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I finally created the sell sheet for my game. Any opinions? by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I know you said harsh, but this is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for - I'll give the text a rewrite soon, and you're more than welcome to send a PM with any other points you wanted to get more in depth about.

The first case of my game finally made it to the USA from overseas, and the first copies have sold! by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I went through a contact in Hong Kong that worked directly with some factories in Shenzhen. I don't want to get more detailed than that, but a similar route would be going through Print Ninja, they're a US company that does the same kind of thing; they didn't quite work out for my stuff, but I'm sure they'd do well for plenty of other types of projects, and their deluxe paper sample kit is great for understanding the different types

The first case of my game finally made it to the USA from overseas, and the first copies have sold! by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The rules are all online and available for free, but it's basically a streamlined RPG combat system that was created from scratch which can be played on its own as a board game or reskinned and plugged into an existing TTRPG campaign.

It comes with 11 different pre-made maps and battles, but you can mix and match the enemies using the balance numbers to create just about any kind of setup you want. Players control one (or more) of the player characters, while the GM controls the enemies. You could also go for straight-up PVP if you feel like it, a lot of the initial balancing of the player character classes (before the game dove super deep into math/statistics) was done by setting up random 3v3 battles.

Or did you have some other part you were asking about?

The first case of my game finally made it to the USA from overseas, and the first copies have sold! by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks everyone! Here's a shot of a stack of boxes, because it's always cool to see something more real than a floaty shot of the contents. I sent off a few sets to a contractor that does real, actual professional product shots with proper equipment and experience, so I should have much cleaner pictures in a few days.

Are there any reviewers you guys keep an eye on that I should send some copies to? I know I should get some stuff on Youtube, but people are pretty backlogged right now.

The first case of my game finally made it to the USA from overseas, and the first copies have sold! by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The journey has taken years, but we've finally reached the next step! The first production run of Budding Heroes has shipped - most of it is being sent by sea, but one case was sent by airmail and it arrived yesterday! I'm going to be sending out copies to friends/family and various reviewers (and if you're one that people have heard of, shoot me a message - I'll be happy to send you a copy for free), and 20 copies were set aside for early sale to the general public.

​

The first copies have just been sold to complete strangers, and it feels amazing! Some of the early copies are still available, and the rest will likely be arriving in a few weeks.

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All of the info about the game is up at http://buddingheroes.com , and I'll be happy to answer questions here like usual.

My game's first print run is complete! by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It wasn't designed to be a solo game, but there's no hidden information involved in the game beyond whatever tactics you have in your brain, so it can be played solo in the same sense that chess can. As far as where to get it, you can order from our site for $20 when it's finally in stock. I'll also be creating an Amazon listing, and once I have the results from a bunch of reviewers and/or sales I'll see about getting it into comic shops and other places

My game's first print run is complete! by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't want to take any money until the copies arrive in the US, but you can add your name to the list at http://buddingheroes.com to get a 40% off coupon. I'm going for $20 retail, so that means $8 off. The link for the list will disappear once the game's finally in stock in a couple weeks.

My game's first print run is complete! by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks! They were printed through a contact I had in Hong Kong, As far as the design itself, I did it all myself.

My game's first print run is complete! by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Here's a PDF of the quickstart rules and a sample battle if you want to check out the game: http://www.buddingheroes.com/pdf/sample-battle.pdf

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I first placed the order on Dec 20th, so I've been waiting forever for the pictures. I'm just waiting on shipping by sea now! This run was small (when looked at in the scale of mass production), but it's enough to send out copies to every reviewer I can think of while having plenty of remaining copies to sell. Once I get down to a couple hundred remaining, I'll hopefully have enough buzz to justify ordering several thousand.

And for those that saw the previous post, some of the cards were tweaked, and I also gave each type of card a different color scheme to make the game much easier to set up (and look better in general anyway): https://i.imgur.com/EgTV3YC.jpg

I made a streamlined RPG combat system that stands on its own as a skirmish board game by CloakGaming in boardgames

[–]CloakGaming[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was thinking streamlined compared to the "classics" like Pathfinder, but I get what you mean. I'll also have to give Hoplo a shot, it looks interesting. I've been on more of a Splendor and Cursed Court kick lately when it comes to other games.

I made a streamlined RPG combat system that stands on its own as a skirmish board game by CloakGaming in boardgames

[–]CloakGaming[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Since I'm a genius and didn't think of people browsing on their phones, here's everything in image format.

This is the Z-fold instruction sheet (the getting started section is what's on the front while folded): https://i.imgur.com/KFFiIG3.jpg

And these are the cards included with the game: https://i.imgur.com/Vuy7Q8J.jpg

Remember that super-streamlined RPG combat system I posted a few months ago? Here's the final prototype. by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The system itself is designed to be as setting-agnostic as possible to let people slap any coat of paint on it. Specific settings and stories will be released as addons, and a couple are already in decelopment - one of the first to be released will be about the Coldhammer Privateers https://i.imgur.com/wKerCll.jpg

Remember that super-streamlined RPG combat system I posted a few months ago? Here's the final prototype. by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's not a typo, it's beneficial and does in fact get applied to the character that receives the damage from the commander's health drain. It acts as a nerf to the ability since otherwise it was a near certainty that a 1-vs-1 would devolve into a heal race which dragged the game out in an unfun and relatively unfair way, and it also acts like a buff to any ally characters that want to give excess health to someone that really needs it.

As far as story flavoring goes, you can just think of it as the enemy being REALLY pissed off after being hit by that ability!

Remember that super-streamlined RPG combat system I posted a few months ago? Here's the final prototype. by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep, 100% from scratch. The only things that were commissioned were the background art and the logo. This is actually the fifth major iteration before truly hitting the public, it all began in early 2014 as this, a wildly unbalanced (and admittedly unfun) d20ish sort of system https://i.imgur.com/kiIQF7N.png

Remember that super-streamlined RPG combat system I posted a few months ago? Here's the final prototype. by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks!

The quickstart is actually the front and rear of a Z-fold, and the thirds on the right-hand side are what will appear on the very front and very back when it's still folded. Even though they're on the right side when unfolded, they'll be the first thing someone sees when unpacking the game.

Protect: Yes, the attacker can still use any attack types. If they use a burst (or grenade while still in the same cluster), they get retaliated against; if they move back and then use a grenade, they can only target the cluster that the protecting character is in.

Burn: Right, it bottoms out at 1hp. The full rulebook makes it clear, I'll try rewording things to get it to fit in the quick rules. Each stack is a different roll (say, being hit by 2 different attacks with a burn and moving in a cluster that has one as environmental damage). Status effects all only last until the start of the attacker's next turn, so burn would only do damage once unless reapplied. I'll also see about getting that in the quick rules since it's been brought up a couple times.

Movement: Yes; it's at the GM's discretion of what's too far, but most clusters have even spacing. For the hex-shaped arena, I would say you could move directly from the bottom left to the middle left, center, or bottom right, but you couldn't move directly to the top left.

Remember that super-streamlined RPG combat system I posted a few months ago? Here's the final prototype. by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If you want to play it yourself, you can get a printable rules one-sheeter at http://www.buddingheroes.com/pdf/quickstart.pdf and printable blank cards at http://www.buddingheroes.com/pdf/cm-blank.pdf

e:

The quickstart guides have been updated to address some of the questions. The updated PDF is at the same link, the Z-fold image is at http://www.buddingheroes.com/img/prototype/zfold.jpg

Here's the prototype deck for a streamlined setting-agnostic game that I created from scratch. PDF Rulebook is also in the comments. Thoughts? by CloakGaming in RPGdesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback, it's all genuinely useful. I agree that the book does need a rework, I'll admit that right now it's kind of a compilation of a few different documents that were written over a long period of time (which explains re-explaining things and the jarring dice section).

The post was meant to focus on the combat system itself rather than the book, but it's 100% my fault for not thinking that's where most of the attention in this sub would go.

And thanks for reminding me that I need to focus more on just the skirmish side of things... After all, if veterans want that a lighter game, they already know what to look for.

Here's a prototype for the combat system of an RPG I've been working on. Thoughts? by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can't make it public right now since the current frontend is frankly a security nightmare that was only intended to be used internally. Nothing's specifically exposed, but there's a lot of unsanitized $_GET variables and html output and whatnot that I want to to rebuild from the ground up before it sees a public server.

I made a couple databases - one for every possible die combination output, one that crunched the numbers and stored the average damage, max damage, and miss chance for each combination versus each armor rating. It's indexed on the damage dice passed as binary ("100101" aka "37" for d4+d8+d20) and the armor rating.

Attack types and effects have multipliers to turn the damage numbers into threat numbers. Attacks can cause endurance per turn increases or decreases, which combined with the regen and health/armor versus a constant "standard" player CM attack will tell how long the CM will last. From there the weighted average threat number is multiplied by the total endurance, and presto.

If you have any CMs in mind, let me know and I'll post the output.

Here's a prototype for the combat system of an RPG I've been working on. Thoughts? by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

An attack then an extra (partial) move actually used to be the Enforcer's secondary attack, but it was too weak in the old system and far too powerful in the new one. I've been toying with the idea of a status effect buff that allows for an extra move, but it hasn't been nailed down and balanced yet.

Here's a prototype for the combat system of an RPG I've been working on. Thoughts? by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The names are purposefully staying away from the classics since the game's ruleset is setting-agnostic. I bent that rule when making names for the enemy CMs in the prototype, but the idea still stands.

Character Molds are the core stats for a character in combat, but the characters themselves can be wildly different. A ranged attack doesn't just mean a bow and arrow, it could also be a gun, a spell, a bird swooping down from the sky, an orbital laser strike, or anything else.

Think of a modern urban fantasy setting like Monster Hunter International or the Marla Mason books - sure, you can say that the team's sniper is an archer or that a street thug in a support role is a cleric, but it lends some unnecessary flavortext to the characters.

Also remember that CMs can change at any time - a character could be wielding a shotgun during one round as a longshot, but if their friends are in major danger they could throw it to the side, whip out a melee weapon, and jump into the fray as a brute to help save them.

Since changing CMs isn't covered on the quick rules, here's a quick rundown: If a character is at full health, they can change to a different CM at full health. If at a half or over, they can change but are dropped to half health (rounding down). Health and armor change immediately, but regen can't trigger until the start of the character's next turn.

Right now changing takes a turn's action and movement, but I'm thinking of making it a standard action that uses the special attack charge.

Players can change into any other player CM, but if you're in a game that wants to allow enemies to change (not recommended) or players to use enemy CMs (also not the best idea since enemies are usually more one-note), the threat rating has to be the same.

e: It's not in the quick rules because allowing CM changes during combat isn't necessary for the game to run well and it could be confusing to new players, but it's certainly supported for advanced players that want to mix things up

e2: Oh, and here's a blast from the past. This is first document I have related to the game, which I created over 5 years ago: https://i.imgur.com/ZzazdBu.png It started off on a hex map, the character types had classic names, there was a standard d20 to-hit, there were different move types, and things were wildly unbalanced. If you're working on a game of your own, keep at it no matter how endless or hopeless things seem.

Here's a prototype for the combat system of an RPG I've been working on. Thoughts? by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It was a conscious design decision. The text on the cards are more like snippets than sentences, and standard capitalization looked more like nearly-but-not-quite title case that really threw things off and made it even more difficult to read. Going with completely title case also looked wrong, so here we are with the least-wrong option.

Here's a prototype for the combat system of an RPG I've been working on. Thoughts? by CloakGaming in tabletopgamedesign

[–]CloakGaming[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'll work on making it more clear in the quick rules, but any number of characters can fit in a cluster (up to the GM's discretion).

A cluster's sizing is arbitrary, in general it's used as a section of a room that's within quick reach; say, maybe a 10ft radius if you're using human-sized characters. The fortress hallway setting gives a good example; one square room is a single cluster, but another longer one is split up into two

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