(Because we OBVIOUSLY don't have enough RTD's going already)
(actually I don't think we do)
So. Another RTD game. Everyone SHOULD know how to play, all but like 2 of the other RTD games in the forum have the general guidelines in their First Post, but I guess I should tell everyone how this goes anyway. Fair warning though; I'm going to play my RTD just a
little bit different.
How to play:
-I post the situation you're in.
-You post what you want to do. Be warned however, that certain over-the-top actions simply won't work (i.e. "I attempt to blow up the universe with my mind" will result in a humourous autofail).
-Types of actions:
-Free Actions: Moving around, equipping items, putting items into or taking them out of your backpack, dropping items, talking, opening unlocked doors. You can do these things as much as you want (with the exception that you can only do so much moving around in one turn. Traveling big distances is a Turn Action).
-Infinite Actions: Picking up items, observing, sneaking. You can these as many times in a turn as you want, but you must roll for them. (note that carrying to much stuff in your hands will have penalties)
-Turn Actions: Combat, Spellcasting, Crafting, or almost anything that isn't a Free Action or Infinite Action. You will usually get experience points for a successful turn action. You can only do one Turn Action on any given turn.
-I roll to see whether you succeeded or failed, using random.org.
Action Rolls are done with a 1d6, or one six-sided die, but because of modifiers you may receive over the course of the game, the possible values for 'rolls' are actually 0-8. If you would get below 0 with modifiers, or above 8, I'll just round it back to within that range.
0: Omega fail. You will be harmed. Try not to get this (thankfully, you can only get it if you are penalized, for example if you are dazed).
1: Epic fail. Hilarity will ensue, and you are likely to be hurt.
2: Fail. Whatever you tried to do, it didn't work. Hope it wasn't anything important, like bandaging a wound.
3: Elsewhat: You did not manage to do what you tried to do, you instead did something a little bit different. For example if you try to jump over a gap, your character would climb down and then try to climb up the other side.
4: Minor Success. You managed to get it done... barely.
5: Success. The 'optimal' roll. You succeeded in whatever you were trying to do.
6: Slight Overshot. You got it done, but with overenthusiasm. For instance you'll manage to pick up the staff, but sprain your shoulder by wrenching the staff upwards too hard. Usually, though, you'll be fine.
7: Epic Success. Hilarity will ensue, but you'll be fine. (only achievable with modifiers, such as item bonuses)
8: Omega Success. This is world-bendingly awesome. Physics is irrelevant in the face of an 8. Bonuses are guaranteed. Rolling an 8 would be like, you try to walk down the stairs, but you teleport instead and learn teleportation skill, and when you teleported you brought food with you from another dimension. Except perhaps for the fact that I don't roll for walking.
Skills:
Doing certain actions will give you experience. For instance, chopping someone with a sword will give you swordsmanship experience. Hacking a computer will give you computering experience. Casting fire magic will give you fire casting experience. You do not start with any skills, and there is no predetermined list of skills.
When you accumulate enough experience, you will level up in that skill. You start out unskilled, and then progress through novice, competent, accomplished, master, and legendary skill levels. When you level up, your current experience is reduced to zero, by the way.
{unskilled} you start here, no bonuses
{novice} requires 2 experience. No bonuses.
{competent} requires 4 experience. +1 to rolls.
{accomplished} requires 6 experience. +1 to rolls. Can anticipate others using this skill.
{master} requires 8 experience. +2 to rolls. Can anticipate others using this skill.
{legendary} requires 10 experience. +3 to rolls. Can anticipate others using this skill, and can use a turn to stop them if they are below (but not at) master level.
-You will gain 1 experience in a skill if you get 3~5, 2 experience for 6 or 7, and 3 experience for an 8.
-Because I'm rolling for picking stuff up, the pickuper skill is going to be mighty useful. It will also probably result in a good few [8]s.
-The action of stopping others with your legendary skill means that the character you are stopping gets a -3 to their roll.
Some common (ish) skills that might just need clarifying:
-Search: Depending on how you word your action, I will arbitrarily decide whether I want to roll a search check for you or not. The player can put [search] or [nosearch] somewhere in their actions, to state their preference, which I will usually honour. The unskilled search has a good chance of success, but the skilled search has the possibility of getting a 6 and finding extra loot or something.
-Ambusher: Basically a combination of hiding, and jumping out from hiding to attack. An ambush must be prepared for a turn, and when it is used, it gives the ambusher an accuracy bonus and the defender an accuracy penalty (because they're surprised).
-Dodge: This skill cannot be trained in combat. However, once you reach competent or better, the +1 to rolls will be used in combat when someone tries to attack you. This skill is trained by dodging things outside of combat, like maybe falling rocks or shards of glass or something.
-Focus: For spells that have to be charged for a turn (such as Group Heal), two actions are needed. Focus is the skill applied for the first one (charging the spell), and the appropriate caster skill is applied for the second one (like healer, or fire caster). Having a good focus bonus will allow for supercharged spells... which can be fun.
Combat:
First, when you try to attack someone you will roll to see if you attack them or not. This is the roll that will give you experience if you succeed. You must then roll for Body Part Selection, Accuracy, and Damage.
Body Part Selection is usually determined ONLY by the dice, or you can focus on a body part and take a -1 to accuracy. Aiming for the head incurs a -2 to accuracy. If you aim for the head, then you will target the head if you get 1, 2, or 6. If you aim at any other part, you will target that part if you roll that body part's number or 6.
1: Left Leg
2: Right Leg
3: Left Arm
4: Right Arm
5: Torso
6: Head
Accuracy is rolled after body part, because armor obviously doesn't cover your whole body (i.e. ☼Steel High Boots☼ don't help protect you from a headshot). If you roll 3 for accuracy, you strike a glancing blow and damaged is halved. If damage is not an integer because of this, I will roll to see if it rounds up or down. If you get 4 or 5 for accuracy, you hit. If you get 6 or higher, you get +1 to damage. Ranged weapons get a bonus to accuracy as well as executing the action if the user has an appropriate skill level (i.e. a competent marksman gets +1 to executing the action AND +1 to accuracy).
If you managed to hit the target, then you will roll for damage. Your damage roll determines what kind of wound you will give your target. See the wounds spoiler for more information about how bad injuries are.
0: You'll probably hurt yourself...
1: No wound.
2: Bruise
3: Harm
4: Break
5: Mangle
6: Tear off
7: Tear off, plus damage to adjacent body part (usually torso)
8: Autokill, no matter what part of the enemy you hit
That's right. You can kill someone by stabbing them in the foot if you do it hard enough.
Statuses:
Not a lot to say here. I'll make up the statuses as we go, and I'll explain them in the status pages at the end of each turn. Status effects in general are things that will modify your rolls or condition, for instance, if a shield spell is casted on you, you are shielded and will receive bonuses when someone tries to hurt you. If you are dazed or stunned, you will receive a penalty to rolls.
Wounds:
Basically, there's two kinds of wounds: body part, and overall. Overall wounds would be something like, if you're poisoned, then your whole body is affected. Obviously you'll take a penalty to rolls. Most overall wounds will be status effects. Body part wounds are less severe, and you will only take penalties to actions that require that body part.
Unharmed: self-explanatory. The default state.
Bruised: If you have too many bruises (about four), then you will be in pain, which is a status effect. Bruises heal quickly, though.
Harmed: You're hurt, and probably bleeding, but you should be okay. You might want to get that looked at, though. If you are Harmed or worse, you will roll for regeneration; you need a [5] or higher to reduce this to a bruise.
Broken: Yup, you're broken. You take a -3 to rolls (ouch). You need to roll a [6] or higher for regeneration to reduce this to Harmed.
Mangled: This body part is unusable. You need to roll either a [6] twice (not necessarily in a row), or a [7] or higher to reduce this to Broken.
Removed: Your body part has been torn off, so obviously you aren't going to be using it for a while. It is possible to put removed body parts back on, but you will require an [8], so have someone use some band-aids on you or something if you're gonna try this. If you do manage to put a broken body part back on, it will be broken.
Dead: Yup. You're toast. Permadeath is not in effect; but if you die your inventory and skills are reset. Also if there is a waiting list you are put at the end of it.
NPCs (non-player characters)
The players will meet other people over the course of the game, who are controlled by me. I will roll for their actions. Some NPCs will be friendly, some will not. Killing an NPC that has stuff will allow you to loot its corpse.
Items:
Items are REALLY IMPORTANT! They give you all kinds of bonuses. For example, cutting someone up with a sword is a lot more effective than trying to punch them in the face, so swords get +1 to damage. For ease of notation, I made some abbreviations.
AB: Accuracy Bonus: Your item gets a specified bonus to accuracy.
DB: Damage Bonus: Your item gets a specified bonus to damage.
AR: Accuracy Reduction: Your item gives enemies a specified penalty to accuracy if they attack you (usually depends on body part)
DR: Damage Reduction: Your item gives enemies a specified penalty to damage if they attack you (usually depends on body part)
AP: Accuracy Penalty: Your item gets a specified penalty to accuracy.
DP: Damage Penalty: Your item gets a specified penalty to damage.
Also, some items will have extra attributes, which I will list next to them in parentheses in your status page. Here are some of them, and what they mean.
held: You are currently holding this item in your hand.
worn: You are currently wearing this item. If it is in an odd location, I will specify where.
melee: This weapon is used in very-close quarter combat.
polearm: This weapon is used in close quarters combat, but if someone is attempting to attack you with a melee weapon as you attack them with a polearm, they get 1 AR (take a -1 to accuracy) because your longer weapon provides you with an advantage.
ranged: This weapon is used for long-range combat. Torso shots get 1 DB (+1 to damage)
Turns and Statuses:
Turns:
This is really easy. For the most part, you just read the text. Whenever I do a roll, I will explain the roll, modifiers, and final result using this thing:
{} You just mouse over it. I'll use myself as an example.
Shoruke:
You try to pick up the stick.
{} You are now holding the stick.
Statuses:
This is also really easy. It's just a bunch of information about the character. Again, myself as an example.
Shoruke
Wounds: unharmed.
Skills:
{Novice poster} (3 exp)
{competent dwarf fortresser}
{legendary comedian}
{master pick-up-er} (4 exp)
Inventory:
-a stick
-everyday clothes (shirt, pants, socks, shoes)
-a keyboard
-a +2 computer of RTD postingness (+3 to posting rolls)
Other:
-has an RTD game
-involved in several RTD's
I think 6 players should be fine, but I might change this number. If you go for 2 days without posting, I'll think up something for you to do. If you miss three turns, then your spot will be given to whoever's first on the waiting list, and you will be placed at the bottom. When you get back into the game, your inventory and skills will be intact. Hopefully though, players not posting should not be an issue.
As you can see by reading the rules above, epic failures and successes are going to be a little bit more common here than in other RTDs. I will try to make them as fun as possible.
Character List:
1: Inaluct
2: Zasit Alebath
3: KnightedSkull
4: Katsuun
5: Errol
6: Muwahahaha
7: Luke_Prowler
8: Vlynndar
Waiting List:
1: Relm
2: NeedsDF2GetThruWorkingDay
3: Flintus10
4: Wimdit
5: Digital Hellhound
So who's in?!?