Looking for feedback on my Monster A.I. Zine

#1

Hey folks, this is my first post and I’m revealing my monster AI system for the first time. I would love to get questions and feedback to make it better.

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It’s called Monstrous Logic, it’s a deterministic A.I. system for tactical RPG combat. It comes in a one page monster A.I. zine and all the rules fit on two pages (that then get folded into two 8 page zines). It’s compatible with many tabletop role playing games that have an emphasis on tactical combat. The rules are easy to learn, and it’s easy to hack and program your own monster AI using Monstrous Logic’s ruleset.

Here’s a link to the PDFs for anyone who wants to check it out. Feedback means a lot to me so please let me know what you think.

EDIT (version 0.22 now available)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1OtY4Gokv-EWpvWEbbf0TtbYtb3j--i7e

And here’s a tutorial on how to fold a one sheet zine https://youtu.be/Ixqr9e3wCxI

#2

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I absolutely love this! Thank you so much for developing and sharing this. I printed them out last night to look through them and they look great. It’s a really concise setup and I think it has a lot of potential to be built out further and further.

I took the liberty to hack together a blank template and mess around with converting the Agnar monster from the ICRPG Core book into a simple AI. Your process definitely made it easy to do. I just wish my handwriting was better so I could fit more detail in. I’ll probably end up sticking to a template on the computer.

The only tweaks that I, personally, would make is to swap out the Monster Stats with things like Hearts, Basic, Weapon, and Ultimate Effort. I only say that because those come into play more for me as I play almost exclusively ICRPG right now.

My final piece of excitement for your system is the Special Traits section. I think that could add a vast library of options for how monsters behave.

Hero coin to you! :herocoin:

#3

Oh wow! Thank you for trying it out and making your own monster AI that’s so rad! That’s what I was really hoping to accomplish, something people can use and easily modify to whatever systems they use. Thank you so much for your feedback.

#4

Interesting system, not too sure how familiar you are with ICRPG at the moment.
I’m going to give an honest review of the package as a whole after reading through it once, not using it or anything beyond that initial browse to take it for the 0.00002 cents it is worth.

Keep in mind ICRPG already has an AI system that GMs are encouraged to create for their creatures…

Review:
Layout:
reverse page setup and differing page sizes is gimmicky for no reason. if I am cutting these up…leave them in the same orientation and size, If I where making an A frame the reversal would make sense.

Intro and instructions fit on one page, I really find the reversing page to stick to the gimmick annoying especially for reading rules…I have to cut this up to read it in a normal fashion? order of pages is 2,3,4,5 on one side and 6,7,8,1 on the other on rule zine 1, then on rule zine 2 it is the same. I am still confused as to the logic.

4+ fonts being used and legibility of some is questionable. I would recommend less is more in this case.
many concepts are on more than one mini-page. they would all fit on 2 8.5x11 or A4 page. the gimmick is detracting from the product.

I like the NPC sheets, but they don’t have space for injury tracking or Ticking down one use abilities or to the next AI change.
Orcs and Goblins pg 8 should just be on the character sheet.

System:
Seems decent enough, but not compatible with all systems, that is very D20 of you.
Most of it is good. but in the case of the thief for example…it just steals 3d6 of gold from a PC…no check? Affecting the PCs with no roll of the dice is kind of interesting.
Also on that page…what is this Disadvantage you speak of???be careful applying a certain rule set and calling your system compatible or generic. ICRPG and most other RPGs does not use Advantage/disadvantage and there are people who never played D&D 5E, that role-play a lot.

Conclusion:
You have the beginning of an interesting product here, more polish and design is required, ICRPG is a great place to start, Rune Hammers videos are a great place to get inspiration. I really like the layout of the NPC sheets, but they require a bit of tweaking to be useful at a table. Keep at it.
as @KaneDriscol shows there is the NPC page layout and concept is good…just come tweaking :stuck_out_tongue:

You have a more finished RPG product than I ever made, so don’t take anything I said to heart, they are just quick over the top observations.

#5

Thanks for your feedback. It sounds like there’s confusion for those who haven’t encountered a one sheet zine on how to fold it so here’s a link to a short tutorial https://youtu.be/Ixqr9e3wCxI

Monstrous Logic is written so that it can be slotted into D&D style games, but the core system is flexible enough to be hacked into lots of systems. D20s and stats and stuff are not part of the core system. Those rules can be swapped out for anything your system uses. What makes Monstrous Logic what it is are the rules for deciding actions, pathfinding, and maximizing the effectiveness of actions. Those can be built on in any number of ways to suit many systems.

I’ll rewrite my What is Monstrous Logic section to make that more clear. And I’ll consider making changes to the layout and font, it’s all still a very early draft. Thanks again for the thoughtful feedback.

#6

I will definitely give this a read through and probably some playtesting. :metal:

#7

Thanks a lot! I really appreciate it.

#8

Totally correct!!!

I see it as clever. But not sure it is useful to flip through NPC sheets when I could have them all arraigned visually present. Perhaps both options? As I can see transport as the advantage of the zine concept.

Anyway, very cool nonetheless. Obviously of interest, and topical.

#9

Very true, I will have a more traditional layout on pdf for those that want it for online play or just to have it.

One of the benefits of a zine is its small footprint on the table. Its not another sheet of paper to sort through or a huge book to look up stats and rules. I think it’s really functional. But like everything else about ML’s design, it’s malleable — cut it into cards, staple it into a packet, paste the schemes in your notebook. I’ll consider other formats and sizes for the future product but for now I want people to engage with it as it is, wrinkles and all.

#10

These are sharp looking and well organized. I appreciate the Gloomhaven Font!

#11

Funnily enough I may need to get rid of the Gloomhaven font (I got a little happy adding too many font styles). But thanks, I thought it was an appropriate nod considering how deeply indebted I am to Gloomhaven’s rules for pathfinding. Maybe someday I’ll reuse the font when I make an ML conversion of Gloomhaven’s monster AI.

#12

First, I really like this.

Now, other feedback…

  • I think the zine idea is neat, but in practice many fights will feature multiple opponents which is a strong argument for making a letter/ a4 design instead.
  • Related, I have trouble to instantly see what monster I’m looking at, so especially if you stick with the zine layout, you should consider more legible headings
  • Consider making it for a particular system. Any gm will know anyway how to convert stuff, and specialization makes it easier to be efficient.
  • if you want to keep the stats, consider graying out unused stat-circles.
  • Maybe target priority should be above the ai
#13

This is really good feedback, thank you. I’ll look into making a 5e version, maybe the OGL will allow it but WOTC’s recent legal shenanigans with its stat blocks make me a little nervous about doing that.

Edit: I’m coming around on the one sheet with all the monster info idea, but I think there’s still a better way.

I am definitely going to make an A4 version. I’m thinking of having two medium size monster schemes on each page and damage trackers and round initiative trackers on the margins. That sounds the most practical to me but I’m open to all suggestions.

#14

As an HP tracker, I think circles in lines of 5 small circles (like the ones that used to be used in exams). That way it is easy to count 5 at a time. Along the left border.

Or perhaps between the modifiers line and stat line. If there it could be diamonds to be pleasing to the eye.

On a generic sheet on the left border you could probably fit 200 fill ins with no issue, but detracts from the look.

Or a solid border, with a section of ///// ///// ///// acting as 15 hitpoints. If in a vertical line it’s a bit more pleasant to look at. And for the generic sheets ///// ///// ///// surrounds the whole sheet perhaps with a - every 20 for easy counting.
///// ///// ///// /////—///// ///// ///// /////—///// ///// ///// /////. That was painful to do on my phone I hope the idea comes across. I’ll see if I can make an image of it.

ORC%20HASH

Something like that but with more artistic Flair

#15

Gees, I’m now responding to my own posts.
The advantage of the Tickers are you could also use them to trigger an event.
So ///// ///// ///// ///// – ///// ^ ///// ///// can mean creature attempts to flee when down to 10 hit points or less or uses an AOE attack the possibilities are endless really.

#16

This idea is pretty cool. I think I might do something like that when I make a zine for boss monsters.

#17

Just to clarify: I think the main benefit of an a4 design would be in the ease of finding things at a glance. In a booklet, you have two, or maybe three distinct slots - first and last (maybe middle). On a page, you have at least the four corners. So if you consistently put the most common sub-type (goblin) top-left, more elite units (orc) top right, and special units (shamans and bosses) bottom-left and right, my understanding of the content becomes less reliant on processing words. Basically the same reason you have stats in a fixed order.

That said, booklets are cool and might make more sense if you want to sell a physical product at a convention or similar. I just wanted to make my reasoning more clear.

#18

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Here’s my second attempt at hacking this system to fit my game. I have a game session tonight and I’ve been really excited to incorporate @MonsterAI’s Monstrous Logic. As I’ve been working the design above, I also incorporated some of the ideas floating around this thread and figured I’d share my thoughts.

  1. I ended up not incorporating the Basic, Weapon, Magic, and Ultimate Effort modifiers (even though I suggested it haha) and instead just stuck to Hearts and basic stat modifiers. I figured I could include those in the behavior section or on the fly.
  2. I cut up a basic 8.5x11 into four sections and that seams to be a good size, although I do agree with @Olav that if I were doing a big mob of enemies and monsters with varying abilities, I would leave them on the same sheet of paper and use it as a mob reference.
  3. I added a health tracker, but unless I was only running a single monster of that type, the tracker would become pointless and I’d end up tracking each individual enemy’s health somewhere else. I did really like including an indicator for fleeing and death. For some reason that just made me smile.
  4. Even though ICRPG already has a Monster AI method, I actually prefer this method, at least when it comes to planning (I’ll have a better idea after play testing tonight). I’m not the most experienced DM and this kept things simple and concise for me and it’s nice to see this working for big monsters and for little peon guards.
#19

what I was thinking with the life trackers is just draw some boxes around the scheme and number them for each individual monster. After that you can draw pips, leave a space for writing down status effects, etc. It’ll look similar to how Gloomhaven keeps track of its damage tokens and conditions for each monster. Single life trackers are good for bosses.

#20

This is cool as hell, I really like what you did with the design. I’m excited for you to test it out. Honestly I never expected to see playtests and hacks so soon after showing my first game design. It means a lot.

One thing I’ve noticed is that you don’t have any behavior that activates when an enemy is close (face to face). Since we don’t want the guard to enter patrol mode when all enemies are close, a simple fix is to change the first two AI behaviors to say “Close or Near.” Also it looks like these guards will never sprint towards their enemies even when they’re in line of sight, they’ll just enter patrol mode. You can imagine that being super easy to cheese the AI.

But you’re the GM, you can intervene and arbitrate whenever you see fit (duh). Just look out for bugs in the program.