On PvP

Here are some observations on player vs player conflict in RPGs. This is drawn from a mixture of mushes, larps and traditional tabletop games, and should be applicable to all these forms.
Note that everything discussed here is assuming that you're playing in a game where PvP (conflict between PCs with meaningful negative consequences for the loser) is on the table. If you're playing a game where part of the social contract is that PvP just will not happen, then none of this matters to you. Well done, you are a sensible person, go and enjoy your reasonable game.

A year or so ago, I was playing a Giovanni in a vamp game who believed that one of the other local vampires (a Settite) might be conspiring against her. Now, my Giovanni had a ghostly servant who could walk through walls, locate people unnervingly, and punch them to death whilst remaining immaterial and so untouchable by physical people. This raised the question: should I send this servant to punch the Settite to death? I didn't, because I felt bad about killing off somebody's PC.
Two weeks later, the Settites burned my Giovanni's house down. She lost everything, and it was only  through sheer luck that she wasn't in the building to burn with it.

Games can function very well with no outright conflict between PCs; part of the social contract and IC conceit for the game is that the PCs cooperate. This is seen by a lot of roleplayers, myself included, as the default setup. It is possible for PCs to disagree in this sort of game without it escalating to real conflict. You discuss your options or oppinions, a disagreement arises, and then either you drop the matter (and agree to disagree) or reach a compramise (one side may be compromising more than the other). Fundamentally, though, you remain on the same side.

Once PCs are attempting to harm one another, a sort of rubicon has been crossed: now we enter into 'PvP'. It doesn't matter if you don't want to do PvP: if somebody else decides they're kicking the conflict off, it's now happening whether you want it to or not, and your attempts to wade in and end the conflict only result in you being part of the conflict.
Harm might mean all sorts of things: dealing HP damage to them, removing or reducing their assets, gaining leverage over them (Charm Person in D&D, Boons in VtM), outright removing them, or threats of the above. Once play crosses into the PvP threshold, now the other players are your enemies. They pose as great a threat to you as any wandering monster; more, because they are played by a player with intense focus on their PC's capabilities and actions and who knows intimately how your PC functions.

Furthermore, in my experience, the threat of what a PC might do to you is far higher than what NPCs might do to you. A PC is motivated to remove threats efficiently in order to preserve their PC, while the GM's characters are limited by the GM's agendas, which likely include 'giving the players a fair chance and agency' and 'not taking sides in PvP conflict' and 'maintaining the fiction of the game world'. Very few NPCs are going to slit your throat in your sleep out of nowhere and with no way to stop them, unless either you're playing on super-hard-mode or your GM is a total asshole.

The most sensible way to deal with this situation (assuming you want your PC to stay alive, to get more XP, and to succeed in their various goals) is to neutralize your PC enemies as quickly, efficiently and one-sidedly as possible. Remove their ability to do anything against you: typically this means things like hard mind-control or assassination. If you don't take them out, they'll take you out.

So we end up with the larper habit of stabbing somebody to death when they leave their camp to go to the loo, or that tabletop standby of "I wait until we camp for the night and then coup-de-grace them in their sleep". These deny the victim the chance to fight back, minimizing the risk to you. If you're not an idiot, it's pretty easy to do consequence-free PvP murders. Let's call this 'the nuclear option'.
I would add that hard mind control (dominate person, for example) is effectively a character death: the player no longer has the agency to control their own character.

In my experience, once a group has crossed the rubicon and started outright hostile PvP, it's very hard to end that pattern of behavior. There are a few reasons for this.
Firstly, once it is clear that PvP is on the cards, it remains a possibility. Now, even if you are cooperating, you know that PvP conflict might emerge in future.
Secondly, there are few consequences for attacking your team mates that de-escalate the PvP:

• If your victims agree to your demands, now you know that the threat of PvP conflict gets you what you want, which results in more of it down the line. As mentioned above, the PvP genie doesn't go back in the bottle, so all giving in will achieve (once the knives are out) is rewarding the aggressor. 
• If your victims respond in kind, you are now motivated to remove them as a threat as efficiently as possible. Knowing this, they are likewise motivated to remove the threat you pose before they can do it to you. Thus, the nuclear option becomes a desirable course of action, perhaps the most desirable.
• If uninvolved PCs push back against your use of PvP, now they are also part of the PvP conflict: the conflict has only escalated.
• If the GM has NPCs push back against those who use PvP, it is easy for players to see this as GM favouritism in a conflict that's only between PCs, leading to resentment. Of course, PCs who try to use NPC responses to PvP (threatening to call the police, maybe) as a defense are basically indirectly getting involved with the conflict themselves.

The targets of PvP conflict immediately submitting in the hope that the aggressor will be nice is the only response that might de-escalate things, but it also really fucking sucks to have to do: you are, effectively, letting somebody else hijack your agency through their willingness to play chicken with everybody's PCs.

I've seen enough larps where once you kick of PvP, everybody knows that you now revert to a sort of hobbesian state of nature where the only social rules in character are 'do unto others before they do unto you' and authority is derived from violence and the willingness to use it to remove other people's PCs. This is shit. It's no fun to play in (unless you are a particular sort of bastard who just wants to win against the other players, but if you are I have no sympathy for you: that is what wargames etc are for). It sucks for the GM who has gone from telling a story or presenting a sandbox, to managing player egos and trying to remain unbiased as players try to kill each other off. It kills games.

Why does this happen?

It happens because frequently, going for the nuclear option (death or total domination) is the best option once the knives are out, and once that dynamic has started it's hard for those involved to de-escalate.
Let's look at the likely positive and negative consequences of taking/not taking the nuclear option in PvP.
Positives to taking the nuclear option: Your PC enemy goes away, meaning you win the conflict and they can't go nuclear on you.
Negatives to taking the nuclear option: NPCs will probably react negatively to you for acting like a bastard.
Positives to not taking the nuclear option: NPCs don't react badly because you aren't being a murderous asshole yet.
Negatives to taking the nuclear option: your enemies might take the nuclear option, and even if they don't, you still haven't won the conflict yet.

The solution, therefore, is pretty simple. The negative consequences of going nuclear (the pushback from NPCs) needs to be sufficient to dissuade you from going nuclear.
I've played in large larps where all the conflict was between PCs. Some of them had a set-up where if you did a murder, you would most likely be caught by (the gods/the police/your bosses) and punished... which probably means execution. In these games, the murder rate is very low. In games where no external force punished you for doing murders, murder abounded. (I have 'fond' memories of a larp event where I created five characters in a row in an effort to get from the side of the field with my tent in to the side of the field with the bar in, without being robbed and murdered on the way over; the first four died.)
If you set it up so that Going Nuclear - IE attempts to remove rival PCs through force, typically murder - doesn't result in immediate, devestating pushback from NPCs, your PCs will resort to it once PvP kicks off in ernest, and once that's happened your game will not recover.
If you make it clear that the Nuclear Option is more trouble than it's worth, then you can have healthy PvP with political maneuvering and shenanigans.
You need this to be clear from the outset. You need your players to know that they will get caught and they will suffer when they do. You need to establish The Will Of The Gods or The Police or whatever as being potent enough to stomp on a PC who goes nuclear on their rivals.

If this is not an option (perhaps your PCs are in the wilderness), then you still need to enforce immediate, disastrous consequences for PvP. Have something powerful attack while the PCs are in their post-nuclear-war weakened state. Have monsters use their divisions against them. Punish them.


This, incidentally, is the route cause of all shitty behavior in RPGs. If your players are running about being lol-so-random idiots, stabbing kings and widdling on things, it's because you are not enforcing appropriate consequences from the world for that. If your PCs murder every monster and NPC they encounter, it's because you are not showing them the downsides of violence; they encounter no grudges, no law enforcement, no orphans, no vengeful ghosts...
Toxic behaviors in the game are, mostly, behaviors people don't exhibit in real life because there are consequences. Enforce consequences, and the behavior stops.

Or, alternatively, talk to your players like a grownup so everybody can agree ahead of time where the limits are with conflict between PCs. That too.

I wrote a Wargame and you should buy it

So, I've blogged about The Dolorous Stroke on here a bit. Well, it's done now. You can buy it here, it costs five bucks for roughly 100 pages.
I'm planning to get it into print, but that could take a while.
I'm gonna talk about it some.

So the initial thought process went something like this:

• Inquisitor is really cool but too detailed even for me. See this blogpost for more of my fangirling.
• The LOTR skirmish game is pretty good and should never have been made a large-scale game.
• Arthuriana is under-represented.
• This Dark Age Of Sigmar/AoS28 stuff is really cool!
• Fuck it lets make it a game.

So I built a game based on my particular tastes. Which is to say:

• Alternating activation.
• Simple resolution.
• Changing dice sizes rather than +/- X modifiers.
• Injuries rather than loss of HP.
• Playing cards always make tracking stuff easy.
• Tempo and timing wins games, not removing models.
• Hard to kill models, tabling your opponent ineffective. 
• Weapon choice matters.
• Freeform character creation, no list-building points-cost bullshit.

So my philosophy was to make the game as an engine for interesting encounters and atmosphere, creating a slightly darker chivalrous feel to things. Story and setting and characters are more important than tactics. If your warband aren't converted, you are Doing It Wrong.

Which is why you've got things like special rules for jousting, noblewomen as social/command powerhouses, magic as limited but devastating, a stat for Virtue.

Some of my early thoughts can be found in this post, where the commenter Alandros suggested the game's eventual title. Stuff's been modified since then, but it's a good insight into my early design thoughts.

I've been playing it a bunch with local gamers. They seem to like it. I have plans to run a big themed campaign with, like, a Quest and Tournaments and Dark Secrets.

And then graphic design wise I tried to keep things fairly tight. Consistent use of sidebars for setting stuff, little heraldic shields as page ornaments to break up the text, and big full-page illustrations every so often. It'll do.

Horrible Wounds in OSR games

I don't like death at 0HP. From a player side its abrupt and always feels arbitrary, and from the ref side it's both quite punishing and doesn't cause enough complications.

When characters hit 0HP, I want them to suffer. They get chopped up, start bleeding, lose body parts, get messed up. Characters that drop to 0HP should aquire scars and problems. They should risk death but have a chance to avoid it if swift medical attention is received. It's worth noting that, compared to death at 0HP, these rules are not as forgiving as you might think: being stuck with a PC who's missing two limbs or brain damaged is a pretty big nerf, compared to just getting to roll up a new, perfectly healthy PC.

These are the rules I use. They've been playtested a decent amount and work for what I want them to do. They are also, incidentally, remarkably similar to the rules I put in Wolfpacks & Winter Snow and Esoteric Enterprises. 

Applying Horrible Wounds

Rather than instantly dying on 0 Hit-Points, PCs and other important characters instead suffer specific horrible wounds which may kill them (either instantly or over time) or else leave them with dramatic injuries as their bodies are permanently mutilated.

When damage reduces you to 0 HP or less, or you take any damage when you already had no HP, look at the exact amount of damage dealt and get a result from the list below. It doesn't matter how far 'into the negatives' you are, just look at the result of the dice. Except for the penalties from actual injuries, you can keep on going just fine on 0 HP; adrenaline can do impressive things.

There are 6 sets of wounds to look the damage up on, depending on what caused it. They are:

•         Ballistics, for bullets, explosives and other extremely high energy impacts.
•         Ripping, for knives, teeth, claws, and other ‘sharp’ physical damage.
•         Bludgeoning, for hammers, falling masonry, fists, and other ‘blunt’ physical damage.
•         Burns, for fire, acid, digestive enzymes and other sub-stances that physically corrode, burn or eat away at flesh.
•         Shocks, for electricity and perhaps extreme cold, radiation or other dangers that suddenly stun or shock the body into uselessness.
•         Toxins, for poison, sickness, and other hazardous sub-stances that make the body ill.

Some really nasty damage ignores HP, and goes straight to causing these wounds. This is the sort of thing that would be instant-death in a game without wounds.

Being reduced to 0 in a stat still just kills you instantly; the increasing penalties for lowering stats is a good representation of the body or mind weakening. The same applies to instant death effects (such as some poisons or spells); those just kill you right away. Similarly, against a helpless victim, you can just kill them without needing to make damage rolls. It might be messy and unpleasant, but if they can’t stop you they’ll die eventually.

These rules are best reserved for PCs and significant NPCs and monsters: those important enough to earn a name and a notable place in the fiction. For minor NPCs, wandering monsters and so on, just have them die at 0 HP to avoid the game getting too bogged down.

Ongoing Damage

Sometimes a character is brought to 0 flesh by a source of damage that continues each round or turn; being on fire, breathing in toxic fumes and being immersed in acid are good examples of this sort of thing. For as long as the effect keeps damaging them, they keep taking the appropriate Horrible Wound each round (or turn), with one modification. If they would suffer a Horrible Wound already inflicted on them by that damage source, they instead take the next one down (if that one has also been suffered, look at the one below it and so on until there is a new wound to suffer). In this way, the wounds suffered from ongoing damage will get progressively worse the longer the victim is left, making death near-inevitable without some sort of intervention.

Fatigue

A character who is physically drained and cannot move without difficulty suffers a few penalties. They move as if heavily encumbered and go last in initiative. They regain only 1 HP whenever they would recover HP.

Bleeding To Death

A character who starts bleeding out can survive for as many rounds as they have hit-dice, adjusted by their Constitution modifier. For example, a first level character (who therefore has 1 hit dice) with +2 constitution bleeds to death in 3 rounds.

A character can attempt an Intelligence roll to staunch the bleeding. This takes a round, and if successful slows the bleed to a rate of turns rather than rounds. If failed, then the character loses additional blood as the medic interferes with them; they have one less round of bleed time every time a medic fails to staunch their bleeding.

A character can also attempt to properly treat the bleeding of a character bleeding at a rate of turns. Doing so is more involved, so takes a full turn. If successful, the patient stops bleeding entirely. If failed, then the patient’s bleeding is again accelerated by a full turn.

Magical healing such as Cure Light Wounds or a potion automatically ends the bleeding.

Dead Men Walking

Sometimes death is basically inevitable, but not immediate. This is referred to as being a Dead Man Walking. As a Dead Man Walking, you get one more round to act in, and then you die. If you have a constitution bonus, you get that many extra rounds.

Nothing can be done to stop this. A Dead Man Walking’s death sentence is merely slightly delayed, but still irrevocable.

Healing Horrible Wounds

Some horrible wounds create an immediate effect, such as knocking the victim unconscious or causing them to begin bleeding out. These might be fixed with an appropriate roll and a round (or sometimes turn) spent treating the victim. If the roll fails, the victim suffers additional wounds from the botched procedure; roll a d8 on the appropriate list, and they suffer that wound.

More permanent wounds such as lost body-parts and mutilation cannot be fixed in this way. Sometimes, reconstructive surgery is possible. If doctors are employed to rebuild the character, then the process will likely take several months to be finished (due to waiting times, the search for donors, recovery times and so on) during which they are effectively out of commission. Even in places where the practice of medicine is advanced, access to surgeons this sophisticated is limited.

Alternatively, magic such as Regenerate might be required to restore the body. Spells like Cure Light Wounds are not sufficient.

Ballistic Wounds

This damage table should be used for bullets and explosions, and other high-kinetic-energy impacts.

One damage:

The shot rips through internal organs, starting a slow internal bleed. You’re bleeding out, but at a rate of turns rather than rounds.

Two damage:

The bullet’s impact ruins a leg. With one leg, you're reduced to hopping about or relying on crutches. You can’t run, and get disadvantage (roll twice and take the worse result) to rolls requiring physical agility. If both go, you're on the floor unable to get about at all.

Three damage:

The impact of the bullet ruins an arm. You can’t use that hand for anything. Any rolls that require the use of two hands reduces gets disadvantage).

Four Damage:

A deep wound starts you Bleeding Out. The bullet goes in one side and out the other, and blood’s fountaining everywhere.

Five Damage:

A particularly horrible wound ruins your leg completely. Maybe it’s severed, maybe it’s hanging by sinews, or maybe it’s just a mess. With one leg, you're reduced to hopping about or relying on crutches. You can’t run, and get disadvantage to rolls requiring physical agility. If both go, you're on the floor unable to get about at all.

You are also Bleeding Out.

Six Damage:

A particularly horrible wound gets rid of your arm entirely. Maybe it’s severed, maybe it’s hanging by sinews, or maybe it’s just a mess. You can’t use that hand for anything. Any rolls that require the use of two hands gets disadvantage.

You are also Bleeding Out.

Seven Damage:

You’re shot in the head but somehow survive. You’re Bleeding Out, blood gushing from your ears and mouth. The brain trauma gives you disadvantage to all rolls.

Eight Damage:

You’re going to die. A bullet tears your throat wide open or goes through your lung. You’re a Dead Man Walking.

Nine Damage:

You’re messed up badly. Flesh is ripped to bits, bones shattered. You’re a Dead Man Walking. On top of this, you’re knocked unconscious for a round from the shock of your injuries.

Ten to Fifteen Damage:

A headshot kills you instantly.

Sixteen or More Damage:

You’re dead, ripped to bits in a hail of bullets or shrapnel. What’s left is hardly intact enough to bury or reanimate.

Ripping Wounds

This damage table should be used for physical wounds. Stabbing, cutting, tearing, crushing, grinding; anything where a solid object is tearing up flesh, use this table.

One damage:

The injury fucks your eye up. You take disadvantage to rolls involving perception, since you can’t see properly.

Two damage:

A particularly savage wound ruins a leg. With one leg, you're reduced to hopping about or relying on crutches. You can’t run, and take disadvantage to rolls requiring physical agility. If both go, you're on the floor unable to get about at all.

Three damage:

A particularly savage wound ruins an arm. You can’t use that hand for anything. Any rolls that require the use of two hands reduces suffers disadvantage.

Four Damage:

A deep wound starts you Bleeding Out. An artery’s been cut or there’s a huge injury in your torso, and blood’s fountaining everywhere.

Five Damage:

A particularly horrible wound ruins your leg completely. Maybe it’s severed, maybe it’s hanging by sinews, or maybe it’s just a mess. With one leg, you're reduced to hopping about or relying on crutches. You can’t run, and take disadvantage to rolls requiring physical agility. If both go, you're on the floor unable to get about at all.

You are also Bleeding Out.

Six Damage:

A particularly horrible wound gets rid of your arm entirely. Maybe it’s severed, maybe it’s hanging by sinews, or maybe it’s just a mess. You can’t use that hand for anything. Any rolls that require the use of two hands reduces suffers disadvantage.

You are also Bleeding Out.

Seven Damage:

You sustain a nasty head wound. You’re unconscious for d12 rounds, and Bleeding Out from the head.

Eight Damage:

You’re going to die. A blade through the skull, torso torn open, or something like that. You’re a Dead Man Walking.

Nine Damage:

You’re messed up badly. Flesh is ripped to bits, bones shattered. You’re a Dead Man Walking. On top of this, you’re knocked unconscious for a round from the shock of your injuries.

Ten to Fifteen Damage:

You’re dead. Decapitation, totally ruined chest, skull smashed to bits, or whatever. Death is instant.

Sixteen or More Damage:

Not only are you dead, but there’s not even enough left to bury or reanimate. You’re not much more than chunky salsa.

Bludgeoning Wounds

This damage table should be used for anything that batters at the victim without having a sharp edge or point as fist, bricks, clubs and so on, where the likely result is to bludgeon the victim into submission rather than rip them to bits.

One damage:

It hurts like hell. You lose your next action.

Two damage:

A sharp blow to the head knocks you unconscious for d12 rounds.

Three damage:

You’re knocked out for d12 rounds by the blow, and when you wake up you’re groggy and dazed. You’re fatigued until somebody spends a turn seeing to you, and passes an Intelligence roll to do so.

Four Damage:

A particularly savage wound ruins a leg. With one leg, you're reduced to hopping about or relying on crutches. You can’t run, and take disadvantage to rolls requiring physical agility. If both go, you're on the floor unable to get about at all.

Five Damage:

A particularly savage wound ruins an arm. You can’t use that hand for anything. Any rolls that require the use of two hands reduces suffers disadvantage

Six Damage:

A sharp blow to the head knocks you out cold for d12 rounds. On top of that, the head injury has messed you up badly. The brain trauma gives you disadvantage to all your rolls.

Seven Damage:

You’ve suffered internal damage, and now you’re Bleeding Out. There’s a pretty good chance you’ll be coughing up blood, or else bleeding from the eyes or mouth.

Eight Damage:

You’ve suffered a horrible brain injury. You’re Bleeding Out, blood gushing from your ears and mouth. The brain trauma gives you disadvantage to all your rolls.

Nine Damage:

Something ruptures in your head, doing irreparable and fatal damage to your brain. Although you might be able to cling onto life for a little longer, you’re a Dead Man Walking.

Ten to Fifteen Damage:

You’re killed instantly, your head caved in.

Sixteen or More Damage:

Well, this was overkill. You’ve been squashed into a pulpy mess, so there’s really barely anything left to bury or reanimate.

Shocking Wounds

This damage table is mostly used for electricity, but could also be appropriate for things like cold or psychic damage.

One damage:

It hurts like hell. You lose your next action.

Two damage:

The force of the shock knocks you unconscious for d12 rounds.

Three damage:

You’re knocked out for d12 rounds by the shock, and when you wake up you’re groggy and dazed. You’re fatigued until somebody spends a turn seeing to you, and passes an Intelligence roll to do so.

Four Damage:

The damage has seriously jarred your respiratory system, preventing you from breathing properly and possibly sending you into cardiac arrest. You’re probably spasming, suffocating or otherwise struggling to stay alive. It counts as Bleeding Out, although depending on the injury might not actually involve blood loss.

On top of this, since you can’t breathe properly, you’re Fatigued until you stop bleeding.

Five Damage:

The shock damages your mental faculties. The brain trauma gives disadvantage to all rolls.

Six Damage:

The shock knocks you out cold for d12 rounds. On top of that, the head injury has messed you up badly. The brain trauma gives you disadvantage to all rolls.

Seven Damage:

You’ve suffered internal ruptures, and now you’re Bleeding Out. There’s a pretty good chance you’ll be coughing up blood, or else bleeding from the eyes or mouth.

Eight Damage:

You’ve suffered a horrible brain injury. You’re Bleeding Out, blood gushing from your ears and mouth. The brain trauma gives you disadvantage to all rolls.

Nine Damage:

Your respiratory system seizes up completely, and death is not far off. Although you might be able to cling onto life for a little longer, you’re a Dead Man Walking.

Ten to Fifteen Damage:

You’re killed instantly, the shock stopping all life signs in one fell swoop.

Sixteen or More Damage:

You’re totally obliterated by the force of the shock, leaving only a smell of smoke and ozone. There’s not much left to resurrect or reanimate.

Burning Wounds

This damage table should be used for anything that actually removes your flesh; fire, acid, digestive enzymes, and so on.

One damage:

One damage fucks your eye up. You disadvantage on rolls involving perception

Two damage:

Two damage messes up your mouth and tongue, making al-most impossible to speak clearly. Charisma rolls may be required to communicate through grunts and gestures, and spell-casting is impossible since it requires precise enunciation.

Three damage:

Three damage ruins your face, turning it into a mess of burn scars when it finally heals. You’re ugly as shit now. Enemy reaction rolls are 1 point worse when you’re involved, and you disadvantage on charisma-based rolls. It will need reconstructive surgery to fix.

Four Damage:

Four damage has dealt enough damage to your throat and lungs that you can’t breath properly. You’re probably coughing up blood, suffocating or otherwise struggling to stay alive. It counts as Bleeding Out, although depending on the injury might not actually involve blood loss. On top of this, since you can’t breathe properly, you’re Fatigued until you stop bleeding.

Five Damage:

Five damage ruins your manual dexterity. Your fingers are burnt to useless nubs, or reduced to masses of scar with no sense of touch. You take disadvantage on attack rolls and rolls requiring manual dexterity.

Six Damage:

Six damage ruins your senses. Your nose is burnt away, inner ears ruined. You’re deaf and can no longer smell or taste properly. You take disadvantage on rolls requiring perception. Since you can’t hear, you can’t enunciate properly to cast spells.

You’re also Bleeding Out.

Seven Damage:

Your lungs are burnt away, and so is your face. You’re pretty grim to look at. Enemy reaction rolls are 1 point worse when you’re involved, and you take disadvantage on rolls involving charisma. Plus, you’re now Bleeding Out, and can’t breathe properly meaning you’re Fatigued until you stop bleeding.

Eight Damage:

This is brutal. Your skin is basically gone, and your body is covered in horrific burns. You’re a Dead Man Walking.

Nine Damage:

Nine damage messes you up badly. You’re more ash than flesh at this point, but still clinging to life for a little longer. You’re a Dead Man Walking. On top of this, you’re knocked unconscious for a round from the sheer pain.

Ten to Fifteen Damage:

You’re killed instantly.

Sixteen or More Damage:

You’re dead and the corpse is burnt to oblivion. Nothing but ashes or gunk is left behind.

Toxic Wounds

This damage table is for damage that comes from within the body. Poison, sickness, radiation and so on.

One damage:

You’re nauseous and can’t concentrate. Until somebody sets you down to fix what’s ailing you (spending a turn and passing an Intelligence roll), you’re Fatigued.

Two damage:

Your immune system is horribly, horribly compromised. You get a permanent disadvantage to your

Saves vs Poison.

Three damage:

Your blood is tainted, and your lungs don’t work properly anymore. You recover less slowly than normal. You only get HP back by sleeping, and then a maximum of 1 HP.

Four Damage:

You’re Bleeding Out from the nose and eyes, but at a rate of Turns, not Rounds.

Five Damage:

Your body is trying to vent the poison from it. You sweat foul smelling blood, Bleeding Out at a rate of turns, not rounds. Until you stop bleeding out, you’re also Fatigued.

Six Damage:

Something’s ruptured. You’re bleeding out at normal speed, and the stuff spewing out of your mouth is black and acrid.

Seven Damage:

Things are going badly wrong. You’re Bleeding Out from your mouth and eyes, and even if you survive you get a permanent disadvantage on your Saves vs Poison from now on.

Eight Damage:

This means you’re going to die. There’s just too much nasty stuff in your body, and it can’t cope. You’re a Dead Man Walking.

Nine Damage:

Your organs are shutting down one by one. You’re a Dead Man Walking. Plus, you spend the next round vomiting everywhere, and lose your chance to act.

Ten to Fifteen Damage:

You’re dead, and it’s not pretty.

Sixteen or More Damage:

You die instantly, your body no longer able to hold together under the toxic strain. It’s probably not a good idea to try re-animating the corpse; just burn it for the good of everybody. There’s not even enough left to bury or reanimate.

And there you go. Before long, you'll have a party of PCs missing all sorts of fun extremities.

Running War in RPGs

So, this is a technique I use where the PCs are commanding troops in battle. It assumes the PCs are reasonably strong, so that a single mook is not much threat to them: I've used it both for high level OSR games (IE once they hit level 9 and get their castle) and in the Wraith game I run for when they're at war with Specters.

The basic thinking is this: Rolling out each round of combat will get really tedious really fast, so don't do that. Assume that the PCs are able to make a difference where they focus their efforts, but can't be everywhere at once.

The method I use is to divide the scene into 'frames', each frame being a snapshot of the battlefield as the situation develops. 

Each frame presents the general situation of the battlefield, and the results of the PCs actions in the previous frame. It then lists a number of points where the PCs might want to intervene.

Here's an example from tonight's (text-based) Wraith game, in which wax-themed spectres were besieging the city of Barcelona:

FRAME 3 RESULTS: Ember, you're able to cut down the wraiths hauling the bell, and then turn your attention on the bell itself - you attempt to cleave it in twain with your blade, but only succeed in striking it and producing a mighty GLONG! that causes the very walls to shudder and both wraiths and spectres to drop to the floor clutching their ears. Sophia, the waxy priests shriek and burn, and their torrent of angst ceases as Moire and her pet squid-monster smash into them from the flank, totally destroying the formation. Sun-Come-Dance, fucking EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE - this is a problem for the spectres pursuing you, the survivors you're with and yourself, but for now you're outrunning the flames. The spectre's seige engines remain pinned down by the hierarchy's firepower.

FRAME 4: More spectres swarm over the breaches in the walls and into the city, running amock and cutting down civilians and wounded legionaries where they catch them. Waxen knights climb the walls, hoping to secure the beach-heads their more expendable cousins have made. The approaching collumns of spectral reinforcements are held at bay by all of Sun-come-dance's fire, at least for now. Out of the wax moat, crude hulking wax giants emerge, lumbering towards the walls. A cadre of spectral engineers scurry from cover to cover towards the now-damaged seige-engines, attempting to repair them and bring them to bear. Following the giant squid-spectre, a small warband of creatures resembling a cross between toads and sea anemones crash gibbering and shrieking into the wax-army's flank, and a densely-packed melee breaks out. Lord Soot, Ember's second-in-command, is cut down by a wax knight and falls from the walls, bleeding plasm.

Here, I'm responding to the player's previous actions first. Ember dealing with what is basically a Skaven Screaming Bell used by the specters, Sophia attacking spectral priests, Moire allying with fish-monsters to attack a vulnerable flank, and Sun-Come-Dance* leading scattered wraiths behind the enemy lines to do arson. 

The I introduce potential problems. Most notably, the breach had been ignored for two frames already, so now it's going to mean horrible defeat if not dealt with. Other elements pose threats, attack the PCs assets, or add complications. For example, not dealing with the siege engines getting repaired will mean the specters are able to start a full bombardment, resulting in heavy casualties on the wall's defenders.

(*One of my players asked if she could play the ghost of a dead neanderthal. it's like they know my tastes or something)

Each frame, the PCs get to do one thing that responds to one element of the frame. If an element goes ignored (like the breach here), then the enemy succeeds and the situation gets worse. If they choose to deal with a problem (by a method that makes sense) then that problem goes away. Where there's doubt, a simple roll might be needed. In OSR, this is probably 'roll d20 and hope its under a stat', in WoD it's normally 'Int + Strategy' or some such.

If the PCs command their minions to do something, then that uses their action for the frame, and the minions will keep doing it (or things like it) until given new orders. So a PC can throw orders out each frame to bring more and more minions to bear.

Once you've seen what the players are doing, work out how they succeed, what happens to the threats they ignore, and narrate the results.

It's pretty simple.

The key thing here is to do four things:

• Minimise the use of game mechanics and focus instead on the PCs as directing the flow of a large battle that's handled through narration.
• Divide the battle into distinct snapshots where the PCs are presented with many problems to fix: more than they can fix in one go.
• Punish them for the problems they don't fix, reward them for the problems they do.
• Keep introducing new factors and moving the dynamics of the battle forward.

Eventually either the PCs bring enough forces to bear that they have an obvious advantage, and you can call the battle as a win for them, or else they ignore a problem for long enough that it becomes unstoppable, and you can call a loss.

So yeah. That's how I do battles in my games. My players seem to have fun with it.

Dolorous Stroke - Playtests!

So, I've been playtesting The Dolorous Stroke with my partner Holly. She's not wargamed before, but seems to have been getting into it. Two games so far.

Game 1: The Black Apple Shenanigan!

The participants: On one side, commanded by Holly, Sir Elis (an elf knight with a hypnotic voice) and his huorn bodyguard, Sile. On the other side, under my control, Sir Braccus (wight, necromancer, owner of an unreasonably big sword).

The place: Saint Boddle's Graveyard: a wall, then a row of graves, then a single huge apple-tree.

The Motivations: Sir Elis is on a quest to taste the best apple in the world  (elves are weird), and has heard that Saint Boddle's Graveyard has a tree that grows magnificent black apples. So he sets out to purloin one. He is met by Sir Braccus, defending the graves of him and his descendants, who just wants they fey knight to sod off.

How it went down: Braccus kicked things off by animating a bunch of skeletons out of various graves, and swifly surrounded Sir Elis with corpses. Alas, such was the power of Sir Elis's hypnotic voice, Sir Braccus could not bring himself to land a blow on the knight.

Sile, meanwhile, plodded stolidly down the middle of the battlefield, and began to climb the tree. After a short fight, with Sir Elis fending off waves of corpses as he tried to push through them and take out the wight summoning them, Sile reached his target and dropped out of the tree.

At this point, the skellies all mobbed Sile and tore his fucking legs off, followed by Sir Braccus using necromantic power to drag Sile's soul bit by bit into a nearby open grave. Sile threw the apple to Sir Elis, who took a bite from it and concluded that it was 'good but not brilliant', and declined the chance to devour it and gain necromantic power. Negotiation ensued, and in the end Sir Elis gave the 'less than perfect' apple back in return for Sile being released.

Sir Elis went on his merry way, in search of a way to fix Sile's legs.

Thoughs: In a tightly packed fight, activation order is crucial for getting fights in your favour. Positioning is arguably less important than tempo, as you can lock down and manipulate enemies jsut by charging them.

Armour penetration is really swingy: without a reliable way to punch through armour, most knights are total tanks.

Actually taking models out is pretty hard, and damage is mostly slow attrition. I like this, as it makes going for your objectives much more significant than simply tabling your opponent: the similar slow pace of fights similarly led to players actually roleplaying at each other, shouting threats and offers at each other as part of their actions.

Holly's Response: She's gone from sceptical to keen, and insisted on writing up her own little band (that I will have to produce figures for).

Game 2: Looting the Chapel

The participants: On one side, Sir Rutger (a Knight of the Order of the Red Maw, with vivimantic powers, and vampirism), Daisy (a ghoul child adopted by Sir Rutger as something approaching a daughter, who seems harmless, acts as a bloodbag/medic for Sir Rutger, and who has a rather nasty bite if you get her angry),  and his 'wife' Melissa (a swarm of worms puppeting a human skin, and thoroughly horrible in a fight). This lot were Holly's.

On the other side, under my command, Sir Godric (a Knight of the Order of Herne, with a longbow and a fast horse), Lady Jeanette (his liege, a noblewoman with the power of enchantment), Agnes (a peasant girl with a sling) and Pietre (a peasant lad with a bow).

The place: The Chapel of the Ermine Heart, a ruined shrine scattered with old treasures.

Motivations: Both sides are looking for an ancient codex filled with arcane secrets... and the rest of the treasure doesn't hurt either.

How it went down: Sir Rutger bolstered Melissa to frankly terrifying levels with his vivimancy, sending her sprinting towards Pietr and Jeanette: Pietr spent the next few turns shooting at her ineffectually. Meanwhile, Daisy crept forwards to claim an easy bit of treasure, as did Rutger.

Meanwhile, Sir Godric gallopped recklessly across the field scooping up treasure as he went, until there was only one bit of loot left unclaimed. This shiny chest of gold was sat between Rutger and Melissa, and on the other side of a tumbled-down wall. Godric, being a bit foolhardy, lept over the wall on his horse, and scooped up the treasure, only to realise that he was between a heavilly armed vampire and a magically empowered worm-monster, who promptly charged him from either side.

The fight was brief, and Godric's defensive efforts were to little avail. Although Rutger's blows bounced off Godric's armour, Melissa tore into one leg, and infested his armour with maggots that began devouring his flesh bit by bit. Grabbing what treasure he could hold onto, Godric nobly fled.

In response, Melissa charged back after Jeanette (who had spent the entire fight merely shouting helpful suggestions to her men), and was finally shot down by Pietre as she loomed mere feet from Pietre's liege-lady. Meanwhile, not even bothering to gallop after Godric, Rutger worked his magic and Godric's blood exploded, instantly taking him out of commision.

The game ended with Agnes, who'd spent the entire fight hiding in the ruins, grabbing Godric and his loot, and dragging him to safety as Rutger harried them.

It turns out none of the treasure Godric picked up was even the book we were looking for, so even though Jeanette came away richer, Rutger got the real prize.

Thoughs: Violence once again proved to be more important as a threat than actually to win: archers pointing down certain firing-lanes managed to lock down one flank, and Melissa's rampage didn't achieve much but kept me too busy fending her off to really concentrate on the treasure.

The densely-packed terrain of the ruined chapel made maneuvering very useful in this fight. Being able to get into position to claim treasure or threaten key areas with charges or missiles is very useful. I found that tempo abilities (such as those used by Lady Jeanette) were key to pulling this off.

Magic is balls-to-the-wall good, the only downside is that if the fight drags out, magic saps your will, meaning you'll run out of mojo, and be vulnerable to psychological stuff.

Holly's Response: Well, she's decided that the book contained information on how to make homonculi, so Sir Rutger is now accompanied by a little gremlin made of entrails. She's also pursuaded me to convert custom miniatures for Rutger's twisted little family, and seems keen to make this a campaign. So it's working pretty well.

Overall? It's working out pretty well. It's a relatively fast-paced skirmish game, which seems to be good at producing funny or tense situations, and doesn't put so much weight behind using violence to kill all your threats: every game has ended with only a couple of wounds, with most of the play being around claiming objectives and trying to outmaneuver the enemy. Which I like.

Holly seems into it, which is nice.

Wendigo Sickness

Or: does eating human flesh turn you into a ghoul?

So, I saw a bit of discussion about whether eating people should do something nasty to you, and a lot of cultures have a myth about how eating human flesh turns you into a monster. Wendigos, ghuls and gaki spring to mind, but there are others. Cannibalism is a very common theme in mythology, after all.
Here's some mechanics for that. Each time a PC eats a person, they go one step down the Wendigo Sickness tracker. You get the effects of your current level of Wendigo Sickness, and everything from previous levels. Eating the same person more than once doesn't count multiple times. If you were tricked/would have starved if you didn't eat/were compelled, you get to make a Save vs Magic (if you want) and if you pass, you can chose not to go down the Wendigo sickness tracker.

The first meal: No mechanical effects, but the eater knows they will risk becoming a Wendigo if they eat again.
The second meal: No mechanical effects, but roll for Signs of the Wendigo.
The third meal: A mouthful of human flesh is enough to sustain you for a day.
The fourth: You get a bite attack that deals d4 damage, that you can make instead of attacking with a weapon.
The fifth: Each time you eat a person, you heal 1 hp. Only once per person.
The sixth: Roll another Sign of the Wendigo.
The seventh: You get no sustenance from food that isn't meat, & the damage of your bite increases to a d6.
The eighth: You may make your bite attack in addition to attacking with a weapon.
The ninth: Roll another Sign of the Wendigo.
The tenth: When given the opportunity to eat a person (such as somebody you could kill and eat without being found out) but don't want to do so, you must Save vs Magic; if you fail you must attempt to eat them and roll up a new Sign of the Wendigo. No need to save if you're going to eat them anyway.
The eleventh: You heal as much damage as your character level when you eat a person, instead of 1 hp.
The twelfth: Roll another Sign of the Wendigo
The thirteenth:  You get no benefit from food that isn't people meat, & the damage of your bite increases to a d8.
Each time thereafter: Every time you roll a Save vs Magic to avoid eating somebody and fail, roll your class's hit-dice; if it comes up as a 1, you transform fully into a Wendigo and become an NPC driven only by their hunger. Roll up a new character.

The Signs of the Wendigo:
Roll d30, take the next down if a duplicate is rolled. Physical mutations emerge over the course of a few days.

1. Your feet lengthen, toes warping into hooves.
2. Your jaw lengthens into a muzzle.
3. You begin sprouting little antlers from your brow. 
4. Fur grows over your shoulders, upper arms and back.
5. The skin peels from your fingers, leaving claws of sharp bone.
6. Skin peels from your limbs, revealing muscle and sinew beneath.
7. Your eyes become yellow and reflect light like a wolf or cat.
8. Your teeth lengthen into fangs.
9. Your neck elongates and hunches forwards.
10. You grow emaciated and deathly pale.
11. You become cold to the touch.
12. All your teeth save your canines and incisors drop out.
13. You smell of rotting meat.
14. Your voice becomes raspy and hoarse.
15. Your eyelids and lips recede, exposing your teeth and preventing you from blinking.
16. You become immune to the cold.
17. Your feet don't touch the ground when you walk.
18. All natural animals instinctively fear you, failing all morale checks against you.
19. Damage from your bite increases to a d8.
20. You are never slowed or hindered by natural terrain such as steep slopes, thick woodland, marshes etc.
21. So long as you stand perfectly still, there is a 5-in-6 chance that mundane humans will be unable to perceive you. Animals, wizards, the insane and so on still notice you.
22. You no longer need to sleep.
23. You become immune to ingested poisons.
24. Those damaged by your bite must Save vs Paralysis or be frozen in horror for 2d6 rounds.
25. Those who survive your bite are immediately pushed d6 steps down the Wendigo tracker.
26. You can see in moonlight or starlight as well as if it was broad daylight.
27. You can walk up walls and over ceilings like a spider.
28. You can smell people out to a range of thirty feet, and track people by scent like a wolf.
29. You never leave tracks, scent or other traces of your passing.
30. Your movement speed doubles.

Henry Justice Ford project - Giant Dispair

Armour class: As Chain.
Hit dice: 13
Move: Double human.
Attacks: Club (3d8) and Snare (d4 and save vs Hopelessness)
No. Appearing: 1 (unique).
Morale: 10
Treasure: 3d8*10 gold, also Hope.
Alignment: Neutral

When an encounter with the Giant Despair is first indicated, he does not show up immediately. Instead, each time a player expresses pessimism about their situation*, there is a chance he will arrive.  The first time the players are pessimistic, there is a 1-in-10 chance he will arrive, then 2-in-10, etc.

The giant will loom up from behind the nearest cover. It has been waiting. When unobserved, it can move from one concealed position to another in the blink of an eye.

The giant seeks to take prisoners that he will enslave, and attacks those who’s will is already failing them.

The giant projects an air of hopelessness. Each round during the fight, each PC must make a Save vs Paralysis. If failed, they take -1 to every dice roll, until the giant is defeated (if they flee, the penalty lasts indefinitely). If they expressed pessimism during the previous round, they automatically fail the save.
A victim hit by the giant’s Snare must make another Save to resist hopelessness.

As soon as a party member places their faith in an outside power to rescue them, they regain hope. From this point on, they are immune to the giant’s hopelessness, hit it automatically, and do maximum damage to it.

A party that defeats Giant Despair wins Hope: each PC can, at some point in the future, take the best result of a single dice roll rather than actually rolling.

*This could be a simple statement like ‘we should flee’ or something more philosophical like ‘this was doomed from the start’.

(For publishing purposes, I'm sticking this under this: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

creative commons licence, so you can do what you want with it.)