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Deciding to make your own game is never a terrible idea!

Sounds like you have lots of good ideas so far. I'd pose a few questions and ideas myself:

- How big do you see each force being? If you're having multiple, individualized crew per tank do you see the game being a 1 vs 1 duel or large numbers of vehicles per side? I could see too many traits and customization bogging the game down if you get into 10 vs 10 tank games.
- Are you set on D6s? Why not branch out a little and try some different dice. You could go with D10s if you like percentages, or just plain D8s or D12s for more granularity. Or port over the D20 system?! Go wild, live a little!
- There are a lot of neat ideas for hit locations. One I read about was rolling 2 dice, with the lower being location and the higher being the to-hit. A high location hit was something critical, so to hit a GOOD location you needed to roll well on both dice. You could also look at Mech Attack or Renegade Legion or their damage template system (where each weapon applies a unique pattern to the armor) or Silent Death for the gracefully degrading damage track.
- I think rewarding movement would be important in a game like this, since otherwise what motivation does a tank have to leave some trees and shoot at someone? Maybe weaker back armor on tanks, or they are harder to hit when they move, etc.
- You mentioned alternating activations, you could also do a token/card draw for activation (which gets around a lot of the problems with uneven numbers).

So many ideas and possibilities right at the start of design!

doc1234 wrote:Not a terrible idea, I just have a nasty habit of getting half way through things like this, play testing once or twice and then never thinking about it again

Haha I know that feeling. Just gotta get an early playable prototype and then get your friends hooked on it so you're always motivated to play.

doc1234 wrote:Honestly no where near 10v10. At the most/least i'd say 2-6 a side (and that'd be something like 6 light tanks vs maybe a Mause tank or something). Even 6 would really be pushing it with the amount of let's call it "personality" each crew could end up with having to keep track of.

Yeah for skirmish games I find 6 to be the perfect number (then again that's what my own game has as a cap per gang ). You can have plenty of detail per vehicle without the player being overwhelmed by TOO much RPG-like detail. Once you're in the 10-20 range you might as well play a full army game since each model is probably pretty bland already.

doc1234 wrote:I initially had D6's down as a placeholder (seeing as they are sort of the "baseline" dice). You can get out with those filthy D20 though joking, but wanting to keep this dice light, D10 or D12 will be the more likely option it ends up in once things get rolling a bit more.

Right there with you for D20s I just was suggesting it in case you forgot all the dice Never seen the appeal of D10s either, they aren't even Platonic solids. I'm a D12 fan myself!

doc1234 wrote:True, if I run with a "modifier+diceroll" to hit, the roll may likely double as a hit location (so say a 1-5 for the hull, a 6-9 for the tracks and a 10-12 for the gun for instance). However the problem with that means most of the time what should be the more common hit location (the hull) is still at the lower end of the spectrum. However flipping that the other way around may work.

I was more saying 2 dice are rolled, but they aren't added together. So 2D6 with a 4 and a 6. The higher result (6) is always the to-hit roll, the lower (4) is always the location. So to get a really good hit on a good location they'd have to roll very well, like two sixes. The locations are still independent and unaffected by the 2D6 bell curve since you're only checking 1D6.

doc1234 wrote:One particular idea that struck me is rolling a second colour dice with the hit dice, but only apply the randomized hit outside a certain range (so the crew just trying to hit the target on the fly, rather than wasting their time specifically going for the other tanks gun). I'v yet to think too hard on how well an RPG mechanic like called shots closer up would work on tabletop However the "higher dice and lower dice" being what decides would work a lot better than coloured dice.

You could get even more granular and have 3D6 (or whatever dice), with stats varying based on the tank. So one tank might have:
Damage: High
To-Hit: Medium
Location: Low

So it would rarely hit good locations, but would hit for a lot of damage when it did. That type of system works a bit better with non-D6 dice though.

doc1234 wrote:I actually have a copy of Armour Grid, it was a pretty interesting idea for small games like this. Seem to remember mech attack had a table system too, but was a bit vague from what I did read on just how many criticals a mech could take before it finally died. However a grid system is a lot more interesting than a simple "Do at least X damage", and helps somewhat to remove one of the other things from games like Dystopian Wars that bugged me (hamstringing smaller forces arbitarily because of a unlucky roll of a 12 for instance).

I think I remember you replying to my "What other games beside BTech" thread about Mech Attack. But yeah the grid system was cool, and I'm sure you could rework it to have a critical system you liked a bit more.

doc1234 wrote:I fully intend to have movement effecting your chances to get hit. Though certain tanks like the Stug tank destroyers will likely have a bit more reason to stay hidden, with an equivalent (or better) than if they had moved, but balancing it by a much thinner armour. Right now from the top of my head, I'm toying with the idea of the tanks each having three separate small grids (Say 3X5 for a hull, 3x3 for the treads and turret). Depending on which direction the tank gets hit from, it'll remove one box of armour less. So getting hit on the front with say a damage 3 gun on the front may only result in 1 box loss, where as the rear will take off 3 (taking out the row). This would translate as a +3 on the damage table for instance each time it's hit in that location. The tanks hit box locations will idealy only vary on the depth, the row's "should" match up, so going with the idea of the second hit dice determining location, not only on which part of the tank but on which part of the grid. Opens up further crew abilities for things like + or - 1 to the location roll for a deadeyed gunner. The grid system opens up some routes for different ammo types too (ones with deeper penetration vs ones with a wider spread), maybe having the player have to decide between using up their "valuable" limited shots. Keeping track of ammo use is still a little iffy with me till I get some actual testing done though, on the one hand a skilled gunner could be shooting 3 rounds a turn (if I keep that idea). Would certainly add a little in terms of "Do I try to shoot from back here, or get closer. It'd help me to hit, but I could get scrapped".

You might have lost me here, but I do think direction dependent damage is important in vehicle games What about instead of separate grids each tank has a single grid of boxes (say 6x7). Then if they are hit from the left you spin the sheet and fill in the damage pattern from the left side instead of the front (or "top"). So you could start digging holes all over the tank.

Crew members could just have basic stats and then additional traits or abilities that let them do cool things above and beyond the norm. You could even have crew death/unconsciousness being a big factor where members have to "switch seats" to take over loading, and they might not be as familiar with it. Sort of like a cheesy Star Trek movie where someone has to run to engineering instead of the actual engineers.

D10s not bad?! Heathen!

Different dice per gunner reminds me of a little vehicular destruction game called Outrider. You basically "built" your car by assigning different dice sizes to the different systems. Although it can be a bit higher barrier to entry (my friends tell me there are still people out there without 5 pounds of dice...) but it's also a very fluid and fun approach.

Your grid approach makes more sense, and was sort of what I was saying with the single 6x7 grid. I thought you meant individual, disconnected damage tracks for each side that didn't relate to each other. Seems like a neat idea though.

If you're doing scaling dice for the Gunner I think keeping that theme throughout would be nice. Either that or just shake it up entirely and do a dice pool for shooting

Crew could definitely be a unique feature, sort of like how managing them is critical in a video game like Faster Than Light. And yeah if you don't want them killed then being incapacitated by fear or knocked out or whatever could work too. I just like the idea of people in the cramped quarters desperately trying to reload the gun to get one last shot in as fires rage all around them and two of their friends are slumped over the controls.

@Eilif: I like the idea of hatches open/shut having an impact. Sort of like going into attack/defense mode. Always nice to give players more options and choices and reward them based on sound tactical decisions.

Looking over the rules now.

When you say "move X inches before a turn" I see you are envisioning the turns being up to 45 degrees. Do you think this would be achieved with some kind of turning key like Firestorm Armada or Car Wars? Or are people just going to kind of angle the tank how they want? Protractor perhaps?

I like the idea of "Change Gear" being an action, and tanks going a set speed until they are stopped.

From the Shell Rating it looks like that dice can change too, or is it always a D10? Not sure if I'm sold on the "roll X+ to hit, roll X+ to damage the location you hit". Do you envision the shooter choosing which specific box is hit? Like if they attack from the right they could choose Treads or Hull?

If you wanted a bit more variable damage you could have each Shell Rating be XD6, and keep the X+. But the shooter could allocate their D6s to numerous boxes on the side. That would get around the "1 shot 1 damage" approach which might start to feel like a roll off?

Also what era do you visualize the game being set? World War 2?

I'd be in for playtesting as well. I think I have two (maybe even three!) tanks from Axis & Allies Miniatures that I could use.

Now I'll just have to keep bugging you off and on so you get further through the rules than halfway

 doc1234 wrote:
Ok the first playtest version is up on the first post. There's no Traits or values as yet, want to get things resembling "working" before i mess with it too much. Theres a simple tank and crew up as well, but feel free to mess with different crew and tank levels to see how they work. The damage tables will get fleshed out at some point too when i next update it. If you get 5 to have a playtest, please let me know how it goes. With lots of red letters and strong wording if needed

In the interest of making the playtest as blindingly easy as possible for me, do you have two tanks prebuilt (with crew) that I can just print and try?

Oh my mistake, I must have a slightly older version of the rules since I think you uploaded them once and then again for the playtest. I'll redownload and hopefully give it a shot this weekend!