Three kinds of wealth abstraction rules

I don't always have the time or the energy to track currency in my elfgames, and although I see the merit in doing so when you're aiming for a specific kind of gamefeel, it's not a great fit for every game. So why is this so often treated as the standard? I mean, it can't be pure nostalgia or blind adherence to the old ways; a lot of the games that still stick with this have traded inventory weight for inventory slots, for instance. Gold for XP could be a plausible reason, but then again, there's no reason you can't implement this with abstracted wealth rules. 

Now, while I can't give you a definitive answer to this conundrum (if there even is one), I have spent some time trying to come up with interesting rules for wealth abstraction, just for fun. If nothing else, perhaps these will inspire some game designers to question why they're still sticking with the ol' Copper/Silver/Gold standard rather than experimenting with fun and less disruptive ways of handling wealth in their games.

WEALTH POINTS

You can spend your wealth points (WP) to add positive modifiers to negotiation checks.

When the party finds treasure, tell them how many wealth points they acquired. A small amount of coins would be worth a single WP for the whole party, while a golden statuette with emerald eyes could earn them as many as 5 WPs.

When you want to buy something, you can make a negotiation check by rolling a d20 vs a Difficulty Rating of...  

• 10 (mundane/cheap items)
• 14 (uncommon/expensive items)
• 18 (rare/exclusive) 

You can bypass a negotiation check entirely by spending a fixed amount of wealth points for each item tier, as seen below: 

• Common/cheap: 10 WPs
• Uncommon/expensive: 15 WPs
• Rare/exclusive: 20 WPs

If you still want to brute force your way through a purchase after a failed negotiation attempt, add +5 to the WP cost. Any wealth points spent on the roll are subtracted from the total cost.

✦ Design notes

So, these rules intentionally put a big emphasis on negotiations over fixed prices. This is meant to represent haggling, rather than how much each item is actually worth. Prices normally fluctuate between stores and different regions IRL, so I thought this was a nice way to incorporate that in a game. And since you always have the option of caving in and paying an exorbitant price even if someone is overcharging you for their wares, I added that bit about bypassing negotiations.

Finally, if I were to implement this mechanic in a game, I'd definitely want to prepare a reference list for treasure and another for typical items, just to keep things fair and easy to run.

WEALTH USAGE DIE

If you want to keep the Copper/Silver/Gold standard but don't want to bother tracking individual coins, you can simply assign an usage die for each. Then, make three item lists: one for things that can be bought with copper, another for items that can be bought with silver, and one for the truly expensive things that only gold can buy.

• Copper can only buy from the copper list.
• Silver can buy from the copper and silver lists.
• Gold can buy from all three lists.

When you want to buy something, roll a copper, silver or gold usage die, as determined by what you're buying. If you roll a 1 or 2, drop the die by a step (d12 > d10 > d8 > d6 > d4 > nil). If you don't have at least a d4, you simply can't afford to buy the things you want.

After completing a quest or exploring a dungeon, the party can potentially increase their wealth usage dice by a step, depending on how much they earned or pillaged. The standard odds for wealth improvement are...

• Copper: 4-in-6
• Silver: 2-in-6
• Gold 1-in-6

The odds above are subject to both positive and negative changes, per the fiction. If the party was promised a fortune in gold, they might have higher odds of improving their gold usage die. If they were simply out in the sewers killing rats, maybe they only get to try to improve copper or silver (not both), with gold being out of the picture entirely. Such is the life of an adventurer.

✦ Design notes

The biggest hurdle to implementing these rules in a game is deciding the starting wealth of PCs. Do you just give them a d4 in copper, in which case they're flat out broke? Are some classes (if you're using those) wealthier from the get go? Are some even poorer? Balancing this out can be fun, but it's the sort of thing that will directly inform how your game feels in play, at least until the party gets some experience under their belts.

GMs can play around with positive and negative modifiers to UD checks, by the way: depending on what you're buying (and from whom), the GM may assign you a positive or negative modifier. This is a good way to represent how cheap or expensive something is, as well as the seller's negotiation skills and their disposition towards the buyer.

WEALTH LEVELS

No rolls, no checks, just a simple Wealth Level (WL).

• At WL1, you can afford common gear, travel rations, simple accommodations, basic services
• At WL2, you can afford quality gear, specialized services, components, luxurious accommodations, weapons, armor, daily wages
• At WL3, you can afford property installments, magic items, monthly wages, horses, livestock

Characters increase their Wealth Level by getting paid for their services, plundering dungeons and undertaking financial ventures. There's no need for hard rules and parameters, either: if it makes fictional sense for a character to be on WL2, then that's their Wealth Level. If they go on a buying spree and overspend, they may drop down to WL1. Easy, clean, simple.

OPTIONAL RULE: if you want to mix gold for XP with these rules, characters can only level up when they reach WL3. Afterwards, they must invest most of their funds into training under a competent tutor, dropping back to WL1.

✦ Design notes

There's no denying that this is an incredibly high trust approach to wealth, bordering on FKR, and that's intentional. If you're completely burned out on currency tracking, this will probably be your favourite take on wealth abstraction in this post. Similarly, this is a great fit for games where wealth doesn't matter all that much, although the optional rule can give it a bit more heft, if that's what you're looking for.

ALL ABOUT THAT CASH

A funny thing happened while I was writing this post: I no longer know how I want to handle wealth in most of the games I'm currently developing. A few of these could be a great fit for some of my games, and indeed, they were built on ideas I initially had for the aforementioned games, but dropped for one reason or another. In a way, I guess this means I succeeded at what I set out to do with this post; I just didn't expect to be on the receiving end of it!

Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go have a design-induced existential crisis. Those are always a lot of fun!

On encounter design, combat and incentives

After writing the third Hexember post, I couldn't stop thinking about two blog posts regarding incentivized behavior, the first by Luke Gearing, and the second by Zedeck Siew. Did I unintentionally incentivize players to act diplomatically rather than violently through how I designed the hex's points of interest? And if so, is that really such a bad thing?

COMBAT & MODERN ELFGAMES

It's no secret that 5e has more rules and guidelines for combat than anything else, and while I'm not trying to start a discourse on "eliding", it's my personal opinion that if most of the tools bestowed by a system are related to violence, then you shouldn't be surprised when violence becomes the players' default approach to every problem or situation. That incentive is baked into the game, and while most OSR games are better about this, there's still a prevalence of combat-related rules in them.

Paradoxically, OSR combat has been frequently touted as a fail state, particularly when it's fought fairly. The maxim "combat as war, not sport" is also a mainstay in these discussions, even if the rules don't always reflect it. One could argue that the high lethality found in the majority of OSR games supports those points, but that lethality usually ceases to be a problem once characters have enough experience under their belts. Some games have done their part to mitigate that power creep (shoutout to Into the Odd, Cairn and CY_BORG!), but when it comes to older games, well, character advancement tended to lead to HP bloat and/or disparity, as seen with the good ol' linear fighters vs. quadratic wizards conundrum.

If combat is the baked-in solution to most problems, then rewarding it would only worsen the issue at hand. This leads us to the crux of my encounter design philosophy: if the players want to maim and kill everything in their way, they are free to do so. The world, on the other hand, won't reward them for committing senseless violence. Most of the time, they'll only be wasting their resources and risking their lives by acting that way — just like in real life.

STICK VS. CARROT

Let's face it: if rewarding violence is the carrot, and if most of the rules are combat-oriented, there's an argument to be made that not rewarding it is akin to punishing the players for playing the game as written, or as it was intended to be played — hence, the stick. This could lead us to an entire discussion about setting expectations, the importance of a session zero and so on, but that's one rabbit hole I'm not willing to dive into today, lest this post completely loses its original purpose: discussing incentives in play.

So what's the solution here? Should you just play a different game if you don't want to reward violence?

Well, not necessarily, no. As mentioned above, setting expectations before play is an important part of literally any game, and unlike 5e, a lot of OSR/NSR games have plenty of rules for approaching the world in many different ways. But then again, rewarding players for engaging with those rules could be seen as just as bad as rewarding violence; you're just signaling that diplomacy, careful exploration and scheming are the optimal ways to play the game. 

While there's nothing wrong with that playstyle (some would go as far as saying that the ideal OSR playstyle looks a lot like what I just described), it can become stale. Once the characters start doing what's optimal rather than what their backgrounds and personalities dictate, are the players still roleplaying them, or are they just gaming? Going too far in the opposite direction is just as bad, mind! "It's what my character would do" has traumatized countless GMs, including yours truly.

Me, I advocate for balance in all things. Naturally, that goes for encounters and their rewards, too.

BALANCING INCENTIVES

Balancing what you incentivize with your rewards is simpler than you might expect. When you're writing any situation, encounter or location, consider what's logical. Sometimes, violence is the best answer, one that may wield the best rewards. Oftentimes, it isn't. The secret here is letting whatever makes the most sense happen, rather than trying to direct your players and their characters towards being kind and diplomatic or bloodthirsty murderers through in-game rewards. Let them do what's natural for them and reap the consequences, good or bad.

The first three Hexember posts actually have relevant examples of logical consequences, rather than incentivized behaviors:

• Fighting (and killing) the sickly giant from the Stinging-Tree Canyon won't lead the party to a tomb full of gold, and it may even lead to a few PCs getting sick, too. On the other hand, they'll have put an end to the poor giant's suffering, and that counts for something. A party that sneakily avoids the encounter entirely won't risk contracting the disease, but the giant may still be a problem for anyone who passes through the canyon in the future. No obvious rewards here.
  
• Combat isn't really much of a concern in the Chronal Wastes, but if the party does end up in a fight while trapped in the war zone, they'll actually benefit from defeating the enemy squad, gaining access to firearms that won't be invented anytime soon. Violence would be rewarded, but only because looting a superior force's advanced weapons is a logical conclusion to fighting them.
• The Crimson Crystarium is what brought us here in the first place, so it's a little more ambiguous than the examples above. The vampire packs encountered in that hex can be approached in several different ways, and one pack actually initiates combat in a "honorable" manner (sport and war, yadda, yadda). Outright murdering that pack turns the others hostile, yes, but only because it makes sense. Hell, murdering any pack would have that result, even if I didn't outright spell that. Meanwhile, there's another pack that won't even directly engage the party, and if attacked, will leave combat as soon as they've gotten their share of blood. Finally, killing the "diplomatic" pack could potentially lead to an even better reward (as many weird healing crystals as the party can carry), with the consequence of making every other pack hostile. But would ridding the lands of bloodsucking monsters be such a bad thing? No easy answers here. No simple solution.
  

And that, I guess, is what I've been trying to get at: when designing a situation, encounter or location, consider the logical consequences of its likely outcomes. It shouldn't matter whether those consequences would be beneficial or prejudicial to the players and their characters, as long as they're organic. 

The world is your character, and playing it straight can do wonders for your campaign's verisimilitude.

HEXEMBER: Crimson Crystarium

Before we begin, here's a recap: Hexember is a month-long series of posts, each of which presents a hex and its points of interest, tailored for OSR hexcrawls (but compatible with most games). If you need a simple procedure for exploring hexes, I included one in the first entry!

CRIMSON CRYSTARIUM

✦ At first glance

Sharp, ferrous, perilous and yet strangely magnificent, this region is covered in blood-red crystals, tended for and fed by a ravenous vampire clan, the Sanguine Grievers. Long ago, these vampires were known for their nobility and influence, but after a hunter destroyed their progenitor, they left all of that behind, seizing these lands as their territory and starting a centuries-long ritual to bring him back. 

By sacrificing the blood of travelers and trespassers, the Grievers have grown a garden of crystals — or, as they call it, a crystarium — that stretches as far as the eye can see. These crystals are slowly taking the form of the clan's former estate, but its completion is still centuries away. Still, their effects can already be felt, as the Grievers are completely immune to the sun's baleful reckoning in these lands.

1-3. The Hunting Grounds

Anyone unlucky (or incautiously brave) enough to travel through the Crimson Crystarium will probably find themselves right in the middle of the Sanguine Grievers' hunting grounds. Surrounded by their gruesome creations, the travelers will immediately be approached by one of three hunting packs; roll a d4 to determine which.

• 1-2, the commanding, proud and honorable Heirs will openly approach the party and challenge them to a fight. If their challenge is accepted, there are d4x2 Heirs in the pack; stat most of them as regular vampires in your system of choice, but give their leader +2 HD. If half of them are defeated, or if their leader loses over half of their HP, they will humbly recognize the party's valor and propose an end to the battle. If the party accepts, they shall henceforth be under the pack's protection, and will be granted free passage through the hunting grounds now and forever. If, however, they decide to fight to the death, all three packs will be permanently hostile and will attack on sight the next time the party enters their territory.
  

• 3, the savvy Growers will send a delegation of d4+1 blood servants to intercept the party. These servants are pale humans dressed in ruined clothes that may have once been worn by nobility, but hasn't been in use for centuries. They come with an offer: if the party agrees to accompany them back to the pack's den, no harm will come to them (proceed to the next point of interest). If not, they will be at the mercy of the other packs (roll again!).
  

• 4, the sadistic Stalkers will pursue the party for hours, but won't engage them directly unless any character looks sick, weak or wounded. The torments doled by the pack tend to take the form of hideous laughter in the distance, exsanguinated corpses dropped in the party's path, tempting promises of immortality whispered directly into each character's mind, copious, graphic descriptions of what they're going to do to the party once they catch them, and finally, as the hunting grounds are departed, an invitation to "come play with us again". In the event of a fight, the Stalkers are to be statted with -1 HD, and there are 2d6x2 of them. They won't fight to the death, however, and once they make at least two characters bleed, the whole pack will skulk back into the shadows, laughing all the way.

 

4. The Scarlet Chapel

The section of the Crystarium claimed by the Growers is slowly taking the shape of a chapel, though it is very far from finished. In any case, a party that decides to parlay with the pack will be welcomed with pomp, circumstance and a strange proposal: they may take a crimson shard with them, but in exchange, they must willingly feed the Crystarium, sacrificing d6 HP in the process. As long as it's fed with blood once a week, a crimson shard will recover d4 HP for every party member on a daily basis. If the characters refuse the bargain, they will be allowed to leave unharmed... this time. If combat is engaged, treat the Growers like the Heirs, but with d4x4 members, no leader and an inclination towards surrendering and bargaining if defeat seems inevitable.

INSPIRATIONS

Vampire: The Masquerade was the obvious inspiration here; this is basically what The Eldest (as the Tzimisce Antediluvian is commonly known) became beneath New York, but as a crystalline sprawl instead. Innistrad was also conceptually important for the Crimson Crystarium, even if the Sanguine Grievers have more in common with Ravnica's vampires than with Innistrad's vampiric families.

USING THE GRIEVERS AS A FACTION

Factions are one of the best parts of any hexcrawl, and the Sanguine Grievers could easily be expanded into a full-fledged faction (although a regional one, at best). If you decide to do so, I recommend creating at least one important NPC for each pack. Give them one or two extravagant personality traits (a seductive, flirty and sadistic Stalker will immediately leave an impression on the party, especially if they're Astarion fans), and let them act as the pack's "face" when interacting with other factions and the party. 

You should also consider giving each pack a clear goal for the future, and at least one way of achieving that goal. The Heirs could be recruiting valiant warriors from neighboring hexes in order to expand their ranks, while the obvious route with the Growers is proselytizing their progenitor's word throughout the land, slowly building an insidious cult. And when the Stalkers start hunting outside the Crystarium, well, that's the perfect excuse to set up some inter-faction conflicts!

HEXEMBER: Chronal Wastes

Here's a quick recap: Hexember is a series of semi-daily blogposts where I detail a hex and its points of interest, tailored for OSR hexcrawls (but compatible with most games). If you need a simple procedure for exploring hexes, I included one in the first entry!

CHRONAL WASTES

✦ At first glance

A magical catastrophe has befallen these lands, causing the landscape to constantly flicker between different eras, ranging from an Ice Age, a post-industrial nightmarish wasteland or a barren battlefield filled with trenches and corpses. Sometimes, it stays in an era for hours. Other times, it changes several times in the span of a minute. The only predictable things about the Chronal Wastes are its unpredictability, and the fact that any living things trapped in its many eras normally can't interact with travelers, for they are stuck in an unbreakable loop.

1-2. The Disaster

The vast majority of the Chronal Wastes is comprised of an area known simply as the Disaster. For every hour spent in this area, roll a d20.

• 1-5, the wastes manifest as idyllic fields of prismatic flowers, constantly changing shapes and colors. Those flowers can be picked and sold, though they'll become normal flowers in d4 days. Herbalists, druids and mages will pay at least 20 copper coins per flower. 
• 6-12, the wastes are undergoing an Ice Age. Unless they are appropriately dressed for the freezing cold, the party will suffer d6 damage for every hour spent braving the elements.
• 13-16, a time-storm will be raging through the area, violently mixing traits from every conceivable era and preventing any progress from being made in a journey until it settles. When a traveler survives a time-storm, they emerge a few years younger or older from it. Roll 3d6: the first determines whether a character becomes younger (odds) or older (evens), the second determines how many years they gain or lose, and the third determines how many days it takes for them to get back to normal.
• 17-19, the party finds itself in the middle of every war that's ever been or ever will be fought in these lands. Although the combatants will usually ignore them, the party has a 2-in-6 chance of being perceived as enemies by a squad of d8+2 soldiers wearing elegant uniforms and carrying 18th century firearms. If the characters fight and defeat those soldiers, they can keep the firearms and enough ammo for three encounters.
  
• 20, roll 2d20 and combine the results.
  

3. The Royal Academy of Chronomancy

The very source of the Chronal Wastes and the former authority on time magic, the Royal Academy of Chronomancy fell victim to its own hubris. Whatever caused the Disaster, it's too late to fix it, but the Academy may still offer knowledge for those willing to risk repeating their mistakes. When the party visits the Academy, roll a d6 to determine the state they find it in:

• 1-2, the Academy has yet to be built, and all the party finds are its foundations, rich in chronal energy. A sufficiently powerful mage will be capable of detecting these energies, which can be used to immediately replenish all of their spells and any spent scrolls.
  
• 3-5, the party finds the Academy in the middle of the incident that brought its downfall. Students are disintegrating and the walls are rapidly crumbling, while professors are valiantly yet uselessly trying to counteract what triggered the disaster. The party can try to uncover the mystery behind this catastrophe, but they've arrived too late to find much more than the following clues: the fuming, blindingly white shell of a divine egg, a professor exclaiming that "the divine one is free", and another pleading for everyone not to hurt it, because "it's just a child, it doesn't know what it's doing".
• 6, visiting the Royal Academy of Chronomancy in its heyday is a rare privilege, even if it's eerily ethereal. The student body, the faculty and the staff are mere after-images, incapable of seeing the party or interacting with them, and busily living out their daily lives with not a care in the world. The Academy is flourishing in every way, its ivory walls standing tall. Though nothing can be taken from here without disappearing, the Library of Eons still offers the world's largest selection of books, some of which haven't even been written yet. Alas, the party can't stay here forever, and the Academy will shift to another era in d4 hours.

4. The Cave of Epochs

Scintillating with the promise of safety, the Cave of Epochs offers a refuge from the chaos outside, yet it was here that most chronomancers mined one of the most valuable resources of their craft: the omen stones. When a character gazes deep into the cave's glittering walls, they have a 2-in-6 chance of finding an omen stone and experiencing an omen. Roll a d4 to determine which kind of omen they receive.

• 1-2, they sense that someone they trust will betray them in the future.
  
• 3, they get a glimpse of an impending (yet preventable) disaster.
  
• 4, they don't see anything, but what does that say about their future?
  

These omens would be more aptly described as intuitive feelings than as precise visions, but they are rarely wrong. The GM is free to plan a way to incorporate them in a future session or to ignore them completely. Rarely doesn't mean never, after all.

 

Omen stones can be mined, and weapons infused with them have an infamous ability: anything hit by one will age d10 years. After rolling a 1, the weapon will lose its charge, but it can be restored by bringing it to the Chronal Wastes. Most merchants won't pay anything for an omen stone out of superstition, but a crazy, ambitious or driven blacksmith may be willing to craft something with one.

 

INSPIRATIONS

The concept for the Chronal Wastes came from a Twitter thread I wrote last year, back when I was experimenting with using MtG cards as oracles. The execution, however, owes a lot to the film Synchronic (by Benson and Moorhead, two of my favorite directors) and the comic DIE, by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans. Can't say much more than that, though, lest we head into spoiler territory!

HEXEMBER: Stinging-Tree Canyon

In an effort to get out of a rut and force myself to write anything (regardless of quality or relevance), I decided to start Hexember, a series of semi-daily blog posts in which I detail a hex y'all can drop in your hexcrawls. 

Hexember was inspired by Dice Goblin's Adventure Calendar Jam, and if last year's Adventure Calendar is anything to go by, we should be in for a bunch of treats until the 24th!

SIX MILES, BEST MILES

When running or building a hexcrawl, I have a personal preference for 6 mile hexes. They're big enough to support a few points of interest, but not so big that the players will be forced to spend days trying to traverse each hex. With that said, most (if not all) of the hexes presented in Hexember should be scalable to your taste, be it bigger or smaller.

HEXPLORATION

Every hex in the series will have at least two distinct points of interest, so if your system of choice doesn't have a procedure for exploring everything a hex has to offer, you can use the sample one below:

• When the party enters a new hex, roll 1d4 and consult the list of points of interest in that hex. They'll have to pass through that point of interest in order to successfully cross the hex.
  
• When the party explores a hex, ask them how many hours they plan to spend looking for points of interest. They can spend up to six hours scouring a hex per exploration attempt, and they have a X-in-6 chance of finding a new point of interest, with X being determined by the amount of hours spent exploring. If they're successful in their exploration attempt, roll a d4 to determine the point of interest they find; re-roll any results matching known points of interest.
•  When the party explores a fully-mapped hex, let them know there are no more points of interest to be found. They can still move between known points (spending up to one hour to travel between any two of them), interact with their features and have random encounters, but they've seen all there is to see. Outwardly, that is.

And with that cleared up, let's get to our first hex!

 

STINGING-TREE CANYON

✦ At first glance

Green, rocky and oppressively narrow, Stinging-Tree Canyon is as beautiful as it is treacherous. The trees from which this patch of wilderness takes its name are impossibly tall, with spikes sprouting from their tough barks. Most of the canyon's wildlife is nocturnal, with birds of prey nesting in the treetops and their rodent prey burrowing in the trunks.

1. Hot Springs

A party couldn't ask for a better place to rest and recuperate than this. The canyon's hot springs offer a good view of its surroundings — as the area in which they're situated is slightly higher than the surrounding treeline —, and the waters are to die for. If any PC decides to take a bath in the springs, they have a 4-in-6 chance of getting rid of any maladies currently afflicting them.

2-3. The Boneyard

Craters, broken trees and piles of bones of considerable size litter this stretch of the canyon, with the occasional rusty weapon and ruined armor lying around as well. Whatever happened here wasn't exactly recent, but it wasn't long enough for the trees and the grass to recover from it.

If the party wants to search the bodies, they'll find 3d20 copper coins for every hour spent searching, up to a maximum of 150+d20 copper coins. The weapons and armors in the corpses are far too big and far too damaged to be of any use for a human-sized character, however.

4. The Giant's Mound

The entrance to a colossal cave blocked by an enormous boulder can be spotted from a mile away, but the incessant, deafening pounding can be heard from even further. The tribal markings on the boulder indicate this is the final resting place of a mountain giant, and although such mounds aren't particularly uncommon, they're usually far more quiet, and definitely not as impregnable.

This particular mound wasn't meant to keep grave-robbers from pillaging a mountain giant's precious ivory bones, but to keep a rotting, diseased giant from rampaging freely through the canyons and infecting anyone else with the Black Ichor.

When passing by the Giant's Mounds, the characters will notice that unlike the rest of the canyon, this area seems completely devoid of wildlife; the giant's endless hammering has clearly spooked them away from the vicinity. Once they near the mound's boulder, they'll spot the markings; a sufficiently knowledgeable PC might recognize some of the symbols as "funeral", "warning" and "plague".

Unless the party makes an effort to pass through the mound quietly, they have a 4-in-6 chance of alerting the shambling giant, in which case he will furiously wallop at the entrance's boulder for d4 turns before breaking free.

If the party decides to stay and fight, stat their sickly foe as you would any giant on your system of preference, but decrease his HD by 1. The poor creature is visibly ill, with black sludge pouring out of its festering body, and he will fight with blind, self-destructive rage. He is clearly suffering, and death would be a welcome release. Any attacks involving fire and heat will stun the giant for d4 turns and deal double damage.

Any survivors have a 2-in-6 chance of being infected with the Black Ichor; 3-in-6 if they engaged in melee. The first symptom will manifest in d4 hours as a persistent, mucous cough, followed by vomiting of a dark, thick substance. The infected character will experience violent urges after a day and will have an X-in-6 chance of succumbing to them, with X being determined by the number of days the disease was left untreated. Once they succumb, their wounds will seep with the same pitch-like sludge as the fallen giant's, and will be just as infectious.

The Black Ichor can be cured by any skilled druid, including a fellow party member. A competent druid will quickly identify the disease by its symptoms, applying a simple yet effective treatment: heat. No matter how virulent or cruel it may be, the Black Ichor can't survive the heat. Being covered in furs near a campfire for a full night should be enough to rid an infected character of the disease, after which they'll be immune to it in the future.

INSPIRATIONS

Most (or maybe all) Hexember hexes will be designed after something I like, and in this case, the inspiration was an episode from Primal, an animated series by Genndy Tartakovsky. If you enjoyed this at all, give it a shot! The episode in question is called Plague of Madness, and it's simply phenomenal.

PS: if anyone ends up using this in a game, I'd love to know how it went!

The Wyvern Journals: Dissecting the Character Class Model

The Wyvern Journals is the title of what is (hopefully) going to be a series in which we dissect several aspects of my OSR fantasy heartbreaker, The Wyvern Hack, while discussing the decisions behind them. Theoretically, this is already part 2, since the "announcement" post already introduced TWH's core combat rules, but I'm sure we'll revisit those later on. This post, though, will focus on the character class model. I have already posted a couple of class spreads on Twitter, but rather than diving in the specifics of those classes, this is a more general take on how every class in The Wyvern Hack is structured.

CORE ELEMENTS

When push comes to shove, dividing the character class model into its core elements is a lot more efficient than discussing it as a whole, so that's where we'll start. Afterwards, we'll do an individual dive into each element.

1. The Intro Blurb
2. Class Icons
3. Traits
  3.1. Starting Hit Points
  3.2. Trait: Key Attributes
  3.3. Trait: Starting Dice
  3.4. Trait: Typical Backgrounds
  3.5. Trait: Starting Bonuses
  3.6. Trait: Experience Triggers
4. Starting Weapon
5. Special Abilities
6. Personal Table
7. Background Table
8. Starter Kits
9. Progression Table

If you're like me and love visual references, you can find the numbered elements above on an example spread right here.

1. THE INTRO BLURB

Apocalypse World did it best, but I've always been a fan of intro blurbs for classes, playbooks and even clans (or tribes, traditions, kiths and all the rest of WoD's not-classes). They're often essential in helping my AuDHD-ass pick something to play, breaking that damn decision paralysis. Adding these to TWH was a no-brainer! 

The goal here was to give the reader a quick look into the class' flavour, while also setting the tone for everything that comes after, even for myself. If you liked the intro blurb of a class, odds are you're gonna like its Traits, Special Abilities, starter kits and progression. This is usually the part I write first, and aside from everything else, it's supposed to build some hype. For the reader, that is. I'm definitely not hyping myself up with these. Scout's honor.*

2. CLASS ICONS

Much like the intro blurb, this serves the purpose of letting the reader know the kinds of characters they could reasonably play with any given class, while also potentially giving them something to get excited for. Spotting a reference to one of my favorite characters in an RPG tends to instantly get me in the mood to play a similar character, and I'm hoping this applies to some readers, too.

3. TRAITS

This is a meatier section than the previous ones, and although it carries a lot more weight when it comes to gameplay, I personally find it a lot easier to write. Starting Hit Points, for example, are just a matter of either combining two Attributes, using the class' starting Hit Dice's highest possible result, or comparing that with an Attribute (usually Constitution) and picking the highest/lowest, depending on the class.

Key Attributes are a little trickier, and they represent the two Attributes that always have a chance of being improved when a character levels up — the player rolls a d20 for each, and if the result is higher than the Attribute's current value, they increase it by 1. Players can also roll a third Attribute of their choice, but we're getting sidetracked! Levelling up and progression deserve their own blog post, and this ain't it.

Starting Dice are already outlined in the progression tables (the very first thing I did for every class, back when I first started fiddling with TWH's combat). Want to kick some ass in melee/ranged combat? A higher Attack Die will go a long way towards that. Want to recover from an ass-kicking in a timely fashion? Well, that's what your Hit Dice are for. Luck will get its own blog post in the future, but suffice to say that Luck Dice are pretty versatile; the higher, the better.

Typical Backgrounds are pretty much just flavor. So far, I don't have any plans to meaningfully implement these backgrounds as a mechanic in The Wyvern Hack, and I'm not sure I see the need to. As is, they can give the players some ideas for character concepts, and that's good enough for me.

Starting Bonuses are part of the "ctrl+c + ctrl+v" family, in that they're already available in the progression tables. Still, these can be useful for knowing straight up how much damage you can count on dealing/resisting right out of the gate.

Experience Triggers are the hardest Trait to get right, and they're also something I love doing! Again, I won't get too deep into levelling up and progression here, but you can expect an experience track similar to PbtA and FitD games, which will be filled by hitting your class' triggers once a session. While I'm generally wary of any mechanic that incentivizes players to take certain actions just for the sake of gaining experience (or any other in-game reward), my aim with these was to stay close to what someone playing a certain class will want to do anyway. Fighters, for example, will get experience when they get new scars (something that's more likely for characters on the frontline) and when they win a battle. Limiting trigger activation to once per session also helps prevent intentional experience farming.

4. STARTING WEAPONS

Some players will hate that, while others will love it, but I personally really enjoy randomly generated equipment. The Wyvern Hack doesn't randomly generate every piece of equipment, though (see: starting kits), since this can slow character creation down to a crawl, depending on the amount of items you're generating and the number of tables you're consulting, but a random starting weapon can be a lot of fun, and it might surprise you! Getting a high roll on a starting weapon's damage is a nice treat, after all. If you really hate what you rolled, though, no biggie. All classes have starter kits with extra weapons and/or some coin for you to spend on equipment in-game.

5. SPECIAL ABILITIES

This is where you'll find the very soul of each and every character class. Sure, classes have plenty of differences besides these, but Special Abilities are the things that make them truly unique, presenting the players with the tools through which they'll interact with the world. All of the Fighters' Special Abilities are related to combat, for example, while the Dungeoneer is exclusively focused on utility, exploration and, well, dungeon crawling. These not only communicate what the class will excel at, but also let the players know which class will be better suited to their preferred playstyle.

6. PERSONAL TABLE

My absolute favorite part, right there. These are a combination of a personal question and a d6 table, which will always award the character with something, while also fleshing them out a bit. Giving mechanical weight to these tables is loads of fun, too!

7. BACKGROUND TABLE

While not nearly as involved as the previous step, this is just as fun. The key part here, though, was to give every character a cool hook, while still being open enough to avoid getting boring if you're frequently rolling up characters of the same class. Challenging, sure, but I'd like to think I'm doing okay so far.

8. STARTER KITS

I have a love/hate relationship with these damn kits. They're mostly made to fit typical/iconic character archetypes, but coming up with the archetypes themselves is a pain in the ass. Once I have a clear idea of what I want out of each kit and what they're meant to represent, though, the process becomes surprisingly enjoyable!

9. PROGRESSION TABLE

Back when I was still trying to figure out what The Wyvern Hack's combat was gonna be like, before I even knew this was gonna be a thing at all, the first thing I did for fun was a bunch of progression tables for the more famous classes (Fighter, Spellcaster, Rogue and Cleric). These have changed a little since then, and I've cleaned up some of the math (huge thanks to @BourassaSam for spotting a massive issue with the modifiers), but the work itself is already over and done with.

Design-wise, these aren't a big mystery, right? They were inspired by classic OSR progression tables, and while the contents are different, the purpose remains the same. The most challenging part of making these was preventing character progression from feeling "samey" across the classes. Special Abilities are a big help, of course, but if a Rogue had the same basic progression as a Fighter, then they'd both lose a bit of what makes them special. Luck played a key role in this!

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I'm on the fence on whether this raised more questions than it answered or not, but I hope this helped shed some light on the process behind creating The Wyvern Hack's classes, and on the purpose of each of the aspects we dissected above. The next few parts of this series will probably focus on specific classes (or maybe even heritages/ancestries, who knows), and I'm looking forward to discussing those!

* I've never been a member of the scouts.

I started writing my own fantasy heartbreaker, and it's all Prismatic Wasteland's fault!

The title says it all, really. Have you ever been so inspired by a blogpost that you immediately started writing a brand new elfgame? Because folks, that's where I'm at right now. Prismatic Wasteland's rehabilitation of the To-Hit roll touched on an aspect of TTRPG combat that never quite worked for me. Automatic hits are cool, don't get me wrong, but they often still produce low/no damage hits, depending on the system, and that's almost as unsatisfying as missing. 

The ambiguity of Hit Points only makes things worse, in my experience. Some people see them as a character's health and damage as wounds (which is unfeasible in the long run), but personally, I like them better as Hit Protection, as exemplified by Cairn. This abstraction of how long a character can safely avoid a truly serious hit is much more satisfying to me than actually treating each and every lost point of HP as an injury.

And with that in mind, I started tinkering just like Tony Stark in that damn cave, but instead of scrap, I had pure gold to tinker with. Thanks, Warren.

ATTACK CHECKS

To make an attack check, roll your character's Attack Die. If the result is higher than the opponent's Defense, they lose an amount of HP equal to your base damage. If the roll’s result is lower than their Defense, you only deal half your Base Damage to their HP, rounded down.


Enemy attack checks are made with their Attack Die against the PC’s Base Defense. Rolling above it deals their full Base Damage to the character’s HP, while rolling below it does only half their Base Damage, rounded down.

Sometimes, it will be impossible to overcome the opponent's Defense with your attack die (e.g. d4 against 6 Defense). In this case, just apply half your damage to their HP normally, without rolling dice. The same goes for enemies.

Quite simple, yeah? What I tried to achieve with the rules in the excerpt above was a compromise between to-hit and auto-hit, while removing those pesky whiffs. You're always gonna deal some damage to the enemy's Hit Protection, you're always gonna soften them up a little. Defense, then, isn't a way of negating hits, but an abstraction of how good someone is at delaying the inevitable, and how much their armor can help them with that.

For clarity's sake, Base Damage is determined by adding the character's Attack Bonus (tied to class-based progression) to their weapon's damage. Base Defense works much the same way, adding the character's Defense Bonus to their armor's defense. That, of course, brings us to weapons and armor rules.

WEAPONS, ARMOR AND DURABILITY

To determine a weapon’s damage or a piece of armor’s defense, simply roll its damage/defense die once after purchasing, forging or finding it. The result is not permanent and can be increased by blacksmiths or decreased by excessive use.


At the end of a combat, if you rolled a 1 on any attack check, roll your weapon's Usage Die. If you suffered damage during combat, also roll the Usage Die for your armor and/or shield. Results of 1 to 2 reduce the damage or defense of the equipment corresponding to the die. 


The base price to recover defense points lost by a damaged weapon or armor is equal to ⅓ of its total value, rounded down. The price for improving the damage or defense of a weapon or armor by 1 point is equal to ½ of its total value. Blacksmith skill and special circumstances may increase or decrease both the price and the efficiency of the service.





Have I mentioned how much Prismatic Wasteland's blog influenced this? The coolest part of these rules was lifted straight from his blogpost! I just added durability and some tables. Speaking of which...

Fresh off the layout test!

Now, what use would those rules be without a list of weapons, armor and shield?

Kindly ignore the gibberish placeholder prices, please. I'm postponing those for as long as I can, lmao.

While writing this post, I realized I have yet to translate my armor and shield tables to English. Oops. I might update this later with them. Or not! My memory is rubbish.

INITIATIVE, DYING AND TACTICAL DEPTH

If you're curious about how I'd handle Initiative with these rules, then look no further than my previous blogpost! I'm still not 100% set on how I want to handle death, though, but one thing's for sure: lingering wounds after 0 HP are gonna be a thing, with "negative" HP being added to a roll on a lingering wounds table.

As for tactical depth, well, those of you who follow me on Twitter may be aware of my plans for a big two-parter post on expanded combat maneuvers and magic rules. Those are still happening, rest assured, and they're gonna play a big part in whatever comes out of this lapse in judgement (which has a tentative name already).

THE WYVERN HACK? REALLY?

I swear to god this came to me in a dream or something. It's (probably) not final. It's not original at all. I'm not even sure if it's good! 

So, what is The Wyvern Hack? Above all else, it's a marriage between my two favourite playstyles. NSR sensibilities with a PbtA bent. It's also a collection of procedures and random tables I made throughout the years, and an opportunity to put my own spin on some classic elfgame classes (check out the Dungeoneer!). And it's yet another fantasy heartbreaker with a generic name.

Still. A name is a powerful thing. It gives things purpose. Drives them forward. It inspires. If this project has any chance in hell of taking flight, that's what I'll need to be: driven and inspired.

And you know what? I always thought wyverns were much cooler than dragons anyway.

Momentum Initiative: because combat can be strategic *and* fast!

The Initiative discourse is doing the rounds on Twitter again, but rather than chime in with a thread, I opted for something a little more permanent. Still, this will be a quick one!

Let's get the obvious out of the way: individual initiative feels like what @SprintingOwl aptly named dice clog. Side-based initiative, meanwhile, tends to sacrifice some tactical depth for speed. Popcorn initiative, while cool, can be easily abused. All of this has been discussed to death, but what about solutions?

Personally, I'm fond of what I've taken to calling Momentum Initiative. It's pretty simple:

• At the start of each round, roll a d6 to determine which side gets to act first (1-3, it's the PCs, 4-6, it's the enemies).
• If the player characters got the first round, they get to pick which PC will act first. If not, the Referee picks an enemy to act first.
• Whoever got to act first will then pick who goes next, regardless of side — a PC could pass the torch to another PC or to an enemy, and vice-versa.

"Wait a sec, V.V.", you might be thinking, "that's just a mix of popcorn and side-based initiative!". And hell, you'd be right... that is, if it wasn't for The Twist™ below!

• All enemies start the combat with a number of Momentum charges equal to their HD.
• Momentum charges can be spent to 1. act immediately, 2. inflict Disadvantage to an attack roll, 3. activate powerful abilities*, or 4. take an extra action at the end of the round.
• Enemies regain charges when 1. they get a critical, 2. they kill a character, 3. they succeed in a morale check, and 4. when they are attacked by multiple PCs in succession. Only a single charge can be recovered each round, no matter how many times this is triggered. Enemies can never have a higher number of charges than their HD.

The addition of Momentum is meant to prevent the players from abusing popcorn initiative and turning it into just another version of side-based initiative. In my experience, this actually gives them an incentive to avoid ganging up on a single enemy, lest they fill them with Momentum charges. 

Now, one might argue that these Momentum charges are yet another thing for the Referee to track, and while that is indeed true, the tactical depth they add to combat can be worth the extra bookkeeping. Besides, if you're already tracking HP, this shouldn't be such an increase in cognitive load, anyway.

* I'm very fond of making a d6 list of possible actions an enemy might take in combat, which usually includes lower odds for activating specific abilities than for attacking or doing some weird, enemy-specific shit. Momentum allows enemies to spend charges to trigger these abilities whenever they want, though, bypassing the bad odds. If you're not using anything even remotely similar to this, please ignore that option!

Better Rules for Maritime Adventures

To be brutally honest, I don't think I've ever read any OSR/NSR rules for naval combat and seafaring turns that didn't feel like a) they belonged in an ancient wargame or b) the designer's heart just wasn't in it, and they just wanted to get over and done with that part of the game as soon as possible. And as a fan of vikings and pirates, I always felt like this was such a disservice to something that could be just as fun as regular overland travel or dungeon exploration, both of which have been done superbly in several OSR/NSR games. 

The great thing about the OSR and the NSR alike (I'm still trying to figure out whether there really is a need for such a distinction, but I digress), though, is that when something hasn't been made yet, there's this strong encouragement to go ahead and do it yourself. So I went and did exactly that. Now, the title is presumptuous as hell, I know, but I really do believe these rules are pretty cool. They were heavily inspired by classic dungeon crawling procedures (such as OSE's) and by Apocalypse World 2e's vehicle rules and moves — a weird combination, for sure, but then again, most of my stuff is a mix of classic OSR and PbtA anyway. 

Time to dive in, mateys.

BUILDING YOUR SHIP

All seafaring vessels are described through the following attributes: Size, Speed, Handling and Hull. By default, every vessel has a score of 0 in these attributes. A ship’s Size category also affords it with a number of Armaments and Improvements, as seen below.

Size 0: Boats or rafts, for example. 1 Improvement, no Armaments.
Size 1: Small longships or sailing ships. 2 Improvements, 1 Armament.
Size 2: Transport ships or small galleys. 3 Improvements, 1 Armament.
Size 3: Large longships or sailing ships. 4 Improvements, 2 Armaments.
Size 4: Large warships or large galleys. 4 Improvements, 3 Armaments.
Size 5: Heavy warships or longships. 5 Improvements, 3 Armaments.

Any ship larger than Size 5 gets +1 Armaments for each number above that. Armaments can always be traded for further Improvements, and vice-versa.

Improvements are used to increase the ship’s attributes (except Size). Aside from its use in naval actions, Speed is also factored as an abstraction of how many hexes (or how many increments of 6mi) a vessel can cross in a day. Much the same way, Hull can be used as an abstraction for the ship’s maximum number of passengers and its cargo limit, with each point of Hull counting as 10 to 50 passengers (crew included) and 20 to 100 tons at most.

For the purposes of naval combat, Size counts as Hit Dice and should be rolled to determine the ship’s Hit Protection. Armaments start at d6 damage, but one can spend an Improvement point to increase that damage by a step. Speed is used to determine combat Initiative, and ships with the same Speed rating act simultaneously. Speed can also be used to determine the amount of squares a ship can cross in a combat grid per turn, if one is being used.

NAVAL ACTIONS

There are a number of actions a ship’s crew can take during their turns at sea. These actions can be undertaken by any member of the crew, but it is a good idea to assign functions among the party, such as captain, boarding leader, navigator, engineer and quartermaster.

• Undertake a journey: For each six miles of travel, the crew should make the following checks: Dexterity, to deftly keeping their ship on the right path, Wisdom, to properly determine what path that is, and Charisma, to keep all spirits high.

Failing any of these checks results in a 2 in 6 chance of triggering an encounter (DEX or WIS) or an event (CHA). In addition, failing the Dexterity check also halves the distance traveled, while failing the Wisdom check has a 2 in 6 risk of leading the ship the wrong way (roll a d6 to determine direction: 1. north, 2. northeast, 3. southeast, 4. south, 5. southwest, 6. northwest). 

Encounters should be rolled on an appropriate maritime encounters table, while events function much like a normal encounter, but with a table of situations pertaining only to the ship’s crew and their circumstances.
 

• Navigate perilous seas: In order to safely navigate troubled waters or obstacles, a crew member must roll under either their Dexterity or Wisdom, whichever is higher. They subtract the ship’s Handling from the result.
 

• Attack: When naval combat is initiated, the crew can make one attack for each of their Armaments. Crew members operating ballistic weapons must succeed at a Dexterity check, while ramming requires a Constitution check from the navigator in order to prevent their own ship from suffering any damage. Unconventional weapons such as Greek fire should trigger Wisdom checks. 

Although the brunt of the damage is always suffered by the ship itself, the enemy vessel’s crew always has a 2 in 6 chance of individually suffering half of the total damage dealt to their ship.
 

• Defensive maneuvers: When trying to avoid or minimize the effects of an enemy ship’s attacks, the navigator can check Dexterity to outmaneuver the attacks, or Constitution to bear the brunt of it. Succeeding at a Dexterity check ignores the damage entirely, while succeeding at a Constitution check halves it and eliminates the possibility of damage spillover to the crew (2 in 6 chance of individually suffering half of the total damage received by the ship, as above).  

Defensive maneuvers can also be used to avoid boarding. To do this, the navigator must pass a Dexterity check.

• Board: All it takes to board a ship is being close enough to it and passing a Dexterity check (done by the navigator). Once a ship is boarded by a crew, maritime adventure rules cease to be the focus, being replaced by regular combat procedures in the case of a fight or by a diplomacy challenge.

• Emergency repairs: When plugging holes, tying ropes or putting out fires, a crew member can check Intelligence to devise a workaround for the ship’s current maladies. Succeeding at that check restores d8 HP to the ship.

• Overtake & outdistance: When trying to overtake or outdistance a ship or sea creature outside naval combat, the navigator checks Dexterity if relying on their vessel’s Speed, or Wisdom if betting on its Handling. They subtract either Speed or Handling from the result.

SAMPLE SHIPS

Below are some examples of ships built with these rules.

• Skeid longship

Size: 3
Speed: 2
Handling: 1
Hull: 2 (45 passengers, 80 tons at most)
Hit Protection: 17 (3 HD)
Armaments: Archers (d6), spearmen (d6), ram (d6)

• Man-o'-war

Size: 5
Speed: 1
Handling: 2
Hull: 3 (200 passengers, 300 tons at most)
Hit Protection: 28 (5 HD)
Armaments: Heavy ballista (d8), light ballista (d6), ram (d6)

• Trading cog

Size: 2
Speed: 2
Handling: 1
Hull: 2 (60 passengers, 240 tons at most)
Hit Protection: 10 (2 HD)
Armaments: Archers (d6)

ON ABSTRACTIONS

There are a lot of abstractions here, and that's intended. Personally, I feel like trying to simulate the exact speed with which a ship travels in a good or bad day is a losing battle. There are just too many variables, and rather than making the game feel grounded, this just grinds it to a halt. At the end of the day, those "exact" measurements are still abstractions. They're just crunchier and less intuitive than they need to be, oftentimes for the sake of appearing realistic.

And with that said, I'll leave y'all with an epiphany I had while writing this post: these rules can be just as easily used for airships, with little to no adjustments.

Fair winds and following seas to all!

Diplomacy procedures, bonding with NPCs and dating sims

My favourite thing about OSR and PbtA games is the way both of those support me as a GM/Master of Ceremonies with tangible mechanics, lessening the burden and the responsibility of choosing everything myself. Random tables, moves, principles, procedures — they're all incredibly useful when it comes to adjudicating what happens next. With that said, most OSR-leaning games leave a lot to be desired when it comes to diplomacy, negotiations and social interactions in general. 

Here's a little something I came up with to help with that.

WORKING ON THAT ATTITUDE

Reaction checks have always been the most important tool for social interactions in the OSR space, as far as I'm aware, and I'm not about to throw away the baby away with the bathwater. Reaction is great, though I feel like there's a lot more that can be done with it — like, say, Diplomacy challenges. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The term Reaction implies something far too immediate and transient, so let's swap it for Attitude, first. I swear it's not a meaningless change, though! Pinky promise. 

Now, let's look at a basic Attitude table I put together for our Attitude checks.

It's a lot like a Reaction table, and that's on purpose. Like I said, Reaction is great! Now that we have an Attitude table, though, we can go ahead and talk about Diplomacy challenges.

DIPLOMACY CHALLENGES

Rather than being a fixed, immutable thing, Attitude can be altered by Diplomacy challenges, though the PCs will need to offer a compelling argument, a bribe, a promise or even grovel at the target’s feet — that is, any and all forms of diplomacy can trigger this procedure. 

These challenges are comprised of one or more Parley checks. These work like normal Charisma checks, and although I'm partial to roll-under, I'm sure they'd work fine with DCs. Certain NPCs or creatures will react better (or worse) to certain actions, and the GM can apply Advantage or Disadvantage accordingly.  

The exact number of Parley checks one can make during a Diplomacy challenge is determined by the target's initial Attitude, which also influences how much you can sway them; see the table below. 

No matter how many PCs are involved in a particular Diplomacy challenge, the one with the highest Charisma will always make the checks, although the others may still contribute with modifiers and/or Advantage. It's up to preference.

Keep in mind that Diplomacy challenges are not always a possibility. It’s impossible to be diplomatic against NPCs and creatures that are outright Hostile, but even Adverse, Suspicious and Neutral characters may still prove unreceptive to negotiations, as dictated by their natures and/or their current circumstances.

SOCIAL LINKS BY ANY OTHER NAME

Players will latch on to the most unexpected NPCs, so when that happens, it's good to have a way of tracking where they stand with each other. Cue our next procedure: Bonds. In order to track a Bond, we need to establish an NPC's Likes, Dislikes and Wants — that is, something they approve of, something they disapprove of, and something they desire. You can get as specific or as abstract as you want with these, though specificity makes signaling these to your PCs easier.

Whenever the PCs do something that matches the NPC's likes, you can adjust their Attitude positively. Likewise, when the PCs' actions displease the NPC, you can adjust their Attitude negatively. Helping or hindering them with their wants has an even bigger effect on the NPC's Attitude towards the PCs, naturally. For ease of reference, consult the table below.

It is possible to completely break a Bond with an NPC, though that should only happen through particularly serious actions and events. When a Bond is broken, the NPC’s Attitude is immediately changed to Suspicious, and the party will never be able to increase it past Neutral again. 

Some actions may solidify a Bond between the party and an NPC. When a Strong Bond is formed, any and all negative Attitude adjustments are limited to -1. It is up to the Game Master to decide what exactly may lead to the creation of a Strong Bond, but Likes, Dislikes and Wants can act as indicators. Any time a Bond would go above Friendly (that is, over 12), the GM may also decide to turn it into a Strong Bond. 

If a Strong Bond is ever broken, it is permanently adjusted to Adverse. It’s impossible to break a Strong Bond with an Attitude higher than Neutral, no matter how dire the circumstances. Similarly, if a Strong Bond’s Attitude ever drops beneath 9 (Neutral), it becomes a normal Bond instead. It is up to the GM whether it’s possible to turn it into a Strong Bond again.

PFFT, WHO NEEDS PLAYTESTING

I do. No, seriously, I need to playtest this, because right now, it's just a jumble of ideas that may work beautifully, may turn into a huge chore, or may just end up turning my elfgames into dating sims (which would be a plus in my book, tbh). Once I get some mileage out of these procedures, I'll either update this post with the results, or make a new post altogether on the subject. 

Until then, if anyone ends up using any of this, I'd love to hear about it!

And if your campaign becomes a dating sim, please know that I am not sorry.