Tag: game

Trench Crusade: A No Man’s Land of Possibility

  1. The Human Dominion
  2. Columbian Reserve
  3. Last Nations Confederacy
  4. The Stygianity of Death Exiled
  5. Cult of R’lyeh
  6. Golden Veda of Indus
  7. Outer Heralds
  8. –

Trench Crusade is a grimdark tabletop game that blew fundraising Kickstarter records out of the water.

I – a game maker – of course was drawn to a ruleset that drew so many others. Spoiler: It uses 2D6 (two six-sided dice) to resolve conflict (just like my own WIP BITS!) yet also leans on dice pools (a mainstay of many wargames). There is plainly a lot to learn from here…

However, I have kept attention on also for the brutal lore of this alternate reality. Taking note from the original grimdarkness of the Warhammer universe and combining it with the most dreadful modern imagination of dire metal, this product is not a game nor tale for immature audiences.

That said, count my fancy piqued by the possibilities this novel universe presents. “Church space program”? “Sultanate of the Iron wall”? “Black Grail”? “Anti-tank hammer”? These spark the imagination for factions and feuds within the bleakness of the trench wargame. As I work on roleplaying rules and other projects, I share a few faction ideas for continents yet to be rolled up into the strife of Trench Crusade‘s 1914:

The Human Dominion

Endless waves of humanity pour forth from under a blood-red rising sun. At their helm stand lords encased in towering suits of eight-times-forged steel and iron, their every step a proclamation of mankind’s defiance. Their crusade is singular: cast down the callous cosmic forces that reduce human potential to a game of dice. The vision is clear that the Earth is theirs to inherit – not by divine right, but by the supremacy of human might. Under the Dominion’s banner, Man shall reign master of all – unchallenged, unbound, and unrivaled.

Columbian Reserve

From mountains high to valleys low, no river is wide enough to halt the ceaseless flow of war across the ranges of the Columbian continent. Flames devour ancient forests, and battles scar the land as Heaven, mortals, and Hell wage eternal strife over the discovered world. Whether the aboriginal sacrifice of the Heretic King Cortés or the final defense of the Seven Colonies by English General Washington, evidence abounds that forces in the Columbian Reserve fair little better than their peers in the trench network across the Atlantic. Yet, amidst this unending chaos, whispers persist – rumors of a hidden pilgrimage moving in the shadows unbound by divine or infernal allegiance on their own mission: freedom at any cost.

Last Nations Confederacy

Refugees from every corner converge upon the Southern Fortress Continent which welcomes believer and uncommitted alike, so long as they contribute to the cause. The exhaustive labor of admission until death forges an ever-growing bastion against the malevolent forces that crash against the barrier coasts. These holdouts, united in work and defiance, seek escape. Wielding the twin powers of advanced science and ancient sorcery, their projects explore ways subterranean, ocean bottom, and deep space to get away from the wars. Yet, these confederates do not cower behind their hidden jungle bunkers – warriors strike out, fearless and fierce, against the genocidal ambitions of would-be conquerors who dare jeopardize the evacuation. Only through the research of secret pyramidal sacrifices and the relentless toil of their sweat does the Last Nations Confederacy cling to its fragile hope of salvation.

The Stygianity of Death Exiled

The old ways are remembered yet. In the shade there creeps the creed of gods long dead, multi-millennia machinations still unfolding. Their agents – the last of the fairies, phoenixes, sphinxes, genies, centaurs, gorgons, ravens, and more – lurk unseen among the devout of New Antioch and the vilest of Heretics alike. Bolstered by the restless tide of spirits entombed since before the first light graced the Earth, the motives of these cast-outs are shrouded as if Nature itself plotted in the dead gods’ favor.

Cult of R’lyeh

Elder terrors and their mutants bleed into this reality from places blasted and cursed. Beyond the understanding of mortals, angels, or demons, these grotesque and writhing fiends peer through rifts in the fabric of existence. Their dreaming whispers bring madness to the sane, bend believers into blasphemers, wash-up chthonic treasure to exchange for a wealth of terror. Though only shadows of their true forms can manifest, the Cult of R’lyeh gathers in dank, corrupted sanctuaries. Twisted rites of dark war are chanted in wet, fetid enclaves aboard living swamp-barges, the tepid coasts of Antarctica, and the submerged cities where slumbering corpses lie.

Golden Veda of Indus

Neither the murdered Alexander of Macedon nor the modern Sultanate could breach the sacred Indus River. Behind blood-crimson valleys and 108 frigid Himalayan castle palaces, the many denominations of Brahman have thrived in a Golden Age of science, art, and culture, where avatars of their gods walk among blooming groves and shining spires. And now the first god has failed to reincarnate, and the sleeping lotus stirs. Thus the Great Karmic Armies spill forth into the trench-riddled lands of shattered nations. Tools that blend mysticism and science, lore and technique like the world has not yet seen – energy-drenched bows, gilded sky chariots, pre-emptive strikes of divine insight – purge the many and various frontlines. Should this last crusade fail, the prophecies hold no doubt: the universe itself shall fall into the eternal ruin of oblivion.

Outer Heralds

They are not of this world. They descend from the Moon and Mars, perhaps realms far more distant. They are faceless, enigmatic. They are but a vanguard, harbingers of a greater force looming beyond comprehension nor number. They bare arms so advanced some suppose the monsters have their own numen: cyclopean tripods of liquid silver, gleaming craft that defy gravity, rays of light and heat that turn flesh to ash and boil stone as water, shimmering suits seen worn deep in gas clouds and the rings of Hell alike. They crusade for extermination complete upon Earth. They slaughter with such desperation, one may only guess at what unfathomable horror chases at the heels of these Outer Heralds.

–

Some other ideas as I write:

  • Air Forces: Bi- and tri-planes, blimps, balloons, floating fortresses.
  • Space: Rockets, flights to orbit, satellites, a counter-invasion of Mars, battles happening beyond the reaches of Earth’s influence.
  • Scale: solo roleplaying game elements (be the wretch in the trench), big and strategic battles, global conflict maps and evolution, hellscapes, a war in Heaven, urban warfare, pillars of fire and nuclear blasts.
  • Progression: Spanish Flu, Armageddon and Ragnarok and Rapture events, Great War part 2, space race, the Australian Continent, more of the Americas (Columbian Reserve and Last Nations Confederacy from the post above).
  • Crossovers: Powered armor from the future, DOOM‘s Doom Slayer, naval combat, a Rise of the Machines (a Matrix faction?), Warhammer AoS and 40K (but of course).

These just scratch the surface of the new creative itch I have inspired by the malevolent world of Trench Crusade. Almost certainly I will be back here to explore new ideas and tests of lore, games, and mechanics.

I wonder if you are moved yet to check out this alternate timeline – comment below what you find and think about it. Or, comment which of these factions need a bit of further expounding! For now, cheers to the crusades you get after in your own life ~

The Final Day Art Release

The Final Day‘s grimdark end of the world has a makeover!

Page 1 of “Ink Killer”
(For the sake of your printer, please refrain from printing 😅)

This roleplaying game generator has 36 unique cataclysms to ring-in your fantasy game’s apocalypse. While made under license for Mörk Borg, the descriptions are general enough to apply to any game needing a conclusion 🔥

The Final Day comes in ‘friendly’ and ‘ink bane’ versions. The addon is available now on sale over here.

Cheers to your (fictional) ruin! 💀

Today Is the End – RPG Tool for a Present Day Apocalypse

Warning ⚠ Linked, unaffiliated content has mature themes of violence, blood, and everything “Nano-infested doomsday RPG about cybernetic misfits and punks raging against a relentless corporate hell” would imply 💀

Dark-fantasy Mörk Borg is all about the end-times. From the set of Miseries to the seventh and final obliteration, the end is nigh.

The ending is also abrupt – slam book closed, burn your game sheets. To eek out a bit more play, I created an awarded module The Final Hours of the Final Day (read about it in the post).

Problem: That set of fictional cataclysms depend heavily on the lore, setting, and rules of Mörk Borg. Prophesies, grim fantasy, monster rules.

So it struck me: what would a present day apocalypse look like? Thus this new system-agnostic modern module Today Is the End.

Let’s discuss:

Today Is the End

A grimdark, modern-themed list of 36 terrible ends to the world. Rolling D66 (one six-sided die is the first value, a second D6 the second value) selects a tragedy to bring into the game to send a one-shot night of play or a whole campaign off with a bang.

From the rules:

The seventh seal is broken, the final war begins, the bombs drop, the world burns, and the enemy calls upon society and soul. These are your final hours. Every 15 to 30 real-minutes (or 1 hour game time), roll D66 twice on the below. If the same number has been used before, use the next highest that is unused.

The curtain falls for the last and final time when:

  1. all characters the players have or could play as (such as friendly NPCs) are dead and gone,
  2. all six of a section have been enacted (crumple and burn the pages here – existence snuffs out without warning),
  3. actions have miraculously stopped the machinations of the End Times.

Meant to come at the end of what already may be a long gaming session, Today Is the End careens headlong into chaos and cataclysm at a literally-breakneck pace.

To cater to any game system set in the modern world, Today Is the End relies on random trait selection and ‘qualitative’ difficulties (is it easy, moderate, or hard to do?).

Find Today Is the End here on Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1akgCDW6yAVIEOThIfabPMF9tDJTlG26i_tTOPUj2P7w/edit?usp=sharing

Calling Artists From the Rubble

Like The Final Hours, I am looking for an artist open for commissions! Whether in a Mörk Borg style or its cyberpunk sibling CY_BORG, I want to talk business 😁

Finally, the legal stuff:

https://morkborg.com/license/

Compatible with CY_BORG. CY_BORG IS ©2022 STOCKHOLM KARTELL.
Today Is the End is an independent production by Jimmy Chattin and is not affiliated with Stockholm Kartell. It is published under the CY_BORG Third Party License.

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Ready to play? Keep an eye out for a CB-related list of ruin next year along with a space-faring sci-fi rapture too.

In the meanwhile, shoot me your artist recommendations and suggestions on changes / replacements to Today Is the End. Cheers to your much-less-eventful end of year!

Any Dice for Any Game

I have written before on converting D100 and D20 dice systems to 2D6, but never have I ever brought all these dice into one place.

For your and my convenience, a table to convert any dice for any game rolls you may encounter, percentages of that outcome and at (>=) or over (>) the number specified:

QualityD100 >%D20 >=%D10 >=%2D6 >=%
Easy2575580380583
Medium50501055650758
Hard75251530920927
Very Hard9552051010118
D# Conversions

Do the percentages match? No. Is it worth it to be exact? Also no – these are for use in games of fun and non-monetary chance, each no more than ~10% from one another. As I once heard from a lead game designer (in paraphrase): “If a change isn’t 10% or more, it doesn’t matter.”

Note: Some games start the player’s characters strong, or the goals are to instill a dire feel in play. That just means to up the tiers of quality by 1, e.g. easy rolls as if medium, medium becomes hard, etc.

What About Other Dice?

Anything smaller than a single D10 or two D6 is really hard to make work intuitively.

Going back to the ~10% difference, look at a D6 -> a ‘very hard’ roll would be a 6 or more on a D6, a 17% chance of happening with a single die. We violate the ~10%-or-less rule. Could we make it happen? … Yes, if a roll requires a final number greater than the faces of the die (e.g. a 25 on D20), but now we are getting into some severe nitty-grittiness.

Don’t Forget the Stats!

If using a system specifically designed for a ‘DX’ roll but a player brings a ‘DY’ to the party, make sure to convert the stats any fictional character uses from ‘X’ to ‘Y’.

Example: A D10 is used for a D20 system – stats for the D20 system need to be cut in half in how they would add or subtract from the D10 roll.

An example for the example: A +4 Toughness stat would add to a normal D20 roll in the game. However, since using a D10, only +2 (half of +4) would be used when D10 is rolled.

Here is another: A D6 is brought to a D20 system. Stats would thereby be about one-third as applicable (+3 becomes a +1).

–

Hope this helps if needing to get people playing quickly at your table with any dice for any game. Might put this into something printable for an index card – let me know if I ought get that going sooner than later 👍

Cheers to you rolling what you need to 🎲🎲

The Final Day – RPG Tool for the End Times

Warning ⚠ Linked content has mature themes of violence, blood, and everything “a spiked flail to the face” of “a pitch-black apocalyptic fantasy RPG about lost souls” would imply 💀

Available now for purchase from the Store! Read about the release.

October had the goal to make a Mörk Borg module – The Final Hours of the Final Day is it, the perfect RPG tool for your own game’s end times 🔥

What Is The Final Day?

A grimdark, fantasy-themed list of 36 terrible ends to the world. Rolling D66 (one six-sided die is the first value, a second D6 the second value), select a tragedy to bring into the game to send a one-shot game or a whole campaign off with a bang.

From the rules:

The seventh seal is broken, the onslaught of the seventh Misery begins. These are your final hours. Every 15 to 30 real-minutes (or 1 hour game time), roll D66 twice on the below. If the same number has been used before, use the next highest that is unused.

The curtain falls for the last and final time when:

  1. all characters the players have or could play as (such as friendly NPCs) are dead and gone,
  2. all six of a section have been enacted (close and burn the book – existence snuffs out without warning),
  3. actions have miraculously stopped the machinations prophesied by Verhu of HE so long ago.

Meant to come at the end of what already may be a long gaming session, The Final Day careens headlong into chaos and cataclysm at a literally-breakneck pace.

While catering to the stats, lore, and ‘weird’ of Mörk Borg, The Final Day can be brought into any fantasy setting – stat effects can be either random stats or a best-call for the system in question, monsters are monsters or their near counterparts, and difficulties are generic enough for any system (minimum 10% change in probabilities).

Find the original The Final Hours of the Final Day here on Google Docs (again, the most updated can be purchased through the Store!): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dnWZciEVZwBLRh73qAV9NG6b1JzwydF1gc2lvCPF3m8/edit?usp=sharing

While Your World Burns:

I seek out a graphic artist open for paid commissions who would put together The Final Day in the style of other Mörk Borg content. Send your recommendations my way!

Finally, the legal stuff:

https://morkborg.com/license/

Compatible with Mörk Borg. MÖRK BORG is copyright Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell.

The Final Day is an independent production by Jimmy Chattin and is not affiliated with Ockult Örtmästare Games or Stockholm Kartell. It is published under the MÖRK BORG Third Party License.

–
That’s it! Working on a modern day, system agnostic version of The Final Day – expect a post on that soon.

In the meantime, shoot me your suggestions and artists who are open for work! Cheers to your gaming ~

A Thousand Rolls of the Dice

A thousand rolls of the dice? More like 7,752.

I like my games simple, but not all games are so. Some require more dice than the d6s the BITS System uses – this can be a problem if a player doesn’t want to carry around a dice bag 🎲🎲 Or a new player isn’t sure they are ready to invest. Yet other times a die just cannot be found!

Instead, I want to share with you different dice each with 1292 random rolls that are ready for print to distribute alongside any other piece of gaming material – physical dice not included 😉

d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, and d100 are all included in the DICE ROLLS – Essential doc on Google Drive.

Each page has labels for your convenience. All sheets have a normal distribution of probability, so the rolls are as accurate (or more) than physical math rocks.

A person can start from any corner and go in any direction so long as it is consistent (I would suggest the ol’ left-to-right, top-to-bottom approach). As you go along, mark off which numbers have been used.

Some dice are missing – with a little imagination, all the sheets can be more than they seem:

  • All sheets are also d2s.
  • d6 becomes a d3, d66 (first number x10, add second), or 2d6 (first + second).
  • d8 into a d4.
  • d10 replaces d100.

These are convenient sheets, though beware! Anyone who uses them may feel influenced to “meta game” – giving in to the temptation to look forward at what the next rolls might be and choose to act or not in certain unsporting fashion.

You can also make your own like I did:

  • In a spreadsheet, resize columns and rows to be square.
  • Use this formula: =RANDBETWEEN(1,6) (replace ‘6’ with your die size)
  • Copy, paste!

Or you can skip all that to make a copy from my sheets in Google Drive 😉

Enjoy your games and your play, now made easier with a thousand some-odd rolls of the dice. Cheers~

Play “As Above, So Below,” Out Now

In June, I blitzed the development of Gunslinger in The West (play the demo, an easy-to-read 2 printed pages!). Now is July’s turn to have its own game made.

A long-time passion project, As Above, So Below explored what it meant to make a game for me. It grew fast and big and needed some cooling-off time – now is the opportunity to brush the dust away, coming in at a cool 1 printed- and 2 printed-page collection for your enjoyment:

Prelude

The worlds are old. Very old. Too old. Created in the rift between mysterious heavens above and deadly hells below, you adventure in the ruins and wilds of all that’s left.

Whether ridding the last bastion of corruption by careless caretakers, purging dragons and worse from the dark places, uniting the Beings of the world against supernatural punishment, or making it back alive to the tavern with your plunder, you have the same chances as any angel or devil to leave your mark.

By word and sword and spell you are judged. So rely on your adventuring fellows and roll your dice in sacrifice to luck – you will need it.

Features

Be a competent, cooperative, and courageous adventurer with your friends. Fulfill your needs, get in trouble, and have fun along the way.

  • 2D6 minimal math (-4 to +4) rolling at-or-over 🎲🎲
  • Androgynous character creation, progression, and scars 💯
  • Minimal stat tracking in 4 qualities: Body, Insight, Thought, Specialty 🔥
  • Game Moderator (GM) guide 🐉
  • Spell and magic creator (sample spells too!) 🧙‍♂️
  • Problem and place creators 🏰
  • Goods economy, loot, help for hire, and many other tables and guides! ⚔

Play Now

(Links below go to Google Drive and the latest game documents.)

Best option: 2 pages, front-and-back. Magic, tables, guides, even a field of battle showing ranges. Too much? Then check out:

1 page, printed both sides. Gives the highlights of the system and some tables. Foldable.

The Future

  1. Update the full, couple-dozen-page As Above, So Below publication with what was discovered in the 1- and 2-page design process.
  2. Hire-out art.
  3. Format for printing in ink-friendly and art-friendly version.
  4. Supplement and expansion plans.

That’s all that comes to mind 🤷‍♂️ (“That’s all,” he says, as if a month or more of work is so meager!)

Again, the 1-page, 2-page challenge really honed the vision I had for the game, a work-in-process for two years. While both Gunslinger in The West and As Above, So Below had fuller versions explored before the challenge, they are clearly better for it.

I think any potential game benefits from a ‘bare bones’ to ‘skin-on-bones’ treatment – it clarifies what should be in a ‘meat-on-bones’ publication, hones rules, and streamlines play as a standalone or for testing further additions.

Simple.

And simple is what BITS and its derivatives are meant to be 😉

–

Give these prototypes a whirl – after my playtests, I would adore hearing about your experiences!

Cheers to all the fun times you have coming up~

Play “Gunslinger in The West” Now

June 28th 2022: Huzzah! A preview of the full game is available too! See here:

gunslinger-in-the-west-full-previewDownload

For June’s goal, I am counting Gunslinger in The West as out now! Have a one-pager and a two-pager condensing a larger 15-page document I’m keeping on the backburner for some more formal testing (graphic design would be nice to have too).

Without further ado, Gunslinger in The West:

Prelude

The West is a land of the lawless and everyone else. You gave up all to come here as a Gunslinger on your horse with your gun to protect – or to take – what little is left.

Perhaps you found some fortune on the way, perhaps you made some friends, all fleetin’.

Regardless of how the sun set, you are here now. There is no Law or government man to tell you what, so how will it be? Save the innocent from the rough? Rough ’em yourself? Explore the wild, undiscovered places? Seek your own justice or justify your own acts?

Your skills got you here, but they will only help keep what is yours yours, steel and soul. So roll your two dice, rely on what makes you particular, pray to luck. You will need it.

Features

Be a deadly Gunslinger in The West with your posse of partners. Fulfill why you are there or get into your own kind of trouble.

  • 2d6 minimal math (-2 to +2) rolling at-or-over 🎲🎲
  • Character creation, progression, and scars
  • Minimal stat tracking via “Particular” skills
  • Game Marshal (GM) guide
  • Riding, hands for hire, and service costs sections
  • Problem and place creators
  • Period-appropriate tables of items and androgynous names

Play Now

(Links below go to Google Drive and the latest game document.)

A single page (both sides) giving the highlights of the game.

(Check this one out!) Two-pages that fill out the system with generating tables, guides, Gunslinger creation and progression, and more!

TBD – Full game system written with extra characterization, examples, and Belle’s Town, and introductory showdown. (Art also TBD.)

The Future and Past

The TODO list is pretty clear cut:

  1. Get the full game updated with the changes from one- and two-pager templates!
    1. See the above preview!
  2. Explore art opportunities.

But what got the game here?

In all truth, Gunslinger in The West is a test project to see what a BITS game with only specialties (the S and no BIT of BITS), called “particulars” in this game. To genuine surprise, this take on the system works quite well!

Further, exploring what it is like to play a ‘hero’ character was eye-opening for development. I will be applying this later to a Halo / DOOM inspired RPG – keep eyes out for it! 👀

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Ride on, Gunslinger! Cheers to your time in The West ~

Can RPG Gear Level-up Too?

Chatting about roleplaying games (RPGs), it struck me: Why are there not rules for leveling-up gear like player characters (PCs) do?

Time to discuss:

PC Leveling

Leveling is when someone or something has accomplished a great deed or series of actions.

What causes a PC to level is everything from grabbing more gold, having adventures, slaying a dragon, or just surviving to fight another day.

When a PC gains a level, some boon or bane happens to them. In most games, the PCs get better with more health, increased performance, and special rules they can use in-game. The rare few games allow a PC to get worse – since these are a super-minority, let us ignore ‘getting worse’ in this analysis.

Gear

Gear, equipment, weapons, armor, trinkets, and more – “gear” for now. These are the tools that assist or enable a PC to do things.

In both real myth, fictional fantasy, and sci-fi, gear is everywhere. Most of it involves no-name, indistinguishable junk – a sword exists for someone to have a sword, nothing more, a helmet could be a hat for how much value it has.

That gear doesn’t matter.

Or maybe it does? Famous pieces of gear had to start somewhere after all.

Some examples of famous gear that get more legendary as time goes on:

    • Medieval armor could be handed down for generations, gaining notable battle scars and a reputation, as much as the family’s suit in Mulan.
    • The oceanic-people’s term “mana” denoted the power of possessions owned and passed down by great leaders.
    • Excalibur from the real life legend of King Arthur, a sword with magical properties and a key to ruling all of Britain.
    • When Bilbo gains the One Ring in The Hobbit, the simple thing shows off its powers again and again until the Ring seats its place as a hugely powerful piece of gear.
    • Gundam introduces the titular Gundam mobile suit. It is dumb and clumsy at first, nearly destroyed by ‘grunt’ enemies. Through use, new systems are installed, abilities get unlocked, and the suit itself becomes ‘smarter,’ able to engage legions of enemies.
    • Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber from Star Wars was a fury – slaying armies and being the blade to end the infamous Clone Wars. Its fame builds, being lost and destroyed and reforged over decades.
    • Halo‘s Master Chief armor, the Crysis nanosuit, Bolo‘s namesake tanks, Warhammer 40K‘s … everything, cast iron cookware, and the real world compounding its infrastructure and technology.

Plenty of gear has gotten better with use. Why, then, do virtually all tabletop roleplaying games miss out on this opportunity to grow bonds and allow players to influence the fictional lore?

Gear Leveling

You get where I am coming from now. TTRPGs ought include a benefit for players to keep around the gear their PCs use.

Not only will leveling gear increase player investment, it will also serve as an avenue for story, roleplay, and unique leverage should the PC’s gear ever be the focus of aggression.

What such a system could look like might be this, what I am including in the BITS system (by no means exhaustive of possibilities):

When a piece of gear is worn or wielded during or is otherwise actively used in completion of a game milestone (slaying the dragon, intercepting a bullet meant for another, broken by the enemy and reforged afterward, etc.), that gear may level up.

When leveling up, gear gains an ability either related to what it was involved in or used for, or is chosen randomly from a table.

Gear may also gain a name the first time it levels up, e.g. Sting. Gear may also gain a title the second time it levels up, e.g. The Orc Finder.

Gear may only have a total of 6 abilities. If there are already 6 abilities for given gear, the gear may not level up. Abilities may be removed if the gear is destroyed, severely damaged, re-created, or otherwise changed fundamentally in form or function.

Why cap at 6 abilities? That is to keep all the special things gear can do to a manageable minimum. (Humans can only maintain about 7-ish items in memory.) But I am not married to the idea – with further playtesting, perhaps 4 or 3 is a better cap.

The above comes with the idea that magic/ancient/prototype/exotic items will already come with some abilities, a story to tell about their creation and history. Whether the player keeps pre-made famous gear or births a story of their own, that is roleplay, something up to the player 🙂

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Any better ways to add legendary power to gear?

Always open for suggestions! Tell me in the comments or send me a DM.

Now off to make a randomizing table of famous abilities gear has had in fiction and history – cheers!

Mörk Borg – Part 4: A Reckoning

Start at the beginning, or jump to what’s been missed:

Part 1: Murder and Worms – Three from death-row scour the rooms and horrors of the buried den of the addictive Rotblack Sludge.

Part 2: Meat and Statues – The trio meet the ruler of the underground complex.

Part 3: Eyes and Ash – Lesdy inadvertently provides the last clue.

Endgame Summary

Over 4 hours of actual play, 3 well-powered characters controlled by 1 player survived by lucky rolls and ingenuity but barely.

There were 15 rooms, 9 Tier 2 enemies (guards and Lesdy; 2 damage, 2 HP, roll 9+ to attack or defend against them), 6 Tier 1 enemies (Lesdy’s aids and the strangling plants), 1 Tier 4 (Fletcher), and 1 uber-Tier Worm that was, sadly, never given the chance to eat a character 😢

Riches and weapons and some Rotblack Sludge were acquired too, but these things may not last long.

BITS Mechanic Changes

I will leave the details to be included in other posts as I continue to develop BITS.

Suffice to say:

    • I combined MB‘s attributes into BITS: Strength and Toughness (Body), Agility (Interaction), and Presence (Thought).
    • Enemies came in the 1-4 difficulty tiers of BITS which also account for their HP and damage.
    • Weapons fit into the BITS categories.
    • HP was limited to 10 for Cat, 6 for Bubble Guy, and 4 for Invisible. (Aiming for about 6.)
    • All random encounters and findings were either rolled for before the game or were pared down to a d6 roll table that fit on half a notecard.
      • Random tables:
        • Bookshelf (in the Library, if searched)
          1. Random Unclean Scroll
          2. Cloud of Dust, +1 IT tests of 30 minutes
          3. Incomprehensible Gibberish Book
          4. Uncontrollable Scream From Characters, -1 T tests until sleep
          5. T1 Knife “Nib”. Leaks ink.
          6. d6 Bag of Coin
        • Junk Search (lots of rubbish in the complex)
          1. Bony Dog Remains, ration for a day
          2. Black Stone Bracelet
          3. d3 Bag of Coin
          4. Urn w/ Fine Powder (roll 9+B or lose d6 HP)
          5. d6: 1-3 Sacred Scroll, 4-6 Small, Nipping Beetle
          6. T3 Crossbow w/ d6 Bolts
        • Corpse Search
          1. Nothing
          2. Bloody Agent Letter (Fletcher knows the characters are coming)
          3. Necklace of Teeth
          4. Hopeless Number of Spiders
          5. Rotblack
          6. d6 Bags of Coin
        • Encounters (only in 3 of the rooms)
          1. 4 T2 Guards
          2. T3 Bone Spider, Surprise, DAdv for 1 hr on successful attacks
          3. 2 T1 Starving Dogs
          4. Agent, starving, tortured. Can tell of the worm.
            (…the below happen only once each if at all…)
          5. T1 Lesdy Spy, gives ‘gift’ that teleports party to Lesdy
          6. Sagsobuth, sells poisons (6 damage, d4 uses), and tube of living wood (rewriting scroll inside); 10 damage split if attacked at all
    • Armor would reduce by 1 point to negate all damage of an attack. 0 for Armor sundered beyond use or as clothing.
    • Critical successes gave an extra action and were more likely on lower-difficulty obstacles.
    • Less of a mechanic, more of an ethic: Don’t include ‘children’ in the game. If someone or something is young, call it that: “youth.” There is virtually no need to ever include children in a game of violence and horror when other means to leave it to player imagination will do.

Impressions and What I Would Change

The game was great! I had so much fun being a first-time full-blown GM. Player C had a great time too, with special compliments to including low-key background music (sad violins) and rockin’ boss-fight beats (Smells Blood on loop).

The biggest piece of improvement feedback came for picking lowest rolls with disadvantage. Player C really did not like that, as even after the first roll all hope could be lost. A real heartbreaker, those!

I understand now that the characters were overpowered as they were able to proceed without caution and given lots of chances for lucky rolls. Further, I took a lot of time drawing the rooms on notecards that would then be a visual indication of what was happening; the map was invaluable, but the time spent certainly had its own value perhaps better spent.

After careful consideration, here is what I would change:

    1. Find a way to lessen or get away from map making without completely relying on the Theater of the Mind (everyone has to imagine where they are and what they see from the GM’s descriptions).
    2. Set player hit points to 2d6, or a generic human to default 6. Too much life allows carelessness and for games to drag on. That, and rebalance some natural weapons and powers (less damage and/or limited use, such as on the magical power Blink).
    3. Leave clues and keys out in a way that all but screams to a player “use me.”
    4. Make Specialties more prevalent. (They give advantage to certain actions and are used to replace ‘class’ in BITS.)
    5. Try something different with advantage and disadvantage. Instead of rolling twice and picking the highest/lowest value, other options: Pure +/- 2 to the roll value; lower/raise the difficulty of the roll; use the highest/lowest die of 2d6 twice; double the effect of any critical rolls; etc.

That’s about it!

Closing Thoughts

Mörk Borg is a solid game system. However, I have my doubts about its world and definitely about its first adventure.

I turned what Fletcher was doing into a kingdom-wide problem (Rotblack as a drug) and made ash fall from the sky. How the mission is given to the characters and how Aldor gets handed off also got clarified. The world begins its end at the end of the first mission, not randomly on some day down the line.

As for BITS, I truly feel BITS made the system more straight forward, faster, and no less deadly (ignoring the extra powers I gave the player’s characters). Every conflict of interest is resolved with no more than 2d6, tables are reduced to a d6, random effects and character sheets exist on notecards, and the rest is left to improv.

–

Bam! First time as an established-game-system GM! First time with Mörk Borg! First time giving BITS a full flex as a system and conversion!

I couldn’t be happier for all the fun had and all that was discovered along the way.

Now is the time to take these learnings for application to other BITS games and notes. (And to see if player C will continue their adventures in the current game’s ash-eaten world 😁)

What did you find when you played Mörk Borg? Who survived the first dungeon delve? How have you improved your own TT RPG sessions after experiencing them firsthand?

Let me know all that and if you’d like to play in a game using BITS in near-literally any game world you have in mind. I am sure we could whip something up 😉 Cheers to your dice rolls! 🎲🎲