Titanomachina: Building Custom Titans

Titanomachina was designed to be modular, to allow players to swap out systems on both the Titan figurines and on their corresponding Titan dashboards and card decks. As it stands the systems on the dashboards and figurines are fixed. It's something I'm working on. But, frankly, the systems on the figurines do not need to be modular and it's just something that (a) helps with immersion, and (b) gives a certain kind of person something to collect and fiddle with, not that they're collectible at the moment. 

In the meantime, however, I think it would be interesting to put up a little booklet I made talking about how to put a Titan dashboard and deck together. 

Titan Builder Manual

It's worth mentioning the following should be included in a Titanomachina box:

• 2-4 Titan figurines 5cm (2-4 lower bodies, 2-4 upper bodies, 12-24 weapons)
• 1 Board (9x9 with 5cm squares)
• Building blocks 25x25x25mm (25 per Titan, including 1 for initiative tracking)
• Deadline marker
• Titan system (126) and dashboard cards (1x-4x per Titan), poker-sized
• 10 Shield tokens (transparent bingo chips) per Titan
• 48 road tiles (24 road/roundabouts, 24 L/T junctions, 5cm square)
• Dry-erase markers (1-4)
• Rules booklet (16 pages)
• Titan Builder Manual booklet (16 pages)

Titanomachina: Brainstorming New Systems

For a while now I have planned to expand the range of systems available for Titans, mainly by making sure that the core 'engine' of the game was robust enough that I could add new content that expanded on existing rules and structures rather than adding new mechanics. Some of this was pulled back from the version that was Kickstarted, and some of this relates to the utility buildings that have been pulled back from the online versions. I should start working on it again, as I feel really good about how the core game is working now. 

Configuration Cog: This was intended to allow players to move their system tokens around in their Titan System Diagrams, and maybe even swap out systems for other systems. It's difficult to implement online when the System Diagrams are not modular anymore. Nonetheless, it's possible that it could give a Titan a second Dashboard, essentially switching it out so that the Titan has a second mode composed of the same number of systems with the same configuration of damage and shields. Enable your Titan to transform...

Teleporter: Jump Jets are fun, but in terms of movement it would be fun to have a system that allows a Titan to move itself freely around the board. The tricky part is essentially how this differs from jump jet systems, aside from a greater freedom of movement, and what the cost of doing so might be. 

Holographic/Stealth fields: This is fun from a design standpoint as there is already an established set of rules and mechanics for stuff being located on the board, sensors and the placement of buildings. I think it would be interesting to have both some interaction with the sensor system, and also a form of blocking rather than replicate essentially what a teleporter would do, which is to reposition the Titan on the board. One suggestion, easily implemented online but less so in meat-space, is to simply have multiples of a Titan figurine on the board. My idea would be a system allowing a Titan to block attacks using nearby buildings rather than, say, its own onboard systems. 

Drones: Because having an additional little widget wandering around the board doing stuff for a Titan would be both an entertaining feature, and should dovetail nicely with the implementation of 'conventional' forces of infantry and tanks and whatnot. Essentially the drone would have some actions (move/attack, move/detect, move/shield) that it could do while its Titan is safely away. 

Passive Onboard Systems: One thought was to have systems that cannot be activated to do anything, but that exist to bolster existing systems, such as to increase the number of cards drawn, decrease the cost of charging systems, increase the effect of systems, or to otherwise given a Titan's active systems a bonus rather like how Extra Armour has the Telemetry rule. 

Expanded Existing Systems: 

Limbs: There's space for new kinds of limbs, and even stuff that's limb-like, like tracks and other motive units. There's certainly space for weak, stubby legs, and for tentacles or flexible arms like cephalopods. 

Weapons: Likewise there's space for a range of weapons, particularly missile weapons can be expanded beyond the rocket pod, and additional space for traits that enable things like ignoring line of sight, doing weird things with range, and especially stuff like swords, axes, flails, lances, and even shields (as extra armour/shield hybrids). That is, after all, why I re-jigged the Dashboards so that systems can be added on top of other systems, provided a certain kind of weapon with a certain trait is present to hold them. 

Jump Jets: Given how these things are numbered, and how they've developed (capacitors I'm looking at you) I think it's probably worth rationalizing Plasma Capacitors/Plasma Cells as simply Capacitors 1 & Capacitors 2 too. Likewise Thrusters 2 and Plasma Jets 2, and maybe call the Thrusters 'Plasma Thrusters' or some such. Someone suggested having retro-thrusters would be handy, as being able to jump backwards over an opponent could be useful at the moment. I've also thought it would be neat to have Wings or somesuch, enabling something of a hybrid between jump movement and walking movement. 

Extra Armour: Likewise, being able to pile on some more Extra Armour (4, 5, etc), and maybe just some variations on it, like the aforementioned Shield enabling both shield tokens and blocking. 

Titanomachina on Tabletop Playground

The good news is that I have Titanomachina up on a platform that isn't Tabletop Simulator, still obtainable via Steam (and all the issues around Valve and its cultivation of hatred), but not on the Steam Workshop. I haven't made a bespoke rule book for Tabletop Playground just yet, but it's my next item on the agenda, after getting Titanomachina up on Tabletopia. 

Link to Titanomachina on Tabletop Playground's mod.io site. 

There's quite a few interesting differences, primarily that I can barely run Tabletop Playground on an old Windows 8 machine (forgot to upgrade to Windows 10) because of some weird error on one Windows 10 machine, and causing another to crash every time I launch the app. I expect other people will have difficulty with this as well. On the other hand, when it works it works well, allowing me to dump the confinement of the table, and upload directly from my Tabletop Simulator folder. Of course the logic and layout is all different, and sometimes it works, such as the snap-to grids on board elements (and not just overload over the table), and sometimes it doesn't, such as editing a game and playing a game are separate modes. It also lacks a drawing function, although the official word is that they're working on it; fortunately Titanomachina was initially designed to use tokens for systems, damage, and shields, and I've added the light/heavy damage and destroyed tokens back into the game - the destroyed tokens don't have the specific systems on the obverse, but it might be something to see about getting that original modularity back into the game if I can. It's this sort of thing that needs to be covered in the Tabletop Playground edition. 

So far I'm keeping Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator because it is the big fish and while Berserk Games have responded with long overdue action (torpedoing their terrible global chat) and two half-assed apologies, they were terrible long before I managed to put Titanomachina on there. I suspect many, like myself, carefully closed up the global chat and avoided the public discord long ago; you can still use Tabletop Simulator perfectly well if you use it to play with your friends and vetted acquaintances. Its loss has no practical impact on me. Maybe I would feel differently if I received a torrent of negative attention for Titanomachina. 

I'm certainly fortunate in that regard. 

Tabletop Simulator and hosting Titanomachina

 Currently I am hosting Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator. At the beginning of the Pandemic I had recently come off a 2nd unsuccessful (to put it mildly) Kickstarter for Titanomachina and wanted to see what I could do to get people playing. I figured that maybe making it available to be played would encourage people to play it, and since I couldn't afford to pay for marketing and advertising, I hoped word-of-mouth might work. Also, given that there was a Pandemic starting, maybe people would be hopping on Tabletop Simulator so they could maintain their usual hectic schedule of game nights and socializing with friends. 

However, I noticed once I loaded it up that it had a global chat, and that global chat was, like every other unmoderated space, garbage. So I decided to ignore the chat and start by inviting friends to play on invitation-only servers. The neat part was, of course, that I could play with friends across the country and not just the people in my city. Tabletop Simulator actually expanded the circle of people I could play with, since I could play with all my friends and not just the ones living near me. I'm extremely pleased with how Titanomachina has developed since then. I wish I could say the same about Tabletop Simulator and board games in general. 

To put it mildly, the tabletop gaming community has some serious issues. Some aver that those issues stem from having so many unmoderated and unwelcoming venues filled with cis-het white neckbeards behaving the way they always do, which is badly. I agree with that analysis. I also agree with the conclusion that an apolitical space in which to enjoy games is impossible, since playing together is a political act, much like eating together, having sex together, and otherwise existing together on this planet. 

Many of these issues would be ameliorated if we actively curated the spaces we host for racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and so on, so as to exclude bad actors. Tabletop Simulator did not actively curate its global chat, and pushed back when someone rightly pointed out that the half-assed keywording policy they used because they don't have sufficient resources to properly moderate was actively harming their global chat/discord/whatever. Berserk Games apologized badly, apologized badly again and nuked the global chat, and we'll see what they do next. Now the trolls, assholes, and general shitbags have crawled out of the woodwork to applaud Berserk Games for their handling of the situation, and we're discovering another unmoderated space, the ratings for Tabletop Simulator on Steam. 

Now Tabletop Simulator is on the shitlist of reasonable people, and that means I need to find another platform for Titanomachina, because Tabletop Simulator is clearly a bad fit. So far I'm trying Tabletop Playground, but apparently I'm missing a driver and it looks like I may need to return that for a refund because I can't stop getting an error that simply updating my ActiveX drivers should solve. I mean, I would prefer to stick with TTS because of the sunk cost fallacy, and my own crass indolence, but apparently that's not a live option any more. 

Given that this has happened with TTS, I have no doubt that this will happen again with another platform, because everyone wants engagement and nobody wants to spend money on moderation or curation. Also, that the community is the problem, and so the garbage will likewise migrate to the new platform. So I'm doing to have a crack at Tabletopia as well because it looks like having all the Titanomachina eggs in one basket is a terrible idea, especially when I should have realized it was a terrible idea going in. Of course, I could just pull the plug on the entire project and move on, but I'm not there yet. Getting close, but not quite.

Codes of Conduct in Rule Books

Here's a thread I wrote on Twitter, having seen some discussion of why codes of conduct for games should written into their rule books, and (naturally) some push back on this:

Lately there's been talk of including a Player Code of Conduct in game rule books. I think that's a good idea, and I really need to add one to the Titanomachina rule book. Why? Here's a thread.

I used to play Warhammer, and if there was a problem with Warhammer it was the blind-dating, 'bring-and-battle' thing where people would show up to a store, agree to game, and then be pissy because the other person did it wrong (too hard, too soft, etc).

This also happened in leagues and among friends, where people assumed that if the rules did not specifically prohibit something, it was permitted. People would be annoyed because the game wasn't how they imagined it should be.

This is all quite aside from people being harassed or ostracized in public gaming spaces but, I think, strongly related. Because it was assumed people would just play nicely together when that is evidently not always the case.

Games like Warhammer require a whole lot of cooperation for players to be able to compete against each other. Rules for what material you can bring and how you can use it do not cover 90% of what goes on at a gaming table for the game to happen, let alone complete satisfactorily.

So far the rules for Titanomachina (on Tabletop Simulator) only tell you how to play the 'game.' In technical writing terms that is a defect, because a good manual (and a good rule book in my opinion) tells you why, and what to expect, as well as what to do if you want something.

When writing a manual one should always include an introduction to each section (and to the whole) including the PCO (Purpose, Context, and Organization) because users should not be left to guess how these things are meant to be applied and to what end.

Where Titanomachina is specifically an adversarial game, where players take the role of giant machines hell-bent on beating each other to scrap, players especially need reminding that the game is intended to be enjoyed by everybody at the table.

There's a 'mercy' rule in Titanomachina whereby the game ends if one player is too far ahead, but if someone walks into the game expecting an exploration of the game space while another is planning a mugging, both are going to have a bad time and both will rightly blame the game.

Which brings me back to codes of conduct regarding what is acceptable at the table. I don't want Titanomachina to become limited to cis-hetero white neckbeards, and associated with the kind of behaviour we (I'm a cis-bi white neckbeard) are prone to exhibiting.

Having a code of conduct in the rule book seems ideal for reminding all the chuds looking at the game that they can (a) go play grab-ass elsewhere, or (b) demolish the megalopolises of the future like civilized persons.

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: Updating Eos Configurations 2 & 3

I've mucked around with Eos' 2 & 3 configurations before, trying to get the arms and weapons situated in an entertaining way that's consistent with the other Titan layouts. In particular, making sure the system diagram both makes sense, makes Eos' arcs fun and interesting to play, and bringing that 'two arms good, four arms better' look to the foreground. This second time through, I have had the idea of putting the deflectors back in the hip/kidney area, and swapping out the extra armour 1 & 2 for sponsons 1 & 2. The sponsons would go in the spinal position, on the middle rear square of the System Diagram. The arms and weapons would then be moved over the legs, making for a more conventional layout with shields, sensors, sponsons, and most arms & legs in the usual spots. This does reduce the Titan's defensive potential, since it only has the extra armour 3 system protecting its front, but it can also use the sponsons to make sure all four weapons can into its front 90° arc, and its rear 90° arc should the need arise. The sponsons help the Titan retain its ability to block incoming fire, at a greater cost than the extra armour, but it's there. Conveniently sponsons and extra armour are both 1 human resource each to equip. 

Previously, well, I'm sure everyone that took Eos out for a spin on TTS knows what was going on. Hopefully this is an improvement! If it isn't, or maybe there's some improvement that could be made, please let me know in the comments. Yes, they're actively moderated, since otherwise my comments would be a cesspool of ads and spam, comments from real people tend to get approved.