Idea for "The Cats of Dis":
At game start, players sit together to decide the core aspects of a cat are, ie. which aspects of cats are mostly universal to cats in all planes. These look like Fate aspects or DW monster moves. One is always "Cats have multiple lives." and then players pick 4 or 5 others.
Stuff like "Cats are small furry predators", "Cats are cute and loved by humans" could work, as could "Cats have sharp senses and can see the Unseen.".
Players then individually choose 3-4 additional traits that are specific to the kind of cat they are. Maybe they come from a plane where cats can fly or are made of shadows! Maybe they belong to a secretive order of warrior cats.
Either way, these mostly work like Heritage Moves in #PlanarchCodex.
So every cat character has ~9 of these aspects describe both the general as well as the specific way they are Cat.
Now, instead of hitpoints or harm points, there would be a move like this:
When a cat FACES DEATH, check if your cat still has multiple lives. If not, you die. Work with the gm to see what happens to your cat after death.
If your cat still has multiple lives, choose one of your cats traits and cross it out and replace it with trait describing how your injury made that aspect of cat-ness inaccesible to you.
If the only trait left is the multiple lives one cross it out. You cheated death for the last time.
rpg ideas, mention of damage to cats, probably shoulda CWd the whole thing for size Show more
rpg ideas, mention of damage to cats Show more
@minx Shadowrun has a tiredness system, and I think stars without number might have a food related impairment system. Also Shadowrun's way of dealing with roll penalties is a lot more logical (and also, a lot of fun for the GM). Basically, you can succeed a roll but glitch, which means you complete your original task but you also make an error which generally does not outweigh the success. You can also crit glitch (which is basically a critical failure in a d20 system).
@Meoil Since this would use some version of #PbtA, a lot of that is already baked into the 10+/7-9/6- result scale of "You achieve your goal (andmaybe more)"/"You achieve it, but there is a complication or cost"/GM makes a move.
Still, I was meaning to look a bit closer at SWN. (Though I'm not much of an ORE fan.)
@minx Yeah, its close enough to older versions of DnD that a stars without number character can continue functioning in a DnD campaign, and you can technically have crossovers. But, a lot of the rules are intended to be more open to interpretation or heavily home-ruled.
@Meoil My problem with most games in the OSR ecosystem is that I have neither nostalgia nor much love for oldschool D&D. (Or new-school, really.)
So while I respect what's clearly a popular design scene with its own stuff going on, most of it leaves me completely cold, personally.
There are exceptions (I'd love to try Beyond the Wall, for example.), but for the most part: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
rpg ideas Show more
rpg ideas Show more
rpg ideas, mention of damage to cats Show more
rpg ideas, mention of damage to cats Show more
I mean, maybe the consequences of failed rolls (GM makes a move, etc.) are enough?
Alternatively, maybe some of temporary impairment/condition system? Like, characters can get "hungy" or "tired", which hinders them until these conditions are removed during play?
Might have to read up on how other #PbtA games have handled that. (I think there are consitions in #Masks and #Monsterhearts?)
#rpg #rpgs #PlanarchCodes #CatsOfDis