XP charts

If you have read this blog a little, you'll know that I like minimalism. Not because rules are boring and school sucks, you know. I just like rules when they are meaningful and the cool shit they apport compensates the complexity they demand. 

Lately I've been studying carefully this classic XP charts. 

I was thinking that as the thief progresses much faster than the fighter, he might actually get tougher than him at some point. I made the numbers and, using 1d4 and 1d8 HD respectivelly, the fighter will always tend to have more HP than the thief at the same XP, at around a 3:2 proportion. But that was it: The saves will always be equal or at +/- 1 difference. Same with the attack rate: the thief will attack worse at some levels, but will get higher levels faster so he will attack as good as the fighter during most of their career. So, essentially, the thief just sacrifices a potential 50% increase of HP and proficiency on some weapons and armor in exchange of the thief skills.

So, if that was the point, it seems unnecesarilly complicated: Writing their own XP chart, assigning a different HD size for each class... Would not be much easier to just say: "This is the universal XP chart for all classes. Fighters get 50% more HP, Thieves get thief skills"?

Well, maybe. Would it be better? again, maybe. Who knows.

The same could be said for the dwarf: In the end he is just the fighter but with MUCH better saves, a skill for discerning shit around dungeons and infravision. In exchange, he cannot use 2h weapons (irrelevant), but gets a small "tax" in  the shape of slightly increased XP requirements (a 10%). This also makes that, though they have the same d8 as fighters, their HP increases a 10% less in the same time on average. Wouldn't have been easier to trash the different chart altogether, alongside HD size differences, and just give the dwarves their pack (weapon restriction, infravision, saves, mining knowledge) and an increased amount of HP respectivelly to the thief standard? just a little bit smaller than the fighter one. Maybe just a bump to constitution: It makes sense in-game and would organically raise the dwarf's average HP.

Again, maybe. 

But the thing is that, even though I have made similar arrangements in my games, I actually like different PCs raising in level at different paces. It makes leveling up a special thing for everybody, just like a birthday party would not be the same if everybody in the world's birthday was the same day. It also feels natural for each race to have different XP milestones. It makes sense for the elf to level up very slowly! 

 

Still, I cannot help striving for minimalism and if the chance to supplant a chart with a procedure falls in my hands, I must at least consider it. I've had one idea to keep escalated progression amongst PCs while having the same chart for every class. More or less, it is like this:

Everytime you do something that might level you up (like, for example, retrieving 1000 gold pieces), you roll a die (lets say a d6) and sum that number to your XP

You level up at exponentially higher milestones. For example: 6 XP, then 16 XP,  them 40 XP, then 100. This way, you never know if this travel will get you leveled up until you actually bring back the gold or do whatever grants you that experience. Some characters will roll higher, some lower...

Once you have this, it is easy to have this system hacked to do other things: Some treasures or quests having you roll higher or lower dice: "this diamond was worth 1d8 XP. Killing that monster just 1d4". You can adjudicate some XP dice to a given "quest" without problem, with the chance of getting a single XP on a 1, or to get a big roll, which can even get you from level 1 to level 2 straight at the first downtime.

Also it can be used to balance races too: some races might be powerful, but they might have a penalty to leveling up and use 1d4 to do it. It can be the effect of an undead curse, or, converselly, be increased by the power of an item/magic/whatever. 

edit: see this alternate comparison of XP/HP on Spriggan's Den

Fire Elixir Forever

I ran a long cyberpunk-themed campaign years ago, based on the adventures of a street gang (the PCs) versus another gangs of diverse levels; the most powerful one being a mix of the Yakuza and the OCP from Robocop. The rest of the setting was a wild mixture from Battle Angel Alita, Grand Thief Auto, The Warriors, Streets of Rage, Gungrave, Daredevil and Akira. The game stopped eventually due to two of my friends stopped talking to each other for unrelated reasons.

I used a very simple ruleset I came up with (Very similar to Lasers and Feelings, with "fiction first" style HPs and freeform skills) which had its pros and its cons, but it was very narrative and I didn't like it drove the game towards the players "negotiating" with the GM out of character; and made combats rely on my personal judgement and whims more than in tight rules. This made combats seem unfair on victories (it always felt like I had "given" them the combat) and even more unfair when they lost. I am maybe being so hard with myself: everyone involved were thrilled and we all remembet the campaign very fondly; pieces of it still appear on our day to day conversations and have changed the way we look at our hometown forever (the game was set on an alternate version of it)

Recently I "unwillingly" came up with some rules that I think that would have worked very good, and I want to write them here just in case I need them again. I don't think I will reunite the old gang or continue that campaign where we left it, but some of them are back in town and who knows if I can pull out some sort of spiritual "reboot".

Character Creation: Roll 4d6, then arrange them from highest to lowest. In that order they give you:

1) your age (add 11 to it. If your character is not part of a young gang for some reason, ignore this result)

2) # of starting items. You roll them on a separate table: some of them are actually traits and are inherent to you, while others are physical objects and can be given or traded to other PCs before the game starts.

3) Your starting hit points. Your gang's vest gives you an extra +1 as long as you wear it. 

4) Your # of skills

Skills: 

Kung-fu: This covers all melee or shuriken-based combat, from fists to katanas. 

Gun-fu: guns, guns, guns. I don't think the genre needs more differentiation in combat skills.

Ninjutsu: This is for when you dodge, sneak, jump more than one would thought, etc. It is possible for non-combatants to be skilled in this arts, specially for animals and kids.

Hacking: From John Connor stuff getting easy money to programming the Matrix

Mechanics: Engineering and repair of vehicles, cyberparts, the physical part of robots, etc.

Medicine: From first aid to acupunture to surgery to the implantation of cyberparts. Ido from GUNNM is an example of somebody who knows both medicine and mechanics

Driving: Useful for biker gangs who do a lot of road mayhem.

Charisma: This is not something that magically bends people to your will, but will come up when an NPC makes a reaction roll, when you try to influence a crowd or when you make a proposal to an NPC that is at least feasible to be accepted. This is Harry McDowell from Gungrave or Cyrus from the Warriors.

Notice that there are no void skills like cooking or lore: history. These nine are those that shape the genre I am trying to emulate. However I don't want to limitate the game to them. You can make up any skill you want as long as it doesnt step on the toes of all those listed above. Any kind of specific lore, an incredibly useless profession or hobby, etc. If you want optimization you can do it, if you want to be a flute player you can do it too. We had this rule for years, it worked perfecly and I loved it

Resolution:

You roll 1d6 if its something everyone can attempt. + 1d6 for skill; +1d6 for skill mastery, +1d6for situational bonus (This is called the Special die), up to 4d6

5-6 is a success. 4 is a partial success, and 1-3 is a failure

Combat:

Highest Hp goes first, unless duels and stuff where everyone rolls at the same time. 

You roll 1d6, + 1d6 for skill; +1d6 for skill mastery, +1d6for situational bonus (Special die), up to 4d6

The results are read like this:

1-3: miss

For each 4, you deal 1 damage.

For each 5 or 6, you deal 2 damage if using fists, 3 if using a street weapon and 4 if using a proper weapon.

Armor is rare, and normally pieces of combat cloth, such like a superhero's suit, provide some work as an extra amount of HP.

Real armor is more likely to happen when one has a metal exoskeleton, or a piece of cloth designed to stop a specific weapon (a kevlar vest for example). This kind of armor negates your best result when rolling against it, instead or in addition to HP increase.

Starting Items/Traits: not the definitive version, I am improvising it, but it looks something like this. There are also examples ingrained on how to deal with bonuses and mechanical parts on a system like this. Probably would benefit greatly from improving the table to a 1d36 one.

3 Minor Psychic Powers. Choose 1, the others may be granted to you sometimes at GM's discrection: Telekinesis, Psychometry, Telepathy, Clairvoyance. You can get better at this by investing in a secret skill: Eerieness.

4 1d6 grenades. They deal 1d6 damage on a hit. On a 4, you can but your enemy gets a free move against you. On a miss, you lose turn cant launch them yet.

5. Toolbox. Allows you to repair and custom vehicles, cyborgs and other stuff. Advanced surgery needs you to work in a lab (improve your homebase until you have one). 

6. Bionic implants, choose 1: Hacking Port (counts as a computer), Adamantium bones (+2 HP), Hidden street weapon; Bionic Eye capable of Thermal Vision. 

7. Aesthetic portable computer: Allows for hacking shit. Taking your effort to set multiple computers allows you to roll, and then re-roll the special dice that many number of times.

8. Tiger Kick: When using street or no weapons, you can add the situational die to combat rolls whenever you can use your legs. Once you miss a roll, your attack becomes predictable and you lose this bonus.

9. First Aid Kit. Use a turn & a medicine roll to cure 3 HP on a 5-6. On a 4, the kit is exhausted. On a miss, you also fail to heal anything.

10. Knife, Chain, Nunchucks or Spiked club (street weapons)

11. Apple, Chicken, Soda or Cigarettes. Those kind of shit gives you back 2 HP when consumed.

12. A personal object you hold dear.

13. You get a light motorbike that allows for 2 passengers. Roll 1d6 to see its max speed (1:low, 6:very high)

14. Gun or Katana (mean weapons)

15. 1d6 doses of your favorite drug. Choose its effect: Hypnotic, Trippy, Stimulant, Chill, Knock-Out...

16. 1d6 Flashbombs and 1d6 shurikens.

17. Panzer Kunst. This martial art helps you to fight enemies twice as high as you or higher. Every time you score a 6 in melee combat, you can roll the "special" dice and add it.

18. Bionic Body specifically adapted to a single skill (+1 special dice per scene/combat)

Leveling up was achieved by surviving X game sessions, and every now and then you earned a new skill or improved an existing one. Now you also get +1 HP. We didn't use HP back then, but a status box (healthy - wounded - dead). In practice didn't work so good.

Lethality. The game is meant to be quite lethal for PCs once you start combating outside the "unarmed" range. You are expendable troops after all, but there are ways to cheat death. 0 or even -1 HP is just incapacitation/dying depending on what caused it; and can still be treated with a medicine kit or similar. But, if you have read enough Battle Angel Alita, you'll know that -2 HP characters that have their head or brain preserved can still come back if a good cyborg mechanic puts them on a new body.

You are also meant to improve your homebase through the game (specific rules to be written another day), and doing so allows you to have new characters start at level 2 or 3, which makes character death a little less painful.

Balance: I don't care shit about balance. You are a gang. All gangs have tough guys and weaklings, skilled and dumb members, who help each other. This is OK. If you get less skills or HP or shitty gear, you can still hang around and interact with the game world. You are not expected to get into mandatory mortal kombat, nor there are pre-planned solutions: attempt things that your character could do. Think how to buy, steal or borrow a solution. Ask NPCs to help you. Whatever. You are not meant to grind the whole setting. There is also a kind of balance in having toughest members fighting while the weak run or do their thing. Ajax and Swan make most of the beatings in The Warriors for a reason. Still, with time you may level up get better at something eventually.

Gameplay procedures: Will expand on this on another entry. I'm taking a lot of time to write this one and I am fucking eager to click publish, so I can chill and take my time with the rest. For now I'm proud with what I got.

Evil cannot create, they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made

Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made - JRR Tolkien.

Apparently people have started using that phrase to critizice the new series: The Rings of Power. Not getting into reviewing the series because I have not seen it, nor have an intention to (despite that, or maybe because I love Lord of the Rings)

Not only that, but I'm of those who advocate that there are bigger implications on media today that go beyond the theatrical political stances of left and right, and step into social engineery. 

It seems that Tolkien's quote has been so appropiately poignant that ThE pOwErS oF tHe InTeRnEt have spent the last year trying to cover it up as a "falsely attributed opinion" to Tolkien. The Shadow's disinformation pages that call themselves "Fact Checkers" have flooded the net with the undisputed fallacy that it was spread by a "group of astonishingly organized racist persons" annoyed by the appearance of a black elf on the show. 

I know of the title quote for years, and have struggled against it many times by trying to create an RPG magic system that is appropiate for the Middle Earth. You can see some of my latest attempts on this very blog. 

I have also seen the media erase and instaurate truths a lot of times along my life. Every time they get more effective as the hivemind structure of the internet and the social media algorythms make it easier than ever. But as a fan of Tolkien I feel that I must make my humble stand against Wormtongue's lies by making this entry, where, from now on, you can easily check that Tolkien's vision was once recognized as true as it might be: THIS LINK leads to a google search of the quote filtering results from 1990 to 2019, before the series were disclosed to the public. And here you can see a 2016 entry on Quora where a person asks: If evil cannot create things in Tolkien's mythology, how did Melkor create dragons?

Frodo itself makes the best in-setting appreciation of this idiosyncrasy on a conversation with Sam in The Return of The King:

"No, they eat and drink, Sam. The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them; and if they are to live at all, they have to live like other living creatures."

Furthermore, evil uncapable of creating must not be seen as a Tolkien's design choice: His work draws its power from the Monomyth (and that is why Lotr and other great works of all ages ring so true and have passed the test of time). It has basis on deeper, magical/spiritual/natural truths that we all know inside, and from which all fantasy, myth and visions emerge. We roleplayers know first hand that necromancers draw their armies from the unwilling corpses of the dead. We who mantain and read blogs know how true gamers create games, rules and worlds in here. Converselly, one would think that Twitter could be a blogspot degradation operated by the Shadow: reducing the character number and the fast propagation it allows not for creating, but encourages fast endorphines through insults, ego wank and mockery. Then, even gaming related accounts end up following the same path of deceit as the common man does: they are eventually lured into a political slot (left or right) and once there, they are presented straw enemies tailored to their hole (bigoted racists for one, retarded feminists for the other) and start fighting a fake war, which in the end only turns them into something they were not at the beggining (bigoted racists and retarded feminists). 

But back to Rings of Power: you can go into the link above and search as many proof as you wish, there is plenty. I don't know how much it will last, though: TV tropes have been forced recently to mark the quote as "badly attributed" and Quora's thread has been recently deleted from most of its tolkien related subs, leaving only that one available. The shadow's agents of pseudotruth are everything but lazy. So, this entry might sound stupid for some, but as both a truth and a Tolkien lover, if the dark wisps try to drown the world in dark lies, what can I do but to light a candle for as much time as I can. 

Ideas for mass combat (notes)

 I had some ideas today for running mass combat in the frame of rpgs. Never ran one in D&D and im not familiar with all the OSR rules around for that; I only ran one on a homebrew cyberpunk themed game  and it was a real mess. Nonetheless, I had some ideas on how I'd like to do one if I did it now, and I'll put them down here for reference.

First, I'd treat "the big melee" scenario as a zone with random encounters. This table below is an example (1d8). You take +1 if you are some kind of leader, and -1 if you are not an actual fighting man (like a woman or a kid just trying to sneak around a battlefield)

1-2-3: Nobody engages with you this turn. You can help an ally on their encounter, search for an enemy, perform any action, etc

4-5: you face a common troop

6-7: a gang of 1d4 enemies fights you at once

8: You draw the attention of an enemy lieutenant or elite troop.

Then, after all the PCs have done their turn, you check how is the battle going. You roll 2d6 plus modifiers, positive if your side is more numerous or has any advantage, or negative if the other side is. Then use a table similar to this:

12 Enemy is defeated or repelled. This doesn't mean necessarily that all enemies are killed: they might try to surrender, retreat or even make a final phyrric charge for 1 turn; GM will decide.

11 Somewhere an enemy leader has been defeated. +1 on further rolls in this table.

10 Enemy numbers are greatly decreasing. +1 on further rolls in this table.

9: If there is a potential advantage, it is succesfully exploited (enemy lured into a canyon, weak point succesfully applied, etc) and you get +1 on  further rolls on this table. This result might require that the PCs perform a quest first to get the relevant information or setup (GMs discrection). If this result is rolled a second time, it automatically works.

8: You see a known NPC. He rolls a save, on a pass he is fighting, otherwise is dead or unconscious.

7 Battle rages. If you declared that you were searching for something or somebody on the heat of battle, you find it.

6 You see a known PC or NPC wounded or in trouble, asking you for help.

5: Your side is hosed to a disfavorable position or is otherwise forced back. -1 on further rolls in this table. This result can be ignored once if your PCs did any quest to prevent it (GM's discrection)

4: Ally numbers are greatly decreasing. -1 on further rolls in this table.

3 An important leader in your side has been defeated. -1 on further rolls in this table

2 Your side is defeated or repelled

Of course, a battle has more facets than just a big melee. Things like firing from atop of a wall, ambushes, catapults, etc should be handled each on their own way; but succesful and meaningful actions of this type can grant bonuses to the 2d6 roll every battle turn, making them count narrativelly and mathematically at the same time; or even trigger a roll on the table by themselves. Even if thePCs are just watching the battle from atop of a tower, you can use the table to narrate the battle to them by rolling every turn.

Handling big battles this way has the upside that every possible "gamist" aspect counts (character levels, gear, actual battle tactics in the big scale, alongside normal combat tactics, characters dying, characters facing multiple opponents or ganging up on a single enemy, etc) and it makes the battle unfold "from the inside", as if it was seen through the fighting character's eyes; which is the aspect I think that should be highlighted on an RPG as opposed to a wargame where you see battles from an "eagle's view". 

I can see how people might like wargames, and I can see how d&d came from chainmail and such. But in my opinion they are very different concepts and don't mix as well as one might think. Also, in this way, PCs fight using the same combat rules they use in the rest of the game; instead of a simplified or tailored ruleset. 

A setting in 4 images

So much time without coming around here! I must take some time to write in here again. Not dedicating myself to rpgs lately, I've become more and more absorbed in that gaming aspect by a local league of Premodern MTG (yeah I know, how could I fell for that?) but now the hype is controlled, I must be back on the tracks. As a warming excercise, I found out about this "trend" of describing a setting in 4 images and wanted to contribute with mine. Not sure on how would I do it, or if it could be done, even. But...

...I'd like to mix Evangelion (complete with angels, epic combat and comfy base-high school parts) with...

...medieval era instead of futuristic age. Not necessarily the "real middle ages" if that is even possible, just some castles, lances and horses. Pic related could be our "Shinji". The picture is called "Portrait of the young knight" and I like to think that it could even exist "in-setting", as a way that they have in Medieval Tokyo-3 to revere their teenage knights and saviors that fight against...

...this terrible monsters that threaten with a very imminent apocalypse that has a parallel relationship with the character's feelings, relationships and discovery of the world, during a seemingly endless unnatural summer. Still not sure on how they should be the only ones to be able to fight in equal conditions with the monsters, or how they are supposed to break their AT fields. The easiest answer is to make them rely on certain magical-special mounts, or some kind of impractical but magical anime swords that only them can wield effectivelly. Choose your favorite:

They also do the important role of adding some neon colors into the picture. Glowing weapons sometimes draw the seriousness out of many settings  (classic shit appearing in mmorpgs) but they kind of fit in here. But I guess that they should be as unique and as important in setting as the Evangelions are for the NERV. For closing, a meme that I just saw and I liked it a lot heheh.

More art, more insight

Some more art of the upcoming project, for which I don't have a working title yet. I am pondering reusing the one from my half-assed rpg, Monks & Mummies, as it shares muses with it. It also sounds perfect both in english as in my native language (Monjes y Momias!)

But I am considering others that might be more appropiate. Three Lost Treasures, or Los 3 tesoros robados (will post more on the rules once the game is actually printed, hopefully this upcoming month)

These are all the cards present on this prototype at the moment: I made this picture in case I lose the deck or a spare card, so I can remember them all and track which one is missing. They are all done with pencil and color markers, with occassional collages.

Introducing a project: Some art, some thoughts

Parallel to all my rpg heartbreakers, I am finishing a cherished project of mine; this time a small card game with no name yet (just some ideas). It's not mean to be a CCG or a TCG, just a set of cards which compose a "boardgame" all together.

You are suposed to play against a friend both with the same deck; each of you representing some sort of shogun trying to recover their respective heirloom relics from the hands of the other, who has stolen them. Yeah, I know its weird, but it made sense to me eventually.

These are some hand-drawn cards from the beta deck (in spanish). One of my design goals for them is to have the card text as short as possible. I realized shortly that I was writing too much text on them, trying to cover every possible legal trapping: due to my long relationship with MTG, I was using the same prose and mentality.

Though it as hard as it is hard for a man not to carry his homeland's accent, I am trying to get rid of the corporate game-designer vices. There is a reason for MTG to be extremelly careful on their wordings: they got the DCI, grand prixes, etc. They cannot afford a card to have an ambiguous meaning. If, for example, a card is a merfolk, you cannot just name it Merfolk Assassin and have a merfolk on the picture: You must specify Creature - Merfolk on the type line, or cards that affect merfolks won't have effect on him.

But I want to revel in the advantage I have over that kind of game. 

This is a small game meant to be played by persons. Probably persons who are friends or family with each other. I want to believe that if an hypotetical card affects "all creatures who carry a sword" they can civilly discern it by watching the pictures. 

I have this card called "Marsh Frogs", which originally were to have a bonus against spiders. Then I thought on writing "If the marsh frogs combat against the spider, they will automatically win the combat". But then I went: What the fuck, this is not a game for bots. People will understand this. Maybe it will change over time, but the current text is: "They will eat spiders directy". I think that people will surely interpret it the right way, and even if it is not the case, I think that the pleasure of working with human language instead of lawyer language still is worth the risk.

Lord of the Rings and MERP - Iron Crown Enterprises [review]

Today, in the "whats hot in rpgs today" section of our program, I present you a small review on two games that are 40 and 30 years old respectivelly.

I was reading this blog the other day, and I remembered the days of my highschool in which ICE's Rolemaster and Middle Earth Roleplaying was what the cool guys were playing. Not a trace of D&D back then. I even bought the book eventually, but never managed to actually run it because I was probably busy worrying about lots of other stuff. One of my friends at the time "borrowed it" for a time (20 years and counting). But I achieved to learn the game between classes from the cool guys, and eventually I made my first character: a human bard that I imagined like this: 

I remember that the session featured skeletons, a riddle for crossing a bridge, being thrown in the cell of a coliseum and managing to get out by enchanting the guard with my only spell (some sort of confusion or sleep, can't remember). I was fucking excited with how awesome it had been. 

One thing that the game did very differently than D&D is the nature and importance of critical hits. Basically on combat you rolled your percentile dice, and there was a "VS armor" table telling you how much HP you dealt to your enemy, and wether you scored a big critical, a small critical or none at all. If you did, you rolled on a secondary table that had tiny descriptions in small letters of what happened descriptivelly; depending on the weapon used and the armor they wore. Some of them narrativelly killed your foe instantly (or your character) no matter their remaining HP

For example, rolling a 40 in the crush criticals table (for example by using a mace or falling into a pit) gives you "blow to forearm, +5 hits. If no arm armor, stunned for one round". Rollng a 110 on the slash critical table is "Impaled in heart. Dies instantly. Heart destroyed. 25% chance your weapon is stuck in foe 3 rounds" On retrospective, I think that this tables made combat a lot of fun, helped with the combat narrative and made use of otherwise aesthetic things (suddently, having your character wear arm armor was important, even if for a marginal case)

Magic and Unarmed attacks had their own tables too. When the setting "monk" equivalents got some levels they got to roll in the "big creatures" critical table, which was the one the balrogs used, instead of raising their chance to hit.

shit quality, but you get the idea

Unlike D&D, it is not centered on stealing loot or delving into dungeons, but still uses advancement through XP. Which is very interesting because I'm always trying to run away from XP=Gold for some reason or the other. MERP awards experience in eight ways, some of them worth a thought:

1. HP loss. Every HP you lose translates to 1 XP

2. Criticals. Every critical you deal has a value in XP. The most interesting is that you get double that amount when somebody deals a critical to you. This means that theoretically you and a friend could level up ad infinitum dealing criticals to each other in a dirty alleyway.

3. Kill points. Depending on your level and the monster's level, you get an amount of XP after dealing the killing blow

4. Maneuver points. When you overcome the classic "roll vs a TN" challenge, you get XP depending on the challenge difficulty (picking locks, convincing guards, all that classic shit)

5. Spell points. You get XP = 100 - (10 x Caster level) + (10 x Spell level) when casting in combat.

6. Idea points. Basically give a random amount to somebody who had an idea to overcome something.

7. Travel points. 1 XP for each mile on an unfamiliar area. Half in civilized areas, x2 or x3 in dangerous areas, and divided by 10 if flying or sailing.

8. Miscellaneous. As long as XP is pre-assigned to specific goals, and not used as "I give you XP for that cool thing you did before" it seems to me like an idea that I find underused on the OSR. The book sadly seems to encourage the latter.

To finish my review, I'd like to say that the book works as Race and Class, and now I realize its heavy parallel to D&D (the 6 stats under other names, using levels, saving throws, etc). It has a LOT of subraces, some of them I don't remember at all being in LOTR (Where do the woses appear in the movie? WTF is a dorwinadan?) and has a nice bestiary:

(WTF is a Dumbledor? wasn't he from another franchise altogether?)

Searching for the old MERP manual, I've managed to find their publisher's second attempt at Lord of the Rings rpg, called simply "Lord of the Rings Boardgame", dating from 1991. And of this one I want to talk a little more, because from the design point of view, it feels very tempting to use, to learn from and to modify.

While MERP (1982) is percentile based, ICE's Lotr (1991) is entirelly 2d6 based. It is much more basic than its older counterpart, which can be bad or good sometimes. But from the "design" point of view, there are some points that caught my attention.

There are 12 skills: 

1. Strength

2. Agility (balance and nimbleness, also initiative)

3. Intelligence

4. Movement (Speed, MV per turn)

5. Defense (adds to armor)

6. Melee Bonus

7. Ranged Bonus

8. General (covers climbing, riding, etc)

9. Subterfuge (thief checks. Too many dexterity divisions, or its just me?)

10. Perception (do I see the trap?)

11. Magical (you get 2 spells per bonus, also adds to the casting roll)

12. Endurance (your HP). 

skills from 1 to 11 can be as high as +3, and as low as -2

skills from 6 to 11 are "bought". You get +5 bonus to divide between them, but any skill that is not raised gets a -2 instead. I like that this makes a great gap between casters and non casters, fighters and non-fighters, or sneaky hobbits and clumsy human. I would go even further and make it so the first +1 only applies to a favored weapon, which is more in line with the original books (Legolas=bow, hobbits=slings, for example) but using another of the same type (ranged/melee) only drops you to 0, not to -2

skills from 1 to 5 and Endurance depend entirelly on your "class"

There are nine "race and class" packages that you can choose. They all come in a pregen sheet with weapons, equipment and certain skills raised or lowered. The classes and examples it cites are:

Hobbit Scout (Bilbo, Frodo)

Elf Scout (Legolas)

Human Warrior (Eowyn, Boromir)

Dwarf Warrior (Gimli, Thorin)

Elf Warrior (Glorfindel)

Human Ranger (Aragorn)

Half-Elf Ranger (Elrond)

Human Bard (Gandalf)

Elf Bard (Galadriel, Arwen)

I love how the wizard word is totally out of the question. Wizards in this game are treated as bards. The spell list is kind of short, there are like 20 spells with the classic ones (sleep, fireball, identify shit, etc). Anybody can cast spells providing they raise their "magical" skill, so classes are little more than archetypes that help players to get into the character.

Combat is done in a grid, with movement, attack and half attacks. Depending on the action you take (spells go first) you act in a given order, with same actions acting in order of agility. Attack rolls use a small table modified by offense/defense of those involved, with the high results resulting in straight leaving your opponent unconscious (a natural 12 always does, at least, knock out your opponent) or maybe even killing them. Armor adds to your Defense bonus and substracts from subterfuge, magic and movement.

Too basic when compared with the MERP one, maybe. I see the simplicity of the 2d6 as a great excuse for complicating it using the critical tables of the original one!

Strength doesn't affect combat in anyway, which is plainly stupid in a game that uses it as a factor. Seeing that weapons are differenciated by modifying damage done, but with two handers and  unarmed combat having penalties to hit, I think that a good way to fix this is to have Strenght offset those penalties by a proportional amount. 

The resting 8 of the 28 pages ruleset is dedicated to an oddly specific set of questions. My copy is in spanish, but I found a screenshot that will speak better than my words:

The choice of 14 situations that are thoroughly covered by the rules is very interesting, it says a lot about the challenges that the PCs are supposed to face and about the world they tread on. In which other fantasy game did you see a page dedicated to SNEAKING THROUGH TOWN BY NIGHT?

 None of the books have anything such as "procedural challenge generation" or anything that drives the game forward other than the GM's work, but LOR makes up for it as it was originally printed in a book alongside a module (bigger in pagecount than the actual game), so you could say that the first module was part of the game itself. 

(Skimming through it it seems that it features at least Gandalf and Merry as NPCs, as well as a couple of Stone Trolls)

It is cool to know that if somebody decides to play it after all this years, after lots of iterations and games on the Middle Earth that have been published, s/he can find some help with My_GaMe_FiXeS in this small corner of the blogosphere. Nice coming into spring for everybody. 

Eowen at the doors of Meduseld

Schools of magic

image: twitter - @ahruon

From the gamist point of view, there are plenty reasons to divide magic into colors in an RPG

- increased replayability

- increased difference between various PC casters

- increased customization and sense of identity. Say that novice wizards start with one color, expert can add a second and masters can add a third That makes for organic character customization which comes up through gameplay, not at character creation. Much more if you pair it with all or some spells being "found" in-game.

- different types of wizards build world. Factions, tensions, zones on the map that belong to ones or others. The whole Kanto is built over making zones for each pokemon type, but the same can be said about Ravnica.

- the opportunity to create different legendary spells or magic items tailored to specific types, which can be quested for by their respective PCs. This type of "item hunting" is one of the best things you can have when you play a sandbox.

And, lets face it, I want to create something inspired by Pokemon Magic since ages. It's one of the best examples of good gameplay-oriented worldbuilding in history, and there is a lot to steal from it.

After thinking a lot about this,  I think that the correct number of schools for my project should be around four or five in the book, with around 10 spells each (lets say: 6 basic, 2 expert and 2 legendary). But instead of closing them in a wheel (as MTG does) keep it open so one could create custom schools or spells around any concept one should want (chronomancy, technomancy, etc. Sense of taste not included) while still being compatible with the existing lists. As I was doing my research, I found out that the uneven GLOG does "in spirit" much of what I am striving to do, but of course, I am going to do it my way anyways. 

So, first of all, lets see some examples of magic schools portrayed elsewhere.

You got eight of them in post-3e D&D: abjuration, alteration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, illusion, invocation, and necromancy. This particular case is interesting because types are defined mostly around their "role" in game: alteration and illusion are suited for adventuring tricks, conjuration and invocation are more suited for combat, with necromancy having a very defined use. To put it in a way, wizards are much more "pigeon holed" in what they can or cannot do.

Pokemon, on the other hand, is divided by theme (lightning, plant, water, etc) but the role of every theme is mostly the same: beat the other guy down. 

Magic the Gathering's five colors fits nicely between both examples: Colors have a solid definition in theme, and while all of them can take you to "zero life" they play wildly differently. And while they have limitations and specializations, they feel like they are built around a theme in-game and not around utility in a design room as 3e D&D does.

Ideally I want to conceive five wizard schools and try not to rip off MTG straight in the process. Five is a curious number to base something, as there are much lesser correspondences than with the number four (four directions, four elements, four seasons, four quadrants on an X/Y graph); though it is used on chinese systems (earth-metal-wood-water-fire) or japanese ones (wind-fire-water-earth-void). Also japanese use a five season calendar that divides summer into a rainy and a dry season.

So, to begin with, here is a table in which (you/I) can roll up some wizard schools. Your school spell list gets one spell for each type below, but for one that is unknown to them (roll). Two other types get one and two extra spells respectivelly, for a total of 10 spells. A school with three types of offensive spells is likely to be a very quarreling faction, while one that focus on alter the self or alchemy will look more like a sect of cultivators.

1 offensive (damage + certain status alterations)
2 healing (damage and or status alterations, including death)
3 divination (prophecy, ESP, commune-style questions, etc. Tapping into the "hidden" side of everyday things, such as travelling through mirrors or speaking with animals, also goes here)
4 summoning (other entities, forces or objects)
5 enchanting (alter things and people, also non-violent combat moves such as sleep)
6 altering the self (transformation or other power ups)
7 alchemy (preparing potions or other consumables, probably buffed in uses to compete with instant spells)
8 protection (any kind)

Now, roll two or three times for the themes of the school. These will help you give form to the spell list, and hint which forces or mythological animals power your advanced spells. Just forget for a while that these are the official pokemon types.

1. Fire
2. Water
3. Grass
4. Electric
5. Ice
6. Fighting
7. Poison
8. Ground
9. Flying
10. Psychic
11. Bug
12. Rock
13. Ghost
14. Dark
15. Dragon
16. Steel
17. Fairy
18. Normal

Suit yourself to choose what each of this words mean. Fairy in the pokemon game is used mostly as mind-alteration (which make more sense on the Psychic type IMHO) but it can be interpreted in a more open way and make it about fate, bending space and time and other works of elves and demigods. It feels natural to expand Ghost into necromantic/exorcist territory, while type: Normal is probably best used as representing animals and other beasts (druidic style)

Now roll twice for your thematic colors

1. Red
2. Blue
3. Yellow
4. Orange
5. Purple
6. Brown
7. Black
8. Green
9. Pink
10. Indigo
11. White
12. Emerald
13. Lavender
14. Turquoise
15. Gold
16. Silver
17. Bronze
18. Cyan
19. Magenta
20. Go monochromatic. You can always choose this instead of any result. If this is your only result, roll again.

EDIT: link to Dont worry, I've got a Sword where the author has worked on the same topic.

EDIT 2: 8 Schools of Magic by Reckless Dweomer

source (a game called wizards of unica)

The Gender of Magic

It came upon me that there are two kinds of magic users. 

There is one kind that goes out exploring, learns spells and throws fireballs from a staff. This is the one we model in D&D. They activelly seek to get into the monster's lair and take out their magic loot. This is Gandalf, this is the Dying Earth guys and also any wizard you see casting Bolt2 in Final Fantasy games. You can even argue that White mages and Priests from Dragon Quest belong to this group. Kvothe from The Kingkiller Chronicles does not have a staff, but it's otherwise a perfect example. Their magics are visible and obvious; immediate. They often embody the concept of Glass Cannon (fragile but potent combatants), but still a cannon. They are the Yang (or male) side of the casters, and we usually call them wizards. They often learn their craft by reading books in posh wizard colleges or equivalents and in their extreme variant do not require any special inner wisdom: just memorizing shit and repeat some words boldly. Their magic tends to have very clear rules for casting, very scientific with little mysticism.

The Yin (Female) kind also appears much in fantasy, but rarely in the form of main characters. Yin implies a degree of passiveness, so they are not specially suited to star in an adventure book, though they might fit better on more introvert, small-scoped novellas. Yin magic users do not cast flashy spells, but rather do things like influencing others or preparing potions. They are not usually adventurous but stay at home; sometimes for years or for life, improving their magical skills often in solitude. Their magic is not "shot" but instead often requires a degree of intimacy. It also works subtler and slower: they seduce, think, trick, deceive and plot to get their goals, to the point that sometimes it's not clear where the manipulation begins and the magic ends. We usually call this casters witches, and when they appear in a story is very likely that they are helping characters or villains. Rhea de Coos, Malefica, or the Fairy Godmother. Though they're often women, some male mages in fiction embody this archetype, for example Merlin in his mentor facet, Flagg from Eyes of the Dragon or Jafar from Aladdin.

In rpg games we usually play wizards. I don't think there is nothing bad at it: they just work better for what D&D does. Playing a witch is a little more difficult. Mind that if what she does in-game is to shoot elemental spells and go killing monsters 4 loot you are essentially playing a female wizard. The very act of being an adventurer is Yang on itself, while Yin would be concerned to introspection and travelling "the world inside you" (which can be awesome on itself but not an usual part of D&D). Yin wizards are present as NPCs such as antagonists, the alchemist hirelings or the potion sellers. 

But as the Tao shows, Yin holds Yang inside and viceversa. So every single thing, and every magic user in existance has, of course, a little bit of both. To traduce this to rpg mechanics: If we assume both approaches of caster to be the same class (Magic User), how likely is that a Wizard can cast lots of spells, but require an alchemist to prepare a potion for them? and how likely is that said alchemist has researched lots of potions that are EVIDENTLY MAGICAL, but hasn't cared of learning a single level 1 spell? I think that the lines should blurr a bit in there. Still struggling to make my "perfect" magic system/class, and got stuck thinking about this. Ideally, a class should let you advance your character on either field, instead of making you choose between artificially created distinctions like "the Wizard class" or "the Alchemist/witch class". I've found this documents that might serve as inspiration in future attempts to create it. The challenge is that the more you push a character to become a "brewer" you put more emphasis on downtime, which might not sync well with the biorrhytm of the rest of the party. 

There are, of course, some tricks like making potions "quantum" (as in, you are given X potion points each downtime, then you spend one point to produce a potion that "you always carried with you"). To make this ability organically mixed with the "fireball gun", magic users could choose to learn a potion recipe instead of a spell, with potions being more potent than level 1 spells, but not more than level 3 spells. This way one could advance freely between the wizard and witch concepts, while having a good reason to specialize in potions at the start of the game (more potency in exchange of more complexity) and a good reason to not do it (more spells, in the end they might be more useful, you never know). Also with spells get more powerful the more level you have (such as magic missile) it might compensate little at the start, but a lot when you are level 10 or more. 

And, for closing, let me ask you a question: do you feel that you have ever played a "witch", in the Yin sense of word?

Magic system sketch v2

After all this time, I've still haven't found a magic system that I like 100%. This is the current iteration I am working now. Numbers are made to fit with this other previous work, though they can work with any rules using roll-under, under a magic stat such as wisdom or intelligence.

Wizards grow in 2 fields:

# of Spells and Magical skill

There is a magic skill, lets say X in 6, that grows as the wizard gets more powerful. 

Using certain magic items (like oracles) passive reactions (like detect magic) or small magic effects (cantrips) uses a roll of this to work. Wands also use this as primary factor of power, I will explain soon. 

# of Spells is very reduced, even though if spells themselves are more "versatile" and should not have a single, ultra-specific effect.I want to limit it to four or five even in very powerful wizards. More spectrum is added by gathering items (jewels, wands, etc) that allow casters to have more repertoire. This magic items are not too overpowered because they need a good magic skill score to work, so it is fine. It is hinted in the books that Gandalf uses fire thanks to the elven ring he carries; so wizards having lots of power and not many spells has basis on the holy fantasy books.

This is a hint on how this could work:

Lets say you have a spell list of 2: Heal and Cold

You use the Cold spell to deal damage, so you roll 1d6 and check your magic score (3)

If you roll under or equal your score, you take that number of HD from your enemy or enemies (you decide how this damage is divided). Lets say that the Cold spell has a side effect or alternate effect of slowing enemies down: then everyone affected rolls a save or is paralyzed. At 0 HD they are frozen permanently until defrosted. 

Having more level or good gear might increase the number of dice you roll: If you roll multiple d6, treat them separatelly

If you roll OVER your magic score, then the result is assumed to be equal to your magic score (3) but either the spell is lost if all dice are over (like a vancian system) or you lose magic die which roll over (making energy decrease instead, instead of making spells deplete separatelly)

Depending on the spell, the number rolled can be interpreted as HD of damage, yards, meters, possible individual targets or just an abstract degree of effect (up to the GM to decide the spectrum of effects on all results from 1 to 6). 

A very interesting interpretation could be to make a spell (for example, CHARM) be able to target a monster with HD equal to [number rolled + wizard HD]. So the spell always works with monsters under the wizard's HD, and makes a nice progression for spells to grow up in power as the wizard does (per BX rules, sleep, charm or hold person have hard caps on which monsters can be affected based on HD or size, but seem a little arbitrary and make you wonder: why is a dragon never affected by a sleep spell, EVER, no matter the wizard's skill? it seems something that could happen on a fairy tale. Why not in a D&D game?

So, wizards get exponentially better as they raise their magic score, which is something I activelly want. My idea is to make multiclassing possible, but mathematically sub-par. Having one fighter and one wizard should render more "powerful" characters than having two fighting-wizards, even if the latter might be useful in some situations. 

Having made this, only one more task remains: to make a provisional spell list to be tested, and deciding what kind of effects can be used as cantrips or produced on a different way.

One idea is that both HEAL and COLD, as do FIRE or BOLT, can produce light under certain conditions (for example, when used by a "magic score=3" wizard who is carrying a wand). This way, you can have spells produce lights of different colors depending on the wizard's favored powers (just like jedis have different lightsabers)

Another one is that spells give you both active and passive abilities.

Having mastered the HEAL spell means that you must be a very lawful or righteous person, so you have a +1 to turn undead.

Having mastered the COLD spell might give you a passive resistance to cold temperatures, and so on. 

Ah! I almost forgot: Wands allow certain effects (such as light) but magically imbued wands give you an extra d6 when rolling to their favored spells (Wand of cold gives you an extra 1d6 when casting cold, for example). This die never depletes unless you are one of those sick people who makes wands a depleting resource.

Here is a big good list of spells alongside the cantrips/passive bonuses they grant to the caster that memorizes them. While I make my own list (the real tough work) this can serve as inspiration

initiative without rolls

 

Happy new year! it feels like its been a long time without posting. Or maybe its just my feeling. This blog has been boosted like x 10 in visitors since Alex Schroeder mentioned me in his blog (its not like I had many before lol) and I should be making only hIgH qUaLiTy posts from now on. 

I want to take an entry to talk about my initiative houserule, and why I like it so much.

Basically, unless there is surprise, initiative goes to the side whose has the single member with more max HP, and only in case of a tie I randomize it.

Additionally to this, I don't do the "one side acts, then the other side acts" thought it would work perfectly I guess. I complicate it a little further by making the side who acts choose one member which acts (for the monsters, the GM chooses) and then, after the action, a member of the other side acts; and this goes on until everyone involved has taken its turn. Arrows and Spells can be shot reactivelly (spells require an armor-based roll to work in time) but doing so it consumes the turn of the shooter/caster.

I've been playing like this in my last campaign and I've accostumed myself a lot to it; to the point that I don't think I am going back. Combat is much more swift (much more combined with the "no damage, just take a Hit Die" houserule), and also it makes interesting effects in game: 

Having a Fighter in the party is suddently much more important. His instincts help everyone to take the lead on a fight, even if he doesn't fight himself: Maybe he just grabs the initiative so the thief can do something first. Tougher monsters are also scarier, because their sheer "speed". Suddently it also matters in which turn of the watch the monster appears: if the fighter is asleep, the monster can get a great advantage.

The "alternate sides" thing also adds an element of strategy for the players, something that its often missing from combat when a game makes the fights a little bit abstracted. Using this (also abstract) ways to control combat gives PCs more buttons to press which, in my opinion, adds a +1 to old D&D.

Sometimes I like to distinguish swords from the other weapons because they add a little bonus to HP only for initiative purposes. They are the weapon of heroes after all.

And thats it. 

I want to note that it is also possible to make a much more gamist initiative without rolls, and I found out by playing pokémon this last weeks.

In the GBA games, initiative works like this: both trainers choose their movement at the same time, then the pokemon with most speed acts first. Stats are very granular, so having a tie is very rare.

Certain movements have priority over others, regardless of speed. For example, taking a potion or changing pokemon goes always before any attacks (there is but one attack AFAIK that specifically strikes before retiring the pokemon). Some attacks have a "quick" tag that makes them go before the enemy, and there are slow attacks too, which work the opposite way.

It could very easily be ported to tabletop by assigning a sort of speed stat (dexterity is the easiest) and then listing which kind of actions have priority over others. This very choice can lead to very different combat systems and tones (for example, if healing has priority over attacking, if spells go first or last, etc). 

Offtopic: If you speak or understand spanish and like the game, I reccomend you this awesome Team Rocket Edition hack by Dragonsden. You play as a Team Rocket recruit acting parallel to Red and Blue in the original Game Boy games. The lore of the game is so good that its really a pity that its not "official", I am really enjoying it!