GCE Core Rules feedback and suggestions

[Flamekebab]

Does a vehicle falling down occur that often? I feel that it could easily be put somewhere in the situational rules. I think that for a 'common' table you won't need it at all most of the time.

I don't understand what "a vehicle falling down" means in this context. Could you elaborate?

Under DA MEKBOY’Z WORKSHOP in the Gorker Morker Faction book:

This is minor, but there's "Da Big Day Table on page 29 with no reference about what to do with it. I think it's obvious that you pick your upgrade and roll on the table, but there's no text indicating you do so.

Excellent point.

Also, on the same page, you might need a sentence explaining the Bioniks. Something like. "If one of your warriors has received Kustom Bioniks from the Dok, then the Mekboy can upgrade it."

Also a good idea.

I've been going through the book to try and make a condensed version of the rules for my players, so they can have one small document for everything that 'we' need (we're playing with Ork Klans and gorkamorka faction book). I think I'll be able to condense everything I need into about 12 pages. I'll share it later for a fresh set of eyes, but I don't expect you to update anything else based off of those condensed version, since my version may include some house-rules as well.

I really appreciate you going through this stuff with a fine toothed comb. It's very easy for me to get too close to it and no longer be able to tell whether something is any good or not.

I couldn't find the guidelines on how to pivot the vehicles, but I was giving the rules a brief glimpse. I think in the original it clearly stated that it should be around the relative center of the vehicle to avoid cheating out extra distance when turning.

Ugh, I can't believe we missed that. Good point!

 

[JawRippa]

I don't understand what "a vehicle falling down" means in this context. Could you elaborate?

Never mind, this one I've read out in the wrong document

 

[Gornn65]

One more thing I found, I think you should mention in the Faction book that warriors who level up, should roll on the Advance Table.
And either repeat the advance table in this book, or refer to the page number in the campaign book.

 

[Gornn65]

In the Campaign Book under Dakka:
"The Warrior may also ignore the -1 to hit penalty caused by firing from a moving Vehicle."

Should this read, 'ignore the -1 hit penalty from shooting from a vehicle that Thrusted.'

 

[Flamekebab]

In the Gorker/Morker faction pack 1.33 the datacard substitutions weren't done correctly because muggins here gave the parameter "--page 18 18" rather than "--page 18 19"...

 

[Flamekebab]

One more thing I found, I think you should mention in the Faction book that warriors who level up, should roll on the Advance Table.
And either repeat the advance table in this book, or refer to the page number in the campaign book.

This one is a little tricky as the campaign book already contains it and including it in the faction packs suggests that the table there is different (as otherwise why include it, if you follow the logic?). If the two tables are in actuality the same then giving players a reason to suspect they're different seems like bad design. I'm fairly sure we actually already do this in one of the faction packs because they've been written with so much time in between!

That said, the skill tables are not reproduced in the faction pack so the player rolling an advance will already need to have that section open for skills. We don't make references to page numbers between books as that causes no end of headaches.

In the Campaign Book under Dakka:
"The Warrior may also ignore the -1 to hit penalty caused by firing from a moving Vehicle."

Should this read, 'ignore the -1 hit penalty from shooting from a vehicle that Thrusted.'

Fixed the wording to mention fast moving vehicles (and a definition thereof).

In the Campaign Book under Dakka:
"The Warrior may also ignore the -1 to hit penalty caused by firing from a moving Vehicle."

Should this read, 'ignore the -1 hit penalty from shooting from a vehicle that Thrusted.'

I created a diagram and added a section to hopefully improve matters!

 

[Gornn65]

We don't make references to page numbers between books as that causes no end of headaches.

Totally fair, that's nightmare fuel, and I take back the suggestion.

If the two tables are in actuality the same then giving players a reason to suspect they're different seems like bad design

This is a good argument, and likely the easiest fix for this. If the intent is not to have any overlap, I'd take a look at the Income section of The Faction book, as there are some duplicate tables there that look the same as the campaign book.

Perhaps in the Campaign book at the very start of the "Post Game" section, there could be a list that breaks down the steps and where to reference the info. ie:

Post Game.

1. Check Down and Out of Action warriors for Injuries
2. Retirements and Deaths of warriors
3. Check Wrecked and Immobilized vehicles
4. Experience
   1. Check Scenario for XP bonuses
   2. Check Underdog Bonus*
   3. Level up your warriors using the Advance Table
   4. Apply new skills*
   5. Check for Leadership Disputes*
5. Income
   1. Roll for Scrap
   2. Check the Difference in Mob Ratiing*
   3. Check the faction to determine the mobs income
   4. Deal with upkeep, then keep the profit.
6. Spend your teef!
   1. Review your faction to see what equipment is available to you and what the costs are

*Use the campaign book by default, unless the faction overrides or adds to this table. (although maybe this should just say "any faction may override any or all of the tables from the campaign book, please reference both books when levelling up.")

Just a thought.

 

[Flamekebab]

This is a good argument, and likely the easiest fix for this. If the intent is not to have any overlap, I'd take a look at the Income section of The Faction book, as there are some duplicate tables there that look the same as the campaign book.

In this case there is now editorial direction but there wasn't always. Previously we hadn't got enough iterations in and the documents were so WiP that keeping it consistent was almost a fool's errand.

With the completion of the books it's now possible to do some work to make them more consistent. We'll see how much I have time to do. It's still significantly easier now the documents are all laid out in ODT though. My gods iteration was a nightmare before.

Perhaps in the Campaign book at the very start of the "Post Game" section, there could be a list that breaks down the steps and where to reference the info. ie:

Post Game.

1. Check Down and Out of Action warriors for Injuries
2. Retirements and Deaths of warriors
3. Check Wrecked and Immobilized vehicles
4. Experience
   1. Check Scenario for XP bonuses
   2. Check Underdog Bonus*
   3. Level up your warriors using the Advance Table
   4. Apply new skills*
   5. Check for Leadership Disputes*
5. Income
   1. Roll for Scrap
   2. Check the Difference in Mob Ratiing*
   3. Check the faction to determine the mobs income
   4. Deal with upkeep, then keep the profit.
6. Spend your teef!
   1. Review your faction to see what equipment is available to you and what the costs are

*Use the campaign book by default, unless the faction overrides or adds to this table. (although maybe this should just say "any faction may override any or all of the tables from the campaign book, please reference both books when levelling up.")

Just a thought.

Hah, I managed to procrastinate long enough that someone else put together a post-game reminder list! Mwuhahaha! It only took fifteen years!

 

[Gornn65]

In this case there is now editorial direction but there wasn't always. Previously we hadn't got enough iterations in and the documents were so WiP that keeping it consistent was almost a fool's errand.

With the completion of the books it's now possible to do some work to make them more consistent. We'll see how much I have time to do. It's still significantly easier now the documents are all laid out in ODT though. My gods iteration was a nightmare before.


Hah, I managed to procrastinate long enough that someone else put together a post-game reminder list! Mwuhahaha! It only took fifteen years!

hah, happy to be crazy enough to go through this all and flag things.

I would happily volunteer to do the work of updating and making things more consistent, if you let me use InDesign, but otherwise I'm going to avoid ODT like the plague, its given me nothing but problems when I tried to use the templates.

Also... after using Indesign and QuarkXpress for nearly 3 decades. My brain will not allow me to use a word processor for layout.

 

[Flamekebab]

Updates are up!

GCE 2.0.1 Update

Probably the most active Gorkamorka site on the internet

gorkamorka.co.uk

I've also been good and documented the release process on the GCE Nextcloud so it's not just on my laptop.

 

[Knightsos]

By this point, I've played 5 games of GCE, most of them were with 3 players.
Great fun was had, but we also had to deal with a lot of frustration.

Having to cycle through 4 different PDFS to find some scrap of information is not fun. I wish there was a single collated and searchable pdf of the Core Rules, Campaign Rules and Gorkers & Morker Faction pack.

 

[Flamekebab]

They're really designed for print, but you could just combine the three PDFs. Here's those three plus the scenario book in one.

The eventual plan is for a web-based version of the rulebooks for players wanting to go entirely digital but my hands are a little too full of baby to do further work on that right now.

 

[Gornn65]

They're really designed for print, but you could just combine the three PDFs. Here's those three plus the scenario book in one.

The eventual plan is for a web-based version of the rulebooks for players wanting to go entirely digital but my hands are a little too full of baby to do further work on that right now.

How can I help enable the web-based version?

Also, I found another item to look at, or I guess I should say I'm curious if you can remember why you guys changed the Iz It Safe Table to put "Which Wun Wuz It" on it's own separate roll?

Did you find that players were not having enough consequences and wanted to add the extra roll? or just that it sounded like a fun thing to add in?

 

[Flamekebab]

How can I help enable the web-based version?

Babysit?

Joking aside, I'm hacking on it here and there when I can. Currently I'm having a bit of a fight with how tables are converted (I need to figure out how the styles applied in ODT are handled for tables so that I can turn all cells that have #DDDDDD as their background into <th> cells).

Once that's under control there's a few other things I need to sort out (I'm not sure how things like Sphinx automatically creates an index from headings - once I figure out the equivalent then the sidebar on the finished site will populate). I might want to do something crazy like add in hover options for capitalised words, but we'll see where we end up on that sort of thing.

Then I'll need someone to correctly tag all diagrams in the ODT files the right way (the title property needs to be "diagram"). That way illustrations get one set of properties, diagrams get another and end up inline.

Then I've got to sort out the CSS, which should be both a doddle and a pain in the arse. Hopefully I can find something that handles mobile clients well, otherwise I'll just write it myself.

Also, I found another item to look at, or I guess I should say I'm curious if you can remember why you guys changed the Iz It Safe Table to put "Which Wun Wuz It" on it's own separate roll?

Did you find that players were not having enough consequences and wanted to add the extra roll? or just that it sounded like a fun thing to add in?

I'm pretty knackered this evening so I apologise if I'm a bit daft, but I don't quite follow. In Gorkamorka's rules one normally has to roll to see if the Dok got the right limb (page 80 of Da Uvver Book: "Roll a D6 to determine which arm has been kustomised. On a 1-3 it is the left and on a 4-6 it is the right. This roll is made regardless of which arm has been injured!", same on page 81, same for bionik eyes). The only thing we changed was to make a 6 on the Iz It Safe table (Da Big Day table) bypass that roll. We felt a 6 should be rewarded!

 

[Gornn65]

I'm pretty knackered this evening so I apologise if I'm a bit daft, but I don't quite follow. In Gorkamorka's rules one normally has to roll to see if the Dok got the right limb (page 80 of Da Uvver Book: "Roll a D6 to determine which arm has been kustomised. On a 1-3 it is the left and on a 4-6 it is the right. This roll is made regardless of which arm has been injured!", same on page 81, same for bionik eyes). The only thing we changed was to make a 6 on the Iz It Safe table (Da Big Day table) bypass that roll. We felt a 6 should be rewarded!

My bad, either I misread this, or I was also tired and mucked this up. Never mind, this all makes total sense now.

Then I'll need someone to correctly tag all diagrams in the ODT files the right way (the title property needs to be "diagram"). That way illustrations get one set of properties, diagrams get another and end up inline.

When you're at a point where I can help out, let me know. I have two weeks off over the holidays where I can jump in. Perhaps a meeting over discord to go thru some things would help get me on the way.

Even if I had to do some old-fashioned copy and pasting and apply markdown after, maybe that would work?

 

[Flamekebab]

My bad, either I misread this, or I was also tired and mucked this up. Never mind, this all makes total sense now.

Fair enough! The layout in Da Uvver Book does make it very easy to miss the rule (it's above each table of bioniks). I'm not sure why but something about the setup makes it feel like the paragraph is going to be exclusively fluff.

It's kinda recurring theme in GCE - people say "Why did you add/change this?" and the answer is almost always "We didn't! It was there all along!" (like Diggas being recruitable by Orks - that's in the Gorkamorka rules! We wouldn't have put it in otherwise!). The fact that these things are being found bodes well though.

When you're at a point where I can help out, let me know. I have two weeks off over the holidays where I can jump in. Perhaps a meeting over discord to go thru some things would help get me on the way.

Even if I had to do some old-fashioned copy and pasting and apply markdown after, maybe that would work?

Sounds like a good idea. I have a few days off at the moment so whilst the kiddo is asleep I'm working on the code. My goal is to not have to do any manual hacking so that each time we do a release we simply throw the ODT files at the script and then hand the results to a static site generator. I don't want a substantial ongoing maintenance burden if it can be avoided.

 

[Gornn65]

Sounds like a good idea. I have a few days off at the moment so whilst the kiddo is asleep I'm working on the code. My goal is to not have to do any manual hacking so that each time we do a release we simply throw the ODT files at the script and then hand the results to a static site generator. I don't want a substantial ongoing maintenance burden if it can be avoided.

True, although I suspect the largest chunk of work will be in the initial upload of content. After that, it's just a matter of keeping both versions the same.

I'm on GMT-6 for timezone, so maybe we can look at something in the next weekend or two, otherwise over the holidays I'm sure we can find some time.

 

[Flamekebab]

True, although I suspect the largest chunk of work will be in the initial upload of content. After that, it's just a matter of keeping both versions the same.

"it's just a matter of" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there!

The main rulebooks aren't likely to change much but the scenario book as a huge number of additions still to come, various other faction packs are on the roadmap, etc.. The script handles any GCE book.

I really don't want to have to be checking through multiple places to ensure updates have been actioned. Having a step where the ODT file goes through a script and the output gets dropped into a directory and the SSG turns that into the website, that's easy. The last thing I want to be doing is making manual changes to the output. The reason being that it will drastically reduce GCE work. The old multi-step process had exactly these flaws (ending up with diverging documents rather than a single source of truth, having to check things manually, and consequently it just feeling like a huge faff to make any changes). It's why it was so easy to push the updates for 2.0.1 and the various point releases - that's something I'm genuinely excited about. Being able to find a little bit of time and getting a whole new book, or a big update - that gets me excited to work on new stuff!

I'm super keen to have a process in place so one can go from idea to finished print and web-based product with minimal manual intervention.

Anyway, good news and bad news. Good news - the script now works perfectly, as far as I can tell. With one caveat. Somewhere there's a bug that I need to track down because the output file inexplicably contains the source code twice!

If I have time tomorrow maybe I'll start fiddling with CSS to get stuff formatted a bit. I'm not going to worry about adaptive layouts for different screen sizes just yet - initial stuff like tables, headings, and perhaps box-outs first. Then I plan to see about how generating a sidebar with the table of contents should work. After that I want to prod at the glossary stuff to see if I can have keyword pop-overs.

I'm on GMT-6 for timezone, so maybe we can look at something in the next weekend or two, otherwise over the holidays I'm sure we can find some time.

Next week I have work, then I need to travel on the Thursday, back home on Monday, I reckon. Normal work week, then a half week, then I'm done 'til January. I've got to fit in another day off somewhere in that too.

 

[Gornn65]

After December 5, my life starts to slow down, so we can look at something after then!

 

[Flamekebab]

The basic generator now works as expected. I want to try to add some dynamically generated help text for capitalised words (using the glossary at the end of GCE Core Rules) and see if I can do something clever to remove the few "(see page X)" mentions and replace them with a link to the relevant section heading. Nice to haves, basically.

When I can be bothered I need to do the work to see how mobile-accessible the new rulebook is too, as well as build out a few other bits of the site (like creating a search box so that the underlying search functionality can work).