#mythossanta

[palliddata]

Development Cycle: A Brief Dice Mechanic

Edit: Forgot the text, ha!

So last night I came up with an intriguing dice system for our as of yet unnamed game. It’s pretty simple.

It’s a roll under system vs. how challenging the task at hand is, rather than how good you are at a skill. Your stats, such as Strength, determine how many dice you roll, and you skill determines the size of the dice you roll. So if I had a 3 in Strength and a d8 in Brawn and I wanted to lift a rock, my GM would determine the challenge of lifting that rock from 1-19, with 1 being nearly impossible and 19 being almost impossible to fail. Let’s say she said the challenge was a 7. I would roll 3d8 and if any of those dice came up as 7 or below, I would succeed. I am thinking about some things requiring multiple successes at higher levels of challenge, maybe to represent complexity, great danger, ect.

There are two more mechanics that come into play. The first is Action Points. Whenever you roll at least one pair of matching dice on a roll, you get a single Action Point, that lets you activate abilities and maybe even fudge rolls or change the narrative a bit.

The other mechanic is the Danger Tracker: whenever you roll and at least one of the dice is at the top of the die (4 for a d4, 6 for a d6 ect.) , the Danger Tracker goes up and gives the GM more ammo to mess with the players or maybe even makes the game generally harder. This gives us a nice “death spiral” that pushes the narrative along.

As a side note, as you progress, both Action Points and the Danger Tracker will become more common place. Maybe this represents and oncoming disaster? I’ll have to think about that some.  

Signed,

Mythossanta/Benjamin S. Paulson

[palliddata]

Double Die System: Legend Points/Whimsy, Magic and Armor

Today we will be talking about Whimsy Points, Magic and Armor. First off, Whimsy Points

Whimsy points have a variety of uses. Their primary use is fudging dice rolls. You can spend 1 Whimsy whenever you want to add +2 to a roll, 2 Whimsy to add +3 or 3 Whimsy to add +4; these are in addition to any other bonuses. You can also use Whimsy points to activate the abilities of archetype, specializations, and even the abilities of certain items. The frequency of use and Whimsy cost of these abilities vary from ability to ability. You can gain Whimsy by rolling doubles (1 Whimsy), or by roleplaying well or playing creatively or cleverly, at the GM’s discretion.

Magic in Little Folk and Double Die in general vary greatly from most other rpgs. In Double Die, you usually have one type of magic for each Stat, and you decide what types of magic you can use at character creations (often between zero and two types of magic). Unlike other skills, magic is assumed to be a d0 unless otherwise stated, meaning you have to be trained in it to at least a d4 in order to use it.

Furthermore, players come up with spells, saying what they want to do rather than referring to a spell list. The GM then tells them if that spell effect is within the domain of a magic type they know. If not, the player and the GM talk it out. Once they have both reached a satisfactory conclusion the GM decides on the difficulty of the spell based on the table below. The GM rolls dice for spell difficulty vs. the player’s magic roll when the player rolls against the environment or a willing target. The GM adds bonus to the targets roll, (an appropriate defense roll vs. the player’s magic roll), when the Player tries to cast a spell against an unwilling target. If a player succeeds on a spell roll, the spell succeeds. If a player fails a spell roll, the spell fizzles, causing the Player a small negative effect. In addition, they cannot cast spells of that type of magic for the rest of the scene.

Spell Difficulty, Bonus to Targets Roll, Example Spell (Environment), Example Spell (Vs)

2d4, +0, Create Light, Freeze with a Touch

2d6, +1, Ventriloquism, Damaging a target with moonbeams

2d8, +2, Calling a Pillbug, Breathing fire

2d10, +3, Creating a short ranged teleportation portal, Invoking fear in a group of targets

2d12, +4, Walking on water by freezing it, Trapping Someone in Stone

2d20, +8, Stopping time for a short period, Sending out a Fae sized stormcloud to attack people

I’ll go into each form of magic in detail separately, but for now here’s a teaser.

Name: Winter Magic

Associated Time(s): Winter, Crescent Moon

Concept(s): Protection, Artifice, The Hearth, Magic of Magic

Emotion(s): Sadness and Comfort

Element(s): Water and Ice

Warding Metal: Lead

Name: Summer Magic

Associated Time(s): Summer, New Moon

Concept(s): The Body/Transmutation, Brute Force

Emotion(s): Anger

Element(s): Fire and Light

Warding Metal: Copper

Name: Spring Magic

Associated Time(s): Spring, Gibbous Moon

Concept(s): Nature, Life, Plants and Animals

Emotion(s): Joy

Element(s): Earth

Warding Metal: Tin

Name: Fall Magic

Associated Time(s): Fall, Full Moon

Concept(s): The Mind, Illusion/Enchantment, The Spirit World and Death

Emotion(s): Fear

Element(s): Air

Warding Metal: Silver

Name: Courtly Magic

Associated Time(s): Eclipses, Solstices and Half Moons

Concept(s): Mystery, Court, Space and Time

Emotion(s): Love, Glory

Element(s): Moonlight

Warding Metal: Iron

Notice the warding metals. In Little Folk each type of magic has a warding metal: magic cannot be cast on it’s respective warding metal, and players suffer a penalty to using magic when near its warding metal. This can range from a simple -2 when close by a warding metal, to being completely unable to use it when in contact with that metal.

Armor also works differently than most other systems. Armor has three qualities: its armor die (d4-d12), its durability and what it can block. When a target is attacked by a type of damage it’s armor can block, the target rolls their armor die. If they roll a 4 or above, the attack is ignored and the armor’s durability is reduced by 1. If they roll below a 4, the armor does nothing. When an armor reaches zero durability, it does nothing for the rest of the scene. Armor regain all durability at the start of a scene, unless otherwise stated. Players cannot wear armor with an armor die above their armor training skill.

That’s all for now. Next time I’ll start showing off an Archetype or Kith.

-Benjamin S. Paulson/Mythossanta

[palliddata]

Double Die System: Stats, Skills, Perks, Species and Archetypes

[As a note, I’m planning on delivering Double Die and Little Folk material every week on Thursday.]

Today we will be talking about a variety of subjects, mostly glossing over them until I can expand on each element in their own article. In this particular article, we will be discussing Stats, Skills, Perks, Species and Archetypes in brief detail.

First, stats and skills: When rolling, you roll your stat die and your skill die. Each skill is related to a single stat, though some perks can let you use skills with another stat or vice versa. If you roll doubles, you get a Legend Point. This can be called other things in other settings using Double Die - in Little Folk, Legend Points are called “Whimsy”. The stats in Little Folk are as follows, with their respective skills listed below:

Strength (Str): How strong and tough you are.

-Brawl: Prowess in melee combat.

-Endurance: Your physical fortitude; also informs your health.

-Brawn: Prowess in athletic actions

-Armor Training: What strength of armor you can use (more on this later)

-Summer Magic: Ability to use Summer Magic

Agility (Agi): How quick and dexterous you are.

-Ranged: Prowess in ranged combat

-Dodge: Ability to avoid most basic attacks along with reflexes

-Nimble: Sleight of hand, nimbleness of fingers, and general sneakiness

-Fleet: Speed, acrobatic ability and, when available, skill at flight

-Fall Magic: Ability to use Fall Magic

Spirit (Spi): How much willpower and common sense you have. Also a measure of your connection to nature.

-Willpower: Your mental fortitude; also informs your health.

-Perception: Ability to notice things.

-Commune: Ability to survive and interact with nature.

-Pathfinding: Ability to find one’s way or use mounts

-Spring Magic: Ability to use Spring Magic.

Intellect (Int): How smart you are, especially in regards to the human world and human objects.

-Fae Lore: Knowledge of Fae Things and Nature

-Human Lore: Knowledge of Human society

-Craftsmanship: Ability to create and fix things

-Medicine: Knowledge of the body and ability to fix it

-Winter Magic: Ability to use Winter Magic.

Social (Soc): How charismatic and socially adept you are.

-Persuasion: Ability to persuade people using upright means

-Deceive: Ability to fool people and to lie

-Browbeat: Ability to intimidate people or mock them

-Empathy: Ability to figure out someone’s true intentions

-Courtly Magic: Ability to use Courtly Magic.

All stats and skills start always use at least d4s, except for the five magics which are assumed to take a ‘d0’, and are therefore unusable unless the player has invested in them.

Species can cover a variety of things in Double Die games, though they should in general give a bonus to a Stat and maybe a Skill, along with a unique perk. Species in Little Folk is referred to as Kith. Kiths give a lot, including powerful bonuses, a unique penalty, a Stat and magic skill upgrade. I’ll reveal each Kith in turn in their own content article. There is one Kith for each Stat as of right now.

Archetypes are extremely variable. At their most basic they give a skill bonus or two and starting equipment. Archetypes in Little Folk give a lot of bonuses to the player and represent their place in Fae court. They can give a lot of skill bonuses, including magic, a stat bonus and perks; you can even gain a specialization to further customize your character. There is an Archetype for each stat and a specialization for each of the 15 possible combinations of two stats as of when I am writing this. I’ll be revealing Archetypes and Specializations in their own articles.

Finally, we come to perks. Perks are passive, triggered or activated abilities, many of which cost Whimsy to use. Basically, anything that isn’t an equipment, a skill or a stat is probably a perk. In Little Folk, some perks are only available by being part of the right Archetype or Specialization, but some are not reliant on those and can be picked up freely if you decide to train them up; there will be more on progression in a future article.

That’s all for today! I’ll try to get out some content articles soon. Next time, I’ll be talking about further uses for Whimsy points, along with the Magic system.

[palliddata]

Development Cycle: An Introduction

First off welcome to Palliddata, if you haven’t been welcomed already. I’m Mythossanta aka Benjamin Paulson, editor in chief and writer for this zine. We publish on a variety of subjects, primarily games but also TV and Movies. Our schedule is lazy, writers publish when they can and hopefully something comes of it. When we get enough articles we will attempt to fold everything together and set up a PDF for download.

Anyway, this article is the start in a series called “Development Cycle” where I will develop a tabletop game, free to play and test, and publish the process on this zine. It might take a while, but I think it’s a great way to contribute to the community and to get some of my design noticed.

First things first, what’s this game going to be about? Well, I was going to do a competitive haunted hotel game in time for Halloween, but my heart wasn’t really in it. On the other hand, I’ve been on a bit of a caveman movie kick lately, so why don’t we do something with that?

I’m not a fan of keeping to history or myth, but rather using it as a jumping off point. So I see a lot of dinos, sabertooth tigers and weird stuff that defies scientific explanation. Lots of ice caps alongside jungles, swamps and magma fields. In generally, lots of extreme environments.

So what do that tell us? The system will both be unrealistic and heavy on survival mechanics. Players will have to keep track of food and water, maybe even ammo. For research I’ll have to probably take another look at land of the lost and those old Ray Harryhausen movies about dinos. Not that I mind really, sounds like a ton of fun.

So, how can I back that up with mechanics? I see some sort of system where things happen on doubles, to represent the wild and random nature of the environment. Not certain what dice will be used, but hopefully not too many at a time.

I’ve also had this idea for modular character design. The idea that instead of picking a bunch of skills and traits like in gurps or picking class and race like in Dungeons and Dragons, you pick up a bunch of different things. Star sign, god, species, homeland, archetype, ect. Could all be good things to pick from that end up changing where your characters starts mechanically while also informing roleplaying.

So yeah, basically that’s what one of my brainstorms look like. Hopefully more should be incoming soon. If you have any comments, please send in a message. Also, feel free to reblog and comment and you please.

Benjamin S. Paulson/Mythossanta

[palliddata]

Double Die System Part 1: Resolution

I said I’d start releasing an open source system, and here it is: after some development and playtesting I’ve put together a system that’s free to use and develop from. It’s called the Double Die system, and it’s meant to be decently crunchy, while still allowing the rules to get out of the way for the story. First things first, how to resolve a conflict.

To resolve a conflict, such as when attempting to jump over a gap or spot something far away, players roll two dice, one decided by a stat (d4-d12) and one decided by skill (d4-d12). The GM then rolls a set of matching dice (d4-d20) or the appropriate dice pool of an NPC (d4-d20). Both the the player and the GM add up the dice they rolled. The winner is the person with the higher total result, with the ties going to the player.

For example, Skye wants to move a rock out of the way of a hidden entrance. They roll the dice attached to their Strength stat and the related Brawn skill, a d6 and a d8 respectively. The GM decides the that the rock is heavy, but not overwhelmingly so, and decides to use 2d6 to represent the difficulty of the challenge. Both Skye and and the GM roll their pools, and count up the results. Skye’s total was 7, and the GM’s total was 5. Thus, Skye successful moves the rock.

Resolving vs. NPCs is a bit different. NPC’s don’t use stats and skills like players or doubled dice pools like regular challenge rolls. Instead, they use a general competence die (d4 through d20)  in place of stats for all rolls, and specific competence dice (d4 through d20) in place of skills. This is called a contest.

When no specific competence die is given for an NPC, the GM is encouraged to use their imagination. In general, GMs should not exceed a d8, depending on how competent they are. That said, the unspecified die you come up with should probably not exceed the general competence die, outside of exceptional circumstances.

“Here is an example from the Little Folk setting I’m going to be bringing to you later through this blog. A PC has come to blows with a Fungal Guardian. In this scenario, the PC might have a Strength of d6 and a Endurance of d8, while the Fungal Guardian has a General Competence of d6 and a Use Spore specific competence of d6. Thus, the PC rolls d8+d6, while the GM rolls 2d6 for the Fungal Guardian, resulting in the player’s score being 6 while the Guardian has 9. As a result, the Guardian wins the contest, leaving the PC inhaling the Guardian’s spores. If the PC had instead attempted to convince the Guardian to let him pass, however, he would roll Social + Persuasion, for him d10 + d6. Meanwhile, the GM would rule that the Guardian is not as socially adept as they are at fighting, so it only rolls d6 + d4. The PC would then roll a whooping 14 over the Guardian’s 5, and play would proceed from there.”

Sometimes players or NPCs will have bonuses or penalties. Bonuses and penalties are always 2 through 4, as a flat subtraction or addition to the final results of a dice roll. Positives and negatives cancel each other out, one can only take the largest single bonus and penalty applicable to any given roll.

Skills and Stats are customizable from game to game, but usually you should use 4-5 stats and 4-5 skills per stat, with each stat having the same amount of skills.

Next time, we’ll discuss stats and skills in more detail, and start discussing species, archetypes and perks.

[palliddata]

So I did a micro RPG a while back and I finally built up the courage to put it out there. It’s free, so pass it around! Art design by my buddy Dr. Activisionary of F-Minus podcast fame. Hopefully, I can get this out on Drive Thru before too. Anyway, next stop is a 3-5 page RPG, so hopefully, that might work.

Best wishes

Benjamin S. Paulson

[palliddata]

Double Die System Proof of Concept: 0e Fantasy

Sorry I’ve been absent so much, as I’ve been busy with school. I don’t have anything together for Little Folk today, but I’ve been reading through Maze of the Blue Medusa (an excellent module, look it up). As a result, I’ve become interested in doing OSR style dungeon crawls in Double Die. Here is a quick one I came up with:

For Stats and Skills, we are trying to emphasize player skill over character skill, and lower the overall power level. In addition, for this format, species and archetype are one and the same. Thus, when we put together the stats and skills; we have this:

Strength (Str)

Endurance: For surviving attacks to the body. Also decides base health.

Brawl: Competence in melee combat.

Brawn: Feats of brute strength.

Armor Training: Size of armor one can wear.

Agility (Agi)

Dodge: Measure of reflexes. Allows for the dodging of most attacks.

Ranged: Competence in ranged combat.

Sneaking: Ability to move undetected.

Acrobatics: Feats of raw agility.

Spirit (Spi)

Willpower: For surpassing tests of will and attacks to the mind and soul. Also decides base health.

Magic: Ability to cast magic.

Luck: How much one is favored by luck. Relates to loot and gambling.

Notice: Ability to perceive your environment. Used only when talking it through won’t do.

Intelligence (Int)

Religion: Knowledge of Religion

Obscura: Knowledge of Obscure Lore

Nature: Knowledge of Natural Lore

Engineering: Ability to use, manipulate, and understand complex devices and constructs, whether mechanical or otherwise.

Legend Points, or LP, work like other Double Die settings: you can spend 1 LP whenever you want to add +2 to a roll, 2 LP to add +3 and 3 LP to add +4; this is in addition to any other bonuses.

However, there is another use for LP: activating abilities from your Archetype also cost Legend Points. You do not come up with spells on the fly as you do in other Double Die settings; instead, you learn them by finding scrolls in treasure hoards, or by selecting a number of spells from a pool determined by your level (i.e a level 2 character can access level 2 spells and below). You can learn one spell per level; therefore it is impossible to learn all of the spells available at a given level. When you want to use magic, you roll your magic vs. a difficulty assigned by the GM. If you succeed the spell is cast, and if you fail the spell fizzles, causing a bad thing to happen to you and preventing you from casting magic for the rest of the scene. For opposed spells like a magic missile (magic vs. dodge), you subtract a certain amount from your roll (ranging from -0 to -6) to simulate the difficulty of the cast. Notice that the -1, -5 and -6 break the “only 2 through 4 rule” of modifiers mentioned in the first article, but it’s important to do this for really weak or really strong spells.

Stats are rolled one by one, down the line. You do this by rolling a d4 for each, with 1 being a d4, 2 a d6, 3 a d8 and 4 a d10. Then you choose your Archetype, either randomly from a table or by choice. Finally, you distribute skills. You do this by taking your die size (e.g. 2 for a d6) for each stat. That is how many dice upgrades you have to distribute amongst your skills in that stat, up to d10 in a single skill. For example, if I had a a d10 in Strength, I would have 4 dice upgrades available. I could upgrade my Brawl to a d8 (2 upgrades), and Brawn and Endurance to a d6 (1 upgrade each). Keep in mind that each skill starts at d4 except for Magic. Magic is a d0 and thus cannot be used unless your Archetype says you can use it, giving it a bump to a d4.

Going back to Archetypes; they determine a few things: your base health, (which is Archetype health + number of dice upgrades past d0 for Endurance and Willpower), when you gain max health, when and what type of stat and skill increases you get as you level, and when you gain new abilities and spells.

I’ll probably be rolling out some material for this version of 0e Fantasy, along with more Little Folk stuff. Until then, have a happy October!

Mythossanta/Benjamin S. Paulson

[palliddata]

Let’s Read a System: Rogue Trader (2009) Intro and Character Creation Pt. 1

Hey, it’s your old pal Mythossanta/Benjamin Paulson. I realized I both wanted to write more regularly for Palliddata and catch up on my backlog of rpgs I want to read. Kill two birds with one stone, I’m going to be doing read throughs and analysis of various rpgs, from a designer’s and admirers perspective, one chapter at a time. The first of these will be Rogue Trader (2009) by Fantasy Flight, which was referred to me by @atamajakki. We will start at the beginning, with the intro and character creation.

On little disclaimer before we begin: I don’t know much at all about 40k. Thus I will be using its wiki and my obsessed roommate as resources, but I will try to let the text stand on its own.

The Introduction is present neatly, with explanations of what is needed and what’s in the book. From the start it appears to be a 2d10 system. This is definitely something to be learned from: brief, sleek introduction like this one bring you into the world of the game and let’s the reader and potential player get situated. If more titles did the same thing, I think it would do a world of good.

Character Creation begins with a description of who the players are and what they will be doing. Simply put, you are a Rogue Trader, braving the cold depths of grimdark space for profit. I’ve always liked the idea of playing a trader, and I like any sort of group travel. It can be a sailing ship on the high seas, a spaceship in the void of the star or a convoy in a nuclear wasteland. So I’m definitely buying this game’s hook. I also like the fact that it’s percentage roll under, which I think is a simple and effective way of handling resolution.

What I don’t like is the way they handle their “characteristics” or what most games call stats. Perception, Ballistic  and Weapon effectiveness are their own stats, with the DnD Six rounding it out to nine characteristics.

That’s fine, but they expect you to do 2d10 + 25 for each characteristic, down the line. This means that you can have a character that has great Ballistic effectiveness and no agility, completely unplanned. You can even have a character with only about a 1 in 4 chance to succeed at any roll. Sometimes it’s fun to run a game that uses down the line stat gen, but I don’t think any game should expect you to do that unless your doing a hex crawl throwback. It doesn’t really make much sense for this type of game especially, where as a licensed game most people would probably being trying to make their own fan OC’s, not generate a random character like in a Palladium game.

Well, that’s all for now. Next time we talk about the origin system!

Signed,

Benjamin S. Paulson/Mythossanta