Mittwoch, 13. März 2024

"Body am I entirely, and nothing more"

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.

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"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

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