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[piecewise]

I think it depends how often bad stuff happens in towns. If it is daily occurance, then video gamey approach is best. If it is very rare, then realistic. Having to go back and recapture town is probably fine if it doesn't happen more than twice over course of the game. Any more and it becomes more of annoyance than fun.

Well, that would depend on the players actions honestly.

Lemme copy paste from my sekrit documents.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Advancement is mostly via advancing the town itself and equipment that produces, rather than loot found out in the world. Individual characters can quickly level up but generally have low survival rates. Advancement of starting characters and gear is the true, permanent progression. 

2. As the town advances and missions are completed, population increases. Population is the pool from which characters are drawn, and a  losing too many people results in the settlement losing level, as it were. Any number of people may be taken on the mission, however attacks on the settlement may happen at the same time, particularly if it isn’t well defended. The people taken on the mission act as extra lives; only a certain number may be active at once, and once one of them dies or is rendered useless, then one of these extra people will come in to replace them.

3. Advancement unlocks buildings. Buildings unlock new abilities and items, but there is only a certain amount of usable land. In order to expand, time has to be taken to clear land to build on. Population also takes up space.

4. Buildings and populations have resource requirements. This is not a totally simulated thing; instead they have need timers. Every building and group of population has a need timer, which counts down and is replenished by getting or doing something. These needs can never be truly gotten rid of, just placated for a time. The need of a timer may also change.  If the timer runs out, then the population will leave or the building will cease to function. The timers countdown semi-randomly: every turn a d6 is rolled. If it lands on 1, then a timer reduces by 1. Which timer is chosen randomly. If 6 turns go by without a reduction, then a timer goes down automatically.

5. In addition to resource timers, there are threat timers which tick upwards. They, likewise, coincide to population groups and buildings. However, they do not automatically tick up; instead they tick up when the building or pop’s resource timer is reset or when the town advances, or really when anything positive happens. These timers represent the looming threats to the town, which gather due to the town’s increasing presence in the world. They can be reset via missions directed at crushing the threat before they come to full strength. However, the timers can never truly be gotten rid of, just reset to zero.

6. As the game continues, the only way to satisfy the needs of newer buildings or increasing demands from large numbers of population or buildings is to delve deeper. Deeper means more dangerous.

Only problem is that this doesn't really fit with the dark souls style map. It would work a lot better with episodic stuff.

Realistic. Gotta defend that shit.

You'd be defending it either way but....well, one way you could lose good characters, the other way I could just say "Game over. start again from the very beginning"

And I mean the VERY beginning.

[Egan_BW]

If we lose entirely, we should have a BAD END and move on to the next game, not start all over.

[Devastator]

This is 2017, Bad Ends are with subject to approval only.

[NJW2000]

What I noticed with ER over say Intoxicated, is that Realism often led to more munchkinism, because life isn't fair.

Would be happy with simpler, less realist approach. Focus on missions.

[piecewise]

This is 2017, Bad Ends are with subject to approval only.

No, the problem here is that I don't want to create 25 big ass dungeon maps only for you guys to bone it on the second one and then have the game just end abruptly with a great deal of wasted effort and time on my part.

[Devastator]

25 maps is a lot, whoa.

((I'm just griping due to unrelated stuff, such as something I was following turn into soap opera plots in order to not have any villains, because villains in fiction are an outdated idea.  The other reason is so that fans can present their OCs in a situation where they don't actually have to do anything, and as such, are free to be completely incompetent.))

A 'bad end' might just lead to 'start new game', after all.  So not that big of a deal.

[syvarris]

While NJW certainly does have a point ("But Piecewise, of course my full auto anti-materiel rifle has 180 exploding rounds per 1-token mag!  It's the only way it makes any sense!"), I don't think it really applies here.  There doesn't seem to be any real advantage we gain by going a realistic route, it's just a more interesting and challenging game.

As for restarting and running a new game, while I kinda want that due to lingering hopes for Mad Max With Wizards, rationally I know that won't happen.  If we lose particularly early, we should just restart.

[Ozarck]

this thread has been up for thirteen months.

Einsteinian Roulette began on april 1, 2012 :http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=106279.msg3151913#msg3151913
and the epilogue was posted on August 26, 2016: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=106279.msg3151913#msg3151913
Though the game had essentially ended mid-July and had been wrapping up for some time before.

So, a run of four years, three and a half months.

Oro has been in development for a quarter of that length.

[syvarris]

...Yeah?  So?  Are you saying PW should just stop with the developing and run the thing, to prevent it from being eternally worked on, but never run?  Can't say I disagree with that assessment, though I could see it needing a whole lot of on-the-fly tweaking at the beginning.

Or are you just complaining about how long it's taking?  If so, well, I think that's the point of PW's various other games that he's running.  WIZARDS, DIG, REVOLVER, Infinite Heavens, which is oddly not in all caps.  They're actual games being run while he works on his next big thing, because he wants to do something aside from work on the big thing.

[Egan_BW]

It is interesting to contrast with ER, which was created within the space of a week. I like to think I'm following in those footsteps with Perplexiplex, which I came up with during a shower, then wrote down real quick and posted.
(Yes the bits and pieces were already floating around my head, but that's how long it took to glue the right bits together.)

[Ozarck]

...Yeah?  So?  Are you saying PW should just stop with the developing and run the thing, to prevent it from being eternally worked on, but never run?  Can't say I disagree with that assessment, though I could see it needing a whole lot of on-the-fly tweaking at the beginning.

Or are you just complaining about how long it's taking?  If so, well, I think that's the point of PW's various other games that he's running.  WIZARDS, DIG, REVOLVER, Infinite Heavens, which is oddly not in all caps.  They're actual games being run while he works on his next big thing, because he wants to do something aside from work on the big thing.

I'm saying that ER ran for over four years (here is a link to it's beginning and here is a link to it's end), and that Oro has been in development longer than most games on this forum have run (including all of mine except OL).

On a side note, I think Infinite Heavens was not intended to be a 'gap' game, but it's own thing.

It is interesting to contrast with ER, which was created within the space of a week. I like to think I'm following in those footsteps with Perplexiplex, which I came up with during a shower, then wrote down real quick and posted.
(Yes the bits and pieces were already floating around my head, but that's how long it took to glue the right bits together.)

Few of my games have had more than a passing amount of preparation. Grunts, for example, was an experimental game that grew up pretty nicely. I just haven't been motivated to organize it like I wanted. I have a spreadsheet set up to track classes, abilities, and everything, but haven't done anything with it.

[piecewise]

None of these other games were "Gap" games so much as just other shit I wanted to try. I'm bad at restraining my desire to create games.

Oro hasn't been in continous development honestly, because I'm never sure exactly what will stick with people and oro went though a few different iterations.


I will say that it's quite hard to mae a "Next big thing"  because things like perplexicon and ER were just hastily thrown together but worked, more or less. A system to handle tons of people is especially hard. Though I wonder if thats actually a problem since dig was open to everyone and has about 9 people.

Hmmm.

I am so tempted to just create something in a week end and see what happens. 

[Egan_BW]

Do it.

[AoshimaMichio]

My first game was thrown together under week, and it was good. Basics for supersoldier game I threw together when I was in shower and it turned out to be very good. So there's a trend.

But then again some other games I didn't put much effort on planning weren't very good, so maybe there ain't any trend after all.

[Harry Baldman]

Definitely do it. I feel like you tend to entrap yourself into overdesigning a lot of the things you've been doing. Forum games thrive on whatever nonsense you're into at the moment.

Of course, one can hardly blame you with the mixed signals you get from ER (excellently told, more so in the start, short on mechanics) and Perplexicon (excellent central mechanic, short on story).