Making mechanics for a table top RPG

CommandoDude

This is harder then I thought it would be

Anyone with any experience?

MadassAlex

Personally, I think the core mechanics are easy-peasy. It's the array of content that gets me.

Malkavian

Look at the FATE system. Chances are you can tweak a lot of that and probably get what you want.

MillerCross

Just use FATAL's system and be done with it.

CommandoDude

Everyone pilots giant robots. (This shouldn't surprise anyone). D20s to determine to-hit. D12s to determine damage location. D10 percentile roles to determine amount of dmg. Those are the basics so far, plus I've got down a vague notion of how much players can do on their turns.

^ Nice...troll?

MadassAlex

Pffft, why use so many different kinds of dice? Keep it simple.

CommandoDude

Because I CAN!

They're giant robots. Of course they're overly complicated. It's more immersive too. Robots with hitpoints would be dumb.

There's 4 different kinds of movement. And mechanics related to the direction your mini faces.

MadassAlex

Hell, why even have complex location damage? You may as well just have:

- Extremity
- Regular
- Critical Location

Hitpoints are just as much an abstraction for human beings as they are for robots. You'd just call them "Structure Points" or something. And continue keeping it simple. If you hit an extremity, half damage. If you hit a critical location, double damage. I suggest using d10 or d20 for every roll. That way, you can alter stats and stuff based on 10% or 5% chance differences.

DarkDecapodian

I don't really have any advice, but I do sympathise. In the folly of my earlier youth, I tried to make my own card/pen-and-paper based fantasy gladiator sim, and my commitment to detail meant such wondrous features like three separate rolls and some maths for damage alone (whether the hit landed, where the hit landed, base damage and then adding/subtracting damage based on hit location and armour). Needless to say, the project never took off. You're probably doing better than I was.

CommandoDude

Except that won't keep track of which parts are specifically damaged, how much, and which weapons are still usable. Because knowing which parts of the suit are damaged is important.

So you roll a d20 to see if you hit. Then you roll a d12 and check the part chart to see what you hit. (arm, arm, leg, leg, head, torso, back). Then you roll a percentile die to see how much damage you inflict. The defender can compare that damage to a chart to see if that part still works, or if the weapon got destroyed.

MadassAlex

That's a bit complex and slow. I'd rather use a simpler system, where dealing X amount of extremity damage destroys a random limb, for instance.

CommandoDude

Doesn't account for specific damaged parts. Since partial damage affects the performance of speed/weapon accuracy, and you need to know which parts are damaged.

Yeah, I know its complex. But since this is PvP I don't have to worry about NPCs and I can help the players.

MadassAlex

PvP tabletop RPG?

You sure you don't want a small-scale tabletop wargame?

I don't wish to offend, but it seems like you're going about this entirely the wrong way. It's too complex and the way you're setting it up is only going to make it moreso. One of the best-loved tabletop RPGs of today is World of Darkness, and that's probably because its system is flexible and very, very simple.

Remember that an RPG's objective is to tell a story. As long as your game mechanics reflect the outcome of a fight, no matter how simple, they do their job. You really, really don't need to determine which particular limb or component was hit, as you can generalise and abstract the results. If you must have some kind of system that determines where a hit was made, why not work it in to the "to hit" roll? Then you can get rid of a roll, a kind of die and get the game moving faster.

Chagen

I have a feeling he's making a Gundam Game, where PvP is...well, all there really is.

MadassAlex

Then do the combat engagements with more rules abstraction and less placement abstraction. When two players are waiting to react to one-another, you want as little time in-between turns as possible.

CommandoDude

It's Gundam. Yeah, PvP.

There really isn't any way to work in which parts get damaged in a to hit roll. It's not like determining these things is hard. AC is base 10, so the numbers don't go very high. The most complicated part there is just determining which mods apply, which is basically my job. You roll a d12 and compare it to a tabel, pretty simple. The only real long part is damage. Since you make a percentile roll, add 1/4 the result to your weapon dmg, and the defender makes a percentile roll and subtracts 1/4 of the result from the total.

You just can't make a simple mechanic when it comes to giant robots. determining the specifics is absolutely necessary. I've only got DnD to compare to, but instances in DnD last like...4...maybe 5 or 6 rounds on a long one. We're talking at least 10+ rounds in this. So keeping track of shit is important.

Die rolls don't take a lot of time. I don't know what kind of people you've played with, but most of the time in my groups is devoted to people deciding what to do or adding up damage.

And since everyone gets 3 major actions and 2 minor actions a turn, there's a lot to decide.

Also, reactions are built into turns, not waiting for a new round. Everyone gets a response action when they get attacked.

MadassAlex

Okay, the two major issues:

- You only have DnD to compare to. Go read some other games, or better yet, play them. Plenty of games use simple systems with single-type dice rolls and work just fine.
- "You can't just make a simple mechanic when it comes to giant robots" -- absolutely false. Human beings are incredibly complex organisms, yet you rarely see games take into account the complete spectrum of damage that can be done to a person. Plenty, plenty, plenty of games work out complex mechanical objects in the same way they work out lifeforms. Warhammer 40,000 springs to mind, simply using an "Armour Rating" instead of "Wounds" to track damage.

Remember that tabletop games aim to represent the results of an engagement through abstracting reality rather than following it to the letter. Your players will thank you if you keep it simple.

As for working the hit placement into the dice roll, you could do it via the concept of "critical success" or "critical failure". For instance, a hit that makes contact, and makes the roll by a certain margin, scores a "critical location" hit. A hit that only barely makes it might strike an "extremity".

CommandoDude

Well, this isn't focused on results. It's focused on the process. This is a "Mobile Suit Combat Simulation" its designed to be as vivid as the real anime.

I'm basing the entire mechanic on my experiences with the text based roleplay I participated in (The Long War). Right now, out of combat roleplaying isn't even in the works. I'll get there I guess, I just need to complete the system.

MadassAlex

You won't match the intensity of the anime on paper, ever, but what you can do is keep the tension going. To do that, however, you really, really can't afford to go into every single detail. You need to keep the action rolling quickly and keep the players in the moment.

I understand where you're coming from. You want a system in which anything can happen. But you can have that, or most of it, without having a whole lot of tables or different kinds of dice.

In my experience, nothing is worse for a fun, tense situation than having to check tables, find different kinds of dice and look up rules. The results are really, really the important aspect of this, because a part of that result is how your players feel about the experience. One of the reasons I find World of Darkness works so well is because its simplicity allows for the abstraction that makes a combat scenario truly flexible.

CommandoDude

All the people I've ever really played DnD with have only ever seemed interested in the mechanics. So by making more complex mechanics I can give players a wider verity of actions and reactions. The point is to simulate the freedom of text based roleplay with mechanics. I know that is almost impossible, but this is close, and this kind of representation is something simple dice mechanics won't represent without complex rules. And complex dice mechanics are much easier to manage then complex rules.

This isn't like other TRPGs where the players fight the GM, the players fight the players, and that allows me to look up all the rules for the players (it helps that I write/wrote them). The GMs job isn't to provide a combat for the players, the players do that themselves and the GM takes on the burden of the mechanics.

MadassAlex

All the people I've ever really played DnD with have only ever seemed
interested in the mechanics.

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Then they may as well play video games, because the strength of tabletop RPGs is how anything can be done. More mechanics is equivalent to more restrictions. What's the point of playing for the mechanics, really? You have the opportunity to craft any kind of story you like, with any kind of conditions.

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So by making more complex mechanics I can
give players a wider verity of actions and reactions. The point is to
simulate the freedom of text based roleplay with mechanics. I know that
is almost impossible, but this is close, and this kind of
representation is something simple dice mechanics won't represent
without complex rules.

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Absolutely false. The more mechanics you put down, the more restrictive your ruleset becomes. Most systems that go for flexibility go for as much simplicity as possible, and then make those simple mechanics as universal as possible. World of Darkness springs to mind. Dark Heresy isn't bad for this, either. Warhammer Fantasy roleplay shoots itself in the foot a bit with its card-based system, but at the same time, its dice rolls are extremely simple.

Looking at the World of Darkness system for a moment:

- Every die is a d10.
- Any roll of an 8, 9 or 10 is a success.
- More rolls of an 8+ means a stronger success.
- Some tasks require a certain amount of successes to pull through.
- The amount of dice you roll is based on stats from 1-5 and/or skills, which can contribute another 1-5 dice.
- Dice are added or removed based on the difficulty of the task or conditions of the action.

This one mechanic applies to everything in the game. Everything. And it works perfectly fine, because it represents everything that happens in-game and has enough versatility to add house rules or just make things up on the fly.

But if you, from the beginning, construct a system wherein everything is laid out, anything you miss (and you will miss things) cannot be added to the system simply, nor can improvised actions take place on the fly. If while playing World of Darkness, I can do X action, even if it's not in the rules. The GM will just go, "Alright, roll an amount of dice equal to your Agility, and get at least two successes". It's simple, keeps the game flowing and has no requirement for tables.

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And complex dice mechanics are much easier to
manage then complex rules.

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Also false, although complex rules are hardly better.

CommandoDude

Again, its a combat simulation. There isn't improv in it because its using weapons in large scale fighting. You don't do stuff like in regular roleplay combats. There aren't any stats. It's all combat tactics and MS construction.

You seem to keep thinking that this resembles a traditional table top at all. I guess that's how I started it, but then it changed and now its just very different.

Roleplaying itself is strictly out of combat and there are no mechanics.

My point is, the roleplaying and the combat are separated.

MadassAlex

Then I'd say you'd want a tabletop wargame setup on a small scale, rather than an extremely-detailed P&P RPG setup.