In this kind of game you definitely need some latitude. People came up with a lot of good contributions and we had to flex to fit them as we went. Escrow is a good example. That was a pain-in-the-ass to shoehorn into the game part way through but we tried to make it work because we didn’t want to put too many walls on the universe. Anytime you tell someone they can’t do something you make the world a little smaller. The trick is figuring out a way to say no that’s consistent with the universe. Hmmm… like parenting?
We generally concentrated on story first and then wrapped our calculations around that. Is there a strong chance people are going to get damaged here? Do they get some bonus from their shields? Ok, now we stick numbers on it and have a formula to test out.
A lot of times we were grading on the curve. We wanted results with that hump in them so the weaker ships didn’t get totally obliterated every time and the stronger ships didn’t have a cake walk.
All the math aside, it sounds like there’s momentum here to just get a game going. I’d suggest just going for it and taking longer turns while you’re figuring it out.
You can get by with a spreadsheet. Before I started BSD, I initially thought I might just keep some dice by the keyboard for decision making.
Side note, I will absolutely be working on a game engine for BSD later in the year and I’ll run another forum game when it’s ready. Right now I’m working on fulfilling a Kickstarter project and preparing our gallery for the summer season. If anyone gets to Juneau, Emerald City Comic Con, or SDCC, it would be a pleasure to meet you!
