Skirmish overhaul

[Rothaon]

Ok, I'm trying to make an overhaul of the skirmish set mechanics so it can be included, in a more generic way, in the adventure deck idea: http://cti-community.net/forum2/viewtop ... f=13&t=206

So far I've checked the gurps system as suggested by inside7shadows, and liked it so I'm trying to use those formulas as much as possible. Mostly because I dont know what I'll include inside the adventure deck and gurps is... very generic.

I'm not sure if anyone has tried mechanics similar to the skimirsh set in their own decks, and I want to hear about them.

Here are some questions I want to ask everone that has tried the skirmish set.

- What did you like of the skimish set?
- What didn't you like at all?
- Did you change anything of the deck, or used house rules? Which? Why?
- Have you tried similar mechanics or included some enemies in your decks?

As always, any idea or comment is appreciated, thanks!

[playsafe]

Hi, nice to hear about a possible renewal!
I haven't played it for a long time, so I'm only writing down what I can remember. In general it's my favourite deck, alongside Shadowmaze / Maze retease. I guess I didn't use any houserules on purpose.

+
I loved the RNG, which means it can get unfair and you can't do anything about it.
It isn't as long as Shadowmaze, because you can take a break between the dungeons
Without analplay it's useable in more mental situations.
No sissification or humilation

-
There's a lot of math and writing. That's turning off and takes a lot of time. And you're using your creative hand for writing and stroking mostly.
Some monsters can be drawn in a row, then the math was for nothing and has to be done again.
Instruction "Fighting twice". Isn't always thrilling and feels like grinding.
When I first began I had to read the instructions a dozen times, because the autor didn't use the same keywords all the time (eg sometimes interval, sometimes Slide duration) and I had to do my own short instruction card

Spoiler: show

[Rothaon]

I never thought those maths to be hard, the stroke count is stored in the timer if you use one. But I agree with you that I hated rolling a d4 each monter.
Some monsters have special instructions if defeated, not sure if a lot of them were about humiliation/sissification.

Anyways, I'm thinking about moving some of the special instructions on the monsters so we can have events popping up in the middle of a fight (eg the monster/you get healed, reinforces arrive (so you fight the same monster after you defeat this one... etc). And if you lose you can get a random (little) punishment instead of always increasing you SC more.

I want to ask too which system you prefer (for battles).

- Reach the end of a number of slides and win.
- Do and get damage (automated ofc) each slide until one is defeated.

[0131]

I created a base class Set for the skirmish set because i wanted to build a Labyrinth set on top of it. (The labyrinth deck was a bit heavy so i started the Fucked Silly Set first)
Its currently empty (not implemented) but if i have some time during the next weeks i will post some of my ideas.
Like character creation, level, skills, spells, items,....

[Rothaon]

That would help a lot, thanks!

[playsafe]

I never thought those maths to be hard, the stroke count is stored in the timer if you use one. But I agree with you that I hated rolling a d4 each monter.
Some monsters have special instructions if defeated, not sure if a lot of them were about humiliation/sissification.

Of course it isn't hard, and I didn't hate anything. But "hands off, d4, math, writing down", drawing another monster after 1 slide and doing "hands off, d4, math, writing down" again just takes a lot of heat from the game.

Anyways, I'm thinking about moving some of the special instructions on the monsters so we can have events popping up in the middle of a fight (eg the monster/you get healed, reinforces arrive (so you fight the same monster after you defeat this one... etc). And if you lose you can get a random (little) punishment instead of always increasing you SC more.

Action cards do sound good, but rises and falls with the creativity of the instructions.

I want to ask too which system you prefer (for battles).

- Reach the end of a number of slides and win.
- Do and get damage (automated ofc) each slide until one is defeated.

So the second options is the new idea, sounds interesting.
Are you thinking about a fixed number of slides, as the monster's health? What should happen if another monster card has been drawn early, does the previous one die (imagine a critical strike)? If I'm getting it right, there would be a lot of stats-based player defeats, not only edging, right?

[Rothaon]

I never thought those maths to be hard, the stroke count is stored in the timer if you use one. But I agree with you that I hated rolling a d4 each monter.
Some monsters have special instructions if defeated, not sure if a lot of them were about humiliation/sissification.

Of course it isn't hard, and I didn't hate anything. But "hands off, d4, math, writing down", drawing another monster after 1 slide and doing "hands off, d4, math, writing down" again just takes a lot of heat from the game.

Ok, I got it now. I used to play with a fixed number of slides between monsters.

I want to ask too which system you prefer (for battles).

- Reach the end of a number of slides and win.
- Do and get damage (automated ofc) each slide until one is defeated.

So the second options is the new idea, sounds interesting.
Are you thinking about a fixed number of slides, as the monster's health? What should happen if another monster card has been drawn early, does the previous one die (imagine a critical strike)? If I'm getting it right, there would be a lot of stats-based player defeats, not only edging, right?

The idea is to keep battling until someone's health is zero and then draw the next monster. Longer battles have a higher chance of having an event popping up in the middle, so they don't get boring and is a source of bit of rng.

I tested yesterday with both (you and enemy) having health and getting damage and with enemies with a lower level than you it was ok, but with higher level enemies there was nothing to do so I guess the enemy having health and you getting defeated if you edge is a better option.

[hajtos]

I may be a little later to the party, but I really liked the skirmish set and am excited to see a revisit to the idea.

What I liked about the skirmish set:
+ The mechanics were interesting and provided some mental activity among the constant fap fests.
+ It was very balanced, with many interesting enemies. That meant it could be replayed even if you already knew all the enemies

My biggest annoyances:
- It was purely vanilla. The whole combat was about non-stop fapping. Edging meant losing and any other more fun activity also required you to first lose. Losing is something you don't want, which brings us to the next point.
- Losing a fight is a downward spiral. If you lost that means you edged, so you're already close. And now you have a much higher stroke rate with no stat gains. That means after losing one fight you often don't win another. That usually isn't a problem since the difficulty didn't seem very high, but it means you will never see half of the set features.

I'm all for mechanics that would make the 'fight' more interactive than simply fapping through the slides, as well as fights that you could lose and move on like nothing happened, but I don't really have any exact ideas.

A project I was hyped about had some interesting mechanics, but unfortunately the project was abandoned long ago: land of nzara
You can find the last alpha version here

[Inside7shadows]

• Double XP, half monsters. I think the original was set up so you'd fight every monster once. You get more variability when you only use part of the pool.
• Sliding difficulty. Reduce your starting stroke rate by 1 less each time your last character died. (7 was more manageable for me. )
• I changed the format to [x/y|z] or some such thing to make it easier to remember
• I built a calculator into my viewer to handle maths, roll dice, and store values.
• Ticker was replaced with Warcraft II sound effects.

I don't know how well the set could be expanded. It was usually seeing how far into a level you could get before losing for the first time, then getting ganked by everything after that. Finished with a boss fight to see if you met minimum requirements.

If it's to be expanded, it should have a format where poor performance can be redeemed through extra effort. Skirmish, as it is, only has one trajectory, and any error grows exponentially.

What about a version where victory is based on total strokes? Say, at 100HP you would have to maintain at least 10 strokes a slide, and hope the battle lasts 10 slides? Leveling up adds to your total score at the end of a battle. You could also add some randomness to the monster's stats as well to keep things interesting.

Counting could get really annoying. Maybe use a pedometer? Sync with a wii mote?