wumwumwumwumwumwum

Read (manga): Ghost Talker’s Daydream vol 2-4 (Okuse Saki, Meguro Sankichi): Ghosts and violence and sex and ghosts and sexual violence and obsession and ghosts and hallucinations and suicide and ghosts.

Written (game design): 372:

Magic is hard, let’s go back to murders.

When you’re fighting somebody (in melee range/engaged during the round,
and want to hurt them), you roll your attack die. They have option of
spending their HP (if they have any) to reduce your roll 1-for-1. If
they can’t or don’t reduce your roll to 0, then their Hit Protection has
failed and you hit them.

For a regular murdery hit, you then roll a wound die to find out what
actually happens to them. Coming from D&D or really almost any
simulationist game, it’s obvious to give bigger weapons bigger wound
dice, but no. A hit can be multiple quick stabs or a single heavy blow
from an axe, or anything. The wielder knows how to use their weapon to
good effect, regardless of what it is.

Skill does matter, so whatever of the attack value is left gets added to
the wound die. Armor and toughness get subtracted. Look up the result on
the Universal Chart of Pain to find out whether you inflicted a wound
(probably all results that aren’t pathetically low), or even (on a
really good roll) inflicted two. You might also get an extra effect from
your attack, like knockdown or grab setting them on fire; this is where
the specific weapon could come in, or special techniques that give you
extra options.

Or maybe armor is just extra HP so it was already subtracted earlier?
And maybe having no vital organs means rolling the wound die twice and
taking the worse result? Something along those lines, anyway.

For attacks other than shanking somebody, replace one wound with some of
whatever the primary effect should be, and two wounds with a whole bunch
of the effect. I’m thinking one wound makes you Wounded, two wounds
takes you out, so the effects of other attacks should be comparable. And
maybe instead of having spaces on the chart for 1 Wound + Effect or
whatever, you just get the bonus effect of the attack on any even
result.

Vulnerability and resistance to different damage types would just be
addition or subtraction from the wound die.

Leave a Reply