Monday, March 15, 2010

SoG - Damage and Stress Tracks

Progress in Spirit of Greyhawk had been somewhat held up as I needed to make some decisions about some rules-related modifications before going further. I've said it before but I'm more of a GM than a game designer. So I'm not quite as eager to fiddle with the dials as perhaps many of you are. So I keep my new rules-design efforts focused on what I know won't work for SoG.

So before getting back to High Fantasy magic translations, here's a couple rules changes in SoG that might put some context into some of the magic / spells writeups to come:

Damage in Spirit of Greyhawk

Damage in Spirit of Greyhawk has been modified to reflect less-merciful assumptions about damage and dying than was used in Spirit of the Century--people can get one-shotted in SoG. This doesn't just apply to mooks either: anyone could get taken out with one hit, if that hit was big enough.

For purposes of the next parts, consider a character's Physical stress track as looking like this:

Stress -> Consequences -> Taken Out
OOOOO -> OOO -> O

Basic Stress Track Rules for SoG

Checked boxes within the Stress section still act the same way. Consequences work differently:
  • In SotC, consequences follow a linear progression (you can't have a Moderate consequence before a Mild consequence is assigned). In Spirit of Greyhawk, the amount of stress determines which Consequence you get--if there was enough stress to inflict a Moderate consequence (bypassing an open Mild consequence), that's what the target suffers.
  • "Taken out" still follows the same rules (see note below).
  • Roll-up behavior DOES apply normally, and includes Consequences also

Examples:
  • Damage of 6 stress on a clear track (as shown above) would bypass the first Stress section, and go straight to a Mild Consequence. Only that box is then checked / assigned.
    Boxes already filled would follow the rules consistent with SotC roll-up rules (see example #3 below)
  • Receiving damage of 9 stress on this track would go straight to "Taken Out". Done.
  • If the 5 box was already filled, and a Moderate consequence was filled and the character then received ANOTHER 5 stress hit, a "Mild" consequence would be assigned.

Extra Note on the "Taken Out" status

Without rehashing the whole writeup on this blog, there was a great writeup over here with thoughts about what "Taken Out" might mean in conflicts when there is a significant disparity in power levels of opponents. If you decide to check it out, think about potential conflicts between an adventuring party and a Dragon, or Demon Prince, or a deity's avatar--you get the idea.

It does pose some interesting thoughts for certain monster translations--watch this space. ;)

Adding a "Mental Stress Track" (see below for new edit)

Most of you know there's currently only two stress tracks in SotC RAW: Physical and Social. In the upcoming Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat added a third stress track for Mental Stress.

I had previously resisted the addition of any other Stress tracks, because I personally felt that it was opening the door to making more-more-more tracks, which I don't have an interest in doing. Additionally I had considered the Composure stress track was easily used to track Mental damage anyway. The example I had considered was that if someone had taken Mental stress or a Mental consequence, wouldn't that likely represent a reduced ability to deal with stress in Social situations?

However I only have the blogosphere and Google to go on for this--I don't really know why the choice was made to do it that way. However given that DFRPG does have a Mental Stress track, I decided to not worry about it and just add it in.

So Spirit of Greyhawk has three stress tracks; Stunts and Skills will need to updated to reflect similar adjustments and modifications that are already available to Physical and Social Stress tracks.

Edit (3/25/10):
Rather than re-write the above four paragraphs (which would mess up the points in the comment thread), I'll note here that I've changed my mind about the SoG's inclusion of a Mental stress track--thanks to the points brought up in this post's comment thread.

SoG will not have a Mental stress track. Mental stress will be tracked as part of the Composure stress track. To echo a note from above, the other implication here is that psionic stress/damage will also negatively affect social stress situations, and I like that.

Plus this also eliminates the need for me to create makes skill/stunt clones that would make modifications to a Mental Stress track, similar to the Composure stress track.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

The following two statements seem to contradict each other:

"you can't have a Moderate consequence before a Mild consequence is assigned"

"if there was enough stress to inflict a Moderate consequence (bypassing an open Mild consequence), that's what the target suffers"

Am I missing something?


About stress tracks:

SotC had a Health and Composure track. Composure did double duty for mental and social attacks. I am guessing the Dresden has split composure into Mental and Social because they want to make social combat a first class citizen. This is probably because of the White Court and the Fae - social manoeuvring are a big part of who they are. Also Endurance, Conviction (=Resolve?), and Presence not only modify the stress tracks, Superb and higher levels start to add additional consequences. The Dresden character sheet they released last month had an extra Mild Mental consequence for his high Conviction. I kind of like this idea.

"I personally felt that it was opening the door to making more-more-more tracks"

I had a similar misgivings as well. I wanted to incorporate Diaspora's Wealth stress/consequences into a game but I didn't want too many tracks. A possible solution is considered is to allow multiple stress tracks but to lower the default length of the track to zero and have it modified 1:1 by the associated skill; or leave the rules as they are but allow only two stress tracks forcing the player to choose which was most important to them.

Stuart said...

Personally, the stress/consequences system is my least favorite part of SotC (and I am wholly abandoning it in my game).

That said, I think that unless the social/mental distinction is really important to you, I'd stick with two tracks. Unless you are getting something very specific out of it, why add a level of complexity?

Unknown said...

@biff:

Yes, those two statements specifically DO contradict each other. That's because the first one describes SotC (Spirit of the Century), and the second was to describe SoG (Spirit of Greyhawk).

@Stuart:

I'm still of two minds about this: what we've discussed versus the guys at EH must have already considered when they added it and I'm planning for the future. But I can always back it out if after more playtesting, SoG flows better without it.

Thanks to both you guys for your comments! I appreciate it.

Stuart said...

Right, but the guys at EH have different considerations than you have here. I'm pretty sure they were trying to capture something genre-specific.

Mike Olson said...

Personally, the stress/consequences system is my least favorite part of SotC (and I am wholly abandoning it in my game).

Stuart, what're you using in place of consequences?

Stuart said...

Mike,

It's more stress that I've completely gotten rid of - consequences only mostly. I'm using degrees of success in my game - with a successful attack, you get a number of degrees of success (less than with a normal roll, since there are defenses at work). You can use these to buy effects (which I currently call consequences, in order to be confusing). These effects include things like Knocked Down, Disarmed, Grabbed, etc. They function as placed aspects, but instead of giving a free tag they are automatically invoked for effect. (Standard maneuvers to place aspects work too. These are defaults.)

Damage is a special sort of effect and it comes in three (or four) levels: Bruised, Hurt, Wounded (and Dead). These respectively cost 2, 4, 6, (and 8) successes. Dead functions like Taken Out - you don't actually have to kill your opponent. The others have some immediate penalties and can be used as aspects after that.

I'm currently thinking that it is possible to have an unlimited number of wounds of each level, but I keep going back and forth on that.

Mike Olson said...

Stuart:

I like it -- I'm working on something similar myself. The idea of building up an increasingly advantageous position instead of just doing damage has always struck me as cool and cinematic.

Anonymous said...

Have you seen the Nevermore/Baltimore preview? Characters with a feeding Dependency, like Vampires and Ghouls, have a Hunger stress track.

The number of stress tracks is exploding! SotC: Health and Composure. Dresden: Health, Mental, Social and Hunger. Diaspora: Health, Composure and Wealth.

Unknown said...

@Stuart:

"Right, but the guys at EH have different considerations than you have here. I'm pretty sure they were trying to capture something genre-specific."

I think you're absolutely right, as demonstrated in the Nevermore document's mention of the vampiric "Hunger" track. (thanks for the summary biff!)

So then I'm gonna go back to my my original assumption and leave the "Composure" track as double-duty social and mental stress.

Thanks for great writeups, guys.

Matt Sheridan said...

Kind of late to the party, here, but this stuff's been on my mind, of late.

I've always had some difficulties with the common practice in many roleplaying games in separating "social" and "spiritual" elements from mental ones. As far as I can tell, the first and second categories mostly tend to contain elements which would fit neatly into the third.

There are exceptions, though. I think the most defensible ones are those social elements which exist wholly outside of the character to which they apply: friends, contacts, fame, infamy, rumors, favors. Reputation, and favors owed.

So if your social track represents this sort of thing rather than, say, how you manage to keep your cool at the party--which is an internal, mental thing, for all that it's got social effects--then I think you've got good reason to have distinct physical, mental, and social stress tracks.

(Lately, I'm screwing around with turning the Violence, Unnatural, and Self madness meters from Unknown Armies into sanity tracks for a "Spirit of Cthulhu" hack, so . . . yeah. I've been thinking about this stuff.)

Mike Olson said...

The only time I use true "social" consequences is in the swashbuckling genre, but there it's as you said, Matthew -- contacts, friends, enemies, and your basic relationship with society in general. Otherwise, it's all physical and mental.