The Goblin Bazaar is located in the first room on the second sublevel of my Five Years Leftmegadungeon. All manner of useful things can be found for sale there, but the prices are exorbitant, and any treasure traded to the goblins does not earn experience points for the players. None the less if they see something they want, it’s best to pounce on it, because each session I generate an entirely new inventory by rolling 3d6 and consulting the tables below:
Among all of the…
Cracked ceramic [subject]s, soiled mattresses, and jars of [animal bits]
Rotted [produce], sticky children’s toys, and sacks of [filler material]
[Fad instructional][Media], crumpled dorm room posters, and water damaged [genre] novels
Jewelry made from [Trash], board games with missing pieces, and boxes of [papercraft]
Horrid smelling [clothing], pencil nubs, and empty [food containers]
Branded [junk swag], lidless tupperware, and [holiday][junk you’re meant to throw out]
explosives (d6): Frag grenade, flash grenade, smoke grenade, door buster, fire bomb, demolition explosive
single-use magic: something like a potion, powder, thrown glass ball, etc.
quest hook (d4): treasure map, item desired by an NPC, information broker, item to exploit a monster’s weakness
The prices are…
Items from the first table cost d6 x 5r. Items from the second table cost 2d6 x 100r Items from the third table cost 2d6 x 20r
(The “r” here stands for “Ration,” which is the base unit of currency in Five Years Left.)
Of primary concern when I was writing this is that the whole system had to fit on the bottom 20% of a sheet of graph paper. Any more than that and my rules reference would take up more than a single page. As such, I’ve used shorthand which is probably less clear to others than it is to me. Below are six examples which ought to clarify what results from these tables look like in practice. To cover as much of the table as possible I assumed that triples were rolled for each example (111, 222, etc.) In practice the results would usually be more diverse.
111: Among all of the cracked ceramic angels, soiled mattresses, and jars of pig’s tails, you find a clean and functional AK-47. The malnourished goblin clinging to it explains that she spent all her food money to buy it, which didn’t seem like such a bad idea at the time. Hungry as she is, the weapon is precious to her, and she will only part with it for the exact price she bought it for: 900r. You also discover a derringer beneath some greasy napkins. You only have a moment to examine it before the goblin seller snatches it away, and insists you can’t have it unless you pay 140r.
222: At first it seems that there’s nothing here but rotted cabbages, sticky children’s toys, and burlap sacks filled with sawdust. You’re about to give up when you discover the 4th level OD&D spell “Growth of Plants.” It’s written in a gilded journal, and was obviously the prized possession of some long dead wizard. The goblin who owns it has no idea what it is, but is confident that it must be worth at least 700r. Shortly thereafter you also find the 3rd level OD&D spell “Water Breathing,” carefully written out on a roll of toilet paper. You shudder to imagine what circumstance led to that particular spell being written on that particular medium. The goblin who owns it knows exactly what she has, but every time she looks at it she gags. She wants it out of her sight, and will sell it for the low low price of 180r.
333: Sifting through old jazzercise CD-ROMs, crumpled dorm room posters, and water damaged western novels, you come upon a sophisticated prosthetic leg. Someone has painted a racing stripe up its side. The goblin selling the thing rests on crutches, and laments that the leg was not as good for racing as they thought it would be. They’ll part with the thing for 600r. Meanwhile, another member of the party uncovers a cordless egg beater beneath some of those dorm room posters. The goblin selling it assures you that it is a fearsome weapon, and a total bargain at only 80r.
444: Beneath a heap of necklaces made from tin can tabs, stacks of board games with missing pieces, and several boxes of beige business cards for something called a “Sales Associate,” the party discovers a chain mail coif which has been ensorcelled such that the wearer gains the ability to speak with fish. The goblin says all the fish he met were terribly rude, and so is willing to part with it for a mere 600r. Nearby, a maternal looking goblin wrestles a napalm explosive away from a smaller goblin, holds it up high, and desperately asks if anyone will buy it before her kid kills someone. The melodrama is probably a sales scam, because she refuses to part with it for less than 280r.
555: Shoving aside racks of mildew-smelling jorts, heaps of pencil nubs, and stacked displays of empty soup cans, you discover an carafe of glowing liquid which, if consumed, will cause the imbibing character to gain a random mutation. The goblin selling it–who has a baby’s arm growing out of his forehead–insists that all the mutations are all cool and beneficial. He wants 400r for it. Another goblin shoves the first aside, holding up a wooden box with a ceramic key inside it. It’ll open any door you want, but it’ll break when you use it. A much better bargain, and more reliable, than that gross mutation juice. Only 100r!
666: After picking your way through the branded letter openers, lidless tupperware, and hollow plastic Halloween weapons, you find a tattered pair of Boots of Elvenkind, which a goblin hates because she can’t make noise in them no matter how hard she stomps around. She wants them out of her sight for a measly 400r. As you browse about further, a goblin in a trench coat pulls you aside. They say they know things. Many things. Is there something you want to know? They probably know all about it. They’ll tell you what you want to know, for a price… Specifically for 180r.
Obviously there’s a bit of finessing involved in producing these results, which is why I generate them outside of play. In general I prefer to avoid committing myself to systems that require out-of-session prep, but this is the sort of creative work I find both enjoyable and easy. It’s just improvising details around a set of random seeds. In a pinch I could do it mid-session, but in fact I enjoy it so much that I’ve already got the next 10 weeks of Goblin Bazaars pre-generated.
And that’s it, that’s the whole system. Now I’m gonna work backwards a bit and talk about why I made the decisions I did.
What benefit is there to this sort of randomly populated item shop?
There are three major benefits. First is that we’re playing a game where the goal is to get money. The referee can tax that money by requiring the players to pay for repairs, or healing, or training, but they also gotta have some fun stuff to splurge on. This is doubly important in a megadungeon like this one, where the play is focused in a way that precludes traditional domain building. A bazaar with a random and rotating inventory offers the players some fun tools and toys to get excited about, while avoiding the dreaded opening of the flood gates typically associated with magic item shops.
Second, placing a single-session time limit on items adds an interesting pressure to the game. Does the party want to spend money to buy the mid-tier item that’s on sale this week, or do they want to hold on to their money in case there’s something better next session? Or perhaps the bazaar has a truly great item for sale which the party can’t afford. Now the players have a ticking clock which forces them to push and push to collect enough treasure to buy this great item before the session ends, and it is lost forever.
Third, I am ever the advocate for randomizing anything which can be randomized. It forces everyone–players and referee alike–to adapt. For example, a group which usually relies on brute strength will look at problems differently if they just got a really good deal on some potions of invisibility. That sort of adaptation to circumstance is a huge part of what makes this game fun for me. I want to encourage it whenever I can.
As an aside, I was halfway through writing this post when I realized it wasn’t the first time. This is an idea I’ve been iterating on for years now. It started way back with Thracle’s Emporium in Brendan’s Pahvelorn, which I adapted for my paleolithic D&D&LB campaign as the Caravan system. Later I would adapt the idea further into the Curio shops that were scattered around ORWA. This latest take on the concept, the Goblin Bazaar, feels strikingly more mature to me. I’ve used it for several sessions already, and I love it. It’s sleek, it drives play, I am sincerely proud.
Why doesn’t money spent at the bazaar earn experience points for the players?
The in-universe fiction is that the player characters are from a destitute settlement, which only has five years of supplies left before everyone dies. Bringing fresh resources out of the dungeon and into the settlement is an act of real heroism. It gives hope to the hopeless, and extends the life of the town. That’s what I award experience points for. Spending those same resources on Goblin junk is pretty selfish in comparison.
The real life explanation is that I’ve spent several years running high level domain play in my On a Red World Alone campaign. I’m a little burned out on that sort of thing, and would like to indulge in an extended period of grotty dungeon delving. It suits my purposes well if the players’ levels advance at a snail’s pace.
Why is the first table full of useless junk!?
It may seem silly, but the junk table is one of the biggest advantages the goblin bazaar has over my earlier efforts. When using the caravans or the curio shops, I presented them to players as being filled with all manner of interesting things, then listed the few objects that were meant to be player facing. Inevitably, if the items on offer didn’t interest the group, they’d ask “So…what else is here?”
It’s a perfectly reasonable question when the referee has described a shop that is filled with a great variety of wonders. In my head all that other stuff was supposed to be useless junk. Gewgaws for eccentric rich people. But I’d said it was there, so I was stuck improvising whole inventories that felt appropriate. Again, inevitably, something I listed would spark interest among the players, and we’d all get dragged down this rabbit hole of them trying to figure out a good use for a set of 500 year old encyclopedias. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you there have been sessions where the party spent fully two hours sitting in a curio shop.
It was tedious. I may sound petty for saying so, but this has been a source of real frustration for me. In contrast, the goblin bazaar is framed as a heap of garbage where the players are lucky enough to find a couple cool things.
Why Goblins?
Because it gives me a regular excuse to perform as a malevolent toddler in front of my players.
Also, because goblins are just toddlers, I am fully justified in the bazaar being filled with junk, and everything being sold for wildly inconsistent prices.
Before I go, I ought perhaps answer “Where are those dungeon prompts that were supposed to follow the megadungeon post?” Well, if you’ve ever wondered how to ensure a project hits a stumbling block, all you’ve gotta do is tell people it will be done soon. The set of six d100 tables I mentioned in my last post are still in the works, but it’s an immense undertaking. They will be done some day.
I hope everyone is taking care of themselves and the people around them. Respect and solidarity to the brave protesters in Portland, and all across the U.S.
Edit:One of my players was incensed to discover that her favorite Goblin, “Muscles,” was not mentioned or depicted anywhere in this post. To maintain the harmony of my game table, I will accede to her demands that Muscles be included:
Often, I write a post as a means of working through an idea for the first time. Forcing myself to explain the idea gets my thoughts in order. Later, the idea develops further through play, and within a few sessions the rules I’m using are markedly different from what I’ve got posted up on the blog.
This isn’t the worst thing. Blogs posts aren’t meant to be sourcebooks; they’re meant to be part of a community-wide conversation. None the less, it’s not ideal. I often want to post updates to older posts, which I don’t mind doing if there are a ton of changes to what I originally wrote, but seems like kind of a waste when the changes are less dramatic. As a middle ground, I figure I’ll address multiple old posts at a time.
I’ve been tinkering with this approach to social encounters for half a decade now. As such, my changes here are quite small. The numbers have been tweaked by playtesting, and a few special cases are called out explicitly.
Attempting Parley
When a potentially hostile encounter occurs, the referee should first determine surprise. If one party surprises the other, attempting parley would require them to sacrifice that advantage.
Parley begins with the players making a social roll, which is 2d6 + any relevant modifiers (such as Charisma). This first roll determines 3 things:
1. The number of exchanges the NPCs will tolerate before they want to leave. The referee should write it down and tick off 1 for each back-and-forth that occurs. (“How are you?” “I’m doing well.” counts as a 1 exchange).
2. The disposition of the NPCs towards the party, determined by comparing the result to the first column of the table to the right.
3. The success or failure of whatever the party’s opening social action was.
Social actions fall into four basic categories: Banal, Give, Take, and Convince. Any time the players say something, consider which of these four it most closely fits in with. If it’s anything other than banal, it will require another social roll.
Banal actions are simple conversation: trivial questions, small talk, and other minutia. They have no chance to fail, and thus require no roll. That’s not to say they’re useless, it’s just not interesting for them to have a failure chance.
Giving actions are those where the party attempts to ingratiate themselves to the NPC. To make themselves more liked. It may take the form of telling a joke, offering compliments, giving gifts, or just listening attentively.
<8: The NPC is unimpressed. 8-10: The NPC enjoyed that. +1 to your next social action. 11+: The NPC likes you. +1 to their disposition.
Taking actions are attempts to get something out of the interaction. Specifically something the NPC may be hesitant to give. This roll covers things like negotiating an agreement, requesting aid, asking a sensitive question, intimidation, bribery, etc.
<4: You’ve upset the NPC. Disposition drops 1 category. 4-6: The NPC refuses you outright. 7-9: The NPC will meet you halfway. 10-11: The NPC agrees to what you want. 12+: The NPC agrees, and offers to do a little better than what was asked for.
Convincing actions are attempts to bring the NPC around to a viewpoint different than the one they currently hold. Used for making arguments or telling suspicious lies. These are difficult to succeed at, and risky to attempt. People don’t like it when you try to change them.
<5: Disposition drops by 1 category. 5-7: Disposition drops by 1. 8-9: The NPC is unconvinced, but not insulted. 10-13: The NPC is swayed, but needs some proof. 14+: The NPC accepts what you said wholeheartedly.
Social encounters are a many-faceted beast which defies being resolved by any simple chucking of dice. This system is not meant to dictate what a social encounter can be. Rather, it’s a baseline which can be adhered to or deviated from in whatever way serves the game best.
Just as they would with combat, the players should look for ways to gain advantage. The referee should imbue the NPCs with their own goals and desires. Penalties and bonuses should assessed where appropriate.
I still like all the stuff I said about the Three Step Conversation and the difference between a Quick and an Involved Deviation. It’s just the hacking system itself that needs to be updated.
There are some minor tweaks to the numbers, and I’ve dropped a few elements that didn’t turn out to be useful at the table. The biggest change is to how failure is handled. The original alarms were too lenient, and assumed the party would always be afraid of their hacks being discovered, which often isn’t the case. If your’e hacking the computer in a long forgotten techno-dungeon, the idea that the hack will be discovered by the police a week from now is not anything to worry about.
Basic Computer Design
Computers have a security rating between 2 and 6 (inclusive) which indicates how difficult it is for a user to do something they’re not supposed to do. Optionally, the referee may want to prepare a list of what information or devices the computer has access to. Just as easily, this can be done using common sense fiat at the table.
When To Roll a Hacking Attempt
Unless players are using a personal computer or a public terminal, they’ll need to make a check just to log on. From here, they can access basic information about the computer’s systems, what it’s connected to, and what type of data is stored on it. Most of the really interesting stuff will require further hacking checks.
For example: reading someone’s personal files, downloading those files, altering the computer’s settings, activating a device connected to the computer, uploading a new program, erasing security footage. Each of these would require a new hacking check.
Making a Hacking Check
Untrained characters have a hacking skill of 2d6. Training adds additional dice to the pool up to a maximum of 5d6. When attempting a hack players roll their entire pool. Each die showing a face equal to or greater than the computer’s current security rating is a success.
Rolling no successes means the hack has failed, and the security rating is raised by 1.
Rolling a single success means the hack has succeed, but it was done sloppily, so the security rating is still raised by 1.
Rolling two or more successes means the hack has succeeded, and the security rating does not change.
If the security rating is raised to 7, the computer completely locks down and it becomes impossible to attempt any further hacking.
If the security rating was raised at all, it will eventually be noticed by whoever owns the computer. Depending on circumstances, they may be able to identify who the hacker was and seek retribution against them.
Special
Assistance: One player may assist the primary hacker by making their own hacking check against the computer’s security rating. If they get 2 or more successes, the primary hacker may add 1 success to their own pool.
Network Hacking: Attempting to access a computer over a local network increases its security rating by 1. Attempting to access it across the Internet increases its security rating by 2.
Lowering the Alarm Level: If the security level has been raised, the hacker may attempt to lower it by making a check against the current security rating + 1. Security cannot be reduced below its starting level.
Root Access: Hackers can attempt to gain root access on any system. Doing so requires four successes. Hackers with root access can perform any local action without making further checks.
Both my socialization system and my hacking system have undergone rigorous playtesting since I wrote them. I have a lot of hard data about how to make them better. Not so much with the Cleric variant I proposed early this year. As I write this I’ve only had a single player use the class during a single session, and it didn’t go well.
Even before that, I knew there were some issues. Nobody wants to play the thing because it was originally written to be almost completely reactive. I was worried about making the class overpowered, and in doing so I made something nobody wants to play. The classic issue with the Cleric.
I still believe in the core ideas I proposed here, I just think they need some tweaking.
There is a divine music to the universe. Before the fall of man, when we lived each day in the light of our creator, we heard this music always. After we were cast out from the sacred garden we lost the ability to hear. The music still rings out from every sphere in the heavens, but it is beyond us now.
Through diligent study of God’s word, and meditation on the divine, Clerics have trained themselves to hear the faintest echos of that music. Hearing it changes a person. They experience reality the way God always intended for his beloved children. Their only desire is to hear more, and to hear better. Sin disrupts the music, and becomes hateful to the cleric. There is no sin greater than magic.
Clerics have a d8 hit die. They advance and make saving throws as the default cleric class does. Clerics cannot cast any spells. If alignment is used in your game, clerics must be Lawful.
Clerics have the following abilities:
Miracle: Once per week, per level, clerics may call upon God to aid them. The almighty will momentarily intervene in material affairs to do one of the following things:
Reveal a hidden truth.
Alter the cleric’s environment.
Heal a living person’s un-healable ailment.
Create an impressive spectacle
Think of it as a wish with limited focus and potency. Remember, also, that God is an NPC. God does not appreciate being treated as a class ability. Clerics are warned not to be trivial in calling upon The Almighty. God is never obligated to answer. The referee is the final arbiter.
Turn: The cleric confronts their foes with a brief glimpse of God’s might. The player should indicate a single target and roll 2d6, comparing the result to the matrix below
(Note: this ability affects all foes, regardless of type)
If the cleric’s roll is equal to or greater than the result indicated for their target’s hit dice, that foe is awed by the terrible might of God. They will flee from the cleric if there is an easy escape, or cower meekly if there is not. This effect persists as long as the target is not attacked, and the cleric takes no action aside from looking imposing, or turning other foes.
The cleric may turn as many times as they wish, so long as they are successful. If a turn attempt fails, the cleric’s mystique is undone. They may not turn this group of foes again today.
On the table, a result of “-” means turning is impossible. A result of “T” means turning is automatic. A result of “T*” means that any of the target’s allies with the same or fewer hit dice are also turned. A result of “D” means the target is destroyed by the unbearable glory of God, and that the target’s allies with similar hit dice are automatically turned. A Result of “D*” means that the target, and their allies with similar HD, are destroyed.
Dispel Magic: Clerics may force chaos to bend itself back to order by an act of will. Simply roll a d6. On a result of 1, the attempt fails; otherwise it succeeds. The magic is undone; it fails to activate or its effect ends. If a permanent magic is targeted (such as the enchantments on a magic weapon), then it is only suppressed rather than destroyed. It will return when next the item is touched by moonlight.
Anytime a spell is cast in the cleric’s presence, they may attempt to interrupt its casting by dispelling it. Doing so consumes their next turn.
Keep track of how many times each day this ability fails. If it equals the cleric’s level, the music of God’s perfect creation has become warped in their ears. They won’t be able to dispel magic again until they’ve had 8 hours to rest, and to pray.
For every hit die a Magic User has above a cleric, the failure chance of this ability increases by 1. So a first level cleric suffers no penalty against a first level magic user; but when dispelling the casting of a second level magic user their failure chance would be 2-in-6. Against a third level magic user it would be 3-in-6, and so on.
Referees may also wish to assess penalties for other types of magic. Those which are fundamental to a creature’s being, such as fairy magic. Those which are deeply rooted, or ancient, or unusually potent. It is left to the judgement of the referee, but this is meant to be a powerful ability. It should not be undermined to excess.
Identify: Thoroughly shutting down magic the way Clerics do requires a profound understanding of it. Clerics can determine whether or not a thing is magical, what the effects of that magic are, and even some obscure details like how long ago the magic was cast, and whether the caster was right or left handed.
This is not something a Cleric can do passively. They can’t walk into a room, and immediately point out all the magic items within. However, if they handle an object, look at it closely, smell it, taste it, and listen to it, they will gain an understanding of any magics attached to it. Discovering the magical properties of a thing requires 10 minutes.
Spell Resistance: Clerics have a chance-in-twenty to resist magic, equal to their level. 1-in-20 at first level, 2-in-20 at second level, etc. Any time the Cleric would be the target of magic, before any saving throws or spell effects are rolled, roll a d20. If the result is equal to, or lower than the Cleric’s level, the spell passes harmlessly over them.
This ability reaches its maximum at an 18-in-20 chance.
To play D&D in space, you need space ships which retain the individual agency of the players, even as they are all stuck inside a single vessel with a single pool of hit points. I first proposed my space ship system back in July of 2017, with a revision to the system coming just a week later. At the time, this was all theoretical. Now that I’ve been running Fuck the King of Space for a few months, I can tell that there’s something worth exploring here, but some tweaks are definitely needed.
Also, it has been annoying to have the system spread across two contradictory posts. I often meet people who are interested in the system, but put off by the way it is presented. So this post will explain space ships, as they exist now, in full detail.
And I do mean full detail. If you’d like a concise version of the 4,000+ words I’ve written below, check out the FKOS player document linked above. Ship rules are on pages 20 and 21. This post will include all the details too trivial to include there, as well as explanations of my thought process.
The Spaceship
Space ships are like characters. The ones controlled by the players will need a character sheet, probably managed by the referee. NPC ships need fewer details, and can be represented by as little as a statline.
Player ships have 8 basic variables to track.
Hit Dice: A measure of the ship’s build quality. This will probably start at 1 for any ship the players would have access to.
Hull Points: An abstraction of the ship’s ability to absorb damage before its systems start to break down. A ship’s hull points advance as a fighter’s, starting at 8, and increasing by 3 with each additional hit die.
Space: How much space is available on the ship for systems, modules, and cargo. It doesn’t only measure the internal volume of the vessel, but also how much weight the superstructure is able to support. (This is why external systems, like mechanical arms, still take up space)
A small ship would have 15-25 space inside of it. This would typically be a 1 or 2 man ship, with internal space ranging from a single seat, to the size of a studio apartment.
A moderately sized ship would have 26-50 space in it. These are your cargo vessels, your personal yachts, etc. They’ll have enough room for a crew to live and work, to carry cargo, or to serve as a platform for weapons.
A large ship would be anything with more than 50 space. These are mostly military ships. Weapons platforms, troop transports, flying fortresses, and even carriers which ferry around smaller ships inside of them.
As players tinker with their ship, adding or removing modules, the available space is likely to change relatively frequently. It is most helpful to express a ship’s space as a fraction: [Currently Used] / [Total]
Cargo Space: The difference between the currently used and total space on a ship. Anything left over once the ship’s systems are accounted for is how much room the ship has to haul cargo. The referee should track this between sessions. If the ship is ever carrying too much, the players will need to decide what they left behind before the start of play next session.
Maneuverability: The total amount of space a ship has determines its size category, as explained above. A ship’s size category determines its maneuverability. Small ships have 6, moderately sized ships have 3, large ships have 0. This will be the target number of any attacks made against the ship, modified by distance, and pilot skill.
Speed: Determined by the ship’s engines. For most vessels, it is 1 AU.
Power: Also determined by the ship’s engines, usually at a rate of 1 power per 1 space the engine takes up on the vessel. Most of a ship’s systems require power to operate, with the exception of things like living quarters and the cockpit. If the ship ever seems to have too many systems active at once, the referee should pause the action to take quick inventory of the party’s power usage.
For the sake of simplicity, most systems will work as described using only one power to operate. However, players can put extra power into a system to try an eke some extra functionality out of it.
For convenience, the referee may want to mark some of a ship’s systems as “assumed active.” Things like Life Support, and Artificial Gravity. Power can then be noted as a fraction: [Available Power] / [Total Power]. This will speed up the process of taking inventory whenever that needs to be done.
Fuel: Explicitly, this refers to the material a ship’s engine uses to generate power. But, it could also also be abstracted to include food and water. Each ship has a fuel tank which can store 10 fuel per 1 space it takes up. A point of fuel is consumed anytime the ship passes into a new hex or engages in space combat.
Improving a Ship
Most frequently, ships are improved by adding or upgrading their modules. You can think of modules as a ship’s tools and equipment. Where a player might carry a rope and wear leather armor, a ship might have a mechanical arm and a missile interception drone. Likewise, while a player might eventually upgrade to silk rope and plate armor, a ship might upgrade to tractor beams and energy shields.
The other way ships improve is by raising their hit dice, and thus, their hull points. This is done by overhauling a ship’s superstructure in a repair dock. To determine the cost, refer to the Fighter’s experience table, and multiply the experience requirement by 10.
So, to reach 2 hit dice requires 20,000 money. To reach 3 hit dice requires 40,000 money, and so on. This is exorbitantly expensive for two reasons.
First, as the ship is a shared resource, it is assumed the player’s will pool their money to improve it, and the cost must be a commensurate challenge. Second, because of the way combat works, it is highly desirable that ships are always in imminent danger of reaching 0hp, as this is where players will need to make the most interesting choices.
Spaceship Movement
A ship’s speed determines its local movement, measured in Astronomical Units, or AU. AU are an abstraction of the relative distance between objects. 3 dimensional space can be difficult to describe in exact terms, so it is sufficient for the referee to say “You are 2 AU away from the enemy ship, and 3 AU away from the planet’s gravity well.” Players will not describe their movement in terms of “North” or “South,” but rather, “Towards” or “Away” from points of reference.
No matter how fast a ship is locally, its interstellar movement rate is 1 hex at a time. Each hex of movement consumes 1 fuel, and prompts a roll of the hazard die. Space may be a vast empty void, but it’s more interesting if there’s stuff to encounter out there.
Ships equipped with a Jump Drive may skip the hazard roll, and travel quickly to any desired point in the galaxy. However, this requires 3 fuel per hex crossed.
Spaceship Combat
In most respects, ship combat works the same way combat normally does. Players who are operating weapon modules roll a d20. Their goal is to roll equal to or higher than their target’s maneuverability, which is modified by the skill roll of its pilot. Note that pilots make only a single roll each round, which establishes the target number for every attack made against their ship until the next round.
Attack rolls are modified by any native bonus the weapon operator may have. They also suffer a -1 penalty for every AU of distance between the attacker and the target. (Ships may close to 0 AU from one another to avoid this penalty.) Weapons may be set to fire automatically, but doing so requires at least one player to spend an action identifying valid targets. Automated weapons suffer a -2 penalty to attack.
When weapons hit, the attacking player rolls a d6 for damage, which is subtracted from the enemy vessel’s hull points. Hull points can only be restored by visiting a space dock, and each point of restoration costs 250 Darics. Ships can only be damaged by ship-scale weapons. Weapons small enough to be wielded by an individual character cannot typically affect a ship.
When a ship reaches 0hp, it is not destroyed. If a hit would reduce a ship below 0 hp, it is reduced to 0hp instead. Once a ship is at 0hp, additional hits affect the ship’s systems directly.
For each hit, the referee should roll to randomly determine one of the ship’s modules. Damage is then rolled normally, and that damage is applied both to the module, and to any character who was in that module or operating that system.
Damaged modules do not function, but they can be repaired. Each round, characters can make an engineering check to repair a system. If they succeed, they remove 2 damage from the system, if they fail, they only remove 1. If the system takes more damage while they are repairing it, they take that damage as well. Once a system has 0 damage, it can be brought back online at any time.
If a system or module takes 10 or more damage, then it is too mangled to be repaired in combat. Each engineering check to repair will take 1 hour of time, and will require access to the outside of the ship.
If a system or module takes 20 or more damage, it cannot be repaired in the field. The players will need to visit a repair dock.
Note that, using this system, it is actually very difficult for a ship to be destroyed. In fact, there is no explicit way to destroy a ship. There are two reasons for this.
First, it is much more interesting for the players to try and persist with a thoroughly disabled ship, than it is for them to simply die. Second, when everyone is sharing the same island of habitability in an endless void of death, a destroyed ship is an instant TPK. Running a game with lethality that high seems like a chore to me.
Modules & Systems
As noted above, a ship’s modules & systems are analogous to a character’s equipment. And, like equipment, players are meant to use them creatively. Just as a rope could be used for climbing, or creating a tripline, or making a lasso; so too can a ship’s artificial gravity be used to keep people on the ground, or to increase everybody’s weight tenfold, or to shove them up against the ceiling.
The goal here is to make sure every character can find something to do with themselves. It’s no fun if the pilot decides where we go, and the gunners decide what we shoot, and everybody else is just sitting in the back seat making suggestions. They should be able to tinker with systems, alter the way they work, or juice them up with extra power to make them do something beyond their normal capabilities.
This list is suggestive, not exhaustive.
Basic & Essential Modules
Engine (Variable Space)
Engines both produce a ship’s power, and consume some of that power to create thrust. Most engines produce 1 power for every unit of space they take up, and can provide 1 AU of speed for every point of power put back into them. Though, more advanced engines that improve on those numbers may exist.
Most engines take up 5 space (and, thus, produce 5 power). Engines of this size cost 4,000 Darics. Successively larger engines increase in cost by 50% for every extra unit of space/power they have. So, an engine which produced 6 power would cost 6,000 Darics. An engine that produced 7 power would cost 9,000 Darics. Engines sell for 1/2 their purchase price.
There is no way to ‘upgrade’ an existing engine to provide more power, nor can multiple engines work effectively in tandem with one another. To improve a ship’s engines, an entirely new engine must be purchased.
Jump Drive (1 Space)
Allows a ship to accelerate beyond the speed of light, traversing years of distance in mere hours. Jump drives function only in open space. If a ship attempts to jump while in a gravity well, or if they pass through a gravity well during a jump, their engine will shut down.
Because space is a vast empty void, any malfunction could leave a ship stranded in the literal middle of nowhere. With no chance of rescue, the crew would be lost for all time. To minimize this risk, Jumps are carefully planned to pass within communications range of as many inhabited worlds as possible. Making these calculations in any sort of reasonable time-span requires a navigation computer.
Navigation Computer (1 Space)
Without a NaviComp, plotting a course takes 2 hours per hex the jump will cross. With one, a safe jump to any location in the galaxy can be plotted within 10 minutes.
In an emergency, NaviComps can be used to calculate short-range (1 hex) jumps in as little as 1 minute, but there is a 1-in-6 chance the ship will encounter a hazard if this is attempted. When this happens, the ship’s hull points will be reduced to 0, and every system will take 5 points of damage.
In the most dire of emergencies, players may attempt to plot a 1-hex jump in a single round. If the players are mad enough to try this, have them roll a d6. If a 6 is rolled, the jump completes successfully. On a 2-5, the ship encounters a hazard as described above. On a 1, the jump fails almost immediately. The ship moves 1d6 AU from where it started, and both the engine and the Jump Drive take 15 damage.
Cockpit (1 Space)(No Power Required)
Essential for any ship. The cockpit houses the piloting controls, and may have several other control stations in it as well. Any character is capable of performing the basic functions of piloting a ship, but when attempting particularly tricky maneuvers, or trying to evade enemy fire, there’s no substitute for a trained pilot.
Artificial Gravity (1 Space)
Beneath the deck plates of most ships are microgravity generators. Tiny things, individually cheap, arranged in a latticework to create a simulation of comfortable gravity within the relatively tiny space between the floor and ceiling of a space ship’s rooms.
Without gravity, it is very difficult to move around inside of a ship. Particularly because ships have not been designed to to be navigated without gravity since pre-history. Meaningful rest in a ship without gravity is basically impossible.
Atmosphere Recycler (1 Space)
Maintains oxygen and heat to human comfort throughout the ship. Without it, the crew would need to wear environment suits to survive.
If the AtmoRecycler loses power, conditions will degrade rapidly. One minute after the system loses power (10 turns), everyone within the ship has their maximum hit points reduced to what their max was at 1st level. Additionally, actions take twice as long to attempt as normal.
For each successive minute this condition persists, maximum hit points are reduced by 1, and the number of rounds required for an action is increased by 1.
So, after 1 minute, a fighter’s maximum hit points would be 8, and it would take them 2 rounds to make a single repair check. After 2 minutes, their max hp would be 7, and it would take 3 rounds to make a repair check, so on, and so forth.
Communications (2 Space)
Basic units allow for communication with anything in the same hex as you. If there is a relay satellite within range, you may be able to connect to a larger communications network.
More powerful comm systems exist, which allow connection to be made with even more distant recipients.
Sensors (2 Space)
Allows the operator to discover information about their environment. Can scan up to 1 AU away for every point of power pumped into the system.
Without sensors, players are limited to what information is transmitted to them directly, and what they can see with their eyes out the viewports. They may not even be aware of an enemy ship until it’s in the same AU that they are.
Housing for People and Objects
Living Quarters (Variable Space)(No Power Required)
Can house 3 people for every 1 unit of space. Without these, characters cannot rest to recover hit points on the ship.
Brig (Variable Space)(No Power Required)
Can house 2 prisoners for every 1 unit of space.
Magic Laboratory (Variable Space)(No Power Required)
Functions as any magic laboratory. Shipboard labs require 1 space for every 5,000 total value they have.
Science Laboratory (2 Space)
Allows characters to perform scientific analysis or research on their ship.
Cryogenics (Variable Space)
Requires 1 space and 1 power for every 2 frozen people. If power to this room is lost, each frozen person has a 1-in-6 chance to die, re-rolled every hour.
Docking Bay (Variable Space)(Does not require any power)
Docking bays may be any size, but must be at least 1 space larger than the total space of all the ships it will contain.
Docking bays are often left open to space, with only a mag-shield keeping heat and atmosphere contained. (Even so, they tend to be chilly). If need be, they do have sliding doors which can move into place.
Escape Pod (3 Space)(Does not require any power)
Each pod can house 2 people. They have minimal life support, 3 fuel, 1AU thrusters, no Jump Drive, minimal sensors, a robust communications package, and food to last about a week.
Useful Doohickeys
Autopilot (1 Space)
Autopilots are computers which can operate the ship in lieu of a living pilot. The most common, affordable autopilots have no piloting skill to roll at all, automatically rolling a ‘0’ any time a roll is called for. More advanced autopilots have a d4, d6, d8, or d10 pilot skill. Autopilots with d12 skill have not yet been invented, and even a d10 autopilot is extraordinarily rare and expensive.
Door Blast Shielding (1 Space)
Without power, this central control allows individual doors to be opened, close, locked, and unlocked remotely. When powered, this system generates a shield around each door, making them dramatically more difficult to force open.
Fire Suppression System (1 Space)
Fires on a space ship are a very bad thing. Without a robust fire suppression system, the only reliable way to put one out is to vent the area into space, which gets the job done, but also causes you to lose anything that wasn’t nailed down on a path between the airlock and the fire.
If the system is already active when the fire starts, it will automatically activate when needed.
Cloak (5 Space)
Blocks all incoming sensors, AND outgoing sensors. Makes a ship invisible, but blind. This hindrance may be circumvented by an external sensor drone, or by a significantly more advanced cloak.
Hacking Station (2 Space)
Emits a special, penetrating signal which allows hacking to be attempted across the void of space. When operating normally, the system works at 0 AU. It may be overpowered to extend its range.
Arms (2 Space per Arm)
Tractor beams are expensive. Mechanical arms mounted on the exterior of the ship allow the operator to directly manipulate objects within the ship’s immediate vicinity.
Tractor Beam (1 Space Per Beam)
If you can afford them, tractor beams are superior to mechanical arms in nearly every way. As an energy-based manipulator, they have greater flexibility, range of motion, strength, responsiveness, and even take up less room. Just about the only drawbacks are that they must have line of sight (rarely a problem in open space), and that they can be disrupted more easily than physical arms can.
ExoPod (2 Space)
A small, 1 person pod with thrusters to allow it to move independently of its host ship. Power, atmosphere, etc are provided to the ExoPod via a cabel, which can reach up to 1 AU away from the ship. Weapons may be mounted on the ExoPod if the players so desire.
Gravity Well Generator (12 Space)
Creates a miniature gravity well, preventing any ship from engaging a jump drive within 30 AU. Can also be used to drag ships out of a jump, if the operator can predict their path. Being pulled from a jump unexpectedly works like encountering a hazard, as described in the Navigation Computer module above.
Weapons & Armor
Shields (5 Space)
Shields reduce incoming damage by a set amount. Usually 1, though more advanced shields may be available. If a player specifically orients the shields in a specific direction (fore, aft, port, starboard, up, or down), then their effectiveness is doubled in that direction, and completely removed in all other directions.
Blaster Cannon (1 Space)
A basic weapon which, like all weapons, deals d6 damage. Multi-barrel variants exist, including dual-, tri-, and quad-. Each additional barrel multiplies the price by 2x, and increases the critical range of the weapon by 1. (So a dual blaster cannon crits on a 19 or 20, etc.)
Halberd Laser
Has a maximum effective range of 2AU. If the target vessel is at 0 hull points, the Halberd can be used to target 2 different systems with the same attack. Overcharging the laser may allow for additional systems to be hit.
Space Torpedo
Firing a torpedo first requires that the operator spend a round establishing a target lock. This is done by making an attack roll. On a successful ‘hit,’ the lock is established, and the torpedo can be fired next round. Torpedos bypass any shields a target may have.
Flak Cannon
Designed to overload a ship’s shields, and temporarily take them down. Can only be used at 0 AU from the target. On a successful hit, the target’s shields are down for 1d6 rounds before they can recharge.
Drones
Drone Control System (2 space + 1 per Drone)(No Power Required)
A prerequisite for a ship to be able to operate drones. By itself, the control system requires no power. However, each active drone does require power. Not because it is drawing power from the ship, but because the Drone Control System needs power in order to operate an active drone.
Anti-Missile Drone
Equipped with auto-trackers, and a highly specialized non-damaging laser. Combines its own data with that of its mother ship to perfectly triangulate incoming missiles, and trick them into detonating early. Has a 4-in-6 chance of success, and may attempt to shoot down up to 2 missiles each round.
Probe
Equipped with a full range of sensors. Can be sent out at a speed of 1AU per round, or may be left in a fixed position. Probes are difficult to detect (d12 stealth), and will relay information back to their mother ship up to 1 hex away, assuming no interference.
Weapon Platform Drone
Must be equipped with a weapon. Drone may be placed at any location within 10 AU of the mother ship. The weapon can be operated remotely, or given a set of automated instructions (with the usual penalties).
Repair Drone
A robot on magnetic treads. When activated, it will pop out of its nook, and trundle to the nearest damaged system to begin repairs. It is able to repair 1 damage each round it works.
Sample Character Sheet
This is the sheet I maintain for my players’ ship in Fuck the King of Space. Modules I’ve marked with “ON” are those which I assume the players have running unless they say otherwise. Modules marked with an X are those which do not require any power to function.
After each session, I update the sheet to show the hit points, space, cargo, and fuel the players ended the session with. I then share the updated sheet with my players, so they know whether they need to urgently take care of any issues.
The Bosco HD 1 HP 8/8 Space 29/45 Cargo: 2/16 (2 space are secure) Maneuverability 3 Speed 1 AU Power 4/7 Fuel 30/30
Nobody wants to bother with a full sheet for every NPC they encounter, let alone every ship. If the amount of fuel another ship has becomes relevant, the referee can make a roll. The pre-prepared information should stick to what is most likely to be relevant. Something like this:
Modules: 2 Blaster Cannons, Cockpit, Engines, AtmoRecycler, Gravity Generator, Sensors, Communications, JumpDrive, NavComp, Door Blast Shielding, Escape Pod
It may seem tedious to list out all the basic stuff (cockpit, engines…) but it’ll make things easier when it comes time to randomly determine which systems are hit in combat.
Conclusions
I recognize this system is far from perfect, but I think it’s more on the right track than any other space ship system I’ve read. It accommodates most of the things that interest me when I think about battles in space; and it does so without being a clusterfuck of complexity.
That being said, there are some flaws I have not yet addressed. The big one is that there’s no provision for players saying “target their weapons!” I suppose I might be fine with it if the target ship were at 0hp, but then, it seems uncool that players are allowed to make such decisions, while NPCs have to roll randomly. I could let NPCs make the decision as well, but then I don’t think there would be as many interesting results. Why disable a ship’s gravity when you could disable their engines?
Complexity is another thing that worries me. This system isn’t nuts, but it’s not exactly rules-lite either. I have a tendency to over-complicate things initially, then gradually shave away everything superfluous. I’ve already done that with this system to some extent, but it still feels a little heavy.
“Balance” is another sticking point. By which I mean “what numbers should I assign to things in order to achieve the results I want?”
For example, earlier drafts of this system had the basic engine being a size 10 (both space and power). I eventually noticed that this never forced the players to make any hard decisions about which systems had power. When I started FKOS, I reduced this to 5, but the players quickly went out to purchase additional engines, which led to the rule I came up with for this revision that engines must be replaced entirely in order to upgrade.
Furthermore, the system is notably incomplete. Modules lack prices (because of that same uncertainty about numbers), the weapons are underdeveloped and bland. There are a lot of questions I haven’t had to answer yet. Eventually I’ll probably make a snap judgement ruling at the table, and immediately regret it.
If you’ve read the rules document for Fuck the King of Space, you may have noticed that I’m doing some weird stuff with weapons that I didn’t fully explain. Mostly, this is because I haven’t finished sifting through the idea myself. I have a sense of what I want to do, but it’s going to take a lot of playing before I’ve boiled all my complicated instincts down to something fun and simple.
But for those who haven’t read the document, let’s back up for a bit. How do weapons in FKOS work?
First off, every weapon–whether it’s a wooden club or a death ray–deals 1d6 damage. No bonuses, no other die types, just a dirt simple rollin’ cube. It’s a move I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and I’m excited about it for a lot of reasons:
By making the range of possible damage predictable across every situation, I can plan hit point progression for each class much more precisely. I discussed this in a little more depth late last year.
The larger a damage die gets, the more frustrating low rolls are. If you’re rolling a d10 or a d12 for your damage, rolling a 1 feels like a huge bummer, particularly coming as it does after the joy of a successful attack. I think this is why some folks push towards rolling pools of dice. But if you’re just rolling a d6, then 1 is nearly 30% of your median roll.
I want weapon choice to be an interesting decision. Warrior characters should have little arsenals, with different weapons for different situations. If weapons have variable damage dice, then in most situations the weapon that deals the most damage is just going to be the objective best one to carry. I can’t even recall the last time I’ve seen a character use a 1d4 dagger.
The goal is to make weapons interestingly different from one another. Why pick a Plasma Rifle over a Lazrator? Or a Gladius over a Zwiehander?
Because each weapon has different quirks.
Quirks are something aside from basic roll-to-hit-then-roll-damage play that a given weapon is suited to. Whips are good for tangling foes, short swords are easy to use in cramped quarters, missile launchers can harm multiple foes with a single blast, etc.
At present, I’m dividing weapons into light, medium, and heavy categories. These have One, two, and three quirks respectively, and cost 50, 500, and 5,000 Darics.
It’s important to point out that a weapon’s explicitly called out quirks are not an exhaustive list of everything that weapon could be used for. If the player can explain how they’re using the weapon’s shape or function to accomplish a particular goal, we can work with that. Quirks are merely something a weapon is particularly well suited for.
So while daggers may receive a bonus to sneak attacks because of how easy to conceal they are, that doesn’t mean players can’t conceal or surprise with other weapons. Daggers are just the weapons best suited to that activity.
Hit Options
When an attack roll is successful, by default, characters have two options. They can either roll a d6 for damage, or they can make a called shot. (Explained on page 9 of the player’s guide.) Some weapons have quirks which add a third option.
Tangle: Roll a grapple against your target, using two fewer dice than normal. (minimum 1) If successful, the target is grappled, but you do not suffer the normal -6 penalty to your armor rating for being engaged in a grapple.
Hack: Outside of combat, the wielder inputs some code into the weapon. When it makes contact with a robot or a cyborg, the wielder can make a hacking check to enact that code.
Parry: When a successful attack is made against you, you may opt to sacrifice the ability to attack next turn to raise your armor rating by 2 this turn.
Delay: Target must make a saving throw versus Stun, or they will not be able to do anything other than move for 2 rounds.
Disarm: Target must make a saving throw versus Stun, or lose whatever they’re holding in one of their hands. (Attacker’s choice).
Sunder: Reduce the effectiveness of the target’s armor.
Trip: Target must make a saving throw versus Stun or fall prone.
Passive Bonuses
These are quirks which alter the normal use of the weapon: situational bonuses to attack rolls, extra effects when damage is dealt, etc.
Ship Strength: Able to damage space ships, which can normally only be hit by fixed weapon emplacements.
Close Quarters: Well suited to combat when there’s not much room to move. +2 to attack rolls when in a confined space, or in a melee with 5+ participants.
Riposte: When a successful attack is made against you,make a saving throw versus Stun. On success, you may make an immediate attack against whatever hit you.
Hold At Bay: Whenever a target attempts to close to melee range, you may make a free attack against them. (max 1 each round). If successful, deal damage, and the target fails to approach any closer than the weapon’s max range.
Push: In addition to damage, a successful hit will force most targets to move a few meters away from their attacker.
Piercing: Ignore some / all armor.
Area of Effect: Can attack all targets within an area, such as a line for beam-based weapons, or a sphere around the point of initial impact for explosive weapons.
Disintegration: If damage from this weapon kills a target, they leave no remains whatsoever.
Misc Abilities
The benefit of these quirks falls outside normal weapon use.
Status Symbol: +1 to your initial social action with anyone who appreciates the fine quality of your weapon.
Camouflaged: In most cases, you can get away with keeping this, even if you’ve been thoroughly searched and all your weapons taken from you.
Nasty Surprise: Small enough to hide, quick to move into lethal position. +1 to any attempt to surprise someone who is already aware of you.
This mid-week bonus post is here by the good grace of my generous Patrons. Thank you!
On a Red World Alone has a way of bringing out the weird in people. To some extent that’s true of all D&D, but ORWA strikes a chord with people. It makes them want to go out of their way to be weird, just for the sake of fitting in with all the weirdness around them. It’s one of the things I love about the setting.
That’s it. Just…”something happens.” He went on to explain that he didn’t care how I determined what happened, and could use whatever method I deemed appropriate. He did suggest that I could write a table if I wanted (this is something my players have come to expect from me), but added that he would be just as happy to have me make up the results on the spot. In fact, he insisted that if I did make a table, he wanted at least one of the entries to be “referee improvises something.”
For a few weeks after the player made this wish, my game prep time was pretty lacking, so that’s basically what I did. I just improvised something that felt appropriate each time he flipped. Like the time I caused flowers to grow out of the ground all around where he landed, or the time I had a nearby door slide open. I’ve wanted to make a table, and now that I’ve got a little more time that’s what this post was originally going to be. But the player uses this ability several times each session, so I worry that even a d100 table would get stale more quickly than it would be worth. And anyways, I like making these unpredictable effects relate specifically to the situation the players are in, which a table cannot easily accommodate.
So, rather than create a table with explicit entries, I’ve decided to use a reaction roll to determine how good or bad the result of a flip should be, then fiat from there. So, whenever this player flips over someone’s head, 2d6 are rolled.
On a 2, something terrible happens. Like…a nearby vase explodes, filling the room with flying shards of glass shrapnel.
On a 3-5, something somewhat unfortunate happens. Like…the flipper’s personal gravity is reversed, causing him to fall up to the ceiling.
On a 6-8, something weird and neutral, but potentially exploitable, happens. Like…smoke starts pouring out the flipper’s ears until it fills the room.
On a 9-11, something pretty good happens. Like…an encounter that was going poorly resets, so the party can make a new first impression.
On a 12, something great happens. Like…the flipper gains a temporary invulnerability.
There’s still a lot of fiat involved, which is what we wanted here. That will allow the flips to have context-based results, and prevent the ability from starting to feel stale. But, I’m not in complete control. The dice are still a deciding factor, which was important to me.
That begs the question, why? Why don’t I want to be in control? OSR referees have a reputation, in some corners of the greater RPG community, for being control freaks. We want the power to make ANYTHING happen in our games, without regard for the player’s desires. We want to create the whole game world ourselves, rather than let players have any input on what the world is like, etc. etc. etc.
And it’s true, I do want that power when I run games. Honestly, I require that power. If the group wants to play a game where the referee’s role has been neutered, I may be willing to participate, but I wouldn’t be willing to run. Without the power to bend the world in whatever direction I deem correct, being the referee seems kinda pointless to me.
But that power is always supposed to be used in the service of the world. The idea is not that the referee gets to go on a power trip. That’s just juvenile, and not a game anybody would stick around in for very long. The idea is that we’re all playing in a shared imaginary space, and because we’re all different people, we’re going to perceive that space in different ways, and thus need an arbiter to resolve disagreement.
If a room is described as having a pillar in it, one player might imagine a classic roman pillar with vertical grooves and decorative marble filigree at each end. Another player might imagine a crude length of wood. Most of the time, it doesn’t matter, because the pillar is just set dressing. But, part of the fun of RPGs is that anything can become important at any time.
To continue with the same thought experiment, one player says they use their daggers to climb the pillar. Because that player is imagining a column of wood, this seems totally reasonable to them. Another player, though, was imagining stone columns, and is mystified as to how this dumbass thinks they’re going to stick their daggers into it. Who is correct?
The referee is correct. That’s their job. The way they imagine the space is the ‘right’ one, and when some as-yet unspoken detail of the world becomes relevant, the referee can describe what they were imagining.
Of course, sometimes the referee wasn’t imagining anything. Sometimes a player does a flip, and “something happens,” and the referee is responsible for describing something they weren’t planning.
Here’s the thing. As a referee, I do my best to impartially communicate the world to my players. But, I also like my players. They are my friends, and I like it when they have a fun time. I want to be nice to them. So if it’s up to me to just…pick something, I’m going to err on the side of making them happy. It’s not something I aim to do, it’s just something that happens.
But players shouldn’t always be happy. Sometimes, bad things happen to them. Bad things cause conflict, and conflict is the core element of interesting events. Even when good things happen, it may not be the good thing the players wanted, or expected, and that can be interesting too.
It’s a less important consideration, but the dice also help avoid choice paralysis. “Something Happens” is a pretty big mandate. “Something bad happens” or “Something great happens” is much more manageable. Creativity thrives on limitations.
And that’s why anyone who has ever criticized the OSR for anything, ever, is a big dummy.
I’ve never liked one-shots. You so rarely get anything like a satisfying experience when you’re only playing a single session, and the lack of any long-term goals or consequences makes what experience there is feel lifeless. To me, the long term results of my actions are essential to my investment. Ergo, I tend to play in lengthier campaigns, or not at all.
This is a big part of the reason I’ve never been interested in the convention scene. I’ve attended one convention in my whole life, and don’t feel any desire to seek out another anytime soon. Online conventions, like ConTessa, are cool in theory, but since it’s all one-shots, it just doesn’t appeal to me.
Sometimes, though, because I’m a Nice Guy ™, I’ll endure a one-shot if a friend needs players. It’s good to support your friends, and so I do that, because I’m a good person. And so, last year, when a friend invited me to both of the two Anti-GenCon games he was running, I agreed to play. One was going to be straight up D&D, and the other was a homebrew system he’d worked out based on the old Doom games. I signed up for both, fully expecting to be bored.
The first game, the D&D one, wound up like every other one-shot I’ve played in. It was dull, and forgettable. That’s not a condemnation of my friend, it’s just an inescapable reality of how I react to the format. The second game, the homebrew, was whole different animal. It was fun. More than fun, playing it was the highlight of my week.
We were barely a half hour into play, and I was already excitedly making notes about little ways the game could be improved. In the back of my mind, I was wondering if my friend would be okay with me stealing his idea to write a game of my own. After the session ended, he and I talked for quite a while about how it went, and what could be done with the system. Since then, we’ve been working together to turn his 6 pages of homebrew into a complete game.
Spoiler alert: this post ends with me shilling a product to you. But, before we get to the boring advertising bullshit that I will hate myself for writing, I want to discuss what I think makes the game work. The spark of fun that was there even when the game with just 6 pages long, and made me enjoy a form of play I’d never enjoyed before.
Dungeons & Dragons, and its many variants, are built around the idea of a campaign. There’s nothing stopping you from playing one-shots. One-shots are a time honored tradition, as ancient as the game itself, but all of the game’s incentives are focused on long term play. Why plunder the dungeon for gold, if you’ll never get to spend it? Why gain experience if you’ll never level up? Why shouldn’t you play recklessly and get yourself killed? It’s not as though you’ll ever get to play this character again anyway.
Perhaps I’d enjoy one-shots and convention games more if my character was persistent between them. Sorta like how Flailsnails works. But, that’s beside the point.
Bubblegum Berzerk, which is the name we’ve settled on for our game, is built around the one-shot. There’s nothing stopping you from playing an extended campaign, but all of the game’s incentives are based on short-term play. Much of the moment-to-moment fun results from players making diegetic jokes, which the game rewards them for. Instead of overcoming complex challenges and being rewarded for success, the challenges themselves are a reward in the form of a fulfilled power fantasy. Through play, players earn points, and when the game ends, those points determine who is the winner.
That’s why, very early in the game’s development, I started pushing the idea of the RPG / Board Game hybrid. The PCs are not characters, so much as they are playing pieces. Something taken out and played with, then put back into the box until next time you want to play. And when you do, it doesn’t matter if you play the same character again, or a new one. There’s no difference between those two concepts.
To boil the game down to basics: the players are a team of disposable action heroes. They’re trained from birth / cybernetically enhanced / warped through gene therapy / whatever other explanation for superhuman badassitude you can think of. They run around a map, and roll a d10 anytime they want to do something. If they wanna do something “kickass,” they gotta roll high, if they wanna do anything else, they gotta roll low. How high and how low change over the course of the game, so that it generally gets easier to do badass stuff, but more difficult to do basic stuff.
Most of the game is spent in a cycle of Running Around the Map -> Fighting Assholes -> Opening up new options -> repeat. It’s a simple cycle, within which the players are encouraged to be creative with Alpha Points, the game’s “score.” While the player with the most Alpha Points technically “wins,” the points and the winning are explicitly dumb useless goals. The only value the points have is whatever value the players imbue them with.
Alpha Points are earned in various ways, but the most notable to me is that players can get them by saying killer one-liners, or performing some super badass action that impresses the referee. To paraphrase something Zak Smith once said: normally, being funny is risky, because maybe nobody will laugh and then you’ll feel bad. This game is fun because it takes that stress away. You can try to be funny all you want, and if anything you say doesn’t get a laugh, it’s okay, because you were just playing the game. Making the attempt was expected of you.
At the time, Zak was talking about Cards Against Humanity, which is kinda fitting. I think there’s a sort of bizarre overlap between that game and Bubblegum Berserk. Not really a mechanical one, but I think the fun of the game comes from a similar place.
If I had set out to come up with a cool idea for a new game, this never would have been it. But I didn’t set out to come up with this idea. Instead, I just had a really fun experience, then tried to preserve and communicate that experience, so it could be shared by other people. Which, in retrospect, may be why I actually enjoy playing the game a lot more than running it: because my goal the whole time was to recreate the fun I had while playing.
As of now, writing is done on the game, art and proofreading are progressing at a good pace, and layout hopefully shouldn’t take too much longer after those things are done. I’m sure that once it’s out, I’ll be posting all of the place about it, annoying people, and making myself sick at how much of a sell out I’ve become. Sorry in advance for that.
But when I do it, you should totally spend some of your monies on the game. I sincerely think you’ll have a real good time playing it.
Combat healing is a bullshit mechanic. Honestly, any healing that takes place during a session seems a little bullshitty to me. I don’t like to think of hit points in D&D like life bars in video games, going up and down constantly. Rather, hit points are like a character’s ability to hold their breath while diving. When the players are in a dangerous situation, hit points measure how long they can last there before they need to come up for air. (By which I mean, return to town, and rest up for their next delve).
Being low on hit points and having to choose between walking away or pressing onwards is an important experience. On the one hand, you’ve made it through this many rooms already, and treasure may be just around the corner…but you might die. On the other, you could return home and come back later fully refreshed, but the rooms might be restocked.
And yes, it could be argued that this situation still occurs when midsession healing is allowed. You’ve just gotta wait for the cleric to run out of healing spells. But that seems like a pointless complication to me. All you’re doing is delaying something that would happen anyway, and in the process, you’re burdening the party with spells and items, which take up spell and encumbrance slots. Those slots could be filled with more interesting options if the opportunity to heal from injury wasn’t so useful as to invalidate other spell/equipment choices.
All of that in exchange for essentially giving the players a communal pool of extra hit points. If all you want is for the players to last longer, why not just give them more HP to start with?
All that being said, I’m not against the idea of mid-session healing in theory. It’s the practice that annoys me. Healing potions and Cure Light Wounds spells are too reliable. You can pretty much always get your hands on them, easily keep them with you, and using them is always an unambiguously good choice.
Below are a bunch of healing and healing-adjacent mechanics that I think would be interesting to see in a game. I’ve avoided pinning any of these down into any specific means of conveyance. They could be turned into spells, or class abilities, or items, or purchasable services. At this point, what I want to do is come up with some interesting ways to replace healing. The vectors by which that healing is delivered can be worked out later.
As a small aside, several of these have been shamelessly lifted from the video game Atlas Reactor, which is why I used screenshots from that game for this post. I realize game mechanics can’t be copyrighted, but it does seem only fair to acknowledge my source.
Magic Shields, which act as temporary hit points for the target. So if I’ve got a shield on me with a rating of 5, and someone deals 6 damage, then the shield absorbs 5 of those, becomes dispelled, and now I take 1 damage.
I imagine the shields having a short duration. Something on the order of a single combat round, so that whomever is doling them out will want to be careful when they use it. It’s not something you cast on the fighter at the start of combat because they’ll get hit eventually. It’s something you save, until the fighter is surrounded by 12 goblins, and needs a little extra survivability for the coming round.
Healing is based on location, so that players must reach a place in order to heal. The simplest way to do this might be to have pools of healing water which exist in some places. I feel like a lot of older video games did this, and I always thought of it as a very video-gamey solution to the problem. But, the more I think about it, the more I think it actually fits D&D better than D&D’s native method does.
I particularly like how it fits into the “I’m almost dead” decision. Do you return to town, where you can rest and heal up in safety? Or, do you open just one more door, and hope it’s one of the places you can heal in.
The danger here is that once the party finds one of these healing locations, they can always return to it. But that could be solved by saying each person can only use the location once. And, of course, the locations can be as common or uncommon as the referee desires, based on the style of game they want to run, or on the individual area. (Ancient temples may offer more healing locations than vampire castles do, for example).
You could also make the location something very simple, but restrict it in other ways. For example, “While standing under moonlight, Dave can heal up to 30hp each month.”
Create a lifelink bond to your ally, so that some percentage of damage done to them is instead transferred to you. Something nice and even, like 25, 50, or 75%. This could last a single round, or until the bond is broken somehow.
I like the percentage approach because no incoming damage is actually being invalidated, the players are just shuffling it around to suit their needs. A character who is safely hidden away from the bad guys may end up dying through this transfer, and the character actually getting hit isn’t exactly safe either. They’re still taking hits, just fewer.
The way I imagine it, this would be done by a willing party member, to assist another party member. But, it might also be possible to force unwilling people to become damage sponges. It might make the players too overpowered to allow something like that, but their obviously evil acts could have interesting consequences.
One player tags a target in some way, perhaps by throwing a special goo onto them, or casting a spell on them, or something. If the tagged target takes any damage, then whomever dealt that damage is healed. Not necessarily at a rate of 1:1, that’s a little much.
Perhaps the amount of healing could be determined by the tagging method. If you hit the target with a level 1 tag, each successful hit against them will grant 1 healing. Level 2 tags could grant 2 healing, etc.
This would have the interesting side effect of allowing the tagger to direct the focused fire of the party. “Hey everybody, attack this guy!”
An ally is tagged in some way, similar to the above. Any damage they take during some period of time is recorded. Lets call it the “recording period,” and it could last anywhere from one to three combat rounds, I think. When the recording period ends, the damage taken is totalled up, and the tagged player gains Fast Healing 1.
Every combat round, they regain 1 hit point, until they’ve regained an amount equal to the amount they lost during the recording period.
Essentially, any damage taken during the recording period will be returned to the tagged player. But, it’s returned at such a slow rate that they may not survive long enough to get it all back.
An area of effect damage spell, which also grants a small amount of healing to allies as a side effect. Much like a fireball would harm a group of cultists, but would heal the fire element they summoned.
Of course, part of the challenge of casting area of effect spells is damaging the most enemies you can, while not damaging any of your allies. This flips the problem a bit. You don’t want to cast it on a group of allies, because you’ll lose out on the damage (which is much more substantial than the healing). But, you also do want to get the benefit of the healing, so you specifically wait for a good mix of friend and foe.
Cause an instrument of violence to become incapable of causing harm. For example, a sword may be tweaked so that it cannot stab, or the ground may be adjusted such that if a person fell onto that bit of ground, they wouldn’t take any falling damage.
So lets say you’re fighting a goblin. One player does whatever they need to do to “break” the goblin’s spear. They’ll probably make a few attacks with that spear, and some of those attacks will hit. It might take two, three, or even more hits before the goblin realizes their weapon has been nerf’d, (almost literally in this case), after which they pull out their dagger, which probably deals less damage.
Healing potions exist, but they are incredibly rare. The players will be lucky to find a handful over the course of the whole campaign. This robs healing potions of their reliability. You can’t always get them, and so they’re something to be saved. There’s a worry that if you use a potion, then you may not have it sometime in the future when you really need it.
Healing potions exist, but they are incredibly large and heavy. Like, instead of something you drink, a healing potion is something you bathe in, and must be carried around in a huge barrel, just for one dose.
This exacerbates the problem of healing items taking up encumbrance that could be spent on something more interesting. However, this healing item takes up so much encumbrance that it stops being useful enough to invalidate other equipment choices. When a player asks themselves: “Do I bring a healing potion, or three iron spikes?” they’d be a fool not to bring the potion. But if they have to choose between bringing the potion or all the rest of their equipment, that decision isn’t so easy.
I think if I went this route, players would immediately start hiring people to carry their potions for them, which is fine! That presents an interesting set of problems all its own. What happens when these potion porters die? Do you leave the potion behind? What about when you’re in a dangerous situation (when you’ll need a potion the most), and all your porters flee? How many people will really be willing to do the job of hauling huge barrels of potion in the a dungeon? It sounds like an unpleasant and dangerous job with shitty pay.
Healing potions exist, but they’re poisonous. There’s no risk of death (or hey, maybe there is?), but there’s a lot of ways a potion could harm a character, while still increasing their hit points.
Maybe potions cause mutations? Maybe they artificially age the player? Maybe they cause a person to go blind for an hour after drinking them, or make a person incredibly flatulent such that they attract more monsters? The possibilities for side effects are pretty much infinite.
It’s also worth asking: are the side effects guaranteed, or are players allowed to make a saving throw?
Sometimes it’s useful to put your thoughts down in clear, precise language, even if those thoughts aren’t particularly novel.
As arbiter of the game world, the referee fields a lot of questions. Whether explicit or implied, these questions are usually of the form “Can I?” Such as “Can I climb the wall?” or “Can I sneak past the guard?” Even questions which don’t seem to follow this form often do. For example, if a player asks “What is the statue made of,” what they’re actually asking is “Can I tell what the statue is made of?” And while the full answer to these questions will be more complex, it will always boil down to either Yes, No, or Maybe.
There’s a well known dictate of improv comedy: “Always say yes.” As a fundamental rule, it’s useful if you need to create a coherent narrative for an audience. Unfortunately, some misguided folk have spread around the idea that the rule works just as well for D&D. It does not, for the simple reason that D&D is not a performance. The game is not meant to move smoothly through the familiar narrative notes of exposition, action, climax, and resolution.
In D&D, it’s important that it be possible to fail. Not just once, at a dramatically important moment, but over and over again until the failure becomes boring and you have to choose between continuing to bang your head against the wall, or going off to do something else. (The beauty of D&D, of course, is that you can go do something else in the game). If all the referee is needed for is to say “yes,” then they should just be another player at the table. The group can all participate in improvised fantasy theater for the amusement of themselves, or an audience. Given the proliferation of minor celebrities streaming their games on twitch, I suspect we’re going to see a lot of that.
That being said, I don’t want to make it sound as though saying “yes” is bad. If anything, I think the above misconception is so particularly dangerous because it’s so close to the truth. If you take the “always say yes” motto and apply it to D&D, you will have a good time. Then, if you’re observant, you’ll start to notice how all these dice and rules and systems are just getting in the way. You might reasonably think they’re getting in the way because they’re bad, when in fact they’re getting in the way because they’re meant to support a D&D game. But if you “always say yes,” you’re not playing D&D; you’re playing an improv game, with unnecessary baggage.
A better dictum might be “Try to say yes.” Think about the situation the players are in. Is the thing the they asked to do something they reasonably could do? If so, then say “yes!” Don’t muddy the game with unnecessary barriers, but do bear in mind what barriers exist, and enforce them. Never say “no” just because saying “yes” would trivialize a challenge. Taking clever action to trivialize a challenge is half the fun of good D&D.
This isn’t all that difficult to do. As referee, you have all the details of the game world in your head. Even the ones you haven’t bothered to come up with yet are in your head. And, as an adult human, you’ve spent a not-insignificant portion of your life observing other humans. You’ve got a good idea of what they’re capable of.
So when your players are in a room with a statue, and they ask “Can I push the statue over?” just look at the image in your own head. What kind of statue were you picturing? Do you think an athletic person could push it over? If so, say “yes”. If not, say “no,” and explain why. Is the statue too heavy, is it bolted to the floor, or is it just magically un-push-overable? If you’re not sure whether a person could push it over or not, say “maybe.” I’ll talk more about maybe a little further down.
First, while we’re still on the subject of “yes,” I want to talk about qualifiers. Qualified yeses give the players complications to overcome, and are almost always more interesting than a simple “yes” or “no.” Which isn’t to say you should invent complications that don’t exist, but you should take a moment to think about the specifics of your player’s proposal. What problems might they encounter?
A chainlink fence is a good example. If your players want to climb over a chainlink fence, you can’t really say “no” to that. Climbing over a chainlink fence is easy. You yourself have probably done it many times. But, it’s also noisy.
Instead of just saying “you make it over the fence,” you can say “Yes, you can climb the fence, but someone may see or hear you.” Razorwire is also a common feature of chainlink fences, so you might say “yes, you can climb the fence, but you’ll take damage from the wire, and there’s a chance you’ll become tangled.” The more you try to spot these hiccups in your players actions, the more your players will think about their actions. Your game challenges them, and they’ll be more engaged with it as a result.
Which brings us to “Maybe.” Maybe is easy: if you don’t know whether you should say “yes” or “no,” roll a die.
In a lot of cases, the die you should roll is spelled out by the rules. “Can I stab the goblin?” roll an attack. “Can I find food in the wilderness?” roll a Bushcraft skill check. These pre-established cases are easy to resolve, but just because the rolls are established in the game’s rules, doesn’t mean the referee shouldn’t consider whether “yes” wouldn’t be a more appropriate answer. “Can I stab the sleeping goblin?” Yes! Anyone who makes you roll for that is an asshole.
It should be noted that the inverse is not generally true. If the rules have established a roll that determines the success or failure of a specific type of action, it’s almost never appropriate to say “no.” Better to simply penalize the roll. After all, skilled foragers may still be able to find food in a barren landscape, it just probably won’t taste super good.
Then there is the other kind of maybe. The ones without any pre-established resolution mechanic. You still need to roll dice, but which ones?
Some folks use roll-under ability score checks. They figure out which of the scores best represents the kind of effort needed to successfully accomplish what the player wants to do, and have the player roll a d20. If the roll is equal to or under their ability score, the check is a success.
Roll under checks are an elegant solution. As far as I’m concerned, they’re just about the only good justification for having ability scores at all. But, since I think the ability scores are kinda sloppy, and want to move away from using them, I avoid this method. Instead, I just pick a chance-in-six that seems appropriate for whatever the player is attempting. I default to a 50/50 chance (1-3 success, 4-6 fail), and modify up or down based on circumstance, and any clever planning the characters put into their attempt.
As I’ve discussed before, and will no doubt discuss again, the core mechanic of D&D is the Three Step Conversation. It starts with the referee describing the environment, followed by the player describing how they interact with that environment, followed by the referee describing how the environment changes. Rinse and repeat until fun is achieved.
The Three Step Conversation is a powerful, versatile tool for making the game happen. But, like any core mechanic, it can’t cover every situation that will come up during play. That’s why we have subsystems and dice; deviations from the core mechanic that help resolve situations where conversation is not the best tool. There are basically two types of deviations: quick, and involved.
Skill checks are an example of a Quick Deviation. They handle problems that can’t effectively be solved by conversation, and aren’t interesting enough in themselves to waste any time on. Nobody wants to play a “foraging for food” minigame, so resolution is distilled down to a single die roll.
Which isn’t to say that foraging for food can’t be interesting. It totally can be, but within the context of a D&D game, it’s enough to know whether the foraging was a success or a failure. Spending any more time on it would distract from game’s focus. Rolling a single die skips straight to the interesting bit (success/failure), and gets us right back to the Three Step Conversation.
Combat is an example of an Involved Deviation. It’s a whole minigame, with its own rules, and choices for the players to make. It presents the player with a set of risk/reward choices (If I attack I can do damage, but I’ll put myself in danger of taking damage myself), which are mostly resolved with die rolls. Hopefully, any involved deviation will have a few key elements:
It’s fun.
It’s dangerous.
It’s quick enough that it doesn’t dominate the game session.
It’s possible to completely trivialize it with adequate planning.
All of which brings me around to Hacking. In ORWA, hacking is a quick deviation, handled with a single die roll. But, as the game moves into more of a cyberpunk / science fiction territory, I am curious about the possibility of making it an involved deviation. I’ve also been playing Shadowrun lately, which has got me thinking about that game’s rules (which are interesting, but also terrible).
All of this started with a conversation I had with my friend Frotz, who already wrote up his own thoughts based on that conversation. His ideas focus on making the system work within the Shadowrun framework, while I’m more interested in creating something modular that could work well in a more D&D style ruleset.
Basic Computer Design
The referee will design computer systems (sometimes improvising them on the spot if need be), just as they would for a monster. Each computer has three basic pieces of information: Security Rating, Access, and Network.
A computer’s security rating is a number between 2 and 5. It’s a measure of how well protected the computer is, and will need to be overcome each time the hacker wants to do something. It functions a little bit like a monster’s armor rating this way.
Access is an explicit list of important information and systems which can be reached from a given terminal. This might be something like “Mr. Badguy’s Emails,” “Blackmail gifs,” or “Automated turret control.” The list does not need to be exhaustive, it should only mention the items the referee feels are most notable. If the players try to find something that isn’t explicitly listed, the referee can either say yes, say no, or determine the answer by rolling a die.
Network is optional, and can mostly be handled by common sense. It’s just a way of determining which computers are connected to one another. So if you go into the big bad guy’s fortress, all the computers there might be on the BBG network. Or, if the referee wants to be clever, there may be multiple networks in the fortress.
Hacking
Hacking is done with a pool of d6s, because this whole idea started off as a mod for Shadowrun before I decided to make it modular.
Untrained characters have a pool of 2d6, whilst trained characters begin with a pool of 3d6, which increases periodically. (Either when skill points are put into it, or when a hacker character levels up, depending on how you want to use the system).
A hacking attempt is a complete success if two or more of the dice roll equal to, or above, the system’s security rating.
A hacking attempt is a partial success if only one die is equal to or above the security rating. In this event, the character’s action succeeds, but the system’s Alarm goes up by 1.
A hacking attempt is a failure if all the dice roll below the security rating, The character’s action fails, and the system’s alarm goes up by 1.
Alarm
Hacking isn’t just about getting what you want from a computer. It’s about getting what you want, and not getting caught while you’re getting it.
Each computer’s alarm begins at 0, which means nobody knows nothin’, and there ain’t any evidence for them to find if they go looking for it. Each time the hacker messes up whilst hacking, the alarm increases by 1. The higher the alarm gets, the more trouble the hacker is in.
1. A minor flag. There are tons of false positives at this level every day. It’s unlikely anyone will ever notice unless they have some other reason to investigate a possible hacking.
2. Yellow flag. At some point within the next day or so, security is going to make a thorough examination of the system, and realize it was hacked.
3. Red Flag. The sysadmin will receive a phone call at home, and is going to remotely check on the system. They will realize it is being hacked within a few minutes, to a few hours, depending on how urgently they treat the call.
4. Black Flag. A trace is made. The authorities are automatically contacted.
Actions
Logging into most computers will require passing a security check, and is required in order to perform any of the actions listed below. Once you’re in, though, passively viewing the terminal’s unsecured information can be done without any further checks. That includes stuff like company memos, and possibly some security cameras.
Of course there will be protected information that will require security checks to see. Security checks are also required for changing or downloading anything on the computer, or uploading something to it.
So if the hacker wants to help their companions sneak past a security camera, they’ll have to make one security check to access the computer, another to record 10 seconds of security camera footage, and a third to set the camera to play that 10 seconds over and over again on an endless loop.
If the Alarm is getting too high, and the player wants to try and lower it, they can do so. However, this requires a check made against a Security Rating of +1.
If the hacker wishes to access another computer on the same network, they may attempt to do so. Treat the new computer just as you would any new computer. The only difference is that the hacker is not physically present. Hacking across a network uses the target computer’s security rating, +1.
If the hacker would like to gain Root Access over a system, they’ll need to make a security check with four successes, instead of the usual two. There is no partial success for gaining Root Access. Once the players have that, they no longer need to make a security check for most actions they take on this computer, with only two exceptions: root access does not affect the chance of reducing the alarm rating, nor does it allow you to access any other computers on the network.
Equipment
Deck – A set of portable tools, necessary if you want to try to hack without getting access to a terminal. With a deck, a hacker can break in to devices like ATMs directly, or splice into a network cable to create their own terminal in a secluded location. The downside, of course, is that most hacking attempts have a +1 to their difficulty when made without direct access to the machine. Decks are an encumbering item.
Script – Scripts are digital items that are both expensive, and consumable. They’re most useful when hacking with a deck, where they can be used without needing to upload them first (which, of course, requires a security check).
If a script is available, it can be used to reroll one die per action. If the rerolled die comes up a 1, then the computer’s auto-patching function has discovered the exploit your script was using, and closed it. The script is now useless.
For the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about the most basic rules. The fundamental stuff, which forms the building blocks of most OSR games. How could they be changed to better serve the type of game I want to run? So I’ve been tinkering, and talking with folks on Google+, and I’ve got some ideas for what I’m going to do in my next campaign.
Or, put another way, I’ve decided that the OSR isn’t an obscure enough niche for me. I want to push myself further and further away from what anyone else is doing, until I’m the only one who likes anything that I do.
Saving Throws
Saving throws have two basic functions within the game. First, they serve as a kind of safety net. If the players make a mistake which should result in some dire consequence, a saving throw may allow them to get off easy. Second, saves are a good way to handle attacks which bypass armor or hit points. They’re a defense against the indefensible.
For both of these functions, the game works best when a saving throw is more likely to fail than to succeed. Players should be afraid of making mistakes, or of attacks which bypass their normal defenses. Yet by level 7, about half the saves in LotFP are in the single digits.
I don’t actually see why saves should improve at all as a character levels up. Why not give each class a set of saves, which just never change from what they are at 1st level?
Not only would this better maintain the sense of danger that should come with a saving throw, but it creates an interesting opportunity. Saving throws have always been a fairly static thing, tied strictly to a character’s class, and typically improving only as they level up. Because of this, the difference between them communicates a lot about what each class is.
For example, fighters traditionally have a very good poison save, and a very bad magic save. From that you can infer that fighters are hardy, but weak minded. And, if saving throws never improve from their level 1 values, then we don’t need to give them any room to grow, and we can make the differences between them more dramatic.
All of that being said, I could see myself allowing saving throws to improve once at level 10 or so. I think it could be fun to have something to look forward to that is so far down the line.
Armor Rating
I’ve said it many times before: rolling dice is not inherently fun. We should roll dice only when all potential results of the roll will produce interesting gameplay.
The hit roll, in combat, is a good example of this. There are two results: a hit, or a miss. Hits are interesting because something gets closer to being dead. Misses are interesting because they create an opportunity for the tables to be turned. If two foes are racing to see who can deplete the other’s hit points the fastest, the winner will probably be whoever misses the least.
So the potential for any attack to miss is interesting…but it’s not that interesting. Slugging matches where two sides roll attacks back and forth are probably the most boring situation in D&D. So when both sides repeatedly miss over and over again? That’s just excruciatingly dull.
Worse yet, it’s actually pretty common. Most OSR D&D variants make it fairly easy to get a character’s armor rating up so high that only one or two results on an unmodified d20 roll will be a successful hit.
To fight this, I’ve dropped the base armor class in my game down from 12, to 8. This means the target number for a hit roll will be between 8-15, rather than the 12-19 it is in RAW.
Of all the changes I’ve been considering recently, this is the only one I’ve already implemented in my game. It would be cruel to ask my players to raise their saving throws back up, after they’ve worked so hard to get them down. This change, however, is just a flat 20% increase in the number of hits across the board. So far, everyone seems to like it.
I could even see myself pushing a little further, to a base armor rating of 6. For now, though, 8 is working out pretty well, so I’m going to stick with it.
Speaking of Armor Rating…
I have made one other modification to armor, shamelessly pilfered from a game I played with Brendan of Necropraxis.
Players may wear up to 3 pieces of armor. Each piece counts as a single encumbering item, and can be pretty much anything. A character wearing a cape, a helmet, and a codpiece would count as fully armored, even if they were otherwise naked. Of course, improvised armor (“I put the pot on my head !”) is going to come with complications. (“Okay, but you’ll need to use one hand to hold it up high enough that it doesn’t cover your eyes.”)
Armors available in the early part of the game all provide +1 to the wearer’s armor rating. This means the best you can get for awhile is +3. +4 if you use a shield.
Eventually, players may be able to afford masterwork pieces of armor, or they may find them in dungeons. Each of these grants a +2 bonus. So, once you’ve got 3 of those, you’ll have a bonus to your armor rating of +6, which is equivalent to plate armor in LotFP.
Functionally, this isn’t all that different from the way the system works in RAW. Mostly I like it because it makes encumbrance easier, and encourages more whimsy in your character’s armor.
It does have the slight drawback of making it easier to be a caster in full armor. However, I’m not terribly worried about that, because I intend to make magic users more fragile in other ways.
Hit points & Damage
Nobody loves random character generation more than I do. It’s a great way to give the player a set of tools, which they then have to learn how to use on the fly. But what if we did the opposite of that? What if hit points were not random at all?
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve rolled up my fair share of 1hp fighters, and I’ve liked it. But if you throw too many random numbers together, it starts to feel meaningless. If I roll 1d6 for my hit points, and you roll 1d6 for your damage, that’s just a straight-up 50/50 chance that I’ll live or die. A coin flip with extra steps.
What I’m thinking is that Fighters start at 8 hit points, and gain 3 each level. Specialists start at 6 hit points, and gain 2 per level. Magic Users start at 4 hit points, and gain 1 per level. And, lastly, all damage is rolled using a single d6.
Now, I’m a pretty dumb guy, but the math on this seems pretty interesting to me. In the first combat of the day, the fighter has literally 0 chance of being taken out by a single hit. They can afford to be a little bold. Specialists could be killed by a single hit, by the chance is low. So they can flirt with combat, but they shouldn’t over commit themselves. Magic users, with their measly 4 hit points, have that 50/50 chance of dying, and so will stay back out of the way.
The way hit points progress reinforces that first level experience. For every 2 levels the fighter gains, they can survive a single max damage hit. The specialist needs 3 levels to get the same. The magic user gets a little more survivability over time, but will always be in serious danger around combat. They need to get to level 4 before they can reliably survive even a single hit, and to level 10 before they could survive a second.
For the record, the cap on damage at 1d6 extends to spells as well. I had originally thought I might eliminate all damaging spells entirely from my next campaign, pushing the MU into a support role. However, I think it could be interesting to allow the MU to learn damage spells, so long as those spells obey the same damage limitation as everything else.
Ability Scores
And now for the real blasphemy: no more ability scores.
I’ve been feeling for a long while that nobody really knows what they want to do with this hallowed old mechanic. Every system seems to run them slightly differently, but in the end it always boils down to the same basic thing. They add small bonuses and penalties to a variety of actions. The only difference is in what actions those bonuses and penalties are applied to, but whatever they are, it’s always underwhelming. Unworthy of the pride of place Ability Scores have in the character creation process.
I understand the appeal of keeping them. It’s the first step in creating any new character, and so ostensibly fundamental to the game that the first words in the LotFP core book are instructions for rolling Ability Scores. For many “roll 3d6 down the line” has become a sort of secret OSR handshake. It’s emblematic of the difference between modern and OSR D&D: no fluff, no hand holding, it just is what it is.
But despite all that emotional significance, I just don’t think they earn their keep. They take time and space which could be put to better use, either with a more interesting replacement, or simply by speeding the whole character creation process up by their absence.
Of course, if you use roll under checks, you’re probably thinking I’m fuggin crazy right now. Roll under checks _do_ make ability scores work. They are an elegant little mechanic with a lot of merit to them, but I don’t use them.
As to what I’ll replace ability scores with, I haven’t got it entirely worked out yet. My thought is to make a little table of bonuses the player can have to specific tasks. Basically doing the same thing ability scores did, but with more focus, and less unused fluff.
