Enlightened Self-interest

D&D Fate Characters: Burn Them All

2014-06-27T15:32:00.000-04:00

Today, I feel like making D&D Fate characters. Today’s theme seems to be attacking things with fire and high charisma.

Roland Flametongue

Hero Points: 3

ABILITY SCORES

Str +2
Dex +0
Con +2
Int +1
Wis +1
Cha +3

ASPECTS

Class—World Weary Warlord
Trouble—Too Old for this Stuff
Race—Fire Breathing Dragonborn

FEATS

Because I Yell a Lot I get +2 when I use Charisma to Create an Advantage when Encourage/Bark Orders at My Allies.
Because I Breath Fire I get +2 when I use Charisma to Attack when Using My Breath Weapon.
Because I Have Natural Weapons I get +2 when I use Strength to Defend when Using My Claws to Parry.

DAMAGE

Stress

Consequences

Mild (2)
Moderate (4)
Severe (6)

Serena the Sorcerer

Hero Points: 3

ABILITY SCORES

Str +0
Dex +2
Con +1
Int +2
Wis +1
Cha +3

ASPECTS

Class—Sorcerer on Her Mother’s Side
Trouble—So Many Irons in the Fire (Tends to Overcomplicate things)
Race—My Mother Came from an Exotic Foreign Land

FEATS

Because I Disguise Myself I get +2 when I use Charisma to Create an Advantage or Overcome an Obstacle when Using Magical Disguises.
Because I Fireball My Foes I get +2 when I use Charisma to Attack when Create Magical Balls of Fire.
One Feat to Be Determined Later.

DAMAGE

Stress

Consequences

Mild (2)
Moderate (4)
Severe (6)

I Ran D&D with Fate, a Post Mortem

2014-06-23T12:47:00.001-04:00

I just got back from a weekend excursion to visit faraway friends, and I managed to get some of them down to try Fate Accelerated Edition re-skinned as Dungeons & Dragons—approaches are replaced with the standard ability scores (which is not a new idea but it works), stunts are renamed feats (as they are functionally the same thing anyway), fate points become hero points, and I suggest to make race and class as starting aspects.

We started with the party (made up of a hobbit fighter, a half-elven thief, and a dwarven demon summoner) getting contacted by a envoy with a sensitive problem, the duke’s orphaned niece Serena has gone missing on the very day before she was to be engaged to some barely pubescent second son. The investigation was kicked off with a little demon summoning which lead to the brutal beating of a bard seen with Serena, and who was also a clown (the hobbit took an aspect and stunt related to hating clowns so there was a clown...a sad, sad clown) who gave up another clue, he has been extorted into luring Serena into a trap so she could be kidnapped.

They gained access to the scene of the abduction, a creepy and ill-expanded unused area below the duke’s castle, via the thief picking a lock. I had somehow forgotten that picking locks as a thing in D&D when I wrote the scenario, and the plan was for the group to search Serena’s room and find a journal that reveals a secret exit from the castle they can use to enter the dungeon. Even though the thief rolled a little low—I had the sudden realization that the lock probably wasn’t that good as very few people have any reason to try and open the lock, I couldn’t think of any good options for succeeding with a cost, and I thought derailing my plans was really funny—the lock opened.

Once they get down below, they met up with a mouse with a crown and a sword, the Mouse Prince, beside a pit. After some conversation (we discovered that the thief could talk to animals, which is to say she had an open aspect slot and put speaks with animals into it) they decided that the Mouse Prince is not to be trusted and is probably some sort of the improbable trap monsters. So, they threw a torch down the pit and yes, the Mouse Prince was some sort of improbable trap monsters. In the pit was the Rat King, a large rat with a crown and scepter of skulls whose tail is connected to the Mouse Prince—a variation on the urban legend rat king.

The fight was about three or four rounds long. I gave the PCs the initiative as they had surprised the monsters and I don’t like initiative rules. The fight included: Setting the Rat King on fire, compelling that on fire aspect to destroy the scepter, cutting the pair’s shared tail and instantly killing the Mouse Prince. Though I did forget to mention that even after the two free uses of On Fire, the aspect could still be used with a hero point.

After that, they found the remains of the would-be kidnappers (who had been blasted with fireball), went through a maze (which was just there because mazes are a trope they marked the walls and got through with little trouble), and found Serena disguised as a hermit camped by the exit (where they were supposed the start). They had already figured out that she was a magic user (her mother was a sorcerer from a foreign land), approached her and convinced her to join them after faking her death with the remains of the kidnappers, and taking the reward money after pinning it on the clown bard.

It was a quick, silly game but an enjoyable one with only a little hurriedly rules reference on my part. One of the players prefers a game with more concrete options, and I wonder if including the four basic actions (create an advantage, overcome an obstacle, attack, and defend) on the play-sheet (I made a character sheet with all the required rules for character creation and some of the other rules baked in) would have made things easier for her. I had left them off in an attempt to present the most accessible version of fate possible; though it is possible I went too far.

The players also seem to take to the build your own stunt system better than aspects, though I only omitted stunts that let characters do something without a roll once per day and adding new stunts by reducing refresh.

Share the Fun: "Magic Burst 4th Draft"

2014-06-06T12:00:00.000-04:00

Here's a nifty magic girl game that Ewen Cluney has been working on for a while, Magic Burst. It's still a draft, but a very complete one.

The Catalogue

2014-06-02T12:00:00.000-04:00

The Catalogue is an index of Unexplained Objects. These objects, seemingly at random, are aware of their surrounding and, given the proper motivation, able to act. What the object does is often tied to its function (such as a lighting causing spontaneous combustion) , but also its circumstances (such as the same lighter only torching lawyers because it was owned by a corrupt attorney who soured it against the profession). One might think of these objects as Karmic Rewards and Punishments.

As Procurement Agents for the Catalogue, the PCs are tasked to tracking down these objects, investigating them, and if need be, procuring them. As a privet enterprise, the Catalogue has no legal authority to claim these objects and only so many funds to deal with legal disputes, so getting the objects without entanglements is important.

To pay the bills, the catalogue also sells and trades the more benign objects to Keep the Coffers full.

In addition, some people are Born Different with features that one might find in a fantasy novel or cheep science fiction series such as pointed ears, oddly colored eyes, scaly skin, a tail, or a combination of multiple traits. This Weirdness is Normal for most people, even though it can't be traced to genetics or environment, and the traits variety enough to prevent easy classification.

Stunts

Because Violence Only Breeds More Violence, you get +2 when cleverly creating advantage or overcoming an obstacle when non-violently resisting or avoiding a violent opponent.

Because Nature Loves a Clown, you get +2 when Flashily defending when making a fool hearty risk that really isn't necessary.

Because Every Agent is a Part Time Therapist, you get +2 when Carefully creating an advantage when analyzing a unexplained object.

Anime Fighting Game

2014-05-30T12:00:00.001-04:00

A few days ago, I started thinking about anime (in particular shonen series focused on fighting) rpg, and I figured I’d write up a quick game using that theme and post it up before my attention drifted elsewhere.

Building a Character

Moves: You have 12d6 to build moves, with a maximum of 6d6 in any one move. The number of dice is also the cost in endurance. The three types of moves are attack, defense, and hinder. Characters can take multiple actions in sequence but only if each new move has more dice than the last, so varying the costs of your moves is useful.

Attack moves deal damage. If the damage equals or exceeds the target’s toughness, the target is hurt. A target can be hurt multiple times if damage equals or exceeds the target’s toughness multiple times (a fifteen damage attack hurts a character with 5 toughness three times).

Defense moves are used in response to other moves to reduce their effect (subtract the defense roll from the other move’s roll). Defense moves are used in response to other moves, so they don’t follow the normal combo rules.

Hinder moves prevent a target from acting until the target spends endurance equal to the move’s roll / 3 (round up).

Toughness: You start with a toughness of 7. An attack must deal at least 7 damage to hurt you, 14 to hurt you twice and so forth.

Endurance: You start each combat with endurance equal to your character’s toughness, and regain the same value during ever turnover.

Escalations: You start most combats with none of these. If an attack move does enough damage to hurt you, you can either succumb to the damage (dropping out of combat) or escalate. Escalating adds one to your escalation, which adds one dice to all of your moves and adds one to your toughness, but it also adds a dice to the post combat fallout roll.

You can also escalate as a "one dice" move.

Combat

Combat starts with one character (most likely the character that throws the first punch) with initiative. That character can use a move and then they can pass the initiative to any character.

A combo occurs when a characters passes initiative to or between themselves. Every move in a combo must cost more than the last. The only way out of the rising endurance costs is a turnover, passing initiative to an opponent rather than an ally.

After a turnover, every character regains endurance equal to their toughness and all combos end.

NPC characters will often have preselected values to determine how many times they will escalate before succumbing.

Fallout

After combat, roll each character’s escalations in d6 and consults below:

0-3: No Effect

4-7: Start next combat with 1 escalation

8-10: Start next combat with 2 escalations

11-14: Start next combat with 3 escalations

15-18: Start next combat with 3 escalations without the normal benefits for those escalations

19+: Lose 1d6 Toughness. A character that drops to 0 toughness or less dies.

Generic Magic Girl

2014-05-26T12:00:00.000-04:00

Through the beneficence of Cute Yet Mysterious Animal Guide you have been gifted with a Transformation Trinket which allows you to shift into a Magical Alter Ego. You won't have long to learn to use your new powers, these sorts of things are only dispensed when A Crisis Looms; something that can only be fought with magic is threatening a world unaware that it is even in danger.

You may find your foes include other empowered individuals that aren't so different from you. These people are necessarily bad people, they might have reasons for doing what they are doing. Luckily, Defeat Means Friendship, though be careful because sometimes Redemption Equals Death as well.

Most of your foes will probably be minor foes that reflect some human failing in an completely inhuman way. These creatures might feed of people's negative emotions, encourage them, or both. You'll probably encounter these creatures first wearing convincing human disguises that only drop when confronted, revealing their true forms.

In battle you should Call Your Attacks, especially when you use your Finishing Attack.

Stunts

Because No One Should Suffer, you get +2 when Quickly defending when a someone else is attacked.

Because You Never Fight Alone, once per game you can receive aid from a mysterious ally.

Because When You Have Magic Everything Looks Like a Nail, you get +2 when Cleverly creating an advantage when using an attack in a unconventional way.

Online Games, a List of Sorts

2014-05-23T12:00:00.000-04:00

At my current location the only options for internet access are dial-up, satellite, and DSL through a phone carrier other than the one the household currently uses. So, I have dial-up access, which means that for some tasks, such as downloading large files and playing online games, I have to bring my laptop somewhere where I can hook it into a better connection.

Sometime in the near future my location will be changing, and I will have better options for internet access, and will be able to download files, play online games, and do other things that require fast internet (maybe playing tabletop games over skype or google+ with distant friend provided I can find distant friends with the prerequisite free time to do so). Since a list of files I plan on downloading isn’t very interesting, here is a list of online games I’ve played some in the past and plan on playing more when I’ve moved.

Marvel Heroes: I kind of missed out on the Diablo phenomenon. When the first two games came out, I didn’t have a computer able to play them. My introduction to that sort of game came with Torchlight II and the predecessor (which I go with the pre-purchase of the former), which is also a fine game.

Marvel Heroes is the same sort of game, but with a characters and locations from Marvel comics. I’ve been playing Daredevil, though I have a level 1 Thing and Hawkeye waiting in the wings, which seems to be a problematic character as every time I play (which is rare) I have to rebuild my character as he’s be rebalanced in some subtle way that doesn’t actually change how I play him much.

The game isn’t particularly hard. My main strategy is to jump into a bunch of guys and spam an area attack until there aren’t any guys left with maybe some more thoughtful tactics if that doesn’t work. But that part of the fun of Marvel Hero for me, I have tons of games that challenge me, this is a game where run around beating bad guys up, taking their stuff, and listening to amusing quotes.

Infinite Crisis: Speaking of games that challenge me, Infinite Crisis is a DC Comics themed MOBA (a not particularly interesting acronym for games like LoL and Dota) and MOBA are not a genre of game I excel at but I’ve been playing it a little. There isn’t much to differentiate the game from other entries in the genre in the game play (though they did launch with more map variety than some other games which is nice) but through having multiple versions of famous DC characters from different universes. My personal stable of characters includes Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Robin, Zatanna, Batman Noir, and Atomic Green Lantern (as far as I can recall).

As I said, I’m not very good at this sort of game, so I tend to be happy as long as I’m not the worst player in the match.

DC Universe: Yet another licensed game based on comic books, DC Universe is an MMO. It might be silly, but I really like that all of the quests have voiced introductions from one of the character’s patrons.

While I enjoyed the Legends PVP mode where you step into the shoes of famous DC characters for head to head matches against another team, I got a little sick of getting taken out repeatedly by max level heroes while trying to do my quests. Luckily, it is easy to switch between PVP enabled and not.

Guild Wars 2: Guild Wars 2 does some smart things as a MMO. The way levels work makes it so you never out level content and they add a lot of variety into each class by making every type of weapon provide a different set of command.

Also, I’ve heard good things about the PVP sections of the game though I’ve never played with them.

Defiance: An MMO that is also a shooter that is also an entertaining science fiction/western television show. I haven’t actually played the game yet. I picked it up during a sale and put it aside, but will probably give it a shot. I am slightly disappointed that more of the alien races aren’t playable.

Nuclear Dawn: A weird PVP hybrid shooter/ strategy game where one player on each team is given the role of commander, which lets them build helpful building and research player boosts while everyone else works to take points on the map to give the commander more resources to work with.

I might not play a whole lot more of it, but I think its work an occasional play.

Super Monday Night Combat: A hybrid shoot/MOBA that is sadly under populated. I really like it and in the past I have strong armed friends into playing this game with me.

I also might play some of the previous game Monday Night Combat if I can talk people into it. I like that I can play it offline, but the one mode open to that sort of play (a type of survival against waves of bots with multiple lanes) is only doable for me as a single player on the lower difficulties.

The games’ setting could make good fodder for a table top game that went into what happens the rest of the week.

Monster Hunter: I have a friend that is very much a fan of this franchise, so I plan on pick the most recent version for my WiiU so we can combine forces to more efficiently hunt monsters. Hopefully, I’ll be able to manage the controls on the WiiU better than the demo version for the 3DS.

Also, when Exalted third edition comes out, I have plans to do a Dragonblood game loosely based off the same premise with lots of encounters with big stompy monsters rather than Exalted on Exalted fights.

Borderlands 2: Because it’s give me an excuse to make another character (as co-op seems to work best when characters have similar level and story progression) rather than actually finishing the game.

Night Town

2014-05-19T12:00:00.000-04:00

Hello and Welcome to the Night Town Citizen Enforcement Program (NTEP). As Night Town proper is currently under a witch's Curse of Enteral Twilight and subsequently becoming a Keyhole to Hell due to the town being denied the demon-repelling properties of sunlight, the ability of our small police and fire services fall short of the town's needs. That's where NTEP comes in, you are trained to deal with crime and Unnatural Disasters that municipally employees are unable to deal with themselves, and licensed by the town to do so legally.

While for some reason some of your peers refuse to submit to town mandated six week training course and invasive background checks. Remember to keep your NTEP Card on you at all times to avoid expensive liability claims and indefinite detention, your Special Power doesn't make you above the law.

Many people have a special power (such a telekinesis, flight, herculean strength, and so forth) and only one. Asking for more than would be rude, and also futile as we don't know where the powers come from or why they only seem to appear in own city. It's best not to think about it too long.

Since being granted the same rights as our human residents, Night Town's resident demons, vampires, and lycanthropes have become model citizens...for the most part. There is for profit blood bank to service the town's growing vampire population, and a concrete-lined hunting resort for lycanthropes that can not control their transformations. Also, demons are allowed to claim Dual-Citizenship with the Underworld. Though the reverse maybe not be true for the other side, so best not to going through the mysterious key-shaped hole in the center of town that leads to the demon's home plane. You may even be one of these groups, using your natural talents for the greater good. It goes without saying that Witches Are Not Welcome and these accommodations for differently talented citizens do not extend to them.

Crime is on the rise in Night Town. The Night Town Municipal Bank in particular is robbed at gunpoint at least once a week, along with the Museum of Cursed Artifacts, which was the town council's way of leaning into the twilight curse, getting broken into on a monthly basis. In many cases, criminals that steal from the museum end up dying in ironic ways, but it take time to track them down and clean up the mess. Be sure to bring your collars in alive, five successful convictions on your license and you get a $25 give certificate for the Night Town Municipal Gift Shop.

Stunts

Because Guns are Useless, you get +2 when Quickly defending when being fired on with firearms.

Because Offense is the Best Defense, you get +2 when Forcefully attacking when a foe that has already attacked an ally or bystander this scene.

Because There is Always Another Way, you get +2 when Sneakily overcoming an obstacle when a foe monologues about the futility of the attempt.

FAE Game Sheets

2014-05-12T00:00:00.000-04:00

I've been playing around with ideas for Fate Accelerated Edition (FAE) settings, and using the bronze rule to build a little "character sheet" for the setting, aspects and stunts that any character can use to establish the basics of the setting and reinforce its theme.

I've currently have six of these mini settings in various stages of doneness in my notebook: the catalogue, a generic magic girl game, modern magica, the silent castle, greys in black, and night town.

For each setting, I'm trying to do the following:

Define the core conceits of the setting and the specific tropes I want to encourage. The former being a good source of aspects and the later stunts.
Give the PCs things to do and tools to do those things. This includes thing like weird powers and technology, but also possible allies.
Generate interesting antagonists and challenges for the PCs to face.

For each setting will have a short description with aspects highlighted with bolded italic text, followed by a short list of stunts.

Here's an example based on one of my old blog posts:

Onyx, City of Mysteries

It is a seven day trek across a desert black as midnight to the Lost City, Onyx, once stood at the center of a continent spanning empire but now is only A Shadow of its Former Glory. Only an unmarked trail from an anonymous village serviced by Unsavory Merchants leads through the rocky peaks that seal Onyx off from the outside world.

The city has only One Taboo, It is forbidden to venerate of any god within the city, but this is only a pretense. Such worship was common during the city's heyday, but when the territories rebelled the city turned against their imported gods. Despite the ban, the city is controlled by Mystery Cults devoted to Strange Foreign Gods.

The city is the home to many Sorcerers, with inborn magical powers that grow with use. Sorcerers built Onxy's empire and Sorcerers control its mystery cults, but sorcerers are also drawn to the city to learn to control their powers.

Stunts

Because Sorcery Knows No Master, you get +2 when you Forcefully attack when ignoring the consequences of unleashing sorcery.
Because Onyx Eats Secrets, you get +2 when Cleverly overcome obstacles when revealing a secret as leverage.
Because Mysteries Breed, you get +2 when Carefully creating an advantage when fighting an unknown foe.

Fate Accelerated Edition is Magic

2014-05-05T12:00:00.000-04:00

I’ve been playing around with ideas for Fate Accelerated Edition(FAE), an offshoot of Fate that came out as part of the Fate Core kickstarter, and I discovered something delightful about it. The game supports character to use magic, psychic powers, or any other extra-normal abilities out of the box without any additional rules.

FAE trades in the discrete skills Fate Core uses for generalized approaches. Rather than being good at specific things FAE characters are good at ways of doing things such as being forceful or clever or deceptive.

Due to the way approaches work, a character can use magic or psychic powers or what have you without needing any special rules. The only thing the character might need is an Aspect (1) to establish the character is capable of using the power if that is something that most people can’t do (2).

On the other hand, I also find this trait a little annoying as I like the activity of cobbling together subsystems and the Fate base makes doing so fairly straight forwards due to the bronze rule(3). Just a few hours ago, I was working on a bolt-on magic system but I think that I in writing this post, I’ve talked myself out of using the idea.

1 A piece of freeform character definition where sentence fragments such as outlaw psychic are given mechanical teeth including establishing that the character is a psychic as well as an outlaw.

2 Though if the rest of the group isn’t interested in a game with that sort of character, then that is a horse of a different color.

3 You can use the basic building blocks for characters to build other things.

5e Musings & Slightly More

2012-01-12T14:24:00.000-05:00

A new edition of Dungeons & Dragons has been announced and the internet is abuzz (or at least the parts of the internet I frequent).

5e Musings
5e is supposed to be modular*. We’ve already know, that miniature-based combat is optional (though we no idea what the other options would be). I’m wondering if this will extend to character creation. I’m envisioning a system where someone building a wizard could take the old school option to have all daily powers, the 4e option for a mix of at-will, encounter, and daily powers, or something else entirely.

I would like to see them add pools of powers that multiple classes can draw from (probably based on power source and/or role) while cutting down classes to just the features and specific powers that best define that class. This also reduces the number of powers you need to put in the book and makes individual class write ups shorter (hopefully giving you room for more classes) by removing powers that are overly similar to each other.

I’d like to see less static bonuses from magic items, feats, and the like. This makes it easier to adjust how many magic items you want to include in your game without making things too easy or hard, and it opens feat slots for other thing that might be more interesting than +1 to hit or +2 to damage.

I like that 4e gives first level characters a bump in hit points, but I wish the hit point totally were scaled back a little for monsters.

I rather like the skill systems posited in these Legends & Lore articles: Skills in D&D and Difficulty Class Warfare.

A few people online have thrown around the idea of combining a content management system with print on demand for made to order core books. I have seen no indication this is even close to being an option, but I think it’s a cool idea. There was actual talk of something similar for the d6 system (but for .pdfs rather than pod) but it didn’t end up going anywhere.

* To quote Mike Mearls, "The new edition is being conceived of as a modular, flexible system, easily customized to individual preferences. Just like a player makes his character, the Dungeon Master can make his ruleset. He might say ‘I’m going to run a military campaign, it’s going to be a lot of fighting’… so he’d use the combat chapter, drop in miniatures rules, and include the martial arts optional rules." He also wrote a Legends & Lore article about the same topic a few months ago as part of the preannouncement build up.

Building a 4e Retroclone
In case 5e does ends up being unsuitable, someone (probably not me as I don’t have the motivation for such a project) could go digging into OGL sources to find bit and pieces that can build a new 4e (or something like it).

Just as an example, here what I could find in Unearthed Arcana.

Player’s Roll All the Dice includes static defenses for monsters (albeit with a base of 11 to keep the same average hit rate).
Complex Skill Checks are the predecessor of 4e’s skill challenges and there are two different methods of simplifying skill acquisition.
There is a version of Action Point, but it’s very different than the 4e version.
Reserve Points are kind of like a fiddlier version of healing surges.
Recharge Magic is like a first stab at changing the power economy.
Don’t forget Level-Independent Experience Awards.

Sharing the Fun: "Carts, Horses, and the Arrangement Thereof"

2011-06-18T19:21:00.000-04:00

Trollsmyth with a post on build the mechaincal parts a game to match the types of conflicts you want to excourage.

Sharing the Fun: "A ragtag, fugitive fleet, on a lonely quest..."

2011-05-31T21:06:00.000-04:00

In this post ChicagoWiz using an exodus as part of a sandbox campaign. I'm going to have to file this idea away for later.

Sharing the Fun: "The Worst Adventure Ever: Making it Work"

2011-05-26T17:57:00.000-04:00

An interesting post about running the Avatar Trilogy which I think can be applied in principle to similar adventures.

Charlie Brooks has been a good friend to me for over twenty years, and he ran my first few D&D games. I'm slightly surprised that I haven't linked to his site sooner. I also want to point out that Garyl Shadowslayer is one of my favorite NPCs, though I didn't get to participate in that particular campaign.

Onyx, City of Mysteries

2011-05-19T19:10:00.000-04:00

The player write up for my upcoming Lamentations of the Flame Princess campaign.

Onyx, City of Mysteries
The legendary city of Onyx, once the center of a vast empire, sequestered itself behind a nearly impassible chain of mountains to stop the tide of a rebellion poised to bring the city to its knees. After centuries in hiding many think that Onyx just as fiction, but it still exists and it can be reached.

Reaching the city takes a seven day trek across a desert as black as midnight—most travel with one of the few merchant caravans that make the circuit between Onyx and a small village at the most often used pass through the mountains.

The city itself is built into a cliff face. There are six separate wards laid out like links in a chain reaching from base to summit. Each ward more exclusive and difficult to breach than the one before it. The first is set aside of traders and foreign laborers.

There is one taboo in Onyx worth mentioning. It is forbidden to venerate of any god within the city. Before the city turned inward, worshiping gods from conquered lands was a common practice, but when those lands slipped through Onyx's fingers they turned against those foreign gods...at least publicly. The law only pushed worship underground, creating a abundance of mystery cults. These cults have wormed their way into the power structures of Onyx.

Possible Reasons to Travel to Onyx
It's going to be a sandbox style game, which means the players will be setting the agenda for most sessions. Every character is going to have a reason for traveling to Onyx (so when faced with no other pressing concern every character has something to do), below are some possibilities.

-- A long lost relative was sold into slavery and you tracked him or her to Onyx.
-- You came into the possession of a map of an underground complex buried somewhere deep beneath the city that is liable of hold untold treasures.
-- You discovered that one of your enemies has found sanctuary in Onyx.
-- You're an exile from your homeland for some crime (real or imagined) and are looking for some way to prove your innocence (or buy your way back into the good graces of the powers that be).
-- You're on a religious pilgrimage to recover a priceless relic.
-- You need to find a copy of a spell first penned in Onyx.

Revising Reserve Points

2011-05-03T17:31:00.001-04:00

I’m planning on running a Swords & Wizardry game this summer (I’m currently running a sandbox Cybergeneration game) in a setting where opening practice of any religion is illegal and I’m going to encourage the players away from playing clerics. This doesn’t mean that the city of devoid of religion (in fact it’s a hot bed of mystery cults) or that I want players to avoiding this aspect of the setting—removing the cleric as an option allows every character equal opportunity to explore that aspect of the setting.

Removing the cleric also means the party won’t have easy access to magical healing, which is a problem. Here is a house rule I’m considering to deal with this problem. I’m not one hundred percent certain if I’m going to used them yet, but this is the direction I’m leaning towards.

What I’m think of doing is a variation of the Reserve Points rule from the third edition version of Unearthed Arcana which originally appeared in the Omega World minigame, but rather than giving a pool of extra hit points, I want to use dice.

In my version, characters get a pool of reserve hit dice equal to half the character’s level (round up). A turn spent resting lets you roll one reserve hit dice and heal that much, and a turn spent actively treating injury gives you two hit dice. These two options are roughly equivalent to the S&W versions of Cure Light Wounds and Cure Serious Wounds.

When a character with reserve hit dice to spare is taken to 0 hit points (we’re not getting into negative hit points here), that character is out of combat though not necessarily dead. Avoiding death requires a successful saving throw. Normally the saving throw is made after combat, but if an ally tries to treat the character’s wound during combat the character gains an extra saving throw attempt (with a limit of two saves overall). A successful save lets the character use one reserve hit dice.

In some cases, the referee might decide that a particular wound isn’t enough to risk death or too damaging to allow a saving throw.

Reserve hit dice return at a rate of 1 HD per day of uninterrupted rest.

The rule is based around the idea that hit points are an abstraction that includes endurance and luck as well as the character’s capacity to take punishment. I’m using dice because the original Reserve Points rules were a little fiddly for my tastes and players are already used to the idea of rolling for hit point recovery.

Quick Hack Low Roll Initiative (AD&D and OSRIC)

2011-04-26T15:42:00.005-04:00

If you change the initiative system so that the low roll goes first, then each side goes uses their own roll to determine which segment they go on rather than the opposing side’s roll. This makes resolving initiative a little faster and it puts the party’s fate more directly in their own hands.

Five Year Mission

2011-04-12T17:00:00.001-04:00

A quick game inspired by early Star Trek.

Character Creation: Divid 4d (this game uses six-sided dice) between Close Combat & Ranged Combat. Each pool has must include between 1d and 3d.

Pick two specialties and divid 4d between them as above. Common specialties include Command (social interaction and leadership), Conn (navigation and ship's weapons), Engineering (ship's maintenance and jurying-rigging), Medical (diagnosis and treatment), and Science (analysis and hypothesis). Being a member of an alien species with inhuman abilities could also be a specialty (with GM approval).

Between adventures players can adjust their character's pools and even change their specialties as their characters grow and change.

Generic Skill Checks: Roll all dice and pick one. On a 1 to 3, your character fails but you get the explain what went wrong, and on a 4 to 6 your character succeeds with the GM explaining what happens as a result.

Close Combat System: Each round combatants roll 1d, the combatant with the lower roll loses that die. This continues until one side concedes or runs out of dice to roll.

Close combat typically ends with unconsciousness, though it could also end with injury or death if the victor is armed.

Ranged Combat System: Roll all dice and pick one to use for your roll. A roll of 1 to 3 miss a human-sized target but can be used to target scenery, a 4 can hit a target in the open, a 5 can hit a target behind partial cover, and a 6 can hit a target behind heavy cover. Shots are resolved in order from low rolls to high rolls.

The results of a ranged attack range from unconsciousness to death or disintegrate depending on the weapon used.

Space Combat System: Combat between ships is a little more complex than combat between individuals. Below are the three basic combat actions, though they are far from the only options available.

Once a ship's screens are down, one more salvo will disable or destroy it.

Maneuvering: Both sides roll all their dice and pick one or more dice to use first during the first round of fire. The ship with the higher total can attack while the other ship isn't in position to fire their weapons. A tie means both ships can attack at once.

Once the first round of fire has been resolved, a second or third round can be started drawing more dice from the original maneuvering roll. If one side has dice left and the other doesn't, they can execute one final round of fire.

If there's no clear winner after maneuvering dice have been spent, the battle is at a stalemate. Either ship can break off and escape the conflict, or attempt to attempt to change the situation enough to break the stalemate (which is generally followed by a new maneuvering roll).

Damage Control (if fired upon): Roll all dice and pick one to see how well your screens stand up to attack.
1-3 Screen fail
4-5 Screens weakened (or fail if previously weakened)
6 Screens hold

Fire Weapons (if able): Roll all dice and pick one to fire weapons and see how well the enemy's screens hold.
1-3 Enemy screens hold
4-5 Enemy screens weakened (or fail if previously weakened)
6 Enemy screens fail

It's suggested that one PC handles maneuvering rolls, one does damage control, a third fires weapons, and depending on the situation a forth could be using Command, Science or some of specialty to influence the battle.

Five Alchemical Items

2011-04-05T18:12:00.000-04:00

Bottled Lightning: A clear liquid filled with flecks of gold. Violently shaking the vial then breaking it creates a burst of electricity that deals 1d6 damage. Cost: 1 gp.

Blush of Health: For an hour after drinking this tonic, the imbiber will show no signs of illness or fatigue. Cost: 15 gp.

Phantom Rations: A sniff of this strong smelling brown powder wards off hunger pangs, but does nothing to fill the belly. Eating the powder leads to fever and nausea. Cost: 1 gp (good for 1 month).

Time’s Arrow: A murky liquid that erases the last 15 minutes of a person’s memory upon drinking. Adding a small portion of time’s arrow to a person’s wine everyday will weaken that person’s memory—giving the appearance of senility. Cost: 10 gp.

Wood Warp: This blue paste causes wood to slowly swell and deform over the course of 10 minutes. The paste is often used to break open wooden doors and chests. Cost: 1 gp.

Quick Hack: oWoD Botches

2011-03-24T22:25:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to write something about the 20th Anniversary Edition of Vampire: The Masquerade but I haven't gotten very far with that. Instead here are two takes on the botch mechanics that I've been thinking about.

Both hacks assume you're ignore the rule that 1's cancel successes.

The Easy Way: Just ignore botches. It simplifies things nicely and speeds up combat a tiny bit. Plus, you (and when I say you, I mean me) don't have to worry that players are going to forget what 1's do.

The Botch Dice: Steal from West End Game's d6 system and have a single dice in the pool that can trigger a botch (if that dice comes up with a 1 and none of your other dice come up with successes, you botch). This should remove some of the probability weirdness with botches and make them a less common (even the people that like botches might agree that having them show up all the time makes them less special).

Essentials Rituals

2011-03-17T20:59:00.002-04:00

I recently purchased some books out of the Dungeons & Dragons Essentials line (Rules Compendium, Monster Vault, and both of the Heroes of Forgettable Title books). The version of D&D 4th edition (aka 4e) in these books is more to my liking than the previous core books (which I found interesting but not enough to spend money on). The class structure is less rigid in these books (something they were starting to do with psionic classes in Player's Handbook III) and they redid some things that seemed a little off in previous books (magic missile without a two hit roll and a slightly more sane way to give a dual-wielding rangers an offhand attack).

But sadly, the Essentials line did not address rituals. In fact, the Essentials versions of the cleric and wizard are lacking built-in access to rituals and the Essentials cleric gets Resurrection (a ritual in normal 4e) as a daily power at level 8.

Rituals were supposed to be a way for a caster character to have access to a variety of utility effects without having to sacrifice combat capability. I happen to think this is a great idea; I even contributed to a book of rituals for 4e. Though I think the cost in time for rituals is a tad high and the cost in character wealth (for ritual components) makes players less likely to use them.

My fixes for this are twofold:

First, make the casting time for most short rituals 1 minute, and allow a character to use one of these rituals to be as part of a short rest. A minute is long enough that its hard to work into a combat but it can be used in combat if there is a great need, and they can still be used without slowing the party (or the pace of the game) down. Longer rituals default to 1 hour and can be used as part of an extended rest. Any rituals that require significantly longer should stay as they are.

Second, give ritual components (as well as the ritual scrolls) as treasure to make rituals more tempting to use. Assuming that the character's rituals are priced correctly, it would make more sense to use the components casting rituals than selling them, since items generally don't sell for their full value.

Some people have also made some noise over Essentials not improving on 4e's magic item system, but I don't have much to say on that front. A longsword +1 has always been kind of dull on its own, and I don't think the 4e version of magic items is any worse that silliness that was 3e's weapon and armor special abilities (at least when an item had more than one of them).

Though I do like the idea of forgoing giving out a magic item in treasure in exchange for leveling up an existing magic item (plus a little coinage since, if you had giving out a new item they could have sold their old one or given it to another character, I'm not sure how much would be appropriate though).

Quick Hack: Perception Radius

2011-03-01T17:00:00.001-05:00

In d20 based games, I like to have NPCs take 10 on their Spot and Listen checks to detect PCs. This gives PCs a static DC to roll against, and if the PC fails he or she is safe until the NPC is within (PC check - DC) x 10 feet.

Spot and Listen skills normally add +1 to check DCs for every 10 feet of distance, and the math above tells you how far away the PC needs to be for the modifier to make up for the failed check.

People tend to forget about this particular modifier which tends to make Spot and Listen unnecessarily good and hurt players—most of the time only monsters that focus on being stealthy try to be sneaky, but the same isn't true for adventurers.

I originally used this in a d20 Modern steam punk espionage game.

Quick Hack: Swashbuckling Sword & Wizardry

2011-02-26T18:28:00.002-05:00

For a duelist that excels in combat with little to no armor, adjust the character's AC and weight carried (and starting wealth if your making new characters) as if the character was wearing said armor. The character won't be able to carry as much as other characters and will be more easily slowed by encumbrance, but will have a constantly good AC.

If this seems too powerful, you can remove the AC bonus if the character is surprised, restrained, or otherwise unable to fully make use of his or her quick reflexes.

Sharing the Fun: "Meditating on Monks"

2011-02-21T20:17:00.000-05:00

An interesting post on Monks from Blood of Prokopius, an exceptionally interesting blog that looks at roleplaying games through a religious lens.

I never had an issue with using Monks with their eastern flavor in my western-style fantasy setting, so I enjoy seeing someone agree with me.

Card Based Treasure

2011-02-17T23:33:00.000-05:00

Here's another card based random table, much like the wilderness hex table I posted not too long ago.

Clubs ♣
2 to 5: Common armor.
6 to 9: Common weapon or ammunition.
Jack: Ornate scabbard, quiver or pouch.
Queen: Exotic armor.
King: Exotic weapon or one made of a special material (such a silver or cold iron).
Ace: A weapon or armor out of legends.

Diamonds ♦

2 to 5: Coinage.
6 to 9: Gems.
Jack: Strange foreign coinage.
Queen: Letter of Credit.
King: Religious relic.
Ace: Otherworldly gems or crystal.

Hearts ♥

2 to 5: Potions.
6 to 9: Scrolls.
Jack: Miscellaneous magic doodad.
Queen: Magical food or drink (often in the form of fruit or a pool).
King: Magic text, purely theoretical but valuable to scholar and collectors.
Ace: Magical text, lab notes which are incomplete or incoherent but could be sorted out with time and research.

Spades ♠
2 to 5: Food or water.
6 to 9: Essential tool (10 foot poll, rope, chisel, and the like).
Jack: Distinctive key.*
Queen: Exquisite tool.
King: Faded treasure map.
Ace: Journal, dairy or forgotten tome.

* This post from Playing D&D with Porn Stars has an interesting mechanic for random keys. The blog has some NSFW content.