Psychic Magic for USS Crowfield

James will tell you that I’m not a fan of mixing magic and tech, and he’s right. There’s no limit to my hatred of sticking magic into a modern or futuristic world. Yes, that means I’m not a Harry Potter fan. I flat out refuse to read, watch, or play The Dresden Files.

You know what works well in a modern or futuristic setting, though? Psychic or psionic powers! They particularly show up a lot in Star Trek. Off the top of my head:

• The Talosians in “The Cage” (the first pilot episode).
• Gary Mitchell in “Where No Man has Gone Before” (the second pilot episode).
• The eponymous character in “Charlie X”
• Oh yeah, Spock and all Vulcans have low-level telepathy.
• The aliens in “Plato’s Stepchildren”
• Deana Troi (like all Betazoids) is a telepath.

So what if we had an ancient world where certain people had psionic powers? Wouldn’t they just be the wizards of that world? Wouldn’t their powers be considered magical?

I think this would work well for the U.S.S. Crowfield world. Maybe there’s something in the local fruit that gives certain people powers (like in “Plato’s Stepchildren”)? The locals might call them wizards, shamans, or whatever, but they’re really psionics.

That means I have to replace the spells with spells based on psychics powers, but I think it will work.

Maybe I don’t even tell the player’s that’s why I’m doing… just have the “spellbook” and see if they can figure it out.

What do you think?

Maybe next week I’ll have a working list of spells.

Lucky 7 Hit Points

This completely replaces my earlier post called Unlucky 13 Hit Points.

First of all, because Unlucky 13 is now just an expansion of the 1974 D&D rules, hit points in U13 work the same as hit points in D&D.

Because Lucky 7 is not a D&D derivative, I’m free to do things differently. Very differently. That previous post was too different, though. And it was completely unusable on Roll 20.

Some Background

When (the game that would later become) Dungeons & Dragons first started, there wasn’t a “to hit roll” followed by a “damage roll.” There was one roll. If you rolled the right value, you killed the monster; otherwise you didn’t. Likewise, if the DM rolled a certain number, your character was dead. There was no warning. There was no “I’m almost dead.” You just went from alive to dead in a single roll.

Players found that unsatisfying, so Dave Arneson invented hit points.

My Solution: Lives

So here’s my solution. It’s based on “lives” from things like Pac-Man.

Most characters start with three lives/hit points, but this is modified by the Spiritual attribute. (Why Spiritual instead of Physical might be the topic of a future post.)

When you take a hit, you make a roll using the Spiritual attribute. If you succeed, you shrug off the hit without serious injury. If you fail, you lose exactly one life/hit point. When you lose your last life/hit point, you’re out of action. “Out of action” might mean you’re dead, but it probably means the you’re knocked-out or you’ve been captured or you’ve just given up.

What about weapon and armor types?

Armor doesn’t make you less likely to get hit, but it does make it less likely that you will get hurt.

A sword isn’t any more likely to kill an unarmored man than a knife, but a sword is more likely to penetrate armor than a knife.

Every weapon has a weapon value and every armor has an armor value. If the weapon’s value is greater than armor’s, then the Armor roll is made with a penalty. If the armor is greater than weapon, the Armor roll is made with a bonus. If they'e equal, than it’s a simple roll with neither penalty nor bonus.

How many lives do monsters have?

A zombie or an orc will have one life. A dragon might have 12. If looking at a D&D monster, use the number of hit dice as the number of lives.

How about a troll with 6 + 3 hit dice?

You might want to just call that seven lives, but I would call it six and give the troll a +3 to his armor roll.

But I don’t want to die! (optional rule)

This is an option rule for GM’s to use in their campaign, or not.

If you lose your last life, instead of being put out of action you instead gain an injury instead. That injury counts as a disadvantage, and can be used as such.

Normally, the injury heals after the fight is over (or the scene is over if you’re not in combat when the injury occurs). However, if you’re already injured and you lose another life you can chose to extend the duration of the injury:

Injury	Duration of effect
Initial	This combat/scene
1st extension	Next day
2nd extension	Next week
3rd extension	Next month
4th extension	Next season
5th extension	Next year

Epilogue

That’s it. That’s my new idea for hit points.

One question I have: Should I call them “hit points” or “lives?”

I lean towards “hit points” because that’s the universal RPG term, and I’m trying not to make up new terms.

On the other hand, I lean toward “lives” because they act more like video game lives than traditional hit points.

What do you think?

General Update on my RPG Projects

This is a general update on a few different subjects.

Dekahedron (the podcast)

I didn't post the episode yet. There's two reasons for this: 

1. I sent a rough cut to James for his feedback, and he hasn't listened to it yet. Still. Five days later.
2. I want to have a few episodes of backlog before we start to post. This will cover us for when we can' record (like when I have to work a weekend, or one of us has vacation, etc.)

We also didn't get to record an episode this morning. I had an unexpected family event pop up, and James had computer issues. I hope we can find some time this week.

On the other hand, I got some other stuff done for the podcast:

1. I got a "feedback line" where listeners can call in voice feedback. I like phone numbers that spell something, I almost got (XXX)-OLD-TREK, (XXX)-POD-CAST, and (XXX)-FIGHTER, but in the end I picked (XXX)-RPG-CAST. (Note: XXX is not the actual area code.  The area code was different for each number).
2. I switched the dekahedron.com's email provider away from Google. This let me set up a "feedback@" email address for listeners to email us.

Dekahedron (the RPG)

Before it was a podcast, Dekahedron was a a public domain RPG that I created decades ago. It never gained any traction, so I'm finally pulling the plug. I'll be archiving the rules off of the website, and switching the site to support the podcast.

Clout RPG

Speaking of pulling plugs, I'm also killing off my Clout RPG. This one was never finished, and most of the ideas have been incorporated into Lucky 7.  The domain name expires in a few months, so I'm just going to let it disappear.

Lucky 7 RPG Engine

Lucky 7 is now a stand-alone RPG ruleset. Work continues on the draft.

Unlucky 13 House Rules

Unlucky 13 is an expansion of (or a set of house rules for) OSR style games. it is pretty much Lucky 7 for B/X. Work continues.

Crowfield/U.S.S. Crowfield Settings

These are just campaign settings for my own use to run games in. I'm not killing them off.

Commonwealth of Man Setting

Commonwealth of Man is my space-opera (the genre, not the ill-named RPG) campaign that replaced the Astral Web. Technically speaking, the U.S.S. Crowfield setting takes place on a planet in the Commonwealth of Man. I'll be updating this campaign and making some posts about it. 

This Blog

I still plan on making weekly posts here!

That's all for this week!

Podcast Update: Episode #1 recorded

 James and I met online yesterday morning and recorded the first episode of the podcast. The topic was "Fixed vs Variable Weapon Damage."

I think it went well. I was fully prepared for this to be a practice run and for us to have to re-record it next week. But I think it's good enough for me to push out after I finish editing it.

James is a natural co-host. He and I differ enough to approach a topic from different angles, yet we're such good friends that it's still pleasant.

I'm very self conscious of my voice. I had hearing loss as a child, which lead to years of speech therapy. When I hear my recorded voice I just hear a guy with some kind of speech disorder. I don't know of other people hear that when I talk to them. I'm a little worried about mean comments.

Anyway... the episode is done, but I have work to do with edit/post-production. If it goes up this week I'll let you know.

Attribute Generation in Lucky 7, Part 3

I’m writing this in Austin, Texas, so this will be a quickie.

When I go running I think about things. Often it’s stuff for my RPGs—either rules or adventures. Lately it’s been a lot of stuff for Lucky 7. Now that there’s only three attributes, I think that calls for changes in the way to generate attribute scores.

The old methods were in these posts:

• Attribute Generation for Lucky 7
• Attribute Generation in Lucky 7, Part 2

The Methods

Most of these are just the old methods update, but there’s a new one.

Method #1: Point Buy (Former Method 3)

This method has the most player agency. Depending on the player involved it might be super quick, or it might take an eternity of agonizing decision making. Some players using this have the habit of making the same character every time.

Step 1: For each of the three attributes, assign any value between -2 and +2.

Step 2: Twiddle with the assignments until sum of all three attributes equals +1.

Step 3: There is no step 3!

Method #2: Quick Random (Former Method 1)

This method is the fastest of the bunch, but has the least player input. It’s good for simulating the feel of old school role-playing.

It also has the least character diversity, as it’s impossible to generate a character with a very good score (+2), a good (+1) score, and a very bad (-2) score.

Because it’s so quick, it’s particularly good for making characters when a new player shows up unexpectedly, or to replace a PC that was killed or captured.

This method uses this attribute table:

d3 Roll	d6 Roll	d12 Roll	Attribute
1	1 – 2	1 – 4	Physical
2	3 – 4	5 – 8	Mental
3	5 – 6	6 – 12	Spiritual

Step 1: All attributes start at 0.

Step 2: Roll a and refer to the table above. Add 1 to the corresponding attribute.

Step 3: Same as step 2. Note: You could just combine this with the previous step by rolling two dice at that step instead of one.

Step 4: Same as step 1, but instead of adding, Subtract 1 from the corresponding attribute.

That’s it!

Example: I’m making a new character. Starting attributes are P: 0, M: 0, S: 0. I roll 3d6 and get:

• Die #1 is a 3 so Mental goes from 0 to +1
• Die #2 is a 2 so Physical goes from 0 to +1
• Die #3 is a 3 so Mental goes from +1 back down to 0

The character starts the game with:

• Physical: +1
• Mental: ±0
• Spiritual: ±0

Method #3: Random (New)

This is more complicated than method #2, but is provided for those who want the “purity” of generating all possible character types randomly.

This uses the same attribute table as Method #2.

Step 1: Each of the three attributes starts with a value of -2.

Step 2: Roll 7 dice (7d6 is easiest, but any combination of d3, d6, or d12 works).

Step 3: Referring to the attribute table, add 1 to the attribute indicated by each die.

Step 4: In the unlikely¹ that an attribute would be raised above +2, assign the +1 to a different attribute instead. Roll randomly if you can’t decide.

Example: I’m making a new character. Starting attributes are P: -2, M: -2, S: -2. I roll 7d6 and get:

• Die #1 is a 6 so Spiritual goes from -2 to -1
• Die #2 is a 4 so Mental goes from -2 to -1
• Die #3 is a 5 so Spiritual goes from -1 to 0
• Die #4 is a 3 so Mental goes from -1 to 0
• Die #5 is a 5 so Spiritual goes from 0 to +1
• Die #6 is a 5 so Spiritual goes from +1 to +2
• Die #7 is a 6 that would raise Spiritual to +3, and that can’t happen. I decide to raise Physical from -2 to -1

The character starts the game with:

• Physical: -1
• Mental: ±0
• Spiritual: +2

Method 4: Random Pre-Gen(Former Method 4)

This is really the simplest of the bunch. The name was James' idea.

Step 1: Roll 1d20. Reroll any result of 19 or 20.²

Step 2: Refer to the table below.

1d20	Physical	Mental	Spiritual
1	-2	1	2
2	-2	2	1
3	-1	0	2
4	-1	1	1
5	-1	2	0
6	0	-1	2
7	0	0	1
8	0	1	0
9	0	2	-1
10	1	-2	2
11	1	-1	1
12	1	0	0
13	1	1	-1
14	1	2	-2
15	2	-2	1
16	2	-1	0
17	2	0	-1
18	2	1	-2

Example: I’m making a new character. I roll 1d20 and get a 14. The character starts the game with:

• Physical: +1
• Mental: +2
• Spiritual: -2

Method 5: Random NPC Generation (New)

The methods above are all designed for player characters, and will result in a character whose sum of attributes is equal to +1. A totally random method could result in stronger or weaker characters. The level of randomness is well suited for non-player characters. If you want to go full old school, you can use this method for player characters, too.

Step 1: Roll 4d2-6. Assign the total to Physical. 

Step 2: Roll 4d2-6. Assign the total to Mental. 

Step 3: Roll 4d2-6. Assign the total to Spiritual.

Example: I’m making a new character. I roll 4d2-6 for Physical and get 0. I roll again for Mental and get -1. Rolling one more time I get a +1. The character starts the game with:

• Physical: ±0
• Mental: -1
• Spiritual: +1

Epilogue

That’s it for this week. The post was originally about the new Method 3. It works, but the way it worked in my head was better then in reality. I might not keep it.

Which method did you like the best?

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1. This will happen about once per seven characters.↩

2. If you really want to avoid re-rolls, you could roll a d6 and a d12. If the d12 is between 1–4, the d6 roll is unmodified; if the d12 is between 5–8, the d6 roll gets a +6 modifier; if the d12 is between 9–12, the d6 roll gets a +12 modifier. No rerolls, but I don’t think the added complexity is worth it.↩