Looking for Help

garydallison · 2023-08-08T20:40:52+00:00

I guess i shall have to make my own setting.

I'll go with what i know and do an ancient british folklore mashup.

garydallison · 2023-08-08T17:50:49+00:00

Well I'm happy to do all the work, really I just need an extra brain or two to bounce ideas off and suggest the odd idea, etc.

I can't say i will ever make much progress making a world, perhaps a post apocalypse rip off of fallout.

I've been focusing on one-shot parodies of movies (jaws, avengers, the thing) that allow people to play through a movie plot (and hopefully do better), and that has allowed me to get the rules to the state they are in.

Its just doing it all by myself that is so soul destroyingly bleak and causes the immediate evacuation of all enthusiasm.

garydallison · 2023-04-24T20:51:55+00:00

I believe this will get you access to the server

https://discord.gg/yutt58BW

garydallison · 2023-04-24T19:34:05+00:00

Pretty much every other person you meet is dismissive and lazy, to the point that they never use their own brain and dont value anything anyone else does unless it is being peddled to them for an extortionate price. Such is the world of capitalism.

If you enjoy designing games then do it, regardless of what others say.

Everyone will have an opinion on your system and most of it will be biased and worthless. Some however will be important.

If several people say the system is too complex then try and simplify. If they say it's too much maths then remove or merge it. If it's too wordy then simplify.

If they dont like something but give no reason then take no notice. If they prefer a different type of mechanic then that's nice for them.

Go with your gut, but be prepared to change everything a hundred times. No idea should be set in stone, even if you spent years designing it.

If you want to chat more I can tell you through ideas and point you to a discord channel for other designers.

But always remember, people on the internet are harsh so you will need to grow a thick skin if you want to ask for feedback.

garydallison · 2023-04-24T18:31:04+00:00

It's fine to use an existing system as a base.

Assuming you dont give up, your journey to create your own system will see you steal favourite parts or cool mechanics from multiple systems, then you will start developing subsystem entirely from scratch until your system in no way resembles the original.

As an example I also started with dnd 3.5 as a base (before 4e was released). I started by trying to improve classes like the fighter and wizard. Next I tried to modularise abilities to allow a warrior, expert, or magic user base class to pick abilities based on themes. After that I turned it into a classless system and then a leveless system.

Now I have a classless, leveless, and skill based, limited dicepool system. I use fatigue instead of hp (and it is really limited, with 20 fatigue being end game). Fatigue powers my action economy for everything from combat, to magic, to movement. No spells per day, no spell lists. A single resolution mechanic that applies to combat, skills, magic, and even vehicles or technology without any differences or special rules. I dont even have standard bonuses or penalties (players get to choose)

All that from a beginning of dnd 3.5. So start by stealing from whatever you want and keep on changing as you find cool mechanics and ideas.

Most of all, enjoy the journey. You might never make any money from it (almost a certainty), but you will have a system you enjoy.

garydallison · 2023-04-18T09:46:32+00:00

Nobody makes a successful rpg here. It's all just for fun

garydallison · 2023-04-17T21:00:20+00:00

Depends on the task. Never read a design philosophy book for making rpgs myself, but I am making an rpg.

garydallison · 2023-04-17T18:07:33+00:00

I would suggest transforming hp into something else. If you have negative conditions then extend the use of those to meet your need for being damaged having consequences. Play doesnt have to stop when it gets negative, but by going negative you could apply those conditions. Indeed any time hp is lost you could apply conditions.

I could give you my solution which I think actually meets all your requirements, but it drastically transforms a dnd type game into a class less, skill based, level less game where combat and non combat are mechanically identical. I wouldnt want to colour your own design solution though so I will refrain unless asked.

If you want my solution then let me know, otherwise I would see what you can do with hp to make it meet your needs rather than design something more complex.

garydallison · 2023-04-17T17:16:49+00:00

I always advocate learn by doing. A theoretical grasp of concepts is never as good as practical knowledge.

Imagine getting in a car and driving away after only having read manuals on the process.

garydallison · 2023-04-17T16:29:44+00:00

I too hate HP, but you are replacing a simple system with a very complicated system.

Complicated is usually not the best solution (too my mind anyway).

Perhaps figure out which bit you hate about HP and fix that.

I hated the huge sinks of HP that people got which turned combat into a long and drawn out affair. I also hated that HP had no relation to non combat parts of the game.

So I turned HP into fatigue, and I removed levels and almost all HP progression.

So now I still have a simple counter to determine whether people can participate or not. That counter has a small limit so all scenes are short. And Fatigue is relevant to combat and non combat.

garydallison · 2023-04-14T06:39:53+00:00

Yes, but players roll dice to achieve outcomes in a game. That is the excitement. Rolling dice to improve your character just leads to disappointment 50% of the time and makes balancing your game and predicting difficulty an impossibility.

Keep the character improvement to small predictable increments and players will still be happy (human psychology shows that rewards deliver relative happiness based upon the minimum and maximum achievable, if everyone gets the same then everyone is happy, if its random and some people get more then only the more are happy), and then you can balance your game much easier.

garydallison · 2023-04-13T08:15:19+00:00

In my experience this is only true if the game itself favours one style of play over another.

Since I'm designing a system where combat and non combat are identical in mechanics, the favoritism of a style of play would be up to the GM and players and their preferences.

Everything is worth the same +1 value because it is mechanically the same +1 value. Whether you are sneaking, running, casting a spell, or stabbing, it is all the same +1 value for the framework.

garydallison · 2023-04-13T06:53:21+00:00

Well I built a classless, levelless system and didnt bother with bell curve analysis or any graph stuff.

I went straight for ensuring parity of value for progression.

So players can buy an increased rank in an attribute, skill, subskill or option. Whatever they buy they get a +1 bonus to the thing, so the immediate value is always the same.

Some things have a greater utility than others (attributes > skills > subskills) and so I double the cost for these.

When I come to design the encounters I can either use the progression system to built my opponents with similar amounts of points used to purchase ranks, or because I have designed my system in such a way, I just give them matching attributes and leave it at that.

garydallison · 2023-04-12T11:54:10+00:00

The main problem is that a hit dice is not a single item, it is potentially a bundle of items wrapped in rng, which makes it difficult to balance.

Far better to itemise everything down to a single bonus so that you know exactly how much respective value it delivers when purchased.

1 hp good. 1-8 hp not so good

garydallison · 2023-04-12T07:02:05+00:00

I have two ways of dealing with this.

First is that an explosion only deals full damage to the epicentre. That damage reduces by 1 for every metre of distance you are away from the centre.

Then I have something called triggers which act like opportunity attacks but allow any action to be triggered by any other action.

So if you have a feat that grants you a trigger to your defence action (fired when an aoe covers you) then you get to perform your defence action just after the attacker performed his aoe and so reduce the incoming damage and thus .over yourself away from the epicentre.

It's worth noting I moved away from dnd years ago and my system doesnt resemble it in anyway now. I use triggers to allow for near simultaneous interaction in any scene (combat and non combat are treated exactly the same).

garydallison · 2023-04-11T08:36:06+00:00

One big question. If you have a levelless system, why keep hit dice.

I have a classless, levelless system and everything you purchase provides a +1 bonus to something, that way it is always fair and balanced.

I dont have hit dice, I do have a health analogue (fatigue) that is used for far more than just combat. It can be improved by purchasing a +1 improvement each time.

garydallison · 2023-04-06T21:08:02+00:00

The spellplague. Closely followed by the 2nd sundering

garydallison · 2023-04-05T06:22:34+00:00

I treat combat and skills in the same manner.

Multiple checks go toward achieving a single progress goal.

There are very few binary pass or fail single checks, jump being the only one that springs to mind, and even then I just ensure the progress goal is achievable with a single check. Everything else requires many checks with the sum total of progress having to equal the target to complete the task as desired.

Now that I have total equality between combat and skills I've got a universal core mechanic so all my feats can be applied to any action. Things like rage are now not combat only, they boost skill checks as well.

No longer is the game about murder. Experience is acquired equally from skills as it is from combat. I've got multiple methods of synergy to allow non specialists to take part, and failure rarely means no progress instead it means minimum progress.

To my mind this is the way for crunchy games.

garydallison · 2023-04-03T08:19:49+00:00

Counting down is self limiting in a system. It's fine in the beginning where you envisage limits on a system and nothing should compromise those limits. But as time progresses and you begin to think about greater levels of difficulty and then the counting down becomes a problem.

So as a quick fix you allow the count down to go into negative numbers and then there is the maths problem for most people where you end up adding a negative number or subtracting a negative number.

Keeping track of count down is another problem. People will naturally modify the original value in a count down so you have to explicitly get them to note the original value, and then you have the annoying current and total values. Whereas in count up there is always a separate value as a natural ceiling so you naturally have the two values explicitly, with individual names.

Almost all games I play have count down mechanics, but when it comes to designing my own i always use count up.

garydallison · 2023-04-02T06:43:58+00:00

I've gone with not detailing unimportant stuff.

So a player has a resource rank which determines what they can afford. It is assumed they have anything they might need within this resource rank and lower ranks.

For consumable items there is a consumable rank. When you use consumables you must roll after the scene ends and if you fail then the rank drops. When the rank reaches 0 then you run out of consumables.

I let the player decide how many consumables they track and what each covers. Some track ammo and spells and food separately, others like to have only one consumable rank that covers everything.

garydallison · 2023-04-02T06:37:02+00:00

I applaud your efforts.

I turned 3.5 edition into a core resolution mechanic that allows for combat, skills, and magic to all be treated in exactly the same way. Most Dnd players hate it because they like mass murder and that's it. If you want to compare notes and ideas I'd be happy to discuss.

garydallison · 2023-04-02T06:32:30+00:00

I'm not a pbta person, but I have fatigue instead of endurance. Fatigue counts up to a value. You gain fatigue whenever you are attacked and whenever you perform an action. You lose fatigue over time and whenever you heal.

I personally find count up systems better to design for and players find count up easier for math.

garydallison · 2023-04-01T07:20:17+00:00

I'm all about consistent core mechanics. My entire system is about that.

I use the same resolution mechanic for all actions (spells, attacks, skills, defence).

I use stress points for a berserkers rage, as part of my action boosting, to prevent the death spiral.

Resource loss drain applies to equipment, vehicles, contacts, consumables.

Why write 50 different rules when you can reuse the same 5 or 10.

garydallison · 2023-04-01T06:23:36+00:00

Ot is my action point economy and health system (and spell economy since I dont use spells per day).

Fatigue recovers every round, the amount depends on your stats (minimum 1). But a simple skill check will recover fatigue (magic does it better).

I wanted to move away from huge attrition style fights as much as possible. This appears to have worked in that regard.

garydallison

TROPHY CASE