Our local design group is currently collaborating on a card game about the lifecycles of beetles. There are tons of beetles out there (350,000+ species) and they do some wacky things.
That game and beetles are indeed awesome.
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gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
All the discussion in the DnD thread about canon reminds me the balance of lore in a new game. Too little and nobody has context; too much and there's no room to breathe. Personally, my plan for Seln Alora is simple. Outline the regional capitals and a couple of the big clans; leave blank spaces on the map intentionally and say "this is where you can slot anything you want to put in".
(Of course, I can cheat in my setting a bit since the elemental hurricanes and crystal eruptions can reshape the landscape itself. One example is a crystal eruption of earth creating a new mountain range from scratch.)
I suspect a certain type of player will be very interested in the clan of spacefarers who crash landed on this island, found out human tech doesn't work the way they expect, and are currently doing their damned best to instigate a magitech revolution. If I had infinite resources, I'd have a whole splat devoted to magitech mecha versus kung fu masters, but, alas, this system is already a monster.
Thinking about card game design, which roughly goes:
Create a deck of 25 cards.
Draw 5 cards to make your hand.
Cards have a cost to be played, and you pay for them by discarding cards. You only end up playing 1 to 3 cards a turn (some are 0 cost).
A card is played in either the front row as a creature, or back row as an effect. Cards can be moved around on your turn, or pushed by an opponent.
The theming is “good future”, with cards being roller blading cyborgs and AI Buddhists, but in practice you are creating a machine with your cards, moving parts around to activate their front and back abilities, in between straightforward attacking of the other side’s cards or your opponent.
Oh, and I’m still working on filling your hand again. Might be as simple as just draw until you have 5 at the start of your turn.
I might alter the game further to remove attacking, and instead it’s generating points. Might be easily done just being changing the wording of it. You don’t take their life when you hit them, you generate enlightenment by showing off your sick tricks.
You don’t have to pick a faction, but just for card art I’m thinking:
1. Garden Massive
A group that believes in renewable energy, recycling and making the world green again. Green cards.
2. Bubble Poppers
Soft hi-tech and luxury items hand made and shared, lots of remote devices. Hate corporations. Violet cards.
3. Venom Batteries
“The bad guys”, jesters to the king kinda theme. Point out flaws, critics, defend the minority. Fuck the police! Yellow cards.
5. Journey Sound Revolution (JSR)
Hip-hop rollerblading graffiti artists because you know… Blue cards.
6 Nowhere Pioneers
Digital dreamers and theoretical theorists looking to explore new horizons now the physical world is revealed. Orange cards.
7. Lux Azure
Sexy at sea. Cycles and waves. The Aesthetic. “Realness”. Indigo cards.
8. Shared Breath
Modern aboriginal tribals, connected across the globe. Cyborg mongol archers, Native American hackers, Aboriginal businessman who is secretly a shaman. Red cards.
Edit: The general premise is you’re not kill or be killed enemies, just friendly rivals trying to prove who is best.
Endless_Serpents on
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gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
If you have to spend cards from hand to pay for effects, you're regulating the action economy very tightly. A 3 card effect would likely have to be pretty potent to offset losing most of your hand. Could you even out the randomness by having a mechanism for banking the potent cards for later?
Also, there's no 4 in your list. Where's the 4, boss? Huh? Think we wouldn't catch on? Think we'd let it slip? Not today, bucko!
If you have to spend cards from hand to pay for effects, you're regulating the action economy very tightly. A 3 card effect would likely have to be pretty potent to offset losing most of your hand. Could you even out the randomness by having a mechanism for banking the potent cards for later?
Also, there's no 4 in your list. Where's the 4, boss? Huh? Think we wouldn't catch on? Think we'd let it slip? Not today, bucko!
Yeah it’s something I want, but the actual logistics need taking care of. I’m thinking there may be no ‘graveyard’, discarding may mean shuffling them back into your deck.
Banking is an option too, if not capping card cost at 2. I’m imagining the cards settle at that mid-tier; there’s no crappy cards or super booster pack legendaries.
Hmm… almost like I deleted the plot relevant black cards and thought the forum would rework the list…
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gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
I think I give up on building an "interesting" crafting system. I've tried multiple permutations, looked at crafting minigames in every genre of rpg and video game, and come up short. With that said, it seems the best choice is to simplify the crafting and focus more on its objectives. We can effectively condense crafting into something like an incantation: reagents, facility, and challenge roll.
A major purpose of our skill and crafting system is to create a core loop based on building out your town. Take it from a shanty in a corner to a thriving city. Viewed that way, we can view crafting as the spells that build your town (and your gear).
As usual, this shift introduces a new tension. You, as a martial artist, have a weapon school. That grants you special techniques and bonuses with your chosen weapon. Crafting also grants special bonuses with weapons (and armor). How do we determine which types of bonuses go to which system? Should they be condensed?
Your Path doesn't offer any meaningful customization. Your Grace offers you skill customization. But for martial art techniques and wuxia flavor, we're looking at weapon techniques (ahem, jutsu) and special gear. Hard to find the right balance of complexity and customization.
If you have skill ranks, max rank could improve with the facilities built? That might turn it mandatory from optional, depending on how you're going there. Could also go with training points as some kind of expendable resource you can use when out of town? Like a rerolls or something based on facility.
This’ll limit the scale of card design, but I’m thinking… what if you have to, and can only, play two cards per turn? No cost, you just have to play two. Eventually you’d even have to remove cards from the board just to play more.
Discarding from your hand might instead be used to pay for abilities on the cards in play and to move the cards in play around.
At the start of every turn, you draw enough cards to make a hand of five cards.
I really like the idea of every card being half back row spell and front row creature. I think it’s very flexible.
Basically what I’m going for is to narrow the battle card game experience down until there are no extras like mana, lands, tokens etc.
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gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
A question for you guys. Right now, my RPG has two different classes for each character. Paths are martial art schools, and Graces are basically education (covering skill checks and various noncombat things). They increase independently, and your level is the lower of the two. I've laid this out to several people, and the response has been confusion or resistance to the idea. Most people I've pitched to have thought that you leveled in your combat class and got the other for free.
I'm surprised that this is getting push-back. Then again, as the game designer, its easy for it to make sense to me. How do you guys feel about having two classes to level on your character?
What does "level" mean in your game? Why does a player care about their level, rather than independently caring about the skill checks or combat stats they get?
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gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
Yep, I should clarify. I divide the game into tiers, and these tiers inform your dice pool. Ie:
Level 0 (untrained): Dice pool 1d10
1 - 5 : Dice pool 2d10
6 - 10: 3d10
11 - 15: 4d10
Many special effects are based on your tier. For example, the number of times you can apply an armor debuff might be 1 + the difference in your tier with an opponent. While stats grow linearly, tiers allow us to model non-linear increases in aptitude. (In other words, I'm trying to build a system with mechanical backing for the old master who beats your ass with a tea cup and one hand.)
The tiers can be explained narratively as student -> warrior -> master of your martial arts school.
However, since we have two different classes for each character, the question becomes "When do you move to the next tier?" A core theme of the game is balance, including between Path (martial arts) and Grace (peaceful occupation). I want to reflect this by tying your combat and noncombat class progression together. A man who trains his punches to maximum (Path rank 15) but never once considers the spiritual implications of his place in the world (Grace rank 1) is not a master. Hence, my tentative rule that your level (for your tier) is the less of your two classes.
Maybe use different verbiage? Level being the derived attribute, lesser of rank for combat and grade for profession. Having separate labels for them might help brains wrap around it. If they're both level, then it might cross streams.
Edit: Do these players mostly play D&D or other d20 games? Because that might be causing the mental backflips.
Whelk on
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gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
Actually, why not just cut out out the middleman? If the goal is that you increase your player classes to eventually get to the next dice tier, we don't really need level. The only levels that matter are 1, 6, 11 when the dice pools increase. So instead of all that, maybe just:
Path rank, Grace rank. Each time you gain a rank, get a Cultivation point. Every ten Cultivation points, go up a tier and get more dice.
I really like the idea and I hope you pursue it. Having martial arts and education as separate things means there’s no dumb brutes or glass jawed savants (or rare at least). Really fits with the setting/genre.
How you get there is up to you, but your last post seemed like you’re finding your way to it.
Personally I’d have so if you have 1-Path and 1-Grace, you get X dice. Then at 3-Path and 3-Grace, Y dice. You can gain ranks in whatever order, and be unbalanced for as long as you like, but eventually if you want more dice you’ll have to even them out.
I've been working on a combat visualizer for my next CYOA. I'm trying to figure out how to make it more engaging.
Some background:
Because combat is all simulated, all the inputs happen up front. Originally, it was very basic - the party had one "power" stat and one "hp", and I solicited participants to select any 3 of the following list: Attack/Tech/Move/Defend. This mapped to attack/feint/maneuver/defend from the Mouse Guard RPG system, so each input would be matched randomly against an enemy's input, dice would be rolled, and based on a lookup table for player/enemy action pairs, the output would be logged.
Example
Party HP: 6 / Power: 4
Enemy HP: 3 / Power: 3
=== discrider's round ===
Party defend vs Enemy move
Enemy failed to gain an advantage.
The party recovered 2 damage. HP increased to 6.
Party move vs Enemy attack
Party failed to gain an advantage.
The party took 2 damage. HP reduced to 4.
Party attack vs Enemy tech
Enemy tech interrupted!
The enemy's HP remained the same.
=== see317's round ===
Party defend vs Enemy defend
The party's HP remained the same.
The enemy's HP remained the same.
Party tech vs Enemy move
The enemy took 2 damage. HP reduced to 1.
Enemy gains advantage!
Party move vs Enemy attack
Party failed to gain an advantage.
The party's HP remained the same.
=== endless_serpents's round ===
Party tech vs Enemy move
The enemy took 1 damage. HP reduced to 0.
The enemy was defeated!
Of course, all of this was in the context of JRPG themed adventure, so it expanded to choosing character AND action, and each character having their own stats. That adventure has ended, and post-ending I've gotten some feedback that I lost some people with that decision.
I'm working on another adventure now, and I've rebuilt the combat system to be more of a visual representation, while not having to create graphical assets. I'd love to actually have sprites on a battlefield, but I don't have the time to create new art for every encounter.
I got pretty tunnel-visioned yesterday making it work like this, but this morning I stepped back and considered the feedback I got. The engine here is still the same, with the exception of each unit having their own HP pool. I worry that maybe it's still not very engaging. Thing is, I don't want combat to drag out across multiple days, I'd still like to get all the input ahead of time and plug it into the simulator. So some things I'm considering:
Don't limit to one of each action - if a player wants to attack 3 times, let them
Let all characters act - as a side effect of only allowing 3 actions per turn, it meant one character takes no action (and earns no XP) every round.
Instead of cycling through the enemies, let player input choose an enemy
Let each character's action have a unique effect (eg Fighter's Attack might add personal buff, Mage's Attack might inflict a debuff on target, etc)
Change up the stats (Defend acting as a heal or defend depending on the margin of success is hard to intuit, Assist is even worse)
Give each character their own abilities that aren't 1:1 with stats, because right now there's no incentive to ever choose (for example) Defend with Hanya, since she's got the lowest Defend stat.
I've settled on throwing out what I've got. I don't actually mind throwing out work if it leads to a better product. Rather than having people participate in battle by entering commands, it'll be more of a deckbuilding kind of thing. Voting per instance of combat is simply selecting one character/action pair. Each character's deck starts with only a basic attack, and each vote adds to the character's deck.
Let's consider a 2 person party.
Saoirse the fencer
Thrust - deals 1.5x damage to target
Flank - target's next attack action misses
Parzeval the mage
Ice Spear - deals 1x damage to target and reduces their ATK by 1 for 1 turn
Hailstorm - deals .35x damage to all foes
If 6 people vote like so:
Saoirse - Thrust
Parzeval - Hailstorm
Parzeval - Ice Spear
Saoirse - Flank
Saoirse - Thrust
The on Saoirse's turns, her action will randomly be selected from (attack, thrust, flank, thrust). On Parzeval's turns, his action will randomly be selected from (attack, hailstorm, ice spear).
Essentially, voting just changes the distribution of a character's randomly selected actions. Since the basic attack is always inferior to unique actions and generates less XP, more votes means more use of stronger abilities, so more HP left over at the end of battle and better combat rewards.
So I've been working on a skirmish wargame based on cards for a while, but I've never figured out a movement-scheme I really liked. I have an idea I want to test out soon, and I thought you guys might wanna hear about it.
Instead of a grid or anything like that, I've had your fireteam in a line kind of like Darkest Dungeon where you have access to different actions based on position. Frontline has different actions available than Core or Rear. Multiple characters can be in any particular position. It's pretty simplistic.
The part I've been trying to get to work is how you'd be able to take territory or objectives you see in a lot of wargames. I've had zones and you move your squad as a whole, individuals, or even a grid-based map. I've tried having lanes like a MOBA or objectives you're trying to protect like Android. All of those are great, fun options. I might go back to them, but they also were something you then need minis or a map for (except the Android-style objectives which is my current favorite take.) It takes a bit of focus away from trying to make it just a card game. If that's the best for the game, I'll probably go back to it.
The new had an idea for having the marketplace in traditional deck-builders represent bits of the battlefield. So instead of zones, you have a stack of X card representing a zone. As each player takes actions with their squad, they can pull cards from the bank to claim the zone. Some actions will cause opponents to lose ground or forfeit territory. Having all of the cards, or X threshold of the total pool, for a zone gives your squad a boost or moves you further along in victory points or the non-deathmatch road to winning.
I could then build scenarios based on objectives and which zones are in play. Like an escort mission where you have to control X amount of every zone before your escorted character dies. Or one where one team hides bombs at the bottom of a couple zones in the marketplace. King of the hill is an easy one to work in. Each zone could also have tags for some things like Cover, Ley Line, or Zero Visibility that help various characters in different ways, and you'd have to control either the whole zone or a threshold of it to get the benefit.
What do you guys think?
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gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
If you're going with a deck builder, could zone control be based on what you play that round? I don't know if your hand size is big enough, but I'm imagining control shifting turn to turn based on people spending cards. Maybe with effects that allow zone control to roll over or the cards stay down until someone beats the total.
It's not a deck-builder. There is a deck, but it's more of a sideboard. You each control 3 dudes on a fireteam and are trying to accomplish your objective before the opponent does theirs. Killing them can be the way you do that, but I'm trying to figure out how to do these non-meatgrinder objectives in a fun way. So having a scenario or bringing your own objectives based on characters/squad is the current method. I am hesitant to have it be based on a map as that adds a ton of extra baggage. That's why I've been leaning towards the Android method or this kind of thing I just outlined (maybe poorly.)
Could there be such a thing as ‘overclocking’ a character for the fight?
I’m trying to give consequence to the votes, you know? Like, if you vote for a character to break their limit, they deal more damage but take more in return. Something like that.
Otherwise I fear folks won’t be as invested to vote, feeling they aren’t changing much, even if they are.
Could you abstract the zones by having cards like this:
With other cards triggering movement through the zone?
—
So your dungeon card might be Frigate with Hostages and you’d have a card like Leopard Crawl—“The operative of your choice advances the mission and gains 1 concealment.”
Maybe the players go through X number of missions in a row, and have counter objectives in each one. Attacking each other is secondary to securing the hostages/saving the hostages.
You could also do a tug of war with properties baked into the combat cards. Some powerful abilities that attack your foe could cede ground as a tradeoff
Could there be such a thing as ‘overclocking’ a character for the fight?
I’m trying to give consequence to the votes, you know? Like, if you vote for a character to break their limit, they deal more damage but take more in return. Something like that.
Otherwise I fear folks won’t be as invested to vote, feeling they aren’t changing much, even if they are.
Easily possible. Literally, actually, there's a clock that ticks to determine who goes in what order, so whichever character gets the most votes could start the battle with a status effect granting a speed buff. Or I could guarantee whoever gets the most votes gets an XP bonus, or goes first, or whatever.
@Endless_Serpents That's a good way to visualize it! Thinking of the phrasing you used "advances the mission" is a good way to think about it. You could do a lot with like some missions being timed by number of turns while one player tries to go down the mission track.
Delzhand, a tug of war mechanic might be good, too. I investigated something like this for an initiative system in another game, but it could definitely represent point control or something similar. I suppose that's what I meant by having the deck-builder-y marketplace of locations. Your squad would just take one of the limited number of control point cards for that location. It would definitely be more easily visualized with a couple of tracks that you could either add a team marker to or slide one way or the other.
Realistically, as long as I don't make this part too complicated, I might be able to add all of these ideas together. I do want some of the characters to be better at accomplishing the mission than they are at fighting. I was thinking that some of the missions would have actions only certain archetypes like operative, bodyguard, demolitions, etc. could take. That might be too much complexity and have to sit on the chopping block. It's on my wishlist of mechanics, if that helps you guys know the direction I'm steering.
@Delzhand I think a wildcard vote could be fun where you can pick a character to get a bonus effect besides their action. Each player throws a vote to their fave character and that guy gets an extra attack, a hit point, or even a limit break point like what Endless_Serpents said. You could also just have characters using their basic attacks until they get enough votes for the special moves. Like, they get charged up by votes? Once Saoirse gets 3 Impale votes, she stabs a dude real hard. Flank is more powerful against bosses so takes 4 votes. Eventually a player can force a move, but it might take a couple turns.
The combat math and unit display are accurate, all actions/reactions/status effects/etc work, but now I'm teasing out how to do the visualizer. I wasn't originally going to do custom sprites, but as long as I keep it to 16x16 and only 2 frames of animation, I think it'll be manageable.
I used a trick I developed a while back when I was doing full fledged games, where the entire battle is simulated in a single frame with no visual output, only logging, and then the battle is reinitialized so the log can be "replayed" one turn at a time without doing the charge time behind the scenes.
I'm only just now realizing that I probably could just have stored the unit states after each turn, and that would allow me to play in forward and reverse, but oh well.
I'm not particularly familiar with the CYOA format, but the model you've decided for your system is pretty interesting, and ripe for mechanical wrinkles for additional flavor. It's like how games like Hearthstone, Slay the Spire, or Dicey Dungeons are able to do things with their card-based gameplay that couldn't be easily done in a game bound to a physical implementation. I know that you're not trying to go for full simulation, but it'll be interesting to see if there are ways to add card trashing/exhaustion, card generation, or other exotic effects in there to draw out each character's personality and style through their moves' mechanics.
Absolutely! The CYOA format is actually more about narrative. You write a chunk of story, present it to the audience, and then give them some voting options for how to proceed. It's not normally this complex.
But my first CYOA was JRPG-inspired. It didn't have "gameplay" at all, at first, but over the course of a few months I added it piece by piece to emulate the combat of a videogame.
For the follow-up I wanted combat to be more visually interesting because I wanted (personally) to apply some things I learned from another project and to push myself as a programmer.
So as the story of the next CYOA progresses, there could be votes on whether a character might swap out an ability to learn a new one, or choose a new piece of equipment, or change classes or whatever, and all I have to do is add the winning vote to the ability/gear library.
Which is great, it means I don't have to program an entire videogame and every character/enemy/card upfront, I can do it as I go.
A really easy stepping stone under that philosophy might just be basic JRPG items.
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gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
I've just about defined all of the major systems for my RPG system. We know, more or less, how battle works, how exploration works, how the town grows, etc, etc. Probably the hardest 20% done. The other 80% is filling in all that space and making it work together.
Right, just need to generate 10 more Paths, the rest of the Graces, 300 or 400 other special techniques, buildings, clans, elemental effects, weather, ritual, weapons...
gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
Today I'm fleshing out the GM antagonist currency. Since the game revolves around the idea of Harmony, both as the major social construct of the kingdom and as the player currency for large, diffuse effects such as rituals, the obvious antonym currency for GMs can be Dissonance.
Its a given in any RPG that the GM can mess with your stuff. "Rocks fall, everybody dies" is the meme acknowledgement that the entire game rests on an implicit social contract. The GM should be a bit mean even! They're playing the opposition!
On the other hand, it feels super unfair when the GM drops a kill squad on your head or destroys your stuff while you're out of town. Dissonance is a way for us to manage unfair interactions inside a framing device that assures players that the GM has to expend his own resources and not just punch the party forever like some omniscient 4th grade bully.
The GM generates some Dissonance naturally. However, when the players take underhanded actions, he gets a lot more...
There are obvious uses for Dissonance: inflicting 'damage' on the character's domain, destroying resource locations, generating incursions by outside forces into their domain, etc. If a character takes enough damage to shed their last Auras, the GM can spend Dissonance to turn regular health damage into long-lasting Wounds.
My editor had an interesting addition to this train of thought: "Imagine using Dissonance to inflict 'world-weariness'. Your character ails of adventure, tires of the domain, and wonders what its all for. Is Harmony even worth it?"
So I tried out the version of locations in my game that I'm working on upthread. I think the idea has merit, and I actually took a step back to examine the strategies I wanted to have in this kind of game. I think it floats into those really well, enough that I want to take the next round of work I put on it into that sort of system.
Currently, locations are a series of cards in the middle of the field that you put tokens on to claim. Most tokens possesses that territory. Actions can add your tokens or remove enemy tokens, etc.
The new idea is that you'll bring a set of missions with your crew as a part of crew/deck construction. I got the thought when I played a game of Marvel Champions with a friend, but Warhammer Underworlds and Malifaux's mission structures are also influences. You'll bring one deck per mission type: Secure, Extraction, Race, or Destruction. These names are up for changing but they essentially describe what you'll be doing. Holding a location, escaping with a person or object, completing something that takes time (like hacking,) or killing an NPC/destroying a place/object. Each mission type can be pursued by a single player in my mind. So you'll have one player running an Extraction playing against a guy who's Securing or Racing Against the clock.
Each mission deck will be composed of objective cards. Only a couple will be in play at a time, and they'll either be randomized or arranged in stages. I'm thinking they'll be themed around whatever kind of mission the deck represents, like completing the dark ritual, planting the explosives, etc. The caveat to this is that some of the objective cards will be things your opponent can do to hamper your progress. The goal changes slightly depending on the randomization. You'll either get enough victory points from completing them to complete the objective to complete the mission or have to advance through all the stages. All of these objectives will have tags that some characters can interact with easier, complete faster, or get bonuses for pursuing. So you guys know my thought process, I'm thinking randomization could be more interesting and less repetitive. Maybe even a hybrid where each stage is randomized from the pool you brought.
The kicker is that once the mission is complete, you still have to escape or get to the extraction point with your lives. I'm thinking either a clock that counts down or everyone gets an extra turn before time runs out, and it goes to VP or some other measurement.
The strategies I see the game encouraging go along three general paths:
- Out-maneuvering your opponent and completing objectives
- Sabotage, disrupting enemy objective completion
- Combat, preventing the enemy from getting out alive
I know that's a little vague, so let me know if there are any holes that can be poked in it or if you have any thoughts! I'd really love the thoughts of anyone who has played Villainous. I might be reinventing the wheel here when it could just be something like the boards they have in that game. I haven't played it to know if what I've outlined is similar. It does stick in the back of my head as something to check out.
Discovered the computer game "World of Horror" by pure accident this week, and have subsequently become convinced I could spin the concept into a quick, clean, serialized Silent-Hill-style-PbP RPG, (with some minor tweaks!)
The original World of Horror (2019) is a (still incomplete!) old-school computer horror RPG that rips gleefully from Junji Ito and Lovecraft. I keep thinking I could basically just copy/replace the concept for a Western Audience...
Example: instead of a disgraced Japanese-teen-idol cornering and confronting the legendary Ako-Manto with a scalpel (that they found inside a high school bathroom) to halt Cthulhu, not-Laurie Strode (with a drill she scored from a not-Horror Party Massacre) fights the legendary Hookman at a rest stop to halt Cthulhu
YOU FOOLS! You thought I forgot about this thread, didn't you!?
well, i didn't. Celestial my self contained card-battle game about fighting each other with were-beasts, avatars of nature and the might of the sun forced into only just holding onto cohesion armor is coming along nicely. I'm on Version 3 of my design, which i'm hopeful has cracked some of the serious issues i had in early play tests (Rich-get-richer problems, complexity issues)
I'm nearly done with the basic concept/game flow document, which goes into how you play the game and the basic terms. Then i'll be crank out some cards, and then it be TESTING TIME.
Also in the back of my head i have ideas stewing for some sort of more peaceful/cooperative boardgame where you all grow mushrooms and mycelia networks. Vauge ideas of it being all about there being various substrates that you place onto the board and grow your mushrooms on, and sporing to let you move to other substrates, and various substrates work for different types of mushrooms... plus you could do cool things like have substrates that move around the board, acting as hosts for stuff like Cordcypes or fungal infections.
Super, super vauge this one though - Celestial is my main project right now.
I'm back on my bullshit, as the youths say. I'm pretty sure some of them say that.
I'm working on western-punk tactical game for the forum. It's a bit too mathy for a board game, but I don't want to get bogged down with the grunt work of making a video game and all that entails.
Here's the hook:
It has been a full year since the Procession passed through your dusty settlement. A caravan of wagons, horses, and motorbikes, all devoted to the task of seeing the potential Aguadores to the temple of the western coast. In a normal decade, the chosen youth would have assumed the mantle of Gran Aguador and returned back via the same path, blessing the settlements, towns, and farms with life-giving water.
But they never returned. The mystical flow that feeds the settlements' wells and reservoirs has begun to slow, and if a new Gran Aguador is not found and returned to the temple of the eastern coast, it's only a matter of time before the land becomes inhospitable. The mayor called a town hall meeting, seeking volunteers to travel west and learn what has happened. River Cartwright is one of those volunteers.
The forum will take control of a team of River and their company of travelers/do-gooders/ne'er-do-wells/mercenaries. Level them up using the job system (12 different jobs!), and if one falls? Replace them with a fresh faced recruit and start over, but keep your remaining allies' loyalty in mind!
Job Previews:
There's still some work to be done before it's ready, but one of my takeaways from the failed Chaos Quest II (which admittedly failed in part due to some real-life stresses) is that if you're going to have a battle system, it better be interactive. I've got a pretty good idea how to portray the battlefield, but it's gonna take some time to make visually cohesive.
Posts
That game and beetles are indeed awesome.
(Of course, I can cheat in my setting a bit since the elemental hurricanes and crystal eruptions can reshape the landscape itself. One example is a crystal eruption of earth creating a new mountain range from scratch.)
I suspect a certain type of player will be very interested in the clan of spacefarers who crash landed on this island, found out human tech doesn't work the way they expect, and are currently doing their damned best to instigate a magitech revolution. If I had infinite resources, I'd have a whole splat devoted to magitech mecha versus kung fu masters, but, alas, this system is already a monster.
We are self-publishing this one. Most of the art is placeholder still, but the resource cards and beetle tokens are looking really good, I think.
Thinking about card game design, which roughly goes:
Create a deck of 25 cards.
Draw 5 cards to make your hand.
Cards have a cost to be played, and you pay for them by discarding cards. You only end up playing 1 to 3 cards a turn (some are 0 cost).
A card is played in either the front row as a creature, or back row as an effect. Cards can be moved around on your turn, or pushed by an opponent.
The theming is “good future”, with cards being roller blading cyborgs and AI Buddhists, but in practice you are creating a machine with your cards, moving parts around to activate their front and back abilities, in between straightforward attacking of the other side’s cards or your opponent.
Oh, and I’m still working on filling your hand again. Might be as simple as just draw until you have 5 at the start of your turn.
I might alter the game further to remove attacking, and instead it’s generating points. Might be easily done just being changing the wording of it. You don’t take their life when you hit them, you generate enlightenment by showing off your sick tricks.
You don’t have to pick a faction, but just for card art I’m thinking:
1. Garden Massive
A group that believes in renewable energy, recycling and making the world green again. Green cards.
2. Bubble Poppers
Soft hi-tech and luxury items hand made and shared, lots of remote devices. Hate corporations. Violet cards.
3. Venom Batteries
“The bad guys”, jesters to the king kinda theme. Point out flaws, critics, defend the minority. Fuck the police! Yellow cards.
5. Journey Sound Revolution (JSR)
Hip-hop rollerblading graffiti artists because you know… Blue cards.
6 Nowhere Pioneers
Digital dreamers and theoretical theorists looking to explore new horizons now the physical world is revealed. Orange cards.
7. Lux Azure
Sexy at sea. Cycles and waves. The Aesthetic. “Realness”. Indigo cards.
8. Shared Breath
Modern aboriginal tribals, connected across the globe. Cyborg mongol archers, Native American hackers, Aboriginal businessman who is secretly a shaman. Red cards.
Edit: The general premise is you’re not kill or be killed enemies, just friendly rivals trying to prove who is best.
Also, there's no 4 in your list. Where's the 4, boss? Huh? Think we wouldn't catch on? Think we'd let it slip? Not today, bucko!
Yeah it’s something I want, but the actual logistics need taking care of. I’m thinking there may be no ‘graveyard’, discarding may mean shuffling them back into your deck.
Banking is an option too, if not capping card cost at 2. I’m imagining the cards settle at that mid-tier; there’s no crappy cards or super booster pack legendaries.
Hmm… almost like I deleted the plot relevant black cards and thought the forum would rework the list…
A major purpose of our skill and crafting system is to create a core loop based on building out your town. Take it from a shanty in a corner to a thriving city. Viewed that way, we can view crafting as the spells that build your town (and your gear).
As usual, this shift introduces a new tension. You, as a martial artist, have a weapon school. That grants you special techniques and bonuses with your chosen weapon. Crafting also grants special bonuses with weapons (and armor). How do we determine which types of bonuses go to which system? Should they be condensed?
Your Path doesn't offer any meaningful customization. Your Grace offers you skill customization. But for martial art techniques and wuxia flavor, we're looking at weapon techniques (ahem, jutsu) and special gear. Hard to find the right balance of complexity and customization.
This’ll limit the scale of card design, but I’m thinking… what if you have to, and can only, play two cards per turn? No cost, you just have to play two. Eventually you’d even have to remove cards from the board just to play more.
Discarding from your hand might instead be used to pay for abilities on the cards in play and to move the cards in play around.
At the start of every turn, you draw enough cards to make a hand of five cards.
I really like the idea of every card being half back row spell and front row creature. I think it’s very flexible.
Basically what I’m going for is to narrow the battle card game experience down until there are no extras like mana, lands, tokens etc.
I'm surprised that this is getting push-back. Then again, as the game designer, its easy for it to make sense to me. How do you guys feel about having two classes to level on your character?
Many special effects are based on your tier. For example, the number of times you can apply an armor debuff might be 1 + the difference in your tier with an opponent. While stats grow linearly, tiers allow us to model non-linear increases in aptitude. (In other words, I'm trying to build a system with mechanical backing for the old master who beats your ass with a tea cup and one hand.)
The tiers can be explained narratively as student -> warrior -> master of your martial arts school.
However, since we have two different classes for each character, the question becomes "When do you move to the next tier?" A core theme of the game is balance, including between Path (martial arts) and Grace (peaceful occupation). I want to reflect this by tying your combat and noncombat class progression together. A man who trains his punches to maximum (Path rank 15) but never once considers the spiritual implications of his place in the world (Grace rank 1) is not a master. Hence, my tentative rule that your level (for your tier) is the less of your two classes.
Edit: Do these players mostly play D&D or other d20 games? Because that might be causing the mental backflips.
Path rank, Grace rank. Each time you gain a rank, get a Cultivation point. Every ten Cultivation points, go up a tier and get more dice.
How you get there is up to you, but your last post seemed like you’re finding your way to it.
Personally I’d have so if you have 1-Path and 1-Grace, you get X dice. Then at 3-Path and 3-Grace, Y dice. You can gain ranks in whatever order, and be unbalanced for as long as you like, but eventually if you want more dice you’ll have to even them out.
Some background:
Because combat is all simulated, all the inputs happen up front. Originally, it was very basic - the party had one "power" stat and one "hp", and I solicited participants to select any 3 of the following list: Attack/Tech/Move/Defend. This mapped to attack/feint/maneuver/defend from the Mouse Guard RPG system, so each input would be matched randomly against an enemy's input, dice would be rolled, and based on a lookup table for player/enemy action pairs, the output would be logged.
Example
Enemy HP: 3 / Power: 3
=== discrider's round ===
Party defend vs Enemy move
Enemy failed to gain an advantage.
The party recovered 2 damage. HP increased to 6.
Party move vs Enemy attack
Party failed to gain an advantage.
The party took 2 damage. HP reduced to 4.
Party attack vs Enemy tech
Enemy tech interrupted!
The enemy's HP remained the same.
=== see317's round ===
Party defend vs Enemy defend
The party's HP remained the same.
The enemy's HP remained the same.
Party tech vs Enemy move
The enemy took 2 damage. HP reduced to 1.
Enemy gains advantage!
Party move vs Enemy attack
Party failed to gain an advantage.
The party's HP remained the same.
=== endless_serpents's round ===
Party tech vs Enemy move
The enemy took 1 damage. HP reduced to 0.
The enemy was defeated!
Of course, all of this was in the context of JRPG themed adventure, so it expanded to choosing character AND action, and each character having their own stats. That adventure has ended, and post-ending I've gotten some feedback that I lost some people with that decision.
I'm working on another adventure now, and I've rebuilt the combat system to be more of a visual representation, while not having to create graphical assets. I'd love to actually have sprites on a battlefield, but I don't have the time to create new art for every encounter.
Here's the current iteration. https://delzhand.github.io/vrpg/combat.html?data=0
I got pretty tunnel-visioned yesterday making it work like this, but this morning I stepped back and considered the feedback I got. The engine here is still the same, with the exception of each unit having their own HP pool. I worry that maybe it's still not very engaging. Thing is, I don't want combat to drag out across multiple days, I'd still like to get all the input ahead of time and plug it into the simulator. So some things I'm considering:
Let's consider a 2 person party.
Saoirse the fencer
Thrust - deals 1.5x damage to target
Flank - target's next attack action misses
Parzeval the mage
Ice Spear - deals 1x damage to target and reduces their ATK by 1 for 1 turn
Hailstorm - deals .35x damage to all foes
If 6 people vote like so:
Saoirse - Thrust
Parzeval - Hailstorm
Parzeval - Ice Spear
Saoirse - Flank
Saoirse - Thrust
The on Saoirse's turns, her action will randomly be selected from (attack, thrust, flank, thrust). On Parzeval's turns, his action will randomly be selected from (attack, hailstorm, ice spear).
Essentially, voting just changes the distribution of a character's randomly selected actions. Since the basic attack is always inferior to unique actions and generates less XP, more votes means more use of stronger abilities, so more HP left over at the end of battle and better combat rewards.
Instead of a grid or anything like that, I've had your fireteam in a line kind of like Darkest Dungeon where you have access to different actions based on position. Frontline has different actions available than Core or Rear. Multiple characters can be in any particular position. It's pretty simplistic.
The part I've been trying to get to work is how you'd be able to take territory or objectives you see in a lot of wargames. I've had zones and you move your squad as a whole, individuals, or even a grid-based map. I've tried having lanes like a MOBA or objectives you're trying to protect like Android. All of those are great, fun options. I might go back to them, but they also were something you then need minis or a map for (except the Android-style objectives which is my current favorite take.) It takes a bit of focus away from trying to make it just a card game. If that's the best for the game, I'll probably go back to it.
The new had an idea for having the marketplace in traditional deck-builders represent bits of the battlefield. So instead of zones, you have a stack of X card representing a zone. As each player takes actions with their squad, they can pull cards from the bank to claim the zone. Some actions will cause opponents to lose ground or forfeit territory. Having all of the cards, or X threshold of the total pool, for a zone gives your squad a boost or moves you further along in victory points or the non-deathmatch road to winning.
I could then build scenarios based on objectives and which zones are in play. Like an escort mission where you have to control X amount of every zone before your escorted character dies. Or one where one team hides bombs at the bottom of a couple zones in the marketplace. King of the hill is an easy one to work in. Each zone could also have tags for some things like Cover, Ley Line, or Zero Visibility that help various characters in different ways, and you'd have to control either the whole zone or a threshold of it to get the benefit.
What do you guys think?
Could there be such a thing as ‘overclocking’ a character for the fight?
I’m trying to give consequence to the votes, you know? Like, if you vote for a character to break their limit, they deal more damage but take more in return. Something like that.
Otherwise I fear folks won’t be as invested to vote, feeling they aren’t changing much, even if they are.
Maybe something like:
-1/-1 = Defensive Stance
0/0 = Regular Stance
+1/+1 = Offensive Stance
+2/+2 = Limit Break!!!
Could you abstract the zones by having cards like this:
With other cards triggering movement through the zone?
—
So your dungeon card might be Frigate with Hostages and you’d have a card like Leopard Crawl—“The operative of your choice advances the mission and gains 1 concealment.”
Maybe the players go through X number of missions in a row, and have counter objectives in each one. Attacking each other is secondary to securing the hostages/saving the hostages.
Easily possible. Literally, actually, there's a clock that ticks to determine who goes in what order, so whichever character gets the most votes could start the battle with a status effect granting a speed buff. Or I could guarantee whoever gets the most votes gets an XP bonus, or goes first, or whatever.
Delzhand, a tug of war mechanic might be good, too. I investigated something like this for an initiative system in another game, but it could definitely represent point control or something similar. I suppose that's what I meant by having the deck-builder-y marketplace of locations. Your squad would just take one of the limited number of control point cards for that location. It would definitely be more easily visualized with a couple of tracks that you could either add a team marker to or slide one way or the other.
Realistically, as long as I don't make this part too complicated, I might be able to add all of these ideas together. I do want some of the characters to be better at accomplishing the mission than they are at fighting. I was thinking that some of the missions would have actions only certain archetypes like operative, bodyguard, demolitions, etc. could take. That might be too much complexity and have to sit on the chopping block. It's on my wishlist of mechanics, if that helps you guys know the direction I'm steering.
@Delzhand I think a wildcard vote could be fun where you can pick a character to get a bonus effect besides their action. Each player throws a vote to their fave character and that guy gets an extra attack, a hit point, or even a limit break point like what Endless_Serpents said. You could also just have characters using their basic attacks until they get enough votes for the special moves. Like, they get charged up by votes? Once Saoirse gets 3 Impale votes, she stabs a dude real hard. Flank is more powerful against bosses so takes 4 votes. Eventually a player can force a move, but it might take a couple turns.
The combat math and unit display are accurate, all actions/reactions/status effects/etc work, but now I'm teasing out how to do the visualizer. I wasn't originally going to do custom sprites, but as long as I keep it to 16x16 and only 2 frames of animation, I think it'll be manageable.
I used a trick I developed a while back when I was doing full fledged games, where the entire battle is simulated in a single frame with no visual output, only logging, and then the battle is reinitialized so the log can be "replayed" one turn at a time without doing the charge time behind the scenes.
I'm only just now realizing that I probably could just have stored the unit states after each turn, and that would allow me to play in forward and reverse, but oh well.
Decided to commit fully to the idea.
While there are a few things left to do, none of them affect this particular input/seed, so this is more or less final.
But my first CYOA was JRPG-inspired. It didn't have "gameplay" at all, at first, but over the course of a few months I added it piece by piece to emulate the combat of a videogame.
For the follow-up I wanted combat to be more visually interesting because I wanted (personally) to apply some things I learned from another project and to push myself as a programmer.
So as the story of the next CYOA progresses, there could be votes on whether a character might swap out an ability to learn a new one, or choose a new piece of equipment, or change classes or whatever, and all I have to do is add the winning vote to the ability/gear library.
Which is great, it means I don't have to program an entire videogame and every character/enemy/card upfront, I can do it as I go.
Right, just need to generate 10 more Paths, the rest of the Graces, 300 or 400 other special techniques, buildings, clans, elemental effects, weather, ritual, weapons...
Look forward to Seln Alora, coming December 2025!
Its a given in any RPG that the GM can mess with your stuff. "Rocks fall, everybody dies" is the meme acknowledgement that the entire game rests on an implicit social contract. The GM should be a bit mean even! They're playing the opposition!
On the other hand, it feels super unfair when the GM drops a kill squad on your head or destroys your stuff while you're out of town. Dissonance is a way for us to manage unfair interactions inside a framing device that assures players that the GM has to expend his own resources and not just punch the party forever like some omniscient 4th grade bully.
The GM generates some Dissonance naturally. However, when the players take underhanded actions, he gets a lot more...
There are obvious uses for Dissonance: inflicting 'damage' on the character's domain, destroying resource locations, generating incursions by outside forces into their domain, etc. If a character takes enough damage to shed their last Auras, the GM can spend Dissonance to turn regular health damage into long-lasting Wounds.
My editor had an interesting addition to this train of thought: "Imagine using Dissonance to inflict 'world-weariness'. Your character ails of adventure, tires of the domain, and wonders what its all for. Is Harmony even worth it?"
That sounds like a great start of an arc.
Currently, locations are a series of cards in the middle of the field that you put tokens on to claim. Most tokens possesses that territory. Actions can add your tokens or remove enemy tokens, etc.
The new idea is that you'll bring a set of missions with your crew as a part of crew/deck construction. I got the thought when I played a game of Marvel Champions with a friend, but Warhammer Underworlds and Malifaux's mission structures are also influences. You'll bring one deck per mission type: Secure, Extraction, Race, or Destruction. These names are up for changing but they essentially describe what you'll be doing. Holding a location, escaping with a person or object, completing something that takes time (like hacking,) or killing an NPC/destroying a place/object. Each mission type can be pursued by a single player in my mind. So you'll have one player running an Extraction playing against a guy who's Securing or Racing Against the clock.
Each mission deck will be composed of objective cards. Only a couple will be in play at a time, and they'll either be randomized or arranged in stages. I'm thinking they'll be themed around whatever kind of mission the deck represents, like completing the dark ritual, planting the explosives, etc. The caveat to this is that some of the objective cards will be things your opponent can do to hamper your progress. The goal changes slightly depending on the randomization. You'll either get enough victory points from completing them to complete the objective to complete the mission or have to advance through all the stages. All of these objectives will have tags that some characters can interact with easier, complete faster, or get bonuses for pursuing. So you guys know my thought process, I'm thinking randomization could be more interesting and less repetitive. Maybe even a hybrid where each stage is randomized from the pool you brought.
The kicker is that once the mission is complete, you still have to escape or get to the extraction point with your lives. I'm thinking either a clock that counts down or everyone gets an extra turn before time runs out, and it goes to VP or some other measurement.
The strategies I see the game encouraging go along three general paths:
- Out-maneuvering your opponent and completing objectives
- Sabotage, disrupting enemy objective completion
- Combat, preventing the enemy from getting out alive
I know that's a little vague, so let me know if there are any holes that can be poked in it or if you have any thoughts! I'd really love the thoughts of anyone who has played Villainous. I might be reinventing the wheel here when it could just be something like the boards they have in that game. I haven't played it to know if what I've outlined is similar. It does stick in the back of my head as something to check out.
The original World of Horror (2019) is a (still incomplete!) old-school computer horror RPG that rips gleefully from Junji Ito and Lovecraft. I keep thinking I could basically just copy/replace the concept for a Western Audience...
Example: instead of a disgraced Japanese-teen-idol cornering and confronting the legendary Ako-Manto with a scalpel (that they found inside a high school bathroom) to halt Cthulhu, not-Laurie Strode (with a drill she scored from a not-Horror Party Massacre) fights the legendary Hookman at a rest stop to halt Cthulhu
well, i didn't. Celestial my self contained card-battle game about fighting each other with were-beasts, avatars of nature and the might of the sun forced into only just holding onto cohesion armor is coming along nicely. I'm on Version 3 of my design, which i'm hopeful has cracked some of the serious issues i had in early play tests (Rich-get-richer problems, complexity issues)
I'm nearly done with the basic concept/game flow document, which goes into how you play the game and the basic terms. Then i'll be crank out some cards, and then it be TESTING TIME.
Also in the back of my head i have ideas stewing for some sort of more peaceful/cooperative boardgame where you all grow mushrooms and mycelia networks. Vauge ideas of it being all about there being various substrates that you place onto the board and grow your mushrooms on, and sporing to let you move to other substrates, and various substrates work for different types of mushrooms... plus you could do cool things like have substrates that move around the board, acting as hosts for stuff like Cordcypes or fungal infections.
Super, super vauge this one though - Celestial is my main project right now.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
I'm working on western-punk tactical game for the forum. It's a bit too mathy for a board game, but I don't want to get bogged down with the grunt work of making a video game and all that entails.
Here's the hook:
The forum will take control of a team of River and their company of travelers/do-gooders/ne'er-do-wells/mercenaries. Level them up using the job system (12 different jobs!), and if one falls? Replace them with a fresh faced recruit and start over, but keep your remaining allies' loyalty in mind!
Job Previews:
There's still some work to be done before it's ready, but one of my takeaways from the failed Chaos Quest II (which admittedly failed in part due to some real-life stresses) is that if you're going to have a battle system, it better be interactive. I've got a pretty good idea how to portray the battlefield, but it's gonna take some time to make visually cohesive.
i'm very proud of it