History of the Astral Web, Part 6

This is the sixth in a series of articles covering the in-world history of the Astral Web. I originally wrote the history as 15 or so eras of history. Rather than make one long post, each era is getting its own post.

The Story so Far

The First Step: Mankind had terraformed Mars, and established settlements there.

The Departure: Mankind decided to send a million settlers to establish life around distant suns.

Left at Albuquerque: The fleet leaves Earth and is scattered far and wide by some unknown event.

The Awakening (Years 1 - 167): 20,000 humans settle on the planet Dearborn.

Expansion & Empire (Years 168 - 431): Scientists on Dearborn developed the first working Nexus drive. Dearborn makes contact with the other settlers spread out over 74 other planets. The Empire is formed, the pirates rise, and the Interstellar Sentinels are formed.

The Great Revolution (Years 432-478)

One of the problems that Empire faced was a large “east-west” separation. The eastern half, consisting primarily of the Dearborn Constellation¹ was the cultural and political heart of the Empire, whilst larger western half (which consisted of the Schellenberg and Phoenix Constellations)² endured heavy taxation that supported Eastern improvement projects. The matter came to a head in 432 when the estranged Duke of Schellenberg declared the west to be free from Dearborn taxation.

Schellenberg had hoped the Dearborn would either lighten the tax burden on the west or increase spending there, but what resulted was a civil war. The 46 year war was brutal, but in the end, Schellenberg was somehow victorious and found themselves independent.

Retrospective

Last week’s “Expansion & Empire” was playable era about exploring strange new worlds. This era—The Great Revolution—is about “a period of civil war” where rebel spaceships strike from hidden bases to win their first victory against the evil empire.

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1. I struggled with this word for a while. Even today I flip-flop between “constellation” and “cluster.” This idea is a group of star systems that are located near each other on the Web. Kind of like large land masses are continents. Or maybe more like if there were no continents, but only archipelagos. Great—a third word I can use!↩

2. This sentence hints at what the lost map looked like. There’s three constellations (or clusters or archipelagos). There’s also a small bunch “unattached” stars like islands off the coast. All told there’s 75 star systems. The Dearborn Constellation is less than half of the total—maybe 30 or so systems—and is on the eastern part of the map. The western half is further split into two constellations—Schellenberg and Phoenix. From what we’ll see in the future posts Phoenix is to the north, which is weird because I distinctly remember the Milthrani coming from the south. Anyway, with this information I think I can recreate a suitable facsimile. ↩

Unlucky 13 Combat Test

James helped me conduct a test of the U13 combat system. This is how it went.

The Player Character

	Player
Fighting	1
Agility	0
Weapon value	Sword 4
Armor value	Leather & Shield 3

This is the PC’s starting health meter:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
A	A	A									☠

The Setup

GM: You’re leaving the city. Lord Crowfield sent you to Syresham manor, about 5-6 miles away to the east. He wants you to see what happened there with the light from the sky.

As you leave the town, you encounter the desert it wasn’t desert a few days ago. You find this disconcerting, weird, and alien. It’s sweltering hot. There is just sand and desert scrub as far as you can see. A river—the Lesser Ooze—is supposed to run between the two towns, but you see no sign of a river. Just sand and sun.

As Crowfield fades away behind you, the lack of any landmarks makes navigation difficult. You are in danger of getting lost.¹

From beside you, you hear the sound of something scuffling in the sand. Looking off you your right you see…

The Enemy

GM: Those pincers are about 4 to 5 FEET apart. It is scuffling towards you. What do you do?

	Player	Scorpion
Fighting	1	1
Agility	0	0
Weapon value	Sword: 4	Claw: 2 Stinger: 5
Armor value	Leather & Shield: 3	Chitin exoskeleton: 4

health:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
A	A	A				☠	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠

The fight begins

Player: I light a torch.

GM: So you’re dropping your sword and shield, removing your backpack, fishing out the tinderbox and lighting a torch?

Player: No. Never mind. I will stand ready and let it come to me. Watching for the tail at all time

GM: It gets within a few feet–almost grasping range but not quite–and stops. You sense that it’s staring at you.

Player: “Hi, Friend , You do not want to eat me.” I hold my sword high.²

GM: It does a side scuffle, like maybe it’s looking for a way to flank you. |

Round 1, attack phase

Player: I try to hit it claw near me.

Rules & Rolls: The player was the first to announce an attack, so he gets initiative.

The player’s attack (1) is higher than the monster’s agility (0), so the player gets a bonus roll. A bonus roll is the highest 2 dice of 3d12. The dice were 5, 7, and 11, so we drop the 5 and the total is 18. Any roll of 14+ is a success.

GM: You got it, but not on the claw.³

Rules & Rolls: The player’s weapon value (4) is greater than the monster’s armor value (3), so damage is the lowest die of 2d12. The roll was 4 and 7. We keep the 4, which is an open slot of the damage track. The scorpion loses its #4 slot.

GM: Your hit bypasses the armor. Your blade slips in and hurts it.

Round 1, defense phase

GM: It reaches out with the claws to grab you…

Player: I’m going to avoid the hit, of course.

Rules & Rolls: In U13 monsters don’t make an attack roll; the players make a defense roll instead. The player’s agility (0) is lower then the scorpion’s attack (1), so the player makes a penalty roll. Rolling 3d12 resulted in (12, 12, 10). That means the sum of the lowest 2 is 22, a success.

GM: You roll to the side and avoid the claws!

End of Round 1

	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
Player	A	A	A									☠
Scorpion	A	A	A	×			☠	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠

Round 2, Attack Phase

GM: What do you do next?

Player: I’m trying the same thing.

Rules & Rolls: The player still has a bonus roll to attack, and gets a 21—a success. The damage roll is a 2. Looking at the monster’s health meter we see that the 2 is potected by the armor symbol (◊), so there’s no effect.

GM: You bring your sword down, but it bounces off the scorpion’s carapace.

Round 2, Defense Phase

Player: It’s his attack, right?

GM: Technically speaking it’s your defense.

Rules & Rolls: The defense roll is a 13! That’s the “Unlucky 13” that the system is named for. It counts as a failure, but the player has the option to convert it to a success provided he’s willing to accept a Bad Thing.

GM: You rolled an Unlucky 13! You might remember how this goes. You missed the defense, but I’ll give it to you if you’re willing to take a Bad Thing instead. Are you going to take the bad thing? Or are you going to take the hit and hope your armor saves you?

Player: It’s unlike me, but I’ll take the Bad Thing.

GM: I would have too. It’s better than taking damage. He tried to get you with his tail but you blocked with your shield.[^tail] The stinger got caught in the shield and yanked it off your arm. The shield goes flying behind the scorpion. You no longer have a shield unless you try to go get it.

End of Round 2

While no one took damage this round, the player did lose his shield, making his #3 slot vulnerable.

	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
Player	◊	◊										☠
Scorpion	◊	◊	◊	×			☠	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠

Round 3, Attack Phase

Player: So what’s next?

GM: You tell me! What do you do next?

Player: What is it doing? Can I try to cut off its tail?

GM: The last thing it did was try to impale you, but got your shield instead. Now it looks like it’s trying to grab you. It sounds difficult to cut off the tail instead of just hitting it where-ever you can. If you want to do that, I’m taking away your bonus.

Player: No. I keep with what safer without running away.

GM: What I will do is say that if the opportunity presents itself, you’ll favor the tail over other parts. In game terms, if your roll is 20+ you can say it was the tail, otherwise it’s a normal hit.

Player: Cool

Rules & Rolls: The attack dice were (3, 9, 10), for a total of 19—a hit.

GM: You missed the tail by one, but your blade makes contact with the beast’s thorax.

Player: I’m rolling for damage.

Rules & Rolls: The attack dice were (3, 9, 10), for a total of 19—a hit. The damage dice were (6, 6)⁴ so the creature’s 6 slot is now filled.

Player: Does it look like I am doing anything to it?

GM: Your blade slipped between its chitin plates, and thick black ichor starts dripping into the sand. It’s twitching a bit…

Round 3 Defense Phase

GM: …but it reaches out to you with its claw! Make an agility roll to avoid.

Rules & Rolls: The dice were (7, 7, 11) for a total of 14, exactly what he needs to dodge out of the way.

GM: You barely dodge out of the way

End of Round 3

The player is still unscratched. The scorpion took a hot on the #6 slot. That means any hit of 6+ will take it out of the combat.

	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
Player	◊	◊										☠
Scorpion	◊	◊	◊	×		×	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠

Round 4, Attack Phase

GM: (The scorpion is in rough shape. I decided that it would probably run away. James usually likes to let things run away instead killing if he doesn’t have to, so I decided to prompt him) Do you attack? Wait? Run? Give it money?

Player: I attack!

Rules & Rolls: The dice are (3, 9, 12 = 21), a hit.

GM: I said I would give you the tail if you rolled more than 20, so your blade lands a hit the tail and…

Rules & Rolls: The damage dice are (4, 11).

GM: Your damage roll was a 4. You had already done the 4 slot before, so we move this up to the 5 slot.

	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
Player	◊	◊										☠
Scorpion	◊	◊	◊	×	×	×	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠

Player: Good! Did the tail get cut off?

Round 4, Defense Phase

I already mentioned that the scorpion already decided to run away this round. The fact that it took another hit only solidifies that choice. Instead of attacking it’s running away. The player doesn’t need to defend.

GM: The stinger is dangling, and the scorpion is backing away from you.

Round 5, Attack Phase

Player: Can I attack as it backs off?

GM: It’s backing off, but sure. You can make an attack if you want.

Player: I do.

Rules & Rolls: The player rolls (1, 12, 12 = 24). A CRIT!

The scorpion doesn’t have any open damage slots, except for those covered by armor. It makes no sense to tell the player that he scored a crit but that the hit didn’t pierce the armor. The only logical thing is to skip the dice and just let it die.

GM: You swing wildly and a stinger drops off completely. More ichor drops to the sand. The scorpion twitches violently, then collapses and stops moving. You are victorious!

Epilogue

I think the combat went well, but it needs more testing. The exchange above actually carried over two days and I did all the dice rolling. I want to try it through Roll20 with the player rolling himself. James wants to try it with multiple combatants on both sides.

How did it read to you?

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1. If this were a real game instead of a combat playtest, a Wilderness Survival check would happen here.↩

2. If this were a real game, I might have given the player an animal handling roll.↩

3. U13 doesn’t do hit locations. It adds too much complication for too little return. Had he rolled 20+, I would have given him the claw. I still could have given him the claw, it just wouldn’t make any difference.↩

4. I’m tempted to make a rule that would give the player a bonus for rolling doubles.↩

History of the Astral Web, Part 5

This is the fifth in a series of articles covering the in-world history of the Astral Web. I originally wrote the history as 15 or so eras of history. Rather than make one long post, each era is getting its own post.

This week is a little different. This week our era contains a special “sub-era.”

The Story so Far

The First Step: Mankind had terraformed Mars, and established settlements there.

The Departure: Mankind decided to send a million settlers to establish life around distant suns.

Left at Albuquerque: The fleet leaves Earth and is scattered far and wide by some unknown event.

The Awakening (Years 1 - 167): 20,000 humans settle on the planet Dearborn.

Expansion & Empire (Years 168 – 432)

One-hundred sixty-eight years after establishing their colony, the citizens of Dearborn discovered the Nexus principle and developed the first working Nexus drive. Faster-than-light (FTL)¹ travel had finally become a reality.

The people of Dearborn quickly began to travel throughout the galaxy. In their journeys they discovered seventy-four systems inhabited with descendants of the original fleet of colonists. The vast majority of these planets were delighted to be greeted by their brethren.

In an attempt to develop a unified system of government the colonists turned to one of history’s most successful methods of ruling a large and diverse domain: the Roman Republic. Due to the public’s misconceptions on ancient history, the republic quickly became known as the Empire.

Development of Spatial Warfare (circa Year 223)

One of the greatest benefits of the Unified Empire was the development of interstellar trade. Trade allowed each planet to specialize in the goods that it could best produce, and increased the overall quality of life, level of technology, and economic well-being throughout the Empire.

In any society, though, there are always those who feel it’s easier to take than to make. It was such a group, called the Norzeyan Cabal, that developed spatial warfare. Before the Cabal began their pirating raids, no ship had ever needed to be armed.

The Imperial government responded by allowing merchant ships to arm themselves and by forming an interstellar police force called the Imperial Sentinels. While the Sentinels were successful against the Norzeyans, other groups arose and established the need to maintain the Sentinels.

Retrospective

The was originally written up as 2 eras (and a sub-era). The first era was called “Discovery” and was just the first two sentences. The remainder was “The Unified Empire.” For this post I decided that they were both so related that they should be joined as a single era.

This was one of the playable eras. It was intended to be the most Star Trek in feel. It always struck me as weird that the Enterprise kept running into human settlements even though it was “where no man has gone before.” This part of the background was meant to setup a situation where that would make sense. The players could be the crew of an Empire starship exploring new worlds. They would be making contact with other planets that grew out of fragments of the original settlement fleet, trying to convince them to join the Empire.

If I were to do a rewrite, I would change the Spatial Warfare section. It would be more interesting if it happened independently in multiple systems before being contacted by Dearborne. That way the Empire has risk when it makes contact with a new planet.

That’s it for this week.

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1. In my current incarnations, this is not really FTL travel. I will probably dedicate an entire post to the “hows and whys.” The short version is that these days my nexus drive doesn’t connect distant suns to each other. It connects parallel universes to each other. Thus every sun that the players travel to is really just another version of our sun, though it may have had a radically different history and therefore more or fewer planets. Like I said, there’s a lot more to it, and it deserves its own post.↩

Unlucky 13 Hit Points

This was originally going to be a blow-by blow report of a combat playtest that James and I ran through for my Unlucky 13 (U13) rules. As I was writing it up, though, I realized that my explanation of the “health meter” was making a long blog post far too long. So this week is just about the health meter. The playtest report will come after the next Astral Web post.

This is a modified and expanded version of the damage rules in “The Clout Primer” that appeared in my other blog.

The Health Meter

Instead of using traditional hit points, U13 uses up to 12 individual hit points. A typical human’s meter looks like this:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
											☠

The “death” symbol (“☠”) beneath the 12 means that the character is out of action when that hit point is marked off. “Out of action” doesn’t usually mean “dead”—it might mean defeated, unconscious, or captured.

Damage

Damage is usually determined by one of two kinds of dice rolls. The type of roll to make depends on the cause of the damage and whatever protection the character has.

Title	Roll	Criteria
Major damage	1d12	Damage from firearms, explosions, etc.
Greater damage	2d12kl1	Weapon value > Armor Value
Standard damage	3d12kl1	Weapon value ≤ Armor Value

The die rolls use the “selective results” dice notation. The short version is that “kl1” means “keep the lowest 1 die.”

Use the information above to extrapolate damage rolls outside of combat such as falls, poisons, etc.

Example 1: Jalice is wearing light armor (armor value AV 2) and she’s being attacked by a very large rat with dagger-like fangs (weapon value WV 1). Based on the rat’s weapon value and Jalice’s armor value, she’ll take standard damage if the rat bites her.

Example 2: The very large rat does not have armor (nor a particularly tough hide), so its AV is 0. Jalice’s dagger¹ is WV 1. This means Jalice will inflict a greater damage roll to the rat if she hits.

Armor

Armor has two mechanical effects. The first one has already been discussed: it is used to determine the type of damage roll to make. The second effect is that armor prevents damage in the lowest boxes on the health meter. We use the letter “A” to show this on the health meter.

The number of boxes protected is equal to the armor value.

Example: Jalice is wearing light armor (AV2) and carrying a shield (AV+1) for a total AV of three. This means her first three boxes are protected by the armor and can not take damage. Jalice’s health meter looks like this:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
A	A	A									☠

Example 2: Jalice finds herself fighting a very large rat. She gets hit, and it roll 3 for damage. Because the 3 box is protected by armor, the hit is ignored and nothing is recorded.

Hit Points are Individuals

The Health Meter is a group of 12 individual boxes.

Example: The next round, the very large rat hits Jalice again. This time it does 7 damage. Jalice’s health meter now looks like this:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
A	A	A				✗					☠

The next time the rat hits, it rolls a 5 for damage:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
A	A	A		✗		✗					☠

Only One to a Box

If the indicated hit point is already marked off, go to the next higher one that’s available.

The “real” number can make a difference for healing, so even though you’re marking it in a higher box, record the actual number.

Example: Continuing the example from above, Jalice gets hit yet again. The damage is a 5, but that spot is already taken so we record it in the №6 box as follows:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
A	A	A		✗	(5)	✗					☠

If any future hit is a 5, 6, or 7 we would mark the 8 spot.

The upshot is that most battles end from a lower blow that gets elevated to the №12 box. It also means that the players usually² have plenty of notice that they should run away.

Shock Recovery

Damage is a mix of shock and physical trauma. Shock can be treated after the combat by using the medic/first aid skill. Each wound (i.e. each filled box) gets a skill check.

If you succeed, subtract the lower of the skill check’s dice from that wound. If you’re rolling 3 dice due to high or low skill, take the lower of the two dice that count.

If the roll is a failure, reduce the wound by one level instead.

Each wound can only be treated once.

If time is important, assume that each wound takes about 10 minutes to treat.

While it is logical to treat the most serious wounds first and work your way down, it is easier to start at the bottom and work your way up. This is because healing the lower wounds “opens up” those boxes for the higher wounds as they get healed. This avoids a lot of erasing and re-writing. However, if the GM plans on interrupting the characters with a surprise encounter during their healing phase, it’s kind of a jerk move to make them leave their most serious wounds untreated. Don’t be a jerk.

Example: Jalice finally defeats the very large rat. This is her current condition:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
A	A	A		✗	(5)	✗					☠

She has three wounds to heal. She has the First Aid skill. That means she’ll roll 3d12 and drop the lowest die for her skill checks.

For the wound in the №5 box, she fails her first aid roll. The 5 now becomes a 4:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
A	A	A	✗		(5)	✗					☠

For the №6 box, her First Aid skill roll is (4, 5, 11). Dropping the 4 leaves her with a total of 16—a success. The lower die was a 5 so the wound is reduced by 5 levels. Even though this is the №6 box, the wound was only a 5. So this wound is healed completely:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
A	A	A	✗			✗					☠

Finally, she bandages the №7 wound. Her roll (2, 4, 11) is a success, to reduce the wound 4 levels. 7 - 4 = 3:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
A	A	A✗	✗								☠

The fact that there is a wound in the №3 box in no way affects that the box is protected by armor. If she were to take a 3 damage in another encounter, it would still be ignored because of the armor.

Natural Recovery

Every morning following a day of full rest, make a Health roll for each wound. On a success, that wound reduces one level.

Weaker Encounters

The 12-box health meter is meant for leading characters: player characters and major villains. Often you will want to have weaker adversaries: the major villains army of storm troopers, minor monsters on lower dungeon levels, etc.

For your typical “first level monster”—something that should drop in one or two hits, use a wound track with only 4 “safe” boxes. Any hit of 5 or above will drop the monster out of action:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
				☠	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠

Very weak encounters—say a single, normal rat—shouldn’t need a wound track. If the characters hit it, it’s down.

Stronger Encounters

Sometimes the enemy should be harder to kill: the mighty dragon, the vicious troll, or maybe the Space Alien That Won’t Die.

Only in the vary rarest circumstances would you want to extend the boxes beyond 12. One of the features of U13’s combat id that no matter how unlikely, even a single shot has the chance to kill. By making the №12 box non-fatal, you remove that possibility.

The easiest way to make an adversary more dangerous is to add more armor. Raising the AV to 6 means that only 25% of successful hits will actually cause a wound. Very high armor is especially appropriate for that great old dragon with impervious armor and one missing scale…

Classic fantasy’s troll would probably have a full 12-box health meter, but at the end of every round allow the troll to regenerate by simply reducing every wound by one box.

The Space Alien That Won’t Die can be made tougher by adding more boxes. I said it’s a bad idea to have boxes beyond, the №12 box, so we add duplicate boxes of the lower numbers. That means lower hits will take longer to become serious. Something like this:

01	01	02	02	03	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
														☠

Roll20 Concerns

I plan on running my U13 games online, probably through Roll20. Roll20 has a hit point tracker built in, but it only supports the traditional “hit point pool.” I’m not sure how to run this on Roll20.

Inspiration

This was heavily inspired by the “Recording Wounds” section of Fudge.

Epilogue

This is a long post. I’m certainly glad that I broke it out. It wasn’t this long in the original post, but it didn’t explain it as well and it didn’t have any examples. I think this is a much better explanation.

What do you think? Will it work? It worked well in the test that James & I ran, but that’s a sample size of 1. Do you have any solution for the Roll 20 issue?

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1. If the rat’s fangs are “dagger-like,” does that mean Jalice can have a “fang-like dagger?” ↩

2. For those that like numbers, when the weapon value is greater than the armor value there’s only a 0.7% chance that a single hit will result in a take down. When the armor improves this drops to a 0.06% chance.↩

History of the Astral Web, Part 4

The is the fourth in a series of articles covering the in-world history of the Astral Web. I originally wrote the history as 15 or so eras of history. Rather than make one long post, each era is getting its own post.

All the posts so far have been the “pre-History” of the campaign. No one is sure when those events occurred because they don’t know how much time passed in the sleeper ships. This post begins the “recorded history.” “Year 1” of the campaign calendar begins with the settlement of Dearborn.

The Story so Far

In The First Step, mankind had terraformed Mars, and established settlements there.

In The Departure, mankind decided to send a million settlers to establish life around distant suns.

In Left at Albuquerque, the fleet leaves Earth and is scattered far and wide by some unknown event.

The Awakening (Years 1 - 167)

One of the settler’s ships was commanded by Captain Melissa “Mel” Dearborn. Her situation was typical of the others. She awoke from suspended animation and found herself in charge of a small group of about twenty ships that had somehow become isolated from the main fleet. Afraid, alone, and orbiting a strange new world, she did the only thing she could: she launched the Changeling torpedoes and began to create a new home.

It took almost twenty years for the terraformers to finish, but when they did the new world was ready. Twenty-thousand pioneers stepped foot on their new frontier, and created a home.

Mel been killed by a hornbeast trying to establish the homestead. The settlers named their new world “Dearborn” in her honor.

An Explanation

I view each of the eras to fall into one of three categories: prehistory, playable eras, and bridging eras.

The previous three eras were the prehistory. They’re just setting the stage and providing the context for everything that comes after.

This era is the first of the “actual” history of the Astral Web. It’s what I consider to be a playable era. I think it would be great to set a campaign in this time period. A group of star travelers arriving at a strange new world, with no way to leave and nothing but what they brought with them trying to establish a new home.

“Bridging” era are just pieces of glue that joins the rest together.

Skills in Unlucky 13

Over a year ago I talked about talents in Crowfield. As I’ve mentioned before Unlucky 13 (U13) is pretty much Crowfield with all the D&D bits stripped out.

U13 will not have the six basic ability scores of D&D. It won’t have the 4 basic ability scores of GURPS. It won’t even have the 3 basic ability scores of Big Eyes, Small Mouth. It will have skills that aren’t linked to any attribute. I originally got the idea from Steffan O'Sullivan’s Fudge, but Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor campaign did the same thing back in the early 1970’s.

We’ll return to the FAQ format, and some of this may seem familiar.

What are skills?

Skills allow characters to do something better than they could if they didn’t have the skills. An example might be walking across a narrow ledge. Anyone can try it, but a person with the Balance skill has a better chance to succeed.

So U13’s skills will have levels?

Yes.

How do the skill levels work?

In theory skill levels range from -∞ to +∞.

In practice I envision that skill levels will range from -1 to +3.

What do the skill levels represent?

The baseline is skill level 0. It represents the ability of the average adventurer without any special training or aptitude in the skill.

Example: A fast flowing river might be too dangerous for the average town dweller to swim across, but a for an adventurer it’s just a normal challenge.

Skill level -1 means that, for whatever reason, the character is particularly inept in that particular skill.

Positive skill levels represent increasing levels of ability.

The following table summarizes the above:

Skill Level	Description
-1	Inept
0	Average Adventurer
+1	Apprentice Professional
+2	Journeyman Professional
+3	Master Professional

As mentioned in the previous question, the range extends in both directions. If the strength of a dragon was important to the story, it might be considered to be +100. On the other hand, a squirrel might be -20.

The scale is centered on the player characters. In a campaign where all the player characters are squirrel adventurers, that is the new baseline. A squirrel adventurer would have a strength of 0, and a human might be considered 50.

NOTE: Despite using it for this example, there is no skill called “strength.” Strength is considered a specialty of the Athletics skill.

How do you use a skill?

It’s easy!

Just roll 2d12.

You never, ever modify the the roll.

If the result is 14 or better, you succeed.

If it’s 12 or less you fail.

Wait—if 14+ is a success, and 12- is a failure, what about 13?

We call that “Unlucky 13.”

If your roll is exactly 13, the GM will offer you a choice:

• The player can choose to accept the failure, or
• The player can choose to succeed, but they have to accept a Bad Thing. The Bad Thing will often, but not always, be related to the task that was attempted. The players may or may not know what the Bad Thing is when it happens.

Wow! That is Easy! Is that really the whole system?

Ok, it’s not quite that easy. Read on.

How does the skill level affect the result?

If your skill level is equal to the opponent’s, this it’s exactly as above: roll 2d12; 14+ or better is a success and 12- is a failure.

If your skill level is less than your opponent’s then instead of rolling 2d12, you’ll roll 3d12 and sum the lowest two dice. If your skill level is much less then your opponent’s, then you roll 4 dice and sum the lowest two.

Likewise if your skill level is higher (or much higher) than your opponent’s, you’ll roll 3d12 (or 4d12) and sum the highest two.

If you ever think about rolling 5 dice, you probably shouldn’t. At that point the GM should just rule that the task succeeded or failed without requiring a die roll.

We can sum all that up in a nice table:

Your skill level vs opponent’s	Roll	Sum
Much greater	4d12	highest two
Greater	3d12	highest two
Equal	2d12	the two
Less	3d12	lowest two
Much less	4d12	lowest two

What if there’s no opponent?

There’s always an opponent, otherwise you wouldn’t be rolling. If you’re trying to cross a narrow ledge that spans a pit of lava, then the “narrowness” of the ledge is the opponent to your Agility skill. If the ledge has Narrowness(1) and you have Agility(0), then your skill is less than the opponents.

How does the GM determine the opponent’s skill level?

As a general rule of thumb, follow this chart:

Difficulty	Skill Level	Explanation
Easy	-1	A skill level 0 character succeeds 70-80% of the time
Moderate	0	A skill level 0 character succeeds 45-55% of the time
Hard	+1	A skill level 0 character succeeds 20-30% of the time

Which skill do I use?

In most cases, it should be obvious. If it’s a toss up, the GM should pick the one that favors the player.

The GM will normally pick the most obvious choice. You, as a player, should offer logical substitutes. The GM should consider your suggestion in a positive light as long as you’re respecting your character’s concept.

Example: “Swimming” is primarily an Athletics skill, but Wilderness Survival could be a fitting skill to use in its place is you’re trying to cross a dangerous river. So if a character has Athletics(0) and Wilderness Survival(1), I would allow it. On the other hand, if the character had Athletics(-1) and Wilderness Survival(0) I wouldn’t allow the substitution because the low Athletics score is a more fundamental aspect of the character than the default Wilderness Survival score.

Can I attempt a task if I don’t have the skill?

There’s no such thing as not having a skill. If the skill wasn’t taken during character creation, it defaults to level 0.

How many skills do I get?

You start with three skills at level 1, and two skills at level -1. You don’t even have to pick them before you start to play!

How do I improve my character?

Skill levels can be increased by spending XP:

• To improve a new skill, the cost is equal to the sum of all your existing positive skill levels plus the new level. Example: you have Fighting(2), Agility(2), and Burglary(1). It will cost you 7 XP to raise the Burglary to level 2.
• To add a new skill, the cost is equal to twice the sum of all your existing positive skill levels. Example: you have Fighting(2), Agility(2), Burglary(1), and Will-Power(-1). It will cost you 10 XP to add Medic(1).

Can I see a list of the skills?

Of course! These might change, though:

Agility

Useful for keeping your balance or quickly moving out of the way. Perhaps the most rewarding use of this skill is to make yourself harder to hit while being attacked, but also useful for tightrope walking, narrow ledges, log-rolling, etc. Can also be used to allow you to "catch yourself" from falling into a pit or other such hazard.

Aim

This is the general skill of being able to hit someone over there without going there to do it. Each type of aimed weapon is its own specialty.

Animal handling

This is the skill used to work with animals of all sorts. Each type of animal (horse, dog, cattle, etc.) is its own specialty, as are things like training, riding, etc.

Artist

The ability to make decorative or recognizable items. Specialties would include sculpture, painting, and drawing.

Athletics

This is the catchall skill that includes the physical skills not covered by other, more specific, skills. It includes things like running, jumping, and swimming.

Burglary

This is broad group of the skills used by ne'er-do-wells. Use it to bypassing security precautions in order to gain access to a building or container. You can also use it to move your hands quicker than the eye, maybe to pilfer small objects or pick pockets.

Carousing

This is a social skill, but differs from diplomacy in that carousing is mainly the skill of vices. It includes such dubious talents as drinking, seduction, and gambling.

Craftsman

The basic skill for converting raw materials into finished goods or for repairing broken items. Woodworkers, leather-workers, blacksmiths, silversmiths, and potters are all craftsmen. So are the members of the Hyperspace Engineering branch. This skill is specialized in making and repairing sound, functional items. For decorative items, you also need the Artist skill.

Diplomacy

This is the primary social skill of interacting with other people. Remember that not all diplomats are highbrow society; it can be argued that the most diplomatic are those who have to walk the mean streets every day.

Driving

All vehicles need their drivers, be they chariots, wagons, automobiles, tanks, or starships. Each vehicle type is a specialty.

Entertain

This is the ability to hold the attention of others. It includes things like acting, joke telling, singing, dancing, etc.

Fighting

This is the skill of hand-to-hand combat, be it with open fists or mighty swords. Each fighting *style* is its own specialty, thus "sword" is different from "sword and shield."

Health

It's not really a skill, but in game terms the distinction is moot. This "skill" is an overall measurement of your body's attempt to resist poisoning, to heal itself, etc. It can be improved through good diet and regular exercise rather than through study, but in games terms the advancement mechanic is identical.

Knowledge

A general skill that represents everything you know. Specialties could be any subject, such as chemistry, history, or geography.

Medic

This is the art of treating injuries, and diagnosing and treating illnesses. Its effectiveness is largely dependent on the technology employed.

Merchant

The skill of buying low and selling high. It is used for commercial transactions. Haggling, appraising, and marketing fall under this skill.

Observation

A measurement of a your general awareness of your surroundings. Each sense is its own specialty.

Sneaking

This is your ability to avoid being noticed. All sneaking rolls are resisted by the would-be observers' Observation skill. The sneaking character gets a bonus die if the would-be observer is not specifically looking (or listening, etc.) for a sneaky character.

Stamina

The ability to endure long periods of physical labor without stopping. The mental form of stamina is covered under Will Power.

Wilderness Survival

This is the skill of living in wilderness areas. It covers the basics of food, water, heat, and shelter. Each biome is a specialty

Will Power

Will power is the ability to sacrifice your short-term interest in favor of your long-term interest. This includes such things as enduring torture to protect your comrades, turning down a bribe, resisting seduction, and staying awake on guard duty. Unlike most skills, there are no specialties.

What about skills that aren’t on the list?

The list above represent broad categories of skill, so most skills should fit under one of the categories listed. There will be exceptions, though.

The way your GM should handle this depends on the “real world” situation. Let’s consider a skill called “Disguise.” You’ll notice that there’s not a disguise skill on the list. So how would we handle this?

• Situation 1: The Skill is a core component of the game’s genre. If you were playing in a campaign where the characters are all secret undercover agents for the government, then “Disguise” could very well belong in the game. In this case, the GM should add it to the list for that campaign.
• Situation 2: You want the skill the add depth or color to your character. Disguise isn’t part of a typical dungeon crawling fantasy, but it’s not a foreign concept either. If you think it would be cool to play a character with a disguise skill, you might just take #Master of Disguise as a label (called “Tags” in Clout).
• Situation 3: The need unexpectedly comes up during play. If you’ve been playing a campaign for a few months and your character decides to disguise himself, the GM could handle it in a couple of ways. The default way is simply to figure out which of the existing skills it would fall under; there could be arguments to place it under Artist, Burglary, Entertain, or Sneaking depending on the specifics of the situation. The second way is simply to declare that Disguise is its own skill and your character has it at level 0 (after all, you didn’t take it higher or lower during character creation).

What is a skill specialty?

The skills are rather broad categories of skills. People, however, tend to study small subsets of the broader skills. Such a “subset” is called a “specialty.” We denote a task’s specialty in braces after the skill name, such as Craftsman{Blacksmith}.

When a character takes a skill at level 1, he has no specialty. So if you take Craftsman(1), you have level 1 for Blacksmith and for Woodworking. Not very realistic, but it works for a game.

Once you raise a skill to level 2, you must choose a specialty. You only perform at your full capacity if the task at hand falls within this specialty. Other areas within that skill are at 1 level lower.

Example: You have the skill Craftsman{Blacksmith}(3). This means that you have an effective skill level of 3 when performing a blacksmithing task. If you were to attempt a Woodworking task, your effective skill would only be 2.

That’s it!

That’s it for now.

Let me know what you think.

I would particularly like some help with the skill list:

• Are their any glaring omissions?
• Do you see any skills that could be combined? I’m considering merging Burglary and Sneaking. Stamina and health seem similar as well.
• How about skills that could be removed? I’m thinking Artist (could easily be taken as a label). I’m on the fence with Craftsman—it’s marginal in fantasy, but needed in space opera type games.

One last question I have: Do I need to show the math for the XP costs to improve a skill?

History of the Astral Web, Part 3

This is the third in a series of articles covering the in-world history of the Astral Web. I originally wrote the history as 15 or so eras of history. Rather than make one long post, each era is getting its own post.

The Story so Far

In The First Step, mankind had terraformed Mars, and established settlements there.

In The Departure, mankind decided to send a million settlers to establish life around distant suns.

Left at Albuquerque¹

Somewhere deep in space, no one knows where it was for sure, but somewhere out there, something happened. Some scientists think that the fleet fell into a special rift known as a wormhole. Others think the fleet traveled too near the event horizon of a singularity.² The tabloid press theorizes that it was done on purpose … either by a conniving Earth command, or by aliens. Whatever the cause, the fleet was fragmented, and the crew were never revived until they were much farther from earth than anyone had ever dreamed.

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1. This section title was an homage to a running Bugs Bunny gag. In several cartoons Bugs will pop out of a hole in the ground in an unexpected place. He invariably looks at a map and says “I should have turned left at Albuquerque.”↩

2. In my mind, the fleet fell into a natural cascade of nexus points. I wrote it vague, though, so that other GM’s could make it whatever they wanted.↩

Initiative for U13, Take 2

Last week I talked about an initiative system for Unlucky 13. The solution was an attempt to use playing cards to mimik the token system from Troika. This week, I’m throwing that away.

Playtest Results

James read the post and agreed to help me playtest it. The playtest went well, but the chaos of the system could really work against the players. I like to encourage my players to take low stats, but the way the system penalizes a low speed character was (1) potentially deadly and more important (2) just boring/not fun for the player.

James and I brainstormed on some ways to improve it, and I walked away with a system that would work. But the more I thought about it, I really didn’t like adding a new mechanic to the game. U13 is based around d12 rolls. The cards seem foreign.

So I scrapped everything and went back to a system that I wrote long ago for Dekahedron.

The U13 Initiative System, Take 2

The new system is painfully simple: the first to attack is the first to declare their attack.

Consider the following example:

GM:	A troll stands before the bridge and bares his yellow teeth and says “You no pass unless you give me your gold!”
Player:	“I’ll give you 1 gold piece.”
GM:	“No! You give me ALL the gold!”
Player:	“I don’t think so my friend.”

If the next words spoken are the player saying “I run him through with my sword,” then the player gets the first attack. If, instead, the next words are the GM saying “The troll reaches out with his bony claws to attack you! Make a defense roll!” then it’s obvious that the troll moves first.

There’s no reason to make it more complicated than that, except…

What about speed?

What if the player is #Fast as lightning but the troll announced his attack first? The player still makes his defense roll, but he gets to apply his speed as a bonus die if he wishes. A successful defense simply means that troll’s action was detected by the player and the player gets to attack.

If the player is slower than the troll, then it would be a penalty factor instead.

Summary

This system feels more like U13. What do you think? Is it too simple?

I need to see if James will playtest it with me.

Initiative for U13

I was taking a break from the “Knoll” & “Astral Web” posts this week. This post was originally going to be “A Low Fantasy Combat in U13.” James was going to run a fighter through a combat with a skeleton so I could test the system, and I was going to let you know how it went.

It didn’t. It turns out that U13 doesn’t have an initiative system.

The “Unlucky 13” Gaming Engine (“U13” for short) combines elements of Clout and the Crowfield talent system. Because Crowfield assumes that there’s a D&D clone underneath it, that means that D&D’s DNA is a entwined within Crowfield’s.

That means I should be able to use the initiative system from Clout or D&D, right?

Nope.

Turns out that Clout doesn’t have an initiative system, either. But such a system wouldn’t make sense in Clout as it’s a “single roll combat” system: The player rolls once and that determines whether he hit the monster or vice versa.

Inspirations

RPGs have been around for about 50 years now. For pretty much any idea that I can come up with, I can be pretty sure that someone smarter than me has already done it. I’ve played enough games that I know that my thoughts are just evolutions of thoughts I came across before. Three games contributed to my solution.

Dungeons & Dragons

In older versions of D&D you determined initiative by rolling 1d6. In later editions you would add your dexterity modifier. While this is “boring,” it is simple and could easily be ported to U13.

Pros:

• Simple
• Matches U13 dice mechanics
• Roll20 compatible
• Allows some characters to be faster/slower than others
• Allows simultaneous actions

Cons:

• Rather boring and uninspired

Troika

I’ve never played Troika. In fact I never ever heard of it until a few days ago when it was mentioned in a podcast episode that I was listening to. In that game, each character/monster gets tokens that are put into a bag, box, or other container. Additionally an “end of turn” marker is also placed in the container. Tokens are pulled out of the container one by one, and the corresponding character gets to act. When the end of turn marker is drawn, the turn is over even if some players never got a move!

I like this system a lot. It adds variability. The random end of turn event makes combat feel that much faster and more furious. I’d love to use this system, except it does not translate into online play. There’s just no way to drawn tokens out on a bag if I’m playing on Roll20. I suppose that I could place tokens into a physical bag and tell the players what the result was, I prefer something that they can witness for themselves.

Pros:

• Interesting
• Allows some characters to be faster/slower than others

Cons:

• Not compatible with Roll20
• No simultaneous actions

Savage Worlds

Savage Worlds has a different initiative system. In that game each character is dealt a card from a standard poker deck. Characters then act in a weird sequence: play goes from high card to low card, except for “ones” which go first because counting is hard, I guess.¹ Also the system doesn’t allow simultaneous results, ruling that ties are settled buy some arbitrary sequence of suits.²

Because Savage Worlds was wildly popular a while back, Roll20 supports playing cards on the virtual tabletop.

Pros:

• Interesting
• Compatible with Roll20

Cons:

• No simultaneous actions
• All characters are equally fast/slow
• Poker theme seems out of place unless playing a wild west scenario.

The U13 Initiative System

I made a few systems, and experimented with them. In the end, this is what I came up with. It combines the systems above, and uses playing cards.

The first thing that you need to know is that characters in U13 might be #slow as molasses, or they might be #fast as lightning. Of course, most characters won’t be either.

1. Gather all the cards and shuffle the deck.
2. Deal one card to any combatant³ who is #fast as lightning.
3. If any combatants are neither #slow as molasses nor #fast as lightning, deal one card to those players and to those who are #fast as lightning.
4. If any combatant is #slow as molasses, then deal a card to every combatant. At this point every combatant should have one to three cards.
5. If any combatant received a Joker, deal that character two more cards and discard the Joker.
6. The combatant holding the highest card discards that card and can make a move.
   1. If there’s a tie, all the tied combatants are considered to act simultaneously.
   2. If a combatant holds multiple of the highest card (e.g. two kings), he can act twice.
7. If everyone has moved, this turn is over. Start the next turn (go to step 1).
8. The GM draws a card and places it on the table face up. This is called the action card.
   1. The combatant holding the highest card that is higher than the action card discards that card and can make a move.
   2. If no one has a card higher than the action card, this turn is over. Start the next turn (go to step 1).
9. Go to step 7.

Summary

So that’s the system. It’s more difficult to explain than it is to run. I like that you can never be sure if you’ll get a turn, yet fast character do have a better chance. It needs some playtesting, but from what I can tell so far, it has these pros and cons:

Pros:

• Interesting
• Compatible with Roll20
• Allows some characters to be faster/slower than others
• Allows simultaneous actions

Cons:

• Doesn’t match the U13 dice mechanics
• Cards might be weird, but they could be replaced with d12.

What do you think? Is it too complicated? Do you have a better mechanic?

I plan on writing an example in a future post, but for now this post is long enough.

UPDATE: This system didn't survive playtest. It has been replaced. You can read the new system here.

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1. Actually I think this has something to do with poker, but I’ve never played that game.↩

2. Maybe this is a poker thing too?↩

3. If the characters are facing many enemies it will probably make sense to group some of all of the enemies together.↩

History of the Astral Web, Part 2

This is the second in a series of articles covering the in-world history of the Astral Web. I originally wrote the history as 15 or so eras of history. Rather than make one long post, each era is getting its own post.

The Story so Far

In The First Step, mankind had terraformed Mars, and established settlements there.

The Departure

Scarred by eons of human abuse, Earth was on the brink of ecological collapse.¹ Encouraged by their success on Mars, UNICO began work on two new projects. Firstly, the long, difficult task of terraforming Venus was initiated. Secondly, work was started on a much more ambitious project: interstellar colonization.

A caravan of one-thousand sleeper ships was built, designed to carry one million colonists² across the universe at slower-than-light speeds. Along with the colonists, the vessels carried the terraforming and settlement equipment needed to tame almost any hostile world.

The ships were programmed with powerful computers and sophisticated sensors. The equally sophisticated auto-pilot was programmed on a course that would take the flotilla past at least a dozen systems. The computers were programmed to awaken the terraforming crew when the sensors detected a prospective planet.³

The construction of a thousand vessels was by no means an easy task. While there were problems and issues, none were severe and the flotilla was completed merely three years behind schedule.⁴ Three weeks⁵ after lift-off the command crew of each vessel switched on the auto-pilot, and entered the freeze tubes.

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1. In the original version, this was just “To further alleviate Earth’s overcrowding…”↩

2. I picked a million because I’m always afraid that too small of a number will lead to inbreeding issues.↩

3. In my old notes this section ended here, and the next paragraph was part of the next epoch. That’s clearly wrong, however, as the next paragraph is clearly the departure itself.↩

4. Originally I had the ships being built on Earth and launched into space. I think it’s more logical to imagine that the ships would have been assembled in space. Also, the ships were originally built “without a hitch.” It seems any project this large will have it’s share of issues, so I updated the text to reflect that.↩

5. This was originally “three days,” but that seemed too short.↩

Knoll of the Dead: Atmosphere, Hazards, & Random Encounters

Last week was about The Astral Web, so we’re back to the Knoll of the Dead this week.

This post is about the general atmosphere, hazards, and random encounters within the knoll. All these are meant to give the knoll a spooky and dangerous feel.

General Atmosphere

The lair is a knoll of dead, twisted, thorny vines that reeks of decaying flesh. The thorns drip a thick, black “sap.” The vines constantly rustle with (un)life. Looking into the vines will reveal (roll 1d4):

1. 1d3 skeletal rats scurrying in the vine.
2. Same as above, but zombie instead of skeleton.
3. A skeletal songbird building a nest.
4. A zombie songbird groaning.

Hazards

Reaching into the vines runs the risk of being scratched by the thorns. Make a Dex save (add armor bonus) to avoid all damage. If the save is failed, the character takes 1d6 hp damage from the poisonous sap (save for half damage).

Burning the vines produces a poisonous smoke that causes 1d6 hp damage every turn a character is exposed (save for half each turn).

Random Encounters

Every turn that the characters are in (or adjacent to) the knoll, the DM will roll 1d6. If the party splits up, each sub-group will get its own roll. On a “1” the group will encounter a wandering monster. Roll 1d8:

1. Noise from the walls/ceiling. Roll on the noise table above.
2. Zombie/skeletal bird flies past the characters (it won’t attack).
3. Human footprints (bare feet).
4. Spray of black, poisonous sap falls onto a character. If the character has an open wound, take 1d4 points of damage (save for half), otherwise symptoms will resemble a really bad case of poison ivy.
5. 1d3 live/zombie/skeletal (determine randomly) giant rats.
6. Skeletal/zombie fox (1d6-1 hp).
7. Skeletal wolf (1 HD).
8. Zombie boar (2 HD).

Conclusion

That’s it for this post. Next time will probably be the specs for the monsters.

Note that this is part of an ongoing series. If you’re interested in the the previous posts:

• Part 1 was a play report of the players who went through the knoll.
• Part 2 was the map of the Knoll.
• Part 3 was an overview of the adventure.

See you next time!

History of the Astral Web, Part 1

The next series of articles are going to cover the in-world history of the Astral Web. It’s just a really high level overview. I’ve always been turned off by campaign settings with hundreds of pages of background, so I was avoiding that when I wrote this. I always imagined that this was written in-world as a struggling middle school student’s essay because she was desperate for extra-credit to pass history class.

I originally wrote this history as 15 or so eras of history. Rather than give a huge post, I’m going to post each era on its own.

The first bit starts in the near future…

The First Step

In the late¹ 21st Century mankind achieved success in its first experimental terraforming project on the planet Mars. For the first time in his history, man could now live in relative comfort away from Earth, his home planet.

It was originally estimated that the Mars project would take almost a century to complete, but widespread scientific and popular interest resulted in an explosion of available resources. In the end, the planet was livable in less than half the expected time. For many the project was not completed soon enough. UNICO, the United Nations' Interplanetary Colonization Organization,² was flooded with applications from families desperate to leave an over-crowded Earth for life on a new, spacious frontier. Twenty million applications were approved, but over ten times that many were rejected.

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1. This originally said the “mid 21st Century.” I wrote that nearly 30 years ago, and we’re no closer to Mars than we were then. I guess I need to give humanity some extra time.↩

2. I bothered to make sure this organization had a pronounceable acronym. Counting this one mention, the acronym is only used one other time. The name is never used again.↩

Knoll of the Dead: Adventure Overview

About a month ago, I started a series for “The Knoll of the Dead.” Then I went on vacation. I didn’t bring my notes to Alaska with me, so I started a new series about The Astral Web instead.

Now that I’m back, I have a quandry. Do I interupt the Astral Web series to return to the interupted Knoll series? Or do I leave the Knoll series interupted for months until the Astral Web series is complete?

I decided to split the difference. I’m going to “interleave” the two series. Last week was Astral Web, this week will be Knoll of the Dead, then next week will be Astral Web, etc.

The series so far

Part 1 was a play report of the players who went through the knoll.

Part 2 was the map of the Knoll.

Adventure Overview

This was designed as a one-shot introductory adventure. As such the back story is intentionally simplistic and lame. This isn’t Shakespeare.

The “hook” is that the characters can’t get food from their local pub because the barkeep hasn’t received his shipment of “land fish.”¹ He offers the players a small reward to return with the shipment.

This leads to Bomo’s[^bomo] Land Fish Ranch. There they meet the halfling Bomo and learn that his stock of Land Fish is being eaten by foxes. The foxes are really undead animals. The characters will have their first encounter here, and follow or track one of the foxes back to its lair.

Here the players should eventually encounter Edrick, a level 3 necromantic druid hermit. Edrick has been sending his undead woodland creations out to fetch food for him. Edrick is quite mad, however, and the amount of food being returned is far more than he’ll ever need.

Like I said, this isn’t Shakespeare.

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1. Land fish are just chickens. The trick is to never call them anything other than "Land Fish." When the players ask what they look like, describe them like you would describe a chicken to someone that’s never seen a bird before, but use the word “scales” instead of “feathers” and “fins” instead of “wings.” If the players don’t get it, they’ll think its something weird and novel; if they do, they’ll chuckle at the joke.↩

Why the Astral Web is "Fake" & "Flat"

Last week I mentioned that I had hoped that a community would form around the Astral Web, but it never generated any interest. What I didn't mention is that a few people did email me. In my eagerness to build a community I felt that I had to incorporate all their ideas into the project, and that was a critical mistake.

One comment was something like “Why are there no aliens? I find that games without aliens are just about human issues in space.” This guy felt that we needed a multi-species society, so I spent time developing some more alien races.¹ They weren’t bad², but they changed the feel of the setting.

Another comment was “Why are you using a made up map? You can just use the Gliese Catalogue.” I set out to redo the map to match the real universe’s stars. This destroyed the setting.

I pointed out before that too much “color” is bad for a game. The flip side of the coin is also true: too much realism is bad for a game. Indeed, there is a common sentiment amongst gamers about the futility of arguing about realism in a game where your wizard is attacking a dragon.

Reason #1: Space is Big

According to the Gliese Catalogue, there are over 3,500 stars within 25 parsecs of Earth. I don’t want the “universe” to be that big. I have several reason for this:

• It’s too unwieldy.
• It’s too much information for GMs to keep track of.
• It’s too much for me to write.
• It makes the “this is the only planet with eludium on it” plot device less believable.

For these reasons, I think it is best to abandon the real stars and go back to using a few handfuls of made up ones.

Reason #2: Paper is Flat

Space exists in three dimensions, but the printed page is only two. This isn’t insurmountable. Gamers far smarter than I came up with three dimensional star maps long ago. They tend to look something like this:

A sample "3D" map showing three planets

The numbers in parenthesis represent how far above or below the star is from the “galactic plane.” In the sample above, the star Pinto is 2 parsecs³ below the galactic plane, and the star Badger is 4 parsecs above the galactic plane.

But what if there was another star at the same X and Y coordinates as Badger, but located 2 parsecs beneath it? I can think of several ways to display that on the map, but things get messy.

Reason #3: Too Much Math

In space games you often need to worry about how much fuel it takes to move from system to system. Typically, the further apart two worlds are, the more fuel it will take.

Using the original Astral Web mapping technique (shown in last week’s post), the distance is simply the number of jumps it takes to get from World A to World B (with each connecting line being a single jump).

Using the three dimensional map above, the distance is calculated using math:

So, if the players are at Mongold (coordinates +1, -2, -3) and want to travel to Pinto (coordinates +1, -1, -2), but only have 4 parsecs of fuel, can they make it? To find out, they have to perform to following:

So from Mongold to Pinto is 3.74 parsecs. They can make it. But, in my opinion, it took too much work to figure that out. Worse yet, imagine the situation where the players didn’t have enough fuel to make the trip, so they have to pick another destination and recalculate.

I don’t think a gaming session should resemble geometry homework.

Reason #4: Counter-Intuitive Maps

You might argue that the players would just look at the map and pick a closer destination. In the map above, Mongold and Pinto are shown far apart, but Badger is shown right next to Mongold. But let’s do the Mongold to Badger math:

So Mongold to Badger is 7.07 parsecs.

On the map, the Pinto "dot" is 3.6 times further away from the Mongold "dot" than the Badger "dot" is, yet the Badger system is almost twice as far.  If you can’t look at a map a determine the distance easily, is the map really useful?

Summary

For those reasons I like the original Astral Web system better. It’s not nearly as realistic, but for my gaming style it is way more playable.

With a sufficient in-game rationale (that I’ll share in a future post), the lack of realism can be hand-waved. It won’t stand up to scientific scrutiny, but it will be enough to make the game universe internally consistent and let the players suspend disbelief.

That’s my hope at least. What do you think?

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1. The Astral Web has always had an alien species called the Miltrani, but they were shadowy foes from history and a spooky threat for the future.↩

2. I particularly liked the Arth–my race of noble warriors who are physically weak and brittle.↩

3. I’m using parsecs for these examples. It could be light years, sectors, megaflumps, or whatever.↩