Troubleshooting Detachments and Forts

 I'm running custom Detachment rules which are a mash-up of Into the Odd's company rules and Apocalypse World's gang-sizes so that ship crews in my pirate game interact smoothly with PC combat.

Because this is a think-piece about custom rules I made myself, built on the foundation of the system I kludged together, this post is probably me just talking to myself.

I still don't like it. The mouth-feel is wrong.

The problem is that kludges I put together (like the Area and Large-Scale tags) are non-diegetic. There's really an arbitrary distinction between what counts as 'Area' vs 'Large-Scale'. There's still too much GM overhead, and if I forget to include 'Area' or 'Large-Scale' tags on a monster, then they're stuck doing Impaired Damage (d4) to Detachments, which means 40 peasants (+4 Bonus Size AV) are functionally immune to single monster. Bad. 

THOSE rules are because I used an escalating bonus Size AV of +2 damage resistance per size category advantage. And THAT rule is because I wanted to have a quick way to scale up 'X number of HD1 mooks', keeping their HD and not having to create a hit-point sink.

I generally run low HD human opponents, because PC health is also low. You're more likely to see an army of HD1 peasants or HD3 soldiers than HD8 legendary heroes.

So: new rules. 

Detachments still get a bonus damage die and +2 Size AV per category. Individual-scale opponents still deal Impaired damage (d4) unless they use weapons with an Area Tag. 

Now, the GM has discretion to ignore Size AV if the situation seems appropriate. PCs setting up explosion traps all along a gulley will do that (and probably get the Area Tag) too, or using choking gas. For monstrous foes, they ignore Size AV if they still fight effectively against large numbers of foes. 

Like this:

Or this:

Basically, if you can imagine them like Sauron in the first LotR tossing soldiers around, then they ignore Size AV. They still do Impaired Damage (d4) unless they have an Area attack, because they'll have to whittle their foes down. 

Peasant armies can still, eventually, kill a dragon. 80 peasants get +3 bonus damage dice: give them all muskets and they're doing 4d8 damage a pop. The problem is keeping them together with Morale Checks as more and more of them die.

The distinction between Impaired damage but ignores Size AV (eg, big ogre smashing fools with a club) and Area damage but minus Size AV (eg, single PC throws a grenade at the enemy squad) still requires a little bit more GM adjudication than I'd like, but I guess I can try these rules out for now.

Tomb of the Moderately Successful Playwright

I give my players an option to do 'side-quests' over Discord chat, in addition to the main game I normally run.

One of my players pitched that he wanted his frog-man con-man to get caught up in a scheme to write a self-help book called the 'Porpoise-Driven Life'.

So I came up with this:

Map-credit again goes to Dyson Logos.

Link to PDF

Running this was a blast. The player pried open the sealed door in Room C despite there being a big red X painted over it, so De Veers got out. Percy, the porpoise-man NPC, got eaten. 

I had a lot of fun playing De Veers over text, and having him oscillate between jovial 'what ho there!' conviviality and snarling 'I'm going to eat your face' ghoul-hunger. I can't remember where I got the idea for ghouls who are kind and urbane and sophisticated but only as long as they've been fed: I want to say Arnold Kemp's Goblin Punch, but I honestly can't remember. 

The Court of Hell

 Made for Patrick Stuart's Dungeon Poem Challenge.

Happy Lunar New Year, ya filthy animals

Link to PDF file

Map is by Dyson Logos.

This post is brought to you by the childhood nightmare fuel that is Haw Par Villa.

by KiatXKiat

DISCLAIMER: As 'authentically Chinese' as fortune cookies. Everything I know about Chinese hell I learned from peeking between my fingers when I was 10 y/o at gory sculptures. Sorry Chen Laoshi

Designing an Asian Colonial-Era Sandbox - Part 3 (What is the Empire?)

 Part 1

Part 2

WHO OR WHAT IS THE EMPEROR?

1. Tween-king, spoiled and ignorant, prone to whimsical decrees

2. Mummified corpse, as interpreted by coterie of court-mediums

3. A revolving door of princelings continually assassinating each other

4. An especially holy rock, covered in mantras for how to live

5. Title shared by three different individuals, bureaucracy paralysed

6. Ate an immortality peach. Seven hundred years old, irredeemably senile 

7. Gnomic pronouncements dispensed by proto-Babbage-Engine

8. Highest-ranking scholar, but 'knowledge' is a thousand years out of date

9. A broken-telephone system of eunuchs relaying information to and from a baffled king

10. Absolutely NOT a horse wearing a robe. It is a crime to even think that.

WHAT WAS THE EMPIRE'S STRENGTH, NOW A LIABILITY?

1. Vast and powerful military ... now obsolete and shackled to centuries-old tactics

2. Meritocratic civil service exams ... now a Kafka-esque profusion of minor bureaucrats

3. Famous thinkers and scientists ... now calcified into tradition-bound schools

4. Rich and affluent trade cities ... now competing fiefdoms ruled by rival families

5. Unifying national religion ... now geomancers and diviners obsessed with interpreting signs

6. Monasteries as centers of culture ... now a profusion of competing apocalypse sects

7. Government by organised ministries ... now obsessed with court infighting

8. Independent and capable clans ... now a scattering of bandit-kings and warlords

9. Thriving merchant economy ... now actively profiteering in collusion with outsiders

10. Elaborate public works ... now prone to failure with consequent flood/famine/earthquakes

WHAT DOES THE EMPIRE HAVE THAT IS VALUABLE TO OUTSIDERS?

1.  Conqueror-worm silk

2. Medicinal fungi

3. Necromantic bone-china

4. Radiant jadestone

5. Tea. It's very good tea

6. Longevity pears

7. Wool-monkey fabrics

8. Porcelain serving-golems

9. Hell-turtle ivory

10. Edible dream-scrolls

Mutiny Rules / Pay

Rules are generated out of necessity.

A few sessions ago, my players ran out of food and tried to eat their own crew for the second time. The crew has been entirely wiped out and re-hired three times now.

I need some mutiny rules.

I played around with modifying the Injury and Death / Ship Damage rules for simplicity and consistency, but I'm thinking of trying a Dice Pool instead for that ol' gambling feel. 

MUTINY RULES

When PCs give their crew a reason to be dissatisfied, Add Dice to the Mutiny Pool, then roll all the dice in the pool.

Minor Grievance (+1d6)
- Crew is inconvenienced or treated poorly
- Crew is forbidden from doing something they want to do
- Crew members are placed in danger

Significant Grievance (+2d6)
- Crew members are killed in the normal course of events
- Crew members are placed in reckless danger
- Crew is promised pay, and they are not paid

Severe Grievance (+4d6)
- Half the crew is killed 
- Each week at sea with no food
- Crew is actively sacrificed for the PC's benefit, and the Crew finds out

If any dice show a 1, roll 1d8 on the MUTINY TABLE and add the number of dice in the Mutiny Pool (MP). 

MUTINY TABLE 
1-2: MP +1D. No other effect
3-4: MP + 2D. No other effect
5-6:  MP + 1D Crew is demoralised. Impaired Damage to enemies of the PCs until the next Port Rest 
7-8: Crew demands additional pay now (Does not count as Port Rest, not paying is a Grievance)
9-10: MP +2D. Crew is fractious. They refuse to fight at all until the next Port Rest. 
11-12: MP +3D. Crew is openly rebellious. They refuse to take any orders without incentives
13+: Mutiny! The crew attacks the PCs and tries to seize the ship

PORT REST
To reset the Mutiny Pool, PCs must let the crew rest in town for a week and pay them their regular wages. This replaces the old system of paying wages regularly: now wages are a way to reset the Mutiny Pool.

The idea of wages isn't very piratical, but I don't like the math that comes with calculating loot shares.