Battle Mechanica Progress Update (29/09/08)

This is just a progress update for Battle Mechanica. Please bear in mind that this is a Work In Progress (WIP), which means that the game is incomplete and is subject to change at any time by the designer.

Hello again, everyone. Just doing a small update. This game has undergone constant rules re-writing since my first post in November, though nothing significant. Anyways, here is the update on this game.

1. Combat still uses simple attribute comparison, but now a new system is added to resolve Combat faster: The Hit Zone system. The Hit Zone is a universal system that determines how many casualties can be inflicted on a unit. Simply put, if an enemy unit is within your unit's Hit Zone, then they can become the target of its attack. But it goes both ways - if your unit is within enemy unit Hit Zone, then it can become the target of their attack.
2. Added three types of range attack: Missile (direct long-range attack), Barrage (indirect long-range attack) and Burst (variable-range area attack). Burst can also be combined with either Missile or Barrage.
3. Melee Combat is now known as Hand-to-Hand Combat. Just reflecting my preference, that's all. Nothing significant.
4. Added to the core rules on how to determine Casualties, which rely on the Hit Zone system.

That's all for now. I'll post more info next week. In the meanwhile, you might want to checkout my digg profile and see the stuff that I dugg recently. Or follow me on Twitter and tweet "Hi" to me.


Battle Mechanicum by Daniel Marcus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

True Hero minigame

this is somewhat a version of mini gamebook that i wanted to make, it supposed to fit an A4 paper, complete with rules and the entries. i did this game way back last year 2007 for the TDD comic book. i dont know if anyone played it, but i did get my objective of doing a 1 page diceless gamebook.



in this game you're a hero and your job is to find a lot of experience point running through an unknown dungeon. that is pretty much everything.

to play the game, download the game HERE and print in on an A4 paper. read the rules and start playing!

good luck hero!

Battle Mechanica - Overview of the Game, Part 1

*Note: I have changed the name of this game to Battle Mechanica, since the name Battlefield has been extensively trademarked and copyrighted by EA.*

This post is a continuation from my previous post here. In this post, I shall present an overview of play in Battle Mechanica. Please bear in mind that this is a Work-In-Progress, which means that the game is still incomplete and is subject to change at any time by the designer.

UNIT PROFILE
All units have a profile that represent their abilities in this game. Below is an example of a unit's Attributes, with a brief explaination on each:

Combat
The unit's fighting ability in both ranged and hand-to-hand combat, as well as defending themselves in said situation.

Resilience
The unit's hardiness, which determines the unit's ability to withstand injuries.

Control
The unit's ability to think on its feet. It is the sum of their intelligence, wits, psychological well-being, leadership quality and discipline as a single unit.

Movement
The unit's movement in inches.

Special Ability
The unit's special ability, such as Flight and Cavalry Charge. If they have any special equipment (magic weapons for instance), it is counted as Special Ability as well.

Experience
The unit's combat experience. The more experience the unit has, the stronger they are.

Stay tune for Part 2 of this article. In the meanwhile, check out Lee Hng's JEP1 and Rob-Jr's Dwarf Tactics, two other experimental tabletop games currently in development. Please leave some comments while you're there!


Battle Mechanicum by Daniel Marcus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Battle Mechanica - An experimental diceless wargame

This post is a continuation from my previous post here. In this post, I will discuss about the general idea behind Battle Mechanica - my first attempt at creating a diceless wargame - and the (still early) core mechanics of this game. Please bear in mind that this is a Work-In-Progress, which means that the game is still incomplete and is subject to change at any time by the designer.

What is Battle Mechanica?
Battle Mechanica is an attempt at creating a tabletop wargame that forgoes the use of dice-rolling to determine an outcome. It instead uses diceless combat resolution that uses simple calculations to make the game easier and faster to play, while remaining tactically realistic and engaging.

This game was inspired by a lot of gaming systems. Its core mechanics was primarily inspired by Little Fantasy Wars and Hordes & Heroes, while the units took inspirations from Games Workshop's Warhammer: 40,000 universe. It uses paper cutouts as units and terrains, but players may use miniatures and 3D gaming terrains instead as long as they in proper scale.

Why use a diceless system?
Dice-rolling systems rely on chance to resolve an outcome, where your success is entirely dependant on having as much dice in your hand as possible. It also tends to lead players into taking extreme risk by hoping for a miracle roll - which is antithetical to a sound, tactical approach. In actual warfare, generals do not take chances; though commanders do at times take calculated risk, they do so only after meticulous planning.

By taking out artificial randomizers (such as dice) from a wargame, players will have to execute brilliant tactics rather than counting on blind luck to win a battle. Just like in a poker game, a diceless wargame is where you play against your opponent's skill, not your opponent's luck.

The diceless combat system - In a nutshell
The system uses simple attribute comparison to determine whether a unit could cause casualties upon the ranks of the enemy. In melee combat, for instance, two opposing units simply compare their Combat attribute against one another - the unit with a higher Combat attribute therefore will cause casualties on the other unit, while the other unit will most likely only be able to weaken it's enemy (that is, injuring or wounding the enemy ranks).

This simple system is used in many aspects of the game, from determining whether a charge could break the ranks of an enemy infantry to calculating whether a unit of spearmen could falter after the third wave of attack.

In my next post, I will briefly explain some of the aspects of the system, including Units and their Characteristics, so stay tuned! In the meanwhile, you might be interested to check out my other blogs, Epiphany! and The Borneon Ninja. If you like stagnant blogs, I recommend the latter.


Battle Mechanicum by Daniel Marcus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Greetings from another member of Experimental Playground!

Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a gamer and have a passion of creating new ideas, and one of them is coming up with new game design. Most of the time, these flash of inspirations will either end up in as a material for an RPG campaign or it gets forgotten (which tend to happen because I rarely keep track on them). So it was a godsend when Rob decided to start this blog. Finally, there's a place for me to pour my ideas into and share it with everyone, especially those that have the same passion as me.

My Homebrew Games

Let's get to the meat of things - homebrew games. This blog is about having fun with the boardgames that we create, and that's what I intend to do. I have three games currently in early development. They are:

1. Battle Mechanica - A diceless tabletop wargame set in a steampunk world.
   
2. Dancing Shadows: St. Hallow - A diceless boardgame with elements of mystery and horror.
   
3. Tales of Medda-Loren - A story-driven RPG boardgame that aims to be light on mechanics and heavy on storytelling.
   

I'm currently working on Battle Mechanica, and I will explain briefly the workings of the game in my next post. Stay tuned!

JEP1: Combat System Blue Print

Today we will have a look at the basic combat system of JEP1.

Combat in JEP1 is very much influenced by 2 systems: the D6 Fighting Fantasy game books, RISK board game & the Warhammer fantasy combat system.

Melee Combat in this system is fought this way:

INITIATIVE PHASE: Both combatants roll a d6 + their initiative score. The highest goes 1^st. A tie would result in a roll over until some one goes first. This only applies to the 1t round of combat, on further rounds after the 1^st, use the base score of both combatants to see who goes first: the one with the higher score will go first for the rest of the round. If there is a tie, roll off & keep this score for the rest of the combat rounds.

MOVEMENT: Attacker may move 4 squares before his melee attack. A melee attack can only be initiated if the attacker is adjacent to the defender .

PRE-HIT SKILLS: The attacker may use a “skill” before rolling his attacks. After the attacker declares his “skills”, the defender may use a “skill” before the attacker rolls attacks. A maximum of 2 skills can be used in this phase for both attacker & defender.

ROLL TO HIT:

• Attacker rolls 1d6 for each score written at his melee; example: if the score is M2, then attacker rolls 2d6 as attacks.

• Defender rolls 1d6 for each score written at his melee; example: if the score is M2, then defender rolls 2d6 as defense.

• Attacker adds the d6 value to each of his melee score & add up the total; example: if attacker has a melee of 2 & he rolled a 4 & a 3, that means his attack value is a 6 & a 5.

• Defender adds the d6 value to each of his melee score & add up the total; example: if defender has a melee of 2 & he rolled a 4 & a 1, that means his defense value is a 6 & a 3.

• Defender then chooses how the defense dice goes. If the attacker’s attack value is higher or equal to the defense value of the defender. Then a “hit” is scored; example: Attacker has a attack value of 6 & 5, defender has a defense value of 6 & 3. Defender chooses to use his defense 6 to “block” the attacker’s attack 6. But since attacker has another attack value of 5 which is bigger then the defender’s next defense score of 3, a hit is scored!

PRE-DAMAGE SKILLS: The attacker may use a “skill” before rolling his damage. After the attacker declares his “skills”, the defender may use a “skill” before the attacker rolls damage. A maximum of 2 skills can be used in this phase for both attacker & defender.

ROLL To Damage:

• Attacker rolls 1d6 for “hit” made; example: Attacker scores 1 hit, so he rolls 1d6.

• Attacker adds the dice value & his strength score; example: Attacker rolls a d6 & gets a 4, he has a strength of 2. So his “damage” score is 6.

• Compare the damage score to the defender’s toughness score. If the value is higher or equal, then 1 damage is scored.

ARMOR BUFFER:

For each damage that has gone through the toughness, minus 1 damage for each armor value defender has. Example, attacker scores 1 damage, if defender has a armor value of 1 as well then no damage is taken. If attacker has scored 2 damage & defender only has armor value of 1, then a wound is scored.

COUNT WOUNDS:

For each wound scored, defender loses 1 health. If the defender has a health of 0. The defender is dead.

PASS PRIORITY:

If defender is alive, the priority is passed & the current defender is the new attacker, the current attacker becomes the new defender. Once the new defender & attacker reached the next “Count Wounds” phase, a round is done.

• For range attack, the system is generally the same with the exception of attacker uses his range to roll number of attack & defender uses initiative to roll for defense value.

• Attacker uses the weapons strength value to determine if he scores a damage against the defender’s toughness.

• Attacker need not be adjacent to defender as long as his range weapon can reach the defender.

That’s all for now. :)

* pictures are borrowed from googles, just so this post dont look too empty bah. XD

Dwarf Tactics minigame

hi there, this is rob-jr and i love to create boardgame and stuff especially minigame (game that is simple and play for around less than 10 minutes). what i have here is a remade game that i did somewhere early last year 2007, me and my brother tweak the system a bit, because last time it is way unbalance, but it doesn't mean these game is balance. don't worry just play the game and have fun.



HOW TO PLAY

here is how to play the game, this game is for 2 player, each act as the dwarf chief try to defend each castle and at the same time try to eliminate opponent's castle. you start with 10 castle point and resource at Lv 1 (which is 4 resource) and you need atleast 2 six sided dice, game is played in turn. play rock, paper, scissor to determine first player.

game is divided in phase

RESOURCE PHASE
at this phase, you replenish your resource to the value of your level. anyway resource that you didn't used that turn will go to waste. so use it wisely.

*there are 3 level of resource, each increase by 2. you start at 4 resource,

Lv 1 = 4 resource
Lv 2 = 6 resource (you need to pay 4 resource to upgrade to Lv 2)
Lv 3 = 8 resource (you need to pay 6 resource to upgrade to Lv 3)

BUY PHASE
at this phase you buy unit. refer to units cost in the battle stats card. you can put maximum of 5 unit in your unit placement and you can only buy maximum of 5 unit of peon, 4 unit of warrior and 3 unit of juggernaut.

BATTLE PHASE
battle phase is where you try to eliminate opponent and if opponent doesnt have units, you attack his/her castle directly. (for balance issue, you cant attack on the first turn of the game if youre the 1st player) before attacking, attacker choose which of his/her unit attack which opponent's unit. 1 unit can only attack 1 unit.

peon = roll 2d6 pick the lowest value
warrior = roll 1d6
juggernaut = roll 2d6 pick the highest value

both attacker and defender roll dice according to each unit and compare the result.

if attacker result is equal or higher than defending unit, attacker killed the defender unit. if defending unit is higher, defender won and attacker retreat (nothing happen).

if there is no defending unit, attacker roll dice for each unit and that damage is dealt to opponent's castle point.

END PHASE
you end your phase, now its opponent's turn to attack.

VICTORY
you win when you successfully reduce opponent's castle points to zero.

p/s: my english is quite sucky here... also, this game still need to be tweak and all. so comment and critique is welcome.

VARIATION 1: this time around you can use resource to buy other stuff instead of unit

pay 1 resource for 1 castle point
pay 1 resource to add +1 to a unit before combat/battle

NEW UNIT!
Dwarven Sapper (cost 4 resources) contributed by questing gm
Digs underground and can attack the castle without going through the defense unit.

Roll a d6
1-4: Sapper dies, deals no damage to the castle.
5-6: Sapper dies, deals 1 castle damage.