/gdg/ - Game Design General

Plastic Fantastic Edition

A place for full-on game designers and homebrewers alike, as well as general mechanics discussion for published games. Feel free to share your projects, ideas and problems, comment to other designers' ideas and give advice to those that need it.

Try to keep discussion as civilized as possible, and avoid non-constructive criticism. A new thread is posted every friday, as long as there isn’t one still up.

>Project List:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/134UgMoKE9c9RrHL5hqicB5tEfNwbav5kUvzlXFLz1HI/edit?usp=sharing

>/gdg/ Resources (OP Pasta, Design Tools, Project List):
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>Official /gdg/ discord:
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Other urls found in this thread:

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Posting my favorite project that I recently decided to try and improve. Pls gib input

also made a base for a unit with its information on it.

Bump

Bumping with a cleaned up version of Aegeos. Made a few changes to the elves in the sample lists and cleaned up some things that were missed when switching to roll under.

Hoping to playtest today, if the niece let's me.

I always want to critique Aegeos properly but I don't have experience with wargames at all.
I really like investigating lore and working with grammar, so all I can do is point out ways to optimize your phrasing.

That actually would be really useful. I find I have problems with phrasing at times.

I also do have lore notes. Nothing extensive, just a collection of bits and pieces.

Does someone know what the fuck this game is? It looks like it'd be a great basis for an idea I have

What about the radio guys and the minesweepers user

bumping before bed as I doubt this thread will survive the winter

Looks to be Splittermond / Splintermoon. It's natively German so good luck - there's a wiki at splitterwiki.de/wiki/Splitterwiki (the image in question is on /wiki/Tickleiste and is an initiative tracker/rules cheatsheet combo)

Bump

So I got some playtesting in, and things went pretty well. Few things that I noticed.
1. Quality over quantity. I found that having an easier time to score a success means a lot more than an extra die or two. While the Rhino has 5 dice on defense, its low defense skill means it was still decently vulnerable if you aren't careful. Something that I'll need to watch out is high armor and high defense balance.
2. Power is very important. Even a POW of 1 makes a difference. Again, it'll be something that needs to be watched carefully as I develop the game.
3. Exploding dice on a D12 is very minor. Its a bonus, not something to rely on, so increasing the initial pool is better. Combined attacks were more favorable most of the time. I'm fine with this, though, as that was part of the intent of the system.
4. Placement is a big thing, due to the usefulness of the combined attacks. There is a bit of flexibility, you need LoS and range, but modifiers like cover and range penalties don't affect the models supporting, so you can get away with narrower sight lanes. But stuffing too many models into a space can backfire easily.

From a game design perspective, what do you feel like are the roles that players can fill?

For example, I feel like many games have classes that fit in one or more of the following: single-target damage, AoE damage, utility (combat), utility (out of combat), and tank. More specific examples may include summoning, for example. These archetypes are a little vague; the out-of-combat utility of a Hunter-type character can be very different from a Bard-type character.

I'm designing a 2d6 game, but I got an mana system where if you run out of mana, you are force to use 1d6.

What's your guys opinion of this?

Why are all these homebrews just dolled-up miniatures wargames.

I think you need to reorder things first. Either a table of contents or otherwise; the reference sheet and the turn order are also inconsistent and confusing.

For example, the front says you can attack with 5 units on your turn, the reference sheet says 3/5/7.

If I am reading it correctly, a unit may forfeit its movement to attack 3 times in a row, but this prevents you from making future activations that turn? Does this count as 1 or 3 activations?

For example, could I have 4 riflemen each shoot once, then a machinegun shoot 3 times?

Wargames usually have some endgame/win condition that's easier to conceptualize compared to a conventional RPG, while being more appealing to most fa/tg/uys compared to the abstract noncombative nature of Spiel de Jahres titles.

>If a model is trying to target a model on an elevation, and the elevation is a greater Size than the model, their Line of Sight might be blocked.

This seems like it could use RAW clarification:
-The elevation is greater than which model?
-Is this scenario for if the elevation is interposed between both models, or if one model is atop the elevation?

It's a unconscious response to failed attempts by several former(?) regulars who desperately tried to differentiate their story game from each other.

i guess it depends how you use the dice? Like, if uses a target system where 4+ is a success, vs threshold systems where you have stats that get modified by the 2d6 roll (14 + 2d6, get above 20)

Assuming the first though, this drops success rates fairly substantially. Would probably be ok overall depending on balancing.

Players can specialize in having a lot of mana or have little mana can do a lot of damage with just 1d6.
Characters specialize in not using mana is really good at killing weak monsters.
Character specialize is using mana is really good helping the party killing strong monsters.

Let's say you put 2 points in Might which increase damage by 2 and your character have a heavy weapon(+1 damage, -2 mana).
So when attacking a monster with 3 Def, you be doing 1-6 points of damage per turn.

If you have no might and using a light weapon(-1 damage, +2 mana). You need to roll a 5 to damage a 3 Def monster and a 6 to do 2 damage to it. If you decide to use magic, that's 2d6+Magic. If you have 2 Magic, that's 1-11 damage to the monster.

Well, you would want to look at your distribution then.

Cause that 1-6 might character has an equal chance of doing 1 damage as doing 6 damage (16.7%).

But the 1-11 character has a roughly 42% chance to do 6 damage, but only a 3% chance (roughly) to do 1 damage.

To elaborate, to balance the two options you mention, you would have to make the might build do a lot higher base damage (say 3 or 4 higher) because otherwise its always better to take mana build.

Lets say the enemy has 3 def, 4 hp. Might character has a 50% chance to kill him in one shot. Mana character has 83% chance to kill him one shot.

Are you open to different ideas for the system? IE, what if instead of reducing the number of dice, you reduced the value? So a might character might use 2d4 instead of 2d6?

I'm not changing the dice.

Yeah, I'm open to some ideas, especially on the balance.
I have some out of combat systems to help balance the mana character.
In this system, mana doesn't regenerate. You either need to gather it by killing monsters or helping people.

I updated the reference sheet for my game to clearly separate sections/subsections. How is this looking so far?

>I'm not changing the dice.
Fair enough.

Ok you might need to elaborate then on the systems you mention in Might increases damage, presumably when doing actions that don't use mana. And Magic increases damage when using actions that use mana.

Are magic and might then mutually exclusive? For example, what would an enchanted heavy weapon do? Could a character do 1 might, 1 magic?

>heavy weapon(+1 damage, -2 mana)
>light weapon(-1 damage, +2 mana)
What does the mana refer to here?

You mention Defense, is there also a magic defense stat, or is it just generic damage reduction?

>the weapons
Characters have option to use light, medium, or heavy weapons. Same goes for armor.
The bigger the weapon/armor, the more it drains on your max mana.

Might can use magic to enhance their weapon damage, spending 1 mana to give an 1d6 bonus damage.
But because Might doesn't give bonus mana unlike Magic, it's advise to only do this against bosses.

Might characters are usually design to help the party to weed out the weak monsters in order to save mana.
Magic characters are design to either help the party by doing more damage or to act like utility for the party.

Def is generic damage reduction.

There are literally no limits to the types of roles players can fill. Only limits are teaching/meeting expectations of the players. Moba games have roles like Carry or jungler, that do not immediately map to any type of behavior from popular media and so designers need to educate somehow what the players are expected to do.

That's why I'd suggest using description monickers from popular media/news for player roles

Face
Spinner
Breaking and Entering man
Socialite
Gumshoe
Muscle
Conman
Hacker

etc.

I'm guessing this is the place for board game design as well?

I posted this in the /bgg/ thread, but here looks good.

I've been designing a construction company board game. Pic is the proof of concept components. Now, the one comment I got that surprised me was how bad they thought custom dice for the market sheet are (bottom left). How does everyone do custom dice here?

Also, ignore the 2 white dice. Those aren't dice, they're cubes. Turns out I don't have any white cubes lying around.

From Shakespeare to Netflix, violence is the easiest way to generate drama.

Seems pretty decent. How many characters to a party? How many would be might characters and how many would be magic characters in what you would consider a balanced party?

Being board game hoarder, I thought about this long before and I've saved several dozens blank dice from games that came with stickers to use on blank dice, using ordinary dice instead as the base for the stickered dice.

From the top of my memory games that came with blanks: Groo the dice game and Battle Cry. I'd then draw on these blanks with white board pens or use my own stickers with the Battle Cry recessed dice.

I see. Yeah that would be good. Thinking about it now, I wonder if I could buy some blank face dice through my distributor.

Ultimately i don't really see how thats so different from what I did. Tape is just longer stickers.

>how many characters in a party
1-2 for farming monsters
3-4 for boss fights
4+ for really big boss fights

>What you consider a balance party?
A Might character with melee weapon(melee users can use Might for defence against melee)
A Might character with range weapon (range users can target enemies in the back row)
A Magic character that use offensive magic to help deal with nasty mobs or to kill the boss.
A Magic character that use defensive/utility magic to help keep the party alive and help keep their health and mana high.

About the only thing I can see going wrong with this comes down to economy of actions and player perception.

The might melee can always do something during their turn. Either attack/defend or move to attack/defend.
Might Ranged can always attack (baring line of sight or other such purposeful restrictions)
Magic defense might have too many things it can do. Heal, buff, debuff. Possibly Crowd control (sleep, paralysis, etc).
Magic offense won't always have something to do. Since mana doesn't regen, they won't want to waste mana on weak things. This means the players will be watching the other players play. But also, since they are the big hitters, when it comes to the bosses or other such flashy moments, it will likely be them who gets the glory actions. If you give the Magic offense too much mana where they can participate in every fight, then they remove the validity of the might ranged character.

so, might melee is the work horse. might ranged is a focused task character. Magic defense is playing 4d chess, and magic offense is >pic related

All that said, there's nothing wrong with that. If thats what you want the game to be, then perfect! Lots of games and players like it!

>Lots of games and players like it!

I just hope they like a magical girl setting. The reason why characters can't regen mana is because their human bodies can never regen enough energy to be use for mana. So basically they are tapping into a huge pool of mana while transform in order to use magic.

Here are the main stats
Might: adds damage to normal attacks
Love: increase def and help make saves against Despair checks and crowd control spells.
Magic: increase mana pool by 2 for every point and increase spell damage.
Life: increase hitpoints by 2 for every point and help making real life check(does the magical girl got her shit together?).

There are many ways to make your character stronger from rising their level to buying/finding magical items and equipment.
It's wise to not invest too much in your character level as making it too strong will start costing you mana to just transform.

Neat!

So kind of similar to how madoka Magica does their magic. Which is why killing monsters regens mana.

Given that, I would suggest you make the magic and spell damage attacks SUPER high damage. Like, instead of increasing damage by 1 point per magic, multiplying it by the magic stat.

So a character with 3 magic does 3*(Might+2d6) damage. Or gives a HP shield = 3*(Love+2d6) to an ally. This makes magic something you want to save for "oh shit" moments and can be super flashy fun things, while also make characters who invest into magic very uniquely powerful when they do use it. Then you can have your characters balance around Love Life and Might for general trash mobs, preserving the turn economy so everyone always gets to do things every turn.

After ~4 years of trying and trying and trying I finally have what I consider a good idea for a board game. Usually I had just fragments of mechanics in my head but no clue or way to put them together in a satisfying way. But now I have a solid idea that feels like a solid foundation and first step. I know what I want and now all I have to do is sit down and work out all the details. I feel so fucking motivated and happy! I created a very ghetto prototype earlier today and played around a bit just to see if that foundation has potential and I think with some refining it could be really good. Maybe my dream of having a board game designed by me out there will come true after all.

But everybody starts out with 6 hitpoints and 6 mana. I don't want the magic to become too deadly, because there is magical girl vs magical girl combat
There is ways to gain mana outside of combat like helping people during the day.
Love and Life characters are really good at gaining mana outside of combat.
Might and Magic characters are really good at gathering mana from combat.

Honestly, had to go re-read the section for it. Yeah, that writing's awkward as fuck. It should be
>If a model is trying to target a model on top of an elevation, and the elevation is a greater Size than the targeting model, their Line of Sight might be blocked.
The idea is the elevation getting in between them, so the rule is either the higher up model can't be seen unless they are close to the edge, or the lower model is far enough away from the elevation.

That is a lot clearer. Maybe lighten to grey a shade, just in case it the physical copy comes out too dark.

I wouldn't worry too much, it is a prototype.

MacKinnon is that you?

As a follow up question from my post, which would be better for a general audience?

Right now I'm trying to decide to make the game end. I have the option of making it just be a "money for money's sake" style game where the players keep going for essentially as long as they like, then whoever has the most liquid cash and value of equipment they own wins.

Or, place a time limit stipulation on the game like, once the 20th bid has been completed, count your money, etc.

Or, assign a point value to the different actions, so completing a bid earns you a VP. Whoever has the most complete bids gets a card that gives them 2 VP, whoever completed the most difficult bid gets 2 VP, whoever owns the largest fleet gets 2 VP, etc. And have the game end at around 10-15 VP.

Or I can add a card to the event deck (the generate a bid card is one of the events) that starts an end game event.

Or I can add a trigger scenario where at the beginning of the game a scenario is pulled like "Fuel war. The first company to own 10 fuel reserves wins." kind of deal.

Thoughts? Or do I need to go over the rules a bit to clear up some questions?

Who's MacKinnon?

from a higher level perspective, I really like the player role analysis I think is from DnD with Pornstars
A DnD (really any roleplaying) group is like a band
There's the singer who wants to be the center of attention, he doesn't really care if he's good or not (although being good is a great way to be more prominent) he just wants everyone to focus on him
The bassist doesn't like attention, but he really enjoys making everyone else feel better. He's ok with not getting recognition because a job well done is its own reward
The backup singer/player wants to be flashy like the lead, but he either doesn't have the skills or confidence to take that role so he carves a space out for himself where he can occasionally be in the spotlight but doesn't have that pressure 24/7
The keyboardist likes being technical. He enjoys pulling success out of something more rigorous/mechanically difficult than everyone else. He also like being weird and unique, and gets satisfaction from being different even if different isn't very good
and finally the drummer just like to be there. He picks the most repetitive and consistent option because he enjoys the raw act of playing with friends. He doesn't apply much brainpower to the act itself but chooses a role which is still effective.

Bumping.

I want a make a magic system for a game I'm making. I want my magic to be separated into different categories called "Lores" each Lore is a distinct theme, much like MERP or WFRP. I'm trying to come up with more, I already have
Pyromancy
Divination
Atmomancy (Weather magic)
Geomancy
Illusion
& maybe Beasts
Can anyone help me with some more Lores?

Cryptomancy - Magic using cyphers and misdirection
Abjuration/wards - Elemental molecular magic
Creation - Create and control what you can imagine. Effected by the personality of the user. (See comic "The Darkness/The angelus")
Matter Manipulation -As an example the worship and evangelism of metal like the Riddle of steel. The amount of devotion effects the amount of control.

I might have more...

Evocation
Abjuration
Invocation
Are "Disiplines" & basically how you cast a spell.
A pyromancy evocation is a fireball, a pyromancy abjuration is a fireproof spell.

I'm never going to get a chance to play my heartbreaker, so I'm making it into a pseudo-roguelike.

Making a virtual RPG is complicated. I've been working on it for a week now and I'm not even done with the engine. I just have about 30 or so demos and tests for the different modules.

>Making a virtual RPG is complicated.
I believe you, though I sometimes wish I could use more intricate mathematics by basically just going the route of a vidya game

I think there's art in reducing mechanics to the point where they still feel "fair" and simple, yet force some tactical/reactive thought process

Math is the easy part. The hard parts include loading/unloading objects, UI, procedural generation, memory management, vision layers, and actor behavior. You would have to deal with all of these issues even if you were running a FATE system.

>when you think you have a good idea then remember you already had this good idea previously and you couldn't integrate it the last time

You should write your ideas down regardless if they don't work with the game your currently developing.

Would it be easier to use one of the rpg generators? Like RPG maker or what have you, Game Creator?

I've heard some composers have banks of beats and snippets in store, which they suffle through when at loss for parts.

I'm a composer and generally we don't keep beats but sometimes we do record melodies and store them for later. Sound designers will record interesting sounds to use later, but Composers generally are able to generate material on the spot - either from improvisation or imagining something in their head then writing it down. This is a core skill of a composer and anyone who can't do this is more of an arranger or orchestrator, or recording producer.

I forget the correct term for it but, that magic based on names or true names or whatever. Rumplestiltskin.

What kind of program do you guys use for producing rulebooks?

I have been working with Open Office thus far, as that is the my usual program for doing texty stuff, but it has its limitations.

InDesign is the universal industry standard. Latex is supposedly just as good but way more complicated.

I actually use Open Office too, but I'm sure its not the best. Once you work out how to do backgrounds that reach all the way to the page edge you can still make some nice stuff with it, to a semi-professional look. You can do multiple column pages and wrap text around images too which is pretty decent.

I use Paint.net for covers and putting together images though

OP here. I use Libre Office.