Bay 12 Games Forum

So those who follow the anime or gaming block threads might have seen me trying to rework Zanzetkuken's Dragonball system into something that I can work with.

This thread is to work out the balance issues and such of the mechanics I have in mind, as well as open discussion for interested parties.
Note this is NOT the game I'm planning to run, this is at best a group of tests between premade characters.

Currently the mechanics I have in mind for the fights themselves are thus:
'Combat takes place on a 18 square grid, 9 for each side. This allows a simple modeling of range, as well as flight dimensions. Range dimensions are "close" "mid" and "far", while elevation dimensions are "ground" "low" and "high"
'Melee combat takes place when both parties are in their respective "close" square, and the same elevation square. All other combat is ranged, with greater distance on both planes making for longer range. (perhaps basic ki blasts, and some full techniques will have decreased damage with range?)
'Moving from one square to another is an action, as is attacking. Since different characters can end up with different speeds, thus having more actions, this opens up a strategic depth.

'There should be no dice rolls in combat. Combat is based around Power Level, derived from ki.
'Attacks follow a basic rule of Attacker Power Level minus Defender Power Level equals damage inflicted. Fully negated attacks still deal one damage.
'However, most techniques have modifiers to said power levels. Basic attacks have a modified power level of .1x, while a technique such as Kamehameha starts at a 1x, with opportunity to reach much higher multipliers.
'Defensive modifers exist as well. The most basic ones are Aura, which is passive, and Dodge, which expends an action.
'Aura, at first level doubles effective Defense level for the turn, the next level is 3x, then 4x, etc. This passively defends against all attacks in a turn, but expends stamina each turn, with higher levels draining more per turn. (I'm thinking 2 stamina drain per "level" of aura, per turn)
'Dodge fully negates an enemy attack action, and take no damage. However, this expends more stamina then Aura, and only affects one attack. It can be used multiple times in a round. (5 stamina per dodge to start with, we'll see how that balances)

'All attacks drain stamina as well, basic attacks use only 1 stamina each, while techniques drain a base of 10, with more powerful techniques with more modifiers draining more.
'Starting characters begin with 25 stamina, and regain 3 per turn. This can be trained in the full game, but for now we'll leave this be till we figure out a decent balance.
'Starting characters begin with 100 health

So, this SHOULD allow fights to happen without GM input. That will be a godsend for the full game if I'm right about that.
Anyway, I'll roll up a few default characters for people to fight with, then people can start challenging each other and we can see how fast the balance breaks down.
Also note, not working racial traits and such into the mix right now. This is a pure combat system test. All characters are assumed to have flight and energy sensing (these are not things all classes start with in the full game, note)

Character Pool
Low Level
Name: Food Pun
Power Level: 4000
Health: 100
Stamina: 25max +3pt
Speed: 3
Techniques: "Energy Gun Wave: 2x power level ranged blast"

Name: Windpipe
Power Level: 4000
Health: 100
Stamina:25max +3pt
Speed: 3
Techniques: "Nail Gun: 1x power level ranged blast, piercing(halves enemy defense calculation, applies after modifiers such as aura)"

A battle between those two should let us see what two equivalent characters look like, as well as tell us if the piercing technique modifier has any difference to just putting an extra power level on something

Name: Middle Ground
Power Level: 2500
Health: 100
Stamina: 25 +3
Speed: 3
Techniques: "Energy Gun Wave: 2x power level ranged blast"

Name: Butt Monkey
Power Level: 1000
Health: 100
Stamina: 25 +3
Speed: 3
Techniques: "Energy Gun Wave: 2x power level ranged blast"

And these thrown in the mix to see how quickly battles between non-equivalent opponents go. Mostly testing what difference in Power Level turns things into single stroke battles. Don't be afraid to pit these two against the more powerful opponents. ITS FOR SCIENCE!

I'll add more once we have a few battles happen.

So I know there are a couple people on the forum who've played this, but can't remember who.

So this is pretty much just to see if anyone is still playing, to throw myself out there for friending/ possible fleety stuff, and to let everyone know that there's a couple events starting soon that are really cool.

Right now the Risa Summer thing is going on, I think starting now you can still get the Vorgon Heavy Escort ship (it unlocks account wide now, so only have to grind it on one char) and in a few days they'll start up that Featured Episode Rerun event where you can get the special rewards they had for some storyline missions (Ophidian Cane, Reman/Breen BOFFs, etc.)

And most importantly, the next Expansion hits on the 6th. This lets you start characters in the 23rd century, TOS Starfleet. The first couple weeks you get account wide bonuses for doing stuff with them (similar to the Delta Recruit thing) and it comes with a slew of new ships and missions.

So for those who've played before, or even if you haven't, now is a good time to come back/start playing!

For some reason I was thinking of the Terminator movies this morning, and how if Skynet really wanted John Connor not to be born, instead of trying to kill his mom, all they would have to do is send one to seduce her instead. Since robots cannot into gene pool, babby never happens and Skynet wins forever.

And that's how this idea got kicking around in my head to do a forum game about it, and the only thing that made sense in context was a Mafia game, thus this thread.

So you have one player as Sarah, and then you have other players as Terminators, and some who are humans from the future to seduce her before the machines do.

I'm making this a brainstorming thread because I have zero experience with Mafia and am bad at GMing things in general. Literally all I know is the Terminators would be the "Suspects" in this case I suppose.
Also I don't really know anyone who does GM these things so take this as a free for all if you want it.

So yes, thanks go to Scott Manley for introducing me to this.

The Outer Wilds is a self described "Space Backpacker" where you explore a multidude of weird planets in a little ship. Oh, and every 20 minutes, the Sun explodes, resetting time.

Its currently in alpha and free, though I had to download it from a separate thing as their actual site has now been converted to not have a downloads page. Still pretty easy to find if you want to play around with it.

This is to request a moddable stat that doesn't really affect in-game combat, but is weighted heavily in Worldgen combats.
Primarily so that modders can ensure their megabeasts and such aren't struck down by a random sparrow in the first year.

So this is to suggest the idea of making in-game entities capable of noticing that your fort is built between the legs of a 500 z-level high adamantine dwarf statue, and being suitable impressed.

For obvious reasons, this is something of a tall order. While Toady probably has the programming chops to make this a reality, it would also likely take 20 years.
As such, I've decided to suggest a somewhat simplified version to start out with.

The main problem with this idea is that even if the game were made to recognize huge constructions, it would be nigh-impossible to get it to recognize that the construction is of a dwarf pouring magma over a troupe of elves, for example.
Thus, I suggest the idea of "Megaproject Molds" which are basically just scalable plans for a huge project the game would be able to recognize (because it would always be the same shape, though the scale could vary)

The most basic of these would be "Effigies" i.e. molds shaped like the basic races (one for dwarf, one for elf, etc.) and the game could be made to tie civilizations opinion of your dwarves based on them.
For example, making a giant human out of gold would please the humans, while making a giant elf out of chopped wood and lighting it on fire when their caravan arrives would...strain relations.

So once there was a game on this forum called Roll to Die/500otherthings. I took part in this game until it ended up on hiatus due to a sudden rule change thing. Right now we are waiting on Mastahcheese for THE MAP, but (hopefully) the game shall resume soon(ish).

Anyway, in this game I made a deal with Xantalos for power, and part of the deal was I write his holy book.

Thus, this thread, in which I ask for any and all especially sig-worth or OOC quotable things you saw from our favorite abomination.
I shall turn them into YE OLDE BIBLICAL TYPE VERSES. With the dates as their Psalm/verse number thing.

Bonus points for anyone who finds that one where Xantalos tells Mastahcheese "You need the D!"
Because I promised MC that I would foolishly throw that in.