Creating a Role Playing Game

Corrupt America - Variant

2011-04-07T06:43:00.003-05:00

Okay so recently we played AA and we were short a player so we did this. It was HUGE fun.

We removed America as a player.

Throw out Axis vs Allies, make whatever alliances suit you.

We had a "Prelude to war" turn where each player received 50 credit to spend how they wish and place where ever they wish in their territory. Original placements remained unchanged. Placements were made in the play order

At the beginning of each turn. All players can submit a secret bid in currency for control of America. Only the highest bidder controls America for 1 turn. All players pay the bid. The bid payments go back to the bank and no country spends them. They currency is lost to all. The winner is not announced until America's turn.

After the game we all agreed it "blew up" all the old strategies and it was fun.

Follow the comments on the forum.

Scale

2010-07-31T05:44:00.001-05:00

PUCS is a simplistic system and this fact affords it some interesting advantages in developing monsters and defining what there capabilities are. Firstly what is a typical human is easily understood. When creating a monster relative to normal human it is quite easy to see how deadly the monster might be.

Human
A normal human has all attributes of 40 and so a movement (Strength + Reflex) of 80. Presuming this person has no martial training, they can pick up a club or a knife or a sword and have a 10% chance of hitting in melee.

Goblin
Let us consider a fairly common and low power monster the goblin. A goblin is smaller then a normal human, weaker, and none to bright. However they have some martial skills and they are much faster (Movement 120) then a normal human. In a straight up fight between a goblin and human, the goblin's 35% verses the human's 10% is a clear advantage. It is not hard to imagine a small set of goblins easily destroying/routing a much larger group of humans. After all if it goes badly for the goblins they can run 50% faster and easily get away.

Minimally Trained Human
If a human has basic martial training (Basic Melee) there attack score doubles to 20%. It is not hard to imagine that some proportion of the general population would have this training, either from life experience or perhaps from being pressed into military service sometime in the past.

In this scenario the a straight up fight between the two still favors the goblin with 35% verses 20%. However it is more difficult to invision a small set of goblins destroying/routing a much larger group of humans. Due to the goblin advantage being reduced by half.

Moderately Trained Human
If a human has some specialized training in a weapon (Simple Weapons) for example a club, they have a 45% of hitting in melee. This human has likely spent sometime in either the watch or repeated pressing into military service and probably has even had a some melee under their belt.

In this scenario a straight up fight between the two slightly favors the human with 45% verses 35%. This makes it difficult to envision a small group of goblins destroying/routing a larger group of humans. Even if only a few humans are at this level among many humans it may be enough to turn the tide.

The Man at Arms
If a human has specialized training in a weapon (Blades 2, Light Armor & Shield) for example a short sword, they have a 50% of hitting in melee. This human has likely been a man at arms or a professional soldier.

In this scenario a straight up fight between the two strongly favors the human with 50% verses 35%. The human gets as many as two attacks and as many as 3 defense rolls. This makes it difficult to envision a small group of goblins even attacking a larger group of humans. Even if only a few humans are at this level among many humans it would be enough to turn the tide.

The Scale
The point of all these examples is that goblin, would be absolutely terrifying and deadly to a normal human even if there were large numbers of humans relative to the number of goblins. With even a little skill this quickly reverses.

If you consider larger creatures, say a werewolf or a troll. The human could never match the speed of a werewolf (250) or the strength of troll (200). Tangling with either of these beasts even if you are highly skilled is a dance with death. A single blow (+10 on damage) from the troll is lethal to even a heavily armored human. The werewolf is so fast, you would be hard pressed to even attack it as it can attack and move away from you in most cases.

Conclusion
To me this scale is just one more thing that makes PUCS so good. It highlight what is wrong with D20 and the like. A creature that is 12' tall and weighs 500# and hits you... is lethal. You can tangle with the creature in melee but you will have to focus all your energy on not getting hit in order to survive. In D20 at high enough level you could take on this creature without fear. This would never be the case in PUCS, you would always need companions or better yet attack it with ranged weapons.

PUCS Complete Outline

2010-07-04T07:46:00.002-05:00

PUCS - Outline

PUCS - Rules
- Character Attributes
- Movement
- Skills
- Gap
- Combat
- Initiative
- Round
- Melee
- Magic
- Critical Blunders
- Critical Hits
- Free Attack
- Missile
- Damage
- Weapons
- Armor
- Healing
- Misc
PUCS - Topics
- Creating a Character
- Improving Skills
- Improving Attributes
- Running A Game
- Example Melee
PUCS - Skills
- Skills Magical
- Skills Martial
- Skills Other
PUCS - Lists
- Equipment
- Armor
- Weapons
PUCS - Monsters
PUCS - Glossary

2010-05-03T13:40:00.003-05:00

Well it has been a year off and things are getting interesting again. PUCS will be relaunching later this year. It will be broken into smaller pieces and still totally FREE!

In conclusion

2009-03-11T08:22:00.003-05:00

Hello All,

I am sorry to inform you that this effort has been placed on hold indefinately. Work, family and finicial crisis have all conspired to absorb all of our free time. No significant progress has been made on PUCS in 6 months. The founders are no longer even able to meet or test regularly. If anyone is interested in taking up the effort, or taking over the effort, drop a comment here and we will contact you.

Thank you all!

-Peter

PUCS has a new home!

2008-10-14T18:56:00.001-05:00

PUCS - Percentile Universal Combat System

PUCS Open Play Testing

2008-10-03T08:48:00.002-05:00

Play testing has resumed! The designers have decided to open it up to the general public. This should gain fresh ideas, confirm some assumptions and strike down some too. Please consider participating! PUCS Play testing public invite

Tweaking continues

2008-08-08T07:04:00.002-05:00

Not much to report really. Review, testing and tweaking continues. I expect there will be a DRAFT 3 this Fall. Hand-to-Hand still needs work. Melee is solid.

PUCS Hand to Hand Skills Added

2008-07-11T09:06:00.002-05:00

The tweaking continues! During the latest melee the need for some additional Hand to Hand skills was realized. Two skills were added: Combination Punch, Flying Kick or for the summary see:
Skills listing.

I think we are going to see a lot more skills popping into the Hand to Hand category. There is a lot of interest there lately. The bruise vs wound damage is working out really well.

Minor Tweaks

2008-07-06T06:32:00.003-05:00

Spring play testing has concluded, sadly with the death of 2/3rds of the party. Oops. Players and GMs a like still have some trouble accessing risk/threat it seems. Oh well that is why we do playing testing! Some conclusions were made based on the latest round.

Combined Actions

The combined actions worked. The penalty is steep but balanced and it played out fairly.

Strength Bonus

This was significant change from the previous version, it also played out well. More often then not it had little effect, however on a few occasions it had tremendous impact. In a way its like a critical hit from D20, but with a much broader range of results and higher rate of occurrence. BEWARE THE STRONG FOE ;-)

Magic in Melee

Weather by design or by omission (no one is quite certain), the rules stated that spell cast failure did not count as a spell action. This made for some very interesting melee which all agreed was entertaining. For example a man charging down a hill, holding out sword & shield while screaming like a banshee and casting Magic Missile every second. He failed every second but the last one (combined action: casting and double move) but afterward all agreed that at Magic Missile level 1, he was game-ing the system a bit. So now a failed cast counts as a spell action. See Magic in Melee.

The summer has been busy, new family members, a cross country move and vacations. However play testing continues just at a slower pace.

Combined Actions

2008-06-24T06:16:00.004-05:00

Summer has been busy so far, but not so with play testing. We have been relegated to PBeM due to everyone's busy summer schedules. None the less the testing continues albeit at a slower pace.

Combined Actions
In PUCS the rules really discourage combined actions. Each action, any action, takes 1 second, combine them and whatever action requires a skill check is done at half. In the current melee, it seems nearly all actions, on both sides have been combined, hence the reason its currently cruising into second 60+.

What I am forced to wonder is if this is a player fallback to patterns they are used to in other systems, is this a flaw in PUCS, or is it working?

PBeM / PBMB and Bookeeping

2008-05-27T07:24:00.004-05:00

While play testing continues, I as GM am finding the book keeping needed for extended melees to be cumbersome. This not really specific to PUCS, although is some sense PUCs damage by zones does add to the complexity of data management more then I had expected.

Play testing has been performed lately in PBeM (actually PBMB - Play by Message Board), because we have some new parents, many holidays, much travel etc. Since I am GM, our established procedure for game play has made me responsible for everything in the game. Not only do I track the NPCs and build maps, but I also track the PCs and make all the dice rolls. This has been going on for some months now and I have settled into certain patterns that make it a little easier.

I make heavy use of a spreadsheet. You could use Excel or Google Docs, because I do not do anything fancy. I have tab for each PC with all their details. I have a tab for a mission log, where I keep track of each round and events. This has been useful because in visiting the game only a few minutes a day, I can not remember all that has gone on, but in a few seconds I can refresh myself. Also elements of this log end up as posts on the Message board.

I also do all the dice rolling in the spreadsheet. Some may not prefer that, that is fine, but it works really well for me as the dice are not always handy when I need a roll or three. The dice rolling has become more elaborate over the last two months. I do not use a script /r 3d6+. Rather I have a dozen or so common PUCS rolls written in simple formulas, that I can recalculate with a keystroke. It has become so fast that I can process the dice rolling part of melee in a few seconds.

For the map, I still use MapTool. This tool works really well for me and is indispensable for PBeM/PBMB. I take a screen shot (from the tool) and upload the image to http://flickr.com/ If this were PBeM I could just attach the images in each email, but on the message board, its easier (for me at least) to link to an image. Although our board also supports attachments, I prefer the Flickr links. The Flickr links are scalable, players can really zoom and examine the map if they choose too. Furthermore since I keep the images in set for the campaign, players can easily review all the images directly in flickr (for example: http://flickr.com/photos/8832225@N08/sets/72157604384209063/ ). Naturally they can review them on the message board also. In the end this give GMs and Players more options. More options with no additional effort, can not be a bad thing. If you are not familiar with flickr, I use a free account which is limited to 100MB of uploads per month. I have never even come close to that limit yet. You can also have a paid account but I have yet to need one.

Playtesting Continues!

2008-05-16T08:34:00.004-05:00

It has been a quiet month at least with regard to blog posting. However play testing has been proceeding at a furious pace. This is a lot of fun, because so far at least, there has been very little debate about the rules. The game is just flowing along and isn't that point anyway?

What is surprising to me is that the players for the most part remain in a D20 psychology about melee. This is creating additional risk for each character and is giving their opponents (run by GM) an advantage. However it has been a lot of fun and no characters have died and early on at least there was a good deal of maneuvering going on. Some missile weapons and some spell casting all to limited effect.

I would like to think that the good flow and lack of debate implies that rules are gaining some polish. It may be that testers are holding there tongues until the test is complete and they can comment on the total result rather some specific nuance here or there.

Below are some screen shots of melee. 3 PCs assaulting a hill against a force of unknown strength. The PCs played it pretty smart. Split the defenders fire, made good use of spells, and then heavy melee ensued. If they made one mistake, it would be that they let themselves get split up. They are out numbered and would be stronger if the party remained together.

What I have found most interesting is that the PCs, should already have been defeated. There has been some lucky rolling here and there, but on balance they are doing well. The melee is not yet complete, so I can't say they will be victorious, they do at least at this moment have equal odds.

Screen Shots:

Here the party came under missile fire from the rocks at the top of the map. One PC took cover and intended to return fire with a bow. The other 2 PCS charged up the hill side at angle. The effect was to divide the missile fire. As it turned out there was only 1 bow firing on them, that bowmen kept at the PC who took cover. As it turns out, that is because the bowmen never had a field of view of the other 2 PCS.

The PC taking cover, has a few more close calls with incoming arrow, but is never able to spot the shooter. He figures the general area of the shooter, inside deep shadow on the rock face and casts a sleep spell on that location. He has no idea if he got the shooter or not. The other 2 PCs continue on up the hill, but realize as they draw closer that the rock is rimmed by a dense brier. They see no way to approach the rock where the shooter likely is.

The charging PCs fall into prone positions with some cover and scan the brier for a path. While doing so they spot a defender laying prone on the rocks. They also spot a group of 4 defenders approaching from the West and heading towards their lone companion. They shout warnings.

The defenders charge continues, some spells are exchanged and one defender drops. At the same time, a cut in the brier is found and a PC blitz into it. With 3 warriors coming fast, the lone PC decides to make a break for his companions.

The break is well timed, and he stays out ahead of them. Meanwhile one PC melee's in the brier cut while the 3rd moves towards to help against the defenders from the West.

Here the action has effectively devolved into melee. The party has done well against an opponent with greater number and more skill. I am a little disappointed that party has not made better use of their capacity for movement as a defense. Still they have done well and its a been a fun so far!

BTW all screen shots done with Maptool

PUCS Draft 2 Release today

2008-04-30T14:00:00.004-05:00

The second draft of the PUCS system was released today in PDF form. It can be downloaded from the home page, http://www.rolldamage.com/pucs The PDF is indexed, searchable, bookmarked and hyper linked to the live site.

It is still not perfect. I have not decided if I like the revised melee system or not. I preferred the previous version as it was simpler. In any event, there it is. The website is always current as it updates every time the designers make a change. Before too long they will need to issue yet another DRAFT. I'm hopeful that some real work on other genres will begin soon. Things like sci-fi, modern etc.

I wonder about endless BETAs like Google is famous for. Will PUCS ever leave the DRAFT mode?

This has been a slow month

2008-04-23T05:55:00.004-05:00

While this month has been slow. Play testing has been a lot of fun. The new magic rules are very interesting tactically. Balance wise, no one is quite certain where it should go. It could easily become a sort of Harry Potter style melee where everyone uses magic, because it is so much more powerful then melee weapons alone. However none of the play testers nor designers really want that to happen.

One obvious difference is that melee which was already more hazardous then D20 variants, really requires tactical thinking. If you just stand toe to toe, and your opponent takes advantage of movement rules your not going to do well. In short there is a lot more moving around in melee then anyone really expected.

Recently in play testing a low power party encountered a giant crocodile. The monster ambushed the party at a broken down bridge, where the party had little freedom of movement. The crocodile attacked, nearly killed a horse and was trying to drag it away. The party went after the crocodile, but the crocodile retreated, then ambushed again and nearly killed a party member. The party hacked away at the beast but to little effect. Finally the character who was ambushed and being crushed by the crocodile, successfully put the beast to sleep with a spell. However the spell was an area of effect spell. They were all of them clustered together, and half the rest of the party went down too. It was tremendous fun! Read some detail about it here.

Otherwise, rules review is proceeding more slowly then anyone would like. Hopefully DRAFT2 by the end of the month.

Combat Rules updates

2008-04-09T10:24:00.004-05:00

In the process of reviewing the rules some reorganization has also been done. No rules have changed, but they have been described consistently now. Check it out here: PUCS Rules for Combat.

In any event it looks like the Draft will be finalized later this month!

PUCS - Updated Character Sheets

2008-04-04T10:52:00.003-05:00

The PUCS character sheets have been updated. In keeping with the simplicity mantra, the sheets remain a single 8.5x11" sheet, with easily read fonts and nothing, repeat nothing complicated. The sheet comes in two flavors, MS Excel or Adobe's PDF. There are links to down the character sheet on the PUCS website.

Or just click these links:
PUCS Character Sheet in Excel Format (Excel 2003 format)
PUCS Character Sheet in PDF Format

If anyone needs other formats let me know!

The Updates Continue

2008-03-29T19:10:00.003-05:00

The good news is that the methodology is resolved. The mechanics are resolved. All that is left is some adjustments to both cost and potency and its all done. We are still cleaning up the context a little too.

So whats the new methodology?

The same methodology has been applied to magic, missiles and melee. Previously we had variations in each major category. Each round consists of 10 seconds. In each of those 10 seconds a character can take an action or move. The maximum number of actions is determined by the categories basic skill.

For melee weapons, the Basic Melee skill level determines the maximum number of actions the character can make it melee. There is a cheviot though. The character can not take more actions then they have skill level in the weapon they are using. For example if the character had Axes & Hammers level 4, but only Basic Melee level , the character could only make 3 attacks/defends per round. The character would still get the +20 bonus, 5 points per skill level.

For spell casting, it works exactly the same way. The Basic Spell Casting skill determines the maximum number of spells cast round. There is a cheviot though. The character can not cast a spell more times then they have skill level in that spell. However the character can cast different spells in the same round, so long as they do not cast any spell more often then the skill level in that spell and the total number of spells cast in the round does not exceed the Basic Spell Casting level. This gives the caster a great deal more flexibility and more power. This is why we are play testing the casting so heavily, seeking the balance between cost and potency. It is worth mentioning that spell's skill level sets how often the spell can be cast per round. There is no longer a daily limitation on any spell. You can read the revised PUCS magic rules on its site.

Missiles are skills unto themselves. There is no base skill for bows or crossbows. Bows can be fired as many times per round as the skill level. Crossbows are slow to load and their rate of fire is defined by each device.

That is enough for today. Check out the PUCS website and please post any comments or questions you might have here. I'm happy to answer them as best I can!

Heirarchial Change in Melee Skills

2008-03-21T08:20:00.002-05:00

Get ready because it here it comes. Melee skills are being reworked to have greater hierarchy and more flexibility. Essentially "Basic Melee" is being changed to a fundamental melee skill, levels of which determine how many combat actions you can take in a round. To gain greater chance to hit however you will invest your skills into specific weapon types: Blades, Simple Weapons, etc.

All of this came about because of a disagreement about to handle to changing weapons. I won't bore you with the specifics as its already been decided. Look to see the web pages updating over the next week or so.

PUCS - Percentile Universal Combat System

Axis and Allies

2008-03-17T07:31:00.003-05:00

This is unrelated to PUCS development but it was so cool I had to mention it. My friend has been laid up after some surgery earlier this month. We have been play Axis and Allies via Map Tool and its been a lot of fun so far. Below are some screen shots.

The Russian Front

The Battle Board

The Complete Map

I really remain impressed with this FREE, flexible and easy to use application from the good folks over at http://www.rptools.net. I eagerly await their 1.3 release coming out of BETA sometime this year.

PUCS website launched over the weekend

2008-03-17T07:10:00.003-05:00

The PUCS website went public over the weekend. The DRAFT 2 Rules are publicly available there, however editing continues and the final DRAFT 2 PDF has not yet been created. A whole lot has been changed with regard to magic especially. Play testing continues and I think that spells are going to be revised for potency and cost before the final DRAFT 2 is released.

So what changed? Mainly spells. Previously you could cast a spell as many times per day as you had skill level in the spell. There was also a calculation to determine how long it took you cast the spell in melee. It worked fine, but was still clunky in play testing and really slowed things down in melee. So it was scrapped.

Now Magic is casts per round of skill level in the spell. That a huge change. There remain many balance issues to work out between cost of the skill and potency. Some competing plans are:

Make magic much more expensive then in DRAFT 1.
Make spells much less potent then in DRAFT1.
Keep cost and potency from DRAFT 1 the same but increase the hierarchy to get to powerful spells.

Personally I do not know what is the best answer is. I'm inclined towards some combination of 2 and 3. But then there are some complexity issues so where the balance will fall out, we still do not know.

There are others issues to work out too. If I cast spell X in melee, can I cast spell Y in the same round? Its a worthy question but not yet answered. If you let the cast switch up between spells in the same round you increase their effectiveness and potency considerable.

So please browse the rules at the PUCS web site and post any comments that you might have. I would like to hear what you think!

PUCS Logo

2008-02-29T08:30:00.003-05:00

Well the hard work of re-work has begun in earnest. I have done my small bit by making a new logo. I stuck with the shield design but went with orange instead of blue. I am not all that enthusiastic about it but it is complete.

What's in a name?

2008-02-26T11:33:00.003-05:00

Apparently quite a bit if you consider copyrights and legal trade marks. That said the system has found itself a new name. No longer shall be referred to as The Dee One Hundred, hence forth is officially know as: Percentile Universal Combat System or PUCS.

So what's changed?
Really nothing other then the name.

When is the next release?
The name change has caused some delays as a new website and lots of editing needs to be review, so the next release aka DRAFT 2, is slated for March 2008.

How do you pronounce it?
Here in lies a quandary well described on the roll damage forum. Either puck (hockey puck) or puke (rhymes with nuke) is acceptable.

I'll post more details about the new website and firm DRAFT 2 date when they become known to me.

Damage Bonus in Melee - Part III

2008-02-19T11:12:00.006-05:00

The damage bonus from in melee is resolved although the word-smiths continue to play with how exactly to describe them.

Summary
The Damage Bonus From Strength will be 10% of the strength attribute. Each 10 points of strength bonus is rolled on its own 1d10. Rolling at or below the bonus, give the bonus of the dice roll. Rolling above the bonus gives no bonus. This is unchanged from previous blog posts. See Damage Bonus in Melee - Part II for details of how it works and see Damage Bonus in Melee for why we thought it needed to be changed.

Strengths Greater then 100
The Damage Bonus From Strength greater then 100 was problematic. We wanted to continue the variable nature of the bonus but we wanted to keep the calculation simple. So we ended up doing was giving each 10 points of the damage bonus from strength its own roll.

Example
For example take something hugely strong, Strength 250. The Damage Bonus From Strength is 10% of 250 or 25 points. You would break that down into three d10 rolls. The first two rolls 2d10 do that amount in bonus damage. The third d10 would only do damage if you rolled at or below 5. So you have a minimum damage of 2 and a maximum damage of 25. A likely damage of around 12 (statistics is not my strength.)

Damage Bonus from Strength 25
Bonus	Roll	Potential	Average
10	1d10	1 to 10 points	5.5
10	1d10	1 to 10 points	5.5
5	1d10	0 to 5 points	1.5

Unexpected Consequences
The damage bonus in melee has given rise to some new skills. These skills afford those with them to better leverage their strength. The only new skill whose defintion has settled down is this Power Attack.

Power Attack
Power Attack helps the character maximize their strength bonus on damage rolls in melee. The skill level in Power Attack is the minimum damage bonus the character can roll, after a successful attack. The Power Attack can not exceed the character's Damage Bonus from Strength .

A character has a Damage Bonus from Strength of 6 and Power Attack of level 2. The character hits in melee, rolls the weapons damage and then a 1d10 for the Bonus Damage from Strength. With the Power Attack skill, the character will always get 2 points of Damage Bonus from Strength even if they roll a 1,2,7,8,9 or 10. Rolls of 3,4,5 or 6 are not effected. Without this skill, rolls of 7,8,9 or 10 do no bonus damage.

Damage Bonus in Melee - Part II

2008-02-10T11:59:00.000-05:00

Round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows!

Strength Bonus has found its resolution for the soon to be published D100 Draft 2. As I described in a previous entry, in the current system strength bonus was a straight adder to any damage roll in melee. While it worked just fine as play testing continued it was revealed that super strong creatures pretty much squashed any human they hit, every time they hit. In practice we have no problem with this effect. We none the less considered that even the very powerful do not always connect a blow with all the power behind it and how might we model that in the system.

What we have been play testing is this.

Damage Bonus from Strength

In melee using a hand held weapon each character gets a damage bonus from Strength. This bonus is based on 10% of the Strength Attribute. The 10% represents the maximum bonus. The effect of the bonus is determined by rolling 1d10. If that roll is equal to or below 10% of the Strength attribute then that roll is added to the weapon's damage roll. To determine the total damage of a hit you roll two times, first for the weapon, second for the strength bonus.
For example a character has:

Strength of 55
Strength Damage Bonus is 6 (10% of 55 is 6 because of rounding)
Rolls a 45 for a successful hit
Rolls a 1d6 for weapon damage
Rolls a 1d10 for strength bonus damage

Rolls of 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 are added to the weapon damage.

Rolls of 7,8,9 or 10 are ignored.

Remaining issues:
We are still toying with how to handle a strength bonus greater then 10. There are a couple competing concepts. I will post about the winning one next time. This has also brought up some interesting possibilities for new skills.

Damage Bonus in Melee

2008-02-05T15:33:00.000-05:00

In the current draft of the D100 Melee System, we add 5% of the strength as a damage bonus for hand help weapons. This is similar to the d20 model and It works well. A problem that has been realized is that damage is skewed towards always heavy damage. D100 has a radically different hit point model compared with D20 and so this skew causes a break down in the system against something monstrously strong, like a troll. A troll's strength of 200 has 1o point damage bonus. This means even if the troll were to make a hit with a club (1d4). When you combine that with the damage bonus for strength, the troll can do a minimum of 11 points and a maximum of 15 points. No one has an issue with the maximum, but the minimum seems unfair. Does the troll always get his full strength into the swing?

More Detailed Example of Issue
Take Opponent X, who is quite strong and has a 6 point damage bonus for strength. The weapon of choice is a club with 1d4.

If Opponent X connects and gets all their power behind the blow, they do 10 points of damage. SPLAT! Now lets say Opponent X falters some and connects. In the current system, any hit does a minimum of 7 points of damage.

Opponent X is strong, but do even the very strong always get all their power behind each blow. Rather, the very strong have tremendous potential for power behind each blow. Much the same as each weapon has its own potential for damage. Melee is a dance, some blows miss (we got that covered), some blows are blocked (we got that covered), some blows are shifted (we got that covered too) and some blows hit without full force and there in lies the problem.

Solution(s)
This is a little tricky to resolve because we want the system to be kept simple. We do not want to reference a chart each time in melee. We do not want a complicated formula, but we don't want a straight adder bonus either. What we are experimenting with is rather then having a straight bump to the damage roll, we have a second damage roll for the strength bonus. We are also trying out a combined damage roll that accounts for the damage potential of both the strength and the weapon.

For example:
Currently
- Short Sword 1d6
- 60 Strength: +3 on damage
- Hits do 1d6+3, or 4-9 points per hit
Idea #1 - 2 rolls for damage
- Short Sword 1d6
- 60 Strength: +3 on damage
- Hits do 1d6+1d3, or 2-9 points per hit
Idea #2 - 1 roll for damage
- Short Sword 1d6
- 60 Strength: +3 on damage
- Hits do 1d9, or 1-9 points per hit

This example shows a bonus roll that is not an easy dice roll. You would have to roll a d6 divided by 2. What do you do when the bonus is 7 or 9? Obviously this introduces some complexity that we do not really want to deal with. But at this point its just a concept. I'm partial to the single roll (Idea #2) but the debate and testing continues.

Monsters, Humans and the Scale of things.

2008-02-04T13:03:00.000-05:00

D100 is a simplistic system and this fact affords it some interesting advantages in developing monsters and defining what there capabilities are. Firstly what is a typical human is easily understood. When creating a monster relative to normal human it is quite easy to see how deadly the monster might be.

Human
A normal human has all attributes of 40 and so a movement (Strength + Reflex) of 80. Presuming this person has no martial training, they can pick up a club or a knife or a sword and have a 10% chance of hitting in melee.

Goblin
Let us consider a fairly common and low power monster the goblin. A goblin is smaller then a normal human, weaker, and none to bright. However they have some martial skills and they are much faster (Movement 120) then a normal human. In a straight up fight between a goblin and human, the goblin's 35% verses the human's 10% is a clear advantage. It is not hard to imagine a small set of goblins easily destroying/routing a much larger group of humans. After all if it goes badly for the goblins they can run 50% faster and easily get away.

Minimally Trained Human
If a human has basic martial training (Basic Melee) there attack score doubles to 20%. It is not hard to imagine that some proportion of the general population would have this training, either from life experience or perhaps from being pressed into military service sometime in the past.

In this scenario the a straight up fight between the two still favors the goblin with 35% verses 20%. However it is more difficult to invision a small set of goblins destroying/routing a much larger group of humans. Due to the goblin advantage being reduced by half.

Moderately Trained Human
If a human has some specialized training in a weapon (Simple Weapons) for example a club, they have a 45% of hitting in melee. This human has likely spent sometime in either the watch or repeated pressing into military service and probably has even had a some melee under their belt.

In this scenario a straight up fight between the two slightly favors the human with 45% verses 35%. This makes it difficult to envision a small group of goblins destroying/routing a larger group of humans. Even if only a few humans are at this level among many humans it may be enough to turn the tide.

The Man at Arms
If a human has specialized training in a weapon (Blades 2, Light Armor & Shield) for example a short sword, they have a 50% of hitting in melee. This human has likely been a man at arms or a professional soldier.

In this scenario a straight up fight between the two strongly favors the human with 50% verses 35%. The human gets as many as two attacks and as many as 3 defense rolls. This makes it difficult to envision a small group of goblins even attacking a larger group of humans. Even if only a few humans are at this level among many humans it would be enough to turn the tide.

The Scale
The point of all these examples is that goblin, would be absolutely terrifying and deadly to a normal human even if there were large numbers of humans relative to the number of goblins. With even a little skill this quickly reverses.

If you consider larger creatures, say a werewolf or a troll. The human could never match the speed of a werewolf (250) or the strength of troll (200). Tangling with either of these beasts even if you are highly skilled is a dance with death. A single blow (+10 on damage) from the troll is lethal to even a heavily armored human. The werewolf is so fast, you would be hard pressed to even attack it as it can attack and move away from you in most cases.

Conclusion
To me this scale is just one more thing that makes D100 so good. It highlight what is wrong with D20 and the like. A creature that is 12' tall and weighs 500# and hits you... is lethal. You can tangle with the creature in melee but you will have to focus all your energy on not getting hit in order to survive. In D20 at high enough level you could take on this creature without fear. This would never be the case in D100, you would always need companions or better yet attack it with ranged weapons.

D100 Draft PDF finally released

2008-01-29T14:44:00.000-05:00

It is not pretty but for a draft it is sufficient. The second draft will be available in February 2008 and promises to be prettier. You can download the PDF at the D100 site. Enjoy!

Playtesting and PDFs

2008-01-28T07:57:00.000-05:00

There are many a great lesson to be learned in this life and wise man once said to me.

Be careful what you complain about in committee for it may be assigned to you.

I wish I had listened! Because I had long been whining about not having a PDF of the complete rules. I could dog ear one, make notes on it, and not have to be browsing the website in play. In truth I rarely have to refer to the rules in play, but making notes about tweaks, ideas and changes is easier for me on a hard copy. So after my repeated mentions of having no single PDF of the entire rules set, I was volunteered to correct the problem. Oh happy day.

However as it turns out it was not all the hard to automate the content capture and so now I must tweak the format of that capture (in an automated way) and then we'll be good to go. As it stands now the DEC 2007 rules are a little more then 100 pages of 8.5x11 including all charts & graphics. I only have few format issues to correct and a few linking issues to adjust and it will be complete.

That said I believe a PDF of DEC 2007 rules will be available, just before the FEB 2008 rules are released. Just in time to be obsolete!

D100 logo finalized

2008-01-19T07:35:00.000-05:00

In the grand scheme of things this is a minor event. I created it and I wanted to show off a bit! You can also go see it live at the D100 Open Melee System. I am proud of myself for getting it to look that good. I became so frustrated at one point I considered offering bounty for the logo design at www.sitepoint.com

I used a free logo generator on the web to create the shield design. I then used GIMP to spruce it up, add text and the fade to transparent white ellipse. I am an amateur and it took me many hours to create the effects. Translate that to a whole lot of rework, Save As, beer and trips to the potty!

Dealing with light in game play

2008-01-18T08:27:00.000-05:00

Recently I played in a very spirited campaign. All involved were experienced and the characters had been in use off and on for many years. However this time the campaign was played using a VGT (Virtual Game Table) called Maptool for the first time. There was a noticeable change in player behavior and this was completely due to the lack of light which Maptool does an excellent job of representing.

Traditionally on the table top, the map is revealed in bit and pieces as the characters "See" more, using either torches, lanterns, light spells or whatever. We more or less took the light for granted and it rarely slowed the pace of the party in exploration or melee. In fact rarely did light effect player behavior or impact die rolls. This was really a convenience for both GM and the players. It had been going on for so long that none of us even thought it about it any longer.

However in last weekends play something amazing happened. The players were, for lack of better word, Timid! In more then one example the strong fighter type would blitz after a foe and stop. Thats right STOP at the edge of the light. I can't recall that ever happening before. Furthermore our sources of light were limited to certain characters and the other characters tended to bunch up, bathing in the warm glow of thelight. Furthermore in a large and dark cavern. The characters were easy targets for foes outside the light with melee weapons. This is new behavior and really added to the fun!

None of this really has anything to do with developing a RPG, but it was such a powerful and positive experience I had to share the effect. I recommend that if you have not used a VGT you try one out sometime soon. We used Maptool which is free, works on multiple platforms, is easy to install, and not too difficult to learn to use.

No play testing but a fun game!

2008-01-12T15:35:00.000-05:00

Today we played good ole d20 for a few hours. Although my character spent most of the day KO'd (Beholders are tough!) it was still fun to roll the dice. It did serve to remind me of the many complexities in D20 and re-affirmed my view that D100 is the right way to go. Hopefully with the pending FEB 2008 release we will see more acceptance of the new system.

Critical Hits and Critical Blunders

2008-01-11T08:20:00.000-05:00

As it happens in D100, melee is quite deadly even to the well skilled and experienced. We have found that this is largely due to two factors:

Many on 1 confrontation. In D100 this is a scenario for even the well armored and highly skilled to avoid. Put simply if surrounded you are unlikely to survive. Even if the opponents have only 1 attack each, 9 attacks can not be defended against and you are going to go down.
Critical Hits. In D100 under 2007.12 Rules happen anytime the player rolls a 00, 01 or 02. 3% is not great odds yet it happens quite often and is frequently the end of the character who is hit by one.

"Many on 1" is situational and really a function of how well the system is modeling reality. No changes are coming there. Players should avoid the situation, purchase good armor and well be ready to run when need be.

Critical hits however is going to be changed. The designers went back and forth on the "how" many times but ultimately decided to keep it simplistic. First they are reducing the incident rate from 3% to 1%. Players who roll a 00 score a critical hit. However they are not reducing the deadliness of it, in fact they are increasing the deadliness to maximum damage, then doubled. Unlike before however they are allowing the defender (if they have an action available) to attempt to block the blow. If the defender fails the block or has no actions available, the defender can bump it.

In summary, in the revised rules, they have reduced the rate at which the critical occurs by 2/3, they have increased the effect of it, and allowed the defender a chance to avoid it or reduce its effect.

It looks like the next rules draft will be out at the end of February!

Ahh so what to do about magic?

2008-01-02T10:46:00.000-05:00

Well what happens when you combine 60 points for each of two player characters, matched up against: 16 goblins, 16 orcs and 8 evil humans. In a word... CARNAGE!

Ok it was a scenario designed for 4 PCs not 2. The goblins had short bows. The humans had long swords blades 4. The Orcs had short swords blades 3. The match lasted 43 seconds (took about an hour to play but there were many sidebars as it was play testing), 1 PC still standing and all others were killed or incapacitated. Most were incapacitated (grey X's on map above).

So what did we test:
1) Spell level = casts per round of that spell
2) Casting time = 1 second
3) Bow Level = missiles per round
4) Missile Rate of Fire = 1 second

So what did we learn:
1) Magic, well used with even simple spells is very powerful.
2) Magic skills may be too cheap.
3) If you have magic and your opponent does not, your opponent is going to loose.
4) Critical hits are deadly. One PC died in the first 10 seconds with a critical hit to the head.
5) Fireballs rock, but lowly sleep spell won the day.
6) We need articles/equipment for magic protection. This is a balance issue that requires A LOT more testing.
7) GAP comparisons for success of spell was too cumbersome. In a simple engagement we had not noticed, but calculating GAPs on 10 people at time was way too much work and we just stopped and went with simple Willpower checks instead.
8) MapTool remains the coolest thingie out there for remote RPG play.
9) Wands, rings and Staffs are far less useful in revised system.
10) Revised rules for magic were so simple to follow we never thought about them in play.
11) Revised rules for bows were so simple to follow we never thought about them in play.
12) Good armor is worth the money. Especially against missiles. A PC absorbed three volleys from a group of archers at short and medium range, and although damaged he was not brought down.
13) Large engagements are a lot of fun, especially with interesting terrain.

So what do we need to do.
1) Initially we will keep the spell costs unchanged, but add some protection equipment and see how that effects things.
2) More testing of spells with protection.
3) Small engagements, large engagements, open space, confined space.
4) Review spell list and drop the GAP for area of effect spells, its too cumbersome to calculate, simple willpower checks suffice and in truth degrade the power of the spell somewhat.
5) Consider an option for willpower based area of effect spells to use the GAP when the spell is targeted on a single creature instead of area of effect.

Well its time for a redo

2007-12-31T11:28:00.000-05:00

Playing testing has revealed that we inadvertently mucked up the simplicity of the system. What we came to realize was that we had fallen into a trap of having different rules for different types of skills. Skill for Melee, Missiles and Spells were each getting their own rules set. This was a very sad realization and a violation of the games creed. "Keep it simple."

What is most interesting is that the rules actually worked very well. They were fair, gave good mechanics is play, but it was overly complicated as the rules were significantly different for: Missiles, Melee and Spells. Sadly all this work on Spells and Missiles will be abandoned. The spells points concept is dead. The rate of fire concept for missiles is dead. We are back to basics, and while not as detailed it is much much easier to learn, remember and most importantly PLAY!

So expect in the next few weeks to see a new draft of the Rules released at: D100 Open Melee System

...and Happy New Year!

Spells Spells Spells

2007-12-25T12:03:00.000-05:00

Lately there has been some debate about how we are handling spells. The problem seems to be that at low skill level they are not powerful enough to be worth while and spell casters get bored in melee. At high level they still are not powerful enough. So in general magic is viewed as too weak and too slow. A fair observation.

The way to fix it has become a conundrum however. The discussion has been wide. Alternate ways have been discussed some are structured after novels but ultimately all of those have been dismissed as too structured and confining. In d100 we had more less followed the D20 model where a spell's level defined how often per day it could be cast. While this was simple it was not particularly fair to the caster who at skill level 1, would cast that spell 1 time per day.

So what we are play testing now is a way to increase the number of times a spell can be cast. We are testing a points based system. Once again our overriding goal is simplicity. This is not easy to achieve, we are currently going with a sort of scaled points system based on cost of the spell. Total number of points being a function of willpower and intelligence. I'll post more when some testing has occurred.

D20 Christmas Pagent

2007-12-20T19:30:00.000-05:00

Ok I just had to share this!

More Pre Requsits

2007-12-20T07:33:00.000-05:00

Well after some discussion and poking around we are probably going to drop pre-req's for melee skills. However the consensus is to leave them for spells. Speaking spells we need more a lot more. So far spells have been created as needed in play testing, that is not a practical method for creation. Over the next few months we expect the spell lists to grow every week.

We have had some interesting discussions on the basis for spells, nothing has been decided but eventually our "theory" will be set and then spells will be reorganized. At a minimum the spells will be split into 2 categories. Spells of the Will (Willpower) and Spells of Intellect (Intelligence). I'll write more detail on the that later once it has been decided.

To Pre-Requisite or not

2007-12-18T06:41:00.000-05:00

In developing the the skills and spells we have adopted a hierarchy approach to the skills, meaning you needed one skill before you gained another. On the surface this seemed like an easy way to add depth to the characters.

We have found in practice that for spell casters it acts more like a penalty and for melee skills it is near useless. So I think for melee skills it will go away and for spells it will be simplified or dropped all together.

Play testing continues and new players are showing us many holes in the system. We have been so focused on the mechanics that we lack the breadth of skills and spells of other systems. So the evolution continues!

D100 Melee System DRAFT Rules go public

2007-12-06T08:37:00.001-05:00

Enough typing on my part! Go read the draft rules for yourself!
The d100 Melee System

The draft rules represent nearly two years of work by the team of players who developed them. Currently the site has a hypertext version of the rules. A PDF version will follow later on.

Examples are a chore

2007-12-01T06:21:00.000-05:00

With the pending DRAFT release of the D100 Melee System we need more examples. They take some time to construct all the images and organize the events into an easy to follow narrative. I figure we need at least 10 examples involving different skills: melee, missile and magic. We currently have 1 melee example. So only 9 to go!

More Melee Skills Please?

2007-11-29T12:26:00.000-05:00

As a result of play testing outside the inner circle, I realized that many of their complaints and requests trended the game back towards D20 style melee. While initially each request seemed simplistic and justified. However in total, the significantly complicated the system.

For example D100 Melee System, has no "Charge" or "Bull Rush" defined as either a skill or an option in the Rules for moving in melee. On the surface these were simple enough to add as skills and whala! We had well defined charge and bull rush and procedure to carry them out. However what I realized is that neither was really needed as the D100 System already supported those actions and had no need for a defined "Charge" or "Bull Rush" procedure. A character could charge in melee by moving and then attacking in the following second. In fact the D100 System is superior without the defined procedure because it affords a good deal of risk in making an attack styled after a charge. The initiative and actions of both characters determine the outcome, rather then some simple check.

It was a good lesson to learn, the requests were coming from a D20 mindset where the definition is required, in the D100 mind set, the character need only sequence their actions to achieve the same goal. Furthermore it did result in one additional rule, that allowed the character to combine a move action and a attack/defend action into one action with considerable deductions.

Missiles in Melee

2007-11-27T10:39:00.000-05:00

Well that is why we play test the game. Recently we play tested a real campaign but added two new players, both d20 die hards and both skeptical. All in all the game went well, but the two became confused repeatedly in melee. It seems the fluid and flexible nature of D100 Melee system confounded them in certain situations involving: Missiles and changing weapons. They made excellent points. No rules were changed but we have to alter the terminology some with respect to bows. Namely not referring to the bow as having "melee" points. Rather as a "Rate of Fire" in melee. It is unfortunate that this terminology created such a stumbling block because both became fixated on it. Lesson learned and that is why we play test outside the creator circle!

Skills Skills Skills

2007-11-21T08:23:00.000-05:00

The foundation of the D100 Melee System is the development of abilities through characters acquiring skills. Rather then a class model with limitations and bonuses by major categories we developed a simple listing of skills.

How Does A Skill Work?
Each skill is based on an attribute: Strength, Will Power, Reflex, Intelligence, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma and Movement. The base chance of success is the attribute value. As levels in a skill increase the chance of success increases too.

Is its complicated?
No. The most complicated it can get is when a skill has a pre-requisite. All that means is that to get one skill, you might have to first have another skill. It gets no more complicated then that.

Kinds of Skills
From the perspective of melee there are essentially 2 kinds of skills: Martial and Magical. There are other skills for abilities not melee related, for example: climbing, swimming, bluffing, professions etc.

Acquiring and Improving Skills
The skills are built up by awarding the characters with "Improvement Points". The points are used to buy more skills. The system includes guidelines for how Game Masters could choose to dole out points, but really it is up to the Game Master to do what works best for the group at play. The guideline is simple with no complicated formulas what so ever.

What about Feats?
D20 style feats, do not exist in the D100 Melee System. All character abilities are skills.

Even Magic (Spells) is a skill?
Yes all character abilities are skills. Magic skills for the fantasy realm have the most pre-requisites of any list so far developed for D100 Melee System. Magic is different from D20 Style magic, this is for many reasons: Playability, Lethality, Sustainability. In D100 a character could invest "Improvement Points" and make a deadly caster, a sustainable caster would require more points and so on. In play testing thus far, we have found most characters who start as pure casters, do not live very long unless the party is large, or they are very smart about melee. A more typical path has been to split the skills between magic and martial until a certain level of melee survivability is achieved.

The question of class

2007-11-20T08:08:00.000-05:00

An early question for us was if the system should have character classes or not. I was strongly opposed to having class system but we debated it for quite a long while. Classes do provide certain benefits, that make the rules easier to construct. Our decision was that these benefits to the writer of the rules were not really a benefit to the player in any appreciable way, so we ultimately decided to have no classes in D100 Melee System.

If you do not have a class does this mean all your characters end up being strange hybrid characters with odd mixes of abilities?

The truth is, that it could. In play testing thus far, it has not worked out that way. In fact quite the opposite. For the most part characters start out as generalists that stand a fair chance of surviving melee. However as each character grows (and they grow quickly) they develop specific abilities that they need to achieve their personal and also party goals. Effectively creating reasonably skilled generalist with terrific specialized skills in areas the party believes it needs.

So how does it work without a class to define the character?

It is actually really simple. Instead of classes, class abilities, class feats, class restrictions and class bonuses. You have a long list of skills. All skills are based on an attribute: Strength, Intelligence, Will Power, Reflex, Constitution, Charisma, Dexterity and Movement. The character acquires the skill and gains the ability. The character can continue to invest in the skill and improve the ability if they so choose. No skills are restricted, no ability in one skill prohibits an ability in another skill. The only cheviot is that some skills have pre-requisites. In other words some skills require that you first obtain another skill to get it.

Melee Melee Melee

2007-11-14T08:51:00.000-05:00

I have to apologize for taking so long to get back to making a blog entry. So much has happened its hard to no where to begin.

#1 The system has been renamed the The D100 Melee System. This change was made, mainly because we found in play testing that we did not really need rules for role playing. The skill system is so flexible and so easy to follow that we found rules for the actual role playing to be of little value and so they were dropped. Yet another simplification achieved!

#2 Terminology changes, these are too numerous to list, but mainly they involve switching to terms that firstly make sense and secondly are easy to remember. We have been avoiding acronyms completely. There shall be no terms like "THACO" to learn in the D100 Melee System.

#3 Melee has had some HUGE changes. The round has been made a little more complicated, by breaking it into 10 phases. Each phase is 1 second. Each phase is played out for actions. In the beginning this was tried, because in melee, the fight was often over before some characters acted. On the surface it sounds more complicated and as it happens it is a change all of us working on the system resisted making. However once we tried it, we realized we would never go back. It actually made melee much easier to execute and simplifies things for the players greatly. Furthermore it added emphasis to maneuver and position that was not present before.

#4 Spells & Magic in melee have been completely re-worked and fits neatly into melee now. The round/phase system really facilitates the caster. The caster has to play smart and be well positioned and/or protected to be of magical value in melee. However in play testing this has proven to add excellent balance with fewer rules and A LOT OF FUN!

#5 Maneuvering in Melee is now as important as the attack/defend actions themselves. Combats that used to play out in the 4 or 5 rounds, now play out in 1 or 2 rounds. Characters who are outnumbered and not careful can get surrounded. Characters have many options and for changing their position, reducing their risk and maximizing their threat that simple does no exist in D20 or any other RPG today. Players have to consider their characters location and proximity to threats constantly. No more D20 style, stand in the room and knock down all comers. Even the powerful and skilled in this melee system will have trouble when outnumbers by foes of even low threat level. The character has to be aware of where he is all the time in melee. This model allowed for the elimination of many rules relating to melee: charging, back stab, attack of opportunity, surprise, flat footed, spell casting, missiles and many more. They are not needed because the simple maneuvering model when combined with initiative makes them irrelevant. Yet another simplification achieved!

#6 Bruise Damage: We just dropped it. In play testing we kept forgetting to use it and realized it just was not needed except in VERY rare circumstances. Yet another simplification achieved!

#7 Shields, we completely reworked how these work. They are clean, useful, and do not slow down melee as they did before. Yet another simplification achieved!

#8 A new D100 public portal has been set up, but the content is not loaded up. A draft rules set is set for publication there in December 2007.

D100 The Melee Round

2007-08-01T08:44:00.000-05:00

Despite a very busy summer, progress continues on D100. Recent play testing reveled some problems, not serious problems, but problems none the less. These issues revolved around movement in melee. The conundrum was how to allow for movement in melee with out have various action types and making it overly complicated. It was a tough nut to crack, keeping it simple and also flexible. We tried several methodologies and ended up with a hybrid of the brighter ideas.

In order to properly explain this I have to give you a bit of background, specifically describing the round. We arbitrarily selected a 10 second round long ago. Later we consider a GURPs style one second round, but found it killed the beauty of the skill level system, so a 10 second round it is. I have not explained skills yet but we already have a well developed melee model based on skill level and number of attacks/defends per round. It is a beautiful system and will be the subject of another entry. The result of the skill system is that a player gets Melee Points. These points translate 1:1 to attack or defense action in the 10 second round. Each action (attack or defend) burns a Melee Point and takes 1 second.

So to solve the conundrum of Moving in Melee, we divided the round in 10 seconds, any seconds remaining after or before actions (Attack/Defend) can be used for movement. This as it turns out solved several other problems with respect to spell casters, charging, withdrawing, free attacks, missiles and many more. Whats best, is its solved with one rule and not one rule for each situation. Very simple, very fluid, easy to remember and it works!

In Conclusion, I need to follow up with a post on Skills and Melee Points. Perhaps tomorrow!

Defining Attributes

2007-07-09T08:15:00.000-05:00

Define Attributes for D100

Attributes: Defines the basic physical/mental capabilities of a character.

Background for Attributes

The DnD3.5/D20 Attributes are well done and nicely describe the physical and mental abilities of the character. However I have played many other RPG games and I find that I prefer certain other methodologies. Specifically the 2^nd edition of TSRs Top Secret, named Top Secret S.I. In this system you have a few core attributes and the remaining attributes are calculated from them.

Core Attributes

Strength

Strength determines how much the character can carry, lift and movement. In Melee it may also effect how much damage a blow can do.

Reflex

Reflex determines the character's reaction time to events. In other words how quickly the character responds to events. This attribute will determine how fast the character can move, and aid in Initiative.

Intelligence

Intelligence determines how smart the character is. What is the characters capacity for understanding new things and solving complex problems, not how educated.

Willpower

Willpower determines the character's ability to focus on a task despite fear, pain or other distraction. It is an essential attribute for spell casters.

Constitution

Constitution determines how much abuse your body can endure before you pass out and/or die.

Derived Attributes

Dexterity

Dexterity determines how effectively the character can perform physical actions: climb, fire a missile weapon, dodge a blow etc. Actions or skills that require good reflexes and also intelligence to execute effectively. It is the average of two attributes: Reflex and Intelligence. (Reflex+Intelligence)/2

Charisma

Charisma determines how likable by others your character can be. Do not limit your thinking to just looks, but the total package of looks and personality. This attribute will effect the characters ability to influence people without threat of violence. It is the average of two attributes Intelligence and Willpower. (Intelligence + Willpower)/2

Movement

Movement determines just how fast the character can move in a walk, run or sprint. It is the combination of two attributes Strength and Reflex. (Strength+Reflex)

D20 Ranger Two Weapon fighting

2007-06-18T05:24:00.001-05:00

This will be a short post today and not related to D100. In a BB I frequent, there is a greatr discussion by a wanna-be power gamer trying to decide when it is best to use the D20 Ranger & Two Weapon Fighting. The amusing part is that the power gamer comes up with a methodology using statistics and chance to hit, to make some really neat graphs to help make the decision.

D100 Damage and Hit Point Model

2007-06-13T19:47:00.000-05:00

D100 Taking Damage

Overview of Damage and Damage Avoidance

A character never gains hit points. A player can improve their ability to survive in two ways: skills and armor. Armor provides a direct reduction in damage. Skills allow the player to avoid a blow all together, or deflect a blow to a non deadly or more heavily armored part of the body. Both skill and armor vastly improve the survivability of the character. As the characters skills improve the reliance on heavy armor decreases.

Damage Reduction from Armor

Each armor type has a fixed damage reduction value. The reduction value is a direct 1:1 deduct in the damage received by the character. For example if an armor has a damage reduction of 4 (DR=4) and the character takes 6 points of damage, that damage is reduced by 4. The character takes 2 points of damage. That is all there is to damage reduction from armor. It gets no more complicated then that!

Simple Damage Avoidance from Skill(s)

In the simplest terms D100 melee is similar to a D20 opposed skill check. If the attacker makes a successful skill check, the defender makes their skill check. If the defender succeeds the attack is blocked, if the defender fails the blow lands and armor’s damage reduction is applied.

Damage and Body Zones

“But what about the 10 zones on the body?” you say. Say no more for here it is explained. Each body part in the 10 zones has the same amount of points for damage, based on the Constitution. However each body part may not be equally protected. For example the character may have a chain hood, breast plate, and hide covering the arms and legs. Each of those armor types has its own damage reduction, and so those body zones have different damage reduction values. On the surface this may sound complicated but in practice with the zone chart (See Below) it is easy to record and track.

Bumping Damage with Skill

Bumping allows the character to move damage from one zone to another zone. So a blow to zone 3 (stomach) could be moved to a non lethal zone or to a better armored zone. Bumping only comes into play if the defender fails to block the blow.

Bumping is a double edged sword, the attacker can bump a successful blow to a less armored and/or more lethal zone. Bumping still favors the defender as the attacker bumps first. The number of bumps is determined by the skill level.

In Conclusion

The combination of damage zones, armor, skill and skill bump combine to improve the survivability of the character through both armor and skill with increasing the amount of damage the player can absorb. This damage model is easy to apply, easy to explain and follows common sense. The damage zone chart facilitates the allocation of damage and damage reduction in an easy to manage visual way.

D100

D100 Hit Points

2007-06-08T11:47:00.000-05:00

D100 - Tackling the problem of hit points

D20 Theory and Problem

The hit points in D20 represent many things: constitution, endurance, experience, luck and skill. It is not really that high level character can take more damage then a low level character. It is more accurate to say that the high level character is able to lessen the effect of damage through their skill and experience. D20 models this by increasing the hit points with each class level. The system works but is not perfect. There are two problems I endeavor to solve and best summed up with quotes below.

No Diminished Capacity Until Unconscious

“So I have 50 hit points, and I keep taking damage in melee. But there are no adjustments to my skills until I reach zero, where in I collapse and can’t use any of my skills.”

Tends Break Down Outside Normal Melee

“If I shoot an arrow into my enemies head, he is dead weather he is level 1 or level 10, but in this game my enemy could be buck naked, 10^th level and take shots from my bow all day.”

D100 Solution to Hit Points

Rather then tackle these problems separately we dealt with them simultaneously by borrowing some from the Top Secret S.I. model for damage by zone. A character’s body is divided into 10 zones. Each zone has the same number of points. The number of points per zone is based on the character’s constitution.

D100 Zone Chart

Diminished Capacity Solved

Should a player loose all the points in any of 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and/or 9; that part of the body becomes unusable for an action. Without an arm or hand, a bow can not be plucked. With out a leg, the character can not run or even stand easily. Without a hand or arm the sword can not be wielded etc.

Break Down outside Normal Melee Solved

A character’s capacity for damage per zone never increases, regardless of skill level. A character that has lost all the points in zones 0, 1, 2 and/or 3 is effectively killed. The character’s skills, armor and luck will help the character avoid damage but the amount of damage the body can absorb does not change.

In Conclusion

In future posts I will explain the impacts of skills and armor on damage avoidance. The points per zone concept has gone through many iterations in play testing, some better models became overly cumbersome for players. This concept is a fair balance between playability and realism.

D100

D100 Goals

2007-06-06T11:52:00.000-05:00

What are the goals of the D100?

An RPG is first and foremost a game. As a game it should be fun. It is my opinion that a great Role Playing Game (RPG) creates a universe where the imagination can play. The minds of Players and the Game Master should not be over burdened with the intricacies and trivialities of an overly modeled universe of rules. So my primary goal is to get the rules out of the way, and allow the game master to judge the situation at hand and not need to consult a rule. After all games should be fun, let players play and the game master dream!

My theory on a good Role Playing Game

It is my opinion that a Role Playing Game is a model of life. All RPG systems boil down to these major elements: Attributes, Skills (abilities), and Skill checks. These components define most everything or anything that is or happens in the game’s universe. Most everything thing else can be in lists or made up on the fly by the Game Master. To anyone with some experience with an RPG this is obvious but it is important to understand that uninitiated have never seen this before and the introduction can be over whelming.

What do the rules actually do?

The rules are supposed to create a certain amount of predictability in the game. Players and game masters can access, generally by intuition, the relative risk of the situation and decide what to do. You still roll dice the rules simply set down the odds.

The new RPG system has the following goals:

Be able to create a character and explain the basic mechanics of the game in 15 minutes or less.
The rules must be simple, straight forward, well organized and with clear examples.
The character sheet will fit easily on 1 side of a single sheet of paper.
Melee will be fast and easy to understand.
Hit Points will better model reality and not increase with experience.
Rules complexity will be optional and not required for game play. This allows those interested in greater depth to have it and the rest to proceed without it. Complexity is not the enemy. In fact it can really enhance the fun so long as all understand them. Required complexity is to be avoided.

In conclusion:

There it is, the guiding principles behind an entire year of labor.

D100

Introducing the D100!

2007-06-03T06:19:00.000-05:00

D100 - A New Universal Role Playing Game System

This concept was started in the spring of 2006, by three long time players of RPGs. D100 aspires to be: free, open, simple, quick and fun. It take elements of many other systems and combines them into a single straight forward and consistent system. The systems that inspired D100 are: GURPS, AD&D, D20 and Top Secret SI. Intense play testing has been going on for three months. The basic system will be released to the public in draft form Fall 2007 under the Creative Commons Licence.

More information will be made available here and on the release site www.rolldamage.com as the summer goes on.

D100

Balancing Role Playing in a RPG

2007-06-03T06:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I played in a campaign and the GM made an interesting comment as things were wrapping up.

"When I first starting playing with you guys, I came to realize that you were old school players... You know the 'clear the dungeon' types."

I think he means our little group prefers melee to actual role playing. I concluded at least for me, that it is correct. I prefer as a player to do a skill check to achieve a goal then to actually act it out, why else have the skill?. Most times: diplomacy, interrogate, intimidate, gather information suffice. I do admit I enjoy in character banter (accents and all), especially when the party is haggling over a fee or getting the details of a mission, but I don't like to do it every time.

So my conundrum is this:
As a player I don't like to role play much.
As a game master I like to role play a lot.

I believe that as a player I really just want melee most of time, yet as a Game Master I want to build a rich tapestry for the players.

More at: Balance Role Play in an RPG

What is to like about RPG’s?

2007-06-01T09:47:00.001-05:00

What’s to like about RPG’s?

It occurs to me that all of my entry’s to date have been rather negative. That does not represent how I feel about d20. I like the D20 system! I am merely highlighting the problems I encounter when training new players. So today’s post is different. I am going to highlight the qualities of various systems that I believe work really well.

Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 / D20

The depth of the game is vast and it is hard for me single out a few specific things but none the less I will.

Armor Class 3.5/D20

The implementation of Armor is class is nothing less then excellent, well thought out and easy to calculate.

Opposed Skill Check 3.5/D20

This is a little complicated to understand but it is completely logical once you digest the rules. It can be a bit tricky to calculate on the spot, but it is so completely fair I can not judge it harshly.

Depth of Detail 3.5/D20

3.5/D20 has no shortage of depth of detail. Just looking at the long lists of weapons, armor, equipments, skills, spells and feats can be exhausting, but clearly this depth adds to realness of the game and helps players customize their character to the n^th degree!

Gurps

If you have never heard of it, GURPS is a universal RPG similar to D20, but based on 3d6 instead of a twenty sided die. It pre-dates D20 by at least 15 years and has modules for every environment you can imagine. D20 over took it as the universal RPG system of choice because D&D is the most popular and D20 is a free system that encourages player contribution to the community. I do still play in a Gurps campaign but I am at a best a newbie with regard to the rules.

The Gap in Gurps

Gurps makes heavy use of concept called “the Gap”. Effectively how well or how poorly you make a skill check impacts the result. It took a little getting used to for me, but it is more efficient and takes less time in play. A very cool concept indeed!

Top Secret by TSR

For those who don’t know, Top Secret was an early 80’s D20-ish, James Bond RPG published by TSR. It was not a great game, vague rules and overly complicated hand to hand melee. I played it a few years and then abandoned it.

Fame & Fortune Points in Top Secret

In a world with out “Cure Light Wounds” and weapons like machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. Damage to players was frequently lethal. The game had the concept of “Fame & Fortune” points. These points, of which you had very few, let the player who had just been killed, think of a fluky way to not be dead. There was something like a 10 second rule to avoid long pondering delays. But the rule worked, presuming the player was creative enough to think of something. The GM would sometimes say “No, that’s too absurd, try again.” Still the rule worked mainly because it was so easy to get killed in the game.

Top Secret S.I. by TSR

Top Secret S.I. (Special Investigation) came out in the late 1980’s and was a complete replacement for the original game. All in all it was good game, well balanced rules fast combat and sufficient depth to be a commando, spy, thief, cop or whatever in the modern day. For a more detailed review: RPG Top Secret S.I Review

Damage by Zone in Top Secret S.I.

The makers abandoned the traditional concept of hit points. They replaced it with a zone chart of ten areas covering: Head, Left Chest, Right Chest, Abdomen, Right Arm, Left Arm, Right Hand, Left Hand, Right Leg and Left Leg. Furthermore they had two types of damage: wound or bruise. I won’t go into all the details, but they effectively solved the problem from the original game “being too easy to die”. Body Armor, cover and good common sense would sustain a character a good long time in heavy combat. Furthermore the chart was cool, superimposed over a silhouette of man.

Skills and Classes

There are no classes in this system, but they had a large list of skills. Some skills had pre-requisite skill(s) and each skill had a cost to it. This worked really well with their experience system, as players were rewarded with skill points and could improve their abilities or get new ones. The skills were easy to understand resulting in a nice neat uncomplicated system for skills.

Attributes

TPSI diverged from the D20 model here by doing everything on percentile basis. Sometimes the math would get dodgy it made your attributes very easy to understand. Most people have no problem understanding that 10% chance is not as good as 80% chance. In that sense the system had an intuitive quality that’s hard to beat.

In Conclusion:

That sums it up for me, naturally I could have said more about each system. Those elements I highlighted are IMO the great concepts in those games.

First, Defining the D20 problems

2007-05-31T09:49:00.000-05:00

What's not to like about RPGs?

I attempt to articulate what the existing problems are with D20 specifically and RPGs in general. These are based on my experiences trying to teach and recruit new players.

Geek Factor

There is a certain geek factor associated with Role Playing Games that in my experience is untrue and unfair. Not surprising the stereotypes about non-hygienic, socially inept, devil worshiping, poorly dressed boys or scary adult men persists. I won’t pretend to have any plan to deal with that, except to say that I lead by example. Certainly myself and the people I play with exhibit none of those qualities.

Creating a Character

If a new player manages to overcome the geek factor prejudice and decides to make a go of it, without a mentor they are likely doomed to quit. They are forced to wade through an avalanche of rules, terms, lists, tables, charts, choices resulting in a near endless array of decision points whose implications are completely unknown. In my experience the player already has in mind some type of character they want to be. This is character is probably derived from a book, movie or video game.

Hit Points

This may be the number one complaint I endured, and I am not certain why it happens now and did not happen in the 1970’s. Perhaps its video games or CNN or FOX News or I do not know what. But the problem boils down to this quote from an exasperated teenager: “If I shoot an arrow into my enemies head, he is dead weather he is level 1 or level 10, but in this game my enemy could be buck naked, 10^th level and take shots from my bow all day. That’s just stupid.” I am inclined to agree. As a follow up a great d20 hit points debate went on at a forum I visit.

What do I need to hit?

I believe that 3.5/D20 did a great job with armor class. It is a great improvement over before, but the flip side of armor class is “chance to hit” and that is no small feat to calculate for a novice. You have an adjustment for Strength (check a chart), adjustment for opponent size (check a chart), adjustment for weapon proficiency (check a chart), adjustments for related feats (check a chart) and finally adjustments for the quality of the weapon. Did I miss any? Probably I did but the point is, that all those adjustments are neat, perhaps more accurate, but cumbersome to know, find and use. It is not fun if it takes 10 minutes to know you need to beat a 12 to hit.

Hit Points Again

“So I have 50 hit points, and I keep taking damage in melee. But there are no adjustments to my skills until I reach zero, at which point I collapse and can’t use any of my skills.” Where as this is true, I can not say it ever bothered me personally. I think the thinking is the direct impact of video games, and 3d shooters where you ability degrades as you take damage. The comment makes sense to me but in 3.5/D20 it would be very cumbersome to account for.

Too Many Rules poorly described

The 3.5/D20 system has a lot of rules. The rules are written with excessive verbosity, a weird dual gender mode and they are poorly organized. You often need to be in two or three places in the rules to answer a single question. If you play every week that becomes less of a problem, if you are older and play less often it can get frustrating. Thank you for the internet because one resource is invaluable for making quick use of the rules: HyperText d20 SRD I often remind youngsters that the 3.5/D20 rules are a vast improvement in consistency over the AD&D rules of long ago, but a newbie does not care about yesterday!

In Conclusion

I think the problems are specifically targeted to the required interdependency of rules with regards to race, class, level, feat and skills involved with just creating a character. These complexities are revisited at the first melee. I whole hearted agree with the richness the D20 designers provided, but the complexity is a lot to digest for a newbie.

The long road to wanting a new RPG System

2007-05-29T06:55:00.000-05:00

Greetings!

I have a good job, a great marriage and awesome kids. I have been playing RPGs (Role Playing Games) since the late 1970's. I really enjoy the escapism aspect of being someone else in some other place on some other world in some other time. In the early days I played nearly all the old TSR games: Dungeons & Dragons, Top Secret, Traveler, Gama World. They were each good games with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Along came Dungeons and Dragons Version 3 which was a completely revised rules set. In short I hated it. It was too different, indeed it was a whole new game. I respected what they tried to do with making the mechanics of the game consistent. However they kept many of the complexities with respect to classes and race restrictions and so in total I did not use the new system. A short time later Dungeons and Dragons Version 3.5 came about as a major revision. It is a vast improvement and I liked it so much that I started to use it.

Around this I first encountered the D20 system. D20 System is effectively the open source equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons. However the creators are brilliant. They built D20 as a universal game system, not specifically tied to the fantasy (Tolkien) genre. D20 has many modules and variants that let you play in the far future, the wild west or as 007 to name a few. The genius of this concept is clear. Learn 1 system, apply it to your favorite genre and game game game!

When I was younger, with no mortgage, no family and few if any real responsibilities; I didn't have much trouble transitioning between different game rules on the fly. I'm much older now, have far less time and my memory is not what it used to be. Switching between game systems is not really and option anymore. I do not want to always play the Tolkien Fantasy of Dungeons and Dragons either, some times I'd rather be James Bond or Han Solo. D20 universal role playing system attracted me instantly.

The D20 glow wore off quickly. At the same time I decided to switch to D20, I was starting to teach my kids and their friends how to play. What I came to understand was that I had a tremendous legacy of knowledge about RPG systems. This knowledge base meant that I already had an understanding of the concepts common to all rules systems. For me it was a matter of applying new mechanics to already well understood concepts. For my kids who had no such knowledge base, it was a struggle. Kids being kids, they questioned everything. Then one day about a year ago I realized that most all their beefs were fair and well reasoned.

I went to my friends and discussed the D20 issues. It was an even split. Half rejected the very thought of new ideas and half became curious as to how the mechanics could be altered. The ideas bubbled around in a various discussions for several weeks and then we started to construct some rules!

What has surprised me most about the journey this far is how very hard it is to create a Role Playing Game. I will post more next weekend!

"It has always been easier to destroy then to create." - Mr. Spock
D100