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Author Topic: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)  (Read 415982 times)

IronyOwl

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2595 on: March 01, 2016, 02:19:10 am »

By all means. It gives me an idea of what kind of characters people might make and helps me worldbuild.
Then I might as well mention that I'm leaning towards a giant mechanical squid that's piloted by a rather small octopus Pacific Rim style. Needless to say, he left to explore the galaxy at large upon learning that his people's desperate battles against alien invaders in the cold depths of space were entirely caused by and recorded for a really popular TV series among the Orbitals.

@Irony: Interesting. I like the 'successes/failures as components' thing, a great deal more rolling or not. Is the confirming an optional thing? I like the thought you could choose to risk your basic vanilla success in hopes of getting a great success... with the chance of turning it into a flawed success instead. Or try to get something out of your failure, only to just make it worse. Depending on the kind of game you run, though, it might need to be automatic to avoid slowing down turns.
Yeah, I don't think letting players look at their results and then decide whether to reroll them would work too well; too long/complex a turn/action cycle. Allowing "action types" so you can declare something like that ahead of time is intriguing. I guess it'd look something like:

Modest: Action succeeds or fails.
Reckless: If action succeeds or fails, reroll to improve or salvage.
Greedy: If action succeeds, reroll to improve.
Persistent: If action fails, reroll to salvage.

Or just Modest, Greedy, Persistent, with Persistent Greedy actions being a thing.

Of course, the next problem is that your odds might influence what action types you want to take a lot more than your inclination. Like, if you've got 3:2 odds on a task, on average Greedy and Persistent both help more than they hurt, assuming each success or failure is equal and opposite in effect. Conversely, if you're only 1:2 for success, trying to get Greedy or Persistent is mathematically a poor idea; again, unless failing and then salvaging something is worth twice as much as failing and then failing again.

So... if that's the case, then there's not a lot in the way of actual choice going on, which is unfortunate.
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heydude6

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2596 on: March 01, 2016, 06:48:02 pm »

Or something. Probably getting ahead of myself. Sorry about that.

By all means. It gives me an idea of what kind of characters people might make and helps me worldbuild.

Well, the character I want to make is this scientist who installs brain implants into victims and can then hijack their body at will, at the cost of leaving his original body vulnerable. This was actually an idea that I had been developing for quite a while, I just finally thought of a use for it. If you want a "scientific" explanation for how it works read the spoiler.

Spoiler: !SCIENCE! (click to show/hide)
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Digital Hellhound

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2597 on: March 02, 2016, 12:54:58 am »

Sounds entirely doable (both of those characters, in fact - Irony's seems like a Jockey with the giant squid as his spaceship!). Your explanation for how it works sounds plausible, though I imagine there might be some problems with adjusting to an alternative body - your brain is used to trying to control an entirely different body. This is not a problem futuretech can't fix, of course. I'll note there are plenty of folks who already change bodies like we'd change clothes, but usually not with methods so delightfully immoral and invasive as yours. You should totally use it on people too.
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Rolepgeek

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2598 on: March 02, 2016, 01:37:44 am »

By all means. It gives me an idea of what kind of characters people might make and helps me worldbuild.
Then I might as well mention that I'm leaning towards a giant mechanical squid that's piloted by a rather small octopus Pacific Rim style. Needless to say, he left to explore the galaxy at large upon learning that his people's desperate battles against alien invaders in the cold depths of space were entirely caused by and recorded for a really popular TV series among the Orbitals.

@Irony: Interesting. I like the 'successes/failures as components' thing, a great deal more rolling or not. Is the confirming an optional thing? I like the thought you could choose to risk your basic vanilla success in hopes of getting a great success... with the chance of turning it into a flawed success instead. Or try to get something out of your failure, only to just make it worse. Depending on the kind of game you run, though, it might need to be automatic to avoid slowing down turns.
Yeah, I don't think letting players look at their results and then decide whether to reroll them would work too well; too long/complex a turn/action cycle. Allowing "action types" so you can declare something like that ahead of time is intriguing. I guess it'd look something like:

Modest: Action succeeds or fails.
Reckless: If action succeeds or fails, reroll to improve or salvage.
Greedy: If action succeeds, reroll to improve.
Persistent: If action fails, reroll to salvage.

Or just Modest, Greedy, Persistent, with Persistent Greedy actions being a thing.

Of course, the next problem is that your odds might influence what action types you want to take a lot more than your inclination. Like, if you've got 3:2 odds on a task, on average Greedy and Persistent both help more than they hurt, assuming each success or failure is equal and opposite in effect. Conversely, if you're only 1:2 for success, trying to get Greedy or Persistent is mathematically a poor idea; again, unless failing and then salvaging something is worth twice as much as failing and then failing again.

So... if that's the case, then there's not a lot in the way of actual choice going on, which is unfortunate.

You could never tell them the odds. Or have subjective results.

Sounds entirely doable (both of those characters, in fact - Irony's seems like a Jockey with the giant squid as his spaceship!). Your explanation for how it works sounds plausible, though I imagine there might be some problems with adjusting to an alternative body - your brain is used to trying to control an entirely different body. This is not a problem futuretech can't fix, of course. I'll note there are plenty of folks who already change bodies like we'd change clothes, but usually not with methods so delightfully immoral and invasive as yours. You should totally use it on people too.
I'm not entirely sure what I want to be. :/ Probably a former sky-pirate, but that still leaves so many options.

I like it.
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flabort

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2599 on: March 02, 2016, 02:00:39 am »

Or something. Probably getting ahead of myself. Sorry about that.

By all means. It gives me an idea of what kind of characters people might make and helps me worldbuild.
Hmm. I kinda want to make a character originating from the hell-hole that is the colony in the center of Jupiter. I imagine that keeping the generators and gravity corridors running to keep the whole colony from being crushed creates a lot of heat. Yeah, and let's make it a prison-colony, which gets new shipments of convicts from the outer-jupiter colon(y/ies) every so often; just often enough that they don't forget that they're prisoners.

Yes, this is good. That would make my character an escaped convict (or maybe his time was served). And for the fun of it, let's make him an uplifted bonsai crab-apple tree, grown wild from not being able to prune himself working in Jupiter's Core Prison (JCP? Awesome) just to survive.
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IronyOwl

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2600 on: March 02, 2016, 05:56:00 am »

You could never tell them the odds. Or have subjective results.
I dislike withholding information from players because it makes it hard for them to make intelligent decisions. Not that they're all that smart with the data, but I imagine it'd be hard to keep them from gaining a rough idea of how likely an action was.

I had thought about scaling the wagers, but I'm not entirely sure how.


Anyway, time for some playtesting.
Spoiler: Test 1: Boring Binary (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Test 2: Deja Vu (click to show/hide)
Well that was illuminating. "Number of successes" based system looks to be go, then.
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Quote from: Radio Controlled (Discord)
A hand, a hand, my kingdom for a hot hand!
The kitchenette mold free, you move on to the pantry. it's nasty in there. The bacon is grazing on the lettuce. The ham is having an illicit affair with the prime rib, The potatoes see all, know all. A rat in boxer shorts smoking a foul smelling cigar is banging on a cabinet shouting about rent money.

IronyOwl

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2601 on: March 02, 2016, 07:22:25 pm »

Okay, I think I've got it.

When performing an action, there are four relevant modifiers. There's your talent or strength at the task, your opponent's difficulty or skill, the complexity of you and your opponent's goals, and any additional wagers you or your opponent make.

You and your opponent's power is determined by your stats and any additional modifiers; difficulty is determined by the general conditions of your goal or operation. For instance, performing athletics on a rain-slicked surface would have a higher power than if the surface were dry.

The complexity of a goal is the number of successes required to accomplish it. 1S are simple, 2S are moderate, and 3S are difficult goals. Simple goals are usually of the "quickly do this one thing" variety, such as assembling a simple item or tapping an enemy in combat. Moderate goals are usually reasonable actions, such as crafting a useful item or attacking an enemy in combat. Difficult actions are usually complex actions with a noteworthy goal, such as crafting a powerful item or hitting an enemy exactly where you mean to.

Wagers are additional success/failure sinks built into the action, and represent additional features of the action you intend to add. Positive wagers have a success cost, usually in line with normal action costs, and therefore increase the odds the action will accumulate additional failures in pursuing this secondary goal. Negative wagers have a failure sink, usually in line with normal action costs, and therefore absorb failures in a predictable manner, but trigger even if they do not receive their full allotment of failures.


As an example, let's run Googles the Octopus through two different actions. The first will be easy and sensible. The second will be designed by PCs.

For his first action, Googles attempts to pilot a ship to the surface of a lake below, scoop up some water, and fly off. The lake is calm, there are no severe winds, and so on, so the action is a base difficulty of 2; that is, it will be as though Googles is opposing a Strength 2 opponent. The action, "scoop up some water on the move" is also pretty trivial, so that'll be a simple action; that is, it will require 1 Success to complete. Finally, there are no wagers attached, so this will be a simple 4v2 roll until Googles succeeds once. Any failures accumulated prior to that point will go towards unfortunate complications, like the bucket coming loose or the ship hitting the surface of the water.

For his second action, Googles attempts to get a good sonar reading on the seafloor beneath an ocean currently in mid-tempest. Since the ocean is very clearly angry, this action has a base difficulty of 6; that is, it will be as though Googles is opposing a Strength 6 opponent. The action, "hold still long enough to get good sensor readings at the base of the tidal waves rolling over you while resisting hurricane-force winds" is utterly unreasonable, and will thus be difficult; that is, it will require 3, maybe even 4 successes.

Not knowing when to quit while he's ahead, Googles also has some additional wagers to add: First, he'd like to get chemical readouts while he's here. That's fairly reasonable, so maybe it just adds an extra success to the required total. Second, he'd like to avoid getting wet. Why an octopus is worried about his ship getting wet above an ocean in a storm is anyone's guess, but alright, he can try to avoid getting wet for another 4-5 successes. Perhaps dimly aware that he's reaching a bit, Googles throws in a negative wager as well: he's okay with straining the engines, perhaps requiring additional maintenance or repair later. That should throw in a good 2-Failure sink.

So we have a 4v6 roll, with Googles needing around 8 Successes at a minimum. Statistically that's going to give him 12 failures to go along with it, but he's got a 2-point sink, so that should only work out to 10 Failures total. That's still probably more than enough to make Part 2 of this mission take place at the bottom of the sea, so hopefully Googles' aversion to water only applies to his now-drowned craft.

Note that theoretically he could have ameliorated that by throwing in a bunch more negative wagers, but that would have channeled the failure more than prevented it; he's not going to get out of a 10-point deficit with "I'm fine with a bumpy ride" or "the coffee can suck for a bit." He might have been able to bash the everloving shit out of his ship to keep it airborne, though, which could have been worth it.
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Quote from: Radio Controlled (Discord)
A hand, a hand, my kingdom for a hot hand!
The kitchenette mold free, you move on to the pantry. it's nasty in there. The bacon is grazing on the lettuce. The ham is having an illicit affair with the prime rib, The potatoes see all, know all. A rat in boxer shorts smoking a foul smelling cigar is banging on a cabinet shouting about rent money.

Rolepgeek

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2602 on: March 02, 2016, 08:04:30 pm »

So you basically always end up succeeding, albeit with some (major, at times) complications?
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IronyOwl

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2603 on: March 02, 2016, 08:36:12 pm »

Well, yeah. Which is admittedly not ideal, but as mentioned I'd like to avoid flat failures anyway. I also don't know how opposed contests are supposed to end, though I have an idea for both issues.

What I could probably do is say that whoever accomplishes their goal first ends the contest at that point, and give static challenges goals. So for instance, crafting an item would have the goal of "it explodes" or "you ruin the materials." Scrambling up a building would have the goal of "you fall" or "it unbalances you enough to foil this turn's attempt."

The problem here is that it makes it harder to accomplish anything in a difficult situation, even at great cost. Which makes some sense, but might get frustrating. In fact, I suppose I could build challenge goals out of wagers from the start, so a player resolves to craft an item "until I hit a snag" or "until I ruin the materials" or "until the entire ship is stripped down for parts which then also explode," each giving different failure sinks until the action ends. But then they might need to fire all the time even if they don't accumulate their full values, to prevent "I bake a pie until the reactor goes critical" from being an alarming but statistically sound way to autosucceed anyway.

It also, as I've mentioned, makes combat a bit wonky, since lesser combatants don't have much chance to do anything but the bare essentials, not just because they're in a losing ratio but because the action ends before they have time for anything more dramatic.

This admittedly might require some more thought.
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Quote from: Radio Controlled (Discord)
A hand, a hand, my kingdom for a hot hand!
The kitchenette mold free, you move on to the pantry. it's nasty in there. The bacon is grazing on the lettuce. The ham is having an illicit affair with the prime rib, The potatoes see all, know all. A rat in boxer shorts smoking a foul smelling cigar is banging on a cabinet shouting about rent money.

Rolepgeek

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2604 on: March 02, 2016, 08:41:16 pm »

Just have fail-forwards. If something fails, have it fail in a spectacular way. Occasionally there will be boring failures. If everything is exciting all the time, it becomes mundane. *shrug*
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FallacyofUrist

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2605 on: March 02, 2016, 10:09:05 pm »

I'm designing a thing.
Spoiler: Basic Combat Mechanics (click to show/hide)
Any obvious flaws? Or un-obvious ones that you detect?
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My Name is Immaterial

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2606 on: March 03, 2016, 12:42:57 am »

By all means. It gives me an idea of what kind of characters people might make and helps me worldbuild.
I wasn't sure what I wanted to play, so I originally rolled randomly. I ended up with a Orbital Operative/Jockey, but I couldn't really make that work, so I scrapped that. I'm now rolling with an Orbital 'archaeologist' (Operative/Thinker) whose entire philosophy is "That belongs in a museum!" In class it wasn't obvious, they're a Space-Indiana Jones. They buy/graverob/just plain steal curios from Earthborn, Remnant, Outsolar, and Machines and sell it to collectors back in the orbitals, often spinning wild yarns about it having mystical/political/etc. significance.

IronyOwl

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2607 on: March 03, 2016, 12:48:11 am »

Any obvious flaws? Or un-obvious ones that you detect?
Seems a bit on the clunky side, especially with regards to initiative. Is there a reason for init rolls at all, other than the option for one party to kill the other before retaliation can occur? Is there a reason it's on a d100 rather than a d10?

Average damage in this game will be low, unless modifiers are kind of high. That's not a problem by itself, but it might lead to somewhat frustrating combat if you only hit 40% of the time and only deal damage 40% of the time you hit, at which point said damage isn't an especially large portion of the enemy's HP. And of course, if HP is kind of low to compensate, then there's the (unlikely) chance of a 6v3, 8+1v2 instagib that's maybe a little unfun on the receiving end.

You can of course weight things towards offense so that hitting and dealing damage are more likely, but that in turn reduces the value of trying to obtain defenses, which nudges it towards focusing on ranged one-shots.

So it's not necessarily a flaw, but combat will likely be somewhat erratic, with kind of a lot of misses or 0-damage hits interspersed with statistically low-ish hits with pretty high maximums.
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Quote from: Radio Controlled (Discord)
A hand, a hand, my kingdom for a hot hand!
The kitchenette mold free, you move on to the pantry. it's nasty in there. The bacon is grazing on the lettuce. The ham is having an illicit affair with the prime rib, The potatoes see all, know all. A rat in boxer shorts smoking a foul smelling cigar is banging on a cabinet shouting about rent money.

FallacyofUrist

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2608 on: March 03, 2016, 09:52:50 am »

The reason for initiative rolls is to determine who goes first(in the event it's not a surprise attack or such). And as for why it's a d100: it makes it much less likely to tie.

I'm still trying to design the rest of the system.
When I'm finished, it's going to be a 5-player forum game, with 4 Heroes and 1 Dark One, competing against each other in a dungeon.

Spoiler: Levels System (click to show/hide)
(I haven't determined what XP amounts would be ideal yet...)

Spoiler: Fighter Skill Trees (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Mage Skill Trees (click to show/hide)
(I haven't finished the ones for the Cleric and the Rogue yet.)

Any flaws?
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ATHATH

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2609 on: March 03, 2016, 11:59:23 am »

What do you mean by "takes one turn to prepare"?

What happens if a Mage casts a Contingent Firestorm with the trigger being "when combat starts" or "when I say 'Bang'", and the target being "my opponents" or "wherever my right index finger is pointing at"? Suddenly, the main drawback to using higher level spells is negated.
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I didn't even read it first, I just saw it was ATHATH and noped it. Now that I read it x3 to noping
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