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[RoseHeart]

If this really bugs you so much, make a new thread with a new title for the same premise. 227 pages of a now-dead thread might be intimidating the few who might use it into not doing so (plus as you said, it references something most of us here don't have on our radar, so that doesn't help the matter), and if that gets good activity, then maybe we should revisit the idea.

So be it.

This thread is for:
- Discussing proposed game setups and mechanics
- Sharing game ideas you don't plan to make yourself to inspire others

Also forum game suggestions are allowed. Basically just post a game you'd like to play:
-rehost request
-new game suggestion
-idea you don't want to host yourself

Some tips for setup design:
- Consider copying one of the basic games to get some practice if you are a beginner. Otherwise, consider making a small game that wont last long and see how you handle it, before trying something more ambitious or unique. (RTD are very easy to get started with)
- Keep your instructions simple, especially if it is a new type of game. Make it easy for your new players to understand what they need to do, and get to playing.
- Players who sign up may drop out, consider making your game flexible in the event that 1/4th to 1/3rd don't show up, so that when a player doesn't post in too long you can drop them and move on.
- If you burnout easily, schedule days off from constant updates, your players will understand if you give them notice and set their expectations. If you tend to abandon games be honest about it. A rule that says that the GM gives players consent to vote to replace an absent GM after a week is pretty good to save the game in an orderly fashion.

Spoiler: Setup Definitions (click to show/hide)

Successive Post (SP)
In a successive post game the first post has basic instructions about what to post in response to the person who posted above you. A closely related gametype is the database game - in this posts are unrelated but further build a collection.

There is no end goal for successive post games usually.

Suggestion Game (SG)
In a suggestion game the host tells the story of the protagonist, and takes suggestions from the players, typically voting is done by quoting another player's suggestion and adding '+1' below it. A closely related gametype is the CYOA game - in this players 'Choose Their Own Adventure' by voting among a limited number of choices, typically listed as A, B, C, etc.

The goal of a suggestion game is to reach a desirable conclusion to the protagonist's story.

Roleplaying/Roleplaying Game (RP) (RPG)
In a RP or RPG the host describes the setting and constraints on character creation. An RP is light on game mechanics, where an RPG may have a robust combat system or other specific and limited actions available to players. In an RP 'Godmodding' is typically forbidden, which means having something happen to someone else's character. Instead, the players are to indicate what they are trying to do, and it is up to the other to respond as they wish.

The goal of RP or RPG is to reach a desirable conclusion to the party's story.

Team
In a team game there is three threads, one for each team and the main one that contains the basic instructions. This uses the honor system and players may not look in the enemy's thread. A closely related gametype is Social Deduction - In social deduction games there is an 'informed few', pitted against the 'uninformed majority'. There is one main thread for all players, and the minority receive their own quicktopic(secret thread) to talk in.

The goal of a team game is to defeat the other team.

Duel/Free-For-All (FFA)
   
In a deal or FFA game each player acts alone. The goal may very, and there is typically only one winner.

Cooperative (Co-op)

In a cooperative game each player must work together. The goal may very, but everyone shares in a group victory.


Also check out the hubs in the Forum Game List for specific popular games. Thanks Leafsnail's for making the mafia setup thread this is based on, and thank you to Enemy Post and KittyTac for some tips I found useful here, that first appeared in an old tip thread.

Old thread: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread)

[a1s]

So here's a hypothetical game I refuse to run because I will get burnt out before it gets interesting:

Space Senate

The basics: players are powerful lords in a space empire of sorts. They get presented with problems and have to vote on solutions (and anything else they want to vote on). How many votes they have depends on how many planets they personally hold.

Planets fall into several categories:

• Farming planets: produce enough food to feed themselves and 2 additional planets. If a planet is not supplied with food for the turn, it (reverts to subsistence farming and) does nothing that turn. Food can be bought an sold as normal, but cannot be stockpiled.
• Mining planets: produces 3 units of ore.
• Manufacturing planets: turn 3 ore into 3 machines
• Recruitment planets: produce 2 armies (see conquest) Armies can not be stockpiled or traded.
• Shipyard planets: may spend 3 ore to produce 1 fleet/turn. (Note: You must also spend 1 machine per fleet as upkeep, or that fleet will have a bad time.)

Various Imperial projects may require food, ore, machines, armies, fleets or money and it's up to the players to figure out how to supply them. Planets may also be communally held (by the senate or a faction of players.)

Colonization: This is a 2 step process. The controller of a fleet may send it away on a mission of exploration (thus preventing it from combat use.) One fleet will find one potential colony per turn (that only the fleet controllers know of.) Each colony is of a particular kind (see planets) and costs 10 machines to settle. Fleets which are not supplied can not explore.

Conquest: Armies are assigned to a planet each turn by PM. It takes an army to take over a planet. if there are several armies present, they may fight until no disagreement about who the planet belongs to exists.
Fleets are also assigned to a planet (or exploration) each turn by PM. A fleet stationed above a planet may prevent any armies (except the planet controller's which are already there) from landing there. Of course if there are several fleets stationed above a planet they may also fight until no disagreement about which armies can land exists.
(So to recap: fleets beat armies, but only armies can take planets)

Combat: Works like in Risk. When fleets or armies fight, they roll a six sided die for each army/fleet.  The highest die on each side is compared and whichever side has the lower number loses 1 fleet/army (in case of ties no one loses) then the next highest die and so on. Fleets which are not supplied roll with a -2 disadvantage. If after a round of combat units remain on both sides, another round is automatically run, until only one side remains.

Starting conditions: Each player starts with 5 planets of their choice and 1000 Million Imperial Florins. Imperial Florins may be used for trade between players as well as spent/gained in some Imperial decisions. But are not directly produced or consumed by players.

[RoseHeart]

So here's a hypothetical game I refuse to run because I will get burnt out before it gets interesting:

Nice work. I'll leave feedback to people that know large army games, but it looks cool.

Edit: Though I will say if currency every becomes difficult to manage, one idea is to copy those clicker-mobile games and have their be graduating types of currency. Like 1000A = 1B, and so on. Perhaps unit types could also do this, like so many ships = 1 fleet. With limits to the number of separate groups per player.

[ConscriptFive]

So here's a hypothetical game I refuse to run because I will get burnt out before it gets interesting:

Space Senate

...

So is it a political worldbuilder or a sci-fi 4X?

The title and premise suggests a PvE political worldbuilder, but literally everything after that is 4X mechanics, with zero discussion of the political bits.  Either you need to flesh that out or just go straight PvP 4X.

[a1s]

I guess I could go pure PvP 4X. That would also have the benefit of a having a more defined ending (last player standing.)

[Sketchykeeps]

So has anyone done a civilian arms race game? Like I saw Armories of Valwhatever but it seemed to fade by the time I finally got on the forum and it was still weapons based.

The idea would be the two teams take over a motor company circa 1912 and develop automobiles (probably the bread and butter), aircraft, heavy machinery, and maybe boats for the civilian market.

[a1s]

I want to run the following game, can anyone see any obvious flaws in its design?

Global Thermo-nuclear war.

Each player starts with 10 cities. Each must have a unique name.
Cities produce weapons, defense systems, and research adding up to 1 Billion Dollars ($1B) per turn each.
You may stockpile weapons and defenses, but all income must be spent every turn.
Players may post their turn in-thread, or send it by PM to Game Master (me.) in case of conflict, PM will be considered primary.
Players are allowed to have any sort of dirty dealings by PM (or e-mail, discord etc.)
Players are allowed to share technologies and send each other weapons and production (but they will, naturally, only recieve those next turn.)
If a player loses all their cities they are eliminated from the game.
The goal is to remain the only player standing.
The following technologies are available to research:
- The Bomb - free: allows construction of regular warheads.
- Bomber - $5B: allows construction of Bombers
- ICBM - $10B: allows construction of missiles
- SSL - $20B: allows construction of nuclear submarines
- Air Cover - free: allows deployment of Air Cover
- ABM - $20B: allows deployment of missile defense
- Anti-submarine opearations - $10B allows deployment of destroyers.
- Fighter Escorts - $10B - Makes Bombers cost an extra $1B, but reduces enemy Air Cover effectiveness to 50%
- MIRV - $20B - Makes missiles cost an extra $1B, but reduces enemy missile defense effectiveness to 50%
- SDI - $100B - design and build a network of sattelites allowing the use of SDI.
- Thermo-nuclear device - $10B: bombs no longer miss 10% of the time.

Weapons are:
Warhead $1B : may be dropped on enemy cities, destroying them 90% of the time.
Bombers $5B : Drop bombs on enemy cities. Are lost if they encounter air cover.
Missiles $2B : Drop bombs on enemy cities. Always lost.
Nuclear submarines $10: Drop bombs on enemy cities. Are lost if they encounter Destroyers.

Defenses are:
Air Cover 5B: protects one specific city from 1 flight of bombers per turn. may be redeployed to another city.
Missile Defenses $5B: protects one specific city from all missiles. can not be redeployed.
Destroyers: $5B destroy submarines, after they bomb one specific city. May be redeployed to another city.
SDI $1B/turn: protects all cities from everything, 50% of the time for one turn. (each warhead checked separately)

[Nirur Torir]

I have the basics of an idea for a magic system. I might run a dungeon delve RTD with it.

Wizards have three resource pools they cast from. They can design any spell they want at the time of casting, using as many or as few points as desired. Every point used as a 50% chance to be depleted until the end of the floor, or a 50% chance to be refunded and remain usable.

The mana resource pools are Power, Control/Targeting, and Effect/Duration.

Power adds another damage roll to the spell, or makes other effects stronger. It also makes the spell harder to aim. I'm considering adding half a damage die to every spell, allowing players to spam Power 0 attack cantrips.

Control/Targeting affects spells relative to Power. If they're equal, a direct attack spell always hits, explosions can be somewhat controlled unless the party is scattered in with a group of enemies, summons will be stable and safe, and buffs/heals won't have unintended side-effects. Higher Control/Targeting might allow trick shots that bounce between targets to duplicate the damage, strangely-shaped explosions that won't hit friendlies, smarter minions, or buffs that have charges instead of a duration.

Effect/Duration can be used to add interesting effects to spells, or make them last longer. Napalm that damages a target or area over time, enchanting a sword, a temporary bridge, or being able to share senses with a minion.

I think I'd want summons and buffs to be allowed with Effect/Duration 0, but they'll only last for 1 turn. This might allow amusing combos like everyone channeling 0/0/0 spells to an ally who's going to cast chain lightning, duplicating the damage.
I don't know how long I'd like various duration to last for. Maybe 1 battle/2 battles/4 battles/until dispelled or end of floor, at 4 Effect/Duration points spent?
I don't like the names for the last two, any suggestions to improve them?

If I run this, I think I'd start wizards with 6 points and combat/caster hybrids with 3, all spread however the player chooses. Players would pick a class, use that to flavor their effects, and likely get penalized if they try weird things like casting a giant heal spell from pyromancy.
At the end of a floor, wizards get +1, with the option to immediately respec 2 points for free. Hybrids get +1 every second floor, with 1 free respec every floor.

I expect the system to give interesting choices like casting light/medium spells every battle, saving everything for the boss at the risk of not getting to re-use refunded mana, or starting the floor with long duration buffs and summons.

[Strongpoint]

I would love playing something like Wiki Wars but... with random MTG cards for determining characters' abilities instead of random Wikipedia articles. Scryfall even has a convenient way to do it, just going there - https://scryfall.com/random will do the trick

[Naturegirl1999]

I have the basics of an idea for a magic system. I might run a dungeon delve RTD with it.

Wizards have three resource pools they cast from. They can design any spell they want at the time of casting, using as many or as few points as desired. Every point used as a 50% chance to be depleted until the end of the floor, or a 50% chance to be refunded and remain usable.

The mana resource pools are Power, Control/Targeting, and Effect/Duration.

Power adds another damage roll to the spell, or makes other effects stronger. It also makes the spell harder to aim. I'm considering adding half a damage die to every spell, allowing players to spam Power 0 attack cantrips.

Control/Targeting affects spells relative to Power. If they're equal, a direct attack spell always hits, explosions can be somewhat controlled unless the party is scattered in with a group of enemies, summons will be stable and safe, and buffs/heals won't have unintended side-effects. Higher Control/Targeting might allow trick shots that bounce between targets to duplicate the damage, strangely-shaped explosions that won't hit friendlies, smarter minions, or buffs that have charges instead of a duration.

Effect/Duration can be used to add interesting effects to spells, or make them last longer. Napalm that damages a target or area over time, enchanting a sword, a temporary bridge, or being able to share senses with a minion.

I think I'd want summons and buffs to be allowed with Effect/Duration 0, but they'll only last for 1 turn. This might allow amusing combos like everyone channeling 0/0/0 spells to an ally who's going to cast chain lightning, duplicating the damage.
I don't know how long I'd like various duration to last for. Maybe 1 battle/2 battles/4 battles/until dispelled or end of floor, at 4 Effect/Duration points spent?
I don't like the names for the last two, any suggestions to improve them?

If I run this, I think I'd start wizards with 6 points and combat/caster hybrids with 3, all spread however the player chooses. Players would pick a class, use that to flavor their effects, and likely get penalized if they try weird things like casting a giant heal spell from pyromancy.
At the end of a floor, wizards get +1, with the option to immediately respec 2 points for free. Hybrids get +1 every second floor, with 1 free respec every floor.

I expect the system to give interesting choices like casting light/medium spells every battle, saving everything for the boss at the risk of not getting to re-use refunded mana, or starting the floor with long duration buffs and summons.

i like this. The ga,e sounds fun, if you’d like, I can help you run it and/or come up with monster ideas

I would love playing something like Wiki Wars but... with random MTG cards for determining characters' abilities instead of random Wikipedia articles. Scryfall even has a convenient way to do it, just going there - https://scryfall.com/random will do the trick

this seems cool too, how will you determine how many abilities characters start with?

[Strongpoint]

this seems cool too, how will you determine how many abilities characters start with?

5 starting cards, 1 ability per card is a nice starting point. What is hard in this kind of game is to choose a system of interpretation for stuff like card type (land, creature, artifact, instant, etc), what to do with mana, what to do with common abilities and mechanics.

[Unraveller]

I suppose you could either set it in a MtG-like reality where players might require different colored mana as a resource for ceetain actions/spells, and tie basic lands to granting them that mana reserve, or a point thereof. Though this would be an extremely literal interpretation.

Otherwise it could affect specific traits/stats. Ie. Forests make your character more hardy, islands more wise etc.

As a side note, you could potentially tier cards off, like making legendary cards non accessible from the get-go and cost more to specifically acquire. Another note, some creatures would likely need o give abilities based on their general appearance/thematic vibe, (especially ones without abilities) otherwise you may end up with every character having flying and scrying and so on. Lots of duplicate keywords, just because that's the way of the game. Regardless, it could be neat.

[Strongpoint]

I suppose you could either set it in a MtG-like reality where players might require different colored mana as a resource for ceetain actions/spells, and tie basic lands to granting them that mana reserve, or a point thereof. Though this would be an extremely literal interpretation.

Scryfall has
61,583 cards
6,863 lands
28,669 creatures
4,347 non-creature artifacts
5,879 non-creature enchantments
6,857 sorceries
7,200 instants
882 planeswalkers

There is a good chance of not hitting land with 5 random rolls, giving everyone some default lands may be necessary if we make any land-based system.

otherwise you may end up with every character having flying and scrying and so on.

You overestimate how common keywords are. There are only 5 623 cards with flying keyword, which means NOT hitting a single flying in 5 random rolls is around 60% and something like scry (613) or lifelink (417) will be quite rare when you pull 5 out of 61 583

[Naturegirl1999]

The comma is below k
61,583
Unless I misinterpreted something

[BlackPaladin99]

I have the basics of an idea for a magic system. I might run a dungeon delve RTD with it.

Wizards have three resource pools they cast from. They can design any spell they want at the time of casting, using as many or as few points as desired. Every point used as a 50% chance to be depleted until the end of the floor, or a 50% chance to be refunded and remain usable.

The mana resource pools are Power, Control/Targeting, and Effect/Duration.

Power adds another damage roll to the spell, or makes other effects stronger. It also makes the spell harder to aim. I'm considering adding half a damage die to every spell, allowing players to spam Power 0 attack cantrips.

Control/Targeting affects spells relative to Power. If they're equal, a direct attack spell always hits, explosions can be somewhat controlled unless the party is scattered in with a group of enemies, summons will be stable and safe, and buffs/heals won't have unintended side-effects. Higher Control/Targeting might allow trick shots that bounce between targets to duplicate the damage, strangely-shaped explosions that won't hit friendlies, smarter minions, or buffs that have charges instead of a duration.

Effect/Duration can be used to add interesting effects to spells, or make them last longer. Napalm that damages a target or area over time, enchanting a sword, a temporary bridge, or being able to share senses with a minion.

I think I'd want summons and buffs to be allowed with Effect/Duration 0, but they'll only last for 1 turn. This might allow amusing combos like everyone channeling 0/0/0 spells to an ally who's going to cast chain lightning, duplicating the damage.
I don't know how long I'd like various duration to last for. Maybe 1 battle/2 battles/4 battles/until dispelled or end of floor, at 4 Effect/Duration points spent?
I don't like the names for the last two, any suggestions to improve them?

If I run this, I think I'd start wizards with 6 points and combat/caster hybrids with 3, all spread however the player chooses. Players would pick a class, use that to flavor their effects, and likely get penalized if they try weird things like casting a giant heal spell from pyromancy.
At the end of a floor, wizards get +1, with the option to immediately respec 2 points for free. Hybrids get +1 every second floor, with 1 free respec every floor.

I expect the system to give interesting choices like casting light/medium spells every battle, saving everything for the boss at the risk of not getting to re-use refunded mana, or starting the floor with long duration buffs and summons.

If you make this, I’d love to play.