The Way of the Rules Chick.

So, I like rules.

The reason I like rules is because, apropos of Shieldhaven's post about Wizards, and some other stuff I've seen in games, when systems don't have comprehensive rules, they go SQUISH! and you're floundering in an undefined world where, it is reasonable to ask, "well, why don't you just teleport Frodo into Mordor" because there's nothing defining what the possibilities actually are.

This is a huge problem when we're talking about magic, but it applies to other systems too, particularly in games, where you want your magic users, your fighters, and your fighter-mages (among your other tropes) to be at about the same competence for amount of time spent building skills.  Yes, I am assuming that game/character balance is a desired thing. And I refrained from saying, of the same level to allow for systems without levels, like Ro3 LARPing, or World of Darkness Tabletop, which define advancement in other ways. 

I know a number of people, however, who do not like rules. At least, they express discomfort with rules which ranges from, "I am just not a rules person," to "I fucking hate rules because they get in the way of my ability to Just Play."

I won't get into the expectations connected with who hates rules and why, but will point out that for most people, the thing isn't that one really hates rules. One hates rules that...

• Seem arbitrary (also called, "are too obvious/visible"), 
• Are badly presented,
• Are convoluted and difficult to parse,
• Change or explode too frequently to keep up with,
• Are 'solved' (there's a right way to do things) or easy to exploit (unbalanced).

So allow me to go into some completely unsolicited advice for people who do think of themselves as Rules People, who love to design, modify, or add to rules systems for fun and/or profit.

Session Roundup #13, part a

A week late, but I wanted to go ahead and get through this, as there is Mage and DtD Website Updates tonight, so the chance of my getting a Roundup done this evening after the game is exceptionally slim. So this will be a two-part Roundup, to make up for last week's total lack.

Last week, there was Eclipse the between-meal-minigame, and then Eclipse the actual LARP. Shieldhaven has a breakdown of the first here, where he talks about the pros and cons of this way of running between game events.

I've been chewing over the subject since the thing started steamrolling. The playerbase saw a report of some serious evil dudes attacking the Fringer planet of Taranis, and I'll admit to being one of the players who went, "Hey, I have a whole military division just cooling its heels! Can I do something!?"

And I was super jazzed when Plot said, "sure! Do it!"

This was a hugely experimental and neat thing to do on the part of plot, and will probably go much more smoothly next time (I'm certain that there will be a next time), but permit me to break down some of the sticking points along the way, and how they went.

So, more about my game... custom gods and feats.

In the company of Such Illustrious Game Designers (by which I mean thems what has actually found themselves paid for this sort of thing. Whereas I have only been paid for the heartless crushing of dreams), it is with a little trepidation that I offer up my humble efforts in this realm for scrutiny. Nevertheless, it is perhaps of interest to some few of you to see the ways in which I have potentially broken my D&D game horribly with a few extra Divine Feats.

To explain. In the setting I have created, a world called Liel, the most prevalent form of religion is called the Giedame. In this faith, each worshiper claims a personal pantheon of six gods, which may be any god in this setting, or any other setting for which rules exist in 4e-- and if rules/feat choices did not exist for a deity a player of mine wanted, I promised to make some up. As for setting deities, I provided the local pantheon of Ar'Siva, the island continent where the main of the game takes place. Entering the worship of each god allows access to that god's feats, which may be taken at any level. In the interest of avoiding tl;dr, I'll break this up into groups. So here's the first bunch:

The Hero-Gods (Atailan)

The Hero-Gods, Begaren, Vai'Varin, and Pi'kati, are called thus because of their roles in various myths and stories. It is not known whether they were once people who lived and were later deified, but the stories treat them as if they once, indeed, lived in the world like men.

Begaren

-- The God of Honor, Valour, and Nobility, his worship is common to warriors and those who value codes of honor above all else. In Ar'Siva, he is a favorite god of Military Knights, though his worship is more common in the other countries. His worship suggests proficiency with all manner of heavy (not thrown) swords and/or shields. His symbols are a sword cutting through tendrils of dark energy coming from below, or a shield with a hand and three orbs upon it, parting a wave of dark energy from above. Those who consider themselves Dedicate to Begaren may choose from the following divine Feats:

Shield Brethren

If you have shield proficiency, grant +2 to a defense as an immediate interrupt, once per encounter to one ally who is adjacent to you, or adjacent to the attacking enemy.

Sword Brethren

If you have proficiency in light or heavy blades and have a sword equipped, +1 to attack rolls for flanking allies using melee weapons.

Vai'Varin

-- The God of Humility, this god is never himself depicted, though like Begaren, he is considered a hero-god, and spoken of as such. His symbol is a common household item-- a shoe, a kettle, a broom, et al-- held singly, or on a plain field. Leaders benefit most from the worship of Vai'varin, and many warlords serve him. He is a common household god on Ar'Siva. Those who consider themselves Dedicate to Vai'Varin may choose from the following Background Feats:

Helping Hand

Adjacent Ally gains a +3 bonus to their surge value when they spend their second wind, +5 at 11th level and +7 at 21st.

50 Feet of Rope

You may spend your move action to grant one ally an extra 5 move before the end of your next turn. Allies who start a climb or a jump adjacent to you gain +2 to their Athletics check.

The Best Cook Ever

During an Extended Rest, you may sacrifice a Healing Surge to add +2 to all Allies Surge Value, as you are up cooking the entire time.

Pi'kati

-- the God of Tricksters and Rogues, he is a god widely worshipped by people in all walks of life. He is especially popular in Ar'Siva, in the country and among the proleteriat. It is not uncommon, apart from those who are of the Rogue or Bard profession, for someone to feel themselves Pi'kati's in Soul, and honor him thusly. His symbol is a four-holed flute with one hand open and one hand closed; sometimes with his grinning Face behind it. Those who consider themselves Followers of Pi'kati may choose from the following Divine Feats:

Unassuming Pickpocket

+2 to stealth and thievery or you may also treat Stealth and Thievery as trained skills, even if your class does not permit it. Once per encounter, you may make a bluff check as a minor action to gain combat advantage over an enemy within close burst 10.

Made You Look...

Once per encounter, as a move action, you may shift from a square adjacent to an enemy to another square adjacent to the same enemy. You have cover from enemies until the end of your next turn as long as you remain adjacent to that enemy.

Coming next: The Gods of Ascension and the Gods of Detriment.

I will also note that thanks to DDI, adding custom feats and making them apply correctly is really bloody difficult, and thus a hard thing to have 4e players do. Also, I have not really dealt with Divine Power dailies for these gods, except for Vai'Varin, as my Cleric and my Artificer worship him (The Rogue and the Avenger primarily worship Pi'kati). Still, the most efficient way of breaking one's game is through handing out utterly stupid custom magic items. But more on that later.

Running around in the woods beating up your friends with foam weaponry.

So, I've some maunderings about wandering monsters and 4e that I haven't yet put into coherent form, but nu, the main thing that has been occupying my time of late has been boffer LARPing, which, as you may recall, is a Thing That I Do. It is perhaps the very breath of the obvious to say that woah, this kind of game is Completely Different from tabletop-- frequently, the things that you can get away with plotwise and characterwise in one would simply not work in the other. Now, admittedly, I am very spoiled when it comes to LARPing-- I never played Old School NERO, and the joys of counting down, as a monster, from 250 by seventees are largely unknown to me. But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. Lemme 'splain.

The two games in which I play (King's Gate and Eclipse) and the game that I shall be helping to run (Dust to Dust) are what are known as a) Hit Location Systems and b) SI/Chimera style.

Hit Location means that there is no concept of 'body', or ever upward spiralling hit points, that eventually reach 0, killing you. Through magic, a pc may have 'skins', usually not more than 5, that work about the same way, exceptional cases in really high build games may have 8. You can also have protectives like 'wards', 'resists', and 'shields' that block single attacks. NPCs have 'toughness', which /is/ like Hit Points in that it can be healed, though once again, this is usually a fairly low number-- 10 is a really beefy monster, even several years into a campaign. Compare with Nero/Solar style, Hit Point games, where one may have as many as 100 HP as they advance in level. I'll get to level in a minute.

Also, all one-handed weapons swing a base of 1, 2-handed weapons swing a base of 2, if you are trying to use a 3-handed weapon get the fuck off my site. This can be increased temporarily (usually 3 swings a combat) through wounding blows (a plus to damage, implying martial skilll) or strength effects. Base damage does not increase, and you never have to call damage for a base swing with a one-handed weapon. You should call '2' for a base swing with a 2-hander.

The other difference is that in Hit Location, well... where you hit the person matters. After you've blown through all the protectives you might have, you start taking wounds. A wound renders a location useless. You can take a wound to each leg and each arm, and also the torso. A torso wound renders you unconcious, at which point you have 5 minutes to be stabilized or healed, or you bleed out.

Now, the SI/Chimera difference. In NERO, you have levels and classes. In SI/Chimera, you have neither, exactly. You have build, which you get as a blanket after an event, which you may spend on various skills. Some skills lock out others, but this means that you can be a fighter and caster, and indeed, most people one would think of as primarily brute fighters have some kind of magic/psionics. You may advance in level in specific skills, but your character doesn't have 'level', like in D&D. What you have is a build total, which gives a rough idea of how many skills you may have purchased.

Further, you do not have 'mans', or lives, or souls, or whatever. When a character dies, the death is logged with plot, and the other characters attempt to ressurect them by whatever means makes sense in world. This may or may not succeed-- a fate is drawn from a specially made-up deck of cards, and bad cards = a permenant death. NPC the rest of the event, and roll up a new character. Yes, this means that you can perm on your second death or so-- usually you cannot perm on your first draw. However, you /can/ perm your first death-- if you were to remain dead, say, past sunrise or sunset, which are the in-game markers for when dead spirits leave the world.

NPCs, of course, do not work this way-- generally if you are killing blowed, you are ded. Fortunately, you can ressurect at a spawn point and get your crunchy killing on as much as you like.

Everything beyond that is pretty much flavour of the individual game, though there's some standards for magic that are /usually/ true, like having a single mana pool, and damage causing spells being called darts (1pt), arrows (2pts), lances (1 wound), blasts (1 wound to every location), and infernos (you are ash, everything you are carrying takes a destroy effect). LARP magic is handled typically by throwing packets-- cloth bundles full of birdseed-- or through voice and point effects. Most spells have multi-syllable verbals, where the length of the verbal indicates the strength of the spell.

Which is my basic-- very basic, leaving out a ton of stuff-- run down of Boffer LARP combat. I shall actually venture opinions of various topics LARP related anon, but felt that a basic overview of what I mean when I am talking about LARP things may yet prove useful. To someone. At some point.