turbo tag: the simple quick combat system you already know how to run

I've made some quick combat systems before, but they all had a fatal flaw: they take more than a sentence to explain. Okay, then, here's the sentence:

Like trad combat, but all attacks (which can only be against combatants lower in the initiative order) instantly hit to kill and initiative, which is a general measure of combat ability, is rolled every round

More formally, when you'd "roll for initiative:"

1. Everybody can choose to flee or parley, or keep fighting.
2. Everybody rolls a combat check (see below for a few system examples.)
3. Starting with the highest combat check and moving on down, combatants can choose to down one opponent with an equal or lower combat check. Combatants might also take some relevant non-combat action (such as fleeing.)
4. Go back to (1). 

Like all my quick combat systems, this is liable to be "swingy," which some people don't like. I prefer the designation fast and high-stakes, but note that designates the same thing.

General tips

1. Like with other combat systems, quick or not, "kill" doesn't mean actually mean kill. Down and out of combat. Maybe they can get healed later, with or without injuries. This system cannot overcome the fact that random character death can only be fun if character creation is fast, so adjust lethality accordingly.
   
2. Rather than rolling initiative, marking it up, and then going through each combatant's choice, call it down from the top like an auction block. Every number is a chance to die!

Mosaic Strict Version

The combat roll equals (combat bonus) + (1d6 exploding) + (any circumstantial bonuses GM sees fit to assign). 

Your combat bonus starts at 0, or whatever makes sense for your character. It goes up by 1 whenever you down a combatant whose combat bonus is greater than yours in a both absolute and circumstance-adjusted sense.. 

Implementation in D&D 5e

The combat roll is 1d20 + (damage on a successful hit or cantrip attack) + ((AC bonus + attack bonus) x (attacks you can make per round + lowest spell slot of three spells you're willing to expend)). The d20 explodes. 

For monsters, you can guesstimate the total bonus at 6 + (challenge rating * 3).

Implementation in Exalted

The combat roll has a pool of (Median Physical Stat, or highest Approach if Essence) + (combat ability). Each Charm you have in that skill beyond the Excellency raises the Excellency's die adder cap by 1.

an even quicker combat system

 

Unlike my other quick combat system, this doesn't stand alone and therefore isn't MOSAIC strict. Instead, you can graft it on to any other system with a task resolution system where characters have something like skill ratings, like Pottery +5 or whatever.

This represents a small skirmish in which death for PCs is a serious possibility. If you don't want the possibility of death, either change the stakes or skip the rolls and describe how the PCs win.

1. Flee! Parley! Reconsider! Speak now or forever hold your peace!
   
2. Make a relevant skill roll (or make "combat" its own skill) twice. The first represents your ATTACK, while the better of the two represents your DEFENSE. 
3. Take the median ATTACK (rounding "up" if there are an even number of PCs) of the PCs. That's their GROUP ATTACK.
4. Among the opponents of the PCs, take the Nth best ATTACK as their GROUP ATTACK, where N is the order number that gave the median order amongst PCs. (So if there are 5 PCs, you use the third best monster attack just like you used the third best PC attack, regardless of how many monsters there are.) If there are fewer than N monsters, give the lowest monster an additional ATTACK roll and take the lower as their GROUP ATTACK.
   
5. Everyone whose DEFENSE is lower than the other side's GROUP ATTACK is dead.
6. Go go back to Step 1.

To combine this with something else going on - trying to disassemble the Apocalypse Orrery whilst the others fight off laser sharks - have the PCs who are doing the skill check contribute zero to ATTACK (while they roll for relevant other things instead) while still counting as a party member for rolling DEFENSE and counting towards the median.

Example: Alice the fighter, Bob the wizard, and Carla the rogue encounter a Copyright-Nonspecific Floating Eye Creature. Alice rolls 1d20+7 = {11, 20}, Bob 1d20+3= {7, 12}, and Carla 1d20+5 = {24, 12}. The CNFEC rolls 1d20+6 = {14, 20}, and since there's no second creature he attacks with disadvantage at {{14, 13}, 20} giving us raw scores of

	Attack	Defense
Alice	11 (counts as GROUP ATTACK)	20 (> 13)
Bob	7	12 (<13)
Carla	24	24 (>13)
CNFEC	13 (counts as GROUP ATTACK)	20 (>11)

Result: wizard dies from laser beam to head.

 

diegetic monster statblocks (with attached generator)

A good statblock is glanceable, allowing the GM to quickly get the information she needs. Here's a shot at what that might look like for FKR-style or systemless treatments - though it's kind of a rough draft and I expect others will be able to iterate and improve. Very stupid monster generator attached!

random Exalted region generator

 Where to in Creation? Only this button can tell.

Knaves of Creation

I dig Creation and almost everything about Exalted other than the endless lists of rules and superpowers. So why not run a mortals game in the setting using, say, Knave (purchase, srd)? Anyway, here's a random generator. I've kept Exalted's atributes as a nod to the original, and because Knave doesn't care too much about how you divide up attributes anyway.

Mosaic Loose: a personal anticanon of crunch for dungeon fantasy

Here's a bunch of modular shit you can paste together for Yon Dungeon Fantasy. There's too much of it to be proper FKR, the forms aren't signed to make it Mosaic Strict, and there's no GLOG base to make it GL∆G, but the ethos is very much in that space - everything is meant to be modular, diegetic, and (though I'm presenting this as a bunch of rules) "rules-light procedure-heavy."

Only break into any of these procedures when it's called for. For most things the player describes actions → GM describes consequences → player describes actions cycle functions perfectly well.

Obviously, I’m curious what others’ procedure anticanons would look like, and figure I’ll keep fiddling around with this.

 Collaborative Worldbuilding

1. Load up Azgaar's. No rerolls, what you see is what you get (make sure to download the .map file so you can consult it later). Player newest to RPGs picks an a starting area they find interesting.
2. Going clockwise around the table (starting with that newest player) until everyone gets bored, everyone except the GM (whose job is to collate notes) something "everybody knows," or at any rate 95% of people believe, to be true. (If you're playing online, instead of having an order, anybody can go in any order as long as two other people have posted since they last did.)
   
3. GM secretly decides what's actually true.
   

Character Creation, Advancement, and Magic

• my character creation system
• advancement per Sam's Zouave Achievements
• GL∆G wizardry per Michael and Lexi, or GM makes up how this shit works based on what the players came up with last round (don't tell the players what the achievements are!)
  

Equipment

• obviously use whatever list makes sense for your setting but ktrey's chart is convenient for listing weight and slots and even coins, per your preference
• children and frail people can carry 6 slots, the average healthy person 10, people with athletic builds maybe more (or in some cases less) per their type
  

Exploration

• the travel time tables from Justin's Hexcrawl procedures. NB since it's giving diegetic inputs you can plug it into a hexmap, or use the route function on Azgaar's). Add other parts of Justin's system as you find them interesting or they become relevant
  
• John's procedure for wandering monsters; roll every other watch (8-hour period per above), but use a d10 with 7-10 being nothing much
• spelunking per Downcrawl rules when you want to get elaborate; also you can probably adapt those to sea travel without too much difficulty. Roll wandering monsters per above with d6 each day.
  

Interpersonal Interaction

• just roleplay lol
• d666 reaction rolls
  
• Zenosyne's Parley system, for when you want to put a clock on convincing an NPC
  

Combat

• quick combat, for "combat as war"
  
• dueling, for "combat as sport"/tactically interesting fights between equals
• chess-based mass combat 

Domain management

• my neo-physiocratic seeing like a state system
  

General Task Resolution options

• Dreaming Dragonslayer's stopwatch resolution, which is like flipping a coin but with more anxiety!
  
• success and safety, for when those are to be orthogonal to each other and you want to have a little math setup
  

seeing like a state: a system for domain management

For every 100 primary producers (farmers, fisherfolk, miners, craftspeople who are producing materials for the same, traders engaged in transporting goods and otherwise serving the community, their dependent elders and children) who owe their allegiance - or at least a meaningful portion of their produce, whether that's defined in terms of taxes or rent or interest or protection money - to you, you get one surplus.

Multiply the surplus you get by two if the land/fishing/whatever is more than marginal, by four if it's positively lush and productive, and by ten if it's by a rare resource (like mining tin or coal) or during the slack season. Double it if you oppress them, as in rule through institutions designed to squeeze out as much surplus as possible. (You can oppress some section of the producing population but not others.) By default oppressing or not is up to the PCs, but diegetic details may imply that switching from one to the other requires a significant amount of work, quests, whatever.

Each point of surplus represents somebody doing something that has no immediate economic value to the community itself and is instead doing something for your (possibly perfectly benevolent or necessary) ends. You may want to designate these as soldiers or servants.

For the utility of soldiers, refer to your minisystem of choice for dealing with war. "Soldiers" here can refer to anyone permanently engaged in the process of improving your war capacity; actual soldiers as well as armorers and engineers and doctors and so on.

Servants are anybody engaged in showing off the mere fact that you have a lot of surplus to throw around. Other rich people will respect you basically proportional to the number of servants you can muster. 

Miscellaneous surplus might also be spent on something useful that isn't for war or for show; i.e., scholars researching the names of God that will allow you to cast the next spell, or whatever. (Obviously, scholars might also function as soldiers or servants, depending on their use.)

Jeon Min Seok

Passing the Buck

If you're off adventuring, or for every 5000 people you have indirectly working for you, you must appoint an NPC to act as intermediary. 

Intermediaries can be appointed by you or elected by the community. ("Election" might not be literal; at any rate the issue is to whom intermediaries are institutionally responsible. Likewise if there are literal  free elections but all candidates are in your pocket that's appointment in rules terms.)

If intermediaries are elected, or if intermediaries are appointed and you're oppressive, 2-in-6 chance that half the surplus is reported to you as existing, but actually doesn't.

If intermediaries are appointed and you're not oppressive, 2-in-6 chance the intermediary oppresses them anyway, then uses the extra surplus for themselves.

Community reaction rolls

When you're interacting with a community or institution or perhaps individual that's part of your domain, and they aren't oppressed (possibly just: aren't oppressed and have been been for some time), GM can roll on the following table. (Roll a d6, or d8 if they're sorta oppressed or otherwise affronted.)

1. Patriots who are enthuasistic about your rule and eager to come up with ways to help accomplish your goals.
2. Squeaky wheels who want to milk your reputation for benevolence. (If you have an appointed intermediary, they may complain they're being oppressed.)
3. Genuine squeaky wheels who have some problem that only you can fix. (If you do, they become patriots for an appropriate time.)
4. Mistrustful liberty-lovers who are (likely quite justifiably) jealous of the autonomy they've gotten used to and are worried you'll take it away.
5. Preoccupied with something that has nothing to do with you.
6. Opportunists who function as patriots if you've had a string of victories recently and mistrustful liberty-lovers if you've had a string of defeats.
7. Roll on next table.
8. Roll on next table.
   

If they are oppressed, or at any rate have been oppressed recently, GM can secretly roll on the following. (Use a d6, or a d8 if they're only kinda oppressed or have been at least sorta won over ideologically.)

1. Cowed and will do whatever you ask. (Other than be honest with you: they will tell you you're non-oppressive and great.) 3-in-6 chance of turning to open revolt if a nearby community has been in that and won some victories thereby.
   
2. Brown-nosers who want to advance within the ranks of oppression.
3. Trusting in the good of the czar and blaming your intermediaries (if any) for their oppression. 4-in-6 chance they do in fact know whether it's you or the intermediary that's the problem.
4. In open revolt or non-cooperation as soon as you show any weakness. (Give out some exemplary punishments in advance to make them cowed for a bit, while perhaps reducing the surplus they produce for you.)
5. Preoccupied with something that has nothing to do with you.
6. In acute crisis from some problem resulting from their oppression. (Helping them out may turn them into brown-nosers, failing to do so may bring them to open revolt.)
7. Roll on previous table.
8. Roll on previous table.
   

Stating the obvious

Adjust all numbers in accordance with diegesis and GM fiat. This system is Mosaic Strict.

(see also)

MtG-based setting oracle (with sample result: the Dreamscarp)

(See also Seed of Worlds' read of the oracle - a spider-infested ancient scientific facility!)

Click on me twice; your setting is at the border between those two places

My world is at the edge of these two places. Very numinous! A fissure that bubbles up dragons and a big pole stretching into the heavens, so maybe a bit Freudian too.

Click on me thrice for the kinds of things that live there

Things aren't what they seem; living illusions or those who create them are at least as common as natural creatures. The Tree and the Canyon make things more real; storms bubble up from them - the famous dragons are only a particularly strong manifestation of this. Some mages come to make illusions that this place of power makes into reality, others to simply ride the wave of its raw power.

Maybe nothing natural (aside from the supernatural tree.)

Click on me twice for faction leaders

There's a spirit who doesn't like the mages coming in here. And he's going to fuck with your gear! And a clan of Minotaurs who come here for rasslin' against fearsome illusion-spirit-dragon-things of the area. They gotta go defeat something fierce to prove their worth. Strictly rasslin', though, no weapons, which is why the gear-hating spirit lets them come in regularly. Maybe they can help be your guide through the area, but you'll owe them a favor - they don't take cash.

Click on me once for a fearsome beast

Well, we all know what the tallest and oldest tree is, right? Only this gargantuan beast is big enough or respected enough to eat from its leaves. You can have a very linear brontosauruscrawl hiking up from its tail to its forehead - battle or battle of wits spirits along the way. Maybe it has magic poop?

Click on me once for legendary loot

A legendary blade - the reason the loot-hating spirit hates loot! If it kills something in the area, you can go summon it even outside the area. (Most things that become substantial here are simple ephemeral elsewhere, but this is a way aroound that.)

a flexible resolution mechanic

I won't say a "universal" resolution mechanic, which would be against the spirit of Mosaic Strict, which this is. But you can use it in a lot of situations - think of it as in the same phylum as Dreaming Dragon's Stopwatch Dueling Game. Works best when there's both reward and risk, but they can vary independently.

Use for finding the research question without your shit getting stolen or for stealing shit without getting noticed. (Howard Lyon)

Materials needed

A bunch of d20s.

Advantage Level

You intuitively already get this, but advantage level is just how many dice of advantage/disadvantage something at. Consult the following chart:

advantage level	dice thrown
+X	best of (X+1)d20
+2	best of 3d20
+1	best of 2d20
0	1d20
-1	worst of 2d20
-2	worst of 3d20
-X	worst of (X+1)d20

What the Player does

I'd say "declare what your PC is doing," but actually the GM should invoke this minigame only after you've declared what your PC is doing. So starting there...

Start with your SUCCESS and SAFETY pools at ADVANTAGE LEVEL 0 (physically represented by 1d20 each.)

For each of the following:

• You do something like this routinely
• You've succeeded at doing something as difficult as this before
• You were present when another PC died trying to do something like this
  
• You've prepared for this exact situation
• Multiple people with complementary skills are working together on this
• You're approaching this in a clever way (can be invoked multiple times, but GMs should consider sufficiently clever approaches to simply succeed) 
• Some other circumstantial advantage
  

increment by one the ADVANTAGE LEVEL of either the SUCCESS or SAFETY pools by one. You can do this by physically adding 2d0s: feels great, right?

What the GM does

For each of the following:

• No one in living memory has done this before
• No one has done this before, ever
  
• Someone's interfering with the PCs
• There's a time limit
• The environment is chaotic
• A tool or ability the PCs would normally have to deal with this isn't present
• They're trying to do something else at the same time
• Some other circumstantial disadvantage
  

decrement by one the ADVANTAGE LEVEL of either the SUCCESS or SAFETY pools by one. Do this by physically taking away and then, once you hit negative levels, adding ominous d20s: makes the players squirm, doesn't it?

Resolution

Roll both pools separately. Interpret each pool as so:

die result	diegetic result
20	as good as one could imagine
11-19	better than expected!
2-10	worse than expected
1	as bad as it could possibly get

a character creation system for FKR and Mosaic Strict

(These are adapted from Kneipen & Knappen, a small FKR game I wrote. Reposting mostly for attestation: these rules are Mosaic Strict. They can easily be combined with Dan's Caretaker module; the below are more about external facts about your character while Caretaker is more about the internal side.)

MICA

Choose one of the following sentences and write it down:

• "I was born (age) years ago to (community)."
• "I was born (age) years ago and have never had a real home for (reason), instead learning enough to get by in (community), (community), and (community)."

Choose one of the following sentences and write it down:

• "I am built like a (type of athlete)." (see for inspiration)
• "I am built like a (type of athlete), but since receiving (permanent injury) I have compensated by learning (skill)."
• "I stay up late squinting at dust-ridden tomes of (subject)."
• "I am aged and weary after a long life of (activity)."
• "I am a child - nimble, cute, and feeble."
• "I am dissolute from my enjoyment of (vice) with (buddy), (buddy), and (buddy)."

Choose one of the following sentences and write it down:

• "I studied (skill) under (master or organization). My relations with them are (either a good relationship that implies continued mutual obligations or a bad one that means you have enemies)."
• "I've worked odd jobs as (profession), (profession), and (profession)."
• "I've achieved the heights of success in (profession), but only through luck and deception that I suspect is on its way out."
  
• "I know very little, but I do have a natural talent for (skill)." 
• "I haven't needed to learn or do much of anything because of (source of independent wealth)"
  

Write down ALL of the following sentences:

• "I'm known in (community) as (reputation)."
• "I owe (somebody or something) a favor for (useful thing)."
• "When people first see me, they assume (things about me)."
  

If you want, write down: 

• "I can (magic); but (lore-relevant price)."
  

List any equipment you have which would follow from the above choices.

Expand on or come up with variations of any of the above, and adjust for genre as needed, but try to pair new good things with new bad things.

a system for carousing

In dungeon fantasy as in life, carousing converts money and indiscretion into experience(s). If you decide to go out for a night on the town and say "yes" to whatever happens, this system is for you. You'll want a Tarot deck and groups of PCs with more money than sense.

idk who made this but it seems apposite

Fun Threshold

Each character has a FUN THRESHOLD. By default, a PC's fun threshold is 10; minors and scolds start at 6; rakes and rapscallions start at 12. Fun Threshold can go up from Partying Too Hard (see below) or go down whenever you take on a serious vow or responsibility. Additionally, you have an additional point of Fun Threshold for each other PC partying with you.

Each context has also has a FUN THRESHOLD, starting at 5 and going up for each digit of people (10 → 100 → 1,000 → ...) present in the settlement, +1 if it is a holiday, +1 if the community as a whole has another reason to celebrate, +1 if it has a reputation for iniquity. (A group of adventurers around a campfire is a settlement, albeit a small one; if so, some creativity in results may be required.)

Rounds of Play

Shuffle the tarot deck and begin with the player of the most rakish PC. That player can boast about some new achievement a comrade has had since their last common carousing; if so, increase the Fun Threshold of the context by one. They then can declare either:

1. that they've had enough and are done for the night (they are Out), or,
2. that they're enthusiastic about going along with whatever opportunity for fun unfolds next, and ask the GM to deal a card into the Fun Pile
   

If the total value of cards exceeds the Fun Threshold of the context, party's over. If not, and the total value of cards exceeds the Fun Threshold of anyone who's still In, they are now Out from having Partied Too Hard, and their personal Fun Threshold increases by one. 

(Minor Arcana have either the obvious value or, if they're a face card, 10. Major Arcana have a value equal to their number.)

If no one else is In, the party's over. If not, go clockwise to the next character that's In.

Don't interpret anything until the next step.

Interpretation

In the morning, characters piece together what happened the previous night. Each card represents something that happened or someone they met, if they were In at the time. Although the GM is the ultimate arbiter of what the cards represent, she should listen to player's speculations first.

If a card brought someone to within two paces of their Fun Threshold (in either direction), they get a boon from it, based upon the suit of the Minor Arcana previous to it:

• Cups represents a new ally
• Pentacles represents a new item they have acquired
• Swords represents some intervention you have made in the community that at least some people will admire you for
  
• Wands represents a new skill they have learned (about as good as someone with a hobby)

(If no previous Minor Arcana was played, wing it. The bigger the total value, the better the boon. If you ended on exactly your fun threshhold, treat all of the cards this way.)

If a card brought them above their Fun Threshhold, causing them to Party Too Hard, 

• Cups represents someone to whom they have new obligations
• Pentacles represents a monetary debt it will be difficult to pay off
  
• Swords represents someone whose enemy they have made
• Wands represents some way they have publicly embarrassed themselves

(If no previous Minor Arcana was played, wing it. The bigger the total value, the worse the problem.)

Attestation

Yup, it's Mosaic Strict!

a system for duels

With a bit of adaptation, this can be used for wizard duels, trials by combat, attempts by nobles to ruin each others' reputation, and so on; you just need a situation in which two roughly evenly-matched parties fight with skill, a personal sense of the other as an opponent, and the real possibility of harm.

My quick combat system is designed for combat as war - a disaster that can be prepared for and used for leverage, but in which no interesting tactical decisions take place. This, by contrast, is meant to be "combat as sport" - a fair fight won by whoever can outthink their opponent.

Physical materials

You'll want either a standard 54-card deck of playing cards or the minor arcana of a tarot deck, sorted by suits. Each player adopts a suit (including a Joker each of playing with standard playing cards) as their hand; the remaining two suits (removing the Pages if you're playing with a tarot deck) are shuffled together into a prize deck. Each player adopts one of the shuffled suits to represent what they have at stake (if you're playing with standard playing cards it's probably most convenient to match red with red and black with black; if you're playing with tarot cards, assign according to whatever feels most symbolically apt.)

Rounds of play

Each round, turn over one card from the prize deck. This represents the possibility of qualitative injury to the party who adopted that suit as their stakes; that player is defending this round and the other player is attacking. Each player places one card from their hand face-down, then both are revealed.

If the defending player's revealed card is higher in value, nothing happens. Put the prize card into the reshuffle pile.

If the attacking player's revealed card is higher in value, they injure the opponent in the way prescribed by the card. Put the prize card into the discard pile.

If both cards have an equal face value (not including surrender cards, per below), both parties receive the injury. Put the prize card into the discard pile.

If one party plays the surrender card - either a Joker or a Page - then that player has surrendered and the duel ends. Depending on how overwhelmed the surrendering party is and how honorable their opponent is, they might choose to take mercy or not, but either way once one party has surrendered you are no longer in a duel.

Players can verbally communicate with each other between rounds (that is, after the cards they placed have been revealed, but before the next prize card is revealed.) Once the prize card is revealed, players can no longer verbally communicate with each other until they reveal the cards they have placed to attack or defend.

Once player's hands are exhausted, reshuffle the reshuffle pile into the remaining cards of the prize deck, and return the cards the opponents have played to their hands (minus the highest-value card they played that round.) Keep going. Play continues until death, surrender (including mutual surrender at some predefined point), our outside interference (which this minigame does not model.)

Example round

Inigo, playing hearts and defending diamonds, is dueling Count Rugin, playing clubs and defending spades. The prize card for the round is revealed: it's the 6 of Diamonds! That means the Count has spotted an opportunity to jab out Montoya's eye and each is making a snap judgment about how much to prioritize enabling or preventing this and how much instead to care about preserving superior positioning. 

Inigo looks at his hand and tries to remember what Rugin has played already, hoping to place a card just slightly higher than Rugin does. He places a 5 of Hearts face down, and Rugin places something unknown. They turn them both over - Rugin had played the 4 of Clubs! Well played, Inigo! His eye is safe and at little loss.

Stakes of play

Below are three example stakes - one for a physical combat, one for a duel between mighty wizards, and another for scheming aristocrats trying to destroy each other's reputation. Players and GMs are encouraged to create new versions of these, especially bespoke versions that relate to the particular contest that might emerge between two particular opponents.

	physical	wizards	nobles
K	major unknown stakes (this round determines the fate of the next two prize cards)
Q	unknown stakes (this round determines the fate of next prize card)
J/Kn	positioning (winner recovers best card played so far to their hand, loser recovers worst)
10	instant death	mind control, geas, or become undead servant of opponent	death of most loved person
9	mortal injury	disintegration and erasure from history	fatally poisoned in embarassing way
8	loss of limb (attacker's choice)	astral banishment (can no longer planeshift, scry, or dream)	title stripped
7	ability to use dominant hand	True Name changed to something embarassing	spouse seduced and permanently turned against them
6	eye gouged out	mental trauma from banishment to Hell Dimension (returns after 1 second in our plane and 1000 subjective years)	major public project collapses in disaster
5	loss of limb (defender's choice)	amnesia	spouse seduced in one-off dalliance
4	ability to use non-dominant hand	next project embarked upon will be disaster	office lost
3	sprained ankle	acquire vestigial twin loyal to opponent	uncool misdeed exposed
2	cosmetic injury to whatever most vain about	hiccups or lisp acquired	acquisition of painful venereal disease
1	cool scar	can never shower again (great excuse if you didn't want to anyway!)	cool misdeed exposed

Attestation

This minigame is Mosaic Strict. Game mechanics are almost exactly those of Goofspiel, with the exceptions that prizes aren't added up for points but represent particular diegetic stakes.

Book Review: C. Thi Nguyen’s “Games: Agency as Art”

I cannot say enough good things about this trenchant, humane, and wonderfully readable work, which I picked up on John of Retired Adventurer’s recommendation. More than that, it’s renewed my faith in the value of analytic philosophy to say something useful about life as we live it - rather than only artificially simple things that are exhausted by our concepts of them.

For Nguyen, this tension between the artificial simplicity of games themselves and the richer physical and moral world we inhabit is a source of productive tension. Nguyen seems out to defend games from two broad dangers: first, from aesthetic sneering that seeks to dismiss games as frivolous or as artistically valuable only insofar as they adopt the techniques and values of other media, and two, from gamification mechanisms that would flatten the real world out into the value simplicity and clear instrumental rationality of games in search of greater productivity or pleasure.

If you were around in certain cultural spaces a few years ago, you may recall a few very unenlightening “can videogames be art?”-type discussions. One side essentially said most commercial videogames are not very artistically ambitious (an argument that could just as easily be applied to most commercial films), while the other listed various games with good writing, or political commentary, or plot structure, or voice acting, or whatever. This is an impoverished way of asking questions about games’ status as artworks, because (1) it’s really just another discussion of how much cultural status they should have, but more notably (2) it zeroes in exclusively on the features that games share with other artworks. Nguyen is not an enemy of political commentary or voice acting, but he wants to talk about a framework that allows for the artistic criticism of games as games. The fact that he is personally familiar with such a wide variety of them - from tabletop RPGs to eurogames to rock climbing to MtG to party games to chess - and is, just, like, a guy who clearly loves games helps him bring a wider lens to this topic, as well as infusing it with the kind of naive enthusiasm that makes it a joy to read. Eurogames, he points out, have no voice acting etc, but if you log onto boardgamegeek and read reviews you will see plenty of aesthetic evaluation - of whether games are elegant, or skill-testing, or simply fun.

What gives a game game-like qualities is its conferring upon players temporary agencies, and prescribed means to pursue them. When I play Magic: the Gathering I can focus single-mindedly on trying to get my opponent to zero life before she does the same to me, and the means I have are the means of the valid rules of the game, things like “tap a mountain to add one red mana to my pool” that are uttterly meaningless outside of a game context. After the game is won or lost I can step back from this temporary agency and aesthetically evaluate the experience: did it feel like an elegant battle of wits in which we were both challenged to the fullest, or were we just drawing cards until somebody drew their winning combo, or did I win or lose simply because one of us didn’t draw enough lands, and so on. If it felt like an elegant battle of wits, I’m happy, even (or especially) if I lost. (Although I should say the single funnest game of Magic I’ve ever played was a totally moronic burn deck mirror match, that was so funny precisely because it was so moronic, and Nguyen has something to say about these kinds of games too.) This ability to single-mindedly pursue an artificial goal, and to then step back and evaluate the experience of doing so, forms an important part of human nature. Games aren’t the only area of life where we take on context-specific goals - even within the relatively narrow confines of my professional life, I take on a different persona when I’m lecturing vs grading vs observing a student activity vs commuting, say - but they’re the part we have the most control over. 

The comparative simplicity of means and ends found in games (even the literally byzantine Crusader Kings, say) contrasts with the overwhelming complexity of values and potential means of achieving them IRL, but it’s a cooperative contrast. On one hand, the relative clarity and focus of the one offers a respite from the existential anxiety of the latter, a respite that can be healthy as long as it is temporary. On the other hand, games and the temporary agencies we inhabit through them can increase the diversity of our experiences in life as a whole. Apples to Apples, Starcraft, and D&D are all games, but really different ones. And their diversity contributes to our complex IRL values not just instrumentally (juvenile animals are drawn to play as a form of skill development, humans are neotenous and extend this through their whole lifespan; Nguyen credits chess with teaching him the mental discipline to do analytic philosophy) but in the same ways that other art does.

The tragedy, then, would be if games served to *globally* narrow and flatten our IRL values, rather than temporarily doing so in service of the larger whole. (We can see this, for instance, with gambling addiction.) This is the danger Nguyen sees in gamification: games work because their value clarity enables focus, but “clarity” can be a euphemism for “lying” when the real things we care about are complex. (I once read a paper that argued that teachers should foster “political clarity” in students, meaning the teacher should make clear who the good and bad guys are at all times; this strikes me as authoritarian and dishonest even when I agreed with all her examples.) Conscious gamification schemes are an intentional way of producing this kind of harm (though charitably we can assume the harm itself is not intended); a form of “value capture” that mirrors what can happen with other quantified reward metrics like money, impact factors, grading, and Twitter likes. Maybe money is necessary to civilization - I’ve got my doubts but you can make the case - but I think Nguyen is right that although these things can in cases have edge utility, they are basically dangerous and are rapidly destroying (real, non-quantified) value all over the place. Like the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, legible reward systems are beautiful when kept inside their cages and ready to feast on your still-warm corpse otherwise.

Recommended for anybody who likes, or is on the fence about, both analytic philosophy and games.

necromancy, exorcism & undead

*places flashlight under chin* oOoOoOoh it's a Mosaic Strict-compatible system for calling and turning undead!

  

Every dead person has a SPOOKINESS rating, and every context has a SANCTITY rating. When spookiness equals sanctity, you can perceive the dead out of the corner of your eye. When spookiness exceeds sanctity, the dead walk, hover, shamble, and creep upon the earth! If a dead person doesn't have its own corpse to use, it might well manifest outside of it, or inside a person. The more that spookiness exceeds sanctity, the more powers the dead manifest.

Spookiness

Default Spookiness is 0. Add one for each of:

• the deceased knew necromantic rituals (see below)
  
• the deceased had ever performed a necromantic ritual
  
• the deceased was a kinslayer, or slain by kin
  
• the deceased died by torture, suicide, or something else particularly tragic
• the deceased had eaten the flesh of sentient beings
• the deceased has unfinished business (either something they deeply care about, or an unfulfilled oath, whether nor not they care about it)
• the deceased would have very strong opinions (in any direction, but strong enough to make it a prospect of daily reflection) about the prospect of showing up as undead
  

Decrease by one for each of:

• the deceased has been properly buried
• the living kin (by blood or by ceremony) of the deceased have honored them within the last year

Or assign spookiness according to GM fiat.

Regularly offering alcohol and sweets to the dead can decrease or increase spookiness, depending on whether you request their presence or slumber. Offer them every night for a week to shift by one, or once a night for a year and a night to shift spookiness by two.

Necromantic rituals exist that can shift spookiness up. These are jealously guarded and dangerous to use, even beyond the danger inherent in increased spookiness. Here are a few:

The Truthful Turret

Dig up the bones of someone who has been properly buried for over a century, and arrange them in a sort of small tower which contains something they have written, but which no one else (including you) has read. Burn it. Increment spookiness of the smoke rising up by 1d6-1.

Voice of the Tunnel

Cut out your own tongue, and place it in the mouth of a corpse that has been properly buried, returning it to its proper place. It gets +1d6-1 spookiness as long as your tongue is there and it remains in its burial spot, and can communicate when you sing out of your tongueless mouth. (The relevant sanctity rating inhibiting this is the one where you are.)

The Stallion Path

Sprinkle the warm blood of a saint, monarch, or unicorn over the dead. (If the being whose blood it is is still alive, they can't consciously approve, unless they're you.) They all get +1d6-1 spookiness. They're bound to obey the being with the highest spookiness or spookiness-conditional-on-death around, though they'll also hate that being and tear them to shreds if they ever get a chance.

The Caul-Sister

Dress up a corpse to look just like you. Then, make sure that no one uses your true name to refer to anything but the corpse. Keep it that way for at least a year and a night.

When you die, your consciousness is transferred to the corpse and you/it combine spookiness levels. Add on an extra one if it is your actual identical twin.

Sanctity

Default sanctity is 8 in sunlight and 4 otherwise. Add one sanctity for each of:

• this is a literal sanctified place
• the largest community within one night's walk has had a feast since the last midnight celebrating life and honoring the dead, and not containing any violence except (1) animals slaughtered according to humane religious procedures (2) small convival brawls
• if it's been a year and a day since something truly awful has happened here (where the boundaries of “here” are determined by lines of salt, stone walls, village boundary markers, bodies of running water, and/or one night’s walk, whatever is most restrictive) but living people have (+2 for a decade and a day, +3 for a century and a day, +4 for a millennium and a day)
•  it's a full moon
  

Subtract one sanctity for each of:

• this was a literally sanctified place, but has been desecrated
• if it's been a year and a night since sunlight or living beings have been here (-2 for a decade and a night, -3 for a century and a night, -4 for a millennium and a night)
• it's the new moon or an eclipse
• just now, someone says something blasphemous without being contradicted
• all living people present are drunk or in panic
  

Or assign sanctity according to GM fiat. 

Exorcism and Turing Undead

If you speak in a strong voice and command the dead to return to their slumber, and no one else has attempted the same thing in the same scene, you can increase sanctity. Roll 2d6 and ignore any pip face greater than your SACRAMENTAL POWER ranking. Sacramental power starts at 0 and increments by one for each of:

• You have never killed anyone by your own hand.
• You have kept an inconvenient oath for a year and a day.
  
• You are wearing the (useless, armor-wise) vestments of office of an ordained priesthood. (You don't actually have to be ordained, ghosts are dumb so vestis virum facit for this purpose.)
• You have tried and failed to turn undead before and experienced either permanent wounds or the death of a comrade.
• You have succeeded at turning undead of this spookiness level before.
• You know the Seventeen Names of God.
  

mass combat: chess-based, Mosaic Strict-complaint

Use cases

These are most relevant for big battles in cod-medieval fantasy settings that your guy is commanding as a general, and which you might plausibly win or lose. Skirmish-level fights, the logistics of military campaigns, surviving or winning renown as a warrior in the midst of mass-battle-as-dangerous-environment, and the like are better served by different rules or none at all.

Physical materials

You'll need

1. A pair of timers, such as exist on your phone, or a chess clock if you want to get fancy.
2. A chess set, or a customizable online version of chess such as protochess.

Army construction

If your army contains...

1. ...seige equipment or fortifications, get a rook. If they occupy a permanent fortification or have the high ground, get another rook.
2. ...a renowned warrior or super tough guy like a giant or something, get a knight. If they contain a whole company of such, get a second knight.
3. ..a powerful wizard or creature with neato abilities like a basilisk or something, get a bishop. If they contain a whole cabal of the bastards, get a second bishop.
4. ...a really powerful wizard, or a dragon or archangel or something, get a queen. 
5. ...a PC who isn't one of the above, get a king for each. (If PCs do fall into these categories, designate the relevant pieces as PCs.)
6. ...x random weaklings, get ln x pawns.

Army placement

Place the GM's screen over the middle of the chess board, then each army is placed however their commander likes... unless they've been caught with their pants down, in which case their pieces are placed randomly (but still secretly.) Pieces representing PCs can be placed deliberately (if the battle commences by enemies hacking at the PCs in their tents you probably want to use a different system). If you're placing randomly on a physical board I suggest literally dumping all the pieces on it and standing them up as close to where they fall as you can manage as a sort of premonition of the disaster that's about to be-fall them.

The "pants down" clause can apply to both parties, as with two armies randomly bump into each other en route and start confusedly fighting.

Timer

Each side operates on a ten minute timer by default. Double that if the fictional general you're playing is decent at being a general, and triple it if they're a brilliant general (half it if they're actively incompetent.) If you, the player, suck at chess, double it, but if you're pretty good, halve it, and if you're actively great, halve it again. (All the same applies to the GM and the NPC general they're playing.)

If the timer runs out, the other side gets three free moves and then you start again.

The battle itself

Play chess like normal, with the following changes:

1. The pawn promotion rule does not apply.
2. Neither do lame made up rules like en passant or castling.
3. Kings can enter check.

There are no victory conditions. Instead, battle ends when one side has had enough and decides to flee, surrender, or otherwise not engage in the kind of mass combat represented by this minigame.

After the battle

Pieces captured in game represent casualties, but casualties need not represent death. Flight, wounds of various levels, shell-shock, and literally being captured are all possibilities. If GM doesn't have any diegetic intuitions for some particular case - which may not be clear until well after battle in the confusion of regrouping - roll a d6:

1. killed
2. mortally wounded
3. wounded, will be fine with proper care, but won't be able to keep up with a march
4. fled
   
5. captured
6. shellshocked
   

Attestation (and the relevant rules of chess)

These are rules compliant with Mosaic Strict, meaning they're compliant with everything. 

 

Unless referring externally to the rules of chess compromises the independence of these rules? Okay, here's how chess works: the game is played on an 8x8 board of squares, each occupied by pieces owned by a player. Players take turns moving pieces from one square to another per the following rules:

• Pawns move one or two squares on their first turn if moving into a square not occupied by another piece, or diagonally one square if moving into a square occupied by an enemy piece. They can only move away from the side of the board on which they were placed
  
• Rooks move any number of squares horizontally and vertically.
  
• Knights move two squares in one direction and then one square in a direction orthogonal to that.
• Bishops move any number of squares diagonally.
• Queens move any number of squares horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
• Kings move one square horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

You can't move into a square occupied by one of your own pieces. If you move into a square occupied by another player's piece, that piece is "captured" and removed from play.

network externalities and generic dungeon fantasy

There's some discussion of "vanilla fantasy" and "generic fantasy" over at The Manse and ENWorld. On this blog I have the rather derogatory tag "extruded fantasy product,"but that's unfair. "Vanilla" is a kind metaphor; sometimes it's used in a derogatory way, but only out of snobbishness: the reference is to the fact that vanilla is common, but vanilla is common because people like it. "Generic" is a bit more ambiguous; "generic" things may be boring and cookie-cutter, but "generic" might also refer to "genre."

Provisional definition: generic dungeon fantasy is something where you can take almost any adventure or random table from a blog and throw it in there, and it can handle it.

I think this makes clearer what generic dungeon fantasy does and does not include - if, admittedly, it also makes it clearer that it is defined by family resemblance rather than a set of necessary and sufficient conditions. I also think it makes clearer why generic dungeon fantasy exists in the first place: network externalities. The "generic" here is as in "genre," and what it does is allow you to make things that make sense in small chunks, rather than one huge gestalt. You can do engineering rather than mere hacking. Right now I'm piggybacking on this coordination by writing in English anstatau usande Esperanton au fjkdsancslareoewa fkdmds  f afsda lkk

It's worth noting what generic dungeon fantasy isn't. GDF doesn't need to be boring, unoriginal, or low conceptual density. Dungeon Master's Guild cruft (or Big Publisher Cruft) is mostly GDF,, but so is this and this and this. 

Conformity to ISO standards fantasy is a clear design goal of many products, and such products offer the clearest tests of the boundaries of the genre itself. Both Freeport and various Raging Swan products will make references to, e.g., "a temple of the War God," which is both meant to make the product highly cross-compatible and makes explicit assumptions about what sort of campaign setting you have that it's cross-compatible with. 

Most of what I make here is generic dungeon fantasy. Tlön isn't (note to self: need to get back to Tlön) but then Tlön is its own project. Deviations from the standards must be done individually and serially whereas conformity to the standards can be done collectively, in parallel, and in small chunks. 

A network externalities lens is also, in some sense, less kind than the original metaphor expressed by vanilla. People don't eat vanilla because of cross-compatibility with other vanilla ice cream, but because they directly prefer it. But when cross-compatibility is an issue, we can get stuck with an inferior product because of coordination failures. Do we all like elves and clerics and taverns that much? Well, maybe!

That being said, having something that plays this role is nice. Having culture that no one owns (and not even WotC owns generic dungeon fantasy, even if it exercises an outside influence on it) and everyone contributes to a bit is good, and feels good to be a part of. Three cheers for the generic!

quick combat for Mosaic Strict

This is a MOSAIC Strict-compliant variant of something I posted earlier- one that leans into "combat as war" in that combat represents risks that can be managed and prepared for, but there are few tactical decisions once you enter into it. You may also like Emmy Allen's system. 

(Ismail Inceoglu)

0) Like any other Mosaic subsystem, don't open up this minigame when it doesn't make sense. If the outcome isn't in doubt, then you don't need it. If players want something tactically interesting, give them something tactically interesting instead.

1) At points this system refers to Combat Capability, or CC. When it becomes relevant to determine a character's CC, add up the following, or throw in what makes sense to you:

• If you're not sick, +1.
• If you're not tired, +1.
• If you're not injured, +1.
  
• If you're armed with something improvised (including magic not purely useful for combat, like ice magic or something), +1. If you're armed with a real weapon (or have some kind of martial arts training), +2. If you're armed with a cool magic weapon, +3 or more.
• If fighting is the main thing your character does for their background, +1. 
• If you're, like, super big, +1 or more.
• If you have a mount that you're trained in and fits the terrain, +1.
  
• If you're a cold killer - the sort where people can see it in your face and don't trust you - that's also +1.
  
• If another PC has died by your side in combat, +1.
  
• If you've lost a battle on this terrain before, +1.
• If another PC has died by your side in combat on this terrain before, +1.
• If you've lost a battle to these kinds of opponents before, +1.
• If another PC has died by your side in combat against these kinds of opponents before, +1.

For monsters, make up a CC that makes sense. 

2) When combat begins, everybody chooses Morale - a number from 1-12 - secretly passing them to the GM if desired. 

3) Roll 1d6. This represents the decisive factor in battle. If you're fighting under particularly bad conditions (in an avalanche, in a flooding dungeon, in the stomach of a tarrasque) roll a bigger die and interpret everything above a 6 as 6.

1. Numbers: whichever side has fewer combatants loses.
2. Might: whichever side has lower average CC loses.
3. Cohesion: whichever side has lower average morale loses.
4. Leadership: whichever side has the best single combatant - as defined by Morale + CC - does not lose, but rather the other side loses.
5. Positioning: whichever side has worse circumstantial advantage loses. If in doubt, the defender loses, unless they are defending a fortified position, in which case attacker loses.
6. Mutual Ruin: both sides lose.

If no side has a clear advantage on the rolled decisive factor, add up each side's raw Morale + CC total. The side with the lower total score loses, unless the scores are equal, in which case both lose.

4) Each combatant on the losing side rolls 2d6. If they roll over their Morale, they ran away (or are captured if escape is impossible and the enemy takes prisoners - or they successfully played dead, or whatever). If they roll under or equal to their Morale, they're dead (or also possibly captured, &c, depending on the circumstances).

(Note that losing combat is a mechanical condition while winning is not. You "win" if making your opponent lose accomplishes whatever extra-combat goal you happened to have.)

5) Regardless of whether your side won or lost, if you didn't die, roll 2d6 (one red die, one blue) and compare it to Morale again, or Morale + 3 if you lost. If it's under (not equal) to your Morale, you sustain injuries. Unless there's something interesting about the kind of injuries an opponent can give you (as with a basilisk or a vampire), but by default consult the red die rolled and the following chart:

1. Just a scratch.
2. If you had a shield, light armor, or heavy armor, you're fine. If not, roll 1d6 again.
3. If you had heavy armor or a shield, it's shattered. If not, roll 1d6 again.
4. You lost a hand, an eye, or something else useful.
5. You have a deep wound and are grievously injured. You cannot exert yourself for the next day and will need to be under care.
6. You are mortally wounded, and though you can move around, you will need to seek treatment in a center of civilization within 1d12 days (referee rolls secretly) or you will die.