@@KarnakZMZM Sorry for the delayed response. Thanks so much for your interest! We're hoping to have the Demo Packet available in the next few weeks. It'll have quick start rules, pregens, and a one shot adventure for folks to try for free!
When you explained targeting the Bulk, the Brim, or the Ace, I had to pause to go "Oooooo!" So simple, yet narratively flexible and strategic. Definitely interested in seeing what else the system has to offer. It reminded me a bit of FATE and a bit of Blades in the Dark, but FATE felt repetitive and I could never quite wrap my head around Blades in the Dark's stress and consequences systems as a GM.
That seems like a very elegant system, congrats. I got to the same conclusion in regards to wound slots for my own game, light, flesh and grave wounds in this case. Glad to be in a similar path.
This is a really cool system. It seems to me that action economy and initiative order are going to make a huge difference since whoever goes first will be able to debilitate someone on the other side immediately. Also, whichever side has more attacks, will cause the opposing side to lose combat power and create a snowball. - I mentioned this because in a normal system players don’t have much control over initiative and action economy. It makes me wonder if a system like this might want to invent mechanics to allow the players to engage more actively with those systems. Particularly initiative.
A great question and observation! TfE uses side-based initiative, where all the players share a turn, during which they can each use 2 actions in whatever order they wish. To combat the "alpha strike" aspect of an injury system like this, TfE has a strong emphasis on Reactions - being able to actively defend yourself when it's not your turn. For example, if an enemy shoots their revolver at you at the start of the Threat Turn, you can use a Reaction to take cover from the shot. Success or failure, you end up behind total cover after the attack, preventing subsequent shots. (Assuming there's cover to leap behind!) The active defense aspect of the game, combined with myriad defensive abilities, gives the players a lot of control over their life. Same goes for the Threats (which is what we call monsters/enemies/bad guys).
Fascinating! I appreciate that the burden on mathing to the player is kept at a minimum, more thought is instead given to "do i wanna risk missing to hit the ace, or just go for the bulk". Looking forward to when you finally talk about edges!
I was tinkering with a very similar no HP, called shots system and this video is just what I need rn. I was kinda stuck, out of ideas how to make my system feel more tactical without making it over complicated and I think I found plenty of inspiration here!
Man, I've thought about making a system with "weak points" on enemies in the past and never really figured it out, so seeing someone actually doing it is so cool. And now you've got me thinking about all the different status conditions based on injuries that someone could take on... This is all really good stuff!
Very informative! Do you ever encounter a "snowball effect" when taking a small injury to your gun hand results in your character being unable to defend themselves, and subsequently take more injuries?
@@milesvandusen1231 the concern of the dreaded "death spiral" is definitely there. But we've found that the systems behind treating injuries and regaining usage of wounded limbs alleviates that. Great question!
Big fan of condition-based wounds; reminds me of what I best liked about Vaesen's, though that was a weirdly excellent combat system for a mostly non-combat sort of game.
This is a phenomenal system Peter! I've been digging around for a while now to find a combat/hp system that feels like it has consequences on a turn-by-turn basis. It drives me nuts when you leave an opponent at 1hp only to be slapped with the full extent of their might as if you didn't just leave them on death's door
Thanks so much!! That was the same desire that got me to make my own system. I can only deal 1d6+4 damage so many times before I get kinda sick of it 🤠
This reminds me of Phoenix Point, where the game engine had mix and match limbs whenever it'd generate monsters. You could run into a guy with a crab arm and a tentacle leg.
Cool approach! My experience with both Hit Points and "Hit-Pointess" system is climax and tone: This works best for games which emulates grounded/horror themes; My group tried to emulate an Eberron(pulp,high-magic fantasy) game with this kind of system, and itsuffered with anti-climax, out of control combats. But I must point out that my favourite systems nowadays use this kind of backbone in their structure. I must point out Powered by Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark games, as well as Savage Worlds. Also: Called Shots ARE the best!
very neat system, and very versatile too! I imagine armor adding health slot or ,for a very gothic feels, healing spells that could "miss" because the healer die did not happens on the injured health slot.
@@jettolo Thanks!! We actually went with armor as damage reduction. It reduces the severity of incoming injuries to the protected part of the body, if applicable. So if you'd be Critically Injured, you instead suffer a Serious Injury.
I will be a lonely defender of D&D's wound-less hp system here. All the stuff described here is simply what happens when a D&D character hits 0 hit points, and anything in between 0 and max hp lies in the abstract that is the hp system i.e. stamina, resolve, cosmic luck, whatever. Taking damage means getting tired, feeling in over your head, and thinking how much you'd rather marry Rosie back home. Until you get that sword through your shoulder that takes you completely out of the fight. The lack of penalties no matter your current hp total can be considered a plus, not a minus. But what you have here does sound very cool. But it's place lies in the realm where combat is scary and getting into a firefight means you screwed up. Modern D&D tries to evoke bold heroism that is basically consequence free. Both systems have their place.
@@SgtBuffagor for all my criticisms of D&D, I do still love it and play it regularly. Just picked up the new PHB, looking forward to sitting down and reading it :D
> Modern D&D tries to evoke bold heroism that is basically consequence free. Both systems have their place. 5e wasn't intended to be consequence free, they just didn't realize that most DMs would give players long rests after every combat. It was probably envisioned combat -> story/roleplay/short rest -> combat for multiple iterations before a long rest was reached. In reality, players go "nova" every fight and use everything and then want to long rest, because that's what they're used to.
@@icarusshoda I agree, yeah. In reality, only a few encounters happen between rests, allowing for those "nova" turns more frequently! (and just to be super clear, I do love D&D and have been playing it for 24 years now - I just get tired of certain aspects of it, hence making my own RPG!)
May I ask how many times at the table, when struck for damage, the player roleplays their character getting tired or scared instead of actually being hurt? May I ask how often, as a GM, when a player strikes for damage, you report that they didn't actually injure the target, but just winded them or made them frightened? D&D claims that being struck for damage doesn't actually mean being genuinely hurt by a weapon - but then turns around and says that being hit in combat is sufficient for targeted spell effects or other non-damaging effects.
@@PaleImperator Y'know, over the many years I've been playin' D&D, I can only keep describing the "you lost hit points but nothing has changed" situation in so many different ways haha :D Fatigue, scratches, flesh wounds, grazes - I've seen it all probably. It gets particularly strange when you have something like a dragon scorching someone with their fire breath, it dealing a ton of damage, but then the player is otherwise unaffected, ya know? In TFE, if you suffer an Injury, it's always an Injury - some sort of physical trauma. The "Strain" in TFE represents fatigue, grazes, and so forth - they're kept separate and distinct. That method has its own drawbacks, of course, but we've found it to be very visceral!
I appreciate this. It's similar to Twilight 2000 4th edition and the changes I've made with Deadzone. Each hit has the potential to change the course of the combat. The stakes are, therefore, immediately more urgent and higher. The Trauma supplement on DTRPG is a great starting point for people wanting to include something like this into their games. We took that as a base, combined with a location based attack method. It might seem more detailed by ultimately works.
I like that this raises the stakes of combat while speeding it up and making it less abstract. I do want to see how players cope with the change and how you avoid the death spiral that is common with attrition damage in other systems. Will you be posting a live-play soon?
Not gonna lie, there was some definite whiplash for some players when they first tried out TFE after only playing D&D for years. They expected to be granted much more leeway in how they approached an encounter, and they got perforated for it. It was highly educational :D Players do rapidly adapt, we've noticed. Once they understand that they have a lot of tools in TFE to avoid being hit at all, they start to work together, use cover, and generally play more tactically. I think this works well because the players start paying more attention to the enemies themselves, what weapons they're using, how many limbs they have, what their deadliest form of attack may be, and then targeting that with their attacks to render the enemy less deadly. Earlier versions of TFE had a really bad death spiral issue, primarily due to Injury Slot count. Adding the "Lethal" slot gave players a lot more leeway to avoid death spirals. We've made several other adjustments surrounding Injuries, and the last several playtests have felt *chef's kiss* :D On the subject live-plays, we are workin' on it and hope to post a few videos soon. We have an "example play" which is a comparatively short video of one turn of combat, and are making plans for a long-form, full session to record in-person!
Its not "attrition based." You don't die due to attrition, you can die from any single attack. Your aren't trying to wear the opponent guy down in a protracted combat, you are trying to win immediately.
Heard, but I think that his point is that it removes the necessity for turn-by-turn attrition where nothing new happens. Each successful strike results in a dynamic change to the progress of the combat. So instead of 'waiting' for the target to hit 0 and things change, it changes each time adapting the flow of play. Saying it isn't 'attrition' is just semantics, it still has the opportunity to be, but could also just as easily not be.
@@mkklassicmk3895 I mean... you can die from a single attack on any system, just depends on the damage of the attack... just push (also an attack on 5e!) someone from a tower. This system could be literally the same as DND if you always multiplied the results on damage dies by 10 for example.
This is really cool! Similar-ish to FATE's system (filling in "stress boxes" but you might have to fill in a more valuable box if you've run out of cheap ones), but FATE's is based more on math. I like this blend of actually tying the condition(s) to the stress boxes filled. It does feel good.
This is a super cool engaging idea. I like that it has the potential to model competitive hand to hand combat like martial arts or grappling as well in terms of strain accumulation or a lucky injury roll. Super interested to see how the larger systems interact here. The core of injury seems like it functions comparably to a FitD style system but has less arbitration or predictability than those systems tend to carry. The conditions riders are a super necessary addition to that structure too.
FitD is definitely an inspiration for aspects of the injury system. That game has so many good lessons to learn from! We're excited to share more about the other systems and designs with the community. We'll be talking about character creation and some big examples of play in the coming weeks!
It's very interesting that I started a notepad for a wound based combat system which uses different body zones and negative consequences for accumulating too many wounds merely a day or two before you posted this video and my algorithm showed it to me. Unsure if I chalk this up to coincidence or to running an OS that's spying on me... Anyway, glad to have seen this, it really inspires me to keep going, as I love the vibes I get from this and the positive feedback it receives. Though I have to say, I am going for attrition. I want attrition. I want a little bit of slog that is not directly debilitating but leading up to a big wound, one that can not simply be treated away. So the attrition for me is the rise in tension and an opportunity to avoid the unavoidable, to at least delay it and deal with the bad consequences later. Wounds to me are an opportunity to grow and change, maybe level up. In the end wounds aren't a punishment, they are just part of the deal of linving in a world where you have to go out and fight things. And they will change the character. They are just terribly deadly as well.
Great minds think alike! I'm glad you're finding it interesting/inspiring :) and there ain't nothin' wrong with some attrition, that's the beauty of TTRPGs! There's a flavor for everyone! I still play a lot of D&D, despite my complaints about it, and that's about as attrition as it comes
I started developing a D&D adjacent system in reaction to 4e coming out and hating the way how hit points were used and abstracted away to homogenized meaninglessness. It's been pulled out and shelved several times over the years and it uses a wound system very similar to yours. It was based off of the 3.x system of cure spells: minor, light, moderate, serious, and critical wounds. Multiple minor wound tick boxes are similar to where you have used strain. Other wounds have more information such as healing DCs, type, effects etc. The difficulty I have had is with the reaction system used to represent all the hit point abstractions: skill, deftness, experience in turning a serious situation into a less serious one, luck, sheer toughness and grit, divine providence, armor, inner strength, occult methods, morale, being told by someone it's not that bad and to stop sooking, to the unfaltering will to keep going. For me it was all about separating all these cool ideas and leaving wounding to be its own separate thing. I thought the key was using these reactions to turn moderate or serious wounds into minor ones that could just be ticked and easily removed in and out of combat. The difficulty though was making it feel organic in play, rather than a binary mechanical system of either shields to bust through or that one critical that insta-kills. I pulled it back out again a couple of months ago because I thought I had come up with a solution. I just have not had the time to test the framework out. Suffice to say, not only am I appreciating your system after just discovering it , but my philosophy on design seems to be very similar to what you have discussed thus far - story meets elegant crunch. You've created a cool-sounding world and some great ideas - I'm sure there's plenty more you're looking to unveil. Looking forward to seeing more!
@@AnraitEsor I feel you! I had been working on TFE on and off for a long, long time, and only in the last few years did I make an earnest push to get it ready for public consumption. I have a day job, so it's tough to balance that with game design!
Very interesting idea, Peter! And a very elegant solution I totally understand your point (I just watched the previous video before this), and as a player, D&D feels a bit boring sometimes because of the high amount of HP with no effect until death. 4th edition did something interesting (and I don't believe I'm saying something good about 4e, but, hey...) with the Bloodied status, which made combat change when the enemy reached a certain levels. 13th Age, I think, did something similar for the player, with certain powers unlocking at certain HP level or the combat turn But in the end, D&D is an abstract system focused on math and absolutes. So it works for them, and may be why it's such a widespread game (and widespread type of injury system) It's also why I prefer low-level adventures for d20-type games, or at least low hit point. A Song of Ice and Fire RPG has an interesting middle ground with Guard instead of HP. Guard is low and goes down easily as a fight happens. Once an attack depletes Guard, you get a Wound, which has a lingering effect like "injured leg". Of course, like in your case, once all the Wound slots are filled up, you are dead. In a sense, it's what some 2d20 games also do, and something I'm adapting on my own space opera game. Stress goes up easily as the shots begin to fly, but if you take too much Stress at once, or get to max Stress, you accumulate Harm, which is also contextual. So, yeah, "Shot on the leg" will make it harder for you to run. And, again, once you take 3 Harm, you are uncounscious. 4? You are dead. Anyway, just a bit of rambling here. I like where you are going and I'm looking forward to your game Best of luck!
I always enjoy a good rpg ramble! I've played a decent chunk of 2d10, and I did find their hybrid system interesting. I liked the way TRUTHS could be added to a character or scene to help build up narrative consequences. Something that irked me about its use, though, was how much time was spent discussing/debating with the GM over which Truths could be applied in certain situations. It's a drawback of "permission-based" features, rather than wholely player-driven systems. Anyway, now that's my ramble over for now :D
I found this very interesting and helpful, especially as I design my own combat system where the goal is "what is the final blow to defeat this enemy", listing what makes dealing that final blow more difficult, then having players work together to remove those obstacles and deal that final blow. Unrelated though, I was curious on your opinion on making a combat system where the focus is constantly inflicting critical injuries on the Genesys crit table, where the focus is to build and build and build debuffs through injuries until the table eventually rolls Death. I can explain the table further if you need it.
@@ezekieltamarkin280 I think a system like you're describing could work; it'd give a sense of progression for each random injury inflicted, moving toward the goal of total defeat. I haven't glanced at Genysis in a hot minute, but is it a d% table? One of my concerns is that it makes combat reliant on an external table for constant reference, which might slow the gameplay down.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Genesys was the General System made by Final Flight Games to make a universal version of the Star Wars game they made, the one you referenced in the video about funky dice. It's a d100 table that goes all the way up to 250, which is Death. When you inflict an injury, you add +10 to your roll for each previous injury they already have. Some weapons can also have Vicious X, which adds +(X*10) to the roll too. The system I'm working on is still early in its development. Instead of lasting injuries, you either disabled the obstacle permanently, for the whole encounter, or for the round. Perhaps there's a dragon who the party says can be slain by cutting its head off. One PC permanently cuts off the wings at the joint to prevent the dragon from flapping wind. Another PC curses the dragon to have scales as hard as butter instead of as metal. Third PC wrestles the dragon's head to bring it low, countering the height of the dragon for that round. Last PC deals the final blow. I'm hoping the rules will also cover social situations too, since the dragon scenario's Final Blow could be making the dragon an ally, with obstacles like their anger, reluctance to do anything, love of their hoard, etc.
@@ezekieltamarkin280 Oh gotchya, yeah I hadn't played Star Wars since pre-Pandemic. Honestly it sounds like a cool idea you've got cookin', I'd be down to hear more as you work on it!
@@ezekieltamarkin280 You can if you like! I'm currently in a big ttrpg dev discord that has tons of indie devs in various stages of game development, from hobbyists to pros. discord.gg/P5j2f95Y Feel free to join up and hang out/chat about game dev!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames I'm actually working on a TTRPG system myself (for about 2 very active years now) and I would like to kindly ask for a permission to steal some of your ideas. All this sounds so dope, I can't even describe how happy I'm to stumble upon this. I've read some other comments and I can't wait to see you showcasing some actual crunch and implication of the mechanics (mostly the specifics of complications and how you avoid death spiraling)
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Sure! It's a bit much to write in a single comment, so I'll try to be laconic. My system is called Dragon’s Die (or DD) and, very similar to DC20, it's started as a collection of my D&D5e homebrew and then turned into overhaul and then turned into my passion project. There is a lot of things changed, so I'll mention only two of the systems that I'm really proud of; these made me feel overwhelmed with joy when I discovered them, similar to your injuries system. 1. All casters-no casters. You've mentioned that you've played 5e, so I'm sure you know about martial-caster divide. After months of playtesting I believe that my system have solved it, albeit in a somewhat side-stepping way. Basically, I've revorked D&D classes so none of them gain spellcasting and instead turned spellcasting into it's own system that every character can (but doesn't have to) engage with. 2. Stamina Points instead of HP, limited uses per rests and other bs. I've grown very tired of unnecessary resource management and absurd implications of HP and other resource pools, so I turned them all into one - Stamina Points. In DD doing anything tiring requires spending SP: casting a spell? Spend some SP. Make a special attack? Spend some SP. Use class feature? You get the point. This allowed me to not only greatly simplify resource tracking, but also create a lot of interesting challenges and meaningful consequences not only for combats, but also for storrytelling. For example, a cleric that has spend a whole day casting spells and helping his village can be as tired and in need of rest as someone who has just fought a dragon. Or, for a combat and agency example, if a 5th lvl mage wants to cast 5 fireballs back to back, he absolutely can, but will be left exhausted (descriptively, not as a condition) and could be defeated with a few strikes, since damage also applies to SP, thus actually becoming a glasscanon.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames UA-cam shadowbanned my comment for whatever reason, so I'll post it again. “Sure! It's a bit much to write in a single comment, so I'll try to be laconic. My system is called Dragon’s Die (or DD) and, very similar to DC20, it's started as a collection of my D&D5e homebrew and then turned into overhaul and then turned into my passion project. There is a lot of things changed, so I'll mention only two of the systems that I'm really proud of; these made me feel overwhelmed with joy when I discovered them, similar to your injuries system.
@TalesFromElsewhereGames Mostly I didn't know where to stop. Too many places to attack (is shield arm the same as weapon arm? What about other creatures, etc.) The divide to ace bulk and brim is clever and can be applied to everything in different ways which seems to solve that pretty well. Aside from that I just went too deep into the rabbit hole of combat simulation, attack types, defenses, and lost playability altogether. Hope what you've made finds the sweet spot. Looks promising.
Have you seen Evil West? Looks like it might be good setting inspiration/comparison. Also your system reminds me a little bit of The Broken Empires, which is also going to focus combat on inflicting specific wounds. If you haven't seen what Me, Myself & Die is doing I suggest checking it out.
I have seen Evil West! Haven't played it yet, but watched a lot of videos on it. It looks like my jam. I am familiar with Broken Empires! Me, Myself & Die is an excellent channel and I've been following the development for a bit now. Very cool game with very different design goals. It's always interesting how different designers approach the same core problem. Love it!
this sound really good for an attack on titan setting where they usually would have to coordinate to take down some of the bigger titans or worry about injuries when hitting walls or from shrapnel
@@siluda9255 Ooh that's a really cool idea!! The Survey Corp soldiers are just regular people, who can get maimed and hurt really bad, and have to go for the vulnerable part of the titan! I dig it.
I think this system would be absolutely fantastic to run a Dead Space type of game in. The space zombies (necromorphs) are incredibly difficult to kill because every cell in their body is reanimated. It isn’t just the brain driving the body You have to literally cut their limbs off so they can’t maneuver or attack anymore, but D&D and other games I’ve played don’t have location based damage that isn’t a huge hassle. This gets me very excited
Yesssss! Not gonna lie, I've been putting together ideas for a sci-fi setting to release in this series, and Dead Space is absolutely one of the inspirations!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames question for you sir… have you found it difficult to run lots of weaker enemies with this system? It seems like it could get hard to keep track of very quickly Swarms of necromorphs are a staple and I’m curious how feasible it would be
@@psychone8064 That's definitely something we've had to test around and were aware of; because you're absolutely right, all that tracking can start to add up! We created Horde Rules to specifically handle an uncountable mass of enemies, like a swarm of necromorphs or zombies and such. To be perfectly honest, we're still iterating on the GM tools to help track large numbers of enemies. When I run, I've been using some quick notation that works pretty well, but it's one of the items in our sights! Very astute of you to nice that potential problem! Hope we are able to devise a satisfactory solution!
Thanks for the feedback! An important difference between this system and traditional ones is the focus on "skipping ahead" in the tracker rather than needing to walk-up toward the mortal conclusion. Combined with the ability to inflict conditions and effects as part of the core system means that each action can more directly impact the fight, even if it doesn't kill a target. We've found that players have actually started paying attention more to the descriptions of the monsters and engaging with their mechanics, as now the limbs and modes of attack on an enemy are interactive and can be disabled if need be.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Okay. I'm going to go back and rewatch your video, and listen more carefully. I primarily run Warhammer Fantasy 4E. And I'm guessing that the Player Burden (not an concept I had heard before 😀) is pretty damn high in that game. But so is player choice. And some very cool strategies have emerged from all the crunch. Though at times, as the GM, it has pushed my meat computer to its limit. So there must be other ways of doing things. You may be on to something.
@@peterdickinson4599 Oh wow, yeah if you're a Warhammer fantasy GM then you are probably above the curve, as it were, when it comes to being comfortable with player burden. :D
This sound very similar to the homebrew system we use but without the distributed damage system, and we have a more random systemfor criticals, soeven a first blowcan inflict critical damage.
Thanks! Yes and no. The game is all written by me, but I've had lots of help from friends in the long development cycle. I do have a video editor and various artists I work with; some volunteer, some paid (out of pocket) for their work. It's a very small operation right now, for sure, with me primarily handling everything :)
I'm *very* inspired by this system in regards to my own gamedev. I'm not actually going to USE any part of your system, yet it still solved a number of my current problems. 😅 Basically, I'm giving die types special meanings, usage as abilities, and role as a resource. I also wanted the total dice to count as health, and me mapping your injury tiers to those die types have had very fun results. The system needs to be modified a lot, but still it helps.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames It got me out of my latest hangup, which is great, but I'm sure it won't be my last one lol. And actually one part of your system here is in direct contrast with mine: lower dice types AREN'T supposed to be strictly inferior Different strengths yeah, but not worse. My rough draft solution (Which I just picked off the cutting room floor. Again) is that the die type does damage as you described but is also used as a bonus roll for attack resolution. A trade-off yes, but one that is pretty damn hard to get the details right on without lots of math and playtesting.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Thanks, I appreciate it. I am excited about my projects potential (I kinda tripped and fell into a Super Original Setting) and an accuracy/damage tradeoff is a good fit for its elemental themes. Smaller dice were already the "heavier" elements, even. In the end this idea may not work out at all - either in the balance or the gameplay - but it'll still have another special piece in my ever growing pile of gamedev Legos. So I'll call that progress.
I really like this system. It reminds me of the different levels of Harm in Blades in the Dark, but it instead allows you to have a more granular scale of damage capacity for weapons/attacks. Very ncie. How do you handle different grades of armor? Is it just binary (armored or unarmored), or do different grades of armor (light/medium/heavy) have a maximum injury severity that they can downgrade (Strain/Seroius/Critical)?
Thanks! It's been a lot of fun to design for. Armor is pretty binary. Armor covers different parts of your body (e.g., just the bulk for a kevlar vest), and states what types of attacks or injuries it protects against (e.g., chainmail would make you Resistant to slash/pierce, but not bash). So a kevlar vest protects the bulk and makes it resistant to firearms, as another example. Resistances just downgrades the Injury severity one step - from Critical to Serious, and so forth. I had sketched out a more nuanced armor system earlier in the design process, but found it too fiddly, so we went with a simple, but clear solution. In TFE, anyone can wear any armor they want, as long as they are cool with the pretty heavy encumbrance of them. Armor weighs you down, making it harder to do things like dive for cover or swim or climb things. So it's more of a personal, tactical choice rather than a class feature/build choice. It means players can gear up specifically to fight certain threats if they know what they'll face - going against beasties? Wear stuff that protects against slash and pierce. Facing robots with sledgehammers? Padding and other stuff that helps against bashing. And so forth!
Hmmm quite an interesting idea to use fighting condition as a "HP" system instead of actual numbers. I might have to tweek this a little to fit my own little TTRPG. Solid stuff. 👍 ~ Adam
While this sounds like an improvement, at its core, this is still based on attrition. You are still reducing an enemy's health resources, in the form of injury slots, until they have none left and are out of the fight. It is better than a more traditional HP system, but it's a change in form, not a change in kind
I think you're quibbling. Sure, you're still losing resources in the form of injury slots, but it will play much differently, with consequences for being hit, sometimes immediately. I'm not sure if there are set effects for injuries or if it's based on the weapon, or is random.
There's an attrition aspect to it, but it's not PURE attrition like a hp system. I'd be interessted to know what you would consider a change in kind, if not this?
@@lloydbrown3223 armor acts as mitigation; it reduces the severity of the injury received to that area. For example, were you to be wearing kevlar vest and would receive a critical injury to the bulk (torso), you'd only receive a serious injury. Blocking, on the other hand, is handled by the Reactions system, which I do plan on covering in a later video :) long story short, due to the deadly nature of the combat, the players have a lot of reactive tools to get themselves out of danger. The game is about avoiding injury, rather than "tanking" it, mostly.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames if a player was fighting a monster and they were both using swords, does the skill level difference between them act in any way to mitigate damage via parry, dodge, etc? If so, do you have different classes achieve these combat effects at different milestones based upon class, etc? IOW, would a warrior see greater chance of skill mitigation vs a mage? This is something I've thought about but never put into action so I'm curious if you've playtested anything like this and/or have thoughts about how this might be done well.
@@Hawkissimo a skillful melee combatant can definitely defend themselves well against a foe, using weapons or a shield to block incoming strikes. The upper and lower bound for players' Skills is a much tighter bandwidth than in heroic fantasy RPGs. It only ranges from +0 to +6 total, and uses a d10 for its core die. Threats, particularly dangerous monsters, can go far beyond that upper bound, making them incredibly deadly to face alone. There are a lot of tactical options, abilities, and items that can help tip the balance in favor of the players, but since the emphasis is on action-horror, the players are meant to never feel "overpowered" against the monsters. The game is classless; characters are built from various Backstory Elements that provide roleplaying and mechanical options. It'll look familiar to those that have played games with a "I'm a blank that does blank who cross from blank." We're working on a video demonstrating character creation that we hope to release in the coming weeks! (Sorry, this is just a more in depth conversation than is easily achievable here in YT comments, but we'll definitely cover this stuff in future videos!)
I've never designed a game system in my life but I'm going to complain anyway because it's fun for me: - I'm not comfortable with lower dice rolls causing more severe injuries. People are pretty universally wired to think that a higher dice roll means a better result. Few people miss your THAC0s and negative ACs of early D&D, - I am a big fan of a generous use of injuries and afflictions (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay with Tome of Corruption has some imaginative injury/corruption/mutation tables) and targeted strikes but I don't think they cause a paradigm shift from an attrition based system to something else. - I've seen some similar combat systems but they've never struck me as particularly crunchy though they are less arithmetically challenging and generally faster. It seems that making hit point damage less granular combined with merging losing hit points (or in this case empty injury slots) and inflicting status effects (injury effects) can severely narrow the possibility space. I think that a system can still use injury slots and be crunchy at the same time but it will need some other systems that can introduce some complexity back, like an in depth feats system you've described which could interact with other subsystems like movement or action economy
Thanks for the detailed reply! I love hearing feedback, whether it's praise or criticism :) . I'll try to keep my response organized below; UA-cam isn't great for this sorta discussion haha! 1. An interesting thing we noticed in playtests is the "looking for lowest number" makes the dice feel more precise. A d20 feels big and unwieldy, while a d6 feels deadly, small, and precise. It was an interesting shift, mentally, for players that we took note of. It's not for everyone, and that's okay! 2. That's totally fair - it's still a violent exchange with a last-man-standing situation. I will say, though, that when the game is built around such a system, when it's wired into the DNA, the moment-to-moment gameplay feels very different. Each action results in a lot more progress, and lot more interesting consequence, when you cut out "hit points. 3. That's also fair! We aren't showing all the surrounding systems quite yet, but there are a ton of customization options in the game, lots of stuff to fiddle with. Let me ask you this, though: Having a system with myriad individual numerical bonuses stacking up does make the numbers go up and does give a lot to make the game "crunchier", but rarely are those decisions evocative. It's just an optimization exercise at that point - you're doing math against each other. What Injury systems like this accomplish is it takes the tactical decision making and moves it mathematics (stacking bonuses) and moves it into the actual moment-to-moment gameplay. "How do we kill this?" isn't answered by stacking bonuses, but instead about analyzing the enemy's physiology, attack capabilities, and behavior, and then dismantling/disabling those features with your coordinated strikes. By using THAT as the baseline of the system, as its core, it gives you a ton to build on top of that's quite crunchy, indeed! Again, thank you for your thoughts! They are well-reasoned!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames I can definitely see that being the case. I guess the THAC0 system was confusing because you’ve had to do some arithmetic to find out if you’ve hit someone and since here there is no math it can actually be easier to always look for the same values no matter the hit dice assigned to the weapon the player is using Regarding the third point, you are completely correct. Stacking incremental bonuses for optimal impact is definitely less naturalistic and immersive. I guess we’ve run into the problem of two competing philosophies of crunchiness. According to one school if you employ enough specificity through rules and tables there will emerge a well simulated model of reality (e.g. modern D&D combat) with a vast array of well defined tactical options to choose from. According to the other school the more you regulate an aspect of the game the more you artificially constrict available options (more of an Oldschool Renaissance approach) In my opinion both of these approaches can lead to increased crunchiness and the real tradeoff is between vagueness and specificity. It’s hard to give an example of a game that has both in abundance. The best I can come up with is probably the progenitor of all tabletop games, Kriegsspiele which admittedly I’ve never played. It started as a wargame that was supposed to train Prussian military officers. It featured a set of complex and specific rules but the way players interacted with that system was purposefully obtuse and vague. The ruleset was fully known only to the umpire to prevent metagaming. Opposing teams didn’t play at the same table to induce a fog of war mechanic. In some implementations even players on the same side didn’t sit at the same table so that each player only sees what he personally knows about the battlefield and not all the information might be correct. Only the umpire knows the real boardstate. Players don’t move units or take actions directly. Instead they write down orders on a piece of paper and give them to messengers (umpire) which they send to specific units. It’s the job of the umpire to implement those orders. If they are too vague they might be misinterpreted, local unit commander might refuse or a messenger might be intercepted on the way back so the player doesn’t even know if the orders were delivered and acted on.
This system sounds exciting! I love the the zombie example. 'Do I go for the leg to slow it down even though I know that I wont kill it or do I risk it and aim for the head?' Looking forward to trying it sometime.
my god, this is the best combat system i ever known about. My top three are: 3. genesys 2. fate 1. yours. IT ALWAYS BOTHERED ME that rpg batttle systems are zero narrative and total sheets of stats grinding on one another
I like the way you think. I will say that elements of your system are very similar to how damage is handled in my favorite TTRPG. Ars Magica has never used HP, and the fifth edition, released 20 years ago, tallies up the number of wounds of different severity a combatant has--so for an average-sized human, 1-5 points of damage is a Light Wound, 6-10 is a Medium Wound, 11-15 is a Heavy Wound, 16-20 is an Incapacitating Wound, and 21+ is Death. Each of these Wounds carries a penalty to all rolls, including Attack and Defense, so as you accrue more Wound Penalties, it becomes harder and harder to defend yourself, and you end up taking more points of damage, which translates into more severe Wounds. It also becomes harder for you to damage your opponent and cast spells (as spell-casting is roll-based). Now RAW ArM5 doesn't include a certain number of Wound slots, but the Roll20 character sheet could only fit 5 of each (and 1 Incapacitating). So as a house rule a lot of us say that when you're out of slots at a particular level, your wound graduates to the next available more severe slot. One result of this is that striking first and striking hard makes a big difference. Even if you can't take out an enemy with one shot, if you hurt them enough at the start of the fight, they end up in a death spiral. In fact, surrender or retreat become more likely than fighting to the death--which I think is infinitely more interesting. Ars Magica is about magic, not combat, so there isn't a specific rule for called shots, at least not in the core rulebook. I like the way you handle that.
@@JamesHazlerig that's interesting, so RAW you didn't have a hard cap on wound count, but there was an effective cap due to... Just being so vulnerable to death after so many?
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames yeah, in RAW, the penalties to your defense rolls translate to more points of damage taken, leading you to either hit Incapacitated or Dead as Wounds accumulate.
@@JamesHazlerig Oh awesome, I'll keep an eye out for that! Based on what you're sayin', it sounds like it's time I jump into that game - been hearing about it for years and never taken the plunge! Thanks again for the recommendation and commentary!
I am intrigued by this. There is a lot of clever gameplay that can come out of this. One question I have is this: How laborious is it to track status of say, 6 orcs? HP based systems are simple because health is abstracted to a number. The video mentioned that math could be an issue for some players, but I feel, for the majority of players, simple subtractive math is the simplist way to track health especially with lots of characters. HP based systems also provide a little narrative protection from luck because you cannot one-shot the boss or be one-shot by the boss. Maybe playing this cascading status system feels more elegant in truth. Thanks for sharing!
@@meeplearts3118 Thanks for your interest!! You're right, it is more laborious for the GM to track many enemies at once compared to an HP system, and we are currently iterating on ways to create helper sheets/shorthand/etc to make it easier In actual play, it's not bad when you get used to it. Individually enemies tend to go down fast, so the number of enemies in the scene rapidly reduces. It's worth noting that very few enemies will truly one-shot a player, and the truly big set-piece enemies are a bit more complicated than that, but the feeling of mortality is absolutely present! It's something I'm interested to see more players get their hands on and gather even more feedback! Thanks again for your comment and question!
Oh. I see. I get what this video is going for. Yet I also see ways this can be improved. I think it is best to stick to using hit points. It is a tried and true method. I think one of the reason why it works so well is that is is so streamlined and straightforward. Hit points can be done in a way that isn't such a slog. Characters don't have to have a ton of hit points. There also doesn't need to be a lot of math. If I combine the hits on the sheet, there is a total of eight. So each creature has eight hit points, and each attack has one damage. It is funny that there is eight. I use a more complex hit point system. Even then I figure that hit points should be eight times the attack damage in a level. Either way it means the battle takes an equal amount of turns. I see an interest in status conditions. I don't like that to be connected to hit points. The resulting death spiral is unplesent. I did think up of an alternative. It is a good thing this video came out around the time of the realease of the new DND Player Handbook. One of my favorite new features is weapon mastery. I recommend checking that out. The whole book is awesome by the way. This little indie game would greatly benefit from using a similar system. Each kind weapon deals damage and has some extra bonus. This bonus will definitely be good for adding status effects. One kind of weapon deals one damage and slows down the opponent. Another kind deals damage and knocks the opponent prone. Another kind does damage whether the attack roll hits or misses. This is so forth. It is a really cool system to spice things up. I don't recomend making a distintion of body parts. That is too convoluted. There is an alternative. Critical hits can turn into a wepon mastery feature. The attack deals two damage instead of one. However it doesn't deal any status conditions. A gun or bow would be good candidates for this weopon feature. It gives the idea of doing headshots and getting critical hits. One could choose whether to do extra damage or do some status condition or other effect. Making such a decision would be interesting. Weapon mastery can leads to fun tactics. If every kind of weopn has a special effect, it makes combat more interesting.
I got more ideas to build on this system. This is something to consider. One idea is a super simple proficiency system. That is brilliant. DND has proficiency. When a character gets to be higher level, their proficiency goes up. This is mainly added to attack role. I use proficiency in my game. I make it a bit more elaborate. I make it go up every level. An attribute (ability scores) is the proficiency plus the class bonus. Attributes come in pairs of opposites. Every attribute that raises one value has another that decreases the same value. The most basic is damage. The total damage is the base damage plus the offense attribute of the user minus the defense attribute of the opponent. Both attributes have proficiency. If both fighters are the same level, they have the same proficiency. This causes proficiency to cancel out. This makes calculations easier. Generally players should fight opponents of the same level to simplify the math. For the game in the video, there can be a simple proficiency system. The proficiency is equal to the level. Level one characters get a proficiency of one. Level two characters get a proficiency of two. And so forth. If two fighters are the same level, the fight works normally. Each deal one damage. If one fighter is one level higher, they deal two damage. If they are three levels higher, they deal three damage. Addition is an easy way to calculate with damage. The downside is that super defensive characters are impossible to kill. If defense is high enough, the damage goes to zero. In a hot point system this simple, there is a high chance of that happening. I did think of a rule to fix this. I call it the chip damage rule. I wonder if that be even programmed in a computer using an if then statement. If the damage calculation causes the damage to be equal or less than zero, then the total damage is one. If the damage calculation is greater than zero, the amount is used for the total damage. Another idea I have is spell effects. Magic spells tend to come in elemental types. DND has this. Pokemon is an extreme example. Spells can contribute to the status effects too. It is like weapon mastery, but with elements. A fire spell can do one damage and cause the burn condition. An ice spell can do damage and cause the frozen condition. There are other spells like that, and give other effects. An electric spell gives the paralyzed condition. A poison spell gives the poison condition. A psychic spell gives the confusion condition. An earth spell causes a blinded condition or reduces accuracy. An air spell blows the opponent back. There are many attacks. Magicians can even have their version of a critical hit. There can be a force spell or energy spell. It deals two damage and has no status condition. Spells can contribute to the fun and strategy of status conditions.
I think Into The Odd kind of solved it already for me. No to hit rolls, self restoring „hit protection“ instead of „hit points“ and if things get to serious, character stats will get reduced, so succeeding in turn will get harder and harder the more damage you take until you either are dead or get fixed back up somewhere else.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames can definitely recommend! Its very short, concise and well written! While at it, you may also have a look at Bastionland and Mythic Bastionland, which are iterations on the same system written by the same guy (Chris McDowall). After that, have a look at Cairn, which is a fantasy-hack of Into The Odd andcompletely free for everyone! Good stuff!
This is cool but it does seem a tad bit cumbersome if you were running a horde of monsters and had to keep track of 18 zombie's worth of strains and injury boxes, I like the idea though im always glad to see others tying out new ideas for the genre
It would definitely be cumbersome for that many enemies. There are actually Horde rules specifically for large groups of zombies, townsfolk, and so forth, but it is definitely more tracking than HP would be. Your concern is apt, and we're still iterating on solutions to that to ensure the GM isn't overwhelmed with tons of tracking! It's definitely something we're going to want testers and feedback for :)
Interesting, so it's a small random table with varying degrees of penalty? Does the roll on the table scale with the severity of the incoming hit or is it purely random? Thanks for sharing!
I've mostly ran high powered fantasy games like Exalted, Godbound and currently Age of Sigmar. But this geniunely sounds interesting. I didn't expect to like it at least conceptually since I generally hate injury systems.
That is high praise! How are you liking Age of Sigmar? I haven't flipped through an edition since the first one..what, 10 years ago? I thought it had a lot of juicy crunch, but found it a bit on the demanding-side, math/calc-wise. (TBH, I'm more of a 40k fan!)
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames in playing AoS Soulbound which is very much its own thing compared to the old Warhammer Fantasy books. It's my go-to rules medium Fantasy adventure game. Very epic in scope. Let's you play as a dragon. Granted it's a dragon about the size of a draft horse but still a dragon, not a humanoid dragon race.
Two suggestions… Hp’s shouldn’t just be about damage. It doesn’t make sense that to kill someone you must cut their leg slightly, then stab their hand, before finally cutting their throat. Point two, a suggestion… My favourite games use bonuses as hp. You have +4 strength, I hit your strength for 2. Now you only have +2 strength. When you drop to minus 1, something bad happens.
@@El-Comment-8-or thanks for the feedback! I find bonuses/stats as HP to be an interesting mechanic. Cypher uses that, with its "pools" of Might, Speed, and Intellect. Do you find that such systems create too brutal a death spiral? I've had positive and negative experiences with them, curious as to yours!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames It makes it more important to avoid damage, be tactical in how you deal damage, and very importantly heal damage. No more, I got a 4 damage arrow wound that I can ignore. I’m new to the world of non-DnD systems though, still learning.
@@El-Comment-8-or I get you. What's interesting about Cypher's use of this structure is that you can also expend your own stats to boost your chances of success, purposefully exhausting yourself to ensure victory. It can make for some cool moments and decisions for the players!
I think you're going to have a very niche audience if you're more concerned with dramatic tension via lethality and injuries vs keeping some semblance of heroic fantasy. Not saying the community isn't interested in a game with more verisimilitude when it comes to yo-yo-ing at 1hp, but i think star wars is a good example of not becoming a bag of hp and incorporating crits for hitting woun/strain thresholds (though that could benefit from a good overhaul) and matt colville is another good example of increasing the cinematic aspect with actions and effects on the field apart from attrtition.
I'm okay with niche :) Really, the goal isn't to compete with the likes of MCDM or D&D; TFE is aiming for action-horror, which doesn't give a sense of heroic fantasy, but rather a sense of danger and intensity. It's going to be even more niche, 'cuz the first setting is post apocalyptic weird west!! Appreciate the feedback and commentary!
One thing: I think your spot on with your analysis, that attrition (without actual attrition besides spells, usables and certain abilities for the most part) is a bad basis for combat. But what I have to say: All combat, that is kinda "to the death/ until someone gives up" without a clear goal besides "destroying the enemy" will degenerate to a slog. Even if the injuries make the combat more fluctuating, the problem is still that the both sides don't have a proper goal. That's what you should have. That's abought actual tactics. A lot of game designers miss this, because DnD (5e especially) is absolute crap at this. If you came from a game that has very slow healing like me or better from a wargame, where just clobbering the enemy most often won't do you any good, but playing the objective will win you the match even if your force has been demolished, you'd alteady know that. I think your system is pretty good, but I really think, that you didn't get to the actual problem. What you need is a system to make encounters matter by establishing goals for both/all sides. Something that helps GMs do that fast and help players grasp the concept.
@@felixheitzer2262 I 100% agree with you on this. Without something at stake, what is the point of fighting anyway? I think games should have scenarios with goals that are more than "death match". Having said all that, the combat "engine" still very much matters, as that controls the palette that the GM can paint with, as it were. If the way the players can interact with the foes in a scene is constrained and only attrition-based, then it limits their ability to problem-solve outside of simply inflicting harm. (I think you and I are on the same page, just diggin' into the details!)
A couple questions: Does Armor function to reduce the severity of the injury? How does it do this while preserving lethality? Does each limb have an 'injury track"?
@@jfm.d5180 armor reduces the severity of injuries, as long as it protects against that type of injury. For example, most armor won't protect you most against firearms. Most characters don't wear much armor in the game - it's a choice that some make, but armor weighs you down a lot and can limit mobility, so it's certainly a trade-off. We've run playtests with tanky bois, going full defensive builds, and it certainly makes them feel durable! But we've also found that mobile characters with good Reactions are just as good, if not better, at avoiding injury. The game has a greater emphasis on avoiding being hit in the first piece, rather than "tanking it". Oh and each limb does not have a separate tracker - it's one unified tracker for the whole body. I'll be showing off the full character sheet in a future video, including how characters are built!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGamesoh, that's interesting. I assumed with the bulk, brim, ace distinction you would set apart armor the same way. Curious to hear what made you decide to go with a unified tracker.
@@NRMRKL Armor covers different parts of the body, so some armor only protects the bulk, others cover everything, etc. Interestingly, an earlier version of the game had individual limb/location tracking. What we found is that it bogged down the moment to moment gameplay significantly, and didn't as easily abstract overall health. The Injury Tracker does, however, have a place to write where the injury is located on your body. So you'd note: "bullet wound, left leg" and that'd tell you the information you needed. So it's an overall tracker that also allows for specificity. So that's some insight into the iteration; the old version was not a bad idea by any measure, but we found that it moved the game too much into the "simulation" space. It's a careful balance!
I get why people might not choose to wear armour the way you've modeled it, but there's a reason people wore Armour in the ancient world and the medieval period. Just saying 😊
I don't know much about TfE, just stumbled upon this video. Your idea sounds very interesting, thank you for sharing this! However, one thing I wanted to mention is that adding negative effects, wounds to the core combat system starts to compete with items/spells not doing damage, but applying debuffs. "Entangle" druid spell from D&D has the same effect as an arrow to the knee. Now, this is not a problem per se, but it could make it more difficult in creating classes, items, spells variety for the game. I wonder if you encountered such a problem, and if yes, how did you solve it?
@@vladimirkrasilnikov2245 Great question! TFE has a more involved core system, and then doesn't layer as much complexity on top of that. Having said that, special abilities and such haven't been harder to make, in fact the intro system grants a new, interesting mechanism to build around rather than simply increasing damage. It's much more interesting, for example, for a feature to say, "increase the severity of injuries you inflict in X situation" than simply "you deal +5 damage in X situations". Secondarily, while injuries do carry debuffs, they don't hit all the possible negative conditions. Things like frightened, distracted, and AoE components all come into play. We're excited to be able to share all the character creation rules, but that's a bit far off still. We did just post a video showing one character being built, if you're curious!
Nice work with this, there's some elegant stuff here. In terms of stat blocks, I'd guess that different monsters would have varying numbers of strained/serious/critical slots available to them? If not, I'd be curious to know how you would go about mechanically enforcing that the level one zombie isn't nearly as hardy as the owlbear/deathbot/what-have-you. I'm designing my own system atm too, and have concerns similar to yours regarding attrition systems. Here's to winning the war against stagnant combats, and making mortal combat feel the way it should (utterly fucking terrifying).
@@mattkincannon5264 yep, different enemies have different numbers of slots. Very weak enemies, like a simple bandit, have fewer than the player. More powerful ones might have more. Overall, though, there's very little bloat or scaling in the numbers of injuries. Instead, the enemies become more deadly, they "break" more rules, and tend to have larger action economies. This is because making a monster survive longer doesn't necessarily make them more interesting to fight. So the monsters scale in INTENSITY rather than DURABILITY, if that makes sense :)
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Excellent. Making "getting the drop" on your foes all the more important, I would imagine, which is a good thing in my book. Good luck as your system continues to develop.
Are extreme scale difference an expected part of this system? I'm thinking building sized dragons or individual mini fairies? I can imagine one or two layers of resistances/vulnerability would do part of the job, I just found in my designs this is where injury systems can become weird. (Can I really cripple a giant with lucky punch?) Still an interesting design space compared to death by a thousand irrelevant strikes !
This is actually a big design challenge we've been having when designing Threats (what we call monsters/enemies). What we're experimenting with is what I'm going to call the "Megazord" approach - where the giant creature is actually composed of several individual Injury Trackers that compose the greater creature. For example, a dragon the size of a building wouldn't just have "more" injury slots, but instead each of its tree-trunk legs would have its own tracker, and that limb would only be disabled if sufficiently injured. The dragon would then only be killable by, say, exposing its furnace-like heart and stabbing after sufficiently crippling/disabling it. For very small creatures, like a faerie, that would be represented by having no injury slots at all (or maybe only a single Strain box), meaning any successful Injury just instantly kills them - because if you cannot write an Injury into your tracker, you just die immediately. A great question! We'll eventually be tackling threat design on this channel and hope to get lots of feedback on it!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames that make sense to me from a player perspective, especially if they're meant to be special fights. In my own project I'm contemplating shifting the impact of creatures on each other based on their relative scale. That way two fairies or two dragons can fist-fight at the regular rate while players intervening would see their impact amplified or reduced unless they take special measures. (Like using a ballista, a dragon-bane sword or climbing to reach a weakspot) In that way if you want to sever a huge limb you'd also need to score several high impact hits to get to an actual serious wound using conventional weapons. Of course by normalizing wounds slots I'm also making these big fights work like normal ones which isn't necessarily the coolest most evocative way of handling it.
@@JeanPhilippeBoucher Oh that's a very clever solution! It would let you "zoom in" or "zoom out" as needed, depending on the desired scale. The challenge is going to be balancing that mixed scale situation, but I think that'll pan out nicely!
This seems similar to Blackstone Fortress' wound system and the drawback for your idea is that each character would need a physical dashboard to place tokens and counters-otherwise things get confusing as people remember half the time to apply their penalties. Usually the burden falls on the GM. The dashboard solves this problem. Not a bad thing, but something to think about. Also, plenty of games allow called shots which introduces an "all or nothing" mechanic where the tradeoff is probability to hit for removal of the enemy in one shot. Finally, if you're hung up on zombies, one hit from them should be fatal- you have been bitten, well now you are a zombie-simple. I would also say that you have missed skill- hit points are not the only way a player increases in power- competency is key. I see this system straining under the weight of reflecting skill increase of a more competent PC as they grow and evolve in combat proficiency. I would be interested to get a copy of your system and put it to playtest. Are there copies available for purchase?
@@jnlsnfamily8747 thanks so much for your feedback and interest! We're working on the free Quick Start Rules for the system, which will come with pre-gen characters and a one-shot adventure. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for its release!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames thanks for not getting upset at me! You have some interesting ideas and I would love to get under the hood with my player group!
@@jnlsnfamily8747 Of course! I appreciate all feedback, positive and negative! It's one of the big reasons we decided to "go public" with the game before any full launch - we want to involve the community! If you're interested in chatting with our (small) team and the long-term playtesters, there's a link to the TFE Discord on my UA-cam homepage. It's just gettin' rolling, but there are a handful of us active throughout the day and we're always happy to chat!
I love these types of damage alternatives. I like your choices. I was just thinking about your example of punching a zombie with a d20 for damage. In this example, isn't there still a 5% chance of critically wounding a zombie with a punch to the gut? Doesn't this contradict narrative examples like the aforementioned The Walking Dead? Or is this possibility expected in your game? Well, I suppose monster traits like zombies can get around this issue. It just came to mind. Good luck with your game! I'll check out the other videos to learn more about this.
Thanks for your interest! In D&D, yeah that 5% chance of crit means you can one-shot a zombie to the gut haha. In TFE, the Zombie has a feature: "Can only be killed with a critical injury to the head." Which means you have to specifically target the head and inflict a sufficiently serious injury to it - no grazes! We tried to make the enemies more interactive in that way - the players problem-solve how to dismantle and take down a threat, rather than just "dump damage" on them, if that makes sense! Thanks again! 🤠
This is pretty cool, I'm wondering how armor or protection will work in such a system and also fatigue/tiredness But I like that it both allows targeting and make things much more tangible than HP I think I'd really like to implement your system in an ICRPG modern/cyberpunk game to see how it goes One thing I'm wondering also is how do you determine how many slots of each kind should a character have but I think it allows for interesting customization as well
Thanks!! Exhaustion is handled by Strain; a player character has between 3 and 9 Strain boxes. Some special features let you Strain yourself to activate powerful abilities. Armor works as mitigation, reducing the severity of an injury received. Basically, it's just a form of Resistance!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames you're welcome! That's good and feels sensible! Makes sense as well! I like those answers, looking forward to more information about the game but it's looking very promising!
It's probably fun to run a game like this. I have concerns regarding larger campaigns tho. Can't things go wrong very fast? Losing a character because of some bad luck sounds quite hardcore. I like these things but most people don't I think. It might be necessary to have some kind of telegraphing, so that people can avoid the badass injuries to best of their abilities. Imagine the zombie randomly decided to bite you in the head instead of bulk and succeeded.. having the HP based system maybe gives a better 'control' of the situation. Don't get me wrong. I like your concept and if you had a fantasy setting I might buy it (I'm quite nerdy with that, I need the fantasy shit :D) but I think it can be veeeery frustrating when you suddenly die.
@@AsdasdAsdasd-xq1nr a valid concern! I have run 3 long-form test campaigns using the rules, and it was very informative about the deadlines. Long story short, in the GM guidance section, it talks about how the enemies generally don't go for the head (ace) on players. The bandit Bandit isn't a good enough shot to land that consistently, so they'll usually go for center-mass. Some of the more horrific monsters specifically go for the limbs, hoping to maim and mutilate rather than kill outright. Overall, it feels threatening to the players, but in all the games I never killed one of 'em - there were close calls, but the feeling of mortality comes in without actual one-shotting a player :)
@@kevoreilly6557 I don't think the players have felt that way as they have been mangled and dismembered in the many playtests haha :D. Since the injury system gives you other angles to make a player feel threatened and vulnerable than simply death, the journey on the road can be filled with gruesome details!
I dig the system mechanics so far. How do you plan to build armor around and is durability a factor. I imagine resistance cant be scaled well above 1 factor so i generally see having them add "filler slots" that take up wound slots without a debuff that exhaust as the armor "breaks". Light armor having an extra minor wound slot and maybe a serious, medium having a critical and heavy having an extra lethal. (or scaled down to minor, serious and critical). Also as far as mental attacks via mind spells or physical intimidation idk if these are factored in or there's a separate mental/mind slot system for psychological affects.
@@Tycon Armor is fairly binary in TFE - it provides Resistance to certain types of injuries to the protected areas of the body. Resistance simply decreases the severity of the incoming injury by one step. We had tested out a more complex armor system, but found that it became distracting to track. So we don't use a detailed durability tracking system at this time. A big lesson we learned is that players only have so much mental processing power available to them on a given turn. Where you make them allocate that limited resource has dramatic effects on the flow of a fight! Mental assaults (generally) don't inflict injuries, but rather impose negative conditions like being frightened or distracted. They can, however, inflict Strain which can make a character more likely to receive injuries, as once their Strain is full any Strain from an attack would upgrade to a Serious Injury!
Look among the sci-fi role-playing games. Some have rules for deadly fights. With the location and effect of the injuries, I know MegaTraveller and CyberÂge. I wish you to perfect your approach.
Feels fairly elegant. A few questions: Is there a big table of Conditions and what their debuffs are? Feels like a fair bit to learn maybe? How do you stop players one-shotting the BBEG/dragon/god with a lucky roll? Add an extra Lethal box? Give them total damage resistance?
All great questions. There's a list of conditions and complications, but it's not a very long list and each weapon specifies what type(s) of complications it adds to its injuries. After that, the GM and players can improvise additional complications to an injury if they like, or just stick with the baseline. It's not too bad, from playtesting! Admittedly, the game isn't designed for epic heroic fantasy - it works better for more grounded situations. But a very powerful enemy might be Resistant to some injuries or have additional steps that need to be accomplished before you can really hurt it, such as tearing away armor plating to expose an underlying heart or somethin'. That aspect is definitely something we're still working on to find the right balance.
Very interesting mechanics you've developed here. I'm curious as to how you handle larger foes, like say a giant, or eye tyrant as these foes are able to sustain a greater number of "injuries" before being susceptible to a killing blow. Love to hear your thoughts on this, if you have a minute to discuss.
@@MercTechBenny A great question! Extremely large foes use what I'm going to call the Megazord Method for injury tracking. Instead of using a single injury tracker for their whole self, each important part of their body has its own tracker, and there'd be some special circumstances that result in its death. Though I will say, the TFE games are less about slaying massive enemies as they are surviving them, since they are more grounded, gritty settings. So enormous foes are often better as set pieces and hazards, rather than something to be faced head-on. We're still iterating and exploring monster/threat designs, so this sort of feedback/question is great to chew on!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Man, that sounds pretty great! I love this concept you have of "packets of information" being passed thru events like your attack/defense mechanics. A pretty novel approach, and not too complex. As with most systems using gritty combat, is this to suggest to your players that combats are best avoided if possible? If a combat does become unavoidable... that they can creatively solve said combat using real world logic?
@@MercTechBenny I appreciate the support! Games like BitD really revolutionized that structure, and I'm doing something a bit different than that. For TFE being action horror, we wanted fights to be scary - it's not always the correct answer to charge in, and sometimes it's good to flee!
Very interesting ideas. If one has a lethal injury and takes another lethal injury without having any serious or critical injuries, does that one die? Can a lethal injury to a vulnerable entity kill it in one shot? Is there a to hit system or does every attack hit?
If you already have a lethal injury and you receive another, you're instantly dead, yep. A lethal injury to a vulnerable target upgrades it to instant death, yep! It's worth noting that no result on an Injury Roll is a lethal injury - the highest it can be as a critical. This means that to get instant-kills, the target must either have fewer Injury Slots (like weak enemies) or use special abilities to pump-up the lethality. There is a to-hit system in the game; it's easier to hit the Bulk, a bit harder to hit the Brim, and much harder to hit the Ace. So you have the choice, as the player, to go for low-risk consistent damage or to attempt for the more lethal/debilitating targets but lower chance to hit.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames got it, thanks for the explanation. At first I understood that depending on the area to target, the probability of the hit being a different type of injury shifted. What is the near average probability to hit in the system?
@@navishh2349 The overall baseline success rate in the game is about 70%. What that means is that the chance of succeeding in any given task that you are good at is about 70%. Generally speaking, this walks up and down in 20% increments. So if I have a 70% chance to shoot the bulk with my revolver, going for the brim would be a 50% chance, while the ace would be 30%. That's assuming you have decent skill with a firearm. There are a variety of ways that players can increase their chances, both via cooperation and tactical choices, of course :)
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Oh that's cool. 70% feels like a good rate for the game to feel deadly. And in practice, how many hits would you say a creature can take? Or how many rounds does a typical combat take?
@@TalesFromElsewhereGamesgiven that people's arms are out front, and might be carrying weapons or shields, shouldn't you hit them more often than the torso?
funny but that should depend on the weapon and fighting style. for example with fencing the easiest to target is the brim. same with knife fighting and many other styles or weapons. also, many creatures would defend their bulk with their brim (humans do this instinctively).
@@RobertTestowy Ah, but the bulk/brim/ace structure is simply a size/vulnerability metric assuming no active defense. You could (and do in TFE) apply the same targeting structure to non-human or even inanimate objects. Actively defending yourself is handled via Reactions, rather than a passive assumption of AC (armor + dexterity in many games), which has a built-in assumption of "dodging". You're right, though, that any system will sacrifice some amount of simulation for the sake of systemic consistency and balance, and we're no different here! :D
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames It is less problem of active defence and more problem of reach. It is even more glaring with some monsters and animals. With guns your system works well, but with melee weapons it does not because of this. But I agree about sacrifice!
@@dinkleberg684 Honestly, I don't have any experience designing for solo/GM-less, but that would make for a really cool small expansion/zine to the main game!
Tried a playtest mimicing this. found it to be.... difficult. Mostly, it was difficult because i'm lacking information, and had to make it up on the fly. --armor? I assume it makes you resistant, which is great and all, but all armor is now the same? --hey, look, all my attacks deal 1 damage, and all targets have 3 hp before they die...(I can only deal 1 hp of damage with an attack) that. that does not seem like it was the goal. --playtesting really needs a list of conditions/complications to pull from. otherwise the "interesting and rich" combat experience doesn't have as many choices as we thought. Personally, I've been going for quick and somewhat simpler combat, and I found this is actually the opposite. I love it's potential, but I don't think I'm really able to give a fair assessment at the moment. Also, taking on conditions and complications means a lot more when you need to continue the adventure afterward. Stopping after the test combat means the results of combat are significantly cheapened. I'm curious how you account for this in your tests. are you just running these rules in an ongoing adventure? Overall, I think this still qualifies as attrition. maybe I'm working off of a different defenition.
Totally fair! A more robust Demo Packet will be released very soon, complete with pregen characters, quick start rules, and a simple one-shot adventure. That'll probably be a more substantive body of work for you to analyze! 🤠 As always, I appreciate your thoughtful and insightful comments!!
Alright. I'm interested. I have my own micro system and way of doing damage that is less attrition based. I'd like to see yours on paper, if you're sharing. What weapons do what die? Or is it based on class? The smaller the die, the more lethal the weapon, correct? Inquiring minds want to know. Dig your presentation, though.
Thanks for your interest! The weapon controls the size of the dice and the character's Skill determines the number. So a knife would be a d12, a revolver would be a d8, and a shotgun would be a d6. A character that is highly skilled rolls 4 dice, while one who is basically untrained only rolls 1!
Have you looked at HârnMaster’s injury system. What you describe has similarities. This is like HârnMaster and wound levels from The D6 System had a baby.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames PDFs are available on DriveThru and from the Columbia Games website. A physical copy is available from Columbia Games too. By far my favorite “simulationist high crunch” rules system.
Where can i get my hands on a playtest version of this? Ive been on and off attempting to develop a homebrew tabletop rpg for personal use, and i feel the same way about hp. My concerns are the obvious death spiral, but also the scalability in terms of equipment and progression. I want combats that are fast, tactical, and deadly. There is also the concern of players themselves being one tapped out of the game, though there are a few solutions.
Thanks for your interest! We don't quite have the Quick Start Rules ready yet, which includes pregens and a one-shot adventure, but we hope to have that ready in the next few weeks!!
Zombies in D&D are not the same as the modern concept of zombies. They are based more on voodoo legend, and are truly just "the walking dead" -- pretty low-level goons. The modern cinematic version of zombies are actually more akin to what D&D calls ghouls -- they feed on flesh and can spread their condition t those they injure. I have run campaigns in D&D where specific objectives must be met in order to kill certain creatures -- e.g., it's not enough to just dismember them because they will regenerate! You must kill it with fire / a head shot / magic / insert solution here. That kind of thing is combined with HP all the time to great effect. in all my years of experience, there's only two types of injuries IRL: minor and game-stoppers. The minor stuff might impose a condition, but you will bandage it up after the fight and be OK. Maybe your ankle will hurt for a week, or a month, or from now on. But you can fight on. For the game-stoppers: you're down. Your bones are shattered, you're bleeding out, you're holding some of your insides on your outside. Whatever the case, you are in shock -- whether you are still conscious or not, you are helpless. You're at 0 hp. What I like about Hit Points is that you can interpret them however you want. Maybe your fighter is really good at fighting defensively, protecting himself just enough that enemy bows don't do any lasting harm. That is, until fatigue sets in and he loses track of that one arrow that finally takes him down. I've always said that 0 hp in my games is not dead, just dying -- you're like the character in the movie who's been hit with a blow they can't recover from and drops in a haze to watch their life flash before their eyes. If your cleric suddenly appears and shouts, "By Grabthar's Hammer, I command thee to rise!" -- that spark of divine healing doesn't just close your wounds, but it cuts through the fog and gives you another surge of adrenaline. You may still be fatigued, and sloppy, and barely holding on -- but by Grabthar's Hammer, by the Suns of Warvan, you shall avenge them or die trying! (Probably the latter. Again. But, hey, this is a fantasy game!)
@@ricodetroit Appreciate all the feedback and thoughts! I'm glad to hear you've injected some good, evocative conditions into your scenario/monster design in D&D!
The main idea sounds super neat, but I wonder how enemies are designed. A player keeping track of their Strain and Injuries is simple enough.. but if you have to handle several foes at once as the GM, it sounds veeeery book-keepy. How do you handle this?
@@freyaut this is actually a challenge that we're still iterating on, as it is definitely a concern. One solution is a short-hand notation where the GM writes down simple letters/numbers to denote the tracking per enemy. We're also working on a printable "Threat Sheet" that would have a quick tracker for several enemies. The game doesn't, generally, use large numbers of durable enemies simply due to its deadlines. But it's a very valid concern! This sounds like a decent idea for a video where we share we discuss this and get some feedback from the community!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames looking forward to that. Imo most trpgs are really designed with players in mind, not GMs.. which is weird considering who has to do most of the heavy lifting. I really came to appreciate OSR games for how the approach enemy design: small and concise stat blocks, easy to use, easy to reference.
@@freyaut That's a very good point. Having run three long-term campaigns using TFE (throughout testing), I did find that the toolbox given the GMs is evocative and fun, but it is definitely a different mental load that it's asking of 'em. Once we're able to distribute free testing documents, I look forward to hearing folks' feedback on the GM tools/experience!
Appreciate the honesty and open-mindedness! I don't think the game we're designing is going to be for everyone; the intended gameplay is a bit more narrow, more niche, than other RPGs. And that's okay! It's the beauty of the hobby :) We'll be launching a video later this week showing one round (ish) using the above system; would definitely be interested in your feedback once that hits!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames A super-strong guy who's on the spectrum has to pass Hogwarts while having no magic. Very funny and bombastic, so if you like shallow but funny and emotional shows it's good. Similar concept is also presented in the currently releasing anime, Wistoria. More sword vs wand than biceps vs wand, and prettier, but it's too early to tell how good it can get. More on topic, are you familiar with the One Roll Engine and its hit location system?
Hot take 3:14 the dice you might have from your TTRPG are in fact funny special dice. Really though I don't like the components driving the system especially if they do funny things to the maths, which I have no evidence of here one way or the other but the absence of D14 D16 and D18 might count. As other people have mentioned I would watch the death spiral effects - it can work on the monster too with it becoming less & less capable as it accumulates injuries and leads to an anti climax. Also tracking injuries is fine for players & bosses but I find it very tiresome for hordes of mooks. I don't have much of an issue with HP but good luck with this.
I like how the design/design of this but some things have me very puzzled. How do you roll for a hit? I'm assuming that a Hit and a Damage roll can't be the same because otherwise the system doesn't make sense when it comes to head-hits (make it harder but also make it upgrade severity means it cancels out) and weapons dealing more damage would mean they are also much easier to hit, which makes no sense that a club is harder to hit and deal damage while a gunshot is pretty easy to hit AND does more damage.
Good questions! So TFE uses an "attack roll" type check to see if you've hit the intended location. Without going into all the specifics of all the dice and systems, it basically works like this: How hard it is to hit is based on (1) how far away you are and (2) where you target. Each range increment further you are, you have 20% less chance to hit. Targeting the brim is 20% less accurate than the bulk, and the ace is 40% less accurate than the bulk. (Characters can react to being shot at by diving for cover, but the reaction system is a conversation for another day!) Melee weapons may not be as deadly as a firearm, but it is much, much easier to hit somethin' right in front of you than it is when it's 50ft away. (I think anyone who has shot a firearm can attest that accuracy at distance is much harder than the movies make it out to be haha)
![Quake - Map: #041 - Anaconda - [Custom Map] - [4K60ᶠᵖˢ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/drEsRUM8pIc/mqdefault.jpg)
So glad the algorithm suggested this video. Need to try this system.
@@KarnakZMZM Sorry for the delayed response. Thanks so much for your interest! We're hoping to have the Demo Packet available in the next few weeks. It'll have quick start rules, pregens, and a one shot adventure for folks to try for free!
When you explained targeting the Bulk, the Brim, or the Ace, I had to pause to go "Oooooo!" So simple, yet narratively flexible and strategic. Definitely interested in seeing what else the system has to offer.
It reminded me a bit of FATE and a bit of Blades in the Dark, but FATE felt repetitive and I could never quite wrap my head around Blades in the Dark's stress and consequences systems as a GM.
@@CalebWillden I appreciate the kind words! Once we came up with the targeting system, it really did just "click" for us too!
That seems like a very elegant system, congrats.
I got to the same conclusion in regards to wound slots for my own game, light, flesh and grave wounds in this case. Glad to be in a similar path.
Great minds think alike!
This is a really cool system. It seems to me that action economy and initiative order are going to make a huge difference since whoever goes first will be able to debilitate someone on the other side immediately. Also, whichever side has more attacks, will cause the opposing side to lose combat power and create a snowball.
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I mentioned this because in a normal system players don’t have much control over initiative and action economy. It makes me wonder if a system like this might want to invent mechanics to allow the players to engage more actively with those systems. Particularly initiative.
A great question and observation!
TfE uses side-based initiative, where all the players share a turn, during which they can each use 2 actions in whatever order they wish. To combat the "alpha strike" aspect of an injury system like this, TfE has a strong emphasis on Reactions - being able to actively defend yourself when it's not your turn.
For example, if an enemy shoots their revolver at you at the start of the Threat Turn, you can use a Reaction to take cover from the shot. Success or failure, you end up behind total cover after the attack, preventing subsequent shots. (Assuming there's cover to leap behind!)
The active defense aspect of the game, combined with myriad defensive abilities, gives the players a lot of control over their life. Same goes for the Threats (which is what we call monsters/enemies/bad guys).
I usually go for the more narrative games, but this is really interesting, I would love to test it.
Thanks! We'll be posting information about the free Quick Start Rules and demo one-shot adventure in the coming weeks!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Awesome!
Fascinating! I appreciate that the burden on mathing to the player is kept at a minimum, more thought is instead given to "do i wanna risk missing to hit the ace, or just go for the bulk". Looking forward to when you finally talk about edges!
I was tinkering with a very similar no HP, called shots system and this video is just what I need rn. I was kinda stuck, out of ideas how to make my system feel more tactical without making it over complicated and I think I found plenty of inspiration here!
That's wonderful to hear!! Good luck in your design endeavors!
When we finally landed on this system for TFE, it just immediately "clicked" for us :D
Been working on extremely similar slot -based injury system, except fatigue (strain) can fill any empty slot. Love your design!
Man, I've thought about making a system with "weak points" on enemies in the past and never really figured it out, so seeing someone actually doing it is so cool. And now you've got me thinking about all the different status conditions based on injuries that someone could take on... This is all really good stuff!
Thanks so much!!
Love this! Ive been making a TTRPG system for this reason
Hell yes. this sounds perfect for horror settings.
@@HMNPRSN Thanks! That was the big motivation, to create a system for action-horror gameplay!
Super creative and uncomplicated without taking the tactics aspect out of it. 🙌🏼
Very informative! Do you ever encounter a "snowball effect" when taking a small injury to your gun hand results in your character being unable to defend themselves, and subsequently take more injuries?
@@milesvandusen1231 the concern of the dreaded "death spiral" is definitely there. But we've found that the systems behind treating injuries and regaining usage of wounded limbs alleviates that. Great question!
Sounds very narrative and cinematic! I look forward to giving it a shot sometime 😍
Thanks so much for your interest! We're so excited to share the game with the community!
Big fan of condition-based wounds; reminds me of what I best liked about Vaesen's, though that was a weirdly excellent combat system for a mostly non-combat sort of game.
Much appreciated! Yeah, the narrative oomf that condition/wound-based systems provide is really nice!
This is a phenomenal system Peter!
I've been digging around for a while now to find a combat/hp system that feels like it has consequences on a turn-by-turn basis.
It drives me nuts when you leave an opponent at 1hp only to be slapped with the full extent of their might as if you didn't just leave them on death's door
Thanks so much!!
That was the same desire that got me to make my own system. I can only deal 1d6+4 damage so many times before I get kinda sick of it 🤠
This reminds me of Phoenix Point, where the game engine had mix and match limbs whenever it'd generate monsters. You could run into a guy with a crab arm and a tentacle leg.
@@zachb3757 That sounds so rad! I'll have to look that one up!
Cool approach! My experience with both Hit Points and "Hit-Pointess" system is climax and tone: This works best for games which emulates grounded/horror themes; My group tried to emulate an Eberron(pulp,high-magic fantasy) game with this kind of system, and itsuffered with anti-climax, out of control combats.
But I must point out that my favourite systems nowadays use this kind of backbone in their structure. I must point out Powered by Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark games, as well as Savage Worlds.
Also: Called Shots ARE the best!
PbtA and FitD games are awesome!! I definitely have been inspired by their designs!
Nice system. Have you seen The Burning Wheel? It's another take on an injury based damage system.
I have! Burning Wheel is a very cool system that I would describe as "a lot". It's incredibly hard to get new players into BW :D
Burning Wheel is a RPG for 20th level players.
really interesting design! It sounds super fun and challenging to play
Yes! I love non-fungible health systems! It’s similar to the “Made of Meat” GDC talk
Thank you! I haven't caught that GDC talk, but I shall be finding that and ingesting it ASAP!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames No worries, it’s a great one!
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very neat system, and very versatile too! I imagine armor adding health slot or ,for a very gothic feels, healing spells that could "miss" because the healer die did not happens on the injured health slot.
@@jettolo Thanks!!
We actually went with armor as damage reduction. It reduces the severity of incoming injuries to the protected part of the body, if applicable. So if you'd be Critically Injured, you instead suffer a Serious Injury.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Cool, it's much more integrated with the multipart mechanics
I will be a lonely defender of D&D's wound-less hp system here. All the stuff described here is simply what happens when a D&D character hits 0 hit points, and anything in between 0 and max hp lies in the abstract that is the hp system i.e. stamina, resolve, cosmic luck, whatever. Taking damage means getting tired, feeling in over your head, and thinking how much you'd rather marry Rosie back home. Until you get that sword through your shoulder that takes you completely out of the fight. The lack of penalties no matter your current hp total can be considered a plus, not a minus.
But what you have here does sound very cool. But it's place lies in the realm where combat is scary and getting into a firefight means you screwed up. Modern D&D tries to evoke bold heroism that is basically consequence free. Both systems have their place.
@@SgtBuffagor for all my criticisms of D&D, I do still love it and play it regularly. Just picked up the new PHB, looking forward to sitting down and reading it :D
> Modern D&D tries to evoke bold heroism that is basically consequence free. Both systems have their place.
5e wasn't intended to be consequence free, they just didn't realize that most DMs would give players long rests after every combat.
It was probably envisioned combat -> story/roleplay/short rest -> combat for multiple iterations before a long rest was reached. In reality, players go "nova" every fight and use everything and then want to long rest, because that's what they're used to.
@@icarusshoda I agree, yeah. In reality, only a few encounters happen between rests, allowing for those "nova" turns more frequently!
(and just to be super clear, I do love D&D and have been playing it for 24 years now - I just get tired of certain aspects of it, hence making my own RPG!)
May I ask how many times at the table, when struck for damage, the player roleplays their character getting tired or scared instead of actually being hurt?
May I ask how often, as a GM, when a player strikes for damage, you report that they didn't actually injure the target, but just winded them or made them frightened?
D&D claims that being struck for damage doesn't actually mean being genuinely hurt by a weapon - but then turns around and says that being hit in combat is sufficient for targeted spell effects or other non-damaging effects.
@@PaleImperator Y'know, over the many years I've been playin' D&D, I can only keep describing the "you lost hit points but nothing has changed" situation in so many different ways haha :D
Fatigue, scratches, flesh wounds, grazes - I've seen it all probably. It gets particularly strange when you have something like a dragon scorching someone with their fire breath, it dealing a ton of damage, but then the player is otherwise unaffected, ya know?
In TFE, if you suffer an Injury, it's always an Injury - some sort of physical trauma. The "Strain" in TFE represents fatigue, grazes, and so forth - they're kept separate and distinct. That method has its own drawbacks, of course, but we've found it to be very visceral!
I appreciate this. It's similar to Twilight 2000 4th edition and the changes I've made with Deadzone. Each hit has the potential to change the course of the combat. The stakes are, therefore, immediately more urgent and higher. The Trauma supplement on DTRPG is a great starting point for people wanting to include something like this into their games. We took that as a base, combined with a location based attack method. It might seem more detailed by ultimately works.
Thanks! And love hearing that others are experimenting with alternatives!
I like that this raises the stakes of combat while speeding it up and making it less abstract. I do want to see how players cope with the change and how you avoid the death spiral that is common with attrition damage in other systems. Will you be posting a live-play soon?
Not gonna lie, there was some definite whiplash for some players when they first tried out TFE after only playing D&D for years. They expected to be granted much more leeway in how they approached an encounter, and they got perforated for it. It was highly educational :D
Players do rapidly adapt, we've noticed. Once they understand that they have a lot of tools in TFE to avoid being hit at all, they start to work together, use cover, and generally play more tactically.
I think this works well because the players start paying more attention to the enemies themselves, what weapons they're using, how many limbs they have, what their deadliest form of attack may be, and then targeting that with their attacks to render the enemy less deadly.
Earlier versions of TFE had a really bad death spiral issue, primarily due to Injury Slot count. Adding the "Lethal" slot gave players a lot more leeway to avoid death spirals. We've made several other adjustments surrounding Injuries, and the last several playtests have felt *chef's kiss* :D
On the subject live-plays, we are workin' on it and hope to post a few videos soon. We have an "example play" which is a comparatively short video of one turn of combat, and are making plans for a long-form, full session to record in-person!
It’s a fresh take, but some other folks said something similar that this is still an attrition based game with a higher curve if deadly ness.
Its not "attrition based." You don't die due to attrition, you can die from any single attack. Your aren't trying to wear the opponent guy down in a protracted combat, you are trying to win immediately.
Heard, but I think that his point is that it removes the necessity for turn-by-turn attrition where nothing new happens. Each successful strike results in a dynamic change to the progress of the combat. So instead of 'waiting' for the target to hit 0 and things change, it changes each time adapting the flow of play. Saying it isn't 'attrition' is just semantics, it still has the opportunity to be, but could also just as easily not be.
@@mkklassicmk3895 I mean... you can die from a single attack on any system, just depends on the damage of the attack... just push (also an attack on 5e!) someone from a tower. This system could be literally the same as DND if you always multiplied the results on damage dies by 10 for example.
@@Jimbr16 That is not really the same thing at all. You guys don't seem to know what attrition means.
@@mkklassicmk3895 replace this mechanic with an HP bar with 7 health and change the damage numbers to 1, 2 and 4.
This is really cool! Similar-ish to FATE's system (filling in "stress boxes" but you might have to fill in a more valuable box if you've run out of cheap ones), but FATE's is based more on math. I like this blend of actually tying the condition(s) to the stress boxes filled. It does feel good.
Thanks for the positive feedback! The playtests of the Injury system have gone very well - it's brutal, fast, and evocative :)
This is a super cool engaging idea. I like that it has the potential to model competitive hand to hand combat like martial arts or grappling as well in terms of strain accumulation or a lucky injury roll. Super interested to see how the larger systems interact here. The core of injury seems like it functions comparably to a FitD style system but has less arbitration or predictability than those systems tend to carry. The conditions riders are a super necessary addition to that structure too.
FitD is definitely an inspiration for aspects of the injury system. That game has so many good lessons to learn from!
We're excited to share more about the other systems and designs with the community. We'll be talking about character creation and some big examples of play in the coming weeks!
I've come up with a similar system, and for a certain type of game it's way superior! You've got some great ideas here I'll definitely steal! :D
It's very interesting that I started a notepad for a wound based combat system which uses different body zones and negative consequences for accumulating too many wounds merely a day or two before you posted this video and my algorithm showed it to me. Unsure if I chalk this up to coincidence or to running an OS that's spying on me...
Anyway, glad to have seen this, it really inspires me to keep going, as I love the vibes I get from this and the positive feedback it receives. Though I have to say, I am going for attrition. I want attrition. I want a little bit of slog that is not directly debilitating but leading up to a big wound, one that can not simply be treated away. So the attrition for me is the rise in tension and an opportunity to avoid the unavoidable, to at least delay it and deal with the bad consequences later. Wounds to me are an opportunity to grow and change, maybe level up. In the end wounds aren't a punishment, they are just part of the deal of linving in a world where you have to go out and fight things. And they will change the character. They are just terribly deadly as well.
Great minds think alike!
I'm glad you're finding it interesting/inspiring :) and there ain't nothin' wrong with some attrition, that's the beauty of TTRPGs! There's a flavor for everyone!
I still play a lot of D&D, despite my complaints about it, and that's about as attrition as it comes
I started developing a D&D adjacent system in reaction to 4e coming out and hating the way how hit points were used and abstracted away to homogenized meaninglessness. It's been pulled out and shelved several times over the years and it uses a wound system very similar to yours. It was based off of the 3.x system of cure spells: minor, light, moderate, serious, and critical wounds. Multiple minor wound tick boxes are similar to where you have used strain. Other wounds have more information such as healing DCs, type, effects etc.
The difficulty I have had is with the reaction system used to represent all the hit point abstractions: skill, deftness, experience in turning a serious situation into a less serious one, luck, sheer toughness and grit, divine providence, armor, inner strength, occult methods, morale, being told by someone it's not that bad and to stop sooking, to the unfaltering will to keep going. For me it was all about separating all these cool ideas and leaving wounding to be its own separate thing. I thought the key was using these reactions to turn moderate or serious wounds into minor ones that could just be ticked and easily removed in and out of combat. The difficulty though was making it feel organic in play, rather than a binary mechanical system of either shields to bust through or that one critical that insta-kills.
I pulled it back out again a couple of months ago because I thought I had come up with a solution. I just have not had the time to test the framework out.
Suffice to say, not only am I appreciating your system after just discovering it , but my philosophy on design seems to be very similar to what you have discussed thus far - story meets elegant crunch. You've created a cool-sounding world and some great ideas - I'm sure there's plenty more you're looking to unveil. Looking forward to seeing more!
@@AnraitEsor I feel you! I had been working on TFE on and off for a long, long time, and only in the last few years did I make an earnest push to get it ready for public consumption. I have a day job, so it's tough to balance that with game design!
Very interesting idea, Peter! And a very elegant solution
I totally understand your point (I just watched the previous video before this), and as a player, D&D feels a bit boring sometimes because of the high amount of HP with no effect until death. 4th edition did something interesting (and I don't believe I'm saying something good about 4e, but, hey...) with the Bloodied status, which made combat change when the enemy reached a certain levels. 13th Age, I think, did something similar for the player, with certain powers unlocking at certain HP level or the combat turn
But in the end, D&D is an abstract system focused on math and absolutes. So it works for them, and may be why it's such a widespread game (and widespread type of injury system)
It's also why I prefer low-level adventures for d20-type games, or at least low hit point.
A Song of Ice and Fire RPG has an interesting middle ground with Guard instead of HP. Guard is low and goes down easily as a fight happens. Once an attack depletes Guard, you get a Wound, which has a lingering effect like "injured leg". Of course, like in your case, once all the Wound slots are filled up, you are dead.
In a sense, it's what some 2d20 games also do, and something I'm adapting on my own space opera game. Stress goes up easily as the shots begin to fly, but if you take too much Stress at once, or get to max Stress, you accumulate Harm, which is also contextual. So, yeah, "Shot on the leg" will make it harder for you to run. And, again, once you take 3 Harm, you are uncounscious. 4? You are dead.
Anyway, just a bit of rambling here. I like where you are going and I'm looking forward to your game
Best of luck!
I always enjoy a good rpg ramble! I've played a decent chunk of 2d10, and I did find their hybrid system interesting.
I liked the way TRUTHS could be added to a character or scene to help build up narrative consequences. Something that irked me about its use, though, was how much time was spent discussing/debating with the GM over which Truths could be applied in certain situations. It's a drawback of "permission-based" features, rather than wholely player-driven systems.
Anyway, now that's my ramble over for now :D
Pretty cool. I have to check out more of your videos 👍
Appreciate it! We're just gettin' started, and will be posting many more videos in the coming weeks!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames interesting. As a P&P homebrewing nerd i will sneak around. maybe i can steal some ideas 😉
I found this very interesting and helpful, especially as I design my own combat system where the goal is "what is the final blow to defeat this enemy", listing what makes dealing that final blow more difficult, then having players work together to remove those obstacles and deal that final blow.
Unrelated though, I was curious on your opinion on making a combat system where the focus is constantly inflicting critical injuries on the Genesys crit table, where the focus is to build and build and build debuffs through injuries until the table eventually rolls Death. I can explain the table further if you need it.
@@ezekieltamarkin280 I think a system like you're describing could work; it'd give a sense of progression for each random injury inflicted, moving toward the goal of total defeat.
I haven't glanced at Genysis in a hot minute, but is it a d% table? One of my concerns is that it makes combat reliant on an external table for constant reference, which might slow the gameplay down.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Genesys was the General System made by Final Flight Games to make a universal version of the Star Wars game they made, the one you referenced in the video about funky dice. It's a d100 table that goes all the way up to 250, which is Death. When you inflict an injury, you add +10 to your roll for each previous injury they already have. Some weapons can also have Vicious X, which adds +(X*10) to the roll too.
The system I'm working on is still early in its development. Instead of lasting injuries, you either disabled the obstacle permanently, for the whole encounter, or for the round. Perhaps there's a dragon who the party says can be slain by cutting its head off. One PC permanently cuts off the wings at the joint to prevent the dragon from flapping wind. Another PC curses the dragon to have scales as hard as butter instead of as metal. Third PC wrestles the dragon's head to bring it low, countering the height of the dragon for that round. Last PC deals the final blow.
I'm hoping the rules will also cover social situations too, since the dragon scenario's Final Blow could be making the dragon an ally, with obstacles like their anger, reluctance to do anything, love of their hoard, etc.
@@ezekieltamarkin280 Oh gotchya, yeah I hadn't played Star Wars since pre-Pandemic.
Honestly it sounds like a cool idea you've got cookin', I'd be down to hear more as you work on it!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Does that mean I should join a Discord or something?
@@ezekieltamarkin280 You can if you like! I'm currently in a big ttrpg dev discord that has tons of indie devs in various stages of game development, from hobbyists to pros. discord.gg/P5j2f95Y
Feel free to join up and hang out/chat about game dev!
I like this so much!
Thanks so much!!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames I'm actually working on a TTRPG system myself (for about 2 very active years now) and I would like to kindly ask for a permission to steal some of your ideas.
All this sounds so dope, I can't even describe how happy I'm to stumble upon this. I've read some other comments and I can't wait to see you showcasing some actual crunch and implication of the mechanics (mostly the specifics of complications and how you avoid death spiraling)
@@nin0f I'd love to hear more about what you're working on! And that's the best form of flattery, to know you're inspired by these designs!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Sure! It's a bit much to write in a single comment, so I'll try to be laconic.
My system is called Dragon’s Die (or DD) and, very similar to DC20, it's started as a collection of my D&D5e homebrew and then turned into overhaul and then turned into my passion project. There is a lot of things changed, so I'll mention only two of the systems that I'm really proud of; these made me feel overwhelmed with joy when I discovered them, similar to your injuries system.
1. All casters-no casters. You've mentioned that you've played 5e, so I'm sure you know about martial-caster divide. After months of playtesting I believe that my system have solved it, albeit in a somewhat side-stepping way. Basically, I've revorked D&D classes so none of them gain spellcasting and instead turned spellcasting into it's own system that every character can (but doesn't have to) engage with.
2. Stamina Points instead of HP, limited uses per rests and other bs. I've grown very tired of unnecessary resource management and absurd implications of HP and other resource pools, so I turned them all into one - Stamina Points. In DD doing anything tiring requires spending SP: casting a spell? Spend some SP. Make a special attack? Spend some SP. Use class feature? You get the point. This allowed me to not only greatly simplify resource tracking, but also create a lot of interesting challenges and meaningful consequences not only for combats, but also for storrytelling. For example, a cleric that has spend a whole day casting spells and helping his village can be as tired and in need of rest as someone who has just fought a dragon. Or, for a combat and agency example, if a 5th lvl mage wants to cast 5 fireballs back to back, he absolutely can, but will be left exhausted (descriptively, not as a condition) and could be defeated with a few strikes, since damage also applies to SP, thus actually becoming a glasscanon.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames UA-cam shadowbanned my comment for whatever reason, so I'll post it again.
“Sure! It's a bit much to write in a single comment, so I'll try to be laconic.
My system is called Dragon’s Die (or DD) and, very similar to DC20, it's started as a collection of my D&D5e homebrew and then turned into overhaul and then turned into my passion project. There is a lot of things changed, so I'll mention only two of the systems that I'm really proud of; these made me feel overwhelmed with joy when I discovered them, similar to your injuries system.
Very nice.
I tried creating something similar years ago but It was too messy.
Yours looks better.
Thanks for your kind words! What was messy about your implementation? You've got my attention :D
@TalesFromElsewhereGames
Mostly I didn't know where to stop.
Too many places to attack (is shield arm the same as weapon arm? What about other creatures, etc.)
The divide to ace bulk and brim is clever and can be applied to everything in different ways which seems to solve that pretty well.
Aside from that I just went too deep into the rabbit hole of combat simulation, attack types, defenses, and lost playability altogether.
Hope what you've made finds the sweet spot.
Looks promising.
This sounds really interesting. Can't wait to see more videos.
Have you seen Evil West? Looks like it might be good setting inspiration/comparison.
Also your system reminds me a little bit of The Broken Empires, which is also going to focus combat on inflicting specific wounds. If you haven't seen what Me, Myself & Die is doing I suggest checking it out.
I have seen Evil West! Haven't played it yet, but watched a lot of videos on it. It looks like my jam.
I am familiar with Broken Empires! Me, Myself & Die is an excellent channel and I've been following the development for a bit now. Very cool game with very different design goals.
It's always interesting how different designers approach the same core problem. Love it!
this sound really good for an attack on titan setting where they usually would have to coordinate to take down some of the bigger titans or worry about injuries when hitting walls or from shrapnel
@@siluda9255 Ooh that's a really cool idea!! The Survey Corp soldiers are just regular people, who can get maimed and hurt really bad, and have to go for the vulnerable part of the titan!
I dig it.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames yes and the players can coordinate to take down legs or arms or the eyes like they do it to make it easyier
I think this system would be absolutely fantastic to run a Dead Space type of game in. The space zombies (necromorphs) are incredibly difficult to kill because every cell in their body is reanimated. It isn’t just the brain driving the body
You have to literally cut their limbs off so they can’t maneuver or attack anymore, but D&D and other games I’ve played don’t have location based damage that isn’t a huge hassle. This gets me very excited
Yesssss! Not gonna lie, I've been putting together ideas for a sci-fi setting to release in this series, and Dead Space is absolutely one of the inspirations!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames question for you sir… have you found it difficult to run lots of weaker enemies with this system? It seems like it could get hard to keep track of very quickly
Swarms of necromorphs are a staple and I’m curious how feasible it would be
@@psychone8064 That's definitely something we've had to test around and were aware of; because you're absolutely right, all that tracking can start to add up!
We created Horde Rules to specifically handle an uncountable mass of enemies, like a swarm of necromorphs or zombies and such.
To be perfectly honest, we're still iterating on the GM tools to help track large numbers of enemies. When I run, I've been using some quick notation that works pretty well, but it's one of the items in our sights!
Very astute of you to nice that potential problem! Hope we are able to devise a satisfactory solution!
That sounds very interesting! Following close.
Sounds like it's still an attrition system. But with a bit of inspiration from Blades in the Dark thrown in.
Thanks for the feedback! An important difference between this system and traditional ones is the focus on "skipping ahead" in the tracker rather than needing to walk-up toward the mortal conclusion.
Combined with the ability to inflict conditions and effects as part of the core system means that each action can more directly impact the fight, even if it doesn't kill a target.
We've found that players have actually started paying attention more to the descriptions of the monsters and engaging with their mechanics, as now the limbs and modes of attack on an enemy are interactive and can be disabled if need be.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Okay. I'm going to go back and rewatch your video, and listen more carefully. I primarily run Warhammer Fantasy 4E. And I'm guessing that the Player Burden (not an concept I had heard before 😀) is pretty damn high in that game. But so is player choice. And some very cool strategies have emerged from all the crunch. Though at times, as the GM, it has pushed my meat computer to its limit. So there must be other ways of doing things. You may be on to something.
@@peterdickinson4599 Oh wow, yeah if you're a Warhammer fantasy GM then you are probably above the curve, as it were, when it comes to being comfortable with player burden. :D
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Ha ha!
This sound very similar to the homebrew system we use but without the distributed damage system, and we have a more random systemfor criticals, soeven a first blowcan inflict critical damage.
Interesting about the lower dice being more effective. I've had a similar idea tucked away for magic 🧠
Yeah, it's worked super well in our tests!
Sounds interesting. Very reminiscent of some editions of Shadow Run
Really cool! Are you doing this project solo?
Thanks! Yes and no. The game is all written by me, but I've had lots of help from friends in the long development cycle.
I do have a video editor and various artists I work with; some volunteer, some paid (out of pocket) for their work.
It's a very small operation right now, for sure, with me primarily handling everything :)
FUDGE had a similar wound system. It did *not* have the condition tags, that's a cool adaptation.
@@erinbarnard7433 Thanks! FUDGE has a lot of good lessons to teach designers, very cool system!
I'm *very* inspired by this system in regards to my own gamedev. I'm not actually going to USE any part of your system, yet it still solved a number of my current problems. 😅
Basically, I'm giving die types special meanings, usage as abilities, and role as a resource. I also wanted the total dice to count as health, and me mapping your injury tiers to those die types have had very fun results. The system needs to be modified a lot, but still it helps.
That's awesome, so glad to hear that it's been helpful in your own game!!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames It got me out of my latest hangup, which is great, but I'm sure it won't be my last one lol.
And actually one part of your system here is in direct contrast with mine: lower dice types AREN'T supposed to be strictly inferior
Different strengths yeah, but not worse.
My rough draft solution (Which I just picked off the cutting room floor. Again) is that the die type does damage as you described but is also used as a bonus roll for attack resolution.
A trade-off yes, but one that is pretty damn hard to get the details right on without lots of math and playtesting.
@@3X3NTR1K Oooh yeah, that'd be tricky to refine and balance. Good luck, my friend!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Thanks, I appreciate it. I am excited about my projects potential (I kinda tripped and fell into a Super Original Setting) and an accuracy/damage tradeoff is a good fit for its elemental themes. Smaller dice were already the "heavier" elements, even.
In the end this idea may not work out at all - either in the balance or the gameplay - but it'll still have another special piece in my ever growing pile of gamedev Legos. So I'll call that progress.
@@3X3NTR1K That's what's important - make the games YOU want to make. Do the things that make your brain wrinkles wriggle nicely :D
Sounds really cool
@@F2t0ny Appreciate the kind words!!
Cool 😎!!
I really like this system. It reminds me of the different levels of Harm in Blades in the Dark, but it instead allows you to have a more granular scale of damage capacity for weapons/attacks. Very ncie.
How do you handle different grades of armor? Is it just binary (armored or unarmored), or do different grades of armor (light/medium/heavy) have a maximum injury severity that they can downgrade (Strain/Seroius/Critical)?
Thanks! It's been a lot of fun to design for.
Armor is pretty binary. Armor covers different parts of your body (e.g., just the bulk for a kevlar vest), and states what types of attacks or injuries it protects against (e.g., chainmail would make you Resistant to slash/pierce, but not bash).
So a kevlar vest protects the bulk and makes it resistant to firearms, as another example. Resistances just downgrades the Injury severity one step - from Critical to Serious, and so forth.
I had sketched out a more nuanced armor system earlier in the design process, but found it too fiddly, so we went with a simple, but clear solution.
In TFE, anyone can wear any armor they want, as long as they are cool with the pretty heavy encumbrance of them. Armor weighs you down, making it harder to do things like dive for cover or swim or climb things. So it's more of a personal, tactical choice rather than a class feature/build choice. It means players can gear up specifically to fight certain threats if they know what they'll face - going against beasties? Wear stuff that protects against slash and pierce. Facing robots with sledgehammers? Padding and other stuff that helps against bashing. And so forth!
Hmmm quite an interesting idea to use fighting condition as a "HP" system instead of actual numbers. I might have to tweek this a little to fit my own little TTRPG. Solid stuff. 👍
~ Adam
Thanks! Always appreciate your comments! :D
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames
Doin' my part to get you that engagement. 😉
~ Adam
While this sounds like an improvement, at its core, this is still based on attrition. You are still reducing an enemy's health resources, in the form of injury slots, until they have none left and are out of the fight. It is better than a more traditional HP system, but it's a change in form, not a change in kind
Agreed here. The changes happen more often and almost immediately, but overall the characters are being worn down til death or surrender.
I think you're quibbling. Sure, you're still losing resources in the form of injury slots, but it will play much differently, with consequences for being hit, sometimes immediately. I'm not sure if there are set effects for injuries or if it's based on the weapon, or is random.
I'm curious. How does armour work? Does it make you harder to hit, or does it mitigate injury?
Except it is possible to drop something in one shot. If you deliver a lethal blow. There will often be some attrition, but it is possible to avoid it.
There's an attrition aspect to it, but it's not PURE attrition like a hp system. I'd be interessted to know what you would consider a change in kind, if not this?
I like this a lot, kind of like fate, but more info-dense.
Thanks! It's tough balancing mechanical needs with evocative language for injuries, but we're pretty happy with where we ended up :)
Really like the design! Can you give some insight into how armor and shields work in your system?
@@lloydbrown3223 armor acts as mitigation; it reduces the severity of the injury received to that area. For example, were you to be wearing kevlar vest and would receive a critical injury to the bulk (torso), you'd only receive a serious injury.
Blocking, on the other hand, is handled by the Reactions system, which I do plan on covering in a later video :) long story short, due to the deadly nature of the combat, the players have a lot of reactive tools to get themselves out of danger.
The game is about avoiding injury, rather than "tanking" it, mostly.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames if a player was fighting a monster and they were both using swords, does the skill level difference between them act in any way to mitigate damage via parry, dodge, etc?
If so, do you have different classes achieve these combat effects at different milestones based upon class, etc? IOW, would a warrior see greater chance of skill mitigation vs a mage?
This is something I've thought about but never put into action so I'm curious if you've playtested anything like this and/or have thoughts about how this might be done well.
@@Hawkissimo a skillful melee combatant can definitely defend themselves well against a foe, using weapons or a shield to block incoming strikes.
The upper and lower bound for players' Skills is a much tighter bandwidth than in heroic fantasy RPGs. It only ranges from +0 to +6 total, and uses a d10 for its core die.
Threats, particularly dangerous monsters, can go far beyond that upper bound, making them incredibly deadly to face alone. There are a lot of tactical options, abilities, and items that can help tip the balance in favor of the players, but since the emphasis is on action-horror, the players are meant to never feel "overpowered" against the monsters.
The game is classless; characters are built from various Backstory Elements that provide roleplaying and mechanical options. It'll look familiar to those that have played games with a "I'm a blank that does blank who cross from blank." We're working on a video demonstrating character creation that we hope to release in the coming weeks!
(Sorry, this is just a more in depth conversation than is easily achievable here in YT comments, but we'll definitely cover this stuff in future videos!)
This reminds me of Savage Worlds (everything does). Specifically if you used their Gritty Damage rule. It doesn't have the strain system though.
Savage Worlds is great stuff!
Sounds interesting!
@@raff3486 Thanks! We're really invigorated by the community's response!
I've never designed a game system in my life but I'm going to complain anyway because it's fun for me:
- I'm not comfortable with lower dice rolls causing more severe injuries. People are pretty universally wired to think that a higher dice roll means a better result. Few people miss your THAC0s and negative ACs of early D&D,
- I am a big fan of a generous use of injuries and afflictions (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay with Tome of Corruption has some imaginative injury/corruption/mutation tables) and targeted strikes but I don't think they cause a paradigm shift from an attrition based system to something else.
- I've seen some similar combat systems but they've never struck me as particularly crunchy though they are less arithmetically challenging and generally faster. It seems that making hit point damage less granular combined with merging losing hit points (or in this case empty injury slots) and inflicting status effects (injury effects) can severely narrow the possibility space. I think that a system can still use injury slots and be crunchy at the same time but it will need some other systems that can introduce some complexity back, like an in depth feats system you've described which could interact with other subsystems like movement or action economy
Thanks for the detailed reply! I love hearing feedback, whether it's praise or criticism :) . I'll try to keep my response organized below; UA-cam isn't great for this sorta discussion haha!
1. An interesting thing we noticed in playtests is the "looking for lowest number" makes the dice feel more precise. A d20 feels big and unwieldy, while a d6 feels deadly, small, and precise. It was an interesting shift, mentally, for players that we took note of. It's not for everyone, and that's okay!
2. That's totally fair - it's still a violent exchange with a last-man-standing situation. I will say, though, that when the game is built around such a system, when it's wired into the DNA, the moment-to-moment gameplay feels very different. Each action results in a lot more progress, and lot more interesting consequence, when you cut out "hit points.
3. That's also fair! We aren't showing all the surrounding systems quite yet, but there are a ton of customization options in the game, lots of stuff to fiddle with.
Let me ask you this, though: Having a system with myriad individual numerical bonuses stacking up does make the numbers go up and does give a lot to make the game "crunchier", but rarely are those decisions evocative. It's just an optimization exercise at that point - you're doing math against each other.
What Injury systems like this accomplish is it takes the tactical decision making and moves it mathematics (stacking bonuses) and moves it into the actual moment-to-moment gameplay. "How do we kill this?" isn't answered by stacking bonuses, but instead about analyzing the enemy's physiology, attack capabilities, and behavior, and then dismantling/disabling those features with your coordinated strikes.
By using THAT as the baseline of the system, as its core, it gives you a ton to build on top of that's quite crunchy, indeed!
Again, thank you for your thoughts! They are well-reasoned!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames
I can definitely see that being the case. I guess the THAC0 system was confusing because you’ve had to do some arithmetic to find out if you’ve hit someone and since here there is no math it can actually be easier to always look for the same values no matter the hit dice assigned to the weapon the player is using
Regarding the third point, you are completely correct. Stacking incremental bonuses for optimal impact is definitely less naturalistic and immersive.
I guess we’ve run into the problem of two competing philosophies of crunchiness. According to one school if you employ enough specificity through rules and tables there will emerge a well simulated model of reality (e.g. modern D&D combat) with a vast array of well defined tactical options to choose from. According to the other school the more you regulate an aspect of the game the more you artificially constrict available options (more of an Oldschool Renaissance approach)
In my opinion both of these approaches can lead to increased crunchiness and the real tradeoff is between vagueness and specificity. It’s hard to give an example of a game that has both in abundance. The best I can come up with is probably the progenitor of all tabletop games, Kriegsspiele which admittedly I’ve never played.
It started as a wargame that was supposed to train Prussian military officers. It featured a set of complex and specific rules but the way players interacted with that system was purposefully obtuse and vague. The ruleset was fully known only to the umpire to prevent metagaming. Opposing teams didn’t play at the same table to induce a fog of war mechanic. In some implementations even players on the same side didn’t sit at the same table so that each player only sees what he personally knows about the battlefield and not all the information might be correct. Only the umpire knows the real boardstate. Players don’t move units or take actions directly. Instead they write down orders on a piece of paper and give them to messengers (umpire) which they send to specific units. It’s the job of the umpire to implement those orders. If they are too vague they might be misinterpreted, local unit commander might refuse or a messenger might be intercepted on the way back so the player doesn’t even know if the orders were delivered and acted on.
@@piotrekdoro Good points!
This system sounds exciting! I love the the zombie example. 'Do I go for the leg to slow it down even though I know that I wont kill it or do I risk it and aim for the head?' Looking forward to trying it sometime.
@@ivanhagstrom5601 appreciate the kind words!
I can't wait to be able to share free demo/test materials with the community 🤠
my god, this is the best combat system i ever known about. My top three are: 3. genesys 2. fate 1. yours. IT ALWAYS BOTHERED ME that rpg batttle systems are zero narrative and total sheets of stats grinding on one another
@@JoãoCéSteil Wow, that's such high praise!! Thank you so much for your support!
I like the way you think. I will say that elements of your system are very similar to how damage is handled in my favorite TTRPG.
Ars Magica has never used HP, and the fifth edition, released 20 years ago, tallies up the number of wounds of different severity a combatant has--so for an average-sized human, 1-5 points of damage is a Light Wound, 6-10 is a Medium Wound, 11-15 is a Heavy Wound, 16-20 is an Incapacitating Wound, and 21+ is Death.
Each of these Wounds carries a penalty to all rolls, including Attack and Defense, so as you accrue more Wound Penalties, it becomes harder and harder to defend yourself, and you end up taking more points of damage, which translates into more severe Wounds. It also becomes harder for you to damage your opponent and cast spells (as spell-casting is roll-based).
Now RAW ArM5 doesn't include a certain number of Wound slots, but the Roll20 character sheet could only fit 5 of each (and 1 Incapacitating). So as a house rule a lot of us say that when you're out of slots at a particular level, your wound graduates to the next available more severe slot.
One result of this is that striking first and striking hard makes a big difference. Even if you can't take out an enemy with one shot, if you hurt them enough at the start of the fight, they end up in a death spiral. In fact, surrender or retreat become more likely than fighting to the death--which I think is infinitely more interesting.
Ars Magica is about magic, not combat, so there isn't a specific rule for called shots, at least not in the core rulebook. I like the way you handle that.
@@JamesHazlerig that's interesting, so RAW you didn't have a hard cap on wound count, but there was an effective cap due to... Just being so vulnerable to death after so many?
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames yeah, in RAW, the penalties to your defense rolls translate to more points of damage taken, leading you to either hit Incapacitated or Dead as Wounds accumulate.
@@JamesHazlerig That's very interesting, indeed.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Atlas Games is launching a Kickstarter for Ars Magica: the Definitive Edition in October, BTW. :)
@@JamesHazlerig Oh awesome, I'll keep an eye out for that! Based on what you're sayin', it sounds like it's time I jump into that game - been hearing about it for years and never taken the plunge!
Thanks again for the recommendation and commentary!
I am intrigued by this. There is a lot of clever gameplay that can come out of this. One question I have is this: How laborious is it to track status of say, 6 orcs? HP based systems are simple because health is abstracted to a number. The video mentioned that math could be an issue for some players, but I feel, for the majority of players, simple subtractive math is the simplist way to track health especially with lots of characters. HP based systems also provide a little narrative protection from luck because you cannot one-shot the boss or be one-shot by the boss.
Maybe playing this cascading status system feels more elegant in truth. Thanks for sharing!
@@meeplearts3118 Thanks for your interest!!
You're right, it is more laborious for the GM to track many enemies at once compared to an HP system, and we are currently iterating on ways to create helper sheets/shorthand/etc to make it easier
In actual play, it's not bad when you get used to it. Individually enemies tend to go down fast, so the number of enemies in the scene rapidly reduces.
It's worth noting that very few enemies will truly one-shot a player, and the truly big set-piece enemies are a bit more complicated than that, but the feeling of mortality is absolutely present!
It's something I'm interested to see more players get their hands on and gather even more feedback!
Thanks again for your comment and question!
Shadowrun is kind like that regarding conditions of injuries
Yeah! Shadowrun sometimes gets a bad rap for its complexity, but there is much to learn from it!
Oh. I see. I get what this video is going for. Yet I also see ways this can be improved. I think it is best to stick to using hit points. It is a tried and true method. I think one of the reason why it works so well is that is is so streamlined and straightforward. Hit points can be done in a way that isn't such a slog. Characters don't have to have a ton of hit points. There also doesn't need to be a lot of math. If I combine the hits on the sheet, there is a total of eight. So each creature has eight hit points, and each attack has one damage. It is funny that there is eight. I use a more complex hit point system. Even then I figure that hit points should be eight times the attack damage in a level. Either way it means the battle takes an equal amount of turns.
I see an interest in status conditions. I don't like that to be connected to hit points. The resulting death spiral is unplesent. I did think up of an alternative. It is a good thing this video came out around the time of the realease of the new DND Player Handbook. One of my favorite new features is weapon mastery. I recommend checking that out. The whole book is awesome by the way. This little indie game would greatly benefit from using a similar system. Each kind weapon deals damage and has some extra bonus. This bonus will definitely be good for adding status effects. One kind of weapon deals one damage and slows down the opponent. Another kind deals damage and knocks the opponent prone. Another kind does damage whether the attack roll hits or misses. This is so forth. It is a really cool system to spice things up. I don't recomend making a distintion of body parts. That is too convoluted. There is an alternative. Critical hits can turn into a wepon mastery feature. The attack deals two damage instead of one. However it doesn't deal any status conditions. A gun or bow would be good candidates for this weopon feature. It gives the idea of doing headshots and getting critical hits. One could choose whether to do extra damage or do some status condition or other effect. Making such a decision would be interesting. Weapon mastery can leads to fun tactics. If every kind of weopn has a special effect, it makes combat more interesting.
I got more ideas to build on this system. This is something to consider. One idea is a super simple proficiency system. That is brilliant. DND has proficiency. When a character gets to be higher level, their proficiency goes up. This is mainly added to attack role. I use proficiency in my game. I make it a bit more elaborate. I make it go up every level. An attribute (ability scores) is the proficiency plus the class bonus. Attributes come in pairs of opposites. Every attribute that raises one value has another that decreases the same value. The most basic is damage. The total damage is the base damage plus the offense attribute of the user minus the defense attribute of the opponent. Both attributes have proficiency. If both fighters are the same level, they have the same proficiency. This causes proficiency to cancel out. This makes calculations easier. Generally players should fight opponents of the same level to simplify the math. For the game in the video, there can be a simple proficiency system. The proficiency is equal to the level. Level one characters get a proficiency of one. Level two characters get a proficiency of two. And so forth. If two fighters are the same level, the fight works normally. Each deal one damage. If one fighter is one level higher, they deal two damage. If they are three levels higher, they deal three damage. Addition is an easy way to calculate with damage. The downside is that super defensive characters are impossible to kill. If defense is high enough, the damage goes to zero. In a hot point system this simple, there is a high chance of that happening. I did think of a rule to fix this. I call it the chip damage rule. I wonder if that be even programmed in a computer using an if then statement. If the damage calculation causes the damage to be equal or less than zero, then the total damage is one. If the damage calculation is greater than zero, the amount is used for the total damage.
Another idea I have is spell effects. Magic spells tend to come in elemental types. DND has this. Pokemon is an extreme example. Spells can contribute to the status effects too. It is like weapon mastery, but with elements. A fire spell can do one damage and cause the burn condition. An ice spell can do damage and cause the frozen condition. There are other spells like that, and give other effects. An electric spell gives the paralyzed condition. A poison spell gives the poison condition. A psychic spell gives the confusion condition. An earth spell causes a blinded condition or reduces accuracy. An air spell blows the opponent back. There are many attacks. Magicians can even have their version of a critical hit. There can be a force spell or energy spell. It deals two damage and has no status condition. Spells can contribute to the fun and strategy of status conditions.
Thanks for the detailed responses! Much to consider and chew on!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGamesYour Welcome. I later videos you actually have the new DND Player Handbook. So you can look into weapon mastery.
I think Into The Odd kind of solved it already for me. No to hit rolls, self restoring „hit protection“ instead of „hit points“ and if things get to serious, character stats will get reduced, so succeeding in turn will get harder and harder the more damage you take until you either are dead or get fixed back up somewhere else.
@@spectrumunit I haven't read Into the Odd! I'll have to check it out, thanks for the recommendation!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames can definitely recommend! Its very short, concise and well written! While at it, you may also have a look at Bastionland and Mythic Bastionland, which are iterations on the same system written by the same guy (Chris McDowall). After that, have a look at Cairn, which is a fantasy-hack of Into The Odd andcompletely free for everyone! Good stuff!
This is cool but it does seem a tad bit cumbersome if you were running a horde of monsters and had to keep track of 18 zombie's worth of strains and injury boxes, I like the idea though im always glad to see others tying out new ideas for the genre
It would definitely be cumbersome for that many enemies.
There are actually Horde rules specifically for large groups of zombies, townsfolk, and so forth, but it is definitely more tracking than HP would be.
Your concern is apt, and we're still iterating on solutions to that to ensure the GM isn't overwhelmed with tons of tracking! It's definitely something we're going to want testers and feedback for :)
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames my pleasure man keep up the good work
In my injury system, taking dmg leads to a roll, but there are several tiers to the roll’s results ranging from a penalty on further checks to death.
Interesting, so it's a small random table with varying degrees of penalty? Does the roll on the table scale with the severity of the incoming hit or is it purely random? Thanks for sharing!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames It scales. It is a modificat to d20, so it is damage vs hit dice rolled.
@@SomeoneElse-fr8yu very cool!
I've mostly ran high powered fantasy games like Exalted, Godbound and currently Age of Sigmar. But this geniunely sounds interesting. I didn't expect to like it at least conceptually since I generally hate injury systems.
That is high praise!
How are you liking Age of Sigmar? I haven't flipped through an edition since the first one..what, 10 years ago?
I thought it had a lot of juicy crunch, but found it a bit on the demanding-side, math/calc-wise.
(TBH, I'm more of a 40k fan!)
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames in playing AoS Soulbound which is very much its own thing compared to the old Warhammer Fantasy books. It's my go-to rules medium Fantasy adventure game. Very epic in scope. Let's you play as a dragon. Granted it's a dragon about the size of a draft horse but still a dragon, not a humanoid dragon race.
@@WanderingMendicant-qd7mv nice!
Two suggestions… Hp’s shouldn’t just be about damage. It doesn’t make sense that to kill someone you must cut their leg slightly, then stab their hand, before finally cutting their throat.
Point two, a suggestion… My favourite games use bonuses as hp. You have +4 strength, I hit your strength for 2. Now you only have +2 strength. When you drop to minus 1, something bad happens.
@@El-Comment-8-or thanks for the feedback!
I find bonuses/stats as HP to be an interesting mechanic. Cypher uses that, with its "pools" of Might, Speed, and Intellect.
Do you find that such systems create too brutal a death spiral? I've had positive and negative experiences with them, curious as to yours!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames It makes it more important to avoid damage, be tactical in how you deal damage, and very importantly heal damage. No more, I got a 4 damage arrow wound that I can ignore. I’m new to the world of non-DnD systems though, still learning.
@@El-Comment-8-or I get you. What's interesting about Cypher's use of this structure is that you can also expend your own stats to boost your chances of success, purposefully exhausting yourself to ensure victory.
It can make for some cool moments and decisions for the players!
First edition Kult did something very similar with wound levels.
@@danielclark7076 I need to catch out Kult, I keep hearing about in in TTRPG circles!
I think you're going to have a very niche audience if you're more concerned with dramatic tension via lethality and injuries vs keeping some semblance of heroic fantasy.
Not saying the community isn't interested in a game with more verisimilitude when it comes to yo-yo-ing at 1hp, but i think star wars is a good example of not becoming a bag of hp and incorporating crits for hitting woun/strain thresholds (though that could benefit from a good overhaul) and matt colville is another good example of increasing the cinematic aspect with actions and effects on the field apart from attrtition.
I'm okay with niche :)
Really, the goal isn't to compete with the likes of MCDM or D&D; TFE is aiming for action-horror, which doesn't give a sense of heroic fantasy, but rather a sense of danger and intensity.
It's going to be even more niche, 'cuz the first setting is post apocalyptic weird west!!
Appreciate the feedback and commentary!
One thing:
I think your spot on with your analysis, that attrition (without actual attrition besides spells, usables and certain abilities for the most part) is a bad basis for combat. But what I have to say:
All combat, that is kinda "to the death/ until someone gives up" without a clear goal besides "destroying the enemy" will degenerate to a slog.
Even if the injuries make the combat more fluctuating, the problem is still that the both sides don't have a proper goal.
That's what you should have.
That's abought actual tactics. A lot of game designers miss this, because DnD (5e especially) is absolute crap at this. If you came from a game that has very slow healing like me or better from a wargame, where just clobbering the enemy most often won't do you any good, but playing the objective will win you the match even if your force has been demolished, you'd alteady know that.
I think your system is pretty good, but I really think, that you didn't get to the actual problem.
What you need is a system to make encounters matter by establishing goals for both/all sides. Something that helps GMs do that fast and help players grasp the concept.
@@felixheitzer2262 I 100% agree with you on this. Without something at stake, what is the point of fighting anyway? I think games should have scenarios with goals that are more than "death match".
Having said all that, the combat "engine" still very much matters, as that controls the palette that the GM can paint with, as it were. If the way the players can interact with the foes in a scene is constrained and only attrition-based, then it limits their ability to problem-solve outside of simply inflicting harm.
(I think you and I are on the same page, just diggin' into the details!)
A couple questions: Does Armor function to reduce the severity of the injury? How does it do this while preserving lethality? Does each limb have an 'injury track"?
@@jfm.d5180 armor reduces the severity of injuries, as long as it protects against that type of injury. For example, most armor won't protect you most against firearms.
Most characters don't wear much armor in the game - it's a choice that some make, but armor weighs you down a lot and can limit mobility, so it's certainly a trade-off.
We've run playtests with tanky bois, going full defensive builds, and it certainly makes them feel durable! But we've also found that mobile characters with good Reactions are just as good, if not better, at avoiding injury.
The game has a greater emphasis on avoiding being hit in the first piece, rather than "tanking it".
Oh and each limb does not have a separate tracker - it's one unified tracker for the whole body. I'll be showing off the full character sheet in a future video, including how characters are built!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Excellent. Thank you for your time!! I look forward to learning how armor works!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGamesoh, that's interesting. I assumed with the bulk, brim, ace distinction you would set apart armor the same way. Curious to hear what made you decide to go with a unified tracker.
@@NRMRKL Armor covers different parts of the body, so some armor only protects the bulk, others cover everything, etc.
Interestingly, an earlier version of the game had individual limb/location tracking. What we found is that it bogged down the moment to moment gameplay significantly, and didn't as easily abstract overall health.
The Injury Tracker does, however, have a place to write where the injury is located on your body. So you'd note: "bullet wound, left leg" and that'd tell you the information you needed. So it's an overall tracker that also allows for specificity.
So that's some insight into the iteration; the old version was not a bad idea by any measure, but we found that it moved the game too much into the "simulation" space. It's a careful balance!
I get why people might not choose to wear armour the way you've modeled it, but there's a reason people wore Armour in the ancient world and the medieval period. Just saying 😊
I don't know much about TfE, just stumbled upon this video. Your idea sounds very interesting, thank you for sharing this!
However, one thing I wanted to mention is that adding negative effects, wounds to the core combat system starts to compete with items/spells not doing damage, but applying debuffs. "Entangle" druid spell from D&D has the same effect as an arrow to the knee.
Now, this is not a problem per se, but it could make it more difficult in creating classes, items, spells variety for the game.
I wonder if you encountered such a problem, and if yes, how did you solve it?
@@vladimirkrasilnikov2245 Great question!
TFE has a more involved core system, and then doesn't layer as much complexity on top of that.
Having said that, special abilities and such haven't been harder to make, in fact the intro system grants a new, interesting mechanism to build around rather than simply increasing damage.
It's much more interesting, for example, for a feature to say, "increase the severity of injuries you inflict in X situation" than simply "you deal +5 damage in X situations".
Secondarily, while injuries do carry debuffs, they don't hit all the possible negative conditions. Things like frightened, distracted, and AoE components all come into play.
We're excited to be able to share all the character creation rules, but that's a bit far off still. We did just post a video showing one character being built, if you're curious!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Thank you for the reply, this sounds really interesting!
Nice work with this, there's some elegant stuff here. In terms of stat blocks, I'd guess that different monsters would have varying numbers of strained/serious/critical slots available to them? If not, I'd be curious to know how you would go about mechanically enforcing that the level one zombie isn't nearly as hardy as the owlbear/deathbot/what-have-you.
I'm designing my own system atm too, and have concerns similar to yours regarding attrition systems. Here's to winning the war against stagnant combats, and making mortal combat feel the way it should (utterly fucking terrifying).
@@mattkincannon5264 yep, different enemies have different numbers of slots. Very weak enemies, like a simple bandit, have fewer than the player. More powerful ones might have more.
Overall, though, there's very little bloat or scaling in the numbers of injuries. Instead, the enemies become more deadly, they "break" more rules, and tend to have larger action economies.
This is because making a monster survive longer doesn't necessarily make them more interesting to fight. So the monsters scale in INTENSITY rather than DURABILITY, if that makes sense :)
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Excellent. Making "getting the drop" on your foes all the more important, I would imagine, which is a good thing in my book. Good luck as your system continues to develop.
Are extreme scale difference an expected part of this system? I'm thinking building sized dragons or individual mini fairies? I can imagine one or two layers of resistances/vulnerability would do part of the job, I just found in my designs this is where injury systems can become weird. (Can I really cripple a giant with lucky punch?)
Still an interesting design space compared to death by a thousand irrelevant strikes !
This is actually a big design challenge we've been having when designing Threats (what we call monsters/enemies).
What we're experimenting with is what I'm going to call the "Megazord" approach - where the giant creature is actually composed of several individual Injury Trackers that compose the greater creature.
For example, a dragon the size of a building wouldn't just have "more" injury slots, but instead each of its tree-trunk legs would have its own tracker, and that limb would only be disabled if sufficiently injured.
The dragon would then only be killable by, say, exposing its furnace-like heart and stabbing after sufficiently crippling/disabling it.
For very small creatures, like a faerie, that would be represented by having no injury slots at all (or maybe only a single Strain box), meaning any successful Injury just instantly kills them - because if you cannot write an Injury into your tracker, you just die immediately.
A great question! We'll eventually be tackling threat design on this channel and hope to get lots of feedback on it!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames that make sense to me from a player perspective, especially if they're meant to be special fights.
In my own project I'm contemplating shifting the impact of creatures on each other based on their relative scale. That way two fairies or two dragons can fist-fight at the regular rate while players intervening would see their impact amplified or reduced unless they take special measures.
(Like using a ballista, a dragon-bane sword or climbing to reach a weakspot)
In that way if you want to sever a huge limb you'd also need to score several high impact hits to get to an actual serious wound using conventional weapons.
Of course by normalizing wounds slots I'm also making these big fights work like normal ones which isn't necessarily the coolest most evocative way of handling it.
@@JeanPhilippeBoucher Oh that's a very clever solution! It would let you "zoom in" or "zoom out" as needed, depending on the desired scale.
The challenge is going to be balancing that mixed scale situation, but I think that'll pan out nicely!
This seems similar to Blackstone Fortress' wound system and the drawback for your idea is that each character would need a physical dashboard to place tokens and counters-otherwise things get confusing as people remember half the time to apply their penalties. Usually the burden falls on the GM. The dashboard solves this problem. Not a bad thing, but something to think about. Also, plenty of games allow called shots which introduces an "all or nothing" mechanic where the tradeoff is probability to hit for removal of the enemy in one shot. Finally, if you're hung up on zombies, one hit from them should be fatal- you have been bitten, well now you are a zombie-simple. I would also say that you have missed skill- hit points are not the only way a player increases in power- competency is key. I see this system straining under the weight of reflecting skill increase of a more competent PC as they grow and evolve in combat proficiency. I would be interested to get a copy of your system and put it to playtest. Are there copies available for purchase?
@@jnlsnfamily8747 thanks so much for your feedback and interest!
We're working on the free Quick Start Rules for the system, which will come with pre-gen characters and a one-shot adventure. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for its release!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames thanks for not getting upset at me! You have some interesting ideas and I would love to get under the hood with my player group!
@@jnlsnfamily8747 Of course! I appreciate all feedback, positive and negative! It's one of the big reasons we decided to "go public" with the game before any full launch - we want to involve the community!
If you're interested in chatting with our (small) team and the long-term playtesters, there's a link to the TFE Discord on my UA-cam homepage. It's just gettin' rolling, but there are a handful of us active throughout the day and we're always happy to chat!
I love these types of damage alternatives. I like your choices. I was just thinking about your example of punching a zombie with a d20 for damage. In this example, isn't there still a 5% chance of critically wounding a zombie with a punch to the gut? Doesn't this contradict narrative examples like the aforementioned The Walking Dead? Or is this possibility expected in your game?
Well, I suppose monster traits like zombies can get around this issue. It just came to mind.
Good luck with your game! I'll check out the other videos to learn more about this.
Thanks for your interest!
In D&D, yeah that 5% chance of crit means you can one-shot a zombie to the gut haha.
In TFE, the Zombie has a feature: "Can only be killed with a critical injury to the head." Which means you have to specifically target the head and inflict a sufficiently serious injury to it - no grazes!
We tried to make the enemies more interactive in that way - the players problem-solve how to dismantle and take down a threat, rather than just "dump damage" on them, if that makes sense!
Thanks again! 🤠
This is pretty cool, I'm wondering how armor or protection will work in such a system and also fatigue/tiredness
But I like that it both allows targeting and make things much more tangible than HP
I think I'd really like to implement your system in an ICRPG modern/cyberpunk game to see how it goes
One thing I'm wondering also is how do you determine how many slots of each kind should a character have but I think it allows for interesting customization as well
Thanks!!
Exhaustion is handled by Strain; a player character has between 3 and 9 Strain boxes. Some special features let you Strain yourself to activate powerful abilities.
Armor works as mitigation, reducing the severity of an injury received. Basically, it's just a form of Resistance!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames you're welcome!
That's good and feels sensible!
Makes sense as well!
I like those answers, looking forward to more information about the game but it's looking very promising!
It's probably fun to run a game like this. I have concerns regarding larger campaigns tho. Can't things go wrong very fast? Losing a character because of some bad luck sounds quite hardcore. I like these things but most people don't I think. It might be necessary to have some kind of telegraphing, so that people can avoid the badass injuries to best of their abilities. Imagine the zombie randomly decided to bite you in the head instead of bulk and succeeded.. having the HP based system maybe gives a better 'control' of the situation. Don't get me wrong. I like your concept and if you had a fantasy setting I might buy it (I'm quite nerdy with that, I need the fantasy shit :D) but I think it can be veeeery frustrating when you suddenly die.
@@AsdasdAsdasd-xq1nr a valid concern! I have run 3 long-form test campaigns using the rules, and it was very informative about the deadlines.
Long story short, in the GM guidance section, it talks about how the enemies generally don't go for the head (ace) on players.
The bandit Bandit isn't a good enough shot to land that consistently, so they'll usually go for center-mass.
Some of the more horrific monsters specifically go for the limbs, hoping to maim and mutilate rather than kill outright.
Overall, it feels threatening to the players, but in all the games I never killed one of 'em - there were close calls, but the feeling of mortality comes in without actual one-shotting a player :)
@@TalesFromElsewhereGamessounds like plot armor
@@kevoreilly6557 I don't think the players have felt that way as they have been mangled and dismembered in the many playtests haha :D. Since the injury system gives you other angles to make a player feel threatened and vulnerable than simply death, the journey on the road can be filled with gruesome details!
I dig the system mechanics so far. How do you plan to build armor around and is durability a factor. I imagine resistance cant be scaled well above 1 factor so i generally see having them add "filler slots" that take up wound slots without a debuff that exhaust as the armor "breaks". Light armor having an extra minor wound slot and maybe a serious, medium having a critical and heavy having an extra lethal. (or scaled down to minor, serious and critical).
Also as far as mental attacks via mind spells or physical intimidation idk if these are factored in or there's a separate mental/mind slot system for psychological affects.
@@Tycon Armor is fairly binary in TFE - it provides Resistance to certain types of injuries to the protected areas of the body.
Resistance simply decreases the severity of the incoming injury by one step.
We had tested out a more complex armor system, but found that it became distracting to track. So we don't use a detailed durability tracking system at this time.
A big lesson we learned is that players only have so much mental processing power available to them on a given turn. Where you make them allocate that limited resource has dramatic effects on the flow of a fight!
Mental assaults (generally) don't inflict injuries, but rather impose negative conditions like being frightened or distracted. They can, however, inflict Strain which can make a character more likely to receive injuries, as once their Strain is full any Strain from an attack would upgrade to a Serious Injury!
Look among the sci-fi role-playing games. Some have rules for deadly fights. With the location and effect of the injuries, I know MegaTraveller and CyberÂge. I wish you to perfect your approach.
Thanks for the recommendations!
Feels fairly elegant. A few questions:
Is there a big table of Conditions and what their debuffs are? Feels like a fair bit to learn maybe?
How do you stop players one-shotting the BBEG/dragon/god with a lucky roll? Add an extra Lethal box? Give them total damage resistance?
All great questions.
There's a list of conditions and complications, but it's not a very long list and each weapon specifies what type(s) of complications it adds to its injuries. After that, the GM and players can improvise additional complications to an injury if they like, or just stick with the baseline. It's not too bad, from playtesting!
Admittedly, the game isn't designed for epic heroic fantasy - it works better for more grounded situations. But a very powerful enemy might be Resistant to some injuries or have additional steps that need to be accomplished before you can really hurt it, such as tearing away armor plating to expose an underlying heart or somethin'.
That aspect is definitely something we're still working on to find the right balance.
man played hangman once
Hangman is peak gaming :D
Very interesting mechanics you've developed here. I'm curious as to how you handle larger foes, like say a giant, or eye tyrant as these foes are able to sustain a greater number of "injuries" before being susceptible to a killing blow. Love to hear your thoughts on this, if you have a minute to discuss.
@@MercTechBenny A great question!
Extremely large foes use what I'm going to call the Megazord Method for injury tracking. Instead of using a single injury tracker for their whole self, each important part of their body has its own tracker, and there'd be some special circumstances that result in its death.
Though I will say, the TFE games are less about slaying massive enemies as they are surviving them, since they are more grounded, gritty settings. So enormous foes are often better as set pieces and hazards, rather than something to be faced head-on.
We're still iterating and exploring monster/threat designs, so this sort of feedback/question is great to chew on!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames Man, that sounds pretty great! I love this concept you have of "packets of information" being passed thru events like your attack/defense mechanics. A pretty novel approach, and not too complex.
As with most systems using gritty combat, is this to suggest to your players that combats are best avoided if possible? If a combat does become unavoidable... that they can creatively solve said combat using real world logic?
@@MercTechBenny I appreciate the support! Games like BitD really revolutionized that structure, and I'm doing something a bit different than that.
For TFE being action horror, we wanted fights to be scary - it's not always the correct answer to charge in, and sometimes it's good to flee!
Very interesting ideas.
If one has a lethal injury and takes another lethal injury without having any serious or critical injuries, does that one die?
Can a lethal injury to a vulnerable entity kill it in one shot?
Is there a to hit system or does every attack hit?
If you already have a lethal injury and you receive another, you're instantly dead, yep.
A lethal injury to a vulnerable target upgrades it to instant death, yep! It's worth noting that no result on an Injury Roll is a lethal injury - the highest it can be as a critical. This means that to get instant-kills, the target must either have fewer Injury Slots (like weak enemies) or use special abilities to pump-up the lethality.
There is a to-hit system in the game; it's easier to hit the Bulk, a bit harder to hit the Brim, and much harder to hit the Ace. So you have the choice, as the player, to go for low-risk consistent damage or to attempt for the more lethal/debilitating targets but lower chance to hit.
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames got it, thanks for the explanation. At first I understood that depending on the area to target, the probability of the hit being a different type of injury shifted.
What is the near average probability to hit in the system?
@@navishh2349 The overall baseline success rate in the game is about 70%. What that means is that the chance of succeeding in any given task that you are good at is about 70%. Generally speaking, this walks up and down in 20% increments.
So if I have a 70% chance to shoot the bulk with my revolver, going for the brim would be a 50% chance, while the ace would be 30%. That's assuming you have decent skill with a firearm. There are a variety of ways that players can increase their chances, both via cooperation and tactical choices, of course :)
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames
Oh that's cool. 70% feels like a good rate for the game to feel deadly.
And in practice, how many hits would you say a creature can take? Or how many rounds does a typical combat take?
@@TalesFromElsewhereGamesgiven that people's arms are out front, and might be carrying weapons or shields, shouldn't you hit them more often than the torso?
funny but that should depend on the weapon and fighting style. for example with fencing the easiest to target is the brim. same with knife fighting and many other styles or weapons. also, many creatures would defend their bulk with their brim (humans do this instinctively).
@@RobertTestowy Ah, but the bulk/brim/ace structure is simply a size/vulnerability metric assuming no active defense.
You could (and do in TFE) apply the same targeting structure to non-human or even inanimate objects.
Actively defending yourself is handled via Reactions, rather than a passive assumption of AC (armor + dexterity in many games), which has a built-in assumption of "dodging".
You're right, though, that any system will sacrifice some amount of simulation for the sake of systemic consistency and balance, and we're no different here! :D
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames
It is less problem of active defence and more problem of reach. It is even more glaring with some monsters and animals. With guns your system works well, but with melee weapons it does not because of this. But I agree about sacrifice!
@@RobertTestowy Ah that's an interesting point, right! Especially with a creature whose limbs extend far beyond their body and toward the players.
I wonder if there will be rules/charts for GMless co-op or solo play? Monster behavior in the style of Vagabond would be cool
@@dinkleberg684 Honestly, I don't have any experience designing for solo/GM-less, but that would make for a really cool small expansion/zine to the main game!
This is cool. :)
Tried a playtest mimicing this. found it to be.... difficult.
Mostly, it was difficult because i'm lacking information, and had to make it up on the fly.
--armor? I assume it makes you resistant, which is great and all, but all armor is now the same?
--hey, look, all my attacks deal 1 damage, and all targets have 3 hp before they die...(I can only deal 1 hp of damage with an attack) that. that does not seem like it was the goal.
--playtesting really needs a list of conditions/complications to pull from. otherwise the "interesting and rich" combat experience doesn't have as many choices as we thought.
Personally, I've been going for quick and somewhat simpler combat, and I found this is actually the opposite. I love it's potential, but I don't think I'm really able to give a fair assessment at the moment.
Also, taking on conditions and complications means a lot more when you need to continue the adventure afterward. Stopping after the test combat means the results of combat are significantly cheapened. I'm curious how you account for this in your tests. are you just running these rules in an ongoing adventure?
Overall, I think this still qualifies as attrition. maybe I'm working off of a different defenition.
Totally fair! A more robust Demo Packet will be released very soon, complete with pregen characters, quick start rules, and a simple one-shot adventure. That'll probably be a more substantive body of work for you to analyze! 🤠
As always, I appreciate your thoughtful and insightful comments!!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames I'll look forward to that.
Alright. I'm interested. I have my own micro system and way of doing damage that is less attrition based. I'd like to see yours on paper, if you're sharing. What weapons do what die? Or is it based on class? The smaller the die, the more lethal the weapon, correct? Inquiring minds want to know. Dig your presentation, though.
Thanks for your interest!
The weapon controls the size of the dice and the character's Skill determines the number.
So a knife would be a d12, a revolver would be a d8, and a shotgun would be a d6.
A character that is highly skilled rolls 4 dice, while one who is basically untrained only rolls 1!
Have you looked at HârnMaster’s injury system. What you describe has similarities. This is like HârnMaster and wound levels from The D6 System had a baby.
Ope. I lied. That first baby had its own baby with Cairn’s Critical Damage.
I haven't yet looked at HarnMaster! Someone else was just recommending that, too! I need to track down a copy! Thanks for the req!! 🤠
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames PDFs are available on DriveThru and from the Columbia Games website. A physical copy is available from Columbia Games too. By far my favorite “simulationist high crunch” rules system.
Where can i get my hands on a playtest version of this? Ive been on and off attempting to develop a homebrew tabletop rpg for personal use, and i feel the same way about hp.
My concerns are the obvious death spiral, but also the scalability in terms of equipment and progression. I want combats that are fast, tactical, and deadly. There is also the concern of players themselves being one tapped out of the game, though there are a few solutions.
Thanks for your interest! We don't quite have the Quick Start Rules ready yet, which includes pregens and a one-shot adventure, but we hope to have that ready in the next few weeks!!
Zombies in D&D are not the same as the modern concept of zombies. They are based more on voodoo legend, and are truly just "the walking dead" -- pretty low-level goons. The modern cinematic version of zombies are actually more akin to what D&D calls ghouls -- they feed on flesh and can spread their condition t those they injure. I have run campaigns in D&D where specific objectives must be met in order to kill certain creatures -- e.g., it's not enough to just dismember them because they will regenerate! You must kill it with fire / a head shot / magic / insert solution here. That kind of thing is combined with HP all the time to great effect.
in all my years of experience, there's only two types of injuries IRL: minor and game-stoppers. The minor stuff might impose a condition, but you will bandage it up after the fight and be OK. Maybe your ankle will hurt for a week, or a month, or from now on. But you can fight on. For the game-stoppers: you're down. Your bones are shattered, you're bleeding out, you're holding some of your insides on your outside. Whatever the case, you are in shock -- whether you are still conscious or not, you are helpless. You're at 0 hp.
What I like about Hit Points is that you can interpret them however you want. Maybe your fighter is really good at fighting defensively, protecting himself just enough that enemy bows don't do any lasting harm. That is, until fatigue sets in and he loses track of that one arrow that finally takes him down. I've always said that 0 hp in my games is not dead, just dying -- you're like the character in the movie who's been hit with a blow they can't recover from and drops in a haze to watch their life flash before their eyes. If your cleric suddenly appears and shouts, "By Grabthar's Hammer, I command thee to rise!" -- that spark of divine healing doesn't just close your wounds, but it cuts through the fog and gives you another surge of adrenaline. You may still be fatigued, and sloppy, and barely holding on -- but by Grabthar's Hammer, by the Suns of Warvan, you shall avenge them or die trying! (Probably the latter. Again. But, hey, this is a fantasy game!)
@@ricodetroit Appreciate all the feedback and thoughts!
I'm glad to hear you've injected some good, evocative conditions into your scenario/monster design in D&D!
The main idea sounds super neat, but I wonder how enemies are designed. A player keeping track of their Strain and Injuries is simple enough.. but if you have to handle several foes at once as the GM, it sounds veeeery book-keepy. How do you handle this?
@@freyaut this is actually a challenge that we're still iterating on, as it is definitely a concern.
One solution is a short-hand notation where the GM writes down simple letters/numbers to denote the tracking per enemy. We're also working on a printable "Threat Sheet" that would have a quick tracker for several enemies.
The game doesn't, generally, use large numbers of durable enemies simply due to its deadlines. But it's a very valid concern!
This sounds like a decent idea for a video where we share we discuss this and get some feedback from the community!
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames looking forward to that. Imo most trpgs are really designed with players in mind, not GMs.. which is weird considering who has to do most of the heavy lifting. I really came to appreciate OSR games for how the approach enemy design: small and concise stat blocks, easy to use, easy to reference.
@@freyaut That's a very good point. Having run three long-term campaigns using TFE (throughout testing), I did find that the toolbox given the GMs is evocative and fun, but it is definitely a different mental load that it's asking of 'em.
Once we're able to distribute free testing documents, I look forward to hearing folks' feedback on the GM tools/experience!
Honestly, not super excited so far with the explanation, but I can't wait to be proven wrong once I read it.
Appreciate the honesty and open-mindedness!
I don't think the game we're designing is going to be for everyone; the intended gameplay is a bit more narrow, more niche, than other RPGs. And that's okay! It's the beauty of the hobby :)
We'll be launching a video later this week showing one round (ish) using the above system; would definitely be interested in your feedback once that hits!
Ace, Brim, Bulk? What are those hit locations or mashle season 2 intro lyrics?
Not familiar with that anime! It any good?
@@TalesFromElsewhereGames A super-strong guy who's on the spectrum has to pass Hogwarts while having no magic. Very funny and bombastic, so if you like shallow but funny and emotional shows it's good.
Similar concept is also presented in the currently releasing anime, Wistoria. More sword vs wand than biceps vs wand, and prettier, but it's too early to tell how good it can get.
More on topic, are you familiar with the One Roll Engine and its hit location system?
@@janinecat1865 I've heard of One Roll, but haven't used it myself!
Hot take 3:14 the dice you might have from your TTRPG are in fact funny special dice. Really though I don't like the components driving the system especially if they do funny things to the maths, which I have no evidence of here one way or the other but the absence of D14 D16 and D18 might count. As other people have mentioned I would watch the death spiral effects - it can work on the monster too with it becoming less & less capable as it accumulates injuries and leads to an anti climax. Also tracking injuries is fine for players & bosses but I find it very tiresome for hordes of mooks.
I don't have much of an issue with HP but good luck with this.
Appreciate the feedback! We're definitely keeping an eye on the spiral; even in a deadly game, death spirals can feel very anti-fun!
there was not, in fact, a link in the description
Oh my bad, description updated with a link to the previous video! (if that's what you're referring to)
I like how the design/design of this but some things have me very puzzled. How do you roll for a hit? I'm assuming that a Hit and a Damage roll can't be the same because otherwise the system doesn't make sense when it comes to head-hits (make it harder but also make it upgrade severity means it cancels out) and weapons dealing more damage would mean they are also much easier to hit, which makes no sense that a club is harder to hit and deal damage while a gunshot is pretty easy to hit AND does more damage.
Good questions!
So TFE uses an "attack roll" type check to see if you've hit the intended location. Without going into all the specifics of all the dice and systems, it basically works like this:
How hard it is to hit is based on (1) how far away you are and (2) where you target.
Each range increment further you are, you have 20% less chance to hit. Targeting the brim is 20% less accurate than the bulk, and the ace is 40% less accurate than the bulk. (Characters can react to being shot at by diving for cover, but the reaction system is a conversation for another day!)
Melee weapons may not be as deadly as a firearm, but it is much, much easier to hit somethin' right in front of you than it is when it's 50ft away. (I think anyone who has shot a firearm can attest that accuracy at distance is much harder than the movies make it out to be haha)