Monthly Archives: November 2019

Symbaroum Primer for D&D Players

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In preparation for running a Symbaroum game, here is an overview of the system, particularly the player-facing side.

First, an oversimplified summary in D&D terms:

  • HP = strength score (sort of, with little to no improvement over time)
  • Attack rolls are dexterity checks
  • Ability checks are roll-under (1d20 <=)
  • There are no classes or levels
  • Archetypes (and associated occupations) provide recommended packages of starting abilities (which are sort of like feats)
  • Spend XP to learn or improve abilities
  • Using magic causes corruption (basically: spiritual damage with varying degrees of transience)
  • Another ability score determines how much corruption a character can absorb before bad things start to happen (basically: spiritual HP)

There you go, if you have familiarity with some version D&D you should now have a working grasp of Symbaroum basics. Read on for more detailed comparison.

The system is mostly what I have called “monological” in the past. For example, players roll to defend rather than opponents rolling to attack.

Symbaroum formal game terms below are in bold. Though I have a few planned house rules, to improve the general usefulness of this post, all of the following info applies to the official rules as written, to my knowledge. I make no claim to completeness—for example, I have ommitted mention of races—but these are the most central rules in my opinion.

Symbaroum Correspondences

  • Ability Scores (⇒ Attributes)
    • Accurate, Cunning, Discreet, Persuasive, Quick, Resolute, Strong, Vigilant
    • Generation: 2d6+3 per attribute, in order or arranged to taste (yields scores in the range [5-15])
    • Test: roll 1d20 <= score value (often adjusted by an opposed Attribute)
    • Test outcomes are generally binary (success or failure)
    • Adjustments are penalties or bonuses applied to the player character Attribute score rather than to the roll; for example, if a player character has a score of 12, a -3 penalty means that the player must roll less than or equal to 9 for success
      • Common oppositions:
        • Accurate versus Quick
        • Persuasive versus Resolute
        • Discreet versus Vigilant
        • Strong versus Strong
    • (The default attribute generation method is assigning values from a default set or point-buy, the numbers for which result in similar expected values)
      • Default set: [15, 13, 11, 10, 10, 9, 7, 5]
        • (M = 10, SD = 2.96)
  • AC/Armor Class (⇒ Defense)
    • Symbaroum uses Defense tests (performed by players) rather than opponent attack rolls
    • Defense test: 1d20 less than or equal to Quick
    • Modifiers: Armor (Impeding penalty), shield (+1 bonus)
  • Armor
    • Three levels of armor: light 1d4, medium 1d6, and heavy 1d8
    • Impeding penalty to Defense tests: light -2, medium -3, heavy -4
    • Roll the armor die to decrease incoming damage from physical attacks (opponent damage values are static, so rolling for armor replaces what in D&D would be the referee rolling monster damage)
  • Attack Roll
    • Attribute test: Accurate, adjusted by opponent’s Quick
    • Then you roll damage, based on weapon, just like D&D—see the weapons entry below—but for referee-controlled combatants armor is static damage reduction (no armor die)
    • Some Abilities allow the use of other stats in place of Accurate for attack rolls (this is one of the few bits of system mastery you probably need to maintain combat effectiveness, if you care)
  • Classes (as in Fighter, Cleric, Thief, etc.)
    • Rather than classes, Symbaroum provides a starting Archetype (representing the classic three of Mystic, Rogue, and Warrior), each of which is further specified by Occupations (such as Duelist, Theurg, Ranger, and so forth)
    • Initial Archetype & Occupation provide recommended packages of starting Abilities
    • Player characters start with one of the following two options:
      1. Two Abilities at Novice level and one Ability at Adept level
      2. Five Abilities at Novice level
  • Combat turn
    • On each turn, a player character may perform one of the following:
      • 1 Combat Action + 1 Movement Action
      • 2 Movement Actions
  • Dying (★ will be house ruled ★)
    • Zero Toughness → unconscious & dying
    • Each turn: Death Test, three failures → dead
    • Death Test: 1d20
      • 1 = recover with 1d4 Toughness
      • 2-10 = success (no change)
      • 11-19 = failure
      • 20 = immediate death
  • HP (⇒ Toughness)
    • Toughness = Max(10, Strong Attribute)
    • (So the HP equivalent is basically just the same as an ability score, but with a minimum of 10)
    • Toughness almost never increases—there are a handful of Abilities which will increase toughness slightly—so Symbaroum has a much flatter power curve in this regard compared to all versions of D&D
  • Initiative
    • Combatants act in order of Quick scores (highest first)
  • Levels & Advancement (★ will be house ruled ★)
    • There are no levels; player characters spend XP to learn or improve Abilities
    • Each ability has three tiers: Novice, Adept, and Master
    • Learning and improving Abilities:
      • Novice level (new Ability): cost = 10 XP
      • Novice → Adept: cost = 20 XP
      • Adept → Master: cost = 30 XP
    • (So the full cost of learning a new Ability and improving it all the way to Master is 60 XP.)
  • Magic Items (⇒ Artifacts, p. 186; ★ will be house ruled very slightly ★)
    • Using an Artifact first requires Bonding, which imposes permanent Corruption (generally one point)
    • Activating an Artifact’s power imposes some temporary Corruption (generally 1d4 points)
    • (See Corruption Threshold below)
  • Shields
    • +1 to Defense tests
  • Spells (⇒ Mystical Powers, p. 119, p. 176)
    • Mystical Powers work much like Abilities—with Novice, Adept, and Master levels—but learning a Mystical Power outside of a tradition (also handled at the rules level as an Ability) imposes one permanent point of Corruption
    • Casting a spell (using a Mystical Power) causes 1d4 temporary Corruption
    • Advancing in the ranks of a mystical tradition can mitigate this cost (Corruption is the mechanical system resource that replaces spell slots or magic points)
    • See Corruption Threshold below
  • Weapons
    • Weapon damage works similarly to D&D
    • Damage: Heavy 1d10, Long 1d8, Single-Handed 1d8, Short 1d6
    • Projectile: crossbow 1d10, bow 1d8, sling 1d6
    • Long weapons provide an initial free attack versus opponents armed with shorter weapons
    • (There are a few other properties of specific weapons which work relatively intuitively)
  • XP (★ will be house ruled ★)
    • The text about XP is more guidelines than rules, but the expectation seems to be that surviving a scene involving challenge is worth 1 XP for each player character

Rules Without Direct D&D Analogues

Symbaroum also has a handful of rules which lack direct analogues in D&D:

  • Pain Threshold
    • Derived stat: Strong / 2, round up
    • Combatants that suffer damage equal to or greater than Pain Threshold in a single hit experience some additional deleterious effects
  • Corruption Threshold
    • Derived stat: Resolute / 2, round up
    • Capacity to tolerate Corruption is the primary player character resource that constrains use of magic
    • When total Corruption—permanent + temporary—equals or exceeds the Resolute score, the character turns into an abomination (worse than character death, because this essentially creates a new hostile monster)
    • Temporary Corruption dissipates at the end of each scene
      • (★ may be house ruled ★)
    • Tolerating Corruption also constrains the use of Artifacts as doing so requires Bonding with the Artifact, which imposes some permanent Corruption (generally one point)

There is also a free quick-start rules document. Post images are from the official site.

Varieties of Roleplaying Experience

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Reenactment: Fiennes’ Coriolanus (2011)

Roleplaying, taken descriptively, is a means, which can be applied to a wide variety of ends. Before proceeding to expand on this claim directly, consider the following analogy with another activity, in the physical domain, that is also a means: running. Apologies in advance for the exceedingly literal discussion that follows, but it will be useful later. First, descriptively: running is locomotion which includes an “aerial” phase during which all feet are above the ground. The activity is recognizable on a treadmill, in a forest or alley fleeing a predator, on an athletic track, in the context of a competition, alone or in a group, on a sidewalk toward a bus leaving soon, in quadrupeds, and so forth. Learning how to run well in one context likely translates to others, though perhaps incompletely. Varieties of running exist, such as sprinting and endurance running, which activate different biological energy recruitment and waste management systems (aerobic and anaerobic respiration, for example). Running well can include both comparative performance, such as speed or duration, but also technique, judged on aesthetic other grounds.

Descriptively, roleplaying is taking on the role of a fictional character, either through direct narrative acting—speaking “as if” the player was the character or pantomiming, perhaps incompletely, physical actions that a character performs. Or, with reduced immersion, through explanatory puppeteering—my character opens the door, my character reacts with surprise. The activity can be recognizable in a military war game exercise, a mock trial, the behavior of a digital game avatar, acting in a play, as an exploratory or practice exercise during a therapy session, and, of course, playing a tabletop roleplaying game such as D&D. Similarly to running, roleplaying well can include both performance, such as inflicting damage, recovering treasure, or solving puzzles, but also technique, judged on aesthetic grounds—coolness, sincere and expressive performance—or in the quality of tales recounted after the game between human players.

Reenactment: Branagh’s Hamlet (1996)

I suspect this is so far noncontroversial, but consider the different kinds of satisfaction that people can experience by means of the same activity applied to different ends. For example, compare a 20 minute sprint that raises the heart rate to a specific point and proceeds at a given pace, in one case pulled by a bus schedule and in another case pushed by a pursuing mugger. The physical description of the activity in terms of vital readouts, shorn of context, might be identical. The difference, then, comes from, at least: contextual constraints, situational expectation, and personal goals. Another: running across a room to meet a loved one returning from a long trip compared to running across a room to catch a teetering vase.

Now consider a roleplaying example where the agreed end would be to play through the events of The Lord of the Rings, perhaps with minor variations, but hitting all the major movements of the story. Especially within the OSR (or what have you) tradition, this may seem unsatisfying, perhaps barely even roleplaying, due to the highly constrained, almost entirely predetermined, set of narrative outcomes. Yet, the activity is still descriptively roleplaying, obviously so, despite the lack of playing to find out what happens. Considering the prospect of playing such a game incites little enthusiasm from me, but if I take a step back I can see how someone might experience satisfaction through reenacting The Lord of the Rings by means of a tabletop roleplaying game framework.

Reenactment: Kurosawa’s Macbeth—Throne of Blood (1957)

The term “reenacting” is perhaps a clue; why might someone take pleasure in putting on a production of Hamlet? Wages are one reason, but other motivations also likely exist. One might object that reenacting The Lord of the Rings might be roleplaying but that doing so lacks some sense of game since failing is by hypothesis difficult or impossible. It is easy to modify the case to handle this objection by, perhaps, awarding points for remembering textual details, persistence attainments for reaching milestones, creative reinterpretations, or clarity of self-expression through the constrained vehicle of Tolkien’s plot (notably distinct from Tolkien’s literary accomplishment). Is Super Mario Brothers any less of a game because all players must proceed through the stages following broadly the same sequence?

Could reenacting Rise of the Runelords, or Gygax’s G-D-Q modules, provide a similar form of satisfaction? Would introducing the possibility of character death and replacement substantially vary the experience, or would it remain reenactment even if particular details of how the players proceed from episode to episode varied? I pose these questions less to express my personal interest in playing or running such a game and more as a thought experiment to understand unknown pleasures. Many players seem self-evidently to enjoy compartmentalizing the game elements of roleplaying games in different parts of the activity, whether in the deck-building subgame of character build optimization, the tactical chess of 4E grid combat, the accumulation of loot, the collection of relationships with non-player characters, the exploration of bonds with other player characters, the uncovering of campaign secrets, the skillful, entertaining performance of character acting, or another accomplishment of your own devising.

Answering and Asking

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Cavegirl posted about the function of dice resolution and stats in a certain kind of tabletop roleplaying game. In her words: we use dice rolls and game mechanics to make a decision on the GM’s behalf when the outcome is otherwise in doubt and hard to adjudicate. I agree with the value of all the functions she lays out for using dice. However, there is another substantial use for dice in this kind of game. As resolution systems, dice provide answers, but they can also provide questions.

The principle that dice come out only or primarily when the referee is at a loss or resolution is difficult excludes or deemphasizes pursuit of oracles, when the referee or players consult dice for inspiration or to expand the set of possibilities. The invocation of fairness suggests that dice exist for determinations that might otherwise seem impartial or unfair.

Framing the process as adjudication imposes or implies a set of juridical assumptions. Jurisprudence relies heavily on the idea of precedent and extrapolating future outcomes from past examples. In the context of roleplaying games, the precedent or fact of the matter is the campaign setting, the scenario, the dungeon map, relationship matrices, the personality of non-player characters, and so forth. Following the above principle, the dice come out in the moment of play when the interaction of those elements with player characters is unclear or fraught with potentially deleterious consequences.

Many of the ways in which I find that dice contribute most to the richness of play fit uncomfortably within the adjudication frame. For example, the random encounter check seems more about varying the pattern of experience than about resolving any particularly difficult determination, even though it does represent an immediate moment in the game world. Similarly, stocking the dungeon functions to help a referee create unstable equilibria rather than resolving an outcome. Other examples include many multi-table generators, in the mode of Appendix D: Random Generation of Creatures from the Lower Planes from the original Dungeon Masters Guide, or the procedures in Gardens of Ynn (automated version), or my apocalypse generator. Telecanter’s “Generating” blog tag provides many more examples.

Randomness in the generation of player characters can also be about providing inspiration. There may be an aspect of impartiality to rolling for, say, ability scores, where there is at least a superficial sense that players may want one outcome more than another (though to be honest, having good or bad ability scores makes little difference in the kind of games I like to run). However, determining other parts of characters randomly—such as class or appearance—is less understandable as maintaining a fair playing field and seems more about facilitating creativity by expanding potentiality that might remain otherwise unexplored by players. While less common, I have also observed non-referee players turning to the dice as oracles occasionally at the moment of decision during play, such as rolling to determine a character’s motivation rather than deciding based on character personality as established or situational imperatives.

In terms of dramatic structure, dice can contribute to exposition and rising action, as well as falling action and denouement.

In terms of complexity, dice can expand the set of possible situations as well as contracting a set of possible outcomes into a consensually established single fictional outcome.

Breathing in, breathing out.

Vulnerabilities and Breaking Opponents

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I have been playing Octopath Traveler now and then recently on the Nintendo Switch. Octopath is a throwback to—or perhaps celebration of—JRPG style games with several particularities, one of which is a turn-based combat system built around attack type vulnerabilities and combatant initiative. Playing Octopath has prompted me to think about how to apply similar systems to tabletop roleplaying games without requiring overly complex mechanics. Below I first explain the Octopath combat system, in slightly simplified form, and then discuss how to apply a similar system to OSR (or what have you) style games.

Octopath Traveler Combat System

Image source: Sand Lizardman 2

Along with basic combat stats such as hit points, each opponent has two attributes that drive the combat dynamics: a shield score and a list of attack type vulnerabilities. For example, Sand Lizardman 2 has a shield score of 2 and is vulnerable to swords, knives, ice, and dark. Hitting an opponent with an attack type belonging to the list of vulnerabilities temporarily decreases the shield score by one for each hit. If the shield score falls to zero, the opponent breaks, which drops the opponent from the upcoming initiative spot and decreases the opponent’s defense while broken. A broken opponent regains all shield points and acts at the next point in the initiative sequences, meaning the best possible outcome, from the perspective of the player, is to force all opponents to skip every other turn. In other words, breaking an opponent effectively stuns the opponent through the end of the next round. Generally, the most effective offense involves breaking as many opponents as possible, because doing so decreases the number of overall opponent attacks and increases the player’s overall damage output. As such, doing a smaller amount of damage using a damage type corresponding to a vulnerability can be just as important as doing a larger amount of damage, especially if the hit is timed well.

The combat system is asymmetric between player characters and opponents. That is, player characters have no damage type weaknesses and never break, though opponents can, using special abilities, inflict a variety of status conditions—poison, silence, blindness, sleeping, and so forth—on player characters. Some conditions can limit player character action possibilities or temporarily prevent a player character from acting entirely, in ways that will likely be familiar to players of other JRPGs. For example, silence prevents casting spells, blindness decreases weapon attack accuracy, and so forth.

This setup is simple, but leads to surprisingly engaging gameplay and tactics. First, the system dashboard presents the upcoming initiative order, so the player can always see which opponents represent the most immediate threats and concentrate fire correspondingly. Second, the number of vulnerabilities per opponent is always apparent, but the particular vulnerabilities are only revealed (by opponent type) after being exploited, or revealed by using a skill (such as the scholar skill analyze). Third, maintaining party capacity to deploy a wide variety of damage types, and timing attacks well, greatly increases combat effectiveness. Missing the capability to deal one or more damage types risks confrontation with enemies that that will be unbreakable. The full list of damage types is swords, polearms, daggers, axes, bows, staves (the weapons) and fire, ice, lightning, dark, light, wind (magic, accessible via skills mostly).

Each of the eight characters starts with one of eight classes: cleric, scholar, merchant, warrior, dancer, apothecary, thief, or hunter based on particular character story background. For example, Cyrus is the only character that begins with the scholar class. Each class provides access to a particular type of damage through weapon proficiencies and skills that the player can unlock by earning and spending job points (a secondary form of experience points). For example, the hunter class can use swords and axes while the thief class can use swords and knives; further, the thief has access to basic fire magic early on through skills. The player can gain access to secondary classes through jobs discovered at various shrines hidden throughout the game world. At any given time, the active party can have at most four members, so the player can configure access to damage types by choosing the active party character roster and by assigning secondary classes to characters after discovering various jobs.

As a concrete example, at this particular moment my active party is Therion (thief), Cyrus (scholar), Ophelia (cleric), and H’aanit (hunter) with secondary classes assigned to Cyrus (as thief) and Ophelia (as hunter). This allows my party to deal the following kinds of damage, by member:

  • Therion: knives, swords, fire (skill)
  • Cyrus: staves, knives (thief job), Swords (thief job), fire (skill), ice (skill), lightning (skill)
  • Ophelia: staves, axes (hunter job), bows (hunter job), light (skill)
  • H’aanit: axes, bows, lightning (skill)

Here I have plentiful access to damage from swords, knives, staves, axes, bows, and most magic. This party lacks the capability to easily deal dark, wind, or polearm type damage. (I have ignored the boost system intentionally for the purposes of this post, though using boosts is quite important to tactics in Octopath due to how applying boosts allows the player to increase the number of hits for a particular damage type.) The following short video shows how this works for the video game in practice:

OSRoWHY Implementation

Below I suggest a number of slight system modifications for implementing a similar system for OSRoWHY games. After deciding upon the basic structure of rules to apply, most content details could probably be handled easily enough by rulings.

I would first assign each character and monster type a speed score to determine place in the initiative order. For player characters, this could either be by class, by dexterity, or by some combination of class and dexterity. For a game where ability scores are less influential overall—such as OD&D—I would probably start with class (magic-user ⇒ 1, cleric ⇒ 2, fighter ⇒ 3, thief ⇒ 4) and provide +1 for exceptional dexterity and maybe +1 for weapons that seem agile. For a game where ability scores are more influential overall—such as B/X, AD&D, or 5E—I would start with dexterity (12 or less ⇒ 1, 13-15 ⇒ 2, 16-17 ⇒ 3, 18 ⇒ 4) and provide a +1 for class competency (perhaps +1 for fighter-types and +2 for rogue-types). In this and all following examples, combatants with higher speed scores act earlier. Keeping the scale of speed scores around 6 will decrease the difficulty of manual handling. The referee could determine opponent speed by ruling, assuming an average of 3 or 4 and adding or subtracting a point or two based on whether the opponent seems like it should be quick (pixie ⇒ 6) or slow (ogre ⇒ 2). For a more predetermined approach, or for people who appreciate some degree of textual deference, the movement stat is available (1974 OD&D Monsters & Treasure, p. 4, Move in Inches; 6 ⇒ 1, 9 ⇒ 2, 12 ⇒ 3, 18 ⇒ 4, 24⇒ 5, 25+ ⇒ 6).

I can see several potential ways to accomplish the practical tracking of initiative order, including index cards with speed values or a simple sequential game board of 12 spaces—six spaces for the current round, six spaces for the following round—with tokens for each player character and type of opponent, numbered according to the current and following rounds—something like 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6. Using a game board in this way would more or less replicate the way Octopath presents the initiative order. The referee could also just perform a countdown from 6 for each round—perhaps a countdown would be easier if playing by video conference—but would need some way to keep track of opponents that have been broken. My guess is that index cards would work best overall, but it would require some play testing.

HD seems like a reasonable stat from which to derive something like a shield score. My first pass might be HD / 2 (round up). The division is simple enough to do mentally—HD 5/6 ⇒ shield score 3, for example—and ensures that enemies are likely to break before being defeated, all else equal. In a more involved system, such as AD&D or 5E, the HD or challenge rating might work as the shield score verbatim. Another approach that appeals to me given OD&D assumptions: encounter table dungeon level ⇒ shield score; this would maintain a rough connection between monster strength and shield score but also naturally scale up weaker monsters on lower dungeon levels without otherwise engaging in numerical inflation.

Finally, and perhaps most substantially, the referee would need to determine the types of damage and corresponding opponent vulnerability lists. There would be worse places to start than the 5E SRD damage types; I could also imagine many quirky taxonomies based on close readings of whatever your favorite game text is. Particular vulnerabilities could be intuited by ruling easily enough. Does an opponent seem to have some form of elemental affinity? Cold-related monsters are obviously vulnerable to fire. For some reason, slimes and oozes seem to me like they should be vulnerable to lightning. Skeletal or chitinous monsters seem naturally vulnerable bludgeoning. In OD&D, giant type monsters roughly correspond to the fair folk, so a vulnerability to iron could be mythologically appropriate. What about all of the weapon types? The vulnerability list could be a way to effectively smuggle in a weapon versus armor table, and would make weapon choice most relevant when confronting man-type opponents (to use the OD&D terminology). I imagine polearms or spears being particularly effective agains larger monsters and missile weapons particularly effective against flyers.

A ruling-based approach like this would probably be enough to get the system off the ground, and the referee could build up lists of vulnerabilities through play rather than trying to frontload it by taking a spreadsheet approach. Additionally, think about how you describe details of opponents to players and how your description can gesture toward vulnerabilities; this is a way to expose game surfaces to players through the diegesis or fiction rather than being excessively or indecently mechanical. You could let the players build up a deck of monster index cards representing what the player characters have learned through play, which then would do double duty as initiative tracking prosthetics.

Such a system could easily plug into various other subsystems. For one example, morale: trigger a morale check if 50% or more of opponents are ever broken, defeated, or captured at any given time.