I am more or less rereading everything for the umpteenth time over, doing editorial fixups on the way, because those never stop popping up for some reason. So while I'm putting everything under the microscope, I might as well drop some insight on the things I'm inspecting here.
I went over the ground level rules in general in a three-part series right before starting the 1.7 previews. And while they do deserve a more detailed look, I figure I should begin with the Mecha Construction chapter.
It is the more interesting one anyway. And it is not like I can't go back to examine the first, anyway.
Attributes
Let's start from the basics, which in this case would be Mecha Attributes. One of the first few things I knew I wanted from the game was to have two angles from which you could approach your PC's defense - and by extension, your offense. I knew I wanted to make the fast and accurate robots different from the slow and powerful ones, too. Having four separate stats to track those things, so that you could mix and match them as you please, seemed like a good plan.
Honestly I'm not too happy with the math involved in attacking, but it succeeds at solving the question of whether you hit or not with a single roll and gives characters distinct ways to approach offense and defense, making them more unique. More importantly, the divide between 'mobility' and 'power' makes it difficult to be an offensive god of destruction or an invincible defensive powerhouse. And having a system that works towards balance makes games fun in the long term even if they seem a bit complicated in the short term.
I wanted the HP equivalent to be separate from your armor, so Threshold was the fifth stat that got made, and Energy seemed like an obvious sixth to give all characters an in-built way to do cool things even without any Genre Points.
Then there's Systems! Systems is cool because it serves two purposes depending on the group's playstyle. First, it is a variable stat that can be used for miscellaneous tests involving general piloting skill that are always difficult because the Systems stat is usually lowish, and it gets lower as combat goes on, even if you do gain more points as you get damaged. Second, if you hate variable stats and/or want pilot abilities to have more of an impact on the battlefield, you can use it as a fixed Attribute drawing from the Pilot's own.
Chassis
The thing with point-buy systems that let you distribute your stats freely as you wish is that, the grand majority of the time, they're inherently and irreparably broken. Even when they're not, they're easily exploitable and encourage powergaming by nature. I wasn't going to run that risk, so I figured I would have prebuilt templates that you could customize further.
That's how the original five Chassis types were born, and why I'm not in any rush to throw them out anytime soon. After rules changes pretty much made one of them useless, they became four. I've said it before, though, while the current four get the job done I'm not perfectly happy with them. That said I am keeping them as is because they all tend towards a specific role without said role being the only thing they can do.
To be perfectly frank for a minute here, replicating the mechanics of Super Robot Wars is not always a good idea. Specially when it comes to Super Robots. If you look at the stats for each unit in the games, those are usually one of two types: Better than the dodgy ones in nearly every way, or they're extremely fragile and get by thanks to having multiple pilots.
Now I can see where an argument for more SRW-like supers is coming from, but those have lower Evasion and better everything else. Sometimes they're huge and size difference makes them slightly less accurate, but that's still two stats next to four! If we want a game that is balanced at least one of those four is going to give, and in GGG, your choices are between defense and offense.
Plus you can always drop Enhancements and Modules on top of your Mecha to better fit a concept, so it is trivial to make a Dynamic into the closest thing to a videogame Super Robot by giving them more Armor and Threshold. That said, I know that it is a thing some of you really wish would change, so while I think of how and when to implement more Chassis types you can play around with this makeshift Custom Chassis Constructor.
C3: or Custom Chassis Constructor
Choose one of the four Chassis types available to customize, you can mix up their Attributes by increasing one and decreasing another as follows:
Rule 1: Armor, Energy and Accuracy are worth the double of Evasion, Threshold
and Penetration.
Rule 2: You cannot take out more than 3 points from any single Attribute.
Rule 3: You cannot exceed the existing maximums for each Attribute, and no Attributes may go under 0.
So let's say you want to customize the Destroyer and make it tankier. You can trade a point of Energy for two more Evasion, or for another point of Armor. You cannot, however, trade more than 3 points of Energy this way, so it cannot go under 5. You also cannot increase Armor by 3, because that would go over the starting maximum that the Shield Chassis gets, but you can get 2 Evasion or 2 Threshold to go with your 2 Armor.
And that's a wrap for now. Next time I'll go over Weapons, examining the premade ones and going over a few ideas for modifying your Custom Weapons over time.
Showing posts with label Homebrewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homebrewing. Show all posts
April 14, 2013
December 9, 2012
Area of Sorrow
It dawns on me that I never actually explained why Areas, Space and Maiming changed like they did. I just mentioned some issues with them offhand but never elaborated on the solution that I came upon. So let's do that now, starting with a recap of why they weren't all that good.
Space was kind of inelegant as far as rules went, choosing where your robot holds its stuff is cool and all but tracking it was a bit of a chore. It helped balance the other chassis types with each other in making some of them arbitrarily better at being able to equip more or less parts in some or other spots, but at the same time it meant a few arbitrary restrictions on unconventional, yet perfectly fine otherwise, builds.
That worked for a while decently enough, but Maiming complicated things further. The first few maims were the most important ones, taking away the most important equipment of the victim, and making the rest of the combat a nearly-insurmountable uphill battle for whoever suffered the first one.
The game is about (or aims for) intense, back and forth combat, gradually building up to a desperate climax. Two robots reduced to no weapons bashing each other with their battered limbs is cool, but a futile struggle of one character as the near-mint victor toys with them is a pointless, drawn-out slog.
Now I guess I could just do away with both space and area restrictions, and maiming in general, but it is a big part of what makes mecha combat feel like, you know, mecha combat. Obviously I could not just do away with them.
Now to the solution: Everything can go anywhere, you only need to worry about making every area important by keeping them balanced with each other. This enables off-the-wall designs slightly better, specially with the custom weapons engine. Without some limit on placing stuff, you will always have dead areas that you don't care about losing. That's bad and antithetical to a game where every turn is supposed to do something meaningful
Choosing which Area to sacrifice as you get maimed helps with that, because you will not choose an area that you need in order to keep fighting. Defender-side maims are also a lot more badass, because they let everyone describe how damaged their robot is, while still standing and being able to fight. While we're in the subject of narration, it also helps make that flow better. You make an attack, and the defender describes the damage dealt along with their reaction after noting down the damage they take.
Much like with unrolled Penetration, it helps make the game run smoother. It even gives you the tactical choice to either bunch up your good stuff somewhere it'll be safe until the end, or to make a couple sets of key areas and sacrifice the lesser useful ones depending on the situation. It is a bit of a change from how it used to be, but it is for the better, and works very well in mitigating the generally stronger offenses that everyone starts with. If it is absolutely necessary to do so, you can always use a controlled attack to pick off a specific Area, even.
The only issue is that you need to spread your weapons all over the body, which often means placing stuff in the head when you'd rather have those guns on the arms. This is, fortunately, a problem of flavor and not of mechanics so it can be solved without a lot of fuss. Head, Arms, Torso and Legs could become Left Arm, Right Arm, Shoulder-Mount and Chest-Mount for instance. Or it can abstract placement and be more functional instead, with the Areas being Held Weapons, Mounted Weapons, Defense Systems, and Utility Equipment.
So with having four unnamed, generic equipment slots that can be renamed to anything you want and some guidelines for making them tick, things should be set. I am, however, intending to write in a chapter with several alternative rules after the ground level content is changed, and there will be an alternative Area/Maim system in it.
Edit: This is a flavor-based change. It is, however, entirely possible for one to not like the way this works rules wise. There's hoops to jump, and some people aren't too fond of hoops. There's a wiser designer than I who says that if you fight human nature, human nature tends to win.
So here's the deal. We can lift the restrictions on placement entirely, all it would mean is making sure the game doesn't get too imbalanced as a result. And while I'm not a fan of what I'm about to propose as a solution, it gets the job done:
Random Maim Locations Table
aka Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
All Upgrades and Weapons that aren't exclusive to the Core can be placed in any Area of either Head, Torso, Arms or Legs. When a Threshold Level is lost and an Area is to be Maimed, said Area is chosen at random depending on the last digit of the Total Damage Dealt dealt to the Maimed Unit:
1 = Defender's choice of Head, Torso, Arms and Legs. You cannot choose an Area that has already been Maimed.
2-3 = Head. If the Head has already been Maimed, it is an Area of the Attacker's choice on a 2 and the Defender's choice on a 3.
4-5 = Torso. If the Torso has already been Maimed, it is an Area of the Attacker's choice on a 4 and the Defender's choice on a 5.
6-7 = Arms. If the Arms have already been Maimed, it is an Area of the Attacker's choice on a 6 and the Defender's choice on a 7.
8-9 = Legs. If the Legs have already been Maimed, it is an Area of the Attacker's choice on a 8 and the Defender's choice on a 9.
0 = Attacker's choice of Head, Torso, Arms and Legs. You cannot choose an Area that has already been Maimed.
Randomized results means that attempting to optimize Areas so you won't be affected by Maims is about as likely to hurt you as it is likely to help you out. There is a slight bias for Defender's choice, Head and Torso Areas but it is negligible, really. Instead, you can focus on getting your unit just right and give it whatever you want, without worrying about the effectiveness of optimizing your Areas. It might work out fantastically, or it might not! Good thing there's plenty of healing to work around a key Area getting chopped down.
Space was kind of inelegant as far as rules went, choosing where your robot holds its stuff is cool and all but tracking it was a bit of a chore. It helped balance the other chassis types with each other in making some of them arbitrarily better at being able to equip more or less parts in some or other spots, but at the same time it meant a few arbitrary restrictions on unconventional, yet perfectly fine otherwise, builds.
That worked for a while decently enough, but Maiming complicated things further. The first few maims were the most important ones, taking away the most important equipment of the victim, and making the rest of the combat a nearly-insurmountable uphill battle for whoever suffered the first one.
The game is about (or aims for) intense, back and forth combat, gradually building up to a desperate climax. Two robots reduced to no weapons bashing each other with their battered limbs is cool, but a futile struggle of one character as the near-mint victor toys with them is a pointless, drawn-out slog.
Now I guess I could just do away with both space and area restrictions, and maiming in general, but it is a big part of what makes mecha combat feel like, you know, mecha combat. Obviously I could not just do away with them.
Now to the solution: Everything can go anywhere, you only need to worry about making every area important by keeping them balanced with each other. This enables off-the-wall designs slightly better, specially with the custom weapons engine. Without some limit on placing stuff, you will always have dead areas that you don't care about losing. That's bad and antithetical to a game where every turn is supposed to do something meaningful
Choosing which Area to sacrifice as you get maimed helps with that, because you will not choose an area that you need in order to keep fighting. Defender-side maims are also a lot more badass, because they let everyone describe how damaged their robot is, while still standing and being able to fight. While we're in the subject of narration, it also helps make that flow better. You make an attack, and the defender describes the damage dealt along with their reaction after noting down the damage they take.
Much like with unrolled Penetration, it helps make the game run smoother. It even gives you the tactical choice to either bunch up your good stuff somewhere it'll be safe until the end, or to make a couple sets of key areas and sacrifice the lesser useful ones depending on the situation. It is a bit of a change from how it used to be, but it is for the better, and works very well in mitigating the generally stronger offenses that everyone starts with. If it is absolutely necessary to do so, you can always use a controlled attack to pick off a specific Area, even.
The only issue is that you need to spread your weapons all over the body, which often means placing stuff in the head when you'd rather have those guns on the arms. This is, fortunately, a problem of flavor and not of mechanics so it can be solved without a lot of fuss. Head, Arms, Torso and Legs could become Left Arm, Right Arm, Shoulder-Mount and Chest-Mount for instance. Or it can abstract placement and be more functional instead, with the Areas being Held Weapons, Mounted Weapons, Defense Systems, and Utility Equipment.
So with having four unnamed, generic equipment slots that can be renamed to anything you want and some guidelines for making them tick, things should be set. I am, however, intending to write in a chapter with several alternative rules after the ground level content is changed, and there will be an alternative Area/Maim system in it.
Edit: This is a flavor-based change. It is, however, entirely possible for one to not like the way this works rules wise. There's hoops to jump, and some people aren't too fond of hoops. There's a wiser designer than I who says that if you fight human nature, human nature tends to win.
So here's the deal. We can lift the restrictions on placement entirely, all it would mean is making sure the game doesn't get too imbalanced as a result. And while I'm not a fan of what I'm about to propose as a solution, it gets the job done:
Random Maim Locations Table
aka Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
All Upgrades and Weapons that aren't exclusive to the Core can be placed in any Area of either Head, Torso, Arms or Legs. When a Threshold Level is lost and an Area is to be Maimed, said Area is chosen at random depending on the last digit of the Total Damage Dealt dealt to the Maimed Unit:
1 = Defender's choice of Head, Torso, Arms and Legs. You cannot choose an Area that has already been Maimed.
2-3 = Head. If the Head has already been Maimed, it is an Area of the Attacker's choice on a 2 and the Defender's choice on a 3.
4-5 = Torso. If the Torso has already been Maimed, it is an Area of the Attacker's choice on a 4 and the Defender's choice on a 5.
6-7 = Arms. If the Arms have already been Maimed, it is an Area of the Attacker's choice on a 6 and the Defender's choice on a 7.
8-9 = Legs. If the Legs have already been Maimed, it is an Area of the Attacker's choice on a 8 and the Defender's choice on a 9.
0 = Attacker's choice of Head, Torso, Arms and Legs. You cannot choose an Area that has already been Maimed.
Randomized results means that attempting to optimize Areas so you won't be affected by Maims is about as likely to hurt you as it is likely to help you out. There is a slight bias for Defender's choice, Head and Torso Areas but it is negligible, really. Instead, you can focus on getting your unit just right and give it whatever you want, without worrying about the effectiveness of optimizing your Areas. It might work out fantastically, or it might not! Good thing there's plenty of healing to work around a key Area getting chopped down.
November 27, 2012
Pump Me Up
I wanted to address common concerns with a quick update but evidently I'm not finding the time to do so. So let's talk about the biggest of the bunch for now.
Second to Genre Points, the most precious resource in the game is Energy. A lot of the game's inherent tension in managing your Genre Points went over to managing your Energy, this was by design since you can do a lot with each point. If you dedicate your 5-8 points to one ability, it'll do its job and then some.
Beam Weapons are absurdly powerful. While the other types an Advantage in specific circumstances (which is about a +3 to Accuracy) the full-rollover benefit of Beams grows in power in a linear fashion through the course of the game through both Tension and your own Accuracy enhancements, while every other kind of weapon is very good at hitting things but not that great at piercing through. This is, incidentally, why they have the most expensive Reliable modifier - because it is better than the one the others get.
Active Defenses (by which I mean stuff you spend energy to increase Evasion or Armor) likely nullify an instance of damage entirely barring crazy powerful finishers, which just suffer a very large reduction. Other Upgrades offer different tactical advantages, some are raw temporary boosts(Three Times Faster) while others offer a variety of bonuses and are meant to be used sparingly (Anti-Gravity) but the key point is that you can't go around using multiples of these without a failsafe or two.
So let's back off for a second here. What exactly would be wrong with giving everyone a permanent solution in the form of regeneration, instead of purchasable failsafes? Mostly that it is really, really boring. A game where you can always do everything that you want is not a tactically interesting one, and by being a limited resource you need to actually make choices regarding how to use it. I'll be frank in that early on I was considering giving everyone a static regeneration of 1 Energy per Round. The result of giving everyone regeneration while keeping things sane was nerfing the hell out of everything that needed fuel to use, and that just wouldn't do. It devalued the resource instead of making it more important, was rather fiddly to play with, and went against the goal of keeping things dynamic by encouraging battles of attrition.
Fortunately the available failsafes are excellent. Really? Well yes, the issue with Energy being so cost-efficient is that it always is more powerful than it looks at first glance, so when you get a handful of points back it seems disappointing that you're only only going to get a couple more uses of your stuff. When, you know, just getting the chance to shoot three more beams is easily all you would ever need. Ready for Another Go gives you an average of 3 for 1 Genre Point as many times as you need it and at reaction speed, Resupply will give you even more and can combo with Regenerative to give you up to 15 of it at no Action cost, and Micromanage can be used with a mix and match of Cooperate, Tactical UI, and Assistant to keep yourself or others in top condition. Even with the best method to regenerate energy gone (RIP old Limiter Release, which I affectionatelly dubbed Necropotence) any one of these is efficient enough to make sure you finish off the enemy before you run out of juice.
But still, while six or so uses of an active defense are more than enough to outtank an opponent, and three or four turns of 3x Faster are most certainly decisive, Beams and Anti-Gravity require a bit more finesse. If you fire beams or fly around all day long from turn 1 onwards, chances are you'll be wasting that Energy and will have to fight uphill afterwards. It was not an intentional design trap (Rest easy knowing that you will not find an equivalent to the Toughness Feat in the game anytime soon) but it is still there, and my job is to make sure that there's nothing you can casually walk into and be killed by without being clearly aware that something has to be wrong first.
So what is to be done about this? Well, for one I think we can make the basic Beam type cost 0 Energy. That would come with a change to the selection of modifiers that can be attached to the custom weapons. We can also make using Anti-Gravity free of charge Energy-wise, its effects being up in the air (so to speak) and other modifications being possible for use in other terrains.
There's a couple other things too, but that's as far as Energy is concerned. By ensuring that every point spent is meaningful, there is no need to make busywork with regeneration shenanigans since everyone is already on equal footing. So! On to the temporary fixes:
Custom Beam Weapon
Range: 0-7
Accuracy: +0
Penetration: 0
Energy: 0
Special: Beam
Anti-Gravity
Areas: Core
Cost: 7
Effect: You ignore the effects of Terrain and can shoot through a Zone occupied by an Enemy as if they weren’t there to reach another behind it, but may also be attacked by anyone within range in the same way. This Upgrade has no effect underwater or in space.
Proper new modifiers and custom AG, along with other small changes to things like areas and transform, will come soon enough, until then this should do.
Second to Genre Points, the most precious resource in the game is Energy. A lot of the game's inherent tension in managing your Genre Points went over to managing your Energy, this was by design since you can do a lot with each point. If you dedicate your 5-8 points to one ability, it'll do its job and then some.
Beam Weapons are absurdly powerful. While the other types an Advantage in specific circumstances (which is about a +3 to Accuracy) the full-rollover benefit of Beams grows in power in a linear fashion through the course of the game through both Tension and your own Accuracy enhancements, while every other kind of weapon is very good at hitting things but not that great at piercing through. This is, incidentally, why they have the most expensive Reliable modifier - because it is better than the one the others get.
Active Defenses (by which I mean stuff you spend energy to increase Evasion or Armor) likely nullify an instance of damage entirely barring crazy powerful finishers, which just suffer a very large reduction. Other Upgrades offer different tactical advantages, some are raw temporary boosts(Three Times Faster) while others offer a variety of bonuses and are meant to be used sparingly (Anti-Gravity) but the key point is that you can't go around using multiples of these without a failsafe or two.
So let's back off for a second here. What exactly would be wrong with giving everyone a permanent solution in the form of regeneration, instead of purchasable failsafes? Mostly that it is really, really boring. A game where you can always do everything that you want is not a tactically interesting one, and by being a limited resource you need to actually make choices regarding how to use it. I'll be frank in that early on I was considering giving everyone a static regeneration of 1 Energy per Round. The result of giving everyone regeneration while keeping things sane was nerfing the hell out of everything that needed fuel to use, and that just wouldn't do. It devalued the resource instead of making it more important, was rather fiddly to play with, and went against the goal of keeping things dynamic by encouraging battles of attrition.
Fortunately the available failsafes are excellent. Really? Well yes, the issue with Energy being so cost-efficient is that it always is more powerful than it looks at first glance, so when you get a handful of points back it seems disappointing that you're only only going to get a couple more uses of your stuff. When, you know, just getting the chance to shoot three more beams is easily all you would ever need. Ready for Another Go gives you an average of 3 for 1 Genre Point as many times as you need it and at reaction speed, Resupply will give you even more and can combo with Regenerative to give you up to 15 of it at no Action cost, and Micromanage can be used with a mix and match of Cooperate, Tactical UI, and Assistant to keep yourself or others in top condition. Even with the best method to regenerate energy gone (RIP old Limiter Release, which I affectionatelly dubbed Necropotence) any one of these is efficient enough to make sure you finish off the enemy before you run out of juice.
But still, while six or so uses of an active defense are more than enough to outtank an opponent, and three or four turns of 3x Faster are most certainly decisive, Beams and Anti-Gravity require a bit more finesse. If you fire beams or fly around all day long from turn 1 onwards, chances are you'll be wasting that Energy and will have to fight uphill afterwards. It was not an intentional design trap (Rest easy knowing that you will not find an equivalent to the Toughness Feat in the game anytime soon) but it is still there, and my job is to make sure that there's nothing you can casually walk into and be killed by without being clearly aware that something has to be wrong first.
So what is to be done about this? Well, for one I think we can make the basic Beam type cost 0 Energy. That would come with a change to the selection of modifiers that can be attached to the custom weapons. We can also make using Anti-Gravity free of charge Energy-wise, its effects being up in the air (so to speak) and other modifications being possible for use in other terrains.
There's a couple other things too, but that's as far as Energy is concerned. By ensuring that every point spent is meaningful, there is no need to make busywork with regeneration shenanigans since everyone is already on equal footing. So! On to the temporary fixes:
Custom Beam Weapon
Range: 0-7
Accuracy: +0
Penetration: 0
Energy: 0
Special: Beam
Anti-Gravity
Areas: Core
Cost: 7
Effect: You ignore the effects of Terrain and can shoot through a Zone occupied by an Enemy as if they weren’t there to reach another behind it, but may also be attacked by anyone within range in the same way. This Upgrade has no effect underwater or in space.
Proper new modifiers and custom AG, along with other small changes to things like areas and transform, will come soon enough, until then this should do.
September 7, 2012
Areas, Threshold, and Maiming
The Area subsystem helps give the game a sizable part of its Mecha feel, you get to build your robot however you like it, and you get to hack those of your opponents apart. Everyone has a large(ish) pool of HP, but taking Damage weakens them and hampers their performance as they lose access to their best offensive and defensive abilities. In addition, this mirrors (mostly) how Plot Armor works with its increasing damage and lasting Consequences.
That said there's a couple of issues with it. A lot of the time the first Maim is the most defining one, taking away the things that are most important to the enemy and making the rest of the battle snowball from there. Because of this abilities that repair Areas back to normal are crucial against an opponent who knows where to hit.
Which is a bit of a problem because there aren't that many of them, and it basically boils down to having to eat up one of your Genre Power slots with Determinator just to be safe. You can fix it by making the Area to be Maimed a sacrifice on the part of the receiver, thus drastically doing away with the snowball factor, but that creates a problem of its own in that you want to stack up all your stuff in one or two areas and always leave those for last. So until I do my extensive rewrite of all these little things, here's a pair of workarounds that can be implemented without much trouble.
One Step Away
-When an Area would be Maimed, the defender chooses which one. Genre Powers such as Called Shot can ignore this.
-The First Upgrade or Weapon to any non-Core Area can go anywhere, but further ones must go to Areas that don't have anything yet.
-No Area can hold more than two Upgrades or Weapons in excess of the one that holds the least.
-Remember that Gears are still bound by the limits of Area Capacity.
Gears Upgrades and Weapons during construction in a way that keeps all non-Core Areas balanced in the number of things they hold. You can still game the system a little by slapping cheap stuff to the Areas that you don't mind that much, or give them one-use stuff. Still an improvement if Maiming has been a thorn in your side.
Two Steps Away
-When an Area would be Maimed, the defender chooses which one. Genre Powers such as Called Shot can ignore this.
-No Area can hold more than one Upgrade or Weapon in excess of the one that holds the least.
-Area Capacities are gone and all have effectively limitless space.
-Upgrades and Weapons that can normally go only in specific Areas can ignore this for an additional cost of 1 UP and go to any non-Core Area. Core-exclusive Upgrades do not benefit from this potential reallocation.
This one is more strict on the balancing, but you also have more freedom of where anything can go, and no longer have to worry about running out of space anywhere. It is less gameable, though it is much easier to stack Core stuff now, and encourages having different sets of abilities in different Area for different needs.
That said there's a couple of issues with it. A lot of the time the first Maim is the most defining one, taking away the things that are most important to the enemy and making the rest of the battle snowball from there. Because of this abilities that repair Areas back to normal are crucial against an opponent who knows where to hit.
Which is a bit of a problem because there aren't that many of them, and it basically boils down to having to eat up one of your Genre Power slots with Determinator just to be safe. You can fix it by making the Area to be Maimed a sacrifice on the part of the receiver, thus drastically doing away with the snowball factor, but that creates a problem of its own in that you want to stack up all your stuff in one or two areas and always leave those for last. So until I do my extensive rewrite of all these little things, here's a pair of workarounds that can be implemented without much trouble.
One Step Away
-When an Area would be Maimed, the defender chooses which one. Genre Powers such as Called Shot can ignore this.
-The First Upgrade or Weapon to any non-Core Area can go anywhere, but further ones must go to Areas that don't have anything yet.
-No Area can hold more than two Upgrades or Weapons in excess of the one that holds the least.
-Remember that Gears are still bound by the limits of Area Capacity.
Gears Upgrades and Weapons during construction in a way that keeps all non-Core Areas balanced in the number of things they hold. You can still game the system a little by slapping cheap stuff to the Areas that you don't mind that much, or give them one-use stuff. Still an improvement if Maiming has been a thorn in your side.
Two Steps Away
-When an Area would be Maimed, the defender chooses which one. Genre Powers such as Called Shot can ignore this.
-No Area can hold more than one Upgrade or Weapon in excess of the one that holds the least.
-Area Capacities are gone and all have effectively limitless space.
-Upgrades and Weapons that can normally go only in specific Areas can ignore this for an additional cost of 1 UP and go to any non-Core Area. Core-exclusive Upgrades do not benefit from this potential reallocation.
This one is more strict on the balancing, but you also have more freedom of where anything can go, and no longer have to worry about running out of space anywhere. It is less gameable, though it is much easier to stack Core stuff now, and encourages having different sets of abilities in different Area for different needs.
July 8, 2012
Making the GM's Life Easier
Down to the core of my design philosophy is that a game has to be simple to understand and easy to run. It is often said that a good group can make playing with nearly any system, no matter how much of a trainwreck it is, a total blast as an experience.
And this is basically the truth. It does not matter whether your game is deep and meaningful or realistic and detailed, it does not matter if your prose is beautiful and the fluff is inspiring. At the end of the day if your rules are incomprehensible and only cause arguments or get in the GM's way then chances are they will throw away the book and just do whatever. While I have been in games without any houserules, I have yet to play or run in a game that does not alter significantly a prewritten setting, so that goes double for fluff in my experience.
I value simplicity and elegance in design very highly, but while PCs can afford to get more fiddly and complex with the stuff they can do (because they have one character and one mecha to worry about) the GM has to juggle about all the NPCs with the plot with arbitrating the results of the (often conflicting) PCs actions with giving solid descriptions of absolutely everything with knowing the rules better than everyone else at the table.
Rules meant for GM use should be the simplest of the bunch, not just because they need speed of play and preptime on their side, but because if they need complexity they can ad-hoc whatever they damn want anyway. Coming up with specific gimmicky rules is easy, coming up with the solid everyday ones not so much, and the designer's job is to provide the latter. The inherent danger to simplifying anything is that it potentially makes it blander and more boring to play with, but when executed properly the streamlining is very much worth it.
With that in mind, we go into today's topic proper: Enemy Generation. Currently Enemies function as either weakened or buffed up PCs, but are made in the same time-consuming fashion. While there is a certain charm to this, only Rivals and Elites are anywhere remotely near the same as PCs in feel and functionality, so Mooks and Bosses could stand to be both simpler and more unique, having special rules for their perks.
Such as this!
Mooks
Mooks are supposed to come in droves and be painfully weak, so they should be the simplest of the bunch and the GM should not have to check on their sheets much beyond how their Energy and Threshold are faring.
Mechanics: Choose a Chassis Type as normal. Mooks do not suffer Area Cost Restrictions. Enhance each Base Mechanic by 1 per Episode Arc cleared.
Upgrades: 5 Points in Upgrades or Enhancements
Weapons: Two Cost 5 or less Weapons, they may not have drawbacks.
Special:
Quantity - Mooks come in squads of four. They are immune to Maiming and instead every level of Threshold downed is a kill. This has no special rules effect.
Quality - Mooks do not benefit from Tension.
Elites
Elites are stronger units that may count as a miniboss early on, but will be quickly outdone by the PCs later. They are perfect for representing recurring enemies that aren't quite an enemy ace yet remain distinct from the rank and file.
Mechanics: Choose a Chassis Type as normal. Enhance each Base Mechanic by 1 per Episode Arc cleared.
Upgrades: 10 Points in Upgrades or Enhancements
Weapons: 10 Points in Weapons.
Rivals
Rivals are the undying baddies that always come back stronger than before, they are meant to mirror the PCs and continue to be built exactly as them.
Bosses
A Boss is a big bad whom you should only meet once, when you or they make a last stand where it is kill or be killed. Bosses are supposed to be rare and take longer to beat than most foes, so they need to shake up their strategies and tactics a bit throughout the course of the fight to ensure it does not drag on, they could also use some additional endurance and juice to make sure they get to display all their cool powers - without going into the classic HP inflation problem where everything is a roadblock instead of being legitimately threatening.
Designs: 1
Mechanics: Choose a Chassis Type as normal. Bosses do not suffer Area Cost Restrictions. Enhance each Base Mechanic by 2 per Episode Arc cleared.
Upgrades: 10 Points in Upgrades or Enhancements (Except those from Exceptional Aptitudes).
Weapons: 10 Points in Weapons.
Special:
Multiple Stages - Per Episode Arc cleared choose either 1 Design, up to 10 Points in Upgrades or Enhancements, or up to 10 Points of Weapons and assign them to the Nominal, Superficial, Critical and Lethal Threshold Levels as you wish. Said Designs, Upgrades and Weapons are only available while the Boss is in the corresponding Threshold Level. Bosses are immune to Maiming.
EN Charge - May spend an Action to turn half the Damage taken into Energy (rounding up) for a Round.
To make the battle more dynamic they integrate a variant of what are now known as the Gygravagnite Charge and Multiple Stages Aberrant Upgrades. Naturally, they cannot pack either of those Upgrades in addition to this. The idea is, you've got a common 'build' for your boss that is shared across all stages of the battle but as they're more worn down they have to resort to backup tactics and systems. This means that PCs can't rest on their laurels even when they've begun to win, and the battle has a degree of unpredictability to the very end.
Note how they no longer get Genre Powers. Those would be entirely the Domain of Rivals. I'm still not too sure about that last one, hell I'm not really sure about a lot of this in general (Bosses might be a bit weak now, even if their base stats are great) but I think that this is conceptually in the ballpark of what I'm going to do.
And this is basically the truth. It does not matter whether your game is deep and meaningful or realistic and detailed, it does not matter if your prose is beautiful and the fluff is inspiring. At the end of the day if your rules are incomprehensible and only cause arguments or get in the GM's way then chances are they will throw away the book and just do whatever. While I have been in games without any houserules, I have yet to play or run in a game that does not alter significantly a prewritten setting, so that goes double for fluff in my experience.
I value simplicity and elegance in design very highly, but while PCs can afford to get more fiddly and complex with the stuff they can do (because they have one character and one mecha to worry about) the GM has to juggle about all the NPCs with the plot with arbitrating the results of the (often conflicting) PCs actions with giving solid descriptions of absolutely everything with knowing the rules better than everyone else at the table.
Rules meant for GM use should be the simplest of the bunch, not just because they need speed of play and preptime on their side, but because if they need complexity they can ad-hoc whatever they damn want anyway. Coming up with specific gimmicky rules is easy, coming up with the solid everyday ones not so much, and the designer's job is to provide the latter. The inherent danger to simplifying anything is that it potentially makes it blander and more boring to play with, but when executed properly the streamlining is very much worth it.
With that in mind, we go into today's topic proper: Enemy Generation. Currently Enemies function as either weakened or buffed up PCs, but are made in the same time-consuming fashion. While there is a certain charm to this, only Rivals and Elites are anywhere remotely near the same as PCs in feel and functionality, so Mooks and Bosses could stand to be both simpler and more unique, having special rules for their perks.
Such as this!
Mooks
Mooks are supposed to come in droves and be painfully weak, so they should be the simplest of the bunch and the GM should not have to check on their sheets much beyond how their Energy and Threshold are faring.
Mechanics: Choose a Chassis Type as normal. Mooks do not suffer Area Cost Restrictions. Enhance each Base Mechanic by 1 per Episode Arc cleared.
Upgrades: 5 Points in Upgrades or Enhancements
Weapons: Two Cost 5 or less Weapons, they may not have drawbacks.
Special:
Quantity - Mooks come in squads of four. They are immune to Maiming and instead every level of Threshold downed is a kill. This has no special rules effect.
Quality - Mooks do not benefit from Tension.
Elites
Elites are stronger units that may count as a miniboss early on, but will be quickly outdone by the PCs later. They are perfect for representing recurring enemies that aren't quite an enemy ace yet remain distinct from the rank and file.
Mechanics: Choose a Chassis Type as normal. Enhance each Base Mechanic by 1 per Episode Arc cleared.
Upgrades: 10 Points in Upgrades or Enhancements
Weapons: 10 Points in Weapons.
Rivals
Rivals are the undying baddies that always come back stronger than before, they are meant to mirror the PCs and continue to be built exactly as them.
Bosses
A Boss is a big bad whom you should only meet once, when you or they make a last stand where it is kill or be killed. Bosses are supposed to be rare and take longer to beat than most foes, so they need to shake up their strategies and tactics a bit throughout the course of the fight to ensure it does not drag on, they could also use some additional endurance and juice to make sure they get to display all their cool powers - without going into the classic HP inflation problem where everything is a roadblock instead of being legitimately threatening.
Designs: 1
Mechanics: Choose a Chassis Type as normal. Bosses do not suffer Area Cost Restrictions. Enhance each Base Mechanic by 2 per Episode Arc cleared.
Upgrades: 10 Points in Upgrades or Enhancements (Except those from Exceptional Aptitudes).
Weapons: 10 Points in Weapons.
Special:
Multiple Stages - Per Episode Arc cleared choose either 1 Design, up to 10 Points in Upgrades or Enhancements, or up to 10 Points of Weapons and assign them to the Nominal, Superficial, Critical and Lethal Threshold Levels as you wish. Said Designs, Upgrades and Weapons are only available while the Boss is in the corresponding Threshold Level. Bosses are immune to Maiming.
EN Charge - May spend an Action to turn half the Damage taken into Energy (rounding up) for a Round.
To make the battle more dynamic they integrate a variant of what are now known as the Gygravagnite Charge and Multiple Stages Aberrant Upgrades. Naturally, they cannot pack either of those Upgrades in addition to this. The idea is, you've got a common 'build' for your boss that is shared across all stages of the battle but as they're more worn down they have to resort to backup tactics and systems. This means that PCs can't rest on their laurels even when they've begun to win, and the battle has a degree of unpredictability to the very end.
Note how they no longer get Genre Powers. Those would be entirely the Domain of Rivals. I'm still not too sure about that last one, hell I'm not really sure about a lot of this in general (Bosses might be a bit weak now, even if their base stats are great) but I think that this is conceptually in the ballpark of what I'm going to do.
July 1, 2012
Pilot Skill and Mecha Efficiency
Before today's post proper I want to point out a cool thing that other people have made. Earlier this month I thought "What would it be like if you add cool cinematic stuff like Tension and Duels to a game like D&D?" and set out to write a terrible fantasy heartbreaker as a thought experiment. Turns out it was unnecessary, because such a game is already on its way. If you like Sword and Sorcery and are tired of ancient relics of game design, check out 13th Age!
Now for today's topic proper. Of the many things I'd like to change the one I have the least idea on how to do so is in making PC stats relevant during Operations. Originally, this was the job of Genre Points, but being almost entirely a meta mechanic it does not seem to be conceptually accepted.
A brief aside:
One of my pet peeves of game design are the so-called "Power Stats" these being Attributes/Ability Scores/Whatever that are obviously much better than others, yet are presented as equal. Nothing makes the already long process of character creation feel longer than the illusion of choice being entirely pointless, because all the options are already chosen for you!
You've probably ran into games in which if you create a PC using the 'social stat' as the highest one, your character will likely suck and you're only going to slow everyone down, so you better change your concept to be good at murdering things first and talking to them second.
The end result of this is that most characters and groups look about the same, and playing a second campaign after your first is repetitive in the worst possible way - the boring "I already did all of this once" one.
That aside done and over with, I want people to be able to take whatever with their PCs and have it at least be relatively around the same power level, which is why things like Offensive Tests only recommend stuff like Combat or Diplomacy instead of tying you down to it, because creative descriptions can let you get away with Athletics and Presence in their stead.
Of course, being so open ended does take away some potential depth from the game as a whole, and if I'm going to be adding a handful of subsystems to handle things like Investigations or Social Combat in a more interesting manner, then I should also consider shaking up this balance that all options have with each other for the sake of making them more fun to play with.
One way to go about this is to use Mecha Archetypes. See, Super Prototypes include motion feedback in their cockpits, Production Models are thought-controlled and rely on skillfully managing their subprograms, and Living Weapons are handled like you would handle a very big and large animal who happens to be a giant robot.
Every character has three stats, too: Fitness, Intellect and Empathy. I think you can see where this is going. The question is how to implement it, because a stray +5 or +7 randomly placed somewhere in the operation combat math can wreck things. The one thing that could use having a fixed number is Initiative, because right now it only uses your Genre, and while sticking it to Initiative makes sense (Mooks and Elites don't have Archetypes, so they still have way lower initiative than the PCs) it is honestly kind of weak, even if Initiative is more important in GGG than in most games because of Tension.
The Archetype route also leaves me wondering what the hell would I do with Base Units. Though then again, those are slightly stronger by default so maybe they don't need the extra boost. Unless I want to add a fourth stat like Willpower or Spirit, but that's crazy talk.
Now for today's topic proper. Of the many things I'd like to change the one I have the least idea on how to do so is in making PC stats relevant during Operations. Originally, this was the job of Genre Points, but being almost entirely a meta mechanic it does not seem to be conceptually accepted.
A brief aside:
One of my pet peeves of game design are the so-called "Power Stats" these being Attributes/Ability Scores/Whatever that are obviously much better than others, yet are presented as equal. Nothing makes the already long process of character creation feel longer than the illusion of choice being entirely pointless, because all the options are already chosen for you!
You've probably ran into games in which if you create a PC using the 'social stat' as the highest one, your character will likely suck and you're only going to slow everyone down, so you better change your concept to be good at murdering things first and talking to them second.
The end result of this is that most characters and groups look about the same, and playing a second campaign after your first is repetitive in the worst possible way - the boring "I already did all of this once" one.
That aside done and over with, I want people to be able to take whatever with their PCs and have it at least be relatively around the same power level, which is why things like Offensive Tests only recommend stuff like Combat or Diplomacy instead of tying you down to it, because creative descriptions can let you get away with Athletics and Presence in their stead.
Of course, being so open ended does take away some potential depth from the game as a whole, and if I'm going to be adding a handful of subsystems to handle things like Investigations or Social Combat in a more interesting manner, then I should also consider shaking up this balance that all options have with each other for the sake of making them more fun to play with.
One way to go about this is to use Mecha Archetypes. See, Super Prototypes include motion feedback in their cockpits, Production Models are thought-controlled and rely on skillfully managing their subprograms, and Living Weapons are handled like you would handle a very big and large animal who happens to be a giant robot.
Every character has three stats, too: Fitness, Intellect and Empathy. I think you can see where this is going. The question is how to implement it, because a stray +5 or +7 randomly placed somewhere in the operation combat math can wreck things. The one thing that could use having a fixed number is Initiative, because right now it only uses your Genre, and while sticking it to Initiative makes sense (Mooks and Elites don't have Archetypes, so they still have way lower initiative than the PCs) it is honestly kind of weak, even if Initiative is more important in GGG than in most games because of Tension.
The Archetype route also leaves me wondering what the hell would I do with Base Units. Though then again, those are slightly stronger by default so maybe they don't need the extra boost. Unless I want to add a fourth stat like Willpower or Spirit, but that's crazy talk.
June 20, 2012
Intermissions as Operations
As a bonus other thing I would like to see modified, I want to add more depth to Intermissions, and hope to make encounters in them as fun as the Operations themselves. That would make it possible to run games in the style of the Giant Robo OVAs or Xenosaga, and let you save up the giant robots for those times when you want to make the robots an occasional thing, to keep them special.
The Intermission system right now is fairly robust, which is to say it can do nearly anything elegantly with a minimum of complications, but suffers from being fairly bland. Skills are like Weapons, but without any of the special effects, and Traits are like Upgrades that cannot be enhanced. Item rules are almost nonexistant, and in fact are simply Traits with a few extra rules attached. I also am being very generous by calling that extra paragraph "rules".
The upside to this is that, as advertised, you don't need to refer to the book a lot to roleplay Intermission scenes. You don't need special rules to research a weapon capable of countering the enemy's latest gimmick, you can just roll an Extended Academics Test and you'll probably find something of value eventually, nor does social combat function any different from normal physical combat at all; You just tell people enough unsavory things until they break down like the bad guys from a series of videogames featuring Ace Attorneys.
There is nothing wrong with this per se, but with all the range of viable choices and tactical depth present in Operations, it is a shame that all you really need to solve any kind of Intermission challenge (whether it is social, investigative, a battle, or of some other kind) is a high stat first, an appropriate skill second, and a trait to help out possibly maybe as a tertiary benefit.
Now, there are limits to how much more complexity I want. As far as items go, I would rather not invoke the common "Inventory minigame" traditional to RPGs, with ridiculously long shopping lists of items half of which are never going to be relevant. Things like that bog down character creation too much in a game where you already need to stat up TWO characters instead of one, so they are going to stay as Traits.
That said, Traits could stand to be more like Upgrades than they are right now, for one they could scale and improve over time, for two they could have more interesting mechanical effects. Most Traits are tied to flavor right now, and they tend to provide an Advantage when that flavor makes them beneficial to you. Keeping in mind that GGG is effects-based and more about cinematics than realism, what Traits need is to be able to cover the kinds of of scenarios that PCs usual face (from diplomancing to treating wounds to hacking databases) problems in a way that is mechanically interesting without being tied to overly-specific fluff.
For example, a common problem with many games in which you are expected to do investigation is that when the PCs fail their rolls to find a clue, the game comes down to a halt until someone figures out a new lead. Many games with investigation as a central theme give people a chance to automatically pass such checks at the cost of some other resource or a limited number of times, in this way they help to keep things moving without necessarily needing a derail of several hours to find another lead.
You can actually do this (or something like it) with the current rules, but by making specific mechanics for investigative Traits we can make them more interesting mechanically than, say, rewriting "Lucky" to apply only to Investigation Skill Tests.
The way Traits would improve like Upgrades is rather self-explanatory, an organization-themed Trait could be powered up to have more retainers the more PP you spend on it, and a style of martial arts will unlock the Secret Succession Technique sure to destroy any who fights you after it is fully enhanced.
We note down the kinds of things that a character could want to do, and make a category of Traits for each. Here's such a list, with a few examples.
-Combat (For people who want their martial artist or sniper to be unique mechanically)
-Healing (Like Support Upgrades, but for characters)
-Movement & Vehicles (Vehicles that can emphasize terrain versatility, combat viability, etc)
-Knowledge & Research (Various ways to get clues from the GM)
-Allies (From having dozens of mooks to a singular ally stronger than you are)
This is only a sample short list, but I hope it gets the point across. I frankly have no idea if this is going to work out, but it could add a lot of fun things to do in the game beyond robots.
The Intermission system right now is fairly robust, which is to say it can do nearly anything elegantly with a minimum of complications, but suffers from being fairly bland. Skills are like Weapons, but without any of the special effects, and Traits are like Upgrades that cannot be enhanced. Item rules are almost nonexistant, and in fact are simply Traits with a few extra rules attached. I also am being very generous by calling that extra paragraph "rules".
The upside to this is that, as advertised, you don't need to refer to the book a lot to roleplay Intermission scenes. You don't need special rules to research a weapon capable of countering the enemy's latest gimmick, you can just roll an Extended Academics Test and you'll probably find something of value eventually, nor does social combat function any different from normal physical combat at all; You just tell people enough unsavory things until they break down like the bad guys from a series of videogames featuring Ace Attorneys.
There is nothing wrong with this per se, but with all the range of viable choices and tactical depth present in Operations, it is a shame that all you really need to solve any kind of Intermission challenge (whether it is social, investigative, a battle, or of some other kind) is a high stat first, an appropriate skill second, and a trait to help out possibly maybe as a tertiary benefit.
Now, there are limits to how much more complexity I want. As far as items go, I would rather not invoke the common "Inventory minigame" traditional to RPGs, with ridiculously long shopping lists of items half of which are never going to be relevant. Things like that bog down character creation too much in a game where you already need to stat up TWO characters instead of one, so they are going to stay as Traits.
That said, Traits could stand to be more like Upgrades than they are right now, for one they could scale and improve over time, for two they could have more interesting mechanical effects. Most Traits are tied to flavor right now, and they tend to provide an Advantage when that flavor makes them beneficial to you. Keeping in mind that GGG is effects-based and more about cinematics than realism, what Traits need is to be able to cover the kinds of of scenarios that PCs usual face (from diplomancing to treating wounds to hacking databases) problems in a way that is mechanically interesting without being tied to overly-specific fluff.
For example, a common problem with many games in which you are expected to do investigation is that when the PCs fail their rolls to find a clue, the game comes down to a halt until someone figures out a new lead. Many games with investigation as a central theme give people a chance to automatically pass such checks at the cost of some other resource or a limited number of times, in this way they help to keep things moving without necessarily needing a derail of several hours to find another lead.
You can actually do this (or something like it) with the current rules, but by making specific mechanics for investigative Traits we can make them more interesting mechanically than, say, rewriting "Lucky" to apply only to Investigation Skill Tests.
The way Traits would improve like Upgrades is rather self-explanatory, an organization-themed Trait could be powered up to have more retainers the more PP you spend on it, and a style of martial arts will unlock the Secret Succession Technique sure to destroy any who fights you after it is fully enhanced.
We note down the kinds of things that a character could want to do, and make a category of Traits for each. Here's such a list, with a few examples.
-Combat (For people who want their martial artist or sniper to be unique mechanically)
-Healing (Like Support Upgrades, but for characters)
-Movement & Vehicles (Vehicles that can emphasize terrain versatility, combat viability, etc)
-Knowledge & Research (Various ways to get clues from the GM)
-Allies (From having dozens of mooks to a singular ally stronger than you are)
This is only a sample short list, but I hope it gets the point across. I frankly have no idea if this is going to work out, but it could add a lot of fun things to do in the game beyond robots.
June 15, 2012
Simplifying Combat
The main difference between a lot of mechs in a certain videogame franchise that shall not be named is that some of them dodge out of the way of enemy attacks, while others shrug them off with sheer toughness. By giving characters two sets of defensive stats - both obligatory - and making it so that characters have to balance between both or just choose one as their main defense, we can simulate this feature.
There is a small issue with the distinction between Evasion and Armor, however, which has been bothering me a little bit due to getting in the way of speed and flow of play. It is not an issue with Evasion and Armor per se, though, I am talking about the half-rollover Accuracy-to-Penetration mechanic. Not only the math involved is not elegant, but it also adds opportunities for confusion to arise with the GM. They either need to give you the precise excess bonus or the precise rollover for you to do the rest of the math, or simply tell you to roll and then do the math themselves. By splitting the damage process like this not only does it add waiting time until you get your Damage total (or fail to deal any Damage), it makes Armor that much better than Evasion and Accuracy much better than Penetration by default.
Now this last one isn't quite entirely true, the abilities out there that serve to counter Armor are usually that much better at brutally murdering specialists than the ones that counter Evasion, and there's a few that let you add your entire excess bonus to the Penetration roll to just make them even all the time. In this way, betting with Armor is usually going to pay off better, but when it doesn't then it just plain wrecks you. In theory anyway. In practice it is easier to counter anti-Armor measures as a specialist rather than to survive anti-Evasion enemies as the equivalent. This is for multiple reasons, from the higher survivability granted by a naturally higher Threshold to... well, the fact that if you're naturally sturdy then bouncing back from a fall is easier.
Point is, I'm not entirely happy with the way using Mixed Tests as the default for mecha Offensive Actions works right now. I see a few options to fix this little issue off the top of my head.
Bunch up up Evasion and Armor into a single defense:
-With a single roll you know your Damage and there is no room for miscommunication shenanigans
-It lets people fluff their defenses however the fuck they want, alternating between dodging and tanking is what mecha do in anime after all.
-The abilities that improve your offense or defense are that much more valuable since instead of each having a niche now they always help out.
-Damage is less explosive, since Tension no longer adds 1.5 or 2 points of damage per Round but 1.
-Having a single defensive stat sacrifices a lot of in-built flavor
-We sacrifice depth of gameplay, now there's that much less room for customization offensively and defensively.
Make Evasion the only defense but turn Armor into a damage reduction stat that runs off your Genre, much like Intermission defenses work:
-It is fast. Not as fast as the first, though.
-It gives Accuracy and Penetration clearly distinct functions, with the second one being akin to traditional damage bonuses.
-I'm already considering dumping that element from Intermissions, so there would be no longer anything to mirror after that.
-I really don't want to keep encouraging people to hoard up Genre.
Mixed Tests now roll all the relevant skills die at once and only add up the excess from the two rolls if they both pass:
-Fast, though the slowest of the bunch here.
-It makes Mixed Tests work better during Intermissions as the ridiculously swingy checks they're supposed to be.
-We keep the flavor of having both defenses.
-Ideally we wouldn't have to rebalance existing abilities much afterwards, we could potentially keep them as is, too.
-We lose some depth, though nowhere as much as with the first method.
-We now have two mechanics that are exactly the same by themselves and have lost all distinctive mechanical feel they once had, which is an utterly pointless thing to have outside of a flavor perspective. We can still make counters or enhancers for each work differently to help there, but it bugs me.
That said, we could try out weirder things. We could make different mecha attacks resist using different mecha defenses, in the same way physical/mental/emotional attacks have different defenses - though they would keep a single HP bar. I'm honestly leaning more towards combining the other options, though, as that is kind of wonky in multiple ways.
Mixed Tests could use the fix, but I do think that having a single roll for standard combat stuff is the way to go. At the same time, I don't want to lose the flavor of Evasion and Armor (not entirely, at least) nor the simplicity of unified mechanics (when I start to propose fancy subsystems as fixes, please shoot me), so I'll have to think on this matter for a bit.
There is a small issue with the distinction between Evasion and Armor, however, which has been bothering me a little bit due to getting in the way of speed and flow of play. It is not an issue with Evasion and Armor per se, though, I am talking about the half-rollover Accuracy-to-Penetration mechanic. Not only the math involved is not elegant, but it also adds opportunities for confusion to arise with the GM. They either need to give you the precise excess bonus or the precise rollover for you to do the rest of the math, or simply tell you to roll and then do the math themselves. By splitting the damage process like this not only does it add waiting time until you get your Damage total (or fail to deal any Damage), it makes Armor that much better than Evasion and Accuracy much better than Penetration by default.
Now this last one isn't quite entirely true, the abilities out there that serve to counter Armor are usually that much better at brutally murdering specialists than the ones that counter Evasion, and there's a few that let you add your entire excess bonus to the Penetration roll to just make them even all the time. In this way, betting with Armor is usually going to pay off better, but when it doesn't then it just plain wrecks you. In theory anyway. In practice it is easier to counter anti-Armor measures as a specialist rather than to survive anti-Evasion enemies as the equivalent. This is for multiple reasons, from the higher survivability granted by a naturally higher Threshold to... well, the fact that if you're naturally sturdy then bouncing back from a fall is easier.
Point is, I'm not entirely happy with the way using Mixed Tests as the default for mecha Offensive Actions works right now. I see a few options to fix this little issue off the top of my head.
Bunch up up Evasion and Armor into a single defense:
-With a single roll you know your Damage and there is no room for miscommunication shenanigans
-It lets people fluff their defenses however the fuck they want, alternating between dodging and tanking is what mecha do in anime after all.
-The abilities that improve your offense or defense are that much more valuable since instead of each having a niche now they always help out.
-Damage is less explosive, since Tension no longer adds 1.5 or 2 points of damage per Round but 1.
-Having a single defensive stat sacrifices a lot of in-built flavor
-We sacrifice depth of gameplay, now there's that much less room for customization offensively and defensively.
Make Evasion the only defense but turn Armor into a damage reduction stat that runs off your Genre, much like Intermission defenses work:
-It is fast. Not as fast as the first, though.
-It gives Accuracy and Penetration clearly distinct functions, with the second one being akin to traditional damage bonuses.
-I'm already considering dumping that element from Intermissions, so there would be no longer anything to mirror after that.
-I really don't want to keep encouraging people to hoard up Genre.
Mixed Tests now roll all the relevant skills die at once and only add up the excess from the two rolls if they both pass:
-Fast, though the slowest of the bunch here.
-It makes Mixed Tests work better during Intermissions as the ridiculously swingy checks they're supposed to be.
-We keep the flavor of having both defenses.
-Ideally we wouldn't have to rebalance existing abilities much afterwards, we could potentially keep them as is, too.
-We lose some depth, though nowhere as much as with the first method.
-We now have two mechanics that are exactly the same by themselves and have lost all distinctive mechanical feel they once had, which is an utterly pointless thing to have outside of a flavor perspective. We can still make counters or enhancers for each work differently to help there, but it bugs me.
That said, we could try out weirder things. We could make different mecha attacks resist using different mecha defenses, in the same way physical/mental/emotional attacks have different defenses - though they would keep a single HP bar. I'm honestly leaning more towards combining the other options, though, as that is kind of wonky in multiple ways.
Mixed Tests could use the fix, but I do think that having a single roll for standard combat stuff is the way to go. At the same time, I don't want to lose the flavor of Evasion and Armor (not entirely, at least) nor the simplicity of unified mechanics (when I start to propose fancy subsystems as fixes, please shoot me), so I'll have to think on this matter for a bit.
June 3, 2012
Points in the Middle
Genre Points add to your survivability by reducing the damage your Plot Armor takes during an Intermission, they are the only modifier to Initiative in the game, and - of course - fuel Genre Powers during mecha Operations. They are the one mechanic that links the Pilot with the Mecha by design, and in doing so they also ensure that PCs are that much better than the average NPC. So far, so good.
The problem with the benefits that Genre Points provide is that they're contradictory. You want to stack and conserve them to be unbeatable in the ground and to avoid having to use them out in the field as much as possible. As a stopgap measure, Genre Points reset back to three at the end of every Arc to at least encourage people to not worry about this for longer than a few sessions at a time, but the issue is still present: You don't want to use Genre Powers.
Given that they are one of the game's key features, I think that is a bit of a problem. There is also the issue that, for all the wacky things you can do with Genre in your robot, Points cannot be spent to do any cool stuff at all in Intermissions. Not even rerolls. While I don't intend for every power to have a pilot-scale equivalent effect, some way to be able to contribute to Intermissions would be nice - specially if we're diminishing or removing their defensive contribution.
Luckily, there are a ton of relatively simple to implement solutions to these issues, some of which I have already posted - though they were intended as variant systems to replace the Episode Arc structure and as such don't address more than that. Unfortunately they have considerable drawbacks to them, such as removing the Episode Arc structure entirely. The most obvious solution of all, to simply remove the bonuses granted to Defenses, makes it so that NPC enemies have a very easy time murdering the PCs thanks to Tension bonuses. Fixing this by increasing PC Defenses in turn messes up the math with the DNs and starting Modifiers from Attributes and Skills, though perhaps Genre Points can be spent to mitigate some of that.
While I generally like to stick to the simplest and most elegant solution, there isn't a satisfactory one here from what I can see. Redoing some of the Intermission math would be preferrable to avoiding the issue and sticking to half baked resolutions, and I am thinking of combining multiple ideas into one.
This was my first idea:
-Defenses are now a fixed number independent of Genre Points, a 5/8/11 array that cannot be boosted with further PP.
-A Genre Point may be spent to reroll any one Test at an Advantage or to force someone else to reroll one Test with a Disadvantage, you may do this any number of times per Intermission or even per Scene, but only once per Test.
-Genre Points spent during Intermissions turn into Temporary Genre Points at the beginning of the very next Operation, still providing a bonus to Initiative.
This one fixes all issues in a relatively elegant way, unmodifiable Defenses hurt a bit (specially the one at 5) but you can still buff up your Plot Armor and can now force the higher rolls made against you to pretty much fail. Why stop there, though? Another alternative also springs to mind, a slightly more radical one:
-Genre Points are now a fixed number (starting at three) that is reset after each Operation. The number increases with every Arc by one. You can still gain more by roleplaying, but they will be reset back to three if you don't use them the next chance you get.
-Defenses use the fixed numbers from current Plot Armor (the 4/5/6 array) and can be boosted with PP up to 10 times, Plot Armor now runs off your Attribute entirely and may not be upgraded further.
-You can spend a Genre Point to roll an additional d10 on top of a Test you have already rolled, or to add 5 to the DN of any one Test (as in the optional rules for stacking Advantages and Disadvantages), you may do this multiple times per Intermission or Scene but only once per Test.
-Genre Points spent during Intermissions turn into Temporary Genre Points at the beginning of the very next Operation, still providing a bonus to Initiative.
This one changes the flow of gameplay to a much more faster paced one. Sure, Defenses can get much higher and every character with Genre can now outright say "No." to anything by increasing DNs on the spot, but you can also overpower them that much harder. Potentially, anyway. The one issue I have with this is that it might get repetitive since the same Powers might be spammed every single Operation, likely in the same order to boot.
I don't think either of these is going to make the final cut though, but they're a start, and will probably both help shape the final version.
The problem with the benefits that Genre Points provide is that they're contradictory. You want to stack and conserve them to be unbeatable in the ground and to avoid having to use them out in the field as much as possible. As a stopgap measure, Genre Points reset back to three at the end of every Arc to at least encourage people to not worry about this for longer than a few sessions at a time, but the issue is still present: You don't want to use Genre Powers.
Given that they are one of the game's key features, I think that is a bit of a problem. There is also the issue that, for all the wacky things you can do with Genre in your robot, Points cannot be spent to do any cool stuff at all in Intermissions. Not even rerolls. While I don't intend for every power to have a pilot-scale equivalent effect, some way to be able to contribute to Intermissions would be nice - specially if we're diminishing or removing their defensive contribution.
Luckily, there are a ton of relatively simple to implement solutions to these issues, some of which I have already posted - though they were intended as variant systems to replace the Episode Arc structure and as such don't address more than that. Unfortunately they have considerable drawbacks to them, such as removing the Episode Arc structure entirely. The most obvious solution of all, to simply remove the bonuses granted to Defenses, makes it so that NPC enemies have a very easy time murdering the PCs thanks to Tension bonuses. Fixing this by increasing PC Defenses in turn messes up the math with the DNs and starting Modifiers from Attributes and Skills, though perhaps Genre Points can be spent to mitigate some of that.
While I generally like to stick to the simplest and most elegant solution, there isn't a satisfactory one here from what I can see. Redoing some of the Intermission math would be preferrable to avoiding the issue and sticking to half baked resolutions, and I am thinking of combining multiple ideas into one.
This was my first idea:
-Defenses are now a fixed number independent of Genre Points, a 5/8/11 array that cannot be boosted with further PP.
-A Genre Point may be spent to reroll any one Test at an Advantage or to force someone else to reroll one Test with a Disadvantage, you may do this any number of times per Intermission or even per Scene, but only once per Test.
-Genre Points spent during Intermissions turn into Temporary Genre Points at the beginning of the very next Operation, still providing a bonus to Initiative.
This one fixes all issues in a relatively elegant way, unmodifiable Defenses hurt a bit (specially the one at 5) but you can still buff up your Plot Armor and can now force the higher rolls made against you to pretty much fail. Why stop there, though? Another alternative also springs to mind, a slightly more radical one:
-Genre Points are now a fixed number (starting at three) that is reset after each Operation. The number increases with every Arc by one. You can still gain more by roleplaying, but they will be reset back to three if you don't use them the next chance you get.
-Defenses use the fixed numbers from current Plot Armor (the 4/5/6 array) and can be boosted with PP up to 10 times, Plot Armor now runs off your Attribute entirely and may not be upgraded further.
-You can spend a Genre Point to roll an additional d10 on top of a Test you have already rolled, or to add 5 to the DN of any one Test (as in the optional rules for stacking Advantages and Disadvantages), you may do this multiple times per Intermission or Scene but only once per Test.
-Genre Points spent during Intermissions turn into Temporary Genre Points at the beginning of the very next Operation, still providing a bonus to Initiative.
This one changes the flow of gameplay to a much more faster paced one. Sure, Defenses can get much higher and every character with Genre can now outright say "No." to anything by increasing DNs on the spot, but you can also overpower them that much harder. Potentially, anyway. The one issue I have with this is that it might get repetitive since the same Powers might be spammed every single Operation, likely in the same order to boot.
I don't think either of these is going to make the final cut though, but they're a start, and will probably both help shape the final version.
May 29, 2012
That's My Gun
Originally there was a Weapon Creation system in GGG, though it was at the very back of the GM's section. That would be because it was too crazy for its own good and using the default Weapons was almost never worth it once you figured out how to exploit it best. Given I would rather not include something than include it to the detriment for the game, it was axed. Things have changed since then, and I figure it is worth another shot.
There is a lot to be gained from including such a system after all. Most weapons can be easily reskinned into whatever it is suits your fancy, but there's still holes that make things difficult for certain character concepts. Sure, the freedom and creativity inherent to RPGs means people have been making up their own content since day one, but it never hurts to save them the work of coming up with supposedly balanced options beforehand - if anything it makes the job of creating more stuff later on easier for them!. There is also another bonus in that a lot of people enjoy the minigame of optimizing character performance, and customizable abilities are akin to taking them to the candy store and letting them pick anything but not everything.
But there are also reasons it wasn't the default system for GGG in the first place. For one, generic customizable options have even less flavor to them than effects-based ones, which might not seem like such a big issue but really hurts the game when you're first starting up and have no idea what everything is supposed to represent. This is why Weapons come separated into five types and why oh so many weapons are similar in concept but different in the mechanics, it helps make everything distinctive.
Furthermore by making every Weapon unique and balancing them by giving each of them a specific niche, I could afford to make them stronger without risking to make any one of them the "best" Weapon that can do everything better than others. Without weapon types or fixed weapons, the risk of a single combination of options outperforming all the rest is greatly diminished. Weapon Types and "Prebuilt" niche Weapons should, thusly, not only continue to exist but also need to be supported by (and ideally also support in turn) a generator instead of being counter to each other.
But enough theory, let's see some practice. The easiest method to see this goal is to make a template for each Weapon Type and assign points to the various modifiers and special abilities they can be granted, then let people take away or slap things to it as their UP allows. All I would really limit is to place a maximum of +10 to combined Accuracy or Penetration plus a hard cap of a 5 UP cost on things to prevent 10-point murdermonsters.
I started with the following templates and modifiers, using the game's current pricing system as guidelines, as an aside, I wish blogger allowed tables so this would be less of a hassle to read:
CQC
Areas: Arms or Legs
Base Cost: 1
Range: 1
Accuracy: +1
Penetration: +1
Energy: 0
Special: Melee
Vulcans
Areas: Any Non-Core
Base Cost: 1
Range: 1-3
Accuracy: +0
Penetration: +0
Energy: 0
Special: Ballistic, Mobile
Eye Beams
Areas: Head
Base Cost: 1
Range: 1-3
Accuracy: +2
Penetration: +0
Energy: 1
Special: Beam
Bombardment
Areas: Any Non-Core
Base Cost: 1
Range: 2-7
Accuracy: +0
Penetration: +0
Energy: 0
Special: Missile
Damage
Cost: +1
Effect: The Weapon gains a +1 to Accuracy or Penetration. May be applied up to ten times total.
Mobile
Cost: +1
Effect: As the ability of the same name.
Long Sights
Cost: +1
Effect: +1 to the Weapon's Maximum Range if it is Melee. +2 Otherwise. Cannot go higher than 7.
Versatile
Cost: +1
Effect: Enable the Weapon to be allocated in any Non-Core Area.
Blast
Cost: +2
Effect: As the ability of the same name.
Remote
Cost: +2
Effect: As the ability of the same name.
Chain Reaction
Cost: +2
Effect: As the Condition of the same name.
IFF Failure
Cost: +2
Effect: As the Condition of the same name.
EMP
Cost: +3
Effect: As the Condition of the same name.
Power Down
Cost: +3
Effect: As the Condition of the same name.
Immobilize
Cost: +4
Effect: As the Condition of the same name.
Expose
Cost: +4
Effect: As the Condition of the same name.
Reliable
Cost: +4
Effect: As the ability of the same name.
Hungry
Cost: -1
Effect: Consumes 1 additional Energy. Melee, Beam and Aberrant types only. May be applied up to five times.
Short Sights
Cost: -1
Effect: -1 to the Weapon's Maximum Range. Cannot go under the minimum Range.
Recharging
Cost: -1
Effect: As the ability of the same name. Ballistic, Missile and Aberrant types only. Cannot be combined with Technique or One-Shot.
Technique
Cost: -2
Effect: As the ability of the same name. Cannot be combined with One-Shot or Recharging.
One-Shot
Cost: -3
Effect: As the ability of the same name. Ballistic, Missile and Aberrant types only. Cannot be combined with Recharging or Technique.
And I took it out for a test ride, with the following results.
Stunlocker
Areas: Arms or Legs
Cost: 5
Range: 1
Accuracy: +2
Penetration: +2
Energy: 1
Special: Melee, Condition (EMP)
The Hit-n-Runner
Areas: Any Non-Core
Cost: 5
Range: 1-7
Accuracy: +1
Penetration: +1
Energy: 0
Special: Ballistic, Mobile
Stacking Funnels
Cost: 5
Areas: None
Range: 1-3
Accuracy: +2
Penetration: +0
Energy: 1
Special: Beam, Remote, Reliable
Missile Massacre
Areas: Any Non-Core
Cost: 5
Range: 2-7
Accuracy: +0
Penetration: +0
Energy: 0
Special: Missile, Blast, Condition (Chain Reaction)
There is no incentive to attach drawbacks to these things when you can just pay up more points instead, furthermore the lower average power encourages you to try and break them in weird ways - usually abusing Conditions. Evidently I still have quite a lot of work to do, but I know where to go from here.
-Weapon Types need more style and personality to them, having unique modifier tables for each would definitely help with that front, but the generic weapons still look same-y and bland. Not sure how that can be fixed though.
-Anything to do with Areas is pointless when it comes to custom-made Weapons, which does not help considering making all generics 'Areas: Any Non-Core' really hinders the personality thing from above.
-Drawbacks could increase the cap to 10 UP and enable the use of Conditions.
-More templates with different Ranges might be necessary.
And that is a wrap for now, the puzzle itself was more complex than I thought it would be (and when isn't it, really?) so it will be solved later. In the meantime, if you feel like using this despite the caveats mentioned, feel free to.
There is a lot to be gained from including such a system after all. Most weapons can be easily reskinned into whatever it is suits your fancy, but there's still holes that make things difficult for certain character concepts. Sure, the freedom and creativity inherent to RPGs means people have been making up their own content since day one, but it never hurts to save them the work of coming up with supposedly balanced options beforehand - if anything it makes the job of creating more stuff later on easier for them!. There is also another bonus in that a lot of people enjoy the minigame of optimizing character performance, and customizable abilities are akin to taking them to the candy store and letting them pick anything but not everything.
But there are also reasons it wasn't the default system for GGG in the first place. For one, generic customizable options have even less flavor to them than effects-based ones, which might not seem like such a big issue but really hurts the game when you're first starting up and have no idea what everything is supposed to represent. This is why Weapons come separated into five types and why oh so many weapons are similar in concept but different in the mechanics, it helps make everything distinctive.
Furthermore by making every Weapon unique and balancing them by giving each of them a specific niche, I could afford to make them stronger without risking to make any one of them the "best" Weapon that can do everything better than others. Without weapon types or fixed weapons, the risk of a single combination of options outperforming all the rest is greatly diminished. Weapon Types and "Prebuilt" niche Weapons should, thusly, not only continue to exist but also need to be supported by (and ideally also support in turn) a generator instead of being counter to each other.
But enough theory, let's see some practice. The easiest method to see this goal is to make a template for each Weapon Type and assign points to the various modifiers and special abilities they can be granted, then let people take away or slap things to it as their UP allows. All I would really limit is to place a maximum of +10 to combined Accuracy or Penetration plus a hard cap of a 5 UP cost on things to prevent 10-point murdermonsters.
I started with the following templates and modifiers, using the game's current pricing system as guidelines, as an aside, I wish blogger allowed tables so this would be less of a hassle to read:
CQC
Areas: Arms or Legs
Base Cost: 1
Range: 1
Accuracy: +1
Penetration: +1
Energy: 0
Special: Melee
Vulcans
Areas: Any Non-Core
Base Cost: 1
Range: 1-3
Accuracy: +0
Penetration: +0
Energy: 0
Special: Ballistic, Mobile
Eye Beams
Areas: Head
Base Cost: 1
Range: 1-3
Accuracy: +2
Penetration: +0
Energy: 1
Special: Beam
Bombardment
Areas: Any Non-Core
Base Cost: 1
Range: 2-7
Accuracy: +0
Penetration: +0
Energy: 0
Special: Missile
Damage
Cost: +1
Effect: The Weapon gains a +1 to Accuracy or Penetration. May be applied up to ten times total.
Mobile
Cost: +1
Effect: As the ability of the same name.
Long Sights
Cost: +1
Effect: +1 to the Weapon's Maximum Range if it is Melee. +2 Otherwise. Cannot go higher than 7.
Versatile
Cost: +1
Effect: Enable the Weapon to be allocated in any Non-Core Area.
Blast
Cost: +2
Effect: As the ability of the same name.
Remote
Cost: +2
Effect: As the ability of the same name.
Chain Reaction
Cost: +2
Effect: As the Condition of the same name.
IFF Failure
Cost: +2
Effect: As the Condition of the same name.
EMP
Cost: +3
Effect: As the Condition of the same name.
Power Down
Cost: +3
Effect: As the Condition of the same name.
Immobilize
Cost: +4
Effect: As the Condition of the same name.
Expose
Cost: +4
Effect: As the Condition of the same name.
Reliable
Cost: +4
Effect: As the ability of the same name.
Hungry
Cost: -1
Effect: Consumes 1 additional Energy. Melee, Beam and Aberrant types only. May be applied up to five times.
Short Sights
Cost: -1
Effect: -1 to the Weapon's Maximum Range. Cannot go under the minimum Range.
Recharging
Cost: -1
Effect: As the ability of the same name. Ballistic, Missile and Aberrant types only. Cannot be combined with Technique or One-Shot.
Technique
Cost: -2
Effect: As the ability of the same name. Cannot be combined with One-Shot or Recharging.
One-Shot
Cost: -3
Effect: As the ability of the same name. Ballistic, Missile and Aberrant types only. Cannot be combined with Recharging or Technique.
And I took it out for a test ride, with the following results.
Stunlocker
Areas: Arms or Legs
Cost: 5
Range: 1
Accuracy: +2
Penetration: +2
Energy: 1
Special: Melee, Condition (EMP)
The Hit-n-Runner
Areas: Any Non-Core
Cost: 5
Range: 1-7
Accuracy: +1
Penetration: +1
Energy: 0
Special: Ballistic, Mobile
Stacking Funnels
Cost: 5
Areas: None
Range: 1-3
Accuracy: +2
Penetration: +0
Energy: 1
Special: Beam, Remote, Reliable
Missile Massacre
Areas: Any Non-Core
Cost: 5
Range: 2-7
Accuracy: +0
Penetration: +0
Energy: 0
Special: Missile, Blast, Condition (Chain Reaction)
There is no incentive to attach drawbacks to these things when you can just pay up more points instead, furthermore the lower average power encourages you to try and break them in weird ways - usually abusing Conditions. Evidently I still have quite a lot of work to do, but I know where to go from here.
-Weapon Types need more style and personality to them, having unique modifier tables for each would definitely help with that front, but the generic weapons still look same-y and bland. Not sure how that can be fixed though.
-Anything to do with Areas is pointless when it comes to custom-made Weapons, which does not help considering making all generics 'Areas: Any Non-Core' really hinders the personality thing from above.
-Drawbacks could increase the cap to 10 UP and enable the use of Conditions.
-More templates with different Ranges might be necessary.
And that is a wrap for now, the puzzle itself was more complex than I thought it would be (and when isn't it, really?) so it will be solved later. In the meantime, if you feel like using this despite the caveats mentioned, feel free to.
April 29, 2012
Conventions of Genre (Points)
Genre Points are a social mechanic. Even though their benefits clearly involve the rules of the game, their origin lies in things that are not easy to define in a rules sense. Things such as good roleplaying, contributing to the game beyond the interests of their own character, and even paying up for the pizza that night. Because roleplaying is fundamentally a social activity, the default method of awarding Genre Points serves as a roleplaying aid and encourages people to play together nicely - as opposed to everyone trying to derail the game in a different direction.
From a GM's perspective, they also let you keep the field even between the entire group of PCs. You can be more generous with people who are not as naturally good athogging the spotlight making cool scenes, and you can easily counter a party that is too powerful by getting more strict with the Genre granted to them. At the same time, Themes make it easier for you as GM to railroad get the PCs involved with the plot and each other, with the Arc structure guidelines helping you break down your master plans into manageable chunks.
That said, as a GM sometimes you have a group of experienced players who don't need or want the nudging, or you prefer to reward people according to their effort and skill, or maybe you'd rather not risk Defenses and Initiative going up much higher from normal, or perhaps do not want to actually bother with all this Arc structure crap that makes you think way too much in advance.
Those reasons, as well as many others, are good enough to consider houseruling the way that Genre works. There's as many ways to do this as there's problems that you personally have with the current model. The three houserules below are made with different kinds of games in mind, and would be a good starting point for further modifications.
Fair and Balanced
Award Genre after each Operation depending on how difficult it was, as if it were XP. Points never reset, but no longer give a bonus to Defenses or Initiative. After around 15 XP everyone gains a new Power plus a static +1 to Defenses and Initiative. This method basically erases the need to hand off and track Genre individually and to plan out Arcs in advance, otherwise it does not change much about how both work in rules terms.
Gods of War
Award Genre as normal. Points never reset, but there is a hard cap of 10 non-Temporary Genre and Points earned beyond that limit are temporary and will vanish after the end of the next Operation. For every 10 (non-Temporary) Points spent a PC gains a new Power plus a static +1 to Defenses and Initiative. This method trades the usual benefits of Arc Progression for placing them in the hands of the Players. In addition, the easy stacking of Genre will let PCs regularly resist and overpower most threats on the ground, and making short work of anything they deem threatening while out in their giant robots.
Against all Odds
Award 1 Genre per Operation, and another for remarkable roleplaying - preferably of the variety that sets a considerable setback on the PC. Meant for the harder games out there, since Genre Points only come after a victory or when PCs complicate things for themselves, and only in low amounts, it is recommended these games don't focus too much on combat and have an Operation every few Episodes instead.
Again, those are only the three I had in mind as I made this post, there's other ways that help other kinds of groups and games more out there. Genre is one of the (if not the) softest rules in the game, and you can bend it around without breaking down the game into a terrible mess, so don't be afraid to play around with it if it does not satisfy you.
From a GM's perspective, they also let you keep the field even between the entire group of PCs. You can be more generous with people who are not as naturally good at
That said, as a GM sometimes you have a group of experienced players who don't need or want the nudging, or you prefer to reward people according to their effort and skill, or maybe you'd rather not risk Defenses and Initiative going up much higher from normal, or perhaps do not want to actually bother with all this Arc structure crap that makes you think way too much in advance.
Those reasons, as well as many others, are good enough to consider houseruling the way that Genre works. There's as many ways to do this as there's problems that you personally have with the current model. The three houserules below are made with different kinds of games in mind, and would be a good starting point for further modifications.
Fair and Balanced
Award Genre after each Operation depending on how difficult it was, as if it were XP. Points never reset, but no longer give a bonus to Defenses or Initiative. After around 15 XP everyone gains a new Power plus a static +1 to Defenses and Initiative. This method basically erases the need to hand off and track Genre individually and to plan out Arcs in advance, otherwise it does not change much about how both work in rules terms.
Gods of War
Award Genre as normal. Points never reset, but there is a hard cap of 10 non-Temporary Genre and Points earned beyond that limit are temporary and will vanish after the end of the next Operation. For every 10 (non-Temporary) Points spent a PC gains a new Power plus a static +1 to Defenses and Initiative. This method trades the usual benefits of Arc Progression for placing them in the hands of the Players. In addition, the easy stacking of Genre will let PCs regularly resist and overpower most threats on the ground, and making short work of anything they deem threatening while out in their giant robots.
Against all Odds
Award 1 Genre per Operation, and another for remarkable roleplaying - preferably of the variety that sets a considerable setback on the PC. Meant for the harder games out there, since Genre Points only come after a victory or when PCs complicate things for themselves, and only in low amounts, it is recommended these games don't focus too much on combat and have an Operation every few Episodes instead.
Again, those are only the three I had in mind as I made this post, there's other ways that help other kinds of groups and games more out there. Genre is one of the (if not the) softest rules in the game, and you can bend it around without breaking down the game into a terrible mess, so don't be afraid to play around with it if it does not satisfy you.
March 25, 2012
More Than Just Giant Robots
Try as I might, I don't think I can have an update finished before this month is over, so I should probably continue telling people things they can figure out on their own about the game to instill some life on this webpage. Today on the slate: GGG variants you can run from the box.
While writing up the rules for GGG, I knew that I wanted a system that could be adapted to most styles of Mecha without much (or any) homebrewing being obligatory, possibly one that would not be an unreasonable pick for games without remaining strictly in the realm of robots. All you really need is a concept for a game where there is a clear distinction between the character proper and their "combat form". Examples include:
Medabot-esque mecha pet combat is so obvious in hindsight that it is kind of cheating. This actually surprised me at first, but it fits like a glove and in some aspects makes better use of GGG than regular mecha. No homebrewing is necessary to run this beyond replacing ejection mechanics for simply being defeated and removing assimilation weaponry entirely - it just does not fit the tone. This could be extended to the rest of the 'monster trainer' genre with some creative refluffing, mostly in the weapons department.
Powered armor, Tokusatsu and Sentai (Power Rangers and their ilk, for those unfamiliar with the term) are the coming in second. It is perhaps the most obvious of the variants, being a close sibling of Mecha since the dawn of the Genre. You can run it without modifying the rules at all save for downplaying the brutality of Maiming and replacing Ejection with transforming back to normal forcefully or some such.
The third runner ups are starship battles, another one that I did not think of until it was brought to my attention. While you are not going to be a full-fledged fleet commander like the admirals in Legend of the Galactic Heroes, you totally can replace robots with starships and call it a day. All you have to deal with are the ejection mechanics (you can abandon ship at any time leaving a trusted officer behind, perhaps you have a limited number of those, or you can only do so if they are an Ally or better) and the fact that melee weapons and their related mechanics are pretty terrible ideas in-character unless you are a bunch of space pirates or similar. If you go this route, you may want to replace Duels with a "boarding party" mechanic that damages Grit directly while you are engaged or initiating an engagement.
Once your gears start turning, you can start to work from this base towards more esoteric things. My favorite variant so far, and one I did think of before a prospective GM came to me with, is that of using GGG to run a game akin to the Persona series of Shin Megami Tensei fame. As an acquaintance put it: "They summon robots to fight". Themes can substitute or be expanded to handle Social Links, Weapon types can do the same for Elements and you can even make a super special unique snowflake Fool Arcana type thanks to Transform and Mid-Scene Upgrades that give you further Transformations, without being imbalanced when compared to the rest of the party.
While writing up the rules for GGG, I knew that I wanted a system that could be adapted to most styles of Mecha without much (or any) homebrewing being obligatory, possibly one that would not be an unreasonable pick for games without remaining strictly in the realm of robots. All you really need is a concept for a game where there is a clear distinction between the character proper and their "combat form". Examples include:
Medabot-esque mecha pet combat is so obvious in hindsight that it is kind of cheating. This actually surprised me at first, but it fits like a glove and in some aspects makes better use of GGG than regular mecha. No homebrewing is necessary to run this beyond replacing ejection mechanics for simply being defeated and removing assimilation weaponry entirely - it just does not fit the tone. This could be extended to the rest of the 'monster trainer' genre with some creative refluffing, mostly in the weapons department.
Powered armor, Tokusatsu and Sentai (Power Rangers and their ilk, for those unfamiliar with the term) are the coming in second. It is perhaps the most obvious of the variants, being a close sibling of Mecha since the dawn of the Genre. You can run it without modifying the rules at all save for downplaying the brutality of Maiming and replacing Ejection with transforming back to normal forcefully or some such.
The third runner ups are starship battles, another one that I did not think of until it was brought to my attention. While you are not going to be a full-fledged fleet commander like the admirals in Legend of the Galactic Heroes, you totally can replace robots with starships and call it a day. All you have to deal with are the ejection mechanics (you can abandon ship at any time leaving a trusted officer behind, perhaps you have a limited number of those, or you can only do so if they are an Ally or better) and the fact that melee weapons and their related mechanics are pretty terrible ideas in-character unless you are a bunch of space pirates or similar. If you go this route, you may want to replace Duels with a "boarding party" mechanic that damages Grit directly while you are engaged or initiating an engagement.
Once your gears start turning, you can start to work from this base towards more esoteric things. My favorite variant so far, and one I did think of before a prospective GM came to me with, is that of using GGG to run a game akin to the Persona series of Shin Megami Tensei fame. As an acquaintance put it: "They summon robots to fight". Themes can substitute or be expanded to handle Social Links, Weapon types can do the same for Elements and you can even make a super special unique snowflake Fool Arcana type thanks to Transform and Mid-Scene Upgrades that give you further Transformations, without being imbalanced when compared to the rest of the party.
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