Summoned creatures

Weekly updates:

I played a couple more games.  I'm finding that doing a campaign mode by itself isn't quite a good idea yet, and that I'd rather just test lots of individual abilities (perhaps more on that later).  I have printed out a list of all of the abilities and missions, and it is really telling to be able to visually see how many abilities I've okayed in each group.  I had the idea that many games will include "major victory" and "minor victory" conditions.  

I also had a conversation with my brother Nick yesterday, which has given me second (third? fourth?) thoughts about the story.  Perhaps more of that later.

Ok, for today, summoned creatures.

In Illeria, one possible ability is for the character to summon creatures.  The role I wanted this to fill is for player who'd rather have a swarm of weaklings, rather than a few powerful characters.  I also wanted summoned creatures to feel wild, so that they are a high-risk-high-reward strategy.  Like, if you are not constantly controlling them, they could turn on your or go berserk.

I have tried to implement the "wild" feeling a number of ways.  Typically, there was a small chance that the creatures went out of control each turn, and if they did, you needed to spend actions trying to regain control.  However, maybe a year ago I invented a novel system that I've loved.  When the creatures are summoned, they begin with 5 control points.  Every turn, you roll one dice for each control point, and each roll that is below a certain value means losing one control point.  For example, the turn you summon the creatures, you'd roll 5 dice, and every 1 or 2 means a lost control point.  The target number can change, based on things in the game.  Once the creatures have 0 control points, they go berserk, and will never recover.  

I liked this new system because each turn becomes a question of how much risk you are willing to take.  For example, if your three creatures have 4 control points, do you risk not trying to control them (and therefore needing a 4+ to keep control points), or do you skip your turn to control them (and need just a 2+)?  I also like that feeling of deciding to take a risk, only to have it implode on you.

The hard part, however, has been tweaking this system.  There are actually a ton of details that I feel like I need to get right.

First, when I initially made this, characters could not reroll the dice to see if they lose control point.  One play tester said this was unintuitive, since there is a way that characters can reroll most other dice rolls.  But, I tried making rerolls possible, and it felt like it lost something.  It went from, "Well, I think I can take a small risk... (rolls dice)... &@%#!!!" to "Well, I think I can take a small risk... (rolls dice)... Oh well, I guess I need to reroll that."  So, I'm making rerolls impossible.  

Second, initially creatures could act on the turn they were summoned.  This created a problem where a character could get close to their enemy, and then have a massive attack which the opponent couldn't respond to.  I changed this so that the summoned creatures don't act their first turn.  This gave the enemy time to respond, and also increased the push-your-luck system (i.e. Do you summon them early, and have them go crazy sooner, or wait, and potentially not have them when you need them?).

Last, I've needed to play around with modifiers to the dice roll.  As a baseline, you can keep each dice on the d6 roll of a 4+.  There are several modifiers, however.  For example, characters can give up their action to improve this, and I've played around with whether this should grant +1 or +2.  This is something I'm still tweaking.  

Sarah keeps teasing me that I should get rid of summoned creatures, in part because I need to keep tweaking their rules, and in part because summoned creatures are at the heart of many problems I've had.  But, I like them too much though, and I feel like I'm almost there.  I don't know, if I'm still struggling, maybe I drop them, but I think I can keep them.