tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42686864631863259202024-03-13T14:57:59.374-07:00Dungeon World DevBaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.comBlogger202125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-80402178152340323812023-11-08T17:33:00.002-08:002024-01-27T19:27:59.967-08:00Detection Magic<p>While designing an adventure, I needed my players to have an excuse to cast 'detect Poison' on several items. Knowing that the spell is a little expensive, I felt that plausibly something could be done, sure, I could make it more obvious, by giving them a scroll or two, or have someone teach the spell to a mage in the party, but even then it needs to be used more often.</p><p>And I asked myself.. What is Detect Poison? What is Detect Magic?<br /></p><h1 style="text-align: left;">What is detection magic:</h1><p></p><p>Consider first, how does it work. Is the magic sending out sound waves, when it hits the target object, it detects 'waves' of magic, and sends back to the caster some feedback his/her brain interprets as an Aura, and lets them know, YES this is magical?</p><p>Is it then, that they take that skill, and further it, identifying the particular waves to determine what KIND of magic it is? </p><p>What about the other direction, if they reduced its ability, and lessened the cost. could the spell merely detect 'something'?</p><p><i>Side Note: Would Detect Magic, detect Radiation? would a caster assume its 'magic' but of unknown variant, and take it home, expecting to find out from a more powerful mage, and slowly become sick?</i></p><p>Would it make more sense, that the early mage, in learning the spell, would have gone through the weaker version? 'detect something'?</p><p>In which case, would it make far more sense that a "detect" Spell be learnt far earlier? and that spell likely improved on also.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwhjQujZ30gtdACxl42BV7_xgKwlDzuNGbnS20nsamdBprEEljkUQcI9rFsqS9lfo0VG2CYOlZ-mcuPVDvr6mVAaaXQYeiwrjap_lgx-tGDMZ9lYZQjQT7YMg9FNDUWehmswxsCDf6iqJP3tUjKHfx1ShNuJ0eSfwskI8evRp80hBh28vFNJbpH7GAyW0/s1536/5r2KpR5OzqeBxzqB7jM60.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1536" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwhjQujZ30gtdACxl42BV7_xgKwlDzuNGbnS20nsamdBprEEljkUQcI9rFsqS9lfo0VG2CYOlZ-mcuPVDvr6mVAaaXQYeiwrjap_lgx-tGDMZ9lYZQjQT7YMg9FNDUWehmswxsCDf6iqJP3tUjKHfx1ShNuJ0eSfwskI8evRp80hBh28vFNJbpH7GAyW0/w640-h427/5r2KpR5OzqeBxzqB7jM60.png" title="AI: A Young wizard studying his spells" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>I'd like to think, given that magical items are rare, that its far more cost effective for a mage to learn to cast 'detect' far in advance of 'detect magic/poison/undead/evil'</p><p>I give you the Detection Spells:</p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Detect</b></div>Base Cost: 5mp<br />Possible components: glass prism/lens/obj smaller than 4cm - consumed 50% reduction.<br />Range: Touch<br />Initiative: 1 Round.<p></p><p>Caster concentrates and absorbs the sense of the object, If the Object is imbued with any effect, or is of pure metal, it will give a positive feeling to the casters hand.</p><p></p><div><b>Detect- Enhanced</b></div><p>Base Cost: 5mp [-10%mp*]<br />Possible components: glass prism/lens/obj smaller than 4cm - consumed 50% reduction. [+10%]<br />Additional components: 5% gestures, +5% somantic CR<br />Range: Touch [+1/2m]<br />Effect: [directional focus: 180o 120o 90o 75o, etc]<br />Multiple senses: [+1]<br />Initiative: [Half Round, Action, Half Action, Free Action]</p><p></p><p>As Above, the Enhanced spell can be improved to detect objects at a distance, using the component to search in a direction or a whole room. A Caster could in effect search a room for 'any' effected item, and sense the direction of the items.</p><p><b>Example: Search Room, lvl 4</b><br />Base Cost: 17mp. & 20% imperfection. Final Cost 2mp.<br />Components: glass lens [-8mp], 4 small candles[-3mp], small rug[-1mp] and humming the <i style="font-weight: bold;">incantus majori</i>[-3mp]. <br />Range: 5 x 5m room<br /></p><p>Caster seated on the small rug, a lit candle in each cardinal direction, peering with one eye through the monocle, and humming the incantus majori, concentrates for 3 rounds and absorbs the sense of the room. If any item of importance exists in the room, the candle nearest will glow, giving the caster (and anyone watching) the direction of the most powerful object in the room.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit5XDa7xnWTdibKDYb9AZ9XHQyz9F8GcQV6DHVfU-goPMm5r_c56z95BKi4qeOeCIaHsIL-YKusTqf3O-ql7xqR1yyRpIXyd73P-dnnWPQSLtvcepHqzynOaZfqZDiPoEIOhDWwQA14hTgzLkiH5jdDCvbW2pFYqWzCebFvGTsEXo4ngd3qAEC6xshQHU/s1536/uo_TWmoNjahZo8ULbiXlK.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Mage Casting Detect Magic on item" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1536" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit5XDa7xnWTdibKDYb9AZ9XHQyz9F8GcQV6DHVfU-goPMm5r_c56z95BKi4qeOeCIaHsIL-YKusTqf3O-ql7xqR1yyRpIXyd73P-dnnWPQSLtvcepHqzynOaZfqZDiPoEIOhDWwQA14hTgzLkiH5jdDCvbW2pFYqWzCebFvGTsEXo4ngd3qAEC6xshQHU/w640-h426/uo_TWmoNjahZo8ULbiXlK.png" title="Mage Casting Detect Magic on item" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><b>Quick Detect lvl 1</b><br />Base Cost: 2mp, & 3% imperfection. Final Cost 1mp.<br />Components: glass/crystal object [-1mp]. <br />Range: Touch<br /></p><p>With a small quarts crystal in hand, The caster quickly detects the item in the same hand, is effected of some force. Most magi would take their detect spell to this level with only 3 restudies.</p><p>But if they want to take it further:</p><p><b>Free and Easy Detect: lvl 6.</b></p><p>Base Cost: 0mp, & 30% imperfection.<br />Range: 1.5m, no line of sight<br /></p><p>As a Free Action, The Mage is able to hold their hand within a metre and a half of an object and detect if it may have an effect. This is a more likely end point to such a spell, taking it further to search rooms comes at such cost to negate the effectiveness without serious levels of study. </p><p><b>Conclusion of Detect Magic</b> </p><p>As you can see, having some improved level of magic detection, which is inexpensive, is far more effective than attempting to cast 'detect magic' on every single item. The cost of studying 'free and easy detect' might seem worth it, yet, given a mage has limited study time between adventures, the player has to determine if indeed this is worthwhile, and is maybe influenced by how often you include small to mundane magical items in your campaigns.</p><p>So What of detect Poison? Undead? Evil? or just plain 'pure' metal?</p><p>In theory, they should have some kind of similarity, yet we have a few modifiers.</p><p>Undead and or Evil, might have tell tale signs before the mage/priest/monk even attempts the ability to detect, and the detection merely confirms what they suspect. Where for example a mage might look at a glowing stone, and assume its magical, so the exertion to determine is quickly ascertained as a yes, should mean some kind of feedback cost reduction. </p><p>i.e. if the meta-physics is that mid expenditure of power, you confirm what you already expect, you can cancel the spell before it comes to completion. So then we need to add to the above spells, casting on already obviously magical items can have a -1 cost to cast. This allows GMs some good story telling arcs and plot paths, where maybe the item is glowing from paint, small bugs or some other bioluminescence, and the players just assume its magical. The Mage casts 'detect' and gets nothing, either assuming he failed the roll, or that the item has counter magic on it, to prevent detection. So they need to track down a better mage to properly counter the magic. Along the way they can meet other people for other plot paths.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-63104891810143497672023-10-23T19:40:00.003-07:002023-10-23T19:40:28.047-07:00What is a Dungeon Crawler<p><span style="font-family: times;"> If you are unaware, I'm heavily involved in Dungeon Crawl Board games, and in an effort for a comprehensive list of what one is vs what one isn't, I've amalgamated this list.</span></p><h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Acme; font-size: x-large;"><i>Dungeon Crawlers</i></span></h1><div><span style="font-family: times;">Top Down, in Order of Importance, These are the items that I classify as needed in a Dungeon Crawler, and a small blub about each. I will start off with a few critical points. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><b>I prefer Story over Stats</b>. I would like players to choose items that match the idea of their character, rather than the 'best' item to defeat the monsters. Wiggle room permitting, a player might have a choice between a Greatsword and a Two Handed Axe, and their Barbarian is wondering what's going to chop harder. But if the same barbarian has a choice between a Greatsword that will do 7dps, and a wand of fire, that even after modifiers, does 9dps, that's too far. <br /><b>How Far is Too Far</b>. There is often a line, between a Dungeon Crawler and a RolePlay Game. Its a grey area, sometimes I see RPGs that try to simplify things too much/quickly, and you lose the depth of an RPG, and they really should just be a Pen & Paper DC. More often, I see a DC adding in the kitchen sink, and ending up with a bloated RPG with too many tokens, too many miniatures, and too many rules to look up. Worse, if the players have to read all the rules, and act like a GM, without a GM. <br /></span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme; font-size: small;">A Party of Characters/Heroes</span></h3></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">While Solo Play is ok, I'm not ok with the idea of a dungeon that's "<i>designed</i>" for a single Hero. Dungeons are designed, by Evil Overlords to be impenetrable, dangerous places, where armies have failed to defeat them. A Good solo player should work for it, that said, to be honest, I'd love to see a set of quests which the townsfolk warn them are too dangerous for 1-2 heroes, and point out some crypt missions that might suit them better, so they can improve their abilities before going into dangerous places.</span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme; font-size: small;">Character Customization</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">There is a middle ground, Not being able to make any choices at all, doesn't feel like your character is progressing, often pre-chosen upgrades come along with increasing enemy levels, so you never feel like you are getting anywhere. Vice Versa, full open choice, can lead to making poor choices, ones that hamper the game for everyone, its less likely in a DC than in RPG, but I do see it creep in.</span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme;">Exploration of unrevealed areas</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">If I know, the whole layout of the Dungeon in Advance, its because I found a map in a previous location, not because the game gets me to set it all out on the table. A good DC should have some rules about placing rooms after opening doors, or setting out structures as the story progresses, especially if the game, rightly, makes it clear I should retreat and return in the future (with better preparation). </span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme; font-size: small;">Scenario / Mission Scope</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">The Idea that the players are 'crawling', at some slower pace, because its dangerous, as the core 2/3rds+ of the game. This can be split up, allowing an average pace for the town->dungeon-> travel, faster pace 'in' town, to get supplied, and the location itself being the round by round speed. Any more than 1/3rd time spent in the 'setup/packup' phase doesn't make me feel like I'm Dungeon Crawling, instead I'm RPGing.. (see above & below)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme;">Character Progression</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">If we're creating a Boss Battler, Level up after the boss is defeated. But if its a Dungeon Crawl, there needs to be the ability for players to progress mid dungeon, it doesn't HAVE to be structured that way, but it feels great when it happens. One way is to have the the macGuffin be specifically an upgrade for 1 character, "Lets go into the Forests of Alderrell, and retrieve the Bow of Swiftness for our Halfling Archer." Alternating between story progress and upgrade quests is a way for RPGs to progress, why not do the same for DCs, Heroquest did it.<br /></span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme;">Scenario Goal</span></h3></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Which Ties in with Scenarios having specific goals. This one is important to differentiate between an open ended PRG and a story specific DC. The DC is a boiled down, quicker, faster, focused RPG. The quest is straight forward. Players know what the quest is, so they can buy specific weapons and equipment. They know why they are going, where they are going and what they expect. THEN a surprise twist is more impactful. </span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme;">Campaign Story</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">A little less important (to me) is the overarching campaign. I don't mean, at al, I mean, The Scenarios goals should be following a path that makes sense, but I don't need to know the names of all the NPCs that may be affected by the plot. Include a 1 paragraph TLDR at the beginning to read out to players, and hand the 1 page backstory to the person who likes to know the extra details.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme;">Miniatures vs Standees vs Tokens & game boards.</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">I don't think a good DC <i><b>needs</b></i> miniatures, but it most certainly makes a good DC a great DC, unfortunately it also makes a poor DC into a half-decent DC, for the purposes of Kickstarting / Buying at Discount. Mostly, because I can use those minis in other DCs or RPGs. That said, it needs 'something' otherwise, theatre of the mind is purely RPG territory. Also If I'm drawing layouts on paper, for the minis/tokens to sit on? Again, RPG land. The very nature of a DC is the board, the tokens and some other parts make a DC 'exist' as a board game.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme;">Combat; Enemies to kill/overcome</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">What Crawler would be complete without the reason your crawling. Monsters, While a single monster type would be the bare bones minimum (Adv Heroquest, 3 forms of Skaven) A Variety to make the game replayable, and introduce varied levels of difficulty make it even better.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><h3><span style="font-family: Acme;">Traps, Hidden objects/items/enemies, Discoverable loot.</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">I think of these more as, interesting quirks. Not every Dungeon is set up as a death trap for heroes. Some might be the homes of creatures, and unlikely to use Traps, easily forgotten, deadly to the inhabitants, while Crypts, expecting to be looted, would be covered with all manner of ways to dispatch intruders. Loot is likely to be hidden in secret compartments, but regular weapons should more likely be found in the hands of the guards, AND should be acquirable by players.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #d9d2e9; font-family: times;">Other Aspects of DCs that others like: In Order of, Yes these are nice to have vs oh no, please don't.</span></h2><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme;">Focusing the game on Heroic Individuals</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">This.. hmm, maybe it just me, but every peasant, with hard work, and the right contacts, should be able to train and become a hero. The idea that an Individual must be destined to be a Hero isn't my cup of tea. I like character progression, and I like the idea of the poor no-body, becoming the winner. BUT maybe the idea of this one, is that the game should be focused on that hero, and not side-line them for sub-quests. </span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme;">Unique Skills</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">Yes, a DC is supposed to be boiling things down to simplify choice, but setting aside specific skills starts to approach the line in the sand. Ok, sure, this character has trained to fight with a staff for years, and has some cool maneuvers, Why is it that no other character 'can' choose to train in the staff too? I get that the rules to allow more cross-class abilities would make things difficult, so I can sit on the fence for this. It breaks my heart when RPGs even attempt to do this, So I'll allow it for DCs only. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme;">Class Specific Loot</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">Again, a little on the nose, but maybe that's my GM/RPG Designer coming through. A sword is a sword. and the idea that a mage, cannot pick up a sword, at all, for any reason, is dumb. Yes a DC is supposed to simplify things, but this is the line in the sand, and given a choice, I want players to be 'able' to choose the sword, and wield it, (poorly) in rare circumstances, to save the day, because the rest of the party is down, the bad guy is immune to magic, and the silver sword is the only weapon that will kill him. Maybe that's just for RPGs. Because this usually doesn't need any extra rules, why its enforced I don't know. </span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme;">Tiered/Scaled Loot.</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">Worse still, the game actively only 'hands out' items because of the level of the group. No. Seriously No. The Dungeon is designed way in advance of the players, If my group of level 7 heroes want to slum it, and go wipe out a Goblin warren, they should not be finding a few dozen magic swords. No. The opposite side of this, it should be a small, but interesting chance that a more powerful item can be found in an average Dungeon, that 'sets' the players apart from an average heroic party. Maybe finding a Wand of Firebolt in the first dungeon, was the reason this party has succeeded where no other could. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme;">Scaled Monsters.</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">To Take things to their ultimate Doom, a Dungeon that, no matter what level YOU are, the difficulty is set to 'slightly below hard'? NOOoo. Its boring, its repetitive, it loses all meaning, now your just rolling dice for the sake of an activity with friends. Also, games are about learning too, and once you've learnt the singular tactic of taking out the dungeon, every experience after will be a pointless task of repetition. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b4a7d6; font-family: times;">Dishonorable Mentions</span></h2><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Acme;">Space vs Fantasy</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: times;">While you might consider a sci-fi concept, still a Dungeon Crawler, I posit that there are certain aspects of what makes a sci-fi.. feel sci-fi. The majority of which will destroy the vibe of a 'Dungeon' and 'Crawl'. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">I Played XCOM as a kid, its certainly got a LOT of the 'dungeon crawl' feelings of the above, yet the key sci-fi things, shooting lasers down corridors, remote access to locations from a terminal, radar pings to find enemies, the focus far more on pre-preparedness, as the statistical likelyhood that any weapons you find are geared for human hands is nigh on impossible. It all</span><span style="font-family: times;"> leads/lends itself more to a tactical game. <br />You almost need to have some military training, to structure HOW you'll enter the location, scout ahead, burst through a door guns blazing, against those green blips on screen. You might secure some tech to take back to base, but forget using any of it now. You only have what you brought in. Sci-fi doesn't feel sci fi without those elements, and Dungeon doesn't feel Dungeon *with* those elements, Can you imagine a crack team of Soldiers, bursting into the Dungeons of the Necromancer.. it's be comical.<br /><br />Sure, I'd love to see that, and it might be a great and fun game. but, just don't call it a Dungeon Crawl. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">i.e. I don't like my Dungeon Crawlers to feel like a tactical game, which ties back to story vs Tactics. I prefer players to choose weapons and armour because of theme, not strategy, or at least theme first, strategy second. So a Space Marine Battle, even in corridors of a space hulk, is too far gone for me to count them. </span></div><ul class="c9 lst-kix_v9eiynk18xm8-0" style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><li style="font-family: Roboto, arial, sans, sans-serif;"></li></ul>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-465601903678926742023-10-10T16:21:00.004-07:002023-10-10T16:21:39.742-07:00AG13 - The World Killer<p> Just a thought.</p><p>Imagine your a astrologer from 5126 years ago, you have been trained to track the stars and the moons and the flow of all heavenly bodies, and your calculations point to a far off future date of 2012 as when an asteroid will collide with the earth.</p><p>So imagine all these people, 5126 years later, looking at the calendar and thinking, 'oh no, the end of the world' </p><p>It didn't happen, but why not? </p><p>Is it possible, there were some small minor miscalculations?</p><p>If this were a journal, and not a blog, it'd be my responsibility to research all the links to find the evidence for this, but.. as its a blog, I'm just going to leave these clues.</p><p>The Calendar was changed, a few times, because it was getting a little out of sync, and also because apparently (and I could be wrong) some princess didn't want to get older, so they kept resetting the calendar for her, and after she passed, they didn't turn them 'all' back. I'm sure you can google this, but lets just say, its not far fetched to think we 'might' have got the 'date' wrong in the last 5 thousand years.</p><p>For arguments sake, lets say we got it wrong by a mere 0.1%... 5 years.</p><p>Ok, so end of the world was going to be 2017.. Do we have any proof?</p><p>um.. well.. yes. AG13.</p><p>This planet killer, missed us by a mere smidgen of a hair, in astrological terms. it came closer to us, than the moon is, it certainly disrupted our gravity and likely our position in our rotation of the Sun.</p><p>Is it possible, its still going to be responsible? is it possible, that for all the 'data' about climate change, we missed the fact that AG13, bumped our orbit by just enough to raise temperatures by 1%? (on top of what we were already doing?)</p><p>food for thought. no evidence, just stuff in my brain. discard or research at your leisure.</p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p> </p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-2899249337620784172023-09-22T17:19:00.001-07:002023-09-22T17:28:31.148-07:00One Robot Policy [WIP]<p>Earth has advanced once again.</p><p>Robots now do all labour, manual, creative, business, any form of labour is done by a robot, and autonomous robots.</p><p>But we were clever, only just, to incorporate the 1 robot policy before it all got out of hand.</p><p>The One Robot Policy.</p><p>Abstract:</p><p>Robots (Automated Devices, i.e. self driving cars, factory arms, Solar panels which move to catch sunlight) are owned by humans who receive income based on the job it does and the requirements put on it, and modified by the level of maintenance it has received recently. The robot cannot be owned by a corporation or by groups of people. Basic minimum wage robots are awarded to all 15yr olds upon passing yr10 in school, and robot maintenance is a require subject by all yr 8->10 students.</p><p>The Idea is that humans will still need to put in some effort, but only enough to keep the economic machine rolling, give them income enough to survive and time to be creative or productive in moving humans forward.</p><p>To advance in income, a person should save some of their income for improvements of their robot, OR to buy an upgraded version OR to buy a better robot that earns more money in a different field of expertise. The common idea is to buy a robot in an area where the human has an interest and has possibly made some creative advances, and can improve their robots performance.</p><p>A human can own more than one robot, and can possibly pay others to maintain their robots, but their income is taxed on thresholds, based on both the amount of income and the number of robots in your ownership. </p><p><br /></p><p>1. All Robots must be owned by humans. </p><p>1.a. All Robots must be owned by 1 person and only 1 person. </p><p>1.a. Corporations and Companies may hire robots from their humans, at competitive rates, based on the robots specs.</p><p>1.b. Individuals may hire Robots from their owners at agreed upon rates.</p><p>2. The first Robot will not be taxed.</p><p>2.a. The first Robot is awarded to a child at age 15, who will be trained in its maintenance for 1 year.</p><p><br /></p><p>3. A Robots owner is require to maintain and repair their own robot(s) </p><p><br /></p><p>addendum:</p><p>A Robot is an Autonomous machine which performs a task, and can maintain itself to perform this task for at lest 1 week. </p><p>Its Tasks can be manually or programmatically entered into it, and for the sake of Safety, will need to be passed by the ROHSC dept in any given city. </p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-24404357996946264342023-07-23T03:41:00.001-07:002023-07-23T03:41:40.401-07:00Wall Storming #78<p> The Season is Upon us, The Shamblers have started warming up, the Kids with fire in their bellies want to partake in the battle, so sad as it is, we must give them a chance. </p><p>Open the Tunnels, Let them throw their lives away, so we might live on.</p><h1 style="text-align: left;">Blood Rayne</h1><div><i>[For those catching up, this is the blog of the events of 3 gaming sessions at the Convention AVCON 2023, Set in the BloodRayne Campaign, ongoing for now 11 years.]</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The Grand Ceremony Ended, the Young Hopefuls took up their staffs and blades, donned their armors, and started down the corridor towards the final gates. </div><div><br /></div><div>Fear, and Yet Excitement, it was their turn to prove themselves, Fight back the hordes of Undead, Claim the Treasures of the Past, Return as Heroes, or Not return at all, and relieve the burden upon their families.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Youth always seek out faster means, the returned ones from the past had better lives, more wealth to begin, young men returning had their pick of girlfriends, young ladies, sought after by the highest lords both asked to join the adventurers guilds.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">The Traeger Brothers</h3><div><br /></div><div>The First Group to Venture out, Three Strapping Lads, The Traeger Brothers, not by blood but by friendship. Exited one of the newly built tunnels, and finding themselves in a back alley, entered the very first door they saw. It creaked in the mild breeze down this alley, so they opened it to discover a small back room to what appeared to be a bar. Old empty barrels stood here. A second door, more secure, proved to needed some force to open, and by doing so alerted 3 residents to rise from their slumber. </div><div><br /></div><div>But Standard residents they were not, Scantily clad ladies of the night, dressed in flimsy apparel, they were both horrifying and mildly intriguing to the male eye, unperturbed and or possibly disgusted in themselves, The Leader lept the bar, smashed down the first zombie and plunged his staff through the face. The creature seemed to stop dead, glancing aside, the other two were somehow trapped between tables, unable to navigate between. Walking back to the bar a 2nd door presented itself, clutching the door in hand, he accidentally tore it from the hinges, and so threw it behind, atop the first zombie, which shuddered back to life.</div><div><br /></div><div>The 2nd brother quickly incapacitated it, hamstringing its feet and removing its hands. The Third brother roared at the excitement, bursting through the door, and screaming his name!</div><div><br /></div><div>Ignoring the rest the first two entered this room, where they encountered a slimly red liquid pool, covering the floor of this depressed back room, stone floor and lower half of the floor, The 2nd brother crossed the room to a barrel which didn't seem to have been affected by decay, strange, His Brother pulled the barrel from the wall, and inspected the space, a crack in the wall, caused sunlight to break into the room, it fizzled and retreated, awakening and beginning to form a creature.</div><div><br /></div><div>Quickly The 2nd brother threw the half barrel over the beast as it formed, the first discovered a Trapdoor and opened it, revealing more blood beast. Instead of closing it again, He backed away into the main room once again, and now spotting the other two zombies draw out his weapon, and promptly stepped upon a rotted part of the floor, he fell partway, legs scratched by the old wood, into the ooze, which quickly took over his body.</div><div><br /></div><div>His Brother, Leroy, instead of asking, just grabbed him by the waist and attempted to haul him out, but his brothers eyes had glazed over, his skin turned white by the creature, he now grabbed his blade and plunged it into his neck. killing him, but now also opening a wound to allow the creature to crawl from his eyes and mouth out, down his arm, and into Leroy.</div><div><br /></div><div>Leroy was a fighter, from a young age, he liked to call out his name and run into enemies, slamming them into the ground, so as the life left him, leroy attempted to run into the sunlight, sadly his brother was in the way, and the creature had begun to take hold of his mind. He ran at his brother, smashed him through the wall and shards of broken wood stabbed into his shoulders and thighs. The blow was too much, his ribs crushed he called out to his brother, but too late, the creatre had left that hust and now entered his own mind.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Brothers were no more, sadly now the last zombie and the blood creatures are free to exit the Tavern at this location, endangering any group to venture this way again. </div>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-14299124148754430872023-07-01T20:26:00.002-07:002023-07-01T20:26:17.880-07:00Befreinding, with the new Charisma rules<p> A new advantage to the Charisma (verbal combat) Rules is befriending animals.</p><h1 style="text-align: left;">Befriending and Animals</h1><div>So, We start with the same 'Trust' score between two parties, In this case since an Animal is instinctual you start with distrust (unless the animal is already domesticated) and violent/afraid. (fight or flight response)</div><div><br /></div><div>The Player performs actions that would appear to be friendly, but since they are different species, would either require animal handling, knowledge of that animal type, and/or knowledge of perfumes & scents of that animal, to provide enough bonuses to have any impact.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Player performs a Charm vs Distrust roll, (attack vs defence) and the pass by ratio might have a + modifier to the effect roll. (just like STR / DEX or skill rolls can affect the pass by, CHA / WIS / LKS and or skills can affect this roll) to 'build trust' in the animal.</div><div><br /></div><div>Any fumbles or fails, will result on the creature making that fight/flight roll. If the character defends themself, trust will be often lost as the creatures attack was likely a 'telling off' for the transgression, rather than an actual attack. </div><div><br /></div><div>If Trust ever reaches Zero, the creature cannot be befriended for game purposes, Dragging out prolonged trust/distrust scenarios between a player and a creature will likely bog down the game, and the rest of the players will be unhappy to continue.</div><div><br /></div><div>Standard ways to improve the Charm roll, might be, offer appropriate food, or for semi-intelligent creatures, offer shiny or items with the right kind of smell, such as a leather strap worn by its mother, </div><div><br /></div><div>As of now, the levels are:</div><div><br /></div><div>Enemy->Hated->Disliked->Neutral->liked->Friend->Brother</div><div><br /></div><div>and</div><div><br /></div><div>Complete Distrust->Distrust->wary->Neutral->general->trust->absolute trust.</div><div><br /></div><div>Either side of Neutral (0) are levelled skills in terms of how much 'trust xp' is needed. </div><div><br /></div><div>i.e. to get from Neutral to Liked, you need a score CHA (+ LKS bonus) + liked of 24. </div><div><br /></div><div>to get from Liked to Friend, you need a lvl 2 liked score of 24. </div><div><br /></div><div>Trust starts not at Charisma, but at your own trustworthiness score. If you score at a 7, then you will start trusting others at a 7. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the FULL Rules version, Trust and Friendship also have 'high' and 'low' moment variants, So the modifiers will change based on past behaviors, this is more for Solo play rules, but can still be useful for introverted players who wish to play charismatic characters. </div>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-79294193415446178102023-05-31T18:23:00.002-07:002023-05-31T18:23:23.052-07:00Deck Builders and Worker placement: A few ideas<p> I've been playing games more frequently of late, and my two favourite genres are worker placement and deck builder. So of course I come up with ideas in that 'genre'.</p><h1 style="text-align: left;">Board Game Ideas List:</h1><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c343d;">Herbs and potions</span></h2><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">The Idea is, to have a herbal gatherer, either by worker placement or by card draws, gather herbs. You then use some kind of tools to change the herbs from their raw form into a more accessible form, then you combine them into potions that you can sell on the market, to afford more to upgrade and to create the final 'prize' which ends the game.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">My Initial thoughts were pure deck builder, where playing of certain cards allow you to draw from certain decks: Play a sickle and draw a card from the herb deck (or maybe one of many herb decks), play a backpack to allow you to draw more or hold more.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">i.e. </span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;"><b>sickle</b>: draw 2 cards from the herb deck. You may keep 1 + any number of storage items.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;"><b>satchel</b>: you may store 1 extra dry ingredient.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;"><b>vial</b>:: you may store 1 extra wet ingredient.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;"><b>bottle</b>: you may store 2 extra wet ingredient of the same type.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;"><b>pouch</b>: you may store 1 extra dry or moist ingrediatnt</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">Once you've got some ingrediants, you might draw them in your next hand, and you can play them with their relevant tools, such as <b>pestle and mortar</b> to grind into powdered form, </span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">Once you've drawn the powdered form, you can attempt to create potions, by combining the ingrediants, drawing random effects cards, and doing some quick calculations to see what kind of potion it is. </span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">i.e. </span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">Dandelion seeds, ground into 'sage powder' which has +2 rest, but +1 stomach ache.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">Pig snout root, ground into 'concoction sap' which has +2 healing but +2 stomach ache.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">Frogs Legs, boiled into 'slimy soup' which has -3 stomach ache, but -1 comfort.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">and</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">Rosemary Leaves, ground into 'herbal rememdy' which has '-1 any'</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">combined, this would result in +2 rest, +2 heal. Which consulting a chart = a 40 gold potion.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">You'd use the 40 gold to buy an upgraded sickle, maybe a apothacary kit, and a +1 satchel, so in future turns you could get 5-7 ingrediants in a turn.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">Once you can get as high as 10 ingediants, you'd be able to make the famed "Healers Broth" which is needed for the Kings sick son. It needs 10 ingrediants, and they need to heal +5. Or some game setup sickness which lists a preset number of ailments all to be cured by the potion. </span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">Possible, doesn't need to be 1 potion, but does need to heal the child in one turn.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;">The King Awards 500 gold to the player who heals their child, and players can add up their gold & wealth to determine who actually won.</span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #660000;">The Castle</span></h2><p><span style="color: #660000;">Akin to Stone Age, you place workers in regions to gather resources, but, with some complexity.</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000;">Soldier meeples, will 'move away' enemy meeples, on resolution. i.e. blue places 4 peasants in the stone mines, red places 2 peasants and 1 soldier. the soldier moves 2 of blue away from the mines. </span></p><p><span style="color: #660000;">Players can't just breed, they also need houses, you start with 5 thatch houses, which can house 1 meeple. you can upgrade to other forms of houses that can cope with more meeples.</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000;">You also need to breed animals for food for happiness, else, instead of negative points, the meeples don't come out of their house. </span></p><p><span style="color: #660000;">So you could try to build some places which help happiness, </span></p><p><span style="color: #660000;">At the same time, you have tech trees to invent better things, improve the number of resources that come out. i.e. SWORD All soldiers are worth 1 extra point, but its done on a turn by turn basis to improve your deck. put meeples into the 'science places' to draw cards, to add to your deck. but also those cards can improve other cards. <br /><br />Stone age has 'tech' cards, but you only get them, you don't use them, the game is a static move of choices. but by adding the 'randomness' of your deck, as to 'improve' your actions, you get a sway of the strategic 'worker placement' and the random effect of 'deck builder' </span></p><p><span style="color: #0c343d;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-26948115810950911442023-04-11T02:55:00.008-07:002023-04-11T02:55:42.106-07:00Health, and Death... again...<p> So, The Human body, as I understand it, does not 'die' as instantly as we think it does</p><h1 style="text-align: left;">How Does Actual Death change the rules</h1><div>On a cellular level, most of the body lives on for hours and even days after 'death'. This means many, many things for roleplay. </div><div><br /></div><div>Firstly, lets look at Health. </div><div><br /></div><div>When the human body takes an amount of damage too much for the consciousness to handle, the body shuts down the consciousness. This might not reboot the system, and we refer to that as a coma.</div><div><br /></div><div>For the longest time, I used 'fate' and 'luck' to be this factor. The body takes damage beyond the 'death' score, and the player determines, ok. I'll spend a fate. If the party manages to best the monster, they revive their friends from their unconscious state, and begin the healing process. preferably in a nice warm tavern.</div><div><br /></div><div>BUT if the whole party is 'killed' they all 'wake' in a witches home, or a wizards tower, or some place 'nearby' enough that makes enough logical sense that someone had rescued them, possibly including the party members themselves that were 'less' damaged.</div><div><br /></div><div>The GM has a nice 'out' for the group, it often introduces a NPC for the players to rely on in the future, as they obviously owe a boon/debt to, and can introduce new plot hooks, or provide higher level access to information or goods.</div><div><br /></div><div>But beyond that, we also allow for death to actually occur, and yet be rolled back. If the players can retrieve their friends body, and get to a healer within a few hours to days, they might still be brought back. The consciousness is shut down by the body, and once healing applied, is re-awoken by the spell casters or priests.</div><div><br /></div><div>IF and only IF we have gone past the point of no return, do we now need actual resurrection spells.</div><div><br /></div><div>This adds the benefit, plot wise, that our players are not 100% lost to us, and plot paths can continue beyond death. provided the resurrection is made cheap enough by plot economics. </div><div><br /></div><div>That's the TL;DR of my notes on death. </div>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-70999822037506245672023-04-04T04:48:00.003-07:002023-04-04T04:48:36.772-07:00Coins Currency and Genies<p> Genies? wait what?</p><h1 style="text-align: left;">When the economy of your world can be messed up with wishes</h1><div>Ok, gave the plot away with the header, but hey, lets just make it clear and simple:</div><div><br /></div><div>TL;DR; A Wish, can ruin your game. </div><div><br /></div><div>I Wish for a room filled with gold coins. for arguments sake, its 10,000 coins.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, now, the Kingdom that used to have 10,000 gold coins in circulation, has 20,000.</div><div><br /></div><div>The King used to be the richest with approx. 5,000 in storage, but he's not a stupid king, or at least the people in his city are not, so they mine gold, silver, copper, tin, and maybe some rarer platinum, zircon, etc, at an approximate rate that keeps the currency values around a 10:1 ratio,</div><div><br /></div><div>except now, the gold in total has just flooded the market.</div><div><br /></div><div>Are the players going to not spend it? um, no.. So there will be some very large purchases, which will put handfuls of the currency into the hands of a myriad of merchants. they in turn will buy more goods to replenish stock, but also some of their own purchases of personal reasons, and the trickle down happens, as it would / should in a medieval society. </div><div><br /></div><div>But it also means people are less likely to haggle, why bother wasting time over a 5% price difference, you can afford it, so you pay more, the shop keep gets used to this and doesn't need to sell his goods at a discount to feed his family, so his prices stay high, and his other customers seek cheaper goods elsewhere, or must raise their own prices to compensate for the rise of costs.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you follow it along, ALL prices will, over the course of a few weeks and months, go up. people are greedy. Without some kind of agent to sweep in and force prices to stabilize, they'll always go up.</div><div><br /></div><div>In comes the wizard. He casts a spell, and determines the price that a good should be, "mirror mirror on the wall, what was the price of fish last week?"</div><div><br /></div><div>With some threats, or a charm spell, the prices are forced back to normal for this elite class, and people will come to grips with the ability of magi, thaumists and priests to divine more realistic prices. The Magi know.. if this gets out of hand, spell ingredients will go up in price, and master magi will be forced out into the forests to procure the weeds and flowers they need to create their potions and spells. Magi don't usually sell their goods to lowly folk. they sell once-off items, to the big fish.</div><div><br /></div><div>Mid to low level adventurers buy healing potions, and sure that's come a little mainstream as a result, but all other magic rings, swords, gems, scrolls, these things are all once-off bespoke items and the magi only sells one every so often, usually for a years salary. So he's not used to having to deal with day to day price increases, no.. he comes to the little shop that has a boy that goes off into the forest once a year and pick the elderflower from the tall oak, that blooms only on 2nd winters solstice, and he pays 100 pewter for it, no more, no less. and if the boy didn't make it.. the magi will weight the costs of a teleport spell to go get it himself this year.. </div><div><br /></div><div>No, no no.. If a Priest was to enter the markets and found out he needed to pay double for all the candles and saffron and gold leaf and statues and marble, he might start flipping tables, and calling his god to come down and smite these greedy heathens. </div><div><br /></div><div>We, poor saps in the modern world can only grumble at the price of milk going up every year, We look at the real price increases on our expenditure and hope we can ask for an equal pay increase to match it.. just so we can 'stay still', but if we could summon a demon or a god or just the force of the universe to stop it in its tracks, I'm sure we would.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, this gold.. since its got less ability to create inflation of prices.. the opposite happens.. its own worth changes. After the few months of prices going up and back down.. the gold is still so much more commonly about. more people have it, so people start to say, 'hey, I know I should give you 10:1 ratio on your gold, but I don't have as many pewter, so how about I give you 9:1, and since I kind-of don't 'need' as much, as I got paid in more gold last week, I don't need more, then you make the choice, 9:1 for my goods, or go find a money lender, who'll exchange money, and take his cut.. greedy bastards.</div><div><br /></div><div>That's right, you probably don't know. people didn't carry around large sums of cash in markets. they'd get robbed. the 'till' we have today would be emptied by thieves in moments. No, they had mobile bankers.. or moneylenders, who'd roam about with a couple of thugs for protection. thugs cost money, so the lender would charge a fee on exchanges and loans. If the going rate was 10:1, you might get 9.5:1 from the lender, or vice versa 1:10.5 if you wanted a lighter purse. You could call him over when a customer had currency you couldn't deal with, </div><div><br /></div><div>Now, lenders are more aware of the current flow of cash, so if they know there is a bucket or barrel of gold flowing into the purses, they're not going to stick with a 9:1 ratio. no, no.. they'll want to be ahead of the game, and have some street urchin go find out how much gold the heroes are accompanying themselves with. </div><div><br /></div><div>So, GMs, have you got that? Players enter town with chests or bags of goods. The Urchins should come up and ask, lots of questions, make them seem interested in what the heroes are brining home, what monster was killed and how much gold they've procured. As soon as the number is given, have the younger/dumber kids run off straight away, have the older kids ask more serious questions, make like they're not actually interested, maybe offer services or information on the town, have them very curious to look inside the adventurers purses..</div><div><br /></div><div>Players will think they're going to be pick pocketed. Instead have all the money-lenders change their exchanges right away. No-body brings money into a city without 'paying' some kind of tax.</div><div><br /></div><div>Which reminds me.. if your hero walks into a city with the same wealth of the city.. the king and his tax-man are going to want their share. if nothing less than to protect their currency rates. Just another money lender really, with bigger guards and bigger pockets. </div>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-3610070723328171902023-04-03T04:21:00.002-07:002023-04-03T04:21:24.787-07:00Advanced Combat Rules<p> A LOT of players are going to experience Standard Combat, But the reason they take on combat is to do all the cool things they saw great Warriors do when they were growing up. And like the characters see the cool actions, the players want to 'see' the cool combat.</p><h1 style="text-align: left;">Awesome Advanced Attacks</h1><p>As a refresher, you have an Attack score, approx. 12 for Warriors, with a Modifier, lets say 'Melee' of 4, and you're going into your first dungeon. You have no special skills, your opponent, likely a goblin, has a dodge score of 1, over a defence of 0. So you have a 15 or less. which is 60% chance to hit. After One to Three attempts you've likely hit the poor creature, and the damage you roll is enough to kill it. </p><p>Nothing Special.</p><p>But then later, when fighting, maybe an Orc, you manage to roll a 1 in combat, and what does it give you? Well if you failed to hit, but within 6 of hitting, you roll a d6, minus from the Attack total, and now maybe you DID hit. The GM or the PLAYER makes a description of HOW that played out, to make it more interesting.. The Orc raised its shield, but in the wrong direction, pushing the blade into (roll location on d12) its shoulder, a HIT!</p><p>OR, if you already hit, realizing you did, you take the split second decision to push the blade deeper, causing a further 2 points of damage.</p><p>That's about it for a low level character.. except, you might have already noticed on some monsters sheets, their 'fumbles' and your 'fumbles' against them.</p><p>In an effort to help GMs, each creature typically has a few obvious fumbles.. goblins dropping their weapons, or just freezing in spot, panic'd, Orcs overswinging, leaving themselves open to a follow up attack. Or smashing their weapons into walls or furniture, leaving them disarmed for a round. This is the early stages of Advanced Combat.</p><p>Players, having reached certain levels of proficiency can start triggering bonuses with certain weapons. Players can assign a 'bonus' to a 1+[die value] for extra bonuses, ontop of the 1s bonus.</p><p>A Player with an Axe might nominate 'twist' causing 2 extra bleed damage, spraying themselves with blood, and giving them 'grim visage' effect to all opponents. A Players with a shortsword, nominating any 'miss by 1' as a 'feint' attack, allowing them to 'draw back' 2 initiative for a 2nd attack, where the opponent loses 1/3rd their defence as they attempted to dodge or parry the first attack.</p><p>Then the ultimate, where players start taking on known combat manuevers from famous swordsmasters, then the counter manuevers to their opponents famous moves, and in retort the counter-counter moves, especially if he is left-handed and a leaper..</p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-91211054194639792112023-02-17T19:21:00.004-08:002023-02-17T19:21:19.630-08:00[Game Idea] R=cks that Fall<p> I was watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LkYEfn3Cwo and was thinking about the last few moments when the satellite was told to just 'crash land' on the comet.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">A Game about controlled abstinence?</h2><p>Imagine this 'robot' is on the surface of a comet. the comet releases gasses from time to time, its made up of varied rock, and has some level of gravity. Imagine if when the comet passes the sun, the solar panels charge up, and begin to work, but the commands from earth are not in range, so the programming of the device, to not lose any opportunity, is to perform tasks it decides are important.</p><p>You are the program. </p><p>You have a limited array of choices to begin with. soil drill, sample retriver, sample crusher, sample melter, sample chemical mix, a small 3D printer, and a loader to load in one of the materials. All of which are also in the 3D printers memory banks.</p><p>So, to start, you have limited power per 'run' and have to decide, and decide quickly, (because thinking costs power too) to choose what tasks to perform.</p><p>The game starts off with a few buttons and maybe sliders. a battery value, (in binary) maybe datetime stamps, also in binary. and you can send data to earth, if you think you are lined up for it.</p><p>Your first few 'runs' you'll gather some resources, crush them, melt them or chem mix them and report those value to earth. you won't know if earth got them or not. </p><p>after some time, once one of your material storage areas is full, you'll be instructed that you can create a new storage for the resources. AND the ability to dump the resources when it gets too full. You'll be unaware of your maximum capacity, until its filled, and then you'll unlock instructions where to store the new ones.</p><p>The Aim is to explore options. there will be instructions to do things that will be counter productive to the game. the earth team don't want /expect you to do anything else except gather samples, study samples and report back to earth what was found. </p><p>The Reality is, Earth is not getting your signals. Your solar array is misaligned and damaged. Your samples are just dropping to the ground when you finish, because the storage is not full. </p><p>Exploration, means you discover to fill one container with one material til its full to unlock the 3D plans for a 2nd container.</p><p>you 'ping' space at each possible interval, to determine where the sun is. and then use what little power you have to turn your solar array in that direction.</p><p>This increases the amount of power you'll get, which means turning on earlier in the sequence, and lasting longer while IN sunlight.</p><p>creation of more batteries is possible, once its understood that the batteries are maxing out, because one battery is dead. and another is slowly failing. so, using the 'release' valve, the dead batteries can be dropped, and new ones inserted via the 'arm' </p><p>There is also the smaller unit, once enough power is established to ping for the local unit. it can be guided to come back to the main unit by extending its legs and needle in the right pattern, and the signal becomes slightly stronger (and needs less power), until it 'bumps' into the main. and now it can have an arm attached to it, at each of its leg joints, and they in turn can be used to un-attach the original arm and improve it with a better arm, with more joints, giving access to repair the solar panels that were broken. </p><p>Once this happens, the power allows to turn on the internal heaters, to access the other functions of the unit, (the melter was being used to provide enough internal heat to run the functions. note if the heater is not run, some parts might not work..</p><p>Its an incremental game, but has a logical flow to it. </p><p>The eventual goal is to re-launch the unit back into space, to return to earth, and submit its findings, BUT the game should allow for varied styles of play. maybe even improving the drills, and reconfiguring the 3D plans to make more effective machinery to unlock other aspects. Maybe even replicating the whole rocket system and converting the comet into a rocket.</p><p>No Aliens needed. just what's available in 2023. </p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-6800457294771973912023-02-02T20:57:00.001-08:002023-02-02T20:57:16.309-08:00[Adventures] The Cabinet<p> I got the most interesting client this week. Certainly the most interesting for my whole career. Before I even attended the first lesson I had to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement, I remember it had a 10 year clause, for the generics, but a lifetime on specifics. So in interest of that NDA, I'll be light on some details.</p><p>I had to attend a meeting with an official at the Russian DUMA to get signed off. I approached this imposing building. All squares in shape for my recollection. big columns outside. I approached the front 'desk' which was a cabinet of soldiers? wood. slots for papers & passports. They wanted mine, but I was in a quandry.</p><p>Australians are instructed not to let out passports out of our hands. Its our only 'link' to the outside world. If we lose it, or its stolen, we are stuck in the country for months, and if your visa expires in that time, you are doubly stuck that you MUST leave, its a catch 22 you do NOT want to get stuck in. I have once, and I never want to again.</p><p>So when asked to hand over my passport, I could not, without it, they could not let me enter. catch 22 again.</p><p>Russians all have this 'internal passport' like a licence really, you hand it over, show it off. its a pain in the ass to get a replacement, so its LIKE a passport, but at the same time, not such a hassle, so people hand them over to these goons at the desk, and they get a 'pass' to go in.<br /><br />I ring my student contact. <i>I can't get in</i>. they ring back, <i>wait there. </i>For a small time I'm staring at the ceiling, the stairs, watching officials come and go, its fascinating. Eventually a small demure girl of 20 comes to talk to the goons,. long story short I left them with a photocopy of my passport.</p><p>I go up the stairs in some side wall, then through some corridors to another building, whose floor is not aligned with the first, so the doors are all skewed by a few feet, and some steps. </p><p>Then I walk down this beige + orange corridor, passing wooden doors. its strange, like in those 70s movies, but this is real life. </p><p>We come to a door. she has one of those old lock&key style keys, a slot in the door, the turn of this 3 inch metal rod, and the door puckers, as the leather 'seal' inside gives way. We enter this tiny little office. a desk, a laptop, a cupboard, a chair. none of it quite fits. its not meant to be a secretary room, or wait room, its only meant to be a cupboard for your coats. I'm sitting on a chair, INSIDE a cupboard, with a secretary, and her desk and chair, and laptop. inside a cupboard for coats. insane.</p><p>Soon enough, the door to the next room opens, and my student stands there, motions me in. I'm a little in shock, I was not told the position of this man, but I recognize him. I know who he is. BUT I'm a good teacher, it doesn't matter. I teach movie stars and ministers of finance, I can teach anyone, and ignore their position in life. I'm there to teach English.</p><p>He knows enough English, we discuss his needs, his level his practice. He's heard of me from some of the cabinet, and I'm unknown enough to be anyone. I signed an NDA remember. its all good.</p><p>For the next 6 months, I entered that chamber and spoke to him about a wide range of topics, and at one point, he advised me that it'd be in my best interests to return to Australia. that was 2011. I know now what he meant.</p><p>I'll go into more detail in my book, but I wanted to start writing some small parts out as marketing. get some interest and then publish.</p><p>I did alot of strange and interesting things in Russia. many of them far stranger than the above, 100x stranger. living in sheds in the snow, to 'test' my resolve. Digging ice tunnels. drinking Vodka with a man about to kill me. watching Explosions in Chechniya, and being told by my govt I needed to leave, after 80+ foreigners were bombed in a theatre. OH and I got to see paul McCartney Live in moscow. <br /><br />I did alot. and I think its time to write it all down, before I forget and so my kids can read it when they're old enough. </p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-594455988795310492023-01-18T12:32:00.004-08:002023-01-18T12:32:22.362-08:00Three lives<p> A throwback to Nostalgia, a concept I was playing with, but recently with my neck injury, came to a focus point:</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Three Lives System:</h2><p>Maybe you're a bit young for this, and you've not experienced it in computer games, but back in the day when we paid a coin to play a game. it gave us 3 lives. 3 attempts. Three Strikes your Out! You could learn enough in a life or two on how to play, and then attempt to complete the level with the last life. It allowed for simple mistakes, something out of the ordinary or a misstep.</p><p>The FATE system, gives a player a single one of these. death cheat code. Something extreme happened, you died, and you can 'wake up' on a beach nearby, having escaped the entire ordeal to return at a later time.</p><p>The LUCK system, gives you micro changes. You botched a single dice roll, or you want to buff that damage roll, or you just need better odds at something.</p><p>But it always worried me about the middle ground. What if you copped a blow of some decent damage, something harrowing, a broken arm, or leg or spleen. The damage dice modifier from luck is only 1 dice, its usually enough, but what if you fell 12 metres for a 6d6 damage roll. game wise, you can burn through your luck, to survive the roll, but story wise, maybe it doesn't make much sense, or character wise, you've now used up all your luck. its too expensive to spend fate. </p><p>So it got me thinking, </p><p>As a young man, I have been in a scrape or two, and survived. Things that now, as an older man, I have some more pressing issues. how is it that my body can take the same damage, the same severity, and then I was ok within a few days, and now, I'm laid up in bed for 2 weeks.</p><p>DNA and all that aside, I don't want to have some kind of 'age system' where you need to track time and then consult tables (Dungeon World does that) It needed a simpler system.</p><p>So, the Three lives, popped into my head. How about if all players have 3 'lives'. When they take some serious injury, they can negate the permanent effects by spending a life.</p><p>1. Players become aware of the possibility of permanent damage, and how it will, in effect, knock a few levels worth of points from their character.</p><p>2. It allows for logical progression of the story, allows for some cool story telling points. rather than retroactively taking back the event, it just allows the event to exist without ruining game play.</p><p>3. It gives players a micro sense of dread. Gaining or Losing extra lives becomes a way for players to identify their characters fallibility, it creates tension.</p><p>4. The character, in effect, has a lifespan. Certain mechanics such as resurrections might rely on lives too. Players can only 'rev' their character so many times before that character is dust. Making it all the harder to actually rise to legendary levels, giving players that do, a real sense of accomplishment.<br /><br />This, would be the DD12 simple format for the Age & Health rules. Using actual Age rules would likely negate this, as it already uses a permanent damage rules and negation system. though I might tweak that to somewhat match this. </p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-55640101655916832202022-10-17T21:51:00.000-07:002022-10-17T21:51:55.808-07:00ORCs, Evil or just Opposition?<p>You may remember this discussion from a while ago, and in an effort to not disrupt things I held back my thoughts, now that its all settled (agree to disagree) The underlying issue with the Orc question seems to be, can evil be normal, or is it something else?</p><h1 style="text-align: left;">How can Evil Exist?</h1><p>If Evil is a thing, a force, it is surely destruction. the desire to destroy for no other reason. there can be justified reasons when the need for one thing is greater than the need for a second thing and the first cannot exist without the destruction of the second, yet is that evil?</p><p>Laziness, maybe.</p><p>If there is a plot of land. 10m x 10m in Soviet Russia known as a sotka. It can cope with a house, a garden enough to grow food for one person for a year, and nothing else. if you need some of that land for a driveway and a carport for your car, you will need to destroy the garden. but do you?</p><p>You can move some of the soil needed for the garden into raised beds, ones that use 'vertical space' so the garden 'space' is not destroyed, just moved. </p><p>When You want to replace a very old house that has started to rot, you could take it apart plank by plank, discover all the reusable parts and store them for later use, maybe even in this new house, but the time cost to do that is greater than you can afford, so you employ a demolisher who rips down the house quickly, and throws away all the old wood. Destruction yes.. evil? hmm</p><p>If someone has not been trained to understand the cost of both sides, the benefit to store and keep the old wood, and the cost of time to take it apart, they have been trained only to demolish, this is not evil, its just a lack of choice. they know no other.</p><p>As a result, often, cultures that understand the choice, and come to other cultures that know no other choices, will likely expect them to learn of the choice, understand that destruction is evil, and creation is good. and so, choose creation.</p><p>Yet, if that culture, understanding that loss occurs with destruction, but instead of wanting to grow, wants all others to shrink, through destruction.. is that evil? well surely yes.<br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Orks are Evil.</h4><p></p><p>This is my world is the evil of the Ork. They may wear armour they have scavenged from their enemies dead, as it afford them more time to destroy more of their enemy, and this is a good idea, but to take the time to create the armour? the cost for them is the time that could have been more destruction, would 10 years of creating armour create more destruction, no, because ultimately, the armour itself must also be destroyed, </p><p>even the destruction of themselves, through scarring, tattoos, piercings is considered a good way to participate in destruction. Old age is not considered good, If the amount of food they consume equates to 100kg of destruction, yet a younger man with the same food produces 200kg of destruction, and there is only one serve of food. the younger will get it, they will use the energy to destroy and the net output of destruction is served. as such, elderly orcs will often sacrifice themselves to the horde. their knowledge will only lead to more creation, </p><p><br /></p><p>Humans have both capacities, can be trained in both capacities, and the path of creation leads to more creation, while the path to destruction always ends somewhere. the benefit of destruction is only to an evil god who wants more 'destruction', the 'food' they live on is destruction. So while some humans left with little choice, understanding, or training will resolve to destroy, as they know, no other way, or are too stubborn to change, the orc even when presented with the opportunity to learn it all, will only choose destruction. </p><p>Some scholarly magi, imprisoned some Orks and only gave them the choice to create, with magic, all destroyed items healed and destruction was no a choice, the Orcs slowly grew into what seemed like 'normal' intelligent beings, yet the minute they left the confines of the magical box that always healed everything, and destruction became a choice once more, they reverted almost instantly, and within months were not just savage, but moreso, their knowledge on how to destroy more effectively lead to entire tribes of Orks wiping out civilisations, until such time the chieftains died, their knowledge gone with them, the squabbling tribes after fell into old ways and were soon, destroyed, but not before wiping out continents of humans. </p><p>The Orks are not evil? well, I beg to differ. </p><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Playing as an Ork, expect your campaign to end violently</h4>If a Player wants to play as an Ork. Sure, it'll be an interesting thought experiment, as long as they, at every choice, can destroy something. it'll be true to the Ork nature.<br /><br />Arrive at a door, smash it down, enter a house, any furniture? smash it out of the way, fireplace? chuck everything in the fire so the place burns. people? kill them, why not? oh because my friends will block me? can I kill them? so I can kill the others? yes? ok, do it. no? oh, then I need to get more muscle, steal a deadlier weapon, then kill them, anyone who blocks an Ork from being able to destroy something needs to be so obviously stronger else the Ork will try to kill them. the only blocker is 'fear' that the other Ork wants to destroy it first, and by killing them, less destruction will happen.<div><br /></div><div>An Ork player will need to always be 3rd in rank or lower, always seeking a way to survive long enough to eventually overthrow the leader, and make the choices.</div><div><br />A female Ork, giving birth to an Ork will know that their child will destroy more, will raise their little carnage beast with the expectation to destroy others. <br /><br /></div><div>A Half Ork female will likely kill their offspring, as the capacity for any other race to destroy is less than an Ork, instinctively, so the child will not live. Only human females, having been forced, by an Ork that satiates its lust, and failed to kill the mother, will be born. Human females, unable to destroy that which they have themselves created, even if it is less than it should/could be, will raise the child as best they can. </div><div><br /></div><div>Players should determine how much 'destruction' they have in them based on their wisdom, charisma and Peity.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Ork Gods won't like half Orks running around, and the more Pious the half breed is, the god will get their 'claws' into them. The GM can just 'influence' all Ork related encounters to be a little harder, deadlier or more often when a Half Ork becomes Pious.<br /><br /><b>Playing as an ORC on the other hand...</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Remember that DD12 allows for races of other worlds to bleed through, so Orcs (note the spelling) might come through from another dimension. As I am to understand, these Orcs might have some form of hair growing from their skulls, they might communicate rather than decimate. They might not even BE Evil?! </div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Players be warned</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>A non-evil Orc is not easy to play, while your in game friends may not communicate outright hatred or distrust, the GM should always be feeding your lines about how people will glance in your direction nervously, your comrades should accidentally make racist remarks, or concepts the might hurt your feelings are actually meant to, Orks are not Orcs.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>But, this is ROLEPLAY, you're meant to be dealing with other worldly situations that put you in discomfort, so you as a player can expand your mind and abilities in the real world.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Have at it. Smash, Bash, Crunch and Grind, an Ork Life is full of FUN!<b> </b><p></p></div>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-41726646778223115302022-10-13T17:11:00.000-07:002022-10-13T17:11:44.359-07:00PAX AUS 2022 - Cataclyzm<p> This year I went to PAX, I was invited to run my game (as an Indie Australian Designer) and so I went.</p><h1 style="text-align: center;">Running Cataclyzm, for Strangers</h1><div>This is a mini document on how, after running 5 sessions, I felt that running Catacylzm works best.</div><div><br /></div><div>First, Lets discuss how I went into this, I had an idea of an approximate session length, PAX Aus was 2 hours, so I planned for 3 phases. The first being an Introductionary sequence, such as a mini combat, because almost all RPGs have some kind of combat system. Second I wanted to show off one of the three other variants of the game, Social conflict, Trade or the Powers that be. Lastly, I wanted a final showdown, the players now using their gained knowledge to take on something bigger, maybe something too big, so I could show off the 'size' rules.</div><div><br /></div><div>This didn't go according to plan, of course.</div><div><br /></div><div>PAX 2 hours, is more like 90 minutes. Players don't always turn up on time, so you kinda need to give players 10 minutes to get to your table. so you end up explaining the game 2-3 times as each player(s) arrived. holding off, means your existing players are bored. </div><div><br /></div><div>To combat this, the first players get their character templates first, and based on what they choose, I start to explain the world from THEIR perspective. </div><div><br /></div><div>Templates? </div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, at a Convention, you do not have the time to go through swathes of choices, even if a player knows exactly what they want, there are choices on HOW they want it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Sorry players, not happening. </div><div><br /></div><div>So instead I have pre-written characters that has the generic sets of skills & stats based on what they are likely to be doing.</div><div><br /></div><div>For Catacylzm, I had Warrior, Ranger (with knives), Scout (with sling) and Shaman (with Herbs.. more on this later)</div><div><br /></div><div>The rest might likely have spoiled the game. The Shaman was a mix of Mage, Priest, Academic and Trader, which took care of those roles where needed. The Scout was both Rogue, Trader and Ranger, while the Ranger was actually less about Range, and tad more about combat, while the Warrior was a Barbarian. just hit things.<br /><br />So there wasn't really a need for Healer, Smith, Noble or the dedicated Priest, Monk, Mage or Academic, and Trader was only a subset for this world.. (for the moment)</div><div><br /></div><div>I had intended to make up laminated level up cards, and let players start with one of them, I wish I had in the end, It would have saved a chunk of time, less need for specific character sheets, oh, white board markers would have been better too.. I have them somewhere..</div><div><br /></div><div>So also, Games kinda needed to end 5-10 minutes early so players could get to their next event. Some players actually left after an hour, we had to 'poetically' write them out of the quest.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, As often as not, I'd explain Cataclyzm from the lifestyle chosen, then a new player would arrive, I'd explain it further from their point of view, and so on, until I had a player count max, or it was 10 minutes in and we should start. </div><div><br /></div><div>Once the players were settled, I'd explain the flood, the situation and how, as young teenagers they were sneaking off, as a group, properly for the first time. (Their Parents knew what was going on, but sadly, they also knew this world was harsh, food was scarce, either they'd return with food, or not return and less mouths to feed)</div><div><br /></div><div>being a Con, I didn't want to go down all the political choices of Cannibalism, or Cremation, </div><div><br /></div><div>The Players would choose a direction, as each session changed the 'known' map, each subsequent group had more information to choose a different direction. </div><div><br /></div><div>I rolled dice against the chart of things, modified by the distance from the village, and IF it was travelled before, and got some interesting things.</div><div><br /></div><div>There were some small creatures to fight, or remains of other adventurers, or a crazy trader who was dangerous, til eventually the players crossed..</div><div><br /></div><div>The Threshold</div><div><br /></div><div>At a distance, beyond the collective dreams of the village, nightmares latch onto the thoughts of travelers. I asked my players questions.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you were to think of a creature, what part would make it more :</div><div><br /></div><div>Fearsome, Scary, Comical, Dangerous</div><div><br /></div><div>What defines its:</div><div><br /></div><div>Strengths, Weaknesses, strangeness.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Players would give answers, I'd write them down, and formulate a creature from this.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our Creature for these 5 session? The Jabber-wocky-cat? kinda?</div><div><br /></div><div>Between the descriptions of Teeth, Spines, Claws, Spittle, were also, Hairless cat, Blue purple Fur Shoulders, Two Heads, Laser Beam eyes, extreme Long Leg bones, impervious to steel, but vulnerable to fire, it was a calm creature, yet vicious when damaged. </div><div><br /></div><div>Reminder, the first group described only 4 of these traits, the next, added 2 more, and then a further 2, then the last two groups, added 7 each (larger groups on Sunday)</div><div><br /></div><div>The reason to do it this was, is to have survivors, return to the Village and 'describe' what they saw, how it fought, and while the later traits might be as obvious, they were not noticed 'at the time'</div><div><br /></div><div>If players defeat the creature, they skin it there on the field, bring back key items, the creature was too large to bring it all home, so they choose a 'part' each.</div><div><br /></div><div>Had we more time, I would have focused the last 15 minutes on improving the village each time, crafting something from the returned materials, improving the game for the next group.</div><div><br /></div><div>Surprisingly to me, we had no TPKs, the groups managed to figure out enough of what was going on, fast enough to take down the creature. We had some losses, an arm here, some legs there,</div><div><br /></div><div>The Last group went way of track, and I had to reinvent everything over for them, so we ended up in a limestone spillway, with glow in the dark fish, a huge barracuda and some dimension warp bats. </div><div><br /></div><div>What next..</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll likely draw up the map for that Village, add it to my documents, their region being a plain of stone for the Jabber-cat, and some caves of timewarp bats. It'll create a new 'encounter' list, for some future session. </div><div><br /></div><div>What I'd like to do next, is somehow make it a live document, and allow those players to return, make some choices, guide the village further, then at a future con, we come back for an Ultimate showdown. </div><div><br /></div><div>Lets wait and see</div><div><br /></div>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-36393375528737297492022-09-28T17:46:00.005-07:002022-09-28T17:46:46.833-07:00Red pill, $10mil, Blue Pill $10 a click - Meme Math<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4cWuL4ZG4Qcj5zaB6mpwfuqKbnFJSvG0VlL_wy7IS3Ta-JqrJdT3DapsxOQFSafWKoATv-7YK0mptilWUhohLgQuc2j2LsTs_xiTf3NUeFGV_qAUElEMDJBnA3L8GoNuoZghpB_9-j_yZrbkmEMKo4yrwY3cjwVHjqz6QEAZE0LrNRJ3vLqBUj-00" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="763" data-original-width="602" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4cWuL4ZG4Qcj5zaB6mpwfuqKbnFJSvG0VlL_wy7IS3Ta-JqrJdT3DapsxOQFSafWKoATv-7YK0mptilWUhohLgQuc2j2LsTs_xiTf3NUeFGV_qAUElEMDJBnA3L8GoNuoZghpB_9-j_yZrbkmEMKo4yrwY3cjwVHjqz6QEAZE0LrNRJ3vLqBUj-00" width="189" /></a></div><p></p><p>1 month to hit 10 mill.. I’ve done the math, Blue pill, every single instance, here’s why: <br /><br />Google 200bpm playlist. <br /><br />https://jog.fm/popular-workout-songs?bpm=200 as an example.<br /><br />You’ll find hundreds of songs you can click your fingers to, and you’ll barely notice you’re doing it.</p><p>2 hands, 200bpm = 400 clicks. I just did one as a test and could click in the ‘off beat’ just as easy without any issue, but lets stick to average folk.</p><p>400 click = $4k 10 songs, 3 minutes each, 30mins of listening to the playlist and clicking, and you’re up $120k<br /></p><p>do this in the morning as you get ready, and in the night before bed, and 20mins for lunch, and that $10mil? will only be a month. </p><p>A MONTH!<br /><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Hang on, that's a lot of clicking right?</h4><div style="text-align: left;">Lets tone it down.. you get ready in the morning, put on one of these songs and just click away for an hour, but you’re not always clicking, and not to every song, so lets say you only clicked one hand, and for only half the songs.</div><p></p><p>85 days.. or 3 months.. and you’ve got 10 mil.</p><p>Lets be realistic, you don’t need 10 mil right now,<br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Ok, ok, lets be more realistic</h3><p>the Taxman is going to catch onto your magic powers, and if you took $10mil, good luck trying to prove its yours. </p><p>What do you need, a down payment on a home loan? proof of income for 2 months? a car to get around, and general bills</p><p></p><p>So, put on Black Eyed Peas Hey Mama, 3 minutes at 200 bpm, you've just pocketed $6 grand.</p><p>Pay off your bills, take your partner out for dinner, relax. </p><p>Set up a cash business, you need to create a 'means' by which you're getting this money.</p><p>Something that will bring in a half mil a year, without blinking.</p><p>Something you can be 'clicking' along to a song, and no-one will care.<br /></p><p>A "thrift" store. Antiques, curios, exotic object de art. </p><p>Go buy a bunch of random $10 items from other thrift stores, just 'click' your fingers a few times to pay for them, bring them to your location as 'donated' items. <br /><br />Put 2 prices on everything, one in red, one in blue.</p><p>When people ask, the red price, at 1/3rd the blue price, is for 'members'. Membership is $1000, unless you are referred, then its $100, cash.<br /><br />Nice people come in? offer them the referral price, but put it in the books at normal price, and click your fingers to a Beatles song while they fill in the books.</p><p>All your books are blue prices, All your customers pay red prices.<br /><br />You can even set up the system, so employees will follow the rules, your books look correct, you pay tax correctly, you have a very decent income, no-one misses out (you even pay taxes on the 'full' amount. Why would the Taxman even come looking if it appears you're paying full tax on it all. <br /><br />All set! </p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-65619535527400122422022-09-28T17:43:00.000-07:002022-09-28T17:43:26.573-07:00Monty Haul Paradox<p> Something ha s been bothering me about the Monty haul Paradox, and maybe I'm still wrong yet, I think I figured it out.</p><h1 style="text-align: left;">The Monty Haul Paradox - Paradox?</h1><p>What is the Monty Haul Problem:</p><p>A Man at a Game Show is presented with 3 doors, behind one is a car, and behind the other 2 are goats. The contestant wants the car. He is instructed to pick a door. Once chosen the presenter opens a door and shows a goat, and then gives the contestant the chance to change. Should he.</p><p>The Average non mathematician will consider that the choice is 50/50 as there are now 2 doors, one with a goat, one with a car. </p><p>Mathematicians though, insist that the chance is now 66.6% to swap. The reasoning is, the original theorem of the 3 doors. having one revealed when you had a 1/3rd chance, means statistically the door you have chosen was likely a goat. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiizQ6MTSWqRdFftNWkS6mRdwIb-VZBRL8Anym7P5OrAJFFSyu8oAkZVG8VbQvCOAmBYd0EbmIJoSmvCfVHxsQeDmCrg1JJWASi5gj8Zlj_aM-BWm8ZfOZxFnYoJdswOcaCkDFMt89Qgol-sEFQWe5ZSogwXFpvhH2I7FHmnku5e2RajIcvHriwSZAf" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="773" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiizQ6MTSWqRdFftNWkS6mRdwIb-VZBRL8Anym7P5OrAJFFSyu8oAkZVG8VbQvCOAmBYd0EbmIJoSmvCfVHxsQeDmCrg1JJWASi5gj8Zlj_aM-BWm8ZfOZxFnYoJdswOcaCkDFMt89Qgol-sEFQWe5ZSogwXFpvhH2I7FHmnku5e2RajIcvHriwSZAf=w640-h152" width="640" /></a></div><br />The graphs makes it 'clearer' there are 3 red end points, vs 6 green end points, so 6 of 9 choices or 2/3rds chance you'll be getting the car. right?<p></p><p>Now I can follow the logic of this, you can google it yourself to see the logic, and I guess its kinda makes more sense from that point of view, if you change it to 10 doors, where you choose 1 door, the presenter reveals 8 goats, and now you have 2 doors, do you want to change, but I spotted a flaw.</p><p>The Presenter, chose a goat door. of 2 possible goat doors, If you HAD chosen the car, he has 2 choices of goats to choose from, and if you had NOT chosen the car, he can only choose the 'other' goat.</p><p>Negating the presenters choice from the math, of course shows it to skew towards 66%, but if you spread out all choices with the presenter included, we return to 50/50.<br /><br />In the chart above, we looked at 3 red vs 6 green. but forgot, that each red shows 2 choices. include them, and we're back to 6 vs 6 = 50/50. I don't have 3 dimensional excel to show it, so I need to split it out like this: </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgi3hvQ5WqLX4G2M2VUYa8N1OGCtyGwnAH78N0fMaJkvoYyTkGzPGRWcoIScYaGtKiRnM21h2pqNmWX4GZPgvYDLHCSnVVd5HRO-1ikz6jNzz8EYDKUtCMQIijds_p9VPDU_aNc9Bxb3oyyq0hfgrIOuVc7ay9f1gfH5l7p51hSlAgNlK5ok29m-lzM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="1149" height="108" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgi3hvQ5WqLX4G2M2VUYa8N1OGCtyGwnAH78N0fMaJkvoYyTkGzPGRWcoIScYaGtKiRnM21h2pqNmWX4GZPgvYDLHCSnVVd5HRO-1ikz6jNzz8EYDKUtCMQIijds_p9VPDU_aNc9Bxb3oyyq0hfgrIOuVc7ay9f1gfH5l7p51hSlAgNlK5ok29m-lzM=w640-h108" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-38324456562143445702022-07-11T17:21:00.001-07:002022-07-11T17:21:25.327-07:00Lord Tax: (a lost art) Peasants and their Heroes<p> In days gone by, the King taxed the lords, not the people. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: center;">A Medieval tax system (that could work today)</h2><br />a Lord was a land owner, and the lord paid a tax on the earnings of the land potential, not its actual. So the lord would need to downplay his lands worth, rocky terrain, forested ridges, valleys and peaks, all un workable land, then get as much profit from the land with as many serfs as he could afford to feed.<p></p><p>Fantasy Roleplay, puts our adventurer outside this system. or as children of the system, who have revolted against such a system. They go off, land and lordless, to gain riches, and in theory become lords themselves if they are successful or die trying.</p><p>But how should you roleplay the serfs? Do they look at heroes as... 'super heroes'? or as 'lawless thugs'. Well this would depend on what's happened before.</p><p>Maybe the Lord has hired the characters to deal with some issues with monsters, and they are treated as heroes, or maybe the characters failed to do their duty, or messed it up so badly, the monster had its revenge, and the townsfolk suffered, so the town blames the 'heroes' as good for nothing murder hobos. Given the success rates of some games, I'd suggest each town will have a % chance of the two variants, and will have, over the years, built up a love or hatred of heroes in general.</p><p>So how would you set this up to play?</p><p>If you are randomly determining each town & their past experience, I'd have a % roll of people who believe in the hero & % of those who distrust the hero, making for an interesting dynamic when there is a cross over of people who 'understand' that heroes are super human, yet still flawed humans.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXGkiYAi_oBqxGJ7McQhi7c_2HSe4p0sygAIKsT-T31lkf22mI-_FpWWlNPa2cKISwRJu-A0qFA_RBUVmJL7fHsUi-Xtkyg0PFW-S1EwyAsUPZt4LIegsIY5rr6NEDTcYe7u4Yjv-O53ki1iOgeXGKiVpOLKcZ1SvghXaAji-0JbJw3OSTR-04ijql/s640/Crusaders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXGkiYAi_oBqxGJ7McQhi7c_2HSe4p0sygAIKsT-T31lkf22mI-_FpWWlNPa2cKISwRJu-A0qFA_RBUVmJL7fHsUi-Xtkyg0PFW-S1EwyAsUPZt4LIegsIY5rr6NEDTcYe7u4Yjv-O53ki1iOgeXGKiVpOLKcZ1SvghXaAji-0JbJw3OSTR-04ijql/w640-h360/Crusaders.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Belief roll for the populace:</h3><p><10% little to no experience of heroes doing good deeds, so no discounts, no special attentions, </p><p>10-25% low experience, maybe a lone person might see them for who they are and ask about their deeds from boredom.</p><p>25-50% average experience, will pay respects in taverns, maybe 5% discount on large orders, +1 to comeliness checks.</p><p>50-75% higher experience, folks will tip their hat in the street, greet with respect, base 10% discount and +d4 comeliness checks. </p><p>75-90% very high experience, expect to see several other heroes in this town, people will treat the hero as a friend, 15% base discount and +d4+1 comeliness checks</p><p>90%+ some previous heroes saved the town so well, the expectation for the heroes will be overt, any failure to be a high ranking or powerful hero will backlash and the heroes will be specifically treated like +25% anger chart. If they manage to keep calm and cope with the adoration & expectation (15th+ hero skills) they will be praised, 20% base discount, +2d4 comeliness checks.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Anger roll for the populace:</h3><p><10% little to no experience of heroes doing bad deeds, so no discounts, no special attentions, </p><p>10-25% low experience, maybe a lone person might see them for what they are and yell insults.</p><p>25-50% poor experience, will avoid in taverns, maybe 5% surcharge if the barkeep thinks he can get away with it, +1 to comeliness checks +1 to barbrawl chance.</p><p>50-75% v.poor experience, folks will walk around in the street, or if ranked high enough challenge openly, -10% to an discount checks, +1 comeliness checks & +d4 to barbrawl chance. </p><p>75-90% hatred, expect to be accosted by the guards for minor infractions, plus all the above, townsfolk will openly (yet in groups) jeer at the heroes, telling them to go home. </p><p>90%+ upon entering the town, expect the heroes to be stalked by a small crowd, as the crowd swells, they'll throw rotten fruit and give chase, chasing the heroes out of town, "We don't want your kind here".</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRbUEHX5oY8lIr8yOs9WOlH_GXyKPA2-eZelkAKOCrepK1er9XPTVg9yWkOrCsGYjwN2iMGgM-s4eiekqCC2ci76hWzqG5QNNxBTcyMqdC4WhG5y8td9XwJ4ihRMac9HOv3uWq_nDr-ZUznOhf74hwyIwBf1YSddhU1xd4ccuQizoPGT5nKmK0U-Yc/s964/medievalRiots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="964" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRbUEHX5oY8lIr8yOs9WOlH_GXyKPA2-eZelkAKOCrepK1er9XPTVg9yWkOrCsGYjwN2iMGgM-s4eiekqCC2ci76hWzqG5QNNxBTcyMqdC4WhG5y8td9XwJ4ihRMac9HOv3uWq_nDr-ZUznOhf74hwyIwBf1YSddhU1xd4ccuQizoPGT5nKmK0U-Yc/w640-h292/medievalRiots.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Interesting Mixes</h3><div><br /></div><div>If you roll above 30% on one roll and under 30% on another its fairly easy to see what kind of town this will be, yet if you roll very high on both, the town itself will likely be divided, like a football team or political parties, there will be common brawls over if a hero group was loved or hated for its prior actions. the loved will focus on the good deeds, but the hated will focus on the costs of those deeds, and as GM you'll need to figure out whose side is stronger based on the rolls and the direction of your plot.</div><div><br /></div><div>If your players suffer a massive defeat and are feeling down, maybe the next town they come across will raise their spirits and give them a reason to go on, Or, if your players are getting a bit cocky, maybe raise the anger scale, bring their humility down a few notches. Also, its not a terribly bad chart to use when your own players are staying for a while. each good deed adds another 2d6 %, but each misstep (failed or perceived to have failed) will add to the anger by d6. you can track them, maybe -1% every 3 months from both tracks, so players feel like they're earning their reputation, without needing to use the full reputation rules from the HUB book. </div><div><br /></div><div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Side Note:</h4>Modern Taxes, why is it that the poor pay both a tax to the govt, and a tax to the land lord (rent) Have we gone backwards since medieval times? Surely we should have figured this out by now, that only land owners pay tax.</div><p><br /></p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-87435589667565201472022-07-07T00:11:00.003-07:002022-07-07T00:11:57.587-07:00Some Magic Items, are not cursed, just.. expensive..<p>Looking at some of the movies and the artefacts they give us, can influence or create ideas:</p><h1 style="text-align: left;">StormBreaker: the Cursed Axe</h1><p>Our Hero, finds this massive axe, finding he has the strength to wield it, he enters battle, and mid fight, when the player rolls a double 12, the GM determines that this "double bad" can mean the discovery of the "curse" of the axe.<br /><br />The GM asks the player, you know this is bad, so I'll get you to roll a d6, but I'll let you add a number to it of your choice, which will affect the power of this axe. The Player chooses 10, and rolls a 5. <br /><br />The Axe flies from his hands, lightning crackles from its metallic sheen, the axe embeds itself into the opponent, taking 225 damage, yet microseconds later, the opponent disintegrates the axe slowed, still continues its arc into the ground, and within a 15ft radius, all creatures take 15 damage, they are mostly killed.</p><p>The character though, our hero, is drained by 15 magic points, magic he doesn't fully have, this, according to magic rules, causes some physical damage, and severely hampers his ability to regain magic (the negative modifier cancels out any natural regeneration rate, and % chance to learn)</p><p><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #282829; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold;">Stormbreaker is just a regular axe, mostly</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #282829; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">.</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #282829; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold;"> It only becomes dangerous when you try to actually channel power through it.</span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="background: none;">Captain America was able to swing it, when needed, as a plain axe, no lightning going off.</span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="background: none;">Thor understood that the Axe would drain off power, to cause its effect and thought "their bodies would crumble and their minds collapse" </span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="background: none;">Mjolnir, has its own, internal MP to enact its powers, but Stormbreaker conjures lightning bolts and open portals, </span><span style="background: none; font-style: italic;">siphoning off </span><span style="background: none; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">your own </span><span style="background: none; font-style: italic;">power.</span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="background-color: initial;">If you have no MP to give Stormbreaker, you’d be literally draining your lifeforce (blood magic). Your very natural essence would be drained away, and you would die.</span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="background: none;">For a god like Thor, or anyone else who has loads of energy stored inside of them, that’s no problem. The weapon would just amplify and project whatever power you normally produce without it.</span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="background: none;"></span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="background: none;">But for non magic users, it’s very dangerous.</span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="background: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;">This gives GMs a whole set of 'effects' that create magic items, that act like curses. Draining the life force of a person, causing negative effects, where else have I seen that?</span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;">Harry Potter, carrying the Horcrux, he and his companions, magic users at least, were being constantly drained, and an effect of it was a poisonous effect on their mind. Doesn't need to be a 'curse' effect that is laid upon a player, instead its a result of the negative MP score. </span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqve3dLOyTm1FD3XWvOPUi0j5E48Sodrq6COF2qkcZHIZ-eUmypOe65zL-iC-69HaUgZ9XslphI9jUqG-hPuYUJHIOslus-N8pi_QIR3ZsNqW4paz-wArE9yVd1ihC7kLL0OPu7bPFhj2rfkEZNNVHDzXrKepdfrls18Ne6pCOxGqb-g-AClNQAdLz/s600/rockBracelet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqve3dLOyTm1FD3XWvOPUi0j5E48Sodrq6COF2qkcZHIZ-eUmypOe65zL-iC-69HaUgZ9XslphI9jUqG-hPuYUJHIOslus-N8pi_QIR3ZsNqW4paz-wArE9yVd1ihC7kLL0OPu7bPFhj2rfkEZNNVHDzXrKepdfrls18Ne6pCOxGqb-g-AClNQAdLz/s320/rockBracelet.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The story might have a magic item, something like a bracelet, that makes the player 'feel more powerful' maybe bestowing a +1 STR value, BUT each time the STR component might be needed, the GM imposes a -1MP modifier, the object is draining the players magic to 'cause' it to work. if the player is not a magic user, the effect is recorded by the GM but the affected hero would feel the results.<p></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #282829; direction: ltr; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;">any Strength task that is at least half of the STR value of the character, would trigger, minus a MP from them, and slowly, be draining their life as per blood magic rules.</p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><br /></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;">The player would only get informed of the modifier once they reached the -1 effect to their character sheet. Taking the bracelet off won't affect the drain, since the drain is on the character, The player might think they are cursed, go to a shaman or healer, and have the curse lifted. no effect. the player, unaware or unsure, but put the bracelet back on. </p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><br /></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;">Only if they put the bracelet on a magic user, who then uses their strength to perform an action will notice the subtle change, the MP cost, and realise, the 'cursed' character is actually just magic drained.</p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><br /></p><p class="q-text qu-display--block qu-wordBreak--break-word qu-textAlign--start" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;">The Beauty of this, the players have discovered a negative, they search out the negative, and if they experiment with the bracelet, they'll stumble on the clue and realise what's happened. The MP can be restored with rest & channeling from the mage, the players all learn something about the rules of magic, the players figure it out for themselves, instead of the GM force-feeding them the knowledge, and it can last several sessions, the 'fighter' being "ill" for several sessions, not knowing how / why, but in effect being a whole level worth of stats lower than usual, forcing the group to rethink their game plan for several sessions. </p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-66928926771271723262022-06-27T21:29:00.003-07:002022-06-27T21:29:37.481-07:00Game Idea: Dice Bag Upgrade Decisions game<p>Concepts:<br />Dice bag builder</p><p>Decision Game</p><p>---</p><p>You start with some dice, that give you basic abilities, somewhat like a deck builder.</p><p>You can buy more dice to add to the bag, you can sell dice to remove them from the bag. you can increase the number of dice you roll from the bag, you can pre-roll a dice and have it 'always' come up, or just repeat.</p><p>You start with a bag of 7 dice (arbitrary) and you 'push out' 5. instead of drawing them, because you could in theory feel the dice and knowingly draw what you want.</p><p>You roll the dice you drew (or maybe you roll them as they come from the bag)</p><p>The dice tell you what your action choices are. maybe you get boots, and can move, maybe swords and can attack, maybe magic to cast a spell, maybe specific magic icons = specific spells. </p><p>Maybe its a roleplay game, you use the rolls of the dice as your action, and when you go to town, you are able to buy/sell dice then?</p><p>Maybe its a town builder, where your resources are put into place to enact choices, if you add a 'warrior' dice to the bag, you can use a warrior IF there is a monster, but if there is not, you can't. </p><p>Just some thoughts.</p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-84744726247827956312022-06-14T17:05:00.001-07:002022-06-14T17:05:10.293-07:00FOMO, Buying Board games and Decisions<p> I wandered past a board game shop the other day and they had a game I've wanted on sale on the front window.</p><p>Classic Dungeon Crawler, nice range of minis, some new features that make it a little unique.</p><p>I was tempted to buy it. I wanted to have it. It was on special, the only questions I ask myself are, do I want it? And, is it just going to become junk I have to get rid of at some point?</p><p>On the first point, I found myself answering with a full-throated ‘yes’. I saw it, and I saw myself playing it every weekend for weeks, painting the miniatures, playing with friends and family.</p><p>I loved that vision.</p><p>But what I’ve learnt, as someone who has bought many Dungeon Crawlers and Narrative based big box games, only to have them sit, on the shelf, unplayed for years, is that you can’t trust that vision.</p><p>Because that vision is only a brief moment in time, and doesn’t capture the full experience of owning a board game.</p><p><br /></p><p>I mean, it’s been a long time since I could get 6 friends together, regularly, every weekend. So that vision of me playing is primarily built on many years of playing with friends, after school, on weekends and school holidays.</p><p>The vision of arranging friends, ringing the group, ensuring snacks were covered, arrival times sorted, was definitely not inspiring.</p><p>I’ve got better things to do with my weekend.</p><p>And there’s also the reality that I’ve got a family, 2 jobs, and a house that needs constant cleaning and some repairs. There’s a very VERY good chance that while intentions are good, It'd be blocked by life events and peter out.</p><p>That’s not particularly inspiring either.</p><p>And so when I caught myself and took a look at the full reality of owning a board game, I realised I wasn’t really into it.</p><p>As much as I loved the ideal vision – as appealing as that was – I just wasn’t up for the reality of making it happen.</p><p>This is a trick a lot of us fall into.</p><p>Like, we want to become ballerinas because we love the idea of looking breathlessly beautiful on stage while Tchaikovsky gently plays, but very few of us are up for years of toe-torture and training.</p><p>Or we want to tree-change and move to some rural acreage because we love the idea of sitting on the back verandah watching the sun setting through the gums.</p><p>But then we get there and realise that that vision involves endless whipper-snippering and helping cows give birth.</p><p>We get drawn to moments. We get seduced by moments. But moments only exist in long journeys that lead us to them.</p><p>And while we might love the idea of a particular moment, when we’re setting our life’s goals (or deciding what toy to buy next) we have to look at the journey.</p><p>And the big implication here is for goal setting. When you’re setting your life goals, don’t fixate on moments. Lock on to journeys and ways of being.</p><p>These should be the stars that guide you.</p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-77555656839188179832022-03-08T21:26:00.000-08:002022-03-08T21:26:08.687-08:00[Game Idea] The Village<p> Its Medieval-Fantasy, The World is in ruins once again after the great evil has attacked the world, and the heroes have defeated him, and his minions scramble for the pockets of power, or Escape from the wrath of the heroes. You and you 2 friends, tire of fleeing, you find a small lush valley and decide to settle, come what may.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Build your Village, Deckbuilder, Tableau</h2><p>Expectation, 1- X players, engine builder, Deck Builder, </p><p>You start by drawing 10 cards, discarding 2 and playing 3 basic cards. Basic cards are things like 'house' 'hunter' 'fisherman' they don't require any other cards on the table. You have a hand of 5 cards.</p><p>All cards have a 'cost' even basic cards, Basic cards usually have only 1 cost, the higher the cost, the less basic the cards</p><p>The Cards will have their own words of what they do. 90% of them will say "provides [symbol]"</p><p>You play the game by tapping a card, which provides a resource, then you use that resource to play a card from your hand.</p><p>Cards do not untap normally, instead you need to use your house card</p><p> Basic [Wood], hut - Tap the House to untap 2 other cards (buildings?)<br /> Int [Wood, Nails, hut] - house - Tap the House to untap 3 other cards (buildings)<br />Basic [ Wood, Spear ] - Hunter - Tap the Hunter to untap 1 house, or draw basic cards. <br /><br />SO, you can see, houses untap buildings to show people have gone to sleep, Food untaps houses, to show people have eaten.</p><p>Now we can get into the interesting cards</p><p>Each round, everyone draws up to 5 cards (or refreshes and draws a full hand?)</p><p>Everyone plays a round of building, taping cards to gain resources to pay for new cards, building an engine of cards and card combos.</p><p>At the end of the round, everyone passes 1 card to the player on their left (or discards 1 card if solo)<br /></p><p>Then must play a 'nighttime card', if they don't have a nighttime card to play, they pass that player a card. If Solo, play nighttime on self or discard 2 cards.</p><p>Nighttime cards are monsters or enemies from the surrounding lands, they come and destroy buildings, if there are no guards to block them. Players will need 1-2 guards early in the game, but later, when basic deck is exhausted, more dangerous monsters will come.</p><p><br /></p><p>Basic Cards: <br />Woodsman - wood<br />Mine - ore/stone<br />Wheat Farm - wheat<br />Town Square (early guards) - defend / draw new cards from basic/intermediate<br />Outpost - draw intermediate cards<br />Tower - defend +1 cards to draw phase<br />Animal Farm - animal hides<br /><br /></p><p>Intermediate Cards<br />Tanner, - <br />Blacksmith - Draw int/Adv cards / turn ore into metal<br />Logging Camp<br />Carpenter - draw int/adv cards / turn wood into planks<br /><br /><br />Equipment cards, usually discarded or used for forced pass cards, eventually allows people to draw more cards in the draw phase. </p><p>The End goal? Possibly to build a complete wall around the village, or, to survive until the end of the deck, or maybe points are awarded for certain buildings, and a score of 50 ends the game. (each building having score, if you build lots of smaller buildings, or just a few of the larger ones. </p><p><br /></p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-8748595151626601122022-02-14T19:48:00.005-08:002022-02-14T19:48:45.335-08:00Ranking Games<p> There's a lot of controversy on Board Game Geek, ignoring the bulk of it, I want to focus on one that comes up time and again. The game ranking system.</p><h1 style="text-align: left;">Ranking Games to avoid hyper numbers</h1><div>The Main issue, in board game rankings, complained about the most, is the assignment of a value system. The 'arbitrary 1-10 vote' you assign to a game. Anyone can vote for any game, and as a result, there is a very easily abusable way social media can push a game into the top 100, when it hasn't even been played, or people voting down a game to offset this.<br /><br /></div><div>A system that could replace this, has to allow for people to vote, has to include some bias for new accounts vs long term accounts, but also, needs to allow for the varied ways people vote. </div><div><br /></div><div>If a game has just arrived at your house, and you play it, and love it, surely you're going to vote it into your top 10, but as time goes by, and you get newer games, should you need to go back and vote that game down, so you can allow for your next great loved game to take that top position?</div><div><br /></div><div>Games that last the test of time, need to be able to rise above. Games which are a fad, games which are fun today yet boring tomorrow, who is going to go back and edit all their previous posts & scores and change to reflect this?</div><div><br /></div><div>Sites haven't yet incentivized people to do this, and they could, but they don't feel the need for it, and it'd be a lot of work for very little gain.</div><div><br /></div><div>But, having thought this over for many years now, this one clicks for me:</div><div><br /></div><div><ol aria-label="Messages in board-games-only" class="scrollerInner-2PPAp2" data-list-id="chat-messages" role="list" style="background-color: #36393f; border: 0px; font-family: Whitney, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; forced-color-adjust: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" tabindex="0"><li aria-setsize="-1" class="messageListItem-ZZ7v6g" id="chat-messages-942958591177015296" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; forced-color-adjust: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div aria-describedby="" aria-labelledby="message-username-942958591177015296 uid_1 message-content-942958591177015296 uid_2 message-timestamp-942958591177015296" aria-roledescription="Message" aria-setsize="-1" class="message-2CShn3 cozyMessage-1DWF9U groupStart-3Mlgv1 wrapper-30-Nkg cozy-VmLDNB zalgo-26OfGz" data-list-item-id="chat-messages___chat-messages-942958591177015296" role="article" style="-webkit-box-flex: 0; border: 0px; flex: 0 0 auto; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; forced-color-adjust: none; margin: 1.0625rem 0px 0px; min-height: 2.75rem; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-bottom: 0.125rem; padding-left: 72px; padding-right: 48px !important; padding-top: 0.125rem; position: relative; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline;" tabindex="-1"><div class="contents-2MsGLg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; forced-color-adjust: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="markup-eYLPri messageContent-2t3eCI" id="message-content-942958591177015296" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1rem; font-style: inherit; forced-color-adjust: none; line-height: 1.375rem; margin: 0px 0px 0px -72px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 0px 0px 72px; position: relative; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: break-spaces;"><span style="color: white;">BGG (or alternative) Idea:
When you 'vote' for a game, you vote it against another game you voted for.
When you vote you are presented with one or two other games from your list, and asked. of the games shown:
* If you are showing this to new players, which would you choose.
* If you are playing this with friends, which would you choose
* Its your birthday, you choose what ever game YOU love.</span></div></div></div></li></ol> </div><div><div>The game is not stored as a number, instead its stored as a list. your ranking, of your games, from least to most, in three very relevant situations.</div><div>Computers, which can crunch numbers quickly can assign a weighting to your list from 0 to 1, and use this weighting to 'list' all games in the system.</div><div><br /></div><div>This will create a top 10, or top 100, without needing to score them as 10s. The top 10, will reflect the games that of all games voted for, so far, these games have the most people, saying it is their best game.</div><div><br /></div><div>There will be no need to chastise the hundreds of people saying its a '10' because they haven't, they've just said, of all the games 'they' have played, its in first place.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyone who votes a game down to 'tank' its ratings, are doing nothing more than voting all the games above it, as being better. In their opinion.</div><div><br /></div><div>Participants, who have only ever voted for 10 or 20 games, wont be able to influence the system to say their no.1 is the best game ever (or in last, as the worst), because, its only the best game, for them, out of 20 games they've played. (see below for the math)<br /><br />Furthermore, instead of asking "is this 'the' best game", your asking, Is this game, the better choice, based on your previous rankings, of other games you've experienced. and its asked 3 times, in three ways, that often, don't match. new players, games for your friends, or games for you. </div><div><br /></div></div><div><ol aria-label="Messages in board-games-only" class="scrollerInner-2PPAp2" data-list-id="chat-messages" role="list" style="background-color: #36393f; border: 0px; font-family: Whitney, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; forced-color-adjust: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" tabindex="0"><li aria-setsize="-1" class="messageListItem-ZZ7v6g" id="chat-messages-942958591177015296" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; forced-color-adjust: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div aria-describedby="" aria-labelledby="message-username-942958591177015296 uid_1 message-content-942958591177015296 uid_2 message-timestamp-942958591177015296" aria-roledescription="Message" aria-setsize="-1" class="message-2CShn3 cozyMessage-1DWF9U groupStart-3Mlgv1 wrapper-30-Nkg cozy-VmLDNB zalgo-26OfGz" data-list-item-id="chat-messages___chat-messages-942958591177015296" role="article" style="-webkit-box-flex: 0; border: 0px; flex: 0 0 auto; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; forced-color-adjust: none; margin: 1.0625rem 0px 0px; min-height: 2.75rem; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-bottom: 0.125rem; padding-left: 72px; padding-right: 48px !important; padding-top: 0.125rem; position: relative; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline;" tabindex="-1"><div class="contents-2MsGLg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; forced-color-adjust: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="markup-eYLPri messageContent-2t3eCI" id="message-content-942958591177015296" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1rem; font-style: inherit; forced-color-adjust: none; line-height: 1.375rem; margin: 0px 0px 0px -72px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 0px 0px 72px; position: relative; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: break-spaces;"><span style="color: white;">The Math:
The Vote system shows you three games, one half way down your list, the other halfway up your list. when you click, the list shifts deeper into your list and again, matches half way up, or halfway down. until it finds its spot. Math shows us, this can only ever, worst case, happen 7 times with 2 values, or 5 times with 3 values.
You vote for your games, and they create a list, inside the workings, the computer breaks your list into mathematical % of your whole list, and finds the middle number of that %.
i.e. if you have only voted for 5 games, the % of each 'title' is 20%, and the mid point of that is 10, so the games would be weighted 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9
Note, with only 5 games, your 'lowest' is a 1 and your highest is a 9, you can't vote it to 0 or 10, you haven't got enough experience voting yet.
This 'weight' is averaged with all the other votes, but also, with all the not yet votes. If the site requires 1000 votes to record any given game against, all those 999 others have a base score of 0.5 for all games.
So, if you're the first person to vote, and you give it top marks? its the best ever game? your 9, combined with 999 5s, will give a final score of 5.004
Its going to be in the middle.<br /></span></div></div></div></li></ol> </div><div><span> And this is what we want, we don't want games with 1 vote, jumping into top place, an we don't want some kind of 'catch system' to say, Oh, we need to have 300 votes before we publicize the number, because, once social media finds out, they'll get 301 people to vote it a 10, and then the opponents of this, will vote 1s to cancel out the ratio, we don't even need the arbitrary 1,000 in there, just give all uses a base 0.5 middle and scale accordingly, sure the math will end up with values between 0.4 and 0.7, but that's also arbitrary, because, the users will only see the 0.7 as 'first' and the 0.4 as 'last'<br /></span><br />And if anyone requires to see a 'value' score, then math can easily spread a 0.4 - 0.7, into a </div><div><br /></div>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-15794683850926713172022-02-08T23:00:00.002-08:002022-02-08T23:00:35.775-08:00Combat Stances<p> When I started making these rules, I watched a LOT of combat movies, Jackie Chan, and Chuck Norris, and the like. Then I went to some combat schools and asked to take notes. One thing I always thought that looked cool was stances</p><h1 style="text-align: left;">How Combat Stances work in DD12.</h1><p>When you 'fight' in DD12 and you're still a low level character, you just do what you want and don't care about how you are perceived, but as time goes on, you need to be able to have an edge over your opponent to ensure you continue to win.</p><p>One way to do this, is to study their 'stance' or 'style' by spending a few round, letting your opponent attack you and focusing instead on defending, each 'round' your opponent attacks and you defend, you can take the difference as XP in a extremely specialized skill named "opponent style- <name of opponent> The maximum XP you can gain is governed by how much they fail by, divided by your 'study opponent' skill modifier (which divides by 2 for each +1 you have)</p><p>Since this follows the skill progression rules, a mere 15 XP will give you a score of 5, which denotes as a +1 against your opponent. this divide by 5 can also be improved by improving your 'study opponent' score. Yet it also reduced each +1 you gain, so a 'score' of 9 is +2, then 12 is a +3, 14 becomes a +4 and each score above this is a further +1. maxing out at 20 (when rolls are no longer needed/allowed) for a +10.</p><p>a +3 is more than enough for any character to be able to best the opponent, applied to attack or defense, armour bypass or damage, the character can specialize the skill further into attacks, defenses, damage resistances or damage blocks, allowing a quicker bonus against that opponent.</p><p>So. How does one defend against this? well, by evening the scores, studying your opponent in return, determining how their blows land, how they attack, and building up your own knowledge against it. Once your +3 counters their +3, you've gone back to matched battle. </p><p>Then there are obfuscated Moves. Each attack you make, can take a small negative, but is done in such a way, that your opponents ability to understand your attacks will be reduced or nullified, your opponent will not only be unable to properly study your moves, they'll be lead to a false sense of what your scores are, and improperly defend against them, when you stop obfuscating. (and, they'll not know which is which)</p><p>But the ultimate defense, is to be trained in one of the many 'stances' that schools train their students.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Stances</h2><p>Stances usually have a modifier, based on their position, how you hold yourself and present yourself, you might leave yourself open (-3 def), but have quick attacks(+2 att, -1 Init) with penetrative damage(+2 dam p), or vice versa, slow to the uptake (-3 Init, -2 att) but superior blocking skills (+3 def +3 block) </p><p>But the most devastating, is when you learn two stances.. your opponent builds up an understanding of your basic stance, they build their study-opponent up, spending four to eight rounds of combat, allowing you to do the same, then when you're ready, you swap stance. the opponent doesn't understand whats going on, their expectations of your fighting style is completely false and they make moves that leave themselves wide open.<br /><br />You apply all the first stances positive modifiers to your opponent as negative modifiers, and for each 'study opponent score' you apply your new stance positive modifiers again to your own.</p><p>Jackie is fighting Chuck, with Striking Fist Style. Its a simple -2 Initiative, +1 Att, +1 Dam style, -2 Def. Chuck is using his fists of fury style, +1 Att, +2 Dam, -1 Def, over the course of 3 rounds, chuck builds up a score of 12, and Jackie builds up a 9, Jackie can feel that chuck has the advantage, and chuck, thinking this too decides to really start laying some blows. He's right, Jackie takes some incredible hits, and while he gets in one of his own, its barely worth it, so he decides to switch styles. Now, he takes on Drunken Master Style. While he gains no obfuscation bonus, nor damage reduction bonus from the alcohol, he does get the stance modifiers -1 Att, -1 Dam, +4 Def and +2 Resist.<br /><br />Chuck attempts to attack, and finds his opponent is now longer fighting with fists, instead slapping away his hands, being coy, silly and confusing, none of his hits land, his confidence is shattered, this guy can counter every move.<br /><br />Jackie's modifiers were as follows, Chuck had a +3, so Jacking Drunken style was not the quick att+dam style, so Chucks readiness for a speedy attack were leaving him open, His Attack was reduced by 1 and damage by 1 (Striking fist reversed) then when he went to attack this quick style, he instead got a fluid drunk, flowing around him, dodging every move Jackie got chucks +3 x +4 Def = +12, and 3x +2 Resist, for +6. in effect negating chucks attack by 19 points. furthermore, Jackies own study opponent was still +2, he could focus his into attack, and or damage.<br /><br />Chuck was smart enough to see this was not going to work, and backed down, vowing to return. </p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4268686463186325920.post-75486056553605492202022-02-06T21:31:00.001-08:002022-02-06T21:31:09.089-08:00Thoughts on game progression, and roleplay rules<p> I'm a big fan of granular rules, yet over time, they get boring. So, I think, games should progressively obfuscate the simpler forms of the game, as you level up.<br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Game Progression as a mechanic.</h2><p></p><p>Imagine you've never trekked, never strapped a backpack on, hiking boots, and gone for a walk. Those first few hours are going to be painful, difficult, full of mistakes, hardships, and things that you just can't help avoid.</p><p>But then imagine how different it will be after a month, 6 months or several years of trekking. </p><p>After a month, the simplest issues will be worked out. the basics of packing a bag, how to put on your boots for better comfort, making sure you don't pack weird shaped items against your back.</p><p>After 6 months, ensuring you put on dry socks, and lace the boots against the grain so water flows away, and not into your boot, packing your bags for the most long term comfort, but also quick access to certain items, and packing in under 10 minutes, instead of an hour,</p><p>After several years, you'll still be learning small tricks, maybe less often maybe barely a change, but tiny incremental changes that give you extra crucial minutes of travel each day. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEho6vGZENekbDF3hXjgse5eZcG1TA638bRxqWLoVeRHJWTf1nrWBkimrxh9x0vzE-WBPJOClu4p-io4qUwTtXNqjPSa9k8RTpKBOXVFlFI26AxQck1TSqngSR7Ibc4KJAB2eKs8fnTkUpBGNvYzu7Rx2RJEnP3gISoiqcrxjpyhw_W1CeZT1SKHOJsE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="736" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEho6vGZENekbDF3hXjgse5eZcG1TA638bRxqWLoVeRHJWTf1nrWBkimrxh9x0vzE-WBPJOClu4p-io4qUwTtXNqjPSa9k8RTpKBOXVFlFI26AxQck1TSqngSR7Ibc4KJAB2eKs8fnTkUpBGNvYzu7Rx2RJEnP3gISoiqcrxjpyhw_W1CeZT1SKHOJsE=w651-h229" width="651" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>My System Ideas.,</p><p>Its one of the reasons I developed the 2d12 bell curved results system, it starts of being harder, 1st level characters, you roll 2d12 and attempt to get your number under the low numbers, and while pass or fail, you gain some experience in the skill, those first few experience will be vital. You'll learn a lot, and your score will rise quickly.<br /><br />Once you've gained a basic score of 20, there is no longer the need to roll for the simple stuff, this might be dealing with the minutiae or just getting the basics right. We as adults don't think about walking, talking, turning door handles or all the simple things we mastered as children, so why should your character think about any skill they've pretty much covered. The player says they do it, its a straight forward task, so they do it. If they don't KNOW its difficult, you don't tell them, (and secretly roll for that difficulty)<br /><br />You do need to roll, every single time, someone says something, and ignore 99% of those rolls, so the times when its actually a roll, your players don't know the difference. The key is, does the player THINK they might fail? <br /><br />The rulebook says, if the player has a score of 20 (or more), the GM rolls, and if there are no modifiers, ignores this dice roll, unless a 12 is rolled, and the GM has a story reason to do something.<br /><br />Only if there are modifiers, does this become important. </p><p>If the player suspects its going to be difficult, let them roll, let them apply other skills for bonuses, it shows they are thinking, being creative in solving the problem. rolls = experience. <br /><br />But if the player thinks this is going to be a walk in the park, and it might be, then you roll, openly to put players on edge.<br /><br />The key here is, players will get used to your rolls, and will ignore all the 'probably passed' and like real life, get into a false sense of security, Until its a fail, and then, that world of pain will teach them a lesson.</p><p>Rolling dice is barely a second, a glance, not a 12, ok, lets proceed.. but the moment on the persons face when they are so assured they'll swing across the chasm with that worn old vine as a rope, and that vine snaps, with a cloud of dust.. and they drop.. <br /><br />and their friends cast a spell, or a prayer or a quick thinking rope & hook, and they're safe, or.. a speedy healing ward as they slam into the ground almost dying.<br /><br />NOTE: casting healing ward, is 1 HP to a location and 1 HP in general, it can be cast on a person as they hit the ground, and prevent death. Provided no further insta damage occurs (like falling in acid/lava/poison/fire etc) <br /><br />But, slowly, as players progress, they'll notice, they're not doing rolls for things, they're not seeing any negatives happen for simple stuff, and consciously or subconsciously they'll feel like they're getting better. This is what you want to achieve as gamemaster, getting players to feel confidence about their character. Feel like they 'Earned' it.</p>BaneStar007http://www.blogger.com/profile/17892053401607691383noreply@blogger.com0