Design By Exception

'Skin Deep' by MichaelO

TheDaR here. The term "design by exception" is one I originally came across in RPG design several years ago.  The people using it meant it to mean the process of creating rules in a somewhat ad hoc fashion, starting from basic rules that were as simple as possible, and then layering any necessary rules to handle special cases on top of those basic rules.

What We'll Call Stuff...

Space Elf Yra by cashmerekiss

SandWyrm here. I'm still working on those preliminary movement rules, but I thought that I'd offer up a cool idea for how to name our Space Elves and some other races. Plus some thematic stuff.

Suppressive Fire

Giuseppe Rava. Red Devils.

Rafael Pava here. In a game where tactical movement and reactive turn sequences are so important, the ability to limit your enemy's actions and maneuver him to where you want him to stay is a big deal. To achieve that, we have decided that Suppressive Fire (SF) should be implemented in addition to the pinning system.

Moving Around the Battlefield

Y. Pimenov. On the front road.

Watchwood  here. There's been a fair bit of chatter lately about how many of unit X can unit Y kill in a round - but what about getting them there?  I've been advocating movement speed as a unit stat since nearly the start of the project, and I think it's time to examine the notion in a bit more detail.

Effectiveness of Small Arms Shooting

N. Tolkunov. Immortality. Brest, 1941.

Eriochrome here. When building the game, it is important to think about how effective we want shooting to be.

Going To Bang Out Some Movement Rules

N. Prisekin. Baltic: human bridge.

Ok, heads up. I'm going to take a few days off from posting to bang out a set of Alpha-quality movement rules for us to discuss. Should be done by Sunday.

I know a couple of the other authors are working on posts, so there should be something to read in the meantime. If you have any specific wishes/thoughts about movement, please leave them in the comments.

-SandWyrm

Shooting Discussion

G. Marchenko. On the outskirt of Stalingrad.

I've been asked a question privately about how shooting will work in M42. So here's a rundown of what I have in mind so far. Keep in mind that none of this is set in stone or anything.

Wrap Up: Our Overall Development Goals

B. Nikolaev. Spring 1945.

It's time to wrap up the discussion on our major development goals. Here's the updated list.

Our Cast Of Factions?

Watchwood here. I've been putting a little thought into armies. We took a good hammering to Marines and Chaos, but there's a whole realm of armies out there at are more then just those 2. I've summarized both of them at the top of the list as well. We can go into detailed mechanics for the individual races in later posts, but I think it'd be good to sort out the basics for all of them in a batch so that it all comes together nicely.

No More One-Man Show

Ok, it's time to add some more authors to the blog. As there's just no way that I can maintain a daily posting schedule by myself. The following guys have all done a great job contributing their thoughts in the comments, so it's time to promote them. :)

What Table Size?

Cerebus The Last Supper by Chris Samnee

ColKg brought up a good point in the comments to my last post. We need to discuss what our regulation table sizes will be at various point levels.

What About Bolters?

Rusty Bolt. Chris Gentes

I'm thinking that Bolters need a re-think. In the Space Marine fluff, they're rocket powered mini-grenade launchers. So how can we better show this in their rules?

Lascannon Idea

Here's an idea I have for a reworked Lascannon mechanic. You guys can tell me what you think of it.

Wrap Up: Our Marine Strategy

Space Marine. Tony Lewin

The general consensus seems to be that our "Space Marines" (or whatever we end up calling them) should be, if anything, more elite and heroic than they are now. Falling in power somewhere between the so-called "Movie Marines" and their current 40K power level. In short, they should be a hard-hitting shock force that must concentrate it's power in order to win. If they spread out and lose focus, they will die.

To Pre-Measure, Or Not?

Simple question. Do we allow players to pre-measure, or not?

-SandWyrm