Diary of a Failed Game Designer

Back to Loot-Box A-Go-Go though this will likely be my last post on this subject (excluding  actual plays) for a while. The comments on my last post  had me thinking about  math, the nature of our brains and what we choose to ignore or include when playing. Prepare for a digression: Source On youtube there is a video I did awhile back for my friends introducing old school car wars. In that video I straight up FORGOT THE RANGE MODIFIER ON ATTACKS. WHAT? that's so basic to the game? Worse yet, I know that rule. I can quote that rule. I'm not Car wars expert or anything but I  played a good deal of it over the years. Even if it had been years since I had played it. My point being  when playing a game, or in that case setting up a 20 year old game, trying to read the rules again, and getting a webcam to hang nicely from a chandelier. Things slip. I decide what I wanted for Loot box is a way to  reduce that "slip." A streamlined way to visually manage modifiers...

Source: Eve Online There is an old saying that "If you haven't touched it in a year, it's probably safe to get rid of it." Ok I'm not sure how old of a saying it is but I have definitely heard it before. For the  people (person?) who read this blog that would probably  mean throwing away a painstakingly curated, thirty year old, attic full of gaming material. With that in mind I'm not going to suggest applying this concept to real life. However in Playtesting it holds a bit more water. We playtested (albeit super briefly) my shoot and loot style game Loot Box A-Go-Go last night. The game is an unapologetic homage to Star Frontiers, Borderlands, and perhaps even Halo / Doom. As you might expect there should be a fair amount of combat so for the  playtest we had one small encounter. Our heroes vs a small security bot. In the course of the fight I noticed a few things. Just like in Star Frontiers, a percentage system with combat modifiers leads to the game slowi...

Meet Tot, He's Dead, Tots been Dead a long time. If Anyone who ever gets their hands on my Loot Box a-go-go game has even passing knowledge of Star Frontiers, that person will see the obvious influence the former had on my game. I don't deny it. In fact the whole thing could almost be looked at as a hack of Star frontiers. (Hak is more trendy right?) I have basically  taken the  old star frontiers game and trimmed the character generation down and  moved that complexity over to  the concept of Burn Chains. I touched on those in the last post. Some things like the d100, roll under a target, and good things happen if you roll doubles resolution system, just work. It is simple to use. Can cover many situation without a lot of tinkering. Has enough  numeric"space" to  allow for a myriad of modifiers. Basicly I want a die system that is simple enough that I can just run the game and make this happen. Clyde Caldwell( source )  Because that level of Crazy ki...

My experience with Science fiction is  limited, but not completely  nonexistent. I'm familiar with the big two, Star Trek and  Star Wars. On the Star Trek side I am mostly familiar via osmosis and playing Star fleet battles back in J.r. high. Star Wars on the other hand I have seen the movies and simply don't care that much about them, just not to my taste. Other than that, I was a huge fan of Robotech and Battletech when I was younger. Battletech in particular has had a grip on me over the years. I still harbor a glimmering fantasy that someday I will run a game where the players pilot giant robots and  beat up aliens.  Lately we have been playing a Sci - Fi Rpg of "Stars Without Number" which truth be told I haven't  read up on the rules beyond making my character Luckily  the GM has been kind enough to say things like "Just roll and add 5, tell me what you get" and nursed me along a bit. I have been having fun with the  game even if my mastery ...