The King fed the Chalice with blood.
His blood, blood of the Nobles, the blood of the people, the blood of prisoners.
He sought a better world but wrought only chaos.
We must get the Chalice from him or we will all die.
This is a game about gang warfare. Except replace the impoverished youths with wizards and the inner city with a magical city gone completely and totally off the deep end. A while back the king got hold of something. Something powerful and distinctly unnatural. It rotted this city and drove it mad. Its teetering on the brink now, in the hands of a number of powerful factions, barely muddling through. Everyone is attempting to gather whats left of the power in this city and use it to get that Chalice for themselves. Are you going to let them build a ladder to salvation out of your corpse? Or are you going to them first?
All rolls are based on stats that are rated with dice between d2 and d10. Whenever a situation comes up, I choose that stat that best fits it and roll the dice connected to that stat. If the challenge isn't connected to an enemy, I choose a dice that I think represents the challenge and then roll your dice and mine. With enemies, I roll the stat connected to the enemy action vs yours. Regardless, highest wins with the degree of success or failure influencing the result.
The game uses the "Perplexicon" style magic system, stringing together words to create spells. However, unlike perplexicon where the words are secret and have to be deciphered, here the words are known but are in limited supply. I'll explain that more below.
Here are the stats
Potency: Does two things. First, when you create a spell I roll potency and the number on the die is the number of words that the spell uses. Ie, if you have a 5 word spell, then you need to roll 5 or higher for it to go off without a hitch. Otherwise, if you roll too low, I randomly substitute words out. IE a 5 word spell where you roll 3 would result in 3 words as you said them, then 2 random words. Spells cannot exceed the max size of your die. Ie if your potency is d6, you can only use a max of 6 words. The more "Extra" power you have, the better. So a 3 word spell where you roll 4 won't be as powerful as the same spell if you had rolled 6.
Memory: How many words you can have in your magical "deck". Starts at 5 with d2, and each level up adds 5 more. So d4 is 10 and d6 is 15.
Strength: Used for anything melee or close range (including things like body explosions), from spells to weapons. Used both as the to hit and the damage, with higher numbers being harder to dodge and dealing more damage. Oh and for lifting heavy things and such like that.
Dex: Same as strength, but with ranged attacks.
Speed: Two uses: 1. Rolled between attackers for initiative. 2. The max of your die is the number of spaces you can move in a turn. Ie d6=6 spaces. We're doing it Xcom style where you can either move and act, or act and move, or double move and then not act.
Vitality: Rolled when you get hit by standard physical damage. Like a brick or a lightning bolt. If you roll higher than the attack and have some armor that can block or partially block the attack, then it does so. If not, then a successful roll just makes the injury a little less bad. Failures mean you take the full brunt of the damage, maybe even more if you fail badly.
Endurance: Used to resist things like disease, fear, mind control, forced transformations and other effects that are not direct damage but are things you don't want. Like everything, it's a "roll higher" deal.
Intelligence: Multiple uses. If you summon a creature, you must roll equal to or higher than the number of words used to make the creature to have it follow your instructions. This is only rolled once, at the moment of summoning, and if you fail, it will always have free will. If you succeed it will always obey. Similarly, enchanting objects requires an Int roll equal or greater than the number of words used in the spell. And so on. Also used for controllers. Rolled against the End of anyone you’re trying to directly affect with a controller. If you fail, there’s backlash.
Awareness: This stat does two things: Lets you roll to see if you notice something (like an incoming attack) and lets you dodge. This is the dodge stat.
Character creation:
Take the following dice: One D2 and D10, two D4s and D8s, and Three D6s. Distribute them, one die to each stat. Then choose a name. Thats all you need to do. You can create descriptions and backstories as you like but that stat block and name is all you actually need.
Combat:
(Its highest number is winner)
For Melee or ranged normal attacks
1. Roll str or dex, depending on attack. Defender rolls Awareness to dodge.
2. If the defender succeeds, the attack is defeated. If the attacker succeeds, roll defender Vitality to see how bad they get hurt.
For Magic
1. Roll Potency to see how well the spell is formed and its power
2. Roll Str or Dex depending on range. Defender rolls Awareness or Endurance depending on the nature of the spell to dodge or resist. If it cannot be dodged or resisted, then jump straight to rolling vitality
3. If they don't avoid or resist it, roll vitality to see how bad they get hit, with the potency roll as the thing being rolled against.
In both cases, speed stats are compared to see who goes first.
This game is based around two big ideas: Player made Gangs and Territory Control. All players are in a gang. There is a max of three player made gangs operating at any one time. If a gang is destroyed, then another can be made to take its place. These gangs have one goal: To control the entire city. If they can do that, then they can steal the Chalice from the King and use its power for themselves. In order to do this, they need to conquer the city one area at a time.
Areas are conquered via "encounters", short quests or missions that a group undertakes in that area in order to take it over. If they succeed, they then control that territory. This can be done to neutral, uncontrolled territory or to territory controlled by another gang, in which case both gangs will fight over it and the winner (the last standing, either by total wipe of the other team or their retreat) will control it. One caveat though: In order to try and take a territory, the gang must have a clear path to it across the map; ie a path not contested by any other gang. If they don't, they'd have to clear the path by taking over the territories between neutral ground and the territory they want. Be aware, NPC factions will try to do this to you as well. *NOTE* Gangs may choose to allow other gangs to move through their territory, if they wish.
Each area a gang controls gives them up to 5 random words from its word bank after each encounter they undertake. Think of these words like a hand of cards: 5 is the max. If someone takes a word from that group, it will be replenished to 5 at the end of the next encounter. If words aren’t taken or discarded, they will stay and new words won’t replace them. If a gang loses control of an area, they keep the words they have from it but no new ones will replace any they use. In this way, controlling more territory means controlling more magical power. A gang’s first encounter is to take control of an area on the map. This area will act as their headquarters. Headquarters provide 10 words instead of the normal 5 for each encounter. A headquarters can be moved later, but doing so is dangerous. If the gang fails that first encounter, or the encounter undertaken to move the headquarters, then the gang is wiped out. Gangs can attempt to attack and destroy each other’s headquarters in order to wipe the opposing gang from the map, but doing so requires a clear path to them, just like any other territory.
The game runs in a cycle
1.Gangs choose which territory they want to try and take. They submit these queries via PM.
2. If a gang chooses the territory of another gang to try and take, I give the other gang a chance to defend it rather than doing their own thing.
3. Encounters take place, running till success or failure.
4. All the magic from controlled territories is given to their gangs
5. Repeat from step 1.
Secret PMs between groups is fine, secret alliances is also fine. Players may switch sides at any point as well. Basically, skullduggery, backstabbing, and scheming are all ok. However, if you wish your ACTIONS in an encounter to remain secret, do not mass post them to me via PM. Instead, it will be up to a member of the gang to gather all the gang's secret actions and PM to me in one post. This is to prevent trouble with the forum's daily PM limits.
All words are single use.
Everyone has a "Deck" of words (Though "word" in this instance can refer to a whole phrase such as "Come from caster's hand"). How big that deck can be is determined by your memory stat. Every word in that deck is single use; if you use it, it goes away regardless of the outcome of the spell. To use a word more than once in a spell, you have to use up that many instances of that word. Ie you can’t cast “Fire Fire” if you only have 1 Fire. Using the same word multiple times will increase the power of that word, so "Fire Fire" will be roughly twice as much fire as a single use.
When a gang is formed it gets to choose Five class 1 words, Three class 2 words, Two class 3 words, and One class 4 word. These are their permanent words. Permanent words chosen when a gang is created are always replenished after each encounter. They form the "Starting Deck" for every new gang member. They can choose to use them or not, but they're always available. If a gang member dies, any words they have are immediately offered up to their killer, who can take any words from them they want, up to the killer’s memory limit. The killer can discard words in order to make space for new ones in this case. If killed by accident or circumstance, the words remain with the body and can be looted by anyone.
Before an encounter, each person in a gang can cast one preparation spell. It carries the same rules as normal casting and can fail.
After an encounter, any summoned items or effects vanish unless they have the word “Permanent” as part of their construction.
There are only ever 3 player gangs operating at once. Every player must be in one of those gangs. If there is a free spot, whoever creates a gang and submits it to me first will be the one to get that gang made
Gangs need the following things:
A Name
A Color or color scheme (up to 3 colors)
A symbol (Submit this as a 36x36 pixel image. I'm going to use it on the map.)
A gang's Permanent words
One member designated as the Leader.
A gang technically only needs a single person to create it, but a few more would be a good idea. Once the gang is formed, they will get to choose where they want to try and take over for their first encounter, in order to place their headquarters.
The leader of the gang is basically the final say in choices by that gang. They are the ones who tell me what territory the gang will try to take, if they will try to fight off another gang taking their territory, and have final say on accepting or denying someone into the gang. *Note: if all gangs deny someone, then I'll place that person in at random*. In general, if I need a decision from the gang, it comes from the leader rather than trying to get some vote or concensus from the members. If a group wants to change their gang leader, the majority of the gang must agree to it in a vote. Alternatively, the Gang leader can be challenged to a duel by someone who wants to usurp his station. These duels are to the death and are single combat.
The gray line that runs trough the center is the main road. IN GENERAL the closer you are to the main road, the less dangerous the area. The Dark gray spots are walls. There are numbers along each axis, use these to form coordinates to pick out individual hexes. If a hex has a small red line in the upper right, then it is able to be targeted for taking over.
The words are
HERE. The words in the first Column are class 1, the words in the second are class 2 and so on.
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Topic: Chalice: Wizard Gang Wars: Pretty Kitty Simulator (Read 234713 times)