Hybrid Sorcerer/Donjon combat & my upcoming game

[Bailywolf]

I've been ripping into both the S&S advanced combat expansion and Clinton's Donjon combat system which owes much Sorcerer.  I am considering adopting some of Donjon's combat mechaincs for my upcoming Sorcerer game (more on this below), in particular the structure of a Flurry of combat and the order of action.

I'm flat in love with Donjon's action-ordering mechanics- rolling a speed related Ability, then acting during the flurry count down on the rolled value.  Really, I love this mechanic.  It also seems like it would complement the Sorcerer combat innovations found in S&S, especialy the use of complementry descriptors to create combo rollovers.  

However, the core character stats which describe a Donjon character are much more numerous than in Sorcerer, with its abstracted scores describing a broader swath of possible action.  So how to create more variance in the scores used in combat?  

Here are some thoughts- still in riff form... I have no idea which direction I want to go with this yet.

** Generate initiative rolls with something other than Stamina (or with a combination of Stamina and something else).  Say Stamina + Background; Stamina + Will; or even Stamina + Lore.  Each implies a different sort of character fighting style.  Stam+Background indicates a combination of natural prowess and experience.  Stam+Will physical ability combined with quick wits and situational awareness.  Stam+Lore careful use of tactics, positioning, and situational manipulation.  

**As above, but drop the additive nature of the roll, leaving this the exclusive province of demonic Abilities which might add Power of this roll.  Instead, a character's general fighting style determines the score they roll:
Stamina- Depends on natural agility, reflexes & prowess
Will- depends on awareness, wits & perception
Lore- depends on positioning, strategy, and forethought
Background- depends on experience and well-honed instincts


**As above, but instead of aplying to Initiative, on a flurry-to-flurry basis a player determines his character's stance .  A given score can only be rolled for one of four things- attack, defense, initiative or special actions.  This last would include the sort of set-up actions wich would grant rollover successes to a subsequent action, the they sorts possible would be limited by the score being used (for example, locking eyes with an enemy during the heat of combat and using the raw force of your personality to make him falter- using Will to get some bonus dice in your next action)  The exception to this are traits with multiple Discriptors, which can be used for more than one kind of roll.

For some characters (those protected by Grace or True Innocence), Humanity might be used as a combat score... This might also be especialy cool when a character is lashing out pashionatly against something which offends them on a basic and inherent level... your Paladin-style characters might use this route.  Also, characters protected by Angelic creatures as in S&Soul (Ron- love the angelics if I haven't said it yet) could add Grace to such an Inspired combat roll.

Oh! Brainstorm!  In circumstances when a character's basic nature is threatened- such as when his relationship map puts him into confrontation with someone with whom he shares strong ties- then the Humanity score MUST be used for attack, defense, or initiative (plater's choice).  For characters with lots of Humanity, this is not a bad thing at all.  They can then bring a high score into play in combat, representing them tapping their passions and pain for good effect.  Characters with eroeded souls will find themselves faltering against foes with whom they share strong ties...  




Anyhow, any thoughts yall have on this idea  would be valuable.


As for the game...

It looks like I'll soon be starting to run a combo Sorcerer and Sorcerer&Sword game... I mused about it in this thread about a Dreamlands-inspired S&S game:  

http://indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1367&highlight=dreamlands


The game will begin play in a fairly typical modern implementation of Sorcerer with a very simple Empathy-based Humanity definition, and a very uncertain demonic nature.  Demons are as foreign in nature to humanity as they are to each other... but just about every tradition of occult lore can do the mystical trick a serve as a Sorcerous ritual if done by a person with the right mental archetecture and psychic underpinings.  The upshot is that there are hundreds of sorcerous traditions, and most Adepts end up using a hybrid methodology which best suits their personality.  

This will run with PC kickers and motivation as the only plot drive.  

Now at a key point in the story- when one character's Kicker comes to a head, or a new kink in their R-map developes, the game will transition to the Dreamlands (I'l call it something different) recast as a byzantine Sorcerer and Sword setting inspired in no small part by what I've been hearing about Ron's Azk'Arn and Paka's Mu's Bed settings.  

The characters will be translated into S&S terms in an overt sense, but with a varying degree of "native understanding".  The higher a character's Lore, the more fully they adapt into the Dreamlands cast...and the more shadowy their waking-world persona beneath its S&S version.

Demons to are translated, and they have no more idea what the hell is going on than do the players.  The most significant thing about Demons is that their Type always changes... a Possessor might become a Passer, an Object a Parasite... its scores and abilities, Need and Dsire for the most part won't change (though they might be modified a bit) but they can be redefined to fits its new form.  If the GM permits it, a player may swap a single Ability for another Ability to further describe how the Demon has been translated.

An example:

Reken
Type: Object (a guady ring with a creepy spider signet)
Abilities: Special Damage (poison needle), Warp, Boost (Will-confers)
Need: to be soaked in blood
Desire: treachery

might become

Reken
Type: Parasite (gnarly biomechanical hand that looks like a spider)
Abilities: Special Damage (poison mandibles), Warp, Boost (stamina)
Need: to suck blood through an extendible probiscus
Desire: treachery

Most significantly, a characters relationship with his demon must in some way be fundamentaly altered.  In the above example, a fairly innocuous little object demon which could be easily and fairly painlessly sated (just drop it in a mug of blood in the fridge overnight) becomes an everpresent factor in a character's life- he must keep it hidden, must endure the weird pulsing as it sucks blood, and can never remove it from body or from mind.  To represent how physicaly the translated demon now affects the character, the Boost (will) is exchanged for Boost (stamina).


Transition from dreamworld to wakingworld is always preluded by certain 'touchstones'- situations, people, symbolism, colors, smells etc which invoke the last experiences the characters had in the other world... I have this image in my head of the party rounding a corner in a citadel they are sacking (to put down an evil sorcerer queen) to run smack into a little blonde girl in a red dress...just like the one they almost ran down in their car while racing to intercept an escaping rival, the screaching breaks of the car becoming in the transition the screaching of a great demon-bird which was swooping down upon them when they transitioned from the dreamworld...  Basicly, a way of capturing a pulp-style cliffhanger.



Ideas?

[Judd]

Going back and forth between Sorcerer's default real world horror setting and a Dreamworld Sorcerer and Sword setting sounds like fun.

Some things I'd read or re-read would be some Freud, Jung, Lovecraft's Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, and maybe some psych books on dream related psych disorders.  I am sure that I'm missing something.

Maybe some other fiction books that tickle this topic:

Sandman: Game of You by Neil Gaiman and The Talisman by Stephen King

I would want something on the table to change to let everyone at the table know which world we were in.  Maybe a lamp with some kind of strange lighting signifies the dream-world or music choices, something to let everyone unequivocally know where it was at.

Then, once everyone's nice and comfy with the way the dream and waking symbols work, start mixing them up as the dream and real world mix.

[Judd]

I was thinking that maybe Humanity fluctuations happen independently.  So you can have a higher Humanity in the Real World but a lower one int he Dream World, thus representing that you are linked more strongly to one world or another or are in perfect balance.

[Bailywolf]

Paka!

Love that... now what if the transition is regulated by the difference in waking and dreaming humanity... either positive (your current humanity is higher than the other world's humanity) or negative (lower than the other world)... hell, this modifier offers all sorts of neat mechanical oportunities...  have to think about how to exploit this.  

It also makes for a fairly neat moment, when the characters realize that in the dreamworld, their esential value system has been reconfigured... imagine the surge of freedom they might feel when no longer constrained by a modern set of values, and the trouble they might get into trying to figure out what the dreamworld values are.  Also, on transfering back... a certain readjustment time...  The two sets of values (as might many dreamworld and realworld elements) begin to interpose and intermingle...

[Clinton R. Nixon]

One thing I might play with is switching the characters' scores while in the Dreamland. (I once ran an extended CoC/BRP Fantasy game where this happened: Intelligence in the real world might be your Strength in the Dreamlands.)

How I'd do it:
Real World -> Dreamlands
-------------------------------
Stamina -> Will (real world Stamina translates into belief in one's self in the Dreamlands)
Will -> Stamina (real world grounding in one's self translates into physical power in the Dreamlands)
Lore -> Lore
Past -> Humanity (the experiences of your past keep you human in the Dreamlands)
Humanity -> Past (your humanity defines your skill in the Dreamlands)

This is really fun in my experience - the player basically gets to play two characters, and their strengths and weaknesses complement each other in the two worlds. Definitely allow their descriptions to change, too - a nebbish politician might be a powerful warrior in the Dreamlands, and a barely coherent thug with mother issues might have a terrifying Will on the other side.

[Judd]

"Yay sleep.  That's where I'm a viking"

     -  Ralph Wiggum in the Simpsons

[Bailywolf]

Thus spake Saint Ralphie...



OK, I've been playing with the conjoined system, and discovered it doesn't really work all that well.

I ran some simulated combats between a barbarian warrior bloke ([S6/W3/L1/H5] using a modest power 4 demon sword [armor,special damage lethal, vitality, Fast) and (a) half a dozen gorilla-faced sub-men (S4/W2/L0 w/clubs) and then (b) one huge god-gorilla abomination (S10/W5/L3/N6).


I ran combat with this procedure:

1) Declare Initiative score (which score will you use to roll your initiative)

2) Roll initiative score (just like Donjon, but I did it with d10's)

3) Count down from 10, with ties going to the highest chosen Initiative score, with further ties going to the character with the best Lore (this was strictly arbitrary, and my not figure in later...in my test runs, it only came up twice).  

4) When a characters action comes up, he may choose to attack or perform a stunt.  Stunts generate victories which may be transfered to a later action in the same Flurry.  Attacks are attempts to put the other guy in a bad way.  Like with Initiative, a score is chosen for this roll... and once chosen, the character is stuck with that choice for the rest of the flurry.  If you get attacked first, and roll a score in defense (either by declaring your attack score and aborting a later action to counter-strike, or by declaring your defensive score and rolling a dodge action) this is fixed for the rest of the flurry.  

5) Successful attacks are resolved as per the Sorcerer damage system.


And here is the big hitch- Sorcerer has a VERY deadly damage system.  With even a Power 4 special damage attack, taking down major badies is surprisingly easy... as is getting knocked out of things yourself.  Against the giant Abomination thing, the warrior won the initiative throw, and then tagged the monkey god for 3 victories on his first shot- between the temp and perm damage, he made very short work of the big thing.

Against the multiple oponents he fared significantly less well.  He took out two of them, snicker-snack, but then got tagged with a club, blew his next roll, and got nailed twice more... it got ugly then, as the sub-men went to town on him like a bunch of LA cops.  I figured the sub-men would quit hammering him when he quit moving, and the demon sword prevented the worst of the permenant damage from sticking... and the Vitalility might take care of the rest while he lay unconscious in the sub-men's larder.  Not an entirely inapropriate scene considering the genera, but unsatisfying.  

Donjon characters are significantly more robust than Sorcerer characters... and the similarity in core die mechanics led me astray in thinking a conversion of the combat mechanics would be easy.

So I considered adopting Donjon's damage resolution system.  But this adds another layer of die rolling to resolve a single action...  Argor of Kathan rolls to hit the Gorilla-thing and manages 3 victories over the abomination's defense.  In Sorcerer terms, this would be converted directly into some fairly heavy punishment (with that special damage and Power 4).  With a donjon-style damage layer, those 3 victories would grant a bonus of 3 dice to his damage roll (his Stamina plus the demon's special damage of 4) for total damage dice of 13...not to shabby, but rolled as they are against the Gorilla demon's Stamina of 10, no sure thing.  

This conversion isn't system wrecking for Sorcerer... but more of a departure than I wanted.

Its a simple matter to ratchet on Donjon-style Flesh Wounds to a Sorcerer character...basicly free Lasting wounds which don't impair (penalties for the Next action still apply).  This also makes an easy 'dial' to ramp up or down the lethality of the combat system.  It also demands an additional Demon ability which can imbue the user with additional Flesh Wounds ('Tough' perhaps- gain Flesh Wounds equal to Demon's power... but when lost, these cause Demon's power to fall to a minimum of 1.  User determins which total the damage reduces first).  Vitality deals with recovery and longevity, so I wouldn't want it to also do this.

However all told, I'm begining to just think that Sorcerer is Sorcerer and Donjon is Donjon, and mechanical similarity aside, the two don't need to be crossbred.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ben,

I agree with your final statement, but I'm glad you conducted the experiment.

Best,
Ron