Got 2/3 of the way up the stairs before having to rest, did some work, ate a bento, met with a customer and did not solve their problem but at least they aren’t stuck in Dubai any more, tried to use awk, did not learn any kubernetes. The trains were all late on my way home, but it all lined up anyway and I was able to feed the cats so they could eat before Marith came to scare them away.
Watched (live-action anime): One Piece 2.1: Weren’t all these bozos defeated already? But we have a new foil for Roranoa, so that’s good.
Read (manga): Chainsaw Man vol 20 (Tatsuki Fujimoto): I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that happen to the Statue of Liberty.
Written (game design): 295:
Hero does have an array of defenses: PD, ED, DCV, MDCV, Mental
Defense, Power Defense, Flash Defense, Desolidification, Damage
Reduction, Presence, Damage Negation, Deflection, Barrier, probably
Strength, Teleportation, any attack count at least for getting out
of conditions. They usually apply to everything unless there’s a
specific limitation or mandatory gap in applicability like Desolid
or Deflection have, because nobody wants their defenses to not work,
and “I’m a brick!” is enough of a special effect for many of them.
There are three different kinds of defenses here, though: make the
attack roll harder (DCV, Deflection), reduce effect (PD, Presence),
or break out of the effect after it’s happened (Strength or
Teleportation vs grabs, any attack vs Entangle).
If we’re putting more of an emphasis on defense, should we be going
back to the idea of the defender rolling instead of the attacker? I
had a better name for this than “saves” but that’s what they were,
divided by ways of getting out of trouble. They can have different
mechanics, though. Like, you can dodge, which is chancy but negates
the attack entirely if you succeed, or tank it, which is easier but
only gives you extra defenses which might be enough. Ignoring the
attack gives you a bonus to whatever else you’re doing, if you’re
still able to do it afterwards. Slipping the punch is essentially
tanking the attack. If we’re using zones where most movement is within
the same zone, then diving for cover is probably a variant of dodge.
Deflecting an attack to another target is also a variant of dodge.
Diving to shield someone is tank+move in the way that dive for dover
is dodge+move. With an appropriate special effect, you could absorb an
attack or otherwise transform it into a different effect. Emotional
and mental attacks probably use the same options, with varying levels
of metaphor. And then there’s removing an effect that’s already been
applied, like breaking an Entangle, or slipping free of it. (Hero’s
Martial Escape that uses the same mechanics as busting free with
Strength but with a bonus to Strength based on skill is pretty
elegant.)
I have no idea how to handle something like Desolidification in this
paradigm.
But all of this is only loosely connected to conditions, or whatever
we do to track things happening to characters, and how they get
applied.