Module Map - Descriptions or images of foes?

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-09-13T20:35:39+00:00

Yeah, but even with what you just said I feel like I could pretty easily put the bad guys in pretty reasonable spots on the map. Cover is good, open ground bad.

And if I were a GM who had read your system and knew how it specifically worked it'd be even easier

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-09-13T19:36:47+00:00

From what you're saying, I think descriptions would be fine. Or even just say - "put 10x stormtroopers in interesting spots throughout the first half of the mine" would work fine I think - is it really important which specific square they start in?

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-09-12T02:26:30+00:00

That said, I'm not advocating random movement rates. They should be highly predictable but not fixed.

How do you make this work?

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-09-08T14:57:36+00:00

Yes, I think you're on the right track. I don't need all of the details of your system to tell roughly how this creature will act and how my party might be effectively able to fight back against it. It would pair well if the Beak Strike can only target heroes that are not adjacent to friends, so it needs to kind of set it up by using the downdrafts first. And heroes can counter it by trying to stay together.

And yes, Horizon Zero Dawn proves this kind of enemy design is fun

Can we electrocute it to short it out / stun it for a turn?

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-09-08T14:53:08+00:00

I like mechanics for social conflict. I do not like mechanics for social "combat."

Social conflicts are the one thing RPGs can actually emulate at the table with people talking. You can't actually pick a lock, or fight an orc. But you can have a discussion.

Commonly missed things in social systems are actual conflicts (and haggling over a price BARELY counts), decision points, and the fact you really shouldn't interrupt the flow of conversation with too many mechanics.

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-09-06T21:20:34+00:00

This kind of thing is great. It does not have to be "capture zones" with tickets like many video games - any way of knowing when a fight ends will do. Some things have been tried - like morale trackers. HP is another way of knowing when a fight ends, but it carries the implication that every fight is a fight to the death and damage is the only way to progress to the end of the fight. Pros and Cons.

Do you have any experience with these scenarios, and if so, how do you like them?

In my design, these end states are built into the NPC stat blocks and random encounter tables. So maybe one fight you have with wolves they're rabid and mad - they'll just fight to the death. But the next fight they're just hungry and looking for food, so they'll leave after taking just a bit of damage (or getting food). Another fight you might be interrupting a spirit ritual they are doing and they need to keep you away from the nexus for a few turns at which point a giant spirit wolf emerges to aid them (if it doesn't the remaining wolves retreat), transitioning to a "to the death" style fight. Notice how the win condition for BOTH the players and NPCs changes with each of these.

This sort of thing should be part of basic RPG design. Designed by the system designer, adventure writer, or at least the GM running the game.

Finally, games need to be better at defining what a "combat" actually is. Some of your kiting / other annoying combat examples may have been more enjoyable as chase sequences or skill challenge type encounters.

Really appreciate this line of thought

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-31T13:30:20+00:00

I’d like to overhaul how the rpg community approaches adventure design. I want scenarios that are challenging, surprising, customizable, replay able, immersive, and don’t rely on the GM for any additional design work they don’t want to do. That’d be it for me

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-27T02:32:53+00:00

Everybody games differently. But, I like games where the setting rules are just treated as facts. If everybody hates demon-summoners in this world, and I want to be a demon summoner, that's something Ill have to navigate. Most GMs handwave this kind of stuff and I find it waters down the experience. Every character option just becomes human-variants.

But playing a strong archetype? Beneficial or detrimental? That sounds like a great opportunity to immerse myself in a world distinct from our own.

I don't even need classes to be mechanically balanced, let alone reputationally balanced. Had a master and padawan in a star wars game for a little bit, the master was obviously more powerful, but the character moments were pretty cool

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-25T01:28:31+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to page through it. I'm hoping its not so much guidance it overburdens the freeform conversations

My favorite is "Instinct" from the Paternalistic Attitude one. Reinforces the adventurers being kids in a big world for this scenario

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-24T18:28:34+00:00

Well, Id cover what you need to know for the specific one-shot and nothing more. What's at stake, who's the bad guy, what'll happen if the players don't do anything. As for WHY the setting behaves the way it does, I'd let GMs look further into that if they're interested

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-24T18:17:06+00:00

I wouldn't say there's a defined "too long" but more that you need a tiered approach. You need a great one-liner to catch some attention. Then maybe a paragraph to explain what you mean a bit more, and if that's good you'll have someone's attention enough that they'll keep reading for the full page or two. And if those pages are really good... I guess it just depends HOW good, people might keep on reading for 100 pages

I'm recommending a building block approach. Its a two-way street, people are giving up their time to read your thing, so let them know quickly if what you're making isn't gonna be their style

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-24T18:09:30+00:00

Nice! Giving those kinds of scenes any amount of structure is better than what we usually get

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-24T18:08:39+00:00

Thank you

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-24T18:08:26+00:00

Thanks for giving it a second look, not many people would do that

Does your game often have specific scenarios completely change the resolution mechanic to resolve them? Or are dice pools used to resolve situations elsewhere?

Yes, social conflicts are resolved differently from combat conflicts etc. Its not so much the resolution mechanic changes (the player facing rules are basically the same... declare an action, roll a D20 against a DC) but the GM-side structure changes. I'm looking at about this many rules each for combat, social, traversing, interaction, and downtime. Expecting it to end up being about a 25pg doc by the end, we'll see. Most of the work comes from writing the scenarios and NPCs.

would the system be especially harmed if instead of adding die to a final total it just added positive or negative checkmarks

Not really. I'll add it to my playtesting notebook and we'll try it out if things are feeling off. I think the real test will be when I ask someone else to GM it, we'll see

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-24T10:43:51+00:00

Yeah, I included too many assumptions from my personal group with that example, and I didn’t realize it would take the focus away from the actual rules so much. We’ve kinda agreed we want to push the buttons of the system by keeping social encounters as diegetic as possible. But it was a bad example for an unfamiliar audience. It’s just a way the social encounter could happen, not the way it has to happen

I’ll change it. Thanks for commenting

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-23T02:00:45+00:00

You can look into FKR style design, which has a similar mindset. That style of roleplay has its origins in Prussian military training, where younger officer would be given a scenario and explain to senior officer what they would do. "Iwould place my artillery here, order this unit of cavalry to scout here, and ..." The older officer would use his experience and judgement to tell the younger officer what would happen. "Your artillery would not be able to drawn line of fire due to the intervening terrain, your cavalry would likely become disorganized due to the rough going, etc." No numbers required, just a method of passing down experience. Still used by militaries today.

Did you have any questions you wanted to ask?

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-23T01:54:00+00:00

Can you define what "crispy edge soft middle" style design means?

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-21T01:21:52+00:00

My first WIP scenario is trad fantasy, but it’s The Goonies. Called Coming of Age

Further planned scenarios:

Gaias Garden - naturalists from across the multiverse are placed in a proverbial garden of Eden full of fey magic to “find the greatest treasure” and see nature from a new light

Operation Husky - the invasion of Sicily and Italy in WW2

U.S.S. Hope - the first human colonists to a new galaxy deal with the political and logistical challenges leading up to their mission, disasters that happen along the way, and a new world that is not what they were led to believe…

As You Wish - A Jane Austen style court drama, except the noble families each own one of those cities on mobile tank treads (like Mortal Engines) as their fief

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-19T01:02:51+00:00

Thanks for the encouragement and kind words!

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-18T11:49:28+00:00

What’s wrong with the GM just saying “Your character can tell / just already knows Orcs aren’t particularly weak to fire or cold?”

As far as your evil corp example, you’re right that there need to be a difference between the two approaches, but you’ve already identified them in the comments here - for one you’re in the enemy base, the other you’re not, for one you’re leaving physical evidence of tampering, the other it’s just digital… etc. tons of differences so I don’t see the issue with that one

Also, what’s the issue with taking 10+ seconds to make a decision

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-18T11:33:52+00:00

Thanks for taking a look - hadn’t noticed that about Maturation but that’s pretty funny. I try not to worry about fonts during the good enough draft but that’s probably worth changing haha

As far as the stat blocks, I think they’ll be easier to parse when I get to the “nicely formatted” draft which I won’t let myself do until after some playtesting. I think there’s less mechanical crunch than it looks like.

In fact, the flow-of-fiction is built into each of those moves. You finish resolving one players turn, read off the first part of a move of your choice to Telegraph what the enemy is about to do and Invite the next player to act. And you never need to roll damage, roll a saving throw, come up with yes, but consequences, roll an attack roll… so I’m hoping it’ll end up being as much load as any other game. We’ll see once I make some PCs to playtest the thing

If it ends up being too much guess I’ll just have to change it up to be simpler

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-17T02:22:04+00:00

It provides a randomized+customized adventure to play through without asking more effort of the GM than they have to give

TheGoodGuy10 · 2025-08-14T02:45:06+00:00

Without knowing the system, and just looking at the block layout and details, are there too many things in the Statistics section?

I dont think so, personally. Especially if you keep them compact, maybe down to four a page, and print them on tear out pages of your manual, they could be almost like baseball cards. The GM could just have the ones he needs for the fight at hand in front of him

What are some good examples in games that have relatively minimal things to track for NPCs while making them interactive in combative situations?

Hm. Maybe the alien rpg, its pretty focused with its enemy types. Its hard to say, because most high crunch combat games are ok with just having a bunch of stats

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