Narrative criticals

First off, let me just say I like criticals. The thrill of seeing the dice indicating that something wonderful/awful is going to happen is like no other. The drawback of course is to have to find those critical tables, rolling another die and all that which slow down the game. Maybe there is another way?

This fine post is one solution, where the damage is rolled off one small table and the game effects are narrated. Well, if you don't like those newfangled big words, made up on the spot.

Let's take that one step further in the player empower direction. If you do sand boxing, player initiative rules, right?

Let's assume you roll d20 to attack, and that low is good. Then, on a roll of 1, turn to the player that just rolled a critical success and ask them. "You just did something awesome. Let's hear what it was?" Likewise, when someone rolls a 20, ask them. "Now you have messed up. Let's hear how it went wrong." Players agency, right? As experience have shown that nobody is as brutal when describing a fumble as someone who inflict it on themselves.

T&T hacks - Rolemaster

This is the second post in this series, and today we are going to take a look at Rolemaster from I.C.E., which happens to be an old favourite of mine.

The first thing I remember when I think of Rolemaster is the tables. There are tables for spells, attacks, fumbles and crits. I loved those. 

I guess everyone who has played Rolemaster remember the critical hits tables. Let's see if we can hack T&T to get something with a similar feel.

So, did you managed to get any Spite dice on your attack? Congratulations. Now, did you also manage to get any doubles? Now we get into crit/fumble territory.

But, just like in RM there should be continuous effects. Those spite points are now bleeding, and you take that amount of damage, every round. Now, let's get on with the crits and fumbles.

Count the numbers of dice that are the same, that's the level of your crit/fumble. If the doubles where ones, it was a fumble and any other kind of number is a crit.

For crits, roll a SR on CON on the level of your crit. For fumbles, roll a SR on LK on the level of your fumble. As you understand, this means lvl 2-6. If you fail your SR, this is what happens.

Critical hits
Lvl 2 - roll 2 to more dice of damage
Lvl 3 - stunned, you loose your next action
Lvl 4 - you fall unconscious
Lvl 5 - random limb is now useless
Lvl 6 - save or die

The level of SR is the extra points of damage you take (regardless if you make your save), and that's spite damage folks! Don't forget the bleeding.

Fumbles
Lvl 2 - drop your weapon
Lvl 3 - your weapon break
Lvl 4 - damage random ally
Lvl 5 - damage yourself
Lvl 6 - damage yourself, and you roll one more die. That number is the crit level you just inflicted, on yourself.

Do you think it hurts enough yet? I think in this system you can probably get the same kind of feel as in RM, where a lucky schmuck can kill himself if he is "lucky" enough.

What did you say? Is the math wonky? It probably is, I have not tested this, and am not that great at crafting mathematically sound rules. But, take it and run with it! Let me know what you think.

A nice crit mechanic

As a follow up to my last post, regarding critical hits. One thing that's neat with having to roll percentiles to hit is that you can have something cool happen when you get doubles, i.e. same number on both dice. Rolled over the target number and it's something no-so-cool and below something cool. At least in a roll low system. Almost worth considering even if you are using a d20. Just multiply by five and you can break out the percentiles. I first saw this in Top Secret/S.I. and I still love it.