Courageous Exploits of the Fearless Dinosaur Hunters!

[Jeph]

COURAGEOUS EXPLOITS OF THE FEARLESS DINOSAUR HUNTERS

You are stranded in a place with dinosaurs! They will eat you! Run away!

CHARACTERS

Your character has 3 stats: Clever, Athletic, and Stocked. Clever is how quick their mind is and how sharp their senses are. Athletic indicates their speed, stamina, and strength. Stocked is a measure of how much they brought with them. You also have 3 pools of points: Bravery, Wounds, and Experience.

Distribute 10 dice among your stats, putting at least 2 and no more than 5 dice into each. Bravery starts out equal to Clever. Wounds starts equal to Athletic. Experience starts equal to Stocked. You may also choose one weapon for your character with damage dice equal to your Stocked, and then divide points equal to your Stocked among some number of other supplies. Weapons cost points equal to their damage dice. Minor pieces of gear, such as flashlights and pieces of rope, cost 1 point. Other pieces of gear may cost 2 (for things like flares) or even 3 (for a walkie talkie)  points, depending on utility. Note that your character may be carrying other gear aside from what you have noted at this point. However, when you want to have an item on your person that was not mentioned in character creation, you must make a Stocked roll to do so.

Example Character: Lisa Jones, Lost Biology Student. Clever 5, Athletic 3, Stocked 2. Bravery 5, Wounds 3, Weapon: Pocket Knife 2. Gear: Backpack, Notebook and Pen.

DINOSAURS

Dinosaurs also have 3 stats, which are usually rated from 10 to 20. They are Quick, Ferocious, and Tough. Quick is a measure of how fast they are, Ferocious of how quickly they will kill you, and Tough how hard it is to kill them. They may also have a number of notes. Stats and notes are set however the GM likes. Some example dinosaurs...

T-Rex: Quick 13, Ferocious 20, Tough 18
Pterodactyl: Quick 15, Ferocious 11, Tough 12; Notes: -10 Quick when not flying

Pretty easy to create lizards on the fly. You can also stat up other creatures this way, such as gigantic mammoths and alligators.

RULES

When a player wants to do something, the Game Master sets a Target Number, or TN. The player determines which of their three stats is the most relevant, and roll the appropriate number of 6 sided dice. A result of 6 is counted as 0, and when you get a result of 5, roll another die. After rolling, total up all your dice and compare the result to the TN. If you equal or exceed it, you beat the heat.

TN Breakdown:
4--Easy
7--Iffy
10--Challenging
13--Very Challenging
16--Not Bloody Likely

Whenever a player likes, they may have their character spend a point of Bravery to gain an extra die on a roll. Game Masters may hand out extra points of Bravery for players and characters exhibiting various virtues.

Example Rolls: Lisa has been lost for quite some time, and the Game Master tells her player to roll Lisa's Stocked to see how well her supplies are holding up. He secretly sets a TN of 7. Lisa rolls a 6 and a 4: failure. She decides to go foraging. This requires a Clever roll, and the Game Master, knowing that edible plants in these areas are rare, sets the TN at 10. He also notes that if Lisa rolls a 5 or below she will mistake something that is poisonous for food. However, she rolls a 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, then rolls another die for the 5 and gets a 2 for a total of 15. She manages to find a large grove of bushes with edible berries--but its across a ditch filled with spiked thorn bushes! Lisa, needing food, decides to jump it. The Game Master sets the leap at TN 8, and Lisa rolls her 3 Athletics dice, for 1, 1, and 5. Tossing another die for the 5, she gets a 3. Her total result of 10 is enough to safely make the jump and get at the berries.

FIGHTING DINOES

Each round, every character can choose to either try for Fight or Flight. When they Fight, they will make a series of rolls: one to vie for position with the dinosaur, and another to either avoid being mauled or take a shot at their quarry. The first roll uses the Clever stat and has a TN equal to the dinosaur's Quick. If you fail this roll, make an Athletics roll with a TN equal to the dinosaur's Ferocious. If you fail that, too, you lose points from your Wound Pool equal to the TN minus your result. Once you have no points in your Wound Pool, you make all rolls at -1 dice. If you have a negative Wound Pool, you are unconscious. If you succeed at the Clever roll, you instead make a roll using your weapon's damage dice that has a TN equal to the target's Tough. Failing your damage roll means that the dinosaur's hide blocks your attack or you miss. Succeeding at your damage roll causes the target's Tough to be reduced by your roll minus the TN.

Weapons that are improvised on the spot have 1 (for something like throwing rocks) or 2 (in the case of more effective offenses, like a really big stick) damage dice. However, more clever or planned out attacks may have more dice.

If you choose the Flight option, the Game Master will decide if the dinosaur feels like following you. If they do, you must roll your Athletics against their Quick to outrun them. If you fail to outrun them, then compare the result of your Athletics roll to the pursuer's Ferocious. If their Ferocious is higher, you lose points from your Wound Pool equal to their Ferocious minus the result of your Athletics roll.

If one character flees while the rest are fighting and the dinosaur goes chasing after the runner, everyone who chose the Fight option must roll their Athletic against the dinosaur's Speed or be left behind. A character that is left behind does not get to make their series of rolls, and cannot rejoin the combat until the turn after everyone stops running.

For each scene that a character spends resting, they recover one point from their Wound Pool.

OTHER DANGERS

Other dangers include quicksand, collapsing rope bridges, tumbling boulders, and all types of crazy crap. Just set a TN and make the player roll on their character's most appropriate stat. If your hanging from a vine or swimming against the current, use Athletics. Ate a poisonous mushroom? You could use Stocked if you want to use medical supplies that you brought along, or maybe Clever to devise a cure from your surroundings. Whatever.

Whenever a character faces down (or just survives) a danger (or fight with a dinosaur), they gain one point of Experience. When a character comes up against threats similar to one that they have been through before, they may spend Experience just like Bravery to gain extra dice on their rolls to deal with the situation.

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When I wrote this, I was thinking of that episode of Sliders where they get stuck in the dinosaur preserve. A bit of Jurrassic Park. A particular post by someone on a cool thread at RPG.Net that I couldn't find a link to. Basically, a pulp action/survival game that is easy to set up (for both the players and the GM) and quick to play. I imagine running it with a bam-bam-bam style, where the GM just layers on problem after problem. So you've crossed the bridge? Quicksand at the end. You're sinking! Good, you're almost halfway out of the quicksand...when velociraptors are approaching! So you hide under those rocks...? Well, that's when the rescue chopper comes overhead. You go out and wave to it? They see it! Oh, and so to the raptors, by the way.

That sort of thing.

The Questions:
• Does the system seem conducive to fast paced action?
• Is there enough room for character distinction? This I'm worried bout, since there are only 9 possible stat break downs.
• Do you think the Dino Combat system is too complex? I made it so that the emphasis was placed on the players--in fact, they make every roll. While on combat, I wanted it to be pretty hard to face down a dino unless you are both brave and experienced, hence the TNs around 20 for the larger dinoes. For those with statistics-fu, do these beasts that I think are such a threat actually present minimal problem for average characters?

As usual, all questions/coments appreciated.

-Jeff S.

EDIT: De-Capped the title

[Mike Holmes]

• Does the system seem conducive to fast paced action?

Yes, certainly it's fast. But I'm not seeing anything that would make it particularly dramatic, OTOH.

• Is there enough room for character distinction? This I'm worried bout, since there are only 9 possible stat break downs.

Definitely needs more here.

• Do you think the Dino Combat system is too complex? I made it so that the emphasis was placed on the players--in fact, they make every roll. While on combat, I wanted it to be pretty hard to face down a dino unless you are both brave and experienced, hence the TNs around 20 for the larger dinoes. For those with statistics-fu, do these beasts that I think are such a threat actually present minimal problem for average characters?

Combat seems simple enough.

But do you see this as something that's meant for campaign play? I mean, other than the examples, which are one-shots. The Jurassic Park series has to really jump through hoops to make it a series, and even then most of the characters are only around for one installment. So I'm not sure that advancement is really important. Meaning that you need to start some of the characters tougher, or it'll just be Flight from Dinos the RPG.

Nothing wrong with the mechanics, but I'm not getting a feel for play.

Mike

[Jeph]

Character Diversity: Perhaps I could add in an option to instead spread 9 points between the 3 stats, and then have 2 points with which to buy specialites? It would certinly add a large number of possible character builds into the mix....

Game Feel: You're right, it's defintely a oneshot (or twoshot or, if you really feel about stretching it, threeshot) thing, meant for short one-offs.

But about the Flight From Dinos: The RPG thing--that's almost what I want this to be. Almost. However, there is one way to defeat a dino, and that's spending a large amount of Experience and Bravery. Which, if you think about it, is the only way a real person could defeat a dinosaur. That and a 12 guage, which is probably also needed. =)

As for the play style, I'm thinking Interesting and Challenging Flight From Dinos With a Last Heroic Stand When You Can Run No More: The RPG.

[Tony Irwin]

Where do you see this heading in terms of GNS Jeph? I’m guessing maybe light hearted gamist but with some sim exploration of colour (all the fun genre tropes).

I love the way you’ve itemised each characters stock, and I think that this approach to the game could yield you the kind of characterisation you ask about in a later post. Have you considered doing the same for the other PC characteristics?  Eg when I set my Wounds level I need to write up a number of godawful injuries I might expect to sustain during the game, for Bravery I need to list some horrifying and depressing situations.

So my character sheet might look like this:

Example Character: Lisa Jones, Lost Biology Student. Clever 5, Athletic 3, Stocked 2. Bravery 5, Wounds 3, Weapon: Pocket Knife 2.

Gear (Stocked 2): Backpack, Notebook.
Injuries (Wounds 3): Broken ankle, blinded in one eye, arm torn off.
Horrors (Bravery 5): Drenched by stagnant water, trips over a rotting dinosaur corpse, loses picture locket of her boyfriend, stumbles upon a nest of 300 dinosaur eggs, sees a live human being consumed by dinos.

Every time I deplete a pool by one, I have to narrate (or the GM could narrate) the next descriptor on my list. It might make the count-down of having your pools depleted  more ominous because its expressed in words instead of just numbers. It might also give the players the opportunity to narrate something without giving them the reigns of the game. Also it adds just a little taste of characterisation without getting in the way of the real issue – being chased by dinos.

But about the Flight From Dinos: The RPG thing--that's almost what I want this to be. Almost. However, there is one way to defeat a dino, and that's spending a large amount of Experience and Bravery. Which, if you think about it, is the only way a real person could defeat a dinosaur. That and a 12 guage, which is probably also needed. =)

As for the play style, I'm thinking Interesting and Challenging Flight From Dinos With a Last Heroic Stand When You Can Run No More: The RPG.

So for the players the objective is to collect experience while preserving bravery until you’ve got enough to turn on the Dino. For the GM I guess their job is to teasingly push the players into situations where they’re spending too much bravery to earn too little experience.

Whenever a character faces down (or just survives) a danger (or fight with a dinosaur), they gain one point of Experience. When a character comes up against threats similar to one that they have been through before, they may spend Experience just like Bravery to gain extra dice on their rolls to deal with the situation.

That’s interesting, I suppose for challenge the GM could threaten to just reward players experience that might not have very wide applications – the players have to fight for something useful to where they see the game going (btw that might be another opportunity for using descriptors like you do for Stock. Each experience point could be recorded as a sentence).

Considering your intention for just a one or two session game have you considered setting any kind of win conditions? Otherwise it might turn into just “play until you get bored”. From looking at your intentions for the game in your last post I’d suggest something like before play begins the player writes down a triumphant paragraph describing their character turning on a dinosaur and killing it somehow (player picks the clever combinations of methods used to do this). At any point in the game the player can ask the GM to do that combat scene with them, so the player is constantly trying to pick up experience points throughout the game that will be applicable to that situation. Game over when one player kills their dino (loads of players will probably never even make it to their scene). That might fit with your “Last Heroic Stand when you can run no more” design spec.

• Does the system seem conducive to fast paced action?

Yeah seems very fast. Is there any particular reason you went for adding dice instead of counting successes (which is usually quicker to do).

• Is there enough room for character distinction? This I'm worried bout, since there are only 9 possible stat break downs.

Well some kind of descriptors or even specialisms would be one way to approach it. That way characters can have identical numbers but different words.