Noodling on a New Thing
One of the first things I do when I get an idea for a game is hash out a character sheet. Often, before I've started any sort of rules document other than ink-and-paper scribbles.
The purpose of this exercise is to imagine the physicality of the game. To think about what kinds of aspects, traits, and mechanics characters need and how that might manifest at the table. Character sheet tech is my passion (in the graphic design sense; if you know you know), and also a pet peeve of mine. Every player-facing mechanic or procedure in a game should have its place on the character sheet. If the game expects you to keep track of it, it's got to be there.1
Anyway, here's what I'm working on.
Hexenritter
Strictly speaking, I'm not sure yet if it's a proper tabletop roleplaying game or a narrative skirmish game. It's mechanically based on Chris McDowall's Into the Odd and Mythic Bastionland.
In the poetry layer, it's about doomed sorcerer knights who ride magic-powered mechs into battle against the backdrop of a fantasy conflict inspired by the Hundred Years War and the Flemish Peasant Revolts of 1325 and 1337. The players would take on the role of the titular hexenritter, financed by the crafts guilds of an ersatz Flemish2 city to fight for their independence from ersatz France, itself embroiled in a bloody war for succession.
Table Presence
In terms of physicality, I want the character sheets and mech components to be mostly index and mini playing card sized. What I've worked out above is a the sheet for the hexenritter themself. The sorcerous mech pilot. The war machine itself I imagine to be a collection of cards. One for the chassis, one for the arms, one for the legs, one for the "ensign" (a hull-mounted flag, crest, weapon, or gizmo), and a couple more for weapons.
Guard, I think, is going to wind up just on the hexenritter card. But one idea I had was for the "core" of the mech to be an index card with spots to place integrated components. Held weapons would maybe to to either side of the card? Still puzzling it out.
I imagine our giant robots to be something between the guymelefs of The Vision of Escaflowne and a medieval Mech Warrior. Certainly on the ~8-to-10 meters scale of the guymelefs. About thigh-high on a Gundam.
Ability Scores Saves
A few months ago Zedeck Siew wrote this blog post about what ability scores really represent in Into the Odd. His point is made succinctly with this quote (emphasis preserved from the original text):
Your ability scores don’t represent who your character is. Your ability scores represent who your character is, when under duress.
In other words:
Ability scores are who your character is when they are not in control. Ability scores are your character’s reactions.
The hitch is, the language of Into the Odd describes its saves the same way any other tabletop roleplaying game describes its ability scores. Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX), and Willpower (WIL). These sound like immovable qualities rather than reactions.
So, my innovation here is to use verbs instead. They are, after all, about how your character copes with being in action. Under stress.
- Defy is for overcoming fear or enchantment. Our willpower stand-in.
- Endure is for dealing with physical punishment and hardship. Our strength stand-in.
- React is to respond to danger with speed and grace. Our dexterity stand-in.
I have some ideas for generating our saves that are a little against the usual 3d6 down the line orthodox. But I'll save that for another post maybe.
Guard
Our "we-have-HP-at-home." Calling this attribute "guard" is an innovation from Mythic Bastionland that's too good not to borrow. As seen above, I had an idea to make guard the property of the mech rather than the pilot, thus emphasizing the disadvantage of fighting on foot. But, I decided against it for now.
I've made the space for guard significantly bigger than the space for the saves. Mostly because I imagine it will get more use in play. But also partly because I just didn't have anything else to put in the space.
Powers and Advancement
Every hexenritter is a magic user. Not just in the Knave or Cairn sense that anyone can pick up a grimoire and use the spell in it. But in the sense that every player character has innate magical power, and that power defines their role in the world.
To start with, characters will have three "spells" hexensegen3:
Gear Surge. Spend a resource to recover some of your guard. Sort of like a second wind or healing surges in Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition. The name comes from when guard was going to be a property of the mech and is likely to change.
Wyrding. Spend a resource to re-roll a save. Once per save. I like having an easily accessible, in fiction way to re-roll. I find it gives a good off ramp to dice fudging. Which I am otherwise against.
And then one randomly determined at character creation.
The resource used to fuel these abilities is segensterne,4 which are quite literally stars that fall from the sky when a hexenritter uses their powers. I love the idea of bystanders noticing a meteor shower and knowing that somewhere out there sorcerers and/or giant robots are throwing down.
This resource also gives us our advancement system. At the end of every mission or sortie, the player rolls a die. If the die comes up higher than the number of segensterne they used, nothing happens. But if it's lower or equal, they "level up," add another star to their segensterne, and gain a new hexensegen. The die size is determined by how many stars they have, and that die is also used for the hexenritter's various powers. If a hexenritter already has nine stars and they roll another advance, their power burns out, they transcend the physical world, or they transform into a monster. Either way, that's the end of that character's story.
Every hexenritter is doomed. The more they use their power, that faster that doom comes. It adds a bit of risk/reward calculation to using magic. Characters can potentially advance very quickly. But that which burns brightly, burns out.5
Array
Equipment. This isn't a game about dungeon crawling or wilderness exploration. Loot really isn't part of the equation. Instead, we're more interested in what our hexenritter carry with them into battle.
Here's the first version of the hexenritter sheet I started working on. Tarot size. My first instinct was to do something like the Forged in the Dark method. Give a list of gear on the sheet with check boxes. If you go into a sortie on foot, you get to carry more. If you're swaddled in the cradle of your 10-meter-tall war machine, you carry less. In a sense, that's what I went for, but in a more conventional format.
Coin
This is something I probably don't need if I go full narrative skirmish game. But right now the idea is: a hexenritter can carry up to 24 coins at a time. We're talking big hunks of gold. Hexenritter are all doomed. But they also enjoy high status because they're the only people who can operate the 10-meter-tall war machines that feudal armies are relying on to win battles. They're minor celebrities. No one will take less than gold from them.
Well, I think that's just about everything.
I hope you enjoyed this romp through an imagined game. None of the rules I talked about here are written down anywhere but this blog post. For now.
I am starting to noodle around with a rules document. But it's not gotten far yet. Here's a peak:
And, a hint at what I have planned for save value generation.
Until next time.
Zeit gezunt!
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The lack of support for tracking encumbrance or gear customization on the STAR WARS: Edge of the Empire sheets is an old bugbear of mine. As is the lack of support for exhaustion on the official Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition sheets.↩
I am using Google Translate German for the title rather than Flemish Dutch, even though the fiction I want to evoke is more Flemish and French. Mainly because "Hexenritter" looks better on paper than "Heksenridder." And evoking Mausritter is a plus.↩
Translates to something like "Witch Blessing."↩
"Blessing Stars."↩
There's similar arcs in games like Blades in the Dark and the first edition of Cryptomancer. Though in those titles the death spiral is less directly tied to advancement.↩