FINALLY!

So, after several years of looking in varying degrees of intensity, I finally have a (hopefully) regular gaming group again, for which I am running the game. It's a couple of old friends who live in the area.

When they agreed to let me run something, I gave them six choices:

• MegaTraveller: Noble House - This would be my own MT setting, using my conversion and update of the Pocket Empires rules from T4 (which aren't complete right now, but I would have worked extra hard to get them ready in time to run the game). The story would revolve around a noble house and its retainers, and the intrigues of a rival house to discredit and dismantle them.
• Top Secret: Special Missions Bureau - A Top Secret game set in the early '80s, with Cold War intrigue and globehopping adventure. I intended to take the results of the game and use them to provide a background for a second arc which would take place in the modern day.
• White Star: The Flanaess Sector - In this one, the players would be gritty, down on their luck adventurers in the Flanaess Sector, against a background of interstellar rebellion against a distant empire. I'm afraid that I didn't present this option to the players very well, though it was considered.
• Flashing Blades: Scourge of the Caribbean - Swashbuckling pirates in the Caribbean Sea!
• GURPS Deindustrial Future - I presented this as a cross between Stephen King's Dark Tower series and Fallout without the nukes. The setting is the future a few hundred years after our civilization runs out of petroleum to fuel it. While electricity, and technology, does exist, the large-scale networks of power transmission and transportation infrastructure do not. Characters have access to items up to TL7 (most TL8 items require far too much interdependent, and so unavailable, infrastructure), but cost 2x as much as normal for every TL above 4 (roughly the 16th-18th centuries), which is the maximum easily sustainable technology level. The culture is heavily influenced by the American West, simply because that's easier to get everybody on the same page, but the world is split into, effectively, city-states and tribal chieftains - not unlike Europe's Migration Era after the fall of Rome. There's also some magic of a relatively subtle kind ("Path/Book Magic" for those of you who know GURPS) along with spirits, and alchemy of the standard GURPS sort ("snake oil") along with some other things like Gunslingers and traveling preachers of a sort.
• CORPS Old Solar System - Dying Mars with its ancient civilizations and canals crossing the cold deserts, overcast Venus and its vast, jungle swamps, shallow seas, and saurian monsters. I hadn't yet figured out what would be around Jupiter and Saturn (or further out yet!), but Mercury was to be largely drawn from Space 1889's "Nodding World" with its planet-girdling World River. Lots of inspiration from C.L. Moore and Leigh Brackett.

After some discussion, the players settled on the GURPS Deindustrial Future game, despite the fact that none of them have played much GURPS (they have an ongoing Champions game and have stayed focused on HERO System, though like most sensible people they shied away from the sixth edition of that game). Since I haven't played much 4E GURPS myself, things have been a learning experience for us all. I hope to write up some about their characters and their first adventure (a saloon brawl that took us a long time because of our collective unfamiliarity with actually playing the game)  soon.

Ruminating On Gaming Projects

Because the best thing to do when stuff needs
to be done is something else.

Sometimes, you have to sit back and take stock. I've been letting myself run wild and take on a number of gaming projects. I'm not sure if I should continue with all of them, what priority I should put on them, and so on, so it is time to think about that. I'm doing it here because it might help someone else see how another person organizes his thoughts, because someone might mention something that casts this all in a whole new light, and because doing things publicly helps force me to discipline my thinking a little.

First, let me just catalog the projects I have active, or at least semi-active, at this time, not counting actually playing games:

1. A Top Secret retroclone.
2. A MegaTraveller retroclone/revision attached to a space operatic setting.
3. Spectacular Science Stories (aka Rockets & Rayguns).
4. A Fantasy Wargaming retroclone/update.
5. A "sixguns & sorcery" setting for GURPS.
6. Flanaess Sector (for AD&D 1E).
7. Updating GURPS Voodoo: The Shadow War for GURPS 4E.
8. Codifying my version of the Trait System.
9. GURPS Greyhawk.
10. A magic system for Flashing Blades.
11. A mashup of Traveller and Flashing Blades.
12. My ideal roleplaying/adventure game system (mostly in the notes stage). It should be "semi-generic" in that it is intended to cover a number of genres, but all with the same "tone", for lack of a better term.

That, you might notice, is a lot. Several of these projects are stalled for various reasons that I will get to in a moment. Note that some of these have been projects I've undertaken for nearly the whole four-year existence of this blog. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might notice a couple of projects have been dropped from the "active/semi-active" list, such as the WRG Ancients-based RPG or a couple of attempts at an AD&D setting. The setting, actually, is also an ongoing project, but I'm not counting it here since it is purely for my own private use. I do intend to post about the current state of it at some point. The WRG Ancients RPG served its purpose and has been put to bed. Some of the ideas that came up in it have been incorporated into other projects.

Here's the thing, though. All of those projects kind of get in each other's way. For instance, I frequently find myself working feverishly at one of them for a while, then stepping away to another one, and when coming back to the first one finding out that I want to tear down some of what I'd already done and rework it. That's not really helpful if I ever want to finish any of these, and I do want to do that.

So, the first thing to do is to figure out what is most hampering each project at this point.

1. I remain uncertain just what direction to take this: should it be updated to the modern world's War on Terror or should it reflect late-'70s/early-'80s Cold War? Each has its merits, and Merle Rasmussen recently presented an adventure for the original game set in the modern day.
2. Rewriting the rules is a bigger task than I had envisioned at first. Yeah, that's mere whining and I should just get on with it, but the core of the game, the Task System, is turning out to be difficult enough to get the same sense in new language that I wonder if I really understand it. On top of that, I've been considering if I want to continue this way or approach the idea from another direction. That is, is MegaTraveller really what I want, or is there another, less drastic revision of classic Traveller that would be better?
3. Writing a D&D-based SF game is more difficult than some might think, unless you're just re-skinning the D&D rules with SF chrome, which I'm not. Plus, White Star kind of did a number on my head for a while, since it explicitly took Swords & Wizardry: White Box and made it SF, which is sort of the remit of Spectacular Science Stories. Still, I'm plugging away at this one pretty solidly.
4. I keep finding myself torn between the desire to present a more-or-less straight retroclone and the desire to update the game considerably. Reining in the latter tendency is exhausting. On the other hand, there were clearly some mistakes made in the original that need correcting.
5. I'm having a sort of crisis of faith with GURPS. It was my go-to, indeed nearly only, RPG for a decade. As I have been examining what I like about RPGs, though, it turns out that GURPS fails at many of those things. Trying to make a random character generation system for it was sobering. I remain convinced that such a random character system for it is possible and desirable, but it seems like too much work when not being paid to write it. I still have much affection for GURPS, but I have things to work through in regard to it.
6. Many of the same issues present with 3. are also problems here.
7. See 5.
8. While I still love the Trait System, I'm not sure that it fills my own needs anymore. It's kinda being superceded* by 12.
9. See 5.
10. Actually, nothing. I just haven't gotten back to it in a few weeks.
11. It's a crazy idea. It's actually more just a "hack" of Flashing Blades as a space opera, but since Traveller is definitive for that sort of thing in my head that's how I conceived it. Mostly, I haven't yet really convinced myself that it's a good idea, so I haven't done much work on it.
12. Work on this will be slow. I'm sort of thinking of it as "Hârnmaster, GURPS, Flashing Blades, Pendragon, RuneQuest, and classic Traveller have a mutant baby". At this point, I'm just writing down notes when I think of something related to it. I want it to have the detail options of GURPS, the breezy character creation of Flashing Blades, the integrated social systems of that game, the personality approach of Pendragon, and the gritty realism of Hârnmaster, RuneQuest, and Traveller. Or something like that. A lot of it is still very much in flux. This is my very own Heartbreaker. Maybe I should call it MOHb (for "My Own Heartbreaker").

I haven't even touched on the half-baked ideas I've had on which I haven't done any significant work. An adventure game that uses the Car Wars pedestrian combat and character rules (yes, yes, Autoduel Champions, Car Wars Tanks, and the Ob-Racing article) as its basis, probably scaled up 4x, so that 1/4" in Car Wars is a 1" square in the adventure game. An edition of Traveller that hits a spot somewhere between the Classic and Mega- editions (probably as a supplement to the Classic edition, since The Traveller Book is back in print). An entirely new Pulp Solar System setting, with my own versions of ancient Mars and swampy Venus (and the other planets). Returning to the WRG Ancients-based adventure game in a more serious fashion. My own attempt at GURPS Warhammer 40,000.

So, how do I prioritize these? I'm thinking that Spectacular Science Stories is my most important project right now, so that should be what I work on until it is finished, with the only intruding project being MOHb. After that, I'll pick whichever one is the most interesting to me at that moment (probably not Flanaess Sector, though, because that would be just too much SF all in a row) and work on it until I'm finished with that one, and so on. One project at a time might just be the best way to go.

What do you think?

*Some people say that this is an incorrect spelling of "superseded". Those people are wrong.

Games I'd Like To Play Redux

Yesterday, Douglas Cole at Gaming Ballistic wrote up some of the games that he'd like to play, and then today Peter V. Dell'Orto at Dungeon Fantastic did the same. Since I'm stuck in the review that I'm writing (for a recent game, of all things), I figured, "what the heck?" and decided to do the same. I've written things like this before, but I like the focus of limiting myself to three games (not a hard and fast rule, but that's what those two gentlemen did). And anyway, my list has changed slightly from those earlier lists.

1) Top Secret. I recently ran across the flowchart that Merle Rasmussen put together in Dragon magazine #40, and looked at my slowly growing draft of a TS retroclone. Then I remembered how much fun the game was, and how much fun it looks now. It's an odd game, occupying a niche closer to the Mission: Impossible TV series than the superheroics of Bond or Bourne (or the movie version of Mission: Impossible), more like Secret Agent/Danger Man or To Catch A Thief than Munich or Three Days of the Condor. And yet, it can manage to fill those other roles as well. Sometimes. When the dice fall right. The person running it would need to have access to a lot of the articles that appeared in Dragon magazine, especially "Pop the Clutch and Roll!" in Dragon #78, which gave a good, gameable system for car chases.

2) Flashing Blades. Especially using the High Seas supplement to play pirates in the Caribbean - but I wouldn't turn down playing in France either! There is still no better game for swashbuckling adventure. Character creation is as quick and breezy as the game system itself. Yeah, there are some clunky bits (weapon skills, notably), but they work without needing to be changed. The idea of having a goal in the form of the careers that a character can pursue is brilliant and quickly puts the players in the position of generating the adventures on their own as they maneuver and intrigue for power and position.

3) Traveller. Classic, Mega-, GURPS, Mongoose, I don't care. I'll even play New Era, T4, or T5 (though I won't be as happy). I do have a strong preference for Classic or Mega-, largely because I like the simplicity of the mechanics and clean feel of the gadgets and setting (Mongoose is a little too baroque for me, though the mechanics are good). GURPS is not a bad choice, though the system isn't as pristine. New Era is alright, but the system was not the best thing that GDW ever came up with. T4/T5 are pretty similar, and I don't like the way that the system has gone much, but at least it isn't SpaceMaster (I kid! I'm kidding! SpaceMaster is totally better than Space Opera. I'm kidding again!) I'd probably like any of them even more if the setting was the Referee's own, developed from the game assumptions, rather than the Imperium universe. Not that I dislike the Imperium, but ever since Virus it's kinda lost its appeal in all eras to me. Well, the GURPS "No Rebellion" alternate timeline is pretty cool. Too bad they had to go to the Interstellar Wars era in 4E, forcing everyone who just wanted to play the default setting to do a tonne of conversions. Easier to just roll up some subsectors and go. The point is, though, that Traveller is a pretty awesome game, maybe the best for me.

Of course, I'm not counting games that I'd run (well, I'd run Traveller). That is currently a fixed list: AD&D 1E (with small alterations), GURPS Fantasy Old West (which I am running for myself using a solo GM emulator), MegaTraveller, Fantasy Wargaming, Space 1889 (not the new one, the original GDW game), Chivalry & Sorcery. There are a couple of other games that I'd like to play, too, but not as seriously as the three I listed. Hârnmaster, D&D 5E, and RuneQuest 6E, notably, as well as any of those that I said I'd run.

What are you looking to play?

Another Update In Lieu Of Content, Plus Wire Trolls

I didn't get any character classes finished this week, so instead you get this.

The main thing I've gotten done lately is quite a bit of work done on the Fantasy Wargaming retroclone and revision, and somewhat less work done on the Top Secret retroclone. For the former, I've finished the draft of the character creation chapter and am well into the chapter on magic. For the latter, character creation is pretty much finished and I've worked some on action resolution, mainly on the "contacts" system by which characters can acquire information and services in exchange for bribes, threats, or seductions, among other techniques.

I've been learning a bit more about the Middle Sea world, but not enough to make a post of its own yet. I'll get there.

I'm trying to decide if I should go with presenting the Fantasy Wargaming revision as a Dark Ages/Medieval setting, as it was originally, or if I should present an original setting. The advantage of an original setting would be getting to avoid the criticism leveled at the former of "giving stats for Jesus" (which, while technically true, wasn't really as big a deal as the critics made out, since the stats given were effectively infinite - God wasn't intended for use as a monster you can kill). The disadvantage, of course, is that the idea of a straight Dark Age/Medieval European setting is a compelling one, and one around which many of the mechanics are based. I am really leaning toward keeping it in Europe, at least as a basis. Perhaps I can work up another setting as a supplement, if any demand exists. Maybe the Middle Sea world could be dual-statted for AD&D and FW/whatever I end up naming it. There would have to be a lot of work to do so, though, as it would require, at the very least, an entire chapter just on the religions of the Middle Sea: the Tetradic Church, the Fatalist Church, the Radiant Church, the Denialists (who might need their own, new magic system, though it would actually be a modification of the standard one), and polytheists of several varieties (Kurai, Davrai, and Daling, at the very least), plus demon-worship.

I'm having to revisit the matter of setting with the Top Secret retroclone as well. In initial feedback, I heard from people that they'd prefer to see it set in the Cold War era of the late '70s/early '80s, just as the original was. However, since then, Merle Rasmussen has released his first TS adventure in decades, and it is set in the present world of conflicts with terrorist groups and rogue states. I could also provide information to cover the multiple eras, but that would take up quite a bit of space.

OK, after all that, you deserve something you can use, so as a Joesky Tax here are some stats for Wire Trolls (thanks go to Zak S for pointing out the picture, which coalesced some previously inchoate ideas that I had running around in my head):

Wire Troll

Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 4
Move: 6"
Hit Dice: 6+1
% in Lair: 10%
Treasure Type: E
No. of Attacks: 2
Damage/Attack: 1-12/1-12
Special Attacks: Wires, Puppets
Special Defenses: Regeneration, Puppets
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Average
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Size: L (8' tall)
Psionic Ability: Nil
     Attack/Defense Modes: Nil
Experience: 825xp + 8xp/hp

The wire troll is a terrifying creature that wanders the wastes, using its puppets to forage for food and water, as well as to protect itself from attackers. They rely on the senses of the puppets, as their own are dim and weak.

While a wire troll can attack with its two great, maul-like hands, it prefers to send puppets to do its attacking for it. Those are, after all, expendable in the eyes of the wire troll. It will repair damage to its own body at the rate of 2 hit points per melee round, which will include severed parts coming back to the main body, or even forming an entirely new wire troll if the main body is destroyed by fire or acid, taking 3-18 melee rounds to do so.

The most feared attack of the wire troll is the sending out of wires, 1d4 per melee round, with a maximum of one per target per round. Each of these acts as a missile weapon, with a range of 10". If a wire hits, the target must make a saving throw (against petrification) or the wire embeds itself and attaches to the target's nervous system. At this point, the wire troll gains complete control and can manipulate the target to do anything the wire troll desires. Such puppets must remain within 10" of the wire troll at all times. A wire troll can never have more than 12 puppets at a time, and cannot voluntarily release any puppets. Puppets will retain all abilities, hit points, and so forth, except that no spellcasting abilities or divinely granted abilities will remain while a puppet. A wire troll cannot make a puppet out of a creature larger than itself.

Since the wires remain as a connection, it is obvious when a puppet is attached to a wire troll. The wire can be targeted by a sharp weapon to attempt to cut it, requiring a roll "to hit" against Armor Class 0, followed by a damage roll of at least 5 hit points of damage. Puppets released in such a fashion must make a System Shock survival roll, and will be disoriented and stunned for 1d6 melee rounds even if they succeed. If the wire troll can be killed, all of its puppets will be released without injury.

When encountered, a wire troll will have 2d6 puppets, of the following types:

1) human*
2) elf**
3) dwarf***
4) goblin
5) orc
6) gnoll
7) centaur
8) ogre
9) roll on random encounter chart
10) DM choice

*humans have a 10% chance of having a character class. Roll as per henchmen (DMG, p. 35).
**elves have a 20% chance of having a character class, as above.
***dwarves have a 15% chance of having a character class, as above.

Feeling Stupid, Plus Random Babble

Random babblings, not unlike these

I was going to post some more in the series about what I'd like to see in a tabletop roleplaying game, but it is too hot and humid to think or move. We don't have air conditioning here, mainly because that isn't a priority in our normal climate.

Anyway, I've been seeing some smart stuff by people about demographics that touches on and in many ways improves upon the material I'd been writing here. Rick Stump over at Don't Split The Party started on Wednesday with a really good article titled "Peasants, Nobles, Mages, Normals, and Heroes - How Many NPCs have Levels?", then followed that up with "Just How Big is your Army?" and "Economics of Having Levels". Now, Matt Jackson of msjx has weighed in with a piece titled "Low level characters, and the effects on play" that is pretty much a must-read for anyone playing a D&D-like game, I think.

You're probably aware that there has been some stupidity going on about the new D&D version because some people don't like two names (out of eight!) listed as "Additional Consultation provided by". As time has gone on, too, it's been conclusively shown that the complaints leveled by those people against those two names have been a tissue of lies and fabrication. There are plenty of reasons to dislike one or the other of them, sure - I'm none too fond of one of them as a human being, though I think that the other one is particularly smart and funny, and I read both because they are both of them smart - but to manufacture insane accusations because a person doesn't like them? And then to try to smear WotC with that? Those people doing the manufacturing of calumnies are human waste. And that is the end of my involvement with that topic on this blog.

Does anyone have any good resources (not gaming ones) on the characteristics of sailing ships and galleys? I'm interested to see what actual speeds of travel and cargo capacities were like for those, especially from the era of the 13th to 16th centuries, all the way up to the beginning of the 17th. I wouldn't mind information on the Viking Age Scandinavian vessels, either. Surprisingly, there are few hard numbers in my books on pirates (Rogoziński doesn't have much of anything outside of some scattered information on cargo capacities, for example, and neither does Cordingly; the others tend to focus on personalities or, like Peter Lamborn Wilson, the economics and politics of locations).

I am coming along with the revision/retroclone of Fantasy Wargaming. Part of that process has me looking at source materials, so I've been re-reading old magical Grimoires and examining the various names and functions of demons. Those guys got a lot of that stuff pretty much spot-on, though they abridged their sources quite a lot (perhaps not surprisingly, as they had limited space). Since I'm planning to just dump the background that takes up about half the book (there are plenty of resources on the Middle Ages available, and I'll just point people toward those), I'm going to have a lot of extra space available to fill those abridged gaps. For those interested in such things, I plan on sticking mainly to the Solomonic Grimoires, which seem to be the main source for the original game, plus the Grimoirium Verum and Clm 849 "The Munich Handbook of Necromancy". There are a ton of named spirits in that last, though, many of whom are not given any real information outside of their names, so I will almost certainly abridge that one greatly.

Speaking of that, does anyone know a good listing of Saints that were known in the period 500CE-1500CE or so? Concentrating on the Hundred Years' War period would be really good (so, no Joan of Arc, since she wasn't sanctified until the 20th century). I like the FW list, but I want to check their information and maybe expand it a little.

One plan I have is to add the pantheons of the Welsh/British Celts, the Gaels, and the Slavic peoples. All of those were extant at least during part of FW's nominal period, and so I think that they should be dealt with to some extent. I have useful resources for those already. I wonder how best to approach dvoverie (the Slavic practice of being both Christian and pagan; it means "two faiths") in FW's rules? Probably just like it does for sorcery: invoking non-Christian gods is a Sin of whatever magnitude (probably the same as for invoking demons), and stick with the Christian Virtue/Sin templates for those trying to hold two faiths.

In my ideal game, of course, all of this Piety stuff is simplified down considerably. I'll get around to talking about that soon enough.

I haven't done any work on the Top Secret retroclone in the past couple of weeks. I need to pick that one back up, too.

State Of The Faoladh

Normally, today would be the day of the week that I post more factoids about the Middle Sea world, but I don't have enough currently to make a full post. I've been distracted by the World Cup and a couple of other projects.

First, I am actively writing a revision/retroclone of Fantasy Wargaming, which I still say has the potential of being one of the better games to come from the late '70s/early '80s era. It's a combination of writing and a back-and-forth discussion process with a collaborator, who is able to keep me from forgetting how awesome FW really is and flying off into a massive redesign.

In between that, I am also still slogging away at a Top Secret retroclone. I kinda wish that I'd already finished this, because of the fourth issue of Gygax magazine (which includes a new TS mission from Merle Rasmussen), but I only have myself to blame for that.

I would like to get back to writing a game using the Trait System that I designed a few years back (and which has seen some word-of-mouth success, albeit mainly in the storygame crowd, and after some changes from my original intent). I think that fantasy Elizabethan era is what it would work best for, and was what I had in mind when I originally worked out the basics, plus I just really like the idea of the era and setting. I've gotten a bit down in electrons for it, but it's been set aside for the moment.

I was reminded recently that I'd really like to see a setting of occult conspiracy in the late 18th century (the Enlightenment era of revolution). Mainly, I'd like to play in such a setting. The LotFP default assumptions come pretty close to that, but I don't know, it seems more Thirty Years' War rather than American Revolution.

I've been considering the points and counterpoints in the "rewards for roleplaying" debate that is currently going on. I tend toward the side that says it is actively detrimental to roleplaying at the table, but I want to address the issue with more nuance, since that simple argument doesn't really cover my full impression of the concept. I've been poking at an article for the blog on the matter, but it isn't really coming together yet.

I'm nearly ready to give up on finding a venue to run games face to face here (in my house is not an option). I am considering running online, but I have the small problem that I don't want to take the time to learn how to set up a virtual tabletop, and I'm not sure my poor antique laptop could take it and G+ Hangouts at the same time, anyway. Maybe I will still be able to find a workable option for gaming locally. Maybe I should start emailing people on Nearbygamers or whatever.

So, here's a question for you all: what settings or eras do you think would be a lot of fun to play in, but haven't seen much (or any) coverage in games to date? Post-oil? Neolithic fantasy? Gunboat diplomacy China? WWI Knights of the Air? Max Headroom Cyberpunk?

Updates

First, the sad news. I have decided to abandon my attempt to make a GURPS random-character generator, as it is simply too much work. Instead, I will go back to the Sixguns & Sorcery setting for the basis of my solo game. I still have work to do for that, but at least it is pretty clearly defined and doesn't involve massive feature creep.

For the Sixguns & Sorcery project, I need to develop the religion a bit more, enough to be able to stat out some of the spirit/gods and their possession effects, similar to the Loas in GURPS Voodoo. I'll talk about the religion another time. I've already converted the NPC templates from The Knuckleduster Cowtown Creator, which is a great wild west resource, but which was only statted out for Deadlands and D20 systems (and a nod toward FUDGE). Happily, there are available conversions for Deadlands to GURPS Deadlands in Dime Novel 1: Aces and Eights. Those are to 3E, of course, but converting from there to 4E is a snap. I did discover that the templates are pretty high-point valued if taken straight, so I tinkered with them to bring them down to power levels I think are appropriate to the basically gritty, yet still somewhat cinematic, nature of the genre as I envision it in the setting. It was disconcerting, to say the least, to see an NPC type called "Loafer" come in at over a hundred GURPS points, but I've chopped it back to 56. Still a fair amount, but it fits the character description. Many of the other NPCs similarly had to be cut back considerably from their raw converted state. I'll probably post them somewhere for others to make use of them. GURPS really needs more "generic" NPC statblocks for Referees to use, especially ones who are just getting their heads around the system. I hear experienced GURPS Referees say that they just set some numbers that look right, but it's getting to the point where the numbers that "look right" are also actually right that Referees need assistance with.

What else? I have returned to my AD&D 1E (mostly) sword & sorcery setting, Terra Ultima. I've made some decisions about it, definitely deciding, at last, to restrict players to human characters. I have, however, opened out the character classes somewhat, so that there are fifteen available options: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Illusionist, Magic-User, Monk, Mountebank, Outdoorsman, Paladin, Psionicist, Ranger, Spy, Thief, and Witch. The Bard and Mountebank are pretty much the versions from Adventures Dark & Deep, though I keep looking at the Bard material in Dragon 56 (the stat requirements of that version, though, make the Bard less common than the Monk). The Outdoorsman is a slightly modified version of the "Bandit" class from Dragon 63 (main change: HD are d8 rather than d8+1). The Psionicist is mainly the version by Arthur Collins in Dragon 78 (I changed the XP progression a lot and set the HD to d4 only). The Spy is a reskinned version of the Assassin. The Witch, right now, is mainly from the version in Dragon 114, but I am playing with ideas from Tim Brannan's The Witch. His class is pretty solidly written for D&D, though, so the AD&D-isms are coming from the Dragon magazine class. He does include an appendix on using the class in AD&D, so if I get around to picking it up in hardcopy before any witches show up in the game, maybe I'll use his version completely. That would change the demographics slightly (see below), but I can live with handwaving that, or changing just the stat requirements to the Dragon magazine version - if I get ambitious, and bored enough, I could always recalculate them.

I'm pretty interested in fantasy demographics and what they can do to flesh out a setting, so I worked out how frequent each of these classes are. My method was somewhat interesting, if I do say so myself, at least if mathematics and basic arithmetic don't scare you. I started by noting Gary Gygax's assumption that only one in a hundred people have the potential for having a class and level (DMG, p. 35). Then I went through each class and figured out what would be the chance of a character, rolling 3d6 in order, to qualify for it. Some of the classes are ridiculously difficult to qualify for under that default system. Even worse, there is a certain chance that a character will not qualify for any class at all (I called these "Hopeless characters" in my results). At the rate of one in a hundred having even a chance, for example, it turns out that only one in 250,000 people can become a Monk (and that is still only one in 2500 characters if you roll without any of the gimmick methods), which is rarer than Paladins (at one in 111,111).

My next step was to set a societal preference scale. That is, I set the priority of classes based on how important the class was to the society on the average. Lower-probability classes were typically set higher than the "usual suspects", and various assumptions were incorporated into the list. My list of preferred classes went like this: Paladin, Illusionist, Monk, Ranger, Outdoorsman, Fighter, Bard, Mountebank, Thief, Spy, Psionicist, Druid, Witch, Cleric, Magic-User. My assumptions were that it is very difficult to become a magic-using class even for those qualified, that people would typically prefer to be in a class that has wider abilities than more limited ones (such as preferring Rangers to Outdoorsmen), and that some orders actively seek out qualified applicants (notably Illusionists and Monks, who represent the more advanced priesthood of the Denialist Church, and Paladins, who represent the warrior-monk elite of the Radiant Church). I assumed that people would prefer to be a member of the various Cleric-like classes than to be a Magic-User, since the former have social and economic benefits that do not accrue to the latter. Finally, I assumed that people in the setting would prefer honest occupations to dishonest ones. Placing the Psionicist and Bard where I did are more intuitive, and I can't tell you why they are at those particular places in the preferences.

For each stage of preference, I figured out the percentage of the population would qualify, multiplied that by the percentage that remained and recorded the result. Then I subtracted that percentage from the total percentage (so that, for example, if 5% could qualify for a class out of a remaining 20% of the population at that stage in the preferences, 0.2 x 0.05 = 0.01 of the total population would be recorded, and that 1% subtracted from the running total of 20%, leaving 19% for the next stage in the preferences). Rounding all of the values to the nearest 0.0001 (0.01%) gave me the following table to roll d10,000 (which I will mainly use to replace the table on p. 35 of the DMG):

d10,000 (4d10) (only 1% of random NPCs even get to roll on this table)

0001-0088: Bard (1/11,364)
0089-0747: Cleric (1/1517)
0748-0779: Druid (1/31,250)
0780-6433: Fighter (1/177)
6434-6468: Illusionist (1/28,571)
6469-6723: Magic-User (1/3922)
6724-6727: Monk (1/250,000)
6728-7323: Mountebank (1/1678)
7324-7561: Outdoorsman (1/4202)
7562-7570: Paladin (1/111,111)
7571-7615: Psionicist (1/22,222)
7616-7631: Ranger (1/62,500)
7632-7714: Spy (1/12,048)
7715-9773: Thief (1/486)
9774-9838: Witch (1/15,385)
9839-0000: Hopeless Character, no class/level

The fractions after each class represent how many of that class there are per how many total population. I may come up with a class for characters who don't qualify for any other class, so I have something I can do with the Hopeless Characters.

For reference, here are the stat requirements for each of the fifteen classes:

Bard: S6 I6 W6 D14 C6 Ch14
Cleric: S6 I6 W9 D3 C6 Ch6
Druid: S6 I6 W12 D6 C6 Ch15
Fighter: S9 I3 W6 D6 C7 Ch6
Illusionist: S6 I15 W6 D16 C3 Ch6
Magic-User: S3 I9 W6 D6 C6 Ch6
Monk: S15 I6 W15 D15 C11 Ch6
Mountebank: S6 I10 W6 D9 C6 Ch12
Outdoorsman: S12 I10 W6 D12 C12 Ch6
Paladin: S12 I9 W13 D6 C9 Ch17
Psionicist: S3 I10* W10* D3 C9 Ch10* (*one of these must be 16)
Ranger: S13 I13 W14 D6 C14 Ch6
Spy: S12 I11 W6 D12 C6 Ch3
Thief: S6 I6 W3 D9 C6 Ch6
Witch: S6 I13 W13 D6 C6 Ch6

(Note that the Psionicist breaks the rule about Strength below 6 being limited to Magic-User and Dexterity below 6 to Cleric. This is deliberate.)

Finally, I've returned to working on the Top Secret retroclone game that I had set aside for too many months. No idea what I'm going to call it. I'll probably figure it out when it is closer to being complete. I have decided to incorporate some of the better ideas from Dragon magazine into it, such as rules for car chases and a better Contact (NPC reactions) system.

Did You Miss Me?

Two and a half months since I've posted anything here, and for some reason I think that there will still be people reading it. Maybe I'm crazy. Anyway, I've got a couple of things that I wanted to mention, gaming-wise, and so I'm going to post about them now.

First off, I looked in my mail today, and found a neat little packet from Tim Shorts of Gothridge Manor and GM Games. It was an envelope containing the spiffy adventure (originally a one-page dungeon) called "Where is Margesh Blackblood?". It's available in PDF form at RPGNow for "pay what you want", so you could run right over there right now and get it for free, or for a buck or two, or for a hundred dollars if you wanted to pay that much for it. It's a quick little bounty hunt for a wayward bandit. I love Tim's adventures, even the simple ones like this one. Well, simpler than some. There are some neat twists here that will probably have the players questioning their characters' motivations. Or not.

I am still thinking about how best to really review Traveller5. For a quick one-liner, though, I am sad to say that I am not entirely happy with it. Still, it's got some really good stuff in there.

I was recently nudged back toward working on my Top Secret retroclone. I opened the file, but didn't really get anything done. We'll see how that goes. Most of my other projects, such as the WRG Ancients-based RPG, have pretty much been abandoned. A major exception is the MegaTraveller retroclone idea, which I have modified into a version of that edition adapted to my own SF starfaring setting.

People who have been paying attention to that Goodreads widget down there toward the bottom of the right sidebar will have noticed that I have been reading Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series of books. This is my first time reading them. When I finish the one I am on, I am going to go ahead and read the eighth one (The Wind Through the Keyhole) rather than going on to the fifth one. I am told that this is the intended order, and that King only wrote the fifth-seventh ones first because he wanted to finish the story before he dies (the car accident that almost killed him kinda kicked him in the ass to do it quickly). I'm a little bit surprised that I have never seen a gaming version of Mid-World. I like it, though it is substantially different than my own "sixguns & sorcery" setting.

Speaking of my own settings, Tim Brannan over at The Other Side has given us his own version of Appendix N. I think that's a neat exercise, so I've done up my own, as it would currently be. Like Tim's, mine will also include particularly interesting movies (I'll list them after the books, though). I make no apologies for the fact that I include a couple of westerns, and even an SF title or two. I am, however, going to avoid non-fiction and gaming books for now:

Books:

• Asprin, Robert L.: "Thieves' World" series (editor)
• Burroughs, Edgar Rice: "Barsoom" series
• Cherryh, C.J.: THE DREAMSTONE and THE TREE OF SWORDS AND JEWELS (particularly as published together and slightly revised under the title THE DREAMING TREE; can also be found together, unrevised, as ARAFEL'S SAGA)
• Herbert, Frank: DUNE
• Holdstock, Robert: "Mythago" series
• Howard, Robert E.: "Conan" stories
• L'Amour, Louis: THE HAUNTED MESA, THE WALKING DRUM
• Lee, Tanith: "Flat Earth" series, THE BIRTHGRAVE, et al.
• Leiber, Fritz: "Fafhrd & Grey Mouser" series
• Lovecraft, H.P.: "Dreamlands" stories
• Martin, George R.R.: "A Song of Ice and Fire" series
• Powers, Tim: ON STRANGER TIDES, et al.
• Sabatini, Rafael: CAPTAIN BLOOD, THE SEA HAWK, et al.
• Smith, Clark Ashton: "Zothique" stories, "Averoigne" stories, et al.
• Tolkien, J.R.R.: THE HOBBIT, "Lord of the Rings" trilogy
• Tremayne, Peter: "Sister Fidelma" series

Films:

• Cat People (the original, though the remake is not terrible) and Curse of the Cat People
• Conan the Barbarian (it is not Howard, but Milius's magnum opus is still an intriguing fantasy film)
• The Dark Crystal
• Dead Man
• Dragonslayer
• Excalibur
• Eyes of Fire (sometimes called Cry Blue Sky)
• Fire & Ice
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and the other two "Man With No Name" films
• Heavy Metal (the Taarna sequence)
• John Carter (like Conan, above, it is not the original, but it is still a good science-fantasy film)
• Krull
• Labyrinth
• Legend
• Lord of the Rings trilogy
• Pale Rider
• Pirates of the Caribbean series
• The Princess Bride
• Princess Mononoke
• The Secret of Roan Inish
• Spirited Away
• Star Wars (the original, now called "Episode IV", is an excellent fantasy adventure story with coming-of-age themes)
• Unforgiven
• The Warrior and the Sorceress
• The Wicker Man

There you go. I don't know if I'm back in the sense of regular posting, but I hope to at least post a little more often than I have been.

Sevens

Over at Rather Gamey, Ark has listed his top seven played and run games. Seems like something to post, so I thought I'd go ahead and do the same. Note that these are not lists of favorite games, but rather the games that have actually been played/run most.

Of games I've played, it seems to me like this:

1) GURPS 3E
2) Traveller
3) Call of Cthulhu
4) MegaTraveller
5) AD&D 1E
6) Rolemaster
7) Champions (1st-3rd edition HERO System)

Of games I've run, it is most likely in this order:

1) Traveller
2) MegaTraveller
3) GURPS 3E
4) AD&D 1E
5) Vampire: The Masquerade
6) Top Secret
7) Any number of one-shots. I'll say Space 1889 because it should be on here somewhere.

That is to say, I don't think that I've run any game other than those top 6 more than once. I wish that I'd done so with, say, Space 1889 or CORPS, but not yet.

I really should run a MegaTraveller game sometime. I've got the megadungeon thing up first, though, in order to get back into the swing of running stuff. I've laid some more firm plans toward that today, in fact.

A Little Bit Of A Personal Gaming Update

I have a number of projects ongoing, and some news on my own gaming front. Since I can't seem to sit down and write content that I want to put up on this here blog thing, I guess that a personal update is in order.

In general, I am doing a lot less than I would like to be. In part, this is because I really can't stand the heat, and there's no way to get out of the kitchen. Of course, people in other parts of the country are sneering at me right now, as I am in one of the most temperate parts of the Lower 48, but I am acclimatized to here ("here" being the Pacific Northwest), and it is hot for here (and humid, which is very unusual). Other parts have to do with life issues.

First up, the project on which I want to be spending a lot more time than I am is the Top Secret retroclone. I am working on it, but like this blog, gaming takes second place to things that are happening in real life. I am considering how to get art for it, which leads me to thinking about Kickstarter, which further leads to the idea of doing a real print run rather than, or in addition to, a Lulu.com product. I'm not sure about the ins and outs of that, though. I'll talk to people and see what can be done.

Second, it looks like I'll be trying out this newfangled online gaming by teleconferencing thing. Happily, it looks to be a Traveller game, albeit the Mongoose version. I still have to make a character and whatnot, but that should go pretty quickly.

Next there's the AD&D game I've been working on. I've done a reasonable amount of work on it. I've got some of the main city of the campaign mapped, along with some sketches toward the ground floor of the tower-citadel of the city's masters. I have ideas about the megadungeon, but haven't gotten to putting lines on paper for the map yet. I don't know whether to wait until I have at least the sketches of the city's sewers done first (the dungeon is located underneath the city) or fit the sewers around the dungeon. However, those issues have dropped in priority because…

Thinking about Traveller has made me realize that I really, really love that game. I have a science fiction setting that I had been working on for some short stories, and decided that now would be a fine time to put it in gaming form. Some of the themes I want to explore with the setting include the value of multiple cultural expressions to the long-term viability of intelligent species, the nature of human institutions like honor, empire, and such, and the ability of varying worldviews to coexist or not. There are a dozen human interstellar polities, and a dozen aliens. Players will only be human, and at least at first, I intend to limit them to the central Terran Federation. Things are not always what they seem, of course, but sometimes they are. The setting has a lot of secrets sitting in my head. For now, I'll be using MegaTraveller, with some ideas taken from GURPS Traveller: Far Trader and First In. Eventually, I'll convert it to T5.

Other projects, like the WRG Game, are on hold right now.

What have you been doing in regard to gaming these days?

Wednesday Morning Randomness

1) I've been re-reading MegaTraveller. I'm surprised at how very simple the rules are, except for the vehicle design sequences. Most of the first two books are taken up with either those design sequences, the world generation sequences, or the character generation tables. Only a very small amount is taken up with resolution systems.

2) Work proceeds on the Top Secret clone. I'm keeping things pretty close to the basic book, but there are bits from the Top Secret Companion that I feel like I really want to include. I'm also making sure that some of the material from Dragon magazine would be usable by including the extra stats from, for instance, the space program articles and the wilderness survival article. I'll probably include highly simplified ways of using those.

3) Almost no one seems to be voting on the poll to the right. Please vote.

4) One of my projects for this year is to finish all of the Burroughs Barsoom books. I'm on the eighth, Swords of Mars, now.

5) I'm really looking forward to Prometheus. I may go see it in the theater, something I only rarely do - most recently, I've gone to see John Carter and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I can't even remember what movie I went out to previous to that (the first Iron Man, maybe?). Yeah, I don't go to the theater much.

Some Semi-Random Notes

1) After thinking about the setting of the Black-Blooded Earth, it's occurred to me that one of the elements I was planning to use is at odds with one of the major themes of the setting. So, no more portals or skyships. They conflict with the idea that there is nowhere to run if the world is rendered uninhabitable.

2) Over on Hill Cantons, there's an excellent series ongoing examining the domain game as presented in 1st edition AD&D. In addition, there's a discussion of what reading the situation as given says about the implied setting of AD&D. I have to consider this discussion and what it means for the Black-Blooded Earth, since I'll be running it with AD&D.

3) On that topic, I've decided that the house rules I outlined earlier will be the only ones in use that alter the rules as written. I may use other systems to cover specific situations that are not covered in the AD&D rules (material component availability and costs, for a notable one), but otherwise I'm sticking to the rules in the books and making up other stuff as it comes up (or grabbing a Dragon article as necessary).

4) Work continues on the Top Secret clone. Slowly, but it continues.

5) I'm considering several games for the next installment of Obscure Games. Should it be Fantasy Wargaming? I seem to be one of only two or three people in the world who like that game. How about  Celtic Legends? High Colonies? The Arcanum? I have others in the offing, but one of those will be next. Let me know which ones you're most interested in hearing about.

Well, Heck

I guess I'd better get moving on that Top Secret retroclone.

Top Secret And Old School Resolution

One of the insights of the OSR has been the relationship between player and character, specifically as it relates to "skills" and similar systems. The idea is that the player should be able to simply describe what the character is doing, and the Referee will adjudicate the outcome based on that description. So, where a modern player might roll a character's "search" skill, the old school player would describe how the character is searching and where. This is all fine until it comes to technical skills, especially modern ones such as piloting aircraft or computer programming, where the player will either might not have any particular skill in the field or else the Referee might lack any knowledge of how that skill is employed in reality.

Top Secret approaches this situation in three different, but related, ways. The first is the easiest, and is related to the rolled abilities of the character. Things like deactivating alarms and traps, fighting, or charming a contact are covered by these. The player still describes, at least in general (but specific details are helpful, too), how the character is going about it, but the resolution is heavily influenced by the abilities of the character. Next is also easy, and those are "Areas Of Knowledge", or "AOKs". These are the most like traditional gaming skills, and cover abilities like Accounting or Chemistry. They are rated in percentages (though they can go above 100), which can be rolled against directly, or a minimum level set for success.

So far, though, we haven't seen anything about flying aircraft or forging documents (those are not covered under AOKs). Thus, in Dragon magazine and later in the Top Secret Companion, a system of "College Courses" was set out, in which the character would spend a certain amount of money and time and gain a new ability. This was not perfectly integrated, as the legacy systems of such things as martial arts (defined in the original game by the level of "Military Science/Weaponry" or "Physical Education" AOKs) were joined by the College Course system (in which one could learn various martial arts by taking a course). The idea seems to have been that someone with a lower level of Military Science/Weaponry or Physical Education could still learn the particulars of fighting with Judo, Martial Arts, Boxing, or Wrestling. Oddly, Knife Fighting and Swordplay are treated differently in the College Course system, which is something I need to think about in writing the TS retroclone. In any case, the course would also give specific increases to various AOKs or even abilities, and a modest bonus of Experience Points (though members of the Technical Bureau got quite a bit more). Here's an example of a College Course:

Scuba Diving

Cost: $8000
Time: 4 weeks
Prerequisite: Physical Strength 50+, Willpower 75+.
Areas of Specialization: Closed circuit systems, Semi-closed-circuit demand-type scuba systems.
Ability Acquired: Using semi-closed or open-circuit scuba diving equipment, the agent can dive to a maximum depth equal to the next highest fitness rating. For example, a weakling could dive to 185 feet, an average agent could dive to 285 feet, and strong and super agents could dive to depths of 380 and 435 feet, respectively. An agent can swim a distance of 5001-6000 (5000 + (1-100)x(1-10)) feet safely 85% of the time, even at the maximum depth. An agent using a closed-circuit system may dive to a depth of only 30 feet or less for 30 minutes or less. An agent can hold his breath for a number of seconds equal to his Willpower value. Increase Physical Strength and Willpower each + (1-10).
Areas of Knowledge increase: Military Science and Physical Education each + (1-10).
Credit: 60 Experience Points.

Now, there are some things in there which were not well-defined in the original game, such as the note that the agent would be safe "85% of the time" (there's no indication of what happens if that chance is failed; my guess is that it was intended as a saving throw that would automatically prevent any complications that the Referee might have considered throwing the agent's way). There are some abilities gained through College Courses, though, which seem to imply that the ability can't be performed at all by someone who hasn't taken the Course, such as piloting a space shuttle. In addition, there are many College Courses implied which were not delineated in the original material.

This is similar to the skill systems of other games in many ways, but it assumes that the player can use his knowledge to perform various actions that would be covered by skills in some modern games. For instance, the searching example I discussed above. In addition, there's a saving throw against the player's mistakes in the character's abilities, so that, for instance, a player who didn't have the character look in the right place for a particular useful object could be given a roll against the Perception tertiary trait to find it anyway. Alternately, the Referee could simply set a minimum Perception to find the item, with that coming into play if the player failed to properly direct the character.

Top Secret Retroclone Character Creation

In the original game, characteristics were rolled on 1d100, and gained bonuses based on the number rolled. So, if the roll were 01-25, you'd add 25 points, making the stat 26-50. This is a little bit complicated, and it results in situations where a roll that was higher results in a stat that is lower (for instance, a 25 becomes 50, while a roll of 26 becomes 41). That annoys some players, even though I don't personally care.

The average roll using the basic Top Secret method comes out to 62.73, with a minimum roll of 26 and a maximum of 100. After experience additions, stats have no theoretical limit, though there are some practical limitations.

I'm thinking that I will include both that method and a simpler method. Instead of rolling 1d100 straight, roll 2d10 and choose the larger die as the tens digit, the smaller die as the ones digit. This results in an average roll of 65.45 with a minimum roll of 10 and a maximum of 100. Perhaps I will include the option of allowing the player to choose which method he prefers.

I'm definitely going to incorporate all of the various secondary and tertiary traits from supplementary material, which basically means that it will include the three traits from the Top Secret Companion and the two traits from "Operation: Zenith", Rasmussen's article from Dragon 120 that introduced the space program as an arena for espionage roleplaying. In addition, there are a few sections in some alternate rules that I plan to incorporate where averages of various attributes are used without declaring a new secondary or tertiary trait. I think that I'll designate some new traits to cover those.

A Retroclone Of Top Secret?

I suppose that I haven't really been talkative lately. Mainly due to the fact that I've been watching a bunch of spy-themed movies and reading TSR's Top Secret and Victory Games/Avalon Hill's James Bond 007. At some point, it occurred to me that there should be a retroclone of one or both of those. I'm starting working on notes toward a clone of the former, but I have some areas that I'd like to ask others about.

First, how much change do I need to make to satisfy legal requirements? Am I allowed, for instance, to keep the same names of characteristics, or do I have to give them synonymous names since the game is not, itself, under the OGL? Can I go so far as to use the "Quick Reference Codes" for weapons that were so prevalent in the various modules (this may not be essential, but it could prove useful in converting those old adventures to the clone system)? Can I just paraphrase and reorganize the rules sections, and present the tables in reorganized form?

Second, what do you think that the modern audience would prefer: a retro look at the Cold War era, or a modern, Homeland Security era game, such as the last two James Bond films seem to be attempting? I'm leaning toward the latter, but I can see a retroclone being targeted at the former, with supplementary material covering the more modern era.

Third, should I consider putting my own spin on some of the rules, such as the hand-to-hand combat section? For instance, I'd like to add ways in swordplay to include cuts to the body and legs, which are absent in the second printing tables. I'd also like to change the system slightly so that wrestling is a little less of a foregone conclusion (for instance) by adding a random element based on relative character traits. Is that a good idea at all?

Fourth, I'm interested in integrating the Top Secret Companion and some of the better Dragon magazine articles (especially those by Rasmussen). However, I don't know if there is some reason that might be a bad idea.

So, what do you think?

Top Secret

The game that has been occupying my attention in the last couple of weeks more than most is the old TSR Top Secret, the original one, not the later Top Secret/S.I. (which doesn't really interest me). I've been looking for modules for the game and adventures printed in Dragon magazine. I also discovered that there was a significant revision of the hand-to-hand combat rules in the 2nd printing (and the revision is an improvement on the original rules), and that there was a Top Secret Companion which collected many of the optional rules that Merle Rasmussen wrote originally for his column in Dragon. I've also surprised myself by how many issues of Dragon I own that had articles regarding the game.

There are a lot of good old-school elements of the game. Actions are governed by broad categories of competence (and, with the Companion, formal training courses), some of which are universal, such as general athletic ability and the ability to deactivate electronics and mechanical mechanisms, while others are more focused areas of knowledge, such as scientific knowledge or a knowledge of history. This allows a character to attempt actions even in areas in which he is untrained, and to make use of the general knowledge of the player freely. In a sense, there are two separate, but interlocking, skills systems in the game: attributes and areas of knowledge, and training courses. There are also prototypes of more "story" oriented rules presented as options, such as hero points (here called Fame Points and Fortune Points).

Less worthwhile, the combat system uses a variant of D&D's Armor Class system. Weapons are given a Projectile Weapon Value (PWV) or Hand Weapon Value (HWV). This affects the ability of the weapon to hit the opponent. Projectile weapons then cause damage on a fixed table, from 1 to 12 points, while hand-to-hand weapons use a more complex system (described below). Armor modifies damage, reducing it by a percentage, or nearly eliminating damage from weapons below a certain caliber. There are some suggestions of how to handle larger weaponry (machine guns and missiles, for instance) in a Dragon magazine article, but this is not official. Damage is inflicted on a value called "Life Level", which is based on the basic, rolled attributes of the character.

Hand-to-hand combat is divided into various types: non-trained, wrestling, boxing/swordplay (these use the same table), judo, and martial arts. Hand weapons add a damage modifier when using non-trained or boxing/swordplay combat. In the original version, boxing and swordplay were separate, and there was a knife fighting option as well, but the revised system is much better. In a combat round, one character is the attacker, the other the defender. The attacker chooses an attack type secretly (which also determines which damage chart to use in the case of a hit), while the defender chooses two defenses. These are cross-indexed on the tables, and a result determined. This generally consists of a miss or a hit, possibly with a damage modifier, but can also include holds, a change of roles (defender becomes attacker and vice versa), or other results.

Combat has a number of optional rules which can increase the complexity of the game. For instance, injuries can cause temporary and permanent losses to abilities and attributes in addition to the Life Level damage.

Some activities are abstracted greatly. In the optional rules regarding arrest by police, for instance, the character is given a "chance to escape by getaway". This is simply a saving roll against the character's Evasion value, a failure indicating that the character goes to trial (and the trial is similarly abstract).

Further, there are tables of random complications, intended to be used by the Admin (the game's word for the Referee) in cases where she has not built such into the scenario. These include the results of police investigation, the chance that a target (or someone connected to the target) may attempt revenge, the chances that a message is intercepted or jammed, the chance that a surveillance is discovered, and general occupational hazards such as illness or having one's morals offended. There is even a "Campaign Rules" section that includes some notes toward a type of "domain game", with costs of constructing buildings and setting up a network of agents and contacts.