Not Forgotten!

You would all be forgiven for thinking that I've abandoned Heroes Against Darkness and this blog, but that is not totally the case!

First, I've spent most of the year continuing to support Hero Kids, which has had success beyond my wildest hopes.   Hero Kids now has ten adventures and a bunch of expansions that add to the game.

Second, I've also been continuing to work on The Forge Engine.   I first mentioned this new system in my previous post almost a year ago, which seems crazy.   Suffice to say that the system has had a lot of testing since then, including a number of major revisions to the core mechanics to ensure they work in all of the situations and genres that the system targets (fantasy and modern, and even sci-fi).

I'm always on the lookout for playtesters, so drop me an email at justinhalliday(a)gmail[dot]com if you'd like me to include you in my list of playtesters.

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No, I'm not dead.   I've just been working on Hero Kids and its adventures, which are available at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

Hero Kids alpha playtest complete

After several weeks of thorough testing, the alpha playtest of Hero Kids is now complete.   I've gotten back a whole bunch of useful feedback from the various testers and their tiny helpers.   Thanks guys and girls!

I'm currently working to implement the changes and suggestions that have come up in the testing, I'm designing more adventures for our pint-sized heroes (including an randomly generated minotaur's maze), and finally I'm working with Eric Quigley to complete all of the artwork for the monsters and the heroes so that we can get Hero Kids finished early in October (what a perfect holiday activity it will be!).

Here's a quick look at some of nasty humanoid monsters in the game:

Eric Quigley Art

Lookin' good boys!

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The monsters in Heroes Against Darkness are much less cute:
Heroes Against Darkness: Downloads.

Sneak peek at a Hero Kids character

So while all of the helpful playtesters are putting Hero Kids through it's paces, I reckon it's a good time to show everyone else what a 'Hero Card' looks like for one of the heroes that's included in the game.  From the card you might be able to work out the basics of the system itself.

First, each of the heroes has four main attributes:
•   Melee (dice pool for melee attacks)
•   Ranged (dice pool for ranged attacks)
•  Magic (dice pool for magic attacks)
•  Armor (dice pool for defending against enemy attacks)

Plus a number of attacks and actions:
•   Normal Attack (melee, ranged, or magic)
•   Special Action (usually a special attack or other action)
•   Special Ability (a passive ability based on the hero's specialty)

Finally, heroes can also have these items and skills:
•   Healing Potions (these are used in combat to heal the hero)
•   Inventory Items (these can be used in adventuring)
•   Skills (these can be used in adventuring or role-playing)

Hero Kids works as a simple skirmish game or as a full RPG, and the characters themselves have layers of complexity so that they are usable by kids from 4 to 10.  Younger kids just have to use their dice pools and their Normal Attack, while older kids can use tactics and their heroes' Special Actions and Abilities to tackle hard combats and other adventuring and role-playing obstacles.

If I've designed the Hero Cards it right, this example card should pretty much tell you about the underlying mechanics of the game and the possible and probable variations in the heroes that come with the game.

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Looking for something more complicated, look no further:
Heroes Against Darkness: Downloads.

Presenting "Hero Kids" RPG for Kids

I've been pretty quiet about RPG stuff lately because I've been beavering away on my next project.   Regular readers know that a while ago I made up some simple RPG rules to play with Violet and since I finished the first version of Heroes Against Darkness I've been working on turning those simple rules into a real game.

This project now has a name: Hero Kids

Hero Kids is a fantasy RPG for kids aged 4-10. It uses a combination of cool hero artwork, fast play and simple opposed combat mechanics to introduce kids to RPGs.

I'm looking for volunteers who want to alpha test the rules on their own kids ahead of the game's release on DriveThruRPG later this year.

This is your last chance to hit me up here, on G+ or on my gmail if you want an invite the playtest the game!

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In the mean-time, here's a real-life RPG for grown-ups:
Heroes Against Darkness: Downloads.

AnyDice vs. a d6 Dice Pool Mechanic

I've been mulling over a set of super-simple RPG rules for kids (maybe from 4 and up).   As part of this I've been thinking about a simple (but playable) dice mechanic that involves opposed pools of d6s, with only the highest dice counting for each of the participants (and ties resolving in favor of the attacker, although this could change).

I've finally managed to get AnyDice to spit out the probabilities I was after for the opposed dice pool mechanic (gosh I hate it when people get excited about their 'new' dice mechanics).

This code for AnyDice spits out the amount by which the highest dice of the first dice pool is equal to or greater than than the highest dice of the second dice pool:

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function: opposedhighest of A:n and B:n
{
      if A >= B { result: A-B }
      result: -1
}

output [opposedhighest of 1@1d6 and 1@1d6]
output [opposedhighest of 1@2d6 and 1@1d6]
output [opposedhighest of 1@3d6 and 1@1d6]
output [opposedhighest of 1@4d6 and 1@1d6]

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•  -1: Means that the second pool 'won' and the attack was unsuccessful.
•  0: Means the highest dice of each pool were tied, which can be resolved in favor of the attacker or the defender.
•  1+: Higher numbers represent the disparity between the attacker's highest dice against the defender's highest dice.

Here are the results for the opposed checks, with ties resolved in favor of the attacker:

Attacker's pool (down the left)	1d6	2d6	3d6	4d6
1d6	58%	42%	34%	30%
2d6	75%	61%	53%	48%
3d6	83%	72%	65%	60%
4d6	88%	79%	73%	69%

And, here are the results with ties resolved in favor of the defender:

Attacker's pool (down the left)	1d6	2d6	3d6	4d6
1d6	42%	26%	17%	13%
2d6	58%	39%	28%	21%
3d6	66%	47%	35%	27%
4d6	71%	53%	40%	31%

What does it mean?   Which one is better?   

I'm not sure yet, but I'll let you know!

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Check out Heroes Against Darkness, which has a dice mechanic no one could call innovative: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Heroes Against Darkness: Session Report

Some readers might be wondering how Heroes Against Darkness works in play, rather than on paper. So here's a quick recap of our Monday night session.

In the lead up to the session, the six adventurers had been captured by goblins while traveling through an ancient dwarven tunnel that linked a series of beacon towers along a range of mountains. We pick up the story with the adventurers in cells in the goblin's tower, and negotiating with the goblin shaman to rescue the goblin chief who had been captured by human bandits based out of the next beacon tower to the south.

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The goblin shaman returned to the cell-block with an ultimatum: Help the goblins or else. Luckily, the various members of the party had come to their senses, and negotiated the release of four of the party to rescue the goblin chief from the bandits who were holed up in the next beacon tower some 12 miles to the south. After some discussion, they decided that it was best to leave behind Gorlock the barbarian and Wraistlin the warlock, and to take the Boags the warrior, Stark the hospiter, Sting the hunter and Maza the warlock.

Their decision made, the shaman knocked out the four heroes, who woke up on the mountain pathway that led away from the goblin's tower down to the foot of the mountains. At this point the path widened somewhat, but through the middle of this wide section ran a deep crevasse. The goblin shaman and his minions stood on the other side of the crevasse, waiting for their captives to wake.

Once they were awake, the goblins threw the characters' equipment across to them and pointed the way to the bandit's tower, which was visible some distance to the south. The goblin shaman also threw across a small pouch of healing potions to aid the characters in their quest to rescue his chief.

The smaller party struck out down the path, then followed it into the woods at the foot of the mountain range. During their journey south, the group discussed their plan and decided to try to enlist the help of the bandits in a counter-attack against the goblins.

Some three miles from the bandit's tower, the group came upon a human lookout asleep at his post up in a tree. The party woke him and demanded that he take them to the tower. The lookout claimed that the tower was haunted (been there himself) and warned the party away. The party members insisted and ended up scaring the lookout, who fled into the forest, pursued by the hunter. The fellow proved evasive and lost the hunter to make good his escape.

Resuming their journey, the party came across another person on the side of the road, just a mile or so short of the tower. Again the second lookout warned them away from the tower, but the party convinced him that they had come from the goblin's tower and were here to see his leader. The lookout fetched the bandit leader, Jenton.

Jenton, the bandit leader, came to meet the party, with the first lookout in tow (and looking slightly worse for wear). Jenton told the party that the lookout had claimed that the party tried to kill him. The party convinced the bandit leader that the lookout was lying, and they had not attacked him. Furious, the bandit leader killed the hopeless lookout, and warned the heroes not to lie to him.

Sting the hunter immediately lied to him about what they wanted from him, prompting a final warning from the bandit leader.

Chastised, the warrior told the bandit leader of their captured allies who were held in the goblin's tower, and how they had severely weakened the goblin forces. Eventually, the bandit leader was convinced, and the party reached an agreement with him to assault the goblin's tower to wipe out the goblins and to rescue their captives.

After some discussion, together they came up with a plan for a three-pronged attack, with the bandits assaulting the tower from the northern and southern dwarven tunnels, while the remaining party members would take the goblin chief back for delivery to the goblin shaman. Ahead of the meeting time (sundown the next day), the party drugged the goblin chief to keep him out of the fight, and Enshrouded the hunter (extending the duration of the spell as well) so that he could take up a strategic position in the rocks above the rift-breached mountain pathway.

At the appointed time, the party arrived for the handover. When the goblin shaman arrived, along with two strong guards, two archers, and two weaker guards.

The party attacked. The goblin shaman acted first and knocked out the hospiter with a Restrain spell, but not before the hospiter immediately used an interrupt spell - Seize Initiative - which increased the initiative of all of the party members. Maza followed up with Wall of Ice, which he used to fashion a bridge across the rift. Boags the warrior grabbed the downed hospiter and dragged him across the ice bridge as he charged at the shaman and his guards. Up in the rocks, the hunter had been sighting the shaman using his Steady power and was ready to fire, a shot which struck the goblin a terrible hit.

The battle then began in earnest, with the goblin shaman Bane-ing the heroes to reduce their attack rolls and also calling forth a Mystic Warrior, whose attacks distracted the warrior by forcing him to attack the apparition. The Restrained hospiter managed to use his Shake It Off power to end the effects of the shaman's spell, and re-entered the fight as well as offering some limited healing to the other party members.

Maza the warlock used as much of his Anima as he could on several Chain Lightning spells, which coursed through the battlefield and electrocuted the shaman's cohorts. As the battle raged, the shaman and his archers managed to knock the hospiter unconscious with a few good arrow hits. With the hospiter down and their healing potions all gone, the party members were out of healing (having forgotten about the own Rally powers). Just as Boags himself was knocked out, Maza used the last of his blood Anima to cast another Chain Lightning which killed another two of the goblins, leaving just the shaman and three of his guards (one of the tough ones and the two archers).

Up above, the hunter sighted carefully and loosed an arrow which struck and killed the goblin shaman. With the shaman dead, the remaining guard fled towards the ice bridge (created by the Wall of Ice spell), just as the spell expired, and promptly plunged into the crevasse as the ice gave way beneath him. The two archers fled back towards the tower, but then came screaming back, pursued and quickly cut down by human bandits who'd made their way from the dwarven tunnels and had successfully overwhelmed the remaining goblins inside the tower.

As the smoke cleared, two of the adventurers lay dying on the ground (Stark the hospiter and Boags the warrior), Maza the warlock was on 4 HP (having spent a great deal of blood Anima through the course of the fight) and the hunter was unhurt!

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Total combatants:
- Stark the hospiter (Level 5)
- Boags the warrior (Level 5)
- Sting the hunter (Level 5)
- Maza the warlock (Level 5)

- Goblin Shaman (Level 7)
- 2x Goblin Guards (Level 3 each)
- 2x Goblin Minions (Level 3 each)
- 2x Goblin Archers (Level 3 each)

Total Party Level: 20
Total Enemy Level: 22

Combat Rounds: About 8?
Combat Duration: 60 minutes (this was probably a bit slow because one of the players was controlling two characters he wasn't familiar with; the hospiter and the warlock)

Sixteen Steps to Being a Good Player

Once you've mastered the seven steps to becoming a good role-player, you also need to master the steps to becoming a good player. Here are a few ideas from my GM experiences (in no particular order):
1. Keep your character sheet up to date.
2. Don't argue, nitpick or pixelbitch with the GM.
3. Don't play like it's a solo adventure, let everyone else have their turn.
4. Pay attention.
5. Put away your f-ing phone.
6. Don't hog the attention.
7. Know and use your character's abilities/powers/spells/skills.
8. Be creative and describe what you're doing.
9. Don't be afraid to try something that isn't written on your character sheet.
10. Know the rules.
11. Try to bring your character to life.
12. Don't meta-game.
13. In combat, take your turns quickly.
14. Don't confuse player knowledge with character knowledge.
15. Try to make a character that's compatible with the other party members.
16. Try to build on what the GM and the other characters are doing, rather than undermine.

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Check out the full rules for Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Seven Steps to Good Role-Playing

By definition, role-playing is when players take on and direct the actions of their character or alter-ego in a game. Role-playing comes to the fore in Heroes Against Darkness when the players’ characters have role-playing encounters, which run the full gamut from the mundane to potentially deadly:
• Negotiate a price with a shopkeeper
• Gain information from a known criminal associate
• Befriend an influential game character
• Fast-talk out of (or in to) trouble
• Win a duel of wits in a high society setting
• Pretend to be someone of higher or lower status
• Find out the lore of a region, sect or family
• Gain admittance into a powerful guild
• Mount a defense against false criminal charges
• Bribe a low or high official
• Talk your way out of the lair of an ornery dragon
• Negotiate the return of a ransomed individual
• Seduce a busty wench or handsome rake
• Infiltrate a criminal organization

Role-Playing 101

Role-playing isn’t like combat, where player ability scores and powers are combined with dice rolls to determine the outcome. To role-play, the player’s task is to bring their character to life. Here are a few ideas to get started role-playing.

Tip 1: Role-Play Traits

The character creation steps in the full rules of Heroes Against Darkness include a list of character traits that can be applied to all characters. When in a role-playing encounter, try thinking about how a character with that trait would behave. Is the character:
• Boisterous in a serious situation?
• Devout amongst heathens?
• Profligate when celebrating?
• Foolhardy in the face of danger?
• Exaggerator when making promises?

Tip 2: Role-Play Vices and Virtues

In addition to Traits, a character’s Vices and Virtues offer a window into their behavior. For example, is the character:
• Proud or humble?
• Envious or kind?
• Lazy or diligent?
• Greedy or charitable?
• Gluttonous or temperate?
• Lustful or chaste?
• Wrathful or forgiving?

Tip 3: Role-Play Rights and Wrongs

Another aspect of a character is their rights and wrongs. These represent the character’s moral compass, how they would behave in the face of difficult situations.
Would the character:
• Take a job that endangers innocents?
• Distrust an authority figure?
• Seek revenge for a previous wrong?
• Ignore the plight of someone in distress?
• Steal from a rich merchant or a pauper?
• Kill someone of their own race?
• Go against the interests of their family or clan?
• Cheat at a game of chance?

Tip 4: Role-Play Background

The final element of the character details that the player can use to aid in role-playing is their background. All characters are born and raised differently, so each character’s background will give them a unique frame of reference in any situation. Does the character’s background make them:
• Distrustful of all authority?
• Unable to function properly in social situations?
• Scorned by people of higher caste?
• Fearful of magi?
• Avoid attention from officers of the law?

Tip 5: Role-Play Ability Scores

After mining the character’s background, morals and personality, the next aspect for role-playing is the character’s physical and mental capabilities. Is the character:
• Physically strong and imposing? (Strength)
• Dexterous and swift? (Dexterity)
• Fit, athletic and vigorous? (Constitution)
• Spiritual, centered and calming? (Wisdom)
• Intelligent, convincing and insightful? (Intelligence)

Tip 6: Role-Play Class

Along with the character’s ability scores, their class also offers strong role-playing opportunities:
• Noble and honorable (Warriors, Hunters, Hospiters)
• Fiery and temperamental (Berserkers and Warlocks)
• Sneaky and subtle (Rogues and Necromancers)
• Insightful and manipulative (Mystics)
• Pious and respectful (Canonates and Healers)
• Blunt and straightforward (Barbarians)

Tip 7: Role-Play Charisma

If all else fails, the character’s charisma ability score is a good indication of whether they perform well in role-playing situations or whether they’re more likely to alienate and infuriate others.

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Check out the full rules for Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.