Buncha Wizard Shit! Kaboom! Blammo!

Proof of Production

Just gotta print it out.

Then jam it in some card sleeves! Bwahahaha!

Way better than hand writing it out onto huge clunk index cards no one can read because your handwriting is terrible!

What's all this shit?

I may or may not have discovered a program to actually make cards so I can start making decks and testing some shit, removing one of the many lazyness based hurdles between and producing something of value.

My Tic Tac Toe Project: O-X Layers

Don't have time for a real game, but still have the desire to waste some time? Tired of ties and cat's games? Are two dimensions literally child's play for you? Well if you fall into this apparently very specific category of bored, three dimensional people who hate ties and also have a friend nearby ((why are you bored if you have a friend nearby?)) then O-X Layers is the game for you!

You are familiar with Tic-Tac-Toe, because everyone is, for better or worse, so imagine three Tic Tac Toe grids layered on top of each other. Or maybe don't imagine it, just look it at this picture. Also imagine the middle square of the middle grid doesn't exist. Or is blotted out. Or whatever being filled in means to you.

That was easy! No imagination required!

The players are X's and O's, taking turns in order as in regular Tic Tac Toe.

So with almost three times the real estate to compete over the game will already take longer! Huzzah!

But will it end in a tie, without the next rule it probably would. So here is the caveat.

Disregarding the first move of the first player, where you place your marker on your chosen grid determines which grid your opponent must play on, as shown by this handy example.

This indicates where your opponent plays next.

                                                   
                                                 








Playing upon the top row of any of the three grids forces your opponent to play on the top grid, playing on the middle row of any grid forces them to play on the middle grid, and playing on the bottom row of any grid forces them to play on the bottom grid.


The win conditions are still three in a row, you can win as if it was a classic grid, like so:

But you can now also win by connecting a three dimensional three in a row as well, as shown in these two examples:

Like so

And like so

So there you have it. O-X Layers. Utilize an pen and paper to try it yourself, who knows you might just win, or maybe even enjoy it, the game is your oyster! But not the world, I don't have that sort of pull just yet. This game is totally within my purview though, so enjoy!

Space Ships Yeah? Those things are cool.

Vaguely kicking around the thought of a co-op space fleet deck builder of some sort. Several different classes of ship of varying sizes which act as keywords. Thinking an "impending doomsday fleet" scenario which the group has to prepare for buy buying upgrades, training, defeating pirates, doing research of some sort or to kit out their ships ((decks)) before Doomsday Fleet shows up and then fight.

Varying mission/objective/research/salvage decks and base ships and D-Day fleets to switch it up.

I dunno could be fun.

Robot Inferno

Mechwarrior Online I'm pretty sure is in Open Beta, which means no one can sue my balls off for talking about it. If I'm wrong about this my only hope is a cease and desist letter before hand but whatever. The point is Robot Inferno.

Also know as "That's too many Flame Throwers dude," or "You don't actually DO any damage like that, you know that right? Tell me you know."

The short version is in Mechwarrior Online, true to the Battletech Universe, if your robot is too hot, it has to take a little nap and shut down. Normally it gets hot by shooting off your weapons, energy weapons run hotter but have no ammo, ballistics can run out of ammo but don't run as hot. Blah blah blah.

Now where I come in is the Flamethrower. Here is a breakdown of things the flamethrower does.

1. Close to no damage.
2. Extraordinarily short effective range. I like to call it Hugging Distance.
3. Causes your own damn robot to overheat faster than a.....a....a thing in a hot place.
4. Causes THEIR damn robot to overheat and roast them like a burrito.


Now as you can see the flamethrower is pretty heavily discouraged as a primary weapon. It's the giant robot equivalent of harsh words and daggered glares. Except worse because you can always yell harsh words from far away, sometimes even safely removed from retaliation. It is possibly more annoying just to mock your opponents in chat while hiding in the corner of the map, and it's definitely safer.

But on the other hand, there is some obvious value to fucking with the heat of enemy robots. What is typically referred to as a "Laser Boat" is a robot loaded down with so many lasers it boasts massive damage that will last throughout the game, with the only drawback being a dangerous heat management mini game to complete. You can only shoot your whole load two or three times before retreating to safety or risking overheating in the middle of a firefight.

Over heating in the middle of a fire fight is the second worse thing you can do in a fire fight. The worst thing you can do is explode.

So one little flamethrower can throw a wrench in precision heat management of your enemy, but it's hardly something you can rely on.

That's why I don't have one little flamethrower.

I have eight.

I have a robot comprised entirely of flamethrowers. Eight majestic gouts of flame embrace my foes as I charge headlong into the awkward hug zone.

In doing this I have sacrificed everything that makes a robot an effective fight, I have no ranged threat, I have no real source of damage, and in a one on one encounter I essentially am a free kill.

However with friends I am the most annoying/terrifying piece of shit robot you never knew existed. The huge jets of flame are not only terrifying, but if fired directly at the cockpit obscure the entirety of your vision. This alone is terrifying, at the same time heat warnings begin blaring as soon as you even think about firing all of your guns at once, each shot must be carefully chosen as the limits of your heat sinks are being pushed by a tiny mobile Armageddon.

I have made robots three times my size flee out of fear and confusion, I have shut down Laser Boats of all sizes as they fail to realize, just a single volley combined with the Eightfold Fire Hose is enough to overwhelm their systems.  And even though I personally do close to no damage, all of my friends enjoy two glorious benefits of my madness.

A shut down robot can't shoot my friends, it's too busy venting heat. A shut down robot is also just begging to be shot by real guns directly in the face. Repeatedly. And as soon as it tries to fight back, it shuts right back down again.

Were we meant to load 8 flamethrowers on a single robot? My guess is no. In fact I'm pretty sure they were created specifically to discourage this sort of activity.

Is this the most effective way to pilot and build a robot? Certainly not. If I have no friends I'm worthless, I die half the time trying to get into range, I often just overheat myself and die to focus fire almost immediately.

But when it works it is beautiful, and glorious, and most important hilarious. To see a 100 Ton Atlas turn and run from the 40 ton pile of fire hosing down it's backside is nothing short of ridiculous.

This is how I play Mechwarrior, and I encourage everyone to do the same.

Break the Game not the Players

Half the fun of breaking a system or concept over your knee is watching everyone scratch there brow or stop halfway through voicing a protest before realizing you are well within the defined confines of the game. Either having the audacity to break current procedure or the discovery of a glitch in the restraints is always more fun if you have a venue to share your discovery, and the easiest audience, not to mention the venue most likely to be interested, will be players sharing in the game experience with you.

This does however mean that your breaking and bending, poking and prodding does have an impact on their experience as well, which is important because their experience is theirs and they are nice enough to share it with you. Ruining a system and ruining a game are two different things, and while it might be fun to show off how awesome how many times you can cycle through your turn while staying within the confines of the game, if that takes 15 minutes of everybody's when they don't particularly care, the quality of the game overall goes down. 

So consider your audience, which is only something I can prompt you to consider instead of telling you exactly what it means, because everyone plays with different people. Some play only with friends, and some play with strangers at random venues, and other play exclusively with family. I usually play with friends, and as such I have various "Bullshit Meters" attached to them. 

The Bullshit Meter has no standard unit of measurement, and fluctuates depending on game and known mood, and really it's just a stupid way of saying "How much will this person enjoy putting up with?"

Note the word ENJOY. The Bullshit Meter is not a "How much can I get away with?" measurement, but instead a measurement of "How hard can I push without ruining how much fun the table is having?"

Ruining the actual game is not as huge a problem as is ruining the perception and enjoyment of the game. I don't mind completely derailing the objectives, or instantly dropping way too much damage and ending it all as long as everybody is at least somewhat amused and not overly invested in things running exactly as they were planned.

A big portion of the context of breaking systems and the social acceptability comes from the length of a game as well as who is playing it. A three hour long epic being derailed into certain failure is ruining a substantial investment of time on everyone's part, forcing you to ask yourself if exposing faulty balance is worth 3 hours of time multiplied by the number of players. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but the question has to at least be on your mind.

This train of thought ramble is veering dangerously close to the topic of Playing out of Spite which I think is a post for another time, so I'll try to bump it back on track.

If you know your playing with someone who doesn't appreciate shenanagins, don't let them hold you hostage, but also don't take it as a challenge. Find a middle ground, push a little when it's fun for you and not too hard on them, then go back to play as normal. 

It is equally not fair for you to torpedo their enjoyment as it is unfair for them to tell you not to play wrong, and since in theory you are proposing an outlier strategy or play, it is good manners to err on the side of placating instead of provoking.

Sometimes games are about provoking, and destroying, and ruining plans, but not everyone likes it! Not even most people like it I would say, but some people DO. Save your wildcards and your mega-bombs and your whatever you have for the ones that appreciate your inanity, hone your serious game with serious business players. Playing inside constraints on a regular basis can provide more time for innovation to ferment anyways.

That's it I suppose, adjust your play for who your playing with, simple concept but perhaps not simple execution.