Thursday, February 22, 2018

Generating a random dungeon in DW with Tarot

This reddit post suggests you can draw tarot cards to make a dungeon, but doesn't provide much in the way of guidelines to finish it off. In Dungeon World, it could be fair to assume the same thing about dungeons that you do about treasure. That they are related to the damage dice of the enemy. Damage dice in dungeon world are very small. I don't recall seeing anything bigger than (b[2d12+9] damage, which I duplicated on the Dungeon World Codex). The average dungeon befitting a boss monster with just such damage would be 6.5+9 or 15.5. Call it 16 since it's the better of two rolls. Another example, the bandit king (b[2d10]), would be probably about a 6 room dungeon. You can toy with it too. Goblins might not have half the damage roll in dungeon rooms, and a Noble who has a Knight probably has twice the Knight's damage roll of rooms in his castle.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Gashes: An Alternate take on HP

From a redditor: 
I’m not about this stressing over games business. I think it’s completely valid to just wing it. [...]
Let’s say my immolator gets a 6. I don’t mark health points, I just tell him you’ve got a decent cut on your leg. My thing is to just make it believable. So you can’t take a ton of gashes and just be ok, but other than that, health is totally in the fiction.
So I know people like and take comfort in knowing their HP, and I told them so, but I had another redditor bring up Defy Danger. On the G+ community, there are a lot of people who don't like Deal Damage As Established as a move. And of course, this player doesn't really like HP. This got me thinking about medical states (good, fair, serious, critical, dead)

When you have have not been injured, you are in Good Condition +(CON-gashes)
If you suffer up to +CON gashes, you are in Fair condition (-1)
If you suffer up to twice +CON gashes, you are in Serious condition (-2)
Anything more is Critical condition (-3)

Endure Punishment
When you take a hit or worsen an injury through vigorous activity, roll +Condition. *On a 10+, you're fine and can continue. *On 7-9 take 1 more gash. On 6- you're out. What this means depends mostly on your Condition. At Fair you are merely unconscious. At Serious or worse, take your Last Breath.

Armor
Keep rolling damage normally. Use the damage value to find out if damage exceeds armor. If it does, a gash is scored. If it doesn't, nothing happens.

Getting Bogged Down
Wounds in real life don't really get reflected in games that have HP. If you would like for wounds to have impact, if you are Fair or worse, add +Condition to any +STR, DEX, CON or WIS rolls.

Monster Gashes
A monster can take 1 gash per 8 HP rounding down (so the Apocalypse Dragon {26 HP} can take 3 gashes if you can find a way to gash it).
A monster can deal 1 gash for every 8 average damage it can do rounded up. Add a gash for using b[2d6] or higher.

Recovery
Healing Magic
Whenever someone casts a Cure spell or uses a move like Lay On Hands, each d8 they heal counts as one condition state (e.g. healing from Critical to Serious, Serious to Fair, or Fair to Good)

Recover Move
Normally this heals you in full, but this change itself is evocative of a far grittier game, and as a result, you can say that each day using the Recover move only heals one condition state.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Drunken Debauchery, Stealing from Conan

The Drinking Contest introduces gobs of opportunity to get smashing drunk, and a rules-y way to handle it. This expands further on the drinking contests, and the aftermath. It goes beyond the Carouse move, but can often accompany it. I introduce to you (this rule is meant to be used with Abstract Coins): 

Drunken Debauchery
When you spent a night on the town, and got too smashed to remember, roll 2d6+ the number of drinks you had (if this is unclear, add your Constitution score). This isn't really hit or miss, consult the following table:

2: Behold My Grace! You boasted of your adroitness! Roll 1d6: 1–2 = Balancing on a Ledge/Beam/Rope; 3 = Bull-Leaping; 4 = Dancing; 5 = Five-Finger Fillet; 6 = Juggling Random Items.
3: Behold My Might! You boasted of your strength! Roll 1d6: 1–2 = Arm Wrestling; 3–4= Wrestling Match; 5 = Keg Tossing; 6 = Lifting Heavy Objects.
4: Behold My Stamina! You boasted of your constitution! Roll 1d6: 1–3 = Drinking Contest; 4–5 = Eating Contest; 6 = Long Distance Running / Swimming Challenge.
5: Big Business! You invested another 1 point of Wealth in a merchant’s caravan / ship venture! GM secretly rolls 1d6: 1–2 = It’s a con; 3–4 = It’s legitimate, and in 2d6 months you’ll have doubled your investment (if you’re still alive and around!); 5–6 = It’s legitimate, but the caravan / ship didn’t survive.
6: Brotherly Love! You woke up next to one of the other players’ characters (referee determines randomly)!
7: Brrr . . . Chilly! Someone stole your coat / clothes while you were intoxicated!
8: Dangerous Liaison! You bedded the son / daughter / husband / wife / temple virgin of someone who can make your life in this area very difficult! Roll 1d6: 1 = Local Crime Lord; 2 = Local Militia Commander; 3 = Local Sorcerer; 4 = Local Temple Leader; 5–6 = Important Local Leader / Noble.
9: Drunken Brawl! You started a drunken brawl! You must spend Wealth on damages and fines to avoid incarceration, or flee and be declared outlaw. Roll Wealth. If you don’t have enough wealth to pay the fine and do not flee, you will be incarcerated and your belongings will be confiscated and sold.
10: Fire! You accidentally started a fire in the inn / den of ill repute you were carousing in! You must spend an additional 1d20 × 10 gold pieces on damages and fines to avoid incarceration, or flee and be declared outlaw! Roll Wealth as #9.
11: Gambling! You gambled away your money on a game Defy Danger with +WIS (at -1 if you took a Debility for the drinking contest) vs. Wealth dropping to 0. Unlike normal Defy Danger moves, on a 12+ with this one, you gain +1 to your wealth level (if possible). Roll 1d6: 1 = Dice Game; 2 = Card Game; 3 = Cock Fight; 4 = Dog Fight; 5 = Arm / Wrestling Match; 6 = Pit Fight.
12: Go Directly to Jail! You woke up in jail charged with a crime! Roll 1d6: 1–2 = Drunken Disorderly; 3 = Lewd Conduct; 4 = Vandalism; 5 = Theft; 6 = Murder. You decide if your character did it or not. An escape may be necessary . . .
13: Have at You! You incurred someone’s anger (or were angered yourself) and have agreed to a duel, physical or sorcerous!
14: How’d I Get Here? You woke up in a strange place with no idea how you’d got there! Roll 1d6: 1 = Aboard a ship (maybe heading out to sea!); 2 = In a tree or on a roof; 3 = In the back of a wagon (maybe travelling somewhere!); 4 = In the nearest stable / animal pen; 5 = In the nearest temple; 6 = In the sewer / gutter.
15: How Embarrassing! You made a complete idiot of yourself in public! Locals snigger behind your back and consider you a complete imbecile. Roll 1d6: 1 = You emptied your bladder . . . unexpectedly; 2 = You exposed yourself; 3 = You fell flat on your face unconscious while attempting to seem intimidating / skillful / powerful; 4–5 = You performed the worst drunken song and dance . . . ever; 6 = You soiled yourself.
16: I Hereby Swear! You made a foolish pledge, loudly and in public to do something hazardous. Roll 1d6: 1–2 = Clear Nearest Monster Den / Ruin; 3–4 = Bring Down Local Bandits / Thieves / Thugs; 5–6 = Steal Valuable From Important Local (roll as in Dangerous Liaison! to determine who).
17: Just Married! You woke up to find someone claiming to be your new wife / husband! Roll 1d6: 1–2 = Attractive; 3–4 = Average; 5 = Ugly; 6 = Pass the bucket! GM also secretly rolls 1d6: 1–3 = It’s a con attempt; 4–6 = It’s true.
18: Love Never Dies! You woke up next to a corpse! Roll 1d6: 1–2 = They died of natural causes; 3–4 = They died of drug / alcohol overdose; 5 = You think you accidentally killed them; 6 = You think you murdered them. GM also secretly rolls 1d6: 1–3 = It’s a setup; 4–6 = It’s true.
19: Mooooo! You woke up next to an animal! Roll 1d6: 1 = Chicken; 2 = Cow; 3 = Goat; 4 = Horse / Camel; 5 = Pig; 6 = Sheep.
20: My Land! You gambled / spent your money and acquired the deed to something! Roll 1d6: 1-2 = Disreputable Inn; 3 = Nearest Ruin; 4 = Plot of Wildland; 5–6 = Run-Down Farm; You are eligible for either Householder, Merchant, or Shopkeeper as appropriate once any GM imposed restrictions are met.
21: My Precious! When you were passed out or otherwise engaged, someone stole your single most valuable-looking item! Track ‘em down and make ‘em pay!
22: Ooh, Shiny! You spent your money on a truly gaudy but otherwise unremarkable item. Reduce Wealth by at least 1. Roll 1d6: 1 = Armour; 2 = Garment; 3–4 = Jewellery Piece; 5 = Shield; 6 = Weapon. GM determines the item.
23: Robbed! As 21, but 1 Wealth instead.
24: Tattoo! You spent your money on a fantastic tattoo! Say what, and  roll 1d6: 1–2 = It actually is awesome; 3–4 = It’s fairly good;5 = It has an obvious flaw; 6 = It has an embarrassing flaw.
25: Unexpected Companion! You woke up next to a member of your preferred gender. Determine attractiveness as Just Married! entry.
26: Yer Mother! You seriously insulted someone who can make your life in this area very difficult. Roll to determine who as in Dangerous Liaison! entry.
27: You’re so Generous! You donated your money to a worthy institution. Roll 1d6: 1–2 = Local Poor; 3–4 = Local Temple; 5–6 = Orphanage / Urchins.
28+: Madman! Roll twice and apply both results!

Monday, January 22, 2018

A Change in Bonds

In pbp, DW and other Apocalypse World Engine games tend to die with Bonds. So the idea I randomly had is to reconstruct how Bonds work.

Firstly, there's a bit of inconsistency with the DW Core rule:
Fill in the name of one of your companions in at least one
and Class Warfare, which specifies each Archetype as having a set number of bonds.
Personally I don't really like either rule--because I don't get the logic--and there's that problem about PbP games I mentioned. So I propose the following Caveat:
  • Players get bonds equal to Level+CHA (minimum 1) which they can come up with in play. (this becomes part of the Level Up move)
  • Other than your Level+CHA you have no restriction on how many bonds you can spend on one subject.
  • Players are not initially restricted to bonds specified for their Playbook/Class Warfare build, so long as they write their own build in a way that fits the concept. OF course in order to preserve what I assume DW intended as balance, fitting the concept is subject to the group's collective opinion.
  • Players may spend bonds on the world representing events that have happened in game. (that's right, I like the idea of players being more and more connected to the world in a statistical way.)
  • If it exceeds +CHA or +1 per 100 coins spent, they can use it in relevant situations.
The reason for explicitly stating you can spend any number of bonds you want on the same subject is because I've never explicitly seen it stated (though rules implied) and I've never played in a group that used more than one bond on an individual. The last bullet point is for situations that come up a lot in my game where the players saved a town from a massive horde, and they get amnesty/favors returned/wenches.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Abstracting Coins

Someone on reddit made me think about not keeping up with specific amounts of coins. They thought of using coins as a sort of +Wealth. The values I thought of for +Wealth were as follows:

+3: A chest of riches
+2: A giant sack of loot
+1: A few coin purses
+0: A small purse
-1: Some dusty old coppers.

You could give them a wt. score equal to their respective score. Then instead of specifying an amount, you can let players lower their +Wealth by one or more to get a bonus to a Carouse, Parley, Recruit, or Supply roll.

For Carouse, sacrifice 1 point to get the full bonus associated with the old level of wealth
For Parley or Supply roll Wealth as noted below
For Recruit you only sacrifice Wealth if their Cost is Money. Otherwise roll Wealth as noted below

If you have them roll +Wealth, use the following results

10+: They get the thing without lowering their wealth or having another incident
7-9: They get the thing but pick one:
  • take -1 wealth
  • the item is contraband, inferior, or stolen
6-: They get the thing and
  • Lose 2 wealth 
  • Just kidding, they don't get the thing, but lose -1 wealth anyway (such as by a finder's fee, a local ordinance levying fines against the intended purchase, and so on)
  • must do a favor for the seller
  • must steal the item

Abstract Warrants
So you've done something against the law, or something that pissed off the powers that be, but might not have been against the actual law... Whenever you have this sort of charges against you if a bounty is to be levied you need to know how many points of wealth you need to even be able to make a roll to pay off any bounty, or fine The list below is a start but is by no means complete:

+0: Minor Assault, Petty theft, Negligence
+1: Battery, Burglary, unarmed Robbery, Swindling
+2: Manslaughter, Impersonating a higher social status, Lewd Behavior
+3: Murder, Theft of extremely valuable property (such as a horse, or the keys and deed to a house), Rape

Weight and Loot
The +Wealth level of  whatever you have for positive values also corresponds to its weight. For the purposes of load, Wealth from 0 to 3 has Load 1 per point, while -1 has Load of .1.

Starting with Abstract Loot
Characters whose playbooks canonically suggest they have any coins (up to about 50 or so) should start with +0.

If they're playing something custom like a Class Warfare build or unofficial playbook that gives them up to 100 coins, they can start with +1 (300=+2, 900=+3). 

Otherwise they will -1

Gaining Abstract Loot
The easiest abstraction of increasing loot would be the rule of threes
Some Dusty old coppers>A handful of dusty old coppers>A lot of dusty old coppers>
A small purse>Two small purses> Three small purses>
A few coin purses>Several coin purses>Many coinpurses>
A giant sack of loot>Two "">Three ""
From a chest of riches, keeping track further seems futile, but it could be fair to say that 3 chests generates "A small hoard". For the purposes of A Whole Damn Army, Resources is increased by 1 point for a small hoard. Beyond that, each additional larger size (Medium, Large, Huge) is an additional Resource point.

Steading Prosperity and Abstract Coins
Dirt: This town won't sell you anything worth more than 5 core coins. (-1)
Poor: One person in the town can sell you something up to 25 core coins. (+0)
Moderate: Less than 10 people can sell you up to 100 core coins worth of stuff. (+1)
Wealthy: Any merchant can sell you up to 100 core coins worth of stuff, one can sell you up to 300 coins worth of stuff. (+2)
Rich: Anything of any value is probably here, but in order to preserve magic items, you may find one specific item in such a place if it has been explicitly mentioned in the fiction. (+3)

Real Estate
A Cottage is 500 coins in the core rules. As per Gaining Abstract Loot, it takes 3 units of a wealth level to move up to the next. As per the starting rules, it takes either A giant sack of loot, + 2 chests of riches, or simply reducing Wealth by 2 points to just buy a cottage. For simplicity, I'll just say how much the party's total wealth needs to be reduced to purchase a particular housing unit

House/Land     Wealth Reduction total         Upkeep
Hovel          A small purse                  N/A
Cottage        2 chests                       a small coinpurse
House          8 chests and a giant sack      a few coinpurses
Mansion        166 chests and 2 giant sacks   1 chest, 2 giant sacks
Keep           250 chests                     2 chests, 2 giant sacks
Castle         833 chests and a giant sack    8 chests, 1 giant sack
Grand Castle   3,334 chests                   33 chests, 1 giant sack

Upkeep
1% upkeep may be difficult to track with this system. so we match 5 coins (the upkeep on a 500 coin cottage) to a small coinpurse. Since that's 1% of 2 chests, we go from there

Haggling
A group of adventurers can pool their resources, and negotiate with Charisma, reducing the price accordingly. The highest charisma score can reduce the cost of the real estate by the Upkeep per point of Charisma, rounded up to the biggest unit (e.g. 8 to 18 small coinpurses for a cottage, 16 to 36 chests for a mansion, 272 to 612 chests for a Grand Castle). It's up to the GM whether this in turn reduces the upkeep based on the haggled price as well. 


Wednesday, December 27, 2017

A Whole Damn Army Simplified

I have discovered a shortcut for making Group/Horde monsters into A Whole Damn Army of its own
If two questions would grant the same tag don’t worry about it. If you like you can adjust damage or HP by 2 to reflect the tag that would be repeated, but it’s not necessary.
What I'm about to tell you is strictly not RAW... but it is simple. You ready for it? Here Goes:
Take any Core example monster of Horde or Group organization sizes and add 1 instance of Uncanny Endurance (+4 HP) for every multiple of the party's number. So a party of 4-5 members fights a horde of 50 whatever as if it had 10-12 levels of Uncanny Endurance.

If they number more than 50 or so, you should probably also add Huge since a platoon is roughly 4 squads of 10. That and 50 people probably don't fit into a house. This addition is optional though.

For the purposes of Damage From Multiple Creatures, add +1 per Uncanny Endurance (equal to +1 per multiple of the party's population) rather than one per individual monster. If the party has allies that make the ratio smaller, don't increase damage as much as normal (to reflect the fact that some of the damage goes to the players' allies). So for example, in the above 10-12 levels of uncanny endurance, the party would take the full +(levels) of damage if they were the only combatants. If they had 20 allies though, the ratio is 2/5 so players would take +4 damage instead of +12.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Disclaimer

Sorry about this vent post, I don't really expect anything out of it.

I have noticed that some of the DW crowd seems to think I have wrongbadfun with the system. In a way, they're not wrong, but also they're not right. Because DW is what you make it. Quite honestly, sometimes I get an idea or remember something from another game, and I duplicate that thing faithfully from the other game, with the intention of emulating its intent within the other game, even if I have to disregard DW precepts to do it. 

This is my prerogative as the holder of the account(s) where I make the respective post(s). 
This is my prerogative as the person who runs DW games for my friends and acquaintances on chat servers, forums, and so on. When you run a game for me, you choose what goes into it, and I work collectively with the group to decide (or to use a more apt phrase, "find out") what comes out of it.
Just because you can do something a certain way, doesn't mean I want to as well, and if I don't, no amount of explanation on your part will change that.
This applies to any monster, item, rule, or hack I make with the system.
This applies to the terminology I choose to convey the idea.
This applies to the system itself as stated by the owners who made it.
I can take advice, but be warned, some of it will go unheeded, and I'm not required to explain why.