tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29564680062766440782024-03-28T11:37:27.493+01:00Traveler's HomebrewEd Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.comBlogger130125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-39711491693707699432024-03-28T11:36:00.005+01:002024-03-28T11:36:50.325+01:00Extra Actions<p><i>Two articles in one day? That's right. I'm catching up with what I wanted to write these days. The Shadowfell article was supposed to come out yesterday. Anyway!</i></p><p><i>In <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2024/01/opposed-rolls-combat-system.html" target="_blank">Opposed Rolls Combat System</a>, I wrote of a different way to run combat. The core premise of it is a focus on actions either happening on your turn or as a reaction to others' actions. It felt bland and dry to me, but it got the point across. The other day, Izzy brought up a <a href="https://youtu.be/XaI-EOVpDvo?si=0qlbr44qh3qBrLpJ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">video</a> he called a perfect example of what he'd want the combat in his ideal game to feel like (paraphrased). After a couple watches of the video and analyzing it by writing out what would the actions of it look like, I realized what's the missing element. The system needs <b>more</b> actions.</i></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIleXr7ULIRQ25_JS1Xmfu43engU-deM9UlU6t82KXRWvezA5qLmUy59FvDHF_Dici8TsxK-n-wEdvsYimnldmaj-MIrOsqfxVkNWbX6BDhoD7ilJE1yZjAiOVUyQ1azweYaPXp5gZFujJzza-L3vfoNyJkhG9ujeXJigPvKdY2_oqCKpQZC9bgKLax5A/s1192/league_of_legends__clashing_winds_by_ae_rie_d70x719-pre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="670" data-original-width="1192" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIleXr7ULIRQ25_JS1Xmfu43engU-deM9UlU6t82KXRWvezA5qLmUy59FvDHF_Dici8TsxK-n-wEdvsYimnldmaj-MIrOsqfxVkNWbX6BDhoD7ilJE1yZjAiOVUyQ1azweYaPXp5gZFujJzza-L3vfoNyJkhG9ujeXJigPvKdY2_oqCKpQZC9bgKLax5A/w640-h360/league_of_legends__clashing_winds_by_ae_rie_d70x719-pre.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This happens a lot in cinematic fights. Why didn't I think of it sooner?<br /><b><a href="https://www.deviantart.com/ae-rie/art/League-of-Legends-Clashing-Winds-424811997" target="_blank">League of Legends: Clashing Winds</a></b>, by <i>ae-rie</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Clashes</h3><p>Let's first make an example using the Opposed Rolls Combat System. Let me first clarify, that's not its "official name", I'm just using the article title for now. ... though looking at the abbreviation, ORCS is kind of genius as a coincidence.</p><p>A clash occurs when one creature attacks, the other creature reacts by attacking also, and the two rolls are within 5 points of each other. It's that moment when the two blades meet and there's tension between the two combatants. At this point, the higher roll (if any) doesn't deal damage, it can instead take a "mini-action". I'm not sure if all of these would be general or some would be granted as class features, but examples could include:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>knocking the opponent prone,</li><li>shoving the opponent away from you,</li><li>breaking the opponent's weapon,</li><li>casting a spell,</li><li>attacking him without using the weapon that's involved in the clash,</li><li>tossing some grainy/powdery substance in the air, possibly at the opponent.</li></ul><p></p><p>The key concept here is that this wouldn't cost you a maneuver. It'd be an <i>extra</i> action on top of your action economy but with fewer options. It's you taking the opportunity to do something to the enemy.</p><p>There are two other things, unrelated to the clashes, that I want to add to the system since I'm already writing a minor 'update' to it here. The video inspired me with two more possible things one could do. A reaction to catch an ally that's about to fall within your reach, and an action to toss an ally some distance. But that's beside the point of this article.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">My Theory</h3><p>Things clicked together when I realized... I wanted to do something very similar in my freerunning system for the Runehack RPG. For months, I've known how I want to do the Momentum in that game. Momentum is gained by traversing routes without being slowed down (so either a clear route or a mastery of the obstacle). Momentum also lets you take "mini-actions" immediately after you move.</p><p>This is what has led me to my theory.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>In a mobility-focused tactical game, it would suck to just move and have no option to do something else on every turn. But movement is essential, so you are assumed to move on each turn.</li><li>In a combat-focused tactical game, it would suck to just attack and have no option to do something else on every turn. But attacks are essential, so you are assumed to attack on each turn.</li></ul><p></p><p>The only difference here is the focus of the game, otherwise, the statements are identical. This is why I propose my theory:</p><blockquote><p>A game should provide the player with an option to do something extra when the focal action of the game fulfills some conditions.</p></blockquote><p>Think about it. It'd suck if your attack dealt just 3 points of damage, so let's make it worth more. And traversing the routes that you've mastered or clear routes to gain more Momentum just makes sense in a parkour-themed game.</p><p>That being said, I would advise against combining it, since that would get too cumbersome to keep track of. Especially if clashes let you move, which would let you build up momentum that you could use to try to make more attacks possibly and keep the clashes up. The risk of an infinite action economy increases the more of these Extra Actions you introduce into the same system, so... I'd urge you to keep it down to a single type of Extra Actions. I don't know if I'll follow this advice myself, I might give it a go in my playtests, but I'll have to be extra careful to avoid any case of infinite actions.</p><p>I wonder what would be the reasons behind these mini-actions in other minigames I have on my mind. You'll have to wait to see that when I get to those games.</p><p><br /></p><p>Until then, thank you for reading, and have a nice day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-18519477146769265432024-03-28T10:10:00.001+01:002024-03-28T10:14:38.424+01:00Describing Shadowfell<p>Yesterday, I was looking over some of the discord servers I frequent and stumbled upon a message on the discord server run by a YouTuber called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@holisticdm" target="_blank">Holstic Dungeon Master</a>. He wanted some inspiration for the descriptions, atmosphere, monsters, and challenges of this realm. I started writing and didn't stop for a while, because it seemed the inspiration was just flowing out of me. In the end, his group ended up going to the ocean's depths instead. That's why I decided to compile what I wrote here and share it with anyone interested. I should add that these are all things I came up with on the spot, they don't necessarily fit the D&D canon.</p><p>More game design articles coming soon. For now, indulge me in the brooding moods of Shadowfell by reading on, and have a great day!</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXh7oQGIp-7Hu-Orf3A08omqSdTQnMIegPkjstqwjnT4ZrKnyFinx0fYL71UW7tGRPlYkreDXCw2ucH85EnIAzeIA6a-x7CiTztkeYdQg4R3UEBhrSlOQrpGfN7m0TKbhPIcY37HucowK8e4FydjPT_Y9W1Np0fp4dGybUmvtwLHlSjevwpQQupXbeJg4/s1391/latest%20(2).png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="782" data-original-width="1391" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXh7oQGIp-7Hu-Orf3A08omqSdTQnMIegPkjstqwjnT4ZrKnyFinx0fYL71UW7tGRPlYkreDXCw2ucH85EnIAzeIA6a-x7CiTztkeYdQg4R3UEBhrSlOQrpGfN7m0TKbhPIcY37HucowK8e4FydjPT_Y9W1Np0fp4dGybUmvtwLHlSjevwpQQupXbeJg4/w640-h360/latest%20(2).png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unchanging, eternal.<br />A screenshot from Death Note.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><h3>Colors</h3><p>All colors are less saturated in this world, including the colors of those not native to the plane, and the magic they use. Think of it like someone applying a sepia or grayscale filter partially to everything everyone sees. Grays, beiges, and other muted colors dominate the realm, though you can still distinguish the shades of formerly highly saturated colors.</p><p><br /></p><h3>Weather</h3><p>It's almost always overcast. Rains are common, snow only in cold regions. Sometimes, the rain could be toxic. In some extreme areas, the rain could age anything it touches, just like in Death Stranding.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Slopes</h3><p>Most of the time, you are encouraged to move downhill in the realm of Shadowfell. Going uphill without equipment is almost impossible, even if in the Material Plane it'd be easy to walk up that kind of hill. Meanwhile, Shadowfell feels deep, like one could go lower and lower indefinitely. Its depths feel just as gloomy as the surface, so it's hard to tell how high up or how low you are unless you keep track of it.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Buildings</h3><p>Since it's an echo of the Material Plane, the buildings and cities could exist in this realm, but they'd be warped by the plane's influence. In this case, the buildings are a bit bigger and therefore emptier. They are big enough for their walls to be in contact. If there are doorways on the inside, or one uses the spell <i>passwall</i>, you could traverse an entire city without ever going outside.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Emotions</h3><p>The native creatures mostly express low-energy moods here. Boredom, sadness, and hopelessness are way more common than anger, fear, or joy. Non-native creatures will have a harder time expressing high-energy emotions too.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Exit</h3><p>This one is quite dark, so read at your own risk. <span style="background-color: black;">In some places, it's possible to leave Shadowfell by taking your own life. Once you pass such a place, though, you never know if you left it for sure.</span></p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Nameless</h3><p>It's normal for the native denizens of Shadowfell to not have a name. It's hard to care about such unnecessary things in a realm like that and makes passing away easier.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Hunger</h3><p>Anyone in Shadowfell feels less hungry than they otherwise would, but this doesn't mean they are less hungry. One would starve themselves to death without knowing it if they were to only eat in Shadowfell like they normally would when they begin to feel genuine hunger. The natives are used to eating less, and their biology allows them to survive longer with lesser sustenance.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Plantlife and Mushrooms</h3><p>The plants of Shadowfell generally either don't have leaves, or all the leaves are dead and shriveled. One could in theory grow mushrooms or even fruits in some rare places. The taste is reduced significantly though - a fantastic meal would taste okay, an okay meal would taste rather bad, and a rather bad meal would taste outright awful here. Like sand and sawdust.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkM1ZkYAn0jMH_gMMja7O4P1K_DjUAL9ST9WWRXCx2rH8eYWTUNMJWMpc-Ygg4Ot4FfdV9yaOgzY-yalT1IN4F-5TVHpRgGC7WCxJ627wVOcdLfQCc87pA81JNJWqZnlRUGT1fJwMQgZjjzbf1CXYOJm7ohPXY91Kbj-Aka45nD3TAm0Ejqz_d5XZQGLo/s606/latest%20(1).png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="606" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkM1ZkYAn0jMH_gMMja7O4P1K_DjUAL9ST9WWRXCx2rH8eYWTUNMJWMpc-Ygg4Ot4FfdV9yaOgzY-yalT1IN4F-5TVHpRgGC7WCxJ627wVOcdLfQCc87pA81JNJWqZnlRUGT1fJwMQgZjjzbf1CXYOJm7ohPXY91Kbj-Aka45nD3TAm0Ejqz_d5XZQGLo/w400-h214/latest%20(1).png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shinigami apple from Death Note.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Water</h3><p>Nobody is quite sure what's wrong with the water, but non-natives should not drink it without purifying it first. Natives are unaffected, assuming they need to drink water.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Passage of Time</h3><p>The time passes as normal, but psychologically it feels like the time is not passing at all. Unless one would enter and leave Shadowfell within an hour or keep track of time while inside, you could spend any amount of time there and exit feeling like you've been there only for an hour. You will always be surprised about how much time passed when you leave Shadowfell.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Sleep</h3><p>The denizens of Shadowfell need to sleep more than an average creature would. It's not unheard of for them to sleep for 10-16 hours a day, unless magic powers them they need some energy source afterall.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Physical Manifestation</h3><p>A non-native will reshape their surroundings subconsciously if they reside in one spot for too long. The surroundings will take shape that will remind them the most of their own past failures, guilt, and trauma.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Memories</h3><p>Recalling memories uncharacteristic of this realm (joy, anger, etc.) requires actual concentration if you spend too much time in Shadowfell. After a while, it would literally break your concentration on spells and effects like that.</p><p><br /></p><hr /><p>Most influences are from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffw0SL23q_A" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Shinigami Realm</a> featured in Death Note, with lesser inspiration from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spec_Ops%3A_The_Line" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Spec Ops: The Line</a>, Junji Ito's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzumaki" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Uzumaki</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Death Stranding</a>.</p><p>Anyway, yeah, that's all for now. Have a great day, and thank you for reading!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-68059285520956683492024-03-26T01:27:00.004+01:002024-03-26T02:16:50.759+01:00Incremental Mutation<p>Here's an idea I believe would make for a pretty neat foundation for a TTRPG. I might work on it someday if I feel like it. Gonna keep this short because I've got other stuff to tend to.</p><p><br></p><h3>Incremental Mutation</h3><p>All powers come at a cost. They change and transform you, slowly but possibly completely. You can't stop or reverse this process, the best you can do is slow it down.</p><p>To start, we need some stats. How about the stats from Fate, for the sake of an example they will do. Boldly, Quietly, Forcefully, Cleverly, Quickly, Carefully. Let's assume that the conflict resolution is a roll of 1d12 plus some bonus based on your stat, to roll over some difficulty decided by the GM.</p><p>Now let's make three examples of powers. Let's go with... pyrokinesis, teleportation, and omniglot. Each of these should improve one stat, debuff another stat, and give powers based on the intensity at which you utilize the power. Add some descriptors, and you get yourself an interesting set of powers.</p><p><br></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhgwCr4nr03t6tnzEvTTeRgSGJSbf-EhaXHiiKLkrRx6r-jxZHUg3pwqB-VtLWGEUMOT-rT5RBsB56Us1edxzYdaPmvnGA-9u0BLd4L8sWcBTp7_S28zzn4DKiwoq7wwhRKqw-LZgqZ2zO8HuM1oedGBR4prP9KwoFFu8hpOinjzf_P61Cys6mh08TdEE/s2000/game_art-studio-characters-19-aaa-game-art-studio-characters-animals-creatures-cartoon-female-groups-machines-robots-male-avatars-drawings-paintings-art-production-concepts-outsource-external-fantasy.jpg"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhgwCr4nr03t6tnzEvTTeRgSGJSbf-EhaXHiiKLkrRx6r-jxZHUg3pwqB-VtLWGEUMOT-rT5RBsB56Us1edxzYdaPmvnGA-9u0BLd4L8sWcBTp7_S28zzn4DKiwoq7wwhRKqw-LZgqZ2zO8HuM1oedGBR4prP9KwoFFu8hpOinjzf_P61Cys6mh08TdEE/w300-h400/game_art-studio-characters-19-aaa-game-art-studio-characters-animals-creatures-cartoon-female-groups-machines-robots-male-avatars-drawings-paintings-art-production-concepts-outsource-external-fantasy.jpg" width="300"></a></td></tr><tr><td>Does the magic user consume the fire, or does the fire consume the magic user?<br><b><a href="https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8lrqRq" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Fire Elemental</a></b>, by <i>AAA Game Art Studio</i>.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><h4>Pyrokinesis</h4><div><b>Increases:</b> Boldly<br><b>Decreases:</b> Carefully<br><b>Powers:</b></div><p></p><ul><li>2 - You can produce fire around your fists without it harming you or things worn/held by you.</li><li>4 - You can shoot the fire from your hands at ranged targets.</li><li>6 - You can breathe fire from your mouth without it harming you or things worn/held by you, causing damage in a large area close to you.</li><li>8 - You can shoot fire from your feet without it harming you or things worn/held by you, letting you fly around.</li><li>10 - Whenever something harms or touches you, you can burn it.</li><li>12 - You can ignite your whole body without it harming you or things worn/held by you.</li></ul><p></p><p><br></p><h4>Teleportation</h4><div><b>Increases:</b> Quickly<br><b>Decreases:</b> Boldly<br><b>Powers:</b></div><p></p><ul><li>2 - You can teleport as far as your foot can reach.</li><li>4 - You can teleport to a place you can see close to you with your own eyes.</li><li>6 - You can teleport pretty far and even through reflections.</li><li>8 - You can teleport any distance.</li><li>10 - You can teleport through images that you can see.</li><li>12 - Choose another place you could teleport to to manifest an afterimage. Whenever something causes you damage in either position, there's a 50% chance it will miss you.</li></ul><p><br></p><h4>Omniglot</h4><div><b>Increases:</b> Cleverly<br><b>Decreases:</b> Quickly<br><b>Powers:</b></div><p></p><ul><li>2 - You can understand a language when you hear or read it.</li><li>4 - You can speak a language you have heard before and write a language you have read.</li><li>6 - You understand people's body language perfectly.</li><li>8 - You can understand and speak with animals.</li><li>10 - You understand any programming language you can read, and you can write in any programming language.</li><li>12 - You have mastered physics and mathematics to an extent that allows you to predict with great precision effects on the physical world, including trajectories, people's choices and rough thoughts, and economic developments in the region.</li></ul><p><br></p><p></p><p></p><p>You can choose any number of powers, but you can't have the same stat in more than one of these powers. So out of the examples above, you could choose Pyrokinesis and Omniglot together, but Teleportation can't be chosen with either.</p><p>Your starting Intensity with each Power is 0. At any point during the day, you can choose to increase it by +2. You can utilize any of the Powers with a listed required Intensity equal to or less than your current Intensity with said Power. For example, Pyrokinesis with an Intensity of 6 lets you breathe fire, set your hands to fire, and shoot the fire with your hands, but not shoot flames out of feet or anything else listed below it.</p><p>Your Intensity almost resets after every day, but there's a catch. If it is greater than its minimum, the minimum increases by 2. This is regardless of how high of a Power you've reached. If you start with Telekinesis of Intensity 0 and increase it to 12 on day 1, it resets down to 2 instead of 0. If you increase it just to 6 on the next day, it resets down to 4 instead of 2 or 0. Even if you increase it just to 6 on the third day, it will reset down to 6. The minimum amount of Intensity grows every time you increase it, the power slowly consumes you.</p><p>There's one more neat use for Intensity. Whenever you make a check with the stat it increases and you roll less than or equal to the Intensity, you can roll again and keep a higher number. On the contrary, when you make a check with the stat it decreases and you roll more than or equal to the Intensity, you roll again and keep the lower result. For example, when the Intensity of your Telekinesis is 6 and you roll a 5 on Quickly, you roll again and keep the higher result. If you were to roll a 9 on Boldly, you roll again and keep the lower result.</p><p>In theory, this rerolling could be kept up forever, asking the player to keep rolling until they roll higher/lower than their Intensity, but that would take up too much time. So instead, I came up with ways of transforming the dice rolled. This is why Intensity increases and decreases in increments of 2.</p><h4>Intensity</h4><p></p><ul><li><b>2</b>: Increase is 1d10+2, Decrease is 1d2</li><li><b>4</b>: Increase is 1d8+4, Decrease is 1d4</li><li><b>6</b>: Increase is 1d6+6, Decrease is 1d6</li><li><b>8</b>: Increase is 1d4+8, Decrease is 1d8</li><li><b>10</b>: Increase is 1d2+10, Decrease is 1d10</li><li><b>12</b>: Increase is 12, Decrease is 1d12</li></ul><p></p><p>This is also why I made the baseline of the conflict resolution a 1d12 - because if it were 1d20, I'd have to deal with 1d18, 1d16, and 1d14.</p><p>Using this power slowly reduces you to a shell of what you used to be. You grew more powerful, but what for?</p><p><br></p><p>Anyway, that's about it. I just wanted to write this up quickly to share it with the pals I talked about this with. Have a great day!</p><p><br></p><p>Edit: Yes, Arinyl, I wrote it</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-44676825774644545092024-03-20T22:23:00.000+01:002024-03-20T22:23:01.654+01:00Draw 2c52 from Inspiration Deck<p>Roll tables are fun and pretty good at what they do. Painting on a blank canvas is difficult, which is why we turn to random prompts so often. What I don't like about this approach is the chance of repetition. Sometimes it can be a feature, like when you generate random encounters on a travel through the wilderness and you want some things to be more common than others. But at other times, when you want to get two different results and yet get the same result twice, maybe even three times after a reroll, it just slows you down. This is why I came up with an idea: an inspiration deck.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim27X5eiqa8epyoDi9QEpV_pun12OK0TITHQ0s2DO8s7LAFLvN-2bW2gh3ShGdlDhbQPDkZ5pkZ9fB4ol2kEiLVl6YGyMGrilbb7vgwpFpXYhz2Dmy0bpSSxwMDHExg4FbIZ3zf1vcxhgaS9ldc-vvnVwwk3LSSSMg7tWwrCgRyxYMvlNBtCaJIBv4wgk/s800/24e5c67942743.560b48db7178f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="614" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim27X5eiqa8epyoDi9QEpV_pun12OK0TITHQ0s2DO8s7LAFLvN-2bW2gh3ShGdlDhbQPDkZ5pkZ9fB4ol2kEiLVl6YGyMGrilbb7vgwpFpXYhz2Dmy0bpSSxwMDHExg4FbIZ3zf1vcxhgaS9ldc-vvnVwwk3LSSSMg7tWwrCgRyxYMvlNBtCaJIBv4wgk/w308-h400/24e5c67942743.560b48db7178f.jpg" width="308" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Semi-relevant image included in the article just so it has a thumbnail when linked? Check!</i><br />From the <b><a href="https://www.behance.net/gallery/7942743/Monsters-Co" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Monsters & Co.</a></b> collection of artworks made by <i>Sana Skorobohatska</i>.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p>All the downsides I can think of at the moment (save for one) relate to making these tables in the first place. Writing 52 different elements for the table is a lot of work, and sometimes it might be advantageous to have some commonalities across the elements. Then there's also the fact that this is best done with a physical deck of cards, which the GM can shuffle or decide not to shuffle as they wish. Virtual tabletops can provide decks that will produce cards and remember which cards are left in them, for now, I'll just stick to the assumption of a physical deck.</p><p>How the inspiration deck works is simple: when you'd like to get a random element from the table, draw an appropriate amount of cards, and see what's the result. Going by the title, drawing two cards would be written as 2c52, but I doubt I'd actually use that notation. That's just a bit of a joke from me unless it catches on by some miracle.</p><p>Let's see an example table! These are the name tables I worked on for my Runehack RPG.</p><p><br /></p><table border="0" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TFtable" style="background-color: white;"><thead><tr><th>Value</th><th></th><th>♥</th><th></th><th></th><th>♦</th><th></th><th></th><th>♠</th><th></th><th></th><th>♣</th><th></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>A</th><td>Al</td><td>b</td><td>ert</td><td>No</td><td>r</td><td>wood</td><td>An</td><td>th</td><td>ony</td><td>Mi</td><td>q</td><td>uel</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Abi</td><td>g</td><td>ail</td><td>Na</td><td>t</td><td>asha</td><td>Ale</td><td>x</td><td>andria</td><td>Mar</td><td>g</td><td>reta</td></tr><tr><th>2</th><td>Bax</td><td>t</td><td>er</td><td>Oli</td><td>v</td><td>er</td><td>As</td><td>t</td><td>or</td><td>Ned</td><td>m</td><td>und</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Bea</td><td>t</td><td>rix</td><td>Oak</td><td>l</td><td>ynn</td><td>Au</td><td>r</td><td>ora</td><td>Ni</td><td>k</td><td>ole</td></tr><tr><th>3</th><td>Camp</td><td>b</td><td>ell</td><td>Pe</td><td>t</td><td>ro</td><td>Clif</td><td>f</td><td>ord</td><td>Ni</td><td>ck</td><td>olas</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Char</td><td>l</td><td>otte</td><td>Pat</td><td>r</td><td>icia</td><td>Cor</td><td>n</td><td>elia</td><td>No</td><td>r</td><td>ah</td></tr><tr><th>4</th><td>Den</td><td>h</td><td>olm</td><td>Quen</td><td>t</td><td>in</td><td>Domi</td><td>n</td><td>ic</td><td>Or</td><td>m</td><td>ond</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>De</td><td>z</td><td>iree</td><td>Quin</td><td>t</td><td>ella</td><td>Dolo</td><td>r</td><td>es</td><td>Oc</td><td>t</td><td>avia</td></tr><tr><th>5</th><td>Ed</td><td>w</td><td>ard</td><td>Regi</td><td>n</td><td>ald</td><td>El</td><td>l</td><td>iot</td><td>Os</td><td>b</td><td>orn</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Elea</td><td>n</td><td>ore</td><td>Ra</td><td>m</td><td>ona</td><td>Es</td><td>t</td><td>elle</td><td>O</td><td>l</td><td>ivia</td></tr><tr><th>6</th><td>Frank</td><td>l</td><td>in</td><td>Ste</td><td>v</td><td>en</td><td>Er</td><td>n</td><td>est</td><td>Phoe</td><td>n</td><td>ix</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Flo</td><td>r</td><td>ence</td><td>Sca</td><td>r</td><td>lett</td><td>Eve</td><td>r</td><td>est</td><td>Pri</td><td>m</td><td>ula</td></tr><tr><th>7</th><td>Gor</td><td>d</td><td>on</td><td>Tho</td><td>m</td><td>as</td><td>Fi</td><td>tz</td><td>roy</td><td>Ros</td><td>w</td><td>ell</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Gla</td><td>d</td><td>ys</td><td>Tra</td><td>c</td><td>ey</td><td>Fae</td><td>l</td><td>icity</td><td>Rose</td><td>m</td><td>ary</td></tr><tr><th>8</th><td>Hu</td><td>x</td><td>ley</td><td>Up</td><td>t</td><td>on</td><td>Gar</td><td>f</td><td>ield</td><td>Ru</td><td>f</td><td>us</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Hay</td><td>l</td><td>ee</td><td>U</td><td>l</td><td>yssa</td><td>Ga</td><td>l</td><td>ilea</td><td>Ro</td><td>x</td><td>anna</td></tr><tr><th>9</th><td>Isi</td><td>d</td><td>ore</td><td>Vin</td><td>c</td><td>ent</td><td>Har</td><td>v</td><td>ey</td><td>Sam</td><td>s</td><td>on</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Imo</td><td>g</td><td>en</td><td>Va</td><td>n</td><td>essa</td><td>He</td><td>s</td><td>ther</td><td>Sab</td><td>r</td><td>ina</td></tr><tr><th>10</th><td>Jar</td><td>v</td><td>is</td><td>Wil</td><td>l</td><td>iam</td><td>Ho</td><td>r</td><td>ace</td><td>Sher</td><td>m</td><td>an</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Ju</td><td>l</td><td>iet</td><td>Wil</td><td>l</td><td>ow</td><td>Ho</td><td>n</td><td>oria</td><td>Su</td><td>s</td><td>anne</td></tr><tr><th>J</th><td>Kel</td><td>v</td><td>in</td><td>Xa</td><td>v</td><td>ior</td><td>In</td><td>d</td><td>igo</td><td>Te</td><td>r</td><td>ance</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Kim</td><td>b</td><td>erly</td><td>Xe</td><td>n</td><td>ia</td><td>Ido</td><td>n</td><td>ea</td><td>Ta</td><td>b</td><td>itha</td></tr><tr><th>Q</th><td>Law</td><td>r</td><td>ence</td><td>Yo</td><td>r</td><td>ick</td><td>Jo</td><td>n</td><td>athan</td><td>Tri</td><td>s</td><td>ton</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Lu</td><td>c</td><td>inda</td><td>Yas</td><td>m</td><td>ine</td><td>Jac</td><td>qu</td><td>eline</td><td>To</td><td>n</td><td>ya</td></tr><tr><th>K</th><td>Ma</td><td>t</td><td>eo</td><td>Za</td><td>ch</td><td>ary</td><td>Lu</td><td>c</td><td>ius</td><td>Way</td><td>l</td><td>on</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Mo</td><td>n</td><td>ica</td><td>Za</td><td>r</td><td>iah</td><td>Lili</td><td>b</td><td>eth</td><td>We</td><td>n</td><td>ona</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p>You don't want to know just how much of a hassle was it to make this table work as I imagined. For now, I'm gonna call it close enough and move on. I had to resort to using emojis once I found out that the ASCII symbols I relied on until then aren't always guaranteed to be readable, so sorry about that. As for the order of the names, the first 26 are in alphabetical order (to make sure every starting letter is there at least once), and the rest is based on probabilities of letters in the English language.</p><p>The table looks complicated, but it is used in a somewhat simple way: draw twice from your Inspiration Deck, one card determines the prefix, and one suffix. The bolded underlined consonant(s) in the middle are kept as necessary to make the name sound good (honestly, it's best to let this bit go by the GM's sensibilities instead of forcing it or trying to come up with some convoluted solution). The top rows are for making masculine names, and the bottom rows are for feminine names. That doesn't mean that all of them are guaranteed to sound masculine or feminine respectively, nor should this restrict you from combining them if you wish to. Finally, sometimes you might stumble upon a name that's just silly (for example, Vinvin), in which case you can resort to switching the order of the cards.</p><p>This isn't a perfect 100% tested table, it's a prototype made mainly for the purposes of playtests and this article. Chances are it will change by the time it makes its way into the book.</p><p>You might feel concerned that this will just generate 26 or so names. True, you better shuffle the cards well to get new names. But the key factor here is that this deck would be used for generating all sorts of things for the GM: first names, surnames, place names, and perhaps even room or food descriptors if someone makes these. It would be even better if it used a <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2024/02/two-heckadeck-games.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Heckadeck</a>, though that would require a total of 152 carefully chosen entries per table (not 160 because there are eight pairs of cards - four colored arrows, and four colored talismans).</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, that's about it! Thank you for reading, and have a great day!</p>
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</style>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-45709152573549375582024-03-14T13:43:00.000+01:002024-03-14T13:43:26.495+01:00Progress Tracking of Plans<p>There's a piece of GM advice I've been told in the past that I find hard to use. It says that one should make a rich world in which players can't manage to do everything, and then you should apply consequences to things they did not achieve. While I believe there should be consequences, I also don't want to drag my players down by making them feel like they'll miss out on cool things. At the same time, though, I want to create a sense of pressure. A sense that things are in motion. The mechanics described below started as a system of tracking the public opinion of three factions and evolved into something rather different: tracking the completion of plans and counter-plans.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil2rd7pJ_nvB2OOHkZWkclEt7UUBE4o2Hke1dQBxK-0Antt0dWVsLwuexXjvlZ1GEu_2LihHSWD3pChXNL0ONiONNJUdpPDyUPKjtgOEyF6U0EA_4eZzS8EQGdeMCYdrUyvZteSF8draYOIMc42Bky5Z82GXzMlWtyrEQnahAyLaf-713g6v9bYBCP3pY/s1126/a64726_7628b0e66aaa4ef5b39291af8f7bd762~mv2_d_1200_1500_s_2.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1126" data-original-width="900" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil2rd7pJ_nvB2OOHkZWkclEt7UUBE4o2Hke1dQBxK-0Antt0dWVsLwuexXjvlZ1GEu_2LihHSWD3pChXNL0ONiONNJUdpPDyUPKjtgOEyF6U0EA_4eZzS8EQGdeMCYdrUyvZteSF8draYOIMc42Bky5Z82GXzMlWtyrEQnahAyLaf-713g6v9bYBCP3pY/w512-h640/a64726_7628b0e66aaa4ef5b39291af8f7bd762~mv2_d_1200_1500_s_2.webp" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I wanted to put an image of some futuristic presentation here, but didn't feel like looking for one too much longer. I kind of like this image more.<br /><b><a href="https://www.beeple-crap.com/everydays?pgid=kdyix8la-dream-war_358" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dream War</a></b>, by <i><a href="https://www.beeple-crap.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Beeple</a></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Tracker</h3><p>A tracker is a number between 1 and 12 that tracks which of two opposing sides is winning. If the tracker reaches 12 or more, the players have succeeded in their long-term goal. On the contrary, if the tracker reaches 1 or less, the opposing side succeeds in their plan.</p><blockquote><p>Let's say that in Runehack, there's a company called Nexuspace that's developing an MMORPG entirely taking place in VR. Of course, the faction players are members of - Acumen - are suspicious of this endeavor and investigate it. With every successful mission, the tracker increases by 1, and with every failed mission it decreases by 1. This isn't done just by the one group of characters controlled by the players at your table, though, it's a process that's done many times over and over by all Acumen. Since generating them one by one would be a hassle, there's a simple way of abstracting this.</p></blockquote><p>Once every time period (which I haven't decided yet. For now, I'm going with 5 days), the GM rolls a 1d12 for every tracker. The tracker increases or decreases by 1, going closer to the die. However, to make things more interesting, it increases and decreases by 2 whenever a 12 and 1 are rolled respectively.</p><blockquote><p>Acumen are working on three fronts. First is taking out the Nexuspace's new VR MMORPG launch (tracker: 3). Second is a fashion company with some shady trackers put into their runic clothesline (tracker: 7). Third is a Runebot developing company (tracker: 8). The GM makes the rolls for the end of the period to see how the Acumen progressed. First roll is a [2], putting the tracker regarding the VR MMORPG at a 2. The second roll is a [1], decreasing the tracker for the suspicious fashionista down to 5. The third tracker rolls a [10], which means the Runebot developing company's goal has increased up to a 9. </p></blockquote><p>This provides a self-balancing way of tracking the ebb and flow of the plan's progress and attempts at countering the plan. A very high tracker number means the company is getting too defensive and protective, which makes it harder to increase the number further. On the contrary, the lower the number is, the harder it is to decrease further because Acumen get far more active. What holds the biggest sway here are the actions of the players: will they decide to protect a counterplan that's already almost failed with a tracker at a 3, or do they want to finish off a job that's at 11 just waiting for that final push? Their missions are not incorporated into the roll, instead, their successes and failures are applied directly to the tracker. This also raises the stakes in these extreme scenarios, where one of the parties is very close to reaching their goal. There would be a limit on how much time must pass between the missions to minimize consequences outside of them, which means the players can only be expected to contribute so much to each plan. The plans will all progress, whether the players manage to do something about them or not.</p><blockquote><p>Nexuspace's plan has succeeded. The tracker went down to 0 after a botched mission by another team while the players were busy dealing with the Runebot-developing company, and now the world has been introduced to the world's first VR MMORPG without a controller involved. It requires a special face-worn device that many people now have in their household. The colors in the game grow more vibrant the longer you play it, making the real world seem dull in comparison to all its avid players. The game is filled with subliminal messaging of politics and ideologies in line with those of Nexuspace. And the microtransactions have set an awful new standard for the industry. </p></blockquote><blockquote><p>This might be a lost war, but it is not the end of the world. The world just... changed.</p></blockquote><p>What if we want to make things a little more complicated? Let's involve a third faction.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Third Faction</h3><p>Nothing happens normally when the 1d12 rolled by the GM rolls the tracker's current number. However, if the GM deems it appropriate and wants to complicate things a little, they can introduce a third faction. This could be the rebellion that wants to destroy the power of corporations and reestablish the monarchies of old, a minor religious group that wishes to take the dangerous product and use it for their own gain, or anything else you deem worthy of having their own side. In doing so, a new tracker is created, and both trackers are at spots neighboring the last one (so for a 7, the trackers would be at 6 and 8). When three factions are involved, roll twice, once for each tracker, following the same rules. In the following scenarios, one of the factions loses and drops out of the plan/counterplan scheme until it is resolved.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>If a tracker arrives at a 1 or less, it ceases to be, and Acumen drops out of this tracking. What happens next is entirely between the company and the third party involved.</li><li>If a tracker arrives at 12 or more, it ceases to be, and the Company drops out of this tracking. The conflict persists, but now only between Acumen and the third party.</li><li>If both trackers are on the same spot, one ceases to be, and the third party drops out of the conflict. The status quo is reestablished, with the conflict continuing between the Acumen and the Company.</li></ul><p></p><p>Extra note: Players' mission moves the higher tracker if it involves the Company. They move the lower tracker if their mission specifically targets the third party in an attempt to take them out of the picture.</p><p>In theory, on another roll equal to the tracker, you could introduce a fourth party with a third tracker and a third roll, or even more. I won't entertain that thought, three factions are complicated enough for me.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">But Math</h3><p>At least, that's what I would have written and posted yesterday. The article was finished, I just figured that I'll take a bit longer to mull it over before I publish it. I was feeling kind of bored, and curious about how it would work out in practice, so I wrote a Javascript code for running it. And... well, the numbers turned out to be awful.</p><p>Without players' interference, it would take on average about 160 attempts to resolve on its own. At least, that's what my poorly written code said back then. Right now I don't feel like rewriting it back to what it was to see how far off it was. With an assumption of a weekly game and one roll per session, this would take well over three years. That'd get way too tedious, and it would get nowhere. When I included the players' interference in the equation, it improved the odds a lot (nearly cutting the numbers in half!), but... it still didn't feel good.</p><p>So I got back to experimenting. Instead of attracting, maybe the dice could repel the trackers? Nope. Maybe the criticals could be ignored, or have a +3 instead of a +2? Nah. Making the ranges for victory and loss bigger? No. Truth is, using a d12 for this was a mistake because the chances of rolling a 12 or a 1 are quite low. Which is why I switched it to a d6. After a couple more alterations, it works well enough.</p><p>The tracker starts at a 3 because usually, the company has already started working on a project for it to be known by the Acumen. Every time period, a 1d6 is rolled. The tracker is attracted by 1 space closer to the tracker. The plan or counterplan is completed when the tracker reaches a 1 or 6 respectively. Players' mission applies before the roll. Rolling a 1 or 6 doesn't have any special effects on the tracker. No third factions are gonna get involved, because there's barely any space for two factions.</p><p>With this, it takes on average 10.5 rolls to resolve on its own. If the players are involved every time, and their failure can increase or decrease a tracker by 1, this probability shifts. Calculating it with an assumed success rate of 80% (it's probably gonna be more but for now), we see that on average they'd reduce the average number of rolls it takes down to roughly 2.4, which feels a little fast-paced to me, but then again... that's average. Meaning that some plans could be resolved quite quickly, and some could take more time than that.</p><p>Lesson learned, sometimes the idea might sound good, but the math won't math.</p><p><br /></p><p>I've been busy lately. I got involved in a short-term Blades in the Dark campaign, I've played some other games too as part of my New Year's resolution, and I've been busy with stuff other than the Runehack RPG. I should get back to it and give it some more time so that I have at least the initial draft of it finished. Then... it's time to start playtesting. I hoped to begin the playtests once I'm done with the Blades game, but if it cancels again, I think I'll leave the party and focus on my playtests. Seven games to go, ... who knows how many more rules I need to write to my rulebook. I've been pondering thoughts of making YouTube videos more and more lately. Don't ask me when you can expect something though, that will be as much of a surprise to me as it will be for everyone else. So far, this has been a productive year.</p><p>Thank you for reading, and have an awesome day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-78719470066856591322024-02-29T23:58:00.003+01:002024-03-01T00:08:39.773+01:00Two Heckadeck Games<p><i>So I couldn't resist any longer and ordered myself a <a href="https://www.chroniclebooks.com/products/heckadeck" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Heckadeck</a> earlier. It arrived sooner than I expected earlier today. And so I figured "Since February 29th comes only once every four years, I might as well try to make a game with the heckadeck before March begins." By the time I got around to actually writing the game, it was 10 o'clock at night. Let's call this a two-hour leap year one-person game jam.</i></p><p><i>I actually managed to write two games, because the first one I wasn't satisfied with. It was a tabletop game alright, but didn't feel like a TTRPG. Honestly, I don't feel like bothering with tables in CSS, so I'll just turn them into unnumbered lists for the sake of speed. The second one will be a lot simpler, but I can only do so much in two hours with an item I got earlier today. I'm posting both anyway.</i></p><p><i>Have a great day!</i></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXHIa3Wr_jU3LhcLuIcJWjWrAm8I-aWdmbi1hhmyHJK04hKIBq3moVM8RO3yMlbehb4NS6Nfwq0JPb10xu4PkikvUPmyjz5-UhEAfRFE-8kQzMn39PSQauSgdW82UdGcumYBKu-5iiDPUeaE71D5C5xrUcmhyphenhyphenu6fna8xCF2Uf2xxAf83x1duopJEHUQl8/s794/il_794xN.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="794" data-original-width="794" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXHIa3Wr_jU3LhcLuIcJWjWrAm8I-aWdmbi1hhmyHJK04hKIBq3moVM8RO3yMlbehb4NS6Nfwq0JPb10xu4PkikvUPmyjz5-UhEAfRFE-8kQzMn39PSQauSgdW82UdGcumYBKu-5iiDPUeaE71D5C5xrUcmhyphenhyphenu6fna8xCF2Uf2xxAf83x1duopJEHUQl8/w400-h400/il_794xN.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I might be in a hurry, but I can still afford to slap on a picture of a mage with cards on it. I don't know if I have time to find the source until midnight, so here's a <a href="https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1539965761/custom-dnd-portrait-commissions-open?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=dnd+commission&ref=sr_gallery-1-1&frs=1&organic_search_click=1&epik=dj0yJnU9TkdRTkx4N1hLNElDU1RPWXhwVUtfYVB3ZDJ1czlaN3gmcD0wJm49WHdDRWtfelVycWc3d2VWa040X19tQSZ0PUFBQUFBR1hoQnhN" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">link</a> for my source, seems like someone who does commissions on Etsy.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">The Wishstone</h3><p>Players' characters are on a quest to obtain the Wishstone that can make their deepest desires real, represented by the Omnihedron. Take the Omnihedron out of the Heckadeck and put it in the middle of the table. It can only be taken by the player who discards Talismans of four different colors during their turn. The Omnihedron must always remain face-up on the table, even when possessed by a player.</p><p>Divide the remaining cards into two decks. The Character deck contains all Jokers, Jacks, Queens, Kings, Beasts, Hunters, and Travelers, as well as the Crone and the Watcher. The other one, simply referred to as the deck, contains all numbered cards, Arrows, Talismans, and the Darkness.</p><p>Each player draws three cards from the Character deck. They select which one is their character, and keep the rest as their Will, representing their close bonds. Once everyone has their cards, they can draw 7 cards from the deck. Before the game begins, anyone who holds a Talisman can reveal it. If any Talisman is revealed, the youngest holder of a Talisman starts the game. If none were revealed, the youngest player goes first.</p><p>At the start of your turn, a player by your left side draws two cards from the deck and chooses which one is your Challenge, as per the table below.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Number:</b> You need to discard cards with a total value of 6 or this card's value (whichever is higher).</li><li><b>Arrow:</b> There is no challenge. You can choose either the effect of success or failure.</li><li><b>Talisman:</b> You are overcome with a need to harm one character selected by the player who chose this card for you. To succeed, discard any 3 cards. You can keep this card only if you succeed.</li><li><b>Darkness:</b> You need to discard cards with a total value between 20 and 25. If you fail, you lose one Will. You can discard any number of cards.</li></ul><p></p><p>To overcome a Challenge, you must discard enough cards, either from your hand or drawn from the deck. You can keep discarding cards this way until you discard a card that doesn't belong to your suit. Discarding the non-number cards has the following effects:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Arrow</b> counts as 1 or 11 (your choice).</li><li><b>Talisman</b> lets you automatically succeed.</li><li><b>Darkness</b> harms the character of the player who chose this challenge for you.</li></ul><p></p><p>If you succeed, you can discard any number of cards from your hand. If you fail, you can take the challenge card into your hand. Either way, after a Challenge you can choose to discard cards for any of the following reasons:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Arrow</b> to attempt harming another Character.</li><li><b>Talismans</b> if you have Talismans of all four colors to obtain the Omnihedron.</li><li><b>Darkness</b> to end the game immediately.</li><li>You can also discard cards at this time if a character ability you possess lets you.</li></ul><p></p><p>You end your turn by drawing cards into your hand until you hold 7 cards.</p><p>When a character is harmed, they must discard one of their Will cards. A discarded Will always goes back to the Character deck. When one runs out of Will cards, they are eliminated from the game.</p><p>You get a special ability depending on what character you play.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Joker:</b> Select one additional Character card. You get its ability, but its suits are replaced by the suits that match your color.</li><li><b>Jack:</b> You start the game with 9 cards on your hand, and at the end of your turn you can draw up to 9 cards into your hand.</li><li><b>Queen:</b> You can discard one additional time in a challenge.</li><li><b>King:</b> Draw two additional cards from the Character deck for your Will.</li><li><b>Beast:</b> During your turn, you can discard two cards of your suit to harm one character of your choice.</li><li><b>Hunter:</b> Whenever you are harmed by a character, you can discard a card of your suits to harm the character too.</li><li><b>Traveler:</b> If you succeed on a challenge, you can give another player two cards of your choice from your hand, and take two random cards from their hand.</li><li><b>Crone:</b> You automatically succeed in a conflict resolution if you discard a non-numbered card (including your Will). You can discard five numbered cards during your turn and choose a player. They must switch their current character with one of their Will cards (their choice).</li><li><b>Watcher:</b> You can hold no cards. You fail your conflict resolution if the total you drew exceeds 13.</li></ul><p></p><p>When the game ends, the player who holds Omnihedron wins along with all players whose characters' suits match the holder's.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">HeckaRPG</h3><p>This game requires a GM.</p><p>Take all Jacks, Queens, Kings, Beasts, Hunters, and Travelers out of the deck, and they stay out of the deck during the game. Every player chooses two random cards out of these and places them down on the table face up in front of them. The card on the top is their Body, and their Mind is the card on the bottom placed perpendicular. At the start of the game, draw 5 cards from the deck to represent your Determination. Keep them face down beneath both your Body and Mind. When you have 0 Determination, you are unconscious.</p><p>When you attempt to do something significant, the GM can challenge your Body or Mind. They tell you the difficulty, ranging from 1 (very easy) to 5 (nearly impossible). Taking someone's Determination away is 3, and giving someone Determination is 4. Draw 5 cards. Your success is measured by counting the cards with suits that match your attributes. You succeed if the number of matches equals or exceeds the difficulty, given by the GM.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Crone</b> has no suits.</li><li><b>Darkness</b> has no suits, and it costs you 1 Determination.</li><li><b>Watcher</b> has all suits, and the GM tells your character some new useful information.</li><li><b>Omnihedron</b> has all suits, and it gives you 1 Determination.</li><li><b>Joker</b> has both suits of its color. It also counts as a success for any single-suited card.</li><li><b>Arrow</b> has both suits of its color. It also counts as a success for any Jack or Beast.</li><li><b>Talisman</b> has both suits of its color. It also counts as a success for any King or Queen.</li></ul><p></p><p>Replenish all Determination (max 5) when you get enough rest. Set yourself goals. Upon achieving them, the GM can let you draw additional characters and add them to your Body or Mind, keeping them parallel with the original Body and Mind to distinguish them.</p><p><br /></p><p>That's all for today! February 29th article done, two-hour "game jam" finished, let's go!</p><p>Post-midnight edit: The second game is 300+ words too. Oh well!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-67262130935184607652024-02-11T23:16:00.000+01:002024-02-11T23:16:02.867+01:003 Dice Mini-games<p><i>Gambling is part of many TTRPG tales. It's done with an imaginary currency, so how many players can genuinely say they have never enjoyed a good gamble? My go-to is usually the game I found on Reddit called "Kobold Knuckles" which I've also included an iteration of in D6 Feet Under. It's Blackjack played with d12s, but 11 and 12 count as a 10, and 1 can stand for 1 or 11, to reach 21. Simple, clean, good fun time. Well, lately I've been thinking about mechanics for downtime in my Runehack RPG, and my mind got hung up on the fact that rolling 5+ is twice as likely on a 1d12 than on 1d6. I had to get that out of my head to make space for something that would work way better, which is why I've put this premise into a classic game. Out of that was born another idea, and then one more.</i></p><p><i>In the end, I got three games of chance that are equally uncertain to the player as they are to the GM.</i></p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"></h3><blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;">Shells Game</h3><p>Three shells, one reward. The reward goes beneath one, and shuffling begins. The player rolls 1d6, or 1d12 if they know how the shells game tricks work. On a roll of 5+, they picked the correct shell and win.</p></blockquote><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh6EINJ6o7DkUhSeH43MtBB4adXA1Jb1uPpWdWtjB4Qw_ZpNS5impFkzGbQtU-GYhHyamVTDEc7lWe-5MCxZFPjtr_ArUx267GrigL9QrxWVJLWUMjiNxadGc4MUcFxqeIxlYK0E_VbF6l4lXgQ-uLAEoz-vZafebyyuGSCbKc1rKUXb0d-U2nvu2R_rk/s894/shell_game_by_zeon_in_a_tree_dd8py9f-pre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="893" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh6EINJ6o7DkUhSeH43MtBB4adXA1Jb1uPpWdWtjB4Qw_ZpNS5impFkzGbQtU-GYhHyamVTDEc7lWe-5MCxZFPjtr_ArUx267GrigL9QrxWVJLWUMjiNxadGc4MUcFxqeIxlYK0E_VbF6l4lXgQ-uLAEoz-vZafebyyuGSCbKc1rKUXb0d-U2nvu2R_rk/w640-h640/shell_game_by_zeon_in_a_tree_dd8py9f-pre.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Could it be played with more than three shells? Yes. There's a catch to their numbers though. You'll see later in this article.<br /><b><a href="https://www.deviantart.com/zeon-in-a-tree/art/Shell-Game-800708019" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Shell Game</a></b>, by <i>Zeon-in-a-tree</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Quite simple, and effective. The chance of succeeding for most is 33%, and it's bumped up to 66% if you know the Shells game. Of course, this could be toyed with beyond the measure depicted. How about we go an extra step?</p><h3 style="text-align: left;"></h3><blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;">Monty Hall</h3><p>Three doors, one reward. The player chooses one door, and the organizer opens one of the doors that do not have a reward. The player now gets a choice - swap to the other unopened door, or stay. Roll a 1d12 if they swapped their choice, or 1d6 if they stayed with their original choice. On a roll of 5+, they picked the correct door and win.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>This is the shells game with a twist: You get to change your mind if you dare. It's also a probabilistic expression of the Monty Hall paradox, where switching the door is better than staying with the same door. If you don't believe me, think of it this way - imagine there are 10 doors, and after you pick one, I open 8 doors with no reward behind them. Is it better to switch or not? Of course, it is, the chance that you picked the right door on the first try was and still is 1 in 10.</p><p>That got me thinking about something else... could other pairs of regular polyhedral dice accurately represent this for different numbers of shells/doors, assuming there's a single prize every time? (In the case of Monty Hall, assume the organizer opens all but 2 doors.) Let's see!</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>2 doors: coin flip, impossible to open any doors after</li><li>3 doors: 1d6 on stay, 1d12 on switch, 5+ correct choice</li><li>4 doors: 1d4 on stay, 1d12 on switch, 4+ correct choice</li><li>10 doors: 1d10 on stay, 1d100 on switch, 10+ correct choice (treat 00 as zero instead of 100)</li></ul><p></p><p>... and surprisingly, that's all the dice combinations I could find using regular dice. Maybe I could get Matt Parker on this if I send him a message. Until then, let's see how far we could go with irregular dice and a complete revamp of the game's concept!</p><p></p><blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;">Russian Roulette</h3><p>Start by defining the number of chambers C and the number of bullets B. A player rolls 1dC on the turn (replace C by the current number of chambers), on a roll of B or less they were unlucky. Lower C by 1 after each turn, and lower B by 1 after each unfortunate turn.</p></blockquote><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm9KMvlNs6fpTjQpaTSPp_IMbVSWSY9niXc6mG10Itp6O_W8OXy7p1oWlFvWUzC4Ccb0WOYxfNsaXYpuq9Xp3YQoIa0URvnwOzyAIVSEecfXDjh50qRqIpLtHrgsuySHDT0tAq-gAD7PHh-HqojK92C_i01MccPCAKiIANyd3peIZxUBv_4hIowqhxpso/s1603/bG18mX.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="890" data-original-width="1603" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm9KMvlNs6fpTjQpaTSPp_IMbVSWSY9niXc6mG10Itp6O_W8OXy7p1oWlFvWUzC4Ccb0WOYxfNsaXYpuq9Xp3YQoIa0URvnwOzyAIVSEecfXDjh50qRqIpLtHrgsuySHDT0tAq-gAD7PHh-HqojK92C_i01MccPCAKiIANyd3peIZxUBv_4hIowqhxpso/w640-h356/bG18mX.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://mikeklubnika.itch.io/buckshot-roulette" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Buckshot Roulette</a> has been trending recently. I'm impressed at how they could turn the Russian Roulette into a whole game with actual tactical choices.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>I don't know if it can get simpler than this. Highly intuitive, the stakes are clear. One would consider using a deck of cards to be easier, and it is. But... a deck of cards can be shuffled badly, or shuffled in a way to "load" it, keeping the top card the same throughout the whole shuffle. I used to do magic tricks, I know how things can be. Dice make it fair unless they've spent some time in the oven.</p><p>The disadvantage of using the dice should be clear by now. For a gun with six chambers, you're going to need 1d6, 1d5, 1d4, 1d3, and 1d2 (1d1 isn't a die, and 1d2 could be a coin). It is easy to do digitally, but not so easy in person. I know some companies sell such dice, but I'm not writing this as a how-to guide. This is just an article where I wanted to write down three ideas for tabletop mini-games to gamble with at the table. Well, four technically, since I described Kobold Knuckles at the top, but let this be the secret kept among everyone who finished reading this article.</p><p><br /></p><p>That's all for today! I hope to get back to Runehack with my next article, but one never knows when a muse kicks them. Thank you all, and have a wonderful day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-84747059280979089922024-01-27T12:26:00.002+01:002024-01-27T12:26:22.980+01:00Conflict Resolution based on Gatherings<p><i>I had another neat game design idea that I wanted to share. This one comes from a conversation with Izzy, Heavy, and the Moon Cell about how to do skills differently. Of course, don't expect this to be a part of the Runehack RPG, so far I actually don't have any plans for a game that would include this. I wanted to share it because I think it's neat.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Conflict Resolution based on Gatherings</h3><p>A character is defined by a set of attributes with assigned values, as usual. But their purpose is not to be added or compared to a die roll. Instead, they define how many people you can attempt to influence by your attribute. Whether this succeeds is determined by comparing your level with theirs, and possibly a die roll if you want some randomness involved.</p><p>Let's make an example. Say you are trying to sneak through a corridor with some guards in it. Your stealth is 4, and there are 5 guards, so you need to select four guards you hide from, and figure out a way in which you could move so that the fifth guard doesn't get to see you. Then, your level is compared to the guards', successfully letting you sneak past anyone whose level is equal to or less than yours. So, if your level is 4 and the guards' levels are 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, there might be one guard who you couldn't have hidden from. You better hope it was that one guard who you didn't choose. What if the guards try to search for you together as a team? They add up all their levels, in this case totaling 15, and at least one of them is bound to find you with a skill that's not a zero. But if you make it past them safely, they might not know you were there in the first place.</p><p>Upgrading your skills one digit at a time might be boring, so how about we use an exponential here? Imagine if your skill <i>doubles</i> every time you get to upgrade it. You start off by being able to hide from one guard, then two, then four, then eight, then sixteen, and perhaps more eventually. Imagine a master thief hiding from a crowd of a thousand heads.</p><p>The biggest flaw I can see here is doing stuff that doesn't relate to people. When you're trying to pick a lock on a door, do you compare your level with the locksmith's? What if you're just trying to push a boulder up the mountain? It will feel like a cop-out, but I'd ask how many average people it takes to do the same task or something along those lines.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigMt5Sl5X13rsTZrvu2QpS7Nq4ROLA0gT_ptXWxTN6V9-_8rhlWG5zqd1ydlwpMCgJQtoyV8oYSjUkqORTAFDSEOWej9x00Zf2kzPDziuSYgiscv9fijKWa28No8Pnyhkc3xmsh8oatKse1uB92Ns4pwYD2nWnqDqpmGrYSfFPKQD7GtFj5BV3APtbelU/s1000/pop-concept02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1000" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigMt5Sl5X13rsTZrvu2QpS7Nq4ROLA0gT_ptXWxTN6V9-_8rhlWG5zqd1ydlwpMCgJQtoyV8oYSjUkqORTAFDSEOWej9x00Zf2kzPDziuSYgiscv9fijKWa28No8Pnyhkc3xmsh8oatKse1uB92Ns4pwYD2nWnqDqpmGrYSfFPKQD7GtFj5BV3APtbelU/w640-h448/pop-concept02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Teamwork here would allow one very competent character to carry the whole group, naturally leading to a more diverse group with various specializations. What would be the limit though? Maybe people who you assist with your abilities also count into the number of people that you can affect. I don't know.</i><br />Prince of Persia concept art. I will consider this <a href="https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-08/pop-concept02.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the source</a> for now.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>It is a very raw idea, but that's why I'm posting it here. I don't feel like making it into something complete right now, if I did I would turn it into a short game. If you want to, see where you can take it.</p><p>Have a great day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-45256714030046212162024-01-20T16:40:00.000+01:002024-01-20T16:40:33.257+01:00Runehack RPG 0: Goals and Foundations<p><i>The time has come. Let's talk about what I've been working on for some time now. Just to be clear, these articles will be focused on the game's design more than on the worldbuilding.</i></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmTvX82Rn3mdKVbZn39oHY7ihjlylTKzNTt3A-d1otlz1g3en0NU-N4O28zPDVYWQ72_IYoj9DAyka2qqLzhyZhjuykDcFHfxDmtN6tl7CUxEf3zdkXL3UCHDVv0DZ0lIb19JhaFHyg3pFxPmZlYJztdO6_DfKrwpwESk4em1EdFjgdAICav4ydVgusLI/s2048/runehack-old-cover.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmTvX82Rn3mdKVbZn39oHY7ihjlylTKzNTt3A-d1otlz1g3en0NU-N4O28zPDVYWQ72_IYoj9DAyka2qqLzhyZhjuykDcFHfxDmtN6tl7CUxEf3zdkXL3UCHDVv0DZ0lIb19JhaFHyg3pFxPmZlYJztdO6_DfKrwpwESk4em1EdFjgdAICav4ydVgusLI/w640-h480/runehack-old-cover.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The old cover art for the Runehack RPG was drawn by <a href="https://katechaste.com/projects" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Kate Chaste</a>. While it's fine work, over the years I changed my mind and ended up not using it for the game. The new cover art has already been drawn by my wonderful girlfriend Arell, but I figured I could use this for the article series so that these would still get a thumbnail of some sort. I'll reveal the new cover art when the game is finished.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Premise</h3><p>I like the idea of going beyond the usual pillars of experience. I feel like combat has been explored in many games, the exploration is something some games already do really well, and social interaction is something I have my own opinions on (briefly: give tools, not skips). I will have to do something for some of these, but generally, I don't want to delve too much into those. So, how do I plan to go beyond?</p><p>This game takes place in my world <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/p/runehack-reading-guide.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Runehack</a> which I talked about several times on my blog. In this world dominated by megacorporations, there's a secretive organization with its own goals. The base assumption is that the organization will face the megacorporations, trying to dig up dirt on them by infiltrating their buildings to search for interesting information about them and then sharing it with the public. Imagine whistleblowers but with exciting freerunning and hacking involved.</p><p>That being said, this is the base game that I want to publish this year. I'd like to expand on the game after with extra pillars of experience that could be added or removed without anything changing too much. Of course, you would leave out the base premise of the game if you were to remove the hacking and the freerunning pillars. Still, the same can be said about any system - if I remove combat from D&D, it becomes a vastly different game from what most players experience it as. The big difference I'm leading to is that in my game, I want everything I label as a pillar of experience to be something the game could easily focus on throughout a campaign, even if other pillars are dropped.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Goals</h3><p>I aim to finish the game's first version by the end of this year. This includes the rules for the three pillars I wish to begin with.</p><p>The core pillar is the only pillar you can't remove from the game, since it includes the mechanics that other pillars rely on. These include your fantasy species, regular rolls made using your attributes, some additional background-related traits, and the core of the action economy that's shared with all other pillars.</p><p>The freerunning pillar is what I spend most of the time developing. The best way I can put it is that it's an upgrade of what I tested with the Fairy Heist: areas connected by passages that some can pass, some can't, and some can pass but they'd get slowed down. Think of this as Mirror's Edge, or Assassin's Creed, but done in tabletop and ideally without the players fighting their opponents.</p><p>The hacking pillar is the final pillar that I want to have in the game when it's published, but it's also the one I'd have the easiest time dropping if I don't manage to finish it on time. It's the dice-placing minigame from The Asterist.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Core Pillar</h3><p>While the core pillar is something I'm largely satisfied with by now, consider it still a bit of a work in progress. It's unlikely that it will change from now on, but it might if I am compelled enough to do so.</p><p>This system's method of rolling is a roll-over using 2d6 or 1d12, with the addition of one's relevant attribute. When a character rolls for its attribute, it can choose to roll Reliably (2d6) or Recklessly (1d12). This is a concept I've described before <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/10/reliable-vs-reckless.html" target="_blank">on my blog</a>, and it's to give the players some control over how their die roll might end up. I will happily borrow the rules for advantage and disadvantage from Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition since I want the numbers to stay within their bounds. An attribute has a range of 0 to 4, with some exceptions.<br /></p><p>For now, I'm feeling a bit experimental. I want to preserve a proven mechanic from a previous game, which is why I've decided this game will have five stats, but two of them can be replaced by a single one for some characters.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Might</b> - physical strength. Pushing, lifting, dragging, and so on.</li><li><b>Agility</b> - dexterity. Sleight of hand, dodging, acrobatics, balance, and so on.</li><li><b>Training</b> - tools knowledge. Picking locks, making mechanisms, artistic performance, and so on.</li><li><b>Comprehension</b> - abstract knowledge. Physics, chemistry, psychology, history, and so on.</li><li><b>Hunch</b> - guessing. Searching for hidden things, intuition, and so on.</li><li><u style="font-weight: bold;">Height</u> - replaces the Might and Agility of characters who are so tiny that their Might and Agility wouldn't matter more than their height. Unlike other stats, this one ranges from 4 to 17, and when one uses it, they roll 3d6 and succeed when they either roll their exact height, below their height when they would use their Might, or above their height when they would use their Agility. Possessing a height stat also reduces the number of acts you can perform in a turn by 1.</li></ul><p></p><p>Most of these attributes also come with some extra benefit attached to them. For now, since it will be relevant, I will mention just that you get a number of hunches per day equal to your Hunch attribute, which you can spend to make a guess statement towards your GM about a thing your character could reasonably guess. You must make it clear that you are using your hunch, by saying something along the lines of "I have a hunch that..." for example. Your GM then tells you whether your hunch was correct or not. Yes, it's the mechanic I've tested with the <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/03/clues-and-hunches.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Clues and Hunches</a>, I like it a lot.</p><p>When it comes to the playable species, there's a plan to include seven of them. I've considered including the digital ghost that I've introduced in Runehack: The Asterist, but in the end, I've realized it might be too powerful for the freerunning pillar. It would be fine as an opponent now and then, but as a player character, it's just too much. As for the rest, here they are listed along with a rough outline of their traits:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Dwarf.</b> Possesses a touch so sensitive, that they can see anything that's touching a surface they touch with their bare skin. This functions up to 1 area away.</li><li><b>Elf.</b> Can see in the dark and perform one additional activity per day. Their lifespan is also extra long, but that doesn't really matter within the game itself.</li><li><b>Fairy.</b> Possess the Height stat, and they can also naturally fly. Once per turn, they can use an act to move twice. I might add one or more traits, since right now a Small Runebot is an objectively better version of a fairy.</li><li><b>Goblin.</b> Over a week, they can adjust their physiology through a diet, gaining a trait of their choice. I'll be honest, neither do I know what exactly will these abilities be just yet.</li><li><b>Human.</b> One of their attributes is increased by 1. Furthermore, they can spend 1 hunch after a roll to force a reroll, keeping the new result.</li><li><b>Orc.</b> One of their attributes is increased by 1. They get an additional act on their turn that they can only use to move. They can also choose one attribute that they can increase after a time beyond 4.</li><li><b>Runebot.</b> Their body is a puppet remotely controlled by their mind from a safe location. Their body is highly modular, and it can come in a Regular or Small model (the difference being that the Small model has a Height stat). With the increase in level, they get more and more components that they can attach to their body. I will need to find a way of compensating the Small runebots for a loss of an act, but for now, this is it.</li></ul><p></p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Pillars' Commonalities</h3><p>I don't know yet how I'll work out the progression across all the pillars, but what I do know is that every time a character gets to "level up", they will have to increase one of their lowest pillars by a level.</p><p>There are two ways of tracking what a character does in this game: activity and act. A character gets to choose to do 6 activities per day. They could in theory be split up and shuffled around, but I've wanted a way of tracking the activities one does that's somewhat simple, so for now consider them uninterrupted blocks (as unnatural as it may be). Some activities can include sleep, work, mission, or anything else of significant time investment, such as an important social interaction, or research. Matters such as transportation, eating, and so on, aren't tracked and are assumed to be performed as part of these activities. On a turn-by-turn basis (like during a mission), a character can take 3 acts per turn.</p><p><br /></p><p>I'm quite hyped for this project. It's been a long time coming, and I want to play it. There's still a long way to go though, so for now this is everything I can say here. Thank you for reading, and have an awesome day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-23940200462527626542024-01-18T16:59:00.004+01:002024-01-18T17:01:52.744+01:00Opposed Rolls Combat System<p style="text-align: left;"><i>I watched a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk34TanPG3U" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">video</a> recently that described a combat system with possibly the best balance between authenticity and simplicity. I figured I'd take the idea and develop it a little.</i></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC2iVNiSRqeOmT95vj-wwNZOeG9MHvO-dNd2uZJpSihPYZYi9SDZOnvJyIAHo0Ir0hrD8NlGoq9vyXXQN3oNDNuYSakU84EHQCE3hzoXcq5qHG1sMijwUtUCzZLAR5z39IuMJbVS-FXEMz9ACb0VIT76GkI4iF6jMfQFnuyrQEa9tJ74uXqMVzFFwm0uY/s1920/yerbol-bulentayev-shadow-fight.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1095" data-original-width="1920" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC2iVNiSRqeOmT95vj-wwNZOeG9MHvO-dNd2uZJpSihPYZYi9SDZOnvJyIAHo0Ir0hrD8NlGoq9vyXXQN3oNDNuYSakU84EHQCE3hzoXcq5qHG1sMijwUtUCzZLAR5z39IuMJbVS-FXEMz9ACb0VIT76GkI4iF6jMfQFnuyrQEa9tJ74uXqMVzFFwm0uY/w640-h366/yerbol-bulentayev-shadow-fight.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I missed!" "The enemy missed too." "Natural 1." "Enemy missed too, don't worry." "Aha, a critical hit! ... That's, uh... six damage."<br /><i>Success in regular combat isn't just about hitting the opponent, it's about hitting an opponent without getting hit.</i><br /><b><a href="https://www.artstation.com/artwork/QYzRd" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Shadow Fight</a></b>, by <i>Yerbol Bulentayev</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">At the start of its turn, a character gets a number of maneuvers determined by its level. (I'll keep the exact number vague since this would probably depend on the game you wish to make with this.) These maneuvers can be spent during the turn in the following ways:</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Attack.</b> You attempt to strike another creature of your choice within the range of a weapon you wield. Roll the weapon's die, add a relevant attribute, and compare the result to the target's total for defense (see below). If your rolled total is greater, the target takes an amount of damage equal to the roll.</li><li><b>Move.</b> A maneuver can be used to move X spaces. X could be defined by your level, or armor, or just the same for everyone.</li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">You can use maneuvers that remain in following mostly defensive ways even outside of your turn:</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Block.</b> If you are wielding a shield when you are attacked, you roll its die and add a relevant attribute.</li><li><b>Counter*.</b> If you are wielding a weapon and your attacker is in its range, you roll its die and add a relevant attribute to it when you are attacked. If your roll is greater than the attacker's, you instead deal damage to the attacker equal to the amount rolled.</li><li><b>Dodge.</b> When you are attacked, you roll the die determined by your armor and add a relevant attribute to it.</li><li><b>Strike*.</b> If you are wielding a weapon and a creature leaves its range, you can attempt to attack it. (For the sake of brevity, works the same way as Attack would, and the target can use the above three maneuvers against it.)</li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">* At your own discretion, the attacking maneuvers used outside of your turn might be restricted just to melee weapons.</p><p style="text-align: left;">All weapons, shields, and armor come with a die that you roll to see how effective it is. Shields and armor reduce any damage you take from weapons by their defined amounts.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Dual-wieldable (2d4, 1d4 if just one is wielded)</li><li>Ranged (1d6)</li><li>Single-handed melee (1d8)</li><li>Two-handed melee (1d10)</li><li>Shields (1d12, damage reduction 2)</li><li>No armor (1d10, damage reduction 0)</li><li>Light armor (1d8, damage reduction 2)</li><li>Medium armor (1d6, damage reduction 4)</li><li>Heavy armor (1d4, damage reduction 6)</li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">Action economy beyond this could exist too, of course, and I have no idea how this would work in the long run. What the hit points required for this system would be, what the distances would be, the height of the attributes, and so on is frankly something I'm too lazy to figure out right away. Unless I'd be making this into a full game, it feels like something someone else will be happy to do.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Now, someone might look at this and go "This discourages the players from attacking at all", to which I say... yeah? A battle isn't about enemies missing each other with 40% of their hits, it's about their hits clashing, and seeing who's gonna manage to damage whom. Unless you can make lots of maneuvers and take lots of hits, you probably shouldn't be on the front lines.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Until then, I hope you've enjoyed my article, and I would like to wish you all a wonderful day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-8432805123305074482024-01-04T09:27:00.002+01:002024-01-04T09:27:23.784+01:00Interrogation Minigame<p>Recently I encountered a minor problem. Since most TTRPGs are about combat, their fail state is death. However, an absolute death with no way back is an anticlimactic way to end a character, especially when they have unfinished business. Which is why I assume resurrection magic was introduced. And that creates a slew of worldbuilding issues I'm not even going to go into.</p><p>My game won't be about combat. Death <i>could</i> occur, but it's not the only fail state in the game, nor is it the most frequent one. See, the players in my game are to be members of a secretive organization that works against the megacorporations that own the cities. Capturing them alive is a lot better than killing them off because they might provide information. It could just take some... convincing. This is an ideal fail state for my game, seeing how this allows the other players to run a rescue mission, saving their friend.</p><p>But that got me thinking... what would the character be going through in the meantime? I mean, players will likely prioritize the rescue mission, but what if they don't? What if they leave the one player waiting for too long? What will the player do in the meantime (besides likely playing some weaker character substitute)?</p><p>My initial thought was "Oh no, I can't cover this with any of the stats in the game, do I have to add a Willpower stat into my game?" After some thinking, though, it turns out I don't need to. I can just reuse an old idea of mine: dice towers. No, I don't mean the kind that you'd use to roll the dice.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCQTc7JII7VIwux3V3VN3xM-8YuFb2VsPBlTjpsJzkQjxHRAQEsJFL_0HQ-i9BtvgYpX6eGHvcgrU1jidZSXAyxnvCXU7pBWWyYhtdSEI78SawX8c5tRVe0ltGPHiyI1Oxw_LHgjRL-q-cNAGpXbaBj6fkbBKDeH5soTlsMBpRtaV6gSR1F6ixgdD2CeU/s3000/2131091346_915e53063a_3k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2420" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCQTc7JII7VIwux3V3VN3xM-8YuFb2VsPBlTjpsJzkQjxHRAQEsJFL_0HQ-i9BtvgYpX6eGHvcgrU1jidZSXAyxnvCXU7pBWWyYhtdSEI78SawX8c5tRVe0ltGPHiyI1Oxw_LHgjRL-q-cNAGpXbaBj6fkbBKDeH5soTlsMBpRtaV6gSR1F6ixgdD2CeU/w516-h640/2131091346_915e53063a_3k.jpg" width="516" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/canonsnapper/2131091346/in/photostream/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The dice are stacked</a></b>, by <i>Michael Summers</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>On every day of the interrogation, the GM asks a question and rolls 3d6, dropping the lowest roll. The player needs to put this many d6's on top of one another to keep the information away from the interrogators. If the stack of dice collapses, the information is revealed. The player can choose to reveal the information at any moment, or they can spend their Energy to lower the number of dice required for the stack. Additionally, the GM can decide after the die roll that the interrogators are going extra hard on the character. The player character takes a Wound when they have stacked a number of dice equal to the higher of the rolls, and when the stacked dice collapse. A character doesn't replenish its resources while captured this way and is stripped of its ways of using special abilities (in 5e terms, spellcasting foci and weapons would be perfect examples).</p><p>I started to write this back in December, believe it or not, but I didn't get to finish it until 2024. I'm honestly not sure if this will make it into the final game, but I'll have to test that in playtesting. This might be difficult because the first hurdle to overcome is the fact that I'll likely be doing my playtesting online. I want to make a minigame for this that would keep things interesting for the player characters who are out of the game. I want the minigame to have at least one choice for the player to make, otherwise it's more or less a waste of time.</p><p>At the end of the day, I might just replace it with a less physical minigame, but this was a neat idea that I figured I'll share here. See you soon!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-11381361682287148012024-01-01T18:12:00.000+01:002024-01-01T18:12:26.267+01:00Review of my 2023<p>Another year has come and gone. It was an eventful year at that.</p><p><i><a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2021/01/review-of-my-2020.html" target="_blank">2020</a> | <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2022/01/review-of-my-2021.html" target="_blank">2021</a> | <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/01/review-of-my-2022.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2022</a></i></p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">How was 2023?</h3><p>In one word, this year could be summed up as eventful. With 11.6K views of the blog, it surpassed the last year, but not 2021. I feel like that's partially because of the fact that I stopped making D&D homebrews 3 months in, for good. Part of the reason for that is the distance that grew between me and D&D since then (see my review of 2022), but another part of this is an elephant in the room. Starting in early January, Wizards of the Coast have seen controversy after controversy. OGL, Pinkertons, AI art, misprinted cards, and so much more. The two things they have succeeded at are the D&D movie, which was good, but came to the cinemas with bad timing, … and Baldur's Gate 3. At the same time, One D&D has been renamed to D&D 5e 2024, and it's... not looking all that much different from what's currently 5e.</p><p>All this in combination with my dislike of D&D in general is why my publishing has slowed down this year. On April 1st, I released <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/128ftnl/ocart_null_become_one_with_nothing/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Null</a>, my only serious published full class for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. This was also meant to be my final 5e homebrew, so I made sure it was an interesting one, breaking the conventions of the game to open up the readers' perspectives. I haven't stopped following D&D for some reason, though I did redirect my attention elsewhere.</p><p>Here's some good news, though! I managed to surpass my personal record of articles written in a year once again. My former record was in 2021 at 27 articles. When I found out that I was very close to this number in December, I figured I'd go just a bit further, pushing it up to 28. Maybe that's why there were more blog views than last year. The biggest contributing factor to this would have to be the fact that I gave myself a new monthly challenge of making a 200-word game every month. What I find funny, looking back at it, is the fact that my busiest months were April, October, and December. I can somewhat understand April - April Fools is something I always try to do, and the monthly 200-word game added another article there. October was around the time when I finished The Asterist, published a design article for another horror game of mine, and made a 200-word game, then I had some extra ideas. As for December, well... like I already said, I went a bit further than expected to break my personal record. I wonder if I will be active in these months next year too.</p><p>That being said, let's address my resolutions from the last year.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Resolutions from 2023</h3><p>I find it funny that I said I wanted fewer technical successes, that's pretty much most of the stuff I accomplished this year.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="https://proph.itch.io/runehack-the-asterist" target="_blank">Runehack: The Asterist</a></b> is finally released! While I can't say I'm 100% satisfied with it, at least it's out for people to see and play.</li><li>As for more <b>Runehack Cities</b>, I wrote... <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/04/runehack-everling.html" target="_blank">one</a>. It's not much, but hey at least it's a technical success, right?</li><li><b>Streaming</b> was hardly present during the year, I think the Twitch recap told me I've streamed five times? Well, that changed a bit in December when I started to stream Lethal Company more. I'm not sure if I should count that though. I also started a <b>Youtube channel</b> like I hoped I would! But... it also has just <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9NYjqmoCIs" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">one video</a> for now, and even that's just an introduction.</li><li><b>Dungeon23</b> was a big failure, with most of the wind being taken out of my sails due to the OGL controversy. Over time, I didn't feel like returning to it because I realized... I don't enjoy dungeons. I don't enjoy combat as much as I used to. My tastes have changed. <i>However</i>, during January I felt like releasing a 200-word game, and I also made one in February. This made me reconsider this goal, and instead of making a daily room for a megadungeon I'd never use anyway, I made a <b>200-word game every single month</b>, most of which I will probably never play.</li></ul><p></p><p>Some of my successes were not resolutions for me last year (or at least they should have been mentioned in my last yearly review). I managed to republish the Slasher Oneshot System with a new name Final: Sole Survivor. I started gathering information regarding my worldbuilding and even personal notes into an Obsidian vault, which I find to be highly useful now. I also traveled ten thousand kilometers to meet Arell, which was a fantastic experience, even if it was rather scary since I had to do it on my own.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Hopes and Goals for 2024</h3><p>I'll still keep it light because I don't know how much I can afford to aim for. I only have two resolutions this year, the first of which is finishing and publishing the <b>Runehack RPG</b>, with regular updates on this blog, YouTube, or Twitch (based on whatever I'll go with this year). It will be a mixture of many things I wish to get out of playing TTRPGs, including most of the design from Runehack: Fairy Heist and Runehack: The Asterist. Both of these projects served as testing grounds for the concepts that would go into the Runehack RPG, and I can make it work within the next year. My goal is to cover at least the hacking and freerunning pillars of experience along with the core rules. I already started writing the first blog post regarding the system, though I wonder if I should be more active on YouTube. Not many people read my blog, it might be more interesting as a video. Besides, you can listen to a video while you do other things, such as chores.</p><p>My other resolution was actually something I came up with after New Year's Eve. I consume a rather small amount of media. There are recommendations I received for good things, and I was never too concerned with not spoiling myself on them, so I already know a fair bit about them. As some dude once said, the secret to creativity is in well-hidden sources. It needs food for thought, so my idea is to <b>play 12 good games this year</b>. If they are video games, I need to play them until I believe I've finished them to a sufficient degree. If they are tabletop RPGs, I need to play just one session. Those of you who have read my previous New Year resolutions might be wondering why I worded it the way I did - why not make it another "once a month" deal? Why not play one good game every month? Well, to put it bluntly, Witcher 3 is the primary reason. This game supposedly has 100+ hours of playtime. If I were to play it every single day in a month, I'd need to play for over 3 hours <i>daily</i>. There's no way I could afford to do that. But at the same time... I want to finish it finally. I don't know if I'll ever have enough time to finish it otherwise.</p><p>I can't guarantee I'll keep making more 200-word games, seeing how each one is more of a proof of concept rather than an actual game, but I can't say I'll completely stop either. The rest of my goals are either too personal to list here, or something I can't 100% guarantee I can do. Game jams, NaNoWriMo, and other kinds of challenges might have to go to the side since I want to focus on Runehack and gaming a lot more.</p><p>Thank you for reading my blog. I would like to wish you a Happy New Year 2024. Have a great one, I'll see you soon!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-57332772754100955582023-12-27T21:08:00.005+01:002023-12-27T21:08:39.234+01:00Facing Rules<p>Izzy asked about opinions on the facing rules in a discord server I frequent. That made me realize... I've never read the variant rule for facing in Dungeon Master's Guide. I figured I'll give it a shot before I have a chance of reading the rule. What I came up with is something I'd consider interesting enough. Hope you'll enjoy!</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSGr93kD2pyPJ1mVou8oFhc3KzuiS4cF1XwCIN56ZX8sS63SzLjciUSpEduJ3uT1BBI03rpuJnrxw_aAJmLk8lJFWM0-_Svoanvy3wOhnvBumZp8f9uhjMOZzdPo1eSNwNFXckYtiL8ku18F8nHWe6Dgfoanpjwo6m-IFg0xa02H-1f9HlYR7_iJgw04Y/s3840/andis-reinbergs-sneaking-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2160" data-original-width="3840" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSGr93kD2pyPJ1mVou8oFhc3KzuiS4cF1XwCIN56ZX8sS63SzLjciUSpEduJ3uT1BBI03rpuJnrxw_aAJmLk8lJFWM0-_Svoanvy3wOhnvBumZp8f9uhjMOZzdPo1eSNwNFXckYtiL8ku18F8nHWe6Dgfoanpjwo6m-IFg0xa02H-1f9HlYR7_iJgw04Y/w640-h360/andis-reinbergs-sneaking-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Fun fact: Hoods would actually <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxiJ0Q8bN6U" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">hinder your peripheral sight</a>. That is, unless you have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTzTrFIFlYU" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a set of supernaturally enhanced senses</a>.</i><br />I didn't want to have my hastily drawn diagram be the thumbnail of this article, so I figured I'd go with something prettier.<br /><b><a href="https://andisreinbergs.artstation.com/projects/aRbBY9" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stealth</a></b>, by <i>Andis Reinbergs</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Cones of Sight</h2><p style="text-align: left;">Make a point in the middle of your character token. Draw a line perpendicular to the direction in which they're looking. Then draw two more lines, splitting the area around the character into 6 equal cones. The section in the direction the character faces is labeled C. The two neighboring them L1 and R1, the two neighboring those L2 and R2, and the final sector should be labeled X. Don't worry, these labels are here just in case I'll be too lazy to add an image later, it's actually intuitive.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgafHYW0PMY8d-nbmXB1VvsDslZfybNLnB1ZYVnYsSBmZzTv_Zn74vYERYbf9IMMzcnumCqjlVZAvKJqxoTy1DtWRlvk20DLl1wiKJ156ianpIPNAKHS27oX0rQ0rUIqAxxQpZ_xDQnY1hzCgL-Scii4Ii87ry0tRFhteKo69xS4uzyANHPqKqyehUWlfU/s523/diagram.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="523" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgafHYW0PMY8d-nbmXB1VvsDslZfybNLnB1ZYVnYsSBmZzTv_Zn74vYERYbf9IMMzcnumCqjlVZAvKJqxoTy1DtWRlvk20DLl1wiKJ156ianpIPNAKHS27oX0rQ0rUIqAxxQpZ_xDQnY1hzCgL-Scii4Ii87ry0tRFhteKo69xS4uzyANHPqKqyehUWlfU/w400-h378/diagram.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woohoo, I made it afterall!</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: left;">This rule of mine distinguishes three types of sight: clear sight, peripheral sight, and no sight. Things that you can see clearly are things that you can describe well enough for someone to imagine clearly. Peripheral sight lets you know vague shapes, lighting, colors, and motion, severely lacking in detail. It's good enough to let you know you need to dodge an attacked, but not good enough to read a book. No sight is self-explanatory, you don't see there. When a section of your sight isn't mentioned in the next paragraph, it stands for no sight under that condition.</p><p>When you look ahead of yourself, you see the section C clearly, and the sections L1 and R1 peripherally. When you turn your head left, you see the section L1 clearly, and the sections L2 and C peripherally (same goes for right direction, but swap L for R). You could even use this to simulate looking to the side, in which case one of the peripheral cones (depending on the direction) becomes a clear sight, and the central cone grants a peripheral sight instead. For example, looking to the left without turning your head makes the section L1 a clear sight, and the section C a peripheral sight. All of this of course assumes that the body doesn't move at all below the neck. Extra note, looking directly to the right or left would be rounded into R1 and L1 respectively.</p><p>Is this useful? Hardly. It's way too But it's a neat start. I still haven't read their execution of the rules, chances are it's simpler. But this thought experiment has led me to thinking and pondering... this might be very useful for my sprinters RPG, as well as for Fairy Heist. Not sure when I'll get to updating the latter, but the former game is a goal of mine for 2024 (more on that in about a week).</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-43730383388518087212023-12-20T23:40:00.004+01:002023-12-20T23:40:36.710+01:00A Soup Stone game<p>I wrote most of this article a month ago apparently. As some of you can tell, I'm a fan of minimalistic TTRPGs. Sometimes, this can go too far, even beyond my personal preferences. The most extreme example of that would be <a href="https://riverhousegames.itch.io/we-are-but-worms-a-one-word-rpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">We Are But Worms</a>, a 1-word TTRPG. How many words are too little? How many does one need to give actual value? These are the thoughts I considered when I was challenged to write a 10-word TTRPG. Below is my output.</p><p><br /></p><blockquote><h4 style="text-align: left;">007+</h4><p>Be secret agent. Roll 7+ on 1d8 to defeat baddies.</p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>It has some substance, evoking James Bond with his iconic label of 007 and being described as a secret agent. But rolling 7+ on a 1d8 to defeat the baddies is too vague. Aside from the fact this would mean that only one in four of your attempts succeed,... what exactly does this mean? Is this only about attacks, or about other activities too? Does it have to hinder a baddie directly? What if you're not trying to hinder anyone, or to fulfill your mission overall with your current action? I'm not even going to comment on the fact that this means you succeed 25% of time.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">The Soup Stone</h3><p>In one of the English lessons back when I was at school, the first fairy tale I learned that wasn't told to me in my native language before was the tale of The Soup Stone. I'm gonna retell it off the top of my head how I remember it for those who don't know it.</p><p>A tramp convinces an old selfish woman to make soup for him by convincing her that his stone is magical. When she wants to see how it works, he asks her to cooperate with him because the stone's magic is quite mysterious and complicated. She sets up a pot of boiling water that the soup stone goes into, gets some vegetables, depending on the telling of the story some meat, a dash of salt, and viola - they've got a soup that they can now share.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQbPwJerj4baRkNzkvX3dfisG07QGJbiXTxTGTetVThZEh0zmivVLBMTA4ofSfhvkMNba_oMoQ5LNjoNKoZefmr5pa19Ne3MJ-zcVsXVtLXaYf4f4kcvxp3MI3oGAGBbSLUuHwnrCwrAS3Hat5MN2gqjKAdWru3PTqUmMAXUPsvFBO-biOPlccwFa0B-4/s894/stone_soup_by_magmatixi_dd5sijp-pre.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="894" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQbPwJerj4baRkNzkvX3dfisG07QGJbiXTxTGTetVThZEh0zmivVLBMTA4ofSfhvkMNba_oMoQ5LNjoNKoZefmr5pa19Ne3MJ-zcVsXVtLXaYf4f4kcvxp3MI3oGAGBbSLUuHwnrCwrAS3Hat5MN2gqjKAdWru3PTqUmMAXUPsvFBO-biOPlccwFa0B-4/w400-h400/stone_soup_by_magmatixi_dd5sijp-pre.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So... this might be a little bit awkward, but while searching for the story online, I came to learn it's called Stone Soup, not Soup Stone like I thought. That being said, I'm keeping the phrase "Soup Stone game" as is - the game has the same role as the stone in the fairy tale.<br /><a href="https://www.deviantart.com/magmatixi/art/Stone-Soup-795788773" rel="nofollow" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Stone Soup</a>, by <i>magmatixi</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>This story has stuck with me since then, it's a story of convincing someone that something is amazing if they put a lot of work into it. It's also the reason why I like to call games like We Are But Worms, 007, and plenty of other games "A Soup Stone game": it's only as good as you make it.</p><p>I hope I didn't come off as negative. A soup stone game isn't necessarily a bad thing, I know several people who say that's all they need to have a fun time. And they are right, why bother with all these complicated mechanic and rule interactions, when you could just let the GM make up a ruling for it on the spot, roll some dice, and keep things moving? Well, the downside with this sort of system is that it tends to be a blank canvas: the less material one has to work with, the more work is required by the GM and the party to make use of it. Take for example 007+. If you are familiar with what 007 stands for, you know you're playing a James Bond-type secret agent who's just that good.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">What I've learned this year</h3><p>I'm pretty sure that if you follow my activity or my blog, you've noticed the challenge I've been going through this year. The 200-word games are simple to make, but ultimately they tend to feel rather... barebones. A couple more words could make them into proper, more replayable games. Why is this?</p><p>Well, as I worked on more and more of these, I came to a conclusion why. It will sound obvious, but you can only do so much with a certain word count. These limits might be different for others, but to me personally, it goes something like this:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Give me a couple of pages, and I can make a game that will last a couple of months.</li><li>Give me a single page, and I'll make something for 5 or fewer sessions. It will be a game alright, but it might be a oneshot deal or something suited for a short campaign.</li><li>Give me 200 words, and I'll make a proof of concept for one or more mechanics. It will look like a game, but it'll likely be missing something, if not a lot of things.</li><li>Give me less than 200 words, and I can make you a Soup Stone game. There will be some flavor to it, maybe even some simple mechanics, but it won't be fun on its own, likely.</li></ul><p></p><p>And this concludes my 27th article this year. With 11 days to spare, I hope to write at least one more. We'll see how that goes. Thank you for reading, and have a great day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-28970223105612560762023-12-18T11:24:00.000+01:002023-12-18T11:24:38.191+01:00A Chandelier Encounter<p><i>I've made it clear that I no longer feel like running combat encounters in a game like D&D. But recently I had an idea that's too cool not to share. And really, I'm a couple articles away from breaking my personal record of a number of articles in a year, so why not pitch in with something quick and neat?</i></p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">A Chandelier Encounter</h3><p>This battle takes place ideally in a spacious interior with a high ceiling and at least one extra floor that overlooks an empty space in the middle. In the middle of the room is a huge chandelier. Sometime during the start of the encounter, a powerful/heavy enemy runs up to it and grabs onto it mid-leap, causing the chandelier to begin swinging. The chandelier moves at the end of every turn (yes, even if your ruleset says that a round lasts 6 seconds, it'd be boring to wait for the chandelier to get anywhere). I'd personally give the chandelier three positions: one at its lowest point, and two at its highest points. It might be a good idea to also telegraph to the players where the chandelier could be on any given turn.</p><p>A character can grab the chandelier if they are close enough to it during their turn, and they can let go of it after the chandelier moves, even outside of their own turn. They need both hands to be free, or one hand if they are powerful enough. Use it as a mode of transportation, use it as a mobile environment, watch the players work out the timing of it, and encourage the characters to prepare their actions. Maybe even consider what material is the rope that holds the chandelier made out of. Is it easy to burn? Hard to cut? Impossible to cut so that you don't lose on this cool chandelier idea? And how does this chandelier swing? Is it just a straight line, or does it slowly revolve around the room?</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh2XDWtNrzriNSq-DTDU45cLS_2uHrfhml3Dywl86co5FKpVkZfMAtnlCz3uuuesqTjSmMLSog_gLPGbzVuoIOvTBxWcS8bSmSqLhxYWACh0VA5Ev9Bk-l2BmD1E5cQ-qyNz9gPwf8jM51pOI_NE5twojDQK4vQZEvJQUL6N_YvCS3vsh5BhSUw11MCzw/s1131/le_grand_hotel_by_alexiuss_d7sgxqi-pre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="707" data-original-width="1131" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh2XDWtNrzriNSq-DTDU45cLS_2uHrfhml3Dywl86co5FKpVkZfMAtnlCz3uuuesqTjSmMLSog_gLPGbzVuoIOvTBxWcS8bSmSqLhxYWACh0VA5Ev9Bk-l2BmD1E5cQ-qyNz9gPwf8jM51pOI_NE5twojDQK4vQZEvJQUL6N_YvCS3vsh5BhSUw11MCzw/w640-h400/le_grand_hotel_by_alexiuss_d7sgxqi-pre.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Great job, guys. I guess that's it for our chandelier encounter."</i><br /><i> </i>I've considered saying that the chandelier hangs on an adamantium rope, but that's not a thing in every game. I figured I should try to make this a bit setting-agnostic. And I really hope that your players' first instinct won't be to cut the chandelier off.<br /><b><a href="https://www.deviantart.com/alexiuss/art/Le-Grand-Hotel-471082698" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Le Grand Hotel</a></b>, by <i>Alexiuss</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>If you want precision, start by determining the length of the rope the chandelier is hanging from (include the chandelier to keep it simple for yourself), and the maximum angle of a swing. At its peak, the chandelier is at a height equal to the rope's length multiplied by the cosine of the angle. For example, for a rope that's 30 ft. long, its peak is about 21 ft. off the ceiling when the angle is 45°. As for the distance from the middle, you just need to replace the cosine with a sine, which in this specific case also results in a distance of 21 ft. This means that for an optimal interesting fight with a chandelier 30ft off the ceiling, you'd ideally have two balconies 10 ft. above wherever the chandelier's lowest point is, and have them about 40 ft. apart.</p><p>Precision isn't necessary of course. You could just say that the chandelier swings from one balcony to another, with the lowest point at the bottom, and keep the exact measurement of the rope and chandelier's height abstract.</p><p>Summary:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The chandelier has at least 3 distinct positions: the one in the middle is the lowest, and the two on the edges are the highest. Add more positions at your own discretion. Give some consideration to the chandelier revolving around the room.</li><li>At the end of each turn, the chandelier moves to its next position: low to high, and vice versa, alternating between the highs.</li><li>It takes an action to grab on, and free hands (one if you're strong enough). If you're a kind GM, you could consider this to be a replacement for one of the attacks, if the system has something like this.</li><li>It takes no action to let go of the chandelier, but you can let go of it only immediately after it has moved.</li><li>In case you need it, work out an appropriate amount of damage it could deal to someone when struck by it, or how difficult is it to destroy its rope.</li></ul><p></p><p>Math summary, for those who care:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>r</i> is the length from the ceiling to the bottom of the chandelier,</li><li><i>x</i> is the maximum angle the chandelier swings up to,</li><li><i>r*cos(x)</i> is the distance from the ceiling to the peak of the chandelier's swing, therefore at its peak the chandelier is at a height of <i>r*(1-cos(x))</i>,</li><li><i>r*sin(x)</i> is the horizontal distance from the lowest to the highest point of the chandelier's swing.</li></ul><div><br /></div><div>That's all, have a great time and a great day!</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLZJl359wBquFXpRu0GqdF1rFaL1vMytWXXz_UfXtQQzhZ0H9ztF4bqzAr23fCBGUmiKDRAlORoH6xv45qvCe8dyG6UiZvPrM1qeLeYoY2s7capowXTaEPmE7GkTjZcM4CQzW6K2Y_Z7Mo0mhZetN0iRuv17kXStrKuK4Pxy1-1fkFbgqTG_2HuCXKrgs/s1035/the_hall_of_the_golden_hand_by_azadraw1_dg4ag2m-414w-2x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1035" data-original-width="828" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLZJl359wBquFXpRu0GqdF1rFaL1vMytWXXz_UfXtQQzhZ0H9ztF4bqzAr23fCBGUmiKDRAlORoH6xv45qvCe8dyG6UiZvPrM1qeLeYoY2s7capowXTaEPmE7GkTjZcM4CQzW6K2Y_Z7Mo0mhZetN0iRuv17kXStrKuK4Pxy1-1fkFbgqTG_2HuCXKrgs/w320-h400/the_hall_of_the_golden_hand_by_azadraw1_dg4ag2m-414w-2x.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Hear me out! ... but what if there were more chandeliers?</i><br /><b><a href="https://www.deviantart.com/azadraw1/art/The-Hall-Of-The-Golden-Hand-974664670" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Hall Of The Golden Hand</a></b>, by <i>azadraw1</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><p></p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-60444455487651505212023-12-14T23:26:00.003+01:002023-12-14T23:26:30.231+01:00Lethal Companions<p><i>Lately, I've been playing a game called <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1966720/Lethal_Company/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lethal Company</a>. It's about going on abandoned moons to collect scrap that's sold to an ominous company afterward. I couldn't resist joining the trend, and it really is the funniest horror game I've ever played. Spooky monsters, sudden deaths, and perfect proximity voice chat make for an awesome experience. This was my mindset when I started pondering what I should make for my December game. I took some extra time with it because I agreed to a collab with a streamer <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/king_starman" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">King Starman</a>. I was a guest on his stream to help him and guide him through the process of writing a 200-word TTRPG of his own. I believed in his capability to do it ever since the summer, and today his moment finally came. With minor assistance from me and his chat, he wrote a game named <a href="https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-NlbSINM3ZDCtGNRFyuf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lighthouse Keeper</a>. Going by his description, it's a game of Among Us, except it's about a ship that's steered by the captain based on the directions given to him by his crew. He thought less of it, but I'd say it's better than my first 200-word TTRPG ever. I was happy to hear just how proud he felt about actually finishing the very first game that he could call his own. After the stream, we agreed on more collaborations in the future, which is awesome. One possibility is... playing Lethal Company together.</i></p><p><i>That's not the only reason why I brought up the game, though. The main reason for that would be that it is the major source of inspiration for my game. And it all started by flipping the premise on its head: what if the players were the monsters?</i></p><p><i>Thank you for reading this ahead of time, and I wish you a wonderful day!</i></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-JVVEJRGN9D2cbHP6ZM7Jt7Jc_5CWbjPg9n7Nc3_LWj7XIC1AaCMW05liLczfd-nIhgwZxJny2FTf7pXElOYUog7IVx_xpOxAh_JeAEp5eM1NBfx8QNPVXT9wttrhvflcsbd6Do-f1IFSBabwBPeEX71391I6Wpw13IkEjIkgg7f7RdRDX4A9C_lSqzM/s1239/Lethal%20Companions.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="1239" height="570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-JVVEJRGN9D2cbHP6ZM7Jt7Jc_5CWbjPg9n7Nc3_LWj7XIC1AaCMW05liLczfd-nIhgwZxJny2FTf7pXElOYUog7IVx_xpOxAh_JeAEp5eM1NBfx8QNPVXT9wttrhvflcsbd6Do-f1IFSBabwBPeEX71391I6Wpw13IkEjIkgg7f7RdRDX4A9C_lSqzM/w640-h570/Lethal%20Companions.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The rules I present in this article are given in the form in which I wrote them during the stream. I had to do the formatting after, figured I should give that a go.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Lethal Companions</h3><p>Your created monsters protect their home from the burglars. Distribute d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20 into:</p><table border="0" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TFtable" style="background-color: white; width: 653px;">
<colgroup>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><div style="text-align: left;"> </div></th>
<th><div style="text-align: left;"> </div></th>
<th><div style="text-align: left;"> </div></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Hide</td>
<td>Kill</td>
<td>Resist</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Sway</td>
<td>Track</td>
<td>Steal</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table><p>You succeed on a roll if you roll 4+. Die on failing Resist thrice.</p><p>Generate the facility starting from the entrance by rolling a 1d6 or 1d4 for every room. Add a corridor of choice if only dead ends are left. All rooms are squares, connected if at least one has a corridor aimed at the other.</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Dead end</li><li>Corridor (roll for Direction)</li><li>Two routes (roll for missing Direction) </li><li>Crossroads</li><li>Staircase (d6: 1-3 up, 4-6 down) + 1d4</li><li>Entrance + 1d4</li></ol><p></p><p>Direction d6: 1-2 left, 3-4 straight, 5-6 right</p><p>For each room, roll for the loot and describe it.</p><table border="0" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TFtable" style="background-color: white; width: 653px;">
<colgroup>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><div style="text-align: left;"> </div></th>
<th><div style="text-align: left;"> </div></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1—3</td>
<td>Nothing</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td>Small</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>5</td>
<td>Expensive</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>6</td>
<td>Two-handed (holder can't act)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table><p>The game begins when 1+1d6 humans enter. Each has 1d6 Morale, reduced when they:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>See a monster</li><li>See a dead body</li><li>Have an item stolen</li></ul><p>A human with 0 Morale runs away. When all humans leave, every living monster chooses one stat to increase by 1 step.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj92USaKIZCI7pULxQJwRcay1-OgzHBFqd7zewaLilcRepVzfjr-qsOgM3FPGAYb0biuJE8OD3CW5ngXpcf51ex7wcEn-02gn6p3iwfcWV1BGIrQFy3wk9tQLrp9hPxiyKJ4SMK980KlGMjrvChZ3oEACBn4vCu2og24ztNYG400h-Lq1YNfD4pz4anlEk/s1920/cuauhtzin-battle_beans_unite-lethal-company.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1920" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj92USaKIZCI7pULxQJwRcay1-OgzHBFqd7zewaLilcRepVzfjr-qsOgM3FPGAYb0biuJE8OD3CW5ngXpcf51ex7wcEn-02gn6p3iwfcWV1BGIrQFy3wk9tQLrp9hPxiyKJ4SMK980KlGMjrvChZ3oEACBn4vCu2og24ztNYG400h-Lq1YNfD4pz4anlEk/w640-h384/cuauhtzin-battle_beans_unite-lethal-company.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Look back, look back!<br /> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><a href="https://www.artstation.com/artwork/AlR0R5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><b>Lethal Company (Coil Head)</b></a>, by <i>Cuautzin</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>The biggest reason why I said before the game that I present it in the form in which I finished it during the stream is because it has some shortcomings. But let's start with the strengths.</p><p>I wouldn't have guessed that I would be able to fit an interior generator into a 200-word game. I surprised myself here, I think it's pretty well done. If one wishes to do a flat map, they just keep rolling d4 and decide wherever the entrances are, or they roll d6 but keep rerolling a 5 (or just ignore the stairs part). The loot generator isn't that in-depth, I mean it barely says that a two-handed item prevents you from acting.</p><p>The stats were fun to come up with, but eventually, I realized I should get a sixth one. During the stream, I settled on Sway because I figured some of the monsters were so threatening/cute/passive that one wouldn't want to kill them. But honestly, ... if I were to edit the game, I'd replace it with the Speed. It would be pretty cool for enemies like coil heads. The stat system and the conflict resolution are otherwise picked up completely from the Savage Worlds.</p><p>The action economy of this game isn't quite clear either, so let me clarify: the intent is to both move and either pick up an item in the room or do something that requires a roll in a turn. This applies to humans too, with the fact that their attack actually causes the attacked monster to make a Resist roll. A couple more and a little more time would have resolved this, but I'll just fix that if I want to rework the game into something bigger.</p><p>Of course, I couldn't fit into it special abilities or "monster types" that I hoped I would include at the start, but... I hope at least the stats will provide some variety, along with the players' descriptions. For what it is, I'd say the game is kind of neat.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is the final 200-word TTRPG that I've made for this year's challenge of mine. I will list all twelve of them during my 2023 retrospective, and I can confidently say that I am proud I finished this challenge I set for myself. Whether I'll keep making more 200-word games or not is a question I can't answer. What I can say though is that I will make these tiny games when I'll have a concept that I want to test out quickly. I don't have plans as of yet to keep up the challenge in 2024, so my blog activity might go down a bit. I do have some of my resolutions figured out, though. It's hard to tell whether I'll make a post around Christmas time, so just in case I won't: Happy Holidays and Happier New Year!</p><p>P.S. Almost forgot to link <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/prophecy_breaker" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">my Twitch channel</a>, where I'll likely play more Lethal Company and make more funny clips.</p><p><br /></p><p>Thank you for reading, and have a great day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-80652177100798838732023-11-20T01:43:00.000+01:002023-11-20T01:43:05.829+01:00Rolling with It<p><i>You know what's kind of silly? I keep making these short TTRPGs monthly, and yet I haven't made one that would take place in one of my previously made worlds. It's always something already present in media (such as the zombie apocalypse represented by <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/02/double-zombies.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Double the Zombies</a>), a setting made by someone else (such as the city of Revachol from my first game of 2023, <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/01/almost-everyone-is-harry.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">(Almost) Everyone is Harry</a>), or setting agnostic (like most of those games). The time to change that is now, and I'm making a game that takes place in my world of <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2021/12/orbtech.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">orb-based magical technology</a>, which will be named "Geniorum" for now. I've actually worked out a couple more details behind the scenes and wanted to make an article that would update the orbtech concept for several months but never got around to it. Well, now I have to because the clock is ticking and my November game needs to be published soon.</i></p><p><i>Have a great time and a greater day!</i></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUlcyr4LdtAz5m2rAbJ9THyI_5-n988wWAIhgQZopuZhXRXebgVG4zONzVpJfMR4Jgy2Zapq0djwQr5TkFpArDvWB30B0iZwIHd1wWZvYKJ1sK8LHJieHp0R0N_UhIPXVSuuNS5arIKfItZY0s5EVcsreYTZz6zoT-FkYdh80Pf8GPA0XKBHHJ2xRn6mE/s1920/orb-final.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUlcyr4LdtAz5m2rAbJ9THyI_5-n988wWAIhgQZopuZhXRXebgVG4zONzVpJfMR4Jgy2Zapq0djwQr5TkFpArDvWB30B0iZwIHd1wWZvYKJ1sK8LHJieHp0R0N_UhIPXVSuuNS5arIKfItZY0s5EVcsreYTZz6zoT-FkYdh80Pf8GPA0XKBHHJ2xRn6mE/w640-h360/orb-final.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I've spent too much time learning blender basics just to make this. Can't say I'm truly satisfied with it, but it is good enough.</td></tr></tbody></table><h3 style="text-align: left;">Rolling with It</h3><p>Requires 1 GM and 1+ players.</p><p>Orbs are magical quartz spheres fueled by alcohol. One can program it by falling asleep while touching it, entering its dreamscape. You were murdered while pondering your orb, transporting your mind into it permanently. Discover your murderer and their motive. If you ever run out of alcohol, you die.</p><p><b>You can:</b></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>see and hear your surroundings,</li><li>roll like a sphere for 4 hours*,</li><li>change your surface's temperature between -50 and 50°C*,</li><li>change your appearance,</li><li>produce sounds heard by anyone touching you,</li><li>absorb alcohol through your surface magically,</li><li>control your dreamscape completely (10x slower time inside),</li><li>send/receive digital funds to/from other orbs through touch,</li><li>create flammable sturdy matter up to double your volume after spending 8 hours away from any starlight*.</li></ul><p></p><p>* Costs 1 unit of alcohol. Max units equal die size.</p><p>Choose your orb's size. Here are sphere size comparisons from our world:</p><table border="0" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TFtable" style="background-color: white; width: 653px;">
<colgroup>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><div style="text-align: left;"> </div></th>
<th><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>d4</td>
<td>marble</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>d6</td>
<td>golf</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>d8</td>
<td>pool</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>d10</td>
<td>shot put</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>d12</td>
<td>bowling</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>d20</td>
<td>boulder</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table><p>When you need to, roll your die. Example difficulties listed below.</p><table border="0" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TFtable" style="background-color: white; width: 653px;">
<colgroup>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Difficulty </div></th>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Strength (≥ difficulty)</div></th>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Speed (≤ difficulty)</div></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td>bottle of water</td>
<td>fraction of a second</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>10</td>
<td>human weight</td>
<td>seconds</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>16</td>
<td>a large car</td>
<td>tens of seconds</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkeF3JrLRAy6c62_RKxBo07PUsGGGs_GuBk4h10_D_aGIrC0OW_ZPWlMLVQ6hfPTw5AKuStGjJFLx1hzsQizXBwzYqqbpdAu_idVgpQEzT22lX_vPqNqIQ0CBwW94-sHx78HUFzpIbEeqiZaLEH7L9WsQxpqwijS8v1KYfoy-kft31bYNCAn8955zw6g0/s1429/become-that-which-is-pondered.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1429" data-original-width="1146" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkeF3JrLRAy6c62_RKxBo07PUsGGGs_GuBk4h10_D_aGIrC0OW_ZPWlMLVQ6hfPTw5AKuStGjJFLx1hzsQizXBwzYqqbpdAu_idVgpQEzT22lX_vPqNqIQ0CBwW94-sHx78HUFzpIbEeqiZaLEH7L9WsQxpqwijS8v1KYfoy-kft31bYNCAn8955zw6g0/w321-h400/become-that-which-is-pondered.jpg" width="321" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>He who ponders the orbs becomes pondered.</i><br />Can't trace the author of this edit, and can't be bothered to spend too much time on this search. Instead, I'll credit the original <i>M. C. Escher's</i> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_with_Reflecting_Sphere" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><b>Hand with Reflecting Sphere</b></a>.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>I wanted to say that it's a short game, but then I realized it's exactly 200 words long. Why does it feel so short then? Well, the answer is simple: there are very few mechanics in it. Most of the game just talks about how orbs operate, since they are very different from humans. Not everyone's a fan of details like this, so I don't expect too many to enjoy this game. Then again, I don't expect that of any of my 200-word games, these are prototypes.</p><p>Ever since I've heard about Savage Worlds' stats being dice and the difficulty being always 4, I wanted to do something with that. I figured this was a good chance, seeing how differently-sized orbs would be capable of differently-sized things. Well, actually, all of them are capable of movement. But not all of them are capable of pushing around a car-sized thing. Sure I couldn't fit into it stuff like "if you're a boulder, you probably can't enter buildings", but that's something players will hopefully be able to think of on their own.</p><p>Here's another tiny detail: all of your actions should in theory cost alcohol. But keeping track of all alcohol spent on such minute actions as making a red dot on your orb's "north pole" would just get too tedious. I opted for restricting the alcohol expenditure only to the actions I figured would be influential and left it there. But if a player does minor actions way too much, the GM has the right to tell them they've spent a unit of alcohol.</p><p>With such a word limit, it's quite difficult to fit a pre-established setting into it. Even if Geniorum can hardly be considered a setting yet, it's got a multitude of rules related to the orbs. I feel like it deserves more of my attention in order to be developed, but honestly... I like <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/p/runehack-reading-guide.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Runehack</a> a lot more. When I was picking a world to cover with my 200-word game treatment, I had several options. The <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2021/03/divtech-faith-powered-technology.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">divtech's world</a> is... well, a starless rogue planet populated only by robots. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkHCO8f2TWs" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I have yet to even work out its materials completely before I start doing anything with it.</a> Then there's <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2022/04/leytech.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">leytech</a>, which would have been perfect for a TTRPG about warriors but is also quite complicated with all the different kinds of rings that influence the water passing through. I have one more magitech world that I've wanted to write about on this blog for about a year now, but I've been pushing it off the same as an update on Geniorum.</p><p>Of course, there are more details I couldn't fit into the ruleset. For example, an inworld name for folks who got trapped in the orbs is "genie". And the creation of matter is due to lumpowder, a substance that manifests in alcohol hidden from all forms of sunlight, including reflected. Then there's the fact that multiple people could get trapped inside the same orb, but only the first one retains complete control over it. Usually, they'd have their minor genies manifest as parts of their body, which is what I nickname "medusa". I could keep going, but the truth is that Geniorum is still vastly underdeveloped. That doesn't change the fact that this was fun to come up with.</p><p>Thank you for reading, and have a great day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-32707362773749575032023-11-05T22:54:00.003+01:002023-11-05T22:58:15.828+01:00Languages in Runehack, and Mental Load in Worldbuilding<p><i>This article is not written just because the articles made under the tag myRPGs have almost overtaken Runehack. It is part of the reason for this, but I'm writing this because it's a thing I've pondered for a while.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p>On one occasion in the past, I've talked about the <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2020/11/variant-classes-and-mental-load.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">mental load</a> of a media consumer. Sure this is something I spoke about only regarding a D&D homebrew, but it extends beyond this. People love detailed worldbuilding, but detailed worldbuilding isn't for everyone. This is why I feel so many writers talk about the worldbuilding icebergs, an illusion of detailed worldbuilding by merely alluding to some matters in the world, or developing the fictional cultures only in a couple of areas that interest the author the most. And there's some truth to it all. In an ideal scenario, an author who wishes to make a highly realistic world would have a worldbuilding project on their hands that would take them a lifetime to finish. It would take others a lifetime to absorb because such a project would be just as complex as our reality.</p><p>One area that fascinates me and intrigues me a lot is the culture around languages. The way we speak influences the way we label things, think, and act. Its influences leak into the way we speak in other languages - our accents, our interactions, the way we express ourselves in other languages, and so much more. Tolkien has put a lot of effort into his Elvish languages. And honestly, I struggle with that. No matter how I put the letters together, they rarely sound good, and I can only imagine writing a dictionary 100 words long for this purpose. There are tools for this online; one person even made a game out of conlang development. No matter what, though, the made-up words feel off to me most of the time. Then again, this is the same thing I've said about my attempts to compose music, and I overcame that hurdle earlier this year, so I'll be able to overcome this mental block in a couple of years too.</p><p>I guess what I'm trying to say is that in an ideal scenario, I'd create a world with a myriad of in-depth languages that influenced each other, and use them to at least label everything in the world. However, not only would I see such an endeavor as time-consuming, but due to the mental load it would require I see it as fruitless. Some would enjoy such details, but seeing just how much time it's taking me, I figured I'd take an easy way out. I began worldbuilding for Runehack and writing my novel that takes place in it by coming up with placeholder names, and I feel like they're sticking to me. The city names are mostly English words that express something about the place. People's names, meanwhile, are just jumbled-up English names, regardless of their real-world origin. So what if Samwell originates from Samuel, which is Hebrew in origin. I could reverse-engineer a meaning for the names if it was that important, for now, I'll just let it slide.</p><p>That being said, there are some fun linguistic things I came up with for Runehack. I doubt I'll develop them into full languages, they're just neat tidbits of information I wanted to share for a while.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2OgdO4un3og0vlkTG4CaUslMrlbUvxfDLPkAQCMv3CQ3W0tLn0DfNorRT0dpb8iXX_HdMBUoNsqEN0sau4_Cy0u1f4YTDJ-qr3Y9TwSAAoOuyROgj_mcUIy-UThr33tHCBhOCSM8pNuy0TeTZ-dGay6dVrJ7F0d-xX5IMpNc3wqGnN-jPZ6KxGnuZcOk/s1242/daily_speedpaint_027___ancient_language_by_daisanvisart_daqaxsz-414w-2x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1242" data-original-width="827" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2OgdO4un3og0vlkTG4CaUslMrlbUvxfDLPkAQCMv3CQ3W0tLn0DfNorRT0dpb8iXX_HdMBUoNsqEN0sau4_Cy0u1f4YTDJ-qr3Y9TwSAAoOuyROgj_mcUIy-UThr33tHCBhOCSM8pNuy0TeTZ-dGay6dVrJ7F0d-xX5IMpNc3wqGnN-jPZ6KxGnuZcOk/w266-h400/daily_speedpaint_027___ancient_language_by_daisanvisart_daqaxsz-414w-2x.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, at one point I thought I'd make the explanation for a shared language something like a 2001: Space Odyssey-style obelisk of knowledge. But that would raise more questions than solve problems.<br /><b><a href="https://www.deviantart.com/daisanvisart/art/daily-speedpaint-027-Ancient-language-648842147" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Daily speedpaint 027 - Ancient language</a></b>, by <i>DaiSanVisART</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Franqa</h3><p>Let's begin with the most important idea that took me the longest to develop. See, Runehack is a world in which sharing the culture would be difficult. The bubbles of civilization are separated by the wilderness full of dangerous shapeshifters. Therefore, all the cultures would be developing to be radically different. And language, too, is a thing that changes and shifts over time. Due to this separation, they would drift to the point where they'd have a hard time understanding each other. But what if it wasn't this way?</p><p>Franqa is a plant that grows special tea leaves. According to the latest Mindlore research of Runehack's scientists, its effects are psychedelic in nature, kind of like being high. Several minutes after drinking it, one can speak, read, write, and understand spoken language called the same as this plant - Franqa. Nobody can tell what the exact origin of this language is, but it's consistent. The effects of Franqa tea last for roughly 4 hours.</p><p>The plant was native to the south-eastern regions of the New World, not too far from Moorwell. Its use was discovered even before the Era of Monsters, and it has spread all over the world thanks to its usefulness. It started off as a tool for use by travelers, diplomats, and translators, but it made its way into other areas of life too. Once its use became widespread, some people started to learn Franqa even when not under its influence. The tea leaves of Franqa are viewed as a symbol of community and cooperation. The plant even made its way into the everyday language. When someone wants to be honest and straightforward without trying to deceive the listener, they say they'll be "frank".</p><p>This is how all the cities of my world can talk to each other without issues, by using their lingua franqa.</p><p><br /></p><h3>The Unnamed Languages</h3><p>The last two languages are why I haven't posted this article earlier - both are raw, underdeveloped ideas. The first is a language developed by some elves living in a humid jungle. This language is based on the premise of uninterrupted flow, which is why it contains no stopping sounds. Its vowels would be the typical a, e, i, o, and u sounds, and its consonants would be as follows: f, h, l, r, s, v, z, ʃ (labeled š), ʒ (labeled ž), and θ (labeled đ). The kh sound could in theory fit in too, but I found it too harsh to be used by the elves. As for going beyond that, other than phonotactics I don't have much worked out. I tried making a dictionary several times, but it always sounded bizarre, so I never did it completely. Fun fact, though, one of the earliest iterations of this language is the origin of <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2021/06/runehack-avurai-university.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Avurai University</a>'s name. Avurai was meant to mean "flying island" in this language.</p><p>The second language I wanted to make, and the newest one among all these, is a goblin code that has evolved into an artform. It's actually quite the opposite of the elvish language, inspired by the Hush language of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkSo0WIVNcw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Limberwisk</a> Isle. Both of these languages lack vowels. The phonotactics and phonetic dictionary of this goblin code is simple: every "syllable" (if it can be even considered that since it lacks a vowel) is made up of a consonant p, t, or k, followed by an optional letter r, s, ʃ, x, or f. There are no forbidden combinations, and the words can be quite long. The result might sound a bit like beatboxing, which is why this code became an artform of its own.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Tip Tap</h3><p>Tip tap is a code known by some of the dwarves of Runehack. It utilizes their sensitive touch perception, which lets them sense the micro-vibrations of anything they touch with bare skin. Since most dwarves walk to most places barefoot, some have developed a secret minimal language for communicating with each other that utilizes lifting up the tips of their feet rhythmically to communicate.</p><p>Those who communicate using this code are referred to as tappers. It is one of the few ways of communicating that doesn't require the communicators to see or hear each other.</p><p>Tip Tap was developed originally by the dwarves who worked in the mines and forges, to inform each other of important things in their surroundings. Eventually, this language became widespread and generalized to be used in other loud work environments, such as forges and factories. It was and is also sometimes used in works or places where staying silent is crucial, such as animal hunting, prison inmate contact, special military forces, burglary, and spying.</p><p>Tip Tap is a simple oligosynthetic language with 45 morphemes, primarily focused on the domain of working. The word order in a sentence is Subject-Verb-Object. Adjectives follow after the Nouns they describe, e.g. "document (that is) old".</p><p>Due to its simple nature, the language lacks tenses other than present, and a large variety of terms that are not present in it. For example, since there is no term for water, most would refer to it as "Drink", even when it's not clean water or a large pool of water.</p><p>Since this is a written medium, we will utilize the Taixuanjing to codify this language. Each symbol represents the sequence, in which the tips of dwarves' feet (called "toes" from now) are touching the ground. Disruptions in the lines are the moments when the left (upper line) or right (bottom line) toes do not touch the ground. Please, assume the toes are touching the ground between the symbols.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>⚍ ⚌ ⚎</p><p>𝌁 𝌅 𝌂</p><p>𝌃 ⚏ 𝌄 </p></blockquote><p></p><p>The only restriction for tap sequences is that none of the ideas communicated can begin nor end with ⚌, seeing how that's the natural state for feet to be at.</p><p>Important messages can be communicated with both tips of feet and heels, by lifting an entire foot and softly stomping it against the ground or the floor. In this notation, the top two lines stand for a left foot, and the right foot is represented by the bottom two lines. While the line is doubled, it could in theory let the writer represent the heels and tips of the feet separately. However, this isn't utilized in Tip Tap for reasons forgotten by history.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>𝌪 𝌊</p><p>𝍎 𝌎</p></blockquote><p></p><p>The 𝌆 symbol isn't used, since its meaning is identical to ⚌. Symbols 𝌮 and 𝍖 are not listed, because these would require the tapper to jump in the air if standing.</p><p>These messages could in theory be tapped using the hands and fingers too. If a wall isn't part of the same material and surface as the ground, the tapper will have to bring the hand to the ground. Tapping the message using two fingers can be enough to convey the message to others.</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Quick Messages</h4><p>Since these are messages of vital importance, they are all symmetric – they can be communicated in an identical manner with either the left or the right foot. Furthermore, they are the only messages that require you to lift a heel. Chances are, if a tapper needs to communicate this message, they aren't concerned with being heard, so it's usually done by stomping the same foot twice or thrice.</p><table border="0" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TFtable" style="background-color: white; width: 653px;">
<colgroup>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Taps </div></th>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Meaning</div></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌪⚌𝌪<br />or<br />𝌊⚌𝌊</td>
<td>"Go away!" "Save yourself!" "Leave!"<br />The message implies immediate danger to anyone who's receiving the message.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝍎⚌𝌪<br />or<br />𝌎⚌𝌊</td>
<td>"Come here!" "Help me!" "I'm in danger!"<br />The message implies immediate danger to the tapper, and a request for help or assistance.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Negation</h4><p>Most messages are made so that they do not require the user to negate things. But in case it's necessary, 𝌃 and 𝌄 tend to be used. These taps are reserved for negation because they were too complex when used along with other terms.</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">People</h4><p>Messages that involve people usually begin with the ⚏ taps.</p><table border="0" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TFtable" style="background-color: white; width: 653px;">
<colgroup>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Taps </div></th>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Meaning</div></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚏⚏</td>
<td>I</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚏⚍</td>
<td>Guard, protector, security</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚏⚎</td>
<td>Civilian (someone not related to the work)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚏𝌅</td>
<td>My colleague</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚏𝌁</td>
<td>My boss</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚏𝌂</td>
<td>My subordinate</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚏ followed by a Place</td>
<td>Someone in the Place (used only when it's clear from the context)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table><p> </p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Items</h4><table border="0" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TFtable" style="background-color: white; width: 653px;">
<colgroup>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Taps </div></th>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Meaning</div></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚍⚏</td>
<td>Valuable</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚍⚍</td>
<td>Lock</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚍⚎</td>
<td>Junk</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚍𝌅</td>
<td>Consumable</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚍𝌅⚎</td>
<td>Food</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚍𝌅𝌂 </td>
<td>Drink</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚍𝌁</td>
<td>Document</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚍𝌂</td>
<td>Tool</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Places</h4><table border="0" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TFtable" style="background-color: white; width: 653px;">
<colgroup>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Taps </div></th>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Meaning</div></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚎⚏</td>
<td>In front of me</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚎⚍</td>
<td>To my left</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚎⚎</td>
<td>To my right</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚎𝌅</td>
<td>Behind me</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚎𝌁</td>
<td>Safety / Relaxing Place</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚎𝌂</td>
<td>Workplace</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚎⚏⚎ </td>
<td>Home</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Adjectives</h4><p>Depending on the context, these can stand for a color, or another attribute of an item.</p><table border="0" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TFtable" style="background-color: white; width: 653px;">
<colgroup>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Taps </div></th>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Meaning</div></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌁⚏</td>
<td>Bright (color), New, Young</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌁⚍</td>
<td>Yellow, Sticky, Sharp</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌁⚎</td>
<td>Red, Hot, Burning</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌁𝌅</td>
<td>Dark (color), Old</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌁𝌁</td>
<td>Green, Slippery, Flat</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌁𝌂</td>
<td>Cold, Wet</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Actions</h4><table border="0" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TFtable" style="background-color: white; width: 653px;">
<colgroup>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Taps </div></th>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Meaning</div></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌂⚏</td>
<td>Take, Keep, Want</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌂⚍</td>
<td>Store, Drop, Don't Want</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌂⚎</td>
<td>Throw (if followed by something that can be thrown)<br />Go (if followed by place)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌂𝌅⚎</td>
<td>Eat</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌂𝌅𝌂</td>
<td>Drink</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌂𝌁</td>
<td>Relax</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌂𝌂</td>
<td>Work</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Numbers</h4><p>The numeric system that dwarves use somewhat resembles the Roman numerals. One communicates a number by starting with a 0 and then listing all the numbers that add up to the desired number. For example, the number 11 would be communicated as 𝌅𝌂⚎⚍. Tip Tap uses Many for the numbers greater than 15, and Few for fractions, as well as negative numbers, since it never really needed these.</p><table border="0" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TFtable" style="background-color: white; width: 653px;">
<colgroup>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
<col width="85*"></col>
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Taps </div></th>
<th><div style="text-align: left;">Meaning</div></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌅</td>
<td>0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚍</td>
<td>1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>⚎</td>
<td>2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌁</td>
<td>4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌂</td>
<td>8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌅⚏</td>
<td>Few*</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>𝌅𝌅</td>
<td>Many*</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table><p><b>*</b> When the criminals use Tip Tap to discuss money, Many (followed by a number without a 0) stands for 10.000× the number of credits, and Few stands for 1× the number of credits. If neither Many nor Few are mentioned, the value equals 100× the number of credits.</p><p><br /></p><p>Sorry that languages other than Tip Tap aren't as developed. I just wanted to share these ideas instead of having them lying around in my archives, waiting to do something cool with them. At least I'm happy that Tip Tap is quite defined.</p><p>But that's about it for now. Thank you for reading, and have a great day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-35519336110360767882023-10-25T00:10:00.000+02:002023-10-25T00:10:20.236+02:00Prophecy Maker<blockquote>Regardless of how Blades [in the Dark] handles [planning] mechanically, the point of Blades is that characters and situations work hand in hand to weave a story—there’s no such thing as “failure”, its just a different branch along an infinite path. [Dungeons and Dragons] 5E conditions players that a failure state exists (ctrl+F the PHB for “fail” and see what I mean). <br />—HeavyArms</blockquote><p>This time, I was the one to start a conversation by venting my frustration regarding overtly long planning sessions and how I experienced most of them in D&D, curiously enough. There are many reasons for that sort of stuff to come up: too many players, too many tools (abilities, equipment, etc.), players getting stuck in a loop of arguments, and so on. The one that stuck out to me was a focus on failure, pointed out by <a href="https://www.heavyarms.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">HeavyArms</a> quoted above with permission. This led me on a journey that made me relabel this article half a dozen times.</p><p>I took inspiration from the conflict resolution from PbtA and Matt Colville's notion of a "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnGdoicrfms&t=379s" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">null result</a>" to avoid. Add a dash of my favorite mechanic from <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/02/double-zombies.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Double the Zombies</a>, equipment inspired by the <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/10/design-of-final-sole-survivor.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Final: Sole Survivor</a> with a bit of a <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/04/gon-click.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Gon' Click</a> inspiration, and a "but" here and there. The outcome of this process is my very own dice oracle.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzWlkjFPRfdwrwoNtjrKjw9_LJmFz_5-YWI9WpikG2RUCqZsdY-FVCeqlL_deOVmr-Fcui02eC0CBWs7va2WFu1qjHB0oqVPqeZbumeJOGcgUcB_aAST0Dx04ELO4T3W2n7xAe8-IclOQ4l2GDg1hrGpcMXFon1GhUex9xXAw64nntW-Apjh8B1clm1KQ/s1920/two-dices.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1920" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzWlkjFPRfdwrwoNtjrKjw9_LJmFz_5-YWI9WpikG2RUCqZsdY-FVCeqlL_deOVmr-Fcui02eC0CBWs7va2WFu1qjHB0oqVPqeZbumeJOGcgUcB_aAST0Dx04ELO4T3W2n7xAe8-IclOQ4l2GDg1hrGpcMXFon1GhUex9xXAw64nntW-Apjh8B1clm1KQ/s320/two-dices.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All you need is a pair of six-sided dice.<br /><i>The image is public domain.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Prophecy Maker</h3><p>The count starts at 0 unless it's greater already. Start by defining:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>a good, a bad, and a random outcome,</li><li>an expected outcome, and a countdown amount,</li><li>the skill bonus used,</li><li>and the item used, if any.</li></ul><p></p><p>Roll 2d6 and add them to the skill and item bonus.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The good outcome happens if the sum is ≥ 7, and it has a catch if it's 7.</li><li>The bad outcome happens if the sum is ≤ 9, and it has a catch if it's 9.</li><li>The random outcome happens if both dice have rolled the same number.</li><li>For every 6 rolled, increase the count by 1. When count ≥ countdown, the expected outcome happens, and the count is reduced to 0.</li></ul><p></p><p>Finally, the item can be damaged if the lower die roll ≤ item's bonus. In such a case, subtract the roll from the bonus. If the new bonus equals 0, the item is destroyed.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6YKmMzhfRsbAfblfIY-KQDII5hMwv9eR9uowhtD-Y_bG4h3Lq-l7KxQhMlY5CBGaH4RVs68nRGi8LAf9oMGMU3GzIqV7U4rGghXCDBXDaENZHwNr6GmZhSpE2Kp74xwBgcYlmLR24bdbIBpxd9EjKmmNlf-Uutg15BSxlHPknHwvgmMk0nhkbXLyFMd4/s571/prophecy-maker.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="571" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6YKmMzhfRsbAfblfIY-KQDII5hMwv9eR9uowhtD-Y_bG4h3Lq-l7KxQhMlY5CBGaH4RVs68nRGi8LAf9oMGMU3GzIqV7U4rGghXCDBXDaENZHwNr6GmZhSpE2Kp74xwBgcYlmLR24bdbIBpxd9EjKmmNlf-Uutg15BSxlHPknHwvgmMk0nhkbXLyFMd4/s16000/prophecy-maker.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now available in a business-card format! ... okay, I don't know how big a business card is, but with some shifting around this could fit for sure!</td></tr></tbody></table><hr /><p>Since I wanted to shorten the above as much as I could, it's time for some notes.</p><p>Skills are assumed to range from +0 to +3, with +1 being the average. and items are expected to have a starting durability of +1 to +3 depending on how reliable (yet fragile) they are. The total of a skill and item bonus shouldn't exceed 7, otherwise bad event has no chance of occurring.</p><p>A character is assumed to carry at most 4 items at a time that they could use for the oracle. As for what the nature of a random outcome is, it should be something that raises the stakes and is perhaps typical of the genre played. For example, zombies appear in a zombie apocalypse story. The expected outcome is anything that could happen any moment now to raise the stakes (such as guards bursting into the room after activating the alarm in a heist), and you can get the countdown amount by tripling the number of rounds you think this should take. The math likely doesn't check out, but I don't mind too much, this is a guideline, not a hard rule.</p><p>The numbers 7 and 9 could be shifted up or down individually based on an outcome being more or less likely, I just picked these two numbers because they'd be easy to remember after a while.</p><p>The random outcome, the items, and the countdown to an expected event are all optional. You do not need to do them with every roll, they are just there in case you need them.</p><hr /><p>As you can see, I've tried to squeeze as much use out of 2d6 as possible. One could still in theory replace the 2d6 with a 1d12 for a <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/10/reliable-vs-reckless.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reckless</a> attempt at it, but that would complicate the matters of equipment durability and random outcomes. I actually dropped some parts of it, like 2 and 12 being an automatic bad outcome and good outcome respectively, but both getting an extra "and". I've considered going beyond what it is at the moment too much. This is good enough, considering all you need is two six-sided dice (or one rolled twice).</p><p>Anyway, that's it. I originally wanted to make it into a 200-word TTRPG, but honestly... why would I. Making it into a dice oracle is pretty neat. Besides, this game borrows so many of my ideas from other systems I published that it barely tries anything new. It's a culmination of the ideas I've been processing this year with my monthly game design challenge, and I'd say it's a pretty good outcome.</p><p>Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-64846649478857634132023-10-11T09:56:00.002+02:002023-10-20T11:47:38.735+02:00Reliable vs. RecklessHere's a quick idea. Instead of asking a player to roll the same dice every time, give them a choice: they can either try to do something in a reliable manner, or reklessly. When doing something in a reliable manner, they roll multiple dice. When doing something recklessly, they roll one die. Both should have roughly the same values and averages. In the case of my future Runehack TTRPG, these would be 2d6 vs. 1d12. While their numbers are not a perfect match, they do have some minor side effects, such as 2d6's average being a tiny bit higher, and a 1d12 having a possibility of rolling a 1 (which has the same likelyhood as 12 or any number between them). Other valid options include 2d4/1d8, 2d2/1d4 (if you like coins?), 3d4/1d12, and 2d10/1d20. In case you want to protect the players who are indecisive, treat the reliable roll as a default, and reckless as an opt-in choice. It won't be a perfect solution, but it's better than nothing. Anyway, that's about it for now. Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!<br>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-17352389820377153902023-10-06T00:23:00.004+02:002023-10-06T00:23:51.196+02:00Design of Runehack: The Asterist<p>Ahoy! I have something I've wanted to tell you for a long time but kept it to myself for now. While making so many short games is nice and all, I do want to make a bigger game that could be fun to play for a longer time. I want it to be stimulating as a game, fulfilling narratively, but also different from what the market offers. Plenty of designers take the three pillars of D&D for granted like they are meant to be the foundation of every big TTRPG. Combat, exploration, and social interaction are fine, but I have some issues with them. Combat tends to be overrepresented and I'm tired of it. Exploration is okay in theory, but either undefined or unused in most cases I've partaken in. Social interaction is fine as is. So, I've been planning this project for quite a while, as some of you may know, and my first step was actually to figure out my own pillars of experience. In Runehack: The Asterist, I have explored one of these pillars... hacking.</p><p>I hope you'll enjoy reading this article, and I wish you all a wonderful day!</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-jOP_WjguKujVhyphenhyphenjfli1SESrstC-VNotolcng0AaJMiG9tFF0lZJxd7hLsnG9oW9YjfT23X5G3B26Bkz0ANve7np27Sn_NLmFlRxfol0dTBci-RR05GQX3tPGXES2ekfdvhJ9qc2jLCfxfcKIX9xr4ffZD7IF6vqLTiQovWXgeMD3XaFtIuFfbzXDdD0/s2270/rhta-title.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2270" data-original-width="1290" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-jOP_WjguKujVhyphenhyphenjfli1SESrstC-VNotolcng0AaJMiG9tFF0lZJxd7hLsnG9oW9YjfT23X5G3B26Bkz0ANve7np27Sn_NLmFlRxfol0dTBci-RR05GQX3tPGXES2ekfdvhJ9qc2jLCfxfcKIX9xr4ffZD7IF6vqLTiQovWXgeMD3XaFtIuFfbzXDdD0/w364-h640/rhta-title.png" width="364" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CtAI-ysSA_t/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">This artpiece</a> was created by my wonderful girlfriend Arell with great care. Since one of my sources of inspiration for this project was the video game Transistor, I asked for something a little more surreal. I really like the glitch effects on the character, the lines that connect to the illustrated endpoints in the exact same way as the dice would in the game, and the big clock at the top with 23 spokes that represent the 23 hours during which the city is simulated every day.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><iframe frameborder="0" height="167" src="https://itch.io/embed/2288514" width="552"><a href="https://proph.itch.io/runehack-the-asterist">Runehack: The Asterist by Proph</a></iframe></div><div><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">In the Beginning, There Was a Line</h3><p>The origin of my hacking minigame goes back to June 24, 2022. In the afternoon hours after a Friday lunch break, I've been talking to a pal of mine about one of my game design goals: if you want the story to focus on an activity, make it into a minigame. Combat in D&D is very much a minigame, and I'm pretty sure there have to be some minigames out there in games I haven't played as much too. I briefly mentioned how Watch Dogs has this hacking game I like a lot, pretty much a waterpipe-connecting puzzle, and how it does a couple of twists just to spruce things up now and then. Of course, not all hacks are done that way, it's just the really important ones when the game wants to emphasize the process.</p><p>But that got me thinking... wouldn't it be fun if this was doable on a board? After a few minutes of pondering this while the conversation continued, I had an idea. Placing the dice down, connecting them into lines using their pips. The dice pips are very underutilized, so much so that plenty of six-sided dice have replaced them with numbers. Eventually, this idea grew from just lines into branching trees. One cool thing I realized is that if the trails these dice make up were traced on paper, they would have no sharp angles, only 90° and 135° angle connections. Kind of like circuit boards. ... okay, those don't have a 90° angle, but it's close enough to remind me of those.</p><p>After working out the rules, I had to make up some basic patterns for the GMs to use, and abilities for the players to rely on. Fortunately, this minigame is rich with unexplored metaphors: firewalls, crossroads, pivots, endpoints, and so on and so forth. The turn structure for a player is simple - roll the die, use an ability if you want and can, and place a die on the board.</p><p>I'm extra proud of the fact that I came up with a way of explaining the basic rolls players would make to resolve simple things into hacks too. "Solo hacks", as I call them, are required when you would've succeeded on a task, were it 5 points higher than it currently is. What happens here is that you make a minor hack using only a single die, and on a success, the attribute increases temporarily by the necessary number. There are solo grids included in the rules, which are interconnected only by the corresponding die roll, or higher. For example, a solo hack grid for a difficulty of 3 succeeds only on the rolls of [3], [4], [5], and [6]. Yes, I've gone one step beyond and explained how the most basic rolls work, in case the players would like to hack those too. There's an optional rule for it.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkHhjbIKdj8jPe3AEw0yBOpzJTJ8M7h9EoCHppvKPltxQROECrPT-DgVg6L6NM7tOhQFhUpeOwn58J9AYFVx9mzJ18xBRCXBRM7V2p-f-HWrmQKLZ05ZJlKS5cHddnsBV9DTREymbp0M9EaPmTVCHhbZRD206SWsAA2tKaO1ce-Ye8xM5pygx-ZAsPc9s/s1280/watch%20dogs%202%20hacking%20puzzle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkHhjbIKdj8jPe3AEw0yBOpzJTJ8M7h9EoCHppvKPltxQROECrPT-DgVg6L6NM7tOhQFhUpeOwn58J9AYFVx9mzJ18xBRCXBRM7V2p-f-HWrmQKLZ05ZJlKS5cHddnsBV9DTREymbp0M9EaPmTVCHhbZRD206SWsAA2tKaO1ce-Ye8xM5pygx-ZAsPc9s/w640-h360/watch%20dogs%202%20hacking%20puzzle.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Watch_Dogs 2 was rather influential for me, and it is still one of my favorite games. Even if these hacking puzzles are quite easy to grasp, they were enough to inspire me.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Immortals in the Ocean</h3><p>The setting of Everling is one I had in my mind long before the game was written. Even before technologies anywhere close to ChatGPT have been invented in our world, we've been worried about the rise of Artificial Intelligence. I figured that a fictional world would too, which is why they'd want to test out its behavior in a secluded place, safely tucked away from the civilization. Then, I realized something important: these people are holograms. The entire city can be a hologram. And an image can be hovering anywhere if it's done just using the runes. Even... at the bottom of the ocean.</p><p>All this being said, though, the toughest part to figure out was the question of worldbuilding. Being a member of an immortal, theoretically post-scarcity society is fine, ... but how does one turn that into a game? What drives these people, what do they do on a daily basis? How do they identify each other and communicate? And is there anything that could have a price in their eyes? These questions took me literally months to answer, long before I even conceived of the hacking minigame in June. I got answers to these questions eventually, most of which you could find in Everling's article, which is why I'll move on from this point and come back to describing how it affected the game.</p><p>Originally, I wanted the players to keep track of their simulation time in the form of "hyres", a modernized version of the term for an hour they'd use as slang. However, while writing the game, I came to realize that that sounds rather intimidating. So, instead of doing that, I decided to group them into six time blocks. I still don't know if it's a good design decision, but it's a bit of an experiment on my side.</p><p>Of course, being a simulated mind with a hologram body comes with a lot of other aspects, which I felt the need to outline in the rules in the Ghost's Baseline Traits section. I wonder if this won't be too much for a player to get into, keeping in mind all the things I listed there.</p><p>The attributes were a tough cookie to work out because there are so many things a ghost could build themselves for. Ultimately, I decided to go with 11 attributes sorted into three groups: Corporeal (relating to how much influence they have in the world, such as telekinesis-powered strength), Phenomenal (relating to how they are perceived by others), and Intelligence (describing how fast they can retrieve information from the Mistweb). One extra attribute technically exists, but it's just for the unspent points. A player could change their loadout of attributes during any maintenance, giving them a lot of flexibility in expressing themselves. Furthermore, I've provided in the document a table that describes what each of the attribute values stands for numerically.</p><p>Finally, there's Corruption and memories, some of my favorite aspects of the game. During the maintenance, a corrupted ghost gets fixed to an extent or backed up if they were completely uncorrupted. You can't hurt a digital ghost, but you could try to corrupt their code. And the more corrupted they are, the higher the chance their simulation gets terminated. If you remember how annoying it is to lose that one document you've worked on for hours without saving it, you can imagine what happens when a ghost gets terminated. They are restored from their last backed-up state, forgetting everything that happened since then. Of course, there's also a way of "killing" a ghost, which is in actuality just hard-locking it by getting the city's servers to back it up while it is terminated. As for how that's done, let me just hint that that has to do with the following paragraph.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Hack the World</h3><p>I don't say this lightly, but this might be the greatest game design idea I've had in my life. Hack the World is a mechanic available to all player characters in Runehack: The Asterist. To put it briefly, they can temporarily rewrite the rules of the game itself for you, increasing or decreasing some number in the game... by 1. It's usable once per Cycle (term for a day in Everling), after which the effects cease. I honestly can't think of a better setting for this mechanic, a city that's completely simulated and hacked from the inside is perfect. Of course, the rules had to be written around the fact that this can be done, but it wasn't as difficult as I thought. (Though this might be proven otherwise once players actually get their hands on it.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Honestly, I feel like I could keep going on and on forever, but I've said everything about the game that's important, and then some. I'm just happy it's finally out, and I look forward to testing the rules out, and connecting them to the bigger project I've had on my mind for literal years.</p><p>Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!</p></div>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-40738001927064452992023-10-03T21:56:00.001+02:002023-10-03T21:56:21.498+02:00Watch Your Time<p>I know this will seem like I'm playing it up because it's the spooky month, but... I don't remember when I wrote this. I found it one day on my computer, copied it without checking for the timestamp, and I've been saving it for October. Yes, sometimes I pre-write my games, but not all of them make it here. Maybe I'll talk about that after publishing the final game in December. Speaking of, I'm not sure if I'll continue this challenge into 2024 or not. It's a nice way of keeping myself engaged in the game design, while also exploring new ideas every month and prototyping quickly. But I'm not sure if it's necessary, and how long can I keep it up. So, I plan to retire this trend after 2023. I will write new RPGs on this blog the way this started—when I feel like I have an idea worth sharing. Most of these were just that, but there were times when I realized I was forcing it. <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/09/bars-on-mars.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bars on Mars</a> would be the only published example of that, and my unpublished fae-themed game would be another. There are some games that I regret because they could have used more polish were they longer, such as <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/03/clues-and-hunches.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Clues and Hunches</a>, but I can say that generally most of these gave me some new tool or perspective for designing my games.</p><p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUusVHaKhNB_rImE_F5-kitAj63R5eJd-uYCaTLv6JWfRjI8sWHueQAAVyOjuSaMvaDt0LEGpDogY0zTUUkMQF9exzvNBvkAjVhR7K6Ks1d_wXYbyBQ_GCBRh4siW4oWFRSmuBfU9eVPTNPeWYWfKp5P_b05qzhGmPayfj6tZl-WVq4H4nsAKqw8zWqow/s750/31783105_184205915740659_274606907392524288_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUusVHaKhNB_rImE_F5-kitAj63R5eJd-uYCaTLv6JWfRjI8sWHueQAAVyOjuSaMvaDt0LEGpDogY0zTUUkMQF9exzvNBvkAjVhR7K6Ks1d_wXYbyBQ_GCBRh4siW4oWFRSmuBfU9eVPTNPeWYWfKp5P_b05qzhGmPayfj6tZl-WVq4H4nsAKqw8zWqow/w512-h640/31783105_184205915740659_274606907392524288_n.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>I'd imagine this system would be perfect for the situations, in which you need to hide away from a monster and move out when the time is right.</i><br />This art piece is a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bi2B8EcFLsi/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">cover art for The Dark Eye</a> made by <i><a href="https://www.instagram.com/luisapreissler/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Luisa Preissler</a></i>.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Watch Your Time</h3><p>Stopwatch that can be stopped without looking at its numbers required.</p><p>The GM describes a scary life-threatening situation. It could be a natural disaster, a slasher movie monster attack, or anything else scary. Play only situations that won't cause actual distress to the players. Each player then describes a character they'll control who's involved in the situation.</p><p>Players take turns. On their turn, a player describes what their character does to prevent this situation, escape it, or assist someone else. The player then starts the stopwatch and stops it blindly. They mark X if the final time is less than 50 seconds. Their character dies if they are marked with three X's, or if the last time is 60 seconds or more. Otherwise, the player adds up all the numbers (ignore the third decimal and beyond), marking a success if their sum equals 20 or more. The GM can increase or decrease the difficulty by 5 depending on the circumstances.</p><p>The GM must announce when a life-threatening situation is over, beginning a moment of peace. At this moment, each player can remove one X from any character. Whoever ends with none gets to subtract 1 from their future difficulties.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfY8Rl61m4atnW43CTqpkpWoG9z40aHEm452rKBInwjCHfsXAfGsXtfiCug_0QQptxkpctr1bR4qXGVIMBiAGa1wc0eIVookutAEJg8YjGLM31L58YYgmJq4xPKcnElQ5uZ_o-3JAMo1oswbIWgxc5DDRMswAQ4_H8gHL1EheeDVGKLnE4oXcnLzG2oE/s1280/Frame_3_Final.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfY8Rl61m4atnW43CTqpkpWoG9z40aHEm452rKBInwjCHfsXAfGsXtfiCug_0QQptxkpctr1bR4qXGVIMBiAGa1wc0eIVookutAEJg8YjGLM31L58YYgmJq4xPKcnElQ5uZ_o-3JAMo1oswbIWgxc5DDRMswAQ4_H8gHL1EheeDVGKLnE4oXcnLzG2oE/w640-h360/Frame_3_Final.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.artstation.com/contests/lightbox-expo/challenges/84/submissions/54217?sorting=survivors" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Adventures of Lua and Nina</a></b>, by <i><a href="https://www.artstation.com/felipecbarbosa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Felipe Cavalcanti</a></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p>Who doesn't like conflict resolution gimmicks? Sure dice are a classic, and the cards provide interesting complexity to a game. But some people crave novelty. Whether it's playing a game with a Jenga tower (like <a href="https://www.tiltingatwindmills.net/games/dread/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dread</a>), or the <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-heaviest-metal.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Rubix cubes</a>, bringing something new to the table is interesting. This time, I wanted to emulate the time-sensitive tasks with something beyond a random die roll. Realizing that the decimals of a stopwatch are pretty much a random die roll, I figured I'd try giving this a go. It's bizarre, and I'll likely never end up using this in a proper TTRPG of mine, but it's a neat experiment regardless.</p><p>Honestly, not much else to say about this one. It's quite minimal, and definitely closer to the Proof of Concept side rather than an Actual Game side. But it is what it is, so I'm running with it.</p><p>Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-41464683711452175392023-10-01T21:57:00.002+02:002023-10-01T21:57:35.808+02:00Design of Final: Sole Survivor<p>As part of this year's One Page RPG Jam, I made two games this year. Previously, I described the design of <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/07/design-of-your-royal-slyness.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Your Royal Slyness</a> but didn't get to talking about my other game. So let's open this year's October with a thrilling and dangerous journey of how I worked on...</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwTtHC0DebLWpsvU_pOur-HXT15AkFIEwx4Ixn52DO2M4NxF83uQSFtUh-GKlIv1gDlWmp_Rk2Kt6PgCiDEv5hhxApc8pxON0gpVM-CpOIyTMDsfMYAv90gT869PPjCfMEK3UYjGNdxL0pLNBfkUWqCbdkWgZPAitA4QsyDdsexN6YDyUOJ7q01jlpWvQ/s1653/FLS.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="989" data-original-width="1653" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwTtHC0DebLWpsvU_pOur-HXT15AkFIEwx4Ixn52DO2M4NxF83uQSFtUh-GKlIv1gDlWmp_Rk2Kt6PgCiDEv5hhxApc8pxON0gpVM-CpOIyTMDsfMYAv90gT869PPjCfMEK3UYjGNdxL0pLNBfkUWqCbdkWgZPAitA4QsyDdsexN6YDyUOJ7q01jlpWvQ/w640-h382/FLS.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><iframe frameborder="0" height="167" src="https://itch.io/embed/2192430" width="552"><a href="https://proph.itch.io/final-sole-survivor">Final: Sole Survivor by Proph</a></iframe><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Hack of a Slasher</h3><p>If you've been reading my blog for a while, or you've ever looked at some of my older posts, you might have found one called <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2020/12/slasher-oneshot-system.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Slasher Oneshot System</a>. If you've seen both that and Final: Sole Survivor, you might see a lot of resemblance, primarily because this is my updated version of that system. It's mainly focused on fixing what I saw as the weak spots of the Slasher Oneshot System, such as the fact that it's a oneshot system only. While F:SS isn't built for extremely long-term campaigns, it allows for some form of serialization between the games, building up what I like to describe as a "small horror story franchise". Recurring characters that pop up after a while, items that keep their relevance, perhaps even similar places.</p><p>The biggest contradiction to fight in this case is the fact that I am looking for a way of serializing a horror game in which the whole point is that nearly all characters will die. How is one supposed to level up, if they are not allowed to survive the game? Well... one person is always allowed to survive. And since I wanted to experiment with this for a while now, I've made it so that several years pass between sessions in-world, aging the character up and letting them grow into someone different from who they used to be.</p><p>This means that a player character could grow to be an adult, or even someone old. The older they get, the more encounters with the monster they've survived, making them yet more skilled. I had to replace the labels that were fitting for teens with labels that could apply to adults as well. The Qualities aren't perfect, but I'd say they do their job decently enough. I'd consider growing this list further if I could come up with more "+1" abilities for the players to have, as well as more skills that could be useful to them. To keep the legacy of the Slasher Oneshot System in the new product, I still keep some of the older descriptions on the optional second page, in the table of Archetypes.</p><p>Speaking of character creation, can I just say how happy I am with how elegant it turned out? It's as easy as 1-2-3-4, because you get one Quality, two Health, three Skills, and four Items by default.</p><p>One main difference some might notice is conflict resolution. Roll 2d6, 7-9 is a partial success, 10+ is a success. This part is taken straight out of Powered by the Apocalypse since it does its job well. However, I've sprinkled in a little twist of my own that I grew to like a lot. Featured in both <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/02/double-zombies.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Double the Zombies</a> and <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2023/09/bars-on-mars.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bars on Mars</a>, something extra happens when both dice roll an identical number. I really like the mechanic because it gives each roll the potential to up the stakes of the game somehow. I could imagine this playing a role in so many of my other game ideas.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Embracing the Edge</h3><p>I don't like to make things that look too edgy. But as of lately, I've kind of grown fond of such design when it is in place. This is definitely the case that warranted it the most. Red headers, horror fonts, dark red highlighted areas, and a simple outline of a hand holding a knife on the cover art make for quite a visual identity. And since I like to hide the GM side of this game from the players, it's written in a font of the same color as its background, hiding in plain sight. I had to include a little GM blurb as to how to play the monster in the player section due to 1pRPG Jam's rules, which state that the second page must be completely optional. If it were up to me, the GM section would be on a new page, perhaps even in a completely different document, but it is what it is.</p><p>The name was what I struggled with the most. For this, I've talked with my online friend NASA to brainstorm some ideas: EXist, Singular, Alone, Lone. Then, we got to ideas that would make for neat abbreviations: "Yet Again, One Survives", Only One Makes It, Just One Makes It Out, Just One Survives, Nobody May Exit/Escape, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_School_Renaissance" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">One Survivor Remains</a>, Surviving on Your Own, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBvRzwXxzSQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Persisting on Your Own</a>, ... until we slowly reached Soul Survivor and Sole Survivor. But since those are already established, we expanded it a little. That's how the title of Final: Sole Survivor came. And it's also the reason why I sometimes still make a mistake and call it Final: Lone Survivor, or Final: Soul Survivor.</p><p><br /></p><p>That's about it for the design behind this game. What a way to open the October, huh? There's certainly nothing that exciting that happened about a day or two ago that I'll be addressing soon, not at all. See you soon with my 200-word TTRPG for October, an update on something I've worked on for months, and me talking about what I'll be working on in the future. Have a great day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-31474356218910490952023-09-28T16:53:00.003+02:002023-10-20T11:47:53.011+02:001d1212<p>Indulge me, if you may. So lately I wanted to make a game about <a href="https://travelershomebrew.blogspot.com/2021/12/orbtech.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Orbtech</a> for some time now. This has me thinking about the 12-sided dice because they are one of the most spherical dice out of the platonic solids. I wouldn't want to make a game requiring a player to buy too many specialized dice, which is why most of my games focus on using d6's. The d12 is the one die I would consider worthy of an exception because 12 is a good number. It has many divisors: 2, 3, 4, and 6.</p><p>I assume everyone reading this knows how the dice work. 3d12 means three twelve-sided dice, while 1d6 means one six-sided die. There's a peculiar idea within the TTRPG space of a d66 roll table. It doesn't use a special sixty-six-sided die, it's actually a table with 36 results that you get by rolling two d6's without adding the numbers: 11, 12, ..., 16, 21, 22, ... 65, 66. I suspect this type of table was inspired by 1d100 - since most people do not own the singular hundred-sided die that almost looks like a golf ball, most players would roll this type of roll with a 1d10 and a percentile die (which is a 1d10, but with a 0 after every result). This got me thinking... wouldn't this technically make it a 1d1010?</p><p>So, these two lines of thought converged yesterday and led me to 1d1212. This abomination of a notation seems to hint at first at a table with 144 elements in it. But unless we distinguish which digits belong to which die, we might get into some complications. Is the row labeled "112" an 11 and 2, or 1 and 12? ... how about both? Don't worry, the only other exception like that is 111, so this table loses only two of its elements.</p><p>The only next step beyond this is 1d2020. ... Let's not roll this one, I'm sure plenty of people here still feel off about that number. That being said, ... how about mixing things up? 1d1220, 1d2012, 1d120, 1d200 (technically 1d1210 and 1d2010), and then going into combinations of 3 or more dice.</p><p>That's about it for now. Just a silly brief thought I had the other day that I felt like sharing. Maybe I'll actually make a d1212 roll table someday, only time will tell. Until then, it's time for me to get back to my projects. Have a great day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2956468006276644078.post-81317219234514323432023-09-19T02:33:00.003+02:002023-09-19T10:03:37.925+02:00Bars on Mars<p><i>Ahoy once again! This time, I was inspired by a system creating challenge in the community of a youtuber TTRPG designer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@jfacegames7354" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">JFace Games</a>. On his discord server, people tend to roll a couple of random tables for several themes, and then see what comes out of it. This time, the challenge prompts were: modern, sci-fi, scoundrel (like Firefly), diplomatic, and must use a d8. Upon reading these, I had two thoughts that I needed to resolve quickly and surely enough did. "How am I going to make this sci-fi and not cyberpunk?" Well, the answer is simple enough: aliens. Just situate it on not-Earth, fill it up with alien species, have a blast. Well, that'll be difficult to fit into 200 words on its own (though the challenge isn't to write just 200 words, that's a restriction I kept for myself). Now a bigger question: how to combine the scoundrel prompt with diplomatic matters? Well, my answer was simple, and it was illegal substances. It's not a perfect answer, but I ran with it, and created this game. Since it was made for a challenge, I also gave it a bit more flourish with a one page RPG treatment, with an image, and some experiments regarding the formatting.</i></p><p><i>I hope you'll enjoy this, and have a nice day!</i></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic002BSZ0xY2GYRY_9bCzHBjm-4Ydb5QkSk2KDUPgqnjEqq_-1UHxLjV7gzLeacuBHkTyDRMvG0QUclUIx6wz4NRx-GCdrX2_XQEXYywMtdtz5NCfN9K9rCHUFJp0p4Q9VZVlaMfLSktg5AvFVEhu1vaaxH9bGJJ2T0JvzLOOnUaaHB3BZbiqOMkCbbwM/s6599/Bars_on_Mars.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6599" data-original-width="5100" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic002BSZ0xY2GYRY_9bCzHBjm-4Ydb5QkSk2KDUPgqnjEqq_-1UHxLjV7gzLeacuBHkTyDRMvG0QUclUIx6wz4NRx-GCdrX2_XQEXYywMtdtz5NCfN9K9rCHUFJp0p4Q9VZVlaMfLSktg5AvFVEhu1vaaxH9bGJJ2T0JvzLOOnUaaHB3BZbiqOMkCbbwM/w494-h640/Bars_on_Mars.png" width="494" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Fun fact: making the rules and the PDF took me about 33 hours and 22 minutes of total time. I was on a roll this one time!</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Bars on Mars</h3><p>You sell narcs in Mars city bars to humans and aliens alike.</p><p>GM names and describes the city. GM and all players name and describe strengths of one alien species each and one narc each. Then, everyone gives one downside to their right neighbor's alien species, and one downside to their left neighbor's narc.</p><p>Describe your character. They get:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>a Number (between 5 and 13, your choice),</li><li>8 + 2d8 megacredits,</li><li>species,</li><li>two narcs they specialize in,</li><li>a weapon,</li><li>and their love (not money).</li></ul><p></p><p>At the start of a day, everyone's Presence is 0, and GM rolls 1d8 to get every narc's current cost. You can get narcs you specialize in for half the price (round up).</p><p>Take turns clockwise. When GM tells you, roll 2d8. Reroll either die once when receiving help. Your character succeeds if the result is:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>≤ their Number and they're selling, lying, or pushing.</li><li>≥ their Number and they're running, sneaking, or cautious.</li></ul><p></p><p>Identical number on both dice increases your current Presence by 1. Laying low lowers it. GM picks the threat: competing dealer gang, or lawkeepers.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>0. Safe</li><li>1. Tracking you</li><li>2. Following you</li><li>3. Catching you</li><li>4. Caught you</li><li>5. Killed you</li></ul><p></p><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEJ4j41EDmHGwTUWqC2kYw2-ROP8S9yYybTxykKNrxAYYDRtjzJ2E4w3-kBsXr2hBeRomhrOzeN7TxVyxg4NA1aXZKkj3NTWZXjh0YtFMx-zfzaf8i8cVxuAVtSSIh7ZMkewreQ086KZ1w5I2sd7353s7LsQMQeYgqk2ROKOYIgSeuK_g2OgwDUQCyPmM/s3000/alien_bar_by_kangjason_d9cdr6q.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1432" data-original-width="3000" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEJ4j41EDmHGwTUWqC2kYw2-ROP8S9yYybTxykKNrxAYYDRtjzJ2E4w3-kBsXr2hBeRomhrOzeN7TxVyxg4NA1aXZKkj3NTWZXjh0YtFMx-zfzaf8i8cVxuAVtSSIh7ZMkewreQ086KZ1w5I2sd7353s7LsQMQeYgqk2ROKOYIgSeuK_g2OgwDUQCyPmM/w640-h306/alien_bar_by_kangjason_d9cdr6q.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The first image won mainly because I could include more of its stuff in a vertical game page. This one is a cooler, calmer bar.</i><br /><b><a href="https://www.deviantart.com/kangjason/art/Alien-Bar-564992738" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Alien Bar</a></b> by <i>KangJason</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p>If some parts of this design seem familiar, that's because they are. I must admit, I really really grew to enjoy the combination of Lasers and Feelings' conflict resolution mechanic with rolling either above or below a number, and with my extra outcome mechanic from Double the Zombies of "something unrelated happens if both dice are the same". Frankly, this is mostly a numbers game still, but I try to add at least some roleplay-ability with the requirement for a character to have a love that isn't money. It's left up to the reader whether that's another character, some activity, a place, or even an item.</p><p>My final piece of inspiration for the mechanics has a surprisingly nostalgic source for me, the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Specifically, its Exhaustion rules that came with six levels were kind of inspiring. After I wrote up the levels of Presence in my game, I realized they sort of reflect those, and also that I'm not <a href="https://www.brandesstoddard.com/2016/12/dd-5e-alternate-threat-tracks/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the first one to come up with this idea</a>. Wild!</p><p>I also used this as a learning opportunity to experiment a little with visual design. A crooked box, neon glow letters, colored highlights and a numbered list that flows between colors, it's not a design I am perfectly happy with but it was meant to be an experiment.</p><p><br /></p><p>Huh, the October is just around the corner. I should get ready to write up the blog post about the design of my reworked slasher horror TTRPG, and prepare the October TTRPG. Time is ticking. Until then, have a great day!</p>Ed Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031305488258297595noreply@blogger.com0