Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 5019759" data-attributes="member: 710">The challenge in devising such a system is to create something that makes it more than a mix of "get the best available value in one numeric attribute relevant to the task" and "random chance". I mean, you can boil down your game system to this. But I think that's not particularly interesting if your major influence on the outcome is set before you even play the game. "Hey, I got a +25 Stealth modifier. I will probably win." The challenge is to have something: "Okay, I can spend my [GAME RESOURCE] on [OPTION I] or on [OPTION II]. If I succeed at [OPTION I], I get [BENEFIT A]. [BENEFIT A] opens up [OPTION III]. If I succed at [OPTION II], I get [BENEFIT B], which opens up [OPTION IV]. [...]" There must be a series of non-trivial decisions that lead to your success (or to your failure) in every instance of your game.That's why most roleplaying games have stuff like "actions per time unit" (Standard/Move/Minor; 2 Simple or 1 Complex), hit points, spell points, spell slots, powers. All these are resources the players in the game spend and try to get the best outcomes with it, predicting the enemies use of resources and denying him the best uses for it. Your card mechanic and the skill value are just the start. Where is the resource you spend, and the resource you risk? Where do I have to thing tactically or strategically? You might already add a strategic component if you say: "Oh, and every character gets a point that allows him to say: "Reshuffle and draw a new card" over a certain amount of time, and a way to gauge the worth of each individual card drawing session. The Stealth Challenge is worth n points. Will the challenge that will follow from succeeding the Stealth challenge be worth more or less than that? Will the challenge that will follow from failing the Stealth challenge be worth more or less than that? That's something you might not know, but maybe there are hints. Maybe you don't really count in "points" but what the story goal is and which one you find preferably, if any. Either way, based on this, you have a decision to make - do I spend the reshuffle point now or later. What will yield the biggest benefits? The random chance and the uncertainity about the future make it a gamble - you can't know for certain what is the best course of actions, but a "good" player will make better guesses, be it from experience or noting subtle clues.</blockquote>

Verification