[Polarpunk] An intro, and a question: Vantage Bonus too powerful?

[joepub]

So, I have a game I'm working on called Polarpunk. It's a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk game that's set in a worldwide "second Ice Age". It's supposed to be fun, fast, exciting and full of "dude, that's awesome. Insane, but awesome" moments.

I'm going to give you a setting/premise pitch, try to state my design goals concisely, share the relevant mechanics, and ask a question about mechanics balance and general impressions.

First, the setting pitch:

Apocalypse hit. Nuclear war decimated our cities, global anarchy broke out, global warming hit its breaking point, and a second ice age washed over the earth. The shattered remains of humankind went underground, setting up fragmented, isolated bunker colonies.

Now, finally, we have re-emerged. Earth is an icy, radiation-clouded wasteland. Polar bears have assumed empire over the earth. Our cities lie in ruins, waiting to be reclaimed. As a forward scout for humanity's re-expansion, it's your job to seek out other bunker colonies, scavenge our past from abandoned cities, and fight off the growing polar bear hordes. You're our first and last hope of ever reclaiming the earth.

So, I'm going to try and show you my design goals, so that you can provide the most meaningful feedback possible. Here we go:

1. The game is supposed to be fast, fun, and easy to pick up. Savage Worlds claims to do this, and for the most part it does.

On that note: My issues with Savage Worlds: although turns move quickly, combat can become really entrenched (difficult to Shake and Wound), although it does generic well, it doesn't really support cyber-tech stuff, nor emulate the cinematic style I'm looking for.

Resuming goals:

2. This game is supposed to provide a wealth of tactical options, without getting bogged down or complicated. Dice pools are an attempt to achieve this: You can have a "feat" affect high die, give bonuses to the roll, allow low die re-rolls, or allow you to roll bonus dice. There's a wealth of options without having a hugely complicated system.

3. Allow cyber technology, and such, to be cool. Heavy-crunch games can't, by nature, get away from creating laundry lists of technical data, which defeats the whole point of having wonderous, fantastic stuff. IMO.

4. I'm not sure how best to put this: modular options | bonus content | unlockable content. I want a system where it makes sense to unlock a whole bunch of new options whenever a city is uncovered and explored.

5. Task-based resolution, GM-guided story... but at the same time allowing players to provide a lot to the creative front. Flexible authority, but still within a definite hierarchy.

Okay. I'm unfortunately going to have to log off this computer now. I'll continue in a second post with a mechanics description and my question.

[cont...]

[joepub]

So, a basic summary of the character components:

Vantage Threshold. Used to determine whether you get a bonus from your Vantage Roll (initiative roll).
Statistics: Power, Aim, Endurance and Craft. All powered 1-5.
Feats: starting characters have 1-4. These give different bonuses and alterations.
Equipment: Starting characters have "default equipment", which gives no bonuses. Later scavenged equipment will give different bonuses and alterations, like Feats.
Wounds Every character is going to have something like 6 or 8.

When creating a character, you first pick an Archetype.
These include: Explorer, Assassin, Warrior, Sentient Dog and Coward, amongst others.

When you pick your Archetype, this determines your Vantage Threshold, how many points you have to distribute amongst Statistics, how many Feats you get, and some Archetypes have exclusive Feats (Sentient Dogs, for example, can be Scent Trackers).

So then you distribute your Stat points amongst your stats, pick your feats.
Then you sketch and doodle while the others finish up their characters.

Here's how combat works:

VANTAGE

First of all, everyone rolls 3d10 for their Vantage. Highest die for each player determines initiative.

If the high die for any player is above their Vantage Threshold, they gain +X to their Action this round, equal to the difference.

Some feats and Archetypes will alter the amount of dice rolled for Vantage, or will allow you to re-roll the low one. Archetype also determines the Vantage Threshold (which will be between 5 and 8 depending on Archetype).

So, you now have an order for actors.

ACTION

So, going by Vantage order, everyone will get one Action in a round.
The options are basically:
-Attack (melee)
-Fire (ranged)
-Seize Ground (strategic positioning)
-Utilize (item usage, support, diplomacy)

(Utilize uses an item or effect. This will likely either heal your friends or assist their efforts. Utilize is the broad category that isn't killing or running around. Diplomacy attempts is currently stuffed in here too.)

When you Attack, you roll Xd10, with X being equal to your Power stat.
Each die that doubles the enemy's Endurance Stat scores 1 Wound.

You can spend your Vantage Bonus to increase die faces. If I have a Vantage Bonus of +3, I can either increase a die of 5 to 8, or I can increase a die of 5 to a die of 6 and a die of 4 to a die of 6. Make sense?

The enemy can also spend Vantage Bonus to lower die faces in the same way, in Melee.

My first question is: Does this ability to break Vantage up over several dice confuse things? Does it get in the way of my fast-moving, low-handling-time objective?

Fire uses Aim. Roll xd10, with X being equal to your Aim stat.
Each die that doubles the enemy's Endurance stat scores 1 Wound.

Vantage Bonus cannot be spent to lower die faces on a Fire.
When it comes your turn to act, you can put off your action. This puts you at the bottom of the Vantage order but allows you to spend your Vantage Bonus on your shot.

Now, any character can sacrifice their Vantage Bonus (assuming they have one), to charge a character who is Far Off. This brings the enemy into Close Range, meaning that the attacker can now do an Attack (melee).

Question: Does this make sense so far?

So, now... we move onto Seize Ground. You spend your turn to either:

a.) Move into Cover. So long as you stay in cover, enemies cannot use more than 3 dice in attacking you. You count as losing cover if you attack or fire out.
b.) Hide, if you are already in cover. I'm not quite sure how this works yet, but it's good.
c.) Run away. You are out of the fight until you choose to re-enter.
d.) Take Strategic Ground. What this means is that your Vantage Bonus will roll over into your next turn. You can't "stack" Strategic Ground by doing it two turns in a row.

So, Seizing Ground will allow you to either remove yourself from the fight (to varying extent), or build up Vantage Bonus.

Finally, Utilize. It's what the Craft stat is for. It can do cool stuff, but the mechanics and uses will change depending on the item. It also allows you to create cool Gear. People who specialize in Craft are going to be more like Clerics  (in dnd) than anything else, but it'll give them a much wider spectrum of options.

So, here are my questions:
1.) Do you like what you see so far? General opinion? Awesome factor?
2.) Are the rules for Vantage Bonus confusing or non-intuitive?
3.) Does Ranged or Melee outbalance the other? Are they more-or-less the same?
4.) Is Vantage Bonus too powerful? Not powerful enough? The idea is that someone of Vantage Threshold 6 will have a point or two more of stats than someone with Vantage Threshold 5. (low threshold = good).

Any feedback or suggestions would be awesome.

[joepub]

An addition to my rules explanation:

There isn't a linear distance thing. It's more a cinematic distance thing.
You are either Far Off, Close Range, or In Cover.
On top of that, you either have Strategic Ground or not.

So if someone charges you, you are brought into the fight. The fight has been brought to you.

My final question:
Z.) Does this work, if what I'm going for is a cinematic combat feel, in regards to distance?

[dindenver]

1.) Do you like what you see so far? General opinion? Awesome factor?
  Yeah, looks cool. I'm not 100% sure what the characters do exactly, but its cool so far.

2.) Are the rules for Vantage Bonus confusing or non-intuitive?
  I think you should change the term die faces to single die roll. Die faces makes me thing that you can trade out a d10 for a d12 or d8...
  Other than that, seems like  a good way to simulate tactics without having to break out the minis and associated rules...

3.) Does Ranged or Melee outbalance the other? Are they more-or-less the same?
  Seems like they are pretty similar. I think ti will depend on how hard it will be for a ranged attacker to start out at "Far off" range...

4.) Is Vantage Bonus too powerful? Not powerful enough? The idea is that someone of Vantage Threshold 6 will have a point or two more of stats than someone with Vantage Threshold 5. (low threshold = good).
Well, There is not other stat that corresponds to Vantage, so there is no way to scale Vantage to other stats is there? That might be a more delicate question if you have to sacrifice say Power or endurance in order to buy more Vantage...

Z.) Does this work, if what I'm going for is a cinematic combat feel, in regards to distance?
  Well, it seems to me like combat is the focus of this game. That being the case, shouldn't there be more ways for a character to differentiate their style in combat? Like how well does PolarPunk support the classic combat archetypes: Massive Weapon, Light Weapons, Single Weapon, Dual Wield, Random Attack, Precise Attack, One Big Swing, Several Fast Attacks, etc. I mean if all the characters are fighters, how do the players distinguish one from the other?

  Anyways, its a cool idea, good luck man!

[joepub]

Hey Dave, good points.

I'm not 100% sure what the characters do exactly, but its cool so far.

Okay, here is a breakdown of what they do:
-fight polar bears.
-come into contact with other human colonies, thus forging either frienships or enemies. I imagine a lot of the colonies being played out as hostile and aggressive, which means inter-colony fighting.
-explore the wreckage of fallen cities. fallen cities have dangerous environmental elements (buildings to descend, alarms to diffuse, ambushes, etc), but they also have new stuff! As advance scouts for humanity's reclaimation of the earth, collecting resources is essential. As fighters, collecting equipment is awesome.
-Occasional "in-the-bunker-colony" vignettes, involving power struggles and punching matches.

The majority of the time will be spend fighting polar bears, fighting humans, and exploring cities.

I think you should change the term die faces to single die roll. Die faces makes me thing that you can trade out a d10 for a d12 or d8.

Hm. "single die roll" doesn't sound right either.

Does anyone have a suggestion? If I take an already-rolled d10, and change it so that it reads 6 instead of its previous 5... what have I just done?
increased the showing value?
increased the die face?
increased the score?

Well, There is not other stat that corresponds to Vantage, so there is no way to scale Vantage to other stats is there? That might be a more delicate question if you have to sacrifice say Power or endurance in order to buy more Vantage...

So, the way this works is that when you pick your Archetype, you are given a Vantage Threshold, a number of stat points (divided as you choose), and a number of feat points (and access to special feats).

So, I very much do want to scale Vantage Threshold to stat points, even though they are two different things.

A character with a better Vantage Threshold is going to be a more flexible, less specialized character. It also means that Feats affecting the Vantage roll (re-roll low die, increase showing face on a die, eliminate an enemy Vantage die, etc) are going to be more optimal for this character, as it'll probably lead to bigger bonuses too. Like, because the Threshold is awesome, it favours sinking a lot of resources into Vantage instead of certain Actions.

Does that make sense? Do you think that will happen?

That being the case, shouldn't there be more ways for a character to differentiate their style in combat? Like how well does PolarPunk support the classic combat archetypes: Massive Weapon, Light Weapons, Single Weapon, Dual Wield, Random Attack, Precise Attack, One Big Swing, Several Fast Attacks, etc. I mean if all the characters are fighters, how do the players distinguish one from the other?

So, here are the ways that you can toggle a character:

-Vantage Threshold (based on Archetype). The lower this is, the more flexible you'll be. You'll be able to either aggress or defend better in close combat, have more options as a shooter, be able to take cover to better effect, as well as use strategic ground to better effect. Overall, more flexibilty than putting focus into a single stat, I think.

-Stat placement. First of all, are you putting points into Power or Aim? Both? Neither? This will determine your weapon/equipment options, as well as being slightly different in terms of how melee and ranged combat work. Are you going to put a lot into Endurance, or be more the aggressor? What about points into Craft, so that you can repair a Proto-Seismic Generation Cannon mid-combat. Or diffuse a bomb. Or have a wealth of other options.

-Feats. This is the biggest one. Do you want to have feats that boost your dice? Give you re-rolls? affect your Vantage? Allow you to go from Close Range to Hidden in a single Seize Ground? Allow you to pilot rare mechs? Allow you to sneak up behind a guy? Feats are going to be where a huge amount of character advancement comes in. That and in equipment.

-Wounds (based on Archetype). Having 3 wounds versus having 7, it's going to make a huge difference. Are you a glass cannon or a walking tank? Wounds are set by your Archetype and will never change over the course of the game.

-Flavour. Your narration is going to be much different if you are a Sentient Dog with the Beast Inside feat, than it is if you are a Brute with Courageous Last Stand, or a Gadgeteer with Tweak. It's important to remember that the biggest distinguishing factor between traits in some games is... their names.

-Equipment. See feats. This does the same thing, basically.

So, yeah. I think that there is definitely room for toggling.

Threshold: 5
--------------------
Power: 4
Endurance: 3
Aim: 2
Craft: 1
--------------
Wounds 5
--------------
Feats: All affecting Power die pool and Vantage dice.
Equipment: Allows Vantage re-rolls.


Versus

Threshold: 8
-----------------
Power: 4
Endurance: 4
Aim: 3
Craft: 1
-----------
Wounds: 7
-----------------
Feats: very few, all affecting Power and Wounds.
Equipment: Focused on Endurance and Power.

Even for two close combat characters, these guys are pretty different. Aren't they? I dunno, if people think there isn't enough room for difference here, let me know!

[Bill_White]

I think I understand what you're trying to do, but let me ask you:

Is the main focus of the game tactical combat out on the ice?

How do you see the success or failure of the characters affecting the larger struggle of their community to survive?

Do we usually run when we spot a (sentient, armor-wearing) polar bear?

[Callan S.]

Hi Joe,

Could you mock up an actual play of the successful, everybody smiling, ending to a campaign? You can mock up two if the ending could go one way or another.

In contrasted to that ending, it might help show whether the vantage bonus is too powerful.

[joepub]

Bill: I picture different GM's playing with that a little bit. You can focus entirely on fighting polar bears in the ice, inter-colony human warfare, more skill-based exploration of the cities, or fighting within your colony bunkers. I'd like a decent mix of fighting humans and fighting bears/others.

I'm currently unsure about how the success/failure of the characters affects the larger struggle.

Callan: I will get to work on a mock up, and try to post it by this weekend. Do you mean campaign, or single session? or single "encounter"? I think that a mock-up of a single session, containing 2-3 encounters, would be most awesome.

[Bill_White]

Bill: I picture different GM's playing with that a little bit. You can focus entirely on fighting polar bears in the ice, inter-colony human warfare, more skill-based exploration of the cities, or fighting within your colony bunkers. I'd like a decent mix of fighting humans and fighting bears/others.

I'm currently unsure about how the success/failure of the characters affects the larger struggle.

That's okay. The heavy tactical focus and the idea of a larger struggle being at stake makes me think that you might want to steal ideas from or even just port the setting into Burning Empires.  That's a science fiction game in which your world is infiltrated and invaded by puppeteer aliens in stages.  It would be easy enough to translate the invasion mechanics into your bunker's expansion mechanics, with stages like "Exploration" "Encounter" "Conquest" or something like that.  There's rules for technology, creatures, and so forth that you could adapt as well, or you could just mine the whole thing for concepts.

[joepub]

Hey Bill,

I have Burning Wheel and have played a demo and flipped through Burning Empires, and, frankly, it's not what I'm going for.

I want a game with easy character creation. Maybe Polarpunk isn't there yet, but the idea is:
-Pick an Archetype
-Divvy up your stats
-Choose 1-4 appropriate feats
-Choose 1-2 pieces of starting equipment.

Feng Shui tries to do this, but looses points because:
-There's a skills system, and that means that you need to read up on skills in order to pick which ones you have.
-There are primary stats and secondary stats. Confusions in this means a stumbling block to new players
-The need for stats AND skills is totally not there in Feng Shui.
-different archetypes have different stat limits for various stats.
-Plus, there are a huge amount of options for things like Gambler or Animal Warrior (I think), and so character generation takes much longer than it attempts to.

I want combat to play out fast, and loose, and fun. I like that Savage Worlds manages to cut down handling time considerably on a by-turn basis. The problem I have with SW in combat is that combat can often become entrenched. I also have a problem with its complex character generation.

Burning [Stuff] is way too crunchy, scripted combat is way too complex for what I'm going for, and while I like the product I don't see much in terms of mechanics that I can mine.

However, I'll take a closer look at the long-term Burning Empires stuff (ie, the invasion stuff), because I haven't given that a fair eye yet.

Thanks.

[Callan S.]

Callan: I will get to work on a mock up, and try to post it by this weekend. Do you mean campaign, or single session? or single "encounter"? I think that a mock-up of a single session, containing 2-3 encounters, would be most awesome.

The end of the campaign. Were you planning for each campaign to have some sort of ending?

[Bill_White]

Hey Bill,

I have Burning Wheel and have played a demo and flipped through Burning Empires, and, frankly, it's not what I'm going for.

Okay; I thought maybe I had misunderstood what you were going for.  Now I have a better sense.

I want a game with easy character creation. Maybe Polarpunk isn't there yet, but the idea is:
-Pick an Archetype
-Divvy up your stats
-Choose 1-4 appropriate feats
-Choose 1-2 pieces of starting equipment.

And feats and equipment are really the same thing, right, because they give die mods in combat?

What do archetypes do, and why would I want to pick the "Coward" archetype?  Bigger:  Do you really need archetypes at all?

If you imagine intra-bunker politics to matter, do you need to have attributes relevant to that?  Status, perhaps?  And can the tactical rules serve in cases where the weapons are words?

I want combat to play out fast, and loose, and fun. I like that Savage Worlds manages to cut down handling time considerably on a by-turn basis. The problem I have with SW in combat is that combat can often become entrenched. I also have a problem with its complex character generation.

Okay.  Here's something I'll suggest.  Those 3d10 you're rolling for Vantage?  Use one of them for "position" just like you're doing, but use the others for other things.  So one is "position," giving you an advantage in your attack.  Another could be "cover," giving you an advantage in defense.  And the third could be "mission," giving you an advantage in taking some mission-related action like "getting around to his flanks" or busting up the other guy's mission.  Now players have a choice about how badly they want to achieve a particular objective, and a motivation not to always go for the other guy's throat.

Feats and gear may be easier to parse, too.  They affect the success of fighting or aiming, or the number of dice you roll for an attack, or they modify your or others specific Vantage dice.  "This is a force buckler; it gives me +1 on my defense vantage," or something like that.

However, I'll take a closer look at the long-term Burning Empires stuff (ie, the invasion stuff), because I haven't given that a fair eye yet.

The thing to steal is the interaction between PC actions at the micro-level and "metaplot" developments at the macro-level.  They are linked but not wholly driven by one another.  In this case, PC success at salvaging a frozen city can provide a bonus to their outpost's efforts to fend off a polar bear raid because of all the good stuff the PCs found.  Like that.

[joepub]

What do archetypes do, and why would I want to pick the "Coward" archetype?  Bigger:  Do you really need archetypes at all?

Well, to simply quote what I said earlier:

When you pick your Archetype, this determines your Vantage Threshold, how many points you have to distribute amongst Statistics, how many Feats you get, and some Archetypes have exclusive Feats (Sentient Dogs, for example, can be Scent Trackers).

But... I'm guessing that's not the most useful reply ever, since it didn't clear things up the first time. Let me expand upon my reasoning for Archetypes and what they provide:

Archetypes do a lot.

First of all, they make character concepts quick, simple, and assisted. Feng Shui is a good example of this happening: You have a grainy, fuzzy idea. You flip through the archetypes and two or three jump out at you. The character concept snaps into place when you pick one, and most of your character comes together right then and there.

Here's an AP example of this happening in Feng Shui:

ME: I totally want to play an orphan kid, turned badass mofo.
Daniel: Hm... You could do Average Joe?
ME: No, I want to have a bit more pizzaz than that... Hm, let's see.... Oh, Gambler! I'm totally a gambler. My name's orphan jack! And I lost my life savings trying to win enough to save the orphanage.
Daniel: Wicked. Orphanage is under threat?
ME: Yeah. The bad guys are trying to knock it down to build... a casino! How ironic, for a Gambler! So since I lost my money, my Plan B is slaughtering them wholesale.
Daniel: Okay. Pick your guns shtick.

I think to myself "badass orphan", and I couple it with a ready-made, halfway-there-concept Archetype and suddenly a character springs forth. And, more importantly, it's a character whose story and flavour and general make-up is effective in the game, because a lot of it is either outlined or imposed in the Archetype.

Where Feng Shui gets the Archetype system wrong is:
-There are stats, and within those there are sub-stats. And most are set, but then you have some extra stat points, but there are impositions and limits on them. Wholly confusing for the first-time player.
-There is a lengthy skill list (attribute/skill divide similar to dnd and other similar games), and you need to pick skills during chargen. And skills are attribute-dependant. And the list of skills isn't on the character sheet. This means a lot of flipping and refering to your sheet, and with a single book this really kills the whole "fast, easy chargen" goal they had.
-Too many options. There have got to be like 20-30. I am going to have 8-10, plus maybe a few more seperate from the book.

Other systems that do Archetypes to good effect:
-Capes. The Capes click/lock character creation is cool. You pick two, you match them together, and you customize. And rank stuff, too? maybe.
-DnD 3.5. All the supplements with classes, and prestige classes, is kinda overkill. DnD has different goals and conceits as far as complexity, crunch, start-up time and campaign length, so their Classes aren't really all that similar to Polarpunk Archetypes, but they are still a good example.

So, that's the First of All: It is a quick way of getting a character basis, and it provides a good framework for creating characters which the system can really support. It speeds up character concepts and character creation, and it makes it all more easily supported in game.

Specifically, here's what Polarpunk Archetypes contain:
-A Vantage Threshold.
-An amount of Stat Points for you to divide.
-A set amount of Wounds.
-"specialist" feats.
-A ready-to-run-with character concept/basis.

Now, I could do this in other ways. I could have Vantage Threshold and Wounds be something that players could set for themselves or randomly generate. I could create a second chargen resource (after Stat Points), or combine Stat Points with this so that those points are being invested into a great deal of widely diverse things.

But this complicates things. It makes everything take more thought and balancing on the behalf of the character. And since character creation is usually the first hands-on experience with a system, players won't have a solid idea what stories and play is like in a given game. Thus, Archetypes help set up expectations so that you won't create a character concept that is totally at odds with what the game tries to do.

And feats and equipment are really the same thing, right, because they give die mods in combat?

Yup. I think I explicitly said that at one point. There might be some variances over what kind of die mods (pool size, vantage modifier, vantage bonus modifier, bonuses, re-rolls, combining dice, etc) they give, but they will generally be the same thing. Their difference is that one can be stolen or sold.

Feats and gear may be easier to parse, too.  They affect the success of fighting or aiming, or the number of dice you roll for an attack, or they modify your or others specific Vantage dice.  "This is a force buckler; it gives me +1 on my defense vantage," or something like that.

Yes, you're correct. This is how Feats and Gear work. Except, as detailed just above, there is a slightly larger scope of possible ways to affect the dice than that.

Okay.  Here's something I'll suggest.  Those 3d10 you're rolling for Vantage?  Use one of them for "position" just like you're doing, but use the others for other things.  So one is "position," giving you an advantage in your attack.  Another could be "cover," giving you an advantage in defense.  And the third could be "mission," giving you an advantage in taking some mission-related action like "getting around to his flanks" or busting up the other guy's mission.  Now players have a choice about how badly they want to achieve a particular objective, and a motivation not to always go for the other guy's throat.

While this might be fun, it's entirely too confusing and clunky to mesh with what I'm going for here.

First of all, Vantage Bonus as stands can be spent on defensive or offensive "dice dialing" (changing the showing die face) or on certain tactical maneuvers (which are presented as feats/equipment). It does all 3, without needing to look at more than a single Vantage Bonus score or do any die allocating. The fact that you already need to balance your Vantage Bonus spending between offensive and defensive seems to already motivate not to just go for the other guy's throat.

Maybe I'm missing your intent with this 3-way-division. Can you elaborate?

The end of the campaign. Were you planning for each campaign to have some sort of ending?

Callan, I will do up a mock Final Session and a mock Campaign Summary. Expect them shortly.