy to work out distances with a tape measure or squares. If you start adding in verticality, everything becomes much harder to work out and understand, and you don't really gain anything from it gameplay-wise.

With traveller vectors are actually an add-on for when you get to more complex battles with multiple vessels on each side. For regular space combat, there is only a range band system, you use thrust to change the distance between you and a target. The only thing you ever need to know is the range for your weapons.

You can look at the Mongoose Traveller 2e core rules, and high guard which has the vector rules (Its the supplement for large military starships and more complicated space combats).
You could also check out Classic Traveller - it has vectors in the basic rules and is very solid if you don't mind the 70s Asimov aesthetic (it was written in the 70s before star trek and star wars)
For Classic Traveller you only need the "little black books" Book 01, Book 02 and Book 03 which are about 50 pages each.

Not me, I only write historical wargames. I don't post too much here though.