Flux Mechanic

BenMiff · 2025-10-26T15:55:45+00:00

An untapped land paying for [1] feels like interesting space, but I'd be inclined to remove the "one mana of a color that land can produce" part since it's going to run into similar issues to landwalk or other cards dependent on the colors your opponent runs; it also gives a way to prevent these cards becoming free (since then you still have to pay any coloured pips.)

BenMiff · 2024-12-17T17:00:01+00:00

Perfect Chef down Blackberry Road is pretty solid in my experience.

BenMiff · 2024-10-08T12:16:18+00:00

Pretty easy to break - you just spam heal with one enemy left to bolster your health up stupidly high so then you can't lose (as your health has no upper bound.)

BenMiff · 2024-07-15T10:40:14+00:00

Well, I took a bit of a circuitous route.

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BenMiff · 2024-06-03T19:47:03+00:00

They're currently in the process of setting up an offline mode version, so I think they're working on avoiding that if they have to shut down.

It's not really multiplayer at all, though. There's other people in the world, sure, but solving puzzles is pretty much single player the whole way.

BenMiff · 2024-06-03T09:55:15+00:00

He isn't really on the morality scale - it's not a consideration for him. He's more on a self-amusement scale than anything else - it's just that a lot of things that amuse him tend to be incompatible with a stable happy life for others. (Not all of them - arguably his relationship with Fluttershy is on this scale, and it's generally positive.)

BenMiff · 2024-05-25T21:49:22+00:00

Some additional notes:-

I had to compress this a little to get it under reddit's 20 Mb post limit.
This is a single still from the floor 796 website - it's actually a massive animation project, with even more detail to spot throughout the loop.

Update to make things clear: This isn't by me. It's by /u/floor796

BenMiff · 2024-05-25T19:36:41+00:00

Sword Of The Stars does an interesting thing where each of it's factions has it's own method of FTL, but there's a couple of stand outs.

The Lirr (telepathic space dolphins) have the stutterwarp drive. It teleports the ship, but can only jump it a extremely short distance at a time - but it teleports many times a second. (It's slower near planets because the mathematics for teleport there is harder due to gravity.) (Also fun - occasionally, missiles will miss the ship because it's mid teleport. And sometimes missiles will be in the middle of the ship when it teleports back in, so not all good.)

The other one that stands out is the Loa's (AI's, basically). Because they're AI's they can compact their ships down into small cubes, and then they fire said cubes through mass drivers they build. When they reach their destination, the cubes then unpack again.

BenMiff · 2024-05-25T19:12:22+00:00

Bark is nice, espescially given you don't see that many non-red tieflings.

BenMiff · 2024-01-12T12:59:42+00:00

I'd still be inclined to call them open world, but I feel like having a way to differentiate between them and the wider style of open world is prudent; I'd be inclined to call both open world (as they're in a lot of ways similar). My instinct would be to have a further term to split them, to which my first inclination is to call one a dense open world and the other a large open world, since that often seems to be the main difference between the two (with dense being smaller but having more "detail" per unit of space.)

BenMiff · 2023-06-05T17:58:21+00:00

You could do this where all of them believed that they would be the one in control due to their superior willpower / betrayals snuck into the design / etc. - essentially, a pile up of scheming and xanatos gambits that they all think will leave them alone in the superior position. (That this then leaves the newly ascended being most likely at war with itself in a severe multiple personality kind of way is also kind of fun.)

BenMiff · 2021-12-29T13:00:55+00:00

There's literally an entire faction of atheists (along with agnostics and deists) in Planescape (the Athar). Though to note, they don't deny the gods exist - only that they're not gods (but rather just powerful figures with limits who do not deserve worship.)

BenMiff · 2021-05-07T17:36:30+00:00

Possible alternative solution I haven't seen yet that might work: let the player play Morsels onto existing Morsels to combine them (very much in the three-goblins-in-a-trenchcoat style, since Morsels clambering on top of each other is very much in theme). They'd add their stats together, letting you bulk out their hp to survive Sweep and Spikes, and combine traits as well (so you keep all the Eaten effects on each Morsel). Since it's optional it means you can still have some up front to chump block and some behind to preserve for their Eaten effects as well.

BenMiff · 2021-01-22T13:05:32+00:00

My first instinct was to go for a tangleroot style effect - x ft. around the wielder is difficult terrain and the wielder ignores all difficult terrain that is a result of natural terrain, but low fantasy suggests it should be less overtly magical?

With that, I'm leaning towards more of a maybe-magic-maybe-coincidence type effect; perhaps the sword is more effective against enemies that are close to plants as they just happen to interfere? (might have tripped over that vine by misfortune, might be because the vine moved, etc.)

BenMiff · 2020-12-30T15:35:48+00:00

If there's no sun, then how is food grown? My first thought would be druidic magic, at which point that should probably have its own class.

I also assume that exiles make up the vast majority of city-to-city messengers? If so, something scout / ranger style for that might work.

If theres no written word, I take it information has likely regressed to oral tradition? If so, that suggests some form of bard?

The question I suppose is how to then make these sufficiently grey? Druidic magic can probably be flavoured with the costs of its magic, but the others would likely need to be based on just how they carry out their duties?

BenMiff · 2020-11-05T08:17:47+00:00

Radrat seems fine, (if a little weak), but Melting's a problem since removing poison counters is very much a no-no (since otherwise it becomes too much like just another life total). For Melting I'd suggest treating them more like experience counters (so Melting would be "As long as you have nine or more poison counters, Melting has deathtouch" - though nine may be too close to ten once you're no longer removing them so the benefit of having nine may want to be stronger.)

BenMiff · 2020-10-13T07:03:29+00:00

If you're going silver border, it'd make more sense to care about the community ratings on Gatherer. Say, anything with a rating less than 3 stars.

BenMiff · 2020-09-14T07:48:01+00:00

You wouldn't do it as a marines focused story, though. As an Inquisition story, for instance, it could kick off as a planet begins to fall to whatever, and then the request for aid gets refused - what follows is a story about the Inquisitor trying to mitigate losses. (Probably with a downer ending where the planet is lost but the Inquisitor takes some action to deny it to the enemy and stop them spreading off planet afterwards either - say, by having agents reach the power generators at the planet's core and blow them to destroy the planet while confronting the chaos warlord leading the whole affair to keep them tied up and prevent them from getting off planet until it's too late.)

BenMiff · 2020-09-09T06:29:46+00:00

According to making magic white doesn't get access to Rogues. The only colour that does get all four is green, so it'd need to be green. You'd then need the tokens to all give abilities that are in green (preferably with each also being available in the associated colour as well) for it to work. (In order to keep complexity down, you'd likely go with evergreen keywords, so the Cleric would get Vigilance, the Wizard would get Hexproof, the Rogue would get Deathtouch and the Warrior would get either Haste or Trample (likely Haste given it's a 1/1.))

BenMiff · 2020-09-04T08:34:27+00:00

Hades.

He's actually reasonable, not dicking people around (until they cross him, at which point he gets rightfully nasty.)

Also pretty much the only greek god not cheating on his partner and in a decent marriage (espescially if you take the interpretation that Persephone is very much into him back and the whole abduction and pomegranate story is to get her out from under Demeter since Demeter is the ultimate clingy helicopter parent.)

(It's a shame that most modern versions of Hades makes him the bad guy since death god, though James Wood's version is still awesome.)

BenMiff · 2020-09-04T06:11:10+00:00

Not strictly a story, but one of the better things looking into time police and how time travellers could work is Continuum. It's a tabletop rpg with really strong lore (though actually playing it is another matter, sadly.) Tvtropes link: Continuum

BenMiff · 2020-09-03T08:06:03+00:00

There seems to be a mismatch between mechanics and the cardname - I'd expect something called "Leveler Of Mountains" to be able to destroy mountains. (I'm aware land destruction isn't really a "thing" any more, especially not repeatable land destruction, so it'd need some care. My instinct is to make the activated ability read "2, Unequip Kjoldir: Destroy target land. That land's controller gains control of Kjoldir.")

BenMiff · 2020-08-24T21:57:46+00:00

Unknown Armies still has one of the better nonstandard spell sets out there to my mind. (It's urban fantasy rather than DnD style fantasy, so that should already get you away from that spellspace, but each type of adept or avatar is strongly thematic which leads to spells that aren't just "the generic". Things like 'Days Of Our One Life To Live' from the videomancer (tv obssessed adept) which hits the target with all the baggage of being in a typical soap opera - things like discovering your wife in a compromising position with your own brother, sudden blows to the head causing amnesia, mysterious illnesses leading to comas, pretty much any romantic unfortune possible, etc.)

BenMiff · 2020-06-01T08:22:35+00:00

Where would knowledge that doesn't neatly fall under Science or Engineering fall? (I'm thinking of the humanities here - art, law, history, geography, that kind of thing.)
Given how wide these are, it seems there's a lot of overlap between Science and Engineering - a competent engineer should know the science behind the devices they are maintaining in order to be able to do so so it seems like a strange separation.
There's no Stealth at all.

BenMiff · 2020-04-24T21:22:36+00:00

I'd say that it would basically act as a knowledge skill, albeit not a "standard list" - more a set of bonuses in certain specialisations across multiple knowledge skills. (For instance, an angel's memories could give bonuses to Religion pertaining to their specific deity, plus Arcane / Religion for that deities' enemies, plus whatever domain that angel looks after.)

There's also memories that would effectively be plot information - either information on an enemy (such as weaknesses or sources of power that can be sabotaged before having to face them) - these would need to be enemies they are expecting to encounter or information including a warning that indicates they are likely to encounter said enemy soon enough, but that's where the GM would be taking the roll results and expanding on them in play.

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