The Forge Archives

Okay, so I played a very casual extemporaneous game of D&D at a party today, and the DM sucked, but it was still kinda fun. Most of the rules got completely lost in all the shouting and arguing (like I said, casual game and bad DM) but we didn't miss them.

It got me thinking, and I developed something that I want to play with mostly the same group (made up of non-gamers and rusty d&ders) sometime soon. It's a system, basically a very stripped-down and specifized version of D20, plus notes for a setting and an adventure. I'm going to try to post it here, hope I can get the formatting right in the transition from RTF.

Just for the record, this is quite gamist, uses task resolution, and pays little attention to things like protagonization. Just thought I should mention that.

Rat D&D: A System and Scenario (still incomplete)

Character Stats

   Fight Number    Used for fighting.
   Rat Number    Used for doing rattish things.
   Hit Points    Max and Current. Used for not dying.
   Spells       You can cast them.

Character Creation

   A certain number of Rat Points are divided between:
      Buying Hit Points up from 0.
      Buying Fight and Rat down from 20.
      Purchasing spells (at a constant cost, probably 1).

Spells

   Each can only be used once per adventure. Shouldn't be too powerful, because that isn't the nature of rat magic. (Rat Mojo?) All spells must also be interesting    and must have a rattish feel, or they will not be approved. No spell should be particularly: intellectual, clean, inorganic, or boring. Most work automatically and take    one round. Spells that modify Fight or Rat should do so by 3 (2? 4?), and spells that do damage act as attacks with a certain fight  number (5? Equal to lowest in    group?). Healing spells simply let you heal extra times per adventure.
   (Another possibility: any spell that enhances or replaces Fight or Rat works as an action using the lowest Fight or Rat score in the group.)

Fighting and Rat Actions

   Roll a 20-sided die. If you roll over the relevant number, you succeeded. Level of success, and damage, are equal to the number rolled minus your number.

   Damage

      Just subtract it from the other guy's current hit points.

   Level of Success

      Usually just incorporated into the GM's or your description, but the GM may rule that you can hear a number of quiet things equal to the number, or          somesuch. This is pretty freeform.

   Initiative

      Usually, the GM will just decide. If it becomes really important and it's really unsure, make a Rat Roll (should this be a fight roll?) and whoever has a higher       Level of Success goes first.


Special Cases

   Dodging

      You can spend a whole turn dodging. Declare this roughly at the beginning of the turn, make a Rat Roll, add the Level of Success to the Fight Number of       anyone attacking you. Or subtract it from their roll, it doesn't matter which. It's your job to remember this, not the GM's.

   Healing

      Each rat can perform first aid once (more?) per adventure. This is a Rat Action that heals a number of Hit Points equal to the Level of Success. If you want to heal       more than once, buy it as a spell.

Equipment

   Rats don't use equipment.

Experience

   If it looks like another adventure might happen, which frankly isn't too likely, everyone gets a Rat Point at the end of the current adventure.
   (Unspent Rat Points can be spent between adventures, or during an adventure immediately after a conflict has been overcome. To simulate a young or    inexperienced character, simply leave some points unspent at the beginning, and spend them during the adventure. Rat Point incentive for doing this?)

Plot Notes

   Tribal society, with tribal Elder controlling much of life.

   Societal respect based on skill at Rat actions. Military service respected, but not as much, and good fighters seen as dangerous. Magic accepted as a fact of life,    but those who use it often tend to be somewhat outcast.

   (How do rats communicate? Do they talk? Do they have a language based on whisker movements? If they talk, can they communicate by whisker as a Rat    Action?)

   As far as rats know, there is nothing in the world but tunnels.

   Each tribe has a Sheriff, chosen by the Elder, who can call up a posse in times of trouble.

   Party belongs to largest tribe in the area.

   Member of party with lowest Rat Number is the Sheriff.

   Rest of party are the sheriff's chosen posse.

   Current situation: a much smaller tribe that had been hired to explore some recently-discovered tunnels has occupied said tunnels and driven off members of    party's tribe. Party's tribe suspects a political maneuver, but a captured enemy rat (perhaps one has already been captured?) will allude to a great horror OR    amazing wonder discovered in the tunnels. Great fury of enemy rat soldiers supports this religious theory.

   Possible last-minute warning from previous leader of tribe (or other respected rat, great retired fighter? mentor of rat with lowest Fight Number?), if a pre-captured    enemy was not used, that the political hypothesis may not be accurate.

   The tunnels lead to the upper world: specifically, a suburban human home. When our heroes reach the outside world, after overcoming great challenge from the    mad tribe and a cat's paw stuck through the hole, cue Thus Spake Zarathustra, cue fadeout.

OK, this is just a flavor note, but if you're gonna do rats, let me recommend Rat Kings.

Apparently this is an actual phenomenon:  occasionally, dead rats are found with their tails all tangled up.  I assume this is something that happens from storm drains flooding, or something, but it's weird enough to find mention in the work of Charles Fort, (in)famous journalist of the weird.

Centuries ago (well, the early 80s), AD 2000, a marvellous British comic variety book, featured a story with a Rat King--but this Rat King was smart, and could somehow induce big populations of rats to be highly coordinated.  It was an illegal weapon of war.  In a futuristic world, no less (Halo Jones?  Anyone remember what I'm talking about?).

The cool factor of such a freaky thing should be pretty obvious.

"Nobody sees the Rat King, man.  It gives its orders through the Generals.  Or maybe the King will touch your mind directly . . . you'll know."

--JB

And let me be self-referential and recommend Vermin.

Clinton beat me to that one.  Vermin is one of the best.

Oh wow.. That was a good read... Wonder if I could get my group interested in that, next time we need a d20 game to do on Friday nights?

Dude, Clinton, that rocks. Seriously. It's pretty different from what I'm going for here, what with the weapons and bipedal training and d20ness, but I'm being inspired for all sorts of stuff. Same goes for the Rat Kings; that's just fascinating, and it's definitely going in the second adventure if there ever is one.

Now, how about the mechanics?. Will it work the way I have it? Most of the things I'm really not sure about are in parentheses in the initial post. The other big thing I might change is the part where you buy down the Fight and Rat numbers from 20 and try to roll over them. It seems a bit backwards. I thought that would make it more intuitive during play, but now I'm thinking about flipping it around. Thoughts?

Hi there,

Going back to Rat D&D for a moment, what I'm seeing is exactly what I've seen through the whole history of this game - playing it, getting a good idea, stripping out most of the rules, tossing in rules that work for the purpose at hand, and ending up with a playable game.

Basically, you just handed us - ta da! - a new game. Cool! I recommend taking a hard look at it and deciding what, if any, elements of D&D should stay at all. Make sure none are staying just because "Well, it's D&D," because it frankly ain't any more.

Oh yeah ... in the interest of fairness and curiosity, I'd rather see an substantive statement about the GMing besides "it sucked." Maybe an Actual Play post.

Best,
Ron

About D&D elements: Yes, I know it's a different game, but I think keeping some familiar elements is a good idea. Besides, this is designed primarily for simple dungeon-crawling, which D&D does rather well. No sense in throwing out bits that still work.

About the GM: Good point, that really isn't fair. In fact, since a good time was had by all, I suppose I can't fault him. Still, let me just share a few things that contributed to my analysis: He brought in his badass character from another game to bail us out. He generally refused actions that weren't "I hit him," or needed serious persuasion. He created giant pandas out of thin air to smack around the characters of those who argued with him.

Sorry about the tangent there, but I didn't think it really merited a separate post.

For combat, have each participant write down a speed bid each round, or a "D" for dodge. Everyone reveals their bid and rolls their die. Starting with the character with the highest bid (ties being broken by fight score, and then by success margin, simultaneous oherwise), resolve their roll subtracting the bid from the die roll (players can calculate this right away and only those who hit can indicate this so as to be put in the cycle).

Those Dodging subtract their success margin from any attack made against them (as before). Solves initiative, and puts a little stratetgy into it.

Just an idea.

Mike

Hmmm.

Just looked at character creation more closely, high whiff factor here. To get a score that gives better than a fifty percent chance I can only have less than ten HP, and a low score in the other stat as well. Like Fight 8, Rat 16, HP 4.

Here's another idea. Skip HP, and just make wounds add to your Fight score temporarily until healed. This gives an effect to wounds. When you're out of Fight (fight > 20) you're dead. This means that rats who fight well are also tough, which is pretty logical.

The balanced rat character (Fight 10, Rat 10), would have a fifty percent chance to do anything. A fighter Rat has Fight 5, Rat 15.

Howzat? Works well with my bid proposal above.

Mike

Mike, I'm a bit confused. Where do you get 28 for the number of points being distributed? I don't think I mentioned an actual number, as I can't really nail that down until I run a few more fights and such, but I was leaning towards something like 35 or 40. Helps out with the whiff problem.

I like your suggestions, though, and I might end up using them. I do want to keep HP pretty low, though, and I like having durability and attack ability separate. Nice idea, though, and I definitely like the initiative.

A few quick clarifications, largely Ron-suggested. First: keep in mind that, despite my tentative title, the new rules here are not D&D. Just inspired by it. Also, it may not be clear that the play experience I described was D&D, not my new game. I mention it only because it was my major impetus for designing this thing.