Spes Magna Games

Musical Interlude

For the past twelve letters, the world of The Boogie Knights of the Round Table (BKotRT) has been in many ways comparable to the real world of the seventh and eighth decades of the twentieth century. Here’s where things get a little bit weird. Magic, psionics, alien, and super-powers exist in BKotRT. In order to see how these fantastical abilities work within the context of the rules, we need a new sample character. Fortunately, Christopher wants to play one of these amazing heroes. He gets an index card, a pencil, and spends his points. Here’re the results:

Uriah Gandalfini
Kung-Fu d4, Brains d10, Cool d6
Progressive Rock Wizard d10, High-Brow Lyricist d6

With his Progressive Rock Wizard quality, Uriah is capable of a wide variety of magical feats that revolve around mythological references, strange key changes, and piercing shrieks. Let’s put Uriah in some situations to see how his sorcerous rock powers work.

A trio of goons chase Uriah across the rooftop of a hotel. Uriah sees the edge of the roof coming up fast. Darkness yawns on the other side of roof’s edge. Without slowing down, Uriah leaps, calling upon the wings of Icarus to assist him. Christopher rolls Kung-Fu plus Progressive Rock Wizard, or d4+d10. The GM sets the difficulty number (DN) at 10. It’s a long way down and across to the roof of the nearest building. Christopher just makes the roll, and Uriah flies on shimmering wings trailing rainbow sparks to land safely on the roof of the Chinese restaraunt across the alley. The goons skid to a halt at the roof’s edge above, none too happy about losing Uriah.

A few moments later, Uriah is on the street, head down and alert. He sees the swirling red and blue lights of a cop car reflected off the buildings ahead. Knowing that the corrupt cops he’s been investigating have been alerted, Uriah pauses. There’s nowhere to hide. He leans against a brick wall and hums the chorus from his song about Pluto’s cap of invisibility. The police in the car match their die roll against Uriah’s Cool plus Progressive Rock Wizard. Uriah wins, and the police pass by without spotting him.

The process for extended actions would work in a similar manner. Uriah could call upon the cacophony of chaos can attack a foe’s sense of decency. Rolls would be made, totals compared, and the appropriate damage inflicted. Mental and alien powers work in much the same as described above. A Grizzled Mentalist d8 or an Alien Intelligence Possessing a Go-Go Dancer d6 could use their respective qualities for various feats that fit those themes.

I’m considering making hero points part of the requirement for such versatile feats, but I’m also not convinced that’s necessary. Other qualities can be versatile as well, and it’s possible the instinct to impose an additional burden on supernatural/superhuman qualities should be ignored.

Tags: A to Z 2015, Boogie Knights

Musical Interlude

Sooner or later, any group of heroes adventuring in the world The Boogie Knights of the Round Table (BKotRT) will find themselves embroiled in some sort of artistic battle: a dance off, a free flow rap slap down, dueling banjos, et cetera. When the conflict starts, it might be tempting to pit the heroes against the opposing team, and then start rolling dice, comparing numbers, figuring out who takes how much of what type of damage. Ah, good times.

But, this isn’t what happens in, say, a dance off. Yes, the heroes and their opponents are competing against each other, but they are competing against each other the approval of the audience. The team that wins is the team what wins over the spectators. Before the contest starts, the GM decides how many approval points are needed to win. He also gives the audience a quality, such Jaded Hip Hop Mob 2d8. Keep an eye on the average the audience can roll. Jaded Hip Hop Mob’s average roll would be 9, which gives the GM a gauge for how tough the crowd is. For approval points, I recommend 1 to 3 per hero. Then, the battle begins.

Deal out cards just like an initiative situation. It’s okay if the action doesn’t really flow this way. BKotRT doesn’t mind nonlinearity. Maybe the heroes take the stage, play their set, and then the next act takes the stage in the actual sequence of events. That doesn’t mean, however, that the action at the table needs to go that way. Go all Brian De Palma split screen, and mess with time as well. The crowd isn’t going to make its decision until it’s seen every act, so you might as well imagine the conflict as a montage where the action is more important than the actual sequence of events.

Run the conflict as a normal extended action. Each player takes a turn describing his hero’s contribution to his team’s act. When adjudicating, keep in mind the appropriateness of qualities. Beau Mandy’s Ex-Con Banjo Player quality serves him well at a bluegrass hoedown, but not quite as well staring down the angry faces surrounding a speed metal mosh pit. The GM rolls the audience’s quality. If the hero wins, he doesn’t do damage, but instead earns approval points, which are calculated the same way damage is. The first team to earn the necessary number of approval points wins the audience’s favor and the contest.

Tags: A to Z 2015, Boogie Knights

Musical Interlude

In most games that include hit points, character death occurs at something approximating 0 hit points. At 1 hit point, your character is live and kicking. At 0 hit points, your character is pushing up daisies. The Boogie Knights of the Round Table (BKotRT) doesn’t work that way, even if it can work that way at least some of the time.

With simple and extended actions, the winner of the compared dice totals gets to narrate the loser’s fate. In most cases, this fate won’t result in death. In other words, there are story limits on the narration. It’s not likely that winning a foot race will cause the loser to die, or that bribing a bouncer makes him your devoted henchmen.

This is especially in important in extended actions where hit points are at stake. One cannot win one round of an extended action, inflict only a portion of a foe’s hit points, and then narrate that the foe was sent flying by a spinning back kick off the top of the Hoover Dam to dash himself to bits on the way down. That sort of dramatic finish is reserved for when the foe’s hit points have been depleted.

Of course, there’s no reason in BKotRT for zero hit points to equal death. The loser may just be unconscious (and perhaps wake up hog-tied in the back of a semi heading for the border). He may be curled up in a corner, whimpering for mercy. This is especially important when it’s one of the heroes who has lost his last hit point. Even as simple as character generation is in BKotRT, it’s still not often fun when one of the heroes bites the dust.

When the heroes win, they should also consider mercy. BKotRT takes place in a recognizably modern setting, where the authorities (even those not in cahoots with the Man) usually take a dim view to killing, maiming, arson, et cetera. Other games encourage heroic murderhoboes. BKotRT doesn’t go in for that sort of thing. Sure, a game session may include lots of mayhem and violence, but it’s more akin to the A-Team than the Peaky Blinders.

Tags: A to Z 2015, Boogie Knights

Musical Interlude

One of the foundational premises of The Boogie Knights of the Round Table (BKotRT) is that just about anyone can attempt just about anything. Since the game system’s resolution mechanic for any action starts and ends with narration by a player, the limits of the systems are the limits of the players’ imaginations, descriptive abilities, and powers of persuasion. BKotRT is not a game that tries to define the minutiae of what characters can do. With this system, it just doesn’t make sense to look for ways to exploit combinations of skills, feats, spells, and items.

As previously explained, BKotRT has three types of actions: unopposed, simple, and extended. Just about anything a hero attempts can be any one of these three action types. The exact same activity could be a different action type depending on the situation and what makes the story being played more entertaining. When a hero attempts an action, the first question to ask is, “Is anyone or anything opposing the hero?” If the answer is “Yes” (or if you, the GM, think it’d be more fun if the answer is “Yes”), then use simple or extended action rules. Describe the situation and let the dice fly. If the answer is “No”, then decide on a difficulty number (DN).

Remember that the DN for a task depends on who is attempting it. An action that is DN 10 for one hero might be DN 6 for another. It all depends on qualities. What might be easy for a Hard-Bitten Detective might be challenging for a Preppy Accountant (and vice versa). For an unopposed action, an appropriate quality should usually face a DN between 6 to 10. A moderately inappropriate quality would probably face a DN of 12 or 14. For greater degrees of inappropriateness, increase the DN by +5, +10, or more.

With simple or extended actions, an inappropriate quality results in the hero’s dice total being halved (round up). This helps ensure that a Poetic Records Clerk d10 isn’t on par with a Stone-Fisted Pugilist d10 in a street brawl. Of course, if all contestants in a simple or extended action are equally inappropriate, feel free to ignore the extra math.

Perhaps above all, keep the action moving. There’s no point in trying to figure out the perfect DN or most accurate degree of inappropriateness for a system as loosey-goosey as BKotRT. Make a decision and move on. Failure in BKotRT seldom has to be fatal or otherwise permanent.

Tags: A to Z 2015, Boogie Knights

Musical Interlude

Today’s post has two topics. Huzzah.

Initiative

The Boogie Knights of the Round Table (BKotRT) uses a standard deck of 52 playing cards to determine initiative, or who gets to act first in any given situation where it’s important to know who acts first and it isn’t otherwise obvious. The system is simple. Deal one card face up to every player and one card to every important foe or group of foes. Cards from highest to lowest run ace, king, queen, et cetera, down to two. In the case of ties, the suits from highest to lowest are clubs (duh), diamonds, spades, and then hearts. So, for example, the king of clubs beats a king of any other suit.

The player with the highest card gets to act first in the round. If the highest card belongs to a foe (or group of foes), the GM gets to act first. Actions are described and resolved as normal. The card belonging to the hero, foe, or group of foes that just acted is then turned face down to show that actions have been completed. The person who just acted, player or GM, then chooses who goes next. This choice can be tactical, whimsical, whatever seems best for the story, et cetera. This process continues until everyone involved in the conflict has acted, at which time the cards are collected into a discard pile and new cards are handed out.

Hero Points

As I mentioned yesterday, yesterday’s post was supposed to be about hero points. Since that ended up a bust, here’s the hero point information. I’m less committed to these rules at the moment, so consider these an even rougher draft than the other posts. In particular, I’m still dithering over how many hero points a her gets and how new hero points are earned.

As for the hero points themselves, I picture them being used for these effects:

1. One hero point adds one die to the hero’s dice pool. The added die has the same rating as the highest die currently in the pool. So, a player rolling 1d8+1d6 could spend a hero point to roll 2d8+1d6.

2. One hero point restores one category of hit points. The number of hit points restored equals one-half the ability score’s maximum value. Thus, a hero with Kung-Fu d6 would recover 3 Kung-Fu hit points.

I have some ideas for other possible effects, but I’ve not made the time to sit down and work out the details, consider the implications, et cetera.

Tags: A to Z 2015, Boogie Knights