Today, I went back and played around in my Concept folder to flush out a few ideas a bit more, and play around with things to keep me fresh.

One toyed around heavily with the concept of Line-of-sight, one was around non-combat mechanics, and another was around solo/co-op rules.

I spent some time scratch building some models for my Space Mecha game so that I can paint them up and then take photos at some point.....

Boring, business paperwork followed by some play testing fir fun.

After getting feedback from an early draft, I made a few changes to the layout.

Originally, I had the sidebars as 2.17 inches and the main body columns as 6". I shaved the .17 off the sidebars and gave them back to the main body.

I've been working to extract anything "fluff" or "design notes" out of the main body text, and into the sidebars accordingly.

I cleaned up the "dice" chapter, to clarify that by default, any roll of 4+ is a Success and other rolls are Failures. So "pass/fail" is a D2-system, but criticals are an embedded D6 system. I got rid of "difficulty" and "success threshold" as game terms. I use ↑ and ↓ to represent "Roll Advantage" and "Roll Disadvantage", which enable rolling extra dice and dropping them.

I tweaked the attack/damage mechanic, so that if the defender rolls more successes than the attacker, the attack 'misses', though criticals will still apply.
Given that Casualties=Attacker(Strength+Successes) minus Defender(Resilience+Successes), this enables a divide between "high defense" units versus "high resilence" units. It also allows me to add "Accurate" and "Dodge" rules which modify the success offset ONLY for determining whether or not an attack hits.

I also decided for simplicity's sake that instead of calling them "move actions" or "rapid actions", to call them "half actions" or "full actions". A unit that successfully activates or interrupts declares and resolves either two half-actions or one full action, while a unit that fails only gets one half-action.



I still need to figure out how to handle Characters, including whether or not they should be able to join units. I may have them act as independent units with the ability to 'pass off' friendly hits to nearby units instead.

After over a year of not touching my platoon-level Steampunk ruleset, I re-approached it yesterday for a few hours, trying to streamline a lot of characteristics and processes. Long story short, the different technological eras are out, activations are a little more interesting, and the knock-on of that has made unit officers, commanding officers, and NCOs (which are now attached to units instead of independent characters). I'm still facing the issue that rolling activation and morale into a single mechanic might make stat recording too tedious or long winded.

In essence, a unit will have a Morale Value (MV) of 1-20, which will vary depending on the number of models in the unit (models are not removed, however, similar to KoW or Black Powder), their Discipline rating, and other factors such as attached NCO's. This MV will degrade throughout the battle through taking damage, losing officers, nearby units being reduced to 5MV or under etc. This value, as well as representing the stamina, morale, and combat effectiveness of the unit, will also dictate the order in which units will roll activation. This would simulate the breakdown in communications as the units become more shaken and affected by the damage they sustain. Say Player A has two units, one with 17MV and the other with 7MV, and Player B has one unit with 12MV - the order of activation would be Player A's 17MV unit, followed by Player B's 12MV unit, and then Player A's 7MV unit. Of course, over the course of that turn, units will take damage, which needs to be tracked separately so as not to mess up the current turn's activation order (As I use D20's to track each unit's MV, I tend to use a separate D6 to track each unit's damage inflicted each turn). At the beginning of each new turn (when all units have rolled for activation and carried out their actions if they passed the activation roll), the unit's MV's are adjusted to factor inflicted damage and positive/negative modifiers, which then rearranges the order in which units dice for activation.

I hope that makes sense; it works smoothly on the tabletop with 3-5 units of a side, but I might have painted myself into a corner as regards streamlining the morale/activation combo. I just wanted to roll the two together, as I've always found separate morale phases a bit clunky and forced in games that I've played.

I frequently rotate through projects and might leave one lanquishing for a few months or a year (and sometimes longer) before returning to it.

It usually helps the final product as well as a re-read shows me the glaring holes that I had been too close to initially.

Sometimes I even end up finishing them too!

I did two modifications/clarifications for my system.

First was, if you roll a 'critical success', you only get one of the effects, rather than it being cumulative. For example, if you roll a triple 4, you can either get the effects of the double 4 crit or the triple 4 crit, but not both. Fumbles apply the worst type of critfail by default.

After doing this, I felt OK to modify advantage and disadvantage to be "difficulty" rather than "Roll and Drop", while turning their shorthand into + or -, respectively. So SWORD get "+1 [vs AXE]" and succeeds on 3+ instead of 4+.

Ultimately, I felt like the additional step of choosing dice to drop added extra overhead to the roll compared to having +- modifiers. I did clarify that a roll of 1 is always a failure and a roll of 6 is always a success.

Choosing the Critical Success seems like adding a choice for the player, which is good.

I also prefer mods that add or remove dice. Low overhead. However, I still like the roll and keep method, as it is another player choice. However, I understand your point about player overhead for not a huge gain.

*************************************

I have been spending way too much time building and painting to demo and showcase games, and not enough time playing or writing games lately.

I can actually write a rule set relatively quickly now. It is getting all the "accoutrements" to make it sellable that has been killing me lately. Things like photos, models, fluff, illustrations, layout, cover design, etc. Ugh.

Today has been a long day of solo playtesting and finetuning.

The most pressing of issues is to sort out the lethality of ranged combat, versus close combat as well as making an easy "pinning" mechanic that doesn't require a die roll, or too much mental math.

It's not so much what will 'pin' a model, but more when it can test to remove it again; especially since I'm using a I-phase-U-phase turn structure.

Would love to find some reference work, but there's very little out there; except maybe Necromunda or 40k 2nd ed, but in there the pinning rules either require a die roll, or are simply too harsh for what I want.

Guess a night's sleep will help out a bit.

Are you looking for games that utilize pinning as a mechanic to reference, or something more specific?

 Easy E wrote:
Are you looking for games that utilize pinning as a mechanic to reference, or something more specific?

I was looking for a more specific way of handling the timing of pinning in an IPhase-UPhase system, and its effects, that was too penalizing like in Necromunda of old, but also didn't involve either too many die-rolls or - most importantly - any need for counters.

Apparently, the turn sequence I'm working with is very unsung and I'm having a hard time finding any inspirational rulebooks out there :\

I really like I-Phase-U-Phase as well.

Let me noodle on it a bit and see what I can find.

A bit infuriated that just as I started to reapproach my ruleset, the new Sludge wargame was released in Blaster Magazine, and basically does what I set out to achieve in a better way.

Trying to think of ways to make my ruleset more unique, without making it complicated for complication's sake!

That sucks!

Keep in mind the advice my screen writing Prof told me long ago. Just tweak one core aspect of it like the main character, the theme, the setting, or the plot points, and you have something new.

Sludge hasn't released yet, its coming out in Volume 3 (probably next month, but really "whenever its ready"). Its hardly recent news, the first playtest document for it was made public around 6 months ago.

Also, if you're pissed about Sludge, how do you think the guy workin on Turnip 28 feels? Basically came up with the core concept that Sean Sutter built on in Sludge (Sean has more or less acknowledged this to be the case, as Turnip triggered a thought about something he had been turning over in his mind for a long time).

In any case, what is it you were trying to achieve? Sludge is certainly an interesting ruleset but I wouldn't say its dramatically innovative, the novelty in it is more along the lines of theme of the game than it is the game itself. Thats such an open ended concept that I can't imagine it would be a struggle for you to work around it.

Also, keep in mind, that Sludge is probably beneficial to you. A lot of people are building armies for use with both Sludge and Turnip 28 (and to a lesser extent I would assume The Silver Bayonet). If you can tap into that same aesthetic vein then you basically have a ready-to-go playerbase for your game if you have something to offer the community that the other games doesn't already do.

I think one thing about Sludge is that it focuses a bit more on psychology and the horrors of war than other games do.

 Easy E wrote:
I think one thing about Sludge is that it focuses a bit more on psychology and the horrors of war than other games do.

Debatable. Its certainly a central pillar of Sludges design and it approaches it a bit differently than other games do, but theres a few others out there with lots of crunch in the psychology arena.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I think one thing about Sludge is that it focuses a bit more on psychology and the horrors of war than other games do.

Debatable. Its certainly a central pillar of Sludges design and it approaches it a bit differently than other games do, but theres a few others out there with lots of crunch in the psychology arena.

Fair enough.

It's worth noting that having someone else come up with something similar and finding an audience is a good thing, as it means the audience is out there and you just need to put your own spin on it. Sometimes if you're doing something new that nobody else has done, you're just doing something everyone else has deliberately avoided (which is also my theory of progress in clothing fashions).

Nurglitch wrote:
It's worth noting that having someone else come up with something similar and find an audience is a good thing, as it means the audience is out there and you just need to put your own spin on it. Sometimes if you're doing something new that nobody else has done, you're just doing something everyone else has deliberately avoided (which is also my theory of progress in clothing fashions).

Its 50/50, you definitely need to be able to put more than just a "spin" on it. You need to be able to bring something new and distinct to the table even if you're retreading the same common ground as another more established game. A lot of gamers out there have a mindset of "why would I play this when this other game I already own scratches the same itch?". If you're doing a generic ruleset without its own bespoke miniatures line then it can be an uphill battle to capture peoples attention if you don't do anything to stand apart from other games that cover similar ground. If you're the first to market you have a degree of a competitive edge, at least until someone else shows up who can do the same thing as you but better. If you're not first to market you usually have an uphill battle unless you can figure out a way to leverage someone else being first-to-market to your own benefit.

In the case of something like Sludge/Turnip (which gets messy as to who first to market is since Turnip was more publicly visible first but Sludge seems destined to actually release sooner), the community will likely congregate around one game over the other even though the minis for both can/will be mostly identical - the two games are covering much of the same territory thematically and mechanically and I don't know that one game is going to offer enough of a different experience from the other to warrant people dedicating time to both (mind you, at this point its unclear of where Turnip is going from a mechanical standpoint because there has been so little in the way of rules development updates and its taking so damned long for them to release issue 1 - its possible that its mechanical development ends up deviating spectacularly from the direction Sludge went in). On the other hand, if your name is Joseph McCullough and you're eying these parallel weird-Napoleonic-ish type games being developed and going "I want a piece of that but I'm not interested in playing a game with more than a dozen minis per side, and lets add some vampires and werewolves because why the feth not?" then you have something that can stand alone from the other two because it isn't competing in the same market space but it does have an audience overlap. Gamers looking to use those preexisting Turnip/Sludge minis (i.e. the audience) for a max 12 models per side adventure skirmish game will play The Silver Bayonet without ever having a second thought that they are making a tradeoff against the other game, because The Silver Bayonet exists in a separate and distinct market segment as a "skirmish game" vs the "battle" experience offered by the others.

So, if you're going to go and explore that same niche you better be offering something distinct to set yourself apart, otherwise you are going to be directly competing with what may well be stronger brands, and potentially better games. That differentiator can be a different theme (make it traditional fantasy or scifi and you're no longer competing directly with Turnip/Sludge, even if the rules might be 80% identical, its amazing what a difference a theme can make in the way a product is received), or a different mechanical angle or hook (this is a skirmish game vs a mass battle game, this game is played with rank and flank blocks of infantry in formation on square bases instead of circle based freeform maneuvering, this game is 15mm - lets all convert the new warlord games epic scale plastics into weird napoleonics! etc).

Its also worth mentioning that some concepts come with very strong identity associations behind it and attempting to capitalize upon it or drawing too many parallels to it comes with the risk of being labeled a generic off-brand imposter, or even ripping off something thats already more established. Some people are ok marketing themselves/their games that way, others - whether it be because of personal pride or legal concerns or high moral/ethical standards, etc. are not and don't want to touch or retread the same ground as another game because they don't want to draw those comparisons Sometimes thats for good reason, theres a certain degree of "guilt by association" that can result from things being too similar, negative drama/press with regards to one game could spillover into another if things are too closely related in the public conscious. Sometimes its, again, somewhat petty pride about being "first" or having a specific niche that nobody else can really interfere with.

In the case of Sludge/Turnip, Sludge followed so closely behind Turnip (in fact, IIRC Sludge put out beta rules even before Turnip did) that what would have surely been a very unique thematic niche/brand for Turnip has effectively been diluted, co-opted, and genercized by Sludge that its somewhat difficult to think of one without associating it with the other at this stage. There are some latecomers to one that are unfamiliar with the other, but interactions with both communities suggest that the two exist in a sort of parasitic symbiosis currently where people don't really differentiate between the two - although to me it seems the Sludge community is more open, welcoming, and embrasive of Turnip than the Turnip community is of Sludge. I suspect there is some degree of bad blood there, i.e. ("Turnip was first! Sludge ripped off Turnip!") behind it, which is an example of that off-brand imposter backfire effect in action.

Dang. I do not disagree with your analysis at all Chaos.

I will say this though. If you want to be a Game designer, you have to make games and people have to play them.

My first games were (and some say still are!) very derivative. That is okay by me as they are the games I want to play.

If you don't make any games you are not a game designer. If no one else plays your games, you are (border line on this one) not really a game designer.

Everything else, is secondary to the desire and need to make games.

Thsts true, a guy who releases a game that sells zero copies is still a game designer. A guy who talks about designing games but releases nothing is just a guy who talks about writing games.

I was not expecting such a response from my absent-minded post! Thank you for the dialogue chaps, it's been very eye-opening!

The direction I was looking to take my ruleset in was a move away from the Steampunk Platoon-level wargame I floated about a year ago. I'm interested to see if my system, that rolls morale+activation into one stat, is viable, but I feel it might be a little slow for a platoon level game. I personally was thinking about rolling 1860's-1890's warfare (rifled muskets, breechloading artillery, strategic evolutions etc) together with fantasy tropes (elves & orcs, magic etc). That should take it far enough away from the Turnip/Sludge "Grimdark Napoleonics" while creating a similar scaled game with perhaps some concepts that share an affinity with that genre. I am continuing to playtest very much as I finish building, converting and painting models, which means that ideas for expanding upon the core mechanics are evolving somewhat organically!

I looked at how I am qualifying/quantifying actions, as well as the casualty allocation rules.

At the moment, I have it so:
-Actions are voluntary or involuntary.
-Actions are declared or reflexive.
-Actions are free actions, half-actions or full actions.
-Actions have a primary target, and may have secondary targets.

So for example, Routing is an Involuntary Reflexive Free Action with Target: Player's Board Edge.

I may add notes that actions 'by default' are voluntary and declared.

I look forward to the final document Magic Juggler.

I have been painting like crazy. Otherwise, I have been thinking a lot about "end game" processes other than final turn= end.

Thinking about the tools we have as Game designers to add "character" into a Wargame.

Started making a small-scale TTWargame based around a D12 System for 40k in the style of DoWII but I'm enjoying the mechanics so much, I think I'm gonna make it into its own story and setting.

 The Warp Forge wrote:
Started making a small-scale TTWargame based around a D12 System for 40k in the style of DoWII but I'm enjoying the mechanics so much, I think I'm gonna make it into its own story and setting.

Glad to hear! Most designers start out trying to build a better 40K! Look at Andy Chambers! LOL

 Easy E wrote:

 The Warp Forge wrote:
Started making a small-scale TTWargame based around a D12 System for 40k in the style of DoWII but I'm enjoying the mechanics so much, I think I'm gonna make it into its own story and setting.

Glad to hear! Most designers start out trying to build a better 40K! Look at Andy Chambers! LOL

I've read several articles that have said a good way to start flexing your design muscles are to do tweaks on existing games. Sometimes it's easier to spot issues in other people's designs, and you're not as attached to stuff, so it's easier to toss and change mechanics up. One of the hardest, yet most important parts of game design is sometimes called "throwing out your babies."

More OT: I've not done any game design stuff lately. Been hunting down and gathering parts to build/update PC, partly in prep to get ZBrush so I can start learning digital sculpting to go along with my other plans...

Things have been super busy for the last couple of months. I've been leading the design of three different Magic sets, and I've gotten involved in writing creative text and reviewing art submissions as well. I'm amazed at how much reviewing sketches involves writing, to artists, "This illustration resembles human genitalia too much. Please revise."

The majority of my energy recently has been going into writing up a custom module for D&D. It's a good exercise in writing clear instructions whilst fitting as much story in as possible!

I must get back to the backburner at some point and maybe, just maybe, half-finish some of my games!

At a work exercise, we had to write directions for making coffee, then the instructor acted out the directions exactly as written.

That was an eye opening experience! Try it sometime.

 Valander wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

 The Warp Forge wrote:
Started making a small-scale TTWargame based around a D12 System for 40k in the style of DoWII but I'm enjoying the mechanics so much, I think I'm gonna make it into its own story and setting.

Glad to hear! Most designers start out trying to build a better 40K! Look at Andy Chambers! LOL

I've read several articles that have said a good way to start flexing your design muscles are to do tweaks on existing games. Sometimes it's easier to spot issues in other people's designs, and you're not as attached to stuff, so it's easier to toss and change mechanics up. One of the hardest, yet most important parts of game design is sometimes called "throwing out your babies."

More OT: I've not done any game design stuff lately. Been hunting down and gathering parts to build/update PC, partly in prep to get ZBrush so I can start learning digital sculpting to go along with my other plans...

Yeah, I'm already modding 5th edition but my D12 system is a whole different project. I'm thinking on making the setting for my own game more sci-fi Punk (Not Cyberpunk) Small-Scale Squad on Squad tabletop Wargame in a vein, tone and atmosphere similar to Rouge Trader back in 1st ed.

This weekend I did edits on the 1st Lay-outs of Wars of the Republic for Osprey. It was exciting to see which art they chose, and who provided miniature photos. It was nice seeing it as a "complete" package.

What's that? You want to pre-order it? Thanks! You can do that here....

https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/wars-of-the-republic-9781472844903/

Posted a WIP batrep for a space mecha game up on the blog today....

https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2021/05/battle-report-glittering-void-id-and.html

I went back and killed my babies on a War of the Worlds Survival Horror game today. It was a massacre, but the new version is much more thematic.

Edit: Also posted more Playtesting on Space Mecha games.....

https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2021/05/battle-report-glittering-void-targeted.html

You saved your babies to a separate document just in case they come in handy later, right?

This week I have been writing up the rules for my skirmish game so that I can playtest it. I have 2 different ideas for the turn structure so I'm writing up both so I can test both. I've been rewriting from scratch as my original notes became so cluttered, I could read halfway through a full set of rules before finding a note that just said "actually, no.", then finding the start of a new one!

Nurglitch wrote:
You saved your babies to a separate document just in case they come in handy later, right?

Standard practice! I have learned a lot better version control in the course of my career.

It's been consuming my time and attention for the last three months as I put it to bed and fought my way through to get it released on time!

At last, I can get back to design work again!

Today I've been working on an idea I've had for a game involving building doomsday weapons and holding the world to ransom. It's mainly card based, with some tokens for the board (possibly meeples, though I know people often dislike them!)

sculpted this dude that ive working for some weeks


[/img]

Finally got a buddy to come over and run through a playtest of the current WIP. Overall worked out well, and (as expected) identified some "babies to toss out," along with some possible tweak ideas, so I'll consider that a success.

Good work Valander! Getting your game on table is a huge milestone success.


I have been bitten by the RPG bug lately, so I sat down and wrote a 50K word RPG in about three weeks. It worked well so far with a few test runs, but next I will need a larger playtest.

I have also been bashing my head around the following:

1. Photos and artwork for a potential early 2022 release on the vault

2. Finished a playtest draft of a War of the Worlds survival horror game

3. Finishing models to support the release of Wars of the Republic from Osprey, which is available for pre-order on Amazon.

4. Whether making a free to play game is worth my time anymore

Mostly adding and noodling around in my concept folder to re-charge my brain before tackling some Campaign elements on a couple games.

 Easy E wrote:
Mostly adding and noodling around in my concept folder to re-charge my brain before tackling some Campaign elements on a couple games.

Campaigns are the hardest thing for me to grapple with. I know they're kind of a big part of a lot of modern skirmish games, but man, they just eat so much time in playtesting them thoroughly because of the wider variety of states you can wind up with. You have any tips for testing campaign rules? (That makes the assumption that all the rest of the mechanics are "done" whatever that means, and only really testing on the campaign growth and its affect on subsequent games.) Snowballing or rubber banding are the two hardest things for me to identify and deal with.

I am by NO means an expert, but here are a couple thoughts:

1. You must have catch-up mechanics to help avoid mis-matching

2. Use systems/processes that you know work as the baselines, i.e. steal from successful games

3. The campaign component is the PRIME place to tailor your game to a theme, period, or feel.

4. The core questions are; what happens to downed models, what do I get for surviving, and where does it all end?

Over the weekend I did a playtest on my old "platoon-level Steampunk wargame" for the first time since November 2019! In that time it has now morphed into a regimental-level Gunpowder Fantasy game (swords & sorcery + age of rifles, or as I put it to a friend, "if Bismarck was a warlock..."), as the system feels more realistic when the base unit is a Company instead of a section of troops, even if it is still only represented by a dozen 28mm models.

I made some rules adjustments on the fly, mostly debuffing certain abilities or weapons that felt too OP, and more properly clarifying the role of officers (who at the new formation level would be colonels instead of majors, which also feels more appropriate). Since moving house, I now finally have the space to play a game in a 6'x4' space instead of a 4'x4' space, and it really makes all the difference! Manoeuvre has become so much more tactical, weapon ranges feel right, and the area effect of an Officer (for the purposes of aiding activation and boosting Morale Value) can be the difference between holding on by the skin of your teeth or a whole flank collapsing as the units break and run.

In particular, I like how the "NCO's" function, attaching themselves to companies (though they will probably need a rename to suit the scale change). Doctors make damage bearable without making a company invulnerable, Song Majors can make an average Company the lynchpin of the battle-line without making the unit a tanky shooting-sink, and the Champion's 2 attacks in melee can give a unit the edge without making them irresistible on the charge (to be honest the Champion may be under-powered, more playtesting is needed).

It might not suit the playstyle of everyone, as it requires a little book-keeping at the beginning of every turn (working out each unit's MV and activating them in order, from highest to lowest), and players that don't like counters or trackers next to their units might want to have an off-table unit card, but the system itself, to me, is fairly watertight.

Next on the list is to upset that system by introducing unit profiles, which will allow for the introduction of fantasy racial traits for Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs and so on. Furthermore, I want to re-appraise the formations available to units - by increasing the scale of the game, a lot of individual model weapons, such as bayonets, have become largely irrelevant, meaning that, RAW, almost all of the formations are no longer of any use, or at least need re-writing to make them tactically viable. After a couple more playtests, I'd like to open the game up to a limited number of playtesters in an Open Alpha, to get feedback from other gamers and designers.

Apologies for the text-wall, but coming back to the system after 1.5 years and being able to relearn the core system quickly made me quite excited.

At the scale you are at, you may want to look at how Nappie and similar "Big Battalion" games use National Traits to adjust things rather than stat line mods.

I have been doing a bit of work on my skirmish wargame again, and have come up with a much better approach to close combat which better reflects the mechanics I've put together for shooting, so that it's not two entirely different mechanics to learn!

I'm now working on the finer points of how the units are presented (EG what stats they have, what order I want to present them in, and so on) so that I can make some trial units and do a playtest!

 Easy E wrote:
At the scale you are at, you may want to look at how Nappie and similar "Big Battalion" games use National Traits to adjust things rather than stat line mods.

Not to dominate the thread, but quickly: I had considered national traits, but I do believe that there should be a statline for units, and having a national trait is fine if your army is mono-racial, but you wanted to pull an Oathmark and have, say, a couple of Orc companies, and Elf company and the rest being Humans or Dwarves, then a single trait might not cut the mustard. The differences in statline would largely only be changing movement values, the MV value per model before training is factored in (Conscript, Regular and Guard training will confer additional MV to a Company), and perhaps a couple of race-specific abilities (Orcs being stronger on the charge, Elves being better disciplined and thus having a bonus to activation etc).

That assumes the physiological differences between orcs, humans, elves, and dwarves are meaningfully different. I know its a longstanding fantasy trope that orcs are all significantly stronger, elves are significantly faster, etc. etc. etc. but tbh I think thats all kind of a load of bs.

chaos0xomega wrote:
That assumes the physiological differences between orcs, humans, elves, and dwarves are meaningfully different. I know its a longstanding fantasy trope that orcs are all significantly stronger, elves are significantly faster, etc. etc. etc. but tbh I think thats all kind of a load of bs.

Making all factions the same is a good way to make a game homogenous and dull. Even chess has it's reasons for picking white or black!

Whilst "Orcs are strong, elves are fast, dwarves are stoic" etc. is a cliché, it's also a good way to make the decisions made about army choice matter for reasons except aesthetic. I resent the idea that, for example, if an orc wielding a greatsword makes an atatck, it can be expected to be as effective as a gnome with a greatsword. One should be better at it than the other.

Physiologically, orcs are usually more predisposed for muscle than elves. That's meaningful, if they are trying to do the same thing - lift a heavy object.

Right, but you're assuming the differences are *meaningful*, i.e. noticeable.

To put it into 40k terms, if you stat a baseline human warrior at strength 3 and you believe that an orcs predisposition to greater strength means that they will be stronger than a human, then you are presumably stating the orc at strength 4. Is the average orc really 33% stronger than the average human as suggested by the stat difference? Or is it really more like 5-10% stronger, which is more realistic and believable? And if it is only 5-10% stronger, can you justify exaggerating that to 33% by giving them the extra point of strength? Does a 5-10% difference in capability actually matter enough to warrant or justify representation if you ruleset also has to account for other critters, like say a giant or a dragon, that have a legitimate claim to being several times stronger than an actual human? Does your system have the granularity to even detect a 5-10% capability difference while simultaneously scaling across a wide enough spectrum to account for the strength of something as insignificant as a common housecat or as powerful as a giant or a dragon, etc?

To say nothing of the fact that its silly to assume that a predisposition leads to homogeneity. Put me next to a body builder and see how similar we are strength wise. It makes sense to assume that despite a genetic predisposition towards strength or speed or whatever orcs aren't going to all be stronger and elves aren't going to all be faster, etc. Even within real world militaries you will find huge gaps in strength and capability between any two soldiers. In medieval times (i.e. the era of fantasy) before the advent of concepts like basic training, physical fitness standards, or exercise, these gaps were even more pronounced - the average soldier up until about 100-150 years ago wasn't any stronger, faster, tougher, etc. than your average civilian.

Also, you need to play a wider variety of games if you think games which lack racial stat differences or whatever results in homogenous and dull gameplay.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Right, but you're assuming the differences are *meaningful*, i.e. noticeable.

To put it into 40k terms, if you stat a baseline human warrior at strength 3 and you believe that an orcs predisposition to greater strength means that they will be stronger than a human, then you are presumably stating the orc at strength 4. Is the average orc really 33% stronger than the average human as suggested by the stat difference? Or is it really more like 5-10% stronger, which is more realistic and believable? And if it is only 5-10% stronger, can you justify exaggerating that to 33% by giving them the extra point of strength? Does a 5-10% difference in capability actually matter enough to warrant or justify representation if you ruleset also has to account for other critters, like say a giant or a dragon, that have a legitimate claim to being several times stronger than an actual human? Does your system have the granularity to even detect a 5-10% capability difference while simultaneously scaling across a wide enough spectrum to account for the strength of something as insignificant as a common housecat or as powerful as a giant or a dragon, etc?

To say nothing of the fact that its silly to assume that a predisposition leads to homogeneity. Put me next to a body builder and see how similar we are strength wise. It makes sense to assume that despite a genetic predisposition towards strength or speed or whatever orcs aren't going to all be stronger and elves aren't going to all be faster, etc. Even within real world militaries you will find huge gaps in strength and capability between any two soldiers. In medieval times (i.e. the era of fantasy) before the advent of concepts like basic training, physical fitness standards, or exercise, these gaps were even more pronounced - the average soldier up until about 100-150 years ago wasn't any stronger, faster, tougher, etc. than your average civilian.

Also, you need to play a wider variety of games if you think games which lack racial stat differences or whatever results in homogenous and dull gameplay.

I just think that if you have the option to use dwarves, orcs, elves or humans, then it becomes a less interesting decision if the decision doesn't also impact the gameplay.

With the 33% strength difference, you are assuming that the strength operates on a scale starting at 0 strength = doesn't even have muscles, is just a skeleton, cannot move. Strength 0 could be the equivalent of the strength of a child, which is t osay they can move themselves and light objects but basically nothing else. I wouldn't say a teenager (Strength 1) is infinitely stronger than a child, but that's what you'd get by assuming it's a multiplicable scale, and not a numeric representation of a range.

If you assume that the only creatures worth giving strength stats are those expected to be involved in fighting, IE the warriors; dwarf, orc, elf, then you might make the weakest warrior (a gnome) strength 1 and the strongest (Orc) strength 10. That doesn't mean the orc is 10x stronger than the gnome, it just means they are a lot stronger than them.

As for having a range sufficient for cats to dragons, that all depends on the nature of your game! I agree that if your game focuses on the broader scale of things, with "people" fighting legendary monsters, giants, ogres, and mice, then their comparative strength is largely irrelevant - take the you next to a body builder point. In a competition of lifting weights, you're (I assume) not matched, but in a competition for fighting an enraged rhino with scythes on its flanks, the difference in strength between you is largely irrelevant compared to the strength of your foe - in its eyes, you're equal! But if you're looking solely at people fighting people, any slight difference in strength could be relevant!

As for assuming genetic predisposition to a specific trait, that's entirely up to the writer, and we tend to assume every person in a wargame unit is average - you don't tend to single out each individual models strengths and weaknesses!

As for the concept that the average soldier isn't stronger than a peasant, and that they had no training - where are you getting that info from? It's possible to tell the skeletons of archers from swordsmen simply by how much bone structure there is around one shoulder due to the muscles built up to fire the bows. That's due to their regular training in using their weapons.

If anything, the gap between civilian and soldier these days is more pronounced because the civilians are spending all their time sitting around, watching TV, eating junk food and getting fat, instead of turning a grindstone by hand for 4+ hours a day just to make enough flour to feed the kids, whilst also having to work a farm or a smithy or any manner of hard, physical labour. The peasants of yesteryear could take the civilians of nowadays in a fight, no contest!

 some bloke wrote:

As for the concept that the average soldier isn't stronger than a peasant, and that they had no training - where are you getting that info from?

Its historically true (ironically if you go back far enough to the ancient period sport and physical training becomes more relevant again though still not to todays standards). For much of the past 1000-1500 or so years, up until relatively recently, being fit for service meant you had four limbs, two eyes, and no obvious physical ailments or mental debilitations. There was no requirement to run 1.5 miles in under 10 minutes or do 40 pushups and 60 situps. When you were drafted into service you weren't put on an exercise regimen to make you strong and fit enough to keep up on a march while lugging all your kit, etc. You were simply expected to do as you were told or suffer the consequences if you didn't have the physical capability to do so.

In many cases, if your role in a military formation required some special skill or physical capability, those skills and abilities were essentially pre-existing and identified when you were inducted based on simple tests (i.e. lift this stone, or carry that sheep over your back across this stone wall, etc.). I.E. If you were made to be a javelin thrower it was because your build at induction was conducive to being one. If you were a pikemen it was because your build was again conducive to being one. If you were an archer or a horseman it was because you already knew how to use a bow or ride a horse (and often you already had a horse available to ride). etc. etc. etc. Any training you received as part of a military force in those days (which varied from not a lot to quite a bit over time, place, and how special you were), were focused on developing skills, technique, and discipline i.e. drill, not on development of strength, stamina, or fitness.

A good example of this is running. Until recently you basically only ever ran for survival (be it running from something or because you had to run long-distance to hunting grounds, etc. or because it was your job to be someone who ran (messengers and proto-professional athletes). It wasn't until the 1960s that running as a general form of physical exercise actually became a thing, so much so that you can find old newspaper clippings from the era of people writing about how strange it is that people are doing it, as well as incident blotters about people who were stopped by police because of how strange the behavior was considered to be. In the context of the military, running only became a part of basic military fitness training regimes in the late 19th century, starting with the founding of the british Army Gymnastics Staff in 1860, from which it spread and became more or less standard in modern military forces.

It's possible to tell the skeletons of archers from swordsmen simply by how much bone structure there is around one shoulder due to the muscles built up to fire the bows. That's due to their regular training in using their weapons.

Thats only really true of certain types of archers and bowmen, mainly english longbowmen - who trained, by law, from the time they were 7 years of age for the purposes of both hunting and defense. Thats an exception more than it is a rule in terms of the physical impact. In general, archery was a skill practiced by civilians rather than soldiers and warriors, both for competition and for the hunt, because training competent archers took more time than fedual and pre-feudal armies had available. I.E. - The military didn't train archers, it conscripted them. Competition and such training was encouraged by governments and the nobility however to ensure that there was a ready supply of skilled archers available for conscription into the military.

But all of that basically feeds into my central point, the average soldier of the time was no more or less physically fit than the average civilian - the civilian archers were doing the same training the military archers were doing, because they were the same people. More generally, while military troops did training the training wasn't focused on developing physical fitness or strength until the mid/late 19th century - it wasn't until the Crimean War and American Civil War that armies began to realize that the lack of general physical fitness was resulting in significant amounts of unnececssary casualties. While they may certainly have derived some indirect physical benefit from that training (yeah, learning to swing a sword around or march in formation with pike and shield will have some physical benefits), the majority of civilians in the agrarian pre-industiral era were largely engaged in physical labor and would have derived comparable physical benefit from simply trying to survive. Add to that that for the vast majority of regulars military training was not continuous - i.e. you were trained to a basic level of proficiency and then cut-loose to fulfill your function. You might undergo periodic refresher training or drills prior to a major battle or offensive, or if you were a feudal conscript being called back to service after the harvest, etc. to re-familiarize yourself with military drill, but constant training and practice during peacetime as it exists today was basically unheard of outside of maybe the Roman legions (and even then nowhere near to the same extent as today), and during wartime - once you were on the march - there wasn't really time for drill or training as the troops were responsible for hunting, foraging, cooking, cleaning, setting up and tearing down camp, etc. It was a full time job just surviving.

So I've just gotten home from a weeks holiday to Wales, packed with board games. Spent a whole day in Firestorm Games in Cardiff, which was the best gaming shop I've ever been in!

Come up with two new concepts for games, which I am trying to work out the exact mechanics for. They are both card games, so should be reasonably simple to make and (hopefully) publish!

Since I got home I've been hand-drawing cards for one of the games, to see if I can get the mechanics nailed down! If it works, it's got a wonderfully large design space to expand into, which could mean it can be pretty big to begin with (I always prefer games where you don't use every card in a game, so there's new things to come back to) and can be expanded in the future!

I have to keep telling myself not to do anything with the other one until this one is at least ready to playtest!

The joy of a new project!

I spent a day getting a Patreon all set-up. Next step is to plan for a roll-out.

Yesterday I finished making my prototype cards, so now I just need to play a couple of games with it and see if it works!

Meanwhile, time to start work on a different game...

 Easy E wrote:
The joy of a new project!

I spent a day getting a Patreon all set-up. Next step is to plan for a roll-out.

So it is Launched, but I have done nothing to promote it yet.

Have any of you launched a Patreon before, and do you have any ideas or theories on the best way to do it?

I would like a successful roll-out.

Congrats on getting the Patreon set up @Easy E. I put one up myself about a year ago. For myself, I did a bit of social media mentioning and so on, but didn't really push very hard, so consequently really only got a couple of friends as backers, lol. I'm not very good at marketing (definitely a skill I need to get better with...), and with so many out there relying just on the google type thing or searching on Patreon's website isn't going to net you many patrons.

Also, it seems the most successful Patreons also have regular updates, again something I'm not terribly great with. Did you set it up as a monthly thing or per-release thing? I think with the monthly thing, there's more pressure to keep a regular push of something out, otherwise people don't see a reason for keeping subbed. The per-release thing might be better for some, but then you still have the pressure of regular releases if you want any kind of consistent monthly intake.

If you figure out a really good pattern, share. Good luck!

Yeah, Patreon seems like a full time job. If you're not a well defined and consistent content schedule it seems like a real struggle to attract patrons.

In other news, more OT, I got some more playtesting in over the weekend on the current project, and feel it went pretty smoothly (got a different tester this time, so different viewpoints). I mostly need to write up and test some more scenarios, then I think I'm ready to start doing layout and collecting more artwork. Though before that, I should probably try to arrange some more blind playtests.

I manage to make Blog content weekly, so I am going to modify what content goes where and see what I can do. I also have a back log of content for playtesting and such.

 Easy E wrote:
I manage to make Blog content weekly, so I am going to modify what content goes where and see what I can do. I also have a back log of content for playtesting and such.

That can be a good flow, I think. Something I've seen some Patreons do is release stuff "early" for supporters (videos, articles, etc.) then like weeks or a month later make it on their "public" side, whatever that is.

Did some more testing yesterday, after deciding I didn't quite like the way ranged attacks were working in comparison to melee (as far as flow anyway). Tried out a couple of different options, and tossed out both the first and second in favor of a third (despite me really liking aspects of 1 and 2; they just didn't work the way I wanted them to here). So, couple babies out the window, as they say, but I think the game will be better for it.

Good.

For some reason, I have been working on a L5R mini-campaign that I will probably never run.

I guess it is just keeping the batteries fresh and the avoiding getting into a rules writing rut...... yeah, that's the ticket!

Oh is this a topic? I tinker with game design all the time. Might have some stuff in my sig...

Currently on vacation in a cabin in the woods and hammering out a Warcry replacement with less restrictive force selection.

I'll have to take the time to read this topic through.

So much last minute work with our KS launching in a week to mass produce our game - I have a podcast this Thursday and finalizing some ad space. And, constantly tweaking the miniature prototypes. You can check out the KS preview page for Minotaur Catacombs here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mdsw/minotaur-catacombs?ref=aqvy44&token=669dbb8c

Good luck MDSW!

Wellp, I started on another game design today.

This one is based on a modification of a previous game design (still unfinished) with a different focus/scope, which is in turn a modification of another previous game design (my magnus opus, which is also still unfinished) with another difference in focus/scope, etc.

They say to kill your darlings, and I've actively avoided doing so with regards to the aforementioned magnus opus, but in practice I feel that the transition from my original concept to the latest iteration of the underlying "engine" has resulted in me doing exactly that in practice, as shifts and changes in subject matter, scale, scope, context, and audience has necessitated simplification in some areas, trends towards more familiar mechanics in other areas, and in some cases outright elimination of entire aspects of the design.

In some ways I view this as a positive thing, as it will hopefully allow me to work back in reverse starting with a simpler and more familiar base upon which to introduce new concepts and build up an audience towards something that they might otherwise not be as comfortable with.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Wellp, I started on another game design today.

This one is based on a modification of a previous game design (still unfinished) with a different focus/scope, which is in turn a modification of another previous game design (my magnus opus, which is also still unfinished) with another difference in focus/scope, etc.

They say to kill your darlings, and I've actively avoided doing so with regards to the aforementioned magnus opus, but in practice I feel that the transition from my original concept to the latest iteration of the underlying "engine" has resulted in me doing exactly that in practice, as shifts and changes in subject matter, scale, scope, context, and audience has necessitated simplification in some areas, trends towards more familiar mechanics in other areas, and in some cases outright elimination of entire aspects of the design.

In some ways I view this as a positive thing, as it will hopefully allow me to work back in reverse starting with a simpler and more familiar base upon which to introduce new concepts and build up an audience towards something that they might otherwise not be as comfortable with.

Gad, I love/hate when a new game idea pops into your head and just won't go away until you flesh it out. I already have a new idea and it is bursting my head to get out on paper, but need to focus on our current KS game...

Had to take time to weed out some Spam on my blog comments. It snuck in on some older posts.

Oddly enough, my Frostgrave Review and my Men of Bronze-Etruscans post attract the most spam posts. No idea why.

Been making Supplements of sub-factions for OnePageRules GrimDark Future.

I have now made rules for

Midnight Brothers (Night Lords)
Hell-Pirates (Red Corsairs)
Holy Crusaders (Black Templars)

That is where I started my journey, making mods and hacks to existing games I liked. I still do it!

Have fun!

I spent some time pimping Castles in the Sky as it is up for Pre-order on many sites. It came up earlier than expected!

I am also preparing a blitz of content focused on Wars of the Republic.

I want the Osprey Wargaming Series to be successful, as it is the best place to see new ideas and concepts, a great intro to different genres, and a fantastic place for wargame creators to get started.

I made some tweaks to an *Updated* Persian Army List for various games to go on my Patreon page.

I also had an epiphany about my Korean Air War game regarding the action economy, pilot differentiation, and formation flying that I hammered out in the rules. Now, I just need to get models on table to test it out.

Spent time organizing a Book Launch party for Wars of the Republic locally, and the logistics involved with that.

Maybe I can get some local folks to pre-order.

Hmm, didn't know about this thread until now. I began making a Table Top Skirmish game based on my Angaran Chronicles setting months ago. It's more setting/miniatures agnostic, but it's still based on the Angaran Chronicles. More around character customisation a cross between a TT Skirmish game and a PP RPG might make an expansion to make it an RPG. Was playtesting it and having fun doing it and learning a lot. But haven't done much on it for weeks and weeks. Might get back on that soon! Mostly because I've been working toward self-publishing my 1st Angaran Chronicles novel on Amazon. This thread kinda reminded me about it lol thanks!

 Easy E wrote:
I made some tweaks to an *Updated* Persian Army List for various games to go on my Patreon page.

I also had an epiphany about my Korean Air War game regarding the action economy, pilot differentiation, and formation flying that I hammered out in the rules. Now, I just need to get models on table to test it out.

Did someone say Persia?!?

Hard to find any wargaming material on Persia. Are we talking ancient, or pre-Iran? What system is this for? Do you plan on a standalone release?

The past few days I've been painting my Chaos Cultists from my Assassinorum: Execution Force box that I've been using as proxies for playtesting my TT Skirmish game. I tried to give them a colour scheme that would fit to make them be used as Chaos Cultists and Jaroaite Extremists, but sorta made them look a bit like they're a Necromunda gang lol. As they're a bit like the Continent of Angara's version of the KKK and the colours of the Jaroaian religion are mostly white and gold I was originally going to paint them that way as well as brown leathers. But decided against that. Now they're sorta khaki and grey with brown leathers. I decided they'd forgo white as they don't believe themselves "worthy" of the colours of Jaroai that only His holy priests are so pure (the extreme ones they agree with, anyway)

That's fifteen out of the thirty, the 2nd half I'm painting different colours, close but not too close to allow us to both use them together and against each other for playtesting horde vs horde skirmishes. One's Jaroaite and the other Jaroaian sects that butt heads from time to time over theological disagreements.

 SkavenLord wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I made some tweaks to an *Updated* Persian Army List for various games to go on my Patreon page.

I also had an epiphany about my Korean Air War game regarding the action economy, pilot differentiation, and formation flying that I hammered out in the rules. Now, I just need to get models on table to test it out.

Did someone say Persia?!?

Hard to find any wargaming material on Persia. Are we talking ancient, or pre-Iran? What system is this for? Do you plan on a standalone release?

Ancients from the Cyrus to Darius. It is on my Patreon page at the moment, and slotted to go into a supplement that I want to put out late next year on the Ionian Revolt.


Also, tested the Korean Air War rules with the changes I made and I did not like. The hatchet came out once again on those.

Since the Holidays are coming up, I like to play some sort of Dexterity based "flick" game with my family. This year, I decided to give it a Naval flare!

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/375637/Warships-Paper-Ships-Steel-Resolve

With Wars of the Republic out, I am busily working away on my next three projects:

1. Castles in the Sky- Osprey - Still working with them on editing, but the first pass drafts look great! The artwork and photos from Brigade are top notch!

2. White Star/Red Star - Blood and Spectacles - I have collected a lot of Public Domain photos for the book and started laying it out. One good thing about modern historical works is that by an act of Congress, all DoD photos are public domain. That means there are plenty of photos of USAF aircraft and Korean war actions I can draw from. I also purchased some Tumbling Dice Korean War aircraft to paint up for the book.

3. Fury of the Northman - Blood and Spectacles- I have been laying out and doing post-production on this Viking Age rulebook that uses Men of Bronze/Wars of the Republic as a base. I have a Victrix viking army painted for this game, and I have been editing and laying in some photos, as well as public domain works I can find. I ordered some Dark Age Irish from Wargame Atlantic to help me flesh out the book with more model photos.

I expect all of these games to come out sometime next year, with some luck!

I shot off a 50% retainer for cover art for my solo/co-op horror skirmish game I've been working on for a while now. Hopefully that will prompt me to do some more final playtesting and possibly start layout over the winter holidays, since I have some time off. Nothing like putting up some money (and not a small amount; good art is not cheap) to light a fire under one's rump.

Indeed! I look forward to seeing it!

finished playtesting period of 4 decks in a kaiju brawler of a famous IP today. Sadly, 3 significant concerns of mechanical abberations were caught, so the submission to the producer will have a likewise significant delay to address this. Better delayed and fixed, than early and broken.

Re-worked the list of biological adaptations and evolutionary/inherited traits for the titular creatures in the Aliens skirmish game I've been tinkering with (for what seems like an eternity).

I am reworking morale in my system, so rather than it being a 'pool' of dice on the enemy unit that can be spent on "fixing" individual die rolls, it instead is a "counter" that can be spent to debuff individual stats when said unit is about to Resolve an Action.

Made a QRS for Wars of the Republic and am sending over to Osprey for their site.

Got Castles in the Sky V2 to look over and edit a bit. I am excited because it was green lit to be 80 pages! That will make it the largest of the Blue Books ever! Claim to fame..... or something.

Finally, I also painted up some aircraft for post-production work on White Star/Red Star.

 Easy E wrote:


Got Castles in the Sky V2 to look over and edit a bit. I am excited because it was green lit to be 80 pages! That will make it the largest of the Blue Books ever! Claim to fame..... or something.

Three thoughts/questions:

1. I thought the blue book series were fixed to 64 pages per book?
2. I thought you were on like v4.5 of Castles in the Sky?
3. Isn't the game due out in June? I would have thought things would be fairly locked-in this close to release.

1. Yes. That is why I was so surprised. The editor's themselves drove for the change.

2. Yes, but we cut out content to hit the word count. The cut material was going to go online, and still probably will!

3. Yes! After putting in the brand-new photos, brand-new artwork, and all the rules, they did not like the end result I guess. The deadlines are starting to loom and I have a lot or work to do!

Do not worry, I WILL hit deadline.

You better, feels like every time I blink the deadline gets pushed another 6 months, wasn't it initially scheduled for release in like February/March of last year?

BUT ALSO, why not try to push for one of those hardcover deals like Gamma Wolves got?

I think they always planned 2022, and I initially thought it was Nov 2022! Therefore, they pushed it up.

Well, if it sells well ..... who knows!

I have been painting up Korean War aircraft after finishing the edits to Castles in the Sky. I was excited to see that I could add the Ottoman Fleet back into the book!

Got the color sketch for my cover art from my contracted artist, and super excited about its direction. Probably get the finished full version in a couple weeks, which should kick me in the butt to get going on more layout and playtesting, etc.

Got the final cover art from my artist for my WIP solo/co-op horror skirmish game, and wow. Hopefully after the Adepticon crunch of getting some stuff painted, etc., I'll come back and crank through some remaining scenario playtesting and start layout.

I would love to see it! Super exciting!

If you want to share, I can PM you my email.

 Easy E wrote:
I would love to see it! Super exciting!

If you want to share, I can PM you my email.

I suppose I can share it here. I mean, I should be doing more to try to build up hype and marketing, which I'm terrible at.

Here's the elevator pitch (which I'd love feedback on too):

Strange horrors stalk intrepid characters in this co-operative miniatures game set in a Lovecraftian era. Players work together to escape hordes of zombies, stop cultists’ dark rituals, discover the secret behind mysterious abductions, along with many other terrifying encounters. Players can weave together epic stories using the campaign system, which allows characters to grow their skills, but may also risk losing their minds.

And the cover, pre-title markup, etc.

Very nice cover art! It pays to have professionals do it. You may also want to consider having a professional do the title lay-out as well. I have seen a few articles about how a strong, professional cover design can boost sales; especially for indie books.

 Easy E wrote:
Very nice cover art! It pays to have professionals do it. You may also want to consider having a professional do the title lay-out as well. I have seen a few articles about how a strong, professional cover design can boost sales; especially for indie books.

Thanks! Luckily, I do have a friend who is a graphic designer, and I have taken some graphic design/pre-print classes in the past, so I'm not a complete noob on that front. But yes, cover art and layout is really important for boosting sales, especially at physical locations. Since this will likely be mostly POD (at least initially) that will be a little less of a factor, but not by much. Either way, any layouts I do will get eyeballed by some pro contacts I have.

That looks great! I'm excited to see the finished product. Lovecraftian horror is right down my alley.

I'm pretty excited about the final sized prototypes we printed. Things are really starting to come together. These will hopefully be in the hands of our studio painter within the week to test color schemes.

Hello. Today I made an order for one plot in a role-playing game. I have been doing cartography for a long time and today I made a sector map for the world of Warhammer 40k for the first time. I have a page on fiverr and I would like to have support for me. Thanks!

I put White Star/Red Star up on the Wargame Vault. Doing pretty well, so far a top seller after a couple of days. I do not expect that to last long!

If you are interested:
https://www.wargamevault.com/browse.php?keywords=blood+and+spectacles&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=

For reference, from start to finish White Star/Red Star took 2.5 years.

That is one big goal down for the year. Now, onto finishing touches on my Viking based wargame.

Agonizing over activation mechanics for a 40k full rewrite.

Welcome to the club.

We all start out trying to write a better 40K!

 Easy E wrote:
Welcome to the club.

We all start out trying to write a better 40K!

I am proud to say I have entirely skipped that phase of development lol. The first time I played a wargame other than 40k (which was very early in my wargaming career) I knew immediately that 40k was not only not the game for me, but also very limited in its approach to what a tabletop miniatures wargames is or could be.

Unfortunately, I've spent the last ~15 years chasing a dream and not finishing a single design concept lol.

More TTS playtesting! Fine tuning all of the small details and reworking the scenarios for more unique and interesting games.

I have to say, I have not been spending much time lately on new stuff. My focus has been on the less sexy side of things with finalizing and trying to get stuff to market, advertising, and trying to build a big and stronger wargaming community locally.

Grinding type work, which is not much fun; and even less fun to talk about online!

 Easy E wrote:
Welcome to the club.

We all start out trying to write a better 40K!

Indeed we do , and what is more - most of us succeedes Where we fail is having huge amounts of cash and 30 years of market presence.

Back to the topic, for a couple of months now, I’ve been meticulously converting my few years worth of notes into specific wordings and a rough draft on rulebook structure of a theme-less wargame „engine”. It has some unique features, the biggest of which is always rolling only two dice regardless of number of attacks to resolve.

I thought of some things and then didn't write them down

But then I got to work on some actual level scripting and scenario design. Different project tho.

I have been working on my Homer's Heroes: Bronze Age Bad Boys set, and adding Mythological elements to the base game.

I started working on a set of rules which can be used to adapt 40k to a 10mm scale rather than 1", so that the game can be played on a normal 6'x 4' board and there is plenty of space to manouver!

Hopefully it's gong to be a good little project!

Came up with a way to for damage to work in a sci-fi dungeon crawler I'm working on in my spare time. It looks like I'll be going with a 2-tier system (quick overview here mainly because I haven't actually written it down anywhere else yet):

Light wounds - apply a -1 penalty to an attribute of the player's choice (all player characters have 5 attributes). The number of light wounds they can sustain is equal to their Physique attribute - once this limit is reached all light wounds count as severe. If an attribute is reduced to 0 by light wounds, the character is dead/incapacitated.

Severe wounds - for each severe wound, the character loses 1 action point per activation (from a starting total of 3). These are inflicted as described above, by crits (10% chance), or by certain weapons. If the character is reduced to zero actions, they are dead/incapacitated.

I began to write down the rules of my Angaran Chronicles TT Skirmish game (finally) in a Google Doc. It's all locked up in my, albeit thick, skull but it's good to finally have it in written form lol

Working on my first Kickstarter campaign for the NUTS WW2 skirmish system from Two Hour Wargames -- been in process for several years now. It started off as one campaign book idea, but then I read about the British 5th Infantry Division -- called the "Globe Trotters" because they fought the Axis in 1940 as part of the BEF, was reconstituted and then say action in North Africa, India, the Liberation of Madagascar, the Sicily Campaign and then Anzio, and finally finished the War as part of Second Army's push into Germany in March-April 1945.

Wow! How come my wargames don't reflect that? Given that NUTS is a squad-to-platoon level game, why not add that element? Ed at THW said, sure, go for it, and that led to the creation of the "Your War!" Campaign system that links your Missions into a Campaign, and those Campaigns into other Campaigns that could even see your unit transferred to another Theatre of the War. So now I've written four Campaign books -- Western Front, Eastern Front, Desert War (which also includes the East Africa Campaign and how to conduct an LRDG campaign) and War Against Japan (which includes a lot of campaigns and scenarios for Burma and the PNG campaigns).

Here's a blog post on the Desert War book: https://sbminisguy.wordpress.com/2022/09/23/nuts-kickstart-campaign-showcase-nuts-desert-war/

Anyways, thanks for letting me ramble -- hoping to get this out the door in January!

I finally finished painting my five main character minis for my novel Diesel Punk/Dark Fantasy series The Angaran Chronicles.

From left to right it's Jelcine, Emilia (and her in werewolf form), Anargrin, Raleas and Wilom.







By playing Space Station Zero it inspired me to think of a new initiative system before I had a D&D style initiative where before each round the players roll 2d10+Intuition stat for each unit in their control. The highest rolled unit didn't have to go first, they could hold their turn to interrupt an opponent's unit during the round. It was slow, and some players found it outright annoying, but I didn't want the basic TT Skirmish game roll. The new system is that at the beginning of each round the players roll a 1d10 to see who chooses a unit 1st or 2nd. Then the players roll for initiative between these two units to see which one goes first.

EG: I roll a ten, whereas my opponent rolls a 3, so I make him choose first. He chooses an eight-man mob of Jaroaite extremists with sub-machine guns in the middle of the table so I choose Wilom, hoping to throw a fireball into their midst to kill a couple and make them lose morale (making them only about to use a half-action) We both roll 2d10 and add intuition. Wilom has 2d10+7 whereas the mob are baseline humans but have used their Human Adaptability trait to decrease one stat by 2 (which they put on Intuition) so they roll 2d10+2. I roll a 17 total, but the mob rolls 18 so Wilom has to go 2nd. So after that, I have to choose a unit 1st and my opponent gets to choose 2nd and back and forth until I we run out of units. If one side runs out of units first the other player gets to just choose freely.

I have to playtest it yet, but it seems much better and faster than my old initiative system lol

I am glad to see people forging ahead with projects! I personally do not have too much to show at the moment.

My last brush with COVID has left me a bit listless for a few.....

The NUTS! KS campaign full Preview Page is finally live!

This is been a focus project for several years, and now the full NUTS Kickstarter Campaign Preview Page is now live and ready for review. Scheduled for early January, this NUTS Kickarter Campaign introduces a major expansion of the NUTS tabletop WW2 miniatures skirmish system that's designed for Solo, Co-Op and Head-to-Head gaming.

The Campaign includes:
* The new “Your War” campaign that lets you track your Star’s progress across the entire War
* Four new campaign books covering all aspects of the War
* Stretch goals that include an update and expansion of the Hell Hath No Fury tank combat and campaign system, x12 new Battle Boards, a massive new self-contained NUTS! Weird War book with *every* genre of weirdness you can imagine, and a new NUTS Mission card deck.

Click here to check out the Preview Page -- and don't forget to click "Follow" to get Campaign updates and announcements: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1505930681/nuts-ww2-skirmish-combat-tabletop-system-your-war?ref=7pqtnk&token=b3724ae7

EasyEight wrote:
The NUTS! KS campaign full Preview Page is finally live!

This is been a focus project for several years, and now the full NUTS Kickstarter Campaign Preview Page is now live and ready for review. Scheduled for early January, this NUTS Kickarter Campaign introduces a major expansion of the NUTS tabletop WW2 miniatures skirmish system that's designed for Solo, Co-Op and Head-to-Head gaming.

The Campaign includes:
* The new “Your War” campaign that lets you track your Star’s progress across the entire War
* Four new campaign books covering all aspects of the War
* Stretch goals that include an update and expansion of the Hell Hath No Fury tank combat and campaign system, x12 new Battle Boards, a massive new self-contained NUTS! Weird War book with *every* genre of weirdness you can imagine, and a new NUTS Mission card deck.

Click here to check out the Preview Page -- and don't forget to click "Follow" to get Campaign updates and announcements: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1505930681/nuts-ww2-skirmish-combat-tabletop-system-your-war?ref=7pqtnk&token=b3724ae7

Congrats, mate! The Lovecraftian expansion appeals to me, indeed!

Good luck! Always exciting to get this far in a project!

Thanks, it's been a labor of love for several years!

Not necessarily today, but I'm looking at doing some demos of Conqueror: Fields of Victory for posting here so folks can see how it works.

I'm also contemplating how to publish and market a map-based cardgame that simulates current global hotspots. It's been extensively playtested, it's just a question of figuring how best to get it out into the marketplace.

For example: are people still interested in physical components, or do they just want rules and a .pdf of the map so they can come up with their own tokens? It uses standard card decks, but what the various card means has changed. If I'm going to make a full game, creating proprietary cards seems like a better idea.

In my experience, people want everything they need to play and do not want to make anything themselves. That includes any QRS, Tokens, or play aids.

 Easy E wrote:
In my experience, people want everything they need to play and do not want to make anything themselves. That includes any QRS, Tokens, or play aids.

I agree, and working out the packaging/components is something I have to dig into.

 Easy E wrote:
In my experience, people want everything they need to play and do not want to make anything themselves. That includes any QRS, Tokens, or play aids.

Great comment, I plan to add that to the Campaign. Great handle, btw

I had been working on a siege system and today's effort will be restoring the snack canisters to the kitchen at my wife's insistence. She understands that going forward, they are not to be tossed out when empty as they will make excellent towers for the castle.

Woo-hoo! I just launched my first KS Campaign, come check it out - comments (and backing ) welcome!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1505930681/nuts-ww2-skirmish-combat-tabletop-system-your-war?ref=discovery&term=NUTS

EasyEight wrote:
Woo-hoo! I just launched my first KS Campaign, come check it out - comments (and backing ) welcome!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1505930681/nuts-ww2-skirmish-combat-tabletop-system-your-war?ref=discovery&term=NUTS

Congrats, and best of luck!

 Valander wrote:

EasyEight wrote:
Woo-hoo! I just launched my first KS Campaign, come check it out - comments (and backing ) welcome!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1505930681/nuts-ww2-skirmish-combat-tabletop-system-your-war?ref=discovery&term=NUTS

Congrats, and best of luck!

Thanks! We hit our basic funding goal today, hoping to hit the unlocks as well. Everything has already been written, a few books need some editing and formatting, so I hope we can benefit from that work!

Awesome! Congrats!

Congrats!

Hi! We have the pre-production books in hand for the NUTS WW2 skirmish game Kickstarter -- check 'em out!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1505930681/nuts-ww2-skirmish-combat-tabletop-system-your-war/posts/3708187

Thanks to your support, we've hit our next to last Unlock at $15K, which is the last set of 12 new NUTS Battle Boards AND the new NUTS Platoon Leader book! While designed for the NUTS WW2 tabletop skirmish game, the Platoon Leader book as great information and ideas for any system.

With this KS Campaign being successful, I think I'll get the "green light" on several more WW2 games I have in draft:

1. NUTS Partisan - a combo wargame and resource management game to shepherd your Resistance through the War and accomplish missions
2. NUTS Company Commander - on the other end of the scale, this is a broader scale miniatures game that could also be played like a board game

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1505930681/nuts-ww2-skirmish-combat-tabletop-system-your-war/posts/3713426

My replacement minis of four of my main characters for my novel series, The Angaran Chronicles, for the TT Skirmish game arrived today. Raleas, Emilia, Jelcine and Wilom, as I'd accidentally broken them about a month or so ago. They arrived, and an awesome mini of a Void Spawn that I will use as one of the antagonistic Eldritch Abominations of the series. I've begun painting them and hope to finish them tomorrow to start playtesting the skirmish game again. A couple of changes, such as the initiative system I mentioned here a while back and seeing if it'll work with 2d12s instead of 2d10s.

I am quite looking forward to it! Hopefully, I'll be able to recruit my friend to help me.

After finishing (mostly) my new Angaran Chronicles minis I began playtesting the TT Skirmish game trying out 2d12s and the new initiative system and, well, 2d12s seem to give the hordes a big advantage over individual characters with my horde rules, well, maybe. As there is a much higher average roll compared to 2d10s. I also kept forgetting things as my brain wasn't working well for some reason and I wasn't feeling well.
I tried another game with 2d10s and it seemed a bit more balanced but I should've tried it with the same layout of terrain, but I added some more so that helped my five-man elite team a lot against the 27-man horde team so I'll try it with 2d12s with the same layout as last next.
My mind was also better able to keep track of things due and so it was much more fun.

I finally began writing down the rules of my Angaran Chronicles Skirmish game into my overpriced-as-all-hell Tactica Tanith notebook that came with my overpriced-as-all-hell limited edition of the Warmaster novel. So sorta getting my money's worth lol. So I've begun typing the rules now. Still not sure whether it'll be 2d12s or 2d10s. Will start playtesting scenarios and layouts twice, 1st with 2d12s, and then using 2d10s, to see which one works out better.

I'm being more drawn to 2d12s as it feels more dynamic, I guess and it seems that my theory that it allows weaker models with lower modifiers stand a better chance. The big problem is that the game needs a lot of d12s especially if one or more of the players play horde warbands and large amounts of d12s are harder to buy compared to d10s which might make me much less interested in my game, so that could be a problem.

I worked on getting Homer's Heroes across the finish line in post-production.

I also went and did some editing for my Space Mecha game.

I've been working on my D&D homebrew publications mostly. Made a short adventure and published it on DMs Guild, now looking to get word out for it!

you can find it here if you're interested!

I had a playtest of my Angaran Chronicles Skirmish game today (I would've liked to do more, but dad and I had to fix up the house for the storm that's soon to come here in New Zealand, the 2nd one in three weeks, yaaay) The game was...intense and very fun. It was between my five-man band of the main characters of my novel, their minis being below from left to right; it's Emilia in Werewolf for Emilia, Raleas, Anargrin, Jelcine, and Wilom against a mid-sized warband of fifteen men total which I found if I min-maxed them ten of those fifteen had three wounds. To put that in perspective, the characters of the five-man band have only 22 wounds total against the 35 of the other team, but it was the ten with the three wounds were also very skilled; I was pretty intimidated, but the game was quite balanced and while Anargrin's team, in the end, won quite handily due to their abilities and tactics (it was a simple game of who killed the most combined points of models) Anargrin's team lost both Raleas and Jelcine.

Although maybe not too balanced, Emilia, as a werewolf, ripped and tore through the close combat specialist horde like they were made of papier mache, which is true to her character and everything. Still, it helped Jelcine absorbed the majority of the damage, and Jelcine mostly died because I played her like her character in my stories, sprinting forward with wild abandon to get overwhelmed. Will try to do a few more games tomorrow!

More playtesting today my five-man band vs a mid-range Horde force. Was fun! It also allowed me to realise how mostly useless cover is against the way my hordes work, but I might've found a resolution. Might start making rules for Horde vs Horde combat.

I think what's helped me a lot is the house rules I made for combat during my Rogue Trader campaign a couple of years ago.

I did some work on a solo/co-op/RPG-lite game.

In preparation for my eventual Battle Report of a game of The Angaran Chronicles: The Skirmish Game (working title, maybe?) Of Anargrin and his team trying to stop the summoning of a Jaroai and it was close and fun. Anargrin’s team failed in stopping it from being summoned. And they failed at killing it, almost. But they mercs who were hired to stop them saw the Jaroai and as I planned for the scenario turned against it. Despite the odds, the close combat horde passed their WP test to not run away and managed to finish it off under a deluge of pistol fire which definitely was against the odds. I also playtested the mechanic of 'charging' by jumping off an elevated position inspired by the part of Fellowship of the Ring when Aragorn jumps down on two Uruk Hai. That was pretty cool.

Began doing the Battle Report for my Angaran Chronicles game today. It's more of a challenge than I thought it'd be, constantly taking notes and photos is a bit of a brain drain, but doing so might engrain the rules into my brain much more and I'm still having fun even if the dice rolls are insanely against the side I wish to win (which is, of course, Anargrin and company)

I fixed up some rules after my last playtest/game for my Angaran Chronicles Skirmish game BatRep. I had an old rule for Hordes that weakened them a bit on the attack but I uhh, made it less of a weakness after playing the game with a friend and he criticised it. But I just re-instated that rule now hopefully it will nerf down Hordes a bit more.

Finally began writing my Battle Report properly today and actually having a lot of fun with it now I've gotten past stuff like writing up the teams, the character's individual stats etc and actually writing the report it's very fun. The only problem is that I didn't take nearly as many "Bird's Eye" view photos so the reader can see what's changed easier. Will make sure to do it next time.

I put this out in the wild.....



A skirmish wargame inspired by classical epic poetry. It is a model-vs-model RPG lite campaign skirmish game that is designed to be played Versus, but has solo/co-op options available.

This one took about 4 years from inspiration to the PDF release.

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/425627/Homers-Heroes-Bronze-Age-Bad-Boys

Congrats Easy! Just going to buy me a copy now!

I finally finished my Bat Rep for my Skirmish game and begun uploading it here on Dakka! Give it a look guys and I hope you enjoy!

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/809375.page

 Adrassil wrote:
Congrats Easy! Just going to buy me a copy now!

Thanks man! Appreciate it.

Lately I have been working on a generic Horror RPG scenario for my Patreon.

 Easy E wrote:

 Adrassil wrote:
Congrats Easy! Just going to buy me a copy now!

Thanks man! Appreciate it.

No prob, dude. I know how much of a struggle it is as an indie publisher myself (it's a novel, but still similar)

Anyway, back OT! I just typed up and sent a proposal email to Osprey Publishing for The Angaran Chronicles: The Skirmish game! Been meaning to do it for months and finally bit the bullet and did it! Wish me luck everyone!

If you need help on your proposal, let me know. I am happy to give it a look over.

 Easy E wrote:
If you need help on your proposal, let me know. I am happy to give it a look over.

Thanks for the offer, dude! But I already sent it in. They haven't gotten back to me so I'm guessing they aren't interested.

Osprey can take a long, long time.

I have been playing around in two major areas for fun:

- Diceless RPGs
- New Historical Periods using my MoB as a base

I have also been trying to get acquainted with some new RPG systems to keep my knowledge of the genre growing. I picked up the G.I. Joe RPG using the Essence 20 system, and the Legends of the 5 Rings 5th edition which uses the Genesys system.

I've realised that I have 4+ publications lacking any artwork, and that AI art generation is not for me (moral reasons) and so have been trying to get art done so that I can publish something else!

Today I began the process of converting a wargame I created as a military planner into a recreational activity.

Still not sure what I will call it, but the mechanics are sound, it's just a question of fleshing out an actual rulebook rather than the one-page cheat sheet I used with the squadron. We played it often, so the mechanics are solid, it's just making sure I write it correctly.

I see this as the first in a series, because the mechanics can work in a variety of settings, all you need are new maps and some scenario-specific rules. My opening scenario is the Wars of the Roses because my family likes to play Kingmaker, but it takes too long. This should result in plenty of volunteers for additional testing.

I have started a few RPG scenarios, but not finished them.

I am still dabbling with a Diceless RPG.

I am doing post-production work on a Chariot Wars game.

 Easy E wrote:
I have started a few RPG scenarios, but not finished them.

I am still dabbling with a Diceless RPG.

I am doing post-production work on a Chariot Wars game.

Ah, how quickly fortunes change. I'm still interested in putting that design together, but my schedule has been upended, so it may be a few weeks before I can get back to it.

I find that what I am working on depends on my mood and the phase of the moon at any given interval.

Today I have found myself inspired and am working on a new game involving a basic RPG levelling system, and an endless maze of traps, monsters, and something horrible behind you!

Basics are coming together, next step is the long haul of trying to draw all the prototype cards up and see whether the thing works in the slightest!

Current basics are:

Roll 5 dice for a check
Level up to change what is considered a success
3 types of check; Strength, Skill, Arcane

Looking forward to trying it out!

Over the weekend, finally purchased Affinity Publisher (and suite) since DriveThru no longer supports Scribus apparently. So spent a little time learning that layout software.

Finetuning a special scenario for UFO Wars

Fun Horizon!

I have been working on some Wild West rules and some RPG related rules.

My new mate has been coming over ever so often and we've been playing a lot of the Angaran: The Skirmish Game and it's been a ton of fun! Playtested a new scenario where one side is trying to kill a newly sired vampire while the other side is trying to protect her. I played the Cultists trying to kill her and my friend played Anargrin’s team. I lost but by the barest of margins but I really had a great time. I hadn't really written down any rules for the scenario so had to improvise a bit, but ot worked out well!

Sometimes, improvisation is the best.

Then, you can go back and hard code what you discovered in the scenario later.

Finally got up the courage to post some beta rules up in a discord group for some feedback. Got lots of very useful stuff back, and gave me some direction on where I was getting a little stuck, so that's good.

Not today but I'd painted up these bad boys and made a list with them along with Anargrin and Raleas (the main characters of my novel series on the far left) To eventually playtest hordes made up of different races and weaponry as well as horde vs horde combat and maybe make a BatRep like one I posted here last year. All these minis I made in Hero Forge and I had 3d printed by an outfit down in Christchurch, I couldn't find any fantasy race minis in WWII-like uniforms, lol. The soldiers were pretty fun to paint!