Blog Carnival: The Bridge Between Worlds

The RPG Blog Carnival for this month takes The Worlds Between as its theme. Bridges always feel like a liminal space to me. You're neither on one bank nor the other, but floating in between. Especially when it's foggy, or dark.

The Bridge Between Worlds takes this to its logical conclusion.

Obviously, a properly constructed bridge is anchored in reality at both ends. But in the proper conditions, where one end loses sight of the other, those anchors can drag. Those journeying across the bridge may not arrive in the usual place. You may just wind up in a foreign land. Or perhaps Faerie. Or the deepest circles of Hell. It is difficult to be sure.

And if you should leave the bridge, you had better be quick about your business. If the fog lifts, or daybreak comes, or the bridge otherwise becomes properly anchored in reality... well, good luck finding your way back. It can be done, of course. But it is not without danger.

This only has to happen once or twice before superstitions arise. In this village, there is a great bonfire lit at either end of the bridge, to drive off fog. In that town, there is a curfew between dusk and dawn. And the City of A Thousand Bridges addresses the problem with artificial islands and very short spans.

And where there are bridges, there are bound to be rivers. Where there are rivers, there are boats. Some of these boats are occupied by the Traders. They have mastered the arts of navigation between realities. Always secretive, often strange, they trade in the most remarkable of goods, and take payment in the oddest forms. Consult your favourite table of fey bargains, goblin markets, or devilish contracts.

But there are also pirates and raiders. After all, the margin between 'hard bargain' and 'armed robbery' can be a thin one. If your victims can't pursue, and you're not planning on coming back... Well, how sure are you that those traders aren't just taking your children's future in exchange for some shiny gewgaw?

Hit Points as an ability score?

I like thinking about alternative ability scores for D&D-like systems. Taking a bit of inspiration from Call of Cthulhu's Sanity score, here's an alternative take on character survivability.

Characters have Hit Points. For the sakes of a D&D-like system, this can range from 1 to 20, but is initially determined by rolling 3d6 modified by Constitution. A character with 21 Hit Points (theoretically possible only by rolling 18 HP and 18 Con) is a Conan-type superhero, as close to invincible as it comes. A character with 1 Hit Point is as close to death as can be imagined. A character with 0 Hit Points is dead.

There is no such thing as a Hit Die. Maybe Fighter-types roll highest 3 of 4d6, and Magician-types roll the lowest 3 of 4d6.

When a character takes damage, they must roll a Hit Point check, 1d20 under their current Hit Points. On a failure, they take a high amount of damage. On a success, they take a low amount or none. This may be expressed as '0/1' - for some minor nuisance - or something like '1d6/3d6' for a deadly threat.

If a character takes more than one-third¹ of their current Hit Points in damage, they must make a Constitution check or suffer a lingering wound.

If a character gets a full day's rest, and does not have any lingering wounds, they may make a Hit Point check. On a failure, they gain one Hit Point. They may not do this, and make a Constitution check to recover from disease, on the same day, meaning that disease prolongs healing, and wounds prolong illness. Or maybe Hit Points are entirely non-renewable, in which case characters will not live long...

Hit Points do not scale with level in this system. I'd suggest using this alongside an armour system where better armour reduces the damage taken, rather than one which reduces the rate of hits. This allows for diegetic advancement.

This isn't entirely compatible with my earlier thoughts on wounds. It's not fully thought through either. But there's probably some merit in it somewhere.