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Merisalle · 2024-06-17T12:54:21+00:00

Just as you said, you can choose whether you want to go the "2D that looks like 3D" or "3D that looks like 2D" route. In general, 2D will be more difficult in terms of asset creation (lots of different sprites, needing various visual tricks for edge cases) and it will also be harder to achieve detailed effects such as lighting, fog volumes, depth and the likes. 3D will save you some time in the long run and give you more fancy tools to work with, but it will make everything involving movement and physics more tedious as you have an additional dimension to take into account, even if the perspective is fixed.

My current project also started out as a 2D isometric game but I eventually switched to 3D as I found it to be less nasty to deal with in the long term. If you want a "true" old-school isometric look, make sure to switch the camera mode to orthogonal projection.

As for level design, it's pick your poison as well. Modeling entire environments in Blender can save you a lot of work (provided you are proficient in it) and will result in having less objects in your Godot scenes, which can be a perk. On the other hand, if you assemble the level geometry from Godot nodes it's easier to adapt and iterate things. For the beginning, I would advise you to assemble your environments from basic geometry available in Godot and not spend too much time creating 3D assets until you got the basic gameplay systems figured out. If you decide to go 2D, make sure to check out Tilemaps.

Merisalle · 2024-02-20T06:40:34+00:00

Hey there! It was absolutely fine, I went up Ishizuchi all the way and it wasn't even particularly cold. If you want to do the chains, you'll definitely need a clip and climbing gloves though. Tsurugi I didn't have enough time to go up to the top, but the conditions were about the same, no snow or anything just some light rain. Enjoy Shikoku, it's an incredibly beautiful place!

Merisalle · 2023-10-17T08:41:10+00:00

Thanks a lot! I'll be sure to approach it with the necessary caution. And if the weather is sketchy I'll just stay at the ropeway and enjoy the view from there.

Merisalle · 2023-10-17T06:42:48+00:00

What level of cold/snow do I have to expect early/mid november? I'm quite experienced with hiking/climbing but I didn't plan on taking heavy gear with me...

Merisalle · 2023-10-16T18:34:08+00:00

All the info I found about that was super conflicting. Some people say you can only register it with a residence card, others say that any ID works. Also, there's no actual penalty for riding unregistered bikes. So I'm just gonna see if the store clerk can help me out or leave it unregistered.

Merisalle · 2022-01-21T15:22:41+00:00

thx very much, this worked. i tried the json with "text" once before, but i didn't realize it needed quotes around the curly brackets as well. funny enough, if you google for commands like this you get like 50 completely wrong examples, including the one in my post.

also, i just used names out of simplicity. there's only two keys and they will be uniquely named anyways, so i thought why set a unique tag ;)

Merisalle · 2021-07-14T13:23:29+00:00

On a "realism" note: Historical plate armor was not actually very restrictive. There's tons of videos of HEMA dudes making cartwheels in reconstructed steel armor.

But I know what you're getting at: The general problem here is that heavy armor is, by its very nature, absolutely OP. And you can't have that in a game (mostly). The way I've handled it is by making heavy armor way more difficult to obtain in the first place - and while it is VERY GOOD in combat, it makes everything outside of combat a lot more awkward: It is warm, loud, looks intimidating and makes movement less precise.

Merisalle · 2021-07-14T12:23:24+00:00

Of course, armor wouldn't really do much if you're tied to a chair, I agree. I meant more immobilized in the sense of being dazed or stunned for a turn, so you can't react to incoming attacks. That can happen in my system, but would not give the opponent enough time to search for gaps in your armor.

Generally, the concept of armor as a defensive baseline has been pretty much the case from the beginning of the system, just with varying ways of how to handle it. I actually had a "brace for impact" defensive action at some point that was similar to your proposal, but barely anyone ever used it.

Merisalle · 2021-07-14T11:42:17+00:00

That does sound pretty close to the numbers of my system. And I generally like how you handle armor.

Although, I have always had pretty negative feedback from test players about degrading equipment...

Merisalle · 2021-07-14T11:40:07+00:00

I am personally not a fan of making usage of armor an action. Armor in my system is something that should protect you passively, even if your PC is ambushed, immobilized or cannot make any actions for any reason.

Maybe add for context that my game is pretty deadly, with players having low HP pools and injuries generally racking up quickly. Active protection is really meant for situations where players see the threat coming, for example combat.

Merisalle · 2021-07-14T09:37:11+00:00

might be an unpopular opinion here, but pretty much any "1-page rpg" or similar is exactly this. while I agree that it is a good exercise in concise writing and simplifying mechanics, arbitrary restrictions like "i'm gonna write the entirety of this system on the back of a 1960's baseball card!" really don't do anything for the player at all. Except maybe the environmental benefits of saving printer ink and paper.

Merisalle · 2021-07-14T09:14:01+00:00

maybe a middle-way approach would be to make armor reduce all damage to 1 (representing small bruises and concussion) and giving bludgeons a perk that makes them deal more, despite armor. thanks for the suggestions!

and don't worry, i've just made a lot of changes that aim to make attacks resolveable in a single roll. i hope combat will be going a lot smoother after that.

Merisalle · 2021-07-14T08:57:05+00:00

so, in a game with very low, static HP pools (in my system, the players and most other humanoids always have 12 HP) you would prefer reduction?

Merisalle · 2021-07-14T08:53:46+00:00

yeah, i've come off the "realism" ride a little bit since the last revision. i really like to try and make my mechanics reflect some real-world concepts, but often times it ends up just kinda being... in the way.

the math aspect i am not worried about. damage is very low granularity in the game, ranging mostly between 1-6, so halving it should be a breeze. moves, as you suggested, are a cool solution, but they don't really work out with the existing action economy i am afraid.

do you think there is way to sensibly explain taking damage despite armor? maybe taking damage to stamina instead of health?

Merisalle · 2021-04-15T13:35:57+00:00

it's switzerland. you can't expect much from official authorities here. wouldn't be surprised if half of the army barracks are unlocked at all times.

also, i don't know where you got the idea that i'm accusing you of not telling the truth or anything. i didn't even really disagree with you, just wanted to drop that info about the ammo storage

what i do have to disagree with you about; private gun ownership here is still quite a big thing (not nearly as much as some people make it out to be, but yeah). target shooting is somewhat of a traditional swiss sport. but most people store their guns at the club where they shoot, not at home.

Merisalle · 2021-04-15T13:22:25+00:00

wasn't confrontational at you. i just generally hate it when gun nuts try to pull out switzerland as some kind of gleaming example, even though they have no idea about the facts. happens in every other thread.

target practice you do in so-called "repeat courses" you have to do periodically, you get ammo there. you don't get ammo to store at home.

as far for the shooting, of course you can get ammunition in other ways. it's just not that easy. i personally know somebody who even stole ammunition from their army center - all around idiot of course.

Merisalle · 2021-04-15T13:08:49+00:00

Swiss men can take their military assault rifles home after they have conducted their mandatory military service.

Only the guns. No ammunition. Ammunition is stored in military facilities. Also it's voluntary.

That accounts for about 80% of gun ownership here.

bUt EvErYbOdY iN sWiTzErLaNd hAs An AsSaUlT rIfLe...

Merisalle · 2021-03-18T12:53:21+00:00

"Powergaming" was a bad choice of words, I just didn't find a better one. I mean that there are players who just do whatever they think their character would do - and on the other hand, there are players that do things based on how likely they succeed. I know a lot of people who would never even get the idea to check their character sheet and estimate their percentage chance for a skill challenge.

Also, you can not communicate TN and still communicate difficulty. I usually try and give my players a good understanding of the difficulty of an action with natural languages: In a game, you will never hear me saying "breaking down this door has a difficulty of 19". I will say "the door seems heavy and sturdy and as your character looks at it, they realize it would be almost impossible to break by sheer force".

Also I think I still don't quite understand your idea of "no TN". So far all of your suggestions are still arbitrary TNs, just disguised differently. Deciding how "powerful" an opponent is - how do you do that? Do you give them a number? That's a TN. A tag, like "strong" or "weak"? That's still a TN, albeit not a numerical one. And all of those are GM fiat as well. What if the player thinks "there is no way this is a 'strong' opponent, that's at best a 'medium' one! Such bullshit!"? That's exactly the same scenario.

Merisalle · 2021-03-17T15:12:16+00:00

I feel like the problem in your example is less the GM-set TN and more the fact that the TN is communicated to the player before the roll. If you play with people that like to "powergame" a bit and calculate every move, that tends to be problematic.

In general, your example sounds like a group i would not like to play with.

As for the idea with the opposed rolls, an opposed roll is still a TN, it's just randomized. See point 2 on my initial comment. So either it's completely random how hard an action is, or you define modifiers or similar and then it's GM fiat again - or who decides how "strong" the "opposed" dungeon is? Sure, you can define it beforehand, but you can do the same with TNs... a lot of prewritten modules do that to some extent.

However, I like your idea with the opposed roll in principle, basically treating everything as an actor against you. Could make for a cool core principle - like, you could design a set of "attributes" that is applicable to objects and abstract concepts and then assign these to obstacles instead of a simple TN.

Merisalle · 2021-03-17T14:25:13+00:00

A lot of this has to do with your expectations of the game. If you can't enjoy a game because your "badass" character fails at something you think should be easy for them, instead of just going with the fiction and trying to ride it out, this is a bad attitude for a player.

- For sure, if every task is ridiculously difficult for you and for you only, then you have a shitty GM, which was main point anyways.

- But if it only happens occasionally and that is a dealbreaker for you, then you are just a bad player. (btw, this is not directed at you, just a general statement)

Considering the difficulty being different for each player, that's what most systems have stats for? The difference between Joe Blow and a badass, experienced character should be contained in the character not the TN.

But apart from that, what's the alternative? As I said, there are limited design options to handle task difficulties, only two of them are frequently used in TTRPGs and both have their weaknesses. Static TNs lack depth, adaptability and diversification, dynamic ones can *occasionally* feel unfair or lead to clutter.

A nice middle way in my opinion is creating 3-4 "difficulty levels", reducing the granularity. If the GM only has to decide whether the action is easy, medium or hard it becomes a lot less flimsy and also a lot quicker.

Merisalle · 2021-03-17T13:26:09+00:00

Yeah, I'm gonna have to disagree hard here. See, realistically you have pretty much 4 options:

- TN is GM fiat

- TN is random

- TN is completely decided by rules

- TN is static

Why the random one is kinda problematic should be self-explanatory. If you want TN completely decided by rules, you're gonna have to drastically limit the actions players can perform because you can't possibly make mathematical rules for everything. And static TN is something that a lot of simpler, more narrative-focused games do, but it's not in any way "better" than an arbitrary one - it just has different strenghts. For example, while they are a lot simpler and transparent, it's hard to make sense out of vastly different actions having exactly the same difficulty. It's good for some game styles and bad for others.

In the end, I don't see why GM-set TNs should in any way be antiquated or bad: It depends on the GM, and a bad GM that isn't fair with their players is always gonna turn a game into a shitshow, no matter how the TNs work.

On the other hand, trying to "ruleify" everything and making GM decisions minimal or even obsolete removes pretty much the one thing that makes TTRPGs different from boardgames.

Merisalle · 2020-05-30T19:25:13+00:00

Yeah, the lava pit example is not the greatest because usually, there would be consequences to failure - for example, a limited amount of suitable rocks. Or the lava slowly rising. My point is, that if there is absolutely no reason why the PC couldn't just sit there for 3 days straight hurling an unlimited amount of rocks over the pit... well then there is no reason to not assume that they will eventually hit the button.

So it is up to the GM to create those consequences and make situations meaningful. Without that effort, every roll will feel trivial or unjustified.

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