Rules Hacking: Combat, Reach, Facing, and Areas of Control

I've been working on my FATE-inspired fantasy rules project, and got to thinking about combat yesterday. The ideas I was having were a bit too crunchy for my current project, but they should work as a tweak to d20-based games, 4e, or other games that use a similar minis set-up.

The basic idea is that everyone has an Area of Control (AoC). This replaces reach, attacks of opportunity/opportunity attacks, flanking, and a few other things. The basic AoC looks like this:

The space taken up by the creature (G) is green. The AoC is blue.

• G gets a free attack on anyone moving out of a blue square.
• A melee attack on G from anywhere outside of a blue square is at +1. An adjacent attack on G from anywhere outside of a blue square is at +2. This replaces flanking.
  
• Reach weapons change a characters AoC dramatically. A longspear, for instance, might give a character an AoC like this:

• A character can change the orientation of their AoC on their initiative.
• A flat-footed character has no AoC.
• Large+ creatures can have uniquely shaped AoC (and take up non-square spaces) to reflect their physiology and abilities.
  
• Feat ideas:
  
  • Most feats building off of flanking, reach, etc. will have obvious correlates.
  • Allow a character to change the orientation of their AoC as an immediate action in response to a successful attack.
  • Allow a flatfooted character to have an AoC of one adjacent 5' square.
  • Allow a character to treat one extra square adjacent to them as part of their AoC.
    
  
  

Using Google Wave for RPGs

I just got my Google Wave invitation today.

Is anyone thinking about ways of using it related to gaming? I can think of some possible uses. Using it to run online games is obvious. There is even already a dice-rolly-thing. For people (like me) who prefer to play around a real table, it would still be a great way to record campaign notes and session write-ups. It would also be a great tool for collaborative campaign/setting design.

Any other ideas?

Thoughts about Swords and Sorcery

I've never been a huge fan of Conan. It isn't so much the idea of the setting, but Howard's writing style. I'm not a fan of the florid prose of that age. I'm not a big Lovecraft fan for much the same reason.

That said, I do like a lot of the implicit ideas in the Hyborean/Cthulhu mythos. The idea of ancient things from an incomprehensible beyond... the idea that learning about such things can lead you down a spiral of power and madness. That's good stuff. Also good is the idea that most monsters are human in origin.

Things I'm not as much a fan of that are typically included in such settings include social darwinism and rampant misogyny. Also, while I love the idea of madness and things from beyond reality being a source of magic, I have issues with them being the only such sources. There should be mysteries of the light as well as the dark... and it should sometimes be hard to discern between the two.

I think it would be awesome if there was a RPG setting that strongly supported playing a character who began by studying natural magic, but could be seduced to madness. This might include things such as herbalism, but it would also include the magical/natural laws that govern the powers of the unicorn and dragon. A natural mage could gain considerable power by harnessing these forces. Still, by studying them, he'd find inconsistencies... ways that the natural laws governing magic can be broken. Cheated. Exploiting these could expand his power. Doing so a small amount may not be harmful. Learning more, though, whether through texts of those who have studied such things extensively or through entreating entities that break such laws regularly, would be increasingly more dangerous to ones sanity.

I don't remember anything that really splits the difference in this way between your typical fantasy RPG and S&S-style power=madness. If you know of something, please let me know.

Natural or Monstrous?

In your favorite fantasy game, is there a difference between animal and monster? If so, why?

One thing that bothered me about some versions of D&D is just that distinction. Druids, for instance, could speak with animals. Could they speak with Owlbears? Displacer Beasts? Stirges? My understanding was that they generally could not... because these were monsters rather than animals.

There are (at least) two things that I can think of that might validly differentiate between monster and animal:

1. Intelligence and instinct: Animals are ruled by instinct, are possessed of sub-human intelligence, and are generally incapable of using language. Monsters violate at least one of these. They might have cruel natures that are malevolent rather than instinctual.
2. Origin: Animals evolved or were created in a process (possibly divine) that ensured they would be in harmony with the natural world. Monsters violate the natural order. They might be from another plane of existence where the laws of nature are different. They might be the result of magical experimentation. They might be the creation of a malevolent god.

In D&D, though, the main distinction seems to be that animals are things which exist (or, maybe, could exist) in the real world, while monsters aren't. Given a point of view within the game world, though, this makes no sense. How is a druid supposed to know that stirges don't exist in the real world? On what basis does he judge it unnatural?

Shadowrunning the Dungeon

I've only played Shadowrun a few times. Most of them have been with the same group of people. Our playstyle focused upon extensive recon and planning, and - while that style of game might annoy some people - I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Yesterday, I got to thinking about how that playstyle could be merged with a dungeon crawl. It doesn't seem that far off. Many Shadowrun adventures involve breaking into and stealing things from office buildings, factories, warehouses, or mansions. Those aren't that different from dungeons, are they?

Well, sort of.

In published adventures, dungeons tend to be closed systems (or close to it). They don't do a lot of business with the outside. They don't receive deliveries. The inhabitants don't all go out to lunch on reliable schedules, much less go home at night. There aren't phone lines, power lines, or data lines that can be tapped into and monitored. They often aren't visible from surrounding building - or even the air. There are very few ways to gather effective intelligence on them.

Moreover, characters going into the dungeon generally have a "clear it out" mentality. Even if they've been hired to retrieve something specific from the dungeon, the genre conventions suggest that the real reward they receive will be from killing the dungeon inhabitants and taking their stuff. In Shadowrun, the monetary reward that Mr. Johnson was offering was usually enough to motivate us. There was a job to do. We go in, do it, and get out. If we happened to see something shiny on the way and grab it, that was gravy.

For this style of play would work with a dungeon, we'd, therefore, need:

• Multiple possible methods of gathering intelligence on the dungeon. Tavern rumors don't really cut it.
  
• A specific goal within the dungeon.
• Motivation to complete that goal that, on its own, makes the dungeon delve worthwhile.

These aren't things that the typical dungeon adventure has, but they could be.

After Hiatus

Today was my first gaming session in almost two months. It was good.

Angela and I joined a game that an old friend of mine has been running once a month or so. The system is First Edition AD&D, more or less. Definitely not my first choice for a system. Incoherent and random.

The game premise: all the PCs are amnesiac extraplanar semi-humans. They are running around somewhere near the Temple of Elemental Evil (and might come across it). I was told that the game included a Satyr Kensai, a Half-Dragon Cleric, a Wemic Ranger, a Half-Pixie Thief, and a seemingly-human Monk. A former character was, apparently, a centaur whose hindquarters were those of a Nightmare. I was challenged to come up with something sufficiently weird. I settled on a Half-Slaad Psionicist. Angela decided on a Dire Corby Thief.

The game was not precisely serious. That was perfectly fine by me.

Alchemists in RPGs

There are few fantasy RPGs that have a really interesting way of playing an alchemist. Most of them require a tremendous amount of forethought and bean-counting as you buy and construct your alchemical creations ahead of time. D&D is among the most egregious of these.

I like the idea of playing an alchemist, but that's not the way I want to play it.

Here's the sort of alchemist I want to play: