Video Inspirations

So, getting back into the swing of things at school, it’s affecting my schedule a bit. Of course, to top that off, Champions Online went Free-To-Play recently, and sucked me back in. The truth is, while a lot of the Champions formula is straight out of the standard MMO formula, it did some things I’d not seen before that I really enjoyed, and keeps me wanting to play the game.

One of the major things they did that I loved is the break down of enemies into Henchmen, Villains, Master Villains, Super Villains, and Legendary Villains. This breakdown lets players know about how many they can take on their own. For example, a group of 5 on level henchmen is a pretty fair fight in Champions. A Villain and a Henchman or two is also a fair fight. Once you get up into the super villain levels you want groups of people for a fair fight.

That is, of course, the theory and the math breaks down occasionally. The idea, though, is spectacular and was one of the changes made to 4th Edition D&D I absolutely loved with the addition of the Minion, Elite, and Solo entries in the Monster Manual. This makes it very easy to throw together mixed groups of various power levels against a group of heroes without guessing if you’re going to just obliterate them or have the group steamrolled.

The other thing I liked about Champions is the way energy works. Your energy has a point of equilibrium where you recharge to almost the moment you leave combat. You also have a base power that is your energy builder; attacking with it builds up your energy bar, which drains when you use your more powerful (and interesting) powers.

I like this system, and have seen various systems in games do something similar. Building up a resource to turn it into ‘cool shit’ is a pretty well tread territory for a reason, my only complaint about it in Champions is that the power builders are really boring. Some people have leveled the same exact complaint at At-Wills in 4th Edition, and not unfairly.

The last part of the Champions formula that I love is that (for Gold members) you can modify the color and point of origin for a number of powers which allows a creative player to make dozens of archetypes using only their basic chains of powers. My example is Necromancer, my first Champions character.

Necromancer uses the Telepathic power set, which is a series of powers using telepathy for various effects, shielding, stuns, basic crowd control effects. By modifying the colors and origins, telepathy looks a lot like dark sorcery. Basically, it openly encourages reskinning which is at the heart of great role playing in most systems.

What about you guys, what video games inspire your mechanical design?

Rambling, RPG Prices, and Tag Team Powers

Friday means Free-For-All, which basically means I could talk about anything. Today, it’s going to be me rambling about various topics.

First of all, my process. When I write my Free-For-All post, I rarely go in with a plan. I surf my Twitter feed, check Facebook, and Feedly, my RSS reader, looking for something to write about. Sometimes I see a great blog post and I use that, other times, I’m forced to come up with something, like my designer’s notes for FRE.


The first thing I found this week is an email from Steve Wieck of DriveThruRPG. He talks a little about Price Anchoring and a few of the downfalls of extremely low prices on DriveThruRPG. The price he calls out specifically is $1, I assume in reference to Adamant’s somewhat regular sale. The quick version is that at $1, it costs DriveThruRPG one cent after only paying for Paypal and the Publisher of the work. Not including other costs they incur transmitting the work to the purchaser, or even having the website up. Obviously, this would not be sustainable over a long period.


The problem is, if people all wait around for things like Adamant’s sale, the ‘value’ of RPGs would eventually drop, leaving us with almost nothing in way of potential dollars. As a developer, and eventual self publisher of RPGs, this is a problem, and something I wrestle with internally an awful lot. I know pricing is going to affect sales. I also know that lower price sells more. But how low? Obviously, one dollar is too low if I plan on using DriveThruRPG exclusively (I haven’t decided on my distribution model yet.), as I don’t want my distribution channel to fail. I also feel that fifteen dollars for an e-book is way too much.


One of the other things I study as a hobby is fiction writing, and recently, publishing as a whole. One guy I’ve found who likes sharing his views and experience is J.A. Konrath. His experience on the Kindle has led him to believe that the ‘sweet spot’ for ebooks is $2.99. I’ve discussed the idea with a few people, and I’d venture to say it’s likely between that price and $3.99. That’s fiction, though, something we buy in physical form between $6 and $13 in softcover, and upwards of $25 in hard cover.


So what’s the sweet spot for RPGs? I honestly don’t know. I can make an educated guess. We know that the price anchor for RPGs is between $15 and $30 for physical product. If I keep the assumption that ebooks are not as ‘valuable’ as hard copies, what would I aim for? I think somewhere between $5 and $15 is going to end up being ‘the right price’ for electronic products. You can bet I’ll be trying different price models with my games, so hopefully sometime in the future I’ll be able to tell you exactly what price is ‘right’ for RPG products.


The next thing I want to talk about is a post over on Nevermeet Press by shinobicow about ‘tag team powers’ in 4th Edition D&D. His idea was feat bought powers that required the teammates to act on the same initiative count. I like the core idea, but hate the concept of forcing players to delay to do something awesome. 4th Edition is definitely the ‘be awesome, all the time’ edition, and delaying is decidedly not awesome.


So, how do I counter his design? Simple: Look at Arena Fighting. Arena Fighting feats offer you a bonus to specific powers for a feat. Why not make tag teams like this? The first idea was one of the iconic attacks from the X-Men: The Fastball Special. Thinking about it, I realized we already had a power that represents the throw, and the attack could be just about anything, really.


The Warlord’s Knight’s Move lets an ally Move their speed. Perhaps, the feat changes Knight’s Move to a shift with a bonus equal to the Warlord’s Strength, and a fellow party member with Fastball Special gets to make an attack with a specific Exploit before they move before the end of the next turn. That would of course need an additional benefit, perhaps treat the attack as if they had charged, or lay in some extra damage for the Special.


Obviously, a very rough idea, and I plan on writing up a few of these and trying them in a one shot game to see how they fair. After I’ve got some balance, I’ll see what I can do to make them available to you guys!


So, RPG pricing, what do you guys think?


How about team up attacks in any RPG?


Update 2011-01-09: Chuck Wendig, freelance penmonkey, covered the topic of e-book pricing on his blog on Friday. Some interesting insights and Gareth from Adamant made a comment as well.

Player Interviews

This week, I’m finishing up the semester at school and trying to set up a game so have been conducting those GM-player interviews I’ve discussed in Hook, Line, and Sinker.  The game is 4^th Edition D&D, and one of those interviews went fairly easily, but the conversation is a perfect example of what I want to happen in such an interview.

A GM-player interview should be a time where both sides can come to an understanding on the expectations and goals of the other.  A GM is going to have an idea of what kind of campaign they hope to run, and what kinds of characters are appropriate to that campaign world. A player will have an idea of their character and the goals that character would have.  These two need to come to some sort of focus point where they are compatible, as a problem at such a core part of the game is sure to cause bumps later.

Following is the conversation I had with one of my players.  As the game is via Gametable, most of this conversing is happening via e-mail, I also took a few liberties with order so that it reads better in this format.

Player:

I've got a character in my head for your campaign but I want to know:

a. What the other players will be playing so we can have a balanced party

b. What you will allow in your world

c. The amount of roleplaying that you usually do

Just some basic questions so I can decide the extent to which I will flesh out my character.

In case you are wondering, the character I have in mind is a Eladrin Ranger. Now, depending on the races you are allowing, that can change, and depending on what the party needs, that can also change. But for now, that is what I have in mind.

Me:

Well, one of the other players also is looking to do a ranger, so that in mind, I can modify encounters so they're balanced based on the party and not on expectations, so don't worry about that so much. If you are really worried about party balance, why don't you take the idea 'ranger' out and explain to me the character concept in narrative terms and not mechanical? Maybe we can find a class in another role that will do your 'ranger' just as well?

As for b: I have no world except for that which comes out in play. So basically, have fun with your character concept.

C: Also depends on the group. Some groups, I end up with more role playing than anything, very few dice. Other groups, it's hack and slash heaven. It really comes down to the individual players.

Player:

Alright, that sounds lovely, here is my basic idea for my character, though if you don't mind I would really love to stick with the Eladrin race.

She is a wanderer, someone who prefers to get things done alone rather than with a group because she feels that people get sidetracked too easily when in a group. She worships Melora and Corellon, and prefers nature over the civilized world. Despite her upbringing, she is a very accepting person and uses her words to her advantage, whether it be in getting her out of thick situations or in getting a higher reward. She grew up wanting to be a hermit in the woods, wanting the company of animals, rather than humanoids, but instead decided to go into the world of adventuring in order to gain gold to increase the beauty in the world. She plans on settling down in a wood somewhere once she has gained enough riches, and have no family. The reason that she joined the party is because she is knowledgeable enough to know that she can't fight dungeons on her own. She is often selfish, though, and will kill without thinking because she knows that death is the natural way of things.

Now that I've got that written out, ranger, though a perfectly reasonable class, seems to fit less then Druid might. Do you have a druid in the party yet? And I don't know if that is what you wanted, but it made much more sense for me, and now has me thinking of what I want to do with the character.

Me:

Unfortunately, I won't stand for the loner characters, as they too easily cause problems. (Note: This is important, sometimes, for the good of the game, the GM absolutely needs to say no.  This is one of those times.) Besides greed, what else would drive your character to rescue hostages from a small village?

Now, are you playing an Eladrin because you like the otherworldly nature, or just the pictures? If it's the second I'd recommend forgetting the mechanics nature of eladrin and just describe the character like those pictures (Or using them for your character token.)

As you haven't talked about how your character intended to fight, I'm still at a bit of a loss as to what class to offer. Do you imagine a warrior who uses weapons specifically, or a spellcaster with a nature bend?

How about this:

Would you rather lead a group and make them fight more effectively (This might be a way to reconcile the 'loner' characteristic with something actually useful to a group scenario. Keep the 'people in groups often get sidetracked' and become a bitter and exacting commander type.)?

Are you perhaps just at home in nature and have become something of a natural predator?

Or maybe you would rather use your abilities to defend people, your friends and allies, or even animals caught in the crossfire?

Player:

Completely understandable, I was worried that you might not allow loner characters, but I thought I might give it a go. I am completely okay with being much more friendly. I like the idea of her being a leader, because I can make her seem distant (as in she feels she is above everyone) but still need to have the group to support her, for she would be little without the rest of the party.

I intend on playing the Eladrin because of the otherworldly nature, not the pictures. Though I do prefer to play an attractive character (just personal preference). I want her to seem distant and somewhat unreachable, hence being otherworldly.

I think, with the direction that I am now bringing her, I think I shall make her a melee character, rather than a spellcaster. Ahhh, this makes me want to be a ranger again, so she could use multiple swords/weapons. That would be great.

But I can resist. I think I will have her fight as the person who goes in, takes a ton of damage, deals a ton of damage, and keeps the enemies off of the cleric/archer.

Definitely she is definitely a natural predator, no question, and doesn't care about helping others because she feels that if they cannot protect themselves from what they are facing, then what is the use of them living.

In the case of why is she rescuing villagers, I'm going to invoke a little bit of her history here. When she was but a small girl, she was thrown into the abyssal realm by an evil Eladrin mage. She was rescued by the god Faerinaal, but only if she promised to help any person who is in need of rescuing. This competes with her personality, but she is forced to obey the god.

Sound good? Or a little bit too.... much?

Me:

You don't need to make her 'friendly', just needs to be team oriented. Begrudging respect is fine.

What you just described is a Tempest Fighter. If you don't have access to Martial Power, I can help walk you through building it. Basically, two weapons, bonuses when wielding two weapons, draws enemy attacks and defends its party. They are cool because unlike most fighters, they can attack multiple enemies a turn if they play their cards right. I'll house rule your skills a bit to bring some more 'nature' flavor if you can't fit it in the baseline skills.

[Your back story] is the most interesting information yet. I might change the god's name eventually, but for now, you've got a solid back story here.

Player:

Alright, sounds good! I enjoy begrudging respect. Haha.

I'm happy to say that I do in fact have that book, I'll take a look at it...

I'm glad that you think so! I took a good look at the history of the race and their gods, and am happy to come up with something semi-original.

Thank you by the way for helping me out, I have a brother who is very deep into d&d but refuses to tell me anything about the actual game, and I did a lot of ad&d when I was a lot younger, but haven't for awhile. I'm sorry if I ask ridiculously ignorant questions, I've read the Players Handbook, so I have a basic idea of what to do, but it's different in action.

This was a great conversation, as she made it clear what type of character she wanted to play, I expressed my concerns and we came to a wonderful compromise and a character I can’t wait to see in play.

Come back next week for the next part of Hook, Line, and Sinker.

I do have to say that the last paragraph from my player bothers me. Why do gamers feel the need to hide the rules from new players? Why is keeping the concept of role playing an esoteric past-time so important to some people? You tell me readers, what is it that’s wrong with our community that we fight so hard to keep it small?

Minimum Competence

I promised an ExoSquad update, and while there isn't much in the way of firm rules yet, as I'm a firm believer in designing by design. But that said, even after the ideas are there and the design bible written, you have a crazy idea that you've just got to try.


I stumbled upon that idea today. Imagine never missing. You roll the dice knowing you'll hit, but the dice tell you something more than a simple pass or fail: they tell you how effective you are.


Low rolls mean you graze or just scare your opponent, high rolls are deadly accuracy.


Applying this idea to ExoSquad, I've got a quick idea of how I can go about it.


Assuming a twenty-sided die, I'd make 1s always give a single point of heat.  After all, that's what heat is, right? It is something to worry about, even if it doesn't hit. Then, in the 2-5 range, it'd be based on weapon, maybe a smaller amount of heat, or a small beneficial effect like forced movement.


Stepping up the ladder, we get into the 6-13 range, the classic range of potential hit zones.  This will be your baseline effects, mostly damage, with an added benefit.


Then we push into the 'guaranteed hits', 14-18.  They aren't 100%, but a good portion of the time, a 14 (Or 70%+ for percentile.) or better is going to hit the target.  These get bonuses: a more powerful secondary effect, more damage.


Then we have the 'critical range' of 19-20. In Exosquad, this zone will be for the absolutely amazing effects at each level. And most of them should include an immediate threat roll from the enemy, in addition to whatever benefit it offers.


So, one roll determines effect, another spits out the specifics of the hit. Of course, each type of weapon and attack will have different riders and abilities, with different levels of damage to go with it.


In an effort to speed up game play, as most tactical RPGs have a bad habit of bogging down in combat, how do I apply this concept to the NPC killables? My idea is simple: a choice. Each enemy offers either two effects, and the player may choose which they want.


Perhaps an infantryman with a mounted machine gun can offer either an amount of heat (Say. . . a four-sided die.) or one heat and a forced move to represent a tactical retreat.


This system leaves the effects entirely in the hands of the players, who can choose between significant damage and stuns, or movement into what may be a less useful position and damage.


So, think about it, maybe try it out at home with a quick system hack in your tactical RPG of choice.  Let me know!


For a little bonus, I’ve also been thinking on Velocity, and have decided it’ll be more interesting as a ‘shared story’ type RPG where winning the dice roll means you decide the narration of the event, instead of determining pass/fail. I’ll need to set the thresholds regarding when you can actually knock an opponent out of the race, though leads will be determined by the narrator.


Come back next week for part three of Hook, Line and Sinker, and find out how Adventures should be planned using narrative tools.


Your initiative, readers; comment below:


Do you think removing the ‘whiff factor’ from games is a good idea?


How would you like to steal the DM’s thunder and choose the outcome of events in Velocity?

Taking Heat

The mechanic in discussion today is 'hit points.' Some people like them, some people hate them, and some people really don't care.  I assume if you're still reading, you have an opinion on them, and it's probably a strong one.  So time for me to lose the last of my readers this week:

I think it depends.

It depends heavily on the game and the overall feel the designers are going for.  Even among heavily complex games, there seems to be a solid divide.  Some like things rough and tough, one hit, you're gone.  Others, Dungeons and Dragons at the top of the list here, offer quite a bit of plot immunity.  I'll say I think I like the middle road the best.

I don't think you should die in a single hit.  It really sucks to run into a combat situation and having the dice come up just right to leave you totally unable to continue.  Some sort of plot armor needs to exist.

I do think you need to have some form of 'danger' at all points.  Threatening your ability to fight, or, even more extreme, to play at all, is a fairly good way to keep players invested in their characters.  I honestly think this is why combat with real death is so common in RPGs.

So, with these in mind, I'd set to the design possibilities on how to balance this concepts in ExoSquad, since I knew I wanted the tactical give and take common in D&D, but without the 'but he survived a dagger to the kidney!' complaints common to that system of HP.  I also needed to consider that in an era of firearms and heavy armor, you typically want a solid hit to be a kill, so anything that is actually a 'hit' needs to be near deadly.

Thinking about it, I considered reversing the process: instead of ticking health down, why not count up?  Then use something akin to a saving throw to determine if you go down. . .

So I begin tinkering with the number themselves.  If the weapons aren't necessarily hitting when you roll the dice, they have to be doing something meaningful.  Obviously, they're threatening the target.  So each weapon has a 'threat value' instead of damage.  As any fighter accumulates 'threat' their chance of being hit and downed increases.

From there, I had to decide a way to determine when the threat finally brought a combatant down.  In this case, I chose a dice roll based on current threat.  This meant that the roll got harder as the battle gets more hectic, and adds that frightening chance of being blown away by the first bullet.

I realized, though, that I needed a 'when' to roll.  Instead of making the roll after every attack, I have chosen to make it only at the end of the combatants turn, making one roll against current heat before passing the turn to another player.

Should it be every turn?  Or should there be a limit?  In this case, I think there should be a certain threshold before any combatant needs to start making rolls.  This means weaker combatants are likely to fall early, but tougher ones will go longer in the fight, but will almost certainly be more likely to be killed when they get in over their head.

And so I present the ideas behind Heat, the HP I'll be using in ExoSquad.  Each combatant will have a Threshold which determines their minimum Heat before they need to start making rolls against their Heat.  If they roll under their Heat, they are downed.  I'll discuss the mechanics regarding being downed in a later post, I promise.

So, folks, what do you think of the concept of Heat?  Is it a good middle ground?

Three's Company

One thing I've noticed in many roleplaying games is the number of people who are expected to be involved.  D&D is four to five.  World of Darkness encourages five.  Dread has rules to make the game harder if there are less than five.  Other games don't seem to have a set limit, but the idea of the 'group' has settled in on that number of five people around a table.

Why is this the magical number?  I know I'm always fighting to fill that last slot as a game master, or trying to pare my group down to fit it better.  Why not design a different way?  A game designed for 'dynamic duos' could be interesting, and with the right scaling, could easily accept the industry standard.

With two players, you only have to wait for two people before you're in the action again.  You have less chance of a player getting lost in the hustle and bustle you get so often in a five man group.  You also have the option to pull out a smaller game for a smaller group.

I may have to do this with Velocity.  While the idea of four man teams is cool; it's hard to figure out a way to make it make sense thematically without making some of the group sit out, which I won't do, or take forever resolving things.

So, what about you, readers, is three a company worth having?

Game Ideas

I've already discussed Velocity lightly.  Fast paced, conflict driven, team oriented racer RPG.  I've got that first draft burst finished, but I'm unhappy with the rules.  Will be working on that, and applying some of the mechanics and ideas from this blog to the game.

The second idea in its infant stages is a mecha game.  I know there's a few of these on the market, but I want to find a way to fit the tension sensitive special attacks and the 'unbeatable until. . .' bosses into the game.  Tactical movement will be minimal, but attack choice will be critical.  These are the initial ideas, will build on them soon.  Also: it needs a title, anyone care to help out?

Two For Flinching

You all know what I'm talking about: someone fakes a punch, and gives you double for 'flinching'.  I have some theories on this fairly cruel game, but I realized it should apply to game design, too.  The problem is applying 'two for flinching' to an abstract without resorting to 'rocks fall, everyone dies,'

Well, in a roleplaying game, what's a punch?  In this case, I'm going to say major antagonists and major challenges.  I'm using these as my definition because like in fiction, the major challenges and antagonists are going to be the 'thing' that the players are going to remember outside of their own gonzo antics.  Even so, there are more stories about game masters introducing key villians or challenges and the group sidestepping it in a fairly ingenious manner.  (Or occasionally just dumb luck.)  And that is our flinch.  Sidestepping the major stuff.  One shotting the villian.

Now before anyone accusses me of advising railroading, hear me out!

We assume the event happened.  The challenge is ignored.  The antagonist defeated and broken.  Your plot didn't even limp from first contact.  What do you do?  Many sources of game mastering advice suggest bringing in a related character as an antagonist.  Even if the party didn't know about them.

What if the mechanics of the game supported this idea?  If every villian has a 'replacement' statistic that gives the game master the general level of power of the next villian in line.  It encourages the game master to make these decisions before the inevitable happens, which in turn keeps the game moving at the table.