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SaaS

Software as a Service?

Warhammer is like a card game where you spend most of the playing time shuffling the deck rather than playing the actual cards.

Ha! Yeah, I'll definitely give you that. And then steal it so I can use it somewhere else.

(Seriously, though, I'll give you credit when I use it, because no one will believe I'm that witty.)

I definitely don't like "nested dice roll" mechanics. One of the things I've had most positive feedback for in Zero Dark (and which makes a further appearance in Infinite Dark is the idea of trying to get more successes than you need on a dice roll and these translating into "bonus actions". So there's important decisions to be made about what action you take in order to have the best chance of bonus actions and then, if you get bonus actions, the decisions to be made about which bonus actions to use from a diminishing menu of options.

I like that randomness in my games actually provides players with more agency to make decisions rather than less.

Yes, randomness as a way to vary the menu of options to make it interesting (rather than arbitrarily tell the player that their decision was wrong after the fact) is defintely the cool type of randomness in my opinion.

Doesn't Guild Ball do that with their playbook mechanic?

I received Under Falling Skies for Christmas. It's also a nice, simple example of that and I recommend checking their solutions. (you may do it for free as UFS is also available as Print 2 Play) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzEbm7T1UFc

Agreed, in my opinion dice rolls shouldn't trigger further dice rolls unless its an "exploding dice" kind of mechanic (which should only be used sparingly and not as the basis for an entire game - looking at you Spartan Games) or if the second roll triggered is a counter-roll of some sort from your opponent (armor save type things - which I think should probably also be used sparingly, but I'm less militant on this type of mechanic than I am with others). Generally speaking, I find that the games I enjoy most are those that have single roll mechanics for interactions. Whether it be the X-Wing/Armada/Legion approach of proprietary dice that have baked-in outcomes, or Wrath of Kings target charts, I find that being able to roll a few dice once and figure out the full outcome of the interaction from that roll speeds up play and keeps me engaged actually playing the game itself, as opposed to turning the game into a dice rolling simulator.

Its actually one of my longest standing complaints with regards to Warmachine/Hordes that the game doesn't just use a single roll resolution process for each attack, because theres no good reason why the you would need to make two or three separate rolls in order to determine if you hit, if/how much damage is done, and where that damage occurs (if applicable). That entire process could be reduced to a single roll by just having players roll different colored dice. The only reason for the rolls to be separated is basically so that they can force players to make decisions with incomplete information on a handful of abilities which trigger on a successful hit (i.e. "if this model is hit with an attack you may do xyz" or "if this attack successfully hits then you may do xyz" type stuff) and because the focus/fury system timing (which is easily fixed - have the player decide whether they are boosting their attack and/or damage rolls before rolling, if the player opts to boost the damage roll but the attack fails to hit simply refund the focus/fury). To me, its not worth bogging down the entire game in order to create a limited number of additional decision points for players, warmachine/hordes in particular is already a decision point rich game system as it is. The additional handful of highly situational decision points doesn't significantly add anything to the game whereas the need for 2/3 rolls in the process is actively detrimental.

You know, I used to be a big proponent of single dice roll resolution. Then I played a lot of games with it, and never really found it satisfying to play.

1. It often was more work calculating the single dice roll for various "variables" than it was to just use a vs. dice roll mechanic.

2. When I was on the receiving end, I pretty much just stood there and waited for the other player to roll and then removed models, hit tokens, filled in boxes etc. I had nothing to do.

Frequently, we think of the decisions the "player" has to make. However, in most wargames there are two players! We need to make sure we take into account what the opponent is doing during this time too. If they are doing nothing or have no decision making, giving the active player too many decisions is at the expense of the opponent IF they have very little to do.

Now, that isn't to say none of this can be overcome, because it can. They are just different flavors and preferences to consider.

I make no claim of knowing what other players like to play. I only know what I like to play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nurglitch wrote:
Something Eric Lang mentioned about game design, which I'm adopting for SaaS, is that game design is part of testing. Which is to say that all the design in the world is a subset of the actual work of making a game, part of which is testing to make sure the game.

I've had pushback from SaaS people saying you have to build something before you can test it, but where you're just grabbing existing software off the shelf and making sure you can manage users, security, et al, it really a matter of making sure it all works as the intended product. In games I think there's something likewise to be said about not inventing anything but making sure existing elements contribute to the product in the intended way.

Yes, as I frequently have been know to say: Innovation is over-rated.

Instead, take feature you know work and jumble them together into new and interesting ways. Then, determine if it creates the "experience" you are looking for.

 Easy E wrote:
You know, I used to be a big proponent of single dice roll resolution. Then I played a lot of games with it, and never really found it satisfying to play.

1. It often was more work calculating the single dice roll for various "variables" than it was to just use a vs. dice roll mechanic.

2. When I was on the receiving end, I pretty much just stood there and waited for the other player to roll and then removed models, hit tokens, filled in boxes etc. I had nothing to do.

Frequently, we think of the decisions the "player" has to make. However, in most wargames there are two players! We need to make sure we take into account what the opponent is doing during this time too. If they are doing nothing or have no decision making, giving the active player too many decisions is at the expense of the opponent IF they have very little to do.

Now, that isn't to say none of this can be overcome, because it can. They are just different flavors and preferences to consider.

I make no claim of knowing what other players like to play. I only know what I like to play.

There are ways.

1. Lots of games use very elegant systems to simplify it to a single Roll. X-Wing/Armada/Legion you roll the dice, count the hits, apply any effects (no different than the "-1 to hit" type effects you find in multi-roll games), and your opponent applies damage. Wrath of Kings was similar, you roll however many attack dice you're entitled to once, and then cross reference that to a chart on your opponents cards, some cause a wound, some bounce off armor, some might trigger a counterattack from your opponent, etc. In both cases, its one roll - no real calculations or any greater amount of variables involved relative to what many multi-roll or vs dice games may feature. I've seen other fairly elegant designs, such as roll 3d6 - two highest dice = to hit, two lowest = to wound/damage - which is a fairly simple way of handling it. Other games may make it more extreme (I remember looking at one ruleset that was all weird where every weapon had a unique system, like a lasgun would be roll 2d8 + 1d4, highest + lowest = to hit, middle die = damage, but a bolter bight be 2d8 + 2d6, middle two = to hit, highest = damage, etc. It gives you some cool possibilities, but its a lot to reference and work with for sure.

Its certainly very easy to design a very complex single roll type system. I myself am guilty of this, its probably the design aspect I'm most proud of even though I suspect theres a high probability that it won't survive the first round of open playtesting intact though Im not entirely ready to abandon it. I certainly understand it well enough (as the designer) and can get through the process for determining outcomes from it as quickly as one can get through Warmachines attack system, the difference being that my system incorporates a hell of a lot more stats, variables, and modifiers (in a way that I would consider to be somewhat elegant as it boils alot of complex stuff down into something very simple) but determines:

1. Whether or not you hit your target
2. Whether or not you penetrate the targets armor (you don't necessarily need to in order to do damage depending on the weapon)
3. Severity of damage (i.e. damage multiplier based on the targets vulnerability to being damaged, also incorporates critical hits/damage)
4. Where the target takes damage
5. Critical and trigger effects based on the attackers special rules (i.e. if you roll x then your attack also causes y condition to them)
6. Critical and trigger effects based on the defenders special rules (i.e. if an attacker rolls x then y also happens)

And it outputs all of that semi-independently of one another while also allowing for more than one attack to be made at a time - whereas a warmachine model might have three attacks that much be processed separately, you could potentially process all three attacks simultaneously using this system, which isn't to say some models don't have multiple attacks that must be processed separately, just that theres a flexibility that allows for some things to be grouped together. As for the semi-independent outcomes, what I mean is one hit might penetrate the targets armor with a 2x multiplier applied to location y with no critical effects, while another hit might penetrate the targets armor with a 1/2x modifier applied to location z with 2 critical effects. Certain outcomes weigh certain other outcomes more heavily than others so its not totally independent and the range of possible outcomes narrows as you determine each of those 6 datapoints from the results of the dice roll.

In the process of running through it the player is also presented two interesting (in my view) decision points:
1. Whether or not they want to mitigate luck at a cost, exchanging the results of their roll for some default outcomes.
2. Whether or not, based on the outcome of 2 specific dice they roll as part of the attack, they want to essentially prioritize accuracy (potentially scoring more hits) or precision (potentially scoring better hits)- sometimes one will come at the cost of the other.

The main question is, can I explain all of this in writing in a simple enough way for another player to understand it and not be immediately intimidated or put off by it.

2. I think this is only really an issue if you have an IGOUGO system. In a system with alternating activation where a player will only remain "dormant" for maybe a minute at a time, I don't consider it to be a problem for an opponent to not be an active participant in the game while their opponent is doing their thing. In any case, intelligent and creative game design will allow for the player on the receiving end to still potentially have meaningful decisions to make and make them a more active participant if they are allowed reactions, counterattacks, or other effects that they may choose to make in response to an opponents roll or whatever. This is what I strive for, I think if Infinity (the Game) only did one thing right in its design was promoting the concept of "its always your turn", whereas 40k's great failure is forcing someone to mostly stand on the receiving end of their opponents turn for 15-20 minutes at a clip with nothing to do other than roll dice in response to their opponents actions (although to be fair to more recent editions they have added a lot to the game to keep it interesting for the reactive player by way of strategems and a handful of rules and abilities that may trigger on an opponents turn).

Might be something to start a thread on the kind of complex calculations you can hide behind dice...

I'll get there eventually, I'm still tweaking the system (this has been a ~15 year long on and off effort), and unfortunately it requires quite a few visuals that I will need to put together still to explain it fully.

Unfortunately I think this crowd here will mostly probably hate the system. I can say with a lot of confidence that Easy E will probably hate it since its a lot crunchier than the games he seems to prefer.

Also, it involves proprietary dice, but probably not in the way you think, you still need the numeric results generated by the dice, even if they are also generating other pieces of information. This means that non-proprietary dice are able to be used with the game, but doing so will make things a lot harder as you would then need to refer to lookup tables to get the additional information out of them.

I like proprietary dice when they are done right (example, FFGs star wars games - you wouldn't be able to design the same game without them). When its just a simple d6 and you've simply replaced the 1 and 2 with one symbol, 3 and 4 with another symbol, and the 5 and 6 with a third on the other hand - I'm probably never going to play your game (and if I do I sure as gak won't buy your dice). Unlike most proprietary dice based games though, I intend these dice to be usable across a number of games I've been working on that share a common IP (unlike FFG which has three separate proprietary dice sets for its three Star Wars games), but the way they are used in each game will vary, at times pretty dramatically, though you will see undercurrents of similar mechanical concepts used across the different games to some extent, etc. I've designed the dice set to be extremely flexible in how they can be utilized and implemented, although this obviously comes at a cost - they wont necessarily be as elegant or streamlined as bespoke dice created for each individual game might be, but I feel like I actually did something cool, innovative, and unique.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Unfortunately I think this crowd here will mostly probably hate the system. I can say with a lot of confidence that Easy E will probably hate it since its a lot crunchier than the games he seems to prefer.

LOL.

No doubt, as I get older my tolerance for "crunch" has gone WAY down. When I was younger, I preferred it. I'm too stupid for super crunchy games now.

However, those are my preferences and I know there are tons of people who WILL love a crunchier experience.

to be quite honest, I agree with you. I've been the same way, when I first started designing this as a 15-year-old it was far more crunchy, detailed, and simulationist than it is now. I've cut back significantly and streamlined a lot of it, as I aged in my tastes and philosophies towards game design have matured. unfortunately, what I found is that a lot of the more modern streamlined and elegant games out there today don't necessarily scratch the right itch crunchwise. There's a certain type of crunch that I like which I would struggle to describe in cohesive thoughts. A lot of my focus at the moment is trying to scratch that crunch itch in my design while maintaining an otherwise fairly streamlined and elegant game.

chaos0xomega wrote:
to be quite honest, I agree with you. I've been the same way, when I first started designing this as a 15-year-old it was far more crunchy, detailed, and simulationist than it is now. I've cut back significantly and streamlined a lot of it As I paged in my tastes and philosophies towards game design have matured. unfortunately, what I found is that a lot of the more modern streamlined and elegant games out there today don't necessarily scratch the right itch crunchwise. There's a certain type of crunch that I like which I would struggle to describe in cohesive thoughts. A lot of my focus at the moment is trying to scratch that crunch itch in my design while maintaining another wise fairly streamlined and elegant game.

I LOVE this approach. Always design the games YOU want to play.

Absolutely, I just hope others want to play them too lol

I think there's something to be said for product as it relates to game design; while you're designing it to be for you, you're also designing it so that you can afford to play and share it with others.

Nurglitch wrote:
I think there's something to be said for product as it relates to game design; while you're designing it to be for you, you're also designing it so that you can afford to play and share it with others.

I can see the appeal of that approach as well.

It is not something I strive for because I do not have the resources to do any type of detailed "Market Research" to allow me to look at anything I make at the level of "product". I can do benchmarking and try to keep a pulse on what a subset of gamers are playing and doing via Social Media; but it is nothing scientific or even vaguely statistical.

I am not sure if Indie developers do? Might be a good topic for a Wargame Design Discussion thread?

From discussions with independent game designers and such it doesn't really seem theres much in the way of "market research", I think most designers just have an idea and they say "yeah, I think I can sell this" and run with it. If its marketable/sellable, the kickstarter funds or they get a publishing deal. If it isn't, then they don't.

From what I've seen even bigger tabletop/board game publishers (my girlfriend works for one of them) don't really do much in the way of market research when producing their games. It seems less about "product" and more about "production". I.E. - the themes and designs are less about "xyz is so hot right now" and more about "if we don't include linen finish cards and custom meeples with pre-printed artwork on them we are going to get murdered in the reviews because thats what gamers in 2021 expect from their $50 board games". Which isn't to say "the hotness" doesn't factor into decisions sometimes, just that it's a nebulous concept and not a guiding principle.

In my own case, when I first started this project out back when I was young, stupid, and broke (I'm still stupid, but now I have money!) sellability was a big concern - we're talking somewhere around 2003-2005 when these ideas first started to gestate in my mind. Kickstarter didn't exist, Patreon didn't exist, Facebook didn't exist, the internet was a disjointed landscape of hundreds of different forums with varying user counts that catered to differing audiences and preferences, etc.

Trying to make something of nothing, as the case is and was, was an uphill battle already - I had no money, no connections, no clue what I was doing, etc. Trying to make something that I wasn't sure anybody would want was basically a non-starter, because I couldn't afford to eat the cost of a failed product/project, etc. and had to be sure there was a market for it - which also meant that whatever I did go with had to be something unique enough to stand apart from the crowd.

There was no way for me to know what people really wanted or didn't want other than what I could infer from discussions on the boards that I frequented (TheMiniaturesPage, 40konline, later warseer, and then dakka) which really influenced my thinking in some ways. I think that pushed me towards a much crunchier game, as "crunch heavy" and "big battles" were in vogue with the online tabletop gaming community at the time and the trend towards quicker playing heavily streamlined skirmish games had not yet really taken hold. Thematically, what I really wanted to do felt a bit too *out there* so I watered it down significantly - arguably too much because I got beaten to the punch on it not once but twice!

Since then though I think I've stopped caring - in that sense I think Adam Poots/Kingdom Death was a big inspiration and influence on how I approach things, in that he basically started his career as a game designer making his "grail game". Instead of knocking out a couple smaller and safer projects to establish a name and following for himself and work up to the point that he could take a risk on something big, he just went 100% out of the game and made and released the thing he always wanted to design, 100% his way, not watered down or finessed to make it more sellable, etc. even though mechanically the game was a bit of a complex mess (albeit an enjoyable one) and thematically the game should have been considered to be virtually unsellable.

As a result of that I've freed myself from many of the constraints I placed on myself early on. I have felt more at liberty to do a lot of things that people would probably regard as unconventional, and toredown my setting and restarted it from scratch to make it the way I wanted to do it from the beginning in all of its esoteric wierdness, and am basically making the game/product that *I* always wanted to buy with the expectation that there are others who might want the same thing - even if they don't know it yet.

I very much doubt that I will be as successful as KDM/Poots, thats a 1 in 1 million success story I think, but its nice to think that its possible for a 30-something year old nerd pursuing a passion project to nail a home run like that on a design that almost anyone in their right mind would have written off as being completely unmarketable and unsellable. For me, it turned the discussion on its head and made it less about what other people want and more about what I want.

I don't think Kingdom Death is a 1/,1M success story. Poots seems like he's working from the GW play-book, which is to say that it appeals to more than just collectors, gamers, and other market segments, but gets a nice slice of them all.

Kingdom Death: Monster works as a game, but reskin it with different art and I think it would tank; people wouldn't try it, let alone like it enough to play more than once. It helps that it's a popular style.

Likewise the plastic and resin kits are great quality, but change the style I think it would have sank without a trace. People only care about the quality of stuff they want. The art and style is really what people see first, and the game/models/art is good enough to support those expectations. A game that's good enough for lots of people is going to be more successful than a game that's excellent for a few. I think that's the recipe for success

There is no doubt in my mind that what you say is true. People talk about the aesthetics way more than they talk about the mechanics.

People will even play a mechanically bad game, if they like the aesthetics enough. Vice versa, very few people play a strong game with poor aesthetics.

I limit myself to game design as I have no/little skill in creating aesthetics.

I think you're completely missing the point.

The style, artwork, and aesthetics of the game are, ostensibly, unsellable oversexualized shock-value tripe that no reasonable adult would ever pay money for (and those who do would never admit to it) - or at least that's what early commentary about Kingdom Death's products was prior to and even during their first kickstarter.

Keep in mind that Kingdom Death wasn't quite an overnight success. He sold resin minis of various creatures and such well before he launched the game, which received some pretty negative reviews from the miniatures and gaming community for being rape-y and festooned with dicks. I can recall threads here on dakka when he launched the first Kingdom Death Monster kickstarter from many people who expressed utter shock and disbelief that it made $2 million bucks. I can recall people saying it was a flash in the pan niche thing for weirdos and would never be a significant element of tabletop gaming and would probably fade into obscurity over time. I can recall the utter shock, amazement, and disbelief when their second kickstarter hit $4 million from twice as many backers as their first campaign within a couple hours of launching.

What you claim to be its biggest selling point/the reason for its success was generally assumed by pretty much everyone to be the thing that would have prevented it from ever succeeding in the first place.

There's a subtle difference between designing a game, and designing a product. I remember a small panel with James Ernest at a con I went to a few years back where he talked a lot about that.

Designing a game is all about playing with mechanics, flow, etc. And you might be able to come up with a really interesting thing there, but that alone will not sell. Designing a product means you're working with "softer" things like style, theme, feel, etc. And, for better or worse, that's what makes something sell or not.

I don't think it's terribly common to have someone be "great" at both game design and product design. There are exceptions, of course, but there's a reason why generally speaking bigger companies have game designers, game developers, and art/content designers/directors. Sure, smaller shops have to necessarily share those tasks, but that often means slower product release times, etc.

Not saying someone can't do both, and do them well, just that it's definitely different hats.