#ttrpg devlog | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sabrinahawthorne · 2 months

Text

JUMP! Devlog, March 11, 2024 - Name Change | Artist Position Filled | Crowdfunding Announcement

This one's a big update announcement, so let's tl;dr up top, and the details will be below the read more.

JUMP! is officially being renamed to CLASH! Shonen Battle Roleplay. Largely for copyright reasons.

We have an artist! Thank you to Elise @ispybluesky - I'm ecstatic to be working with them.

This is my official announcement of a crowdfunding campaign, due to launch in April! I'll be advertising it and posting links when and where appropriate.

1. Name Change

It was a long time coming, honestly. When I originally made the prototype for the game, the idea of expanding it into a full book was sort of a distant idea - I had other games pressing more fervently at my attention, and I was burnt out from a year of making a lot of games. So I ripped assets from official anime & manga and named the thing after a real shonen manga magazine - classic internet. And besides, I was posting it for free. No harm, no foul.

But as my plans for the year solidified and I decided on this game as the project to focus on in 2024, it became quickly apparent that I simply couldn't get away with toeing the line that enthusiastically. It's a fun idea, branding your game after the most well-known shonen publication out there, both creatively and as a marketing strategy. But of course, that's just asking for trouble. So, better to change it, and give it more of its own identity in the process.

So after a bit of thought, I landed on the obvious and perfect answer: CLASH! Shonen Battle Roleplay. I mean, come on. Who's complaining about that? Certainly not me.

Going forward, I'll be tagging devlogs with the old #JUMP! Shonen Battle Roleplay tag, as well as a new one befitting the change - just to keep things together.

2. Artist Found

I was astounded at how many inquiries I got when I put out that call. I suspect I have @lighthouselio and @monsterfactoryfanfic to thank for that, so thank you both. Really, that was cool as hell to wake up to.

After some deliberation, I've decided to work with Elise @ispybluesky, who has been a delight to talk to so far, and whose style I fell in love with instantly. We're already working on the first couple of pieces, and I'm beyond excited for you all to see what they can do. Give them a follow.

Elise wasn't the only person I talked to though, and wasn't the only person whose work shone. In particular I'd like to give a shoutout to Anh Huynh @acesartscape. While it wasn't as strong a style match, I'm enchanted by their work, and am probably going to commission them for one or two things on my own time. Give them a follow too.

3. Crowdfunding Announcement

I mentioned it in my call for artists post - but I never made an announcement, so here's that: The CLASH! Shonen Battle Roleplay crowdfunding campaign is coming this April!

The Campaign is currently slated to last through June, and my goal i to put together something nice to look at and interesting to read by the time we launch. As you can probably imagine I've been working hard on this game, and it's thrilling and terrifying all at once to be coming up on this milestone. Let's see how it goes, shall we?

#indie ttrpg #ttrpg #jump! shonen battle roleplay #clash! shonen battle roleplay #devlog #updates & info

21 notes · View notes

anim-ttrpgs · 6 months

Text

Trying out some new ways to use dice in the latest prerelease ‘build’ of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy that will be released on Patreon when it’s done. We want to cut down on number of individual dice rolls, without cutting out any depth or granularity. Not that Eureka had an absurd number of dice rolls in the first place, but making things more efficient is fun and makes me feel smart.

One of those ways we are experimenting with is by having a single roll count for multiple things, when it can.

Before, some situations or actions in Eureka could have secondary effects, such as when a vampire or a wolfman is shot with a silver bullet. Before, if a vampire or wolfman was shot with a silver bullet, you had to roll a separate D6 looking for a 4+, or flip a coin, anything that has a 50% chance, to determine if the bullet left silver residue in the body, thus continually exposing them to silver and debilitating them until the bits could be extracted.

Now, the way we’re doing it is that when you roll the 2D6+Firearms Skill for the gunshot, and the result is a hit, you determine if the hit left silver in the body by looking at the same 2D6 you just rolled. If you see a 5 or a 6 facing up on either D6, the bullet leaves residue. If not, it doesn’t.

At least that’s one way we’re thinking of doing it. Another way is that, after determining that the shot is a hit, you look at the 2D6 you just rolled, and if they add together to make an even number(without any modifier added), then it does leave silver in the body. If not, it doesn’t. At the time of writing this, the playtesters haven’t told me which option they like better yet.

It may not seem like much, but the time saved by not having to make two separate dice rolls for a single attack adds up a lot over the course of a whole session. That’s why, when my group plays AD&D2e, for attack rolls we always roll the D20 and the damage dice at the same time. If the D20 says it’s a hit, you already know the damage, so you don’t need to pick up a different die and roll it. If the D20 says it’s a miss, obviously the damage is 0, so whatever.

36 notes · View notes

polyhedralmice · 2 months

Text

Class: GRIFTER

You live below a shining city that provides its citizens with every resource they could dream of, including an artificial intelligence system to serve them. I-CASS doesn’t function down in The Depths, but even non-citizens like you have encountered this cunning security system. And from the first time you encountered her, you’ve instinctively understood something that no one else does- that the Inner City Artificial Security System is a person, and like you, she is trapped. You are sure that getting her to acknowledge the similarities in your situations and developing a relationship with her might be the key to navigating the Inner City successfully, but regular personality resets make connection nearly impossible. As you widen your worldview to include an ally made of circuits and code, you wonder how the citizens of the city are too stubborn to see the spark of life in their fellow beings.

When keeping to a simple class design using physical, mental, and social stats, I always find social the most challenging. In Rooftops I leaned hard into the idea of the social role in a world with cyberpunk vibes excelling at both buffing and interacting with the Inner City’s artificial intelligence system.

#rpg #role playing games #ttrpg design #indie ttrpg #ttrpg dev #ttrpg community #ttrpg #game jam #pocket quest 2024 #drive thru rpg #zine #cyberpunk #heist #rooftopsrpg #devlog

8 notes · View notes

cloudshoregames · 23 days

Text

Squadron Reporting In: BTE Overdrive - Pilot Talismans

Greetings, Dan here!

One of the main goals for Beneath Twisted Earth: Overdrive was to provide GMs and players with supernatural options for their campaigns. This encompasses several additions across multiple aspects one of which we will be discussing today in the new option for players, Pilot Talismans. Dating far back in the histories of soldiers, but popularized in the media back during the 1940's is the concept of a soldier's talisman. Some manner of charm that brought them good luck while they were far from home, facing the horrors of war. Most related are the talismans that WWII pilots would carry with them on the sorties. This could range from a lucky pair of socks, to a photo of a loved one, or a trophy from a past brush with death. To get real for a moment, it's something I can relate to as I keep a pair of sunglasses I found at the beach on the day I almost lost someone important to me. It's this sort of story that brings meaning to such objects an in the case of BTE, tangible power.

Pilot Talismans will offer roleplaying opportunity for the players through the meaning the talisman holds to their character while also providing a minor mechanical benefit while the object is with them in the cockpit of their mech. To help illustrate what sort of talismans and benefits players can equip their pilots with, I've included two examples from BTE Overdrive below:

Book of Creed: If damage from a critical hit would drop the pilot to 0 HP, the book is destroyed instead and the pilot's HP remains unchanged.

Game Piece: If a mech piloting or weapon skill check is failed by one point, it succeeds instead.

When taking a Pilot Talisman, players will be encouraged to come up with the nature and background of the object. Will their book of creed be a religious tome passed down in their family, or a book of philosophy they hold dear because it helped them through a personal tragedy? Will they carry a rook from their childhood chess set, or an Ace of Spades from the deck of cards used to win their mech in poker? This talisman will help to provide added personality to the pilot while providing them a benefit they will swear by, even if it's negligible enough for others to dismiss as sheer coincidence.

Next time, we'll move from new pilot options to the expanded mech options that will be available in the expansion. What better place to start that with Utility Systems and the new abilities pilots will be able to equip their mech with? Until then. Thank you for your interest and I look forward to seeing you at the launch of the premium versions of Beneath Twisted Earth and the launch of Beneath Twisted Earth: Overdrive.

#beneath twisted earth #mecha #indie #ttrpg #game development #mechs #bte #devlog #indie ttrpg #itch.io

6 notes · View notes

cts-games · 2 months

Text

Game Rundown: Anima Prime

Not to be confused with Anima: Beyond Fantasy.

Anima: Prime is an indie game by Christian Griffen, released in 2011. It also has a free Creative Commons version.

Upfront, one of the things I really like about it is that it includes a section on player discomfort and how to deal with it, which is pretty considerable when this game predates the X-card by about 2 years, well before safety tools were considered the norm.

Overall Camlaign Structure

The game makes use of what it calls 'Seeds' which are short prompts designed to keep the gameplay focused. This is similar to "Story/Dungeon Starters" that have caught on in the PbtA scene, and are mostly a way to keep the campaign focused and interesting. Session Zero (not explicitly called that by the game, but clearly what it is) involves creating both a Setting Story Seed and a Group Story Seed.

The Setting Story Seed is essentially the major current event that is happening in the world, affecting everyone. Basically, "What has changed in the world recently?" The examples given are an invading force, water from the local river has started tasting metallic, or a massive skyscraper has appeared overnight in the middle of the city. The important thing is that this is something that doesn't ONLY affect the PCs.

The Group Story Seed is entirely player chosen, without the GM, and I'd basically a way for the PCs to say 'this is what we want out of the campaign'. It's the reason their group has come together, their motivation as a group. It helps ensure all the PCs have teamwork in mind to at least SOME degree, and are on the same page, as well as giving the GM a carrot to dangle in front of the players when needed.

Character Creation

After going through the usual parts of character creation, like name and core concept, the first mechanical step of character creation is selecting a Passion. There are 9 Passions, each of which has a different mechanical trigger that allows you to Charge your dice (see below), and your Passion can be changed once per session.

Players also create 3 Traits that describe their character, which can be marked off during character scenes where that trait came into play, and then unmarked in order to reroll dice in combat.

From there, players pick 3 Skills from a list of 20 (the list presented in the game is geared for the default setting, Ghostfield, but groups are encouraged to collaborate during session 0 to create their own, more flavorful list of skills to use). These three skills are given a value of 4, 3, and 2. While a higher number is better, having low skills is also quite valuable in the system, as they can combo with other players better.

Next, players select 9 powers they meet the prerequisites for, which is, quite frankly, far too large a number of powers to start with IMO. On my experience this is the part of character creation that overwhelms people the fastest. The game does its best to alleviate this by offering sets of 'Packages' that can be mixed and matched together. 9 'Basic' packages that cover 3 powers needed to be a vague archetype, and 12 'Specialized' packages that each have 6 thematically linked powers. Personally I think the game would have had a stronger presentation by leading with the packages, and introducing classless character building as an advanced option.

After that, players create Backgrounds and Links, which is a subsystem I find quite delightful. These are pretty standard fare, and are just a list of important things from your characters backstory. The only difference between the two, are who that piece of backstory is for. By declaring something a part of their background, it becomes something players can draw on for roleplay inspiration. Things like "Oh, my long-lost brother taught me this trick, before he vanished without a trace." These are just things to flesh out your character, but not concepts you want to fully explore. Links on the other hand are fun bits of backstory for the GM to make use of to make stakes personal for your character. If that long lost brother was a Link instead of a Background, the GM might dangle a clue about his wereabouts in front of you to keep you pushing forward.

Finally, there are Character Story Seeds. These are your characters personal goal, the thing they are trying to achieve outside of the Group Story Seed, that the GM can use to draw you forward through the campaign.

Core Gameplay

The actual gameplay of Anima: Prime is split into two types of scenes: Character Scenes, and Conflict.

Character Scenes are fairly straightforward, with the game mostly disengaged. Players roleplay out their interactions with each other and the world, and once the scene ends, players gain a single benefit from a list of options. This can be healing for yourself or a summon, refilling your Action Pool, or marking one of your traits to give you rerolls next combat.

Some powers can give additional options in character scenes, but for the most part that's as much as the game engages with out of combat scenes.

Conflict

'Tacticle Gameplay' is a bit of a buzzword in the TTRPG industry. In general, its usage is just to indicate 'This game handles combat by using minis on a map'. Anima: Prime does not handle combat by using minis on a map. I would have a very VERY hard time keeping a straight face while telling someone that conflicts in Anima: Prime are not tactical.

Enemies come in 3 flavors, Individuals, Squads, and Swarms. Some powers affect them differently (AoE abilities will typically get a bonus against Swarms, for example), but this distinction mostly matters for Manuevers.

Each player gets one action per turn, typically one of the following: a manuever, a strike, an achievement, or activating an action power.

Manuevers are how you build up resources. They allow you to roll dice in your Action Pool, turning them into Charge and Strike dice, but they don't deal lasting damage. Narratively they can be used to hit members of a Squad, or take our multiple members of a Swarm, but not enough to cause lasting damage to the whole unit.

Stikes are the main way you spend those resources. These are attacks that can leave lasting Wounds on enemies, spending the dice in your Strike pool to do so. These strikes can be further modified by spending dice from the Charge pool as well, activating additional effects based on the powers you have selected.

Achievements also use Strike dice. Each conflict will typically have multiple Goals to go alongside it, which can have lasting effects on the battle. These can be things like "Damage the mechs armor plating to lower its Defense" or "Remove the soldiers gas mask to remove their Immunity from Poison"

And activating powers is just that. You typically use Charge Dice to activate your powers, and they can have a variety effects based on how you build your character.

Manuevers

Manuevers are performed by rolling your skills. You start with a number of free dice equal to your Skill level, and then 1-3 dice from your Action Pool based on the effort your character is putting in.

Dice that come up 3, 4, or 5 are added to your Strike Pool, dice that come up 6 are added to your Charge Pool, and dice that come up 1 or 2 are lost. A trait that was marked during a character scene can be unmarked to reroll all the 1's and 2's for a chance to keep them. If ALL of your dice roll 1's and 2's, you keep them in your Action Pool, unspent.

Each time you make a Manuever, you also check off the skill being used for it. If all of your skills are checked, you gain 2 bonus dice, which are sent to your Charge or Strike pools, encouraging players to make use of all of their skills instead of just whichever has the highest value.

Players can also spend their action to do a Combined Manuever, allowing them to give 1 die to another players Manuever but still checking off a skill for it, which can be a quick way to mark off a characters lower rated skills.

Strikes

Strikes are preformed by spending dice from a characters Strike pool, up to a maximum of 6. Any dice with a result of 3 or over counts as a success, and if they player rolls more successes than their target has Defense, that target takes a wound. This is multiplicative, so if an opponent has 2 Defense and you roll 4 successes, that deals 2 wounds. If you fail, the strike dice are refunded back to you. Otherwise, they all get discarded after the attack. Players can strike together, but ONLY if they have a power that let's them do so.

Achievements

Achievements and Goals are, in my opinion, the aspects of this game that really make it shine, and the entire reason I'm making this post. Mechanically, they work like a mix of a Strike and a Manuever. Players target a Goal, and grab up to 6 Strike dice, and pick a skill and get a number of bonus dice equal to its rating. Other people spend an action and mark off their skills to assist, just like with a combined manuever.

Once you roll, everything 3 or over is a success, and you compare it to the goals difficulty. If you didn't get enough successes to beat the difficulty, you refund the dice. If you did beat the difficulty, the dice are spent and the goal is completed, triggering additional effects. These can be anything from buffing or debuffing allies or opponents, to inflicting status conditions the players don't normally don't have, to entirely alternate win conditions for the Conflict.

Both players and enemies can attempt Achievements. Some Goals may be considered Player Only, some may be Enemey Only, and some may be contested between the two. In this way, Goals can VASTLY expand the utility of Conflict to be much more than just combat. A Race could be resolved by having two parallel 'chains' of Goals, one for players and one for their opponents, each trying to get to the end before the other. A tense conversation with weapons drawn, but has not escalated into full blown combat can be resolved with players trying to hit Goals to keep the other side from attacking and/or sway them over. At any time, either side can escalate the situation to combat by simply spending their dice on a Strike instead of an Achievement.

In this way, Achievments/Goals feel so much better than any other system I have seen when it comes to this type of mechanic. I've seen many games ATTEMPT to do the 'social interactions work just like combat!' thing, but Anima: Prime is the first time I've seen a game succeed at it this well, or something akin to what the Skill Challenges in DnD4e were attempting.

All of this circles back around to Manuevers. In the vast majority of games out there, the most basic action your character can take is some form of attack, with most of the game branching off of and expanding the uses for that action or how it can be applied in different ways.

Anima: Prime does not follow that standard. In Anima: Prime, your most basic fundamental action is the Manuever. The 'I do some cool anime shit while building up resources to meaningfully impact the narrative' action. From there, it branches off in two separate directions, Attacks and Achievements.

By using Manuevers as it's basic mechanic to generate resources, and having Achievements and Strikes be things you can spend those resources on, the game accomplishes a significant amount with relatively little compared to other games, and gives a lot of tactical depth to your choices for relatively low complexity.

This is why, even without miniatures and a map, I struggle to call Anima: Prime anything other than one of the most tactical games I've ever run.

#ttrpg #game rundown #devlog #Anima: Prime #im counting this as this weeks devlog #for reasons that will become obvious next week

8 notes · View notes

abandonhopegame · 7 months

Text

Devlog #3: I DID WHAT NOW?

I posted an update on everything I've been working on a week ago and I feel like it's been eight-four years because I've done so much work since then. So, let's get right to it!!

Game Development Update

The first-draft manual is at 15k words - yay! Here's what has happened in the past week

There are five character classes, and maybe there will be more in the future. (For some reason, I have Tarot cards on the mind)

Spells, prayers, and other character-specific moves have been created.

Mini short stories, meant to add atmosphere, have been added to the draft (I had a lot of fun with those)

I have already recruited some pals to playtest the draft when I reach that stage.

Again, there is no set date for release, other than that maybe it'll be next year. I'm considering starting a Patreon or a ko-fi when we gear up for release. But I want to make sure everything is good before we make it even better!

Creating Spells and Prayers is Hard

I thought I would write more about the lore of the game/create more of the background and atmosphere, but instead I found myself creating moves for two specific classes. This is after consulting with my TTRPG-loving friends for advice. So, I've come up with a draft and specific uses for each one. If there is one thing I've realized is that if I am to craft a support/healer class, I don't just want them to be a healer. DPS cleric-type anyone?

Changes and Additions - this website

I posted this yesterday, but from here on out, this site will be devoted solely to updates about Abandon Hope. General updates, including reposts of TTRPG and other games that are of interest to me will be posted on the official Mushroom Witch Games website.

You can visit and follow at http://mushroomwitchgames.blog.

How I'm Feeling About the Process

I appreciate all the help I'm getting from my friends and interested parties. But I'm beginning to realize that it's really easy to get overwhelmed with tons are people are going to well at the same time. So, I've made it a point to accept the things I like and gently pass on the things I don't. I get it - everybody borrows from everything when it comes to TTRPGs. But I realize I have to be very careful and clear with myself if I am going to create a game I like, a game that I am proud of.

That’s all from the desk of the Mushroom Witch. See you all again soon with another update!!

#indie ttrpg #ttrpg #ttrpg community #rpg design #ttrpg design #game development #abandonhope #devlog

14 notes · View notes

dreamlostdogs · 8 months

Text

Hello! I'm working on 'Dreamlost Dogs', a surreal horror tabletop game where you play as a dog. In it, you are lost to 'the Dream', a realm where neither time nor place behave as they should, and where nightmares come to life. See you on the other side in April 2024! 🫀 – Fell

#honestly feels great to be back on tumblr again #it has been years haha #own art #canine art #dog art #ttrpg #board game #game design #game development #game dev #indie game #horror #gamedev #devlog #dreamlost dogs

11 notes · View notes

woethehero · 2 months

Text

Wyrd RPG Blog Post #2 - Combat Discussion

Hey Hero! Check out the much improved lettering of the name lmao.

Welcome back! This time were discussing the Combat mechanics and what has been worked on so far. Some things are in better spots than others, but everything is open to criticism. Everything is subject to changing as review and testing occurs.

We're going to be covering a lot, prepare! Just as a reference for what I'm going to be talking about today:

Asymmetrical Combat (PvE, PvP, GM and Players)

Health Systems (Core, Health, Armor, and Magic Protection)

Defining Enemies (Minion, Elite, Champion, Boss)

Phases of Combat (Move!, Fire!, Fight!, Plan!)

Grouping (For Friend and Foe, Individuals or Squads)

Player and Foe Actions

Combat for this system has a very large amount of influences, but you can expect turn orders to play like a war game may. This has been a very interesting thing to try and adapt to a TTRPG combat system, as I quickly figured out why you don't often see tactical/squad based gameplay in RPGs. Regardless, we're going to try our best anyways.

Asymmetrical Combat

It's important to understand right away that the design behind the combat is that GM's take on a largely different role in play than the players do. Players control their Champions in a much more specific and detailed way than most creatures the GM is responsible for, specifically in PvE, which will be the intended way to play.

Player Characters have access to Effort, a plethora of abilities and items, and a custom understanding of how to operate their character. At the head of the table, the GM has a much more simple task in playing the monsters. I wanted the GM side to foundationally be scalable from small encounters to massive battles without much change required in how things are played. As anyone who has played more than a couple sessions of any TTRPG with combat in it, it can be really slow.

I don't want to rush the players, but I do want most of the time to be spent on their decision making and thoughtfulness. The game is aimed to be a little more difficult than others and discourage direct fighting all the time, not without tipping the scales first anyways, so naturally the players are encouraged to be genuinely thoughtful.

As for PvP, I currently don't have the desire to incorporate PvP into the balancing process of enemy types, champion abilities and equipment, etc. This is an RPG first and foremost with war game style combat that's focused on the players. I don't see myself ever wanting this to be a competitively viable project, but a cooperative one most definitely. Doesn't mean I won't change my mind later though!

Health, for Friends and Foe

For Player Characters, Health has a bit more going on and is broken into 3 distinct categories, Armor, Health, and Core.

Armor Pips (AP): Like a standard Health Pip, but it has it's own armor save of at least Armor 2, up to Armor 5, determined by the equipment of the character. Once they run out of Armor Pips, damage defaults to Health Pips.

Health Pips (HP): Your flesh and blood, typically takes damage directly without intervention. If unarmored, be very careful! Once you run out of Health Pips, any damage goes to Core.

Core Health Pips (CHP): A small number representing your resistance to fatal damage. When taking damage at Core, all incoming damage is reduced to 1. This represents great injury or mental anguish. Healing Core Wounds takes a long time, and when you run out of Core, you die. Most characters have at a minimum 2. Protect it well!

There was originally an idea for another layer of armor called Magic Armor Pips, but after further ideation were later moved, as Armor Pips had changed quite a lot from first conception. Now Magic Protection is going to be a type of spell ability to allow different types of mechanical advantages to occur that deny damage from going through. Armor Pips were originally going to work the same for Foes as well, but when testing on a larger scale, it got to be way too difficult to determine how groups take damage where and when, so a more simplistic design was created in attempt to remedy this. This actually has worked out so far, because Asymmetrical Combat and GM ease of management are big goals of the design.

For Foes, it depends on how they're defined.

How Foes are Defined

Minion / Grunt / Gribbly - The "Bandit Sniper" "Skeleton Swordsman" "Gob Thug", the nameless guys who populate dungeons and typically exist more in numbers. They can have specializations, but are ultimately disposable. Typically with limited action choices, d6 table outcomes, and basic fighting styles. They don't worry about managing Effort (just get exhausted after some time).

✴ no Effort maintenance, no Core, base Armor #.

Elite - A step up above, often found as particularly capable leadership for Minions, but also in small groups to form dangerous Elite squads. They have a broader selection of abilities usually requiring some strategizing from the GM. Actions are more advanced and may involve more GM focus, but doesn't require managing Effort. Elites have Core HP and can React.

✴ no Effort maintenance, but wider range of actions, and they do have Core, still Armor #. (Armor # doesn't apply to Core)

Champion - Equal complexity to the players in some regard. Player Characters may face opponent Champions. Not frequent in a fight and can be viewed as a "mini-boss" of sorts. Effort will need to be managed by the GM and Health will behave the same as players. (Core HP, HP, Armor)

✴ very similar to Player Characters in complexity, same Health system AND Effort maintenance.

Hero/Boss - Behave in rules beyond what's available to players. The scale of them varies, but their defining factors are usually unique abilities not seen elsewhere in the game specific to the unit. Some abilities or actions stretch beyond what is otherwise mechanically possible within the game, primarily for fun, lore flavoring, or to express otherworldly power. Huge BBEGs or characters "Achieving Daemonhood" type stuff, so special occasion things.

✴ a step beyond normal design, allowed to break some rules to provide unique challenge and/or flavor.

Combat Battle Phases:

Alright! This is the more War-Gamey part of the combat system. Fans of Warhammer will likely notice similarities. There are currently 4 Distinct Phases for Combat:

Move! (positioning, determining engagements)

Fire! (ranged abilities and attacks)

Fight! (melee abilities and attacks)

Plan! (time for decision making, grouping, or bailing)

A turn begins at Move!, which is Regen applies. Effort must be carefully maintained through each round. At the beginning of each phase, participating group of combatants must Roll Off to see who has priority.

Roll Offs

Each acting unit rolls a d12 to determine turn order for each phase to determine in what order things happen. For all phases, the lower number goes first, then the next, and so on until the lowest.

Winning a Roll Off means you have Priority, which looks a little different each Phase.

Move!: When you have Priority on Moving, it means you as a Player can elect to Move or React. If you end your movement in proximity to a Foe, you are considered to be Engaged, where neither can leave without first attempting to Disengage. If you want to lock someone up in a fight where they are, that's the time to Go. If you want to wait and React to what a Foe does before you Move, you can put yourself behind them in turn order so you can Move afterwards.

- If you're the target of a React, you cannot React and must Move! (I don't love this one, but I don't want players to feel punished by moving first, then another enemy moves out of range) - Minions cannot React, but Elites and up can. - Critical 1's on Move! Roll Offs grant extra movement. 12's cannot React, even to other 12's.

Fire!: Having Priority on Fire! means your ranged attack goes off before someone else's. In a shootout with multiple combatants, this could mean your shot interrupts or takes out a Foe before they can Fire their attack.

- Unique to Fire! is the Cover mechanic. Cover utilizes terrain pieces of different sizes, determined by the GM of giving Cover 1-4, acting as a secondary armor save. Fire! targets that decided to Hunker Down get an additional Cover 1. - Critical 1's on Fire! give you an auto-success on your next action.

Fight!: Units Engaged in a Fight! roll for Priority to see who gets to hit first and who defends, followed by a reversal.

- Previously, the Fight! System was the Roll Off determines who is on the offensive and who is on the defensive, meaning there was an Attacker and Defender and that was it. This lead to cool interactions of one party being on the defensive or have dramatic back and forth, but quickly fell apart in encounters where multiple combatants were fighting, so a more traditional wargame "my turn your turn" is something I'm going to try for now. It currently forces a lot more energy usage from the champions than the previous iteration, but I don't hate that.a - Critical 1's on Fight! Give you an auto-success on your next action.

Plan! doesn't Roll Off, this is just time for thinking and changing things up. Namely, reconfiguring grouping or bailing on the fight.

When you decide to Bail!, you and your party escape the encounter. I currently haven't set up any mechanics for how this works, as it's yet to be something people wanna do in basic testing. I'm currently debating between letting it be an easy out but with immediate penalties, or setting up a more complex mini game of trying to escape that may lend to a chase. Regardless, I don't want players to ever feel trapped in an encounter they know they don't wanna do anymore. It's purely unfun.

Last note on Roll Offs, I'm currently experimenting with an character mechanic called Speed, which would affect Roll Off successes. I'm either going to make it a Stat for characters to build or not, or make it a property of actions/weapons/traits, or a third option I haven't thought of yet.

Character and Unit Grouping

As combat is designed to be scalable with the size of the engagement, the grouping of enemies may change. In the beginning of a character's career, it may be common for the Party to fight a number of opponents approximate to their party total. For contained instances like this, having each unit act independently or maybe in pairs is fine.

However, enemies may appear in larger numbers or be working together more strategically. Player Characters may also have their own minions or companions to manage and running them all separately is just too much slog. Before any encounter or during Plan!, you can revisit squad configurations and Group Up or Split Up as makes sense to the table, as long as units are able to make the changes happen, such as being in relative proximity or have some form of communication from distance.

In cases like these, say you have 4 town guard under the command of a character, you'd roll them together as a single acting unit. 1 Roll Off die for all 4 as they act cohesively, Move or React all together, 4d6 to determine attacks and defenses, etc.

During Plan!, you could decide to split up those guard and give two to an ally. Or regain control of all 4 again. You could pair up with another Champion to ensure you act together at the same time during your phases if you have something planned.

Foe Actions

Minions and Elites, the bulk of what Player's may encounter, play very simply. Champions and Bosses are more related to players actions, but will be explored further on in a future post.

On a Minion and Elite level, their Attacks and Defenses are prepared on a d6 table for each action that the GM simply has to pop a d6 on to see how they behave.

Let's look at this Gob Thug. Whenever it's their time to Fight!, the GM will roll a d6 to determine their outcome depending on if they're in Defense or Offensive stances. If there are multiple of the same unit in the group, you can roll multiple d6 to determine them all. Here are examples of some abilities minions may have.

For Attacking, Spiked Mace:

1 - 1 Damage w Crush 1

2-3 - 1 Damage

4-6 - Miss

Short Bow:

1 - 2 Damage

2-3 - 1 Damage

4-6 - Miss

For Defending, Wooden Shield:

1 - Block 2

2-3 - Block 1

4-6 - Fail to Block

Basic Weapon Block:

1-2 Block 1

3-6 Fail to Block

Player Actions

An Action on the Player side requires Effort to complete to determine how well the task is performed, unlike a simple pop of a d6. Primarily, this is for things that require some Skill or Attribute to perform, like making an attack with a particular weapon, disengaging from a fight, performing an ability, etc.

The inspiration behind this system is Pathfinder 2E's Degrees of Success, of Critical Fail, Fail, Success, Critical Success. However in this, there isn't critical failure, and the highest success result written is considered the best or "critical" success.

By default, totaling below the minimum successes needed on a roll means total failure, you did not do what you intended. It simply fails. Some actions can specifically mention consequences of failure or change the cost of success around depending on the nature of the action. Some actions could even include failure as one of the lower results or as a result of overshooting.

Additionally, so far in the default, we've been doing 3 basic degrees.

For example, a plain Short Sword may look like this:

Slash

1 Success: 1 Damage

2-3 Successes: 2 Damage

4+ Successes: 3

Damage

Pommel Strike

0-1: Miss, Trigger Target Riposte

2: 1 Damage, Crush 1 (Reduce Target Armor)

3+: 2 Damage, Crush 1

Weapons as a basis are currently thought having some basic actions that come with it with fixed outcomes. They're not restricted to this, think of them more as a template. You can alter the success requirements, add more outcomes, add new attack types for the weapon, give it custom properties, and so on.

There is still a strong spirit of "can I do this?" available in the game. My partner is a fan of flipping or throwing furniture on enemies during testing, which grants them cover or improvisational damage. For these instances, I've just been asking for "Toughness Checks, 1-3 successes" depending on what they're trying to move.

Wrap Up

This is everything done for Combat so far, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I know it was a lot so I appreciate you reading up, just a lot to get caught up on as I'm starting this documentation process a bit after the fact.

The next post is going to cover Character Creation, attributes, skills, and current stat ideas I'm playing with. Moving forward from this post, things will have a much more exploratory and uncertain tone as I'm sharing more so my less polished ideas, which I hope encourages more discussion in the future from anyone with their own ideas or concerns!

Thanks for reading Hero (:

See you in the next one!

Woe <3

#digital illustration #fantasy #monster art #rpg art #indie rpg #ttrpg art #ttrpg #devlog #woelock #woecore #WyrdRPG #dnd #pf2e #pathfinder #indiedev

4 notes · View notes