maleghastandstuff

[maleghastandstuff]

The only thing i know about designing games is my own poor taste and I'd say that's enough to make something I enjoy. Even if only the process itself! ^^

That gremlin cabbage game sounds like it'd rule, btw. :3

Being into indie ttrpgs on Tumblr is a very funny experience because while you're ambiently considering designing a little game about idk, gremlins growing cabbages or whatever there are people who built this hobby from the ground up with 15 award winning published games and three podcasts and a knighthood from a small European monarchy just doing their thing on the same platform. Imagine this was the case for any other hobby. You go to shoot some hoops behind your house and LeBron James is just there

[maleghastandstuff]

You ever think about how Games Workshop had a perfectly good game system but chose to make a new edition with arbitrary changes and specific units because of revenue?

This is about Killteam. I remember Killteam 1.0. I miss Killteam 1.0.

[maleghastandstuff]

Small Update

So, I've noticed that I seem to have gotten a (small, little, tiny) bit more attention over the last two weeks or so, and in that same timeframe haven't really done or said anything. ^^'

I didn't forget about this! I just moved out and uni started up again and beginning tomorrow I am on the last 10 days of my compulsory maid service! :D

So, yeah. I've been a bit distracted, and likely will be for a bit longer. But I'm hoping that this little project benefits from my time away. That it gives me the necessary distance to re-evaluate and make changes. The goal right now is to create a full version I'm happy to share with people and then move on... For now.

Overall, dipping my toes into game design like this has been a great experience already and I'll keep going. Lets just say potionbrewing is a mechanic I'm proud of and have some ideas for. :3

[maleghastandstuff]

I want her to do things to me.

STEEPLEWRACK

TOM RELEASED STEEPLEWRACK GO PLAY THEM NOW NOW NOW

[maleghastandstuff]

Skills! The thing I'll talk about before downtime and none of you can stop me! >:D

A skill or abilty or talent (I keep switching between them) is a special rule or action a character has access too. I've been delving into design all over the place, writing down whichever abilities I was thinking of at that time. So they range from simple things such as adding dice to your pool, to self-inflicted damage for advantages, to modifying attacks, to magic.

Attuned Hunter: Add 1d8 to your pool. Use only once.

Killswitch: Damage you deal to a target can be divided and dealt to other targets within 15’. Round down.

Energyshield (x): Annul all rolls of x made by you and against you on each individual dice

Well, something like magic. So far, I've written a few abilities which "burn" dice (remove them from your pool; if they're base dice, remove them until the end of the combat/mission). Suitably, these abilities are more powerful.

Hurting: Burn 1 dice: Contest the target. If successful, deal 2 damage.

Transmutation: Burn 2 base dice: Add 1 dice.

Magic abilities will definitely need a close eye on them as I write them, because they have the potential to be very strong on their own, no combos needed. My goal is to have a system in which there is as much variation as possible in abilities and builds. MtG is a major inspiration.

I also plan on having a system for characters to join Houses and make deals with Devils. The most impactful abilities will be accessed through them. Mostly, at least. Here is one I envision for House Igorri:

Amalgam: Gain an additional base dice. This talent may not be picked normally.

How to implement factions and pacts I am honestly not entirely sure myself yet. It will be done as part of downtime, but a specific system isn't built yet. Before I get into that, though, I'll clean up talents and add more until I am left with something nice to play. So, next time it'll be talents, weapons and enemies, particularly hordes! ^W^

[maleghastandstuff]

Maleghast TTRPG Character Creation

I guess it's time for me to get into how making your character works! ^w^ For now. It's definitely a work in progress. It's also time for me to make this a new post, because I didn't realise that reposts don't appear as new posts on a tag! I'm still... a bit new to all this. :/ (For the initial post and its followups, go here).

Anyhow! Character creation! A character has 4 basic stats: HP, BD (base dice), DF (defense) and MV (movement). To make a character, players spend 25 points total on these. Dice cost points equal to their highest value, as well as an additional point for each duplicate in possession (e.g 3d4 = 4 + 0 + 4 + 1 + 4 + 2 = 15; while 1d6 + 1d4 = 6 + 0 + 4 + 0= 10). HP costs 3 points each, with players starting a 1 HP for free. DF costs 2 points each, with players starting at 4+ for free. MV costs 1 point each, with players starting at 15' for free.

The system makes more dice more expensive, primarily because of the cost of certain abilities, that I fear would otherwise be too strong. Speaking of, players will also start the game with at least one ability, though I haven't yet thought of a classification system for how this would work exactly. But more on abilites next time! ^w^ Unless I feel like talking about something else :P

[maleghastandstuff]

No WIP character creation system, but expanding on skills a little more with my vision for potioncrafting and necromancy! ^w^

Using necromancy is simple: pick the bodies you want to resurrect, roll your dice and if your roll is higher than the sum of their base dice, you can resurrect the bodies. (e.g two zombies with 1d4 each, the player rolls a 7, and can resurrect one of the bodies in their service). Control is relinquished once they die again, the body "burning out".

Potioncraft, similarly, makes you roll to beat a certain number, depending on the potion. But potions can be supplemented with ingredients, that give bonuses and penalties to the brewing process dependent on its color, with some granting additional effects as well. The meaning of colors is left intentionally vague (e.g invisibility potion - blue or purple?), to allow for more kinds of potions than I could even anticipate players attempting to brew. It may also be a bit busted, so having more variance like this seems like a good thing.

Next time, I likely will write about the character creation, though! Probably. Maybe! >:P

Maleghast the TTRPG

Recently I got inspired by Maleghast (Tom Bloom's neat skirmish wargame) to try and design my own TTRPG within the setting. The idea that inspired me was to make a game in which death meant removing personality traits instead of the loss of a character. Something that fits perfectly with the City of a Billion Corpses! I also settled on a low pool of HP to make the game feel snappy and violent. There was still a lot of space to be filled beyond those concepts. Space that I'm quite good at filling, as it turns out!

Previous talk of a MLG TTRPG mentioned the use of several kinds of dice. I took the idea and ran with it. d4 - d12 are all in the game, with different characters having different "base dice". A character may have 3d4 or 2d6 or 1d8 + 1d4 or 1d12... And those numbers are just what I imagine as the starting point. For context, currently just have to roll above a target's Defense Value to do damage. Then I added abilities to the game. Some of which allow you to add, steal or remove dice from pools. Certain weapons give you dice or remove them, and so far one ability negates all attack rolls (made by yourself and others!) of a certain result. A flat +x/-x is also possible, though as of yet not written down anywhere concrete. I already added some more weird abilities just begging for exploitation, but all in good time >;3

That's combat, in a nutshell. Roll above a value, deal damage. It's been my only focus so far. Movement should matter as well, but that requires playtesting. It's all been very theoretical up to this point.

If people are interested (or if I feel like it >;P) I'll go into detail about my visions for downtime next, as well as some other mechanics. ^w^

[maleghastandstuff]

No downtime talk yet, but I did reconsider my approach to skills! :)

Initially, my concept for skills was to have each be a value between one and three, by which your base dice are multiplied when doing a skillcheck. (e.g Hacking 2: 3d4*2=6d4). But I don't know how to scale things around that - nevermind the amount of dice necessary. Rolling a lot of specialist dice simply makes the game less accessible.

So, currently, skills give flat bonuses. +3 per skill level. Currently, skills are also opt-in, able to be gained but not necessary, which should allow for a far greater range of them than having a specific amount to fit onto a character sheet - like for example 5e does. The issue with opt-in would be that players with high base dice probably wouldn't see a need for them, though, and I may need to fix that. At the same time, it might be a useful reward for playing a far more brittle character? But more on that when I get around to sharing my WIP character creation system.

Maleghast the TTRPG

Recently I got inspired by Maleghast (Tom Bloom's neat skirmish wargame) to try and design my own TTRPG within the setting. The idea that inspired me was to make a game in which death meant removing personality traits instead of the loss of a character. Something that fits perfectly with the City of a Billion Corpses! I also settled on a low pool of HP to make the game feel snappy and violent. There was still a lot of space to be filled beyond those concepts. Space that I'm quite good at filling, as it turns out!

Previous talk of a MLG TTRPG mentioned the use of several kinds of dice. I took the idea and ran with it. d4 - d12 are all in the game, with different characters having different "base dice". A character may have 3d4 or 2d6 or 1d8 + 1d4 or 1d12... And those numbers are just what I imagine as the starting point. For context, currently just have to roll above a target's Defense Value to do damage. Then I added abilities to the game. Some of which allow you to add, steal or remove dice from pools. Certain weapons give you dice or remove them, and so far one ability negates all attack rolls (made by yourself and others!) of a certain result. A flat +x/-x is also possible, though as of yet not written down anywhere concrete. I already added some more weird abilities just begging for exploitation, but all in good time >;3

That's combat, in a nutshell. Roll above a value, deal damage. It's been my only focus so far. Movement should matter as well, but that requires playtesting. It's all been very theoretical up to this point.

If people are interested (or if I feel like it >;P) I'll go into detail about my visions for downtime next, as well as some other mechanics. ^w^

[maleghastandstuff]

A tiny bat stretching

[maleghastandstuff]

Maleghast the TTRPG

Recently I got inspired by Maleghast (Tom Bloom's neat skirmish wargame) to try and design my own TTRPG within the setting. The idea that inspired me was to make a game in which death meant removing personality traits instead of the loss of a character. Something that fits perfectly with the City of a Billion Corpses! I also settled on a low pool of HP to make the game feel snappy and violent. There was still a lot of space to be filled beyond those concepts. Space that I'm quite good at filling, as it turns out!

Previous talk of a MLG TTRPG mentioned the use of several kinds of dice. I took the idea and ran with it. d4 - d12 are all in the game, with different characters having different "base dice". A character may have 3d4 or 2d6 or 1d8 + 1d4 or 1d12... And those numbers are just what I imagine as the starting point. For context, currently just have to roll above a target's Defense Value to do damage. Then I added abilities to the game. Some of which allow you to add, steal or remove dice from pools. Certain weapons give you dice or remove them, and so far one ability negates all attack rolls (made by yourself and others!) of a certain result. A flat +x/-x is also possible, though as of yet not written down anywhere concrete. I already added some more weird abilities just begging for exploitation, but all in good time >;3

That's combat, in a nutshell. Roll above a value, deal damage. It's been my only focus so far. Movement should matter as well, but that requires playtesting. It's all been very theoretical up to this point.

If people are interested (or if I feel like it >;P) I'll go into detail about my visions for downtime next, as well as some other mechanics. ^w^

[maleghastandstuff]

Getting this blog started!

Scavenger sprites are small bundles of darkness, stabbed with bright light for eyes, like stars almost. Their shapes are limited by the muck, grime, and trash stuck to them, which changes over time. Triz is mostly broken corpse-branches and the dust of ground down cobblestones. His limbs are lanky and mismatched, right arm an inch longer than his left. Their feet are sturdy and resilient little things, shaped roughly like a human’s, though they never make an attempt to hide the noise they make. Scavenger sprites do not need to wear clothes, but some prefer it. Most like the feeling of having a scavenged item on their body, and so does Triz. Like the others, the clothes he wears change with time. They rot. They rust. They get worn out. Many of his kin get annoyed at that, though they do not fear it. Triz, for his part, cherishes the feeling. Proof of time well-spent and an item well-loved. Sometimes they get lost and it irks him. But most of the time he puts them in his hoard, a secret place where they store all the things they cannot wear or couldn’t any longer. Currently he wears a dented metal soup-plate as a kettle-hat and the remains of a torn-up robe, which is still plenty big enough for him.

Scavenger Sprites are a little concept of mine, initially a way to bring a goblin-y energy to Maleghast. I think it has the potential to be a lot more though. A way to engage with the archival aspect of the city of a billion corpses - and the things they leave behind.