Page by Page: Gary Gygax’s DMG Part 7

Wow, it’s been almost two months since I updated the Page by Page series! I’d like to apologize to those who have been following this one. I really let it get away from me without noticing. This is the seventh installment of my continuing series on the 1979 Dungeon Master’s Guide, written by Gary Gygax. This post begins with the section “Special Types of Attacks” on page 70, and continues to the end of page 79.

To recap: This is not a review of the DMG. I am not attempting to evaluate its quality, nor the quality of the AD&D system. I am merely going through the book as a modern gamer, learning about the roots of RPGs, and making note when I see something surprising or interesting, or something which could be adapted for modern games.

Attacks With Two Weapons: I found this a little odd. “Characters normally using a single weapon may choose to use one in each hand (possibly discarding the option of using a shield).” The way I read that, it sounds as though characters who choose to dual wield might need to give up using their shield, but might not. Would they somehow wield two swords and a shield at the same time?

I’m not entirely sure what Gygax meant by this, but I find the imagery amusing. Perhaps he was making allowances for forearm mounted bucklers which don’t cover the wielder’s hands? Those existed, right?

Breaking Off From Melee: Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Attacks of opportunity? In my first edition? Apparently it’s more likely than I thought! I realize this isn’t exactly as comprehensive as the AoO in 3.x/Pathfinder, but it functions in much the same way. For so long I’ve heard old-school players complain that attacks of opportunity are part of the needless complication of the modern game’s battle system. And yet here I find pretty much exactly that. How curious!

Monk’s Open Hand Melee: I like this idea a great deal: a monk’s unarmed damage is only really functional against human sized, human-weight opponents. It recognizes the limitations of the human body, thus preventing monks from becoming wholly supernatural beings as they are in Pathfinder. Unfortunately, the way this limitation is notated is awful. Listing a max height and weight in the first place is too much work for the GM. I much prefer the kind of size categories seen in Pathfinder. And then, on top of that, to have the max height and weight increase incrementally at each level, two inches by two inches, is just obscene in my humble opinion. What is the difference between a 6’6″ humanoid and a 6’8″ humanoid?

I do quite like that undead who cause negative effects by touching their foes will inflict that effect on a monk who punches them. Gary seems to have envisioned the monk as a very interesting, but still grounded class. Using your fists as weapons has advantages, but there’s no attempt to make a monk’s fists as effective as a sword could be in the name of balance.

Actions During Combat And Similar Time-Important Situations: There’s a lot that I dislike about this section. I can understand and enjoy a game where the GM curtails excessive strategist by having events move forward around the players. Brendan frequently does this in our weekly OD&D game, and it keeps us from getting off track. It also adds a sense that the game is happening in real time, which is fun. Here, though, Gygax seems to recommend penalizing even slight hesitations on the player’s part. As a player, I try not to waste anyone’s time. But sometimes I need a moment to decide what I want to do on my turn, and I’d prefer not to be pressured into acting immediately.

But really, that’s just a nitpick compared to this passage:

In a similar vein, some players will state that they are going to do several actions, which, if allowed, would be likely to occupy their time for many rounds. For example: “I’ll hurl oil at the monster, ignite it, drink my potion of invisibility, sneak up behind it, and then stab it in the back!” How ambitious indeed. Where is the oil? In a pouch, of course, so that will take at least 1, possibly 2 segments to locate and hurl. If the potion is in the character’s back pack, 3 or 4 segments will be taken up just finding it, and another 1 segment will be required to consume its contents. (See Drinking Potions.) Now comes the tricky part, sneaking up. Assuming that the potion has taken effect, and that our dauntless character has managed to transfer his or her weapon back to his or her hand (for certainly all the other activity required the character to at least put the weapon in the off hand), he or she is now ready to creep around the fringe of the combat and steal up behind the foe to smite it in the back. If the space is not too crowded (remember, his or her friends can’t see the invisible character either) and the monster not too far away, the time should only amount to about a round or so. Therefore, the character’s actions will fill something over two complete rounds.
As DM, simply note these actions, and begin them accordingly. Then, when the player starts to give instructions about additional activity, simply remind him or her that he or she is already engaged in the former course, and that you will tell him or her when that is finished and new instructions are in order.”

No. I’m sorry, Gary. I love you, but that’s dickish GMing. To simplify the advice being given here: sometimes players will not understand the limitations of an action. If that happens, act as though they can do what they said they want to do, then pull the rug out from under them on their next turn.

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding what is being prescribed here. Maybe all Gary is saying is that the GM should be prepared to enact a player’s plans over the course of multiple rounds. If that’s the case, it’s a little bit odd, but whatever. Perhaps I don’t have a sufficient understanding of how combat works in AD&D. But this just doesn’t come off as good advice to me.

Example of Melee: For some reason, this is way more interesting to follow than any of the play examples I’ve read in modern books. Go figure.

Non-Lethal and Weaponless Combat Procedures: I like the idea that attacking players and defending players each get to roll a secret die, and then choose whether they’d like to apply it as a bonus/penalty to the “to hit” roll, or if they’d like to apply it as a bonus/penalty to the “damage” roll. That makes good sense to me as part of brawling combat. When somebody is kicking you in the balls, you can either bring your leg up to block it, or you can cup your hands over your balls and hope for the best.

Though, may I just say, this is more complicated as the grappling system in D&D 3rd edition. That system got a lot of grief, and rightfully so, for being obtuse and difficult to remember. But There are nearly two full pages about grappling here. None of this looks any easier or more enlightened than the mess which was 3rd edition grappling.

Thank goodness for Pathfinder’s combat maneuvers!

Combat Tables: Tables, tables, tables, tables, tables, tables, tables. On and on, from page seventy four through page seventy nine, filled with matrices to determine how difficult something is to hit.

I don’t like excessive matrices. They just strike me as poor design.

Colorful Characters 20: Melina Ayvon, The Apothocary

Melina Ayvon’s goal in life was to coast by as easily as she could. That’s why she applied to the wizard’s academy in the first place. She thought if she could control the fabric of the universe, everything else would be child’s play. She never anticipated quite how many long hours and sleepless nights were required to master even the most basic cantrips. To Melina’s credit, she wasn’t stupid. She managed to avoid much of the work expected of her for a time, skirting along at the bottom of her class. That couldn’t last forever, though, and before she’d finished her second year at the academy, she was expelled. She cursed the wizard’s college for spurning her, accusing the ruling council of elitism and bias against their slower-learning students.

One of the wizards of the college, an archmage named Edilon, felt sympathy for her. He’d seen her potential, and had felt for some time that the academy’s headmasters were becoming too elitist–though he could not know then that her claim was a selfish one born of humiliation, rather than a reasoned critique. Edilon took his leave of the academy, and went to the young wizard. He offered to tutor her in the mystic arts, and without any better options before her, Melina readily agreed. Over the years they spent together, Edilon showed remarkable patience, and for her part Melina put forth a greater effort than she had in the past. Though she never accepted any responsibility for her expulsion from the wizard’s college, she none the less realized that Edilon was her last chance to learn the mystic arts.

But Melina never tried to change her own nature. She was an immature girl who could not recognize her own flaws, and found no great joy in the study of magic. Though she applied herself, her resolve in this matter was finite. Over time, Edilon came to understand that his pupil’s talent would never be able to compensate for her lack of drive. Still, he pushed her, hoping he could draw a passion for study out of her. His patience only came to an end when he discovered Melina attempting to deceive him. For months the two had worked, trying to teach her a somewhat complicated spellcasting technique. She became frustrated with the time spent on the subject, and attempted to fool her teacher by hiding a wand up her sleeve so she could cast the spell more easily. Furious, and disappointed, Edilon rescinded his offer of tutelage, and cast her out of his tower. As she indignantly stormed away, Melina convinced herself that the old man had wanted her to fail, and so put a problem before her which was too difficult for her to solve.

With nowhere to go, she traveled south from the city to settle in one of the smaller villagers. There the moderate magic she possessed would be prized and feared.

Melina tried to settle in several communities, and they were always happy to have her for a short while. As she had predicted, the villagers were eager to make use of even her limited magical abilities. But it never took long before she found herself unwelcome. Her brash demeanor and privileged attitudes did not engender friendship among the townspeople, and her increasingly exorbitant demands eventually always led to the town asking her to leave. And in the next town, she’d tell stories of the how the last village she’d visited did not appreciate her, and how it was filled with rubes too frightened of a little magic to realize what a benefit she could have been.

It only took a few years for Melina to run out of towns to live in. On the furthest reaches of civilization, she was surrounded by woodspeople and hunters. Gruff folk uninterested in her petty conceits about her own importance, but willing to let her live among them so long as she didn’t bother anyone. The once proud mage set herself up as an apothecary, dispensing herbs and elixirs to the townsfolk, and adventurers who passed through the area.

More than once, Melina tried to join those adventuring parties. Each time she’d board up her shop and brag about the riches she would find, but she’d always be back soon enough. She’d say the party had tried to rob her, or that they’d been incompetent, or didn’t know how to stand away from the spell she was casting. Occasionally she wouldn’t say anything about why she’d left, which was fine, because nobody really cared anyway. She soon gave up on adventuring as well, resigning herself to a life peddling cures for rashes and bald spots. It’s not the easy life she wanted, but it’s the one she got. Sometimes she waxes poetical about how the world has wronged her and how her potential isn’t being realized, but the words are beginning to sound hollow even to her.

Melina Ayvon (CR 1)
XP: 400
Female Human Wizard 2
CN humanoid
Init +2; Senses Perception -1

Defenses

AC 13, Flat Footed 10, Touch 13 [10 + Dex(2) ]
hp 10 (2d6 +4)
Fort +2 Ref +2 Will +2

Offense

Speed 30ft
Wizard Spells Prepared (CL 2nd; Concentration + 5)(+1 Conjuration DCs)
1st– Mount, Summon Monster I, Unseen Servant
0 (at will)– Light, Touch of Fatigue, Mage Hand, Mending
Wizard Spellbook Melina’s spellbook doesn’t contain anything more than what is shown here. Learning more spells than she could prepare would be a waste of her time.
School Conjuration
Opposition Schools Enchantment, Abjuration
Conjurer Abilities
Summoner’s Charm (Su)— Whenever you cast a summoning spell, increase the duration by a number of rounds equal to half of your wizard class level.
Acid Dart(Sp):— 6/day, As a standard action you can unleash an acid dart targeting any foe within 30ft as a ranged touch attack. The dart deals 1d6 + 1 damage. Ignores Spell Resistance.
Arcane Bond: A pair of wings crafted from gold with a sapphire between them, mounted on a golden chain and worn about the neck.

Stats

Str 12 (+1) Dex 14 (+2) Con 15 (+2) Int 16 (+3) Wis 08 (-1) Cha 07 (-2)
Base Atk +1; CMB +2; CMD 14
Feats Scribe Scroll, Heighten Spell, Spell Focus(Conjuration)
Skills Bluff (+0), Craft(Alchecmy)(+8), Knowledge(Nobility)(+8), Knowledge(Nature)(+8), Spellcraft (+8)
Languages Common
Gear Fancy Red Robes, 4 ornate golden rings, 230 gold.

Apendix N: The Divine Comedy

It is ridiculous of me to sit here and pretend I can seriously write a piece about Dante’s divine comedy. I’m a second-rate blogger who writes about tabletop games; The Divine Comedy is one of the greatest classics of medieval European literature. It stands beside such epic poems as the Aeneid, or the Odessey and is no less remarkable than those masterworks. Even Dante’s own arrogance in proclaiming that his work stands next to Virgil and Homer’s does not diminish his achievement. It’s not pompous if you can back it up.

But I was recently asked not once, but three times by three different people, to write about the books which inspire me as a GM. As Brendan put it, my personal “Appendix N.” I’ve written extensively about the video games I am inspired by, such as the old Zelda, Dragon Warrior, and Final Fantasy games. If I’m being honest, this is probably because video games have had a more profound impact on my life than books have. I tend to read slowly, and I’m not as widely read as I feel I ought to be. I can fit in with the lit nerds when I want to. They accept me as one of them, but I have to say “Ya know, I haven’t actually read that one yet!” a lot.

But the Divine Comedy, and Inferno specifically? I’ve read the shit out of that. It has been a never ending font of inspiration to me since I first picked it up for a medieval literature class back in 2008*†. Dante’s description of Hell represents the most vicious and memorably fantasy I’ve ever experienced. And one which is remarkably simple to read for a piece written 695 years ago. Though, if you’re not an expert on 14th century Florentine politics, it helps to have a version with copious footnotes.

As most everyone knows, the story gave us our now-commonplace vision of a hell. It shows us a land of descending circles where punishments are ironically tailored to progressively more grievous sins. Dante himself is the story’s protagonist, who becomes lost while on a stroll, and finds himself on a road which can only lead through hell itself. He is accompanied on his journey by his literary forebear Virgil. There’s a hilariously self-indulgent scene where Virgil introduces Dante to the other great poets of history, and they accept him as one of them. Seriously. The bulk of the story is a collection of interviews as Dante meets hell’s sufferers, and speaks with them about their punishments. Some are figures from Greco-Roman mythology, while others are Dante’s personal enemies, or those of his family. A few are even friends Dante, and there are numerous popes found in hell’s lowest reaches, including one who was still alive at the time.

I don’t really care for the book’s morality, but that’s hardly surprising. I’m an atheist who grew up in a catholic household and made a conscious decisions to reject that system of beliefs. I think it’s pretty disgusting to assert that suicides, sodomites, and simonists need to be punished for all eternity. But I also believe that history ought to be judged within context. And just because I’m an atheist, doesn’t mean I feel the need to cut myself off from thousands of years of human art and culture, simply because it was inspired by philosophies I believe to be flawed. The forest of the suicides is one of the most beautifully haunting places I’ve ever seen in fiction. So much so that it featured predominantly in a game where my players chose to travel to the Abyss. (Though I did edit the purpose for the tree’s existence).

I think part of what makes the poem such a perfect source for inspiration is its breakneck pace. The plot is just a vehicle for describing the various environments and torments of hell. First Dante encounters “the Neutrals,” who were too cowardly to choose between good or evil in their lives. He describes them almost like zombies, “the woeful people who have lost the good of the intellect.” But Dante has barely finished speaking of them when Virgil ushers him forward.

He replied: ‘I will tell thee in a few words. They have no hope of death, and so abject is their blind life that they are envious of every other lot. The world suffers no report of them to live. Pity and justice despise them. Let us not talk of them; but look thou and pass.’
And I looked and saw a whirling banner which ran so fast that it seemed as if it could never make a stand, and behind it came so long a train of people that I should never have believed death had undone so many. After I recognized some of them I knew the shade of him who from cowardice made the great refusal, and at once and with certainty I perceived that this was the worthless crew that is hateful to God and to His enemies. Those wretches, who were never alive, were naked and sorely stung by hornets and wasps that were there; these made their faces stream with blood, which mingled with their tears and was gathered at their feet by loathsome worms.
And then, directing my sight farther on…”

That’s it. Dante glances over to see an impossibly huge group of people running along the shore chasing a banner (which, as I understand, represents self interest) and being tormented by hornets, wasps, and worms. Then he glances back to the path ahead of him, and moves on to the next terrifying sight. (Which, in this case, is actually just some people waiting by the shore, but you get the point).

I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone looking for hellish inspiration. The density of information makes this relatively short epic more useful than many of the sourcebooks I’ve read. Plus, having read it allows you to pretend you’re significantly more educated than you actually are. If you are interested, I suggest you get the translation by John D Sinclair. Not only does it have those copious footnotes which are helpful for understanding the politics in the book, but each Canto is followed by an insightful analysis which helps in understanding the nearly 700 year old writing style.

Oh, and by the way, Gustave Doré made some absolutely beautiful fantasy art based on the Divine Comedy. That’s what I’ve been posting here, but there’s tons and tons more. Check it out if you like fantasy art!

* On that note, every class I took with Professor Nicholas Margaritis is a source of inspiration for me. I’ve had the privilege of studying under some remarkable individuals, but none of them affected me the way that man did. I felt as though I personally failed him when I didn’t finish a reading assignment on time, and the single A- he ever gave me remains one of the most profound compliments I’ve received in my entire life.

† That’s also the year which Dante’s exile from Florence was finally rescinded by the Florentine City Council. So, ya know, you’re welcome, Dante.

System In Progress: LOZAS

My ladyfriend is 3 years younger than I am. It’s a little strange for me, since most of my relationships in the past have been with older women. And though the difference in our numerical ages is small, it sometimes feels as if those few years belie a massive generational gap. Particularly with regards to vidya games. My first console was an NES, while her was an N64, how does that even happen? The poor whippersnap missed the greatest era of gaming: the one I grew up with! I often become frustrated when I make a funny reference, only to realize she probably never used the Konami code, or blew dust out of a cartridge, or heard of games like Doki Doki Panic!

So what in Oerth does this have to do with tabletop RPGs? I’m getting to that. Be patient, geeze.

Recently, because my ladyfriend is pretty cool, she asked me to recommend an oldschool game. Probably because she was impressed by all those cool jokes she’s too young to laugh at. I considered carefully which game would be a good introduction for her, and unsurprisingly settled on my favorite of all time; The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. That game has had a defining impact on my life. It shaped my views on fantasy settings, and informed my opinions about what it means for a game to be ‘good.’ It’s the first game I ever wholeheartedly fell in love with, and that love is part of what originally led me to pursue writing. Hells, the “L” in my monicker stands for “Link,” and I’ve been known by that name for almost half my life. Even ignoring all of the personal value the game has for me, it’s still one of the most polished, well-designed games I’ve ever encountered. And since my ladyfriend is already a fan of the later Zelda titles, it’s about time she was introduced to a proper dark-haired link, rather than the boyband reject seen in more recent games.

Maybe it’s just nostalgia, but I think the game is best when played on the Super Nintendo, with that fantastic controller. But before I set her up with the cartridge, I thought I should take a look at it. The last few times I played through LttP I was either using a game boy, or an emulator. Because of that, my SNES copy hadn’t been used in a few years, and I remember experiencing some audio glitches the last time I played it. Plus, with the game being over 20 years old, I worried that the battery wouldn’t be able to hold a save any longer. So I drew the cartridge from its shelf, gently cleaned the connectors with alcohol, nestled it into the console’s bosom, and flipped the big purple power switch up with a satisfying “clack.*”

Yes. That is me. Dressed as Link for Halloween. I was a cool kid.

Yeah, she hasn’t gotten a chance to play it yet. I’m on the second-to-last dungeon in the game and having the time of my life. But again, what does this have to do with tabletop RPGs?

Well, one evening after I’d been playing, I was in bed with a notepad. I began to lazily jot down notes for a Zelda tabletop RPG rooted in the spirit of the pre-Ocarina of Time games. Those random notes quickly evolved into a project which I’ve dubbed the Legend of Zelda Adventure System, or LOZAS for short. It’s what I’ve been blathering on about for the past week. I originally didn’t want to be open about the source material I was working with, in part because I didn’t want to feel obligated to finish it. But it’s become clear to me that I want to take this seriously, so there’s no point in being subtle any longer. Though I don’t know if it actually counts as subtle, since I’ve been tweeting about ‘my zelda system’ every 15 minutes.

I confess, I feel more than a little arrogant announcing that I’m trying to adapt one of the most celebrated games of all time to tabletop. Who the fuck am I? I’m an untested, aspiring game designer. To be perfectly frank, I don’t think I’m up to the task. Oh, I’ll do my best, and I’ll finish the game, and maybe some people will like it. But this is just a goofy little project I started working on for my own amusement. When I do eventually finish LOZAS, it will be the first game I’ve ever designed from the ground up. And like any ‘first,’ it’s probably going to be terrible. But it will be a labor of love, and I can only hope that will help mask some of my inexperience.

So now that I’ve wasted 786 words telling you what the project is and how I came to work on it, why don’t I share a little bit about how the game is shaping up and what my goals are? That way future posts referencing the LOZAS system can at least have some context. While my list of goals is extensive, each one descends from this single goal:

Recreate the style and ‘feel’ of A Link to the Past in a tabletop environment, without forcibly including elements which are not well suited to tabletop play.

Given that, the question becomes: what is the style and feel of LttP? Exploring that question has been an ongoing process as I work on the game, but I do have my thoughts:

Dungeons Zelda games are about dungeons. Even though every game in the series has lots for the player to do outside of dungeons, the underworld is where the real meat of the game can be found. It’s where the player encounters the most varied enemies, finds the most interesting treasure, fights bosses, and achieves the most important quest-progressing goals. As such, the game will be geared towards exploring dungeons. Hyrule is an ancient land, where many forgotten kingdoms have made their home. It is riddled with dozens, hundreds, or perhaps even thousands of underworld citadels just waiting to be explored by heroes.

While dungeons can vary wildly, most dungeons will contain the following elements:

Lots of monsters.
Lots of traps.
Lots of treasure.
A wondrous item (discussed further below).
A heart container (discussed further below).
A Great Monster.

Great Monsters are special creatures within this world. In game terms, you would call them bosses. However, within the setting, they are monsters who have acquired an immense amount of power. They did this either by defeating their fellow monsters and rising to the top of the food chain, or by forging an alliance with a great evil being. Upon defeating a great monster, all the heroes who were involved in the combat gain a level. Defeating great monsters is the only way to advance in level in this game. There are no experience points.

Characters There are two big things about A Link to the Past which do not translate well to a tabletop environment. First, not every adventure can be set in motion by Zelda being kidnapped. Second, not every player can be Link. The former problem is up to the GM to solve, but I hope to give GMs a useful toolbox with my methods for creating dungeons and great monsters. The latter problem, however, is all on me.

Long story short, I’ve determined that the game will use only three classes. The Adventurer is the closest of the three to what Link would be. It’s a class with respectable fighting skills, but which focuses on special abilities. An adventurer can leap across long gaps, climb walls quickly, move without making any sound, etc. Soldiers focus purely on physical combat, and receive bonuses to their attack, damage, critical range, armor class, and battle maneuver score as they increase in level. Sages are the mystics of the game, and probably the class I currently find most interesting. At each level, the sage can permanently add one more spell to its repertoire. I’m doing my best to balance the spells at about the same power level, so that there will be no need for multiple “spell levels.” Each time a spell is cast, the sage must roll an ability check. They are currently allowed to fail the check a number of times per day equal to their level, after which they must rest before they can cast again. Though I worry this may become tedious at higher levels, even with a current max level of 10.

Numerical Simplicity There aren’t many bonuses or penalties in a Zelda game. Sure you might get an upgraded sword or new armor now and again, but the rest of your equipment provides a unique function rather than improving the effect of a function which already exists. So far, the only bonuses and penalties which currently exist in the game are either determined at character creation, or by a character’s class as they level up. The game will employ an maximum AC, and even at high levels health will likely be pretty low for most creatures. So including a lot of +1 items would just make the game messy. Instead, the game should be filled with items like a magic grappling hook which always finds something to latch onto, or a magic glove which lets you see through any wall you touch.

Heart Containers One of the staples of every Zelda game is heart containers. The player begins the game with 3 life. By defeating bosses, the player can gain heart containers which increase that life by 1. Minor as it may seem, I think this is a great idea to use in the game. A sword to the chest kills a great knight just as surely as it would kill a peasant. However, by delving into dungeons, adventurers can find magic items which absorb into their body, allowing them to survive wounds which would kill most people.

Those are some of the larger ideas which come to mind now. I’m sure I’ll continue to write about this project as it progresses.

*Seriously, why in the world did the SNES have such a loud power switch? It was as though Nintendo was trying to alert your parents of when you were playing rather than doing your chores.

Are Zocchi Dice Viable?

Upon going through my budget for the month I realized I had some spare money to spend on toys. After ordering a hardback copy of ACKS, as well as a kickass shirt, I decided to take care of something which was long overdue. I hunted down, and purchased, a set of Zocchi dice. For the uninitiated, Zocchi dice (named for their creator, Lou Zocchi) are role playing dice which are funnier than the funny dice we’re all used to. Every tabletop gamer quickly becomes well acquainted with the standard set: d4, d6, d8, d10/d%, d12, and d20. A full set of Zocchi dice includes a d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, and a d24. Mine arrived a few days ago*, and I’m rather in love with them. I think my girlfriend is getting really frustrated by the incessant clattering of my d5, as I roll it over and over again to marvel over the way it consistently lands on its edge. It doesn’t look like it should, and yet it does!

Long time readers may recall that I have something of an obsession with randomization, so gaining access to different ranges of numbers I can randomize is exciting. I will admit that zocchi dice lack some of the beauty inherent in regular polyhedrons, but in my opinion, they make up for that lack of inherent beauty by being examples of the beauty which is human ingenuity. Seriously, that d5, mang. It mystifies and fascinates me. I also have a more utilitarian need for the dice, since Dungeon Crawl Classic (which I received as a birthday gift) utilizes a full range of Zocchi dice, as well as a d30 (which I also purchased). Furthermore, while fiddling with the mechanics of the RPG system I’ve been working on, I’ve concluded that part of the game will work best if a d24 is used.

I think the last week’s worth of posts have referenced that project. I guess it’s pretty easy to tell what has inspired me to write recently. But after all of this talk, I’m going to look like a real dick if I’m not able to deliver, wont I?

The decision to include a d24 in my game has given me pause. While I have no delusions of grandeur about my project, I do hope I’ll be able to share it someday and get feedback from others. As it stands, this will be my first full-fledged attempt at game design. It’s hard enough to get people to pay attention to a sourcebook written by an untested designer. If people need to buy a new die to play the game, will they even bother? I wonder how Gygax and Arneson felt when they created a game which required a 20 sided die way back in the ’70s.

The relative success of DCC RPG would seem to imply that there is a market for games using non-standard dice. After all, the designers of DCC were able to get a wide release for not only one hard cover sourcebook, but a special edition as well. Given that, I have no doubt that it’ll be easier to release a game using Zocchi dice now than it would have been before. But I still wonder if I can get away with putting such a game out there, without it being completely ignored. It doesn’t help that a complete set of these dice is a pain in the ass to find.

I put it to you, readers: would you buy Zocchi dice if a game you were interested in required them? If you aren’t willing to buy the dice, would you be willing to play the game using standard dice to model the appropriate ranges? You could always replace a d24 with a d12 and flipping a coin. (heads is normal, tails add 12 to the result).

*My set, oddly, is missing the 7-sided die. Further research indicates that Game Science (Zocchi’s company) does not produce d7s using the same style or materials that they use to produce their other dice. I couldn’t figure out why this is, however, so if anyone has information I’d love to know!

Merciless Monsters V: LOZAS Skeleton and Popo

If you haven’t yet, there’s only today and tomorrow left to fill out the first annual Papers & Pencils survey! It honestly means a lot to me, so if you enjoy the blog, and you have a couple minutes, I would really appreciate your time!

It’s been a long while since I made a Merciless Monsters post. The Draugr were all the way back in March, and my only attempt since then was when I adapted Telecanter’s work in April. For awhile after the Draugr, I avoided writing another MM because they took so damned long to get done. Then I had my big rant denouncing Pathfinder’s complex methods of stat block creation. Since then I haven’t really been sure about how to approach making monsters. I figure I ought to come up with my own style of Pathfinder-compatible statblock which allows monsters to be built faster, but I haven’t gotten there yet.

So instead, I thought it would be fun to waste everyone’s time by working out some of the monsters for my in-progress LOZAS system. Below are two of the monsters which will appear in that game, built using the current iteration of the rules. First is the Skeleton, which I’ve included to serve as a connection between the tried-and-true (skeletons in fantasy RPGs) and the new-fangled (the LOZAS system). The other creature, which I’m currently calling a Popo, is a little more unusual, and to my knowledge hasn’t appeared in a tabletop RPG before.

None of these rules are quite pinned down yet, so these creatures may end up changing before I’m done. I’ve also added some commentary to the statblocks, to explain my reasons for making certain choices. Despite my joke above, I hope you find this enjoyable rather than annoying. The survey isn’t over until tomorrow, but a lot of people have noted that they’d like to read more about my amateur game design.

Skeleton

HP 8
AC 20
Body 10; Agility 26; Wisdom 3
Speed 40
Special Protection: Skeletons take no damage from piercing weapons unless it is a critical hit.
Special Weakness None
Attacks Claw (+5/1dmg); Throw Bone (50ft)(+8/1dmg)
Special Moves

Disengage: As an action, the skeleton may leap straight back 20-50ft. If there is a wall within that range, the skeleton is not harmed by colliding with it, instead gracefully sliding down the wall to land at the bottom.

Stealthy: A sneaking skeleton is able to move with complete silence, and hide itself within deep shadows. While sneaking, a skeleton can move at full speed. While hiding in deep shadows, it must remain still while it is being observed, or it will be revealed.

Description With magically animated joints the skeleton glides silently across the stone floors of a crypt. While the creature was once a person, all flesh and humanity have been stripped from it, leaving only a collection of bones with a fervent desire to harm the living. Skeletons are created either by powerful and evil sages, or by the sheer evil presence of a monster even more merciless than itself.

Tactics Skeletons much prefer to fight from range, breaking off spare bones from their rib cage and throwing them with deadly accuracy. If a skeleton ever ends up in melee range, it will sometimes attack with its claws, but its immediate reaction is to leap straight backward. Skeletons are not very bright creatures. They’re barely more than an automaton, with only a rudimentary understanding of friend & foe, and not much ability to think ahead. Clever players could potentially trick a skeleton into using its disengage ability to take a blind leap into lava, or some other dangerous substance.

Design Notes In this game, the the range of human ability can go as low as a score 2, and as high as a 22. Given that, the skeleton shown here has an average body score, extremely low wisdom score, and supernaturally high agility score. Lacking the constraints of flesh and sinew, skeletons are more flexible and fast than the world’s greatest gymnasts and runners. I’ve never liked the portrayal of skeletons as level 1 cannon fodder, possibly because of my love for the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts. My hope is to make them a little more menacing in this game.

While individual GMs are free to run the skeleton however they like, obviously, I thought it would be fun to play up the graceful aspect of the skeleton, making it a quick, stealthy foe. I particularly like the idea of skeletons being able to avoid melee range, thus allowing them to force their foes to use arrows–which they are immune to.

Popo

HP 2
AC 12
Body 16; Agility 11; Wisdom 5
Speed 30
Special Protection: None
Special Weakness None
Attacks Constricting Barbs (Auto-hit on entangled foes/1dmg)
Special Moves

Entangle: If a popo enters the same space as a target, then that target becomes entangled. The target cannot move until the popo is either killed or shaken free with a successful agility check. Once entangled, a target is vulnerable to the popo’s Constricting Barbs attack, which does not require any attack roll.

Description ‘A multicolored mass of wriggling tentacles with no other recognizable anatomy” is the simplest way to describe the popo’s appearance. While primarily colored in shades of orange and purple, a popo’s tentacles can fall anywhere on the color spectrum. The creature uses its bright colors and wriggling movements to attract potential predators. Once it is attacked, the popo latches on tightly, extruding small barbs which allow it to draw bloody sustenance from its would-be attacker. Even the strongest or most agile creatures find it difficult to rid themselves of a popo once it has latched on.

Tactics Popos are simple creatures who live in ‘clusters’ which generally range from 4-10. Often, members of a cluster will hunt separately. But when threatened, the creatures demonstrate remarkably unity by gathering together, and moving in union. In doing so, they cover a larger surface area than a single popo would, making it more difficult for attacks to avoid getting their feet entangled.

Design Notes I’m experimenting with mechanics which have ‘absolute’ results in this game. Above, you saw how the skeleton is almost completely immune to piercing weapons (as opposed to Pathfinder, where skeletons have DR/bludgeoning). The popo is another example of a mechanic with an absolute outcome: if the popo enters the same area as a PC, that PC is entangled. No saving throw or chance to avoid it. The player’s best chance to avoid being entangled by a popo is to deprive the monster of the opportunity in the first place.

You might note that all of the attacks mentioned deal a set amount of damage, rather than a dice range. At present, the game uses different rules for monsters and players in this regard. On the one hand, monsters can have any number of HP, and player weapons deal damage using a dice range. Players, on the other hand, start with only 3 HP, which can be increased one at a time by adventuring, and discovering magical items which allow them to resist wounds beyond what a normal human could sustain.

I don’t really like that method very much, but it’s what I’m working with for now.

Taking a Look at Called Shots

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Everyone who has played a tabletop RPG, loved the concept, and thought to themselves “Hey, I bet I could make a better system than that!” has come up with at least a few of the standard newbie ideas. These are the ideas that sound really good, but the trick is finding a way of putting them into practice in a tabletop environment. I was guilty of more than a few of these myself. If I ever find the notes for my Metal Gear Solid RPG, I’ll prove it to you. Many of the thoughts new players have revolve around injecting a higher level of ‘realism’ into the game, particularly with regards to combat. And while there are certainly some very good games with more realistic combat than D&D, it’s important to realize that abstraction is a gamer’s friend. Pointless realism can make an RPG about as exciting as doing your taxes.

One idea in particular I’ve heard a few times is separating a person’s body into segments. Something like left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg, torso, and head, each with their own hit points, armor class, etc. I won’t say that no game has successfully pulled this off before, because there are a lot of games I haven’t played. But, in my experience, where this idea always fails (and where most realism ideas fail) is in formulating simple mechanics. This level of realism implies a lot of complexity which can’t easily be made gameable.

But just because it’s not easy doesn’t mean it’s impossible, right? In the system I’m currently working on, I have two design goals which are relevant here. First, the game should be simple for the GM, and extremely simple for the player. The way the it’s taking shape right now, a GM should be able to completely explain character creation to a new player within about 5 minutes, after which the actual characters should be generated in half that time. The other relevant design goal is that I want to encourage mythical battles, where players must tailor their tactics to suit the creatures they are facing.

To that end, I’ve been thinking a lot about monsters with “weak spots.” There’s tons of literary precedent for that kind of thing. Such as Bard the Bowman firing his black arrow into the tiny area of Smaug’s belly where a single scale was missing. Or Odysseus and his crew ramming a spear into the eye of the Cyclops. I like the idea of a game where monsters are often completely immune or at least extremely resistant to standard forms of attack. A game where the players need to think: should we just attack the creature straight out, or should we attack its legs to see if we can slow it down? Pathfinder does this somewhat with DR, SR, etc., and older editions of D&D did it more so with monsters who couldn’t be hurt by weapons below a +X bonus. But I’d like to see a game where player skill could be used to overcome these difficulties, rather than simply needing better equipment.

I flipped through a mental catalog of ideas for how this could be accomplished, and came up with a few options. The one which stood out to me the most was using a type of called shot system. You may be familiar with this concept, as it often shows up in a splat book, or house rules. At its core, the idea is that instead of making a standard attack, the player indicates they’d like to attempt hitting a particular part of their enemy, in exchange for taking a penalty on their attack roll. It’s pretty simple, and when combined with GM rulings, I think it could work well at the center of a combat system.

So, what about a gradient of called shot difficulties which each increase AC by a certain amount, tied to the difficulty class? Using 3-5 levels of difficulty should keep things simple enough to prevent combat from being slowed at all. Additionally, if the rules can attach plenty of examples for each difficulty class, it would help GMs get a good picture of how real-world difficulty translates to mechanics, allowing them to make on-the-fly rulings without needing to consult the book. Consider, as an example:

Easy Shot, +3 AC: Arm, Leg. These are on the outside edge of a human combatant’s defenses, making them a simple target.
Moderate Shot, +6 AC: Belly, hand, head. These are smaller areas, or they are on the inside of a human combatant’s defenses, making them somewhat more difficult to hit.
Hard Shot, +9 AC, Finger, Eye, Mouth. These are really quite small areas, which would be difficult to hit even if the target was standing still.
Impossible Shot, +12 AC, eyes behind a visor. These would be impossible for any standard combatant to hit. It would be a great feat of luck or skill to accomplish this.

On a successful hit, the GM could decide based on the damage dealt relative to the creature’s total HP, what the result of the attack is. If the adventurer makes a called shot to an enemy’s sword arm, succeeds, and rolls 10 damage, the results of that could differ based on what percentage of the enemies’ total HP that 10 damage represents. For a foe with 100 hit points, 10hp is not a significant amount. It would be deducted from the enemy’s current HP normally, but would not have any additional effect. For an enemy with 50 HP, dealing 10 damage to their sword arm might give them a penalty to future attack rolls, or they might need to roll a saving throw to avoid dropping their weapon entirely. For a creature with only 11 HP, 10 damage to the arm would lop it clean off.

Bear in mind that there should be no exact or expected result here. The common sense of the GM should be the only deciding factor for the effects of a called shot. Nor should the damage be treated as cumulative. Each called shot to a certain area should be considered separately from any previous attacks against the same area. If the player wants to worsen damage which has already been done, then they’re not aiming for the monster’s arm, they’re aiming for the wound which is on the arm. That’s a much smaller target, and hitting it would be at least hard, if not impossible during the jostling of combat.

Aside from the on-the-fly rulings, monsters could have special weaknesses listed in their monster entry. A giant insect’s wings (easy shot) could take double damage from fire. Or a slime monster could be completely immune to damage unless you make the hard shot of hitting the brain which floats inside of its goo. Furthermore, creatures could have particularly strong defenses on areas which adventurers might commonly think to attack. A monster with giant eyes would probably need extra-tough eyelids that grants its eyes greater protection than the rest of it.

It’s just a thought experiment at this point, but I’m growing fond of using called shots as a central combat mechanic. Do you have any experience with a mechanic like this which could come in handy?

Investigating Ability Scores

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When you sit down to create an entirely new RPG from scratch, where do you start? I don’t know if there’s a particular method used by more experienced game designers, but the handful of times I’ve attempted it, I always start in the same place: how does the player create their character? It’s the closest thing to a ‘logical’ starting place that I can think of. Nearly every mechanic in every RPG I’ve ever looked at relates either to how the characters can affect the game world, or how the game world can affect them. And since the character needs to exist before it can affect or be affected, it seems like that’s the best place to start. So when I began making notes for the game system I mentioned yesterday, that is what I did.

From there, I chose to start with the most fundamental building block of a character: ability scores. I’m sure there’s a system out there where characters don’t have any of ability scores, and it might be really good. But, for my purposes with this game, ability scores seem like the best way to go. Then came my first real decisions: how many ability scores, what do they represent, and how are they generated?

I am most familiar with the D&D base ability scores. There are six of them: Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Numerous methods exist for determining the numbers associated with each ability, but all of them are just permutations on the original. The player rolls 3d6, six times. The basic score is a number between 3 and 18, weighted heavily towards scores of 10 or 11. When you look at OD&D or AD&D, it’s very clear why ability scores were set up this way. Rolling 3 dice makes the minimum and maximum scores very unlikely, so when a 17 or 18 is rolled, it’s a cherished event. Hell, I got excited when my OD&D Magic User Higgins rolled a 16 Intelligence. The maximum score of 18 also plays beautifully into the original “ability check” mechanic, where a player rolls 1d20 and compares it to the ability score they’re attempting to use. If the result of the d20 roll is less than or equal to their ability score, whatever they’re attempting succeeds. I love the way this mechanic makes the specific number of a character’s ability score significant, while also retaining an absolute 10% failure chance.

Modern versions of Dungeons and Dragons–including Pathfinder–retain the basics of this system, but have lost everything which made the systems elegant. By using larger dice pools, the game removes the rarity of high or low numbers. There are racial ability bonuses which can easily increase a character’s score to 20 at first level, and even extra ability points given to characters at every 4th level. This would kill that consistent 10% failure chance, if the ability check mechanic hadn’t been dropped in favor of rolling against a target number. As I understand it, D&D 4th edition dropped the die rolling aspect of entirely, using a ‘point buy’ system instead. The ability score range of 3-18 seems like nothing more than tradition at this point.

After seeing this example of a mechanic being used in a game where it doesn’t fit any longer, I wanted to make sure I didn’t just copy the system I was most familiar with. I needed to properly explore my alternatives, and thoroughly examining why a particular system was the right choice for this game. (Incidentally, this concern is what prompted me to question Reinventing the Wheel.) And what better way to explore my alternatives was to grab every game sourcebook I own, and look at how they handled ability scores, presented in no particular order.

Note that these are specifically from books I own, and not an exhaustive investigation into every system of ability scores ever used. I’ve also excluded the Adventurer Conqueror King and Dungeon Crawl Classic systems, since they both use a system based heavily on oldschool D&D.

The Deadlands RPG published in 1996 (which I picked up at a garage sale about a year ago, but have not yet taken a serious look at) has a whopping 10 ability scores, divided into two groups. There are the “Corporeal Traits,” which include Deftness, Nimbleness, Quickness, Strength, and Vigor; and the “Mental Traits,” which include Cognition, Knowledge, Mien, Smarts, and Spirit. Having not played the game it seems unfair to judge, but some of these seem awful similar to me. Deftness is defined as “Hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity. Great for shooting holes in things.” and Quickness is defined as “Reflexes and speed. Draw, pardner!” I get that there’s a difference, but is it really significant enough to add additional complication to a tabletop game? I would need a lot of convincing.

Ability scores are determined by drawing from a standard deck of playing cards, with the two jokers included. You draw 12 cards, discard 2. You then assign each card to one of your ten scores. The card is then compared to a chart. The number on the card determines which type of die you roll in association with that ability score, while the suit determines how many of that die you roll.

The game has a wild-west setting, so using playing cards as a mechanic makes sense. Aces & Eights did the same thing. But really it’s just a fancy method for assigning dice to abilities, and that idea has always interested me. The difference between having a 1d4 Strength and a 1d12 dexterity is a lot more interesting than the difference between a -2 Strength and a +4 Dexterity in Pathfinder.

The Serenity RPG was the first game I bought after D&D, but I still haven’t had the opportunity to play it! I blame none of my friends being big Firefly fans. And maybe it’s just as well–I’ve heard that the system is horribly broken.

Like Deadlands, the attributes in the Serenity RPG are die types, rather than numbers. Before play begins, the group selects which “heroic level” they’d like to play at, choosing from “Greenhorn,” “Veteran,” and “Big Damn Hero.” Each of the heroic levels has a different number of “Attribute Points” which are spent in creating a character. Again, they are divided into physical and mental, but with only 6 instead of 10: Agility, Strength, Vitality, Alertness, Intelligence, and Willpower. Dice are purchased for each of the scores, with each die costing a number of points equal to the number on its highest face. (A d6 costs 6 points, a d8 costs 8, etc.)

Personally, I’m not a fan of point-buy systems. I see their value as a means of balancing characters, but I find it far more fun when characters have a chance of being unusually flawed or gifted. None the less, I still like the dice idea. It’s something to think about.

Earthdawn is another system I picked up at a garage sale and never took a really look at. It appears to be more of a storytelling game, which is not my forte. Again it uses a sort of “point buy” system, ranging from 2-18, with the lowest numbers actually adding points to your pool if you take them. It also has an alternative method allowing characters to roll 3d6 for their scores. The actual scores are similar to D&D as well: dexterity, strength, toughness, perception, willpower, and charisma.

Whatever other interesting elements the game might have, it’s not particularly useful for this exercise.

Star Trek: The Next Generation RPG is notoriously bad. I couldn’t not buy it when I found it at a used book store a few years back, just for the sake of morbid curiosity. I’m honestly having a difficult time even understanding how this works. From what I can tell, there are actually only 5 attributes, which range from 1 to 5 for humans, and each attribute has two “edges” which a character can be particularly strong or particularly weak in. I honestly can’t decipher how this works by flipping through the book, but it seems similar to the WEG Star Wars RPG, which I’ll discuss below.

Gangbusters (first edition, 1982) has some seriously strange ability scores. It looks like each character has Muscle, Agility, Observation, Presence, Driving, and Luck. But each is rolled differently! For muscle, agility, and observation, the player rolls a percentile die. Modifiers go from +0 to +25, with a lower roll being better. The presence score is just rolled on a D10, with modifiers from 0 to 2. The driving score is the average of your agility and observation scores, and the luck score is just a percentile dice divided by two.

This is a mess. I don’t think there’s really any way to redeem it within the system’s mechanics. Though again, I should probably play it before I pass judgement. (If you haven’t figured it out: I own a great many systems I’ve never had an opportunity to play!)

I picked up the Batman Role Playing Game a little over a year ago because I found it at a used book store and was curious. Unlike some of the other RPGs I’ve picked up second had, I took a very serious look at it. My ladyfriend is a huge batman fan, and I had some fun ideas for a campaign where the players started out as thugs in Gotham city, constantly hounded by Batman. Unfortunately, I discovered that it was the worst system I’ve ever laid eyes on.

But lets stick to the attributes. This game has a nine of them. When I first read it, that seemed extremely excessive. But then, I hadn’t read anything about Deadwood yet. The attributes make up a cross-section, which I do find somewhat interesting. Three attributes are physical, three are mental, and three are spiritual. Of those, one in each category is an “Acting/Opposing” attribute, one is an “Effect Attribute,” and one is a “Resistance Attribute.” Once again, point-buy is used during character creation, so this isn’t of particular interest.

The Mouse Guard Roleplaying Game is god damned beautiful. It is based on the Burning Wheel role playing system, which I’ve had no prior experience with. Despite appearing to focus more on storytelling than gaming, the system is very interesting and I would like to learn more about it.

The game doesn’t have ability scores in the traditional sense, but it does have Nature, Will, Resources, and Circles. These can used and depleted through play, however, so perhaps this would be a good example of a system without ability scores.

Shadowrun, 1st edition, has 8 attributes for most characters, but has a 9th if the character is a magician. In some ways, this seems like a poor design choice to me. The purpose of ability scores, as I view them, is to be the most basic, fundamental, and universal expression of what a character can do. An Orc Barbarian who cannot cast spells still has an Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma score.

But, on the other hand, I can see this making a certain amount of sense in a setting where mystical abilities are completely inaccessible to those who were not born with them.

The way attributes are generated is also interesting. It’s a point-buy system, with some complexities that are a little reminiscent of Gangbusters, but much more refined. There are five columns to choose from in creating a character from scratch: Magic, Attributes, Skills, Tech, and Race. The player is given five importance ratings, 0 through 4, and they must assign one rating to each of the five columns. They will receive more or less resources in each of the five categories, depending on how important they rate them. Giving attributes an importance rating of 0 gives you 15 points to spend, while an importance rating of 4 gives you 30 points.

The six physical and mental attributes can each range from 1 to 6 for humans. The three mystical attributes each work a little differently. All characters start with an Essence of 6, which decreases as they add cyberware implants, or if they are healed improperly. Reaction is the average of Quickness and Intelligence, but is also reduced by cyberware implants.

Magic rating is the ninth attribute which only magic users posses, and I don’t actually understand why it exists based on these rules. It starts at 6, and “declines with essence rating.” I can’t figure out why they would need a seperate ability if–by all appearances–magic should always be equal to essence. But as I’m not intimately familiar with the system, I’m sure there’s something I’m missing.

Traveller (2008, Mongoose) has one of the coolest character creation systems ever, wherein the players must make a number of decisions and roll on a number of charts to generate their character’s entire lifetime prior to the point that play begins. Rolling the six basic ability scores, however, is straightforward. Roll 2d6 six times and assign them in any order. It’s simple, but works.

I like the idea of using two dice to generate an ability score rather than 3. The roll is still weighted towards the center, but both high and low scores will be more common.

And lastly, we come to the West End Games Star Wars Role Playing Game. I love this game. And, as it turns out, I’ve written about its ability scores before. So if you don’t mind, I’ll just quote myself:

WEG Star Wars characters have six basic attributes; Dexterity, Knowledge, Perception, Strength, Mechanical, and Technical. Each of these has a certain number of six sided dice attached to it during character creation. (WEG Star Wars only uses six sided dice.) For example, a human character gets 18 dice total, and has a minimum of 2 dice and a maximum of 4 dice in each of the six attributes. After filling the minimum requirements, players have 6 dice to spread between their six abilities. Once in play, any action which requires a roll will be associated with one of the six abilities, and the player gets to roll however many dice they allocated for that attribute. For example, hitting something with a blaster requires the ability to aim the blaster accurately, so you would roll your dexterity. If you went ahead and maxed out your dexterity, then you’d be able to roll 4d6 against your opponent’s dodge. And if he or she rolls lower than you did, the blaster bolt hits! And given how dangerous combat is treated in this game, there’s a good chance getting hit by that blaster bolt killed them.
There’s also a skills system for more specific tasks. Each character starts out with 7 dice to apply to skills. So even though you have 4 dice in dexterity, you could put another 2 dice in the Blasters skill, and be able to roll a whopping 6 dice whenever you try to hit somebody. Dice can also be split up. Each die counts as 3 “pips,” which is WEG’s code for bonuses. Essentially, if you’ve put 2 skill die into blasters, 3 into medicine, and 1 into starfighter piloting, and can’t decide where to put your last die, you can just break it up. Add a +2 to starfighter piloting (making the skill 1d6 + 2) and a +1 to blasters.

The system is elegant, and beautiful. Despite using what is essentially a point-buy system, it doesn’t feel bogged down with number crunching, nor do you ever feel obligated to build an “optimized” character.

This has been a weird post. When I started it, my intention was to examine all of these different game systems, and figure out how their use of ability scores could be adapted to the game I’ve been working on. Instead, I’ve really just listed all the different systems I found next to one another, with some commentary attached.

This might be a bad post…but it doesn’t seem bad to me right now, at 1 in the morning. Maybe I’ll feel differently later, but I’ll let you be the judge.

Reinventing the Wheel

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During my spare time for the last few days, I’ve been working on a new game system. It’s not a particularly ambitious project, nor am I taking its development very seriously, but I was struck by inspiration and have enjoyed putting those ideas down on paper. Whether or not I’ll ever finish this project, I don’t know, but for the time being it has been an entertaining process. Going through the motions of putting an entire system together from scratch has given me a new appreciation for the challenges involved, and raised a few questions I don’t think I would have considered previously.

Many of the mechanics I’ve come up with for this game are unique in my experience. I’ve never played another game where all spells are equally powerful, or where additional hit points are gathered as treasure. I’m not saying nobody has ever done it before, I’ve just never seen it myself. For a lot of mechanics, I have specific ideas about how they should work, and how I will adapt them from my source material. For other mechanics, however, I…well, don’t.

Take combat, for example. There’s something you want to kill, so you attack it with a weapon. This is a fundamental part of fantasy adventure games, and most everyone would agree that it requires a resolution mechanic. Unless you want to stand up from the table and start LARPing, you need a standardized procedure to easily determine the success or failure of an attack. Personally, I’m from the school of thought which says that since war is chaos, a wide variance of random probability is appropriate when determining the success or failure of an attack.

I’ve seen this handled a couple different ways in the various games I’ve played, but I am most familiar with the method D&D, and later Pathfinder, have used since their beginning. Every player and NPC has an ‘Armor Class’ number representing how difficult they are to hit. The attacker must roll a twenty sided die, and if their result is equal to or better than their target’s AC, the attack is successful and damage can be rolled. Various editions have had more or less complexity on top of this basic system, but the fundamental mechanic has remained unchanged from the early days of OD&D. Why change what works, after all?

This is one of the problems I’ve encountered while developing this game. For some things, including conflict resolution with regard to attacks, I don’t have any ideas better than the ones which have been used in D&D for decades. And while I wouldn’t go so far as to call using D&D’s attack roll system ‘plagiarism,’ there is something that feels wrong about it. If I use a mechanic someone else came up with, without adapting it to make it my own, then am I really making my own game, or am I just regurgitating something that already exists with a few superficial tweaks?

It’s not as though it would be difficult to come up with a reasonably unique mechanic, either. Just off the top of my head I can think of a few different ways to handle this kind of conflict resolution. The attacker and the defender could make opposed rolls, which would increase the chaos of battle. I could replace the 20 sided die with a 30 sided die. Perhaps the attacker doesn’t even make a ‘to hit,’ roll. Every attack immediately results in a damage roll, and every character has a minimum amount of damage which must be rolled in order to hurt them at all. Or perhaps “defense” and “attack” numbers are static, and can only be modified with clever tactics described to the GM. Give me 30 minutes and I’ll give you a dozen more ways it could be done.

But would any of them be better?

I would have to be stupid to be different, simply for uniqueness’ sake. It’s possible I’ll think of a mechanic which better suites the tone aiming for than the D&D attack roll does. It’s also possible that I won’t, and if that happens, then why should I shoehorn something different into the game just so I don’t feel as though I’m being derivative? I believe that every choice made in game design should be made because the designer believes it improves the way the game plays. I can’t think of any other consideration which matters at all by comparison.

True as that may be, however, it doesn’t stop me from feeling bad when I lift something wholesale from another game. Even a game as time honored as Dungeons and Dragons.

Lively Locals 6: The Godstone

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A bag of holding is a coveted prize for an adventurer. In one small sack, a person can carry an entire armory of weapons, more potions than a wizard could brew in a year, and enough riches to buy a kingdom. Never does the bag grow in size, or become any heavier than a skin filled with water. Few know how these marvelous devices work, but the truth is that each bag accesses a small pocket of the Astral Plane. The infinite nothingness which flows between the dimensions, holding them together into a single multiverse. Each bag of holding is a small portal into a pocket of that void.

As precious as these items are, they’re also a great liability. It’s a simple task for a thief to rob you of your entire fortune, if you’re foolish enough to put it all in one place. Thieves are not even the greatest of an adventurer’s worries. A far greater danger is that posed by a stray blade, or arrow. A whizzing bit of steel which, while it may fail to harm the adventurer, damages their bag. When a bag of holding is broken, it does not simply split as a bag of canvas would. A bag of holding implodes, sending its contents whirling into the astral plane in all directions, and the unfortunate adventurer will be lucky if they’re not sucked in along with their lost treasures.

Over the centuries, countless bags have burst into the astral plane. Since the acquisition of such a bag in the first place is a dangerous–or at least expensive–proposition, the items contained in them are often quite valuable. Powerful magic items and artifacts float aimlessly throughout the vast nothingness.

But the astral plane is not entirely empty. Planar travelers use the astral plane as their road between worlds. The alien Githyanki even call the astral plane their home. There are many astral phenomena as well. Young wizards preparing to travel the planes for the first time are warned of the dangers of sonic rain, and transformative clouds. Worst of all is the bridge lightning. Arcs of energy which are drawn towards physical matter. They appear as if from nowhere, and move so quickly that by the time the eye has seen them, they are already gone.

If a person can survive the shock of being struck by bridge lightning, they’ll suddenly find themselves somewhere completely different. The lightning draws anything it touches to an area of intersection, where the astral plane overlaps another plane. Whatever the lightning strikes is unceremoniously dumped into a seemingly random spot somewhere in the multiverse. It is said that the astral plane’s natural state is emptiness, and the gods created the bridge lightning to enforce that.

Lost treasures are far more numerous than travelers in the astral plane, though. The lightning is often drawn to a mighty sword or magic potion lost by an adventurer who trusted their magic bag a little too much. Sometimes the items fall into the fires of hell or the endless fields of Elysium. Occasionally, they even end up in the depths of a dungeon, only to later be found by another adventurer. And other times, the items are zapped to a rock.

It’s not a particularly interesting rock. It’s just a stone in the middle of a field, which happens to intersect with the astral plane. Every so often, some item appears on the rock without warning. One day, a magical sword might appear, and six months past that, a dozen gold coins. A week after, a collection of goblin teeth, then a year later a powerful suit of plate armor.

A century or so ago, a clan of nomadic orcs were wandering through the wilderness, and came upon a small pile of gold and other treasure. They fell upon it eagerly, and took it as an omen that they should make camp around the stone. They intended to stay only a few weeks, but while they were there, they noticed that magical marvels continued to appear. The shamans declared the rock to be a manifestation of the orcish god, and the tribe cast off their nomadic ways to remain with the godstone.

To this day, the Tribe of the Godstone guard their land viciously. They are impossibly wealthy and well equipped, and eagerly offer outsiders as sacrifice to please their deity.