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Made in ca
Decrepit Dakkanaut





Something that I did for my Titanomachina game was make 'Personalities' that players could take for the Titans to make their scoring asymmetric. Scoring is by (a) destroying 'systems' on enemy Titans, (b) placing friendly buildings on the board, and (c) destroying enemy buildings. The Personalities took that scoring and gave a bonus for (a), (b) friendly buildings on the board at the end of a game, (c), and (d) systems not destroyed on your own Titan. So there's a bit of symmetry, which is nice, and a mix of ongoing scoring and 'end-game' scoring.

While I'm waiting on production of the game's review-copies I'll be sending out in the New Year, and working on production of the 'how-to-play' videos, I figured I'd fiddle with the idea of adding more personalities to the game. Why? Well, right now the plan is to have three types of crew in the basic game, proportioned 4 green 'Initiates,' 2 regular 'Adherents,' and 2 veteran 'Masters.' I'd like to add some more crew, specifically two Adherents and two Masters so that players have more opportunity to customize their Titan's crew, and it seemed like an opportunity to have eight more personalities to match the 12 crew members that would then be available to players.

In terms of naming the personalities there's currently

Pugnacious (bonus for destroying systems)
Gracious (bonus for surviving buildings)
Rapacious (bonus for destroying buildings)
Sagacious (bonus for surviving systems)

Names for personalities I have cued up include:

Voracious
Tenacious
Audacious
Vexatious
Ostentatious
Vigorous
Malicious
Meticulous

The tricky part, of course, is not over-complicating things. Any ideas?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/12/19 13:29:22


 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

I get it, and there is a question whether offense is easier than defense, and whether buildings are easier than systems. IMO, the fix is bidding, where players bid on what's worth more. If more players choose systems, then they will be worth more than buildings.

Also, you have two destroying systems, assume one is supposed to be buildings.

   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






I like the idea that different personalities of driver/pilot will put different value on different things - one might not be happy unless everything is dead, one might be unhappy if they achieved victory but got damaged.

I think that the trick will be in making it a gambling system - so you can have different amounts of bonus at the end, but to get a higher bonus means you need to achieve more.

for example (I don't know the system you use but it should be easy to translate) you have 3 personalities with the same theme but different goals:

1: gain 1 bonus point for each system still online at the end of the game
2: gain 5 bonus points if you have more systems intact than damaged at the end of the game
3: gain 15 bonus points if all systems are intact at the end of the game.

Obviously tweak it to work with your system but you get the idea. High-risk personalities would give a significant bonus, but are hard to achieve, low risk personalities are easy to achieve but give minimal bonus.

It would represent the extremes of personalities - one person might enjoy blowing up buildings, another might not be happy unless every singe building has been wiped from the field. same goal, but different success criteria.

I think that the best method of not overcomplicating is to give a bonus at the end of the game, not during - this would reduce the things to remember. It also means that, by picking your pilot personality, you are picking your tactics for the game. However, if you've already got a lot of cards/upgrades/modifications to keep track of, then it's not going to be an issue to have 1 more benefit from the pilots personality (for example, +1 to damage buildings for people obsessed with building destruction, because it's what they're good at!).

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Made in ca
Decrepit Dakkanaut





Oops, I did make an error - Rapacious is supposed to get a bonus for destroying buildings. Thanks John!

Integrating the new personalities into a existing scheme as additional bonuses with a cost could work. The system is designed so that, ideally, players can customize their Titans, its city, its crew, and its weapon systems. Ideally I'll be able to produce a kit allowing players to customize all the other systems on their Titans (legs, arms, jets, shield config, etc).

Bonus for Destroying Enemy Systems:
Pugnacious +1 for 0pts
Vexatious +2 for 2pts
Malicious +3 for 4pts

Bonus for Destroying Enemy Buildings:
Rapacious +1 for 0pts
Voracious +2 for 1pt
Gluttonous +3 for 2pts

Bonus for Surviving Buildings
Gracious +1 for 0pts
Decorous +2 for 1pt
Ostentatious +3 for 2pts

Bonus for Surviving Systems
Sagacious +1 for 0pts
Tenacious +2 for 2pt
Audacious +3 for 4pts

So I've pegged the points related to how difficult it is to score in that fashion: Placing buildings is the easiest way to score, and destroying buildings is the most difficult (two reasons - the enemy needs to place buildings, and you need to stop shooting enemy Titans that shoot back and shoot buildings). Buildings surviving till the end of the game is harder though, even though a Titan can protect them with its own shields. The bonus for destroying systems is expensive because it's relatively easy, ditto for surviving systems.
   
 
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