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[JasonPickering]

Hey guys, so I have been tinkering with this idea of making a very small RPG with dice based combat. I really wanted the player to see the dice they were rolling and make the game feel like it was all about the dice. I didnt want something as simple as you roll a d6 and the monster rolls a d6. I wanted the ability for the player to reroll but it be limited. I basically wanted something that was random, but the object of the game wasn't rolling a high number, but managing your resources to make sure you roll a high number.

the first idea I had was something closer to yahtzee. The player would roll dice and each monster would have a number associated with it. so a 1 might kill a slime, a 1 and a 2 might kill a goblin. then the player could have spells and resources. I wasn't a big fan of the way this felt, so I ended up going reworking it into this.

although I have currently dropped the enemy dice. The slime basically has an amount of 4. The player is given one dice. They can spend stamina to get more dice and roll up to 4. So the game is all about betting. Do you think you can be a roll of 4 with one dice? what about two? will you need three? I have been watching darkest dungeons and I really like the idea of resource management, so the plan is to give the player like 4 monsters to overcome and then a town. in the town the player can heal, rest, and buy items, but wont be able to do all that. I also plan on doing some passive skills the player gets randomly. Like automatically reroll all 1s and then I also plan to do something if a player matches the number needed. it will be like a critical hit and they might gain back health, or stamina. So basically any ideas about this you can think of feel free to add. I am hoping there will be a lot of play in this system, I dont want something that give the player vary limited choice. I will try and upload my prototpye later today.

[JasonPickering]

okay, so added a quick and dirty prototype. let me know what you think.

Here

arrows left and right to use dice. space to attack. and r to reset the game. its up to you to keep track of the numbers. this is more a proof of concept to see if this type of betting game could be fun.

[ProgramGamer]

This could be an interesting little mobile game. Posting for notify!

I did test the game and it has good potential, even if depth seems pretty limited IMO.

[JasonPickering]

Yeah quick mobile game was my goal from the begining. My main goal now is to get a good foundation. If I can make the base like it is now fun, then I can build and expand it. I want each enemy to have something special about them. For example a skeleton will discarded your lowest dice. Meaning you have to roll more then one. Or maybe the slime makes all your dice roll 1 to 4. I think my plan is to have all enemies be about the same level, but the real enemy is the wearing away of the hero. I am also looking to add maybe some random skills like reroll your lowest die or add 5 to your roll.

[DanglinBob]

I haven't had a chance to look at the prototype, but I'd say you should/could look at Bloodbowl for a lot of D6 related potential.

Most important in BloodBowl are 2 things: Rerolls and "Doing the least dangerous thing first" (as well as positioning but that isnt quite what your game is about I don't think).

This means understanding the odds of various rolls, but they make it pretty simple:  Being able to use 2 dice is better than 1. Having skills that augment those dice are even better. Basically their dice system works like this:

When attacking 2/6 of the base dice are a "hit"
2/6 are nothing
1/6 "you get hit instead"
1/6 "You both get hit"

Then you take into account various skills. Dodge turns one of the "hit" dice into nothing when defending.
Block turns the "you both get hit" into a "hit" die. Those are the basic ones that you see most common.

The result, is partially knowing what will be the safest thing to do and the second is knowing when to re-roll. Since re-rolls are limited sometimes getting hit is ok, saving a re-roll for when it is more critical. Also since you can only re-roll once per "turn" you'll sometimes find doing NOTHING is better than risking a roll.

As you find ways to get "2d" rolls (or even 3D rolls) the odds become massively in your favor, usually in the 80%+ range with re-rolls... but it's always a bit random! Double snake eyes happens every game, just about, so part of the game is also planning to fail.

I think there's a lot of good mechanics you can take away from their system anyway.

[JasonPickering]

I will look into that. I will hit up youtube to see some rule explanations. I was looking at a dice combat variant in the game DungeonQuest.

you roll a single D6 and then consult the chart

1 or 2 - Player suffers one Wound
3 or 4 - Player and monster suffer one wound
5 - Monster suffers one wound
6 - Monster suffers two wounds.

different heroes have different things to. like can always reroll a 1 or always do two wounds to the monster. i like the idea of a limited dice pool. and I like the idea of rerolls (Forced or otherwise) this could work to. I wanted something that was instantly understandable. there is also a game called Super Dungeon explore. the player rolls a set number of dice for attack, enemy rolls a set number of dice for defense, the most stars wins, but there are different dice with different sides. and then the player can get items which increase their different dice pools. my biggest worry about that was people automatically understand a d6, and I was worried something more abstract liek this might be confusing. but i did like the idea of rolling three dice, and maybe missing all three or hitting with two. so maybe looking into "Special Dice" might be worth it.

I have been taking a lot of inspiration from darkest dungeons for this I realize. they do something nice where on a quest there is no increase of monster difficulty, but its the managing of resources that crafts the curve. fighting a skeleton in the beginning, feels way different then fighting one at the end.

[JasonPickering]

So it looks like what makes Bloodbowl exciting is

A. choosing the which dice you rolled. Although I still feel this is a calculation not really a choice, but maybe that can be changed.
B. trying to get as many dice to roll as possible.i
i
now the getting dice to roll is easy. The player adding "stamina" like I currently have works pretty good I think. the choosing is a little trickier as a player wont really have a reason to choose. the one thing I am thinking though is maybe like choosing a dice removes it somehow. but this would mean that there would need to be different dice.

I remembered something from PaperMario Sticker Star I liked. in battle there was an option called battle spin. you would spend 3 coins, and then try and stop a slot machine matching symbols. if you matched two symbols you got to attack with 2 stickers, if you matched 3 symbols you got to attack with 3 stickers. so maybe a system like that could be used for the dice.

so maybe the player has a dice and then they can add dice to that roll to boost their attack. This also means I could add some equipment to the game that shows the boost dice. maybe some are a dice, and some are just straight numbers.

[JasonPickering]

still playing with this. I am reworking my design by figuring out what I want from the design, so some of the ideas I like so far are.

1. There is only one roll per turn. if the player misses the monster does damage to them, if they hit they do damage to the monster. so you wont have bouts of player miss, monster miss, player miss.

2. I want some kind of resource management, probably in the form of a dice pool.

3. I want some kind of difference between characters. So maybe stats, specials, or skills perhaps.

[Arnold]

I don't know if it helps here, but Adam Atomics Cubic Space has a pretty interesting dice related mechanic going: http://adamatomic.com/cubic/

[JasonPickering]

Actually that's really cool. That reminds me of a game called dungeon roll. I will have to play around with that a lot more. maybe I ca get some ideas from that. Narrowing down what my goals are has really helped out. The main design will all come down to the combat system really and the main thing I want for the combat system is all about Resource Management. Maybe looking at Card Crawl might help too. Giving the player a bunch of rolled dice and letting them combat monsters with them, might work out, similar to the use of swords and shields. maybe even giving the player a collection of heroes, instead of a single one.

[JasonPickering]

so the more I play that Cubic Space the more I like a lot of its ideas. I especially like the number enemies vs the number weapons. I am thinking of doing something like this, except using a RPG party. Players will be able to select which heroes battle which monsters, and then they will be able to recharge those heroes. I am going to try and prototype this out tomorrow night. I may try and contact adam and see if I can pick his brain about the design too. It also means I can remove most of the UI. which might be neat, and give lots of room for other things. like spells and stuff.

[DanglinBob]

Well, BloodBowl has the strategic positioning layer on top of it. That's really what makes it "interesting." Rolling dice isn't interesting inherently :D

[JasonPickering]

more design on this. I am paper testing a few different ideas. one is going with a dice pool, one is a more yathzee style, and one is about lining up dice from rolls in a more tower defense style.

[happymonster]

Have you seen this mobile game for ideas?
http://tinydicedungeon.com/

[JasonPickering]

I did see that. I liked the push your luck aspect.

[JasonPickering]

more prototyping! tried something different, but it didn't work as well as I wanted it to. I had the player roll dice, then enemies approaching. Matching dice Rolls to enemies killed those enemies. It didnt work out as well as I hoped, but oh well.

I think I have another idea that's similar. I am going to try the dice idea again, but player skills will require different dice. so a player might be able to do 1 damage but if they roll 3 of a kind they can do 2 damage, or maybe a straight of 3 might be a heal spell.

[RyanB]

If you hide the enemies dice rolls and give each character a pool of mana/energy that can be used on each attack/defend/move, you could allow the player to use some strategy but add an element of chance.

You could also give each monster three dice and show the player one of the dice rolls but hide the other two.  Gives some info but not all the info.

Monsters and player could also bluff if you couldn't see their dice.  A monster would put all/most of their energy into an attack (visual cues to player to let them know what is going to happen) and player has to either call the bluff (fight back) or defend (throw his dice away and limit monster damage).

Games of complete information (ex. chess) are generally less fun than games of limited information (ex. poker).

[JasonPickering]

Yeah. I have been just filling a notebook with what I like and what I don't like (This was suppose to be a tiny quick game, but I always spend so much time on the design)

so ideas I like:
- rolling dice (Obviously)
- some "Stamina" resource that lets you reroll dice, or add more dice
- I like the idea of the player having to decide what to do. giving the player some kind of choice.
     - this can either be after a player rolls or before they roll.

some ideas I have are:
- letting the player roll extra dice using their stamina.
- both player and monster rolling and the player allocating dice for attacks and blocks
- the player has "spells" that require certain numbers to activate player can reroll dice.

not sure which of these ideas will work. I dont know what I want, but so far I have just found out what I dont like.

[JasonPickering]

So I really like the idea used in "last night on earth". Basically the player rolls two dice, the zombie rolls one dice. Highest number wins. If the player wins the zombie is not dispatched though. To kill the zombie the player must roll doubles that are higher. I like this idea. It meets  a lot of the ideas and requirements I had. The player can also use items which might allow them to reroll dice, or even roll extra dice.  So I think I am going to play with this idea a bit more.

[JasonPickering]

So new prototype I am playing with is this:



after all my testing I found a few things I liked. dice with pips rather then symbols. player getting a dice pool and having to choose from it. enemies that also have numbers.

so the way it currently works (Still coding the AI) 6 dice are rolled. the player and the enemy take turns choosing dice for their attack or defense. the problem is, you have to tie or increase your dice number in the attack panel each pick, so in the above example the enemy can only grab the three, where the player can grab the two or the three.

so a good example of the combat is , do you grab the highest dice? it stops your opponent from doing it, but it also locks some other dice for you to grab.