Monks and Mummies: Advancement. v2

As the game begins, players are given a communal sheet with some questions and some milestones. 

This set of questions can be answered at anytime to turn a failed roll into a max result. The answer must relate to the problem you are facing somehow; and can be spent to change the roll of an ally too, if the question allows it. Example: "What was that important lesson you received from your master?" can be used for yourself or for any other PC if you are willing to consider him a master, or if you yell that lesson aloud so you can inspire that character.

You can only answer about YOUR character past, and if there are players who have answered less questions than you, you must wait for them to catch up so everybody can use this. You can interpret the questions however you like. If your character is not even a martial artist, you can say that his photography classes were his dojo, or something like that.

Once a question is answered, it can't be used again by any other player. These mechanic gives the PCs some plot armor during the early game, and the answers help the GM to picture the world the players have in mind, and to bring back the past of the characters into the plot. 

_ What was that important lesson you received from your master?

_ What is the emblem/motto of your dojo? And when you get some time, what is the story behind it?

_ Why must your troubled ally not give up?

_ What did you do to earn your living in the past?

_ What promise did you made and to who?

_ How brutal was your training? like, what is the most fucked up shit you did?

_ What made you undertake your training at all?

_ What thing or person do you despise most?

_ What have you always be ashamed of, but might be useful now?

_ What dream burns in your head / what passion burns in your heart?

This set of milestones can be checked at the end of each session by each PC: If you managed to do at least one of them, write yout initial on it and advance. If you did many of those during the session, you must choose only one. You cannot mark a milestone twice, but you can get liberal about their meaning. Your GM has the final word, as always. Different PCs can mark the same milestone if they want to.

_ I've helped an NPC with his first world problem

_ I've passed a master's test and endured his training

_ I've found some treasure that is beyond mere gold

_ I've defeated somebody in an honorable duel

_ I've fought an infernal beast

_ I've solved a crime

_ I've stood for my beliefs even when it was risky to do so

_ I've mantained the honor of my dojo

_ I've funded a dojo and taught some students

_ I've righted a wrong the best I could

_ I've performed my profession to make a great work

_ I've made an even greater work

_ I've retrieved big treasure

_ I've retrieved an even bigger treasure

I will probably edit when I come up with better options

magic system sketch

Following the guidelines of previous entries, I'm devising some possibilities to simple and cool magic systems.

I want magic progression to follow a 4-step, exponential structure; from non-magical, to initiate, mage and archmage (and diminishing gains after that if any). 

Magic, then, is cast from a list of spells that increase in number on every "magical grade", but also in power.

What I have for now is this:

Initiates roll 1d6 when casting spells

Mages roll 2d6

Archmages roll 3d6

and spells have three parameters to be measured:

Impact (how many hp you heal, damage you do, effect you cause, etc)

Range (how many people it affects)

Retain (decides if the spell is retained after use or not)

As I want that there are mechanical benefits to casters to disregard armor, I made it so wearing armor or other encumbrances decreases the chance to retain spells: you must roll your movement rate or under to keep the spell.

Sample movement rates:

No armor=2

Light armor=1

Heavy armor=0

Initiates roll 1d6 to cast magic. So when an initiate rolls a heal spell, the result defines all parameters; but one from impact or range is defaulted to 1:

Lets say he rolls a 4: he can choose to heal a target 4 hit points, or heal 1 hit point to up to four targets. As he rolled over its movement rate (no armor=2), the spell is lost.

Mages roll 2d6 to cast magic. They can allocate the results anywhere they see fit from Impact, Range or Retain. A parameter which has no results is defaulted to 1, and if its Retain, its automatically lost.

Mage in no armor rolls a 4 and a 2 when healing: He can choose, for example, to heal 4 points to a target and keep the spell (2 is equal to his movement rate); or maybe he can heal 2 points to 4 targets and lose the spell.

Archmages roll 3d6 to cast magic. They are, of course, benefited from allocating low rolls on Retain and high rolls on effect. 

Archmage in light armor casts heal and rolls 3, 3 and 1. He heals three points to three different targets, and as he keeps the spell, he can attempt it again next turn.

Now the base is established, lets get to the fun spare bits:

* Some spells make no sense in having a numerical score for Impact, but they can be described differently depending on the result assigned to it (from an 1 to 6 score, how much does "Magical Light" shine into the cave?). On others, where the result is a matter of yes or no (charm, sleep, maybe) the Impact roll can measure the number of turns affected, being a threshold that you must reach for the spell having an effect (like in "sleep needs a 3 at least to kick in") or just having the spell work straight, and making it more a matter on "how many people you sleep" (effectivelly putting the weight on the Range score)

* Mages and Archmages revert to 1d6 lower if they are for any reason deprived from their magical wands (I'm a great fan of Earthsea novels)

* Spells can be learned multiple times. This is the way in which a forest nymph (Initiate level) would cast Entangling vines many times before retreating.

* Things that complicate this structure further must be treated on a case by case basis, described on the specific spell description.

* Casters can attempt to cast spells reactivelly: when they are attacked, they can attempt to cast a spell before the attack takes place. This is done by casting normally, and if the Retain is successful, the spell is cast before the attack. If the Retain is lost, the spell takes effect after the attack (if the mage is still alive and any other conditions allow it). In any outcome, this consumes the casters' turn.

*It is weird that mages can only cast spells on groups of 6, no matter their power, huh? To fix that, having a range of 6 means you cast the spell on all the group you select (all foes, all allies, everyone but a single person... its your call)

Minimalistic D&D-like (how many abstractions are too many?)

Inspired by this blog entry, This is a full disclosure of what I have in mind these days. D&D is full of abstractions, and I (think I) understand the idea behind all of them, but I think that some of them are redundant with some others:

- Levels provide both a sense of goal and progression, and a way to size up characters and monsters for spell/effect purposes
- Fighters get extra attacks with levels, or sometimes better chance to hit.
- Classes give you niche protection and diversity, with attributes giving you a better picture of your character.
- HP are a mixture of toughness, luck and kung fu
- Spells are given to the wizards in exchange of having poor HP and other pointless restrictions
- Skills are an add-on to make thieves have something of their own

I've devised a way to simplify this by making all things dependant straight into the Hit Points / Mana Points: Let me explain.

You get 2d4 HP at the start, or 1d4 HP and 1d4 MP (the average person has 1-4 Hit Points, so if you get more you can consider yourself a kind of experienced fighter in-world)

Classes/Attributes/Spells/Skills are all subsumed into something called Specials (because sounds better than feats). Some of them provide passive bonuses and some are active and require MP. There is a maximum of 4 which can be learned (taking this straight from the pokemon moves), though 1 or 2 more can be stored in magic items.

In the beggining, you must choose/roll one in a table of basic specials. The rest of them must be unlocked through play (once you've come in contact with the special through a source of inspiration/book/master you can pick them at level ups).

1. Monk (1d6 damage with fists or small melee weapons, +2 hp)
2. Strong (You can attempt feats of strenght; and can carry 2 extra items. Re-roll all 1s in melee damage. +2 Hp)
3. Agility (+1 AC when unencumbered, you can attempt agility feats )
4. Marksman (spend a turn aiming to add 1d4 damage to the next bow/sling attack)
5. Fend (with staves and swords, you can ditch a failed/low damage attack for a +1 AC bonus, just as if you wore a shield)
6. Healer (1 MP. Heal 1d6 hp; spend 3 MP instead to roll 2d6, one for HP and other for # of targets)
7. Divination: ( MP: 2 per Y/N question; requires quiet time)
8. Charm: 1 MP per d6 rolled. On every 6, improve by 1 the reaction roll.

(this list is veeeeeery provisional, but the idea is to have each Special embody a "type" of character)

Once all this is set, your starting character should be something like: 3 HP, 2 MP, Healer, 1d6 staff + Inventory + Name. You should not have to worry about more until you level up a bit.

You start as an Adventurer. Having HP 6 qualifies you as a Warrior, which may entail certain weapon uses. At 10 (Champion/Warlord) and 14 HP (Hero/Heroine), you get +1 extra attack or action per round

Having any MP at all makes you an Initiate. At 4 MP (Seer/Priest), at 8 (Enchanter/Enchantress) and 12 MP (Wizard), you get +1 Magic Rank (Adds to magical attacks AND magical AC against psychic damage; you can get some by buying amulets though. At Seer/Priest level, this power up is symbolized by a magical staff or symbol)

It will be all OK because the booklet will be written in this font:

Monks & Mummies: XP

(AKA Monsters and Monasteries)

This is for a game I want to put together little by little. Basically is OSR D&D but slightly based on martial arts animes and JRPGs.

One thing that didn't worked for me about the PCs being wandering fighters is that those kind of people don't seem too much interested in gold; so making XP for Gold Retrieved seemed a little dissonant about character goals / player goals. Yeah, sometimes a master can require a treasure for paying their training but is hard to justify that monks are delving in dungeons all the time and no training.

XP per monster killed, though more fitting at first, is also not perfect as it incentivizes players to fight whatever shit they're thrown. And the trope of the fighter asking another fighter to battle just to "test their styles" is cool, but is not something you can base a game upon (Also, straight sweeping hordes of monsters works in JRPGs due to the videogame mindset, but grinding during hours with no lateral approaches doesn't traslate well to pen and paper)

What I've done is to write a check list of milestones in order to guide the players through the sandbox. Every box ticked is 1 level, but doing each must involve a serious quest so as a GM you have to make it challenging

[_] Help an NPC to solve his first world problem
[_] Defeat 1 monster with your same HP*, alone
[_] Defeat 1 monster with higher HP*, alone
[_] Defeat 1 monster with double HP*, in group.
[_] Build a Dojo or other similar Settlement; and mantain it for a time (basically put a trouble on the way and make the PC overcome it)
[_] Join a sect or swear fealty to a kingdom; and upheld its honor in a quarrel or defeat a rival sect
[_] Train under the supervision of a master and complete his quest (the quest might be the lesson itself or just a test to be judged worthy)
[_] Set up a personal quest and achieve it (decide it at anytime, GM put a trouble on the way)
[_] close a wound about your character's past (a revenge, a lost love, a promise, etc. Decide it at anytime what it was, no need to do it at creation. GM put a trouble on the way, if you achieve the atonement, tick this. If you dont, a new chance will appear on another quest)
[_] retrieve 800 GP
[_] retrieve 2000 GP
[_] retrieve 5000 GP
[_] retrieve 10000 GP

There are more than 10 so you don't have to undertake all of them to reach level 10 if playing by classic standards (If you're an evil person, I'll spare you from helping that NPC, man) and some GP related points so I can still run a dungeon/heist or two if needed

I'm thinking on adding one about "[_] having your character wounded with consequences". As in losing an eye, an arm, etc; or just changing the way you play your character dramatically; but it must have mechanical (- to a stat) and narrative consequences for it to be fairly executed; and also a mechanic to make this happen in combat organically.

Other alternatives that still use XP is giving XP per victory after a battle encounter (to prevent unnecessary carnage, getting an enemy surrendering, admiting defeat or fleeing counts as victory) or XP given by Masters (Master is a "monster" on the random wilderness encounter. His special powers is giving a trial or a quest. On fulfillment, his treasure is just XP without the GP that usually accompanies it)

*Change it for HD (Hit Dice) instead of Hit Points for classic conversion, but I use it like this for some reasons I'll explain on further entries.