Hello friends :) Unedited because I'm abroad and posting through my phone... Have you seen the video game Resonance of Fate (known in Japan as End of Eternity)? Check it out on you tube, the gunplay is so ridiculously over the top anime stylised just the way I like it and it inspired me to do a war game. Now, I have a very precise idea of the theme but the mechanics is where I'd love to get your ideas. The concept is to have a war game -like, say Warhammer 40k- except less unnecessarily complexity. I'm not bashing on Warhammer, I just want a game with a less than 500 page rulebook. But despite simplifying wargames I don't want to abstract too much of the combat. This I feel is a fine line to walk.
Small scale war game
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 16:44
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 17:20
#2
The question
The mechanic that I've been tinkering with is to give every character two actions on their turn which they can use to either attack, move, use an item, a talent or whatever else I come up with. So you can attack twice and stand where you are, retreat really fast but not attack, etc. As an attack mechanic I've thought about rolling one d10 for each bullet fired and the ones that land on an 8, 9 or 10 are hits. Each hit deals a value of 1 damage regardless of weapon (talking about bullets here) but of course shots per attack should vary. I've tried to give weapons the feel and profile I imagine. Like giving the SMG an extra dice (because it's automatic) but having to hit 9 or 10 (because of the recoil). The problem is this: There's just not a lot of difference between the weapons and I think it's because the combat mechanic I'm using is too plain. So the question is: is there a combat system that allows me to give my guns the distinctive feel that I want without a whole lot of abstraction. I'm a fan of combat abstraction, but for this game I like the idea of each bullet as a die. Help me think sideways?
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 17:23
#3
Sorry!
Sorry for the word count! All this text really isn't necessary, but like I said I'm using a phone. I'll get to edit when I get home.
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 21:24
#4
Dare--
A few things.
1) What
Dare--
A few things.
1) What jumps right off the page is your mention of wanting your units to absorb a ton of hits, and for the combat to rain boxes of bullets down, but that you're only hitting on 30% of a d10. That's really crappy odds. Just saying. My thinking here is that you could have the maybe 3-10 hit (which ups it to 80%), but that lower numbers do less mortal/critical damage (e.g. 3 = getting grazed, 7 more like a shoulder/knee hit, 10 being a heart/head shot).
1a) You could keep a standard d10 for hits, but get weapons profiles by adding EASY templates (if you're using square grids, cutting or printing them is an idea) or by using board distances. For example, small arms fire-- like handguns or even shotguns-- are more effective closer in combat than RPGs or fly-by-wire rockets. Or you could even make the Big Boys hit easier-- say using d6, d8, or even for ultra sadism, d4. Using an RPG round, something like "Minimum range= 6 spaces (can't shoot closer); 1d4-- miss on 1; direct hit/instant kill on 4."
2) Must we use humans? This seems like something Warmachine-ish or 'mech-friendly to me. Or even like the Zion defense robots in whatever horrific Matrix sequel had them. You can easily keep a squad mechanic with these-- make the game patrol-y, perhaps-- while having bullet sponges all over the board.
3) Is is player vs. player, players vs. board (like Descent, etc.) or what?
4) Adding diversity, you could run standard pawns for the squad and maybe a fixed points system for a deck of weapons, upgrades, etc. I can't seem to get my own idea like this in gear, so maybe I can share with you. Message me.
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 23:14
#5
Thoughts on gun flavors
A few thoughts:
Right now, you have essentially 2 things that can make guns different, the number of bullets per turn, and the accuracy (is accuracy only determined by the gun, or can the person be a better shot or harder to hit?).
Here are a few other possibilities:
-Guns have different ranges over which they are accurate.
-Guns deal different amounts of damage (so a pistol and a shotgun bullet are not the same).
-Guns have different rates of jamming, running out of ammo, etc.
-Guns have different levels at which they can penetrate armor.
-Some guns deal special kinds of damage (poison dart, explosion, etc).
-If people can make guns more accurate, maybe the degree to which they can do this (like, a rifle with a scope, you can get as much as +5 if you're good; a sawed-off shotgun or flame-thrower you can get a max of +1 or +0).
And honestly, I think the idea of 30% accuracy, but rolling 8 dice at a time, is kind of cool.
Simon
Thu, 07/07/2011 - 15:14
#6
I luv this forum
Clarification: Right now for a pistol the number of bullets (i.e dice) per attack action is 3. I've thought about what you said. One time while playing the Half Life mod Dystopia it struck me that it wasn't just the target's movement that made me always miss but also the distance, because of how the bullets scattered. So I have this idea: A weapon's range could be equal to the number of squares distance that the unit can attack without any modifier, and it's possible to attack one square beyond that but with a -1 penalty to dice result. If an attack is made 1 square closer than the range stat, there's a +1 modifier. For example: The pistol has a 2 square range stat and fires 3 bullets per attack. If an attack was made 3 squares away each die would hit only on a 9 or 10. If the attack was made against an enemy on a adjacent square each die would have to land a 7, 8, 9 or 10. Your thoughts on this? I'd write more and with less words if I used a computer T_T
I will use a board rather than measure movement and attack range with a ruler. Instead of armies I will have players control a crew of four or six characters. The characters should take a lot of damage before dying because I want attacks to land a hit very often. At first I wanted to keep with the style of Advent Children and having units dodge every attack but having a successful hit deal serious damage, but I soon realised that it's not very exciting to miss every single attack. So I'm going in the other direction.