@masukomi@dice.camp
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masukomi

@masukomi@dice.camp

👉 Senior Back-End Dev. Seeking Remote Position 👈

Autodidactic, Autistic, ADHD, Trans 🏳️‍⚧️, programmer who loves thinking about TTRPGs.

If you're interested in hearing my random thoughts about life, programming geekery, 3D printing, and cute pics of my dogs and cat, then follow my other account at https://connectified.com/@masukomi

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masukomi, to random
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

This is going to make rolling difficult.

masukomi, to random
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

One of my biggest gripes with trad games is that they're constantly having players break into the homes of sentient tool building creatures with families and communities (like Goblins) and then slaughtering them because they have things the PCs want or are between them and things they want. 🤦‍♀️

How do people not see how ridiculously racist that is? Why are people ok with perpetuating it?

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

It's frequently justified with something like

"BUT The Goblins keep attacking our home!"

You mean, the home built on the land they were living on until your people came in, murdered dozens of them, and set up shop?

or "But we need to get to the heart of the dungeon for magic McGuffin and they're in the way!"
Did you... i dunno, consider talking to them to negotiate safe passage before you slaughtered all those families who had nowhere to flee to?

masukomi, to random
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

I have a love/hate relationship with Narrative Dice.

I desperately WANT to use them, but most implementations result in one of two scenarios. Either the GM is needing to come up with some ancillary positive or negative effect on essentially every roll OR they can be used for some simple mechanical effect like +1 damage / harm and everyone just ends up using that because it's HARD to come up with narrative "yes but/and" on EVERY roll.
🧵1/7

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

It occurred to me that we could simply say that any Bane / Boon generated by the roll increases a pool of meta-currency available to the GM / Players.

ex. I roll success + 1 boon. I CAN spend that to have some positive ancillary effect that I'm thinking of (e.g. "and they're pushed back towards the pit monster" ) OR I could just bank it and spend it later.
🧵2/7

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

I think the key is to NEVER allow it to be spent to buy success / cause failure AND never increase harm. Also, NEVER REQUIRE it to be used on the current roll. Buying additional dice for a check you're about to roll would probably be fine. Lots of games have a luck mechanic like that.

Here are some examples from Sapio System.
🧵3/7

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

It should be noted that Runhammer proposed a Narrative Dice system a while ago https://youtu.be/mTGEfBxAfOg where the "narrative" aspect is ONLY about helping to explain WHY the roll succeeded or failed.

I ran the numbers for the mechanic he proposed, and it's not great, BUT the idea is excellent.
🧵4/7

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

Unfortunately, this realization came as i was working through why the Doom Pool mechanic was so broken in my game. I ended up trashing it entirely, but now I'm going "🤔 Maybe i COULD use narrative dice" and considering Spiral Dice again (Damn you Jon! 😉) https://spiraldice.com
🧵5/7

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

I just reread the Sapio system that he released with them and while i don't want to play it specifically, there are a lot of good elements to it, and I'm thinking I could rework the "narrative" portion of the dice as noted above, and the core pool building stuff to match what I have and.... "this might work!"
🧵6/7

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

The problem is, that i'm effing sick of switching core mechanics. I just want this game to be done! At the same time, I'm not 100% thrilled with the Year Zero Engine's mechanics.

BUT I have to admit that it's producing GREAT results with the way I've integrated it into my system.

I keep having encounters where i'm terrified my characters are all going to die, and then they miraculously pull though and I'm like ⁉️⁉️ It's producing an amazing emotional roller-coaster.
🧵7/7

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

I really shouldn't be surprised... The "Spiral Dice Hackers' Guide" already has guidance for use in a system where you bank Banes & Boons (or whatever you want to call them) instead of immediately applying them to the current roll.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

With Spiral Dice. There are three symbols. Typically these are Success, a Bane, and a Boon. But, as shown in that last image, the non-successes could be called whatever.

HOWEVER they don't accumulate evenly. So, Jon doesn't recommend using them as a meta-currency for players & GMs. Instead he recommends using the one that accumulates faster as a standard meta-currency & the slower one for activating advanced powers that you'd wouldn't want triggering as often.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

That's why his suggestions are both somewhat positive "karma & verve" "resolve & momentum".

I'm wondering if maybe the faster one could used like a standard meta-currency while the other one could be used for character advancement.

masukomi, to random
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

Discovered that in Me Myself & Die Season 4 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDvunq75UfH8DBmsn76dOzI0js0lhKRuV

Trevor is playing a game he created. Intrigued, I started listening despite being behind.

Initial thought: I LOVE the combination of d100 roll-under system with a "blackjack mechanic".

You need to roll under your skill but also a high as possible without going over.

When you successfully roll to attack one of the dice you already rolled indicates hit location!

🧵 (short)

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

Normally I hate dealing with hit location but this integration is SO smooth that it's essentially no work and i'm like "sure. why not?"

There are "phases" to combat: mêlée attacks, then ranged, then magic, then "other". I really don't like this. WAY too fiddly.

--
oh, re. the roll under but as high as possible, the tens die indicates the number of "degrees of success" which you can then apply to the outcome (immediate or future) of that roll.

I really like this.

🧵

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

I'm excited to see where he takes this system.

I love how he's combined all these mechanical things into one roll in a way that is really easy to remember.

Do you know of any other roll-under + blackjack systems? Or any that load extra info onto the already rolled dice like this?

I'm assuming these aren't original ideas because really SO FEW game mechanics are. Our predecessors had a LOT of time to try out ideas & share the results. 😉

masukomi, to random
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

After that long 🧵 about flow-charts I realized that after having recently consolidated & cleaned up all the rules for MY game, it was actually in a state where it was ready for this treatment.

I'm not done & it's already significantly improved one rule.

🧵1/3

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

I have a D6 pool system, but it's possible for a player to end up with negative dice. In this case they roll 1D with "Disadvantage".

The target is almost always 1 success, & I had this clumsy explanation that when rolling with Disadvantage you had to roll 1 additional success, on top of whatever the target number was.

That complicated the flow chart by requiring a 2nd parallel path. Seeing this complication made me realize I could achieve the same result, by simply reframing it…
🧵2/3

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

…& saying that rolling with advantage increased the target number by 1. 🎉

This ALSO simplified determining if a roll was a "Simple Success" or a "Critical Success" because now you don't have to do something different if the person was rolling with disadvantage.

I'll show the resulting flow in a sec, but i just realized i can simplify it even more!
🧵3/3

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

The extra last-minute simplification was that I don't have to have a question about rolling with advantage & disadvantage to account for the fact they cancel out.

This also ends up making life easier for the GM in a few subtle ways.

🧵4/3

masukomi, (edited ) to random
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

@Taskerland commented that my flow-chart looked "Fiendish". They're not wrong, and I wanted to talk about that. More specifically about the hidden complexity in games & how designers need to think about things differently than players.

Here's a cleaned up version. Don't worry about reading the individual nodes, they're not important to this discussion.

Side note: I'd love to make these for your unreleased game in exchange for money. 😉
🧵1/16

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

...makes a TON of sense, & protects the value of a critical successes. It's also IMNSHO just not worth the complexity.

(sorry thread chunks got a little messed up)
🧵14/16

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

To summarize.
Make flow charts of how your game works. Pay attention when start having to add in lots of decision points to account for some little feature / ability. Question if it's worth it. Step back and consider if the the things in each section are really worth the complexity they contain.
🧵15/16

masukomi, (edited )
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

FIN for now, but I suspect my brain's going to be noodling on this more so... 🤷‍♀️ maybe not. 😉

And again, l'd love to chat about making these for your unreleased game(s).

[edit] I only threw this graph together last night. I haven't done full-on-confirmation. There may be more edge cases to account for, and that's the main reason why I'm not putting up a full-rez version yet.
🧵16/16

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

I have some thoughts & advice for how to approach this, but I think this is the wrong medium. Here's my take on what you shared. I have an idea for explaining how i approach this more. I'll DM you later.

masukomi, to random
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

I flowcharted all the stuff related to a player rolling a check (attacking / defending / whatever) in

It looks complicated but I swear to you that this is nothing compared to D&D and most other "trad" games.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

@Taskerland a) thanks b) while THIS chart is terrible for players HOLY SHIT YES FOR CHARACTER CREATION!

There are other solutions that help. I think Pathfinder 2 did a GREAT job of addressing the fact that there was a lot to do, while simultaneously using text to hold players hands and say "There's a lot to do. but don't worry. Here's what we're going to do. Here's the order things will happen. We'll take you through it step by step. See? It's easy when you break it down"

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