The Campaign Builder's Guild

Almost a year ago, I started posting details of my own little action-movie RPG system, called the ∞ Infinity Gaming System. (This is the system I'll be using to run Guns in The Outlaw, seen here (http://www.thecbg.org/index.php/topic,209978.0.html).) Real life intervened, and I was forced to abandon the posting.

Since then, the rules have gone through two different revisions, and with the New Year I decided to start posting again, in hopes of getting some feedback.

A Smidge of Theory

I want to begin these posts with a tiny smidgen of game design theory.

My belief is that most people play RPG's to have an enjoyable time controlling imaginary characters in an imaginary world. Most people play for immersion: they want the world to "come alive" for them.

Immersion happens in the minds of the players and GM, when they use their imaginations to see the world. And that is facilitated by GM descriptions of the world and player descriptions of what their character is doing and thinking.

The central mechanic of the game is the Skill Challenge: characters using skills to do things in the world. Nearly everything in the game is built around this mechanic. And this mechanic is built around immersion, in three different ways:

• The mechanics encourage GM's to describe the world vividly, by making it easy for them to describe both the difficulty of a Challenge and the outcome of a Challenge. (Without going overboard.) The mechanics encourage, but don't mandate this.

• The mechanics also make it easy for players to understand the difficulty of a Challenge and the Skill/Attribute Rating of their characters in relatable, real world terms. This makes the game world more tangible — their own experiences allow them to better understand the world of the game, which makes the game world seem more real.

• The mechanics encourage players to describe their character's actions in vivid terms. By depicting what their characters do, it helps the GM and other players imagine the world.

I'm not claiming that I've suddenly fixed roleplaying, because everyone else got it wrong for 40 years. I'm not claiming this is this one, perfect approach. But it seems like a great approach for an action-movie game.

Action movies are about heroes doing great things: jumping off a rooftop as it explodes behind them, defusing a bomb on a crowded airplane, shooting at hordes of bad guys in a burning refinery. Action movies revolve around action, and action is more exciting when it is described in colorful terms. The mechanics of the game encourage this, in players and GM's.

The goal of the game is to encourage vivid descriptions, and get out of the way. As I post the mechanics, I'll try and show how I've worked towards these goals.

A few thoughts!

Quote from: Daddy Warpigin hopes of getting some feedback.

In general, the best way to get more good feedback around here is to give more of it. :grin:

Quote from: Daddy WarpigMost people play for immersion: they want the world to "come alive" for them.

I agree!
In theory.
I mean, try to nail down what exactly that "immersion" is or the best way to get it and you'll probably end up with a dozen different ideas...  :huh:

Quote from: Daddy WarpigThe goal of the game is to encourage vivid descriptions, and get out of the way. As I post the mechanics, I'll try and show how I've worked towards these goals.

I like your goals.
My own system focuses on what I call "awesomeness" and is based around the similar ideal of allowing for simple mechanics that encourage vivid and fun descriptions.
So I will be intrigued to see what you've done... :)

Players interact with the world through their characters. Most play "in-character", making those choices their character would make.

The better they understand their character, in real world, relatable terms, the more real the character will seem to them and the better they can gauge what he's capable of.

I'll start with Skill Ratings. Skill Ratings measure how good a character is at something. The higher, the better.

Skill Ratings

2-4 is a Novice, a raw recruit or an inexperienced beginner. Part-time employees, like the teen who flips burgers at a fast food joint, are Novices, as are interns.

5-9 is Skilled, someone employable in a field at an entry level. Telemarketers and Tech Support employees are typically Skilled, as are people just graduating college with a Bachelor's degree.

10-14 is a Professional, possessing a post-graduate degree or equivalent in on-the-job experience. Your general physician is a Professional, as are the vast majority of movie sergeants.

15-19 is Accomplished, a standout in the field, cited and respected by their peers, but typically unknown to the general public. Writers of specialized books (such as textbooks or reference works) are usually Accomplished.

20-24 is World Class, one of the best in the world. (As the name implies.) Olympic athletes, for example.

25-29 is a Grand Master, "The Best There is at What I Do". Grand Masters are luminaries in their field. Physicist Stephen Hawking, as a real-world example.

30+ is Legendary, one of the best who's ever lived. Legendary figures are those who dominate history. Their works live on long after they die and their names become synonymous with their field of expertise. Shakespeare, Robin Hood, Einstein: these are all Legendary figures.

Design

These are named and described in the most direct, most obvious language I could write. They are intended to be immediately understood by just about anyone. We all know novices, we all know professionals, we've all seen world-class athletes, we all know how accomplished Einstein and Robin Hood were in their fields.

We know what people like that are, and using the above chart, we know how our characters compare. This also makes it easier to translate fictional characters or real-world people into game mechanical terms.

Batman is the World's Greatest Detective. On the above scale, he'd be a 28, 29, or maybe 30 in the appropriate skills. Robin Hood is famed for being the best archer in history. 30, or higher.

Immediate. Direct. Obvious. (To the maximum extent practical.)

This is the design theory of the game.

Quote from: sparkletwistA few thoughts!

Thanks! :)

Quote from: sparkletwistIn general, the best way to get more good feedback around here is to give more of it. :grin:

I'm not trying to criticize the site (or the members thereof). Apologies if that's how it seemed.

I was just wanted people to know I very much welcome feedback.

Quote from: sparkletwistSo I will be intrigued to see what you've done... :)

I hope you like it. :)

Quote from: Daddy WarpigI was just wanted people to know I very much welcome feedback.

Right, and I was just (good-naturedly, I also mean no offense!) pointing out that the best way to get feedback around here is to hop into some other threads and start offering it to others as well, rather than simply posting your own material only and waiting for it. After all, if everyone did that, we'd all be waiting a long time.

Anyway, the math behind the skill system seems to be that a legend is as much better than a "mere" world-class person as that person is better than a rank and file professional, who is in turn that much better than a novice, 10 or so in each case. Since you're going "action movie" I would expect (or at least hope) that you're using somewhat "swingy" dice because crazy things happen in action movies. But that's about all I can say because I don't know how you are rolling dice yet.

Quote from: sparkletwist(good-naturedly, I also mean no offense!)

np :)

Quote from: sparkletwistBut that's about all I can say because I don't know how you are rolling dice yet.

That will become clear in the next couple of posts, don't worry. It'll take a couple of days (I'm doing one post a day), but I'll get there.

Challenges

Challenges are the bread-and-butter of the system. When a character attempts something significant, their Skill Rating (modified by a die roll) is compared to the Challenge Rating, a numerical representation of how difficult a task is. Gamemasters pick the appropriate Challenge Ratings (from 0 to 30 or higher), based on the following table:

CR 0 - Routine: "Didn't even think about it." A task so easy, you barely notice performing it. Teaching these takes a second or two. Even rank amateurs and raw recruits usually succeed at Routine tasks. Ex: Turning on a computer. Unlocking a car door. Using a fork.

CR 5 - Easy: "That seems pretty easy." A relatively simple task, something amateurs find too complex, and entry-level workers find challenging, but competent professionals almost always succeed at. Ex.: Taking off or landing an airplane in clear weather. Diagnosing a common disease. Swimming a mile.

CR 8 - Moderate: "That's complicated." This sort of task is the bread-and-butter of veterans (who usually succeed), but the untried and inexperienced find them daunting. Ex.: A reporter writing a newspaper column or story.

CR 10 - Difficult: "This isn't a job for greenies." Veterans often succeed at these sorts of tasks, and standout members of a profession nearly always succeed, but entry level employees usually fail.

CR 15 - Formidable: "We need a specialist." Something seasoned characters struggle to achieve, but luminaries usually succeed at.

CR 20 - Grueling: "Only 6 people in the world understand this theory." A task one of the best in the world fails at, more often than not.

CR 25 - Monumental: "There's only one man for the job." Tasks the foremost expert fails at most times.

CR 30 - Nearly Impossible: "No one could make that shot." Even a DaVinci or Napoleon finds these tasks difficult, failing more than half the time.

Application

Each skill will have a chart of appropriate CR's for that skill. Adverse or helpful conditions can modify those numbers. Utter darkness might impose a -10 penalty on attacks, for example.

Ideally, after a while the GM should be able to set CR's on the fly, without reference to the charts. The player describes what they want to do, the GM judges how difficult it is and sets the CR. The point is ease of use and speed of play, not exactly hewing to a chart. (The same applies to situational penalties. Pick a modifier and go.)

Some GM's are more comfortable with the charts, and find them faster than picking a number. "Go with that", is what I say. "Play the way you want to play." That's another of my design mottos.

Design/Development

I have two goals for my mechanics: that they be relatable or describable. As with Skill Ratings, Challenge ratings are intended to be immediate and visceral. People should be able to read the description and understand what it means, either because they've faced such a challenge in their life or they can imagine such a thing.

I want these descriptions to be as immediately understandable as the Skill Ratings chart, being described in relatable terms people can associate with things they've experienced in the real world. Right now they're okay, but not great.

As I finish skill descriptions, and in particular the Sample CR's with each skill, I'll be working those issues out. It'll get better.

Success Rating

Challenges are tests of a character's abilities, they represent the character attempting to do something. "I want to search for the Cardinal's letter." "I want to repair the car's engine." "I want to shoot at the griffin with my bow."

The third critical component of Challenges (after the Skill Rating and Challenge Rating) is Success Rating. To get this, you roll the dice, which gives you a number from -9 to +9. You add this roll to your Skill Rating.

Skill 10, roll 0 = 10
Skill 10, roll -3 = 7
Skill 13, roll -3 = 10

That's your total. Compare this to your Challenge Rating to get a result.

Total 10, CR 5 = result 5.
Total 5, CR 5 = result 0.
Total 4, CR 5 = result -1.

In other words, total - CR = result.

What does this mean? Well, the higher your result, the better you did. The lower, the worse you did. We measure this with a Success Rating (SR).

To get SR, we count by 3's. A result of 3 or better is a Success Rating of 1. A result of 6 or better is 2 SR. A 9 or better is 3 SR. And so forth, on indefinitely.

(This can also be represented by "result divided by 3, round down". Or it can be represented in a table. Up to you.)

What about a result of less than 3? Any negative result (-1 or lower) is a Failure. You didn't do whatever you attempted.

A 0-2 is a Partial Success (O SR). You didn't succeed, but you haven't failed yet.

This is the core of the system. All other mechanics, all other mechanics, are built around Success Ratings. Once you understand how to generate Success Ratings, you know how to play.

Tomorrow I'll talk about how Success Ratings (and Failure) work with Skill Challenges.

Skill Challenges and Success Ratings

About half of the game (or a little bit more) will probably consist of Skill Challenges, depending on how combat-happy your players are. These use Success Ratings, from the prior post, in an easy to understand manner.

The worst result is Failure. You screwed the pooch.

0 SR is a Partial Success. This means "not quite there" or "you need to do more work". (i.e. attempt another Skill Challenge.)

1 SR means "you barely made it". (Success.)

2 SR means "you did it". (Solid Success.)

3 SR means "That was great!", doing so well that people are impressed. (Spectacular Success.)

These are chosen to be simple, clear, and straightforward. They are also relatable: Everyone knows what it's like to fail. Everyone knows what it's like to just squeak past, or to succeed, or to succeed so well others are impressed.

Partial successes represent those times when you need to take some more time on a project, longer than you thought. (Hence the additional Skill Challenge.) Again, everyone should have experienced this at one time or another.

Because these are relatable, they are easily describable. A character jumps a ravine. If the Fail, they fall. If they get a Partial Success, they don't quite make it, but can pull themselves up. (Or someone else can.)

Success means they barely made it, and the GM can describe them tottering on the edge of the abyss. Solid Success means they leap across, and Spectacular Success means they easily made it, and land with a fancy roll.

Descriptive feedback makes the world come alive, and the Success Rating is built so GM's can easily do so. The mechanics get out of the way.

The odds of these things occurring are also relatable. When your Skill Rating is equal to the Challenge Rating, a Spectacular Success happens about one percent of the time. Well, that makes sense — when something is a Challenge, truly impressive outcomes are rare.

Success ("barely made it") happens about a third of the time, Solid Successes about 10% of the time. You fail just over half the time (it's literally a challenge), and you have to put in extra work to succeed about a quarter of the time.

I'm not claiming those are scientifically exact percentages, but they are perfectly understandable. They make sense.

The goal, with Skill Challenges, is to tie Skill Ratings, Challenge Ratings, and Success Ratings to the real world, in relatable ways. Players understand what each means in concrete terms. This means GM's know what it is they're supposed to describe, which makes it easier to do so. (Hopefully encouraging it.)

With these rules, the game world will feel more real, and be described a little better. That is my hope, at least.

Don't Screw It Up!

The previous posts covered the core mechanic of the game, as well as the thinking behind its design — why I made the choices I did. I have some very specific goals, which exist for specific reasons, and I've been writing mechanics that (hopefully) achieve them. As much as is practical, the rules should achieve the following goals:

Goal 1: Simple, direct, obvious. The mechanics should be easily understood, easily learned, and easy to use.

Easily learned mechanics are transparent in play. You can use them without thinking about them too much.

Goal 2: Mechanics should be related to the real world in concrete and plausible ways.

Mechanics that violate reality, that give nonsensical results, jar us out of the game and destroy immersion.

Goal 3: Mechanics should be easily describable; they should also encourage descriptions of the game world by players and GM's.

Concise and effective descriptions make the world come alive. They invite immersion.

You'll notice that, even if done correctly, none of the resulting mechanics directly create immersion. That's because immersion is a result of the interplay between player and GM.

I can't create it. I can only make rules that don't undermine it. (And give some advice that might help the GM and players.) My job, as the writer, is simple:

Don't screw it up. People are already having fun at the table, just give them tools to do so, and get out of the way.

All three of these goals, if implemented well, aid immersion by getting the hell out of the way. (And by helping the GM and players make the game world feel vivid and true to life.) So, why do I think the core mechanic of the game meets these goals?

Goal 1: The mechanic is simple and clear.

Skill Total - Challenge Rating = Success Rating

That's easily understood, easily learned, and easy to use. (There's even three different methods for calculating Success Ratings — chart, math, count — for those who prefer different approaches.)

Goal 2: The mechanics model real phenomena in plausible ways that can be easily understood.

The Skill Ratings make sense. We all know of people (or characters) who match each of those descriptions. The mechanic matches reality.

The Challenge Ratings make sense. We can all understand how different tasks can fall into those categories. They match reality.

The Success Ratings make sense. We know what Failure is, what Success is, and what incredible Success is. They match reality.

The probabilities of each also match reality. Incredible success is rare. "No problem!" is uncommon. And failure is, unfortunately, all too common. (How many bad films has Spielberg made?)

Goal 3: They're easy to describe. The mechanics are linked to the real world, so GM's can use real world experience to describe them. And players can understand those descriptions, because they're grounded in the real world.

Skill Challenges are the core of the game. These are the mechanics people will encounter again and again, several times per session. And they're built to implement the three main design goals.

Now that you understand where I'm coming from, I want to back up and cover all the nuts and bolts I skipped over. I'll start with Attributes and go on from there.

Thanks for reading and commenting.

Attributes

Characters have six Attributes: Dexterity, Strength, Endurance, Intellect, Influence, and Spirit. These represent the innate abilities of the character, whereas skills are learned abilities.

Attributes are rated numerically, with higher values representing more potent Attributes. Attribute Ratings for humans range from 5 (Deficient) to 15 (Legendary). Human average is 10.

Each Attribute has an inherent mechanical effect (see below) and provides a bonus to associated skills:

Rating — Bonus
5 — 1
6-8 — 2
9-11— 3
12-14 — 4
15 — 5

Each Attribute has a number of associated skills. Dexterity skills include Acrobatics and Dodge; Strength, Lifting and Melee weapons; Influence covers Charm and Persuade.

Dexterity
This represents flexibility, fine motor skills, reflexes, running speed, and other related areas. Characters with a high Dexterity are gymnasts and athletes of every sort, escape artists, stage magicians, parkour aficionados, and martial artists.
Mechanic: Dexterity is used in Initiative. The higher your Dexterity, the faster you react.

Strength
This represents a character's physical prowess: how much they can lift and carry, how hard they punch and swing a sword. Characters with a high Strength are weightlifters, circus strong-men, and so forth.
Mechanic: Strength determines the amount one can lift and carry and the base amount of damage with hand-to-hand weapons.

Endurance
Endurance describes a character's health: their ability to resist poisons and disease, to endure physical stress and exertion, and other related areas.
Mechanic: Endurance resists damage, poisons, etc.

Intellect
A high Intellect makes a person "smart". They learn faster, have a deeper understanding, retain more information, react quicker, and notice more. Scientists, college professors, inventors, engineers, and so on all have a high Intellect.
Mechanic: Intellect determines bonus skills during character creation.

Influence
Influence is the ability to successfully affect others socially. People with a high Influence are persuasive, charming, and adept at fitting in with others and building strong relationships. Salesmen, con men, politicians, rock stars, actors, the popular kids, and serial killers all have high Influence.
Mechanic: Influence determines the base attitude of strangers. (Characters who like you will treat you well, those who dislike you won't.)

Spirit
Spirit is the mental and spiritual strength of a character. A high Spirit implies self-reliance, confidence, a strong will, and stubbornness.
Mechanic: Spirit resists mental damage.

Attribute Design Notes

Why go with Attributes that are fairly close (if not identical) to the D&D "standard six"? Why go with something so conventional and uninspired?

Simple. Direct. Obvious.

Strength. Use that name, and people know what you mean. Instantly.

I could have called it Brawn, Power, Muscle, Burliness, or Might. But there's no point in giving it an Attribute an unusual name, just so I can pretend that it's not Strength.

Pretending to be different, while actually being the same, is kind of silly. It's pretend innovation. It's novelty simply for the sake of novelty.

I certainly could have made kind-of-new attributes. I considered it. I looked at ideas I'd had, going back decades, as well as stats from several other systems (FASERIP, Masterbook, Shadowrun, Interlok, Hero Games, and others).

Here's the problem: mechanics shouldn't take people out of the game. And an Attribute system that is weird, absolutely would.

Example: Back in 1997, I made the case that you could combine Endurance and Strength. And you could, quite easily, and it'd be realistic. Call it Fitness, and it'd work.

But any minute mechanical advantage Fitness would bring (balance DEX against STR and TOU), would be cancelled by the annoyance factor. Inevitably, it'd annoy some players.

Then there's the "I don't think that's realistic" factor. Some people would believe that, and argue about that, then I'd have to argue about muscle mass causing Strength and how maintaining muscle mass requires Fitness, so they're the same, and... "no, really, it's realistic!"

When a game designer is reduced to arguing with players in the text of the rulebook, they've already lost.

Mechanics, and labels for them, should have a reason to exist. And novelty, just for the sake of novelty, isn't a good enough reason.

I chose these Attributes because:

1) They are useable in any genre, and thus suited for an omni-genre RPG system.
2) They are universally understood. (The given definitions being almost redundant. Almost.)
3) They are realistic. (Or, at least, realistic enough to be acceptable to most people.)

Each Attribute is included for a reason, and each has a mechanical part to play. I chose names that reflect what the Attribute is, and where my names differ from the standard six, it's because they're actually different.

Why isn't Influence called "Charisma"? Because characters with a high Influence can be charismatic, but they can also be friendly, persuasive, likable, or physically attractive (any one of these or all of them at the same time).

Any number of qualities can underlie Influence. What matters for mechanics is the effect, not the source. Not all people with a high Influence are charismatic.

I'm not trying to make a game that is wholly novel. Novel is great, but novelty must be balanced by utility. And these Attributes offer a great deal of utility, even if they they don't greatly differ from the "standard six".

Skills

There are probably going to be 20 basic skills or so. These cover combat, technical abilities, social interactions, and miscellaneous uses. FX systems (magic, miracles, martial arts, etc.) have their own unique skills.

Skills are rated in Skill Points, which determine how trained a character is. Attribute bonuses are added to the Skill Points to get a Skill Rating.

Example 1: A character with an Influence of 11 has a bonus of +3 for all Influence skills. If they have 1 pt. in Charm, their Skill Rating is 1 +3 = 4.

Example 2: A character with a Dexterity of 5 has a bonus of +1. With a 5 in Firearms, their skill level is 5 +1 = 6.

Skill points indicate how well trained a character is (including book learning and experience).

0 = Unskilled. You haven't even the slightest hint of training in this area, and no experience either.

1 – 3 = Minimally trained. You have learned the very most basic concepts of the skill. There are large gaps in theory and application.

4 – 8 = Beginner. You have mastered the basic concepts of the subject, but struggle with intermediate techniques. You make mistakes that other beginners or amateurs won't catch, but anybody who know what they're doing will.

9 – 13 = Proficient. You have a solid grasp of the theory and practice of the skill. Advanced concepts can be challenging. (The oft-cited "10,000 hours of practice".)

14 – 18 = Expert. You are very skilled, thoroughly conversant with even the most obscure subjects in your field. If they know of it, your skill impresses people.

19 and higher = Master. There are few more knowledgeable than you.

The above categories are descriptive, not proscriptive. They allow players and GM's to roughly gauge how one character matches up with another. (Useful for creating foes or converting characters from other systems.)

Skill Points, Design Notes

One of my design goals is to make mechanics that can easily be understood and described in relatable terms. The idea is to give labels and information which can easily be compared to people's real-life experiences.

This begins with the Attributes, which are described with labels people can easily grasp. (Not unique to this system, fairly common in fact, but critical to my approach.) We all know what Average is, we know Exceptional people, we know people who are Very Weak in something.

It's relatable.

This idea is carried into the skill system, in this case Skill Points (which represent training, practice, or experience). We've all been Unskilled in an area (right now in fact). We've studied and become Minimally Trained, when something is new and even the basics are a struggle. We know of people who are Proficient and even Expert at what they do.

We can relate the abstract numbers to real world experiences. This makes the game feel real.

The Skill Rating labels and descriptions serve the same purpose. But, as they are a combination of Attribute bonuses and Skill Points, there's some internal logic to how the two relate.

The bonus for an Average attribute is +3. With Minimal training, 1 Skill Point, Average people have a Skill Rating of 4 (1 +3), which makes them Novices. An Average person with Minimal training is a Novice.

This is a common-sense, easily understood measurement. People with minimal training/experience are Novices. But let's look at the rest of the chart.

Average people (+3) with a Beginner's training (4) are Skilled (Skill Rating 7).

Average people (+3) with demonstrated Proficiency (9) are Professionals (Skill Rating 12).

Average people (+3) with Expert training (14) are Accomplished (Skill Rating 17).

Average people (+3) with a Mastery of the subject (19) are World Class (Skill Rating 22).

Exceptional people (+5) with a Mastery of the subject (19) are also World Class (Skill Rating 24), but they are almost Grand Masters. It takes that extra bit of training to truly make them superior to nearly everyone.

Again, all of these are straightforward and make sense. You can easily understand why a Master of a subject would be World Class.

There is a distinct and clear internal logic to the Attribute scale (and bonuses), Skill Points, Skill Rating, and Challenge Ratings. They are designed to be easily understood and to make sense.

The idea is that not only can players and gamemasters relate to the mechanics, but gamemasters can translate mechanics into real-world equivalencies and vice versa. And all of this makes the game world feel real.

Omissions and Emendations

I missed one part of the Attribute section, and (thanks to some discussion on the Torg List), I'm replacing the Partial Success mechanic.

Attributes

Attribute Ratings have associated names, just like Skill Points and Skill Ratings, and for exactly the same reasons: making sure that the abstract numbers relate to real-world experiences.

For normal adult humans, attributes range from 5 to 15, with Average being 9-11.

5 = Deficient (+1) - The lowest normal Attribute level. (Crippling injuries can lower it further, and children or infants are often lower.) This is the Dexterity of a klutz, the Strength of a 98-pound-weakling, the Endurance of a sickly recluse. For normal people, it doesn't get worse than this.

6-8 = Weak (+2) - You're below average, and everyone probably knows it. You drop things a lot, need help lifting a backpack full of books, and catch every bug that's going around.

9-11= Average (+3) - Honestly, this isn't that bad. Sure, you're no superstar, but the majority of people are no better than you, and many are worse off. You may not be destined to win international competitions, but you can still do extraordinary things, if you're willing to work harder than those who are more gifted but less motivated.

12-14 = Exceptional (+4) - You stand out in the crowd. You run a little faster, are a little more popular, get a little better grades. You're not the best of the best of the best, but not many things are beyond your reach, if you're willing to work at it.

15 = Legendary (+5) - An attribute typical of the famous (or infamous). Napoleon had a legendary Influence, Einstein legendary Intellect, Winston Churchill legendary Spirit.

Mixed Success

The Success/Fail chart is all about consequences — what happens after the Skill Challenge.

Failure means something bad happens.

Success means something good happens. (Specifically, what you were trying to do.)

Mixed Success is a little different. This means you Succeed, and accomplish what it was you were trying to do, but something else happened as well. Something bad.

Maybe you fixed the engine, but it took twice as long. Maybe you gained admittance to the Suzerain's palace, but your attempt to bribe the Chancellor offended him (and he will have his revenge). Maybe you sabotaged the Grim Machine, but set fire to a pool of oil while doing so.

Maybe you bribed the cop, but it cost twice what it normally would. Maybe you convinced Judge Reinhardt to help get you out of jail, but he told you to never call him again. Maybe your bluff scared away a couple of gangers, but the remaining two pulled guns, turning a simple misunderstanding into a tense standoff.

In the process of Succeeding, you made a mistake and that mistake has consequences, consequences determined by the GM. In general, these consequences fall into four categories:

• Greater cost
• Complicate an existing situation
• Create a new problem
• Cause yourself trouble down the line

Example: A character is looking for a rare piece of gear (using the Streetwise skill). Failure can mean he doesn't find it. Period. Success means he found it.

A Mixed Success can also mean he finds it, but it's owned by an enemy or the Mob. Maybe obtaining it would obligate the party in detrimental ways. Maybe he has to buy it illegally or steal it. Maybe he has to do someone a favor to get it (now or later). Even better if the favor involves noticeable risk to himself or the party.

Dealing with the consequences of a Mixed Success can be easy, or difficult. It can even spawn a new scene or whole new adventure.

The important thing is that the consequences present a challenge and are interesting.

Rolling the Dice

The game uses two 10-sided dice of different colors, typically numbered 0-9 (0 representing "10"). One color dice is the Hot dice, the other the Cold dice. (For Storm Knights, the Hot dice is red, the Cold dice blue.)

The player rolls the dice and discards the larger of the two. If the remaining dice is Hot, he adds the number to his Skill or Combat Rating. If it is Cold, he subtracts it. If the dice are tied, nothing is added or subtracted. This number is called the _bonus_.

Example: If you roll a Hot 5 and a Cold 1, you discard the 5. Your bonus is -1.

Example: If you roll a Hot 3 and a Cold 4, you discard the 4. Your bonus is +3.

Example: If you roll a Hot 9 and a Cold 9, you discard both. Your bonus is +0.

This generates a bonus from -9 to +9. You add (or subtract) it to your Rating.

Analysis

That's it. That's the entire rolling method. It's simple, clear, and direct.

No chart lookups, no funky odds, no massive numbers of dice.

As far as probabilities go, it's identical to 1d10-1d10 (and you can use that instead, if you wish), but far quicker.

People can instantly tell which number on the two dice is larger. (Remember rolling % dice in D&D? Same exact thing.) They can immediately tell which color a die is. Then they add or subtract the resulting single digit number.

It's quick. It's clear. It's easy.

During playtesting, the method felt odd for the first half-dozen rolls. After that, it became habitual and very, very quick.

This die method leads to some interesting effects, which I'll talk about next post.

Never Tell Me The Odds!

Die odds are something players and GM's never need to deal with directly. They can roll the dice all day long, and never have to plumb the black depths of probability. For those that are interested, here's the scoop:

Under 2d10 Dice, you will roll a bonus from -9 to 0 to +9. The odds of rolling a 0 are 10%. 1 out of 10 times, you will roll a bonus of 0.

Each number, higher or lower, is increasingly unlikely. The decrease is 1% each time. So, the odds of rolling a bonus of +1 is 9%. The odds of rolling a bonus of -1 is also 9%. +2? 8%. -2? 8%. The progression continues until +9 (1%) and -9 (also 1%). Or, in table form:

0 = 10%
1 = 9%
2 = 8%
3 = 7%
4 = 6%
5 = 5%
6 = 4%
7 = 3%
8 = 2%
9 = 1%

2d10 Dice is very, very quick. It is, however, slightly unusual. (Not a lot of games use a similar method.) There are a couple of alternate methods provided, for those interested.

Alternate Rolling Methods

There are two alternate rolling methods the Game Master or players can use, which produce identical results (both as to generated Bonuses and the probability of getting any given Bonus). One is d10-d10, the other is Opposed d10's.

d10-d10 also involves two 10-sided dice, including a Hot and Cold die. Roll both, and subtract the Cold die from the Hot die to get the Bonus.

With the third option, Opposed d10's, the Player rolls a d10 and adds it to the Skill Rating or Combat Rating. The GM rolls a d10, and adds it to the Challenge Rating.

Example: The Player has a skill of 10, and is facing a Challenge Rating of 8. The player rolls a d10, and rolls a 3 for a total of 13 (10 + 3). The GM rolls a d10, getting 1, for a total of 9 (8 + 1). The Result is 4 (13 - 9).

Again, this provides the exact same (effective) spread of Bonuses, with the exact same probabilities as 2d10 Dice.

The weakness of d10-d10 is that it involves subtraction, which is slower than a straight comparison. Most players can instantly tell which die of a set of two is higher, and discerning color is even faster.

While Opposed d10's provides the same probability as the other two, it requires both the player and the GM to roll every single Challenge, which also slows play (most noticeably in combat).

The default method for is 2d10 Dice. The other rolling methods are provided for those who prefer another dice method.

I read the two dice posts above.
The system sounds interesting.

Have you considered also using an "action roll" system or another way to get a quick point here and there to further skew points when say, facing an extremely powerful villain. I've always wondered if any system uses an an "action roll" rather than just a straight up point modifier.

eg. in DnD 3.5 Eberron- you DO have action points, but they're something extra- what I'm talking about is that instead of "add 1 difficulty" if terrain is bad, you would "add 1d6 difficulty" if terrain is bad...and add 2d6 if the terrain is EXTREMELY treacherous.

If no system does this, I wonder why. It would certainly mess with the probabilities, but it would also eliminate some debates and the need to look things up on tables (it appears to be a design goal of yours to avoid tables). (e.g. GMs will not need to consult the "fire damage" or "wind damage" tables).

Quote from: Light DragonI read the two dice posts above.
The system sounds interesting.

Thanks. :)

Quote from: Light DragonHave you considered also using an "action roll" system or another way to get a quick point here and there to further skew points when say, facing an extremely powerful villain.

The GM has total control to set Skills and Attributes of NPC's to any level he wishes. He can set Challenge Ratings to any level he wishes.

Indeed, that's a large part of the mid-game assumption: after the GM becomes adept with the system, he can just wing it with regards to CR's, instead of referring to a chart.

There's a fire, raging out of control. What damage does it do? Whatever you wish, based on how deadly it is supposed to be: 15, 20, 25, or more. Up to the GM.

After a while, he should be able to set all these off the top of his head. (Assuming I write it up correctly.)

Also, there is a "hero point" mechanic, which I call Resolve. I'll talk about that in a bit.

Simplicity Itself

Sometimes very simple things to do are quite complex to understand. Take running. One foot in front of the other, at speed. Simple to do. Two-year-olds can do it flawlessly. Yet there is a load of anatomical, muscular, and neural complexity behind it: muscles, skeleton, tendons, blood vessels, lungs, balance, eyesight, inner ear functions, digestive system, ATP, mitochondria, and on and on.

Simple to do. Complex to discuss.

2d10 Dice is the same way. Exceedingly quick and simple in practice. Complex to discuss.

Sometimes the discussion obscures the simplicity. And since I'm about to do another post discussing the intricacies, I thought I'd back up and underscore how simple the method is.

Quick recap: two 10-sided dice, one blue and one red. You roll them. You look at them, and see which die is lower value. If it's red, you add. If it's blue, you subtract.

Roll. Look. Math.

Simple. Direct. Obvious.

I just want to describe an experiment. A way to test 2d10 Dice for yourself, to see how complex it is.

Take two differently colored dice, one red, one blue. Roll them on a surface and look at them.

How long does it take you to notice which dice is which color?

Try and time it. I bet you can't physically move your thumb fast enough to start and stop a stopwatch to measure that length of time.

It's measured in fractions of a millisecond, because it's innate to the sense of sight. Unless you're blind or color-blind (and even then, you just need to pick the right dice), you can tell what colors two objects are.

Easily. Instantaneously.

Now roll two dice and look at the numbers. How long does it take you to know that the numbers are equal, or that one is larger?

Again, you cannot operate a stopwatch that quickly. You just know that 4 is smaller than 5, or that 6 is larger than 3. It's programmed into your brain, from the time you learned to count, and is essentially instantaneous.

Utterly simple. Unbelievably fast.

Doing both of these things at the same time takes a millisecond. Maybe less. And there's no decision involved, no cognition, no reference to internal knowledge or external charts.

No effort.

You look. You see. You know.

Your eyes and your brain provide the information instantly. You know which number is smaller. You know what the color is: red or blue?

Red. Hot. Blue. Cold.

Colors and labels chosen to correspond with each other, almost immediately, because we closely associate those two colors and concepts. You know the colors, and the colors tell you what to do with the smaller number: Hot, add. Cold, subtract.

That last step takes a little effort, because it's math, but it's really easy math, which can be carried out really quickly. Add 1, 2 ... 9 or subtract 1, 2 ... 9.

And that's it.

No, seriously. That's it. There is no other step. No further complexity.

Roll. Look. Math.

It's that simple.

It's new, unfamiliar, but in no way is it complicated.

Roll. Look. Math.

Simple. Obvious. Direct.

That's why I chose this method.

Automatic Success

The die rolling method lead to the following rule, regarding automatic successes.

The Rule: If a character's Skill Rating is 10 points above the Challenge Rating (as modified by circumstances, if applicable), the character automatically scores a Success (1 SL), without needing to roll.

CR 5, Skill 15? Automatic Success.

CR 10, Skill 20? Automatic Success.

This rule only applies to Skill Challenges. Also, the player can always choose to make a roll, if they want to do better (or just see how well they did). Other than those two caveats, +10 points means no roll is needed.

For the character, Automatic Success means the task has become so familiar, it's habitual. They don't have to think about it much, if at all. It's pretty much effortless.

"Makes it look easy" is the sign of true mastery, and something we've all seen. We know someone is a great writer, actor, or athlete, because they make their hideously difficult endeavors look effortless. That's an Automatic Success.

"Automatic Success" Analysis

Taking a look at the Skill Rating and Challenge Rating charts, under this rule:

• A Professional (Skill 10) always succeeds at Routine (CR 0) Challenges.

This pretty much makes sense. Professionals should always succeed at tasks that are Routine for their field. That's kinda one of the expectations of being a professional.

[Note: In the game, I recommend DM's never make anyone roll for Routine tasks, because that's boring. In real life, however, people fail at Routine tasks all the time. Just watch someone who's been using computers for over a decade double-click on everything, because they don't have an innate sense of what they need to double- or single-click on. That's Failure at a Routine bit of knowledge. Even so, this is an action movie game, and rolling for Routine tasks is boring, so don't do it.]

• Accomplished characters have skills of 15+, and always succeed at Easy (CR 5) tasks.

Same thing. If you're Accomplished, Easy tasks are effortless.

• World Class characters have skills of 20+, and always succeed at Difficult tasks (CR 10).

• A Grand Master has a Skill Rating of 25+, and they always succeed at Formidable Challenges (CR 15).

What makes someone a Grand Master? Tasks that Professionals usually fail at (85% failure rate v. Formidable), they do without even thinking about it.

• Legendary characters — people who are one of the best in all of history — have skills of 30+, and they always succeed at Grueling tasks (CR 20).

Grueling tasks are "only six people in the world could make this shot" deals. Legendary characters — Einstein, Da Vinci, Robin Hood — are so skilled, they don't even think twice about such challenges, they just do it. That's how good they are.

This is another example of how I've tried to build the Skill Rating and Challenge Rating charts to be easily understood, in real world terms. They make sense — we can all think of common tasks that have become habitual, we do them without thinking twice. Unless there's some adverse circumstances (little sleep, harsh weather, being drunk) we can just do the task, we never fail.

It takes a long time to climb the skill curve (by deliberate design choice). But once you do, there are significant benefits. Automatically succeeding at low-CR Skill Challenges is one of them.

Characters, By The Numbers

These are the game mechanics that define all characters (PC's and NPC's):

Attributes: Basic, innate capabilities. Physical strength, flexibility and reflexes, innate intelligence, and so forth.

Skills: Learned or trained abilities. How to operate a vehicle, how to compose a poem, how to shoot a gun, and so forth.

Characteristics: Setting-specific game values. Measured on the same scale as Attributes and Skills. Rules for these (how to gain or lose, what you can do with them, the effects each causes) will vary from setting to setting.

• In a cyberpunk setting, Dehumanization might represent the cumulative alienating effects of a nihilistic lifestyle and deliberate cybernetic augmentation. The more metal, the more cruel, the less human you are.

• In a cosmic horror setting, Forbidden Knowledge is a measure of how many things Man Was Not Meant To Know that you now know. As this number creeps higher, you might begin to suffer from schizophrenia, psychosis, mania, or other mental illnesses. Too high, and you go irretrievably insane.

• In Storm Knights (my revamp of the Torg setting), Cybervalue (Tharkoldan and Cyberpapal), Orrorshan Wickedness, Ayslish Honor and Corruption, and Reality itself are all Characteristics. (Along with other similar values.)

Traits: Free-form, character-specific tags that describe unique facets — good and bad — about the character. These can be talents, personality tics, physical oddities, or nearly anything else you can imagine. Each has a specific circumstance in which they help or hurt the character. Some examples:

• "Nietzsche Is My Co-pilot." (God is dead, so it's easier for you to resist miracles.)

• "Born With A Gun In My Hand." (You're expert with all kinds of pistols.)

• "The Bottle Is A Friend Of Mine." (One drink turns into two drinks turns into passing out and waking up... God knows where.)

• "I Dare You... Say That One More Time." (When people Taunt you, it usually turns out badly. For everybody.)

When a positive Trait applies, it doubles the bonus granted by an Action Deck card or a point of Resolve/Possibility (see next). And when a negative Trait comes into effect by causing a significant difficulty, you gain an extra Resolve/Possibility point.

The raw numbers of Attributes and Skills are shared by everyone: one character with a Firearms of 15 is pretty much like another with a Firearms of 15. Traits describe what is wholly unique about your specific character. Nobody else in the world has the same Traits you do.

Resolve/Possibilities: This is your pool of "hero points". They help you do better on Challenges. You gain them at the start of a module, at the end of an act, and every time a negative Trait causes significant difficulties.

(These are called Resolve in the base system, and everyone has a Rating of at least 1. In Storm Knights, they're called Possibilities, and Ords don't ever get any.)

Obviously, each of these areas has some more in-depth rules, which I intend to discuss next. I'll start with Skills.

Skills, Experience, and The Action Movie Hero

I want to talk about the details of the skill system. In order for the design of skills to make sense, you have to understand a couple of things.

This is an action movie system. Skills are designed to work within that framework.

Also, Experience and Advancement had a major influence on how skills were built. Let me explain.

Experience and Advancement

Your level of training is represented by Skill Points. To this, you add a bonus based on the appropriate Attribute. The total of these two is your Skill Rating (or "Skill").

Every module you receive a small number of Experience Points (XP). To raise your Skill Points (SP) by 1 costs a certain number of XP, based on the current SP level:

0-9 = 1 XP
10-19 = 2 XP
20-29 = 3 XP
+10 = +1 XP

Remember, this is the Skill Points. You add your Attribute Bonus to this to get your Skill Rating.

Example: If you have 9 Skill Points in Firearms, it costs 1 XP to raise it to 10. If you have 10 Skill Points in Firearms, it costs 2 XP to raise it to an 11.

Pretty easy.

Modules

This is an action movie system. Unless the GM decides otherwise, all PC's are assumed to be action movie heroes. They should act like it. This means risking their lives for innocents, protecting the helpless, persevering against overwhelming odds, and displaying cunning and tenaciousness in fighting villainy.

(Yes, I use words like "heroism" and "villainy". It's that kind of game. You're heroes. Act like it. (Also, I use the Oxford comma. Suffer.))

PC's who act in a heroic and inspiring fashion, who protect the innocent and fight the villainous, gain more XP. Those who do not... don't.

Each module, the GM assesses the party's performance:

1: Failure. The players failed to stop the villain or achieve their primary goal. They "lost" the module.

or

Ignoble Victory. They won a Victory, but didn't act heroically.

2: Victory. The party stopped the bad guy, or otherwise achieved their primary goal. They "won" the module.

or

Ignoble Significant Victory. They won a Significant Victory, but weren't especially heroic.

3: Significant Victory. The players did very well, not just winning the module, but achieving other side goals of significance (which vary from campaign to campaign). Additionally, the party risked their lives for innocents, protected the helpless, persevered against overwhelming odds, and were cunning and tenacious in fighting the villains. If recounted, the module would be an inspiring story.

(In Storm Knights, this level of accomplishment automatically qualifies as a Glory, and plants a Story Seed.)

If the party as a whole acted heroically, but one specific character didn't, rate them lower. Villains don't get to coast on the heroism of their companions.

These numbers — 1 to 3 — are the Outcome of the module. They are related to XP in a deep and intricate fashion: each point of Outcome equals 1 point of Experience. (Landmark Modules — major, globe-spanning events — add an extra XP for a Victory or Significant Victory.)

Spending XP

You spend XP to increase Skill Points, as above. If you don't have enough points, you can save them until you do.

One limitation: you can only increase a skill by one point after a module. If you want to increase it by another point, you have to wait until after the next module.

Nearly all Skills have Specializations, which I'll explain next message. Each Specialization costs 5 XP. If you learn a Specialization of a skill, you cannot also increase your Skill Points at the same time.

Taken together, the Experience and Advancement rules mean it takes a very long time for characters to become Legends. This is a deliberate decision, but it does have some consequences for skills. I'll talk about that next message.

A few small notes on the XP system.

Advancement Speed: I assume that the majority of modules will end with an Outcome of 2 and hence award 2 XP. This allows for the player to increase two basic skills (SP 0-10) by 1 point apiece after each module, or one advanced skill (SP 11-20) by 1 point after a module.

That's a speed of advancement that allows for satisfactory, but not too-rapid, progress. Which is my goal. (Of course, I'll know more after further playtesting.)

Specializations and Skills: Specializations cost 5 XP, so buying one means you have fewer SP's. This is a deliberate choice. A character can be very skilled in a skill, very versatile in that same skill, but not both. These distinctions are what makes each character unique.

Calculating Cumulative Cost: The XP cost is designed to make it easy to calculate how much total XP is needed for a specific SP.

Starting with a new skill (0 SP), it costs 10 XP to raise it to 10 SP, an additional 20 XP to raise it to 20 SP, and an additional 30 XP to raise it to 30 SP. The total, from new skill to 30 SP, is 60 XP.

These are nice round numbers, easy to calculate: How much does it cost for 14 SP? 10 XP for 0-10, 8 XP for 11-14. Total 18.

Other cost methods — such as the one where the price increased every 5 SP — made it harder to calculate costs. It was also more complex in play and character creation (see below).

Mnemonics: The costs are also designed to be easy to remember — basic skills (0-10) cost 1 XP each. If the first number is a 1 (10, 11, ...), it costs 1 point more. If the first number is a 2 (23, 24, ...) it costs 2 points more. And so on.

I'm not sure the mnemonic is needed, as the XP costs are pretty straightforward, but it's there anyway. (And, again, other cost methods were less easy to remember.)

Character Creation: Character creation should be as simple as possible, so people can get into the game quickly. The costs are intended to simplify character creation.

During creation, players get a number of "customization" points, which allow them to customize the character, buying more Skill Points than the default, or an extra Specialization, and so forth. How many points you get depends on how gritty or heroic the campaign world is intended to be.

These tweak points are spent exactly like XP. You can buy Skill Points, Specializations, and so forth at the same cost you would in play. In effect, they're free XP.

At 1 point per SP, it makes creating the character a pretty quick process. This simplicity was carried over into the XP prices, to make that equally as easy.

Avoiding Complications: When Character Creation and advancement use different costs, it causes some odd effects — different pricing between chargen and XP means some things are cheaper in chargen, which encourages people to build characters around those price breaks. It's also harder to devise a fair system to create more experienced characters.

This approach also eliminated those troubles.

Faster Advancement: If people play less often, or want characters to advance quicker, it's really easy to do so; just give out more XP. I prefer slower advancement (hence the "increase cost at 5" method), but this system was a good compromise between speed and simplicity.

As I've said before, the system isn't perfect. (No rules set is.) But I've done my best to think things through from several different angles, to make the mechanics as simple and easy as possible. Hopefully, both players and GM's will benefit.

All About Skills

Skills represent specific areas of expertise, such as firearms, athletics, or charm. The firearms skill represents the character's ability to shoot (e.g.) pistols and shotguns, lifting their ability to heft heavy objects, charm their ability to flatter others.  Nearly every action one wishes to attempt will have a pertinent skill.

Each Attribute grants a bonus to associated skills. Dexterity skills include acrobatics and dodge; Strength takes in lifting and hand-to-hand combat; Influence covers charm and persuade.

What Do Skills Allow?

Each individual skill is capable of doing a lot. Vehicles, for example, covers driving a car, a semi truck, a tank, a helicopter, a fighter jet, a sailboat, a canoe, a wagon or chariot, and even the Space Shuttle.

Of course, you have to be specifically trained on each of these. Which is where Specializations come in.

Like many skills, vehicles has a number of Specializations:

Vehicles
Default: Any
• Land Vehicles
• Water Vehicles
• Air Vehicles
• Beast Riding
• Wagoneer
• Space Vehicles

When you learn 1 Skill Point in vehicles, you can choose one Specialization from the list. (Which is what "Default: Any" means.) With that one Specialization, you use your full vehicles Skill Rating. With any other Specialization, you are considered Untrained (no Skill Points, maybe penalties, maybe you can't attempt Challenges at all).

After a module, and assuming you have enough XP, you can spend 5 Experience Points to learn another Specialization. With that new Specialization, you can use your full vehicles Skill Rating. Eventually, you could learn all the additional Specializations or just keep increasing your Skill Rating, while only using the default.

The computers skill works a little differently.

Computers
Default: Operate
• Operate
• Programming
• Hardware Repair
• Hardware Design
• Cracking
• Decking

When you learn the first Skill Point in computers, you gain the operate Specialization for free, because that's the default. Again, by spending Experience Points, you can learn additional Specializations.

Not all skills have Specializations, but most do. All combat skills — firearms, hand-to-hand combat, and so forth — have Specializations, and are usually Default: Any.

Modifying the Mechanics

This is the default setup for the game. GM's are free to add Specializations, divide existing Specializations, split a group of Specializations off into a new skill, or make a single Specialization into its own skill. GM's can even add Specializations to a skill which (in the default rules) has none. Some examples:

• Unarmed brawling and bladed weapons are both Specializations of hand-to-hand combat. Some GM's may prefer to have separate skills for unarmed combat and melee weapons.

• Some GM's might want to further subdivide the vehicles Specializations, for example turning air vehicles into propeller airplanes, jet airplanes, and rotor vehicles. (Possibly doing the same for the other vehicles Specializations.)

• Some GM's might wish to split beast riding and wagoneering into their own skills, and leave the others under vehicles. (Or even split each vehicles Specialization into its own skill.)

• Some GM's might want to ignore Specializations completely, and allow the base skill to apply to all potential Specializations. (This is the simplest option, though you lose a lot of flavor.)

GM's can decide which of these they prefer (if any) on a per-skill or per-Specialization basis. Or they can use the default rules.

The default will be a small number of skills (20 or so, not counting FX skills), some of which require Specializations. The Specializations themselves will be relatively broad, as in the vehicles example.

Simplifying Skill Specializations

Skills are pretty simple:

Skill Points + Attribute Bonus = Skill Rating. Roll a bonus, and you're done.

There is some added complexity, because reality is a cold-hearted bitch who refuses to be reduced to simple models.

Many skills have no Specializations. As an example, Intimidate, Overbear, and Dodge.

Other skills do: Investigation has the Evidence Analysis, Find, and Research Specializations. (The Default being "Any".)

When you learn your first point in Investigation, you can choose any one of those Specializations to learn, for free. (Find, we'll say.) Let's suppose your Int bonus were +5. That makes your Skill Rating a 6.

When Finding things, you roll a 6. When doing anything else you roll Unskilled: 0 Skill Points, Attribute +5 = Skill Rating 5.

Later, after you've gone on several modules, you've increased your Skill Points to 5 and learned Evidence Analysis. That makes your Skill Rating a 10 (5 +5).

When you roll for Find or Evidence Analysis, you use a 10. When you roll for Research, you use a 5 (as you're Unskilled).

The same holds for Vehicles, Hand-to-Hand, and any other skill with Specializations. Full Skill Rating for those Specializations you've learned, Unskilled for any others. (Some skills you can't roll Unskilled, and sometimes penalties apply. Reality strikes again.)

In the skill list, Investigation appears as:

Investigation (Int): Evidence Analysis, Find, Research. Any.

The name of the skill, the Attribute abbreviation, the names of Specializations, and the Default Specialization. Pretty straightforward.

Computers looks like this:

Computers (Int): Hacking, Hardware Design, Hardware Repair, Operate, Programming. Operate.

The Default Specialization is Operate instead of Any, because you gain Operate with the first Skill Point. Again, pretty straightforward.

Here's a more complicated one:

Hand-to-Hand (Str): Brawling, Melee Weapons, Hard Martial Arts, Unarmed Combat. Light Weapons (Dex), Soft Martial Arts (Dex). Any.

Hand-to-Hand is based on Strength. But there are two H-T-H Specializations that are based on Dexterity instead. Those are listed separately, and with the appropriate Attribute. How does this work in play?

Let's assume you have a Strength bonus of +2 and a Dexterity bonus of +5. You have 5 Skill Points in H-T-H. You've learned Brawling (Str) and Light Weapons (Dex).

When you attack with your fists, you use a Skill Rating of 5 +2, or 7. When you attack with a knife, rapier, or other Light Weapon, you use a 5 +5, or 10.

Most melee weapons and attacks should be based off Strength. (I know this doesn't match with most people's conceptions of swordfighting, but that's what my reading has indicated.) But some should be based off Dexterity. So that's what I did.

My goal is to simplify as much as practical. Sometimes, you can't be as simple as you'd like. This is one of those times.

Skills, Meet Attributes

Most RPG's have at least a little bit of simulation in them: we generally expect mechanics to reflect reality. Pistols shouldn't do more damage than the main cannon of the Death Star, a puppy shouldn't be harder to hurt than a battleship, and a butter-fingered incompetent shouldn't be a better basketball player than Michael Jordan. Even in an action movie game, these things matter.

The Attributes and Skills, and how they relate to each other, are designed to operate in accordance with reality. Not exactly duplicate it, but to reflect it as much as practical.

Attributes are innate abilities of a character, things they are born with. Strength is an abstraction covering muscle mass and tone, corresponding to how much physical force you can generate and control. You lift and pull heavy things with your muscles, swing a sword with them, and grip tighter to a ledge or ladder. All of these things are made possible by your Strength, and a higher Strength means you do them better.

Intellect is your capacity to engage in complex mental work. You can recall facts and memories, consider different elements of a problem, and comprehend new ideas. All of these capabilities are made possible by your Intellect, and a higher Intellect means you do them better.

The Attributes were chosen because they reflect — to a greater or lesser extent — actual capacities humans have. (Of course, they are also similar to the "standard six" Attributes common to many RPG's. This is also deliberate.) These innate capacities, which we have in the real world, are what makes it possible for us to learn from experiences, to improve via training and practice, and to innovate new techniques and approaches.

Innate capacities underlie our learned abilities. In this system, learned abilities are Skills. Attributes provide the raw capacity that Skills build upon.

Why not the full capacity, or Attribute Value? Because, no matter how strong or smart you are, an Average person (Att 10) doesn't become a Professional (SR 10) with just 1 point in a Skill. They become a Novice. A Legendary person (Att 15) doesn't become highly Accomplished (SR 15) with just 1 point, they become Skilled. Even the talented have to learn and practice before they become great.

This matches personal experience and scholarly research. Innate capabilities do give people a boost up, but not so much they they simply become one of the foremost figures in their fields with but a smidge of learning.

Our innate capacities affect us in another way: they set limits on what we can eventually accomplish. No matter how hard we work, no matter how much time we spend practicing some things, if we don't have a certain level of innate ability, there are some things we can never accomplish.

This is depressing, and against the ethos of the demos, but is is true. If you're not born with exceptional hand-eye coordination, you won't become an NBA center. If your eyesight is weak, you will never be an effective fighter pilot. And becoming a contortionist requires a great deal of flexibility, something that cannot be developed beyond a certain point.

This is reflected in the game with a straightforward rule: when Skill Points exceed an Attribute, XP costs double. If your Attribute is a 5, your 6th skill point in all associated Skills costs double (as does every Skill Point thereafter). If it is 10, your 11th costs double. If it's a 15, your 16th costs double.

Once you've exceeded your innate capacity, it simply becomes harder to learn. People with a high innate capability in a given area start off better, improve faster, and achieve more in that area. Again, this is backed up by real world experience and scholarly research.

(Rules Option: A hard cap on Skill Points, in addition to the increased cost, is even more accurate. Under this entirely optional rule you can never gain more Skill Points in a Skill than twice its Attribute. Att 5? You can only ever learn 10 SP in associated skills. However, this isn't very action-movie, and hence is an optional rule.)

While not perfectly duplicating reality, the interplay between Attributes and Skills does reflect it. As much as is practical, given other considerations.

(Such as playability, enjoyment, simplicity, and all those other annoying things that muddle up perfectly good unplayable mechanics.)

Analyzing the Attribute / XP Rule

In the spirit of my other plausibility analyses, let's run the "x2 XP" rule through the plausibility analyzer. We'll look at what Skill Rating (Skill Points + Att Bonus) the increased cost kicks in, and see if it makes sense.

Attribute: Skill Rating. Description.

Attribute 5: Skill Rating 6, Skilled. With the lowest possible human Attribute, you will struggle to become a Professional in the field.

8: SR 10, Professional. With an Attribute that's notably below Average, you can have a career in the field, but find it hard to stand out in the crowd.

10: SR 13, Professional. With an Average Attribute, after some hard work you've become a very good professor, doctor, lawyer, or whatever, but you face an uphill battle in becoming a truly remarkable member of your profession.

12: SR 16, Accomplished. With a notably above average Attribute, most in your field know you by reputation, but moving into the top tier of your profession is proving difficult.

15: SR 20, World Class. You're there. With the highest possible human Attribute Rating, you are literally one of the best in the world. But it's going to be a long, hard slog to become one of the truly great ones.

This is the central concept of the rule: If you're wholly unsuited for something, you should have to work hard to accomplish great things, harder than those with notable natural aptitude.

Let's suppose two characters, one with a 15 Attribute and one with a 5.

Alan, our 5, can't count (even on his fingers), has trouble walking and breathing at the same time, and finds a single sheet of Kleenex to be a heavy burden.

Bob, our 15, is the fittest of the fit, the smartest of the smart, a strongman to beat Hercules and a charmer to shame James Bond.

Those two characters differ greatly. And, although Alan can eventually scale the heights and become one of the greats, it simply takes more work. A lot more work.

That makes perfect sense. A person with absolutely no aptitude for a subject should have to work harder to develop it.

An argument can be made that Alan should be hard capped. Why should...

• A Barney Fife clone, twitches, fumble-fingers and all, ever be able to shoot the wings off a fly?

• A pasty-faced pushover, the sort of spindly geek that 98-pound weaklings laugh at and pick on, ever be able to become Mr. World?

• An socially inept introvert, the kind of dork who laughs at random, for no apparent reason, makes offensive comments incessantly, and becomes tongue tied when talking to anyone except his mom, ever become the kind of guy who can casually pick up supermodels in a bar?

That's a very good argument, which is why the optional Hard Cap rule exists. Yet this is an action movie game, and "head cheerleader becomes a veteran commando" is practically de rigueur.

Accordingly, the x2 XP rule increases the cost of skills, but doesn't cap them. It may not be perfectly realistic, but it is appropriately cinematic.

The x2 rule itself, however, holds up well under analysis. Attributes of 5 struggle to become Professionals, those of 10 can become standout Professionals, but struggle to become Accomplished, and those with a 15 can become World Class, but find it harder to progress beyond there.

That makes sense. We've all tried to learn something, only to hit a wall where progress is slowed to a crawl.

Again, the mechanic doesn't exactly model the real world, but it is easily understandable and very plausible. It makes the game more approachable, more like the real world.

And, as an added bonus it slows skill advancement at higher skill levels, something very necessary. It also provides a direct benefit for buying a larger Attribute during character creation (beyond the skill bonus) or increasing one during play. Both of these are good things, necessary things.

The rule makes different Attribute levels worthwhile (sometimes very worthwhile), slows down super-high skill progression, and just makes sense in real-world terms. Even if you disagree with the philosophy behind it (see last post), the rule itself works.

Revising Rules

Skills are the core of the system, which is why I've been banging on about them for so long. I want to move on to other topics, but before I do, I have some corrections and expansions to post. I'll start with the Skill Points chart, which has been thoroughly rewritten and slightly expanded.

Gauging Skill Points

Skill Points indicate the amount of instruction, study, practice, or experience a character has invested in a skill. You can judge how knowledgeable a character is using the following chart.

0 = Untrained. You know essentially nothing about the skill.

1 – 3 = Rudimentary. You've learned the basic concepts of the skill, but little else. There are large gaps in your understanding.

4 – 8 = Familiarity. You have mastered the basics, but struggle with intermediate concepts. You make mistakes that other beginners probably won't catch, but those who know what they're doing will.

9 – 13 = Proficiency. You have a solid grasp of the theory and practice of the skill. Advanced concepts can be challenging.

14 – 18 = Expertise. You have begun delving into the esoterica of the field, becoming knowledgeable in several advanced areas.

19 – 23 = Superiority. You are very skilled, thoroughly conversant with nearly all of the advanced subjects of the skill, though there are esoterica beyond even your grasp.

24 and higher = Mastery. There is very little you don't know about the subject matter.

Analysis

Let's see how the Skill Point descriptions above relate to Skill Ratings. We'll start with an Average person. (Reminder: Skill Rating is Skill Points plus Attribute bonus.)

The bonus for an Average attribute is +3. With Rudimentary training, 1 Skill Point, Average people have a Skill Rating of 4 (1 +3), which makes them Novices. An Average person with Rudimentary knowledge is a Novice.

This is a common-sense, easily understood measurement. People with virtually no training or experience are Novices, pretty much by definition. But let's look at the rest of the chart.

• Average people (+3) with Familiarity (4) are Skilled (Skill Rating 7).

• Average people (+3) with Proficiency (9) are Professionals (Skill Rating 12).

• Average people (+3) with Expertise (14) are Accomplished (Skill Rating 17).

• Average people (+3) with Superiority (19) are World Class (Skill Rating 22).

• Average people (+3) with a Mastery of the subject (24) are Grand Masters (Skill Rating 27).

And just to break free of all the Average people:

• A Legendary person (+5) with Mastery of a subject (24) is a Grand Master (Skill Rating 29), but he's almost a Legend. It takes that extra bit of knowledge to truly achieve immortality.

Again, all of these make sense. Proficiency pretty much defines the basic requirements to become a Professional. Superiority does indicate a World Class individual. And you can easily understand why Mastery of a subject would qualify you as a Grand Master.

In all areas of this game, my main goal has been to clarify and simplify the mechanics, then explain them as clearly as I am able. That means I've had to do a lot of revision, a lot of revision, but the final product is becoming ever better, which makes me happy. I hate crap, and the game (so far) isn't crap.

Revising Rules II: XP and Roleplaying Rewards

Next to last post before we start talking about shooting bad guys and blowing stuff up. Below is a clarified rule and some GM advice, both about XP.

Revised XP Guidelines

After some discussion about the XP per Module guidelines, it became clear that they could use some clarification. Here's the streamlined guidelines.

XP Rewards, per Module

Group Rewards
Survival — You lived. Yay! 1 XP.
Scope — If you beat a Landmark Module, +1 XP.
Significant Victory — If you did more than just win, +1 XP.

Individual Bonuses
Heroism — If you were a true hero, +1 XP.

Landmark Module: A Landmark Module is a major event, bigger in every way than the norm: heavier opposition, a more intricate villainous plot, and much higher stakes.

What qualifies differs from campaign to campaign: if a regular module is "solve this murder", a landmark module is "they're going to blow up City Hall"; if a regular module is "they're robbing Fort Knox", then a landmark module is "there's a nuke loose in New York City, and time is running out". (Very often, they're the climax of a series of adventures.)

Defeating a Landmark Module qualifies the PC's for an XP reward — obviously they learned a lot while figuring out ways to overcome such overwhelming opposition.

Significant Victory: The players out-thought and out-fought the module, not just winning, but achieving goals the module (or GM) hadn't even anticipated. If they won, and surprised you with what they managed to do at the same time, it's a Significant Victory. And they certainly gained some insights while devising ways to make the bad guys (and GM) look like fools, and that translates to extra XP.

Action Movie Heroism: The character risked his life for innocents, protected the helpless, and persevered in the face of overwhelming odds. Having to think his way out of such dire straits is worth some XP, don't cha think?

Roleplaying Rewards

Most games have individual XP rewards for inspired roleplaying, making a funny joke, or generally doing things that keep the game enjoyable and entertaining for everybody. I like such rules, and encourage GM's to follow them. But not by handing out XP.

XP is permanent. Each point is a major reward, representing a permanent increase in power that lasts for the rest of the campaign. As a reward for a single moment of play, it's kind of overkill.

Resolve, on the other hand, is ephemeral. (I'll talk more about that when I get to combat.) It's a great benefit in a specific situation, and once spent, it's gone.

GM's can be free with Resolve, because they know it won't unbalance a character. You can give it as a reward for nearly anything, and even if you give too much away, it will be spent sooner or later. No big.

But XP is permanent. And too much XP can and will have a big impact on the game.

It's better to be strict with the XP and loose with the Resolve. The game runs better that way.

Examining Rules: XP Issues

This is the last Skills post. Starting next post, I want to talk about combat. Because killing Evil and taking its stuff.

Time in Grade

Getting too specific about the relationship between game mechanical values and the real world is an exercise fraught with peril. Nonetheless, as a very rough guide, each XP point represents roughly 400-500* hours of efficacious training, studying, practice, or field experience.

(Less effective teaching, interruptions, flawed study materials, and many other factors can lengthen the time necessary. Natural aptitude can shorten it, sometimes significantly. Real life is complicated, and more's the pity.)

Roughly speaking, a Bachelor's degree (or equivalent) is equivalent to 7 Skill Points in the major, a Master's about 10 SP, and a Doctorate approximately 12 SP. These correspond to 7 XP, 10 XP, and 14 XP in the skill, respectively. (Assuming the character has an Attribute of 10.)

This is fewer XP than the "training hours" figure might lead you to expect. School is a lot of work, but it's unrealistic to expect that all those hours in college go directly to studying a major. Some go to your minor, some to other classes, and some to learning how to drink through a beer bong or scream with the crowd during football games. (Or matches. Depending on your location.)

[*In The Weeds Note: This is an approximate median value, which is lower than the mean. Most people take longer than this, but a few take less and very few much less. Training by time isn't a big part of an action-movie game, and is horribly inefficient compared to, you know, actually playing the game (see next subheading), so this is a really obscure and mostly moot point. You're welcome.]

XP Per Module

It's assumed that each module will earn the PC's 2-3 XP on average. Obviously, 2-3 XP per module represents a huge discount on the time necessary to improve a skill. There are three reasons for this:

1. Real world experience in dire circumstances. Frankly, training and practice are good for learning the basics, but not as valuable for actually mastering something. It's not enough for soldiers to practice on the gun range, sooner or later actual combat experience is necessary. (But practice on the range comes first. Learn the basics, then risk your life in a desperate struggle not to get shot.) You learn more in a minute of combat than you do in a month of target shooting.

2. Action Movie Heroes. This is an action movie system, and player characters are action movie heroes. They advance much faster than NPC's because they have lots to do, and need a lot of skill points just to survive.

3. It's a Game. This is, above all, a role playing game and no matter the real world theory behind the mechanics, it needs to be enjoyable. Too-slow advancement is frustrating. On the other hand, too-fast advancement is boring. Fortunately, 2-3 XP per module is a good compromise between "Are we ever gonna get there?" and "God Mode Cheat Code".

Before we start Combat proper, I have to drop back and discuss two quick rules, which are somewhat related: Partial Success and "Tens Are Wild" (the latter coming tomorrow).

Partial Success

The Success Level chart is all about consequences — what happens after the Skill Challenge. (If there are no consequences, nothing at stake, you shouldn't be rolling in the first place.)

• Failure means something bad happens.

• Success means something good happens. (Specifically, what you were trying to do.)

Partial Success is a little different. It means you Succeeded, but not as well as you'd hoped, or you got exactly what you wanted, but the cost of doing so was higher than usual. Exactly what this means is up to the GM to improvise, but as a general rule of thumb: either the cost was twice as much or the benefits were halved.

Here are some examples:

• Suppose you're bribing a bureaucrat. A Success means they'll stamp your papers for $500. A Partial Success means it costs $1000.

• You're breaking into a safe. Success means it takes an hour. Partial Success means it takes 2 hours.

• You're trying to persuade a farmer to sell you some scarce ammo (which he needs for home defense). Success means he sells you twelve cartridges. Partial Success means he's only willing to part with six.

• You're in a science fiction setting, and using nanopaste to fix an engine. Success means you only need to use 1 unit, Partial Success means it costs 2.

• You're a spellcaster, and Success on a Casting Challenge means the spell works and you take 1 Fatigue. Partial Success means you take 2 Fatigue. (Or the spell might have a lower range, lower duration, be less effective, and so forth.)

• You're calling on the divine for miracles, which costs you some of your Divine Favor. Success means you lose 2 points of Favor, but the miracle works. Partial Success means the miracle works, but you lose 4 Favor.

In general, Partial Success means half benefits or double cost. GM's option which, and if neither really applies, feel free to treat it as a Success. This comes into play with all Skill Challenges, but also Pushes (which I'll talk about later).

Yeah, that sucked. Let's try again. Punch-up time!

Partial Success

With a Success, you achieved your goal — jumped from one zeppelin to another, fast-talked a doorman into letting you in the building, identified the strange substance left at the scene of the crime. You did it. You succeeded.

But that's not always how it works out. Sometimes you barely succeed, by the skin of your teeth. Failure loomed large, and for a moment you were sure you failed, but at the last second you pulled it out. That's a Partial Success.

All Skill Challenges have goals: what the character wishes to accomplish. Make the jump. Get in the door. What is this crap? On a Success, they achieve those goals. On a Partial Success, they only partially achieve them.

Maybe the cost was higher than expected. Maybe the benefit of succeeding is less than it would be otherwise. Maybe there will be complications down the line. The key is: this was almost a disaster, and the character only barely succeeded.

Example: Stephen leaps from one zeppelin to the other in midair, aiming for a guy wire. On a Success, he grabs the wire, taking Fatigue from the exertion. Unfortunately, in this case he just misses it, and begins to slide down the side of the blimp. He grabs ahold of a protrusion, and pulls himself up. Because of this Partial Success, the GM rules he takes an extra point of Fatigue.

Example: Paul and Robert are trying to blow a safe. On a Failure, they scorch all the money in the safe, rendering it worthless. On a Success, they can crack it open and make off with the loot. On a Partial Success, they burn a large part of the money, but can still make off with a substantial payday.

Example: Chandra is part of a autoplas crew, and the weapon overheats, blowing the governor. The enemy is bearing down, so she makes a desperate attempt to repair the weapon. On a Success, the weapon would function normally. But with a Partial Success, it will blow out again in a minute or so.

Higher cost: money, units of whole blood, or time.

Reduced benefit: not as much information, lesser quality, grudging acquiescence.

Later complications: someone saw you, the judge wants revenge, you burnt out the motor.

These are not the only options, of course. Anything that fits the general theme, and would make the game more interesting, is perfectly acceptable. Just remember that the character did actually succeed, so they do get to benefit from the Partial Success.

Conclusion

This is what the rule should have been from the beginning. It's simple, easily understood, and (used properly) can increase the tension in a scene.

Thanks to all the commenters who kept pushing against the earlier versions, especially winston inabox and Dominick.

So, this is really almost the last post before I begin Combat. So lets talk Tens.

Tens Are Wild

Rolling one 10 (but not two) during a Challenge means either a lucky or unlucky event has taken place. If it's a Cold 10, something bad has happened, called a Mishap. If it's a Hot 10, something good has happened, a Fluke. (If both dice are 10's, neither occurs. It's a bonus of 0, like always.)

When a 10 happens, determine Success or Failure normally (using the standard rules for that type of Challenge), then stick on the event as a side effect.

Fluke: If the Hot dice comes up 10, a Fluke (as in "fluke of luck") has occurred. A Fluke is a small bit of good luck that happens as a side effect of the character's actions.

An enemy drops his weapon. While you're riffling through someone's mail, an apartment key falls out. You miss the dog, but it's startled and runs off anyway.

Flukes are small bits of luck that make a character's life easier for a little while. They shouldn't short circuit major parts of an adventure (unless it'd be a good idea, just this once) but they should be noticeable.

Mishap: If the Cold dice comes up 10, the character suffers a Mishap, a small piece of bad luck that happens as a side effect of their action. A key piece of equipment is dropped (or broken), the character trips and falls, their weapon jams, etc.

You jumped to the moving semi, but dropped your gun. You shot the mook, but set fire to the pool of oil. You knifed the sentry, but woke up the guard dog.

Mishaps are not meant to be crippling occurrences, rather they are minor events that will make the character's life a little more difficult. Characters should be able to recover from Mishaps with a little effort. (That said, if something a little more severe is apt and interesting, go for it.)

Campaign specific uses: Some specific settings and campaigns use Mishaps or Flukes to invoke certain effects. In Dead Man's Land, a Mishap can be a sign that the character's incipient zombieism has suddenly surged, causing them difficulties.

Each setting will include its own rules for dealing with such occurrences. In many cases, they will be more severe or beneficial than default Flukes and Mishaps. (And yes, in Storm Knights, a Mishap can mean you've disconnected.)

And, as always, if the best outcome for the game would be to ignore the rule just this once, feel free to do so.

Behind The Scenes

So, how does the rule work and why does it work that way? One quick caveat: this is another case where the explanation can make things appear more complex than they are.

Generating a bonus involves rolling two 10-sided dice, and using the smaller (but ignoring the larger). If the smaller is Hot, you add it to your skill, if it's Cold you subtract. When you roll doubles, you add 0.

So when you roll a single 10, you always use the other die (as that single 10 is always the largest die). As a result, a Hot 10 means your bonus will be -1 to -9, a Cold 10 means it's +1 to +9.

This rule piggybacks off that fact. A Hot 10 gives you something good, when your bonus is going to be negative, and a Cold 10 gives you something bad, when the bonus would be positive.

This rule makes the game more interesting and enjoyable, but also a bit more cinematic. You've all seen the scene: the hero shoots a bad guy, and he slumps to the ground, pulling down a lever as he dies. Suddenly machinery whirs to life around. Things just got more dangerous. That's a Mishap: the hero Succeeded, but a minor bit of bad luck also happened.

Flukes are the same thing, but in a good way. You shoot the bad guy, but he drops a grenade that rolls underneath their car and detonates it. A Fluke of luck.

If you watch movies, these happen all the time. (French farces are built almost solely out of Flukes and Mishaps, piled atop each other pell-mell.) One scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade illustrates both: the fight on the tank. The driver is shot, and in dying steers the tank in a bad direction. Mishap. Indy somehow shoots three enemies, instead of one. Fluke.

This mechanic means you can Fail, and still have something good happen. It means you can Succeed and have something go wrong. Both can occur in the real world and action movies, so both can occur in the game.

(For those lusting after hard core math, Flukes happen about 9% of the time and so do Mishaps.)

I've got some GM advice, which I'll post tomorrow.

Combat Basics

Down to brass tacks. I want the system to be as simple and easy to use as possible. That starts with the core mechanic of the game.

• Roll the dice, get a bonus.
• Add that to the Skill Rating.
• Compare the Skill total to the Challenge Rating to get Success Levels.

This is the core mechanic: everything else is built off it. As long as you can count by threes, you can play the game. Simple, easy to understand, easy to do.

And it makes sense. Skill Rating, sometimes you do better (+ bonus), sometimes you do worse (- bonus). Success Levels to measure that.

Ideally, combat should be just as simple, just as clear, just as straightforward. I'll start with attacks.

Attack and Damage

When a person swings a sword and hits someone, the damage they do is caused by where they hit the target, the amount of force they applied, the characteristics of the blade, the characteristics of any protection the target was wearing, and many other factors.

No one of these is clearly and simply "To Hit", nor is any one clearly and simply "Damage". It's just an attack. The hitting and dealing damage occur at the same time, for the same reasons. If you did well on the attack, you hurt the target more. If you did poorly, you didn't.

So rather than splitting these two up, as is traditional, I'm keeping them together:

Skill + Damage = Attack Rating

And, on the other side, the same thing:

Skill + Defense = Defense Rating

The mechanic works exactly like you'd expect: Roll the dice, get a bonus. Add that to the Attack Rating. Compare the Attack total to the Defense Rating to get Success Levels, which indicate Damage.

Damage
0 SL = 1 Fatigue
1 SL = 1 Wound + 1 Fatigue
+1 SL = +1 Wound

And there it is. Simple, direct, obvious. An attack is just an Attack. And it causes Damage.

I'll talk about other elements of the Combat system next post.

The purpose of these little posts is to get some feedback and, having gotten some, to change such things as needs be changed.

I posted. I got feedback (thanks, Phil and harermuir) and I've changed some things.

All mechanics induce oddities, even those which work. After some discussion, I've been convinced that the first combat mechanic induces oddities which most players won't accept, for good reasons. So, Take II.

This is the mechanics for a Combat Challenge. It's a little different from a Skill Challenge, but uses the same Skill Ratings, the same dice rolls, the same SL chart, etc.

Combat Challenges use a traditional To-hit and Damage split: Skill vs. Skill on Attack, modified Damage vs modified Toughness on Damage. It's a little more involved, but that's the basic idea and it's pretty straightforward.

To-Hit

For "to-hit", the attacker's Attack Rating (plus a rolled bonus) is compared to the defender's Defense Rating (no roll, unless they're expending an action on defense). A simple Success (0 SL) is all it takes to hit the target.

That's pretty simple. Attack 12, Defense 10. Quick — do they hit or not? Of course they hit, because 12 is > 10. It's easy to tell.

Attack Rating is your Skill in the appropriate weapon: Hand-to-Hand for fists, clubs, swords, etc. Firearms for pistols, rifles, shotguns, etc. Missile Weapons for crossbows and bows.

Defense Rating is your Skill in the appropriate defensive skill: Hand-To-Hand against fists, clubs, etc. Dodge against guns, bows, crossbows, etc.

Damage

Damage is more involved. It involves the Effective Damage (plus that same rolled bonus) being compared to the Effective Toughness of the target. The result is read as Damage: 1 Wound for each SL, plus 1 Fatigue. (So 0 SL does 0 Wounds and 1 Fatigue.)

Effective Damage is the Damage of the weapon, plus your Attack skill.

Effective Toughness is your Endurance, plus any Armor worn, plus your Defensive skill.

(I could, at this point, regale you with 23 years of history and arguments behind the Effective Toughness and Effective Damage. I won't, but know there's a good reason: if I didn't add the Skill to Damage and Toughness, high Skill characters would be missed a lot. But when they got hit, they'd always, always, always take a lot of damage, even from wimpy little weapons. The math makes it inevitable. This way, a low Skilled attacker will do low amounts of damage, even if they somehow manage to hit. A high Skilled attacker, the opposite. It works.)

Analysis

This mechanic entails one roll. One simple (and very quick) comparison for "to-hit", and a simple SL mechanic for Damage.

Is this more complex than the first post? Clearly, yes. But it avoids the oddities that method induced.

Last question is this: "What about the quality of the attack? Hitting better should do more damage, and all that?" Good question. The answer is this: it's baked into the second half, determining Damage. Effective Damage vs. Effective Toughness includes it. It's not obvious, but it's in there.

I may figure out some way to patch the earlier method. Until I do (if I do), I'm going to assume this one.

With this out of the way, I should be able to continue with the Combat posts fairly soon.

Attacks

Looking back on yesterday's post, I may have made it seem more complicated than it is. This is the most important combat mechanic, so I want it to be as clear as possible before I go on.

Let's start with the simplest aspect: "to-hit".

When you attack, you use a combat skill: Firearms, to shoot guns. Makes perfect sense.

The defender has his own skill. In the case of Firearms, it's called Dodge.

To attack, you roll the dice, get a bonus, and add it to the character's attack Skill. If it equals or beats the defense Skill, you hit.

Simple. Clear. Straightforward.

Damage is straightforward as well. All weapons have a Damage Rating (called "Damage" or DR). A small pistol might do 16, a large one 18, an assault rifle 22.

Here's the thing about skill: the more you know about using a weapon, the more deadly you become with that weapon. A guy who's never handled a knife might be able to score a hit, but he'll never be as lethal with it as a trained expert.

So we add the attack Skill to Damage. The higher your Skill, the more Damage you do. (I called this "Effective Damage". I may use a different term in the finished writeup.)

The converse is also true: the more you know about defending yourself, the less damage you take (because you block better, or parry better, and so forth). So we add the defense Skill to Toughness.

All objects have an innate Toughness. For people, their Toughness is their Endurance. To this, we add their Skill. (And if they wear armor, this gives a bonus as well.) This is the character's Effective Toughness.

So far, so good. Everything makes sense.

This is how the above is used:

Roll a dice, get a bonus. Add to attack Skill. See if you hit (equal to or higher than defense Skill).

Add that same bonus to Effective Damage. Compare to Effective Toughness to determine how much Damage they took.

That's how simple it is.

Two attacking values: Skill and Effective Damage. Two defensive values: Skill and Effective Toughness.

Compare Skills to see if hit, compare Effective Damage to Effective Toughness to calculate Damage taken.

That's it. One roll, one bonus, one mechanic.

I realize I may have made it seem more complicated than it is. My apologies for that. It really isn't complicated at all.

So, combat hit a hard speedbump, and I had to do some deep thinking and conferring with the playtesters. That being completed, I'm almost ready to start the combat posts all over again. Again.

But first, some news:

Dan Davenport (http://gmshoe.blogspot.com (http://gmshoe.blogspot.com)) has unexpectedly and graciously invited me to participate in his interview series in the RPG.net IRC channel, discussing "Storm Knights" (my Torg revamp) and the ∞ Infinity Gaming System.

I'll be joining the rough-and-ready chat crowd on:

Thursday, 27 February 2014 at 7 PM – 9 PM Central Time

at http://tinyurl.com/rpgnetchat (http://tinyurl.com/rpgnetchat)

So drop in and watch me get torn to pieces by people who have no idea who I am or why I'm there. It'll be fun!

If you can't make it, he saves the chat transcripts on his blog at:

http://gmshoe.blogspot.com (http://gmshoe.blogspot.com)

P.S.: The combat posts will begin again real soon now.

What is an "Action Movie RPG"?

I've described this system as "my own little action-movie RPG". Just yesterday, the question came up: What do I mean by that? Since this goes to the heart of what I intend the system to be, I thought I'd give a good answer.

1. It's an RPG. It's not a storygame, not a larp, not a wargame. You sit around the table, rolling dice, joking with each other. The players play characters, the GM runs everything else. If you're good and decent people, there's soda, pizza, and chips involved at some point.

Everything else is subordinate to this. If something ruins the RPG-ness of it, or ruins the play of the game, it's out.

2. It's an action movie game. The mechanics of the game are meant to allow for, and encourage, the feel and events of action movies: fast-paced scenes, furious combats, confrontations and duels, sardonic quips, and heroism.

So how do I do that?

Fast-paced action depends on mechanics that are as simple as they can be, keeping in mind other considerations. Combat is 1 roll, 1 stat for each combatant, and one simple mechanic for damage (said mechanic being used everywhere else). The other mechanics are equally straightforward.

Simple, clear, direct. That's my motto.

Furious combats are implemented by giving players something to fight for every single round. Combat isn't just about killing the enemy, it's a fight to gain or keep the Initiative. (I'll explain this in a bit.)

Confrontations and duels depend on the combat and social rules, so I've made sure that the same rules that work for parties also work for individuals.

Sardonic quips? Combat Interaction skills. Taunt, Intimidate, Overbear, and so on. These provide benefits in combat, and can be quite useful.

Heroism? Well, other than the bit in the XP rules, that's pretty much up to the players and GM. Everyone has a different definition of heroism — some like or prefer anti-heroes, others don't — so I leave that to them. A smidgen of subtle nudging here and there, but nothing overbearing.

Then I made the rules amenable to description, so GM's can bring the world to life. Plus a mechanic to encourage player descriptions of character actions. This doesn't directly implement any of the action-movie goals, but it does make the game world come alive a little bit more.

The above goals and ideas may not be obvious to people reading these posts, but I do have a clear concept of what I want the game to be. Everything in the game is built to support that.

(With that out of the way, I'm gearing up to start Combat again. Hopefully tomorrow.)

Part 1, Again. Again.
Combat, pt. 1

Since the last post, I've had some discussions with The List and my playtesters, run some numbers in Numbers, prototyped weapon damage and Wound variants, and put together at least 5 different versions of the central combat mechanic. The following rule (which will seem very familiar) is the end result of all that.

We'll start with skills. Everything, including combat, is based around skills.

Your Firearms skill is used for guns and energy weapons, your Melee skill is used for punching and swords, your Missile Weapons skill is used for bows and crossbows. Like all skills, you have Skill Points (reflecting your training and experience) and a bonus from an Attribute.

Example: 7 Skill Points +3 bonus = 10 Skill Rating.

Then there are defensive skills, like Dodge and Melee. (Melee both attacks and defends.) Skill Ratings for these are calculated exactly the same way.

Weapons have a Damage Rating (calculated in different ways for different weapons). For an assault rifle, this is a flat value: an AK-47 does Damage 18.

Last, armor. All characters and objects have a Toughness, which measures their resistance to damage. For people, this is their Endurance attribute, plus a modifier for the armor worn, if any: a leather jacker provides +2, a Kevlar vest +5.

Example: Endurance 10, +0 (no armor) = Toughness 10.

So how do we do combat? The attacker picks a weapon, say the AK-47. They take their Firearms Skill and add it to their Damage Rating. That's their Attack Rating.

The defender takes their defense Skill (in this case, Dodge) and adds it to their Toughness. That's their Defense Rating.

Like all mechanics in this system, you roll a bonus and add it to the Attack. Compare that to the Defense, and calculate Success Levels (1 SL for every 3 Points). Each Success Level is 1 Wound, plus 1 Stun for 0 SL.

Let's run the numbers, using the examples above:

Attack Rating: Firearms Skill 10 + AK-47 Damage 18 = Attack 28

Defense Rating: Dodge Skill 10 + Toughness 10 = Defense 20

The Attack: Roll +0. Attack 28 - Defense 20 = result 8. This is 2 Success Levels, or 2 Wounds + 1 Stun.

That's it. 1 game value for attacker and defender, 1 roll, period, 1 simple mechanic for damage (the same that's used everywhere else). There is no fundamental difference between combat and any other skill check. If you can count by threes, you can play the game.

Wait! I Got A Question!
Combat, pt. 2

"You add your Damage Rating to your Skill to Attack. Doesn't this mean a really big Damage Rating helps people hit more often?"

It's a really good question, with a really simple answer that operates in two dimensions, the theoretical and the practical: No. No, it doesn't.

Theoretical: No, because you're not hitting more often, you're doing better on an attack.

When you thrust with a sword, loose an arrow, or squeeze the trigger of a sniper rifle, there's no "to-hit" or "damage".  There's just the attack.

You do well, you do more damage. You screw the pooch, you don't. Either way, there's just the attack.

And more powerful weapons make for more effective attacks. By definition.

There are four elements in each Combat Challenge: weapon Damage, attacker Skill, Toughness, and defender Skill. The role of each must be comparable to the rest: no one element can predominate. To see if weapon Damage does, I ran the numbers.

I took all sorts of characters, from the most pathetic specimens of humanity imaginable to experienced PC's, and gave them all sorts of weapons, from large caliber assault rifles to plasma weapons designed to burn holes in the side of tanks. I then faced the characters off against each other, and recorded the results.

At every level, bigger guns meant more damage. (Obviously.) But the damage was never disproportionate to the (very favorable) shooting conditions: the target was 4 meters (12 feet) away, in the open, standing still, not wearing any armor. (This maximized the damage done, to make the rule look as bad as possible.)

Even in such overwhelmingly favorable conditions, against an assault rifle, wholly incompetent attackers didn't enjoy walk-away victories. They killed equally statted people, but average people were only hurt, not killed (assuming a roll of 0). As for the experienced characters... sometimes not even that.

In other words, the outcomes made sense. Which is fairly high praise for a game mechanic.

In other, other words, no — a high damage weapon doesn't make bumbling jackasses into supa ninjas. It does, however, allow them to do better on an attack.

Now, playtesting is very different from number crunching. And it can reveal flaws that have previously gone overlooked.

If playtesting indicates weapon Damage is still too high, I've already prototyped two different solutions. So I'm not real worried about this.

On the other hand, it is a very good question and exactly the sort of thing I need to pay attention to. Thanks to the two commenters who brought it up: Dominick Reisland (back in 2012, I believe) and Phil Dack.

I'll start covering the effects of damage — Wounds and Shock — tomorrow.

[Sorry about the posting gap. I've been writing up material for Storm Knights that's being posted in a couple of places. I hope to get back to a regular schedule soon. Also, if you're interested in the Q&A session about ∞ Infinity and Storm Knights, check it out here: http://gmshoe.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/qa-jasyn-jones-infinity-gaming-system/ (http://gmshoe.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/qa-jasyn-jones-infinity-gaming-system/).]

Pixie Problems?
Combat, pt. 3

Over on theRPGSite, "Warp9" asked a good question about very tiny and very fast targets, like pixies. The suggestion is that these tiny, fast targets should be difficult to hit, but that characters wielding high DV weapons would be able to hit them and kill them quite easily.

The proposition: A character with a high defensive Skill but a low Toughness will be treated unfairly under the rules.

To test this proposition, I ran the numbers with a high Skilled but low Toughness character. To make my rule look as bad as possible, I gave the test character a ridiculously high Skill (without resorting to actual superhero stats). With a superhuman Dexterity of 21 (Dex bonus +7) and 10 Skill Points in Dodge, the pixie has a Skill Rating of 17. He has an Endurance of 1 and wears no armor, making his Toughness a 1.

The assumed conditions were the same as the earlier tests: the target was 4 meters (12 feet) away, in the open. (This maximized the damage done, to make the rule look as bad as possible. And, as with the other test, we're assuming a roll of 0.)

I then shot at the pixie with the other sample characters, from the most pathetic specimens of humanity imaginable to experienced PC's, who each used three different weapons, ranging from a large caliber assault rifle (an AK-47), to a highly lethal laser pistol, and even a plasma rifle designed to burn holes in the side of tanks.

So, how did the rule fare?

The least skilled characters did nothing with any weapon less powerful than the AK. Even with the AK, they only barely succeeded, getting 0 SR (meaning they only did Shock damage). Even if we assumed a roll of +9, the best possible attack, they still couldn't have killed the pixie. Upgrading to the laser pistol did more damage, obviously, but it took the insane damage of a plasma rifle for them to kill the pixie outright.

The other characters fared better, as all were better shots, but none could 1-shot the pixie with the AK except the AK-wielding pixie I threw into the mix. And there, obviously it was the skill of that character which made the difference.

With the laser pistol, only the two most experienced characters got 1-shot kills, and it wasn't until the attackers broke out their plasma rifles, the highest damage non-heavy weapon in the game (so far), that 1-shots became the norm.

This rule does not, and will never, exactly duplicate the results of a traditional "to-hit, then damage" mechanic. And a more deadly weapon (higher Damage) will make for a more potent Attack.

So, yes, an increased Damage will, to a certain extent, substitute for Skill. This is inevitable. But is it a problem?

IMHO, it would only be a problem if a high Damage weapon was so significant that it broke the game. To test for this, I've ran the numbers for various defenders and attackers, and the most incompetent human character possible — 0 Skill Points, +1 Attribute bonus — cannot reach godhood even with a DR 30 weapon. He's dangerous, but not to an unreasonable or unbalanced extent.

Even when shooting at a pixie.

In other words, while the results don't exactly duplicate a traditional split, the mechanic didn't break down even in this extreme situation. (I even ran the numbers with a ninja pixie, Skill 22 or "one of the best in the world", and a super-pixie, Skill 30 or "the best in all history". Even with that extreme a character, the rule didn't break.) I'm not saying it's perfect, adjustments may yet need to be done, but so far it appears solid.

Warp9's question is a good one: it could very be a problem in this kind of system if the Damage Ratings were too high. I'm not discounting that.

All I'm saying is that, so far, with the weapon values I'm currently using, it doesn't seem to be. (Especially once the Skill Penalty rules — the subject of the next post — come into play.)

Skill Penalties
Combat, pt. 4

In general, penalties represent anything that makes a Challenge harder to accomplish. If you're trying to drive along a road, and it's icy, a penalty applies. The penalty either reduces your Skill total or it increases the Challenge Rating. The effect is the same.

(One of the nice aspects of the core mechanic is that it doesn't matter which: add to CR, subtract from the Skill, it's all the same. Bonuses are equally flexible: +3 Skill and -3 CR are both identical in effect. Stack 'em up wherever it's easier or makes the most sense.)

Skill Penalties are a specific type of penalty that applies to Combat Challenges only (and hence, only affects attackers). Skill Penalties actually reduce the effective Skill of the Attacker. All Skill Penalties stack, no matter their cause.

If an Attacker's effective Skill is reduced to 0 (or less), they can no longer pick their targets. More, they are Stymied.

Example: Billy Bumbles, Skill 1, is shooting an AK at Medium range. Because Medium range applies a Skill Penalty of -3, his Skill is reduced to -2 (meaning he is Stymied and can no longer choose whom to shoot at). If he had a Skill of 4, he'd still suffer a penalty, but not the other effects.

Picking Targets: If Skill Penalties reduce your effective Skill to 0, you can no longer pick your targets. This is a fancy way of saying that you can't choose a specific enemy to attack. You can attack an area (rules for this later) but not a specific target within that area. You might still get lucky and hit a target (anyone entering the chosen space could be hit), but you can't choose a specific target to attack.

Example: Billy is shooting at a target behind a car. The car provides very little cover — bonus to the defender's Toughness — but it does provide concealment. Because the penalty for concealment reduces his effective Skill to -4 (in this case), Billy can't shoot directly at the person. Instead he has to hose down the car, hoping to catch them behind it.

Stymie: When you are Stymied, you only roll a Cold die for your bonus (treating "0" as 0). This gives you a bonus of 0 to -9.

[Note: There is an equal and opposite mechanic to the Stymie, the Up. When you're Up, you roll a Hot die for your bonus, treating a "0" as 0. Up's apply to Reactive Defenses.]

Between the Stymie and being unable to pick targets, Skill Penalties can make an Attacker's life very difficult. Fortunately, they're rare. As of right now, there are only three categories of Skill Penalties: distractions, impairments, and situational penalties.

Distractions: Most of the time, Combat Interaction skills (Overbear, Intimidate, Trick, etc.) cause a distraction, represented by a -2 Skill Penalty per Success Rating. This means that not only does the victim do worse on attacks, and have a lower defense, they can be Stymied if their Skill dips low enough. Characters who are distracted and disoriented can't pick their targets, and aren't very effective combatants.

Impairments: Both Shock damage and Wounds cause characters to become Impaired (as does non-lethal Attacks and being drunk, among other things). The Impaired condition imposes a -3 Skill Penalty. Multiple Impaired conditions stack.

Situational Penalties: Range modifiers impose Skill Penalties, as does weapon accuracy, concealment, firing blind, and auto fire. Unusually fast or small targets (relative to the attacker) also apply a Skill Penalty. (Other situational penalties may be added, as needed.)

There are many possible penalties, but only these three categories are Skill Penalties. Only they reduce a character's effective Skill.

The converse of the Skill Penalty is the Skill Bonus (provided by, for example, a laser sight). A Skill Bonus provides a bonus to the Attack Challenge, by raising the effective Skill of the attacker. This can counteract Skill Penalties which might be in effect.

Analysis

After running the numbers on various attackers and defenders, fighting with various high-damage weapons, the combat mechanic works well for most combatants. A few cases, like pixies, aren't perfectly addressed by the rule. Fortunately, no mechanic exists in a vacuum, and Skill Penalties and Skill Bonuses allow it to address a much wider range of situations.

Wounds
Combat, pt. 5

Lethal attacks are very straightforward: each attack does 1 Wound per Success Rating, plus 1 point of Shock for any level of Success.

SR's = Damage
Failure = You did no damage.
0 SR = 1 Shock (2 if Encumbered)
1 SR = +1 Wound
2 SR = +2 Wounds
3 SR = +3 Wounds
+1 SR = +1 Wounds

Characters who are encumbered, due to heavy armor or excessive weight, take an additional point of Shock.

Wounds

Wounds are an abstract representation of physical damage done to a character, the accumulation of which can kill them.

Wounds accumulate with each successful attack. A character with 1 Wound who takes 2 Wounds now has 3 Wounds.

Taking Wounds causes impediments and eventually death.

Wounds = Effect
1 Wound = None
2 Wounds = Impaired
3 Wounds = Dying
4 Wounds = Dead

Impaired: Characters who take 2+ Wounds (cumulatively or in one attack) receive the Impaired Condition. This gives them a -3 Skill Penalty to all Challenges. (Skill Penalties from multiple Impaired conditions stack.)

Dying: Characters with 3 Wounds begin Dying: they will expire in a number of rounds equal to their Endurance. They are also considered Incapacitated (can only take Simple Actions, and will go Unconscious if they receive another Incapacitated).

Dead: A character with 4 Wounds is Dead. Immediate and extraordinary medical (or other) intervention might be able to save their lives, but the chances are dim. (A character with 5 Wounds is just dead. Period.)

Characters (and objects) can take Wounds in excess of 4. 6 Wounds represents dismemberment and 8 vaporization.

I'll talk about Shock damage next post. (Unless, well, you know.)

(A quick tangent, to explain some important stuff.)

It's Easy To Hit
pt. 1

I want you to do an experiment for me. Set up a man-sized target. It can be a person, a cardboard cutout, or whatever, so long as it's 6 feet tall or so (2m for our non-American readers).

Then stand 12 feet (4m) away from it and make a pistol with your fingers. (You know, like you did as a kid.) Now point at the target. Imagine pulling the trigger on a pistol.

How easy would it be to hit that target?

According to knowledgeable people I consulted, even those with no experience shooting pistols would be able to hit that target at that distance, 6 times out of 6. It's a dead easy shot.

Using the CR scale of ∞ Infinity, that's CR 0, Routine. Most people never even have to roll, we just take it as read that they'd hit it.

Unless some kind of adverse circumstances apply — darkness, fear, the target moving — it's really easy to shoot a man-sized target at that range. (I'll talk about these circumstances in a bit.)

Punching someone who's standing next to you? Also pretty easy.

There's news footage of people standing on the street, minding their own business, when an assailant runs up, smacks them across the back of the head, and runs off. The person drops to the ground, and later dies.

It's much easier to shoot or smack people — and kill them — than is generally assumed, at least so far as the mechanics are concerned.

I'll talk more about the mechanics next post.

When You Assume
pt. 2

The assumption with this system has been that Skill = not being hit. A high Melee skill = not being hit. A high Dodge = not being hit. Therefore, defending = not being hit. But that's not how combat works.

There's a boxing maneuver called "caging". When attacked by an opponent, the boxer "cages", putting both hand up in front of their face, allowing their opponent to pound on them. Punch after punch after punch lands. But the guy getting pummeled isn't taking damage — the guy hitting him is! He's tiring himself out (i.e. fatigue or Shock). When he's tired, the defending boxer begins striking back at the weakened opponent.

He defended himself, by letting himself get hit. Melee skill means (in part) knowing when you should let a blow land, because that's the smart play.

Functionally speaking, the Melee skill allows you to minimize damage, whether you got hit or not. It's mostly damage reduction, not just hit avoidance. (And maybe the mechanics should reflect this.)

And attack skill isn't just about hitting. It's easy to punch someone. Any asshole can do it. What's difficult is to land blows with sufficient force as to hurt your opponent.

Attacking is about doing damage and defending about avoiding it. (Something else that should make its way into the mechanics.)

That gives us three concepts we need to incorporate:

1.) It's pretty easy "to-hit".

2.) Defense skill is about reducing or avoiding damage, not if you got hit or not.

3.) Attack skill is about maximizing the damage of attacks.

I'll talk about how to do this next post.

Makin' Mechanics
pt. 3

Let me butcher a quote: Like laws and sausages, those who love game mechanics should never see them being made. That definitely applies to this thread. That said, let's make some mechanics.

These are the ideas I want to build into the combat mechanics:

1.) It's pretty easy "to-hit" (in most circumstances).

2.) Defense skill is primarily about reducing or avoiding damage, not if you got hit or not.

3.) Attack skill is about maximizing the damage of attacks.

(Why these three? See the prior two posts.)

So, how do these three ideas fit into the combat mechanics?

The base mechanic is the same as before: attack Skill + Damage = Attack Rating; defense Skill + Toughness = Defense Rating. Roll the Attack, read the Success Ratings as Wounds (+1 Shock for any level of Success).

The defense Skill of the character represents their default Defense in any combat situation. That is, in any situation where they're alert for attacks and are trying to defend themselves. It applies against all attacks in a round.

By adding the defense Skill to the Defense Rating, it reduces damage. Sometimes by blocking or other maneuvers, sometimes by not being hit.* The GM determines which when describing the scene. This covers #2.

Attack Skill, by adding to the Attack Rating, increases Damage. That addresses #3.

What about #1? If a character isn't aware they're about to be attacked, they do not get the benefit of their defense Skill — their Skill is treated as 0 when calculating their Defense Rating. This happens during a sudden ambush, when an infiltrator knifes an unaware guard from behind, or a sniper takes a shot at a patrol.

The rules cover all three goals. There is one last wrinkle, however:

Aren't there times when it isn't easy to hit targets? Yes, and I'll talk about that next post.

- -

* When you take no damage from an attack, you might have been missed. Or hit, for no damage. Or hit, for cosmetic damage (bleeding, bruises, etc.) The mechanic doesn't distinguish, and the GM decides which when describing the outcome.

Wait... Is It Actually Easy To Hit?
pt. 4

From the first post: "Unless some kind of adverse circumstances apply — darkness, fear, the target moving — it's really easy to shoot a man-sized target at [close] range. (I'll talk about these circumstances in a bit.)"

So let's talk. One of the necessary parts of a combat system are mechanics that deal with adverse circumstances.

Is the target far away? That's range. Is the gun difficult to aim? Accuracy. Is there thick smoke on the battlefield? Concealment.

There are several more, and all of them make it harder to hit a target. Fortunately, there's a specific mechanic for that: Skill Penalties.

Skill Penalties reduce the attacker's effective Skill (and can even reduce it below 0). If your Skill with, for example, Thrown Weapons is 15 and you have a -3 Skill Penalty, it's effectively a 12. When you calculate your Attack Rating, you use Skill 12 instead of 15. Since such penalties can reduce your Skill below 0, if you have a Skill of 5 and -6 in Skill Penalties, your effective Skill is -1.

All Skill Penalties stack. If you have -3 from Wounds (Impaired) and another -3 from Shock (Impaired again), plus -3 from Range, your total Penalty is -9.

If your effective Skill is reduced to 0 or lower, you are Stymied. In addition, you cannot nominate a specific target to shoot at. You can, however, shoot at an area.

Skill Penalties cause attacks to be less effective. If they negate the Skill of the Attacker, he'll be much less effective. (Stymies hurt. A lot.)

It can be easy to hit targets, depending on circumstances. For those cases where it isn't, Skill Penalties reflect that mechanically.

Concision At Last!
pt. 5

These messages have been one long thesis to explain the game's combat mechanic, why it is plausible, and how high-damage weapons fit into the system. So let's summarize.

1.) Combat Challenges are Attack Rating vs. Defense Rating, result read as Lethal Damage (1 Wound per SR, + 1 Shock). Attack Rating is Skill + Damage, Defense Rating is Skill + Toughness.

2.) When you are surprised or otherwise not expecting an attack, your effective defending Skill is 0.

3.) When you're ready for combat, your defense Skill is normal. It applies to all attacks during the round. (Unless you're Incapacitated, and so unable to defend yourself.)

4.) The defending skill is mostly about reducing damage. Defense might involve avoiding hits, but only as a means to an end: avoiding damage.

5.) The attack skill is all about causing as much damage as possible. Weapons only help.

6.) Weapons which do a lot of damage don't help you hit more. They just add to damage.

7.) Certain situations might cause you to miss. In game terms, these are expressed as Skill Penalties, which impair your attacks and can make it impossible to select a specific target.

All in all, the combat rules take into account most major elements pertinent to combat. More, they do so in a manner that, while definitely not the norm for RPG's, is plausible. Most importantly of all, the mechanic is simple and easy to implement.

It's that last which makes it most useful. "As simple as practical" is one of my chief guidelines when it comes to rules, and these definitely qualify.

All mechanics are compromises with reality. But these compromises make for a vastly simpler game. Which is (mostly) the point.

Designers can't argue with players: something that isn't fun, isn't fun. But you can explain odd mechanics in such a way that they make sense. Players still may not enjoy them, but they very well may accept them.

This is a sidebar which will appear in the actual rulebook, explaining the combat mechanic. (Which is why I have all the "we's": it's the editorial "we", not arrogance. Honest.)

The Oddity of Rolling Once
pt. 6

Fighting for your life is a whirling, confusing, chaotic mess, and game mechanics allow us to impose a modicum of order on the chaos. They give us the illusion of clear and reliable and exact laws that govern a brawl, when in reality there are no such laws.

∞ Infinity rolls once for combat, and that one roll determines if you hit and how much damage the target takes, if any. This feels weird to people used to a traditional to-hit/damage split. It seems weird because we only roll once, and we don't have an exact number that you need to beat in order to hit.

In real life there is no difference between to-hit and damage. An attack is just an attack, and how well you did determines how much damage you do. So that's what the mechanic does.

In real life, the point of defending isn't to avoid every single blow, but to protect yourself (even if you get hit): to reduce the damage taken. So that's what the skill does.

In real life, the point of attacking is to hurt or kill your opponent, to do damage. So that's what the skill does.

Fighting for your life is a whirling, confusing, chaotic mess, but the combat mechanic imposes a modicum of order on the chaos. And since combat is chaotic, and since the exact answer isn't relevant to the mechanic, we leave it up to GM's to decide if this specific Failure on a Combat Challenge means you missed, or you hit but didn't hurt them enough for them to notice.

You have the same answer as a traditional mechanic, and we take into account the exact same factors as a traditional mechanic, and we give a balanced and reasonable outcome, like many traditional mechanics. But the way it's done seems odd, because we do it in a different way.

Give it a chance in play, is our suggestion. You may come to prefer it. We certainly have.

Another FAQ-ing Pun?
Tangent, pt. 7

Last night, one of my No-Men asked me some important questions. They deserved some good answers. (Note: The questions have been rephrased, to turn definitive statements into questions.)

Q1: Is the Dodge skill realistic?

A1: Nope. It isn't even slightly realistic. If I ever wrote a "brutal, real-world combat" version of these rules, it wouldn't include that skill. It might include a maneuver to dodge (spend a Shock and buy a move to throw yourself out of the way, this causes a -5 Skill Penalty to the shot), but not the skill.

It is, however, perfectly suited for an action-movie. And this is an action movie game.

Q2: How does the Dodge skill work?

A2: How do Hit Points work? Sorry, my bad. That was rude of me.

The Dodge skill — whether against arrows, bolts, or bullets — is about trying to get the attacker to miss. And, failing that, to hit an extremity or other non-vital location. Dodge, dip, duck, dive, turn your body to the side...

Like I said, not realistic. But it's realistic enough for an action-movie game. In 24 years, I've yet to hear a single complaint about the skill. I assume that means players and GM's are cool with it.

Q3: How do you "reduce the damage" from a bullet by dodging? Isn't it pretty much hit or miss? And if it hits you, aren't you hurt pretty bad?

A3: Not necessarily. There are grazing shots, where a person is hit with a bullet, but not deeply wounded. That's a real-world event. Then there's the ubiquitous mainstay of the cinema: flesh wounds.

Any time you're hit for Shock or no damage (as always, DM's call to split the difference between "miss" and "hit, no damage"), it's a flesh wound. Flesh wound = cosmetic damage (hurt, a little blood). (See John McClane in the good Die Hards.) You'll have to first aid it later, but it isn't a Wound or even Shock.

(The same sort of thing applies to unarmed and melee: "hit, no damage" and Shock can cause flesh wounds - bruises, shallow cuts, split lip, loose teeth. In fact, I encourage it. It makes fights more colorful.)

The Dodge skill turns Wounds into Shock, Shock into flesh wounds, and flesh wounds into misses. Wounds and Shock are Damage, flesh wounds and misses aren't. The process is no more unreasonable than allowing a Dodge skill in the first place.

(One more FAQ post tomorrow. What can I say, he asked a lot of questions.)

FAQ Attack (and Damage)
pt. 8

This is the second FAQ post.

Q4: You keep saying that big guns don't make you more accurate. But it sure seems like they do. Whassup?

A4: I want to restate the mechanic, then give the system assumptions that apply.

• Attack Rating is weapon Skill plus Damage Rating.
• Defense Rating is defense Skill plus Toughness.
(Then roll the dice once and generate Damage.)

The question is: since Damage Rating increases Attack Rating, doesn't that mean you hit more often?

No. But to answer that, I need to restate a few of the axioms undergirding the mechanics. (Sans supporting evidence. Just the bare statements.)

1. It's easy to shoot/punch/stab people, under optimal conditions, so the base "to-hit" CR is 0 (Routine).
2. Less than optimal conditions are represented by Skill Penalties.
3. If no Skill Penalties apply, the base CR to hit anyone is a 0.

That's attack. What about defense? Back to the axioms.

4. Combat is a confusing, whirling, chaotic mess. There are dozens of factors that could be considered when adjudicating any given blow. We do not explicitly account for all of them, or even a majority of them. We focus on those that are critical to game play.

5. Defense skill is focused on reducing damage, so they do not usually increase the base "to-hit" number. They can, in a few instances, but usually they don't.

6. Because defense Skill rarely applies "to-hit", the actual "to-hit" number is usually 0, sometimes varying slightly higher.

Why is it so low?

Because that number — usually 0, but sometimes varying a few points upward of that — only includes a couple of factors. Other factors make it harder to hit, and could increase it, but those get added in other places. The number is low, because nothing directly increases it.

Those "make it harder to hit" factors go into Skill Penalties (primarily) and also go into reducing damage. They do not increase the base "to-hit" difficulty. So it stays low. The "to-hit" CR is usually 0 and if not, near 0.

So people hit all the time?

No. Skill Penalties are applied in less than optimal conditions, which causes people to miss. But if no Skill Penalties apply, the "to-hit" CR is 0 or near 0.

And that's low enough that even the weakest and most incompetent character can score a "hit". (Again, when there's no Skill Penalties, so under optimal conditions.) "Hit, no damage", usually, even with a BFG (because of Skill and Toughness), but they could at least plausibly hit.

They won't, most of the time, but it is allowed for. It can happen.

And in the real world, too.

Once again: The "to-hit" is 0, all by itself. With Skill added in, it's usually 0, but can be higher, always within a couple of points. (We don't pick an exact number.) Skill Penalties are what cause you to miss (among other things). And we don't call out the to-hit number, because we don't need to.

The mechanic works. It's theoretically sound, and it's balanced.

Big fraggin' weapons don't let you hit more often and they don't break the game. Even an untrained Barney-Fife-alike who gets ahold of a plasma caster can't break the system over his knees and laugh maniacally as all foes fall before him.

The rules don't allow it. The rules are plausible, plausible enough for an RPG, and more than plausible enough for an action-movie RPG.

And that's "Whassup?" ;)

(One more FAQ tomorrow. Not as long, hopefully.)

Fighting FAQs
pt. 9

Last FAQ post.

Q4: In a sword fight, how do you get a "hit, no damage"? Won't all hits cut you up?

A4: Knife fights are all about bleeding. You cut, they bleed, and blood loss knocks them out.

That said, preferably you block their blade with your blade. That's one of the benefits of carrying a chunk of metal: you can interpose it between your fragile flesh and other chunks of metal.

Think of a movie sword fight. Every time one blade clanks against another, that's one kind of "hit, no damage". And every time someone swings, and the other person jumps over it or leaps back, that's a miss. It's GM's call as to which happened.

Don't forget flesh wounds. They happen in swordfights, too. A cut shirt, a single trickle of blood trailing down the arm... it's not a Wound, so it's "no damage". And they are cool and colorful.

Q5: An unarmed person fighting a guy with a blade. How do they get "hit, no damage"?

A5: First, in that sitch the unarmed guy has a -3 Skill Penalty. This impairs his offense and defense. It's hard to fight a knife bare-handed, much less a sword. (Contemplating a reach modifier, as well. Not sure.)

Second, "hit, no damage" flesh wounds apply here, as well. A cut on the bicep, a shallow gouge across your belly, and so forth. They're not Wounds, but flesh wounds.

Q6: What about a gunslinger vs. a guy with a sword?

A6: Ever seen Raiders of the Lost Ark?

That's the last of the FAQ's, and the last of this line of posts. (Unless something else comes up.) Next up, we're gonna start talking about the core of the combat system: Shock, Actions, and Initiative.

A Producer?
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, Prologue

I love The Producers. It's funny and offensive in just the right mix. At one point Max Bialystock tells his would-be-producer friend Leo Bloom, "Has the curtain gone up? Has the curtain gone down? Then you're not a producer." I like this rule, it makes a lot of sense, and it applies to fields far beyond producing a Broadway play.

Per the Bialystock Rule, I'm not a designer, because I've never finished a game and shipped it. But I am engaged in designing a game, and this is a little note about that process.

Inventions are messy. Like a gasoline engine. The central idea is absurdly simple: take a highly combustible substance, make it combust, use a piston and a shaft to turn that into mechanical energy. Actually building the engine is far, far more complicated. Pistons, crankshaft, gaskets, fuel injection, spark plugs, exhaust, lubricant, filtration, and on and on. But it's all necessary to make the engine work.

What I'm saying is that everything sounds simple in concept, but when you actually implement something it becomes more complex, more baroque. If you've never actually shipped something, you don't know this. Until just this week, I didn't know this. Not really.

The Shock mechanic is the gasoline engine of the game. It's a little bit ugly, a little bit odd, a little bit baroque. But it works.

And, like an engine, it drives most of the rest of the game. It sits at the heart of nearly everything outside of Skill Challenges — damage, Initiative, Actions, even FX use. Its role is more critical than the combat mechanic. (Which shocked me when I realized it.)

And I'll start talking about it next post.

Shock: The Rules
SAI, pt. 1

Complexity is a budget: you spend it where you need it. Where you don't, you simplify, abstract, or just plain ignore. I simplified the combat mechanic, because it isn't the heart of combat. Initiative is the heart of combat, and Shock the engine. What is Shock?

Wounds represent physical trauma: broken bones, torn flesh, pierced organs, and the like. Shock, as a mechanic, represents the many sorts of injuries or damage that don't manifest in gross physical trauma: physiological stress, fatigue, shock, pain, exhaustion, and related effects and conditions.

Physical exertion (such as running or climbing) causes Shock, as can extremes of heat or cold. Getting punched in the face can cause Shock (in addition to Wounds), so does severe blood loss. In some settings, so can casting a spell.

Points of Shock are cumulative: a character with 3 Shock who takes 1 point now has 4 Shock. Accumulating Shock eventually impedes characters' abilities, cripples them, and can even lead to death.

Shock is compared to a character's Endurance. The higher a character's Endurance, the more Shock they can take before suffering penalties:

• A character can take Shock up to their Endurance without suffering any penalties.
• If their Shock points are higher than their Endurance, they are Impaired.
• If their Shock points exceed twice (x2) Endurance, they are Incapacitated.
• If their Shock ever exceeds x3 Endurance, the character starts Dying.

Example: A character with an Endurance of 5 can take up to 5 Shock with no penalties. If they take 6 or more, they become Impaired. If they take 11 or more, they become Incapacitated. If their Shock ever exceeds 15, they begin Dying.

A character with a 10 Endurance can take up to 10 points of Shock with no penalties. If they take 11 or more, they become Impaired. At 21, they become Incapacitated. At 31, they begin Dying.

These categories are noted on the character sheet after character creation. They list 3 numbers: Endurance (Impaired), x2 Endurance (Incapacitated), x3 Endurance (Dying).

Next to each is a space for the calculated number, and atop the column a block for their current Shock. (Typically, they are tracked like Hit Points.) Compare the current Shock with the 3 numbers to see what penalties apply.

If you'll excuse the crudity, it looks something like the following:

Current Shock: ___
[When your current Shock
exceeds the number below,
you suffer the listed condition.]

Endurance (Impaired): ___
x2 Endurance (Incapacitated): ___
x3 Endurance (Dying): ___

I'll define the conditions, and explain how they interact with those from Wounds, next post.

Wounds & Conditions
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 2

Because of my nine-day tangent to explain the combat mechanic, the rules for Wounds are probably long forgotten. A quick recap:

Wounds = Condition
1 Wound = None
2 Wounds = Impaired
3 Wounds = Incapacitated & Dying
4 Wounds = Dead

The penalties for accumulated Shock (from yesterday's post) are the same for taking Wounds, and they interact with those from Wounds. This is deliberate.

Impaired: The character suffers a -3 Skill Penalty to all rolled Challenges. (This can represent being drunk or tired, for example.) This stacks with all other Skill Penalties.

This is the same penalty for Shock exceeding Endurance, so suffering both is a -6 Skill Penalty.

Incapacitated: The character is conscious, but can make only move (at half speed) or make Simple Actions (i.e. nothing that requires a roll). (This can represent being stunned, exhausted, and so forth.) In addition, they cannot make Passive Defense checks (meaning their effective defense Skill is 0). If they take another "Incapacitated", they go Unconscious.

Taking Shock in excess of 2x Endurance also causes Incapacitation. If you take one from both, you go Unconscious.

Dying: The character is expiring, and takes 1 point of Shock per round until exceeding 3x Endurance. They then take 1 Wound a round until 4 Wounds, when they are dead.

Taking more than 3x Endurance in Shock also causes Dying. The effects are the same.

All of that is fairly straightforward, and the progression is obvious: the character is impeded, then crippled, then they begin dying. I'll dive into why that exact progression is necessary, next post.

Why Do It This Way?
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 3

There's a question I want to answer before I go any further: why these conditions, why this pattern (hampered, disabled, dying)? I'm not talking mechanics, points and numbers and all that. I'm talking about that progression: why use that progression?

Shock is an abstract mechanic that can be used to represent a several real-world conditions and effects. Fundamentally speaking, it began as a Fatigue mechanic (and went under that name for several of these posts while I dithered over a name for it). But the same progression which described fatigue — difficulty concentrating (Impaired), crippling weakness and inability to focus (Incapacitated), and organ failure and eventual death (Dying) — also served to describe a number of other conditions:

• Hypothermia: you get cold, your hands are shaking and you can't concentrate (Impaired), then you lose sensation and can barely function (Incapacitated), then your core temperature drops below a critical point and you begin to expire (Dying).

• Heat exhaustion: Dizziness, weakness, vomiting (Impaired), crippling headaches and loss of concentration (Incapacitation), eventually organ failure and death (Dying).

• Bleeding out: Weakness and difficulty concentrating (Impaired), debilitating weakness (Incapacitation), critical loss of blood volume leading to death (Dying).

Other conditions the mechanic covers include sleep deprivation, some bacterial or viral illnesses, and hypoxia (among others). All these conditions can roughly be represented by the same progression, so we do.

The real world is complex, and this progression is a massive simplification of a large number of complex conditions. But it works. And one mechanic can cover all of them, making that mechanic very useful.

Shock sees a lot of use in the system, beyond just the medical: Pushes, Knockout Attacks, the Action model, and so forth. The same progression that covers medical issues also addresses those, as well.

The reason the rules have the "> Endurance, x2, x3" is because it's useful and it works for those other applications. I want to start talking about applications of Shock itself next message.

[Note: I've been posting about once a day, barring gaps for various reasons. Now that we're out of the combat mechanic swamp, occasionally I'm going to be doing one or two posts a day. Apologies if this is too much. I just want to get to Initiative fairly quickly. It's the next major "swamp" I need to drain.]

Knockout Attacks
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 4a

The first application of the Shock rules isn't a direct implementation, but rather something which taps into them: Knockout Attacks. You know what I'm talking about: hit someone across the back of the head, and POW! down they go. This is ubiquitous in movies, especially action movies, and makes appearances throughout TV and written fiction also. (Once you start looking for it, it's insane how often it pops up.)

These kinds of attacks are absolutely not realistic, concussions and internal bleeding and on and on, but any game with pretensions to action-movie RPG status has to include them. Fortunately, the same rules which cover striking someone with the butt of your gun also cover knockout darts, certain types of poison, chloroformed handkerchiefs, boxing, possibly tasers, and several other similar situations.

("Never use two mechanics when one will do." It's a good guideline.)

Knockout Attack

Attempts to knock an opponent unconscious use the standard Combat Challenge rules: Attack Rating vs. Defense Rating. However, the Success Ratings from the check do not cause Wounds. Instead, you deal 1 Shock for any level of Success (0 SR or higher), plus the listed condition for a specific Success Rating.

1 Shock for 0 SR or higher, plus:

SR = Result
1 SR = Impaired
2 SR = Incapacitated
3+ SR = Unconscious

These are the same conditions caused by Wounds and Shock, and they have the same effects. (In theory. I've modified and clarified a couple of the conditions since the last time I posted them. But those changes apply to Wound- and Shock-caused conditions as well.) I'll describe the conditions next post.

Knockout Attacks: Conditions
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 4b

Knockout Attacks don't cause a lot of Shock (1 Shock or 2 if Encumbered), but they do tap into the same progression: Impaired, Incapacitated, Unconscious. These conditions are identical to those caused by Wounds or Shock, and interact with them in the same way.

(By reusing the same conditions and the same rules for them, it simplifies the game: there are fewer rules for the GM to remember and apply.)

1 SR causes the Impaired condition, which imposes a -3 penalty to attacks (as a Skill Penalty), Reactive and Passive Defenses, and Skill Challenges. Multiple Impaired conditions do not stack, but the penalties from the condition do stack with penalties from other sources.

[Rule Change: An Impaired condition only applies once, no matter the source. If you're Impaired from Wounds, and take an Impaired from a KO attack, you're still at -3. The alternative would be to track Impaired separately by source (Wounds, Shock, KO, and potentially others), which would also necessitate tracking multiple KO-caused Impairs. Can of worms, so I simplified.]

2 SR causes Incapacitation: the target can't Passively Defend and can only make Simple Actions. If they already have an Incapacitation from any source, they go Unconscious.

[Any source: this includes another KO attack. If one punch didn't do it, try again. It can't hurt. (Okay, it'll probably hurt the target, but you know what I mean.)]

3 SR (or higher) knocks the person out. Congrats, they're KO'd. This condition typically lasts 30 min - 1 hour. (I'll get more specific when I post Healing rules.)

Knockout Attacks: Comments
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 4c

In movies, KO attacks are dead easy. They happen so frequently, with such casual effort, you get the feeling that, in movieland, a 5-year-old child could toss a stale Cheeto at the back of his mother's head and knock her unconscious for an hour or two.

In an RPG, they just can't be that easy. They have to be possible, but not easy. Above all, they can't be a more efficient means of neutralizing enemies than physical combat, or everyone will start carrying DMSO water pistols everywhere they go. (Hiya, Shadowrun!)

The KO Attack chart makes them a little more efficient than regular attacks, but not hugely so. This is balanced by the relatively higher Damage Ratings of guns, swords, etc. (Plus, most of the weapons that deal KO damage are easily stopped by pretty much any kind of armor.)

What is most important about them, though, is the least obvious: the role of surprise. As previously noted (during the 9-day-long tangent), the effective defensive Skill of a surprised person is 0. This means that, if you sneak up on a guard, he can only defend with his Endurance and any armor he might be wearing. A quick pistol whipping, and he'll likely drop. (Assuming you're not a useless bastard in hand-to-hand combat, that is.)

Even if he doesn't, assuming you get at least 1 SR, he has a -3 Defense Penalty against your next attack. This translates to, on average, the attacker doing 1 more SR on the next strike. If you roll exactly the same, he'll be Incapacitated. Once more, and he'll be Unconscious.

In action movies, it's rare that you have to hit someone more than once to knock them out. (I can only recall it happening once, and that was played for laughs. ( <thud!> "Are you still awake?" "Yeah, okay." <thud!> ) It can happen more often with these rules, because this is an RPG, not a scripted movie. Even so, if you get the drop on a guard, they're likely going down, especially if they're unarmored.

Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 5

(A day off to allow people to catch up after 3 KO attack posts. Onward!)

The next uses of Shock are Pushes and Encumbrance. Both occur fairly often, so it's in the best interests of the game to make sure they are as simple and transparent as possible. This post covers Encumbrance.

Encumbrance

Heavy or poorly ventilated armor makes it more likely a person will suffer from exhaustion or overheating, two conditions covered by Shock. This is represented by Encumbrance: certain suits of armor (noted in the gear description) cause the character to be Encumbered.

The Rule: An Encumbered character takes +1 points of Shock anytime Shock is dealt out.

Example: 0 SR on damage causes 1 Shock, 2 if you're Encumbered. A 0 SR knockout attack also causes 2 Shock if you're Encumbered.

The amount of weight a character carries also causes Encumbrance. Each character has a Casual Carry amount (see "Carry", below), which is the max weight they can carry with no ill effects. If they carry more than this, they are considered Encumbered.

You cannot be twice Encumbered. Wearing cumbersome armor and carrying too much weight at the same time just makes you Encumbered.

Characters also have a Max Carry amount, which is twice their Casual Carry. They cannot lift or carry more than this amount without performing a Push.

Which brings us to Pushes. Next post.

Carry

This is a simplified version of the Carry chart, listing only Minimal human (5), Average human (10) and Maximum human (15). The full chart includes entries for the other Strength values. An Extended chart, suitable for non-humans or Supers, will be made at some point.

Strength of 5 has a 1 kg. Casual Carry and a 2 kg. Max Carry.

Strength of 10 has an 8 kg. Casual Carry and a 16 kg. Max Carry.

Strength of 15 has a 55 kg. Casual Carry and a 110 kg. Max Carry.

Carry amounts are given in kilograms, as the entire game is written in SI or metric units. All distances, speeds, masses, and so forth are measured in SI.

Pushes
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 6

The rules specify a few different kinds of movement rates (running, swimming, climbing), Carry weight, and cruising speeds for vehicles. Sometimes you want to run faster, lift more, or drive at frankly insane speeds (usually down a tight, twisty road, at midnight, during a blizzard, while engaged in a running gun battle).

For those times, you need the Push rules. (Not for the gunfight, though. That's combat.)

Push Challenges are a third type of Challenge (after Skill Challenges and Combat Challenges). Only certain skills can Push, these chiefly include Athletics, Vehicles, and Animal Handling (for jockeys and so forth).

The base Challenge Rating for a Push is CR 0 (Routine). This means only Untrained people have to roll, those with actual Skill Points can assume a 0 SR success without the need to roll. Trained characters can roll, if they choose. (Allowing them to do better than a 0 SR. In critical situations, this is often advisable.)

Like most Challenges, Pushes use Success Ratings, interpreted as follows:

SR: Increase, Addtl. Shock
0 SR: +50%, +1 Shock
1 SR: +50%
2 SR: x2 (or +100%), +1 Shock
3 SR: x2 (or +100%)
4 SR: x2 "and a bit"

The indicated increase applies to the base speed, Carry capacity, and so forth. So a Carry Capacity of 50 kg will be increased to 75 kg on a 0 SR and increased to 100 kg on 2 SR, and a movement rate of 50 m/round would become 75 m/round or 100 m/round.

"And a bit" applies to those situations where the increase is even more than x2, but only by a little. World Record sprinting translates to 104.3 m in a 10-second round. This is a x2 result (50 m/round to 100 m/round) "and a bit", the bit being 4.3 meters. (More discussion about this, including an important caveat, next post.)

All Pushes cause a base of 1 Shock (2 if Encumbered), 0 SR and 2 SR adding an additional point above that. When Pushing a vehicle or mount, they take the Shock, not the character. Characters can always voluntarily take a lesser Success Rating (1 SR instead of 2), if they wish to avoid the extra Shock. Of course, they also take a lesser increase (50% instead of 100%, in this case).

Because of the "and a bit" rule, the Push rules can be used for various athletic events, such as footraces, generating real-world compatible results. In those cases, the highest Skill Total determines the fastest runner. (The same also applies to, for example, car races, weightlifting competitions, and so forth.)

Comments

This Rule can be used anywhere characters want to exceed "normal" performance. So long as you know (for example) a car's maximum normal cruising speed, or the normal maximum weight an elephant can pull, the chart will let you Push its Max.

This is a cinematic Push, not a Technical Manual result. It works according to the game's action-oriented aesthetic: get a usable result quickly and get out of the way.

Note that the Push rule gives real-world accurate results for human movement rates and Carry weights. And, with a little elaboration, it can be made into a cinematic, descriptive mechanic for athletic competitions. I'll talk a little more about that, next post.

"And A Bit" and Real World Results
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 7

The Push rules aren't just for seeing how fast you can drive a Mini Cooper down a mountainside. They also work for head-to-head competitions.

Competitions

In competitions, each competitor makes a Skill Total. (This assumes all competitors have the appropriate skill and Specialization.) This is a Push of their relevant ability (lifting, running, etc.), and they do take Shock. The character with the highest Skill Total wins. More than that, you can use their Skill Total (or Push SR) to tell how well they did.

Success Rating (Skill Total) - Good enough to...
0 SR (ST 0) - Beat the guys at your High School.
2 SR (ST 6) - Win a State Title.
4 SR (ST 12) - Compete on a college level.
6 SR (ST 18) - Qualify for the Olympics (or win a national college championship).
8 SR (ST 24) - Win a medal at the Olympic Games.
10 SR (ST 30) - Break the World Record.
12 SR (ST 36) - This is the best any human has ever done in the history of history itself.

Though phrased in terms appropriate for athletics, this chart works for pretty much any sport (drag racing, weightlifting, bull riding). It will give results essentially identical to the real world. "And a bit" is why.

"And A Bit"

Yesterday's post implied that 4 SR was sufficient to win an Olympic race. This is not the case. Winning an Olympic medal is far more difficult than making an Athletics total of 12. (Per the chart above, it takes a Skill Total of 24.) However, the speed of the Olympian does fall under the rubric of "and a bit".

In fact, according to the speeds I researched, every single type of 100m Dash championship race, from high school state track-and-field to NCAA championships to World Record holder Usain Bolt all fall under the same rule. Once you get above x2, less than a second separates winning a high school state championship from seizing the World Record.

A similar phenomenon holds for weightlifting, car races, horse races, and so on. After the critical point, the difference between various competitors is, in absolute terms, very, very small. So small, the rules don't even try to exactly track it (which is why there are no numbers on the above chart). "And a bit" covers them all.

This table extends the Push Rules into a new arena — races and competitions. More, it's another example of translating game mechanics into easily understood real world terms.

"You ran fast enough to win a Gold medal" is a concept anyone could understand. It makes the abstract numbers come alive.

Shock, Miscellany
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 8

So far, I've talked about how Shock figures into Damage, Knockout Attacks, Encumbrance, and Pushes. The last major use of Shock is buying extra Actions, but before I talk about that, I wanted to mention some miscellaneous uses of Shock that don't need a full post.

Fatigue: Melee combat is incredibly taxing, physically. By the end of MMA or boxing matches, the boxers are dripping with sweat and exhausted. To represent this, the default Mishap result (from "10's are Wild") in melee combat is "Fatigue", which causes 2 Shock (3 if Encumbered). Melee fighters wear themselves out.

Spellcasting: For the default magic system, casting a single basic spell costs 1 point of Shock (2 if Encumbered). Other FX systems, like Miracles and such, may also involve Shock. I'll know more later, as the rules firm up.

Bleeding Wounds: A potential rule for bows and small blades is the Bleeding Wound. The first Wound caused by these attacks is taken as a "bleeder" instead. A "bleeder" doesn't count as a Wound but instead causes 1 point of Shock damage a round.

As noted, knife fights don't usually involve killing people outright. Instead, the combatants deal many cuts which bleed profusely. The loss of blood first weakens the fighter, then incapacitates them then, if untreated, kills them. The parallels with the Shock mechanic is clear.

Arrows primarily kill through blood loss as well: the arrowhead severs a major blood vessel, and the target bleeds out. This is how people can hunt elephants with (proportionately) small arrows. They don't kill it in one shot, but rather shoot many times until one severs an artery and the elephant gradually weakens and dies.

Mighty Strike: Another contemplated rule is the idea of a mighty strike. When engaged in melee combat, an attacker can put extra effort into the attack, causing more damage at the cost of taking some Shock. There are a couple of different rules options to represent this, none of which I've settled on yet.

Dehydration: When discussing the various medical conditions Shock can emulate, I left off dehydration. It really is a useful mechanic.

Those rules out of the way, I can start with the Actions & Initiative part. Initiative is the coolest part of combat, in my opinion, so I'm looking forward to posting the massively simplified and clarified system. I hope to begin very soon, perhaps tomorrow.

Whacking Things With Swords and Sticks
Combat Interlude, pt. 1

I want to get to Initiative, I really do. But before we get there, I have to clarify some things related to combat. So let's clarify.

One of the fundamental axioms of the combat rules is this: The number needed "to-hit" people in combat is CR 0. Under optimal conditions.

"What are 'optimal conditions'?" For firearms, you're standing 4 meters away from your opponent. They are man-sized (2 meters tall), and there are no walls or other obstructions between the two of you. The light is bright but not blinding, so you can see them clearly. Neither of you is moving significantly. There are no other distractions or impediments. For melee combat the exact same conditions hold, except for the range: your opponent is within easy reach of your attacks.

Those are optimal conditions and under these optimal conditions, the number needed to hit a person in combat is 0. Just 0. Flat 0. And nothing more.

"But what about conditions other than optimal? Less than optimal, maybe even abysmal?"

Skill Penalties. Everything which can make you miss (other than the rolled Bonus) is represented by Skill Penalties.

In other games, these might raise the CR from 0 to something else. In this game, under these mechanics, they lower the Effective Skill of the attacker. Mathematically, it's the exact same thing.

Let's math for a bit.

Assuming the to-hit CR is 0, what Skill would a person have to be in order to always hit, always, always, always? Skill 10. Why 10? Because the lowest possible negative Bonus is -10 (only possible when you're Stymied and roll a 10). And 10 Skill -10 Bonus is 0. You hit.

So, if your Effective Skill is 10 or higher, you will always hit. Under optimal conditions. If it's lower, you might miss.

"Wait, does that even make sense? What is 'Skill 10' anyway?" Skill 10 represents a Professional, a person experienced enough enough to be an MD or PhD.

With Skill 10, you are a PhD in shooting people with shooty things or stabbing people right in the goddamn face. Literally — you have spent as much time honing your stabbing skills as a PhD has on earning his Baccalaureate, Masters Degree, and Doctoral Thesis, put together.

That's somewhere in the vicinity of 7,000 hours — years of your life —  invested in intensive training exercises, coupled with live, actual shooting at assholes trying to shoot you back or live, actual shoving of sharp, spiky bits of metal into the bellies of assholes trying to stab you back. You're a goddamn Professional in how to kill other human beings.

That kind of badass, under optimal conditions, just can't miss a regular person. The dice don't allow it, and unless there's some kind of freak event, neither would the real world.

That's one of the basic combat rules of the game: if your Effective Skill is 10 or higher, you will hit. You might not do any damage, but you will hit.

"What if your Skill is lower than 10?" Next message.

2 Rolls: To-Hit and Damage
Combat Interlude, pt. 2

Time to bite the bullet, and fix my mistake.

The last post described an exact miss number. As a result of that, I made a miss mechanic for people with Skills <10. It was simple, clear, easily applied, and added a little complexity to combat, but not too much. I wrote it up, grimaced at the necessity, then sat back and thought about it.

Skill <10 will include all starting PC's who aren't Professional-grade killers. It also includes most normal, regular people (who tend not to be professional killers). Also faceless minions, security guards, orc raiders, yadda yaddda yadda.

Most characters, in other words. Which means it applies most of the time. The majority of the time.

That it would be used the majority of the time means two things. One, it's necessary for the mechanics and two, this is a 2-value, 2-roll system and I'm lying to myself pretending otherwise. I just need to bow to the inevitable, make it part of the game, and go on. (Fortunately, I've been working on an alternate combat rule, if 1-roll turned out to be impracticable.)

Here's the rule, in short: roll to hit, then roll damage. Period.

1st Roll: Attack Skill + rolled Bonus, compare to Defense Skill. If the Attack Total beats it (equal to or greater than), you hit. (If you're Surprised, you don't get a Defense Skill, the "to-hit" CR is 0.)

2nd Roll: Damage Value + rolled Bonus, compare to Toughness. Calculate Success Ratings, 1 SR = 1 Wound, +1 Shock for any Success.

And that's it. Very traditional. It involves rolling twice, but that's utterly essential for various mechanical reasons I'm not going into.

I spent a lot of time working through the 1-Roll rule, but it wasn't time wasted. It forced me to look much deeper into combat (shooting and stabbing) than I would have otherwise. It forced me to understand them better, so I could represent them better and explain them better. (Sometime I may tell you about how the iTunes silhouette dancer commercials relate to shooting people dead, and why rolling for damage is an abstract representation of a hit location chart.)

It also forced me to create a couple of mechanics that work quite well, and are now a core part of the system. And it helped me stress test all the possible versions of the combat mechanics, to settle on the one, best version. Two rolls, two values is the only practicable version of these rules. All the others have fundamental problems, some immediately apparent, some hidden. This one works.

And now I know that. And with that out of the way, I can finally move on to Actions and Initiative.

Next post.

Shooting Silhouettes
Combat Interlude, pt. 3

Alright, I lied. There's one last thing I needed to cover before we get to actions & initiative, and that's the logic behind how the attack/damage system works. It starts with cel-shading.

When envisioning how difficult it is to shoot and hit a person, it helps to imagine them as being cel-shaded, like a character in Crackdown or Borderlands. If you've ever played those games, you know that each character has a thick black outline around the edge of their body that marks where their skin stops and the air begins.

Now fill in that outline with black, and you have a silhouette. Your job, with a gun, is to make your bullet impact the target's silhouette.

As they move around, that silhouette gets larger and smaller. Think of the iPod dancers from those iTunes commercials, the dancing silhouettes. As the dancer whirls around, crouches, turns, and jumps the silhouette changes size and shape.

A target's silhouette changes size and shape exactly the same way and for exactly the same reasons. And the smaller the silhouette, the harder it is to hit them with a bullet. But if you do, you might do some damage.

We roll damage in RPG's, because sometimes a hit hurts more. It makes perfect sense, in hand-to-hand combat, because it's a muscle thing: like swinging a bat, sometimes you swing harder, sometimes softer. But what about bullets? Do they go measurably faster or slower, all at random?

Of course not. That's silly. So why do we roll random damage for guns?

Real world time. In order to hurt a target more, you shoot it in a vulnerable spot. Eyes, throat, vitals, head, groin, whatever's applicable. Shoot it there — on purpose or accidentally — and you hurt the target more.

'Course, the same general hit location has areas which differ in vulnerability. Hitting the thigh might mean a grazing shot, just tearing skin, or it might mean going through the muscle, which is serious but not usually immediately lethal, or it can mean you hit the femoral artery, which will kill the target in short order, unless they get immediate first aid to stop the bleeding.

All of this can be represented by a random hit location chart (including damage modifiers for more vital areas), and for a while I considered it. But it can also be represented by rolling for damage: when you do more damage, you hit a more vital spot, when you do less damage, you hit a less vital spot. The damage roll is, in effect, an abstracted hit location roll.

In this system, the Attack roll represents just hitting that silhouette. Your hit location, and how hard you hit it (for melee combat and missile weapons), is reflected in the Damage roll.

Attackers can deliberately target vulnerable locations, of course, which penalizes their attack in return for increased damage (and an increased chance of missing entirely). This "Called Shot" is a simple mechanic, yet it represents reality tolerably well.

This goes for the whole combat system. The two-roll method is very simple: roll a Bonus, add to Attack Skill. Roll a Bonus, add to Damage. Very simple. Yet it represents reality pretty closely, which you wouldn't expect.

This is not a perfect system, or a perfect mechanic. But it's the least imperfect mechanic I can devise right now. Which makes it the perfect mechanic for this system.

Now it's time for Actions & Initiative.

Sad News / Happy News

We'll do the sad news first: my computer is dying, and will expire sometime in the near future. I'm not going to do much posting about ∞ Infinity until I can buy a new external HDD to backup everything (sometime next week).

Sometime after that — it could be as long as a month or as soon as next Friday – I'll probably be stopping altogether for a while, while it's in the shop. (There's a slight chance it won't blow up at all, but I'm not betting on it.) Just a head's up.

Happy News: Thanks to the kind graces of a local politician, I got to do some live fire research tonight. I got to shoot a 9mm Glock pistol, a .460 Smith and Wesson revolver, an AK-47 assault rifle (on single shot), an AR-15 assault rifle (civilian version of the M-16) on single shot, an Uzi 9mm on full auto (for 3 rounds, when it jammed), and best of all a .50 Barrett sniper rifle.

Boom!

Seriously, the sniper rifle kicks up your pants legs and lightly slaps your face from a few feet away. It was incredible.

So now I've had a little first hand experience with aiming, shooting, recoil, various sights, how loud guns are, what they smell like (cap guns), how hard it is for a beginner to hit a 6' target from 20 feet away, and all that. It was a few hours well spent.

Better than that, it was totally awesome! I'm grinning. Like a kid. I've got the brass from a .50 round I shot on my table. It was awesome.

To top it all off, I — quite unexpectedly — got to meet my new favorite writer, New York Times Bestselling author Larry Correia (Monster Hunter International). He's extremely knowledgeable about firearms, and kindly answered a few questions about shooting (such as what it's like to target shoot a sniper rifle from a helicopter in flight). My only regret is I didn't have a book for him to autograph. (Not that I could have. I bought all his books in ePub, so what, was he gonna autograph my smartphone?)

The other guys, who brought the really cool guns and let us shoot them, answered some questions, as well. (How do you shoot when your hands are shaking? Everyone's hands shake. You have to learn to pull the trigger when the sights are in the right position.) Good stuff. Very good stuff.

Best night of research ever.

Wish me luck, and I'll get back to posting ∞ Infinity stuff ASAP!

Back from my brush with computing oblivion. Moving forward with combat.

Combat: Mechanics and the Meaning Thereof
Combat, pt. 1

The combat mechanic is simple and straightforward:

The attacker rolls a Bonus and adds it to their Attack Skill. If this total equals or exceeds the Defense Skill of their target, they hit.

The attacker then rolls another Bonus and adds it to their Damage Rating. This is compared to the target's Toughness, each Success Rating doing 1 Wound and 1 Shock, plus 1 point of additional Shock for any level of Success.

Example: Failure means no damage. 0 SR means 1 Shock. 3 SR means 3 Wounds and 4 Shock.

Those are the mechanics. But what do they represent, in real-world terms?

An Attack roll is a test of the relevant combat skill. Like a Skill Challenge, the character is attempting to accomplish a specific task, employing their knowledge and experience to do so. What this task is, varies with the type of weapon used: bare fists, sword, grenade, pistol, etc.

The firearms skill represents the ability to use a firearm to aim at a target (tracking with their movements, leading them, compensating for cover, concealment, windage, and so forth), shoot at them, and hit with one or more rounds. It also represents the training to identify common types of ammo and weapons, reload magazines, perform preventive maintenance, identify common problems and fix them (such as clearing jams), draw the weapon with expediency, and otherwise prepare their mind, body, and materiel to shoot.

In combat, the specific task at hand is attacking a target in the most efficient, effective way. For firearms, unless the player specifies otherwise, this is a shot at the target's center, their torso. This is the only consistently reliable target, shots at extremities (feet, hands), limbs (arms and legs), and the head are very difficult. In live-fire conditions even skilled shooters usually miss. Players can declare an attack against one of those hard-to-hit areas, a "Called Shot", but otherwise the character is shooting at the center of the target's torso. (Or at whatever body part is currently exposed.)

Opposing the firearms skill is the dodge skill. Which, despite its name, is not about dodging bullets. The dodge skill is the knowledge of cover, concealment, and movement, and how to maximize all three: how to keep your head down, knowing where foliage or smoke is thickest and will obscure the shooter's sight the most, knowing how to jink or juke when running. By doing one or more of these things, they make it more difficult for a shooter to draw a bead. A person in the open, who isn't running, doesn't get the benefit of dodge.

The Attack roll is all about skill, and it determines the outcome of this one specific attempt to attack a target (or targets). In contrast, the Damage roll is all about the physical characteristics of the weapon and random chance.

Swords are often swung, and like swinging a bat, people make stronger or weaker blows. Different areas of the body are more or less vulnerable to attack — sometimes a couple of inches is all that separates a lethal blow from an insignificant graze — and attacks hit different areas, all at random. Combat is dynamic, and the exact motions of the defender can affect both hit location and the effective force of a strike or bullet. Then there's the thousands of tiny variables, like the effect of safety glass on a bullet passing through (which can affect its angle and speed).

The Damage roll encompasses all of these elements, and more. It abstracts them into one roll, which determines how much damage this one specific attack did.

The Attack roll is all about skill, and unless you aim for a specific location, a more vulnerable location, it doesn't affect damage. The Damage roll is all about chance, about the many non-skill variables and events that can increase or decrease the basic damage of a weapon.

This is the core combat mechanic: roll to hit, roll for damage. The rest of the combat system is built off the assumptions and mechanics above (with variations, where necessary).

Making Mechanics Concrete
Combat, pt. 2

Yesterday's post presented some critical information: how four central mechanics — Attack rolls, Defense rolls, the firearms skill, and the dodge skill — are tied into the real world. By deliberate design, each mechanic is concretely related to everyday reality we can all understand.

The dodge skill means you've learned how to maximize the protection a wall can offer or how to zig zag across a clearing. When players and GMs know how the skill works, it links the game mechanic with real-world actions and experiences.

Why is this so important? Because tying mechanics into concrete, real-world actions and experiences helps the GM describe the effects mechanics have on play. It also helps the table — both players and GMs — understand what's happening in-game, even when the actions aren't being explicitly described.

Player: "I run for the back of the truck. My dodge is 8."

GM: "Bullets zip around you, but you make it in before the driver pulls away."

The GM didn't include a lot of details about what happened — which is a good thing — but because the player and the GM both know what dodge entails (zig zagging, running with a will, keeping your head down), they know what was going on anyway. Their imaginations can fill in the details.

Defining mechanics in terms of specific, concrete actions and experiences helps the game world come alive in play. If you've experienced that which is being described, it helps you tap into those experiences. If you haven't, it gives you an idea of what it might be like to experience them. This makes the gameworld feel more visceral and seem more real.

Vividness aids immersion, and tying mechanics to concrete actions and experiences aids vividness. This is a goal I've pursued throughout the rules — Skill Ratings, as a good example — and yesterday's post exemplified that.

Yesterday's post was also important because the specific and concrete details therein underlie the entire combat system. Any future posts will take them as assumptions.

P.S.: Winston, one of my "no-men" asked about dodge and running. The Rule: In order to gain the benefit of the dodge skill, you either have to be in 10% concealment or greater or you have to be running.

If either applies, the base CR to hit you is your dodge skill. If neither applies, the base CR to shoot you is 0 (as usual, modified by range and other circumstances).

In combat, running means Pushing your combat move at least +50% (SR 0). Unless you're Untrained in athletics you don't have to roll, as the CR is 0, but you will take 2 points of Shock from the Push each time you dash through an open area. On the upside, you do get to move 50% farther with one Move action.

(I'll talk more about Movement and Move Actions when I get to Initiative. Real Soon Now.)

Rounds, Actions, & Moves
Combat, pt. 3

Before I talk about the Initiative mechanic, there's three concepts I need to cover: Rounds, Actions, & Moves. But before I do even that, I need to make a note for GM's.

None of the rules below are unusual. They're not meant to be. They're meant to be straightforward and easy to understand and implement. But if the rules produce confusing or nonsensical results, ignore the rules. Your common sense is the final arbiter.

Back to the rules. As in most games, combat time is measured in rounds. Each round is roughly 10 seconds long, but it can be longer or shorter depending on circumstances.

During each round, each character capable of acting gets one turn. (As in "It's your turn, what do you do?") Each turn, the character can take two Actions: one Simple Action and one Complex Action. Simple Actions are simple things: walk or run, pick something up, aim or reload, draw a weapon, basically anything that doesn't require rolling the dice.

Complex Actions are nearly anything that requires a dice roll, like Skill Challenges or Combat Challenges. Pick a lock? Complex Action. Shoot a gun? Complex Action. (Even Actions that would require a dice roll, but which we overlook, like CR 0 Challenges, count as Complex Actions.)

(There is one exception. Pushes, where you run faster or lift more, are part of the Move or Lift; you Move and Push at the same time, as one single Simple Action.)

You can forgo a Complex Action to take two Simple Actions, allowing you to (for example) Move twice, or Move and draw a weapon, or whatever. You can't do the opposite. You can only perform two Simple Actions a turn, or one Simple Action and one Complex Action.

You cannot delay either Action until later, you have to take both at the same time. You can delay an entire turn until later in the round. (More about that next message.)

Simple and Complex Actions are treated as if they happen immediately. The character's turn comes up, they take their Actions, the Actions take effect, the next character gets their turn. The major exception is a Continuing Action.

Let's say it takes 30 seconds to pick a lock. That's three combat rounds, and the character is picking the lock the entire time. A Continuing Action means the character can't do anything else until it's over (unless he stops, leaving the task uncompleted). This also means he can be interrupted by people who take their turns in the meantime. (Most of the time stopping or being interrupted means you have to begin the task again. GM's can rule otherwise.)

A Move is a Simple Action. A single Move Action is up to 4 meters. (If you're using a hex or grid map, the assumed scale is 2m per square or hex.) If you Move both Actions (a Double Move), you can move up to 8m.

If you choose to, you can move the entire round — as a Continuing Action — and move up to 16m. This is called a Full Move.

Being Incapacitated means you can only take a 1/2 move. This halves the preceding Move distances. 4m for a Double Move, for example, or 8m for a Full Move.

You can Push your Move by either +50% or x2 (with an athletics total), with the obvious effects. A single Move, Pushed to x2, is 8m. A Full Move, Pushed by +50%, is 24m.

Running, for the purposes of the dodge skill, is +50% Push to those three movement rates. You don't have to move the entire distance (hence "up to") but in order to run, you do need to Push and take the Shock.

The next post is going to be about Extra Actions, turn order and Factions, who gets a turn and when do they get it.

Turn Order and The Initiative
Combat, pt. 4

In any given combat, there are at least two sides. (Maybe more, but no less. Pretty much by definition.) The Initiative system determines which side — called "factions" — goes first, and in what order each character takes their turns. Here's the central rule of Initiative, to understand any of it you must understand this:

In any given round, either 1) only one faction has the Initiative or 2) no faction does.

Only one faction can have the Initiative during any one round. If no faction has the Initiative, all characters act in descending order of Dexterity, each character taking one turn (see previous post for turn rules). Characters with the same Dexterity act simultaneously — their turns happen at the same time.

Characters can voluntarily delay their turn, acting later in the round. They can choose to act before, after, or at the same time as any other character later than them in the turn order. This imposes no penalty on their actions, nor does it affect later rounds. They cannot delay their turn into the next round.

Example: Tiana and Jack are two adventurers (as allies, they count as part of the same faction), fighting a man-eating ogre called Firth (the other faction). Tiana has a Dexterity of 12, and Firth and Jack Dexterities of 10. Since no faction has the Initiative, all characters act in order of highest to lowest Dexterity.

Tiana would normally act first, as her Dexterity is the highest, but she delays until after Jack's action. Jack and Firth act at the same time. Firth charges towards Jack. As he runs at Jack, the slim adventurer throws a net, entangling him. Firth halts and tries to tear the net off, but fails. Jack backpedals out of the way of the ogre's flailings. Tiana steps in and jabs Firth with a poisoned spear. She hits, and the ogre is bleeding (and hopefully poisoned).

If one faction does have the Initiative, all members of that faction get an Extra Turn. This Extra Turn is exactly the same as a regular turn (two Actions, etc.) except it occurs before the regular turn order: all members of the faction with the Initiative can take their Extra Turn before any members of any other faction can act in the round. As usual, the Extra Turns occur in descending order of Dexterity, and characters can delay their turn (using the rules above).

After the Extra Turn, all characters get their regular turns, which occur in the regular turn order — descending order of Dexterity. This includes the faction that has the Initiative.

This Extra Turn is the primary benefit of having the Initiative. It gives the faction with Initiative a chance to shape the battle, before regular turns begin. They can position themselves for attacks or defense, soften up their enemies with taunts or intimidates, begin casting spells, or anything else they choose.

All else being equal, the faction with Initiative will almost always win the combat. Seizing the Initiative is of critical importance, and I'll talk about those rules next post. (As well as the Extra Action rules.)

Simultaneous Turns / Simultaneous Actions: When two characters act simultaneously, it's usually easier to resolve the Actions of one character first (rolling dice, etc.), then resolve the Actions of the other. But technically speaking, as each turn has two Actions, their first Actions happen at the same time, then their second Actions. There may be instances where this distinction is important.

In the example above, it was. Firth did a Move, Pushing his movement, intending to attack Jack. Jack threw the net as Firth was charging, entangling the ogre. (These are their first Actions.) Entangled in the net, the Ogre couldn't attack Jack, so tried to break free. At the same time as Firth struggled to get free, Jack stepped out of the way, a Move action. (Second Actions.)

Resolving the ogre's turn first would mean Jack wouldn't have the chance to entrap the ogre, and resolving Jack's turn first would mean the ogre would get two chances to break the net. The GM decided to take it Action-by-Action, just to be fair.

Again, the GM can ignore this subtlety most of the time. Occasionally it may matter, and if it does use the procedure here.

Seizing the Initiative
Combat, pt. 5

Let's recap. These are the fundamental rules of Initiative:

1) Each character gets 1 turn a round, in descending order of Dexterity.*

2) All turns allow 2 Actions: a Simple Action and a Rolled Action, or two Simple Actions.

3) In each round, either 1 faction has the Initiative or no faction does.

4) The faction with the Initiative gets one Extra Turn a round before anyone else acts.

There are more details, but so long as you know those four rules, you understand most of the Initiative system. There's one question left unanswered: How does a faction seize the Initiative?

Simple. They take the battle to their enemy. Each time they do one of the following three things in a round, they gain 1 Initiative point:

1) Damage: A successful attack on an enemy (0 SR or greater). This includes anything that deals damage: weapons, spells, miracles, etc.

2) Distract: A successful Combat Interaction Challenge against an enemy (0 SR or greater). Any CI skill is valid (maneuver, overbear, etc.)

3) Defeat: Making an enemy combatant break.

The GM keeps track of Initiative points in a combat round. At the end of the round, the faction with the highest point total seizes Initiative for the next round. (If the two highest factions are tied, no one seizes Initiative.)

Next round, all points reset. Every faction starts from zero and tries to win as many Initiative points as they can.

In these rules, the Initiative is not rolled randomly, nor is it determined by any Attributes or Characteristics of a character. Instead, it's something a faction has to fight to achieve. They have to attack the enemy, hurt the enemy, pursue and harry the enemy without respite to seize the Initiative.

The faction who pursues the enemy most vigorously, who is the most aggressive and the most effective in prosecuting the battle, will seize the Initiative and keep it. All else being equal, they will win.

New Initiative Bonus and The Extra Actions Rule
Combat, pt. 6

Initiative, in this system, isn't something given out at random or as a result of a high Attribute or skill. It must be won, one round at a time. It can only be seized by taking the battle to the enemy, attacking them, hurting them, and maintaining the assault each and every round until they're defeated.

Surprisingly enough, none of the commenters have objected to the concept. All the objections raised (so far) were to the bonus granted for seizing the Initiative (an Extra Turn for that faction), which was considered too powerful. After some discussion, I've decided to moderate that bonus.

The new rule: The faction that has Initiative gets to take their turns first, before any other faction. (These occur in descending order of Dexterity, as usual.) In addition, each member of the faction has a free Extra Action. They can use this Action as they see fit, at the same time as their turn or later in the round (if they delay, see pt. 4).

This is the Initiative rule I'll be taking to playtest. It has a smaller bonus than the last, instead of an entire turn, it's just one Action. More, it integrates cleanly with the Extra Actions rule. Speaking of which...

The Extra Actions Rule

Every character gets one turn a combat round. In that turn they get two Actions: either one Simple and one Rolled, or two Simple. They get an Extra Action for seizing the Initiative, but otherwise that's it. They do not get to take any other Actions in the round. Period.

Unless they buy them with Shock.

They can buy a single Extra Action by taking 1 point of Shock (2 if Encumbered). It can be used as a Simple or Rolled Action, can be taken at the same time as their turn or delayed until later in the round, and if delayed can even be taken in response to another character's action.

"I run across the clearing."
"I shoot."

Characters can only take a limited number of Extra Actions, equal to their Intellect bonus. A character with an Intellect bonus of +3 can only take 3 Extra Actions in one round. The Extra Action granted by the Initiative counts against this limit, so if they can only take 3, getting a free one means they can only buy two more.

(Why Intellect? Dexterity represents the quickness with which a character reacts to situations, hence its role in the turn order — the faster character goes first. Intellect, however, limits how many different things a character can react to during a 10-second round, which impacts the Actions they can take.)

That's the entire Extra Actions rule: characters can buy them with 1 Shock, up to their limit, they are regular Actions just like any other, and they can delay them or take them with their turn. It's a pretty simple rule, and the new bonus for seizing the Initiative fits right in.

There is one more quirk, which I'll get to tomorrow: rushing Extra Actions. (Plus, possibly a discussion of how Inherent Defense and Active Defense fit into the Action model.)

Template, Talents, and Trouble [pt. 1]

[After a quick break for vacation and minor surgery, let's get back at it, shall we?]

Character creation comes in three flavors: detailed, where people crunch the numbers all by themselves; quick-and-dirty, where they pick Attributes and skill values from pre-defined arrays; and, easiest of all, pre-generated characters where everything except certain skills are chosen already (including equipment and other mundanities).

Pre-gens ensure that character creation is basically effortless, a big plus for new players. They also illustrate the range of character types available in the setting. A quick flip through the pre-gens lets you know what character types are possible and well-suited for the campaign.

All characters, no matter how they're created, are built around a template: a title that illustrates the core concept of the character. Renegade Magus. Vengeful Hunter. Doubting Cleric.

This title, usually in the form of <adjective> <noun>, tells you what the character is: warrior, noble, scientist, werewolf, alien, pulp super, etc. That's the <noun> part.

The <adjective> part tells you something of his situation, personality, motivation, and so on. It tells you what is unique about this character, how this wizard is different from every other wizard.

A character's template is the simplest, clearest expression of their core concept. It is the seed crystal around which everything else about the character — Attributes, skills, and so forth — forms.

Even characters built from the ground up need one of these handy titles, before anything else is chosen. The player should choose what kind of character he wants (Magician, Secret Agent, Duelist) and a word or phrase that describes their situation, background, or personality (Driven, Disavowed, Cautious). They can mix and match these two as they see fit (within the limits of the campaign world). Choosing a template is the very first step in the character creation process.

Pre-gens have a template chosen for them (in fact, pre-gens are typically called templates). Players can modify the <adjective> half of these, if they wish. Obsessed Parapsychologist, Disturbed Parapsychologist, and Discredited Parapsychologist all imply different truths about the character, different circumstances and different personalities. But all three are Parapsychologists, with the skills and gear that title implies.

Hunted Wildfang Werewolf, Reluctant Wushu Warrior, or Greedy Cyberlegger, the template lets you know exactly who they are. And that's important for both players and GM's.

The template is so critical that two other character elements are directly tied to it: Talents and Trouble. I'll talk more about both next post.

Talents [pt. 2]

Talents are strengths that are unique to your character: things you do well, that no one else does quite the same way you do. Troubles are unique problems that beset your character on a regular basis. After choosing a Template, either pre-gen or one of your own making, you next select a Talent and a Trouble that are tied into the Template. (I'll talk about how to do that in a bit.)

Talents: A Talent is a short phrase that describes some unique advantage your character possesses, like "Face of a Saint". A thief with that Talent looks fresh-faced and innocent, no matter the circumstances. Even if they're caught red-handed with stolen goods, people will tend to believe they weren't involved or, at worst, were an unwitting dupe of the real thief.

Talents can represent innate knacks (Violin Virtuoso, Born With a Gun In His Hand), inherent advantages (Voice Like an Angel, You Gotta Love 'Im), unusual training (My Uncle Was a Kung Fu Master, The Necronomicon is in My Backpack), or anything else that gives the character an edge. All characters have at least one Talent (that ties into their Template) but can have one or two others, for a total of three.

Talents give a bonus in any situation where they could reasonably apply. Face of a Saint, for example, might help you fast-talk a policeman ("Oh please, officer, can't I stay here for just a second longer? My dad will be right out.") but it probably shouldn't help you do it over the intercom. ("Face" implies seeing the character.) This is something of a judgement call, but the GM has final say.

The first time a Talent is used in a module, it's worth a +3 Skill Bonus to one Combat or Skill Challenge. The second time, +2 to a different Challenge. And the third, and last, it's worth +1. Talents refresh between modules, back up to their full +3.

Talents aren't just "doing better" mechanics. They also help illustrate who your character is. A character who is A Real Class Act is very different from the Who Are You, Again? guy, even if they have the same template.

Yes, Talents do give bonuses but they also personalize a character, making them distinct. Other characters might have the same Attributes and even skills, but none have the same Talents.

A Note On Balance: The most important part of Talents is the flavor, not the game balance. Some players might try to word one so its useful in as many situations as possible, others so it can be used with every single type of weapon. Neither of these are much of a problem, because Talents can only be used three times in one module, and weaken each time they're used. They're self-limiting. As long as the Talent is interesting, flavorful, and apt for the character, it's fine.

The same holds when deciding if a Talent applies to a particular situation. For the most part, if it makes sense, allow it. "My Uncle Was a Kung Fu Master, so I know about Martial Arts styles (Knowledge Challenge)." Maybe you should allow that, maybe not. But don't stress over it.

Talents are self-limiting, and if the player gets a +3 on the Knowledge Challenge, they'll only have a +2 on whatever comes next, so feel free to let them use the bonus. Again, the mechanic is self-limiting, so you don't need to police them all that stringently. Go ahead and disallow clearly ridiculous uses, but err on the side of "okay" rather than "no".

That's Talents, the basics at least. I'll talk Troubles next post.

pt. 3

Since my last post I've been discussing Talents with some of my frequent commenters. They had some questions about why Talents should exist, and when they can be used. So I'm putting off Troubles for a sec, and expanding on the Talent post.

Why Talents?

Talents are, in effect, an Advantage / Edge system, of which there are many possible approaches. There's the GURPS 100 Advantages model, Savage Worlds 50 Advantages model, and 1000's of Feats model of D&D 3e (among many other options). I like all those games, and each has their strengths (and weaknesses). But for this system, I needed to avoid all of those and simplify.

Talents do the same thing as Advantages, in a much more compact and simplified form (it takes less than 500 words to explain the mechanic). They also allow for a near infinite variety of customization and characterization.

Static Advantages, picked off a list, are always the same. Sharp Eyes (+2 to visual challenges) is the same for every character who takes it.

Talents are unique, no two are alike. Because of that, no two characters are alike. Let's take two lists of three possible Talents.

Character A
Henry Smash!
Don't Mess With The Big Guy
If You're Family, You're Forever

Character B
Fists Like Lightning
Deadly Stare
Honor. Duty. Fidelity.

In a general sense, those two lists are basically the same:

Good at fighting.
He's scary.
Loyalty to his friends and family.

Yet each gives entirely different impressions of the character. The first is a big lug, a bruiser, and the second a Bruce Lee-style martial artist. Similar Talents, very different impression. You get a sense of who the character is just from reading that list. (And when you add in the Template and Troubles, it's a very comprehensive description of a character in a very compact form.)

Talents allow a player to not only establish a character's personality or characterization, but get a benefit for doing so. Two Rookie Cops (their Template) might have the same skills. But with different Talents, they are very different people.

Talents are self-balancing. No matter the scope, they provide a specific bonus, a specific number of times. Once used, they're depleted until the next module. (I'll talk more about that later.) They can't be abused because there's no handle to do so. (And people trying to min-max Talents have so fundamentally missed the point of the mechanic, it's not worth trying to force them to conform. It won't work, and player and GM will both be miserable from the attempt.)

Sure, a broadly worded Talent can be used in a number of circumstances... once. After that, it's useless until it refreshes.

Because of this, players decide when to use the bonus (you can even "double up", using the bonus from two or even three Talents all at once). Even if a Talent could affect a situation, the player can save their bonus for later. And, though I omitted this from the last post, to use their Talents bonus, they have to narrate how their Talent affects the situation.

"Henry looms over the crowd, frowning slightly. 'Leave that man alone.' " In this situation, the player is trying to use Don't Mess With The Big Guy, so describes how his size and mien can aid an Intimidation challenge. Every use of a Talent needs a similar description.

This mechanic encourages players to play their characters, to describe how their character's unique facets affect a situation. That's why Talents exist: to help describe who a character is, and how the character acts in the game.

Some people do this innately. (These are typically the players who write up ten pages of background without having to be asked.) Others don't, because they don't find it interesting.

In an action-movie game, it's alright if mooks are faceless and interchangeable. But the stars — the PC's and main NPC's — should be more strongly distinguished in concept and during play, and Talents are a way Actor players can to do so and a way to encourage other types of players to do the same, even if only a little bit.

With A Capital "T" [pt. 4]

Talents are strengths unique to a character. Troubles are their counterpart, unique problems the character frequently faces.

Drinking problem? Trouble. Easily angered? Trouble. Hunted by a clan of assassins from beyond time and space? Trouble.

Addictions, enemies, dependents, anything that might cause complications during a session can be a Trouble. Troubles are named just like Talents, in short, evocative phrases that describe the problem you face:

Ugly As a Bucket of Fish Guts
"Say That One. More. Time."
Watch It, That's My Sister

Troubles complicate characters' lives, and for that the player receives a reward. When notable Trouble crops up during play, the character is rewarded 1 Resolve at the end of that Act. But, no matter how often the same Trouble crops up during an Act, only 1 point per Act is earned.

Troubles must be listed on the character sheet. There's a lot of things players can do to cause themselves problems, these don't necessarily deserve to be rewarded. "I light the building on fire." "We're on the tenth floor!" Unless impatience or obliviousness is one of that character's Troubles, it doesn't count.

Players control their characters, so they decide if personal problems — Hair of The Dog I Bit — come into play. Gamemasters can suggest it, if the situation arises, but players can say no (forfeiting the reward, obviously). External troubles — like the afore-mentioned clan of assassins from beyond time and space — show up when and where and how the GM wishes. The player has no say in it.

Characters can have up to three Troubles, but only the first (linked to their Template) is mandatory. The other two are optional, and can be picked at character creation or later, during play. (Talents and Troubles can also change during play. I'll talk about that in another post.)

Troubles make characters, and the game, more interesting. A character who is occasionally short tempered, and blows up during tense negotiations, is more interesting than a bland, blank faced Terminator programmed to defeat modules with the barest minimum of human interaction or feelings. Troubles reward players for staying in character, or getting the short end, even when it impairs their ability to win a module.

I'll talk about how much Trouble counts next post.

How Much Trouble Is "Trouble"?

pt. 5

Troubles only provide their reward when they are notable: when they cause the affected character a problem he has to work to overcome. Sure, a party member might be an alcoholic, and even overindulge from time to time, but it's only when he misses an important meeting with a contact (and has to get the info another way) that he sees a reward.

Trouble is notable if it does any one of the following:

• Causes a significant open conflict with consequences for failure, or involves the characters in one. This includes not only combat, but an argument or confrontation of some sort, such as persuading the emir his vizier's corrupt or trying to negotiate a truce between Westphalian and Eastphalian nobles. A conflict must be something the character cannot overcome trivially, and which has notable consequences for losing (being expelled from the city, losing his patron, etc.). If the character happens upon a conflict and intervenes, that counts.

• Significantly obstructs progress towards a goal. If one of the Act goals is retrieving the Crown Jewels of Waraka, but the character or party gets thrown in jail because of some Trouble, that makes achieving the goal more difficult. That counts.

• Costs the character appreciable in-game resources. That is, money, ammunition, favors, etc. Animals Are People, Too might mean the character has a problem shooting guard dogs, but tranquilizer darts are acceptable (though possibly less effective). If he has them on hand, as part of his normal gear, that's not Trouble. If he has to spend a lot of money to get ahold of some, that's Trouble. (Or if the darts don't work, and the guard dogs become a problem, that's also Trouble.)

• Causes any other problems of similar or greater magnitude.

This last point is the most important: the above are not an exhaustive list of all possible consequences of Trouble, just some representative examples. As always it's GM's discretion as to what counts. The rule of thumb is: If the character didn't have to work to overcome it, it wasn't enough Trouble to count.

Here's an example:

Suppose a three-member party has been hired to break into a warehouse before dawn. Under normal circumstances, it's a three-man job, but just before they leave for the break-in, one of the characters loses his cool and starts a fight with a couple of bikers ("What Did You Say To Me?"). A combat, even a non-lethal fist fight, is notable Trouble, so he gets a point. (Unless he can win without any significant effort or risk.)

The second character is immensely loyal (Es Mi Familia), so joins the fight. That's Trouble for him, and he also gets a point. The third character is All Business, and decides that, no matter what those yahoos are doing, he's going to finish the job. He attempts to break into the warehouse on his own, which is a lot more difficult. That's Trouble, and he gets a point.

[Note: The Action Deck has Subplot cards, like Romance and Nemesis. Subplots are, in effect, temporary, module-specific Troubles. They follow the same guidelines and offer the same reward.]

Template Tips
pt. 6

I want to talk about the mandatory Talent and Trouble and how both are linked to the character's Template. But first, I want to expand on Templates a little.

All characters have, at their core, an expected role: "I'm making a wizard." "I'm a wheelman." "I want to play a fighter character."

The <noun> part of a template is the character's expected role: Wizard. Wheelman. Warrior. And so forth. (Not all roles are available in all campaigns, obviously.)

The role gives us some important information about the character, namely their skill set. Wizards cast spells, wheelmen drive cars, warriors swing swords. It also gives us some notion of the character's past, because they trained for that role.

Maybe the wizard apprenticed under a frightful master, maybe he attended a magical high school, maybe he was self-taught from books of eldritch lore better left unread. The possible choices vary by campaign world, but at some time he learned to be a wizard. And that's a lot of background, filled in very quickly.

(More, the character's role lets the GM know what the player wants from the game. A hacker wants to hack computers. A wizard wants to employ his magic. A gunfighter likes duels. The GM doesn't have to trot out obvious opportunities each and every module, but the wise GM looks at the role of the PC's when designing adventures.)

The <adjective> half personalizes the character, it gives us a notion of who they are or what situation they're in. A Knight is a warrior and noble on horseback, who follows the code of chivalry. By adding an adjective to the basic noun of Knight, we learn some of who this specific knight is.

A Dishonored Knight (for example) has some black mark of shame in his past, from his actions or the actions of an ancestor. He is likely to be shunned by many nobles and may even be forbidden to (for example) fight in tournaments or bear his family colors openly. If a crime is committed, he may be the first suspected and the last cleared. He will suffer much because of this dishonor. (Which is fine, because the player chose it. They expect this to be a problem.)

Just picking one colorful adjective gives us a lot of information about the character's situation, and how others see him. It implies much about his past and informs his personality.

The <noun> + <adjective> construction is flexible and succinct. Many games with pre-gen characters have used it for decades. Done properly, it encompasses a great deal of information about the character, information that can be use when writing up their background, picking skills and other game values, and selecting Talents and Troubles.

Next post I'll talk about integrating Talents and Troubles into the Template.

State of Game

It's been about 10 weeks since my last rules post, and it's past time for an update. (I've been working on other aspects of the project, hence the radio silence.)

1 – Work is continuing despite the lack of posts.

Most recently I've been researching suppressive fire, so I can build a mechanic that isn't completely stupid and unrelated to the real world. As with everything I research, this involves finding and learning a lot of info that won't appear in the game.

I've also been pounding my head against a brick wall on Ranged Defense. No changes yet, just a sullen kind of acceptance of the necessity of the skill, without any real enthusiasm for it.

I've been trying to puzzle out the relative damage of weapons vs. the protective value of armor. This also includes trying to figure out if the damage of pistols and rifles are commensurate and reasonable, and how to fit heroic damage resistance into the mechanics.

I've been working on a mechanic for one-on-one melee duels (for swashbuckling swordsmen and battling kung fu masters) which slows them down a bit, but makes them far more interesting.

I've also been mulling over issues of GM'ing, including what GM'ing advice to include with the game and how to write it up.

So, yes, work is proceeding despite the lack of updates.

2 – I am moving towards another round of playtesting.

My current goal is to incorporate the last round of posts into the playtest document and begin running a semi-regular playtest game. (I say this knowing full well that every single announced goal so far has been superseded about 24 hours after I post it. Que cera cera.)

If I do actually accomplish this, we'll be running Roll20 in a Google+ Hangout, with full video and audio. (Meaning you can see my ugly mug on camera, aieeeee!) The benefit of this is that we can record the playtest sessions to YouTube, for review later.

Technically, we could live-stream it, and have kibitzers asking questions during the game, but... no. Not that anyone would, bit still... no.

In any case, as soon as I finish compiling rules and researching the largest remaining holes, I should be able to start more playtesting. That's the situation.

The introduction to the GM Advice chapter:

GM Advice

What's the purpose of giving a GM advice?

Obviously, it's so I, the genius RPG game designer, can descend from on high, bringing you the tablets of pure gamer knowledge, written by the hands of the gaming gods themselves. These pearls of effulgent wisdom will shine forth in your mind for generations to come, making each combat short yet gripping, each NPC compelling and entertaining, and each game session so enthralling and moving that total strangers will buy you drinks just for the chance of hearing you relate storied tales of your campaigns.

BULLSHIT!

Here's the truth about advice:

Every group is different, every RPG is different, every session is different. What works at one table, on one night, might not work as well (or at all) on another night or at another table. Gaming advice is like Microsoft Word, 95% of people only use 5% of the advice. But it's a different 5% for each.

That said, I'm going to give you the best advice I can, advice that is as broadly applicable as possible. Pick and chose which bits make sense to you, try them out at your table and see which work, and in general try to have fun.

And if that doesn't work: Rocks Fall, Everybody Dies!

What's With This "I" Stuff?

The rest of the game is written in the Editorial We style — "We recommend you" and so forth. The GM Advice chapter is literally me, the writer of the game, giving you, the GM or player, advice. Picture it as the two of us sitting down at a table, having a casual conversation over a couple of drinks. (I'll have water, tap is fine, you can have whatever suits your fancy.)

When it comes to the game rules, I speak with the voice of authority (within limits), but any GMing advice is provisional and personal. So, just for this chapter, it's "I", not "We".