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[ggamer]

In case any of you bay12ers are unfamiliar with erfworld, take a looksee.

Erfworld is an internet webcomic based on the idea that there is an entire world whose mechanics revolve around turn based strategy, and the introduction of somebody from our world into this world. However, what i'm interested in are the mechanics.

For example, at one point it is explained that there are three basic types of non-basic units; Flyers, sea units, and land units. This does not, in fact, mean that this system is restrictive at all. Flyers can take many forms, including uniformed airline attendants named Archons, or flying vampires popped only by a certain side. As far as combat within types go, they can each attack the other, but the type of terrain they can traverse is different. For example, land units will have a much harder time going through mountains than flyers, and sea units are able to move easier through water than flyers and land units.

This is one miniscule part of a large, large metagame set up by this webcomic, and I would love to make a Play-by-post system to use on our own FG&RP board.

In any case, this topic is more of a place for me to gather my thoughts, however, feel free to propose any rules or criticize any rules made (which won't happen until I catch back up).

TL;DR I'm making a TBS system based on a webcomic. Hilarity will ensue.

[Darvi]

Looking forward to it.

[darkflagrance]

I bet the Erfworld author has his own compendium of unofficial rules somewhere that he references...maybe it's available somewhere or via request?

[ggamer]

So I'm thinking about magic in erfworld, and I think i'm starting to get it.

So there are three axes: Life, Motion, And matter. Magic is based off of one or more of these axes. For example, the magic of life is called hocus pocus. This system creates eight classes of magic.

Further within these classes magic is seperated based on what they interact with: Erf (solids, physical objects), Fate, and numbers. For example, Predictamancy is the magic of Life's Fate. This leaves twenty-four individual disciplines of magic.

Practicioners of these magicks are called casters. Casters appear to be popped in cities along with warlords, and each city has a finite chance of popping a caster, with the success of popping one decreasing each time a caster is popped. After this, casters must be hired from the magic kingdom.

Casters apply their discipline of magic to the real world. Erf related disciplines are more direct, while Fate and Numbers disciplines are more support and upkeep roles.

Beyond casters, some units have natural magic abilities. Twolls, for example, have natural stuffamancy specials called fabrication.

So first, I'm thinking of how to quantify popping a caster. I'm thinking that the percentage of popping a first caster will vary depending on how much they are needed. Sides at war will not need casters, and will have a higher chance of popping a warlord instead of a caster.

So it's like this: A side at peace would have... maybe an 40%-60% chance of popping a caster at first. When they pop their first caster, the chance of popping one will go down by a constant of 50-75%. THis happens succesfully, meaning that most sides will only pop around two-three casters.

Possibly luckamancy could be used to increase the chance of popping a caster, at the cost of some other random percentage or roll in the world.

Secondly is the chance of the type of caster when they are popped. Of the twenty-four disciplines of magic, twenty-two are represented by casters (Retconjuration is theoretical, and Rhyme-o-mancy seems to be more of a boost applied to all other forms of magic). That means that there are twenty-two different possibilities for what type of caster a side can pop.

The problem here is if the probability is even equal among all disciplines, or if some disciplines have a higher chance of being popped than others.

Well, that's just what i've been thinking about today. more later.

[Darvi]

Hippiemancers, yo.

[Scelly9]

PTW

[ggamer]

Hippiemancers, yo.

I used to think that hippiemancers were useless, but then IPTSF and Haffaton proved that hippiemancy + rhyme-o-mancy = world domination.

Might not be brainstorming for a while, i've got a research paper to write, but first a thing about natural allies.

Natural allies are sides, usually non-man tribes, that have no capital, cities, or leaders. As they have no source of income, they must sustain themselves via agriculture, mining, or forming semi-permanant alliances with actual sides. However, they don't actually have the ability to keep a purse of shmuckers, and such must convert any shmuckers given into promotions, rations, or new units.

When natural allies form alliances with a side, they take upkeep from their allies the same as normal units. Natural allies are also, apparently, the only units that can be popped entirely with shmuckers, as they have no cities to pop from. This suggests a form of natural moneymancy.

natural allies have several advantages over popped units, having either superior fighting ability (hobgobwins, mountain giants), special abilities that one side may not have access to (marbits, gobwins), have a natural ability to cast (witches, elves) or possibly a lowered upkeep.

The last notable thing about them would be that certain NA's will not ally with a side allied with certain other NA's. (i.e. Marbits or elves will not ally with a side that allies with hobgobwins, gobwins, witches, or daemons)

In-game the issue would be the chance of finding a tribe of NA's. You would obviously have to look around in areas that they would frequent (Forests for elves, tunnels for gobwins, etc.) and also have the treasury necessary to support their upkeep. Because of the insanely huge advantage of finding NA's (they are helpful enough to be game changers), either the chance of finding a tribe will have to be very low (maybe 5% per hex they can be found), or I can gen some tribes at the beginning of the game and hide them well.

If I have a system w/ a chance of finding a tribe, it could be small (again, 3-5%) with an option to search for tribes in a single hex (maybe for penalty, i.e. shmucker penalty or percentage loss?). Additionally, a findamancy spell, either through a 'mancer or through a purchased scroll, could increase the chances of finding a tribe (depending on strength, maybe by 10-20%?)

If there's a system with pre-genned tribe, tribe strength could vary depending on how well they've fared scavenging/mining/making a living. Findamancy spells could give a general location, with the location getting more specific down to the hex with higher caster levels/scroll strength.

Another interesting thing to consider is alignment. We could go simple (good/neut/evil) or traditional (law/neut/chao and good/neut/evil). I'm considering having traditional D&D alignment because of the ways it can play out (lawful alignments only allowed to be with their alignment, wither lawful or whatever morality, for example).

I would really like to get some feedback on this one. However, I just spent way too much time on this, and need to get to work on papa writan. Maybe another post this weekend, if I can manage.

[ggamer]

Movement!

Each unit has a stat called move. This is a set number of points that controls how far it can move.

The entirety of Erfworld is made of hexes. These hexes each have their own terrain type (ie mountains, plains, forests), which adds variety to the landscape.

Units expend move by moving through hexes. Different terrain types cost different amounts of move to go through. If you're familiar with how movement works in advance wars, its very similar.

Units may not move when it is not their turn, and at the end of a turn every unit's move for one side is set to 0. Moving within a hex is not considered movement
, and so costs no move.

In-game wise, there's much fun to be had with this.

Earlier we said that there are three basic classes of units- water, land, and flyers. Obviously we would only need to worry for land and flyers.

Flyers use only... let's say one movement point moving through all non-mountain hexes. On normal mountains, this move cost is two, and on high mountains this cost is three. There are also impassible mountains, which are the only terrain flyers cannot cross. Flyers have a typical move of around 25-30.

Land units are much more fickle about their terrain type. Move costs for them will be listed in the terrain types thing. Land units have a typical move of around 10.

Basic terrain types/Move cost for land units-

Plains / 2-3 move
  -Rough plains / 4 move
  -Hills / 5-6 move
Roads / 1 move
Forests / 5-6 move, forest capable 2-3 move
  -Heavy forests / 7 move, forest capable 4 move
Mountains / impassable, mountain capable 5-6 move
  -High mountains / impassable, mountain capable 7 move
  -Impassable mountains / impassable
  -Volcanoes / impassable
Water / impassable
  -Shallow water / impassable
  -Reef / impassable
  -Rough waters / impassable
Lava / impassable

Eventually, I could make a big boring spreadsheet with all the values for various units, but this looks fine now.

[Darvi]

Dead volcanoes are, however, still passable.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And uncroakable. Fuck yeah.

[ggamer]

On the topic of book 1 spoilers, CASTER LIIIIINKS!

A caster link is when a thinkamancer is linked physically (through holding hands or cuff/chains) and mentally (via thinkamancy) with one or more casters of any discipline. These links are usually between two or three casters, but four or more casters can be plausibly linked together.

The obvious advantage of this is that it allows mixing of disciplines and a power increase for single disciplines. The disadvantage is that caster links are very hard to break, and take a number of turns to unravel depending on the skill.

In-game? Oh boy, most of the deep strategic thinkers on this forum will fucking cherish this feature.

There are far too many possibilites of caster links to list. But I have thought of a few link examples that sound AWESOME.

First, consider a link between a thinkamancer/dittomancer/foolamancer. The Thinkamancer links the two casters, the foolamancer could make a fake army, and the dittomancer could double the amount of units foolamance'd. This could be used to feint a mock army towards one city, while an actual army conquers through the opposite side of a kingdom.

A fun one I saw was on the wiki, where a think/turn/moneymancer link up could steal money from the enemy treasury.

The mechanics... can't really be defined. I would just say to run it through me or one of the other judges (if they exist) before creating it.

The part that would have to be quantified is the breakup. There are a few options that could happen, the casters could be fine, they could lose bodily functions, they could go comatose, or they could croak.

So, let's roll a d20-Turns spent unraveling vs. Thinkamancer level, with one roll for each non-thinkamancer caster. It is assumed that the thinkamancer is going to survive. Therefore, If the remainder is <3, they're insane. If it is 3-6, they're comatose. If it is <6, they're croaked. Therefore, any level thinkamancer can unravel a caster link with no casualty if given enough time.

EXAMPLE TIME!

Think/Ditto/Foolamancer link is broken up by lev 5 thinkamancer over 4 turns.

so the roll is 1(d20) - 4 for the Dittomancer. roll is 2, meaning the dittomancer survives.
Second roll is a 14 vs. a level of 5. That leaves a 9, meaning that our foolamancer is croaked one and a half times. Harsh.

However, such is the risk/reward of a caster link. It is very powerful, but you're risking the well being of your casters and turns that they could be spending building up juice and casting spells.

[ggamer]

All the unit stats except move!

Falseedit: Apparently because of stream of consciousness this is also combat? sorry about that.

So, every unit has a set of stats. These include Move (we went over that), Hits, Combat, defense, Level, And an invisible stat, loyalty. These stats will govern almost every action taken by units. Now, we go in depth.

Hits is the amount of damage a unit can take before croaking. This stat is augmented by defense, and directly related to combat. Defense is how much severity is taken off of combat. Combat is the amount of damage a unit can do to other units. Loyalty is unable to be seen, but controls how easily a unit can be turned by a turnamancer or otherwise.

In-game, I plan on interpreting these stats in a simple manner, as well as having an addition-subtraction combat system for those stats. This means that the two units, or stacks if the need arises, roll for initiative and then initiate MATH WAR.

No matter what kind of attack they initiate, they need to roll to hit vs. move, rolled on a d100. This is a preliminary thing, And I don't feel like it will work very well in the long run, but it works for now.

Every attack has a 10% chance of a crit.


!Examplos!

So, there is a lowly level 1 stabber-class infantry. He is armed with an axe, so higher attack and hits with lower defense.

Darvi, Level 1 Axe-stabber

Move- 6
Hits- 3
Attack- 3
Defense- 1

But alas! another level 1 stabber-class infantry approaches! This one with a sword and shield, meaning he has higher defense and attack, but lower hits and enemies have a 30% chance to crit because of the clumsiness of a sword and shield.

Maxwhite, level 1 Sword-stabber

Move- 6
Hits- 1
Attack- 3
Defense- 3

Code: [Select]

Darvi rolls a 1, MW a 13 on initiative.

MW Attacks!

Roll 16 vs. 6, hit for 2 damage! Darvi now has 1 hit.

Darvi attacks!

Roll 36 vs. 6, hit! It does no damage.

MW attacks!

Roll 96 vs. 6, hit! it does 2 damage.

Darvi has been croaked!
The combat system looks and feels very clumsy, I know, If anyone could help streamline it I would love the help.

[Darvi]

Damn you, Max! Is that  the thanks for helping you take over the world?

Also that was stupid, everybody knows that swords beat axes.