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[Skyrunner]

I still can't decide whether or not to include the basic 'elemental' magic. :-/
As in, to have them as main parts of magic? Or just another school?


Specific or broad... D:

[Gatleos]

Also, what do mages do in mage RTDs? I haven't ever personally been in one, so..

Create giant monstrosities. Kill themselves with overly complex magic. Kill teammates with overly complex magi. Try to read a mage RtD from IronyOwl, like Staggered Magi. Or his most recent one, in which my character is also a victim: Outcast Power RTD.

Exactly, it's like a series of exploitation films with ridiculous violence.

Dermsploitation, you could call it.

[Tarran]

Also, how do people fancy RTDs where you should discover the rules of the world as the players venture out? Basically, what is currently happening in my Wall-O-Text RTD. With magic.

It depends. In my eyes, it makes roleplaying more difficult in a way, and forces much more exploration from mundane stuff. The latter could either be seen as better or worse.

Try to read a mage RtD from IronyOwl, like Staggered Magi.

DWARMIIIIIIIIIINNNNNN

I still can't decide whether or not to include the basic 'elemental' magic. :-/
As in, to have them as main parts of magic? Or just another school?

If the elements are a major part of the world, they should be major. If the elements are a minor part of the world, they can be minor or major.

Dermsploitation, you could call it.

Okay, really. I hate to sound like a jerk or a party pooper, but really, why do we have to use his name all the time? I'm sure even he is getting somewhat tired of it in a way.

[Dermonster]

Nah.

It makes me feel kinda giddy that I actually get remembered from time to time. It's my one call to fame round here as you could say.

Blah blah hidden self esteem issues blah blah.

[Gatleos]

It's a catchy name. History remembers those with catchy names.

[monk12]

It's time for Stream of Consciousness Game Design with Monk III: This Time I'm Stealing From Board Games!

Anywho, I've been pondering how a more strategic RTD might play out, so I thought I'd write my ideas down and see how stupid they look written out. Intended setting is a low-magic fantasy world- fantasy to allow crazy things to happen with "A Wizard Did It" as justification, low-magic to keep it from being a pain to maintain. It'd be cool to figure magic out, but I'm starting with the nuts and bolts of empire management.

Spoiler: Players/Waitlist (click to show/hide)

The most active "main" players are the Dukes, Duchesses and similar high-ranking nobles of The Empire^tm, heretofore referred to as the PCs. The Empire^tm has recently discovered a new continent full of natural resources and all kinds of good things, as well as waves upon waves of Gnoll tribes. The PCs have received an Imperial Mandate to colonize and exploit the new world, and are allowed to claim land and resources as their own provided they pay tribute to the Emperor. The mechanics of the faction politics will encourage infighting and backstabbery, but if there is too much disunity the Gnolls and other menaces will be able to wipe The Empire^tm off the map.

The PCs aren't just given free reign by The Empire^tm, however- some lands are claimed in the name of the Emperor himself, and there are Imperial forces available to help defend the citizens. The actions of Imperial forces are dictated by the Council of Lords, played by the waitlisters. The Emperor is responsible for making every decision, but since his power is based on the support of the Noble Houses he frequently abides by the decisions of the Council. The germ of this idea was the Sponsor/Driver relationship in my Mario Kart RTD- I've really been digging how it's almost two different games that influence one another in significant ways. What I'd like is for the PCs to be maximizing their wealth/power while the Council is trying to... well, something. Ideally they'd have some mechanical stake in what is happening, but I'm not sure what to do there yet.

Finally, random waitlisters may also "Guest Star" (in the fashion of lawas' Bowinauts) as Megabeasts or Barbarian Hordes. Basically, there will be a table of random events, and if Megabeast or Horde shows up a random waitlister get's to hop in and cause as much havoc as possible. I really like this idea, but it is at odds with the Council having actual impact- as imagined, it'd require me to either make the Council not care at all about what happens in game (making them nosy pricks, which isn't necessarily a bad thing,) or it would require people to choose whether they want to be a Councilman or Monster (which... I'm not sure how that'd play out, whether the lists would be balanced or if everyone would sign up for one and let the other wither.) I'd like to be able to reconcile those, but I haven't yet.

Spoiler: The World (click to show/hide)

The world map is divided into tiles. A tile is revealed when scouts explore (scouting expeditions require gold) or as the result of Random Events. The contents of a tile are determined randomly, and come in two parts- the terrain, and the features. Terrain affects what structures can be built there and what resources can be found there, and may play a role in combat. Features encompass any of a number of things that make a region unique, whether it is natural resources, indigenous people (friendly or otherwise,) defensive positions, magical enchantments, whatever.

Tiles may be improved by PCs or the Empire. Improvements do a variety of things; they may enhance innate properties of the tile, they may be required to extract certain natural resources from the tile, they may provide the Improver with a benefit not strictly related to that tile, and very often they do more than one of those things.

Spoiler: Rough Stats (click to show/hide)

Veeery rough. More of an outline, really.

Each Noble House has a few different stats.

Population is how many citizens owe the House allegiance. Population consumes Food, and produces Coin in the form of taxes. Population is also required to train military units, and is a prerequisite for some Improvements. Population is an aggregate total- where all those people are at any specific point in time isn't terribly important. Population grows as long as Food is positive and the Pop Cap has not been reached. The maximum Population you can have is determined by Improvements.

Happiness is how happy the Population is. If the Population under a House becomes disaffected, Bad Things happen, ranging from lowered tax income to outright revolution. Happiness is raised by certain Improvements and Resources, lowered when Pop is drafted for militia, Pop is starving, or when things get destroyed, and Random Events play merry hell with it.

Food is how much food is produced under the direct control of your House. Food is necessary to maintain your Population, and as such is a valuable strategic asset. Food is produced by certain Improvements and Resources, drained by Pop and Random Events, and can be directly traded between players like Resources.

Coin represents the wealth of the House. Most actions require Coin, and Coin is required to maintain a standing military. Coin is produced by Pop, Improvements and Resources, and drained by military, player action, and Imperial Tribute. Of course, Random Events can mess with this most thoroughly.

Resources are valuable assets at the disposal of the House. They commonly increase one of the other stats, and may be required for certain buildings/units/actions. Resources are normally acquired by building an Improvement in the appropriate tile, and can be traded between players. Resources are never consumed- control of a resource represents control of the supply of that resource, and as long as the supply is maintained the benefit is conferred. The supply line can be mucked with by enemy action or Random Events, however.

Characters are historically significant figures who are associated with the House. They might be minor courtiers, artisans, political allies, generals, or anyone, really. Characters frequently provide some benefit to the House, but may also inflict a drawback in certain situations. Characters are fairly unique, and normally arise as the result of Random Events (although some high-end Improvements encourage Character creation/development.) Once they exist, they have their own life and relationships- they might stay with one House their entire life, leave or be cast off as the result of Events and/or personal relationships, or they might bounce from faction to faction as a mercenary.

Spoiler: Things Players Do (click to show/hide)

In general, players should have the freedom to do what they want (results determined by d6,) but there are many common actions that have established costs and effects. Ideally, there'd be a framework for action cost that could be referred to for individual cases. I haven't dicked around with this much.

Combat- Players indulge in military matters; exactly how this happens is very much TBD

Build Improvement- Players pay Coin to construct and gain control of an Improvement, cost determined by the specific Improvement.

Sign Treaty- Players can initiate diplomatic action, often for trading purposes. The player initiating the trade must use an action to navigate the paperwork and bureaucracy of the Empire- no action is necessary to accept a trade.

Spoiler: Combat and Conflict (click to show/hide)

The Emperor often turns a blind eye to the internecine squabbles of the Noble Houses, only getting involved when the citizenry suffer greatly or when national security is threatened. Houses are also expected to provide the first line of defense for their lands against Gnoll threats and other marauding groups- Imperial Forces are simply too spread out to guard every front.

The specifics of how military might is tracked are something I am still thinking on. I'd like it to at least have a pike>cavalry>archer thing going, hopefully with terrain factored in somehow, but I'd also like it to be more generalized than "these units in this tile." I'm currently mulling a system where Factions control the land itself, which allows their generic Military stat to function like Population in that their specific location isn't super important, but that makes multiple armies impossible. That's something I'd particularly like input on.

Spoiler: Some More Specific Examples (click to show/hide)

These are the kinds of specifics I'm thinking for each category. Not at all fleshed out or balanced.

Improvements

Settlement- Increases Pop Cap by 5
City- Requires Settlement in same tile, Increases Pop Cap by 5
Theater- Requires City in same tile, consumes 1 Coin, produces 2 Happiness
Farm- +2 Food
Manufactory- +1 Coin
Mine- Harvests Metal Resource

Resources

Silver- Requires Mine, +3 Coin
Wheat- Requires Farm, +2 Food

Character

Master Jeweler- Consumes Silver, +2 Coin +2 Happiness

Random Events

Plague
Famine
Character Emergence
Grassroots Exploration
Grassroots Politics
Barbarian Horde
Megabeast

Alright, I'm sleep so I'll stop typing. As you can see, very very very rough right now. I've most recently been cogitating on the Characters aspect- it'd be cool to get a Total War family tree thing going, with characters being associated with either a settlement (as governor) or army (as leader.) Just what I've been thinking lately, imma go to bed nao.

So let's try this whole "combat" thing again.

Spoiler: World Map (click to show/hide)

The world is still made of tiles, and these tiles still have things in them. However, the way they are generated is different.

Tiles are grouped into regions. A region is a group of tiles of the same kind- a Grassland Region only has grassland tiles in it, a Mountain Region is just mountain, etc. When a player explores, they enter a new region. The region is of a random terrain type, and is of a random size- some terrains modify how big the region can be (impassable mountains are smaller, grasslands are bigger, etc.) Some features are determined on a per/tile basis (e.g presence of resources) while some features are applied to the whole region (e.g blood rains, curses, native populations.)

Spoiler: Units and Generals (click to show/hide)

Units have a few stats. Strength refers to the number of dice they roll in combat (see Campainging and Combat.) Strength regenerates at 1/turn. Negative Strength grants extra dice to the opposing unit. Unit Type is a keyword used to trigger an assortment of special abilities (e.g "if enemy is Infantry, then...") Experience is a measure of how much combat a unit has seen- after every combat, this increments at one. At certain thresholds, the unit may gain additional Abilities or Strength. Finally, Special Abilities are qualities of the unit which activate under certain conditions- most are beneficial, but not all.

Generals have fewer stats to worry about. They have a Tactics rating which is used in certain situations (higher is better,) and they have a slew of Special Abilities they bring to the table. Generals also have Experience, which functions similar to how Unit Experience operates.

Spoiler: Campaigning and Combat (click to show/hide)

Military Units are based in particular Regions, and can move One Region per turn. When a turn ends with 2 hostile armies in the same Region, the Region is Contested and a Campaign begins. Typically, there is an Invading Army and a Home Army- if neither army's faction controlled the region before the campaign began, then both armies are treated as Invaders.

One turn of Campaigning involves a series of duels fought over individual tiles. The order in which tiles are contested is decided at the discretion of the Home General (the player may provide guidance, otherwise GM uses best judgement.) After the combat is concluded, the winner gains control of the tile for that turn. In the event that there is no clear winner, nobody has control of that tile.

Combat begins with opposed Tactics checks by the Generals- the loser places a unit in that tile, and the winner places a unit with some kind of advantage in that tile. Each unit rolls a number of dice equal to their Strength (and any relevant modifiers/abilities.) Every 6 is counted as a Success- if one unit has more Successes, it destroys the other. If each unit has an equal number of Successes, then the fight is a draw and both units survive. Every 1 a unit rolls counts as +1 Damage- after combat, surviving units lose Strength equal to their Damage. Units cannot be destroyed through Strength Damage- they just really suck at combat until it heals.

The process repeats until there are no more tiles to defend, or until the Home Army has no more units. If the Home Army runs out of units before they run out of tiles to defend, then the Invading Army gains control of a number of remaining tiles based on how many remaining units have not engaged in combat, and if those units have a Strength advantage against one of the established defenders they may attack that tile immediately. There are never more combats than there are tiles in a region.

If one army suffers defeat in every tile, they lose the Campaign and are driven back to the nearest non-hostile Region. Units cannot enter hostile Regions from a Contested Region. A Region is not considered Contested if one faction controls at least 3/4 of the tiles within the Region.

I will specifically mention that I did away with Unit Maintenance because I plan to institute a Unit Cap instead, which can be raised via buildings. Some units might have Coin drain similar to maintenance (Mercenaries, for example) but that will function as a Special Ability.

This combat is intended to be fairly automatic- the Duke (player) may make their priorities known beforehand, but once combat starts it should get resolved without further meddling from the higher-ups. Frequently, Generals have character traits which dictate how their decision-making process works. I think I like this a lot better than the previous incarnation, but then again, maybe I'll sleep on it and hate it in the morning. Questions, comments, feedback welcome, and bonus points if you guess what board game I was looking at while thinking of this! (not that I think the mechanics are terribly unique)

[IronyOwl]

I'm wondering... Are magic types like 'law', 'definition/definity', 'materialness' too vague? I'm toting with magic and I find myself going towards TPN-vagueness again.

Should it be more defined and narrow? o_o

Also, what do mages do in mage RTDs? I haven't ever personally been in one, so..

I still can't decide whether or not to include the basic 'elemental' magic. :-/
As in, to have them as main parts of magic? Or just another school?


Specific or broad... D:

Well, try starting from the results and moving backwards.

Like, let's say you want necromancers to be viable in this game. What sort of concepts or magic schools would they use for that, and what, if anything, would that happen to make them also good at?

Maybe you decide "Animation" would be the necromancer-thing; but that would mean a necromancer could create golems just as easily as skeletons, and couldn't drain life or hex people. If that's what you want, so far so good; if not, you need to go back and figure out what went wrong, which in this case would probably be that your school themes are too broad and don't have anything to do with your intended wizard themes.


At some point, you should figure out what you want, or at least have a clearer idea of the sorts of things you want but aren't sure how to accomplish. Or at the very very least, what the difference between two choices are.

And yes, mages pretty much just grievously abuse the words "Madness" and "Power" in mage games. Or at least, most mage games I've seen.

It's time for Stream of Consciousness Game Design with Monk III: This Time I'm Stealing From Board Games!

Really not fond of the "it's a draw or one unit is destroyed" method, since that makes gaining units experience extremely difficult and of questionable usefulness.

In a similar vein, depending on unit strengths and special abilities and so on that opposed Tactics roll could very well turn combat in general into a Tactics Check. Again, this sort of depends on just how good certain units are at countering other units and whether there's any units that don't have any particular weaknesses and so on.

The per-tile thing is interesting... I like it, but it seems like it might be too complex.

[lawastooshort]

How about Roll to Postman Pat?



Six postmen have to deliver their special package travelling through real Northern roads, encountering obstacles such as (all examples taken from the real life children's documentary):
Sheep
Out of control robots
Wind
A goat
Terrorists

Objects requiring delivery include:
A cake
A cow
Robots
A parrot

Postmen can choose from a range of vehicles including (again, all real and canon examples)
Royal mail van
Royal mail bicycle
Royal mail helicopter

And they can choose from a range of familiars, including:
Black and white cat

I guess it would essentially be a race with bonuses for good RP (proper northern accents and the like).

[micelus]

I like monk's RTD, but perhaps unique units and structures could be created by the player, as long it has GM approval? Could be an utterly bad idea though.

[Caellath]

How about Roll to Postman Pat?

How about Roll to Postal?

[10ebbor10]

RTD... I think I'll try out something.

Leaning towards one of three:

• A(nother) mage game, with ebbor's mage system's general idea

Feel free to use it. As for Schools of magic, you could use a sort of relevancy+tomes system, where schools don't excist but the spells you can learn depends on which spells you already now. That would disallow freeform casting altogether though.

Another system would be to allow people to learn component spells (using the above system) and then have them mix and match those with some freedom. For example( Fire control+ Minor fire summon=Fireball) and (Bind soul+Animate Bones= Undead) and stuff like that.

Also, in order to avoid people casting water into other people lungs and turning their blood into iron and such, you could say that every creature has an intristic magical ability, which will instinctively try to negate all harmfull spells inside/near the body.

[monk12]

It's time for Stream of Consciousness Game Design with Monk III: This Time I'm Stealing From Board Games!

Really not fond of the "it's a draw or one unit is destroyed" method, since that makes gaining units experience extremely difficult and of questionable usefulness.

In a similar vein, depending on unit strengths and special abilities and so on that opposed Tactics roll could very well turn combat in general into a Tactics Check. Again, this sort of depends on just how good certain units are at countering other units and whether there's any units that don't have any particular weaknesses and so on.

The per-tile thing is interesting... I like it, but it seems like it might be too complex.

As written, it is intended for experienced, veteran units to be a difficult thing to get. The special abilities they get are supposed to be significant game-changers, making them appreciably more powerful than their inexperienced counterparts; as a result, their presence is a decided advantage for one side, but deploying them is a risk of the time and effort that was expended in leveling them up. The reason it's "draw or one unit destroyed" is to keep campaigns from dragging- if it takes two combats to destroy a unit, an attacker would need to have a 2:1 advantage to resolve a Campaign in one turn. I'm hoping for smaller army sizes and a more or less equal production capacity, which would mean any heavily contested region would be more like a 1:1 ratio with frequent reinforcements keeping army sizes near max, resulting in bloody, year long wars.

To keep the Tactics thing from being so all-important, there are a couple things I'm hoping to do. First, there will be several different unit types. This means that it won't be difficult to create a diverse army that is hard to countertype, and that there will be plenty of matchups that are type-neutral; really decisive matchups in the Rock beats Scissors vein should be fairly uncommon, maybe occurring once per turn. Those matchups would represent the decisive battles fought in the course of the 3 month Campaign turn. The second thing I'm hoping to do is lean away from really potent RPS abilities (archer gets +3 vs infantry) and more toward abilities that work in all situations (archers don't take damage on a 1, or half damage.) Ideally, I'd get to a place where different unit types are good at certain things, and the things they are good at happen to match up well against their traditional opponent- implicit advantages instead of explicit.

Quite frankly, I agree with you about the per-tile thing; it's about as complex as I want to deal with, and even then only because I expect regions to only have 4-8 tiles each. However, I haven't been able to come up with another system that doesn't mean I have to reduce the entire army into an aggregate stat of some kind, so I guess I'm stuck with it.

All of the above will need playtesting to make sure that my expected behavior matches up with what happens when the game is actually played.

That said, the above assumes a Civilization-like focus on the economic/production side of the game, which is how the rest of the game is currently set up. Right now, though, I think I might be leaning towards more of a Total War approach where the military side of the game is more interesting and important, and the economic side of the game exists to provide context for it. My next step is to leave the combat at "good enough for now," and go back and reexamine and expand on the economic stuff I'd written first now that I have a better idea of how combat will work. The changes I make there could easily come back to alter what I've done here- I don't know about anyone else, but this kind of back and forth is pretty common when I'm designing things.

[10ebbor10]

Something like Catapults gets a +2 bonus if it hasn't moved last turn, but can't retreat. Rather then catapult gets a +2 bonus when fighting from and against fortifications. Seems good to me.

As for the game design thingy, I useally make up things as I go along.

[Skyrunner]

Spoiler: Great Wall of Text (click to show/hide)

I think I've worked out how I want my magic to be. It's vague.

Says ffs:

<ffschooler> it's like making subschools of magic be Broad, Vague and Unclear

I like vague magic stuff too much, especially when compared to Fireball *boom* Raise Dead *boom* , and that's how it is here too.

Two domains of magic: natural and structured. Natural is divided into World, Being, and Life, which are each subdivided into three more types, but two are 'virtual' and don't exist. Those 'types/schools' are the things you actually acquire skill / proficiency in. When you are a Natural mage, you draw power mainly from yourself. That means that though your magic is prone to go wrong, you are flexible and can do anything you desire. It also means that you can choose to burn your health to power desperate spells.

Structured magic is divided into Elemental and Primal. Elemental has four subdivisions (types) while Primal has three. Structured magic usually must be researched, standardized and memorized to be used; you could opt to use it without preparing, but you have to be willing to accept a high rate of failure : even higher than natural magic. However, as long as you use standardized spells you have researched or learned, you have a zero rate of failure.

Natural magic

Being	Force
	Temporality
	<none>

-------

World	Sensory
	Elemental
	<none>

-------

Life	Fugue
	Life
	Eventuality

Structured magic is divided into two, like mentioned above:
Elemental : Material, Liquid, Air, Transitive, which are really just renames of the traditional four elements Earth, Water, Air and Fire.

Primal : The vaguest of them all, Law, Constantness, Freedom. It's probably best not to choose one of these as your starting schools...

I would add descriptions of what each school does, but I'm too lazy to do that just now >.>

Also, the Life schools are too vague to just tell what they do, so here's a quick rundown: Fugue is delicate, positive life. Life is just life; crude, powerful, either positive or negative. Eventuality is delicate, negative life. If you want to be a necromancer, you'd choose Eventuality. If you wanted to life-sap everyone you choose and still be able to heal, you'd choose Life. If you want to be able to heal everything, do finer stuff like fixing broken bones or cause a forest to spring up, you'd choose Fugue.


As for magic, it's ambient. It floats in the air and has, like ebbor's idea, a tendency to diffuse. If you have low magic in a high-magic zone, you'd find your power quickly recovering, and vise-versa. Magic colleges would pump magic from the surrounding area and let it go within the premises, like a sort of potassium-calcium pump.

Finally, there could have been a past event where some backwater mage combined Constantness, Law and one of the elements to create a perpetual magic storm that steamrolled the continent of its magic and only dissipated by luck. Structured magic has taken a hit to its esteem.

Of skills, there is one skill of mention, metamagic. It is simply the linking of different spells or different schools.

EDIT: Yess, I have managed to singlehandedly kill off the RB thread, for now!

[10ebbor10]

Men in Black: Budget edition

Due to the financial crisis, the budget of the MiB was cut tremendously. Equipment could no longer be repaired and replaced, and eventually they couldn't even afford to hire decent candidates. That's why you are here, you worked somewhere for the Mib (Adminsistration, janitor,...) and now they need you to investigate threads. You will be granted some equipment.

Equipment:
The budget cuts have forced the MiB to use cheaper materials in their gadgets, making them more dangerous to use and resulting in several faults. This also resulted in the fact that weapons and gadgets that were previously regarded to be to destructive/dangerous to find their way to the battlefield. Basically equipment comes in three flavours

-Denied equipment: They said it would be to dangerous to use it, let's prove them wrong. (Things like supersonic jetpacks belong here)
-Broken equipment: It should work. ( Weapons and gadgets appear normal, but malfucntion/break every so often)
-Flawed equipment: These are perfectly fine gadgets, but suffer from critical design flaws. (Memory wipe machine that wipes the last 5 seconds of memory,...)