When I set about designing anything homebrew for the 40k tabletop, I always stay on the cautious side of design. While I appreciate the overly ambitious projects that many gamers try, I have found that less is more. I always try to design something that has a unique flair of its own, but can easily have it's rules and wargear summarized on one or two pages. This makes it much easier for an opponent to consider playing against.
While I never expect anyone from outside of my immediate gaming group to play against my fan-dex, I have been pretty successful getting to use the Soul Reapers outside of the group. I honestly believe this is because of the minimalistic style I have chosen for my work.
Now if I had gone the overambitious route by adding all six units to the project that the group and I had initially wanted too, I highly doubt I would have ever had the opportunity to every playtest this outside of the group. In stead I added two plus a unit upgrade and it seems to have been well received so far.
When starting out you need to have a clear vision of what you are trying to achieve, but you must be open to feedback and making the proper adjustments to the list. After all what is the point of creating a fan-dex if you are never going to get to use it?
Creating a Fan-dex is a lot of work, so requires a lot of dedication. It also requires a thick skin, as you will take a lot of criticism. Just remember not a lot of other gamers are going to 'get it' as they are happily entrenched in the 'GW Matrix.'
First off designing an offshoot of an existing codex is the best route to get your 'feet wet' in the fan-dex realm. They tend to be the easiest projects to balance if you keep your goals reasonable. I am of the honest opinion that creating a fan-dex that is not an offshoot needs to be done by a group not an individual. This is because they are the hardest thing to playtest and balance.
Here are a couple of tips for those just starting out.
Points values can be a real pain in the rear to come up with as it seems GW do not a have a clear formula anymore. So I always try to find something comparable to what I am creating and work from there, often adding a point or two initially for balance sake. Sometimes the extra points stay in the final product, but often they do get dropped. Again this is on the cautious side of design, but it is what I have found to work well.
When creating special characters I almost always add 20 points to the Character type automatically before considering wargear or Special Rules. Stat increases to WS/BS are worth 1 point, S/I/A/LD worth 5 points, T/W are worth 10 points each.
Now all of these ideas are far from perfect, but design needs to begin somewhere.
Always aim for balance throughout the entire design process. This will involve dedicated playtesting, and I do mean a lot of playtesting.
Next time I will go over methods of playtesting.
A lot of good points here. I also subscribe to the minimalist approach. I try to change as much of an army as I can with as few rules as possible - usually with a custom HQ choice that changes the army's organization. This solution is, I feel, elegant and understated enough to be well received even in pick-up game with strangers.
ReplyDeleteCouple of things I would add:
It's difficult to create an unbalanced character with any combination of mundane or common bonuses( i.e. Toughness bonuses, USRs like Feel No Pain etc.). All player's armies are more or less prepared to deal with these common upgrades.
However custom special rules can quickly get out of hand and must be playtested ruthlessly or kept close to existing GW rules.
Another thing I've found is that custom rules are better received with they are represented by appropriate models. This is difficult to do when still in the playtesting stage when proxies are more practical but is essential if you want your rules to be considered high quality. This will be an important habit for us homebrew guys if we're to make custom rules work in competitive environments.
I'll be posting a link to this in my blog as I feel it's a must-read for custom rules designers.
ReplyDeleteGreat advice Jim! Can't wait for the next article.
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