Homebrewed stuff, mostly.
Creating Games pt2 ((Guidelines))
After going through an incomplete history of my previous game making life, it’s time to talk about why I am making a blog about this new game, why I am even making a new game, and to set out some guidelines for the new game.
My wife, who does not enjoy games, though I constantly try, was looking at one of her friend’s blog. My wife turns to me, as I am studying my Japanese, and tells me that we need to start up our own blogs.
I laugh her off, because I don’t have anything worth blogging about. Once I get my turn at the computer (we need to get another computer), I start brainstorming an idea for yet another game.
Then it hit me, I can write a blog about this game making process I’m just about to start. I can get feedback and suggestions. I can keep track of my train of thought so I don’t lose track of the type of game I wanted to make. Some good can come from this whole blog thing after all. So that is the why I am writing a blog.
I started off my giving myself some guidelines to follow. I don’t plan on breaking these guidelines, however if a better game can be created by breaking them, I will, but I will do my best to stay within these guidelines I set for myself.
The first thing I wanted as a guideline; To make a perfectly compatible game between tabletop and PBP (or PBEM).
This whole idea for my new game sprang to mind from my current online PBP (play by post) D&D 4e game at www.thetangledweb.net I moved to Japan recently and as a result lost a lot of available people to play games with. I turned to the internet. I discovered PBP games a long time ago, but always thought they we silly. Now I decided to give them a try, desperate times call for desperate measures. While I’m having a lot of fun with the game, as it turns out playing D&D 4e online just isn’t the same. Immediate Actions messes everything up. Opposed skill checks and stuff like that, there are some things as a DM I have to do that I wouldn’t in a real game. I wanted a game that would be able to play in a PBP very easily yet still have the fun cinematic feel of D&D 4e. That’s when I decided it’s time to make another game.
Guideline 2; how to determine random outcomes.
Now I am a big fan of the percentile dice (1d100) it’s perfect in my mind. As a GM you decide the difficulty of the situation in percentage and the player rolls under that percentage. For players that like rolling high numbers you determine the percentage of failure and then that player must roll higher than that number. Everything can be converted into percentages pretty easily.
The other thing I like to do when creating games is to use as many different dice as possible. So if I don’t use the percentile dice I will use ALL my dice.
I also like the d20 set up, especially in 4e. You take the most popular die in the game and build the system around it, and it all seems to work out pretty good.
So after going over my three favorite options, I decided to take a page out of the d20 book, but not with the d20. You see, every time I open my dice bag I am mocked by my purchase of the d30. While I have done my best to add the d30 to other games it feels extremely underused. So I want to make the whole system based on the d30, similar to the d20 method.
Guideline 3; Cinematic.
I greatly enjoy WotC’s decision to make a more cinematic D&D opposed to a realistic model. Most of the game’s I’ve ever created or modified was based off of realism. This will be the first time I will focus on a more cinematic experience.
Guideline 4; Simple
Since this will also be a PBP compatible game it needs to be simple enough to have each person make all their actions and dice rolls in a single turn.
Guideline 5; Easy math
This is really a combination of guidelines 2 and 4, but I gave it its own guideline because I wanted to constantly remind myself to not go overboard with this. I only want to have addition with no subtraction, and I want high rolls to mean good and low rolls to mean bad.
To sum this up, here are the 5 guidelines I set for myself while making this game.
1. Make a compatible tabletop to PBP (PBEM) game.
2. Use d30 system.
3. Cinematic over realism.
4. Simple to play.
5. Easy Math.
The next blog I’ll talk about the type of game I am creating. What genre it falls under and how it will be different from the other games in that genre.
My wife, who does not enjoy games, though I constantly try, was looking at one of her friend’s blog. My wife turns to me, as I am studying my Japanese, and tells me that we need to start up our own blogs.
I laugh her off, because I don’t have anything worth blogging about. Once I get my turn at the computer (we need to get another computer), I start brainstorming an idea for yet another game.
Then it hit me, I can write a blog about this game making process I’m just about to start. I can get feedback and suggestions. I can keep track of my train of thought so I don’t lose track of the type of game I wanted to make. Some good can come from this whole blog thing after all. So that is the why I am writing a blog.
I started off my giving myself some guidelines to follow. I don’t plan on breaking these guidelines, however if a better game can be created by breaking them, I will, but I will do my best to stay within these guidelines I set for myself.
The first thing I wanted as a guideline; To make a perfectly compatible game between tabletop and PBP (or PBEM).
This whole idea for my new game sprang to mind from my current online PBP (play by post) D&D 4e game at www.thetangledweb.net I moved to Japan recently and as a result lost a lot of available people to play games with. I turned to the internet. I discovered PBP games a long time ago, but always thought they we silly. Now I decided to give them a try, desperate times call for desperate measures. While I’m having a lot of fun with the game, as it turns out playing D&D 4e online just isn’t the same. Immediate Actions messes everything up. Opposed skill checks and stuff like that, there are some things as a DM I have to do that I wouldn’t in a real game. I wanted a game that would be able to play in a PBP very easily yet still have the fun cinematic feel of D&D 4e. That’s when I decided it’s time to make another game.
Guideline 2; how to determine random outcomes.
Now I am a big fan of the percentile dice (1d100) it’s perfect in my mind. As a GM you decide the difficulty of the situation in percentage and the player rolls under that percentage. For players that like rolling high numbers you determine the percentage of failure and then that player must roll higher than that number. Everything can be converted into percentages pretty easily.
The other thing I like to do when creating games is to use as many different dice as possible. So if I don’t use the percentile dice I will use ALL my dice.
I also like the d20 set up, especially in 4e. You take the most popular die in the game and build the system around it, and it all seems to work out pretty good.
So after going over my three favorite options, I decided to take a page out of the d20 book, but not with the d20. You see, every time I open my dice bag I am mocked by my purchase of the d30. While I have done my best to add the d30 to other games it feels extremely underused. So I want to make the whole system based on the d30, similar to the d20 method.
Guideline 3; Cinematic.
I greatly enjoy WotC’s decision to make a more cinematic D&D opposed to a realistic model. Most of the game’s I’ve ever created or modified was based off of realism. This will be the first time I will focus on a more cinematic experience.
Guideline 4; Simple
Since this will also be a PBP compatible game it needs to be simple enough to have each person make all their actions and dice rolls in a single turn.
Guideline 5; Easy math
This is really a combination of guidelines 2 and 4, but I gave it its own guideline because I wanted to constantly remind myself to not go overboard with this. I only want to have addition with no subtraction, and I want high rolls to mean good and low rolls to mean bad.
To sum this up, here are the 5 guidelines I set for myself while making this game.
1. Make a compatible tabletop to PBP (PBEM) game.
2. Use d30 system.
3. Cinematic over realism.
4. Simple to play.
5. Easy Math.
The next blog I’ll talk about the type of game I am creating. What genre it falls under and how it will be different from the other games in that genre.
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Comments
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You can still have reaction/interrupt-like effects, for those players who like to think of themselves as swift archers and peerless duelists. One of the actions they take *on their turn* can be a one-round or short duration effect that they activate, where if X happens, Y goes off.
For example:
Stop Stabbing my Friend!
Make a basic ranged or melee attack against any enemy who has damaged one of your allies. If the target damages the same ally any time within the next 3 rounds, you make a basic attack that deals damage equal to your normal damage plus the damage that was dealt to your ally.
The player can roll attacks and damage 3 times at the end of their post, and the DM can automatically apply that damage to the monster if applicable.Posted 21st January 2009 at 05:09 PM by dammitbiscuit
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