/gdg/ - Game Design General

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>How do you keep yourself motivated to work in your projects?

I think caffeine has helped a lot

>it begins

I'm not familiar with it beyond the deck building aspect.

So, Combat Styles. I like how they're separated from skills.

Is the idea to have the styles manifest as being different from each other via feats/powers?
Or are combat styles there to differentiate proficiency with weapons, which will provide the feats/powers?

>How do you keep yourself motivated to work in your projects?
By having an original idea that you believe in. If you have that, it becomes self-perpetuating. While it's not like you never go through phases of drought -these are inevitable- the overall idea keeps you coming back and going at it.

Because they were never loaded into a gun, but instead thrown like darts by another Kung Fu Badass.

>thinking of names for a metacurrency used for exp and money
>>something... points
>>character points? sounds good
>>and I can write it down as CP
>>cool, cool
>start writing it down
>realize my mistake

on second though, maybe CP isn't a good term
we FATAL now boys

Improvement Points?

Ressource Points?

>People keep calling me the best GM ever because I actually make enemies a threat
help

I'd help but I don't have Tabletop Simulator. Or time, really. I've had my prototype set up sitting there for a few weeks now, waiting for me to just have time to sit down and run some more test games.

Most people won't make that association unless you are playing with strictly people from the chans.

Otherwise, is a good alternative.

The Jist uses the terms "Traits" and "Twists" without explaining what that means. That's my only gripe. Well, other than the "Everything is in boxes" thing, but that's probably just taste.

"Modifier Dice" sounds fine. There's a better name out there, but I think it relates less to the theme of the game and more to the idea of your character's traits influencing their abilities. Whatever it is, I have no idea.

Otherwise I think this looks great. I tend to be interested in games mostly because of mechanics, and the way the Trait system modifies your rolls is really, really fascinating. There's a lot of depth here in a really straightforward, simple system.

If this was like $10 I'd probably buy a pdf just from what I see here. Two thumbs up. Keep up the good work!

Always chasing thet white whale. What's that one mechanic you just can't seem to pin down, /gdg/?

Mine is a satisfactory damage system. I like the opposed pools idea I'm using, but I just can't pin down damage that I find fits well. The system in Aegeos is proving okay, but it still feels off.

I can't get crafting working no matter how hard I've tried, my players couldn't understand the Exalted I blatantly stole and retrofitted, suffering.

I think the only time I've ever seen crafting handled well in any game is wjen they create an entire system for it alone, usually so puzzle game or such. An interesting idea I have seen was FFXIV made some crafting into combat. MMO tab-targeting combat, but still more interesting than most of those games that is 'just feed the resources into a drop-down menu' for crafting.

Be honest, /gdg/. How many mechanics have you blatantly stolen and modified to fit your game?

Soooooo many...

Don't be a pussy. Knights of the Black Lily uses CP for Challenge Pool.

I have to ask what you call stolen? I can't think of any that hasn't been so heavily crossbred/modified that it has become its own thing.

Hundreds, for my current project alone. Only a handful have made it through testing.

CP is quite common in games though - command points. Many old Hex and Chit games use this.

Good game design is all about using as many pre-existing mechanics as possible. There is no sense re-creating the wheel on basic mechanics. The more unique mechanics you have, the less people have a frame of reference and the more you need to explain (and the higher possibility people still won't understand them).

There's nothing wrong with unique mechanics, but ideally you should use things that already have been refined to be simple and effective like "Roll above a target number" or "roll on a damage table with modifiers". Some of these mechanics are as old as modern game design - the idea of a damage table or a morale table, or distance giving a negative to damage for ranged weapons, etc.

Obviously you want your game to be unique, and sometimes this comes from unique mechanics, but you can still have a very unique game using mechanics that already exist - and that game will be easier for people to understand as they already get the basics.

I'm not sure if what I'm doing is "stealing" or heavily modifying, but the whole premise of my game was to see if you could take the "stack" system of one-upping your opponent's previous moves, and adapt it into a tabletop wargame.

It did require several exceptions and heavy modification to pull off, since while Magic is literally about placing cards on top of each other, my system uses "markers"/dice to determine whom is attacking whom. The main restriction was that only "offensive" actions could be interrupted (it's clearer than "LOS" overwatch, IMO, and promotes more maneuver).

>tfw you need to put down a core component
Feels bad, man. I've got to go back to the drawing board.

>can’t decide between OSR-style game and storygame
>decide on 2d6 mechanic one day, the next d100 sounds good, then dice pools
>never make any progress
Life is suffering.

I'm constantly unsure on how crunchy I want my ability-builder to be.
On the one hand I like the undebatable precision of highly detailed crunch, similiar to how many superhero games do it, but I always feel like it kills the improvisation and creative description I want to achieve, which is more similiar to some narrative games.

>can’t decide between OSR-style game and storygame
Use something like Risus or Fate for skills and OSR rules for magic and hitting things.

I kind of agree with that user.
Having a separate, but very lightweight system for everything feels very OSR to me (even if it may not be what defines those games, but it is often the case).

Also having a sort of storygamey flavor to your subsystems might give a bit more structure to the GM fiat that otherwise reigns in OSR, so you can try and choose the best parts of both.
Rewarding "player skill" with creating things as Aspects etc. might be worth exploring.

In any case, good luck and happy deving.

I am unsure what to make of the Jist, honestly. It's supposed to be like a condensation of the game, and it's supposed to make more sense after you've read the entire game, and in a sense instruct you to read the parts you don't understand right away.

I was actually planning to make the main game 10$ at first, but now I've started considering PWYW for it.

The "Everything is in boxes" aesthetic is a stylistic decision, and even though in the first edition of the game it won't necessarily look amazing (I realized the layout style only after the artist already started making the art), but the second edition, granted I'll make one, is going to pretty much going to look and feel like a comic book.

Going to instruct artists to make storyboards for the pages, and then just draw a single panel from the storyboard as a picture for the game.

The trait system will be expanded upon in the full game, so look forward to it!

Some feedback:
- I would move "How to customize your character" and "Modifier Dice" to the bottom of page 1, as they are a direct sequitur of the end of "Rolling"
- I would rename "How to customize your character" into "Using Traits to customize your character". I put Traits in there and at the front because someone who reads the term above, can now immediately see where he can learn more about Traits.
- I presume the Twist Points for Foreshadowing are in addition but for the sake of clarity I would spell that out.
- For the same of clarity I would also hint at where the Twist Points are coming from at the end of "How to customize your character" - from new negative traits.
- The last line of "Overcoming weaknesses" isn't idiotproof either. When do I get the opposite positive trait? When the negative trait reaches 0? Does that mean my "Meek(1-1=0)" automagically translates into "Strong(1)"?
- How do Misfortune and Modifier Dice interface? I assume accepting Misfortune comes in after Modifier Dice and allows you to start a test from scratch? Is a Modifier Die from a negative trait applied just the same after reroll caused by Misfortune?

>The Jist
- Every character is a blank slate at the beginning of the game.
- Characters gain new Traits through spontaneous character revelations.
- You need to acquire negative Traits before being able to acquire positive ones.
- Traits cause advantage (positive Trait) or disadvantage (negative) rolls.
- Taking points of Misfortune allows you
to retake an entire test, but comes at a long-term price.

My humble suggestions.

>I would move "How to customize your character" and "Modifier Dice" to the bottom of page 1, as they are a direct sequitur of the end of "Rolling"
They were originally there, but there is a stylistic decision in keeping them on the second page. Because characters aren't supposed to have traits at the beginning of the game, they would encounter Misfortune sooner than Traits.
>I would rename "How to customize your character" into "Using Traits to customize your character". I put Traits in there and at the front because someone who reads the term above, can now immediately see where he can learn more about Traits.
That's a good point. I should utilize the Jist as a focal point that brings questions to the players, and the document should answer those questions.
>I presume the Twist Points for Foreshadowing are in addition but for the sake of clarity I would spell that out.
I guess, I thought it wouldn't need extra clarification, but apparently it does.
>For the same of clarity I would also hint at where the Twist Points are coming from at the end of "How to customize your character" - from new negative traits.
That's a good point. Maybe I was trying to be sneaky with it, but better be transparent.
>The last line of "Overcoming weaknesses" isn't idiotproof either. When do I get the opposite positive trait? When the negative trait reaches 0? Does that mean my "Meek(1-1=0)" automagically translates into "Strong(1)"?
You explained how it works. Perhaps I should too.
>How do Misfortune and Modifier Dice interface? I assume accepting Misfortune comes in after Modifier Dice and allows you to start a test from scratch? Is a Modifier Die from a negative trait applied just the same after reroll caused by Misfortune?
Wait, I didn't explain that the Modifier dice persist during rerolls? Shit. Positive modifiers trump Misfortune, naturally.

>The Jist *snip*
The final game won't have the jist part, but I'm still reconsidering being more transparent with it.

What's great about percentile systems is that you can switch to a d20, d10 or d100 depending on the campaign setting or aesthetic your going for.

Skill systems are always going to be partially GM fiat because it's a comparison between a mechanical thing on one side and something that only exists in the GM's head on the other. So go ahead and let the players write whatever the fuck as skills, it's going to be fine.

(The mechanics in follow this pattern, with skills derived from Risus. It works really well, but it's a lot to ramp people up on in forum discussions, so I cut it out of that post.)

Still no idea how to make a simple ability/trait that comes from wearing an exo-frame

Give the frame its own physical stats and "as long as you're using it, use its physical stats instead of yours

>What's that one mechanic you just can't seem to pin down, /gdg/?
I figured out a surprisingly precise way to balance combat math, but the most flexible ways to apply it to player characters involve having two stance-like slots and it's really hard to theme that in any way that makes sense to normal people. Best I have is "stance" and "grip" but that's iffy because the game isn't actually /that/ crunchy and many characters will have one of each that they use exclusively.

(The actual balance method converts all abilities and ability-modifiers into abstract attack and defense values. Any sneaky way of making sure players end up with the same values allows easy balancing that usually works. And there are some offensive-looking abilities that end up with a defense value, so this doesn't have to be obvious at all.)

What said but instead of only overriding a specific subset of stats, give the exo-frame a stat block that's missing the stats it doesn't override (either lists them as "-" or is literally missing the lines). Then you can use the same rules for mind-altering drugs or being possessed by an alien parasite or whatever the fuck.

Anybody have any experience with AI decks? I'm currently using a morale-flowchart system and it's rather cumbersome.

Does this system apply to any other forms of combat other than melee?

System is just converting all stats into "turns to kill baseline character" (A) and "turns to be killed by baseline character" (D). This works in any turn based system.

Ranged attacks raise your D score by the (range / baseline speed).

How do games without a dedicated combat system (i.e. Dungeon World) play out during combat encounters? Doesn't it get messy? I'm wondering because I don't want a cemented combat system and want it to be a part of whatever is happening during RP without breaking the flow, but I don't know how those even work.

>How do you keep yourself motivated to work in your projects?
That's my secret. I'm always unmotivated.

Need some advice, which of these two looks better for a system that supports a margin of success mechanic?
anydice.com/program/ee80

The difference is negligble. I would recommend using 2d12 because your average player doesn't have 6 d12s just lying around, especially in discernable groups of 3. Hell, I'm a dice enthusiast and I might have trouble finding a good set for that.

It doesn't get messy because there's no substance to spill, everything is represented on a fictional plane; your describing what would happen rather than what's actually happening.

Is it a game where combat is supposed to happen?

Let's assume so, yeah.

The usual balancing act of granting a lot of options versus keeping things easy to track/balanced. I'm very much a "your dudes" guy when it comes to wargaming but I want the system to remain easy to decipher.

Magic systems are also a rather tricky aspect, since I tend to like when powers/abilities are "open" enough to allow players to experiment with organic combos (I dislike Warmachine "canned synergy" as a whole).

i'm thinking of making a game with it but the constant deck reshuffling would get pretty annoying i think

>things start out swell and i'm pumped because i'm finally making good progress
>everything slowly goes to shit once again

>trying to fix its issues just brings forth new ones

which is a good book or theory on designing a wargame?

I'm thinking the 2D12. The difference is minor, but with a margin of success, that small difference does change how it feels.

I found abstraction is the "your dudes" friend. You also have to commit, one way or the other, for customization. I feel Warzone Resurrection is a good example of how not to go halfway. They really cut your customization options, so it really doesn't feel like there's a point to the few things they left. The choice usually comes down to "can you afford the heavy gun upgrade or not in your list?" There's little reason to not either go full in with a unit or keep it barebones and cheap.

I usually like to keep magic tight, so you can afford to stretch what you can do with it. If the sole focus of the game is wizard battles, then I'd say go nuts with a "make your own spell" system. But otherwise, I fall on specific and flavorful spells over freeform.

Within reason, of course, not a huge fan of the pre-built spell kits in Warmahordes, especially since the last 2 editions have been cutting down on the spells available. Its falling into the efficiency trap with some casters, where if they don't have X spells, they are disregarded by the players. Yeah, it sucks when a new caster comes out with a variation of X and its either more powerful or weaker, but it also sucks if there's only X and the new caster loses that tool because either to differentiate it from the other caster or because it doesn't fit their fluff.

The blog Delta Vector has a good number of articles about wargame development and design.

Ok, this is driving me nuts. I just can't figure out what to do with the Power in my mechanic.

So far, its simple:
>Attacker rolls 3D12, plus a die per friendly model helping
>Defender rolls 3D12, plus a die per armor
>Each scores a succesd by rolling equal or under their respective stat
>Natural 1's add extra dice to the roll
>The attacker rolling more successes wins and does a point of damage
Simple, but I can't fit in the attack's power into the equation. I don't want to bloat by doing the same with armor AND have the bonus from supporting models. Previous version of auto-successes was skewing the math. And I need something that works if the models decide to go head-to-head instead of defending. Dice modifiers? Bite the bullet, make them extra dice, and hard cap it?

Attacker rolls 3D12 + power and each friendly model allows one reroll

Or instead of a baseline of 3D12, the attacker rolls a number of D12 equal to their power, plus one for each friendly model helping.

That's a good idea.

I'd like some feedback on my first homebrew. The rules are here:

>inb4 40 pages

docs.google.com/document/d/1hRb7fQuzeSfjKbbYNOWa6V1xWs3-CM9lKBBDkJFcQ8I/edit

I run this monster on /qst/ in a skirmish format. Some of my players say this would work better as a ttrpg so I was curious what people would say.

>Thread Topic

I just keep going. Any idea no matter how stupid is written down. I have another doc that's just as long of ideas that have been shelved or are mostly fleshed out but haven't made it into a project.

I find it harder to not abandon one and start anew. Especially as I get more experienced.

>I find it harder to not abandon one and start anew. Especially as I get more experienced.
I think I get more discouraged the more I have to refine or otherwise remake large chunks of projects.
I might also be looking too hard for the elegance I want but with sufficient characterization...

The neverending story

>the more I have to refine or otherwise remake large chunks of projects.
gotta play-test early and thoroughly to avoid this. Then play-test each new major addition to these basics.

This. Playtest constantly to avoid late heartache.

Rate my idea for a gendered race mixing attribute modification system!

Essentially, the idea is that you have two attribute mods, one from the mother's X chromosome and associated racial characteristics and one from the father's X (if female) or Y (if male) chromosome and those same characteristic. The table shows example values (for an 1-100 attribute system) and the rules mean in particular:

* For a racially pure character, double the "race/X" mods if you're female or add one "race/X" and one "race/Y" mod if male.
* For a daughter of two racially pure characters, grab one "mother's race/X" mod and one "father's race/X" mod and sum them up. Here the results don't matter if you switch races
* For a son of two racially pure characters, grab one "mother's race/X" mod and one "father's race/Y" mod and sum them up. Here it does matter who is which race - a dwarf-elf mix where the father is an elf will have different modification from a dwarf-elf bastard whose father is a dwarf. So record which racial mod comes from which side.
* For a child of racial mixes themselves, pick one of the mother's "race/X" mods at random, while the father's mod depends on the sex of the child: Daughters get their father's "race/X" mod (which is one of the mods from their grandmother on the father's side), sons get their father's "race/Y" mod (which comes from their grandfather on the father's side).

This is the simplified version. The full one allows for quarter parts of races and traces of even older ancestors to modify the attributes a bit.

>Human senses -13
Dafucc
>Morality racial modifier
Yeah this isn't gonna piss off anyone
That's not even going into the unsettling implications of the fact that female orcs are inherently more moral while being less empathetic than males

I'm more interested in commentary on the system itself, not the specific values - those are just examples.

The "Morality" value is mostly an attribute substitution of the classic D&D "law-chaos" axis. Highly moral races tend to form complex societies and hierarchies (the "law" part), while low-morality ones are more chaotic and anarchic in nature.

Honestly, I think if you were going to do it that way, you could just add two numbers together to serve as a base. Say you consider 50 a base total value-
>Barbarian:
>Speed (26|28)
>Senses (28|26)
>Mind (21|21)
etc.
So a male barbarian would start with 26+28= 54 speed on a 1-100 scale
As much as I love genealogy mechanics myself, most people simply won't care. I like the general idea, but I also suspect people will consider it tedious- and some might be confused humans don't act as a baseline in all categories.

What's your most efficient playtesting process?

There must be something more thorough/speedy than running loads of oneshots.

There's a reason 90% of published material doesn't get playtested outside of a spreadsheet.

>thorough
>speedy

pick one

Well, deckbuilders are widely played still so shuffling does not deter that much

The base is actually 30, so this might be usable without too large numbers. Still - this is just chargen. How often do you do that?

The most important one is to get someone to playtest it for you, and if possible, get a recording of the play session.

Doing it yourself means your overwhelming knowledge of the knicks and knacks makes some of the most difficult things to grasp obvious to you. Having someone else do the bulk of the brain activity is key. See if they come up with house rules, or just interpret the rules in a different way.

>How often are you doing it?
Maybe the best design advice I've ever gotten is the fact that you don't just have to produce a good product, you have to produce a product better enough than existing products to justify the cost of transitioning from the existing solution. That seems obvious, but when you really think about it, a lot of people ignore the investment cost of their systems because THEY made it- they've already invested the time and effort and energy and money.
Character creation is the average player's first introduction to your system. If they think it's complicated or a slog, whether it is or not, they won't even get to the real game. GURPS isn't nearly as hard as it's given in the 'casual' community unless the GM goes out of his way, but the initial investment is large enough and daunting enough to people that just want to roll 3d6 down the line won't bother learning the rules because pointbuy is HAAARD guis.
>But I don't want casuals, I want people willing to learn my system
Brand loyalty is an absurdly powerful force, especially in the tabletop community (ex. Edition Wars). Every barrier between a new player and your game is a barrier between every group they're in and your game. If you're willing to appeal to a specific field, that's your prerogative, but a new game generally needs the most profitable (and therefore often biggest) target audience it can muster.

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In some games you might find multi-turn contests that settle these types of engagements in a series of tests/checks.

This mechanic isn't usually for combat but I imagine you could simplify the idea of battle to a tug-of-war, where you'd get a certain number of victories over the other side.

Good points. I guess I should just make the race mixing part (assuming it works like I want it to work) into advanced rules whereas the "normal" chargen rules have simple pre-computed modifiers for "pure" races.

... and the full "expert" rules is something mostly for the GM to do with the help of a small app or computer tool, or for dedicated players who really like the idea of a half-orc (on the mother's side), quarter-elf, quarter-dwarf with traces of human and satyr ancestry ...

So I decided to go with idea. Power works like Armor, adding an extra die to the roll, and making combined attacks allow you to re-roll a die for each one contributing. Didn't really mess with the stats to adapt to changes for now.

My super sekret idea for uncertain activation in this Chechnya game

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I'm assuming Chechens get fewer vehicles overall?

Yeah the Chechens have much fewer vehicles, and so need to activate much fewer. They have wolf packs instead - a group of 4 - 10 guys including an RPG, PKM and/or sniper rifle.

The forces will be randomly generated in this game, which should make it interesting. I'll probably provide an optional points system just in case though.

I'm aiming for minimum complexity, and maximum chaos with these rules. Deployment with be fairly free form so right from the start shit could be whack, with factions overlapping and friendlies separated by enemy units, etc.

>when you're just making a setting+subsystem to flavor a generic system

I mean, I don't have to lie but I don't feel very proud of myself, unless this project makes combat really fun

How's this for a pitch?
>Card Game
>The players are a team of villains, led by the BBEG
>Every player has two personal decks:
>Role decks are distributed by the current BBEG. These give players a specific roles in the group, and are used for completing Schemes (eg. Brute, Right Hand Man, Innovator, BBEG)
>Power deck is chosen at the beginning of the game. It gives the player more utility options outside of his role and is often used to modify Role Cards (eg. Monster, Sorcery, Minions, Machines)
>The group's goal is to advance Schemes, little random missions that require actions be taken to complete
>They are opposed by Heroes, drawn from a deck of cards, each with different powers and weaknesses
>The ultimate goal of the game is to be the BBEG by the time the group succeeds in a predetermined amount of schemes. In order to become the BBEG, the player must either convince the current BBEG to surrender his title or take it by force.
>Both sides of a challenge may try to recruit the other players to their side and play cards to try to gain an advantage.
>Once a winner has been decided, they may choose to redistribute the roles.

This is the basic idea. Kind of a cooperative game full of trickery and deceit. I'm kinda worried that it's a little too card heavy with two decks per player and two more decks for heroes and schemes.

I'd de-emphasise the heroes if you feel you have too many decks. Make them into something like random obstacles and events - annoying and disruptive, but in the end rather unimportant compared to power plays between the players. Maybe something akin to the monsters in Munchkin?

An Image I whipped up, feel free to make your own for your own experiences

Some good stuff for game design:
Ludology Podcast:
ludology.libsyn.com/

Delta Vector Google group (game design discussion group)
groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/delta-vector7

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Have you ever designed (or tried to) design a game based on some dice combination you just happened to like at some point?

I'm strongly considering trying to make a 3d20 system work somehow just because I got a new d20 and I like how these 3 look together. It has happened to me in the past with 2d8 as well because I got a nice pair of green d8s.

>Thread Topic
I don't :(

You need to look at DSA/TDE, Germany's biggest game - it has been using 3d20 for skills for 25 years or more now, I believe. Basically, you test roll-under against 3 attributes and your skill points provide you a buffer to neutralize an equivalent number of points you rolled over on these 3 tests.

That's why I'm using 3d12 base.