GhengisCon 2019 -- A Resounding Success

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Category: The No Brakes Theory

Created: Monday, 04 March 2019 06:15

Published: Monday, 04 March 2019 06:15

Written by Super User

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So for the past few weeks I have been off the web creating, updating, and preparing for Ghengis Con in Denver.  
The Plan was to test Zombie Golf, Panic, and the newest (and after this weekend final) version of the Conflict System.  The Con was a rousing success for me and the games.  every game played really well, several rules changes/variants came about.  Finally we have a couple of very cool taglines for Conflict RPG System.

First it was a great con, I would love to say thanx to all the players who tried the games and talked to me about them.   I got a ton of great feedback, great ideas, and most importantly some fun games.

So lets talk about the 3 games, how they played, what I and the other players liked and what did not really work.  

Zombie Golf will be the first discussion, I am going to do highlights in this article and a more detail in later articles.  Zombie golf played well, but with the new zombie values it turns out to be very hard to win.  Between the frustration buildup from hazzards and the greater wound values the hordes built up and then people start dying or rage quitting.  I also noticed that there was a need to get more trophy cards out, gotta have them to play them. Another good suggestion was to change the dice from a d12 to a 2d6; this would give a better spread, playrs could better anticipate when to use a bonus or not. This will be an alternative mode in the base game, and a bonus for the ProAM expansion.
The end result was the creation of two levels of play, Regular play and Horde play.   In Horde Play the wound values double, how long a person keeps their trophies are the major differences.

Panic was a different story, it played just fine. Very tactical and fun when doing lines. However 2 things, the narration mechanic needs to be done for all scenes, not just successes.  Then other thing is its the second time I was asked for a party game version of Panic. A Party version would take the tactical movements of the board out and focus on the funny narrations. I figured out a way to create table read rules.  No board everything else the same.

The Last was Conflict System X40 (as I am calling it) Using the World of StrikeForce:2136.  The X40 System is a design I tried in different ways, but never in this way. The goal has always been to minimize the effect of the roll on the players ability to take actions and do more at the table.
The issue with my math based (or Lee math systems as my friends would say) systems was the attributes. I always felt the attributes needed to be in any skillset.  Thats adding 40 or 50 points, then add skills in and now 80.. and so it grows.  Then you think about ADnD and 2E, the specific reason the attributes were there was to bonus the rolls.  James Bond used them to set Skills and then the roll.
So I figured out that the abilities sets the characters Skill Depth. The Skill Depth sets how many Paste Events, Main and Subskills a player can add together for a SkillSet.  That total, the SkillSet total, determines a players success.  So the roll becomes a limiter, not a binary success failure.  This allows me to set all the skills to a range of 1-4, a SubSkill value of 2, and a Past Event value of 1.  This means the Skillset become a range of 1 - 40.  And now a roll of the dice does not stop you from succeeded, it makes it harder.
A tage line comes out of all this:
Conflict System: Never let a Roll Stop You!

So all good innovations and design ideas from every one.  More details on all of this in future posts.  

Oh and one more thing Zombie Golf is going to Kickstart, April 1! Be ready!

Conflict System and Other Percentile Systems

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Category: The No Brakes Theory

Created: Wednesday, 13 March 2019 04:42

Published: Wednesday, 13 March 2019 04:42

Written by Super User

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Since the latest release of Conflict I have had a ton of success with new players really enjoying the disconnection of the roll from character success.  I have had several conversations with folks about other percentile type resolution systems.  These games, like Earthdawn, Dark Heresy, even Warhammer Fantasy 2nd, use a roll under a modified percentile target to determine success.  Like the challenge rolls in Conflict.  The roll in those systems is the end of the challenge; in Conflict its the start.
People see a parallel between these systems, because they are rolling percentile dice.  Those systems  players look for ways to increase the percentile target, by taking advantage of bonuses.  This increases  the chance of success.   The SkillSet uses parts of the character, and tells a detailed story as you take an action.
The thing I dislike about roll under percentile systems (and I have made several) is what I call bonus hunting.  Players making decisions to gain a plus 5 or 10% bonus.  The narrative tends to move away from the character /story and towards tactics and ways to boost the math.  The math boosting is based in the idea of winning the roll; I need to to get that 85% so I have a better chance to win.  The reasons for the actions and the characters' story falls away.  The player can also get frustrated if they cannot do what they feel they need to so they can boost that chance.  The roll is made the challenge ends. success failure or other.
I wanted a system where looking at their character for ways to succeed enhanced the story and developed the character.   The roll is made and we start.  Players make choices; doing the actions that make their story.   Using past events and weave stories into my action?  Using Main or SubSkills to boost my SkillSet?  Spend Influence to cause effects or re roll?   Players are building more than the best SkillSet they can, they are building a story related to the character.  When it really matters to their story,  they burn a passion to make sure they succeed.   The numbers and effects are almost always coming from the character aspects, skils, driving both the story and the characters growth.
Using bonuses related to that character without knowing their true target, changes the motivation for getting the bonuses.  What about the character fits the situation? What subskills can I use to drive my story.  There is no 85%.

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A long journey to back to the start; yet very different Pt2

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Category: The No Brakes Theory

Created: Friday, 08 June 2018 14:22

Published: Sunday, 22 July 2018 15:27

Written by Super User

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So last post I talked about the old guard games where character build was somewhat disconnected from the resolution system.  This had the benefit of allowing players more build control, to make the character they wanted,  without changing the odds in a  real way.  That changed, players wanted their build to have  an effect on the game in more direct ways, and that led to the slow growth.

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