Sunday, September 27, 2020

Crits on Demand

In my vagabond way I happened to stumble across BareBones Fantasy (BBF for short). Whereas Crowfield started an attempt of a fantasy campaign that mirrored the play experience of Traveller, BBF is attempt to convert the old Star Frontiers rules to fantasy. I should probably do a review of it at some point.

Like Star Frontiers, BBF’s core mechanic is the percentile roll. As I said before, I hate percentile rolls. Hate them. I feel that most percentile rolls can be converted to d20 rolls, making everything simpler and faster. Because BBF has a semi-permissive license, I decided to spend some time to convert the game to use the d20 instead.

One neat thing that BBF does is say that any roll of doubles is a crit. If the roll would have been a success, then it’s a critical success; a failed roll would be a critical failure. For example, if Jalice’s lock-picking chance is 68% then a roll of 66 (or 55, 44, 33, etc.) would be a critical success while a roll of 77, 88, or 99 would be a critical failure. While this makes crits a little too frequent for my liking, I like how the scale slides based on the character’s skill as well as the intuitive “doubles = crit.”

It’s impossible to translate that to a d20. Rolling a single die rules out doubles. Ways of adjusting what numbers are crits based on skill level while keeping the crits to 10% (or less) of the rolls also proved impossible.

That led me to think about other ways to do it. The idea I finally came up with was a paradigm shift: Why do crits have to be random? Let the player decided when they’d want a crit!

Crits on Demand

The system would work like this. Whenever the player wants/needs a crit they simply declare “I’m taking a crit.” He has to declare this before the dice are rolled.

If the roll is a success, then it becomes a critical success and the player has to forfeit one experience point.

If the roll is a failure, it becomes a critical failure (i.e. a fumble), but the player gets an experience point as a consolation prize.

Going Off the Idea

I toyed around with that idea for a few days, but I think I decided that I don’t like it. From a gamist perspective it sounds ok, but I think the joy of a crit is the way they pop up unexpectedly. When you invoke one yourself, I think that the thrill of the spontaneity will be lost.

Am I right?

Sunday, September 20, 2020

What Wrong with the Sun?

Remember that hex in the Dreadwood where the party shrinks down to a fraction of their size? This is like that, but with two differences:

  • It’s in the Firelands.

  • It messes with time instead of space.

Sundial photo by liz west / CC BY

Sunday, September 13, 2020

Crowfield: To Orc, or Not To Orc

I'm torn on whether or not to include non-human races in Crowfield in general. I'm doubly torn on orcs.

Sunday, September 6, 2020

More Fire for the Firelands

After last week's post, James contacted me and said “I am open to the real world. It’s just that sometimes it’s a lot of work for very little return.”

Well, said, James. I couldn’t agree more!

This week I’m throwing reality completely out the window in the name of fun. Hopefully James will approve!

Heating Things Up

The Firelands is a desert. An oppressively hot, mostly lifeless sea of sand and dust. Nothing grows outside the life-giving oases. Without water, a man will perish1 in the unbearable heat.

It’s not a realistic, earthly desert. It’s a pulpy, exaggerated, swords & sorcery desert.

You know how I make a desert even more pulpy, exaggerated, and swords & sorcery-esque?

I add lava lakes. And volcanoes. But mostly lava lakes.