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Baarfa3 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

"Redesigning Failure" is a fantastic theme where we can look at weak mechanics in other games and make them more fun. For me, spell casting in miniature games was always so black and white. You either did all the damage, or you did none. Personally this feels lacking. Would a trained Wizard really struggle with turning an ork cultist into a cloud of atomised blood dust?? No, I don't think so.

So here is my silly version of what that could look like mechanically. Spell casters that will continue to draw from magical energy until they successfully cast the spell they're manifesting. Of course, doing so has it's drawbacks, including demonic possession. But it's all part of the fun!

Printable PDF available with really rushed (google screenshots, woo!) art so you can give it a try straight away.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on my game, please leave any feedback below!

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ayleczander3 years ago (1 edit) (+2)

I get the philosophy, but I think there is a bit of tweaking that could be done. From the purely mathematical side, under the system as it stands, I think that 1-2 should be failure, and 3-6 success, for two reasons. The first is that if you're going to do a binary, you might as well use coins as dice. The second is that spell difficulties are a touch overtuned as well. I like the ebb and flow of magic, and how that functions mechanically, but you'll never consistently be able to cast anything reliably over difficulty 3 most of the time, and most of the spells aren't enough better at higher costs as opposed to just casting twice. I get that the intent was to force the players to interact with the Aetheric Influence table, but that has it's own difficulties, and a 33% instead of 50% failure rate would actually probably lead to players making riskier moves more regularly.

On the subject of the Aetheric Influence table, the consequences don't quite work. Only the last hit point matters, and the health damage only takes a wizard down to 12, beyond instant kill range for any of the spells, or even being surrounded by minions. The wizard doesn't seem to have much reason to ever move or hit something with their hands, as even a difficulty 2 spell is going to consistently match their strength, and unless I missed something, spells don't have range limits. The action limit at 11 and the turn skip at 12 actually hurt, but otherwise the actual consequences are mostly academic.

Given the above, and to better lean into the theme, I'd suggest giving the wizards bonuses as they accumulate additional Aetheric Influence, right up until they explode. For example, you could keep the 50-50 success rate, or even lower it to 66-33, and change the Aether Deck to use 2 through 4, with higher levels of Aetheric Influence giving Wizards more Native Aether. This would enable them to cast additional spells, but it also encourages them to dip deeper and deeper into Aetheric Influence. You also should add some form of range limits to the spells, and probably could get away with making the wizard's strength add dice to spell rolls, so you don't have to add a stat. It could also feed into spell range as well. Under this, increasing Aetheric Influence would mostly add strength, and maybe health on alternate rows, right up until it explodes you.

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ayleczander3 years ago(+1)

Oh, neglected to mention, but under my revised versions, wizards would start at strength 0. Any revision to the dice odds would also require reworking defense to compensate, but the math is pretty simple, and I'm pretty sure the Dev has a good grip on it, looking at the general numbers used in the system.

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Baarfa3 years ago

There's definitely something in your idea. But melee will always hit and do damage while a spell has a chance to fail. You could do 2 guaranteed hits per turn with melee but the spell may miscast and result in taking 2 actions for 1 hit. 

The Wizard melee is for killing off the little minions. If they get surrounded.

I wanted the players to have options for different tactics. So a Wizard could move and hit a critter, freeing a space for their hound to charge the enemy Wizard. That sort of thing.

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ayleczander3 years ago

Melee isn't guaranteed damage against minions though? Wizards don't have defense values, but the minions all do. Also at a coin flip, your odds of getting only one success as opposed to the two you would need for the most basic attack spells is 6.25%, with the Aetheric Winds at their lowest, so not really going to factor into most people's calculations.

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Baarfa3 years ago

Yes you're right, not guaranteed damage, but you don't have to first cast melee to cause damage.

I think your maths on that might be a bit off, as the minimum Aether level is 5, so it would be 2 successes with 5 dice, followed by a STR 2 hit. So striking a Critter at DEF 1 with that spell would result in a critter death 60.75% of the time.

Pretty good odds

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ayleczander3 years ago

I agree, that was the chance of a strength 2 spell failing to cast in one action in the worst possible case, which works out to about 6.25% chance. I think you'll agree that isn't enough of a downside compared to infinite range as opposed to direct adjacency.

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Baarfa3 years ago

Can I ask where you're getting 6.25% from? My calcs is 18.75% failure to cast in one action. Feel like I'm missing something.

If the game was just about killing critters, then sure, might have to make it harder. Critters are dangerous in numbers and Conjurers can make more of them. Striking in combat let's you take a couple out each turn without worrying about AI.

But saying all this, what critters are good for is killing enemy minions. Not surrounding the Wizard. Critters are there to get your big minions down the board. 

Tbh I think Death Wizards are over tuned as they can raise more zombies from the bodies of the tavern clientele.

I made this game in about 20 hours. So tuning and testing is still needed. I think I've done pretty well considering. 😁

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Baarfa3 years ago (2 edits)

Love the feedback thankyou. Having fresh eyes to do the little work helps a lot.

I was toying with 6s counting as 2 successes but as I was limited with time I decided to keep the system quite basic and just get a game completed. I've found that during play you won't see much difference. By using high number of dice players will have a greater number of passes and successes which will add to the wildness of the game. Which is what i was going for. Making the dice fail a lot at the beginning would be too dull I think and having the current system where power is unpredictable is what I wanted.

I'm not sure what you mean by the last hp is all that matters. All your health is important.

 Being able to move is important but ultimately standing still and casting spells is exactly what a Wizard would do. You need to find the right position and stay there. Up to you how meta you wanna be with that. I wanted an early detriment that wasn't really that bad, hence the low movement. Which still allows you to flee a horde of critters for instance.

I do get that the Aether Influebce could be worse, I didn't want to take away too much from the fun, while still sticking to the theme.

I love the idea of Aether adding a bonus to your cast rolls so if I rewrite the rules I'll use that in some fashion.

Thanks loads for the detailed feedback there's a lot to think about here.

Oh and editing in - I don't want Range to be a thing. If it was a battlefield sure, but it's in a pub so everyone is in Range.

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ayleczander3 years ago (1 edit)

Only the last hit point matters is a saying about how broadly hitpoints X through 2 are identical, as a character doesn't die until reduced to zero health, so only the last hitpoint matters. I first saw it used in MtG, as a mantra to not worry about health so long as you can kill the other player first. That would be why I noted that 12 HP is still outside instant kill range. Under the system as it stands, I think the maximum instant kill is at 10 health, which would be a wizard surrounded by a golem and 3 illusions, all boosted with mage hands. Practically speaking, I'm pretty sure the maximum instant kill in normal play would be about 3-6, making those the 'last' hitpoints.

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Baarfa3 years ago

True, but then you need to balance between striking the Wizard and killing off minions.

There's more nuance due to such a small, what we could call, Kill Zone. Wearing a Wizard down to get them to the Kill Zone is important, but so is managing the minions, both the enemy's and your own.

I tried to balance between, feeling like you can achieve stuff and do damage, while still keeping the game longer than a couple of turns each. I feel like i'm close, but I agree there could be a little more danger in making the wrong move. But I was also keeping the theme in mind.

I'm loving this chat btw, thankyou for this discussion!

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