(22/7 ≈ π)
No gaming, Ken is unavailable (work, I think), and Kelsey is still sick.
Read (manga): Ghost Talker’s Daydream vol 5-6 (Okuse Saki, Meguro Sankichi): I had not remembered that we don’t even get to the end of the plot by volume 6! Lots more ghosts and suicide and the MC wearing her clothes from one job at the other, which presumably means she’s going to cross the streams and dominate ghosts, but I’ll never know because volumes 7+ aren’t readily available translated in the US and I don’t care enough to really search.
Written (game design): 502:
From what I’ve read, in a real fight, people kind of die randomly.
Obviously you can tip the odds in your favor with all the things you’d
expect, but not as far as movies might lead you to believe. I don’t
think this thing we’re making wants to be the sort of grim where
everybody rolls a survival die at the start of the fight and anyone who
fails is guaranteed to get murdered before the end, but maybe if you’re
the sort of creature who has vital organs and blood that leaks out and
such, the wound die should be exploding (reroll and add on max value)?
Even that might be too grim, but if we’re going to say fighting is not
mandatory, should it be an actual bad idea?
(No idea what this should be called, but if we want it to stand out, the
name should begin with an X. Z, Q, and J aren’t quite as good, and Y
would only do in a pinch. All other letters are overused.)
Obviously a good way to reduce your risk of dying is to ambush the enemy
instead of fighting them toe-to-toe. How does that work in XZQJY (not
affiliated with xkcd)? Hit Protection is what you have to avoid getting
straight-up murdered, so I can see a few ways to modify it for ambushes.
- The modern D&D approach would be to not change anything: your HP work just as well against surprise attacks as any other attacks. This is because D&D hates tactics.
- At the opposite extreme, HP don’t protect against surprise attacks, or while you’re paralyzed etc. Anyone who attacks you when you’re defenseless gets to skip straight to rolling the wound die and adds their whole attack die to it. Lots of fun when the PCs get to do it, maybe not enough to offset the complaining when the monsters do it.
- Exactly in between, when you’re surprised, or get paralyzed or whatever, you lose half your HP. Carry on as usual from that point.
- An alternate implementation of the same idea would be that when you ambush somebody, or stab them while they’re blind, they get all their normal HP but you get some extra dice to add to your attack die. Doesn’t help as much against people with lots of HP, but doesn’t require division and is easier to adjust for complete surprise vs a moment of startlement, etc.
Door #4 seems the most promising, until I come up with an even more
ridiculous idea.