Like, if you have 14 Madness, you've got a Madness modifier of +3, which you can add to things when you're acting mad and which is added to difficulties when you're trying to stay sane.
Another concept is to make a save each time you gain corruption (maybe one roll for each at the end of a scene) and if you fail it then you have to act out a mild form of that particular corruption's theme in your next scene.
But with the idea of making it harder to increase as you have more of it... well, there's a great mechanic for that but it's very much not a D&D mechanic.
Roll over your corruption score or you don't gain more corruption.
Alternately...
Use your corruption modifiers as armor against new corruption.
Say, when there's a roll which would determine if you gain more corruption (like an attack or a save), you add your score in that kind of corruption to your side of the roll.
That'd mean that actions of your own choice don't get protection from your existing score, but corruption imposed on you by outside forces has to first break through your existing corruption.
That depends on the purpose of the corruption in the narrative.
I might just have a generic "corruption" damage type, and the first time it's inflicted on a PC, that character's player gets to decide which kind of corruption it is.
@Ben Again, the "represented as an ability" concept would make that easy.
Perhaps... You can use your corruption modifier in place of an ability modifier for attacks, damage, and [list of skills related to the chosen corruption's theme].
Until the very highest levels of corruption that won't replace their primary stats, but it'll make them more competent in areas related to their corruption.
Well... I want the corruption system to be for my eyes only. The players will start to see the effects, but they will be unaware of any kind of "corruption" taking hold (other than physical attributes)
For example, necrotic corruption will make the PC look older and harrowed, Bloodlust will probably have the opposite effect, and Madness will actually start to play tricks on the PC
> ZEHIR'S GREED: a curse on tomb robbers. - You gain training in Bluff, Stealth, and Thievery. When you use one of these skills, you gain a cumulative +1 bonus to Bluff, Stealth, and Thievery, and a cumulative -1 penalty to all other skills. - You can use the Greedy Hands encounter power a number of times per encounter equal to the current "stage" of the curse. - At the end of every extended rest, make a Constitution check. You may choose to fail this check. -- 20 or lower: The stage of the curse increases by one.
The idea behind my corruption is that the PCs are effectively walking into the depths of hell. You can't do that without accruing some negative effects
In 13th Age, you put out a d6 on the table at the start of a conflict, with the 1 facing up. Each round you advance it by one. Some abilities can change it, too. PCs get a bonus to their attacks equal to the current face of the die, and some abilities key off it.
How about expanding that out into an "effects of hell" escalation die? Say, a d10. Start at 1. Actions that are hellish get to add the number, actions that are heavenly have it subtracted.
Advance the die as seems appropriate--each session, each scene, each time the party makes particular kinds of choices, whatever.
Not quite my vision of it, but if it works for you that's what's important.
I think there are elements of the concept you're attached to that I don't understand, or don't value.
Like, if the narrative of the concept is that going deeper into Hell causes negative effects, I'm not sure there's any real gain in tracking those effects separately for each PC. Why not have a kind of global "hell influence" meter?
That is, one escalation die for the whole party.
But then you said something about "the person with the most corruption at the end of the game will be the one that gets the prize," which indicates there's some element of the story I don't know about.
Your corruption starts at one. Add it to hellish actions, subtract it from heavenly actions. Every time you might gain corruption, roll 1d6. Gain 1 corruption if the result is over your current corruption score.
Each PC has their own score.
It's not very D&D-esque, but since it's not player-facing that's not super important.
That also bakes in your "corruption slows down as it gets further along" goal.
If you want the numbers to go higher, either switch out the die or set aside the first 6 and start again.
But in my experience, it takes a couple hours of rolling pretty regularly to hit 6 in this system. So if you're only rolling a handful of times each session... should last a few sessions.
(And since you're not showing the players your work, you can always fudge it partway through.)
any poor unfortunate souls in here wanna read a boring 3 page character backstory? I want to make sure it's readable / understandable before I send it to my GM
@BESW I thought that went without saying. (Your conspiracy theories will gain new attention when giant mutant sewer wombats are discovered beneath Cincinnati.)
@KorvinStarmast thank you for being an unfortunate victim. I've just done it in a google doc. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AO3WML9uFBPxhCZhPrnIHqyqyWO311spdTPlP7gdZa8/edit?usp=sharing Suggestions would be good, I'm trying to build her a certain way but I don't know if my intent is getting across
I am not sure how failed politician who ran through money is still wealthy for the later part of the story ... somehow seems a mismatch. (I understand the theme, though, of Kristov's constant efforts "back into the inner circle?" that was why he used her so ...)
ah yeah, this is why I wanted it checked :P he's built his wealth back up using the flesh he sold and later on, selling the secrets she found and stuff. I'll have another go at conveying it though. thanks!
Hmm, when she was 16, no longer tender flesh, "10 years" to put the plan together but she takes him out at age 22. Math error, or missing something about when her debut at the parties happened... at 12?
no worries, this is why we get a second set of eyes.
playing with the dead before him.
near the end
I think you meant "playing with the dead body before him" in that sentence?
Maybe that murder was for a longer sentence (described as very horrific) so maybe "after 5 years she made her escape ...." fits with her growing in talent/power?
Based on the back story, I'd say her deception, charm, and persuasion would be put to work for 5 years to set up a jail break/escape. Based on how you built the narrative.
Just an idea, unless "you've served your sentence, off you go" is part of how the game story begins
ah, the setting for the game is "Due to the mass of crimes that year, every criminal was sentenced to 5 years in the most brutal prison, regardless of crime" The PC's are approached after being let out about getting their "revenge"
@Miniman Stories always reflect on reality; Thermian defenses about internal morality don't really hold together very well against out-of-story arguments.
@BESW I'm not trying to say his ork was actually a fine upstanding citizen. Just that, from the POV of whether he's tried playing a morally deficient character, it might not really count. Like, if I say I've tried Fate, that's technically true. But I haven't really had the Fate experience, or faced the challenges of playing a Fate game, and so on.
I wouldn't say that I've really tried Fate, even though I have played it.
@trogdor Yeah, it's not really something I'd thought about before now. But while I've played some characters who were real monsters, it's never been in a context where that...I dunno, meant anything, I guess?
I know that if I were to talk about characters across many games and settings being "morally deficient" or not, it would be relative to my real-world sense of morality rather than judged on the diegetic morality of each setting or game--in large part because the point of playing games with divergent moralities from our own IS that conflict between the player's morality and the character's.
> It goes ding! when there's stuff. You have a detector. Once per adventure you can adjust it to find a very specific thing: a person, a substance, a frequency, whatever you like so long as your character knows something about the thing that will help with the tuning. Once it's adjusted, use Lore to operate the detector.
@Shalvenay Here's a concept for your fantasy infrastructure repair: a hive of underground monsters has been defeated, but their network of tunnels beneath the city will pose a risk of collapses and sinkholes for decades to come.
Newcomers don't know all the rules. Even if they have read all the rules and have all good intentions, it is very hard to understand the SE philosophy by the first grasp because of how special this site is, particularly if compared to the typical RPG forums. What is even more important, newcomers...
Newcomers don't know all the rules. Even if they have read all the rules and have all good intentions, it is very hard to understand the SE philosophy by the first grasp because of how special this site is, particularly if compared to the typical RPG forums. What is even more important, newcomers...
@BESW I think Vololo's Guide to Monsters actually had a bit about some settled communities hiring or "hiring" kobolds to do their sewer-work because they're pretty good at the whole tunneling biz.
I have a Dwarf Fortress headcanon regarding how the materials in the game work. For instance, how a dwarf can mine a large wall to produce a rock of dolomite that's small enough not to hinder passage over the tile in the slightest, then build a wall out of the rock so it blocks the tile, demolish the wall to yield the original rock, turn the rock into a staircase etc...
namely, the DF world is mostly constructed out of extradimensional "mimic matter" that is very malleable but requires a piece of normal matter as a seed to work. A dwarf, when mining a wall, actually dislodges the seed from the tile, causing the mimic matter to become invisible and incorporeal.
When building a wall, floor, staircase etc, the dwarf first shapes the mimic material (using their beard senses) into the correct shape and then plugs in the seed. When demolishing, the dorf removes the seed, causing the mimic matter to vanish into incorporeal existence.
Wombats take engineering very seriously, and have a very dim view of magic. Tunneling around underground they encounter lots of dying spells, rotting magics, dead gods, etc.
Actually though, it's kinda interesting, Thanksgiving didn't get entrenched in the local culture (ie, outside of the visiting military families) until cable TV became more prevalent and at the same time grocery stores started shipping in more frozen and fresh goods from the mainland in addition to the canned stuff.
as is I admit I still like having the day off and the celebration, but I will easily admit there is something wrong with how it is shown in schools and what it currently stands for
but sometimes I feel like our heels get dragged on reforms for things that should have changed years ago and then someone complains about the change anyway
Summary of Hidden Agenda: you the player control the Presidente of Chimerica, a fictional S. American country recently liberated from the dictator Farsante by a joint revolution by the Left-Wing National Liberation Front and a mutiny of the de jure army.
As the Presidente, the player gets to appoint four ministers (Agriculture, Defense, Interior, Exterior) from three parties: the radical-left National Liberation, the capitalist democratic Popular Stability and the centrist moderate Christian Reform.
And then work on their advice to solve issues like malnutrition, corruption, mounting debt and the fragile balance between the Reconciliation Army (basically, merger of the leftist rebels and the post-mutiny army) while working to prepare elections if the player so desires.
@kviiri in GOG each player controls an Ork, who wants to kill and maim and gain fame or something like this. additionally, each player controls one (or more, in small groups) of Gods - like God of Nimbleness, God of Gob, God of Clever - and decides the difficulty of all actions related to their god's domain
Political RPGs... like, specifically "you're playing politicians and government officials" politics, or more generally RPGs that front-line political subjects?
There was actually an interesting bit of political drama here in Finland, almost fit for some TV series. Basically, last Summer, our leading nationalist conservative party was split up when the more radical anti-immigration wing won the party board. That was followed by a mass exodus of more moderate members (including the party's former leader), who formed a new party
To become an official party, they had to collect "support cards", that are basically in the form "I, <name> support the foundation of the new party X"
They collected the required amount with ease, but the old party's youth association sent a volunteer team to check all the cards they received (a five-figure number, IIRC) to see if any old party members had signed, because it's apparently grounds for dismissal from the main party :)
Eg. a left wing candidate in the game wins the election and shifts the taxation to be more progressive. Then the players either spend a few hours debating on whether trickle-down economics work and the GM (if there's one) makes the call based on how they feel. Could be problematic.
That's why making the politics fantastic while still feeling like politics would be a good way, I think.
But more and more I get impatient with rules explanations that aren't immediately clear, or mechanics that seem to get in the way of the play rather than reinforce it.
@doppelspooker Yes. I think maybe what it actually needs is a re-write to explain itself better?
Not actually changing anything, just not having you flip between three or four different sections to figure out how to resolve a single action.
it could be a lot more straightforward if i wasn't looking back and forward between six different boxes which each contain two completely different things, one of which will always be overlooked, whilst every game action involves consulting 2-3 such boxes
@BESW Goodnight! :)
@BESW [adds to list of things to beat BESW to doing!!!]
> Damage boats. When you're holding a nautical vessel for a blunt force weapon, you get +4 to overcoming physical obstacles (whether in the form of objects and/or people).
Heh, it's a family favorite. Are you sure AOO is a 2e thing? I don't recall it, but that might have been the tables I played at. 2e was when my RL got in the way of my RPG ...
our 2e play had a lot of 1e/2e mix and match due to the group...
@KorvinStarmast hmm .. I don't see it as a specific ruleset in its own right, but there is mention of additional (opportunistic) attacks when an opponent flees, and also when guarding(?)
There is a mention of AOO in the optional rule book Player's Option - Combat & Tactics
Hmm ... no AOO if Brand the Bard chooses the withdraw option
@trogdor Usually the term "People" excludes most "monsters" and "creatures", but is a subset of creatures which is a subset of monsters which itself is a subset of beings...
@Trish an illusion exists (at least if we are talking typical fantasy trope/D&D-style illusion). It is a magical force or energy that creates an effect. It can even affect the real world in certain circumstances.
@Trish Ambiguous. It could be a thought, which certainly exists, but it could also be a collection of false sensory information caused by something that exists, which... maybe exists?
Typically illusions can be distinguished from hallucinations because hallucinations are in the person's head, but illusions are there for anyone to see. Even a century from now, a person who visits so-and-so place would see an illusory wall. But them hallucinating the wall would require tampering with each and every mind, even those that don't work the same way.
Should we merge (and make synonyms) the resistance and damage-resistance?
