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Westbound Design Summary

Started by John Out West, July 04, 2017, 04:43:27 AM

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John Out West

Hey ya'll, I recently made a game called Westbound, which is sort of a Wild West Fantasy RPG. Though the setting is cool, I'm especially proud of the system and wanted to see if I could get your guy's take on it. I've laid out the goals I had at the start of the project and wrote about how I solved them, and whether or not my solutions work is really up to interpretation.
(I'm mainly using this a a way to cool down after the crunch of launching Westbound's free basic)

As a prefix, I'll explain that I really wanted to create a game specifically for Firearm combat, as for years I had played in gunpowder rpg's, but none that felt like gunpowder had belonged and was instead just tacked on. I felt like the traditional system of dice was holding me back when I started the project, so I decided to use a deck of 52 cards. I figured that the conventions of traditional d20 rpgs like D&D would cause too much of an impact, so I decided on decks of cards as the main randomizer, and specifically avoided looking at other games that used decks of cards to avoid any inception. After most of the rules were set, I took a gander and saw that there weren't too many, and none that were too similar to what i'd come up with.

So these were my design goals when I started making Westbound:
  - Simplicity, something that anyone could pick up and play.
  - Reduce amount of Book keeping. (Exp, HP, Ammunition, etc)
  - Keep characters grounded, but keep character progression interesting.
  - Always Endow instead of Discourage.

Simplicity
   When starting out I figured the system would be simple like D&D or Gurps, but just with cards instead of dice. Flipping cards over created a nice random element, and worked well for the simple checks, but it didn't catch my interest as a combat tool.
  I experimented with a couple of ways of doing combat, until I mixed together two preexisting games: Poker and Solitaire. Players would draw hands and try to play these games simultaneously, while also competing with another player. Poker was the offense, where you could make sets of cards, like pairs or straights, and the Solitaire would be the defense, trying to create a tower of descending valued cards. The goal was to knock out the opponents Solitaire tower by making pairs, while not being knocked out yourself.
I played this game with a tester, who found it immediately entertaining. There was a certain amount of both luck and control, and it involved a lot of hard decisions, as i'd get a Pair of 7's and a six, and had to choose between a strong offence and defense. The best part was that it was intuitive, and the struggle was immediately clear to new players.


Reduce Book Keeping
  The Solitaire defense system (Later renamed Foundation), solved the constant adjusting and readjusting of the classic HP system. I added something called "Base Foundation," which represented actual physical health, and would cause a character to go unconscious if they lost it. Most characters had only one Base Foundation, so you had to rely on Foundation to survive a fight.
  The next issue was with Ammunition, which was constantly being drained. This was an issue I had as a GM  in other RPGs for players with arrow and bolt ammunition. I ended up settling on something I refer to in the game as "Fistful' of Bullets." The idea was to have the character account for the ammunition instead of the player, where the Fistful represented a plentiful, yet finite, source of ammunition. During an adventure, generally at the end or after a bullet heavy fight, the GM could say that they're running low on bullets, and they would now have 10 bullets left in the Fistful'. It seems to work well enough, although, i find myself often forgetting about it most of the times I run the game.
  For experience, I really couldn't justify anything fancier than the Milestone system. Rewards for defeating monsters only ever seems to create murder hobos, and the ability for GM's to completely control the player's level lets them slow or increase the player's pace without needing to justify it against the rules.


Keep characters grounded
  The desire for this was based off my hatred of the HP system, and how it slowly turns players into gods.
  I started by limited Base Foundation, which is the equivalence of HP in Westbound. Base Foundation wasn't gained by level, but by specific abilities. Both Foundation and Sets for attacks were always limited to your hand, but abilities like Wild Cards and Hold'ems allowed for Strikers and Tanks to occur.
      During the entire process I made sure to limit the amount of Base Foundation and Hold'ems that was distributed. At starting level, a player who went for max foundation could get about 3 Base Foundation. By the highest level, the max Base Foundation a character could get was 6, for an Ogre Savage who put all his efforts into getting more Base Foundation
.
  Similarly, Hold'ems, which are cards drawn at the beginning of the day and can be used to make sets in an attack but are never discarded, are the main way to increase damage output. These I controlled with specificity of the situation; although, the Cowboy Sort had a Hold'em that applied to any attack, they could gain more by being a Half-orc, but only if they used a Melee Weapon. Additionally, they could gain another Hold'em by being Half-Goblin, but only when they get a surprise round on an enemy. Even more Hold'ems could be gained through weapons, if a weapon had the KingSlayer enchantment, as well it could be enchanted by a Wizard for one minute to gain another Hold'em. In the end, we could get about 6 Hold'ems, but only in melee, and only for a minute, and we would need both surprise and a wizard to spend a turn casting the Enchant Arms spell.

Keeping character progression interesting.
  So with character power relatively in check, I started designing ways to keep the progression interesting. My main philosophy was to give Choice,  work within the rule of 3's, and focus on power Width not power Height.
  To give choice I decided to split up the leveling process between three trees, your Sort (Class, Job, Role), your Breed (Race, Culture), and your Archetype (Personality, Alignment). As you leveled up, you were able to put that level into any one of the three. For example, you could choose to become level 3 in Cowboy and gain another Trait, or become level 2 in Elf and gain Echolocation. Even then, your Sort has a Subclass, and your Race will always have two trees for your to pick from, so even two characters of the same Sort and Race would look drastically different from each other by level 5.
  As for the Rule of 3's, I always paced the abilities out in a way where the first level would have a small reward, the second a moderate reward, the third a great reward, and would restart at first again after that. This allows players to weight future gains against present gains, increasing the complexity in an approachable way.
  Finally, I wanted to give the players Power Width instead of Power Height, that is to say that they become more well rounded, gaining utility or special abilities, instead of gaining health and damage. As mentioned above, this kept their power level stable while increasing their capabilities in other ways. These abilities included other ways to sense enemies, such as Echolocation and Tremorsense, and depending on your class, the ability to magically curve bullets or sacrifice animals for mana.

Always Endow, Never Discourage
  Endowment vs Discouragement has been my bane since my first D&D3.5 character, an half-Orc Barbarian was poor at intimidation because orcs have poor charisma.  While developing Westbound I made sure to not add any negatives, and always insisted that anyone could be anything, but some may be naturally better. With the Trait system, which essentially replaced the Ability Score system, this meant awarding characters for their Race and Sort Separately; So characters who are of an intelligent Sort are more intelligent by being in that Sort, in addition to the benefits that the receive from their Breed/race.
  This way, Breeds like Ogre and Orc are able to be Wizards, while Halflings and Goblins are able to be Savage Melee fighters, and players wanting to explore these interesting characters are not punished for playing uncomplimentary Class/Race combinations.

So that was my approach the design goals I set out. How did you guys think I did? What could I have done differently? Did I explain this too poorly for anyone to understand what was going on?

  See you in the West,
    John

Spinachcat

Show us an example of play. Show us example characters.

Dumarest

I kinda skimmed all that text to try to get the gist of the game but I think I missed it. Is this hobbits and elves in the Wild West?

John Out West

Sure here's an excerpt of how to fight with examples. I just put this in Krillo's Blog as well, which has pictures for further clarification. (Actually it might get more confusing without the pictures)

Today we're going to talk about the basics of combat in Westbound by going through an example of play. For this example, we'll be playing a level 1 Goblin Gambler.

Here we see the classic setup. At the center we see the Deck, to its right is the Gamblers Base Foundation, and on top is the Player's Hand. The player's hand is generally not revealed, but for the sake of clarity in this example, it will be above the character's deck.

At the start of combat, the Gambler has five cards drawn. An Ace, a Five, a Six, and two Tens. This is a lucky draw, as Gamblers have the Ace's Wild ability, which allow them to use an ace as any Value or Suit. Additionally, they have a high pair which will work well for damage, but as it is the beginning of the turn, the player should focus on defense.

A character's defense is based on their Foundation. Foundation is the dynamic defense of a character, akin to a plan for survival. When attacked, a character's foundation is reduced by the number of cards used in the attack, and if the character has no Foundation, their Base Foundation is removed, which will cause them to become Wounded if they lose it. Wounded characters are knocked out of the battle, so players will always want a large foundation to protect their character.

A character can create a foundation by placing cards in Descending and Sequential Order on top of their Base Foundation. In this case we have a Six and a Five, which will create a two card foundation. The Suit of the card does not matter for the sake of foundation, only the Value matters.

The Six is placed on top of the Base Foundation, and the Five is placed on top of the Six. If the Gambler were to take damage, the Five would be removed first, and the Six after that, and so on. Because Five is the lowest card in the foundation, the only card that can be played into the foundation next would be a Four.

Now that the Foundation has been taken care of, we can focus on offense.

Now that the Foundation has been taken care of, we can focus on Offense. In Westbound, characters make attacks by playing Sets of cards. These sets include: a High Card, a Pair, Three of a Kind, Four of a Kind, Full House, Straight, and a Flush. For each card used in a set, a card is removed from the target's Foundation. So a Pair would remove two Foundation, and a Straight would remove five Foundation.

In the case of our Gambler, we have two Tens and an Ace. As an attack, the player could potentially play a Ten as a High Card, both Tens as a Pair, or use his Wildcard ability to use the Ace as a Ten, which could make a Three of a Kind Set.

In this case, we'll say that he is fighting two enemies who have one Foundation and one Base Foundation each, so the Player will only use the Tens as a pair, opting to save the Ace for later.

After the attack is finished, the Pair of Tens are sent to the Discard Pile to the left side of the deck.

Characters can also perform checks on their turn as part of other actions. In this case, lets say our Gambler is jumping through a window to safety after a successful attack. Jumping through a window has an Simple Complication, which means that the Gambler would need any card with a value of Four or Higher in order to successfully perform the action. The player can choose to use any card from their hand, or draw a card from the deck randomly to attempt the check.


Because jumping through a window is an easy feat, the player chooses to not waste his Ace, which could be a Ten or Face Card if he chose. He decides to draw randomly from the deck instead. He draws the card from the top of the deck, and gets a Two. The Complication of the Check required a Four or Higher, so he failed the check and did not manage to jump through the window. The Two from the check is Discarded after the check is complete.

Now that the Gambler has used his Action and Movement Action, he is forced to end his turn while still within the range of an enemy. During the Game Master's turn, the enemy attacks him with a single High Card, which would remove the Five from his Foundation. However, the Gambler chooses to use his Cheat Death Reaction during his enemy's turn. By discarding his Ace, which is of the Clubs Suit, he can reduce the damage of an oncoming attack by one.

The Player now has no cards left in their hand. At the beginning of their next turn, they can pick up a Full Hand and start the process over again.

Dumarest

That is too confusing with all those capitalized terms. Might've been better to use the common names for things.

John Out West

#5
Would you mind saying which terms confused you? Certainly I think "Foundation" may be a bit confusing, but there's not another word i can think of that fits, as its not HP, its a representation of evasion, planning, and sometimes just dumb luck.

And I do have the tendency to capitalize words I deem important. Don't Judge me, it's a Disease!

Tod13

Quote from: John Out West;973732Would you mind saying which terms confused you? Certainly I think "Foundation" may be a bit confusing, but there's not another word i can think of that fits, as its not HP, its a representation of evasion, planning, and sometimes just dumb luck.

And I do have the tendency to capitalize words I deem important. Don't Judge me, it's a Disease!

For me the issue is less the terms than the lack of defining of the terms.

However, Hit Points is generally accepted as a amalgamation of many things. Alternatives are Defense or Resilience, which have more specific meanings than Foundation.

Example from the OP:
QuoteReduce Book Keeping
The Solitaire defense system (Later renamed Foundation), solved the constant adjusting and readjusting of the classic HP system. I added something called "Base Foundation," which represented actual physical health, and would cause a character to go unconscious if they lost it. Most characters had only one Base Foundation, so you had to rely on Foundation to survive a fight.

First, unless you are famous and writing a history, the history of development is just confusing for someone trying to get a grasp of the game. Don't tell me the history, just tell me what you have. (I recently had to tell a co-worker this on documentation for how to set something up.)

Second, you use Foundation and Base Foundation. But never really explain them. It sounds like the idea of a Base and a "Specialized" category is common in your game. Explain that first. Something like the below, which may not accurately represent your game:

QuoteAttributes such as hit points and attack chances are represented by Card Stacks. Each Stack is formed from a Base card and cards placed on top of preceding cards. New cards must be lower in value than the card on which they are placed. The more cards in a Stack, the better for the Character.

Characters have inherent Attributes that represent the base of different types of Card Stacks. Attributes limit the likelihood of success or level of power in an area, by limiting the card stack, since only cards lower than the current card can be placed on the stack.

Attributes are Resilience, Attack, and Manipulation. Resilience is an amalgamation of defensive combat elements from hit points, to dodging ability, and just plain luck. Attack is similarly a combination of offensive combat elements. Manipulation represents the non-combat manipulation-based abilities possessed by the Character.

Characters also have Skills, representing specialized training related to an Attribute. Skills create secondary Card Stacks. For example, training as a Knight gives the Character a secondary Resilience Card Stack. The Skill stack is used before the Base Stack for an Attribute. In this case, Knight training increases the Character's Resilience in combat.

Regardless of the accuracy, I've tried to explain each term before using it and building on previous term. For explaining to new people, the history isn't important.

John Out West

Good points both, I'm generally afraid of over explaining, but clearly that clearly hasn't happened here.

Tod13

Quote from: John Out West;975129Good points both, I'm generally afraid of over explaining, but clearly that clearly hasn't happened here.

Don't give up. It sounds like you've thought things out and organized them in your head. The system is a bit more complex than I prefer (but lots of people like much more complex systems than I like, so that isn't a problem). The issue is simply putting the organization on paper. I think your strongest point is that your results depend on your luck AND strategy with the cards, more so than a dice roll. A lot of people like card-based resolution mechanisms for that reason.

A simple rule of thumb that I use is that any capitalized terms should be explained before they are used. (I even bold them when I first use/define them, that way I can go back and add index markers to that use.) In my game I have a one page introduction that covers all the major terms and the mechanic. (I use one mechanic.)

Another thing I did was, first I wrote all my rules. Then I added sidebars that I noted could be skipped. The sidebars have the explanations like "this is done to prevent magic from being the most powerful force in the game--remove this limit if you want it to work otherwise" and other design issues.

It might also help to start with an example that doesn't have all the exceptions to the rules. Trying to learn exceptions when you are also trying to learn the base rules/mechanics is much, much more difficult than just learning the base rules. But you still have to explain all the terms before the example.

Also, it sounds like you have a bit of setting tied into the game, so (as Dumarest asked) try to cover the setting in the intro.

Try not to say the game is "like solitaire and poker" or compare your game to "D&D". Just tell me about your game, since I may not be familiar with any of those others (or may think your game is more like bridge or pinochle or may be irrationally biased about the other games.)

John Out West

Oh man, I had no intention of giving up! I really wanted to send you a PM though, to thank you for the advice! I'm actually going back into the rule book and applying what you said, and rewriting (and then rewriting again) the rules until I have maximum clarity, making sure to explain every concept before I use them, which gets difficult when concepts overlap, but its a process I'll figure out.

Yes, the setting is tied into the game, and the parts that are tied to game play are front and centered. (In the book at least)

Thats a good call on the "Not saying its like one game or the other."