Refining Thoughts on Ablation, Damage, and Death

This post by subjunctive moods earlier in the year got me thinking about ablative mechanics in combat, and Phlox’s All Damage As 1d6 reignited some of those thoughts.. We all know the pitfalls of Hit Points. But we also don't want our 97th-level Kobold Paramour to be as vulnerable as a newborn babe in battle.

A few constraints on a system occur to me:

• Any attack should have the possibility of incurring a mortal wound. A stiletto to the heart is as fatal as a beheading with a two-handed sword.
• If an attack is not fatal, it ought to increase the likelihood that the next is. Someone wrote an interesting piece a little while ago envisaging Hit Points as a character’s fate, which is interesting in this context.
• A combatant with greater skill at arms should have a greater chance of inflicting a mortal wound 
• A better-armoured combatant ought to have a better chance at avoiding a mortal wound 
• The number of die rolls must be kept to a minimum while still preserving randomness. I know some folks like fixed values, but I don’t.

This actually ties in with some of my earlier thoughts on Hit Points as an ability score, and refinement seems possible.

What Kind of Drunk Are You?

Back in the late 14^th or early 15^th century, poet, nobleman, and (one assumes) at least occasional drinker Oswald von Wolkenstein prepared a list of twelve types of drunk, as related by Medievalists.net. Rather conveniently for us roleplayers, the number of types of drunk he identifies map onto the number of faces on the best polyhedral die¹. So without further ado… here’s a nice table.

1d12	Type of Drunk
1	Wise: You believe that the vast knowledge and experience of your years should be shared with everyone who can listen, whether or not they wish to listen.
2	Rich: Your finances are inexhaustible; the Emperor himself could not wish to be so wealthy. If your coin purse happens to be empty, it is a mere trifle which will be rectified come morning.
3	Hungry: No horse was ever so hungry: you ravenously consume anything which is plausibly edible, whether it be cooked or raw, fresh or rotten.
4	Sorrowful: All your past sins – real and imagined – burden your heart; you weep and cry over your misdeeds, and seek to do whatever is necessary to make amends to those you have wronged.
5	Unchaste: The hooded stranger in the dark corner? Totally your type. They were definitely giving you a look. Buy them a drink. Just remember to fade to black if when they take you to their room.
6	All Talk: You’re definitely going to open that tavern. And go on pilgrimage to the Holy City. And slay the Dragon of the Dry Wastes. After all, talk is cheap. And it’s not like anyone will remember tomorrow… will they?
7	Fighty: That so-and-so who spilt a drink over you? Outside. Now. Get your friends to hold your coat.
8	Happy: You have everything you could ever want, and more to spare. If others have greater need, why not gift it to them? Your magic sword? The services of your trusted hirelings? The deeds to your stronghold? Why of course, friend, may it bring you joy!
9	Indiscreet: Nobody has secrets any more. Everything you know, everything you see, everything you hear, you share it openly with everyone within earshot.
10	Wakeful: You fight against sleep: you will not rest until forced to do so, either by your own body or by the actions of another.
11	Singing: Totally uninhibited, without regard to the time, the neighbours, or your own ability. Volume is mandatory. Familiarity with the tune or the lyrics is not.
12	Vomiting: You know how the innkeeper told you there was a charge for special cleaning of bedding? People like you are the reason that charge exists.

Roll when you need to decide what kind of drunk your character is. At character generation if you want to be predictable. Or any time it comes up if you like chaos.

Even if drunkenness is not something you wish to gameplay, there are similarities between that state and any other in which a character might not be at their best. Hungry. Fatigued. Stressed. Dragged down a goblin-infested hole in the ground by some guy with a pointed hat and a treasure map².

Why adventure? Ask the CIA!

Adventuring is a poor career choice. It's invariably dirty, almost always difficult, and usually dangerous. To be honest, being left to die alone in some cold, dark hole in the ground is one of the better outcomes for an adventurer.

Yet there is a seemingly endless stream of novices keen to endure the challenges. Why? Well, it's quite simple. Intelligence agencies have known it for years: MICE.

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Money might be obvious, but it probably isn't actually the best motivation, and for one simple reason. It's not that you can't become fabulously wealthy, or establish yourself as some petty king out beyond the frontier. That's entirely possible, and there are plenty of stories of those who have done exactly that. But fundamentally, you have to live in order to enjoy your wealth. And when your life expectancy is measured in weeks, not months or years, that starts to look unlikely.

That's not to say nobody is motivated by money. But it's likely to be an initial motivation, rather than an ongoing one: any self-respecting adventurer will emerge from their first expedition with enough silver¹ to live quite comfortably for a while. If that first hit doesn't do it, then either something other than money is in play, or the adventurer in question has spending habits which make pawnbrokers and loan sharks rub their hands in glee.

Which, of course, is precisely the assumption of much sword-and-sorcery fiction.

Ideology creates an adventurer who is both to be feared and respected. They have nothing to prove. They owe no debts. They will meet death with a grin on their face and a blade in their hand, knowing that every foe they take with them is a good deed done.

Any character motivated by ideology will, by necessity, have a strong belief system. This might be one based on religion, and therefore one might expect explicitly religious character archetypes (Clerics, Paladins, often Druids, and others) to fall into this category. But they, too, might have other motivations. And non-religious ideology might also exist. The warrior-aristocrat with absolute conviction that goblins must be exterminated. The peasant who is certain that somewhere in the wilderness is unspoilt land where they can live free from oppression. Any of these could be quite reasonable.

Coercion is a classic, but (like money) might be time-limited. Here we find 'your loved one has been captured by the Evil Baron von Dragonstein', or 'you will die if you do not retrieve the Chalice of Eternal Life from the Well of Despair'. Such a motivation is inarguable; this adventurer will do what they must to achieve their goal. But it's also a self-limiting motivation. There's only so many times you can pull off the 'your princess is in another castle!' manoeuvre.

Oddly enough, this is somewhat better suited to a superhero game, or epic fantasy. Those genres allow for world-ending threats which compel characters to action. Frodo agrees to take the One Ring to Mordor because it is needed to save the world - not for wealth, his beliefs, or his . And while that meant he only had one adventure, it was quite a long one.

Ego is probably the most common. This may be a would-be adventurer trying to prove that they are smarter, stronger, or tougher than other. It may be someone seeking to 'get even' for a perceived slight dealt to them It may simply be someone seeking excitement not present in their day-to-day life. We all know people who indulge in dangerous hobbies for one of these reasons - and there's seemingly no shortage of people willing to undertake cave diving or climbing the eight-thousanders.

This is a motivation which, like Ideology, is endless. And it may even be self-reinforcing, if the adventurer seeks to get the same 'high' which they got from a previous excursion, they're likely to repeat the attempt time and again.

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What does this all mean at the table? Well, for one thing I think it means that XP-for-treasure isn't actually a very good system. It incentivises getting treasure out of dungeons, but in most cases that isn't what adventurers want. For the money-seeking adventurer, it probably does make sense. But how does a game designer create a system that links character progression to their ideology or to indulging their ego?

The coerced character, incidentally, probably doesn't want progression for their story. Whether it's Mario or Bryan Mills², the story is about using the character's existing abilities to achieve a goal. 

More usefully, though: for referees, know what motivates the characters in your game, and engage with it. The character who wants to find that rich farmland? Plant rumours so they have a reason to keep exploring. The character seeking relief from a curse? Let them feel that they're making progress towards it - or feel the effects if they're not. The character who wants to prove themselves? Challenge them.

Yes, this feels like it should be obvious. But it isn't always.

And for players: know what motivates your character. When 2d6 goblins come around the corridor, what's your desired outcome? If your character believes the only good goblin is a dead one, they'll react differently to one who's only interested in getting the contents of their treasury into your treasury - or to one who really just wants to know if they've heard the good news about our lord and saviour.

Just don't get into the 'it's what my character would do' shenanigans. Your character isn't an idiot. Even if they are, you aren't. Find a way to align their goals with things your gaming group enjoys.

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¹: Yes, I'm a silver-standard kind of guy.

²: Mario Bros had eight levels. Taken only had three. Otherwise? Basically the same story

Magic Dealers

This month's Blog Carnival is about magic shops.

I don't like magic shops. Having magic sufficiently commonplace that any town worthy of its walls has a dealer in ensorcelled household items just doesn't lend itself to the kind of adventures I enjoy.

If you want a magic item, the right and proper way to get it is to find out who owns it, and go take it from them - whether by through strength or through guile. Same goes for crafting them. If you were a good enough blacksmith to make magic items, you'd be doing that - not putting yourself in danger going down holes in the ground full of monsters. If your fantasy is pretending to be a skilled artisan, then all power to you. But maybe play a game that's about that.

But, from time to time, it's inconvenient to go and do the deed yourself. Especially if your first name is 'King' or 'Archpriest' or something like that. And likewise, if one finds a particularly lucrative vein of enchanted sandals, the average adventuring party only has so many feet to go around.

That presents two problems. One, people with money in search of magic items. And two, people with magic items in search of money. Which of course invites the existence of a third kind of person: the kind of person who will facilitate the obvious exchange of money for magic items.

That person, of course, is a dealer. They probably don't hold much of a stock. If you've got something to sell, they'll only take it up if they have a buyer in mind. Any dealer worth their salt knows lots of people who have money to burn, and what they're likely to spend it on.

Likewise, if there's something you want to buy, they probably know where to get it. Even if you don't like the answer. Almost anything can be bought for the right price. And almost anything can be stolen, given a sufficiently skilled team. The line between a fence and a dealer is awfully thin and blurry at times.

Of course, in any case you'll need to pay fair market value for the goods. Plus expenses. All strictly necessary, of course. Plus commission. Five percent for something easy. For something that takes a little more work, perhaps a little more. Or a lot. The better dealers take their profit margin on one end. The less-scrupulous, on both.

What they probably don't do is hold stock. If they don't have a customer in mind, they're not going to buy anything. They're not going to be stuck with two dozen Vorpal Cake Forks if they can help it. But if they come across someone doing battle with a particularly tough batch of shortbread, they'll know just who to speak to. Most of the time, if there's something you want, you'll have to wait. Perhaps a long time. Even if you're selling, you've still got to find them first. Depending on their clients, and their relationship with the law, that may take some time.

They're also full of story hooks:

• They'll gladly suggest that a low-level party might enter a certain ruin and recover a specific relic, and that they'd certainly offer a reward.
• They may require escort across a particularly dangerous area. Obviously they've got a bodyguard... but sometimes more muscle is needed.
• One of their clients neglected to pay the bill. The debt is now overdue to an embarrassing extent. A team of specialists is required to repossess the goods
• A rival dealer has been poaching their clients. Something needs to be done about it. And there are so many bandits about...
• A dealer necessarily has excellent connections to people with power and influence. Need an introduction? Your dealer probably knows someone.
• Having finally made your way to the level where you can afford their services, well, your gold is the same colour as anyone else's

A Fighty Pile Of Slush

Blech. I've been trying to come up with a variant Fighter class for B/X derivatives.

Trouble is, so has everyone else, and all my ideas are either (a) ones that someone has already tried or (b) difficult to implement sensibly.

So instead of turning them into a coherent class, here's a mini slush pile. Some of it leans quite heavily on posts at Methods & Madness, particularly this one and this one, as well as Chainmail – whose Fighting-Man was clearly supernatural.

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.

^1: This means that an average character (with 10.5 HP and 10.5 Constitution) has about a 1-in-4 chance of suffering a serious injury from an average sword blow (doing 3.5 damage). Don't get in fights.

Beyond Vancian Magic: Skills for the Magic-User

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been messing around with the Thief. Actually, I've been thinking about character classes generally, and that includes the Magic-User. Magician. Mage. Wizard. Whatever you like to call them.

Which ties neatly in with the December RPG Blog Carnival theme, Beyond Vancian Magic.

I'll be honest, I actually quite like Vancian magic on magic-users¹, although I do still need to read some actual Vance to fully appreciate the nuances. But the classic old-school D&D magic-user suffers a little, in my view, from trying to make everything a spell.

Why is that a problem?

Well, when everything is a spell, everything depends on being able to cast spells. Hence the question of what use a Magic-User is without any spell slots. Later editions of the game solve this with zero-level spells that don't require any resources. That's certainly one way to solve the problem. Not necessarily a good way, but definitely a way.

Another is to have the Magic-User do useful but non-magical, as suggested on I Cast Light! several years ago. And I'm sure by countless people who didn't have blogs over the preceding forty-plus years. Which is, again, perfectly viable. And whilst spell scrolls contribute, they don't entirely solve the problem.

But there are a couple of things that Magic-Users probably ought to be able to do, which most OSR games require a spell for, or just don't permit.

Thoughts on a Skill System

 As is tradition, I've been redesigning the Thief¹. Probably nothing novel, I may or may not post it the end.

But I'm drawn to a 2d6 skill system. Why? Partly because of the pleasing bell curve effect - a novice might succeed, a master will almost always succeed. And that eases itself into allowing some advanced thief abilities, i.e. the notorious 'climbing upside down and horizontally, voice skills such as mimicry and ventriloquism, and other skills of deception'. Yes, I have thoughts in that direction.

But there's another reason. Building on Dyson's d6 and 2d6 Thiefin' for Basic Dungeons & Dragons, the 2d6 range lends itself to adding ability modifiers to the roll. Specifically, for a roll-high 2d6 system:

• A 1-in-6 chance requires a roll of 10 or higher
• 2-in-6 requires 9 or higher
• 3-in-6 requires a 7 or 8 - there's no clean way to get a 50/50 outcome on 2d6
• 4-in-6 requires a 6 or higher
• 5-in-6 requires 5 or higher

Arcane Practitioners of the Sunset Isles

This month's RPG Blog Carnival, hosted by Forsaken Garden, takes Haves and Have Nots as a subject. This actually aligns with some of my setting thinking for the Sunset Isles, which I envisage as an intensely class-based society - almost, but not quite, a caste system. Manorialism and seigneurage - the systems which create what is described as ‘feudalism’ - are order of the day. The setup owes a certain amount to Skerples on the Three Estates, though my treatment differs from his.

For the purpose of this writeup, I'm largely concerned with human society. It's an unapologetically humanocentric setting. I've not decided yet whether to run this setting using race-as-class, and I'm not even entirely sure which demihumans are even present. But for the sake of discussion, and where relevant, this assumes the classic seven B/X classes.

Likewise, the Faith isn't yet fully defined. It's probably polytheistic with an emphasis on orthopraxy over orthodoxy. See Practical Polytheism for some thoughts on what that means. It's not trying to root out schisms and burn heretics, though, which is a little boring. There again, the god of thunder hurling actual bolts of lightning might make up for that, and it opens the door to all sorts of cults¹.

There's a lot to unpack here, so I'm going to focus on magic. There are three real routes to arcane magic in the Sunset Isles. Through the Faith, through apprenticeship, or through witchcraft. But first, let's briefly discuss divine magic.

Return of the Hit Dice

It's no secret in the Fifth Edition community that Challenge Rating sucks. It's a guideline at best, and a rather loose one. There are all sorts of suggestions out there on how to fix it, or work better with it.

I have an alternative idea. Bin it entirely.