The Dice | Designing The Game
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- Опубліковано 21 лис 2024
- To Funk or Not To Funk, that is the question.
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the dice throw off-screen and back was funny
That took like AN HOUR of me and Jerry practicing and then doing about....20 takes? 30? Somewhere around there. Thanks Jerry!!
@@helloMCDMworth it? Haha
I was about to comment on the same thing I had to rewatch that part like five times. Matt doesn't even look at the die when it comes back. He just catches it.
Absolutely worth it, I think. 😆 I had a baby in my arms and I had to muffle my laughter.
What a lovely flourish. Reminds me of a moment in Blood Meridian with a coin. @@helloMCDM
We say "no attack roll," but it's more like "no to-hit roll." Your damage roll IS your attack roll.
Slick tbh
This is one of my favorite rules omissions from Into the Odd.
Let the damage being rolled determine how the fight is going!
Class resources is a really cool idea.
Just got done watching attack and dice video, and just wanted to bring up an idea of the 1hp and don't want to attack. Maybe you have it were players willing take a bane die the -1d4 so they make a "safe" attack that can't be countered. Just an idea for you and don't know if anyone has thought of it yet.
I’m thinking about crits. 1 in 12 rolls seems like too often, but maybe not. Is there a Triumph on double 6s and Despair on double 1s? Feels right to me.
I loved to see the childish glee on Matt's face after the "Hey you! Stop!" bit.
It's fun being a stormtrooper! Jerry cooked up the audio effect. :D
That "Hey You. Stop." made me smile
Maybe the Cosmic die needs to be an artifact that is sought after by those who wish to wield its cosmic power
Exactly my first thought when Matt said that it might return.
I was thinking that electing to roll the cosmic die should cost stamina, and/or force everyone to roll and trigger a cosmic balance?
Be careful what you roll for (muhaha).
Yes.. rather then the Deck of Many Things, we had the Dice of the Cosmos
@chaseroycroft1I mean, it’s even the exact same shape.
The Cosmic Die is too powerful, it must be destroyed
Yeah, I think the Avengers fought Thanos over one of those. It ended with Captain America smashing it.
Sounds like a campaign MacGuffin. Find the Cosmic Die and destroy it, before Evil claims it for its wicked purposes.
But...can you resist using it yourself? That's the pickle, isn't it.
And I suppose you think you're the one to do it! *dwarf grumbling*
One of you must do this
@@Bluecho4yoinking that
The idea of Law and Chaos having impact you can FEEL is a fantastic idea. Fun as the cosmic die seemed, I hope Law and Chaos are given mechanics at some point, whether or not the die comes back.
One idea I had immediately is to make it more a cosmic spectrum, or pendulum, that is pushed to one side or another by actions taken in the situation. Characters - PCs or NPCs - can perform actions that push the pendulum in a certain direction. When a tactician gives an order that manipulates the battlefield, it nudges the cosmos towards Law. Whereas when a berserker does a frenzy of blows, it nudges towards Chaos.
This can create effects depending on the degree of intensity towards one side or the other. Or if the pendulum is Balanced, it might have another effect. Importantly, it's a _pendulum,_ and can swing back the other direction on a dime. The cosmos is fickle, and the momentum of driving it one direction can soon send it swinging back. This way, you're not necessarily punishing the party for including a mix of Law and Chaos focused characters.
The real value of this video is explaining the Star Wars dice better than anyone I've ever seen.
Let's pour one out for our homies, the funky dice. Its sad to see them go, but it had to happen.
I love the way this game is growing.
I (Matt) still like Funky Dice for *A* game, just not this one. 2d6 is better.
But really I want to make a card-based RPG someday. Not a deck-builder! Just something that uses a deck of cards.
@@helloMCDMalways wanted to try a system like that. Looking forward to it someday
@@helloMCDM I know you're familiar with the Legend of the 5 Rings. I used to play the L5R RPG and our GM also played the card game. He kept a deck in his GM kit, as an "encounter deck", to generate on-the-fly random encounters. He used it as a kind of threat to us, his players, to ensure we were proactive at driving the campaign forward. Basically, if we weren't decisive about what we wanted to do next, he'd ask if we wanted to draw from the encounter deck instead. Usually this would scare us into taking the initiative, but if we still didn't have anything, he draw a card (usually showing it to us, so we could gasp in horror) and inevitably put a punishing spin on whatever came up.
Now, that's not something you'd want to build into real game mechanics, but to this day (over 15 years later), I still think of that when both playing and running TTRPGs. Card-based encounter generation allows for much more nuance and direction than rolling on a random encounter table, because you can put pictures and paragraphs on a card.
Funky die would be a nightmare for foreing players, specially from global south, as dice are at least a little expensive and import from MCDM in dollars would be a pain.
Wyrd translated their card-based skirmish miniatures game into a RPG (Through the Breach) awhile ago, and we loved it. As Matt taught us, “mechanics support the fantasy” and the cards really evoked the tone and the choices in those games.
I was super excited about the funky dice when I first heard you were using them! But the thing I'm most excited by is team finding out what the game really needs!! It's wonderful to have a front row seat for the process!!
Oh hey! Neat seeing you around here!
@@princeheinrey5666 Heck yeah, been watching for years, but all this talk about the new game has me very excited!
Got to say I'm glad the team pivoted to standard Dice. Funky Dice have a place in board games but players in RPGs like to collect and personalize their tools (such as Dice and minis). I have players that come to each new game with another fun color of Dice and are excited about it. They can only do that because there are 100s of different sources all making standard Dice.
The refinement of gane design, "finding the fun" and "cutting the fat" is a privilege that decades of game design and experience has brought us. But it's still darn hard work and you guys are spearheading it brilliantly, from what I am able to gleam from the streams and videos.
Killing darlings and makinf the cuts for a better design takes guts. Good job.
This game sounds so fun. I wants it.
Sweet! [I watch your videos]
Holy shit it's that blob guy
"Yes but" is the best way to add drama to a scene.
🎶 We are living
In a fantasy world
And I am a fantasy girl 🎶
Stealing from Halo is definitely one of my favorite factoids of the game design progress so far
Definitely added some hype for me too.
Baked in class resources is such a clean design choice. I'm excited to see where the development of this games goes.
OMG the spendable stamina system sounds GREAT - fixes a lot of the problems that come with abstracted HP points and in a way that actually adds depth to combat! Love it, so excited for the full game
"The Cosmos favors Chaos" is such a nice line I might have to figure out where to put it in my campaign. 2d6 + stat might take a bit of getting used to regarding target numbers, but examples in play should help a lot with that.
We'll have a chart of typical target numbers but it's easy to math in your head. Average on 2d6 is 7. Range of attribute bonuses is 0-4. A hero is normally adding 3, but a normal person is probably adding 1 or 0. So 7-8 would be a Normal or Easy Target Number?
Max is 12, then +4 for a really good bonus, so a Very Hard TN would be 16? We'll see what the final numbers look like but I don't think this is hard to math. Depends on whether we want to factor stuff like boons.
@@helloMCDM Can't you get a negative attibute bonus? like a Raistlin type weak wizard with -2 STR or CON?
Factor in that if TN is 15-16 then you can only succeed spectacularly, because you have to crit
@@helloMCDM how would weapons factor in the attack? does a dagger add +1 dmg , a great club +4 ? i am really interested if weapons have special rules like armor piercing, daze to remove the ability to buy manoeuvres with stamina etc.
A similar 2d6 vs DC system is in Disco Elysium, a detective role-playing video game. You allot attribute points into 4 attributes (Intelligence, Psyche, Physique, and Motorics), where 1 is minimum/pathetic, 3 is average, and 6 is maximum/peak human.
Each attribute has 6 associated skills, and on level up you get 1 point that you can spend to add a rank in a skill, similar to pathfinder. The max number of ranks in any one skill is by default the same as the attribute score: having a measly 2 in Intelligence means you can only put 2 ranks in an Intelligence skill such as Logic.
A check is 2d6 + attribute + ranks in that skill. So if you have 2 Intelligence, and 1 of your maximum of 2 ranks in Logic, it's 2d6+2+1.
It also factors in lots of situational bonuses, typically acquired by knowledge in a different part of your detective investigation.
DCs are something like: Trivial 6, Easy 8, Medium 10, Challenging 12, Legendary 14, Godly 16, etc.
I want a behind the scenes of the dice toss and catch. I'd patreon for that.
We loves the idea of increasing resources.
I totally get why the cosmic die was discarded eventually but how did you solve the issue it was meant to solve? How does the game feel like a fantasy game to both the fighter and the wizard? Hoping we get more info on this. Thanks, Matt!
I feel like the setting surely sets the tone, like you I don't why you need a "fantasy" mechanic, if your swinging swords at dragons or shooting spells you know its a fantasy setting right?
It sounded like every class had a resource they could spend on "fantasy stuff" effects which is good enough. NPCs don't need to feel like fantasy beyond their species etc (unless NPCs use player classes).
Learning to cut the thing you love is a tough but important lesson in development.
That no-look dice throw-n-grab is just too good.
7:50 the stamina/health pool thing is done pretty well in Starfinder
Building up your class resource over the course of a combat is something I really like. I've been idly thinking about how to achieve moments like those in Dragon Ball where a character has been holding back some of their power. Ways to make the end of a fight the most epic and bombastic moment rather than the first round being the big moment. Building up something over time is one way to do that.
Yeah it also does well to prevent the PCs from just trying to focus fire a single monster in turn 1 with a bunch of powerful attacks to make a difficult fight easy.
I wonder if could keep the cosmic die around, but you can only call upon it's power in moments of deep distress or desperation - say, when your character is completely out of stamina. That way it's never your first resort and you can keep the focus on player's abilities and powers.
Just a thought! This video got me more hyped about this game than anything else you've talked about so far.
Huge respect for all the "murdering of your darlings" going on. Takes a lot of humility and devotion to the final product, to cut out something youre that attached to. Makes me much more excited for the end goal
At first I went "baroo?" when you said that the Cosmic Die-telekinetic shove felt gross. But then you explained it, that it was a single die roll that chose the fate of the ankheg and...WOW. I instantly 'got it'. Absolutely on board with this. Choices as a player should decide the ultimate outcome. The dice are there to be rolled and get outta the way.
Is the DM or GM equivalent for this game you’re creating referred to as the director? I think that’s fantastic! Really plays up to the cinematic heroic fantasy!
Yeah! Literally couldn't think of any term that was more appropriate.
19:05 I anticipated that turn of events and it paid off. Small things like these make me smile in an otherwise already good video
The cosmic die in the story you told is EXACTLY doing what it should do. Using the cosmic die, calling upon the lords of law, hoping for lady luck, whispering to your ancestors, believing in yourself, whatever you as a player and your character believes it is, in a moment of desperation ro save the day is the point. Thinking about this cinematically, this happens in so many movies we love and feels good, at least to me. It can be very dramatic. The feeling of "grossness" I think is because it didn't feel earned. I would argue that the fact that is could have gone dramatically wrong, let's say the push puts another player within the grasp of the monster and now two characters die, means that it was earned. Finally, personal preference, it represents the randomness of life, the gods, and everything. Gods are fickle and motives are not always clear, maybe a negative result actually helps with an agenda you don't know or understand.
Any game with stamina, hit points, and a tactician class is my bag. Excited to play this when the time comes!
You might take a look at Iron Heroes. It's a game by Mike Mearls using the D&D 3.0/3.5 rules. It has a Hunter class that uses a Tactical Pool to power its special abilities. It also has a feat tree called Tactics of the Mind that gives you access to a Strategy token pool allowing you to use your INT modifier for a variety of actions in combat. It doesn't explicitly have stamina, but you do have a hitpoint pool you can draw from after each fight to recover lost HP which is functionally pretty similar to how stamina works in games like Starfinder.
@@brendanodonnell3960 Yeah I have heard of Iron Heroes I should give it a shot even if I have some aversion to D&D 3.0/Pathfinder 1e. I have no doubt in my mind that the hit point pool from that game inspired Healing Surges (one the most genius long rest hp systems) for 4e.
Right now PF 2e is my tactical crunch game of choice, but MCDMs game is sounding like a good option for when I don’t want to deal with Vancian magic or the d20.
I feel like Remy watching Gusteau from Ratatouille. The way you talk about this game you're designing in all of your videos is incredibly inspiring. I have been working on a little game with a friend of mine for a month or so now but we kinda hit a roadblock and stopped designing for a few weeks. But watching your videos is making me want to pull the docs up and just start creating again.
I think the idea of the cosmic die sounds like a lot of fun and gives me ideas for something I might implement in my own game, but who knows. Thank you for being an inspiration Mr. Colville, your speeches and videos are always a treat :)
The nice part about design happening behind closed doors is that you'll never feel like you missed an opportunity to point out something you think they missed. When you started this, I was nervous that I'd see a perspective on a topic that I feel you missed when you made a decision, and I wouldn't have enough of a voice (especially since I'm getting this through the videos rather than the Patreon) to point it out.
I'm pleased to report that it hasn't happened so far, and I'm in fact blown away by the thorough logic in these videos. I never seem to be able to ever actually play tabletop games, but your logic alone is making me excited for this game.
Maybe, though, I could at least share a perspective I have about Ancestries ahead of that video. In recent years I've seen some gamers get very upset when centaurs were made playable in their game. I found it difficult to find threads where there wasn't at least someone who'd complain they were ever made playable or brag about how they'd banned the ancestry or players who want the ancestry from their games. Ultimately, these arguments would understandably boil down to some unusual logistical concerns the ancestry brings up, but particularly in how those concerns intersect with the rules. I'm biased, because I'm a fan of centaurs, but centaurs have become a bit of a symbolic litmus test to me. The reaction I always have is this: if a tabletop game is so bound by its rules that it can't handle a classic fantasy creature like the centaur, then what makes tabletop games different than video games?
A challenge I'd have for your game is this: build it so that ancestries can still be balanced without having to conform to an exact human body shape. Even things like more than two arms or prehensile tails are things that are controversial in other games, but to me are part of what make fantasy fantasy.
I need this game just the story of your dice selection bring me joy
The way the cosmic die got cut was really interesting. It's funny how cool an idea can sound on paper, then you put it under testing fire and it just... collapses under the heat
"You have only one choice: the cosmic die must be destroyed"
The easiest way to re-add the cosmic die principle back into your game is when the 2d6 turn up 'doubles'. Then you have a 12 in 144 chance of the cosmos getting involved. Double Odd = Chaos, Double Even = Law. What do you think?
I love this resource stuff! I always like how in anime type battles the powers used get bigger and more crazy. This system could do that!
I really liked the way you described the process the team had with going through the different decisions. :)
I'm so glad you guys decided against custom dice!!!! I understand the appeal of adding new symbols to create additional narrative options. However, I already learned a few sets of symbols in school as a child and they seem to work fine for mostly everything. Not having to learn new ones cuts down on the cognitive load of learning a new game! Good choice!
The more Matt talks about it, the more hype I feel.
If i were to design a game with a cosmic die, i think id make it a coin flip instead. Heads is law and tails is chaos. Having it be a coin is nice, its a prop on the tavle that everyone can see and know the currently paradigm at a glance, no asking the dm or having to remember. then id make sure every class and stat block would have a an ability that draws on the current cosmic allignment, but no matter what it is, that ability still does something. Maybe you have an affinity for one side, giving you an active/offensive ability vs a passive/defensive ability. Maybe you can spend a high ammount of resource to flip the coin again and shift the dynamic, or even outright just set the cosmos to a chosen allignment. Maybe the cosmos has its own initiative every few rounds where you flip the coin and shift the paradigm, but also maybe event sways in or against your favor depending on the result.
Love seeing this kind of stuff evolving from Genesys/Descent/Ironsworn/Blades in the Dark. Been leaning more towards narrative and abstracted results lately and it had been really fun. Looking forward to seeing more of this.
So far this is the first video that has me interested in this game. I like the class resource concept.
I want to see behind the scenes to see how many takes that perfect dice toss took XD
More than 1… Less than 1 Million
I just binged all the game design videos, man I can't wait to learn more about this. I've been feeling like 5e is not for me for a few years but me and my group haven't managed to find something that is satisfying and simple at the same time. This feels like it might be it!
I freaking LOVE the cosmic die! When you said law and chaos, I immediately grew extremely excited. That concept is SO fantastical and perfect! But I can easily see how it takes away grom player agency.
A balance could be making it an adventure reward at the table that will expire after some time. That way when it is used to epic effect the players feel like it was earned if it went in their favor or not their fault if it didn't. Idk... half-baked idea that needs playtesting. So glad you guys are putting in the time to playtest and carefully craft. Love these vids!
I really like the idea of "invoking fate" or "besseching the gods" in a campaign and not knowing who will answer. Like a desperate plea into the void, "give me this one thing and ill serve you". Roll a d8 to see which omnipotent being answers or draw from this tarot deck to see what it will cost. If it happens early enough it could be the campaign. "Sure you brought me back but now we have to work for the warlock we were supposed to destroy."
There's a brazilian rpg from the 90s called Tagmar that had this idea of a stamina bar on top of HP (they called it "heroic energy", but is the same concept) and I love it. I always wondered why other games didn't do the same. Good to see you are adopting a very similar mechanic in the MCDM rpg.
I'm writing my own role-playing game, and each video is an invaluable source of knowledge.
The development, the questions and their answers are very useful. Something I thought might work for me will be ruled out. Something that didn't work for you will be implemented in my game.
That idea of invoking the cosmic die is still super cool, don't throw it away completely!
Sounds like you also played a bit of star wars Imperial Assault with the Surges - which work basically exactly as you describe them and *also* are represented by lightning bolts!!
Completely agree with your conclusion re: Edge of the Empire dice mechanic, better for pulp adventure and ill-suited for strategic crunchy combat games
Thank you so much for these videos!
The "class resources" reminds me of Iron Heroes, a d20 thingamajig from back when d20 thingamajigs were big. Never got to play it, but the concept seemed cool. Each class had its own resource pool, that they got by doing class-based things; the Armiger got their resource from blocking hits, the Berserker from taking damage, the Archer from spending time aiming... It was a bit complex and slow, standard for the 3e days, so I look forward to seeing how your system implements it!
Can't wait for this to launch, really liking this fresh and creative approach. So far, most 'new' systems are just old systems reworked.
YES!!!! Stamina + Health is the design i looked at for my own system and I love it so much more than the basic HP system, helps so much in differentiating the "luck" based hit points from the meat numbers.
Matt! I am SO GLAD you picked up on that Force Die mechanic! I ran my favorite campaign ever, an Old Republic Star Wars FF game back in 2015, and I realized the exact same thing. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I literally use the Yoda quote all the time to describe that mechanic.
It's actually what made me want to design games '-' it taught me to think of mechanics as so much more than numbers. I'm playtesting my own TTRPG this Friday, funnily enough.
Thank you so much, Matt. For everything you've done for the hobby. And for me personally '-'
Starfinder does Stamina like that, but instead of spending stamina to do cool things, you spend resolve, which you also spend to get stamina back
this is really cool! I think I'm going to be coming back to this video several times because I'm currently in the process of trying to design my own 10 page rules light system model Court intrigue in a way that the popular game can't, I'm currently in the process of trying to figure out how dice work over there.
The stamina that you can spend to do stuff reminds me of Numenera/Cypher System, in which your stats are where you take damage, but also what you spend to Do Cool Stuff. Biggest complaint I've seen of that is when it feels like you're burning hp to save your hp (or worse, just the *chance* of saving hp), so like, using stamina to do fighting better, to the aim of ending the fighter faster so you take less hits and thus don't lose as much stamina, which circles you back to why would you do that? Best thing I know of to do with a resource like that is to focus what the resource is spent on on more colorful abilities, stuff that isn't as easily chalked up to "do the fighting better". Using it for maneuvers seems like one good use, since there are multiple ways that could be used that feels distinct and situationally more advantageous than just being able to stay in the fight for longer. So maybe a tank type of character uses some stamina to jump in front of an attack aimed at a companion, in turn taking more of a hit than they're saving the other character from, but they have more to spare so it comes out as a good decision (or maybe a shield can help prevent part of the stamina loss from that, idk).
A great video on design and deciding what dice to use for your game. I recently wrote an article on deciding what dice to use for my board game based on probability and categories of difficulty so I am right there with you. Good luck with the rest of your game design!
I'm loving these dev diary style videos. They're right up my alley, seeing the creative process of game mechanics is just a real neat thing to witness
I love these new videos, you guys seem so excited, it can't help but rub off :)
The health and stamina bars working as described is exactly how the game Monster Hunter works. And each “class” often has its own resource as well.
I’ve been playing around with a lot of fuzzy ttrpg mechanic ideas
This has definitely helped me realize more clearly what I want out of some of them
The armor-reduction, stamina + HP, and direct to damage are all jiving with the lite ttrpg "Into the Odd" system. Always a good look when there's convergent evolution in design
Having a health pool and a stamina pool is something im fiddling with in the ttrpg im working on as well. Its nowhere near as grand as yours already is, and it probably won't ever be, but its a fun side project to work on when the mood strikes me.
I am excited to purchase this product. Just watching these videos helps me come up with my own game design ideas.
I’m actually relieved you went with standard die
I’ve been really excited by this game but the one thing that had been holding me back had been using these weird dice
Perhaps that’s me being too hesitant to accept change, but the new die system you’ve explained has me more excited then ever!
"Elendil."
Also great video, it's really cool to hear your teams thoughts behind the mechanics 🤘
Salivating for this game.
Matt, Flee, Mortals! is my absolutely favorite bestiary and supplement for 5e ever. I can't seem to express enough how much fun my games have been since I started using the book and the ideas in it in regards to building encounters in my game. My players are having fun, you guys seem to have found the very sweet spot on how to make a challenging encounter that is satisfying and doesn't seem unfair, but brings in that danger that kees everyone on their heels. You rock, can't wait to put my hands on where evil lives.
YESS!! I know the main focus of this video is about the dice, but I really like that you've incorporated an "hp" system that makes a pretty clear distinction of what is really "getting hit" and applying damage.
I've been working on a ttrpg for years, and it has already gone through many iterations, but this is one of those things that took a surprising amount of time to get right and less ambiguous. My version of Hp is CP which is "Combat Power".
Looking forward to seeing more of your game!
What does Combat Power do in your game?
Intrigued by what I've seen in these videos thus far, looking forward to it!
Star Wars rpg was the first game I actually learned and DM’d. I absolutely LOVE the dice system. Incorporating lore into the force die with the dark side being easier is absolutely amazing. I wish I could play that game more
i love how much this is beginning to sound like into the odd with a bunch of the tactical wargaming roots added back in!
"Another game we played..." Ooh, Descent! Woot!
Really cool video! I thoroughly enjoyed this look into the game dice mechanics. Thanks again for this inside look at game design!
i came to a lot of these points (success degrees, class based resources, polyhedral sets vs single dice types, etc.) in my own game design tinkering. Ultimately my favorite inspiration is Don't Rest Your Head's system where dice pools correlate to your character's condition and state.
Great video, helps me reaffirm some of my own choices.
the "build your resource, then spend it to do epic stuff" philosophy reminds me a lot of Final Fantasy XIV. its a cool design! excited to run this game for my friends eventually :)
Great conversation! talking about hit/miss in the development of the game, lifting the hood about how the dice engines work - great analogies and examples of application.
legit interest in future follow up.
I can't wait for the class video. My biggest lament with DnD is that so many classes and subclasses don't feel that different to play than the other classes. There is a lack of specificity when it delivers a character archetype that makes me bummed out. For example, I think the archetype of a Necromancer goes much deeper than a wizard with a few buffs to make their undead servants more resilient than the diviner who can also raise the dead.
Not saying this is correct for this fantasy game, but I'd love to see a TTRPG attempt a class design philosophy not unlike League of Legends, or DOTA2 where classes are grouped by a functional role (tank, support, dps, etc.), but how a 'class' accomplishes that task is completely unique to the other 'classes' in the same role. A smaller more curated selection of abilities, to the end of selling a character fantasy, as opposed to DnDs design where often classes/subclasses have a more generalized feel because you are picking from a pool of abilities, feats, and spells shared almost in its entirety amongst other classes/subclasses.
This video and presentation is really well made and well delivered!
It really helps sell the amount of thoughts that goes into creating a design -- even if the design can seem simple once assembled.
I am so excited for this game!
I'm becoming quite excited for this game with every video!
Man, the cosmic die was a heck of a darling to have to kill. It's awesome to see how focused you all are on this project. I've read all this before on Patreon, but the video presentation is awesome.
This really reminds me a lot of the dice I'm working on for my game. A HUGE part of the game is the idea that you can upgrade the things in your army, and some of those upgrades let you roll a single die during combat... For each upgrade of that type you have on that piece. There are some pieces that can have six upgrades, some can only have one - And this is really the only difference between them - And so big pieces are naturally pretty consistent in what they can do, where small pieces will pretty often not achieve much, but can still contribute sometimes, especially en masse.
So yes, I'm using funky die because it makes sense for the game - It would be hell keeping track of what to roll and what to pay attention to for any given number of upgrades, but with my weird little d6es, you just grab a number of a certain type of die for each of an upgrade of that type, and that's what you roll in combat. You still roll weaker dice for empty upgrade slots, and generic dice for if an upgrade doesn't give you anything special. Still tuning it, but it ends up making things super easy to set up and roll for combat, which is important when combat will sometimes not happen for a while, and then start happening a ton all at once.
But I'll be the first to go to bat for anything that works and is fun - Normal dice can do that, funky dice can do that, no dice at all can still do that. It depends on the game, it depends on the vibe, and there are a lot of things that can work for you if you're clever about it. And certainly - Never make it more complicated than it needs to be. Funky dice CAN be the simplest available option, but won't always be.
I'm so excited for all of this.
I think I'd give a kidney to play in a Campaign with you, Matt, I truly would.
I like the cosmic die idea. I used something similar in a 5e homebrew I ran once where the success of spells was influenced by the local 'phase' of the weave (1d8*gause(d100)) the D8 defined the school of magic which predominated the local area * %100 to give it a magnitude. the more spells of that school boosted the local effect. it was fun and gave an additional level of chance and risk for the overpowered classes. from the player's perspective, it was mostly narrative, as I was doing most of the rolling behind the scenes, but as the players became more powerful, they saw it as another resource to exploit....to significant effect!
nice video as always:)
I think that a good example of a system with multiple opposed rolls to deside encounters are the World of Darkness (and Chronicles of Darkness) games, with the big example being Vampire: the Masquerade. It's still slower than just rolling a single die, but because the diepool that you yourself roll is essentially known (depends on your stat+skill with maybe a bonus), that speeds up the game slightly.
The design for the game sounds absolutely fire though, looking forward to it.
MCDM understands how to kill their little darlings. Very encouraging for the upcoming game! I'm excited to see what you come up with.
This has been an amazing experience getting to hear these breakdowns. It's offering me insight for my rules light game I'm making, "Slice or Life!"
MAN, I feel connected to your train of thought. I swear, every other sentence I'm like "this makes too much sense. Can't wait for your system to be out. Maybe then I'll finally find a group to play some ttrpg...
Okay but I got chills listening to the idea about the cosmic die
Sounds a little like the Doom dice from the Black Sword Hack, which is very fun
Listening to these videos gives so much to consider when making my RPG. Especially when focusing on how to capture the essence of a game. Be it fantasy or other genre. Getting the feel of a simple farming/exploration rpg with chill vibes but minimal math has been a fun challenge ^-^
I am loving this new games thing. I'm looking forward to MCDM and DC RPG the most...
Really love your description of how the rolls are going to be working. I think my favorite system right now is the one Modiphius uses for their in-house system 2d20, especially for Star Trek Adventures. No funky dice, but still feels very cinematic/on-theme. Looking forward to trying out MCDM's game when it comes out!