DGRPG Design Diary #9: Fightin'!

Combat is divided into rounds, little five-second parcels of time that make it easier for everyone to keep track of what's going on. Each round everyone gets an action - this can be something like opening or closing a door, retrieving something from a pocket, or trying to beat the tar out of an opponent. Everyone gets an action every round (unless constrained by something), and once everyone's taken an action a new round begins.

Combat Resolution

Alright, what do we need to know so that characters can hit each other until someone loses?

• Who goes first?
• How hard is it to hit the target?
• How much damage does a successful blow inflict?
• How much damage can a character sustain?

Who goes first?

At the start of each combat, roll a d20 and add your character's WILY and DEFT modifiers to represent (a) how quickly they decide what to do and (b) how quickly they can act on it. This is their Initiative. Character actions are processed from highest Initiative to lowest. Once everyone's acted, a new round begins.

How hard is it to hit the target?

By "hit" we mean a blow which connects well enough to do damage; in any individual combat round there's likely to be a back-and-forth exchange of blows, most of which miss or are intercepted or glance off without inflicting any appreciable harm.

Using the target numbers from Design Diary #7 we'll say that trying to hit someone in a combat situation is Taxing - you're trying to land a blow on them without getting hit yourself - so you need to roll higher than 15 to hit. Additionally, characters who are more agile will generally be harder to hit in the first place as they dodge around, and clumsy or sluggish characters will be easier. To reflect that, let's apply the defending character's DEFT modifier to the target number.

At the GM's option, characters who engage in tactics which give them an edge (attacking from ambush, taking the high ground, throwing dust in their opponent's eyes) might be granted bonuses to hit their target. Generally this should be on the order of a +1 per modifying factor, up to a maximum total of +3 if they really pile on the dirty tricks.

How much damage does a successful blow inflict? Damage is based on the attacker's weapon, adjusted by their BRUTE modifier, and reduced by the defender's armour. Heavier armour provides greater protection from blows, but also reduces the defender's maximum DEFT modifier accordingly.

So, roll dice (based on weapon type), add the attacker's BRUTE modifier and deduct the defender's armour rating; reduce the defender's Vigour by the result.

How much damage can a character sustain?

Vigour? What's that? Oh yes, that. As characters progress in experience they become better able to survive fights, which we'll represent with a stat called Vigour. This is something of an abstraction, representing their overall ability to keep fighting - a combination of stamina, pain threshold, physical resilience and raw determination. When a character runs out of Vigour they are out of the fight - unconscious or worse.

Vigour increases by a moderate amount as the character gains levels to represent characters becoming better at resisting exhaustion, enduring pain, and fighting on in spite of injury. Fighty classes will tend to gain Vigour at a faster rate than less-fighty classes. Whoever runs out of Vigour first is out of the fight - exhausted, unconscious, cowed, or otherwise incapacitated. Alternatively they could keep on fighting anyway - but this runs the risk of character death, and there's no coming back from that.

Summary

Combat is generally a matter of attrition. Some character classes (the Jinx in particular) will have abilities they can throw into the mix to make things more interesting, but at its heart it's a matter of characters hitting one another until someone falls over.

DGRPG Design Diary #8: Core Character Classes

At this point I'm working on the basis of four core character classes, based around broad archetypes with enough room for customisation that even characters from the same class can feel distinct from one another in play.

Grunt

Focus: Combat, martial prowess, heavy-hitting, intimidation, brutality, resilience.

The Grunt represents the Overlord's footsoldiers, typically tough battle-scarred slabs of gristle who get results by application of physical force, or the threat of same. Some specialise in dealing out as much damage as possible, others by absorbing it in order to slow enemies down or protect squishier minions. They might favour strict martial discipline and rigorous training, or they might drive themselves into a frothing berserker frenzy before charging headlong against their foes.

Sneak

Focus: Stealth, traps, thievery, infiltration, spying, assassination.

The Sneak represents the Overlord's spies, assassins, and others who get results by stealth and deceit. They have a very particular set of skills, and in combat tend to be the stiletto to the Grunt's sledgehammer. Some specialise in the construction of increasingly elaborate and deadly traps to hamper or incapacitate foes, others become expert at moving silent and unseen, striking from the shadows at an enemy's weakest spot.

Creep

Focus: Social, wrangling bureaucracy, currying favour, diverting blame, directing minions.

The Creep represents the Overlord's toadies, lackeys and sycophants - those who have learned how to manipulate, bribe, blackmail or trick others in order to advance their own aims. Some are sincerely loyal to the Overlord, others pay only lip-service as a way of getting what they want. The most dangerous harbour ambitions of becoming Overlords themselves some day, no matter who they have to step over. Some specialise in trading favours between factions and powerful individuals, others become adept at directing swarms of lesser minions to do their bidding - on their esteemed Overlord's behalf, of course.

Jinx

Focus: Arcane, spellcasting, sorcerous lore, bolstering allies, weakening foes.

The Jinx represents those among the Overlord's underlings who have some grasp of matters magical - they might be cultists, occultists, sorcerers, hedge-wizards, petty conjurors or anyone else who can channel arcane forces. They might have gained such powers by diligent study of dusty tomes, a gift in their blood, or by making pacts with unspeakable entities from beyond time and space. Some specialise in unleashing balefire and lightning upon their foes, others learn how to confer hideous strength or unnatural resilience upon their enemies, while others have a more... eclectic selection of spells to draw upon, forsaking raw power in favour of utility and flexibility.

DGRPG Design Diary #7: Core Mechanics Review

A quick recap of the core mechanics, with some provisional values.

Task Resolution:

The central task resolution mechanic used to determine success or failure. This can apply to setting or disarming a cunning trap, jumping over an obstacle, climbing a rope, attacking an adversary, intimidating a subordinate, whatever.

d20 + modifiers vs. target number

I'm going to try and keep the range of modifiers pretty tight to avoid undue inflation as characters improve over time.

Modifiers

Attribute modifiers are derived from the PC's Attributes, and use the Attribute most relevant to the task at hand. Such modifiers are kept deliberately low to reduce the emphasis on number-crunching character optimisation by ensuring that even a character with non-optimised Attributes remains playable.

Attribute	3	4-5	6-8	9-12	13-15	16-17	18
Modifier	-3	-2	-1	0	+1	+2	+3

Equipment modifiers are conferred by special items, weapons, etc. An enchanted dagger might grant a +1 modifier to damage inflicted, an enchanted helm might grant a -1 modifier to damage received. Such items are likely to be rare and highly prized.

Situational modifiers are conferred by environmental factors which help or hinder the performance of a task - a PC might enjoy a positive modifier if assisted by companions, given extra time to perform the task, or similarly favourable conditions; correspondingly a PC might suffer a negative modifier while on fire, or in pitch darkness, or hanging by one leg from the ceiling, or likewise distracted. It is entirely possible (and indeed encouraged) to seek advantage by inflicting such negative modifiers upon adversaries.

There is a limit to the number of modifiers that can be applied to a task resolution attempt to keep things from getting silly - three modifiers or a total of +5 in each direction, whichever is lower.

Target Numbers

Target numbers vary based on the difficulty of the task at hand. To succeed at a task the total of d20 + modifiers must exceed the target number. Dice should only be rolled when there is a likelihood of failure having consequences - so hopping over a puddle of water wouldn't require a roll, but leaping a bottomless crevasse (or a puddle of acid) would.

Difficulty	Target	% success
Trivial	1	95%
Easy	5	75%
Standard	10	50%
Taxing	15	25%
Daunting	19	5%

The default target number is 10, which gives a 50-50 chance of success or failure for an individual of average ability. This can vary according to the task - jumping over a 3' gap might be Trivial, a 5' gap might be Easy, a 10' gap Standard, a 15' gap Taxing, and a 20' gap Daunting.

I've also been made aware of a game called Dungeon World which uses a "partial success" mechanic - such that borderline task resolution rolls might succeed, but with a cost or consequence. It's an idea that's intriguing to me, so I'll be researching it further.

DGRPG Design Diary: Back to Basics

It's been a while. I had a brief exploratory sidequest to check out the possibility of some kind of Dungeon Grind computer game, but that didn't pan out because coding is hard. Certainly harder than I anticipated. Making pixel-graphics is fun and I'm not bad at webdesign coding with CSS and HTML and even a bit of the ol' PHP/SQL stuff, so how tricky could it be, right? Suffice to say it turned into a rather brisk lesson in humility. But at least I tried.

So, back to the world of paper-and-pencils.

Part of the reason for the above digression was because I was having some trouble coming up with rules for the DGRPG - I've got a fairly good idea of what I want in terms of feel and texture for the game, but assigning actual numbers to things was challenging, because I kept getting tied up in working out which approach was "better" for everything - flat modifiers vs. dice modifiers, whether task resolution should be d20 + modifier, or d20 + attribute, how these things might affect balance and fairness, which option feels best, and so on and so forth. And looming on the horizon was the idea that I'd have to make this kind of decision for everything the rules might have to cover, because I'd been mentally modelling DGRPG on later editions of D&D, which tend to have rules for everything - if you want to do something there's probably a rule to cover it. Part of this likely stems from the attempt to make the d20 system a "universal" system (rather than just sticking to the Heroic Fantasy genre of previous editions), while the rest is probably because more rules means being able to sell more rulebooks detailing and explaining those rules.

Whatever the reason, that's really not what I'm aiming for. Ideally I'd like to get all the rules needed to play DGRPG into one booklet, maybe 32 pages or so tops. Character generation, a bit of setting information, some spells, equipment, task resolution, combat system, and that's about it. Something nice and lightweight.

Then I took a closer look at this OSR thing I've seen mentioned here and there online in RPG communities, read a few blogs, downloaded a few articles, and things are starting to click. The Quick Primer for OSR Gaming has been pretty informative, and meshes pretty well with what I have in mind.

Which is a slightly long-winded way of saying that I've got a clearer idea of where to take things from here, and will thus be able to start putting together an actual workable system, from the ground up.