I painted an 8x8 world map for my Osme campaigne, so I can use a chessboard.
Chessboard as a battle map:
I
also use the chessboard and lego minis for grid combat. It seems too
small at first, but with only three squares of movement for example it
works great.
You can fit a small dungeon in a 8x8 grid, try it!
When the days were full of grief I build my own character in Shadowrun 5e - I spend over 300 hours creating her. And like most Shadowrun characters there was a heavy amount of min-maxing involved. She is a transfemale troll, which is not an easy life. She got addicted to Ripper because it was the only way for her to change her body. She made the money through underground fighting. This is were Renraku became interessted in her. They offered her surguries to become more beautiful, less troll. So she became a cybered up living ad to promote Renrakus disriminatory views on metahumans. This is how you get a combat ready, charisma 8 troll, while exploring your own difficult life as a transwoman. Pretty good for a solo minigame.
While I made this character to my likability I sometimes got frustrated. Why are there two types of toe protecting combat boots, but no high heels to step on people? Why can't I have a Vomeronasal Organ when its coolest feature would make my Adrenaline Pump even more fun? So I changed the data in chummer. (Where does it say that "Saeder-Krupp/Onotari Arms Silent Claw Stiletto" aren't high heels anyway?) But will the GM allow my non-RAW character?
This is the problem with min-maxing: you need to adhere to the rules.
The company putting out the rules makes you dependent on them. They can get your money just by creating new options. Which in turn also increase power creep, since options are only fun when they are better for optimization. Hasbros behavior is a good argument to reject the rules of D&D and keep its folk tradition alive. That's one reason I don't like min-maxing in D&D, it gives power to the corporation. But than again, it can be an awesome solo minigame.
In my last post I started to design Osme, my own system. (I'm doing it, Daniel! I'm doing it!)
Now I want to explore the implications of my choices. This will probably be a reoccurring thing since I'm prone to iterations.
————————————————————————————————
"Body am I entirely, and nothing more"
-Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus spake Zarathustra
An other kind of damage
Having the attributes Torso, Limbs and Brain does make one wonder: What happens when I get hit? Surely my torso will be damaged, my limb ripped off and a fall will give me a concussion.
I like this! But having Blood as Hit Points does normally eliminate this intuitive thinking. What to do?
Maybe there are situations and monster which will lower your attributes temporarily or even permanently. And if an organ hits 0 you are dead. This may be interesting since a bulky amazon warrior never has to worry about her brain in a sword fight, but may die very easily from a fall. I like it.
What do my terms imply?
Blood:
if you get cut you bleed. If you lose too much blood you die. Blood gets created in the red bone marrow, which is located in the ribs, vertebrae, sternum and pelvis.
Okay, so the torso is there for regenerating blood. Can you transfer ones blood into another body to heal them? Wait! That's a great idea for a spell!
Blood Transfer: you can transfer d4 blood from one body to someone elses.
Torso:
all the major living functions are here: eating, breathing, reproducing and keeping homeostasis. So, natural healing and resisting poison is key.
I love the drugs & toxins in Shadowrun and I want to get some of them into Osme, they should interact with the torso.
The torso also has huge and strong muscles, therefore it should be used for stength.
Limbs:
"if you break 'em you can't use 'em." So, if your arm is missing you can't use a sword and shield, you will have to decide. And if your leg is missing you will be much slower. If you rolled badly on limbs you will be clumsy and less dexterous.
This may also be the most obvious place to see how inherently ableist this system is.
Brain:
it interprets what your senses tell you (perception) and it remembers (knowledge). Technically it controls your whole body, but let us not do the capitalistic thing and put the emphasis on the workers instead of the manager. ^^
Maybe Brain is used to resist magic.
Voice:
now this one is different and difficult. Voice would be rolling for convincing, which has the huge problem that only the PC with the highest Voice will be talking. Also it is not made of flesh and I want my meatpunk.
How about Face? Well now it will refer to beauty and first impression. But thinking of the beginning of this post: it's not easy to hurt specifically ones face.
How about Skin? You can still vaguely make out that it refers to beauty and first impression. And you can definitely destroy the skin through fire and acid or even radiation damage. And another bonus: I can ask you to roll the skin color. I want players to think about how divers this world is.
Bonuses for amazing bodies
I don't want to use modifiers like later D&Ds, but I like the Greyhawk (1975) method of giving small bonuses for high attributes.
Torso: 10+ = +1 melee damage
Limbs: 10+ = +1 range damage
Brain: 10+ = +1 language
Skin: 10+ = most monsters will not attack on sight
Designing an adventure game system is a lot of fun for me. This is the design compass I'll be using for Osme:
1) Sword & Sorcery: carnal sweaty bronze age
2) Elegance: short and simple rules (think Into the Odd)
3) small Numbers: only four dice, the Rule of 5
4) incomplete: embrace of ambiguity, no rigid system (think OD&D)
The Name
Osme (ancient greek: ὀσμή) means smell, scent or stench. Fitting for my definition of Sword & Sorcery.
Does the Os stand for Old school, like in the OSR? Maybe.
OSME is also a representation of the four dice.
Strength/Constitution becomes Torso
Dexterity becomes Limbs
Intelligence/Wisdom becomes Brain
Charisma becomes Voice (to signify the social power of being heard)
How do I roll these? I don't have the classic 3d6. I do however have d4+d6+d8, which gives quite a nice spread. Try for yourself.
But 3-18? Those numbers are getting big. Let's just use d4+d8 for 2-12, average is 7. Much better.
It would be easy and more popular to use modifiers and build a roll over system. BUT I do not like to think of target numbers. So I rather let the PCs roll against their own body. A d12 roll under system it is!
If rolling equal to your organ is a success, I don't want to specify (embrace of ambiguity). The Dungeon Mistress should decide for herself to tweak the difficulty for her players. Maybe she will rule it's a success but with a consequence.
For now let us finish with Hit Points. They will become Blood. Blood gets spilled in a fight, it's a nice representation of taking damage. Since the PCs always die on me, I will grant them:
Blood = Torso + 3 (5-15, average is 10).
Why has the standard dice set seven dice?
It's D&Ds fault, isn't it? Then why do they have only one d6? Should I use my Shadowrun dice to roll my ability scores? And what are these two 10-sided monstrosities? Those are evil. I know they are because Call of Cthulhu uses them. Also the d12 only gets used if you play a barbarian — which I do, thank you very much.
How do I fix this?
First of all I burn all the D&D books and make my own system. Hmm, yes very clever of me...
So, I'm left with a single set of dice. Which of those seven are actually trustworthy?
The Interview
Meet the Teamd4, the Punk
 |
| The Team |
d6, the Good Girl
She is sweet and confident,
the perfect little die.
d8, the Pretty Boy
He's cute, but so awkward
when the girls are around.
d12, the Bolder
This chunk of a die is a
gentle giant. He holds the team together.
Roll well, my little chaos cubes. I'm going to build an entire system on you.
