The Campaign Builder's Guild

New post full of ideas, mostly related to combat. Check above for Reactivity, and for the Rule of Seven.

Oh, and Salacious_Angel... [spoiler]The Memory of Malice - A magic-user armed with this savage Thought shapes his anger into a weapon. While concentrating on the Memory of Malice, he may assault any creature he can see with an invisible mental force, and may include his Circle Magic specialization as part of the roll.

These attacks count as "brutal" weapons and inflict two points of Health damage as well as one point of Focus damage on a successful roll. However, on a failed roll, the attacker takes one point of Health damage as he is savaged by his own violent emotions run amok.[/spoiler]

Hell yeaaah!  You do me proud, boy.

Edit: You might wish to add to Memory of Malice that the Thought requires actual hatred.  Whether or not the caster's thoughts qualify as hatred is left to the player and GM to decide, but I always had in mind that the sorcery of the cechalopods required powerful emotive force.

I'm not entirely sure about that, though.  It could, on the other hand, be an expression of unprejudiced, universal hate.

Concerning the Core Qualities, what does anyone think about having them totally separate from the general Qualities?  In this model, every character starts with 3 Health, Focus and Will, and one can increase/reduce the number of a single Core Quality by one by paying three points.

For example, Alice begins creating her character with the following generic stats:

Health: 3
Focus: 3
Will: 3

Physical (9)
Speed: 3
Guts: 3
Brawn: 3

Social (9)
Style: 3
Grace: 3
Charm: 3

Mental (9)
Wits: 3
Lore: 3
Wisdom: 3

She wants her character, Ladayle, to be somewhat physically wanting, with a seeming inability to "inhabit" her social surroundings.  She's also rather unschooled, but her travels have lent her a good deal of wisdom and she is an uncommonly sophisticated sorcerer.

So she constructs her character as follows:

Health: 3
Focus: 4
Will: 3

Physical (7)
Speed: 3
Guts: 2
Brawn: 2

Social (8)
Style: 3
Grace: 2
Charm: 3

Mental (9)
Wits: 3
Lore: 2
Wisdom: 4

We can see that her Qualities are three below average; a seemingly unremarkable human being.  But Alice has sunk those three missing points into an increase to her Focus, giving Ladayle an uncommon gift for the arcane and the capacity to grasp the Secrets of the Arc in a fashion most humans could not.

Of course, a number of problems with this method arise straight off the bat.  Are the Core Qualities worth three times the general ones?  If so, how does the DM prevent Munchkinism, whereby players reduce their Focus and Will, piling the points into their Health and their General Qualities? (This would most likely be solved by making Focus and Will as valuable to a non-magical player as a magical one) And does it even make sense to separate the Core Qualities from their respective general ones?!?

As you can probably tell, I'm still hunting for alternatives to the "lowest quality determines core quality" mechanic. (I'm pretty sure I want to use Triad for Dystopia, and this is probably the one thing that bugs me about the system)

Oh yeah, and 'bump'.

I don't like separating the core qualities from the general ones, as I'm quite fond of such a connection.  It just feels right.  

One thing that I think you're right about is the need to make Focus and Will valuable to non-magical characters.  Might I suggest some neutral mechanics that utilize these stats, or perhaps more "martial" uses for the stats?

(Helping to bump)

Will seems like it might already be useful in resisting things, whether you can use it offensively or not. I don't so much know about focus...

Hi, all. I've been scarce around here lately due to schoolwork, but still keeping my eye on things. I was thinking about this project the other day, and lo and behold, there's new discussion here. How about that.

Anyway, I'm still torn regarding core qualities, but S_A's proposition intrigues me. However, like Crit,

Quote from: CritOne thing that I think you're right about is the need to make Focus and Will valuable to non-magical characters. Might I suggest some neutral mechanics that utilize these stats, or perhaps more "martial" uses for the stats?

re the Core Qualities worth three times the general ones?[/quote]all[/i] stats, including magic stuff, is something I haven't really worked on.

QuoteIf so, how does the DM prevent Munchkinism, whereby players reduce their Focus and Will, piling the points into their Health and their General Qualities?]

want[/i] to do that, I'd say that's their prerogative. However, not all conflicts can be resolved by fighting, and players who deliberately make their characters into one-trick-ponies may find they have made things very difficult for themselves in other situations.

Also note that there are definite benefits to playing a well-rounded character when it becomes necessary to think on one's feet-- that's why Reactivity is part of Triad System.

Quote(Although, it seems it'd probably be more efficient in this case for Gor to simply improve his Speed, if he wants more Health.)

always[/i] be better to improve all three general qualities by one, because this in particular will raise your minimum by one, thus raising your core quality by one. Even if increasing a core quality costs only two points, it will still be more efficient to spend those on general qualities except when your three general qualities are all equal (and even then one might prefer to increase all three and the core quality at the cost of three points rather than just the core quality at the cost of two points).

This would reduce core qualities to a cost of one point, which doesn't seem desirable.

So I'd say the compromise suggested by LC is problematic.

Túrin

What if Health was a point pool expended willingly by the character the same same way Focus and Will are?  There are three levels of injury - for this example, let's say that they are battered, wounded and maimed - and an uninjured character has no levels.  When a character is successfully injured, he suffers a level of injury, until he has suffered four levels (bringing him from uninjured to incapacitated/dead/whatever).  Upon suffering injury (that is, before his next action), a character can expend a point of Health in order to ignore its effects.

So here we have Nick (Luminous' character from the original combat example), who has just been landed a rather fierce punch by a raging drunkard.  The fist flies true, but Nick rolls with the strike, and what might have otherwise been a telling blow yields only an unattractive bruise.  He expends a point of Health and now has 1 left (but is uninjured).

With this method, it'd probably be best if each degree of injury came with some kind of penalty (or penalties).  That way, the Health Points won't end up simply being additional levels of injury; rather, they will be efforts to avoid the grievous effects of injury.

[spoiler=Dystopian Dramatis Personae]There aren't many ships on the waters nowadays.  Aeronautics and thaumaturgy being what they are, it seems everyone's eager to take to the skies.  But a seaship has its uses.  For one, people hardly think to look there.  You can smuggle damn-near anything from Solbesht to Loega and the Lords won't bat an eyelid.  And besides, the Eynur's garnered a fair few enemies amidst the clouds.

[ic]Better to risk the choking fog, the scathing rain, the callous whispers of the Dead-Men-Under... no one said being a merchant was easy.
[/ic]
Dassan
The captain of The Eynur, Dassan's been in more battles than just about any merchant you can name.  Heâ,¬,,¢s copped himself no less than four scars from a blighted cephalofere blade, had his heart replaced twice and lost half his skull to a naval cannon (thatâ,¬,,¢s more than enough to earn him a quaff or two at any pub in the west nations).  But for all the ferocity of his appearance, heâ,¬,,¢s a tired man, and as soon he squares his debt with the Ligrassando, heâ,¬,,¢s pulling ashore for good.

Physical (11)
Speed: 3
Guts: 4
Brawn: 4
Health = 3

Mental (10)
Lore: 3
Wits: 4
Wisdom: 3
Focus = 3

Social (7)
Charm: 2
Style: 2
Grace: 3
Will = 2

Specializations:
Marksman: 1
Commerce: 2
Swordsmanship: 2

Augmentations
Hawkeye: Dassanâ,¬,,¢s shattered skull has been replaced, in part, by an enruned ceramic artifice that enhances his sense of sight.  This counts as a 1-point â,¬Å"visionâ,¬Â specialization, applicable to any rolls involving sight.

Iannan
Dassanâ,¬,,¢s second in command, Iannan has been with the Eynur as long as its captain.  Heâ,¬,,¢s decidedly more â,¬Å"intactâ,¬Â than his comrade, having only lost a finger in the course of his career (which he insists on not replacing), but after straying too close to a viskke razorship heâ,¬,,¢s suffered his fair share of emotional damage.  That doesnâ,¬,,¢t make him any less of a talker; he could lie the arms right off a squid.

Physical (8)
Speed: 3
Guts: 3
Brawn: 2
Health = 2

Mental (7)
Lore: 2
Wits: 3
Wisdom: 2
Focus = 2

Social (10)
Charm: 3
Style: 4
Grace: 3
Will = 3

Specializations:
Deception: 3
Marksman: 1

Equipment
Holdout pistol
â,¬Å"Unluckyâ,¬Â coin

Mitri
Iannan found this rusting simulacrum floating in the water north of Youllaine, and after a little polish and repairs named his new creation Mitri.  Heâ,¬,,¢s an adequate companion and worker, though his arcane curiosity has caused the crew more than a few headaches.  Heâ,¬,,¢s also frighteningly good with a sabreâ,¬Â¦

Physical (13)
Speed: 5
Guts: 4
Brawn: 4
Health = 4

Mental (8)
Lore: 2
Wits: 4
Wisdom: 2
Focus = 2

Social (6)
Charm: 2
Style: 2
Grace: 2
Will = 2

Specializations:
Circle Magic: 1
Swordsmanship: 4

Magic:
Circlesight[/spoiler]

Quote from: Salacious AngelWhat if Health was a point pool expended willingly by the character the same same way Focus and Will are?  There are three levels of injury - for this example, let's say that they are battered, wounded and maimed - and an uninjured character has no levels.  When a character is successfully injured, he suffers a level of injury, until he has suffered four levels (bringing him from uninjured to incapacitated/dead/whatever).  Upon suffering injury (that is, before his next action), a character can expend a point of Health in order to ignore its effects.

So here we have Nick (Luminous' character from the original combat example), who has just been landed a rather fierce punch by a raging drunkard.  The fist flies true, but Nick rolls with the strike, and what might have otherwise been a telling blow yields only an unattractive bruise.  He expends a point of Health and now has 1 left (but is uninjured).

With this method, it'd probably be best if each degree of injury came with some kind of penalty (or penalties).  That way, the Health Points won't end up simply being additional levels of injury; rather, they will be efforts to avoid the grievous effects of injury.

I liked this idea so much that I let it marinate in my head for a few days, did a little writeup... and then realized the writeup was virtually identical to your post, here. I did come up with a few minor specifics, but I really want to take your idea and run with it.

Here's the lowdown:

Injury Levels
Uninjured - No penalty, because you are A-OK! This probably needs a better name?
Wounded - Ow! Your injury makes it difficult to cope. You can use a maximum of two Qualities and Specialties for rolls (instead of three), until you are healed.
Maimed - You are pretty badly mangled! You can use a maximum of one Quality or Specialty for rolls (instead of three), until you are healed. Seek medical attention.
Killed - You have shuffled off this mortal coil. Hope your affairs were in order.

Take a hit, and you drop one rung down the "ladder." Note that being Wounded or Maimed is very, very bad because you become much more likely to lose rolls (and take further wounds.)

Spending a point of Health (maybe this should be called Vitality or something, if we're using it this way?) prevents you from dropping down the ladder when you take a hit, essentially allowing you to ignore the effects of a wound. When you run out of Health (Vitality?), you become Weary, which means you treat all your Qualities and Specialties as one point lower than their actual value when you use them for rolls. (That might be a dumb mechanic, and might need to be changed!) Of more pressing concern is probably the grim reality that you will be unable to mitigate further damage suffered without any Health to expend.

There needs to be a system in place for recovering lost points of Health (similar to the ways Focus and Will are recovered; see previous posts), and it should probably be different than the way actual injuries are healed. Health, in this case, would represent physical energy, tirelessness, adrenaline, pain threshold, and/or sheer bloody-mindedness, while injury levels would represent how mangled a character's body actually is.

The really good things about this idea include its symmettry; I like the way spendable Health now more closely resembles Focus and Will in function. I also like the introduction of penalties for being wounded, which make battle a much riskier proposition, (although these specific penalties may prove to be too harsh.)

The somewhat problematic things are mostly minor, but the "gracelessness" of this system bothers me a little. By this I mean that there is no real incentive for a player to strategically "save" Health (Vitality?) rather than to spend it at the earliest possible opportunity. This basically makes the whole system shape up to a matter of every character having (Health + 3) hit points, with injury penalties for the last few only. I would like to come up with a way to introduce a little more decision-making crisis into the system, so that players might sometimes find it advantageous to just suck it up, take the wound, and save the Health for a more serious situation.

I note that Health is currently spent only passively (in reaction to being hit.) Maybe if it were also used actively, that would solve the above problem? What if a character could spend a point of Health to make some sort of extraordinary exertion, for those situations where you really have to jump that chasm, escape that burning building, dodge that axe swinging at your head, or plant that arrow in the ogre's eye. Perhaps such an expenditure would add dice to a roll?

Then again, we still have the Lowest Quality problem, where a guy like Gor of Iro who is strong, tough, and slow has less Health (Vitality?) than you'd expect a strong, tough guy to have. However, I think that tying actual injury to a fixed scale as Salacious suggested would mitigate this somewhat. After all, everybody dies if you cut them enough.

Thoughts?

Vitality is a great name for the quality.  It evokes a sense of utility in a way that Health cannot (Health seems a more "inert" concept, something you possess but do not use), as well as being akin to an energy/force of sorts. (Will and Focus can be construed in such a way as well, and if either of their names were eventually changed I'd suggest choosing a name that continued to provide such connotations)

I'm glad you like the injury levels idea, and agree with all the issues raised.  In terms of recovery, I'd actually suggest Vitality/Health recovering at a faster rate than the other qualities, maybe even after every conflict (or perhaps "scene").  That way, they could conceivably commit one or two points in a given engagement towards avoiding injury, and have one left over for whatever particularly heroic action they might undertake.

On a different note, the Triad system got me thinking about Description Based Task Resolution.  It seems the system needs a clear way of identifying when a given quality can be used, and I think basing it on Description and Justification might be a step towards resolving the issue.

This involves less rigid combat, where a given roll might not simply involve a specific singular action but represent the resolution of a complex description.

For example, a swordsman, executing a deft feint, announces "I let out a sharp cry as I fake a wild thrust at his shoulder, then lash out with a kick to his gut."  Here, he uses Sword, Style and Brawn; Sword for his understanding of the convincing implementation of his weapon in a bluff, Style to motivate his opponent into taking the attack more seriously than it is, and Brawn for the ensuing kick.

It's a single roll, but representative of numerous actions.  (Also, three descriptive elements is usually the right amount to make something look bad-ass without being cumbersome)

When you can't justify the use of any more than one quality, then you still use the other two dice, but they are unmodified.  Therefore, a character climbing a rope while bracing against a wall might simply roll Brawn (4), thus rolling 3d6+4 as he gains no bonuses to the other two dice.

But say the same character, while climbing the rope, begins to be pursued, he might then be justified in adding the modifiers of other qualities (probably just using all three physical qualities, or expending a point of Vitality to bypass the roll altogether).

The "double action" effect of Focus expenditure could also be enhanced here.  It might allow a character to roll twice in their own turn, thus allowing a particularly complex (and therefore exponentially awesome) heroic description.

Lastly, I'll provide a final argument for the "Averaged Qualities" mechanic, from a tangential approach that might change the way you look at it:

"Each point invested in any physical quality represents a strengthening of one's Vitality, the inherent preservative force in all living things.  For every three points invested (in any combination), a character gains a point of Vitality."

Each quality strengthens Vitality in a different way: a speedy character is possessed of such swiftness that when the seemingly unavoidable blow is hurtling toward them a preternatural quickness propels them from harm's way without thought; a brawny or gutsy character just takes the blow - and laughs.

Generally, it's a combination of the three (dodging gracefully away so a the blow that would have cleaved his arm off makes a superficial bloodless cut), but a character who is literally "all muscle" might defy an attack through a truly implausible display of impermeability, if the circumstances warrant it.

Why don't I think it's that big a difference when a character gains Vitality by putting all his chips in Speed (for example)?  Because someone who is all speed and no guts is as good as dead, and I think any player would realise that and sensibly work to counter it so long as each quality was made invaluable (harder to do, I think, with the social and mental ones).

I have little to add, but my approval of all things said in the last two posts.  As always, I'm watching with glee and waiting anxiously for the day this simple yet utilitarian system can be used in my games.

Keep up the good work guys!

Well, I should point out that Luminous hasn't yet approved anything my last post.

I'm also waiting anxiously, as I would love for this to be the system for Dystopia.

QuoteI'm glad you like the injury levels idea, and agree with all the issues raised. In terms of recovery, I'd actually suggest Vitality/Health recovering at a faster rate than the other qualities, maybe even after every conflict (or perhaps "scene"). That way, they could conceivably commit one or two points in a given engagement towards avoiding injury, and have one left over for whatever particularly heroic action they might undertake.

On a different note, the Triad system got me thinking about Description Based Task Resolution. It seems the system needs a clear way of identifying when a given quality can be used, and I think basing it on Description and Justification might be a step towards resolving the issue.[/quote](Also, three descriptive elements is usually the right amount to make something look bad-ass without being cumbersome)[/quote]how[/i] you're carrying out your combat. I do find "I cry out and feint with the sword, then kick him!" to be more interesting than "I attack."

QuoteLastly, I'll provide a final argument for the "Averaged Qualities" mechanic, from a tangential approach that might change the way you look at it:

all[/i] the discussion on the calculation of spendable stats from core Qualities has involved Physical Qualities and Health (now Vitality), and never anything social or mental. I wonder if this might be due in part to our notions of what Health/Vitality does in terms of keeping people alive (since Focus and Willpower seem more abstract than "are you dead or not?"), and whether the adoption of wound levels and a new role for Vitality make this whole debate somewhat less urgent.

But yeah, I'll think it over some more.

QuoteAs always, I'm watching with glee and waiting anxiously for the day this simple yet utilitarian system can be used in my games.

I'm also waiting anxiously, as I would love for this to be the system for Dystopia. [/quote]Question for the day:[/b]
Salacious addressed one of my longtime unvoiced concerns about character stats by including the following in a Dystopia character writeup:

QuoteAugmentations
Hawkeye: Dassan's shattered skull has been replaced, in part, by an enruned ceramic artifice that enhances his sense of sight. This counts as a 1-point "vision"Â specialization, applicable to any rolls involving sight.

Specializations:
Vision: 1[/quote]what character attributes might Triad System need to describe, which can not be suitably described by Qualities and Specialties?[/b]

Magic is one of them, I think. I still need to work on that whole branch of the mechanics, but I think it'd justified in being somewhat separate from Qualities and Specialties.

Do we need to describe anything else that way?

Quote from: Luminous CrayonI agree. Thought it might be a little much, I'd be keen to experiment with Vitality recovery that happens whenever a character gets a break from fighting, even mid-scene. You can see it happen cinematically, when one character ducks around a corner to catch his breath, disarms his opponent to earn a few seconds of relaxation, or what have you. This would have the potential to make Vitality a very "fast moving" resource, which would be expended and recovered easily (ensuring that players are more likely to spend it.)

I note with interest that all the discussion on the calculation of spendable stats from core Qualities has involved Physical Qualities and Health (now Vitality), and never anything social or mental. I wonder if this might be due in part to our notions of what Health/Vitality does in terms of keeping people alive (since Focus and Willpower seem more abstract than "are you dead or not?"), and whether the adoption of wound levels and a new role for Vitality make this whole debate somewhat less urgent.[/quote]I don't know what the two of you are waiting for, really. The system as-is is somewhat rudimentary, but I think it's complete enough to be usable right now. If you want to try it out, I could definitely use the opinions of people who've actually playtested it a bit.[/quote]Question for the day:
What I want to know is, what character attributes might Triad System need to describe, which can not be suitably described by Qualities and Specialties?

Magic is one of them, I think. I still need to work on that whole branch of the mechanics, but I think it'd justified in being somewhat separate from Qualities and Specialties.

Do we need to describe anything else that way?[/quote]
Good question...

I'll give it a good thinking-over and get back to you.