Play games. Tell stories. Have fun.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Gen Con 2015

That special time of year is upon us. That time when our hearts turn to Indianapolis, and many of us come in droves to share our passion in person. But not everyone can go to Gen Con; I am lucky enough to live within an hour of Indy, and even I can't always make it.

If you are going, I can only hope that you'll get a chance to play some great games; and if you aren't going, play some great games anyway! In that vein, I'm sharing some one-shot ideas along with a set of dead-simple mechanics. Go wild and have fun!

The Mechanics

Characters have just three attributes with scores of 1-10: grit, knack, and luck. Every action comes under the purview of one of these three attributes. The players begin with 20 points and distribute them among the attributes however they wish, with a minimum of 1 point in each attribute.

When a player takes a difficult action, they roll a d12, and if the result is lower than the most applicable score, they succeed. If the result is equal to or higher than the score, they fail. But they can change a failure into a success by subtracting one point from that score temporarily. Points lost this way are restored either between each scene or once per session, depending on the intensity of the adventure. Note: Success and failure have no mechanical effects, only narrative effects.

In a direct conflict, both participants roll a d12 and subtract their score from the result. The lowest result wins. If the participants tie, the conflict immediately ends in a draw; they must find another way to resolve the situation.

The Ideas

Fanciful Façade: The beasts of the Zhisu Forest love tea and games. They often challenge one another to elaborate contests with strange enchanted artifacts for prizes. Beneath the whimsy, however, all of the animals live in terror of the cruel Emperor of All Spirits.

Academy of High Arts: Adolescent, hormone-filled royals from around the world are gathered at the Academy of High Arts to be trained in combat, etiquette, & magic. What could go possibly wrong?

Enemy of My Enemy: The alien overlords rule Earth, and the average earthling lives as a slave. But in the shadows, mutant werewolves, hacker vampires, and drug-addled warlocks follow their own rules, fighting back against the extraterrestrial oppressors.

Divine Intelligence Agency: Mortals wield magic relics stolen from the divine realms. They use the relics to perform covert ops among the gods in order to thwart armageddon.

The Drakkenlords of Ruàn: Ruthless barbarian sorcerers are the last survivors of Ruàn, a ruined kingdom. They seek bloody vengeance against the monstrous warlords that destroyed Ruàn—the 12 Drakkenlords.

Crouching Cipher, Hidden Data: Disciplined Denshi warriors practice the art of Algorithmics against a coalition of black hats known as The Night. The Night secretly runs the world from behind their screens, but in the online Ethereality, the Denshi fight back.

No comments:

Post a Comment