#tabletop game design

[shrikepublishing]

Occasionally I'll forget to clarify that I'm a tabletop game designer not a video game developer and a person will spend 5-10 minutes believing I have respectable skills and talents before I start talking about dice math

[yodawgiheardyoulikemecha]

Lancer is a sci-fi RPG focusing on tactical mecha combat in the distant future. Featuring dozens of unique mechs with incredible powers and weapons, Lancer is a must-play for groups who love d20 combat, teamwork, and giant robots.

Podcast review of Lancer from a few years ago, recently uploaded to youtube.

Haven't actually played Lancer, so I can't say much about it myself* but what the hosts had to say mostly aligns with the impression I got from reading the playtest documents back before Lancer was published.

*yes, I know, I have previously expressed opinions about Lancer anyways

[haru-dipthong]

A new pub game: Dice Heist

Dice Heist is a 2 player shedding game with dice and simultaneous actions. It has a real heist feel with "I knew you knew I would do that so I did this instead!" type gameplay. Lots of cool bluffing and prediction dynamics. It's playable with 12 dice and a deck of regular playing cards! Read the full rules below, under the images!

In Dice Heist, you play as a heist crew attempting to extract the most valuable loot while getting your team out of the building in one piece. Your opponent is a rival heist crew, trying to take some of the goods before you can! You’ll need to think three steps ahead of them, predict their moves, and catch them in the act if you’re going to best them and make it out!

Setup

Roll twelve d6s. In order of lowest to highest, distribute the dice to the two players. Player 1 should receive the lowest die, then Player 2 should receive the next lowest die, and so on. Player 1 receives the One Step Ahead token (this can be anything - you could use a pen, a d20, a rock, etc). Both players receive the same hand of 5 action cards numbered 1 to 5.

Gameplay

The aim of the game is to have 5 out of your 6 dice make a getaway (someone’s gonna be left holding the bag!). In other words, you need to get rid of all but one of your dice. When a die makes a getaway, you remove it from the game. The player that is the first to have only one die remaining, wins the game.

Players take turns simultaneously by secretly picking their actions with action cards. There are five actions (listed in priority order):

Sabotage: Reroll any one of your opponent’s dice.

Bide time: Add or subtract 1 from any one of your dice.

Create a diversion: Choose one of your dice and one of your opponent’s dice that’s exactly 1 higher. Your die makes a getaway. Reroll the opponent’s die.

Join up: One of your dice makes a getaway and adds its value to another one of your dice. (Sum must be possible)

Clean Getaway: One of your dice that’s a ⚅ makes a getaway.

After secretly selecting actions, both players count down from 3 together. If neither player tries to “catch in the act”, both cards are revealed and players do the actions based on the number on the card. (Sabotage will always go first, Getaway will always go last). After actions are finished, take your played action card back into your hand.

“Catch in the act”

When counting down from 3, instead of “one” you may choose to say “Catch!”. If you do, you forfeit your turn. Your selected card no longer counts as an action — instead it’s a prediction of your opponent’s action. Both cards are then revealed.

If both cards are the same (you correctly predicted your opponent’s move) then they skip their turn and must gain back an additional die! If not (you didn’t correctly predict the move), then they play their turn as normal.

Note: You cannot have move than 6 dice. If you get caught in the act and you already have 6 dice, you skip your turn but do not take another die.

If both players say “Catch!” and the cards are the same, both players get an additional die. No matter what, neither player performs an action this turn.

What if both players choose the same action?

If both players chose the same action, the player with the One Step Ahead token may choose to go first or second. Then, the One Step Ahead token is passed to the other player.

What if I can’t do my action?

Sometimes, the player going first may take an action that makes the second player’s action impossible to do. If you ever are unable to do your selected action, you simply take no action. Predicting your opponent’s move and preventing it is a difficult but very strong strategy!

Example: Harry has two dice left, a ⚅ and a ⚀. Kim chooses the Sabotage action, while Harry chooses the Clean Getaway action. Kim goes first and rerolls Harry’s ⚅; it comes up as a ⚄. Harry cannot take the Clean Getaway action, so Harry loses his turn.

[dice-wizard]

Okay but like, really good mechanical design, especially for cool powers, can convey so much story and meaning with just rules expressions. You just have to know how to read it. It's like writing poems in code, and lots of people think it's easy.

[theemeraldwings]

Goals for the tabletop space battle game I'm working on

Complex ship design with lots of math and crunchy bits

Fast, simple gameplay that doesn't require massive amounts of record-keeping.

I like ship design processes, but sometimes, I just want to get to the part where things explode. So I'm making something with both.

[r-rook-studio]

Writing and Rewriting Bracknell Horror

So here's a terrible secret: in 2019, hot on the heels of the original Moonlight on Roseville Beach zine, I put some notes for a little adventure called "The Bracknell Horror." I had no illusions that it was a great investigation scenario. Still, it showed off a few things about Roseville Beach, including places and people in the town as well as the queer people who lived/visited there. It went to a location inside the setting without requiring deep lore, added some jokey Easter Egg references to Lovecraft's The Whisperer in Darkness, and included some comically easy to use alien tech.

The problem was, I didn't really like it.

People at con sessions had fun, but there was nothing particularly special or interesting about the scenario itself, and any scenario would have been great in its place. Also, while I like to say Roseville Beach is a game of "horror comedy," there wasn't much actual horror here other than some Lovecraft references. That's also true of my other Roseville Beach scenario "The Haunting of Flora Bly," though the book has four more scenarios that are richer in horror potential.

But this summer, just before running it at A Weekend with Good Friends, I rewrote it. I talked about some of those rewrites on my blog just after the first run-through, but more have come up as I've continued to playtest this.

First, while the initial scenario centered around a wealthy occultist-adventurer named Simon Mathers, the revision has greatly warped him from that initial vision. In the early drafts, he was an occultist willing to give Dreamlands entities the bodies of Roseville Beach residents in return for access to the Dreamlands. In the new one, he's returning to our reality after 20+ years in the Dreamlands, hoping to find a body for himself (the temporary one he constructed is collapsing) and his two Dreamlands familiars.

In the original, the cult-like group of followers worked for Mathers and planned to keep doing so. In the new, none of them like each other, and each of them have their own reasons for working with him (and one might even try to kill him).

Third, I let some of my OSR influences show. Beyond making each of the named NPCs a faction of one, I've also added some NPC rivals (all of whom might end up becoming collaborators) who also all have their own motivations and agendas for finding out what Mathers' cult is up to.

Finally, while the original notes told GMs to pull from the PCs troubles and connections to determine who Mathers' cultists have captured, the new one includes a chance to target the PCs themselves, giving at least some of them a chance to sneak in and explore the Bracknell while the cult is setting up the ritual, adds some specific NPCs the cult targets, asking instead how the PCs and their contacts/troubles connect them with those people, giving their troubles and connections a motivation to insist on coming along whether they'll be helpful or not.

Dai Shugars, Roseville Beach's art director and visual designer, has put together some incredible maps that allowed me to spend less wordcount describing the space and more giving info on NPCs, creating news stories and book snippets that can serve as physical clues, and creating a better sense of how the Doom Clock progresses.

The text will come to Itch for slowfunding next Tuesday, and the final zine will include the adventure, pregens, new strange events that tie to this mystery, and the basic rules of play, so you can try it out even if you don't already own Moonlight on Roseville Beach. Think of it like a horror-comedy investigation version of a Fighting Fantasy Game Book, but maybe gayer.

This is my chance to draft and preview some of what's coming. You can pick up Moonlight on Roseville Beach (Itch | DriveThru | Spear Witch | IPR) and the current two-issue zine bundle (Itch | DriveThru), or just follow-along with the zine project that will get bundled up in Dim All the Lights. Or you can back our upcoming reprint and hardbacks Kickstarter!

[zigmenthotep]

When the Math is Stupid; or, Probability Schmobability

Hello there. As you may know, I am a charming and attractive tabletop game designer, and I would like to share with you a little experience I recently went through, just as a look into the process of failed ideas and how they die sometimes.

I had an idea for an upcoming project (Dinosaur Erotica: The Role-Plying Game) Which involved each character having a die representing their level of investment in the developing relationship, and when that relationship was tested, both players would roll their die, with the ideal result being bother players rolling the same number.

Now my assumption here was that lowering the size of either die would raise the odds of rolling the same number—so a higher chance with a d10 and a d6 than with 2 d10s—which totally makes sense. However, then I crunched the numbers, and let me just show you what I found.

So one d6 and one d20, let's look at the results for that

1 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 3 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 4 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

For each result on the d6, there are 10 possible results on the d10, only one of which is the same as the d6. So out of 60 total results, there are 6 where both dice come up the same number, a 6/60 probability, or 1/10.

But now, let's see what happens with 2 d10.

1 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 3 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 4 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 9 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 10| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Once again, for every result of the first die, there is one outcome where the second die matches, but this time the probability is 10/100, or... 1/10. The odds are exactly the same. Any time you roll two dice, the odds of getting the same result on both is equal to 1/[value of larger die]. A thing I spent much longer than I should have been convinced could not be correct, because instinctively, it does not sound correct.

[seanpatrickcain]

MAGNETIC RESONANCE

i'm coming to terms with a new disability.

on tuesday, while i lay quietly in a screaming tube that temporarily realigned the water particles inside my body, i had time to let my mind wander.

so...

announcing it here. hoping to have it done by the weekend.

[elevanetheirin]

School is keeping me busy. My most recent assignment is skill based game design. My art for the assignment

[prokopetz]

The "societies in high-magic fantasy settings where body-altering magic is widely available would obviously have a very different relationship with gender than our own, and I feel the implications of that are worth exploring – purely as an intellectual exercise, of course" to "hey, wait a minute" pipeline.

[shrikepublishing]

https://itch.io/b/2985/bird-bone-spring-holiday-sale

Happy Easter/Passover/420/NBA Playoffs Day!

Collabing with Radmad RPGs to put Blood Neon, its expansion, my Era of Silence, and his Hesitation at the Gate on sale for half off! Get the whole bundle, ~70 USD worth of rpgs and supplements for just $35!

[tgcnews]

ZSA Cards Challenge - Reminder

We wanted to remind everyone that our current tabletop game design contest, ZSA Cards Challenge, is in progress and the game submission deadline is March 3, 2025.

This contest invites you to create either a card game or a non-game “activity” that uses ZSA Cards. Learn more at https://www.thegamecrafter.com/contests/zsa-cards-challenge

[haru-dipthong]

I don’t think anyone is following me for my tabletop game design content but in case you didn’t know I actually designed and published a little card game on kickstarter a while ago, and I’m working on a new game. I’m thinking that I’ll post some progress updates here so just a heads up that for the next few weeks my brain is probably gonna be working on game design stuff instead of Japanese or language stuff!

I’ve been sitting on this prototype design (called City of Thieves) for a few years now, but I recently came up with a couple of ideas to make it more fun and interesting. I’ve rewritten the rulebook and I’ve done some illustrations I’ll use for the playtesting draft (below!)

I might post some more about it later! Maybe a design diary about how the playtests go, or what changes I made to the original design to make it more fun.

[asquared-ohgodnotthehorrors]

Interesting idea for an RPG with individual to individual milestone based XP (like Blades in the Dark):

An addiction mechanic where every time you do an addictive action, you suffer some negative consequence… but you also gain 1 XP (or some equivalent). The more you do it the worse the consequence gets, but it’s 1 XP every time.*

[cosmicremtabletop]

~The GM in Question~

A prolific gamemaster with a background in comics and narrative development, Remi K. has been writing, running, studying, and playing a variety of simultaneous TTRPG campaigns, quests, and settings for more years than most can count (provided "most" are really bad at math).

~Quest/Adventure Modules~

Crumbs of Potential (COMING SOON - An urban investigation for Level 2-3 adventurers)

Out in the Cold (A perilous, high-altitude dungeon crawl for Level 9-10 adventurers)

~5e Homebrew~

Races/Species

Canidurn

Fleursid (coming soon)

Classes/Subclasses

Cleric: Chaos Domain

Rogue: Inquisitive (Revised)

Sorcerer: Pyrrhic Sorcery

Spells

Volume 1

True Strike (Revised)

Deadeye

Living Beacon

Arcane Snares

Meat Shield

Items

Volume 1 (coming soon)

Feats

Volume 1

Arcane Inclination

Chaos Touched

Element Touched

Niche Specialist

Order Touched

Radiance Touched

Mechanics

Niche Skills

[r-rook-studio]

Return to the Bracknell Horror

Crossposted from R-Rook.studio.

I like to think of myself as someone who loves and writes scenarios that are inherently sandboxy. My ideal horror investigation scenarios—Goblin Archive's The Mall and Zzarchov Kowalski's Price of Evil—have a few hooks, a usefully detailed map, a well-thought-out escalation clock, and interesting, tersely described NPCs... but not much else. In adventure design, those are my ideals. Sometimes, at a one-shot are con, you need to make your frames slightly harder, but often when doing that, the goal is to preserve as much player agency and GM creativity as possible, especially when the scenario isn't only for demo or public play.

Over the past weekend, I had a writing breakthrough with "The Bracknell Horror," an adventure for the next Roseville Beach Book. This post isn't grand RPG theory; it's just a quick note that my two favorite parts of scenario design (setting and escalation clock) were ultimately what fixed the problem. It's odd that I've run this little adventure many times since I started working on Roseville Beach in 2019—it's fun and gives me room to bring in a lot of the PC's connections—but it was only last weekend that I was really happy with it how it all came together.

"The Bracknell Horror" has been my go-to con game or demo for Moonlight on Roseville Beach. Inspired by both a messy blend of the Migo and the Dreamlands with the actual Belvedere Guest House on Fire Island, I've been running it since 2019. Roseville Beach's Bracknell Lodge is a good place for a kidnapping mystery: the guest house is too expensive and exclusive for our PC sleuths to have been in before, even though it's local to the town where they do their monster-hunting. It also gives them the potential to deal with wealthy, WASPy, and mostly unsympathetic queer characters who are still being harmed by cishet magician Simon Mather and his cronies who've decided Roseville Beach is the perfect place to find some warm bodies for some nightmarish Dreamlands entities to possess.

Ultimately, I didn't put it into either the quickstart or the main book because we were out of space and because while it was always a sandbox when I got to the Bracknell, I was always too intimidated to create an escalating clock and always needed a scene structure and over-the-top clues to get them there.

In my original version, the PCs wake up Saturday morning to discover that during the night, people have gone missing. In some cases, they had missed connections with those folks and may have been looking for them before. I'd always excused that issue, rationalizing that missing a meet-up with friends in an era before cell phones often meant not reconnecting until everyone got back home the next day. But Roseville Beach isn't just a small town, it's a fairly tiny one, and the locals know each other well, so I was never happy with actively preventing the PCs from getting involved until the clock was farther advanced, but my brain was hyper-focused on that structure until I started preparing to run it for A Weekend with Good Friends hosted on Discord by The Good Friends of Jackson Elias. Finally, it occurred to me that the adventure really needed to begin the night the disappearances start instead of just including a few flashbacks the PCs remember the next day. In doing that, I had a chance to target not just the PC's connections and allies but also the PCs themselves, giving them a chance to interfere with Mather's plans as they were getting started or follow Macgregor and his cronies as they moved through the town finding people to target rather than waking up the next morning and converging on the Bracknell.

I'd been afraid that getting the PCs involved too soon might mean it moved from creepy horror scenario to a big fight in the middle of town, but it took PCs time to confirm what was happening and that the people who were running late or took longer than usual to use the bathroom, find a pay phone, or cash a check at the grocery were actually, really missing that the kidnappers always had a head start (a crow shifter spotted one of Mather's henchlings walking toward the Bracknell with one of the victims, but couldn't do much to interfere until he rendezvoused with everyone else). Once that happened, a PC who'd been invited back to the Bracknell by a stranger she was dancing with had a new motivation to accept the invitation. We still had a chance to explore all the less-known ways to get into the lodge—the gardener's entrance, sneaking in via the unused boathouse, climbing over the front gate (this time with the cover of night)—so I got to reference Dai's incredible map (that will also appear in the full version of Dim All the Lights).

This time, I'd also simplified Mather's plans so that they were way easier to plot out on a clock, and PCs interfering with them weren't filling pages of notes when they learned about them. Moving everything to the nighttime also meant that PCs' plans to get into the Lodge by subterfuge, stealth, and seduction felt more logical and logically likely to succeed.