Weasel Tech questions

Why is it called that?

For a long time "Weasel Tech" was a fan name for a hypothetical NWG mech game. Once I decided to write one, I wanted to give the fans a nod by using the same name. 

General "5x" questions

Can I loot items off enemies?

Not intended in Parsecs or Leagues. 

If you want to add a house rule you could allow it in Parsecs but the weapon is only usable in the current fight. For Leagues, you might allow replenishing bow ammo if you move into contact with a casualty. 

Five Parsecs questions

Once and for all how do existing Patrons work?

When you create your crew each Patron you have offers you a job in the first campaign turn. 

From campaign turn 2 onwards existing Patrons are just added to your die roll to find a Patron (The more people you know, the greater the chance one of them has something they need done). When you find two or more job offers, randomly pick from your existing Patrons to see who one of them is. 

Once and for all how do quest clues and rumors really work?

I apologize for the convoluted wording. First you can treat "clue" and "rumor" as the same thing if it makes it easier. 

If you don't currently have a quest, any and all clues/rumors regardless of source contribute towards GETTING a quest. (resolved in pre battle step 5). Once you receive a quest, all clues/rumors are discarded.

If you are on a quest, all clues/rumors count towards the current quest (resolved in post battle step 3). Once you complete the quest, all clues/rumors are discarded. 

You can never ever have two potential or ongoing quests at the same time.

Five Leagues questions

When a random item is damaged, do you include items that cannot be damaged in the selection?

Yes. If that item is selected nothing happens. 

Where am I after completing a delve level?

You are camping in the wilderness for the purpose of events and campaign actions. 

General questions

Do your games use a formula for points values?

Clash on the Fringe did and Laserstorm did. Others generally have not. I find formulas to be really frustrating to work with because it essentially doesn't save you any time.  

Generic rules questions

If a rule just says to place something X inches from a location (like the center of the table) how do I do so?

It usually means to place it randomly. Make an appropriate random direction roll and place it the indicated number of inches in that direction. For example placing something 1D6" from the center would mean rolling a D6 (for distance) and a D10 (for the direction). The raised tip of the D10 is the direction and then move the indicated number of inches in that direction from the center.

Five Parsecs questions

What happens if I don't get a Rival or Patron or Quest?

You fight an Opportunity mission. By the rules you always have a tabletop battle every campaign turn. As a house rule, I don't think it hurts anything if you allow the crew to lay low for a turn, as long as you pay upkeep. 

Is the Seize the Initiative test considered a Savvy test for the purpose of items like the AI Companion?

As intended: Only items and abilities that specifically say they affect Seize the Initiative apply.

Five Leagues questions

Is the route created by the Map Making Kit permanent?

Yes, you will always have that specific route.

I am drowning in discovered locations!

If you are getting overwhelmed by locations popping up, feel free to cap them. A maximum of 5 unexplored locations at any one time is probably plenty. For the purpose of keeping your map tidy, you can have newly placed things coincide with old locations you already explored (even better if you remember what terrain setup you did).

A quick one today but I wanted to talk about being intentional with your terminology in rules writing.

I think game writing can benefit tremendously from being very clear about when a given rule or situation is a choice versus being a requirement.

Let's say your game has a saving throw in it: When a figure takes a hit, they get to roll a die to survive. Simple right?

What is the difference between "When taking a hit, the figure must make a saving throw" and "When taking a hit, the figure may make a saving throw" ?

In the first example the saving throw is mandatory. If you get hit, you roll to save. In the second example however it is not. If I "may" do something, it stands to reason I "may not" as well. Why would I not want to make a saving throw? While counter-intuitive I might want to be rid of that particular figure because they happen to be in the way of another unit or because that will put the unit out of charge range or any of a thousand other reasons. 

Are those reasons things you want to entertain in your game? Perhaps not, in which case the saving throw should probably say "must". But maybe you are making a game that is more abstract or competitive and the decision is in fact something that a player should be able to manipulate for success. If so, they "may" make the save.

For another example lets consider a unit moving into base contact with an enemy. 

A: "If any units are in base contact they will fight a round of close combat". 

B: "Units in base contact may fight a round of close combat". 

Again the meaning is clear: A has to fight while B can fight if they like. In this case there may again be reasons why they do not want to such as them just trying to slow down the enemy or adding bodies so another unit can attack and get a bonus for outnumbering. 

In B the range of tactical possibilities is greater. So is the range of strange situations that can occur. A resolves immediately (potentially) but it also means some interactions can't take place. 

Take a moment to look through your rules and see exactly what you are permitting a player to do. Does any of the rules produce a strange result if the player decides not to do something? If so, you may have to account for that or at least mention the possibility. 

If you enjoy these posts, please consider throwing in a dollar or five at https://www.patreon.com/nordicweasel 

General questions

Will you appear on my youtube channel, podcast or other thing?

I am happy to do interviews. Just email me at nordicweaselgames@icloud.com and we can figure out the details. 

Will you give me feedback on my game?

My time is often limited, but drop me an email and I am happy to talk about it. The odds are better if it is a single, self-contained question. 

If you would like me to do in-depth paragraph by paragraph feedback, I am happy to assist for a fee.

Five Parsecs questions

What happens to Rumors at the conclusion of a Quest?

They are all discarded. 

If an existing Patron offers me a job but I turn it down, do I lose them?

No, Patrons are only lost if you accept the job and fail.

How do Area weapons work when using non-minis combat?

Officially they only hit the target figure like any other weapon. If you want a house rule roll a 5+ to hit a random second opponent. 

Five Leagues questions

Can I sell damaged items?

Yes. The locals just use your cast-off weapons and helmets as scrap metal anyway. 

Does the aberration have to win for the Venom ability to apply?

No. It applies as long as it rolls a 6, even if it lost the exchange. 

In the smaller communities most trade is done in kind as the number of official coins in circulation is fairly small and residents rely on trust networks to ensure a reasonably fair deal. 

The official coin of the land is the Gold Mark which is used for the payments of debts, major trade interactions and the purchase of fine, crafted goods. 

Far more common are Silvers. Nearly every petty ruler with a claim to land will at some point mint their own coins and treasure hunters often unearth sacks of old coins from times past. 

While money changers make a living concocting complex schemes of exchange, most people simply trade Silvers by weight and purity and outside of official duties, most transactions are concocted in Silvers. Even bartering will often see one side or the other throw in a few Silvers to sweeten a deal that is just short of being fair.

Merchants often carry pieces of silver rods or silver strands which can be cut to any size desired for trading purposes. Such chunks are referred to as “cut silver” and is inspected carefully as scrupulous merchants often intentionally mix in cheaper metals.

Officially the value of a Mark is set at 50 Silvers. Adventurers usually declare the value of anything they purchase in Marks. After all it is better for business if you sound like you are successful and prosperous!

At a typical coach station, a Silver will buy a place to sleep and a stout meal. In the city costs are often higher. Adventurers of course often pay a premium for goods and services, both due to the specialized nature of items they require and the tendency for everyone to try to make a quick buck when a band of adventurers stroll into town. 

Rule number 1 of tabletop gaming: You can always change the rules if you like.

Rule number 2 of tabletop gaming: Most people never do. 

Today we are going to talk about game options and game defaults a little bit.

Long time players know I love optional rules. I usually always put in some and I love designing alternate versions of rule systems.

Sometimes there were multiple ways to do something and at the end of the day you have to pick one, so including the alternative as an option is a nice touch. Other times I think of something later and it gets folded in as an option for players who want more/less/different detail.

Optional rules help players tailor the experience and by including them you can help players do so within predetermined confines. What that means is that you have the insights into the logic behind the system so the options you created will (hopefully) work with them. 

That doesn’t mean players should be discouraged from their own house rules of course, but they run a greater risk of accidentally causing a problem elsewhere.

As an example you house rule combat to be a little more deadly, but now units are also taking more morale tests and therefore running away too much. Sometimes a change can cascade through the game and it can take a bit to get a feel for how these things all link back into each other. 

Additionally options cater to a particular type of player who enjoy tinkering with the game and giving them a little bit of what they want can be extremely valuable. Over the years I find that most people who do modify the rules modify them very little. They might add a modifier for one thing and a sub-system for a specific type of action but its rare for people to do big, sweeping overhauls of core mechanics. 

This also makes sense for compatibility purposes: House ruling that units in cover get +1 to morale doesn’t require any big changes if I play with someone at the gaming club who wants to play the game as written (or conversely they are open to using my house rule). If I have replaced the entire shooting system, it is a much bigger challenge. 

The real risk is making sure that options stand alone. A particular pet peeve of mine is a game with “advanced rules” that are essentially required to play because other game rules feed into them. In my opinion an option should be truly that: An option. A choice the player actively has to make and they should not be left wondering if they made the wrong choice, especially if the book presents one option as the easy one and one as the difficult one. 

This brings us to default options. In software and video game design it is generally held that most people will stick to the default selections. I can attest that I’ve spoken to a lot of gamers who don’t really look through the appendix or advanced rules chapters at all. As such the game presented by the default setup should be as representative of what you intend the game to be like as possible. 

This is especially a stumbling block when we are talking about up front decision making. One thing I underestimated for a long time was the value of a starter scenario. Even if it is extremely basic (we each get 2 identical units and they fight) it gives the player a way to get to grips with the material without making any decisions at a point when they don’t feel they have the knowledge to make those decisions. 

Default options also provide a common base level for players to interact on.

It is fine if you have multiple options for how to do something, but in my experience you are almost always better off presenting one as the standard as one as an alternative instead of giving the player two options and saying they should decide. 

In conclusion: Think carefully about the options you present in your game, how you present them and what they are meant to do.

Publishing questions:

Will you ever do a collaboration with X?

Possibly. I have collaborated in the past but it kind of feels like the stars has to align right: Both people have to be on the same page, into the same style of design and have both interest and time for the same project. It is usually easier for one person to contribute something to another persons project. 

Five Leagues questions

When exactly are pre-game potion use decided?

You can use them at any point during the setup sequence. For example you can use a potion after you have determined what type of enemies you are facing. It's not meant to be all that exact.

What exactly does it mean to survive a game for XP purposes?

A survivor is anyone that took part in the battle and did not die when rolling on the post-game injury table. 

Does Morale apply in Site battles?

Yes but only to enemies in sight of the casualties. 

General rules questions

Does a 6 always succeed and a 1 always fail?

Only if the rules explicitly say so. Parsecs and Leagues both do NOT use this for hit rolls. It is possible for a shot to be impossible or for a shot to hit automatically. (This is of course easy to house rule if you prefer).

I found an exploit!

For a game of the size and scope of Parsecs or Leagues there are probably a few. While more egregious (or silly) ones are something I track for future updates, I don't usually put a lot of priority in "blocking" exploits since they are 100% player driven. If you found a way to get infinite Credits somehow, ask yourself if the game would be more fun with infinite Credits. 

Publishing questions:

Is Nordic Weasel affected by the various OGL talk going on?

No.

What do you think of AI for game design?

At the moment, I think AI can be handy for making some quick drawings. You don't really get the benefits of an actual artist like revisions and you know, actually understanding what you are asking for, but some of the results can be quite fun. Rogue Hammer features a few pieces of AI art and some of them are quite cool.

For rules writing and design, I would say it is not useful currently. It mostly produces the equivalent of that guy in your gaming group who has never read the game you are talking about, but has strong opinions about it regardless.

Will we get more nice looking revamps of old titles?

I would like to for sure, but I am trying to not announce plans until I know they are for sure. 

Five Parsecs questions:

Expansion 2: Expanded mission extraction. Leaving the table in 3 turns is going to be really difficult on a 36x36" table.

Yeah, you should probably increase that to 4 turns on the larger table. 

Expansion 2: Non Minis rules. What happens if there is only 1 enemy left?

If there are less than 3 enemies left and you still have 3+ crew you should still generate 3 firefights. In any "excess" firefights you will fire but they will not. This is not clear in the rules. 

Rogue Hammer questions:

Transported units taking damage seems to be broken.

This will be fixed in 1.04. Transported infantry take 1 damage each time an attack penetrates the vehicles armor, 2 damage if it is wrecked. 

Is there a less open-ended option for measuring between units?

The text box on p.9 suggests using the squad leader figure to measure if you want a fixed point. Of course people using Epic troop stands or similar can just measure normally in any event. 

I have occasionally shared various tips on game design here and I figured going forward they will have a specific title: Upgrade your design. That sounds very practical right? 

I think a common flaw of game design is including too much stuff. I don't mean content (though there is such a thing as too sprawling a book) I mean the little stuff: Modifiers, special cases, sub-cases, exceptions and so forth. 

Now this is not always a bad thing: Sometimes you do want to capture a special case to avoid silly situations. After all we expect a tank to act differently than a foot soldier and a particular rule may require a carve out to ensure that is the case. Other times you just want the game to be a bit more detail oriented overall.

Small details can be a trap however because they carry two risks:

The first is the obvious question of weight in handling the game. Players will quickly memorize 3-5 typical modifier situations or sub-cases that are logical but a list of 20 gets difficult unless you scan the list each time. And if players realize they forgot one, they will be hesitant going forward because now they feel like they may have screwed up multiple times. 

When evaluating weight it is useful to look at the overall impact on the grand scale of things. A sub-case that adds a +/- 1 on a D20 roll is probably not worth considering. Odds are you could go through an entire game without ever having a roll where that modifier makes a difference to a single roll, let alone the aggregate outcome. 

Take a look at your game mechanic and evaluate how many individual pieces do I need to keep in my head as a player? For a typical ranged attack I probably need to know the shooter, the weapon and if you are in cover. Do I need to check the range precisely or is it okay if I can eye ball that I'm definitely within range? How many conditions apply to the hit roll? Does the number of shots I get vary? Does it matter if I moved? Are there influences that carry over from previous turns or other actions?

As you can see each of these is individually very small and usually binary questions (did the target evade last turn yes/no?) but they can add up pretty fast.

There is not a golden formula for this, but try to take the shooting mechanic in your game and count out how many "things" influence the attack roll. If any of them require remembering something that is not immediately clear from the position of the miniatures (such as whether a figure moved or what actions the target unit took last) count it as 1 extra thing. If any of them require decisions on the players end (such as aiming at particular parts of a target) count it as 1 extra thing.

How many did you end up with? 10? 20? 30+? 

Now take a long, hard look at the those cases, decisions and sub-cases and ask which of these are integral to the mechanic and which are not. 

For example the skill rating of the shooter is integral because that might be our basic hit modifier or target number. A penalty for moving and firing is not integral as the mechanic works without it. 

For any items that are not integral, start asking yourself if they are worth keeping especially if they rarely apply or if they often cancel out another modifier. They may be but interrogate each in turn to make sure they are. A lot of small hit modifiers or "happens on a natural roll of x" conditions have a high chance of being something you can ditch without ever affecting the flow of the game, particularly with a big die type. 

Once you have identified a couple of targets for deletion, try playing through a couple of quick firefights without them. Did you even notice their absence? Did the lack of it affect the tactics that seemed useful? That will inform your choice. 

An added danger is that by applying a rule for something you may end up overemphasizing it. Let us say you are writing an ultra realistic fire fight skirmish game and you set up a rule that guns jam on a natural D20 roll of a 1. Guns jam in real life so it is realistic right?

Well, maybe. Statistics are hard to come by but some time ago I read that some model of modern military rifle had a failure rate of around 1-2% in typical conditions with limited maintenance. Lets just assume this is accurate. 

By assigning the malfunction rate to a 1 in 20 chance, we have raised the chances to 5% meaning that our shooter in the game is many times more likely to jam their weapon than the actual rate should be. 

This is a simple example and compound probabilities get hairy but I hope it goes to show what I mean: By assigning a mechanic you emphasize the chance of a particular action or event occurring even if it is statistically not very likely. For most games not having a jam mechanic at all is probably closer to the statistical reality than assigning a 5% chance per attack.

What do you think? What have you cut from your game? What do you wish you had cut in hindsight? What did you cut that you realized you actually needed to keep?

Rogue Hammer v 1.03 has been made available to patrons. It adds 2 new orc walkers and a rules tweak for orc vehicles in general, a new "scout" unit for star knights and elves respectively, a mercenary robot unit (not really based on a specific unit but seems like it fits the vibe), 2 new unit upgrades and a few other touches and tweaks.

It will be generally available later after testing.

Five Men in Normandy v 1.05 has been uploaded to Wargame Vault and features minor rewordings throughout the book, as well as tweaks to a couple of skills and random events. There is probably no need to print the book out again, but you will want to download the new PDF to make sure you have the most up to date version.