Thursday, January 8, 2015

Hazardous Hacking

I'm really enjoying Brendan's Hazard System for procedural timekeeping.  My brain is already brimming with potential hacks. I hope that this kind of tinkering/spitballing is okay.

The first: To address the “Reasonable Resolution” clause for Dungeon Turns and Resource Depletion and Fatigue, I'm thinking about reading the initial Dungeon Hazard Die as a d3 (so that it will result in only Encounter/Percept/Locality results) and overloading this roll to generate the number of subsequent Dungeon Turns that need to elapse before the die is read as a d6.

I think this kind of roll dependent escalation could add a neat wrinkle to the system, without too much overhead. Naturally, the mutable duration of the “turns” might still need to be taken into account fictionally, but I rather like the idea of more challenging/dangerous results becoming more likely over time. Looking at the Wilderness Turn, the same principle could be easily applied (closer to a Haven, it's harder to get lost, for example).

I don't know if the principle of “something needs to happen each turn” is sacrosanct in this system, but I think I'd almost prefer it. The only place where this can potentially occur seems to be the Haven Hazard Die results (“Ignore results of 4-6”) and this seems fine (an “uneventful” visit to Town after Adventuring is probably welcome), but I'd be just as likely to pad the table with “good things” and shift the existing Haven Hazard Results down (to allow for the above-mentioned escalation). I'm a sucker for system symmetry :) and this might help model how PC's that frequent the same Haven become a little more embroiled in the local events.

Something akin to this:
  1. Generate/Disseminate New Rumor
  2. Haven Event*
  3. Clue about next Haven Event*
  4. Complication
  5. Clue about next complication
  6. Abatement of haven condition

*Haven Event is a placeholder name for something akin to a Complication, but my line of thinking involves results that are potentially more beneficial/less ominous. Need a better name/antonym for this and probably some of the results, but here's the start of a d20 table:

Haven Event
  1. Holiday/Festival
  2. Localized Celebration (Dedication/Wedding/etc)
  3. Election/Visit from important Personage
  4. Fellow Traveler (Elaborate Existing Rumor?)
  5. Discounts/Sale on standard equipment (Ye Olde Bloodbath & Beyond)
  6. Resource Windfall (Harvest/Abundance of Export Item/etc)
  7. New Fad, Fashion, Local Custom*
  8. New Construction (Temple, Tavern, Fortifications, etc)*
  9. Arrival of a Trade Caravan (Exotic Goods?)
  10. Establish a potential new NPC Contact*


Starred results could potentially persist, as conditions.

Now I'm thinking of some kind of Hazard System Worksheet/Aid for keeping track of Haven Escalation, Conditions and "Events" individually.




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