Impacts of MathHammer

So being a bit nerdy when it comes to calculating odds and "doing the real statistics" both Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k came to my attention (check out producers Website).
Well basically because I started playing 40k.

And I realize knowing the math is good & bad somehow.
If you play Eldar like myself and know you field terrible units ... there is a some hope left.
If you see how far many people go to optimize their lists and loose with better stuff cause they aren't capable of applying tactics ... thats unfortunate.

For today I'll leave it at that.

Returning to the "D10 System"

So, what is that system? Well the original slogan was: "D&D 3.x in simple & done right."
Well I of course did redo how pretty much everything worked (except for the basic principle of "roll high is good"). But If I check out my dependency chart of what influences what, things get pretty messy quite soon.

I started out with: Attributes, Skills, Defenses and Feats (split into Advantages & Tricks) & Spells - no classes, no levels, but races. Character-Creation was pretty much point buy in White Wolf Fashion (basic set + buy your focus using free points).
However the whole thing had it's issues as races modify existing values (eg. granting attribute bonuses, trained skills and sometimes feats). The freedom to customize was quickly reduced a bit as it had a little issue: the potential of abuse was too high.

Character creation was damn pretty quick for me cause I could stat a character after I got a concept within 5 minutes including equipment. However the influences between the individual subsets were pretty complex and sometimes circular:

Trait-Dependencies

• Race does not depend on anything.
• Attributes depend on racial limitations
• Skills depend on Attributes & Feats
• Feats depend on Attributes, Skills (without feat bonuses), Feats
• Defenses depend on Race, Attributes, Feats
• # Spells depend on Feats
• Magic capabilities depend on Attributes, Skills, Feats, Spells

Trait influences

• Race - limits attributes, grants attribute points, automatically trained skills, grants Advantages (a type of Feats), requirement for some Feats
• Attributes - grant bonuses to Skills and Defenses, requirement for some Feats. Sometimes grant offensive combat bonuses. May influences #Spells a character has available and the power of a characters spells.
• Skills - some influence spellcasting & offensive capabilities. requirement for some Feats.
• Defense - sometimes requirement for some Feats.
• Feats (general) - There are feat-chains and some chains span over several Feat-types. Can influence pretty much anything.
• Advantages (Feats) - Improve Skills, Defenses, offensive combat capabilities, allow spellcasting.
• Tricks (Feats) - Allow special actions. Usually Combat related.
• Spells - May grant temporary bonuses.
• Gear - Modifies defenses, movement-rates.
  

Some other drawbacks

• Well without levels HP (the D&D style) quickly became a problem. I think I need a "heroism model" like "Mook", "Dude", "normal person", "Henchman", "Hero", "Freak", "Monster", "Demi-god" to grant some sort of power level. And there it comes back: Levels ... - Or I need a significantly different way to change the damage/survivability thing.
• Defenses - my defenses System was simplified "SW:SE-style" - no AC, but armor influences AC ... it does not work and is terribly complicated resulting in various IMBA chains.
• Unlucky Examples: You don't hit an Elf, but if you hit one it's a dead Elf. You may hit a dwarf but a dwarf will never get wounded unless you score a critical hit ...
• I need a realistic, but at least somewhat balanced concept for "one-shot" weapons (Alchemy) the old one was damn too cheap ...
  

Resume
Well, I think, I need to simplify how different subsystems influence each other. That will allow a better predictability and reduce some of the terrible chaos my system accidentally caused. This should also reduce the potential of IMBA-chains.

So I've been on Cat-Con XXX

Well, like the title says, I've been on Cat-Con XXX.

The basics

• What is Cat-Con ? Well it's a little local Convention at Cat-Cafe in Ulm, Germany.
• What was up ? Well lot's of game sessions were held. I guess over 100 visitors were there and probably 20+ RPG sessions were held. Also dozens of Miniature Battles and a few local Tabletop-Tournaments were held (alphabetic order: AT-43, Warmachines, WH-40k).
• Pegasus Support provides most of Pegasus portfolio on the German market as "try it out" variant. This year's special was an official SR4 GM - though I was a little bit surprised as Call of Cuthulu is part of that portfolio and the younger system (release date of the German translation).
• Imp's Shop (Ulm) provided a Con-shop (RPG & TT stuff).
  
• It seems that DSA 4 (The dark eye), Cuthulu, Shadowrun 3 & 4 are the most vital RPG-systems on that Con. There were some more exotic games (at least declared, but I cannot check everything) like Dogs in the Vineguard, Macho-Weiber-mit-dicken-Kanonen, Barbaren, Starwars D6 and others.

My activities
Well I spent most of my Saturday afternoon and evening getting used to Warmachines Mk. II and later (well so around 21:00h) on I joined a 7 hours long Starwars D6 game. Took some sleep during the early morning hours and then went on to take part in the Warmachines Tournament.

Both in Star Wars as well as in the tournament the dice weren't with me.

I mean I fried half a dozen blasters in Star Wars and caused some biohazzard stuff in that scenario. In the tournament I wasn't able to score points.

However the whole thing thought me two things:

• Lucky dice are a BAD, BAD, invention.
• Warmachine is far more complex then I expected. Try again & beat them. And don't get your caster knocked down because your opponent bull-rushes one of his/her own Jacks with a bigger Jack right into your caster ...

Conclusions (my D10 System)
Oh, and some of the chatting on Cat-Con inspired me to dabble again on my "old" D10 system. Well it once came into a pretty active testing-phase until I had to spend more energy on other stuff. And there are some known issues that I still remember that have to be fixed.
So expect some postings on that topic.

Simple Solutions - Lamentations & Ideas

Preface
Well, this post/thread on RPG.net forums makes me remember what I dislike about the 3.x D&D, why I don't digg Pathfinder or even less 4e.
Still I like SOME ideas of 3.x even knowing that they are issues themselfs, but that's probably related to tastes or some of my interest in fiddly things (eg. when I try to simulate some things) vs. simple things (eg. when I try to run a game for many players).

Reading both of these two blog entries (again), I see people thinking along similar practical lines when it comes to running games.

• Akratic Wizardy - Why I Dislike Feats
• RPG Crank - Too Fiddly
• For the next d20 evolutionary step (another RPG.net forums post/thread)
  

I've been thinkering - in my mind mostly and not on paper - about how to handle some things - especially: Special actions in combat without needlessly complicated rules.

So lets get straight to the point: Most games make actions that aren't "I attack" more difficult. However "acting smart" should not be penalized.
So what do they do, they add "ok, I can do Special-Action-X better then others" making one trick (or a few) valueable if you invest something into being able doing X pretty well.

As a side-effect this allows "snowflakes" to gain meaning. Making an interesting character becomes a game-mechanics thing, not an how-it-actually-turns-out thing.
So how-you-play-is-what-you-get becomes what-you-mechanically-play-is-what-you-get.

No question that there should be SOME mechanical-support if you (in this example a not so eloquent player) play a super great smooth-talker, but there needs to be a limit in mechanically-complexity to this whole thing.
As a flat line there should rarely be more then 2 factors affecting a single check.
To stick with the smooth-talker: Charisma and some skills should be basically enough.
What about skill-boosting-feats? - you may ask this question very well.
Well practically: What are they for?
Actually: It probably was a pretty a late discovery of D&D 3.x that 2+INT skillpoints will rarely get you anywhere beyond a certain level, so they thought "Let's stretch it a bit". However that fix is usually a really bad trade-off.
SW:SE & 4E went with a leaner base skill-progression, that helps a lot in this regard. A flat levelbased-bonus somewhat makes sense - unfortunately it also is a disconnect with reality - you don't become better at EVERYTHING just because you're generally more experienced.
So what would have been a useful Fix for 3.x ? Hand non-spellcasters 6+INT skillpoints (rogues/thiefs/bards get 12+INT) or halfing the skill list
alternatively you could have (again) automatically gained skills + skillpoints
Some again may say this is fiddly, but maybe one should consider the Modifiers of 3.X Attributes an unnecessary detail - similar to what True20 said before but maybe we should drop the modifiers instead of the original value ...

Maybe I'm going in circles during this monologue as I mentioned some of these Ideas before.
But here are some ideas

Weapon Proficiencies as Example
Well, 3.x made a real crazy thing out of weapon proficiencies as it also turned "Fighter only" Weapon Specialisation (as done in AD&D 2E) into a feat chain as well.
So 3.x has:

• BAB / Level
  
• Attribute Modifier
• Not-Proficient-with-X-Penalty (-4 to attack rolls)
  
• Weapon Proficiencies*
• Feats that interact with Proficiencies*
• Feats that allow Specialisation*

So it basically did split a relatively simple concept up and divided it among 2 1/2 systems (those with an *).
Well 4E did a simple solution by keeping something from 3.x (1/2 LVL as minimum BAB becomes the standard progression), being proficient with X, gives a +4 Bonus.
That is a simplification.
However if you - as I wrote above - want to stick to the 3.x System this is a bit odd once you go beyond lvl 8 - you have to rethink a lot as your Fighters will become worse and worse.
Ok, you can redefine Weapon Fokus/Specialisation Feats for them.
But on the other hand you get another problem: Your "I can use crossbows" wizard now becomes a sniper at lower levels and at higher levels (s)he will (maybe) freak out doing spell-novas.
That results in a "loose loose" situation for fighters. Your only hope is an ineffectively played caster ...

Specialisation - a different & simple way
Ok, so how do we get it ? Do you remember how 4E gave classes roles ?
Well let's simply say:

• Fighters (So Fighter, Paladin, Ranger) get weapon specialisation as a class feature
• Rogues (So Thiefs, Bards, Rascals) get skill specialisation as a class feature
• "Plain old Fighters" get a better variant of that thing
• Rangers might get both - weapon & skill specialisation (making them our Special OP dudes)
• Spellcasters (well anyone having more spellcasting then Rangers or Paladins) don't get access to this subsystem

Where did I take this from: Well AD&D 2e did it, but the writeups would need a bit of cleanup/structuring.

Weapon related
Base Roll: 1d20 + 1/2 Level + Proficiency Bonus + Stat Modifier + Magic

All classes get automatic weapon training and "weapon training points" to a total depending on their level. That way

Proficiency Bonus Table
You must spend one point from your weapon-training-pool to increase one step on this table

• +0 to hit for untrained attempts with a weapon
  
• +2 to hit for Proficiency (best for spellcasters)
  
• +4 to hit for Focus (best for rogues)
  
• +4 to hit/+4 to damage for Specialisation (best for fighter types, requires lvl 4)
• +6 to hit/+6 to damage (plain-old-fighter only, requires lvl 12)
  
• +8 to hit/+8 to damage (plain-old-fighter only, requires lvl 16)

weapon-training-points gained
Well, every class gets some proficiencies to start with that are in addition to what this listing shows.

• Magicans: 1 point per 5 levels
  
• Rogues: 1 point per 3 levels
• Fighter-types: 1 point per 2 levels
• Fighter-fighters: 1 point per level

Result
We get a lean subsystem, don't need feats therefor so that we can enforce some archetypes.

Skill related
Base Roll: 1d20 + Related Attribute + Skill Bonus + Magic

Basically we can clone the Weapon System for skills. And we see that we're using the Attribute instead of the Attribute Modifier. That way Skills become a bit more fine-grained, but also there is no need for something silly such as a DC 0 Skill check ...
Additionally we eliminate a Zero-to-Hero progression that is incredibly strange when it comes to 3.x Skills and might also work for 4E Skills.

Proficiency Bonus Table
You must spend one point from your weapon-training-pool to increase one step on this table.

• +0 to checks for untrained attempts, some actions cannot be performed
  
• +2 to checks for Proficiency (best for specialists of a different field)
  
• +5 to checks for Focus (rogues generally, some classes may have limited access to this)
• +10 to checks for Mastery (rogues only)

Class Skills vs Skill Tables per Class
I think Class Skills as done in 3.x were some sort of simplification from the skills-per-class tables of AD&D, but also some sort of drawback.
So let's talk about the single-skill-list-approach

The PROs

• simple Cost to train a skill (1 pt or 2 pts) vs. the complicated Tables (something like 1pt or 2pts for class skills and up to 5pts for some other skills)
• one place to look up Skills
  

The CONs

• split into Skill, Feat or automatic/choosen Class-Feature
• Skills & Feats interact
• Class-Features & Feats interact
• Some Class-Features interact with both Skill & Feats
  

I think I prefer a little cleaned up variant of the multi-table-approach or a different split when it comes to Skills/Feats/Class-abilities. The bit of cost-lookup to train a certain skill (eg. riding is cheap, alchemy is pretty expensive) - if organized well - is neglectible.

Skill Tricks
Well some people like allowing "special stuff" or extra regulations. I think that's where we should provide two options

• Spend a Skill Proficiency Point to gain a special Trick
• Spend a Feat to gain a special Trick

Ok, now we bring Feats back in, but I think if every class has these base options to improve on their field, Feats can be used to break out of the stereotypes.

Skill-Training-Points gained
Well, every class gets some skill-training-points to start with that are in addition to what this listing shows.

• Magicans: 1 general point per 4 levels plus some automatic/stereotypical skills
  
• Rogues: 1 point per 1 level
• Fighter-types: 1 point per 2 level

Well please note that these tables are assumed under for "every point in a class skill costs 1 Skill Training point, others cost 2" combined with some cleanups to the 3.x D&D skill system.

System for Winter Special 2009

Ok, it seems that this game will start later then expected, but probably it's good to note down the game system & rules sooner then later so that I can do some more detailed prep work myself.

I haven't defined everything yet as the mental rules (eg. fear & horror) are something that will take some thought, but the stuff regards "doing stuff" has already been condensed by other games and can be considered worth using.

Basics
The character sheet as linked shows several sections: Attributes (Attribute), Skills (Fähigkeiten), Advantages (Vorteile) and Game Dynamics (Spiel Dynamik).

• When you check if you're capable of doing/knowing/performing something it's usually: Attributes & Skills that count.
• When you check if you can buy something, have the connections to the right people it's usually Advantages that counts.
• Whenever you get hurt or find yourself struggling against horrors or just your own personality & flaws it's Game Dynamics
• Note that if you're in pain or in a strange mental state that Health (Gesundheit) und Psyche (Psyche) will affect your capabilities both & both at the same time ...

Rolling dice
Basically you roll a number of D6 (standard 6 sided dice) equals the number of dots in the relevant trait(s). Count the dice that show a 5 or 6 as successes and put the others away. The number of successes determines how well you did.

1. You barely did it
2. You did it
   
3. You did well
4. You succeeded great
   
5. Stunning success
   

Note that many rolls use two traits, so the numbers of rolled dice falls into the range of 1 through 10 dice. On average one of three rolled dice is a success. Therefore rolling 3 successes is possible, but 4 or more successes are very uncommon even with 10 rolled dice.

To rate your own capabilities:
1 - 2 dice - poor
3 - 4 dice - normal (average 1 success)
5 - 7 dice - good (average 2 successes)
8 - 10 dice - great (average 3 successes)

Using Skills - What belongs together
Here are some examples:

• Finding a book in a library is related to Perception (Wahrnehmung) and Research (Nachforschungen), so count both ratings together to find the book to roll. The rules limitation on using research makes sense: You usually cannot find a book this way if you can barely read and without instruction you'll surely be lost in any mayor library.
• Regaining control of a wagon is related to Dexterity (Geschicklichkeit) and Ride (Reiten).

This list could go on, but you probably get the idea. It's intended that there is no complete list of pairs as this shall allow creativeness based on character concept (I hope I did not forget to mention that some creativity is needed to play such a game). A military man will probably rely more on his power to intimidate someone to get info while a pretty young lady might get the same info with a stunning smile.

Using Skills - Complex Checks
Note that there should be situations where a problem shall not be solved in a single roll for purposes of drama (such as chasing someone down an alley, stopping the ultimate device of doom). In that case the GM will limit the number of related rolls per player in that contest and also set a number of successes that someone has to reach.
In the case of a chase you'd use something a bit more openended and add "if the one you're chasing has 6 successes more then the best of your group, (s)he escapes because you all loose the trail".
In the case of stopping a doomsday device you're working against the time (time = number of rolls total), so you let your specialists do the job and hope that they are capable of scoring a certain amount of successes. If you have several people skilled suitable for the job, you should usually define a "chief engineer" (or whatever is situation-appropriate) and each helping team member grants as many dice extra as his/her skill rating (but not the ability score ... team work is not 100% efficient, you know).

Using Skills - Combat (Kampf)
Well there will be rules that differ from normal skill checks - they will be explained later.

Advantages
These are usually something that you don't roll with. Also this is the most player-defined section. And having traits that come from the cooperation of players & GM and that aren't set into stone requires talk. So talk about your character concept long before filling out the sheet.

• Gifts & Disadvantages (Gaben & Leiden) - feature special capabilities that don't fit well under skills normally such things as bad eyesight, bad temper or such would fall under Disadvantages and Gifts would be things you're lucky about. Normally that's ambidexterity or a knack for something special.
• Backgrounds (Hintergrund) - thats what you have and what you can use - often Money, Servants or Contacts & Fame. These are resources and if you roll for resources it's often bad cause you stressed one of them a bit too much and you may loose a particular one. Please note that there are Backgrounds that require you to have other backgrounds (eg. being a rich Industrial requires you usually to have money, servants, contacts. If you at least have a bit in each it's ok to dig into a suitable advanced background - let's call it Industrial Facilities.
  
• Contacts (Kontakte) - these are the result of your interaction with the gaming world and often deserve a page on their own in longer games. Note that the amount of initial contacts depends on your Contacts background. Note that most contacts will be not so important people when it comes to influencing the world. If you want Contacts to movers & shakers your backgrounds should reflect this (money, fame, status, contacts & an advanced background - say influential contacts).

Game Dynamics (Spieldynamik)
Well, half of this section is to mark how hurt you are (Health & Psyche). What kind of attack attacks what status should be instinctively clear. Then there are Willpower, Virtue and Quirks.

Willpower - defines how hard it is to convince you and how much you can push yourself in the face of danger & fear. That's why this trait has two rows. One with dots for your willpower rating and below some square boxes for your spent willpower from your willpower pool. Your willpower pool is of the same size as your willpower rating.
So it ultimately comes up as your "power to say no".

• You can spend a point from your willpower pool to make a check (considered as one success) because you as the player says that your character is cool and does this independent of what the dice said.
• If an NPC tries to convince your Character in a discussion (treat it as extended skill check with a limited amount of rolls per player/NPC as described above) and the NPC scores enough successes to beat your Willpower Rating your character is convinced unless you buy down the successes of that NPC on a one for one basis with points from your willpower pool as soon as you can (that's immediately after the dice are rolled)
  
• Note that if your willpower pool is completely consumed anything that might scare your character WILL scare your character - so be wise when to spend Willpower
• One point of willpower will be regained if you sleep a whole normal night (say 6 hours or more)
  
• Willpower may be regained by indulging a strong virtue (rating of at least 3) of your character when there is no need to do so.

Quirks - If you have one virtue with a rating of 3 or higher this leaves a mark in your behaviour that many might consider as remarkable or strange. Simply find something suitable and work it out with your GM.

Virtues - These Values represent your character moral stance. Most normal people have something like one or two dots in most virtues. There are six virtues in pairs of three: devotion (Hingabe) & Bravery (Mut), Curiosity (Neugier) & Conviction (Überzeugung) and Habgier (Greed) & Nobleness (Edelmut). Any player character will definitively have one of these rated at 3 or higher.
Virtues grant extra dice to rolls that fall under their category, but also penalizes acting against them.

• Devotion - Grants you the ability to resists, to continue & stand in for your friends & beloved ones. It reflects how well you're a team player - and unless you got a 5 in that trait it does not mean you're a stupid puppy doing everything his/her friends say.
  
• Bravery - Allows you to resist fear and great dangers, but it's often a reckless variant. So a high bravery will result in a "if it's dangerous we use this way" way of thinking.
  
• Curiosity - Reflects your demand to discover new things. You push the research forward. However there also can be too much of that some drug dealers say ...
  
• Conviction - In matters of faith & believe it defines how well your sanity lasts in the face of horror.
  
• Greed - Well, can you resist making money ?
  
• Nobleness - How much of a gentleman, so-called do-goder are you ?

So, what's left ?
Well Combat rules & Background listings. These will follow later.

So there is a system called "Mini Six"

Ok, so via a link I stubled over a link to I waste the buddha with my crossbow blog and one of the first articles I read is on this system "Mini Six". It's based on the mechanics of the good old West End Games Star Wars game during the time where Star Wars only consisted of three Movies - Episode IV through VI ... well and a few books & some fan-fiction.

Well I note this here, because the PDF of Mini Six is only 8 pages long & highly condensed - PLUS Mini Six is an OGL game, so you can do what you want to do with it and do the great OGL Mix and Match to spin of you ideas as long as you're saying thanks & whose ideas you're using.

So that's enough writing about it. Check it out yourself: http://antipaladingames.com/minisix.html

Winter Special 2009 - Smoke on the Water

As every year I'm planning to run a winter game. To keep all the prep stuff handy as online documents for all my players, check out the link provided below.

Concept Document: Winter Special 2009 - Smoke on the Water[DE]

Those invited shall contact me via this blog or personally (if on my list of known suspects)