[The Great Ork Gods] Early ideas.

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

Cool thread; I have arrived a little late to comment upon everything, but I will hit a few points that you might find useful.

First, let me present a resolution mechanic that may work to balance use of hate by players and simplify character creation (such as it is).

Resolution Mechanic
1) Every difficulty is 7.
2) An orc gets, by default, 2d10 to try to equal or exceed that 7.
3) If the orc has a Specialty ("Knack", in game terms), the orc may add a d10 to their pool. If another orc is helping, the player may add another d10. If another orc is helping with a Knack, the player may add 2d10. If more than one orc is helping, the player may add another d10, up to a maximum of 5d10 for any single roll. NOTE: If the action is opposed by another entity, and that entity has a Knack that counters the orc's, then the orc player loses their d10 bonus for their Knack.
4) The player who controls the god for the action's domain may take a d10 from the pool. Doing so put the god-player's character "down a die" on all future rolls, until someone takes a die from him or her.
ex) I take a die from GROG. My orc, TUG, is now at a default 1d10 on rolls until another god-player takes a d10 from me, at which point I am back to 2d10 (after the roll during which I am hated). Obviously, if a god takes a d10 when I am down a die to do something with no Knack and no help, I am rolling "0d10" and will automatically fail.
5) The Rule of Three: If the TOTAL of any roll equals exactly 3, something good happens. If down a die for using hate, the orc's player is no longer down a die, regardless of god involvement in the current roll. If not down a die, the orc gets a Critical Success--rare, and worthy of future hate. I include the Rule of Three because orcs can't count higher than three, and are thus quite pleased when all the pips add up to The Big Number.
6) One success (roll of 7+) = Success, Two successes = GREAT Success (double damage, whatever), Three or more successes = Critical Failure!!! The gods don't like uppity orcs....

God Names - Take inspiration from HOL (Human Occupied Landfill) and come up with some god names that reflect Orcish sensabilities. "God of Physics"?! My Orc says, "Fizz chicks, whassat?"

To do this, start by coming up with an exhaustive list of "domains" for your game system, which represent core types of conflict or fundamental game elements. There is one god per domain, and no player may control more than one god (the GM handles the rest). Then, don't make names that sound like someone gagging on a mouthful of marbles, but instead choose names more along the lines of Native American names. For example, God of Physics would become "The All-Hater" [B no player should be able to control a god whose domain is "all actions"]; God of Artefacts would become "He Who Makes Stuff Confusing"; God of Strength would become "Crushing Hand, Stomping Foot".

Character Abilities & Stats - I haven't yet noticed anything having to do with character abilities, i.e. stuff on a character sheet.

For Character Abilities, all I would do, were I you, is include specialties ("Knacks," in my mechanic above) that correlate to god domains and represent another "axis" of game elements. You can get a LOT of rule content out of a list of twenty or so Knacks under ten or so domains.

For example, my orc has the Knack "Bully The Puny" which is in the domain of the god of war, who is known as "The Pounding In Our Heads That Won't Stop". In contests against smaller or weaker opponents (using my White Wolf-esque mechanics above), my orc gets an additional die to roll (3d10, if I am not down a die for hating, 2d10 if I am).

Character Stats are not relevant in my mechanic above. I favor this because, like HOL and Fight Club, no orc is a "unique and special butterfly". If you MUST have a third axis of elements, define Stats that are "supersets" of the god domains, and give orcs a 1, 2, or 3 in them, representing the default number of d10s for rolls in the domains of that Stat.

Thus, an orc could roll 1, 2, or 3 dice based on the applicable Stat, then add one more for an applicable Knack, and add one or more for help (up to the absolute limit of 5d10).

Loot - Special items, wealth, etc are not for orcs, though they dream of them (poor bastards). Thus, Loot is an abstract in the system that represents a way to, perhaps, get back a die lost for hating or use a Specialty that isn't on the character's sheet. The "Shiny Sword That Tells Me What To Do" would not grant +2 to hit or anything mundane like that, but would instead be a 1d10 bonus to dice pool when the player & GM thinks the situation is appropriate. Note: the gods loath seeing such Loot in the hands of an orc (as do most NPC enemies... and other PCs, for that matter); Loot is more akin to a hot-potato than a boon.

Experience - I am disinclined to favor a quantifiable Experience system, simply because that makes character creation also quantifiable... and no orc is a unique and special butterfly.

Instead, I would write guidelines for the GM for granting new Knacks to orcs, based on in-game success. Each Game Goal could confer a particular Knack to the orc most instrumental to accomplishing it. Defeating victims--er, enemies--could be tracked by the GM in some quantifiable way but, at the end of the session, be reduced to a single Knack award to the most aggressive or effective (or both, with two Knack Awards).

Shamen - I want them, too. Perhaps they would be one of the "classes" of orcs, if you introduce classes as a way to limit which Knacks an orc may have at game start:
Skinny - Wily, smaller orcs, whose list of Knacks reflect avoiding combat, getting into places, and being harder to hit.
Ugly - Hulking, brutish orcs, whose list of Knacks reflect combat dominance, stamina, toughness, and bullying others.
Crazy - Clever, manipulative orcs, whose list of Knacks reflect unusual abilities (magic-esque), influencing others, and shifting blame.

In particular, there needs to be some kind of "wannabe-leader-type" that will incur the gods' wrath for attempting to do things that would qualify as "good ideas". Shamen would try to figure a way past the human village guards other than sneak up to kill them or charge head on. Often, this is the "best" choice (for surviving) but it is very un-orc-like. Thus, the god of going places, "He Who Sneaks Through Shadow While Bellowing", would likely heap hate upon the shamen.

Furthermore, orcs misusing magic is one of the best sources of humor in the game; don't let it slip by the wayside. If you can't stomach orcs casting fireballs and such, that's fine. But let them get the Knacks of "Sniff-Out Weak Prey" (detect spell) or "Speak With Menace" (command spell) or "Vivid Imagery of Demise" (fear spell).

And I'm spent....
HTH;
Czar Fnord

[Mark Thomas]

So I was thinking about this game a bit more and my suggestion to have hate dice that god-players can force on orc-players to increase the difficulty of their tasks. I've also been thinking about applying this as a means of positive support in other settings (i.e. players can pass on luck dice to others). After thinking about this for a bit I realized there needs to be some way to limit the dice passing or you end up with dice being passed for every task roll, especially in the beneficial case. A couple ideas came to mind for limiting dice passing:

GM fiat - the player must justify their dice passing and the GM rules.
Group vote - players vote on the applicability of the dice.
Limited dice - dice passed are discarded.
Limited reuse - dice passed cannot be reused until some event occurs (scene change for example).

The more I think about it the more I like this general concept, but I'm not happy with these mechanisms for limiting dice passing. Anyone see a better way to limit dice passing?

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

Anyone see a better way to limit dice passing?

I am of the opinion that the idea I suggested above would work (a god-player may pass one hate die, but is down a die on all tests for his or her orc until some other god-player passes him or her a hate die).

Of course, you could include some mechanics for "writing up" gods such that the number of hate dice a god-player may pass is determined by the Wrath rating of their god. Then you need only develop (a) the rules for creating gods and (b) the situation(s) that refresh a god-player's hate dice.

No matter what method you adopt, the passing of hate dice must be encouraged--mechanically or narratively--in the game play. If the penalty for passing a hate die is greater than the potential gain for the player spreading around hate, then no one will do it. In other words, the game will have to have strong competative elements to encourage using hate dice, or their use will become something players only do to be peevish or for reasons external to the game (for example, one player had an argument with another a couple of days ago).

What think you of the Rule of Three, God Name issue, character elements, and reward issues I brought up?

[Mark Thomas]

What think you of the Rule of Three, God Name issue, character elements, and reward issues I brought up?

Honestly I got stuck in the passing dice as a group benefit action mindset for a while and didn't read it in detail. I've looked it over now. Here are a couple thoughts:

I think I would stick with the 'don't screw up' dice rolling mechanic rather than counting successes. Somehow it seems a better fit to the ork mindset. I think it would be pretty easy to reverse your proposed mechanic however, so that's a quibble.

I like the rule of three -- but an ork that has a Knack and that's being helped by an ork with a Knack can't roll a three can they? Maybe that falls under the gods don't like uppity ork category?

I definitely agree that ork god names should be something barbaric or difficult to pronounce. Your method certainly could work, but it may fall under GM choice as well.

Loot -- I think orks need loot! I mean they're supposed to be pillaging and looting. What's the point without stuff to get? I'd probably make it more concrete but not permanent. I don't have any good idea about this right now, so I'll shut up now.

As for the character development stuff, to me it seems a bit overkill. I'd be inclined to keep the game much simpler and free form, almost beer-n-pretzels level of play. Orks seem to go with beer anyhow...

I'd be curious to hear from the original poster and his current thoughts.

[Jack Aidley]

I'd be curious to hear from the original poster and his current thoughts.

And, as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared.

I've retreated to gather my thoughts, and consider the many suggestions and responses this idea has garnered. I'll hopefully have a regathered rule set for posting early next week.

But I'll post some comment now anyway:

I originally saw the game as being Great Ork Gods, it is clear that most posters are seeing it as Great Ork Gods. It's an idea I'd been kicking around for a long time, under the name Greenskins, but it never really had any distinct bite - it was just 'you play Orks'. Until I got the idea of having Gods hate the Orks. So I saw the Gods as being simply a different mechanic for task resolution.

God Names: You're quite right, Czar, the names are rubbish. I chose to go with them because the idea of giving them names such as Khagrahv or equally jaw-bending things struck me as unwieldy. I like your idea of native indian style names, but I've come up with an idea I prefer: taking my inspiration from Gurgli, I'm considering names such as The God of Slashing and Slayings, or The God of Heavings and Hoings.

Dice Passing: While mechanically I think this is sound. It establishes a causal link between a player's God(s) and their Ork, i.e. bad things happening to the Ork affects the God. I don't want this kind of link if I can avoid it.

Knacks: I was originally aiming to have an Ork descibed entirely by his Name, and how much the Gods hate him. This all goes into (as you most excellently put it) No Ork Is a Unique And Special Butterfly. I really like the idea that Orks would be a wonderful success if the Gods would just stop kicking them.

Reward Issues: I'm thinking that rewards should be entirely game useless. I have any idea that Orks are simply trying to gather 'Oog' - a kind of respect. Orks would gain Oog as per the Respect mechanic I discussed earlier, but it would have no in-game effects. I rather like the idea that Orks are driven by the acquisition of something that does them no good what-so-ever.

Cheers,

Jack.

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

I think I would stick with the 'don't screw up' dice rolling mechanic rather than counting successes. Somehow it seems a better fit to the ork mindset. I think it would be pretty easy to reverse your proposed mechanic however, so that's a quibble.

I like that better, too. And it is basically the inverse of the successes mechanic, and so easy to convert from a success-based system.

I like the rule of three -- but an ork that has a Knack and that's being helped by an ork with a Knack can't roll a three can they? Maybe that falls under the gods don't like uppity ork category?

You got it. Two orcs with Knacks trying something TOGETHER?!? They are either cowards or uppity. Gods hate em. No cookies (i.e. no critical successes).

Loot -- I think orks need loot! I mean they're supposed to be pillaging and looting. What's the point without stuff to get? I'd probably make it more concrete but not permanent. I don't have any good idea about this right now, so I'll shut up now.

Nah, Loot is just a generalized mechanic, in my mind. I mean, who's ever seen a RICH orc? C'mon. :-)
That's why it's just a source of a die, in specific situations. It's like a Knack, in that respect. When it becomes a resource, you aren't playing GOG, you're playing some weird version of D&D.

As for the character development stuff, to me it seems a bit overkill. I'd be inclined to keep the game much simpler and free form, almost beer-n-pretzels level of play. Orks seem to go with beer anyhow...

Overkill? Wild. All an orc is is a list of Knacks. ONLY IF the creator wants them to have stats would I include them, and then they are just categorical adjustments to the "default" 2d10. SO an orc "character sheet" might--at most--look as follows:

Grog, The Stinky - Leader of the Unseemly Clan
Class: Crazy Orc
------------------------------
Smash : 1d10
Sneak: 2d10
Connive: 3d10
------------------------------
Knacks:
Make Others Agree
Shift Blame
------------------------------
Loot:
Shiny Helmet (provides "Impress Dummies" Knack)
A Fistful of Coppers (provides "Get Stuff" Knack)

Everything above in italics is an optional "bolt-on" if the creator wants to have Stats and Loot.

So I saw the Gods as being simply a different mechanic for task resolution.

Well, that's all they are, at the moment. A source of a -1d10. The only "rules" for playing a god relate to refreshing or managing those die passes. And THAT's only needed if the GM isn't given total control of gods.

I've come up with an idea I prefer: taking my inspiration from Gurgli, I'm considering names such as The God of Slashing and Slayings, or The God of Heavings and Hoings.

It's your baby. I would encourage you not to use the static "The God of _____" because it becomes stale, and all the readers will see, in time, is the stuff after the "of". Mix it up, much like orcs would--do you think a damned orc is CONSISTENT? Are you sure you're qualified to design this thing? ;-)

Dice Passing: While mechanically I think this is sound. It establishes a causal link between a player's God(s) and their Ork, i.e. bad things happening to the Ork affects the God. I don't want this kind of link if I can avoid it.

But you have to then deal with MORE mechanics to encourage passing around hate dice. I thought a close coupling to the player character would suffice, in particular in a player-competative environment.
And besides, I don't see the "bad thing happen to orc -> bad thing for god" point you make. A GOD that send hate to an orc has his ORC undermined, until someone hates his ORC. The god never suffers a penalty, other than the consistent "penalty" that a god can't keep passing hate around without receiving some first.
If you add mechaincs for gods (like a Wrath rating), THEN you can de-couple the god from the orc. But a penalty for an orc is NOT a penalty for the god... just its player. Gotta keep that very straight, in our discussion: the distinction between orc-character, god-mechanic, the player-as-orc-character, and player-as-god-mechanic.

I was originally aiming to have an Ork descibed entirely by his Name, and how much the Gods hate him. This all goes into (as you most excellently put it) No Ork Is a Unique And Special Butterfly. I really like the idea that Orks would be a wonderful success if the Gods would just stop kicking them.

So a "orc-character" is just a name and a number, at best?
Be warned: "rules light" often leads to "why should I bother buying/learning these rules?" You don't want to have such a rules-light system that it is nothing more than a setting... and then nothing more than a page of text, at most.
Also, you should keep in mind the opportunity to EXPAND this idea: not everyone wants to play fantasy, but the notion of playing "scum" is appealing in a lot of genres. In fact, I would go ahead and rework the whole game into something called "You're Scum And The Gods Hate You" and provide generic rules for mechaincs, with specific setting information for several genres (fantasy orcs, modern thugs, sci-fi goons, maybe Paranoia clones, with the "gods" being computer algorythms?).

I'm thinking that rewards should be entirely game useless. I have any idea that Orks are simply trying to gather 'Oog' - a kind of respect. Orks would gain Oog as per the Respect mechanic I discussed earlier, but it would have no in-game effects. I rather like the idea that Orks are driven by the acquisition of something that does them no good what-so-ever.

UGH. Bookkeeping with no reason. you're going from rules-light to rules-contemptuous.

--------------------------------------------
That covers all the major points so far, and I reckon I haven't much more to offer, if this way-too-rules-light philosophy prevails. I just can't see the point in designing a game with almost no mechanics (or worse: mechanics that MEAN NOTHING), and a setting lifted almost wholesale from other games.

Don't think I am trying to rant or be mean; I just don't know what your goal is, anymore. It was shaping up into a nifty game--in mechanics and (some) setting elements--and now it seems to be having the "punch" stripped out of it. Perhaps One Page Press would like it, though....

Trying to help; not sure I can;
Czar Fnord

[Jack Aidley]

Czar,

I think you misunderstand me, either that or I simply don't get your answer. Mark's suggestion means that passing hate to an Ork, gives hate to a God. That, to me, is a causal link between God & Ork. I see the players playing an Ork, and having a God (or Gods), not playing an Ork-with-a-God-thing. I don't see the Ork as having any in-world link to the God(s) controlled by the same player.

It's your baby. I would encourage you not to use the static "The God of _____" because it becomes stale, and all the readers will see, in time, is the stuff after the "of". Mix it up, much like orcs would--do you think a damned orc is CONSISTENT? Are you sure you're qualified to design this thing? ;-)

That is a good point. I'm still working on naming.

So a "orc-character" is just a name and a number, at best?

No. An Ork is a name and a collection of numbers, just like in most games. Now in Great Ork Gods, these numbers are hugely broad (war, or strength, for example) and the numbers refer not to how good an Ork is at something, but instead to how much the different Gods hate that Ork (in effect, how bad they are at something). Keeping the Orcs low on numbers is vital, since they need to be much more disposable than characters in RPG's usually are.

UGH. Bookkeeping with no reason. you're going from rules-light to rules-contemptuous.

Think of it as Score, like in the old arcade games. It gets you no benefit; you're just trying to get a high number. Seems Orky to me.

Don't think I am trying to rant or be mean; I just don't know what your goal is, anymore. It was shaping up into a nifty game--in mechanics and (some) setting elements--and now it seems to be having the "punch" stripped out of it. Perhaps One Page Press would like it, though....

I'm sorry you feel that way; I considered your input most valuable.

I'm not sure what you consider to be the 'punch' of the game, but I'd like to know.

Cheers,

Jack.

[Rich Forest]

Jack,

You must be doing something right here.  When I first read the thread title, I'll have to admit: I was a bit skeptical.  Of course, I've always been pretty attached to the D&D "how to play orks" rules in the Orcs of Thar Gazetteer, and after reading Orkworld, I thought the Orcs had done been done.  

But there's something interesting about this game.  People are finding something in it that they're getting emotionally invested in.  Czar Fnord's rather strong response is, I think, a good sign in that respect.  I would like to say, Czar, you gotta relax here.  Just because Jack hasn't taken every piece of advice doesn't mean he's not listening.  It's still his game, man.  I know how you feel.  I've been there myself—I've given advice that folks have chosen not to take, and it made me think, "Hey, what's going on.  My advice was so good!"  But you gotta let the game be Jack's game.  

If I've overstated your reaction in your post, sorry, by the way.  I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way.  

Now here's my take on some things.  First, I like these spiteful gods, in particular.  Honestly, my instinct was still to say, "please, please make it about something other than orks!  Please, make it be about, um, I don't know... Goblins (although this has been done as well, of course), or Kobolds, or Ogres, or Trolls, or... anything but Orks!"  That was, of course, until I read your post about it being first and foremost about Orks.  So you'll probably want to ignore that little bit of advice.  I do think it is revealing that people are showing more interesting in the Ork Gods part than in the Ork Gods part.  It seems that perhaps it's the Ork Gods part that is the hook that is getting people interested in the project.  One thing that differentiates it a bit from Orkworld, for example, is that these Ork gods are a bit more personalized than "Trouble."  It's like these Ork gods are so petty and vindictive that they actually have it in for specific Orks.  Man, they must be busy if the Ork populations in this game are anything like the ones in most game worlds.  And so what if they are busy.  They hate a lot of Orks.  Is that so wrong?  Oh, and whatever you decide on naming the Gods... please don't have a god of physics.  The Ork god of physics?  Ugh.  Too science-y for Orks, IMO.  Regardless of what you name him.

I'm torn on your recent idea about "Oog."  I think, on the one hand, that the idea of a stat that doesn't do anything is interesting as a sort of game designer's comment.  But is this really game effective?  I mean, you want to encourage certain behaviors on the parts of the players, right?  Having a stat that doesn't do anything is more just a comment than it is a game mechanic.

But on the other hand, I'm not sure that it's true that "Oog" doesn't do anything, in actual play.  You've pointed out yourself that it's a score.  I think that could make it pretty important, actually.  I mean, it certainly would do something for me.  If I were playing this game, I'd gather up all kinds of "Oog."  Then I'd taunt my fellow Ork players.  I have more points than you.  Lots of games outside roleplaying have you gather points to win.  One could argue that those points don't "do anything" in most of these games, by the same logic that "Oog" doesn't do anything.  But in fact, those games are all about getting those points.  So I suspect with "Oog," even a mechanic that you think doesn't do anything is actually going to do something.  It might even become a central aspect of play.

Final thought—I say don't fall to the overwhelming pressure to add shamans.  I've seen enough ork shamans.  Where are all these ork shamans coming from, anyway?  I like my orks simple.  

Just my two cents,

Rich

[Loki]

I can see where you are coming from re: a link between God and Orc being a bad thing. I am the Wargod, and your Orc is trying something War-related... but my Orc is going to have to appeal to your God next turn, so I don't want you to have too much hate lying around. Therefore, I don't pass hate to your Orc in anticipation of seeing it come back at my Orc shortly.

So here's a thought: make the amount of hate accumulated by a God dependent on the number of times he's thwarted in his plans to ruin some poor Orc's day. Every time some sucker successfully beats a God's difficulty number, that God gets a hate die to add to his pool. It's a nice mechanic because it means that most Gods will bide their time, allowing those little monkeys to be successful just so they can really screw them when something important comes up. So you have lots of successes and a few major show-downs. It also means that by making it easy to spend hate (you can spend as much as you want on a single roll) but slow to build up hate, you have a theoretically infinite pool of hate, but most of the time hate will be flying around in small, manageable amounts.

It also feels Orcish: every time your Orc doesn't screw up, he just pisses off God a little bit more. Dammit! Nothing chaps my immortal soul like an uppity Orc who thinks he's better than me! Just you wait, little monkey!

Plus it disconnects God behavior from Orc behavior. Gods can be malicious and awful, but their doing so doesn't set up the same player's Orc for a royal screwing shortly thereafter.

There's one thing about this game that I haven't quite been able to figure out yet... how will the game actually play? It sounds like you are hoping to run a party-based, attack the "dungeon" type game. But I'm wondering if it will play out that way, with the Gods all working at cross-purposes to cooperative play.

In fact, it seems to me that what has captured everyone's imagination is this God v Orc, player v player dynamic. That seems to be the core of this game to me. There are games like that out there, where the "opponents" are both the other players, and some random element... it sounds more like a card game to me. The cards provide some randomly chosen obstacles, the players compete to beat the obstacles (using dice) and acheive some winning condition. That's not to say it can't work as a rpg, just that it would have to be structured differently than the players v GM model.

Great thread, and a great game idea...

[Mark Thomas]

I think you misunderstand me, either that or I simply don't get your answer. Mark's suggestion means that passing hate to an Ork, gives hate to a God. That, to me, is a causal link between God & Ork. I see the players playing an Ork, and having a God (or Gods), not playing an Ork-with-a-God-thing. I don't see the Ork as having any in-world link to the God(s) controlled by the same player.

I see where you're coming from with this thought. However by definition I believe you have a link between Ork and God(s), they're both being run by one player. It may not be as direct as the I hit your Ork with hate so you can hit my Ork with hate next time I try something, but it's there. Looking back to your original post, I can see that we've gone pretty far afield from your original idea of Orks being defined by the hate each God has for them, so I can understand your view here. I'll be very interested to see what you come up with as a next iteration of this game!

(Yes this was really just a bump t see what's up with the game)

[Loki]

For me, the thing that needs to be examined/resolved is the contradiction in the gameplay: on the one hand, you've got Orc PCs running around as a gang beating up on the rest of the world (team play). On the other hand, you've got Gods beating up on the other Orc PCs (adversarial play).

I think in order to stick with the "party of PCs v the world" traditional game play, something needs to be done to disconnect/distance the Gods from the PCs. One way to do this would be to make it unimportant if an Orc PC was killed/disadvantaged by a God. Or even to make it enjoyable or offer a tradeoff to being an object of hate. That way the players can get into their roles as God without having the gameplay discourage it.

It's true that with players that are into the spirit of the game, this can be avoided, but if it's actually part of the game it'll be more satisfying.

One possibility might be that spent hate can be used by players to make their next character--so if there's been a lot of hateful Gods, the next generation of Orc PCs is more powerful, and so on (tough love, so to speak). Hate contributing to advancement... (loot + hate == more chargen points?)

That way the players can screw each other over locally, while making each other happier globally.

Yes, this was just a glorified BUMP! I want to play this game!

[greyorm]

Heya Jack,

I'm still liking what I'm seeing. You (and others) are hitting on alot of the same ideas I did for ORX, but in different ways.

I think the idea of gathering loot -- which is utterly useless to the orc -- is great. Loot actually has a use in my game, but you can fight with your fellow players over it, steal it, lose it, and so forth (and there are various nasty consequences to things like that occuring).

I like the Respect idea: I call it "Nasty" in ORX, and it is an actual attribute that doesn't really go up in an experience-point sort of way. Anyways, "Nasty" might work for you in this context -- after all, orcs don't really respect one another, it's more of a fearful hatred (ie: the chieftan's the leader because he's the worst, and you don't want to get on his bad side).

[Jack Aidley]

Man, this is generating a lot of interest!

I'm glad you all like the idea, and I want to thank you all for your suggestions, comments and enthusiasm. It's at a stage now where I want to go off and cogitate on all the feedback and develop the ideas into something concrete and, perhaps more importantly, try it out in actual play with my gaming group.

Hopefully I'll have it written up for playtesting in the new year. When I do I'll post a link and start up a new thread.

Thank you all,

Jack.

[Loki]

Rockin' Jack, my inner Orc can't wait to see the results.

However, my inner Orc God is pissed at having to wait. Give yourself extra difficulty in getting this together!!!!!!

jk, best of luck and keep us posted.

Loki