# Game Designers Needed



## Jezlad (Oct 14, 2006)

Heresy Online and Wayland Games have joined forces to bring a brand new skirmish wargame to your tabletop!


















Recently I've been toying with the idea of creating a new miniatures based loosely on the best points from my favourite wargames. I got chatting with Rich (Wayland Games) at work today and he's very kindly offered to publish whatever we come up with!!


Fancy yourself as a games designer?


The basic background of the game is a planet full of criminals (some innocent) from neighbouring planets. There's no means of leaving *Rogue Planet* (working title), it's guarded heavily by the Wayland Corporation who stop people leaving or landing and look after their investment. On the surface the planet is a hellpit, there is no law other than those passed by the leading factions. Life is cheap and painful. Murder and war is rife, family non existent and reproduction rendered impossible by jail procedure.
On the planet we're going to focus on one continent, all different kinds of terrain - it is a big continent after all and a host of local flora (some dangerous) and fauna.


This opens up a huge number of possibilities, the Wayland Corporation have a presence on the surface and act as "jailers". They carry the most advanced equipment and step in if things get too out of hand. They also run reality TV shows and sporting events that are shown throughout the Galaxy. (Death Race, Speed Bowl, Pit Fighter - mini games / addons that will be added later).


We're basically going to design a whole Universe and zoom in on this one world to create a "specialist" game. The game itself is loosely based on small scale skirmish games like Necromunda, GorkaMorka, Mordheim, Confrontation etc. Think Mad Max meets Lord of the Rings in avatars Pandora...


My only stipulation is that the turn sequence will take an action based approach as oppose to turn based. This will open it up to large multiplayer games without people getting bored waiting for their turn. For example.


Player 1 picks a model and runs its action
Player 2 then picks a model and runs its action
Player 3 picks a model and runs through its actions etc and so on.


We're also looking to throw a lot of vehicles into the mix to and want some incredibly advanced rules to test the mind of the players. Detail equals good, constant simplification equals bad...


Clearly this is a huge undertaking so we're going to need a lot of assistance, from fluff writers down to concept art, faction designs and ideas. It's going to focus heavily on small teams of fighters with a lot of vehicles and far more advanced rules to counter the bullshit known as 5th edition.


Rather than have an open forum with a million and one ideas and participants I want to form a small team of 10-15 committed people to work on this. We'll have a seperately hosted website, forums and a public blog front end to keep people up to date on developments. If you're interested, have access to MSN/Skype or another "Live" means of communication and a background in writing rules, writing fluff, designing ideas or drawing artwork and want to get involved let me know right away by sending an email to [email protected] with some details about yourself and how you're the right person for this. I must stress that live communication will be necessary for your acceptance into the project.


Remember guys, this is a chance to create a totally new game with the possibility of growing into a well respected and established system.


----------



## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

you've got my full support and writing prowess Jez. :drinks:

CP


----------



## maddermax (May 12, 2008)

It sounds intriguing... I know quite a bit about game rules, done a quite a bit of GMing of games, and have tried to design my own skirmish game before. I'd be on board with that, if you need me.

The premise reminds me of Spinespur somewhat, and gorka-morka of course (one of my all-time favorite games). I like the Wayland Corp idea, though if they didn't know about the sponsorship, you might have people thinking you ripped the name from from Alien's Weyland Corp 

The idea of mini-games is awesome, the things that went on outside of normal games is one of the things I loved about gorka-morka. This would extend that even further, which is more than awesome.

The non-turn based game could be a problem though - I've found it tends to slow down games to keep switching from one player to the other for each model, even if their turn might come a little sooner, and causes some other problems. There are solutions to this that other games have used, but I won't put them all here, as you mentioned you didn't want an open forum on this 

Anyway, I'll shoot you an email


----------



## Azkaellon (Jun 23, 2009)

Commissar Ploss said:


> you've got my full support and writing prowess Jez. :drinks:
> 
> CP


So everyone dies at the end then....?


----------



## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

Witch King of Angmar said:


> So everyone dies at the end then....?


along with the special character Angmar. lol 

CP


----------



## Azkaellon (Jun 23, 2009)

Commissar Ploss said:


> along with the special character Angmar. lol
> 
> CP


HEY i better get my cool physic powers and fusion pistol! My special char is named Ploss it has the following

all stats = 3
Weapon:Moltav Cocktail
Armor:Booze Soaked Clothes
Special Rules:
Weak to fire as he will explode near any open flame.

"One more drink" By offering Ploss a drink he will stop mid fight and is considered removed from play drunk.

:suicide:


----------



## humakt (Jan 2, 2008)

Count me in. I have some awesome rules floating in my head.


----------



## Jezlad (Oct 14, 2006)

> The non-turn based game could be a problem though - I've found it tends to slow down games to keep switching from one player to the other for each model, even if their turn might come a little sooner, and causes some other problems. There are solutions to this that other games have used, but I won't put them all here, as you mentioned you didn't want an open forum on this


This is an interesting point. I've never really played a game that uses this method so I'm a little hazy on it. It just seems like a more emersive means of playing a small skirmish game in my opinion.

What would you say are the pros and cons of both methods? Turn based vs Action based?


----------



## when in doubt shoot! (Oct 19, 2008)

I'd be happy to donate my time to this, for any fluff/background work needing done.


----------



## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

Jezlad said:


> This is an interesting point. I've never really played a game that uses this method so I'm a little hazy on it. It just seems like a more emersive means of playing a small skirmish game in my opinion.
> 
> What would you say are the pros and cons of both methods? Turn based vs Action based?


Depends on the number of units involved in the game, An action based game would need fewer units to play but would also require some element of preventing instant death for the game units,otherwise the result of the game will depend on the out come of "who shoots first wins" so in essence your talking about the main difference between traditional roleplaying games and wargames, i cant think of a large scale wargame that uses action based turns, may be you could consider squad based turn sequences?


----------



## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

It seems like Action Based would be best for a game where you want the most immersive drama but where there are generally fewer than 10 models on each side, whereas Turn Based is the best for the larger games of 25+ models.

bitsandkits seems to have the best idea of combining Action and Turn in some manner, possibly (and this is just a random thought that I'm regurgitating from my overactive imagination) you could separate each phase- movement, shooting, combat etc.

Example: Player 1(P1) moves all his models, then Player 2(P2) moves all his models.
P1 shoots, then P2 shoots etc etc

*OR *

The Players roll for each phase to see who moves 1st and 2nd.
P1 rolls a 6, P2 rolls a 3- P1 chooses to go 1st or 2nd
Then the same process would be repeated for shooting, combat etc.

Edit: If you wanted to make it even more individual as you planned Jez then maybe have each type of model be rolled for separately (Heroes/Champions in 1 roll, Gangers another and so on)
So in the above scenario the players would be rolling each phase for just their Heroes-level models, then the process would start over for their complement of Ganger/basic level troops...


----------



## Blue Liger (Apr 25, 2008)

The way to make action based fair is take a part of Sapce Hulk and use command points for each player per action phase say if you had 10 action points to move on move phase and then maybe 8 to shoot with in shooting phase etc etc...


----------



## Jezlad (Oct 14, 2006)

Is there anything wrong with the Urban War method where you "activate" one model, move, shoot assault etc. Then the opponent does the same, followed by you who pick one and so on.

That seems perfectly fair in my opinion. Plus it opens up a lot of strategy in selecting which model to move first and reacting to the opponents move. On that same point it'll be interesting to see how he reacts to your last move. Will you act or react?


----------



## Blue Liger (Apr 25, 2008)

Ahh so like chess yeah I see your point all I was getting out of it was i move my units of this first then my opponent does etc thinking that's just standard 40k style, command points could still make it interesting by only giving a few units in the army the ability to move till a round of that comes again in which case making in even more strategic. Just thoughts for now


----------



## maddermax (May 12, 2008)

Action Based is more immersive, but I've found it usually slower - it's a bit of a trade off really. If you ever get the chance, look up the game Spinespur, it's the only game I've run across with completely alternating unit actions . With Spinespur, I can't claim to have much experience with the system, I've only had a few games with it and don't own the rules myself, but it certainly creates some exciting moments by having each player react to the other. I can't say I've seen Urban War being played, but from what you've mentioned, it sounds like a similar sort of thing.

On the other hand, I know mechwarrior has a command points system so you can move a certain number of models at a time, which would help keep things moving somewhat. The Alternative Phases system Baron spikey pointed out, with a roll off each turn to see who goes first, is also something I've considered before. That would allow a fair amount of interaction between players, without going to a one-by-one approach, though it might over-complicate things - we'd have to see how it would work when actually playing it.

There are certainly ways to do it though


----------



## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

personally i have no problem with slower games, if a game is tense and slow, it usually means you have landed on a actual strategy game rather than the 40k chuck everyone forward and roll a bucket of dice type of game. I think the command point system is the best for a skirmish game, it better reflects life and real time. If you have more than 15 models per side i think it would become very slow, but a low number of models with command points on a board i could seriously get behind, you could speed things up by adding a time limit for each players phase like space hulk.
so like

player one chooses a model
roll d6 for command points
move per inch =1 command point
fire weapon =1 command point
take cover = 2 command points
use overwatch =1 command point
all actions for that model have to be complete in 30 second

player two does the same


you could then add skills and experience points that give bonus command points, injurys or heavy weapons could reduce the points etc etc


----------



## asianavatar (Aug 20, 2007)

I would be up for helping out with rules and game systems. I will get a little write up about me to you.

On the debate of turn vs action it depends on the number of units or models being used. Action systems work better with a small manageable number of models. When there are too many models on the board, an action point system can become hard to keep track of. 

How many models/units per side were you thinking?


----------



## Jezlad (Oct 14, 2006)

Just to clarify things guys we wont be using an action points based system.

Turn based or Model based. I don't like the idea of spending "action points", the game is supposed to be fun - adding up points and spreading them out doesn't seem all that fun to me, if anything I think it'd become a tiresome chore very quickly. How do you justify a fighter standing still for 5 turns because his 4 mates were doing more? It doesn't make sense with people - robots perhaps it's justifiable but flesh and blood humans I can't see it.

Anyway guys, the discussion threads for the rules will be drawn up once I have a team to work with - this is purely to gauge interest and promote the project to prospective game designers


----------



## IntereoVivo (Jul 14, 2009)

Jez, have you found your team? I'm still interested in helping if you haven't


----------



## Jezlad (Oct 14, 2006)

No I haven't responded to anyone yet mate, I'm still getting a lot of interesting replies.


----------



## IntereoVivo (Jul 14, 2009)

Fair enough  I'll be patient.

I am very excited about this though. Let me know if you need any more information.


----------



## Darkblade (May 10, 2009)

So basically, all you guys want to do is making a board/tabletop based Fallout Tactics/X-com type game. hmmmmm.

Well, if i can chip in, i gladly do.


----------



## rodmillard (Mar 23, 2010)

Happy to help if you still need people - I've never worked on a miniatures game before (at least not beyond house rules and/or home-brew army lists) but I've done a lot of development on tabletop and live RPG systems.

EDIT: I also earned my way through my masters by proof-reading essays for dyslexic students; something tells me that skill will come in handy...


----------

