I was playing gw2 so I missed a bunch of this. I wish threads didn't get sidetracked so easily.

I'm glad you posted that you use something similar to RQ. I have a good idea where you are coming from now. I personally don't care for that style of mechanic (too fiddly) but it is very solid.

Quote from: beejazz;641470I might like to hear more about the scaling, evasion elements, and especially how evasion is keyed to the grid.

With respect to scaling, HERO system is perhaps the closest system on the market so it will serve as a reference.

In HERO characters are rated in both an Offensive Combat Value (OCV) and a Defensive Combat value (DCV) to which skill levels and modifiers may be added to one or both.

HERO scales across its 3d6 bell curve as it adds the attacker's offense while subtracting the target's defense. There is no real limit on either value and as such the skill of the characters scale across the full range from equal opponents to overwhelming advantage for a side. Matched characters of low skill or matched characters of high skills have the same baseline against their match while a difference in skill become important quickly.

In contrast most RPGs (from 1st edition RuneQuest to today's Dark Heresy) only determine an offense modifier- meaning that highly skilled opponents will always hit each other. Think of high vs. low level D&D characters fighting each other in their AC 10 underware- same problem, same cause.

RuneQuest ( and Dark Heresy) compounds that problem on the defense side with their parry/dodge rules- where are also unmodified by any value of their opponent.

The result is what I used to call the infinite unconnected parry. A character with a high parry has the same high parry if he's fighting a 3 year old child- or the greatest warrrior who ever live. Thus the systems don't scale as they don't represent both sides of the skill question, only one.

HERO brought a scaling system to the published world for the first time (that I'm aware of anyway) although AoH differs in turn sequence and other details that give a very different flavor in practice. One of these differences is that AoH allows free blocks and dodges (i.e. it doesn't take an active action as it does in HERO).

Another complete break with HERO is the degree to which Evasion and Attack is keyed to the hexmap by using modifiers to offense and/or defense depending upon relative position and the existance or not of multiple opponents as well as the type of attack (missile fire is wonderful on targets in the open, not so great if they have cover). It's this part of the game that holds its tactical heart.

Quote from: beejazz;641470On the scaling, is AoH level-based?

AoH is class and level based not in the traditional sense so much as a package sense... but that's not the question.

Imagine that HERO OCV and DCV plus skill levels were tied to a general character level. That's basically how it works, both offense and defense rises as the character's rank in combat rises so that everything stays in sync. Unlike HERO skill levels and Rolemaster combat bonuses, AoH doesn't assign it's skill between offense and defense each round. That is handled by the player choice of attack maneuver such as 'Full Swing' or 'Full Parry'.


And now I really have said more about the game online than I have since the 90s...

Quote from: danbuter;641471I'm glad you posted that you use something similar to RQ. I have a good idea where you are coming from now. I personally don't care for that style of mechanic (too fiddly) but it is very solid.

Fiddly... I may be off base here in what you're using the term for, but for me that was one of the important features.

I needed to be able to fiddle (as in fine tune) the result to achieve balance in different weapon/armor combinations and to take advantage of the hexgrid as I do. That requirement forced me to use D100 (I started off attempting to use 2d6 or d10 or d20). It would have been even better to use d1000 but I'm not insane and besides it didn't need to be that precise.

So yes, very fiddly. I imagine that single fact alone would stop most modern players stone cold in their tracks. It's why I don't attempt to really sell the game and recommend in fact that no one waste their money buying the rulebook. Well that and the fact the book is horribly written.

Quote from: gleichman;641480In contrast most RPGs (from 1st edition RuneQuest to today's Dark Heresy) only determine an offense modifier- meaning that highly skilled opponents will always hit each other. Think of high vs. low level D&D characters fighting each other in their AC 10 underware- same problem, same cause.

The lower level character will, in all likelihood, get his ticket punched sooner, and a 'hit' is a hit in name only with D&D's hit points - it's possible to narrate that battle in such a way that the lower level character never, in fact, lands a blow and still be within the combat abstractions of the rules.

Quote from: gleichman;641480RuneQuest ( and Dark Heresy) compounds that problem on the defense side with their parry/dodge rules- where are also unmodified by any value of their opponent.

The result is what I used to call the infinite unconnected parry. A character with a high parry has the same high parry if he's fighting a 3 year old child- or the greatest warrrior who ever live. Thus the systems don't scale as they don't represent both sides of the skill question, only one.

HERO brought a scaling system to the published world for the first time (that I'm aware of anyway) . . .

Flashing Blades' characters compare Expertise when parrying - the character with lower Expertise suffers a penalty equal to one-half the difference between the two characters' Expertise scores when parrying, meaning that the character with higher Expertise may be much harder to parry.

That was five years before the first edition of HERO was published.

Quote from: gleichman;641480With respect to scaling, HERO system is perhaps the closest system on the market so it will serve as a reference.

In HERO characters are rated in both an Offensive Combat Value (OCV) and a Defensive Combat value (DCV) to which skill levels and modifiers may be added to one or both.

I take it that OCV and DCV function to determine if a character hits at all (rather than as a damage vs hp style scaling, or damage vs damage threshold style scaling). Does your game only scale the attack/dodge side of things, or does it also scale one or more of the others?

I definitely follow the preference for wanting to scale on both sides of these equations, though I can understand at least the arguments for scaling to hit and not the appropriate defense in a level-based context (effectively allowing high level characters to soak bigger penalties).

In my case, I thought it would be best to scale on all three fronts (hitting vs dodging, damage vs hp, and damage vs threshold), for reasons of genre emulation. Depending on what genre you're after though, different games will call for different decisions here. I would definitely be up for scaling only to-hit rolls (still on both sides) in a modern game, for example.

QuoteHERO brought a scaling system to the published world for the first time (that I'm aware of anyway) although AoH differs in turn sequence and other details that give a very different flavor in practice. One of these differences is that AoH allows free blocks and dodges (i.e. it doesn't take an active action as it does in HERO).

Another complete break with HERO is the degree to which Evasion and Attack is keyed to the hexmap by using modifiers to offense and/or defense depending upon relative position and the existance or not of multiple opponents as well as the type of attack (missile fire is wonderful on targets in the open, not so great if they have cover). It's this part of the game that holds its tactical heart.

That's interesting. Went with more abstracted space and action-based-defense myself, though positioning and movement are still important (weirdly enough, through the reaction rules as much as anything).

Free defense seems like the exception rather than the norm in combat systems that pick up rules for better emulation. I take it characters take increasing penalties to defense for larger numbers of foes, or something similar?

QuoteAoH is class and level based not in the traditional sense so much as a package sense... but that's not the question.

Imagine that HERO OCV and DCV plus skill levels were tied to a general character level. That's basically how it works, both offense and defense rises as the character's rank in combat rises so that everything stays in sync. Unlike HERO skill levels and Rolemaster combat bonuses, AoH doesn't assign it's skill between offense and defense each round. That is handled by the player choice of attack maneuver such as 'Full Swing' or 'Full Parry'.

I like automatic scaling with level, if that's what you mean with the first bit. I got shifting priorities between attack, defense, etc. more through an action economy and stance based system.

QuoteAnd now I really have said more about the game online than I have since the 90s...

Heh, your game and your priorities maybe aren't as odd as you think they are. What I'm writing now is trying for similar goals, albeit with dissimilar means. One of these days I really do intend to read yours, but college and work haven't been kind to my schedule for a while now.

Quote from: beejazz;641484Does your game only scale the attack/dodge side of things, or does it also scale one or more of the others?

AoH scales for Striking, Defending and Damage but with different baselines and in the case of Damage a different method.

The reason Damage is different is due both the small values for Location Points and the fact that one of my design requirement be that the full range of damage results had to be possible (if unlikely) across the range of opponents.

It's important to me that a single Orc arrow can kill Isildur, too many games that scale damage by skill difference make that impossible.

Quote from: beejazz;641484I would definitely be up for scaling only to-hit rolls (still on both sides) in a modern game, for example.

I wouldn't. A skilled opponent takes better advantage of cover, suppression fire and the assistance of this teammates- all make him a more difficult target for his foes.

Unless he's in the open. AoH does mean things to characters who are in the open vs. ranged fire...

Quote from: beejazz;641484Free defense seems like the exception rather than the norm in combat systems that pick up rules for better emulation. I take it characters take increasing penalties to defense for larger numbers of foes, or something similar?

It is indeed rare although (like say parry modifiers) some games go part way. Dark Heresy for example allows one free parry or dodge (two if you buy a special ability). Other games sort of modify defense (if they had them) don't do it for anything close to full value.

Yes, modifiers for multiple attacks apply. How important that is depends upon how much skills differences there is between your foes and of course the tactical modifiers are added on top of these.

Quote from: beejazz;641484Heh, your game and your priorities maybe aren't as odd as you think they are. What I'm writing now is trying for similar goals, albeit with dissimilar means.

Or maybe you're an odd bird too

Gleichman's definitely a troll, but some of his ramblings are thought-provoking.

I'm trying to wrap my head about his claim that you can seperate the game mechanics from the role-playing part of the game and enjoy them independantly. Well, Traveller has a lot of design sequences that the Referee uses to create the setting to be used in play, and were intended to be a kind of mini-game from the start. However, even when you are using these rules without other Players joining in the fun as role-playing, you are still playing a role-playing game because these rules that you are enjoying seperately still will support the role-playing game they belong to whether there are other Players or not engaged in role-playing or designing the setting like you do in Traveller.

So I think that Gleichmann's premise is wrong.

Sure, you can play Classic Traveller and have a combat in the game or you could play Snapshot or Azhanti High Lightning and go for pure combat wargame with no role-playing. However, the two systems are so compatible that you can do both. Classic Traveller can support an enjoyable pure combat wargame and Snapshot or Azhanti High Lightning can support some Role-Playing.

Or instead of playing Traveller as a RPG, you could all just sit around and design space fleets to a common set of restrictions (like jump capacity, acceleration, number of pilots available) and have just as much fun. There was even an adventure for that called Trillion Credit Squadron. However, the Trillion Credit Squadron adventure was still designed to support role-playing even though you did not have to use it as such.

Quote from: gleichman;641487AoH scales for Striking, Defending and Damage but with different baselines and in the case of Damage a different method.

The reason Damage is different is due both the small values for Location Points and the fact that one of my design requirement be that the full range of damage results had to be possible (if unlikely) across the range of opponents.

It's important to me that a single Orc arrow can kill Isildur, too many games that scale damage by skill difference make that impossible.

So damage scales but location points are fixed? That's an interesting decision, and yeah, definitely better to scale slow from the sound of it.

QuoteI wouldn't. A skilled opponent takes better advantage of cover, suppression fire and the assistance of this teammates- all make him a more difficult target for his foes.

Unless he's in the open. AoH does mean things to characters who are in the open vs. ranged fire...

I think I was talking about a relationship between level and survivability after a hit (so hit points and threshold in my case, location points in yours) as much as damage.

Unrelated to that, the benefits of cover scale somewhat with level from the sound of it?

QuoteIt is indeed rare although (like say parry modifiers) some games go part way. Dark Heresy for example allows one free parry or dodge (two if you buy a special ability). Other games sort of modify defense (if they had them) don't do it for anything close to full value.

Mine has one reaction per round, plus you can trade down other action types for more reactions later, and AoOs that cost reactions.

QuoteYes, modifiers for multiple attacks apply. How important that is depends upon how much skills differences there is between your foes and of course the tactical modifiers are added on top of these.

Again, do the tactical modifiers themselves scale with level, or are you incorporating level based factors and tactical factors separately?

QuoteOr maybe you're an odd bird too

Heh. Maybe. But it's not an uncommon type of odd once you narrow it down to "people making games from scratch." You should see what Vreeg's put together, for example.

Quote from: gleichman;641460If I wanted blind support, I'd be a lot nicer. Same if I was selling something. Neither are goals of mine.

Could have fooled me. Here you have someone willing to hear you out, but is asking for explanations. But you can't/won't provide them, showing me you don't actually have them. So you're losing me because you say system/mechanic x is superior and will not illustrate why.

QuoteTo be honest, there are two problems I have with your requests:

1. I don't believe your "attempts at understanding", I think I'm being baited by someone who is a diehard D&D fanatic who really is only interested in pushing his own agenda at my expense and time.

If I've read you wrong, that's on me and I'm sorry. But that's how I read you and I don't trust you. I don't know how to fix that or even if I should attempt to.

You are a diehard fanatic of your favored systems. The difference is you are unwilling and unable to explain your positioning. That being said, I don't care if you play D&D or not. Yes I said all other tabletop game systems lack the playerbase to sustain themselves meaning that you can only get a very limited number of groups with them. I meant that. But if someone wants to spend their time learning the rules of a game they can hardly play, them being dumb isn't going to make me lose any sleep.

When you started saying oh, my game's better. Me: How so? You: ...

That combined with your tendency to take whatever the other person says, respond to one sentence of it and ignore everything else simply makes it hard to take you seriously.

Now I don't care if you trust me or not, but I'm telling it to you like it is and you can either take it and use it to improve yourself or leave it.

Quote2. In truth I don't like talking about my game's specific mechanics. The rulebook is a really a stripped down 262 pages of what are in effect notes and charts for nothing but the pure rules of a game (i.e. no fluff, no explanations, and lots of assumptions about previous knowledge). It was made for my own players and couple of people I 'met' online. No one else.

So the thing is, everything in those 262 pages all interlink to produce the whole. I can't cover them in a forum post or even multiple ones.

This is what I mean right here. People hide behind subjectivity when they are wrong, no other time. What's more, good rules are organized and at least reasonably concise. So when I see someone claim their rules are superior and can't prove it, I take it as yet another tabletop game designer with delusions of being good.

Spoiler

Full Attacks are full of it [D&D 3.x]

Full attacks suck. And this is a problem because full attacks are non caster's primary and often sole means of combat contribution. Why? Simple. They're a full round action, meaning you can't do anything else except 5 foot step and possibly use a Swift/Immediate action that round. In particular this means you have no mobility - meaning anything that doesn't want to get full attacked can just walk away and anything that does does so only so that it can full attack you first and possibly kill you before you can even try.

It's an easily fixed problem though. Make full attack actions a Standard action. Now non casters can remain mobile and still attack, like they did in older editions. If you walk away they can just follow you, and get an extra attack besides. This also makes melee enemies much more dangerous to PC casters, which is needed as they need more pressure put on them and can take it anyways.

See what I did there? I explained a game mechanic and its implications, and then a change and its reasoning all in a manner that is relatively clear and concise, yet detailed enough to allow an outsider to follow it. I also spoke to my audience, by relating it to a game many of them were familiar with. I could have done a much better job were I not posting in the early morning, but you know what I didn't do? Act like the rules were or were meant to be some sort of sacred and mysterious things. Because they're not. They are tools to facilitate the desired sort of game. Your ability to construct rules to accurately support the desired sort of game and accurately measure what sort of games are and are not desirable directly correlates to your ability as a designer.

...Which means that people that have constructed actual systems should be much better at this than a guy who just wrote a few pages of houserules.

QuoteBut that's not the real killer, the real killer is that it's not helpful to try. This thread has seen me say more about them than I have in years. And I didn't get a single comment after I did. No one who asks actually *wants* the answer, it just goes into black hole.

Besides, I know the reaction here would be worse than the reaction to HERO. You can sense the board recoil in horror. I'll do threads like this to measure the current mindset of the crowd here, but I'm not interested in blowing my own horn to a group of people who would with pure certainty hate the sound of it.

I am not Sacrosanct. I will not post empty flames no matter what you say.

I am not Brendan. I will not dismiss you out of hand for being mean.

I will for being wrong though.

So people here won't like your game. So. Fucking. What.

People here wouldn't like my game either. Look at all the fucks I don't give!



You are speaking to me, not them.

Quote from: gleichman;641043If everything, item 14 is the most important and serious one on the list.

If your game mechanics in a Role-Playing Game are not interesting when played as a pure game, then there is no reason for someone to put the effort of adding role-playing on top of it. Just skip the game completely and do something else that's actually interesting.

But then how would we adjudicate task resolution?! :eek:

Quote from: jeff37923;641494I'm trying to wrap my head about his claim that you can seperate the game mechanics from the role-playing part of the game and enjoy them independantly.

Not *can*, but *should* be able to enjoy them independantly.

Quote from: jeff37923;641494So I think that Gleichmann's premise is wrong.

It's interesting that you would say the above and then say...

Quote from: jeff37923;641494Sure, you can play Classic Traveller and have a combat in the game or you could play Snapshot or Azhanti High Lightning and go for pure combat wargame with no role-playing. However, the two systems are so compatible that you can do both. Classic Traveller can support an enjoyable pure combat wargame and Snapshot or Azhanti High Lightning can support some Role-Playing.

Which is exactly my premise. If you couldn't do both, I'd call it a failure in design, and if you could I'd call it a success. For you, Traveller is a success.

BTW, I'm not sure I agree with you about the game itslef. We made a number of attempts back in the day with original Traveller and we never really liked it in either RPG or wargame form. But that's taste for you.

Quote from: Charlie Sheen;641534Yes I said all other tabletop game systems lack the playerbase to sustain themselves meaning that you can only get a very limited number of groups with them. I meant that. But if someone wants to spend their time learning the rules of a game they can hardly play, them being dumb isn't going to make me lose any sleep.

This makes no sense to me. I have nine people playing in my current Microlite74 campaign. There are currently two other people would would like a chance to play if next time we lose a player (I can only fit 10 people in my den, at that's packing it full).

What difference does it make to our fun and our campaign if we are the only people in the world playing using these rules? None that I can see. What difference to our fun and our campaign would it make if there were 1 million other people in the world playing using these rules? None that I can see.

Therefore, I don't see any real advantage to learning the rules to a popular game versus learning the rules to a game few people have ever heard of -- provided the game is fun for the people playing it. Of course, this is even less important with an old school game like Microlite74 where players don't really need to learn much about the rules to play well. For non-caster classes, a ten minute explanation covers everything a player really needs to know to play. Reading the rules is optional.

Quote from: beejazz;641527So damage scales but location points are fixed? That's an interesting decision, and yeah, definitely better to scale slow from the sound of it.

Very much so. Unless something alters your physical form, your LP is fixed and unchanging for the life of the character.

Quote from: beejazz;641527Unrelated to that, the benefits of cover scale somewhat with level from the sound of it?

No, really doesn't need to. Since the character's defense skills by level and cover adds it effects on top of that, cover can remain a constant.

Quote from: beejazz;641527Mine has one reaction per round, plus you can trade down other action types for more reactions later, and AoOs that cost reactions.

That's what I generally see. AoH uses completely free AoOs btw, we considered limiting it but realized that the only case where it would be excess is where the character's opponents were being rather silly so we didn't waste the time on another rule.

Quote from: beejazz;641527Again, do the tactical modifiers themselves scale with level, or are you incorporating level based factors and tactical factors separately?

Same as with cover, the modifiers are on top of the characters abilities which already scale.

To use an HERO example, a guy in the Street may have an OCV of 3 while an marksman might have an OCV of 9. A full aim action gives both of them +1 OCV (resulting in a 4 and 10). The final results scales because the original character values scale.

It might be interesting to design a game where the reverse was true... and actually that is the case in AoH under one special condition now that I think about it.

Quote from: beejazz;641527Heh. Maybe. But it's not an uncommon type of odd once you narrow it down to "people making games from scratch." You should see what Vreeg's put together, for example.

I think I recall a thread where I noticed he was attempting some goals similar to mine. But I think my methods and the ones you and he are going for might be very different. It's possible you wouldn't enjoy mine, and vice versa despite having those similar goals.

Quote from: S'mon;641535But then how would we adjudicate task resolution?! :eek:

Ideally you'd find a new method that was fun. That might even be mechanic-less. The idea is very simple, don't do stuff in your rpg that isn't fun on it's own merits. Do stuff that is.

It's a bit like picking a career. You could take just any old job that pays the bills and let you enjoy your hobbies after work. Or you could pick a career that you enjoy on its own merits so that you are happier in both areas of your life.

Quote from: RandallS;641544This makes no sense to me. I have nine people playing in my current Microlite74 campaign. There are currently two other people would would like a chance to play if next time we lose a player (I can only fit 10 people in my den, at that's packing it full).

What difference does it make to our fun and our campaign if we are the only people in the world playing using these rules? None that I can see. What difference to our fun and our campaign would it make if there were 1 million other people in the world playing using these rules? None that I can see.

Therefore, I don't see any real advantage to learning the rules to a popular game versus learning the rules to a game few people have ever heard of -- provided the game is fun for the people playing it. Of course, this is even less important with an old school game like Microlite74 where players don't really need to learn much about the rules to play well. For non-caster classes, a ten minute explanation covers everything a player really needs to know to play. Reading the rules is optional.

No game lasts forever. Even under the best of conditions, people go their separate ways. It happens.

And so if you are playing a game with a small player base and that game ends for whatever reason it is extremely unlikely you will ever use that system again, making the time spent learning it wasted. Conversely, learn the rules of a more active game and it becomes much more practical to replace players as they leave or start new games entirely.

Remember, tabletop gaming is very localized. It's not enough to have x people playing the game. They need to be within at least driving distance of you. So that critical mass breakpoint - the point where if a game has fewer players than this it isn't sustainable is a lot higher since players have to be close to you, then you have to find them. There is no "Microlite NA" server you can just connect to and find any interested players on the continent.

That being said, it sounds like you're not describing a game at all. Instead you are describing freeform, or something very close to it. In any case that particular game definitely lacks the depth to be interesting, but that's another subject.

Edit: Cute. Well, I was definitely mistaken about gleichman. Originally I was under the impression he had a good idea of what he was talking about and doing. Instead, he is only seeking total and mindless agreement. Don't give him that, and he gives up on you instantly. Even when someone carefully and explicitly explains all they have to do is back up their position with some decent logic, it doesn't happen. I will chalk that up as a lesson learned, and since that point has been established, there's no longer any need for me to speak to him either. So unless someone else has something to say to me, I'm done with this thread.