Dueling Rules + Available Vornheim Hardcopies

FIRST THING...

It's getting pretty hard to find a physical copy of my RPG book, Vornheim: The Complete City Kit. This is nice because it means people want them but it's a drag because that book was designed to work best as a physical book.

You can't get them from the publisher any more, but here are a few distributors that still have hard copies:

Indie Press Revolution

FRP Games

Paizo

CoolStuffInc

And these guys in Europe...

There you go.

Lemme know if you know any place else that has one or if any of these sell out.

PDFs, as usual, available here.

____

SECOND THING...

DUELING RULES:

DUELS

While the standard combat system works well for the kinds of battles that usually come up in a game, it can be a little abstract for describing blow-by-blow fights with only two characters involved. These optional rules can be used to add grit and texture to formal conflict between paired combatants.

-Combat begins and proceeds as normal, remembering that either party may surrender at any time, however...

-When dueling, a character may drop no lower than zero hit points.

-At zero hit points, the character may still act normally but each successful hit inflicted by the enemy on a character already at zero inflicts an injury from the Dueling Injuries table below in lieu of hit point damage.

-If a character takes the same injury twice (i.e. the same number is rolled twice during the same duel) that character is unconscious (or dead, depending on what the local rules are). This is why the injury table is short--while a longer one might provide more room for various entertainingly grisly injuries, this one is designed to keep duels to a reasonable length and to keep each roll of the dice near the end of a duel feeling tense.

-Feel free to assume that "ordinary" magical healing after the duel will remove the mechanical effects of any dueling injury. However: whether the injuries leave scars on the affected parts of either combatant and what these scars look like is entirely up to the player controlling the winner of the duel. That is, if the winner decides that the wound to her own character's left eye leaves a scar like a dagger and the scar on her opponent's leg looks like a hippopotamus with butterfly wings, then that's what it looks like. So don't lose.

Duelling Injuries

1-Eye (-2 to anything involving seeing)

2-Left arm (or "off" arm) (-1 to most tasks)

3-Right arm (or favored arm) (-2 to most tasks)

4-Right leg (move at 50%, always lose initiative)

5-Left leg (move at 50%, always lose initiative)

6-Weapon or other worn item (attackers choice) destroyed

Keep Talking Or Tell Them To Roll

1. "So I want to convince him to open the gate."

"What do you say?"

"Uh...Hey sailor, I'm hot, open the gate!"

"Roll charisma."

2. "So I want to convince him to open the gate."

"What do you say?"

"I'll give you 300 gold pieces if you open the gate."

"'I must admit to being intrigued' he says 'half now, if you wouldn't mind...'"

"Nope, only after you open the gate."

"'And why can you not fork half now?'"

"Well if you're lying I...uh...I won't be able to eat if I can't get past the gate and don't have any money, whereas either one alone would be sufficient to make sure I survive the night."

"Roll charisma."

3. "So I want to convince him to open the gate."

"What do you say?"

"'Open the gate now or when I do get through we'll kill you and your whole family and mom'"

"'My mother is in my family but the over-arching point is it doesn't seem like you're getting past if I don't open the gate'."

"Oh are you sure? Is every checkpoint between here and Dwindowndale as well protected as this one? Are all the guards well rested? Is every sentry as dedicated as you? Is every guardhouse built as solidly?"

"Roll charisma."

4. "So I want to convince him to open the gate."

"What do you say?"

"Open or we kill you now."

"The guard looks through the slit at you and sizes you up.--Roll charisma."

5.  "So I want to befriend the guard in case we have to get back through the gate later."

"Ok what do you say?"

"I say, good man, the weather is surpassingly mild this day is it not?"

"It would appear to be."

"What have you got there?"

"A marmot."

"It is a fascinating beast! Might I examine it?"

"Roll charisma."

____

Ok so these are all ways I'd use Charisma in D&D. If I was using Persuade in Call of Cthulhu I'd use it the same way. There's a specific method here, but it's discretionary:

Players can say what they want and make whatever arguments they like and may threaten or cajole, but basically the NPC always has the same choice:
-decide whether they trust what PC is asserting or implying (and then take action based on that decision), or
-decide to keep talking.

If they decide to keep talking, they keep talking, if they decide to make a decision, that's when the dice take over. 

And which one they decide to do at any moment is totally based on how the GM is playing the NPC. Basically, if you keep talking, you delay the roll and give the player an opportunity to modify it, for good or ill, based on what exactly the player says.

Unless an actual action happens (throwing the bribe to the NPC, attacking, giving up, deciding s/he  doesn't want the thing any more) the NPC will not do anything until there's eventually a Charisma roll. The conversation is (underneath) about deciding how to modify that roll. Just making the NPC laugh could modify the roll. Offending the NPC could modify the roll. Anything that happens before the dice hit the table might modify that roll.

Once the roll happens, it means the NPC has decided some fact ("these people are a threat""this girl is hot") is true or not true and new information will have to be put into play before that can change.

In example 1, exactly what the PC wants the NPC to believe is a little nebulous but it's basically something like "1. I'm attractive 2. You letting the gate down will allow access to attractive me on some level". If the PC were accompanied by an obvious partner (riding on the same horse as someone of the same social class who had their hands around his/her waist) then either the guard would respond and point that out or I'd just make the roll straight with a penalty depending totally arbitrarily on what I though the guard was like.

In example 2, the question is, at first 'Does the guard believe s/he's actually going to get the money?' Now depending on what guard I'm playing I could've called for a roll right after the third line (that's how a greedy but stupid and quiet one would've done it), but this guard is more canny. I could've called for a roll after the 5th line, but I didn't and kept the conversation going. By the 7th line, the PC has pretty much pushed the conversation to a point where the NPC I'm imagining can't go any further without deciding whether the PC is telling the truth, so the charisma roll comes. But it could've kept going, like: "If you are unfamiliar with these lands, you'll find there are many beasts of the field hidden in the tall grass, ye may not starve as quickly as ye think!"

Example 3 is much the same thing, though depending on factors already established about the setting, there may be modifiers on this roll. Like if the PCs know that some of the checkpoints are in disrepair or that many of the guards are known to be slackers. Point is: the PCs argument has made these factors relevant to the roll.

Example 4 has charisma basically used as an Intimidate roll. Do the PCs look like a credible threat? If the PCs are carrying heads on poles or the wizard has a purple worm for a familiar all these things might modify the roll even if the PCs didn't mention it.

In example 5 it looks like the PCs have pushed the NPC to a decision point: Hand over the marmot or don't. Really the NPC has, of course, three choices: hand over the marmot or keep talking or roll initiative. 

A key point here is if the befriending works, the reward is a prejudice in the PCs favor later. In the other conversations, the goal is right there (open the gate), in this one, what specific thing do the PCs want the NPC to believe overall? They want the NPC to believe "There is something to be gained by staying on this marmot-fondling cleric's good side". If the conversation is successful, any other rolls involving that guard have to take that into account.

Here's an important bit: the persuasion in the game is not based so much on the players' ability to act verbally in a convincing way like an actor when playing the PC, but to (quickly) make arguments and suggest implications that would convince the person in the fiction. The charisma stat covers actual undefinable charm. Much as the player states the arrow's target and time of release but the dice and the PC's dex stat determines whether it's a hit. This uses Charisma the same way D&D and other older game use every other stat: the player decides the tactics to the degree that they can without actually being in the fiction, the PCs stats and dice decide the quality of the execution of those tactics.

(Compare and contrast with the way other systems use "social combat" in much more abstract ways.)

None of this takes into account just what the specific mechanic on the charisma roll is--it can be done a lot of ways: a straight roll a roll vs wisdom, a roll with a specific skill (intimidate, diplomacy etc), it doesn't matter which.

Deities And Demigods Is Totally A Book You Should Be Using Because This

So...Deities and Demigods. Published in 1980 by TSR. Chock full of (and I quote experts here)  mindbending psychedelic blasphemy.

The god appears as a three-headed, eight-armed man, with silvery scaled skin, eyes that blaze like fire, and the ability to grow or shrink in size...He also uses a small brick of gold that he throws for 5-50 points of damage up to 100 yards away. 

He has a panther skin bag that blows a whirlwind like that of a djinni. He uses a bracelet which, if it is thrown and strikes an enemy, attaches itself to the neck of its target and strangles him or her in 5 melee rounds unless they are able to alter their form or teleport themselves to another plane. He also has the power to throw one 30 point fireball per round.


No Cha is the patron of thieves, and there are many tales of his famous thieving exploits.

Is your brain on fire now that you read that? Yes it is. Are you thinking, "The lack of magic bricks,  strangling bracelets and panther skin bags in my campaign is a sign of my worthlessness on all levels"? Yes you are.

On the other hand, many peop...ok, everybody...knows that TSR's famous Deities and Demigods supplement is kinda useless unless you're running some twisted postmodern Kaiju campaign where you're Thor and I'm Yen Wang Yeh and we team up to kill Eagle Woman.

Now I'm all for killable gods. If someone asks you if you want to fight a god, you say "Yes." Particularly if you're 20th level. But 143 pages of gods? Then you say "No" or you say "Why don't we just play Exalted?"

Here is Gary Gygax lying:

DEITIES & DEMIGODS is an indispensable part of the whole of AD&D. Do not fall into the error of regarding it as a supplement. It is integral to Dungeon Mastering a true AD&D campaign. 

However, there is a vital clue here.

For if you take each sentence and change it to its opposite, watch what happens...

DEITIES & DEMIGODS is totally not an indispensable part of the whole of AD&D. Go ahead and think of  it as a supplement. It is not at all integral to Dungeon Mastering a true AD&D campaign. I invented a cool game with this guy Dave but sometimes I just say stuff. Worship the devil and kill your friends in tunnels.

Clearly, Gary Gygax intended this introduction to be what is called in some of the more terrifying circles of our ruling class a Straussian Text. That is: it says one thing but means another thing, and that thing is a thing to which only the philosopher is privy.

Keep this here in mind.

So for 32 years people have been picking up Deities and Demigods assuming it would be full of worldbuildy goodness--that it would explain the comparative characteristics of various fantastic religions, differentiate clerics of one faith from the next, and guide the GM in deciding what spells the different patron gods grant them. What they got instead was a munchkin's Monster Manual. Right? Wrong.

Because why? Because in actuality Deities and Demigods does explain the comparative characteristics of various fantastic religions, does differentiate clerics of one faith from the next, and does guide the GM in deciding what spells the different patron gods grant them.

You just have to have access to the esoteric key of divine gnosis which I totally have and which I will totally grant you now by finishing this blog entry.

Let's take a look at the entry for a god we all know...

...the principle here is: the characteristics of the faith reflect the characteristics of the deity.

So, you pack of mewling quims, take a look at about 3/4s of the way down where it says "Cleric/Druid", "Fighter", "Magic User/Illusionist", etc.

These are actually the chances that a given cultist of Loki will be a member of that class. You start with the highest and work your way down until you get one. So, the highest level is illusionist, and there's a 20% chance. Roll roll...nope. Now we move to assassin--15% chance...roll roll...nope, then Cleric, Druid and Ranger, roll for each in a random order...aaaand bing this Loki cultist is a ranger. If you get no results that means the cultist is an unlevelled schmuck.

This fits the pattern in the book: more powerful gods have more classes and more levels and, therefore, their cultists tend to be classier and more various. 

Let me now draw your attention to Loki's hit points: 300.

If you look at D & Demigods, you'll notice that the gods' HP figures range from about 200-400 and that the head of each pantheon (and sometimes his or her great nemesis) always has 400 hp. Heroes and mythological monsters usually have less than 200 hp.

What this number actually is is the strength of that god's cult on a scale of 1-400.  This number is useful in a variety of ways: 

*Let's say you are in a geographic area where Loki might be worshipped and need to find the nearest temple or cleric of the smugfaced strife god. Is there one about? Well there's a 30% chance. (God's hp divided by 10.)

*You're in the Cruel Northern Climes and find a random cleric. With what divinity does this cleric traffic? 

"Alright, (-flip flip-) the major god in the pantheon is Odin, there's a 40 % (400 hp divided by 10) chance of this being a cleric of Odin...(roll roll)...nope"
"Fair enough, they probably can't heal my lost eyeball anyway."
"Next up is...(flip flip randomly in the Norse section)...Idun, Goddess of Spring and Eternal Youth"
"Sweet"
"32% chance...(rattle roll)...nope."
"Awww mannnnn eternal youth is cool"
"Ok, let's see about Loki....(rattle rattle roll)..."
"Oh fuck."
"Oh look at that..."

Start with the head god (the one at the beginning of each chapter) then just roll around randomly in the chapter after that. It may sound slow, but it builds tension plus it's a fun way to download a little Setting Background into the players' minds as they roam around the map.

If you do want to speed it up and rationalize it, make a descending-order chart of the gods, heroes and monsters in the local pantheon by hp. Should take you fifteen minutes.

*In direct conflict with other gods or their cults: when two priests of different gods channel their divine might against each other, when two artifacts of different gods collide, when there is a war between religious factions and you need to abstract it quickly, each side rolls d100 plus this number. High roll wins and, if necessary to calculate, losses are proportional to the difference. Odin  (400 hp) will always defeat Loki (300 hp)  head to head--unless Loki's followers do something to increase their numbers and influence.

Now check out the bottom where they've got Loki's ability scores. This is where you go when your cleric is praying for new spells. Each ability score corresponds to cleric spells of a different type:

Strength- Damage causing spells

Intelligence- Any kind of spell not otherwise covered: Alteration, Summoning, etc

Wisdom- Divination/Detection

Dexterity-  Movement or Hiding/Illusion spells depending on the kind of god.

Constitution- Buffs and protective spells

Charisma- Charm, Suggestion, etc

Note also that in Deities and Demigods, monstrous fear-causing creatures have negative Charisma scores--these count as if they were 20 plus the (positivized value of the) negative score and grant necromantic, deforming or fear-causing spells

So start with the highest stat first...

Loki's best stat is Intelligence (25), this means there's a 25% chance when praying for a new spell that it'll fit this category.

Let's say I'm a cleric of Loki praying for a 2nd level spell. Just using the AD&Dlist the choices
 are:

Augury (Wis)
Chant (Con)
Detect Charm (Wis)
Find Traps (Wis)
Hold Person (Int)
Know Alignment (Wis)
Resist Fire (Con)
Silence (Int)
Slow Poison (Con)
Snake Charm (Cha)
Speak W/Animals (Cha)
Spiritual Hammer (Str)

If I rolled that 25% my cleric's next level 2 spell is Hold Person or Silence. If I didn't roll that 25% I'd move down to Loki's second best stats, Str, Dex, Con and Charisma. Roll a d4 to see where to start...roll roll..ok, 24% chance of a strength spell...we got strength so I got Spiritual Hammer. Though this is Loki so it's probably a Spiritual Dagger since hammers probably bring back some fairly traumatic evenings spent in gym lockers.

Now what if I rolled a Dex spell or failed to get any of these spells? Well then something cool happens...
you get a spell based on the god's unique powers. Let's take a look at Loki:

immune to fire
immune to magical control
takes a +3 or better weapon to hit.
In the body of the entry it says... 
he can shape change
has suggestion (and looking at him for 3 rounds negates all saves vs that suggestion)
his boots combine the powers of boots of water walking, flying, travelling, and speed,
he is immune to illusions unless cast by someone over 20th level.

We treat these characteristics as the highest-level versions of special spells available specifically to clerics of Loki. Our cleric needs to fill a 2nd level spot, so s/he can choose from a 2nd level version of these abilities. Like, say...
Resist Fire
Resist Magic (+2 to saves)
Immunity to normal weapons (lasts 1 round)
Polymorph into an animal for 1 round
Suggestion (one level earlier! It's cool to be a priest of Loki)(with a save penalty per round looking at the cleric)
Water Walking (for one round)
Fly (1 round)
Travelling (treat uneven ground as normal for...a day? ok)
Haste (self only)

OH MY GOD WHAT A PAIN IN THE ASS TO DO ALL THIS TRANSLATION...Ok, but if you think about it, not really.  Your campaign is located in a place, it has a limited number of gods, right after you hand Deities and Demigods over to your party's cleric to decide which god s/he likes you spend a half hour the next night writing up what the bonus spells are for that god and you use that thing you wrote up for the whole rest of the campaign. So there's some work, but there's a payoff.

It also makes statting NPC clerics of this god cake now, because you've already written down all the most common spells.

Of course, the hapless player doesn't necessarily know exactly what the manifestation and power curve is going to be like when s/he signs up to be a cleric of Hastur because the entry just gives the god's powers, not which spell appears at which level. But that makes sense, right? When you decide to join a cult and you're like "So exactly when do I get to grow tentacles out of my ears?" they're totally going to just say some mystery bullshit instead of give you a straight answer. You just have to pick the god that seems coolest and pray, just like everybody else in human history.

What else? There's that armor class number. Each cult's priesthood has distinctive armor: That's the typical NPC priest's armor class modifier. The nimble and stealthy priests of Loki have a mod of 4, indicating an AC of 6/14--like they're wearing scale mail, whereas warrior priests of Indra go around in this  AC -2/22 stuff they can barely move in for some reason.

Magic resistance. This is a tough one, I'm thinking: how did Ward and Kuntz decide Thor had 80% magic resistance and Shang Ti had 50%? What's that even mean for us mortals? Well, practically speaking in the game it means how easy or hard it is for a regular D&D magic user or cleric to fuck with said being. So the Magic Resistance should correspond to the deity's "cosmic indifference" level. The higher the number, the less time the god spends entangled with stuff on earth. How do you use this number? This is the chance that the god does not give a fuck when spoken to with a Commune spell or the like, this is the chance that the demolition of a cathedral, cult or magic item will fail to spark the god's ire, this is the chance that it will ignore a Gate spell or the dying curse of an archpriest. Essentially, the lower the god's magic resistance, the pettier the god is overall.

Psionic ability is even tougher. Ok, all the Lovecraftian creatures have them, that makes sense, but Heimdall has type III psi abilities--what does that mean? I'm not sure this is is translatable into something useful but if you've go any ideas, take it...

Move? Not a big deal, but if the god has a fly or swim speed listed, or has a move of "infinite" then one of the special spells should be flying or swimming or teleporting.

#of attacks and damage/attack. Let's assume every god has some avatar golem or gruesome max level beast that can be summoned to lay waste to the cleric's foes in some fucked up ritual. This creature will have the numbers listed here. To find out the common types of avatar creature, turn to the back of Deities and Demigods and look where all the characteristics of the gods are listed where it says "Animal". So while Loki's animal is listed as "monsters" and his damage/attack is down to using his magical abilities,  the Finnish death god Tuoni is more straightforward: expect a snake that has 2 attacks doing 3-30 +14.

 Alright so let's roll it all up. For any god in Deities and Demigods:

Armor class: Armor class mod for priests' armor
Move: Indicates whether god grants special movement spells and kind
Hit points: Level of church's power/influence
No of Attacks: Most ferocious beast/avatar's number of attacks
Damage/Attack: Most ferocious beast/avatar's damage/attack
Special Attacks: Kinds of special spells granted
Special Defenses: Kinds of special spells granted
Magic Resistance: Indifference level ("Save to Ignore Mortals")
Size: Whatever
Alignment: Same
Worshippers' alignement: Same
Symbol: Same
Plane: Same
Cleric/Druid: Use to calculate chance a follower is a cleric or druid
Fighter: Use to calculate chance a follower is a fighter
Magic User/Illusionist: Use to calculate chance a follower is an MU/Illusionist
Thief/Assassin: Use to calculate chance a follower is a Thief/Assassin
Monk/Bard: Use to calculate chance a follower is a Monk/Bard
Psionic ability: Whatever
Ability scores are used to determine frequency of granted spells....

Strength- Damage causing spells

Intelligence- Any kind of spell not otherwise covered: Alteration, Summoning, etc

Wisdom- Divination/Detection

Dexterity-  Movement or Hiding/Illusion spells depending on the kind of god

Constitution- Buffs and protective spells

Charisma- Charm, Suggestion, etc

(Negative charisma)-Necromancy, Fear, Deformation

______________________________

So for the Church of Cthulhu (or the Cthulhu of AD&D's Understanding anyway)...

We have...

Priests wearing crappy armor offering no protection--probably robes.

Many-armed avatar beasts with 30 attacks, doing d10 each.

An 80% chance of ignoring calls from the mundane world.

An average Cthulhu cultist has a 20% chance of being a magic user and, if they aren't, a 16% chance of being a fighter.

When praying for spells, clerics of Cthulhu have a 27% chance of 

receiving a necromancy, fear, or deformation spell, then

a 25% chance of a damage-causing or protective spell, then

a 23% chance of a divination spell, then 

a 20% chance of a hiding or illusion spell or another kind of standard spell

if none of these are gained, the cleric chooses one of the following kinds of spells...

flight

fear

insanity

regeneration

teleportation

resistance to hostile environments (water, cold, vacuum)

control and summoning of sea creatures

Looks good, amirite? A little slow, but in a way that drags both GM and players through the world-building in a fun way.

And a nice thing about Demigods is even though it's kinda useless for its intended purpose, it has a lot of fantastic mythopoeic details woven in (when Zeus' blood spills on the earth, the blood forms a random 6th level monster--did you know that? See I didn't know that. Your 3rd level lightning cleric totally wants the 3rd level version of this power. Who doesn't want giant rats congealing from their blood?) It's nice to have a way to activate them rather than just have them sit there on a shelf waiting to be ebayed.

And, yeah, for most campaigns I'd probably only use the Finnish, Norse, Nonhuman and Celtic gods straight up, but the others can be reskinned easy if you like the details for your campaign's made-up gods.

"This being is jet-black and extremely ugly, he always appears wreathed in flames...He is aware of anything that happens in any area that has a fire within 50 yards of it."

That's Hastsezini from the Native American section. So you don't want a god that looks like a totem pole in your Lankhmar pastiche? Fine. Call him Zed Nagath and say he's this guy...

Same powers, same ideas, now your cleric has a weird fire god. 

Sorted.

Where The Dials Are

As an example, imagine a platonically simple RPG system, where the maximum importance of things in the game is related to where they come from.

For simplicity's sake we can say it's resolved on a d20.

1. Anything on your character sheet--anything established from the beginning about your character or anything in the players' section of a book about how your class/race abilities are supposed to work (including a fighters' weapons or a wizard's spells)--is worth a maximum of +1 (or a minimum of -1). So it says on your sheet that your PC is strong? That's a +1 to do damage. It says the PC is strong and a fighter? Still only +1. Your PC is strong and a fighter and 10th level? Still only +1.

2. Anything the GM imposes because of the situation? That's worth a maximum/minimum of +/-1. So the GM says like you're fighting in tar: minus 1 to hit. You're fighting in tar and fighting multiple opponents? Still only minus 1.

3. Anything you, the player, think up to do that's a fairly non-situational and reusable tactic--that's worth a maximum of +/-1. So you go "Ok, this is a monster with a shield, so I'll use a flail instead of an axe" (this is, as I understand it, one of the points of using chain weapons--to get around shields). So you'd get a +1. Most new power stunts you'd invent in a superhero game would be included here.

4. Anything that is something the player thought up plus it uses something established that's situational, that's a maximum of +/-2. So like "I scoop up the tar and throw it in the enemy's eyes because that'll distract and maybe blind it" that's a +2. It's not only a player idea, it's a player idea building on the fiction that's set up at that particular moment.

____

So the pie chart down here sums up the relative influence each factor could have in this scheme, assuming each factor is pushed to its maximum...

____

What's the point of this?

Point is a lot of arguments about playstyles basically boil down to how different groups would want to weight these 4 factors.

You can talk about how an encounter-as-GMed by a certain person works (and, to a less accurate degree, how a given game is meant to work or usually works) in terms of how important each of these factors is.

In our imaginary game, things are at 1, 1, 1, 2, but imagine if we tweak the dials:

Some people want what's on their character sheet--that blue area--to be like reliably +6 compared to the other stuff, so no situation could overpower what is established about the PC and the way the PC is and s/he's "role-protected". Not only against the GM but against other players. This isn't necessarily about winning, it's about always performing like the character the player imagines. The thief's good at climbing even if the player's no good at thinking up extra reasons the thief should do to be good at climbing.

Some people would want factor 2 to be at +/-6 so that the onus is on the players to solve situations more or less on terms as they are presented by the GM. Yes, your clever plan will give you a bonus, but not so much of a bonus that it overpowers the overall logic of the situation. An only-one-solution puzzle essentially works this way. Trying to "beat a module" like Tomb of Horrors often works a lot like this, although a certain degree of Factor 4 comes into it (like under "crowning moment of awesome"here).

Some people would want to weight the player ideas (3) heavily, so that the game is largely about players shaping the setting creatively. Games where the players get to narrate a lot and the more they narrate the more of a mechanical bonus they get work like this.

Some people would want to weight 4 really heavily so that the game is about players solving scenarios by using resources provided in those scenarios (or previous linked ones, a whole campaign might be considered a "scenario" here). This would be weighted heavily if every encounter is supposed to force players to think outside the box.

___

These aren't the only factors that affect the outcome of an encounter, of course:

-You could easily add a factor labelled "chance" to the chart--that would simply show swingy a game was. But I think most people already know about that idea. In the scheme above, since it assumes a d20 is being rolled, chance is way more powerful than any of the other stuff, even put together.

-You could also add a factor labelled "GM guidelines" to the chart. There's already a space for player guidelines ("Character Sheet")--the "GM Guidelines" are things like the Monster Manuals numbers or a module's description of how much damage a trap does. Between these two categories you have all the static numbers written into the rules. That factor would describe the maximum amount of influence over the situation the game's author's ideas (rules-as-written for the GM) would have over the situation. This kind of thing is rarely explicitly enforced in play except when players are trying to see if they can "beat" a module as-written. In practice, these factors (giant eagles have 26 hit points?) are basically a subset of the Situation--the GM has total discretion here.

___

Some other observations here:

-In games where PC advancement is a big deal (like D&D), the game can easily slide from 3 or 4 being really powerful to 1 being really powerful at higher levels. Like once someone's at +13 to move silently, your clever idea to put sponges under your shoes that was giving you a +1 earlier doesn't seem like much of a big deal any more.

-In a wargame like Warhammer 40, where there's little to zero room to go outside the rules, your main tactical concern is to decide when and how to use which absolutely-defined troop type. Factor 1 is king. The enjoyment and complexity comes from having a very wide range of buttons to press and possible interactions you can activate on your turn. That is: if factor 1 is the most important, you'll want a lot of different options at your fingertips to keep things interesting.

-1 being really powerful and 3 being really powerful enforce player agency in two very different ways. The first enforces sort of the-right-to-play-who-you-wanna-play whereas the second enforces the right to reliably contribute new ideas as the game progresses.

-3 being really powerful and 4 being really powerful make the game about creative collaboration but in two different ways.

-This isn't meant to be an exhaustive description of the parts of games. See my answer to Semiprometheus below...

Climbing On Big Monsters (After Scrap)

I know Scrap Princess did a more elaborate version, but how's this sound?

Attacking big monsters: for every round spent climbing on (not attacking) a big monster without falling or being thrown off you get +2 to hit and damage for when you do attack while on it. You are also protected from many of the creature's usual attacks depending on where you're climbing and what part of it you're on.

If it tries to throw you off? Save or dex check or whatever the climb mechanic is.

I figure that's the monster's attack, not yours, so holding on isn't an action, but trying to improve your position is.

_
Mathwise this idea is in your favor and better than just hitting from the ground if:
-you're good at climbing (dex), and
-you can manage to stay on there for a long while and keep hitting from the position you get in--skip 2 or 3 rounds of regular to-hit chances in exchange for several rounds of harder hits, and
-the monster's morphology makes it hard to direct its most dangerous attacks where you are
...which should explain why Legolas and the Hobbits climbed up on the cave troll but Aragorn and Boromor didn't bother.

Across The Moshpit

Sometimes your PCs are part of a battle. They aren't commanding forces or trying to win the whole thing, they're just in it doing something.

Been thinking of a way to throw one together when you don't have time/table space for all this or all this.

Ok, so:

Step One:

Prep an Encounter Table, this is just like any other Random Encounter Table except it's for troops and events they'll meet on the battlefield and it goes from wimpiest to scariest, (also, it starts with 2 for reasons that will become obvious) for example--

2 d4 orcs

3 d4 orcs on worgs

4 d4 uruk hai

5 d4 uruk hai on carrion crawlers

6 Cave troll

7 2 Cave trolls

8 Cave troll and ceiling collapsing

9 Enemy wizard casts fireball

10 One of those big multitusk elephant things

11 Witch King on one of those flying leechdragon things

Step Two:

Define an objective--PCs have an objective for this battle conceived by themselves or their boss "Take the green tower!" "Find General Skrool and slay her!" "Survive the fight!"

Step Three:

Fight starts. Troops surge forward. Give the PCs an option of two different encounters they can get into, not necessarily off the table, say "There are 2 giant scorpions being driven forward by a hobgoblin on the left and 5 kobolds on the right". Then fight whichever encounter they fight, paying attention to how many rounds it takes.

Step Four:

However many rounds it takes? That's how many other encounters lie between the PCs and their objective. Also, that is the modifier to the roll you are about to make on the Battle Encounter Table. Roll d4, add the modifier, consult the table, that's the next unit that slams into the PCs. (Something like the fireball will only take one round to resolve, thank god, so the fight afterward will be easy if it's survived.)

Step Five:

Fight out that next encounter. However many rounds that takes is the modifier to the next roll (note that, unlike the first encounter, the length of this encounter does not add to the total number of encounters, it just helps determine their hardness.)

Step Six:

Repeat Step Five until they PCs have plowed through the requisite number of encounters, are dead, or change objectives. If they change objectives, go back to Step 3.

Now there are lots of ways to make this more complex if you want but the skeleton here is a nice way to keep it light while still simulating some interesting things about battles: the faster you cut through the initial resistance the better the whole thing goes, the speed with which you get past enemies is almost as important as whether you defeat them at all, the more time you spend mucking around the more likely the enemy is going to be able to reorient and send its big guns after you.

This is also the kind of mechanic you can just go ahead and explain to the players: "The longer each fight takes the tougher the rest of it will be".

Option: give the PCs a choice of choosing the enemy rolled or any tougher one. Choosing the tougher one subtracts from the number of total encounters.

Obviously you can jigger the numbers if battles typically take longer in whatever system you're using.