Warren's Folly

Desperation feels like it should fill the role of Action Points, Inspiration, Fate Points, etc from other systems. It seems weird to me to have an entire stat that only comes into play at rare times

The setting feels like it should be very lethal, in a way. Fending off environmental dangers and Horrors should be possible, but a failure results in (sometimes permanent) damage. You might survive a mauling from an Olm Matriarch, but you're going to be permanently scarred and potentially weakened even after the Chirurgeon is done. Slowly accumulating physical damage and magical curses might lead players to seek the cruel magic of the March to cure them.

I think I'd vote to table Desperation mechanics until we work out basic player stats. That'll give some ground to calibrate monsters, and I think that'll make the best way to allocate and use Desperation obvious.

If monsters are on you all the time, using them as action points makes a lot of sense. If encounters are more "light combat, occasional eldritch horror", then having the points be heavy hitters might make more sense.

Ok, so lets outlign some stats that each class could use well. If you wanna be a little more creative beyond normal strength and int go right ahead.

Physical stats seem like a necessity. Minimally STR/DEX, along with at least Charisma. INT/WIS and maybe CON could be subsumed in Duress, but that's probably hiding too much behind that stat.

Might, Knowledge(general knowledge of the Maze, accepting better names), Will(resistance to changes in duress also helps you keep your wits about you when dealing with the horrors), Agility, charisma.

Sold on that layout. Names are pretty solid, too.

What's the tech level?

Nothing canonical. Previous thread said it felt Bloodborne-y, so sort of 1700s-1800s, but nothing's set in stone in terms of tech level.

Oh, actually, 8s have it. Desperation acts like action points. My bad.

Thought the 8s battle it out (sort of)!

In that case, I feel like there should be an engineer or somesuch that uses firearms and knows their way around the technology throughout the maze.

Unless guns were already counted out for some reason.

I don't think any weapons are canonical, yet. Another user suggested guns, too, but no confirmation, yet. THE 8s WILL SHOW US THE WAY!

I wrote the action points post, and I think it was a little misleading maybe. I think they should be rare heavy hitters like said. I think they should be rare and really powerful, not commonplace like you might see action point usage (ie, these are going to be used in dire straights, not every combat encounter)

Origional desparation poster here. I agree that this should be a rare usage. In my mind it's a way to help buffer a harsh setting, while still presenting negative, flavorful effect. It's meant to be a last ditch escape from death, as the name "desperation" implies. It should probably be limited to 1/day, and even that might be generous.

OP of this post, but not original OP here.

Okay, cool, we've got consensus on the scale of Desperation, at least, so that's great news.

I gotta pass out for a few hours, but I hope the thread catches more posters and we can keep fleshing this out until OP gets back.

I've got a chunk of this new material committed to a PDF, so I'll try to post that tomorrow when I've cleaned it up and merged it with the content from OP's PDF (unless they beat me to it).

I haven't been this hyped on a setting in ages. Can't wait to see what weirdness falls out.

>Might
damage and hp
>Lore
general knowledge about the Maze
>Will
resisting mental effects and Duress
>Agility
Speed of movements and attacks, and a measure of manual dexterity
>Charisma
talking power

Does this look good?

I like it. Broad enough to allow some tweaks down the line if need be, but focused enough to get through a wide variety of encounters without faffing about figuring out what attribute's relevant.

Gluttons gain Duress very quickly if they haven't eaten yet as they are irrationally afraid of starvation.

A slightly expanded version of that from the last thread.

> Higher personal Duress when hungry (Gluttons have to eat at least X lb. of flesh [or maybe just any food] per hour). Each missed feeding provokes a sanity check.

Time and bulk probably need tweaking to not be a babysitting sim, but I like the overall idea.

So primary stats for each class would probably be something like this?
>Wandering Warrior: Might
>The Faithful: Will
>Blightmage: Lore
>The First: Agility
>The Mazefolk (don't like this name): Charisma
I think that could work pretty well

What would the dice come down to? Percentile d100s? d20? Checks' difficulty based on a GM set number or rolling under your own scores?

Looks like d100 based on the duress mechanic, but that could be unique.

I'd love to see the number 8 implemented. Whether that's in the form of 8 sided dies or treating 8s as some kind of beneficial outcome despite being a rather low number

masterb8 most likely

We could tie a d8 into desperations somehow.

Roll a d8 and any other number has an alright affect but an 8 is something miraclous? And if we go with overall d100s, the 88 or 08 are like the nat 20s of the system.

Desper8tion moves

bermp

While I do think we should implement the 8 into the mechanics, I think we should use d100 for skill checks, smaller dice for damage, and maybe d8 for desperation?

I wonder if each class would have specialized dangers in the Maze that would affect them personally.

For example, Faithful running the risk of having their faith broken and thus falling, Blightmage might risk being infected by a variety of magical sicknesses, Mazefolk has the risk they can get possessed by a particularly malevolent spirit. Perhaps it would be tied to Duress?

>>The Mazefolk (don't like this name): Charisma

OP for this thread here.

I don't really like it, either, but I didn't know what else to call the base class that fit the theme while also capturing the tribal angle that the Tribesmen user proposed. I would take a better name in a heartbeat.

That's a really cool idea. I'd love to see some fleshed out fluff and crunch for this. Could make for great adventure hooks.

If they are all about controlling other creatures/spirits, what about something like the Haunted or the Possesed (my preference would be the former).
The fluff could be something along the lines of the essence of the maze, being infinite and inescapable, is used by the Haunted to trap the spirits of other beings.

I like Haunted a lot. Very on theme.

So if skills are d100 checks, do we want to set up a system for that? Like, Average situation = DC 30 (roll above), Tricky = DC 50, Difficult = DC 70 , Impossible = DC 90?

And to do the check, roll d100 and add any relevant stats/skills.

So what are the names of our official classes, and their Low and High Duress versions.

OP2 here:

OG OP hasn't returned (that I know of) to make things canonical, but current fanon classes are

> Martial:
> The Wandering Warrior
> - Variants: Scourge (high Duress), Fallen Knight (low Duress)

> Support:
> The Faithful
> - Variants: Mazecaller (high Duress), Anchor (low Duress)

> Arcane:
> The Blightmage
> - Variants: Corruptor (high Duress), Chirurgeon (low Duress)

> Skill:
> The First
> - Variants: Mazeborn (high Duress), Hearthborn (low Duress)

> Pets:
> The Haunted
> - Variants: Soulbinder (high Duress), Spirittalker (low Duress)

Also, I'm working on a LaTeX preamble for formatting stuff like stat blocks and class features and whatnot while I compile what's here so far into a PDF. If anyone knows of good existing libraries or similar, I'm all ears.

Anyone have any interesting ideas for monster canon? We've got a general idea for basic character attributes, so let's make something to kill 'em! :D

Also, previous thread is archived on sup/tg/

suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html

We got a number of monsters. Straight off the head there's carrion crow monsters, corpse giants, olm mothers, and corrupted humans. There's also The Hunger, but that thing is kind of unkillable.

We will need stats before we can begin statting monsters however.

Rerolling for this idea.

Example PDF generated by the LaTeX template found at github.com/evanbergeron/DND-5e-LaTeX-Template.

Dubs confirms.

Also, I wasn't around for the earliest threads, but are both fluff and crunch decided by rolls, or just fluff?

Both fluff and crunch are confirmed by rolls.

Both, but if enough people tend to agree on something it can be canon without a good roll

Looks good, and anons with photoshop skills might be able to pretty it up with spooky stuff

Now that he have the stats decided, do we want to use d100 rolls?

I think we should rename Agility to Grace, and Charisma to Charm. I think the shorter names fit better, and "charm" has a fun hint at more magical purposes.

Confirmed.

Nice trips.

Do you mean d100 for stat checks? That might be pretty punishing depending on how those numbers get decided. I like the d100 for Duress and sanity checks, just because of how that's going mechanically so far.

This is now canon, the names were always up to modification anyway, although I don't like grace as it doesn't fit with the theme of the setting; you will use it to run away from foes more than you use it for acrobatics.

Yes, but I figured stats would be reasonably high to match a d100 roll. d20's, d6's or d8's could work as well, I think we just need to pick one and stick with it

I like the idea of doing it CoC style, if only because the setting is so lethal. On that note, how about 3d8 to generate the initial attribute values (to keep with our 8 theme)? High enough that you could reasonably be pretty fantastic in one, but likely that you won't want to rely on stat rolls.

Skills are going to be the main way to get things done, I'd think, so I don't mind stats being lowish.

As far as lore and '8' goes, I think there should be some subtlety. The Radiant March's logo is a sun with 8 rays, the Ministry uses Octagons, WISE could be an oroborous style infinity (aka sideways 8), or a hydra-style octopus logo and so on. It should be one of those things that people fixate on, but are not aware of it at all, especially the crazies.

We need some ideas for failing duress checks. Should the penalty be built in to the check, or should there be a scale?
>You failed your DC 40 check, so you begin hearing voices
Or
>You failed your Duress check by [20/50] points, so you now [minor penalty/major penalty]

Rolled 8, 1, 3, 6, 2, 6, 1, 2, 8, 3, 2, 3, 2, 6, 4 = 57 (15d8)

Let's see an example of rolling for stats, order is Might, Lore, Will, Agility, Charm
Checks should definitely scale.

Not sure if this has already been suggested, but wouldn't there be some people in this setting who'd want to feed the collective, so they could potentially open up a way to the surface, or at least leave the city for good?

8 be praised, that's some great lore.

What sort of situations would provoke a Duress check? Or should Duress represent a constant penalty on skill rolls?

11 Might, 14 Lore, 11 Will, 8 Agility, 12 Charm

That's a cute clumsy mage you got there, dude.

There was an idea for something like that in the previous thread.

>Cult of the Feast.

>Cultists who believe that the Hunger is in fact a god imprisoned in the city. Mercifully, they don't feed people to the Hunger. Instead, they study ways to free what they believe is a god from its hunger, freeing not just a god but also the countless souls trapped in the Hunger. Possibly the inventors of the spell that can temporarily halt the Hunger.

>The Feast sates the Hunger.
>The Fires keep the Feast.
>The Family tends the Fires.
>The Hunger will be free.
>The Feast is eternal.

>The feast is a special project that the cult hopes will be so grand and delicious that the Hunger will be sated by it. To accomplish this, they task Cartographers with securing certain specimen from the city to add to the feast as ingredients.

>They doubt that special ingredients will be enough however, so they wish to find rituals and more to improve the feast, even if it would render them insane. They also, through unknown means, keep several master chefs prisoner in their dungeons in the event they need them.

>They don't want to use human resources as ingredient if they can help it. They won't hesitate to do it if it turns out that human sacrifices are needed however.

I rolled for it so many times, and it just never took. Here's hoping this'll work, because I think this'd be a great bit of flavor, and make a lot more sense of the Glutton race.

That seems like a huge stretch. It seems like the first thing the players would want to do is try and feed these things so they can open up a way to the surface. That doesn't even sound that crazy, when you say it like that.

I think personal duress is your own number which you need to roll under (sanity/corruption checks), while enviornmental duress provides a static modifier to your d100 checks based on how fucked up things (enviornment, enemies, company, trauma etc.) are.
Ability power scales positively with duress, while sanity checks need to be rolled under.

I like the version of it that just has a different understanding of the Hunger, rather than anything explicitly about opening a way to the Surface.

Cults which are minor factions and connected to races sounds fun.

Feast cult=gluttons
Ravagers =beast traits
Some cult was suggested earlier for slug men
Myconid commune=Fun-guys

Basically subraces are the result of cults/groups embracing certain aspects of the underground.

Rolled 63 (1d100)

I think we should roll for (starting) duress as a separate stat, disregarding all values lower than 10 and greater than 80. Additionally, having high Will lessens the amount your duress increases by.

My idea of how Duress works is that it's all just one number, the sum of your personal Duress and the environmental Duress.

My understanding of magic as laid down in the last thread is that to cast a spell successfully, you must roll below Duress, and to pass a sanity check you must roll above.

Mechanically, this means that it's easier to cast spells the crazier you are (or the more stressed out and open to the whispers of the Maze).

It also follows with the overall awfulness of the deeper parts of the Maze, and managing Duress as you encounter more oppressive locations will be important to any party not composed entirely of gibbering murderhobos.

To follow that, I think it almost makes sense for Duress to cause a skill penalty, except that the skill monkey standin (the Mazeborn) is high Duress, so they might need class features that reduce or negate this skill penalty at the cost of mutations or something.

Duress strikes me as being a calculated stat, where your base Duress is something like 2xLore - Will or something like that. Being more knowledgeable about the Maze makes you more prone to madness, but a high Will can temper that.

Actually, doing some messing around with numbers, it might be more entertaining to do it as

(4 x Lore) - (2 x Will). This means that if you max out on your Lore role (24), your base Duress is anywhere from 48 to 90, which seems appropriate for a serious mage.

Maybe, however, that makes starting duress very low as the Mage from above has a starting duress of only 17... maybe add a static 'bonus' determined by your class and background.

This seems like a good way to calculate it. This gives our example stat block 30-odd Duress, and with a few points in magic mushroom drugs, a baselines of solid 50 could be achieved

Thematically, I think that makes sense. I don't think most people are going to start out at high Duress when they're new to the Maze. Like in CoC, you don't start out knowing all the horrible stuff, but as you're exposed to it you can begin to use it.

Also with my altered calculation from it'll be a more reasonable 34 for our example mage.

I like this. If our character tries to be a mage, they can get to around 50 with some perks/feats and item choice, or could lower it to a mild 20 if they chose a more low-Duress focused build

Rolled 7, 8, 7, 8, 7, 7, 1, 5, 8, 5, 6, 8, 5, 4, 1 = 87 (15d8)

That makes more sense and is more reasonable, However, we probably should still have a minimum starting duress. We should also generate a few more characters for examples.

Might 22
Lore 22
Will 14
Grace 19
Charm 10

Some higher ones in this roll

This means that most players will start out as a low Duress build, but they'll be able to experiment with Duress management and transitioning into the higher Duress builds as the Maze gets more dangerous.

This sort of fits the natural progression of most characters, where (for our example) a mage is pretty squishy and questionable in combat early on, but scales quadratically once exposed to some threats.

Also keep in mind that the Chirurgeon will likely be able to produce Duress manipulating drugs and such for additional management options.

Minimum Duress depends on how dangerous madness is. Setting it to 10 means anyone will go insane at least 10% of the time on any check, but also that anyone has at least a 10% to cast a spell. That seems a bit high to me, at least on the sanity end, but I'm open to ideas.

What about racial traits? Do Fat Men get something like +3 Might, -2 Will or something more like +die roll for Might, -1 die roll for Will?

Also, should we do a roll-four-discard-the-lowest so people don't get shafted on stats?

60 Duress base, high Grace and Might. Tough call. Seems like a natural fit for a Wandering Warrior, but could reasonably slot in as a diesel Blightmage or First.

Well, at 10 Duress they won't go insane, since at most they'll fail the check by 9. All it will do is spook them an drew increase Duress

Oh, fair point. I like that, then. 10 minimum Duress seems all right.

Racial traits would definitely be good stuff. Seeing that hardcore set of rolls makes me almost think 3d8 is OP, but I think it could be okay for the lethality of the setting.

Equally, I don't think getting shafted on your stat rolls guarantees you get wrecked. It definitely makes it more likely, but I've had some impressively shitty CoC characters make it out on the other end with some luck. And if you die, there's always another prisoner to replace you.

Going along with stuff people said earlier we could have scaled results and if you fail a test at 10 the downsides aren't too harsh, also insanity could only happen if your get higher than 100 duress.
Static bonuses, otherwise it is too swingy. Sure it could be either 3d8 or 4d8 drop lowest depending upon the equivalent of the DM.

Currently working on the first part of the Warren book, "Creating your Character". This will include what we have so far on races, classes, and abilities. If you want to roll for more of this stuff, go for it and it'll be added as I can get to it.

I'm not familiar with CoC, and I know that we don't have full mechanics yet, but 3d8+racials seems rather swingy.

What about 8+1d8+ racials? That gives us anywhere from 6 to 18, which is in line with systems that I am used to.

Yeah, that could be an option as well.
We should probably work on specific abilities now.

In particular, working out the racial bonuses would be good.

Let's say stat bonuses max out at +3/-3, always summing to 0 unless there's a compelling reason to do otherwise.

Skill bonuses max out at +10/-10, summing to 0, with no more than 5 skills affected, total. Thus, you could have two +10s, a -10, and two -5s; or three +5s, a -10, and a -5; etc.

Tentatively:

Humans get a bonus based on their background. Choose one stat bonus and one skill bonus from (list to be determined).

Slug people have decreased Grace (-3), but increased Will and Lore (+2 and +1, respectively). Resistant to poison. Skills TBD.

Gluttons have increased Might (+3). but reduced Will and Grace (-2 and -1, respectively). Skills TBD. Also, lol, Will and Grace, tho.

Beastmen have increased Grace (+3), but reduced Charm and Will (-2 and -1, respectively).

Mushroom men have increased Will (+3), but reduced Grace and Charm (-2 and -1, respectively).

Lore is notably absent from the racial abilities, which I think is appropriate because no race is really more knowledgeable about the nature of the Maze in the lore.

the-call-of-cthulhu.obsidianportal.com/wikis/primary-attributes

CoC has more calculated attributes than we're working with, mostly.

> 8 + 1d8

Min: 9
Max: 16
Avg: 12.50
Std Dev: 2.291

> 3d8

Min: 3
Max: 24
Avg: 13.50
Std Dev: 3.969

> 4d6 drop lowest

Min: 3
Max: 18
Avg: 12.24
Std Dev: 2.847

Just for comparison.

What about bonuses and penalties to certain duress checks? +/- 5

Mutations/corruption, trauma/terror, paranoia, hallucinations/delusions, fatigue/lethargy etc. could be shuffled around to gve races more flavor if needed.

8 gets, and i do like the sound of it. An user recommended class specific duress trial before. It certainly gives our would be dm to tailor encounters effectivley.

Yeah, definitely. Mushroom men also canonically ignore some amount of environmental Duress due to their attunement to the Maze, so that's something to work with.

Faithful user jere. Ill start coming up with some Faithful unique duress trial and maybe some abilities. Im on the bus headed to an art museum a the moment so it may take a few hours. What sort of modifiers should i be trying to use for the encounters?

Rolled 4, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2, 6, 1, 4, 3, 6, 7, 4, 7, 2 = 53 (15d8)

So far we've just got basic abilities and Duress, so by all means come up with whatever you think fits your vision.

I'd imagine that Horror encounters would increase personal Duress, while maybe there are Relief encounters where something positive (or at least not actively harmful) happens to reduce personal Duress.

Attribute damage is pretty common in highly lethal settings, and the average rolls are high enough that this is probably survivable without seeming underpowered.

I would think the Faithful would have a basic bonus to their Duress, either by ignoring X amount of environmental Duress, or maybe having a daily modifier of +10/-10 Duress (they choose which).

There's also the role of the Anchor to consider. Is their power of calming an aura, or a focused touch?

An aura might hamper high Duress builds, but a touch could leave the party stranded and insane when they all stumble into a Horror encounter.

Would a hunger stat work? We have Gluttons as a race, so introducing some kind of a hunger mechanic might fit thematically.

Most food that can be found in the Maze would probably cause Duress when eaten (and sometimes just by smelling or looking at it) with Gluttons being immune to food based Duress (to balance it, Gluttons has to eat more often).

Starvation will probably have a variety of effects, but one special effect would be that the Hunger is attracted to starving people, increasing the chances of the Hunger showing up.