Fighting Fantasy: Luck and Finesse

Fighting Fantasy combat as it stands, suffers from a problem akin to that experienced by many Tunnels and Trolls players before the advent of 7th edition.

The problem was (and still is with Fighting Fantasy in my opinion), that if the two combatants involved in a fight are fairly well balanced in the Skill department then combat itself can become pretty much never ending, with neither participant being able to land a blow and all the excitement that's supposed to come with risking life and limb leaving you feeling rather limp instead.

So what I see as the best solution is to introduce the Spite Damage mechanic from Tunnels and Trolls.

All this means is that every six rolled in combat, inflicts a wound regardless of who wins or loses the round. In addition to this "lucky" damage, when "Testing your Luck" to increase the damage that you have inflicted this round a success doubles the amount, including Spite (rounding up) but, a failed test halves it (rounding down).

Effectively this would mean that you could potentially dish out 8 Stamina damage in one round with a successful Test of Luck and a double six, which I feel is a nice replacement for the Mighty Blow rule that kills an opponent outright on a double six.

Finesse also plays a big part in combat I feel, so I have also added a house rule that inflicts an additional point of damage upon the losing combatant for 3 points of difference there is between the combat totals.

For Example, Dave the Delver (Skill: 10) is locked in combat with Mr Generic Goblin (Skill: 5). From the outset it is clear that the Goblin is outclassed but being slow of wits he chooses to fight for the sake of fighting.

Dave rolls 5,4 for combat whilst the Goblin rolls 6,1.

Dave wins the round 19 to 12, inflicting 2 damage as normal but, also an additional 2 damage for his finesse. So the Goblin is taking a rather nasty 4 damage but, it's not all one-sided.

That 6 rolled by the Goblin inflicts a point of damage upon Dave regardless of the fact that he came out on top in combat.

How Do You Roll?

Something that I have been mulling over of late is the myriad of ways that you can knock up some character attributes. In particular, I have been thinking about attributes and Tunnels and Trolls.

Here you have a system who's creator has said much to effect that you really can't have a character that's too powerful! So, what I'm wandering is just how far can you push dice rolling (without actually cheating) to achieve favorable results? How many different ways are there?

3D6 TARO

This is the given standard for Tunnels and Trolls, roll 3D6, triples add and roll over (TARO).

Using this method most of your characters will fall within the average of 11 in each attribute, giving them no distinct advantages beyond those granted by their kindred but, leaving an open ended ceiling that makes it possible but unlikely to roll up exceptional starting characters.

All-in-all though, no great whoop.

4D6, Drop the lowest

An older method from other old-school roleplaying games which offers a slight advantage over 3D6 TARO. True, you're throwing away the opportunity to create an exceptional character but you do improve the odds of creating a better than average character by the virtue of rolling more dice and getting rid of the worst one.

XD6 TARO, Drop a dice

Using four dice as above but giving you an even bigger edge as you can now also TARO, which again opens up the possibility of generating something amazing.

Unlike the above method however, you may not want to drop the lowest dice (if the lowest dice forms a triple for example). A similar method using 5D6 is used to generate characters in Beneath the Arena by W. Scott Grant (featured in the freely available zine, TrollsZine #5) which is probably the upper threshold of this method before it begins to produce ridiculous results.. 6D6, 7D6 or more though are of course possible, it's your game after all and it's up to you.

AD6, TARO chaos!

Last but not least is a crazy little concoction of my own which almost certainly guarantees a handful of TARO's, maybe a TARO in every attribute!

For this method, take ALL of the dice that will be used during character generation, including those to be rolled for your gold and roll them all at once.. Nothing says Tunnels and Trolls like rolling a bucket of dice does it?

Now pick out all of the trebles and assign them to the attributes of your choice, being sure to roll them over when you do. This should produce some pretty awesome attributes, even for humans!

Lastly pick out all of your remaining dice, group them into threes and assign them normally.

In summary

So there we have it, four different methods of rolling and four very different probable outcomes but interestingly only two variables, the number of dice rolled and whether to TARO or not.

That's not really the end of the discussion though as gamers are both a creative and intuitive bunch and, as long as they have time to think there will always be new stuff hitting the tabletop.

There is also the possibility of point buy systems similar to the one I devised here for Fighting Fantasy which I plan to follow up on in another post at a later date.

To Buy Or, Not To Buy - Part #1: Fighting Fantasy

One of the biggest problems that a lot of gamers have with systems that randomly generate attributes based on dice rolls is that if they roll poorly, then they can be on the back foot from the word go.

In fact it is fair to say that every future dice roll in any given attribute reflects upon how well you rolled initially. If you get a good result to begin with, then you are certainly going to have an easier time of things when it comes to testing that attribute in the future.

So if you are unlucky enough to roll a one for your Skill in the Fighting Fantasy system, even a double-six in Stamina is unlikely to save you from the pummeling that you are likely to receive from even the most mediocre of foes.

That doesn't seem fair right?

A simple solution I have introduced to my solo gamebook sessions to resolve this, is a basic point buy system based upon the averages generated by the dice you would ordinarily roll to generate an adventurer.

All heroes using this system begin play with the following attributes and, 14 points to improve them:

Skill: 6
Luck: 6
Stamina: 12

Every point spent on an attribute will increase its value by 1 and, there are no upper thresholds on how high you may push any attribute.

Many people may think that this is a bad idea, opening the system up to "Min-Max" exploitation, throwing all of your points into Skill for example to create a character with a massive 20 Skill points.

Consider though that this same character would only have a Luck of 6 and, how often the average adventure may call upon a player to test it. Taking this into account it soon becomes clear that this form of rules manipulation isn't really a viable approach and that point buy systems like this actually encourage balance.

One Page, Unlimited Potential

Front

In scrolling through my feed this morning, I came across this great post over at Jake Care's Gamebooks.

Whilst I had seen the original adventure that the post mentions in the Red Box version of the Dungeons and Dragons rules, I had no idea that other writers had carried on the format.

I had always thought that this was a crying shame, as it was so innovative and, the closest that realistically you could come to a GM lead adventure, without the GM.

Back

True, it did have the drawback that there was no random factor involved outside of combat (and this mini adventure doesn't even possess that), so there was little to no replay value but, couldn't that be easily fixed?

By this I mean that there is nothing to stop budding games designers and solitaire adventure writers sitting down, adopting the creative mechanics of the system whilst throwing in their own random twist.

For example, if a player is directed to a piece of text, couldn't that text be (or direct the player to roll on) a Wandering Monster table? A Random Treasure Generator could also be thrown in with the same ease.


Attach that to a simple system like Fighting Fantasy or, Tunnels and Trolls and you'd have one hell of a product on your hands.

Links

Read more about Page Quest and download your copy here.

The Windhammer Prize

Something that's certainly caught my eye within the past few days, was mention of a contest in an update bulletin over at Lloyd of Gamebooks.

Whilst, I was completely unaware of this competition, the Windhammer Prize is now in it's 5th year and looks to serve a great function, rewarding original writing within the genre of the gamebook.

This seems like a great idea to me as solitaire adventure fiction is often an aspect of the gaming hobby that gets overlooked and, as the years have passed, it has seemingly fallen to the wayside in the favor of more conventional gaming options, such as the board game and the group roleplay session.

Which is a great shame.

I can't count the many hours of fun that I have had playing various gamebooks over the years and, it seems to me that the next generation of gamers would really be missing a trick if awesome titles like those in the Lone Wolf, Fighting Fantasy and, many wonderful independent ranges where lost to the mists of time and obscurity.

Thankfully new technology has helped bring the genre into the 21st century, with many new titles being made available via apps and downloadable content but, the heart of the hobby is still with the writers and, competitions like this are excellent incentives for casting a spotlight on new and progressive talent.

As such I would highly recommend that if you think you have something to share, give it a go!

On The Cards: Friday 20th July

Next week will see a theme running through the majority of my posts and, that theme is Tunnels and Trolls.

Despite being the second oldest roleplaying game in existence and, a lot of the mechanics within it being adopted by other popular systems this little gem seems almost damned to toil in obscurity.

For example, Tunnels and Trolls was the first system ever to introduce solitaire adventures for gamers without active groups but, when we talk about solos Fighting Fantasy and Choose Your Own Adventure are without a shadow of a doubt the first things that come to mind.

Take my word for it. Fighting Fantasy is good and has brought me many hours of pleasure over the years but, Tunnels and Trolls is better.

Need convincing? Stay tuned as there will be plenty of links to Tunnels and Trolls freebies, as well as a look at what's on offer for those willing to shell out a couple of dollars.

Coming up next week on the blog:

Alchemy Bytes
A Tunnels and Trolls Solo
More Types for Tunnels and Trolls
Presenting TrollsZine
Taking a look at Elder Tunnels