So I tried out Donjon last night with my ol' buddy Dave "Dial" Turner. We played run-through of Donjon Pak A1: A Fungus Among Us.

Here's the lowdown on the hoe-down:

Initial reactions
Omigosh, it feels weird to roll dice as the GM. Dave was constantly reminding me, "Jared...dude, roll the GM dice."

I need way more 20-siders to play. I used 10-siders but a) didn't have enough and b) having results from 1-10 didn't seem to allow for a lot of discrepancy between my results and the player's results (a case of, "I got a 10...you got a 10...I got a 9...etc.).

I like character creation a lot. The "infinite" range of classes/races that can be created...very cool.

The spell system seemed WAY over-powered. Dave was gathering Magic Power and using it on spells that just trumped abilities he had (or didn't have). I'm pretty sure I was doing it wrong (for ex: he gave himself bird wings using a spell...I had him roll his Cer+Magic+Spell Dice vs. the Donjon level (1) + the difficulty of fording a river (Medium, I guess). Would he then use those successes to cross the river or would he apply them as bonus dice to an Adroitness roll? I gots no clue.

I'm distinctly uncomfortable in a GM role. I don't like having to know rules, I don't like the "responsibility" of entertaining players. I don't want the responsibility of deciding what happens (and thus affecting the players either too adversely or not adversely enough). This is not Donjon's fault (although I don't care for arbitrarily coming up with task difficulties).

At one point I had the Spraycap attack Dave with a Fungal Blast while Dave counterattacked (parried) with an edged weapon. No idea if I did it right -- it was confusing to say the least.

I can't think of anything else, really. I like Donjon a LOT...but next time, i get to play.

Clinton, get yer ass to New Hampshire. GenCon '03 is too far away.

- J

Jared,

I'm glad you enjoyed playing. You're sounding near GM-phobic these days, though - GMing Donjon is at least meant to be easier than GMing most games.

Issue 1: Over-powering Magic

Magic is very powerful in Donjon. I'll give the very real lowdown here: the old magic system was underpowered, as I found in play, and so I took all my notes from it, looked at the rest of the system which was balanced, and used the same methods to balance it. Unfortunately, it didn't work exactly as planned, as I also noticed last weekend.

Here's two very easy fixes, if you want to tone it down:

Fix 1: Gathering Magic Power is normally a Medium Test, instead of an Easy one.

Fix 2: When casting a spell, roll the "Casting Spells" Ability + any left over Spell Dice, leaving out Cerebrality. (I like this fix better.)

I have a lot of ideas on this and am currently thinking about writing a "Ye Old Tome of Magic" supplement for the game with several variant magic systems.

Issue 2: Figuring out how to arbitrate spells

The spell system seemed WAY over-powered. Dave was gathering Magic Power and using it on spells that just trumped abilities he had (or didn't have). I'm pretty sure I was doing it wrong (for ex: he gave himself bird wings using a spell...I had him roll his Cer+Magic+Spell Dice vs. the Donjon level (1) + the difficulty of fording a river (Medium, I guess). Would he then use those successes to cross the river or would he apply them as bonus dice to an Adroitness roll? I gots no clue.

Hey all!

I also had a chance to play Donjon this weekend, with Clinton running the game. I have to say, I had a great time, though it took me a little bit to get used to the player-narration capabilities. For contrast, on Saturday, I played a game with a GM who jumped on me for assuming that my character knew about a good cement drainage culvert near to town that the PCs could hide in. Then on Sunday, I play Donjon, where I'm expected to do that and more. HELP! OK, I'm over it now...

Anyway, we definitely found the problem with magic being overpowered. My druid-like character was killing everything with one spell and leaving the fighter types to mop up the survivors. I think your suggestions would work well, Clinton.

The die mechanic does mean that horrendous amounts of dice get to be used (like my 15d10 spell o' doom). I think that problem will become exacerbated as characters level up. Clinton talked about a campaign supplement taking characters through 20th level. But at that point, an initiative roll would frequently involve more than 25 dice (and so would many others).

clinton, I'd like to see the narrative element carried over better into combat and magic. For example, if you could assemble your spell using the facts generated by a die roll (instead of assembling it first and rolling to see if you succeed). It seemed too much of a realistic departure from a system that drew most of its fun from being unrealistic. Likewise, in combat, facts tend to fall to the wayside compared to damage (although perhaps there are tactics I haven't explored yet).

Yeah, so here's the thread where I talk about Donjon. ;-)

First off, I must confess that I was ripping on Clinton a bit as Jared explained the rules to me. Clinton uses words like "dial" and "flurry" to stand in for "optional rules" or "combat round/turn". I can appreciate the indie spirit and all, but I see this kind of thing crop up frequently in indie RPGs. It's a bit like the old White Wolf tendency to suddenly choose a Particular Word and making it Important by capitalizing it. This is a cheeky criticism, really, so don't take it too seriously. :-P

Now, onto the game itself.

The character stats are fine. I do think that "Cerebrality" looks good on paper but is a bitch to consistently use without tripping over your tongue. I know it's a tongue-in-cheek jab at D&D, so it's not a big fat hairy deal. Character creation was intuitive and relatively quick. A strong character concept goes a long way towards speeding up the chargen. I was going for a D&D druid, essentially, so I didn't have too much trouble.

As Jared said, we were using d10s, because we had more of them. I understand that Clinton recommends d20s. The d10s felt a bit weird. The limited range of the die led to some counter-intuitive moments. For example, I rolled 10 dice or so and had results like 9, 9, 9, 8, 8, 7, and a few smaller numbers. Jared rolled less dice and got a single 10, which trumped all my 9s and 8s, leaving me with no successes. If he had rolled a 7, though, I would have had 5 successes. So, there was a bit of a "feast or famine" vibe in that one die could swing me from 0 to 5 successes. Admittedly, we were using d10s, so this probably isn't as much of an issue with d20s.

We had a bit of trouble figuring out how certain magical effects would work. For example, I wanted to grow bear claws to rend my enemies with. Jared had trouble finding rules that covered this option. It wasn't a "one-time" magical blast, like a lightning bolt. Eventually, we decided that lasting magical effects were like creating temporary magic items. So, we used the magic item creation table to determine what effects my spell had. So, if my Bear Claw spell netted 6 successes, those successes were filtered through the magic item creation table and I received a "Worth 3 magic weapon".

Speaking of magic, it seemed to be very useful. I understand that a character's main ability is supposed to be broad and useful in a wide variety of situations, but magic seemed almost too useful. Part of it might be the words I chose. I chose very broad words, namely "weather", "plants", "animals", and "vigorous". I got a lot of mileage out of "animals", since I was able to grow wings, claws, develop echolocation, eagle sight, and underwater breathing (which technically failed in the Gather Magic Powah phase, but the intent was there). I can't see how a non-magic-based Main Skill (like Weapons Mastery or Prodigous Charm) could be as flexible as the word-based magic system. We were playing a solo session, but I could see how other non-magical characters in a game could be overwhelmed (unless the magic-using player consciously avoided hogging the limelight). In hindsight, I should chosen less broad words, such as "storms", "tree", and "bear".

I did see a potential problem with scaling and the amount of dice you need. At the highest levels of the game, a DM could be rolling 25+ dice every single roll, which is a pain to sort and count. Maybe there could be some system of "die-cancelling" at the higher levels? Like a character's level subtracts from the donjon level when determining how many GM dice to roll? That would make the GM's burden a bit easier, maybe.

I've been criticising rather than praising up till now, so I'll switch gears.

Donjon has an interesting take on the whole "players as narrators" thing. Our understanding was that a player can describe facts about a scene, but it's up to the GM to incorporate those facts into the narrative. This seems to be a compromise approach between the two extremes of pure GM control vs. collaborative GM/player narration. Donjon would be a good game to use if you're trying to wean your players from the pure GM extreme.

I definitely liked the treasure system. Instead of the GM placing items he thinks the players might like, the players dream up items and they roll to see if they're present. I used this feature to find a map to the Crimson Forest on the body of a dead blood goblin. I suggested it, we hashed out what game effects it would have, we rolled dice, I won, and the map was therefore present. The same system came into play when I needed to know if my character had a gourd on him. I spent a point of Provisions and rolled. It kept the game focused on story rather than equipment lists.

The initiative/action system was interesting. I don't think I've seen it done that way before and I liked it. It had elements of uncertainty (when exactly will I act?), which kept it exciting. But it had elements of certainty as well (I WILL act 5 times, because my Discernability + Level = 5). Good stuff.

Overall, I liked it. It's got a nice, tight focus and it does what it says it will do.

For those that care, here's a brief synopsis of what actually happened in the story:

Silvanus (that's me) is asked by an old friend Grizzled to recover an emerald that is important to the welfare of a village on the edge of the Crimson Forest. (Think Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom/Shankara Stones and you're on the right track). Grizzled knows that the foul Mushroom King has stolen the emerald and is holed up in his lair, which is in the heart of the Crimson Forest. Silvanus agrees to recover the emerald in exchange for some high-quality armor from the talented local tanner.

At the edge of the Forest, Silvanus hears the sounds of battle and a cry for help. He rushes to the sound and sees a young adventurer sorely pressed by two blood goblins. Silvanus summoned lightning from the skies and fries the two goblins (one spell, two targets. I did massive damage). All that remains of the goblins is their smoking feet, like Paranoia-style smoking boots. ;-)

The young adventurer thanks me and flees to the safety of the village. Silvanus searches the scorched goblin remains and finds that aforementioned map (it gives a +2 dice bonus to all navigation checks in the Forest). Silvanus, using the map as an aid, comes to a river he must cross. Again, he Gathers Magic Powah and grows wings from his shoulder blades to fly across (rather than ford) the river. While he's up there, he spots a nest in a distant tree with a glimmering "something" inside. Silvanus lands (instand duration spell, i.e. enough to cross the river) and makes his way to the tree. He grows wings again (scene-long duration this time) and flies up to investigate the glimmer. METAGAME ASIDE: At this point, I asked Jared if there were any critters nearby. He, in turn, asked ME if there were. I decided not. /METAGAME Silvanus searches the nest and discovers that the glimmer is acutally a dead warrior in full plate armor. This warrior was also sent to recover the emerald, but fell victim to the nest's owner. The warrior was equipped with an amulet that grew cold in the presence of living fungal beings. Silvanus takes the amulet from the corpse and flies to the Mushroom King's lair, which is visible from the nest. METAGAME: all that stuff about the dead warrior and the amulet was stuff I established with bonus dice from a search roll. Very cool. /METAGAME

Silvanus arrives at the cave entrance to the Mushroom King's lair. Realizing he doesn't have any torches (or any Provisions left), he Summons Magic Powah and gives himself bat-like echolocation. He heads into the caverns and eventually approaches an intersection. Silvanus carefully scans the intervening passageway to see if there are any mushroom men there. There IS a sentry, but he seems to be asleep. As Silvanus creeps past the sleeping sentry, he spots a pool of glowing, bubbly, "tapioca-like" liquid. Silvanus realizes that it's actually a natural narcotic for the mushroom men, like strong liquor. The sleeping sentry is actually drunk and passed out. METAGAME: Again, all this stuff about the narcotic and the existence of the sentry is coming from me and Jared is weaving it in /METAGAME. Silvanus dips his spear and hunting knife into the liquid, creating a one-use poison-type situation. He also puts some in a gourd in case he needs it later to re-apply on the weapons.

Silvanus makes it to the intersection and sees that one branch actually leads back up to the surface. He creeps to the top and finds an old orc with a grudge against the mushroom men. They kicked him out of his nice tunnels and he hates them. He tells Silvanus to watch out for the spore breath of the bigger mushrooms. He also points the fastest way to the Mushroom King's lair. Silvanus heads back into the caves.

After a couple of twists and turns, Silvanus is near the King's chamber. He turns a corner and runs into a pair of guards/sentries. After a brief battle, Silvanus wins by simultaneously frying them with lightning.

At the entrance to the King's chamber, Silvanus casts an "Eagle Eye" spell on himself. His plan is to fill the room with fog, dash in, pluck the emerald from its resting place, and escape before he can be grabbed and pounded on. But he twice fails to Summon Magic Powah as the two Spraycap guards try to hurt him.

Silvanus decides to screw the fancy fog idea. He Summons Magic Powah and so does the Mushroom King, who has funky Fungal Mojo. The King's spell causes him to swell and fill the room, trying to block any escape, as well as using a second magic word to fill the room with a vile stench. Silvanus is going for a "cheetah speed" spell. Silvanus previously used a bonus die from a "perception roll" to establish that he has a clear and unimpeded dash to the stalagmite holding the emerald.

Silvanus' spell finishes first and he reaches the emerald. Before he can turn and run, he dodges a pair of spore sprays from the Spraycaps. The King's spell finishes and he begins to swell. But Silvanus has one action left and uses it to sprint from the room before the exit is blocked, leaving the King and his guards trapped.

After that, Silvanus simply used his cheetah speed (which had a scene-long duration) to run back to the village and receive the adulation he so richly deserved.

I had a great time, I think Jared did too. Kudos to you, Clinton. :-)

EDIT: I forgot. During the fight with the King's guards, I had a chance to use the mushroom narcotic goo I had found earlier. It's interesting to note that my decision to use my weapons rather than my magic was partly a stylistic one. My magic use up until that point had been spectacularily successful. My initial inclination was "Well, I'll just blast them with lightning like I did all the other enemies so far". But another part of me decided that was boring and repetitive, so I whipped out my spear and hunting knife. It turned out that the narcotic goo gave me some good bonuses. ;-)

Well, I ain't Clinton, but I'd love to jump in on the discussion.

Dave Turner wrote: Yeah, so here's the thread where I talk about Donjon. ;-)

First off, I must confess that I was ripping on Clinton a bit as Jared explained the rules to me. Clinton uses words like "dial" and "flurry" to stand in for "optional rules" or "combat round/turn". I can appreciate the indie spirit and all, but I see this kind of thing crop up frequently in indie RPGs. It's a bit like the old White Wolf tendency to suddenly choose a Particular Word and making it Important by capitalizing it. This is a cheeky criticism, really, so don't take it too seriously. :-P

Now, onto the game itself.

The character stats are fine. I do think that "Cerebrality" looks good on paper but is a bitch to consistently use without tripping over your tongue. I know it's a tongue-in-cheek jab at D&D, so it's not a big fat hairy deal.

As Jared said, we were using d10s, because we had more of them. I understand that Clinton recommends d20s. The d10s felt a bit weird. The limited range of the die led to some counter-intuitive moments. For example, I rolled 10 dice or so and had results like 9, 9, 9, 8, 8, 7, and a few smaller numbers. Jared rolled less dice and got a single 10, which trumped all my 9s and 8s, leaving me with no successes. If he had rolled a 7, though, I would have had 5 successes. So, there was a bit of a "feast or famine" vibe in that one die could swing me from 0 to 5 successes. Admittedly, we were using d10s, so this probably isn't as much of an issue with d20s.

We had a bit of trouble figuring out how certain magical effects would work. For example, I wanted to grow bear claws to rend my enemies with. Jared had trouble finding rules that covered this option. It wasn't a "one-time" magical blast, like a lightning bolt. Eventually, we decided that lasting magical effects were like creating temporary magic items. So, we used the magic item creation table to determine what effects my spell had. So, if my Bear Claw spell netted 6 successes, those successes were filtered through the magic item creation table and I received a "Worth 3 magic weapon".

Speaking of magic, it seemed to be very useful. I understand that a character's main ability is supposed to be broad and useful in a wide variety of situations, but magic seemed almost too useful. Part of it might be the words I chose. I chose very broad words, namely "weather", "plants", "animals", and "vigorous". I got a lot of mileage out of "animals", since I was able to grow wings, claws, develop echolocation, eagle sight, and underwater breathing (which technically failed in the Gather Magic Powah phase, but the intent was there). I can't see how a non-magic-based Main Skill (like Weapons Mastery or Prodigous Charm) could be as flexible as the word-based magic system. We were playing a solo session, but I could see how other non-magical characters in a game could be overwhelmed (unless the magic-using player consciously avoided hogging the limelight). In hindsight, I should chosen less broad words, such as "storms", "tree", and "bear".

Donjon has an interesting take on the whole "players as narrators" thing. Our understanding was that a player can describe facts about a scene, but it's up to the GM to incorporate those facts into the narrative. This seems to be a compromise approach between the two extremes of pure GM control vs. collaborative GM/player narration. Donjon would be a good game to use if you're trying to wean your players from the pure GM extreme.

I definitely liked the treasure system. Instead of the GM placing items he thinks the players might like, the players dream up items and they roll to see if they're present. I used this feature to find a map to the Crimson Forest on the body of a dead blood goblin. I suggested it, we hashed out what game effects it would have, we rolled dice, I won, and the map was therefore present. The same system came into play when I needed to know if my character had a gourd on him. I spent a point of Provisions and rolled. It kept the game focused on story rather than equipment lists.

Heh heh, I agree fully with the sentiment, even though few indie designers used as much gratuitous capitalization as I did in Universalis...

In defense of the term Dial, however, I actually think its a word useful enough to enter the standard lexicon. It refers to not so much an optional rule but an optional way of approaching the entire game (that would color all rules interpretations), usually between 2 extremes with a variety of moderate settings in the middle. - Jared

I actually lobbied for having the names of the stats vary with the Dial setting for the game. If I'm playing a "serious" game of Donjon, I really don't want to be tripping over Cerebrality, or making Save vs Poison, Paralysis, and Transmogrification rolls... - Jared

Given the rule is "Narrate your success, other player narrates the rest" having 5 success to narrate as 5 facts while the GM fills in the details, is almost the same thing as the GM getting 1 success to narrate a single fact while you get to narrate the rest. - Jared

The way I always handled this sort of thing, is to just use the regular roll over mechanics...the same thing that would allow you to roll Ambush and then roll the successes over into a to-hit roll. I'd have you make a magic roll and roll the successes over into your damage roll for the bear claws. I *think* somewhere there is a cost for duration...but I may be misremembering that. - Jared

I don't know if its an official rule or not, but when I played you actually had to use the word (or at least a word form of it) in the actual name of your spell. For example "Claws of the Bear" wouldn't be possible unless you had "Bear" or "Claws" as a word. I might buy "Claws of the Ravaging Animal" as GM...but then to try "Wings of the flying animal" would stretch my generosity a bit. - Jared

its great to get some first person Donjon goodies.


I'm playing with a couple of Magic dials for an anime fantasy variant of Donjon. One dials up and down the raw power of magic... but a version of this for normal donjon might be in order.

As for something like a bear claw spell (or a flaming fist or a decaying touch) as simply a spell which creates a temporary ability with a number of dice equal to the spell's successes. You score 4 successes, you get a damage adder ability on the order of a secondary ability.

In some way limiting the number of spells a character can have 'active' at any given time might be in order. Perhaps Words tied up in spells can't be used for anything else unitl the spell expires or is cancled. For example, while that Bear Claw spell is working, the word "Bear" can't be used for anything else... no Strength of the Bear or Fury of the Bear or Crispy Bear Claw Crust.

jdagna wrote: Hey all!
clinton, I'd like to see the narrative element carried over better into combat and magic. For example, if you could assemble your spell using the facts generated by a die roll (instead of assembling it first and rolling to see if you succeed). It seemed too much of a realistic departure from a system that drew most of its fun from being unrealistic. Likewise, in combat, facts tend to fall to the wayside compared to damage (although perhaps there are tactics I haven't explored yet).

Alan wrote: The idea that excited me about Donjon was the 1 Success = 1 Fact rule, but the game hasn't realized its full potential, especially in combat. The damage mechanic encouraged me to use my combat successes as bonus dice to the damage roll, rather than as facts. The result was, I fell into a D&D-like combat trance.

Actually the first thing I did when playtesting Donjon, was scratch the "or" out of the rule for rolling over dice OR declaring facts. I replaced it with an AND.

This works much better in all situations of the game. If the player comes up with some cool description for what he did...there is a built in effect...1 die rolled into some other roll (plus any other successes he earned to make it a bigger effect).

I also permitted dice to roll into difficulty against an opponent.

So in combat I get 4 successes. I declare that I "dodge to the left" then try to "Leg Sweep" my opponent. I take 1 success and roll it over into my next defense roll (to cover the "dodge") I then take the other 3 successes and make a 3 die difficulty for my opponent to roll against his Adroitness. If he fails I'd use those successes to describe him falling and then roll them into what ever effect his falling should have.

I also frequently allowed successes to remove dice from an opponent's pool. So the effect of falling might be to reduce my opponent's next defense roll (or add to the next attack roll against him).

The system is really extraordinarily versatile....just ignore that "or" in the rule.

A note on the dial thing. As it was an important concept in the Fuzion game system, and probaby has been in other games as well, I think that its incorporation into the lexicon is a fait acompli at this point.

Mike

Valamir wrote: Actually the first thing I did when playtesting Donjon, was scratch the "or" out of the rule for rolling over dice OR declaring facts. I replaced it with an AND.

Right...That's exactly what I do. The only difference is I don't (didn't) require "wasting" one of the roll over dice on the Fact. Instead of having 3 Successes...spending 1 to get the fact and then reinforcing it with 2 rolled into bashing it down (or subtracted from its resist bashing or whatever), then I'd just give all 3 to roll over into bashing it down.

Reasons are 3 fold:

1) What happens if you only get 1 Success (which happens alot)...its now a "fact" that the door is flimsy...but you've got no mechanical back up. My way, you at least get 1 bonus die (so the door IS flimsy...just not as flimsy as if you'd had 3 bonus dice to spend.)

2) In combat, rollover dice for damage is hugely important. Giving up a damage die to get a fact most of the time is a Bad Idea tactically speaking. This tends to limit the flamboyant use of facts in combat...damage roll over is just too important. By not requireing facts to mean giving up a bonus die (i.e. you can get both) there is no motivation to avoid facts in Combat.

3) While it is possible to get some extremely high levels of success (especially when using the new rule for ties, and especially if using d10s instead of 20s with the new rule), the actual number of successes rolled in the system in a single roll is relatively conservative. That makes giving up roll over dice for facts even more costly.


In the end I just didn't see the down side to making the change. The whole idea is to empower players through facts...why make it "expensive" for them to do this. Instead of making them choose, I'd just let them have their cake and eat it too.

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: With four damage successes, and my character using brass knuckles, I might say, "I slam my fists into his face until it's hamburger. The other three successes damage his Sociality."

xiombarg wrote:
Why not roll all four successes into damage to Sociality? I think this is the problem that leads to a D&D-like feeling that's been mentioned. The damage mechanism actually discourages declaring facts, as you get more utility by just *doing* whatever damage you want. (Of course, this may be a "Narrativism vs. Gamism" GNS issue, but...)

Now if you were required to state a fact before damaging a stat, that would be abother thing entirely...

The "AND" variant would create a slightly different dynamic. Another way of making the cost of a fact well worth it might be to double damage effect (especialy for a gritty, blood and rust game).

Say like so:

You roll your "Smash Puny Humans" ability, and manage a nice 5 success result. You decide to put the hurt down on your puny human enemy, and spend 1 success for a fact "My deadly fist splinters his shoulder bones, crippling his sword-arm and making movement painful" you basic Adroitness damage effect. So now you roll your 4 attack success over into both your damage roll, but the successes here hurt both Adroitness and Flesh Wounds. 2 for the price of one, as it were. This would make facts VERY valuable in combat.

Another possibility (as suggested above) is to give fighter types "Combat Words" or some such... use these words in your Fact descriptions to get the above doubleing damage effect (in the above example, the attacker might have "deadly" as a combat word).

Using the magic system to represent martial arts techniques is very easy and satisfactory, requiring no modification at all... perhaps a note on how "magic" need not be actual mystical ability exactly... a bladesmaster type with "Strike", "Stance", "Parry", and "Reposte" words would be very cool.

I would like to see some more examples using the rules as-is on how to milk combat Facts to greater effect... can you say declare you have disarmed an oponent with a Fact? Would a disarm (or a weapon break or such) require a certain number of successes? I could see making Boolean facts which have a yes-or-no value (wither you have the sword or you don't) cost an amount equal to a victim's Adroitness (or something)...

Do temporary penalties to attributes or abilities require buying Facts? Say you want to trip an enemy so his next defense rolls against you will be penalized until he can regain his feet... how to run this? By simply rolling attack succeses to penalize your enemy's next defense action? how long would this last? Would he automaticaly regain his feet after his next action? What about inflicitng non-damaging, but persistent penalties on an enemy?

Perhaps Fighter types could use their combat successes to buy targets and duration like a spellcaster? (with a practical max of a handful or a scene?) Spend a few successes to increase the number of targets you can nail with an attack, and then you have a very nice whirlwind attack (this is another option I am playing for a more anime-style Donjon).

A more generalized effect table might be in order, with a die cap on mundane actions (say, you need magic to spend more than 4 dice on effect).



ONe thing I would like some clarity on though- what is the difference in descriptive action and success-bought facts? I'm a bit hazy here... who narates the visuals for a basic attack with no successes spent on facts? And just where is the line between fact and color?

Hi Clinton,

Youir examples are helpful. Perhaps I limited myself with old bad habits. I certainly took advantage of my Sense Threat skill, but when it came to combat, I just focused on the damage mechanic.

Incidentally, is there a basic irony to Donjon? It's designed to be gamist, the 1 Success = 1 Fact rule would make a great core mechanic for a narrativist game.

Can I use it?

- Alan

Alan wrote: Can I use it?

Alan,

Mike's right - but thanks for asking. Use it as you see fit.

Re: Donjon and irony. I don't really like that word because it's overused and misused, usually at the same time. Donjon is not what it seems to be, though: to a cutting-edge dude, it might look edgy and satirical, and they play it and realize, "Damn, this dungeon crawling thing was fun." To a long-time D&D player, they might think, "This is some sort of weird pervy clap-trap, but looks funny," and after play, they might think, "Hey - this was actually fun, and totally in the spirit of my D&D game."

I hope that's how it turns out, anyway.

Clinton R. Nixon wrote:
Mike's right - but thanks for asking. Use it as you see fit.

I'll have to check out this "Synthesis" game.

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: Re: Donjon and irony. I don't really like that word because it's overused and misused

I know. I'm always careful to use it in the dictionary sense: something that expresses one thing, but has an opposing subtext. I meant that I think the narrativist nature of 1 success = 1 fact is in contrast with the gamist intent of Donjon.

- Alan