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Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

I can think of several games that have been big influencers on how I go about designing games. Some of these will be common to all of us, but some might be a bit more unique. I thought it would be fun to share some of our major influences. I am hoping that this thread will point me to even more areas of future inspiration for game design to look into and enjoy.

1. Clearly, Dan Mersey and his work on the Lion/Dragon Rampant series have been big influencrs on me. Some would say all I do is design cheap copies of Dan's work. They would not be wrong! I like is generic unit types with base profiles that are then modified (if you want) by Traits that you can layer on to create unique units. I also am a huge fan of his simplified wound resolution and streamlined approach in general.

2. Tomorrow's War/Force-on-Force have also been big influence on me. I recall first reading the rules for a round of fire and being blown away by how it worked! It was amazing and eye opening to me. It opened a whole new world of possibility to my designs and ways to do tactics on the tabletop.

3. Ronin from the Osprey Wargame series was also very influential in how I could use dice pools and opened up my eyes to the use of dice pools in skirmish games, a concept that I have used many times since.

4. Necromunda/Mordheim/Blood Bowl are still some of the best campaign games out there, and I use those as my templates frequently.

5. The altitude system in Aeronautica Imperialis has been something I have used in a number of games from airships to submarines. It is simple, elegant, but adds so much "depth" to gameplay where many games are too comfortable in 2d only.

6. Rick Priestley, sure not technically a game system but there is something very "English" and gentlemanly about the way he writes rules that I enjoy. It really emphasizes the 'spirit of the game" in a simple and effective way.


So, what are some of your big influencers?

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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut







I am a "maximalist" gamer, and am of the belief a game should be a rule engine that affords logical/internal consistency rather than a tide of bespoke rules. I also prefer a larger list of in-game options, maximal customization, and minimal downtime. Among notable games that I have been influenced by, are:

1. GURPS: Back in college, about 10 years ago, I ran what may be the most insane campaign I've ever run: GURPS: Dwarf Fortress. The players sought to excavate the ruins of an old ruined Fortress, and settle it as new rulers. Aside from the (admittedly hilariously abuseable) flexible "pointbuy" chargen in lieu of bespoke character classes, what drew me to GURPS was the insane internal consistency between different charts. Damage to knockback was a ratio, amount of explosive material to damage was a ratio, collision impact to damage, magic to kinetic energy, etc.

2. Starfleet Battles: Known for its infamous starship sheets, power allocation, and a rulebook that reads like a car manual, SFB is actually pretty neat. It has next to no downtime, since it uses an Impulse-Turn-Base structure (aka "near-simultaneous turns", and there is a frankly hilarious amount of options. Say your ship has several shuttles. You can send them "unmanned" as glorified bombs, load them up with crew to attempt boarding actions, retrofit them with "Wild Weasel" jammers to muck up enemy missiles, or deploy them statically to act as "sentries" over a limited area. Say you have a Plasma Torpedo Launcher. You can lower its power requirement to fire "dummy" rounds, switch it to "plasma shotgun" mode to MIRV it into subtorpedoes, fire it as a "plasma beam", sacrificing raw damage for the reliability of being direct-fire, etc. The game has its own fan-terms for manuevers, from the Sabre Dance to the Kaufman Retrograde, and the game feels surprisingly emergent for such an ancient game.

3. Chess and Variants: I enjoy Chess since the majority of chess literature focuses on openings, plays, doctrine, etc. rather than "pls nerf Queens" or unit composition. Shogi is interesting due to how it intentionally creates an unstable equilibrium by allowing you to place captured pieces under your control. Xiangqi adds the condition of requiring you to defend a fixed point (no castle, and the king is confined to a 3x3 "palace" with 2 guards), and Arimaa is super-tricksy due to its "push-pull" mechanics rather than being direct captures. I

4. X-COM Series: The original X-Com was ahead of its time, and was also incredibly atmospheric as well. Sure, starting off with Rookies hunting Sectoids near a small UFO was a tame start, but then teching up that your Power Armor notSpaceMarines were burning down cities to prevent being overwhelmed by Chryssalids was game-defining in its own right. That being said, the early games got silly fast due to unlimited manufacturing/sales, and the tension of keeping Earth safe on a limited budget faded when XCom became "Crazy Bradford's Used Laser Cannon and Xeno Cadaver Emporium!" That was something I felt the reboot did right (restricting manufacturing based on limited components), but it also eliminated the whole "recon for UFOs" aspect of the original: In the first game, there were multiple alien bases that could be established as the aliens did missions, but in the remake, you had a railroaded story...anyway, XCom showed how it was possible to make a "two-action" system feel both fast-paced and tactical at once.
   
Made in au
Homicidal Veteran Blood Angel Assault Marine




Oz

1. Well, this doesn't really apply to ttmgs so much. But i've always been interested in alignment systems. D&D has a generic one that is very broad but subjective, while palladium had a limited set of specific ones that tended to have more internal consistency. Representing alignment (in games and in real life) is of interest.

2. Rick Priestly/40k. Since the game hasn't changed a great deal overall since he designed it, and it's the game i've played the most. Basically best described as napoleonics in space. Definitely worth a mention.

3. Lanrak. Discussions with him on how to make a good ruleset have been interesting and largely informative.

4. Computer game rpgs in general. Computers can bring a whole new level of intricacy that would bog down a traditional game. It was symptomatic of battletech - how much detail should a player have to account for? Finding the fine line is the goal.

5. Monopoly for house rules on a basically simple game. Customizing things to suit your play group.

6. 40k 4th edition. I know i mentioned 40k already, but here was where a friend pointed out that things were always changing but never really improving. Where i realized that change != improvement.

 
   
 
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