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Design Question of the Week…

November 2, 2009 in Design, Rules, Seeking Feedback by Fitz | 8 comments

Welcome back!

Hi all…

So after last week’s playtest, I decided to go back to the drawing board a bit to see how I could revamp the Moebius Adventures system mechanics to make them a) simpler and b) more consistent. I think I’ve hit upon a solution, but it seems to run counter-intuitive to how most other mechanics go (besides GURPS anyway).

BlueprintsTo make a long story short, part of the issues stemmed from having too many details and part came from a lack of clear explanation on my part. So I’ve stripped the system down to its core three statistics – Mind, Body, and Soul. Mind would wrap anything remotely mentally-challenging – so tasks like reading, arithmetic, arcane magic, and so on. Body is pretty self explanatory – but would enc0mpass strength, endurance, dexterity, and so on. And Soul represents wisdom, faith, life force, etc.

I need some help to see if I’m totally nuts or not. I spoke with a good friend of mine whose concern is that this system focuses on having a low number whereas most focus on having a higher one. I think this is an artificial difference, but that’s just me…

So rather than splitting those three into 12 different characteristics (plus the 4 for Random characteristics like Luck, Beauty, Wealth, and Family for a grand total of 16) I’ve boiled everything back to basics. At most, this means a skill would have one main characteristic. For example – Literacy would be Mind-based. Swordsmanship would be Body-based. Prayer would be Soul-based, and so on… (There are some skills like Healing, which the player would have to choose either Mind – for first-aid type healing using your brain – or Soul – for laying on hands kind of healing. Same for Writing, and several others.)

So a character would be very simply the core stats of Mind, Body, and Soul, some derivative/secondary stats like hit points, reality check, etc., and a list of skills – some from childhood, the rest from backgrounds.

(The design question is all the way at the end of this bloody long post, so my apologies. But I work through the basics, define some mechanics, provide an example, and THEN ask for input at the end. Please bear with me.)

So a fighter character that used 20 points to split among Mind, Body, and Soul might look something like this:

——————————————————————————————

Mind: 5
Body: 10
Soul: 5

HP 40
Skills:
Swords (Body): 3 ranks
Shield (Body): 2 ranks
Combat Sense (Mind): 2 ranks
Running (Body): 2 ranks
Horsemanship (Soul): 1 ranks

——————————————————————————————

A thief character might look like this:

——————————————————————————————

Mind: 6
Body: 8
Soul: 6

HP 32
Skills:
Swords (Body): 4 ranks
Acrobatics (Body): 3 ranks
Archery (Body): 2 ranks
Combat Sense (Mind): 3 ranks

——————————————————————————————

Pretty straightforward.

So let’s take the new mechanic for a spin…

To determine the base target for a skill, take the characteristic and add the # of ranks. You want to roll below that on 1d20 or 2d10. (1d20 is more “random” but 2d10 has a better bell curve for results.)

Everything revolves around the Quality of a roll.
If you roll under the target, you determine the Quality of Success (QoS) by taking the target # minus the the die roll.
If you roll over the target, you determine the Quality of Failure (QoF) by taking the die roll minus  the target #.
The GM can always modify the target # by other conditions. For example, snow would make tracking easier. Crossing a stream would make it more difficult.
If uncontested, a QoS of 1 or higher means success.

If contested, you compare the two Quality rolls and the highest QoS wins. For example…

  • For a Body (Strength) check, if character A has a QoS of 3 and character B has a QoF of 3, character A wins. But if character A has a QoS of 3 and character B has a QoS of 5, character B wins.
  • For a skill check, you may be comparing two different skills, but the principle still applies. If character A has Tracking (Mind) and a QoS of 4 and character B has Concealment (Mind) and a QoS of 6, character A is unable to find the tracks left behind by character B.
QoF comes more into play where Combat is concerned.

To resolve a combat action, take the offensive skill Quality and compare it to the defensive skill Quality. The difference determines the amount of damage done (up to the maximum of the weapon + any bonus for Body of 7 or better or penalty for Body of 3 or less).

Here’s a sample combat between the Fighter and Thief characters. The Fighter has a long sword, which does 8 points of damage as its potential maximum, but also gains +4 to damage for a Body of 10. The Thief has a short sword, which does 7 points of damage as its potential maximum, but he has a Body of 8, which gives him a +2 to damage as well.

———————————————————————————————-

Initiative:

  • Fighter – d20 (14) – target 7 – QoF = 7
  • Thief – d20 (17) – target 9 – QoF = 8
  • Fighter goes first w/lower QoF
Round 1
  • Fighter attacks with sword. Rolls 2 – target 13 – QoS = 11
  • Thief dodges with a roll. Rolls 4 – target 11 – QoS = 7
  • Fighter hits Thief for 4 points (QoS 11 – QoS 7 = difference of 4). Thief down to 28 HP.
  • Thief attacks with sword. Rolls 4 – target 12 – QoS = 8
  • Fighter parries with Shield. Rolls 20 – target 12 – QoF = 8 (rolled 1 or 2 is critical success/rolled 19 or 20 are critical failure – so the Fighter may have dropped his shield during this failed attempt)
  • Thief gets solid hit in. Difference between attack & defense is 16. Short sword does 9 max. Thief does 9 damage to Fighter. Fighter down to 31 HP.
Round 2
  • Fighter attacks with sword. Rolls 15 – target 13 – QoF = 2
  • Thief dodges with a cartwheel. Rolls 19 – target 11 – QoF = 8 (Critical Failure?)
  • Fighter misses.
  • Thief attacks with sword. Rolls 5 – target 12 – QoS = 7
  • Fighter parries with Shield. Rolls 5 – target 12 – QoS = 7
  • Fighter parries (tie goes to parrier).
Round 3
  • Fighter attacks with sword. Rolls 15 – target 13 – QoF = 2
  • Thief dodges. Rolls 10 – target 11 – QoS = 1
  • Fighter misses.
  • Thief attacks. Rolls 16 – target 12 – QoF = 4
  • Fighter parries with Shield. Rolls 10 – target 12 – QoS = 2
  • Fighter parries.
Round 4
  • Fighter attacks with sword. Rolls 16 – target 13 – QoF = 3
  • Thief dodges. Rolls 10 – target 11 – QoS = 1
  • Fighter misses.
  • Thief attacks. Rolls 14 – target 12 – QoF = 2
  • Fighter parries. Rolls 11 – target 12 – QoS = 1
  • Fighter parries.
Round 5
  • Fighter attacks with sword. Rolls 8 – target 13 – QoS = 5
  • Thief dodges. Rolls 20 – target 11 – QoF = 9 (Critical Failure?)
  • Fighter gets solid hit in. Difference is 14. Longsword does 11 max. Fighter does 11 damage to Thief. Thief down to 17 HP.
  • Thief attacks. Rolls 18 – target 12 – QoF = 6
  • Fighter parries with shield. Rolls 10 – target 11 – QoS = 1
  • Fighter parries.
Round 6
  • Fighter attacks with sword. Rolls 5 – target 13 – QoS = 8
  • Thief dodges. Rolls 13 – target 11 – QoF = 2.
  • Fighter gets another solid hit in. Difference is 10. Fighter does 11 damage to Thief. Thief down to 6 HP.
  • Thief attacks. Rolls 11 – target 12 – QoS = 1
  • Fighter parries. Rolls 13 – target 11 – QoF = 2
  • Thief hits. Difference is 3. Thief does 3 damage to Fighter. Fighter down to 28.
Round 7
  • Fighter attacks with sword. Rolls 8 – target 13 – QoS = 5
  • Thief dodges. Rolls 12 – target 11 – QoF = 1
  • Fighter hits. Difference is 6. Fighter does 6 damage. Thief falls.

———————————————————————————————-

So… Deep breaths. After seeing a couple of sample characters, describing the basic mechanic, and providing a combat example…

Does this make sense? Is it too hard? Is the Quality of Success vs. Quality of Failure thing too difficult a concept?

The potential problems that I’ve come up with are… With a characteristic and skill each maxed at rank 10, you have a target # of 20 before modifiers. If you roll a 20 on a d20 or two 10s on 2d10, it’s a critical failure. Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so. Even perfect people fail sometimes IMHO.

I’m curious to hear what people think about this.  If I’m barking up the wrong tree, I want to know early so I can change trees. :)

Thanks in advance.

–Fitz

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Moral and Ethical Ambiguity, Part 4 of 4 – Conclusions

October 22, 2009 in Articles, GMing, Inspiration, Rules by Fitz | No comments

So from the first three parts of this series (part 1, part 2, part 3), you hopefully have seen some of the thought that went into our slightly different take on alignment for Moebius Adventures. Again, this is totally portable and could be used with any system I think.

RPGBlogCarnivalLogocopyBut does it work? The jury’s still out. Ultimately, this may not be a usable alignment system. But it provides some interesting flexibility that the traditional good/evil scheme may not. If nothing else, perhaps it offers some methods for fleshing out characters in addition to a traditional good/evil alignment.

I think that new players should focus on the basic alignment grid of Good, Neutral, and Evil. But more advanced players may want a bit more play in how they approach decisions for their characters in a given world.

When conflicts arise between different levels of morality, it definitely gets interesting.

Let’s say that someone is trapped in a burning building and your character has enough time to safely extract the individual from harm. A character with a light moral alignment (+6 to +10) would save the individual, since Man is more important than Nature (in order of moral codes). A character with a gray moral alignment (-5 to +5) may or may not aid the trapped person. Is the person a friend? Would there be a possibility of a reward? These things may tip the scale one way or another. A character with a dark moral alignment (-6 to -10) might have started the fire or help the fire burn other nearby buildings. Maybe they consider cities dirty, unnatural structures and seek to, like Nature, clear the area for new growth.

Considering these qualities of Morality and Virtue provide some interesting insights into how our characters deal with the world around them and the people in it.

Hopefully I haven’t put anyone to sleep with this series. I think it’s philosophically interesting to approach roleplaying from more abstract ways than the old “good vs. evil” scheme.

Thanks for your time!
–Fitz

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Moral and Ethical Ambiguity, Part 3 of 4 – Virtue

October 16, 2009 in Articles, GMing, Inspiration, Rules by Fitz | 1 comment

Ok, so we’ve chatted a bit about Morality and moral codes (back in part 2). Now let’s change our focus to Virtue and bring some pain into the equation…

What is Virtue? Virtue represents the mortal drive to ease or cause pain and suffering in themselves and others. Someone’s virtue isn’t determined by how they perceive the pain they inflict or receive, but in how they deal with that pain.

RPGBlogCarnivalLogocopyRules-wise, we use that same -10 to +10 scale. For Virtue Alignments, “Light” is 10 to 6, “Gray” is 5 to -5, and Dark is -6 to -10.

Let’s use the example of a gym teacher ridiculing a student for not being able to do enough push-ups. The teacher may feel that ridiculing the child in front of others will make them work that much harder at improving their performance. The adult teacher may truly feel he’s helping the child by forcing them to perform. However, the teacher’s behavior shows that their virtue is firmly set in the gray, not the light or dark areas of the scale. Regardless of whether the child’s performance improves, the teacher inflicting the pain is encouraging a potential change in behavior. Both may be changed by the process.

Not all pain is easily identified, but the result is the same – someone suffers. Some pain manifests in an individuals psyche or soul and may never be seen by others. Other pain is physical and more immediately apparent to others.

Prolonged exposure to the effects of pain and suffering may lead to permanent changes in a person’s mind, body, or soul. Physical pain may cause damage creating deformities, bodily weaknesses, or even death. Mental pain may manifest itself as insanity, depression, or an altered state of consciousness. And soulful changes may change a person’s faith in the divine, their will to live, or change how quickly they can recover from repeated abuses.

A Virtue Alignment reflects how a character views pain and suffering. Do they want to inflict pain or stop it? Virtue is more than just thinking about pain – it’s what a character will do when confronting a situation involving pain in themselves or others.

Characters with light virtues will attempt to ease the pain in others and not cause pain themselves. However, they may kill someone to ease the pain suffered from a terminal illness. And when interrogating a prisoner they might try to give the person hope of life without pain in exchange for information. They would never force an individual to watch others being tortured.

Characters with gray virtues might use torture to further a higher goal or achieve something important to them. They might watch a horde of barbarians enter a city and slaughter citizens, never raising a hand to stop the massacre. They aren’t necessarily inflicting the pain themselves, but they still have the ability to stop it or at least a portion of it if they choose.

Characters with dark virtues will use pain readily. They might torture a prisoner before asking any questions simply because they feel the prisoner deserves it.

When you consider villains from the standpoint of Morality and Virtue, I find that you end up with much more realistic bad guys. Everyone has a story. So you have an evil wizard that wants to destroy a kingdom. Why? What happened to that person to make them willing to commit evil acts?

Is it that they were in conflict with Society or an individual? Perhaps severe mental or physical damage was done in the process?

–Fitz

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Moral and Ethical Ambiguity, Part 2 of 4 – Morality

October 16, 2009 in Articles, GMing, Inspiration, Rules by Fitz | 4 comments

As I said in Part 1, this series deals with Morality and Virtue as we define them for the Moebius Adventures games. But as with many things, I think it goes beyond the system of rules and provides more food for thought when looking at alignment.

yinyangSo let’s talk a bit about Morality. Every time I hear that word, I think of the Animaniacs and their “Wheel of Morality” – “Wheel of morality, turn, turn turn… Tell me the lessons that we should learn…” Yes, I am warped.

Anyway… Morality… As I said last time, Morality indicates roughly how a character views right and wrong. And morals are principles or standards relating to a system governing right and wrong behavior in the universe. Codes of morality provide frameworks that benefit an individual or group if used properly.

In terms of the rules for Moral Alignments, “Moral” is 10 to 6, “Gray” is the 5 to -5 range, and -6 to -10 is “Immoral.”

An individual’s morality may differ from that of society, and both may differ from the morality of higher beings.

There’s also a difference between the morality of a character and the player or GM as a person. As a player, you concentrate on what your character understands as right and wrong. For example, let’s take a character in the thieves’ guild. In the real world, the player would (probably) never steal from another person. However, the character has his own reasons for stealing and therefore a different morality from the player.

We found that there are some general, high-level categories of moral codes – Nature, Animals, Man, Society, Thought, and Time. The sum of these define the overall morality of the universe.

Nature’s moral code defines how the elements (fire, wind, earth, water), plant life, and geological events work in the universe. Nature’s moral code is structured to ensure its own continuity. It often does this by cycling through periods of creation and destruction – lightning starts a fire, burns dense forests, and thus provides room for new growth; floods redistribute rich new soil for growth higher along the flood plain.

RPGBlogCarnivalLogocopy“Survival of the fittest” is a basically the moral code for Animals. Only the strongest and most able animals are able to perpetuate the species. Often, this moral code is in conflict with Nature. However, animals are more able to survive the effects of Nature because they can adapt.

Mankind’s moral code represents all individuals and genders and their struggle to survive in the world of Nature and Animals. At a basic level, the Human moral code is “might makes right.” To survive, one must live within Nature and control a portion of the Animal kingdom (through the domestication of animals) to improve their quality of life.

Society’s moral code represents groups of individuals brought together to ensure protection of all those in the group. Society requires the participation of its members to succeed. Where conflicts arise between the moral codes of Man and Society, Society should win more often than not. People typically recognize that they have better lives within properly functioning societies than without.

The moral code of Thought includes those individuals capable of reasoning what’s best for Society, Man, Animals, and Nature. The responsibility of Thought is to manage all the lower moral codes to they might all peacefully coexist. Intellectuals recognize that they must minimize conflict between moral codes to obtain a better life for all.

And Time has the highest moral code of all. Like Nature, Time continues marching on.

So what happens when there are conflicts between moral codes?

Let’s go back to the fire example with Nature. Fire cleanses the forest for a new cycle of life. But this may seem cruel to Man or Society to kill life. Nature knows it’s necessary to sacrifice some of the forest so the rest can thrive. Without it, life cannot exist.

However, when a fire threatens a city and its inhabitants, a conflict arises between moral codes. Which moral code should prevail? A character with a “Gray” level of morality at 1 would probably try to stop the fire to protect themselves and their family, thinking more of themselves than Society. Characters with a higher moral alignment, around a 4, would also try to save the city, but because their goal was to save everyone within it, not just themselves.

Examples of Moral Alignment:

  • Time = +10
  • Thought = +6
  • Society = +2
  • Man = -1
  • Animals = -6
  • Nature = -10

When a course of events favors two or more moral codes, no conflict arises. When events don’t favor all participants, conflicts arise. Following the morality of the universe, the right thing to do is to favor the higher moral code.

When two different moral codes conflict, you must weigh them. It is morally just to place Time over Thought, Thought over Society, Society over Man, Man over Animals, and Animals over Nature. A character with a moral alignment of -3 might side more with Animals and Nature than Society and Man. This might make him believe it’s morally right to kill poachers in the forest because they are upsetting the moral code when they kill healthy animals instead of the old or sick ones.

Obviously there’s more to discuss for Morality, but we’ll leave it there for now.

Next time we’ll discuss Virtue.

–Fitz

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Moral and Ethical Ambiguity, Part 1 of 4 – Intro

October 16, 2009 in Articles, GMing, Inspiration, Rules by Fitz | 4 comments

For this month’s Blog Carnival, I thought I’d throw some different ideas out there about an alternative to the simple alignment grid…

Though I understand the attraction of a simple alignment scheme for some games, I’ve always been fascinated by the gray area. Rarely will you find anyone who has a perfect moral compass. As Citizen G’Kar said once in an episode of Babylon 5 – “The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements. Energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.”

yinyangIt’s that “enlightened self-interest” that motivates even the most well-intentioned individual.

What is alignment? A character’s alignment generally describes how the character perceives moral choices in their world. Are they really good? Really evil? Or somewhere in-between?

Though extremes may be interesting experiments in roleplaying, I find that most player characters tend to fall in the Chaotic or Neutral camps, using their judgment to decide whether to do good or evil or obey the laws. It’s that gray area between good and evil that most of us reside in – using the context of the decision to help us make those crucial decisions.

It’s in the spirit of the “gray” that for the Moebius Adventures system we created an alternative to the traditional good, neutral, and evil alignments – Morality and Virtue – to measure character behavior a bit differently.

Morality indicates how a character views right and wrong. Virtue reflects a character’s attitude to pain – do they ease pain or cause it? Together the two scales help define how a character can gauge decisions.

RPGBlogCarnivalLogocopyWhat are morals? Morals are principles or standards relating to a system governing right and wrong behavior in the universe. Codes of morality provide frameworks that benefit an individual or group if used properly.

What is Virtue? Virtue represents the mortal drive to ease or cause pain and suffering in themselves and others. Someone’s virtue isn’t determined by how they perceive the pain they inflict or receive, but in how they deal with that pain.

So by now you’re wondering how the heck any of this could be playable… And I agree, it gets a bit philosophically deep. But as with alignments, we’re talking about rough guidelines for PC behavior. Evil may be just another way of saying that an individual is immoral and likes causing pain.

But what happens when a character (PC or NPC) strongly believes in their morality, is ok with a certain amount of pain caused to others, and yet is opposed to the social or natural order of the world? Does that make them evil? Or does it make them good? It all depends on the context of a particular decision, doesn’t it? The player or GM has to weigh the decision of the character based on the circumstances around them – just like in life.

It makes things a bit more interesting anyway.

The next couple of posts will go into more detail about how we use Morality and Virtue in-game and then how to work through some different situations.

Until next time,

–Fitz

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A Kind of Magic…

September 10, 2009 in Design, Magic, Rules by Fitz | 1 comment

Hi there…

No matter what form the magic takes – arcane, divine, or raw natural magic – it is a combination of concentration, ritual, and belief. Ritual components can be anything from gestures and words to actual physical or even spiritual elements. Physical components may even be tied to beliefs or holy symbols as opposed to simple material components like ash, gems, and so on.

Wizard with Staff (from Clipart.com)But all magic in Moebius Adventures boils down to three key bits – Intent, Components, and Concentration. As such, magic is VERY flexible.

Spell creation and research consists of having a conversation with your GM (or if you’re the GM, you can chat with your players or mutter quietly to yourself) about a few things:

  1. Does the spell come from an existing magical philosophy?
  2. What results are expected or what’s the intent of the spell?
  3. What are the specific components for the spell? Some of these may be dictated by the school of wizardry or magical philosophy chosen.
  4. And what level will the spell be? Not all realms of wizardry require levels, so this may be moot.

Let’s contemplate an example…

Example 1: “Flickum Bickus”

So let’s say that a wizard wants to create a simple spell to light a small fire when flint and tinder aren’t available. Think of Harry Dresden from The Dresden Files using his spell “Flickum Bickus” to light a candle.

This would fall pretty squarely into Lesser Wizardry. Lesser Wizardry deals with small magics and this would qualify as a small utility spell.

Just to verify that, we take a look at the description of Lesser Wizardry. Lesser Wizardry philosophy is as follows:

“The energy exists around us, but never use more than you need. Minimalist magic created to test the waters of magic without annoying any possible powers that be. That was the beginning – and now it’s the major tenet of Lesser Wizardry. Nobody ever dies from or gets hurt by a Lesser Wizardry spell. These are the mundane useful mini-spells created by wizards through the ages to help them get through their day – mark a page, clean a stain, and so on.”

The results are also pretty self explanatory. The wizard wants to light a small combustible material as if it had been lit in a usual physical manner. Simple enough.

And for the spell components, as for all Lesser Wizardry spells, all that’s needed are “mystic words.” In this case, the name of the spell “Flickum Bickus” can actually become the spell’s component as a verbal component.

As far as the spell “level”, this is a pretty simple spell with a very small focus. The GM would most likely slot this as a first level Lesser Wizardry spell.

And voila, the player has created a new handy spell for use in and out of the lab.

Example 2: “Make Me Rich!”

Now let’s do a more complicated spell. For instance, let’s say that a wizard is getting greedy and wants to make himself rich. This is pretty vague, so we clarify a bit to say that he wants to attract wealth like flies to honey. This is still pretty vague and could fall into a number of categories…

If the wizard is very literal minded, they might use Runic Magic to create a runic phrase “Attract Wealth.” Unfortunately “wealth” is a very subjective term. If there were a “money” rune, the wizard would be able to create a runic symbol that would work as a money magnet, attracting coins into the spell’s area of influence.

A better fit might be Superstitious Magic. At a high level, Superstitious Magic preys on people’s beliefs to create magical effects. This might be likened to voodoo or certain forms of witchcraft. If the wizard is superstitious, he or she might believe that the powers that be would grant them wealth if the spell was cast.

This spell would only affect the target. And Superstitious Magic spells require a physical component as a focus that is sometimes consumed by the spell and a mystic ritual, typically involving some verbal element.

In this case, the wizard might bind his own hair around a gold coin, grip it in his hand, stare into a candle and call upon his ancestors to grant himself wealth. “Great ancestors I invoke thee to grant me this, grant my wish and fill my purse, enough to do my deeds, grant my wish and I will remember thee…”

As a GM, I would take this as a vague wish to powers beyond the wizard’s real control, unlike using a bit of will to light a flame. These powers may hear the wizard’s plea, yet choose to fulfill their supposed “obligation” in unusual ways. Perhaps the wizard will suddenly have a group of chickens appear in his yard overnight. The wizard could sell the chickens or keep them and sell the eggs, thus filling his purse. Or perhaps it might be a literal translation and some passer-by might press a coin into his hands while walking city streets. Or perhaps there would be consequences to fulfilling the request – finding a full purse left behind by someone seems fortuitous until you are pointed at as the thief who stole the purse in the first place and abandoned it where someone else might take the fall…

Conclusions

As you can see, there’s a wide range of possibilities here. One of the things I hope to do with the Moebius Adventures magic rules is to allow enough flexibility that players and GMs can roll their own magic systems. You like the “colors” magic in Brandon Sanderson‘s Warbreaker novel? Go with that. You want to do some Robert Jordan Wheel of Time weaving? Go for it. The sky’s the limit.

Ultimately the GM will have the power to veto or control some of the spell effects, as I’ve described a bit in the second example. But the freedom is there for creative gamers to come up with VERY interesting systems of magic.

There are twelve… Yes, twelve… schools of magic I want to cover in a variety of supplements. And then there’s Divine magic and its offshoots for various faiths and belief systems.

I can hardly wait to see what else folks come up with.

What do YOU think? Let me know what types of wizardry you’d like to see and I’ll try and c0me up with some ways that you might define them for your own Moebius Adventures game.

–Fitz

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Working through a Magic Example…

August 20, 2009 in Rules by Fitz | No comments

Merlin, from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)Image via WikipediaHey all…

Ok, so I’ve been working on some different things on paper, including the difficulties of a Reality Check vs. a Skilled Opponent (i.e. someone skilled in Magic Defense or a School of Wizardry).

Let’s take an example from historical fiction… Myrddin (Merlin) the Wizard.

He has a couple of magic skills and some spells.

  • Skill: Transformation Magic (Per/Con)Spells: Transform to Fish, Transform to Hawk, Transform to Ant, Transform to Owl, Transform to Goose, Transform to Badger
  • Skill: Prescient Magic (Per/Wis)Spell(s): Clairaudience, Claircognizance, Clairsentience

Let’s walk through some different situations…

——————————————————

Situation 1: Myrddin casts “Transform to Fish” on self

Basic setup is d12 + skill level – challenge rating = qualified roll

The challenge rating would vary on size of fish. The closer to human size, the easier the transformation. So going from human to Dolphin (for example, and yes I know a dolphin isn’t a fish) would be simpler than from human to Blue Whale or to a Goldfish. The higher the difficulty, the higher the Challenge Rating.

In this case, let’s say he’s transforming into a Bass. A good sized Bass is 5 pounds, and if Myrddin weighs roughly 125, that’s 1/25 his size, which wouldn’t be trivial. As a GM, I’d employ a scale something like 0 – 10… 0 meaning it’s a piece of cake and 10 meaning it’s pretty much impossible, and a 5 meaning moderately difficult.

As a GM, I’d rate this based on the experience of the wizard (we’re talking Merlin here) and the difficulty of shifting into a body 1/25 his size and give it a moderately difficult rating of 6.

If Myrddin’s “Transformation Magic” skill is at level 8, and the player rolls a 6 on a d12, you’re looking at [d12]6 + [skill]8 – [challenge]6 = 8.

No contest. It goes off without a hitch. Anything over a 1 would be a success.

Situation 2: Myrddin casts “Transform to Ant” on an Unwilling Target

Basic setup is d12 + skill level vs. opposed skill roll.

S2, Variation 1: Unskilled Opponent Is Partially Lucky

If Myrddin’s “Transformation Magic” skill is at level 8, and the player rolls a 6 on a d12, you’re looking at [d12]6 + [skill]8 = 14.

Let’s say the opponent’s RC is a 5. The player rolls a 3 on a d20, making his RC roll. He then decides to Dodge, and has Gymnastics at level 4. He rolls an 8 on a d12, so he’s looking at [d12]8 + [skill]4 = 12.

Myrddin has a 14, his opponent has a 12. Myrddin wins and his opponent turns into an ant for the duration of the spell.

S2, Variation 2: Unskilled Opponent Is Very Unlucky

If Myrddin’s “Transformation Magic” skill is at level 8, and the player rolls a 6 on a d12, you’re looking at [d12]6 + [skill]8 = 14.

Let’s say the opponent’s RC is a 5. The player rolls a 10 on a d20, not making his RC roll.

With Myrddin’s successful roll (i.e. not a 1), Myrddin wins and his opponent turns into an ant for the duration of the spell.

S2, Variation 3: Unskilled Opponent is Very Lucky

If Myrddin’s “Transformation Magic” skill is at level 8, and the player rolls a 6 on a d12, you’re looking at [d12]6 + [skill]8 = 14.

Let’s say the opponent’s RC is a 5. The player rolls a 3 on a d20, making his RC roll. He then decides to Dodge, and has Gymnastics at level 4. He rolls a 12 on a d12, so he’s looking at [d12]12 + [skill]4 = 16.

The opponent’s roll is a 16 and Myrddin’s roll is 14. The opponent deftly dodges far enough out of the way of the spell to make it miss him.

S2, Variation 4: Opponent skilled in Magic Defense

If Myrddin’s “Transformation Magic” skill is at level 8, and the player rolls a 6 on a d12, you’re looking at [d12]6 + [skill]8 = 14.

Let’s say the opponent’s Magic Defense skill is at level 5. He rolls a 10 on a d12, so he’s looking at [d12]10 + [skill]4 = 14.

The opponent’s roll is a 14 and Myrddin’s roll is 14. Tie goes to the target (always), so he successfully avoids being turned into an insect.

Notes

This implies a few things here… 1) Concentration of the wizard can be broken if the target moves in some cases. I think this is a good assumption. 2) The unskilled opponent still has a chance of beating a spell. 3) The skilled opponent has a better chance of defeating a spell. 4) Simply by casting a spell on an opponent, does the Challenge Rating come into play, or is the aspect of the opposed roll enough without introducing it?

——————————————————

Input? Comments? Thoughts? Criticism?

–Fitz

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The Beginnings of a Magic Framework…

August 12, 2009 in Magic, Rules, Seeking Feedback by Fitz | 1 comment

This design for an amulet comes from the Black...Image via WikipediaHi all…

Ok, first of all I have to say we’re having a VERY cool discussion on the last post.

I’ve been rattling around some thoughts about how to set these rules in motion… One of the comments that didn’t make it into the comments (gotta love technical glitches) was that if this is more of a framework book (and that *IS* the goal here), it needed to go beyond the traditional fantasy approach to magic. What about technology? What about modern/futuristic settings? And just providing the rules isn’t enough – there has to be enough info/examples that a GM could run a one-shot to figure out how the rules work or just play.

So bumping this up to a higher vantage point, I thought we’d approach this from a very vague guideline and then provide a number of example implementations. My brain has been going insane with some of the many things we could do (from magic in a fantasy sense, to psychic powers, to mutant abilities, to cybernetics and beyond).

That said… Let’s kick this off…

A new field of wizardry (whether arcane, divine, natural, technological, psychic, etc.) is merely a skill for the character to obtain. In some cases (for example with a magical item or a new cybernetic implant), the skill is gained for free and the player can spend XP to enhance specific spells or abilities associated with the skill. In other cases, the player can spend XP to enhance the skill or specific spells.

Each field of wizardry must have a number of qualities. Is it external or internal to the caster? For example, does the magical energy come from force of will, from a set of magical ingredients, or from a higher power?
Once that is decided, we must determine the amount of energy involved.

If it comes from ingredients, how much energy do the ingredients hold? Is it quantity or quality that counts? What’s the difference between a rock used for a spell and a flawless diamond?

If it comes from a higher power, how much power gets filtered down to the vessel (caster/priest) on the material plane? Is it a powerful god? A benevolent spirit? A philosophical ideal? The embodiment of nothingness? A disembodied spirit or the soul of a living being? Weight this on a scale of 1 to 10. This would be an exponential scale.

If it’s the naked will of the caster, how do you measure that? Is it their Reality Check? With a higher RC, they have a better grasp of the reality of what they are doing with magic. An RC of 10 means you could model entire universes (small ones of course) in your mind, while an RC of 1 implies that you don’t even believe it when someone picks your number in line at the deli (the one you chose that they circulate through starting at 1).

Then we have to decide how much of that energy the caster can actually wield before “burning out”. For technological things, this would be like burning through a battery. In the case of a caster, this would be measured by the amount of magic (points/pool) the caster could use or how many spells they could use a day (possibly RC per day? number of spells = skill level or combined # of points in the skill and spells?). For a priest, he or she is guiding a huge amount of the higher being’s power through themselves as a vessel (possibly) and will also get tired. How do we gauge that? Faith + Conviction per day?

Note that these are all very preliminary and incomplete thoughts, so take from them what you will. But I thought I’d dump them out there as food for thought.

I’m interested in, mechanics aside, rough guidelines on how to provide balance. Yes, a well placed bullet or arrow can always kill a focused mage, but that’s not always the best answer.

Thoughts? Concerns? Criticisms? Throw it up here in the comments and let’s see what sticks!

–Fitz

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Medicine and Healing rules – to include or not include Poison!

September 2, 2007 in Rules by Fitz | 1 comment

Hi all…

I recently hit a bit of an issue where I have rules for how poisoning works in the game and I included a list of some basic poisons and toxins in the Healing and Medicine chapter, which isn’t a very long chapter to start with.  Without the Poisons, it goes down to about 3 pages from 5.

Should I simply roll the section on Medicine and Healing into the General/GM Rules chapter? Or should I leave it a very short chapter?

Any thoughts?

–Fitz

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