What are adventurers?
Thieves, mostly. Trying to get into a highly guarded fortress, get enough valuables to make it worth their while, and get out.
Ideally, there's no fighting, no fireballs, no healing. Ideally, they are never seen.
But, that whole dungeon crawl part I think is the boring part. Instead, I'm interested in what happens when you come back. You're covered in muck and blood, and flush with cash. The local economy will explode.
To get there, I need some mechanisms in place. This is what these are.
In this envisioned system, everybody can sneak, fight, heal, find loot. Different classes are better at different parts than others. But, if you are good at sneaking then you'll rarely need to fight, and maybe can even make sure you get good treasure.
This is step one of this game, basically. Getting together loot. Then you bring it back to town. More on that later, probably much later.
Thoughts and ideas welcome.
When you enter the Dungeon looking for loot, roll + Sneak. On a 12+, make a Treasure roll and increase by a success tier. On a 10+, make a treasure roll. On a 7-9, make a treasure roll but first face a guardian. On a 6-, you must face a guardian. On 3 or less, you face a guardian but must choose 1 less when you do.
Face a guard: Roll + Fighter.
On a 12+, choose 4. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 2. On a 6-, choose 1:
-- You do not have to roll Wounds
-- You gain a roll on the Treasure table
-- Carry forward an increase by a success tier to your next roll.
-- You do not have to face another guardian.
When you suffer wounds at the hands of a guardian, roll + Armor.
On a 12+: You are AOK. It'll hurt for a day or so.
On a 10+: It is mostly bruises, you'll be fine. It'll hurt like hell for a week, though.
On a 7-9: You are cut or smashed badly. Everyday tasks will be hard for a month.
On a 6-: Broken bones, like an arm or a leg. You'll have mobility issues for a season.
On a 1-3: You are dead. The MC may grant you a few final moments.
When you pray to a god to heal someone, roll + Cleric.
On a 12: If they died recently, they come back, with cuts or smashed bits but nothing is broken. For anyone alive, they are now AOK.
On a 10: Broken bones are turned into merely bad cuts.
On a 7-9: Bad cuts are turned into merely bruises.
On a 6-: Bruises are healed, but you have annoyed your God and cannot do so again until you atone.
On a 1-3: You made it worse.
Treasure table: Roll + Wizard
On a 12: You gain a platinum piece, or 10 gold.
On a 10+: You gain a Gold piece, 10 silver,.
On a 7-9: You gain a silver piece, 10 copper.
On a 6-: You gain a copper piece, 10 rations
On a 1-3: You find a ration, more or less.
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That all makes sense.
ReplyDeleteTry to sneak in, fight if you have to, heal if you have to. Roll for treasure.
I don't get why Wizardry = Treasure though.
I'd change the stats to something usable outside of a dungeon. In the order you have presented them, Cunning, Brawn, Brawn again, Faith, Expertise
ReplyDeleteBrian Ashford I figure what wizards are best at is knowledge, yeah? So this is that.
ReplyDeleteThis is Gandalf saying "That's some nice armor you've got there, and a very pretty sword. Those are better than you think ... "
Misha B Maybe so! I might keep Armor as a stat related to your equipment and not to you, so that getting hit sucks for everyone.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols Maybe call it Lore? I feel that if we have a wizard around he should be doing a bit more than hanging around waiting for the loot.
ReplyDeleteThough, Brian Ashford: Do you have another specialty in mind for Wizards?
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols It's so hard to tie Wizards down without making them lame. Magic should be able to help with everything.
ReplyDeleteI mean, you could just stat your characters up with Combat, Cunning, Armour, Healing and Lore and leave it up to the players to decide for themselves if that represents their Martial training, their Faith or their Arcane Skilz.
Or...
How about the Wizard gets rubbish stats but he gets to fudge the dice rolls a limited number of times.
Lore is good.
ReplyDeleteSo we get: Cunning, Brawn, Faith, Lore.
That sounds like the basic four classes, and I can see where the other classes fit. But, I'll deal with those later.
I remember when I was young, Conan the Barbarian was a bit of a revelation to me. I was influenced by D&D to think of adventures as various character classes - "fighter", "magic user", and so on.
ReplyDeleteIt never occurred to me that people living in a fantasy world wouldn't call themselves anything like that. Of course, I was too young to think in terms of occupations and professions.
In Conan, though, the characters just called themselves thieves. I remember thinking, "No, that ... uh ... makes sense."
I mean, if you accept money to fight, then you're a mercenary. But there isn't really such a thing as an amateur mercenary.
Now, if we've got: Cunning, Brawn, Faith, Lore, then let's see what basic moves make sense out of the dungeon.
ReplyDeleteYou've come up from the dungeon. You are flush with cash.
When you do something risky or keep your cool, roll +Cunning. This move works like Act under Fire in AW.
When you honestly threaten someone with immediate violence, roll +Brawn. This is Go Aggro.
When you read a person's motivations, roll +Faith. This is Read a Person, with maybe different quetions.
When you read a situation, roll + Lore. This is Read a Sitch, with maybe different questions.
And, finally: When you try to impress someone with glitz, glamor, and general wealth, tell the MC what sort of coin you are willing to spend. If copper, roll + 0. If Silver, roll + 1. If Gold, roll + 2. If Platinum, roll + 3. If nothing, roll minus 1. The MC may (will probably) ask questions.
This move works Seduce / Manipulate from AW, but powered by money.-
-So, Faith helps you figure out people and Lore helps you figure out situations. Cunning helps you keep your cool, and Brawn is doing violence. Finally, money is how you --- you who are essentially outside the normal pecking order --- gets people to do what you want without violence.
Is this good? Bad?
Then I've got a loosely skinned apocalypse world, without open your brain.
ReplyDeleteLots of comments. Apologies for the length. More broad comments at the top, more granular ones at the bottom.
ReplyDeleteI like Misha's and Brian's suggestions. I think this is a solid system. Since the system is focused on the outside world, we need more suggestions about what to do outside the dungeon.
This is not a rhetorical question: What is your game about? It seems like you want it to be what happens outside the dungeon. What is it that happens outside a dungeon that's interesting?
Will people be trying to steal the players' loot? Will the local authorities start a "dungeon tax"? Will the kobolds the players stole from start a war that threatens the players and their loot? (Technically, the players started that war.) When you say the local economy is going to blow up, you're going to need to be more specific, unless your game is only going to be played by economists. I know, inflation, but what does that mean in game terms? Will the players be able to buy up all the local businesses with their loot? Will there be consequences for doing so? Will clerics refuse to heal the players because they (the players or the clerics) are jerks?
In other words, what threat moves can the GM make against the players and what obstacles can the GM put in front of the players?
What are the players trying to achieve and why are they trying to achieve it? Will the players even care that they've insta-gentrified the local village and no one else can buy stuff but them? They're thieves, right? So getting everyone else's stuff is sort of what they do. If they just want money, why would they go into the dungeon at all? Why not start a church and just roll +Faith to get tithes every week? (and charge dumb adventurers a donation to heal them) Or start an open-air fight arena, or carry groceries for tips, or work for a local farmer, or start a school? Or steal from the local church instead of the dungeon where you might get wounded?
In other words, what are the underlying motivations of the characters?
So when you say there's no fighting, fireballs, or healing, are you saying that none of the stuff that happens in the dungeon gets narrated? It's just a black box where you come out with wounds and treasure?
Adding guardian and healing tables is suggesting a narrative. To me, what you've got seems like a beautiful, simple dungeon crawl system. All you need is to add narration to the dice rolls. I would be extremely tempted to interpret the rolls as "So we ran into a group of gnolls. We burned them with oil and fireballs, but they left Gimli with a terrible gash on his left leg. I found a jewel-hilted scimitar worth 10 silvers on one of them." But that's not what you set out to do.
If you really don't want a dungeon crawl, I would just have one table for dungeon crawling:
Roll with no characteristic adds. Anyone helping can add +1, up to a max of +3, but they share in your fate. 10+: you get treasure but don't get wounded. 7-9, choose 1: you get treasure or you don't get wounded. 6-: you get wounded but don't get any treasure.
But if you don't want to do that, here are some comments on what you actually wrote...
Dungeon Sneak roll: Not sure why you need a 3- result; it introduces complexity into the system, but it doesn't really introduce more interesting results.
Face a guardian roll: Not sure why "You do not have to face another guardian" is a choice. If you choose that, does that mean you can keep rolling for Dungeon Sneak/Treasure forever with no consequences? Or does it mean you can roll once more with no chance of running into a guardian? I'd remove that choice and just say everytime you enter looking for loot, there's a chance you will encounter a guardian.
Face a guardian roll: This seems way too easy to me. You may already be getting one treasure roll from the Sneak roll. Getting a 12+ is like a free win button. I'd suggest this for more gritty brutality and difficult choices:
ReplyDelete10+: choose 2
7-9: choose 1
6-: choose none, you must roll on the wounds table. If you got treasure from the Dungeon Sneak roll, you can still roll on the Treasure table, but only once.
-You do not have to roll Wounds
-You get an extra roll on the Treasure table
-Carry forward a +1 to your next roll
Wounds: So I presume if someone is dead, their character is out of the game (unless resurrected). Is there any mechanical effect of being bruised, cut, or smashed? Does it make other things harder to do until you get healed, or is it just important for the narrative? If there is no mechanical difference, consider just having three levels:
Roll +Armor/Equipment
10+: okay (describe how you barely made it out without a scratch on you)
5-9: wounded (describe how you were wounded and take -1 going forward on every roll until you're healed)
2-4: dead (describe how you died and what you were able to do right before you died; other players may try to resurrect you)
Note that this would simplify both the Wounds table and the Healing table.
Treasure table: Are you planning on keeping track of rations in your game and punishing characters who run out of rations? If not, I wouldn't bother making them part of the treasure.
Like I said, nice, solid system.
I like the idea of changing Armor to Equipment. That makes it more broadly useful in other situations. You could let anyone roll +Equipment if they can describe how Equipment will help in that situation. And you could let people increase Equipment by spending Gold when they level up.
It's about personal finance. 😀
ReplyDelete