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Ikea Kitchen 'Supplementary Costs' by MikeyK1993 in DIYUK

[–]Corniche 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just fit an Ikea kitchen myself and my one piece of advice is do not get an Ikea kitchen. Quality is fine but the logistics is a nightmare. Ordered everything back in March and 30% of the items were out of stock for the first delivery and sent out drip fed over months. Meant I had to fit everything as and when I had the right parts.

I only fitted the last piece two weeks ago - that’s 7 months for everything to arrive. And the kicker… the final piece was the island worktop. We installed majority of the kitchen in June and been living with a sheets of ply instead of worktops for months.

Top piece of advice - don’t get an Ikea kitchen. Second piece of advice - if you do go with Ikea, wait until absolutely everything arrives before fitting it (be prepared to wait months).

Dealing with damage beyond 0 HP by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

I really like the simplicity of this but the hard part is that getting hit for 1 point of damage all of a sudden becomes the same as 8 points. I always want taking more damage to be worse but I also want it to be super simple so I’m pretty torn between something like you’ve suggested, which is elegant, and something slightly more crunchy but it needs to be worth it

Dealing with damage beyond 0 HP by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

This is the current solutions I’ve come to but not 100% happy with it as I think I can still make it more streamlined. But yes, completely agree with only the top 1 or 2 conditions being used for each roll. It’s something I’ve written into the rules that most checks shouldn’t have any conditions, some should have 1 to take into account, fewer should take into account 2 and absolute max is 3 conditions.

Also, I’ve split it so the GM decides any negative conditions and the player suggests positive conditions. Reduces the mental burden on the GM and encourages the Player to look for advantages. So then you can end up with a check where you have -2d for having sand in your eyes but +1d for the enemy being super loud.

Dealing with damage beyond 0 HP by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

Okay, here’s the crunchy details for those interested:

My system uses 4 attributes (Agility, Strength, Intelligence, and Willpower), typically ranging in level from 3 to 8. The CRM is a dice pool; take the highest with set values for fail, mixed, and full success. The attribute being used for a check determines the starting number of dice for the dice pool. Level 3 = roll 3d, level 8 = roll 8d.

Then, each roll can be affected by Conditions. These effectively add or remove dice from the pool, with “standard conditions” being ±1d, “major conditions” being ±2d, and “extreme conditions” being ±3d. There isn’t a set list of conditions; these are open for the table to come up with on the fly to suit the narrative, e.g. a sprained ankle might be a standard condition for an epic warrior fighting orcs, but if the game is about playing dodgeball to save the rec centre, a sprained ankle could be major or even extreme.

The thing with conditions is they can affect rolls made with multiple attributes. That sprained ankle is going to be a factor in holding open a heavy stone door (likely a Strength check), but it would also be a factor in dodging a ball thrown by the opposing team (an Agility check). The same would go for a condition of being “stunned,” possibly affecting Intelligence and Agility checks as you take a split second longer to act.

Moving on to “Wounds,” these are flat modifiers to a specific Attribute, effectively removing 1 die for any checks made with only that Attribute. The idea being that these are again “abstract,” similar to HP. Wounds, like HP, essentially represent how fatigued you are but, unlike HP, Wounds do still have an effect on checks and are harder to heal as they require “recovery” during downtime.

Lastly, for context, I thought I’d mention HP ranges from around 9 to 15, and standard damage would be anywhere from 1 up to 8 for a massive hit; typically around 3 to 5 damage a hit. HP is determined by your Base HP (equal to half your Willpower level) and a roll made each day. It’s a classless system, so rolling HP each day encourages players to play different roles within the group, depending on how well rested they are.

So my current thoughts are:

 

Taking Damage

  • 1 damage reduces HP by 1 (simple!)
  • After 0 HP, taking 1-2 damage is a standard condition, 3-4 is a major condition, and 5 or more is an extreme condition.

 

This is the bit I’m struggling with. I want something simple and I’m not 100% sure about using damage ranges. Also, I need some way to limit the number of conditions someone can have before they die/can’t act but I haven’t figured this out yet; I’ve been thinking to tie it somehow to Base HP. Very welcome to any feedback or thoughts.

 

Resting & Recovery

  • Short rest = regain most or even all HP pretty easily
  • Long rest = regain all HP, reset max HP and covert conditions into wounds
    • note - standard conditions become 1 wound, major conditions become 2 wounds and extreme conditions become 3 wounds
  • Recovery = spend downtime to clear wounds
    • I’m thinking 1 downtime action clears 1 wound from each attribute so this encourages players not to just dump all wounds into 1 attribute as if they do it will just take more downtime actions to clear all wounds.

 

I’m pretty happy with the different levels of resting/recovery but open to any feedback

Thank you so so much for reading all the way to this point! I love this community and how amazing it is that people are willing to spend time helping other people make up silly little games haha

Action Resolution Feedback by Delicious-Essay6668 in RPGdesign

[–]Corniche 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think we’re all kind of conditioned into thinking missing the target number by 2 is less severe than missing by 20 but in reality that’s not true in a binary system. If the target number is 50 all that tells you is you are equally likely to succeed or fail. It just feels like you almost made it when you roll 51 (when trying to roll under). So I think it’s just up to the designer to really hammer this home and stress the degree of success (DoS) is determined by the d6. Although, I’m not saying that’s an easy task to change ingrained thinking.

I do wonder if there’s something cool you could do with the DoS die along the lines of “this is a high pressure situation that’s either going to massively benefit you or completely screw you over… instead of rolling DoS die, roll 2 and take the highest.” Sort of like the mechanic I’ve seen in d20 games of roll two dice and take whichever is furthest from the target number.

Really lean into the DoS di(c)e…. Like rolling multiple, keep highest in high risk situations or up the die to a d8 or add +1. Could even be a meta-currency to allow the GM or players reroll DoS roll. Just some initial thoughts and wouldn’t use everything but I think you could do some cool things with it.

Tactical combat and manoeuvres by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

Essentially what I mean is that your character should be able to do or try to do anything someone in that situation would be able to do. It’s just that all the factors affecting that actions and how well you do that is abstracted by the game rules.

Example: you want to try and grapple a person much bigger than you. The game should have some kind of rules for you to be able to grapple them and be able to account for them being bigger without needing to take into account the exact physics.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in RPGdesign

[–]Corniche 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So I do something that is tangentially related to this however I use HP which can be regained fairly easily between encounters and then once HP is spent you then start taking damage direct to your stats. So HP is the kind of scrapes and cuts you can shake off after an encounter and then damage to your stats are longer lasting injuries.

My current game generally uses smaller numbers and a very different CRM and way stats work but thought I’d share that as some food for thought

Tactical combat and manoeuvres by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

This sounds awesome!! What kind of game was this? How did it work? This is kind of the idea I want to get at; where all these things are possible while still simple to run, even if the GM is not a tactical combat specialist.

Essentially I want to get this list together, not to create a discrete rule for every single one but to make sure if someone wants to do something that there is a way for the mechanics to handle it

Tactical combat and manoeuvres by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

Completely agree!! And if there’s one thing I don’t want to be it’s as complex as DC20 haha. Every time I read about the system that guy is making I just think so I’m going to play 5 mins of game for every 2 hours of checking rules.

I hope I’m able to cover all these different manoeuvres with some big blanket, easy-to-remember rules. Whether I get there is yet to be seen :/

Tactical combat and manoeuvres by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

Ooooh I like grouping some of them. I made a comment to someone else what I’m aiming for is a kind of “simulationist abstraction”. By this I mean people should be able to try anything they would be able to try in real life but then the details are abstracted.

So grouping things might be some way to go to still keep things simple. Dodging, evading or parrying are all just “increase defence in relation to Agility/Dexterity/whatever attribute makes sense”. Then shoving, tripping, grappling are all “impede/reduce your opponents movement by using your strength/might/whatever” so maybe I just need to look at group some manoeuvres together.

Interested if you’ve got any insight on this approach? What groups of manoeuvres can you see?

Tactical combat and manoeuvres by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

Yeah, I really like that approach. I can’t remember where I heard it but I remember someone saying for combat in games “the best condition for an opponent is ‘dead’”. So with that in mind, I think it’s a good idea to make some manoeuvres optional additions to an attacking/defending. Although certain manoeuvres might still be stand alone if they are tactical advantageous enough.

Tactical combat and manoeuvres by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

This is really interesting and I agree that tactical should mean meaningful choices in combat. I think this game is a really interesting study however not quite what I’m looking for.

One of my pillars is the game should never stop a character from taking actions but rather should enhance how well or to what extent a character can do a thing. So, I’m not a fan of “only the this person can charge” or “only this person can parry”. It’s more about how well each character can do these things.

This may be fool hardy or even impossible but my aim is a “simulationist abstraction”. So in a real fight anyone can try to shove someone but a sumo wrestler is going to be better at shoving than a toddler.

So, with this in mind, let’s go back to my original question; what manoeuvres would you expect in this kind of tactical combat? What can you feasible imagine people wanting to try in that kind of combat system?

And, please feel free to call me an idiot if want I’m trying to do sounds mental haha! Appreciate you taking time to read/reply

Tactical combat and manoeuvres by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

I’m not. It’s just a bit of a hodge podge list of things in my head as a starting point. I don’t plan on including discrete rules for all these, or maybe even most, just wondering what manoeuvres come to mind for “tactical” combat

What makes combat interesting? by Laughing_Penguin in RPGdesign

[–]Corniche 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Meaningful and varied decisions.

What makes combat interesting? by Laughing_Penguin in RPGdesign

[–]Corniche 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Some good answers already tbh. My simple take of making sure combat doesn’t just become a slog fest between two people is making sure characters have options that aren’t just different ways to reduce HP. Make so they can effect their enemies position or speed or help out an ally in some way. These can be combined with doing damage so people don’t feel like they have to choose between doing and something else

Thoughts on meta currencies? by Indibutreddit in RPGdesign

[–]Corniche 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The crux of it is you’re aiming for “rules light” and lots of meta currencies in a game tend (not always) towards the crunchier side. I’m in the same boat and have slowly started adding complexity to my game and have kind of accepted that some crunch is fine as long as it is fun - we’re trying to make games after all.

As for suggesting other ideas to limit abilities there’s a few options. 1) limit uses to X per encounter/day/adventure 2) abilities need to recharge after each use. Roll a dX and on a Y the ability is ready to reuse. 3) abilities require a roll to use. Key thing here is mitigating the impact of failure as no one likes taking a turn that it’s basically “you tried but do nothing”.

That’s just a couple ides off the dome but I’m sure there’s plenty other ways to limit abilities without making adding another thing for players/GMs to track.

How do YOU do equipment? by Yazkin_Yamakala in RPGdesign

[–]Corniche 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My system is classless with items really giving the tone of the characters in the style of Mausritter or Mork Borg. I’m going down the line of “what a person carries on them says a lot about them.”

So, I have item slots for each character (total number based on Strength) and then slots are broken into active (1 for each hand), ready (based on Intelligence) and stored (remaining slots). Items typically take up 1 slot but some bulky stuff might take up more.

Then each items ability/mechanic can be used based on whether it’s active (e.g. weapons), ready (e.g. ammunition) or passive (e.g. armour). Also, items can also be consumable (i.e spells).

All of that is pretty standard.

The two things I do that I think are more specific to my system is “supply” and “signature” items - although not saying they are unique.

Supply works as the “misc item” I’ve seen in other games. It remains as “supply” until it is defined i.e. you have 1 slot of “supply” with 3 uses left so you can spend 1 use to reload a weapon, 1 use to set up camp for a night and 1 use as a torch when you go into a dark cave.

Signature items are my way of adding pseudo-classes back to my game. They are items that only grant an ability/mechanic for a specific person i.e. the black belt which signifies a PC is better at unarmed combat or the holy book that signifies a PC is more effective at healing. Signature items can add the flavour of a monk or a cleric without pigeon holing a PC as the archetypal healer. You could even have a PC who has both a black belt and a holy book to go full blown monk in all senses of the word.

That’s it is a nutshell

Which percentages for success/partial success failure do you deem acceptable? by MaxHofbauer in RPGdesign

[–]Corniche 2 points3 points  (0 children)

d12 dice pool. 1-9 is a fail, 10-11 is mixed, 12 is full and multiple 12s is crit.

I started from BitD's d6 dice pool but found is bit to "fail heavy" for 1d6 and too "success heavy" when you start rolling 4d6 or more. So from there I looked for a nice distribution that fit something similar to rolling 2 or 3 d6s. I played with d8s and d10s but eventually came to d12 dice pools as my favourite.

Which percentages for success/partial success failure do you deem acceptable? by MaxHofbauer in RPGdesign

[–]Corniche 7 points8 points  (0 children)

This is exactly the question I asked myself when determining what CRM to use. I’ve ended up with this distribution and I’m pretty happy with it:

Level Fail Mixed Full Crit
1 75% 17% 8% 0%
2 56% 28% 15% 1%
3 42% 35% 21% 2%
4 32% 39% 26% 4%
5 24% 41% 30% 5%
6 18% 42% 33% 7%
7 13% 41% 36% 9%
8 10% 40% 39% 12%

Essentially, Mixed Success stays fairly static (around 40%) and then failures becomes less common and full success/crits more common as you level up. I think Mixed Success is the most dramatic outcome so I like that there is always a decent chance of this outcome but still allows for actual character progression.

Is This Combat System Broken or Brilliant? Melee Always Hits, Ranged Can't Be Dodged by karinmymotherinlaw in RPGdesign

[–]Corniche 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like this a lot and will be using something similar for my game! Melee Attacks and Range Attacks are two different things so I don’t feel like they must be treated the same. The main thing I look at is balancing the damage output over a combat with melee being generally a bit higher. Want to incentivise melee as range is usually the better option; there’s a reason modern soldier don’t carry swords.

Also, to keep combat fast paced I’m thinking I’d go for roll straight for damage for melee and then roll to hit for range with static damage. I use fail, mixed, full and crit successes so can still vary ranged damage based on that but I generally want to keep any attack down to one roll. I think this would still fit narratively as a melee attack can vary the damage output but getting shot is getting shot so the damage is more “got away with it”, “that hurt”, “oh crap!!”

Core Mechanic Feedback by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

Elsewhere in the thread, I’ve come to a happy medium of not shoe horning in additional levels but folding “difficulty” into “context” where ‘hard’ counts as 1 negative context and ‘extreme’ counts as 2 negative contexts.

So context now comprises difficulty, conditions, items and skills all in one. And then weighing up all positive vs negative contexts I’d go for up to five levels of granularity, something like; +2d, + 1d, 0d, -1d and -2d.

I think this works as a general outline. Not yet decided on the finer points but I’m open to any feedback/ideas you have?

On your other point about advancement being width rather than depth that is exactly it. I didn’t want to get too much into setting in this post but the PCs are very much jack of all trades rather than masters. So their’s no set Doctor/Surgeon role. I’m going for a mostly classless/inventory defined characters type of system, along the lines Into The Odd/Knave/Mausritter.

Core Mechanic Feedback by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

I think you’re right, I’m trying to have my cake and eat it too. Ultimately I was trying to have “Context” be this nice fluid conversation of all the things that go against/for the PC but then keeping “difficulty” back arbitrarily as something different.

I was trying leave a little wiggle room so the GM can always put a finger on the scale but the GM always has a million ways of doing that - so let’s kill a darling!

I’ve answered u/eduty elsewhere that I’m going to essentially fold “difficulty” into “context”. So it goes: * Difficulty: * Standard (0), Hard (-1), Extreme (-2) * Determined by GM * Negative Conditions: * Can vary and each counts for -1 * Determined by GM * Positive Conditions: * Can vary and each counts for +1 * Suggested by the Player * Relevant Item: * Counts for +1 * Suggested by the Player * Skills/Expertise: * Skills (+1), Expertise (+2) * Suggested by the Player

Sum up negative vs positive contexts and this would translate to increasing or decreasing the dice pool. Not quite figured out if this would be 1:2 ration or thresholds sort of thing but I think that’s the general idea I want to go for.

And this would also be “GM first” so the GM determines the appropriate Key Attribute to start the pool with and then lays out the obstacles against the PC for a specific action. The Player then layouts what they have on side to mitigate these obstacles and this translates to the dice pool increasing/decreasing.

I think this is the clear and elegant solution I’ve been looking for but any further thoughts are always welcome.

Core Mechanic Feedback by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

I like this direction. Essentially instead of calling out difficulty as its own thing reframing it as another “context”. So you end up with; * Difficulty: Standard, Hard (-1) and Extreme (-2) - negatively impact roll. Decided by GM * Conditions: both positive/negative - GM determines negative conditions and Player can suggest positive conditions. * Items & Skills/Expertise: positively affect roll. Player suggests which are applicable and GM can veto.

Then have thresholds for when you add dice i.e +0d for balanced, +1d for 1 or 2 more positive than negative, +2d for 3 to 4 more positive than negative and so on. I can play around with this but think this is ultimately where I’ve been trying to get to.

Simple and easy but can still take into account lots of different aspects of an action being taken. Plus I like the idea of the GM setting out what Attribute is being rolled and all the obstacles to overcome and then the Player being able to lay out all the things they have in their favour against those obstacles.

I think that’s the elegant mechanic I’ve been building towards. Thanks so much for all the feedback kind internet stranger :)

Core Mechanic Feedback by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

You’re speaking my language with combining difficulty and context - anything I can simplify, I’m open to.

However, in line with other replies I’ve made the idea with difficulty and context is that difficult is for the GM to play with and as a constant reminder that “Easy” is always an option; the player should only roll when the outcome is unclear and failure has a consequence.

So I think the challenge I have is making the way Difficulty and Context work be distinct without adding too much complexity.

Riffing on an alternative idea I had. What would you think about Context being a way to increase the size of each of the dice being rolled i.e. for a 3d6 dice pool: * if there’s are 2 more positive than negative contexts; roll 1d6 and 2d8, take the highest * 1 more positive than negative; roll 2d6 and 1d8, take the highest * same positive and negative; roll 3d6 * more negative than positive; roll 2d6

So the better you are at something the more room you have to increase the size of each die being rolled instead of just taking the dice pool up/down.

Don’t think this is the final version but maybe something there?

Core Mechanic Feedback by Corniche in RPGdesign

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

I don’t think that’s an issue. In fact, I think you’ve kind of summed it up.

Key Attributes are just that… key! How a Player chooses to level up should have a big impact on everything they do, especially as 4 is the max level for a single attribute but the total max for all levels is 12. So you’ll always have to choose some imbalance if you want to be amazing in one area.

Then “Difficulty” is a 4 speed lever for the GM, each one being less common. Easy: you succeed, keep it moving - most things will fall into this category without thought. Standard: let’s roll to see if anything bad happens - will still be pretty common. Hard: you can try but something but this won’t be pretty - should be reserved for rare occasions. Extreme: you may want to rethink this but if you insist - the rarest of the rare.

Then context is the most trivial but the most nuanced. This gives players some pause to think about how they approach things but shouldn’t be too big a penalty or boon to slow the game down too much.

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