willpower, sins, and flaws

one of the things I liked best about when I was playing the world of darkness games was the way that willpower worked. the basic idea was that your character had a virtue and a vice (based off the seven deadly sins, naturally), and if you wanted to resist your sin you had to spend willpower, usually, and if you acted according to your 'better nature' you'd get some willpower back. you also got willpower back for indulging in your sin, I believe. interestingly, you could also spend willpower to get like, better dice rolls.


ok so, world of darkness games. vampire, werewolf, ghosts, mages, they all have willpower. a character's player can choose to spend willpower to get a boost on dice rolls, or fuel magic, or whatever.

also on a character's sheet are one of the seven deadly sins- sloth, lust, greed, whatever. the character can gain willpower for leaning into their sin, for playing into their darker nature, for showing weakness. the character also has to either spend willpower or take a chance of slipping into bad habits when the target of their weakness comes up. the lustful vampire has a hard time not spending the arms in his or her lover, even when they really should be safe in their stronghold hiding from their hunters... the envious mage has a hard time resisting the opportunity to show off even when they really shouldn't, and etc.

this does a couple of things- it hooks the character and the player together in a really strong way, by making the player care about what the character cares about. if you take care of your in-game avatar, that avatar is more competent, more resilient, and more able to effectively carry out the player's interests in the game. and it also points the GM towards a conflict that the player probably finds interesting, or at least a conflict that the player has already greenlit. a lot of players don't care to have their characters' father or sister as hostages or whatever, but they've definitely given the GM permission to tempt their character with lots of gold, or give them opportunities to showboat and brag, right? and it also lets the player look for these opportunities to let the somewhat more negative side of their character show through if they've had a rough couple of episodes. and that's interesting! there are always lots of opportunities for player characters to be noble and competent, for them to be clean and respectable. [1]

now that I think about it, though, the world of darkness games are necessarily rooted in a very specific sort of western ethos, that subconsciously christian worldview where pleasures are to be enjoyed in moderation, where you are supposed to congratulate yourself for, essentially, being sober and productive at work and whatever else. that doesn't really apply to the sorts of fantasy worlds I want to emulate. I mean, you can do whatever you want in your world- you can just decide that the seven deadly sins are perfectly acceptable to you. but I don't know- a dwarf is not going to understand that she should limit her gold hoard's size, and elves are notoriously indifferent to the human concept of 'vanity,' let alone pride. halflings don't hold with all that running about nonsense and if you call them 'slothful' you're really missing out on a good understanding of their culture and personality.

but here's kind of more of what I was thinking- make it more personal. I'd have my players consider and detail a particular failing of their character, something that they really struggle with. and they can just be the sins, too! something along the lines of 'my barbarian has a weakness for violence, the more indiscriminate the better,' or maybe a more subtle issue, something like 'my cleric looks down upon those without divine powers and has to remind herself not to treat other as beneath her just because they haven't been chosen by the gods.'

personally, I'd take this opportunity to do some world-building too, and give examples of a couple of cultural folk heroes, demigods, and local celebrities, as well as what makes them such exceptional people. maybe a given dwarf king is legendary due to his wisdom, dispensal of justice, and (naturally) his unbeatable wealth, whereas a dwarf wretch is irrational and poverty-stricken and physically weak, unable to defend his stronghold and despised by his family. maybe this particular band of humans idolizes a cleric-beggar-wanderer who used her powers to tend to the sick and downtrodden and gave the ultimate sacrifice and died to save the world from a very particular evil. and then maybe those same humans look down upon a harsh-tongued, impious ruler who frequents the red light district.

and so if I were going to put something on the character sheet for a dwarf character, I'd go to the part where I describe my character's personality I'd write FLAW in big letters and then write a quick sentence about how my dwarf is arbitrary and occasionally downright cruel, and he struggles with his sharp tongue. and then I'd write some ways in which he's pretty alright, actually. and then by codifying it and making it a big part of my character, by getting an actual bonus for when my character acts up, I make it more than an interesting facet I'm going to ignore in favor of doing what I wanted to do anyways. it goes from an interesting quirk of my character to something that I'm going to invoke at the table, something that I want to have come up. something I'll bring up, if the GM doesn't, because I want to restore my willpower and that's that.

as far as actual willpower mechanics go, I'd do something like the following:

WILLPOWER

assuming you're playing some sort of dnd adjacent game, you can spend a willpower point at any time to add the results of a rolled d6 to any d20 roll. you can't use willpower to increase your damage or healing or anything else that you'd use any sort of smaller dice for.

willpower is measured from 1-10. characters start with 5 willpower.

if an opportunity to indulge in your flaw comes up and you take it and make things more complicated for yourself and your party, the GM will give you some willpower.

if you decide you do not want to indulge in this opportunity, you'll need to roll for it. roll 1d20. the DC is equal to twice your missing willpower. you don't get a willpower point for this.

you can also decide not to chance it on a roll, and spend a willpower point to automatically succeed at the willpower roll.

if you're using my rest mechanics from earlier [2], any time the characters have a rest worth at least 110% experience bonus, I'd give them a point of willpower as well. a good nights' sleep does wonders for the human (or dwarvish, or elvish, etc) mind.

if a character ever runs out of willpower entirely, then they immediately start acting out their flaw, gaining a willpower point. this can make for some pretty erratic behavior, but that's the point!

an example: a mighty Barbarian has 3 willpower and her flaw is classic for barbarians: lust. so she's in town and she sees a particularly handsome guardsman with really striking eyes- her weakness. she really doesn't have time to introduce herself... the GM decides to force the issue. the Barbarian's player decides that she meant it when she said she didn't have time. since her willpower is sitting at 3, she's missing 7 points, and the DC is 14. not great odds, but she tries it anyways. if she rolls below, then her character's going to go introduce herself to the guardsman, with the intent of a quick liason somewhere discreet. if she rolls higher, then she's on track (ish) and she can maybe keep the man in mind for another time. if the player had chosen to spend willpower, then she would have automatically resisted the temptation.


it's that simple, really. I'm personally looking forwards to hacking my favorite edition of dnd to include this sort of thing, given that it's relatively self-contained and easy to 'borrow.'



[1] I know that some people will choose to 'chew the scenery,' so to speak, even when there's no real benefit to doing so. They just enjoy playing a coward who's making bad choices in-game to be more true to their conception of the character. but honestly, it doesn't really work in your stereotypical dungeon fantasy game. there's no reason to be cowardly when you have a full stack of hit points, no reason at all to seduce bartenders or guardspeople or whatever, you know? it can be fun for its own sake but fun is fleeting and when you're done, you basically have a silly anecdote that stands by itself.

[2] if you're not, I'd give them a point of willpower every other extended rest, or if they pay for good lodgings in a city or something. the whole point of willpower being presented like this is that it is, by design, flexible to the style of play that you and your players are actually participating in. if you have a player who hardly uses the willpower mechanic, that's fine. they're weaker but their experience in the game is going to be a lot smoother. they'll probably get topped up pretty quick and then, since their willpower is high, they won't have a hard time getting

5e Weapon List

Ever taken a good look at the weapon list in 5e D&D? You should. It's a great example of negative design- that is, it's a great example of what you should not do.

Consider the handaxe versus the mace. The handaxe costs 5gp, does 1d6 damage, is light, and can be thrown. It's useful for two-weapon fighters, it does decent damage, and is a ranged weapon in a pinch. You can dual wield a battle-axe and a hand-axe, throw the hand-axe, and then two hand grip the battleaxe for extra damage afterwards. How cool is that?

The mace, on the other hand. It costs 5gp and does 1d6 damage. That's it. Can't throw it, by the rules, and it's of no use to a two-weapon fighter. Hmm.

Another, quicker example: Is there any reason a trident costs 5x as much as a spear despite having identical stats?

Even quicker: why does a scimitar cost 25gp when the literally identical (and on the next space down) shortsword cost the same?

Faster still: Why would anybody ever buy a flail?

I gotta fix this.

Campfire Mechanics, Part 2

The other reason I'm thinking about campfire mechanics is because of one of my favorite games of the past couple of years: Renowned Explorers. If you haven't played it, here's the general conceit:

There are a large number of characters- choose one to be your expedition leader (this gives a unique bonus) and then two to be expedition members. Each character has one of a number of skills and abilities, and also approaches. Central to the RE experience is the idea of attitudes; that is, the effect of your actions on your opponents. Your attitude can be Friendly, Devious, or Aggressive, and so can your opponent. Each adventurer has three moves (and gains more); one each of Aggressive, Devious, and Friendly. Also important are moods and spirit- a mood can be either negative or positive. Whether it's negative or positive matters for the moods that can be applied by moves. Moods take the place of standard fantasy buffs or debuffs- for example, Excited characters have +25% speech and Enraged characters have 25% less defense.

In the middle of an adventure, you are allowed to build a campfire. The three characters relax around the campfire and you draw from a deck of cards. Each character has different campfire cards, and there are some basic generic cards that round out the deck.

As you can see from this screenshot, the presence of Yvonne has included a unique card of hers, which provides certain benefits- in this case, a bonus when you recruit a certain hireling. (Renown are "victory points" and accumulating renown is how you the high score and a good ending.)

Pedrinho (the bald black man) also has a unique card. Every character does- every character has something that only they can do, and only when resting. Some cards are not particularly interesting- Yvonne's just gives you a bonus for something you were probably doing anyways, and it's not often practical to try and recruit many Journalists. They're limited in number, for one. But still, it's a decent bonus.

One of my favorite cards is for a Russian fighter named Ivan- his card halves his attack but gives him a significant bonus to speech, turning him from a formidable brawler to a defensive speaker (sort of). Once used, this change lasts for the entire game, with no way to turn back. It's a powerful bonus, but you have to have been ready for it. You have to have built your party around it!

It's a series of very cool decisions by a very savvy group of game designers, and I love it. I wish I could see more of it. 

Campfire Mechanics

Darkest Dungeon has a really cool feature that I think is under-utilized in tabletop games: The Campfire Mechanic. If you've never played it, here's a quick rundown:

In Darkest Dungeon, you play as four heroes of varying class. You explore a dungeon in straight-passage sections. You encounter obstacles and opponents, both of which have varying effects on your health and sanity. You can bring items into the dungeon, and there's usually valuable goods there. You spend the money on better gear and more supplies for next time. If you lose all your sanity, your hero loses effectiveness- and if you do it again, your hero immediately dies. If you lose all your health, your hero immediately dies. Hero death is permanent and irreversible (without cheating).

On longer expeditions, you might be able to choose to rest. If you do, you are given X units of time. Each character has a couple of things they can do with these time units- characters can tend to each others' wounds, lead the group in a prayer, or perform occult rituals. You can't get some of these bonuses any other way, and a well-formed group will exit a resting state much stronger than it would have otherwise been.

On longer and more difficult expeditions, this resting phase is essential to completing the game's content. What a given character class can do at camp is an important consideration (although less so given the makeup of the game*), and I'd like to see that in a tabletop game.


*The balance of the game isn't perfect, and some characters happen to have both good campfire skills and battle abilities, and some don't have either.

Of course, part of the reason it works so well in Darkest Dungeon is that the game makes no pretense at any sort of real-life justification for its mechanics. Why don't you exit town with these buffs? Because you don't. You can't rest when you want to because the game only gives you a limited amount of firewood and there's no way to get more. In real life, of course, we can rest whenever we'd like.

And so it is in most  tabletop games. Finding time to rest is actually pretty easy- most games seem to proceed at a leisurely pace, and we all know about the "15 minute adventuring day". The only real way to avoid it is to either restrict access to time* or removing the limitation altogether.

In this situation, it's the difference between a class feature that lets you spend campfire time for a defensive bonus that lasts a couple of hours and a class feature that simply gives you and your party a static bonus all the time because you're assumed to be casting the ritual on any convenient downtime.

*Putting time pressures on the party- timed objectives, wandering monsters, cost of living, reinforcing patrols, that sort of thing.

I actually started writing a little system that included campfire mechanics using D&D terminology. In this little thing, a short rest was now 1 campfire move long, and a long rest being 2. You could also decide to go into "downtime," which would let you basically do as many campfire actions as you thought wise. This downtime ties into cost-of-living, which means that the players need to have some sort of income. This is probably adventuring loot.

Anyways, the general idea is that you can tend people's wounds if you need to, which is assumed to sort of be the D&D standard. If you're not doing that, then you might be doing something in the game world- standing watch, studying something

More on that later, probably. This post is almost as much of a brainstorming session as the original!

OGRE DUST: Violence

I've got a calender over my computer desk, and every day, I mark it off with a slash. It's never a set time, it's always when I think about it. Since I like being on my computer when I'm home, it's usually about an hour into my free time that I mark it off.

I haven't marked off a single day in two weeks. That's how it's been around here.

--

Anyways, I wrote a sort of skirmish minigame that functions as the core of a bigger roleplaying system I'm working out in my very limited free time. (1)

It's pretty simple. Each player has a single character they've made beforehand. Player and GM roles are basically standard D&D stuff. Your characters have four attributes- Meat, Bone, Spirit, and Resolve. Meat plays the role of hit points- you lose them in fairly standard D&D ways, and gain them back after a night's rest. Bone points are long-term health- you only take bone damage when you're out of meat points (usually) and they recover at a rate of one/week. When you're out of Meat points you're on your last legs, and when you're out of Bone points, you're dead.

Spirit and Resolve function similarly, except they're for mental health. You lose Spirit by taking physical damage, plus by some special spirit-only attacks. Fear is modeled with Spirit, and so is exhaustion. When you're out of Spirit, you can start to lose Resolve. When you're out of Resolve, you can die very easily. You can skirt along on low (or negative) Resolve for as long as you want, but you're very vulnerable.

Magic Words

Here's something I like a lot. 

If you don't want to click the link, here's the gist:

Spell lists suck. You know what doesn't suck? Magic words. If you look through the spell list and take the words, you can recombine them into new spells and have a lot of fun doing it.

That's it. Go read the blog post.

Alright, you done there? Check this out, too, if you liked it.

As I've written before, I'm working on my own heartbreaker, which is really just a set of house rules that I like and have used, plus a couple of things that I want to try out. And minus all that dumb shit that shouldn't have been in there in the first place. [1]

One of the things that I wanted to deal with was magic. Writing a list of spells sucks, and playing a wizard who summons his arcane might from what amounts to a really boring shopping list also sucks. What super sucks is that you have in front of you all of the spells in the game [2] and so magic battles come down to figuring out what the other wizard shopped for and hoping that your selections were more appropriate to the situation.


At first, I was going to write up a spell system where you took a handful of fairly vague spells and then rolled dice and built it on the spot. If you've got Weather and you rolled 3d6 for a result of 15, now you can look at your list of spell effects and... let's see, change the weather to stormy for 1d6 turns!

Pretty good way to avoid having to write a list while still keeping magic a little unpredictable. You just describe the effects you can get and how high you need to roll for it, you keep wizards from all doing the same thing, and you never know what the other wizard's going to get up to even if you know that he likes blasting things.

But I like this better.

So you're a first level wizard. You have X magic points available per day for your spellcasting. [3] You also have a couple of words, rolled randomly from a list. Write down what they mean, and tell the GM what you want them to do (more or less).

Spells have levels, determined by the amount of MP you spend to cast them. A first level spell costs 1 point, a 2nd level spell costs 3 points, a 3rd level spell costs 7, a 4th level spell costs 18, and so forth.

The level you cast the spell at determines what it does. There's a smallish chart- a spell that takes an attack roll does 1d6 damage to a single target per level. If it doesn't take an attack roll, then it does 1d4 damage. If it's an area attack, then divide up the damage. [4] Everything else is between you, the GM, and your collective senses of wonder and creativity.

What does "Hold Magic" do, exactly? Is it a counterspell (as Lum suggested), or is it a method for delaying magic (as in, a delayed fireball, perhaps). Does it let you capture a spell and use it later? Does it have a mnemonic-type "memorize more spells" effect (as in, holding the magic in your mind)? I dunno, man. You tell me. Go ahead and write up some spells and let's think it over.

The best thing, though, is that finding spells isn't about finding pre-made spells somewhere. Now you're looking for the Words of Magic, scouring seemingly boring tomes to find a veiled reference to a magic word, and hidden formulae- a ha, there it is! "Teleport!" Now what do I do with it...

And then at a certain level spellcasters should be able to chain more words together, right? Only now they cost double, or whatever, because "Teleport Unseen Fire" is a pretty cool spell and so is "Prismatic Steel Servant," and, again, I have no idea what those do because I haven't written it down.

Oh, also: Wizards need to write down their words into spellbooks. "Word" is a bit of a misnomer because wizards are actually writing down syllables in the language of creation which, as it turns out, is nearly incomprehensible to the human mind and only years of study, great note-taking skills and some fairly decent shorthand allows magic users to utilize. Capturing spellbooks gives you a chance to learn their spells and maybe even their words but it's not guaranteed and it's going to take you a while!

So that's what I'm working on including. Lemme know what you think.





[1] Man, people who don't have the same opinions as me are dumb! Right?

[2] Unless you invent your own spells, but that requires writing them up and then giving them to the players, who can still choose not to take them because they'd rather prepare the already overly efficient Sleep, Magic Missile, and Fireball. Your options thus are: A spell that's too efficient (and will get picked first now), a spell that's too narrow (that somebody might prepare once in a blue moon), or a spell that's really weird that somebody might pick because it's fun.


[3] I was going to do spell slots but as I was brainstorming with a friend, he was like "why not just use MP?" Here's the original idea: You have a handful of spell slots per day. They have levels- a 5th level wizard might have four 1st level spell slots and 2 second level spell slots. When you cast a spell, expend a slot. A spell counts as the level of the slot it's cast from- a fireball might do 1d6 damage per spell level, and magic missile creates 1d4 unerring force blasts per 2 levels. Or whatever. Magic points makes the math a little easier and lets you shoot lots of little spells during the day, if that's what you want, so it's a plus. And it's not that much harder to track, really.

[4] I know that this makes fireball a little weaker but honestly 5d6 damage (or whatever) is a lot and having a sort of choice between "do I plug this dude over here" or "do I blast minions" is kind of a neat choice.

Morale Scores

I've been working on a minor B/X heartbreaker as a personal project, you know the drill. It's a combination of my favorite house rules alongside some quality-of-life changes that makes the game easier to run at my table. You know, like every other one. But this one's mine!

And one of the things I really want to do is deal with the bronze age. I mean cmon, look at this guy! If you don't want to play as that guy, you're nuts.

Part of this approach means taking some early D&Disms and giving them a more prominent place- "armor class" is the sum of your defensive equipment as usual, but helmets explicitly give armor class, and so do greaves, breastplates, and shields. A bronze-age warrior fully decked out in their panopoly should be pretty damn tough.

I don't want to talk about equipment today, though. I want to talk about morale.

Morale has always been sort of a funky mechanic in D&D, and it's not really a surprise that it got abandoned by the time 3rd edition rolled around. [1] It just sort of sits there, the modifier never changes, and it's really a monster-only thing. You hit a monster- roll morale. The monster gets reduced to 1/4 health- roll morale. The group of enemies suffers a casualty- roll morale. It's too much.

Here's my solution: Everybody gets a morale score, from 2-12. That includes players. When you have to check morale, roll 2d6. Higher rolls are good.

There are a handful of times when you check morale: When you're reduced to half health or less, when your leader [2] is slain, or when half your group has stopped fighting (fled, dead, paralyzed, whatever).

If you pass the check, then nothing happens. You're doing alright, for the time being.

If you fail the check, then your Morale is reduced temporarily by 2, as the stresses of combat wear you down.  [3]

Morale feeds lightly into your attack and defense bonuses- the reason for this is to make the players, not the characters, afraid of trying to hang around a losing battle. "We gotta get out of here guys, I'm at 4 Morale! I can't fight like this!" [4]

This also lets me do something that I've always wanted to see represented in a game: Shouting matches.

If you read heroic classics, like Beowulf, the Iliad, or certain Norse epics, you see that before a fight, champions would often meet to exchange words, insult each others' heritage, and call each other cowards. This is something I want to put in the game, and with Morale being an actual statistic, it's easy.

Just have an opposed Morale check. Both leaders add their Appearance bonus and their Charisma bonus. Lowest result suffers 1d6 Morale damage. That's it. If you refuse to send out a champion of some sort, if your leader refuses to meet in the middle, then it counts as an automatic loss. What kind of ragged army doesn't have a champion? What kind of cowardly fool won't meet his peer in combat?

Now that I think of it, there has to be some sort of "outclass" situation, where obviously the Pharoah of the Eternal Empire doesn't have to meet with the squabbling barbarian tribes' dirt-covered chieftan, but I'm not sure a hard-and-fast rule makes any sense in this situation. We're all smart people here. Use your best judgement.

The last thing that having a Morale score does is allow musicians to be an important part of the game. This deserves its own post, I think, so I'll deal with that later. Soon I'll write another post, detailing either music, Appearance scores, or else possibly just the way that equipment is going to work.

See you soon!


[1] I think it was in 2e AD&D but I'm not a big fan of that game so I don't honestly know.

[2] Typically controlled by a character's Appearance bonus, which is another rule that I'm going to add, because it again guides players towards emulating the right style of play- you should be spending money to gild your helmet, purchase gemmed swords, and acquiring purple capes because it looks cool, and because it ties into your personal Morale bonus, which makes you fight more effectively.

[3] 2 just feels right, and means that if an average untrained human being has 6 morale, that half of them will flee when the leader is killed, and then most of the rest will turn tail and run after the remainder is chopped down. This feels about accurate to me- in these times, generals were also soldiers, and were expected to charge into battle, protected by elite bodyguards. Losing them was a massive blow to morale, and generally troops that were already struggling would break and flee as they saw the commander's standard fall.

[4] I'm thinking 0 modifier for 6, and then +/-1 for every 2 points. This has the added benefit of making elite troops better at fighting than their hit dice represents, and then making low-morale creatures a little weaker. A horde of 4 Morale goblins fights terribly, but six berserkers with 12 morale? You better watch yourself, even if you have more hit dice.

Attribute-less 5e

I'm involved in an intermittently-running 5e game, and was making a new character when I had a small thought. What if 5e dropped attributes entirely? Do we even need them? I've got a lot of things on this character sheet already right now- could I get by with one less?

I slept on it, which meant that I rolled the idea around in my head a little, and decided to use this post as a sort of sounding-board. If you have any ideas or complaints or anything at all to say, let me know in the comments!

Moving on!

Attributes serve a couple of purposes in 5e:

1. Character specialization. A 15 strength fighter is different than a 15 strength druid (but more on this later).
2. Multiclass restriction. Since your character is not good at everything, there optimal and suboptimal classes. (Again, more on this later.)
3. Racial Benefits. Some races get bonuses to one stat and penalties to another. This one's short and sweet but check it out. They don't matter at all.
4. Increasing General Power. Increasing your primary stat does a number of things for your character and is built in to your class every couple of levels. What do you do about that?

But what of those are necessary?

Character specialization is something I've been thinking a lot about recently, especially because of my recent interest in Fate. In that game, you have aspects and skills/approaches and that's it. It's not really necessary to know exactly how strong your character is in terms of weight carried because it's not important to the narrative. Conan never worries about the weight of his gear because he can carry as much as makes sense and the only time anybody cares is when he's being chased and- oh no- he can't carry the gem of Clizzak-teff and escape the lizard people! Will he fight or stay?

D&D has a long history of sort of doing this backwards. Nothing in D&D says "this system will produce the interesting stories you want to tell." On the contrary, it's "this is the story you will be telling; make it interesting," and as long as you're interested in a story where you're on a dungeon-crawling treadmill and counting your coins, then you're set. [1]

Where am I going with this?

My point is that attributes don't really impact the story. When you're asking for a dice roll, what you're asking is not "are you strong enough to do this" or whatever, you're asking "are you capable of this?" Nearly every roll that one would use an attribute roll is already covered by another skill. Brute force is a subset of Athletics. Dodging is Acrobatics. Knowing history is History. If you can think of a use for an attribute that isn't covered by a skill, I am extremely interested in it. I can't think of any.

See, here's where it gets a little fun. The math's not right without the attributes being rolled in with stats somehow. You'll be a little short on most rolls (and a little ahead on some of them.) So what do you do? That's actually surprisingly easy.

Give everybody a flat, unchanging +2. Call it a "Hero Bonus" or something, and apply it to anything that cares about any attribute bonus. Add it to your attacks. Add it to your AC. Slap it on all of your skills. When you're proficient in a thing, add your proficiency bonus on top of it.

That's it.

Yeah, that means that everybody's sort of got the same capabilities, but who cares? Was that -1 Intelligence on your barbarian important to you mechanically, or do you ignore it half the time anyways in favor of playing your barbarian the way you want? Was the -1 strength on your sorcerer the only thing keeping you from running in with your dagger and getting some quick stabs in or was that always a stupid idea because you are more or less made of fireballs and are wearing a tattered nightgown? [2]

A bit sticky are attribute saving throws. How do you mark down an attribute saving throw without attributes? Well that one's easy: You don't. Attribute saving throws literally don't do anything at all now. Every save works the same way: Hero Bonus + Proficiency Bonus. Hey look, we've got a unified saving throw again! Isn't that neat? I'm getting whiffs of Swords and Wizardry here.

If you don't like that, then keep attribute saving throws, but rename them. Your characters are now Strong and Dextrous. When you have an attribute saving throw, then you get your Proficiency Bonus, otherwise it's just your Hero Bonus. Look at us! Saves space and only comes up when the game asks for an attribute saving throw, specifically, to resist a thing.

Here's a really neat thing that you can do, now that you've got +2 in everything- multiclass! If you ever wanted to be a Barbarian/Sorcerer you're in luck. I'll admit that it's not perfect, since the one thing that 5e really does well is give interesting subclasses and you can kind of do that already but hey, who cares? You can go Barbarian 1/Sorcerer 9 and won't have wonky stats that make you worse at both. You can be a Wizard 2/Cleric 2 without feeling like a dork because you're only getting part of the benefits.

You know what else is cool? There are no more optimal and suboptimal races. (Well there still are but it's less so, now.) Every race is equally good at everything else, while still feeling unique since they've all got good racial skills. Dwarves are still stout, elves are still graceful, half orcs are still violent sociopaths, much less changes here than you might think. Elf barbarians are on equal mechanical footing with half-orc barbarians, and dwarf rangers are as good as half-elven ones. Neat, right? [3]

I do recommend, if you're using this, to use one of the variant Human traits, because the human racial of "+1 to everything" was always pretty lame but it's extra lame when that's "+1 to every nothing." I personally like the skills one best, but do your thing. You also might want to change up the Mountain Dwarf- nobody's going to be a mountain-dwarf fighter if all they're getting is armor feats they had already, so something as simple as "if you already have this, then grab another feat" or make something new up. But what's a rules hack if you're not changing things? And such small things they are!

The last thing I can think about is the fact that attribute bonuses are a form of progression within the game. You're expected to eventually reach the end limit of 20 in your attribute at some point, and you'll probably leave the other attributes down in the dust. This one's tricky, because part of me is saying it doesn't really matter, while another part of me is saying that the DC of casters' spells relies on their attribute bonus, at the very least. You're really going to want to use the Feat variant that replaces attribute bonuses for characters, and you might want to add a "Spell Mastery" feat that increases the DC of spells cast by that character by 2. It's nice and narrow and means that the character has an emulated Intelligence bonus of +4 solely for keeping up with any mean NPCs who have managed to increase their spell defending abilities somehow.

Let me reiterate how this hack works in nice and easy steps for any interested tinkerers.

1. Yank out attributes.
2. Include a +2 Hero Bonus. Apply this bonus to literally everything that requires an attribute, including hit points, attack rolls, skill rolls, and saving throws.
3. Decide whether to include attribute saving throws.
4. If you do, write the adjective version (i.e. Strong, Tough) and apply the proficiency bonus to those saves.
5. If you don't, decide right now whether to give the proficiency bonus to all of the saves or none. This makes heroes either slightly more durable or slightly more vulnerable to save-based attacks.
6. Use a variant Human trait and consider the Mountain Dwarf.
7. Use the "Feats instead of Attribute Bonus" variant and consider adding a "Spell Mastery" feat that increases spell DCs by 2 for any spell that character casts.
8. Bask in the glow of a slightly shorter character sheet and slightly more even characters because you're done.

[1]: I actually really, really like this level of play and wish D&D would figure out what it wants to be. I like coin-counting, expeditionary dungeon-delves where I'm trying to figure out how many rations I need and if I'm going to need to get an ox-cart to haul supplies and setting up base camps to retreat to at night. I like spiking doors and counting the hours left on my oil supply. What I don't like is when D&D forgets what it is and pretends it's something it's not. 5e does a pretty good job, actually, barring a few odd examples like the Outlander's complete removal of any need to forage, and some of the variant rules in the DMG that don't make any sense. It's certainly doing better than the last two editions, at any rate.

[2] What I'm trying to say here is that your class is self-defining and attributes don't do anything about that. Wizards are almost unarmed but cast spells. Paladins wear thick armor and smite their foes. Slight differences in attributes mean very little and edge cases, like a gnome ranger with 8str and 10 dex, are signs that either its creator is attempting a joke at the expense of their fellow players, that the rules of the system are not understood, or that they're attempting something extremely unorthodox intentionally as some sort of challenge or statement. None of these goals are harmed by what boils down to a standardization of attributes, unless I am misunderstanding something.

[3] This I expect to be a matter of personal preference, since one of the reasons that people like D&D is that it gives them something to build around by handing them problems to solve, i.e. "how do I make this gnome barbarian good" and all that. That's fine, but I feel like 5e isn't the right game for that anyways. The classes are all straightforward and the feats are compartmentalized in such a way that I have a hard time envisioning alternate and unusual ways to make something work. Instead, 5e tries its hardest to tell you "high wisdom is just plain better for clerics" and hammers it home by having half of your class abilities and all of your spells working off it and then limiting your attributes anyways so the only real benefit of having a high wisdom race is being able to hit that magical number 20 faster and then you have to improve else anyways, or else grab a feat (if you can.) I really like this. Some, surely, do not.

Yer Lordship

I don't really feel like writing today, and I haven't for a minute, so I'll just say what's up and then go: I've been writing a game about being Lord of All You Survey based on the very vague idea that you're "supposed to" start building castles and raise armies when you get high enough level.

That and the fact that there have never been very good guidelines for doing so. The vast majority of information concerns what monsters to bonk and what kind of neato powers you've got that enable you to steal ever increasing amounts of loot that you can't spend on anything reasonable because magic item shops are stupid, or on books detailing somebody's generic homebrew world that's a pale imitation of Eberron, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, or whatever 4th edition's world is called.

Whee.

I've been doing a lot of research on farms and milling and bakeries and ancient logging techniques, and it's honestly extremely interesting and I hope that the information that I glean will make for a decently granular simulation. Time will tell!

The Pillage is Against You

I got my hands on a pretty good campaign supplement about being a Viking Warlord (called, appropriately enough, AEGIR'S FIRE), and it's got the gears a-turnin'.

As you know, I'm working on a cards based action-themed roleplaying game.  No, it's not in hiatus, and yes, I've got a lot on my plate (between the Heroquest retroclone, or the ONI PUNCHING fun stuff, or a number of modules I've got brewing in the back of my skull), but I think this could work.

I'm going to create a skeletal copy of my game, probably in a one-page PDF version again, and then see if I can't manage to playtest it somehow. It won't be easy, since there aren't a lot of games that support somebody flopping cards around somewhat aimlessly, which means I might have to (ugh) try and find some local gamers to impress with my machinations.

If you haven't guessed by now, I'm not really very social about this sort of thing. I haven't had a regular gaming group in a long while. But this could be worth it. It could be a lot of fun.

The basic gist: You're a Viking village leader who is starting to raid coastlines. Your village has managed to create a longship, and now you need to successfully raid to get more money, more experienced warriors, and to continue the entire process. The system itself is completely system neutral, and it's brilliant as hell.

Obviously, The Odds Are Against You comes first. After that, I'm going to work on a nice leadership module, so to speak, that lets you apply my card game-based resolution system to a large scale conflict instead of a personal one. Since the scale is so different, it's going to take a bit of doing- but I have no doubt whatsoever that it'll be fun. I've even got a few ideas brewing in my head for it.

Watch this space. It's gonna be fun.

Wandering Monster Tables

One of the most fun things, conceptually, about my retroclone of the HeroQuest system from earlier this year is the wandering monster tables. I know: wandering monsters? Really? How is that exciting? Well let me tell you!

In the original game, wandering monsters were handled by a short stack of cards, which you pulled from when the players searched around. They had a large chance to find a random trap or wandering monster, and a smaller chance to find actually useful treasure. If you drew a hazard of some sort, you put the card back in and then shuffled, but if you got treasure, you kept it out. This created an elegant solution to both pacing and treasure distribution. In the beginning of the game, when Body Points and resources were greater, it was easier to find treasure, and even if you pulled a hazard out of the deck, it was ok. No big deal. So you lose one or two health- you've got plenty, and you probably have a couple of potions hanging around. It's ok.

On the other hand, later on in the game, when your heroes are limping across the floor and narrowly staving off defeat, the treasures are mostly gone and when you can't afford to face yet another damn zombie, it's time for you to get out. No more searching for treasures, no more poking around the rooms- it's time to run. It doesn't matter if there's a chest in the corner, or if there are loose stones in the wall. You can't afford to find out today. You just need to get out of here!

How many times are they going to stick a zombie in fake treasure chests?

So I took the same idea, and put it into dice terms. I'm not interested in printing out cards for every dungeon that I'm going to design (although I might, at some point, for those of you with fancy cardstock printers). Since the game only uses six sided dice, I'm restricted a little in the random table- but not as much as you might think at first. Between using the sum (d6+d6), or as a fake percentile dice, you're more than spoiled for choice. Here's how it works with the second option.

When your players search an object (or even just in general), roll 2d6. The first die tells you what table to look on. The second die tells you the result. Cross off results of "Treasure" and "Events," but don't cross off any other result. When you get a result you'd crossed off, reroll the first die to select a new table. If that's already crossed off too, just pick something. Don't forget to tailor the result to fit the situation. If it blatantly doesn't fit, just remember it for later and add it in as soon as you can.

Here's some sample tables so you can see what I mean.

Table 1: Treasure
Cross these off after rolling.
1: Stuffed into a fraying cloth bag is a handful of bluish gems. Together they're worth 50 gold.
2: What looked like worthless trash was actually ancient silver! 50 gold.
3: A statue made entirely of jade, with gorgeous rubies for eyes. 100 gold.
4: Some scummy gold coins that smell faintly of feet. 25 gold.
5: What appears to be a ceremonial helmet, although it could be a very fancy kettle. 50 gold.
6: Jackpot! Platinum from an age gone by. 200 gold.


Table 2: Events
Cross these off after rolling.
1: Orcish warband on its way out stumbles upon you. 2d6 orcs appear, fully armed and hostile.
2: The room you are in rotates 90 degrees clockwise, doors and all.
3: A statue in the center of the room comes to life. It's not very friendly.
4: A fountain in the middle of the room. What appears to be water is acidic ooze. Drinking deals 2 damage.
5: A pot of really hearty stew. No game effects, but it's delicious.
6: This room's doors are on its ceiling, except for the one you just came in through.


Table 3: Wandering Monsters
Do not cross these off after rolling.
1: 1d6 zombies
2: Specter
3: 2-4 orcs
4: A winterbog riding a large pig
5: Frogman
6: Ettercap

Table 4: Traps
Do not cross these off after rolling.
1: Pit opens up underneath the searcher. Roll 1d6- anything but 6 falls in.
2: Mechanical crossbow shoots an arrow. Make an attack with 3 dice.
3: Contact poison! Roll 1d6- result of 5 or 6 reduces maximum Body Points until the end of the adventure.
4: Magma trap! The entire room is flooding with lava. Failure to escape in time spells immediate doom.
5: Rolling boulder, Indiana Jones style. Anybody in the path rolls 1d6- 6s suffer 3 Body Points as they're crushed.
6: Explosion trap. 2 damage to the searcher, 1 damage to anybody nearby.

Rolls of 5 or 6 indicate nothing was found, and nothing happens (but roll the second die anyways, keep the players on their toes.)

Something like that. Really, this was just an excuse to write about my HeroQuest project, and get some time writing up random tables. I like random tables!

Magic Makes You Weak

Magic is addictive. It's raw power as no human in the real world can understand it. It's the ability to reshape existence itself according to your willpower. It's difficult, complex, hard to control, and absolutely addicting the way only power can be.

The most learned and ancient wizards jealously hoard their tomes of lore and their magical items like another man would guard his children, or his life's love. The lesser wizards look upon the treasure troves with avarice, and spend their nights dreaming of more power. It becomes all-consuming. They can't resist.

What once started as a healthy, hale, friendly young man becomes a bearded, angry delver, little more than a knowledge thief. Their backs are twisted from compulsively reading into the night, their hair goes grey from the sheer strain of learning more and more magic, of learning to summon and bind creatures from another world. They spend their life force, their very vitality to learn more. And it's still never enough.

It's never enough power.


--

In Rodiel, the more magic you have, the weaker your character is. It's not the other way around (although it can look like it, at character creation.) If you have even an inkling of magic, you are a wizard. The magic calls to you, and your character is helpless before its call.

In game terms, it means that even a wretched role on the dice has hope. You may be a weakling in comparison to the Achilles standing next to you and the Hercules next to him, but you're a wizard. In more basic terms, you have magical talent if your ability scores are all fairly low, with your magic being stronger the worse the rolls were. Somebody with rock-bottom stats has incredible magic, for example.

I think it could be fun.

RODIEL: SLAYERS

Designing slayers was fun. They're bloody, brutal, and mean, and their design really bears that out. Their backgrounds (presented here) really reinforce the idea that Slayers don't have a place in society. Whereas Sentinels make excellent guards and heros for the city-states of Rodiel, and Rangers are specialists, guides, foresters, and spies, Slayers live entirely to kill people. They're the Gilgameshes, the larger than life heroes that people really wish would go away until it's time to kill another monster. They generally fight with little armor and with whatever weapons are handy, although when it's time to choose they usually select an impossibly heavy weapon that only people of their calibre can bear to use.

More Slayer backgrounds should be forthcoming, but for now, just take a peek at these. I feel these really help to get a feel for the way Rodiel works. There's nothing wrong with imposing a little bit of setting on your players' characters- it's the easiest way to remind them that their characters are very much a product of their society.

SLAYERS

Red-Handed: You are a member of a mystic order of warriors who ritualistically tattoo one hand bright red, an agonizing process that takes days. But your faith in your mysticism allows you to recover one fatigue when you slay an enemy. If you do not consume the flesh of your enemies at the end of every battle, you lose this benefit, as the God of Blood you worship demands this.

Enormous: You are significantly larger than the average man. While your equipment costs half again as much as a normal man, you can carry twice as much on your person.

Motivated: A being of incredible vitality and spirit, you can deplete your fatigue past zero, towards a negative amount equal to your normal fatigue total. However, pushing yourself past your own limis means that you have to sleep an extra hour for each negative point until you have equalized your sleep debt.

Savage: You spit on effeminate and cowardly sorcerers- you know that with your lucky charms and observances of taboos you cannot be harmed by their ways. Your will counts for 1.5x normal when resisting magic- for as long as you follow a stringent and conspicuous taboo.

Demon-limbed: One of your arms is actually a hideous, begrimed demon parasite that's grafted to your chest. It is supernaturally strong and functions as an excellent example of the weapon of your choice of light or medium type. For obvious reasons, you cannot hold anything else in that hand. In addition, the parasite is not entirely under your control, and may decide to do its own thing at inopportune moments.

Inverse Ratios or Something Like That

I'm doing a couple of fun things with character generation in Rodiel that I think are kind of nifty, and that I'd like to share with you. This way, even if Rodiel doesn't take off the ground, at least I'm still sharing my ideas with the world. 

The first thing is inversely relating your character's mundane stats (think the Big Six in D&D terms, if you would) to your magical ability. That is to say, the more pathetic your character's physical stats are, the better your character is at magic. This does two things. 

One, it provides a very real safety valve for characters "rolling low." I know it's not oldschool, but I've never liked the amount of importance placed on rolling well in old school games, and it's usually one of the first things I house-rule away. All characters use the same rolled array and place them as they like, and I don't care who rolls them as long as the right number of dice are rolled the right number of times. I'm a big softy, and I'll even allow a single reroll. Why? Because I don't want inter-player envy, and I want them to specialize and strategize before the game starts. We can get into that later.

The second, and in my important more interesting way, is that it ties into the settings. In Rodiel, magic isn't a benign force to be used and discarded with apparently no ill effects (a la D&D, Runescape, every japanese RPG ever, really most settings that feature magic), it's an arcane, unhealthy force that's addictive and draining. By having your character, an established sorcerer/shaman/mystic, come into play with weaker muscles, trembling hands, a weak back, and a wandering mind, you establish that magic is dangerous. It's powerful, yes, but look at these people! Their skulls are cadaverous and they're blank eyed; they're thin to nearly skeletal and have a hacking cough that produces maggots, they're constantly twitching and muttering to themselves- magic is dangerous. Your magic using character has great power but at a great cost, as well.

I rather like it. Rodiel is turning out to be a lot of fun to write so far. 

Shaun of the Dead: Not Gameable.

Hey Shaun, look who it is!
Well fuck-a-doodle-doo!

I know the quote doesn't match the picture, but I've always liked the quote.

Somehow, I need to channel more Shaun of the Dead from my zombie game Aim For The Head, and I have no idea whatsoever how I'd go about doing that. Seriously, no idea at all. This has been a dry period for the part of my brain that usually is pretty good at generating novel ideas, so I'm content to put it here and maybe come back to it someday.

Maybe some sort of mechanic promoting teamplay, interpersonal relationships, that sort of deal would help out. But the thing is, Shaun of the Dead isn't really a zombie movie, it's a bromance movie in zombie clothing. The crux of the movie is the semi-dysfunctional relationship between Shaun and his buddy Ed, and how it resolves in the end. It's also a little sad- Shaun never does manage to reconcile his laziness with Liz, nor his relationship with Ed. Instead, the world changes around him to his benefit. Apparently zombie apocalypses have a way of making adventurous, lively women want to settle down with the slightly sad everman Shaun, and letting you get rid of your best friend by turning him into a zombie that just plays video games all day.

It's a lot deeper than what it lets on, is what I'm trying to say, and even though it's an awful prototype for a game, there's still something about it I'd like to capture.

There can be only one (mechanic)

I know he's not a highlander but he's got a sword. That's almost good enough, right?

I'm torn between two systems: Either d10 against a static modifier, or d10 against the GM's d10, with opportunities to roll again or whatever. All other things being equal, which would you prefer?



The first one is the way it's been done for ages. There are a bunch of tables saying how difficult a thing is, and you look at it, and then you roll and try to roll better than it. It's kind of mechanical, and actually requires nearly as much GM fiat as the dude making it up on the spot. It's just better hidden. It's easy to understand, and lets you play percentage games when you want to.

The second way is what I'm trying to do in The Odds Are Against You, because I'm using cards and you can play your high card when it's an important moment and your low one when you want to save your high cards for later. You, basically, get to choose your own odds. If you want to be sure to win, play a 10. If you'd like relative certainty, play a 7 (you have a 70% chance of winning the card flip.) It reverses the roles a little, which is kind of what I'm after.

But which do you think would be more fun?

TOAAY: Senea

Senea is the name of the setting that I'm going to use for The Odds Are Against You.

Imagine, if you would, an independent space colony, thousands of years old, on a wrecked world. The days are short, the sun is weak and ineffective, and what little civilization remains is due to a small, bizarre implant that harvests the mental energy of its wearer and converts it to usable power.

The remaining population (several million, a far cry from the nearly billion that once existed) either accept the laws of the Lord Ancestor and live in a guarded settlement underground, or attempt to eke out an existence amongst or alongside the half-feral Surfacers.

Underground's not a bad place to live- it's slightly warmer, and there are a few manufactories working on reclaiming scrap from the surface ruins and converting it into life's necessities- weaponry, walls, tools, and the ever-necessary lifesuits that every Caver wears on the surface. Their lives are longer, if not slightly more cramped and controlled, and there's even a burgeoning middle class. Mercenaries are the most common link to the outside world for most citizens, and that's fine by them- Surfacer raids are not uncommon and that's more than enough of a sight for most Cavers.

Living aboveground is for the hardy, insane, or ambitious. Outside of the watchful eye of the Lord Ancestor, tyrannical autocrat for underground society, Surfacers are actually free. Armed with a combination of salvaged Ancient gear from the times of the meteor strike cataclysm or even the age of the Progenitus, and barbarically crude zip-guns, hand weapons, and explosives, Surfacers frequently loot the surface world's ruins, the Caver outposts, and each other for what they need.


I dunno, I know my writing needs work (what else is new), but I think it could work. As a matter of fact, I think it will work.

No, this doesn't conflict with what I posted yesterday, it's an expansion of the same idea.

The Odds Are Against You: Dystopian Edition

I think this is the setting I want for The Odds Are Against You.

I think that a nice near-future dystopian setting would be a lot of fun to be an action hero, especially if you happen to be the kind of guy who thinks that jumping into the middle of a group of heavily armed soldiers wearing nothing but a ponytail, some kneepads, and a sweet bandana is a good idea.

The whole gist of The Odds Are Against You, of course, is that you're the kind of guy who's a bad enough dude to get away with it. You win against this situation because you've got explicit plot armor, these guys are faceless mooks, and you've got an awesome, awesome idea of exactly how you're going to get away with it.

If you don't remember, The Odds Are Against You is the game of action roleplaying, where you're dealt a hand of cards and you play them out every time your character isn't a Bad Enough Dude to get it done automatically. It's not a bad system in my oh-so-humble opinion, although it hasn't been playtested for shit yet. I aim to change that soon. But I digress.

The point is that I've been working on it for months and I just now realized where I want to go with it. And I'm going to release it, and soon. But not now. It needs work. You see:

• Since the game is neutral when it comes to awesome versus mundane, you're encouraged to pick the awesome because it's awesome. However, there's no real explicit reason to do so, meaning some people might miss the point. Maybe some sort of "awesome incentive" is required?
• The rules for injury don't cause enough injuries. Maybe some sort of penalty to maximum hand size would be better, or maybe even a penalty to the result shown on the card face. Injuries should mean something.
• The mechanics for getting more cards are, basically, that you do something risky or jeopardize your goals. I'm thinking that riskiness should tie into your first card flip, where failure means you almost screw it up, you get hurt, and you can get a free flip. Succeeding on the second one means no more injuries and you win by the skin of your teeth, and failure means you're hurt further. 
• Jeopardizing one's own goals is a risky proposition, and it needs to hurt to be effective. It should be HAMMERED home to the GM that he needs to make each card gained this way really, really suck. It shouldn't be an off-hand thing. It should be a "I really need this." And even then, it might not work the way I want it to. 
• I think that at the end of each scene the players should regain a number of cards if they've ran below it. Heroes often just need a breather to go back at it again, harder, and the heroes of this game should reflect the fiction.
• It needs a pre-made adventure and I'm not good at modern. Sorry, but it's true. There's a lot of variables for it.

I think it's time for a nap, my brain feels fuzzy again. 

Mall of the Living Dead

Continuing my enjoyment of not only zombie games but of writing things for them, I'm writing up a one-page "module" for AIM FOR THE HEAD, my zombie roleplaying game, wherein I intend to subject my players to the delights of a mall full of zombies.

I know, right? It's a cliche for a reason. In a world where you're one of a handful of survivors in a sea of grey shambling flesh (talk about special snowflakes!), there's a certain appeal to mowing down the inane, mindless hordes of consumers like you always fantasize doing on the rare occasions you're forced to go inside of a mall. It's a beautiful thing, and it even does a couple of things for a module design that I think are really nifty.

1) It lets you confine the area very naturally. Malls are built like ye olde castle, in that you're designed to stay in. It's absolutely intentional- they're supposed to be nearly self sufficient, easy to get in, and difficult to get out. For all of the spacious courtyards and high ceilings, there are naturally a tiny number of semi-hidden, chokepoint-styled exits. When the living dead are all around you, chokepoints are a horrible thing, meaning that once you get in a mall, you're going to need another way out. This very naturally creates drama, because
2) For all of the junk inside of a mall, very little of it is useful in guaranteeing your survival. This means that your players aren't finding rocket launchers or chainsaws (well, maybe chainsaws, but there's not really any gas to power them), which would ruin the feeling of "holy shit, zombie apocalypse." More pertinently, the players aren't going to find much in the way of food or water, except in the Food Court, and the great majority of that is going to spoil very, very quickly and probably be entirely uncooked. Mall food is pretty unpalatable even when cooked fresh, and a couple of days with no power and no new shipments of food is going to leave a horrible place.
3) A mall is a place you visit, not a place you stay. This ties into 2, but in a totally different way. In daily life, you don't stay because you have a home to go to, the crowds are tiring, and the security guards will yell at you when you try to sleep there anyways. In a zombie apocalypse, you can't stay because there's nothing to eat, there's almost no real defense, and there are a hell of a lot of zombies around already, between the people that died there, the other people that thought it'd be a good idea to hide there, and the zombies that wander inside periodically and can't get out again.
4) It ties into the Dawn of the Dead-styled "zombies as consumerist allegory." The less said about that, the better, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not a philosophy blog and I'm certain you expect only those philosophies here which pertain to gaming.
5) It makes sense to get caught there. It almost feels like you're stuck there on a normal day, so getting caught there when everything is zombies? Totally plausible. Furthermore, it's very diverse. Pretty much anybody can be at a mall, meaning that characters can be literally anybody- a vacationing family man, a down on his luck homeless man, a security guard, a trucker just there on a pickup, a UPS guy, anybody.

All of these things are pretty easy to get across, I think, although in a one-page design I'm a bit more brief.

Watch this space- it's on its way soon.

AIM FOR THE HEAD

I'm releasing it here first for feedback from the five or so people who read and comment here.

It's a one-page zombie RPG. I actually had space to devote to setting, because the core mechanic is so damn simple and after that, it's all about setting anyways.

Zombie games are the ideal in designing a short roleplaying game, because so little can (and should) be expressed via rules. There shouldn't be hard and fast rules for what you find, what survivors are like, or what zombies can do. It's not important, and it shifts the game from "oh shit, what'll happen next" to "oh, whatever, that zombie has six movement and does 1d6 damage, that's not even a threat."

It's why fighting a zombie in D&D isn't scary, but it can be in Aim For The Head. One zombie can kill you if you get a bad roll in AFTH. Trying to run away can kill you. The only way to be safe is to not roll, which means playing carefully, keeping quiet, and avoiding attracting attention. In other words, the only time you're rolling in AFTH is when you're potentially screwed, and that's exactly the kind of on-edge feeling that a game should provide. I haven't playtested it yet, unfortunately, so there are likely some rough patches out of the bat.

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head that I'll likely change is that the Fight roll doesn't explicitly limit how many zombies you take down (I was thinking one zombie per 6), but intentionally left it blank for the moment.

Let me know if Aim For The Head provides that. I'll be taking all criticism into account, and changing the document to suit it.



Here's the rapidshare link, and here's the mediafire one.