Social Conflict

These are the social conflict rules that were alluded to in the posts about using social skills in combat scenes. Those rules were an older version which referred to some stats that I've decided not to use. This version is a little better, I think.

Creative Combat Options

Han Solo screaming and chasing a bunch of stormtroopers down a hallway. Hobbits ducking through a troll's legs. Swashbucklers swinging on chandeliers. A fierce orc warrior bellowing a war cry to draw the attention of his gods and make his enemies freeze in terror for fatal fraction of a second. The comic relief con artist trying to fast talk his way out of a beating, then distracting the thugs so he can hit them over the head with a nearby blunt object before running away. There are so many interesting things that can happen in combat and I really want to encourage combat scenes to be more than just "I hit him". With that in mind, I made options to use other skills and abilities to boost combat skills (primarily using the concept of Advantage from the Detailed challenge in the core resolution mechanics).

Armor, Weapons, and Scale

One of the design goals that I had in mind for Van Gogh was that weapons would essentially do the same damage but they would be used in different ways. A warrior armed with a big two-handed sword should still have a reason to draw his dagger once in a while because sometimes the smaller weapon is the better choice.

Combat Sytem Basics

Combat

Combat is a great source of dramatic conflict and exciting action. Every Attribute and almost any skill can mean the difference between victory and defeat, but certain skills play a larger role than others.

Incoming!

It's rather late now so I can't write a long post, but I spent some time working on Van Gogh today. I finished the dueling rules I was working on and then started cleaning up the combat section. I think it's mostly finished. I'm still wrestling with the grappling rules (yeah, I know, I hate puns too), but I'll start posting some of the combat rules tomorrow or the next day. Just wanted to post a head's up for now. I'll probably split the combat stuff up into several posts.

I think my favorite part to write was the section on weapons. Weapons are essentially all the same: they let you fight armed and apply greater force than your bear hands. Ever since I first played AD&D 2nd Edition (more years ago than I like to think about) I never really liked the way you could stick 6 inches of dagger blade into someone and it's only 1d4 damage but sticking 6 inches of sword blade into someone was 1d8 damage. In Van Gogh a weapon is a weapon. Your choice of weapon will be based on it's qualities. Some hit a little harder, some are easier to use, some have more reach, some can be used in tight spaces, some make you look cool, some are just scary looking, some are more defensive, etc. Every weapon is different. You should choose a weapon based on what you want to do with it and not based solely on which one does the most damage. The part I really liked was that the exact same weapon might have different qualities in different settings based on the themes of that setting. Even in superficially similar settings.

For example, shooting zombies in the head. In Raccoon City, a pump action shotgun is just your basic, standard issue, zombie-popping boomstick. In Silent Hill, that reassuring K'CHAK gives you something to anchor your courage and help convince yourself that you're not a total coward.

Table of Contents (Tentative)

I haven't forgotten Van Gogh, but I've been rather busy with other things this past week. I've been working on a section about duels. I've covered a pretty good variety so far and I think the system can handle any of the types of duels I enjoy seeing. Dogfighting for battles with everything from biplanes to dragon knights to starfighters. "The Chess Match" for duels that go back and forth until one sudden finishing move ends everything like a "checkmate": good for those duels that end with one fighter suddenly disarmed and at the mercy of the other. "Raising the Bar" is a type of duel where competitors challenge each other to progressively more difficult tasks: like playing a game of "chicken" (with the Driving skill) or engaging in a round of "snaps" or "yo' mama" (with Taunt) or trading displays of fighting prowess by making impressive weapon flourishes or breaking bricks (with Fighting), etc. "Quick Draw" duels are for duels like old west gunslingers or (old east) samurai who stare each other down then, after a sudden blur of motion, one falls. I still haven't finished this section but I'm enjoying it. These tense scenes are some of my favorites in cinema and literature, so I like seeing how they fit into the Van Gogh resolution system. As much as I like fiddling with the dueling section, I really need to get to work on other sections to finish up the system. This is a list of the sections in progress, a sort of tentative table of contents:

• Core Rules: how dice rolls work and how they're used for skill challenges (95%)
• Attributes and Skills (95%, just needs some editing)
• Talents and Drawbacks (90%, rules are done but the examples need to be cleaned up)
• Gear (around 70% done, I'm not including a big list of equipment, but I'm going to explain how to choose gear and resources for characters. I've never cared much about encumbrance rules or counting pennies in the games I've played or run, so I'm not interested in writing such things. I care that Han Solo has the Millennium Falcon, but I don't need to know how many changes of clothes he has or how many ammo packs he has for his blaster.)
• Campaigning: rules for character advancement and running different kinds of sessions (80%)
• Minor Characters: Mooks, background extras, followers, cannon fodder, etc. All those characters that give the world depth and fullness while possessing little of their own.
• Powers: Unusual abilities like magic, psychic powers, hyper-science, supernatural kung fu, etc. This section has been a tangled mess since the beginning. I think I have all the powers covered that I want to cover, but I still need to consolidate things and trim the fat. I don't want a long list of specific powers. I want a short list of versatile powers that can be adapted to specific uses for different settings inspired by the "generic powers with specific trappings" from Savage Worlds (I think I saw this first in the Hero system, but Savage Worlds was the one that made me realize it could be done without a crazy level of math). I'd say this is about 40-50% done.
• Social Conflict: How to get the best use out of the social skills. (95%)
• Combat Rules: How to handle combat, including how to use the social skills, maneuvers, and other creative tricks for advantage to win instead of just saying "we need a bigger stick!" (About 85%, mostly done but in need of some cleaning up and better examples) 
• Mass Combat: How to use the skill challenges system to set up and run large scale battles. (About 75% done, needs some good examples.)
• Chases and Races: How to use the rules to handle chases and make them more interesting than just comparing movement scores. (I think it's about 95% done, but I'd like to provide some cool examples)
• Dogfighting and Dueling (About 85% finished. I'm still in the middle of writing up the Quickdraw duel)
• Environmental Rules: For storms, harsh deserts, and other situations where the setting itself is an enemy. Not started yet.
• Planning and heists: For running complex bank robberies and other infiltration schemes and cons without spending a lot of game time dealing with all the dull planning parts. Still in the brainstorming stages.
• Vehicles: Rules for handling vehicles. I have only got a paragraph or two on this but I'm expecting it to go quickly. I don't want to introduce a lot of special rules, so the vehicles will use the same rules as everything else. This section will be about how to recycle the rules for use with vehicles, rather than adding a lot of new rules.
• Organizations: Rules for handling the actions and interactions of organizations from street gangs to nations. Like the vehicle section, it's just barely started but it's going to be about how to use the existing rules for organizations instead of adding new rules.
• Optional Rules: An appendix of extra rules for things that some players might like to use, but which I don't want to include in the basic rules. For example, methods of random character generation (which will add randomness without turning character creation into a mini-game with "winners" and "losers") and a "wild die" like in the D6 System (with an explicit explanation that it's not a critical failure system). So far this is just a file of random notes and some pieces of scrap paper with notes sketched out.

Right now, I suppose I should finish up those sections that are almost done and then get to work on cleaning up the powers section, so I can move into the editing and layout stuff. I've got to rustle up some illustrations too. I'll start working on getting the illos together and start laying out sections as they get finished. If the powers section takes a while to sort out, maybe I'll save it for last and release a "light" version of Van Gogh without the powers section while I work on finishing it.

Wooden Pencil Sketches

This blog is called Wooden Pencil Sketches because I started it to chronicle the development of Van Gogh, a system designed to be "sketchy". It's supposed to have enough detail to give you a solid impression of the action without bogging everything down with minute details. At first I was just thinking of using this as a place to make quick development notes, like sketches of new ideas. I chose "Wooden Pencils" because I've been using a wooden pencil to make notes on scrap paper when I get an idea. I used to use a pen for everything, but I've been using some nice pencils that we had lying around the house. It reminds me of an old Ghanaian friend who used to write everything in pencil and he would say, in his booming African voice, "I love writing with a pencil! It feels so good!"

The blog's been up for a couple of weeks now and I've got only one official follower, but my "Stats" page tells me that I'm getting a lot of visitors from around the world: mostly the US and UK, but also Canada and Europe. It's a rather interesting feature that tells me a lot about the traffic to the blog, but it doesn't tell me the most important thing: What do you think of what you're reading? If you don't feel like leaving a comment, please just click the "thumbs up/down" buttons to give me a general idea of what you think. If you have more specific comments, that's great too.

Running and Gunning

I don't have much to post today. I've been a bit busy the past few days, but I have made some interesting progress on Van Gogh. I put together a "chases and races" subsystem for chase scenes. It isn't really a new system, so much as a detailed example of how to use the core resolution system for interesting chases. One of the biggest complaints that I've heard about combat systems is how they tend to devolve into "I swing, I hit, I dodge, I swing again." I haven't heard any complaints about chase rules. I suspect that that's because chase scenes aren't as common as combat in games. The chases I've seen tend to be very similar to the boring combat: "I move, he moves, I move again". I'm hoping the chase system will encourage more interesting tactics in chases than just "I try to go faster".

While I was doing the chase rules, it occurred to me that dog-fighting is also a cool kind of scene that never seemed to come up in my games as often as I'd have liked. I remember playing D6 Star Wars and feeling like we were missing out on a lot by not having a lot of cool starfighter engagements. So I started putting together a "dog-fighting" interpretation of the core resolution system. I started that because of fond memories of starfighters but while I was working on it, I mostly thought about SPADs versus Fokkers, aviation adventure from the time when radio was king (like "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow"), and knights mounted on dragons.

While I was working on these rules for aerial duels, I realized that I should also include some commentary on other more formalized duels. I love samurai movies and westerns with their quick draw duels. Many types of duels could be played out as ordinary one-on-one combats, but those are kind of special. I also thought of some other unique duels that I'd love to play in a game, such as the duel between Nameless and Long Sky in "Hero" where they play out most of the battle in their heads while planning their strategy before actually moving. Or the battle between Nameless and Broken Sword, where Nameless studied Broken Sword's calligraphy in order to gain insight into his sword techniques. Since I have some chanbara and wuxia setting ideas in mind for Van Gogh in the future, I want to be sure that these things can be done by the rules now.

On Writing...

Thus far, all of my personal RPG projects have been done in paper notebooks or on scrap paper. All of my professional work for Privateer Press for the Iron Kingdoms setting was done in Microsoft Word. I did a bit of bit of consulting on the side for a few game companies. I was too busy at the time to produce any products for them but I brainstormed ideas with them over email. The last thing I put out was a free PDF called "From The Imperial Library", a magic supplement for "Warrior, Rogue & Mage". I wrote that after my hard drive got fried and I didn't bother to re-install Microsoft Office. I used the very nice (and completely free) Open Office suite.

For Van Gogh, I have been adding everything to one file which has been getting longer and longer as I add more information and examples. Today I finally split that big document into many smaller files. I gave each section its own document file. Then I opened them all in one Master Document. Master documents are an interesting feature in Open Office that allows you to view many documents together as one continuous file. It gives a little popup window with the names of all the component files and makes it very easy to shuffle them around or insert new files into the order. From now on, I will use the master document feature for all my projects that are over a few pages long because it makes it very easy to arrange sections of material. I also like to jump around the document a lot as I think of a new idea for one section while working on another and this feature saves me a lot of scrolling. The master document navigator window has just extended the life of my PgUp and PgDn keys.

While I'm talking about writing, I'd like to share a helpful bit of advice that I picked up a long time ago and which has helped my productivity since. When working on a creative project that may be susceptible to writer's block, don't stop working at a good "stopping point". Always leave in the middle of something. If you're writing a story and you want to call it a day, don't say "I'll just finish this scene and go to bed". Leave it unfinished. When you come back to it, you can pick up where you left off and jump straight back into writing. The beginning is always one of the hardest parts to write. If you finish a chapter or a major scene, then you'll be starting fresh at a new beginning when you come back. It's much easier to start a day's work in the middle of a scene (or a section of game rules explanatory text/examples). When you can see the first half and remember where you were going with it, it's much easier to finish it than to start something new. When you do finish it and need to start the next chapter or scene or whatever, you'll already be on a roll and your creative juices will be flowing. You won't be starting cold. It really helps to maintain momentum if you can jump right in without delay every time you return to the manuscript.

Drama Points

Ever since I first encountered "Force Points" and "Character Points" in the old D6 Star Wars game, I have loved the idea of a metagame resource that can be spent to temper the vagaries of chance. I like dice and randomness in RPGs, but sometimes you really don't want your larger-than-life, dragon-slaying hero to go out like a punk just because some random goblin got a really lucky jab with a spear. A lot of games have Fate Points, Drama Dice, Action Points, Bennies, Luck, etc. Van Gogh is going to use this mechanic in the form of Drama Points. Also, I'm including "Event Bounties" as an optional way to earn Drama Points in play. Event bounties are another of Levi Kornelsen's excellent ideas from Amagi Games and can be adapted to many other games. The rules for Drama Points in Van Gogh are after the jump.

Exploits and Advancement

I'm really on a roll today. I cleaned up the section on experience and character advancement. The rules for exploits are one of my favorite ideas that I'm incorporating in Van Gogh. I wish I had thought of this many years ago when I was running D6 Star Wars and players complained about spending their character points in game to do cool things instead of saving them to raise their skills (so they can do cool things later). I liked the way character points (the experience points in D6) could be used to add a temporary boost in play, but I didn't like the way that characters who played it safe and didn't do exciting (dangerous) things would advance faster because they didn't "waste" their CP in play.


I also was never really satisfied with the way some games allow a character to earn experience points and then advance in skills completely unrelated to how they earned their experience. My favorite example of this was in a D&D3 game. My friend Mitch was playing a strictly pacifist wizard. He spent every combat hiding and casting defensive spells to protect himself and the party. He never did anything violent or aggressive. After he had gained a level and was adjusting his stats on his character sheet, the DM said "Don't forget to raise your attack bonus this level" and Mitch replied "Do I have to?" Systems that aren't class-based usually allow for more player choice in character advancement than that, but they still allow for advancement in completely unrelated areas.


Some systems attempt to get around this problem by having a "checkpoint" system in which skills that are successfully used get a check mark. Later, during advancement, the checked skills have a chance of being raised. The problem with this system is that it encourages players to try to use all their skills all the time even when it's inappropriate. I think the Exploits system that I'm using in Van Gogh avoids these issues. 


Exploits can provide a temporary bonus every session until you spend them for a permanent bonus. Exploits can only be used for skills that are related to them, but they aren't specific to one skill. Unlike the checkpoint system, an exploit isn't "successful use of Fighting skill" for example. It would be something like "decapitated an orc chieftain and scattered his warband", which could be used to boost the Fighting or Intimidation skills, or the Might or Finesse attributes, or to buy any Talents related to those things.


Also included in the Exploits and Advancement section is a rule for using the Exploits of dead friends. I got this idea from Levi Kornelsen's "Legacy Pool" option in his "Death Gift" plugin at Amagi Games. I thought it was a great idea in general and a great fit for Exploits in particular. More Van Gogh rules info after the jump.

The Core Resolution Mechanic

I finally got around to writing the core rules mechanic in detail. I had the basics scribbled down in my notes but I didn't write out the full details until last night. I originally started with the resolution system that I call "Detailed Challenges" below, but I later added Simple and Extended challenges. I particularly like the Simple Skill Challenge rule as a pacing mechanic. I was watching the rather lackluster "Solomon Kane" movie a couple months ago when I got the idea. 

In one scene, he's fighting a bunch of goons and trying to save a girl who is being kidnapped. It occurred to me that there is no doubt that he'll win the fight against those guys, but the dramatic tension was based on doubt about whether or not he could fight through them fast enough to save the girl before they rode away with her. I recalled the games I've played in before and thought, "If I were playing Solomon in a game, the GM would probably make me spend an hour rolling to fight and kill all those goons. Why do the exciting, fast-paced parts have to go into slow motion in tabletop RPGs?" Then I realized: they don't. The core rules of Van Gogh (including the Simple Challenge rule for fast forwarding the action) are after the jump.

Skills

These are the skills I decided to use for Van Gogh. This is kind of a lot of material, so I'm going to put a jump break here. 

Van Gogh Attributes

I was planning to write about dice pools today and why I chose them for the resolution mechanic, but it's been a long day. Tomorrow (actually now, it's late here) is the final day of the year on the lunar calendar so we had to get up early and clean the house thoroughly. Then we went out to buy flowers and decorative gold coins to hang in the house for luck. I'll talk about dice pools another time when I'm not so tired and can express myself more clearly. For now, I'll just transcribe some notes I made about Attributes.

Attributes

There are four attributes which determine a character's raw abilities: Might, Finesse, Cunning, and Will. Starting characters distribute 9 dice among the four attributes with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 5. The attributes cover a broad range of abilities that are often linked. For example, strength and endurance often go hand in hand so they are governed by one stat: Might. For unbalanced characters that can bench press a Buick but who have a glass jaw or wiry marathon runners who can’t lift a wet towel, a combination of Talents and Drawbacks can give them a boost in one area and a penalty in another.

• Might: This is the physical power and resilience of the character. It covers strength and endurance. It governs a characters ability to resist damage and disease as well as their ability to deal out damage in hand to hand combat and lift a lot of luggage. Athletics is the only Might based skill, but it's a useful skill. It covers running, jumping, throwing, swimming, and all kinds of other exciting actions. Might can be used in combat by itself for strength-based maneuvers like pushing a stack of crates onto someone or rolling a barrel into a crowd of thugs like bowling pins. Might is also useful because it is the basis of Toughness (the difficulty to damage the character) and melee damage.
• Finesse: This is the character’s balance, spatial awareness, coordination, and agility. Finesse skills include Driving, Fighting, Piloting, Shooting, and Stealth. It's understandably a popular attribute with PCs in action-oriented games. Finesse can also be used in combat for swashbuckler/monkey maneuvers like climbing up a bookshelf, swinging from a chandelier, or diving under a table to unexpectedly kick a foe in the shins like in a Jackie Chan movie.
• Cunning: This is the character’s mental abilities and includes logical reasoning, perception, common sense, intuition, and various types of “smarts” (street, book, people, etc.). Cunning has the most associated skills because it is the attribute that covers retention of knowledge and social perception and manipulation. I chose the name “Cunning” because I think it applies equally well to clever animals, Machiavellian politicians, or an innovative engineer. I don't like it when games use "Intelligence" or "IQ" for this stat and then have to explain how a non-sentient beast can still be really clever even if it's IQ is really low because can't read or speak or do arithmetic. Cunning skills include Bluff, Healing, Helm, Investigation, Knowledge, Notice, Repair, Social Circles, Survival, Taunt, and Wrangling. Cunning can also be used in combat for clever maneuvers like blasting the door control mechanism to make the door slam shut on the foe lunging toward you, smashing an oil lamp on the floor to create a slick spot (or a fire if the lamp was lit, or cutting the rope that holds a chandelier while an enemy is standing beneath it.
• Will: This is the character’s spirit, willpower, determination, and sense of self. Character’s who are exceptionally stubborn or devoted to a cause have a high Will. If you have a high Might, you can walk across a room full of broken glass like John McClane in "Die Hard", but if you don't have a Will, you won't want to. Will skills include Concentration, Intimidation, and Persuasion. Will is also used to resist compulsions like another character trying to intimidate, seduce, bribe, or otherwise tempt you. Opposing psychics staring each other down and engaging in a quick mental tug of war. Combat maneuvers relying on Will aren't as common as the other attributes because most active uses of Will are covered by the Intimidation or Persuasion skills, but some examples include: A warrior charging an enemy through a dangerous path for a surprise advantage (e.g. leaping over a fire instead of going around) or a berzerker pulling himself further onto the shaft of a foe's spear in order to get close enough to strike back. 

There are no "dump stats". Every attribute has useful skills and can contribute to a character's performance in combat. Outside of combat, Cunning and Will are even more useful due to their associated knowledge and social skills and Finesse is still useful for chases (with Driving/Piloting) or spying (with Stealth).  Might remains useful outside of combat thanks to the diversity of the Athletics skill and you never know when you might need to move a sofa. Tomorrow, I'll try to put up some notes about what all those skills are used for.