7 replies to this topic

[KaneTheMediocre]

I'm working on a class system to make nerf wars fair and fun with a variety of unequal blasters and equipment. Team fortress classic and firearms half-life mod were my primary inspiration for this system. Stuff has point values, classes have point value budgets and special abilities.  None of this is in any way war tested at time of writing.  Anyways, I value your input even when I ignore it, and welcome you to hate on my system, suggest improvements to the system, make your own remix of the system, tell me what I've missed etc.  

Some stuff I know is fucked:
Sword and shield sizes are undefined.

Bandaging is not explained.

Really, none of the basic rules most of us take for granted are not explained.
Knight and Tank classes are just prefab equipment choices that couldn't be legal otherwise.  Sort of the same deal with the Grenadier and 

 

 

 

 

This is what I have so far:
Classes:

 

Light 10, instant respawn

Medium 15, 10s respawn

Grenadier, 8, 10s respawn, unlimited grenade carry and big ammo blasters are free

Medic 10, 20s respawn, fast bandaging

Mad Scientist 12, 20s respawn, adders and attached blasters are free

Heavy Weapons Guy 20, 40s respawn

/Knight 2 40s Gets free large shield and WTF, large, or small sword.

/Tank 3 60s Gets free large shield and attached blaster valued up to 10. 

 

Stuff:

 

Basic Sword +2

Single-shot nerf pistol +2 (stock)

Single HAMP +4 

Single Aabow +4 

STAN gun +4

Human powered nerf blasters +3 to +5 (stock)

Magazine-fed blowgun +5

small shield +6

Large sword +6

Battery powered nerf blasters +8 (stock)

Hopper Hamp +8 

Hopper Aabow +8 

Pullback springer w/ hopper +10

Pump-up air blaster w/ hopper +11

Pump-action springer w/ hopper +12

WTF sword +14

large shield +15

 

Adders:

 

Attached hopper blowgun +5

Attached (very) small shield +5

Bipod +1

Magazine ammo capacity +1 for every 10 darts after the first 10.

Other blaster ammo capacity +1 for every 20 darts after the first 10.  Extra magazines count.

 

Stock Ammo only -2

Big ammo only -2

Bow arms instead of spring -2

RSCB instead of hopper -2

single load instead of hopper -3

 

"Grenade" pouch +2

Bandage +1 each (medic only)

Bandage +4 each

 

starter classes:

Light 10, instant respawn

Medium 15, 10s respawn

Grenadier, 8, 20s respawn, unlimited grenade carry and big ammo blasters are free

Medic 10, 20s respawn, fast bandaging

Mad Scientist 12, 20s respawn, adders and attached blasters are free.

Heavy Weapons Guy 20, 40s respawn

Knight 2 40s Gets free large shield and WTF, large, or small sword.

Tank 3 60s Gets free large shield and attached blaster valued up to 10. 

 

  I chose not to distinguish between all the types of "singled" blasters- muzzle loaders, breech loaders, speedloaders are all treated the same as long as there's no magazine. 

 

I'm expecting/assuming the homemade springers and bows to all be roughly the same power, shooting about 200 fps with 1 gram darts.  I can get away with this more because I'm providing them, but even if I weren't actual range doesn't change much with more velocity than that, and I'll probably ban anything that shoots a LOT harder than that for safety.

 

 I also choose not to distinguish between the various blaster layouts (eg bullpup, double-rainbow, other different bullpup) or the type of catch.  And of course there are many other ergonomic factors that make some blasters easier to use than others, and I'm ignoring that too.

I also choose not to distinguish between a pullback blaster, bolt-action blaster, bad lever action, or any priming action which requires removing one or both of your hands from the ideal firing position .  

Pump action is meant to include things like (good) lever action, push-action, or any other priming action where your hands never leave the firing position when priming. 
Semi-auto is not likely to show up aside from battery powered nerf blasters, which (at least stock) don't have amazing performance and are categorized as 8 points. I don't know what a fair point value would be for a NIC powerful semi-auto so I havent assigned one.

 

Some stuff I know is fucked:

 

Sword and shield sizes are undefined.

Bandaging is not explained.

Really, none of the basic rules most of us take for granted are not explained.
Knight and Tank classes are just prefab equipment choices that couldn't be legal otherwise.  Sort of the same deal with the Grenadier and 

 

Modded blasters are not really part of my system yet.  I don't really have any, and if I'm lucky it's a question I won't have to deal with.  I just feel hopeless doing anything but a case-by-case analysis for modded blasters.

Blowguns are a HUGE omission in my system so far, with only STAN guns/hopper blowguns represented.  However, I'm not going to allow blowguns without an amazing mouthpiece or at least something flexible for the mouthpiece, and that kind of kills the simple pipe blowguns that dominate with old-school (not ancient-school) darts, and still work well with 50 cal darts.  However, there are a variety of magazine fed blowgun styles that don't present such a safety concern, and I would guess they would be in the 4-6 point range (I don't get sweet range with 50 cal blowguns) plus whatever magazine capacity adder.

 

Edited by KaneTheMediocre, 07 June 2017 - 11:23 PM.

[SkullBunny]

This is a cool system, but in practicality you would need a very dedicated group of people to memorize the rules enough to play effectively. This is pretty hard because the size of nerf wars are pretty inconsistent and have a lot of kids. As a camp counselor I know that even adults bicker and argue about rules and will do a lot to try and stay in, this is even worse with kids. You could implement a system of rps if there's a disagreement, but then people would just be wasting time. In a perfect nerf world this would be an awesome game type, and a lot of people are gonna be good sports about it, but it's a little too complex for a majority of people to memorize quickly espececially if there are kids.

[jwasko]

This would be more like a plan ahead type thing. Plan your loadout(s) and bring the required blasters to the war. No need to memorize the whole thing. It's like in some tabletop games (mostly x-wing and other miniature/war games)

 

The number after the classes is how many points they can spend, right?

 

A light can use a Pullback springer w/ hopper (such as a +bow with hopper?) and nothing else, or a pullback RSCB+Pistol...so pretty standard NIC war loadout but with instant respawn? Or they could go the other direction and have a stock ammo rapidstrike plus singled AAbow. Seems like kind of a lot.

 

A medium could use a pullback singleshot and, say, a rapidstrike using stock ammo, and a pistol. Again seems like a lot of gear for "medium" maybe.

[KaneTheMediocre]

This would be more like a plan ahead type thing. Plan your loadout(s) and bring the required blasters to the war. No need to memorize the whole thing. It's like in some tabletop games (mostly x-wing and other miniature/war games)

 

The number after the classes is how many points they can spend, right?

 

A light can use a Pullback springer w/ hopper (such as a +bow with hopper?) and nothing else, or a pullback RSCB+Pistol...so pretty standard NIC war loadout but with instant respawn? Or they could go the other direction and have a stock ammo rapidstrike plus singled AAbow. Seems like kind of a lot.

 

A medium could use a pullback singleshot and, say, a rapidstrike using stock ammo, and a pistol. Again seems like a lot of gear for "medium" maybe.

Realistically, no one will need to plan ahead because no one is going to bring their own blasters. I don't have an active nerf community in my area, so all I need to do is label the blasters that I bring.  The odd player that does bring something will be able to reasonably categorize it with this system.  Most likely attendees are from local LARP communities, which generally have much more complicated rules than this.

The first two examples are correct, but the Rapidstrike would count as a battery powered nerf blaster +8, single Aabow +4 for a total of 12.  The stock ammo only modifier (-2) does not apply to stock Nerf blasters (something I did not make clear) otherwise a basic nerf pistol would be +0.  So no pistol, but a single shot pullback and a rapidstrike WOULD fit in the "medium" class if neither held more than 10 darts, and if you think about it from a functional perspective, that's not more effective firepower than just blowing the whole medium point budget on a  pump-action springer with an XL magazine.  Although I might raise that threshhold to 20 so that mag-fed blasters can use a single 18 rnd mag without a magazine capacity penalty.


 

This is a cool system, but in practicality you would need a very dedicated group of people to memorize the rules enough to play effectively. This is pretty hard because the size of nerf wars are pretty inconsistent and have a lot of kids. As a camp counselor I know that even adults bicker and argue about rules and will do a lot to try and stay in, this is even worse with kids. You could implement a system of rps if there's a disagreement, but then people would just be wasting time. In a perfect nerf world this would be an awesome game type, and a lot of people are gonna be good sports about it, but it's a little too complex for a majority of people to memorize quickly espececially if there are kids.

I agree with what you're saying here.  I would never show up to an NIC war, and part-way through say "hey lets do this" like it was just another round.  This would be a semi-dedicated event, and NONE of the rules I've listed so far need to be memorized to play, you just need to refer to them when choosing loadout beforehand (which hosts can help with as needed). 

Edited by KaneTheMediocre, 04 June 2017 - 05:28 PM.

[Meaker VI]

I like what you're doing with the respawn timers for the classes; as a player I can see them thinking "I'm X class, I get Y respawn" and it mostly working. You'd need non-cheaters or clear badging; but I'm used to indoor play where I can't see the opponent's spawn.

 

For now, I'd ignore actual values for everything. Light gets a faster respawn than Medium/Grenadier than medic/scientist/ than Heavy/knight than tank. That's what matters. The exact numbers don't until you've got your ruleset fleshed out a bit more.

 

Special equipment is ok for a few (very few!) players, as you'll provide it - even if starting out you're providing everything the goal is growth and you can't provide everybody everything forever. Big Shields, VLRLs (Very Large Rocket Launchers), Big/any swords (depending on sword use; I'd just use pool noodles cut in half since it's NERF and - at least my group - is not expecting/prepared for melee), objective stuff, bandages, etc.

 

I do not like the point system as written. A better system I saw that I liked had very vague limits that allowed people showing up with whatever to play, mostly without compromising their gear. Here, let me write how I'd adapt your system for you. I'm tired, so it may be weird and could be expanded upon, but the goal is to give players special-sounding abilities that actually don't require any/much outside moderation to enable:

 

Classes:

Players must declare the class they are playing at the start of a game round. They may switch over the course of several game rounds. When asked they must identify, and (ideally) they should wear the class insignia.

• Light (AKA Ninja): Gets the fastest respawn, can only carry one of pistols, secondary, blowgun or thrown objects. Scavenger-only.
• Medium (AKA Scavenger, Skirmisher, Designated Marksman, etc.): Gets the next fastest respawn, up to three standard equipment slots, except for pistols, each must be of a different type.
• Grenadier: Same as medium, can carry infinite ammo but only one standard-equipment-type.
• Specialist: Same as medium, can carry one special equipment and pistols, secondary, blowgun or thrown-objects.
• Heavy: 3rd respawn, Can carry up to three standard and one special equipment.
• Mule: 3rd respawn, Can carry infinite ammo and a stock of extra standard-equipment in a backpack for teammates to use. Same as medium otherwise.
• Medic: 3rd respawn, Same as medium but can heal teammates by using their supply of bandages.
• Support: 4th respawn, can carry up to two special and one standard equipment
• Tank/Juggernaut: 4th respawn, gets bonus hitpoints, same as heavy

Standard Equipment:

• Pistols: Any single-action blaster you can holster that is roughly the size of a standard drill (TTG, Nightfinder, Hammershot, Strongarm, Maverick, Whipblast, Etc. etc.) Stock, carry as many as you want (baring in mind; rebarreling counts as a mods if it causes the blaster to break 100 FPS). Performance mod exceeding 100 but less than 150 FPS, carry up to two, exceeding 150 FPS only one
• Blowgun: A blowgun. Totally separate category.
• Secondaries: Any single or semi-auto blaster that you can reasonably holster, or any blaster with less than 12 rounds capacity. Carry two stock or one modded and up to 36 rounds capacity.
• Primaries: Any single or semi-auto blaster that would need a sling or exceeds 12 rounds capacity but is less than 71 rounds capacity. Any user with a blaster in this category can carry up to 71 rounds capacity for the blaster. Carry two stock or one modded.
• Thrown Objects: Socks, foam balls, whatever your game allows that can be thrown. One slot of these allows up to 12 objects.
• Shields: 18" square, protect from hits by standard projectiles, swords, and thrown objects.
• Swords: 24" long, one hit = one tag.
• Extra Mags: Can carry an additional 71 rounds capacity
• Bigger Mags: Can use mags larger than 12 rounds, but within other capacity limits.

Special Equipment:

• SAW/Heavies: Any full-auto blaster. Stock: Unlimited capacity, mags can be any size. Modded: up to 150 rounds capacity, mags can be any size.
• Big Sheilds: X'xX', protects from hits as shield.
• Launchers: Any blaster that fires a special (pending gametype) projectile. Blasters in this category score bonus points, break shields, insta-out players and Juggernauts, etc. Users can carry up to 12 rounds, no distinction stock/modded.

Perks:

Every player gets one to start, and can be awarded additional perks by the moderators. Perks must remain the same throughout a game round, but may change over the course of several rounds. They come in two flavors: Permanent (you always have it during the round) and Usable (remove and tear up when used). Perks should (ideally) be displayed prominently on the player using them.

 

Permanent:

• Extra mags - carry 3 more mags
• Extra capacity - carry any size mag, up to limits permitted by class/equipment
• Extra hitpoint - add 1 hitpoint to your total
• First aid - carry X bandaids to heal teamates with
• Grenades! - carry up to 3 thrown objects
• Parting shots - empty the current blaster on any target after being tagged out before moving toward spawn/starting to count spawn times
• I'm taking you with me - one opposing player who can be touched within two steps of your position is eliminated when you are tagged out
• Holdout - carry an extra single-shot pistol

Useable:

• We're all going with me! - all opposing players within two steps of your position are eliminated when you are tagged out
• You only live twice - respawn immediately without dropping objectives, counting, or returning to base. You may wait until darts stop flying at you to use this.
• Teleported - on respawn, use to position yourself wherever you want on the battlefield - tear up on arrival at your destination
• (You get 2 cards) Shot through the heart - Use this card on hitting an opponent once with any projectile to eliminate them.

Errata:

• Ammo: Bulk carry as many standard darts (& Boomco, HIRs, Mega; gametype pending) as you care to. Limits apply to mag-reloads of any kind and mags, drums, clips, RSCB's, Hoppers, or cylinders/turrets exceeding 12 rounds.
• FPS: Fuzzy math applied; if you're the only guy skirting the rules with a pile of 145 FPS pistols, count them as 150. Average of XX shots with X dart type.
• Mods: Don't refer to cosmetic changes. Performance only will be measured.
• Bandages: Index cards the medic tears to remove a hit from a tagged player adjacent to them of their choosing.
• Scavenger: Cannot carry additional ammo in magazines/etc. Just in pockets.
• Hitpoints: Assuming normal 3:15/30 or whatever gameplay, how many times you can be hit to be tagged out. The bonus for the tank would probably be double hits.
• 12 Rounds Capacity: Stock nerf mid-cap mag. In the case of players without such mags available, limit the total mags carried such that the total capacity is less than 71 darts.
• "X": Some of these numbers are intentionally fuzzy and will depend enormously on the number of players and gametype. In one of my 3:30 games, with 25 people on a team and 3 teams on the field, carrying 10 bandages as a perk wouldn't be unreasonable. A 5'x3' sheild would also probably be possible because of the terrain I use and because so many people are available with rockets. YMMV.

[Lasagna]

I would probably limit it to around 3 easy to memorize classes. That's all I can remember when I am playing TF2 XP but really, if you have a whole bunch of limitations and things on people abilities and guns, it's hard to keep it straight. Think of Amtgard classes. Everyone ha different weapon abilities and spells and levels and all this shit and it's hard to memorize.

[Meaker VI]

I would probably limit it to around 3 easy to memorize classes. That's all I can remember when I am playing TF2 XP but really, if you have a whole bunch of limitations and things on people abilities and guns, it's hard to keep it straight. Think of Amtgard classes. Everyone ha different weapon abilities and spells and levels and all this shit and it's hard to memorize.

 

That's the idea though - the only people that need to know their class are the people using that class so they know how long they take to respawn and what they can use. They do the deciding and equipping at the start of the round, once that's figured they *should* just be able to play as they would regularly and not think about it too much - darts still tag and after some number of tags you're still going to respawn.

 

I'd prefer to also set it up so that people basically show up with whatever they usually use and fit into a class or a class and take a perk to fit most of their normal gear - they shouldn't be limited to using certain gear or prevented from using something (As I've seen in many class-based setup ideas - e.g. the notorious "loser" class that can only use bolt action blasters, which is really just a handicap when someone with a full-auto modded rapidstrike can fire just about as far/accurately and at full auto). They get balanced into the game by taking longer to spawn; the only thing they might need to do is drop extra mags to limit the total ammo carried by any given player.

 

I don't disagree that limiting the class count might be better; if I were thinking more clearly I'd probably have called it light/medium/heavy/tank, they spawn in that order, and they can somehow flexibly pick equipment to make any of the 'subclasses'. Maybe regular equipment is one point, special equipment is three, and extra HP and bandages are an equipment type; each class gets some number of extra points over the class prior.

 

Edit: Hur dur, equipment being points is basically what Kane did. Alright, so Kane I still don't like the point system you used, but because you're trying to assign points to individual blasters and not broadly to all blasters. There are only so many real blaster types, so let's take those in approximate worst-best order (High-end Springers get more power than flywheels, but the FPS really levels things out when it takes several shots to tag someone out) :

 

Stringer/direct, HAMP, Springer, Pneumatic/on-field refilling (LPA), Flywheel, Pneumatic/off-field refilling ("HPA" or large-tank LPA)

 

Then add subclasses of blaster types, sameish order:

 

Manual prime/fire/triggerless, Bolt-action (A bad action IMO, YMMV), Bow-action triggerless, Slide-action, pullback (rated highly for reliability and ease of use for all comers), double-action (Snapfire 8), lever or hammer-action, whip-action, pump-action, semi-auto, full auto

 

Then the magazine types, still my opinion in rough order:

 

Single, speedloader, RSCB, small turret (no more than 12), Y-Hopper, swappable or rear-loading turret (no more than 12), small mags (up to 12 again), large turret, large mags, big hoppers (HIRicane, Proton Pack, Nemisis, maybe my coil thing if it works out and people other than just me use it)

 

I'd probably provide a chart to figure out the point values of each blaster any person wanted to carry, have a modifier for FPS, add some number for carried capacity (spare turrets, shells, mags, etc.; not bulk darts), and then let them pick whichever class was available to them from there or opt to drop equipment for a faster-spawning class.

Edited by Meaker VI, 05 June 2017 - 12:26 PM.

[KaneTheMediocre]

I would probably limit it to around 3 easy to memorize classes. That's all I can remember when I am playing TF2 XP but really, if you have a whole bunch of limitations and things on people abilities and guns, it's hard to keep it straight. Think of Amtgard classes. Everyone ha different weapon abilities and spells and levels and all this shit and it's hard to memorize.

My theory was that "light" "medium" and "heavy", being only a budget and a spawn time, would require minimal reading (weapons would be tagged, unique personal weapons would be easily figured out relative to tagged blasters).  I am definitely trying not to be amtguard in that sense.  

 

 

tons of stuff

So my expected environment is outside with mobstacles and a few trees, and we'll almost entirely be using my blasters.  I'm not expecting anyone to show up with more than a stock nerf blaster.  I think most of your changes are adaptive to the indoor environment you're anticipating.  I like your classes, and I like the idea of having all the classes, but I'm also very tempted to just make it light/medium/heavy for simplicity.  I definitely don't want to go down the route of having people yell things at other people as part of their abilities.  I get what you're going for by dividing blasters by type rather than effectiveness to define classes and it's cool (as well as makes classes more interesting), but I like the idea that any class can choose what sort of amament they use (ie range vs rof vs capacity vs mobility vs whatever else) even if they can't choose the best of that particular sort of thing.  For example, a light can use a pullback springer for a long-ranged focus, but not a pump action springer, or an airgun, or even a pullback springer with a large magazine.  A light also has many close-range/high ROF options like the STAN gun or a flywheel blaster, but can't use a pump-action springer with a hopper blowgun attachment.  And it can use a small sword and small shield  with 2 points leftover for a pistol, or large sword but no shield for 4 points leftover for a blaster, etc.
.

 

 

 

Even more stuff

So I consider multiple hitpoints to be kind of toxic.  Makes cheating more ambiguous when you see it.  You do you with your system, but just understand that I personally don't like it and wouldn't put it in mine.  

It was always the intent to represent classes of blasters, not individual blasters.  Obviously it's not 100% all-encompasing, but it's a start until someone shows up with something that doesn't fit into the classes.  A lot of the interesting stock blasters just need to be assigned their own values on the spot, which is why I summarized them as "human powered nerf blasters".  I'm not expecting them to be useless by any means, but without TONS of cover range is a pretty big deal, which is why all the homemade springers are so much more points than the nerf blasters.

There will always be features and aspects of nerf blasters that aren't reflected in the system, for mine some of them are a deliberate choice for simplicity.  I chose not to distinguish between all the types of "singled" blasters- muzzle loaders, breech loaders, speedloaders are all treated the same as long as there's no magazine. This was not made clear.

I'm expecting/assuming the homemade springers and bows to all be roughly the same power, shooting about 200 fps with 1 gram darts.  I can get away with this more because I'm providing them, but even if I weren't actual range doesn't change much with more velocity than that, and people generally just don't build homemades with much less velocity than that.

 

 I also chose not to distinguish between the various blaster layouts (eg bullpup, double-rainbow, other different bullpup) or the type of catch.  And of course there are many other ergonomic factors that make some blasters easier to use than others.  This was not made clear.
 

I also chose not to distinguish between a pullback blaster, bolt-action blaster, bad lever action, or any priming action which requires removing one or both of your hands from the ideal firing position .  I didn't make this clear either.

Pump action was meant to include things like (good) lever action, push-action, or any other priming action where your hands never leave the firing position when priming.  This is an educational process in things that I didn't make clear.

Semi-auto was not likely to show up aside from battery powered nerf blasters, which (at least stock) don't have amazing performance and are categorized as 8 points. 

Any homemade weirder than that is extremely unlikely to appear in any community.  

Modded blasters are not really part of my system yet.  I don't really have any, and if I'm lucky it's a question I won't have to deal with.  I just feel hopeless doing anything but a case-by-case analysis for modded blasters.

Blowguns are a HUGE omission in my system so far, with only STAN guns/hopper blowguns represented.  However, I'm not going to allow blowguns without an amazing mouthpiece or at least something flexible for the mouthpiece, and that kind of kills the simple pipe blowguns that dominate with old-school (not ancient-school) darts, and still work well with 50 cal darts.  However, there are a variety of magazine fed blowgun styles that don't present such a safety concern, and I would guess they would be in the 4-6 point range (I don't get sweet range with 50 cal blowguns) plus whatever magazine capacity adder.