Critical hit

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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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Playtest Update, Food for Thought, and a Story

October 29, 2009 in Design, Events, Playtesting by Fitz | 3 comments

Hi all…

So Tuesday night, through the Colorado Springs RPG Meetup group and the nice folks at Gamer’s Haven, I ran a sample adventure as a playtest opportunity. We had 6 folks, plus myself, so we had a great turnout this time and an amazing amount of input.

  • RPG DiceShannon was nice enough to arrange everything on the CSprings Meetup board and book a table at Gamer’s Haven. She played the thief Kress.
  • Johnny played the fighter Hans, battle axe in hand.
  • JP played Father Goul, the priest of the group.
  • Frank played the guard Rod.
  • Nathan played the huntswoman Andra.
  • And Arpie played the huntsman Andrax. (I’d run out of characters, so we improvised.)

It was a great mix of players, some of whom have game design experience, which led to some very interesting conversations about game mechanics and impressions of the system based on the quick start summary of the rules and the character sheets.

Among the food for thought provided was:

  • The d12 mechanic for characteristic and skill resolution didn’t work well. After a 45 minute discussion of bell curve distributions for die rolls, we ended up with using 2d6 for the rest of the night. A 2 or 3 was a critical success and an 11 or 12 was a critical failure. The goal was to roll as low as possible under a target characteristic score (either the characteristic we’re “checking” or the highest characteristic for the skill).
  • The “feet per action” mechanic didn’t really work when we moved it to a hex map. We changed it to “hexes” per action, where a hex was 5 feet across. I believe some of this was due to a misunderstanding about how possible actions worked in combat, but we just went with it.
  • It came up that it would be nice if characters who were cooperating on a task requiring a skill (such as Tracking) gained a bonus for working together. Since party collaboration is a great goal in gaming, we decided that if cooperation was declared, each character would roll their skill separately and gain a +1 on the attempt. And all characters cooperating would then gain the best roll for that action.
  • The other main thing that came up was that 16 characteristics seems like far too many and the Random characteristics (Beauty, Wealth, Family, and Luck) should roll into other characteristics (like Beauty could be considered part of Charisma) or become separate entities (like Luck could simply be a pool of points a player could buy with XP or at character creation).

I think all of this is great. I really appreciate having the input of other folks. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve been wearing blinders when dealing with some of the “system” aspects, so it’s nice to see things with fresh eyes.

The whole process has kick-started some serious noodling over the rules and how I could simplify the mechanics to keep things fast, easy, and open so players can focus on roleplaying and creativity. We’ll see where it leads me.

Man on FireI owe a big thank you to Shannon and everyone who showed up, as well as Gamer’s Haven for providing us a table on a Tuesday night!

Before I sign off however, I have to relate a story from the end of the session that will stick with me for a while.

The group had attacked the brigand stronghold and dispatched the four useless guards patrolling within the partially ruined/rebuilt walls. Among the buildings are the ruins of a crumbled tower with an open doorway and stairs descending into the ground…

Hans, axe in hand, bravely headed down the stairs into the darkness. Near the bottom he heard the movement and growling of something large. He smelled it too – the musky scent of an animal den was unmistakable. But he couldn’t see in the dark, so he climbed back up, grabbed a torch, and headed down again…

Meanwhile, Andrax had come up with the idea of dousing one or more of the straw-filled mattresses in the guard’s bunk house, tossing it to the bottom of the tower stairs, and letting it smoke out anybody who might be down there. So, oil-soaked mattress in hand, he went down the stairs…

During this time, Hans had been attacked by the far-too-large wolf and was fleeing back up the stairs, axe and torch in his hands. Running up, he stumbles into Andrax with the oil-soaked mattress, setting it and them on fire, with both of them falling back down the stairs to the bottom. The wolf took a number of steps backwards and had a WTF moment. :)

It was a classic “you got your chocolate in my peanut butter” moment as the torch met the mattress… :)

–Fitz

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