Hey All -

I put the current version of the Cola Wars up at the following address so everything is in one place:

http://geocities.com/grifflik/ColaWars.html

Please give it a glance when you have a few minutes. I'm looking for feedback, specifically with how I'm handling mutations, Buzz, combat and initiative.

Well...OK...basically feedback on everything - lol.

Any/all comments gleefully accepted and appreciated!

Warning: as the resident Sim-head, I take a pretty close look at Sim designs. And I calls 'em like I sees 'em. Remember, you asked.


Why the attribute hierarchy? I can't see a purpose to it. Just make skills be Smarts x 4 or (Smarts x 3)+(Marbles). The Speed bonus for initiative can be based on Hands + Feet with a slight change to the chart (right now a three spills into the next round, BTW). If Beef is actually size, bulk, etc. make it more important by being totally responsible for the wound levels. What I'm saying is that you can simplify a lot. The problem with averages is that players will take particular stats so that the averages round in their favor. Which will be very odd with such a small range. This is a classic "currency" issue.

And why are physical skills based on mental facility? Because a person is educated and brainy they know how to play baseball better, or shoot a gun? How about Skill levels equal to Smarts, Marbles, Hands, and Feet, related to those attribhutes specifically. So if I have 4 Hands, I get 4 skill points in stuff related to hands. Less math, more intuitive. And you won't get every character with colossal Smarts.

The d6 system that you use has problems. There will be times when players cannot succeed at a roll becuse they have too little Stat+Skill, and there will be times where a character cannot fail. Is this intentional? In the contested melee system this will happen less often, but there will be times when characters cannot be hit, or cannot hit. In ranged combat, any average Joe who has never fired a pistol before is unable to miss from point blank range.

A system that uses a Base Damage which is added to have the problem that large weapons never scratch people. Your fireaxe example will never do less than 3 (or maybe 4 depending on the reading), points of damage. So, in the case of a four point base weapon, that can never hit a person and leave them "Unhurt" they will always be at least "Medium" wounded. Seems like limitation. While large weapons are more likely to cause large wounds, that doesn't mean they can't cause small ones.

Your initiative system is, well, somewhat baroque. And it doubly rewards speedy characters by having them go not only earlier, but more often. A speed six character will likely get eight actions per round, as opposed to the average joe who will get only three or four usually. And heaven forfend that you have a Speed 2 character who only gets two actions unless he rolls really well. I see lots of speed six characters. See Hero System (Champions) for classic details on this problem.

Um, GURPS characters would get sixty actions in a minute, BTW. While this is the extreme, most games will allow characters from ten to twenty actions in a minute. Even Rolemaster and D&D allow at least six for everyone.

I suggest something a bit easier to memorize, and more fun to adjudicate.

As for as movement, A character with six speed who rolls well and gets the maximum nine actions, and is allowed to move (Speed 6 +Running Skill 6)*2 Yards every action, will take six minutes to do a mile. I once did that. If you use x 3 and allow running skill like I did, you can get four minute miles for fast characters.

Oh, and what happens if two characters of the same speed (pretty likely actually) go on the same phase (have the same Initiative roll)? Do they act simultaneously?

For Mutations, is the naming word limit meant for balance or something? At cost two my Telekinetic character could define "Crush Earth" skill, no? Not that it still wouldn't be any more effective than a gun given the rules below. Why the limit?

Defects will be very common, I think. I think the average control+skill will be about seven. leaving about a 45% chance of defect on every use? Is that intended to keep Mutation use down? Or promote characters with a high brains, again? This all seems pretty loose, still.

All-in-all, the focus on combat inthe rules will lead to, you guessed it, combat. Is that what the game is supposed to be all about? If so, fine.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Warning: as the resident Sim-head, I take a pretty close look at Sim designs. And I calls 'em like I sees 'em. Remember, you asked.

Mike Holmes wrote: Why the attribute hierarchy? I can't see a purpose to it. Just make skills be Smarts x 4 or (Smarts x 3)+(Marbles). The Speed bonus for initiative can be based on Hands + Feet with a slight change to the chart (right now a three spills into the next round, BTW). If Beef is actually size, bulk, etc. make it more important by being totally responsible for the wound levels. What I'm saying is that you can simplify a lot. The problem with averages is that players will take particular stats so that the averages round in their favor. Which will be very odd with such a small range. This is a classic "currency" issue.

Mike Holmes wrote: And why are physical skills based on mental facility? Because a person is educated and brainy they know how to play baseball better, or shoot a gun? How about Skill levels equal to Smarts, Marbles, Hands, and Feet, related to those attribhutes specifically. So if I have 4 Hands, I get 4 skill points in stuff related to hands. Less math, more intuitive. And you won't get every character with colossal Smarts.

Mike Holmes wrote: The d6 system that you use has problems. There will be times when players cannot succeed at a roll becuse they have too little Stat+Skill, and there will be times where a character cannot fail. Is this intentional? In the contested melee system this will happen less often, but there will be times when characters cannot be hit, or cannot hit. In ranged combat, any average Joe who has never fired a pistol before is unable to miss from point blank range.

Mike Holmes wrote: A system that uses a Base Damage which is added to have the problem that large weapons never scratch people. Your fireaxe example will never do less than 3 (or maybe 4 depending on the reading), points of damage. So, in the case of a four point base weapon, that can never hit a person and leave them "Unhurt" they will always be at least "Medium" wounded. Seems like limitation. While large weapons are more likely to cause large wounds, that doesn't mean they can't cause small ones.

Mike Holmes wrote: Your initiative system is, well, somewhat baroque. And it doubly rewards speedy characters by having them go not only earlier, but more often. A speed six character will likely get eight actions per round, as opposed to the average joe who will get only three or four usually. And heaven forfend that you have a Speed 2 character who only gets two actions unless he rolls really well. I see lots of speed six characters. See Hero System (Champions) for classic details on this problem.

Mike Holmes wrote: As for as movement, A character with six speed who rolls well and gets the maximum nine actions, and is allowed to move (Speed 6 +Running Skill 6)*2 Yards every action, will take six minutes to do a mile. I once did that. If you use x 3 and allow running skill like I did, you can get four minute miles for fast characters.

Mike Holmes wrote: Oh, and what happens if two characters of the same speed (pretty likely actually) go on the same phase (have the same Initiative roll)? Do they act simultaneously?

Mike Holmes wrote: For Mutations, is the naming word limit meant for balance or something? At cost two my Telekinetic character could define "Crush Earth" skill, no? Not that it still wouldn't be any more effective than a gun given the rules below. Why the limit?

Mike Holmes wrote: Defects will be very common, I think. I think the average control+skill will be about seven. leaving about a 45% chance of defect on every use? Is that intended to keep Mutation use down? Or promote characters with a high brains, again? This all seems pretty loose, still.

Mike Holmes wrote: All-in-all, the focus on combat inthe rules will lead to, you guessed it, combat. Is that what the game is supposed to be all about? If so, fine.

Mike Holmes wrote: Warning: as the resident Sim-head, I take a pretty close look at Sim designs. And I calls 'em like I sees 'em. Remember, you asked.

Mike Holmes wrote: Why the attribute hierarchy? I can't see a purpose to it. Just make skills be Smarts x 4 or (Smarts x 3)+(Marbles). The Speed bonus for initiative can be based on Hands + Feet with a slight change to the chart (right now a three spills into the next round, BTW). If Beef is actually size, bulk, etc. make it more important by being totally responsible for the wound levels. What I'm saying is that you can simplify a lot. The problem with averages is that players will take particular stats so that the averages round in their favor. Which will be very odd with such a small range. This is a classic "currency" issue.

Mike Holmes wrote: And why are physical skills based on mental facility? Because a person is educated and brainy they know how to play baseball better, or shoot a gun? How about Skill levels equal to Smarts, Marbles, Hands, and Feet, related to those attribhutes specifically. So if I have 4 Hands, I get 4 skill points in stuff related to hands. Less math, more intuitive. And you won't get every character with colossal Smarts.

Mike Holmes wrote: The d6 system that you use has problems. There will be times when players cannot succeed at a roll becuse they have too little Stat+Skill, and there will be times where a character cannot fail. Is this intentional? In the contested melee system this will happen less often, but there will be times when characters cannot be hit, or cannot hit. In ranged combat, any average Joe who has never fired a pistol before is unable to miss from point blank range.

Mike Holmes wrote: A system that uses a Base Damage which is added to have the problem that large weapons never scratch people. Your fireaxe example will never do less than 3 (or maybe 4 depending on the reading), points of damage. So, in the case of a four point base weapon, that can never hit a person and leave them "Unhurt" they will always be at least "Medium" wounded. Seems like limitation. While large weapons are more likely to cause large wounds, that doesn't mean they can't cause small ones.

Mike Holmes wrote: Your initiative system is, well, somewhat baroque. And it doubly rewards speedy characters by having them go not only earlier, but more often. A speed six character will likely get eight actions per round, as opposed to the average joe who will get only three or four usually. And heaven forfend that you have a Speed 2 character who only gets two actions unless he rolls really well. I see lots of speed six characters. See Hero System (Champions) for classic details on this problem.

Mike Holmes wrote: As for as movement, A character with six speed who rolls well and gets the maximum nine actions, and is allowed to move (Speed 6 +Running Skill 6)*2 Yards every action, will take six minutes to do a mile. I once did that. If you use x 3 and allow running skill like I did, you can get four minute miles for fast characters.

Mike Holmes wrote: Oh, and what happens if two characters of the same speed (pretty likely actually) go on the same phase (have the same Initiative roll)? Do they act simultaneously?

Mike Holmes wrote: For Mutations, is the naming word limit meant for balance or something? At cost two my Telekinetic character could define "Crush Earth" skill, no? Not that it still wouldn't be any more effective than a gun given the rules below. Why the limit?

Mike Holmes wrote: Defects will be very common, I think. I think the average control+skill will be about seven. leaving about a 45% chance of defect on every use? Is that intended to keep Mutation use down? Or promote characters with a high brains, again? This all seems pretty loose, still.

Mike Holmes wrote: All-in-all, the focus on combat inthe rules will lead to, you guessed it, combat. Is that what the game is supposed to be all about? If so, fine.

Matt Steflik wrote:
Simplification is a good thing.

1-6 as you pointed out to me before is definitely a small range just begging for abuse.

Well, the use of Buzz was intended to take care of this somewhat. Since it can get used on any roll, as long as you have Buzz available, you can't fail. Unfortunately the more Buzz you use, the greater the modifier and the faster you use it. Finding classic cola to feed your "mutational monkey" is a driving force in the game. Without the use of Buzz, you are absolutely correct in your observations.

Mike Holmes wrote:
This was another problem I was noting in running random rolls to test the system. A possible solution I was toying with was giving each weapon a low/medium/high scale damage rating (meaning if you hit, you would at minimum do x, on average do y, and at maximum do z). What do you think?

While on the subject of damage, does the wound system work?

This thing is a dinosaur carried over from ancient V&V influences - by far the clunkiest thing about the game.

No, mutation use is actually encouraged...as is using Buzz. Again, if Buzz is available, you can modify the roll to succeed. ... Trying mutation use without Buzz pretty much guarantees defect mutation.

Well, combat is intended to be a part, but that's not what I want it to be solely based around. All that I've got up right now is some background, character creation and combat resolution stuff, and that IMO, does not a game make.

Mike Holmes wrote:
?? Does that mean that you intend to simplify the set of secondary characteristics?

It's not the range that's the problem, its where you put the average. Consider the ramifications of, say, calling 3 average, and allowing 28 points for Chargen. Characters will be less defined by their weaknesses then their strengths.

Mike Holmes wrote:
The section (on Buzz) is understandable, but as a note, I'd suggest stating that Buzz raises the Stat+Skill instead of saying it lowers the roll. Same effect, more intuitive. "My Buzz has made me strong!". I like that end.

Mike Holmes wrote:
Still, buzz can only make you succeed. There will still be cases where you can't fail. OTOH, perhaps this is OK, too.

Mike Holmes wrote:
Trying difficult tasks will be interesting. You will be risking needing to chug big on a bad roll to succeed. Which is risky itself.

Mike Holmes wrote:
OTOH, the second roll thing is really not as bad as it sounds. Use your system as is, except that the "damage produced" is the number of dice the woundee has to roll his Beef against to see if he resisted the wound. Success means he shrugged it off. For every three, or part thereof that he misses the roll, he accumulates one die worth of wound. If a character takes a whole ton all at once, to the point that he's useless (4, 5, 6 dice of penalty), then the player can rule that he's dead. Otherwise he's out. Accumulation of wounds means that the character may be concious or not, but is inneffective, anyhow (of course if they can chug, they can act!). I'm using something (slightly better) like this in another game I'm working on.

Mike Holmes wrote:
Well, it's not broken. But it's pretty simplistic. I'm not sure about the realism level that you're looking for here. But simply stated, wounds do not add together linearly to make you dead. As I like to point out, you can hit me in the arm about a jillion times and I'll never die from the impacts. I may bleed to death, but that's a separate issue, and one that takes longer than combat, for the most part.

Mike Holmes wrote:
After combat roll first aid for each wound. For each failure, accumulate another die of penalty (bleeding out) and roll again. Assess the difficulty for the roll by the size of the wound.

Mike Holmes wrote:
I knew I had seen it somewhere!
How's this? Take a five second round. Roll Balls+Speed+Combat Veteran Skill against two dice (more if you're stunned by something or distracted). Failure means you don't get to initiate a new activity that round (if you're running, you can still run, if attacking you can continue to attack). Success means you initiate and resolve in the order of the margin of success, highest first. Then failures go smallest margin first if they are continuing an action. Same margin go simultaneously. That should be fun.

Mike Holmes wrote:
Cool. I do see the players trying to have their characters carry as much cola around with them as possible. How do you prevent that?

Mike Holmes wrote:
What sort of adventures do you forsee being undertaken? That's sorta a big hole right now. You mention the pro-and anti-cola factions. That gives something to fight for or against. Is that to be the focus? It makes the whole cola mechanic central. Anti-cola mutants would be fighting so that one day they woudn't be able to use their powers. And they'd always be tempted by the dark side.

Matt Steflik wrote:
You suggest just going with Speed, Bod, Brains and Spirit, as the secondary traits seem unneccessary.

Now, if I continue to read you, if I continue to use a six point range, with 3 as an average, starting characters off with less points for character generation might be better, yes? For example, if I went as low as 12, one could be average at everything.

Hmmm. Not let me see if I understand this. Using the system as is, let me run through an example with you (I'll boil it down to 4 traits):

I shoot someone with "range weapon x" at short range which does "3" damage. I try to roll 5 or under (Speed trait(3)+"range weapon" skill(2)) on 1d6. I get a 4 which succeeds by 1, so adds +1 bonus to the damage, making it a "4". My target then has to roll 4d6 (1, 3, 4 and 6) and compare the result to his Bod (3) to resist the wound.

Yes, I know wounds don't add "linearly" - I had considered use of a hit location system, but in the spirit of keeping things simple, I dropped it. However, if (well, actually when) I get into things like armor, a hit location system - even a simple one - will probably be helpful.

Well, if I lose the heirarchy and just go with the basic 4 traits I suppose that would be Speed trait + skill (if any) against 1d6. Order as follows if I understand right:

successes by highest to lowest degree
failures by lowest to highest degree

Actually, that's nice and simple.

I didn't see any point posting that until I had a better handle on the rules...was I wrong in this?

Mike Holmes wrote:
I'm not being clear, sorry. I was calling the stats above "Secondary" because they were calculated from the others (Hero System indoctrination). Anyway, I was proposing getting rid of the Stats above and keeping the eight. But you could simplify further to the four set. Just don't have two sets. There's little point.

Mike Holmes wrote:
So far, so good. Actually, I was going to suggest Beef+tough skill+armor. Then my suggestion was to take the difference of the roll - Beef, in this case 11 and divide by 3 and round up. Or four inthis case. Looking at it I'd change that to divide by five. So about 3 dice penalty worth of damage for a nice axe blow.

Mike Holmes wrote:
In this case, I'd make a damage bonus of three only for really big weapons. Fists would get a zero. Perhaps a one die bonus per two full points that the roll was made by. That would be more reasonable. In the example that would have reduced it to only three dice (and kevlar guy is likely unharmed).

Dave Holmes wrote:
I'm not suggesting a Hit Location system. I'm suggesting that you just don't add wounds together for any reason other than penalties. Make rolls for death if and when it seems reasonable.

Dave Holmes wrote:
Well, it's just that we need to have an idea of the activities of the characters if we are to help with the design.

Matt Steflik wrote:
Ah-ha. OK. So if I kept Feets, Hands, Beef, Brawn, Smarts, Marbles, Style and Balls, start with 28 character points (3.5 pts. per stat.). Gotcha.

Why "divide by 5"?

Dave Holmes wrote:
I'm not suggesting a Hit Location system.

Huh?
Alright, you're not suggesting a hit location system. I had been thinking about one because of things like partial armor/armoring specific parts of the body and called shots (I've got Deadlands and Cyberpunk on the brain). Your "hit me all day in the arm" example just made me make an incorrect intuitive leap. However (perhaps I just need to be whacked with a brick again) I'm still confused regarding what you're trying to explain to me on this issue. IYO, how many wounds would equal a penalty? And how would this not be like "linear tallying" like what I've already got? Please give me some examples here if you could.

Mike Holmes wrote:
OK, now were starting to connect. The above is what I was thinking (though the four stat method has advantages, too...). Anyhow, it's still just a suggestion, and you should still play around with it until it feels right to you. I was just hoping to show you how to tweak it yourself.

Mike Holmes wrote:
Because if yo udivide by Beef ass in your example, characters will be pretty frail. Every die will likely represent another level of wound to a Beef 3 character, and 3 or 4 for a Beef 1 character. Dividing by five, you get less than a full wound level per die added. Which means that really good rolls aren't automatically lethal.

Mike Holmes wrote:
Who's Dave Holmes?

Mike Holmes wrote:
What I'm saying is that you should use a retroactive sort of "hit location" system.

Mike Holmes wrote:
If you want to add a hit location system, well, I like them, but a lot of people don't.

Mike Holmes wrote: l
Just some ideas. I hope they make sense. There's probably even better ways to do it, and noting that I've proposed is particularly original.

Matt Steflik wrote:
(-pause-)
I have a thought here regarding the bonus dice you get from hitting I'd like your thoughts on. In addition to this adding a die for every 2 points you beat the roll by, what if it adds a die of difficulty in the task of defending from the blow? In the above example, if I had hit with a 3, I would have gotten the bonus die for damage. What if that bonus die -also- made the parrying attempt a 2d6 instead of a 1d6 roll? We resume the example already in progress.
(-play-)

So my target is getting struck with an axe. He now has to try to roll 5 or under (Beef trait(3)+ tough skill(1)+light armor(1)) on 3d6. He gets 1+4+6=11. He takes the diffference of this total - (Beef+skill+armor)(11-5=6), then divides it by 5, rounding as needed (6/5=1.2 rounds to 1) for a grand total of 1 wound.

I don't think I've played a system that handles wounds -quite- this way. Deadlands is probably the closest to it. This is kind of neat. So I create different wound categories like so:

Light (1 wound)
Medium (2 wounds)
Heavy (3 wounds)
Critical (4 wounds)

I then keep track of how many individual wounds of each severity type I aquire. Again, for simplicity's sake, each wound regardless of severity is a 1 die penalty to actions.

There is no "death save" for taking light wounds, just the possibility of accumulating penalties from taking lots of them. As for the rest a death save could be checked against your Beef trait+skill (if any..."tough" or "thick skinned" type skills might fit into this again) on a # of d6 equal to the severity of the wound (Buzz could be used on these of course):

Medium 1d6
Heavy 2d6
Critical 3d6

Using first aid (or something similar, like a biokinetic "healing" mutation) to repair wounds and get rid of penalties would be checked vs. the severity of the individual wound. Lights (1d6), Crits (4d6).

In this case, with the "retroactive damage assignment" and in the spirit of simplicity, I might not -need- one, though huh? In fact, adding one might overcomplicate things. Hmm. I'll have to think on this - maybe play out some combats without one and see how it works. Thanks.

I appreciate the ideas and your willingness to discuss them with me. Unfortunately I haven't gotten more hits on the thread so far, as I'd love to hear some other takes.

Mike Holmes wrote:
Instead, make all combat a series of contested rolls between the combatants. The higher roll gets the advantage. This means that the character's skill and ability are factored into the whole matter of "initiative". Essentially, If you beat your opponent, then you may have gotten initiative, or at least got around his. In the end, what are we really worried about? Who attacked first? No, we're really only worried about who got hurt. So, again, retroactively assign a description of the "round" that fits the outcome.

Ex: My margin of success is one, but yours is two. So you get a one point success against me (the difference) and roll damage. Looking at the result you narrate that your character and mine swung almost simultaneously, but you managed to duck my blow while scoring one yourself. Very dramatic. I first stole this from Paul Elliot's game Zenobia which you can check out on his website.

Now that's simple.

Mike Holmes wrote:
When using division, I always use the "or part therof" rule. So a 1-5 difference is one wound. 6-10 is two. Usually easier on the brain, and meaans that 1-2 won't round to zero. So two points in the example. This is easily tweaked.

Mike Holmes wrote:
Nope. (What am I doing wrong?) You'll note that I was refering to the results of the combat examples in previous posts in terms of dice, not wounds, for ease. You can label them by severity if you like, but it's not necessary. Use the same calcualtion, but instead of wounds of a certain size you get penalty dice. So the penalty is proportional to the size of the wound (in fact is defined by it).

In the example above, with the axe (using my "part therof" math), the result is a 2 die penalty. The simplicity part is allowing them to add together for a total penalty. So, if I get a 2 die wound, and another 2 die wound, yes I have a four die penalty for most actions.

Mike Holmes wrote:
Precisely. Though I would probably subtract a die from this difficulty as well; anyone should be able to bandage a scratch and have a chance at a two die wound. Failures on bleeders and such would make the wound one die worse and require another roll. Without aid, say this automatically happens every couple to few minutes.

Matt Steflik wrote: So for melee, skills like "dodge", "shield use" (really just a skill that lets you use extra armor...oh, yuck...so how would I deal with the skill bonus from -using- the shield skill and the armor bonus from the shield?) and even "parrying" would be added in along with Beef+skill(s)+armor to check against damage once you're hit, right?

I'd like to talk about this some more. To use Cola Wars mechanics, I've got two combatants:

1. Feets(3), Axe Skill(2), Dodge Skill(2), Beef(3) with a big axe(3) and light armor(1)

2. Feets(3), Sword Skill(2), Shield Skill(2), Beef(3) with a sword(2), light armor(1) and a small shield(1)

How would you see the combat going with no initiative? Could you give me an example round with some fudged numbers?

So, a character with a Medium (2) and two Light (1+1) has 4 penalty dice to actions.

Lets say this is also the order he got the wounds in.

Okay, so if you (or someone with you) has a first aid or appropriate skill and spends the time to use it, you can eliminate Light wounds out of combat easily. Mediums (1d6), Heavies (2d6), Criticals (3d6). Blow the roll on healing attempt with a Medium, it becomes a Heavy (etc). Untreated Lights become Mediums (etc) every (insert time incriment here).

How's that?

Oh yeah - and it just hit me "Dave" Holmes was/is a VJ on MTV.

Mike Holmes wrote:
All-in-all, we're going into way to much detail over specifics, here. Just consider all this stuff for a while before trying to use it as is. Mix it up and consider other options, before posting it again.

Hi Matt,

I know you've been looking for other people to add their comments. This is just to let you know that I've been following this discussion closely and I really can't disagree with anything Mike's been saying. I could suggest different details in different areas of the combat system, but that would just blur the main points Mike's been making.

I think one of the driving forces behind the general direction of Mike's suggestions is making your combat mechanics not overshadow the mutation mechanics during runtime. After all, what's more unusual about your setting, people fighting each other with weapons or people swigging cola and gaining Buzz? The mutation system is, at least in principle so far, simple and flexible (you've opted for powers based on numbers of words, IIRC) and the combat system should be the same way. So, I'll ask, why not also have combat skills whose scores are linked to the number of words used to describe them?

Speaking of the word-based abilities, one of the peculiarities of such systems is they have to deal with the fact that the fewer words, the more general the ability usually appears to be. For example, "resistance" is more general than "cold reesistance" which is more general than "cold water resistance." So why would anyone make use of their higher control score to use more words in a power description? One possibility is to link the effectiveness to how specifically the use of the power matches the description. Someone with three dice of "cold water resistance" would be able to apply two dice of "cold resistance" not involving water, or one die of just plain "resistance" to something not cold and not water, or one die of something involving the use of "cold" that's not resisting it and doesn't involve water. Meanwhile, someone who only has the one-word "resistance" would only ever be able to apply the single die.

One more question: do I really have to drink the cola to play the game? I've been trying to stop drinking the stuff, doing pretty well, and I'm afraid one session of Cola Wars would get me re-addicted. :)

- Walt

wfreitag wrote: Speaking of the word-based abilities, one of the peculiarities of such systems is they have to deal with the fact that the fewer words, the more general the ability usually appears to be.

One more question: do I really have to drink the cola to play the game? I've been trying to stop drinking the stuff, doing pretty well, and I'm afraid one session of Cola Wars would get me re-addicted. :)

wfreitag wrote:
I think one of the driving forces behind the general direction of Mike's suggestions is making your combat mechanics not overshadow the mutation mechanics during runtime. After all, what's more unusual about your setting, people fighting each other with weapons or people swigging cola and gaining Buzz? The mutation system is, at least in principle so far, simple and flexible (you've opted for powers based on numbers of words, IIRC) and the combat system should be the same way. So, I'll ask, why not also have combat skills whose scores are linked to the number of words used to describe them?

wfreitag wrote:
Speaking of the word-based abilities, one of the peculiarities of such systems is they have to deal with the fact that the fewer words, the more general the ability usually appears to be. For example, "resistance" is more general than "cold reesistance" which is more general than "cold water resistance." So why would anyone make use of their higher control score to use more words in a power description? One possibility is to link the effectiveness to how specifically the use of the power matches the description. Someone with three dice of "cold water resistance" would be able to apply two dice of "cold resistance" not involving water, or one die of just plain "resistance" to something not cold and not water, or one die of something involving the use of "cold" that's not resisting it and doesn't involve water. Meanwhile, someone who only has the one-word "resistance" would only ever be able to apply the single die.

wfreitag wrote:
One more question: do I really have to drink the cola to play the game? I've been trying to stop drinking the stuff, doing pretty well, and I'm afraid one session of Cola Wars would get me re-addicted. :)

Mike Holmes wrote:
Beer-Wars comes to mind. That might get out of hand. The first RPG Drinking game.