Failed Experiments, or, Slush Pile 09.22

Over the past year or two or three, I made and attempted to run a whole bucket of weird little experimental RPG projects. Most of them died. Here are some post-mortems.

#1: Harrowhame, aka "40-mile Dwarf Tunnel"

The pitch: I saw this old MERP map. Then I reread LOTR, which says that the Mines of Moria are about 40 miles long. You play the leaders of a dwarf expedition to reclaim Harrowhame, the totally-not-Mines-of-Moria. You start outside, work your way in, send out scouts, fight battles with the denizens, mine gold, build fortresses, and fix the train.

Sessions played: 4.

What went wrong: Two things: first, an overabundance of dungeon nodes. I was trying to run it like a huge pointcrawl megadungeon with hundreds of mundane nodes and a few spicy ones, when I should've taken a leaf from UVG's book and just had a few dozen really cool exciting nodes (some of which could be dungeons). Second, there was just too much management overhead from the players: they were tracking a dozen squads of 10 dwarves, their work assignments, resources (metal, gold, food, and fuel), and a bunch of other shit. It would be a sick videogame, but was basically untenable as a tabletop RPG.

What's worth salvaging: The pitch. That's about it, really. The idea's really cool but basically every mechanical angle I took with the project sucked.

#2: Ten Thousand Miles

The pitch: You play mailmen (of the "Special Mail Service") going on a 10,000-mile delivery most of the way across the world. Every month, me and kahva release another 500 × 500-mile topographical map (on patreon, maybe?), which knit together into one contiguous 500 × 10,000 mile map. (And then release it eventually on a fucking scroll, or something?)

Sessions played: 5.

What went wrong: Again, two things: first, it just took a lot of coordination and effort and work ahead of time for me and kahva, which is difficult to muster in the best of circumstances. Second, and possibly more damning, is that these were maps basically devoid of content. A big topograpical map is very fun and cool, but you gotta have things to do there besides just walking, and a big map (even with some weather and random encounter tables) just doesn't really provide that.

What's worth salvaging: The map-a-month subscription model. I also wrote a little language system that's kinda fun and will eventually go in its own post. Oh, also, I came up with this three-point Mail Service Code of Honor, which I love (as well as the idea of delivering the mail as a campaign pitch):

1. The mail must go through.
2. Never open the mail.
3. Always hold yourself to highest standards of decency.

#3: Beowulf-3, aka "Mars Colony"

The pitch: An almost entirely rules-free (we used one basic PbtA-ish 2d6 resolution roll and nothing else) system set on an alternate-history '90s Martian colony (the mission you're on is called Beowulf-3). You're some of the first permanent colonists on Mars, and have to deal with the competing interests of NASA, the Clinton Administration, corporate executives, and the aftershocks of the Cold War. 

Sessions played: 1. 

What went wrong: Turns out that a lot of the problems Martian colonists face are extremely boring but also pretty relevant. Like, maintaining water filtration pipes is very necessary but hard to really grapple with in an engaging way without having a chemical engineering degree. You can kinda just skip from dramatic moment to dramatic moment, but we wanted more structural mechanisms for all the boring shit that's still important. 

What's worth salvaging: A very light core ruleset actually works super well for these kinds of community-drama focused games. With a little bit of tactical rules elision, I think this could really shine.

#4: PbtA Mutable Moves

The pitch: A Powered by the Apocalypse ruleset where every move follows the "10+: all three, 7-9: choose two, 6-: choose one" model (pioneered by moves like Read a Sitch). Every time you make a move, you cross out one of the options and replace it with one of your own design. Here's a version I made for a kind of Biblical-mythical Bronze Age-type setting.

Sessions played: 1.

What went wrong: Turns out game design is hard, kids. Even with a load of examples, coming up with new move options on the fly takes a lot of time and effort, so my players often ended up just resorting to shafting over other players or writing precisely what they wanted. Which was allowed and I sort of saw coming, but ended up being more an issue than I expected.

What's worth salvaging: Letting players modify existing moves—or write new ones—is an extremely potent tool. It's an amazing way to let them modify the game how they want, to literally rewrite the rules to better fit your game. I think as a playbook capstone, for example, or a once-every-5-sessions kind of move, it could work really well. 

#5: Downtime Grunge Heroes

The pitch: You play, like, a bunch of shitty college students living in a house together, but you also all have superpowers. Deal with your life. Here's the draft I started writing. One of my big-brain ideas for this was to reverse the downtime-mission emphasis: in lots of games, you play out the mission in detail, then roll to see what happens in downtime. What if it was the reverse here? You roll to see what happened on your mission ("ah fuck, I got blinded for two weeks by acid," "ah fuck, I totaled my car"), then play out what actually happens in the rest of your life in detail.

Sessions played: 0.

What went wrong: What do you actually do in this game? What happens? If I don't want to write a whole bunch of weird emotional-tracker systems (a la Masks), what mechanics are there actually? Do I really want to play a game where you say "yeah I spend 3 hours of my sleep tonight to finish my homework" ??

What's worth salvaging: I think basically everything in that draft is actually pretty okay. Like, it's reasonably good, reasonably-gameable content. I dunno.

#6: PbtA Communal Cyberpunk

The pitch: Apocalpyse World, the original Powered by the Apocalypse game, is really interesting in that you-the-PCs essentially play the pillars of a community. Not the leaders, necessarily, but certainly the important people. Gang bosses, cult icons, weird freaks, all the movers and shakers in a given apocalyptic commune. It's something almost no PbtA game since has managed to replicate. What if it was cyberpunk?

Sessions played: 1.

What went wrong: It's just... Apocalpyse World but cyberpunk. It's fine. It's bland. (Also, my players didn't really seem to get the cool things I was trying to do with rules-lite cybernetics because they were all poisoned by storygames, but that's okay.)

What's worth salvaging: This was the start of my "holy shit god fuck I never want to write a system again" arc. Here's the existing rules draft (NSFW?), it'd probably be playable with a good 3 hours of work to fill out the classes. 

#7: Maximalist Ritual Spells

The pitch: What if spells were actually complex things you needed to learn? What if they were serious rituals that required study and time and effort? What if a wizard was not somebody who has four 1st-level spells per day and a Spell Save DC of 17 and whatever else, but somebody who was actually wise and knowledgeable? The idea was to write a whole bunch of complex ritual spells that could be hugely powerful but had tons of complex requirements. A wizard who knew one spell would be dangerous; a wizard who knew five spells would be immensely powerful.

Sessions played: 4 (as part of another campaign).

What went wrong: It's kind of a pain in the ass, honestly. There's like a million things to keep track of as the GM, and I didn't have a good way to do that. It's also just a huge barrier to entry for the players. Turns out making magic really complicated means that magic is really complicated. It's also just an absolute fuckload of legwork on the part of the designer. 

What's worth salvaging: Here's what the Sleep spell might look like. Here's what a pyromancy spell list might look like (scroll down a bit). Despite the issues, I do think these might kind of work, and I may well return to them at some point. They're also just a fantastic way to do a lot of sneaky cool backdoor worldbuilding. In the meantime, check out Luke Gearing's much more usable version of basically this same idea (for the already-amazing Wolves Upon the Coast).

#8: Cyberpunk Lady Blackbird

The pitch: Lady Blackbird, John Harper's landmark focused-but-open narrative game, but done up in a cyberpunk style. The tentative name was "Blackbird Protocol," about escorting a revolutionary cell leader ("Blackbird") through the city to a corporate tower.

Sessions played: 0.

What went wrong: Turns out Lady Blackbird actually just kind of sucks? It's a very fun concept and pitch, but there's just... nothing there? It gives you one macro map and a bunch of vague hooks, then says "go." If there was an actual adventure to it, more maps and NPCs and challenges and details, I think it'd be great. As is, it's a complete ruleset and barebones adventure masquerading as an entire world. If you're willing to improv the entire thing it's pretty fun, but that's true of just about any game.

What's worth salvaging: The... pitch? Honestly I'm not sure.

#9: Back Alley Razor Gangs, aka "Blades in the Dark but actually good this time"

The pitch: Take Blades in the Dark, another landmark John Harper joint, but add some actual backbone and procedure and content to it. Blades, as is, has the weird storygame problem of saying "here's a whole woooorld" and then basically just assigning all of it as homework for the GM. BARG was an attempt to fix that by adding district-generation procedures and adding some structure, primarily by using Tim Denee's really excellent Doskvol Street Maps. At some point it also turned into a rewrite of Blades (lmao).

Session played: 15-20, ish? A lot.

What went wrong: It had a really rocky start—we found that trying to take over an entire neighborhood when you're a bunch of nobodies is really fucking hard. (Let's just say both me and my players really earned a lot of respect for the Sopranos and the Peaky Blinders.) After some soul-searching and a big ol' timeskip, I just gave my players an entire neighborhood to start with. From then, it was actually pretty smooth sailing.

What's worth salvaging: Honestly, this project was mostly a success, it just needs an absolute fuckload more legwork and prep and work on my end before it can really be called finished. Here's the draft, though (and some very incomplete tables). Maybe keep an eye out for this one sometime next year or two, if you're interested. 

#10: LANCER Hexcrawl

The pitch: Make a big ol' hexcrawl for LANCER. Four or five regions, a half-dozen dungeon-type locations, three-ish factions, a handful of quest lists/lines, maybe 100 keyed hexes total. A fat zine's worth of concise content. 

Sessions played: 0.

What went wrong: Turns out I really can't stand LANCER. It's far and away the game that I want to like the most, but the rules writing is just abysmal and the game offers absolutely zero guidance on how to actually balance it. While I really like weird mythic sci-fi mech about playing giant robots that fight each other, sitting through minimum one (more likely two-three) hours of really dense crunchy combat is my breaking point. It bores me as a player and taxes the hell out of me as a GM.

What's worth salvaging: The... pitch? What LANCER is really in dire need of is good old-fashioned content. (Or, at least, content that you can actually play, as opposed to whatever the hell Wallflower is doing.)

#11: Locks & Keys

The pitch: One of the cool things about Lady Blackbird is that characters all have these things called "Keys," like "Key of Secrecy: Hit your Key when you go undercover or lie to hide your identity." Hitting your key gets you XP and other stuff. Narrative triggers, basically. I made a bunch of these once for a classless-type OSR game: the keys are Keys, the associated perks you get are, hilariously, called Locks.

Sessions played: 3, I think (as part of another campaign).

What went wrong: On paper, nothing. These work as intended. In practice, though, it just feels pretty against the whole ethos to be incentivizing players like this. (We are against incentive here, after all.) 

What's worth salvaging: If you really love this idea, take it and go. This one basically works mechanically, I'm more just opposed to it on a, like, ideological level. 

#12: Forged in the Dark Scooby-Doo

The pitch: you play the Scooby Gang, pillars of the American mythos that they are. You go into a collection of places around town (the Abandoned Factory, the Seaside Cove, the Old High School) to solve mysteries. Here's the twist: when you go looking for clues (or otherwise touch the dice, really), there are two sets of clues per location-mystery to find:

1. If you fail the roll (pretty common), your clumsy incompetence leads you to actually find evidence that it's Old Man Withers! Bank statements, machinery, human footprints, lost wills, etc. etc.
2. If you succeed the roll (pretty rare), you find evidence that holy shit, Bigfoot is real. Once in a blue moon on a mystery, you actually see aliens, you actually talk to ghosts, etc. etc.

After finding all the clues from one set (regardless of how far you got on the other), you conclude the mystery.

Sessions played: 0.

What went wrong: Mysteries are hard, man. While Scooby-Doo offers the amazing affordance of not actually being about mysteries, really, it's still tricky. Is it too contrived? Is there any tension? Is it too weird to have the results of the mystery be based on fucking dice rolls? Isn't this whole twin-solution thing like way too meta anyways? All questions that vex me. 

There's also the issue of people trying to play as like, weird Scooby-Doo OC, which I am absolutely not here for—if we're playing the Scooby-Doo game, we're playing as Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby, goddamn it. (There's also the question of, you know, copyright? Unclear.)

What's worth salvaging: Thing is, I really, really love this one. Scooby-Doo is near and dear to my heart, and getting to kick off sessions by having the Fred-player say "Let's split up and look for clues, gang!" fills me with joy. God, maybe I need to make this game.

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Okay. I think that's it. If you ever wonder why it's taking me so goddamn long to release Seas of Sand and Time After Time, it's because I keep getting distracted every five seconds with all of these (not to mention my projects that actually have released since starting, like Lowlife and The Big Wet). Ugh. A blessing and a curse, roleplaying games.

How I Fixed 5e

After trying and failing at a whole bunch of experimental shit over the past year-ish (which might become a slush pile at some point), my regular homegame players and I gave up. We went back to 5e, which we're all extremely familiar with and thus need to spend a minimal amount of time dicking around with.

Here's how I run it.

1. Use E5. 

E5, a variation of the venerable E6 from the 3.5 days, is a version of 5e that stops leveling at level 5. In E5, you stop leveling up at level 5, but every level thereafter gets you a new feat.

It's really good. It makes a lot of 5e's design decisions make a lot more sense. It makes all the random feats that seem kinda cool but you can never really afford suddenly viable. It makes all the "you get one 1st level and one 2nd level spell extra per day" feats useful. It makes Sharpshooter and GWM a lot costlier, since your proficiency bonus never really gets above +3. It allows for a smidgen of build-crafting but keeps a firm lid on power level.

It's good. If I could only make one change to 5e, I think this'd be it.

2. Use Extended Rests.

Extended Rests, aka "Gritty Realism," is a controversial-ish alternate rule from the DMG. It makes short rests 8 hours (one night's sleep) and makes long rests 3 days. 

Much ink has been spilled over this, but I think it's basically good. On a practical level, it effectively means that players can only reliably long rest in a safe place, and can only short rest outside the dungeon. It makes them more cautious, more wary. It's a really good way to preserve some of the light shows of 5e but slow down the timeline. It also makes feats and perks that let you heal more on short rests really good, and provides a (much-needed, imo) buff to the short-rest classes like Fighter, Monk, and Warlock. 

You'll also want to extend the duration on spells: anything that used to take 10 minutes or more gets kicked up one "time class." 10 minute spells become 1 hour, 1 hour spells become 8 hours, 8 hours becomes 1 day, 1 day becomes 1 week, and so on. 1 minute and instantaneous spells don't change, because those are "single-combat spells" and combat pace hasn't changed.

My players hated it at first but now have gotten used to it. It's good.

3. Cut damage cantrips from every class except Sorcerer.

No firebolt. No toll the dead. No vicious mockery. No fucking eldritch blast. 

Suddenly, all your casters suddenly have to use their brains in combat. Suddenly, all your casters might consider putting points into something other than their main stat. Suddenly, Sorcerers actually feel cool and unique and special because they get to shoot lightning out of their fucking hands whenever they want. 

My players almost rioted when I first dropped this on them, but from my view it's an extremely good change. They still get cantrips, they can even still use those cantrips in combat (minor illusion remains very good), but there's suddenly no default action for casters. 

It also helps make damage actually matter. A Fighter or Barbarian who can reliably get 20+ damage off per round is actually very, very helpful, because your casters will need to actually commit to get damage numbers that high. 

It makes your martials feel cooler, it makes Sorcerers feel cooler, it makes everybody actually think about combat a little more. It's the most controversial thing here but also very good.

4. A million other tiny tweaks that are basically unnecessary but I added anyways. 

Here's an incomplete list:

1. Strip ASIs out of species and attach them to backgrounds instead. (Apparently 5.5 is doing this, but I thought of it first.)
2. Use inventory slots. Most items take 1, big weapons take 2 or 3 or 4. Armor takes slots equal to AC - 10. You get slots equal to STR score + CON score.
3. Add a dismemberment table they roll on whenever they reach 0HP. If they roll above a 10 (higher is deadlier), they automatically fail one death save.
4. Every time they would take 1 exhaustion level, fill 1d6 inventory slots with "exhaustion slots" instead. You clear [HD roll] exhaustion slots per short rest, and all exhaustion slots on a long rest.
5. Fuck the common tongue. Use my gigantic language chart instead. You start with languages equal to INT score / 5, rounding down. Backgrounds and classes still grant bonus languages, as normal. (Someday I'll make this into a flowchart poster that you can buy.)
6. Replace all the non-resistance related stuff from the Barbarian's rage with a flat STR bonus, starting from +4 and ending at +8. 
7. Let Barbarians spend one use of rage to negate 1d6 inventory slots of exhaustion.
8. Give all Barbarians the features of the Berserker Path on top of whatever else they get. These features should be core Barbarian features.
9. Give all Bards the features of the College of Lore on top of whatever else they get. These features should be core Bard features.
10. Cut guidance.
11. Cut the bit from Wild Shape that says "all your clothes and gear transform with you." Let your Druids be direwolves with their swords in the mouths, but then have to be naked afterwards.
12. Let Land Druids change their chosen Land once every full moon.
13. Let Fighters use Second Wind while they're unconscious.
14. Give all Fighters the features of the Battlemaster. Figure out which subclasses get which maneuvers as you need them.
15. Let Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters choose two magic schools of four to get their spells from (EK: Abjuration, Conjuration, Evocation, Transmutation // AT: Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Transmutation).
16. Give all Monks the Open Hand Technique feature at level 2. 
17. Give Open Hand monks a feature called "Thousand Steps" that lets them add their proficiency bonus to their AC against one attack as a reaction, then rename the subclass to "Way of the Mountaintop."
18. Give Four Elements Monks control flame, gust, mold earth, and shape water at levels 3, 6, 11, and 17, in any order they choose.
19. Make Divine Sense an always-on passive for Paladins.
20. Use the revised rules from Tasha's for Rangers.
21. Let Thief Rogues use DEX in place of STR to determine their inventory size.
22. Give all Sorcerers the features of Wild Magic on top of whatever else they get. These features should be core Sorcerer features.
23. Give Sorcerers an extra Metamagic at level 6.
24. On the Wild Magic table, change basically any entry that says "1 minute" to "1d6 hours" or "1d6 days." Cut any line that says anything like "it [disappears/reverts to normal/returns] after 1 minute." Let Sorcerers actually be fucking weird.
25. Give Sorcerers chaos bolt for free.
26. Attach the Hexblade feature that allows you to use CHA for attacks with your sword to Pact of the Blade instead of Hexblade (they'll be fine without anything to compensate).
27. Add an invocation called "Fell Legions" for Blade Pact Warlocks that gives proficiency in medium armor and shields.
28. Any invocation that essentially expand your spell list (Bewitching Whispers, Dreadful Word, etc.) now provide one free casting of the spell per short rest. 
29. Cut prepared spells from Wizards, they can just cast any spell from their spellbook. Only give them 1 free spell per level, rather than 2.
30. Add a line to the Grappler feat that lets you grapple a target 1 size larger than normal, and you deal 1d4 bonus damage to targets you're grappling.
31. Make light and dancing lights 1st level spells instead of cantrips.
32. When combat starts, PCs roll initiative trying to beat [10 + enemy DEX mod]. If they succeed, they go first; if they fail, they go after the monsters.

5. Move fast and break things.

Stop caring about balance. Make lots of rulings. Tweak and modify the game rules even further. Use OSR monsters stat blocks. Play fast and loose. 

--

This is, obviously, just how I roll. There are lots of other ways to do it. But my players are now basically on board with basically all of these, and our game actually feels like D&D instead of... whatever 5e normally feels like. 

Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Meeple: A Wargame

My friend Walid and I recently participated in a very brief game jam challenge: we got assigned three common game-prototype materials, then had to make a game in 45 minutes. Our materials were poker chips, "gems," and meeples. Thus was born the greatest wargame ever made:

DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MEEPLE!

Materials:

• A relatively clear table (any size, immovable clutter is fine)
• A whole bunch of poker chips
• A whole bunch of gems
• 14 meeples in 5 different colors

Objective:

Defeat the enemy team(s) my knocking all their meeples over. Ensure at least one of your meeples remains standing.

Setup:

1. Gather 2–5 players. Each player must choose a meeple faction (see factions below). Any factions not chosen are not in play.
2. Distribute each faction's meeples to their player, along with 5 gems.
3. Randomly choose one player, who places one gem on the table. This is "cover." Then, the player to their left places a gem, then the player to their left, and so on. Do this until all gems are placed (this should be [players] × 5 gems in total).
4. To deploy, randomly choose one player, who places a single meeple on the table. Then, the player to their left places a meeple, and so on. Do this until all meeples are deployed (typically 3 meeples per faction).
5. To start the game, randomly determine one player to take the first turn. The player to their left goes next, and so on.

Basic Rules:

The game is divided into turns, one player at a time. On your turn, you can move and attack with one meeple: movement and attacking can be done in any order.

MOVEMENT

By default, a meeple may move 2 poker chips' worth of distance: place the edge of the poker chip against the meeple, then move the meeple anywhere along the edge of the poker chip (then do this again, since meeples can move 2 chips).

• Meeples cannot move over any obstacles: if it's not flat terrain, they can't go there.

ATTACKING

To attack, place a poker chip down next to your meeple, flat on the table. Then, using the fingers on one hand, flick the poker chip across the table, attempting to knock down your opponents' meeples.

• "Next to" is a little bit flexible. If you need a measure, hold a poker chip over your meeple's head: so long as your "ammo" poker chip would touch the measuring poker chip, the meeple can fire.
• To knock out an enemy meeple, you must knock it over or off the table: if it slides or skids but remains standing, it is still in play.
• The goal here is that the flicked poker chip is sliding across the table, not skipping or bouncing. Obviously, it's hard to control for these things, but do your best.
• Any poker chips that are still on the table after attacking stay on the table, and cannot be moved. These cannot be moved over by meeples, as normal. (Artillery fire leaves craters.)

ON DEATH

If a meeple is knocked over, that meeple's player gets to place one gemstone on the table (as their faction's remaining meeples desperately throw down more sandbags).

Factions

There are five factions of meeples, based on the colors we had available at time of writing. Each player chooses one. Each faction has unique abilities 

WHITE MEEPLES (FAST ATTACK)

• 3 meeples
• During steup, white meeples always place the first gem and first meeple in setup, and they always get the first turn at the start of the game.
• On their turn, the white meeples have four poker chips' worth of movement, which they can distribute however they please across all of their meeples. One meeple could move all four chips, one meeple could go three and one meeple one, or any other combination. 

GREY MEEPLES (BIG GUNS)

• 3 meeples
• If a grey meeple does not move on their turn, they can attack with two poker chips. These poker chips can be stacked, placed side by side, or otherwise configured oddly. They must both be within range of the attacking meeple, and the grey player may still only use one hand to flick the poker chips.

GREEN MEEPLES (ZOMBIES)

• 3 meeples
• When a green meeple is knocked over, it is not removed from play: that meeple cannot move, but can still attack. 
• To kill a green meeple, you must knock it off the table entirely (at which point the green player can place another gem, as normal).

PURPLE MEEPLES (DEFENDERS)

• 3 meeples
• During setup, after all meeples are deployed but before the first turn, the purple player may place an additional 3 gems.
• When a purple meeple dies, the purple player may place two gems, instead of one.

ORANGE MEEPLES (TANKS)

• 2 meeples(!)
• Both orange meeples begin play standing on top of a poker chip (make these poker chips a different color than the ones you use to attack and move with). These are the "tanks."
• When an orange meeple moves, it moves with the "tank" poker chip it stands on. 
• If an orange meeple loses its "tank," it can move over to its lost "tank" poker chip and "re-enter" by climbing back on top of it.
• Orange meeples can climb on top of any other poker chips on the table (but cannot move with them—only tanks are mobile).

Tips & Advice

• Play with as many players as possible. Write new factions if you need to.
• Building lines of cover with gems is only sometimes helpful: a poker chip flicked hard enough can shatter lines of sandbags.
• Having a few pieces of immovable terrain (desk lamps, laptops, a backpack) can really spice up the drama. Ricochets are a huge gamble but can be extremely effective.
• Friendly fire is very possible and extremely costly. 
• It generally gets harder and harder to land shots as the game goes on, requiring improvised strategy.
• When you flick the chips, you sometimes want snap your finger out from your thumb ("the classic"), but sometimes you also want to just heavily-nudge the chip with a finger ("the putter") if you're at short range or need a lot of control.
• Alliances are very useful.
• Go fast. We played multiple games of this in under an hour. 
• Squat down to level your eyes with the table to get the best sightlines (that's how you know it's a real wargame).

Good luck!

Three Subsystems For Things You Already Have Subsystems For

Presented in order of confidence, most to least.

RESTY HITPOINTS

Here's a system for HP I've been screwing around with for a little while. (As usual, dS is "dice size," so +1 dS changes a d4 to a d6, and -2 dS changes a d12 to a d8.) This is mostly stolen from Jared Sinclair's 6e.

When you sleep, roll [level]dX. If the new total is higher than your previous HP, that's now your current HP. Resting will never lower your HP.

By default, dX is a d8. Here's what can change that:

• -1 dS for each of the following: you go to sleep while...
• wet
• cold
• exposed
• hungry
• thirsty
• sick
• in your armor
• without a bedroll
• seriously wounded (like, from a death & dismemberment table, not just regular combat damage)
• +1 dS for each of the following: you go to sleep while...
• having just finished a hot meal
• in a real, actual bed
• freshly cleaned and groomed

Max dX is a d20; min dX is a d1.

WHY THIS IS COOL

All that camping shit players love to ignore really matters. You need a bedroll, and a tent, and a mess kit, and a fire, and clean water, and a place to actually fucking sleep. On the flipside, buying a room and meal and bath is suddenly extremely worth it, because it's the quickest way to get back all your HP.

Imagine, for a second, the level 3 adventurer that just crawled out of the sewer-dungeon after having their gear stolen by frogpeople: they're wet, cold, and hungry. That's a d2, meaning until they can find a good place to sleep, their new maximum HP is a big ol' 6. 

By contrast, imagine that same adventurer spending a night at the inn in town: they're warm, they're fed, and they took a bath with real soap. Their die is a d20, meaning their max is 60 HP. Which, you know, is ludicrous, but that'll take months or years of resting to reach (because, remember, it's not additive—new HP only increases if it's higher than the old).

I also like this because it captures the "resting for longer is good and necessary sometimes" thing that Grit & Flesh does without needing to mess around with secondary HP tracks. 

INVENTORY EXHAUSTION

Here's an inventory-exhaustion system I've been screwing around with for a while. This is mostly stolen from Grave and Boots Full of Mud.  

You've got your inventory slots, yeah? Use those. (You might want to give players a few more than normal—I usually do CON + STR these days.)

Whenever you take a point of exhaustion, fill one inventory slot. If you end up with more filled slots than you have inventory space, you start slowing down and eventually can't move anymore.

Here are some things that mean you take a point of exhaustion:

• Crossing a gradient line of elevation (cf. Boots)
• Crossing a river
• Traveling every hour past the normal daily amount (usually 8 hours)
• Traveling a watch (4 hours) at a faster pace than normal (usually +1 mph)
• Staying up for a watch (4 hours) when you should be sleeping.
• Exhaustion-attacks and certain illnesses, like plague bugs or whatever
• Pulling a stunt and an attack on the same turn in combat (cf. Grave, basically imagine baby's first Action Surge)
• If you're playing 5e, have things that normally deal 1 Exhaustion (zerker's frenzy, for example) deal 1d4 slots or 1d6 slots or something

If you're using my resty HP, clear exhaustion every night equal to highest single die rolled. 

WHY THIS IS COOL

It makes exhaustion this extremely palpable thing that suddenly really matters, but also doesn't involve fucking around with either your HP or some additional track. It bites you where it hurts, but it's easy to predict. If your players are paying attention and managing their travels well, they'll be fine; if they get lost or lose their focus, they'll suddenly have no inventory to work with and that sucks big time.

If you use the stunt-exhaustion thing from Grave, which I like, it also means you get a cool Thief / Fighter distinction solely based on inventory: thieves wear light armor and carry light weapons so they can do lots of cool stunts in combat; fighters wear heavy armor and carry heavy weapons so they're more reliable, but every stunt they pull matters a lot more.

It's also just very... hackable. Modular. It's dead simple to add in more effects that inflict exhaustion, or have magical healing clear exhaustion, or whatver else.

 

CALLED SHOTS ONLY

This is a weird one. It doesn't play nice with resty HP, since it doesn't actually use HP (lol). Entirely untested.

Use your sandwich AC for attacks, where you've got to roll equal-to-or-under your attack stat but over your opponent's AC to hit. 

Every time you attack your opponent, say where you try hit them: torso, a limb, their head, or whatever. 

Their AC changes based on where you hit them:

• Torso: +0
• Limbs: +3
• Head or neck: +5
• Smaller specific part, like eyes or hands: +10

Here's what armor adds:

• Leather, +2 AC
• Chain, +4 AC
• Plate, +6 AC
• Dragonscale, +12 AC

The armor your opponent wears only covers so much. A breastplate protects only the torso. A helmet protects the head, but almost never the eyes. There's a constant dance of figuring out where the best place to hit them is.

If your attack is equal to or 1 more than their AC, it's a graze. A glancing blow. Cuts, scrapes, bruises.

If your attack is 2 or more than their AC, it's a hit. A solid strike, it'll do damage. Broken bones, flesh wounds, serious injuries.

If your attack is 5 or more than their AC, it's a critical hit. Severed limbs, crushed rib cages, heads rent in twain. 

There's no HP here, just diegetic damage. If something would kill someone, it kills them. Bear in mind that a graze to, say, the eyeballs is going to do a hell of a lot more than a graze to the ribs.

WHY THIS IS COOL

There's a dance to every fight. Imagine my opponent: they've got a breastplate, leather gauntlets and greaves, and a chainmail coif. If I attack their torso, their AC's about 4. Decent odds for me, but even a solid hit is not guaranteed to knock them out of the fight. If I attack their head, their AC's about 9, but even a graze will do serious damage. If I attack their sword-arm, their AC's about 5, and a solid hit will seriously dampen their ability to hit me. 

It means that every swing in combat is a gamble, a decision. It probably does slow each turn of combat down, but it means each turn can potentially end the fight. There's no whittling-down of HP real slowly until the monster drops dead—you either kill them, or you don't.

It also means you can make combat into more of a puzzle. Take a dragon: its weak spots are its eyes, its mouth, and whatever hole it has in its diamond belly-armor. Those are hard to hit, but are always going to be easier—and deadlier, probably—than trying to punch through dragonscale. 

Again, this is completely untested, but it's my hope, my suspicion, that this kind of system enables combat to be less about cronching numbers against each other and more about figuring out ways to exploit your opponents' weaknesses. Hopefully.

--

Let me know what you think.

Slush Pile 11.21

In the style of Throne of Salt.

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CRUNCHY-ASS ARMOR

Armor has a single stat attached to it, called "Armor Value," or AV, which ranges from 1–6 (usually). 

When a weapon's damage roll equal the armor's AV, the damage is negated. That means if you roll a 4 on damage against an AV 4 target, they take no damage.

Here's a sample AV chart:

• AV 1: padded cloth
• AV 2: quilted coat
• AV 3: leather gambeson
• AV 4: lamellar armor
• AV 5: chainmail
• AV 6: full plate

Critically, you can wear multiple kinds of armor. However, you can only wear 3 armors at once, and those three cannot be fully contiguous. AV 1 / AV 2 / AV 4 is fine, or AV 2 / AV 3 / AV 6, but not AV 4 / AV 5 / AV 6. 

Armor takes slots equal to the highest AV, +1 for each additional armor. (Plate, chainmail, and a quilted coat takes 8 slots.)

Bladed weapons deal 1d4 + 2 (dagger) // 1d4 + 2 and 1d4 + 2 (longsword) // 1d4 + 2 and 1d4 + 2 and 1d4 + 2 (greatsword). 

Blunt weapons deal 2d3 (cosh) // 4d3 (hammer) // 5d3 (big hammer) // 6d3 (maul).

Stabby weapons deal 1d6 (arrow) // 2d6 (spear) // 3d6 (pike).

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SPEAK NOT THE NAME OF THE BROWN ONE

a brown one

Don't speak the name of the brown one. It will summon him. 

Honey-eater, tree-climber, fish-hunter, man-killer. All are the brown one.

The brown one is a god amongst men: as we do not say the names of the gods, we do not say the name of the brown one.

If you wish to face the gods early, speak the name of the brown one. It will summon him.

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DELTA HUNGER

Within the heart of every living person lies a primordial desire, buried beneath a hundred generations of civilization and a lifetime's worth of training.

This desire is beneath shelter, beneath safety, beneath sex. It is the desire to eat. To devour. To take a living thing and consume its strength. To feed.

(0) Appetite

Eat someone. Enjoy the taste.

You can eat raw meat without penalties or danger.

(1) Hunt

Kill someone. Eat them. 

You can drink blood like it was water, and eat meat like it was bread. You learn the spots to hold on someone's neck to squeeze the life out of them like juice. You grow broad in the shoulders.

(1) Palette

Go a week eating nothing but human flesh.

You can eat an entire person in one sitting, and it will feed you for a month; you won't need to eat or drink anything else. You grow thick around the middle.

(2) Grind

Bake bread from someone's bones: use the marrow for water, ground bone powder for flour, and the bones themselves as coal for the oven.

You grow strong, strong enough to snap someone's bones with your bare hands. You can sling a thrashing person over each shoulder and carry them both without issues. Your thighs, upper arms, and neck grow heavy and muscular.

(2) Pantry

Keep someone alive for at least a week, eating a new part of them every day.

You can smell when someone's afraid, even if they're hiding it. You can smell fear from up to a quarter-mile away. You grow tall, more than seven feet, rolling with muscle and fat.

(3) Butcher

TBD

Something about preserving people for a while

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TOWER OF BABYLON ANTI-DEPTHCRAWL

Stolen from Ted Chiang.

Based on the math he gives us, the tower's about 50 miles high. The radius of the tower is between 5.5 and 6 miles: with a full day's walk, a person climbs roughly one vertical mile each day.

The base of the tower is all construction; the lower tower is crops and plants to feed the builders; the middle of the tower is sun-baked; the upper tower is more construction villages and hanging gardens; the top of the tower is near the dome of the sky.

Make a d150 table, roll a d50 on it every day, and add your current height in miles. The very bottom is all builders, the middle is encounters and birds and things, the top is angels and mystics.

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LESSONS FROM THE MICRO-MEGADUNGEON

Things I learned from running the earliest version of Beneath Harlowe House:

1. Make it dense and tight. When you think your hallways are narrow enough, make them even narrower. Compress vertically: lower ceilings, collapse upper levels, make them crawl on their bellies. Make them lose sight of each other around corners.
2. Get them lost. Make them draw their own maps, and have passageways twist and wind. Being underground because you're looking for money is bad: being underground because you literally can't find your way out is terrifying. (Also, the elation of having your map-guesswork suddenly be correct is a joy for players.)
3. Scarier is better, but this doesn't need to be complicated. They'll have to start leaving certain pathways unexplored if they want to reach the bottom: play on those fears. Have strange noises echo throughout. Have monsters leave "offerings" in places they know the players have gone. Leave clear evidence that they're being followed. Don't show the monster until it's ready.
4. Embrace the physicality. What are they wearing? How much space do their packs take up? Can you fit a sword in there? How thick is this wall? When they lost that lantern, where did it roll to? What's the ceiling made of? 
5. Leave it voluntary. If the campaign says "they must go into the spooky hole because the Sword of Flour & Flame is down there," players know they have to. If the players say "let's go into the spooky hole" even though they know they don't have to, it means they might actually fucking die.
6. Slow burn. For the first two sessions of Harlowe, my players didn't even see a monster. When they finally saw one, it was only because Phlox's character stayed outside after dark—and even then, it was just indistinct, elongated scuttling.
7. Multiple trips. It's fine if they want to leave and come back
8. Actual impact. Let them dig new tunnels, if they want to take the time. Remember thine hourly encounter rolls.
9. A sudden trapdoor is fucking terrifying. If one character unexpectedly drops down two levels into the dark, and now they're almost out of HP, and they can hear monsters coming, players lose their fucking shit.

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CHARACTER CONCEPTION vs. CHARACTER PERCEPTION

5e players hate rolling stats.

When you set out to play an RPG, you often have some kind of character conception: an idea of who you want your character to be, how they'll behave, where they end up. This conception more or less never survives contact with the table.

At the table, you only have a character perception: the gathered info on how your character actually behaves in practice, what character traits they literally show in play.

Dissonance between these—how you imagine your character to behave vs how they actually behave—usually annoys players.

OSR games try to deliberately break you of any conception by rolling for stats, rolling for history, rolling for random trinkets or quirks or whatever. You know ahead of time you can't conceive of a character because the chargen process is so non-player-determined.

5e, culturally, embraces character conceptions, though. And so 5e players hate rolling stats. 

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ALL ONE STAT

You have one stat: stamina. It starts at 10. 

When you make a check, roll 1d20 under stamina. You have inventory slots equal to stamina. Your speed in feet is equal to stamina times 3. When you take damage, you lose stamina. 

Every full day you spend resting, roll 1d20: if it's higher than your current stamina, now that's your stamina. 

If you reach 0 stamina, you die.

#

RITUAL MAGIC TRADITIONS

magical traditions in the style of my slow ritual magic: each tradition has its own sites, trappings, and performances. Necromancy uses full moons, anatomy textbooks, and ritual removal of organs; pyromancy uses the noonday sun, burnt incense, and ceremonial salt-burning. 

Go one step further: each spell has its own list of sites / trappings / performances, but there are some overlaps between them. "Illusion spells" are only a tradition because most of them happen to share foggy days, steel wool, and spinning of veils as their sites, trappings, and performances.

This is just a fuckload of legwork for a designer to build, though.

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LANGUAGES AS SPELL LISTS

Different spell lists based on the languages you speak. Draconic gets you fireball and flight and fear. Deep gets you tentacles and telepathy and water-breathing. Terran gets you earthbind and wall of stone and whatever else.

Tie the number of languages you know to your Intelligence. A more powerful age is a more Intelligent mage not because their spell save DC scales off of INT or whatever, but because they literally know more spells and thus can combo them in interesting ways.

#

More to come, eventually.

Big Wet Six: Bloody Ballistics

Continued from quite a while ago. 

c/w for violence and gore

I've spent a fair bit of time mulling over how to gun combat in the Big Wet. Here's what I want the system to do:

1. Feel extremely fucking dangerous; a huge commitment. In my view, the Big Wet's not about violence itself so much as it is about the continual threat of violence. It's about tension, slowly building and then releasing all at once. 
2. Feel messy and unpredictable. Things should go wrong in a fight, frequently. I like my apocalyptic games gory, both in literal terms and in the "gory details" sense—a kind of, like, old-school tactility. I want players to feel the fight.
3. Be reasonably tactical: players' moment-to-moment tactics should matter (do I shoot? do I go for cover?) as well as their bigger strategic decisions (which weapons should I bring? how many bullets do I spend?). I don't need full wargame here, but I'd like a layer of depth to it.
4. Not be monstrously crunchy. Ideally, I'd like a single turn of combat—one volley / exchange / shot / etc.—to just take a single dice roll. 

I'm not sure this is all achievable, frankly, but that's not going to stop me trying. Boot Hill, from what I know of it, hits points 1-3 but not 4. Base Mothership hits 1, 3, and 4, but not 2. Apocalypse World hits 1(ish), 2 (assuming you use the harm moves), and 4, but not really 3. 

Here's what I got:

RAINSLICK GUNFIGHTS

This assuming combat's begun and now it's your turn. Here's how it works:

1. Roll your dice to attack: 1d100 under the appropriate stat, plus any skills, but over your Wet score. As normal. Lungs for melee, Nerves for range; Fighting applies to both, CQC to melee and firearms to guns. 
2. If you succeed on the attack, look up the result of your 1d100 attack roll on the wounds table: this is what you do to your opponent. Go look at that chart right now—it will help explain what's actually going on here.
3. The target's Wet score increases by the result of the units die. This is "damage." 

Some modifiers to this:

1. Weapons have long, medium, and close ranges: long gives disadvantage, close gives advantage. Simple, really.
2. Cover blocks the parts of your body that it would actually block. So if your legs are covered and your opponent gets an 06, you simply take no damage. If it's really thin cover like plywood or something, then, I dunno, they get disadvantage on the units die or something.

And here's how different "weapon types" work:

1. Automatic weapons roll one tens die, but then get to roll as many units dice as bullets they fired. Decide how many bullets you're firing before you roll. Each of the results apply on the wounds table, and all of the units get added together to increase the Wet score. This means, basically, that you might still just whiff, but you're much more likely to do lots of serious damage. 
2. Shotguns roll one tens die, then get to roll ~4 units dice, which explode. This means if you get a 10 on one of those unit dice, it goes higher—which makes you more likely to miss with a pellet (as you might over your skill limit), but also means you tend to deal big damage if you roll low.
3. Sniper rifles and their ilk get to roll extra unit dice, and get to pick their favorite. "Extra" is probably based on the amount of time you spend aiming down your scope. Means they tend to deal big damage, and also not miss.

That's combat in a nutshell, I think. (Yes, this requires throwing out the Mosh-esque guns I had before and coming up with some modified versions. A cost I'm willing to live with.)

BIG WET WOUNDS CHART

Here's the wounds chart:

1. Leg: calf gets scratched, basically harmless.
2. Leg: shin gets grazed.
3. Leg: toe gets blown off.
4. Leg: ankle is sprained, possibly dislocated.
5. Leg: thigh takes a bullet in the side.
6. Leg: middle of the foot catches a bullet.
7. Leg: shin is cracked, right in the center.
8. Leg: ankle is shattered. Bone shards everywhere.
9. Leg: knee explodes. Leg may need amputation.
10. Leg: bullet pierces femoral artery. Severe blood loss. Death in minutes.
11. Arm: forearm is grazed, minimal damage.
12. Arm: shoulder is scratched.
13. Arm: pinky or ring finger gets blown off.
14. Arm: elbow gets hit, likely dislocated and sprained.
15. Arm: hand takes a bullet, clean through.
16. Arm: upper arm eats a bullet head-on, right in the beach muscles.
17. Arm: wrist is broken in several places.
18. Arm: index finger and thumb are destroyed.
19. Arm: elbow detonates in a shower of bone.
20. Arm: shoulder and blade shatter. Arm is useless.
21. Torso: waist gets scratched.
22. Torso: an exterior rib is grazed. 
23. Torso: heavy bruising on lower back.
24. Torso: gut wound, shallow but bleeding.
25. Torso: one rib cracks.
26. Torso: liver catches a direct hit.
27. Torso: bullet rips through the ribs and out the other side.
28. Torso: sternum cracks in two.
29. Torso: stomach punctured. Foul smells emerge.
30. Torso: kidneys pierced. Internal bleeding.
31. Torso: multiple broken ribs. Some jut.
32. Torso: spine breaks. Paralysis likely.
33. Torso: lower-torso organs ripped to pieces. 
34. Torso: an aorta is pierced. Death in minutes.
35. Torso: digestive tract riddled with lacerations. Death in minutes.
36. Torso: lungs punctured in a dozen places. Death in less than a minute.
37. Torso: spinal column bursts. Death in less than a minute.
38. Torso: sternum splinters, ribs shatter. Death in seconds.
39. Torso: guts ripped open. Innards spill out. Death in seconds.
40. Torso: heart is torn asunder. Instant death.
41. Head: ear blown off entirely.
42. Head: nose, front teeth shatter. 
43. Head: lower jaw entirely destroyed. 
44. Head: throat hit. Windpipe collapses. Death in minutes.
45. Head: blow to the back of the head. Death in minutes.
46. Head: eye gouged out. Death in less than a minute.
47. Head: jugular spills everywhere. Death in less than a minute.
48. Head: spinal cord detonates. Death in seconds.
49. Head: frontal lobe hit directly. Death in seconds.
50. Head: skull explodes, brain ripped to pieces. Instant death.
51. Dealer's choice. On a 51 or higher, the attacker chooses any lower option above their Wet score.

Very nasty. Lots of options mean death very soon, lots more options mean long slow death instead. Getting hit in combat is very bad.

If you have two of something (ears/eyes/limbs), evens is the right, odd is the left. If you lose your right ear and then get the same result again, now it's the left ear. If you lose both ears then, hey, lucky day, you don't take any new damage.

WET EXAMPLE

Jacobs, a PC, is shooting at an enemy scavenger: Jacobs has an SMG, and is currently at medium range; the scavenger has a shotgun, and is currently at far range. For the sake of convenience, neither is in cover.

Jacobs has a 29 in Nerves (about average), but also has the Firearms skill; her Wet score is currently a 6, as she's spent a few hours tromping through the marshes. This means she needs to roll under a 45 and over a 6—good odds, all things considered. For ease of use, the scavenger has a general Combat score of 30 (good, but not amazing).

Jacobs decides to fire three bullets with her SMG: she rolls the tens die, and gets a 30; she rolls her three units dice, and gets a 3, a 6, and a 7. Her bullets hit the scavenger: their intestines get shredded, their lungs are punctured, and their spine splits in two. The scavenger collapses, instantly out of action, and will be dead in less than a minute. After a few minutes of no shots being exchanged, Jacobs goes to investigate, and finds them dead in the mud. 

---

Lets imagine for a second that Jacobs had made the same decisions, then rolled and gotten a 00, instead of a 30: her 3 and 6 would've missed, due to her Wet score (her fingers, reddened from the cold, were shaking). The 7 would've cracked the scavenger's shin, making it difficult for them to walk.

The scavenger, limping, blasts their shotgun back. They roll with disadvantage due to far range, and get a 20 and a 10—unlucky for Jacobs! 10 being the worst result, the scavenger rolls their four units dice, getting a 4, 7, 8, and 10. The 10 explodes, turning into an 18 (and thus a 28 on the wounds chart): Jacobs' right elbow is dislocated and bent oddly, her left wrist gets cracked, her right thumb and trigger finger get spattered, and her sternum cracks after being hit with buckshot. 4, 7, 8, and 18 added together comes out to 37, bringing Jacobs' Wet score to 43. 

Jacobs collapses: not dead yet, but severely injured, and in so much shock and panic that she's unable to function properly for hours or days. The scavenger hobbles over and, with a nearby lump of rebar, finishes her off. 

If we imagine for a second that the scavenger left her there for dead instead, she might have a slim chance of being able to stagger back to camp, clinging to life. More likely, though, the blood loss would've killed her, or she might've slipped and fallen into the mire, or run afoul of some other danger and been unable to handle it. If she had comrades nearby who could help her, though, to apply first aid and help lug her out, she might have a decent chance of surviving.

---

In the first scenario, Jacobs got reasonably lucky and ended the fight fast. In the second, she was less lucky, and the scavenger had a stroke of good fortune—ending Jacobs' career then and there. There are lots of other ways this fight could've gone: if the scavenger hadn't had a shotgun, if they'd missed, if there was cover, if Jacobs had only fired one shot, and so on.

Just for reference, the first fight was one attack roll. The second was two. A lot goes into and out of those rolls, but it's still just the one roll.

POSTDILUVIAN ANALYSIS

There are a few different Weird Things going on here that help smooth this whole process out:

1. Wounds are almost entirely non-mechanized. I, Sam the designer, trust that you, the GM and players, will be able to come up with interesting consequences for "your liver is punctured" or "your knee's been shattered." This means that the consequences flow diegetically—rather than try to nail down stat mods for every conceivable injury, the pieces just fall where they fall, and it's up to the table to figure out exactly what those mean.
   
   
2. Wet score increase is a kind of "pseudo-damage." In my mind, a PC's Wet score going up isn't literal damage—we see the literal damage firsthand, from the wounds table. The Wet score going up is shock, panic, loss of focus, dissociation, horror: it's all of the psychological bad shit that goes down after experiencing trauma. Critically, though, it still has an impact: for most PCs, if their Wet score breaks 30, they're hosed. Equally critically, though, is that a high Wet score on its own doesn't actually do anything—it makes checks basically impossible, but checks can be avoided. Likewise, your Wet score's not that hard to get down: even if it hits 100 and literally everything but walking is impossible for you, it only takes a few days to get back to normal. Shock, like moisture, isn't permanent.
   
   
3. Wounds and Wet come from the same sources, but aren't inherently linked. My Wet score can drop in a matter of hours or days: healing wounds happens slowly, diegetically. Because wounds don't have any fixed mechanics are just relying on players' know-how of real world injuries, it avoids the "you go to sleep and are totally fine the next morning" issue: Wet score recovers, because Wet from is mostly psychological (and Wet from being literally damp is easily solved), so it heals quickly. Wounds, however, are much more permanent.
   
   
4. The to-hit roll and the death & dismemberment roll are the same thing. This skips Boot Hill's weird d6 roll for "severity of hit" or whatever and just boils down the whole thing: a good roll does a ton of damage, a bad roll does shit. 
   
   
5. The major downside here, obviously, is that you have to look up the damn wound table every time. My future solution for this is to just print it everywhere I can: on the inside cover of the zine, on the back of the character sheets, maybe even on some kind of handy-dandy player cheat sheet. It also divides nicely (0-10 is legs, 11-20 is arms, 21-40 is torso, 41-50 is head; higher numbers are always better), so even if you don't know the exact gory result, you can get the gist with a look.
   
   
6. Due to sandwich rolls work, two oddities emerge:
1. PCs with poor combat skills can't land headshots. On the one hand, this feels silly: why shouldn't they be able to? On the other hand, it's an extremely convenient way to seriously knock down less-combative PC's combat power, and has a certain amount of sense to it once you think about actual firearms training—headshots are difficult to hit, especially on moving targets. (A possible solution here is to say that doubles are a critical, and thus inflict a severe "death in minutes"-esque wound no matter what, if you really wanna keep crits.)
2. As a PC's Wet score goes up, they are less likely to hit, but the hits they land are more likely to be dangerous. Think about it: if my shooting score is 40 and my Wet is 30, I only hit on a 30-40, but 30-40 does a ton of damage. This is weirdest interaction that comes out of this, but I think I can live with it. There's a certain cinematic quality to it, maybe? "The wounded hero fires once, then twice, missing both! But then the third shot hits the blackhat squarely in the chest, toppling them to the ground!" I dunno. I can't find an easy way around this without making everything crunchier, so I'm resolved to live with it.
   
   
7. Caliber and "big guns do more" doesn't really happen. Like, by these rules as written currently, a .22 pistol and a .45 magnum do the same amount of damage because they're both just rolling their units die, and obviously a .45'll do a hell of a lot more than a .22. Possible solutions to this include:
1. Give bigger guns advantage on their units rolls. So, a .45 rolls 2d10 for its units and takes the highest. This does make them more likely to miss, but it does do more damage. Not a terrible solution? But gets kind of squirrelly if you already have advantage on the overall to-hit roll.
2. Just give them a flat bonus on the to-hit roll but not the associated combat score. Big guns get +5 to-hit; huge guns gets +10. I kind of like this one because it means big guns will always do more, but also will miss way more. If you've got the training (and thus the fat combat scores), they're always worth it: if you don't know what you're doing, you should stick to smaller stuff. Again, crunchy, but interesting.
   
   
8. I don't really know how melee should work. Like, in theory, this all basically works the exact same way (other than the references to bullets in the wound table), but it feels sort of... weird? Like, I feel like I should get more control over where my knife goes compared to my bullet. And it feels like my opponent should be able to defend themselves, somehow. Not sure.

But yeah! Big Wet Guns! They sort-of-kind-of hit all 4 of my criteria!

The GLOW: the Goblin Laws of War

You can get it here.

I return from my long absence with a new hack: the Goblin Laws of War, aka the GLOW.

The GLOW diverges pretty far from the original GLOG: there are no stats, no HP, and no levels. Instead, there's an overgrown skill system and a domain-level-ish focus on military and warfare.

You can get it right here:

THE GLOW

If you need a character sheet or an army sheet, here they are as well:

GLOW CHARACTER SHEET

GLOW ARMY SHEET

I should warn you: the GLOW is messy, complicated, ugly, and only semi-complete. But, critically, it is interesting. As far as I know, nobody's made a hack like this before, probably because it's very weird and not very OSR-ish, really. There's a decent chance you'll hate it. 

Let me know what you think. I'll be putting together my thoughts in a separate post soon.

Big Wet Five: Past Lives, Stats Arrive

This is about the Big Wet, my postdiluvian Mothership hack setting thing.

WET STATS

Mothership has four stats: Speed, Strength, Intellect, and Combat. It also four saves—Body, Fear, Sanity, and Armor.

I'm cutting saves, I think. I'll figure something else out for armor, but the Big Wet is fundamentally less of a horror setting than Mothership, and I prefer to just make stats and saves the same thing anyway. Stress is probably getting slashed, too.

The current stats I'm think about for the Big Wet are:

• Brain: your intellect, processing power, knowledge. Left and right brain both, really.
• Nerves: your reaction speed, ranged combat abilities, fine motor control. Anything connected to your senses or nervous system.
• Heart: your emotional sway, willpower, tenacity. More metaphorical than physical.
• Lungs: your athletic talents, endurance, melee combat abilities. Anywhere oxygen flows.

I like these because A) they're good fleshy nouns with some zest, and B) they're a little more flexible and metaphorical and thought-provoking than just basic terms. 

They follow the same procedure as Mothership for determining them: roll 6d10 for each stat, down the line. Roll under that stat to succeed on a check. 

Wet, of course, is the fifth stat: it comprises your literal wetness, but also fatigue, weariness, exhaustion, and lack of will. 

(Eyes, Ears, Hands, Fingers, Bones, Face, Tongue, Liver, and Meat were all reject stats. They might get added in later. We'll see.) 

DRY TIMES

Mothership has classes, which give you your starting saves, a couple of skills, and one or two random abilities. I'm not super into them, to be honest, so instead the Big Wet's going to have a giant d100 list of "who you were when it was dry," which gives you some starting skills. Roll one of these at chargen.

Not all of these are equal. The basic weighting is that stats > free skills > selected skills, and a given background should have the equivalent of ~4 free skills, but the balancing is pretty loose. Embrace the inequality, to some degree.

Here's the list:

1. Accountant
   +10 Brain, Mathematics, 2 skills
2. Activist
   +5 Heart, Politics, Tactics, 2 skills
   
3. Actor
   +20 Heart, Art, 2 skills
   
4. Airline Pilot
   Driving, Piloting, Vehicle Specialization, 2 skills
5. Architect
   +5 Brain, 3 skills
   
6. Arms Dealer
   +5 Nerves, Bartering, Economics, Post-Collapse Markets, Fighting, Firearms, Ammunition Recycling
7. Assassin
   +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Fighting, Firearms, Close-Quarters Combat, Weapon Specialization
8. Astronaut
   +5 Brain, +5 Lungs, Mathematics, Physics, Diving
9. Author
   Art, 3 skills
10. Banker
    -10 Heart, Mathematics, Economics, 2 skills
    
11. Barista
    +5 Nerves, +5 Lungs, 3 skills
12. Bartender
    +5 Nerves, +5 Face, Coastwise, 2 skills
13. Bodyguard
    +10 Lungs, Fighting, 2 skills
14. Boxer
    +20 Lungs, Athletics, Fighting, Close-Quarter Combat
15. Bus Driver
    Driving, Coastwise, 3 skills
16. Caregiver
    +10 Heart, +10 Brain, 2 skills
17. Carpenter
    +10 Nerves, +5 Lungs, Mechanical Repair, 1 skill
18. Cashier
    +5 Lungs, +5 Heart, 3 skills
19. Celebrity
    +10 Heart, +10 Lungs, 2 skills
20. Chef
    +10 Nerves, +5 Brain, Agriculture, 1 skill
21. Chemist
    +10 Brain, Chemistry, Explosives, 1 skill 
22. Civil Servant
    +5 Brain, Politics, Administration, Governance, 1 skill
23. Dancer
    +10 Lungs, Athletics, 2 skills
24. Dentist
    +10 Brain, Biology, Medicine, Surgery
25. Dietician
    +5 Brain, +5 Lungs, Agriculture, Biology, 1 skill
26. Drug Dealer
    +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Bartering, Economics, Post-Collapse Markets
27. Ecologist
    +10 Brain, Hydrology, Biology, Botany, Meteorology, Climatology, Neo-Ecology
28. Economist
    +5 Brain, Bartering, Mathematics, Economics, 1 skill
29. Editor
    +5 Brain, -5 Heart, Art, 3 skills
30. Electrician
    +5 Brain, Mechanical Repair, Scavenging, 2 skills
31. Engineer
    +5 Brain, Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, 1 skills
32. Farmer
    +10 Brain, Agriculture, Meteorology, Botany, Hunting
33. Fast Food Worker
    +5 Lungs, +5 Heart, 3 skills
34. Film Producer
    -5 Brain, Bartering, Politics, 3 skills
35. Fisher
    +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, +5 Brain, Biology, Hydrology, 1 skill
36. Flight Attendant
    +5 Heart, +5 Nerves, 3 skills
37. Forester
    +5 Lungs, +5 Brain, Biology, Botany, 2 skills
38. Game Designer
    -5 Brain, -5 Heart, -5 Lungs, -5 Nerves
39. Garbage Worker
    +5 Heart, +5 Lungs, Scavenging, 2 skills
40. Geographer
    +10 Brain, History, Art, Hydrology, 1 skill
41. Hairdresser
    +5 Heart, +5 Nerves, Art, 2 skills
42. Historian
    +5 Brain, History, 2 skills
43. Hunter
    +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Hunting, Firearms, 1 skill
44. Illustrator
    +10 Nerves, +5 Heart, Art, 1 skills
45. Influencer
    +10 Heart, +5 Lungs, Athletics, 1 skill
46. Insurance Agent
    Bartering, 3 skills
47. IT Tech
    +5 Brain, Mechanical Repair, Computers, 1 skill
48. Jeweler
    +10 Nerves, Art, History, Bartering
49. Journalist
    +5 Brain, +5 Heart, Coastwise, Art, 1 skill
50. Lawyer
    +10 Brain, -5 Heart, History, Tactics, Philosophy, Ethics
51. Librarian
    +20 Brain, History, Politics, Administration, Governance
52. Linguist
    +10 Brain, 3 skills
53. Locksmith
    +10 Nerves, +5 Brain, Breaking & Entering, Safecracking, 1 skill
54. Magician
    +10 Nerves, 3 skills
55. Marine
    +10 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Fighting, Firearms, Close-Quarters Combat, Amphibious Warfare
56. Marine Biologist
    +10 Brain, Diving, Biology, Hydrology, Scuba, 1 skill
57. Martial Artist
    +10 Lungs, Athletics, Fighting, Spirituality, Close-Quarters Combat, 1 skill
58. Mason
    +5 Lungs, +5 Brain, Scavenging, 2 skills
59. Mathematician
    +10 Brain, Mathematics, 2 skills
60. Mechanic
    +5 Brain, +5 Nerves, Mechanical Repair, Driving, Jury Rigging
61. Miner
    +10 Lungs, Scavenging, Urbex, 1 skill
62. Musician
    +10 Heart, +5 Nerves, Art, 2 skills
63. New-Age Guru
    +10 Heart, Spirituality, Theology, Apocalyptic Mysticism, 1 skill
64. Nurse
    +5 Brain, +5 Heart, +Nerves, First Aid, Medicine
65. Organized Criminal
    +5 Lungs, Breaking & Entering, Coastwise, Politics, 1 skill
66. Painter
    +5 Nerves, Art, 3 skills
67. Pharmacist
    +5 Brain, Chemistry, Biology, Medicine, Pharmacology, 1 skill
68. Police Officer
    -20 Heart, +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Fighting, Firearms, 2 skills
69. Politician
    +5 Heart, +5 Brain, Politics, Tactics, 2 skills
70. Priest
    +5 Heart, +5 Brain, Spirituality, Theology, 2 skills
71. Private Eye
    +5 Nerves, +5 Brain, Fighting, Firearms, Scavenging, Hunting
72. Psychologist
    +5 Brain, +5 Heart, Biology, Psychiatry, 2 skills
73. Public Health Worker
    +5 Brain, +5 Heart, Biology, Agriculture, Hydrology, Politics, Administration
74. QA Specialist
    +5 Brain, Mechanical Repair, Scavenging, 2 skills
75. Rancher
    +5 Lungs, Hunting, Agriculture, 2 skills
76. Realtor
    +5 Heart, Bartering, Breaking & Entering, 2 skills
77. Receptionist
    +5 Heart, 3 skills
78. Roustabout
    +5 Lungs, Scavenging, Urbex, 2 skills
79. Sailor
    +5 Lungs, Hydrology, Athletics, Diving, 1 skill
80. Salesperson
    +10 Heart, Bartering, 2 skills
    
81. Sanitation Specialist
    +10 Brain, Biology, Medicine, Sanitation, 1 skill
82. Schoolchild
    Scavenging, Fighting, Coastwise, Diving, 2 skills
83. Sculptor
    +5 Nerves, +5 Lungs, Art, 2 skills
84. Secretary
    +5 Brain, +5 Heart, Politics, Administration, 1 skill
85. Singer
    +5 Lungs, +5 Heart, Art, 2 skills
86. Social Media Manager
    +10 Heart, +5 Brain, Politics, Administration, 1 skill
87. Spy
    +5 Nerves, +5 Heart, +5 Brain, Athletics, Fighting, Coastwise, Politics, Breaking & Entering
88. Stripper
    +10 Lungs, +5 Heart, Art, Athletics, 1 skill
89. Student
    4 skills
90. Surgeon
    +5 Brain, +10 Nerves, First Aid, Medicine, Surgery
91. Tailor
    +5 Nerves, Art, Scavenging, 2 skills
92. Teacher
    +10 Heart, +5 Brain, +5 Lungs, Coastwise, Tactics, Command
93. Thief
    +10 Nerves, Breaking & Entering, 2 skills
94. Trucker
    +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Driving, Coastwise, 2 skills
95. Trust Fund Kid
    -5 Heart, +5 Lungs, 2 skills
96. Undertaker
    +5 Lungs, +5 Brain, Biology, First Aid, Scavenging, 1 skill
97. Veterinarian
    +5 Heart, +5 Brain, +5 Nerves, Biology, First Aid, Medicine
98. Weather Person
    +5 Brain, Hydrology, Meteorology, 2 skills
99. Yoga Instructor
    +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Spirituality, Athletics, 1 skill
100. Zoologist
     +5 Brain, +5 Lungs, Biology, Hunting, 1 skill

I'm sure there's a few more in here somewhere that I'm missing. Feel free to make your own, too. 

BIG WET FUTURE V

My semester is starting back up, so my time is reduced, but next on the docket are things like:

• Dry Wonders, all of the artifacts and strange devices that you, as scavengers, are hunting for
• Wet Vehicles, for land and sea (and both), and all of their stats and stuff
• Flooded Wastes, and how you might run the over-land/sea procedures of the game
• Wet Gear revised, since the last listing were slightly suspect

But yeah. Keep an eye out.

Big Wet Four: Skills Galore

I made a skill list for the Big Wet, my flooded (post?) apocalyptic Mothership hack thing. 

If you're unfamiliar with Mothership skills, they add to your d100 rolls, increasing your stat by 10-20%; if you had a 35 in Intellect but can apply a +15% skill, you now succeed if you roll under a 50. 

I don't think I'm going to have classes in the same way Mothership does, so I don't quite know how these skills will be acquired, but here's the list:

Here's a link to the PDF. You can also click on this image to expand it.

Most of these skills should be relatively self-explanatory, I think. Weapon and vehicle specializations mean you pick one single vehicle or weapon, and get +20% with just that one. 

This list is slightly more filled-in than the stock Mothership one, but I think that's okay; the Big Wet's a more-defined setting than the default Mothership, and the specific scientific sub-disciplines matter more.

BIG WET FUTURE IV

My next thing to do for the Big Wet is to make a giant d100 table of "What you did before the world ended," which give you some starting skills and probably a piece of gear or two. 

I also think I'm going to change up the stats. Not quite sure what they're going to be, but I find the Mothership stats slightly too narrow and slightly bland for my tastes. 

Keep an eye out. 

Big Wet Two: Equipment Boogaloo

 Continued from the first post.

This post is about stuff. Mostly gear. 

Remember that bullets are currency. I'll do an actual inventory rules-post at some point, but for now, assume the standard 10-12ish slots per person.

GIANT LIST OF WET WEAPONS

As we all know, blogger hates tables, so here's the table instead:

Here's the link to the PDF.

If you're unfamiliar with Mothership, here's a brief overview of the bits you might not understand:

• Underlined numbers are multiplied by 10. 2d10 has a range between 20 and 200. 
• Short range suffers no ill effects; medium range imposes a -10 penalty; long range imposes disadvantage
• [+] means advantage, [-] means disadvantage
• Crits are any double (11, 22, etc.)
• Automatic weapons fire in bursts. If you're trained in firearms, you get to use the (parenthesized) number, otherwise it's spray and pray. 
• An average person has about 60 health, give or take. That might go down for Big Wet.

Everything else on this table should be relatively self-explanatory. 

Some rules and stuff about guns:

1. Shooting a gun is a regular combat action.
2. Reloading is a regular combat action.
3. If you spend 30 seconds lying or kneeling down with your gun braced on something, taking careful aim, you can give yourself advantage on the next shot you take.
4. As established previously, guns generally don't mind getting wet, but firing underwater is essentially impossible.
5. Remember that bullets are currency, so all the costs listed are in bullets.

Some notes and thoughts about this table:

• Melee weapons are very cheap, and deliberately so. Fighting in melee is a messy, dangerous gamble, and in the Big Wet, there's no guarantee you can make it to your opponents without having to swim or wade through muck. 
• It lacks a lot of the common "improvised weapons" you see in apocalyptic settings (bricks, screwdrivers, bicycle chains, etc.), mostly because there are too many to list. If you need rules for those, I'd have them deal 1d10 by default, +1d10 if they take two hands, +1d10 if they have sharp or exposed edges. 
• Guns get pricey fast. This is also deliberate: post-apocalyptic settings don't often have much to work towards, and so I think having some visible-but-not-available rewards for players is a good thing. Also, they can just fucking shred people (and things...?), so they shouldn't be cheap.

GIANT LIST OF WET GEAR

And here's a big list of gear and equipment that you might use:

This is only the first page!

Most of this gear should be pretty self-explanatory. 

Tracking bullets, batteries, and slots I realize is extremely fiddly, but at the same time, this is a survival game: those kinds of small details really, really matter. You could maybe hack in Usage Dice (a la the Black Hack) for batteries and gasoline and stuff, but because bullets are currency, you really do have to track them. (On the flipside, you'll never have that many, so there's isn't much to track anyway!)

BIG WET FUTURE II

That's all I've got for now. Next time, I'll hopefully get to vehicles, food, and armor, all of which I have a few ideas for, but nothing 100% certain yet. 

Also, if there's interest, I might outsource some of this, and run a Big Wet Challenge for the good folks over on the spillway, in true GLOG style. 

Let me know, in any case.