The Power Roll | Designing The Game
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- čas přidán 2. 04. 2024
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"It's not the DUMB thing YOU'RE thinking of. It's the COOL thing WE'RE thinking of."
Huh. You can comment on a video before you upload it.
@@blingkong1045you can comment on it before you *publish it
@@blingkong1045 Or maybe you can upload it as a private video for review and comment on that before making it publicly visible.
Due to the Pinna mini really hope you’re able to signal boost the Goblin Backerkit on the Matt Colville channel as well!
Super cool idea, kind of reminds me of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG's system for spellcasting where the result is plugged into a chart that spits out one of a number of possible effects.
With this new chart design you're trying out you could also open yourself up to the possibility of reintroducing those "I did no damage on my turn" effects but as a distinct, higher risk higher reward talent. Maybe that would be the best of both worlds & recapture that idea of introducing recklessness into what could otherwise be a 'safe' turn.
In my head, it looks like this: I'm playing a wizard, and I could cast Firebolt which I KNOW will do some range of damage, or I can cast something like Unstable Hellfire which could allow for more damage on a good roll but no damage (or even self damage!) on a poor one. Replace spells with some crazy spin around in place swing of the sword or XYZ for other classes and suddenly there is a way in-game to differentiate between a wise soldier who chooses the steady option and the wild youth who throws caution to the wind in search of glory.
I think having both the steady and the risky options on the same sheet would be important if the risky option was added though - that would ensure it is the player who decides, on their turn, whether to take the risk or not: it would suck to be unable to make the decision and adjust to the particular encounter in front of you.
Just an idea I had while watching, thanks for the update video and best of luck with the project - I'm expecting great things!
The power roll 3-line chart looks like a very fertile ground for homebrewing
I thought the same. Customisation, randomisation, hell, you could trade 'em with your friends like Pokemon cards. It has enough complexity to make things feel distinct/unique but is rigid enough that it demands - or could demand, I guess, depends what they go with - mechanical compliance. When Matt said 'chart' I was like 'oh brother don't do me like this' but the more I think about it the more I like it as a method for straightforward homebrewing and a lot else besides.
...your mom looks like...
@@kef0205 Like the D&D 4e Power Cards. When I saw the table that's the first thing that came to my mind.
It's a lot like Apocalypse World, which has clearly been mega customized
First thing I thought is how it allows for multiclassing really easily.
I find it very fascinating that in the process of removing the attack role which most people universally think is cumbersome and not fun, you did discover that the attack roll didn't exist for no reason. Which is cool! You just needed to find a better way to solve the problem the attack role was originally designed to solve.
I went into great detail about why the attack roll exists and where it comes from and why it's useless in a modern context, in one of the first videos,
Maybe I should make that video again! :D
@@mcolvillewell if it was over 4 years ago it might as well be 100 years ago
Link to the video?? pls@@mcolville
@@pablodelolmo8225 If he's talking about a Designing the Game video, it's probably either the "Flow & the Null Result" or the "Attack!" videos on this channel. Each are about 10 minutes long. I lean toward the former but don't remember clearly.
czcams.com/video/FnGdoicrfms/video.html - Flow & Null
czcams.com/video/0hR-lto4yro/video.html - Attack!
Thanks!@@SibeliusEosOwm
"Oh so it's kind of like Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre."
".... HOLY SHIT"
Yupppp well done, and then different things can trigger having all chart results happen on crit, etc
So many interesting things.
I was just thinking the same! :D
I immediately thought of the same thing
I played around with this exact concept last year, and i was all geared up to comment 'KEEP ALL THE RANGES AND THRESHOLDS CONSISTENT ON THE TABLE' and then you immediately pointed out why thats important. Touché. You should do this for a living.
He got 4 million dollar’s off this already… he’s doing it for a living lol
@@9HPRuneScape ... That was the joke...
@@user-if7vt2ni2z My bad, failed my Charisma check and didn’t pick up on the joke so much as thinking you were someone new tuning in. 🙃
@@user-if7vt2ni2z I failed my Charisma check as I took your joke as someone new that was just tuning in lol xD
Another idea PbtA implements that you should consider:
2-6: pick 1 option
7-9: pick 2 options
10+: pick 3 options
Then have a list of options/effects to choose from. For example…
-Push the target 10 ft
-Target is set on fire
-Move 5 feet
-A target is afraid of you
-Your magic doesn’t deal damage to you
-The fire doesn’t spread
-etc
That's an interesting option. It feels like a less tactical framework for an ability though. If you use the ability, prioritizing one option, and get three, you suddenly need to change plans and play gets interrupted somewhat. If the three outcomes are known ahead of the roll, the only comparable interruption is a crit, which would be rarer and more impactful.
It does make me wonder about skill checks though...
@@redd_Jack lol
@@redd_Jack what else are they doing similarly? I immediately thought of PbtA when I heard this idea, I haven’t made a connection between MCDM-RPG and PbtA before.
@@MisterFizzer This could be a situation where you lock in the Intended effects based on priority beforehand.
I want to shove the Elf Chief toward the Shadow, slow would be great, damage is just icing.
I think this would be really fun: for 1 ability on 1 class. It's a lot of abstraction, but for something thematically similar to the 5e sorcerer it REALLY fits the theme.
One other upside to this system is that the increase in cognitive load is offset somewhat by the fact that you're working with smaller numbers. It's a lot easier to subtract 3 damage from 10 hit points than to subtract 17 damage from 44 hit points.
The Power Roll chart has tremendous potential. For starters, it can allow actions with no damage, just effects, and still have a dice roll to determine their effectiveness. Maybe not so necessary when it's buffing or healing allies, but when it imposes a powerful condition? The dice help it seem fair.
This also applies to monster abilities. A Medusa's petrifying gaze might go "Slow (until saved) / Stone Coated (until saved) / Petrified (until cured)". The Medusa can still turn a person to stone, but failing to do that still creates a mechanical effect the encounter can be built around.
And applying debuffs doesn't *stop* an enemy from acting, but you can blunt the edge and also see the direct benefit of your tactics!
@Bluecho4 and kinda also works potentially on resistance rolls for effects. There could effects with multiple levels that you roll and depending on your resistance will determine if the effect happens. Or how bad it happens.
@@Bluecho4 Do people need to make the 2d6 roll for saving throws too? Because this would be very neat to include the already-used "if they failed by 5 or more ..." dnd text that a ton of monster abilities have.
I love the idea of this for Skill rolls,
Result 1 : Fail but...
Result 2 : Succeed but...
Result 3 : Succeed
Crit : Succeed and...
Crit Fail : Fail and...
Very similar to Monster of the Week, but with crits, which I love!
I like seeing the real time convergent evolution of RPG's. This would be very similar to Daggerheart's fail with fear/hope, and success with fear/hope.
So Apocalypse World and it's tons and tons of hacks
almost exactly how PbtA does it, which is where James got the idea from.
maybe.
setting target numbers sounds quicker on the fly in play, though.
the chart abstraction is SO strong, and the fact the ranges are the same across the board is SUPER key for a "small" part of it. I can see a design from the olden times of game design where they land on the chart abstraction, but then completely lose the plot by making the ranges all over the place for different monsters and abilities. The line between a great abstraction and cognitive overload is thin indeed.
The one thing they'll need to worry about is that if the charts are complex enough, a printer will become a soft requirement to play. TRPG character sheets in general have a massive problem of you needing to write down way more stuff than can actually fit on the sheet. And even a simple chart is going to run hard into that unless they dedicate a big space on their character sheet for it. And of course, people using blank paper or notepad documents need to be able to recreate the chart section easily too.
At first when you started explaining the idea, I thought it was going to get super unwieldy and messy, but when you got into it a bit more it clicked for me. Really exciting idea.
It's why Dungeon World and their Kickstarter did so well long ago. It's pretty much lifted from there and has been tested by lots of people who play those X World games. It works well and leaves more room for flavor and class/level/spell/ability design space.
@@mattie3875 also pretty easy to adjust ranges for things or give boosts, you really have a lot of options for balancing things
This is very interesting for spellcasting. The thing I've always missed from Palladium is the concept that a meager wizard's apprentice could steal a very powerful spell to, for example, resurrect their long dead lover. Typically, such an inexperienced and lowly apprentice has no hope of casting the spell. But if they use a powerful component like a unicorn horn and perform the ritual at a magically charged stone henge on a full moon, there's a chance it could work. It never made sense to me that "Oh you're not high enough level so you have zero knowledge of or hope to use that spell until you kill more kobolds"
“You want to get good at magic, people gotta die” -Brennan Lee mulligan
Mm. Magic needing to be balanced tends to kill a lot of what makes it magic. I would adore being a wizard in a "real" magical setting. Studying the magic. Seeing what the limits are. Pushing those limits. But DnD Wizards and in general most tabletop game wizards aren't able to do any of that. And quite rightly, it would be broken as hell. But are we not playing trpgs to experience these kinds of fantasies? Wizard as magic scientist is a core fantasy and its drastically underserved by trpgs.
@@ASpaceOstrich I'm currently working on my own ttrpg system, where mages can end up doing some crazy powerful things. Their limitation in a combat setting is simply that it takes longer to cast a spell than almost any other combat action. Out of combat they're a potential menace, in combat they're a ticking time bomb on the encounter. But a guy in melee range with a sword will cut them down before they can vaporise their kneecaps. It's just one solution, and the game is not based around "balanced combat", but I think it does enough to encourage play styles other than "I cast fireball"
The advantage of this scheme for attacks is that the chart for each attack is (or can be) so simple, you could print it on a card and hand it to the player. (Or release it as a free downloadable PDF, that players can print at home on cardstock and cut out). Or just copy directly on a character sheet, the way D&D leaves space to write your common attacks, their attack bonus, and damage.
Hell, since the thresholds for each tier of result are always the same, you could simplify the notation of damage results to "x/y/z". With each number representing the next tier of damage. So the "chart" could get smaller, and thus take up less room. (While I enjoy the granularity of D&D 5e's monster stat blocks, I can't help but pine for the elegant stoutness of 1e stat blocks, which were just a string of notations.)
I was just about to suggest the x/y/z syntax. Only downside is you have to memorize the thresholds, but I don't think that'd be a problem.
This is basically how Daggerheart does it with a threshold of damage meaning something different
Its fun seeing how MCDM and ICON are convergently evolving into the same game
🦀🦀🦀🦀
ICON takes a bit of inspiration from 4E and we all know Matt loves 4E as well, as well as both also pulling ideas from PBTA style games. so its kinda natural to see both games turn into a PBTA + 4E mixture.
@@Zertryx Yup, and I am here for it
As a DM, homebrewer, and a lover of magic items my brain is absolutely BRIMMING with ideas for what to do with these charts, this design is a true game changer.
Yes!
Never thought I’d learn so much watching the sausage get made. It’s a small important tweak that seems to keep the game at its core the same but much more streamlined and open to customization. Can’t wait to see how the Power Roll changes with character progression
YES. PbtA games are my favorite way that dice roll results and degrees of success have been handled in rpgs. This video makes me so excited to get into this game when it comes out.
Testing this out on friday after an invite from the Discord - CAN'T WAIT! Much love to James, Matt and the team
dramastically is a part of my vocabulary now :)
Always been part of mine - it IS a real word, after all...
I believe monster of the week uses a chart for 2d6 rolls too. They have a lot of non-boolean results for skill checks that elevate the game. For example, if you get a mixed success, (the mid tier result) you get to CHOOSE a downside. Either it doesn't work as well, it costs you something, it draws unwelcome attention, or the game master gets to "hold" which is an excuse to screw over the players in the future.
I took part in the playtest and I will say I have never had more fun in moment to moment gameplay in a trpg. I've had more fun in a full session. Because of gravitas and history and emotional investment in the campaign. Watching a buddy tackle god out of heaven or having my character pray in a desperate moment and feel warmth fill him as his prayers are finally answered were both better moments than the playtest session I played.
But not by much. And by contrast, the playtest had zero character investment, history, or narrative weight behind it. It was raw mechanics. And those raw mechanics were so good that I was genuinely sad when a fight ended because I wanted to keep doing the combat.
You've got the core of something really really good here, and I'm looking forward to it releasing. It had some weaker areas too, and I included that in my feedback, but the core concept of the resources, initiative systems, and making every turn matter are rock solid.
With spells, this can actually incorporate the wildness/danger of magic. E.g., you throw a fire spell at an enemy, and you don't precisely know whether you're getting a surgical fire bolt or a massive explosion (1: fire dart, 2: better fire dart, 3: kaboom, crit: disco inferno). Wizards could actually have abilities to curtail their success, actually reducing their dice roll, having to wrangle the forces of magic under control by sheer willpower in order to prevent magic spells from going wild and causing disaster.
I love this.
@@megamarkread nothing would make me feel like more of a wizard than fighting with reality itself to accomplish my goals
That's so cool, and very evocative of the disciplined spellcaster archetype.
I love that even though I've read this and know it from Patreon, hearing Matt and the team talk about these things makes me think of it differently, and more dramastically.
As a PBTA junkie, I am overjoyed that you're going this direction
I was hoping for something new a bit, but I do like more energy behind the * World style 2d6 outcome approach.
I was kind of worried as you led up to the mechanic, but I really love it! So excited to see how it works out.
I love the idea. The Powered by the Apocalypse system is, in my mind… about as perfect of an RPG system as one can get. So I think taking notes from their games is a great idea.
I'm on the fence with the system so far, but I have a lot of faith in anything Matt puts his mind to. I think this game will continue to grow and evolve into something special.
What has you on the fence?
Personally, skill increase. You can't +1 this on the roll side at least.
@@noahblack914For me it's pretty much entirely just a tactics game. It doesn't seem to be going much for the actual adventure side or character side of things. And although there's some cool abilities, combat looks to take as long if not longer than 5e DnD due to more hp offsetting no to-hit-rolls and so many abilities being viable and wanting players to unlock stronger abilities as they fight which seems to encourage longer engagements
adding "tiers" to skill rolls sound like a fun twist to simple YES/NO roll. I like how you bake together TTRPG and storytelling. my idea is that there could be four levels to skill rolls:
2-4 no, and
5-7 no, but
8-10 yes, but
11+ yes, and
it's simple, it supports both director's and players' imagination and is vague so it could mean very different results. also it's a simple storytelling rule that could help directors with building their adventures and campaigns as well.
I find it interesting that both Daggerheart and the MCDM RPG have separately arrived at a "base 12 and check a table system". Now both tables are very different (Daggerheart uses 2d12 and a damage threshold table).
It's like parallel evolution! It's neat!
I'm more excited by the MCDM system as it feels more exciting.
This small, discrete table approach has new much more excited about the damage & skill systems.
My experience with games that use charts has been that they drag down play, then when later editions get rid of them it feels like the soul of the game had been ripped out. Limiting yourself to three bands and keeping the ranges consistent across charts is a great idea that I hope evades the problems I've seen.
I play a lot of Apocalypse World, so I know this scale type die roll well, and I know it works. I think for this application this is a very interesting direction, I would perhaps just wonder how to translate the charts to the character sheet. Lots of blank boxes I suppose? Maybe even sheets for each class, listing out the charts for their abilities? Intriguing stuff MCDM, happy to support this kind of thinking!
Playbook character sheets for Monster of the Week is great design and does just this, but I think there's even more room for improvement. If the die rolls are truly always the same, you just need to list the three results, not include a chart each time.
I'm imagining a table on the character sheet with one column for ability names/descriptions and 3 columns for their effects - one for each tier of success. That works well for simple abilities where the variability in effect can be described by a single number or a couple words; more complex variability might require individual tables.
Basically the same way spells are templated in PF2, I'd imagine. There you have degrees of success for saving throws like Failure, Success, Critical Success, and their respective effects, like "Failure - Prone and can't use reactions", "Success - Slowed 1", etc.
Cards, I can easily see every ability / Weapon being made into printable cards / Sold as physical cards (Similar to Bunkers & Badasses, Dagger Heart and D&D 4E). People already do it with 5E and spells
Yeah, I find it really interesting to see how MCDM is pretty much drawing from PbtA style games. It's odd given that their baseline goal is something tactical similar to D&D 4E, yet they're drawing on a lot of PbtA style mechanics and setup. Really goes to show how well set-up PbtA is.
Hey, I think this is a good idea, and it sort of lives in the same world as other games in this space like Icon. There's an emerging school of "neo-trad" design where you build something that embraces D&D's wargaming roots but with indie sensibilities. I think importing PBTA success tiers with your 4e-like combat is a sweet idea.
Alright Matt. You got me. I’ve been following the project (from the outside, on CZcams) for a long time and I was always caught up on this specific point of design; the auto-hitting and damage results confused me - even when you released the previous video on attacks succeeding without a die roll to determine if it is a hit.
Your new version of the core die roll has captured my inspiration, like how you started expanding on the Elementalist.
Today, after work, you will have a new and enthusiastic backer.
I’m a long-time follower of Matt and MCDM and I’ve been sort of passively following their development of this game the whole time. The vibe for me has been “huh, interesting. Sounds neat, but it doesn’t seem like my style and I probably won’t play it.”
THIS is the first designing the game video that has made me actively excited and really wanting to play this game!
I hope the art style on your shirt is featured in the game, it looks great!
Fairly certain it’s fan art actually
the VTT looks nice, hoping it requires less setup than Foundry and is more plug and play, it gets annoying setting up 15+ modules on there.
13:44 I don't know why this put a smile on my face, but I suspect that it's because the players I DM for absolutely LOVE this Tactical teamwork stuff.
This kind of chart to determine damage output is a good and tested system that works; it turns the damage dice into attack dice with the difference that attacks don't miss and deal a variable amount of damage. It takes away from the uniqueness of the original idea "We don't roll attack dice", but makes the system more flexible.
My advice is this: If the ranges are always the same - as they should be - you don't need a 3-line chart; show the 3 damage results in a single line, separated with " / " or " - ". Much cleaner and easier to read.
Single line might not be enough as the result can be something else than just damage number.
Completely disagree about not having 3 separate lines. when on boarding new players too much simplification can actually make things more complicated to understand. seeing this [ 3 / 6 / 9 ] on a weapon might actually confuse newer players as to what that even means. On top of that when you start getting into ability and spells this method falls apart pretty fast. and you have to switch back to writing them out again. It's better to just keep the formatting the same across the board to simplify it in a cognitive sense. because if its sometimes written one way and other times written another you start to get confusion.
Me at 10:00 - "NOOOO, not LOOKUP TABLES!!!"
Me at 12:50 - "Oh, okay, I could probably still teach this to someone."
Watching this video reach a similar place as Apocalypse World reminds me of when MCDM reached 2d6 initially: "At least we got there honestly."
Glad to see my main concern with the "hit" roll addressed, and also see the 4 degrees of success sneak it's way into another game (albeit though a different design process).
You made a really interesting reference here to the amount of cognitive workload that players have to handle while playing a TTRPG, and it's not something I've considered in this context before. In combat, you need to keep track of your own character and abilities, where all your allies and enemies are and what they're doing, and possibly also the roleplaying of what your PC would actually do. Any rules on top of that add intrinsic load to the situation, which takes time to internalize before you've got enough space to allow the germane load (aka the fun) to be dominant again. Thanks for opening my mind to this connection!
I like the look of this chart approach, because I had also be concerned about how to display the difference between 'accurate but weak" attacks vs "clumsy but powerful" and I think this can address it. Some monsters (or pcs) may have very flat differences between the levels, while still allowing for things like a big clumsy ogre maybe having results like "(low) = near miss, take 1 damage from shrapnel as his overhand swing pulverizes a nearby rock, (mid) = 3 damage from a glancing blow, (high) = 10 damage from a crushing hit". While even other enemies like a skilled giant or a dragon might have all of there results be pretty nasty.
I think there is some good room here to give a different FEEL to the monsters here (or heroes) which has some potential.
Also: you kinda already have 4 buckets, it's just the last bucket "crit" is the same for every attack.
James Introcaso is one of my favorite designers, I love his ideas! And I'm ecstatic that he works for MCDM ❤
I just want to say that it is not unlikely that you will have created a completely new game system and its dedicated VTT before WotC will have any useful VTT at all. Not really sure what the point of this comment is but there you go.
Wow, this is the most exciting thing that ive seen so far. I was nodding along at the narrative of how you came to your end result. Cant wait to see what your studio does and what the community will make once it is released. Congratz!
It’s always a good day when MCDM uploads
A 13+ roll tier might also be a good idea for the equivalent of "epic level" abilities, i.e. stuff that's lategame enough that your players already know how the game works and can handle a little more cognitive load.
This is already kind of what they do in Monster of the Week (another PbtA game) - you can use your level-ups to unlock new tiers on old moves
Apocalypse world has a great system. I'm glad MCDM is now using something similar
I love the idea of integrating the best part (read as 'my favorite') of PBTA into your design! Cant wait to see where it goes!
This sounds good. Fixes all the issues I had with the previous system. I really love this video, proper dev blog with insights to design. I really need to join that Patreon.
love this makes homebrew so much easier without having to worry about the maths involved. adding +1 to the 2d6 roll is super impactful turning a 7 to an 8 wow. this mechanic has gotten me the most excited to run this game let alone play it
You might want to try something like Dungeon World in the meantime. It uses this approach throughout. More of an RP-focused game but it will give you a good taste of this mechanic (and it's free).
@@mattie3875 i'll try but my group is like herding cats at the best of times. Trying new things takes about 6 months of nagging
Curious to see where this takes you, especially if this starts getting ported into skills and non-combat rolls! This is starting to sound like some sort of unholy love child of PbtA games and D&D 4e and that's, unironically, my platonic ideal for an RPG.
I love the mechanic from Call of Ctulhu of pushing the roll:
> Pushing a roll allows you to roll the dice a second time; however, the stakes are raised. If you fail a second time, the Keeper gets to inflict a dire consequence upon your character.
It's great because it allows the player to decide if they want to play it safe (so they deciding if their attack doesn't do anything, and when you decide something everything is more fun) or if they want to risk it (and any consequence they receive its felt as more ' fair' , because they its caused by their decision to push the roll)
Another example of this, Pathfinder 2E's 4 degrees of success (critical failure, failure, success, critical success.) With spell casting, you are already looking at the spell and seeing what the effect is for those ranks as well, if its anything other than a basic save.
My exact thoughts. This is an alternate take on that, and I'm excited to see how it plays out in the MCMD system.
That was my first thought as well!
When Matt started talking about the 3 result table my mind went directly to Pathfinder's 2E multiple degrees of success as well! I really like the potential this brings to their new system.
Just a simple weapon could do a bit of damage on 2-6, medium damage on 7-9, and more damage + an effect on 10+.
Like a dagger letting you move one square for free, or a mace applying some sort of Daze effect.
“I think it is basically impossible to write a rulebook that literally everyone understands perfectly the first time they read it.” If anyone can do it, James and Matt can! I know Matt’s a writer and he’s good at his job, but man, that was a freaking awesome video! When can we as a planet decide to train all of our AI using Matt’s brain and then have them write all of our technical manuals? (The obvious, best use of the Colville AI!) Clear, relatively concise, funny, lacking fluff (your mom is lacking flu… nvm). 😂 He definitely has the knack of taking complex information and making it understandable and entertaining. Keep up the amazing work, and can’t wait for the next Patreon playtest packet!
Can't imagine the glee of pitching your boss a new mechanic and seeing that he's started laughing like a child who'd just seen a new colour 😁
This power roll makes me excited to design for this game. I was tentatively on board before, but now I'm VERY on board.
I'm totally enthralled by "a goodly amount of fire woohoo". How can you pull that much excitement in your voice while looking straight at the camera and in between regularly spoken sentences.
I mean, the idea is good and everything, don't get me wrong, but this casual display of voice acting skill got me good
Every time I hear about this game and it's developments, I get excited. And this seems like no exception. I think this mechanic is going to be very easy to homebrew and come up with stuff that is simple, thematic, and relevant, easy to do.
Dungeon World has a similar system for their skill/dice checks: 1-6: Failure, 7-9: Success but consequences, 10-12: Great success.
Candela Obscura uses a similar system, right?
@@angelalewis3645I've never played it, but I just looked up the dice rules, and so it seems!
Dungeon World is one of the “Powered by the Apocalypse” (PbtA) family of games that spawned from Apocalypse World so you’ve got that right!
Hahaha I was thinking when you popped James’s little box up ‘ooh that’s “battle wizards, duel at Mt Skullzfyre!!!!!”
This is actually super cool, you could do SO MUCH with this. Also will be amazing for 3rd party designers to make new things.
This game feels like a Dungeon World 2nd Edition and I'm loving it! I hope they add more of the PbtA mechanics and philosophy.
Yeah, wish the *World games got more than a passing mention here. This is tried and true in Dungeon World. That game is a little more narrative driven than this is, but this is turning into its spiritual successor. Which I like, though I hoped to play something truly different than a game I kick-started eons ago already. For people who like this style, they should try Dungeon World and see what they think.
This video is the one that has me the most hype for this game since the original concept video.
I absolutely love the three-tiered result! Use it for as many dice rolls as possible! As a Director, it would give options without getting in the way while also providing consistent expectations. One of the primary sources of frustration is unmet expectations. While unmet expectation’s isn’t necessarily always a bad thing, it is important to pick your battles!
I love that @mcolville said “dramastically”! I tend to mash words frequently without realizing it - one of the tells of my brains ADHD re-wiring. My friends, family and players point it out.
Thanks for these Designing The Game videos. I know they're niche and being phased out, but as someone with a legit interest in how the sausage composition is determined, they really got my noggin churning... and were a bit easier to wrap my head around than the Patreon content (which is, don't get me wrong, great). I'm stoked for the future of MCDM's creations... and the supporting "reading/viewing matter". Thanks again to you and your merry band of creators.
I LOVE this idea! This seems to solve the scaling problem of your game (what's the difference between level 1 and 10, though you described it in terms of all classes/monsters doing the same damage), which was always a concern I had. The chart also allows explicit definition of graduated success (as you mentioned). I'm personally not bothered by the "abstraction". IDK why, but I love me a good table lookup.
It's fun to see how the MCDM designers and the Daggerheart designers both came to similar conclusions on damage, but with each tweaking their methods to suit each game's styles and thematic elements.
Wow, that gut punch xD
"You can even make a character! Well, you can't, we can."
Makes me think that there could be a class or something that does exactly the same damage at all times, but has backlash on low rolls and boons on high rolls. Like a vampiric necromancer type or something dabbling in powerful but dangerous arts.
I do love this idea. It's rife for creativity.
Talents and their Strain
I feel like these are going to work so much better as cards now. Or you could pre-print little tables on your character sheet to make it quicker to check.
The tests so far have had unique character sheets per class, but the result side of the chart will need to be blank because it can be influenced by your kit. You will have to update that if you switch.
This is actually brilliant, you allways generate a quality of result, but also allow for infinite variety. I am so exited for the next playtest packet, this is epic.
I love this video and I LOVED the battle wizards game. It's my son's favorite board game so we play it a lot on big family game nights. I've been in development of my own system recently for my company and had never even considered this mechanic as one to steal because our system doesn't use dice at all, but I have to say I am very excited to see what you do with this going forward. My only problem with MCDM is I'm not a fan of classes, doesn't matter how much they get dressed up they feel bad to me at the table, so doubt I will play a lot but definitely watching how you guys go because it's great ideas that will push the hobby forward!
This is awesome! It could also help do away with save-or-suck spells like Hold Person, maybe instead of legendary resistances that completely negate a spell effect, the monster gets to go down one threshold so they take a lesser effect
I am hesitantly optimistic about this kind of roll. The things I'm conflicted on are
- Wouldn't a deck of charts works better than a character sheet? That's not _bad_ just different than most TTRPGs.
- If there are only 3 tiers and a crit... Why am I rolling 2 dice with 12 results? This is a "feels" thing, I understand the math is not the same as a d4, but there's some dissonance there.
Excited to hear about more classes soon!
(Assuming 2-7, 8-9,10+ and Nat 12)
With 7 being the most common result, and 9 still pretty common, PC's get a lot of utility from their first +1 bonus.
You kinda have 6 outcomes from the the 2 dice, more if a lot of bonuses are readily available.
The party could know that the difference between rolling 4 or 5 with 2 bonuses would matter for a given plan.
@@Dialethian So basically the difference from a d4 is the players' agency in upgrading the result if it matters? I can get behind that.
THIS IS HUGE! I loved it when I saw it on patreon, and I love it when I hear it again! I really hope this chart-thing sticks, it's so perfect for homebrewing and even making up on the fly if needed!
This the video which sold me completely on the MCDM game. Love this concept so much
they've done it...they've found a way to make PBTA's main dice mechanic appealing to tactical gamers.
I thought it was impossible!
i homebrewed a combat system where each player gets a "combat modifier" which is generated by various skill points and a "defense modifier" which is also generated by various skill points, each weapon has it's own dice a dagger does a d4, long sword a d6, ect, on your turn you roll a d20 + your weapon dice and add it to your combat modifier the creature you attack rolls a d20 and adds that to your defense modifier and the difference is the damage taken, on a crit attack the player does max damage and ignores the armor roll plus gets another attack using only the weapon dice, on a crit defense roll the target takes 0 damage and gets a free attack using the weapon dice. my players loved it as it still gave them crits, combat was fast and engaging since they had a defense roll, and between the combat modifier and weapon dice the damage was all over the map.
I love the exploration of the problem and the power of your solution! The issue I think this will run into is how powerful flat bonuses are now. With the d8 example where 8 is 800% better than the minimum result, a +2 is a clear 200% of the minimum result. Increasing that to 3 or 4 is significant but only 100% or 200% of a boost of the minimum result. In greater HP pools and target numbers that wouldn't dramatically change the outcome. However with the new system a +2 makes the minimum result chance go from ~60% to ~40% and as low as ~8% at +4. Also since the middle range is small, turning a low result into a major result becomes very achievable with >4 bonus.
That challenge could easily be avoided if large bonuses are off the table and maybe that isn't that bad if this design is robust enough that the absence of large bonuses isn't noticed. I look forward to hearing if this problem presents itself and what your solutions might be!
I LOVE this! My brain is already going crazy with the homebrew potential.
Sounds very interesting! Powered by the apocalypse uses a similar system, but for its narrative-focussed, failure-forward system, the lower two brackets (2-6 and 7-9) result in failure and partial success respectively. (I refer to it as failure forward because most of the actual "play" to the game centers around negotiating and managing consequences to poor rolls. I point this out because my perception of your game is that that is not its focus.) I liked the distinction you made here, that 2-6 is more likely to be poor or partial success, 7-9 success, and 10+ great success. Adapting the power chart concept to the feel and fantasy of your system is ingenius.
When the description of the table started I was like, “I (think I will) HATE it!” but as the video went on, I was like, “We’ll see 🤔”
I’m excited to try it out; I think it has great potential. Great video! Really brought me along
Magic items having a 4th tier sounds brilliant
Fascinating insight into the game design! I have enjoyed comparing my game design to what you all are doing at MCDM. I can see that having a chart could be a good reference for players to lean on and it's not a huge table to read through. In my game design for combat I explored something I called Rank damage dice, you roll your weapon's base damage and then your rank damage changes depending on the character's Ranks. It's just cool to see how different minds solve similar problems differently. Also, POWER is just a cool name for it.
I love the PF2e Crit Fail, Fail, Succeed, Crit Succeed system.
The Power Roll solution by MCDM captures the dynamic results while getting rid of the null result and having to roll for damage 🤯
I'm sure you're awash in suggestions and ideas, sorry to add another 😆
In apocalypse world I've seen a couple fun house rules on that system. The first you've already seen, making a nat 12 a crit that gave extra actions (which I think was legit inspired by your stuff, though I'm not sure). The other two might be of use.
1 - Making doubles (2 3s or 4s for example) charge a class resource. Not likely a universal mechanic, but a complexity and/or luck oriented kit could embrace it. In our case the GM gave a benny token that could be spent for a +1 on a later roll.
2 - Making double 1s (aces as it was called) give a consolation prize. Despite being no worse than a 3 somehow that 2 feels bad. It was a Masks game and the GM gave an extra Potential in that case, which was nice.
I personally enjoyed the sort of "2 charts interacting with 1 roll" feel it gave looking for doubles, and aces or crits.
Good luck with your continued work! I'm enjoying every step of the path you share! 😁
I dramastically appreciate these inside looks at the creative process. I'm optimistic this rpg will kick maximum fant-ASS-y! 😄
4E DND had power boxes and I enjoyed seeing everything the power did contained in a little box. It even encouraged players to print out a sheet of their powers for easy use. I can imagine that or having an MCDM phone app with all the powers included would be super helpful.
Back to the river!
I dont know if youre reading these, I hope you do. Some food for thought:
1st: This is very inspiring and innovative and congratulations.
2nd: If players end up missing the "visceral" experience of directly rolling damage, you can always make it so you add the dice value to the result of the tables (will create the hp scaling issue again....but it might be ok? Also I understand that more additions = slower pace of play so I am not saying this is better)
3rd: Quick ideas that immediately sparked in my head for weirdness that is suddenly available:
- Making a category of things (weapons or spells or smthn, literally anything) that benefits from minus modifiers to the dice roll (by way of having the good result on the low dice roll, as you said) is such a good idea. Quick examples: Blood magic, some rugged barbarian that does better when things are going bad, or maybe exceptionally skilled individuals have bad results only when having the average dice roll, or even possibly the inverse but the middle tier is wider? Plus this spawns a whole category of triggers and other abilities that lower the dice roll instead of increasing it, making more weird compatibility a thing.
- Adding extra dice rolls for some results in the power table, either for good or bad, especially for big dumb spells, cause I think that the game is missing the joy of rolling 40 dice at your opponents face (I'm exagerrating but you get it). This can be a problem if not done correctly but the opportunity to create stupidly powerful things is now there.
- It does not HAVE to be the same table structure for every class etc. There are always classes and subclasses in anything for the people that wanna dig their teeth into the complicated rules. This gives you the opportunity to do that, while also making players feel unique and different.
I haven't been more excited about a core mechanic implementation since I learned about Apocalypse World!
I think the biggest attention now needs to be focused on where the numbers are, getting a "bad" result on 7 and below, when 7 is the most likely result on a 2d6, could cause some weird probability stuff where most of the time you feel like you're not doing much. Maybe there should be some whiff result on like a 2-3/4 and slightly improve the average result, although that does bloat power charts as mentioned in the video to add a fourth tier.
(Aside, I do still really like this for attempting to mitigate the "wow I hit with a 1 that sucks", in dnd 5e in the first campaign I played in after 2 of being the entirely fresh group's forever DM, my cleric whiffed her cantrip round 1, then round 2 landed it for a whopping 2 damage, it felt really bad and like I wasn't able to do anything because I didn't want to commit a precious spell slot to this fight.)
Don’t forget, you’re usually adding +2!
@@ExtraLegs I totally forgot that, in that case my immediate reaction changes, and the numbers seem more in line and reasonable.
One of my favorite aspects that a game can implement is a degree of success, but it's rarely done with the minimalist grace needed for accessbility. Thinking SL's in WFRP as a prime example, though it's prevalent in many d100 systems.
This is elegant, minimalist, and feels good. I was worried about this specific aspect of the game, but no longer. You're not afraid to rip something as silly as Epic Spell Wars, and that's a good thing. Because silly as that game is, the mechanic feels *good*.
I adore that after all these many revisions y'all essentially landed on a near-verbatim adaptation of Apocalypse World's mechanics. AW's fights are by far the most cinematic and exciting of any TTRPG I have played, I think this is a very good direction.
As soon as I heard a table result my brain lit up.
I imagine this would also be good for so many things from giving you ways of upgrading (like having weapons of different strengths) and abilities that key off of tiers (both personal and teammates).
I immediately saw myself sitting at a table with a sleave of five cards lined up in front of me of my common battle actions for quick reference.
I think you got lightning in that bottle.
Hey look. I had a kinda terrible end of my work day, like real bad. Then I started watching this video and the bit about my mom, the not joke? Maybe me laugh out loud for the first time today and this is why I love the work MCDM is doing. Thank you.
interesting! could be useful for super powerful spells to give them significant stakes & consequence, like reviving a dead pc. could be something like:
result 1: ritual failed, party has to fight an undead version of the pc
result 2: successfully revived, but with some kind of drawback/curse
result 3: successfully fully revived
On a purely selfish level, I really like that when I watch your design videos or read the Patreon packets/ updates, etc… your reasoning for design decisions really vibes with my own preferences for design decisions. Even when we ended up with a different choice I could still see how it addressed the same design preference. Very much looking forward to the end game.