D6 and the Blaster-Proof Wookie [d6 Star Wars]

So, D6, the WEG system used to run their excellent Star Wars game, and later exported to a generic D6 system (the latter is available through Drivethru RPG, but they're down for maintenance as I write this, confound it) had a problem: damage and damage resistance.

In the 1e version of the game, any hit resulted in a stun, no matter how insignificant the hit. If you got stunned, you got knocked prone, and unable to act for the rest of the round. You could easily stun-lock the rancor with a weak weapon, just standing out of it's range and plinking it every time it tried to stand up.

In the 2e version of the game, you ran into another problem: The Blaster-Proof Wookie. Every time you were hit, you rolled your Strength to reduce the damage. If you rolled higher than the damage, you had no effect. This wasn't too bad, until you got to wookies, who could have a 6D Strength.... while the average blaster did 4D. Chances are, your wookie wasn't taking any damage at all.

Now, the generic D6 version introduced a new rule. Instead of basing your hand to hand weapon damage on your raw Strength, it was based on half your strength, or half your Lifting skill (which was based on Strength). The default rules are that you removed the pips (so 3D+2 was considered just 3D), cut the number of dice in half and rounded up (so 3D+2 Lifting became 2D melee damage). Personally, I tend to count the pips and divide by 2, with a full die counting as a pip itself (so the aforementioned 3D+2 would be 11 pips... 1D is 3 pips, 2D is 6, 3D is 9, plus 2), and that works out to 5 pips in DR, or 1D+2; it makes every increase potentially meaningful.

Somehow, I also reached the conclusion that this applied to damage reduction as well, but through the Stamina skill, not Lifting. I cannot, for the life of me, find where this might be, and suspect it might be a house rule that we cooked up. But it neatly deals with the problem of the Blaster-Proof Wookie.

A Wookie with 6D Strength and no improvement in Stamina has a 3D damage resistance roll. Still sizable, and he's likely to resist most of a 4D blaster shot... but he's also wise to take cover. If he ups his Stamina to 8D,  he's likely to resist all of the 4D blaster (4D v. 4D), but he's still likely to want to take cover, just to be sure.

Now, you may be trying to tie this back to my just-posted rules for improving skills in D6 through use. Which you should. But, using Stamina (or Lifting, for melee damage) in this way is unlikely to increase your skill, because of the very high thresholds involved; you still base your threshold off the base skill, not the reduced skill. So the average human, with a 2D Stamina, has 1D Damage Resistance, but getting XP for Stamina requires passing a 10 Difficulty check... between the Wild Die, character points, and Force/Fate points, it's certainly POSSIBLE to hit a 10 Difficulty with 1D... but it's going to be rare, and you might be better off just spending the CP necessary to flat out improve your Stamina when you get a chance.

Use-based Improvement [d6]

So, an argument on Dragonsfoot lead to me spending some time on my Star Wars and D6 Space books this week, and then another discussion on Giant in the Playground lead to me working out a system for auto-improving skills in D6... skills that, like skills in the Elder Scrolls games, automatically increase as you use them more.

Set a threshold, and any difficulties above that threshold are added together, and once you achieve a certain amount of "XP" in a given skill, then it goes up by a pip, and then you start your XP over. Using WEG's D6, I might go with something like

Skill/Threshold/XP
1D/5/20
2D/10/40
3D/15/60
4D/20/80
...usw

So it would work out that 4 very hard checks (average of 5 or better on your D6s) would improve you by 1 pip. It would take 12 such checks to improve you by a die (4D->4D+1->4D+2->5D). You could achieve it faster by doing harder things, but those things would be VERY hard for someone of your skill. You don't get any XP for doing easy things repeatedly, and this only applies to skills, not the attributes themselves.

Now, this would mean you reduce the awarding of Character Points (since mundane advancement is taken care of), but it also means that they and Fate/Force points play into advancing skills and abilities, since adding a +1, a die, or doubling the dice on important and difficult rolls makes it more likely that you'll succeed, and thus gain XP in that ability. You can also include them as a "training system"... so the pip-increases from use happen automatically, but if you want to improve your blaster skill and haven't been taking enough really hard shots (once you hit 5D in blaster, you either have to be facing an excellent dodger, a jedi who is trying to deflect your shots, or making extreme long range shots through cover), you spend CP like normal.

Now, this is going to run into problems with attributes and force skills. I tend to treat Force "skills" as being more akin to attributes, with force "powers" being treated like skills... if you have a 3D Control and learn a Control power, you have that power at 3D, and can improve it independently of your Control Skill. As such, I'd lump Force Skills and Attributes into the same category as only being able to improve through active training... pretty much any time you're using an attribute, you're actually using a skill under that attribute.

Savage Lance

So, a bit of a wrist-off that I did in early 2014, just defining some ground rules for using Savage Worlds with the Dragonlance Setting. Someone had honestly been posting a message every six months for three years, asking if someone was going to get back to them on some conversions they'd done.

I took an hour and wrote a bit down, covering some of the more unique races and the three Orders of Magic:

Minotaur:
+3 Begin with d8 in Strength; can increase to d12+4 through Edges
+2 Size +1 (Includes a +1 to Toughness)
-1 -2 to Charisma
-2 Major Personality Hindrance; Arrogant, Bloodthirsty, Code of Honor, or Vengeful

Kender
-2 Curious Hindrance
-1 Small (compared to humans)
-1 Pace 5
+2 Brave (no Spirit requirement)
+2 Fortunate (extra benny; may combine with luck and Great Luck)
+1 Free d6 Taunt
+1 Free d6 Stealth

Gully Dwarf
-3 Smarts can never go above d6
-1 Pace 5
-1 Outsider
+1 +4 to resist disease
+1 +4 to resist poison
+1 Low light vision
+2 Free d6 in Vigor
+1 Free d6 Survival

Gnome
-1 Pace 5
-1 Small (size -1)
+2 McGyver Edge
+1 Free d6 Repair
+1 Low Light Vision

Magic in Dragonlance

Spells allowed by order:

White Robes
All except: Greater Healing, Healing, Succor, Zombie, Disguise

Red Robes
All except: Greater Healing, Healing, Succor, Zombie, Slumber

Black Robes
All except: Greater Healing, Healing, Succor, Disguise, Slumber

Three Ranger Limit

For those not familiar with 1st edition AD&D, there was a rule that you could only have 3 rangers in one party. There's not a big reason given for this, and so the whys of it aren't exactly clear, but since three rangers can do some fairly hefty damage to an army of humanoids or giants (adding their level to damage with each attack), it may be a balance issue. Since rangers have high ability score requirements, they are kinda rare, so it's hard to reach the "Three Ranger Limit". However, it also sounds like the name of a card game. Thus, from Deeper Pulleditoutofmyassistan, I bring you the game "Three Ranger Limit".

ODE: Metagame mechanics

So, I've been thinking about ODE recently, due to a couple discussions I've been having, and got to thinking about metagame mechanics; Hackmaster's Honor, Savage World's Bennies, and so on. In keeping with ODE's "gas station playable" system, I'm going to suggest pennies or similar coins, though pretty much any type of distributable counter would work. If you've got someone who simply CANNOT live without their dice at the table, use those... the mechanics of the meta-mechanics might throw them into paroxysms. It also adds an interesting twist if you can tell everyone's counters apart, though it's not necessary.

Each player starts with a certain number of counters; 3 would be a normal gaming session, but you might want more or less. The GM starts with none. As play progresses, players can spend counters to improve their play; I've got a few examples below. However, whenever they spend a counter, it is given to the GM, who can use it to influence ANOTHER play... not the one just influenced. When the GM spends a counter, it is given to the player who has the least counters (or one at random, if they're tied for the least), who can spend it to influence another play. This flow of counters can be stopped by either side... the GM can choose to sit on counters received to keep players from getting them back, then spend them in a flurry at the end. Or the players may hoard their counters, keeping the balls in their court, as it were. Players and GMs can also wage war with their own counters... the GM spends a counter, so you spend another to undo their counter, and so on. The only limitation is that counters, once used on a play, can't be used again on that same play (so you and the GM don't pass them back and forth infinitely).

Note that counters can be spent to influence ANY play which affects your character... you might provide a penalty to your opponent hitting you, or a bonus to your figuring things out. The only thing counters can't be spent on are metagame actions... you can't spend a counter to make an attribute raise play trump.

Uses for counters:
*Add +5 or -5 to a single play
*Make a single play trump (again, if necessary)
*Avoid or inflict a complication
*Draw a single card (which can take you above the hand limit) to either use for the play or to replace the one you choose to use for the play.

Counters can also be used to effect one's hand; if used this way, they don't count as having been used for the play.
*Draw up to 3 cards (subject to hand limit)
*Discard entire hand, shuffle the deck, and draw the same number of cards you just had.

Episode at the Old Mine

This short story, set on Hackmaster's Tellene (better known as the "Kingdoms of Kalamar" setting) started as something of a joke, but got worked into a full, fairly serious story, while keeping the joke just out of sight. I've hid it beneath the cut, since it's almost 3000 words long. Now available from DriveThruFiction!

Hackmaster Talent [Hackmaster]

Broad Training (8/16/24/32)

Someone who with Broad Training is familiar with a variety of weapons and can learn to use unfamiliar weapons rapidly. For 8 points, they ignore 1 point of non-proficiency penalty with any weapon. For 16 more points (24 total), they ignore 2 points of non-proficiency penalty. For 24 more points (48 total), they may ignore up to 3 points of non-proficiency penalty, and they may ignore four points of penalties for an additional 32 points (80 points total). Note that this does not make them proficient in weapons that have no penalties; they must still purchase proficiency before purchasing any relevant specialization. If your class is able to purchase all weapon proficiencies at half cost, then you may purchase this talent at half cost.

Commentary: I didn't like any of the suggested names, but Handy seemed universally unpopular, so I hit the thesaurus for another. You will note that I didn't double the cost for those who pay double for weapon proficiencies; off the top of my head, no one actually does that (though magic-users come close), and that just seemed unnecessarily punitive for an already expensive option... like someone else said, you're more of a combat monster by specializing in one weapon than being able to not hurt yourself with several.