So, I made this post in another part of the forum but soon realized I put it in the wrong place... Hopefully I'm in the right spot, this time. (New to the forum, if you couldn't tell)

Anyways, I've got a custom rpg system.

My mechanics work well enough, but for the boss battles I wanted to spice things up a bit... More specifically, before the big bad, there will be mini-bosses that each player are only capable of defeating. So the fastest character will get into a acrobatics anime-style sprint fight against some guy. Strongest will end up in a contest of physical resistance and strength, etc. etc.

How would you go about making a new mechanic for these battles? I'm unsure how to approach it without bogging the player down with extra rules, etc. I don't want to rely solely on extra narration, I'd like to add a little more something for the player to interact with physically while playing.


Base game mechanics (Non-boss/foundation for boss mechanics. Different weapons offer complexities such as sweeping attacks, parrying, etc.):

Combat
CQ Dice Rollings:
You and your opponent will each roll one d10. Then, take your Dexterity and add it to your roll (the opponent will do the same). Whoever rolls higher, successfully hits their opponent. On hit, roll a d10 to see the location of the damage. After that, the user will add their strength and the power of the weapon to determine how much damage they deal. Then, subtract the hit subject’s armor bonus from that number (if applicable), plus any other defensive modifiers they may have.
Note - If your initial roll (not including anything added from Dexterity) is four points above the required number to hit, that is considered a critical hit.

Ranged Dice Rollings:
Roll a d10. Then, add the accuracy of your weapon plus your Sense to your roll. Your opponent will also roll a d10, and will add half Dexterity and half their Sense to their roll. If it hits, determine whether or not the ranged attack is a precision of spray ranged attack. If it is precision, roll a d10 to determine where the attack lands. After that, subtract the projectile’s power and the weapon’s damage buff from the enemy’s armor bonus (if applicable), plus any other defensive modifiers they may have. On thrown weapons, add half your strength to the power of the weapon (thrown weapons cannot target the head). If it is a spray ranged attack, roll a d20 to determine the total damage. Damage is spread evenly between the body sections, starting from the limbs, then torso, then head.
Note - If your roll is 4 above the required number to hit, that is considered a critical hit. (If you are in melee, you can only make a ranged attack against the opponent(s) you are in melee with. If you are targeting an enemy that is in melee with someone/something else, a miss will result in hitting said something/someone else. In addition, they will gain an extra two points to their contest roll).

Health Systems:
A character dies if their head or torso lose all health. If a limb loses health, it becomes useless until healed. The character will also gain a bleeding effect if a limb is disabled. Characters with damage resistance will reduce damage taken based on their resistance number. However, damage cannot be reduced to zero.

Spells:
Self spells automatically succeed. Spells that target enemies require either a 15, 20, or 25 based on their difficulty rating. Roll a D20, then add your wisdom to the roll. If a spell “lands”, apply the spell’s effects to the target. If a target has special equipment that is resistant to magic, then subtract the equipment’s bonus from your to-hit roll. You can’t use magic while in CQ combat.

Effects:
Each Effect operates in its own unique way. See the effects page for more details.

Other Mechanics
Skill Rolls:
This is for anything outside of combat that may still require some sort of attempt (i.e. pushing a boulder, persuading someone, tracking a target, etc). When making a skill roll against another being, compare stats and roll off like normal (When making a charisma roll against a friendly race, the persuader gets plus three to their roll. When making a charisma roll against a disdained race, the “defender” gets plus three to their roll). For skill checks interacting with inanimate objects (like picking a lock), roll for a target number.

Equipment:
Players are only allowed to possess one suit of armor at a time. Players are allowed to have either one two handed weapon and a small back-up weapon, or up to two one handed weapons and a small backup weapon. For ammunition, see the ammunition itself for how many you can carry.

“Leveling Up”:
Assuming your character survives, your character will be given a point with which spend on a certain skill. If your character accomplishes a spectacular feat, then the related skill will automatically be given a point (or more), in addition to the standard free point everybody earns. Individual stats can only be increased a maximum of 5 points.


These mechanics may be a bit on the loose side, but its also for personal use so I'm going with a "I know what I mean" style of writing as well. Anything that may not make sense I can explain to the players. Though, any pointers on making mechanics clearer would be appreciated.

My suggestion would be twofold:

First, study game theory. even a passing familiarity will give you a wealth of different approaches for designing mechanics that do what you want them to do. I would also recommend looking at board games (specifically classics like diplomacy, risk, and settlers of catan, but really anything you can get your hands on) and especially playing them, to give yourself a bedrock of tools to use when you go designing new mechanics. Additionally, this youtube series has a wealth of information about game design and theory and will give you plenty to mull over.

Second, once you've figured out what you want to do and how to do it, model your current mechanics so that they serve a dual function; first, whatever they currently do, then a new set of things they do when the framework of the game changes from your current design into "boss mode". I highly recommend reading into clean processes at the alexandrain for some deep, critical insight into designing in this manner.

Quote from: Azraele;1006122My suggestion would be twofold:

First, study game theory. even a passing familiarity will give you a wealth of different approaches for designing mechanics that do what you want them to do. I would also recommend looking at board games (specifically classics like diplomacy, risk, and settlers of catan, but really anything you can get your hands on) and especially playing them, to give yourself a bedrock of tools to use when you go designing new mechanics. Additionally, this youtube series has a wealth of information about game design and theory and will give you plenty to mull over.

Second, once you've figured out what you want to do and how to do it, model your current mechanics so that they serve a dual function; first, whatever they currently do, then a new set of things they do when the framework of the game changes from your current design into "boss mode". I highly recommend reading into clean processes at the alexandrain for some deep, critical insight into designing in this manner.

Great feedback! Thankyou very much!

Though, I will say that game theory website is a navigation nightmare. What am I looking at, here?

Quote from: Davycannonhound;1006146Great feedback! Thankyou very much!

So when you're talking about giving the players something to interact withphysically.... What do you mean? Are we talking different game props (spinning wheels, different dice, poker chips, beer pong...?) or different strategic situations (like shifting from the movement of armies in risk to a tabletop wargame to simulate the ensuing combat?) or something else entirely?

Quote from: Azraele;1006148So when you're talking about giving the players something to interact withphysically.... What do you mean? Are we talking different game props (spinning wheels, different dice, poker chips, beer pong...?) or different strategic situations (like shifting from the movement of armies in risk to a tabletop wargame to simulate the ensuing combat?) or something else entirely?

I was mostly thinking dice. But I wanted to add an extra game mechanic, so thats what I meant by an interaction. Physical may not be the best wording.

As a side note, the game theory website is a navigation nightmare. A little help? I'm not even sure what I'm looking at.

To me this looks like it belongs in the Design and Gameplay subforum (where you originally had it). Unless I am missing something.

I am putting it back in the Design subforum.

Oh I just grabbed a site at random from my bookmarks. I'm sure there's a channel on youtube or a khan academy course for game theory that's way easier to digest, I just don't have any earmarked.

for that one I go from main site>students>lecture notes and then just click on whatever thread I haven't read in order. The first thread on that path is an introduction to game theory, which I realized wasn't archived on the site anymore, so that's of limited utility (heh, my bad). I found this on the wayback machine which seems to be a series of lectures, but again you can probably dig up something more accessible on youtube in minutes.

And bam, here's a series of game theory 101 lectures in video form.

Here's the khan academy link. Told ya.

Another great thing to reference is this goldmine of info on games that have been designed before, their methods and some math. There's no new idea under the sun, as you'll come to learn.

I should also warn you, that you're falling into a bit of a rabbit hole with game design XD I've been at it for a few years, and I still know only that I know nothing

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1006153To me this looks like it belongs in the Design and Gameplay subforum (where you originally had it). Unless I am missing something.

I am putting it back in the Design subforum.

Oh okay, wasn't sure! That other forum looked more video-game esque to me, after I looked around, so I went to the pen and paper section to be safe...

Quote from: Azraele;1006154Oh I just grabbed a site at random from my bookmarks. I'm sure there's a channel on youtube or a khan academy course for game theory that's way easier to digest, I just don't have any earmarked.

for that one I go from main site>students>lecture notes and then just click on whatever thread I haven't read in order. The first thread on that path is an introduction to game theory, which I realized wasn't archived on the site anymore, so that's of limited utility (heh, my bad). I found this on the wayback machine which seems to be a series of lectures, but again you can probably dig up something more accessible on youtube in minutes.

And bam, here's a series of game theory 101 lectures in video form.

Here's the khan academy link. Told ya.

Another great thing to reference is this goldmine of info on games that have been designed before, their methods and some math. There's no new idea under the sun, as you'll come to learn.

I should also warn you, that you're falling into a bit of a rabbit hole with game design XD I've been at it for a few years, and I still know only that I know nothing

Woo! Lots of links. Thanks again.

Oh trust me, I've already figured that out. Luckily I enjoy rabbit holes.

Cool. Keep us updated on your game. Also, feel free to just share around what you've made. I give away the stuff I spent two years working on (the playtest link in my signature? Worked on it for years, it's a pay what you want product, essentially free).

It turns out, it's impractical and pointless to steal an entire RPG system. Here, who wants to try one of mine? Go ahead; I dare you to steal it. Those that have the gumption have their own system, those that don't would be better off just making a "retroclone" of an already-established system.

So don't be shy, show us what you got

Quote from: Azraele;1006316Cool. Keep us updated on your game. Also, feel free to just share around what you've made. I give away the stuff I spent two years working on (the playtest link in my signature? Worked on it for years, it's a pay what you want product, essentially free).

It turns out, it's impractical and pointless to steal an entire RPG system. Here, who wants to try one of mine? Go ahead; I dare you to steal it. Those that have the gumption have their own system, those that don't would be better off just making a "retroclone" of an already-established system.

So don't be shy, show us what you got

Will do, once things a fair bit more polished!

Quote from: Davycannonhound;1006150I was mostly thinking dice. But I wanted to add an extra game mechanic, so thats what I meant by an interaction. Physical may not be the best wording.

........

Hi! Just jumping in as do have a love for design discussions...

One way to do this may be to give the "favored character" an (1) extra die or dice, (2) a roll one more die than needed take best, (3) go to a larger dice size, etc. type system.  As you want to have a specific character of the group be the front person you might call this rule the "Champion" rule.  The party picks their champion, and the champion gets a benefit but at the expense they must go it alone...in the encounter it could be some magical/mystical thing that allows only one sentient soul bearing creature at a time to face the mini-boss.  Also it may be only those who face a mini-boss could end up facing the final boss.

Quote from: Azraele;1006154....

I should also warn you, that you're falling into a bit of a rabbit hole with game design XD I've been at it for a few years, and I still know only that I know nothing

Take what you see on game theory on the internet with a grain of salt.  A lot of it is sheer bullocks, and you can usually tell when there is little actual experience behind it and the author is completely unaware of what has gone before let alone having a depth of experience playing games.   Now let me share my own bullocks.... ....

The best way to improve your ability to design games is to play them.  After a while (dozens and dozens of games at least) you can then read the rules and get a sense for how they play.  Yet even then, there is no substitute for actually playing the game.  A big part of a game can be how people respond to the mechanic, the human psychology and how people actually play games.

When you play games of any type (board, war, rpg, computer) and find one that just seems to rock, look at what about it made it work so well.  You need to be able to separate the form (it has great graphics, you just really love the concept/story) from the function (how the game is structured and its mechanics).

I can give examples if interested.

Quote from: Xanther;1017517Hi! Just jumping in as do have a love for design discussions...

One way to do this may be to give the "favored character" an (1) extra die or dice, (2) a roll one more die than needed take best, (3) go to a larger dice size, etc. type system.  As you want to have a specific character of the group be the front person you might call this rule the "Champion" rule.  The party picks their champion, and the champion gets a benefit but at the expense they must go it alone...in the encounter it could be some magical/mystical thing that allows only one sentient soul bearing creature at a time to face the mini-boss.  Also it may be only those who face a mini-boss could end up facing the final boss.

What would you suggest in-game? I'd rather not end up just stacking extra dice. At the very least I'd like an extra gameplay element to go with the dice (I.E. roll 2d6 to perform X action needed for Y) before the actual attack/damage roll starts. Or, add an extra layer to the combat dice mechanics as a whole. Also, I keep saying dice, however this extra mechanic could not include dice at all.


Will edit the initial post with the base game mechanics here soon.

Quote from: Xanther;1017522I can give examples if interested.

Yeah sure, whatcha got?