The ∞ Infinity Gaming System

[Daddy Warpig]

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.

[Daddy Warpig]

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.

[Daddy Warpig]

"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.

[Daddy Warpig]

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.

[Daddy Warpig]

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.

[Daddy Warpig]

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.

[Daddy Warpig]

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.

[Daddy Warpig]

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!

[Daddy Warpig]

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).

[Daddy Warpig]

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.)

[Daddy Warpig]

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.

[Daddy Warpig]

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.

[Daddy Warpig]

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.

[Daddy Warpig]

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.)

[Daddy Warpig]

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.