Attack! | Designing The Game
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- Опубліковано 17 сер 2023
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If you end up creating a book as valuable as "Flee, Mortals!" has been, the Wizards can stay on the Coast. I'm moving to dry land! Take your time and let us, the community, know how we can be of value when you need it.
Question: Is there a method for integrating this system with melee spell attacks in a balanced way? Magic crafting may be a ways off for your team but theory-crafting about integration of magic into combat, at least on a tertiary level, opens up possibilities for cool design choices farther down the road.
I agree man, I dont even use the monster books from wizards anymore, i either homebrew or use flee mortals
"the wizards can stay on the coast, I'm moving to dry land" is an awesome quote
something something river something people something
I disagree... The wizards shouldn't stay on the coast. Preferably they should move a few more miles seaward... Off a short pier-like.
I cut a chunk of the script where I described the actual rules for armor and how it's calculated because I thought it was a distraction. But! Maybe I should have left it in! Because it would have answered the question everyone's asking which is: Agility also adds to your defense here. Though the heavier your armor, the less of your agility you benefit from on defense. So high Agility characters are avoiding incoming damage, heavy armor is absorbing it, same effect.
Similar to the PF2E design, then! I say that as a good thing.
In PF2E, light and medium armours can total a maximum of +5 AC, and the different armours just change how much of that comes from your Dex, and how much of that is the armour itself.
Heavy is the same way, just the total goes to +6 AC (and plate armour is +6 from armour, +0 from dex).
Does anyone on your team have Tunnels & Trolls? Your current solution is dangerously close to what they do, you should probably take a look at what they did to see how they solved certain problems like scaling and stuff.
@@jhinpotion9230tbh, that system always sounded like it was a fancy way of just giving everyone a flat AC of 15. If there is no difference, then your armor shouldn't factor in, and we should dispense with the charade.
I want to assume Pathfinder isn't that boring, so feel free to contradict me.
@@tagg1080what do you mean “dangerously”? They don’t own that game mechanic, it’s not like MCDM would be stealing if they produced a mechanic similar or even the same.
Like the autodamage, I found an issue when I tried the instintive notion of armor reducing damage in my rpg idea, weapons, magic or whatever with a lot of damage trumps over weapons that allow many attacks but with little damage output, I had to standarize the damage of everything in order to make it work
Thank you, Hasbro, for letting your greed launch us into this hurricane of creation: new RPGs from MCDM, Critical Role, RuneHammer ... etc. It's going to be a Golden Age
While I'm glad to see Hasbro falter, I don't like having to learn a billion new systems...
Either that or a fragmenting diaspora!
Dungeon coach is also making a cool looking RPG, he’s done quite a few live streams on it already
@@TheOnionKnight1i mean, no one forced you to read new stuff, same as before (when new stuff was also coming out). Having variety has literally no downsides.
@@TheOnionKnight1 You only have to learn the one you're playing. And even then, only the bits that apply to your character. And even THEN, if you actually like the people you're playing with, you all get to make the learning process fun together.
And on top of all that, if the system is good, there's only really going to be one central mechanic to get your head around that gets applied in a variety of situations. All the best systems can be taught in about three sentences.
The talk about hit points as "ability to avoid death" instead of wounds is honestly one of the things that gave me an idea for a TRPG system, even if I've never expanded beyond the base concept.
The objective of the combat becomes less "Reduce the enemy's hit points to zero" and more "Say "I Kill my opponent" when your opponent has no means to say "no you don't"". The sort of initial idea actually works very well for a sort of swashbuckly one-on-one combat scenario, but things got real ugly real quick when I started considering multiple combatants... (Which, to be fair, is actually pretty realistic: You've got to be astronomically better than your opponents or extremely lucky to win when outnumbered).
Essentially, every action in a turn costs action points which are both used for attacking, defending and maneuvering. Declaring "I kill my opponent" is actually a relatively expensive action, while saying "No you don't" is relatively cheap, meaning for one fighter to win they have to acquire a pretty significant advantage through other maneuvers that spend these action points, often reducing the points your opponent has to work with in the subsequent turn. The amusing thing is when I started expanding this out: You could use a similar system for a magician's duel, or a debate, or even a stealth situation that treats the area being infiltrated as an entity with actions of it's own... if you wanted to get into the weeds on it. The trouble is fleshing it out past that point, which is why this has really only ever been an idea.
Interesting idea. I actually did try to apply combat logic to noncombat things once. So persuasion could be its own combat for instance. It can have items and weapons like money (bribery), specific knowledge (blackmail and such), etc, but also just appeals (reason, logic, etc. Player would come up with the argument and GMs could give them a bonus if the argument is really good). And "HP" would be determined by something like willpower. So you come up with a way to pressure the opponent to capitulate and roll to see how effective it is, which could reduce their willpower or whatever. Since this is a more time consuming thing, you want other players involved. So multiple could take part potentially, switching who goes in the player's turn.
This was developed for a more Game of Thrones style game I never finished. So the idea was the nobleman in the party would have to do this typically, but his party members that are lower born would find info and such he can use as leverage in negotiations. So everyone has a role to play in noncombat encounters just as they do in combat encounters.
You magnificent bastard! I've had an idea for an RPG where instead of a GM each player is a monarch over their own territory. But I never figured out a good way to gamify it without it being better as a board game. A system of hidden action points based around stratigic deduction? Now that could work amazingly!
More and more this is reminding me of Into the Odd/Cairn, where you just roll damage with no attack roll, HP is referred to as "Hit Protection," and armor reduces damage. It's interesting to see how you guys expand on that concept. Looking forward to more!
Me too--and those games are great, so it's good to see. Though the focus of those games is very different. Pretty far from the tactical direction this is going. So it's also good to see they arrived at this mechanic honestly
Tunnels and Trolls (T&T) works kind of similarly too. You just roll all the d6 damage dice (and bonuses) for each side and total them up. The side with the highest score inflicts the difference on the losing side which they can distribute however they want, with armor absorbing damage points. However, any roll of 6 on a d6 counts as "spite" damage and gets through any defences so armor can't stop it. This is true even for the winning side - if the losers rolled any 6s in the damage pool, that hurts the winners too. Ranged weapon fire is handled differently with a Dex "to hit" roll, based on the target's size and distance, being made by the attacker - if successful the weapon damage can be applied to that single target, even if the attacker's side loses the round in terms of total damage count, otherwise it just adds into the side's total.
@@FrostSpike I really like that! Especially with how it seems to emphasize teamwork. You take and dish out damage as a group.
@@theastralwanderer IMO, T&T combat can be a little mundane if you use it "vanilla". Players are encouraged to perform cinematic "stunts" (but they aren't called that) that require a Saving Throw to be made and, on a success, will apply some sort of penalty to the enemy or a bonus to themselves - usually in terms of the number of dice thrown in the damage pool.
By the gods, can you imagine? A world with flowing combat?! 😩⚔This sounds pretty interesting!!!
"Missing" and having the someone get a free action is more punishing than just missing.
If having heavy armor potentially gets you a free action when it's not your turn then everyone will want heavy armor all the time.
Characters with weak damage output will suffer.
This series has really inspired me recently. In a game I’m currently making, missing an attack gives your enemy “flux” which is a resource that can be spent to deal extra damage. Keep up these videos, they’re awesome!
Thank you for the BTS of this whole process! I’m all to excited to see this moving forward and especially for the finalized product. Cheers to you and your team, Master Coleville!
I'm excited to play the final version of this with my wife and kids in a couple years. I wish I'd known about Tabletop RPG's as a kid, and I hope it's something they all like when they're older
My little eye spies a Flee Mortal! cover in the background ❤️
this has been a fascinating series so far! and the concept of "no missing" is really interesting. the one thing i feel though is: If my fantasy is being a unarmored, dexterous character is dodging attacks, and the failure state of an attack role is damage reduction from ARMOR, how do i play the character who dodges and parries?
I'm excited for the DTG video addressing this!
Maybe dexterity, if unencumbered, can also reduce damage! It's not terribly dissimilar from how 5e combines both ideas into AC. Although it'd be nice for narrative purposes to know if you missed entirely, or if your aim was true but couldn't pierce armor.
Your speed and dodges would just also mechanically count as a certain Armor I guess. It's pretty much that way in dnd as well.
Probably some class or feat Will allow you to Dodge or parry
I think what would be thematic and make the most sense would be for your dexterity or ability to dodge to raise the miss threshold above zero instead of reducing damage. For instance if your dexterity defense (whatever you call it) is 3 then any attacks that do less than 3 damage miss you, but an attack that does 4 damage does 4 full damage. This gives a nice, and thematically appropriate distinction between dodging and armor defense, and doesn't really require any more math.
Last I remember from the Patreon posts, you have an overall Defense stat that I believe incorporates Agility (or whatever the Dex-equivalent stat is called) and the Block/Parry properties of certain weapons along with Armor. I don't remember the details off-hand but they've definitely thought about all that.
When he announced they were making an rpg it was the first one where I went, “these guys know how to do incredible game design and will nail it”
I know right? Also, I immediately knew this would not be a fork of some D&D edition like a lot of the other new games.
Love hearing about this journey and thinking more objectively about the basic assumptions of the games we've been playing for years. It's super refreshing
This sounds like a good direction; cut out the boring stuff, make failure interesting! Looking forward to the rest of the series.
I've been designing a no-attack-rolls variant for 5e as well and I came up with something similar but not quite the same. A major goal for my system is that the players always feel like you make progress on your turn. I made these changes to reflect that and also balance big attacks and light hits.
__Armor Class__
Armor class is a straight reduction to the damage number
__Criticals__
Whenever a damage dice rolls its maximum number, you double that die
__Super Criticals__
If you ever roll max damage on ALL of the dice, you ignore AC entirely
__Evasion Tokens__
Players are given evasion tokens at the start of combat based on their Dex Modifier. These can be used to dodge an attack entirely once.
__Sunder__
If a player rolls damage and it is entirely negated by armor, reduce the targets armor by 1
I haven't play tested it yet but this is what I'll be running next session
I should go to the patreon but haven't had time yet. First thing that comes to mind is an exploit where someone could get so heavily armoured they can just constantly counter. In my mind those things are somewhat opposed. The heavier you are armoured the less manoeuvrable you are. (something you alluded to in different videos) And surely that should mean you are less likely to be able to get in a quick counter rather than more likely.
You might even think that a lightly armoured agile combatant can do more counters than a heavily armoured slowed combatant. Then the choice (around armour) is more likely going to be "do I reduce incoming damage or maximise chances of countering/outgoing damage taking incoming damage as a trade-off?"
This however will result in lightly armoured/agile combatants being in a superior position UNLESS taking less damage (or damage less often) has a significant advantage. Which would probably lead to some kind of debuffs or such for recently having taken damage to compensate...
In other words, the video gives some great idea about the thought processes and inspires to think (along). Thank you for that.
Of course he also spoke about heavier armor slowing you down. So if you are too heavily armored, smart enemies will stay out of your reach and plink away at you until you collapse
I’ve been researching to host a Basic RPG game and there is one thing that I love about it, that I want incorporated into more rpgs.
BRG is a d100 skill based system. You have a 30 stealth skill, you roll a d100 and if it’s 30 or less, you succeed. In combat, if you’re attacked by a melee weapon and your weapon has the parry ability, you roll on your skill with that weapon, and if it’s a “hit” you successfully deflect it and take no damage.
What I love about this is that, in real life, being really good with a sword means you’re really good at deflecting and thus hard to hit. Your sword becomes like a shield.
I feel this is something lacking in DND. Being a good swordsman makes your damage greater, but it doesn’t make you harder to hit.
Not sure if there’s a better way to implement this concept, but I want the realistic aspect that getting better at combat also makes you harder to hit.
Cool video! I am curious to learn how this kind of counter system works with ranged attacks. Maybe the answer lies in the different counters each hero can have, which Matt alluded to toward the end of the video? Excited to see more!
I love the overall design here. I wonder of a broader weapon design design could cover the counter system?
Weapons are split into "fast", "average" and "slow"
You can counter anything that is slower than your weapon, but not those that are equal!
You can then layer specific defensive perks on top of that,
A 'duelist' perk may let you counter weapons of the same weight class
"Defenive stance" may let you avoid being countered, but take a penelty to your atack roll.
"Shield expert" allows you to counter with slow weapons, but only when the enemy rolls zero on damage (similar to original rules).
I think this bit of granularity adds spice to the combat, rather than passive effects.
A fighter might use a maul against a single strong foe, choosing to just soak up the counter hits, but when a group of minions run in, he may swap out to a shortsword so he can deal a bunch of damage to them as they try to hit him.
Unsurprisingly, you guys are killing it on the design! Very excited to see it!
These videos are ABSURDLY GOOD they're short cool tips on how to think about game design. Really awesome! As usual Matt and MCDM are the best source for rpg design on UA-cam!
the idea of a invincibly armoured foe countering almost all of your party's attacks is awesome
Even as a Patron who has read this, the videos help me really get a feeling for what it all means. it's fascinating how this is all coming together.
I like the idea that a goblin with a knife will deal you 1 damage if you miss and leave yourself open. It naturally implies a lot.
1 - A goblin with two knives would deal 2 damage!
2 - Some warriors might be able to fight without leaving any openings!
3 - If you can take his knife before attacking him, he can't counter!
I have taken these ideas of removing the null-result and applied them to my game. They might be inspiration for a good option to apply to this system. (In Cypher, the GM does not roll to attack; the GM declares an attack and the player rolls to defend.)
Rather than separate actions between PC's and enemies that are adjudicated separately, on a players' turn, I declare what actions the enemies are taking against the PC's and the player declares what action their PC is taking in response. The player then makes a single roll to determine which party overcomes the other in that exchange. Either the player succeeds, or their foes do. (I am experimenting mechanics for mixed or partial successes.)
If multiple enemies are engaged with a single PC, they act as a single unit with increased difficulty and damage. Often with the ability to take multiple small actions - knocking a PC prone and damaging them.
Bosses and other large enemies get one action for every PC they are engaged with.
This speeds things up fantastically and allows for really fun sequences with mods of baddies all dog piling on a single hero like Captain America in an elevator, or large monsters grabbing PC's and using them as weapons to bludgeon or hurl at their allies.
Love seeing the behind the scenes of game design.
I've been interested in the idea, lately, of attacks hitting automatically unless someone uses a reaction to defeat the attack. Parrying a sword to keep yourself safe makes sense. It could make for interesting gameplay where instead of a "flanking" bonus, ganging up helps because you can only parry once per round?
It also allows for some intuitive things - someone standing in front of you not expect an attack is certain to be hit, someone held down or sleep is certain to be hit etc.
It also allows for "rogue-like" characters to be good at avoiding hits but squishy, while "knight-like" characters aren't as good at it but have armour for lowering damage.
It seems to lead to all the right outcomes, and is more dynamic.
Thoughts?
Edit: the other benefit is that forcing the enemy to "spend" their defence means that even if they block your attack, your action isn't wasted! It could even work more like legendary resistance: no roll, x parries per fights depending on class/gear/etc
These Designing the Game videos I find are way more insightful into how to be a better DM than any of the Running the Game videos (all of the RtG videos I have found invaluable and I thank you immensely for all the help they have been to me), which I never would have guessed and am eternally greatful for
Thank you for giving me the best DM tools I never knew I wanted or needed!
In the game I've been working on since the WotC OGL debacle, I've been coming up with my own way to handle the no null result issue myself. Back when my game was a massive 5e homebrew, I just made an armor overhaul, adding a second number I was calling Evasion class. If you rolled lower than evasion class, you missed completely (but considering EC was usually only 12-13 it was hard to do so.) If you rolled above armor class, you hit for full like normal. If you hit in between, you scored what I called a "glancing blow." A glancing blow has changed over time. But originally, it was going to be "you do half damage, the attack cannot crit." (I was adding a TON of critical threat range boosters to the game as well, cuz crits are just fun.) But over time, I changed it to just "You don't roll your weapon's damage dice. You just deal your flat damage."
Now, that I'm making my own game, I've removed armor class entirely. I prefer perfect information games; I've never liked having to ask someone else on MY turn for a piece of information so I can know whether or not I succeeded in my task. Actions are going to have their own success rating (which is really cool that you guys talked about doing the same thing at one point for your own game) and so the player will have all the information they need to know to run their own turn, theoretically. And instead of armor class, character's have an Armor, Evasion, and Will score (these can be buffed by armor and class features) that reduce certain damage types. Armor resists physical damage types (blunt, pierce, slice, and force.) Evasion resists elemental types (fire, cold, lightning, etc.) And Will resists mental/metaphysical types (Psychic, Holy, Shadow, etc.)
I really like the concept of making the damage reduction not reduce things that are ONLY flat damage tho. Sounds like it would fix an issue I've been seeing with my glancing blows. Would it be wrong of me to try something similar after hearing about what you guys are trying?
Anyway, love the vids! You guys are doing great work. Always such an inspiration.
As someone who has always been interested in your Running the game videos and the whole idea of "GMing is designing" I already thought these videos were great. But just this week a "small addition to a system" finally ballooned into a whole new system from scratch, this just hits another level.
I also did away with attack roles in the main combat pieces of my system, but since I'm adapting pokemon, this removed one of the axis that the original game used to balance its moves, which left some interesting design shoes to fill. I cant wait to see these videos and see which solutions we both think of for our respective systems. This has been really amazing!
It's kind of funny to me that you gave daggers this 'fast' ability that lets them get a strike in first against an attacker, when it's (at least conceptually) very similar to a trait I give to weapons with more reach in my system (because that's kind of how weapon reach works in real life; a long weapon, nimble or not, just simply gets to attack before the shorter weapon even has a chance), but typically this means that in my system this trait is usually on bigger heavier weapons and not on small fast ones.
One thing to think about is how this fast property could have interesting interactions with other mechanics; for example, in my system, one of the big things about shields is that they give protection against the attack-first advantage that long weapons have (again, heavily influenced by historical martial arts over cinematic stuff in my case), and this is a possible angle to consider. Let shields (which are usually SUPER nerfed in most fiction compared to irl), rather than a boring boost to your armor, be a defense against this type of auto damage from opposing weapons. It's also worth considering letting reach weapons achieve a similar effect (granted both can then run into the issue of re-introducing failure states for attack rolls this way, which would need to be re-solved somehow).
Same, my system also uses reach to determine attack order. He seems to be going a bit more theatrical, whereas my designs are informed by how things actually worked and adding some special abilities that kinda break those rules to increase build diversity because it's fantasy.
Conditional clauses are the worst, i'm liking the emphasis on good flow and easy to remember wording for rules.
I appreciate having the information from 8 months ago nicely summarized like this.
Man, I'm so jazzed for this. I'm probably never going to play it since it doesn't really seem like my kind of game, but I love that you're doing it all the same. You clearly care SO much about making a good high fantasy game.
When you mentioned the counter attacks, I was picturing something that can actually be pretty difficult to create in some of the systems I play. Picture a massive warrior in heavy armour. He doesn't dodge, and he isn't immune to incoming hits, but he swings hard and slowly. He absorbs a hit and swings at you instead. This is actually pretty much impossible to make in my system of choice as being big and slow means you're atrocious at fighting, which this armoured warrior would not be, but would fit perfectly into that attack system you mentioned. He would be trying to maximise his odds of countering and hitting as hard as he can with a counter.
Everytime i watch your vids, i get pumped up. The creative thoughts start rolling in, and i find myself excited to try out new ideas. Thank you Matt and all the team at MCDM, love your content and cant wait for the next hit :)
Just love hearing the thinking process during you guys’ game design. Thank you!
Super excited and already planning on trying out some of this.
Thank you, Matt!
I love that you're sharing the design process. This is really helping me get a grasp on how to homebrew my own systems or features within a system. I'm also super excited to play this when it's finished.
Nice! Always a pleasure and I'm really diggin' these design videos
I like how elegant this solution is. Very excited for more of this!
These updates are always insightful and a pleasure to listen to. Thanks so much for putting them out for us 😊
So awesome and inspiring! Loving these videos and the patreon posts.
Man MCDM video are the best looking videos on UA-cam.
I could listen to you game design all day. Heck, I have listened to you game design all day!
Thank you for all the great vids.
I do really like the concept of counters happening when the attack is "reduced to zero damage" as it does mean players get to have the information needed to understand what they're doing with their roll (as long as the GM isn't being toxic).
It reminds me of the Saturday Night Scuffle systems where die rolls have so many bonuses at base that you are almost guaranteed a hit, but you as a player get to impose penalties to the roll in order to do more stuff and make the result of the roll cooler until it reaches a point that you're happy with the gamble.
These videos are simultaneously inspiring and educational. Some of the most valuable content on this platform.
Love this!!!! Gonna start using the counterattack crit in my 5e game! So often I come to this channel and hear a great idea and it's often a eureka moment for me and my game. I learned to DM through this channel and I still learn new stuff every video. Sorry... mushy... just wanted to say thank you and keep it coming!
I love this so far! If/when these books/kickstarter/pdf comes out, I WILL be buying it.
"Bleeding edge" is the phrase I believe you're looking for when it comes to the Patreon posts vs. the YT videos!
Great video, guys!
Very cool. Looking forward to the complete set.
Thanks, Matt. I now have my new rpg's name: "Equally Arbitrary Abstractions." Okay, we may have to workshop it a little, but at the very least, that's the subtitle!
Also, in my limited experience, the old wargames I saw were diceless. Units had attack and defense values, and victory was determined according to those numbers. idk what Arneson, Gygax, & co played tho.
I soak up this game design stuff: Mechanics, philosophy, production pipeline, like a sponge. Love it!
This is so promising. Also superb laid put thoughts Matt. Love these videos and can‘t wait for the final product.
The challenge system between attacker and defender, plus the chance for a counter attack, along with armour reducing damage has shades of the Harnmaster combat system. HM is a tad crunchy though and can be slow, but the effects are quite cool.
I love seeing this process. The biggest lesson for anyone in a creative pursuit is to not be afraid of discarding earlier work, no matter the size.
I love the "Counter!" system, as it reminds me of one of my favorite tactics games of all time, Vandal Hearts. In that, Whenever one unit attacks another, be it friend or foe that initiates, BOTH get a strike in. The instigator hits first, and as long as their opponent still has remaining health AND is in range, they strike back. Archers and Mages can subvert this by attacking from range, but if an Archer shoots an Archer, they will shoot back as long as terrain does not impede them.
All this to say, I would like it if the baby was not thrown out with the bathwater here. Perhaps a singel Class or Feat that, once acquired, allows the previous Counter Attack. It cannot trigger off of itself, but allows an alternate "Counter!" for those who wish to seek it out.
Really enjoying this peek under the hood, seeing how one designs a game.
LOVE the idea of counter! I have for a long time implemented an idea in 5e whereby my monsters don't roll to attack players - players roll to block or dodge or mitigate the attack. That way I do pretty much no rolling (or minimal rolling) as DM and it let's the game flow more naturally. Can't wait for the design to get tighter!
I really like these ideas, the game sounds dynamic and intuitive. I also like a lot the process of trying new rules and things and finding ways for it to be consistent with the game
Loving the straight-forwarded process. And also that there are several dice: I'd prefer a non-flat probability chart.
Aha! Uncle Matt reveals more of the sausage-making process!
I find myself torn between my tradition and excitement by matt making the new way sound cool. We'll just have to see how it feels when it's ready for us to see how it feels
Feels like there could be a case where an enemy with intentionally high defense gets to be cheesed with static damage.
sounds like a great reward for good planning and easy to punish if the players abuse it too much. Nothing is stopping the DM from using some juicy legendary actions with the [always hits] or [dispel] tags 😈
You say "cheese" I say "lateral thinking." 🙂
@@pascal6871 Yeah, this too can be used creatively and designed around. But if you don't... "Here, have a 1HP, AC30 turtle! - Well great, then I'll just stab it."
I love the thought of flipping this script on the players. Fighting a swarm of giant mosquitos? Sure one is only going to do 1-2 damage a turn. But times that by 30? That's suddenly a really scary fight! And the players KNOW they only have a couple rounds before they're bled dry.
Any time I've tried to do something like this is 5e it falls flat because so few of the monsters actually hit, or it just turns into a ridiculous amount of dice rolling and management.
I think that simulates a cool fantasy though; like the big armored enemy that can effectively block incoming attacks, so it’s smarter to wait for them to overextend themselves and take jabs at the exposed joints in their armor, perhaps with a poison-tipped weapon??? And like I can easily imagine describing a fatal blow using like a quick weapon as stabbing them in the eye, or slipping your blade through a part of the armor that was damaged absorbing a previous attack and slicing through an artery! Definitely it’s something to consider when designing a boss, like I imagine immunity to pricing damage for like, a stone golem would make sense and challenge the players in a different way; especially if early level bosses were susceptible to that method.
It's interesting, coming from nearly the same age of gaming as Matt that I've never had an issue with the missed attack roll, next turn wheel. And not because of wargaming - I was never in that scene. But older D&D moved faster because we had fewer options (aside from wizards as always). WHen your next turn comes up in less than 5 minutes, missing your attack is a moment of dramatic tension that your companions have to make up for. But by the 3-4-5e eras we take so long to get your next turn to come around (~20 minutes is pretty common even when I'm hurrying my table along), that's what makes having no effect on the battle for a turn feel crappy.
But also, I don't see the difference between "missing your attack" and "you deal zero damage" - either way the player rolled dice and achieved nothing, and with the current counter system, they essentially get a slap in the face to boot. It does turn two dice rolls into 1, which is nice streamlining, but I don't feel like it actually addresses what it claims to, in terms of "turn where the player action has no meaningful effect". And as I said, I don't think that's actually a problem to be designed out of a game.
Very well put insight, I hope their team considers what you’re saying as it’s essentially trading out one failure for the other, except you’re taking up more time to allow the enemy to counter and penalize you for failing even harder than simply missing.
Hi Matt, thanks for sharing the process with us! :D
Im certainly still apprehensive about no attack rolls (im very much of the opinion that the ability to miss, makes the hitting matter) but this video does dissuade some of those fears. Excited to see how it works in practice!
In truth, there is still an attack roll, it's just a damage roll and attack roll rolled into one. It's essentially a 2d6 + mod vs Armour Class (the reduced damage ability of said armour). Roll higher, you hit and deal damage. Roll less and you miss and they counter. The only thing I'm not sure of is, does a hit only deal damage equal to the excess, so Armour is 5, attack deals 8 damage, damage dealth is 3 or once you hit by exceeding the armour or agility, do you then deal the full 8?
I just can't wait for the dice episode! 😍
pretty cool video. love to see the method behind the madness.
I love the design philosophy you guys are going with and looking forward to each new post!
Regarding that 1HP edge case mentioned at the end of the video, what if the "fast" attribute's auto-damage could instead simply be applied after the attack instead of before the attack? The end effect remains the same in most scenarios, but now the edge case is gone and both players & enemies could now have a tactical option to try to avoid this auto-damage via crowd control effects (i.e. stun, disable, force movement out of range, etc.).
Doing a similar approach in the game I'm designing -- players are loving this mechanic with "Attack for Damage" not "Attack to Hit". Critical hits have a different effect which stops that daisy chain of attacks against each other. Lots of similarity of thought in design -- funny how alike despite just discovering your channel today.
I'm rooting for you and the team, Matt!
I Live. To hear this man say "When last we left our heroes..."
That Is why I love dice pools, your attack and damage roll can be the same, because you already have degrees of success.
This is a really facinating insight into how game design works, especially around such a core system like combat in a game like this. The excitement behind this process is clear to see and I cannot wait to see the finished product.
On a personal level I like the act of rolling to hit, it feels meaningful to me, but I do not deny the element of "having to ask someone else for information" is an issue with it. Makes me think about a concept where the player has a DC they have to roll (with no modifiers) and then armour comes in for that damage reduction afterward. Maybe I'm revinventing THAC0 / Warhammer Weapon Skill tables
The system I'm building has no attack rolls. If you're in range to attack with your weapon, you just roll damage. I haven't fully playtested this system yet, but in my mental simulations it puts more emphasis on alternative ways to avoid damage, like mobility, armor, and healing, and I've included many options for these in the game.
IN the last OSE adventure I ran, I used armor as damage reduction and no attack role. We used exploding dice for damage. Worked really well.
We even adopted the fact that fire wasn’t impacted by armor, like MCDM did. The one thing left that we were trying to balance was how touch attacks, and drains in particular, worked.
Love this for enabling defensive builds that are not just hp sponges.
Thats so neat, and novel. You could have stuff like rapiers do more counter damage, but less upfront damage, and wow I just realized that opens up alot of cool space.
That epic boss fight sounds like what I pulled off in a 5e campaign. (Warlock/Battlemaster)
I can't remember the specific skills so apologies if I get something wrong but the gist of it is: I attacked and used a maneuver to give the next attack against the enemy advantage, then maneuvered the DPS Paladin so he got a free attack vs the Lich. Since he had advantage he managed to crit (and all the paladin crap like smite went off). It was insane and one of the best moments we had.
Our group made up our own rules lite system and we also didn't have rolls to hit. Combat was opposed fighting rolls with how much you beat the opponents roll by being what determined effectiveness. And vice versa. We both roll fighting and add modifiers, and if at the end result, I got 24 and you got 18, I did a wound.
I'm so excited for this game.
7:01 this is the same problem I have with Mork Borg with the players rolling to defend against enemies rather than the GM rolling for enemy attacks. We keep forgetting whose turn it is.
Very cool, thank you for exploring your thought process :)
I love "Cairn" where there is no attack roll, only damage
During the video, I was wondering whether you'd be giving individual weapon types different counters, but as soon as you said that classes would each have their own (or multiple) counters, I was super impressed! Literally said, out loud in my office, "ooh, that's cool." Can't wait to see more of the game as it develops!
Also, don't think we don't see that "Fighter" shirt, Matt... 👀
When all the OGL nonsense went down, I swore off WOTC, sat down with my 5E heartbreaker with Matt’s design philosophy in mind and refigured my whole game. It’s much more interesting, interconnected without being too crunchy, that feels intuitive and offers the players a lot of alternatives to null results. The challenge has been really rewarding, and Matt’s advice and WOTC’s bs have helped me crack so many design issues, I might actually publish something.
Thanks, Matt.
Sounds very similar to "Retaliate" in gloomhaven. Counter damage that doesnt require a roll and ignores armor. It works very well and makes for some really cool builds.
Excellent video, and I really enjoy looking into the process of design and figuring out where the real problems are. I find that all fascinating. And am still very interested in how this game is turning out.
On a completely separate note that is in no way meant to really alter your design, just pointing out something that has always bothered me when it comes up. I never liked "fast" attack weapons in ttrpgs. They're always put on weapons like daggers or something, and I get the idea that you can swing the small weapon more. It makes sense, but really, the person with the three foot sword is going to strike the guy with the knife about four times before the knife ever gets close.
But that's just where my mind goes. And you even start the video explaining there's going to be these kind of abstractions and that's unavoidable and even good to make decent gameplay. So, yeah, do what's best for the game.
Sounds a little bit like "Symbaroum" with a few different steps (in which the game master rolls no dice, character doing damage is rolled against absorption values, while character armor is absorption rolled against damage values).
Interesting theoretical video.
Glad to see you guys sticking it to the man.
Pretty neat. The Sentinel Comics TTRPG also forgoes to-hit rolls, so whenever you attack, you just deal the amount of damage dictated by the applicable die or dice. If you want to mitigate damage, you would need an armor-like ability that automatically reduces damage taken or you would need to use the Defend action, where you can reduce the amount of incoming damage taken for that round by the die rolled until your next turn.
Also, I resonate very much with the sentiment of failed attack rolls being a sucky experience. Their infrequency in JRPGs is a very smart game design move on their part and should be adopted more in TTRPGs.
Yeah, sounds better and better, and it was already a cool sounding system.
I think the idea for fast weapons allowing counter damage is cool, but I think it would be better suited to longer weapons like spears than daggers. It's dangerous to close distance and strike someone with a longer weapon than yours, that might be a little too simulationist on my part.
I feel like if the design stays similar enough to make this still relevant, countering with a fast weapon should deal damage at the same time as or after the attack that triggered it. I think this partly to soften the edge case (from "I shouldn't attack because I'll die" to "If I'm going to attack I'd better make it count"), and partly because taking someone down with your dying breath is cool.
I'm so tempted to use this on my 5e table right now! I don't care if it brakes the game, it sounds amazing!
Counter being tied to an ability, or having a counter ability seems neat, to make some enemies more dangerous when countering vs others. Like, either your counter damage is based on your Agility or some other stat, and/or everyone deals 1 damage with counter, UNLESS you have an ability that boosts your counter damage.
When you talked about heavy weapons and light weapons, it gave me an idea. What if the heavy weapons allow you to roll three damage dice on your attack, but you cannot counter with them? Anyways, love the videos and I wish you well with the game :)
This made so much sense to me. Very cool
The rate these videos are coming out now Flee, Mortals and Where Evil Lives are done is soooo good 🥰