Collateral Damage: A Deeper Look into Vehicles

I've been thinking about something I said regarding the price of some vehicles. in the previous article. 

Thus would make each point of stress is worth $12,500.

This runs into problems. For example, take a  3 bedroom 2 bathroom house with drywall interior. It can be assumed to have: 

• space for 6 occupants
• A kitchen
• 3 armor

That would be 10 stress and $125k, which works for cars, but it's been over 20 years since that conversion rate made any sense for a house. For a GTA based game I created a while back, I thought 50k was a fair price per bed, bath, or other significant features. That would put this same house at 500k, but research suggests that a house with those features is between 3-400k. So tripling it for houses, but leaving it $12,500 for vehicles is fitting.

 Applying this to actual cars is problematic unless cars aren't considered to have the 3 armor assumed by a steel frame (the material I previously mentioned is iron, but the difference is not significant) because that gives them a minimum price around 3,600 with no control stat, no occupants, etc. Consider the following: http://www.dodge.com/en/charger/

Here's what's stated

• 707 Horsepower
• 6.2L Hemi V8 Engine
• 3 Armor

The vehicle probably has +1 Control at the least. I won't bother trying to think too deeply on that one. The pictures show enough room for 3 kids in the back, in addition to 2 front seats. We'll call that 4 Occ.

Thus we have 

• 707 Horsepower
• 6.2L Hemi V8 Engine
• 3 Armor
• 4 Occ.
• +1 Control

That's 10 things, for about 28K. It would not be unfair to assume vehicles are between $2500, and $3000 per point of Stress. If a house is $50,000 per point, and a Vehicle is $2,500 we can thus assume that "Basic Amenities" multiplies price by 20. Otherwise the multiplier is closer to about 17.

Collateral Damage: Structures and Vehicles in World Engine games

So I was reflecting on how in Inverse World, vehicles have 3 stress unless otherwise noted, it takes 10 points to drop it by 1 stress, and removing all stress destroys the vehicle. Presumably they thought something was to be desired with vehicles that Dungeon World left out. I wasn't really satisfied with this static number because I felt that it fell a little flat on granularity between smaller and larger vehicles. I also saw potential to use it for buildings, but no building was gonna take 30 damage and call it a day. Thus, I decided on an expanded Stress Modifiers list

• +1 per Occupant (Occ. Includes very basic but accommodations)
• A bedroom is 2 Occ.
• A booth table or pew is 4 Occ.
• If a complex consists of multiple rooms, minimum occupancy is the number of rooms
• +1 per point of Armor
• +1 per notable feature, even if it’s decoration
• +1 per Move an occupant can do (needs 1 Occ. per move unless otherwise stated. Any staff can tend to the number of people stated, multiplied by a relevant stat)
• Armory
• Kitchen and/or Dining Hall (waitstaff serves 4 people)
• Infirmary (1 Nurse can tend to 1 room 2 Occ.)
• Lore Library
• Move like a vehicle (has additional stress of 1 per Control Stat) 
• Mystical Library/Laboratory

Material                         Armor 

Particularly thin Wood 
or particularly thick Paper      1 

Wood                             2 

Iron or Stone (wood and
drywall counts as “or stone”)    3 

Iron and Stone (structural
steel and concrete
probably counts)                 4 

Magical Protection               Varies

After some experimentation with converting Dungeon World coin to other currencies (I put a coin equal to 500 yen to get prices that neared those in the Persona series for another project I'm working on) I came to about a coin for 500 yen or 5 dollars, I assumed a 1 room cottage was 2 stress, and at 2500 coins, Thus would make each point of stress is worth $12,500.

This runs into problems. For example, take a  3 bedroom 2 bathroom house with drywall interior. It can be assumed to have: 

• space for 6 occupants
• A kitchen
• 3 armor

That would be 10 stress and $125k, which works for cars, but it's been over 20 years since that conversion rate made any sense for a house. For a GTA based game I created a while back, I thought 50k was a fair price per bed, bath, or other significant features. That would put this same house at 500k, but research suggests that a house with those features is between 3-400k.

I have further thoughts on this on: https://steelsmiter.blogspot.com/2016/09/collateral-damage-deeper-look-into.html where I basically peg "Basic Amenities" as an x20 multiplier.

For games that feature low "Harm" scores like Monster of the Week, 3 points of DW damage is 1 point of Harm. This isn't as much an attempt to convert to any particular system as much as it is a quick generalization. Feel free to make it 2-5 to better suit your game's survivability. 

Visual Novel Ideas: The Attributes

Cool

Represents an aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance and style that is generally admired; Because of the varied and changing connotations of cool, as well as its subjective nature, the word has no single meaning.

Hot

Represents your physical appearance mostly; It’s used as other games might use Charisma. Although being Hot doesn’t necessarily mean you have Charisma, it still works in a similar manner. You might also extend this one to something like Cooking, which can literally be hot.

Smarts

Having or showing quick intelligence or ready mental capability, shrewd, sharp, clever, or witty.

Sports

This represents a character’s athletic ability, both for engaging in competition, and for getting around the game world on foot.

Weird

How unusual you are, in a mundane way.

These scores are rated from -1 to +3, but they only go up to +2 by default.

Some ideas I have right now for character creation:

Choose Archetypes

Choose two or three common anime Archetypes (what Dungeon World called Specialties, not to be confused with what Dungeon Fantasy called Archetypes). If you choose 3, you start with all their Starting Moves. If you choose 2, you can take an Advanced Move with one of them. I'm looking to ballpark around 7 Moves per Archetype, and I have a few ideas for archetype right now

• Accidental Pervert
• Bokukko
• Cuckoolander
• Dojikko
• Foreigner
• Genki
• Idol Singer
• Iinchou
• Journalist
• Kuudere
• Meganekko
• Miko
• Ojou
• Osananajimi
• Otaku
• Sensei Chan (might not go with this one because I'm calling the GM Sensei)
• Shrinking Violet
• Sports Star
• Sukeban
• Tsundere
• Yandere

Choose a Look

Pick one of your three archetypes to derive your look from . Each one will present 4 options for each of eyes, hair, body, and clothes.

Choose Attributes

Pick one of your 3 archetypes to derive your Core Attribute from(which does not have to be the same  one you derive your look from). Your Core Attribute is +2. The other scores are either

• +2, +0, -1, -1 or
• +1, +1, +0, -1 

Whichever you pick, arrange them however you like.