Amateur Game Design and Homebrew ThreadWelcome to the thread for homebrew discussion on /tg/, Late Edition! It's an effort to get people to have classic homebrew discussions and assist the board in general when it comes to their game design endeavors.>Why should I homebrew?/tg/ products are fairly unique in that it's actually pretty simple to make them these days, with a plethora of products to assist in making and playtesting your game. Making your own games helps understand why games are made the way they are, as well as being fun to do.>What you should postIdeas for games, games you're currently making, updates to your own games in broad strokes, and any homebrewing for existing products that don't get much attention. Discussion about the above is welcome. Post good, be good, and look over others products, they care if someone looks more than anything.>Resources for the aspiring developer>https://anydice.com/ (A fantastic resource for checking probabilities)>https://miro.com/ (A online whiteboard with tools to help organize yourself)>https://www.notion.so/ (Similar to the above, but in a bit cleaner format for those who work in larger teams)>https://rolz.org/ (Impromptu playtesting at its finest)>https://www.youtube.com/user/georgephillies/playlists (Game Design Lectures)Thread Questions: What are you working on? Are you stuck on anything? Have you make any breakthroughs?
>>98300257SEXOOOOOOOOOOOOO
>>98300257>TQBeen stuck on dealing with fulfilment contracts regarding a physical print run of Primrose before I move it over to a PoD service. Working out the quirks of dice sets and what not. Im also just burning through all the supplementary books now and probably will start looking at art soonish.
>>98300257>TQNothing at the moment, aside from occasionally chipping away at my action shooter TTRPG (think COD4, John Wick, Payday 2, that sort of thing) every now and then.Though, I did shore up a bunch of 2024/5.5 homebrew for my overhauled rules/classes including an alternate version of my overhauled ranger and some wholly new classes.I have been told by my players for the game I'm gonna run of my own modern fantasy system not to update the sheets again so I'm leaving it alone for now.
>>98300257>What are you working on?a personal project that can be summarized as "advance wars but board game">Are you stuck on anything?the core principle of advance wars is attackers shoot first then defenders counter-attackwhich necessitates keeping track of HP to determine the strength of the counter-attack and prevents a single powerful unit from simply punching through dozens of smaller ones due to cumulative scratch damage from counter-attacks, weak as they arewhich wouldnt translate to a board game very well, since you would need to keep track of damage states across potentially dozens of units at once and thus either a notepad or a forests worth of counters>Have you make any breakthroughs?possibly just treating it like risk, where you stack 10 counters on top of each other representing one unit and you remove one counter for each damage taken
>>98300257So what is she supposed to be? A secretary or a lawyer or what?The correct answer dictates how attractive she is.
>>98302064A secretary, I'd assume.
>>98302473Damn, that'd be less attractive than something like a junior lawyer. Competence is hot.
>>98296496Ah, I made my own thread because this one wasn't up, I'll move here
>>98302907I'm sure she's a competent secreta-- oh. Nevermind.
Capitalism TCG hereOne of the most significant changes to my rules is the addition of a Planning Zone and Construction Time (CT) stat. Before, any Production or Infrastructure that you could afford you would be able to instantly play. This resulted in Drag Race style gameplay where it was just a rush to dump out your whole hand.With the introduction of Construction Time, more significant cards may take 1-2 extra turns before it is able to see play and make you money.>Planning Zone has initial limit of 1 card>playing a card in to the Planning Zone has no cost>add a number of Time Counters to the card equal to its CT stat>at the beginning of the turn, before your construction phase starts, you shave 1 Time Counter off any card in the Planning Zone>when a card in the PZ has 0 counters on it, you may then Construct it for the cost on the cardThis created a nice obstacle to getting your powerful cards out as well as provides design space for PZ or Time Counter manipulation.I also began working on playmat designs. The design with individual zones is an example of something that would come with a starter product.
>>98303710>give your opponent a headache strategy
>>98300257I don't even know what to homebrew now since I rarely play with my friends now. I wanted to make a West Marches -like campaign for randoms, but I am conflicted on what to make. I am thinking about:- d20 Darks Souls OSR homebrew in D&D multiverse.- d20 homebrew Ironic fantasy.- YZE homebrew Ironic fantasy.- Mystic Bastionland.- YZE homrbrew about fairy tales, political intrigue, domains, economy, investigation.
>Practiced a lot of mechanical nesting and game mechanics that interacted with one another>Now that it's time to "clean up" and adjust said mechanics I am now overwhelmed to figure out which block of mechanics to change firstThis isn't helping my motivation issues.
>>98305453Thought experiment time. Imagine players setting up the game: what rule do they need to know first?Do that one.Then whatever it connects to or affects, that goes second.There’s going to be a linear logic for introducing mechanics to new players, so start by getting that sorted and revise it front-to-back after you get it in some sort of order.
>>98305453To add to >>98305516, I'd suggest start with working on a flow-chart of the references then plan out the order you'll work out from. The final form of the flow-chart should double as a decent starting point for ordering the rules in whatever format you're looking to provide them.
>>98305516Good idea, do the most important surface rules first and keep a flow chart. Thankfully it's not too far gone where that will be diffacult.
I'm designing a system where i had the idea of tying the weapon classes and armors your characters have access to to your ability scores.Heres strength for example. The idea is that if you go to Rank 0 in a stat you lose access to a fundamental ability, which for strength is being able to grapple and that kind of stuff.
>>98301657Are the units on any sort of base, like sitting on the grid? You could use a rotary life tracker like for magic or something to count down from 10 to 0. If you made it similar to something like heroclix you can even put the unit's stats on the base.Can't really do fog of war with that, but I can see something like a modular tile set which contains a bunch of grid squares on them, and you build out a game area that way.A direct tabletop translation for Advance Wars sounds awesome, I'd love to see what you have.
>>98306656You can take this as a good thing or bad thing, but this feels very Videogame.Vidya RPGs usually have linear progression where you gain more damage and unlock access to new items, abilities, etc. on a linear path of progression. That’s pretty much verbatim how Oblivion handles skills, and, just an opinion, I fucking hate Oblivion.Matters of taste, but I prefer games where levelling up feels like an opportunity to customize my character and change how they play a little. Having one fixed upgrade is less exciting because I don’t get the Poindexter Pleasure of reading the rulebook and comparing options, imagining what I can do and what toys I can add to my toybox. If it’s just linear upgrades, I guess that’s logically good, but it doesn’t feel as compelling.Decisions are something pen & paper games do infinitely better than vidya, and decisions tweak people’s brains. It’s exciting and rewarding to make a choice and see how it pays off.Consider adding Specialties, or Techniques, or some other jargon that gives you interesting ways to use the new equipment; limit the player’s ability to pick these features so they have decisions to make. As a bonus, it will mean that two people can start with similar characters, but wind up with very different playstyles at higher levels: players will feel more attached to the character for having a hand in making them, not just their personality or backstory, but how they actually behave and operate within the game.
>>98306697>If you made it similar to something like heroclix you can even put the unit's stats on the base.that would probably be the best way of handling ita dial numbered 1-X that can spin but it would really limit the board size and thus the number of units, since the size of the dial determines the size of everything elsethe idea i was toying around with was what axis and allies usesa colored base representing 1s, another for 5s, and another for 10sso you just add or subtract the markers as you take damage or get repairedif you combine 2 units that would go over 10, im still thinking of what will happen, since getting re-imbursed resources would be fiddlykeeping track of ammo and gas is going to be another pain in the assmaybe it can just be simplified to a binary state any time you roll the lowest number on the dice twice in a row, the unit is "exhausted" and remains exhausted until resupplied
>>98306780Maybe, instead of game statistics on the base, the base could just rotate through letters, then you have a set of little pools of tokens in piles corresponding to a unit type, and its identifier.You would have a little Mancala-esque board for your tank units, with slots for marbles that represent your remaining hit points, with those slots marked A, B, C to correspond to tank pieces on the game board with the same letter on the base.This allows you to keep some of your information secret from the opponent, and lets you track all your numbers in one place without furiously scribbling notes for minutes on end. It’s also just a fun thing to fiddle with, plunking little stones around.You’ll run into logistical problems with this too, like army bloat, or needing an entire tray for a certain unit even if you’re only fielding one. But maybe you can refine it into something more useful.
>TQI'm the guy working on a former WW2 TF RPG- turned-solo wargame. None of my friends have given feedback on the test rules I did up so going back to the drawing board. Concept still has transforming alien robots fighting in linked serialised WW2 campaigns. Trying to rewrite from the ground up and... yeah. I kind of liked the last rules. I might do a mix of what I've been writing this afternoon and what I've written before. I don't know. I still think I'm missing something obvious here. I know how I want this to work. I want it to look and play in a cinematic form. Simple rules. Easy to set up and play. But I don't think I'm there yet. So, more navel-gazing.
>>98306772Granted, there are a lot of nuances that i have yet to work out. The idea is that while you set your scores at 1st level, you do still get to increase them later, but are limited to only having one attribute at Rank 5, and cant get a rank 5 attribute until 3rd level. And thats not even considering that you will pick a class that gives you abilities and such as well.Another thing is that the Intelligence equivalent grants Martial classes techniques, and Casters extra Mana (while Hybrids get a little of both). I dont have it very well visualised yet, but you can imagine Techniques to work in the way that Pathfinder 2e handles action feats.Speaking of Mana, thats another thing. Spells work by the caster spending up to their "Mana Threshold" to pump power into their spell for more effects, because damage is increased by Spell Potency (given by the Charisma equivalent). Pumping 4 mana causes Firebolt to do more damage than just 2, that kinda shit. Some classes have more Potency but a lower Threshold, and vice versa.
>>98306860Fair and valid. A 4chan post is not a rulebook.On-the-fly spellcrafting and/or spellbashing as a core mechanic sounds like my kind of game.Give ‘er. Lookin’ forward to seeing more.
>>98300257Hello guys, I kind of finished my Mystic Powers creation system. They are closer to superpowers than magic, and it is a bit complex to make, but i sacrificed some versatility in the hopes of making it simpler.Please come up with some superpower/magic spell ideas and try to use this system to make them. Tell me how that turned out.drive.google.com/file/d/1tvBFyCyRXECkjwJXsvXQZ_jYTEoyZaZe
>>98300257I am working on my own RPG taking thematic inspiration from "vice and violence" and "Vagabond", while mechanics-wise taking inspiration from cortex prime and kids-with-bikes, with a pinch of Fate CORE.In my game, resolution works the following way - you have a die assigned to a stat (Lets say d6 on Cunning), you a die that comes from your items and gear (Lets say d6 on lockpick) and then some other dice, be it contextual/narrative bonuses). And when you perform an action, you roll them against a target number (lets say lock with difficulty of 7), which typically is half of die's highest number + one (4 for d6, 7 for d12, etc.), and then boost the result by 1 for every 3 over the target number (so if we roll 11 vs 7, then your effect is doubled, and if you roll 13 then its trippled and so on)Right now i am stuck on idea on how to make spells work. I want spells to be simple names like "Fireball" and leave the mechanics up to interpretation, sort of. Ans have 2 tiers - minor and major, but i dont really know how spells should work so they can get miscasted (which implies a roll) i had a thought of a flat difficulty that the player rolls against when casting and miscasting if the roll goes bad, but it seems pretty basic, so i wanna do something more interesting.
>>98306833That's rough, buddy. Feeling like you have to rewrite the entire thing, especially if you liked them, sucks. Post your 1e rules here? Maybe someone here could give them a once-over.
>>98300257I could really use some advice on how to handle crafting.I have found that it's complicated enough that it's basically a game unto itself. It tends to dominate the game if you allow it into your rules.I would really appreciate it if anyone could direct me toward some traditional games with good crafting mechanics.The game I'm designing is a tabletop RPG, but I am open to borrowing from other systems.Thanks.
>>98307352I'd say crafting systems are for videogames and board games. In TTRPGs is better to use per session uses, abstract resources, and GM rulings.
>>98301639If you're curious, the system I mentioned at the end is in here, Preeminence. It's modern fantasy, and is me making what I want out of a fantasy system. The Experimental Changes doc (I think it's still there and not in the core book yet? It's been a minute) has rules for more traditional fantasy games. Some of the flavor text hasn't been updated on the sheet for the reasons I mentioned but it's flavor text so it's not as important. Mechanically nothing has changed for the species options that I did new art for (I did all the art for the book myself).https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1R38u-Q5ekMaEvFsnTuwClVdecAN5OJE1?usp=drive_linkAlso, this doc has hotlinks to all my "Unchained" content for D&D 2024. If your group refuses to run/play anything else pitch this stuff to them, especially if you're a martial enjoyer such as myself. Whine all you want about my custom weebshit inspired classes, your GM can just not use them at the table. I will say this, my design philosophy stems from how the official content words things or handles things except in instances where such content doesn't exist.https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hDd0Xe-k9jbLqqIlDvDtnsQULf-u7lVRp01mgzJYfOU/edit?usp=sharing
>>98307352In my opinion, the best way to handle it is to assign material rarities a cost rather than having a 3000 page index of every single possible material item and their cost.For monster parts like antlers or teeth, you could use the power level of the monster, be it a D&D-like CR system or a simpler difficulty system for each creature, or what I did was give each creature difficulty a unique pool for single and multiple encounters, meaning that a singular foe will be stronger than multiple foes to keep things more balanced.Then, you can simply reflavor the materials or keep from turning crafting into a whole minigame by saying "to craft X, you need Y materials". Some might not be purchasable, but they would have a value all the same which determines their rarity and thus the power of the crafted item.Making a dagger out of the bones of a wild boar shouldn't really offer any advantage other than maybe one based on cost; maybe you can make 10 of those for the price of one proper dagger or something.Making a suit of armor out of the corpse of a dragon that required the party to fight a losing battle they only barely won should confer significant benefit however.As for what the armor/weapons/items do, you could make a list of effects based on rarity, and assign a number of "Effect slots" to equipment based on its rarity. You can either have each effect cost 1 slot, or make it so that different equipment has different amounts of slots, and the rarer and more powerful the effect, the more slots it costs in the equipment.For example, let's say you had a common Effect that caused your sword to light up and emit light when you say a command word. That could be worth one slot. But say you had something that let the sword ignite in flames when you speak the command word, dealing extra damage. That could be worth two or even three slots, meaning only certain weapons could support it.
>>98307810This sounds good. It’s more than just “having a crafting kit lets you buy stuff at half price” but not that much more work on the GM side.You could also have rare items that can make magic items, essentially having crafting be a way for players to customize magic weapons instead of just begrudgingly accepting whatever longsword you throw at them.>Here’s a raw Spirit Stone.>You can refine it to produce a metal with magical properties.>You can use the stone, and 50GP worth of supplies to craft any kind of weapon, and imbue it with (Magic Property X)Then the player can figure out the weapon between sessions.RPGs benefit from downtime activity, specifically, something players can do on their own between sessions, then just recap quickly when the group meets up again. Levelling Up already kinda fits this mould.
>>98300257Ive veen working on something I don't plan on posting in this thread since it's a DIFFERENT thread.As for the thread questions: ive been working on the aforementioned thing (and expansion for one of my games i keep putting off doing art for). Im not stuck, but I am unfortunately in the "drawing the rest of the owl" phase for parts of the game design process I really don't like doing. Namely, I prefer working on the mechanics rather than the fluff or filling out tables of entries.
>>98302064Is it not the Reasonable Daemonette?
>>98306802logistics should be included at one point, but keeping it as a numerical value is a non-starter because that triples the amount of book keeping players need to dobut for the core gameplay, it should at least match the feel of advance warssomething like "roll one die for each HP in the unit, and cause 1 damage per success" would be a system so simple a child can understand it, but its going to be way swingier than actual advance warsso a tank hits infantry on a 5+, armor on a 4+, medium armor on a 3+, and heavy armor on a 2+while you are going to average 50% enemy casualties per attack, theres a non-zero chance that you can hit drastically over or under the averagefixed damage multiplied by N/10, where N is remaining units, is closer to how actual advance wars works and reduces the impact of luckbut that then introduces basic arithmethic
My game is a fantasy heartbreaker with a focus on alchemy / herbalism / construct crafting / rune magic / poisonmaking / basically everything but direct magic, and domain rules.>2d8 core mechanic>roll 2d8 and add your skill>you pick a class and get +3 to a particular skill>assign +2, +2, +1, +1, +1 to other skills>pick one Trait to start>plus free trait from your class>classes each have list of traits that only they can access, but you can also pick generic traits>there are levels, but each one takes twice as long to get as the previous, so games are concentrated at low levels>successful adventures that are well-known also earn you Prestige that will gain you followers and eventually grants of landNow for the combat:>you get 2 actions per round: a major and a minor>the major action is your typical attack/use power>the minor action is a combination of "bonus action" and "reaction" >you regain it at the start of each turn>you have to decide whether to hold it for a reaction, or use it right away>the traits give you a lot of things to do with that minor action>some of the leader classes can use it to inspire someone for a free attack or something like that>some use it to steady their aim>fighter-type characters are actually about tanking in many cases, hitting enemies and making it so they have a penalty to attack anyone besides the fighter, and they are aware of it too>combat is mostly about lining up actions to help each other hit or maneuver>very few "floating bonuses">a lot of abilities are also "attack at a penalty, for some status effect on a hit" instead of X/day abilities, so it's always a trade off to decide whether to use themAnd damage:>damage is a bit weird. You roll 1 to 3 d8s based on your weapon>for each d8 that is greater than or equal to your target's Armor, you deal 1 Wound>most "mooks" go down after 1 wound, making combat low-bookkeeping>unarmored armor is 4, light/medium/heavy is 5/6/7Thoughts?
>>98316054Dont you think the skill bonus is too small? a +1 and +3 are nearly irrelevantly different before the granularity of 2d8 (2 to 16). You are increasing your chances by less than 20%.Unless of course, there are many other add modifiers.
>>98315693I swear this is the bane of my existence. Creating tables of options and items is so time-consuming and not at all fun.
>>98300257I’m building a Homestuck TCG.A 4-6 player game were each is assigned one of the 12 classes (hero, thief, etc). The Narrator deals each player a battlefield card (a location, character or scene). Then a dice roll is spent to unlock the location or fight/make ally. The reward for the victory is grist points, which can corresponds to the 12 aspects (I know, 12 elements, 12 classes, I didn’t make Homestuck, I’m just making a game of it) The player is also dealt an item card, these can be weapons, disposable buffs, or spells.
>>98317252My problems rn are class balancing. The classes and abilities are as follows.## Witch Struggles to master a familiar, or is undone by it.- Act — Bind: Attempt to master a Character card as a familiar (Bond item, no roll). Success: persistent passive perk (e.g. free reroll once per round). Failure: familiar goes feral — immediate Doom Stack draw, and it becomes a standing tax until removed.- Counter — Unbind:Cancel any single action targeting any player.### Heir - Act — Claim: Take over any active effect/modifier in play, regardless of ownership or Aspect match.- Counter — Fall Back: Discard a held Item to redirect an incoming Doom Stack draw onto that Item instead of yourself.- Note: Inherits any Doom Stack pressure already attached to whatever they Claim.### Seer - Insight Track (four stages: Doubt Glimpse Sight True Sight). Gain one stage on a correct Call.- Act — Call: Predict another player's roll outcome before it's rolled. Correct: gain Grist matching that card's Aspect, advance the Track. Wrong: Doom Stack draw, severity shrinking by stage (full at Doubt, least at Sight).- Counter — True Sight: Once per game, at the final Track stage, spend the whole Track to declare a single Call automatically correct — no roll needed to confirm it. Resets Track to Doubt after use.
>>98317287Continued. Mage — - Act — Foretell: Before rolling on any Battlefield card, call the exact number of successes. Called correctly: treat the roll as automatic Overkill regardless of actual dice. Called wrong but roll succeeds anyway: normal success, no bonus or penalty.- Blind spot: Snake eyes can never be called via Foretell. When it happens to a Mage, it triggers a second, separate Doom Stack draw on top of the normal rule.- Counter: none — total fluency is the whole identity; Mage has no reactive answer to anything.### Knight — - Act — Answer the Call:Fully commit to your Aspect on this card — bigger dice pool, but a failure doubles the resulting BITE/Doom Stack draw. *Or* refuse the call for a flat, small, safe action instead — no bonus, no extra risk. The choice itself is the ability.- Counter — Guard: Take BITE damage meant for another player onto yourself instead.
>>98317310### Page — - Act — Stow: Bank one face-down Item from any resolved Battlefield, yours or not, no threshold.- Counter — Unveil: Flip any stowed Item face-up to boost a roll in progress, anytime.### Thief — - Act — Lift: Take any single unresolved Item in play instantly, no roll required.- Counter — Vanish: Block an action specifically targeting you.- Note: Lifting anything still attached to an unresolved Battlefield effect triggers a Doom Stack draw; lifting a settled/banked reward does not.### Rogue — - Act — Share the Take: Receive a reward regardless of your own outcome, but must split it immediately with another player.- Counter — Redirect: Move any unresolved Item to whoever's turn is currently active.- Tax: Can never hold more than a small fixed cap of unresolved Items.### Prince — - Act — Break: Destroy or force-redraw any single Battlefield card, Item, or effect in play.- Counter — Undo: Cancel a Narrator's attempt to detonate a Doom Stack card.- Tax: Every Break adds to a personal Doom Progression tally; at cap, all of the Prince's own held Items/Grist are wiped.### Bard — - Act — Double or Nothing: Double the current Battlefield's reward and its risk simultaneously.- Counter — Hedge: Halve an incoming Doom Stack draw's severity for any player — but if their roll would have succeeded anyway, their reward is voided instead.### Sylph — - Act — Interfere: Redirect the target of any in-progress action or Battlefield effect to a different player or card entirely — helpful or harmful, Sylph's call.- Counter — Invert: Flip the polarity of any just-resolved outcome — success becomes a lesser failure, failure becomes a lesser success — for any player, including themselves.
>>98317325Good god, I’m finally done.### Maid — - Act — Harvest: Take a free Matched Grist tick, no roll, uncounterable, always available.- Counter — Attune: Spend 2 Matched Grist to auto-resolve a Battlefield card matching your own Aspect as an automatic success. Only works within your own Aspect — no Counter at all outside it.
>>98315728Reasonable Daemonette usually was depicted with a turtleneck sweater.Worst case outside of outright softcore porn was a blouse with the classic chest button opening due to a low quality shirt
>>98317121Well the skill ranks increase every couple levels up to potentially +6 to +8 so it's like a "zero to hero" thing as in D&D.But yeah I thought about adding in maybe +1 or +2 bonuses from attributes, I just didn't know if they were worth adding to the game.
>>98315737Yeah, I don't know. Lots of options you could go with. I definitely think that with the average size of an advance wars game, you're going to need to track a LOT of information for each model based on what it can and can't do, its movement speed on various terrain, its damage and effectiveness vs certain targets, it's ranges for artillery, different states for units like embarking an APC or diving a submarine, the constant fuel tax for vehicles and aircraft. Not to mention your own personal funds and star power if you're doing that sort of thing.It's probably best to keep the bases simple with a representative model like the grid mode of the game does, and have a simple base that counts 10-1 and has a second dial that tracks unit number. That way you can have unit card's off to the side of the table with each unit's base stats and like a tracker for up to 10 unit's ammo or fuel or something. Or you can ditch the 0-100 fuel or ammo tracker to simply a number of activations unless they're on a controlled city or next to an apc or some shit.Sounds like a ton of fun though, and pretty simple to do since all of the stats are already known and tested values. Biggest obstacle is figuring out how the actual damage calcs work and making that make sense on the tabletop.Looks like someone on TTS tried something similar to this a while back, called Skirmish Wars if you want to look it up on the Steam Library. This could actually work if written correctly, it's got my gears turning at least!
>>98321082for funds, its probably better to reduce it from $$ value to discrete tokens so each turn, a base or city grants 1 production tokenand you spend X production tokens to buy a unitless granular, since you cant do half-values, but its easier to keep track ofrepairs can be simplified to just costing time rather than moneya unit can choose to repair instead of movewhich is free, but costs a units turn
>>98303453Man, the shit hot girls get away with is crazy
Minor update on my magical girl system. Could use critiques and advise on literally everything. https://cvl-industries.itch.io/magia-msa
I've been developing board games and TTRPGs among friends for like 20 years. Only now, within the next couple week, I'm I releasing my first "real" TTRPG rulebook.I've released smaller games and supplements before. This one is feeling very different.
>>98325525Just make sure you actually get someone who knows what theyre doing to do the layout i swear to god
>>98325930Thankfully, I know how to use LaTeX.There are some empty columns because I'm rearranging the interstitial art.
>>98300257I had this idea for a class or subclass (IDK for which game since I play a few, dnd 5e, Barbarians of Lemuria, Mini 6) thats a variation on the classical ranger, Lets call it a Surveyor.Instead of focusing more in depth on specific natural knowledge, the Surveyor combines the wilderness pathfinding ability with human intelligence. Acting more like military reconnaissance or well, a surveyor rather than a pure woodsman. Someone who figures out the geopolitical climate of an area before an army comes in, who are the local notables, what is the main industry, what are the major concerns etc. And also someone who scopes out tactical locations like chokepoints, river crossings, and open fields. Trading some herbal knowledge for some more clerical and human knowledge.As an action they can point out tactical elements in the feild like high ground, loose footing or cover to grant allies bonuses like better protection or attack bonuses.Probably little to no magic. and if they do it would probably be clerical or arcane rather than druidic.I really like the idea of someone who is more maps and intellegence focus rather than someone who is "I can tell that this scat is 5 days old" focused.
>>98327002Is this not just a scout?
>>98327049Scout to me just doesnt really imply the human intellegence side side of things, like learning who the local lord is and the local industries. Just more geographical intel. But maybe that's a misnomer.
>>98327207NTAScouts do exactly what you describe. They note the lay of the land, as well as enemy positions, or look for foretelling clues about an opposing force’s strategy.Spies (in case you’re trying to avoid making another spy-there are too many as is) use disguises and subterfuge to get closer to an enemy administration in social settings, while scouts use stealth in the field; both of them collect intelligence about an opposing force. Scouts also fight, but usually in small one-on-one dust-ups, like killing a sentry to leave a guard tower empty, for example, and Hunter’s Mark would be a good fit for that kind of Sniper/Assassination role.It definitely reads “scout” to me. It also sounds better than the usual flavor of “this subclass goes on nature hikes” that the rest of them have. Rangers were already purpose-built as scouts, but none of the other subclasses feel like they double-down on that concept. Even the Hunter, the sort of default, is just a dude who lives outside.
>>98327251Fair enough, for purely military goals, scout does sound better. though I feel that surveyor also has a non-explicitly military vibe. Like a surveyor of property or a administrative counter a la doomsday book population and industry survey. "Count Gulgo has 20 acres of land and 20 servents, and his land produces 60 bushels of wheat" type stuff in terms of occupation.
>>98325951Post game. I wanna read it.
>>98328133It releases on the 19th, and at 14.99 USD on DriveThruRPG. After which, I'm sure someone will pirate it.
research is fun
Why does it feel wrong to have my resolution die be also usable in damage rollsThis is what's holding me back from trying 2d10 versus a d20, it just feels wrong.
>>98329849Is it clear when youre rolling damage and when youre doing an action?
>>98329855I think so, it's not like it's wildly different than most any other system. You have to make an attack before you can do damage, so you roll 2d10 and if its a success you roll damage, which may or may not also include a d10.I guess if someone wasn't paying attention and they were just told to roll 2d10 they wouldn't be able to discern what they were rolling for, but that hypothetical doesn't really point out a flaw with the system so much as the imaginary player.
>>98329849Rolled it 40 million times.
>>98329849>>98329891Thus if you give ties to the 1d20, they are basically equal.
>>98300257An Elder Scrolls campaign set in the Niben Valley (think Bravil, Leyawiin and Elsweyr frontier) using GURPS. I'm stuck at setting the initial clues of the plot, the starting area and hexcrawl map and mechanics. At the moment, I have already created the main villains and important allies and the outline of the plot.
I got 7 more pieces of interstitial art left to make today. Once they are in the book, it will be ready for sale on the 19th.I can then target update content.You see, I plan for the game to always ever be a single book. I'm just going to update it ad infinitum.
>>98332552Update, the book is now in its release state.
>>98300257Anyone else have a hard time picturing a character before they actually stat them out? I do for some reason. I Was experimenting how I could represent it in a way to make it more clear to myself. Here I have a quantitative and qualitative representation of characters with a bar graph for the quantitative info and a short 3 bullet list for qualitative factors. I hope this allows it to sink into my mind better.
>>98335820I made a little app that creates a character. Helps to instantly come up with stuff on the fly. Other than that, I usually have a general idea of the character before statting then out. The actual details come into clearer focus once stats, background, traits, etc. are established.
>>98329897That's not exactly true. 2d10 leans more towards the average, while 1d20 has no leaning within its range.While the average ARE the same number (rounding up for the d20), the odds of hitting those values are not identical. No idea what was used to roll that many times but if you look at the odds, 2d10 hits the average more often.Almost twice as much, in fact; 2d10 hits a 10 9% of the time, while 1d20 only hits it 5% of the time. I'll give a d20 this however, it does improve your fringe odds more, whereas 2d10 is overall more consistent.So basically, if you want a higher chance to hit low or high values, use a d20. If you want a higher chance to hit the average, use 2d10.
>>98337538Yes, I know what a normal distribution is lol.>>98329849>2d10 versus a d20>versusI assumed this was talking about a contest between two sides. One of which using 2d10s, the other 1d20.What apparently was meant was...>This is what's holding me back from trying 2d10 in place of using a d20, it just feels wrong.
>>98307171I did earlier in the year but I think I put too much in. I'm going to pull a bunch of stuff out and repost, although I can't remember where it was recommended to host it :D
>>98303701I've also been working to flesh out the main characters for the game. Since it's a game about economy rather than fighting it's interesting trying to come up with unique ideas that are also grounded in realism. I'm also trying to be aware of the silhouette test and giving them some kind of iconic object to have
>>98337538The reason 2d10 wins is that it has a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 20 with an average of 11While the 1d20 hasa minimum of 1 and a maximum of 20 and an average of 10.5
>>98329891>>98329897>>98337577Just checked back in after a few days, I appreciate the testing anon. But yeah, what I meant was that something about it just doesn't *feel* right about rolling 2d10s in my hand compared to a d20.The only reason I'm playing around with the potential of 2d10 is because I've been toying around with allowing the player to increase how many they roll for a check. Adding another d10 is significant enough without feeling too big, but adding a second d20 feels like both extremes are gonna cause a lot of balance issues.
>>98300257I did the first session of my second round of playtests today Anons. Been working on a TTRPG for a good year or so now, and actually seeing the reactions of people has been amazing. Its real weebshit, but damn it seems to have connected with them pretty nicely.
>>98342477The system here>>98325525>>98325951>>98334711Is 1d10 only, adding relevant modifiers.That means if a player is 11 away from success, they have to think of a different way to solve their problem.
>>98300257Opinions on this map for a game I am making? Clear? Ugly? is this even the right place for maps?
Wanted to make a homebrew simulationist Pokemon TTRPG just for shits and giggles and currently I'm thinking my best option would be to just extend GURPS with Pokemon mechanics.So I'm makin' some custom skills.Heavy WIP
>>98345129>Opinions on this map for a game I am making?It's not great.>Clear?Sort of.>Ugly?Yes, it has naively created landmasses.>Is this even the right place for maps?No, because it looks like a map for a campaign an not a game you are designing. Belongs in /wbg/
>>98300257>TQStuck on determining point values. Its such an abstract concept to work on.
TIL there's a truckload of Japanese homebrew/amateur TTRPGs on the interwebssee https://x.com/hashtag/1%E3%83%9A%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B8TRPG?src=hashtag_click for an example of 1-page engines
>>98300257>TQI want to make a very freeform power system for point-buy characters for a skirmish war game thing. You have X points to make a character, including stats, equipment, and their super power. Weaker powers leave more room for the other stuff.Is there a better way to set power levels than to just like a bunch of powers for each tier, with GM design notes, and let players and GMs compare it to the player's power? Specifically while keeping the powers themselves very open, not some Mutants and Masterminds point system for making powers out of specific building blocks.Here's an first pass example of five t1 powers. Too niche to come up in a typical fight, but it gives you enough points left to bring a gun or something instead. And who knows, maybe it will come in handy anyway.
Idea:>Look through wiki of random fantasy IP>???>convert setting into system-agnostic campaign/adventure module>???>profit
Live.
What's the point of a hexcrawl when pointcrawl exists? Not trolling, genuinely wondering. irl when hiking you are following a path, you don't just go from A to B in a straight line, it doesn't work like that (cause traversing through foliage or whatever takes way more effort - irl hexcrawl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO0XbbL_gBE). Hexcrawl seems so unnatural even in a game sense. Which leads me to the question, are there any good streamlined rules for wilderness travel? Ironsworn goes about it well with the Undertake a Journey move - basically don't care about distance, but about time, and how it went. But looking for something simple which can give good variance, and be also spatial - for example if I steer into this forest for some reason, what happens next?
>>98354803Partly inertia, partly an impression of better degrees-of-freedom, partly that hexcrawl REALLY bluntly translates onto "proper" mapping. You're "supposed" to have hexes with different terrain-types covering what you're complaining about, but granularizing that eventually breaks down. You could probably mix them with hexes serving as the "regional seed" then the pointcrawl "baking" the free-travel rolls into defined paths between locations of interest.
>>98354803>>98354976Do mappies really?
>>98354803Not all game setups works for every system, or even every campaign of a given system. An aspect of why people use hexcrawls over pointcrawls is simply because it breaks the map into a visual scale without necessarily needing a measurement listed. It also allows vast distances to be abstracted (its not a straight line, its a general direction that is taken even when factoring in lots of little twists and bends). If the game places heavier emphasis on resource management, then hexes being a standard abstraction of size also allows easy calculation for how many resources you burn through. If distance and resources really dont matter though, the hex isnt a necessity.You can also say "why should i use grids in dnd when i can use measurements or totm", and that will certainly work for certain things but the game has been pretty consistently set grid-based sizes for things like dungeon rooms or spell effects, and the game still sticks with it because everything else uses it already and conversion would be a large effort for little actual reward.Tldr, nothing is strictly objectively better, it just works better at that moment.
>>98356249>It also allows vast distances to be abstractedHow does a hex map do this better than a map which has waypoints connected with lines with time estimates on them?>If the game places heavier emphasis on resource management, then hexes being a standard abstraction of size also allows easy calculation for how many resources you burn throughHow does "traversing this mountain hex takes x time and resources" create better game experience than "you can take this route, it will take x time and resources"?I just don't see anything a pointcrawl cannot do which hex map can. Hexes within hexes within hexes is point crawl anyways. What's the point of a hex system if you have separare points of interest in there anyways?
>>98356328>I just don't see anything a pointcrawl cannot do which hex map can.Straightforwardly if not outright natively fill for MUCH fiddlier routing work between arbitrary or even outright unknown locations, which can be important in certain kinds of Domain play. Of course, these routes and the variance within them can then be turned into the point-to-point relationships you're insisting on primacy for, effectively turning the hexcrawl travel into procedural generation for the travel-times.
>>98356328What if as a player, I don't want to go to one of the predefined points?
>>98356328Play more games
>>98354803>What's the point of a hexcrawl when pointcrawl exists?pointcrawls are for when travelling between 2 points on a known or semi-known regionhexcrawl is all about exploring the wilderness.the entire point of the hexcrawl is to game the journey. not abstract it with a couple of rolls and be done with it but actually fully game it.The point of hexcrawls are detailed exploration. Exploration itself is the goal of the game or session.Some games have it as a minigame between dungeons and others as the full on purpose of the game.Also it aint unnatural in a gaming sense. It is the exact opposite actually. It is so very gamey with it's own set of rules that narrative minded parties and games cant handle it naturally so these games abstract travel in different ways.See the one ring rpg for example. For modern games that aint osr and do hexcrawls free league's the forbidden lands is the only one i know of
