What is Heroes & Other Worlds?

Heroes & Other Worlds is a game of adventure inspired by Metagaming's classic Melee/Wizard/TFT system combined with inspiration from the Moldvay edited basic game. The rules are easy to learn and use standard six sided dice. The system is simple, sensible and flexible in the spirit of classic role playing games from the early 80's. Become a Hero, Other Worlds await!

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Thoughts on game play

While the core HOW rules serve as the backbone for Blades & Black Magic, there are a few twists I am considering:

Taking Damage
1) Damage initially comes off of the characters EN.
2) Once EN is depleted all damage comes directly off of ST.  When ST is 0 you are dead.
3) EN damage is recovered (back to full) after a good night's sleep
4) ST is more serious wounding damage that requires medical/magical attention to heal.
5) This eliminates HP as a stat
6) NPCs, men and Monsters suffer damage right to ST and do not have the EN benefit.

Why?
This allows PC's to be a bit hardier (maybe even fool hardier?) and fits more into the heroic tropes of fantasy literature...WITHOUT making them superman (ala D&D.)

Magic
Unlike Damage, the cost of casting magic comes right from ST as damage, ST 0 means a dead character.

Ritual Magic allows you to use the ST of others to pay for the cost of casting a spell.

Magical items can grant energy or charges for spell casting.

Attributes
There is no increasing of attributes after the character is built, only skills can be increased or new skills can be learned.

Why?
I am just not a fan of attribute increase mechanics.  I like the idea one has to focus on improving or learning new skills instead of suddenly becoming more dexterous and getting better at everything as a result.

The work continues, and feel free to let me know if you have an alternate thought or issues.  I may not change my mind, but am open to alternatives. Also see some alternative logos below, if you have a favorite let me know!



7 comments:

  1. Love the logo you have going, sword and skull - very nice indeed :)

    Regarding the recovering of ST: ever considered the warm fire, hot meal plus medical attention combined approach? Really serves as a role playing mechanic, but thinking about it logically, usually healing requires a safe heaven to rest up in, food also helps in the body repairing, and over time, the warmth and comfort of a fire - not to mention the warding away of creatures, hopefully - is an added bonus.

    Always wondered why Magic Users INT was only ever used to determine bonus points? Why not, if INT is used, use their INT score as their magic point pool score? So a caster with an INT of 12 only has 12 points to cast with.

    Same with attacking: STR should determine how many attacks a character can make before fatigue sets in. One point of STR = one attack.

    Ignore my ramblings - sounds like you have a pretty cool and workable system in the making - I wish you the very best of luck with it :)

    Kind regards

    Mark K

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  2. @Mark-THAT is the kind of 'rambling' I appreciate! I will definitely take your suggestions under advisement. I know two sure things in life:

    1) I don't have all the answers
    2) There is always room for improvement.

    Thanks for taking time to share your ideas an suggestions, it is very much appreciated.

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    Replies
    1. Hey, it's my pleasure. To be honest, it's a throwback to when I was doing my graphic design degree - I loved the brain-storming sessions, they could be amazingly productive, and very often off-the-wall, but fun, nonetheless.

      So if you ever feel stuck and just need someone to run something by, please feel free to give me a shout - I'd be more than happy to lend an ear/eye/brain cell.

      All the best

      Mark K

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  3. 'STR should determine how many attacks a character can make before fatigue sets in. One point of STR = one attack'

    I like this, maybe once fatigue sets in the character loses 1 DX per round that they continue in combat? DX completely resets after combat is over?

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  4. @Sean and Mark, why not have Endurance (EN) determine the number of attacks instead of ST? Once you are out of EN, your attacks are made at 4/DX.

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  5. Yes that would work, certainly simpler than what I proposed :)

    and I like c) the skull

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  6. I like Logo version A the best

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