Exilian

Game Design and Project Resources: The Workshops Quarter => Tabletop Design - The Senet House => Topic started by: Clockwork on October 19, 2017, 02:06:32 PM

Title: Superhero Storm
Post by: Clockwork on October 19, 2017, 02:06:32 PM
Hi all (especially Jubal though, because he's not busy enough with the gazillion things he's doing),

I'm making a tabletop game! I've actually done a fair amount of the building and planning wrt sizes already but I'm really unsure about how to design core rules. I want to keep them really simple and using d6es so I've been looking at Dungeon World RPG (roll 2d6 on a 2-6 you fail on 7-10 you get an action (such as attack/defend/cast spell) and are attacked and on 11 you get an action with no consequence and on 12 you get 2 actions) and I'd like a system like that.


Right the game is set on basically a slightly larger chess board (exact number of squares tbd) and there are 4 levels of verticality because flying is a mainstay superpower and I want it to basically be the USP.


Jubal, I know you're fantastic at creating games so if you wouldn't mind very generously giving me a few pointers that would be phenomenal :)


So I have a basic idea that you get a small number of heroes per side (say 5?) and one side will favour destruction and one protection. There will be objects on the board to be destructed/protected and I think there will be 4 stats which give + or - to dice results.


There will be an advanced ruleset (with all the fun things) but I'm trying my best to ignore it atm to focus on getting a core game set up.
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero game!
Post by: Jubal on October 19, 2017, 03:08:15 PM
Eeee! Yes, very up for this :) Happy to give whatever advice I can!

The 2d6 action rolling thing sounds good, though that seems quite a high chance of failure (which will be fine if failures are interesting & that's the point, annoying if failures are boring).

Do you want a literal constructed four level board, or four levels of board that are actually set side by side on the table?
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero game!
Post by: Clockwork on October 19, 2017, 03:34:01 PM
Yay! Thanks :)

Yes I neglected to mention failures mean the other person gets an action so something will always happen, I want it to be thematic of how in most duels there's frames of each getting the upper hand before one is the victor :P

Neither (ish, though kind of the first I just wanted to exclaim :P )! I have 3 different sizes of straws (plus the ground level) attached to cardboard bases and removable flying bits of cardboard :P


The flying thing is some flyers are melee actions only but get +s for how far they fly towards their action target. For instance Hawkman (DC) has a mace and so I wanted to capture the action of him flying down to one layer above ground level and smashing a target as he flies off.

Not using DC heroes just an example. This may be shocking but I haven't got any heroes yet :P
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero game!
Post by: Jubal on October 20, 2017, 08:51:06 AM
OK, I guess victory/damage resolution mechanics will be a fairly important thing to sort early on. How complex do you want these to be? You could go for a straight-up hitpoints system, or have something a little more outwardly complex (knockback/stun/crit hit effects with some rolling tables for result) that might give a bit more in the way of interesting options for what happens.
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero game!
Post by: Clockwork on October 20, 2017, 10:16:08 AM
Yeah good point, I don't know how to do victory mechanics. I was vaguely toying with points - 1point for each destroyed thing, 1 for each opposing hero taken out: 1 for each thing protected, 1 for each opposing hero taken out and having a battleships-like hitpoint mechanic to establish priorities and areas of conflict.
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero game!
Post by: Jubal on October 20, 2017, 11:31:16 AM
I guess what I'm think for damage res is that having too strong a hitpoints mechanic might make the whole thing a bit too much of a countdown slugfest and avoiding that might make life more dynamic.

Example idea: two heroes, who I'm going to arbitrarily call Golden Lance and Shadowsword.

Golden Lance gets an action, and use her basic "attack" (equiv to punching etc) on shadowsword, who is adjacent. She could then roll on the following table:

1 Fail/miss
2 Knockback 1 square
3 Knockback 2 squares
4 Stun: the enemy may not be selected for an action next time their player goes
5 Knockdown: the enemy needs to get an action and roll a 4+ to get back into battle, and falls out the sky if they're flying
6 Critical: roll on another chart, has chances to seriously damage or kill the enemy

Something like this (maybe modified) could be the basic attack for everyone, with certain heroes having alternative charts or abilities that modify that - for example, Golden Lance might have a "Lance Charge" where she can fly or move up to 5 spaces then attack as a single action.

Further thought: you may want some randomisation in movement, maybe give all heroes d3 squares movement for free before acting unless they're stunned. The trouble otherwise is that people's hero placement and just about avoiding the range of others' attacks can become too important, risking the game getting into a very slow grind whereas having a bit more randomisation might encourage players to take risks and that might help get a bit of a fluid combat feel.
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero game!
Post by: Clockwork on October 21, 2017, 12:25:44 PM
I like it but I'd keep that to the advanced rules. The basic rules are going to be incredibly basic :P

I was thinking of using something like this as the basic rules:



Actions:


Attack
Grapple
Throw
Heal
Take Off
Move/Fly


Stats:


Strength: Attack Grapple Throw
Psychic: Attack Heal
Power: Attack Heal
Endurance: Heal


Order of Play:


Choose unused hero
3 actions


A round is every hero acting. Each player takes it in turn to pick an unused hero to use for that turn.

Actions except Move/Fly/Takeoff are done by rolling 2d6 and using whichever modifier you choose. You can attack with Strength, Power or Psychic but individual heroes will have different modifiers. E.G. Hawkman has +1 Strength so rolling a 6-12 would succeed in a strength attack but he has -2 Psychic so would need a 9-12 to succeed in a Psychic attack.


A hero may defend with the Stat they are attacked with or Endurance.


Although I'm thinking of changing the success to an 8+ and not have any - modifiers because they're bad from a psychological standpoint.
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero game!
Post by: Clockwork on October 21, 2017, 05:11:16 PM
Different heroes will have abilities such as 'Can use Psychic for throw and grapple actions' for a telekinetic or 'Can combine a Throw and Grapple into one action' for a luchador hero.
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero game!
Post by: Clockwork on October 28, 2017, 01:26:26 PM
Cool, did a brief playtest and as I was hoping for the game plays a lot like Blood Bowl.
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero game!
Post by: Jubal on October 28, 2017, 01:42:18 PM
Excellent :) If you send me a current version of the rules I'll try and do some run-throughs and give you some feedback?
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero game!
Post by: Clockwork on November 05, 2017, 09:38:32 AM
Rules are the ones above! Just made up some hero powers like the aforementioned telekinetic and luchador (also had a speedster whom I gave a free movement to every turn, a colossus who used Endurance for attack and 2 flyers) made up stats for them, wasn't balanced but did a rough value of 3 points bonus per character -1 for flying. Objective was to defend a precariously placed USB stick of truth and a precariously placed flying DVD :)
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero game!
Post by: Clockwork on November 17, 2017, 08:01:58 AM
Heroes! Hey guys and girls, a taste of the heroes I've been using so far, yeah they're dumb and tropey but hey, it's the 70's. Feel free to add your own. it's also not really set in the 70s, more like 1999. Although hey, do whatever you like, that's half the point of such a flexible system :) 


The format for heroes in this game is that they're relatively low power - along the lines of most xmen before they get their own damn character arc and develop power levels over 9000.
They generally have two points bonus overall, for example Icepick has 3 power - 3 psychic, giving him +3 on rolls concerning those powers, -2 strength and endurance. This can be affected by restrictions on actions or bonuses to action economy such as Conflict's restriction on healing or Luchadora's action economy bonus of combining grapple with throw.


Solar -

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


Icepick -

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dead Drop -

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Luchadora -

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Conflict -

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

BBS -

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Coriolanus -


Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero Game!
Post by: Clockwork on November 18, 2017, 10:47:44 AM
My dudes I really need a name for this. I'm in the process of finding out all the armadillo I need to make this thing and I can't keep calling it Rob's Tabletop Superhero Game because that's a mouthful. And who's this Rob guy?


Started a kickstarter page for when I have a prototype made and I can reasonably ask for money to get it physically made so a title is becoming more of a priority :P
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero game!
Post by: Jubal on November 18, 2017, 11:31:40 PM
OK, a random pool of ideas:

Fight n' Flight: The Game of Superheroes
Heroes of X, where X is a randomly named fictional or even real city (Yoreville, New Leeds, Storm City, Las Colinas)
Superhero Storm
Superheroica
Superpower Showdown

I'm not thinking very well, but those were my first few thoughts.

Also will post some hero ideas soon - I have two superhero-team type ideas mulling around in my head, one kinda space-cop themed bunch and one mythology-themed, which I'll try and get onto paper sometime :)
Title: Re: Rob's Tabletop Superhero game!
Post by: Clockwork on November 19, 2017, 09:43:19 PM
Awesome, thank you!


Heroes of New Leeds sounds hilarious :P


Superhero Storm is my favourite, captures the right image of it. Need to phone my arty buddy to try and convince him to draw some boxart and that title will help a lot, thanks :)
Title: Re: Superhero Storm
Post by: Jubal on November 28, 2017, 07:43:22 PM
I might name my space-cop team the Heroes Of New Leeds and decide that New Leeds should be a space colony. :P
Title: Re: Superhero Storm
Post by: Clockwork on December 01, 2017, 09:50:41 AM
Hehe


In other news unfortunately some dude launched a superhero tt kickstarter ahead of me, different game style, different tone but still bites into the superhero market.


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1794227864/kapow-a-fast-and-furious-superhero-dice-building-g (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1794227864/kapow-a-fast-and-furious-superhero-dice-building-g)
Title: Re: Superhero Storm
Post by: Jubal on December 01, 2017, 11:03:32 PM
I'm not sure that's a problem - given the amount of time you'll want for playtesting and finalising details, you're probably still a good few months away from a KS, and Kickstarter games rarely keep biting into markets, because very few do more than the Kickstarter print run, so they tend not to keep eating market share once you're 12 months or so down the line.
Title: Re: Superhero Storm
Post by: Clockwork on December 02, 2017, 11:37:57 AM

I'm playtesting atm but really not too worried about that as the mechanics are pretty much lifted from different already successful games. The problem is still the same wrt playing, ending the game is clunky as hell as there's a time before the traditional ending state where one player is almost definitely going to win.


A lot of games have this problem that are very popular but I think if I can avoid it I should.


Uh I mean hypothetically if both go to sale then they'll still be competing surely? Not too worried about eating the KS crowd because I reckon that's more of an enthusiast space.
Title: Re: Superhero Storm
Post by: Jubal on December 03, 2017, 08:20:48 PM
If both went to sale, yes, but that's a big if. My strong impression from folk in the business is that most of these KS games do the KS, that funds a print run, and then that's pretty much that - possibly the designer gets future print runs to sell themselves or supply to independent stores, but increasingly a lot of these sorts of boardgames are on a "do the KS, make the game for the backers, move on to the next project" business model.

I think my rule with playtesting is that you always need more than you think, and that the more people you playtest it with, the more possibilities will emerge. I'll have a think about catch-up mechanisms - you're right, one would definitely be useful in this sort of game.
Title: Re: Superhero Storm
Post by: Clockwork on December 15, 2017, 03:40:52 PM
Ahh okay I hadn't appreciated that. Makes sense, thanks :D


Been looking through the RPG Masks http://www.magpiegames.com/masks/ (which is fantastic btw) and that's kind of spirit I want to evoke but without the teenage drama and more punching.


Their resources have been soooo helpful in inspiring me to create more heroes though so I'll be posting more of those in a little bit. But in case I forget, a classic tragedy in Coriolanus: a shell encasing a conflicted bad guy. A punk without agenda trying to make his city better one chaotic bolt at a time. A mysterious watcher, identity unknown, even to themselves - memory altering powers.
Title: Re: Superhero Storm
Post by: Jubal on December 17, 2017, 10:17:53 PM
That does look cool - I'm thinking of starting an RPG group here after Christmas, probably playing in the same setting as Adventures of Soros, but I'm not sure what system to use for it.

I also haven't forgotten that I was meant to be writing down my ideas for some heroes, I've just not had time lately, everything's end-of-year-stress atm until I get back to the UK next week.
Title: Re: Superhero Storm
Post by: Clockwork on December 18, 2017, 12:08:53 AM
It's a teenage drama simulator and I want to play it so badly! I'm hopefully starting one after xmas too, I have been hinting that an rpg rulebook would make a fantastic present :P

No worries and no rush mate, this is still in infancy :)
Title: Re: Superhero Storm
Post by: Clockwork on December 24, 2017, 10:02:16 PM
Austrian Ballet Dancer - Can use a reactionary leap when opponents move into base contact. If success, the opponent moves two tiles through her (out of base contact). If hitting a solid object, roll for collision.


Basically the Juggernaut - must move full allowance of movement with a move action. If moving through a destructible object, destroy it. If reaching base contact with a hero (friendly or opponent) they move with you for the remainder of your move and will roll for collision if necessary. Always succeeds collision rolls him/her/their self.
Title: Re: Superhero Storm
Post by: Clockwork on December 27, 2017, 12:56:47 PM
Speedster Max Swann
Title: Re: Superhero Storm
Post by: Jubal on December 31, 2017, 03:50:18 PM
So I've been trying to note down some ideas for a Somali mythology themed superhero team (since there seem to be Norse and Greek superheroes all over the place, I figured why not expand the idea!)

Ideas so far:
War Queen: Leader/Combat, based on the mythical Queen Araweelo.
Boulder: Super-Strength, based on "good giant" stories where giants saved villages by removing boulders from their wells.
Laughing Lightning: Magic/Movement, based on hyena-folk legends.

Thoughts? I feel like I need 1-2 more for a set.
Title: Re: Superhero Storm
Post by: Clockwork on January 01, 2018, 06:13:14 PM
Those are awesome! I was going to go looking for some obscure mythology but they'll be for an expansion as the game currently doesn't allow for god-tier heroes.


To give an idea - the heroes now are about on the power level of watchmen (not Manhattan though ;)), falcon and hawkeye from avengers with like low tier x-men being about as powerful as it goes.


Further down the line I have loosely got ideas to create a higher risks game of weak heroes vs mob boss and minions, a challenge of the gods - all the mythology heroes fighting among each other to prevent or cause Gehenna (or Ragnarok, the completion of the Mayan Calendar, feast of souls, etc); and finally alien invasion which will tie a lot of the systems together with minions from the low-fi game, god tier alien foes from the second and a lot of the city destruction stuff from the base game. No idea on any specifics on that as I'm still focused on the base game :D


Having said that I'll definitely use the leader idea. Hadn't thought about that before. And although it may seem like a petty distinction I'd like to keep magic out of it for now as well. I realise I didn't specify that before but I knew even less what I was doing back then.
Title: Re: Superhero Storm
Post by: Jubal on January 01, 2018, 08:52:43 PM
Yeah - the Somali myths I was using are pretty much all dealing with heroic but non-deity characters, which is why I thought of them for this. I think my idea for the the Hyena-being character could happily work without magic but as still being a trickster type character with good speed and carrying some smoke bombs or something. :)