[TSoY] Abstracting damage

[Clinton R. Nixon]

The mechanics for my new game, The Shadow of Yesterday, are almost complete. However, I've had a real urge lately to abstract the damage system.

You can click on the link above and check out Chapter 4 to see the rules as they are now. Briefly, as they stand:

- Damage only occurs from combat and traps and poison and such.
- There's not much of a purpose of using "complex resolution" unless fighting.
- The Success Level of an action is mechanically unimportant except to cause damage with an attack.
- The sorts of actions I want to be prominent - social interaction, singing and dancing, cooking, artistic efforts, and the like - are determined through one roll, with little ability to play with this result.
- Therefore, the mechanics aren't exactly what I call focused or good.

My idea is to let every action involving someone else inflict damage, if and only if the players are using complex resolution (initiative, damage, and combat-like) instead of basic resolution (one roll to determine success.) This is very much in the spirit of Trollbabe, a game I've been playing a lot of, with the damage from everything, and Hero Wars, with the simple vs. complex resolution.

At first, this concept scared me, but as I re-wrote the section, I realized something cool: with basic resolution, if you win, an effect immediately happens. Where this gets interesting is social situations. Let's say a character is trying to convince a wandering swordsman to help him. If he wins the Skill Check, the swordsman does help him. If he loses, the swordsman doesn't.

Now, reverse this on a player character. Pretty ugly, huh? I wouldn't want one roll to force my character into a situation I didn't like.

With complex resolution, this can't happen. You can fail and be damaged, and have this continue, but you aren't forced into anything. In the end, the player decides whether resistance is worth the mechanical punishment. The GM can do this to, leading to tense social situations with words flying back and forth, seeing who'll back down first.

Anyway, here's the updated rules. I'd love someone who'd read the original rules (referenced above) to pull them apart and give me some advice on whether they stand well, or have holes I'm not seeing.

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Complex resolution

When playing The Shadow of Yesterday, some activities will have greater importance than others to the players and to the story. When an activity is deemed important enough, complex resolution is used.

Complex resolution differs from basic resolution in several ways:

[*]Complex resolution can damage characters. With basic resolution, a character can be stopped, moved, made ineffectual in the situation, or worse. However, the character takes no damage and the effects are only role-played. Complex resolution can result in mechanical setbacks for the character.
[*]Complex resolution is the only time a character can die without his player's consent.
[*]Complex resolution sets specific timing of actions.
[*]Unlike basic resolution, no character can be forced to do anything with complex resolution. With basic resolution, if one character attempts to convince another character, for example, and that player wins the Skill Check, the second character is convinced. With complex resolution, characters are instead damaged, and make decisions solely through their players' decisions.
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An activity is resolved with complex resolution if any participant requests it. Other players can try to dissuade the requester, but his final decision cannot be overridden, even by the GM.

Determining order of actions

Every player that wants his character to take an action in complex resolution must make a React Skill Check. The actions are ordered by the total rolls made, setting an initiative order. Actions are taken from highest roll to lowest, and when a character takes his action, he goes to the bottom of the initiative order. (One suggestion I've found to work exceptionally well in play is to write down character names and important statistics on index cards, and place these in initiative order during complex resolution.)

Players may have their characters hold their actions, moving them down one space in the initiative order.

What can be done in one action

In one action, a character can perform one action that requires rolling the dice. What this means for the player is that if he wants the character to use two skills together in order to get bonus dice, this will take two actions.

However, the character can perform small, quick actions that do not require rolling the dice in addition to his normal action. If a player wants his character to run 15 feet and attack during an action, that's fine: running 15 feet is a quick action that shouldn't require a dice roll. If a player wants his character to run the same 15 feet across a swamp filled with snakes, tree roots, and thick mud, that would require a dice roll, and so the movement and attack would be separate actions. Likewise, if the player wants his character to charge, using the Success Level from an Athletics check to add bonus dice to his Melee Skill Check, that would require two actions.

Surprise

Characters can be surprised in three circumstances:

[*]When another character attempts to sneak up on them, and makes a successful Stealth Skill Check against them. (They may or may not get to resist this Skill Check with Awareness, depending on circumstances.)
[*]When a group of characters sets up an ambush, with one character making a successful Battle Skill Check against them. (Again, they may or may not get to resist with Awareness.)
[*]Whenever the GM determines that a character is surprised based on circumstances.
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In the first two examples, all surprised characters have a number of penalty dice on their React Skill Checks equal to the Success Level of the Stealth or Battle Skill Check. In the last example, all surprised characters have one penalty die on their React Skill Check. Until the characters come up in the initiative order, they are still considered surprised, and may resist actions taken against them with Open Skills, but may not use any other skills or Secrets.

Damage

A character is damaged whenever someone successfully attempts a Skill Check against him. The damage done to the character equals the Success Level of the Skill Check, plus bonus damage from any items used. This could be a sword, in the case of a physical attack, or perhaps a writ from the local lord, in a social contest.

Damage is the only time in this game where the normal Skill Check rules do not apply. When a character is hit in combat, the player writes down the damage on his character sheet, adding it to any current damage.  Whenever a character is damaged, the player must roll 2d6 + Stay Up, and get a total equal to or higher than the character's total damage. If this roll is failed, the character is bloodied and gets a penalty die to all actions. If this roll is failed again, the character is collapsed.

If a character is collapsed, it is incapable of action without spending a point from the relevant Attribute. This point does not cancel the bloodied penalty die. If a third damage roll is failed, the character is killed.

After a combat is over, every character is allowed a Stay Up Skill Check. If successful, a number of damage points equal to the Success Level of the Check are removed, and the character's status moved to bloodied if collapsed, or normal if bloodied. In addition, every character is allowed a Stay Up Skill Check for healing whenever Grit is fully refreshed (that is, a good night's sleep is achieved.)