[Dunegons/Dummies]Rough Draft 1: The Imps

[daMoose_Neo]

After playing around with some mechanics, I think I have the D/D basics down!

Players roll 2d6 less than a Target Number, which starts for ALL challenges at 2. By spending Points they can raise it, eventually getting a success but dropping the TN back to 2. Allows for many failures while ensuring a little teamwork gets some successes on the board!

I've hammered out some info regarding chargen and playing as Imps, hopefully enough to start some small playtests.
I've yet to add rules for Villagers, Adventurers, the Master, the Dungeon or Monsters, but those are coming.

Dungeons/Dummies Draft 1

Looking for a little feedback on the info presented-
Does the mechanic work? If not, what needs more hammering?
How is the arrangement of information?
What aspect should I tackle next (of the listed segments)? Why?
Additional Traits & Abilities are welcome for anyone who wants to suggest something.

*Authors Note* One segment, the one about bidding to activate another Imp's traits, might go "bye-bye", see how well it works (It could go either way, almost depends on the groups).

[KeithBVaughn]

Do you honestly believe that Hasbro/WOTC/TSR are going to let you use that name without a legal challenge? The first thing I would do is change that name unless you have a lot of money for lawyers.  That name is too close to Dungeons & Dragons/D&D for their Intellectual Properties department to let it go unchallenged.

Keith

[daMoose_Neo]

Thanks, but its not a finalized title, the original being "Dungeons for Dummies".
Realizing it needs changing, I just refer to it as Dungeons/Dummies myself until I connect with a decent title.

Any comments on the material itself??

[Tobias]

I had a read-through.

Summary: I like it! It fires the imagination.

In more detail:

I like the point-sharing system, where after failure(s) success at some point becomes inevitable. However, some clarification is needed, and probably a slight edit. For instance, the amount of points the players start with at the first adventure (or during chargen) should be mentioned somewhere, as, as things stand now, players start with 0. There seems to be only one point of injection of new points - at the start of session(s). There's one recycle - points spent on building potential for succes on actions, but they come back to the players. There's also a method for losing points from the common pool (which is basically what the points are) - improving a player's imp. This will mean the overall chance of success decreases at the cost of 1 imp getting better (the points are gone from general use). This may lead to unbalanced PCs - or even stalled PCs, if they spend (almost) all their points and are left with too few to be able to take actions.

If you want to keep imp improvement during play as an option, a way is needed where the points don't bleed off into oblivion.

I wasn't really thrilled by the DEVO setting, but it is suitable com(ed)ic. It would still be fairly easy to use these mechanics in (some) different settings (I can imagine a horror setting quite easily).

I think you need a good IIEE system to define when players are allowed to speak up and take actions, or 'steal' checks might run rampant.

I guess you could let the group decide which die they use for random points at the start of a scenario as well, as well as the initial point distributions they'd feel comfortable with (getting the right mix of failure and success for them). One great things about this game is that failure is expected and not 'bad' for the player, as (s)he gets narrative rights. Since Imps are so inept, however, you might want some rules about (effective) immortality (i.e. no killing your imp or others' imps) and the consequences on story development of successive failure (I'm getting visions of a player's guide here: "The Imp self-help book: success through failure!".)

Thematically, I don't immediately associate imps with shamans or shape-shifting, but that could just be me. It depends a lot on which fantasy background I'm taking the mental imp imagery from. I guess examples, descriptions and appropriate artwork will show whether you mean demon-familiar types, koboldlike creatures, or gremlins (the WW version). Easily enough tweaked to individual group's desires, I guess.

I'm also a bit unsure about the 'common sense' thing. It looks like your basic imp is so dumb, he would walk into a lake of lava, no problem. If this is like Greak Ork Gods in its recyclability of Imps, that's no problem, but even while failing a lot, I would like, as a player to be able to get some successes I could attribute to something more than just "that sure was a lucky coincidence! Now let me cut off this sleeping bear's tail for the master's new hairpiece."

I'm also sensing a slight shift in the game from the 'incompetents who cannot really do anything on their own, acting behind the scenes' to more traditional 'go out and do this mission for me'. If that's what you want, fine, but one of the initial things that drew me to dungeons for dummies was the image of the imps trying their brave cowardly little hearts out to set up a dangerous dungeon to protect the beloved master from the evil "adventurers", and then having them cower and sit back as the adventures venture through their series of traps, etc.

In other words, some scneario's (bunny killing, merchant war, magical item) success is now clear for the imps at the end of their efforts (they killed the bunnies, they won the bidding war). In other scenario's, it seems the 'you can try to set up for success, but you're going to hope the other party makes some mistakes as well' mood is still there (dashing rescuer, mother(-in-law?) visit).

I like the latter part. How about having some kind of mechanic where the imps actions (and successes) set up a series of events the opposing party will have to deal with AFTER the imps have taken all their actions? Then, at the end of the session, the GM can run through his little procedure and regale the players with the mishaps and successes of the hostile adventurers as they blunder through the set-up. And the players can get new points for the next session depending on how well this procedure resolved?

(EDIT: or, at the start of the session, give the player a number of points directly related to the strength of the opposition that will be running their gauntlet at the end of the session. In fact you could mirror the 'invest coins and after success get them back'  mechanic to whole-sessions: say you start with opposition of 30, your players get 30. If they win, they get 30 points back, plus their random start at session start, thus ramping up the opposition level. If they fail, opposition level goes down. Ecology at work, pecking order, etc.)

(Another option would be to run the imps as 'troubleshooting the dungeon' while a hostile presence is messing it up (mother, adventurers)).

I also think you don't neccesarily need a GM for this game - narrative power can be shared by players both while gaming the imps and while resolving the "adventurer"  procedure.

Interesting stuff!

[daMoose_Neo]

Doing line by line simply cause its easier on the eyes than doing a straight reply ^_^

I wasn't really thrilled by the DEVO setting, but it is suitable com(ed)ic.

This one is a little nod of mine to Teddy Ruxpin. For those who DON'T know, in the world of Grundo there is the organization M.A.V.O, Monsters And Villians Organization.

Thematically, I don't immediately associate imps with shamans or shape-shifting, but that could just be me

Think Pain and Panic. ^_^

Other bits:

- Point noted on the points (lol).
I thought I had it in there at the start of the game as a whole you get 1d6 points (for the group or for the individual I don't know if I specified or intended to specify). After an adventure, it would begin with points awarded at the end of the last scenerio/adventurer.

- Common Sense
Hmmkay...that one might go, or retool for higher-knoweldge type things

- The Dungeons
I haven't worked out all of the details for Dungeons, which is why there is this focus now. Its something I can work with and start playing around with. (Hmmm...new stat...Constitution -> Guts?)
The Tinkering Imp 'class' is also an attempt to branch into the dungeons on my behalf (as dungeons need inventive Traps, which would be designed by a Tinkering Imp).

- Trouble shooting and running through the dungeon while others are in it is most certainly a possibility, would simply be a series of these challenges (which will, of course, usually result in failure; the trap not firing, misfiring, missing etc On a 1, the trap doesn't fire, the Imp goes to check it and POW! Gets hit!)

- 'Investment' and Opposition- Hmm...seems interesting, *ponders*

- GM - I almost thought that, especially as I started writing and the GM became more relegated to "observer" as opposed to "planner". One idea, borrowing from a similar project of mine, might be the person to the Left (or Right) acts for the NPC's and what not.

- Immortality for the Imps is kind of implied by the lack of any kind of "hit points" or otherwise health stats or combat and damaging, but again this is a rough draft and I can easily throw in a section about "Imps are Immortal" (thought about tossing that in too)

[Tobias]

On DEVO/MAVO: ah, cool, thanks for clearing that up.

On "Pain and Panic" - also a reference, or just glorious mayhem in general?

You do note the 1d6 at the start of scenario's somewhere, but that's a bit further on, and not all that clear (I would just tinker with it as GM/player, but others may need more guidance).

Common Sense doesn't need to go, per se (hey, it's your game), I'd just be at a loss if I had to play stupid all the bloody time (it could work though, if you had a bunch of backup clones... err... I mean, imps. But that's not the vibe I'm getting).

Dungeons: I'll be happy to look at what you've got, or are working on. I decided to see if I could make a 'dungeon exploring procedure' for adventurer parties, focusing on a few stats such a #of pathways, #of rooms, #of traps, #of monsters, #of treasures, power of party and power of master. (Which seem the 'core' bits of a dungeoncrawl to me). Then there would be some preference settings for the party ('explore', 'treasurehunt', 'exterminate') and the master ('survive', 'punish', 'optimize') which determine if they will abort or interrupt the general procedure (for instance, a 'treasurehunt' party will probably accept fewer losses before aborting the procedure than a vengeful 'exterminate' party).

I'm looking if there's both a fast, condensed, abstract & fun resolution system for this (without having to provide 'players' in the 'adventure party' with gamer-satisfaction but rewarding the Imps with feedback on their efforts), as well as a program with graphics (hey, I'm a programmer, it's actually easy enough to write stuff like this in code). But I don't want to be too reliant on having a noisy laptop on the gaming table.

But maybe I can use the (non-graphic) computer model to run iterations and see what dice/trends pop out as significant.

I know, this is overkill, but it's an interesting thought excercise in and of itself.

[daMoose_Neo]

[Edit] Reran some math: it is entirely possible for new points to be introduced through the course of play- say, first action of the game, you spend 1 point to raise the TN to 3, roll, and get a 3. Thats a success, you earn 3 points, which is two more than you started with. Tis rare, but when you have people who have invested 4 points into a roll and someone lands a 6, thats 2 free points. Course, you also have situations where the TN is a 5 and you roll a 3. Success, yes, but points lost.

Pain & Panic - Haven't seen Diseny's Hercules movie then I take it ^_^ Pain and Panic are the two servents of Hades, a pair of bumbling, impish idiots. One, a tall, slender and overly nervous but fairly intelligent and deviant creature while the other is a shorter, squater, denser slob. Several, hilarious scenes with them. They have limited shape shifting abilities, little bit of magic etc. Highly recommended viewing if you're interested in this.

Common Sense - I do want the Imp's to be immortal in a sense. Think of the Looney Tunes cartoons. No matter how many times Wild E. Coyote was blown up, chopped up, run over or otherwise defeated did he 'die'.
Yes, the Imp's might be stupid enough to walk into a lake of lava, however they're more prone to the "AHHHH! *flies into the air holding its butt, lands on the shore* IT BURNS! IT BURNS IT BURNS!" type response than to the *walks in and dies*.
Thus, in my mind, having a lack of such common sense can't hurt them. Thats also why I'm considering taking it out on a mechanical level and just leaving it "Imps have no common sense, so feel free to do whatever you want, even if it is cutting the tail off a sleeping bear". Looking back in retrospect, yea, I think that works better. Can redefine it mebbe, but yea...

Points & Guts - I initially refered to (in my own notes and what not) Points as Praise Points, a slightly different creature than Points now. Your comment, however (catch the note?) sparked another idea: Guts. The only "stat" for the Imps, players roll 1d6 at chargen and thats their Points to use. PP, earned at the end, would allow them to still expand the character w/o taking out of the 'pool'. Guts would work exactly like the 'Points' in the write up there as far as storytelling goes, but not for the character expansion. They start each scenario with that many points and may spend X Praise Points to earn 1 Guts point back (aww man, I'm out of Guts and I really need to do this...I'll take some of my Praise, get a couple Guts, and tackle it!)
Now, heres a fun idea: for each Guts point less than Six, the Imp gets a "Fear". Fears are situations or things they may encounter which terrify them. The less Guts an Imp has, naturally the more "Fear"ful it is. On rolls involving this Fear, the Imp can't spend any Guts points of its own (too scared), however it earns double points should it succeed (Feeling alot better about itself having conquered the fear). Just about any Imp 'Class' could go either way as far as natural bonuses. Smart Imps would fear the Unknown but be fairly confident if they knew what was going on. By virture of their strength or stupidity, the BDIs wouldn't be afraid of much OR they might be more afraid given their general, child-like mentality. The others...dunno about them.

On Dungeons - Thinking:
- Players create initial dungeon layout during chargen
- Allot say 100 points for initial construction as well as say X free Puzzles for as many Smart Imps on the team, X free rooms for as many BDIs on the team (More brute strength to build), X traps per Devious or Tinkering Imp on the team etc. The points would be spent on additional rooms, puzzles, traps, initial treasures, and monsters.
- The dungeon would intially have a Reputation of 1, which would also be the Master's reputation. Reputation determines how strong of monsters you'd be able to convince come to the dungeon. At 1, you could probably get a family of Dire Rabbits or a school of Were-Guppies. Later, you might be able to convince the Demon Leptocay Leftius Podia Apparellum to live in the dungeon.
- First couple of adventures might be to get treasures or convince adventurers to attempt to storm the dungeon. Treasures and maimed/killed Adventurers would add to the reputation level ("Aye, I know where to find the Golden Chalace of the Gods!" or "They say that dungeon has taken the lives of a hundred men better than the likes of you!"), which makes the Master look better and more adventurers attempt to storm the dungeon.
- Whether or not the Imp's scenerio involves the Dungeon, I want something at the end (say a little formulaor something) to give an "End of day Maiming Report", which would also contribute to Points.
- Part of Dungeon design I also want to include the Local area design. Ideally the Dungeon would be constructed near a town and have some other features nearby (Mountain/mines, castle, etc). Design of the Area would include actual maps of the immediate area, Villagers and their Attitudes (which will change as the Dungeon becomes more reknowned)
Area Design would be less formal than the dungeon-
- What natural features is the dungeon near? Woods? Mountain? Stream? Fields?
- How obvious is the entrance?
- Are there villages near by? How many? What do they know of the Dungeon?

Computers - I have a rough, mapping & tile based RPG, top down style program I wrote some time ago ^_^ It's kind of in pieces, last time I worked on it I gutted the scripting system to re-write and and haven't dropped it back in (I work on programs like mechanics work on cars- take it out, work on it, drop it back in). No graphics, which is part of the reason the project is relegated to the dust bins of my PC, but it has its uses.

Splats - With this, I almost *want* to have several 'splat' styled books, simply because it would be so much fun to write. For books detailing monsters and what not, already thought of ones such as "Cooking with Emera Demon!", a beasitery done up like a cook book of monsters based on food and Golems (OMG! Its the BISCUIT GOLEM!) or a "Travelers Guide To Heck!" for all the demons and demonic types done up like a travel brochure. So I could easily see a "Self Help- Success through Failure!" book as a "player handbook" ^_^

[Tobias]

I'm eagerly writing up my own little computer program as well - with graphics, in my case.

It, alone, is going to be fun, I'll send it over when I'm done.

The rest of your post I like as well, but it hasn't been digested yet. I'm not seeing the beauty of complicating your elegant mechanic of Points with Guts/Fear yet, but I like the 'OOOH IT BURNS' picture you sketch.

I also like the Dungeon reputation thing.

[daMoose_Neo]

I *think* this helps, because then the Guts become more a resource and Praise Points become Experiance essentially.
Thus we have (sans Ability which REALLY needs fleshing out and more options):

Grumly, the Big Dumb Imp, with Guts of 3.
Grumly has three Fears: Bunnies, Fire (I keep going back to that, why?! lol), and Being Alone.
Grumly is also Gullible (chosen by group), Loyal (to the Master) and Oblivious.

Game starts, Grumly makes a couple checks, risks a couple of GP: botches a few, wins a few, has 4 Guts or so accumulated.
Then the Imps find out about the Good Fairy and her plot to remodel the Dungeon to a playground! Loyal, he's one of the first to lead the charge to defend the Master...but Oblivious he doesn't know what he's getting into. The Imps find out about her Cute Bunnies as the source of her power and set about squashing them, but when Grumley meets them...

Grumley : "Uhhh...Bunnies!" *is petrified*
Other Player: "GRUMLEY! Squash the Bunnies! Its the only chance we have to stop the Fairy from tearing down the Master's Dungeon!"
Grumley: "Master? Hurt Master? Grumley does not like that!" *looks at cute bunny* "But it Bunny!" *goes ahead and makes the roll anyway, without adding any points, and lands a 3 w/ a TN of 3. Earns 6 GP (double the roll because of involvement of a Fear).*
Grumley's Player: "With my eyes closed, I cringe and step forward, rewarded with a loud, wet *squish* sound! I open my eyes and look down..."
Grumly: "I squish Bunny! I squish Bunny!"
Other Player: "Great! We have another 20 to go!"
Grumly: "Twen...ty?" *faints*

At the end of the round, the DM notes Grumley's player facing up to the challenge as opposed to running way in the face of certain failure and awards 10 Praise Points.

[daMoose_Neo]

Actually, on second thought, lets not scrap the initial point system.
Tried it out with various initial points per Imp, at 10 points it moves fairly well- points go down, points go up, all players seem to have a fair deal of points to use on a regular basis.

SO- I'm going to keep the initial point system, rename those points as the "Guts", which they start with 10 per Scenario. Additional points over 10 at the end of the scenario transfer to Praise Points, used for character advancement.
As for Fears...they could almost be an independant feature. Yay or nay?

Def: Fears - Things the Imp is afraid of. Cannot contribute Guts Points to rolls against Fears, but earns double their roll on a success against a fear.
Possibly allow each Imp a "Secret Fear" or some such to allow for a double gain.

[daMoose_Neo]

Actually, on second thought, lets not scrap the initial point system.
Tried it out with various initial points per Imp, at 10 points it moves fairly well- points go down, points go up, all players seem to have a fair deal of points to use on a regular basis.

SO- I'm going to keep the initial point system, rename those points as the "Guts", which they start with 10 per Scenario. Additional points over 10 at the end of the scenario transfer to Praise Points, used for character advancement.
As for Fears...they could almost be an independant feature. Yay or nay?

Def: Fears - Things the Imp is afraid of. Cannot contribute Guts Points to rolls against Fears, but earns double their roll on a success against a fear.
Possibly allow each Imp a "Secret Fear" or some such to allow for a double gain.

[Tobias]

Not scratching the initial points system - a good idea, IMHO. Also, I like the 'everything over 10 is left as praise point', because it will give the players and the group a choice between succeeding at rolls, sharing, taking a gamble or keeping the stockpiled points...

Fine-tuning the point level etc. can be done in play(test).

I like Fears - they seem very thematically appropriate.

[Tobias]

Hmmm, it seems to me, on further inspection, that doubling the reward on guts points in case a fear is overcome breaks the 0-sum aspect of the (currently) available points.

How about refunding the normal amount of points, but offering some straight Praise Points? I guess to not make this too powerful, you should restrict the imp from attempting to overcome something he fears if there's not a primary characteristic/trait that's also egging him on the other way.

[daMoose_Neo]

IE the Loyalty issue (Defending Master from Fairy whose power comes from Cute Bunnies). Works, me likes.

As to doubling:
In my own test rolling, it never was that great an issue, course there isn't much harm in handling it thus, earning back points on the roll and PP equal to the roll as well.
Have to play that a couple times, see where that takes us...