A New Erfworld Game

[Org]

Hey everyone. First Post(! yay.). So, I, and a few other people from the OOTS forums, have begun to think of making an Erfworld Game, one which has alot of depth and is true to the comic.

So, here I post in search of helpers. Ya know, just toss any ideas/suggestions you have.

[Sinrus]

A PBP game, or a video game or what? It takes very different skills and people to make different types of game.

[Org]

A Tabletop, I should say. Or something around that. i know a program.

Something to where you could play it in real life without having to use paper and draw and erase units whenever they move, etc.

[Sinrus]

Like the battle table is Stanley's office, kinda similar to D&D? I'm up for rule development.

[Org]

Yep. Exactly like that.
Cool. A few starting ideas I had were in the link below. Basically, what I wanted is a multi-player game involving several Sides, who start with a Capital City and a X amount of Schmuckers(this hasn't been decided. I had suggested 1000, or 500, but no one responded to that.). You also have on Game Moderator, who takes care of NPC stuff like Wild Animals popping and moving and other things like Tribes and such.



And here is the GITP forum thread
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthre ... ost7674649

[Sinrus]

Okay... I could be GM, I have a bit of experience. I don't fully understand how we could put this together over the internet, if it's a table-top game. If we figure out a way to make this work, I would fine with it.

[Org]

Not too sure how well it will work, but there is a program called GameTable that can use a hex-grid.

But first I need the rules down.
Hard part.

[Sinrus]

Okay, just a rough sketch of the rules to start. I'll do world building basics.

With any given hex, there is a 65% chance that it will be open, 15% that it will be water, 10% forest, and 10% mountain.

In a water hex, there is a 90% chance that all hexes bordering it will be water, unless already designated as something else. From there, there is a 70% of the same, then 50%, then 35%, then 25%, then 15%, then 10%, 5%, 1%, 0%.

In a mountain hex, there is a 75% chance that all hexes bordering it will be mountain, unless already designated as something else. It goes down to 60%, 40%, 30%, 20%, 10%, 3%, 0%.

In a forest hex, there is an 80% chance that all bordering hexes will be forest, unless already designated as something else. It goes to 70%, 55%, 40%, 25%, 10%, 5%, 0%.

70% of mountain hexes include tunnels. 30% of the hexes with tunnels have entrances to the surface. In any network of tunnels, at least 1/10 of the tunnel hexes must have an entrance. 20% of mountain hexes are high mountains, 50% are medium mountains, and 30% are low mountains.

75% of forest hexes are light forest. 50% are dense forest.

In a cluster of water hexes, the middle 25% are deep water.

Cities can only exist in open, low mountain, or light forest hexes.

How's that to start?

[Org]

Pretty good.

[Org]

So, how do the different terrain types effect units?

[Sinrus]

I hadn't thought about that. I think I'll need to develop the different types of unit before I go into that. So here it comes.

Commander: A unit with the leadership special.
Infantry: A catch-all for humanoid, non-heavy units without the mount special.
-Stabber Class: Balanced.
-Piker Class: Bonus to combat against cavalry.
-Archer Class: Bonus against flying units
-Knight Class: Overall better.
Cavalry: A catch-all for units with the mount special.
Heavies: A catch-all for units with the heavy special. Can not, with some exceptions, enter tunnels or ride mounts.
Fliers: A catch-all for units with the flight special.
Unit types can be merged, for instance: A light unit without the mount special but with the flight special is an infantry flier.

Non-combat specials (aka specials that are not limited to providing combat bonuses):
Flight: Allows units to enter the airspace of cities. Flying units can only be engaged by other fliers or archers. Non-fliers can not engage fliers while in dense forest, unless they are forest-capable. Flight gives units a x2 bonus while in a city's airspace.
Tunnel-Capable: Allows units to enter tunnels. All light units automatically have this special. Tunnel-capable gives units a x2 bonus while in a city's dungeon.
Mountain-Capable: Allows units to enter low mountain hexes without penalties normally incurred by low mountain hexes and medium mountain hexes with half penalties normally incurred by medium mountains. Provides a x2 bonus while in mountain hexes.
Forest-Capable: Allows units to enter dense forest hexes without penalties normally incurred by dense forest hexes and provides a x2 bonus while in light forest hexes.
Water-Capable: Allows units to enter water hexes. Water-capable units can only be attacked by fliers, other water capable units, and archery units.
Dive-Capable: Allows units to dive in deep water. Only Water-Capable units can have this special. While diving, units can only be engaged by other divers.
Heavy: Allows units to walk in shallow water hexes. Heavies are incapable of riding mounts and entering tunnels, with some exceptions.
Mount: Allows infantry units to ride the mount. While doing this, they share all non-combat specials with their mount, except for mount and heavy.

Combat specials:
Leadership: Allows units to lead stacks.
Archery: Allows use of ranged weapons without penalties.
Dance-Fighting: Allows units to dance-fight when led by a dance-fighting commander.
Breath Weapon: Allows units to use a breath weapon, such as a red dwagon's fire.
Caster: Allows a unit to use magic. Caster type is chosen from this chart.

I'm probably forgetting some.

[Org]

I hadn't thought about that. I think I'll need to develop the different types of unit before I go into that. So here it comes.

Commander: A unit with the leadership special.
Infantry: A catch-all for humanoid, non-heavy units without the mount special.
Cavalry: A catch-all for units with the mount special.
Heavies: A catch-all for units with the heavy special. Can not, with some exceptions, enter tunnels or ride mounts.
Fliers: A catch-all for units with the flight special.
Unit types can be merged, for instance: A light unit without the mount special but with the flight special is an infantry flier.

Non-combat specials (aka specials that are not limited to providing combat bonuses):
Flight: Allows units to enter the airspace of cities. Flying units can only be engaged by other fliers or archers. Non-fliers can not engage fliers while in dense forest, unless they are forest-capable. Flight gives units a x2 bonus while in a city's airspace.
Tunnel-Capable: Allows units to enter tunnels. All light units automatically have this special. Tunnel-capable gives units a x2 bonus while in a city's dungeon.
Mountain-Capable: Allows units to enter low mountain hexes without penalties normally incurred by low mountain hexes and medium mountain hexes with half penalties normally incurred by medium mountains. Provides a x2 bonus while in mountain hexes.
Forest-Capable: Allows units to enter dense forest hexes without penalties normally incurred by dense forest hexes and provides a x2 bonus while in light forest hexes.
Water-Capable: Allows units to enter water hexes. Water-capable units can only be attacked by fliers, other water capable units, and archery units.
Dive-Capable: Allows units to dive in deep water. Only Water-Capable units can have this special. While diving, units can only be engaged by other divers.
Heavy: Allows units to walk in shallow water hexes. Heavies are incapable of riding mounts and entering tunnels, with some exceptions.
Mount: Allows infantry units to ride the mount. While doing this, they share all non-combat specials with their mount, except for mount and heavy.

Combat specials:
Leadership: Allows units to lead stacks.
Archery: Allows use of ranged weapons without penalties.
Dance-Fighting: Allows units to dance-fight when led by a dance-fighting commander.
Breath Weapon: Allows units to use a breath weapon, such as a red dwagon's fire.
Caster: Allows a unit to use magic. Caster type is chosen from this chart.

I'm probably forgetting some.

Infantry have four non-special classes:
Stabber-Balanced, with no real strengths/weakness
Piker-+1 Bonus to Combat(Stat) against cavalry
Archer-+1 Bonus to Shooting, and deal +1 when shooting at Flying Units
Knight-Better Skills Overall

Flying units should have the ability to Go To Ground, to where they move a third slower, but the Archers no longer get a bonus.

2x is ridiculously OP, seeing how that would kill many units very very fast.

[Org]

Or this:While light units should be able to enter tunnels, only a few creatures should have the bonus, aka Gobwins and Marbits

[Sinrus]

Okay, sounds good. But Parson said it's all about the multipliers so x2 would be natural.

I made the infantry class changes. There's a fine line between a flier and a flying unit. A flier has the flight special, a flying unit is actually in the air.

[Org]

Yeah, I realized that after my post. Woops.

I think how combat should go is the following:
When you have a unit in one hex, it can charge into an adjacent hex, into combat with the enemy units there. Add together the unit's Combat, and Defense stats if they are in a stack. Apply multipliers, and then roll a d6 for the Attackers and subtract the Enemies' Defense stat. They take that many hits. The Defender's Counter, but get no d6 bonus.

Or something like that. Maybe?

[Sinrus]

How about this:

Add up the combat of the attacking units and subtract the sum of the defending units' defense. The difference is the number of hits the defenders take. Spread that out evenly among all defending units and do the reverse with the survivors. When an entire stack croaks, move on to the next stack in the battle hex. At any point in the battle, a player can choose to retreat into an adjacent hex.

[Org]

Only if they have leaders. IIRC.

[Gilthans]

Do any of you have any idea about the legality of developing such a game?

I'm a software engineer by profession, and I can see myself spending free time developing something like that, open source obviously (GNU). However I'm not sure if this is legal without Rob and Xin's consent, even though GNU means its non-commercial.

Do you have any idea? Even if it is legal - do you think Rob wouldn't mind?
I'd hate to start developing something like that and find out Rob's against it.

The ideas here are nice, even if they need refining. I might join the thinking process once I have more free time.

[Gilthans]

Also, a few ideas about context:
I think that, at least initially, you should keep it simple, much simpler than you guys have. First of all - static map. There will be a map which is identical every game, pre-generated to be relatively balanced and interesting. There will be two sides: I was thinking GK vs Jetstone. The objective: obtaining the enemy's Arkentool.
In order for the game to be balanced, both have attuned wielders (lets say Wanda defects or something Possibly different characters and/or plot).
This should be the starting point. Not thinking about the units and stats for all the sides in Erfworld, that would be madness. Start with, say, gobwins, hobgobwins, dwagons, spidews and twolls for GK; marbits, elves (one kind), unipegataurs (or maybe gwiffons), gumps, and cloth golems (tchotchke I think they're called?) for Jetstone. And casters, obviously; start with Healomancer, Dittomancer, Croakamancer, Thinkamancer and Foolmancer (mainly because they're the ones we have fairly solid information on and can be easily designed). Each one should some stats, operate differently on terrains, have different bonuses, and etc.

WHAT YOU SAY

[Org]

ORG SAY NO
One it is not legal. Two, one thing I did not want was Gobwin Knob, Jetstone, etc. I want to make and name my own capital.
Three tabletop ftw
Fourth there will be not much depth in that