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[ATHATH]

I think both teams should get the same words. If cheating is an issue, shuffle the meanings of words.

[syvarris]

Spoiler: @Toaster's idea (click to show/hide)

1 - Game Structure

My first question is what the capture points and terrain would be like.  Can people run across the entire map in one turn?  Are there obstacles or structures?  Is there anything notable around the capture points--maybe they're each in a small stone stronghold?

If it's just a flat plain with little flags spaced around, then it's going to be fairly boring.  People will just run to a flagstand, fight anyone else who is there, capture it, then go onto the next.  Effectively, it would just be a series of deathmatches.

I don't think giving the teams different word sets would be a good idea.  Copper is weaker than iron, A flail is different from an axe.  It could be interesting if a thematic difference arises, but it could also lead to one team having a slight advantage over another.  I'm generally against changes to the magic system though, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I like the idea of giving each team a grace period to research words.  It should help offset melee people's initial lead.

I'm unsure about saying what each category of words is.  Personally, I like how the game starts with zero information.  It would make everything go faster, though.

2 - Death & Stats

I might borrow the +/- system that a few other similar games have used instead of point-based like the classic Perplexicon.  The idea was to have the same stats as in Pit (str dex spd end will pot pool) and let each player place two + wherever they like, and be able to get up to three more + to spend by placing an equal number of - (so at most 5 + and 3 -) with a maximum of ++ or --.

Why limit the maximum bonus to +2?

How would pool work?  My thought was to have pool always be full every turn, and to have the stat simply limit the maximum number of words usable in a turn

I'm curious as to how people think this would work, since it would limit spells to five words at maximum as well as make the Overdrive effect (see: Pit of Magic or Tribulations) obsolete.

Mmm.  I like the mechanic where being in battle limits pool regen.  It gives a bit of strategy, especially in a team game--Someone should always be attacking the enemy team's heavy caster, to ensure he can't get any strong spells.  Conversely, the enemy team wants to protect their heavy caster so that he can regen pool.

I dislike limiting the maximum number of words in a spell to five.  It allows (somewhat) less creativity, and prevents any really massive spells.  That might be good for the game though, I don't know.  It would probably be bad if a single caster can cause a thermonuclear explosion which blankets the whole field.

I agree with making people strong to begin with, and not allowing people to get stronger from kills. 

Players could also spend an action in their base to be healed or rid themselves of transformation effects they don't like.[/Toaster]

Is this different from a person just killing themself?

3 - Magic

I dislike mostly everything here, but that's because I just like the old system.  Why fix something that isn't broke, especially if the game is partially a test for a new element--teams?

After thinking about this, I don't know why I thought I should post it last night.  The ideas aren't really all that similar.  I don't mean to steal... attention or whatever from Toaster, but I said I'd post it so that's what I'm doing.

Spoiler: Perplixcon: Druujinas (click to show/hide)

I have a problem here.  I'm very good about writing down most ideas I get, but I'm very, very bad at keeping them in one place.  There's at least four devices which have parts of the game written down, and generally each has several different places that have information.  So all this is written from memory.  Therefore, this is horribly organized.  I apologize.

1 - Mechanics

The game would have four teams of three each: red, blue, green, and hot pink yellow.  This way, there can be inter-team diplomacy and teams can team up.  Twelve players seems above average, and I'm not really sure how well I could handle that.  Three teams of three could also work, but it's more annoying to make a three-way symmetrical map than a four way one.

There would only be five stats: Physical, Dexterity, Intuition, Potency, and Channelling.  Physical governs strength, endurance, and anything similar to those.  Dex governs dodging, aiming, balancing, etc.  Potency control how strong and controlled spells are.  Intuition is sort of an oddball stat; It's basically a combination of will, intelligence, awareness, charisma, and anything else not governed by another stat.  Want to play a fiddle well?  Roll intuition.  Resist mind control?  Intuition.  That last one is odd, I know, but mind control is easier in Druujinas than in other perplexicon games, so I wanted the stat that governs it to be more accessible for non-magic people.

Channelling is also different from the original game.  In every area, there is a person sized crystal which is basically the capture point.  A player of any team can capture an area by touching the crystal.  Furthermore, every crystal has a rating, typically one, two, or three.  When inside an area they control and not in combat, all teammembers' pool is refilled equal to their channelling times the rating of the local crystal.  If they're in combat, they just get pool equal to the crystal's rating up to the aforementioned number.

Outside of areas you control, you never get more than one pool per turn, and can never get more pool than you have channeling.  Lastly, you don't lose pool if you enter an area that can't charge you up that high.  You just won't get any new pool until you go below the new maximum.  I.E, If you get 15 pool in a level three area you control, you'll still have 15 pool if you enter a level 2 area you control, or even a level 1 area you don't control.


ANYWAYS, you get 10 points to distribute between the five skills.  A 0 in a stat gives -1, a 1 gives +0, and every point beyond that gives a +1.  There is no cap to a skill, so it's perfectly fine to have a +9 to dex.  Yes, this would lead to rather massive amounts of pool for overspecialized mages, and extremely powerful warriors.  This is intended.  Also, battles between mages would favor defenders, because they generally regen pool faster.  This is also intended, because I think battles won by ingenuity rather than spamming basic spells are more interesting.

Whenever you die, you respawn back at base the turn after next.  If you want to change stats, or heal yourself or something, killing yourself is the only option.  I might take a tip from Toaster though, and allow people to heal at base.  I'm not sure if it would be more fun than watching people horribly disfigure themselves with magic, and then try to solve it with magic.

2 - Environment:

The map would be a 5x5 grid, with each square being a mazelike part of a modern city basically ripped away from a part of the world and teleported to this area.  The humans would just be normal people who one day woke up and found out that the segment of the city they live in changed location.  Furthermore, the edges of the square area that was moved are next to a section from a different city... whose inhabitants speak a different language.  For game reasons, nobody would be bilingual.

Five squares of the map would be different.  Each corner would be a simple grassy field with a small box of a building.  These squares are the bases for each team.  The central square of the map would be a massive tower of slade which reaches high into the sky.  It's special.  Also, each of the central edges, instead of a city of civilians, would be a large military base, primarily to make it more difficult for one team to bum rush another.

Something I wanted for the game was an actual *reason* to expand and control territory.  That's why I came up with the crystal idea.  Here's the distribution I intended to use:

21312
12221
32523
12221
21312

Another layout I'm considering is this:


11321
22221
32523
12222
12311

...But I'm not sure if it's better.  When two adjacent teams fight, one has a situational advantage.  However, it makes expansion a better option, rather than turtling.

You wouldn't be locked to orthogonal directions, although finding your way would generally be difficult.  Many streets would be blocked by buildings at the edges of their areas, and everything would be mazelike.  Also, the environment is abstracted--I'm not drawing up a streetplan for each city segment.  Instead, finding your way would rely on a intuition roll.  Have a -1 in intuition?  Enjoy getting lost.

3 - Magic

Magic is mostly similar to standard Perplexicon.  Like I said earlier, I like the original system, even with all of it's brokenness.  Although, I have added a lot of words and two new word types, mostly taken from other people's ideas.  At last count I had around 330 words which... might be a bit too much.  I'd like to talk about the new things, but... I still hold out hope of eventually running this, and don't want to spoil them.

I also want to bring back magical circles, although they would only be usable after something special.  I want to make them something of a more cheap, reliable, and powerful alternative to magic, but at the cost that they're slow and require more territory to be owned by players.  Perhaps each circle would have an activation cost, and each turn you add together the levels of all controlled crystals and can activate circles up to that amount.  I never worked out a complete system for this, though.

Another thing I wanted was the ability to alter controlled territory, at some cost.  Basically, give teams the ability to add words to an area to modify it.  So, you could make everything uncomfortably hot by adding 'fire', alter the architecture and landscape to have many sharp edges by adding 'sword', etc.  I don't know what the cost should be, though.  Maybe a number of players equal to an area's level would have to expend all their mana for the turn, but could add/remove a word to/from the description?


Aaand I'm fairly sure that I've forgotten something or other, but I have no idea what.  This is the core stuff, at least.

[Andres]

So I was in the anime thread on General Discussion and someone posted this. This got me thinking and I figured it would make for some decent RTD mechanics. Here's how it goes:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The game game is played with a d20. Players roll against each-other to see how well they do each turn.
Each character has something called 'Burn' which increases their combat ability, represented by giving a dice modifier relevant the amount of Burn they use. Players have a limited amount of Burn available, Let's say 100. All players start combat using 0 Burn, though they can choose to increase the amount of Burn used as much as they want.
1 Burn gives a +1 modifier to the dice roll, up until they hit something called Limit. Let's say their Limit stat is 20. Once the modified dice roll hits 20, it takes 3 points of Burn to increase the modifier by +1. So if someone is using 8 Burn during the turn and they roll a 15, the modified roll is 21, not 23.
While Burn can be increased every turn as much as the player wants (so long as there's enough in their Burn Pool), it can't be decreased by as much as they want. Instead, they can only decrease the amount of Burn used based on their Cool stat, in this case 5. Each turn the player can only decrease the amount of Burn they use by 5. On the first turn, a player can go from using 0 Burn to 10 with no problem, but if they want to go back to 0, they'll have to Cool for 2 turns.
Cool is important because if the player's Burn stat hits 0, they die. Hence why a player can't just use their 100 Burn on the first turn and destroy their opponent.
The final stat is Recover, which increases the amount of Burn that person has per turn. 1 stat point in Recover means 1 Burn gained per turn. Thus, they can safely use 1 Burn per turn without issue, giving them a slight edge against opponents who can't use Burn.

Character stats:
Burn: 100
Limit: 20
Cool: 5
Recover: 1

Is this system any good. Anything I should change?

[flabort]

What kinds of character customization option are there? I think this would work:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Let's say I wanted a character with a really low maximum burn, let's say 30. And a low limit (12?), because my character's a wimp with no potential for combat. But he has a lot of spirit, and can keep going where others would quit. So he has a really high recover.

Let's pause here and calculate the optimal combat for the proposed character. We want to balance the character customization options with eachother; can't have one being too much more powerful than the others.

Burn 100 Limit 20 Cool 5 Recover 1
Turn 1) BURN +29 (71/100) +29 bonus (roll 18, total 29)
Turn 2) Cool 5 recover 1 (48/100) +24 bonus (roll 12, total 25)
Turn 3) Cool 5 Recover 1 (29/100) +19 bonus (roll 16, total 25)
Turn 4) Cool 5 Recover 1 (16/100) +14 bonus (roll 1, total 15)
Turn 5) Cool 5 Recover 1 (8/100) +9 bonus (Roll 14, total 21)
Turn 6) Cool 5 Recover 1 (5/100) +4 bonus (roll 18, total 20)

At this point another max cool would allow the fighter to start regenerating this pool of burn; he's used it all up, and he's going to be unable to fight for a while. This is an all-out style of combat for the guy; 29 burn is his maximum, 30 burn on the first turn would kill him on turn 6.
So we want our wimp but high endurance fighter to be able to last at least past turn 6, at a reasonably similar power level. Let's say he wants to start off at 15; and he also has 5 cool.

Burn 30 Limit 15 Cool 5 Recover ?
Turn 1) BURN 15 (15/30) +15 bonus (roll 9 total 18)
Turn 2) Cool 5 Regenerate 6 (11/30) +10 bonus (roll 13 total 17)
Turn 3) Cool 5 Regenerate 6 (12/30) +5 bonus (roll 15 total 16)
Turn 4) Regenerate 6 (13/30) +5 Bonus (roll 17 total 17)

Now this character can occasionally burn 5 more, and keep going to fight indefinitely; he'll heal during his fight, and can long outlast opponents with lower regeneration. However, his lack of limit and burn mean that he's not going to be able to hit as hard as the other guys; The original guy virtually leveled a mountain on his first hit, while this guy's strongest hit cannot scratch the mountain; 18 just isn't going to cut it against 29.

This little test shows that Maximum Burn doesn't really have much of an effect; it should be really cheap to buy Burn. 10 points of Max Burn for 1 Credit? Limit on the other hand, is very important. That 5 point difference had a major effect on the battle. 1 point of Limit for 1 credit seems good. We did not test Cool in this test. We'll apply an arbitrary amount for now; 2 credits for one cool.
Now to set the regeneration. We'll need math for this one; setting an arbitrary amount would mean that the two characters would cost different amounts, implying the battle was not balanced.

Stat:   Char 1(cost): Char 2(cost):
Burn    100(10)       30(3)
Limit   20(20)        15(15)
Cool    5(10)         5(10)
Regen   1(X)          6(Y)

Y=6X
X+10+20+10=Y+3+15+10
X+40=6X+28
12=5X
X=2.4
We're already including funky rounding when concerning rolls over the Limit stat, so let's round that to be 2 like Cool.
Char 1 now costs 42 and Char 2 costs 40. Close enough.

So you have the following:
1 Credits: 10 Burn OR 1 Limit
2 Credits: 1 Cool OR 1 Recover
Maximum 40
I wouldn't really advise going with those specific numbers; I think that Recover should actually cost more than Cool, so let's recalculate Burn cost if it's the unknown and Recover costs 3.

Burn 100(X) 30(Y)
Limit 20(20) 15(15)
Cool 5(10) 5(10)
Recov 1(3) 6(18)

Y=(3/10)X
X+20+10+3=Y+15+10+18
X+33=(3/10)X+43
(7/10)X=10
7X=100
X=14
Y=(3/10)14=4
More funky rounding FTW

So to buy 30 Burn it costs 4 credits. That's 7.5 burn per credit, or 15 for 2 credits.
It's getting too complex now, so I'll just quit. Bah.

Anyways, I like the idea, I'm just wanting customization and thinking too hard about balancing that customization.

[Andres]

I'm glad to see the system I proposed balances out pretty well. The intention was that in one-on-one fight, the guy with the highest output would win but in a drawn-out fight (more than 6 rounds, it seems), that same guy is likely to lose. Good for surviving ambushes, bad for clearing dungeons.

As for character customisation, I'd really like to thank you for doing most of the work there. I've been thinking that 10 Burn should be around 1 point but didn't really know how to price the rest, other than that Regen should be pretty costly.

This is the pricing system I've come up with this:

40 starting points

Power: 10 per point
Limit: 1 per point
Cool: 1 per point
Regen: 1 per 3 points

[FallacyofUrist]

I've realized that an RTD based on randomly selected nerdcore songs might not be a bad idea... I can think of several songs that would be downright homicidal for the players. What would really make that sparkle would be a time limit (5 turns per 10 seconds of song? 5 turns per 20 seconds?) that really pushes the players.

[Andres]

Music-based games don't tend to last long.

[Slayer1557]

Hai gaiz, fancy seeing you here. ._.

Sorry for giving up on my RTD (way back in ages long past).  I still really like the idea of running an RTD, but I just need to format it in a way that is sustainable for me.  In any case, that's something that I need to work out on my own.  What I came here for was to poll for interest in a few of my ideas.  I only want to run one game, so I just want to see what people might want.

1. Law of RTD:
Based on the anime "Law of Ueki", the players play as Middle schoolers (Could change it, but that's what it was in the show) who are given a single power by a celestial being.  They are given this power in order to represent the celestial being to choose the new God!  The child(ren) who successfully win the tournament of sorts, will keep much of the power they accumulated over the tournament, and receive a "blank Zai" or talent.  They can write any one talent on it and become the best at that talent.  They could rule the world if they so chose.  The powers given are usually transformative, examples from the show are "Change Trash into Trees" "Change Coins into Wind", although some powers deviate from this.  More powerful powers come with limitations or restrictions, perhaps like "Only works while holding your breath" or on the extreme end "Loses a year of your lifespan every time you use it".

I would have to tweak it a bit to make sure it's a little more than a shonen tournament RTD, but much of the focus will be on creative use of abilities and fighting.  The party would likely have a fair bit of plot armor, so lethality is low.  I'm not gonna say death is impossible, but it would take a lot and there would likely be ways to avoid it.  I've always loved the Law of Ueki powers and the whole setup that the tournament had, so I think it could be fun.

2. Roll to Final Boss!
Screw it all!  Skip most of the plot, all the buildup, and slow progress!  You're going right to the final boss!  The players would make characters (They could be pretty much anything so long as everyone starts around the same power level, within reason [Yes BlitzDungeoneer, you could be Kirby, probably]) and immediately go against various "Final bosses" of games, movies, anything I can think of.  It might not be a fight necessarily.  It might be the final encounter of a big political battle, and you have to negotiate.  Or if it was Star Wars, you would probably tackle the Death Star, or maybe Darth Vader.  It would be very random, subject to my whims, and medium to high lethality.  Winning a round (As part of a group) earns points, or money or whatever to let you level up and progress, depending on your contribution to the victory.  You keep the same character until death or otherwise.

So let me know what you think about either of these!  What would you prefer to play in, if at all?  Any suggestions/modifications to either?  Potato?

[Andres]

2. Roll to Final Boss!

[Tiruin]

Hai gaiz, fancy seeing you here. ._.

Sorry for giving up on my RTD (way back in ages long past).

I remember you o_o

Also sorry @everyone involved, with my...complete lack of productivity. RL priorities happened.
Like, for the past 2 years affecting every bit of productivity.

[Slayer1557]

Hai gaiz, fancy seeing you here. ._.

Sorry for giving up on my RTD (way back in ages long past).

I remember you o_o

Also sorry @everyone involved, with my...complete lack of productivity. RL priorities happened.
Like, for the past 2 years affecting every bit of productivity.

Had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me.  I've returned to reading ER, to maybe catch up one day.  Elisaz just lost his dick to AM. >.>  I have to pay attention to the dates of everything so I can read things in order.  But its so good.

Anyway, any thoughts on my RTD ideas?

[BlitzDungeoneer]

2. Roll to Final Boss!

This, please.
I'd comment more on idea number 1, but I've never heard of this Law of Ueki before just now.

[Toaster]

Spoiler: Syvarris, re my Perplexicon proposal (click to show/hide)

1 - Game Structure:

The map would be varied.  A general idea was splitting the arena in half with a bottomless pit, with a very sturdy bridge in the middle, on which one of the points would be located.  There'd be a couple other crossings of lower structural integrity toward the sides of the map.  Otherwise, there'd be areas of interest around, where the capture points would mostly be.  The central one would be open, but there may be cover near the others.  The map would not be crossable in a single turn; at best, from the "base" to the bridge.

I'm not convinced on the split wordlist; it was more a suggestion for interest than anything else.  It may be more trouble than it's worth.

Melee will also remain viable as magic comes more prevalent, as the team mages can give the melee fighters strong gear to complement their high physical stats.

The first one would be more of a test game, so giving everyone a little speed nudge via labeling the categories would contribute to that.


2 - Death & Stats:

+2 is max to limit min/maxing.

The thought behind full regen every turn was that the whole game is with rigidly defined teams, the combat will be much more frequent.  I could instead either bump it to two points a turn or crib from Lexicon and make the regen depend on your current pool level in order to speed it up a bit.

The catch is with the limited stat advancement, there's no real way to get to the bigger spells.  What I considered doing is allowing a limited stat advancement; each kill would get the player an additional plus to a very low maximum gain- either two or three.  That way, a dedicated mage could boost that limit a bit higher with combat victories.

Spoiler: Syvarris, re his Perplexicon proposal (click to show/hide)

Interesting.  Is there a win condition?  Can you eliminate a team somehow?  If you can't eliminate a team, there's not much point to assaulting their base (unless you want to put a nasty rune in their territory.)

Territory alteration could be easily tied into the rune system.  That way, one could hide a magma rune somewhere and if the other team wants to eliminate it, they have to find it first.  Teleport runes would be very useful as well.

The more words, the longer it takes to science them all out.

On repairing at base, I was considering allowing two options: Repair and Restore.  Repair would just heal all wounds you had taken, while Restore would reverse any transformations and make you 100% human again; useful if your opponents had turned your legs into tables.

[Persus13]

2. Roll to Final Boss!
Screw it all!  Skip most of the plot, all the buildup, and slow progress!  You're going right to the final boss!  The players would make characters (They could be pretty much anything so long as everyone starts around the same power level, within reason [Yes BlitzDungeoneer, you could be Kirby, probably]) and immediately go against various "Final bosses" of games, movies, anything I can think of.  It might not be a fight necessarily.  It might be the final encounter of a big political battle, and you have to negotiate.  Or if it was Star Wars, you would probably tackle the Death Star, or maybe Darth Vader.  It would be very random, subject to my whims, and medium to high lethality.  Winning a round (As part of a group) earns points, or money or whatever to let you level up and progress, depending on your contribution to the victory.  You keep the same character until death or otherwise.

So let me know what you think about either of these!  What would you prefer to play in, if at all?  Any suggestions/modifications to either?  Potato?

The Final Boss idea is one that's been run in a similar fashion before. Most notably YOU AT FINAL BOSS which is probably the longest minimalist RTD on bay12. I would recommend making sure you distinguish what makes your RTD special from previous Final boss RTDs if you choose to run with this.

[Slayer1557]

The Final Boss idea is one that's been run in a similar fashion before. Most notably YOU AT FINAL BOSS which is probably the longest minimalist RTD on bay12. I would recommend making sure you distinguish what makes your RTD special from previous Final boss RTDs if you choose to run with this.

I figured as much, although I don't plan on it being THAT minimalist.