Four New Weird & Wonderful Fantasy Species

This setting just recently came to me, completely spontaneously. Obviously I'm putting a lot of work and thought into it, but it's encouraging to me how organically it's all coming together, given how I was nearly ready to stop blogging altogether.

My main inspirations for this setting so far are Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves and Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time. I wasn't even certain at first whether I wanted the setting to be science fantasy, "traditional" fantasy, sci-fi, or pseudo-contemporary, but those novels (Children of Time in particular, which I just finished recently) did such a wonderful job of creating Weird and interesting non-human species that were nonetheless relatable, that I wanted to do likewise. I've written about plenty of fantasy species, some of which I think have been fairly successful, but it can be difficult to find the balance between making them Weird enough to be interesting, but not so Weird as to be inaccessible. I'm really happy with these and with the direction of this setting, so I hope other people get a kick out of it too.

I will break this into several posts, but this first post will focus on the species themselves. Subsequent posts will go into greater detail about the world, the factions, magic and technology, maybe a small bestiary, etc.

I may or may not write up any game material for this setting, but if I do it will probably be in either TNT, OSR, or FATE. I'm actually going to be running a one-shot in this setting for FATE in a couple weeks. Originally I had thought that I'd prefer this setting in TNT or OSR, that style of game, but actually I'm starting to think a system like FATE might be perfect for this setting. I'll talk about the one-shot itself in another post but one of the player's character is going to be something really cool that interacts with the setting and scenario in a way that I think would be a lot harder to do in one of those settings but could work well with FATE aspects, and I'm very excited for it because it's pretty fucking Wild.

One final note, since I have once again rambled for far too long. When I gave this writeup to my players, they by their own acknowledgement didn't fully "get it" until we actually talked it out, after which they were all really into it. On the one hand, I was really happy with their response when we talked it out, I could tell they were genuinely really into it, but also I'm disappointed that the writing wasn't sufficient to get them excited from the get-go, and that makes me less excited to share this post, if something core to the idea is getting lost between my vocal or conversational presentation of these ideas and the written presentation. So on that note!

One of the novels which inspired this setting and these species

The Goop

The primordial soup itself, as a single, viral-like super-organism distributed across all the oceans of the world. The goop has no coherent motive except to perpetuate its own existence. It is apathetic, but generally peaceful towards other life. Every few geological cycles it enters an omnicidal state of apocalyptic proportions, but that's neither here nor there. It propagates on land in the form of gooplings; fey-like pseudo-organisms composed of a semi-solid mass of goop, water, ice, and oceanic animal muscle fiber, held by composites of carved bone and coral.

Gooplings come in many sizes and shapes; humanoid, centauroid, city-sized turtles hosting colonies of shrimp, crustaceans, and other creatures. The goop communicates through viral-like genetic and epigenetic encoding, waves, and vaporization. Gooplings can produce speech, but it is generally warped and incoherent, as if underwater. Gooplings have little sense of self, nor fear of mortality. Even in their destruction, it is rare that they are not inevitably returned to the goop. A goopling may sacrifice itself to merge into another organism and take over its body; but then it is no longer part of the goop.

Hu

An evolutionary offshoot of humans that adapted to fill the ecological niche of ants. Hu are ant-sized, have an armadillo-like exoskeleton, and other features of burrowing mammals in miniature. While any single hu has little autonomy or intelligence as we think of it, each hu colony has a distinct human-like personality, albeit one that expresses itself through group behaviors and pheromone messaging. Hu have an innately motivated religious reverence towards the humanoid form, which they seek to emulate instinctively.

Hu  colonies stitch together the corpses of various animal species into Frankenstein Abominations vaguely resembling humanoids, although the results are often grisly and chimeric. The abominations are mechanically and bio-electrically powered and maintained by an ever-rotating crew of hu, who receive and transmit pheromonal signals emanating from a queen. In this way, abominations are like remote-controlled bio-mecha for a hu colony. So long as an abomination remains within the reach of its colony, it can maintain operation indefinitely. Colonies of a sufficient size will have many abominations, sometimes hundreds or even thousands, where the queen delegates responsibility to special operator-class hu.

Freakazoids

Eccentric organisms created by an ancient, advanced AI. They were designed with mechanics that have not, would not, and likely could not occur in nature, such as wheels, treads, and engines; all biological. As an example of their biomechanics, freakazoid wheels are usually pseudo-organisms, with their own nerve clusters and circulatory systems, which grow around a freakazoid's appendage, and latch on like a leech for nourishment when not in use. Freakazoids have exceptional speed and mobility, and immense strength. They have insectoid exoskeletons or some other kind of hard exterior, crossed with various animal features and a vehicle, like a cat bus, a raptor bike, a lizard train, or a shark tank.

They reproduce mostly parthenogenically and have almost no sexual dimorphism. To freakazoids, gender has more to do with whether they are car-like, bicycle-like, mechanically-propelled or combustion-propelled, etc., than anything correlating with biological sex. Freakazoids are perfectly capable of functioning in society, and often will do so out of necessity, but they much prefer independence. Each freakazoid has its own internal logic, and they can perform magic-like feats by studying their own freaky science.

Pterosaurs

Pterosaurs originally come from another realm and filled a similar ecological niche as humans. They are strikingly similar to humans in appearance; even with hair-like pycnofibers. The most obvious differences between a human (or a gray human) and a pterosaur are that they have a wider variety of skin tones and patterns, a longer and more angular skull, a small crest along the back of their heads, and short, slim, vestigial wings, more like the webbing between human fingers.

Pterosaurs are generally slower-paced and quieter than humans, more careful and contemplative, and less prone to religion, superstition, cognitive dissonance, and other cognitive biases. This may be in part because pterosaurs are only sexually active during their mating season, where males will peacock their crests and wings and play-fight with each other. However, pterosaurs are still a romantic people, more so on average than gray humans, even when not in mating season. Pterosaurs also tend to take many romantic partners, and while they acknowledge biological sex during mating, otherwise place little emphasis on the cultural construct of gender when it comes to romance, which they see as distinct from mating per se.

Gray Humans

The closest living descendants of humans. They have cloudy gray eyes, and a layer of gray pigment under their skin, which otherwise varies in color like true humans. Gray humans are a socially- and emotionally-driven species, and their interpersonal interactions are often volatile. While generally accepted as an intelligent species, gray humans tend to engage in superstitious behaviors and are plagued by various other forms of cognitive bias and cognitive dissonance, and are often described by freakazoids as "glitchy".

In an evolutionary sense, gray humans have been on the losing end of a competition with the pterosaurs for longer than the current era. However, one advantage they have is their determination, especially in the face of adversity. Their aforementioned "glitchy" behaviors and emotional volatility make them quick to act and adapt in crisis, and more willing to face seemingly insurmountable tasks to their conclusion, which has benefited them technologically and allowed them to survive in inhospitable regions.

Meandering Thoughts About Combat

I mentioned recently how I was feeling creatively empty, which gave me a bit of a creative burst, but I appear to have run out of steam and can't seem to finish my Martians setting even though I have a bestiary post already 75% drafted and would like to make some Martian Mechs for TNT by way of Mechs & Monstrosities and Gamma Knights. But that probably won't happen unless I will it to happen by mentioning it here.

On a theory level, I've been thinking about combat in tabletop RPGs, and how to handle it. While I actually do find character builds and tactical combat in games like D&D 3.+ compelling when I've done a sufficient amount of research into them, I prefer that style of play in videogames, not tabletop. I've come to respect that style of game design a bit more again. By integrating all of the mechanics together, a relatively crunchy game can be made much more streamlined (as opposed to many of the overly complex bolt-on mechanics of D&D 2e and other games from that era, see Star Frontiers Advanced which I should but probably won't write a review of bc tbh I was a little disappointed that my Gamma Knights review didn't make it on the thought eater humpday blogarama). However, it also becomes much less modular, so unless you want to redesign the whole game any time you want to hack something, you're pretty much stuck with what you've got. Which is great if you lack the time, creativity, or general inclination to make stuff yourself. But at that point, I'd rather just play a videogame.

Anyway, that was an unintended tangent, this is a bit stream of consciousness. I've been thinking about this stuff because of games like TNT and Gamma Knights. I don't necessarily prefer opposed rolls to hit vs. armor type combat systems, but I do find them interesting, and I wish more OSR people would look to TNT for inspiration even if they aren't interested in switching systems. I like how in TNT ranged weapons have fewer damage dice but can bypass the opposed roll, or how rolling a six on any damage die gives 1 spite damage that also bypasses opposed rolls, such that a sufficient number of weak monsters can still make a mark on player characters, without necessarily being an hyper-deadly game. Likewise, while I generally don't like character builds and tactical crunch in tabletop, I do like the idea of that being a differentiation between regular PCs and mechs or power armored PCs. If I were playing a whole mech game I wouldn't bother, I'd just reskin any other game, but there is something kind of appealing to me that I can't fully articulate about the different sensors and power management and force fields and computerized systems in Gamma Knights (or maybe it's more generally related to the point I will be making below, which is supposed to be the main point of this meandering post).

That being said, in practice, I almost always prefer to minimize combat, or add saving rolls or other non-combat mechanics into combat scenarios. I don't find GMing combat fun, I only kind of find being a PC in combat fun, if the GM did a good job setting up the encounter, and anecdotally, I find that a lot of the fun leaves the table when things get too solely combat-driven. It could just be that I'm not a good combat GM. Or it could be that good combat encounters should include non-combat actions, and I'm doing it correctly after all.

While I haven't played it, I find the Pyrrhic Weaselry, Or At What Cost? system so intriguing because it's willing to defy the norm of combat systems in an otherwise D&D-style game space, and is really conscientious of fictional positioning and how to leverage that to create interesting encounters. I think the term fictional positioning gets thrown around a lot by storygame people, but frankly I've found that many of the people who sling that term around don't really understand what it means, or haven't thought it through all the way, just making common sense needlessly pretentious (this statement is not intended as an attack on all storygamers or all storygames! I'm not one of those obnoxious anti-storygame people! In fact there are many things I like about FATE and PbtA!). Anyway, If you really want to understand what fictional positioning means, read Pyrrhic Weaselry (we've had some good conversations about it on the underutilized SWORDDREAM_unofficial subreddit). I do genuinely think FATE and PbtA do good fictional positioning as well, and also deserve credit for abstracting away combat as not fundamentally different from other mechanics; it's more that I think other people sometimes reduce it to something less meaningful.

Despite all of what I just said, the idea of a combat-less system just seems... wrong. I want a combat system! I don't care that I generally don't like it, or that my players generally don't like it, or that I usually try to minimize its use as much as possible, I still want it there! In small doses it's nice. Just knowing it's there adds to the experience. Maybe that's crazy, but such is life.

That got me thinking though, while there are certain things I don't like about FATE, one thing I really do like about FATE is how it re-constructs tactical combat in a way that doesn't remove combat mechanics altogether, but abstracts them into different kinds of actions that play into the fictional positioning system (aspects). Skills can be designed flexibly for any setting, and can be used as either an attack, defense, to overcome an obstacle, or one other thing that I'm forgetting off-hand because I haven't played it in a while and also I may be getting some of this terminology wrong. That in tandem with the two kinds of stress tracks (one more physical, one more mental, I think called Will) and the ease with which one could hack in more stress tracks, allows you to have your cake and eat it to when it comes to tactical combat vs. fictional positioning. I actually think it's a shame how FATE has to some extent become a victim of its own success, because personally I think FATE is much more interesting, flexible, and DIY than PbtA, which I think has become (or by its nature is) really just the D&D of storygames (for better and worse), but that's also post for another day (I should really be keeping track of these tangents...).

So I don't have a concrete idea at the moment, but I'd like to think about how to, rather than remove combat altogether in games like TNT and OSR, abstract it across other mechanics or situations in ways that are both tactically and fictionally interesting. How could one bend combat to social conflict, or fire fighting, or ghost hunting with a proton pack, or to cooking a dish / line cooking as a team during the dinner rush? I suspect creating a FATE bolt-on to TNT or OSR, or a TNT or OSR-inspired hack of FATE, will play a part in this, but I don't want to commit to anything yet.

I've created TNT character types such as the War Dogs or Warlord that add more fictional-positioning Saving Rolls to combat, but I'd like to maybe try coming up with some character types or general mechanics that go the other way, adding combat-like mechanics to scenarios that are not combat per se. The idea isn't so much to increase the overall amount of combat, but to smooth out the delineation between combat encounters and everything else.

Fitting for this post, I'm going to end on yet another tangent that is dubiously related to the intended point of this post. I've also been thinking about a Poker combat-type mechanic for TNT, inspired partially by the poker mechanics in Deadlands. Because of how TNT uses D6s, I think TNT lends itself better to this kind of mechanic than OSR, but there's no reason why it couldn't also be bolted on to OSR. But again, that's a post for another day...

Terrible & Awesome Sorcerers

I was discussing Robert E. Howard (Conan)-style Sorcery with Lungfungus of Melancholies & Mirth, who is doing some really cool stuff with Conan-style mechanics, and we came to a topic I've thought a lot about and been meaning to come back to in a blog post.

Magic in D&D and other tabletop RPGs is very mechanical, more so in D&D 3.+ than in OSR, but still, it is mechanical, and in being mechanical, loses some of the metaphysical, abstract, metaphoric "Terrible & Awesomeness" of Howard magic, or magic in other older fantasy literature (I would argue this all applies more or less to Tolkien as well).

So below is a Terrible & Awesome Sorcerer generator; the Fate of those who become entangled with them, their otherwordly Presence, and what makes them a Force of Nature (and how to overcome them). Figuring out how to work with, work against, or avoid them at all costs, becomes a challenge unto itself, like a fairytale.

I've played with this idea to some extent with how I use superpowers in my games; basically defining them loosely and letting players Just Do It if it's a minor thing, or roll to do it, or spend some kind of player point to do it if it's advanced enough. But in those cases it's more of a story-game effect like a FATE aspect, made loose just to keep the game running smoothly and emphasize narration and flavor. This is about leveraging that same kind of mechanic, a nominally "storygame" mechanic, in an OSR or TNT-style capital-G Game. A character in an OSR game that plays like a "storygame" character would be something Terrible & Awesome, something Weird and detached from the physics of the game in a very real sense. If your fate is foretold by sorcery, IT WILL HAPPEN AS A FACT OF THE UNIVERSE.

Take these as non-finite, as suggestions. Feel free to tweak them and make your own.

Note that I have been very busy lately, in a good way, but unfortunately it means I did not have time to code this up as I would have liked to and as I usually do.

This sorcerer compels Fate. To...

1. do business with
2. appease
3. anger
4. become acquaintances, friends, or fall in love with
5. run from, ignore, or deny the wishes of
6. seek out, give audience, or acquiesce to the wishes of
7. loyally serve
8. morally or principally oppose
9. be known by
10. personally meet
11. be in the presence of
12. have personally met and been forgotten by
13. have personally met and forgotten about
14. create, spread, or hear/read rumors about
15. develop a relationship of any (or some specific) kind with a close friend, family, or lover of
16. get drunk or high with
17. survive a deadly battle or duel against
18. impress
19. fail to impress
20. deeply know

this sorcerer is to...

1. Suffer the curse of
1. Mortality: You will die soon.
2. Loss: You will lose a loved one soon.
3. Mutilation: You will be transformed in a grotesque and debilitating way soon.
4. Jinx: You will be unlucky forever after (always have Disadvantage e.g. roll two dice and take the lower value, or a similar negative game mechanic).
5. Debilitation: One of your abilities (or some equivalent, depending on game) will be permanently impaired by 1d4 and cannot ever be raised above that value.
6. Forgetfulness: You will forget some important aspect of your history, a piece that may very well change who you are as a person.
7. Hatred: If you do not already feel all-consuming hatred towards another, you will develop a feeling of all-consuming hatred towards another soon, driven by some tragic circumstance. You will never overcome this hatred.
8. Irony: Your strength will become your weakness; that which you most value will cause you enormous grief; you will come so close to succeeding at your greatest ambition, only to fail in some tragic and symbolic way.
2. Gain the boon of
1. Peaceful Death: You will not die violently, unexpectedly, or in pain.
2. Love: You will always have love in your life.
3. Beauty: You will become, and forever after be the most beautiful version of yourself, regardless of how your body changes over the course of your life. Others will recognize this beauty in you, and you will have self-acceptance of this beauty.
4. Blessing: You will be lucky forever after (always have Advantage e.g. roll two dice and take the higher value, or a similar positive game mechanic).
5. Empowerment: One of your abilities (or some equivalent, depending on the game) will be permanently increased by 1d4 and cannot ever go below that value.
6. Remembrance: You will remember some important aspect of your history that will change you for the better. If nothing of such value has been forgotten, you will experience a dream of equal substance. 
7. Acceptance: You will come to terms with a hated enemy. If you have no hated enemies, you will have the certainty that you will never make one.
8. Irony: Your weakness will become your strength; that which you most detest will be your salvation; on the verge of failing at your greatest ambition, a comedic or symbolic deus ex machina will favor you.

This sorcerer has a Presence. Around this sorcerer...

1. the beauty in all things is apparent.
2. the ugliness in all things is apparent.
3. animals and monsters, even those domesticated, revert to their basest natures.
4. conversation and all noise-making gives way to silence and seriousness.
5. activities, even those of importance, give way to raucous merriment and silliness.
6. playful or socially acceptable violent urges are likely to be acted upon, and they will escalate if allowed.
7. the dead or lost are remembered.
8. the dead or lost are forgotten.
9. an oppressive lethargy, an ennui, presses upon all.
10. animals and monsters, even the wildest sorts, are abated, and carry a gravitas evocative of a heretofore unseen intellect.
11. it is difficult to remember names, details, facts, or prepared spells.
12. muscle memory and other skillful actions feel sloppy and unpracticed.

This sorcerer is a Force of Nature. They cannot...

1. be harmed or killed
2. be impeded
3. be banished
4. fail

unless...

1. their true name is revealed.
2. they fall in love.
3. their phylactory or other sorcerous focus is destroyed.
4. they experience empathy.
5. they reach enlightenment.
6. they will it to be so.
7. they dream.
8. reality is fundamentally altered.
9. reality ceases to be.
10. a hero succeeds in their journey.
11. they produce an heir.
12. they take a life.
13. they refuse to kill.
14. someone or something they love is killed.
15. someone they love is turned against them.
16. they are shamed.
17. they are made to forget themselves.
18. a species is brought to extinction.
19. a civilization is destroyed, all traces of their existence are irrecoverable, and they are forgotten.
20. they defy the gods.

Warlord: TNT Type

I've only played D&D 4e a few times, probably a decade ago, way before I formally got into tabletop RPGs. I didn't have an especially great experience, the people I was playing with were nice enough but they were people I met online so I had no pre-existing relationship with them, and their sensibilities were everything I don't want out of tabletop. Also, combat was waaaay too long. In any case, I don't think 4e is my kind of game, but to my limited understanding of it, I can respect it for what it is. It seems if you want a game that is tactical, without being overly crunchy for the sake of simulationism, then 4e is the way to go. I was always interested in the 4e-based Gamma World, which seemed to strip it down to its essentials, but never got around to playing it. I guess that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, back on point, one consistent positive thing I've heard about 4e from various independent sources is that the Warlord was a really cool class and it was a shame that they didn't follow through with it in 5e. Having skimmed through the wiki, making me basically an expert on the subject, I can see why it was popular. I've always liked the idea of an intelligence-based fighter, but also it's a cool class in that it plays into the tactical-ness of 4e, and it's a martial support class that in addition to using intelligence, also uses charisma, which is often an underutilized attribute. On the whole, it's a cool idea.

I've talked about this in my prior TNT posts, but I really like the combat system in TNT. I like the tactical-ness of missile damage and spite damage within an otherwise opposed roll-based combat. However, like any combat system, it can easily devolve into a slog of number crunching and dull roll after roll. The last session of my campaign I felt like this happened in the single, fairly brief combat encounter. I've been trying to add more special abilities to my Character Types, ideally without getting too crunchy, because I want combat in TNT to be more than just the opposed roll. There should be various other tactical options with corresponding SRs that can sway the battle even when the dice probabilities suggest you'll more often than not win or lose the group combat opposed roll. My hope is for it to be more OSR-like than D&D 4e-like, but 4e can still an interesting point of reference to work from.

So in other words, I think TNT would be will suited to a Character Type very loosely inspired by the D&D 4e Warlord. I'm not using any of the specific 4e Warlord abilities or terminology, it is strictly at the conceptual level.

D&D 4e Warlord

This character type is almost exclusively designed for combat or pre-combat tactics. In a game like TNT, obviously that's not too much of a problem since most things are just attribute-based SR rolls anyway, but it's worth keeping in mind that they don't have any spells or other benefits for SRs outside of combat besides whatever basic talents they have and their attribute scores.

What makes this type cool (or so I think), but also tricky, is that it requires cleverness on at least the part of the Warlord to come up with unique tactical options, willingness of other players to go along with the Warlord, and flexibility and improvisation on the part of the GM to create situations the Warlord can leverage, or respond to the Warlord's plans in interesting ways. I could go more the D&D 4e route and give them explicitly-defined abilities, but that's just not in the spirit of what I want from TNT. That all being said, if everyone is gelling, I think this character type could make combat much more interesting, while still being true to TNT and OSR-like principles. 

Warlord Abilities

Tactical Actions

• The Warlord can make an IQ SR (Battle Order) or CHA SR (Rally The Troops) by exploiting a Tactical Opportunity (see below), which provide benefits to ally SRs during combat. 
• The SR will generally be 1-2 (easy), 3-4 (moderate), or 5+ (difficult) minus Warlord level, to a minimum of 1.
• Warlords cannot attack and make a Tactical Action in the same turn without spending Tactics Points (see below).
• A Tactical Opportunity can only be used for any Tactical Action once per combat.
• Once per combat (or more at GM discretion), a failed Tactical Action SR may lead to disadvantageous circumstances (GM discretion).


• Tactical Opportunity
• A situation the Warlord can exploit for Tactical Actions. This is intentionally loosely defined, and can be anything from an enemy weakness, a trap, object, or feature in the environment, having the high ground, outnumbering the enemy, having superior training to the enemy, etc.
• Tactical Opportunities are only allowed to be exploited for a Tactical Action once per combat so that the Warlord must be creative, and by extension combat will hopefully be dynamic and interesting.


• Battle Order
• The Warlord exploits a Tactical Opportunity to gain the high ground, allow allies to flank enemies or bypass a defensive line, find a weak point on an enemy, etc. 
• Effects may include giving an ally a +3 bonus on a combat-related SR roll (such as missile DEX rolls), receiving a hint from the GM of an enemy weakness, triggering some environmental element that damages the enemies or affects the battlefield (like deploying an artillery weapon or dropping boulders from a cliff), increasing the spite range from 6 on d6 to 5 or 6 on d6, allowing an ally to roll three dice and take the best two on an SR, etc.


• Rally the Troops
• The Warlord gives a rousing speech or rallying warcry that fills an ally with determination, creating a Tactical Opportunity to do something extraordinary, resist the effects of debilitating injuries, or overcome the odds.
• Effects may include allowing an ally to fight for one more round even if they've lost all their CON (if the ally succeeds at a CON SR equal to the Tactical Action SR), giving an ally +3 to SRs to resist debuffs such as poisons, sleep spells, and charms, allowing a spellcaster to channel a spell even if they've run out of WIZ (if the ally succeeds at a WIZ SR equal to the Spell Level), creating a new Tactical Opportunity, etc.


• Tactics Points
• Every time an ally rolls an SR to perform a unique action (i.e. not missile attack, spellcasting, character type special ability), the Warlord gains a Tactics Point.
• A Warlord can only have up to 1 + Warlord Level Tactics Points at a time.
• Each combat, a Warlord starts with 0 Tactics Points, and any unused Tactics Points are lost at the end of a combat.
• Tactics Points can be used to give the Warlord a +3 bonus to a Tactical Action SR, give a +3 bonus to an ally on a combat SR, or allow the Warlord to make a Tactical Action as a bonus action. The Warlord can spend Tactics Points up to their level times per turn, but can only spend them in the same way once per turn.
• I.e. They can spend a point to make a Tactical Action as a bonus action and give themselves a +3 bonus to the SR, but they couldn't spend two points to give themselves +6 to the SR.

Warlord Combat Example

Given that Tactical Opportunities and Tactical Actions are loosely defined, I wanted to give an example of what a Warlord can do. So in this party we have Warlord, Warrior, Rogue, and Wizard, against a horde of goblins, including two club-wielding Clublins, three pig-riding Pigboiz, a goblin Whiz, and a Bugbear.

The Rogue makes a DEX SR to shoot a flaming arrow into the brush to create a fire along the goblins' path. This gives the Warlord a Tactics Point. They use the Tactics Point to make a Tactics Action (specifically, Rallying the Troops) as a bonus action, by exploiting the Tactical Opportunity of the fire. They roll CHA SR 2 (even a horde of Goblins aren't that tough), and on success, intend to give the Warrior a +3 bonus to their CON SR to resist the fire as they charge into battle. The Wizard casts a spell, and the Warrior and Warlord roll their damage dice (the Rogue already took their action to start the fire, but the fire damage dice are added to the roll as well). Since the warrior succeeded at their CON SR, they take no fire damage.

On the next turn, the goblins are intimidated by the Warrior who charges into battle amidst the fire without a care in the world. The Warrior decides to make a battlecry, a showy display meant to further intimidate the goblins, granting the Warlord another Tactics Point. During the commotion, the Rogue wants to set a wire trap to trip the Bugbear, the most dangerous of these Goblins. The Warlord spends their Tactics Point to add +3 to their Tactics Action, a Battle Order, to give the Rogue +3 to the SR to lay the trap. They roll an IQ SR to see if the Battle Order succeeds at assisting the Rogue. Additionally, since this is a unique action SR on the part of the Rogue (and not an SR in response to the circumstance, as the CON SR for the Warrior in the last round was), the Warlord gets another Tactics Point, which it uses to make that Tactics Action a bonus action, so that they can still contribute to the opposed combat roll. The bugbear is successfully tripped, taking them out of the opposed combat roll (for now), and the fight continues...

Summary

I really like the core concept of this Character Type, but it definitely needs testing. I like the idea of keeping tactical actions and the benefits they provide fairly rules-light, almost more like FATE aspects. However, in itself it's not a major benefit, which is why I allowed tactics points to be spent to allow Warlords to make tactics actions as a bonus action. However, part of me wonders if that is overkill. Also, all of this only works if players are willing to take the initiative to make a bunch of SRs rather than just straight combat, which I think is really cool and a necessary buy-in, but it is definitely a demanding thing to ask on a consistent basis. What do you all think?

High Level Games: 4 Reasons Why Your Game And Mine Are Less Different Than You Think

I wrote another HLG article! In line why my recent interest in SWORDDREAM (check out the subreddit!), this article is about defying our preconceived notions of what differentiates different kinds of games, and to what extent it's authorial intent, culture, dice probabilities, etc., and also how to go about leveraging that knowledge. Even if you disagree with the particulars, the point of this article is more about just encouraging people to think about their games more critically, or at least differently.