New Salem - Renaissance: Resources

OK, everyone remember my discussion on rewards for capturing villains and money from merchandizing in Villains & Vigilantes 2.1? Well, going over the rules for Knowledge Areas I came across this, which I have absolutely no recollection of ever using

By these rules, a normal 1st level 25 year old PC would be making 10 Intelligence *10 Charisma *25 age *1 level = $2,500 a year part time or $25,000 full time, in 1982 dollars (that would be about $80,000 today). Oh if only. Alas, only 10% (their intelligence as percentage) can be saved per year, so again $2,500. Apparently the confidence you get beating up criminals makes you confident enough to go for that promotion, as Level factors into this. 

All told this is just strange, especially since (as discussed in Organizations)

which is $15,600 per year, or less than a perfectly ordinary person on a perfectly ordinary full time job. Maybe the organization has Dental. 

It's the next paragraph that's fascinating. 

After all of the discussion about how you can't merchandize and how you're supposed to track reward money and how you'll have a skimpy trophy room, here's some math on how much you as a super-hero have on hand without having to borrow from your secret ID. So our unexceptional 1st level hero has $2,500 at any one time of Resources. This, the money on hand for super heroics, is the only number we need.

That being said, I note how rules as writ the Prejudice limitation continues to hose you because you have to keep your Charisma score middle of the road, so poor Peter Parker has his 24 Intelligence but its only multiplied by his 10 Charisma, kept low to keep cops from shooting at him. But if you decide to keep the villains super-weapons in your trophy room, your secret IDs salary goes down....

As I said, I don't remember ever using these rules in play... but i do remember using these once: 

Graham was creating a PC not based on him, and the rolls were Transport and Inheritor. His power set was built around a transformable vehicle/power armor set up with a distinct anime design: he could be rocketing along on his bike and then jump, with the bike changing into power armor around him. He ended up being a taxi driver who was a vigilante fighting crime with information picked up in his cab... who inherited billions and built his robotech bike that he keeps in the trunk of his cab to facilitate his war on crime. 

More tomorrow on how I intend to actually calculate your Resource Capacity. 

New Salem: Renaissance Mechanics - Knowledge Areas

Knowledge Areas are, as I pointed out earlier. are highly reminiscent of the Secondary Skills table from the AD&D 1E DMG

It's clear we're looking at the same kind of idea here: things your character knows how to do that are separate from your class. (Note the #60 outcome for V&V, one of my favorite throwaway jokes to the reader.) AD&D is more limiting in what it can do because it as seen as a secondary aspect to the character Class, which already carries professional skills.

Whereas V&V is much more open ended for GM adjudication, because the only "class" in V&V is Super-Hero, and the only professional abilities that run with that are combat and training related, other than open inventing options if you stick within your particular heroes affect/gimmick. 

These are a great, open ended mechanic that feels very OSR, but can easily be improved with some newer mechanics. 

The 3rd edition of V&V, Mighty Protectors, has much the same table but has examples of the types of careers the character has inside that knowledge area. It's not longer a broad skill in medicine, but a prompt to pick a career with medical aspects (Surgeon, Doctor, Nurse, Paramedic, etc.), with clearer rules in task resolution that the task is something anyone can try but your career gives you an advantage you get a +3 to your target, if it's something where untrained people have a chance having the career gives you a regular roll and everyone else is at -3 to your target, and if its something where training is essential having the career rolls normally and everyone else needs a roll of 1. That's clean enough, but it also uses a universal task resolution system, which I kinda want to avoid, and the 15% difference feels too small. 

The way I've generally handled things is that having the Knowledge Area make tests one level easier. If it's something that CAN'T be done without training, now a d% vs Intelligence or Charisma is needed. If it's very difficult to do without training (d% test) it becomes easier for the trained person (d% vs. characteristic *3), and so on, until things that are a d20 save for normal people don't need a save for the trained professional. 

I do like asking the player to further define their knowledge area into a career, but I think I'll take Wade Rockett's recommendation for 13th Age Backgrounds. Those are also open ended, but are best used as phrases that evoke a broader penumbra. Rather than having "Minstrel" my daughter's Bard has "Wandering minstrel who has been thrown (or chased) out of every port and waterfront on the Isles"; the background now gives a much clearer sense of what she's done, and that it could be used for reading the tolerance level of crowds and escaping angry mobs. 

Requesting that phrase long explanation of the career gives the player more control over their career's penumbra, making it clearer to the GM and player what the boundaries of their careers are. This is one of the few places where I'm willing to slot some world building authority to the players, since it's confined to character creation. Once that's done, the GM is the interpreter of the background's penumbra. 

New Salem: Renaissance Mechanics - Intelligence to Invention, what to keep to and what to change

Now we come to the question of how we integrate things thus far: 

1. All characters have the basic characteristics of CHARISMA and INTELLIGENCE.
2. these are used to interpret the effectiveness of  their KNOWLEDGE AREAS, which themselves have broad penumbras of interpretation. 
3. For situations in play where the player has requested the character attempt something where a) the answer is not obvious and b) there is not already a subsystem for this, TESTS can be made against basic characteristics. 
1. These are done by rolling at or below the characteristic on d20 (for easy tests), on d% (for hard tests, or against the characteristic *3 on d% (for moderate tests). 
2. The difficulty of a TEST is lowered if the penumbra of any of the characters KNOWLEDGE AREAS overlap with the test. 
4. Some combination of CHARISMA, INTELLIGENCE and KNOWLEDGE AREAS  determines the characters RESOURCES, which are the money and equipment used to support their super-heroing. 
1. The character is assumed to have sufficient funds for their secret identity to survive at a logical level of comfort, but that those funds are not available for their war to restore New Salem.
5. Characters can always make logical uses of their SUPER-ABILITES within that abilities penumbra. These uses might require SPECIAL ATTACKS (two successful rolls to hit are required), or TESTS against basic characteristics.
6. Characters have 1/10th their INTELLIGENCE per LEVEL in INVENTING POINTS. These are "brilliant ideas" that the characters can permanently spend for a variety of effects.  These include
1. Succeed in any INTELLIGENCE based puzzle or test which is stymieing the player. This is the player spending a permanent resource to indicate where their super-hero is smarter then they are. 
2. Develop a one-use application of their SUPER-ABILITIES outside their penumbra, with the GM permission. These still require SPECIAL ATTACKS or TESTS, but if those fail the character does not lose the INVENTING POINT. 
3. Develop a ONE-SHOT INVENTION, or a physical device that improves their ability to fight a criminal or resolve a specific problem, with GM permission. This one shot invention will operate at least once (though successful use might require an ATTACK or a TEST) but if it isn't successful the character gets the INVENTING POINT back.
4. Develop a permanent application of their SUPER-ABILITIES. This takes RESOURCES as determined by the GM, usually training time, a coach, things to practice on, etc. 
1. During the LEVEL in which they are developed, these new permanent applications require an INVENTING TEST of d% vs. the characters INTELLIGENCE (or CHARISMA for magical effects) *3 when used. 
2. Failure on this roll means the permanent application doesn't work as effectively as the character would hope, indicating the character's learning curve. (Exactly how the ability misfunctions is up to the GM, but if it fails completely it should not cost the character their action, though perhaps a high movement cost.)
3. These new permanent applications either make it so the character no longer needs to make a TEST or SPECIAL ATTACK to get a certain effect, or it broadens the penumbra of the power. Each new permanent application should expand the power's effectiveness by 1/4 to 1/3rd. 
5. Develop NEW GEAR that they can carry with them and use as part of their crimefighting. If the GM approves the idea, this takes RESOURCES as determined by the GM, usually raw materials, energy sources, complex circuitry, (or their magical equivalents), etc.
1. A successful invention requires an INVENTING TEST of d% vs. INTELLIGENCE *3 assuming that the invention 
1. Fits inside the penumbra of one or more of the characters KNOWLEDGE AREAS, and it fits inside the AFFECT/GIMMICK of the rest of the character's SUPER-ABILITES. If it does not the GM might disallow it entirely, increase the resources, or increase the difficulty.
2. Only a single INVENTING TEST is made during the invention process, and NEW GEAR will not fail in the field. 
3. NEW GEAR should be about 1/4 to 1/3rd as useful as a SUPER ABILITY. Repeated inventing attempts can increase that effectiveness, until eventually the NEW GEAR is as powerful as a SUPER-ABILITY. 
4. Unless there is a compelling reason otherwise, NEW GEAR operates like a device or magic item, with its own external power and ability to be broken or taken away. 

I think this covers it... Now I just need to STOP using CAPITAL LETTERS and develop rules for Resources and better define Knowledge Areas.

New Salem: Renaissance Mechanics - Are Inventing Points the First Power Stunts?

No. That was easy. But they were SOOOOOOO close. 

Power stunts were one of the, roughly, half dozen paradigm changing ideas that Jeff Grubb implemented in Marvel Super Heroes, presumably because he was bored one day before lunch and thought it might re-align the entire concept of RPG design. It's the genre-mirroring idea that that the players can develop new uses for their powers on the fly, with mechanics supporting it integrated into the rest of the character improvement rules. And it blew our minds. 

Now, arguments can, and have, been made that 

1. Champions was always supposed to work like this. Ron Edwards argues this in his 202 Champions Now saying that the point costs powers were originally designed as sorts of mechanical hard points in a highly flexible system, and that every PC should have been considered to have what is now considered a Variable Power Pool framework, and that everything after Champions III is a failed branch of evolution. Some parts of the argument are compelling - ditching the genre focused short skill list for the "universal" one used across Hero games, for example - but even if that's how it was played at Ron's table as a kid the game rules didn't clarify that in any way. Powers cost points; using powers in new ways cost new points; the Variable Power Pool rules were codified as a way to let people change where those points went, consistent with the Champions philosophy. 
2. V&V was also always meant to work like this in the very broad OSR philosophy of "well, you can generate flame, what can someone who could generate flame do here" with a combination of Special Attacks, Training, and, yes, Inventing rules covering for anything that isn't on the character sheet. Again, the text doesn't read that way. It doesn't outlaw it, but nothing speaks to it, and the rules for modifying, expanding, reducing, or stacking powers all discuss these in terms of Design at Start, what ends up on the character sheet. The sort of free wheeling modification that Power Stunts represented aren't discussed, and you would think that if the training rules covered Animal Training (which in my 40 years of play has never happened) you would think "changing your powers" wouldn't be in the catch all of "whatever". 

Of course I've spoken to lots of people who, after Marvel Super Heroes came out, implemented Power Stunt rules into V&V using the Inventing rules. Because they were RIGHT THERE. As with Inventing Points being proto-Hero Points, the whole Inventing process was proto-Power Stunts that just needed a push. 

Using Inventing as Power Stunts varied from table to table of course, but it generally involved. 

1. If this was a single use "Thor spins his hammer fast enough to act as a cyclotron, changing the elements that Absorbing Man is made of" then, as with One Use Inventions, you spend the Inventing Point, the GM sets the invention resources as "make a special attack with X power" or "Make roll against X characteristic" and maybe "spend a bunch of Power Points because this is exhausting" and Robert is your Mother's Brother. Maybe get the inventing point back if this doesn't work due to a missed roll (In which case try again) or definitely get it back because the GM thinks your idea is, um, less than Brilliant.
2. If you want to instead have the stunt be a permanent add to one of your powers, the rules are the same as for inventing, except that the device being modified is the PC. The requirement becomes all the time in the Danger Room training, tweaking the formula that gave you your powers, needing to get a magical artifact or complete some other resource quest, etc. Make the inventing roll, see what happens. If you do this time and again, after 3-4 uses this ability becomes as powerful as a full power, but as with the rest of the inventing rules, Tiger-Man using training to get variations on tiger powers is more likely than Tiger Man being able to fire lasers. As a DM I would insist that the Powers Invention is an expansion of an existing power, and not just "and now I can fly!"
3. The invention point spent on a one use power continues to fund turning that one use power into a permanent one, but the character needs to follow all the rest of the inventing rules. 
4. Does making a power stunt permanent require a level of Training? I used to say "yes", and mimicked the Power Stunt rules by asking the PC to make 3 successful uses in the field and then a level of training to make it permanent. These days, I would say "No". Training is one character resource, Inventing Points are another. Maybe if you want a bigger divide between Device based heroes (who can would use use the Invention rules) and Powers based heroes, then yes. It's a flavor of play. 

Tomorrow we close out how New Salem: Renaissance will be using these rules. 

Emirikol and Building a Setting from the Seeds

Last week I listed the 9 issues of Dungeon I had on my shelf, plus stuff I pulled from the WotC website, for the 35 adventures I had to seed the setting. There is a lot of space for complaint about Dungeon Adventures content in how ill designed it is for picking up the adventures for use at the table. That’s been a big design goal of the OSR, and I see the point, but it’s not what I’m using it for right now. Instead, I’m working in advance to steal the extensive backstories and weave them together with minimal work.

 For example, in a fit of high octane lazy I decided that Emirikol is called 'The Chaotic' because it's 5 or 6 smaller townships that grew together to take advantage of the port. This means 5 or 6 different architectural styles encased in 5 or 6 different walled areas, with one big wall around the outside. Now I don’t have to change the names of the non-generic towns in the adventure notes - all of these 'cities' are just parts of the big, main city. This means

·       No city is mentioned in Nightshade but it’s clear the culture has wealthy noble families using interpersonal relationships to undercut each other, and cursed Wizard willing to be hired to make potions in this. Wizards are superficially aloof but still involved. In Asflag’s Unintentional Emporium we have four wizards’ towers in Serin. populated by the slightly mad Asflag, Ednoc the Short, Mirim Galeweather, & Tullinen Grimm. So Asflag (or some version of it because I want to avoid random syllable collection names) is Nightshades first name, and since Grimm is presented as someone who will charm the PCs to get them on his side, he’s the one who cursed Nightshade. Serin becomes one of the quarters of Emirikol, likely the most tradesman-y district. Wealthy conspiring against each other continues in For a Lady’s Honor where there’s blackmail for sexual favors, so we now know a decent amount about the wealthy in the chaotic city. Finally, the Legerdemain theater is supposed to be in a prosperous part of a big city and include a wizard villain, a perfect fit for here.

·       The Serpents Tooth takes place in the port quarter of Scornbul, “where even the muggers travel in pairs” and that captures the feel of the city well but doesn’t have a map of the areas as everything is focused on one inn. A Lady’s Honor relies on a delightfully non-descript thieves guild. House of Cards has two rival thieves’ guilds – the Night Masks and the Shore Patrol – in Westgate, but the guild in Lady’s Honor is now the Shore Patrol. I like the name Scornbul more than Westgate, so there you go. Westgate is a small community inside Scornbul, leading to whatever is west. (Swamps. It’s swamps.) The action in Mad God’s Key starts in a nearly lawless part of a city and moves to some docks before dealing with a small thieves guild (the Green Dagger Gang, who pays tribute to the Shore Patrol to stay semi-autonomous) and then to the mountains. Much of that action will take place in Scornbul.

·       Povero is a quarter full of merchant families for Matchmakers and the victims having sizable manor houses; big enough for landscaped lakes and small herds of goat to keep the grass down. (I am seriously considering having this whole adventure be smallfolk).  This is the south end of the city, and may or may not be outside the walls while still being considered part of Emirkol. Ultimately I decided this name wasn’t evocative enough so I changed it to Orchid. It is the flower of Emirikol (growing from the midden that is Scornbul)

·       Ferrantino from The Lost Library is a quarter made of marble and dedicated to learning, with the library and its loremasters dominating the area. It’s the only part of the city completely extant from the Chaos invasion, as much of the wood and stone structures were destroyed. There are tunnels underneath the library leading to somewhere with chaos beasts use to inadvertently break into the Library basements. The deeply strange Last of the Iron House in theory revolves around the city of Mirago, but at no point are the PCs there: the adventure is all in seaside caves a distance from the city. That makes it easy to have these be caves under Ferrnatino, linking the adventures and moving the villains plans into the city. The inaccessible wizards tower form Ministry of Winds should be here as well, continuing the wizards tower themes from Serin. Given this design it has to lie on the city’s east side, closest to the mountains.

·       Further south of Povero are smallfolk farms that are the breadbasket of the city. This territory is Girdley Crossing, from Pearlman’s Curiosity, and maybe Grimm or one of the other wizards is the “villain”? Huddle Farm is also there, and one aristocrat PC will have that as a tenant farm. In any event, Gridley Crossing is now the place the PCs will have to protect even if it is embarrassing. Encounter in the Wildwood takes place on a forest trail; given we have the four quadrants already spoken for in terrain, I think ‘The Wildwood’ is a modest forest inside the territory of Gridley Crossing that houses a small chaos crypt (The Fountain of Health?) that is the source of the leprechaun, the nilbog, and the various critters of the Wildwood. Since Troll Bridge takes place among Gnome communities the bridge has to be here.

Now to lay out parts of the map that aren’t the city proper:

·       Some distance to the east in Tortles of the Purple Sage part 2 there’s an inland trading post and passages to three communities unrecovered from the chaos invasion. This may change the time since the recovery, or that these communities were too tainted for some reason, or as evidence of the republic’s lack of focus that these haven’t been recovered.

·       The abandoned town of Ravensglass in Light of Lost Souls, whose river had silted over completely, with its lighthouse, lies to the east as well, as it follows the theme of abandoned locations that could be recovered by the Republic taking steps to do so.

·       There’s the coastal town of Ranaan from In Defense of the Law, which we’re going to say is east from the city, on the far side of the mountain range. The mountain range should be protecting this place from the heavy weather that effects Emirikol, but at some point it won’t due to chaos. Ranann has ‘prospered’ due to the collapse of Ravensglass, but it depended on goods from the lost cities of the Purple Sage.  

·       There has to be a mountain range because lots of adventures take place in such places, including Mountain Sanctuary, At the Spottle Parlor, Hermes Bridge, Changling, The Alchemist’s Eyrie, and House of Harpies. That mountain range ends in the Sparrock peninsula, where the Wounded Worm takes place.

·       By the Wayside takes place in a swamp and has long been a favorite of mine for atmosphere and its clever use of a hag, one of my favorite monsters. So, the west of the city is swampland.  A Wreck Ashore also takes place in a swamp, so that’s easy.

·       There’s a whole state of Interlaken ruled by religious theocrats in Granite Mountain Prison. I like the idea of a Lawful Evil community inside the Republic, which is focused on Law over Chaos but not always Good over Evil. Thematically this needs to be south, between the PCs and the capital.