HB Notes: Cultures, References, Combat Engine

[Judging__Eagle]

I've decided that a bronze-age where the age of steam happened being part of Earth's history is more where I want to go. In the modern day; the magical apocalypse already happened; and players live in a quantum/magic-punk present. Where incredibly arbitrary seeming things (like 'magic' occur), but there are known principles for why it happens; and some people take the risk of transformation; but only about 1/10,000 actually is a Werewolf. The rest become lobotimized, rabid, animals that die within 24 hours.

Remixing a pile of stuff already from these boards; most of it Frank Trollmans (Warp Cult on how to plan city campaigns; Horror After Sundown on how to look at actual engine and factions; Fantasy Kitchensink Species, Dominions 3, Dead Man's Hand, and the old Elemental Nations work Frank wrote up; The D&D Tomes on how to consider being a Hobo-Adventurer; and Assymetric Threat on ideas on how to think about people psi-warring across Earth's electromagnetic field (the matrix, hacking), and looking at warparty scale tactical strategy/operations/tactical wargames).

I've been finding that the above hinges a lot better together than apart; and each brings different elements to building the sort of framework that Fantasy Heartbreakers love to have (like tactical wargames, and urban control), but are terrible for writing out (like magic, and species).

The fact that Frank loves the d6 Shadowrun engine also helps.

However, I've had to reluctantly reintroduce the d20, d4, d8, and d12 to regulate the "rock paper scissors" elements of combat.

Basically, each creature rolls an amount of dice equal to the rating that they have in said dice: a d6 is for strikes, d20 for defenses, d4 for grapples, d8 for stances, and d12 for tools.

Each player in the combat is trying to match their opponents next dice, with the d6 and d4 counting as x2 it's value. The d12 can be applied as a wild, against either the d20, or the d8.

The reasoning is based on the following; each dice represents a platonic solid; and also a state of matter; solid (earth)(6), liquid (water)(20), plasma (fire)(4), gas (air)(8), light (spirit)(12). This comes from both Hellenic and Buhhdist philosophy; and I can't trace a more accurate origin than those two sources. Possibly post Gobekli Tepe, but possibly much, much, much, later.

Each of those elements corresponds with: Strikes [d6], Defense [d20]; Grapples [d4], Stance [d8]; Tools [d12].

Right now, a character will get an amount of dice in each of the first four, based on their four basic traits; and a rating in Tools equal to their Edge/Flow.

Using Stances vs Strikes is acceptable; as is Defenses vs Grapples; Tools can apply against any of the above; so it's rating is commensurately a lot lower; and is still damned powerful at 3 dice for a Spotlight/Luminary character.