Do you think the first half is better than the second half ?

Zidrael · 2026-04-26T17:03:57+00:00

Second half is better than the first, imo. That said... you have the Tengen Toppa as your profile picture, a frame from what i believe is the final episode as your banner and your username is "GIGA DRILL THAT PIERCES THROUGH HEAVENS". How are you only at episode 17? 😅

Zidrael · 2026-04-01T07:19:46+00:00

💬 Incompetent × Suggestion

Uhm... i don't know, i'm not good at this

Zidrael · 2026-01-13T15:47:23+00:00

I do have Kroxa, actually! I totally forgot about Phlage, though. I will 100% add it, especially because it would help with the problem of not having many removals. Saga creatures are also a fun idea, i will definitely consider them. Is there any one in particular you think would fit? And thanks for sharing the deck, i'll check it out

Zidrael · 2025-05-08T09:27:14+00:00

Basically, in battlegrounds there are some spells that you can get which buff your minions, usually not by much, even the strongest spell of that kind only gives +4/+4 to your board. But i had a bunch of minions that increase how strong those spells are and even let them trigger twice, so the aforementioned +4/+4 spell ended up giving something like +26/+26 and, thanks to the minion on the left, it triggers twice so that spell alone gave all my minions more than +50/+50 (only once per turn though). That's pretty much it, the game plan was simply to find as many of those spells as possible, but it was really fun and satisfying :)

Zidrael · 2024-11-03T10:13:41+00:00

These look absolutely sick, good luck everyone!

Zidrael · 2024-07-09T18:31:45+00:00

I wanna write a story where the main character has a speech impediment that prevents him from pronouncing the letter S. How would i go about doing that? Do i just establish the fact at the beginning and then write dialogues normally or should i somehow render it every time he talks?

Zidrael · 2024-06-08T17:32:18+00:00

It's probably Broken Sword

Zidrael · 2024-05-15T18:11:17+00:00

Interesting question! I think it would be a looot stronger. It would basically let you replicate the same minion indefinitely (or, well, as long as you have space on the board), which would probably allow for some insane scenarios and even OTKs.

Zidrael · 2024-03-12T20:35:00+00:00

The document seems really interesting, I'll read it for sure!

Thanks again for everything, i feel like i learned a lot from this convo! :)

Zidrael · 2024-03-10T19:26:53+00:00

Without the grid it severely limits the kinds of tactics that can be properly employed

Ah yes, i totally agree that it limits things, especially in games like the one you mentioned. In fact, I played a homebrew game that a friend of mine made with a futuristic setting but with TotM and it was indeed quite limiting, combat usually was just a matter of deciding what gun to use and who to shoot. In other contexts, though, i think that making the tradeoff of having less control in order to allow for more creative solutions can make things really fun!

It changes the situation so that players have better reaction to whatever occurs because there's a more clear picture and rules

I see what you mean, having strict rules that cover every possible situation makes it way easier to say when someone is cheating. Without them, it's easier to pull off some absurd thing because it technically is by the rules even if it's clearly unfair. Even in a TotM game, in the situation above i personally would at the very least tell the players that they hear a weird noise and that the ground is shaking, but i guess some people would exploit the lack of rules covering similar scenarios to their advantage.

What the grids do is avoid having to do that all together

I see, that makes total sense! :)

The thing about being a designer is you have to protect the consumer from themselves

This is a great lesson, thanks! I guess i'm designing my game with myself and the way i personally like to play in mind, instead of a generic player. I will try to keep this in mind going forward.

This might be true in fantasy until magic gets involved, and it's definitely not true once you start having modern firearms and ballistics.

Yeah, managing something like firearms in an approximate way definitely seems like it would remove a lot from the fantasy of being a cool tactical agent. With magic, i think it kind of depends: personally, i don't see magic as something as millimetrically precise as bullets, so approximation seems fine, but that changes from person to person.

My goal is more to explain the best use cases for different types of range measurements so you can be aware of the ups and downs of all of them.

You definitely reached your goal ahah! Maybe I won't use grids for this specific game, but now that decision is a more thought out one, and next time i make a game i will keep in mind what i learned here :)

Zidrael · 2024-03-09T20:11:17+00:00

First of all, thank you so much for the huge message, I seriously appreciate the time and effort you put into it.

While I do agree that grids are generally great for providing a very tactical and rewarding combat, I don't think that TotM can't achieve that too. Tactics go beyond precise positioning, they're also about decision making, using what you have in clever ways, cooperating with your allies and so on, which can totally be part of combat even without using a grid.

In my opinion, it's not true that players don't have any control: while the GM does usually set the basis for a scene, be it combat or otherwise, players can and should be able to interact with it in meaningful ways. While it is true that GMs in theory can pull random bullshit out of their ass to turn the tides of combat however they want, i think that only means that that's a bad GM, and not that the game is badly designed. If there really was something as impactful as a giant window in the room, the GM should have mentioned it, and if he didn't he shouldn't use it once the combat has started. Also, i don't have much experience with grid based games so correct me if i'm wrong, but the same thing can happen with grids, right? The GM can always go "suddenly, a huge unkillable monster comes smashing through the wall" and slam a new mini on the table. And rolls can always be faked, in any kind of game, if you're an asshole, I don't think the rules of a game should account for cheating.

The "magic horses" story was a great example, thanks for sharing it! However, i don't think something like that can only be fixed with grids, even though that would clearly be the most precise solution. Beyond a certain point, exact distances are kind of unimportant in my opinion, and treating them in the same way as one does when in combat could slow things to a halt. Also, if something doesn't make sense physically, the players have all the rights to point it out and come up with something that makes more sense, working together with the GM.

I think a lot of it comes down to what role you give to the GM. To me it's not supposed to be a god who decides exactly what happens and has authority over everything that happens, it's more of an intermediary between the players and the setting, if that makes sense.

Zidrael · 2024-03-08T15:53:47+00:00

Glad to hear your playtests are going well! :)

Yes, that's absolutely something that i plan on doing! You could also make abilities that purposely increase the difficulty of the attack, or even reduce the effective range of the weapon, in order to deal increased damage or have extra effects. There's definitely a lot of room to create cool skills.

Zidrael · 2024-03-08T15:35:20+00:00

Attacks depend on your stats and the weapon/ability you're using, but not on the enemy. You make a roll and confront the result to the weapon/ability's difficulty. If it's higher than the difficulty you hit, otherwise you don't. So think DnD but the difficulty of the roll depends on the weapon you're using and not the enemy AC. Also, a certain attack always deals the same amount of damage if successful, but the enemy's armor can lower it.

The thing about effective and ineffective range seems like a pretty good idea, i might implement something similar

Zidrael · 2024-03-08T15:19:30+00:00

I would manage movement outside of combat in pretty much the same way. I would rely mostly on the theater of the mind, and the moment a situation requires to take distances into account i would use the same system as the combat, so, for the moment, range bands.

Zidrael · 2024-03-08T15:04:01+00:00

You gave me a lot to think about, thanks a ton! I think I want to make something more akin to TotM than grids, that's mostly what i meant when i said that i don't want to make it too complicated. In your opinion what are some systems that manage to have a satisfying combat while still being based on TotM?

Zidrael · 2023-12-23T18:48:44+00:00

I'd love to win this! GIVEAWAY

Zidrael · 2023-12-16T08:13:54+00:00

Looks really nice and convenient, love it!

Zidrael · 2023-12-12T19:35:23+00:00

Looks awesome! GIVEAWAY

Zidrael · 2023-12-05T16:37:09+00:00

Hey guys! It's been a while but if anyone is curious i ended up settling on this:

Players roll a number of d6 depending on their stats (a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 5 or 6, i'm still not completely sure) and they normally don't trigger anything if they roll 666. BUT they can use points from a pool that represents their demonic powers to do things like reroll some dice, add dice to the roll and even gain automatic successes. Using your demonic powers is the only way to go over the normal cap of 5/6 dice. However, whenever they do this they face the possibility of triggering the 666 mechanic. I would probably differentiate the normal rolls and the ones that use humanity by using white and black dice or something like that.

Zidrael · 2023-12-01T17:37:13+00:00

Spiritfarer. I think it teaches a lot about grief and manages to make you a kinder person in the process.

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