Post by zipp on Dec 28, 2008 8:56:34 GMT
I've played with a slightly different version of these rules before, so everything should work fine. But there may be some general tweaking as the game goes on. Any rules changes will be made clear to everyone.
SOME GENERAL NOTES ON PARTICIPATION
The following rules should make it clear that you won't have to keep track of a lot of stats or be involved in knowing many rules. The game will be highly description and improvisationally based. It will encourage you to have fun in the environment and really get into your character and into the heads of your fellows. It emphasizes the GAME of role playing game, with the point for you to have fun.
However, games quickly lose their fun if no one participates. I'm not going to set a specific requirement for posting, but I do expect people to check in every day to keep things moving. I don't expect everyone to write a novel of posts, but I do need them around for things like combat and responding to querries of other characters and what not.
BASIC STATS
There are four basic stats. These are Combat, Mental, Toughness, and Skills. At the beginning of the game, you assign a value to each of these from: superb, great, average, poor. Each of these decides a stats max value. When you start the game at level one, these values are: superb (4), great (3), average (2), poor (1).
Combat:
This stat decides how good you are in physical combat. Almost every combat will be fought with this stat. If this stat reaches 0, you cannot defend yourself.
Mental:
This stat decides the state of your mental health and your ability to resist and cast magic. Many spells also use mental to boost their damage or outside of combat, for healing and long range attacks. If this stat reaches 0, you'll find you go insane rather quickly.
Toughness:
How good you are at resisting damage. This will help you soak damage. If this stat reaches 0, you can't resist damage.
Skills:
This stat decides everything outside of combat, such as swimming across a rapidly flowing river, or jumping from one moving wagon to another. Skills are also used for long range attacks and decides the number of abilities your character can have. If your skill is at 0, you can only perform the most basic of actions outside of combat.
The tricky part is, these stats are also your life. When you take damage, you will take it to your stats (your choice, usually, where damage goes). Thus, as your life dwindles, so do your abilities.
Not that there won't be chances for amazing feats of single handed valor (that sounds suspiciously like masturbation as I read this aloud), but because of the nature of your health and stats, you'll often need to rely on team work to stay alive. At the same time, the story is going to be such that you will not always be able to put your trust in your mates, so it will be a balancing game.
ENEMIES
Enemies don't have stats the same as players do.
There are some set fights in each area, but for the most part, I decide enemies based on my threat level. I get to spend threat to generate monsters when I wish or the scene calls for it. When taking damage, I can spend threat to roll to resist the damage as per the usual rules. By continuing to spend threat, I can continue to try and resist damage.
ITEMS
The item system works mostly like the old gamebooks. You can carry two weapons and two items on your person. A backpack adds eight slots to this. Some items take up two or more slots.
Most items have a specific use, like rope is used for climbing or tying someone up, and laumspur heals or prevents damage (very useful in this system).
Weapons add to your damage when you succesfully attack an enemy. Each class has weapons it is proficient in. Entering combat without a weapon you are proficient in takes away 4 from all numbers "rolled" to hit (see below)
Armour, conversely, helps boost toughness. It also requires proficiency to use.
COMBAT
When you face off against an enemy, you each roll the d20 a number of times equal to your combat score. This is your combat pool. At this point, things become a little strategic.
You "play" your numbers in any order you wish by declaring them on the forum. I do the same, though before I've seen your numbers. We then compare numbers.
Every time an opponent has a number higher than the one matching it, they score a point. These points represent damage. However, only the final number declared decides who deals their damage. Thus, you have to win the final number in order to hurt your opponent. If the two final numbers are the same, then both fighters take damage.
Many times, players will have different amounts of numbers. The contest always lasts only as long as there are numbers to match, and you never have to play all your numbers.
Finally, if the number of digits of two numbers does not match (a 9 played against a 15, or a 7 played against a 22), a switch-up occurs. In a switch up, the tens digit is removed from the numbers (so a 19 would become a 9) before comparison.
Put simply, ONLY the numbers 1-9 cause a switch up!
A 1 always wins in a switch-up. A natural 20 never activates a switch-up.
Once it is decided who takes damage, you can try to resist it. To do this, roll a number of dice equal to your toughness score. For each 16 or higher you roll, prevent one point of damage. Some abilities and armour lower the number needed to roll.
SO, WHAT CAN I DO WITH LEFTOVER NUMBERS?
As said earlier, you don't have to use all your numbers in combat. With left over numbers, you have a couple options. Before declaring your numbers, you can combine them to make higher numbers (for instance, combing a 7 with a 5 would make a 12).
You can also sacrifice left over numbers to prevent a switch up. So if you roll 5 numbers, and only play 3, this should leave you with 2 switch ups that you can prevent. HOWEVER! This preventation can be cancelled if the opponent sacrifices one of their left over numbers as well, and so it can go... back and forth until you are out of numbers.
Finally, numbers that are used but don't end up getting matched can be added to the damage you deal by taking stress points (see below).
EXAMPLE OF COMBAT:
Beowuuf has a combat of 5, and he rolls the following numbers: 13, 18, 7, 7, 1
A giant spider has combat of 3, and rolls the following: 2, 19, 5
One way this could play out:
Beowuuf arranges his numbers like so: 13, 7+1 (combing the 1 with his 7), 18
The spider arranges its numbers like so: 2, 5, 19
In this arrangement, the spider activates one switch up, making the first pairings 3-2. Beowuuf still wins the first two matches, but the spider wins the match overal with 18-19. Since it only wins one matching, though, it only does 1 damage. Beowuuf can now use toughness to resist.
Another play out:
Beowuuf arranges his numbers like so: 13, 1, 18+7+7
The spider only chooses to use two numbers: 5, 19
In this arrangement, the first match activates a switch-up, which the spider wins (3-5). But the second match activates a switch-up as well, and since Beowuuf's 1 always wins switch-ups, he wins the match. The spider only played two numbers, so the 32 Beowuuf created is discarded, but he still wins the match and does one damage (maybe more, depending on his weapons). The spider can now use toughness to resist if the GM plays threat.
Finally, many combat abilities are activated by playing a certain series of numbers (like 3 evens in a row). Successfully activating these abilities can give you a bonus in combat, like instant kills, extra dice, or extra damage.
HOUSE RULE: DODGING
If you decide you do not want to deal damage in a round of combat, you can declare to be dodging. Dodging let's you roll your current combat score +1 free dice., but you do not deal damage.
GROUP FIGHTING
Group fighting works exactly like regular combat in most ways. Each player only rolls one set of dice, and the single opponent matches his numbers to all sets. The difference is, the single opponent can only hurt one of the attackers, while each attacker can potentially hurt him.
ACTIONS OUTSIDE OF COMBAT
Using skills works similarly to combat. I set a DC for the task, and you get to roll as many times as you have skill to try and hit that number. More successes equals a better outcome. So hitting a DC 17 to jump from one airship to another would mean you succeed. But getting three 17's could mean you land on the captain when you make the jump, knocking him unconcious.
Sometimes, you'll need more than one success to actually perform the act, though, depending on the task and the situation. And sometimes failure has penalties.
LONG RANGE ATTACKS
Some weapons (bows, guns) and some magic can be used from a distance to strike your foe without a chance of retaliation (unless they, too, posses long range ability).
Long range has no defined distance. Essentially, an attack counts as long range if the enemy couldn't reach you within 5 seconds. This includes firing from a long enough distance, firing as a surprise attack, and firing from a great height or a position not easily accessed (a watch tower, for instance).
When you use a long range WEAPON, you roll for SKILL against a DC that changes based on the situation. Each successful roll does a point of damage. Sometimes, getting a certain number of successes will ensure an automatic instant kill.
When you use a long range MAGIC, you roll for MENTAL against a DC that changes based on the situation. The effect of the spell changes based on the ability.
EXP POINTS
Every time you do something spectacular (defeat an enemy, find a treasure, foil an evil plot, find a secret passage), you'll get EXP points. These points can be spent to raise your basic stats or grant you new abilities.
See the EXP chart for how to spend EXP.
STRESS
Your characters are thrust together in a time of great uncertainty and strife. As the game progresses and you see the trauma that is inflicting Magnamund and push yourself in combat, your character's will start to gain stress points.
While anything from seeing a child's dead body or being splashed with acid could be traumatic enough to add stress, the most common way to accumulate these points is by taking stress points in combat to activate special abilities.
Often in the adventure I'll give you stress/trauma points. When your trauma points exceed your current mental score, you go up a level of insanity. The levels are as follows:
1. The Calm
Everyone starts here. At this level, players are free from the effects of stress and have retained their cool in the face of danger.
2. The Brink
At this point you're starting to show signs of distinct stress. The most noticeable effect at this point is that your susceptibility to mental attacks, suggestion, and gaining more insanity is increased, quickening the descent into true madness.
3. The Descent
At this point the character has been pushed past their limits and their behavior can become erratic. Acts requiring precision or a lot of thought may be beyond the character. They may see or hear things, though most of the time their senses will be still functioning as normal.
4. The Shattering
Now characters are not functioning entirely rationally. At this point they cannot truly trust their senses, and may see or hear things. Their abilities in combat may also be hindered. Their use of their abilities may also be restricted.
5. The Madness
At this point the character has truly succumbed to fear and insanity. They may refuse to engage in combat if the odds are too great or if their opponent is frightening. They may act strangely as well, perhaps reverting to their native tongue, or seeing the other characters as other people.
Finally, you can voluntarily take a point of stress to gain an extra die in any conflict or to reroll any die. You can also use it to best a switch up during a fight. Preventing a switch up costs 2 stress.
Finally Stress can be used to convert dice that weren't matched up in combat (but were used) into extra damage, at a cost of one die per stress, or all dice for 2 stress. This is called a "combo," and the GM can do it too, using threat (but always at a cost of 1 threat per extra damage).
NOTE ON STRESS
Think of Stress as a currency to be spent on the GM, to get them to do what you want. If rolling dice is your attempt to get things done without a price, stress is how you ENSURE things get done right... but at the price of your mind.
WATCH YOUR BACK
A final note on how this will play out. Though you are all together in a team, everyone here has their own goal. You may not even all be of the same alliance. Some may be wanting to take the plague for their own gain. Some will be agents of the Darklords, looking to kill the party. Others could be mercenaries, looking to save their own skin (and maybe take skin one of the party members). Not only is your character expected to survive, they will also be trying to fulfill their personal goals, set at the beginning of the game.
Think of this as a glorified version of Mafia. You can't trust anyone.
SOME GENERAL NOTES ON PARTICIPATION
The following rules should make it clear that you won't have to keep track of a lot of stats or be involved in knowing many rules. The game will be highly description and improvisationally based. It will encourage you to have fun in the environment and really get into your character and into the heads of your fellows. It emphasizes the GAME of role playing game, with the point for you to have fun.
However, games quickly lose their fun if no one participates. I'm not going to set a specific requirement for posting, but I do expect people to check in every day to keep things moving. I don't expect everyone to write a novel of posts, but I do need them around for things like combat and responding to querries of other characters and what not.
BASIC STATS
There are four basic stats. These are Combat, Mental, Toughness, and Skills. At the beginning of the game, you assign a value to each of these from: superb, great, average, poor. Each of these decides a stats max value. When you start the game at level one, these values are: superb (4), great (3), average (2), poor (1).
Combat:
This stat decides how good you are in physical combat. Almost every combat will be fought with this stat. If this stat reaches 0, you cannot defend yourself.
Mental:
This stat decides the state of your mental health and your ability to resist and cast magic. Many spells also use mental to boost their damage or outside of combat, for healing and long range attacks. If this stat reaches 0, you'll find you go insane rather quickly.
Toughness:
How good you are at resisting damage. This will help you soak damage. If this stat reaches 0, you can't resist damage.
Skills:
This stat decides everything outside of combat, such as swimming across a rapidly flowing river, or jumping from one moving wagon to another. Skills are also used for long range attacks and decides the number of abilities your character can have. If your skill is at 0, you can only perform the most basic of actions outside of combat.
The tricky part is, these stats are also your life. When you take damage, you will take it to your stats (your choice, usually, where damage goes). Thus, as your life dwindles, so do your abilities.
Not that there won't be chances for amazing feats of single handed valor (that sounds suspiciously like masturbation as I read this aloud), but because of the nature of your health and stats, you'll often need to rely on team work to stay alive. At the same time, the story is going to be such that you will not always be able to put your trust in your mates, so it will be a balancing game.
ENEMIES
Enemies don't have stats the same as players do.
There are some set fights in each area, but for the most part, I decide enemies based on my threat level. I get to spend threat to generate monsters when I wish or the scene calls for it. When taking damage, I can spend threat to roll to resist the damage as per the usual rules. By continuing to spend threat, I can continue to try and resist damage.
ITEMS
The item system works mostly like the old gamebooks. You can carry two weapons and two items on your person. A backpack adds eight slots to this. Some items take up two or more slots.
Most items have a specific use, like rope is used for climbing or tying someone up, and laumspur heals or prevents damage (very useful in this system).
Weapons add to your damage when you succesfully attack an enemy. Each class has weapons it is proficient in. Entering combat without a weapon you are proficient in takes away 4 from all numbers "rolled" to hit (see below)
Armour, conversely, helps boost toughness. It also requires proficiency to use.
COMBAT
When you face off against an enemy, you each roll the d20 a number of times equal to your combat score. This is your combat pool. At this point, things become a little strategic.
You "play" your numbers in any order you wish by declaring them on the forum. I do the same, though before I've seen your numbers. We then compare numbers.
Every time an opponent has a number higher than the one matching it, they score a point. These points represent damage. However, only the final number declared decides who deals their damage. Thus, you have to win the final number in order to hurt your opponent. If the two final numbers are the same, then both fighters take damage.
Many times, players will have different amounts of numbers. The contest always lasts only as long as there are numbers to match, and you never have to play all your numbers.
Finally, if the number of digits of two numbers does not match (a 9 played against a 15, or a 7 played against a 22), a switch-up occurs. In a switch up, the tens digit is removed from the numbers (so a 19 would become a 9) before comparison.
Put simply, ONLY the numbers 1-9 cause a switch up!
A 1 always wins in a switch-up. A natural 20 never activates a switch-up.
Once it is decided who takes damage, you can try to resist it. To do this, roll a number of dice equal to your toughness score. For each 16 or higher you roll, prevent one point of damage. Some abilities and armour lower the number needed to roll.
SO, WHAT CAN I DO WITH LEFTOVER NUMBERS?
As said earlier, you don't have to use all your numbers in combat. With left over numbers, you have a couple options. Before declaring your numbers, you can combine them to make higher numbers (for instance, combing a 7 with a 5 would make a 12).
You can also sacrifice left over numbers to prevent a switch up. So if you roll 5 numbers, and only play 3, this should leave you with 2 switch ups that you can prevent. HOWEVER! This preventation can be cancelled if the opponent sacrifices one of their left over numbers as well, and so it can go... back and forth until you are out of numbers.
Finally, numbers that are used but don't end up getting matched can be added to the damage you deal by taking stress points (see below).
EXAMPLE OF COMBAT:
Beowuuf has a combat of 5, and he rolls the following numbers: 13, 18, 7, 7, 1
A giant spider has combat of 3, and rolls the following: 2, 19, 5
One way this could play out:
Beowuuf arranges his numbers like so: 13, 7+1 (combing the 1 with his 7), 18
The spider arranges its numbers like so: 2, 5, 19
In this arrangement, the spider activates one switch up, making the first pairings 3-2. Beowuuf still wins the first two matches, but the spider wins the match overal with 18-19. Since it only wins one matching, though, it only does 1 damage. Beowuuf can now use toughness to resist.
Another play out:
Beowuuf arranges his numbers like so: 13, 1, 18+7+7
The spider only chooses to use two numbers: 5, 19
In this arrangement, the first match activates a switch-up, which the spider wins (3-5). But the second match activates a switch-up as well, and since Beowuuf's 1 always wins switch-ups, he wins the match. The spider only played two numbers, so the 32 Beowuuf created is discarded, but he still wins the match and does one damage (maybe more, depending on his weapons). The spider can now use toughness to resist if the GM plays threat.
Finally, many combat abilities are activated by playing a certain series of numbers (like 3 evens in a row). Successfully activating these abilities can give you a bonus in combat, like instant kills, extra dice, or extra damage.
HOUSE RULE: DODGING
If you decide you do not want to deal damage in a round of combat, you can declare to be dodging. Dodging let's you roll your current combat score +1 free dice., but you do not deal damage.
GROUP FIGHTING
Group fighting works exactly like regular combat in most ways. Each player only rolls one set of dice, and the single opponent matches his numbers to all sets. The difference is, the single opponent can only hurt one of the attackers, while each attacker can potentially hurt him.
ACTIONS OUTSIDE OF COMBAT
Using skills works similarly to combat. I set a DC for the task, and you get to roll as many times as you have skill to try and hit that number. More successes equals a better outcome. So hitting a DC 17 to jump from one airship to another would mean you succeed. But getting three 17's could mean you land on the captain when you make the jump, knocking him unconcious.
Sometimes, you'll need more than one success to actually perform the act, though, depending on the task and the situation. And sometimes failure has penalties.
LONG RANGE ATTACKS
Some weapons (bows, guns) and some magic can be used from a distance to strike your foe without a chance of retaliation (unless they, too, posses long range ability).
Long range has no defined distance. Essentially, an attack counts as long range if the enemy couldn't reach you within 5 seconds. This includes firing from a long enough distance, firing as a surprise attack, and firing from a great height or a position not easily accessed (a watch tower, for instance).
When you use a long range WEAPON, you roll for SKILL against a DC that changes based on the situation. Each successful roll does a point of damage. Sometimes, getting a certain number of successes will ensure an automatic instant kill.
When you use a long range MAGIC, you roll for MENTAL against a DC that changes based on the situation. The effect of the spell changes based on the ability.
EXP POINTS
Every time you do something spectacular (defeat an enemy, find a treasure, foil an evil plot, find a secret passage), you'll get EXP points. These points can be spent to raise your basic stats or grant you new abilities.
See the EXP chart for how to spend EXP.
STRESS
Your characters are thrust together in a time of great uncertainty and strife. As the game progresses and you see the trauma that is inflicting Magnamund and push yourself in combat, your character's will start to gain stress points.
While anything from seeing a child's dead body or being splashed with acid could be traumatic enough to add stress, the most common way to accumulate these points is by taking stress points in combat to activate special abilities.
Often in the adventure I'll give you stress/trauma points. When your trauma points exceed your current mental score, you go up a level of insanity. The levels are as follows:
1. The Calm
Everyone starts here. At this level, players are free from the effects of stress and have retained their cool in the face of danger.
2. The Brink
At this point you're starting to show signs of distinct stress. The most noticeable effect at this point is that your susceptibility to mental attacks, suggestion, and gaining more insanity is increased, quickening the descent into true madness.
3. The Descent
At this point the character has been pushed past their limits and their behavior can become erratic. Acts requiring precision or a lot of thought may be beyond the character. They may see or hear things, though most of the time their senses will be still functioning as normal.
4. The Shattering
Now characters are not functioning entirely rationally. At this point they cannot truly trust their senses, and may see or hear things. Their abilities in combat may also be hindered. Their use of their abilities may also be restricted.
5. The Madness
At this point the character has truly succumbed to fear and insanity. They may refuse to engage in combat if the odds are too great or if their opponent is frightening. They may act strangely as well, perhaps reverting to their native tongue, or seeing the other characters as other people.
Finally, you can voluntarily take a point of stress to gain an extra die in any conflict or to reroll any die. You can also use it to best a switch up during a fight. Preventing a switch up costs 2 stress.
Finally Stress can be used to convert dice that weren't matched up in combat (but were used) into extra damage, at a cost of one die per stress, or all dice for 2 stress. This is called a "combo," and the GM can do it too, using threat (but always at a cost of 1 threat per extra damage).
NOTE ON STRESS
Think of Stress as a currency to be spent on the GM, to get them to do what you want. If rolling dice is your attempt to get things done without a price, stress is how you ENSURE things get done right... but at the price of your mind.
WATCH YOUR BACK
A final note on how this will play out. Though you are all together in a team, everyone here has their own goal. You may not even all be of the same alliance. Some may be wanting to take the plague for their own gain. Some will be agents of the Darklords, looking to kill the party. Others could be mercenaries, looking to save their own skin (and maybe take skin one of the party members). Not only is your character expected to survive, they will also be trying to fulfill their personal goals, set at the beginning of the game.
Think of this as a glorified version of Mafia. You can't trust anyone.
