THE

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In among playtesting The Doomed this week, I've been tinkering away on something else. Might not come to anything, but it's been fun so far. 

It leans into the idea that I've seen all over the place, that THE Dragon creates a different expectation than A Dragon, so what if we put THE in front of as many things as possible? I teased this a little with The Legion last week, which was sparked by the idea of The Orc (though weirdly ended up not being just one individual).

So the natural follow-on is...

The Goblin

On toes it creeps, just out of sight A petty hoarder, full of spite

Their Cleverness, the Goblin STR 7, DEX 13, CHA 15, 9hp. Bony needle (d6, +d8 within their Realm), sack of particularly treasured lost things, entourage of lost children and pets.

• Wants to widen their realm by making things lost, but cannot steal directly.
• Loves to make unfair trades, but can’t see beyond the short term.
• Knows how to whisper the right words to a lost thing to hear a clue to the whereabouts of your own missing object. It only works once per object. 

The Realm of Lost Things

• Tunnels within a pile of bric-a-brac.
• Only the Lost can enter freely.
• The Goblin can invite or banish guests.

123

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Continuing from last week's talk of Certainty, I have a very basic combat system you could bolt onto it. Hugely inspired by Skorne, which has recently received a new coat of paint.

All based on a scale of 1, 2, and 3, with those numbers doubled if there's ingenuity or a sacrifice at play. 

Combat

Normal characters have 3 Wounds. At 0 Wounds they are incapacitated. Below 0 Wounds they are dead.

Enemies always act before the players, but the players get a chance to react before it hits. Damage occurs simultaneously.

Damage, Armour & Healing

All three operate on the same scale.

1: Light 2: Heavy 3: Magical

Particular ingenuity or sacrifice doubles the damage of an attack.

Armour absorbs damage from incoming attacks. Heavy armour is awkward, and magical armour always comes with some sort of catch.

Light healing is a day or night of rest. Heavy Healing is professional treatment. Magical always comes with a catch.

Example Monster - THE PIT LEGION

• The legion grows a new twisted body (3W) each time a soldier dies with fear in their heart. They fear death more than anything. 
• Their blades and arrows bite (2D) with barbs that prevent natural healing. 
• Their armour and shields (2A) are dull with rust and mud. After death, they are reborn in The Pit, stronger and scarred.

Certainty

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I often find myself torn between:

• A love of rolling dice to introduce an unexpected element into the game.
• The decisiveness of just making a ruling without rolling dice.

So, of course, I exist in a sort of middle ground. I'm not especially drawn to entirely diceless games, but there's an allure to their philosophy of making judgement calls and focusing on adjudication and the grounding of the shared fiction.

Lately I've been especially interested in Sam Doebler's posts on the subject, some of which was put into practice  with the not-actually-diceless Skorne. Jim Parkin's Any Planet is Earth exists in a similar not-diceless niche, acting as one of the big inspirations for Skorne. There's still rolling for success, but some situations (including most of combat) are given the diceless treatment. 

It got me thinking about the classic Oracular Power of Dice idea, and I feel you could have an interesting game that removes dice from the task-resolution process, but keeps them as a way to represent the uncertainty of the fictional world.

You lose that gambler feeling where you stand up for the pivotal roll like you're at a craps table and everybody cheers or groans at the result, but sometimes taking a powerful element like that out of an experience allows other moments to emerge that had been overshadowed by the Vegas-glitz. 

Here's a skeleton of what's been bouncing around in my head. I can already foresee some hurdles, but I'd like to try it out. 

CERTAINTY SYSTEM

In this game, dice are reserved for Oracular purposes, not for Gambling. The GM and players may roll them to unveil truths about the world, but they are never used to determine the success or failure of an action.

Action The GM describes the current situation to the players and asks them to discuss a Plan of action.

The GM should especially consider:

Action - What specifically are they doing? 
Outcome - What does a successful outcome look like for this plan?
Leverage - Why is this plan likely to succeed?

The GM decides which of the following Forecasts best fits the plan:
Blocked - Something is stopping you.
Messy - You'll do it but create another problem or suffer a cost.
Clean - You'll do it, maybe even better than planned.

The GM then describes the Forecast in specifics and the players decide whether to act, modify their plan, or try something different.

Once the action takes place, and the impact occurs, the GM describes the world’s response and the new situation.

Example of Play

GM: As you're searching through the rubble you hear the clattering of a Giant Clawbug crawling toward you. It screeches, its tendril-crowned jaws coming at you.

Player: Right, I'm going to kill this thing with my sword.

GM: Okay, what's your leverage?

Player: I'm good with a sword, got some armour, this thing doesn't look so tough right?

GM: Well you'd need to get close and hack away at it and this thing is dripping with venom. Armour helps against the bites, but its tendrils would writhe through the gaps, so it's still messy. You'd kill it but definitely end up poisoned.

Player: Okay, I'll climb up onto that ledge instead and try throwing some rocks at it. It can't spit venom, right?

GM: What's the outcome you're hoping for?

Player: Just drive it away, I don't really need to kill it.

GM: Okay, that would be clean. You throw a few hefty rocks at the thing and it scurries away in the darkness. The cave is quiet again. 

 

Travellite

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Okay, this is probably my last post on Classic Traveller for a bit. After the last two editorials covered my initial reaction and further thoughts on the game's crunchier elements, I think we all knew it was going to end with me kludging together a summary of how I'd run the game.

Now the boring answer is that I could just use bits of the book for worldbuilding and character creation, then use some ultralite system like Ask the Stars, 2400, or Any Planet is Earth. But as an experiment, I tried to trim things down as much as I could while maintaining a closer feel to the mechanics of the original. 

Of course I'm 40 years late to the party on this, and there will be much more thoroughly thought-out CT hacks floating around online, but here's mine. 

So here's the core, focused on the nitty gritty of personal combat. Anything not mentioned is carried out as noted in Classic Traveller.

Travellite

Character Creation - Death as Disaster

When you would die during a term of service, Complete the term, but lose d6 from a random attribute (to a minimum of 1) and immediately muster out.

Rolling

Roll 8+ on 2d6 to succeed.

Die Modifiers (DMs) are typically 1, or 3 in extreme cases.

Get positive DMs from:

• Skills (each point grants +1)
• High Stat (9 or more grants +1, C(12) or more +3)
• Help from allies or situation (typically 1, 3 if major or multiple)
• Weapon

Negative DMs from:

• Lack of Skill if it's something specialist (1, or 3 if highly specialist)
• Low Stat (5 or less grants-1, 2 or less -3)
• Hindrance from situation (typically 1, 3 if major)
• Shooting at Long (-1) or Very Long (-3) Range
• Armour

Ignore basically anything else that grants DMs, rolling things like Cover into the situational DM of +/-1 in general or +/-3 in major cases. 

Weapons

Entries are formatted as: Max Range, Damage, Universal DM (if any), Situational DM (if any). Universal and Situational DMs do not stack. 

Hands: S1D, +1 Close (i.e. Short max range, 1D damage, +1DM at Close range)

Beast: S2D, +1 Close

Dagger/Club: S2D, +1 Close

Sword: S2D, +1 Short

Polearm: S3D, -1 Close

Pistol: M2D, +1 Short

Shotgun: M4D, -3 Close

Rifle: V3D, -3 Close

Mods

Heavy:+1D, -1 to all attacks (this stacks with the weapon's DM)

Energy: +1D

Auto: Fire at a close group of 3 targets at -1. Consume more ammo.

Armour

Entries are formatted as: Universal DM, Specialist DM. These do not stack.

Mesh: -1, -3 vs melee (i.e. -1 Universal DM or -3 vs melee attacks)

Ballistic: -1, -3 vs non-energy guns

Reflec: -1, -3 vs energy weapons

Combat: -3

Notes

As you'd expect, this changes the effectiveness of certain weapons in certain situations compared to the original book, but it's a price I'm willing to pay to keep things more transparent and fast-moving.