So I'm looking to pick up the Pirate themed Dungeon World game I ran a while ago
It was mostly a great success, but I found myself underwhelmed with a couple of the base rules, like Hack and Slash
They weren't really capturing the swashbuckling vibe I was hoping for, so I made a new rule, appropriately called Swash and Buckle, and I wanted to share it for criticism.
Swash and Buckle
When engaged with an enemy in a melee,
roll 2d6 + Str. On a 10+, gain 2 hold. On a 7-9, gain 1 hold. Hold is spent to achieve the actions below:
-Deal damage to your foe.
-Avoid taking damage.
-Relocate the fight.
-Disarm your opponent.
These four options hit a sweet spot, I think, of variety without any of them being mutually exclusive. So far the only problem I see is that maybe I'll have to retool combat scenarios so that it's against a handful of named, tough opponents vs a bunch of faceless kobolds, but honestly that feels more like Dungeon World anyway
Technical nit: it seems like you want all these things to happen right away as a result of move resolution, so you should be using "choose" rather than "get/spend hold".
Balance nit: seize by force in AW is pick 3/pick 2, and assumes a damage exchange, using do more/take less rather than do/dodge. I can't see a reason not to just go pick 3/pick 2 with the same caveats.
I should ask, though. If you don't relocate the fight, is it assumed it'll get relocated somewhere detrimental, or does it stay where it is?
I was thinking the fight would stay where it was, but it would be more in line with the other options if that weren't the case, huh? And in that case I don't have to be worried about giving players the choice of 3, since mostly it's just doing damage and avoiding damage.
Or is your suggestion to make it less "do damage, don't get hit" and more "do more damage or take less?"
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
It's kind of weird to have to spend one of your options on dealing damage. Dealing damage should be an automatic result of a 7+, I would say.
Also I'm kind of wondering how disarming your foe works in Dungeon World. Like, that doesn't seem to be that big a deal in a system that isn't based around weapon damage.
It's kind of weird to have to spend one of your options on dealing damage. Dealing damage should be an automatic result of a 7+, I would say.
Also I'm kind of wondering how disarming your foe works in Dungeon World. Like, that doesn't seem to be that big a deal in a system that isn't based around weapon damage.
I was wondering something similar with damage, if it shouldn't just be incorporated into the move by default on a 7+, like you said.
As for disarming, you would at least lose the tags, so an enemy with a spear would go from far to close, that kind of thing
What sort of suggestions would you have to make Dungeon World combat more swashbuckly?
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Enemies can still depend on weapons to deal damage, only PCs are immune to that. Not to mention fictional positioning.
Enemies can still depend on weapons to deal damage, only PCs are immune to that. Not to mention fictional positioning.
That's true, yeah, so nevermind that.
Although honestly I don't think I'd change the Dungeon World combat as is? Like, I get that hack and slash would seem kind of not-swashbuckling, but I just wouldn't use hack and slash then? Like, if you want to disarm your enemy, then don't hack and slash them - that's a defy danger (STR or DEX depending).
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited September 2017
If we're being completely honest I wouldn't use Dungeon World as the basis for a hack; it's too built on the tropes of classic D&D.
But I do think it's correct to tweak Hack and Slash to fit how you want standard combat to flow; D&D combat is based on exchanging damage, so HnS is built for that. Swashbuckling combat is based on big positioning moves and dramatic actions, so you should build your standard combat move on that.
My complaint with hack and slash is that I want something that mimics the back and forth action of like, an Errol Flynn movie, and I just don't get that from Hack and Slash
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Hmm, alright. So if we're looking at fencing for an inspiration, we're going for that kind of back and forth combat with very few actual hits, yes?
Rather than hack and slash, I'm going to look at one of the social moves from Monsterhearts. This may seem like a weird leap, but trust me on this.
Shut Someone Down
When you shut someone down, roll with Cold. On a 10 up, choose one from below. On a 7-9, choose one from below, but you come across poorly, and they give you a Condition in return.
They lose a String on you
If they have no Strings on you, gain one on them
They gain a Condition
You take 1 Forward
Alright, so shutting someone down is based around hurting someone emotionally, not physically, but I think it might be a good setup for how you want to handle a duel. Giving people conditions could easily encompass disarmed, off-balance, or whatever, and strings could be pulled pretty much the same as over there as well.
Pulling Strings
When you spend a String on someone, choose one:
Tempt them to do what you want
Give them a Condition
Add 1 to your roll against them
Add 1 to the harm you deal them
I'd ditch the first one there, but everything else seems good. So what I'm essentially saying is create two new moves, either to supplement hack and slash (there may still be times that you want to use that) or completely replace it). Here's the rough draft that I would have for each.
Cross Blades
When you cross blades, roll+STR. On a 10 up, choose one from below, on a 7-9, choose one from below, but your maneuver leaves you off balance, and they give you a Condition in return.
They lose an Opening on you
If they have no Openings on you, gain one on them
You take 1 Forward
Taking the Opening
When you spend at least one Opening you have on someone, choose one for each Opening spent:
Deal your damage to them.
Give them a Condition
Add 1 to your roll against them
Add +1d6 to the damage you deal them
You might want to work with less swingy harm for this - rather than rolling a d10, know that you do 6 harm, and therefore you can kind of know based on who you're fighting how much damage you're going to do and how many openings you need to acquire before making your move.
I actually disagree that Hack & Slash doesn't--or can't, at least--feel swashbuckle-y, at least in my experience.
I think the main thing to remember with H&S is "the enemy's attack" doesn't necessarily deal damage, it's just a hit. Most of the time that can mean damage, but using the other GM and monster moves from time to time means you're regularly forcing the players to switch up their plans, move from place to place, take advantage of the scenery, and so on. If you're regularly disarming them, or setting the room on fire, or separating party members so their teammates have to rush to the rescue (or they have to fight their way out), that's a proper Errol Flynn swordfight setpiece.
This conversation has been really helpful! Thanks folks!
And, like, don't be afraid to switch things up either. If fighting on two ships lashed together by boarding grapnels is going to be a thing, but not the whole of the thing, and dramatic single combat with the enemy captain is also going to be a thing, but not the whole of the thing, there's nothing that says there has to be only one way to fight someone in a fight.
1. The individual hosting our game tonight is cat-sitting for a friend, so the tomcat named Asahi is hanging out with us and he is just the cuddliest cuddlebug.
2. The person hosting our game has pulled the best prank ever: Skittles mixed in with M&M's. He calls them S&M's.
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
1. The individual hosting our game tonight is cat-sitting for a friend, so the tomcat named Asahi is hanging out with us and he is just the cuddliest cuddlebug.
2. The person hosting our game has pulled the best prank ever: Skittles mixed in with M&M's. He calls them S&M's.
Stealing this, btw.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
New Humble RPG bundle is WFRP1e+2e+24 supplements for $20.
Didn't get to run my Flood game this weekend, and Noir Shan Fan edition is pending me setting a date with the players.
However I did get to start my roll20 game of Deadlands and it was rollicking.
The snake oil salesman had out talk a rival that was trying to set up shop in town, the Jaegar from another land picked off a couple outlaws that tried to disrupt the proceedings, and the huckster and houngan were happy to drink and complain until there was healing and stunning to do.
Next time, we'll see if they ride after the surviving outlaws or decide to take the baited fortune teller in the saloon which will lead to a zombie infested mine.
I'm quite pleased with getting use out of all this stored up ridiculousness.
Matev on
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
My group have posited that they may be interested in rebooting Ars Magica instead of moving to Rogue Trader
It's like they don't realise the work involved in going into my Rogue Trader plot and deleting every instance of the word "space" which was entered when converting it from Ars Magica in the first place
[Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
My group have posited that they may be interested in rebooting Ars Magica instead of moving to Rogue Trader
It's like they don't realise the work involved in going into my Rogue Trader plot and deleting every instance of the word "space" which was entered when converting it from Ars Magica in the first place
Space jingle all the way
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
So I keep having a particular idea for a forum game of being the support crew for an F-Zero/Redline style sci-fi racing league. With teams of three playing the Team Leader (who controls sponsorships and the money and as a result has some control over everything but actual control over nothing), the manager (who sets a balance between training and PR appearances for the teams racer) and the mechanic (who installs gear into the teams car and repairs damage from previous events, usually on a time schedule that's never got enough slack to do both).
The general format for a week would be 6 days of casual discussion and stuff over options (with maybe some mostly flavour events/news about the prep and universe) with the 7th day being race day where all the orders are fully locked in and everyone awaits the result.
Main issue I keep running into is like, a resolution system that isn't me rolling twenty opposed tests each race behind the scenes to create a passable narrative but which still leaves room for the various player's spheres of influences to matter and be pressed (IE Manager needs hype and training to play in, engineer means gear and car damage needs to happen on some level). This is not helped by the fact that I can't even find an RPG that approaches racing as a thing, let alone as a focus.
I've got another session of my new Infinity RPG campaign today! We did character gen last time which was something like 6 hours of stuff but it was all super fun and resulted in a pretty kooky looking group of characters that I think will be a blast to run a campaign for.
Today we're doing the intro scenario that came with the kickstarter package- mostly because I've been investing my creative juices in the meatier stuff that will come after to give myself some more time to flesh the campaign story out. It also just looks really fun anyway.
I got really really excited last night when one of my players (who is another games writer) sent me a little backstory bit on his character and all the events that happened to him during character gen:
Lucius “Jimmy” Webber
- Born to a small family of white-collar workers aboard the anarchic Worldship Bakunin.
- By any other standard, the Webber family was slightly conservative with strong family and work ethic; compared to the neo-liberalism of most Bakunin sects, their conservatism was considered “rebellious” and backwards.
- Webbers believed strongly in naturalism (anti body-augments), and the clear division of organism and mechanism. (Not to be considered anti-tech; quite the opposite, the Webber’s encouraged a highly advanced implementation of all tech. Just - firmly outside of the body when possible.)
- [Family Secret Trait] As a child, Lucius discovered one of his fathers is not an orbit-born Nomad, but fled his homeworld to Bakunin. To this day, he will not tell Lucius what he ran from.
- Lucius’ moderate affinity for engineering meant he was fast tracked through the orbital engineering school track, with the intent on becoming a Bakunin engineer
- As a teenager, Lucius becomes enamoured with racing, particularly keeping up with the You Jing culture of Bosozoku.
- [Powerful Friend Trait] Lucius chanced to meet a dealer scouting Praxis for racing mods to take back to his clients; although Lucius doesn’t have access to the Black Labs like the client wants, he’s able to fashion a (questionably) similar imitation for a fraction of the price. This dealer and his client become the basis of Lucius’ sideline in modding lifestyle and racing vehicles for the next fifteen years.
- Unexpectedly, Lucius signs up to join an interstellar engineering corp at the age of 19 and leaves Bakunin. Although moderately successful at orbital training and having a knack for modifications, the Chief Engineer is a true Bakunin anarch, and takes offence at Lucius’ distate of body modification. Lucius therefore becomes a “Jimmy”, a squad of the lowest ranking mechanics on the crew. Lucius will keep the name Jimmy for the rest of his life, long after he leaves this crew behind.
- [Natural Disaster Ship Crew Career] While attending to the repair of an orbital Commercial Mission station (where he met Nana Moon, Sarah’s character), the station is hit by a freak rogue body anomaly. Lucius is piloting one of the evacuation shuttles, and his craft is hit while attempting to go back for stranded survivors.
- [Nightmares Trait] Lucius struggles to rid himself of the horrors of being in the midst of the anomaly and suffers from recurring nightmares. These are enough for him to quit the engineering corp and his perpetual life in space.
- [Mudhopper Trait, Transferred Technician Career] He hops from planet to planet, trying to find a home, but is never satisfied. He finds himself missing the anarchy and neon of Bakunin, but also feels like he can’t really go back. He spends his time as a freelance mechanic, delivery driver, vehicle modder and bot designer.
- [Cube Echoes Trait] For no apparent reason (yeah right), Lucius’ Cube undergoes a seemingly minor malfunction. However, the malfunction gains in complexity as it results in continued “feedback” loops with his sensory recordings, resulting in severe cases of deja vu. At the height of an attack, Lucius can lose his sense of time, and will find himself in a state reviewing events and sensations from the previous dozen seconds, minutes or even days - at times, he’s even convinced he may not have yet even experienced the sensations his Cube is telling him he’s recorded, like some sort of primitive precognition.
- [Geist] Unable to earn the scratch to buy a new Cube, and not having the means or intent to ask his Powerful Friend for help, he’s instead band-aiding his situation with the cube. He’s retrained his geist, Caduceus, as a cognitive behavioural assistant, to aid in preventing further psychological damage from his malfunctioning cube and nightmares. (It’s a self-care buddy!) Additionally, Caduceus acts as a high-functioning probability and systems analysis tool - Lucius is essentially outsourcing the analysis of all of his sensory input and observation, which then gets fed back to him as advice from Caduceus, from tricky engineering solutions to the quickest getaway routes. In line with his naturalist beliefs, Caduceus is completely decoupled from Lucius’ Silk and is instead hosted inside of his Tinbot.
Aside from Jimmy we also have:
Nana Moon, a career diplomat for O-12 who had an accidental doppleganger created from an old cube who promptly vanished and is out there... somewhere
"Twitch", a spec-ops turned orgcrime bodyguard and occasional hitman
Gâu, an unusual Dogface whose feral form looks more like a St. Bernard than the usual wolf-like creature.
and the 5th character isn't named yet as far as I know, but he's a botanist turned orgcrime hacker after he was framed, imprisoned for 4 years and fired from every job he tried after getting out.
Thanks to the recent Humble Bundle, my group are now playing WFRP. Now I don't have to carry physical books around, and I have the Paths of the Damned campaign I can run.
I got an invite to a Star Trek adventures game. I asked the GM what we are likely missing crew wise. He said there is currently no one filling in as First Officer, Chief Science officer, or counselor. I rolled up a candidate for XO and for Science Officer, not sure if I will do counselor, I like both of these guys a lot.
I randomed a bit for the XO and ended up with a Betazoid with and Artistic and Creative background. STA lets you accept or rebel to your background for different stats, so I went rebel and decided that unlike the typical mindful, peaceful members of their race, Kalos is a lot more rough and tumble. He went up through the Security section of Starfleet but has now taken his first posting as a First Officer. While not afraid of a confrontation, he prefers to try and keeps things peaceful, using his telepathy and presence to defuse fights before they start.
The science officer is a Trill named Joran Cela. He has Joined a symbiont because if I'm going to play a Trill, I'm going to do it all the way. Joran was born and raised on a science station, and would have happily stayed there all his life, studying a local warp phenomenon. However, he was the only candidate for joining Cela, a symbiont bonded to a mortally wounded Trill who fled to their station. Cela, being a being of greater lifespan, wants to get out and experience it all. Together, they end up at Starfleet Academy in the Science track. Joran finds that he likes getting out and working with new people, and thrives during his training and first few postings.
Character creation is great fun, I could do it a few more times, but just choosing between these two is already going to be tough.
So I keep having a particular idea for a forum game of being the support crew for an F-Zero/Redline style sci-fi racing league.
Kingdom might be useful here. It's a game with three different roles; powers make decisions at crossroads, perspectives make true predictions about the results, touchstones make the call on how close the decision brings things to crisis. Players are meant to switch roles, even tactically during decisions, but switching means abandoning everything you've done before. You could run a game for more than three that way, if you preferred more RP than mechanics.
So I keep having a particular idea for a forum game of being the support crew for an F-Zero/Redline style sci-fi racing league.
A cool idea.
I'd expect you need to create randomization factors such as pilot skill, course, and happenstance. Team "Owner" should control the purse and have some bidding function on things like pilots, machines, or venue. Sponsorships come with benefits (more money, better parts) at a cost (worse parts, less money, pilot's training time is eaten by PR)
It's a little F-Zero, a little Fantasy Football, just missing a bit of it factor to set it off.
There are ways to do it, but you'd need a couple bodies to help. Personally I wouldn't mind something to keep my occupied between actual work at work.
EDIT; oh! To keep folks engaged during the week, training and other actions update daily, so you can adjust strategy on the fly (unless you opt for multi-day regimens/press tours, which have their own advantages) until you hit race day and see who's quick, and who's roadkill.
Matev on
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Tabletop thread maybe you can help me out. What was the name of the game that FATT played for their counter/weight finale? That allowed for the dueling scene between Aria and Cass? It sounds very interesting when I listened and would like to investigate it further
Tabletop thread maybe you can help me out. What was the name of the game that FATT played for their counter/weight finale? That allowed for the dueling scene between Aria and Cass? It sounds very interesting when I listened and would like to investigate it further
They used to have a page for their players bios, the music, and the game systems they played, but that all seems to be missing at the moment.
I can't recall the exact name of it, but they probably mention it at the beginning of C/W 41
I got an invite to a Star Trek adventures game. I asked the GM what we are likely missing crew wise. He said there is currently no one filling in as First Officer, Chief Science officer, or counselor. I rolled up a candidate for XO and for Science Officer, not sure if I will do counselor, I like both of these guys a lot.
I randomed a bit for the XO and ended up with a Betazoid with and Artistic and Creative background. STA lets you accept or rebel to your background for different stats, so I went rebel and decided that unlike the typical mindful, peaceful members of their race, Kalos is a lot more rough and tumble. He went up through the Security section of Starfleet but has now taken his first posting as a First Officer. While not afraid of a confrontation, he prefers to try and keeps things peaceful, using his telepathy and presence to defuse fights before they start.
The science officer is a Trill named Joran Cela. He has Joined a symbiont because if I'm going to play a Trill, I'm going to do it all the way. Joran was born and raised on a science station, and would have happily stayed there all his life, studying a local warp phenomenon. However, he was the only candidate for joining Cela, a symbiont bonded to a mortally wounded Trill who fled to their station. Cela, being a being of greater lifespan, wants to get out and experience it all. Together, they end up at Starfleet Academy in the Science track. Joran finds that he likes getting out and working with new people, and thrives during his training and first few postings.
Character creation is great fun, I could do it a few more times, but just choosing between these two is already going to be tough.
Ended up going with my muscle Betazoid. Max Fitness and Command, High Security.
Tabletop thread maybe you can help me out. What was the name of the game that FATT played for their counter/weight finale? That allowed for the dueling scene between Aria and Cass? It sounds very interesting when I listened and would like to investigate it further
A friend of mine is running a Traveller game, and I'm playing a doctor who went through their first term in the science roll that also covers being a doctor, second term in media they were ejected from early. So obviously this was a skilled young doctor who entered a Top Chef style competition except for doctoring.
The only problem is coming up with a suitably cheesy name for the competition. I have it as Under The Knife, but the brainspace is running dry on this one
A friend of mine is running a Traveller game, and I'm playing a doctor who went through their first term in the science roll that also covers being a doctor, second term in media they were ejected from early. So obviously this was a skilled young doctor who entered a Top Chef style competition except for doctoring.
The only problem is coming up with a suitably cheesy name for the competition. I have it as Under The Knife, but the brainspace is running dry on this one
Top Doc
Hippocratic Hype
The Prognosis
(For this one, they always call the contestants up and you have the dramatic music play while the hosts say "your prognosis is..." and you find out if they last.)
Or, if you want one that your friends might not get:
The plan is to keep the competition vague, but zany and intense in any reference
so yes, one of the competitions was in the Cryo Unit. But this characters media skills are shit so while a competent doctor he just didn't have the screen presence for such a show to win. Which ENRAGES him and is determined to build a space youtube career besting the people who ranked higher than him.
rolled an enemy in the media career, so obviously it's one of the other competitors who doesn't appreciate this loser horning in on their market
The plan is to keep the competition vague, but zany and intense in any reference
so yes, one of the competitions was in the Cryo Unit. But this characters media skills are shit so while a competent doctor he just didn't have the screen presence for such a show to win. Which ENRAGES him and is determined to build a space youtube career besting the people who ranked higher than him.
rolled an enemy in the media career, so obviously it's one of the other competitors who doesn't appreciate this loser horning in on their market
I don't know anything else but the elimination segment is definitely called The Cut.
The plan is to keep the competition vague, but zany and intense in any reference
so yes, one of the competitions was in the Cryo Unit. But this characters media skills are shit so while a competent doctor he just didn't have the screen presence for such a show to win. Which ENRAGES him and is determined to build a space youtube career besting the people who ranked higher than him.
rolled an enemy in the media career, so obviously it's one of the other competitors who doesn't appreciate this loser horning in on their market
If you're looking for a super in joke a gene splicing section named after: Baltech and his Professor would be a real sweet pull.
So I keep having a particular idea for a forum game of being the support crew for an F-Zero/Redline style sci-fi racing league.
A cool idea.
I'd expect you need to create randomization factors such as pilot skill, course, and happenstance. Team "Owner" should control the purse and have some bidding function on things like pilots, machines, or venue. Sponsorships come with benefits (more money, better parts) at a cost (worse parts, less money, pilot's training time is eaten by PR)
It's a little F-Zero, a little Fantasy Football, just missing a bit of it factor to set it off.
There are ways to do it, but you'd need a couple bodies to help. Personally I wouldn't mind something to keep my occupied between actual work at work.
EDIT; oh! To keep folks engaged during the week, training and other actions update daily, so you can adjust strategy on the fly (unless you opt for multi-day regimens/press tours, which have their own advantages) until you hit race day and see who's quick, and who's roadkill.
This is in general the ideas I had spinning in my head. Auctions for parts and stuff means balancing is a little easier for me and balancing pilot time between training to use the new kit you just jammed in his craft vs getting PR to secure sponsorships is a nice, meaty sounding choice.
The main issue is like, how to do the races such that they come out with good results but don't also require a boat load of rolling from runners. My current plan is to just eventually surrender to the opposed rolls and use Polaris's system which has in built advantage/disadvantage on the next roll and other tie breaker stuff that could be useful in addition to having a really easy to grok skill scale (5/6 is passable 15 is a skilled professional). With acceleration/braking letting drivers (controlled by me, which is awkward but eh) set their speed and dictating their modifier and then ships handling (effected by the terrain) acting as a limit on pilots skills. Break it down into like, 4/6 sections of track that are rolled per lap (so like, 10/25 seconds of racing per section depending on how straight it is). Which is still a boat load of dice but jeez it's hard to figure a mechanic that works.
So I keep having a particular idea for a forum game of being the support crew for an F-Zero/Redline style sci-fi racing league.
Kingdom might be useful here. It's a game with three different roles; powers make decisions at crossroads, perspectives make true predictions about the results, touchstones make the call on how close the decision brings things to crisis. Players are meant to switch roles, even tactically during decisions, but switching means abandoning everything you've done before. You could run a game for more than three that way, if you preferred more RP than mechanics.
This looks interesting but possibly a little narrative for my desires. In case my various dumb rantings haven't took yet I'm kinda into gritty gear stuff. There's a reason that Polaris and Traveller are RPG's I really like.
Speaking of Polaris the other project for the forum I was considering was simply a CYOA/PbP mix where the forum as a whole can control a party in Polaris and guide them through adventures rather than having individual PC's and a glacial posting time. It's mostly intended as a method for me to practice the rules and flex my terrible writing skills while showing off a world I think is pretty cool. I could do it with a few different systems if other people have suggestions.
Posts
I was thinking the fight would stay where it was, but it would be more in line with the other options if that weren't the case, huh? And in that case I don't have to be worried about giving players the choice of 3, since mostly it's just doing damage and avoiding damage.
Or is your suggestion to make it less "do damage, don't get hit" and more "do more damage or take less?"
Also I'm kind of wondering how disarming your foe works in Dungeon World. Like, that doesn't seem to be that big a deal in a system that isn't based around weapon damage.
I was wondering something similar with damage, if it shouldn't just be incorporated into the move by default on a 7+, like you said.
As for disarming, you would at least lose the tags, so an enemy with a spear would go from far to close, that kind of thing
What sort of suggestions would you have to make Dungeon World combat more swashbuckly?
That's true, yeah, so nevermind that.
Although honestly I don't think I'd change the Dungeon World combat as is? Like, I get that hack and slash would seem kind of not-swashbuckling, but I just wouldn't use hack and slash then? Like, if you want to disarm your enemy, then don't hack and slash them - that's a defy danger (STR or DEX depending).
But I do think it's correct to tweak Hack and Slash to fit how you want standard combat to flow; D&D combat is based on exchanging damage, so HnS is built for that. Swashbuckling combat is based on big positioning moves and dramatic actions, so you should build your standard combat move on that.
Rather than hack and slash, I'm going to look at one of the social moves from Monsterhearts. This may seem like a weird leap, but trust me on this.
Alright, so shutting someone down is based around hurting someone emotionally, not physically, but I think it might be a good setup for how you want to handle a duel. Giving people conditions could easily encompass disarmed, off-balance, or whatever, and strings could be pulled pretty much the same as over there as well.
I'd ditch the first one there, but everything else seems good. So what I'm essentially saying is create two new moves, either to supplement hack and slash (there may still be times that you want to use that) or completely replace it). Here's the rough draft that I would have for each.
You might want to work with less swingy harm for this - rather than rolling a d10, know that you do 6 harm, and therefore you can kind of know based on who you're fighting how much damage you're going to do and how many openings you need to acquire before making your move.
I think the main thing to remember with H&S is "the enemy's attack" doesn't necessarily deal damage, it's just a hit. Most of the time that can mean damage, but using the other GM and monster moves from time to time means you're regularly forcing the players to switch up their plans, move from place to place, take advantage of the scenery, and so on. If you're regularly disarming them, or setting the room on fire, or separating party members so their teammates have to rush to the rescue (or they have to fight their way out), that's a proper Errol Flynn swordfight setpiece.
And, like, don't be afraid to switch things up either. If fighting on two ships lashed together by boarding grapnels is going to be a thing, but not the whole of the thing, and dramatic single combat with the enemy captain is also going to be a thing, but not the whole of the thing, there's nothing that says there has to be only one way to fight someone in a fight.
1. The individual hosting our game tonight is cat-sitting for a friend, so the tomcat named Asahi is hanging out with us and he is just the cuddliest cuddlebug.
2. The person hosting our game has pulled the best prank ever: Skittles mixed in with M&M's. He calls them S&M's.
Stealing this, btw.
However I did get to start my roll20 game of Deadlands and it was rollicking.
The snake oil salesman had out talk a rival that was trying to set up shop in town, the Jaegar from another land picked off a couple outlaws that tried to disrupt the proceedings, and the huckster and houngan were happy to drink and complain until there was healing and stunning to do.
Next time, we'll see if they ride after the surviving outlaws or decide to take the baited fortune teller in the saloon which will lead to a zombie infested mine.
I'm quite pleased with getting use out of all this stored up ridiculousness.
Oh shiiiit I might snag that.
Ohhhhh vampire's gonna get some now!
It's like they don't realise the work involved in going into my Rogue Trader plot and deleting every instance of the word "space" which was entered when converting it from Ars Magica in the first place
Space jingle all the way
The general format for a week would be 6 days of casual discussion and stuff over options (with maybe some mostly flavour events/news about the prep and universe) with the 7th day being race day where all the orders are fully locked in and everyone awaits the result.
Main issue I keep running into is like, a resolution system that isn't me rolling twenty opposed tests each race behind the scenes to create a passable narrative but which still leaves room for the various player's spheres of influences to matter and be pressed (IE Manager needs hype and training to play in, engineer means gear and car damage needs to happen on some level). This is not helped by the fact that I can't even find an RPG that approaches racing as a thing, let alone as a focus.
Today we're doing the intro scenario that came with the kickstarter package- mostly because I've been investing my creative juices in the meatier stuff that will come after to give myself some more time to flesh the campaign story out. It also just looks really fun anyway.
I got really really excited last night when one of my players (who is another games writer) sent me a little backstory bit on his character and all the events that happened to him during character gen:
- Born to a small family of white-collar workers aboard the anarchic Worldship Bakunin.
- By any other standard, the Webber family was slightly conservative with strong family and work ethic; compared to the neo-liberalism of most Bakunin sects, their conservatism was considered “rebellious” and backwards.
- Webbers believed strongly in naturalism (anti body-augments), and the clear division of organism and mechanism. (Not to be considered anti-tech; quite the opposite, the Webber’s encouraged a highly advanced implementation of all tech. Just - firmly outside of the body when possible.)
- [Family Secret Trait] As a child, Lucius discovered one of his fathers is not an orbit-born Nomad, but fled his homeworld to Bakunin. To this day, he will not tell Lucius what he ran from.
- Lucius’ moderate affinity for engineering meant he was fast tracked through the orbital engineering school track, with the intent on becoming a Bakunin engineer
- As a teenager, Lucius becomes enamoured with racing, particularly keeping up with the You Jing culture of Bosozoku.
- [Powerful Friend Trait] Lucius chanced to meet a dealer scouting Praxis for racing mods to take back to his clients; although Lucius doesn’t have access to the Black Labs like the client wants, he’s able to fashion a (questionably) similar imitation for a fraction of the price. This dealer and his client become the basis of Lucius’ sideline in modding lifestyle and racing vehicles for the next fifteen years.
- Unexpectedly, Lucius signs up to join an interstellar engineering corp at the age of 19 and leaves Bakunin. Although moderately successful at orbital training and having a knack for modifications, the Chief Engineer is a true Bakunin anarch, and takes offence at Lucius’ distate of body modification. Lucius therefore becomes a “Jimmy”, a squad of the lowest ranking mechanics on the crew. Lucius will keep the name Jimmy for the rest of his life, long after he leaves this crew behind.
- [Natural Disaster Ship Crew Career] While attending to the repair of an orbital Commercial Mission station (where he met Nana Moon, Sarah’s character), the station is hit by a freak rogue body anomaly. Lucius is piloting one of the evacuation shuttles, and his craft is hit while attempting to go back for stranded survivors.
- [Nightmares Trait] Lucius struggles to rid himself of the horrors of being in the midst of the anomaly and suffers from recurring nightmares. These are enough for him to quit the engineering corp and his perpetual life in space.
- [Mudhopper Trait, Transferred Technician Career] He hops from planet to planet, trying to find a home, but is never satisfied. He finds himself missing the anarchy and neon of Bakunin, but also feels like he can’t really go back. He spends his time as a freelance mechanic, delivery driver, vehicle modder and bot designer.
- [Cube Echoes Trait] For no apparent reason (yeah right), Lucius’ Cube undergoes a seemingly minor malfunction. However, the malfunction gains in complexity as it results in continued “feedback” loops with his sensory recordings, resulting in severe cases of deja vu. At the height of an attack, Lucius can lose his sense of time, and will find himself in a state reviewing events and sensations from the previous dozen seconds, minutes or even days - at times, he’s even convinced he may not have yet even experienced the sensations his Cube is telling him he’s recorded, like some sort of primitive precognition.
- [Geist] Unable to earn the scratch to buy a new Cube, and not having the means or intent to ask his Powerful Friend for help, he’s instead band-aiding his situation with the cube. He’s retrained his geist, Caduceus, as a cognitive behavioural assistant, to aid in preventing further psychological damage from his malfunctioning cube and nightmares. (It’s a self-care buddy!) Additionally, Caduceus acts as a high-functioning probability and systems analysis tool - Lucius is essentially outsourcing the analysis of all of his sensory input and observation, which then gets fed back to him as advice from Caduceus, from tricky engineering solutions to the quickest getaway routes. In line with his naturalist beliefs, Caduceus is completely decoupled from Lucius’ Silk and is instead hosted inside of his Tinbot.
Aside from Jimmy we also have:
Nana Moon, a career diplomat for O-12 who had an accidental doppleganger created from an old cube who promptly vanished and is out there... somewhere
"Twitch", a spec-ops turned orgcrime bodyguard and occasional hitman
Gâu, an unusual Dogface whose feral form looks more like a St. Bernard than the usual wolf-like creature.
and the 5th character isn't named yet as far as I know, but he's a botanist turned orgcrime hacker after he was framed, imprisoned for 4 years and fired from every job he tried after getting out.
I randomed a bit for the XO and ended up with a Betazoid with and Artistic and Creative background. STA lets you accept or rebel to your background for different stats, so I went rebel and decided that unlike the typical mindful, peaceful members of their race, Kalos is a lot more rough and tumble. He went up through the Security section of Starfleet but has now taken his first posting as a First Officer. While not afraid of a confrontation, he prefers to try and keeps things peaceful, using his telepathy and presence to defuse fights before they start.
The science officer is a Trill named Joran Cela. He has Joined a symbiont because if I'm going to play a Trill, I'm going to do it all the way. Joran was born and raised on a science station, and would have happily stayed there all his life, studying a local warp phenomenon. However, he was the only candidate for joining Cela, a symbiont bonded to a mortally wounded Trill who fled to their station. Cela, being a being of greater lifespan, wants to get out and experience it all. Together, they end up at Starfleet Academy in the Science track. Joran finds that he likes getting out and working with new people, and thrives during his training and first few postings.
Character creation is great fun, I could do it a few more times, but just choosing between these two is already going to be tough.
Kingdom might be useful here. It's a game with three different roles; powers make decisions at crossroads, perspectives make true predictions about the results, touchstones make the call on how close the decision brings things to crisis. Players are meant to switch roles, even tactically during decisions, but switching means abandoning everything you've done before. You could run a game for more than three that way, if you preferred more RP than mechanics.
A cool idea.
I'd expect you need to create randomization factors such as pilot skill, course, and happenstance. Team "Owner" should control the purse and have some bidding function on things like pilots, machines, or venue. Sponsorships come with benefits (more money, better parts) at a cost (worse parts, less money, pilot's training time is eaten by PR)
It's a little F-Zero, a little Fantasy Football, just missing a bit of it factor to set it off.
There are ways to do it, but you'd need a couple bodies to help. Personally I wouldn't mind something to keep my occupied between actual work at work.
EDIT; oh! To keep folks engaged during the week, training and other actions update daily, so you can adjust strategy on the fly (unless you opt for multi-day regimens/press tours, which have their own advantages) until you hit race day and see who's quick, and who's roadkill.
They used to have a page for their players bios, the music, and the game systems they played, but that all seems to be missing at the moment.
I can't recall the exact name of it, but they probably mention it at the beginning of C/W 41
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Ended up going with my muscle Betazoid. Max Fitness and Command, High Security.
That was Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands.
The only problem is coming up with a suitably cheesy name for the competition. I have it as Under The Knife, but the brainspace is running dry on this one
Top Doc
Hippocratic Hype
The Prognosis
(For this one, they always call the contestants up and you have the dramatic music play while the hosts say "your prognosis is..." and you find out if they last.)
Or, if you want one that your friends might not get:
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
life threatening procedures performed in super low temp ORs. The objective is to not kill a person in front of a live audience.
so yes, one of the competitions was in the Cryo Unit. But this characters media skills are shit so while a competent doctor he just didn't have the screen presence for such a show to win. Which ENRAGES him and is determined to build a space youtube career besting the people who ranked higher than him.
rolled an enemy in the media career, so obviously it's one of the other competitors who doesn't appreciate this loser horning in on their market
"What? 'Fun, die!'? I thought you said 'Fungi!'"
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I don't know anything else but the elimination segment is definitely called The Cut.
If you're looking for a super in joke a gene splicing section named after: Baltech and his Professor would be a real sweet pull.
This is in general the ideas I had spinning in my head. Auctions for parts and stuff means balancing is a little easier for me and balancing pilot time between training to use the new kit you just jammed in his craft vs getting PR to secure sponsorships is a nice, meaty sounding choice.
The main issue is like, how to do the races such that they come out with good results but don't also require a boat load of rolling from runners. My current plan is to just eventually surrender to the opposed rolls and use Polaris's system which has in built advantage/disadvantage on the next roll and other tie breaker stuff that could be useful in addition to having a really easy to grok skill scale (5/6 is passable 15 is a skilled professional). With acceleration/braking letting drivers (controlled by me, which is awkward but eh) set their speed and dictating their modifier and then ships handling (effected by the terrain) acting as a limit on pilots skills. Break it down into like, 4/6 sections of track that are rolled per lap (so like, 10/25 seconds of racing per section depending on how straight it is). Which is still a boat load of dice but jeez it's hard to figure a mechanic that works.
This looks interesting but possibly a little narrative for my desires. In case my various dumb rantings haven't took yet I'm kinda into gritty gear stuff. There's a reason that Polaris and Traveller are RPG's I really like.
Speaking of Polaris the other project for the forum I was considering was simply a CYOA/PbP mix where the forum as a whole can control a party in Polaris and guide them through adventures rather than having individual PC's and a glacial posting time. It's mostly intended as a method for me to practice the rules and flex my terrible writing skills while showing off a world I think is pretty cool. I could do it with a few different systems if other people have suggestions.