16 Bit Tactics Jobs Continuing Progress

+Erik McGrath

Good evening and thanks for bearing with me.


Included herein is most of a jobs document. I say "most" because Thief and Samurai are still missing rules for one JA each and Summoner has no descriptions for its JAs at all.

Jobs So far

Fighter
Black Mage
Thief
White Mage
Monk
Red Mage
Paladin
Dark Knight
Samurai
Dragoon
Ninja
Ranger
Summoner
Time Mage
Geomancer
Blue Mage

16 Bits, 16 Jobs. I like when things like that happen.

Coming Up

Now what I need to finish up is the rules themselves, and of course write up some gear and some example battlefields.

Monsters and enemy NPCs look like they will be simple. Common adversaries will just have levels in a single job, so when you encounter an enemy Black Mage all it is going to do is nuke. You won't need to worry about it knowing healing or status spells or being able to wear heavy armor.

Named NPCs, of course, are built like PCs and can have many different abilities available. I do not plan to create NPC-only Jobs though, so everything the enemy human-types can do is something that PCs are able to do. Barring any scenario special rules like them having control of a massive crystal that hurls Mega-Flare spells or similar.

There will be suggestions of how much XP/AP things like that should be worth though.

Downloads

16 Bit Tactics Jobs: Current

16 Bit Tactics Progress

+Erik McGrath

As always, layout is the bane of my creative existence. Eventually I hope my skill in that area will improve; if not in quality than at least in time spent. But since this is the 40th birthday of D&D I wanted to be sure I made some progress.

Job Sheets

Here's a pic of the job sheets for Fighter and Black Mage complete with fancy, isometric sprites.

The top part shows the stats and values for each job as well as containing a space to record LV, XP, and AP. The AP box is handy but the LV and XP boxes are redundant since they are the same for each character regardless of job.

I decided to do these two jobs first because they are polar opposites of each other. The Fighter has the highest HP, DMG and ATK stats as well as the lowest values in MP, M.Dmg and M.Atk while the Black Mage is the exact reverse situation. With that said, you may notice that HP and MP are not on the same scale. Everyone gains some of each but HP range from 15-30 and MP from 3-20. DMG and M.Dmg are almost the same scale. Both have a minimum value of 3 but M.Dmg caps at 12 rather than 10.

Abilities

This pic shows the complete list of abilities for each job. The Black Mage has only one option in both the Reaction and Support categories, and no Movement abilities at all. The Fighter, by contrast, has the very useful "Move+1" Movement ability and a choice of two each in Support and Reaction, though neither of their Support abilities are actually useful when Fighter is set as the main job because they are both Equip abilities.

If you add up the AP costs you will also see that to Master the Black Mage job it costs 200 more points than the Fighter. AP costs, as of now, are taken directly from the video games and that means that different jobs can cost different amounts to master and that is okay. The specific costs will certainly change in order to achieve better balance, but I am not committing to making the jobs all cost the same.

Mastering Jobs

As mentioned above, mastering a Job is easy, all you need to do is buy all of its abilities. As of now, what that does for you is grant permissions to use certain items and unlock additional jobs. I'm considering treating mastery as a bonus level so that when you finally master a job you get all the HP, MP, DMG and M.Dmg of gaining a level while that job is primary. 

There could be other benefits, such as allowing certain equipment in other jobs, but that can't be too much or it makes the Equip type support abilities redundant. In some cases it could allow a boost when using job abilities, so that your Fighter who has already mastered Black Mage isn't choking on a D6 M.Atk die.

But that's a problem for another post.

Links

Full size Fighter and Black Mage Job Sheet

Job switching in 16 Bit Tactics

+Erik McGrath

My primary goal with 16-Bit Tactics is to create a system that allows players to switch jobs between adventures/battles and still meaningfully impact their advancement. Currently for 16-Bit Adventures there is no special rule for switching jobs, we just switch whenever someone wants to play something different. Since the only real decision point is to pick a job all they have to do is pick up the sheet for that job and then get assigned some gear.

That method is certainly simple, but it doesn't lend itself to mixing job abilities in the way that the tactics series does, nor even how FFV does. It also can't capture the sphere-grid nor license-board methods nor subjobs, etc. In short, it's not good enough.

Methods

There are two ways I've figured that will work to allow characters to switch jobs. The first is the FFV method. Separate job level from character level and assign specific stats to each. This would mean that a Level 10 character would have one profile and the current job level would modify that template.

The second is the FFT method and it assigns each job stats and when you gain a level you add the stats from the job you gained the level in to your own stats. There is no recalculating anything when you switch. The only thing that changes in this case is your Primary Job Ability.

The second method is the one I've been working on.

Stats

You have two kinds of stats, cumulative and static.

Cumulative stats are the values that change with level: your HP, MP, DMG & M.DMG.

Static stats are always the same and depend on your current job and active abilities. They are MOVE, JUMP, ATK, M.ATK & EVA.

Gear can influence any stat, both cumulative and static. Additionally, gear determines your base DEF & M.DEF. A few job abilities can modify these but for the most part it is the items you equip that govern them.

Here's a shot of the amended character sheet.

The main differences are the addition of Move and Jump, that JAs are no longer a list specific to the job and that items are more customizable. You can still only equip one armor, and still only have 2 hands but you could equip 5 different types of accessory (helm, cloak, gloves, boots, rings...).

Your primary JA is always determined by your current job. Fighters have Battle Tech, Monks have Kung Fu, Black Mages have Black Magic, etc. Your secondary JA can be any JA of any job you have unlocked.  Reaction, Move and Support abilities must be unlocked from different jobs with AP. Once you know a particular ability you may equip it regardless of your primary job.

Each primary JA is an umbrella under which all actions usable by that job are placed. If you have the JA equipped you may use any abilities governed by that JA that you have learned in any job.

Learning Abilities

This is where the other new entry on the character sheet comes in. AP are ability points and you earn them the same way, and often at the same rate, as you earn XP. Unlike XP, which simply tells you what level you are, AP allows a great deal of choice. Each ability has a particular cost in AP and you may spend them freely; you do not need to buy a job's abilities in a set order though you do need to buy all of them to master that job. Your job level is the number of abilities you know from that job.

Squabblin' Corbies

+Erik McGrath

I am participating in a contest at +Will Design a Game for Art . If you are not familiar with this the goal is to design a game based on artwork by +Laura Hamilton . You can see a few of the pieces I used in my design in this post. Please keep in mind that these all belong solely to Laura and that they are not for redistribution. 

If you'd like to see more of her work go here: Laura Hamilton's Portfolio.

You may recognize the ninjas in the top line as those from Sudden Death.

The Game

Squabblin' Corbies is a game for 2 players about two groups of ravens arguing over several objects at several locations near a village. These events are observed by a pair of children as they walk from their village through each location over the course of the day until they return home. 

There are 6 ravens, 6 places and 6 objects of note. All are numbered 1-6, Each player gets 3 ravens and tries to have them collect the items with their number and then get to the place with that number so they can nest for the night.

When rival ravens are at the same location they may squabble over the objects they are carrying. Since a raven can only carry one thing in its beak at a time it's important to know which one they take. Larger ravens take objects they like from the smaller ones (compare their numbers, higher numbered ravens are larger). However ravens don't take things they don't like so they will only squabble for an object if the smaller raven has either their favorite one (same number) or a similar one (number within 1 of the raven's).

Friendly ravens may freely exchange objects when at the same location so long as neither is forced to take an object it likes less than the one it carries. So be careful because that might mean it holds onto another of your raven's favorite objects.

The very smallest raven (#1) gets pushed around a lot but it is so quick that when in a squabble with raven #6 the little one wins. The player who controls #1 also takes the first turn.

The children act as a turn counter. After the second player takes a turn they advance the children to the next location. When the children advance off the last location, the game ends. As there are six locations, this means the game always lasts 7 turns.

Playtesting

Since the contest isn't over yet, Squabblin' Corbies is not available for public play. Once it's finished up though there will be a PNP doc for download. Hopefully it will contain Laura's art, but that is getting ahead of ourselves because I haven't talked to her about the aftermath yet. :)

Layout and Design

+Erik McGrath

Making 16-Bit Adventures is a beautiful madness for me. The rules come together very easily but the presentation is driving my batty. Not only is layout the hardest part, it's the part I am least proficient with yet I can't seem to stop trying.

I'm sure most of it is due to inexperience with the tools. I'm using PowerPoint for most of it simply because it's what I know and I've been able to get it to do things. Contrast that to Scribus, which I have just started using, and I get basically nothing from it on the screen. I do get ideas though and one day I hope to be able to actually use Scribus to realize them.

For now I have gone back to PP.

No Layout vs Bad Layout

What it comes down to now is that I could have much more of the game posted where people can enjoy it, test it and hopefully point out its flaws if I just dispensed with the layout and posted a wall of text occasionally broken up with pictures.  I haven't done it for a couple reasons:

1) Too much Fallout 2. It was free to DL a couple weeks back and it has eaten my soul.

2) I don't personally like reading plain text and I tend to gloss over parts simply due to optical boredom. I suspect many other people are like me in this regard otherwise layout wouldn't be so important, right?

But it looks like at this point I can't slay the layout dragon myself anytime soon, so I am going to just offer what I have and then work on the rest later. Hopefully someone reading this will be a magical elf (or maybe just good at layouts) and want to join the Inspired creative team or even just help out on this project because they love sprite-art and Final Fantasy.

In the Works

As I have mentioned before, my next 16BA trick is to add the rest of the jobs and monsters and then do a Tactics module. The jobs are going pretty well and monsters are simple once the inspiration strikes. The Tactics bit is trouble though. 

It has cropped up repeatedly that the Jobs just don't all work in both modules as printed, so you really need to redo each for Standard and Tactics modes. Monsters at least work out pretty well. 

It doesn't help that I really want to get Job-switching in place and have it be more than simply taking the new character sheet like it is now. I want your character to be able to swap back and forth while still gaining in base capabilities and have it work out so that one PC could just pick Fighter and stick with it, but another could start with Blue Mage, then be a Bard and maybe then a Time Mage and actually use each of those abilities in some combination like you do in FFV and FFT(A).

It is a pretty big task so far to do that without needing to track lots of minutiae. 

My plan is to try it this way:

Every PC earns AP and XP for each battle completed equal to the total levels of the monsters fought.
Any PC that delivers a KO blow to a monster gains additional AP for that. 

XP will be used solely to increase Base Level and since all PCs get it at the same rate they will always be the same Base Level.

AP will be used to buy Job Abilities and raise Job Levels. Since AP is gained faster than XP this would mean that single Job PCs would have extra AP laying about so to be able to spend that I will be assigning each Job Ability a cost and not requiring a level minimum to buy it. So if all you want from Fighter is Retaliate then you can buy it first; it will be expensive though.

I am also moving to a more loose gear system where you would simply have 5 slots and the restriction would be that you can have no more than 1 armor or 2 held items (weapons and shields) but you could certainly equip an armor, a one-hand sword and 3 accessories if you wanted. Permissions for which items can be equipped will be based on current Job as well as mastered Job Abilities. For example if you master Fighter (ie buy all JAs) then you become a Master Fighter and no matter what Job you use next you can equip Heavy Armor (if that ends up being the Master JA, it could change).

You will also get some extra slots to equip JAs from your other Jobs whether you have Mastered them or not. So you could dip into Black Mage and then use your Black Magic as a Dragoon. 

There will need to be a restriction on AP, probably by making it Job-specific, so that you do actually have to play a Job to buy its abilities. 

As always, tell me what you think and I will get back to work!

Links 

16 Bit Adventures

16 Bit Tactics

Both are very much under construction, specifically the Jobs have not been added to either document. Since the Job pages are about the only thing I like the format of I am going to retain that and put up a separate doc for each module since the Tactics jobs require additional information to be used.

Erik on Game Theory

+Erik McGrath

I thought I would go a little further afield than I normally travel and just talk about design concepts and practices rather than the specifics of the games I work on.

What does Euler's Identity have to do with that you ask? Good question, I think mainly it just means I studied physics and so I think its awesome. You may like it for different reasons.

Hows and Whys

Game systems all are meant to do something. Whether they do what they intend or not, they at least have a purpose behind them and some kind of theory that led the designer to use them.  That theoretical underpinning could be as simple as "We made up some shit we thought would be fun." But even when there is no conscious decision, there is something there that tells us something about the designer. 

My own theory of gamecraft is that games have two basic parts: story & substance. This is not an uncommon way to look at them and it can be explained with a popular saying: system matters. For a game to work out, the rules need to inform the setting and the setting needs to inform the rules. Plenty of games have broken this maxim and to me it is always to their detriment.

When the system reinforces the setting's assumptions though things really sing for me. For instance. AGON does this for competitive, Hellenic heroes seeking glory and fortune and weathering the whims of capricious gods. Legends of the Wulin does a fantastic job of hooking the setting into the system in a way that each reinforces the other as well.

System Types

I tend to think of systems as either specific or generic. It's fairly black and white for me, there's really nothing in the middle as far as I can tell. 

The poster child of generic systems is GURPS. It's a good, solid set of rules, but I've never enjoyed using it. It simply doesn't speak to me because it isn't purpose built to do anything in particular. BRP is similar in that its purpose is to be as general as it can be and I do play it occasionally but it's never my first choice. Despite being a very close relative of BRP, Pendragon is one of my favorite systems because it has cut and modified its parent system to do one thing well. There are better medieval combat systems out there, but there is nothing better for emulating Malory.

I can't think of a single, iconic setting that I would hold up as an example of a specific setting. By their very nature there is no one way to do it, but I can mention a few that I really like. 

Dogs in the Vineyard: It's about being a Mormon gunslinger charged with keeping order in the land. It's about making choices and what you are willing to pay for them.

AGON: Mentioned above. Greek heroes doing daring things and then meeting their fates. It focuses around a competitive aspect and it matters not only that the heroes succeed or fail, but which of them stands above the others during each deed.

Grunt: US soldiers in Vietnam. It's amazing. The paranoia and the psychological toll it takes on your boys are almost palpable around the table. It's Platoon, the RPG. I've used it for 40k Imperial Guard and it gives you a much different game than Only War to say the least.

16 Bit Classes in the Works

+Erik McGrath

New Job Classes

Right now I am working on the Blue Mage. Its a favorite of mine from Final Fantasy V as well as XI. Something about using a scimitar while blasting monsters with their own powers just speaks to me on a spiritual level. 

The reason I'm only working on it now is that, in order to have a Blue Mage, one must first have a solid bestiary from which to draw its spells. As of now I feel like 16-Bit Adventures has that depth in the monsters and their powers so I can work on how to slot them into a PC class. 

While I am doing this I have been thinking about the other mage classes because the next one on my agenda was going to be the Summoner. However as I look over the spell lists for White/Black Magic I see a lot of options that can be frankly overwhelming or superfluous in play. That made me think that there is room for one of the classes I had originally cut: the Time Mage.

Time Mages

Time Mages are all about buffing and debuffing rather than the direct healing and nuking focus of the two primary mages. Looking at the current magic lists I can see that Haste, Regen, Reflect, Stun, Stop and Break at least are traditionally Time Mage spells. If I were willing to let Red Mages dip into Time Magic (and why not?) then a few others could easily be moved as well. Specifically Dispel in that case. Black Mages could do without Escape and Warp as well if there was a Time Mage to handle the spatial manipulation effects. 

Before I go and do a spell list for them what do people think about separating out the time and space spells from the others and having them in their own list? Would it make you not want to play a White Mage if they lost Haste and Regen? What about Black Mages and Dark Knights losing Stun and Stop?

Other Classes Coming

My to do list includes Summoner as mentioned above as well as Beastmaster and Ranger. After that I'm pretty spent for things to add. Geomancer had been mentioned to me before but they were awful in FFV and even Mog from FFVI had very few actual options in battle. In the future Tactics module I can see them being much more interesting since battlefields will have more varied terrain to utilize. Until then its at the back of the line.

So tell us what you think. We'll be around.