Encounter Deck 2: The Two Powers (of cards)

Spent more time thinking on this one, so I'll expand it. This is a sequel to the Encounter Deck I wrote last time, but I'll likely include writing points from that here too. I'll add that I still don't have this entirely thought through, this is just a stream of ideas I'm still processing into something more specific.

Note: I don't have anything specific on mind for "The Two Powers", I just wanted to do a riff on The Two Towers instead of Electric Boogaloo this time.

While I largely focus on encounters of creatures in this article, this could be done with events and maybe even buildings too. I just tried to keep it within some theme for this article.
Screenshot from Hand of Fate 2. The article doesn't have anything to do with the game, I just wanted a cool fantasy card dealer on the article's cover.

Card Themes

Give each suit a vague theme to follow. You don't have to follow it all the way through, of course. For a start, I suggest that the red suits could be friendly and black suits could be unfriendly encounters.

Card Structure

Get a cheap deck of cards and a permanent marker. Find a way to fit all of this onto each card:

• Foreshadowing
• Encounter
• Environment
• Consequences

Instead of a single card, you're drawing two cards for every random encounter: one just for the environment, one for everything else. Why a combination of two? Because if you will be forced to repeat encounters, a different environment could freshen things up hopefully. Mark each card that's supposed to be in the starting Encounter Deck somehow (maybe a dot in the corner?). Try to make each Foreshadowing, Encounter, and Environment unique. As for what the stand for...

Foreshadowing

This is something you tell the players before they arrive to the random encounter's location (from now on just called hex seeing how this could work in a hex crawl). Perhaps in a neighboring hex. Something along the lines of "you see large footprints with claws on the ground, headed North".

Encounter

This is where the interesting thing happens. For the foreshadowing above, it could be "a group of owlbears". Ideally it would be adjustable for different tiers, but I don't know how much could you fit onto a single card.

Environment

This is the environment in which the encounter happens. I feel like this would be the biggest hurdle, seeing how there are 52 cards and ideally you'd avoid copies. Something like "a rope bridge over a ravine", "a narrow crevace between two boulders", or "three big trees". Ideally something that would make the encounter interesting in case it's a fight, or maybe even not.

Consequences

This makes the biggest difference, and it's also the thing I mentioned last time. It's the consequences of dealing or not dealing with an encounter. Something like "add [card] to the encounter deck if they were killed", "add [card] to the encounter deck if you made a trade", all depends on what kind of encounter it is.

Alright, but now onto some more new ideas.

Randomly Added Specific Encounters

The title is clumsy, the point is simple. Remember how we assigned specific meanings to the card suits? Let's actually do it to a color instead of a suits. Let's say, for example, that the clubs (mostly) represent the bandits. And now, imagine that as long as there are bandits in the forest, more will come once every three days, or some other regular time interval. You have all the clubs cards representing bandits on a separate pile, and add one randomly into the encounter deck regularly.

But remember, we want every encounter to be unique! These aren't just different with the numbers of bandits or what ranks they are. Let's make their fighting styles different. This group uses tamed wolves. This group has pyromaniacs with bottles of alcohol that will spray fire at you. That group has a powerful warlock serving the Asmodeus. And this group of bandits is gonna rob the city if they aren't dealt with in a week (more on this later).

What if we want to have multiple decks like this behind the screen, though? Won't it become confusing? Not necessarily, let's just make a quick adjustment - let's take the Ace out, flip it over, and place it underneath the deck as a label. If you need to draw a card but the deck is empty, it's time for the Ace to be added into the deck. The Ace is the most powerful or influential of random encounters of its type. In the case of the club bandits, their leader.

Let's move away from the bandits, how about traveling merchants? Diamonds are suitable for them (pun intended). But instead of just your average regular merchants, how about making them all weird? A man who sold his face to a fey, and how he has access to an infinite supply of magical masks. A woman who has no shadow, selling light sources in a dark forest. A man with no name selling magic rings. And their leader? How about a tradesman with no wares? He'll sell you any kind of information you seek, for a mere price of a precious memory.

Change the World

How about we look at the ways in which we manipulate the deck next? Let's establish a base procedure.

1. Previous Foreshadowing cards are put back into the Encounter Deck (or discarded if the card's Consequence says so), except for the one in the players' chosen direction. The kept card is used as an Encounter.
2. The GM draws a card for the Environment used and uses it with the Encounter.
3. When the players investigate what's in a specific direction, the GM draws a Foreshadowing card for it. This can be done once for each direction (6 on a hex grid).

Seeing how this means there are 7 cards drawn for every step of the procedure, this is quite inefficient. This would mean you spend the entire deck of cards in less than 8 moves, and that's not considering the fact you don't start with a complete deck! You could in theory keep all the Foreshadowed cards that neighbor the chosen hex, but that would still use up a lot of cards. Maybe instead, you could only foreshadow like two or so directions, and if the players pick a different direction you draw a completely random encounter that's unforeshadowed.

Here's the important part though: The composition of the deck informs you about the current state of this region! Imagine for a moment that the Club bandits make up the majority of the encounter deck. That tells you straight up that they hold a lot of influence over this place. Maybe there's a cap on how many Clubs bandits and Diamonds merchants can be in the forest? Maybe defeating a group of bandits lets you draw from the Merchants deck automatically? And so on, and so forth. Players' actions and inactions shape the world.

But now comes the fun part: Let's expand this procedure with some extra rules. I'm not sure yet if these would be special Consequences, player abilities, or "GM moves", so I'll leave that space blank for now.

• Eventful. Instead of a single encounter card, draw two cards. These two creatures (or groups) encountered each other before the players arrived.
• Curious Place. Draw two environment cards instead of one.
• Territorial. This encounter won't leave until something gets rid of it.
• Show Me Your Best! I'm imagining this is a barbarian ability. After defeating an encounter that belongs to some faction, use this ability to instantly force the most powerful of them (the Ace) to appear somewhere.
• Silence before the Storm. Nothing happens. Shuffle all discarded cards back into the deck.
• Not Today. Pick one card from a hex the players are not on and shuffle it back into the encounter deck.
• Wait It Out. Draw another card. The GM decides which of these wins the encounter and ends up occupying that hex.
• Growing Influence. Every X days, draw another card for this faction and add it to the encounter deck.

No Dice

Why am I so hung up on this idea? If you've read my previous post (can't blame you if you didn't), I mention that cards remember stuff. A random encounter table sounds good on the paper, but the dice make for a cruel mistresses. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, the two eponymous characters start Act 1 by betting on flipped coins. They get heads 92 times in a row. Supernatural forces or not, a chance of 1 in 5 octillion isn't zero. There's also an encounter of this in the Bioshock Infinite that never fails to make me smile. Dice don't remember a thing, you could in theory get a natural 20 ten times in a row, that's a chance of 1 in 10 trillion. Cards remember, and they won't repeat themselves, unless you either shuffle the drawn cards back, or have copies in the deck.

Of course, you could avoid repetitions by using a bigger deck. It'd be hard for me to draw stuff on it, but you could always resort to listing the things in a table instead if you want the deck to be reusable. That's why I recommended a cheap deck. Oh, you could also just combine multiple decks into one and find a way of distinguishing them.

Anyway, that's all I have to say on the topic for now. I hope you enjoyed this read, and wish you a great day!

Encounter Deck

Cards have memory. Don't believe me?

Get a cheap deck of cards. Write an encounter on as many of these cards as you want. Shuffle them. When you want a random encounter, draw a card and use it. Do not return the card back into the deck.

Upgrade: By including instructions as to what cards could be included into the deck, you can create random sequences of events. For example:

• Ace of Spades: traveling merchant who was robbed by bandits (add 4 of Hearts)
• 4 of Hearts: bandits who robbed the merchant (add 8 of Diamonds and 6 of Clubs into the deck)
• 8 of Diamonds: the bandit leader
• 6 of Clubs: the guards who were looking for the bandits, willing to reward those who dealt with them

The biggest upside is that you don't get repeated events, unless you return the cards back into the deck or unless there are multiple copies of a single event. The cards will remember what happened, and unlike your regular roll table, they won't repeat themselves.

That's all. Have a great day!

Preserving the Agency in Social Interaction

This is sort of a continuation of my Social Mechanics article. I played recently another oneshot using the City of Mist system, and its Convicne action has kind of opened my eyes. In the previous article, I focused more on information gathering. Right now, it's time to focus more on how to use this information.

"No, it turns out gifting him a new puppy didn't stop him, he still wants to talk to you."
Bad Guys 4, by Z.W. Gu

Request, Offer, Threat

In a social interaction, you can make statements made up of three basic components:

• Request is what you want from another NPC (leave this town, let me into the castle, give me a discount). Reasons to do make this request happen could be a part of this, but I'll talk about that later.
• Offer is a beneficial thing that you offer to the NPC (I'll give you 50 gold pieces, I'll praise you in king's presence, I'll advertise your shop).
• Threat is a detrimental thing that might happen to the NPC, caused by you in some way (I'll fight you to death, the world will end, I'll stop shopping here).

The line between an Offer and a Threat is a blurry one, since you could word a Threat as an Offer ("Let me into the castle and you won't get your teeth broken"), and maybe this could work vice versa too but right now I can't think of an example. This is fine, though, because this is where the GM comes in - the GM could tell apart Offers and Threats on the spot better than three detailed pages of rules just by using their own judgement.

There's another aspect to this that I'll need to bring up before continuing, and that is a Bluff. Any of the three components of a statement listed above, or any part of it, can be a lie. You could lie about what you want ("I didn't want just a thousand dollars, I want one million dollars. You have 24 hours to bring it."), you could lie about what you could do, whether it's positive ("And you'll never be bothered by my clan again.") or negative ("Or else I'll blow up this city.").

Okay, that's nice and all, but how does this play a role in a social interaction? Where do the stats come in, and what do you roll to convince or threaten people? Here's the trick... you roll to see what can be trusted, not to see what the person chooses.

The Choice

First, roll on any part of the statement to see if there's a lie involved. For the D&D 5e, it'd be an Insight roll opposed by a relevant Charisma skill (Intimidation for Threat, Persuasion for Offer and maybe Request, Deception for anything that's a Bluff). For The Runehack RPG, I'm considering a Hunch roll opposed by Comprehension, with a range of successes that decides how many of the components you can identify as trustworthy. The roll should somehow be modified depending on the statement's credibility. To rephrase it, "would they do this, assuming they can?" Anyone could say they will destroy the planet, and that's quite a bold claim. Can this be trusted? How could they possibly destroy the world? And even if they can, would they? Same could be asked about the Offer (Will they let my kidnapped relative free?), or even about the Request (Do they really want just one thousand dollars?). So, you roll to see if their Request, Offer, or Threat is credible. On a success, you can tell without a doubt whether they are bluffing or not. On a failure, you are left in the dark - it could be anything.

Once all the rolls for bluffing are finished, it's decision time. The character chooses their next course of action. ... That's it. What, do you expect a die to get involved in this? I mean, this could be resolved Pendragon style by giving the character some ideals or personality traits they roll for to see what they'll choose, but I don't think that's necessary. Make a choice the character in question would want to make.

How would a GM know what does an NPC want? Well, look at all the components, and ask yourself:

• Do they want to go along with whatever is requested of them?
• Would they want whatever is offered in return?
• Is it bearable for them to go along with the threat involved?

Now, a social interaction isn't about dice mind-controlling the characters. No longer is there an asymmetry in how Charisma affects the players and NPCs. Whoever is making the choice makes the choice.

An Example: Kingdom's Riches, or Prince's Life

The king receives a message. "Give me all the money in your royal treasury, and I will release your son, alive. Otherwise, I will kill him." Let's play the role of the king and examine every part of this statement, especially focusing on what could make them more or less credible.

Request

"Give me all the money in your royal treasury" might be a sensible request, provided the kingdom is doing well economically. If the kingdom is poor, the kidnapper will likely be disappointed by the money, and do something unexpected in return, like killing the prince after receiving the money. If the kidnapper has a particularly bad reputation, they could also keep increasing their demands over time.

Offer

"I will release your son" sounds promising. But, again, if the kidnapper has a bad reputation for being vile, they could decide not to release the prince even after receiving the money. On the other hand, if the kidnapper is a good reasonable person who's doing this because of something else pressuring them, they could give in and release the son regardless of receiving all the money from the royal treasury. The credibility of this offer would decrease if the prince was in the castle all along, not kidnapped at all, safe and sound (unless you want to say that high enough level threats could teleport in and out of the castle).

Threat

"I will kill your son" is a rather significant threat, even bigger if it's the heir to the throne. What could increase the credibility of this threat is learning that the kidnapper has no issues killing people without a second thought. A decrease in credibility could come with learning that the kidnapper is secretly in love with the prince.

The King's Choice

After making the relevant rolls, the choice falls at the end of the day on the king. He has all the information he can get now: the worth of prince's life, the amount of money in his treasury, whether the Prince will be released if he complies, killed if he declines the request, and whether the kidnapper demands only the money in the kingdom's treasury. All of this mixed with the king's personality and priorities leads to the choice. If the king is an NPC, the choice is made by the GM, if it was a player, the player makes a choice, unless someone else makes this choice for him (like paying the kidnapper with all the money from the royal treasury without consulting the king).

Social interaction can be quite complicated, which is why I've thought about this problem for years. Turning it into a minigame feels weird and inhumane, trying to list all the rules is a lot of work both for the designer of the game, but also for those who wish to use the rules, but it could benefit from some structure. I think this might work, splitting the statement into a Request, an Offer, and a Threat, rolling to see if any of these is a bluff or if they can be trusted, and then leaving the choice up to the character, and the player who controls them. Does the impact of this decision play a factor? Yes, but only in processing things as your character. Is saving your loved one worth it if you kill another person while doing so? How about two people? Five? Ten? A hundred? What choice your character makes in a situation says about them a lot. It would be a shame for this to be wasted because dice and randomness.

That's all just my opinion, though. If you want to, you can end up with rolling a die to decide I guess. Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!

Design of Everyone Slays the Princess

Got inspired to make a game that would combine Everyone is John with Slay the Princess. It's not an adaptation or a hack of either, it's just inspired by both. I aimed for a format of a business card, and I think it went well. Here's what I learned.

Note: This article might include minor spoilers to Slay the Princess.

You're on a path in the woods. And at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a princess. You're here to slay her. If you don't, it will be the end of the world.
A screenshot from the video game that inspired this game, Slay the Princess.

You're On a Path in the Woods

The idea came to me spontaneously when Toyo mentioned that one of his first systems he GMed was Everyone is John. Just like that, something in my mind sparked and went "mix it with Slay the Princess". I looked up the rules though, and I realized... that I will have to approach this differently. See, in Slay the Princess, the voices do not fight for control over the Hero. Then again, they don't take turns either, but here I wanted the players to be voices that do not fight, so I figured they'll be taking turns controlling the Hero. A key factor worth mentioning is that I made it so that every Hero's Act lasts at most 15 minutes in real life, so that other players get a turn too and there's some sense of urgency.

A key factor for Slay the Princess is the Princess' attitude towards the Hero that keeps shifting, usually to worse and worse attitude. I had the brilliant idea for it to measure it with Threat that increases whenever the Hero does something suspicious, starting at a 0.

As for the rolls, I figured I could just use the Threat as the difficulty for the rolls. I had skills in the system also, and the players rolled a 1d12 with an intent of rolling more than the Threat. It all sounded great in my head, though written down like this the issues might look obvious.

I managed to scrounge up 3+1 volunteers, two ditched hours before the playtest, I managed to find one more. It was time to play, and the game was... well...

Everything Goes Dark, and You Die

So... let's talk about the Threat.

If you've played Slay the Princess, you know that the first proper choice you get to make is once you enter the cabin: do you take the Pristine Blade with you or not? In my playtest, I decided to replace the blade with two items of my own creation: keys that unlock the Princess' shackles, and a small vial with a strange liquid inside. The two items were on a pair of pedestals, just far apart enough that they can't be touched at the same time. Also in the room was the pristine blade hidden, which could be taken with one of the other two items if it was picked up first. Once you pick either from the items on the pedestals, the other one vanishes. The player asked to make a roll to search the room on the first or second Act, and that's when I realized the problem. The difficulty for this roll... was zero. The difficulty for all rolls would be zero, as long as they haven't been seen by the Princess. Not to mention the fact that it didn't scale up as fast as I wanted it.

After finishing the playtest, the players were satisfied, and I knew I need to rework the system from the ground up. No skills for the voices, no Threat that goes up when the Princess sees the Hero acting all sus. But I really liked the idea of a static difficulty for everything. I gave it a lot of thought, and I realized something: the timer. Just use the number of minutes left as a difficulty!

Roll a number of d20's, and take the lowest roll. If it's less than the number of minutes that remain on the timer, you have succeeded. Since the timer starts at 15 minutes, and saying anything takes a moment, the best difficulty for a player is 14. This translates to rolls of 13 or less succeeding, so 65% if you roll a single die. You roll an additional die if some Voice is relevant, and yet another die if your own Voice is relevant to the action. Failing an action that relates to your own Voice in the first minute of the game has a chance of less than 5%, and you have a good chance of succeeding on things with your own Voice even in the last 6 or so minutes of the game.

The Blade is Your Implement

What would the game be without an implement of some kind. While the original game kept it very simple with a blade that can hurt and kill and cut things, I wanted to give my game a little extra oomph, to let people who know Slay the Princess already discover something new every time. Sadly, I couldn't fit details onto a business card, and I didn't want a situation where there are merely three detailed items. Instead, I tried to go for ten evocative items. Just for fun, I'll come up with at least one use for each of these for this blog post (I already had an use in mind for most of them).

• a pristine blade (obvious - cuts and kills)
• a weird potion (kills whoever drinks it after 5 minutes pass)
• a red brush (things written with it carry over to the future Acts)
• a brass key (unlocks the Princess's shackles)
• a shiny coin (the Princess becomes vicious if she witnesses it)
• a blank book (a new word appears in it the first time it's opened in every Act)
• a fancy ring (whomever wears it can't hurt another person)
• an old note (it's a list of adjectives, when a slip of the note is torn off, another Princess appears next to the original, with the adjective(s) on the torn off slip)
• a bright veil (makes its wearer invisible)
• a hazy mirror (swaps Princess's role with yours)

To inspire the reader of the GM side of the rules, I also listed 5 effects that are quite minimal - kills, charms, conceals, upsets, transforms. There's also 5 locations that the GM can roll for or choose from: cabin, tower, dungeon, cave, castle.

It's All Part of Her Manipulation

On the Narrator Side, I also feature three bullet points of things that should be prepared, and five guidelines. The most noteworthy guidelines are numbers 2 and 5. According to the number 2, the Princess is the only NPC. I've thought about this long and hard before running my oneshot, thinking up various scenarios that could happen on the way to the Princess. Maybe an old man who's at a well and needs help, and will reward the Hero with an item, maybe a monster of some kind, and so on and so forth. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that that will just dilute the plot, confuse the player, and give them many more outs. If the Princess is the only NPC and the only thing that the players can interact with in a significant way, the players will be drawn towards her. Unless they just want to act like contrarians and avoid the Princess every single time.

The guideline number 5 states: make supernatural happen when in doubt. While the original game is rather down-to-earth, here I didn't shy from things getting a little supernatural, as seen above with the items. I'm not sure if this guideline is something someone will need, but it is what it is.

The final two things worth mentioning are Death and the Princess's stance. A character who gets severely hurt twice dies. If either character dies, a new Act begins, with a different Voice being in control of the Hero, and all NPCs forgetting that the previous Act had happened. An Act ends automatically after 15 minutes with the Hero's death (because if they wanted to kill the Princess by that point, they would've.) Princess's stance, or should I say attitude, shifts between four states depending on the player's actions: Cooperative, Distrustful, Defiant, Hostile. There isn't any math to this or specific rules, it's just something I figured would be a helpful guideline for the GM to keep in mind. The Princess won't just go from trying to kill the Hero to wanting to help him for no reason, that kind of shift should be gradual (assuming it can happen).

And that's about it! Like I said, the game is business card-sized (or at least I hope it is), and it could be played multiple times, assuming the GM comes up with a new finale for the future playthroughs. ... Yeah, the hardest part about this process is something I've left up to the GM. I'm not proud of it, but honestly that's the part I struggled with myself as well. Since it's based on a property that I do not own, I didn't want to put it up as Pay What You Want, and so it is completely free.

Thank you for reading, and have a great day!

Design of Runehack: Express Deliveries

I know I said I don't have to participate, but when I found out that One Page RPG Jam 2024's theme is Transportation, I couldn't help myself. Besides, maybe it will help in my big game I want to actually write.

Swerving

Months ago, I came up with an idea for a core mechanic in a driving TTRPG. Easily the most important aspect of driving is making turns, so my idea was: the higher the roll, the more you turn your car. Going straight is fairly easy, deviating 45° is somewhat difficult, 90° more difficult, and so on, even allowing for U-turns. I left that mechanic simmer in the back of my mind for months, and then I realized it kind of sucks. Turning should be easier. Once the game jam began and I got back to pondering the vehicles, I realized... maybe it should just depend on the vehicle's speed. Roll over the vehicle's speed to succeed.

Cargo and Rating

Next up is the management of cargo space. You know, one of the most fun parts of any TTRPG (sarcasm). But in this case, I had a decent idea from the get-go: grids. Yes, I know, inventory grids are nothing new in video games or TTRPGs for that matter, here though I wanted it to take one step further. An inventory doubles as a twinned roll table. For every point of Durability your vehicle loses, you roll to see which row and which column of the cargo gets damaged. If no item is located there, you're going to be fine. If there is some item, or worse yet, a person, it will reflect on your pay and rating.

That's right, there's a rating system in this game. To keep it simple, ratings go from 1 to 5, and determine how many orders are available for you (rounded up).

One more thing worth mentioning - vehicles come in three types with different cargo sizes: bikes (6x6), cars (6x12), and vans (12x12).

Law

I didn't put speed limits into the game, though a GM could enforce them if they wish to I guess. What is in the game though are gangs who go after you, a chance for any order you make to turn out to be illegal when you pick it up or when you deliver it, and the police chasing after you if you're doing something illegal (like making an illegal delivery). The upside though is that an illegal delivery always gets the best rating it can get, and the credits you earn from it are multiplied by 10.

Actions

Midway into the first playtest of this system, I realized something. I don't have nearly enough actions for it. Back then, I had only four of them: Speed, Swerve, Take/Deliver, and Move (on foot). And it was... not enough by far. The player ended his turn several times without taking all the actions they could have. Back then, I also had acceleration be a factor in the game. That was quickly tossed out of the system. Over the course of the second playtest, I came up with several new actions:

• Reverse that's usable only if your vehicle's speed is 0.
• Swerving for free if the speed is 0, and adding to swerving a new option - moving the vehicle 1 space to the side.
• Attack because your chasers might not leave you alone.
• Small Talk lets you try raising the rating your customers will give you at the end, provided you're delivering them somewhere.
• Radio to listen to something that will make your next roll better. Whether it's a fast tune for making better swerves, a radio station that tells you where the cops or gangs are currently posing danger, playing some chill music to make talking with your customer more pleasant, or something else, honestly an explanation could be made for anything here.
• Improvise is a universal action for using the driver's stats. I didn't detail it much because this is a game focused on the vehicles. If these rules make it into the game I'm working on, pretty much everything else will be focused on the player characters, so I'm okay with boiling it down to a couple of lines for this one-pager.

The last noteworthy thing is that this game also contains a rolltable for generating surnames for Runehack, and it's the first game I made with landscape pages instead of vertical ones. There's more to it, but I don't know if the rest is worth going into details about. Driver types, purchasing vehicles and managing their upkeep, the length of a workday, how the credits and rating are calculated, and so on. I'm satisfied with how this game turned out, though I do recognize there might be imperfections I am not aware of yet. For the visuals, I went with a very simple dark gray, mixed with yellow squares that evoke an image of taxi in my mind. Minimal, effective.

Gelt and Sand; and The Hungering End

I wrote two games and didn't get to post them here. So, why not post them today?

Gelt and Sand

On a desert planet populated by giant sandworms and masses of microbiologic aliens, people do their best to mine the Gelt that allows for extraordinary feats.

Success is decided by flipping a coin. Every heads counts as a success. Flip additional coins depending on your stat.

A coin on its side allows you to glimpse the future briefly, but the character doesn't enact its action. You can ask a yes/no question and receive a true answer from the GM.

You have three points that you can assign into the following stats (max +2):

Strength, Senses, Smarts, Socializing

Depending on your class in society, you can add an extra coin when performing duties characteristic to it, and you gain one of the following features:

• Artist - Consume 1 Gelt to make someone believe a fact.
• Merchant - Can buy anything for 1 Gelt less.
• Philosopher - Once per session, you can place a coin on its side for free.
• Warrior - Can kill a creature with 2 successes.

Gain Gelt by defeating the aliens, bartering, and serving.

You can consume 1 Gelt to place 1 coin any way you choose. Furthermore, you can consume 10 Gelt to permanently increase one stat by 1.

---

I wrote this game after a presentation I had on D&D Slovakia on April 29th regarding writing 200-word TTRPGs. I followed all the steps I outlined during the presentation while making this. (Please ignore the fact that the list should start with a 0.)

1. Reason for me writing it (demonstration of the process)
2. Concept (a game heavily inspired by Dune)
3. Conflict resolution (coin pools)
4. Things that distinguish the players (stats, societal class)
5. Extra stuff (managing Gelt as a resource, visions, advancement)
6. Keep cutting down stuff until there's merely 200 words.

I don't think I've written a game with dice pools ever before. I wanted it to retain some of the inspiration from the Dune, hence the giant sandworms and visions, but I was trying to come up with something that's not outright Spice. I've received a suggestion for Gelt, so I rolled with that. I especially like the placing of a coin on its side that a Philosopher can do once per session for free, or that anyone can do by spending Gelt. Can it happen in an actual coin flip? I mean, possibly. I don't think I've seen it happen yet, but there are videos of it online, so... why not have a bit of fun with it?

The Hungering End

This was for another challenge on JFace Games' discord server. According to the random rolls, we had to go with:

• Period: Renaissance
• Genre: Cosmic Horror
• Tone: Grimdark
• Playstyle: Theatre of the Mind
• Resolution: New design with anything

I published this game on March 4th, and back then I was quite fascinated by the Heckadeck. I still am, don't get me wrong, it's just that my focus has shifted on other things. I still await the day though when I'll be able to incorporate the heckadeck into some game proper, perhaps even in a not-so-distant future... hint-hint nudge-nudge.

I will admit, it's been a while since I wrote this. Upon rereading it, it honestly doesn't even feel like a proper TTRPG, but that's up for a debate I'm too lazy to have. What I really like about this though is the fact that all of the archetypes the players can play use different resources for different purposes. Back in the days when I played World of Warcraft, the classes I found the most interesting were those that deviated from the Mana norm. Rogue has Energy which lets them use their abilites a lot more frequently, Warrior has Rage that builds up the more damage they take, Rune Knights have three pairs of runes (and more with some talent tree, iirc?) with a simple recharge, and Runic Power that charges up the more runes they use. You get the point. Ever since writing D6 Feet Under, I couldn't stop thinking about replacing the "hit points" with an actual resource that explains somehow how you survive attacks: Energy, Power, Protection, Will, Plan, Luck.

Honestly, I don't know if the game is even playable. Right now I'm having a hard time finding how many cards is a player supposed to hold in their hand. And with a condition of destroying all GM's cards in the deck? That would make for quite a long campaign, if it can be called that. This all feels more like a board game with some story bits inbetween, but I still wanted to post it here for completeness' sake.

Back then I wasn't entirely satisfied with calling this "renaissance", but honestly? What better way is to do a renaissance cosmic horror is there than with a tale of an actual inevitable rebirth of a world?

The game is serviceable I suppose, and there are some neat ideas hidden within. But I wouldn't call it a great game. It's just made for a challenge.

Recently I counted how many games I've published, and I believe the number is 29 for now. The One Page RPG Jam 2024 is here. I know I said I don't have to participate this year, ... but with a theme like Transportation? It's hard to resist the call.

Thank you for reading, and have a great day!

Social Interaction Mechanics that I want

I'm busy lately, but my thoughts keep returning to social interactions and my current ideals of their design. I've written it multiple times in various chats, so I'm thinking instead of repeating myself, I'll make a blog post on this that I can link to in the future.

Art for the Ghosts in the Saltmarsh, by Zoltan Boros.

"Social Combat?"

When I mention that I want my game to have "social interaction mechanics", people normally assume that what I seek is to turn a conversation into a minigame, into what I call "social combat". In combat, participants have AC that needs to be overcome with attack rolls in order to reduce the participant's HP to 0, eliminating them from the combat. Swap the labels out, and you get a debate minigame, right? Well... that's what they assume, which is why their responses boil down to two categories:

• The (insert name) TTRPG does this,
• Players prefer social interaction to be freeform.

I tried the "social combat" rules before, and personally, I didn't like them. Maybe I was running them wrong, but it felt too stilted and unnatural.

So, no. I don't want Social Combat per se. You can keep your Duels of Wits in the Burning Wheel and other types of social combat. I'm not saying they are bad, they are just not what I seek.

Perhaps the mistake I made while running social combat was that I required players to say something with every argument. Welp, hindsight is 20/20.
Argument in the Council, by Concept-Art-House

"D&D is fine with no social interaction mechanics."

I'm sorry, but I feel tired when I hear this. The conversation in this case usually goes something like this:

"D&D is fine with no social interaction mechanics."

"But it does have social interaction mechanics."

"... yeah, I guess Charisma checks count."

"No, even beyond that."

"Like... the Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws?"

"No, like detect thoughts, telepathy, zone of truth, speak with dead, and so on."

My recent conversation on the topic with Cael was rather illuminating. His labels might not be what people universally use, but they do feel accurate to my experience discussing social interaction mechanics. The big distinction I was ignoring so far was what he labeled "mechanics" and "content". The way I understood his explanation, "content" is game mechanics that aren't shared by all the players. AC, saving throws, rules for hiding and grappling and moving around, ... all these are accepted by the players as "mechanics", whereas class features, racial/species features, backgrounds, spells, and other things that only some have are all considered something separate by the players, distinct from that, "content". I find the distinction silly, but it does line up with the conversations I had on the topic so far.

I don't want to make it a separate article section, so I'll say it here. I love and hate detect thoughts, and suggestion the same way I love and hate rogues in 5e. Each of these is too good not to take. Mind reading is a solution to 90% of Insight checks and/or interrogations, suggestions a swiss army knife of solutions for social interactions unless the target has an immunity to the charmed condition and Rogue... look, does rolling 20+ on (insert skill here) get you anywhere? Of course it does!

Information Management

Here's my hypothesis: the two main sources of drama are managing who knows what, and seeing what will they do about it. This is a formula I figured out a year ago when I wrote my first entry for the One Page RPG Jam 2023, though I don't remember if I spelled the formula out the same way I did here. Skimming some of the article, it seems I was thinking the same things back then too, though my experiment arrived at a different conclusion there.

So, what do I want? I want to give the players the tools for guiding social interaction, tipping the favors, and so on. Mechanizing what the players will do about information is pointless - that's already part of the game unless they are on a strict railroad. What the players need a lot more to generate drama and interesting social interactions are mechanics for information management - manipulation of what information is known to which people, and who knows about these people knowing this information. Some categories for these include:

• Information gathering without others knowing (eavesdropping*, hiding*, scrying/clairvoyance, invisibility, seeing through another's senses, hidden cameras/microphones/drones/familiars, hacking, analysis of online activity, ...)
• Information transfer without others knowing (whispers*, written messages, codes, hand signs, invisible ink, telepathy, lie detection, ...)
• Information gathering prevention (distraction*, darkness, making a person enter/leave a room, illusions, holograms, simple lies, forged evidence or documents, ...)
• Information transfer prevention (silence, shut down a device, ...)
• Mass information transfer (shouting*, online broadcasts, speakers/megaphones, mass telepathy, rumors, displaying something on the sky or somewhere else very visible, ...)

* I know these (and some others that aren't marked) are things people could do normally, but I knew these categories are broad enough to warrant listing, and it'd feel weird if they weren't listed there.

I'm not sure if these categories are sufficient or not, but so far it's looking quite promising. Of course, I could explore more, but I'm not sure if it's all that worth it. If I were to make the exact opposites of all categories, I would get: information gathering with others knowing (watching/listening without hiding it), information transfer with others knowing (openly stating something), allowing information gathering (so... not preventing someone from listening?), allowing information transfer (letting two characters talk?), and information transfer to a small number of people (talking). All of these are something people can already do, no special game mechanics are needed there.

That being said, how about we add some universal guidelines to social interaction? I tried to make up mechanics for the volume of sounds a couple months back for my own game, but I'm afraid they are too complicated. Time to come up with something simpler.

Earshot Rules

Sometimes it's unclear which of the PCs' words can be heard by which NPCs, so let's work on that. As a starting point, how about the baseline rule that I want to be true?

You can hear a conversation that takes place in a small room that you are in. You can hear whispers only if you are right next ot the whisperer.

In my systems, the room is a couple of areas, so "room" is more along the lines of theatre of mind. If the room is too big, you won't be able to hear a conversation that happens on the other side of it. Let's establish three types of environments, and how far away can sounds be heard depending on their volume in the environment:

Environment	Quiet	Moderate	Loud
Quiet sound	1	0	0
Moderate sound	3	2	1
Loud sound	5	4	3

The distance is measured in areas, which I've been using for my games for a while now. If the distance is 0, you need to be physically close to the source of the sound to register it, and actively listen to it to understand it. Decrease the distance by 1 for a Tiny source of sound, and increase the distance by 1 for a Large source of sound. I don't think I've posted formal definitions for those on the blog yet, so let's say for now that a Tiny thing can be easily held in a hand by a human, and a Large thing is one that multiple humans could fit into. Of course, at GM's discretion, exceptions can apply.

A simple way to turn the table into an equation is to start with a 2 (assuming both the environment and the sound are Moderate), and then apply the following:

• +1 if the environment is Quiet, -1 if the environment is loud,
• -2 if the sound is Quiet, +2 if the sound is loud,
• -1 if the sound source is Tiny, +1 if the sound source is Large,
• apply exceptions at GM's discretion,
• 0 if the final distance is less than 0.

Examples of sounds and environments based on the volume categories

• Quiet: silent room, whispers, footsteps, ...
• Moderate: a conversation in a casual volume, rainfall, ...
• Loud: shouting, speakers/megaphones, heavy machinery, ...

Let's see a couple of examples.

• A ball is happening at the king's palace (Moderately loud environment, +0), and your character is trying to eavesdrop on a conversation that the lords are having (Moderate sound, +0). One of the lords is Tiny in size though (-1), so to get the full conversation, you need to be (2+0+0-1=) 1 area away.
• At night, you break into a building that's closed for the night and empty (Quiet environment, +1). The cops are onto you though, so they are outside, using a megaphone to get your attention (Loud sound, +2). Despite it being Tiny, let's say the GM makes an exception and says it gets a +1 bonus instead because the device is literally made to be loud (+1). You can hear the cops (2+1+2+1=) 6 areas away.

Are the new rules simple? Somewhat. Are they easy? Certainly easier than what I originally wrote, the original rules would have you measure the volume of everything, comparing them and seeing which one is the loudest. Though I'll have to test this in practice and see if it's actually simpler or not and if it feels accurate. A speaker that can only be heard 6 areas away sounds rather mediocre for now, so we'll see. Maybe Loud sounds could spread without a limit in a Quiet environment, or maybe I could come up with a new category for loud sounds that would have no distance limit.

Social interaction is rooted in drama. Drama is about managing who knows what, and what they do about it. Players already have ways of deciding what to do about things, which is why I believe the social interaction pillar should be primarily about information management. Charisma could be neat for skipping unnecessary conversations, but then again it also decides the conclusion of an important conversation, so I want to drop it and give players tools instead. You may think you need to convince the guards to let you into the palace, but maybe they'll let you in if you feign a common hatred for (insert fantasy creature here). Maybe a merchant trying to blackmail you could be silenced somehow.

That's about it for my opinions on social interaction mechanics. I want them, and I've struggled for a while with coming up with them, but I feel like I have a decent framework right now. Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!

Concepts, Manifestations, and Archons

Let's go on a small trip down memory lane. It's been a while since I wrote something for high-fantasy worlds usable in a game like D&D. Back in June 2017 (I too am surprised how long I've been going), I wrote an article about souls. In it, I described genies as "souls lost outside of ethereal plane's reach that some element sticks to". Elements have always been a fascinating idea to me, and back then I only worried about addressing actual D&D things instead of coming up with my own ideas. In March 2018, I wrote an article about the senses. This one I admit is only tangentially related, you'll see it later. Later, in October of the same year, I wrote a cosmology article about Chained Realms. I don't think I actually played any D&D game that would explicitly take place in it, I just wanted an excuse to show off my cool new take on the elemental planes and how simple the cosmology could be. This is a crucial article for today's write-up. Last but not least, I wrote about the Tahjinn in March 2022 on Reddit. I made it because I knew that making the genasi more interesting would take very little effort.

All these things crossed paths in my brain when I read Izzy's simple question minutes into June 22nd:

Have y'all ever thought of the idea of an anti-elemental?

Concepts

Let's go from the ground level, just in case you forgot the theory written in articles from years ago. The significant part of the multiverse is covered by two transitional planes: Ether and Aether. Mortals named these, and they named these mainly because they found out about the Ether first, and then judged that Aether is its opposite. Aether is the realm that contains all of the elements: fire, water, earth, air, and spark. It also contains the mind, which is an animating force, though perhaps it can be treated as an element of sorts too.

Previously, I've said that the Ether is a realm of souls, as well as pure light and darkness. I think I've changed my mind on this, and it's time to build this up more. Let's start with a new term: Ether's realm doesn't contain elements, it contains concepts. They too have physical manifestations of sorts (listed alphabetically):

• Amber is a concept that encapsulates artistic and aesthetic ideas.
• Blood is a concept that encapsulates psychological and emotional ideas.
• Bright is a concept that encapsulates existential and metaphysical ideas.
• Crystal is a concept that encapsulates social and cultural concepts.
• Dark* is a concept that encapsulates ethical and moral ideas.

Similarly to how the mind is one of the elements technically, the soul is one of the concepts technically. An animating force is required, after all. There would be mixtures between the concepts too, but I didn't feel like coming up with those yet, because I have more exciting things to talk about. By the way, the concepts and elements would mix too, though I have no idea what would come of those unions.

I have a couple of notes on the above list, so let's talk about them.

Firstly, I've put the metaphysical and existential ideas into the Bright concept because of the senses article. Preception can be quite important to existence itself (something something quantum physics).

As for the Crystal, it refers to any kind of organized structure, not merely ice, salt, or gemstone.

Finally, I'm putting the morality and ethicality ideas under the Dark concept because I couldn't figure out a better place for it yet, and I didn't want to drop it. Sure darkness is just an absence of light, but in a fantasy context that can be ignored. Honestly, most of these are kind of placeholders, if I find something better I'm all in for replacing them.

Mystery is a strange thing. It cannot be held, yet it can be grasped. It cannot be seen and understood, for that undoes it. It is a fickle phenomenon, and yet it exists persistently throughout the universe. It is not an element, however, for it is not made up of molecules, atoms, or quarks.
Raziel, angel of mysteries, by Peter Mohrbacher

Manifestations and Archons

An elemental is a pile of elemental matter animated by a mind. Analog to that for the Ethereal planes would be a manifestation: a pile of conceptual matter animated by a soul. Angels are bright manifestations, fiends were formerly dark manifestations but now I'm not so sure. Crystal manifestations sound kind of like modrons, though I'd assume they would be more human-ish if that makes sense. Blood manifestations and amber manifestations would be just generally cool, even if I have no idea what those would entail.

When a mortal perishes outside of the reach of the Aether, somewhere in the Ether, their soul will travel wherever it needs to. That much I've made clear back when I wrote that article about souls I linked above. But what about their mind? If the souls go through a great recycling process, shouldn't the minds go through one as well? Now they do. And without access to the Aether, a mind will be stuck in the Ether. Conceptual matter will begin to clump around it, and what you'll end up with is an archon - a conceptual equivalent of a genie. I know, I know, archon already stands for a highly-ranking angel in D&D, I just wanted something that could share some sound with the word "archetype" but wanted to avoid using the label "archetype" itself for beings as numerous as genies.

Conceptual Mixtures

So let's give this a go. What could the mixtures of the concepts above be like as physical manifestations? I seriously doubt I'll get it all perfectly on the first try, but that's what happens when one treads an unfamiliar territory. It's going to sound silly, since we could map these to the already existing elements, but it is what it is.

Concept	Amber	Blood	Bright	Crystal	Dark
Amber	Amber	Paint	Glass	Mosaic	Ink
Blood	Paint	Blood	Dream	Wine	Venom
Bright	Glass	Dream	Bright	Prism	Shadow
Crystal	Mosaic	Wine	Prism	Crystal	Obsidian
Dark	Ink	Venom	Shadow	Obsidian	Dark

Following the same logic I outlined in the Chained Realms article linked above, we could thus deduce how would the different Conceptual Planes look.

• Conceptual Plane of Amber would have seas of ink and paint, with mosaic islands that have glass and amber structures on them.
• Conceptual Plane of Blood feels the most watery to me, so we could make the dreams in it a physical thing that one could stand on.
• Conceptual Plane of Bright (the closest thing to a fantasy heaven) would be made of glass lands and prismatic mountains, perhaps with liquid dreams as the oceans, but still with some shadow here and there.
• Conceptual Plane of Crystal feels the most like earth, but wine would make for an amazing ocean among all those hard materials.
• Finally, Conceptual Plane of Dark (the closest thing to a fantasy hell) would be islands of Obsidian among venomous ink, with darkness all around, and yet shadows that lurk within the darkness.

It ain't perfect, but frankly it's some cool mental imagery.

Air, earth, fire, spark, water, and mind. Five plus one elements. Amber, blood, bright, crystal, dark, and soul. Five plus one concepts. The multiverse is perfectly balanced, as all things should be. And it feels great, as long as you don't ask me what the difference between mind and soul is supposed to me. So far, I'm gonna claim it's the split between one's internal logic, versus emotional side.

Thank you for reading, and have a great day!