For use in conjunction with any skill system really, but designed with the Histories system in mind.
I really like the idea of skills advancing with use, as in Call of Cthulhu. I've been brainstorming how to make that work in an OSR system using a loosely D&D-derived ruleset, and here's what I came up with.
When you use a skill and come really close to succeeding/failing– meaning what you rolled was really close to the DC– you get a tic next to that skill. The skill gains a rank when it gets a number of tics equal to the next rank, so two tics to get to rank 2, etc.
How you get tics depends on the system you're using.
If you're using a die system that has a central tendency, like the 2d10 in the game I'm working on or 2d6 from Stars Without Number, you get a tic if your roll is very close to the DC. In a 2d10 system I'd say you get a tic if it's equal to the DC or one higher or lower, while in a 2d6 system I'd say only if it's equal or one lower, to adjust for the narrower range of possible rolls.
I think this concept works better with dice systems that have a central tendency because it means you're more likely to get a tic if you make a test that you have close to a 50/50 chance of succeeding at. That mirrors how skill learning works in real life, in that you learn the most from doing things that are moderately challenging. IMO this is an improvement over the Call of Cthulhu system, where you just have to succeed on the skill roll and are therefore incentivized to look for chances to make easy rolls.
If you're using a d20 this gets harder– maybe something like you get a tic if you roll within 1 either way of the DC, and the raw d20 roll was 12+, meaning you had a less than even chance of making it.
If you're using x in 6 skills, you get a tic every time you roll a 1. In this case you should also slow down skill advancement, which I'm about to talk about, since x in 6 absolutely needs a hard cap at 6.
I haven't tested this yet so I'm not sure how fast skills would rank up in practice, and it obviously depends on the lethality of your system. There are three ways you can adjust that.
First, adjust how many tics it takes to get to advance a skill. Maybe new rank x 2, or new rank +2.
Second, change how hard it is to get a tic. Maybe you need to hit the DC exactly, or maybe you can come within 2 of it.
Third, you could make tics provisional and require them to be "confirmed" next time you rest. Once you have a tic next to a skill, the next time you rest, roll a d10 (if you want skills to max at 10, or a d6 if you want them to max at 6 etc) and if it's higher than the skill's current rank, the tic is confirmed and you can now earn another one, otherwise erase it. This also puts a cap on skill ranks.
Other than that, you need a way to have people acquire skills in the first place. The three options I see are to either
a) have the first rank, or maybe just rank zero, be acquired through your class/level
b) have skills be acquired through play independently of class and level like in this system
c) have a set skill list, and every skill can be used untrained for at least some purposes in order to get that first rank
Finally you probably need a way to bolt this onto an existing system. That's easy if every class is meant to have an equal number of skills, as the one I'm working on does. Otherwise it takes some balancing. It also depends on whether "skills" includes stuff like attacking or spellcasting, or whether you take the traditional route of skills being separate from attacks, magic and the like.
If you wanted to bolt this onto a system where skills are normally the province of one class over others, you need to give those classes advantages at it. Like make them need fewer tics, or qualify for tics more easily. Maybe also make them get rank 1 skills more easily.
One final note: if you use this skill system for combat skills like swords, guns etc, you may think it's a problem that those things tend to get rolled repeatedly, thus making it easier to get tics. You could counterbalance that by making the requirements for a tic more strict for attack roll skills and anything else that tends to get rolled several times in a scene.
However, I don't personally plan to do that. My thinking is that yes, combat skills can rank up faster, but they're also inherently risky to use. High risk high reward live fast die young and all that. This is why soldiers can be considered battle-hardened after only a few months of combat experience when most skills take years to master– you learn fast in combat, but also there's only so much combat you can get into before the odds against your survival become overwhelming. Food for thought.
Anyway I'll give this a try once I get the chance, which might not be until next year, and when I can I'll do a follow-up post about exactly how I ended up doing the math to make it work.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Monday, March 30, 2020
Reputation Network Rules for OSR Games (Eclipse Phase Inspired)
So Eclipse Phase is a cool game with an amazing hard sci-fi setting and concept, but a pretty heavy system, albeit the new edition is a big improvement.
Transhuman body switching aside, the part about the reputation economy is really interesting and something that could potentially be ported to other games. Kevin Crawford takes a swing at it in Stars Without Number Deluxe Edition, but he treats reputation as just another currency that you spend the same way as money, which it absolutely should not be.
You might want to use this in combination with abstract wealth rules.
Reputation differs from money in three very important ways: visibility, uncertainty, and consensus.
Visibility: Your reputation has to be public information by definition, and only things that become known to the public, or at least a significant number of people, can impact it. There's no reputation equivalent of a "Berkshire billionaire" who nobody knows is rich.
Uncertainty: If something is for sale, you know exactly how much it costs, and you know you can buy it if you have that much money. With reputation, you don't know for sure whether you can get what you want, or how much it will cost you if you do get it.
Consensus: In a money economy, it's possible to be very niche and make good money off a small but devoted customer base, even if everyone else hates you. After all people can buy from you or not, but they can't take your money away. Call this the Insane Clown Posse Strategy.
In a reputation economy, people can do more than just boycott you– they can actively reduce your reputation. This produces consensus, but also it's dark side, conformity. The good news: no Insane Clown Posse. The bad news: no 69 Eyes. Lots of The Beatles and The Eagles though.
You don't need to be running a transhuman or futuristic setting to use a reputation economy, although it helps. I'll share some thoughts on using this in other settings towards the end of the article. First, here's how the rules work.
Transhuman body switching aside, the part about the reputation economy is really interesting and something that could potentially be ported to other games. Kevin Crawford takes a swing at it in Stars Without Number Deluxe Edition, but he treats reputation as just another currency that you spend the same way as money, which it absolutely should not be.
You might want to use this in combination with abstract wealth rules.
Reputation differs from money in three very important ways: visibility, uncertainty, and consensus.
Visibility: Your reputation has to be public information by definition, and only things that become known to the public, or at least a significant number of people, can impact it. There's no reputation equivalent of a "Berkshire billionaire" who nobody knows is rich.
Uncertainty: If something is for sale, you know exactly how much it costs, and you know you can buy it if you have that much money. With reputation, you don't know for sure whether you can get what you want, or how much it will cost you if you do get it.
Consensus: In a money economy, it's possible to be very niche and make good money off a small but devoted customer base, even if everyone else hates you. After all people can buy from you or not, but they can't take your money away. Call this the Insane Clown Posse Strategy.
In a reputation economy, people can do more than just boycott you– they can actively reduce your reputation. This produces consensus, but also it's dark side, conformity. The good news: no Insane Clown Posse. The bad news: no 69 Eyes. Lots of The Beatles and The Eagles though.
You don't need to be running a transhuman or futuristic setting to use a reputation economy, although it helps. I'll share some thoughts on using this in other settings towards the end of the article. First, here's how the rules work.
Design Your Reputation Networks
Before you start your campaign, you'll need to come up with a few reputation networks. Eight to twelve is about the right number.
These networks can represent a single faction or a group of similar factions, depending on how diverse your setting is. Most should be a mix if factions. Like in Eclipse Phase, Firewall has it's own rep network, but every other network is used by a mix of factions with loosely similar ideologies.
For each network, you'll need to define it's name and a shortened name for the associated time of rep, who uses it, what their ideology is, what they love, want and dislike. Some rep networks may also have special rules. eg-
Autonomist Web, aka @-rep
Who uses it: Anarchists (both individualist and collectivist), some brinkers, contractarian/extropian types, ultra-libertarians
Ideology: Various types of anarchism or extreme libertarianism, or just individual isolation
Likes: Personal freedom, flat organizations with little or no hierarchy, using rep networks instead of money, decentralized everything, transparency, free information
Dislikes: Traditional laws and governments, old style or exploitative capitalism, the old economy, megcorporations, charging money for electronic goods
Special rule: The favor level for purely digital goods is a level lower. The favor level for luxury physical goods– other than small luxuries that everyone can afford, like a case of beer– is a level higher.
Special rule: The favor level for purely digital goods is a level lower. The favor level for luxury physical goods– other than small luxuries that everyone can afford, like a case of beer– is a level higher.
Outlaws United, aka o-rep
Who uses it: Criminals of all sorts, but mainly career criminals who want to be criminals and who are not too set on hiding the fact that they're criminals
Ideology: Might makes right. Omerta- don't be a snitch.
Likes: Violence, making money illegally, corrupt and ineffective governments, strong leaders even if they're vicious or tyranical
Dislikes: The cops, law and order, having vices like drugs and gambling legalized since that pulls the rug out from under them, people whining about "empathy" and "human rights"
Special rule: Due to the nature of being a network of criminals, this network offers more privacy than others. Finding out incriminating information on people takes a roll even if it wouldn't on other networks, unless that person deliberately publicized it. Also, anything illegal is not inherently harder to get than legal stuff on this network.
Character Creation
New characters start with rep in two networks of their choosing. Roll 2d6 for each network and record this as their starting permanent rep in that network. These reps are treated like ability scores and have modifiers the same way as other ability scores in your system.
If a character starts with one or more fake IDs or alter egos, they get one extra rep network choice for each additional identity they start with. However, they have to split their rep network choices between each identity, since reputation is attached to identity.
They can pick the same network for different identities. So a starting PC with one fake ID could have anarchist and researcher rep for his real name, and criminal rep for his alter ego.
These rep scores determine how easily you can get favors and how big those favors can be. They will go up and down frequently in play, both permanently and temporarily.
Note that unlike ability scores, ten isn't necessarily average. Or like maybe it's average for someone who puts all their focus into one rep network, which the PC's don't do by default.
Using Rep To Get Favors
Favors are rated zero through five. If you want to get a favor, you roll a d20 and add both your charisma modifier and your rep modifier. The DC is eight plus twice the level of the favor.
If you succeed, you get the favor you wanted and take a variable amount of damage to your reputation. If you critically succeed, you get something better than what you wanted.
If you fail you don't get the favor and take only one temporary rep damage. If you critically fail, your rep score permanently goes down by one instead.
Trivial favors are rated zero and you can get one within minutes. Typically you don't have to roll for them and they don't inflict rep damage unless you ask for a lot of them in quick succession and start annoying people.
Typically a trivial favor would be something you could maybe have looked up yourself given enough time, like a really good guide (as in written, not a person) to the local area.
Minor favors are rated one, so the DC for them is ten. If you get a minor favor, take d4 rep damage. They usually take like an hour or two.
Typical minor favors would be learning the location of a black market, getting some legal advice, or borrowing a common vehicle for a few hours.
Moderate favors are rated two, so the DC is twelve to get one. They inflict d6 rep damage and usually take like 6-10 hours to arrange.
Typical moderate favors include a day's work, long-distance travel, confidential information, etc.
Major favors are rated three, so DC is fourteen, and they inflict d8 rep damage. They take around a day to arrange.
Typical major favors would be borrowing a small spacecraft like a shuttle, top secret information, a week of skilled labor, etc.
Level four favors inflict d10 rep damage and take 2-3 days to arrange, while level five favors inflict d12 rep damage and take around a week to arrange. Modifiers can change the level of a favor.
Scale: If a favor would require several people to perform, it's level is plus one. If it would require more than ten, its level is plus two. This could also apply to who the favor is done for, like if you wanted to arrange travel for your whole party rather than just you.
Risk: If someone has to put themselves at risk to do the favor, the level is plus one. If they'd risk their life or something close to it, it's plus two.
Favor also helps the person doing it: If the person doing the favor also gets something significant out of it, the level is one lower. If they'd get something potentially life-changing out of it, like you need test subjects for a new cure for PTSD, the level is two lower.
Note that favors cannot be higher than level five, even though modifiers could push it as high as seven. If you want to recruit an army, that needs to be a quest, not something you can do by just making a roll.
In order to request a favor, you need to be able to absorb the maximum cost of it without losing all your rep in that network. So you need two rep to ask for trivial favors, five to ask for level one favors, seven rep for level two favors, and so on.
All of this is public. If you want to keep it quiet, you get disadvantage to the favor test but anyone trying to find out about it needs to roll an investigation check to do so. If you role-play taking specific, intelligent steps to cover your tracks, like specifically asking trusted friends for help, the test to learn about your actions may even have disadvantage.
You can also burn permanent rep points to get advantage on the favor roll. This costs one permanent rep point for a minor favor, two for moderate, three for major. The permanent rep points are only lost if the favor is granted, and if it is, it's granted as fast as possible.
You can also burn permanent rep points to get advantage on the favor roll. This costs one permanent rep point for a minor favor, two for moderate, three for major. The permanent rep points are only lost if the favor is granted, and if it is, it's granted as fast as possible.
Healing Temporary Rep Damage
You automatically heal one point of temporary rep damage per week in each network that has rep damage, provided you don't ask for any favors– even trivial ones– during that week.
Additionally, you can heal rep damage faster if you do favors for other people in the rep.
If you spend around half a day doing trivial favors for people, you heal one rep damage. You can do this only once a week, and can spread the time spent doing it out over the week.
If you want to do larger favors, say so to the referee and they'll come up with a few random favors that people are asking. If you do those favors, you get the same amount of rep as the person asking them would lose, so d4 for a minor favor, d6 for a moderate favor, etc.
If you don't do a favor there's no punishment; they aren't being asked of you specifically. The referee can of course generate favor requests without being asked, if they want to tempt the players or provide a story hook.
If you spend a whole week of downtime repairing your rep by doing favors for people, you restore d6 rep if it costs nothing but your time, or d8 if it costs you something more. Anything bigger than that should probably not be abstracted via downtime.
Your rep can temporarily go over it's maximum; for every two rep points doing favors would send you over your max, you gain a temporary rep point. You can't go more than 50% over your max rep this way, and temporary rep points are lost at a rate of one per week if not used.
Additionally, you can heal rep damage faster if you do favors for other people in the rep.
If you spend around half a day doing trivial favors for people, you heal one rep damage. You can do this only once a week, and can spread the time spent doing it out over the week.
If you want to do larger favors, say so to the referee and they'll come up with a few random favors that people are asking. If you do those favors, you get the same amount of rep as the person asking them would lose, so d4 for a minor favor, d6 for a moderate favor, etc.
If you don't do a favor there's no punishment; they aren't being asked of you specifically. The referee can of course generate favor requests without being asked, if they want to tempt the players or provide a story hook.
If you spend a whole week of downtime repairing your rep by doing favors for people, you restore d6 rep if it costs nothing but your time, or d8 if it costs you something more. Anything bigger than that should probably not be abstracted via downtime.
Your rep can temporarily go over it's maximum; for every two rep points doing favors would send you over your max, you gain a temporary rep point. You can't go more than 50% over your max rep this way, and temporary rep points are lost at a rate of one per week if not used.
Permanently Changing Your Rep
Permanently changing your rep is similar to restoring temporary rep loss, except you have to think bigger. You have to do a favor for a large portion of whatever group uses your rep network. We'll call these deeds rather than favors.
A good deed has to help hundreds of people, if not thousands. Like, at least enough people to populate a village or village-sized space hab. Also deeds are usually, though maybe not always, done on your own initiative rather than in response to a request from others.
If it's the equivalent of a minor favor for those people, like fixing up a bunch of stuff on their habitat, you gain d4. If it's the equivalent of a moderate favor for them, d6. Major favor, d8.
Adjustments for putting yourself in danger apply as usual. Adjustments for scale are scaled up; +1 die size if you help tens or hundreds of thousands of people, +2 if you help millions, or a large fraction of the whole rep network. Those scale numbers are based on the Eclipse Phase setting where there are less than a billion humans, almost all in the solar system, so adjust accordingly.
As your rep gets higher, it gets harder to raise it higher. If you have a positive rep modifier, subtract it from any rep gained– so if it's +2, then a major deed gets you d8-2 permanent rep. Additionally, a deed can't get you permanent rep if your rep score is already twice the highest number on the die it would give you– so minor deeds no longer register once your rep is 8 or higher, for instance.
You lose rep the same way– by doing bad deeds, which are just like good deeds except they hurt people in the rep network. Scale modifiers still apply, but risk modifiers don't. This can give you negative rep in a network.
If your rep goes negative, it works the same way as positive rep, except people in the network can gain rep by fucking with you. The stuff they can gain favor for doing to you is equivalent to the sorts of favors you could ask for with an equivalent positive rep. If you have a rep of -2 people just say snarky stuff to you, at -4 they play minor pranks on you, at -8 they might vandalize your car, and -12 and beyond is where people might kill you (-10 for more violent networks like the criminal one).
The same limits apply here as for raising your positive rep, so repeated minor bad deeds won't take you past -8.
As for determining when and how people mess with someone, I'd put that into the random encounter table and the random downtime events table. If that comes up, randomly pick a PC who has a negative rep to get messed with, and if necessary randomly determine which network or what level of problem they suffer. If nobody has a negative rep, or anyone who does is using a fake ID and people wouldn't know it's them, this doesn't happen and don't roll for a different encounter; they just got lucky.
Again, everything about permanent rep still assumes your deeds are publicly known.
A good deed has to help hundreds of people, if not thousands. Like, at least enough people to populate a village or village-sized space hab. Also deeds are usually, though maybe not always, done on your own initiative rather than in response to a request from others.
If it's the equivalent of a minor favor for those people, like fixing up a bunch of stuff on their habitat, you gain d4. If it's the equivalent of a moderate favor for them, d6. Major favor, d8.
Adjustments for putting yourself in danger apply as usual. Adjustments for scale are scaled up; +1 die size if you help tens or hundreds of thousands of people, +2 if you help millions, or a large fraction of the whole rep network. Those scale numbers are based on the Eclipse Phase setting where there are less than a billion humans, almost all in the solar system, so adjust accordingly.
As your rep gets higher, it gets harder to raise it higher. If you have a positive rep modifier, subtract it from any rep gained– so if it's +2, then a major deed gets you d8-2 permanent rep. Additionally, a deed can't get you permanent rep if your rep score is already twice the highest number on the die it would give you– so minor deeds no longer register once your rep is 8 or higher, for instance.
You lose rep the same way– by doing bad deeds, which are just like good deeds except they hurt people in the rep network. Scale modifiers still apply, but risk modifiers don't. This can give you negative rep in a network.
If your rep goes negative, it works the same way as positive rep, except people in the network can gain rep by fucking with you. The stuff they can gain favor for doing to you is equivalent to the sorts of favors you could ask for with an equivalent positive rep. If you have a rep of -2 people just say snarky stuff to you, at -4 they play minor pranks on you, at -8 they might vandalize your car, and -12 and beyond is where people might kill you (-10 for more violent networks like the criminal one).
The same limits apply here as for raising your positive rep, so repeated minor bad deeds won't take you past -8.
As for determining when and how people mess with someone, I'd put that into the random encounter table and the random downtime events table. If that comes up, randomly pick a PC who has a negative rep to get messed with, and if necessary randomly determine which network or what level of problem they suffer. If nobody has a negative rep, or anyone who does is using a fake ID and people wouldn't know it's them, this doesn't happen and don't roll for a different encounter; they just got lucky.
Again, everything about permanent rep still assumes your deeds are publicly known.
Using Rep In Other Settings
So the default assumption behind these sorts of mechanics is that you're in a transhumanist, partly post-scarcity world where everything is really densely interconnected and everyone's on the future internet and in pretty close communication with each other. If those assumptions aren't true it might still be usable, but you have to change things a bit.
If humanity is spread out across multiple star systems, and there's no FTL communication, word of your deeds won't spread as easily from system to system. The referee will have to decide what impact this has, but in general a lot of things should either not affect your rep, or count for less, unless you make an effort to spread the word, and this can be good or bad for you.
In a modern setting, rep networks could pretty much work as-is, but their use is way more limited. They haven't even begun to replace money. You can get favors, but anything that requires people to give you physical goods or work long hours is at least a favor level higher.
In pre-modern or fantasy settings, it's just like above but also communication is slow and non-digital, and the rep networks are probably informal rather than an actual reddit-like network where you can see your rep score. You may have to send letters by post or physically go around talking to people, and most uses of rep will therefore take a long time. On the other hand, it'll be more normal, as a practical necessity, to ask favors of specific people. Referees may wish to not tell players exactly what their rep score, instead just letting them know a general range it falls into.
Stuff You Might Need to Run This
Mainly, you need to design your rep networks, which will be specific to your setting.
You'll need random encounter tables and random downtime events tables anyway; put the "PC with negative rep score gets messed with" events in there. You may also want to put a "PC with notably high rep score receives random favor or goody" entry in each of them too.
You may also want random favor tables to generate favors other people are asking for that the players can do to regain temporary rep. It'll need to be a different table for each rep network; some of the favors on each can be duplicates, but like there are some things criminals would want that scientists wouldn't, and vice versa.
This is actually making me want to run a transhumanist game now. Gotta build the post-apocalyptic game first, but I'll explore this idea more when I can.
Sunday, March 29, 2020
Three Wondrous Items Inspired By Food
One exercise I've started engaging in to build my creative muscles is to pick out either random phrases from the books I read, or the brand names of various things that I see, and try to come up with ways to turn those into magic items or other content for an RPG.
Somehow most of the stuff I come up with ends up being inspired by food. Here are three of my favorites.
This pepper causes any dish cooked with it to take on the properties of a healing potion, with the effects depending on how well the chef cooked the food– the tastier, the more effective.
A bag of spice mix contains enough for d4+1 servings. Cooking a really good meal takes a half hour. The chef makes a cooking skill roll; whoever eats the meal heals d8 + half the total number rolled. On a critical success the meal can also heal a disease or regenerate minor permanent injuries, such as scars or a bad knee (not regrow an eye or anything that big). The meal must be eaten shortly after cooking or it loses potency.
Somehow most of the stuff I come up with ends up being inspired by food. Here are three of my favorites.
Physician's Spice Mix
Inspired by: Doctor PepperThis pepper causes any dish cooked with it to take on the properties of a healing potion, with the effects depending on how well the chef cooked the food– the tastier, the more effective.
A bag of spice mix contains enough for d4+1 servings. Cooking a really good meal takes a half hour. The chef makes a cooking skill roll; whoever eats the meal heals d8 + half the total number rolled. On a critical success the meal can also heal a disease or regenerate minor permanent injuries, such as scars or a bad knee (not regrow an eye or anything that big). The meal must be eaten shortly after cooking or it loses potency.
Bell of Feasting
Inspired by: Taco Bell
This appears as a small, fancy silver dinner bell that never tarnishes despite seemingly being made of normal silver. When rung, a sumptuous meal materializes; enough to serve however many people are nearby, but no more than ten. The plates, silverware, and any uneaten food disappear after an hour. The bell can be used once a day.
Anyone near the bell when it is rung gets a pleasant feeling of anticipation, and their mouth starts watering. This effect carries for a mile in every direction, and every creature affected by it just knows that there's food around where the bell was rung. Every time the bell is rung, the referee should secretly roll for a random encounter, ignoring any result that indicates a creature that doesn't eat normal food. If creatures that do eat normal food are rolled, they show up, hungry.
Evolve Nano-Shake, or Potion of Adaptation
Inspired by: Evolve Protein Shake
I originally conceived of this as an ancient piece of medical nanotechnology, but it could easily be re-flavored as a potion.
After consuming the nano-shake, nothing happens at first. It lies dormant in the body for 24 hours. This is the analysis period.
After the analysis period is up, the imbiber suffers from a fever and flu-like symptoms for another 24 hours– the adaptation period– after which the symptoms subside and the nanoshake's work is done. The imbiber feels great– but they'll never be quite the same.
During the adaptation period, the person who consumed the shake adapts to become more resilient to the strongest stressor they experienced during the analysis period. They also suffer some corresponding defect, though usually the benefit outweighs the drawback. The referee will have to decide exactly what happens to them. A few examples:
If they were burned during the adaptation period, they gain resistance to heat and fire but cold vulnerability.
If they were stabbed, they gain resistance to edged weapons but their skin becomes leathery, deadening their sense of touch and making them look visibly changed.
If they spent all day reading and researching, they gain a superhuman memory but become somewhat more prone to fatigue from physical activity.
If they spent all day just resting, they can sleep more efficiently. Four hours of sleep is as good as eight; six is enough even if sick or wounded. However if well-rested and not sick, wounded or fatigued, the subject becomes hyperactive.
If you choose to make this a high-tech rather than magical item, it comes in a futuristic smart-plastic bottle with a badly faded label. About half the words are still legible.
Evolve Nano-Shake: _____ A New You!
Do you want to become _____ than a raging ______? _______ the _____ of your enemies? Never ______ suffer from ______ again? Now you can!
Warning: Do not ______ if you are pregnant or nursing, ______, ______, or suffer from ______, kidney failure, ________, ________, have a history of heart disease, or _______. Side effects may include flushing, temporary nausea, sleep disruption, or _________ __________ ___________ _________ _____________ _________ __________ _______.
Disclaimer: By reading this label, you absolve Evolve, LLC of all ___________, _________ and agree to ________ your right to ____________ ___________.
Enjoy the new you!
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Histories: Character Bio As Skill System
Spellbound Kingdoms by Frank Brunner has probably influenced my thinking on game design more than any other non-OSR game. Yes, more than Shadowrun. And the kicker is, I haven't even played it yet.
It's a glorious mish-mash of brilliant ideas, good ideas poorly implemented, and just plain weird ideas. In my opinion, the single best idea in the whole game is the Histories mechanic– a combination of character bio and skill system.
A history is a phrase stating something your character did in the past, such as "Piloted a walking ballista in the Opana campaign." This is both a true statement– hence, a character bio– and a skill.
What does it make you skilled at? Whatever would be clearly implied by the fact that you did that thing. In this case, you'd know about the Opanna region and the history of that war, military life and organization, and the operation and maintenance of walkers and ballistae.
Histories start out at the minimum rating, which is four in Spellbound Kingdoms since it uses a step die mechanic, but would be one in most systems you'd transplant this to. After that they advance based on your preferred method of advancement, so they could all be equal to your level, or get skill points invested in them individually, or level up with use.
Like a lot of things in Spellbound Kingdoms, Brunner came up with a brilliant idea but didn't quite go the last mile to make it work as well as it could.
It's a glorious mish-mash of brilliant ideas, good ideas poorly implemented, and just plain weird ideas. In my opinion, the single best idea in the whole game is the Histories mechanic– a combination of character bio and skill system.
A history is a phrase stating something your character did in the past, such as "Piloted a walking ballista in the Opana campaign." This is both a true statement– hence, a character bio– and a skill.
What does it make you skilled at? Whatever would be clearly implied by the fact that you did that thing. In this case, you'd know about the Opanna region and the history of that war, military life and organization, and the operation and maintenance of walkers and ballistae.
Histories start out at the minimum rating, which is four in Spellbound Kingdoms since it uses a step die mechanic, but would be one in most systems you'd transplant this to. After that they advance based on your preferred method of advancement, so they could all be equal to your level, or get skill points invested in them individually, or level up with use.
Like a lot of things in Spellbound Kingdoms, Brunner came up with a brilliant idea but didn't quite go the last mile to make it work as well as it could.
How to Write a Good History
The rulebook provides no real guidelines for writing histories. The examples in the book are pretty good, however the ones that Frank Brunner's players have come up with in his playtest campaign seem to be all over the place. Like, some are run-on sentences (or the actual history followed by notes on it, it's hard to tell), some are really short, and some are just statements of what a character is good out without saying anything about their history.
That's easy enough to fix with a few simple rules and format guidelines.
First off, no run-on sentences. More concretely, no more than one comma (unless you're listing a few things like "my friends John, Alan, Marsha and Ted"), and nothing that tries to cheat this rule because it clearly should have more than one comma. If you start to get short of breath reading it out loud, it's a run-on sentence.
Second– needs to be a statement about what you did, not what you're good at. It's implied that you're good at whatever the history says you did. "stole a car" is a good start. "good at stealing cars" is missing the point.
Third– if you mention people, places or organizations, get specific about them. One of the examples in the book is "studied religion in a mountain temple." That's almost there– but "studied Buddhism in a mountain temple in Vietnam" is so much better.
Fourth, aside from mentioning what you did, every history should mention one or two people, places, organizations or institutions. This grounds your histories in the setting.
Now, as for formulae for good histories, I've come up with three. There are more than three good ones of course but this is a start. I wouldn't make it an actual rule that you have to follow one of these formulas and some of Brunner's example histories don't follow them but are nonetheless good, so think of these more as something to use if you're having trouble coming up with ideas.
Did X, then Y, also involving person or place Z.
Stole a car and drove it across the Great Desert of Almaz
Enlisted as an archer in the Criztan Army, then deserted after witnessing war crimes
Grew up in the slums of Lankhmar, then became a cat burglar
Accomplished X by doing Y, involving person or place Z
Snuck into Aldarlan Castle disguised as a servant and assassinated the king's chamberlain
Blasted the Arch-Bandit to smithereens using a ray gun recovered from an ancient ruin
Saved Chieftan Erickson's daughter from a plague using knowledge recovered from a pre-collapse medical textbook
Did cool thing that put me at the intersection of X and Y, involving location or organization Z
Worked as a sketch artist for the LAPD
Was a dancer at The Grinning Maiden, a bar in Shaketown frequented by smugglers and gangsters
Translator for the orc warlord Gorsh One-Eye
What Histories are Used For
Up to you, but personally I plan to use them for pretty much everything other than saves. Histories can serve a lot of purposes, including:
Skill system. This is their core function. This includes both active skills, i.e. stuff your character can do, and knowledges.
Character bio– meaning both of stuff that happened before character creation, and essentially a campaign record that's kept on your character sheet. This is more than just interesting; it gives both player and referee things that can be used in play. If you used to be a bandit, you might get in trouble with the law because of that. Whatever your histories say, really happened, and anything implied by that is fair game.
Building on that, histories can serve as a contacts system. If you want to find just general contacts, like find a doctor or score some weed, that's a simple charisma check. Histories allow you to find more specialized contacts. If you were a sketch artist for the LAPD, you can make a history plus charisma roll to find artist or police contacts in the Los Angeles area.
Language system. Some histories can convey knowledge of languages. I wouldn't use this as your sole language system if you want languages to be important. I'd maybe use it on top of the system for Lamentations of the Flame Princess for finding out if your character already knows a language.
How Characters Get Histories
If classes inherently make people skilled at stuff the class is supposed to be good at, PC's start with one history. If classes only give special abilities but like, fighters are only good with swords if they actually take a sword skill, then everyone starts with two histories but one should relate to their class.
Especially long-lived races like elves get an extra starting history to represent being old to begin with.
Beyond that, you get a new history if you do something awesome enough to warrant one. One new history per level is a good guideline, but I don't think you necessarily need to make it a rule.
If all histories are rated equal to level, then maybe make it a rule. If histories level up individually the issue is sort of self-balancing, since having more histories tends to mean they each rank up more slowly.
One absolute rule though: never award the same history to two characters. If they accomplish something awesome together, give them different histories referencing their individual contributions.
Example: two characters kill a warlord in a totally sweet post-apocalyptic car chase, possibly involving gratuitous heavy metal guitars.
Character 1: Out-drove The Dunelord Karn–El in a buggy I rebuilt myself
Character 2: Shot The Dunelord Karn-El from the back of a wildly swerving buggy
I was about to publish this when it finally hit me that the guitar guy might not really be gratuitous. If the warboys don't all have radios, maybe the heavy metal wagon is just the post-apocalyptic equivalent of a drum and fife squad coordinating the army. I dunno, maybe. Maybe it's just to psych the warboys up. Then again, maybe Joe just likes to be really stylish when he fights.
As for advancing histories once you have them, I like this mechanic.
As for advancing histories once you have them, I like this mechanic.
Attribute Damage as a Base Mechanic, Attribute-Based Wounds, Insanity and Fatigue
So in my last post I introduced the seven attributes, or ability scores, that I plan to use in my upcoming post-apocalyptic game.
I briefly touched upon the fact that Health would be reduced by physical injury after hit points are depleted. But all seven attributes can be depleted by various forms of damage.
Now, most games have a few monsters, spells and poisons that can cause temporary ability score damage. But in those games it's treated as a rare and special thing. In my game I want it to be fairly common, a central mechanic that gets used almost as often as hit points get used.
I credit The Nightmares Underneath by Johnstone Mentzger for giving me the basic idea of using attribute damage like this. I also think the concept of attacking every part of the character sheet, which I learned from Skerples and Arnold K, contributed to the me coming up with the overall idea for this system.
The rule is: if you lose half or more of an attribute at once from a single source of damage, or suffer a critical hit, you take a wound from the table for that attribute. So if you have ten willpower and lose five or more willpower from a spell or horror or whatever, you take a willpower-based wound. Or maybe I'll call it a derangement if it relates to a mental attribute.
Health is unique in a couple ways. It doesn't have just one wound table– it has several, for different types of damage. Also, the different wounds on that table will be ordered by severity, so the more health you lost in getting the wound, the worse the wound is.
For the time being I'm using the six tables from Esoteric Enterprises– ballistic, cutting/tearing, bludgeoning, heat/fire, toxic/acid, and electrical. They're pretty good; I'll eventually modify them a bit and add maybe a radiation table, a nanotech table or something, idk.
Other attributes have just one table, and each type of wound is about equally bad. You roll one possible wound randomly, and the number of attribute points you lost determines both how severe it is and how long it takes to heal.
Strength damage can be inflicted by certain poisons, diseases or maybe nerve damage. It's a bit different from fatigue, which I'll describe at the end of this article. If you would suffer a strength wound, roll a d6:
I briefly touched upon the fact that Health would be reduced by physical injury after hit points are depleted. But all seven attributes can be depleted by various forms of damage.
Now, most games have a few monsters, spells and poisons that can cause temporary ability score damage. But in those games it's treated as a rare and special thing. In my game I want it to be fairly common, a central mechanic that gets used almost as often as hit points get used.
I credit The Nightmares Underneath by Johnstone Mentzger for giving me the basic idea of using attribute damage like this. I also think the concept of attacking every part of the character sheet, which I learned from Skerples and Arnold K, contributed to the me coming up with the overall idea for this system.
The rule is: if you lose half or more of an attribute at once from a single source of damage, or suffer a critical hit, you take a wound from the table for that attribute. So if you have ten willpower and lose five or more willpower from a spell or horror or whatever, you take a willpower-based wound. Or maybe I'll call it a derangement if it relates to a mental attribute.
Health is unique in a couple ways. It doesn't have just one wound table– it has several, for different types of damage. Also, the different wounds on that table will be ordered by severity, so the more health you lost in getting the wound, the worse the wound is.
For the time being I'm using the six tables from Esoteric Enterprises– ballistic, cutting/tearing, bludgeoning, heat/fire, toxic/acid, and electrical. They're pretty good; I'll eventually modify them a bit and add maybe a radiation table, a nanotech table or something, idk.
Other attributes have just one table, and each type of wound is about equally bad. You roll one possible wound randomly, and the number of attribute points you lost determines both how severe it is and how long it takes to heal.
Strength damage can be inflicted by certain poisons, diseases or maybe nerve damage. It's a bit different from fatigue, which I'll describe at the end of this article. If you would suffer a strength wound, roll a d6:
1: Lose strength in your hand(s)
2: Lose strength in your arm(s)
3: Lose strength in your back (affects encumbrance)
4: Lose strength in your legs (affects speed and encumbrance)
5: Loss of power, i.e. weaker attacks, can't jump high (note: strength is the ability to exert a lot of force slowly, while power is the ability to move lighter weights fast. Think swinging a baseball bat versus doing chin-ups)
6: Loss of stamina– can't run, hike or climb for very long
Dexterity damage can be caused by blows to the back of the head or intoxicating chemicals. If you suffer a dexterity wound, roll a d6:
1: Dizziness
2: Poor manual dexterity (can't pick locks and the like)
3: Loss of balance
4: Shaky hands, Parkinsons-like symptoms
5: Slow reflexes
6: Inflexibility
Charisma damage can be caused by horror and insanity effects and the like, and maybe some magic. Charisma partially represents confidence and sense of self, so maybe stuff that reduces one of those things. Arguably it could also be caused by character assassination, which is what The Nightmares Underneath does, but personally I don't like that. I'd rather have charisma represent a character's inherent abilities, and handle reputation damage via a different mechanic.
So, charisma wounds are generally related to sense of self or social ability, rolled on a d8:
1: Social anxiety
2: Multiple personality
3: De-realization
4: Survivor’s guilt
5: Depression
6: Bipolar
6: Narcicism
8: Megalomania
Knowledge damage can be inflicted by anything that would affect memory, like alcohol or other drugs, maybe blows to the head. Knowledge wounds all involve knowledge or memory somehow. d10 knowledge wounds:
1: Retrograde amnesia
2: Anterograde amnesia
3: Lost History (Histories are a skill system I'll explain in a future post)
4: Face/name blindness
5: Selective retrograde amnesia
6: Selective anterograde amnesia
7: You can’t recognize certain words
8: Illiteracy
9: Loss of languages
10: Can’t do or understand math
Willpower damage can be inflicted by intoxication, sleep deprivation, or the medium to long-term affects of drug addiction. Or spells of course. Willpower wounds are generally compulsions of some sort, and I have 6 of them so far:
1: Substance addiction
2: Kleptomania
3: Anger control
4: Sex/food/games/whatever addiction
5: Phobia– specific
6: Fearful– Subject to morale rolls like an NPC
Perception damage can be caused by anything that might befuddle you, like drugs or insanity. Damage to a specific sense is not represented as perception damage, since this would imply that, say, blind people are worse at hearing.
1: Voices in your head
2: Hallucinations
3: Can’t recognize certain things
4: Synesthesia
5: Low pain tolerance
6: Psychosomatic illness
Horror and Insanity
So, a cool side effect of this system is that you essentially have an insanity system with four separate tracks– one for each mental attribute. So that sort of puts it on par with games that try to specialize in this like Call of Cthulhu or Unknown Armies, at least if you choose to use it as such.
Horror, learning That Which Man Was Not Meant to Know, getting a good look at non-Euclidean geometries, and other insanity-inducing effects cause damage to a mental attribute. Sometimes a specific mental attribute based on the source, other times a random one rolled on a d4.
Depending on the severity of the source, it might do d3, d4, d6, d8, d10 or d12 damage. Those higher numbers should be extremely rare and lampshaded in advance though, like it's what happens if you summon Yog-Sothoth and get a good look at it. Insanity should usually come on gradually.
Sources of insanity allow a save for half damage. Usually, but not always, a willpower save.
Horror, learning That Which Man Was Not Meant to Know, getting a good look at non-Euclidean geometries, and other insanity-inducing effects cause damage to a mental attribute. Sometimes a specific mental attribute based on the source, other times a random one rolled on a d4.
Depending on the severity of the source, it might do d3, d4, d6, d8, d10 or d12 damage. Those higher numbers should be extremely rare and lampshaded in advance though, like it's what happens if you summon Yog-Sothoth and get a good look at it. Insanity should usually come on gradually.
Sources of insanity allow a save for half damage. Usually, but not always, a willpower save.
Healing Wounds and Attribute Damage
Non-permanent wounds take a number of months to heal equal to the number of attribute points you lost when you suffered them, squared. So if you broke your arm after taking six points of damage, it would take 36 months. But that's for natural healing; good medical care takes this down to the same number of weeks rather than months.
Permanent wounds take that same number of weeks, rather than months, to heal to whatever extent they would heal, and good care reduces that to days. i.e. if you lose an eye, it takes that much time for the eye socket to heal over so it's not prone to infection, and for you to get as used to seeing with one eye as you'll ever be.
Attribute points, it depends on how realistic you want to be. Fast healing– one point in your most damaged attribute per night's rest. Medium pace– one point per full day's rest, or per night under the care of a medic, or per week in which you at least eat and sleep. Slow pace– one point per week.
From a realism standpoint, slow is probably the way to go. Like it takes weeks to regenerate the blood you lose from a blood donation, and that's like one point of Health. But that's also not terribly fun so I'll probably do either fast or medium.
Non-permanent wounds take a number of months to heal equal to the number of attribute points you lost when you suffered them, squared. So if you broke your arm after taking six points of damage, it would take 36 months. But that's for natural healing; good medical care takes this down to the same number of weeks rather than months.
Permanent wounds take that same number of weeks, rather than months, to heal to whatever extent they would heal, and good care reduces that to days. i.e. if you lose an eye, it takes that much time for the eye socket to heal over so it's not prone to infection, and for you to get as used to seeing with one eye as you'll ever be.
Attribute points, it depends on how realistic you want to be. Fast healing– one point in your most damaged attribute per night's rest. Medium pace– one point per full day's rest, or per night under the care of a medic, or per week in which you at least eat and sleep. Slow pace– one point per week.
From a realism standpoint, slow is probably the way to go. Like it takes weeks to regenerate the blood you lose from a blood donation, and that's like one point of Health. But that's also not terribly fun so I'll probably do either fast or medium.
Fatigue
I like the idea of fatigue from 5E, but not the way it's implemented where the first level of fatigue gimps you so hard you're basically done adventuring until you get a long rest. So here's my alternate implementation:
I like the idea of fatigue from 5E, but not the way it's implemented where the first level of fatigue gimps you so hard you're basically done adventuring until you get a long rest. So here's my alternate implementation:
-For every level of fatigue, all of your attribute modifiers go down a point. Once two of your attributes reach -4, or whatever is one point lower than the lowest negative modifier your system allows, you have to have a health save to avoid falling unconscious any time you exert yourself even a little. If three of them get that low, you're unconscious.
You heal one level of fatigue after a night's sleep, and two or three after a full day's rest. Powerful stimulants can temporarily alleviate fatigue, but after they expire you have to save or take another level of fatigue.
You heal one level of fatigue after a night's sleep, and two or three after a full day's rest. Powerful stimulants can temporarily alleviate fatigue, but after they expire you have to save or take another level of fatigue.
Friday, March 27, 2020
Why I Use Seven Ability Scores
For the post-apocalyptic sword and sorcery, science fantasy OSR game I'm working on, I'm not using the seven standard ability scores. Instead I'm using seven scores, and re-naming a couple of the ones that aren't new. In this article I'll go over each of them and explain why I use them.
I should preface this by saying that the game also uses ability score damage as a common mechanic. I'll go over that, along with the wounds system, in more detail in the next post, but you'll need to know it right now to understand one of these attributes.
Also, the game uses attribute-based saves, a la 5E, which I'll also explain in a future post.
Strength
This is unchanged. It's arguably a bit less important with a greater emphasis on ranged combat and vehicles, though a lot of that depends on the encumbrance system, which I haven't quite figured out yet. STR modifiers are applied to the damage of melee weapons, thrown weapons like knives and the like, and bows.
On the other hand, characters with high STR can stack a lot of armor (I'm working on a piecemeal armor system), and can find creative uses for it by performing combat maneuvers.
Health
Essentially constitution renamed to have a more clear meaning. Also, after hit points are reduced, health starts getting depleted. If it reaches exactly zero you're comatose, if it goes negative you're dead. Essentially, hit points now represent superficial injury and health loss represents serious and potentially life-threatening injury.
Renaming it health also feels like it makes more sense if it's going up and down a lot, which it probably will more often than other ability scores.
Dexterity
I detailed in a previous article how I separate ranged and melee defense. Dexterity applies to melee attacks and melee defense, as well as all the usual stuff you'd expect like stealth, dodging stuff (i.e. DEX saves), picking pockets, etc.
It doesn't apply to ranged attacks though– that'll be perception. Aside from the balance reasons for that– if it applies to ranged attacks it would be a god stat– I also like that it makes it at least possible for ranged characters to have crappy melee defense. One thing that always annoyed me about having DEX apply to both AC and ranged attacks is that it means getting in an archer's face and attacking him with a sword is never as effective as it sounds like it should be. This solves that.
Perception
Measures perceptiveness. Applies to spot/search checks and ranged attacks. Illusion magic will usually call for a perception save.
Willpower
Used for magic and resisting a lot of spells and insanity effects, as well as for using a lot of magic.
I separated wisdom into willpower and perception both for balance reasons, and because wisdom always was a weird attribute that represented a vague and disparate combination of willpower, perceptiveness, and general mental sharpness.
Charisma
Pretty much unchanged. Applies to reaction rolls, hiring people and their morale/loyalty after you do, and finding contacts.
Knowledge
Essentially the same thing as intelligence, but renamed to better describe what it actually represents. Executive function, i.e. decision-making, is the player's job; this stat represents knowledge, and by extension aptitude for technology and the more knowledge-based parts of magic (i.e. can you memorize the formula, as opposed to are you strong-willed enough to cast it)
Hopefully the name change should help dispel the perennial "Does having a low INT obligate me to make stupid decisions" issue.
I should preface this by saying that the game also uses ability score damage as a common mechanic. I'll go over that, along with the wounds system, in more detail in the next post, but you'll need to know it right now to understand one of these attributes.
Also, the game uses attribute-based saves, a la 5E, which I'll also explain in a future post.
Strength
This is unchanged. It's arguably a bit less important with a greater emphasis on ranged combat and vehicles, though a lot of that depends on the encumbrance system, which I haven't quite figured out yet. STR modifiers are applied to the damage of melee weapons, thrown weapons like knives and the like, and bows.
On the other hand, characters with high STR can stack a lot of armor (I'm working on a piecemeal armor system), and can find creative uses for it by performing combat maneuvers.
Health
Essentially constitution renamed to have a more clear meaning. Also, after hit points are reduced, health starts getting depleted. If it reaches exactly zero you're comatose, if it goes negative you're dead. Essentially, hit points now represent superficial injury and health loss represents serious and potentially life-threatening injury.
Renaming it health also feels like it makes more sense if it's going up and down a lot, which it probably will more often than other ability scores.
Dexterity
I detailed in a previous article how I separate ranged and melee defense. Dexterity applies to melee attacks and melee defense, as well as all the usual stuff you'd expect like stealth, dodging stuff (i.e. DEX saves), picking pockets, etc.
It doesn't apply to ranged attacks though– that'll be perception. Aside from the balance reasons for that– if it applies to ranged attacks it would be a god stat– I also like that it makes it at least possible for ranged characters to have crappy melee defense. One thing that always annoyed me about having DEX apply to both AC and ranged attacks is that it means getting in an archer's face and attacking him with a sword is never as effective as it sounds like it should be. This solves that.
Perception
Measures perceptiveness. Applies to spot/search checks and ranged attacks. Illusion magic will usually call for a perception save.
Willpower
Used for magic and resisting a lot of spells and insanity effects, as well as for using a lot of magic.
I separated wisdom into willpower and perception both for balance reasons, and because wisdom always was a weird attribute that represented a vague and disparate combination of willpower, perceptiveness, and general mental sharpness.
Charisma
Pretty much unchanged. Applies to reaction rolls, hiring people and their morale/loyalty after you do, and finding contacts.
Knowledge
Essentially the same thing as intelligence, but renamed to better describe what it actually represents. Executive function, i.e. decision-making, is the player's job; this stat represents knowledge, and by extension aptitude for technology and the more knowledge-based parts of magic (i.e. can you memorize the formula, as opposed to are you strong-willed enough to cast it)
Hopefully the name change should help dispel the perennial "Does having a low INT obligate me to make stupid decisions" issue.
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
How to Make Morale and Formations More Relevant in Combat
A few weeks ago I read this tweet by Emmy Allen about how morale and formations are frequently undervalued by RPG theorists, and it got me thinking about how to make both of those things more important.
The solutions I came up with for both of them involve not making them more powerful or numerically impactful, but more so making them come up more often.
OSR games already have morale rules that work really well. One thing that could be tweaked is how often morale is checked.
In most games the rule is that NPCs check morale when
a) the first time one of them dies or is incapacitated, or the first time they get hit if it's one big NPC
b) when they lose half their people, or half their HP for one big monster
c) when the leader is taken out, for groups
That's a good start, but it's worth considering what other things could cause morale checks. Here's what I came up with:
d) the first time they're faced with something particularly scary, like demons or incendiary weapons– maximum once per battle per scary thing.
So now we have morale not only being checked more often, but another potential avenue for players to win battles: psychological warfare. Maybe you can force a morale check by lighting someone on fire, or throwing a severed head at the enemy?
The other thing you could do with morale is give morale tests more possible results. They're generally just pass/fail, but maybe you could use a table with four results like so:
Break: the enemies run or surrender
Shaken: The enemy are scared into fighting defensively. They back off a bit but don't give up the fight. Morale score lowered by 1 or 2 for the rest of the combat.
Hold: They pass the test, no change.
Rally: Imminent danger only emboldens them– they fight more aggressively and their morale goes up by 1 or 2 for the rest of the combat.
According to the 5E rules, the two flankers need to be in exact opposite squares. If the guy on the left is in the square he's in, then the guy in the right needs to be in that exact square. If he was one square north or south– no flanking.
Now realistically, flanking doesn't require two people being on the exact opposite sides of an enemy like that. Like if someone was right in front of me, and then another person was at my four o'clock, I'd definitely find it very difficult to fend them both off. So from a realism standpoint, making the flanking rules more permissive in terms of which squares people can be standing in makes sense.
Of course realism for it's own sake isn't generally a very good design goal. What really matters is what makes the game fun, or promotes the kind of gameplay you want to see. So let's think about how this change in the flanking rules would change the tactics of the game.
If the ogre suffers penalties for having two enemies more than 90 degrees around him, he needs to keep all enemies in front of him. He already didn't want anyone getting behind him; the big difference here is that now he also doesn't want people getting to his sides.
Assuming that people actually play smart– and not only the players, but also any reasonably intelligent NPC's should be making an effort to not get flanked– this will result in people guarding their sides more, through some combination of formations or using the terrain.
Now, strict formations isn't really what you want in a game about a small party of adventurers with non-standardized equipment– although it might be what you want if you start having the party commanding whole squads of hirelings. So what means that if you're going to expand flanking like this, you do want to give people plenty of opportunities to guard their flanks with the terrain– populate locations with boulders, pillars, chokepoints, and random interesting room contents.
One final thing you could do is have shields also provide their bonus to any ally standing immediately to behind or to the left of the holder, at least against attacks coming from in front of the holder. This would come up a lot less often, but it does provide an interesting positional consideration for shield users.
Also shows just how badass the guy in the front right corner of the phalanx must have been, being in the front rank with nobody covering his right side. I think I just came up with my next fighter's nickname– Right Corner Roger.
The solutions I came up with for both of them involve not making them more powerful or numerically impactful, but more so making them come up more often.
Morale
OSR games already have morale rules that work really well. One thing that could be tweaked is how often morale is checked.
In most games the rule is that NPCs check morale when
a) the first time one of them dies or is incapacitated, or the first time they get hit if it's one big NPC
b) when they lose half their people, or half their HP for one big monster
c) when the leader is taken out, for groups
That's a good start, but it's worth considering what other things could cause morale checks. Here's what I came up with:
d) the first time they're faced with something particularly scary, like demons or incendiary weapons– maximum once per battle per scary thing.
So now we have morale not only being checked more often, but another potential avenue for players to win battles: psychological warfare. Maybe you can force a morale check by lighting someone on fire, or throwing a severed head at the enemy?
The other thing you could do with morale is give morale tests more possible results. They're generally just pass/fail, but maybe you could use a table with four results like so:
Break: the enemies run or surrender
Shaken: The enemy are scared into fighting defensively. They back off a bit but don't give up the fight. Morale score lowered by 1 or 2 for the rest of the combat.
Hold: They pass the test, no change.
Rally: Imminent danger only emboldens them– they fight more aggressively and their morale goes up by 1 or 2 for the rest of the combat.
Formations and Flanking
I really like the flanking rule from 5E where if you're flanking someone you get advantage. It's simple and impactful– advantage makes a big difference. And yet, the way it works isn't quite how flanking works in real life.
Take this illustration of the flanking rules from the 5E dungeon master's guide.
According to the 5E rules, the two flankers need to be in exact opposite squares. If the guy on the left is in the square he's in, then the guy in the right needs to be in that exact square. If he was one square north or south– no flanking.
Now realistically, flanking doesn't require two people being on the exact opposite sides of an enemy like that. Like if someone was right in front of me, and then another person was at my four o'clock, I'd definitely find it very difficult to fend them both off. So from a realism standpoint, making the flanking rules more permissive in terms of which squares people can be standing in makes sense.
Of course realism for it's own sake isn't generally a very good design goal. What really matters is what makes the game fun, or promotes the kind of gameplay you want to see. So let's think about how this change in the flanking rules would change the tactics of the game.
If the ogre suffers penalties for having two enemies more than 90 degrees around him, he needs to keep all enemies in front of him. He already didn't want anyone getting behind him; the big difference here is that now he also doesn't want people getting to his sides.
Assuming that people actually play smart– and not only the players, but also any reasonably intelligent NPC's should be making an effort to not get flanked– this will result in people guarding their sides more, through some combination of formations or using the terrain.
Now, strict formations isn't really what you want in a game about a small party of adventurers with non-standardized equipment– although it might be what you want if you start having the party commanding whole squads of hirelings. So what means that if you're going to expand flanking like this, you do want to give people plenty of opportunities to guard their flanks with the terrain– populate locations with boulders, pillars, chokepoints, and random interesting room contents.
One final thing you could do is have shields also provide their bonus to any ally standing immediately to behind or to the left of the holder, at least against attacks coming from in front of the holder. This would come up a lot less often, but it does provide an interesting positional consideration for shield users.
Also shows just how badass the guy in the front right corner of the phalanx must have been, being in the front rank with nobody covering his right side. I think I just came up with my next fighter's nickname– Right Corner Roger.
Friday, March 20, 2020
Dual Wielding, Two-Handed Weapons and Shields for OSR Games
One long-running question in the OSR community is how to handle dual wielding and two-handed weapons in a way that makes them simple and balanced against each other as well as shields. Here's the solution I came up with.
Two-handed Weapons: Roll an extra die and drop the lowest for damage. So if it's d8, it's 2d8 drop lowest, if it's 2d6, it's 3d6 drop lowest. This makes damage not only higher, but more consistent.
Weapons that can be used with either one or two hands like bastard swords do one damage die higher if used two-handed, same as 5E.
Dual Wielding: Get advantage on the attack roll, i.e. roll an extra die and drop the lowest. If the total rolled is even you hit with the main hand weapon, and if it's odd you hit with the off-hand weapon, but do -1 damage.
This does mean you might have to roll damage separately from the attack, slowing things down slightly. It also doesn't allow for the possibility of hitting with both weapons. I'm planning to use critical hits in my game, but if you didn't have that you could say a nat20 or doubles or whatever means both weapons hit.
Also rolling damage twice would be kinda slow in a game where the defender has to roll their armor so I don't want to do that.
Shields: Varies by shield. Any shield only gets its bonus if it could realistically impede the attack, like a wooden shield does nothing against bullets.
Buckler: +2 melee defense, plus it acts as a d4 blunt damage weapon that lets you dual wield if you want to.
Round or heater shield: +2 melee and +2 ranged defense
Tower shield: +2 melee and +3 ranged, encumbers twice as much
Modern riot shield: +3 melee and +2 ranged, see-through
Ballistic shield: +2 melee and +3 ranged, works against bullets, encumbers twice as much.
Bear in mind this is meant for my system where armor acts as damage reduction and melee and ranged defense are separate. For other systems I'd maybe increase the damage penalty for dual wielding. With armor as damage reduction, one big hit is demonstrably better than two smaller hits.
I actually bumped the shield stats up a bit since that last post after realizing shields were otherwise underpowered compared to the other two options. Should be close to balanced now but I haven't run the math yet.
Also I plan to use 2d10 instead of d20 for my system. Doesn't make a huge difference but it does mean a +1 to defense is bigger if the enemy would need around a ten to hit you.
Two-handed Weapons: Roll an extra die and drop the lowest for damage. So if it's d8, it's 2d8 drop lowest, if it's 2d6, it's 3d6 drop lowest. This makes damage not only higher, but more consistent.
Weapons that can be used with either one or two hands like bastard swords do one damage die higher if used two-handed, same as 5E.
Dual Wielding: Get advantage on the attack roll, i.e. roll an extra die and drop the lowest. If the total rolled is even you hit with the main hand weapon, and if it's odd you hit with the off-hand weapon, but do -1 damage.
This does mean you might have to roll damage separately from the attack, slowing things down slightly. It also doesn't allow for the possibility of hitting with both weapons. I'm planning to use critical hits in my game, but if you didn't have that you could say a nat20 or doubles or whatever means both weapons hit.
Also rolling damage twice would be kinda slow in a game where the defender has to roll their armor so I don't want to do that.
Shields: Varies by shield. Any shield only gets its bonus if it could realistically impede the attack, like a wooden shield does nothing against bullets.
Buckler: +2 melee defense, plus it acts as a d4 blunt damage weapon that lets you dual wield if you want to.
Round or heater shield: +2 melee and +2 ranged defense
Tower shield: +2 melee and +3 ranged, encumbers twice as much
Modern riot shield: +3 melee and +2 ranged, see-through
Ballistic shield: +2 melee and +3 ranged, works against bullets, encumbers twice as much.
Bear in mind this is meant for my system where armor acts as damage reduction and melee and ranged defense are separate. For other systems I'd maybe increase the damage penalty for dual wielding. With armor as damage reduction, one big hit is demonstrably better than two smaller hits.
I actually bumped the shield stats up a bit since that last post after realizing shields were otherwise underpowered compared to the other two options. Should be close to balanced now but I haven't run the math yet.
Also I plan to use 2d10 instead of d20 for my system. Doesn't make a huge difference but it does mean a +1 to defense is bigger if the enemy would need around a ten to hit you.
Saturday, March 14, 2020
Armor as Damage Reduction, and Separating Melee and Ranged Defense
I've always been a bit of a realism junkie, so I've always wanted a system that treats armor as damage reduction, and separates out melee and ranged defense.
Shadowrun, where I got my start, actually does this pretty well. Except that, being Shadowrun, it involves rolling a ton of dice multiple times. However that's a problem with Shadowrun's overall mechanics rather than this specific idea.
The main problem with armor as damage reduction is that it can cause combat to be way slower and more predictable, with more hits needed to take someone down. The counterargument here is that that's exactly what armor is supposed to do, so you should compensate by making attacks deadlier overall, but it's absolutely a good thing that well-armored combatants are less likely to be one-shotted than poorly-armored ones.
Anyway, here's what I came up with.
Armor as Damage Reduction for OSR and D&D-Like Games
Every type of armor has an armor die associated with it. When you're attacked, roll your armor die. If you're hit, subtract the amount you rolled from the damage.
Two caveats, however. First, ones actually count as zero, to account for the possibility of hitting a gap in the armor. Second, if you're not wearing a helmet, twos also count as zeroes. On the other hand, if the armor has literally no gaps whatsoever, ones could count as ones, but you'd mainly see that in sci-fi settings like with space marine armor.
So, here are the armor values. Remember that the question of head coverage is left out of this since the purpose of helms is to make twos count as twos.
Light armor that covers around half the body, like a leather jerkin or padded doublet: d3
Light armor that covers most of the body, like padded armor with long sleeves: d4
Medium armor that covers around half the body, like a chainmail shirt: d4
Medium armor that covers most of the body, like a breastplate plus greaves, vambraces and armored kilt: d6
Heavy armor that covers around half of the body, like half-plate, or is lower quality, like splint mail: d6
High-quality heavy armor that covers almost all of the body, like plate mail: d8
In the post-apocalyptic science fantasy game I have planned, numbers for really high-tech armor will have the potential to go higher than that and I'll probably use a piecemeal armor system, but I haven't worked that out yet. Umerican Survival Guide does something similar– I only read it after I thought of this idea, and I kind of like it's system but want to simplify it a bit.
One thing I want to note here is that contrary to what you'd intuitively expect, an armor value consisting of two dice doesn't produce results with more of a central tendency than an armor value consisting of one die, because you're already subtracting the armor value from the damage roll. Like if you look on Anydice, 1d10-2d3 is almost identical to 1d10-1d6.
So, no reason to overcomplicate this by rolling more than one die for amor. However if your armor values start going over d12, I would put a 2d8 in there to cover the gap between d12 and d20.
Separate, Non-Armor-Based Melee and Ranged Defense Values
Here's roughly how I plan to do melee and ranged defense– that is, the DC for an attack roll, which I can't really call armor class anymore since armor no longer contributes to it.
Melee Defense: 10 + DEX mod + half PC level or monster's hit dice (rounded up, maxing out at +5 at level 9)
My original plan was to instead add a 5E-style proficiency bonus, but I've moved away from that. If your game is 5E-based, I'd do that instead. So assuming ability score mods that go from -3 to +3, PC melee defense will range from 8 to 18.
Ranged Defense: 8 + cover modifier (ranging from 0 to 8)
Cover modifiers: +2 if 30-50% of your body is covered, +4 if 50-80% of your body is covered, +6 if 80-95% of your body is covered. An additional +2 if it's hard cover, like rock, as opposed to soft cover, like drywall.
If you have full cover but an attacker tries to shoot you through it, you get the same +6 or +8 you'd get for nearly full cover, plus the attacker probably has disadvantage unless they can see you somehow, plus even if they hit, the cover acts as an extra layer of armor, reducing your damage (and ones count as ones).
So ranged defense ranges from 8 to 16. You'd just record 8 on your character sheet, since the cover modifier is constantly changing. I might simplify this system to just two levels of cover plus hard vs soft, meaning cover values only go up to +6. Not sure yet.
Also, size modifiers apply to both defense values: +1 for small characters like halflings, -1 for big ones like ogres. There's a more full list of sizes here. I would treat any monster bigger than the sizes on that chart as an inverse swarm.
So one thing you're likely to note here is that melee defense is based on your character's abilities, while ranged defense is based on tactical positioning. This is deliberate; I want to reward player skills whenever I can, and that's easier to do with ranged combat.
Of course, I'm also going with the rule that attacks against flanked opponents have advantage, and it's easier to get flanked in melee. So that element of positioning brings player skill into melee combat. I'll write more about flanking in the future.
One last thing I want to point out is that this separation of melee and ranged defense was designed for settings where people use guns. Bullets of course can't be actively dodged, and instead people take cover, so in a modern or future setting there's a clear distinction between how you defend against melee versus ranged attacks.
In a pre-modern setting where ranged attacks are usually slings and arrows, which can be actively blocked or dodged, and taking cover is less common, there's a lot less of a rationale for separating melee and ranged defense.
What About Shields?
My thinking is that shields would still contribute to defense, rather than acting as damage reduction like armor. Each shield would have separate melee and ranged defense values– generally smaller shields would be mainly good against melee attacks, and as shields get larger, ranged defense goes up more than melee. So something like:
Buckler: +1 melee plus can be used as a weapon and qualifies you for two-weapon fighting
Round or heater shield: +1 melee, +1 ranged
Tower shield: +1 melee, +2 ranged, but encumbers twice as much as other shields
Balancing This So Combat Doesn't Take Forever
Another thing that may have occurred to you at this point is that my defense values are about as high as armor classes in other games, yet my use of armor as damage reduction means attacks will do less damage. So if nothing else changes, combat will take longer.
The two solutions here would be to lower the defense values, or raise damage. Lowering defense values leads to more consistent damage, while raising damage leads to less common but harder hits.
I prefer combat to be deadly and unpredictable, as is the OSR way, so I'd go with raising damage a bit.
The other thing you could do is have a system for armor degradation where your armor value goes down with repeated hits. I really want to do this but haven't figured out a way to do it that is both sufficiently simple and realistic for me.
Making Dungeon Rooms More Tactically Interesting
A few days ago I posted a combat maneuver system for OSR games. I like combat in which people are getting shoved around, random objects are getting thrown at people, and the like.
The thing is, you need something to shove enemies into. "A wall" isn't a very satisfying answer. Also, fighting in featureless rectangular dungeon rooms gets boring fast.
Solution: for every new room your players enter, roll on the following table. If it's a really big room, roll twice. If you're playing typical fantasy D&D, roll a d12, if you're playing science fantasy that has guns and computers and stuff, roll a d20.
1. One of the walls is dangerous– covered in spikes or something similar.
2. There's a bonfire in the room.
3. This room is split-level– half of it is about 3-5 feet higher than the other half, enough to give a significant advantage to people on the upper level fighting people on the lower level. There's a stairway (or two) in the room.
4. A pool of water, acid, lava, poison, toxic sludge, molten iron, mercury, or whatever is most appropriate to the dungeon.
5. There's a big reflective object– either a mirror on one of the walls or a shiny orb in the middle of the room. It will blind anyone who is a) looking at it, and b) carrying a light source that shines at it.
6. One or more solid tables that could be jumped on, or flipped over to provide cover.
7. Several statues, free-standing pillars or similar objects that could be hidden behind (just barely, partial cover only) or tipped over by a really strong person.
8. One or two long bookshelves or similarly-shaped objects that could provide full cover, or be tipped over onto people.
9. Ropes or chains hanging from the ceiling that could be swung from.
10. A circle of protection from magic is drawn on the floor, covering one or more dungeon tiles. Nobody can cast spells in or across it until it is physically erased.
11-13. Nothing, this room is pretty boring.
14. There's a big Tesla coil emitting sparks and lightning, or maybe just
15. A big buzzsaw or some grinding gears or something that you wouldn't want to be thrown into.
16. There's a security camera here, 50% chance it's wireless enabled.
17. Electronic door(s), 50% chance wirelessly enabled.
18. There's a loaded gun or hand grenade near the middle of the room. If an encounter takes place upon entering the room, the weapon is exactly halfway between the two parties.
19. Something in this room is jamming all electronic signals. Or maybe the whole room is just encased in a Faraday cage.
20. Remember the death star trash compactor? Yeah, it's like that.
Note that these are different from traps in that they should usually be immediately visible. Generally the idea is that they weren't put there specifically to help or hinder invaders; they're there for some other reason but clever players can make use of them during a fight.
Friday, March 13, 2020
Hit Locations and Called Shots in OSR Games
I like OSR games to have a little bit of tactical depth, so for my game I'll be allowing called shots- i.e. people to specify that they want to hit someone in the hand, eye, etc.
I'll also be using a random hit location system, though not on most attacks– only when someone takes a wound or I otherwise need to specify where they got hit. Since Esoteric Enterprises has a built-in wound system that already covers this, it might not see much use until my next campaign, but I came up with an idea for a hit location system, so here it is.
I've seen a few hit location charts, but most are more complicated than I'd like. For my home game I want a hit location system that's quick, simple, and so easy to remember that I'll never have to refer back to the rules.
My solution: the clock face system.
Imagine a person posed spread-eagled, with a clock over their body with its middle in the person's midsection. Actually don't imagine it, just take a look at Ryu in the Vitruvian Man pose here:
That's easy to remember because you just need to think about a clock face, and a person roughly in that sort of pose.
These numbers are broad enough that each one covers a few locations. Like 5 and 7 are the whole leg, 1 and 11 are both the neck and shoulder and maybe the upper arm and corner of the chest and back, 4 and 8 are both abdomen and hip, etc.
What if you want something more specific, like you want to know where on the head someone got hit? Then it gets way more complicated, because you have to..actually just roll another d12 and interpret it the same way.
Even then, a little bit of human judgement is needed, but that would mainly be based on whether the attack is coming straight in like a spear, or swinging around like a warhammer. Like for a head hit, a 12 could be either on the dome or the nose, a 6 could be either the chin or the mouth, etc. But this system gets you 80% of the way there, and you'll never need to refer back to a chart in the middle of a battle.
If someone is behind cover and you roll a body part that's covered, just go with the exposed body part whose number is closest to what you rolled.
Okay, so called shots. What I do here is just use the Pathfinder size chart, because it's sensible and unlike the 5E chart or anything else I could find, it goes down to finger-sized objects. Here's an abridged version I typed up:
So if you want to tear open someone's backpack or sunder their halberd, that's a +1 to the DC. Disarming someone of a longsword would be +2. Disarming someone of a dagger would be +4 (I'd combine the size of the dagger and the hand since really you could attack either). Cutting off the finger with the magic ring, or breaking the lich-king's magic pendant, that's a +8.
If the enemy is bigger than a human, just work backwards from whatever size they're at. So disarming an orge (large) of a dagger (+2 since it's one size category bigger) would be +3 to the DC– +2 for a tiny target, but also subtract back out the -1 you presumably got for the ogre's size to begin with.
Note that the Pathfinder size chart goes two levels higher than that. However, I think monsters bigger than Huge, and sometimes maybe Huge monsters as well, are better handled as inverse swarms.
Since there's a chance you miss your called shot but hit the target anyway, I'd say if the DC mod is +2 or greater and you miss by half or less of the mod, you score a normal hit. So if you take a +8 to try and hit the lich-king's magic pendant and fall 3 short of the modified DC, you just hit him in the chest and score a normal hit.
I'll also be using a random hit location system, though not on most attacks– only when someone takes a wound or I otherwise need to specify where they got hit. Since Esoteric Enterprises has a built-in wound system that already covers this, it might not see much use until my next campaign, but I came up with an idea for a hit location system, so here it is.
I've seen a few hit location charts, but most are more complicated than I'd like. For my home game I want a hit location system that's quick, simple, and so easy to remember that I'll never have to refer back to the rules.
My solution: the clock face system.
Imagine a person posed spread-eagled, with a clock over their body with its middle in the person's midsection. Actually don't imagine it, just take a look at Ryu in the Vitruvian Man pose here:
That's easy to remember because you just need to think about a clock face, and a person roughly in that sort of pose.
These numbers are broad enough that each one covers a few locations. Like 5 and 7 are the whole leg, 1 and 11 are both the neck and shoulder and maybe the upper arm and corner of the chest and back, 4 and 8 are both abdomen and hip, etc.
What if you want something more specific, like you want to know where on the head someone got hit? Then it gets way more complicated, because you have to..actually just roll another d12 and interpret it the same way.
Even then, a little bit of human judgement is needed, but that would mainly be based on whether the attack is coming straight in like a spear, or swinging around like a warhammer. Like for a head hit, a 12 could be either on the dome or the nose, a 6 could be either the chin or the mouth, etc. But this system gets you 80% of the way there, and you'll never need to refer back to a chart in the middle of a battle.
If someone is behind cover and you roll a body part that's covered, just go with the exposed body part whose number is closest to what you rolled.
Okay, so called shots. What I do here is just use the Pathfinder size chart, because it's sensible and unlike the 5E chart or anything else I could find, it goes down to finger-sized objects. Here's an abridged version I typed up:
If the enemy is bigger than a human, just work backwards from whatever size they're at. So disarming an orge (large) of a dagger (+2 since it's one size category bigger) would be +3 to the DC– +2 for a tiny target, but also subtract back out the -1 you presumably got for the ogre's size to begin with.
Note that the Pathfinder size chart goes two levels higher than that. However, I think monsters bigger than Huge, and sometimes maybe Huge monsters as well, are better handled as inverse swarms.
Since there's a chance you miss your called shot but hit the target anyway, I'd say if the DC mod is +2 or greater and you miss by half or less of the mod, you score a normal hit. So if you take a +8 to try and hit the lich-king's magic pendant and fall 3 short of the modified DC, you just hit him in the chest and score a normal hit.
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