The Gaming Den

It should be assumed that aiming for weakspots is already what fighters are doing. Like... punching someone in the jaw or liver is the goal of most boxers, punching someone in the arm or chest is not. That assumption means most boxers cover up with their arms making sure their liver, jaw, and head in general is well protected.

Something like power attack is interesting in the math but... it's a matter of being superior or inferior with one's math.


Instead of "shoot 'em in the eyes Pikachu!", you can think in terms of facings and angles.

The advantage of a back attack changes between a Blastoise with an armored shell vs a Charizard with more frail wings but lashing tail, and Venasaur which has no tail and is slower at turning due to thick quadraped legs.

So then the angle of attack determines if it's a higher or lower change for a critical hit. Charizard's back has relatively thin wings but Blastoise's back is an armored shell.

A Thunder that strikes from above now has different properties from a thunderbolt flying horizontally from Pikachu's cheeks.

solarbeam may hit harder than vine whip, but vine whip can get in at side hook angles.

In GW's LotR/Hobbit/Middle-Earth strategy game, both players do things each turn, but the order they do that is randomly determined, instead of 1st player, 2nd player each turn for the entire game. Also seen this in the Dr Who Miniatures Game, so possibly in 7TV which was based on it, not sure.

Is there an advantage of randomising which player goes first each turn?

It adds uncertainty which can add excitement

Stuff like that is to prevent boredom via knowing outcomes before they happen

That's basically the concept behind random initiative.
Basically you want to know what order people act in. Since this is (partially) random you get situations like the lone guard acting before everyone else, or trying to make it so you act first to prevent something.

Serious question: As far as I know, fucking nobody ever used the facing rules in D&D, so what are some games that do have rules like that built into the game itself and not as an optional side-system?

We roll initiative for each round. It absolutely changes the dynamic of combat. In standard D&D, you may know that two of your companions are going to have a chance to act before the bad guy when you're going last in the round. That means you can rely on your friends to revive a fallen companion, etc. When you're rolling a new initiative and the order isn't yet known, it changes the dynamic. It puts a little more pressure to 'act now'. The same is true when a fight is winding down; in D&D some of the characters may choose not to act, trusting that their companions will take out the threat. But if there's a chance the enemy goes first next round, they might have a chance to escape.

It tends to increase dynamacism in combat. It does mean another roll, but we think it's worth it. In fixed initiative you may know that you have 10 minutes between turns so you're more likely to check out. Having a roll at the start of each round and the chance to go twice in a row (last in round 1, first in round 2) tends to increase engagement. Having done it both ways, I'm committed to rolling initiative every round in 'in-person' games. In play-by-post I don't think it is quite as helpful.

So one of the old mechanics in MtG is when you have a legendary creature, you can discard a copy of that legendary creature in your hand to do something.

But... how strong should such an effect be? How to go about balancing it, especially when the effect needs a card in your hand you'll only have 3 of at best.

The easiest thing would be to nix the requirement of having a copy in play, and just give them an effect they can be discarded or revealed for (with appropriate mana cost). That way they have a use while you have a copy in play, but you don't have to factor in the probability of actually having such a copy.

I like the flavor of having the legendary card in play, it feels like that character is using a special move.

Ah found the mechanic, Grandeur



Final Fantasy TCG has it as an evergreen mechanic "S ability"


I've been thinking on how to do My Own Take On MtG Or Something with that mechanic, so you could hypothetically build a deck of all "Legendary Hero character" and discarding from your hand.

The effects can be pretty strong, since (as you've noted) you need 1 copy in hand and 1 copy in play. IIRC, Grandeur's lack of reappearance is more due to Commander's popularity as a format than issues with balancing.

You also may want to look into Legends of Runeterra, which does something similar with duplicate Champions. If you have a Champion in play, other copies of that Champion in your hand turn into a signature spell. Extra copies of Jinx turn into Get Excited, copies of Anivia turn into Harsh Winds, etc. They have the ability to get specific like that because they're a digital card game, so you might not have the luxury, but it's worth considering.

Hm, in Tarox's case, it's baseline slightly stronger than a Giant Growth, but scalable – I'd call it a two-mana effect, but it's a very valuable immediately offensive one. The other Grandeur cards have effects that are worth like three or four mana, but have less 'immediately kill your face' value.

Anax has a low-key Grandeur effect:



When you play the second Anax you get 4 Satyrs.

-Username17

OgreBattle wrote:So one of the old mechanics in MtG is when you have a legendary creature, you can discard a copy of that legendary creature in your hand to do something.

But... how strong should such an effect be? How to go about balancing it, especially when the effect needs a card in your hand you'll only have 3 of at best.

In Magic, you could do something like play any card face-down as a colorless land. That'd be an easy effect to make consistent for all possible cards as opposed to a specific effect. In that case, you have a way to use any card that's worth discarding. It wouldn't make legendary cards any more 'special' than non-legendary cards, but it would mean you always have some benefit to having cards you can't otherwise use in your hand.

Wouldn't you get eight satyrs? Since each one gets a "Whenever Anax...dies" trigger for two tokens, and also each one gets a "Whenever...another nontoken creature you control dies" trigger for two tokens?

It's the same trigger. "When Anax OR another nontoken creature dies..." The word Anax is best thought of as "this creature".

John Magnum wrote:Wouldn't you get eight satyrs? Since each one gets a "Whenever Anax...dies" trigger for two tokens, and also each one gets a "Whenever...another nontoken creature you control dies" trigger for two tokens?

Mechanically the rules in 603.2c state that "An ability triggers only once each time its trigger event occurs. However, it can trigger repeatedly if one event contains multiple occurrences." So technically Anax dying and another non token creature dying are a single occurrence in one event not multiple occurrences if the other non token creature is named Anax.

Oh, I think that makes sense, thanks.

This guy sees a lot of play because of Embercleave:

Basically, when you have a bunch of rando Satyrs lying around, you canplay Embercleave in the middle of combat for only 2 mana. Embercleave gives Anax +2 Power because it has RR in its casting cost and an additional +1/+1 for the sword. That and Doublestrike and Trample means that an attack by Anax and four Satyrs can for only 2 mana get upgraded to an attack for 14. And if there's anything else costing red mana sitting in play it can be for all the marbles out of the blue.

4 Satyrs for 3 mana is fine. Mono Red is fine at the moment.

-Username17

OgreBattle wrote:I like the flavor of having the legendary card in play, it feels like that character is using a special move.

Ah found the mechanic, Grandeur



Final Fantasy TCG has it as an evergreen mechanic "S ability"


I've been thinking on how to do My Own Take On MtG Or Something with that mechanic, so you could hypothetically build a deck of all "Legendary Hero character" and discarding from your hand.

Then I would recommend checking out Fire Emblem Cypher TCG that's fully built around that philosophy:

-Every single card is a "legendary hero character". No spells, no lands, no artifacts, just legendary heroes that you can only have one of each in the field at a time.
-The game has lots of uses for extra copies however. Like they can be set aside to generate "mana" to pay for other stuff, although there's ways to getting them in the field later. Another example is when you have an extra copy of a legendary hero in your hand, you can discard it any time to block an enemy attack or make your own attack a crit for double damage.
-Many heroes have different versions, but still count as the same hero for the above rules, so for example you can't simultaneously deploy Marth: The Future Hero-King and Marth: Altean Hero-Prince. But you could discard Marth: Altean Hero-Prince to protect Marth: The Future Hero-King or to make him crit.
-Another distinct rule is that every card also has a support bonus and when units fight, the players reveal the top card of their deck and add its support bonus to their units, except if it's the same character in which case the support fizzles. So when deckbuidling you need to take in account how much to focus in more copies/versions of a specific characters for more crits/blocks or higher chance for good supports.
-Also there's no attacking the enemy player. Either you defeat their main hero, the lord (picked at the start of the game, only cost 1 heroes so starts weak but every hero can be upgraded) five times or you need to go after their "orbs" which are cards set aside at game start. But thing is when you break an orb, the enemy gets to add it to their hand, so by going after the orbs you're also giving more resources to your opponent. And even then after breaking all their orbs you still need to beat their lord one time to win.

The Adventurer's Almanac wrote:Serious question: As far as I know, fucking nobody ever used the facing rules in D&D, so what are some games that do have rules like that built into the game itself and not as an optional side-system?

There's GURPS. Probably a bunch of other games with really short rounds.

Card Hunter I think? It's been a while...
If it's not expensive to walk around someone there's really no point.

Thanks Maglag for the Fire Emblem card game suggestion, I'll look into it. Having no generic "can field multiples of this Spear Guy" cards takes it even further than FFTCG, though most FFTCG non-named characters aren't very good anyways.

Foxwarrior wrote:Card Hunter I think? It's been a while...
If it's not expensive to walk around someone there's really no point.

That one does. I remember surrounding someone and taking turns hitting them so they couldn't block. Although unless someone has a block card, facing doesn't actually matter, it does still come up.

How dumb would it be for pokemon trainers to accrue fans as they level up and become stronger/more famous? Fans you can... tell what to do?
Yes, the comparison to followers is obvious. I'm talking about fucking pokemon followers, alright? Someone to keep your gym warm while you go handle some dangerous problem. I am explicitly not thinking of goons that follow you around, since that's what other party members your pokemon are for.
Humans that do human shit for you. Or perhaps unique pokemon, as well?

Are you going to implement a Small Business Owner Run By Volunteer Fan Labor system to give the followers quantifiable usefulness?