POSTING THIS HERE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
Mushroom Kingdom Wars:
Gameplay tutorial!
Mushroom Kingdom Wars uses a fairly elaborate game system I originally created and expanded on for use in my suggestion game, Luigi Quest. I originally used a simplistic D6 with abilities and penalties/bonuses, but that proved to be too constraining, so upon rebooting this game, I moved it to a 2d10 system closer to Dungeon and Dragons than anything. I didn't have a proper explanation until now, so I figured I'd write out a proper explanation of the game mechanics. To do this, I've recruited two volunteers!
:
"What?"
:
"Hey, everyone! I'm Fuzz, a former recruit of the Mushroom Kingdom's royal guard! This here's my gender-ambiguous boy/girlfriend, Counselor Grimtoad. You can just call him/her Grimtoad.":
"Oh, another one of these. Okay. Where do we start?":
"How about with the basics?"Playing the game:
"The goal of the game is to free magical objects - Power Stars - from their guardians. Peaceful guardians may be perfectly willing to just hand over the stars, but some may be more hostile than others.":
"The guardians are often found hidden away in large Dungeons. These areas are themed - forest, ice castle, volcano - and take up a major portion of the game. Don't worry if you don't know what to do in some portions of the dungeons: they're filled to the brim with hidden enemies, loot and nasty traps.":
"As a player, you should consider doing two things in a post: roleplaying and acting. Roleplaying is speaking as your character - you can do it in the same way I am right now!":
"Acting (or "taking action") is letting the GM know what you want to actually DO in the upcoming turn. Generally, your actions should be bolded to seperate them from roleplaying.":
"During combat, you generally can make 1 action per turn plus movement, but out of-":
"Hey, hold up, we'll cover that later!"Dice rolls:
"Okay, this one's a little complicated, so you'd better let me explain it, Fuzz.":
"Awww.":
"For every action that has a chance of success or failure, two ten-sided die, or '2d10', are rolled. The results are added up and any modifiers are added to it. The final number is compared with a target number - the 'difficulty' - that represents how hard the action taken would be to complete."If 1d10 + 1d10 + modifiers >= difficulty: success!
If 1d10 + 1d10 + modifiers < difficulty: failure!
:
"Oh, I think I get it! Let's say I'm up against an iron-hewn door, but I want to knock it down with my maul. The iron door's pretty tough, so it would be really hard to knock it down. The difficulty might be 15 in this case.":
"Generally, most actions would have a difficulty around 10. But yes, in this case, 15 would probably be appropriate.":
"Okay, so I roll two ten-sided die. 4, 9... 13! Uh oh, that's not enough to knock it down.":
"But wait, let's say you have a bonus to actions requiring strength. +2, perhaps. We'll cover this later under character creation. Then your result would be 13+2 which is greater than or equal to 15.":
"Success! The door's knocked straight down. Am I cool or what?":
"Yes, Fuzz. Now let's get to the next section."Critical failure and success:
"Okay, now we get really silly. Most actions will just fail or succeed, but some can critical, meaning they fail or succeed with more spectacular results than usual.":
"Ooh, wait, I remember this one. It has something to do with how high or low you roll, right?":
"Right! Any action result that's less than or equal to ten minus the difficulty number is a critical failure. Similarly, any result that's equal or greater to ten plus the target number is a critical hit!":
"So let's I'm knocking down that difficulty 15 door from earlier, it would be like this, right?"If 1d10 + 1d10 + modifier >= 15+10 (25) then CRITICAL HIT!
If 1d10 + 1d10 + modifier <= 15-10 (5) then CRITICAL FAILURE!
:
"That's right! It's also important to note that a natural 2, the lowest possible result of 2d10 - 'natural' here meaning 'before modifiers are applied' - will always result in a critical failure. Similarly, a natural 20 will always result in a critical hit! Neat, huh?"Characters and stats:
"You can't have an RTD without players! Every sentient foe, NPC and player character in this game is built upon the same rules.":
"Ooh, handy. So what are these rules?":
"It gets a little complex, but once you learn them, they're simple enough. Why don't we take your character sheet as an example, Fuzz?"Name: Fuzz
Level: 2 (0/20)
Race: Human:
"Hey, this is simple enough! My Name is just what you call me, and my Race determines my starting abilities and biological features.":
"Right right, but don't forget those can be tweaked over time. As for Level, that's a representation of how powerful and experienced you are. We'll cover this more in the section on Leveling, but the '2' means you're level two, and the '(0/20)' means you have 20 EXP to gain before you reach level 3."Element: NeutralHealth: 12/12Magick: 5/5:
"This is simple enough, I think. Everyone has an Element, and many attacks have an element. I assume that's covered later, too. As for Health, that's how much damage I can take before I'm too bloodied to fight.":
"Magick, on the other hand, is consumed by magical abilities and spells. How much you can have at once depends on your INT modifier and your race - similarly, your maximum Health depends on your CON modifier."Status: Cooldown: Fireball (One turn remaining)
Attributes: STR 12 (+1), DEX 8 (-1), INT 10 (+0), WIS 10 (+0), CON 14pt (+2), CHR 10 (+0)
:
"Uuurgh... so many numbers and acronyms. I can at least say that Status represents any temporary effects, bonuses or penalties applied to you. Sometimes you can hover your mouse over these to get a description.":
"The attributes can get a little confusing, so I'd probably better lay them out simply like this."STRENGTH (STR): Your character's raw physical power. The STR modifier is often added to physical/weapon attacks and rolls involving brute force.
DEXTERITY (DEX): Your character's nimbleness. The DEX modifier boosts speed-based abilities and is added to your base Armor Class and Initative Bonus.
INTELLIGENCE (INT): Your character's brilliance. The INT modifier is added to your max MP and some magical attack and damage rolls.
WISDOM (WIS): Your character's worldliness. The WIS modifier is used to help resist negative effects from oncoming attacks and solve situations requiring a little common sense.
CONSTITUION (CON): Your character's toughness or 'stability.' The CON modifier is added to your max HP and occasionally used to resist lasting physical effects or debilitation.
CHARISMA (CHR): Your character's allure or companionship. The CHR modifier is added to most tricky NPC or other social interactions and occasionally used to pacify foes or reason with them.
:
"Modifiers? Huh? This is too confusing!":
"No, it's quite simple! Most attributes start at 10 for a 'regular' Human, and all attributes get a bonus or penalty called a "modifier" for each two points above 10 or below 11 like in the following table. There's some modifier added to nearly every action!"6-7: -2
8-9: -1
10-11: +0
12-13: +1
14-15: +2
Secondary attributes: Initiative Bonus -1, Armor Class 9, Move 3, Damage Resistance 1
Inventory: 300 coins,
Steel maulEquipped: Bronze Platemail,
Cute One:
"Okay, I think I understand... why don't we move onto the simpler stats? Armor Class is just the difficulty level for targeting me with attacks and abilities, I know that much - it starts at 10 for most characters. Move is how many combat grid spaces I can move per turn. Damage Resistance (DR) is directly subtracted from nearly all damage I take! Initiative Bonus is covered later. And lastly, Inventory just covers whatever I'm storing on me that isn't equipped - that's what Equipped is for. Roll over items to get an explanation!"Active abilities (mouse over to view details): Power CrushFireball IPassive abilities:Royal Loyalty:
"Now the fun stuff! Active abilities are anything that you have to manually use, often instead of other actions. There's usually a cost like a Cooldown (time before you can use it again) or a reduction in current Magick (MP). On the other hand, Passive abilities are abilities that aren't activated - they're always active. Abilities can be gained in many ways, but the main ones are equipment and leveling up.":
"Wait, what's that "I" next to Fireball?":
"Oh, right. Sometimes abilities will have an EXP counter on them, like how Power Crush and Fireball say '0/2 EXP.' Whenever you score a critical success with that ability, it gains a point of EXP! When it gets the amount of EXP required, it'll either grant another, more powerful tier of the ability or something else entirely.":
"So if I throw hand flames enough then I can learn Fireball II?":
"Yep! Now, onto my favorite part."GLORIOUS COMBAT:
"To best teach the flow of combat, Fuzz and I will beat the snot out of each other in a training arena!":
"WAIT, WHAT!?"
:
"At the start of combat, we roll for initiative. Each combatant is assigned a 2d10 result, and their initiative bonus is added to it. Each combat turn, whoever is highest on the list acts before the next highest and so on until the bottom. People who come in after combat starts are stuck on the bottom of the initiative list.":
"Hey, looks like I'm going first! I'll, uh... throw a fireball!"... Fuzz throws the fireball and misses horribly!
:
"Yep, that'll happen! Roll over the little ellipses to see the roll. If it's under my Armor Class, you miss! Now, since I have a Move of 3, I'll just do this..."
... Counselor Grimtoad moves toward Fuzz and strikes with his/her REPLICA STARLANCE! Fuzz suffers FOUR DAMAGE!
:
"Bwuhuhuu!":
"An explanation: my Replica Starlance (1d8+STR damage, +1 to attack from DEX bonus) struck Fuzz for six damage. The -1 damage from my STR modifier plus Fuzz's Damage resistance brought it down to a mere four damage. Luckily, Fuzz's HP was only brought down to eight.":
"We don't have time to cover it all, so here's an analysis of common combat terms...."Move: A free action that you can usually take alongside any other action in your turn. You can always move up to your Move in grid spaces - even diagonally!
Range: How far an attack can reach. You can target anyone up to that many spaces away. Yes, even diagonally.
Square: Some attacks spread out over a "square" from their target location. A 3x3 square, for example, would affect the target square and every space up to 1 square around it. 9 in total. Some area attacks may have even larger squares - or even stranger shapes!
+X to Damage/Attack "Attack" means your attack roll - whether you hit or not and whether it's a critical hit. "Damage", on the other hand, refers to your damage roll. +STR, +INT, +DEX and so on mean that for this attack or ability, the appropriate stat modifier is added.
Major/Minor Actions: During combat, only one Major Action and one Minor Action may be taken per turn. Most actions are Major Actions unless otherwise stated, but movement is a Minor Action.
X save vs. Y "(Something) unless the target fails a WIS save vs. 15" means that when this attack connects, the target's WIS modifier is added to an extra "save" roll. If the result is lower than 15, (Something) happens.
Levels:
"This is the really fun part! Whenever you level, you gain a choice of abilities! These might be anything from passive abilities with simple stat bonuses to whole new powers! Most people have three on level up, but some (like Fuzz) can choose between four. Generally, one of the abilties should be common to your race, and two should be based on your character - what you do most, your personality and so on. Here's an example."Quickblade (Any time an adjacent attacker misses you, you attempt an immediate counter-attack with -3 to your attack roll. +2 DEX.)
Inspection I (Gain useful information on one enemy, person, object or other piece of scenery. The usefulness of the information depends on your Measure of Success. Range 5. Major action, no cost. +2 to INT. 0/2 EXP.)
Balance of Magic (A soothing, familiar aura surrounds you. In a time of need, it may grow stronger...)
Double Fireball (You can cast two Fireballs at once, and at different targets if you want! However, the cooldown for Fireball is increased to four turns.)
:
"Who's this for?":
"No idea. Let's move on."Puzzles, terrain effects and more!:
"Do we really have time to cover all this?":
"Nope! Besides, this is information you'll discover on your own throughout the game! Fuzz and I wish you well on your journeys. Happy questing, and GO GET THOSE STARS!"
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Topic: Mushroom Kingdom Wars RTD: So long, a-bowser! (Read 223786 times)