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Ok sorry if this is in the wrong section of the form but I don't know where this thread would be placed.

Some of you may have known another thread I made quite a while back which I wanted to create a fantasy wargame called the Forgotten realm ( here it is for those interested: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/405761.page )... well that game is still in the works I have made the rules im just waiting to playtest them and add maybe more special rules as well as create the army units and scenarios so for those who think that the ideas are dead, no there not just it has taken me a while since coursework and exams had taken priority over it.

Anyway so I have been busy and I had always wanted to create a sci-fi universe, but I never thought how to populate the universe (to me creating a world is hard but a universe? wow that's big) then recently I watched the Firefly TV series and then the Ideas started to flood in (sometimes all it takes is one idea to help influence you... Thanks Joss Whedon ) and then it began my journey into my own sci-fi world, now I wanted to made it small first before adding making it to a mass battle wargame, so I decided to make it a skirmish game first, as I wanted this to be a cinematic game where there is no "power builds" and so you could pick any unit you want and it would be good on the table ( I have played past wargames before and I have found that some units I liked were utterly useless on the battlefield, so that was something I wanted to avoid). fist off I will list the armies for this game I have thought of plus my friends who wanted to share his ideas as well, as well as give you the timeline I had made so far for fluff of my game and see if that interest any of you guys at home

So without further ado I will list armies first then the timeline.

Before I forget this game will be a D10 combat mechanic game as I fell D10's are good for variety in a Skirmish game.

Humanity: there are multiple factions of humans in this game, so I will start off with the Human empire: these are your good humans these humans travel the stars not for conquest but for knowledge and a more peaceful life among the stars. These guys have a uniform like the justice department in Dredd 3-D, bearing in mind these images are just trying to help you understand what they look like there not exact duplicates

The Corporation: where there is humans there is an economy and business to be made. The Corporation is the part in human society that owns the major businesses and markets in human society, from simple things such as drinks manufacturing to weapon manufacturing. Imagine these guys like the Wayland Utani company from aliens and there soldiers resemble a mix of soldiers from Starship troopers and the soldiers from the alliance from Firefly.

The Order of the entity: These guys are the militant religious faction who fight for the one religion in human society, this religion is not a immoral one at that as the entity believes everyone should treat everyone as equals, and there soldiers fight for what's right and they fight mainly against the one enemy of the entity who is named the great destroyer, while the entity creates life, the destroyer destroys it. these guys are basically space knights, but imagine their armour to look similar to the Knight armour in Hellgate: London.

The Guild: These are assassin's who also fight for the entity but are not fully accepted by the order as they view the Guild as a group with too much vengeance in their harts and recognise that they do not see the Great destroyer as the main enemy, but more the corporation as the main enemy, and seek to close them down more than defeating the Great destroyer. these guys look similar to the assassin's from assassin's creed (yes assassin's creed in space ).

The Cult: These are the followers of the Great destroyer who follow him to achieve their own personal sadistic goals in their lives, Barbarians, sadists and the Insane these guys will even employ daemons to get their goals fulfilled as well as to see the destruction of the Entity. imagine the Human followers to behave and look between a cross of the Reavers from Firefly, satanic worshippers and the evil group led by Dr. Satan from house of 1000 corpses.

Imagine the daemons to look like a cross between the daemons from Dark souls and Silent hill (also where GW dose Skulls all over their daemons mine will have chains instead ).

Now here are the Alien Factions:

The U'hen: these are an old race that thrives among the stars in its own border and have a very wide knowledge of the galaxy, these are your space elves but act more like Vulcans then elves.

The Dwellers: these create vast networks under the planets mountain's and have a very sustainable way of life by using the planets core as a source of energy, as well as being one of the most honourable (and stubborn) folk in the galaxy. These guys are your space dwarfs.

The Orc'hi: these guys are honourable, stubborn but more sociable than their other counterparts (and less warlike ). Imagine these guys to look similar between the Orcs in Skyrim and the Klingons in Star trek.

The Orxz: These are the lower counterparts of the Orc'hi more warlike less honourable and more barbaric. Imagine these guys to look like the usual Orks you see in wargames.

The Martians: These guys used to be the rulers of their border in the galaxy... until they moved there home planet mars into a wormhole, and then the humans unknowingly that these Martians existed took there borders without even knowing it. now angered by their neighbours for letting the human's take their borders, now they seek to over take the galaxy with their superior technology. These guys look like the Martians from the Tom cruise War of the Worlds movie (and yes tri-pods are their thing ).

The Network: Once the Corporation seek to make a secret army of Perfect Cyborgs to overtake the Human Empire but their plan backfired horrifically when they tried to convert an assassin to become their unbeatable and perfect weapon, the result was a cold Genocide though out the sector the of where the corporation had established their secret base. now they wish to convert and assimilate everyone the meet to give them the "gift" of immortality. Imagine these guys to be a cross between Skynet, The Borg and the Cybermen.

The Draak Empire: These once a proud empire was enraged in war with an elder race now extinct resulting in Nuclear warfare, the radiation way too harmful forced the army to replace there brains in metal casings, already xenophobic of other life on other planets they seek only to purge other life since they feel that no good comes out of aliens. Imagine for these guys to look like Daleks on Tanks treads but a scanner to replace the eyestalk.

The Infection: these guys seek to contaminate the universe and farm all other races to feed off their flesh to survive and people with psychic powers who become infected with their virus will become a plaguemancer, imagine these guys to look like the flood fro halo and the Xenoforms from dead space.

The Bugs: These guys are a race of survival these will breed from other races to survive and feed. imagine these guys to look similar to the bugs from Starship troopers, the Xenomorphs from Aliens, and Zerg from StarCraft.

The contractors: these guys are your bounty hunters, whoever employ them, they will see that the job gets done, or die trying.

The Browncoats: Need something transported from one place in the galaxy to another? sure the Browncoats will do the job just fine, these guys are your smugglers of the galaxy.

My friends race: Imagine these guys to be a race that look similar to the Elites from Halo who create robots that look similar to the droids funded buy the Separatists in star wars I do not know what these guys goals are though that is what my friend will have to tell me so I can post up (or he can as a comment if he sees this thread).

Ok so this is all I can type up at the moment as I am knackered and im drifting off as we speak so I will wait for tomorrow to post the timeline.

Please let me know what you think of this so far

Cheers to all comments .

Sounds interesting. The scifi gaming genre is really starting to get quick densely packed with games, so I wish you luck. Some of your factions seem interesting. Other are quite generic, such as the space versions of fantasy races. As much as Id like to see a game thats not "fantasy in space", those factions always seem to do well, so from a business standpoint I guess its sound.

If you go to production, IMO, you should do the non fantasy factions (at least some of them) before you do the fantasy ones. It would really help your product stand out from all the other "fantasy in space" scifi games out there.

Ok thanks ,well im not going to make rules production wise, Im going to make the rules free as well as the fluff as I want people to enjoy a cheap and fun game that they can use their own minis from their own collection with, and Im not going into production just yet im going to wait until I am older.

On a side note I will post up the timeline still I've just got to finish converting a few minis first before I come back

I'd like to hear more about the D10 based combat system, as I personally am drawn to games purely on mechanics as compared to fluff. So what are the rules like?

Well there still in production but mostly they are an action point system for stuff like movement, shooting, attacking with melee weapons, pushing creates, etc, etc, and modifiers help with the combat mechanics to add or subtract the roll in which you need to hit your target, etc. What I have tried to do is make a fast paced yet simple mechanics so that people can have a good fun time without being distracted by too many rules and I am trying to make it fast so people do not get bored so I have tried to incorporate that in the game, so far this has been led into taking in turns to activate each member in there squad (A squad is your team on the board) so for example you will activate a member in your squad use all his or her action points then, your opponent does the same with his or her member in his or her squad and this cycle continues until each player has activated all the member in there squad.

Atm what I am trying to do to make my game unique is to try and create most battles on space stations and your own vessel (such as the vessel your squad rides in) to make an impact on the board, not rules-breaking impact just nifty little things that could help you on the battlefield.

 happygolucky wrote:
Ok thanks ,well im not going to make rules production wise, Im going to make the rules free as well as the fluff as I want people to enjoy a cheap and fun game that they can use their own minis from their own collection with, and Im not going into production just yet im going to wait until I am older.

On a side note I will post up the timeline still I've just got to finish converting a few minis first before I come back

That being the case I would sideline the factions and just work on the rules. Getting the factions too well developed would have the opposite effect, as people would feel that minis from other games might not fit the descriptions of the factions.

I would share my 15mm game and 28mm game, but I am paranoid.

 Ahtman wrote:
I would share my 15mm game and 28mm game, but I am paranoid.

Paranoid that someone will take your great, unique, and totally-never-done-before idea and sell it before you can? Come on, be realistic Alternatively put the rules under a Creative Commons license that doesn't allow distribution. Really easy to configure that license to match your needs.

 bosky wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I would share my 15mm game and 28mm game, but I am paranoid.

Paranoid that someone will take your great, unique, and totally-never-done-before idea and sell it before you can? Come on, be realistic Alternatively put the rules under a Creative Commons license that doesn't allow distribution. Really easy to configure that license to match your needs.

Does it cost money? if so how much?

 happygolucky wrote:

 bosky wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I would share my 15mm game and 28mm game, but I am paranoid.

Paranoid that someone will take your great, unique, and totally-never-done-before idea and sell it before you can? Come on, be realistic Alternatively put the rules under a Creative Commons license that doesn't allow distribution. Really easy to configure that license to match your needs.

Does it cost money? if so how much?

A Creative Commons license is free. Really, any licensing terms that you wish to establish for your writing are free, but CC gives you a nice, shorthand way to define what control you do/do not want over your writing without having to go to a lawyer to make sure that you worded things right. I've licensed Aetherverse under a CC non-commercial license (basically letting people use the rules for their own purposes or other companies to use them to create rules for their minis within the game).

If you're this early in the development process, though, you really don't need to worry about it. Nobody's going to just outright steal the wording of your rules (and if they did, standard copyright law already protects it), and the rules ideas themselves are largely not protectable. Licensing terms (such as CC) are really only useful when you do want other people to be able to use what you've created, but under specific rules.

Ok thanks

Personally I say, even if you create it to be for free, design it as if it was to be for commercial use.

Many factions are a problem, not only for a crowded store self, but also for balancing and development, likewise I suggest you to develop your background and write rules for it, avoid making rules and leaving background backdoor for people to use other manufacturer (essentially other IP) miniatures in your background.

If you design it well, the background is good and the rules are tight and balanced, do not worry people will find ways to use their miniatures in your game.

the best path for me is:
Build the background.
Decide on the scope and size.
Make the rules that fit on the above.
flesh out the background and make the factions army lists.
Balance the above.
start throwing out whatever is not needed, does not work well, creates problems does not fit in the background or the rules.
Balance the above.
Beta test.
Do whatever corrections needed.
Polish.
Release.

 bosky wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I would share my 15mm game and 28mm game, but I am paranoid.

Paranoid that someone will take your great, unique, and totally-never-done-before idea and sell it before you can?

Wow you jump to negative quite quickly, don't you? No, I was mostly being silly, but obliquely referencing it not being ready to share yet. I don't want to put out a half formed idea.

the best path for me is:
Build the background.
Decide on the scope and size.
Make the rules that fit on the above.
flesh out the background and make the factions army lists.
Balance the above.
start throwing out whatever is not needed, does not work well, creates problems does not fit in the background or the rules.
Balance the above.
Beta test.
Do whatever corrections needed.
Polish.
Release.

This is a valid approach for speculative games (F&SF), however I somewhat disagree with the idea of developing the background first. It is absolutely true that one wants the game to reflect the background, but the problem is that the background can become an ever-decreasing circle that traps game designers in a cycle of setting development, neglecting actual game design.

If you download Episode 5 of the Precinct Omega BattleCast - "Where Little Warames Come From" - you'll hear about my approach which starts with what I call the "epic moment".

In the podcast I talk about how this should be a specific instant in time that you try to replicate in game form and then work backwards from that. However, I can also see that one can start with a larger idea of the setting and design to that. Nevertheless, I think a focused approach is, ultimately, going to give you a better game.

If you are in love with your background, you are probably better advised to write a novel. If you want to write a game, write a game and worry about the details of the setting and factions later!

R.

That is true, what I meant to say with build your background is make the skeleton of the background, the rough things you want for it to have.

Setting, races, technology, ectr. not details just the rough outline in so that you know what rules to write for.

 Ahtman wrote:

 bosky wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I would share my 15mm game and 28mm game, but I am paranoid.

Paranoid that someone will take your great, unique, and totally-never-done-before idea and sell it before you can?

Wow you jump to negative quite quickly, don't you? No, I was mostly being silly, but obliquely referencing it not being ready to share yet. I don't want to put out a half formed idea.

I was also joking, I was hoping the emoticon would have conveyed that Curse you flat internet text! I do see a lot of people who avoid sharing their ideas, which seems silly when they're posting on a public forum in the first place.

Anyways as Magc8Ball said the Creative Commons license is easy to configure. You could just use their "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International", put that somewhere near your title page, and you're covered.

As precinctomega said you'll totally want to be careful to avoid writing endless background material before you actually have a game. The opposite version where you're stuck endlessly developing and testing rules in a state of "analysis paralysis" can kill a project too. I generally like having a broad idea of the universe and then starting to build themed rules. Sometimes ideas from the rules can even reflect in the fluff.
My best recommendation would be get a playable prototype done as soon as possible. If you can actually move stuff around on the table, do some conflict resolution, etc. then you'll probably be more motivated to finish the game. Even if you fabricate a lot of the numbers and stats to begin with, getting a few core mechanics done early will help keep you interested and excited. For example when I started Dinosaur Cowboys I thought "what if cowboys rode dinos instead of horses", which was enough background to begin with, and I was playing a test game within a week.
I tend to think that in the end, when you strip away all the fluff and miniatures, the rules are a huge part of why we play a tabletop game. But I also really love nifty mechanics so that might color my view.

Anyway happygolucky I like the idea of alternating activations instead of the traditional, and outdated, whole-army-UGO-IGO turn structure. You could also consider some kind of interrupt where an enemy can use double the action points to snap off a shot when they see you emerge from cover, to give even more flow to the game.
Playing onboard a space station or ship would be interesting as well. I sort of visualize a mix of Space Hulk and the computer game FTL: Faster Than Light. I think your biggest challenge with that kind of layout would be having cover, places to move, and a way to stop combats from devolving into grand melees in cramped rooms (unless that is what you are going for). Definitely easier to make a table for compared to traditional terrain as you could just draw an interior on some 1" grid paper and play on that.

I would add that playtesting can be tedious, mostly because getting good feedback is hard. People will want to help, but then never get around to reading the materials, or even if they do they may not give much feedback. You also need to make sure to move outside your circle of friends to playtest, though obliviously you can use them as well.

Ok thanks to all replies so far its all helpful

@bosky What I am trying to do is sort of like that, but my greatest challenge is trying to get a blend of all different types of board, such as some people might like space stations and space ships while others might like having an outdoor area for their minis to play across, such as urban landscapes for example, so terrain has to be detailed rules-wise from what I am thinking. Also thanks for the input on activations, I always want people to get stuck into my games rather than wait for a little while for the other player. I want people thinking that the game is quick and enjoyable, and I feel like this way is the best route imo.


@Ahtman I was going to make all the rules and put them up as a thread on Dakka, for multiple people to playtest and for feedback once they are done

 bosky wrote:

Anyway happygolucky I like the idea of alternating activations instead of the traditional, and outdated, whole-army-UGO-IGO turn structure. You could also consider some kind of interrupt where an enemy can use double the action points to snap off a shot when they see you emerge from cover, to give even more flow to the game.

One problem with strictly alternating activations is that a side with more units than the other has a significant advantage: they will get a number of unopposed activations at the end of the turn. There are a few ways around it, mostly using some form of random activation (here's how I do it with my rules system). If you can be pretty sure that your players are going to have relatively similar numbers of units or models, you can forgo anything more complicated than alternating, but beyond that it can be a huge tactical advantage to have more units in a normal alternating system.

 happygolucky wrote:
@Ahtman I was going to make all the rules and put them up as a thread on Dakka

I wanted something that said "We will break you", but this was as close as I could get.


I prefer alternating to IGOUGO, but it certainly requires a bit of forward planning when developing a system that uses it.

I would say alternative activation is not that bad two ways to counter it though are groups so all players end up with the same amount of actiivatable units or reactions to activation.

 Magc8Ball wrote:

 bosky wrote:

Anyway happygolucky I like the idea of alternating activations instead of the traditional, and outdated, whole-army-UGO-IGO turn structure. You could also consider some kind of interrupt where an enemy can use double the action points to snap off a shot when they see you emerge from cover, to give even more flow to the game.

One problem with strictly alternating activations is that a side with more units than the other has a significant advantage: they will get a number of unopposed activations at the end of the turn. There are a few ways around it, mostly using some form of random activation (here's how I do it with my rules system). If you can be pretty sure that your players are going to have relatively similar numbers of units or models, you can forgo anything more complicated than alternating, but beyond that it can be a huge tactical advantage to have more units in a normal alternating system.

Ok thanks for the advice I can see that can become a problem but I suppose I could add in a sort of Overwatch rule where if a member of a squad gets too close then they get a free shot at them but it will be harder to hit them and each member of a squad could do this only once per opponents squad per turn, so that it would not get ridiculous? also it certain weapons could be better than others at this rule? it also depends on tactics as well from what I can see as someone may have more models but the opponent could have weapons such as grenades which could be good at taking out multiple models for example.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ahtman wrote:

 happygolucky wrote:
@Ahtman I was going to make all the rules and put them up as a thread on Dakka

I wanted something that said "We will break you", but this was as close as I could get.


I prefer alternating to IGOUGO, but it certainly requires a bit of forward planning when developing a system that uses it.

And Im counting on it On a serious note that is ok since I want this to be a balanced game casual and competitive wise.

 happygolucky wrote:
@bosky What I am trying to do is sort of like that, but my greatest challenge is trying to get a blend of all different types of board, such as some people might like space stations and space ships while others might like having an outdoor area for their minis to play across, such as urban landscapes for example, so terrain has to be detailed rules-wise from what I am thinking. Also thanks for the input on activations, I always want people to get stuck into my games rather than wait for a little while for the other player. I want people thinking that the game is quick and enjoyable, and I feel like this way is the best route imo.

I say design a game you want to play, especially initially, instead of going for broad appeal. If you have spaceship boards at home that you'll use, then make the rules around that. If you have little plastic doors, teleporters, and holo projectors, just make rules for those instead of worrying about alien vegetation, concrete buildings, etc. Keep the scope small and achievable to start with.
And yeah I always cringe at new games that use full UGO-IGO. Nothing as dull as sitting for 45 minutes while your opponent decimates your forces

If your main exposure to tabletop gaming has been 40k I'd recommend you take a look at as many rule systems as you can, since otherwise you might just reinvent the wheel or be unable to break out of some of the ruts the 40k system is in. For example Infinity is free and has a neat reaction system. Song of Blades and Heroes has a cool initiative system. The Chain Reaction system from Two Hour Wargames is also unique. Force on Force goes a more traditional route but still simulates battle really well.
Sometimes it helps to see something besides Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, D6s, UGO-IGO, etc.

 Magc8Ball wrote:
One problem with strictly alternating activations is that a side with more units than the other has a significant advantage: they will get a number of unopposed activations at the end of the turn. There are a few ways around it, mostly using some form of random activation (here's how I do it with my rules system). If you can be pretty sure that your players are going to have relatively similar numbers of units or models, you can forgo anything more complicated than alternating, but beyond that it can be a huge tactical advantage to have more units in a normal alternating system.

People definitely worry about that aspect of alternating activations. But it's up to each designer to figure out what approach they want to use beyond the "all the leftover guys go at the end!", which I agree is a downside. Your approach Magc8Ball of weighted, random activations looks like a great possible solution.
For another solution I'd offer: Check the ratio of unactivated entities before each activation. So if Player Jim has 6 unactivated entities and Sally only has 2, the ratio is 3:1 and Jim has to activate 3 for every 1 of Sally's. That way the uneven activations are spread across the turn instead of all at the end.

Definitely plenty of ways to work around uneven numbers, and the benefits of alternating activations far outweight this one downside.

 bosky wrote:
Definitely plenty of ways to work around uneven numbers, and the benefits of alternating activations far outweight this one downside.

Oh, absolutely. My commentary was only that strictly alternating could be improved upon, not that it was in any way NOT light years better than the travesty that is the 40K/WM system.

My favorite of all time (in theory) was in Clan War: it actually had a full-on roll-for-initiative system (like in D&D), but rolling a die for EVERY UNIT was time consuming enough, to say nothing of keeping track of them all.

 Magc8Ball wrote:
Oh, absolutely. My commentary was only that strictly alternating could be improved upon, not that it was in any way NOT light years better than the travesty that is the 40K/WM system.

Haha yeah I figured we were on the same page, and this just confirms it

If your main exposure to tabletop gaming has been 40k I'd recommend you take a look at as many rule systems as you can, since otherwise you might just reinvent the wheel or be unable to break out of some of the ruts the 40k system is in. For example Infinity is free and has a neat reaction system. Song of Blades and Heroes has a cool initiative system. The Chain Reaction system from Two Hour Wargames is also unique. Force on Force goes a more traditional route but still simulates battle really well.

This, definitely. Since I started designing games I find myself playing or reading a different rules system every week. When I started, having limited funds, I found pretty much every free rules-set I could online. Few were games I actually wanted to play (Infinity eventually becoming the main exception) but it gave me a really broad appreciation for different approaches.

I'd also recommend thinking about markets, targets and publicity. Different games sell to different people. 40k is the world's most popular miniatures wargame not because it's a great game but because it has been well-targeted (there are other factors, but these involve the economics of scale that our little indie game designers can't begin to consider).

it actually had a full-on roll-for-initiative system (like in D&D), but rolling a die for EVERY UNIT was time consuming enough, to say nothing of keeping track of them all.

Jon Paulson's in-testing game, MechaFront has a similar system at the moment. We're discussing its various merits and ways of approaching the same system from different angles.

This thread is great fodder for my next podcast episode, BTW. "Analysis paralysis" is great topic to discuss.

R.

Ok so after a while I have made a few rules here and there right now I am trying to create Line of sight. My problem is should I choose line of sight to from base to base? or should it be to model to model?

This is what I see in terms of advantages and disadvantages for both:

Base to Base:

Advantages:

-it is a fair system, which is what I want to take the game in

-It could be more tactical?

Disadvantages:

-Models that do not have bases are extremely Alienated from the game limiting options

-Terrain is a nightmare for writing as to determine whether a person is close enough to get the advantage for being behind the cover is hard to say or not

Model to model

Advantages:

-It can give you a wide variety of minis to use from (as long as you have the appropriate base size of course)

Disadvantages:

-Opponents discussing if they can see a target or not or if one player gets a bonus is difficult and could lead to arguments between players

So which one would you choose for a Skirmish game? just wondering what people would prefer.

I like plain model to model, no tricks about "banner poles not counting". It's the simplest and easiest in my opinion, since if you can see the model you can shoot. I'd try to avoid too much guess work around 25% cover compared to 50% cover, just do a flat binary "Are they in or out of cover?".

I think model to model is a bit unorthodox, which isn't a problem in itself, but it might confuse players who are used to a more traditional LOS approach. Plus model to model seems like it would have problems at different elevations?

Yeah I was thinking that, but then it could all be down to tactics, as one model could be on the roof of a building and then he or she maybe able to fire at another model that it could not see before.