feature
new
Delayed Effect Activation
Toruna
2026-06-15 14:59
When you go to make a move, and input a condition, I would like to see one extra line be made available. Call it "Delay" or something, and you can only input flat numbers between 1-3 into the space.
What this does, is delay the condition's effects applying to the user.
So say you have a DoT equal to 6 turns.
If you put the number 3 into the line, the effect is there, but nothing happens for the first 3 turns, only on the 4th turn and onwards does the character start to take damage.
For the user that uses the move; the PS cost of the condition the delay is applied to, would be lowered by 40%/60%/80% per turn.
For the user that has the move used on them, this gives them an ample window to see the condition coming, and they get a whole round or more to react to it.
Why have this?
For one, more mindgames and resource management.
Secondly, you can narratively react or intercept effects before they are applied, as with the current system it's either you land and it happens, or nothing at all. Your opponent does get the chance to react against something like a stun, which I have come to find out wins games all on their own.
Thirdly, you can do some really interesting moves like the 'anime rend'. - You strike a mediocre blow, only for the actual damage to be delayed, adding impact and anticipation, versus the risk of having it cured before it an go off.
You can have magic that gradually makes an opponent sleepy before falling unconscious (stunned)
You can plant a bomb on your target set to go off in 3 rounds. (DoT)
My 'Chloroform' move can actually be a one-turn struggle, before the effect is applied on the target, rather than a garanteed success in a single move.
A Caviate to using a move with a delayed effect could be that if a delayed move is used, the person that uses the move has their own turn abruptly ending after using the move is used.
What this does, is delay the condition's effects applying to the user.
So say you have a DoT equal to 6 turns.
If you put the number 3 into the line, the effect is there, but nothing happens for the first 3 turns, only on the 4th turn and onwards does the character start to take damage.
For the user that uses the move; the PS cost of the condition the delay is applied to, would be lowered by 40%/60%/80% per turn.
For the user that has the move used on them, this gives them an ample window to see the condition coming, and they get a whole round or more to react to it.
Why have this?
For one, more mindgames and resource management.
Secondly, you can narratively react or intercept effects before they are applied, as with the current system it's either you land and it happens, or nothing at all. Your opponent does get the chance to react against something like a stun, which I have come to find out wins games all on their own.
Thirdly, you can do some really interesting moves like the 'anime rend'. - You strike a mediocre blow, only for the actual damage to be delayed, adding impact and anticipation, versus the risk of having it cured before it an go off.
You can have magic that gradually makes an opponent sleepy before falling unconscious (stunned)
You can plant a bomb on your target set to go off in 3 rounds. (DoT)
My 'Chloroform' move can actually be a one-turn struggle, before the effect is applied on the target, rather than a garanteed success in a single move.
A Caviate to using a move with a delayed effect could be that if a delayed move is used, the person that uses the move has their own turn abruptly ending after using the move is used.
Comments (5)
Toruna
2026-06-15 15:03
Ugh, you can edit these. - "% per turn." I meant that in relation to the number of delayed turns.
Wrecksler
2026-06-16 12:11
That makes sense, but also kind of raises the more fundamental question about the entire flow of the game.
In particular I like your stun example. Currently it's very DnD-esque in how it works. On player A's turn they choose what they want to do, the dice is rolled and the dice decides in this moment if they get hit with the move and it's effects or not. And DnD also has a "Stunning Strike" for Monks, which is actually quite OP even there when it lands. But it does not always land depending on opponent's stats, and it also costs "Ki Points" - a finite resource that recharges when the party takes a Long Rest.
However there's also one more concept in DnD which we don't have - Reactions. Some actions can be used as a Reaction to some other action. A famous example would be "Counterspell". When any enemy uses a spell against any member of player's party, if they have "Counterspell" action they can choose to use it to dismiss enemy's spell entirely.
However this mostly works because in DnD it's live human interaction, and you can interject and undo and backtrack, you have time to shout out "counterspell" at the right moment.
Here - it's assumed that ifghts are mostly assymetric, player reaction should not matter. Player A gets to use their moves and they can click through quickly if needed, it's is not expected that Player B will actively sit behind the keyboard watching everything happen. Chat roleplaying is assymetric for the most part, as it takes time to do stuff and write up good posts, so...
A delay can sort of solve it... partially. It does indeed let the opponent use something like a "cure stun" move on their turn if they have it. But that means that it's still up to players to design these moves with delays.
An alternative could maybe be to allow some moves to be used during stun? Like 'break free' or "recover" move. Or not an alternative but it could be in addition to the option to delay effects.
However it's a little tricky about how the delay would work. What if you delay some massive amount of damage, reducing the PS, and player B is either fucked with a time on their life, or could also result in a situation where player B wins and next turn they explode :D I mean... I'm not saying it's not fun though! 🤣
In particular I like your stun example. Currently it's very DnD-esque in how it works. On player A's turn they choose what they want to do, the dice is rolled and the dice decides in this moment if they get hit with the move and it's effects or not. And DnD also has a "Stunning Strike" for Monks, which is actually quite OP even there when it lands. But it does not always land depending on opponent's stats, and it also costs "Ki Points" - a finite resource that recharges when the party takes a Long Rest.
However there's also one more concept in DnD which we don't have - Reactions. Some actions can be used as a Reaction to some other action. A famous example would be "Counterspell". When any enemy uses a spell against any member of player's party, if they have "Counterspell" action they can choose to use it to dismiss enemy's spell entirely.
However this mostly works because in DnD it's live human interaction, and you can interject and undo and backtrack, you have time to shout out "counterspell" at the right moment.
Here - it's assumed that ifghts are mostly assymetric, player reaction should not matter. Player A gets to use their moves and they can click through quickly if needed, it's is not expected that Player B will actively sit behind the keyboard watching everything happen. Chat roleplaying is assymetric for the most part, as it takes time to do stuff and write up good posts, so...
A delay can sort of solve it... partially. It does indeed let the opponent use something like a "cure stun" move on their turn if they have it. But that means that it's still up to players to design these moves with delays.
An alternative could maybe be to allow some moves to be used during stun? Like 'break free' or "recover" move. Or not an alternative but it could be in addition to the option to delay effects.
However it's a little tricky about how the delay would work. What if you delay some massive amount of damage, reducing the PS, and player B is either fucked with a time on their life, or could also result in a situation where player B wins and next turn they explode :D I mean... I'm not saying it's not fun though! 🤣
Wrecksler
2026-06-16 12:12
But I suggest we brainstorm it a little more before settling on something. IDEAS!
Toruna
2026-06-16 13:06
It's not like DoTs can't create a stalemate moment. So far the system rewards the first person to win, if that damage comes in on a delay, it'll be the same deal, a technical winner, but actually a stalemate. (It's also kind of a trope in roleplaying or fictional in general that if one person dies, the supporting character follows them in death, so it wouldn't be abnormal at all either).
I was inbetweeen the ideas of the fact an entire move could be delayed, but I opted for the Condition, as the former would create a whole lot more questions than the latter.
Although, what I really want, is to somehow have some mechanic in which you have two characters clashes, and only one can be the victor. (You know the classic. - Two swordsmen clashes their blades together, staring into each other's eyes before one of them wins this important moment). You can roleplay this, but it's clunky and seems to have a pre-determined victor the entire time. If the victor could be randomized, that would make the moment or struggle before the effect feel important.
I was inbetweeen the ideas of the fact an entire move could be delayed, but I opted for the Condition, as the former would create a whole lot more questions than the latter.
Although, what I really want, is to somehow have some mechanic in which you have two characters clashes, and only one can be the victor. (You know the classic. - Two swordsmen clashes their blades together, staring into each other's eyes before one of them wins this important moment). You can roleplay this, but it's clunky and seems to have a pre-determined victor the entire time. If the victor could be randomized, that would make the moment or struggle before the effect feel important.
Wrecksler
2026-06-17 16:09
Yeah, thats a fair point that DoT can still do that. True. And mechanically it's not an issue for the current system, so that tracks.
I'm not against delayed conditions, and I see a lot of potential for fun moves, especially for magic users or even like a bomb with a fuse. Lots of fun meta gaming and roleplaying opportunities.
However I wanna more on the last paragraph of your comment. It will not solve this problem because that would require changing the entire move resolution system to work differently. And I wonder if it's really an issue or just the way someone uses a system.
What I am trying to say is.. current system is, again, based off of DnD and how a lot of games resolve this. You already have the struggle, it's just all automated in 1 roll. The struggle is the comparison between your roll + whatever affects your Hit Roll (items, buffs) against opponent's AC and whatever affects their AC. So mechanically you can achieve what you want by changing the post order first.
1. You describe your intended attack
2. Your opponent describes how they try to avoid or block it
3. You click the button and it tells you success or failure
4. One or both of you proceed with the descriptions
But indeed this is a lot slower way of writing it out than just... intention of attack - then resolution and reaction.
No matter what system is used, when it's inherently an asynchronous system (as opposed to somelike like a realtime fighting game) - there will still be a moment where the move is resolved in favor of one or the other. You are just delaying it and potentially giving the opponent a chance to somehow react. Like you make an attack, and you want for them to have an option to "block" the attack.
The original UFL used a "Rock Paper Scissors" gameplay. It went like this:
1. Player A selects R, P or S
2. Player B selects R, P or S
3. Move is resolved
This kind of had the room for what you're describing, the struggle, but in reality, iirc, very few people really used it that way, because again - it requires both players to actively stare at the screen and wait for the reply.
Hmm... circling back to DnD Reactions - they kind of allow for that kind of gameplay. You can have 2 wizards fight each other, where one casts a Fireball spell, the other nullifies it with the Counterspell or uses Shield to increase their AC. Then they can cast another spell at the first player, and they in turn can also counter it reactively. So maybe that's what you mean?
But that would require some kind of buffer zone between Player A using moves and them resolving. Or backtracking support (like being able to undo effects of a move, retroactively change the success of it, etc). Or automation. Like if Counterspell was automatically used based on some conditions or whatever.
I feel like there might be an elegant solution to that, but I'm not yet sure what it would be. But I'm pretty sure that just adding a delay option to Conditions is not going to solve it. And it would require both players to have carefully curated and properly matches moves where both properly use delays to really make it work, so it sounds even clunkier tbh.
I'm not against delayed conditions, and I see a lot of potential for fun moves, especially for magic users or even like a bomb with a fuse. Lots of fun meta gaming and roleplaying opportunities.
However I wanna more on the last paragraph of your comment. It will not solve this problem because that would require changing the entire move resolution system to work differently. And I wonder if it's really an issue or just the way someone uses a system.
What I am trying to say is.. current system is, again, based off of DnD and how a lot of games resolve this. You already have the struggle, it's just all automated in 1 roll. The struggle is the comparison between your roll + whatever affects your Hit Roll (items, buffs) against opponent's AC and whatever affects their AC. So mechanically you can achieve what you want by changing the post order first.
1. You describe your intended attack
2. Your opponent describes how they try to avoid or block it
3. You click the button and it tells you success or failure
4. One or both of you proceed with the descriptions
But indeed this is a lot slower way of writing it out than just... intention of attack - then resolution and reaction.
No matter what system is used, when it's inherently an asynchronous system (as opposed to somelike like a realtime fighting game) - there will still be a moment where the move is resolved in favor of one or the other. You are just delaying it and potentially giving the opponent a chance to somehow react. Like you make an attack, and you want for them to have an option to "block" the attack.
The original UFL used a "Rock Paper Scissors" gameplay. It went like this:
1. Player A selects R, P or S
2. Player B selects R, P or S
3. Move is resolved
This kind of had the room for what you're describing, the struggle, but in reality, iirc, very few people really used it that way, because again - it requires both players to actively stare at the screen and wait for the reply.
Hmm... circling back to DnD Reactions - they kind of allow for that kind of gameplay. You can have 2 wizards fight each other, where one casts a Fireball spell, the other nullifies it with the Counterspell or uses Shield to increase their AC. Then they can cast another spell at the first player, and they in turn can also counter it reactively. So maybe that's what you mean?
But that would require some kind of buffer zone between Player A using moves and them resolving. Or backtracking support (like being able to undo effects of a move, retroactively change the success of it, etc). Or automation. Like if Counterspell was automatically used based on some conditions or whatever.
I feel like there might be an elegant solution to that, but I'm not yet sure what it would be. But I'm pretty sure that just adding a delay option to Conditions is not going to solve it. And it would require both players to have carefully curated and properly matches moves where both properly use delays to really make it work, so it sounds even clunkier tbh.
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