Day 31: The Great and Terrible Fizzle

So where have I been? Hanging out with my ladyfriend and trying to avoid a mental breakdown. It wasn’t completely successful, but I am alive, that’s something. So let me tell you why I am not linking you to a test document, and other depressing revelations.

While I would call Indie Design December a success, I failed at it. The concept drove me further than ever before in creating a playable indie tabletop RPG, and I think that I will be able to start looking for testers any day now. I did not finish by the deadline though, and I didn’t anticipate a lot of problems that cropped up along the way. This is good, since it tells me what I need to know for the future. Maybe next year I will look for friends to join me in creating their own games, and maybe I will move the month… we will see.

I hope to have a pdf up after this weekend, I really have to get a lot of typing done that I didn’t finish because of holiday distractions. Still, amazing things got done during this month, and that is what I need to be focused on. A large amount of rules were spawned from ideas and neccessity. My story was morphed by the world that developed while I teased and tested Homer.

In the end, my goals were met by what will be created. My game is definitely part wargame, the rules for combat create an environment that feels more like a battle-board game than your average roleplaying game combat system. Whether this is positive or not will be something I figure out during testing. I don’t want people to feel like the combat distracts from the RPing, which is a common problem for those new to games like Dungeons and Dragons, where getting cool items can overcome caring about who your character is and what they are trying to accomplish.

The greatest potholes on my journey were the holidays, like always, and other events in life. The arrival of Star Wars: The Old Republic was well timed, in that it destroyed weekends worth of free time that I could have used for something productive. There were also times that I brainstormed without adding much to the actual game. Brainstorming isn’t bad, but I didn’t add numbers to the final document. For NaNoWriMo, you usually add 1,666 words per day to make sure you get up to 50k. Adding 1,666 words for technical documents is a whole different animal, and I might have to adjust the numbers, or make a note for the future to start heavy rules writing much earlier. Basic things like introduction rules and dice rules could have technical versions typed up as early as the first week.

All right folks, you will hear from me now and again from here on out with plenty of updates on the Forais Chronicles. Thanks for reading folks.

Day 29: How Do I Weigh Success?

All right folks, it is the 29th and I don’t have a lot of time left. If I had to ask myself now, I would say that there is very little chance of me hitting my original mark, which was duel sets of 5k for both crunch and fluff. At the end of the day though, that may not be all that bad.

How? You might ask if you felt the need to ask clarifying questions. Well, if there is still a finished playtest document, the word count is obviously less important. The word count goal was meant to give me something close to nanowrimo, and to make sure that I had enough words in the playtest document for people to actually play the game. Those two things don’t show if this experiment is successful or not. I will still do a count at the end though, but at this point I don’t know what the numbers will be at the end.

So what should I be working toward? I want to make sure I have everything in the rules that  I need. That means I need a handy dandy outline to plot out what will and will not go into the final product. In this way I’ll make sure that all the info I want is in there, and I can decide on a final order for everything. Then over the next few days I can type it all up and see what I end up with. On Monday, I will hopefully have something resembling the shambling start of a game.

Earlier today, while grinding away at my job thing, I tried to think of anything I was leaving out up until now, and what order everything should go in. I didn’t have a lot of success, so I think it will be good to talk it out now. I talked outline earlier this month on Day 16, and again on Day 18, so lets review that.

1. Introduction
2. Attributes/Stats
3. Obstacles/Play
4. Combat
5. Equipment
6. Lore

Nothing too bad, nothing difficult. I also went over how I’m doing on everything, and now 11 days later I want to do the same. Let me see my progress.

Introduction

I should be able to talk about dice here with little fear. The extra mechanics related to dice, utilization of traits, and desperation, have been clarified. This area can start with the edited original story of Agamemdork.

Attributes and Stats

Confidence and Obsession got crunched out, as did Titles. So that was solved, that is good.

Combat

There are still some loose ends here, but I covered health/healing, defense, and losing fights. That means I STILL need to give a hard rule for a charge mechanic, ranged combat, and entering duels. I also need to do something for the Engagement zone mechanic that makes it difficult to leave melee range, and the comrade’s mechanic. Wow, this area still needs a lot of work, just plain silly.

Equipment

I went deeper on equipment the other day, but I will need to stat out the list of them that I do have. So this area got a lot of work, but not enough just yet.

Lore

Two new stories for Forais were added, and I began a third with the story of Dyrus. With the story of King Chuck, I should have a lot of fluff that can go in here with some editing and a little more writing. I need to get names for all of my Gods, and give names and info for all of the leaders of the city-states. There also need to be more monsters. This is another area that needs some help.

This list of categories also ignored Units, which need a place in the book. I figure they can go under the combat area, in a section for Mass Combat. The equipment would come right after that. Making all of that in a combat chapter would make sure the reader is still in a mindset for stuff that would only really help during combat, compared to things that are important for Roleplay.

So let me outline real quick, and see if there is anything else I can add before I head to bed early for the night.

• Introduction
  • Agamemdork Story
  • Introduction to roleplay mechanics (player, GM, dice)
  • Setting introduction (Nerds, Enemies, Gods)
  • Introduction to characters
• Character Creation
  • Character Types
  • Attributes/Stats
  • Titles
  • Traits
• Roleplay
  • GM’s role
  • Campaigns and the Epic Goal
  • Obstacles
  • Failure and twists
• Combat
  • Map and movement *
  • Attacking and Defending *
  • Damage, Health, Healing
  • Special Abilities *
  • Death and Detention
  • Mass Combat
    • Units
    • Equipment *
• Leveling and XP
  • Level Progression
  • Stat Gain
• Lore
  • Setting Details
  • Nerd-states
  • Facultheon *
  • Monsters *

That should be fine, and it also helps me figure out what stuff I still need to do. Let me put an asterisk near everything I still need to do or do more on. There we go, that is much better. So over these last two days, I will make additions to these areas while working on the playtest document. If I have a PDF that people can play with, that sounds like success to me.

Well, let me make some quick brainstorming additions to some of the combat stuff.

Duels: During mass combat games only. To initiate a duel, a hero must target an enemy with a unit in melee range. Roll confidence + fight against their confidence + survival. If the initiator of the duel wins, the two characters are locked in single combat. The two heroes continue to fight one another, without the assistance of their units. On any turn, a character may try to break away from the duel using a confidence + survival roll vs the opponent’s confidence + fight. If they win the roll, the duel ends, and the heroes can take normal turns again.

Engagement Lock: When a character is in the engagement zone of a character and tries to leave their engagement zone, they must break free of engagement lock. The struggling character must roll their Fight against the Fight of the character’s they are attempting to break free from. If they win, they are allowed to move free and continue movement normally, if they fail, they lose their movement for the turn.

All right, wanted to get those out of the way.

Well, thanks for reading folks, I know this one doesn’t have much in it but I have to go anyway, such is life. If you liked this one, give a like or comment. I’ll see you at the finish line!

 

Day 28: Prepare to be Crowdsourced People

This is the final week, and I have to push hard on some of the things holding this project in the dirt. That way we can shoot off into the stratosphere, and other uplifting metaphors. So today I want to look at three things that will be important for making a character. Traits, Units, and Legendary Equipment. As an extra bonus, I am holding a contest for fabulous prize giveaways! Exclamation point for emphasis!

So stay tuned until the end of this post, and I will detail a prize that could win you a PC game.

First, I will churn out some traits. If you remember, traits are similar to feats in D20 RPGs, in that they give your character special abilities or extra bonuses. Except, traits have another use, they can also be utilized to receive bonuses in non-combat situations. For traits, I want to have a few of them that are for particular types of nerds, so they will have a nerd-type as a requirement. Others will require certain levels, or require others are pre-reqs. So for these abilities, I will mark who they belong to. I may not be able to think of a useful ability for each of the traits right now, but I will give a line to explain what I think each should do.

• “Needs More Death” – Why stop attacking something when you can attack it more? This character receives +1 dice when attacking enemies that have already been attacked. For Gamers.
• “Black Hat” – This one should be related to computer use… It will obviously be for Techees.
• “Preptime” – I am the night. This character can declare a roll type he wants to get +1 dice for when each game session starts. They receive that +1 for one roll that session. For Fanboys.
• “Dramatic Charge” – Just a few more episodes of build up. This character can choose to ‘charge up’ as their combat action, if they perform this action twice in a row without moving or being attacked, their next attack will receive +2 dice. For Weeaboo.
• “Finale” – A nice deceptive finisher for Drama nerds, don’t know yet. For Drama obviously.
• “Play The Part” – Also for Drama, also undecided. For Drama.
• “Lame Firefight” – Bad guys can never hit anything. Target enemy has -1 dice on ranged attacks against this character. For Trivia nerds.
• “The Duel” – It’s just you and them, one on one. Target an enemy and initiate a duel using your Obsession instead of your Melee. For Trivia.
• “Sequelitis” – Trivia ability, likely going to force people to repeat themselves.
• “Flashback” – Trivia ability again, social focus. Maybe extra dice for ‘remembering’ rolls. I hate those though.
• “Focus Fire Noob!” I like the name of this one… but realize it is a bit of a repeat, boop.
• “Bag’em While They’re Down.” Time for the ultimate shame. +1 dice to attack enemies that are in a ‘down’ state. For Gamers.
• “Regenerating Health.” Man, that title needs to be made sillier. Either way, once a combat session, regain 1 health. For Gamers.
• “The Show Must Go On.” A healing ability, but for drama nerds. Maybe usable on allies.
• “Musical” Every situation is better when in key. Gain +1 confidence when entertaining others, another +1 when using music. Drama ability.
• “Pyrotechnics!” Put on a show with flare. This one could end up being a tactic for a unit… For Drama.
• “Loud Ninja” I’ll surprise them, from right here in front of them! This character may ignore the engagement zone of enemies unless they attack or were attacked since their previous turn. A Weeaboo Trait.
• “Super” A Fanboy Trait.
• “Unique Youth.” You are so special and unique, this story is obviously about you. A Gamer or Weeaboo Trait.
• “Extra Credit.” A Mathlete Trait.
• “Show Your Work.” A Mathlete Trait.
• “Logic Bomb!” This may end up being an equipment, but I need a trait to give Mathletes spell-type abilities. A Mathlete trait.
• “Imaginary Numbers” Another one of those Mathlete traits. I’ll figure these out.
• “Psychohistory.” A high tier Mathlete trait.
• “Not Mad” A general Trait.
• “Wardrobe Changes.” A Weeaboo or Gamer Trait.
• “Armchair General.” A more strategic gamer trait.

Wardrobe changes solve all that ails ya!

All right, in my head I had time to think about more of the abilities to go with these. Let me say a quick few words about creating these though. When we talked about dice, we talked about how adding more than 1 is definitely strong. One dice is good enough to add in most situations, a consistent 1 dice is probably still a little strong, and getting more than one dice should be harsh. Some traits should be for specific combat situations, others should be for less-specific Obsession and Confidence situations.

Now lets move on to to Units. I am not going to go over the tactics or stats of these units here, I will just give a small blurb to describe them. Hold on to your butts.

• Fight-guys – Fighter game players who like to fight things in fights. Their first tactic is ‘rush-down’ and they will probably have a good grapple ability. For Gamers.
• Grey & Bloom Commandos – Wear heavy armor and kill stuff. Their first tactic will be ‘Grunt and Fight’. For Gamers
• Pythagorean Priests – Some zip-zap casters for Mathletes.
• Loud Ninja Squad Go! – Loud Ninjas to help your Loud Ninja.
• Nakama – Your best buddies, don’t let one get hurt or you’ll get mad. For Weeaboo.
• The Five – Usual television cast trope. For Trivia and Fanboy.
• Troubleshooters – Fine, we’ll fix your computer. For Techees.
• League of Good-dudes – A super-group of super friends. For Fanboys.
• Trekk – Trekkies. General Unit.
• Cosplayers – This is a little self-explanatory. For Gamer and Weeaboo.
• Dance Squad – Time for a dance battle, old school style. For Drama.
• The Crew – They make things work behind the scenes. Tactic: Stage Door. For Drama.
• Sidekick – A single young ward that you can put in mortal danger. For Fanboys.
• Larpers – Like Cosplayers, but for Gamers.
• Harem – A group of nerds to beat you up while fighting for your affection… and sometimes help you. For Weeaboo.

We are game protagonists, don't expect a lot of depth.

These different units will have different amounts of health. Some will have high health so they survive, but won’t have good defense to protect their hero. Others will be defensive, like the League of Good-dudes, so they can help their hero survive while he/she does damage. Some will just have awesome Tactics, so their stats won’t help much, like the Pythagorean Priests. Now time for some Legendary Equipment.

The Equipment situation was explained a few days ago. This stuff is usually going to be for the Mass Combat system. I think some of them can be possible starting equipment, but most of them seem cool enough that they should probably be found, or sought. Legendary Equipment is similar to units, they help the stats of their owner, and give abilities. I will list them like I did the last stuff.

• Nostalgia Bomb – Feel the pain of everything being less cool than you remember! For Trivia.
• Logic Bomb – If it doesn’t end up being a trait, it will be like Nostalgia bomb…
• ARBAUW – A Really Big And Unlikely Weapon. Who cares what the technology level is, every world is better with an unwieldy science gun. For Gamers.
• Logic Shield – To Protect from stupid, point this side out. Probably a starter.
• Algebraic Staff – For entry-level zip-zap. Probably a starter.
• Deus Unix Machina – A dark machine created in a time before time, yet still able to create destruction today. It is always advancing, always evolving. A mech suit for Techees.
• Prop Sword – Not as deadly as a real sword, not as funny as a foam sword. For Drama. Starter level.
• Hate Machine – A horrible manifestation of a dark place within Nerd-kind. For Techee.
• Cat Ears – Nyaa~. For Weeaboo. Starter
• ‘That Guy’ Sword – Because having a sword isn’t enough, it should also be ridiculous in design. For Weeaboo or Gamer.
• Log-rule – For those difficult problems. For Mathlete.
• Hero Cape – Otherwise, how will they know you are a hero? For Fanboy. Starter.
• The Remote – Its control isn’t inherent, it takes training, knowledge. For Trivia.
• Pocket Protector – For protecting Pockets. Starter level.
• Test. Specs. – You use them to see… see? Starter Level.
• Joystick – Heh, joystick. For Gamers.
• Costume – For cosplaying. For Drama. Starter level.

I like my swords how I like my women, massive and impossible to sheath.

Interesting, right? Some are more powerful than others by nature, others seem very powerful and seem focused within certain groups. This is to balance what groups would have the best Units, or the most combat focused abilities. It would seem sad to have a social focused character have no chance once mass combat starts, so maybe they have gained a walking mech to help in the meantime? Sounds safe to me. Unlike units, equipment don’t gain levels. This will have to be balanced, of course, with how much they can do, and the types of abilities they give.

All right, lets see what this contest mess is all about. If you made it this far, you have a chance to win a PC game. How do you do it? Well let me tell you, calm down.

What I want is for people to give their best idea for a Trait, Unit, or Legendary Equipment. You won’t need to stat it out, but you should probably know enough about the game to know how to create one. All that requires is… reading this post, but reading previous entries would also help. So what do I want to see? Here are the instructions:

• Create a comment for this post
• In that post give me the following information: Whether your entry is a Trait, Unit, or Equipment. The name of that Trait, Unit, or Equipment. A short description of what that Trait, Unit, or Equipment is.
• Remember, you don’t have to create rules text on how it works. I can stat it out, I just want to know your fluff reasoning behind it existing. Look above for examples.
• Name a game (or games) that come up to less than $30 American on Steam.
• List a Steam name or an e-mail address.
• Your first name, or a nerdy name.

If you have any questions, you can ask below in the comments, I’ll answer. I will take submissions until the 31st, and I will announce and reward the winner on the first of January. A nice new years gift!

So what is the name part about? Well, the winner, and a Runner-up, will have their names given to an important NPC in my RPG that will never be popular enough for anyone to care.

Who cares though, I’m giving away a steam game! Other notes:

• Don’t have steam? Well then you cannot win the grand prize unless you know of another service where I can gift you the prize. D2D or Impulse maybe.
• Don’t want your name added to the game? Don’t give me a name. Make one up.
• Don’t want me to use your idea for a Trait, Unit, or Legendary Equipment? Don’t submit to the contest. I reserve the right to use part of or all of any and all entries.
• Don’t like my face? I’m sorry, I’m working on that.

All right people, thank you for reading. I’ll see you tomorrow when I’ll work on wrapping all of this up and making this into a working document. All likes and comments are greatly appreciated.

 

 

Day 27: “Rhymes For Mimes” or “Let There Be Bad Rhymes!”

All right folks. Tonight is going to be simple. I worked on more fiction for Forais, and while it isn’t nearly the 5k that I should have by the end, they are nice (though unedited and generally crappy) entries. The first one is going to be used to approach the idea of progress, in particular, confidence progression. It isn’t in any way mechanical, it is just fluff to get someone in the mood. Here we go.

How I Boom?

BOOM
Went the cry that echoed across the battlefield. Nerds stood by nerds, and each one was prepared to fall. By name their horde was made of Gamers, the first and last nerds into war. No one could ignore their fighting, not when they could hear the BOOM.

Back in the camps one Nerd sat restless, far from the carnage of the day. It was shy Anna, left behind to think about all that she’d done. There with her was the brave heart Patty, the player 2 to Anna’s 1. While Anna hugged herself in anger, Patty stressed her sound reason.

BOOM
“You hear that cry?” Brave Patty said, “That’s that sound of Nerds at war. We’ve come here to this cursed field to fight like Nerds, to settle the score.”

Anna turned away from Patty, but her proud words still loosed their sting.
“How can you call yourself a Gamer, if you won’t go on the field?”

Outside were cries of rubber torment, balls were bouncing through the field. The day’s cruel melee was decided, dodgeball was the coach’s deal. The balls screamed POIT as they rebounded. The Nerds screamed expletives in time. While every Gamers was prepped for battle, dodgeball was no game for Nerdkind.

Still BOOM was heard with every victory, every blow that hit its mark. While Anna sat back in the tents and waited for retreats to start.

“I cannot say it,” said shy Anna, “It’s too embarrassing and weird.”

Before the battle ever started, Anna found herself dismissed. When the battle call was sounded, she was too shy to give her BOOM.

“You shame our King,” Brave Patty said, “Your strength out there could win the day. Though your voice now lacks conviction, your skill could drive a horde away.”

Anna huffed and shoo’d her buddy, defiant as she ever was. “I won’t look like a fool in battle,” she said to explain her big fuss.

BOOM
The Nerds cried out again, drowning out their enemies. A page came running to the camps. With news from captains on the field. They needed every able body, needed each Nerd they could yield.

So Patty joined them, leaving Anna. The battle still raged loud and strong.

“Hear me Coach, oh lord of contests,” Anna called cried out to the air, “Hear my plea now, tell me truly, how to face this gruesome choice. To help my fellow Nerds in battle, but mortify myself at once.”

A gymsock odor soaked the room, and Anna’s lungs felt spent. A glowing figure came to her, a red faced brutish man. It was the Coach of Homer High, answering her call at last.

“You ask me how to join your friends,” Said the PE Coach, “Those are your friends, your teammates too, and you worry how you look.” He took her by the shoulder and he pointed her outside, “Only those Nerds matter right now, each and every one. If you lose while looking great, that still means you haven’t won.”

Anna wanted to respond, to counter the tyrant colored red. The page returned with battlefield news, and the Coach returned to what he does.

“Patty is down,” The page said, “A red ball to the head.”

Anna could feel her heart swell then. Her friend and ally fell to their foe. She puffed her chest and stamped her feet and fought off her self-conscious mode.

She stepped out to the battlefield, the carnage raining all around. She saw the forces of King N00bbane, many hurt and many down.
“I see now that I’ve hurt my brothers and my sisters both. You brave Gamers fought this battle as I hid and fought my pride. Now know that I rise in triumph, and you all will rise in kind. Nevermore will I choke myself with what others assume. Here I stand another Gamer, hear me now as I say BOOM!”

There you go, some BOOM for the Gamers. I apologize that I started rhyming, it starts up and then I usually cannot stop once that train gets rolling. It is a miserable journey, like a train ride in a car full of crying babies. You just have to run with it, and hope your sanity makes it to the other side. So I avoided it in this next piece, which I will probably place before the chapter talking about health and death.

“Say, how did I come upon this place?” asked Rick as he got back on his legs. Around him was expansive darkness, around him was a bleak landscape. Before this he could remember nothing, not his exploits, or his closest mates. His mind was a field of vapor, filled with questions and misgivings. All he had was his name.

“I said, what land is this?” He called to the shadows. His own voice returned to him, frailer than the way he sent it, sounding like a man brought low.

So he walked into the darkness, searching with his eyes and ears. He looked for anything he could find, any sign of human life. The rocks cracked quick beneath his feet, blackened his soles with every step. The darkness seemed to go forever, just like the mist within his mind.

That’s when he heard it, faint at first, a sound like distant howling winds. Gut feelings told Rick however that the sound was something more. So he listened, ear to darkness, waiting for any report. All he got was distant groaning, sounds of humans at their end. He shook away a creeping fear at the rising choir ahead. Dear Rick pushed forward, feet to ground, sure he would find friends out there.

There came a hill, and he climbed fast, his hands and feet digging in black. Then when he reached the peak he saw the source of his increasing dread. A valley lay beneath the hill, cutting a path through blackened rock. Inside the path lay student desks, lined up, countless, row by row. A hundred first, and then much more, until Rick knew he couldn’t count. Each desk a chair, and paired with that was a shriveled sack of flesh. These bodies were each a student, their origin was beyond Rick. Their groans were there own natural force, the winds picked up with their moans.

“What horrors do I witness here? What tormentor brings students here?”
“Their own discipline,” Said a low voice, “Each one has earned their empty fate.”

Rick turned to see a gray shroud form, a woman with a pale white hue. Despite the student’s mounting fear, he saw a beauty in her too. She looked upon him like an insect, a small stain to be wiped out. Despite his vapid mental state he knew this face, the counselor.

“Welcome to detention Rick,” She said without a smirk or smile, “I hope that you’ve enjoyed your life, because I own your free time now.”

Do you see how much better life is without rhyming? This is like a rainbow to the nads in comparison to the previous one. I think that’s good… I can’t think of how a rainbow can be bad, but the rest seems suspect.

Either way, that’s all for tonight. I hope you enjoyed the small pieces. Thanks for reading, and like or give comments as you feel the need. I appreciate all I get.

Day 26: Everyone heal up and prepare for a long one

All right folks, time for another short post. The holidays will do this during any ‘month long’ event. The same thing happens to me during NaNoWriMo, when Thanksgiving hits, I tend to get behind. The problem with this and Indie Design December is that I was already behind on everything I needed to do. That is going to make these next few days very difficult.

So what should I talk about today? I think extra features are going to be most important. I want to be sure that everything is ready when I try to put it together. It will be difficult to make a PDF if I’m still creating content when that time comes. So lets see what is still on my to do list. Life and Healing.

Bring it bro, as soon as I heal

Now when we first looked at combat options back on day 13, and even before that, I talked about how much life a character would have and how many dice we would be throwing around. My primary concern was what would happen to a character if they were hit with a high dice attack, what should be done with defense vs life, and why that should matter.

Imagine if you will the difference between lowering your opponent’s dice pool by 3 dice, and being able to take 3 more hits. The obvious advantage goes to lowering dice pool, because you may get attacked by several targets. If everyone attacks you with three dice and you give them 0 dice (actually just 1 dice, since no roll can go down to 0), you have a high chance of surviving if some people miss. Now if you have three health, and several enemies attack you with three dice, you will probably die on that turn. So what reason would someone have for keeping their Endurance stat high and their Defense stat low?

In other systems, this would be a matter of their class defining it that way. For Dungeons and Dragons, your base defense and health are defined by your chosen class. In Forais, as it stands, you receive your starting attributes and can put them wherever you wish. So what should be done?

My first solution is traits, because it is my fallback for everything. If a character’s city-state has traits available that can remedy this problem, they can take it to balance things out. Let me explain. If you want to be high health and low defense, maybe your Nerd’s type has traits available that give them higher defense, or higher defense against certain attacks. This will allow them to have the high health they want, and still become comparable through raised defenses, or have low health and have amazing health. Similar to this, equipment has a higher chance of raising defense than health, and while Units add Health, they also use their own defense in combat (which makes up for a hero having a low defense).

I don’t know if these things are enough though. So maybe I can find a solution if I think about healing and defeat.

We talked about defeat briefly when defining the progress of characters on Day 20. Lets work with a low health system to keep fighting dangerous and decisive. A character’s health is their Survival attribute + Endurance + 2. For a starting character, this might translate into as low as 4 health, or as high as 6. In comparison, defense stays at its own number. Someone who is defeated should feel the sting of defeat, but they also shouldn’t worry that they will outright lose their character in simple fights.

Most systems separate when a character is simply ‘defeated’ and when someone is out to kill them. In Dungeons and Dragons, you are down once you reach 0 health, and then you start going into negative health. After a certain amount of damage under 0, you have kicked the proverbial can, and given up the equally cliche ghost. For World of Darkness and the storyteller system, attacks deal different levels of damage, bashing, lethal, or aggravated. Having all bashing damage knocks you out, and then you start to suffer lethal from those same attacks. A lethal weapon (like say… a gun, or knife) will skip straight to dealing lethal damage. Once you have full lethal damage, you are dead. Aggravated damage is for damage that will take forever to heal, and for killing things that don’t naturally stay dead (monsters and the undead). Other games use similar ideas, damage tracks that move you to weaker and weaker until you die, Legend of the Five Rings has different levels of health that you burn through until you are just outright dead, and it is still one of the more lethal systems out there. All of the games carry the same concept, but they use them in different ways that give players different feelings of how lethal play is. In Dungeons and Dragons you become hard to kill pretty quickly, and in World of Darkness the weaponry involved can make a fight seem simple, or take forever. In Legend of the Five Rings (or L5R), one well placed katana strike can kill a player character outright.

I think something being used so often says that a good idea is in action. Either that or I just love caving to peer pressure. Either way, we will follow this idea. I think I will go with a ‘healthy’ state and a ‘down’ state. Your character has the same amount of health in both states, but damage taken while in one state won’t carry over into the next. For example… a character with 4 health takes 5 damage and is put down, they are now at 4 health again, but down.

A player in this down state will have no defense, making having high defense useless once you actually get dropped… because now your low life is dangerous. To stop being ‘down’, you simply need another hero to come to an adjacent hex and take an action to help you up. Then you return to an up state with health equal to your health in down state. Example: you are downed, and have 4 health again. Someone smacks you for 2 more damage, and are put to 2 health. Broius comes to pick you up, and you stand ready to fight… at 2 health but ‘healthy’.

Not too difficult, how fair it is we will have to see. I think this should give players a reason to use their health.

Now what happens when someone gets ‘killed’, well no one dies out on the schoolyard. You lost the fight, and now you are the one leftover to be ‘blamed’ when the conflict is over. You get stuck in detention. A player can roll a temporary character, or a new permanent character, but their character is always available for rescue from the shadow-cloaked halls where the Counselor reigns.

Dead never really means 'dead', isn't that right Bucky?

What about healing after a fight? You know, I have never been a fan of creating an arbitrary system of ‘you can heal, but only this much’ when it leads to everyone healing to full anyway. With a system of low health, but tactical gaming, we could go with full heals after any full battle is over. I will have to see if this doesn’t break the RP feel, and lend too far to wargaming.

All right everyone, thanks for reading. I’m glad to get a full post in again, and cover some of these details that were bothering me. Like the post if you appreciated it, and leave a comment if you have anything to say. See you again tomorrow as I try to make it into the final turn!

Day 25: No Post For You

I was too busy today with that whole Christmas thing, sue me.

Actually I did a little writing, but not nearly a good start, not nearly enough words. I will have a lot of caatching up to do on this last week. Here is a small piece.

After the battle of Prepolis, the forces of Nerd quit the walls of their ancient foe, the Populars. Spectacled soldiers loaded the ships and left on the swift waves. No Nerd remained, and the journey home began. While the return was perilous, the Nerd-Lords found their way home, minus King Chuck, the Nerd of Nerds. The sweat-palmed King of Nerds was lost with the crew of his vessel, and panic spread in the great capitols. Without their uniting king, civil war was expected.

Dyrus’ crew hoisted and shifted their ship across the waves, one of many ships on the hunt for the Boy King. Ahead he spotted land, clear fields and shallow water. Another uncharted isle for his Nerd crew scour. If there was any sign, a loose lens or lost knick-knack, they would find it.

This is all you get though. Time for me to pass out. Thanks for reading.

Day 24: A Gift From Me To You.

Hey everyone, how goes the holiday season? I know it is Christmas eve (technically Christmas now), so most of you will not stop by, or even care what I say here. Which would make this a perfect chance to say something wild, or do something really embarassing.

Which is exactly what I plan to do, though not in the way you might expect. Today is a fluff day, and I am going to talk about what I want to do tomorrow when I write some more fluff for Forais. Before I do that though, I want to present the lightly-edited original story that created the world for Forais.

Note that I am simply a Bachelor’s degree English student, I’m no master of the art. I do love my craft though, and while this story is a general mix between the horrible and the meh, it has a lot of work in there that might become a gem with more polish (if it doesn’t just reveal another layer of turd). So here is the original story:

Here it is on the web. Here it is as a badly formatted WordPress page (I’ll work on this)

How did I get here, I'm not good with HTML

Now I don’t have much more to say, except to say where I plan to go from here. This original story was fun, something I did to make a light myth-like story for a workshop class. When moving forward, I want the stories to have this same feel. I want to approach real themes, but skim on the surface of seriousness, and play with the dorky content floating up above the surf.

That said, I want the other fluff stories in the playtest document to fulfill a few purposes. I need to introduce the world to players in a way that is easy to understand. They need to realize what they should be seeing, while also getting immersed in a setting that doesn’t take itself too serious. I need to show examples of what players should think they are capable of, in combat and out, to give guidelines and ideas for play. Finally, I need to create the feeling of a cast beyond Chuck, Mary, and Seamus. Getting more names on the field should handle that no problem.

This will also allow me space to get the Gods involved, where only one gets mentioned in the original story, by title, the Counselor. So I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Where to start, story-wise? After this battle, of course. I want to set a world for the players, and I think the ‘world without the king’ is a good place to go. It creates a controlled crisis that can be manipulated by the GM, and leaves a lot of room for expansion on the part of the players. Will they become the new Kings? Will they save King Chuck? Will they fail and let some other faction take over? What happens from there? Those are the broadest, but there are other possibilities.

All right, because the story is in the middle there, this post is particularly short. I will see everyone tomorrow, thanks for reading! Like if you liked the post, give me all the comments you can throw at me!

Day 23: My Brain No Work Good

I’m officially sick. Well, it is more of a stabbing pain sort of thing. Needless to say, I’m not at full capacity. That’s why we will be lucky if I get through what I want today. Maybe I will edit in more details in the morning. Needless to say, I cannot do what I want at the moment.

My brain no work good, and I almost passed out on my desk. I will throw around a few ideas though, a little brainstorming.

The lower half of the Facultheon is made up of teachers, the staff that interact directly with students. In this way, they are a lot like the second generation of olympians, who were very active with heroic characters. You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting someone that Apollo had given some grand quest, such was life.

So what exactly do I need? I need gods that represent some of the groups at Homer high, and maybe another god that stands close to the nerds. I tried to represent all of the city-states, but I realize now that between the Librarian, and faculty that have to represent non-nerds, this plan was foolhardy. Since the nerds have the librarian, I should make sure that the obvious cliques on campus have a good patron god.

For the populars, I want someone who everyone on campus envies, and who ‘unfairly’, is seen as a bit of an airhead. This teacher could be teaching any class, so it is more a matter of picking a class that isn’t already covered by another need. I chose English, since it is a class that most people see as a breeze, especially in High School. I choose to have a her, since we are being stereotypical, and I want someone who is seen more for her appearance than for her reality. In a bit of balance with these rather offensive choices, she isn’t actually all that bad, she is just used as a symbol by the populars because she is young and a lot of the boys in the school would love to be with her, but cannot. This is enough of a symbol to make what she actually represents, strict rules and themes of life, unimportant. Maybe I will move her to a different class. I see her as an Aphrodite, her name so far is Ms. Applebottom.

The Jocks worship the PE coach, a muscle-bound man who also serves as the school’s head coach for most sports. He is there to serve as the great referee for all contests, and he judges from this position who has won and who has lost. In this way he is a god of war, like our buddy Ares, even in a world without actual ‘killing’. Fights at the school can be like a contest, and the PE coach is prepared to score them like a game. He pushes confrontation out of any event, this is why he is also worshipped by some among the Gamers, because there is always room for competition. No name for him yet, so he is Coach A.

with those two out of the way, I am left with only a few other groups that would need a teacher represented. So I can move back to serving my nerd city-states. The Goths have the Counselor, and some monstrous creatures have one of the three ‘colleagues’ (Principal Z, Janitor P, and Counselor H). So I can move to the Mathlete’s and their Math god. Logical beyond belief, the math teacher waste no time on pointless stories or interaction. Her classes are direct, and always go to plan. Those who worship her find that there is no luck or random chance (except in the case of probability), everything is according to theorem. If you cannot show your work, you have no work, and this is what her followers live by. She is like Athena, who is the goddess of laws and a master of defense. So this is Mrs. A.

The Techie god is our buddy the IT teacher, who also has the job of keeping Homer wired and working. In this way, the IT teacher is the source of much technology, and the ingenuity to create more. He loves the industrious and creative nature of his students, despite the limits on his own creations. While he is the source of the basics, he is not allowed to expand beyond the bare bones, and this is his handicap. So the great creations of the students are the Techie praise to their programming lord. This is our Heph, the big man with the beautiful wife. Mr. H is likewise a smart craftsmen, but his limits are from the system around him (the limits of being a teacher) instead of a physical ‘lameness’ that is ignored because of his awesome skill. This will be better when I’ve rested, I’m sure. Mr. H everyone.

… I’ve got nothing else. I should have been sleeping hours ago. All right folks, between Christmas proximity and my illness, this is my limit for now. Let me think of what would come next.

The Weeaboo and Drama nerds need gods, but maybe there will just be the one. The Weeaboo can get a non-Facultheon god, the language teacher. Wile the Drama nerds could get an art teacher up at the top, someone excited and colorful. I don’t know who the Fanboys or Trivia nerds will call their patron god, this worries me. Maybe I will figure it out. I guess the fanboys could use Ms. Applebottom, since she relates to story structure and themes, which are prevalent in comics.

All right, good night everyone, and thanks for reading. Sorry that I didn’t go the full distance tonight, but I will try to be back on the ball tomorrow. Like if you liked it, comment if you have anything to say.

Day 22: But Then Who Was God?

Very short today, because I’m not going to be adding a single word to the Crunch. I may as well just get my thoughts on the page, and move on. You see, this weekend I want to do more work on Fluff, write a few flash fiction pieces that can be placed in the playtest document. To do that, I need to have a few important things worked out. The most important one for me is the Gods. I won’t have to get them all done right now, but I have been very sparse with them so far. I think I should at least give each of them 100 words here.

For the Faculty gods you may recall on Day 14 that I mentioned some basic ideas for the gods, but then never got to much more. I regret that, and tonight I don’t have a lot of time either. It seems I keep devoting myself to other things when the gods come-a-calling. So I spent most of today thinking of the interactions of the top 6 gods, how these ‘greater gods’ would function in the world. In the original Dodekatheon, there were 6 sibling gods, born of Cronus and Rhea. Then there were 6 children of Zeus, the lower 6 of the 12 olympians. While being considered a group like that would seem to imply friendship and teamwork, that was far from the case. Actually, the big man, Zeus, always seemed to be at risk of getting screwed by his wife… well… you know what I mean. While Hades was the brother of Zeus and Poseidon, he isn’t always counted among the 12, probably because he never really sat around on Mt. Olympus with the others. There are also folks like Dionysus and Hestia, who we rarely think about as Olympians. The point is that the 12 was a very fluid group, and the definition and interaction is something I can define, instead of something that needs to be defined by history. That is good, because things are about to get stupid.

I mentioned before that the top 6 of the Faculty (The Facultheon?) would be Administrators of the school, those who didn’t interact with the students in a teaching capacity. I wanted to have people who may not agree, but would technically all have a sort of ‘oversight’ role. This has lead me to grab these 6 jobs: Principal, Vice-Principal, Secretary, Librarian, Janitor, and Counselor. I really want to replace the Secretary, but I cannot find anything to use instead. The bottom 6 will all be teachers, and are definitely more fluid. In this way the second group is born from the authority of the first. I have also created a ‘three brothers’ set up like the original greek gods, with three roles that control the different Forais realms. The Principal controls the other gods, and their lands, making him ruler of the Faculty. The Janitor is the ruler of the land, he/she controls the systems that keep the campus operating, in this way it is like the Earth-shaker, Poseidon of the seas. The Counselor is the disciplinarian, the Faculty that deals with students who have been brought low, or in the case of Forais the students who are being punished with detention or worse. Let me charge right into the top 6, and lets see what I have left in me after that.

Principal Zeller

The Godking of the Faculty, the ruler above all, Principal Zeller is the Faculty who first brought order over Homer High. Before his arrival, there was only the chaos of ancient ones before him, and his fight against the former principal created the school there is today. It was Zeller who brought in the teachers, and it was Zeller who organized the curriculum, and it is Zeller who strikes down those unworthy. Every student fears the power of Principal Z, for his wrath is not always just, and wavering for a moment can lead to destruction.

Zeller does not always work well with all his colleagues in the administrative faculty, but he commands respect from them when it counts, making him a dangerous one to cross.

Vice-Principal Hernandez

The Vice-Principal sought to lead once, he wanted to lead the school as its king. Instead he serves beneath Zeller. This position has left VP Hernandez spiteful, and while Hernandez and Zeller are close partners in theory, Zeller has few greater enemies. If there is a plot against the throne of the Faculty, it is the man who stands behind the king. Hernandez has been responsible for many plots against Zeller,  that have lead to the creation of horrendous creatures, or the destruction of great champions. Few students honor Hernandez, but he can be a great ally when facing other Faculty, or opposing Zeller.

Counselor Hadwell

The disciplinarian, the dark tutor, the guide, Hadwell is a frightening woman with an unholy purpose. As the Counselor, Hadwell must confront every student who falls under punishment for actions against staff or student. While Zeller strikes down students, it is Counselor Hadwell that greets the troubled students when they make their way to detention, her office, or beyond.

If Hadwell has her eyes set on a student, they can be sure that nothing good will come of it. She works closely with the Goth students, as well as some trouble-making elements. While Hadwell entered Homer at the same time as Zeller and the other administrators, she keeps ties to those who came from the chaotic time before the Order-bringer’s arrival.

Janitor P

Technically he is a Custodial Engineer, a job that implies much more than his simple title of Janitor. He is the least respected of the administrators, despite keeping Homer’s natural world operating day in and day out. The Janitor has responsibilities to entities beyond the students of Homer, and often he does not take the time to interact with them unless they have a problem that will directly effect the world.

The Janitor also has denizens of his own, and is well known as the creator of many monstrous creatures that stalk Homer.

 Secretary H

The messenger of the Faculty, she brings organization to the world of Homer. No other faculty member is known to be as swift or exact in her every move. The Secretary works closely with Zeller, and is known as one of his closest allies. She is considered relatively young among the administrators, but she has still been with Homer since the start.

Often, messages from the Faculty, Zeller in particular, come by the mouth of the Secretary, the herald of the godly. She has had adventures of her own, and is also known as The Creep-slayer and the Marker.

Librarian Deidrick

While every student on Homer answers to Zeller, and sings his praises, all of Nerd-kind knows the presence of Librarian Deidrick. Her hallowed halls of knowledge are the meeting place of the Nerd lords. Her sacred library has protected nerd-kind before, and she is known to reach out to nerds in need. The champions of Nerd-kind are also champions of hers, and no other Faculty works to assist the Nerd city-states as she does.

All right, that is the first 6. I left out some names, but that’s because I am short on time. I’m getting sick, and getting to bed late sure isn’t helping things.

Thanks for reading everyone… wait… I don’t have a picture. Let me see what I can find.

That's right, Hip Hop Lich

If you liked the post, please give me a quick Like, or leave a comment, your choice, but only one of those two. I appreciate every bit of support I can get.

Day 21: Time To Get Desperate

Today will be very short, I am going to talk about some ideas for desperation. Desperation is my ‘risk dice’ mechanic that I thought up earlier, but have never had the time to expand on. I will probably talk a little about combat mechanics as well. Lets get to it!

Desperation was originally conceived as a risk dice pool. Systems like this allow players to overcome obstacles that their dice pool otherwise wouldn’t allow, or would make very risky. For example, if your character was a bad fighter, only having 2 dice for a melee attack, and you were faced with an enemy that was going to kill you if it got a chance to swing. So you need to kill it, and now, but your dice pool is not up to the task. A risk dice pool would give you the chance to get extra dice for that kill, while possibly risking something important to your character. In some systems you might simply discard a number of these ‘extra’ dice, in others you might risk your sanity or purity. In Forais Chronicle, you will risk what makes you nerdy, your obsession.

My friend Travis gave me an idea the other day to fill in the empty levels from day 20. So now I have put it all together. Let me give a quick attempt.

Desperation: When a nerd has to do the impossible, has to overcome all odds, he has to tap into the pool of obsessive knowledge that sustains his rank among nerd-kind, his/her Obsession. A nerd hero may use a Desperation roll to add additional dice equal to its Obsession attribute to a roll that has not yet been rolled. These additional dice are treated as part of the roll, and success on these dice are like any other success.

A character only has so many Desperation rolls available in each play session. At levels 2, 5, and 8, a character gains an additional Desperation roll beyond their initial 1. As Nerds grow in power and prestige, they can tap into their obsessions more often to protect the realm or overcome challenges.

There is a downside to Desperation rolls, as a character risks losing their obsession by abusing it in this way. When a character makes a desperation roll, whether that roll succeeds or fails, the player makes an Obsession roll. For each of these dice that is a hit, their Obsession is temporarily lowered by 1. If the Desperation roll was a success, but there are still hits on the Obsession roll, the character gains a Jerk Trait determined by the GM and 1 point of their Obsession loss is permanent.

I don’t know how I want Obsession degeneration to heal, I’m thinking it will require some out-of-combat ceremony. The risk to Obsession will have to be constant though, to counter-balance this powerful mechanic. Considering a Nerd will likely start with 4 obsession, a level 1 character has a chance to pull out 4 extra dice one a play session. That is very powerful.

This whole thing only took up 221 more words. Maybe the 5k of Crunch will be harder to reach than I thought. I think this system will be interesting though, giving a chance for characters to ‘pull it out’ in a pinch. It also leads to ‘heroic’ moments, even in Tier 1 play. A character can take down the giant ogre, or defeat the leader of the enemy army, all while risking a central part of their character.

On To Combat

More specifically, I want to look a little at equipment. Usually in an RPG system, a character needs to carry equipment around, and their equipment will constantly get better as they kill bigger things and take its trash. Thankfully, most fantasy monsters have a bad habit of swallowing the greatest treasures in the land, or hiding awesome relics among their dung. This leads to heroes with large kill counts and very stinky equipment.

For Forais I want to slow the flow of stinky gear by making some things inherent to the characters. In short, I think that unless a character is using a piece of equipment that is amazing, they should just assume they have it. This has limits of course, I am mostly talking about basic armor, a basic ranged weapon (a shortbow), and a basic melee weapon (a spear or sword). What this means is that from the start, every hero is capable of melee or ranged combat at will. This requires a bit of balancing to explain why most people wouldn’t just sit back and throw ranged weapons at each other until everything is dead.

For one, there will be a ‘charge’ mechanic. A charge allows characters to close the distance and get enemies in melee, gaining a bonus to the attack they charge with. In this way, ranged focused characters still need to fear enemies coming into melee against them. Also, a character in an enemy engagement zone cannot make ranged attacks, making it a good strategy to get in the face of characters whose Fight is focused into their ranged attacks. On the other hand, a ranged attack can be made from a distance, has little fear of immediate retaliation, and allows for more options for approach or retreat. The player who keeps these even will have a lot of choices in battle.

There may also be Traits and Tactics that manipulate either the Melee or Ranged attack of characters, or guards better against Melee or Ranged attacks.

So what will actual Equipment do? Well it will take the place of a player’s Unit, even in Mass Combat. This is because it will be Legendary Equipment, items that carry blessed abilities that give their owner an advantage. Maybe this is simply the Logic Shield of a Mathlete, giving him resistance to enemy abilities, or maybe it is the Deus Unix Machina of a Techee, a suit of power armor crafted by the IT teacher. Either way, these Legendary Equipment will need to be powerful to replace the growing power of a Unit, which can level like a character and also has its own abilities.

Just a couple of bros praising the Emperor

We will see, another day. Thanks for reading everybody, please give this post a like if you liked it, or leave a comment if you have anything to say.