/gdg/ - Game Design General

I’m not the most Veeky Forums savvy dude, but I’ve been messing around with an idea for a system for a while and I wanted to make sure it didn’t sound like it’d already been done too hard.
The basic concept started as “One of the hardest parts of getting a group together is getting everyone to agree on a system”. I thought that maybe making a game with multiple play styles that get graded under reasonably similar circumstances (such as calling 10 a success regardless of what you use) would be neat if you keep it from getting too messy. For example, one guy might really really love his D6s, but you might have that one guy who wants to use a pack of playing cards at the same time. There’d be advantages and drawbacks to each style of play, and people could always add more to it. This might give everyone something to be a little excited about.
As far as the setting goes, it’s pretty basic to encourage creativity and customization. A long ass time ago four jive continents coexisted, too busy fighting internally or making shit to fight each other. Records of these times are spotty at best, since everyone had their priorities wrong. Meanwhile, two alien races wage an eternal war against one another while a third profits directly from it. All three crash some ships onto the four continent planet, where the two warring races ineffectually try to stir shit up while the third just keeps making bank while introducing the planet to their weird ass dimension pulling powers, making anything and everything not just possible but downright probable. Things got so crazy so fast that now nobody even remembers what the original inhabitants of the planet looked like. Adventures and shenanigans ensue.

I’ll put the play styles in another post, I’m doing this at work and this feels long as hell already.

Same shitty user. So far I’ve got 7 playstyle ideas based on the continents and aliens. Non-aliens that are born on a specific continent use that playstyle, regardless of whether or not they lived there long or shared their values.
>The Red Pyramid
A big ass continent that’s never not at war. Too bad they can’t mobilize or work together, otherwise they’d have the whole world under their control. There are cavemen settlements across the street from knightly manors, and sci fi war stations floating overhead, etc. If it ever wanted to or will want to pillage, conquer, or just engage in a good fight, it lives here somewhere. Characters born here use 3D6 for resolution mechanics. 10+ is a success, doubles grant +2, and trips are an automatic Critical Success. One of the easiest playstyles to learn, but super hard to customize.
>The Blue Star
Your typical medieval fantasy fare. Wizards, elves, orks, and anyone else that wets your Tolkienesque whistle can be from here. Myths and magic pervade every square inch of the land, and Adventure is prided above all other concepts. It’s to the point where fairy tales are mixed in with historical documents, so good luck figuring out what’s been going on for longer than a decade around here. Characters born here roll a D20 and a D6. The D20 is called the ‘Comet’ and the D6 the ‘Tail’. 10+ on the D20 is a success, and the D6 grants bonuses or hindrances based on class and customizations done to it by the player.
>The Yellow Crown
Aristocratic assholes from every other nation who settled here to build casinos and shit. The natural inhabitants barely scrape by, working in lavish places they can’t afford to go to. Civil war is a weekly thing, but never goes anywhere. This is the Playing Card group, where players keep a hand of 5 cards at all times. Instead of rolling, they can play up to 3 cards at a time for a move if they’re the same suit. 10+ is a success, Aces crit, and the Joker is an auto-fail.

The Joker shuffles your used cards back into your deck, though.
>The Green Clef
The smallest continent, mountainous and off the corner of the map. These guys are born predisposed towards Creation in all forms. From weapons and food to philosophy and the arts, everyone born here wants to give the world something new. Nobody from here stays long, they like to travel to sell/give away/get inspiration for whatever their passion is. The other continents are pretty chill about this, since about 70% of these guys are peaceful by nature. Tarot cards are used with these guys, separated into two decks for Major and Minor Arcana. The Major deck is drawn from at the start of a session or during certain effects, and this card is ‘equipped’ by the player to boost certain suits. From here, Green Clef players play like Yellow Crown dudes, making suit pairs or trios from their Minor Arcana hands. They hold 3 instead of 5 cards, however. It’s the single most customizable playstyle, but is super risky and prone to failures.
>The Black Maw
Darkly colored aliens of many shapes and sizes devoted only to destruction. No real culture to share, or conquests to make. They just wanna multiply and fuck everyone over. This isn’t so much a class as it is a “fuck you for not bringing your dice” or basic enemy class for the DM. Flip a coin. If heads, moderate success. Utter failure on tails. You can’t crit or customize with these guys, but I GUESS they’re playable.
>The White Mirror
Small blobby white aliens that attatch themselves to other organisms and take over their functions for a while. This process is non-fatal, and their prey has no recollection of their time spent under control. Borrows the playstyle of the NPC or Player in extreme circumstances until released or taking mortal damage.
>The Silver Coin
Metallic beings that call themselves Improbabots. Use Coins (game currency) in a Point Buy system and can do cool shit when other characters pay them.

Am I endlessly seeking to create the perfect tactical challenge just for self-validation?

When I started gaming in the 80's, our games were all about simulation and tactics. In the 90's, I'd chat with the WoD crowd, and they wanted nothing to do with either of those, but they still liked to roleplay, and I never understood why. But looking back, most of us were imagining our characters as things we wished we could be, or at least as doing things we wished we could get away with. Is it possible that by injecting our own actions into fictional characters, we were wanting to tell stories about ourselves to bolster self-image? If that's true, then it might make sense that, coming from a broken home, I would want to best tactical challenges- maybe I needed stronger proof to accept that there was anything good about myself, so I needed to beat stronger challenges. Then I could go home and look in the mirror and say, see, I'm talented, I'm wise, I'm able to get things done, and I'll solve the problems of my home life too.

Is this common?

My system have a dual track for damage: Luck that is spent to avoid damage (think of it as your everyday HP) and Health (that doesn't increase at all and make critical hits deadly).

But how to deal with types of "damage" when "damaging" Luck/HP? Basically there wouldn't be any mechanical difference on spending 30 Luck to avoid a sword or a poison dart, but since Health damage (where the difference of a slash from a toxin would be seen mechanically) is supposed to be rare, that would mean that using a flamethrower or a machinegun would be a matter of fluff 90% of the time, only being important when the enemy is already out of Luck and near death.

How to avoid this pitfall? Should it be avoided at all?

Have a "true damage" stat? Mechanically, the luck spent isn't different, but how it affects Health does. So to avoid a sword swing or gunshot might be the same Luck (or not, that depends on the set up for the system), but a sword only does X True Damage to Health if the target runs out of Luck, while a bullet does Y.

It works like that, the problem is that is irrelevant. Damage from any source can't trigger specific effects (bleeding from a blade or poison from a dart) until Luck runs out.

Maybe I could do something like Hard West (PC game) did: Luck is recovered after taking true damage, and Health is a little bigger so heroes can take two or three hits (to Health) before really being hurt.

That does sound better. The problem with 2 health bars is that they have to dp something different than each other, or interact differently. One that regens, while the other doesn't is a good one. Reminds me of the original Halo concept, which is what helped make the game play more aggressively.

If I had something that is physically on the playing field, like a terrain piece, that people can draw "power" from, which method would be better?
>The terrain piece has a limited number of charges, drawing from it takes a charge, and the model drawing from it gains full power from the charge
Or
>The piece has "unlimited" charges and the model drawing from it needs to test, the model must draw each charge separately and can draw from multiple sources at once, but the more you draw from a source at once, the more likely it'll deplete the piece and it becomes useless for the rest of the game

I've been re-playing a lot of very old RPGs (NES era, other golden age games), and 2 questions struck me as having never been answered.

1: Do the average mooks you run around killing ever get PTSD?

2: What would happen if some very big powerful monster said "Enough is enough! I'm tired of the heroes absolutely always winning!" and invaded another game's world? Another game as in some entirely other series in which no contact has yet been established between the two?

To put two in a bit of context, imagine what would happen if Ganon (legend of Zelda) and his various mooks decided to invade Alefgard (dragon quest).

Is there any monster or weapon ability which lowers luck? Either by stealing it (gone permanently afterward, given to the stealer), erasing it (gone permanently afterward) or simply draining it (refills naturally eventually)?

What I liked, I think it's from LOFP, is expendable dice.

Let's say you have a medium power source that uses 1d8. Each time someone draws from it, roll 1d8. A result of 1 reduces the die one step to 1d6. And again to 1d4. A 1 in 1d4 depletes the source.

Adds some randomness and diminishes the book-keeping.

Not yet, but some events and attacks may indeed lower max Luck until end of combat or until rest or until plot needed (find the swamp witch to remove the curse).

But mostly of the time Luck is HP with a different name, to heavily explicit that the attack missed as to avoid "my fighter can take 20 dagger stabs".

I had the thought that ghosts or other 'I'm soooooo gothic it hurts' unhappy undead might steal or deplete luck in some way as part of their damage infliction.

MONDAY MORNING, MOTHERFUCKERS (according to UTC+0)

WHATCHA
>WORKIN' ON?
>LISTENIN' TO?
>DRINKIN'?
>EATIN'?
>THINKIN'?
>HOPIN' FOR?

Can be worked in the system, alongside special items that may increase your damage but lowers your total Luck.

But still working on the base of the system to see if it's viable. Thanks for the ideas.

Right now I'm working on something a little different than the usual stuff I do. I came up with a mini-story in which the good guys won a long time back, and then everyone went to a new continent, which the forces of evil and mayhem are only just now discovering about 450 years later. The object of the game is to conquer the new continent.

While I like that idea, I'd prefer to stick to a single die type.

Characters and roleplay are opportunities to make choices and do things that are beyond our own circumstances. That's the appeal for me, and I'm sure anybody that truly enjoys roleplaying games. And that's also a really wide range of selling points; some of us like to play to be brave, others to be mean, and some to socialize more freely.

To win a game—there's a sense of reward there, to be sure. Probably more concrete and describable than what attracts us to roleplay. And, of course, you should want to feel like a tactical victory was properly won. It's not weird to be attracted to victory whereas some are attracted to escapism.

The fact you want to validate yourself through achievement could very likely be a drive for your project but I wouldn't critique this as a faulty motive.

Bump for the night.

If we're operating off Wreck-It-Ralph rules, then your second query would make sense. However, I imagine it's difficult to get a foothold in an entirely new universe. Invasions would be largely unsuccessful, I think.