It's Easy To...
So, I started a new Kor Kammor game in late January (the first since Long Winter of Kor Kammor), and it runs on d20 3.p (my term for Pathfinder RPG with tons of 3pp blended in and a little old 3.5 sprinkled on top). I decided I wanted some genre reinforcement for this game. While I use the One True Thing rule in a lot of my games, I've never done it in Kor Kammor, because I want more uncertainty among the players.
*But*
Silken Sails of Kor Kammor is supposed to be a game of swashbuckler erotic-horror adventure. That means I need some thing to be easier than other Kor Kammor games, and other things to be harder. I was trying to think of a way to make One True Thing do that, but I couldn't. But I did come up with something else.
*The Easy List*
At the first session of the campaign, I explained what I wanted from the campaign, and told my players we were going to make an Easy List. This is a list of specific actions that are easier in SSoKK than normal d20 3.p rules. If you do something on the Easy List, you gain a bonus to your d20 rolls equal to 5 + ½ campaign level (campaign level is basically the average PC level, thought that has its own set of rules). So art first level you'd get a +5 easy bonus, at 2nd a +6 easy bonus, by 10th a +10 easy bonus, and at 20th a +15 easy bonus. And this is always true, and we all know it, so characters can plan their actions accordingly.
I made the first entry on the Easy List, each of my players got to add one in turn (we rolled character initiative to determine the order - why not?), and we went three rounds to get 18 Easy Things. I could veto anything I felt was not genre appropriate, and I made sure players knew this applied to NPCs/monsters too (someone suggested "do damage" which scared me). The idea is the Easy List has 18 things we can say "It's easy to..."
1. Make Acrobatics checks for any reason other than avoid AoOs.
2. Climb on ships, taverns, rooftops, and chandeliers.
3. Swim.
4. Make saving throws against effects that would kill you, by instead being incurably maimed.
5. Deal damage with firearms.*
6. Use CMB. (Yep, for everything.).
7. Make Knowledge checks in a royal or Adaean** archive.
8. Make Bluff checks if you are an evil Liège*** spellcaster.
9. Use sex and seduction to aid Bluff and Diplomacy checks (to get things other than sex).
10. Make Will saves if you've had good sex**** within the past 3 hours.
11. Use Escape Artist to get out of grapples/pins/webs/restraints by losing clothing.
12. Make UMD checks for things that look like firearms (resulting in wand-guns, ‘cause my players want them).
13. Make Stealth checks to sneak into (but not out of) ships and fortifications.
14. Use Bluff and Diplomacy to get sex, to a maximum of your levels of bard, rogue and fighter.
15. Survive going past your death hp total, if you are captured.*****
16. Use Diplomacy in combat.
17. Curse someone who currently has no curses (adds to save DC).
18. Research spells and new magic items if you've had good sex at least once a day during the process.****
*For those of you who know gunpowder stopped working in Six Schools of Kor Kammor, the end of Long Winter resulting in psionics and incarnum ceasing to exist, pact magic being radically weakened, and gunpowder working again. The extra energy from psionics, incarnum and the curse that ended gunpowder was used to end The Deadening, that was turning all Spring elves into Winter elves.
**A powerful monotheist religion that views all other gods as souped-up angels or demons.
***SSoKK's decadent French-style monarchy
****Yep, I have rules for sex, and it lets me know if it was good. Even if you have to ask.
*****Instead of being a die roll, this is a buffer of hp in which you are not dead, IF you get captured in the encounter. It makes players much less nuts about recovering a friends' body, and has lead to lots of interesting swashbuckling rescues of friends "thought dead." All my players liked it, so I allowed it.
So, with this list some genre conventions are clearly spelled out. Firearms do lots of extra damage, making them unrealistically good, and we all know it. If an effect would kill you and you fail your regular save, but you make your save by the margin of your Easy bonus, you can instead be incurably maimed. Sex and seduction are powerful social and magical tools.
The game started in the Hexagon, an infamous prison within the Liège city of Fosses-La-Ville, and has been going strong every-other-week. I think we may look at adjusting the Easy List in the next few months, but I like the result so much I may add it to more of my new campaigns as I start them.
*But*
Silken Sails of Kor Kammor is supposed to be a game of swashbuckler erotic-horror adventure. That means I need some thing to be easier than other Kor Kammor games, and other things to be harder. I was trying to think of a way to make One True Thing do that, but I couldn't. But I did come up with something else.
*The Easy List*
At the first session of the campaign, I explained what I wanted from the campaign, and told my players we were going to make an Easy List. This is a list of specific actions that are easier in SSoKK than normal d20 3.p rules. If you do something on the Easy List, you gain a bonus to your d20 rolls equal to 5 + ½ campaign level (campaign level is basically the average PC level, thought that has its own set of rules). So art first level you'd get a +5 easy bonus, at 2nd a +6 easy bonus, by 10th a +10 easy bonus, and at 20th a +15 easy bonus. And this is always true, and we all know it, so characters can plan their actions accordingly.
I made the first entry on the Easy List, each of my players got to add one in turn (we rolled character initiative to determine the order - why not?), and we went three rounds to get 18 Easy Things. I could veto anything I felt was not genre appropriate, and I made sure players knew this applied to NPCs/monsters too (someone suggested "do damage" which scared me). The idea is the Easy List has 18 things we can say "It's easy to..."
1. Make Acrobatics checks for any reason other than avoid AoOs.
2. Climb on ships, taverns, rooftops, and chandeliers.
3. Swim.
4. Make saving throws against effects that would kill you, by instead being incurably maimed.
5. Deal damage with firearms.*
6. Use CMB. (Yep, for everything.).
7. Make Knowledge checks in a royal or Adaean** archive.
8. Make Bluff checks if you are an evil Liège*** spellcaster.
9. Use sex and seduction to aid Bluff and Diplomacy checks (to get things other than sex).
10. Make Will saves if you've had good sex**** within the past 3 hours.
11. Use Escape Artist to get out of grapples/pins/webs/restraints by losing clothing.
12. Make UMD checks for things that look like firearms (resulting in wand-guns, ‘cause my players want them).
13. Make Stealth checks to sneak into (but not out of) ships and fortifications.
14. Use Bluff and Diplomacy to get sex, to a maximum of your levels of bard, rogue and fighter.
15. Survive going past your death hp total, if you are captured.*****
16. Use Diplomacy in combat.
17. Curse someone who currently has no curses (adds to save DC).
18. Research spells and new magic items if you've had good sex at least once a day during the process.****
*For those of you who know gunpowder stopped working in Six Schools of Kor Kammor, the end of Long Winter resulting in psionics and incarnum ceasing to exist, pact magic being radically weakened, and gunpowder working again. The extra energy from psionics, incarnum and the curse that ended gunpowder was used to end The Deadening, that was turning all Spring elves into Winter elves.
**A powerful monotheist religion that views all other gods as souped-up angels or demons.
***SSoKK's decadent French-style monarchy
****Yep, I have rules for sex, and it lets me know if it was good. Even if you have to ask.
*****Instead of being a die roll, this is a buffer of hp in which you are not dead, IF you get captured in the encounter. It makes players much less nuts about recovering a friends' body, and has lead to lots of interesting swashbuckling rescues of friends "thought dead." All my players liked it, so I allowed it.
So, with this list some genre conventions are clearly spelled out. Firearms do lots of extra damage, making them unrealistically good, and we all know it. If an effect would kill you and you fail your regular save, but you make your save by the margin of your Easy bonus, you can instead be incurably maimed. Sex and seduction are powerful social and magical tools.
The game started in the Hexagon, an infamous prison within the Liège city of Fosses-La-Ville, and has been going strong every-other-week. I think we may look at adjusting the Easy List in the next few months, but I like the result so much I may add it to more of my new campaigns as I start them.